Bill Maher is doing live editions of Real Time With Bill Maher on HBO during the Republican National Convention, although you’d never know it from his jokes. On Wednesday night, Maher was still making lame remarks about Monday night’s speakers, such as Antonio Sabato Jr. and Scott Baio. Maher sneered, “Was the Pizza Rat not available?” Oh, groan.

Related: Republican Convention Review: Cruz Booed; Montel Williams Angers O’Reilly



If Maher continues to be the most inexplicable of admired political jokesters, his show does occasionally yield some comment worth hearing. On Wednesday night, those words were uttered by Michael Moore, his dolphin form swimming against the tide of liberal opinion when he uttered something I have been waiting to hear from a card-carrying member of the Left: That Donald Trump will likely be the next president.



Interrupting the flow of Trump jokes, Moore said, “I’m sorry to have to be the buzzkill here so early on, but I think Trump is going to win.“ Moore said a bit later, “People are in denial of this, but the chance of [Trump] winning is really, really good.” There were boos from the audience. “Yes, boo because you don’t want him to be president,” said Moore, “but don’t live in denial about this. Because the very things that we are all [joking about], this is music to [Trump supporters’] ears. We’re sitting here in our bubble.” (You can hear this starting at about 10 minutes into the video below.)

As his fellow panelists Joy-Ann Reid and Dan Savage sat listening with some combination of skepticism and disbelief, Moore brought his point home: “On election morning, the angry white male voters — white men over 35 are only 19 percent of the country but that’s 40 million voters, and I’m telling you, they are going to be out there, rabid, excited [to vote].”



It wasn’t funny, but it was something bracing to hear.

