John Oliver Blasts Chuck Schumer for Holding Up Legislation on Big Tech, in Which Both His Daughters Work
Last Week Tonight host John Oliver targeted Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) this week, claiming the senator may be holding back a vote on two antitrust bills due to his ties to Big Tech companies.
Those connections would be his daughters. One of Schumer’s daughters, Jessica, is a registered lobbyist with Amazon. Another daughter, Alison, works as a product marketing manager at Meta.
The antitrust bills would limit a company’s ability to promote their own products and payment service tools over others, among other measures activists say would limit the power of Big Tech companies.
Schumer has said he will support the legislation, but he has not given an exact time frame for when a vote will be called. Oliver argued it is a pressing situation because if a vote is not called for an August recess, it is almost guaranteed to be “probably dead” in regards to the bills as Democrats will be “annihilated” in the midterms.
“If he doesn’t do it before Congress leaves for its August recess, the bills are probably dead because, in the fall, everyone’s going to have moved on to focus on the midterm elections where, we all know, the Democrats will be absolutely annihilated,” Oliver said.
The liberal comedian pointed out a Politico report during his segment on the children of 17 members of Congress who have children who either recently worked for a Big Tech company or currently still do.
“It doesn’t help that 17 members of Congress currently have children who work or have recently worked for four of the biggest tech companies, including crucially, Chuck Schumer’s daughters, one of whom works as a marketing manager at Meta and one of whom is a literal registered lobbyist for Amazon,” Oliver said.
The comedian argued for breaking up Big Tech companies and said action needs to be taken now, but Schumer is delaying. Oliver argued only a handful of tech companies have a “monopoly” of power over the internet.
Watch above via HBO.
