A week ago, Bill Maher made the questionable decision of declaring President Donald Trump’s disrespectful call to a grieving widow “worse” than Harvey Weinstein’s alleged serial sexual harassment and assault of dozens of women.
On Friday, he tried to make up for it by dedicating most of his monologue to the “growing list” of sexual predators who have been exposed in recent weeks.
But just when you thought he might be coming around on this issue, he blew it at the last minute by essentially blaming the wives of the sexual harassers.
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Maher began by talking about how hot it has been in Los Angeles for October. “It was 104 in Hollywood,” he told his audience. “As if Harvey Weinstein needs another reason to open his robe.”
“Historians will remember. This is the time it all changed in America on this issue,” Maher continued, turning more serious for a brief moment. “This is watershed stuff, what's going on now with sexual harassment. All the rocks are coming over, we are seeing bugs underneath.”
Which brought him to Bill O’Reilly and his recently disclosed $32 million settlement for allegedly sexually harassing a former Fox News colleague. “What the fuck do you have to do to cost $32 million?” Maher asked incredulously. After noting that victims of the Fukushima disaster in Japan only got $1,500 a piece, the host calculated that “seeing Bill O’Reilly’s dick is 21,000 times worse than radiation poisoning!”
“You look at this growing list of people and you see movie mogul Don, director gone, reporter gone, corporate CEO gone,” Maher added, in his only passing reference to the growing allegations against Morning Joe regular Mark Halperin. “President of the United States? He stays. What’s that all about?”
He went on to call new #Resistance member Sen. Jeff Flake “the Rose McGowan of the Republican Party,” referring to the actress and prominent Weinstein accuser. “Except instead of the other Republicans joining him with the #metoo stories, they're continuing to let Trump molest them.”
And unlike Stephen Colbert, Maher had no problem believing the accusations against former President George H.W. Bush. “Yes, kids, I’m talking about the 93-year-old who is apparently addicted to crack—ass crack.”
Maher could barely get through the terrible joke that Bush Sr. would tell women before grabbing their behinds (Punchline: “David Cop-a-Feel’). He even condemned the 41st president’s spokesperson for excusing the behavior as an attempt to “put people at ease.”
“You know it’s bad when W. is going, please dad, stop embarrassing the family,” Maher concluded.
Later, during the panel portion of the show, The View’s Joy Behar, who was promoting her Trump-themed book The Great Gasbag, was less “optimistic” than Maher about our big “watershed” moment. “Most men are the people in power,” she said. “They're the ones who intimidate the women and the ones who say you're not going to get the job unless you look at my penis.”
When Maher asked Behar his question about O'Reilly's settlement, she quipped, “I wouldn’t fuck him for $32 million. I don't know what he did that girl, but he’s not worth $32 million.”
From there, Maher decided to point out that the men accused of sexual abuse always seem to be married. “Because they have shitty sex lives,” he posited.
“That's got nothing to do with it,” Behar said. “Halperin is accused of masturbating under the desk while he’s talking to somebody, what's that got to do with him being married?
“Yeah, let’s not bring the wives into it,” The Daily Beast’s Betsy Woodruff told Maher.
