HBO host John Oliver launched his own attack on the Federal Communications Commission by spamming them with annoying calls and bagpipe music every 90 minutes.
Sunday's "Last Week Tonight" episode revealed the annoying life many of us lead with spam and robocalls hitting our cell phones each day. While some companies have developed apps to help curb the problem, it all began because of President Donald Trump's FCC chair, Ajit Pai.
Oliver explained that the FCC has laws and regulations that once helped stop these annoying calls. Under President Barack Obama's administration, FCC chair Tom Wheeler said that the consumer should have control over who's calling them.
"The consumer needs to consent that they want to be called or if they are called and haven't given consent, to remove that consent by saying, 'Don't call me anymore.' Or by calling their phone company, and saying 'I don't want to get these calls,'" Wheeler said.
The host couldn't help but marvel at the simplicity and rationality of the policy.
"But unfortunately, those rules were struck down after a trade group sued, at which point, robocalls increased significantly," Oliver continued. "So, we made real progress at addressing a problem, but then we blew it. We basically got our one-year sobriety chip then celebrated by drinking a gallon of Captain Morgan."
Oliver blasted Pai for saying the "right things" about annoying robocalls, but he opposed the previous administration's rules and was happy when they were overturned.
"If only there were a way to get the FCC's attention," Oliver continued. "One way to do that would be if someone had, say, the office numbers of all five FCC commissioners. Then you could, hypothetically, have a program to robocall all of those numbers every 90 minutes with a message, say, oh, I don't know. Like, this."
The message is Oliver talking about how annoying robocalls are and that he'll phone them again in another 90 minutes. He then transitioned into playing bagpipe music.
Watch the hilarity below:
