Last Week Tonight Examines Alex Jones and the Infowars Store

Last Week Tonight has been gone for a few weeks, and boy has the world been busy producing crazy news. They had a few things to get caught up on.

Jared Kushner’s speech, Trump’s military ban on transgender service members, the health care vote, and that spectacular Anthony Scaramucci (“Long Islander of the Frickin’ Month” and “if a tanning bed was a person”) interview story all get some attention here.

This week’s “And Now This…” cuts together journalists trying to avoid repeating Scaramucci’s words about what Steve Bannon is trying to do (I also can’t repeat it here), and it’s equal parts awkward and hilarious. Seeing Bob Schieffer crack up over it is kind of delightful.

The main focus for this week is Alex Jones, the radio host and conspiracy theorist famous for rants such as the government orchestrating mass shootings and putting something in the water to make us all, even the frogs, gay. I would use Liz Lemon’s words to describe Jones: he is “staunchly in favor of Cocoa Puffs.”

To speak about all the times that Jones has yelled incoherently on his show is pretty low-hanging fruit at this point, and Oliver doesn’t want to simply take all of those moments out of context. The segment, then, tries to look at Jones in the full context of his show and website.

Something I didn’t know about Jones is that he has an online store where he sells survivalist gear, a range of supplements, and things like a “Bill Clinton rape whistle.” Jones encourages viewers to purchase items from his store in order to fund the show and website.

In one clip, Jones goes from being very fired up to explaining to viewers that he only has enough money to keep everything going for a week and that viewers can help “fund the operation” by buying items from the online store. In another clip, he says he’ll sell his house to keep it going.

Oliver purchased some items from the store and was given a free “9-11 was an inside job” bumper sticker, so that’s the kind of thing we’re working with here.

One of the more concerning issues is that the supplements Jones sells that claim to cure a lot of what ails you, and the doctor supporting them misrepresents his credentials. While he does hold a doctor of chiropractic degree, Jones’ doc represents himself as having degrees from several institutions including MIT, which Oliver confirmed wasn’t accurate.

Further, the supplements just kind of sound like quackery. In one clip, Jones explains that one of the supplements is organic, but not technically and that the important stuff in it “is only found in comets…and in trace amounts in blueberries.” Hmm.

Maybe most shockingly, Jones says that even if you could find his products elsewhere, you shouldn’t buy them from other places, because they’ll kill you. Yikes?

In his interview with Megyn Kelly, Jones says that his enterprises require millions of dollars to run, but that all the money earned goes back into the business.

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Oliver questions if this is accurate by pointing to Jones’ multiple Rolexes, which Jones says are just to let him blend in with Satanists so he can expose them (I didn’t know that Satanists love Rolexes, but I guess you learn something new every day).

Oliver concludes that Jones in context shows us “a skilled salesman spending hours a day frightening you about problems like refugees spreading disease and then selling you an answer.” For example, the follow up to the “gay frogs” clip is Jones hawking water filtration systems.

In the end, Oliver suggests you should consider Jones’ words in their full context. Maybe profit isn’t the only reason Jones couples fear with selling a solution, but it wouldn’t be the craziest conspiracy theory out there.

Oliver ends the segment with a pitch of his own. Jack McBrayer makes a cameo as Oliver’s doctor who helped develop “tactical wipes” like those featured on the Infowars website.

If you want to buy your own John Oliver Tactical Wipes, good news – you can go to infowipes.com, which links to the HBO website, where you actually can purchase the wipes for literally $1,000,000.00.

Next: John Oliver rips Donald Trump’s tapes confession on Last Week Tonight

HBO made sure to include some red text that specifies your credit card will be charged if you buy them. The money will be donated to Doctor’s Without Borders, as the seed faith donations for Oliver’s church were a couple years back. At least it goes to a good cause, right?

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