CNN’s Jake Tapper Flat-Out Asks Bill Maher If He’s Quitting HBO Show After Trump Complaints On Podcast
CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked comic, pundit, and podcast host Bill Maher if he’s quitting HBO after he complained about covering another term of President-elect Donald Trump on his podcast.
Maher just released his 13th HBO comedy special Bill Maher: Is Anyone Else Seeing This?, which debuted on Friday night and is streaming on Max. He’s also the host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher and the Club Random With Bill Maher Podcast. The comic is a frequent and vociferous critic of Trump, but also trains his sights on President Joe Biden, the Democrats, and what he sees as an overly “woke” liberal movement.
On Friday’s edition of CNN’s The Lead, Tapper interviewed Maher about his special — noting at the top “CNN and HBO both owned by Warner Brothers Discovery.”
He also asked about comments during a Club Random episode with Jane Fonda in which Maher said “I may quit” because of his exhaustion with Trump:
TAPPER: I do want to ask you before you go and congratulations again on the special, but there’s talk promulgated by you about maybe you quitting the HBO show, about maybe not —
MAHER: No.
TAPPER: — touring anymore. Well, you said something to Jane Fonda about — about thinking about that. Where are you in your career? You still got a lot of good stand up, a lot of good jokes in you, right? Like what — tell us what — what’s next?
MAHER: OK. OK. I am stopping doing stand up just because I’m tired of touring, just because I’ve been doing it for 40 years. I love it. Look, I love nothing more than being on stage somewhere telling jokes to strangers. It’s been my entire life. It’s been the most consistent thing in my life. But for those people who say to me, why don’t you just do it a little bit? You can’t do it a little bit. Stand up is like being a boxer. You have to be in training. You can’t just walk up there and do it.
So I’ve been in training for 40 years. I need a break. And I’m tired of the travel. I’m tired of dragging my ass out of bed on Saturday morning to go to someplace after I worked so hard on “Real Time” all week. Maybe I’ll go back to it. But, you know, I — I have a podcast. I have a television show. I’m not retiring. And I’m — I don’t know where this started about I’m getting rid of “Real Time.” I — they’re going to have to drag me off of that show.
What I was saying was that I didn’t want to do another Trump term. Not just because I don’t think it’s going to be possibly a great time for America. Maybe again, not going to pre hate anything, but because I’ve already done all the jokes about Donald Trump. I don’t know what else to say about the guy. But of course he will provide us with a lot of new material. And I’ll get into it, but I was hoping that in the episodic television show that is America, I was hoping for some new characters, you know, but it’s like they — it’s like they rebooted “Matlock,” but instead of getting Kathy Bates, they put Andy Griffith back in it.
TAPPER: Well, that’s good news for those of us who are fans of “Real Time with Bill Maher.” Bill, always good to see you. Thanks so much.
Watch above via CNN’s The Lead.
