John Oliver blamed Donald Trump’s election on the media, including the fake news Americans routinely share on Facebook.
“Fake facts circulate on social media to a frightening extent,” the “Last Week Tonight” host said Sunday.
“There is now a whole cottage industry specializing in hyper-partisan, sometimes wildly distorted click bait,” Oliver said after explaining a fake story about the Pope endorsing Trump was shared almost a million times, “which is absurd.”
Fake news stories are published for voters are both sides of the aisle, but a study reveals that the problem is more prominent among right-leaning websites.
“The sites can warp your views pretty fast,” Oliver said. “This cesspool of nonsense would be a problem anyway, were if not for the fact that one of the people in thrall to it is our future president.”
Trump used Twitter to share a video linking a man who rushed the stage at one of his rallies to ISIS, but the video was proven to be a hoax. When NBC News’ Chuck Todd confronted Trump about spreading false information, the president-elect said, “What do I know about it? All I know is what’s on the Internet.”
“Being on the Internet is not a high bar for accuracy,” Oliver said. “During the campaign, Trump routinely used his platform to spread wildly incorrect information, and even fellow conservatives tried to point out how irresponsible this was.”
The HBO host also said that some news organizations waited way too long to take Trump seriously, pointing to CNN running his speeches in their entirety as an example. Oliver also played video of CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker admitting the cable news network got carried away.
“It turns out hindsight, much like the year we’re all now desperately looking forward to, is 2020,” Oliver said.
Watch the video above.