Bill Maher had no problem working an insult against middle America into his opening monologue during Friday's Real Time. Reacting to Jussie Smollett's alleged hate crime hoax, Maher quipped: “He paid two men $3500 to assault him for being black and gay, something he could have gotten for free in Texas.”

Maher mentioned that he was just kidding, highlighting that “I love Texas.” But as we saw later in the show, it’s safe to say that the comic might not have been joking.

Closing out the show, he urged Amazon to build its new headquarters in middle America, but he made the case by mocking Flyover Country and the values it subscribes to.

Maher argued that “if liberals are serious about winning elections, they have to start re-colonizing the parts of the country they’ve abandoned.” He added that, in his book: “If we keep leaving the red states behind, they’re going to keep getting angrier and crazier. Because if you’re not invited to the party, the next best thing is to throw a turd in the punchbowl.”

Having previously brought up the concept of “spatial geographic inequality” in which “the most affluent and educated people” live in “just a few cities,” Maher proceeded to read aloud a quote from Hillary Clinton, who said that “I won the places that represent two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product…I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward.”

The HBO host used Clinton’s quote as a springboard to portray red states as backward, outlining an elitist fantasy of what would happen if Amazon moved to West Virginia; starting off by predicting that “people get better jobs that don’t give them black lung (and) the locals meet people of different backgrounds and races and sexual orientations.” Maher also took a shot at those who still believe in traditional marriage: “They find out gays don’t ruin anyone’s marriage, but they do improve the karaoke scene.”

Continuing to elaborate on this trope, he suggested that, at a hypothetical Amazon headquarters in West Virginia, a gym “that admits women” would open, implying that red states see women as second-class citizens. He later concluded by predicting that in a post-Amazon West Virginia, “there’s legal weed and decent healthcare and the schools are teaching science again.”

In a strange twist of irony, Maher then signed off by announcing that he would soon be visiting the red states of Louisiana and Indiana. Go figure.

A transcript of the relevant portion of Friday’s edition of Real Time is below. Click “expand” to read more.