HBO host Bill Maher said Friday that Jimmy Kimmel was “wrong” to suggest that Charlie Kirk’s suspected assassin was a MAGA Republican — but slammed his former network ABC for taking the comedian off the air.
“You know, Jimmy, look, I don’t think what he said was exactly right. I don’t agree. We don’t agree on that,” the liberal comedian said during the latest episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
“Jimmy’s wrong, I think, to put him in one team,” Maher said, arguing that suspected sniper Tyler Robinson “doesn’t belong in either party — he belongs in a straitjacket.”
Still, Maher said Kimmel “shouldn’t lose his job” over his remarks.
Maher noted that Kimmel’s show was pulled “24 years to the day” that his own controversial remarks – about the 9/11 hijackers – “got me canceled from that network.”
“And Jimmy Kimmel took my slot!” he said.
“I got canceled before cancel even had a culture,” Maher joked, before taking a shot at his former network.
“ABC stands for Always Be Caving,” he quipped.
Kimmel’s long-running late-night show on ABC, which is owned by Disney, was taken off the air Wednesday following the 57-year-old host’s comments about Kirk’s murder.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said during his opening monologue on Monday.
An ABC spokesperson said “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would be pre-empted indefinitely, in an announcement that came after.
Maher’s take comes the day after his fellow late-night hosts supported their embattled peer Kimmel.
CBS’ lame-duck host Stephen Colbert dramatically declared, “we are all Jimmy Kimmel” during his cringeworthy “Late Show” monologue.
“Yesterday after threats from Trump’s FCC chair, ABC yanked Kimmel off the air indefinitely. That is blatant censorship,” Colbert, 61, told the audience.
“With an autocrat, you cannot give an inch,” he said, in an apparent reference to President Trump, before railing against FCC Chairman Brendan Carr – who celebrated Kimmel’s show going on an indefinite hiatus.
Jon Stewart made a rare Thursday-night appearance on “The Daily Show,” speaking in front of a gold-inspired backdrop wearing a dark suit and red tie, both nods to Trump’s preferred attire and decor.
“From Comedy Central. It’s the all-new government-approved ‘Daily Show’ with your patriotically obedient host, Jon Stewart,” an announcer began the show.
Over on NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” Jimmy Fallon said he “woke up to 100 text messages from my dad saying, ‘I’m sorry they canceled your show.’ I go, ‘That’s not me, that’s Jimmy Kimmel.’”
The normally happy-go-lucky comedian said Kimmel is “a decent, loving, funny guy. And I hope he comes back.”
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