"Real Time" host Bill Maher erupted on anti-Israel protesters, calling them "huge a--holes" as their rhetoric and demonstrations continue escalating.
"We started out with this with 'Okay, we're for Hamas.' That was the beginning of it and a lot of people were unapologetic about that," Maher said during a panel discussion Friday night. "Then it went to, you know, the kids, they dug up some of Bin Laden's old books. And they were like, 'Oh, this dude. He's got some good things to say. He hates America too. Because you know… everybody knows we're the worst country ever.' I mean, okay. Now we're at the place where they're chanting some places ‘Death to America.’ And now, we're for the Houthis. Now with the Iran attack, they're for Hezbollah! Do they know what goes on in Iran?"
He then turned to his panelist, liberal historian Jon Meacham.
"Jon, you're a historian. Could you please tell these kids they're being huge a--holes?" Maher asked Meacham.
Meacham argued that there's a "false equivalency" between the "extreme of the right" and the left-wing protesters against Israel.
"But it's not winning any votes!" Maher exclaimed. "Or it's not convincing anybody, it's not engaging-"
"What do you want them to do?" Meacham countered.
"I want to win an election," Maher fired back, later saying "I think you have to address the part that they're not getting, they're not seeing. And that doesn't happen by, you know, academically, saying, ‘Well, you know, according to the Constitution.’ They want you to address this kind of stuff. And I think it begins with admitting yes, some of it is crazy. Some of it just strikes me as crazy too. And it is counterproductive. And I don't like it when I see college kids who don't understand anything about history and somehow now the Jews or the Nazis?!? I know kids love to switch things up."
PBS NewsHour correspondent Jane Ferguson chimed in by defending the "peaceful" anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University, many of whom were arrested.
"We have to have a conversation about free speech, you know, being something that should be a bipartisan issue," Ferguson told Maher, later adding "it can't be freedom of speech when I agree with what people are saying. Hate speech? Totally a different thing."
BILL MAHER CALLS FOR COVID COMMISSION: THE ‘POWERS THAT BE’ REFUSE TO ADMIT THEY ‘GOT IT WRONG’
Maher went on to draw a grim parallel between the ongoing unrest among the anti-Israel wing of the Democratic base to the infamous riots that occurred at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, predicting it will happen again at the 2024 convention in August, which is also in Chicago.
"It's going to happen again because the kids are out - they're gonna be out there in force chanting about ‘Genocide Joe’ because this is their new cause now," Maher said. "This they think is the cause of their lifetime, Hamas, to be on their side."
"So I'm just wondering how the Democrats are gonna come out of that convention. Because I remember the last time that happened in Chicago, they got bloodied by it and Nixon won the White House," Maher added.
