Bill Maher kicked off the latest edition of his HBO late-night series Real Time by addressing the most nauseating news of the week: Stormy Daniels’ revelation that President Trump’s penis allegedly has “a huge mushroom head,” like the character of Toad in Mario.
“It’s called It Takes a Village to Find It,” Maher joked about the title of the aforementioned adult actress’ tell-all (it’s really called Full Disclosure). “It’s a lot about his dick. And Stormy Daniels—who would know—she says it is small, but it has a big head like a mushroom. A head like a mushroom. Also, it stands for the national anthem. Other than that, it’s a normal penis.”
The comedian then focused his attention on what he called “the other dick in the news”: Brett Kavanaugh. This week, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a professor of psychology, came forward to accuse Kavanaugh of attempting to sexually assault her at a house party in 1982.
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“We have an extremely credible woman, a psychology professor, who says back in 1982, when she was 15 and Kavanaugh was 17, Kavanaugh and a friend attacked her at a party. And Republican defenders are saying that ‘we shouldn’t be revisiting things that happened decades ago,’ which is what I say about Roe v. Wade,” said Maher.
Since Dr. Ford shared her story in the Washington Post, Republican politicians and conservative media have lined up to attack her, flooding the zone with conspiracy theories, whataboutism, and most tellingly, the notion that horrible things done in one’s teenage years don’t matter.
“Their other big lie is, ‘If we’re judged by what we did in high school, none of us would have jobs,’” exclaimed Maher. “I sold pot in college—but I never pinned anyone down and forced the pot in their throat, you know what I’m saying?”
Oh, and Roy Moore of all people, a man who himself was credibly accused of preying on teenage girls (and was banned from an Alabama mall for doing so), is now out defending Kavanaugh.
“He said what they’re doing to Brett Kavanaugh makes him very mad. He’s also very mad he wasn’t invited to that party with the teenagers,” joked Maher. “Party? It was five people! I only found this out. Five people! This could be investigated so easily by the FBI, if the Republicans wanted to go that route—you know, an actual investigation. I mean, it’s a small community.”
On the conspiracy theory side, Ed Whelan floated a completely unsubstantiated idea that, yes, Dr. Ford may have been attacked at a high school party, but that it was a Kavanaugh look-alike—or “doppelganger”—who did it. Whelan, of course, is not only president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think-tank in D.C., but also a close friend of Kavanaugh’s who guided him through the Supreme Court nomination process. If all that weren’t enough, several Republican operatives, including Sen. Orrin Hatch’s spokesperson Matt Whitlock, tipped off their followers before Whelan unleashed his tweetstorm, and it’s now been reported that the conservative PR firm CRC Public Relations—which counts the Federalist Society and the Judicial Crisis Network, the two biggest right-wing interest groups pushing Kavanaugh to get elected, as clients—was behind Whelan’s crackpot theory.
“The Republicans, they all get behind the same story. The one that they’re all talking about today? I can’t even believe this. Listen to this, this is their best defense yet: Dr. Ford perhaps was attacked… but not by Brett Kavanaugh, by someone who looked exactly like Brett Kavanaugh. His doppelganger. That’s what they’re saying,” said Maher, barely believing his words. “Five people were at the party, and one brought a robot double. Remember ‘80s parties? They were kind of like that. There were a lot of evil twins.”
