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"Real Time" host Bill Maher took a swipe at President Donald Trump over his "completely a-- backwards" approach to China on Friday as he wages his global tariff war, saying he's once again rooting for a recession to get him to reverse course.
"I just feel like he picked a fight with the wrong bully," Maher said.
The liberal comedian recalled the backlash he received in 2019 from conservatives when he said he was rooting for a recession in order to hurt Trump's re-election chances the following year.
"They really f---ing hated me for that," Maher said. " I was, like, really history's greatest monster. ‘This man is rooting for a recession.’ And I was saying it's the only way Trump's going to be unpopular."
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"And of course, I'm just rooting. I can't make it actually happen. They didn't seem to understand that. I'm not a genie, but I'm rooting for one again," he told the panel.
"Real Time" host Bill Maher railed against President Donald Trump's approach to China during the global tariff war. (Screenshot/HBO)
He pointed to the conservative backlash Trump has received in recent weeks from those who aren't backing his tariff plans in part because it's "tanking the economy" but he added it's "also a form of corruption."
"Because we've seen already when you have tariffs, then you can take them off," Maher continued, pointing to his recent exception for phones and computers. "So in other words, you can reward people. I mean, Trump is great at a couple of things. One: finding ways to reward and punish people. And two: finding a way to get bribed. Those are like two of his biggest skills."
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Maher slammed President Trump's tariffs as a "form of corruption." (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The HBO host went on to swipe the Trump administration for insisting China "needs to make a deal with us" and that "we don't need to make a deal with them."
"I think that's completely a-- backwards," Maher reacted. "Look, I'm always for America... I want us to win, but this is just the reality of what China is. They're not going to buy planes from Boeing anymore. I imagine that would ripple through the economy. That's kind of a big sector."
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Maher said Trump "picked a fight with the wrong bully" as he wages economic war with Chinese President Xi Jinping. (AP/Minh Hoang)
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Maher also pointed to how the U.S. is almost totally reliant on China's supply of rare earth minerals needed for almost all of modern-day technology.
"We make none of this here, except we have one place here in California, Mountain Pass. They have a rare earth mine there. It takes out of the ground in one year what China does in a day," Maher said.
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