John Oliver is still finding reasons to remain hopeful after covering some of America’s “darkest” stories for more than a decade.
“What we tend to find is that as we’re doing these incredibly dark stories, that in researching them we’re often talking to experts and people who are working on solutions,” the Last Week Tonight Host said in an interview with The Ringer on Thursday.
“And when you see the truly tireless efforts of activists to make things incrementally better, that really does give you faith that people aren’t going to stop trying,” Oliver, 48, said.
When asked what gives him “faith in humanity” in 2026, Oliver cited the only thing that came to mind: the response of Minneapolis residents to ICE officers in January, which he couldn’t cover on his Emmy-winning show because it occurred between seasons.
Last month, immigration officers shot and killed two Minneapolis residents, Renée Good, 37, and Alex Pretti, 37. Following the increased ICE presence in their most populous city, Minnesotans recorded officers on their phones and protested in the streets.
“Watching the breadth and the ferocity of the pushback in Minnesota is something,” he said.
The host can’t stop watching a video wherein civilians swarmed ICE agents outside a store, causing them to depart within minutes.
In the “relatively undramatic” video, Oliver said residents streamed out of nearby cars, apartments, and shops and “all of a sudden” surrounded the officers.
“It was the scale and speed of the pushback that, one, made you think this community has fully had it, and two, this community is acting as one unit to push back hard in a way that I think is going to work,” the 23-time Emmy winner said.
On Last Week Tonight, Oliver’s team researches a wide range of topics that could be considered depressing, from the “hell that is child incarceration” to innumerable Trump scandals. The host has devoted several full shows to ICE, immigration detention centers, and deportations.
In each episode, which Oliver said takes six weeks to produce, the host has learned to find ways to uplift his audience. His team created a system to balance the number of comedic video clips he shows with the number of educational or dark ones.
Otherwise, Oliver said, it’s “just too much force-feeding people vegetables.”
In his August episode on immigration enforcement, Oliver followed up clips of ICE raids with a ridiculous Star Wars meme posted by a regional Border Patrol office on X.
“Imagine how morally bankrupt you’d have to be to watch the most famous villain in cinematic history murdering a bunch of people, some of whom are literally begging for help, and think, ‘He is so us,’” Oliver mocked after the video ended.
Through his 12-season run, Oliver said his team has constantly experimented to get the formula right. According to Oliver, one thing remains constant: The key is to never stop trying.
“However Sisyphean it feels, you’ve got to try,” he says. “You’ve got to push that rock, man. Maybe it’ll balance on top.”
Last Week Tonight will return for its 13th season on Sunday, February 15. New episodes, and its back catalog, are available to stream on HBO Max.
