Bill Maher has compared Donald Trump to Mussolini, branded him a “rapist,” and called him “the voice of treason.” The smug, quick-witted political satirist was once even sued by the real estate mogul for $5 million after comparing his father to an orangutan. And yet, on Friday night’s edition of Real Time with Bill Maher, his first show since the former reality star became the president-elect, Maher was singing a very different tune.
Yes, the comedian hit the to-be-expected marks—extolling the legalization of marijuana, comparing Trump’s election to a regrettable “night after hard drinking” where you wake up next to a gross stranger, mocking how Team Trump is considering Sarah Palin for Secretary of the Interior, and acknowledging that by the time the final tally comes in, Hillary may receive as many as 2 million more votes than Trump. Maher even, during a sit-down interview with former Attorney General Eric Holder, argued that the Electoral College should be abolished and that the election was “rigged” in Trump’s favor thanks to the GOP gutting the Voting Rights Act and fighting for strict voter ID laws that disproportionately affect poor minorities who tend to vote blue.
But then, in the panel portion of the show, Maher did the unthinkable: sang The Donald’s praises.
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“He won. He ran a vicious, vulgar campaign and I gave it back exactly in measure—I was also vicious and vulgar—but he won. And he did it his way. Nobody gets to sing that song more than Donald Trump. Everybody told him he couldn’t do this, he couldn’t do that—and he won. He did the hardest thing in the entire world to do: win the election as the leader of the free world,” Maher confessed.
If that weren’t enough, Maher then seemed to hint at his desire to have Trump come on Real Time (because ratings): “And it took me eight years to get Obama on—maybe he’ll come on,” said a defeated Maher.
Then, more Trump adulation: “I was watching 60 Minutes and one of his fellow reality show contestants—I mean hosts—Kim Kardashian was on, and they asked her the typical question, you know, about: Well, you don’t really have any talent… but you seem to be worth, like, $300 million. And she said, Well, I guess that takes some sort of talent. I would say the same about Donald Trump: it takes some sort of talent. Maybe we should recognize that because we lost.”
Later on, Maher went after the people around the country who have taken to the streets to protest the election of Trump.
“What do you think about the people now who are out there saying, Not my president? Because I scolded the other side when they did that when Obama took over, and that’s not my motto,” said Maher. “You know what? The time to rectify that was Tuesday. Either leave the country, or if you’re an American, [realize] we only get one president.”
