Bill Maher ripped into David Cross and blamed him for Kamala Harris' election loss after the comedian said his daughter's eight-year-old friend transitioned into a boy. Maher had been lambasting liberal policies when the Real Time host claimed Cross and his young daughter need a reality check from Republicans.
Maher's Critique of Liberal Policies
'You need to hear that other side. You need to be checked. People need to be checked,' Maher said. 'Including your little girl.' Cross responded with sarcasm: 'F*** that b****. F*** that little b**** with her black friends and trans friends and not even understanding.' Maher's ears perked up and asked: 'Wait, your daughter has trans friends in third grade?'
Cross explained that the child was nine years old, transitioning from 'girl to boy,' and was 'just the coolest kid' before adding his daughter had another friend who transitioned from male to female at just three years old. Maher responded by suggesting that what these kids were going through was just what people used to call 'a tomboy.' He cited a woman who believed 'if I was alive now and acted the way I did then, that's what they would have done to me.' Cross responded by saying 'literally nobody is doing this to her' when Maher began to challenge that.
The Debate on Parental Involvement
'Somebody is doing something because 8 or 9-year-olds can't do anything on their own,' Maher said. Cross said the parents' actions were limited to buying the female-to-male trans child boys' clothes. Maher said that amounted to 'doing something' and that they were 'telling them you're a boy now.' 'No, no, they're not telling them. They're just agreeing with [the child],' Cross replied, which Maher saw as ridiculous.
Maher asked: 'Agreeing with an eight-year-old. Because when has their judgment ever been off at eight?' Cross compared a child knowing they were transgender to Maher knowing he wasn't gay at that age, which led to Maher losing his temper and blaming Cross for Democrats losing future elections.
Maher's Warning to Democrats
'It is different. Good luck with President Vance,' Maher chided him. 'Because, as I always say to my woke friends, we voted for the same person. You're just why she [Kamala Harris] lost and this is a case of that.' Cross seemed confused as to how Maher went from one point to another and the HBO host explained.
'We voted for the same person. You're just why she lost. Because America hears this, and they're going to go, "Bill's right, 8-year-olds can't really make decisions on their own like this," Maher explained. 'That's what most people are going to say. This is why we're going to vote for JD Vance... That's America in a nutshell.'
Cross diffused the situation but continued to defend what the parents of his daughter's friends were doing as limited to just buying clothes and allowing kids to express themselves. Maher has been consistent in his beliefs that pro-trans rhetoric will cost Democrats elections.
Previous Remarks on the Issue
The 'Real Time' host and comedian said the controversial issue alienated everyday voters, most of whom are more interested in policies involving the economy or other matters relevant to their lives. Last year, speaking to former Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett on the Pod Save America podcast, Maher warned that following the same trajectory would cost Democrats the election time and time again.
Lovett accepted it is a difficult and divisive topic, but said 'the least bad answer is to not have the government decide from above' whether gender-affirming healthcare should exist. 'The Democrat position is just leave it up to people and parents... the kids and the doctors, right?' he said. 'You want the government to ban gender-affirming care for kids?' Maher shot back instantly, asking: 'You want to lose every election?'
'Just keep coming down on the side of parents coming in second and a "who gets to decide what goes on with my kid" contest.' Maher had taken issue with the Democratic position in California which allows schools to hide a child's decision to change genders from their parents. 'That is not something that's going to go well with the average voter,' Maher said. 'A lot of people on the left think that even if you just have this debate, it makes you a bigot: you just have to roll over. If you even question this, you're some sort of a bigot. And this is new science. And it has to do with children. And it's not going to look good in the future, that position.'
Lovett tried to justify the Democrat position by noting that there are only a small number of instances in which a person regrets their transition. He argued that 'really important surgeries people get for their heart' can also go wrong. 'Nobody says "we must stop the cardiologists," no one says "we must stop the surgeons,"' Lovett said. An incredulous Maher said: 'That's your analogy?' 'We don't throw out a whole field of medicine. We say, let's make sure we're doing it in a way that's healthy,' Lovett argued. 'The science, the research... makes clear that, yes, there are exceptions. Yes, there are people practicing it in ways that maybe go too far, but for the most part, study after study shows that gender-affirming care saves a lot of lives.'
Referring directly to the issue within California schools, Lovett accepted that 'as a baseline,' teachers should not be keeping a secret from parents. 'Of f***ing course not. No one thinks that,' he said. 'No one thinks that.' But he said in some cases, 'parents do such a bad f**king job that the kids are in danger. That happens outside of trans issues. That happens all the time. It's terrible. Some parents are f**king terrible.'
Political Context
During the presidential election campaign, Kamala Harris was bogged down by a narrative that she and her party were more focused on divisive gender politics than on fixing the state of the economy. Trump, meanwhile, promised that on 'day one' of his administration he would end the 'transgender lunacy' in the federal government. Since returning to the White House, Trump has declared there are 'only two genders,' forbidding trans athletes from competing in women's categories and banning transgender troops and DEI military programs. He also banned federal funding for sex-changes for minors, noting 'countless' children regretted the surgeries that 'mutilated' and trapped them into fighting 'a losing war with their own bodies.' The White House noted in a memo that four out of five children outgrew feelings of gender dysphoria, without costly and irreversible surgeries they later learned to regret.
