John Oliver on the RNC: bringing feelings to a fact fight (video)

“John Oliver returned to the late-night airwaves Sunday night following a month-long hiatus and, not surprisingly, the British comedian’s first order of business was to discuss the ongoing presidential election cycle or, as Oliver called it, the “3-D IMAX S–T-Fit Dumpster Fire 2016.”

The host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight Oliver, in particular, skewered last week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He showed video of several RNC speakers—including Ivanka Trump, UFC President Dana White, and former NFL quarterback Fran Tarkenton—touting Trump’s business acumen, with evangelical leader Jerry Falwell, Jr. even calling him “one of the greatest visionaries of our time.”

Gingrich tells CNN that feelings are the same as facts

But, the late-night host saved his sharpest critique for what he saw as countless RNC speakers, Trump included, focusing on feelings (mostly of fear, or a lack of safety) while ignoring statistics. “It was a four-day exercise in emphasizing feelings over facts,” Oliver said of the GOP convention. That focus on feelings reached its apex, Oliver said, during Trump’s own RNC speech, which featured a heavy dose of fear-inducing claims that amounted to, in Oliver’s own words, “a symphony of bile and race-baiting.”

Fortune 25 July 2016