HBO host Bill Maher called out media outlets for alleging that former President Donald Trump suggested placing former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming in front of a “firing squad.”
During a Thursday forum with Tucker Carlson, Trump criticized Cheney, accusing her of consistently pushing for war, and implied that her foreign policy stance might be less aggressive if she’d ever had guns “trained on her.” Maher argued that media claims of Trump wanting Cheney executed were misleading.
“I woke up today to the headline that Trump had called for a firing squad for Liz Cheney, and this is what I really don’t like about the media,” Maher said in a panel discussion on “Overtime,” a webcast that streams after “Real Time with Bill Maher” airs on HBO. “No, he didn’t … you don’t have to move me to not like Donald Trump.”
“He says so many shitty things, why do you have to do that?” podcaster Michael Moynihan responded.
The Washington Post and CNN published articles implying that Trump was wishing for a violent outcome for Cheney.
“Just to be clear, this is exactly what hippies always said. This is exactly what peaceniks always said,” Maher said. “This is ‘Fortunate Son’ the song. It’s like, you know what? It’s very easy to sit in your building and send young men to die.”
“I don’t like Donald Trump,” Maher added. “Don’t lie to me and tell me he wants her in front of a firing squad. He was saying something that, by the way, if it came out of the mouth, some of it, not the stupid part, again, sounds like what hippies used to say.”
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland called the coverage “ridiculous and absurd,” but questioned why Trump “criticized a war hawk in the way a hippie would.”
“It’s counterproductive,” Moynihan said. “I mean the number of Trump people you talk to who talk about the media and giving them any ammunition like this. I mean, I saw headlines, chyron on television this morning saying that Donald Trump had said that [Liz Cheney] should be executed. I mean, at the beginning of that kind of rambling, incoherent thing, he said give her a weapon, which is not typically something you do to someone you’re going to execute.”
