Bill Maher is trashing Donald Trump’s 80th birthday festivities as a cheap spectacle.
In his opening monologue for Real Time with Bill Maher, he said while many are celebrating the World Cup and the NBA Championships, “the really big sporting event” is happening in Washington, D.C. on Sunday.
“I’m sure you know what’s going on, our redneck president is turning 80, and to celebrate there is a UFC fight on the [White House] lawn,” he said.
“So the emperor is holding gladiator games on his birthday. Nothing to see here, I wouldn’t think about it too much. Don’t worry about it,” Maher added.
He suggested the fight could be a way to celebrate the end of the Iran war.
“Hopefully the big fight will also serve as a celebration for a peace deal with Iran, which the president says is imminent, but he says that every week. They counted now, he’s said it 38 times. 38 times.”
Maher, who was initially supportive of the Iran war, has become more and more vocally opposed as it has dragged on.
And he highlighted Trump’s seemingly one-sided discourse about the war, often conducted via Truth Social.
“Do we even really need Iran in this war? I mean really, every time they pipe up he says, ‘Who asked you, stay out of it,’” Maher joked.
He added that Trump’s threats to Iran seemed to also apply at home.
“Trump said of this peace deal if they don’t agree they will pay the price. Pay the price? Gas is six dollars a gallon out here. The Iranians who pay the price are living in Beverley Hills.”
Maher is not the only one to suggest the UFC fight is meant to appease the masses.
On his hugely popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan’s guest, author and bowhunter Cameron Hanes, brought up the spectacle, saying he felt uncomfortable with the government being in the business of entertainment.
“It’s the bread and circus thing... it’s not for the White House to be putting on sporting events. We hire the government to run our country, not entertain us,” Hanes said during the Friday episode.
Rogan said he was more concerned that the event was being held outside, when thunderstorms had been forecast, during a heat wave.
Trump transitions into his ninth decade on Sunday as the 17th-oldest world leader. He has been hyping the UFC 250 Freedom fights since he announced the event last year, and erected a giant arena on the White House lawn under the cover of America’s 250th, which takes place on July 4, not June 14.
