John Oliver gets territorial after a recent speech by Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance. As anyone who watches Last Week Tonight knows, Oliver’s job is to depress everyone – not Vance’s.
On Sunday, Oliver began his show by mocking Vance for “desperately trying to portray the joy of recent (Kamala Harris) rallies as something negative.” To support his point, he played a clip from one of his recent speeches.
“She says she’s having fun. Yet while she’s having fun, Americans are suffering because of her policies. When she laughs during a speech, remember that there are American families who are still crying today because they can’t afford groceries,” Vance said in a press appearance broadcast on C-Span. “When she does these rallies and events and does these fake dances, remember that there are parents who have lost their children to drugs or violence and who will never see their children move again, let alone dance.”
“What are you doing? Scolding people for enjoying something because bad things are happening elsewhere is a really bad move,” Oliver said. “And by the way, depressing everyone with depressing facts about things you like isn’t going to get you vice president. That’s how you put people to sleep once a week and age like a president at war.”
“Get out of my corner!” Oliver then shouted.
Oliver also used the beginning of his show to address the Republicans’ reaction to being called “weird.” In July, Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate for vice president, said in an interview with MSNBC that there are “weird people on the other side.” The insult has since gained popularity. Donald Trump in particular has responded to the insult several times, saying that Democrats are “the weird ones” and that “nobody has ever called me weird.”
“Baby, be serious. You tried to buy Greenland, you stared at the sun during a solar eclipse and you did this,” Oliver said, showing a picture of Trump kissing an American flag. “That’s not something a normal guy does. I don’t know what a normal guy would do, because I’m not one, but I know that’s not it.”
“Look, I get it. Republicans don’t want to be accused of being weird anymore. But the way to do that is to stop being so damn weird,” Oliver said, referring to three other “weird” Republican Senate candidates: Royce White of Minnesota, Hung Cao of Virginia and Eric Hovde of Wisconsin.
“Because it’s weird to imagine your party’s candidate taking a shit in front of you. Warning everyone about the influence of the Witches of Monterey? Weird. Inviting your female opponent to go with you on a frozen lake? That’s very weird,” Oliver concluded. “I apologize for laughing at those people, partly because I know that’s not nice, and mostly because, as we all now know, JD Vance believes that every time someone laughs, somewhere in the world a child loses their groceries for some reason.”
