Trump At Rally Laughed At Call To Shoot Immigrants [VIDEO]

Comedian John Oliver, host of Last Week Tonight on HBO, lambasted President Donald Trump on his show Sunday for fomenting an “appalling” environment of racism and xenophobia in the United States.

Oliver was discussing the shootings that took place in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio over the weekend — where 31 people were killed — before showing tweets and clips of prominent Democratic politicians blasting Trump for his anti-immigrant rhetoric against Hispanics, who compromise a significant proportion of El Paso’s population, and other minorities and foreigners.

“White nationalism and anti-immigrant hysteria did not start with this president,” Oliver said on his show on Sunday. “But he certainly seems to have created an environment where those kinds of views can fester and indeed thrive.”

The comedian then showed a clip of a rally Trump held in Florida in May where he appeared to laugh at a supporter’s call to “shoot” immigrants.

“How do you stop these people?” Trump said at the rally, referring to a large group of 15,000 migrants approaching the southern border. “You can’t!”

“Shoot them!” someone in the crowd is heard yelling response.

Trump then stops mid-sentence, smiles and chuckles before saying, “That’s only in the Panhandle you can get away with that stuff!” as the crowd cheers and applauds.

“Here’s the thing about that: It is not only in the Panhandle where you can get away with that statement,” Oliver said in response to the clip. “You can now get away with this all over the country — and, as he just made painfully clear, in any room the actual president is in, which is absolutely appalling.”

The Last Week Tonight host then cautioned viewers against never accepting this type of perspective as normal.

“If that ever, for even a moment, feels like it’s become normal, we are completely f—ed,” Oliver added.

Oliver noted that the shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, where 22 people were killed and dozens more injured, is being investigated as a hate crime, as the shooter posted a manifesto online that contained many views associated with white nationalism. It voiced fear of an “invasion” of Hispanics in Texas, among other things.