It appears Bill Maher is suiting up to be HBO’s resident Hillary Clinton defender ahead of 2016.
The “Real Time” host defended Bill and Hillary amid reports of the Clinton Foundation’s suspect finances during a segment of his show Friday night, even while both his liberal and conservative guests criticized the presidential pair for their latest controversy, according to Mediaite.
Maher pushed back at the idea that the Clintons are constantly involved in scandal, labeling it a “bulls–t meme” created by the media.
“It’s kind of a bulls–t meme that the media keeps perpetuating because they like a scandal no matter who it is,” Maher alleged.
His guests, however, felt differently. Liberal Daily Beast columnist Ana Marie Cox — a self-described Hillary supporter — admitted that the current scandal “looks bad.”
“They want to just do what they do and if it looks shady, they raise their hands and can’t believe that you’re accusing them of anything,” Cox said of the Clintons. “This looks bad. There’s a part of me that feels like it looks so bad it can’t possibly be true, like they’re not that stupid. But then again, they are pretty stupid.”
Republican strategist Liz Mair agreed, labeling the controversy “bad optics.”
Both Cox and Mair insisted that the Clintons perpetuate their own scandals because of how badly they handle them regardless of their validity.
“It’s amazing just how badly the Clintons routinely handle this,” Mair added.
Maher’s defense of Clinton comes as no surprise, considering he vocally dismissed the former secretary of State’s growing private e-mail controversy.
The comedian has also expressed his support of the former secretary of State in her bid for president, though he doesn’t have the same enthusiasm for Hillary that he did for Obama.
“Hillary is way too centrist for me, she’s way too hawkish for me,” Maher explained during an interview with BuzzFeed earlier this month. “So am I going to be a supporter of Hillary? Absolutely. Is it as enthusiastic as I was for Obama? No. But it doesn’t have to be because we all have to grow up and realize, pick the best answer on the test. There’s no perfect answer.”
