Bill Maher addressed the shooting death of right-wing activist and Trump ally Charlie Kirk during his Real Time episode on Friday. His guests, The Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro and The Atlantic writer Tim Alberta, also discussed the topic.
“It’s a very ugly week in America with violence of all kinds: political violence, regular violence, a lot of people talking about a civil war. And then today in Congress, because Charlie Kirk got assassinated, [Colorado Rep.] Lauren Boebert stood up and said, ‘We need to have a prayer.’ So, they started to have a silent prayer. And then she started screaming, ‘No! Silent prayers get silent results.’ As if praying out loud gets big results,” Maher said during his monologue, via Variety. “Then the Democrats started screaming at her that there was a school shooting in her state. I tell you, so far, the civil war is not very civil.”
Maher also took President Trump to task for his remarks as political divisiveness continues to ramp up in the aftermath of Kirk’s death. “Today, they asked the President, ‘What are you going to do to bring the country together?’ And he said, ‘I know this is going to get me in trouble, but I could care less,” Maher said, eliciting laughter from the audience. “He’s a different kind of cat. His message is, ‘Let the healing stop.’”
During Maher’s discussion with his guests, Shapiro noted the disparity of viewpoints among Gen Z when it comes to violent reactions to speech. He said that a poll revealed “only 57 percent of Gen Z say there is no excuse for violence in response to speech.”
“There are at least 42 percent that believe that there are some times that the violence ought to be a response to speech, which is deeply terrifying,” Shapiro continued. “I never, honest to God, thought that we were going to get to this point. Even the assassination of political figures is not the same thing as just being shot in the throat for the crime of debating issues in the public square. And I thought wrong.”
Alberta, a self-described “sparring partner from a distance” to Kirk, commented that “the response to this has not been shock and horror and a reversal of the trend line in these polls. If anything, it seems as though — particularly to Ben’s point among younger voters — that this is becoming mainstreamed and becoming acceptable.”
“The governor of the state said, ‘Social media is a cancer,’ which I think is true. When you read some of the comments from people, they really are in such a bubble that they don’t understand that it’s happening on both sides,” Maher said. “The only way this starts to get better is if both sides admit, ‘OK, let’s not have this debate about who started it. Let’s not debate about who’s worse because, plainly, both sides do it now.’ And the right has done it too. A lot.”
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.
The suspected shooter, Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old from Utah, was taken into custody on Friday. Trump announced the news Friday morning on Fox, saying that “they have the person they wanted,” and that he just heard about it “five minutes before I walked in.” On Real Time, Maher and Shapiro also debated about reporting on the speculative political viewpoints of the suspected shooter.
“We do know that this kid was of the political left,” Shapiro began, citing reports from Tablet Magazine and The Guardian, which walked back its report on Sept. 12 with an editor’s note. The Guardian’s note reads: “Editor’s note: This article was updated on 12 September 2025 to remove quotes after the verified source who attended high school with Tyler Robinson said after publication that they could not accurately remember details of their relationship.”
Maher presciently responded: “It’s two days out. We don’t know shit. The internet is undefeated in getting it wrong to begin with.”
Kirk — who was a guest on Maher’s Club Random podcast in April — was the co-founder of Turning Point USA, which was formed to foster a culture of conservatism on school campuses around the nation. He was fatally shot Wednesday while speaking to students at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
From Rolling Stone US
