There is truly no take on Joe Biden’s handsiness that matters more to me than Bill Maher’s, a person who once blamed the Me Too movement on “fucking fragile” millennials and claimed it would create a “police state” for sex. On Friday night, Maher delivered his much-needed opinion, joking that Biden is “not Harvey Weinstein or R. Kelly, he’s more like the TSA.” So funny! What jokes and funny fun!
According to Deadline, Maher addressed the multiple women who’ve come forth of late to accuse Biden of unwanted touching during his monologue for Real Time with Bill Maher “We’re getting a little nit-picky. Of course no one likes to be touched unwantingly, and women get a lot more of that than men, but the first person who brought this up said he made her feel gross and uneasy,” he said. “Yeah, you know what makes me feel gross and uneasy? A second Trump term.”
Later, Maher sparred with guest Julian Castro, defending Biden’s own stupid touching jokes and subsequent weak-ass apology. “I think he should joke about it. I don’t think it’s that big a deal,” Maher said.
Castro, to his credit, disagreed, but Maher continued to argue that it wasn’t a big deal, returning to the topic later in the show:
“These are not allegations. They actually happened. It’s on tape,” he pointed out during the show’s panel conversation. The women, he said, “are not victims stepping forward. All this is bullshit – he kissed the back of somebody’s head!”
As has been revisited over and over and over again, Biden’s unwanted touching isn’t necessarily about sexual assault so much as it invites an important conversation about women’s agency and frequently invaded space, and how men (Biden included) respond to that conversation is a pretty good indicator re: whether or not they take that agency seriously. It seems Maher doesn’t. What a surprise.