Breitbart senior editor/alt-right agitator Milo Yiannopoulos appeared on Friday’s Real Time With Bill Maher and hit on many of his favorite topics — the weakness of liberals, the unreliability of gays and women, the leadership prowess of President Donald Trump — in the show’s one-on-one interview segment.
Yiannopoulos’ appearance created controversy even before it happened. Earlier in the week, panelist Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept, cancelled his scheduled appearance on the HBO talk show in protest of sharing an episode with Yiannopoulos, whom Scahill said promotes a “racist, anti-immigrant campaign.”
Maher responded, in a statement to EW.com, saying, “If Mr. Yiannopoulos is indeed the monster Scahill claims — and he might be — nothing could serve the liberal cause better than having him exposed on Friday night.”
So, how did the interview go? Here are a few salient bits:
* Maher joked at the top of the interview that Yiannopoulos, who had accessorized with several strands of pearls, looked the Sacha Baron Cohen character “Brüno.”
* After the crowd groaned at Yiannopoulos’ assertion that gays don’t show up to work, but they’re not as unreliable as women, he told them, “You’re easy. You’re very easily triggered. It’s pathetic.”
* Yiannopoulos called Democrats “the party of Lena Dunham,” prompting Maher to joke, “Let’s not pick on [a] fellow HBO star.” The Breitbart editor then said Amy Schumer and Sarah Silverman were funny “before they contracted feminism,” a line of conversation that Maher shut down quickly.
* Another topic on which Maher didn’t challenge his guest: Yiannopoulos’ assertion that his Twitter harassment of Ghostbusters and Saturday Night Live star Leslie Jones — which eventually got him banned from the social media site — was no big deal. “You’ve just got to accept that mean words on the Internet don’t hurt anyone,” Yiannopoulos said.
* In closing, Maher suggested that Yiannopoulos “get off the Trump train.” Yiannopoulos’ response: “He’s fabulous.”
Video of the interview will be added to this post when it becomes available. Until then, hit the comments with your thoughts on the Real Time exchange.
