Comedian and TV personality Bill Maher had choice words for former President Trump and his Republican supporters evoking religious symbols after last week’s failed assassination attempt.
Maher, on Friday's edition of “Real Time with Bill Maher," highlighted examples of Republican lawmakers and Trump supporters that have indulged in "magical thinking," saying God protected the former president last weekend when a bullet grazed his ear at a rally outside Pittsburgh.
He argued that as the former president's allies continue suggesting God helped to keep him alive, the lines are blurring. Now, Maher added, people are seeing Trump as a deity, too.
“My point is that Donald Trump, even if you like him, is powerful enough as a past president, a likely future president, and to be perfectly frank, a cult leader,” Maher said. “America doesn’t need a demigod.”
The comedian has also been vocal about his belief that President Biden will lose the upcoming election and it’s not a matter of if Biden will step aside, but when.
Maher, who markets himself as anti-religion, also critiqued the belief that God sends people signs, because if he has “something to communicate to us, he doesn’t just f-----g say it.”
His remarks come after a a 20-year-old gunman allegedly climbed a roof at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa., last Saturday, and was able to gain a clear line to the former president and began firing off shots. The shooter, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, and one event attendee were killed, and two others were critically injured, per the Secret Service.
After the shooting, Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) posted on social media that “God spared Ronald Reagan for a reason” and “God spared Donald Trump for a reason” because “God doesn’t miss.”
Maher questioned the post, saying “really? Tell that to John Lennon, Lincoln, JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King.”
“Look, the a---hole who shot at Trump was cowardly, unpatriotic, selfish, vile and weak and he should rot in hell," Maher continued. "But thinking that God protects your heroes but not mine, that’s not cool either."
The show host said that he is glad Trump is alive. Just days after the assassination attempt, the former president officially accepted the GOP nomination for the White House this fall, telling supporters at the national convention that he shouldn’t be alive.
“Trump didn’t survive the attempt on his life because of divine intervention," Maher said Friday. "He survived because a virgin couldn’t hit the fattest president since Taft."
“Then again, make no mistake, I’m glad he couldn’t," he added. "But Trump is alive because he’s a single luckiest motherf---er who ever lived.”
