Bill Maher on Donald Trump’s Election: ‘I Call This the Get-the-Cat-High Vote’

Bill Maher capped a week of pop culture reaction to the comeback election of Donald Trump with a few zingers in his monologue on Friday’s edition of HBO’s “Real Time,” including confirmation that “I did not vote for the winner” and a telling disclosure about the West Hollywood pot shop that he co-owns with actor Woody Harrelson.

Maher took a moment to marvel at Trump’s decisive sweep on Election Night.

“Trump won all the swings, all seven — he ran the table. Trump won so big today, he called the Secretary of State in Georgia and he asked him to lose him 11,000 votes,” Maher said, a nod to the 2020 election controversy in Georgia that led to felony charges against the former President. “He has an amazing coalition. He kept the old crowd that likes him. He got a lot of new voters. He got a lot of people who say they just want to see what he’ll do. I call this the get-the-cat-high vote.”

He affirmed his vote for Trump’s Democratic challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris. “The exit poll said he grabbed 52% of white women. He also got their votes,” Maher quipped of Trump’s strength with women.

Popular on Variety

Maher noted the rightward tilt of the electorate, including in liberal Los Angeles where a California state ballot measure to make shoplifting a felony again was passed easily by voters who are tired to seeing petty crime soar at their local drug stores and 7-Elevens.

“Even liberal L.A. said, ‘Here’s an idea — instead of locking up the toothpaste, how about we lock up the shoplifters?’ “

Maher said the issue of rampant retail crime in major cities “came home to me personally this week.” He disclosed that the Woods, the West Hollywood pot shop that he co-owns with actor Woody Harrelson, was burglarized one day before the Nov. 5 election. He said there has already been an arrest in the case.

“They just broke in the window and walked in there, and the joke’s on them, you know? Why? Because they caught the guy. Because our pot is so good he forgot to leave,” Maher said.

Maher’s first guest was actor Michael Douglas, who paid the host a compliment. The son of influential Hollywood golden age star Kirk Douglas, who died in 2020 at age 101, told Maher that toward the end of his father’s life, “the only things he would watch was Ultimate Fighting [Championship] and you.”

Maher has been outspoken about his preference for the Democratic Party in this year’s presidential election, last week imploring undecided voters that “I’m not Trump” is a “still a really great reason” on its own to vote for Harris. In September, Maher took issue with Trump’s comment that “the Jewish people would have a lot to do” with a potential election loss for him.

“Whenever the autocrat starts blaming the Jews, I think it’s a great sign because when has that ever turned out badly,” Maher said on “Real Time.”

Trump fired back at Maher on his social media platform Truth Social, calling the HBO host a “a befuddled mess, sloppy and tired, and every conversation, with B and C list guests.”

Maher’s comments on the presidential election come after just about every late-night talk show host has weighed in on the results of Tuesday. Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Taylor Tomlinson and Seth Meyers all expressed their dismay at the election results at length. John Oliver is expected to confront the issue in the newest episode of “Last Week Tonight” on Sunday evening.

“It was a terrible night for everyone who voted against him,” Kimmel stated in his opening monologue Wednesday evening. “And guess what? It was a bad night for everyone who voted for him too. You just don’t realize it yet.”