John Oliver shuts down election interference conspiracies

The U.S. presidential election hasn’t even happened yet, but as John Oliver demonstrated during Last Week Tonight, Donald Trump supporters already appear to be laying the groundwork to cry “voter fraud” conspiracy theories if the former president doesn’t win.

During Sunday’s episode, Oliver breaks down one such strategy: a demonstrably false claim made by Fox News personality Maria Bartiromo, who posted “from a friend” on X saying there were lines of illegal immigrants registering to vote for Democrats at several DMVs.

“I’m genuinely curious about the person who saw a massive line at the DMV and their instinct was, ‘This must be illegals registering to vote’ and not the DMV functioning like it has since the dawn of time. Do they blame all common inconveniences on immigration? ‘Oh shit I burned my mouth on this coffee, the illegals must be brewing it extra hot to burn our tongues into silence,’” says Oliver.

“When you take all of this together — the lies about immigrants voting, the mass voter challenges, the introduction of new processes to slow down and question vote counts — it seems depressingly likely we’re about to see a storm of bullshit just like last time.”