In the Season 22 finale of Real Time With Bill Maher, the host took aim at Donald Trump‘s much-derided cabinet picks, even pausing at one point to laugh heartily as he implied that the jokes write themselves.
“Do I really have to write jokes for this?” Bill Maher said amid chuckles.
Beginning his last episode of the year, Maher started with an off-color joke referencing Trump’s Access Hollywood tape: “The Republicans, man, when they take power, they grab it by the pussy. They don’t f— around. They’re not even in charge yet, they just won the election. Already, big changes in the House. They elected the first transgender person in the House, so immediately the Republicans have now banned her from being able to go to the restroom. Yeah, thank God the adults are back in charge,” he sarcastically quipped.
He said, “Right away, Lindsey Graham volunteered to check for dicks.” Maher continued the bit, referencing Graham’s redundant compliments — in which he called Trump’s naming of former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi for AG following Matt Gaetz‘s withdrawal a “grand slam, touchdown, hole in one, ace, hat trick, slam dunk, Olympic gold medal pick” — “because nothing says ‘I’m straight’ like overcompensating with a sports metaphor.”
Of Gaetz’s withdrawal, he joked, “The Republicans said, ‘Yes, too despicable, even for us,’ which I respect.”
“Then there’s Fox & Friends‘ Pete Hegseth, who’s nominated to be the Secretary of Defense. He was accused — again, just accused — of having, she says, nonconsensual sexual relations, he says, consensual. So again, we don’t know. You weren’t there. I wasn’t there. We don’t know, but it does raise the question, has anyone ever had sex with someone from Fox News and liked it?” he said.
Concluding his opening monologue ahead of the show, he quipped: “I’m not saying this crew will not be good at their jobs, but they will be the first cabinet that’s asked to stay [outside] 500 feet of a school. You know that useless sexual harassment seminar that we all have to do at work? We finally found an office that needs it.”
As previously reported by Deadline in March, HBO renewed the show to the end of 2026. During the show, Maher said he would return as host in the new year Jan. 17, with his comedy special Is Anyone Else Seeing This? to air a week earlier on HBO.
