Bill Maher returned to his HBO show after a winter break Friday night and he didn’t hold anything back.
“If there were a theme to the news in the time we were off it would be, ‘No joking,'” Maher said. “There are people in the world who just don’t like you joking about them. North Korea, they don’t like it. These assholes in Paris who shot cartoonists this week, they don’t like it. As a jokester, I just have to say, the world needs to stand as one and, to quote the immortal Dick Cheney, say, ‘Go f–k yourself.'”
Maher’s return to TV came in the wake of a tragic week of attacks in France that led to the deaths of 17 people at the hands of Islamist extremists, the most publicized being an attack at a satirical magazine over cartoonist’s depictions of Islam.
Maher, an outspoken critic of radical Islam himself, praised Charlie Hebdo for not backing down after the attack and for actually printing more issues this week.
“Congratulations, Sony, you put up less resistance than the French!” Maher declared, mocking the company for pulling “The Interview” from theaters back in December after an anonymous online threat.
“They also stopped production on the next ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ movie because raccoons complained about their portrayal,” he joked.
Maher also didn’t shy away from these attackers ties to Islam.
“We’re finding out more about these brothers who carried out the attack. They are, as everyone suspected, Amish,” he deadpanned to laughter from the audience.
“You know, Howard Dean said they are not Muslim terrorists. He said they are mass murderers. He was going to say more, but the elephant in the room sat on him.”
Watch the full clip below:
