Bill Maher, in his first appearance since the stunning electoral victory of the man he’s long derided as a racist, tax cheat, whiny little bitch and orange-faced son of an orangutan, invited that very man to appear as his guest on HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher. “It took me eight years to get Obama,” said a not-very-convinced (or convincing) Maher. “Maybe he’ll come on.”
Comparing Trump to Kim Kardashian, Maher told his guests tonight that the GOP candidate’s victory “takes some sort of talent, and maybe we should recognize that. Because we lost.”
Maher opened tonight’s Real Time to a standing ovation. “Well,” said the seemingly resigned host during the season finale’s opening moments, “we tried.”
In his top of the show chat with former attorney general Eric Holder, Maher raised the possibility of a President Donald Trump suing women who accused him of groping and going after Hillary Clinton in court.
“This is so uncharted waters,” Maher said. “I feel like we’re at that place in the movie Sully where the birds flew into the engine but the plane was still flying. Brace for impact, ladies and gentleman.”
Tonight’s episode is the last until the series returns January 20, 2017 – Maher’s 61st birthday and Trump’s inauguration day. In a first for the show, tonight’s episode was livestreamed at YouTube.com/RealTime, and comes one week after Maher interviewed outgoing President Barack Obama and warned, “There is a slow moving right-wing coup moving in on us.”
Maher handed out blue “We’re Still Here” baseball caps to his guests – a riposte to Trump’s red “Make America Great Again” hats – a sentiment singer John Legend didn’t seem quite ready for buying. “The fact that so many Americans voted for that guy who’s selling them a load of bullsh*t and racism, we’ll never get past that.”
As the episode wound down, Maher offered advice to beleaguered Democrats (don’t trust polls, don’t be nice, “never tell Americans ‘you can’t be that stupid’ because Americans will say ‘don’t tell me how stupid I can be’”).
He ended the show with his traditional New Rules segment, this time around comparing America’s red state-blue state divide to the classic TV sitcom trope of separating a living room with a white line, a device utilized on seemingly every series from I Love Lucy to The Brady Bunch and The Odd Couple.
“Roommates can move out,” Maher said in signing off. “Patriots can’t. America needs you more than ever, right here with me and the rest of the Resistance, until we can figure out how to really make America great again. And don’t ever let them forget we’re still here.”
