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Bill Maher Frets About The Clintons, The Military & The Mail; Begs Chris Evans To Run For Office

Jill Goldsmith
·3-min read

Bill Maher called the Clintons “huge distractions” and wondered Friday if and how the Democrats should deploy them in the presidential campaign.

“Now, Bill Clinton — people are saying that there are witnesses who saw him on Jeffrey Epstein’s sex island. Obviously it’s denied,” Maher said on HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher.

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Guest Paul Begala shrugged it off. Said Maher, “You shake your head like that. ‘Oh, that’s impossible. Bill Clinton, a horny guy on sex island? Ridiculous…’ Look, it’s possible.”

Bill Clinton has credibility on the economy, “I’d use him for that,” offered Begala, who just wrote You’re Fired: The Perfect Guide to Beating Donald Trump. Maher didn’t seem convinced.

The host was already rattled by a retired colonel’s take on what a loss by President Trump might look like. Maher’s been preoccupied that Trump won’t leave if he loses. Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, said the President is popular among the military rank and file, although less so with the leadership. And, he added, “I do wonder about his base. Trump supporters own 60 to 70 percent of the 300 to 400 million guns in the country and if he calls them out, we may need the military.”

Maher’s earlier-cycle fear is the postal system being sabotaged by Trump cronies in a pandemic election dominated by mail-in ballots. Begala tried to reassure him: Dems should remind people there are supposed to be bins around various places like fire stations where you can drop ballots so you don’t actually have to mail them.

So Maher clutched at Captain American, Chris Evans, who has just launched a civic engagement platform called A Starting Point, a bipartisan factual political website, begging him to run for office — or George Clooney or Ben Affleck if they were listening.

It’s time for actors to rise up in politics, Maher said, they have a following and a voice. He got all wound up when Evans acknolwedged that he had, in fact, thought about “helping out in that capacity” but didn’t know enough.

“They are f***ing idiots. There are no qualifications, and that is proven every day by the guy who is at the top of the world. Don’t do it because you don’t’ want to do it, not because you think you know less than they do,” Maher said.

(Maher’s guide to home schooling during the pandemic in mock mag Better Homes & Kindergartens asked, “What to do when you’re frustrated, exhausted and out of ideas: The Guide for Day 2.”)

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