The Democratic strategist accused Maher of lending ‘legitimacy and credence’ to Trump’s behavior

The Democratic strategist accused Maher of lending ‘legitimacy and credence’ to Trump’s behavior

Political strategist James Carville has branded Bill Maher “supremely naive” after the comedian dined with President Donald Trump and praised him as an “effective politician.”

Carville, who helped get Bill Clinton elected to the presidency, hit out at Maher and accused him of giving Trump “legitimacy.”

The criticism comes after Maher, a longtime critic of the president, had a private dinner at the White House with Trump at the end of March. He made the surprise admission that, actually, he found Trump “gracious and measured” despite railing against him regularly on TV.

      • xorollo@leminal.space
        9·
        18 hours ago

        I recently heard somebody say that Joe Rogan wishes he was Bill Maher. Do we have a wannabe chain started here?

            • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
              12·
              5 hours ago

              Have you yourself heard or seen Dave Chappelle say or do something transphobic? AFAIR Dave Chappelle pissed off one trans person, and got labeled as transphobic. He may not be an active trans allied, but IIRC he actually has trans people in his friends groups who haven’t disavowed him.

              Don’t get me wrong, if someone’s actually transphobic, they should totally get called out for it. But if the term is to keep its meaning, we shouldn’t throw it around.

              • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
                5·
                4 hours ago

                Nah, a couple years ago he had a big section of one of his Netflix specials just bashing trans folks with unfunny jokes.

                Just looked it up, the special in question is “The Closer” and yeah just look at this mess -

                A little more than halfway into The Closer, Chappelle mentions writer J.K. Rowling, who in recent years was called out for her own transphobic remarks.

                “They’ve canceled people that are more powerful than me,” Chappelle said in the new special. “They canceled J.K. Rowling, my god. J.K. Rowling wrote all the Harry Potter books by herself. She sold so many books, the bible worries about her. And they canceled her because she said in an interview—and this is not exactly what she said but effectually—she said gender was a fact. And then the trans community got mad as shit. They started calling her a TERF.”

                Chappelle added that he didn’t know “what the fuck that was” initially, using the opportunity to mock the trans community.

                “I didn’t event know what the fuck that was but I know that trans people make up words to win arguments, so I looked it up,” he said. “TERF is an acronym. It stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminists, and this is a real thing. This is a group of women that hate transgender, they don’t hate transgender women but they look at trans women the way we Blacks might look at blackface. It offends them. Like, ‘Ew, this bitch is doing an impression of me.’”

                Chappelle then noted he “shouldn’t speak on this” because he’s not a woman, but continued anyway.

                “I am a feminist, that’s right,” he said. “I’m team TERF. I agree, I agree man. Gender is a fact. You have to look at it from a woman’s perspective.”

                Later, Chappelle claimed he wasn’t saying “trans women aren’t women” before immediately rolling into remarks that contradicted that claim.

                “I am just saying that those pussies that they got, you know what I mean?” he said. “I’m not saying it’s not pussy but that’s like Beyond Pussy or Impossible Pussy, you know what I mean? It tastes like pussy but that’s not quite what it is. That’s not blood, that’s beet juice.”

                So in the space of about 10 minutes we have transphobia, complaints of cancel culture, support of TERFs, support of JK Rowling, and a self admission that he “doesn’t know what the fuck that is” but runs his mouth about it anyway.

                When he (rightfully) got called out about this, the only thing he talked about for the next year afterward was how jazzed he was to be getting “canceled”, as Netflix continued to bankroll more specials for him and suspended/fired trans employees who had complaints about this.

                Dave Chappelle is a clown and not the good funny kind.