An occasionally red-pilled Bill Maher teed off on Tom Hanks and Saturday Night Live for a skit earlier this year involving the actor portraying MAGA supporters as racists.
The skit in question involved Hanks portraying a Trump supporter who was too terrified to shake the hand of a black man.
Jillian Michaels was a guest on Maher’s “Club Random” podcast on Sunday, and the fitness icon went after SNL for their insistence on casting Trump supporters as these fictitious ‘deplorables’ bordering on a hate group.
“I hated it,” Maher said of the Hanks skit. “Wearing the MAGA hat, not shaking hands with a black person. And that’s when I thought, ‘You people don’t know MAGA people.’”
The comedian pointed out that every group has racist outliers, but MAGA being painted with a broad brush is reprehensible.
“Generally, all the MAGA people I know have no problem shaking hands with a black person,” Maher explained. “You’re just hysterical, and you’re not helping.”
🚨NEW: Bill Maher UNLOADS on SNL for sketch portraying Trump supporters as racist🚨
“I hated it — wearing the MAGA hat, not shaking hands with a black person. And that’s when I thought, ‘You people don’t know MAGA people.'”
“Mostly what I hate is it’s what I call a zombie lie.… pic.twitter.com/wy5g4RizX9
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) May 18, 2025
RELATED: SNL 50th Anniversary Special: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Attack on Trump Supporters
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Maher continued hammering away at Hanks and the writers at SNL for telling what he describes as a “zombie lie.”
“Don’t lie to me,” he demanded. “It’s a lie that MAGA people won’t shake hands with — I get it, it’s part of a skit, and it’s exaggeration, and that’s comedy. It’s a little too delicate a subject to just … to go there for that one.”
The podcast host told Michaels that he believes SNL has no regrets about running the Hanks sketch.
“You know, look, we all in comedy step over the line sometimes or do one that they want to take back,” he said. “I doubt if they want to take that one back. I think they probably think it’s great.”
“But I’m telling you, as a liberal, I don’t like it,” added Maher. “When the premise isn’t real, I can’t go with — the joke is not gonna work. The premise has to ring true. That premise doesn’t ring true.”
There is little to no doubt that the SNL cast believes the premise true. They are insulated by an entertainment industry almost exclusively on the extreme left. Ignorance pervades Hollywood and the so-called arts.
Did you see the Tom Hanks skit on SNL?
He portrayed a racist MAGA contestant on Jeopardy! who was too afraid to shake the black host’s hand!
The 50th anniversary special brought back the “nostalgia that used to surround SNL.” This wasn’t funny, but they included it anyway! pic.twitter.com/LkoAsXNcSA
— Stacy Washington (@StacyOnTheRight) February 26, 2025
My RedState colleague Nick Arama pointed out at the time that, as with most of the vitriolic hate comedy levied at President Trump and his supporters, it lacked one key element of a funny sketch—humor.
It’s not even funny, it’s just stupid. Nothing says ‘out-of-touch’ with most of America, including 77 million Trump supporters.
Arama also revealed that they essentially ran the same skit back in 2016, adding, “If you’re repeating bits that failed, maybe you have a problem.”
They, no doubt, are the ones with the problem. They think MAGA supporters are the same false caricature they made them out to be seven years earlier, when it’s actually the same race-baiters at SNL who haven’t changed.
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