Legendary Star Trek actor and author William Shatner pushed back when political pundit, podcast host and comic Bill Maher said that Vice President Kamala Harris was “not a great candidate” to face President-elect Donald Trump.
Shatner was a guest on this week’s edition of Maher’s Club Random Podcast, during which the pair spent some time discussing Trump’s surprisingly decisive victory in the presidential election.
While Shatner and Maher agreed on the impact Trump will have on climate change, Shatner pushed back when Maher derided Harris, and dismissed her candidacy as “identity politics”:
BILL MAHER: She was not a great candidate. Let’s be honest, when she said when asked–.WILLIAM SHATNER: Why isn’t she a great candidate? She combined several trends of thought here. Black, woman–.BILL MAHER: That’s not– that’s not a candidate. Those are. You know, that’s identity politics. That’s one of the Democrats’ problems.WILLIAM SHATNER: Those are elements.BILL MAHER: Those are there. But nobody elects. Well, I mean, yeah, people are tribal. They there are some people who vote just for the person who looks like them or is like them.But obviously, I think this proves to go a lot further than that. You can’t just be woman–Black person. I mean, Trump got a quarter of Black men, that’s 25%.WILLIAM SHATNER: I know.BILL
MAHER: You know, he didn’t do much better in generally because the women are very much against him. But he killed it with Latinos. If there’s any great irony in this election is that the guy who came down the escalator ten years ago talking about “they’re rapists,” they keep giving him more of their votes. And again, I understand this–.WILLIAM SHATNER: Why?BILL MAHER: Democrats–.WILLIAM SHATNER: Tell me what you understand.I will. Democrats don’t understand their own constituencies. If you’re a Mexican American, who do you fear taking your job? The guy who just came in through the border!Of course, they like the guy who says, “I’m going to keep everybody out.”.WILLIAM SHATNER: But he didn’t say I’m keeping everybody out. I’m going to send everybody out!BILL MAHER: Okay. But he– but the Democrats could have won this election in a walk, I think. Not a walk, but I think they could have won it if Biden got out earlier. They had a true primary season to find the best candidate. Not just one whose turn was it? Who, by the way, before they anointed her? Nobody was sort of on the page that she was very good at being a candidate or–.WILLIAM SHATNER: She failed the first time.
Watch above via Bill Maher’s Club