“I don't think you can tell by the fact that Barbie wasn't nominated,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told Bill Maher tonight when asked by the moderator if the snub of blockbuster director Greta Gerwig and the leading actress Margot Robbie The Oscar nominations mean that America is a patriarchy or not.
As Maher tried to connect the Barbie discussion to Hillary Clinton's failed 2016 campaign, Schiff put things into real perspective in real time. “I would vote for a corned beef sandwich over Donald Trump,” he quipped to applause. Don’t say this lightly, but at least a corned beef sandwich would have some intelligence and not be a dictator on day one.”
Just days after an extensive debate between the leading candidates for California's open Senate seat, Rep. Schiff was once again in the slightly warm seat tonight on HBO's “Real Time with Bill Maher.” The blockbuster “Barbie” secured a number of well-deserved Oscar nominations earlier this week, including for Best Picture. However, Gerwig and Robbie were left out of the Director and Best Actress categories – leading to a tsunami of outrage in recent days
The green room-friendly Schiff, who was a near-regular on the real-time show over the years and was clearly admired by Maher, is the leading candidate to succeed the late Dianne Feinstein in the post held by the former mayor of San Francisco from 1992 until her death last year. Current Senator Laphonza Butler was appointed by Golden State Governor Gavin Newsom in September 2023 after Feinstein's death and announced in October that she would not seek election to a term in her own right.
The Hollywood congressman since 2001 and one of the deepest thorns in Trump's paw during the former Celebrity Apprentice's reign of terror and error, the very well-funded Schiff has led the Senate race since retiring in January 2023. In California politics, anything could happen, the real battle is the battle for second place, pitting Democratic Rep. Katie Porter and Republican candidate/former Dodger Steve Garvey against each other heading into the March 5 primary.
Schiff shared the panel discussion on Real Time this evening with major Democratic donor and Ted Boss Seth MacFarlane. And there was a lot of love there, as the duo made clear after the show:
During tonight's Real Time broadcast, some non-Barbie-related snubs occurred as Maher brought the 2024 presidential election down to about eight swing states – none of them California.
“I wish the worst I felt was snubbed,” Schiff said of the realities of the election and the possibility of Trump returning to the White House. “I'm scared.”
“How is it possible that this man who says on day one he wants to be a dictator, who has been charged with 91 crimes, who has been tried twice, who led an insurrection – how is it possible that he runs away with the nomination of one of America's major parties?” the former impeachment manager continued about the MAGA leader. “That’s frightening to me.”
“Even if you look at what I think is the least of his transgressions,” Schiff told Maher. “He sits in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk signing hush money checks for a porn star,” he added of Trump’s attempt to cover up his affair with Stormy Daniels. “How is it impossible for this guy to be a presidential candidate?”
Without naming Daniels, Schiff left the notoriously shady and deceitful Trump with a measured attack: “She was apparently the only contractor who actually got paid.”
Later on CNN's “Real Time” after the “Overtime” show, Schiff said it was “true justice” that Trump was convicted by a New York jury on defamation charges and ordered to pay $83.3 million to writer E. Jean Carroll, who won another trial last year against Trump for a half-1990s sexual assault, was convicted. “The only thing he cares about is himself and money, and pursuing money is the only way to achieve real justice.”
Trump said on Friday evening that he would appeal this latest ruling. Schiff was noticeably more relaxed on Overtime than he was on Real Time, then predicted that Joe Biden will win in November because “Ultimately, America will have a president who is a decent human being who doesn't give shit about other people.”
Although he was conscious of his stance and his words to voters, Schiff played to his own base on “Real Time” and later went even deeper in judgment when he discussed immigration and Trump's empty or cruel promises of reform and tough measures. “That’s not a politician, that’s a fraudster in Donald Trump.”
When it came to his own party's candidate for the White House in 2024, the future Senator Schiff was, as expected, only showered with praise for incumbent Biden – especially when it comes to immigration.
“I think one of the things the president is doing now, which we really haven't done in the last year, is engaging on this issue, taking responsibility for this issue and justifying why the Democrats are offering something,” said stalwart Schiff said of an issue that Republicans at the state and national levels have tormented Democrats for years. “Bill, I think what the party has done, which is a mistake, is to take the view that when we talk about immigration, this is the issue that is favorable to them. We want to talk about the topics that are favorable to us.”
“This is a very common political strategy, but it doesn’t work,” Schiff told Maher. “We have to embrace it. The President is taking action today, calling on Republicans to kill a potential bipartisan bill.”
A possible immigration bill that senators from both sides were almost in agreement on until Trump urged Republicans to deny Biden a possible victory, as Maher and Schiff pointed out Friday.
Before Schiff and MacFarlane were on the show, Maher sat down with the ever-opinionated ESPN host Stephen A. Smith. The two bonded over their mutual distrust of the government, the media and everything else but sports, with a jab at Nepo babies.
Before this session, Maher delivered his usual topical monologue to the studio audience. While covering topics like Barbie's Gerwig and Robbie's Oscar nominations and, of course, Trump's dominance of the GOP race with his recent New Hampshire primary win, Maher delivered one of his best punches in a long time.
“The race is over,” he declared, pointing to the reality that the 2024 election will be a repeat of the 2020 election between Trump, now 77, and Joe Biden, 81. “This is bad news for the country, but very good news for the people who build ramps on debate stages,” Maher said to loud applause from the crowd.
The only moment of the evening that could counteract this was MacFarlane's perfect timing in response to a Schiff story about false information on social media that his sister (the congressman has no sister) had married the daughter of progressive financier George Soros. As Rep. Schiff told the story of the attack on him, the Family Guy creator pulled out his phone to “delete some text messages.”
Everyone has lost it, in the best sense of the word.