“Real Time” host Bill Maher fumed over President Biden’s “garbage” comment about Trump supporters, suggesting it could have a big impact on Election Day.
“I think it’s a bigger gaffe than people think,” Maher began his panel discussion Friday night. “It’s so funny, Joe Biden, his whole career, he was like Mr. Gaffe, and then here at the very end — he’s like Aaron Judge in Game Six. He just f–kin’ muffed the fly ball and at the end of the thing, and blew the whole [game].”
“Because I feel like it epitomizes everything that the Trump people hate about the Democrats. They look down at us. It’s like ‘deplorables’ times ten,” Maher said.
“The Fifth Column” podcast co-host Michael Moynihan agreed with Maher, saying it reaffirms the belief that “the elite” hate Trump supporters and swiftly dismissed the media’s debate over “the apostrophe” because it was “clear” what Biden was talking about, stressing it was “not a net-positive for Democrats.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller suggested the “dumb” comment wasn’t so damaging, telling Maher “I don’t know if Trump took advantage of it as much as some people might want to think.”
The HBO host then pivoted to the “garbage” joke told by insult comedian Tony Hinchcliffe that sparked the controversy, which was made at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally when he referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
“Did the Democrats look weak because they can’t take a joke?” Maher asked. “Because I think that’s another Achilles heel that they have.”
“Look, I have to defend my profession,” Maher later said. “I’m a comic. I’m a free speech absolutist. . . . This was offensive. But this guy’s an insult comic. Why he’s at this [event] — it’s like bringing cocaine to a funeral.”
Maher also panned Biden earlier in the show during his opening monologue over his inability to “shut the f— up.”
“In fairness, he was on a video call, and he thought he was just yelling at the TV,” Maher quipped.
