Tuesday, August 6, 2019

John Oliver Takes Trump to Task After Shootings

There was a time—back when he was filling in as host of The Daily Show, while then-emcee Jon Stewart took a leave in order to direct a movie—when John Oliverjokingly urged Donald Trump to run for president. Of course, a lot has changed since the summer of 2013—and now, Oliver has gotten used to dedicating segments of his HBO late-night series, Last Week Tonight, to excoriating Trump. This Sunday’s episode, which aired shortly after back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, was no exception. In it, as Yohana Desta writes, Oliver drew a direct line between the white nationalistic views espoused by the El Paso shooter and Trump himself: “Clearly white nationalism and anti-immigrant hysteria did not start with this president, but he certainly seems to have created an environment where those kinds of views can fester and indeed thrive,” Oliver said. “If that ever, for even a moment, feels like it’s become normal, we are completely fucked.”
Elsewhere in HWD, the screenwriter of Hobbs & Shawexplains how Dwayne Johnson helped him incorporate Samoan culture into the blockbuster; Kevin Fitzpatrickremembers legendary documentarian D.A. Pennebaker, who died last week; K. Austin Collins leans into the discomfort of The Nightingale, the latest film from Jennifer Kent; and Nicole Sperling chats with the minds behind The Peanut Butter Falcon, an unlikely new movie starring Shia LaBeouf.