John Oliver Says He Wouldn’t Interview Donald Trump If Offered The Chance
After a long hiatus, John Oliver is back on HBO tonight with new episodes of his popular series, Last Week Tonight, and it’s a safe bet that he’ll be talking about the Trump administration. Oliver’s specialty is finding the humor in current events and politics, but Donald Trump and his policies have been on the comedian’s radar since 2016.
Newsweek spoke to Oliver and asked if he had the opportunity to interview the president, would he?
“I wouldn’t. I’ve got no interest in talking to him. Interviewing him is pointless.”
The interviewer regrouped and asked what if Oliver ran into Trump at a coffee shop, would he look the other way?
“I’d wonder ‘What the f**k are you doing here?’ I don’t know if he’s ever been in line at a coffee shop. Like if he was in a coffee shop, he would probably not even physically be capable of seeing the line.”
Oliver said the challenge for the writers on Last Week Tonight is to make the unfunny funny. He explained that normally you want to inject some absurdity into a serious situation, but with Donald Trump, everything is ridiculous already, so you have to put some protein into the scenario to make it a joke.
John Oliver got booed by Stephen Colbert's audience over his prediction about Donald Trump. https://t.co/mybbLXfqY4
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) February 17, 2019
Oliver says that there were quite a few political topics he missed during the hiatus that would have been comedy gold, says USA Today. He said the big one would be the government shutdown. Oliver says that all government shutdowns are bad and dumb, but this one that lasted over 30 days is “insane.”
Another topic he would have considered covering is the Trump fast food feast with the Clemson University football team.
“The perfect encapsulation of him as president for me is family separation. The fact that he said ‘hamberders.’ (in a tweet) is objectively funny. But it’s just not even in the list of the top 100 things he does each day that are cause for concern.”
But one topic which will continue to deliver is that 2020 presidential candidates that continue to roll out. Oliver said in year’s past, several of the people who are throwing their hats into the ring would be discounted early on, but this time, anything sounds better than the current president because “the bar is set pretty low right now.”
Oliver says he’s not necessarily ready to discuss any particular candidate because “we’re still so far away from the election.”
