OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
HBO ‘Real Time’ host Bill Maher shredded Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for remarks they made during their lone interview with CNN late last month.
Maher recently addressed the interview on his Friday program, offering his critique along with some praise for the Democratic ticket.
“I thought she did great. I thought she did fine,” Maher began the panel discussion, referencing Harris in an interview that others panned. “I don’t know why we ever thought she was as bad as people thought she was. It was like Biden had that one bad night. She had a bad three years.”
Maher criticized both Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, for being evasive on certain issues, accusing them of “insulting [his] intelligence.” He specifically called out Walz for his comments, which implied that he talks in a manner that is more relatable to ordinary people.
“No, you don’t. You’re a huge liar, like all politicians are,” Maher reacted. “I don’t give a s— what you did during the Iraq War. You were in the Guard– I don’t understand why they just can’t–” he broke off.
The host added, “They’re just insulting my intelligence.”
“When [CNN anchor Dana Bash] said, ‘What did you say when Biden called you and said he wasn’t running?’ ‘Well, I immediately thought of him first,'” Maher said while rolling his eyes. “I mean fracking . . . Dana Bash had her dead to rights. It was like ‘You said this, I have the quote. I’m reading it to you. You said there should be a ban on fracking.’ Why can’t they just go, ‘Yeah, you know what? I got it wrong.’”
Maher expressed his confusion over Harris’ messaging, particularly her repeated emphasis on finding a “new way forward.”
“It’s an odd thing to say when you’re in the present administration, is it not?” Maher responded.
He also repeatedly ridiculed how the interview was set up with Harris and her “emotional support VP.”
“It was a little odd. He was just sitting there for a very long time without saying anything. He was just nodding while she did all the talking. The women’s focus groups said he must be a wonderful husband,” Maher quipped during the opening monologue.
Maher later quipped that the Democratic ticket looked like “when Dad comes along” to help a young woman buy a car.
Conservative activists and media outlets took to X to comment specifically on a clip from a segment in which the VP discussed the reasons behind her evolving policy positions since assuming the Democratic presidential nomination.
Bash asked, “Generally speaking, how should voters look at some of the changes that you’ve made? … Is it because you have more experience now, and you’ve learned more about the information? Is it because you were running for president in a Democratic primary? And should they feel comfortable and confident that what you’re saying now is going to be your policy moving forward?”
“Dana, I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,” Harris admitted. “You mentioned the Green New Deal. I have always believed, and I’ve worked on it, that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time. We did that with the Inflation Reduction Act.”
“Gobbledygook,” conservative commentator Steve Guest wrote on the X platform. “The definition of a deadline is ‘the latest time or date by which something should be completed’.”
Noah Rothman, senior writer at the National Review, called her response “rambling.”
Charles C. W. Cooke, a British-American journalist, described the clip as an “instant classic.”
“Undefeated. She’s still got it—even as the nominee,” he quipped.
The X account for The Blaze referred to the comment as “word salad,” which is a term Harris critics often use to describe her often confusing responses to questions.