Bill Maher praises Florida, rips blue state COVID response — but would he ever support DeSantis?

Is liberal comedian Bill Maher finally being red pilled, or will he continue to support the leftist bureaucracy he and liberal podcast host Bari Weiss seemed to condemn during a recent episode of HBO’s "Real Time with Bill Maher"?

On "The Rubin Report" Monday, BlazeTV host Dave Rubin reacted to Weiss' conversation with Maher by pointing out that, while the two seem to agree Democrat-run states have turned COVID-19 into a "pandemic of bureaucracy," they both still support the very bureaucracy they condemn.

During a discussion with Maher and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) on Friday, Weiss said she's "done with COVID" after two years of seemingly endless restrictions and mandates.

“I’m done with COVID. I'm done,” Weiss told Maher, adding that she initially complied with every COVID-19 recommendation no matter how extreme.

“And, then we were told [if] you get the vaccine ... you get back to normal," Weiss said. "And we haven’t gotten back to normal. And it’s ridiculous at this point. I know that so many of my liberal and progressive friends are with me on this, and they do not want to say it out loud because they are scared to be called ‘anti-vax' or to be called 'science denial' or to be smeared as a Trumper," she added.

"I'm sorry, if you believe the science, you will look at the data we did not have two years ago, and you will find out that cloth masks do not do anything. You will realize you can show your vaccine passport at a restaurant and still be asymptomatic and be carrying Omicron. And you will realize, most importantly, that this is going to be remembered by the younger generation as a catastrophic moral crime," Weiss added. "People are killing themselves. They are anxious. They are depressed. They are lonely. That is why we need to end it more than any inconvenience that it's been to the rest of us ... at this point, it's a pandemic of bureaucracy."

A clip of the conversation shared by Clay Travis on Twitter with the caption, "The most impressive thing about Bari Weiss on last night’s Bill Maher is the wild applause after she finishes here. After two years the tides are turning, even for the left leaning people in this country when it comes to covid," has been viewed more than 4.5 million times as of this writing:

"Obviously what she's saying there is right," Dave said of Weiss. "But here's the problem ... she says this is a 'pandemic of bureaucracy,' except she's for the bureaucracy. Bill Maher is for the bureaucracy. They love democrats."

Dave went on to challenge Maher — who after making a point of saying "I'm not moving to Florida, I'm not promoting Florida," went on to praise the "atmosphere" in the Sunshine State and even admitted "they stayed open and went on with life, and they didn't do a hell of a lot worse and maybe did better" in response to COVID — to question his own support for the Democratic Party.

"Do you see what the problem is?" Dave said. "[Maher] has to preface [his take on Florida] by saying, 'I'm not moving there,' because the implication is Florida's red, and this Ron DeSantis guy is a bad dude, he's a mean man. But then [Maher] also acknowledges AOC vacations here. Swalwell vacations here. That b*tch Gretchen Whitmer — oops, I had a lot of coffee this morning — she also vacations here."

He asked, "So, what is it that you guys are saying? Here's the question: Ron DeSantis, do you support him? ... How about Glenn Younkin? ... I guess really the question then is, what makes these people liberals anymore? What makes them leftists anymore? And what makes them democrats more than anything else?"

Watch the video clip below or find more episodes of "The Rubin Report" here:

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