Bill Maher has gone from bemoaning President Joe Biden continuing to run for reelection in 2024 to insisting that he will be replaced, declaring at the end of his “New Rules” segment on Friday’s Real Time that “Biden is toast.”
“Stop fucking around,” he said. “The issue with president Biden isn’t if, it’s who: Who’s going to replace him because he isn’t going to be the Democrats’ candidate for president in 2024. The one thing I know for sure about America is this: It’s run by mean girls. In the press and in politics and in life. And when they smell blood in the water, the lust to finish off a vulnerable person will never be denied.”
And he offered his prediction for when the president would drop out but argued the shock of a new candidate wouldn’t last long.
“My pick in the office pool for when he gives it up is Aug. 9, the 50th anniversary of when Nixon did for, of course, very different reasons,” Maher said. “Yes, replacing a president as his party’s candidate will seem like a big deal — for about 3 days. And then we’ll all be over it. … America is going to do this.”
He then ran through the pros and cons, with a few jokes thrown in, of course, of the possible Democratic politicians who could replace Biden, including Vice President Kamala Harris, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. He also rattled off a number of Democratic governors including Maryland’s Wes Moore, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear and Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro.
“No one knows who these people are, and that’s good,” Maher said. “We need some new characters on this sitcom we call a country. Americans like new. These guys, all you need to know is they’re moderates, they’re under 100 years old, and they have a “D” next to their names.”
He argued that despite dreams of a Michelle Obama candidacy she’s “off living her best life,” and “we’re not going to get a superstar in this draft.”
“We’re at the airport and at this point, we just need to be sure we get last rental car,” he said. “Something reasonably safe, relatively clean and not [Donald] Trump. If there isn’t a dead Girl Scout in the trunk, we’re good to go.”
Maher, who has long criticized Biden’s decision to run for re-election, calling him “Ruth Bader Biden,” spent his monologue bemoaning Biden staying in the race amid more calls from Democrats, members of the media and influential Hollywood donors for him drop out.
“It’s all about Joe,” Maher said at the top of the show before joking, “It’s harder to get this guy to pull out than Nick Cannon,” referencing the star’s many children with multiple women.
Maher also took aim at Biden’s Thursday night press conference, calling it the “worst possible thing that could happen,” in that the president did “exactly well enough so that Democrats have no idea what to do next.”
Maher wondered aloud, “Are we really going to be doing this for the next few months or God knows how long? It’s like a horror movie you watch through your fingers — you know something bad’s going to happen. You just don’t know when.”
Turning to specific moments in the presser, Maher took aim at Biden misidentifying Harris as “Vice President Trump.”
“Democrats will tolerate mental decline but not misgendering,” Maher joked before recognizing something in common with both Harris and Trump.
“How do you confuse Kamala Harris with Donald Trump? One of them sees Biden as the only obstacle to the White House and the other — oh, I see,” he said.
Maher said the battle between Biden and Trump amounts to a face-off between a “guy who can barely talk vs. a guy who won’t shut the fuck up.”
