Bill Maher has a bold forecast for the 2024 election.
“I’m going to make this a very momentous night with a prediction,” Maher told his guests, former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and conservative pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, on Friday’s episode of the HBO show “Real Time.”
The prediction? That “it’s over” for GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
“I think I have the credibility for this prediction,” Maher said, noting that he’s been branded a “Trump alarmist” in the past.
He said he correctly predicted that Trump would politically survive prior controversies, like the infamous “grab ’em by the pussy” Access Hollywood tape.
“Every time he’s done crazy shit and gotten himself in trouble, I said, ‘No, no, it’s not over,’” Maher recalled.
Now, Maher feels differently.
“Tonight I’m saying, I think it’s over,” he stated bluntly.
The comedian compared Trump’s rise to the “hold on America” exercised by former Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) ― primarily known for his persecution of Americans suspected to be communists during the Cold War ― saying that McCarthy’s popularity “blew out” in two to three years.
“I feel like ― eating the dogs ― we’re at this point,” Maher quipped, referencing Trump spreading an evidence-free rumor about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
“I just think he’s going to lose.”
The prediction marks a sharp change from what Maher was saying when President Joe Biden was still running for reelection. Following Biden’s disastrous debate performance in June, Maher warned that Trump would beat Biden and that Democrats would “regret” keeping him as their candidate. Biden later dropped out of the White House race, making room for Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket.
