Video: Bill Maher slams John Cena, LeBron James, skier Eileen Gu for bowing to Chinese Communist Party Bill Maher comes to the Florida Theatre in June. [David Becker/WireImage/TNS]
During a segment on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” last week, host Bill Maher blasted NBA star LeBron James, actor John Cena and Olympic skier Eileen Gu for their actions when it comes to the Chinese Communist Party.
First, Maher took aim at Gu, the Olympic skier who was raised and trained in the United States but left Team USA to ski for Communist China at the Beijing Olympics.
“Is that cool now, to choose to represent a totalitarian police state over America?” Maher asked. “The Olympics pretends to only be about sports, but of course, the games have always been a bit of a proxy war for which country has the best system. And by choosing Team China, Eileen Gu became a living symbol of China’s triumph over the West, which wouldn’t bother me so much if I thought China had triumphed over us in the ways that really matter. But they haven’t.”
The #Olympics pretends to only be about sports, but really the games have always been a bit of a proxy war for which country has the best system. #StopKowtowingChina pic.twitter.com/l2fUDh4nSi
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) February 19, 2022
“Now, we do have human rights issues right here at home, we do, but we’re still at least, for another three years, a democracy based on freedom, and they are an authoritarian surveillance state based on ‘How would you like to disappear for a few months?’” the host continued. “Like that tennis player [Peng Shuai] who recently vanished for a while when she said she had been raped by a government official. We do still throw too many black people in jail, but perspective matters. China has basically jailed an entire ethnic minority, the Uyghurs, a situation that both the Trump and Biden administrations [have] called a genocide. America is not close to that. And it’s a cynical dodge to pretend that China’s sins should be overlooked because we all do it. No.”
Maher went on to say that Americans are “supposed to root for democratic government, not apologize for it.” He then turned to LeBron James, who has bowed to the Chinese Communist Party for years while being vocal about so-called human rights violations in the United States.
“But the NBA has a television deal with China worth a billion-and-a-half dollars. So, LeBron James said Morey need to be ‘educated on the situation,’ the situation being, ‘I’ve got some shoes to sell,’” Maher quipped, mocking James.
“‘Kowtow’ is a Chinese word, but boy, Americans have gotten good at it,” Maher continued, accusing American companies of catering to the Chinese Communist Party in order to maintain access to massive Chinese markets.
“That’s the deal China offers American companies and celebrities: We’ll give you access to our billion-plus consumers as long as you shut up about the whole police-state-genocide thing. John Cena took that deal,” Maher said, this time slamming actor John Cena. “Well, c’mon. China accounts for 34% of global box office, and he’s a movie star now. So, like the Uyghurs, last year, he learned he needed to get some re-education. You see, John referred to Taiwan as a country, as if it was a separate country from China, which it is. But China would like to do to Taiwan what it did to Tibet and what it’s now doing to Hong Kong.”
“When a country can make your big muscly Macho Man action star grovel in their language, you know you’re somebody’s b–ch,” Maher said. “In the original ‘Top Gun,’ Tom Cruise wore a bomber jacket with the flags of several Asian countries that are our allies sewn on the back. Well, the flag for Taiwan has now magically disappeared for the upcoming ‘Top Gun: Maverick.’ Well, he used to be a maverick. Now he does whatever China says.”
