Bill Maher Shuts Down Media's Excuses for Harris's Loss

Bill Maher wasted no time dismissing excuses for Vice President Kamala Harris' loss to President-elect Donald Trump. During the "Overtime" segment of his show on Friday, Maher called out the justifications being made for Harris' campaign.

Sarah Isgur, an ABC News contributor, argued that Harris was "set up to fail" by the Democrats, given the "three-month campaign" she had to run. "You're saying three months wasn't long enough?" Maher shot back. "It was long enough. It’s not that they didn’t have time to introduce her—they met someone and they didn’t like 'em."

MSNBC's John Heilemann tried to defend Harris. He said being the vice president under an unpopular President Biden was a tough spot. "Bill, I don't know if you know this, but the vice president of the United States is basically shoved in a broom closet for three-and-a-half years," Heilemann remarked.

"I know, she was more popular in there," Maher quipped. He was unconvinced by the argument that 107 days wasn’t enough to get to know Harris. "This idea that in a mass media age that 107 days is not long enough to know somebody?"

Maher turned to his audience, asking if they didn’t know enough about Harris "pretty much after a week to make a decision." "It's ridiculous!" he exclaimed. "We just get sicker of them!"

He wasn’t done, though. Maher took aim at the excuses being made for Harris. "Why do you have to make all these excuses for her?" he asked. "All it was this week was people saying ‘Oh, she ran a flawless campaign.’ How ridiculous. Or ‘It’s sexism. It’s racism.’ This is an old playbook!"

Heilemann tried to clarify, saying, "I didn’t say any of this." Maher continued, "I know, but I heard a lot of these things." He also added, "I think America is perfectly willing to elect a woman. They just didn’t like the last two that were put up."

In the end, Maher didn’t mince words. "She didn’t make a good case. She didn’t denounce the past stuff that people didn’t like. She just tried to ignore it."