"Real Time" host Bill Maher closed his show Friday night by calling for a "COVID Commission" to investigate how the country mishandled the pandemic.
"I get it that we didn't know exactly what was happening at the beginning of COVID and some mistakes were inevitable," Maher told his audience. "But four years on, I'm tired of hearing 'Well, we didn't know.' No, we didn't. But some people guessed better than others. And the people who got it wrong don't seem to want to acknowledge that now."
"Some people said closing schools for so long was pointless and would cause much worse collateral damage to kids and they were right," Maher said.
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Maher took aim at The Daily Beast for a hit piece it ran on him in 2021 for considering the lab-leak theory, running the headline "Bill Maher pushes Steve Bannon Wuhan lab conspiracy theory," something he noted was "typical of the mainstream media at the time."
"Of course, it wasn't a conspiracy theory, and it wasn't owned by Steve Bannon. And now everyone, including the Biden administration, admits there's at least a 50-50 chance that the virus could have begun in the lab in Wuhan that was doing gain of function research on that virus, duh! But I don't see a lot of retractions being printed," Maher said.
The HBO host blasted the claim years back that natural immunity was inferior to the COVID vaccine and listed several COVID-era overreactions like washing the mail and wearing masks outdoors.
"Because the last thing you would want to do when a disease is afoot is get fresh air and sunshine and vitamin D," Maher sarcastically said. "No, much better to stay locked up, stressed out and day drinking."
"Yes, some very bad ideas were embraced as the conventional wisdom, ideas that haven't aged well. And a lot of its dissenting opinions that were suppressed and ridiculed at the time have proven to be correct," Maher said. "Maybe that's why the powers that be never wanted a COVID commission. Why not? We love commissions! The Warren Commission, the AIDS Commission, 911 Commission. The NFL even had an 'Is ramming your head into another guy's head bad for heads?' Commission."
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"So where's the COVID commission? Because it seems to me we haven't learned a thing. Maybe the number one lesson from the pandemic was the need for proper air ventilation, second was never go on a Zoom with Jeffrey Toobin," Maher quipped.
"But if there's been a big national to retrofit buildings, I missed it. Gain of function research is still going on in labs. We're still torturing animals by raising our food in conditions ideal for viruses to make the leap to humans… We handed out $4 trillion dollars of free money, 280 billion of which was just flat-out stolen in what the AP called ‘the greatest grift in US history’ and which started an inflationary spiral that we now blame on Biden. So we're gonna bring back Trump?! The guy who ignored COVID like it was the dinner check?!"
"Talk about not learning anything," Maher added.
