How Would You Frame Bill Maher's Recent Take on the Charlie Kirk Assassination?

This week’s episode of Bill Maher was a doozy. And I mean that in a good way; the HBO host once again reiterated his distaste for the ghoulish celebrations over the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Maher had Kirk on his podcast, Club Random, and said he was glad that it could happen before his death. Everyone is a monster until you meet them, he said, adding he genuinely liked the Turning Point USA founder. It was a free speech-heavy episode.

Some fire was directed at conservatives, sure. But some free speech takes from our side warrants it. Attorney General Pam Bondi once again stepped in it with her very alarming take on First Amendment issues, which she had to walk back. It all stems from Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension from ABC over a monologue that was knowingly false—he tried to claim the suspected Kirk assassin, Tyler Robinson, was a MAGA supporter. Kimmel can say it, and ABC executives can fire him over it. There is zero evidence that this decision was due to government coercion. His ratings were garbage, so it’s a business decision. The man is still wealthy, famous, and free.

Bill Maher just made the Emmys crowd look like absolute MONSTERS for not saying a single word about Charlie Kirk after his death.

“Would it have killed someone to get up there, since they all want to talk about their politics… just to say we had a political assassination this… pic.twitter.com/lBRnEekZIf
— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) September 20, 2025

Bill Maher issues a blunt response to the MSNBC pundit who blamed Charlie Kirk’s death on himself.

MATTHEW DOWD: “You can’t be saying these awful words and then not expect awful actions to take place.”

MAHER: “Yes, you can! I do not expect awful actions to take place. I think… pic.twitter.com/rYtNjJHyBZ
— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) September 20, 2025

Bill Maher reads Charlie Kirk’s words on “hate speech” with awe, declares he is in full agreement.

He says liberals were the first to make it a thought crime, and now Republicans have to hit the brakes on curbing “hate speech,” too.

By the time he finished making his case, the… pic.twitter.com/7rHX57UUKw
— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) September 20, 2025

Yet, his New Rules on the recent spate of politically motivated violence might raise some eyebrows. It’s a blend between something we can all agree on and shoddy liberal media talking points that are flat-out unreal. Maher claims that the recent perpetrators of such violence have a mental illness. They’re crazy people. It’s not about whose side committed the act—all of them peddled incoherent political views, according to him. Yes, David DePape was a drugged-out looney toon. Still, Cody Balmer’s motive for trying to assassinate Josh Shapiro by burning down the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion was omitted from Maher’s commentary: Balmer was a pro-Hamas leftist.

I want to prove to you what a fool’s errand it is to try to connect nuts who commit political murder to the “other side.” pic.twitter.com/q5wrJCk43J
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) September 20, 2025

With the omission, Maher undercut the core of his segment, which is that the stages of grief for these types of incidents, which takes the form of a ‘whodunnit’ regarding political affiliation. Bill, the polling shows that liberals are shockingly more likely to support and endorse political violence against those with whom they disagree.

New poll from YouGov

Agree it's okay to be happy about death of political figure they oppose:

Very Liberal: 24%
Liberal: 10%
Moderate: 7%
Conservative: 4%
Very Conservative: 3%

Agree violence can be justified to achieve political goals:

VL: 25%
L: 17%
M: 9%
C: 6%
VC: 3% pic.twitter.com/GztzwPcaqv
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) September 16, 2025

Please let your guest, MSNBC’s Alex Wagner, know that since she did well to peddle her anti-Trump network’s talking points about how Democrats are the pro-democracy party, how left-wing violence isn’t the same, how this administration is engaged in vitriol and hate, and how Obama and Biden never used state power to go after their enemies. I guess she was asleep at the switch when the IRS targeting scandal, Russiagate, and frivolous, politically motivated lawfare were waged against Donald Trump. Lady, FBI agents ransacked his house.

She appears laughably naïve about the trends her party is adopting, which are becoming more regional, niche, exclusionary, and illiberal. Gee, sounds like fertile political ground for Napoleon and his pigs, right?

Maher has delivered some brutal commentaries, most of which are directed at extreme progressives, woke nonsense, and political correctness. This one isn’t it, man. It's not nihilism, Bill. That's sanitizing the facts. There is a left-wing violence epidemic in this country. They literally just shot one of our guys last week.

Robinson wrote ‘Hey fascist, catch’ on the ammunition. We don’t need a ‘Nicolas Cage in National Treasure’ quest to figure out what was behind his motivation to carry out this attack.

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