Watch: John Oliver Slams Limbaugh, Hannity and Ingraham for Coronavirus Disinformation

Watch: John Oliver Slams Limbaugh, Hannity and Ingraham for Coronavirus Disinformation

Last Week Tonight‘s John Oliver took aim at right-wing media personalities on Sunday. The HBO host posted another video on YouTube since he can’t film from his studio. Oliver mocked conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh and Fox’s Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham for spreading misinformation about Covid-19.

“All of this panic just is not warranted. When I tell you… that this virus is the common cold. When I said that, it was based on the number of cases. It’s also based on the kind of virus this is. Why do you think this is COVID-19? This is the 19th coronavirus!” Limbaugh said in a video clip.

“OK, no Rush. Just no,” Oliver responded. “It’s called that because it was first identified in 2019, you giant potato.”

Oliver then moved on to Hannity and Ingraham, both of whom downplayed the number of deaths from Coronavirus and suggested the reaction was ‘hysteria’.

“When people started dying, and that argument became harder to sell, the network seemed to pivot from trying to downplay the warnings to downplaying the deaths,” Oliver said.

He also took on Dr. Phil McGraw’s now infamous claim that 365,000 people a year die in swimming pools. Point out the figure was 4,ooo, Oliver said.

“Also, if swimming pools were killing 360,000 people a year, and you could contract a swimming pool on a trip to the grocery store, we might want to think about shutting them down until we worked out what the fuck was going on.”

Oliver also criticized Fox News’ coverage of hydroxychloroquine.

“Thanks to this media frenzy, the efficacy of this drug, which should be a scientific issue, has become a political one. Anyone saying they want more comprehensive studies can be dismissed by the right as a ‘Trump hater.'”

“We have a compulsive liar constantly listening to voices telling him that this is nothing more than the common cold, with potentially a 100-percent cure available, and that there’s already a great plan to restart baseball even as there’s a swimming pool killing spree that for some reason nobody’s talking about.”

Watch the video above, via YouTube.

Darragh Roche

Darragh Roche is Political Media Editor

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *