February 13, 2017

John Oliver Returns with a Brilliant Plan to Fight Donald Trump’s Lies

“How did we get a pathological liar in the White House?”


Following a two-month hiatus, John Oliver returned to Last Week Tonight on Sunday to focus on President Donald Trump’s shaky relationship with the truth and his administration’s consistent rejection of basic facts.

“How did we get a pathological liar in the White House?” Oliver asked, before exploring the source of Trump’s lies (Breitbart and Alex Jones’ conspiracy-ridden website, Infowars) and why his supporters are willing to accept false information.

To tackle Trump’s reliance on “alternative facts,” Oliver revealed he’s launched a series of commercials to run during shows the president is known to regularly watch, such as Morning Joe and Fox & Friends, that sneak in useful pieces of information he might need over the next four years. Such ads include explanations on global warming, the female anatomy, and the name of his lesser known daughter, Tiffany Trump.

Watch:

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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