What To Know
- Bill Maher criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for appearing partisan.
- He highlighted the contrast between federal district courts frequently ruling against Donald Trump and the Supreme Court’s tendency to favor him.
- Maher compared the Constitution to the Bible, suggesting both are revered but often ignored in practice.
Bill Maher issued a brutal takedown of the U.S. Supreme Court amid the government shutdown — while making a bold comparison of the Bible and the U.S. Constitution in the process.
On the Friday, November 7 episode of Real Time With Bill Maher, the comedian, 69, spoke at length about the Supreme Court’s recent track record.
“The Supreme Court has to recognize that they have one last chance to not look like a bunch of partisan hacks who are no different than the other two branches of the government,” he said. “This week, the court is hearing about a case that will definitively tell us if they really are a separate branch of government — or whether when the founders said you are a check on executive power, they thought it meant a blank check.”
That’s when Maher compared federal district court rulings to the U.S. Supreme Court rulings over the summer on things like “withholding money that Congress specifically authorized and suspending due process for non-citizens.” Between May 1 and June 23, federal district courts ruled against President Donald Trump 94.3% of the time (82 out of 87 cases), versus Trump’s 17-case winning streak in the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Which is funny because during the [Joe] Biden years, the court was all about reigning in presidential power,” Maher pointed out.
On Friday, the Supreme Court also granted the Trump administration’s emergency appeal to temporarily block a court order to fully fund SNAP benefits amid the government shutdown — after a federal judge gave the administration until Friday to make a payment to fully fund SNAP.
After skewering Trump for tariffs and declarations of nine national emergencies since taking office, Maher compared the U.S. Constitution to the Bible, tying back to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The Constitution: Is it still a real thing, or is it just a vibe now?” he wondered aloud. “The Supreme Court has to decide: Are you going to be Democracy’s last line of defense, or is the Constitution now — really, let’s be honest — just like the Bible. Just a sacred, old text that everyone name-drops with reverence but no one actually reads or even feels bad about ignoring.”
Maher continued, “Both testaments, the old due in the sky, and his hippie son — both have many commandments and pronouncements about slavery, and none of them are, ‘Don’t do it.’ The thing is, the Constitution is pro-slavery, too. But the difference with science and faith is, with the Constitution, we could amend it and did.”
To conclude his thoughts, the comedian added, “I could live with the Bible and its Bronze-Age nonsense as long as we also had the greatest document from the Age of Enlightenment. But now I fear they are both like a hot dog: Something Americans love, but they don’t know what’s in it, and they don’t care.”
Real Time With Bill Maher, Fridays, 10/9c, HBO