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Bill Maher Says WGA Has No Leverage Against Streamers, Went on Strike at the Wrong Ti

Bill Maher criticized the WGA strike during a discussion with comedian Jim Gaffigan on the “Club Random” podcast. Maher, whose HBO talk show “Real Time” ended its most recent season in April just ahead of the WGA strike, shared his thoughts after Gaffigan noted the strike might kill late-night television for good.

“They’re asking for a lot of things that are, like, kooky,” Maher said about the WGA. “What I find objectionable about the philosophy of the strike [is] it seems to be, they have really morphed a long way from 2007’s strike, where they kind of believe that you’re owed a living as a writer, and you’re not. This is show business. This is the make-or-miss league.”

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The WGA strike started in May and hit the 100-day mark last month. Maher said he agreed with the guild regarding streaming platforms having to report viewership data.

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“I feel for my writers. I love my writers. I’m one of my writers. But there’s a big other side to it,” Maher also said. “And a lot of people are being hurt besides them — a lot of people who don’t make as much money as them in this bipartisan world we have where you’re just in one camp or the other, there’s no in between. You’re either for the strike like they’re fucking Che Guevara out there, you know, like, this is Cesar Chavez’s lettuce picking strike — or you’re with Trump. There’s no difference — there’s only two camps. And it’s much more complicated than that.”

Maher claimed the streamers had already been “looking for a get out of jail card for how much they overspend,” noting the Hollywood strikes solved that issue for them as they’ve brought production to a halt.

“[Streamers] have tons of stuff in stock, so they have no reason to wanna settle this strike,” he noted. “They struck at just the wrong time; they have no leverage. Has anyone who is watching TV recently noticed a difference? Has it affected the person down the pipeline? I don’t think so. I haven’t noticed a difference. At some point, I guess that will happen. What day is that when Netflix runs out of what they have in the warehouse?”

Watch Maher and Gaffigan’s full chat in the video below.

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