Bill Maher Rails Against Abortion Rights Protests at Supreme Court Justices’ Homes: ‘It’s Wrong! It’s Intimidation!’
Comic and pundit Bill Maher blasted abortion rights protests at the homes of Supreme Court justices, saying “It’s wrong! It’s intimidation!”
On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher and guests Ian Bremmer and Jane Harman discussed the protests that have cropped up following the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade.
Maher decried the protests, said they were “not terribly violent” (there has been no violence), and that “It’s wrong! It’s intimidation!”:
IAN BREMMER: …So much of what we’re seeing right now is unprecedented compared to the days of 1999. You didn’t have opinions leak. You didn’t have people, masses demonstrated outside of the houses of Supreme Court.
BILL MAHER: So what do you think about that? Should… Should there be allowed? Because the, certainly the press spokesman at the White House is down with this. Jen Psaki said, asked about this, these are people who are demonstrating outside the houses of the Supreme Court justices, she said. I don’t have an official U.S. government position on where people protest, but we do. It’s wrong! It’s intimidation! It’s against the law. I mean, do we have some footage of what I mean, look, it’s not. Is it? It’s not it’s not terribly violent, obviously. But would you want this outside your house?
JANE HARMAN: No, there’s a 1950 law that says you can’t protest outside, outside a residence to influence a judge. There probably is a constitutional challenge that could win against that or there possibly is. But it would be much better, as is now going to happen in Washington to have a major rally. I might even be there to protest what could happen.
BILL MAHER: What’s that going to do?
JANE HARMAN: Let’s just wait a month and see what the final decision is.
IAN BREMMER: What it might do is it might lose the Republicans, the Senate in the midterms. Right. That’s what it really comes down to. Because the Republicans have not wanted, in swing states. They don’t want to run on this issue. They haven’t had accountability. They haven’t had responsibility. They’ve had settled law of the land and they can complain about it. That’s generally where you want to be in a midterm election. So this is a challenge for the Senate, for the House. It’s a wave for the Republicans either way. But this is dangerous for them.
Although she did not condemn them, Psaki did not endorse the protests, saying that she and President Joe Biden wanted the “privacy” of justices to be respected.
Watch above via HBO.
