Oliver’s attack on Snowden reached extraordinary and insulting
heights. At one point, he interrupted the internationally respected
whistleblower for sounding too much like “the IT guy from work… Please
don’t teach me anything. I don’t want to learn. You smell like canned
soup,” Oliver said to the courageous defender of democratic rights, who
has now endured nearly two years of persecution and exile.
Oliver’s hostility towards Snowden and Julian Assange of WikiLeaks is
an expression of his staunch support, almost universally shared among
well-to-do strata in American society, for the continuation of the US
government’s surveillance programs.
-- Thomas Gaist, "John Oliver’s interview with Edward Snowden: Pseudo-satire in defense of NSA surveillance" (WSWS).