Last night on HBO Real timehost Bill Maher closed his show with a “New Rule” segment that called for a “COVID Commission” to investigate the country’s pandemic mistakes.
“I understand that we didn’t know exactly what was happening at the beginning of COVID and that some mistakes were inevitable,” Maher told his audience. “But four years later, I’m tired of hearing ‘Well, we didn’t know.’ No, we didn’t. But some people guessed it better than others. And the people who were wrong don’t seem to want to admit it now.”
“Some people said that closing schools for so long was pointless and would cause much worse collateral damage to children, and they were right,” he added.
Maher also criticized The Daily Beast for criticizing him in 2021 for his support of the Wuhan lab leak theory. The headline read “Bill Maher Pushes Steve Bannon’s Wuhan Lab Conspiracy Theory,” which, he noted, was “typical of the mainstream media at the time.”
“Of course, it was not a conspiracy theory and it was not owned by Steve Bannon. And now everyone, including the Biden administration, admits that there is at least a 50% chance that the virus started in the Wuhan lab that was doing gain-of-function research on that virus, duh! But I don’t see many retractions being published,” Maher said.
The HBO host then ridiculed the initial claim that natural immunity was inferior to the COVID vaccine and highlighted several overreactions during the pandemic, such as washing mail and using glory holes for sex.
“For two years we had to fuck our noses every time we left the house!” she exclaimed, before criticizing the idea of wearing masks on the beach.
“Because the last thing you want to do when there’s a disease going on is get fresh air, sunshine and vitamin D,” Maher said sarcastically. “No, it’s much better to stay cooped up, stressed and drinking during the day.”
“Yes, some very bad ideas were adopted as conventional wisdom, ideas that have not aged well. And many of his dissenting opinions, which were suppressed and ridiculed at the time, have been proven correct,” the HBO presenter added. “Maybe that’s why the powers that be never wanted a COVID commission. Why not? We love commissions! The Warren Commission, the AIDS Commission, the 911 Commission. The NFL even had a “Is shoving your head into another guy’s head bad for heads?” Commission.”
“So where is the COVID commission? Because it seems to me that we haven’t learned anything. “Perhaps the number one lesson of the pandemic was the need for proper ventilation, the second was to never go on Zoom with Jeffrey Toobin,” she joked.
“But if there has been a big national effort to modernize the buildings, I missed it. Research on gain of function is still continuing in laboratories. We are still torturing animals by growing our food in ideal conditions for viruses to make the jump to humans.
“We handed out $4 trillion of free money, $280 billion of which was simply stolen in what the AP called ‘the biggest scam in American history’ and which started an inflationary spiral that we now blame Biden for. So we’re bringing Trump back?! The guy who ignored COVID like it was the dinner bill?!”
“Talk about not learning anything,” Maher concluded. You can watch the full segment above and catch new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher Fridays at 10 pm ET on HBO and streaming on Max.
