Late-night host Bill Maher sparred with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) over the one-time Donald Trump critic’s MAGA flip-flop, noting on Friday night that she was “very hard” on the former president following the Jan. 6 insurrection.
During an appearance as a panelist on Real Time with Bill Maher, Mace insisted that her shift toward Trump in recent years was largely due to President Joe Biden and his policies, complaining that his administration has been “that bad.” Maher, meanwhile, wondered if her recent embrace of Trump had more to do with the changing demographics of her congressional district.
“When you ran in 2020, you won by one point. Then they redistricted your area, and I think it was less Black people, and then you won in 2022 by 14 points,” Maher stated. “Does that explain the shift in your politics? Because you used to be a little more to the middle.”
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Claiming she’s “very much the same person” as she was the last time Maher spoke to her, Mace insisted that the reason she increased her margin of victory in 2022 was that she was “swinging hard to fight for women” after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
“But you did switch on Trump. I mean, after Jan. 6. I could read you the quotes. You were very hard on him,” Maher reacted, referencing Mace’s highly critical comments about Trump following the Capitol riots.
“I was very hard. I didn’t like it,” she replied, prompting Maher to quote her previously saying “we need to find a way to hold” Trump accountable for the attack on the Capitol.
“That’s not where you are now,” Maher added.
“Well, we’ve had three years of Joe Biden,” the South Carolina lawmaker shot back.
The Real Time host also asked Mace, who is reportedly on Trump’s short list of potential running mates, whether she would have refused Trump’s request to refuse to certify the 2020 election results if she had been vice president on Jan. 6.
“Would you have done what Mike Pence did that made Trump so angry?” Maher wondered.
“I certified the Electoral College in every single state,” she responded. “I mean, that was the right thing to do, the constitutional thing to do. And I would do it again, 100 percent.”
Maher, meanwhile, jokingly warned Mace, “Donald Trump sometimes ‘accidentally’ watches this show,” adding that “he won’t be happy with that answer.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Maher brought up Mace’s heated confrontation with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos. The interview featured the congresswoman, a sexual assault survivor, accusing Stephanopoulos of trying to “shame a rape victim” when he asked her how she could endorse Trump after he was found liable for sexual abuse. She has since continued to relentlessly rail against the This Week host, including in a House hearing.
“He was questioning you about the idea that you’re supporting Trump, who was found guilty of sexual assault by a jury in New York in the E. Jean Carroll case, and you’re a rape victim yourself. And I guess his implication was that in being so, you should not support someone who was convicted of this crime.”
Mace, for her part, said, “Trump wasn’t convicted of sexual assault” and instead was found liable for defamation and sexual abuse in a civil case.
“The $83 million was a defamation suit. It was about defamation,” she continued. “There was a sexual abuse claim, and she got a little bit for that, but the vast majority of it was for defamation, not rape, not sexual assault.”
