Comedian and pundit Bill Maher claimed that acts like “C Plus C Music Factory” dropping out of President Donald Trump’s “Freedom 250″ concert series makes Democrats look like they don’t love America.”

On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the interview guest was former Vice President Mike Pence, 48th Vice President of the United States and author of “What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience.”

The panel guests were Senator Chris Murphy, Democratic senator from Connecticut and author of the new book “Crisis of the Common Good: The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America”; and Susan Rice, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, former U.S. National Security Advisor, and former Director of the Domestic Policy Council.

During the panel discussion, Maher derided the acts who dropped out (C+C Music Factory [pronounced “C and C Music Factory”] declined but group member Freedom Williams expressed openness to performing) — but Sen. Murphy explained that the artists initially believed event was nonpartisan:

BILL MAHER: Okay, let me ask another issue. There is something called the Great American State Fair Festival that was planned. Now this is not the same thing as the UFC event on the White House lawn. Don’t get them.

AMB. SUSAN RICE: Or the race car track going around the city.

BILL MAHER: Yes, but there’s lots of exciting stuff in Washington going on. No, the UFC thing.

Look, we have a redneck president. I’m sorry. We’re just going to have to get used to–.

AMB. SUSAN RICE: From Manhattan.

BILL MAHER: From Manhattan, a redneck–. He just does redneck things. OK, this is one of the things I don’t give a shit about.

But this other thing was not planned as a specific Trump thing or a specific MAGA thing. And they had some acts lined up, not the greatest. The Commodores. Morris Day and the Time, they were pretty good.

AMB. SUSAN RICE: Commodores were good in the day.

BILL MAHER: Very good, very, yes, that’s sure, that, that is Lionel Ritchie, right?

AMB. SUSAN RICE: Yeah.

BILL MAHER: Okay. Well, he’s not with them anymore. Martina McBride, Bret Michaels, Young MC, Cc, C plus C, Music Factory, Milli Vannilli, I would not have left them on.

SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): I think it was just back — I think it was just Vanilli.

BILL MAHER: Right, yes, it was this, right, because the other member discredited for lip-syncing.

SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Vanilli’s the good one now.

BILL MAHER: They all pulled out. This is a question about what looks best for the Democrats, because I don’t think that looks good.

It looks like you are just what people say about you, you don’t really love America. It looks you think Trump is more important than the country itself.

Now it’s just a big MAGA rally, this whole thing, because they all pull out. So now it’s Trump and Lee Greenwood. Um, wouldn’t it have been better to play this gig? It’s a month-long gig, lots of people, like, just celebrating America. Can’t we all just celebrate America itself and leave Trump out of it?

SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Well, and listen, my kids are excited about the DC race, right? Like, I mean, there is stuff, listen, that’s obviously a ton of people love the UFC. There’s going to be people that are excited about this, but here’s what happened.

There was a nonpartisan, a political effort to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. And instead of just letting that effort go forward, Donald Trump took it over, right, to create a parallel set of events.

My understanding is these artists thought that they were going to the non-partisan effort. And then when they found out that it was just a predicate to a Trump rally, they didn’t want to be part of it.

I think this would have been a lot better for the country if Trump had decided to just let professionals, let people who just care about celebrating America with no political agenda be part this.

I agree there’s no reason to overly politicize this, but Trump decided to politicize it by essentially shutting down the citizens who were leading it and turning it into a big MAGA event.

Watch above via HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.

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