Comedian Bill Maher criticized the Left during a recent interview and said liberals’ woke ideas have helped former President Trump’s popularity.
Journalist Tina Brown asked Maher on Sunday about the former president's supporters, who she compared to a cult, and Trump's overall popularity even after the Jan. 6 riot.
"I mean part of it, the Left has to own. They are aggressively anti-common sense. The Democrats keep running on this one idea, saying to the American people, ‘You can’t possibly think you can do worse than Donald Trump.’ And they keep saying, ‘Yes, we can. Yes, we can,’" Maher said during an interview at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
The HBO host said his friends complained to him about their "uber woke" kids who are in their 20s, adding, "they’re driving their parents crazy."
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"‘You don’t get it, mom. That’s old thinking.’ And I’m like, ‘Don’t get what? Abolish the police, tear down statues of Lincoln, maybe give communism another shot, get rid of the Border Patrol, get rid of capitalism, white supremacy has never been worse, gender is always just a social construct. It’s OK to have penises in the women’s swimming pool, in women’s prisons.' No, it’s not that I’m old, it’s that your ideas are stupid," Maher said.
Maher, an outspoken critic of the former president, said conservatives tell him, "what you don’t get about Trump is we don’t like him either."
"They just hate the other stuff more," Brown added.
"I don’t blame them, because a lot of it is closer to their own home. Like the things you hate about Trump, democracy, I understand why that’s the biggest issue. But a lot of people, it’s kind of vague. Ukraine is very far away. But you know, the stuff about family and race and gender, it’s very close to their own home," Maher said.
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Maher said Thursday's CNN Presidential Debate was going to be "less interesting than we think."
"First of all, Biden, we're just looking for proof of life," he said. "He is benefiting from low expectations."
Maher also expressed optimism for Biden and said he can "do the job," he just can't "run for the job."
"And Trump is going to be Trump, and I think we're going to come away and nobody's mind is going to change," he said.
Maher suggested in May that Biden only pushed to debate Trump because he's "losing."
"Well, I think the guy who has more to prove is Biden," Maher said. "Trump is a known commodity. They know he's gonna be an a------. He's going to be lurking and growling and not obeying the rules and everything else. But Biden, they want to see proof of life."
