John Oliver Wonders How Donald Trump’s Claims About Haitians Eating Cats Isn’t “Disqualifying”

John Oliver and his Last Week Tonight team were busy winning an Emmy last week, so Sunday night’s show marked his first opportunity to weigh in on the Donald Trump–Kamala Harris presidential debate.

Oliver chose to zero in on Trump’s claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are abducting and eating cats and dogs. The HBO show’s host set up the clip by calling it an “exceptional moment in American oratory.”

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said in the clip from the Sept. 10 debate.

Replied Oliver: “Yeah, that was Donald Trump accusing Haitian immigrants of killing and eating people’s pets. And can you even remember a time when something like that would have been disqualifying? Because I can’t anymore. Republicans have now nominated Trump three times. Democrats have so far lost to him half the time. And the election is still inexplicably close because unfortunately, some Americans watched that and thought, ‘I don’t like how Kamala laughed when he called immigrants dog eaters. That wasn’t very presidential.’”

Oliver acknowledged that some time has passed since the debate, during which “plenty of cat-eating jokes” have been made.

“But I still want to talk about this both because the chaos Trump stirred up in Springfield is ongoing and because it feels emblematic of his campaign,” he said, noting that “city officials insist there is no evidence of what Trump confidently spewed to 67 million people.”

Oliver noted that Trump was actually repeating a claim previously made by JD Vance, his vice presidential running mate. Oliver showed a Sept. 9 tweet from Vance that reads: “Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?”

Oliver joked that Vance’s tweet “makes it sound like eating pets is a right reserved for natural-born Americans.”

Oliver continued to criticize Vance, who, when asked about the tweet, “has insisted he was just reflecting people’s concerns.” He played a clip of Vance saying: “The media has tried to say now for days that I’ve made up this story. I haven’t made up anything. I’ve just listened to people who are telling me these things.”

Quipped Oliver: “Wait — ‘if enough people say it, I repeat it’? It is not ideal when an aspiring vice president’s guiding philosophy is indistinguishable from a fucking parrot.”