Comedian Bill Maher said on Wednesday that GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is bringing new energy to American politics.
{mosads}Maher admitted in an interview that Trump’s unorthodox style is what makes him compelling.
“Even though I don’t agree with everything that Donald Trump says by far, it is sort of refreshing to have a politician who isn’t always walking everything back and who isn’t completely preprogrammed,” Maher said, according to the Charleston Post and Courier.
“That’s his genius, that he doesn’t apologize for anything,” Maher added. “He’s the king of brushing things off his shoulder.”
Maher also said he is not completely discounting Trump’s chances at winning the GOP’s presidential coronation next year.
The media attention over Trump’s campaign, he added, is proof that the billionaire is intriguing to voters.
“He’s sort of the anti-Mitt Romney,” Maher said of Trump. “Mitt Romney, people hated him because he was so robotic. Well, if you don’t like robotic, Trump’s your guy.”
“Even if he would somehow get the Republican nomination, which is doubtful … I don’t think anyone is going to beat Hillary Clinton,” the HBO host added.
Maher, a noted liberal, added that he sees Hillary Clinton as the eventual Democratic nominee next election cycle.
“Would I prefer Bernie and his ideas? Absolutely,” Maher said of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Clinton’s nearest 2016 competitor. “But that’s not going to happen.”
“He’s drawing big crowds because there is this element in the country, I wish it was bigger, that think his ideas are great,” he said.
“But if you look at the national polls, he’s not close to Hillary Clinton and he’s not going to get close to Hillary Clinton,” Maher added of Sanders.
Maher concluded that Clinton will become president next year given America’s hunger for a female leader.
“There’s just so much pent-up energy to have a woman president, besides the fact that she is qualified and she’s certainly waited her turn and then some,” he said of Clinton.
“Eighty countries have had a woman leader … and I think there’s a big part of this country that’s getting sick of that, and find it embarrassing at this point that we haven’t had a woman leader,” Maher added. “And she is, you know, the right person at the right moment.”