Bill Maher Defends Trump Over Taylor Swift ‘No Longer HOT’ Attack
Comic and political pundit Bill Maher defended President Donald Trump over his attack on “no longer HOT” pop superstar Taylor Swift, saying Trump wasn’t referring to her looks.
Trump posted a message Friday morning that said “Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?’”
On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the interview guest was Gen. Stanley McChrystal, retired four-star Army general and author of the book “On Character: Choices That Define a Life.”
The panel guests were Scott Jennings, CNN senior political contributor and author of the upcoming book “A Revolution of Common Sense: How Donald Trump Stormed Washington and Fought for Western Civilization”; and Peter Hamby, host of Snapchat’s “Good Luck America.”
During the “Overtime” segment, a viewer asked about Trump’s tweet, and Maher said the shot was about her music industry heat, not her looks — but also said Swift’s career is doing just fine:
BILL MAHER: What did you make of Donald Trump’s post this morning alleging that “since I said I hate Taylor Swift–“.
Yeah This guy. All the deals, but he still has time for this. You gotta love it. “Since I said, she’s no longer hot–,” Or, I don’t think he means physically hot, I think he means hot in the business. I think, well, she just finished the biggest tour.
PETER HAMBY: Are you sure he doesn’t mean physically hot?
BILL MAHER: I don’t. I do not mean it.
PETER HAMBY: I assume he’s like… I assume he’s criticizing her looks. That was my first reaction.
BILL MAHER: No, I–
SCOTT JENNINGS: I don’t think he means that. I recall when he went to the Super Bowl earlier this year, he noted at the time that the crowd booed her and cheered him. I think at that point he started to detect that she was faltering with the public.
PETER HAMBY: I will say this actually, Scott has a point here. I mean, first of all, she made over a billion, she’s a billion dollars on that tour.
BILL MAHER: It’s the biggest tour ever.
PETER HAMBY: Yeah, like biggest tour, ever in history. When she. Uh… Endorsed Kamala Harris right before the election and it was a very sort of… I think it was like an Instagram post or something. Her approval ratings? Like people poll this stuff.
Her approval ratings. Went up with Democrats, but with Republicans and independents. They actually… Went down strikingly. Like, people don’t like… Celebrities and politicians getting involved in elections. They really don’t
BILL MAHER: It actually hurts.
PETER HAMBY: But that was after her tour, like, in the middle. She’s fine. She’ll be fine. But I don’t think she’s not hot in either definition of hot.
BILL MAHER: She’s fine, she’s not unpopular. She’s not as hot in the industry now because she just finished a giant tour, so she needs time to, you know, relax and be with that football player.
And by the way… Did they work? When she got booed, they weren’t booing her in general. What they were booing was, we don’t like you so much in football. Let us just have football. Let us have one thing without Taylor Swift involved. That’s what that was about.
PETER HAMBY: That’s a good point.
Watch above via HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.
