“I have the credibility for it”

Bill Maher has a bold prediction for the 2024 elections.

“I'm going to make this evening a very special event with a prediction,” Maher told his guests, former Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) and conservative pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, on Friday's episode of HBO's “Real Time.”

The prediction? For Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, it is “over.”

“I think that prediction is credible,” Maher said, noting that he has been branded a “Trump alarmist” in the past.

He said he correctly predicted that Trump would politically survive past controversies, such as the infamous Access Hollywood video “Grab 'em by the pussy.”

“Every time he did crazy things and got himself in trouble, I said, 'No, no, it's not over yet,'” Maher recalled.

Now Maher sees things differently.

“Tonight I say I think it’s over,” he said bluntly.

The comedian compared Trump's rise to the “influence on America” ​​exerted by former Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) – best known for his persecution of Americans suspected of being communists during the Cold War – and said McCarthy's popularity “evaporated” within two to three years.

“I feel like we're at this point where we're eating dog,” Maher joked, referring to Trump's spread of an unsubstantiated rumor that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are stealing and eating pets.

“I just think he's going to lose.”

That prediction is a stark difference from what Maher said when President Joe Biden was still in the race for re-election. After Biden's disastrous performance at the June debate, Maher warned that Trump would beat Biden and that Democrats would “regret” keeping him as their nominee. Biden later dropped out of the White House race, making way for Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket.

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