Bill Maher's Suggestion That He Might Quit His Show Is Peak Lazy Bill Maher
Despite the fact that he only tapes one show a week and is currently enjoying a hiatus that will last until early 2025, Bill Maher may still pack it in and quit his HBO series Real Time for good – meaning that Americans will have to find somewhere else to get vaccine misinformation from a former Murder, She Wrote guest star.
This marks the second time that Maher has publicly stated that he will be quitting one of his professional activities during a booze-fueled episode of his YouTube show - back in May, Maher told Jerry Seinfeld that he was planning on retiring from stand-up comedy. Now, again on Club Random, Maher has said that he may walk away from Real Time. And his explanation was both lazy and self-aggrandizing.
Speaking with screen legend Jane Fonda about Donald Trump’s recent electoral win, Maher remarked: “I may quit, because I don't want to do another– I did Trump.” While the looming dread and exhaustion of another Trump term is certainly something that a lot of people can relate to, Maher wanted us to know that, he, specifically, can’t go through it again, because he’s been making fun of Trump for longer than every other comedian.
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“I did all the Trump stuff before anybody,” Maher claimed, “I called him a con man before anybody. I did ‘he's a mafia boss.’ I was the one who said he wasn't going to concede the election. I've done it.”
“Well then how come he is so hostile to Jimmy Kimmel and not to you?” Fonda returned.
“He's very hostile to me! He Tweets about me every week!” a defensive Maher argued.
Jane Fonda, who isn’t typically regarded as a comedy authority, politely pointed out there is a way forward here: “So find a new thing to do and not, not do Trump, do something else.”
“The show is the politics,” Maher stubbornly retorted. “And he's going to dominate the news like he always does.”
Suggesting that he’ll bail on his show because he can’t imagine a version of the show in which he doesn’t just re-hash the same hacky Trump jokes he’s been telling for over a decade is pretty on brand for Maher. After all, this is the same guy who once accused The Onion of stealing his joke because he was too lazy to check and see that they published their joke months earlier.
Obviously Maher isn’t really going to quit. Bill Maher electing to vacate a job that gives him attention and a forum to spout his terrible opinions would be like Garfield giving up lasagna.
But this is especially dumb considering that his most recent Real Time editorial was all about how people shouldn’t let Trump’s re-election disrupt their current plans. Maher was specifically talking about spending the holidays with Trump-voting family members, but he actually looked directly into a camera and stressed: “don’t let Trump live in your brain like RFK’s worm.”
But that was just for the snowflakes who won’t suck it up and spend Jesus’ birthday arguing with their racist uncle. Clearly, the same logic wouldn’t apply to Maher himself.
