Bill Maher Says He’s “With the Knives” Against HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. After Senate Showdown

Bill Maher came out swinging on Friday’s episode of Real Time, taking aim at Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after the Trump Cabinet member’s fiery Senate testimony.

“The knives are out for Bobby Kennedy, and I gotta say, I’m with the knives,” Maher quipped at the end of his opening monologue. That opener, which you can watch above, also saw Maher riff on the latest Donald Trump headlines — including a joke that the president has so thoroughly wrecked things that the CDC has been reduced to just the “D,” for disease.

Later, Maher elaborated on why he thinks Kennedy is unfit for the job. “I personally find this very disappointing because I am the person who was sympathetic to what [Kennedy] was trying to do,” he told his panel. “I said, ‘Finally, we have a guy in there who cares about this stuff.’ But he’s also just nutty.”

The late-night host repeated his point: “He’s just too nutty. He just does not listen. I mean, he just is. And nothing ever – I call it pendulumism – nothing ever stops in the middle.”

Maher specifically criticized Kennedy for ousting CDC Director Susan Monarez and firing 17 other top officials, leaving what he called a vacuum of expertise. “Okay, this needed a housecleaning, the CDC. But to fire all 17 of the top people? Now you don’t have that voice in there at all. You just have your voice,” Maher said, eventually concluding: “It’s just – he’s got to go.”

His remarks come as Kennedy faces growing internal backlash. More than 1,000 current and former HHS employees signed a letter this week urging him to resign, accusing him of installing “political ideologues” in key positions.

CNN’s chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins told Maher’s panel that Kennedy “stumbled a lot” in his testimony as lawmakers pressed him on the CDC’s decision to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in mRNA vaccine research. “And so that is what the Republicans were putting to him, saying, ‘Do you believe that Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for this? And then do you also believe that was an mRNA vaccine that saved lives?’”

That disconnect, Collins said, puts Kennedy “at odds” with Trump, though she added he remains “about as safe as he can get” in his position unless the president himself changes his mind.

Not everyone agreed with Maher’s takedown. Stephen Moore, a former Trump campaign economic advisor, jumped in to defend Kennedy’s anti-regulatory stance. “When new drugs are being developed, we should let these drugs go to the market, especially if they’re dealing with cancer or heart disease or multiple sclerosis,” Moore argued. “The FDA holds these things up by five to 10 years, and it’s actually killing people.”