Tuesday 20 September 2022 11:50 AM Moment Bill Maher calls out journalist for saying Trump voters have 'a lot to ... trends now
Bill Maher has slammed a journalist who claimed Donald Trump voters 'have a lot to repent for'.
The Real Time host, a Democrat who has donated millions to his party, sparred with Julia Ioffe, a correspondent for the online politics site Puck News, telling her: 'You seem like you have such contempt for half the country.'
The pair were speaking on the "Overtime segment of his HBO show with Trace Adkins, John Meacham about the legacy of Trump and how to heal the deep divisions in US society.
Bill Maher has slammed a journalist who claimed Donald Trump voters 'have a lot to repent for'
The Real Time host sparred with Julia Ioffe, a correspondent for the online politics site Puck News
Ioffe said on the show: 'When we talk about the division in this country, we can't talk about it as if it's a meteorological phenomenon that just happened, right?
'There were certain things that were done by certain people in certain institutions, Trump among them - very consciously, to divide this country, to prey upon the fissures that already existed and to make them wider and wider and wider to the point where we can't see each other across them.
'This was done in many ways on purpose by Trump… and so when we say it's not personal, it is personal. And I do think people who supported Trump and who enabled Trump do have something to apologize for and do have a lot to repent for.'
The reporter then listed a litany of Trump's controversial comments that attracted a lot of criticism at the time but did not deter his army of supporters.
She said: 'A man who calls countries s***hole countries, who tells congresspeople of color to go back to where they came from, who calls women pigs, who makes fun of their menstrual cycles, I could go on, and on, and on.
'And that people still follow him and think that's still okay… That is something that we have to talk about.'
Maher, responded: 'I would say most of the people I know who voted for Trump say, "The biggest mistake liberals make is thinking I like him".'
The pair were speaking about the legacy of Trump and how to heal the deep divisions in US society
The pair were speaking on the Overtime segment of his HBO show with Trace Adkins
Ioffe then interjected: 'It doesn't matter. If you vote for him...'
But Maher continued: 'What they're saying is that you get two choices in this country, I would never vote for Donald Trump, nobody was harder on Donald Trump than me… but it's a little more nuanced than that. It's a little more nuanced than that.
'I understand why people who make the decision to vote, which most people do, based on not who I like the best but who I hate the least.'
Ioffe responded in the fiery exchange: 'That means all of the things he said and has done are not bad enough to keep you from voting from him, which means you're more okay with him being in power and him
