Bill Maher Says Trump Will Make Assassination Attempt “Work For Him”: “MAGA Nation Finally Has Its Full Martyr”

By Radhamely De Leon
Published July 15, 2024, 10:17 a.m. ET

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Bill Maher, who has long been a vocal critic of Donald Trump, publicly denounced the assassination attempt against the former president just hours after it occurred when he took the stage at a comedy show in Minnesota on Saturday (July 13).

Maher shared a clip from the show on social media in which he claimed that the shooting may have cost the Democrats the election.

“I unequivocally denounce [the shooting], I don’t care what you think about that,” Maher says in the clip. “Not funny. I’m sure that there will be jokes that people will make because they hate him so much that they wished it went he other way. Not for me.”

He continues, “When I saw that photo today of him with the blood streaming down his face — I don’t want to say the election’s over but … Anything can happen in an election. But Jesus Christ: MAGA nation finally has its full martyr.”

In the clip, Maher points out that Trump’s supporters “loved it when he went to jail,” especially after seeing his mugshot. He also addresses the “idiot conspiracy theorists” who may believe the assassination attempt was planned.

“He gets grazed and the other guy gets [killed] — that’s so Trump. It’s going to work for him. I can see the memes now — ‘the man the libtards couldn’t kill.’ Biden can’t get through a debate and a bullet can’t stop Donald Trump. It almost doesn’t matter who the Democrats put up now,” he says.

It appears that Maher assumed that the shooter was a liberal. But the shooter has since been identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old registered Republican, according to The New York Post.

Maher emphasized that the shooting may have cost the election for the Democrats, saying in the clip, “Whoever did this, the shooter has done so much damage to the left. [The left] has lost a lot moral high ground in the ‘You’re the violent people’ and the ‘Liberals don’t shoot people, liberals don’t solve it that way.’”

He concludes his statements by saying he’s “glad [Trump’s] okay.”

“I gotta say this: He’s the luckiest motherfucker that has ever walked the face of the Earth,” he says to laughter. “In 2016, he lost the popular vote by a lot, he pulled an inside straight [in the Electoral College] to win — everything happened in his way. The Democratic turmoil that’s going on right now with Joe Biden being his opponent. Always lucky, lucky, lucky.”

Maher will likely address the shooting and its aftermath during this week’s episode of Real Time With Bill Maher.

Real Time With Bill Maher airs Fridays on HBO 10/9c.