On a recent episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, the veteran political commentator didn’t hold back. Taking direct aim at The View and the broader liberal establishment, Maher slammed recent comments made on the popular daytime talk show and argued that the American left is in desperate need of a reality check.
The moment that triggered this segment came from The View, when Whoopi Goldberg made a statement comparing the treatment of women and minorities in America to the oppression faced by women in Iran. Maher described the clip as “one of the most extraordinary” he had ever seen from the show—and not in a good way. “Whoopi basically claimed that it is as bad for gays, women, and Black people in America as it is for women in Iran,” Maher recounted, calling the comparison “completely absurd.”
Alyssa Farah Griffin, a co-host on The View and former Trump White House communications director, pushed back on Goldberg’s claim—especially given that Farah is of Iranian descent. But for Maher, the damage was already done. The fact that such a narrative could be uttered, let alone accepted, on national television was alarming.
“This is a great first step toward getting the Democrats back to sanity,” Maher said, referring to the increasing pushback against far-left ideology. “And a second good step would be: we got to do something about The View.”
Yes, Maher just went there. He directly challenged the cultural power and political influence of The View, a show he believes is undermining serious political discourse and dragging the Democratic Party into absurd territory.
Maher’s critique didn’t stop there. He dived into the complexities of the trans issue—particularly in Iran. In a surprising statistic, Maher noted that Iran is the second-highest country in terms of gender reassignment surgeries. But rather than being a beacon of progressive acceptance, the motivation is deeply disturbing. “The reason they do it is because they don’t want gays in Iran,” Maher explained. “The trans movement has become the number one anti-gay thing.” His point? Instead of accepting people as gay, Iranian society pressures them into transitioning so they can appear heterosexual and conform to strict religious and cultural norms.
He went on to illustrate the absurdity of this logic: “You’re just taking a man, making him a woman, and then he lives with another man, and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, everything’s fine.’” Then, in a grim punchline, he quipped, “And I guess when he’s a woman, you can put him in a bag”—a dark nod to the forced veiling and oppression women endure under Iran’s regime.
But Maher wasn’t just out to call out The View for bad takes or cultural confusion. He was genuinely concerned about the intellectual collapse of the Democratic Party. His frustration wasn’t merely aimed at the show’s hosts—Whoopi Goldberg, Sunny Hostin, Ana Navarro, and Alyssa Farah Griffin—but at the TV executives and media gatekeepers who allow such content to define the mainstream left.
Dave Rubin, who discussed Maher’s monologue on his show, echoed this sentiment. “My issue is no longer with the fact that Whoopi has become a lunatic, or that Anna Navarro, who was once a Marco Rubio Republican, is a crazy person, or that Sunny Hostin is the most racist person on television,” Rubin said. “My issue is with the executives that put that on there.”
And therein lies the deeper problem, according to Maher and Rubin: the institutional left—Hollywood, network television, corporate media—has enabled a version of liberalism that has lost touch with its classical roots. The kind of liberalism that Maher still believes in: reasoned debate, secular values, and individual liberty.
Maher expressed empathy for people who feel bombarded by clips from The View, joking that even his basketball buddies have asked him to stop showing them. “Dave, I can’t take it anymore with The View clips,” Maher joked about his friend’s reaction. But the reason he keeps showing them is serious. These clips, he believes, reflect a cultural sickness that’s poisoning the Democratic Party.
And while Maher firmly opposes censorship—he made it clear he doesn’t think The View should be taken off the air—he believes it’s time for liberals to confront the damage being done in their name. He’s not just taking aim at The View for ratings or laughs. He’s sounding an alarm.
For Maher, the path to sanity in American politics starts with intellectual honesty, not ideological performance. It starts with confronting absurdity, even when it comes from within your own camp. And it starts, perhaps, by finally asking the hard question: What the hell are we going to do about The View?
