HBO’s John Oliver called President Trump nominating Amy Coney Barrett a “f---ing travesty” because the Supreme Court “is about to lurch to the right for the foreseeable future.”
“We’re at the end of a generational battle and the heartbreaking thing is — we lost," Oliver said during a lengthy rant on Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight.”
"It’s going to hurt for a long time for a lot of people," he added.
Barrett on Saturday accepted the nomination, filling the seat vacated by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If she's confirmed by the Senate, the move would significantly shift the nation's highest court to the right — and clearly Oliver isn’t a fan.
HBO’s John Oliver called President Trump nominating Amy Coney Barrett a “f-----g travesty” because the Supreme Court “is about to lurch to the right for the foreseeable future” during a lengthy rant on Sunday. (HBO)
“Trump is about to replace a liberal icon with an extremely conservative justice who has been called ‘the female Antonin Scalia,’ and she could serve for a long time,” Oliver said. “If, and almost certainly when, Barret is conformed to the Supreme Court, impacts could be dire.”
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The far-left HBO host listed the Affordable Care Act, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and abortion as issues that he’s concerned about with Barrett’s potential confirmation on the horizon. He then took a shot at Senate Republicans, saying they’re hypocrites for rushing to confirm Barrett in an election year.
WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC LANGUAGE
“There is clearly no point holding on to hope that conservatives might choose to respect the precedent they set by refusing to even consider Merrick Garland in an election year, because that was always in bad faith, as was obvious at the time,” Oliver said.
Oliver bashed Sen. Mitt Romney for suggesting that Americans are largely “center right” these days and critics from the left got too used to the Supreme Court leaning to the left.
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“What the hell are you talking about, Mitt? Set aside the notion that a court that gutted the Voting Rights Act is a ‘liberal court,’ since when is this nation naturally center-right? Did we all take a BuzzFeed quiz I’m not remembering like, ‘Chose your four favorite lasagna ingredients to tell you which direction the nation’s electorate leans,’” Oliver said. “For the record, more Americans say they align more with the Democratic Party than the Republicans.”
Oliver was particularly worked up and wasn’t finished attacking Republicans and Barrett in the 20-plus minute segment.
“So, our country isn’t so much center-right as Mitt Romney is center-wrong. Look, this has been a very dark week for lots of people. The Supreme Court is about to lurch to the right for the foreseeable future, and if things seem hopeless right now, it’s because, to be completely honest, they basically are,” Oliver said before launching into a vulgar rant about “how the f—k" American ended up in this situation.
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Oliver then slammed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the “deeply undemocratic nature” of America’s institutions.
“The unavoidable truth is that the system is already rigged and it’s rigged in a way that has allowed a party without popular support to drastically reshape an entire branch of government for the foreseeable future by appealing almost exclusively to white voters in some of the least populous parts of the country,” Oliver said.
“That is not a mandate," he continued. "That is not democracy.”
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