{"id":251443,"date":"2025-11-08T15:06:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T15:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/251443\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T15:06:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T15:06:08","slug":"maher-69-and-oreilly-76-go-to-war-over-whos-more-popular","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/251443\/","title":{"rendered":"Maher, 69, and O\u2019Reilly, 76, Go to War Over Who\u2019s More Popular"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Friday night\u2019s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher turned into a Battle of the Bills when Maher and conservative commentator Bill O\u2019Reilly got into a sparring match, trading barbs over which television personality was more popular.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">O\u2019Reilly was attempting to summarize what he believes Maher\u2019s views are on the state of the modern Democratic party, which he described as being \u201cdisenchanted\u201d that the party is too focused on fringe \u201cgarbage\u201d and \u201cdiluting\u201d what has traditionally been its own message. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t put it that way,\u201d Maher interjected, \u201cbut go ahead.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Bill Maher hosts 'Real Time With Bill Maher' on Nov. 7, 2025.\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/RC53RRLMJJCQFDYAJJULUHQENA.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"466\"\/>Bill Maher hosts \u201cReal Time With Bill Maher\u201d on Nov. 7, 2025. HBO\/HBO <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">When O\u2019Reilly suggested that Maher might want to borrow his phrasing, \u201cbecause that\u2019s a good way to put it,\u201d Maher shot back: \u201cWell, I\u2019m still on the air and you\u2019re not, but go ahead.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">O\u2019Reilly had the highest-rated cable news show for 16 of the 21 years he spent at Fox News, until his The O\u2019Reilly Factor ended in 2017 after a damning <a onclick=\"_sendArticleBodyInlineLinkClickAnalytics(&#039;https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/10\/21\/business\/media\/bill-oreilly-sexual-harassment.html&#039;)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/10\/21\/business\/media\/bill-oreilly-sexual-harassment.html\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/10\/21\/business\/media\/bill-oreilly-sexual-harassment.html\">New York Times report<\/a> uncovered details of five sexual misconduct lawsuits the \u201cNo Spin\u201d host had settled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The audience responded with shock, laughter and applause, as O\u2019Reilly\u2019s fellow guest, Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz, awkwardly took a sip of his drink. O\u2019Reilly quickly told the audience, \u201cI expected that,\u201d before launching into an anecdote about a town hall he hosted on NewsNation two weeks ago that brought in 23 million viewers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cYou can add up all the HBOs you want, you\u2019re not going to come close. Just want to correct the record,\u201d O\u2019Reilly told Maher. Moskowitz then offered use of his tape measure if either of the men wanted, while O\u2019Reilly told him to \u201cLet Maher and I go at it\u2014the people love this.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">According to a <a onclick=\"_sendArticleBodyInlineLinkClickAnalytics(&#039;https:\/\/www.newsnationnow.com\/press\/newsnation-and-the-cw-deliver-nearly-800000-viewers-for-cuomo-town-hall\/&#039;)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newsnationnow.com\/press\/newsnation-and-the-cw-deliver-nearly-800000-viewers-for-cuomo-town-hall\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.newsnationnow.com\/press\/newsnation-and-the-cw-deliver-nearly-800000-viewers-for-cuomo-town-hall\/\">NewsNation press release<\/a>, the town hall, which O\u2019Reilly co-hosted with Chris Cuomo and Stephen A. Smith, brought in 788,000 viewers; the 23 million figure comes from the number of times highlights from the event were viewed online. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Maher then joked that he and O\u2019Reilly were \u201cactually cousins,\u201d a reference to an <a onclick=\"_sendArticleBodyInlineLinkClickAnalytics(&#039;https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/pbs-series-finding-your-roots-finds-bill-maher-bill-oreilly-are-related\/&#039;)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/pbs-series-finding-your-roots-finds-bill-maher-bill-oreilly-are-related\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/pbs-series-finding-your-roots-finds-bill-maher-bill-oreilly-are-related\/\">episode of Finding Your Roots<\/a> where the pair discovered they were distantly related. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019m at a family gathering?!\u201d Moskowitz quipped, before the conversation finally returned to the subject of the Democratic party. The two Bills eventually came to agree that \u201cboth parties have just gone completely away from why they were founded,\u201d in O\u2019Reilly\u2019s words.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cYes, both,\u201d Maher concurred. \u201cYou\u2019re right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friday night\u2019s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher turned into a Battle of the Bills when Maher&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[36494,104799,96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-251443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-bill-maher","9":"tag-bill-oreilly","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}