Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold, one of the first two nominees for Bill Maher's "Flip a District" campaign, said he considers the comic's disapproval of him a "badge of honor."
"It's said that you can tell a lot about someone who opposes them," Farenthold said in a statement to
Breitbart Wednesday. "I serve and answer to the Texans I represent, not the Hollywood elite."
Maher last week revealed Farenthold,who represents Texas' 27th District, and New York Republican Rep. Michael Grimm last week as the first two of 16 possible nominees whose re-election campaign may be targeted on his HBO program "Real Time With Bill Maher."
Maher announced his "Flip a District" campaign in January, where he said he would accept nominations for 16 incumbent congressmen who his audience believes need to lost their midterm election bids.
After the final candidate is picked, Maher plans to follow that person's campaign through November and point out what he considers bad representation. He also plans to make visits to the district of the targeted representative, where he will perform stand-up comedy in hopes of stirring up hostile feelings toward his target.
Show producer Scott Carter said the politician eventually picked could be from either party, but "with our voters voting, I imagine it is much more likely we will pick a Republican."
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In upcoming weeks, Maher will announce 14 more representatives to join his "bracket" before the show picks one lawmaker to showcase. The late-night show host said Farenthold is his personal choice so far to "win" the show's campaign.
“He’s the poster boy for why we are doing this," said Maher, after he first made fun of Farenthold's appearance while showing a professional photo of him, and then even drew more laughs by showing a photograph of the representative wearing blue pajamas with yellow ducks on them. "He won in 2010 by 799 votes and then they redistricted it. They gerrymandered it and in 2012, he won, going away, by 18 points,” the late-night host said.
Farenthold took a swipe of his own at Maher, dismissing the comedian's words.
"In the case of liberal pundit Bill Maher — a man who called America’s actions cowardly in the wake of 9/11 and who mocked WWII veterans who wanted to visit the monument built in their honor — I wear his disapproval of me as a badge of honor," he told Breitbart.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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