Bill Maher slams 'zombie lie' that Trump is Putin's ‘bi—h' hours after summit in Alaska
"Let's not have the zombie lie that [Trump] is still backing Putin," Maher told his panel. "First of all, he bombed Iran, that was a Putin ally. He didn't get out of NATO. He mended fences with NATO. And he put sanctions back on Russia."
After a three-hour meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska, where the two discussed the ongoing war in Ukraine, Trump called the meeting "very warm" in an exclusive interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
He also said Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy want him to attend the next meeting.
Hours after that interview, Maher confessed the "one thing" he knows about Trump.
If somebody is the kind of person that would "see the good in anybody," this would be "the good" in Trump, the late-night host teased.
"He really does hate war," Maher insisted. "He really does not like it when people die in war."
One of Maher's panelists, County Highway editor-at-large Walter Kirn, added some wit to the discussion.
"You're really coming around, Bill," Kirn joked.
"I'm not coming around," Maher countered, insisting he's not "on anyone's team." He went on to call his statement "true s--t."
The duo had a sterner discussion when Maher first introduced the "zombie lie" about Trump's relationship with Putin.
"I think it's kind of a zombie lie that Trump is Putin's, you know, bi--h," Maher began. "Because he was certainly over friendly to him for a very long time, considering who Putin is. A thug and a murderer."
"In 2015, Obama met [Putin] and nobody said anything," Kirn retorted.
"He met him, he didn't praise him," Maher argued. "He didn't say he's the greatest guy in the world. I could read 20 compliments that Trump has given to him."
Trump has repeatedly called Putin "smart" and blamed former President Joe Biden for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference.
"The problem is not that Putin is smart, which, of course, he's smart," Trump told the crowd. "The real problem is that our leaders are dumb. They've allowed him to get away with this travesty and this assault on humanity."
The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates the total number of casualties in the war in Ukraine to be 1.4 million since February 2022.
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