John Oliver slams deranged GOP candidate: In a sensible world she’d “withdraw in shame”

On Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver skewered MAGA Tennessee mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson for her repeated flagrant lies and anti-LGBTQ+ attacks in a characteristically hilarious rant.

Oliver opened the show with coverage of Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) ouster by fellow Republicans as speaker of the House, noting that the leading candidates to replace him are far-right extremists Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), who has compared himself to white supremacist David Duke.

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The revelations follow a series of bizarre campaign moments, including an aide claiming a local LGBTQ+ group is giving buttplugs to kids.

“It is pretty clear that the Republican Party is being controlled by the absolute extremes,” Oliver said before pivoting to the Hanson as an example of how bad the extremist takeover of the party has gotten at the local level.

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The Franklin, Tennessee, real estate agent and alderman-at-large’s campaign to become the city’s next mayor has made for some pretty outrageous moments, beginning with her April attempt to deny the Franklin Pride Festival a permit. Oliver ridiculed Hanson’s attack on drag performer Jaidynn Diore Fierce for wearing an Elmo-themed look that she deemed “confusing” for children.

“By that logic we should outlaw children from walking around Times Square too,” Oliver joked, referencing the unlicensed costumed characters who roam the New York tourist trap, “because seeing Olaf from Frozen with his head popped off smoking a Black and Mild is way more confusing than someone wearing eyeshadow and an Elmo-themed bodysuit.”

Oliver went on to spotlight Fierce’s many cartoon-themed looks, before returning to Hanson and her many lies, which have included posting a photo on Instagram of an “executive women’s club” which she said supported her. But local WTVF reporter Phil Williams spoke with one of the women in the photo who said that none of them support Hanson or even know who she is. Hanson has also made bizarre claims about predicting the mass shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School and telling a police officer about it, which Williams also proved false after acquiring body cam footage of the officer’s interaction with Hanson.

The host applauded Williams for his coverage of Hanson, which also includes uncovering a 2008 incident in which she encouraged her husband to wear an American flag speedo to Chicago’s Pride Parade, and more recently, exposing her for recruiting members of the white supremacist group Tennessee Active Club to provide security for her at a candidate forum.

“If you are a politician in Tennessee, Phil has his foot on your god***n neck,” Oliver said. “You do not f*** around with Phil Williams, and it seems Gabrielle Hanson is currently in her ‘finding out’ era when it comes to her dealings with him!”

Oliver noted that even in defending her decision to take on white supremacists as real estate clients, she suggested that another client was a “Muslim jihadist” because he is Middle Eastern.

“In a world that makes sense this woman would obviously have withdrawn from this mayoral race in shame but she still has supporters,” Oliver continued. “There are lawn signs up for her in Franklin! And there is a real chance she could still win this election because while her numerous scandals are almost cartoonish in their extremity, her behavior is entirely emblematic of Republican politics from the local level all the way up to the top, where if we learned anything this week it’s that far-right Republicans maintain a vice-like grip over the entire party.”

Oliver added that the only hope to reign in the far-right’s influence over the party might be for more reporters to take a page from WTVF’s Williams, who he described admiringly as “Nashville’s nosiest b-tch.”