John Oliver's Last Week Tonight Posts Early on YouTube for Election Day

Nov 05, 2024

John Oliver‘s Last Week Tonight has hit YouTube early ahead of tomorrow’s presidential election.

The 14-minute segment (below), which features Oliver giving his final thoughts on the election, was released on YouTube following its debut on HBO Sunday night. Instead of HBO’s usual four-day-delay online release schedule, the episode was released early because of its Election Day importance, a source close to the show tells The Hollywood Reporter.

In the segment, Oliver pleads with viewers to vote for Kamala Harris, particularly far-left voters who might have been frustrated with the Biden/Harris administration’s handling of Israel.

“Look, I get why this is so difficult, and I know there are some who won’t vote for Harris under any circumstances because of this issue,” he said. “But for what it’s worth, I’ve been moved by some Muslim and Arab voices who’ve also wrestled hard with this question and arrived at the conclusion, despite their pain, to vote for Harris. In Arizona, a coalition of community leaders issued a letter in which they explained their decision to support Harris, saying a Trump win would be in extreme danger to Muslims in our country, all immigrants, and the American pro-Palestine movement, and they’re not alone in feeling that way.”

Continued Oliver: “I know this isn’t inspiring to hear, but politics isn’t always inspiring. It’s transactional. It rarely matches our greatest hopes and dreams. I’ll be honest, I really didn’t want the first vote I cast as an American citizen to be for Joe-fucking-Biden, but here we are.”

Added Oliver: “There’s one final thing I’m going to be genuinely excited for on Tuesday, and that is if Donald Trump loses this election, he’s basically finished. He’d be 82 next time and I think he’d be done… And doesn’t that sound great? Wouldn’t it be great to live in a world where he’s no longer an active threat, just an annoyance? … Where he can yell about ice cream machines and complain about windmills and we all have the option of just not giving us shit about any of it at all? I want so badly to live in that world, and I hope everyone does everything in their power in the next 48 hours to make that world possible.”

The move follows Oliver saying he’s been frustrated with HBO’s delayed online release schedule, telling The New York Times in September: “It’s massively frustrating to me. I was not happy with it at all. What I love about having the show on YouTube is that we can reach beyond HBO subscribers. That feels really important to me. I really, really appreciate the fact that they do that. I would rather they did it straight after the show the way we’ve always done it, but I’m very grateful that they are willing to still do it at all.”

In this case, the decision to release early makes total sense as the segment will presumably be irrelevant by Wednesday.

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