"Real Time" host Bill Maher closed his show on Friday by marveling at how Herschel Walker can be supported by the Republican Party.
"Someone must explain Herschel Walker and how in a supposedly sophisticated country a person with his resume could ever be elected to office," Maher said. "For the past month, there's been a lot written about how Republicans standing behind a guy like Walker means they've lost all sense of integrity. Really, just now? Integrity died a long time ago after a long battle with tribalism. Integrity is survived by hypocrisy and fear of the other party."
The HBO star called the Georgia Senate hopeful a "f------ idiot on a scale almost impossible to parody" and listed episodes from Walker's past, specifically claims of domestic abuse and secret children, as well as allegedly paying for his ex-girlfriend's abortion — which Walker denies — despite his pro-life stance.
"He's very pro-family — just not his," Maher quipped.
Maher tackled the question: "Why do Republicans stand by him," noting that the "easy answer" is to dismiss Republicans as "deplorables," but he told his audience, "I can't write off half the country that easily."
"So let me try to translate, not endorse but translate, for liberal America. Part of the appeal of a Herschel Walker or a Donald Trump or any number of the egregious a------- Republicans and back is, in their mind, the worst a candidate is, the more it says to Democrats, 'Do see how much we don't like what you're selling?'" Maher said.
He continued, "All that socialism, and identity politics, and victimhood, and oversensitivity, and cancel culture, and white self-loathing, and forcing complicated ideas about race and sex on kids too young to understand it, literally anything would be better than that. That's their view. That's why you can be a really bad dude in Republican politics and it's not a dealbreaker."
The "Real Time" host cited past GOP support for Judge Roy Moore, who was accused of child molestation while running for Senate in Alabama, and former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who almost clinched the Republican nomination for Senate despite accusations of domestic abuse and sexual misconduct.
"This is a clear difference between the parties. Democrats also think the other side is an existential threat, but their response is not to nominate sickos to make a point," Maher said.
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Maher pointed to the controversy out of Ontario where a school supported the right of a transgender teacher to wear gigantic prosthetic breasts in class as proof that the left will never stop "wokeness."
"And that's when Republicans say, 'Well, then we'll have to do no matter who we have to elect to do it,'" Maher said. "The fact that Republicans have no shame in their game, and will vote for any monster with an ‘R’ by his name is their way of signaling how serious they are about blocking this s---."
"They're like the bad guy in action movies who shoots one of his own men… and he's like, ‘I liked him, but I had to make a point,'" he added.
