John Oliver Blasts Fox News’ Sean Hannity For Misrepresenting Portland Protesters

Last Week Tonight host John Oliver blasted Fox News host Sean Hannity for misrepresenting the protests in Portland, Oregon after President Donald Trump sent federal officers to the city, arguing Trump’s  tone “does not honestly reflect the conditions on the ground.”

Following Oliver’s segment on Portland, the host addressed the containment and abuse the Uighur people are facing at the hands of the Chinese government.

The Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Portland have been occurring daily since the police killing of George Floyd, and Oliver explains that they were de-escalating until Trump deployed federal agents to the city — calling his leadership tactics “great.”

“OK, first: It’s never good when Trump says he’s doing a ‘great job,’ given that he thinks his administration is doing a ‘great job’ dealing with the coronavirus, and he once proclaimed Ben Affleck would do a ‘great job’ as Batman. Clearly, this man has no sense of what a ‘great job’ actually looks like,” Oliver joked. “And for the record, those agents were very much not called in.”

Both Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler did not ask for the deployment of the federal agents and have consistently requested they leave the city, as they are not helping restore peace.

“Masked individuals throwing people into an unmarked van is never a good idea if you want to deescalate a situation. It’s not even a good idea for a surprise bachelorette party.”

Oliver noted that those on the ground had reported less confrontation in Portland before the federal agents showed up and faulted news reporters and the Trump administration for misrepresenting the protests.

The host played a clip of a reporter explaining that the chaos being broadcasted is exclusive to one city block, but according to Fox News and Hannity: “It’s the end of America as we know it.”

Oliver aired a Hannity segment, during which the host lays out a timeline of the protests, describing them as violent, chaotic, and “insane.”

“Yeah, it is insane, because that tone does not honestly reflect the conditions on the ground,” Oliver pointed out. “That ‘fire-bombing,’ for instance, seems to be a reference to either a firework or a small fire that was set, which is significantly less dramatic than he’s trying to make it sound.”

The host also noted that the word graffiti was listed 12 times under a rolling list played by Hannity under the headline “Violence in Portland.”

“And at that point, it would have been just as accurate if that heading had said ‘cannibalism in Portland’ or ‘Texas-chainsaw massacres in Portland’ or ‘9/11s in Portland,’” he added.

Oliver explained the dangers of what is happening in Portland right now, noting that the city is being used as a stage for Trump’s authoritarian force.

“If you, like Trump, think that it is fun to use federal troops as a prop to crush the constitutional right to assemble then like a great American, I’d like to offer you a basic cognitive test,” he asked, holding up two middle fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

After going in on Fox New’s representation of the protests, Oliver’s main segment addressed the abuse Uighur people are facing at the hands of the Chinese government.

The detainment of the Uighur people, who are majority Muslim, is the largest imprisonment of people since the Holocaust, but, as Oliver points out, the detention camps have been covered up and underreported.

Oliver later highlighted an alleged story detailed in John Bolton’s tell-all, which claimed Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping to “go ahead with building the camps because it was exactly the right thing to do.”

“I know that raising awareness is often a bullish*t solution that doesn’t really solve the problem,” Oliver said. “But in this instance, awareness is actually a necessary precondition for action.”

“And I know there is a lot to worry about right now … but we have to make sure that the treatment of Uighurs is also on that list,” he added. “Because when you’re dealing with a concerted campaign centered on cultural erasure, one of the most important things we can do is continue to pay attention.”

Watch above, via Youtube.

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