Comedian and liberal late-night show host Bill Maher savaged the political left during his show on Friday night for their handling of the coronavirus while Florida managed to see better outcomes than many other states despite its significantly lenient restrictions or almost total lack thereof.
Speaking during a panel discussion with Democrat Rep. Ritchie Torres and liberal journalist and former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss, Maher read out the COVID statistics for several states and compared them to how well they fared based on the severity of their restrictions.
“I asked for the COVID deaths by state, this is per 100,000 people,” Maher said. “The worst is Mississippi. My home state [of] New Jersey, four, fourth worst. New York, sixth worst. West Virginia and Massachusetts are 10 and 11, right together. Could there be two states who are more unalike than West Virginia and Massachusetts? And the poster boy for keeping s*** open was Florida, they’re down at 17. So New York and New Jersey did worse than Florida.”
“We did worse because we’re a densely populated hub of international travel,” Torres, the Democrat representative from New York, claimed.
“Florida is home to all the old people in America,” Maher shot back. “What this is saying … Florida, like, stayed open. I mean, I was just in Florida. I’ve been there a few times since this started. The atmosphere is just different. I’m not moving to Florida; I’m not promoting Florida. I’m just saying AOC just went to Florida and had a good time without a mask [on].”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was captured maskless and having a carefree vacation in Florida while her own state of New York remained tightly restricted. She was mocked by Gov. Ron DeSantis over her hypocrisy, Rebel News reported.
“I’m just saying I’ve been to Florida, the atmosphere was just night and day from California, which was gloomy, and everything was the Andromeda Strain out there,” Maher added. “And you went to Florida, and I’m just saying, yes, there are different factors … but basically, it’s like they stayed open and went on with life, and they didn’t do a hell of a lot worse, and maybe did better.”
“AOC went to Florida and had a good time without a mask hugging people.” @BillMaher points out open Florida has done better on COVID than NY: “The poster boy for keeping shit open was Florida. They are down at 17. So New York and New Jersey did worse than Florida.” #RealTime pic.twitter.com/qRo2bejUMr
— Brent Baker (@BrentHBaker) January 22, 2022
During the broadcast, Weiss, who runs a highly popular Substack page since her “cancellation” by the left, also slammed the pandemic restrictions, stating she was “done with COVID.”
“We were told you get the vaccine, you get the vaccine, and you get back to normal. And we haven’t gotten back to normal. And it’s ridiculous at this point,” Weiss said. “I know that so many of my liberal and progressive friends are with me on this and they do not want to say it out loud because they are scared to be called anti-vaxxed or to be called science denial or to be smeared as a Trumper.”
“I’m sorry,” she added, “but if you believe the science, you will look at the data that we did not have two years ago, and you will find out that cloth masks do not do anything. You will realize that you can show your vaccine passport at a restaurant and still be asymptomatic in carrying Omicron. And you realize, most importantly, that this will be remembered by the younger generation as a catastrophic moral crime.”
