Bill Maher and Louis CK Torpedo Dave Chappelle’s Free Speech Rant

Comedian and pundit Bill Maher and comic Louis CK torpedoed Dave Chappelle’s confident declaration about free speech in the United States.

On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the interview guest was Louis C.K., Emmy^® Award-winning writer, actor, director, comedian, and author of the upcoming novel “Ingram.”

The panel guests were Van Jones, CNN political commentator and founder of Dream Machine Innovation Lab and Rapport; and Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

During the interview, CK defended the decision to appear at the controversial Riyadh Comedy Festival, and he and Maher pushed back on Chappelle for saying “It’s easier to talk here than it is in America”:

LOUIS CK: I just think comedy is a great way to get in and start talking. And there’s Saudi Arabian comedians there. And I’m going to a comedy club in Saudi Arabia the first night I get there to just see what’s going on. I love stand-up comedy and I love comedians. So the fact that that’s opening up and starting to bud I want to see it. I want be part of it. I think that’s a positive.

BILL MAHER: I think so too. Dave Chappelle said, it was in the press today, saying that you can speak more freely over here than in America.

I don’t know if that’s true.

Oh it’s not true! Do your hunk on Muhammad, Dave!

LOUIS CK: Well he’s a Muslim, Dave is.

BILL MAHER: I understand.

LOUIS CK: So it depends on who you are and what you want to talk about.

“Right now in America, they say that if you talk about Charlie Kirk, that you’ll get canceled,” Chappelle said, according to The New York Times. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m gonna find out.”

He then added, “It’s easier to talk here than it is in America.”

Watch above via HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.