Bill Maher says US President Trump did something much Worse than People Realize
Bill Maher didn’t hold back when he weighed in on President Donald Trump’s latest social media mess, calling out the former reality star-turned-POTUS for sharing a potentially racist AI-generated video that showed former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama depicted as apes.
The moment happened during an episode of Real Time With Bill Maher, where the 70-year-old host addressed the backlash after Trump, 79, briefly posted the offensive clip on Truth Social before deleting it.
Maher immediately pointed out how awful the timing was, noting that the post landed during Black History Month. He joked that the Trump administration seemed to be honoring the occasion by calling for “a moment of indifference.”
But Maher quickly made it clear he thought the situation was much darker than that.
“No, they did something much worse,” Maher continued. “Trump did a Rosanne [Barr]. Did you see this? And shared a video of Black people superimposed as apes, and the people were the Obamas. I’m not going to show it because I don’t want to give it any oxygen.”
Maher then took aim at the administration’s response once criticism started pouring in.
“But the defense, I thought, from the administration, was rather lame,” he said. “They said he did not mean to hit ‘share.’ He meant to hit ‘like.’”
From there, Maher turned his attention to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, calling her a “very loyal spokesperson” before breaking down her explanation of what supposedly happened.
“She said the president was just reposting a meme of him as the king of the jungle with Democrats as characters from The Lion King,” Maher said. “As world leaders do.”
Still, Maher clearly wasn’t buying it and said the excuse fell apart almost instantly. He pointed out what he saw as two obvious issues with that defense.
“One, there are no apes in The Lion King,” he said. “And two, if it’s a cartoon character, that’s OK? That’s a rule now? If it’s a cartoon, it’s OK to do anything? So it’s OK if somebody made a cartoon of Elmer Fudd shooting Charlie Kirk, that would be OK? You f***ing hypocrites.”
Maher later shifted to election concerns during a sit-down interview with former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, which you can watch above. The two went back and forth over Trump’s continued grip on the Republican Party, along with what Christie warned is a growing effort among some Republicans to take over how elections are run. That includes who counts the votes, something Christie suggested could become a serious issue, though Maher didn’t seem convinced it was all “no big deal.”