John Oliver has lambasted US President Donald Trump in a new episode of his comedy news programme Last Week Tonight, saying that “no one is thinking about” him amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The British-American comic singled out some of Trump’s recent remarks in a pared-back edition of the popular HBO series. As a coronavirus prevention measure, Oliver performed without a studio audience.
“Again and again, Trump has failed to give this crisis the seriousness it deserves,” he said, adding that Trump is “less equipped to deal with this historical moment than anybody in recorded history”.
Reflecting on the President’s reluctance to announce a nationwide quarantine, Oliver said: ”It’s worth taking a moment to appreciate just how irresponsible that attitude is.”
He continued, “Because we wasted so much time that we could have spent preparing, the virus is now widespread. And thanks to how we have massively botched the rollout of testing the virus, we still don’t know exactly how bad things are.”
Oliver also took Trump to task for making the coronavirus pandemic into a political issue, with the President claiming that demands for the US to stay in lockdown past his stated end date of Easter were an attempt to curb his poll numbers.
“Oh, for f***’s sake! No one is thinking about you,” Oliver replied. ”These guidelines did not revolve around you. For once, something has come along that is more toxic and more threatening that this president, and somehow he’s got f***ing stage envy.”
