Tag: Bill Maher

Progressive talk-show host Bill Maher and conservative Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro sparred Friday on Maher's HBO show over which side of the political spectrum is more responsible for what they called rising levels of incivility in politics. On "Real Time with Bill Maher," Shapiro sat down for an interview with the liberal host and argued that incivility "pre-existed Donald Trump." “It came from the vice president when he was saying that Mitt Romney, the cleanest person ever, OK, was the guy who was gonna ‘put y’all back in chains.’ To pretend incivility started with Donald Trump—" The comment Shapiro referred to happened during the 2012 presidential campaign. “I’m not talking about incivility,” Maher interrupted. “I’m talking about the level of which it’s at.” Shapiro later pointed to protests from liberal students at University of California, Berkeley, over his plans to speak there that forced a massive police response, saying, “I needed 600 officers to protect me at Berkeley." Shapiro made a controversial speech at Berkeley in September of last year, at the time slamming protesters as "pathetic, lying, stupid jackasses" for claiming to protest "fascism" in his speech. “Well if you’re talking about the civility thing, why don’t we start with the Republicans stop saying ‘Lock Her Up’?” Maher asked Shapiro, referring to the chant against former opponent Hillary Clinton that regularly breaks out at Trump rallies. “Shouldn’t the civility argument start there before we care about who gets their entrée?” Maher continued to argue that one party's "incivility" was more powerful than the other's, saying, "you can’t walk into a room and see an elephant and a mouse and not know which one is bigger." “But it’s not an elephant and a mouse, it’s two elephants,” Shapiro responded. Debates over civility raged in recent days over the treatment of members of the Trump administration in public, particularly when they dine at restaurants, after White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was removed from a Virginia restaurant by the eatery's owner.

HBO host Bill Maher warned Saturday that President Trump is just a "costume away from a full-on dictator." "Trump Is really a costume away from a full-on dictator. #MilitaryParade #TanksInTheStreets," Maher tweeted. "Donald Trump told the Pentagon that he wants a military parade," Maher said in the clip. "Oh it's going to be spectacular. Tanks and missiles and fighter jets, all presided over by a loose canon." Maher said this is "scary stuff." During his show, Maher also talked with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) about the proposed military parade. "You should not get used to the look of tanks in the streets. We don't have that look in America and when I've seen that look anywhere else in the world, it's never been good," Maher said.

Cupp accuses Maher of ‘emboldening irresponsible blowhards like Rush Limbaugh’. Conservative commentator S.E. Cupp warned Bill Maher to not use the term climate change "denier," saying it could embolden figures like talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who earlier this week called Hurricane Irma a climate change ploy. "I feel like the word 'denier' is a bit loaded. I think you have to be allowed to ask questions, the basis of scientific inquiry, asking questions about stuff," Cupp, a host on HLN, said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" on Friday. “And so to say that ‘I don’t know if hurricanes are caused by climate change’- every scientist I read this week said they don’t cause them but they’re probably making them more intense. I think it’s OK to say that," she continued. I think that it a question that is unanswered by scientists. "I don't live my life by what I might make Rush Limbaugh get mad at," Maher responded. Over five million people have been evacuated from Florida in preparation for the storm.