Bill Maher and Megyn Kelly got into a tense argument over her support for former President Donald Trump and how much emphasis should be placed on the fact that many Republican voters deny the results of the 2020 election.
Maher went on Kelly’s SiriusXM radio show Tuesday, and the two started off surprisingly cordial, remarking that they both lacked a ‘political home.’
But when Kelly, who is a registered independent, said she would be voting for Trump in 2024, that set the liberal comedian off.
‘Well, I mean, I can’t even understand that, and I understand that Biden is deeply flawed, but he does believe in our way of life.’
President Joe Biden has the support of Maher, who told Newsweek in March that he would vote for ‘Biden’s head in a jar of blue liquid’ over Trump.
Bill Maher and Megyn Kelly opposite one another on her SiriusXM show
Trump has actually commented on Kelly’s support for him, saying she was ‘making a career’ by ‘pretending’ to like him.
The ex-Fox News host’s feud with Trump goes back to when Kelly moderated a 2016 presidential debate and asked him a pointed question about how he treats women.
Nonetheless, her support for Trump got Maher to repeatedly condemn what happened during the 2020 election.
Maher said that Trump’s refusal to concede the election and his claims of it being fraudulently stolen from him amount to him violating norms that have kept the country together from the beginning.
‘What could possibly be more fundamental to you or anyone, than you have to concede elections?’ Maher asked Kelly. ‘And he hasn’t conceded the last one. He’s plainly not going to concede this one.
‘He now has all of his sycophants around him parroting his party line, which is when they ask them, “Will you abide by the election results?” “Yes, if it’s a free and fair election,” which is another way of saying, “If we win.”
‘You really think this is a place this country should be?’
Kelly responded by saying she wouldn’t defend ‘election denialism.’
‘I’m not one of those people who believes that,’ Kelly added.
As of December 2023, 31 percent of Republicans believe that Biden legitimately won the 2020 election.
The same poll sees a drop from December 2021 to December 2023 in all parties regarding those who think that President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory was ‘legitimate’
Maher then interjected, asking Kelly what’s more important than ‘election denialism.’
‘How about my daughter not going into a locker room and seeing a man’s penis?’ she said right back, referring to the rash of incidents where trans women have been spotted in female locker rooms at gyms and other recreational areas.
Planet Fitness is one gym that’s been plagued with this problem. Most recently, a man reportedly taking advantage of the woke company’s transgender locker room policy took to the ladies’ facilities, stripped naked and paraded his genitalia around.
A woman was banned from Planet Fitness in March for reporting a ‘trans woman’ shaving in the female locker room.
Maher acknowledged the importance of dealing with gender and how bathroom policies should work but pivoted right back to how the upcoming election is crucial for democracy.
‘I’m talking about the difference between this and something fundamental, which is our democracy. The fact that you have to respect who wins an election, or else you don’t have the kind of country we’ve always had before,’ he said.
Maher repeatedly hammered away on the point that Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 election is a ‘fundamental’ problem more important than the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story
Kelly argued that President Biden’s policies are ‘as woke as they come’ and that he has chosen to keep the border open
While Kelly agreed with Maher that the election wasn’t stolen, adding that she didn’t think there was any substance to the claim that Dominion voting machines were compromised, she did make an overture to Republican voters by saying that the 2020 election ‘wasn’t fair’ to Trump.
‘What wasn’t fair?’ Maher asked.
‘Don’t get me started, what wasn’t fair? How about the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story?’
Maher was incredulous: ‘Oh, for f**k’s sake, really? Then we’re not as alike as you think. That’s a stupid non-story.’
The New York Post originally published the story in October based on documents pulled from Hunter’s laptop detailing alleged corruption within the Biden family.
Twitter prevented its users from sharing that story, which claimed that Hunter was involved with a Chinese oil giant and that then-presidential candidate Joe Biden potentially received money from the deal his son struck with the foreign firm.
The New York Post story claimed that Hunter (left) was involved with a Chinese oil giant and that then-presidential candidate Joe Biden potentially received money from the deal his son struck with the foreign firm
Images of Hunter Biden naked, smoking crack appear to be in the tweets that staffers from Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign instructed Twitter to delete, according to revelations
The information published by the Post was widely dismissed as fake or ‘Russian disinformation,’ which led to Facebook also suppressing the story.
Kelly pointed to polling data that has shown if Americans had known that the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop were authentic, many of them would have voted differently.
A survey from right-leaning TIPP Insights in December 2022, showed that 28 percent of adults who followed the Hunter Biden story would have voted differently had the FBI not claimed it was all Russian disinformation.
Maher acknowledged that the story shouldn’t have been suppressed, though he said he thinks the story wouldn’t have changed the election’s outcome.
‘This is typical right-wing talking points, the evil Hunter Biden and the evil Joe Biden,’ Maher said.
‘You’re obviously someone who looks at an elephant and a mouse and asks which one is bigger,’ he added, comparing the issue of the Hunter Biden laptop story to the denial of the 2020 election.
Kelly was quick to hit back.
‘You keep saying sort of I’m nuts because I don’t see the difference between the elephant and the mouse and I’m telling you I identify them differently than you do,’ Kelly told Maher. ‘Hillary Clinton, of course, is the original election denier. I’m sure you voted for her in ’16.’
Kelly was referring to Clinton’s comments in 2019 on CBS’ Sunday Morning show where she said Trump ‘knows he’s an illegitimate president.’
Maher pointed out that Clinton conceded the election to Trump the day after the 2016 election, something Trump has never done after the 2020 election.