John Oliver devoted the main segment of Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight” to what he called President Donald Trump’s “war on education,” using a 2007 Fox News interview with Stephen Miller to illustrate how right-leaning media have long amplified stories about campus controversies.
Oliver said networks such as Fox News routinely search for examples of so-called "campus craziness" to support the argument that universities are "havens of liberal indoctrination," and he replayed a clip of Miller — then a Duke University senior — on Fox & Friends. In the 2007 segment, Miller complained that a campus newspaper refused to run an ad directing readers to a website with inflammatory claims about Muslims. When a host asked, "Are you a college kid?" Miller answered, "Yeah, I’m a senior at Duke University," and responded to a compliment about being smart by saying, "Well, I watch ‘Fox & Friends’ almost every morning, and so that probably has something to do with it."
Oliver mocked the exchange, noting Miller’s on-air deference and pointing out that despite later complaints about conservative voices being censored on campuses, Miller had a regular column at Duke where he aired his views. Oliver said Fox hosts "lapped it up" at the time and characterized the network as eager to cover trivial incidents that can be framed as ideological bias within higher education.
The segment framed the Miller clip within a broader pattern of conservative criticism of universities that has intensified during the Trump administration. Oliver referenced recent attacks on institutions including Harvard and said the examples are often used to suggest broader systemic bias. He also cited frequent Fox coverage of campus protests and disruptions, including attention to incidents such as climate activists delaying the Harvard–Yale game, as emblematic of what he called a persistent media appetite for "petty" stories that can be amplified for political effect.
Stephen Miller later joined the Trump administration and holds a senior White House role as deputy chief of staff. Oliver’s segment aired as part of a longer critique of how political actors and sympathetic media outlets frame higher education in the current political climate. The show replayed the 2007 clip and used Oliver’s commentary and mimicry of the Fox hosts to underscore its argument that some coverage has long been shaped by a desire to highlight campus confrontations.
Sunday’s broadcast carried on a theme that has recurred across media and political discourse: whether universities are primarily centers of learning or political indoctrination. Oliver placed the Miller appearance in a timeline that stretches from student opinion pages and campus newspapers to national cable programs and, ultimately, to senior roles in government, drawing a line between early media exposure and later influence in Washington.
The segment did not include new reporting on the 2007 interview itself but relied on archived footage and Oliver’s commentary to make its case about media patterns and the political stakes of university coverage.