Bill Maher blasts removal of journalist at Teen Vogue

HBO’s Bill Maher on Friday slammed Teen Vogue after the publication parted ways with newly named Editor-in-Chief Alexi McCammond following uproar over anti-Asian tweets she wrote as a student in 2011.

The liberal comedian and commentator rebuked the publication for engaging in what he referred to as “cancel culture” during the latest episode of “Real Time With Bill Maher.”

“I don’t want to talk about cancel culture every week but I don’t think people understand how much this is a tsunami and how fast the goalposts change, almost on a weekly basis,” Maher said during a segment with guests Nick Gillespie, the editor-at-large of “Reason,” and former Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.).

Heitkamp brought up the recent controversy surrounding McCammond as one of the latest examples of cancel culture in American society, to which Maher responded, “I mean really, we’re canceling people for this?”

“OK, she just got a great job — well, lost a great job—  editor of Teen Vogue. And because she tweeted in high school, this is high school,” Maher said. “People talk shit in private, we can’t legislate that away.”

Gillespie agreed with Maher, stating that people have taken on a “warped ideology.”

“And it’s taking the place of religion,” Gillespie said. “People who are like, ‘I am hurt when I hear something that offends me,’ that it’s the equivalent of violence. Words are not the equivalent of violence.”

Heitkamp also condemned Teen Vogue’s actions, arguing the publication should have moved forward with McCammond as editor-in-chief.

“Teen Vogue should’ve said, ‘Look, that happened a long time ago,’ but they’re so afraid of any kind of controversy,” she told Maher. “Corporate America needs to stop buying into this stuff.”

“Right, somebody needs to have some balls,” Maher responded.

McCammond announced her departure from the magazine on Thursday.

“My past tweets have overshadowed the work I’ve done to highlight the people and issues that I care about — issues that Teen Vogue has worked tirelessly to share with the world — and so Condé Nast and I have decided to part ways,” she wrote in a statement on Twitter.