August 21, 2017

John Oliver Blasts Republicans and Fox News for Failing to Condemn Trump by Name

He also explained why Charlottesville isn’t likely to be a turning point for the White House.

John Oliver on Sunday took on Republicans and Fox News for failing to condemn President Donald Trump by name last week, after the president claimed there were some “very fine” people who participated in the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where one woman was killed and many were injured.

“If you’re getting emotionally overwhelmed and feeling judged for defending Trump and his Nazi-sympathizing phase, stop fucking doing it,” Oliver said, after airing a Fox News clip of an anchor crying while defending Trump’s controversial remarks.

“It’s that simple. No one’s making you do it,” Oliver added.

According to Last Week Tonight, only 54 out of 292 Republican members of Congress denounced the president by name. Everyone else, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, issued blanket statements condemning hate groups, while attempting to dodge the responsibility of calling out Trump for fueling the country’s rise of white nationalism.

“The problem with not mentioning him is that it suggests that he is somehow not a key part of the problem here.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX4Djw8D36M

 

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THE BIG PICTURE

You expect the big picture, and it's our job at Mother Jones to give it to you. And right now, so many of the troubles we face are the making not of a virus, but of the quest for profit, political or economic (and not just from the man in the White House who could have offered leadership and comfort but instead gave us bleach).

In "News Is Just Like Waste Management," we unpack what the coronavirus crisis has meant for journalism, including Mother Jones’, and how we can rise to the challenge. If you're able to, this is a critical moment to support our nonprofit journalism with a donation: We've scoured our budget and made the cuts we can without impairing our mission, and we hope to raise $400,000 from our community of online readers to help keep our big reporting projects going because this extraordinary pandemic-plus-election year is no time to pull back.

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