John Oliver Is Buying Ads On 'Hannity' So He Can Send A Direct Message To Trump

John Oliver has a message for President Trump, and it's deadly serious in a very literal sense. And so, the liberal TV personality had to figure out a way to get his message into the president's ears — and he came to the perfect solution. John Oliver is buying ads on Sean Hannity's show as a way of speaking directly to Trump. After all, there's not much of a chance that Trump would tune into Oliver's Last Week Tonight.

According to reports about the president's relationship with Sean Hannity, it's pretty much a given that Trump will hear whatever the Fox News host has to say. Sometimes, Trump even calls Hannity after the show, the Los Angeles Times reported last October. In his latest episode on the president and his policies, Oliver wanted Trump to actually hear the comments he made in his segment about the Iran nuclear deal on Sunday.

in this segment, Oliver delved into the nitty-gritty of what makes up the Iran nuclear deal that President Obama entered the United States into in 2015. The basis of the deal, Oliver explained, was that several key countries, the United States included, agreed to lift damaging economic sanctions they had levied against Iran. In return, they got several important concessions from Iran.

Oliver explained that under the current level of nuclear development that they're allowed, Iran trying to build a nuclear bomb would be like trying to get drunk on "a single can of PBR," a famously light beer.

"You can't. It cannot be done, there's no f**king way to do it, not unless you're a gerbil, and even then, only if you're drinking on an empty stomach," Oliver said.

He then went on to explain that despite this scientific reality, several loud voices thought that it was too generous to Iran — namely, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and one strand of American conservatism, including Donald Trump. Oliver showed an ad paid for by a conservative group, showing a wholesome American family sitting down to dinner — and then getting blown up by a nuclear bomb, which the ad implies could come from Iran because of this deal.

Oliver went on to enumerate Trump's stated problems with the deal, one of which was the fact that the terms of the deal only last for 10 years. "[Iran] can keep the terms [of the deal] and still get the bomb, by simply running out the clock," Trump said in a speech to a pro-Israel group.

Oliver then made the point that Iran can't abide by the terms and also get the bomb, so theoretically any development in their nuclear program couldn't happen until those 10 years run out. If Trump nullified the deal, though, they could start developing the program immediately.

"Zero is less than 10," Oliver said. "Trust us, we ran the numbers on this ourselves."

As you continue watching the segment, you get more and more nervous, because Trump hates the deal, and he's surrounded himself with advisers like Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, who also hate the deal and hold hawkish stances on Iran. Basically, Oliver said, Trump has no moderating voices on Iran to listen to, because even Hannity is critical of the deal — so Oliver decided to slip his voice in along with Hannity's by buying ad space on the Fox show.

Oliver then showed the ad, which featured the Catheter Cowboy — a character in previous ads that Oliver bought in 2017 in different attempts to reach Trump. Inserting him into a dinner scene reminiscent of the one in the aforementioned conservative ad about Iran, the Catheter Cowboy reminds the president directly of two important matters — zero is less than 10, and John Bolton really does have a strange mustache.

"I'm not saying that it's going to change anything," said Oliver, in conclusion. "But at least we will know that we tried."