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John Oliver buying advertising space on The O'Reilly Factor to teach Donald Trump about sexual harassment

'Bill O’Reilly needs advertisers and Donald Trump needs to understand sexual harassment'

Jack Shepherd
Monday 10 April 2017 09:36 BST
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John Oliver presenting Last Week TonighT
John Oliver presenting Last Week TonighT (HBO)

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John Oliver promised not to spend all this season of Last Week Tonight talking about Donald Trump, saying: "We're very anxious to not make it all Trump, all the time — both on a level of interest and on a level of what the human soul can sustain.”

However, with Trump dominating the news like a fart dominates a car (Oliver’s words), the HBO host cannot avoid talking about the controversial President.

Having spoken about ‘stupid watergate’ last week, Oliver decided to target Bill O’Reilly, host of The O’Reilly Factor. According to a recent report in The New York Times, 20th Century Fox has settled five sexual harassment cases for O’Reilly over the years for upwards of $13 million.

“Yes, Bill O’Reilly, who scientists hypothesise is kind of a dense nebula of boner and racism, has been paying out settlements for alleged harassment for years,” Oliver said. “Details are pretty disturbing here, with the victims claiming things like verbal abuse, lewd comments, unwanted advances, and phone calls in which it sounded as if Mr O’Reilly was masturbating.”

Following the allegations, as many as 60 companies have pulled their adverts from the host’s show – the most popular show on the network — while Fox has promised they will investigate further sexual harassment allegations.

One person who remains an ardent defender of O’Reilly, though, is Trump, who told The NYT: "I think he shouldn't have settled; personally I think he shouldn't have settled.

“Because you should have taken it all the way. I don't think Bill did anything wrong. I think he's a person I know well — he is a good person.”

Oliver recapped: “Bill O’Reilly needs advertisers and Donald Trump needs to understand sexual harassment. And here is where we come in.

“We have produced an ad to educate Donald Trump to air during The O’Reilly Factor in New York and D.C. We submitted it to stations on Friday, but weirdly, we haven’t heard back from them since. Which is a little surprising, because we are one of the only advertisers offering to buy time on his show at the moment. And I do hope they don’t reject this ad.”

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The advert then played, featuring an elderly man wearing a cowboy hat, explained how “repeated unwanted sexual advances or obscene remarks in the workplace constitutes sexual harassment.” Watch the full clip below.

Oliver has previously employed the elderly cowboy to feature in adverts targeted at Trump and featuring on Fox News, including one to educate the President on health care.

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