On Friday’s edition of Real Time, host Bill Maher and his panel joined a long list of liberal media figures upset about the results of the Mueller report. Maher ended up dismissing the Mueller report altogether, arguing “I don’t need the Mueller report to know he’s a traitor. I have a TV.”
Maher began the segment by addressing the elephant in the room: “So, it finally happened, the Mueller report dropped today.” Maher complained, “I don’t think it looks good,” particularly expressing disappointment about “no further indictments, which means not Don, Jr., even after, ‘I love it’ memo.”
Maher asked “did the Democrats put too much trust in the Mueller Report?” He seemed to answer his own question by declaring “I don’t need the Mueller report to know he’s a traitor, I have a TV.” Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell agreed wholeheartedly with Maher, saying “if you have TV or a Twitter account, you’ve already seen obstruction of justice.”
Swalwell then said that “Mueller has to come before Congress and tell us its veracity” as Maher looked to him for reassurance that he will “make that happen.” Swalwell’s declaration that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has already drafted plans to subpoena Mueller led the audience to erupted into cheers and applause.
MSNBC National Security Analyst Evelyn Farkas tried to offer #TheResistance some optimism, saying “I don’t think we should all be doom and gloom. We don’t know what’s in it.” Farkas expressed her hope that Mueller “might actually paint a really fulsome picture of obstruction of justice but he’s a sitting President so I can’t indict...Congress, you do with it what you will.” Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson reminded her Trump-hating counterparts that “there’s also the Southern District of New York that’s continuing its investigation into a lot of things that were outside of the scope of what Mueller was allowed to look into.”
The first part of the panel concluded with Swalwell saying that he still thought President Trump was guilty regardless of what Mueller concluded. According to Swalwell, “I also hope that we don’t allow him to criticize a report where he refused to testify when he was given the questions. He has no credibility. This report will be full of people who raised their right hand, went under oath, and it will not include him. So he has no credibility. The state of the evidence does not include him. And I think that’s important and that goes to a consciousness of guilt.”
It looks like Maher and his panel effectively declared President Trump guilty until proven innocent. It seems unlikely that Maher and many others in the liberal media will be willing to retract their convictions of President Trump as a Russian agent.
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
03/22/19
10:19 PM
BILL MAHER: So, it finally happened, the Mueller report dropped today. We don’t know much. I’m just going to go by what we do know, and I must say, I don’t think it looks good. No further indictments. Which means, not Don, Jr., even after “I love it” memo, really? Not Jared, not Manafort or Stone for working with the Russians. Did the Democrats put too much trust in the Mueller report? Because I don’t need the Mueller report to know he’s a traitor. I have a TV.
REP. ERIC SWALWELL: Yeah. And people are…
(APPLAUSE)
REP. ERIC SWALWELL: …on their way to jail, have gone to jail, there’s probably a farming out of other investigations. But yes, if you have a TV or a Twitter account, you’ve already seen obstruction of justice. And so I think the, the team has seen that. But here’s what’s important is that the public sees the report contemporaneously with the President. He should not be allowed to edit, he should not be allowed to restrict or sanitize, and Mueller has to come before Congress and tell us its veracity as far as…
MAHER: Can you make that happen?
SWALWELL: Yeah, we’ve…we’re going to subpoena him. Adam Schiff announced…
MAHER: You’ll subpoena Mueller?
SWALWELL: Yeah.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
MAHER: Okay.
SWALWELL: They have to hear from him.
EVELYN FARKAS: Can I, can I, can I, though, add something?
MAHER: Yeah.
FARKAS: I don’t think we should be all doom and gloom. We don’t know what’s in it.
MAHER: No, no.
FARKAS: And he might actually paint a really fulsome picture of obstruction of justice but say he's the sitting President, so I can’t indict. Congress, you do with it what you will. Right?
MAHER: There’s no, there’s no law that he can’t indict. That’s just a thing that they say. It’s like you don’t order, you know, white wine with…
SWALWELL: How about this, if you did nothing wrong…
MAHER: It’s not a law.
SWALWELL: If you did nothing wrong as the President, why don’t you say, I’m the President, I’m going to get rid of that law? If I committed a crime, indict me.
MAHER: Oh, good luck with that.
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON: I don’t think it’s a law, I think it’s a…it’s just a Justice Department precedent.
MAHER: Exactly.
FARKAS: Right.
ANDERSON: Bear in mind. There’s also the Southern District of New York that’s continuing its investigation into...
MAHER: Right.
ANDERSON: …a lot of things that were out of the scope of what Mueller was allowed to look into. So this is not over for the President. But I think in terms of the report coming out today, I’m glad that it is finally filed because the pubic opinion on this issue had really begun trending in, I think, a bad direction. About a year ago, you had wide majorities of Americans, including Republicans, saying let Mueller do his job but those numbers had started to fall off. By the time you got to the midterms, more Americans...
MAHER: Yes.
ANDERSON: …disapproved than approved of the job Mueller was doing. I’m glad that this is done.
MAHER: Because Trump every day, he knows how to do that, to hammer the same thing every day, month after month after month. Mueller’s dirty, I’m clean. Can you imagine getting people to believe that? Mueller, oh, yes, man, if he’s not fucking a porn star or running a screwy charity…that Bob Mueller, he’s the dirty one. And yes, you’re right, it worked.
FARKAS: But you know who’s also dirty? Vladimir Putin. So the other thing I feel like we shouldn’t let get lost in all this that this report was about what the Russians did to America. So one part of it is Trump but the other part is Russia.
(APPLAUSE)
SWALWELL: But I also hope that we don’t allow him to criticize a report where he refused to testify when he was given the questions. He has no credibility. This report will be full of people who raised their right hand, went under oath, and it will not include him. So he has no credibility. The state of the evidence does not include him. And I think that’s important and that goes to a consciousness of guilt.
