Bill Maher Defends Trump Pearl Harbor Joke — Because ‘If Shane Gillis Said It You’d Laugh!’

Comedian and pundit Bill Maher defended President Donald Trump’s joke about Pearl Harbor as funny, saying it wasn’t right to say ” but if Shane Gillis said it you’d laugh!”

On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the interview guest was Tristan Harris, co-founder of The Center for Humane Technology, who was recently featured in the documentary film “The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist.”

The panel guests were Paul Begala, CNN contributor and Democratic strategist, and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Republican congresswoman who represents Florida’s 13th district. 

Maher mocked Trump during his monologue, but did take time to defend the humor of the widely-derided crack he made with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in the Oval Office:

BILL MAHER: If you do have any money left… Good news, you can now get a one-dollar Trump gold coin. They’re minting a gold coin with Trump’s face on it. Now, federal law strictly prohibits putting living presidents on currency. This is, it’s not controversial, but Trump found a legal loophole called F*ck You. You–.

So they’re doing it, and it’s going to be a Trump coin. Now you can have Trump in your pocket, like Saudi Arabia. Oh, I kid the president. He loves it.

Now, you know my thing with Trump, right? The cloud. Some things are just the cloud. You have to let it go because it’s just, is it right? No.

But he was in the Oval Office yesterday with the Prime Minister of Japan, Takahichi. And he was talking about our strike in Iran, and he said, “We didn’t tell anybody because we wanted it to be a surprise. Who knows better about a surprise attack than Japan?”.

I mean, is it? Is it right to say that? No, but if Shane Gillis said it, you’d laugh. I mean, it just..I mean, it’s just…

Watch above via HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.

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