John Oliver Claims Violent Portland Protests Are ‘Mostly Peaceful’ On His HBO Show

During Sunday night’s episode of the HBO talk show “Last Week Tonight,” host John Oliver downplayed the violent protests that have overtaken the city of Portland, Oregon, blatantly lying by saying that the riots have been “mostly peaceful.”

“The protests in Portland have actually been going on daily for nearly two months now, since the killing of George Floyd,” Oliver said, according to Breitbart News. “But the deployment of federal agents was a sharp escalation of questionable legality, and yet, to hear the president tell it, he had no choice and it was a terrific idea.”

“In Portland, protests have been mostly peaceful there, which is not to say that there haven’t been some isolated chaotic incidents,” he added. “Although, those situations have not been helped by the fact that the local police force, under the leadership of ted wheeler, incidentally have routinely overreacted using things like tear gas, to the point where wheeler actually became known as tear gas teddy.”

Of course, anyone who has been paying any attention to the situation knows this to be a blatant lie, as these videos show:

In reality, the situation in Portland has gotten so out of control that President Donald Trump was forced to send in federal troops. Despite this, Oliver ignored the facts by saying that “things were not particularly dire in Portland.”

Not stopping there, Olivier also attacked Fox News host Sean Hannity for correctly describing the protests as violent. Oliver claimed that this kind of comment from a television host is a “huge overstatement” and indicates the “end of America as we know it.”

“Yeah, it is insane—because that tone does not honestly reflect the conditions on the ground,” Oliver said. “That ‘fire-bombing,’ for instance, seems to be a reference to either a firework or a small fire that was set, which is significantly less dramatic than he’s trying to make it sound. And that rolling list next to Hannity’s head is mostly graffiti! In fact, graffiti is listed 12 times in a row there under the headline ‘VIOLENCE IN PORTLAND,’ which is a huge overstatement.

“Look, the troubling thing here is: Portland seems to be being used as a staging ground by the president to put on an authoritarian show of force, and this could end very badly—especially as he’s now apparently threatened to use federal force in other cities as well, which is absolutely outrageous,” he added.

This piece was written by James Samson on July 27, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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