John Oliver reveals why Republicans assume Doug Mastriano will lead them into a disastrous election in November
"Last Week Tonight" host John Oliver began his show Sunday by announcing that the Republican Primary races that happened this week revealed a lot of important things happened.
The most important thing, however, was that Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) not only lost but "he has now officially set a record for the shortest term to ever be served by a little b*tch."
But it was Pennsylvania that Oliver noted was the most important. While there's still a debate over which Republican will win the GOP primary in the U.S. Senate race, the governor's race ended about where folks thought it would.
Prevailing there, was Doug Mastriano, someone that is so far right that even Donald Trump wouldn't endorse him until the final week of the campaign. According to one Politico report a week prior to the election, Trump really hates Mastriano, despite his non-stop fight for the former president.
Oliver went on to highlight some of Mastriano's greatest hits from an album on why he should never be elected to public office ever again. Not only does he continue to perpetuate the lie that Donald Trump won the presidency in 2020, but he also marched on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with those who destroyed the public building in an effort to stop the certification of the election of Joe Biden. According to Mastriano, however, he never did anything illegal.
Marching on the Capitol has become a kind of pride for Republicans, Oliver continued. "It's like bragging they were on the boat the night Natalie Wood died. I don't know what's more troubling there, that you think that makes you sound good, or that some people might actually agree with you."
Mastriano didn't just march, Oliver explained, he held a hearing claiming there was a huge fraud. He went to Arizona to watch the election survey that ultimately found that Biden won by more votes than originally thought, and he's proudly proclaimed that no election in the future will go to a Democrat under his watch.
"I could decertify every machine in the state with the stroke of a pen via my Secretary of State," Mastriano said on The Bombeck Show on March 20, 2022. In Pennsylvania, the position that governs elections isn't elected as in most states. It's appointed by the governor. "I already have the Secretary of State picked out. It's a world-class person that knows voting integrity better than anyone else in the nation, I think, and I already have a team that's going to be built around that individual."
Mastriano did not clarify if that person was from Pennsylvania, however.
"Wow!" exclaimed Oliver. "I don't know who he has in mind, but I can promise they are not a world-class person. Because, one, anyone Mastriano likes is immediately suspicious, and two, the only true world-class people on the planet are Dolly Parton, and 'end of list.'"
He went on to cite another list of Mastriano's more extreme views like turning Pennsylvania into a Second Amendment safe haven and he would outlaw all abortions even in the case of rape and incest and he would refuse to save the lives of mothers who could die without them.
While Mastriano's people have tried to back him away from QAnon conspiracies, he showed up to their event and accepted a sword from them.
What Oliver warned is that many Democrats wanted a fringe candidate like Mastriano on the ballot. That hasn't always worked out, however. As Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and President Donald Trump clearly show. It's a risky proposition he hopes works out for the state in the end.
Mastriano faces off against outgoing Attorney General Josh Shapiro.
Watch Oliver's opening below at about the 41 minute mark:
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