Bill Maher started his weekly late-night HBO show on Friday just as the U.S. began military air strikes on Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack ordered by dictator Bashar al-Assad against civilians.
“I don’t mean to say this raid is meant to distract from his other problems, but it’s called Operation Desert Stormy,” the host of “Real Time” quipped, noting that the military action comes at the end of a week of troubles at the White House, including fallout from the “60 Minutes” interview with porn star Stormy Daniels.
“It looked like Trump was backing off his threat to attack Syria but apparently he got the go-ahead from ‘Fox & Friends’ today,” Maher joked.
“We knew he was getting serious about Syria because he gave Assad a nickname,” Maher noted. “He calls him ‘gas-killing animal’ — by the way Gas-Killing Animal is also headlining Coachella this weekend.”
Maher gleefully ticked off some of the news items that have given the White House a headache this week, including the FBI’s raid on the offices of Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen and the use of a so-called “taint team” to protect documents that might be covered under attorney-client privilege.
“I’m not dirty,” Maher said. “It’s the news that’s dirty.”
He also had fun with the imminent publication of fired FBI director James Comey’s tell-all book — and Comey’s claims about Trump wanting to distance himself from reports of a so-called “pee tape” in the infamous Steele dossier.
“He says, ‘I’m a germaphobe,’” Maher said of Trump’s apparent insistence that he would never have watched prostitutes urinate on each other. “Most guys would say, ‘I would never do that. I’m married.’ No, Trump’s excuse: ‘I’m a health nut. Look at me, my body’s a temple. Jim, peeing in bed? For Christ’s sake, that’s where I eat my cheeseburgers.”
Watch Maher’s opening monologue above.