HBO host and comedian Bill Maher said Sunday on “The Ben Shapiro Show” that many liberals have gone too far left in recent years, adding that his political views “haven’t changed.”
Maher told Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro that the term “woke” has become an “eye roll” and did not even exist in the recent past. He said while he supports combating injustice, the word has become associated with some “goofy” liberal political stances.
“I haven’t changed at all. My politics hasn’t changed, they’ve changed,” Maher said. “People say to me sometimes, ‘Have you changed?’ No, it’s just that five years ago no one was talking about defunding the police, I never heard that phrase five years ago. That’s not me changing, that’s things changing. I’m reacting to it as I’ve always been.”
“Letting three-year-olds decide what gender they are, this wasn’t something five years ago,” he continued. “Free speech, you know, used to be a left-wing thing that we were proud and owned, and now that seems to be under attack.” (RELATED: Bill Maher Says It’s ‘Worth Asking’ Why Putin Didn’t Invade Ukraine Under Donald Trump)
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Maher has referred to himself as an “old school liberal,” speaking out against and mocking wokeness, cancel culture and other political stances associated with the far-left. During a Nov. 18 appearance on the former CNN show “Cuomo Primetime,” Maher criticized the push to incorporate critical race theory in schools.
“It’s just virtue signaling,” Maher said. “My politics have not changed, I’m an old school liberal. When we talk about race, they changed. Not me. I was the old ‘we should be moving toward a colorblind society, we don’t see race.’ That’s the old way to look at it, I think that’s still the good way to look at it.”
During a July 31 episode of his HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher,” the host said cancel culture belonged in “Stalin’s Russia.” He made similar attacks on both cancel culture and wokeness in March 2021, saying, “Americans are a silly people.”