“Real Time With Bill Maher” Made the Case for the Local News

On last week’s Real Time With Bill Maher, viewers got a glimpse of the show firing on all cylinders, with engaging political debate from ideological opponents. The lineup for this week’s episode looked like it followed a similar path — featuring surrogates for both the Biden and Trump campaigns, plus Larry Wilmore — but this time things went a little differently.

Some of that might have had to do with the week that ensued between that episode and this one. It’s been a hectic group of days, and also a harrowing one, with an assassination attempt at a Trump rally being the most prominent example of the latter.

Early in the episode, Maher pivoted from a series of jokes on Joe Biden’s terrible week — including calls for him to leave the race, followed by a case of COVID-19 — to interviewing a member of Biden’s cabinet. That was Pete Buttigieg, who readied a pretty solid defense of Biden’s record and argued that, between the two major-party candidates running this year, “The futures could not be more different.”. Buttigieg also opted to make an argument that many political guests on the show make: Real Time as a place where different ideological viewpoints could be heard in the same place.

Buttigieg also mentioned that he was there in his capacity as a citizen, and was not there to speak in his Cabinet position as Transportation Secretary. “On our side, we weirdly care about things like campaign finance law and the Hatch Act,” he said.

The bulk of Buttigieg’s argument centered around core issues: he cited the price of insulin, infrastructure and the tax code as examples. And in doing so, he ended up making an impassioned case for the local news, calling local television, “One of the last spaces to actually be talking about the same reality.”

He then reiterated his belief in the importance of “[c]ircles of belonging and circles of information that are overlapping rather than concentric.” It wasn’t the usual election-year argument, and it stood out for precisely that reason.

Things got a little more turbulent when the panel part of the evening began. Then, Larry Wilmore and Rep. Byron Donalds, the latter of whom had recently spoken at the RNC, joined Maher on stage. Donalds opted to make the case for Trump, while Wilmore preferred to get in a few cutting one-liners, as when he called the election a choice between “a man who can’t finish his thoughts and a man whose thoughts will never fucking finish.”

Donalds also made an argument that the Republican Party is becoming more diverse; Wilmore also got in a dig here, saying, “Just because you add more raisins to the potato salad, it doesn’t make potato salad any better.”

Unfortunately, by panel’s end, the two men were arguing heatedly, largely talking over one another. Finally, a frustrated Maher interjected, “Can I talk?” And, referring to the summer break the show is about to take, he quipped, “I’m happy to start my vacation early.”

And there’s the frustrating part of this week’s episode. Maher had hoped to get either Buttigieg or Donalds to criticize the candidate that they were there to support; neither one took the bait. Both men did their job as campaign surrogates well; still, there’s only so far either of them was willing to go.

Political Debate Heated Up on a New “Real Time With Bill Maher”

If you watch “Real Time” for the arguments, this episode had plenty

Some other notable moments from the episode:

Maher on the trifecta of Tucker Carlson, Hulk Hogan and Franklin Graham at the RNC: “Can you think of a better lineup to introduce the concept of, ‘Get ready for some bullshit’?”
In New Rules, Maher proposed a dating app pairing divorced male Trump supporters and single female Biden supporters; its name? Hatefuckr. If Maher’s getting into the podcast business, can a real-life dating app be far behind?
Maher is not a fan of JD Vance’s critique of people without kids, and sounded genuinely angry about Vance’s comments.
New Rules also featured an out-of-left-field defense of J.K. Rowling.
Not surprisingly, Maher is also not a fan of viewing every event as a demonstration of an interventionist God. “It’s the 21st century,” he said. “Enough is enough with interpreting every random event as a DM from heaven.”
As mentioned earlier, the show is taking the next few weeks off and will return on August 23.