Bill Maher called the day of the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump one of his 2024 highlights, clarifying that he’s happy Trump wasn’t murdered — because that also meant that he’d still be able to poke fun at the Republican candidate.
“That is going to be one of my favorite days from 2024 … Yeah, that day — it’d be different if he got killed. No tragedy happened — well, for one guy,” the host and comedian said, referring to the death of a member of the crowd in the assassination attempt. Maher was appearing as a guest on Matt Friend’s new podcast “Friend In High Places,” adding that the entire ordeal completely falls in line with Trump’s brand and image.
“A guy shoots at Trump, the guy behind him gets shot and killed — that’s so Trump. It’s just so, it’s just so on brand to have the other guy …. he never goes to jail. He never loses money in bankruptcy. It’s always somebody else holding the bullet or the bag,” Maher noted.
Friend had asked Maher about finding the right tone in making light of a potentially unfortunate or tragic situation, such as the attack on Trump’s life. Bringing up his ABC firing following comments about the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Maher said he can completely relate to the concept of poor timing in comedy, but shared that he felt some company firings merely stem from people who may not like a person and are just looking for an excuse to get rid of them.
“Look, I’m the guy who got fired for making a remark about 9/11 six days after, so I know something about it … Nobody in the audience at the moment, nobody that night, nobody at the time, who heard that was upset,” Maher explained. “It took someone who hated me for other reasons to get people going. It was the beginning of the age we live in now — we didn’t have social media. But they did have chain emails, so you could stir people up and go, ‘Hey, aren’t you mad about this? And wouldn’t you like to get this guy?’ ‘Oh yeah, I hate him anyway’ — perfect opportunity.”
Maher told Friend his advice in these situations: “I think you could split the difference.”
Bringing the conversation back to the assassination attempt, Maher said he loved that day because it forced him to quickly craft new bits for a scheduled stand-up comedy show he’d already prepped for that day.
“I love that day because it was Saturday, flew to Minneapolis, had a show that night, and as soon as the car pulled up to the hotel, before we got the bags out of the back, the guy from the hotel came up and said, ‘Trump’s been shot.’ I was like, ‘What?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, but I think he’s OK,’ and he showed me the thing on the phone — got to the hotel, turned on the TV, saw the coverage,” Maher explained.
“And only, like, two hours later do I have to be on stage. We do these shows very tight, and it was like, ‘OK, in two hours I’m going to write this whole new 10-minute thing about it.’ And it was like, that’s not something I could have done at 26. You just have to have been around a while.”
He continued, saying that while he still plans to make a joke or two at Trump’s expense, he in no way condones the violence toward him.
“The beginning of [the routine] was sort of serious … There will be people who will do jokes or comments on the order, ‘What a shame they missed,’ — not me, not me,” Maher said. “You don’t fool around with this kind of a thing, and it’s not funny, and it’s not right, and nobody is more against Trump being president more than me, but that is not something you fool around with. And it’s not right, and liberals don’t laugh at other people being shot, even if they don’t like them — and, so I was glad I staked my opinion on that, and we got it out and viral, which is great. But the other reason I said that I’m glad that he’s OK, is ’cause now I can keep doing jokes about him because I want to, and I’m going to keep doing jokes about him.”
Now-slain shooter, Thomas Matthews Crooks, fired several shots at Trump while the Republican presidential candidate was holding a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13.
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