Bill Maher was booed by some of his own audience members on Friday’s edition of HBO’s Real Time after mocking descriptions of Mike Bloomberg as a “racist” in the context of the former New York City mayor’s recent comments about stop-and-frisk policies and minorities.

“We have a new front-runner, Michael Bloomberg,” said Maher. “What the fuck? Well, Bloomberg must be the front runner because liberals are calling him a racist.”

After some jeers from the audience, Maher replied, “Keep booing, that’s how you lost the last election,” adding, “I will happily vote for [Mike Bloomberg] if he is the winning bidder.”

Watch below:



During Real Time’s discussion panel segment of Maher noted the #BloombergIsARacist trending hashtag on Twitter, warning Democrats that such messaging will damage Democrats and lead to President Donald Trump’s reelection.

Maher then defended Bloomberg:

I think he has real blind spots, this guy, but I don’t think he did it because he thought he was not helping. I think he thought he was helping, and I think he pictured—he’s a business guy, and part of this is because the police can’t be trusted with this policy, because they do throw people against the wall instead of doing it the way they should sometimes, not all—OK, but he’s picturing not that person, he’s picturing the storeowner who’s saying, ‘My neighborhood’s a tough neighborhood—can you help me?’

Bloomberg said during a 2015 speech to the Aspen Institute:

It’s controversial, but first thing is all of your — 95 percent of your murders, and murderers, and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all of the cops. They are male, minorities, 15 to 25. That’s true in New York, it’s true in virtually every city in America. … You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people getting killed. The first thing you need to do to help that group is keep them both alive.

All the money in the world can’t undo this “The way you get guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the wall.” pic.twitter.com/t4k0jRVJRR — Brad Parscale – Text TRUMP to 88022 (@parscale) February 11, 2020

Bloomberg sought to prevent public distribution of his comments at the time, reported the Aspen Times, “Bloomberg representatives have asked the Aspen Institute not to distribute footage of his recent appearance in Aspen, where the three-term New York City mayor made pointed comments concerning minorities and gun control.”

Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.