Fox Host: ‘I Can’t Believe I’m Defending Bill Maher!’

Fox News host Bill Hemmer almost lost his cool on Monday during a discussion of recent remarks from Bill Maher about Islam and religious extremism.

On “America’s Newsroom,” Hemmer rolled tape from HBO’s “Real Time,” in which Maher sparred with actor Ben Affleck over the Muslim religion.

“It’s the only religion that acts like the mafia that will fucking kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture, or write the wrong book,” Maher said on Friday’s episode.

Affleck called the comedian’s take “gross” and “racist.”

After reviewing the clip, Hemmer turned to Republican consultant Tyler Harber and asked, “How do you define what’s ‘bigotry’ and what’s just reality?”

But after it became clear Harber had nothing good to say about Maher’s generalizations, Hemmer interrupted and insisted his guest wasn’t listening closely enough.

“I can’t believe I’m defending Bill Maher here,” Hemmer said.

Things didn’t go much better once Democratic strategist Bernard Whitman had the floor. Between Hemmer’s protests, he called out what he saw as Maher’s “defamatory, disgusting and derogatory remark about Islam.”

By the end of the clip, neither guest was throwing Maher a bone, so the Fox host decided to suggest his own position more forcefully.

“You need these religious Islamic leaders, day after day — not just now or occasionally — day after day, saying, ‘this is not what our faith stands for.'”

h/t ThinkProgress