Bill Maher: 'Bright side' of coronavirus controversy is it might make people dislike Trump

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HBO host Bill Maher denied rooting for failure in the administration's response to the coronavirus, but said President Trump's alleged incompetence would "finally" turn people against him.

"I'm going to look on the bright side of this and say that I think the coronavirus is going to change people's views of Donald Trump, finally" he said on Friday's "Real Time." "Not for the better," he added.

Maher's comments came after a rally in which the president dismissed as a "hoax" Democratic concerns about his handling of the virus. However, Maher stated that Trump called the virus itself a Democratic hoax.

Maher also denied wanting President Trump to fail.

"We're not rooting for failure! We’re rooting for health! We’re rooting for competence!”

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Trump's campaign fired back on Friday against claims like Maher's, saying that Trump wasn't referring to the virus itself.

"Now, the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus," Trump told a crowd on Thursday night. "Coronavirus, they're politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You see, 'How's president Trump doing?' They go, 'oh not good, not good.' They have no clue. They can't even count their votes in Iowa -- not they can't, they can't count their votes."

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He added that one of his associates suggested the Democrats were perpetrating a hoax like they purportedly did during the Russia investigation.

"One of my people came up to me and said, 'Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia, that didn't work out too well. They couldn't do it. They tried the impeachment hoax,' that was on a perfect conversation, 'they tried anything, they tried it over and over and they've been doing it since you got in. It's all turning, they lost, it's all turning -- think of it, think of it, and this is their new hoax.'"