{"id":427619,"date":"2026-01-24T19:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T19:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/427619\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T19:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T19:35:08","slug":"bill-maher-goes-scorched-earth-on-zohran-mamdani-during-real-time-hes-a-straight-up-communist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/427619\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Maher Goes Scorched Earth on Zohran Mamdani During \u2018Real Time\u2019: \u201cHe\u2019s a Straight-Up Communist\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill Maher<\/a> is never shy about picking a political target, but on Friday night\u2019s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher<\/a>, the HBO<\/a> host zeroed in on New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani<\/a> \u2014 and he did so with zero chill.<\/p>\n

You can watch the clip above, with Maher\u2019s comments about Mamdani beginning around the 7:20 mark.<\/p>\n

Maher framed his monologue around what he described as a growing debate among Democrats about Mamdani\u2019s politics. \u201cDemocrats seem to be having this debate about whether or not Mayor Mamdani is a socialist or a democratic socialist,\u201d Maher said before cutting straight to the point. \u201cLet me settle it. He\u2019s a straight-up communist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anticipating pushback, Maher walked viewers through how he reached that conclusion. \u201cHow do I know this?\u201d he asked. \u201cWell, I\u2019m reading between the lines when one of his major advisers says, \u2018Elect more communists.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

To Maher\u2019s credit, he made clear that ideology itself wasn\u2019t the issue \u2014 denial was. \u201cWhich is fine. It\u2019s fine. It\u2019s a belief system. He\u2019s allowed to believe it, and people are allowed to vote for it,\u201d Maher said. \u201cBut if liberals deny it, like he\u2019s just going through a goth phase, they\u2019re going to lose more elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, Maher widened the lens, arguing that American politics has become a game of extremes. \u201cThis is not a communist country,\u201d he said, adding that it feeds into what he called the \u201c\u2018pendulum never lands in the middle\u2019 problem I\u2019m always bitching about.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Maher\u2019s telling, voters are being forced into a brutal binary. \u201cReally, the choices we get here are either the worst version of crony capitalism or communism,\u201d he said. \u201cEither a side deal for the Trump family every time he does business overseas, or the lady who says, \u2018Impoverish the white middle class.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That hypothetical campaign pitch didn\u2019t impress him. \u201cOh yeah \u2014 there\u2019s a great campaign slogan for you,\u201d Maher deadpanned.<\/p>\n

And because this is Real Time, the rant ended where many Maher monologues do: with a joke designed to make everyone uncomfortable. \u201cHonestly, as New York mayoral races go, I was less creeped out by Anthony Weiner\u2019s dick.\u201d<\/p>\n

As usual, Maher\u2019s comments are likely to light up both sides of the political spectrum \u2014 and ensure that Mamdani\u2019s name, and ideology, stay very much in the conversation.<\/p>\n

Now in its 24th season, Real Time with Bill Maher is back with new episodes premiering Fridays at 10:00 p.m. ET on HBO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Maher is never shy about picking a political target, but on Friday night\u2019s episode of Real Time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[10161,1020,88,1035,13726,1999,111,38975,31445,92,10766],"class_list":["post-427619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-bill-maher","tag-communism","tag-entertainment","tag-hbo","tag-late-night","tag-new-york-city","tag-politics","tag-talk-show","tag-talk-shows","tag-tv","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}