On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher reacted to New York Times Executive Editor Joe Kahn arguing that the paper shouldn’t be an instrument for the Biden campaign and only write negative stories about Republicans while writing solely positive stories about Biden by stating that this is what the paper does now.
Maher said, “Now that I’m doing interviews…the big question that people are asking me, I see every interviewer ask the same question, which is like, you make fun of the left a lot more than you used to. Yes, I do, because they’re goofier and more obnoxious than they used to be. It doesn’t mean I’ve turned into a Republican. I haven’t changed on that at all. They also just became weirder. They’re still not the threat the Republicans are. But I do both.”
He continued, “And the question I get from everybody is, if you really don’t want Trump elected — and I really don’t — then why don’t you just shut up about Joe Biden and just shut up about what’s wrong with the left? … I see the head of The New York Times, the Executive Editor, Joe Kahn, was asked almost the same question…and Mr. Kahn said, I don’t even know how that would work, ‘We become an instrument for the Biden campaign…and put out a stream of stuff that’s very, very favorable to them and only write negative stories about the other side?’ Which made me laugh because I feel like that is what the Times actually does, and I didn’t even want the other side to come out. But — now here’s what, Mr. Kahn, he said, there are people who want to elect Donald Trump as president, ‘It is not the job of the news media to prevent that from happening.’ … So, I applaud this, I think that is the right [position].”
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