Former Attorney General Eric Holder pushed back when comic and pundit Bill Maher grilled him about the popularity of photo ID and the increase in Black voter turnout in Georgia despite restrictive laws.

On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher pressed Holder on his criticism of the Georgia laws, as well as on polling that shows photo ID is popular. Holder pointed out some key distinctions:

BILL MAHER: But photo IDs are popular even among African-Americans. Something like three quarters of whites. And I think 69% of Black folks say, yeah, we should have photo IDs. So why is that an issue?

ERIC HOLDER: I’m for voter ID as opposed to photo ID. You should prove —

BILL MAHER: No, we’re talking about photo I.D. To prove that you should.

ERIC HOLDER: Yeah, but here’s the deal. What they’ve done, like in Texas, you have to have photo ID. If you have a photo ID issued by the state of Texas that says that you can carry a concealed weapon, that’s cool. If you have a state issued photo I.D. that says you’re a student at the University of Texas? Not cool. And so you can see how they’re trying to fool around with it.

BILL MAHER: So Georgia passed a law that you would say probably wouldn’t have happened before the law was, the Voting Rights Act was gutted, right?

ERIC HOLDER: Clearly not.

BILL MAHER: Okay. Joe Biden called it Jim Crow 2.0.

ERIC HOLDER: Right.

BILL MAHER: But Georgia just had an election and the vote went up, including among African-Americans. How do you square that?

ERIC HOLDER: That’s a testament to the fact that Black folks have said no matter what impediments you put in front of us, we’re going to the polls. And that’s what they did. And now it doesn’t. You know, and we see that in the book. Throughout history, Black Americans have risked life, limb, done everything they possibly can to get access to the ballot. And the fact that you had a turnout that was higher than perhaps that you’ve seen before is not an indication that those provisions that they put into law were necessarily good ones. The question you have to ask the Georgia legislature is why did you put them in place in the first place, having done an election that everybody said was fair, why did you then have to put these other provisions in place? Among them, you can’t give people who are waiting in line water or food and you figure, what’s that all about? Well, it turns out in Atlanta, 2020, election same night. If you’re African-American, you wait 51 minutes to vote. If you’re white, same place, Atlanta, same election, you wait 6 minutes to vote. So you get to see what’s behind some of the stuff they’ve done.

Watch above via HBO.

The post Bill Maher Grills Eric Holder On Voting Rights: ‘Photo ID is Popular’ with ‘69% of Black Folks,’ Black Turnout in GA Went Up first appeared on Mediaite.

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