John Oliver returned to the "Last Week Tonight" desk after a two-week absence and dedicated the entirety of Sunday night's episode to a "worrying trend" that's been on the rise among the Republican Party ahead of the Nov.3 midterm elections — their apparent affinity for Nazis.
He highlighted Peter Oberacker, a Republican candidate for New York's 19th congressional district, who in 2015 posted a photo to Facebook on Veterans Day memorializing his late grandfather — in full Wehrmacht uniform — who had died fighting for Nazi Germany.
Oberacker later claimed it was the only photo of his grandfather that he had.
Oliver quipped, "If that is the only picture that you have, maybe consider having no pictures of him!
You can sit Veterans Day out.No one will think that's weird."
He then brought up Elon Musk delivering what very much appeared to be a Nazi salute to Trump supporters at a rally following his election in 2025.
"Everything about that screams, 'Nazi!' Well, almost everything.
To be fair to the Nazis, unlike Elon, they at least looked sharp in their suits," Oliver said.
He continued, claiming, "It does feel that the Republican Party has been getting way too comfortable with some, at best, Nazi-adjacent shit, including Paul Ingrassia, Trump's nominee to the Office of Special Counsel, who withdrew his nomination after leaked group chat messages revealed him saying, 'I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time, I will admit it.' And Brandon Herrera, a Republican nominee for Texas' 23rd congressional district, who posted a YouTube video in 2022 where he referred to the MP-40 as 'Hitler's street sweeper' followed by footage of him and a friend goose-stepping to a Nazi marching song."
Even Karl Rove, the architect of George W.
Bush's presidency, issued a warning last month at the Texas Tribune Festival that his party was being taken over by "bigots" like Bo French, a candidate for Texas Railroad Commissioner known for racist social media posts, adding, "Nick Fuentes goes to Dallas and meets with a bunch of Republican leaders.This guy is a Nazi."
Oliver argued that Israel's war in Gaza has led "some on the far-right to seize on this moment and elevate antisemitic conspiracy theories, including Tucker Carlson's warm podcast interview with the Hitler-worshipping neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes.
The Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts defended Carlson's chummy interview with Fuentes and said the podcaster was under attack from 'globalist forces,' later walking back the defense by claiming that he, the leader of the top conservative think tank, doesn't pay attention to the news."
Fuentes claimed on his podcast that "whites built everything" and "Jews are money-changers, bullshit artists, psychopaths, charlatans, grifters, manipulators...
why do you think they're so obnoxious?Why do you think they're so fucking obnoxious?They have no manners because they're from the third world.They come from the literal ghetto.They come from the literal ghetto."
Cue Oliver: "It makes it all the more laughable that Tucker made such a show of offering Fuentes, a man who's literally spent thousands of hours on the internet saying whatever he wants, the chance to finally say what he thinks...
And the worrying thing is, it's not just Tucker.Fuentes has been inching closer and closer to mainstream Republicans over the years, such as GOP Congressman Paul Gosar, who gave the keynote speech at Fuentes' America First Political Action Conference in 2021 and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who did the same in 2022."
Trump also famously had dinner with Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago in November 2022.
Kanye West brought him there, just one month after West tweeted, “I’m going death con 3 on Jewish people.”
Oliver said, “Nazis getting power doesn’t usually end well for anyone, including the Nazis themselves, who didn’t have a great ending in 1945.” He also talked about the Republican Party’s “groyper problem,” pointing to a study by the Manhattan Institute that found 37% of current GOP members think the Holocaust was exaggerated or didn’t happen as described, including 54% of men under 50.
Oliver then mentioned leaked group chats from Young Republican leaders who praised Hitler and used racist language.
Oliver said some people say, “Calm down. This is just a bunch of kids and bad streamers.Ignore it,” which is what JD Vance said when asked about the group chat.But those weren’t kids—they were adults in their twenties and thirties.
Oliver added, “The far-right group in the Republican Party isn’t new.
From the John Birch Society to Barry Goldwater and Pat Buchanan, the GOP has always allowed bigots, crazies, and conspiracy theorists in.” He even joked about the Nixon Tapes, saying they would be on Rumble today.
Other questionable GOP candidates include Marshall Rawson, who ran for Florida House District 10 and marched with neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.
Oliver noted that when 28 GOP officials were asked if they would condemn Rawson for his neo-Nazi ties, only three responded, and two of them supported him.
Oliver concluded, “Far-right views in the Republican Party are not something to ignore.
Some of them are even on the ballot in nine days, in an election where the biggest campaign spender is Elon Musk, who’s part of the Adolf-aloha wave.”
