Bill Maher’s latest appearance on The Late Show didn’t feature as much cursing, but it did feature plenty of talk about Donald Trump and the tragic events in Dallas. It’s essentially night and day from the start of the chat into the return from commercial that you see above. Gone are Colbert’s antics and bowl of Trump-inspired food — some steak, wine, and bunch of Cheetos — all replaced by a very serious tone concerning the shootings in Dallas.
Not only does Maher take an honest take on the shootings, he manages to say he understands why they happened and was surprised they didn’t happen sooner. The Real Time host references back to the Rodney King video in the early ’90s to show that the situation between police and black citizens has a deep history. He goes on to say that seeing new videos of police shooting unarmed civilians on an weekly basis also adds fuel to the fire that we saw go out of control in Dallas.
Colbert does a really good job wrangling Maher here, allowing his speak his piece and hitting him with the type of follow-up questions that forces Maher to address his comments right after he tosses them out to the studio audience — dead quiet the entire time by the way. A strong moment is when the idea of “sides” is brought up, with both noting that it shouldn’t be a thing that exists in this discussion, but it’s not something you can deny existing for many folks.
On the lighter side, Colbert and Maher share some discussion about Trump and put together a bit of food that no human should ever try to consume. It’s something for the local dogs or your everyday neighborhood C.H.U.D. living under the street. Disgusting stuff.