John Oliver devotes Last Week Tonight episode to Republican ties to Nazis ahead of midterms

Left · 2John Oliver used the whole of Sunday's Last Week Tonight on HBO to examine what he described as a worrying trend of Nazi and white-nationalist affinity within the Republican Party, nine days before the 3 November midterm elections. 1 2 Left · 1Variety reported that the episode followed a two-week absence by Oliver from the show. 1 Left · 1Oliver cited Republican candidates and figures, including Peter Oberacker (New York's 19th district), who in 2015 posted a Facebook photo of his late grandfather in a Wehrmacht uniform; Brandon Herrera (Texas's 23rd), who posted a 2022 video calling the MP-40 "Hitler's street sweeper"; and Marshall Rawson (Florida House District 10), who marched with neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. 1

Left · 1He also pointed to Paul Ingrassia, Trump's nominee to the Office of Special Counsel, who withdrew after leaked group-chat messages in which he said he had "a Nazi streak"; and to Texas Railroad Commissioner candidate Bo French, whom Karl Rove cited last month as an example of "bigots" taking over the party. 1 Left · 2A central thread was the white nationalist Nick Fuentes: Oliver noted Tucker Carlson's podcast interview with him, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts' defence of that interview and later retreat, keynote speeches by Reps. Paul Gosar (2021) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (2022) at Fuentes' conference, and Donald Trump's November 2022 Mar-a-Lago dinner with Fuentes, brought by Kanye West. 1 2 Left · 1Oliver also cited a Manhattan Institute analysis stating that 37% of the current GOP believe the Holocaust was greatly exaggerated or did not happen as historians described, including 54% of men under 50, as well as leaked Young Republican group chats praising Hitler. 1

Left · 2On those chats, JD Vance had said "Kids do stupid things"; Variety noted the participants were adults in their twenties and thirties, and the A.V. Club described them as 20 to 30 year olds. 1 2 Left · 1The A.V. Club added further examples from the episode: podcaster Stew Peters, whose show it said was visited by three sitting GOP lawmakers, Kari Lake and FBI director Kash Patel (eight times), and Georgia Rep. Mike Collins, who it said has not condemned white nationalist material from his daughter and son-in-law. 2 Left · 2Oliver argued the phenomenon is not new, citing the John Birch Society, Barry Goldwater and Pat Buchanan, and said such views are now "way past the point of being ignorable", with some candidates on the ballot and Elon Musk the election's biggest campaign spender; he closed by urging viewers to act against this next generation of white nationalists before the election. 1 2

Left · 1Neither article includes a response from the Republican figures named; the coverage rests on Oliver's characterisations, and the Republican officials' own statements appear only as quoted in the episode. 1