WATCH: Bill Maher Trashes Mitt Romney, Then Seconds Later Floats Him As Running Mate for Dem Nominee
Comic and political pundit Bill Maher trashed Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney as a gutless flip-flopper, then seconds later pitched him as the running mate on a “unity ticket” with the eventual Democratic nominee for president.
On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the host mocked the notion that Romney showed courage by voting to convict President Donald Trump of abuse of power in the Senate impeachment trial, citing Romney’s record of changing positions on issues.
“I was giggling when people were talking about on TV this week about this Mitt Romney, this man of great integrity,” Maher said, then added “Wait, did I lose my mind? I seem to remember him as being the picture of the weathervane. Right?”
Maher rattled off a selection of Romney flips, then said “I think mitt Romney still wants to be president, and he’s betting that if Trump crashes and burns, he’ll be the only one they can turn to.”
Vox’s Ezra Klein disagreed, saying Romney’s impeachment vote “was him recognizing he’s got no future at that level.”
“Mitt Romney is not going to go forward in this Republican Republican party, and he knows it,” Klein said, and went on to add that “I agree with you on Mitt Romney’s record, it’s jumped around a bunch, but I think it’s worth saying when people do something courageous, they did it there. They don’t do it every time over the time, fine, but when they do something right it’s fair.”
Maher then turned right around and said “What if Mitt Romney offered himself as the vice president on a unity ticket? On the Democratic side? What if he said whoever’s the Democratic nominee, I will be your vice president, and we’ll see if we can beat Trump that way? He could probably get a lot of votes from Republicans who are the 10-15% who are not so crazy about Trump.”
The panel roundly rejected the idea, with Klein pointing out that “whatever Romney voted for here, he’s still a Republican, he’s not going to want to serve under Bernie Sanders.”
Panelist Andrew Gillum added that what keeps Republicans from opposing Trump is that “they are in an unholy marriage all about the courts. Every single decision the complicity of Republicans that are happening right now in Washington are because they are getting judges through, we’re talking about 32-year-old judges, no trial experience are sitting on federal benches. A historic number of judges that have come through the pipeline, and they’re willing to roll over and let this guy have it.”
“So on the Romney piece I’ll applaud him for taking a bit of a profile in courage, my real fear is for this country is that there were not were more Republicans to saw flat out the illegality of this administration,” Gillum said.
Watch the clip above via HBO.
