Liberal comedian Bill Maher and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) defended former President Donald Trump this week after the media and many Democrats falsely claimed that he had called for former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) to face a firing squad.
“I woke up today to the headline that Trump had called for a firing squad for Liz Cheney, and this is what I really don’t like about the media,” Maher said during his most recent broadcast of “Real Time” on HBO Friday evening.
“No, he didn’t,” he continued. “You don’t have to move me to not like Donald Trump. ”
Maher noted that Trump was criticizing Cheney for “being a war hawk,” arguing that he could have expressed himself better.
“Just to be clear, this is exactly what hippies always said,” Maher said. “This is exactly what peaceniks always said. This is ‘Fortunate Son,’ the song. It’s like, it’s very easy to sit in your building and send young men to die, apropos of Ukraine, because I don’t know, that war doesn’t look like it’s going in the right direction.”
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“But just don’t lie to me. I don’t like Donald Trump,” he continued. “Don’t lie to me and tell me he wants her in front of a firing squad. He was saying something that, by the way, if it came out of the mouth, some of it, not the stupid part, again, sounds like what hippies used to say, not sending people to die.”
Raskin, who has always been fiercely opposed to Trump, agreed that the media was “lying” and that what they did was “ridiculous and absurd and counterproductive.”
WATCH:
On #RTOvertime, @BillMaher scolded the media: “I woke up today to the headline that Trump had called for a firing squad for Liz Cheney. And this is what I really don’t like about the media. No, he didn’t….If someone with a blue hat said it, people would nod along on the left.” pic.twitter.com/hDsUArgT7d
— Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) November 2, 2024
Speaking at an event in Arizona on Thursday, Trump slammed Cheney as a “radical war hawk” who got to make decisions about war while “sitting in Washington in a nice building,” arguing that “she always wanted to go to war.”
“Let’s put her with a rifle, standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face,” Trump said.
The media, Cheney, and many Democrats responded to the remarks by claiming that Trump had called for Cheney to be executed.
“This is how dictators destroy free nations,” Cheney claimed. “They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”
CNN’s Kasie Hunt reported on Trump’s remarks, saying on Friday morning that he “is escalating his violent rhetoric, suggesting one of his most prominent critics, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, should be fired upon.”
“Of course, violent rhetoric is not new for Trump,” Hunt added. “But this stark imagery represents an escalation at a tense moment when the country is on edge heading into Tuesday …”
WATCH: Donald Trump suggests @Liz_Cheney should be fired upon
It’s an escalation of his violent rhetoric
My open of today’s @CNNThisMorning
Cheney just responded to Trump — shown below https://t.co/85RJ5VGZG3 pic.twitter.com/oxV0taVsEk
— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) November 1, 2024