John Oliver Scrutinizes Donald Trump's Other Favorite News Network, OAN
dissected President ’s other favorite news outlet, OAN, on Sunday, describing the network as, “Fox News with even less shame and even fewer scruples.”
The mutual affinity between Trump and OAN (which stands for One America News), is not new, but Oliver examined how their brand of far-right propaganda is reaching dangerous heights during the coronavirus pandemic. By way of introducing the network, Oliver highlighted several OAN reporters and anchors, including correspondent Chanel Rion — who recently asked Trump at a press briefing to consider coronavirus deaths in relation to abortion statistics — and Graham Ledger, who closes his nightly news show, The Daily Ledger, with the sign-off, “Even when I’m wrong, I’m right.”
“Why would you want to say something that implies you’re shamelessly partisan and wrong a not-insignificant part of the time?” Oliver wondered, before cracking, “It would make just as much sense if his catchphrase was, ‘Remember, even after I have explosive diarrhea, I’m still full of shit.’ Why would you admit either of those things?”
Throughout the segment, Oliver exhibited some of OAN’s coronavirus coverage, from the questions Rion and other reporters are asking at White House press briefings to a video Ledger shared on social media in which he defied social distancing rules — which he compared to edicts in Nazi Germany — so he could get his hair cut.
“Hitler didn’t outlaw haircuts, he was a fascist about personal grooming — other stuff, too, but mainly that,” Oliver deadpanned. He added, “If we were living under a Nazi occupation maybe don’t film yourself en route to your secret underground resistance salon, which it took literally five minutes on Google to figure out is presumably somewhere around the Moonlight Plaza shopping center in Encinitas, California.”
Oliver closed by noting: “The kind of misinformation OAN is spewing right now could end up getting people killed, and sadly their message is being actively spread by the White House. So it is more important than ever to be on the lookout for OAN’s bullshit and to make sure no one that you know is falling for it either.”
