John Oliver on Republican ‘migrant crime’ rhetoric: ‘relentless, bad-faith fearmongering’

John Oliver: ‘Migrant crime is not on the rise. That is a fact. What is also a fact, though, is that people now feel as though it is. And that feeling has the potential to cause massive harm.’ Photograph: Max

Last Week Tonight opened with a disclaimer: the episode was filmed on Saturday 20 July, before Joe Biden announced his shock departure from the presidential race. Which didn’t lessen host John Oliver’s sharp message on the Republican national convention, or “the worst thing to happen to Milwaukee since Jeffrey Dahmer”.

The convention, held last week, saw “usual pageant of prominent politicians on stage and abject weirdos in the audience”, from attendees wearing bandages on their ears to match Trump’s to someone having “the most cursed bachelorette party in existence. It feels like she told her bridesmaids she wanted to see a bunch of dicks on stage and they tragically misunderstood the assignment,” Oliver joked. “Although to be fair, if anything screams ‘last night of freedom’, it is the Republican national convention.”