HBO
After taking flak for inviting incendiary alt-right personality Milo Yiannopoulos onto his show Real Time, Bill Maher is now claiming credit for the pundit’s downfall. “What I think people saw was an emotionally needy Ann Coulter wannabe, trying to make a buck off of the left’s propensity for outrage,” Maher said. “And by the end of the weekend, by dinnertime Monday, he’s dropped as a speaker at CPAC. Then he’s dropped by Breitbart, and his book deal falls through. As I say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. You’re welcome.” Maher still distanced himself from the idea that Yiannopoulos’s ideas could do any real harm. “Can he do damage? I suppose he can. To a degree. Not a great degree, I don’t think,” Maher said. “It just rubs me the wrong way when somebody says, ‘I don’t like what this person is saying—he should go away.’” Most of the criticism faced by Maher in the wake of the program centered on the fact that he didn’t correct Yiannopoulos when he misspoke or said something offensive. He responded, “It’s not my job to hold him accountable to everything he’s ever said or done. I had eight minutes with him, on the show itself.” He added, “You know what he is? He’s the little impish, bratty kid brother. And the liberals are his older teenager sisters who are having a sleepover and he puts a spider in their sleeping bag so he can watch them scream.”