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“Real Time” host Bill Maher took a swipe at his corporate colleagues at CNN for the network’s non-stop bashing of former President Trump, suggesting it has gotten “boring” even for a Trump hater like himself.
CNN, which has long been plagued with dwindling viewership, has relied on Maher for content over the past several months, more recently deciding to air encore episodes of his HBO show on Saturday nights as both networks are owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.
On Sunday’s installment of his “Club Random” podcast, Maher told former TV anchor Katie Couric that he doesn’t trust “anyone” in the legacy media, including CNN.
“I don’t trust that anyone is giving me the full story. Everyone is giving me their spin on the story, including the places that used to be, I thought, fairly neutral, like CNN and The New York Times, I think, used to be a lot more neutral-“
CNN has relied on HBO’s Bill Maher in recent months for content in an effort to juice up its declining viewership. (John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“You think they’re sort of more activists?” Couric asked.
“Yes,” Maher responded. “You could always slant any story… My earliest memories of my father and me talking about something… I remember him telling me like… the bias comes through somehow, and I remember the examples he used. He said, like, ‘If you say he squawked about it, as opposed to he said.’ Then he said, Robert Kennedy, so this must have been before ‘68 when he was killed. I was definitely under 12. He said, ’Robert Kennedy, if you like him, he is dedicated. If you hate him, he is ruthless.’ But it got worse.”
“And it got to the point where each side thinks they have to load their issues because we can’t really be trusted with both sides because the other side is so powerful and such an existential threat, they both think the other side is an existential threat. We just have to do everything we can – we can’t trust them to make sure they have the one true and correct opinion,” Maher continued.
Couric appeared to defend the media, saying how “things changed so dramatically” because of Trump and blamed him for the erasure of “decorum” and a “level of basic decency” in this country, points that Maher agreed with.
“For a place like CNN, I have total sympathy with them for that,” Maher said. “It was an impossible choice. Either you pretend that this is just the other side of normal, left, right, Republican, Democrat, or you start calling him a liar… I think the world needs a great CNN, so I’ll do everything I can to help that organization. And they still do some great stuff and have some great people. I still tune to it when something happens.”
“Club Random” host Bill Maher tells former TV anchor Katie Couric that he doesn’t trust “anyone” in the media, including CNN. (Screenshot/Club Random Studios)
After noting that CNN had gotten rid of their pro-Trump voices, Maher then pointed to the network’s Trump town hall and how the live audience filled with Republicans and independents “loved it” while the network’s anchors, and others in the media, hated it.
“Here’s what people saw in America. They saw Trump killing it, killing it with the crowd. Then you cut to a panel of six people who all just do nothing but dump on him and call him a liar. And America goes, ‘Oh, didn’t you just see that we like him?'” Maher said. “The people loved him and what he was saying. Then you cut to a panel of six know-it-alls in Washington who just do nothing but talk about the negative. I’m all in on the negative. No one’s been harder on Trump than me. I get it, and I’m bored with it. There’s a different way to do this, I think.”
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“So what is it?” Couric asked.
“Not to defend Trump, but to defend the people who still vote for him,” Maher responded. “Because what they see on the other side, to them, is even more dangerous. Because it’s very closer to home. ‘My kid is coming home from school, and he thinks he’s a racist.’ He’s five. What have you been telling him? ‘My son thinks maybe he’s not a boy,’ and maybe that’s true, that happens. Those things are what they say, ‘that’s why I’m voting for Trump.'”
“A conservative guy once said to me, ‘What you don’t get about Trump is we don’t like him either.’ Now, that’s not true for all people. There are people who just love his dirty drawers, and they are dirty. Lots of people, it’s like that. ‘We don’t like him. He’s all that stands between us and madness.’ That’s their view. I would like that view presented. That view, not election deniers, but just try to understand why even the election-denying thing is not a deal breaker for these people. And I think they’re wrong. But I don’t hate them. And they’re not stupid.”
CNN did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Maher pointed to how the audience “loved” the Trump town hall last year but CNN panelists went on air after to “dump on him.” (Screenshot/CNN)
Couric took aim during the interview at the MAGA movement, saying it was driven by “anti-intellectualism.”
“The socioeconomic disparities are a lot and class resentment is a lot and anti-intellectualism and elitism is what is driving many of these anti-establishment — which are Trump voters — so, I think that is a huge problem that we have to address,” Couric said.
Last month, Maher similarly took aim at The New York Times for no longer being a “great newspaper.”
“What is annoying about it is that it’s not just, just give me the facts,” Maher said. “There’s way too much editorializing on the front page, the way the articles that are just supposed to be the fact kind of articles are slanted one way. And I’m not even necessarily for the other side! I just want someone to tell me the whole truth, not just like your version of it. Because you can lie by what you omit. And both sides do.”
Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to joseph.wulfsohn@fox.com and on Twitter: @JosephWulfsohn.
