John Oliver urged “Last Week Tonight” viewers to fight back against the Trump administration on Sunday, saying that public outrage does more than one might think.
The late night host blasted President Donald Trump’s first month in office and called out the whiplash the public is getting from the daily barrage of new policies. Oliver pointed out Trump’s mass amount of executive orders, including rollbacks on DEI and the growing number of attacks on government agencies like USAID.
The host then asked the troubling question that seemed to be plaguing viewers minds: “What the hell do we do? Is anyone going to stop this?”
After pointing out that Republicans don’t seem too upset about Trump’s “usurping Congress’ power of the purse,” Oliver turned his focus to the Democrats.
“To be fair it is hardly surprising Republicans have been so quick to fall in line,” Oliver said. “Democrats though are supposed to be the opposition, and some like AOC have made it abundantly clear how unacceptable all of this is.
“Unfortunately when it comes to congressional Democratic leaders, they’ve sometimes shown far too little stomach for the fight in the early days of the Trump presidency,” the host added.
Watch the segment below:
Oliver went on to call out Democratic leaders like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who said the Dems had to pick and choose their fights. Jeffries compared fighting the Trump administration to Yankees player Aaron Judge waiting for “the right pitch.”
The “Last Week Tonight” host was quick to blast Jeffries and said, “We’re going to swing at the ones that matter for the American people. Who is that exactly? Is it trans people getting denied healthcare and bullied out of public existence? Is it immigrant families being terrorized by ICE? Or thousands of civil servants being harassed out of jobs? Please let us know what you think is worth swinging for.”
Oliver used the moment to encourage viewers to call representatives who appear to be dragging their feet. The host pointed out that it shows their inaction isn’t going unnoticed before he turned his attention to those who were making a decided difference — Democratic state attorney generals.
Several judges have issued halts on Trump’s executive orders, including those banning federal support of gender affirming care for trans youth. The host also commended prosecutors who have resigned in protest and doctors who have continued providing gender affirming care to their patients. The host closed out the segment with a call to action for viewers.
“This is all bonkers terrifying and darkly absurd,” Oliver said. “It is worse than we thought — and we thought about it a lot. To put it mildly, things aren’t looking great right now, but defeat is a self-fulfilling prophecy. As much as we roll our eyes at some of the resistance in Trump’s first term … some of that energy did make a real difference.
“Remember those early protests at the airports over Trump’s proposed travel ban? A former prosecutor recently wrote about how seeing those protests helped others like him who were fighting within the DOJ to rescind or limit the order, saying, ‘Public outrage gave us courage and the knowledge that we were in fact working in the public interest and advocacy on the outside made advocacy on the inside possible.’”
Oliver reminded viewers that while the news is unpleasant, “Now is absolutely not the time to be looking away and saying ‘this is what you f–kers voted for’ and turning your backs.” He added that “there are many good people doing important work out there who you can both join and support.”
“What’s ahead of us is going to be exhausting,” Oliver said as he closed the segment. “And to get through this, we’re going to have to find a balance between acknowledging the hell of what is going on and finding the joy that can sustain us.”
Watch the full “Last Week Tonight” segment in the video above.
