'Roseanne' Fans Demand Bill Maher Be Fired Over Trump-Orangutan Joke

After ABC cancelled Roseanne following Roseanne Barr's racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, fans [...]

By Daniel S. Levine

After ABC cancelled Roseanne following Roseanne Barr's racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, fans and right-wing pundits honed in on a 5-year-old joke Maher made, comparing Donald Trump to an orangutan and pleading for HBO to fire the host.

On Tuesday, Barr suggested Jarrett, a former aide for President Barack Obama, looked like the offspring of the Muslim Brotherhood and characters from the Planet of the Apes films. Hours later, ABC canceled Roseanne, even though it was the top-rated show of the 2017-2018 season and was already renewed for the fall.

Barr later apologized, and suggested she was under the influence of Ambien.

Moments after the news broke, several right-wing pundits thought there was a double standard at play, because Maher still has a job.

"I'm so old I remember when Bill Maher claimed President Trump's 'mother had sex with an orangutan' and kept his job," Jack Posobiec, author of Citizens for Trump: The Inside Story of the People's Movement to Take Back America, wrote.

"Wait, Bill Maher makes comparisons to Trump being a gorilla all the time? They get classified as 'jokes' by the media and he is of course allowed to keep his show and not have his life ruined," author Charlie Kirk wrote. "The difference? Bill Maher is a liberal, Roseanne is a free-thinking Trump supporter."

"At least [Samantha Bee] apologized for calling [Ivanka Trump] a 'feckless c—.' [Bill Maher] called [Sarah Palin] a 'c—,' a 'dumb tw—'; a 'bimbo'; and said her son, with Down Syndome, was 'retarded.' Maher has NEVER apologized. Where was the boycott of [HBO]'s parent, Time-Warner?!?" Larry Elder wrote, referencing Samantha Bee's own controversy.

In 2012, future President Donald Trump offered $5 million to a charity of President Barack Obama's choice if Obama released his college transcripts and other documents, even though Obama had already released his birth certificate.

Later, Maher offered $5 million if Trump could prove he was not the "spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan." Trump, in turn, filed a lawsuit against Maher, which Trump dropped eight weeks later.

During Friday's episode of Real Time, Maher responded to the critics with a segment called "explaining jokes to idiots."

"One, Trump is an orangutan," Maher told his audience. "Two, white people have not been subjected to a racist trope comparing them to apes for hundreds of years. Three, my offering Trump $5 million to produce his birth certificate in 2013 to prove he's not half an ape was itself a response to his birtherism racist bulls–."

Liberals also took to Twitter to tell conservatives they would not be angry to see Maher fired.

"Conservatives believing liberals worship Bill Maher is like when a well-meaning grandparent buys their grandchild a Nickelback record because they hear on CNN that it's what all the kids are listening to these days," Chatlotte Clymer of the Human Rights Campaign wrote.

Maher was also fired by ABC back in 2002 for controversial comments about the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists. Maher was replaced by Jimmy Kimmel, who remains the network's only late night talk show host.

Photo credit: YouTube/HBO

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