“Why Is This Guy Picking A Fight With Mickey Mouse?” Bill Maher Asks Ron DeSantis On ‘Real Time’s Post-WGA Strike Return

deadline.com:

“Why is this guy picking a fight with Mickey Mouse?” Bill Maher asked Ron DeSantis on Friday about the poll-lagging Florida governor’s ongoing jurisdictional and legal battles with Disney over the past year. “Well, first of all, they picked a fight with us,” a literally suited and cowboy booted DeSantis replied in Real Time With Bill Maher’s return from the just-ended writers strike. “This idea of ideology-corrupting institutions, I see it in Los Angeles with the amount of crime that’s here and the homelessness,” the deflecting Sunshine State governor went on to say, bashing so-called “woke ideology” and the Center for Disease Control.

Letting DeSantis off the Mouse House hook and the company’s claim of “retaliation” over eventually opposing Florida’s “don’t say gay” parental rights law, a clearly flattered Maher told his guest “we are on the same page.” He then went on to slam the New York Times and more in what became a bromance over the pandemic, with a jab or two at DeSantis over voting rights and abortion restriction in Florida.

See the interview above. Recoded earlier today in Los Angeles, the softball sit-down had been preceded by Maher essentially ignoring another elephant in the room (no, not Donald Trump). “We’ve been off long enough, let’s do a f*cking show,” Maher said to a standing ovation from the studio audience at the top of Real Time’s return from the five-month strike against the studios and streamers. “Been a long time, let’s not ever be apart this long,” the comic added before making a San Francisco crime joke on the back of Dianne Feinstein’s death at the age of 90 earlier in the day.