During an appearance on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff told Bill Maher that impeaching Donald Trump may not happen but there is an eventual solution, "vote his ass out of office."
“I’m not there yet on impeachment. I may get there, he may get me there. But here’s the awful dilemma that we face: if we don’t impeach him, that sends a message that this kind of conduct, this obstruction of justice, this kind of willing use of the help of a foreign adversary, all the lies and cover up, that this is non-impeachable.
“At the same time, if we do impeach him and he is acquitted as he would likely be acquitted, then the message is ‘those are not impeachable offenses.’
"At the end of the day Bill, there is only one way to deal with this problem, whether we impeach him or not, and that is to vote his ass out of office.”
Schiff also shared the opinion of his 90-something father, about Trump, that "if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, he's probably a crook."
On HBOs Real Time with Bill Maher this past Friday, Bill wondered how Republicans would react if Barack Obama exhibited the same crude behavior as Donald Trump – with a little help from Obama impersonator Reggie Brown.
Watch as Brown reads actual Trump comments, then imagine how Republicans would have reacted if Obama had said these things.
Brown does a bang-up job as "Obama," by the way...
Last night on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Boris Epshteyn, former Special Assistant to President Trump, joined Bill to discuss President Trump's political future.
I'll say this about Donald Trump-ally Epshteyn: he can at least sit calmly with a civil smile on his face and lie about Donald Trump without being a petulant child like Kellyanne Conway.
A lot of people have a trigger that enables interviewers to knock Trumpets off their talking points. But Boris, to his credit, stays cool here.
He's only repeating talking points, but he does stay cool.
Epshteyn has a new gig at the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group, which he promises with produce content that will be "right down the middle" of the political spectrum.
Right. Just like Fox News.
During the segment, Bill asked Epshteyn how long Trump would be in the White House. “I think he can be president for eight years,” Epshteyn said. “Sorry to disappoint you folks.”
“Why don’t we have a gentlemen’s bet, a 100 rubles?” Maher proposed. “Gentlemen’s bet: He is out by Christmas.”
For every "Bernie or Bust-er" and Jill Stein supporters:
Bill Maher took time this past Friday night during his "New Rules" segment to ask those Liberals who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton how they are feeling now that President Trump has passed his 100th day in the White House.
“This isn’t about reliving the last election or my great love for Clinton, which never was, but this is about winning the next election,” Maher said. “And that begins with learning the difference between an imperfect friend and a deadly enemy.”
After noting how various liberal politicians, activists and commentators had said that either a Trump or Clinton administration would be a disaster, Maher asked whether conservatives would now control the Supreme Court if the “just-as-evil-Hillary” had won.
“Just wait until the 5 to 4 decisions start rolling in, gutting unions, making it harder for minorities to vote, siding with polluters, overturning abortion rights,” he said. “Then maybe you’ll join me in saying to the liberal purists, go fuck yourselves with a locally grown organic cucumber.”
On last night's Real Time on HBO, host Bill Maher brought up Rachel Maddow's much-hyped "reveal" of Donald Trump's 2005 tax returns this week.
Maher reiterated his respect for Maddow saying she needs to be on the air but called the two pages of Trump taxes a "big nothing-burger," and that the exposure probably helped Trump.
He said, “This is probably the best tax return he’s ever filed, which makes me think this came from Donald Trump!”
Former Congressman Barney Frank and journalist Andrew Sullivan chimed in with my favorite exchange of the evening:
Andrew Sullivan: “There was a giant cloud of smug above Rachel Maddow when she was doing that. Liberals have to be careful not to sound so fucking condescending and smug… and start actually engaging the other side and persuading people.”
Barney Frank: "Andrew, I think you might want to teach by example on that last part..."
The highlight of the show, though, was Maher's interview with CNN's Jake Tapper.
As I've noted several times on The Randy Report, Tapper continues to be my favorite journalist on TV these days as his patience with Donald Trump's lies grows ever thin.
The subject of Trump comes up as Maher mentions, "You certainly sound different from the many years I've watched you."
Pointing out that "politicians lie. It wasn't invented on January 20th," Tapper goes straight to the heart of the matter:
"I've never really seen this level of falsehood. Just quantitatively. It’s not just ‘If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor,’ it’s conspiracy theories based on nothing that have members of his own party distancing themselves from him," said Tapper. "And it's combined with an attempt to discredit the entire fourth estate, the entire media, we’re all fake news except for Fox And Friends.”
When Maher points out that Trump supporters may see Tapper's reporting as proving the media is biased against the president, Tapper says, "I don't buy into that paradigm. The truth of the matter is that there’s no bias when it comes to facts and there’s no bias when it comes to decency. It is empirically indecent to make fun of the disabled. You don’t have to be a Democrat or a Republican or Independent or socialist or libertarian. That is just indecent. My children know better than that.”
