John Oliver tore into conservative Tennessee Senator John Stevens’s “desperate” attempt to “play dumb,” after Stevens made an absurd claim about race amid redistricting in the state.
“Now, under the law, they still can’t intentionally redraw districts to disempower people based on race,” Oliver explained on HBO’s Last Week Tonight, “Which led to this incredible exchange between one Democratic state senator and the bill’s sponsor.”
The show panned to footage from a Senate hearing, during which Senator London Lamar questioned Senator Stevens, asking if he was aware that Memphis is “predominantly African American.” Stevens, in turn, said he was not.
Oliver’s audience laughed in disbelief at the response.
Lamar, 35, went on to torch Stevens, saying, “So, to my sponsor, who went to law school at the University of Memphis, lived there for three years, you’re telling me you’re not aware that Memphis is predominantly African American. Am I correct?” The House speaker moved on from Lamar’s question, insisting that Stevens already answered her query.
“No, no, no! Don’t let him move on to the next question,” Oliver exclaimed. “Unless that question is, to the sponsor: Who do you think Elvis stole his music from exactly?”
Oliver said Stevens, 52, who assumed office in 2013, “was desperately trying to play dumb” about the intentions behind redrawing the congressional map.
As GOP-majority states scramble to redistrict ahead of the midterms in November, Tennessee approved a new congressional map that splits up Memphis, the state’s only majority-Black district currently held by a Democrat. The decision to carve up the district has been criticized as a way to undermine Black voting power.
Lamar fiercely condemned the new congressional gerrymander, alongside Democratic representatives of the state. She said the action was “racist” and that the new map “diminishes Memphis.”
“I never thought in my lifetime as the youngest African American to ever serve in this body, in the history of this state, that I’d be standing in a body surrounded by my colleagues who are going to erase the vote of my city and Black people in Memphis,” she said inside the Tennessee Senate.
“I need you to know this will be one of the most racist actions taken in the modern history of this legislature that you are participating in this week. Intentionally breaking state law to take my community’s vote is downright disgusting and offensive.”
