On Friday, Bill Maher followed up on his New York Times editorial calling for Joe Biden to drop out with a “New Rules” bit ranking some of Biden’s potential replacements, should POTUS take the “Real Time” host’s advice.
Maher picked four of the younger Democrats waiting on the bench for the elderly party leaders to retire — Vice President Kamala Harris, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
All of them had strengths and weaknesses, though Maher clearly favored two of them — but the main thing, he argued, is that whatever is going to happen needs to happen fast. Or, as he put it when he kicked off the segment, “new rule: Stop f—ing around.”
Marher argued that the issue isn’t who will replace Biden, “because he is not going to be the Democrats candidate for president in 2024, all due respect.” The issue, Maher said, is that “the one thing I know for sure about America is this: It’s run by mean girls” who will keep picking Biden apart until the campaign is destroyed, and so he’s “toast.”
But the HBO host asserted that the spectacle of Biden stepping down as the Democratic Party’s nominee and being replaced on the ticket this close to the election isn’t necessarily as scary as it sounds. “Replacing a president as his party’s candidate this late will seem like a big deal for about three days, and then we’ll all be over it. It’ll be like when a coworker gets her tits done.”
“At first, it’s oh my god, and a week later, they’re just her tits. America is going to do this. We’re going to get new tits,” Maher declared, teeing up his evaluation of the possible replacements.
“Kamala Harris, Vice President, will get all of Biden’s campaign money and on the Democrats’ best issue, abortion, she’s a walking reminder to women that Republicans are coming for the abortion pill. She won’t just protect Plan B. She is Plan B,” Maher joked.
He also argued that as a former prosecutor, she has massive strengths in the current climate, and that’s on top of the fact that if elected, she “would be the first woman president, first black woman president, and first Asian president.”
“But,” he cautioned, “I don’t vote for who will be the first. I vote for who will win, and for whatever reason, Harris has never been popular. You can count the number of delegates she won in the 2020 primaries on one hand, as long as that hand has no fingers. In three years as Vice President, she’s been quieter than an electric car, and like an electric car, your MAGA uncle can’t explain why she fills him with homicidal rage. She just does.”
“Sometimes life isn’t fair. It’s not fair that she’s not popular. She’s intelligent and accomplished,” he added, before joking about how the one thing she was put in charge of — the border — hasn’t worked out.
Then he turned his attention to Newsom, who he called “The only governor, with the possible exception of Kristi Noem, who looks like they could do porn.”
Listing Newsom’s conventional, physically attractive attributes, Maher also dinged him for his apparent ambitions. “I don’t want to say he really, really wants to be the guy who steps in if the current nominee goes down, but he gets an alert on his phone every time Biden can’t think of a word.”
Maher also noted that being the governor of California comes with some negatives, including the risk he’d be blamed for the homelessness problem, but he had a solution. “There’s a response to that: ‘The homeless can live anywhere but they choose California. Nine out of ten machete wielding meth addicts say they wouldn’t be unhoused anywhere else.”
But Maher praised Newsom as “the best communicator in the party, with a history of standing up to bullies, and his name lends itself to the best slogan since “I like Ike: ‘I’m having Gavin.’”
Next up, Whitmer, who Maher joked “is a very attractive choice: High profile female governor who owns dogs but doesn’t shoot them,” a dig at Noem. Maher had pretty much nothing but positive things to say about her as a politician and as a leader, noting her various victories and concluding, “voters who don’t yet know her will say she already was president because of all the TV shows where the President was played by an actress who looks just like Gretchen Whitmer.”
Finally he reached Buttigieg, who he also considered “impressive” for his military record, his political successes and academic and professional achievements. “And he’s only 10 years old,” Maher joked. “He’s perfect for the moment, because, as our transportation secretary, Pete has experience cleaning up train wrecks, and he has the balls to come on Fox News, although it’s no secret that he brings something that makes Fox conservatives very uncomfortable: Facts.”
Ultimately, Maher argued, “we need some new characters on this sitcom we call the country. Americans like new and these guys, all you need to know is they’re moderates. They’re under 100 years old and they have a D next to their name.”
“Sure, it would be fun and probably a winner if Michelle Obama ran, but she’s off living her best life. We’re not going to get a superstar. We’re not going to get a superstar in this draft. We’re at the airport, and at this point, we just need to be sure we get the last rental car. Something reasonably safe, relatively clean and not Trump. If there isn’t a dead Girl Scout in the trunk, we’re good to go,” Maher concluded.
Watch the whole clip above.