While speaking with CNN host Kaitlan Collins on Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher said that he doesn’t blame people on the right for thinking CNN is biased against Republicans and stated that their coverage of 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris’ DNC speech was almost all “just gushing about how great a speech it was, and I think she did fine. I didn’t think it was as good as they were making it out to be.”
Maher said, “[Y]ou made press because you were on Stephen Colbert’s show, and he said something like, you guys at CNN just report the news straight and the crowd burst into laughter. … I’m a big rooter for CNN. But that tells you a lot, doesn’t it? How do you guys think you are doing in that arena of, like, this is a terribly divided country, we’re not only politicized, a lot of people just hate the other side. And, CNN, in my view, should be the place where both sides can watch. How do you think you’re doing with that?”
Collins answered, “CNN is the place where both sides can watch. And I think my show is evidence of that. We have lawmakers on from both parties. We’ll have Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on one night, we’ll have Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on another night. I think lawmakers from both parties should take questions and you should push both of them. But on CNN being a place of credibility, look at what just happened in Chicago, we had 300 people from CNN on the ground covering that convention. There were several reporters from, just our team alone, on the floor, bringing it in real-time to people. And I think CNN puts resources behind things and just brings a level of news that you don’t get anywhere else. And I think CNN does a great job with that.”
Maher countered, “Yeah, but I’m talking about the people on CNN. And I know what the conservative side of America thinks, and I don’t blame them. I watched Kamala’s speech last night, it ended at…11:09 in the east. It wasn’t until 11:23 until the one conservative, guy…lonely Scott I call him –.”
Collins cut in to reply, “David Urban was there too.”
Maher continued, “I watched it from 8:09 until 8:23, they [were] just gushing about how great a speech it was, and I think she did fine. I didn’t think it was as good as they were making it out to be. But if I’m a conservative in America and I’m watching CNN, just for the straight, middle-of-the-road, that’s what I hear for 15 minutes is, it’s great, and then lonely Scott. It does look — and when you see the [panel], it does look like tokenism. It’s kind of like the same as ‘The View.’ It’s like it’s almost better to have nobody there like MSNBC.”
Collins countered, “I don’t think you could say it’s better to have nobody there and then also lament the fact you don’t think the conservative guy, Scott Jennings — who is great, and we have him on my show all the time — spoke up early enough. I think it was a Democratic convention, they turned to Democrats, people like David Axelrod, who ran successful presidential Democratic campaigns first for their analysis of this, and I don’t think that you can say that CNN is anything but fair. Look at, we covered President Biden’s exit from the race very closely, the pressure on him to get out. And I feel like I can speak with authority on this, I’m from Alabama, I’m from a very red state, I have a very conservative family, a lot of them who are Trump voters, they watch my show every night. And I think they know that they can trust me, that we call bullshit on every side, not just whatever leaning our audience may be. And I think that’s something that people actually want more of, is to hear from that. I think Scott’s voice is really important, but I think other voices are important to hear from. And everyone who was speaking last night, it’s not like they were all Democrats. We had Dana Bash, Jake Tapper, Abby Phillip, all of my amazing colleagues giving analysis.”
Maher cut in to say, “They come across that way, in a moment like that, it was like 5 to 1. It always looks like 5 to 1.”
Later, Maher praised Collins’ town hall with 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump in 2023 and said, “I thought you did do a good job, you held his feet to the fire, but the crowd loved him. It didn’t matter that he was spewing bullshit, he always spews bullshit. [The town hall audience] loved it. … But then they cut to the panel, where it’s like five people shitting on him. So, they just saw 90 minutes of this guy saying things, people loving him, and then five people who look like elitists because, oh, you don’t get it, you see, you don’t get what we like about him.”
Collins responded, “I think two things can be true. I think people can like Donald Trump and maybe not care about the veracity of his statements or what he promises to do and whether or not he fulfills that or changes his position on it. And I think you can have people talk about that and analyze it after. I don’t think that those two things can’t exist together.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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