Comedian Bill Maher doubled down on his criticism of democratic socialists Friday, telling his “Real Time” audience that “these people want communism” and urging moderates to reclaim control of the party following Democrats’ historic sweep in this week’s midterm elections.
On Friday, Maher spoke with writer and podcast host Coleman Hughes regarding the rise of socialist policies within the Democratic Party — and the party’s apparent appetite for more moderate candidates — during the show’s roundtable discussion.
“My issues are high rents and crime,” Hughes said. “Socialists don’t tend to be good on those issues because they institute policies like rent control, which sound good and then end up increasing the rents in the long run.”
“And we got a hundred years of data on socialism,” Hughes added. “It’s not good for the economy. It’s not a new idea.”
Maher appeared to agree with his guest, arguing that many of the policies pushed by socialist candidates are more closely aligned with communist ideology.
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“We already have a lot of socialism and a lot of it is appropriate,” Maher said. “That’s not what these people are selling, these far-left people.”
Maher said some government services and programs — including Medicare, the Marine Corps and Social Security — fall under his definition of socialism.
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“It’s anything the government does and the private sector doesn’t,” the comedian said. “You just read what they say in their manifesto. They want the government to take over everything. That is a prescription for failure.”
Maher also argued that the sweeping victories by moderate Democrats could indicate a broader voter rejection of the policies advocated by far-left candidates.
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“To me, one of the great results of this election was it gave moderates a big stick to beat them off with,” Maher told his audience.
He added that moderate Democrats could use their midterm victories to regain control of the party, while suggesting that the socialist agenda may not be as popular with voters as its supporters believe.
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“Who has the guts to say this is the Democratic Party, you are doing a whole different thing,” he continued. “We already have a lot of socialism, and I’m for most of it. We need most of it, but these people want communism.”
The liberal comedian has repeatedly criticized the rise of socialism within the Democratic Party and warned about socialist policies ahead of the midterms earlier this year.
“I did say that it was about two months ago, and you see how quickly the news changes in just two months, because that was before the Supreme Court made a ruling on voting rights,” Maher said at an event in June, referencing the Supreme Court’s April 29 decision in “Louisiana v. Callais,” which found that Louisiana’s revised congressional map constituted an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
“So, that has changed just in the last two months, and then the Democrats just elected three very far-left democratic socialists in New York who are crazy — like outright really crazy — so like, how are they gonna blow it? I don’t know, but they seem to be well on their way,” he added at the time.
Maher’s comments come after Democrats have won at least 254 U.S. House of Representatives races, according to the Associated Press — subsequently giving the party its largest House majority since 2009.
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Additionally, democratic socialist Nithya Raman defeated incumbent Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass earlier this week, becoming another democratic socialist elected to lead a major American city, following New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s victory last year.
However, Democratic strategist Kaivan Shroff told Fox News Digital that Maher’s criticisms of socialist policies — and his characterization of candidates who support them — are misguided as the comedian continues to criticize Democrats.
“There is something perfectly ‘Bill Maher’ about declaring it an ‘indictment of our educational system’ that young people supposedly do not understand socialism, and then immediately revealing that he does not understand it either,” Shroff said. “Medicare and Social Security are social insurance programs. The Marine Corps is literally a branch of the military.”
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“If every service the government provides counts as socialism, then courts, cops and Congress are socialist too and the word has basically lost all meaning,” he added. “He is mocking other people for being uneducated on the subject while demonstrating the same sloppy understanding himself.”
Shroff also pointed to Maher’s history of dining with President Donald Trump at the White House — most recently last month — and accused the liberal comedian of criticizing socialist policies more harshly when Democrats embrace them.
“And if Maher really wants to worry about socialism, he might want to look a little harder at his dinner buddy Donald Trump,” Shroff said. “Trump’s government has taken roughly a 10 percent stake in Intel and about a 15 percent stake in MP Materials. Those examples are far closer to socialism than Medicare is. Yet somehow Maher’s socialism panic gets a lot quieter when Trump is the one doing it.”
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Fox News Digital reached out to Maher for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Peter D’Abrosca contributed to this report.