John Oliver Blasts Fox News Host for Downplaying Possible War With Iran: 'Breathtakingly Stupid'

By Justin Baragona, The Daily Beast

24 June 19

Oliver also gave backhanded compliments to Tucker Carlson for taking time away from ‘perfecting the art of racist befuddlement.’

BO’s John Oliver took aim at Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld on Sunday night, blasting the co-host of The Five for downplaying the human cost of a potential war with Iran as “just a video game.”

Opening his broadcast of Last Week Tonight, Oliver noted President Trump nearly “brought us on the brink of war” after Iran downed an unmanned American drone. After pointing out that Trump had a last-minute change of heart and canceled a military strike, the comedian said Trump had found himself stuck between “warring factions” in both his administration and his favorite news network when deciding whether to attack Iran.

“Some anchors were very pro-war, like Sean Hannity, while Greg Gutfeld had an interesting theory as to why war with Iran would be virtually painless,” Oliver said, playing a clip of Gutfeld dismissing concerns about war.

“We are now in a time where it doesn't matter how large your population is because the population is no longer expendable in war,” the Fox News personality said last week. “It's now about the machines that you have. Drones are now replacing bones, so it will be stuff versus stuff, and fortunately for us, we have the best stuff.”

Oliver, meanwhile, was far from impressed with Gutfeld’s reasoning.

“That is breathtakingly stupid,” the HBO star said. “If someone said that to me at a dinner party, my response would be, ‘Excuse me, this child is drunk. someone gave him wine—I don’t know who—but he’s ranting like a lunatic about how war is all stuff versus stuff now. He needs to be put to bed.’”

Oliver pointed out that on the other side of the issue, Fox News host Tucker Carlson had taken “time away from perfecting the art of racist befuddlement” to privately advise the president not to respond to Iran’s recent provocations with force.

“So the voice of reason here was a man who wore a bow tie well into his 40s despite being as not in the Nation of Islam as a person could possibly be,” he added.