There's nothing quite as satisfying as watching Greg Gutfeld or Jesse Watters dismantle Jessica Tarlov's arguments on The Five, and it's not because they're picking on an easy target for sport. It's because Tarlov keeps handing them the material by being… her. She's never struck me as a particularly sharp leftist — more of a talking-points machine than an independent thinker — and her latest television appearance did nothing to change that assessment.
Tarlov was a guest on Bill Maher’s HBO show, Real Time with Bill Maher, and during her appearance, she bizarrely made a claim that only makes sense if you've never watched the news. Republicans, she argued, are crazier than Democrats. Maher, a leftist who has spent years mocking his own side's excesses, wasn't having it.
Maher opened by making his case for why Republicans keep winning elections. "I think all these recent elections have been about the Democrats are crazy on social issues, people don't like that," he said. "Trump's crazy, but the economy is better." Tarlov cut in before he could finish.
"And we're less crazy," she insisted.
Maher was shocked at her claim.
"Who's less crazy?" he asked.
"Democrats."
"What?"
"You haven't noticed?" Tarlov shot back.
Maher assumed she had to be joking. "Have you seen the Democratic — you're being sarcastic? Oh, I see," he said.
She wasn't.
"No," she said.
"You think we're less crazy?” Maher asked.
Tarlov tried to clarify what she meant. "Maybe not inside, but we're at least when we go out and give a speech. Talking about the economy and corruption," she said.
Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, also on the panel, couldn’t believe it either. "They're wearing Carhartts and pretending to be less crazy, that's what's happening," Rufo quipped, a not-so-subtle reference to Sen. John Fetterman's (D-Pa.) preferred wardrobe.
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Maher wasn't finished. "They're communists who think the Islamists are the good guys. Are you kidding? Less crazy?" he said.
"The candidates?" she asked, but Maher wasn't letting her off the hook. "Some of the candidates. You're not following the Democratic Socialists of America?" he said.
Tarlov didn't deny it. "Oh no, I'm following them. I have to see them every day. I work at Fox News," she said.
Maher summed it up better than any conservative commentator could have. "They're not less crazy, and they're not recanting any of that crazy gender stuff. I mean, they're doubling down," he said.
WATCH: The Five’s Jessica Tarlov nearly makes Bill Maher FALL OFF his chair after claiming Democrats are “less crazy.” “They're communists who think the Islamists are the good guys. Are you kidding?! Less crazy?”
— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) September 19, 2026
Bill Maher: “I think all these new recent elections have been… pic.twitter.com/LrC3aDKo3r
This exchange tells you everything about how Tarlov's ideology so blinds her that she can’t see anything objectively. Maher, despite being a leftist, can see it, and he calls it out. Tarlov is the person who defends Graham Platner, Abdul El-Sayed, and Hasan Piker because her only job is to do what’s good for the Democrat Party, not to be intellectually honest.
It’s always great to see her Gutfeld or Watters destroy her, but seeing someone on the left humiliate her for being a moron? That, my friends, is priceless.
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