Bill Maher made a bold declaration about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — and the Real Time With Bill Maher host didn’t mince words with his blunt assessment.
On Friday, September 5, the late-night host, 69, briefly mentioned RFK Jr., 71, during his opening monologue recapping recent news about President Donald Trump.
“The knives are out for Bobby Kennedy, and I gotta say, I’m with the knives,” Maher confessed.
Later, during the panelist segment of Real Time, Maher reflected on Kennedy’s three-hour Senate hearing on September 4. The health secretary struggled to defend major vaccine changes that limit access to the COVID-19 vaccine and the firing of CDC director Susan Monarez under his leadership.
“I personally find this very disappointing because I am the person who was sympathetic to what [Kennedy] was trying to do,” Maher told the panel. “I said, ‘Finally, we have a guy in there who cares about this stuff.’ But he’s also just nutty.”
Earlier this week, 1,000 current and former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees signed a letter calling for Kennedy to resign and accusing him of appointing “political ideologues.”
“He’s just too nutty,” Maher reiterated.. “He just does not listen. I mean, he just is. And nothing ever — I call it pendulumism — nothing ever stops in the middle.”
He continued, “OK, this needed a housecleaning, the CDC. But to fire all 17 of the top people? Now you don’t have that voice in there at all. You just have your voice.”
To conclude his thoughts on RFK Jr., Maher declared, “It’s just, he’s got to go.”
Real Time With Bill Maher, Fridays, 10/9c, HBO