John Oliver rips Trump for being 'actively hostile' toward coronavirus prevention
John Oliver ripped President Trump Sunday night for repeatedly rejecting basic precautions during the coronavirus pandemic, like wearing a mask, even after multiple White House staffers have tested positive for the virus. Trump has also encouraged states to reopen, despite the fact that most don’t meet the administration’s guidelines for doing so. At the same time, the White House has ordered revisions to guidelines for reopening released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because they were too restrictive.
Video Transcript
JOHN OLIVER: I will say this. For all of Trump's ideological wavering over the years, one thing has remained consistent. He's never used protection and he's never not been an [BLEEP] about it afterwards.
REPORTER: John Oliver ripped President Trump Sunday night for repeatedly rejecting basic precautions during the Coronavirus pandemic, like wearing a mask, and for encouraging states to reopen despite not having met the White House's own guidelines for doing so.
JOHN OLIVER: All this talk of Americans being brave warriors seems designed to make us accept deaths that we should be trying to prevent. And yet, this administration seems, at times, to be actively hostile to those prevention efforts.
REPORTER: Oliver also took issue with Trump saying he views Americans as warriors in the fight against the Coronavirus.
JOHN OLIVER: We don't actually have to be warriors here. And to the extent that we are, you don't need to be throwing us into battle unarmed before we have mechanisms set up to broadly test, isolate, and trace cases of the virus. You can't just call everyone warriors and make their deaths not count.
REPORTER: Trump has repeatedly contradicted experts throughout the pandemic, and Oliver called into question Trump's messaging.
JOHN OLIVER: You get the sense that if God had told Trump about the flood, he wouldn't have bothered building the ark. He would have just tried to convince the animals they're all fish. We're all fish together now. I'm a fish, you're a fish, we're all fish.
