Comedian Bill Maher took on Fox News hosts Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck in an appearance Tuesday night on MSNBC’s “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell.”

The host of HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” said O’Reilly’s interview with President Barack Obama before the Superbowl was “astounding” and disrespectful, and forced Obama to swallow a great deal of “guff.”

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The Fox host interrupted the president 42 times in the 15-minute interview, as O’Donnell recently revealed on his show.

“I just feel like the most difficult part of his job must be to squelch the rage that somewhere must be inside and say, I’m the president of the United States. You don’t talk to me like this. I’m not some left — I’m not Al Sharpton, you know. I won this job,” Maher said.

“And Bill O’Reilly, who claims he’s such a patriot, how unpatriotic to treat a president that way. How does that look to other countries when you’re interrupting and belittling.”

Maher also called Fox host Glenn Beck “a bad joke” whose primary objective is to stay on the air, surmising that as the reason for his conspiracy theories and “apocalyptic politics.”

“He’s got a little bit of a messiah complex,” the HBO host said. “So I don’t think he cares how he stays on top.”

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Maher also responded to criticisms from “The View” host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who accused him of expressing “ignorance and hate” in a joke he made about her during his Friday show.

“I don’t even know where to begin,” Maher said, laughing. “First of all, it’s a joke. And not even that bad a one… There is a line that can be crossed where you get into mean, bitter, chauvinistic — I didn’t even approach it.”

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t put [Hasselbeck] on the intelligence committee,” he said.

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This video is from MSNBC, broadcast Feb. 8, 2011

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