Bill Burr Mocks Bill Maher’s “Simple Solution” To Conflict In The Middle East: “You Just Solved It”

Bill Burr and Bill Maher hashed out their takes on the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict on Sunday’s (May 12) installment of the latter’s Club Random podcast, and things got a little messy.

Maher was first to mention the ongoing protests dominating college campuses across the U.S., telling Burr, “You don’t realize that college campuses erupted with the kids demonstrating for Hamas? They are in with the terrorists.”

Burr fired back, saying that the protestors were demonstrating “for the Palestinians.”

Maher replied, “Well, it’s sort of the same cause,” before asking, “Why, are you?”

After Burr noted that he’s “on the side of the kids,” Maher said, “that’s easy to say,” adding, “no one wants to see kids dead.”

“It’s easy to say ‘I’m for the kids,'” he continued. “Who’s not for the kids? It comes down to real hard-nosed decisions…”

When Burr interjected, telling the host, “Oh, stop talking like you’re a general,” Maher continued, “Israel got attacked. They’re the only country in the world that they get attacked, and then as soon as they counterattack, it’s like, ‘Well we gotta stop this shit now.’ Don’t attack them. There is a very simple solution to all these problems in the Middle East. Stop attacking Israel.”

Burr then mocked Maher, telling him that he “just solved it.”

“There you go, that’s fantastic,” he quipped. “Let’s go to Russia and the Ukraine. How do you solve that one, Bill? Let me hear your hard-nosed decision about that.”

The Old Dads star proceeded to question how war is “still legal.”

“With all the shit that’s been canceled, why is that still fucking legal?” Burr asked, which prompted Maher to ask his guest if he would “like a real answer to that.”

“Because for something to be illegal, you have to have the capacity to enforce it,” Maher said. “And you can’t enforce against war or else you have to go to war with the country that’s going to war. And we don’t want to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. What would be the sense of making it illegal? Oh, that’s going to really stop [Vladimir] Putin? No.”

Burr continued to take jabs at Maher for “solving” the conflict in the Middle East as he told him, “You can’t sit down and talk it out? Why can’t Putin do a podcast with the head guy… like you just solved the Middle East on a podcast. Why can’t they solve what they’re doing on a podcast?”

Maher, laughing, told Burr, “See? This is why this is not your thing. This is my thing,” but Burr pushed back, telling the Real Time host that it “isn’t [his] thing.”

“You’re like that guy that has a fantasy football team and thinks he’s a fucking GM. That’s exactly what it is,” Burr told Maher. “Like why am I fucking listening to you like you’ve done something? What have you done in Washington? Nothing.”

Nonetheless, as noted by Fox News, the two comedians were able to transition from the topic fairly swiftly. After all, the host’s remarks come as no surprise; Maher has previously shared his views on the state of the Israel-Hamas conflict on his HBO show, calling out the rise in antisemitism in November and accusing activists of being narcissists.