Comedian Bill Maher came under fire for joking Friday about fried chicken with Texas Rep. Will Hurd on the HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
Hurd, a black Republican congressman and an ex-Central Intelligence Agency officer, was answering a question from Maher on why he chose to be a member of the Republican Party.
“I will say this, I was in the CIA for almost a decade,” Hurd began his answer, “I was the dude in the back alleys at four o’clock in the morning, collecting intelligence on threats to the homeland — ”
“That’s where they collect them, huh?” Maher asked, interrupting. “By the Popeye’s Chicken?”
.@billmaher talking to black Republican @HurdOnTheHill
throws out a fried chicken referenceWhy is the Left so racist? pic.twitter.com/wPEksol5Nf
— Jim Hanson (@Uncle_Jimbo) February 2, 2019
Hurd went on to discuss his experiences around the world and said that he believes President Trump’s attacks on the intelligence community “erodes trust in our institutions.”
Maher’s question had followed a discussion between the two men over Trump’s proposed border wall. “I’m a Republican because I believe in limited government,” Hurd ultimately said in his answer.
“But they don’t do that,” Maher said.
“I’m a Republican because I believe in the rule of law. I’m a Republican because I believe in economic opportunity,” Hurd said.
The comments came on Maher’s show Friday, the first day of Black History Month and the same day a photo of two men, one in blackface and one in Ku Klux Klan garb, on a 1984 medical school yearbook page for Gov. Ralph Northam surfaced. The photo prompted calls for the Virginia Democrat’s resignation.
It’s not the first time Maher, a political comedian, has faced criticism for racist language. He was forced to apologize in 2017 for using a racial slur in a segment with Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb.
