Fran Lebowitz, a liberal author and public speaker, said she regrets her Friday comment that Trump should be handed over to the Saudis to be murdered like journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“Whenever I think about this, and what he really deserves, I think we should turn him over to the Saudis, his buddies, the same Saudis who got rid of that reporter. Maybe they could do the same for him,” Lebowitz said on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher.”
On Bill Maher, Fran Lebowitz suggests murdering President Donald Trump: “We should turn him over to the Saudis, his buddies. The same Saudis who got rid of that reporter. Maybe they could do the same for him.”
pic.twitter.com/s6anKrRdgr— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) May 18, 2019
Lebowitz was responding to Maher, who asked what should be done about Trump “as a practical matter.” Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last fall and Trump was criticized for not responding more harshly toward the Saudi government, which the U.S. government determined to have ordered the hit.
Lebowitz apologized later in the show after producers alerted Maher that the comments had caused “blowback” on Twitter.
“I didn’t realize that I had said it. I had 12 cups of coffee. I regret saying it,” Lebowitz said. “I did not mean that and I regret saying it. I regret that everyone misinterpreted it.”
#FranLebowitz clarifies her Trump comments on #RTOvertime: pic.twitter.com/m0nFrsjygZ
— Real Time (@RealTimers) May 18, 2019
Lebowitz is known in part for outrageous comments and has been a critic of Republicans and the president.
In a 2018 interview with the Guardian, Lebowitz called President Trump “stupid.”
“Everyone says he is crazy, which maybe he is, but the scarier thing about him is that he is stupid. You do not know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump. You just don’t,” Lebowitz said.
In 2017, Maher was forced to apologize after using the N-word in a show with Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb.
“I’ve got to get to Nebraska more,” Maher said in the interview.
“You’re welcome. We’d love to have you work in the fields with us,” Sasse replied.
“Work in the fields? Senator, I’m a house [N-word],” Maher responded.
Maher tried to initially play his comment off as “a joke” but later issued a statement calling his comment “offensive.”
Maher’s comments came two days after comedian Kathy Griffin was fired for publishing a photograph displaying what was supposed to look like the decapitated head of President Trump.
Griffin apologized at the time and her lawyers said she was being investigated by the Secret Service over the photo. Griffin later took back her apology.
Lebowitz said Griffin’s situation was a “bad comparison” to her own.
