On the latest episode of “Real Time” on HBO, host Bill Maher had nothing but nice things to say about Kamala Harris in his first monologue since she became Joe Biden’s running mate. But he did have something negative to say about Donald Trump’s response to Harris joining the Democratic ticket.
“The Democratic ticket got set this week. Kamala Harris is going to be Joe Biden’s vice president. I think that’s very exciting, very historic. A Black Asian-American woman whose mother is from Indian and whose father is from Jamaica. Trump is so confused, he didn’t know where to tell her to go back to,” Maher quipped just moments into the episode.
“But I’m excited. I think she’s gonna be great. I think she’s great. I think she is ready to wake Joe Biden from a nap on day one.
“But of course, you know, no sooner had they announced that name, you know — they didn’t get to the ‘Harris’ and the Republicans pounced. Trump was attacking. ‘She’s nasty, disrespectful phony.’ Geez, can she get in the door? Could you let mommy put her purse down?”
And Maher being Maher, he had to find someway to slip a weed joke in there.
“But it’s exciting and it’s historic. A daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica. Or what we stoners call Indica,” he said, before wrapping up the thread with a zinger directed at the subject of leftist inclusivity.
“Ticks a lot of a lot of boxes for the left wing of the party. A woman who’s half black and half Asian. Not a lesbian, but she says she’s willing to learn.”
He of course threw out jokes about other things during his monologue — it wasn’t all Kamala Harris chatter. He had plenty of coronavirus and Trump jokes to make as well.
“I tell ya, America, we are just a loser country. I mean, we got more cases than anybody. We’re just giving up on trying to control it. Now for America it’s just like something you want to kind of live with, like school shootings or homelessness or drugstores that have the condoms locked behind the glass case,” he quipped.
“Well the president this week was commenting on the Spanish Flu. he’s quite a history buff, the president. And he said that in 1917, there was a great pandemic which was probably which probably ended the Second World War. OK, I don’t even know where to start with that. It wasn’t the Second World War, it’s the First World War. It didn’t end it, but OK, fine. This weekend actually is an anniversary of World War II. It’s the 75th anniversary of VJ-Day, which Trump got interested in in for about a half a second because he thought somebody said VaJJ.”
And naturally, Maher had to call attention to when Trump tweeted angrily at him this week over Maher’s fake eulogy for Trump that he delivered at the end of last week’s “Real Time.”
“Well, last week I gave him a eulogy, in good fun. I was not mean — too much. But I think everybody benefits from hearing a eulogy in their own lifetime. That was my point. He did not see it that way,” Maher said.
“He wrote on Twitter, he said, ‘I watched Bill Maher this week for the first time in a long time.’ It’s always either accidentally watching me or watching me for the first time in a long time and then oh boy, did he level at it. He said, ‘Bill Maher, totally shot, looks terrible, exhausted, gaunt and weak.’ Perhaps, but in my own defense, earlier that day I had to walk down a ramp. Anyone would look bad.”
And, finally, he got to those executive orders Trump signed that may or may not actually be all that helpful to struggling Americans.
“The president had a big week in the Oval Office. He made a big show of signing some executive orders to halt evictions, which we’re gonna have to do, and to boost unemployment pay. Of course, these executive orders will have exactly as much effect in the real world as that time he redirected a hurricane with Sharpie,” Maher said.
“So, don’t worry. If you’re out of work or about to lose your apartment, imaginary help is on the way, folks.”