Bill Maher and Jimmy Kimmel don’t hang out much in 2025, but Maher isn’t short on big-name company now that he’s on the short list for White House dinner parties.
In mid-September, when ABC affiliates across the country pre-empted Jimmy Kimmel Live! following his criticism of the conservative narrative surrounding the murder of Charlie Kirk, all of late-night television suddenly found itself under the microscope of the nation. Figures like Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers spoke out in support of Kimmel, and the comedy community at large rallied around the late-night host while raging against the overzealous FCC that orchestrated his brief suspension.
Maher was among the many voices who supported Kimmel’s right to free speech and decried the censorship of the federal government, but, ever the fence-sitter, Maher also criticized the inciting comments made by Kimmel and seemed to support the Republican interpretation of the offending monologue.
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When Kimmel returned to television less than a week after his suspension began, he effusively thanked his many contemporaries who came out in support of him during the difficult time in late-night comedy. Conspicuously absent from Kimmel’s gratitude list was Maher, who, in a recent conversation with fellow faux-liberal caterwauler Michael Rapaport on the Club Random Podcast, complained that Kimmel simply isn’t enough of a free thinker to publicly praise Maher’s tepid response to the biggest crisis of his career.
When Rapaport asked Maher to share his thoughts about the federal government’s censorship of Kimmel “now that the dust has cleared,” Maher, predictably, began his answer by talking about himself.
“I was forthright on my show about supporting Jimmy,” Maher said, though he added, “I didn’t agree with what he said, because it was just wrong. I was very adamant that he has the right to be wrong.” Maher continued, “Two points I really wanted to make – one, he wasn’t attacking Charlie Kirk. There was no insult of Charlie Kirk which was what they were all riled up about. He was saying, ‘The guy who shot him was probably on your team MAGA.’ I said, ’That’s bullshit.’”
Maher detailed his own thoughts on the murderer’s motivations, which the right-wing power structure had characterized as radically pro-transgender at the time of Kimmel’s offending monologue. “I did a whole editorial on the fact that, most of these killers of the recent variety, you go through their manifestos and shit, it’s not even about politics,” Maher pointed out, “They’re nihilists! They don’t believe in anything!”
Feeling that Kimmel had mishandled this important point, Maher decried Kimmel’s comments while supporting his right to make them. According to Maher, this made Kimmel unhappy and, astoundingly, ungrateful.
“Jimmy apparently doesn’t like me too much anymore, because he thanked everybody but me,” Maher said about Kimmel’s return to television, “And I was adamant, adamant, about supporting him that week and the next week. Like I said, I can’t lie and say I think what he said was accurate, but I was adamant that he shouldn’t be thrown off the air, he did a great show.”
Ever eager for a soapbox, Maher expounded on Kimmel and the state of late-night, saying, “My problem with him and hosts like that — quite frankly, they’re all quite similar in that regard — is that they’re ideologically captured by one side. It’s just not what I do, or what I’m doing. And there’s a reason why half the country is insulted by them and is turned off to them, because it’s just one very predictable point of view.”
“And this proves that it’s often not completely accurate because that was not really a smart thing to say, that this guy who shot Charlie Kirk was on the MAGA team,” Maher concluded of Kimmel’s liberal bent.
However, and this piece is critical to understanding why, exactly, Kimmel might not be ready to publicly thank Maher for his coverage of the controversy, Kimmel never actually said that the accused shooter of Kirk was MAGA. In the comment that led to his suspension, Kimmel was criticizing the conservative narrative regarding the motives behind the murder while pointing out that the Right were the ones desperately trying to ascribe an opposing ethos to the alleged killer out of a fear that he was fellow right-winger.
Said Kimmel simply, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” While Maher and his dining partner President Trump can argue about what Kimmel may have been trying to imply with that statement, it’s clear that the target of his criticism is the coverage and politicization of the murder, not the murderer’s political affiliation.
While right-wing media figures were attempting to frame the killing of Kirk as an assassination by a radical left-wing transgender activist, Kimmel was pushing back on the preposterously unfounded and blatantly prejudicial narrative. For that crime, Kimmel was mischaracterized, misquoted and misconstrued in a blatant character assassination campaign.
Meanwhile, Maher sat in his leather lounge chair situated directly on the fence, repeating Republican talking points about Kimmel and chuckling to himself about how the rest of the late-night crowd couldn’t see the other side through the cloud of his clove cigarette smoke. God forbid they don’t trip over themselves to grovel at his feet.
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