Every bit as loathsome as you've heard, Breitbart editor and professional child Milo Yiannopoulos made the most of his appearance on last night's HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher.
Although he only did the one-on-one segment near the beginning of the show with Maher, he did join the panel for the online post-show segment.
Yiannopoulos was defending his past remarks about transgender people and Larry Wilmore got heated with him over that, saying similar discriminatory remarks have been made against gay people.
But things got personal when Yiannopoulos told Maher he needs to start “inviting higher IQ guests” on the show. Wilmore told him, “You can go fuck yourself.”
He went off on Yiannopoulos and told him “go fuck yourself” again for trolling Leslie Jones over Ghostbusters.
The surprise of the evening was Maher treating Yiannopolous with such kid gloves.
One example - the exchange in this segment, when the icky Milo says of transgender people:
Yiannopolous: "I think women and girls should be protected from having men who are confused about their sexual identities from their bathrooms.”
Maher: “That’s not unreasonable.”
Women and children are in no danger of transgender folks wanting to use the bathroom. Maher's agreement was a bit chilling.
Milo really is rather infantile, and lashes out just to get a response or attention. It's his own form of self-entertainment.
Earlier in the show, Maher asked him about rumors that he doesn't hire gay people. This was his reply:
“Oh, no! You can’t trust them to show up to work on time. Too much drugs, too much sex, they’re always making excuses,” said Yiannopoulos, inspiring boos from the audience. He then turned to the audience and giggled: “I’m just kidding. You’re easy. You’re very easy. Very easily triggered. It’s pathetic.”
And his body language is oddly telling. He frequently drops his chin and looks through his eye brows when addressing people. According to body language experts, "A lowered head covers the neck with the chin and hence can be a defensive posture that can occur as a result of any perceived threat (not just physical threat). It can also be a sign of defiance or caution, for example when showing respect to an enemy ('You are strong and I do not trust you')."
The interview was wide-ranging, with the pair discussing the election, the popularity of Donald Trump, and issues including Obamacare, immigration reform, the legalization of marijuana and climate change.
Obama, who said the decision who to vote for Tuesday “should be really clear” (read: Hillary Clinton), didn’t mince words about disenfranchised voters. “Anyone who sits on the sidelines or makes a protest vote is a vote for Trump,” Obama said, “and that would be badly damaging to this country, and damaging for the world.”
The president continued, “The stakes are high. The choice in this election should be really clear. Every single issue we’ve made progress on in the last eight years is going to be on the ballot.”
During an appearance this past Friday on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," Andrew Sullivan, who has spent years being hyper-critical of the Clintons announced that he is "passionately in favor" of electing Hillary Clinton president, adding, "it's the only adult thing to do."
Sullivan continued, "This is not a time to express your Libertarianism. This is a time to stop this monster."
In his editorial New Rule, Bill Maher examines Trump's surrogates, and questions whether this cast of characters would be fit to serve in a Presidential administration.
Esquire breaks down the "who" and "why" of the Donald's inner circle.
Why would Trump surround himself with these idiots? Well, as Trump once said, “Always be around unsuccessful people because everybody will respect you.”
It seems that Trump takes his own advice. “That does explain Rudy Giuliani,” Maher joked. It also explains the pastor who, when interviewed by CNN, declared the conversation “off the record” only after the reporter questioned him about his bogus claims that he graduated college.
And then there’s Marco “taco truck on every corner” Gutierrez. Or Katrina “Obama started the war with Afghanistan” Pierson. And let’s not forget Trump’s lawyer, Michael “Says who?” Cohen.
Maher welcomed Conway by telling her she is “enabling pure evil,” and spent part of the segment calling out false things Trump has said. The comedian joked, “I don’t have time to go through all of his lies, we only have an hour.”
But Conway, a “Real Time” veteran, had plenty of counterarguments ready. She accused Maher of cherrypicking examples, and, after pointing out that Hillary Clinton is falling in the polls, said, “I actually think we’re going to win, Bill. You know it. You feel it. I think you’re getting nervous.”
“Oh, I am getting nervous,” Maher quipped, “but it’s not because Trump is good. It’s because people are stupid.”
In his editorial New Rule, Bill Maher makes the case that, if Republicans are going to call states the "laboratories of democracy," they first have to stop replicating failed economic experiments.
Maher gleefully points out that California, under a Democratic governor and state legislature, has raised taxes on the wealthy and reversed the state's financial fortunes. The Golden State is now the 6th largest economy in the world.
Meanwhile, Kansas and Louisiana, doing their version of "trickle-down" economics hoping the wealthy would take tax cuts and energize those state's economies, are on the financial skids.
