John Oliver has renewed ‘anxiety’ as an immigrant with Trump return to office, despite US citizenship

HBO late-night host John Oliver told Monica Lewinsky on Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda has been causing him worry despite him being a U.S. citizen.

During the latest episode of the podcast “Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky,” Oliver — a U.K. native — mentioned that the stress he felt as an immigrant before getting his citizenship in 2019 has come back as Trump has increased deportations of illegal immigrants during his second term. 

“And I have to remind myself now, with all these stories going on… it brings something out of you,” he said, mentioning Trump’s crackdown. “Like it’s there – that anxiety that I thought I’d moved past that day that I got my citizenship. I thought it would be gone then.”

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“I didn’t feel that, like the relief didn’t feel enough,” he added. 

The British host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” mentioned how, back when he was on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show”, he used to feel as though America was his home despite not having his citizenship. He said being in that state generated real tension within him.

“And it was incredibly tense,” he said. “That immigration experience is tough even if you have the best version of it. And there’s no doubt, I had the best version of it. I had like Viacom lawyers at that point when I was with ‘The Daily Show.’”

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He continued: “Then I finally got my citizenship in 2019, at the end of 2019. But I realized I thought about it every day. Somewhere in the back of my head was my immigration status. At no point was it not somewhere in my mind.”

Lewinsky mentioned she could empathize in a small way with those being “hunted” by immigration authorities thanks to her experience as a woman who was hounded by the press following her affair with former President Bill Clinton.

“I’ve had a sense of understanding a tiny, tiny bit that I empathize with the immigrants who are going through the crisis right now. Right? ICE f——.” She said. “Yeah. And just of feeling hunted, like, of feeling unsafe, of like, something could happen at any moment.”

Lewinsky added, “Now, for me, the hunting was — the consequences of that — were nowhere near what they’re suffering.”

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Oliver added that Trump’s immigration polices do “feel personal” to him. 

“It’s one of the things I get really mad about,” he declared.