“I don’t think you’ve can judge that from Barbie not getting nominated,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) tonight to Bill Maher when asked by the host if the snub of the blockbuster’s director Greta Gerwig and star Margot Robbie in the Oscars nominations means America is a patriarchy or not.
When Maher tried to link the Barbie discussion to Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 campaign, Schiff put things in real perspective on Real Time. “I would vote for a corned beef sandwich over Donald Trump,” he quipped to applause don’t say that lightly, but at least a corned beef sandwich would have some intelligence and wouldn’t be a dictator on Day one.”
Just days after a full debate between the leading candidates for California’s open Senate seat, Rep. Schiff found himself in the slightly warm seat again tonight on HBO‘s Real Time with Bill Maher. Blockbuster Barbie snared a number of well-deserved Oscar nominations earlier this week, including Best Picture. However, Gerwig and Robbie were left out of the Directing and Best Actress categories – which has seen a tsunami of outrage in the days since
A near regular on Real Time show over the years and clearly admired by Maher, the green room friendly Schiff is the front runner to fill the late Dianne Feinstein’s shoes in the job the ex-San Francisco mayor held from 1992 to her death last year. Appointed by Golden State Governor Gavin Newsom in September 2023 after Feinstein’s passing, current Sen. Laphonza Butler announced in October that she would not seek election for a term of her own.
The Congressman from Hollywood since 2001 and one of the deepest thorns in Donald Trump’s paw during the former Celebrity Apprentice’s reign of terror and error, the very well-funded Schiff has been leading the Senate race since he through his hat in back in January 2023. While anything could happen in California politics, the real battle is for the number #2 spot with fellow Democrat Rep. Katie Porter and GOP contenders/former Dodger Steve Garvey battling it out heading to the March 5 primary.
Schiff was shared panel time on Real Time tonight with big Democrat donor and Ted kingpin Seth MacFarlane. And there was a lot of love there, as the duo made clear after the show:
During tonight’s Real Time, some non-Barbies snubs came up earlier, as Maher put the 2024 Presidential election down to eight or so swing states and none of them being California.
“I wish the worst I felt was snubbed,” Schiff said of the electoral realities and the possibility of Trump returning to the White House. “I’m terrified.”
“How is it possible that this man who says he wants to be a dictator on Day one, who has been indicted on 91 felony counts, who has been impeached twice, who led an insurrection – how is it possible that he’s running away with the nomination of one of America’s great parties?” the former Impeachment Manager went on to say of the MAGA leader. “That to me is terrifying.”
“Even if you look at what I consider his least transgression,” Schiff said to Maher. “He’s sitting in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk signing hush money payment checks to a porn star,” he added of Trump’s attempted cover-up of his affair with Stormy Daniels. “How is ir impossible that guy is a candidate for president?”
Not naming Daniels, Schiff took out a well-planned shiv on the notoriously shifty and cheating Trump: “She was apparently the only contractor actually got paid.”
Later on CNN’s Real Time after show Overtime, Schiff said it was “true justice” that Trump was order by a New York defamation trial jury to pay $83.3 million to writer E. Jean Carroll, who last year won another case against Trump for a mid-1990s sexual assault. “The only thing he cares about is himself and money, and going after the money is the only way to bring about some real justice.”
Trump already said Friday evening he will appeal this latest verdict. Noticeably looser on Overtime as opposed to Real Time, Schiff then predicted Joe Biden will win in November because “at the end of the day, America is going to have a President who is a decent human being, who doesn’t sh*t on other people.”
Though mindful of his poise and words with voters watching, Schiff on Real Time played to his own base and put the blade in deeper later when talking about immigration and Trump’s empty or cruel promises of reform and tough measures. “That’s not a politician, that’s a grifter in Donald Trump.”
As one would expect, when it came to his own party’s candidate for the White House in 2024, Senator-to-be Schiff was full of nothing but praise for incumbent Biden – especially when it comes to immigration of all issues.
“I think one of the things the President is doing now, which we really haven’t done in the last year is lean into this issue, take ownership of this issue and make the case for why what Democrats are offering,” loyal soldier Schiff said of a topic that the GOP on the state and national stage have been battering Democrats with for years. “Bill, I think what the party has done, which is a mistake, is take the view that when we’re talking about immigration that’s the issue that’s favorable to them. We want to talk about the issues that are favorable to us.”
“That’s a very common political strategy, but it’s not working,” Schiff told Maher. “We have to lean into this. The President today is leaning into this, he is calling out the Republicans for killing a potential bipartisan bill.”
A potential immigration bill that Senators on both sides were getting close to consensus on until Trump demanded Republicans now asphyxiate to deny Biden a potential win, as both Maher and Schiff pointed out Friday.
Before Schiff and MacFarlane were on the show, Maher sat down with never not opinionated ESPN host Stephen A. Smith. The two bonded over their mutual distrust of the government, the media and everything else except sport, with a swing at nepo babies.
Previous to that sit-down, Maher delivered his standard topical monologue before the studio audience. Zipping over topics such as those Oscar nominations snubs of Barbie’s Gerwig and Robbie, and of course Trump’s dominance of the GOP race with his latest New Hampshire primary victory, Maher came out with one of his best zingers in a long time.
“The race is over,” he stated, noting the reality that the 2024 election will be a repeat of the 2020 election between the now 77-year-old Trump and 81-year-old Joe Biden. “This bad news for the country, very good news for people who build ramps on debate stages,” Maher said, to huge applause from the crowd.
The only moment of the night to counter that was MacFarlane’s perfect timing in response to a Schiff story about false info on social media that his sister (the Congressman doesn’t have a sister) had married progressive financier George Soros’ daughter. As Rep. Schiff told the tale of the attack on him for this, the Family Guy creator whipped out his phone to “delete some texts.”
Everybody lost it, in the best way.