Talk show host Bill Maher unloaded on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and a multitude of big names during his HBO show Friday.
The “Real Time” host said American-born skier Eileen Gu, who opted to compete for China in the Beijing Games, “chose to represent a totalitarian police state over America.” Before adding that China was an “authoritarian surveillance state.”
“China has basically jailed an entire ethnic minority,” Maher said, referring to the Uyghurs. “A situation that both the Trump and the Biden administrations have called a genocide.”
Maher referred to a controversy involving actor John Cena who called Taiwan a country. The comment was made while Cena was promoting Fast & Furious 9 last year. The situation sparked outrage and prompted Cena to quickly apologize.
“We have to find out where we got this rule so we can’t criticize China,” Maher concluded. “I suspect we got it from China. Because, after all, it’s where we get everything else.”
Maher reminisced about former Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey who tweeted his support for the people of Hong Kong who accused China of meddling in its affairs.
At the time of Morey’s statement, Lebron James said Morey didn’t know enough about the situation to comment. “I believe he was either misinformed or not really educated on the situation, and if he was, then so be it,” James said at the time.
Maher concluded that James probably “had some shoes to sell.”
