Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon commended liberal comedian Bill Maher for his meeting with President Donald Trump last month and said he didn’t view it in the same vein as California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s attempt to reach across the aisle with his new podcast.
Dillon said he believed the “Real Time” host was facing the “reality” that the left’s attacks on Trump hadn’t helped Democrats.
“Maher is looking at the reality of the situation where the left and the right are so at war with each other. They’re so stuck in their respective positions and unwilling to budge and not willing to come together and actually have real conversations. And that’s not working,” Dillon told Fox News Digital.
“Vilifying Trump and just lobbing bombs at him from a distance isn’t helping Democrats at all. Democrats ended up losing this election when they were pretty confident that they would win it,” he continued.
Maher went viral last Friday in his first show since he met Trump face-to-face in a meeting coordinated by their mutual friend Kid Rock. The comedian praised Trump afterward, calling him “gracious and measured” and suggested the man in the Oval Office is not the man the rest of the world sees on TV.
“I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him,” Maher told his audience. “And honestly, I voted for Clinton and Obama, but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump. That’s just how it went down. Make of it what you will. Me? I feel it’s emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days.”
While conservatives celebrated Maher’s White House visit, many liberals were irked by his comments, calling Maher a “shameless opportunist” who “got played” by Trump.
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Dillon, who runs the Christian conservative-leaning satire site The Babylon Bee, defended the liberal comedian amid the backlash.
“To his credit, I think it’s wise to say, instead of always being at each other’s throats, let’s actually have a real conversation,” Dillon said. “Let’s humanize this person who’s been so demonized. Let’s talk to him and let’s see if there’s maybe somewhere we can find common ground. I don’t know how you could possibly criticize someone for taking that outlook. I think that’s a healthy outlook.”
Maher isn’t the only one on the left who’s recently attracted negative attention for meeting with prominent figures on the right.
In February, Newsom was mocked after announcing he would be having “real conversations” with conservatives on his new podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom.”
Newsom invited Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk as his guest on his debut show and made headlines after saying there was an issue of “fairness” with transgender inclusion in women’s sports.
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Dillon believes people on both sides of the political aisle would benefit from leaving their bubbles more often to engage with the other side. But he is wary that Newsom is truly sincere in his attempt to find common ground.
“I judge him differently than I judge Bill Maher,” Dillon said. “Bill Maher is not a politician. He’s not running for office.”
While emphasizing that he doesn’t know what Maher or Newsom’s personal motivations are, Dillon believes Newsom’s podcast is more of a “calculated” move intended to bolster his political ambitions.
“I think Newsom’s trying to position himself as reaching across the aisle, being willing to talk. For him, I think it’s much more about optics than it is about something authentic in his desire to understand the other side,” he added.
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Other podcast hosts, such as podcast giant Joe Rogan, have also faced criticism at times for hosting controversial guests and conspiracy theorists on their platforms.
Dillon, a free speech advocate who has fought against social media censorship of his website, argued there was nothing wrong with calling for media hosts to be “responsible.”
“I think some of the criticism that people on the right have gotten for ‘platforming’ certain voices is that they not only talked to them… but then they didn’t push back on them when they were saying outrageous or false or reckless things,” Dillon said.
“It’s interpreted as an attempt to shut down discourse when there’s a response like that,” he said. “But what they’re doing is they’re just criticizing the judgments and choices of the person who has that platform. They’re not calling for censorship and saying that person has no right to speak.”
“So that criticism is actually a contribution to the conversation, not an attempt to end all of these conversations. And so I think there’s some mischaracterization that’s happening there in bad faith,” he continued.
“We have to be committed to free expression, the exchange of ideas, open discourse. It’s the best and fastest way to get to the truth and it honors people’s rights to [freedom of expression],” he added. “You can disagree with whatever the consensus is and push back on it. You even have a duty to.”
Newsom’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
