John Oliver Hatches a Plan to Reach Trump Where He Watches

John Oliver kicked off his fourth season on HBO on Sunday night with 25 minutes of predictable outrage that built to five spectacular minutes of brashly original guerrilla warfare.

In the first “Last Week Tonight” since President Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Oliver devoted his main segment — which is to say, most of the half-hour show — to dissecting what had transpired since he ended his previous season just days after the election.

“Normally we like to focus this portion of the show on complex, depressing policy issues,” he said. But for the first episode back from hiatus, he wanted to zero in on something bigger: reality itself.

By that he meant he wanted to address the inability or refusal of Mr. Trump, his followers and his administration to separate the real from the fake. And so Mr. Oliver took up four Trump-related questions: How did a man with such a contempt for or poor grasp of the truth end up as president? Where are his lies coming from? Why do so many people believe them? And what can be done about it?

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