Bill Maher endorses Ted Cruz over Donald Trump on Real Time
By Hector Cruz
Bill Maher explains why Donald Trump is worse than Ted Cruz on his HBO show Real Time
Bill Maher expressed some sympathy for Republican primary voters who must choose between Texas firebrand Ted Cruz and blowhard billionaire Donald Trump to get the GOP nomination. During the “New Rules” segment of his HBO show Real Time, the comedian compared the options to Sophie’s Choice, except “one of them has to live,” labeling the duo as Mussolini and Joe McCarthy.
Maher explained that Republicans were coming up to him in multiple locations (including airport bathrooms) to ask him which one he thinks is less awful. The host reminded liberals that they should also consider the options given that Hillary Clinton is “not a sure thing.”
“You need a fallback besides suicide and Canada,” Maher offered.
He then proceeded to point out the “real and important differences” between the two candidates, or as he put it, “the difference between apples and orange.” First, he explained that Trump was like Ebola, which “violently kills you right away,” while Cruz is more like the Zika virus where “we won’t see the damages until future generations.”
Maher continued: “Donald Trump wants to build a wall to keep out creepy foreigners. Ted Cruz is proof we need it.”
He then compared each candidate’s relationship with their respective daughters, mocking Cruz by showing a clip where his young daughter refused to let him give her a kiss on the cheek. In contrast, a photo of Trump creepily cradling daughter Ivanka in his arms as she kissed him on the cheek was shown on screen, with Maher noting that she was fine with letting her father touch her.
The comic eventually got to slightly more substantive arguments, describing Trump as “the most thin-skinned person in human history [who] reacts to the smallest slight with the hair trigger wounded ego of a male flight attendant.” Cruz, on the other hand, is immune to insults because everyone has always hated him, with Maher citing Sen. Lindsay Graham’s tepid endorsement as an example. Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters include Sarah Palin, Chris Christie and Ben Carson (or Catty, Fatty and Batty).
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He concluded the segment by unveiling his choice for the least bad candidate – revealing a banner of Cruz behind him – before gargling with bleach and struggling to say the endorsement.
“Here’s the deal breaker with Donald Trump: he’s a lunatic,” Maher explained. “If a non-rich or non-white person said the things he’s said, they wouldn’t put him in the White House, they’d put him in Bellevue. We can’t make a crazy person commander-in-chief. There are actual job requirements. It’s not like Mardi Gras parade king.”
He went on to admit that he couldn’t promise that Trump wasn’t going to disappear people, and wondered whether he would send Megyn Kelly to Guantanamo Bay on his first day in office, or even him after he sued him for claiming that he was the “spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan.”
Maher added, “The president signs off on a kill list everyday and sends out the drones. And I like going outside. So, yes Ted Cruz will be our worst president. But Donald Trump might well be our last.”
He then put a red “Better Ted Than Dead” hat on, but accidentally flubbed the line and put the phrase in the wrong order. Watch the entire clip below:
Next: Jimmy Fallon, Bill Maher pay tribute to Gary Shandling
Maher is far from the first late-night host who has urged the public not to vote for Trump. His HBO compatriot John Oliver has gone after the Republican front-runner in recent weeks in segments where he urged viewers to #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain, and, more recently, explained why building a wall would be a bad idea. He’s also regularly mocked by Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and The Daily Show‘s Trevor Noah, among others.
Real Time with Bill Maher airs Fridays at 10 p.m. on HBO. The guests for the next new episode on April 8 will include author Max Brooks, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, radio host/Trump supporter/The Apprentice alum Andy Dean and Demos president Heather McGhee.