What To Know
- Bill Maher highlighted that Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped to a record low of 34%.
- The comedian said Trump is attempting to distract from his poor poll numbers with a UFC event at the White House and the Freedom 250 concert.
- Several musical acts have withdrawn from the Freedom 250 concert.
Real Time host Bill Maher noted on Friday’s (May 29) show how Donald Trump‘s distraction tactics aren’t enough to ignore his disastrous approval ratings.
The comedian highlighted a recent YouGov/Economist poll, published last Wednesday (May 27), in which the president’s approval rating dropped to 34 percent, his lowest rating across both his terms in the White House. This comes amid Trump’s ongoing war with Iran and rising gas prices across the United States.
“I tell you, due to the war and the gas prices, and like nine other things, Trump’s approval rating, lowest ever, 34%,” Maher said on Friday’s show, per The Huffington Post. “Even underwater with white people who did not go to college. That was always his base. That’s like Taco Bell losing stoners.”
He continued, “I mean, really, losing the non-college-educated white people? What does he have to do, stage UFC fights on the lawn? Oh, we’re doing that, I forgot. We actually are doing that, that’s right. My bad.”
On June 14, Trump will host an Ultimate Fighting Championship event on the South Lawn to celebrate his 80th birthday. It was revealed last week that the president purchased between $15,001 and $50,000 of stock in TKO Group Holdings, the parent company of both UFC and WWE, drawing criticism of conflicts of interest.
In addition, Trump has created the Freedom 250 event, a concert that will be part of the Great American State Fair on the National Mall this summer. The event is set to celebrate the United States’ 250th anniversary, though the concert itself has been surrounded in controversy, and acts withdrawing.
“We’re having a big 250th birthday party for America concert,” Maher stated. “They announced the lineup: Oh, Vanilla Ice — I’m not making that up — Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, Morris Day, Bret Michaels. I think this is very admirable about the president… it shows he’s concerned for the unemployed.”
He added, “And then after they announced this all-star lineup, a lot of them said, ‘No, what are you talking about? We’re not playing.’ That’s gotta hurt a lot when you can’t close the deal with Milli Vanilli.”
Indeed, several acts have pulled out of the concert, including Bret Michaels, The Commodores, Young MC, Morris Day of Morris Day and The Time, and Martina McBride.
On Saturday (May 30), Trump took to Truth Social, where he suggested canceling the concert and headlining the event himself.
“I understand Artists are getting ‘the yips’ having to do with their performance on Wednesday,” he wrote. “So I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists,’ and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!”
Real Time With Bill Maher, Fridays at 10/9c, HBO
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