Comedian Bill Maher said he was feeling “nervous” about President Trump winning the election in November after the Republican National Convention.
“I am feeling less confident about this — maybe it’s just their convention bump got to me, but I’m feeling less confident than I was a month ago,” Maher told MSNBC’s Joy-Ann Reid on The ReidOut.
“I feel very nervous, the same way I did four years ago at this time,” he added.
Both Reid and Maher praised the “smoothly produced” convention, and Reid suggested that the “four black guys” and women who spoke at the convention were intended to act as a “permission slip” for those who felt a “little icky” about voting for Trump because of the “racism.”
Maher brought up Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s speech condemning Biden’s remarks on race.
“Mr. Vice President, look at me. I am black. We are not all the same, sir. I am not in chains,” Cameron said at the convention. “My mind is my own, and you can’t tell me how to vote because of the color of my skin.”
“He was pushing back on Joe Biden for saying, you know, if you vote for Trump, ‘you ain’t black,’ and I don’t think that is a good thing for Joe Biden to have said,” Maher told Reid.
“People do have their own minds. I’ve never been a fan of conformity. I’ve never been a fan of, ‘We all wear pink on Wednesday,’ we all have to do this, we all have to say this. … I don’t bend the knee, and I get that people are pushing back at that kind of stuff.”
“What’s never lost on people is strength versus weakness, who looks like he’s strong, looks like they’re weak,” he surmised.
Maher also cited the convention’s “optimistic” tone as another reason he was worried about Biden’s chances at victory in November.
“To portray that idea that I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees, yes, I think that is attractive to a degree. They looked optimistic, they looked like the country isn’t falling apart, even though the country is falling apart. And optimism very often wins elections.”
The RealClearPolitics average of polls has Trump leading by 6.9 points, however, Trump’s approval rating among black voters rose by 60% amid the Republican convention, according to a recent poll.
