Bill Maher “may quit,” his HBO show Real Time, he told Jane Fonda on the latest episode of his Club Random podcast, because he’s “sh--ting his pants” over having to talk about “very hostile” Donald Trump.
“I did all the Trump stuff before anybody,” Maher said, “I called him a con man before anybody I did. He’s a mafia boss. I was the one who said he wasn’t going to concede the election. I’ve done it. I’ve seen this f---ing [thing play out.]”
Fonda inquired why Maher would feel the need to stop his show, since it seems Trump has it out more for the likes of Jimmy Kimmel than the more centrist host. But Maher disagreed, “He’s very hostile to me. Tweets about me every week. Every week he accidentally watches my show,” Maher continued, “And then [calls me a] ‘low ratings loser.’”
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Trump has slammed Maher several times over the years, like when he called him a “wacko” on Twitter in 2019 and made the comment that he’d only seen the show “on accident” before slamming Maher and then-guest Stephanie Ruhle.
This past September, the president-elect called the host a “befuddled mess, sloppy and tired,” and said Maher suffered from “Trump Derangement Syndrome” in a Truth Social post.
Maher said on Club Random that he was “bored” with talking about Trump, so Fonda suggested he “find a new thing to do.” Maher dismissed that as a possibility.
“The show is the politics. There’s no other thing [to talk about], and he’s going to dominate the news like he always does,” he complained.
It wasn’t the first time that Maher was dismissive of Fonda’s comments during the at-times tense conversation. When Fonda pushed back on Maher’s suggestion that the Democrats lost the election by asserting that “a trans woman can get pregnant,” the host went on the attack.
“I’ve never heard about men getting pregnant,” Fonda said. “I’ve never heard about this argument. It’s it must be some part of what you call the far left that is so minuscule.”
Maher accused the icon of being insular: “No, Jane,” he said, “It’s not minuscule. And I’m sorry you can’t throw this back on us. I assume it’s because you are locked into media that just never, never wants anyone in their audience to know anything sketchy about the blue team.”
Fonda defended herself by replying, “Well, I read two papers.”