On Friday night, Bill Maher addressed Donald Trump's lawsuit against him (this is real, folks) for $5 million dollars. Here's the video and full transcript of Maher hitting back.
And finally, New Rule: Now that he's suing me for $5 million dollars because he says he's proved that he is not the love child of an orangutan, Donald Trump must learn two things: what a joke is, and what a contract is.
(audience applause)
Now, let me catch you up on how all this got started. During the last week of the presidential campaign last year, Donald Trump — who previously had been a one-issue candidate obsessed with Obama's birth certificate — announced that he would give $5 million dollars to charity if Obama produced his college records. Because a black guy getting into college? Something fishy there.
So playing on the fact that the only other thing in nature with the same color hair as Trump's is the orange-haired orangutan, (audience laughter) I joked that Donald trump needed to show me his papers to prove he wasn't hiding a bad secret about his birth. This is known as parody. And it's a form of something we in the comedy business call a joke.
Naturally, I also aped — if you will — Trump's offer of money to a charity of his choosing, which I identified as the Hair Club for Men. Really, we're going to court about this? Well, this upset the Donald so much they could barely get him to stop flinging his feces. (wild audience laughter and applause)
Now public figures, of course, don't like everything that's said about them. But that's how we roll here in America. Just like we're the gun country, we're the joke country. We love our free speech, and we love celebrities getting taken down a peg. So Don, just suck it up like everybody else. (audience cheering and applause)
But no, not Trump. His lawyer sent me a letter — I shit you not, this is real — his lawyer sent me a letter that said, and I quote:
Attached hereto is a copy of Mr. Trump's birth certificate, demonstrating that he is the son of Fred Trump, and not an orangutan.
(wild audience laughter)
Do these morons even know it's impossible for people and apes to produce offspring??
And look at the lawyer's signature.
It just kind of trails off, as if to say, "I'm too embarrassed to even finish this. Scott S... oh fuck it, I'm Trump's lawyer."
So I ignored the letter, like I ignore all letters I get from crazy people, and I forgot about the whole thing until this week, when Trump and his lawyer, pictured here:
(audience laughter)
... when they actually sued me for the $5 million. And don't forget, this is not a libel case. No, no. They seem to be trying to set a bold new precedent that jokes on late-night talk shows are now legally binding agreements between the comedian and the person they're making fun of. Yes, I'm sure this will go all the way to the Supreme Court.
You know, I'll tell you something. The legal system in this country, it's not a joke. It's not a toy for rich idiots to play with. (audience applause)
And frankly, Mr. Baboo, what you released raises more questions than it answers. At least it does to a growing chorus of patriotic Americans who call ourselves apers. And we're just asking questions. Questions like, well, here's what you put out.
It's the short form certification of live birth. Not a birth certificate. It was clearly made on a dot matrix computer printer, and it includes a scannable bar code, two technologies that were hardly around in 1946.
Where's the original long form certificate? (audience applause) Because a short form copy of a birth certificate, unsigned by an attending physician, isn't proof of anything.
You know who I learned that from? I learned that from Donald "But I'm White!" Trump. Who would not accept the exact same document from the President. But remember who we're dealing with here: a man who, for a little extra publicity, will happily keep alive a debate over whether his family reunions are held at the zoo. (audience cheering and applause)
