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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Entertainment
Guardian staff

John Oliver on Trump deportations: ‘usually blatantly racist and always cruel’

man in suit speaks with hands gestured
John Oliver on US deportations: ‘For all this administration’s talk of prioritizing hardened criminals … it seems to value speed, volume and spectacle over all else.’ Photograph: YouTube

John Oliver took a deep dive through the Trump administration’s brutal and bewildering campaign of deportations on Sunday evening, starting with the White House’s “nauseating social media posts”. Posts to the official White House Instagram account include a video of shackled people led on to a plane soundtracked to the song Closing Time by Semisonic, along with the caption “you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.”

The track “obviously isn’t the right song choice”, the Last Week Tonight host said. “The right song choice would be no song at all, because deportation Instagram reel is a combination of words that should never exist, like ‘Oscar winner Mr Beast’ or ‘Stephen Miller nudes’ or ‘Bill Belichick speaks about his relationship with 24-year-old girlfriend.’” (Semisonic has denounced the choice of the song.)

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