The best of Real Time with Bill Maher season 16, part two
By Matt Moore
Monologue: Orange Tuesday, August 24
The best monologue of season 16 may have been this one during the dog days of the summer. It was in a period of troubling times for President Trump and friends. But those usually made for the best times for Real Time.
There couldn’t have been a better time to revisit this particular monologue. It starts off with Maher celebrating the guilt of Paul Manafort as well as the news that Michael Cohen, David Pecker and Allen Weisselberg were cooperating with investigators. Now we are at the end of a two week stretch where Manafort was found to have lied and Cohen was sentenced to prison.
Maher was clearly eager to get this episode going after all the bad news came out for Team Trump. One of his favorite things to do, and things he’s best at, is to call out those who so quickly come to Trump’s defense. These are the people on television Maher refers to who will either shift the goalposts or dismiss facts as inconsequential. They get this model from Trump himself it seems, at least to Maher.
A few lines about Republicans going to jail, the calls to lock up Hillary Clinton, and the NFL players kneeling rounded out the Trump crime family section before Maher shows just how Trump attempts to distract. But Maher wasn’t deterred and did exactly what Trump didn’t want: he paid attention to what the White House was doing.