'Get elected and then just not leave': Bill Maher on how Donald Trump and GOP will 'pull off this coup'

Right-wing media outlets are often quick to report on “Real Time” host Bill Maher’s scathing criticisms of “political correctness” and the “woke” movement, but they typically overlook the fact that Maher spends a lot more time bashing far-right MAGA Republicans — who he views as not only terrible from a policy standpoint, but a dire threat to U.S. democracy itself. And when Maher made a Tuesday, November 1 appearance on MSNBC’s “The Beat,” he predicted that in 2024, former President Donald Trump will be able to “pull off a coup” with the help of his allies at the state level.

Maher told MSNBC’s Ari Melber, “The party out of power almost always wins the midterm election anyway, right? Because it’s the midterms. You’ve gotta throw the rascals out. So, everyone’s sort of acting like this is a normal time, but it’s not. Once they win, the die is cast.”

The “Real Time” host added that countless Republican “election deniers” are “on the ballot” in the 2022 midterms, and he described them as extremists who “basically don’t believe in democracy.”

“They don’t believe that the person with the most votes wins unless he’s on our side,” Maher told Melber. “OK, so this is what Trump has been doing behind the scenes: wanting to put these people in place, because let me tell you something, Ari. On January 20 — my birthday — 2025, he’s going to show up at the inauguration whether he’s on the list or not. He’s going to show up. But this time, he’s going to have this army of election deniers that he has put in place.”

Maher continued, “I mean, people don’t slide into authoritarianism necessarily with tanks in the street. Hitler was elected. Putin was elected. Erdogan in Turkey was elected. Viktor Orbán…. You can get elected, and then just not leave. And that is what I think is going to happen.”

Maher went on to say that Democrats aren’t doing enough to counter the authoritarian threat the U.S. is facing from Trump’s allies and the MAGA movement.

“People haven’t gotten it, I don’t think,” Maher told Melber. “This ship of state has hit the iceberg. But we’re still, like, acting like it’s normal like they did on the Titanic. ‘Oh, what was that?’ And they went back to drinking champagne. But really, the ship was going to go down.”

Maher added, “If the Republicans who win this election, which I’m sure they will — I think they will —again…. What we’re going to see in the next two years is just hearing after hearing about whatever. Hunter Biden. And they’re going to impeach (President Joe) Biden.”

Maher predicted that Trump will win the 2024 presidential nomination but won’t concede if he loses to a Democrat.

“Again, Trump is not going to accept no for an answer,” Maher continued. “And he’s going to have the people in place this time who will allow him to pull off this coup…. Nobody has realized that we are already in a completely different paradigm, and this has happened in many other countries — and it seems to be happening now. This is the it-can’t-happen-to-us moment, but it’s happening to us.”