An emotional John Oliver delivered an impassioned last-minute plea Sunday night to elect Kamala Harris for president, wrapping up the final pre-election episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight by noting, “I love this country. I’m an immigrant. I chose to be here.”
“I know it’s hard to imagine things getting worse on this, but to be fair, Trump has always been one to roll up his sleeves, throw on a very unflattering vest, and dig us into a new layer of hell,” he said. “The damage of a second Trump term would last far beyond the next four years and encumber any potential progressive president in the future.”
In the final minutes of the episode, Oliver, with that viral photo of an orange-faced Donald Trump in the fluorescent “garbage collector” vest, said he longs for the day when that photo could merely be the target of laughs rather than “having geopolitical implications.”
“Wouldn’t it be great to live in a world where he’s no longer an active threat?,” Oliver asked. “Just an annoyance?…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.”
At points during his final pre-election end-of-episode monologue, Oliver seemed to be fighting back tears. “What am I going to be feeling on Wednesday?,” he said at the start, “and is there anything I’m going to wish I’d said right now?”
In supporting Harris, Oliver cited her support for expanding Medicare and reproductive freedoms, and and Trump’s dangerous embrace of the policies in Project 2025. He said that while his Last Week Tonight episodes often carry the message of defeating Trump, the time had come to be even more explicit: “To be clear,” he said, “I am voting for Kamala Harris. And I think you should, too.”
Watch the segment above.