Bill Maher brought a lot of fire to Real Time on Friday night, actually having fun in between some bouts of outrage towards his guests. David Frum, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Cornel West made up the most entertaining panel of the season to this point, but some focus is needed on Maher’s opening guest Boris Epshteyn. The Sinclair Broadcasting chief and former Trump special assistant earned some respect from Maher for coming on the show before frustrating the host with a robotic defense of the president. The audience groaned at practically every answer Epshteyn lobbed out, including the assertion that Trump was a great communicator, and even prompted Maher to facepalm when he refused to agree that Russia meddled in the election.
“See Boris? This is why we are having a problem…because I can’t even get you to come to the place that all people, including the Republicans, agree is the fact: that Russia did meddle in our election.”
Epshteyn is either a true believer or an expert troll. The audience certainly wasn’t having any of it and Maher ended up looking better than he has during his interviews with Roger Stone and Milo Yiannopoulos. They did share a friendly moment at the start of the interview, agreeing to a gentleman’s bet over how Trump will hold office. Maher expects him out by Christmas while Epshteyn is holding out for two terms.
Maher got fired up again during the conclusion of the show, just not as much as Cornel West. After a playful segment with Neil deGrasse Tyson that took on Maher’s thoughts on Mars from a few weeks back, the host brought up West’s criticism of Hillary Clinton in light of Trump winning the presidency. This exploded into a shouting match we hadn’t seen this season and probably would’ve continued if Maher hadn’t abruptly moved on to “New Rules.”
(Via Real Time)