“Real Time” host Bill Maher vowed that he wouldn’t “pre-hate” the incoming Trump administration despite his own personal animosity towards President-elect Donald Trump.
“They are calling themselves the ‘disruptors,’” Maher began during a panel discussion Friday night. “The country does need disrupting. I mean, the country needs a colonic and a slap in the face so bad.
“This is not who I would choose to administer the colonic but it’s not like the bureaucracy isn’t bloated. It’s not like the debt isn’t $36 trillion. it’s not like there aren’t thousands of regulations that do stop people from living lives that they could live better and don’t do anything. There is woke in the military. Whatever they’re going after… I’m not going to pre-hate anything,” Maher said.
“Do I have really good, optimistic feelings about it? No, I don’t. I’m just not gonna pre-hate. I can’t get into that mind[set]. Let’s see what the disruptors can do. Because, quite frankly, the experts have just sort of, like, let something go for so long that it’s just sclerotic now and constipated.”
The HBO star offered some skepticism towards how effective the “disruptors” will be when the “corn lobby,” “pharmaceutical industry” and “defense contractors” begin voicing their objections towards the administration’s policies.
“Let’s see what happens,” Maher said.
Later in the conversation, Maher conceded that Trump was correct in his assessment on how to resolve the Russia-Ukraine war after mentioning the Biden administration allowing Ukraine to fire US-made missiles into Russia, fueling fears of further escalation by the Kremlin.
“It just looks like everybody’s coming on board to the idea that, I hate to admit it, Trump said at the beginning, it’s gonna be a negotiated settlement. Marco Rubio was saying- he’s going to be Secretary of State,” Maher said. “And I feel like– that they are losing the war, Ukraine. And they are noble, and we support them, certainly in spirit, should we do it as we have been?”
He went on to compare the ongoing war to last week’s highly-watched boxing match between 27-year-old influencer Jake Paul and 58-year-old boxing legend Mike Tyson.
“I remember a week ago and I was leaving here, everyone was talking about it. ‘Oh, what’s gonna happen?’ And then you saw the fight and you realize- we kind of really knew in the rational part of our brain from the beginning that a 58-year-old man who was over the hill in the 90s was not gonna beat this [27]-year-old behemoth. And yet we all were like, ‘Maybe- oh, I’m gonna go home and watch it!’ Maher said.
Last week, Maher appeared open-minded about the prospect of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. leading the Department of Health and Human Services, saying “we do need shaking up.”
“Well, the system as it is, the way we do health, is already very f—ed,” Maher said. “So maybe he’ll make it worse. But, like, my head is not exploding about it.”