In the span of only two minutes, HBO’s Bill Maher unleashed a trio of hysterical and outrageous claims about President Trump’s utilization of the National Guard in Washington, D.C. First, he subtly implied the move was akin to a dictator like Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine, calling it “Page One Of The Dictator Handbook.” Then he doubled down on making fun of DOGE staffer Edward “Big Balls” Coristine for getting assaulted, before finally again warning the move might be the beginning of the end for democracy.
Maher worried that, “Trump says, ‘I'm not a dictator, I just know how to stop crime,’ and I take him at his word because when has he ever told a lie—but I will say this: page one of the dictator handbook is pretexts. You find a pretext to do what you want to do anyway. Say you want to invade another country—well, you say that some people of your ethnicity living in that country are being persecuted: voila, reason to invade.”
Dictators who have done that include Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler.
Moving on, Maher added, “But as pretexts go, Big Balls getting mugged? That takes some big balls. Now, that's not to say crime in D.C. isn't an actual problem. It's the 36th most violent city in the country—not as violent as Little Rock, Arkansas, or Shreveport, the city represented by noted crime boss Mike Johnson.”
Maher then insisted he wasn’t trivializing D.C.’s crime problem but couldn’t help himself, “But D.C. has had 194 carjackings this year, most involving guns. That's not Mayberry. Poor Big Balls got carjacked on a date, which shocked everyone - not that he was carjacked, that he was on a date.”
He also declared that, “Trump brags about the 87 percent decrease in carjackings in D.C. since the troops moved in. Yes, military states can reduce crime, point conceded. Will militarizing our cities make them safer? Yes. But not safer for democracy. Once it's normal to have an army loyal to you already in the streets, game over, that is how all future political disputes will be decided.”
Meanwhile, far from possessing the moral certainty that one can have in denouncing the evilness of invading Ukraine or Czechoslovakia, liberals can’t decide whether Trump’s deployment of the National Guard means D.C. is under military rule or if he is wasting their time by having them do landscaping projects. Is democracy under threat, or are the soldiers just clearing leaves in the park?
Here is a transcript for the September 5 show:
HBO Real Time with Bill Maher
9/5/2025
10:54 PM ET
BILL MAHER: Trump says, "I'm not a dictator, I just know how to stop crime," and I take him at his word because when has he ever told a lie —but I will say this: page one of the dictator handbook is pretexts. You find a pretext to do what you want to do anyway. Say you want to invade another country—well, you say that some people of your ethnicity living in that country are being persecuted: voila, reason to invade.
But as pretexts go, Big Balls getting mugged? That takes some big balls. Now, that's not to say crime in D.C. isn't an actual problem. It's the 36th most violent city in the country—not as violent as Little Rock, Arkansas, or Shreveport, the city represented by noted crime boss Mike Johnson.
But D.C. has had 194 carjackings this year, most involving guns. That's not Mayberry. Poor Big Balls got carjacked on a date, which shocked everyone - not that he was carjacked, that he was on a date. You're way ahead of me. All right. Trump brags about the 87 percent decrease in carjackings in D.C. since the troops moved in.
Yes, military states can reduce crime, point conceded. Will militarizing our cities make them safer? Yes. But not safer for democracy. Once it's normal to have an army loyal to you already in the streets, game over, that is how all future political disputes will be decided.