Bill Maher was having none of lefty Rep. Ro Khanna’s attempt to paint New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as a unifier-in-chief following his speech at the Knicks’ championship parade — as he blasted the socialist for being “pals” with terrorists.
The exchange on Friday night’s episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher” began with the host asking the California Democrat if he considers Mamdani “a great one.”
“I do, I mean, did you see his Knicks speech?” Khanna asked the longtime HBO talk show host, who shot back that Hizzoner’s rousing, eight-minute remarks outside City Hall Thursday were “not the issue that most concerned” him from that day.
Hours later, Mamdani branded the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its pro-Israel supporters “monsters” at a Brooklyn campaign rally, prompting outrage from the Jewish community that the Muslim mayor was “inciting violence” against Jews.
“It’s worth a watch, because the speech was not just about the Knicks — first of all he, like, recites every Knicks player — I mean I couldn’t do that about the 49ers,” Khanna said before Maher cut him off.
“Who gives a s–t about the Knicks? He’s the mayor of New York,” Maher pushed back.
“Well yeah, but he talks about how it’s actually bringing people together, Trump voters, Mamdani voters, how it’s overcoming the odds, and he took a speech that was just about celebrating the championship and he made something bigger about it,” Khanna attempted to continue.
An unimpressed Maher then unleashed a torrent of sharp criticism against both Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji.
“Well it doesn’t make me forget that his wife loved [the] Oct. 7 attack on Israel and that he pals around with terrorists,” Maher raged, referring to Duwaji liking a February 2024 Instagram post by a pro-Palestinian influencer claiming Hamas’ rapes of Israelis during the terror attack were a “mass hoax.”
Last October, Mamdani was widely criticized for holding a photo op with Siraj Wahhaj, a terror-linked Brooklyn imam who once urged fellow Muslims to wage “jihad” on the Big Apple.
Khanna dismissed Maher’s criticism and asked if Mamdani had ever been a panelist on his long-running show.
“We ask people like that, Ro, they never come,” Maher said, echoing a frequent complaint he’s had over the years about prominent lefty Democrats’ reticence to appear on the program.
“I’ll talk to him,” Khanna promised, to which Maher replied, “I would love that.”
