Bill Maher warns Trump indictment could backfire on Dems

2023-04-16

‘Sex scandals DON’T work on presidents!’ Bill Maher warns Trump’s Stormy Daniels indictment could backfire on Dems by reminding them of how Bill Clinton’s Lewinsky fiasco turbocharged his approval rating

HBO host Maher on Friday compared Trump indictment to Clinton impeachment
Warned that ‘sex scandals don’t work on presidents’ in the public mind
Clinton’s approval rating hit all-time high immediately after 1998 impeachment

HBO host Bill Maher has warned that the criminal indictment of Donald Trump could backfire on the former president’s foes, comparing it to the impeachment of Bill Clinton when he was in the White House.

‘This whole, going after the president for f***ing around thing, I’ve seen this movie before, it was called Kill Bill, and America did not like it the first time,’ the comedian said on Friday’s episode of Real Time.

‘What don’t you get about “sex scandals don’t work on presidents”?’ he added.

In 1998, Clinton, a Democrat, was impeached by House Republicans on perjury and obstruction charges stemming from his sworn statements denying his sexual affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He was acquitted in the Senate, even after admitting he had in fact had sex with Lewinsky.

‘When they were done with him he had an approval rating of 73 percent,’ noted Maher, referring to Clinton’s highest approval rating in office, which came just after the impeachment vote.

HBO host Bill Maher has warned that the criminal indictment of Donald Trump could backfire on the former president’s foes, comparing it to the impeachment of Bill Clinton

In 1998, Clinton was impeached by on perjury and obstruction charges stemming from his sworn statements denying his sexual affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky

Maher, a left-leaning pundit who is no fan of Trump, warned Democrats that a similar dynamic could play out in the Manhattan case against the former Republican president.

Last month, Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records, relating to hush money payments made on his behalf to a porn star and former Playboy model. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

The criminal case hinges on nuances of the law that are obscure to the average observer, and Maher argued that those questions will be eclipsed in the public mind by the allegations of extramarital affairs, which Trump denies.

‘No matter what the underlying reasons are that underpin a sex scandal, to the average person it’s always going to be about sex, nothing can compete,’ said Maher.

‘Law is boring, it’s the constitutional equivalent of golf,’ the comedian joked.

‘I remember what people were talking about during the Clinton scandal, and it wasn’t the finer points of perjury law,’ observed Maher.

The criminal case against Trump, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, accuses the former president of falsifying business records at his company to hide the true nature of 11 checks paid to attorney Michael Cohen to reward him for work covering up Trump’s alleged extramarital affairs.

Those checks, prosecutors said, reimbursed Cohen for a $130,000 payment he made on Trump’s behalf to porn actor Stormy Daniels, who had been in negotiations to sell her story of an alleged sexual encounter with the Republican.

Cohen also played a role in arranging payments to the Playboy model Karen McDougal and to a Trump Tower doorman, according to charging documents.

Last month, Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records, relating to hush money payments made on his behalf to a porn star

Stormy Daniels with Donald Trump in 2006, at the time of the alleged affair

Bragg’s case is the first criminal prosecution of a former president, and comes as the country braces for a 2024 presidential election in which Trump is the leading Republican candidate.

Maher lamented that the Manhattan case might undermine other potential prosecutions of Trump, who faces investigations over his handling of classified documents after leaving office, the January 6 Capitol riot, and his interactions with election officials in Georgia.

‘The Democrats didn’t have to do this. Trump commits real crimes, he commits them on TV,’ argued Maher.

‘Now when the real indictments come down for the really serious offenses, we’ll have shot our wad on Stormy Daniels,’ he said.

‘We’ll be so used to seeing Trump hauled into court, it’ll be no big whoop, just like how we got used to watching him get impeached, and that’s a real shame, because I was saving my good drugs for Georgia,’ he joked.

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