Comedian Bill Maher sent his liberal audience into stunned silence after a surprise joke about the death of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The remark about Cheney, who died at the age of 84 earlier this week, came during a joke about Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayor’s race.
Maher was talking about Republican candidate and Guardian Angels’ founder Curtis Sliwa, whose campaign the left-leaning comic quipped ‘was dogged by accusations of: we thought you were dead.’
After reminiscing about Sliwa’s time in the 80s and 90s as a prominent figure in New York City culture to big laughs, he cruelly compared him to the Vice President.
‘Speaking of we didn’t know you were dead, Dick Cheney died.’
For a brief moment, all that could be heard in the studio audience were a set of audible groans at the joke.
Maher initially looked confused before throwing his hands up, as if to signal it was just a joke and the audience eventually laughed.
He then asked: ‘How many people thought he was dead? Come on!’ The comic did call Cheney ‘the most powerful vice president ever’ before saying his dying wish was to be ‘put in the ground to live his dream of slowly turning into oil.’
Comedian Bill Maher sent his liberal audience into stunned silence after a surprise joke about the death of former Vice President Dick Cheney
The remark about Cheney, who died at the age of 84 earlier this week, came during a joke about Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayor’s race
Maher also pointed out that Cheney had a fractious relationship with President Donald Trump, noting they ‘were very different kinds of Republicans.’
‘Cheney used to send troops to occupy other countries,’ Maher joked, in reference to Trump’s sending of the National Guard to various American cities.
The hard-charging conservative passed away Monday night due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.
Cheney served alongside Republican President George W. Bush for two terms between 2001 and 2009, and previously held a number of high ranking positions in the Republican party.
He was the chief architect of the ‘war on terror’ and was in office on the morning of 9/11.
Years after leaving office, Cheney became a target of President Trump, who blasted Cheney’s pro-war stance.
His daughter Liz Cheney was the leading Republican critic and examiner of his attempts to stay in power after his election defeat in 2020.
In a statement at his passing, Cheney’s family described him as a ‘great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country.’
Cheney served alongside Republican President George W. Bush for two terms between 2001 and 2009, and previously held a number of high ranking positions in the Republican party
Cheney, seen alongside National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, photographed in the Situation Room on the morning of 9/11
Cheney was a vocal critic of Trump in his later years, and in a campaign ad for his daughter Liz in 2022, he declared: ‘In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.’
‘He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.’
And in a twist the Democrats of his era could never have imagined, Cheney said last year he was voting for their candidate, Kamala Harris, for president over Trump.
Cheney had suffered coronary issues for much of his adult life, including surviving five heart attacks, and long thought he was living on borrowed time.
His passing on Monday evening was met with a divisive response, with critics hitting out at his war record while proponents paid tribute to his life of service to the nation.
Former President George W Bush said in a statement that Cheney’s death ‘is a loss to the nation and a sorrow to his friends.
As vice president, Cheney alleged links between the 2001 attacks against the United States and prewar Iraq that didn’t exist. He said US troops would be welcomed as liberators; they weren’t.
He declared the Iraqi insurgency in its last throes in May 2005, back when 1,661 U.S. service members had been killed, not even half the toll by war’s end.
Cheney and his daughter Liz, seen together in 2022, became staunch critics of Donald Trump in recent years
Cheney is survived by his wife of 61 years Lynne, and his daughters Liz and Mary. The family are pictured in 1978, the year Cheney was first elected to Congress
For admirers, he kept the faith in a shaky time, resolute even as the nation turned against the war and the leaders waging it.
But well into Bush’s second term, Cheney’s clout waned, checked by courts or shifting political realities.
Courts ruled against efforts he championed to broaden presidential authority and accord special harsh treatment to suspected terrorists.
Cheney retired to Jackson Hole, not far from where Liz Cheney a few years later bought a home, establishing Wyoming residency before she won his old House seat in 2016.
The fates of father and daughter grew closer, too, as the Cheney family became one of Trump’s favorite targets.
Dick Cheney rallied to his daughter’s defense in 2022 as she juggled her lead role on the committee investigating Jan. 6 with trying to get reelected in deeply conservative Wyoming.
Liz Cheney’s vote for Trump’s impeachment after the insurrection earned her praise from many Democrats and political observers outside Congress.
But that praise and her father’s support didn’t keep her from losing badly in the Republican primary, a dramatic fall after her quick rise to the No. 3 job in the House GOP leadership.
