Bill Maher said the lack of Republican National Convention speeches from former presidents or vice presidents indicates the GOP has made a “clean cut” with its past.
“It’s a little odd, isn’t it? That the Republicans had no former president, vice president. There was no Mitt Romney there, no Bush, no Dick Cheney,” Maher said Friday on “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
Maher compared the GOP’s break from its past to actor Tom Cruise’s relationship with his daughter, from whom Cruise is reportedly estranged.
“It’s a little like Tom Cruise with his daughter,” Maher said, to laughter from the studio audience. “You know, ‘I don’t know you anymore.’”
“I feel like I’ve never seen a convention where the party just disowned its complete past like that,” Maher added.
The discussion took place on a panel with CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, Democratic strategist James Carville and Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw (Texas).
Crenshaw started to push back, noting it “doesn’t really matter” if Republicans “put on the best show,” adding, “I know we have better policy.”
Maher shot back, “It’s an indication that you have made a clean cut with what Republicanism was up until Trump.”
Democrats concluded their four-day gathering in Chicago last week, which saw a wave of momentum that some pundits have compared to former President Obama’s historic 2008 nomination.
Trump and his allies have criticized the Democrats for not focusing enough on policy during the convention and instead relying on “vibes” to fuel campaign momentum.
In a Sunday interview, Republican National Committee co-Chair Lara Trump defended Republicans’ approach to their convention and criticized Democrats, saying, “It seems like they’re attempting to run on hating Donald Trump, on platitudes, on vibes, and on emotion.”
“We were very proud of the Republican National Convention. I think what people saw with our convention is that you actually saw a path forward for this country. You saw Donald Trump, and people every single night of our convention lay out how we are going to make life better for you. I didn’t hear a single night of anybody talk at the [Democratic convention] about that,” said Lara Trump, who is the former president’s daughter-in-law.
The Hill has reached out to Trump’s campaign and to the Republican National Convention for comment on Maher’s remarks.
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