Bill Maher Does Complete 180 on How He’ll Tackle Trump 2.0
One of the nation’s most recognizable satirists says he’s taking a laid-back “wait and see” approach to Donald Trump’s upcoming second term.
Speaking with CNN’s The Lead, Bill Maher told host Jake Tapper that he’d rather avoid letting the Republican president-elect get under his skin ahead of time, and instead simply take things as they come once Trump’s inaugurated a little later this month.
As Maher put it on Friday night, “I’m not going to chase every rabbit down the hole like I did the first term. That’s what I mean by, ‘he’s not gonna get in my mind’.”
He went on, “He’s a kooky guy who says a lot of kooky things, and I’m just not gonna pre-hate anything, I’m just going to hope for the best. And when something serious happens I’ll comment on that.”
“It’s perfect, perfect for comedy,” Maher added. “But I’m not going to take it seriously.”
Tapper, who says he’s currently writing a book on the recent election, then asked Maher about some of his previous criticism of Joe Biden having been way too old to hold office, let alone run again for president.”
The CNN host asked, “You had a great line about, ‘Does it matter if [Biden’s] a national treasure and has done great things? If you got on an airplane and you heard that Buzz Aldrin was the pilot, you’d get off.’”
Maher responded, “I felt I had standing to make that case because I had for so many years been the only person I know on television who was consistently railing against ageism. I’ve been saying for years, ageism is the last allowable prejudice we can have in this country, you can always do age jokes, you can always rail on people for being too old.”
He nevertheless added that such criticism should generally be taken on a case-by-case basis.
“Some people at 70 act like they‘re 100 years old, and some people are like 40-year-olds. But this was a case where Biden was too old,” Maher said. “[He’ll be] seen in history as one who stayed on, stayed at the fair too long and cost his party dearly. And he did. And, you know, I don‘t think history is going to treat Joe Biden kindly for doing that.”
Asked about Trump’s criticism of his comedy in the past, Maher added he didn’t expect the incoming president to “start arresting comedians,” but that in any case he wasn’t planning “to let it affect what I do.”
“It’s never entered my mind that I couldn’t say whatever I wanted to say without repercussions. That‘s one of the great things about living in America. We take America for granted in that kind of stuff, and maybe we can‘t anymore,” he said. “[But] the day I feel like I can‘t say what I want without going to Guantanamo Bay, I‘ll just leave.”
