Bill Maher Loses It on Kellyanne Conway During Heated Jan. 6 Talk: ‘He’s a Criminal!’

Comic and pundit Bill Maher lost patience with Kellyanne Conway during a heated discussion of the Jan. 6 hearing, exclaiming that former President Donald Trump is “a criminal who doesn’t abide by American democracy!”

On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the host was joined by Conway and Josh Barro, and spent an excruciating 12 minutes or so trying to keep Conway on track as she relentlessly tried to change the subject from Thursday’s bombshell primetime Jan. 6 hearing to President Joe Biden‘s political woes.

When Barro and Maher tried to discuss the hearing as a precursor to a Justice Department criminal case, Conway pushed back, then tried to change the subject again. Maher lost it:

KELLYANNE CONWAY: We’re nowhere near that. Just so we’re clear, these hearings are not about that. They hired a Hollywood — they hired a news producer to make it a production. And that’s okay. But let’s not pretend that we’re in a courtroom here.

BILL MAHER: But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t valid, that that’s, the footage is the footage.

KELLYANNE CONWAY: Right, footage is appalling. I’ve said that for a year and a half. But every day on my calendar doesn’t say January 6, people are trying to pay their mortgages, buy gas. buy infant formula —

BILL MAHER: Here we go again, spin doctor, back to the gas prices, which has nothing to do with this.

KELLYANNE CONWAY: It’s not spinning.

BILL MAHER: It is spinning. I promised here, if I promise — But if I promise you one more time that we will get to talking about gas prices, can we just stick to this?

KELLYANNE CONWAY: We are not in a courtroom. Just, I don’t want to mislead people who are watching, thinking that somehow you’re saying he committed crimes –.

BILL MAHER: He did! Are you kidding?

KELLYANNE CONWAY: If he committed crimes then somebody will have to prosecute that. But that’s not what these hearings are.

BILL MAHER: Well, they are. They’re –.

KELLYANNE CONWAY: They’re organizing tools. In primetime hearings.

BILL MAHER: It’s a, yes. It’s a precursor to the prosecution by the Justice Department. He also met in December with, I think it was Flynn and Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and talked about martial law and seizing the voting machines and rerunning the election. Again, I mean, come on. You warned —

KELLYANNE CONWAY: I write about this in my in my book that they let charlatan after supplicant after showman in front of the Resolute desk at a time when the president should have been focused on a peaceful transfer of power and bragging about his four years of real accomplishments that we all miss.

(crosstalk)

KELLYANNE CONWAY: Why are you afraid of him beating Biden?

BILL MAHER: Because he’s a criminal who doesn’t abide by American democracy! That’s why. Because he doesn’t care. Because he knows. He knows he lost the election. He doesn’t care. He tried —

KELLYANNE CONWAY: He thinks he won the election. I disagree with you completely.

BILL MAHER: I don’t we neither one of us knows what’s in his mind —

KELLYANNE CONWAY: He thinks he won the election. That is just incorrect. He thinks he won the election. I’m one of the few people around —

BILL MAHER: Well that’s even sadder. Again, it’s this debate. Is he stupid or crazy?

Watch above via HBO.