All posts tagged "bill maher"

Bill Maher has previously criticized the hush money cover-up case against Donald Trump, but he said on Friday night that he now believes Trump could lose at trial.

Maher, who recently interviewed conservative pundit Piers Morgan about Trump, told former CNN host Don Lemon that he has "always been against" the criminal case accusing Trump of hiding payments to an adult film star for the purposes of affecting the 2016 election.

"Because I thought, of all the ones you are bringing, this is going the least serious," Maher said, adding that he went as far as to write editorials about it. "Now I think Trump could lose. I'm turning on this one, because it's not what I thought it was gonna be."

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Lemon responded that this one "could take him down," and noted that the ex-president "looks small."

"He looks diminished," Lemon said of Trump at trial.

Maher went on to note that witness David Pecker, the head of the tabloid accused of orchestrating "catch-and-kill" schemes for the then-candidate is "not covering up anything," and is confirming Trump did it for the election and not his family.

"This is the key thing, and it's so clear, I think even a jury of Americans could get this," Maher tells Lemon.

Lemon then points out that Pecker still sees Trump as a mentor and as a friend.

"Now for you to testify against a mentor and a friend, it's gotta be true," Lemon says.

Maher adds that, if that's what happens, it will have huge consequences politically.

"If this goes that way and Trump loses, it's going to change the whole election," he said. "A significant number of independents and Republicans say their vote will change if he's a convicted criminal, and he'll look like a loser, not that he doesn't already."

He then added:

"And Alvin Bragg is gonna be the rising star of the Democratic party, because everyone said not a good idea, including me," Maher said.

Commentator Batya Ungar-Sargon, a Newsweek opinion editor who can often be seen defending Donald Trump, got some pushback from HBO host and comedian Bill Maher on Friday night.

Ungar-Sargon appeared alongside former Democratic lawmaker Tim Ryan, who has previously been described as a "working-class-jobs candidate," on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. Ryan argued that the Supreme Court wasn't going to stop Donald Trump, and that voters must defeat him at the polls.

For Ungar-Sargon's part, she claimed that many Americans support Trump because of what she sees as unprecedented "lawfare" against the ex-president.

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"You're not going to like this," Ungar-Sargon said to Maher, saying there are "two ways" to see Trump's 91 indictments. She said people either look at them and see someone who has certainly done something wrong, or they see an individual who is clearly being targeted by the government's prosecutors.

"With every additional indictment, people move from the first group into the second group," the editor added.

When Maher brought up Trump "trying to steal the American people's right to vote," Ungar-Sargon suggested Maher should be concerned by the "exploding, ever-growing lawfare effort."

"Not if the guy is guilty!" Maher shouted. "Of course not." He then asked her who won the 2020 election.

"Obviously Joe Biden," she said.

He replied, "It's not obvious to Trump."

"That's not a crime," she said, causing Maher to hit back harder.

"It kinda is when you're president... it's a crime to put up false electors. It's a crime to call up a guy and say I need to find 11,000 votes. That's a crime!" the host added.

When she said that's "maybe a crime," and suggested Trump is "innocent until proven guilty," Maher said, "That's why I want the goddamned trial!"

You can see Maher further schooling Ungar-Sargon about the differences between Joe Biden's first term and Donald Trump one term below or at the link: