John Oliver Rails Against 'Pathetic' Cops Quitting Over Vaccine Mandates

John Oliver has no time for police officers threatening to quit over states' COVID-19 mandates. In a Last Week Tonight monologue bit, Oliver skewered the "pathetic" officers who signed up to protect the public, but can't be bothered to do so amid a pandemic that has killed over 700,000 Americans.

"The constant refrain we hear from cops every time they kill an unarmed black person is, 'They should have complied with commands," said the HBO host. "But that only seems to work one way. When officers are asked to follow simple rules or face consequences, a not insignificant amount of them flip their shit."

Oliver went on to point out that more that nearly 500 police officers have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, a figure more than four times higher than the number of officers who have died from gunfire.

"There's also the key matter of the fact that the police are supposed to be keeping the public safe. That's the point of their jobs. Yet some don't seem to give much of a shit about that," he added, before playing a video of an unmasked NYPD officer who shoved a passenger out of a station for asking that he put on a mask. "If an officer wants to quit over this, fucking let them! Let the individuals who clearly don't care about public safety stop being in charge of public safety. It's really that simple."

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver airs Sundays at 11:00 PM ET on HBO.

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.