On the Season 13 premiere of “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday night, the host continued to slam Islam following his comments earlier in the week on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Maher spoke out against “hundreds of millions” of Muslims on Wednesday night on “Kimmel” for supposedly supporting the Jan. 7 terrorist attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which resulted in the death of 12 people.
Maher revisited the topic on his own show on Friday in a discussion with bestselling author Salman Rushdie, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and CNN commentator Paul Begala. “We tend to forget how often it happens, and we’re Americans so we don’t want to single out people,” Maher said before listing terrorist attacks that have occurred across the globe since 9/11. “What we’ve said all along, and have been called bigots for it, is when there’s this many bad apples, there’s something wrong with the orchard.”
Maher then referenced the heated debate between Ben Affleck, author Sam Harris and himself back in October. During the discussion, Harris said that the religion is a “mother lode of bad ideas.” “But it is,” Maher agreed on Friday night. “And, unfortunately, the terrorists and the mainstream share a lot of these bad ideas.”