Clocking in at nearly 18 minutes, the comedian’s recent segment on the broken prison system could be one of his most inspired rants yet. Touching on everything from prison privatization to the inherent racism in the legal system to the fact that America has the “greatest number of prisoners of any country in the world” (an amount equivalent to the size of Slovenia’s entire population), John Oliver doesn’t hesitate to talk about “fact[s] that need to be spoken.”

This time, the “Last Week Tonight” host even got the help of America’s favorite Muppets to drive home his incredibly important point.

—Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata

Rock Solid Journalism

In 2026, amid chaos and the nonstop flurry of headlines, Truthdig remains independent, fact-based and focused on exposing what power tries to hide.

Support Independent Journalism.

SUPPORT TRUTHDIG