John Oliver on HBO's Last Week Tonight gleefully pummeled HBO's parent company AT&T over its prior support of controversial Iowa Rep. Steve King, and mocked NBC's handling of former Today show hour-3 host Megyn Kelly,
King, running for a ninth term has a history of flirting with white nationalists. He recently got into hot water for a meeting with leadership of Austria's Freedom Party whose founder reportedly had been in the SS.
When asked about that this week, King did not take it well, barking, "This is over if you don't stop talking!" at a reporter who asked if he identified as a white nationalist.
"Spectacular," Oliver called King's response.
"People who aren't a white supremacist say 'No.' Even people who are white supremacists know to say 'No.' So it takes a special mix of racism and stupid to f*ck that one up," Oliver argued.
King has lost a number of supporters over the incident, including corporate PACs Land O' Lakes, Purina, and HBO's parent company, AT&T, which issued a statement and then patted itself on the back:
In addition to our prior statement, we want to let you know that the AT&T employees who manage the disbursements of our employee PAC have now had the opportunity to review the controversy regarding Rep. Steve King, and have determined that the PAC will not make future…
— AT&T Public Policy (@ATTPublicPolicy) November 2, 2018
…contributions to him. The committee concluded that further support of Rep. King would not be consistent with one of our core values …"Stand for Equality."
— AT&T Public Policy (@ATTPublicPolicy) November 2, 2018
"Which is a little weird because King has been exactly this racist for years now," Oliver noted. In a tweet in March of 2017, King declared, "culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies."
Even neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer concluded "Steve King is basically an open white nationalist at this point," Oliver noted.
"So the news really shouldn't be these companies bailed on him, so much as they were okay with him for a shockingly long time," he added.
"Though, of course AT&T didn't catch on to King's white nationalism. Picking up on clear signals isn't exactly their forte," Oliver quipped.
On a more silly note, in Nebraska, a university professor says he was threatened by U.S. Congressman Jeff Fortenberry's campaign manager after liking a picture on Facebook, of a campaign billboard in which somebody added googly eyes and changed the name to "Jeff Fartenberry."
The Republican's chief of staff, Reyn Archer, accused a University of Nebraska prof of "liking" vandalism. "If someone were liking something with blackface, would that be acceptable?" Archer asked the professor.
Beamed Oliver: "Wait! wait! I think I actually know the answer to that question! No. Blackface is not acceptable."
As the NBC jingle began to play and "WINNER!!! popped up on screen, Oliver announced, pointedly:
"I won! I'm replacing Megyn Kelly on the Today show! That's all it took. What an incredibly easy standard to meet!"
The NBC peacock showed up; Oliver seemed confused as the big blue bird got down on its knees.
"Oh, no! No, no!" Oliver shouted, pushing the NBC Peacock away when he "realized" where this was heading.
"I'm not going to be that kind of Today show host!"
"You've been through a lot haven't you?" Oliver sympathized, as the peacock began to weep. "Tough place to work, historically," Oliver added, meaningfully.
No comments:
Post a Comment