Bill Maher. HBO screenshot
Bill Maher, host of HBO Real Time and purported comedian, gleefully used the n-word on his show this week.
His guest for the segment, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), invited Maher to “come work in the fields with us” in his home state of Nebraska.
“Work in the fields? Senator, I’m a house nigger,” Maher replied. Sasse immediately laughed as the audience broke out into applause and cheers.
In response to swift public backlash, the junior senator took to Twitter first to defend the first amendment: “I’m a 1st Amendment absolutist. Comedians get latitude to cross hard lines.” He then tweeted that he wished he would have been quick enough to object to the slur when Maher uttered it. Sasse claims that “just cringing last night wasn’t good enough,” but that’s misleading: The senator clearly laughed, not cringed, at Maher’s “joke.”
Sasse was on the show to promote his new book about his disappointment in a lack of maturity among American youth.
Maher has since apologized for using the slur. “I regret the word I used in the banter of a live moment,” he said in a statement to media. “The word was offensive and I regret saying it and am very sorry.” HBO will reportedly remove the exchange from airings of the show.
But Maher has a long history of racist, sexist, and grossly bigoted public comments. The audience, like Sasse, reacted with instant glee to the “joke” because it’s exactly what they expect from the Real Time host.
He’s deeply Islamophobic. He once asked a Pakistani-British member of a popular boy band where he was during the Boston Bombing. He routinely denigrates the Quran, Muslims, and Islam—occasionally under the guise of a joke, but often in outright statements of naked bigotry.
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