Bill Maher is a gigantic phony, but he just may be trying to do his country a service. As more and more Americans become alarmed that the unhinged hysteria of the left is dragging the country into a ‘bleeding Kansas’ pre-civil war state, some in the left establishment appear to be trying to pull the country back from the abyss.
New York mayor Eric Adams was one of the first to warn that the country was becoming dangerously polarised and that the Orange Man isn’t as bad as less scrupulous demagogues on the left want their deranged followers to believe. Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, brother of former NY governor Andrew Cuomo, is also sounding a more conciliatory line, warning that Democrats’ behaviour at Trump’s recent joint address of Congress made Trump look ‘classy by comparison’.
More recently, Cuomo and Maher spoke together on a podcast, where Maher had some rare praise for Trump’s political skills.
“Trump really … is one of the most effective politicians … whatever you think of the policy and him as a person,” Maher said during a conversation with NewsNation personality Chris Cuomo.
“Just as a politician, just understanding that [you should] always lean in to being more who you are,” Maher said of the president, who is serving his second term in the White House.
Maher said, “The people are not savvy about issues but they smell a phony a mile away and that kind of s–t, nobody else does it.”
As Maher said, Democrats have no one to match Trump’s political instincts. ‘They’ve been searching for years and they’re still coming up empty.’
Maher pointed to the time when Trump threatened a Taliban leader after former President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
“When he did that thing where the guy came in from the Taliban and he said, ‘This is an aerial picture of your house. If during our withdrawal one American is hurt, just know I know where you live,’” Maher said.
“I was like, ‘Oh, can we just play the music now? Because I don’t care it’s Donald Trump and he’s the worst person ever, blah, blah, blah – I f–king love that!‘” he said.
More importantly, Maher recently took up an invitation from country singer Kid Rock and joined the president for a private White House dinner. Footage from the dinner will be released soon.
Last week, longtime foes Maher and Trump came together for a symbolic “breaking of the bread” as a way to “unite the country,” according to Kid Rock, who organized the dinner.
Though Maher has yet to speak out on the dinner – he has teased that all will be revealed on the April 11 episode of his Real Time talk show – Kid Rock hasn’t wasted any time in claiming that it “could not have been better.”
“Everyone was so surprised,” the “All Summer Long” singer said during an appearance on Fox & Friends.
“The president was so gracious. He took us up to the private residence and we saw the Gettysburg Address and the Lincoln bedroom, and I was like, ‘You’ve never been here, Bill?’” Kid Rock recalled.
“We talked about things we had in common. [Complaining about] wokeness, securing the border. The president was asking him what he thought about policy going on with Iran and Israel and things.”
No doubt Maher will be pilloried by most of the left establishment, but if he can get just a few of his near-million viewers to listen, perhaps the temperature in the US will cool a few degrees.
Well, here’s hoping, anyway.
