Bill Maher has acknowledged that some Bernie Sanders supporters will vote for Donald Trump in the general election if the Vermont senator fails to get the Democratic presidential nomination.

An aggressive foe of Republicans and Donald Trump in particular, Bill Maher generally supports (including with his cash) Barack Obama and virtually the entire Democrat/progressive agenda, but has also repeatedly criticized liberals on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher for being too beholden to political correctness, including as it pertains to, in his view, looking the other way when it comes to radical Islam.

During the Real Time overtime segment last night, the liberal comedian, who supports Sanders, affirmed that “Some Bernie voters are going to vote Trump,” in reference to the presumptive GOP presidential nominee and New York real estate mogul.

Panelist Kellyanne Conway, a Republican pollster who backs Trump rival Ted Cruz, immediately agreed with Maher.

“Thank you. Absolutely. Based on trade. Based on outsider, absolutely. No money in politics, same view,” she said.

“Maher’s prediction was by no means an endorsement of Trump. Earlier in his show, Maher called Trump a “f******g b****h,” The Daily Caller observed.

As alluded to above, Republican (and former Democrat and Independent) Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, who is a socialist running for president as a Democrat, share certain populist views such as condemning the Iraq War and opposing bipartisan international trade treaties and dealmaking that sends U.S. jobs overseas. Both also favor raising taxes on the super rich, such as Wall Street hedge fund managers. Trump has also promised to put forth a plan addressing skyrocketing college tuition debt, one of Sanders’ big issues.

Donald Trump recently told Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough and MSNBC co-host Mika Brzezinski that “Bernie Sanders has a message that’s interesting. I’m going to be taking a lot of the things that Bernie said and using them. I can re-read some of his speeches, and I can get some very good material.”

A Democrat strategist has even claimed that about 40 percent of the Bernie Sanders cohort will vote for Trump over Clinton, should the former Secretary of State get her party’s nomination, which appears likely.

Among other things, however, Trump and Sanders differ on immigration, where Trump wants to build a wall at the southern border with a “beautiful” door, while Sanders generally favors open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWQ_moqb–4

In an interview with Variety published on Wednesday, Bill Maher credited a political correctness pushback as the reason that Trump has consistently been the GOP presidential front-runner throughout the entire primary season.

“I think what he has changed is the idea of political incorrectness being a third rail. That is different. All of us thought that he would be out as soon as he said that thing about John McCain not being a war hero. We thought, ‘Well, this is the end of him.’ And then he said Carly Fiorina was too ugly to be president. And he said Megyn Kelly was having her period. And he made fun of a guy with cerebral palsy. I mean, what does this guy have to do to get people to turn off to him? Fart in Jesus’ face — I mean it is crazy….And I have always attributed that to the fact that America has been choking on political correctness for 20 years or more. I mean back in ’93 is when I started a show called Politically Incorrect because I was sick of it way back then and it hasn’t gotten better since. So I think America just really embraced the idea of somebody who doesn’t walk back every thing he says that makes someone somewhere in America uncomfortable. And by the way that is a very attractive stance to take. It is just unfortunate that it is being taken by someone who is such an idiot.”

Maher added in the Variety interview that Trump has no chance in the general election, although he was far less confident of that in the Real Time segment (embedded above), during which he suggested that Hillary Clinton pick Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as her VP running mate.

Bill Maher Blames PC Culture For Rise Of Trump https://t.co/PZMShdYdGi pic.twitter.com/5aSU2qpJLR — The Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 29, 2016

In 2013, Donald Trump sued Bill Maher for $5 million in a dispute arising from the Obama “birther” controversy. Maher went on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno on January 7 of that year and quipped that he would donate $5 million to charity if the billionaire businessman could prove that he wasn’t the result of his mother having sex with an orangutan. The offer was in response to Trump’s offer to donate $5 million to charity if President Obama provided a copy of his college transcript.

The ex-Celebrity Apprentice host subsequently released his birth certificate and sued Maher for breach of contract when the Real Time moderator failed to make the donation. Maher claimed the offer was merely a parody rather than in the form of a binding agreement. Although the case was ultimately dropped, Maher conceded that it cost him a lot of money in legal fees.

In August, 2015, despite their profound political differences, Bill Maher called Trump a “genius” for refusing to apologize for politically incorrect remarks. In the same month, the Real Time host declared that “Every week Donald Trump says something crazy, insane, outlandish, and everyone goes ‘that’s it, that’s his downfall,’ and then he’s fine…He’s like Godzilla; everything they throw at the monster makes him stronger.”

Do you think that a significant portion of the Bernie-or-bust cohort will vote for Donald Trump in the November 2016 general election?

[Photo by Jeff Daly/Invision/AP]