Bill Maher has fire outside of his front door and in his belly.
The “Real Time” host was seriously angry about deadly wildfires in his hometown of Los Angeles and he laid into local politicians during his Friday monologue, occasionally invoking GOP talking points to explain the devastation.
Alongside heated criticism at liberal California politicians like LA Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom, Maher took aim at diversity, equity and inclusion efforts which he says kept the state inadequately prepared for a spat of historic burns.
“Democrats in this one-party state this week went right to ‘don’t blame politicians, you can’t do anything about the wind,’ which is exactly half true – the wind part,” Maher said. “Global warming absolutely makes it worse, but that’s largely out of our control. What are we going to do? Pass a ballot measure to make sure [the] Chinese stop burning coal?”
The comic went on to attack a lack of local leadership, joking that he pays “13% of my income every year to people I assumed were working on things like this.”
“[LA Mayor] Karen Bass, the Nero of American politics, was fiddling in Ghana while the city burned,” Maher said, dismissing Bass’ passing the blame to 14-year-lows in rainfalls and high winds as a weak excuse.
Bass left for Ghana to attend an inauguration three days before the Palisades blaze broke out and returned to the U.S. hours after evacuation orders began, a CBS News review of her schedule revealed. Maher later accused Bass of cutting fire department funding before the blazes, though local reports noted that the net fire department budgets increased last year after contract negotiations wrapped.
Maher bemoaned the state’s “exorbitant” tax rates and wondered what residents received in return.
“California is a place that spends money and gets nothing, which is why you may have noticed when the fires broke out, no one escaped by high-speed rail,” he joked.
The comedian blasted the LAFD chief Kristin Crowley, who he alleges was too focused on her identity to curb the flames.
“The good news is, our fire chief is a lesbian,” Maher said. “Maybe she’s the best person for the job, or maybe they really wanted a lesbian in that job, and she’s just the best lesbian for the job, and with essential services, that’s not good enough.”
Maher noted “wokeness” wasn’t the “main reason” for the fires, but called DEI initiatives within LA an “unforced error” by local politicians.
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