On Friday night's "Real Time," Bill Maher addressed (video embedded) Donald Trump's $5 million lawsuit against him. Maher’s response, on-air, to the somewhat specious lawsuit: “Don, just suck it up like everybody else!”
Trump sued Maher after successfully fulfilling the requirements of a "bet" that Maher ostensibly made by proving he was not birthed by a coupling between his mother and an orangutan. While on "The Tonight Show" in early January, Maher joked about his feud with Trump, saying that "what got [Trump] so mad was, we did a new rule one week that, supposed that perhaps Donald Trump had been the spawn of his mother having sex with orangutan," [because] “the color of his hair and the color of an orange orangutan is only two things in nature of the same color.”
As part of the humor, Maher made an offer: he would give $5 million to the charity of Trump’s choice (but he suggested obviously faux charities, such as the “Hair Club for Men” or the “Institute for Incorrigible Douchebaggery”) if Trump were to prove Maher’s hypothesis to be wrong.
Given the challenge, Trump’s lawyer actually sent Maher a letter including a copy of Trump's birth certificate, along with the following declaration:
Attached hereto is a copy of Mr. Trump’s birth certificate, demonstrating that he is the son of Fred Trump, not an orangutan.
Considering Trump's multiple denials over the validity of U.S. President Barack Obama's birth certificate, it is unclear why Maher should accept a copy.
Maher told Trump he needs to learn two things: “what a joke is and what a contract is.” Maher continued, explaining just how -- to most -- his wager was a joke.
So playing on the fact that the only other thing in nature with the same color hair as Trump's is the orange-haired orangutan, I joked that Donald Trump needed to show me his papers to prove that he wasn't hiding a bad secret about his birth. This is known as parody, and it's a form of something we in the comedy business call a joke.
Naturally I also aped, if you will, Trump's offer of money to a charity of his choosing, which I identified as The Hair Club for Men. Really? We’re going to court about this? Well, this upset the Donald so much they could barely get him to stop flinging his feces.
For those who don't know, feces-flinging isn't unknown among simians.
Now, public figures of course, don't always like everything that's said about them, but that's how we roll here in America. Just like we're the gun country, we're the joke country. We love our free speech and we love celebrities getting taken down a peg. So Don, just suck it up like everybody else.
Maher went on to blast Trump -- and his lawyer, pictured above, per Maher -- explaining to them that "the legal system in this country, it’s not a joke; it’s not a toy for rich idiots to play with."
As Maher noted, the short-form birth certificate that was released by Trump raised questions among the "apers" in the country. The big questions:
Where is the original long-form certificate? Because a short-form copy of a birth certificate, unsigned by an attending physician, isn't proof of anything.
You know who I learned that from? I learned that from Donald "But I'm White" Trump, who would not accept the exact same document from the President.
But remember who we're dealing with here: A man who, for a little extra publicity, will happily keep alive a debate over whether his family reunions are held at the zoo.
It's unclear where the lawsuit will go from here, but Maher said he doubted it would reach the Supreme Court.
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