Friday’s edition of Real Time With Bill Maher contained the usual amount of anti-Trump venom one would expect from the HBO program. Maher suggested that the President has dementia while guest Chelsea Handler talked about how President Trump caused her to have a “midlife identity crisis” and fantasized about a sexual relationship with Special Counsel Robert Mueller; echoing a comment she had previously made on Twitter.
For starters, author Salman Rushdie compared America under President Trump to a third-world dictatorship: “I’ve spent a certain amount of my life in third-world countries…which have had military dictatorships and very corrupt civilian dictatorships...It’s very depressing to see this country behaving like that.”
Maher abruptly changed the topic, proceeding to peddle a conspiracy theory about President Trump suffering from dementia: “This week was quite a week for the dementia watch. I mean, the President could not pronounce the word origins. He could not name where his father was born. He thought his father was born in Germany. He said windmills cause cancer.” Although he did not explicitly mention it, Maher’s dementia comments certainly imply that the President should face removal from office under the 25th Amendment.
As if that was not enough anti-Trump commentary, Maher brought on comedian Chelsea Handler; who talked about how “I had a midlife identity crisis once Trump won the election because I had never had my world feel so…feel so unhinged I think. And I had to pay a psychiatrist to listen to me bitch about Donald Trump for about the first three weeks.” Perhaps she would not have needed a psychiatrist if she had followed through on her threat to move to Canada if Trump won the election.
Handler then compared the election of President Trump to the death of her brother when she was nine years old; mentioning that she felt a “huge emotional trigger of everything being destabilized” in both cases. She closed her anti-Trump rant by talking about how she “just wanted to f***ing fight people” and reiterated her need to see a psychiatrist because of her Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Handler’s Trump Derangement Syndrome continued to show in “Overtime.” When Maher asked her “after the last couple of weeks we’ve had, are you still attracted to Robert Mueller?” She responded in the affirmative: “I am sexually attracted to Robert Mueller. It’s out there. I feel this way. I love him.” She indicated that her love for the married Mueller comes with a catch: “I am waiting for the full report to decide whether I want to pursue a sexual relationship.”
Even though Maher told her “you should definitely wait for the full report,” that will not make a difference when it comes to successfully achieving her goal of living happily ever after with the Special Counsel. Just like Handler and other liberals have had a hard time coming to terms with the reality of a Trump presidency, Handler will have to accept the fact that a relationship between her and Mueller will never, ever happen.
A transcript of the relevant portion of Friday’s edition of Real Time is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Real Time With Bill Maher
04/05/19
10:32 PM
SALMAN RUSHDIE: I’ve spent a certain amount of my life in third world countries and…which have had military dictatorships and very corrupt civilian dictatorships. Let me not name them. Pakistan.
(LAUGHTER)
RUSHDIE: And it’s very, it’s very depressing…come closer. It’s, it’s very depressing to see this country behaving…
MAHER: Yeah.
RUSHDIE: …like that.
(APPLAUSE)
MAHER: And another thing that happens with dictators, I mean, this week was quite a week for the dementia watch. I mean, the President could not pronounce the word origins. He could not name where his father was born. He thought his father was born in Germany. He said windmills cause cancer. And then…but I thought the craziest thing he’s done in the last month was this ongoing feud with John McCain. Show a little bit of the…what’s going on with Trump and McCain.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I was never a fan of John McCain and I never will be.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’m not a fan. He was horrible what he did with “repeal and replace.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’ve never liked him much. Hasn’t been for me. Probably never will.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
MAHER: It’s gotten so bad that Trump and his people have now made an attack ad. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: He’s at it again. Politician John McCain says he’s given a lifetime of service to his country, but what has McCain done for us lately? Donald Trump works with his fellow Americans while John McCain refuses to budge. McCain voted against repealing Obamacare. And when Trump blasted him for it, McCain’s response? Silence. McCain says he’s for truth, but it’s been written in stone that he lies. Tell John McCain not to turn into one of those ghosts that comes out of the TV. Paid for by the committee who don’t understand what “dead” means.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MAHER: All right. She’s a comedian, activist, and best-selling author of the new book, Life Will Be the Death of Me…and you too! Our favorite, oh, she is on a sit down comedy tour starts April 11 in Boston at the Orpheum, Chelsea Handler is back with us.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
MAHER: Hello.
CHELSEA HANDLER: Oh, hi.
MAHER: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, we don’t touch anymore.
HANDLER: Oh, we don’t touch anymore. I’m sorry.
MAHER: No, no, what…do you think I’m going to Biden you? Jesus Christ. What are you? Insane.
HANDLER: Sorry, I didn’t…
MAHER: We’ll get to that later.
HANDER: …I didn’t know the new rules around here.
MAHER: That’s right. New rules, we’ll get to that too. But I, you know, I’m reading your book and I’m feeling like a bad friend because I didn’t realize you were suffering…I mean, well, everybody took the 2016 election hard but I didn’t know it really knocked you down like that and it came…you came back stronger. That’s what the book is about.
HANDLER: Yeah. I had a midlife identity crisis once Trump won the election because I had never had my world feel so…feel so unhinged I think. And I had to pay a psychiatrist to listen to me bitch about Donald Trump for about the first three weeks and then once we got past that and we got to the real stuff, I realized the parallel there was my world becoming unhinged when I was a little girl. My brother died when I was nine years old. I had never related the two but for me, as I can imagine it must’ve been for so many people, it was a huge emotional trigger of everything being destabilized and I realized just how spoiled and privileged I had been all my life to realize, to be this upset and this…on a 10 every day and the outrage and the anger. I just wanted to fucking fight people, you know? And I was like, I got to go see a psychiatrist.
