Bill Maher Slams Trump and Fox News for Their Racist Aretha Franklin Tributes

“Not such a good week for the president,” Bill Maher announced at the top of Friday night’s Real Time. “He lost his one black friend.”

Yes, the comedian began the latest edition of his HBO program by addressing the soap opera that’s captivated the media’s attention: Omarosa’s roaring rampage of revenge against her former employer, President Donald Trump.

The reality-TV villainess turned senior White House aide to Trump is promoting her new tell-all book Unhinged, and has been dropping Easter eggs—in the form of tape recordings of private conversations with the president and various other White House officials.

“Let’s not forget that Omarosa did defend Trump a million times, lied for him. After the election she said all his detractors would have to bow down before Donald Trump. I don’t care, she’s our asshole now,” said Maher. “I’ll take anything I can get. Gladly. But really, this is where we are? Where the reality-show people are now the reality?”

Maher then played the tape of Omarosa discussing her firing with President Trump, with the president claiming ignorance. “I… Nobody even told me about it,” he says on the tape. “You know, they run a big operation, but I didn’t know it. I didn’t know that. Goddamn it.”

“Aside from everything else, what a pussy piece of shit he is!” Maher exclaimed. “‘They’ run a big operation here! Boy, if I ever find this ‘president of the United States’ guy…”

One of Omarosa’s claims in Unhinged is that, when the Trump team visited a black church in Detroit, Omarosa got up only to have Trump tell her, “You can’t leave me here with these people”—to which Maher cracked, “He’s got such a deft touch with race, this president. Doesn’t he?”

“Aretha Franklin passed away, I’m sure you heard, and of course this guy says, ‘Yeah, she worked for me,’” the comic continued. “She worked for you? A complete lie. This guy cannot say ‘rest in peace’ without lying. Trump said he was going to tweet his favorite Aretha song, ‘Respect,’ but he couldn’t remember how to spell it.”

Indeed, while Aretha performed at a couple of Trump-owned venues, she never “worked” for him. In fact, as The Daily Beast exclusively reported, Franklin privately trashed Trump and blew off an invite to perform at his presidential inauguration concert. But Trump wasn’t the only one with a racist tribute to the Queen of Soul: Fox News, in all its wisdom, mistook Franklin for Patti LaBelle. 

“New Rule: If Fox News is going to run, as they did, a tribute to Aretha Franklin featuring a photo of Patti LaBelle—they did that—BET must run this tribute to Barbara Bush,” offered Maher, before throwing to a photo of Christopher Lloyd’s Doc Brown from Back to the Future.