Bill Maher Accuses NY Times of Trying to Convince Readers Iran ‘Is a Bad War’

Bill Maher lashed out at The New York Times and accused the newspaper of positioning its coverage to convince readers that the conflict with Iran “is a bad war” on his Club Random podcast.

The comedian made the remarks during an episode featuring neuroscientist Sam Harris, recorded a week ago and published on Monday. The show was recorded just days after the initial joint U.S.-Israeli strikes were launched on key regime positions, killing the country’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Retaliatory drone strikes from Iran killed six U.S. service members in Kuwait.

As the pair discussed the media’s coverage of the Trump administration, Maher pivoted to the Times’ reporting on the conflict.

“As we’re talking now, the Iran [war], the new Iran war, and The New York Times headline was, you know, ‘U.S. troops die’ – that was like what they led with. Now, that is a big part of the story, that troops have died, I mean it’s kind of a bigger story than that,” he said.

Rounding on reporting following the killing of Khamenei, he continued: “But then in a country where I’ve read 80-90% of the people are thrilled that the Ayatollah is gone. What picture did they put? Picture of people mourning the Ayatollah.”

Harris listened.

The host continued: “Which exists, but I can’t believe that somebody at the desk didn’t get, ‘I’ve got a great picture of people dancing in the streets’… ‘Yeah. we’re going to go with the 10% who are sorry the Ayatollah is dead because that’s going to funnel the thought of our readers toward ‘oh this is a bad war to get into’.”

Notably, Maher omitted that The Times did cover Iranians celebrating the leader’s death as well as guest essays from Iranian expats writing about Khamenei’s oppressive rule.

“Yeah,” his guest said.

“Now we can talk about whether it is or it isn’t,” Maher said. “But that to me is the difference in what the media does now and what they didn’t used to do. Like you’re funneling me toward an opinion, whereas I would love it if you just told me what happened.”

Reflecting on the point, Harris agreed and argued: “I mean the boundary between activism and journalism has clearly broken down. I mean, you know, I think we’ll get to a place where we rebuild trust in at least some of these institutions but we’re not there yet.”

Watch above via YouTube.

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