Bill Maher Mocks Conservative Who Disagrees About Prosecuting Trump: ‘We Have To Be Scared Of What The Criminals Will Do?’

Comic and pundit Bill Maher mocked conservative writer James Kerchick for arguing against charging ex-President Donald Trump criminally, even if he did commit crimes by inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The drumbeat to have Trump indicted criminally has become much louder since the Jan. 6 committee hearings began last week, with many theorizing that the hearings are a roadmap for the Justice Department to prosecute Trump and others.

On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the host was joined by liberal host Krystal Ball and James Kerchick, each of whom offered distinct takes on prosecuting Trump, and each of whom were mocked by Maher. But mostly Kerchick.

Maher cited massive public support for charging Trump over the riots, and said “So the question that’s in my mind is, gosh, if we only had some sort of Justice Department. But the committee says they will not refer this to the Justice Department. Why? Why isn’t it moving into that realm? And if we don’t, it will just happen again?”

After a minute or so of dogged sidetracking by Ball, Maher and Kerchick got into it a bit:

BILL MAHER: I mean, yes, if a guy robs a liquor store, let’s look into why he did that. But also, he needs to be arrested for robbing the liquor store. Let’s look into why, what was in his mind? Like he was poor…

JAMES KERCHICK: We should understand the consequences of this. And I think that Donald Trump is a menace and he may have committed crimes. But let’s think about the consequences of prosecuting a former president who might run again. You know, Gerald Ford. I’m not saying Gerald Ford in 1975, you know, after, what, 774, the Watergate crisis, he did the right thing by pardoning Richard Nixon. You know, there was a long national nightmare and it ended. And I don’t and I and I would be extremely careful about how we approach this.

BILL MAHER: Nixon did not try to undermine democracy itself.

JAMES KERCHICK: Well, he was breaking the law…

BILL MAHER: Yes, Trump broke the law–

Ball then swooped in to sidetrack things again by talking about how prosecuting Trump won’t solve the root causes of everything and Ron DeSantis is the same, and even forced Kerchick to defend the idea of prosecuting Trump for a second, until Maher got him back on track by reminding him of his earlier take:

BILL MAHER: The argument that you’re making, that we can’t prosecute this guy for this serious crime that he committed because it would spark unrest or something. That’s a very dangerous road to go down. And it’s very faint-hearted, I think. And pusillanimous…

JAMES KERCHICK: Using the Justice Department to prosecute–

BILL MAHER: We have to be scared of what the criminals will do if we charge them with being criminals? That can’t, that’s not really the way to go.

JAMES KERCHICK: I’ve covered, you know, banana republic type countries.

BILL MAHER: Well, now this is one.

JAMES KERCHICK: Well, there are there are a lot of banana republicans. This is true, in our country. But using the justice system to prosecute your your political enemies, it’s a very, it’s a very tricky–

BILL MAHER: But it’s not a political system, problem. It’s whatever party did this, I would be saying the same thing.

Watch above via HBO.