HBO’s Real Time host Bill Maher made another desperate plea for a recession on Friday, saying that the economic downturn “would be very worth getting rid of Donald Trump.”
“So I’ve been saying for about two years that I hope we have a recession,” Bill Maher said. “And people get mad at me, as Sean Hannity thinks I’m actually causing a recession. I’m just saying we can survive a recession. We’ve had 47 of them. We’ve had one every time there’s a Republican president.”
“So, yes, a recession would be very worth getting rid of Donald Trump and these kind of policies,” Maher said after citing a dubious United Nations report that claims a million species are at risk of extinction.
Just a week earlier, the left-wing comedian was wishing for a recession as a means to oust President Trump.
“Well, you should be. Because that will definitely get him unelected,” said Maher, responding to political advisor Tom Nichols saying he’s “not wishing for a recession.”
“I really do,” Maher responded when challenged on his desire for an economic downturn. “We have survived many recessions. We can’t survive another Donald Trump term.”
And just days before that, Maher was again hoping for a recession.
“That’s my question — I feel like the bottom has to fall out at some point, and by the way, I’m hoping for it because I think one way you get rid of Trump is a crashing economy,” Maher said at the time. “So please, bring on the recession. Sorry if that hurts people but it’s either root for a recession, or you lose your democracy.”
Preceding Maher’s political plea was a week beset by a bunch of bad economic news. But by the week’s end, media-fueled chatter about a looming recession was muted by a bevy of positive economic news.
Breitbart’s economic editor John Carney reports:
Just one day after the yield curve inverted, stoking fears that the U.S. economy could be approaching a recession, a huge batch of economic data sent economists scrambling to raise their forecasts for U.S. growth.
. . .
The good data included better than expected retail sales, stronger than expected survey results on the manufacturing sector from the New York and Philadelphia Federal Reserve banks, and better than expected productivity gains. Industrial production numbers disappointed but much of that appeared to be due to Boeing’s problems.
The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow moved its reading of third-quarter GDP from 1.9 percent to 2.2 percent. The CNBC Rapid Update, a survey of economists, moved up from 1.9 to 2.1 percent. Several other economists also announced that they were upgrading their views of the economy based on the strong data, particularly the strength of the U.S. consumer.
Maher, for his part, has put his money where his mouth is. Last April, he donated $1 million to the Senate Majority PAC in an effort to help Democrats win a majority in the U.S. Senate.