“Real Time” host Bill Maher slammed President Donald Trump and his Republican supporters Friday following reports of deplorable conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln amid its extended deployment in the Middle East due to the ongoing war on Iran.
“I’ve used this phrase before, you know, but Republicans, they have this patriotic immunity,” said Maher. “Like, they can do things that are so unpatriotic and they don’t seem to pay a price for it the way a Democrat would.”
The comedian and political pundit continued, “When I hear about troops being on a ship where the toilets aren’t working and there’s not enough food and they’re so morose about this that at least one of them jumped off the ship, it just makes my blood boil.”
See Maher’s comments below:
The Military Times reported Tuesday that multiple sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have tried to jump from the ship. Stars and Stripes reported that one spouse said her husband told her in a text message that he “hopes he doesn’t wake up tomorrow.”
When a reporter confronted Trump with the information that family members are “concerned” about their loved ones aboard the ship, he replied, “No they’re not,” and claimed the deployment hasn’t been “long enough”.
The president’s brazen comments came after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claimed that reports of poor conditions aboard the aircraft carrier were “completely misrepresented.” He also said the U.S. makes sure that everyone deployed “has everything we can provide for them.”
The Lincoln left San Diego last November, ultimately setting a modern-day record of 240 uninterrupted days at sea.
Maher, who previously supported the war before urging Trump to “cut and run,” pushed back Friday when one of his guests, pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, said many U.S. military service members feel like they’re not undertaking “any kind of mission that is worth fighting.”
“I disagree with that,” Maher interjected. “It was a mission worth fighting. We fucked it up, how we did it. Iran having a nuclear weapon, Iran being the actor in the Middle East that has fucked everything up in that region for the last 50 years.”
He claimed that “changing that dynamic” was not an “unreasonable thing to try,” but the Trump administration “did it at the wrong time” and “fucked it up.”