John Oliver Slams Sean Hannity’s Lies About Portland Protests

John Oliver took aim at Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Sunday for the way in which he’s presented protesters in Portland, Oregon. The Last Week Tonight host explained that Hannity isn’t truthfully reporting what’s happening in the city.

“The protests in Portland have actually been going on daily for nearly two months now, since the killing of George Floyd,” Oliver said.

“But the deployment of federal agents was a sharp escalation of questionable legality, and yet, to hear the president tell it, he had no choice and it was a terrific idea.”

“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 said.

“And for the record, those agents were very much not called in.”

Oliver then turned his attention to Hannity’s coverage of the events. He showed footage of the Fox host’s show and him calling the situation ‘insane’.

“Yeah, it is insane—because that tone does not honestly reflect the conditions on the ground,” Oliver said.

“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. And that rolling list next to Hannity’s head is mostly graffiti! In fact, graffiti is listed 12 times in a row there under the headline ‘VIOLENCE IN PORTLAND,’ which is a huge overstatement.”

“Look, the troubling thing here is: Portland seems to be being used as a staging ground by the president to put on an authoritarian show of force, and this could end very badly—especially as he’s now apparently threatened to use federal force in other cities as well, which is absolutely outrageous.”