John Oliver Rips Mike Pence Over ‘Stupid Lie’ About Coronavirus: ‘Startling, and Frankly Infuriating’

Last Week Tonight host John Oliver attacked Vice President Mike Pence’s claim that the United States “flattened the curve,” as well as his apparent reluctance to advise Americans wear a mask during the coronavirus pandemic.

“The U.S. is now setting records for daily new cases as the virus surges around the country, which makes it both startling, and frankly infuriating, that on Friday the vice president made this declaration,” said Oliver, before playing a clip of Vice President Pence claiming, “The truth is, we did slow the spread. We flattened the curve. We were able to stand up the resources and the capacities in our health-care system to be able to meet this coronavirus in a way that would put the health of all of our country first.”

“What?” Oliver reacted. “That is just such an open and stupid lie. It’s like instead of saying, ‘Your dog is on a farm upstate,’ your dad said, ‘Your dog owns a farm upstate that has the market cornered in wholesale wheat and grain supplies for the entirety of Saratoga County.’ That’s not true. The dog is dead, and so, by the way, are over 120,000 Americans.”

“On top of that, Pence also conspicuously omitted wearing a mask from advice that he gave for slowing the spread of the virus, and I will just never understand why or how the Republicans have made ‘not spreading disease’ into a culture war issue,” he continued, adding, “Honestly, this was a missed opportunity for them. You could have printed ‘Make America Great Again’ on a billion red masks and dropped them out of helicopters. People would have worn them!”

“You’re not even capitalizing on a national disaster correctly, you fucking idiots!” Oliver concluded.

It was reported last week that the majority of states were seeing an increase in coronavirus cases, with Florida experiencing nearly 9,000 cases in just one day — close to New York’s highest back in April.

Watch above via Last Week Tonight.

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