Bill Maher slammed the New York Times for their slanted coverage of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on an episode of Maher’s podcast, “Club Random,” released Sunday.
During the episode — in which Kennedy was his guest — Maher read from a New York Times article written about Kennedy.
“I want to take issue with the media because it incenses me how they write about you,” Maher said. He then quoted an article titled, “In Chat With Musk, Kennedy Pushes Right-Wing Ideas and Misinformation.”
“Right away I’m pissed off,” Maher said. “Because, misinformation? How about you’re the newspaper. Just tell me what was said and I’ll decide what’s misinformation. This arrogance of ‘we know what the misinformation is about science.'”
Maher continued to read from the article: “‘Mr. Kennedy is a long time amplifier and propagator of baseless theories.’ Again,” he stopped to qualify, “not the editorial page, this is like the regular newspaper.”
He honed in on a factcheck within the article on a statement Kennedy made, saying after the Affordable Care Act, Democrats earned more money from the pharmaceutical industry than Republicans. That statement was incorrect, the Times said, according to an analysis by Statnews.
“Because the Obama administration made a deal with the pharmaceutical industry to support the bill … today I believe the Democrats are getting more money from pharma than Republicans,” Kennedy argued.
“Even if that’s not exactly the case, the spirit of the answer is correct,” Maher agreed. “F**k them,” he added dismissively. “I’m doing this for a reason because I believe they deserve richly to be mocked for that attitude,” Maher concluded.
Over the course of the nearly two-hour conversation, Maher and Kennedy sparred over vaccine efficacy and covered a number of controversial topics, including Kennedy’s assertion that serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) may be linked to the rise of school shootings in America (RELATED: Joe Rogan Offers Scientist $100,000 To Debate Vaccines With RFK Jr. On His Show).
With the interview, Maher joins a growing list of influential media figures — Joe Rogan, Megyn Kelly and CNN’s Michael Smerconish — to platform Kennedy Jr. RFK Jr. has been heavily censored by technology corporations like YouTube and largely kept off of cable news networks, despite holding the highest favorability ratings amongst declared presidential candidates, according to one poll.