Bill Maher sent a bold message about a “zombie lie” (a disproven claim that continues to persist) involving Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on the latest episode of Real Time With Bill Maher.

On Friday, August 15, the late-night host sat down with panelists, County Highway editor-at-large Walter Kirn and political commentator Molly Jong-Fast. The trio discussed President Trump’s meeting with Russian President Putin in Alaska earlier that day.

“I think it’s kind of a zombie lie that Trump is Putin’s, you know, b****,” Maher bluntly stated. “Because he was certainly over friendly to him for a very long time, considering who Putin is. A thug and a murderer.”

Later in the conversation, Maher elaborated on his opinion, refuting the idea that Trump has been quick to appease Putin.

“Let’s not have the zombie lie that [Trump] is still backing Putin,” Maher declared.”First of all, he bombed Iran, that was a Putin ally. He didn’t get out of NATO. He mended fences with NATO. And he put sanctions back on Russia.”

Additionally, Maher touched on his thoughts about Trump and Putin’s meeting as it pertained to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“One thing about him that I know — I’m not going to tell you how I know — and there are a lot of people that have said the same thing: He really does hate war,” Maher said. “He really does not like it when people die in war.”

In response, Kirn quipped, “You’re really coming around, Bill.”

“There’s no coming around. There’s just what’s true. This is true s***,” Maher shot back, adding, “I’m not on anybody’s team.”

During the August 15 meeting, Trump and Putin discussed the ongoing war in Ukraine that resulted in 1.4 million casualties since February 2022. The POTUS described their discussion as “productive,” per CNBC. However, Trump conceded, “There’s no deal until there’s a deal,” later adding, “We didn’t get there.”

Real Time With Bill Maher, Fridays, 10/9c, HBO

The latest Star Trek: Strange New Worlds gives us a taste of what will be one day: Following an attack, James Kirk (Paul Wesley) becomes temporary captain on board the Farragut. The Enterprise comes to the crew’s aid, with Spock (Ethan Peck), Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding), Chapel (Jess Bush), and Scotty (Martin Quinn) joining him on his ship. It’s a familiar grouping for TOS fans.

And after things go awry, it’s Spock who’s able to get through to Kirk when he’s frozen. He reminds him that, as his brother Sam (Dan Jeannotte) says, he has an affinity for leadership and is not afraid to throw his weight around. Kirk acknowledges that he’s been determined to sit in the captain’s chair faster than anyone since the moment he joined the academy, but it was a good thing that his captain didn’t listen to an earlier suggestion or things would’ve been much worse. Spock tells him that good leaders know when to listen and when not to, which Kirk has not done, and while he’s having a crisis of confidence, he still has to lead. His human intuition has guided them so far, and he suggests he keep following it.

“Spock sees his intelligence and humanity, which I think are so central to every really core Star Trek character, and there’s also sort of a sense of humility in his doubt and his self-doubt,” Peck tells TV Insider. “And so I think that gave Spock an avenue to speak to him and help clear up some of that self-doubt, diminish that hesitation. But yeah, I think from their very first meeting, there’s a really nice connection that they have right away.”

Everyone knows what that connection will be one day; theirs is one of the most iconic friendships on television, and we’re just seeing the early days and the beginnings of it.

“I’m not sure that they’ve begun building it too, too much,” admits Peck. “That particular scene is so primordial that I think it’s just kind of a vector pointing towards the relationship that will be. But Paul and I, I will say, get along really famously, and we have a lot of fun together, and I think we have a lot of chemistry as friends, and I really can see that carrying over into our on-screen relationship.”

What do you think of how Strange New Worlds is handling Spock and Kirk’s friendship so far? What are you hoping to see? Let us know in the comments section below.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Thursdays, Paramount+

More Headlines:

Donald Trump wanted to go bold — a high-pomp, high-stakes summit with Vladimir Putin to test whether the Russian leader would compromise on the Ukraine war.

In the end, it looks like it was Trump, not Putin, who budged.

Putin, visibly delighted as he stepped foot in the West for the first time since ordering the 2022 invasion, made no apparent concession at the talks at an Alaska air base.

In a brief joint media appearance with Trump, who unusually took no questions, Putin again spoke of addressing the “root causes” of the Ukraine war and warned Kyiv and Europeans against disrupting “emerging progress” with the United States, the top defender of Ukraine under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden.

Trump, who bills himself as a master negotiator, acknowledged there was “no deal” but said there were “very few” areas of disagreement, although he was vague on what they were.

But posting hours later on his Truth Social account, Trump said he wanted Russia and Ukraine to “go directly to a peace agreement, which would end the war” and not a ceasefire.

Trump’s own administration had been pushing a ceasefire for months, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signing on after intense pressure from Trump. Putin had repeatedly rejected truce offers and kept up attacks on Ukraine, seeking to maximize battlefield advantage.

– Putin again woos Trump –

Trump had vowed to be firm with Putin after wide criticism of the US president’s cowed appearance before him at a 2018 summit in Helsinki.

But Putin again found ways to flatter and trigger Trump, who in his second term constantly speaks unprompted about his many grievances.

Putin told Trump before the cameras that there would have been no war — which Putin himself launched — if Trump were president in 2022 rather than Biden, a frequent Trump talking point.

Trump bemoaned the effect on ties with Putin of what he again called the “hoax” of the findings by US intelligence that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to help him.

In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity after the summit, Trump said that “one of the most interesting things” Putin told him was about… the US voting system.

Trump said approvingly that Putin — who has held power in Russia since 2000 and was declared the winner of elections last year with 88 percent of the vote — told him of the risks of mail-in ballots and said of Trump’s 2020 loss to Biden, “You won that election by so much.”

US election authorities and experts have found no evidence of wide-scale fraud from mail-in ballots in the 2020 election, which Trump, uniquely in US history, refused to concede.

– ‘Shameful’ or wait and see? –

Trump’s Democratic rivals voiced outrage that the summit secured no breakthrough and said it only served to normalize Putin, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.

“By quite literally rolling out the red carpet, Trump has legitimized Russia’s aggression and whitewashed Putin’s war crimes. It’s shameful,” said Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Experts said it was too early to write off the summit completely, as much is not known about what was discussed behind closed doors. Trump will meet Zelensky on Monday at the White House.

Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, which backs US restraint, said that Trump’s critics have been proven wrong in saying he would “give Ukraine to Putin or force Kyiv to accept surrender.”

“His focus has been and remains getting Putin to the negotiating table. Mr. Trump deserves credit rather than condemnation for his efforts so far,” she said.

But Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said an initial read was that “Putin scored a victory by showing up, and Trump’s limited words and tense demeanor left Putin to control the narrative.”

“For a man so attached to showmanship, Trump unusually allowed Putin to be the star of what should have been the Trump show,” she said.

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