Comedian Bill Maher attacked the media’s defense of the rioting taking place in cities such as Portland or Seattle.
“I’m not down with this ‘property’s on the table as something we can just take because things are not right,'” Maher said Friday on his show Real Time while speaking to former CNN White House correspondent Jessica Yellin.
“Where is the mass destruction of property happening right now?” Yellin asked.
Maher said that the damage is repeatedly on the news, prompting Yellin to say rioting in Portland has only affected “two square blocks.”
“There is a view. It is in the media,” Maher said. “Please, I know you’ve seen it. Don’t look at me like I am making this up — that somehow this is a justifiable approach.”
Yellin also said that the riots and looting are a “sideshow” ahead of November’s election, which Maher shut down as not being the case for business owners.
“It may be a sideshow unless it’s your business that got wiped out,” Maher said. “I mean, if it’s your business, then it’s not a sideshow.”
Riots have continued in some cities following the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day and other deaths and shootings of black people during interactions with police.
Portland has seen about $23 million in damages, according to a report in August, while Minneapolis has endured about $500 million worth of destruction.
The liberal comedian said earlier this summer that he’s “nervous” that President Trump will be reelected after watching the Republican National Convention.
“I am feeling less confident about this. Maybe it’s just their convention bump got to me, but I’m feeling less confident than I was a month ago,” Maher told MSNBC’s Joy Reid on The ReidOut in August.
“I feel very nervous, the same way I did four years ago at this time,” he added.
