John Oliver tears into Trump over ‘birther’ conspiracy theories about Kamala Harris

John Oliver tore into conspiracy theories that Trump is propagating about Kamala Harris on his show 'Last Week Tonight'.

Last week, Kamala Harris was announced as Joe Biden’s running mate and pick for VP – which obviously caused a lot of controversy from Trump supporters, and Trump himself. Oliver said,

“The big news was Kamala Harris being announced as Biden’s running mate—a decision that sent conservatives scrambling for attack strategies, from claiming it’s an ‘extreme, far-left’ ticket—which it absolutely isn’t—to a baseless accusation that she may not meet the citizenship requirements to hold the office despite being very much born in the United States,” said Oliver. “It’s a depressing resurgence of birtherism, so of course Trump jumped all over it.”

In a press conference, Trump talked about an unsubstantiated op-ed in Newsweek which suggested that Kamala Harris was not fit for VP – despite the fact that she was born in the US and even ran for president. Newsweek have since apologised for publishing the op-ed.

Oliver also pointed out how quickly Trump reacts to certain things, while ignoring others altogether. He said, “It’s frankly amazing how slow Trump is to respond to so many things like, I don’t know, public health crises, yet when it comes to amplifying racist conspiracy theories, suddenly he’s The Flash on cocaine.”

Trump had previously been the originator of the “birther” campaign against Barack Obama, which led to Obama eventually producing a copy of his original birth certificate. At this point, supporters of the birtherism theory simply said that it was a fake.

Oliver also slammed Marjorie Taylor Greene, a conspiracy theorist who believes in the QAnon theory – which suggests that there is a ring of sex traffickers and paedophiles in and around Hollywood and politics, including Tom Hanks and a Mexican cement company. Greene won a primary in Georgia, and given the state’s historical political affiliations, it’s likely that she will win an actual seat in Congress.

Oliver pointed out how that was a little funny, given that Trump was friends with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and had been photographed at several social events with them, multiple times.