John Oliver explored the viability of a third party candidate in Sunday’s episode of “Last Week Tonight.”
At one point Oliver joked that both Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Gary Johnson have likely benefited from the lack of media coverage they both complain of, since “their key proposals begin to crumble under the slightest bit of scrutiny.”
Starting with Stein, Oliver looked at the central proposal of her campaign, which is to cancel student loan debt. Stein claims that the President has the authority to cancel the debt now by printing more money in a process called quantitative easing.
“That is absolutely wrong,” Oliver said. “The president does not have that authority, only the Federal Reserve does. And it does not take marching orders from the White House because that would be extremely dangerous. You don’t want to give presidents the power to just create new money whenever they want to.”
Oliver also took issue with the way Stein responded to a 9/11 conspiracy question, but was even more offended by the folk rock band she fronted in the 1990’s.
Turning his attention to Johnson, Oliver quickly moved past Johnson’s several “Aleppo moments,” and focused instead on his tax policies. Johnson wants to eliminate income and corporate tax, but when pressed in an interview about how the proposed cuts would work, Johnson responded, “You’re getting a little too into the weeds.”
“What do you mean ‘too in the weeds?’” Oliver said. “The only point of discussing tax policy is getting into the weeds. That and preventing premature ejaculation.”