Comedian Bill Maher on Friday condemned several universities for having students who are “useful idiots” amid the rise of antisemitism on campus.
The presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania this week sparked intense backlash after testifying on Capitol Hill about their failures to curb antisemitism on campus after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. In addition to community outrage, more than 70 members of Congress have called for the Ivy League presidents to resign, calling their testimony “a complete absence of moral clarity.”
In an interview with pro-free speech group FIRE CEO Greg Lukianoff, the Real Time with Bill Maher host wasted no time slamming the Ivy Leagues ranked at the bottom of the group’s list of colleges regarding free speech.
“So these are two of the colleges who are now on Team Hamas,” Maher said. “Is that a coincidence? Or what is the connection?”
The comedian then began listing various phrases heard of pro-Palestinian rallies on campuses, including one word he described as “one of the vague terms like jihad.” “But, you know, let’s give the benefit of the doubt—that could be, ‘Well, we just want the Jews to move and not die,’” Maher said. “And then there’s the phrase ‘by any means necessary.’ Ok, now I’m kinda peeing my pants.”
Lukianoff ultimately agreed, stating that it is “kind of embarrassing to watch these university presidents of the top institutions in the country not being able to answer that clearly.”
Maher, who describes himself as being “Team Israel,” then stressed that what bothers him most is the “double standard” in these elite school’s stance on free speech. He later defended the anti-Israel rhetoric as a principle of free speech, stating he merely wants to know “how big the problem is.”
“I cannot think of any other group that you can say ‘fuck the blank’ and have it be acceptable,” he said, before calling students at these schools “useful idiots.”
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