Bill Maher and his panel on HBO's Real Time took a look at GOP White House hopeful Donald Trump's drop in the polls this week and what the causes were: attacks on Trump University judge, and selfish "I was right" messages coming after the deadly Orlando nightclub shooting.
Said Maher:
“I see it as, this was the week it ended. And by the way I don’t think I’m the only one, because most of the Republicans who were caught on camera this week basically said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ I mean they dashed into the elevator. … The judge thing looked selfish. There is no constituency for Trump University except Donald Trump…And then the first thing out of his mouth after Orlando was, ‘I was right. I was right about terrorism.’ He looks like what he is — a narcissist.”
Bill Maher and panelists discuss Bernie Sanders' accomplishments, and Hillary Clinton's decisive victory in the primary campaign in this clip from June 10, 2016.
Maher celebrated Sanders' campaign, but reminded that Clinton did win “fair and square.”
“It can’t be the case … where it’s fair when you win and rigged when you lose,” he added. “It’s often seen that when someone has big crowds, that that means something … [but] it’s who shows up in the voting booth.”
Last night on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, author/radio host Dan Savage spoke truth to the current spate of anti-transgender laws popping up in state legislatures now - much to Ann Coulter's chagrin.
This is how Savage put a point on it:
“They couldn’t demagogue anymore about gays and lesbians because too many of us are out and too many people know us so they took the same old script – oh they’re recruiting children, preying on children, threatening children, creeping in bathrooms. That was what they said about gay men 40 years ago.
"And they’re just taking that now and applying that to trans women and it’s bullsh*t and trans women and men use bathrooms all over the country and have for-ever. And they have no cases to point to where a trans person has exploited a civil rights protection to prey on a child.”
So glad to finally see someone lay that fact out there. Go Dan!
Bill Maher gets it all SO right as he recaps the wild, rambling endorsement by former half-term governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, of GOP White House hopeful Donald Trump.
Bill Maher and his guests - Cornel West, Nicolle Wallace and Ralph Reed - discuss Ted Cruz's comments about "New York values" during the GOP Debate in this clip from January 15, 2016.
“The Republicans who constantly lambaste Obama about dividing America, and then creates smaller and smaller circles about what really is America, “the HBO host said. “Chicago? No that’s thug city. And Hawaii — part of Kenya. And LA is full of q*eers. You know, tell me what New York values are because I don’t know.”
“I was wondering how long after 9/11 before politicians could goad shitkickers into hating New York again,” Maher stated. “And I guess that’s the answer, 15 years, and now you can shit on New York again. Because you certainly couldn’t have said that two years after 9/11.”
Lecturer and activist Cornel West added, “I will admit that Brother Trump, he did tell the truth in terms of there are beautiful people in New York City — so anybody can stumble onto the truth, you know what I mean?”
Bill Maher and panelists Salman Rushdie, Linda Chavez and Michael Moynihan dicuss the controversy surrounding Kentucky clerk Kim Davis and her refusal to issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples.
At one point Chavez tries to explain some Christians are upset because until 10 years ago marriage was always between two people of the opposite sex in the Bible. Maher corrects her saying not so, that in the Bible marriage was polygamy for centuries. Chavez counters with "Ok, but always, always between people of the opposite sex."
That fell flat.
Best line was by Rushdie (who was famously targeted by Muslims for his novel The Satanic Verses to the point of death threats):
“One of the things that is a classic trope of the religious bigot is that while they are denying people their rights, they claim that their rights are being denied. While they are persecuting people, they claim to be persecuted. While they are behaving colossally offensively, they claim to be the offended party. It’s an upside-down world. Everybody does this. Everybody does this. So, this is just a trope that they are stealing from other bigots."
In his editorial New Rule, Bill Maher addresses Indiana’s new “religious freedom” law and calls on moderates of all religions to come out against fundamentalism.
Clip description: Bob Costas joined Bill Maher tonight to talk politics, guns, and the politically correct “bullshit” that both of them are getting tired of.
Maher brought up Costas’ infamous Sunday Night Football commentary about American gun culture, which Costas completely stood by. He told Maher that of course there are limits on what kind of weapons civilians should get access to, like “cop-killer armor-piercing bullets” or bazookas or tanks.
Maher then asked Costas if he thinks politically correct culture is “kind of out of hand,” citing President Obama‘s reluctance to say “Islamic extremism.” Costas said, “You need people on the left to call this bullshit out.”
Costas also said conservatives need to be calling out right-wing bullshit too, and lamented the selective nature of cable news where people just stick to their partisan corners. He asked, “Why can’t people with common sense hold two truths in their head at the same time?”
