John Oliver has condemned US president Donald Trump for promoting a “racist conspiracy theory” about Kamala Harris.
On his HBO comedy series Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the comedian played a clip of Trump’s recent press conference, in which he suggested that Democratic vice presidential contender ”doesn’t meet the requirements” to run, adding: “I have no idea if that’s right”.
“I’ll tell you if it’s right,” responded Oliver. “It f***ing isn’t.
“And it’s frankly amazing how slow Trump is to respond to so many things like, I don’t know, public health crises, yet when it comes to amplifying racist conspiracy theories, suddenly he’s the f***ing Flash on cocaine.”
Oliver also discussed Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congressional candidate recently endorsed by Trump who has previously spoken of her belief in QAnon conspiracy theories.
Greene is heavily tipped to win a seat in her deeply conservative district in Northwest Georgia.
“This should be worrying,” Oliver continued. “It’s bad enough to encounter these conspiracy theories online, [but] it is worse to potentially encounter them in the halls of congress.”
He continued: “I would love to be shocked that the Republican leadership is embracing an ongoing troll with a history of racist comments but the truth is they’ve been doing that for years now because you can only see Greene as a disturbing anomaly if you ignore the basic facts that when it comes to the modern Republican party, ‘Where they go one, they go all’”.
Oliver is a long-standing critic of the controversial Republican president. Earlier this month, the TV host and actor branded Trump “shockingly reckless” over his willingness to disseminate misleading information relating to the coronavirus pandemic.
