It’s been three long months since Last Week Tonight was on the air, but when John Oliver returned there were plenty of big stories waiting for him. One of them was this: Last week a bounty of text messages between Fox News hosts were made public. Surprise! Folks like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham all knew their 2020 voter fraud nonsense was nonsense. And what better way for John Oliver to start his 2023 run than torching their dishonesty.
“If I were a Fox viewer, I’d feel pretty betrayed by that,” Oliver said about the internal messages. “This is like finding out that Big Bird regularly texts Elmo, ‘F*ck them kids,’ and Elmo agrees.”
The filing, Oliver said, “shows the extent to which Fox hosts did not believe the s*it that they were selling, which is completely fine if you work for QVC and you have to fill an hour on why bejeweled squatty potty will change your life. But, it’s a bit more concerning when you pretend to be the news.”
Fox News stars, Oliver said, were “terrified” of “losing their audience to more conspiracy-friendly networks like Newsmax.” In a way, Oliver could relate.
“We also face pressure to maintain our audience,” Oliver said. “It’s just that we do it the old-fashioned way: by having integrity, self-respect and the blind fortune of airing right after hit prestige dramas that people actually want to watch,” referencing big shows like Game of Thrones, Succession, and The Last of Us. “It’s not difficult!”
In any case, Fox News has handled the bombshell the way they always handle inconvenient truths: by mostly ignoring it. After all, they have bigger problems right now than merely being exposed as liars.
You can watch John Oliver’s segment on HBO or HBO Max.
(Via The Daily Beast)