Late-night talk show host Bill Maher opened his show’s panel discussion on Friday expressing concern over the long-term consequences of Muslim refugees fleeing to European nations.

Mr. Maher agreed the humanitarian crisis needs to be dealt with, but worried about “empty[ing] out the Middle East of all the moderates” who over time could make Europe “less moderate and tolerant.”

“I so understand why moderate Muslims are fleeing their homelands, but the answer can’t really be that we empty out the Middle East of all the moderates and leave it to ISIS and the extremists,” Mr. Maher said, using an acronym for the Islamic State terrorist group, Mediaite reported.

“If they just come to moderate, tolerant Europe to someday make it less moderate and tolerant, that isn’t the answer right?” Mr. Maher asked.

Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses” — which led Iran’s then-supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to place a bounty on the author’s head — said the solution was not necessarily to take in all the refugees but to “fix the reason the refugees are fleeing.”

He argued that it was very strange that other Arabic nations, like Saudi Arabia and other gulf states that share a culture and a language with the refugees are not taking them in.

Linda Chavez, Chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity, called the refugee crisis a “demographic time-bomb,” saying Muslim immigrants would eventually make up the majority of the population in European countries as fewer historic Europeans are having babies.

Mr. Maher pointed out that many young Muslims in Europe have declared they won’t adopt to the way of the western world.

“Often their attitude is, ‘we’re biding our time until you will do things our way,’” Mr. Maher said, Mediaite reported.

Sign up for Daily Newsletters Manage Newsletters

Copyright © 2020 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.