Bill Maher says Alex Jones ‘gets to speak’ even if he’s an idiot

Bill Maher took to Real Time to defend his rival Alex Jones, saying that even though he doesn’t like him, the kook still has the right to free speech.

We don’t have to like what he says, but doesn’t he still have the right to say it?

This is the argument Bill Maher is making in reference to the latest news surrounding Alex Jones. Because of the wacky conspiracies Jones would tout on his web series InfoWars, he recently saw the show pulled from all of its streaming services, including YouTube and Facebook. It’s seen as a win for many of Jones’ critics, but Maher thinks the banning is a bit of a double standard.

“I don’t like Alex Jones, but Alex Jones gets to speak. Everybody gets to speak,” Maher exclaimed on the latest Real Time. Maher laments how he doesn’t care for the way Jones spoke about Maher himself on many InfoWars shows, however, banning Jones from saying these things feels a bit hypocritical. After all, freedom of speech is one of the freedoms that liberals are supposed to be championing for.

“If you’re a liberal, you’re supposed to be for free speech,” the Real Time host relayed. He goes on to explain how free speech has to include the speech you don’t want to hear as well, otherwise it defeats the whole purpose. If we keep going down this path, Maher argues, we’ll be “losing the thread of the concepts” that the United States finds so important.

You can watch the show’s opening monologue in the YouTube video below.

With a renewal into 2020 by the network, we won’t be seeing Maher’s show going anywhere anytime soon. We’ll have many years of the series left to go at the very least. Watch Real Time with Bill Maher when it airs Friday nights on HBO.