‘You Are a Terrible Company’: John Oliver Drags HBO’s Corporate Parent AT&T for Funding OAN

John Oliver roasted HBO’s parent company AT&T on Last Week Tonight in light of the news that the telecommunications company helped get One America News Network off the ground.

On Sunday, Oliver directed part of his show towards the newly-revealed court documents showing that AT&T executives inspired OAN’s creation, and the corporation continues to fund the conspiratorial right-wing media outlet. As it were, AT&T owns HBO as a property of WarnerMedia, so Oliver summed up the situations by saying “AT&T is still technically our business daddy, making OAN our business step-sibling, and not in a hot way.”

“With [AT&T’s] help,” Oliver said, “OAN has grown into the toxic network that it is today. One that’s happy to give a platform to batshit election-fraud theories from America’s most out-of-breath pillow fetishist [Mike Lindell].”

Oliver continued to pore through OAN’s extreme content and the revelations that AT&T provided 90 percent of OAN’s funding.

“They also claim that the only reason OAN was on DirectTV was that the network had sued them,” said Oliver. “Okay…I guess the largest telecom company in the world got rolled by a rag-tag band of fascists. It happens.”

Eventually, Oliver said that AT&T told the show that “DirectTV respects the editorial independence of our channels it carries. Just as AT&T is committed to providing editorial independence for every Warner Media show — including this one.”

“That is such a relief,” Oliver said, “especially the last part, because if I may, I’d like to use that generous editorial independence to offer some constructive feedback to AT&T.”

After pitching several sarcastic changes to AT&T’s PR campaigning, Oliver concluded by thoroughly skewering the company.

AT&T, I know our relationship is a little awkward, especially since you’re trying to spin this business baby off in your deal with Discovery, but while we are still technically related, let me just say this: You’re a terrible company. You do bad things and you make the world worse. Please don’t bother keeping in touch once the merger’s complete, although that really should not be a problem for you. You’re AT&T, it’s not like your messages will go through anyway.

Watch above, via HBO.