This past week, we learned that in addition to shipping pipe bombs to the Obamas, the Clintons, Joe Biden, Rep. Maxine Waters, CNN, George Soros, Robert De Niro and a host of others, pro-Trump mail-bombing suspect Cesar Sayoc was also looking to target comedian Bill Maher, whose management firm was evacuated after it received a suspicious package addressed to him (it was thankfully a false alarm).
And on Friday night’s Real Time, the political satirist addressed the controversy as only he could.
“Everybody has to vote,” announced Maher to cheers from his in-studio audience, before joking, “We have an election. Democrats, if you’re voting by mail, make sure there’s enough stamps on your thing, and Republicans, the same goes for your bombs.”
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“We found out this week I was on the list, so… I was nominated!” he added, with a nervous chuckle.
Later on during the panel portion, Maher blamed Trump for overheating his base with nasty rhetoric. “How much can you gin up one section?” asked Maher. “And of course when you gin them up that much, some of them send bombs.”
But Maher felt that the violence that’s been brewing from those on the far right, from the mail-bombing suspect to the Tree of Life synagogue shooter, certainly isn’t helping Trump politically, and that the Republicans may begin to turn on him. [Editor’s Note: This seems highly unlikely.]
“With this violence the last couple of weeks, I don’t think that’s playing well for [Trump],” Maher argued. “I think [Republicans] feel like he’s crazy, we like crazy for a while, but this is too crazy. And anytime it looks too crazy—too violent—I think they’re going to blame him. I think they are. He’s trying to put across this idea that the Democrats are the mob, but for once bland works for Democrats. They are not the mob. Even the regular Joe gets that.”
“You know, he’s been very lucky up until now,” Maher said of Trump later on in the program. “The bomber guy? None of those bombs went off. Our best defense is that they’re so stupid, they don’t know science. The guy was 0-12. The FBI came to his door, the doorbell didn’t work.”
Then Maher, who was visibly frustrated, lost his train of thought, exclaiming, “I don’t know what my fuckin’ question is, I’m so pissed off.”
