Screenshot via HBO
Bill Maher accused President Donald Trump of embracing “socialism” more openly than Democrats while blasting progressive liberals.
On Friday’s Real Time, Maher had plenty of criticism to throw the left’s way, but he accused the right of being hypocrites when it comes to “socialism” and “communism” accusations.
Maher specifically called out the Trump administration’s investment and stakes in private companies:
It’s so interesting, the wrinkle in this story, because now that they’re communists, there’s an opening for socialism. And you know who’s filling it? Donald Trump! Donald Trump, how else do you explain a 9.9 stake in Intel by the government? Is that not socialism? Nvidia, we took 15% cut when we let them sell chips to China. Nippon Steel, that’s merged with US Steel, we have a golden share. We basically run their boardroom now.
Maher joked the administration feels like it could be headed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) when it comes to the federal government being so hands-on in private businesses.
“And you know this is socialism, I think, because Bernie Sanders agrees with it all. He wants to do it with the AI companies,” he said.
Guest Tara Palmeri then declared: “the free market is dead:”
They have decided that the government wants to control 30 different companies. And Intel alone, which was a loser because of Nvidia, they have, they basically own 9.9% of that company. And that’s a lot. And President Trump, after they invested in this company, he then went on to buy stocks in Nvidia, which shot up 200%. Okay, so he actually made a ton of money on this. His government created a floor on a stock. That he owns! It’s crony capitalism too!
Maher agreed on the “crony capitalism” point while Libertarian pundit Matt Welch called out the behavior as “thuggish.”
“Donald Trump was out there saying we need to maybe fire the CEO of Intel because I think he’s a Chinese spy,” he said. “It’s like, what? The president is just singling out a huge CEO of an important company and so they had to scramble the Jets and have a meeting at the White House and what happened at the end of that meeting? Okay, you say we get 10% of your company. That is thuggish behavior. We have never seen anything like this in modern time.”
The post ‘This Is Socialism!’: Bill Maher Accuses Trump of Going Further Left Than Dems first appeared on Mediaite.
