Bill Maher Calls Out Media ‘Lie’ That Trump Called for Liz Cheney ‘Firing Squad’: ‘Exactly What Hippies Used To Say’
Bill Maher torched critics accusing former President Donald Trump of calling for a “firing squad” for Liz Cheney, telling the media that “you don’t have to move me to not like Donald Trump more than I already do.”
On Friday’s Real Time, Maher took a rare moment to defend Trump against the “lie” that he called for Cheney to be executed. Trump has explained since facing blowback from critics that he was making a point about Cheney being a “war hawk” while he was speaking with Tucker Carlson this week.
Trump said:
“Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, ok? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face. You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh, gee, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.’
But she’s a stupid person, and I used to have, I’d have meetings with a lot of people, and she always wanted to go to war with people. So whether it’s her, whether it’s-, I was surprised a little bit with Dick Cheney. I didn’t know him at all. I only had essentially the one or two phone calls, and it was only a call saying, ‘Thank you very much for doing that for Scooter Libby, that was nice.’”
Democrats like James Carville have accused Trump of calling for Cheney, a vocal critic of Trump’s, to be assassinated, but Maher joined others in defending Trump, saying the former president was making a point that was once made by “hippies.” The comedian accused the media of lying about Trump’s comments, something he argued is counterproductive.
“I woke up today to the headline that Trump had called for a firing squad for Liz Cheney. And this is what I really don’t like about the media. No, he didn’t. You don’t have to move me to not like Donald Trump more than I already do,” Maher said.
The Real Time host did knock Trump for his style of delivery, which included calling Cheney “stupid.”
“Of course, he expresses himself horribly. He has to add she’s a stupid person because he’s a moron,” Maher said.
“Well, Trump knows what it’s really like from Vietnam,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) chimed in.
Maher stuck to his original point.
“But just to be clear, this is exactly what hippies always said. This is exactly what peaceniks always said. This is the song Fortunate Son. It’s like, you know what, it’s very easy to sit in your building and send young men to die apropos of Ukraine because I don’t know, that war doesn’t look like it’s going in the right direction. But just don’t lie to me. I don’t like Donald Trump,” he said. “Don’t lie to me and tell me he wants her in front of a firing squad. He was saying something that, by the way, if it came out of the mouth, some of it, not the stupid part, again, sounds like what hippies used to say.”
Raskin agreed with Maher on some distorting Trump’s actual statement.
“I agree with you on the lying. That is ridiculous and absurd and counterproductive, but when did Donald Trump ever criticize a war hawk the way a hippie did? Was it during Vietnam? He got out of going to Vietnam, but he didn’t criticize that war or the Iraq war,” Raskin said.
“Jamie, I’m not defending Trump,” Maher shot back. “I’m just saying, don’t lie to me.”
Watch above via HBO.
