Bill Maher shuts down Roseanne star Sandra Bernhard after the Jewish actress accused conservatives of spreading antisemitism
Bill Maher shut down fellow comedian Sandra Bernhard on his podcast after she claimed conservatives were the main cause of the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in America.
The Roseanne star, who is Jewish, spoke with Maher — an atheist whose mother was Jewish — on an episode of his Club Random podcast.
She argued that despite protests among left-wing, anti-Israel activists on college campuses and in several major cities, she is not afraid.
‘I like being Jewish. I go to Shabbat, I do my thing. But suddenly everyone says, ‘I’m Jewish, and I am [persecuted].’ “I don’t feel persecuted,” she said.
Maher responded by saying, “There is an anti-Semitism going on in this country that we haven’t had in a very long time.”
Bill Maher shut down fellow comedian Sandra Bernhard on his podcast after she claimed conservatives were the main cause of the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in America
The Roseanne star, who is Jewish, spoke with Maher — an atheist whose mother was Jewish — on an episode of his Club Random podcast
When Bernhard tried to say it came from the extreme right, Maher immediately interrupted her.
“No, it’s not,” Maher said. ‘The right has this nonsense of ‘Jews will not replace us’. The left wing is even worse.’
When Bernhard asked her to explain, Maher blamed liberals’ obsession with identity politics for spreading anti-Jewish sentiment.
“That comes from elite colleges that only view everything through a racial lens. They are stupid. They don’t know the history. They think everything is about colonizers and racists and how terrible America is,” he said.
Maher said that while America has “done some bad things,” the left is using Israel as a stand-in for “every bad thing white people have ever done.”
“For most of these students, this is no more complicated than the Palestinians being brown and poor and the Israelis being rich and white,” he said.
Bernhard then tried to criticize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“But can we come together and agree that Benjamin Netanyahu is a major troublemaker and must be ripped out of Israel? He is not good for Israel. He is not good for the Jews,” she said.
When Bernhard tried to say it came from the extreme right, Maher immediately interrupted her
When Bernhard asked her to explain, Maher blamed liberals’ obsession with identity politics for spreading anti-Jewish sentiment.
‘He has also contributed to global mistrust: it should not be Jews, but Israelis. He is responsible for everything that is happening now.’
Maher, who had Prime Minister Netanyahu as a guest on his show, pushed back again.
‘So he is not to blame for everything that happens. That is the fault of the Palestinian people and the religion of Islam, which is lost in all this,” he said.
When asked for clarification, Bernhard said Hamas “is largely to blame.”
“Right now this is happening because Hamas has been taking aid money for years and instead of buying food and building buildings and hospitals, they have bought bombs and built tunnels,” he added.
Bernhard then suggested that Netanyahu himself had supported Hamas for years.
‘Correct. Yes, you are right. For strategic reasons, which in retrospect were probably not wrong. But it was not that Netanyahu was going against the interests of his own people,” Maher said.
“He is working in the interest of only one person, himself, because he does not want to go to prison,” she said, to which Maher strongly disagreed, although he did say Netanyahu will likely leave office soon.
Bernhard then tried to criticize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Maher, who had Prime Minister Netanyahu as a guest on his show, pushed back again
Maher, a darling of the liberal media, has repeatedly been critical of the left’s anti-Israel sentiment in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks.
He has accused the protesters of being “American-hating hysterics without knowledge” who support Hamas.
“It’s hard to understand the thought of people on American soil shouting ‘Death to America,'” he said.
“If they had any knowledge about the Middle East or what apartheid really means or genocide, would they really be on Hamas’ side?”