“Real Time” host Invoice Maher on Friday decried the political violence plaguing American life and bought right into a heated dialogue in regards to the demise of Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist fatally shot Wednesday at Utah Valley College, with conservative visitor Ben Shapiro.
Maher started by condemning the bipartisan blame recreation that sprang from Kirk’s killing.
“I think the only way that this starts to get better is if both sides admit, OK, let’s not have this debate about who started it,” he stated Friday. “Let’s not have the debate about who’s worse, because plainly both sides do it now — and the right has done it too, a lot.”
Maher went on to learn a social media put up from a conservative consumer who cited President Donald Trump’s tried assassinations, Kirk’s demise and the deadly taking pictures of Ashli Babbit throughout the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots to argue “our side hasn’t fired a bullet.”
“Your side has fired a lot of bullets,” Maher stated. “And used hammers on [Democrat former House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi’s husband, and used firebombs on the [Pennsylvania’s Democrat] Governor [Josh] Shapiro’s house.”
That’s when the dialogue turned testy, as Shapiro stated he was conversant in “the kind of death threats Charlie was getting.” He then claimed it was clear which facet of the political spectrum was answerable for Kirk’s demise.
“If we are not politically correct, then we understand that if there’s a shooting at a synagogue, it is very likely to be either a white supremacist or a radical Muslim. If it is a shooting of a Republican politician, it is very likely to be a trans, Antifa or Marxist shooter.”
Maher interjected, “That is just not true. We don’t know what this kid is.”
A suspect in Kirk’s taking pictures has been caught, however a motive stays unclear. Whereas a Wall Road Journal article reported that shell casings discovered on the scene have been inscribed with “transgender and antifascist ideology,” these particulars have been walked again in an editor’s observe.
Shapiro argued that “we do know” the 22-year-old suspect, Tyler Robinson, “was of the political left,” citing reporting from The Guardian {that a} former classmate described Robinson as a “leftist.” That, nevertheless, has additionally been hedged in an editor’s observe.
“It’s two days out,” stated Maher. “We don’t know shit, Ben. We don’t know shit.”
Tomas Cuesta/Getty Photographs
The pundit then listed all of the theories flooding social media about Robinson, together with that he was a part of a far-right group “for whom Charlie Kirk was not right-wing enough” — and requested Shapiro point-blank, “But you’re sure he’s not that?”
“I’m not sure that he’s not that,” stated Shapiro, which prompted Maher to notice, “Oh, a minute ago you were sure what he was.”
That second spawned rapturous applause from the host’s studio viewers.
Shapiro went on to decry the “permission structures” on each side, from supposed Marxists on the left to white supremacists on the appropriate, for fostering political violence — solely to as soon as once more state that the left is extra accountable than the appropriate.
“I think you are projecting your own intellectual rational world onto people who are not living in that universe,” stated Maher, to extra applause.
