Bill Maher on Stopping ‘Political Violence’ After Charlie Kirk Shooting Death: ‘Let’s Not Debate About Who’s Worse Because Plainly Both Sides Do It Now’

Bill Maher centered the conversation of Friday’s “Real Time” episode on the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, addressing the topic in his monologue and discussing the fallout with his guests, The Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro and The Atlantic writer Tim Alberta.

“It’s a very ugly week in America with violence of all kinds: political violence, regular violence, a lot of people talking about a civil war. And then today in Congress, because Charlie Kirk got assassinated, [Colorado Representative] Lauren Boebert stood up and said, ‘We need to have a prayer.’ So they started to have a silent prayer. And then she started screaming, ‘No! Silent prayers get silent results.’ As if praying out loud gets big results,” Maher began in his monologue. “Then the Democrats started screaming at her that there was a school shooting in her state. I tell you, so far, the civil war is not very civil.”

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Maher then poked at President Trump’s comments on the heated political environment left in the wake of Kirk’s death.

“Today, they asked the President, ‘What are you going to do to bring the country together?’ And he said, ‘I know this is going to get me in trouble, but I could care less,” Maher continued, drawing a laugh. “He’s a different kind of cat. His message is, ‘Let the healing stop.'”

Later in the episode, Maher welcomed Shapiro and Alberta for a roundtable conversation. Shapiro began the talk by saying that a poll showed that “only 57% of Gen Z say there is no excuse for violence in response to speech.”

“There are at least 42% that believe that there are some times that the violence ought to be a response to speech, which is deeply terrifying,” Shapiro said. “I never, honest to God, thought that we were going to get to this point. Even the assassination of political figures is not the same thing as just being shot in the throat for the crime of debating issues in the public square. And I thought wrong.”

Alberta, who described himself as having been a “sparring partner from a distance” to Kirk, added that “the response to this has not been shock and horror and a reversal of the trend line in these polls. If anything, it seems as though, particularly to Ben’s point among younger voters, that this is becoming mainstreamed and becoming acceptable.”

“The governor of the state said, ‘Social media is a cancer,’ which I think is true. When you read some of the comments from people, they really are in such a bubble that they don’t understand that it’s happening on both sides. The only way this starts to get better is if both sides admit, ‘Okay, let’s not have this debate about who started it. Let’s not debate about who’s worse because, plainly, both sides do it now.’ And the right has done it too. A lot,” Maher said.

Maher and Shapiro disputed reporting on the political ideology of the suspected shooter, who was taken into policy custody Friday and identified as Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old from Utah.

“We do know that this kid was of the political left,” Shapiro began, citing reporting from The Guardian and Tablet Magazine.

“It’s two days out. We don’t know shit. The internet is undefeated in getting it wrong to begin with,” Maher responded.

Kirk had appeared on Maher’s podcast Club Random in April.

The 31-year-old Kirk, who became an ally of Trump as a co-founder of the nonprofit Turning Point USA, which advocated to mobilize the youth vote for him, was shot Wednesday afternoon during a debate event he was hosting at Utah Valley University. Kirk was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

After an extensive manhunt, Trump appeared on Fox News on Friday morning to announce that a suspect in the Kirk shooting had been taken into police custody.

Along with Alberta and Shapiro, guests on Friday’s episode of HBO’s “Real Time” included Charlie Sheen.