John Oliver is not afraid to put his money where his mouth is.
Back in February, realizing that President Trump gets most of his ideas from cable TV news, the Emmy-winning Last Week Tonight host purchased a series of ads to run against morning programs that sought to educate the commander in chief about the nuclear triad—something he didn’t seem to know anything about during his presidential campaign. The Oliver-approved ads took on the guise of ones that regularly air on Trump’s favorite program, Fox & Friends, featuring a cowboy discussing his catheter.
Well, the comedian is at it again. On Sunday night’s edition of his HBO program, Oliver revealed that he’s attempting to purchase ad time on The O’Reilly Factor in New York and Washington, D.C., in order to educate Trump about sexual harassment.
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“We have produced an ad to educate Donald Trump to air during The O’Reilly Factor in New York and D.C. We submitted it to stations on Friday, but weirdly, we haven’t heard back from them since—which is a little surprising, because we are one of the only advertisers offering to buy time on his show at the moment,” said Oliver.
The reason for the purchase is this past week The New York Times reported that Fox News has been forced to settle five sexual-harassment lawsuits over the years for a total of $13 million—all concerning its biggest and brashest star, Bill O’Reilly.“Yes, Bill O’Reilly, who scientists hypothesize is kind of a dense nebula of boner and racism, has been paying out settlements for alleged harassment for years, and the details are pretty disturbing here, with the victims claiming things like verbal abuse, lewd comments, unwanted advances, and phone calls in which it sounded as if Mr. O’Reilly was masturbating,” said Oliver.
The Times report also revealed that two other women, including Dr. Wendy Walsh, have accused O’Reilly of unwanted sexual advances and wielding his workplace power in an unfair fashion. O’Reilly has denied the allegations, while Fox News’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, attempted to defend its star by claiming that none of the accusers phoned the company’s sexual harassment hotline. Meanwhile, as many as 60 advertisers have bailed on The O’Reilly Factor in the wake of the sexual-harassment controversy.
One person is standing by O’Reilly, however: Trump. Yes, this past week, Trump told The New York Times, “He’s a good person… I know Bill. Bill’s a good person… I don’t think Bill would do anything wrong.” Trump, for his part, has been accused of sexual harassment or assault by up to a dozen women.
“To recap this story for you: Bill O’Reilly needs advertisers and Donald Trump needs to understand sexual harassment. And here is where we come in,” announced Oliver.
The British satirist then aired a portion of the ad he hopes to air during The O’Reilly Factor—featuring the catheter cowboy teaching Trump about sexual harassment.
“Repeated unwanted sexual advances or obscene remarks in the workplace constitutes sexual harassment. If there’s a power disparity between the two parties, well, that’s about as inappropriate as lubricating a catheter with hot sauce, partner. Why would you do that? I do not like pain when I cath,” said the cowboy. “And if you’ve got a friend who was accused of something like that over and over again, I might think twice about defending him, because that just contributes to a culture where women don’t want to come forward.”
