After two grueling weeks of political conventions by America’s two major parties, the general election campaign for the White House is officially underway.
For John Oliver, who recapped the Republican and Democratic national conventions on last night’s (July 31) episode of the HBO show Last Week Tonight, one moment stood out as the ”emotional highlight” of the DNC. It came when Khizr Khan and his wife took the stage to remember the sacrifice of their son, a Muslim and an American soldier who was killed in action in 2004. Urging voters to consider the consequences for minorities if Trump were to win in November, Khan rhetorically asked whether Trump has “even read the United States Constitution.” Pulling a slim booklet out of his jacket pocket and holding it up high, he said he would “gladly lend” Trump his copy.
Describing the scene as “an American founding document being inspirationally used as a middle finger,” Oliver, who has spoken out before against Trump’s platform, said the exchange touched a nerve with him. “That engendered in me a level of emotion I did not think was possible after 16 months of this depressing campaign and 39 years on Earth as a British person.”
Oliver’s recap also touched on some of the funnier moments of the DNC (consult the video above for the images accompanying his calling Tim Kaine a “human sweater vest” and Hillary Clinton’s white pantsuit a “Pitbull cosplay”).
He also argued the Republican party is organized no longer “around a set of shared principles,” but around Trump.
“The main takeaway from these two weeks is that, incredibly, we may be on the brink of electing such a damaged, sociopathic narcissist that the simple presidential duty of comforting the families of fallen soldiers may actually be beyond his capabilities,” Oliver said. “And I genuinely did not think that that was a part of the job someone could be bad at.”