Bill Maher Warns Undecided Voters About ‘Mad King’ Trump & Addresses MSG Rally
Bill Maher is making an eleventh-hour plea to undecided voters, warning them that the United States “might get a hell of a lot worse” under Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee he calls “a mad king.”
In Friday’s episode of Real Time With Bill Maher, the HBO host also addressed comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s appearance at a recent Trump rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, during which Hinchcliffe sparked outrage by referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
“What the Trump people did at this rally — it’s so Trump — they hired an insult comic,” Maher said on Friday. “Really, he went up there and did very insulting things. … I’d never heard of him, but this is his act that he does all the time. And he told a really demeaning joke about Puerto Rico. … It didn’t even go over with the Trump crowd. They said, ‘Look, we didn’t come here to hear vicious remarks from an insult comic. We came here to hear it from the candidate.’”
Later in the show, Maher said, “It was insulting. Look, I have to defend my profession. I’m a comic, I’m a free speech [advocate]. … But this guy’s an insult comic. Why he’s at this particular [rally], it’s like bringing cocaine to a funeral.”
Maher also contended that Republicans are “just as big snowflakes” as Democrats. “Because, if I did that joke in reverse and instead of Puerto Rico said Staten Island, they would have had a s**t fit,” he reasoned. “They would have found that completely unacceptable.”
Ahead of Election Day on Tuesday, November 5, Maher admitted he was nervous that the decision lies with “a small cohort of undecided voters, those curious few bisexuals of the political world who everybody loves to mock … the Christmas Eve shoppers of politics.”
To those people, Maher said, “Dear Christmas Eve voter, I say to you, things aren’t that bad, but they might get a hell of a lot worse under the rule of a mad king. Do I love everything about [Democratic presidential candidate] Kamala [Harris]? No. Who told you you get to love everything? Do I wish she came up with a better reason to be president than, ‘I’m not Trump’? Yeah, it would have been very helpful. But let’s not forget, ‘I’m not Trump’ is still a really great reason.”
Real Time With Bill Maher, Fridays, 10/9c, HBO