Bill Maher Praises Trump For ‘Appreciating America’ — But ‘Not Tanks In The Streets!’

Comic and political pundit Bill Maher praised the idea behind President Donald Trump military parade, but said that tanks in the streets “really worries me.”

On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the interview guest was Sen. John Fetterman, Democratic senator from Pennsylvania.

The panel guests were Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the Eurasia Group and GZERO Media; and Rutger Bregman, Dutch historian and author of “Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference.”

Maher wrapped up the panel segment with a discussion of Trump’s military parade scheduled on Saturday to ostensibly celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army — which also coincides with Trump’s 79th birthday.

While all three criticized the parade, Maher repeatedly praised Trump and slammed “the left” over their respective levels of appreciation for America:

BILL MAHER: The last issue, the parade is tomorrow, Trump’s parade, the…

IAN BREMMER: That’s why he’s here, by the way. I don’t know if he told you. That’s what I came for.

BILL MAHER: Trump said, we’re going to celebrate our country for a change. Like so many things with him, like he very often has an idea which in the ether is not a bad idea.

I’ve said for years, done many editorials about it, the left does not appreciate America well enough. They have no perspective about it. They think we’re irredeemably racist and horrible and colonialist, as if every other country in the world at one time or another wasn’t like us or even worse. So they just.

IAN BREMMER: So, Bill, let’s learn from the French.

BILL MAHER: What do you mean?

IAN BREMMER: That’s where Trump got the parade idea from, when he went over and Macron showed him. It’s like, ah, let do something the French do. No! We don’t need to learn from French. Bad idea.

BILL MAHER: Yeah, as always, but he, like, should we appreciate America more, and in more perspective? Yes.

But not tanks in the streets! This really worries me, I mean, I just feel like you’re getting, I don’t even know if that’s his grand scheme, thought out that much, but you’re getting people used to a site that we have never seen in this country before.

And there are Republicans who speak out against this too. Senator John Kennedy did, Rand Paul. Yeah, they’re pretty forceful. So it’s one reason why you should talk to Republicans They’re not all beyond hope.

So, what do you think? Am I making too much of this, or is it just a parade?

RUTGER BREGMAN: Well, it’s like what we talked about. On the one hand, it was a bit funny. But yeah, it is a really bad precedent that you don’t want to see in one of the oldest democracies in the world.

BILL MAHER: It’s insecure!

IAN BREMMER: I wouldn’t have minded it after 9-11 when we were trying to bring the country together. Right now, at best, it’s going to be forgotten in a week. And at worst, it is going to yet another thing that divides us. We’re not going to agree on it. So we need leaders, not winners. Trump is a winner. He creates losers. We need leaders.

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

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