'It's rocket fuel for 2024': Bill Maher warns charging Trump over Stormy Daniels hush money would be 'colossal mistake' and will boost ex-president's popularity
Bill Maher warned the criminal probe into Donald Trump would guarantee his success in 2024 election. Maher said the probe was a 'colossal mistake' after a tense week in which Trump was expected to be arrested
By Helena Kelly
Daily Mail
March 25, 2023
Bill Maher has slammed the probe into Donald Trump 's hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels during Friday night's episode of his show Real Time
Bill Maher has slammed the probe into Donald Trump's hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels as he said any arrest would be 'rocket fuel' for the former president's 2024 election campaign.
Maher warned the case - being spearheaded by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg - was a 'colossal mistake' as polls show Trump's popularity has only increased as a result.
It comes as tensions between Bragg and Trump reached boiling point yesterday after the DA received a death threat and a package of suspicious white powder.
'I really don't want to give Donald Trump the satisfaction of talking about him. I thought when he was gone, he'd be gone a little bit.' Maher said on his Real Time show on Friday night.
'But, you know, there is an ex-president out there now who's going to be arrested — possibly. And he is talking about violence in the streets of his supporters if he does.'
He added: 'I just would like to go on record in saying I think this is a colossal mistake if they bring these charges.
'Not just one, you know. I mean, yes, he's done a lot of bad things, and I'm sure he did this — everything they accused him of [doing], he did.
'But first of all, it's not going to work. It's going to be rocket fuel for his 2024 campaign.
'And it's just going to look to MAGA nation like, 'Oh, you know, you tried with Mueller, you tried with Ukraine, you tried with January 6. Now we go to the porn star? Really? You're down to that?!"'
His guests agreed as journalist Annie Lowrey pointed out the probe had already caused Trump's popularity to skyrocket.
A poll by Monmouth University shows Trump is 14 percentage points ahead of his likely leadership contender Ron DeSantis.
Another poll showed that 75 percent of Republican voters 'know' the allegations against Trump are bad but they also don't think it matters.
'I think that we've seen in, you know, the past however many years at this point that the more attention is on heavy regardless of what that attention is about, the more the circus has him in the center of its rings, the better he tends to do,' Lowrey said.
NYU professor Scott Galloway added that if an indictment does come it will be a 'perp parade not a perp walk.'
Last Saturday Trump sensationally announced he was going to be arrested the following Tuesday.
He encouraged his supporters to 'protest!' if he's charged, echoing calls he made after falsely telling his supporters that the 2020 election was stolen from him, which resulted in the Capitol attack on January 6.
The allegations center around a $130,000 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels by his then-lawyer Michael Cohen.
The payment was intended to keep Daniels quiet over an alleged tryst between the two in 2006. Trump has always denied the affair.
However the arrest on Tuesday did not go ahead.
On Friday Trump posted a disturbing shot of himself with a baseball bat promising 'death and destruction' if he is criminally charged.
'They are human scum,' he raged in one post asking why Bragg 'refuses to do the right thing and call it a day.'
Yesterday emergency teams were forced to respond to reports of a package containing a suspicious powder which was mailed to Bragg's office.
Sources said it contained a note saying ''ALVIN: I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!'
Explosive-sniffing K9s were brought into the Manhattan court offices on Thursday to perform a sweep before the DA and grand jury arrive.
The package was sent around midday Friday.
Daniels has also now waded into the drama, telling her Twitter followers it 'feels pretty f**king awesome' to take her alleged former lover.
She wrote: 'I stood up to that lying married man when he and his minions tried to bully and silence me ... feels pretty f**king awesome to be honest.'
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