On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver turned the heat up on the campaign of Pennsylvania Senate candidate and television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz.
It’s no secret Oliver has a bone to pick with Dr. Oz. In 2014, the British American host spent 16 minutes on a segment outlining the scientific controversy swirling around Oz and the nutritional supplement industry. Oliver has continued to pepper negative mentions regarding Oz’s pseudo-scientific claims into episodes throughout the years.
It would be fitting then to throw Oz in the fryer if the controversial daytime TV doctor ever ran for a pivotal Senate seat that could change the balance of Congress.
Oliver started by bringing Dr. Oz’s main residency into question. Though the Ohio-born retired physician is running for office in Pennsylvania, social media frequently features Oz over 200 miles away at his North Jersey mansion. Oliver dubbed this the “Eric Adams special”, referring to the previous scandal of the incumbent New York mayor where the then-mayoral candidate was rumored to live in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
The Emmy Award-winning host revealed he’s also intimately aware of Oz’s proximity to New York due to his talk show offices being directly across the hall from Last Week Tonight’s. The mischievous Oliver had his staff set up a giant prop alligator holding up the middle finger directly toward their offices to express disdain for alleged medical malpractices.
“It did seem like an appropriate way for them to be greeted every morning,” Oliver said of Oz and his employees.
Oliver then documented several of Oz’s awkward video attempts at connecting with Pennsylvanian voters: one of the Senate candidate complaining about high vegetable prices at a local Redners, another of him grumbling about rising oil prices while pumping gas and, lastly, one featuring a barely coherent Oz praising the high school wrestlers of Pennsylvania.
Oliver claimed there’s no way Oz can actually empathize with working class voters over the soaring prices of food and gas due to his multimillionaire status. On cue, Oliver revealed a brazen video posted in 2019 of Dr. Oz wakesurfing in Italy to the song “My Life Be Like” by Grits to reinforce this disconnect.
“The truth is that is his what his life be like because he’s f***ing rich. Which means he gets to do stuff like but what he doesn’t get to do though is stand in front of gas pumps and pretends he’s personally affected by those numbers,” Oliver said.
Realizing his anger was misdirected at the staff of The Dr. Oz Show, Oliver admitted some regret about the middle finger-toting alligator stunt and offered an apology.
“This campaign has actually taught me something because I’ve talked a lot of s*** about the Dr. Oz Show and I did that because it was unremittingly terrible, but what is now clear is I didn’t appreciate how hard his staff had to work everyday to make sure it wasn’t even worse,” Oliver said.
“He had to abandon his show to go run for Senate and if any of his staff are coming back to our office in the coming weeks to clear their stuff out we’ve actually left a new special message for them on our alligator: ‘I’m sorry. He seems like a f***ing nightmare.’ Because he really does.”