John Oliver Rips Into Alex Jones’ Dishonest Funding Tactics

“The Walter Cronkite of shrieking batshit gorilla clowns.”

John Oliver returned to Last Week Tonight on Sunday with a segment dedicated to the president’s favorite conspiracy theorist, Infowars host Alex Jones. But rather than focus on Jones’ promotion of pernicious, baseless claims—a quality viewers are likely familiar with by now thanks to the president—Oliver centered the segment around an often overlooked feature of Infowars: its shady funding tactics. 

As Oliver points out, Jones reliably uses each of his four-hour radio shows to push his own products, which offer a range of questionable items including a “Bill Clinton rape whistle” and dubious diet pills. Jones’ strategy counts on telling his base he desperately needs their funds to keep the broadcasts running—an appeal that doesn’t quite align with the expensive sport jackets and Rolex watches he wears on the show.

“It’s like an NPR pledge drive for people who hate NPR,” Oliver said. 

Watch the segment below to see how Jones blatantly lies to his audience to explain the disconnect:

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate