Bill Maher seemed to shock Jimmy Kimmel on Monday night when he said during their interview that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg should have stepped down from the Supreme Court during President Obama’s second term so that President Trump never would have had the chance to pick her replacement.
Kimmel was trying to pay his guest a compliment by noting how well he handled the moment when he had to deliver the news of RBG’s passing to both his audience and Jane Fonda live on Real Time last month.
“Not like her death was a shock,” Maher said. When Kimmel pushed back, he added, “She was 100 and had cancer a million times. She was a great justice but should have quit.”
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“The Democratic plan for the Supreme Court was Ruth Bader Ginsburg doesn’t die,” he added. “And that’s why they’re such a loser party. I vote for them but they don’t know how to do politics.” Explaining that Obama had Ginsburg to the Oval Office to “hint” that she should retire, Maher said, “She should have taken the hint. I mean, as great as she was in many ways, that really put us in a bad place because as I keep trying to say on my show, power begets power.”
“When you lose power, you keep losing it,” Maher continued. “That’s where we are now. We lose presidential elections, they appoint justices, now the Supreme Court is 6-to-3, that’s going to go on for a very long time. If the election winds up in the court, who do you think they’re going to go with? We saw what happened with Bush v. Gore. That’s what I mean. You lose power and then you lose it again.”
Later in the interview, after telling Kimmel that he’s not that scared of COVID-19 because Trump, Chris Christie, and Harvey Weinstein all survived it—and ignoring the fact they all likely had better health care than the average obese American—Maher returned to his fears about the 2020 election.
While he’s confident Joe Biden will win both the popular vote and the Electoral College, Maher said, “It’s impossible to imagine Trump losing and then saying, ‘Well, we fought the good fight but the best man won.’”
“He doesn’t do losing,” Maher said. “Other than three marriages, three casinos, four magazines, an airline, a football league, a charity, steaks, vodka, and a university, he’s never lost anything. So he’s not going to go gently into the night. That’s what I worry about.”
When Maher was finished predicting the worst-case scenario, Kimmel ended the interview by saying, “Good luck to everyone sleeping tonight.” He added, “Bill, you paint a very rosy picture for us. I’m scared now because you’re right almost all the time.”
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