“IDIOT” – Bill Maher Called Out After Viral Segment

Bill Maher attempted to own Conservatives in a segment on CO2.

🚨 JUST IN: Bill Maher slammed for suggesting Interior Sec. Doug Burgum K*LL HIMSELF by running a car in a garage

Maher is trying to make a joke after Burgum defended CO2

That’s carbon *MONOXIDE,* IDIOT! Not carbon DIOXIDE, which plants breathe in! pic.twitter.com/Okk5SmOi6k

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) February 14, 2026

It was instead Maher who was mocked.

1. Carbon isn’t a gas.

2. The fatal component of car exhaust is carbon monoxide — CO — not carbon dioxide, CO2. https://t.co/ZicyFmrwU3

— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) February 14, 2026

Different carbon, different effect

CO = deadly

CO2 = plant food / exhaled by all breathing animals https://t.co/7ldrP2U4fQ

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) February 14, 2026

Grok explained what Bill Maher got wrong.

What Bill Maher got wrong (the key factual/scientific error):

He conflated carbon dioxide (CO₂) with carbon monoxide (CO).Carbon monoxide (CO) is the deadly gas produced by incomplete combustion in car engines (especially in poorly ventilated or enclosed spaces like a garage). It binds to hemoglobin in the blood ~200–250 times more strongly than oxygen, preventing oxygen transport → leading to asphyxiation, unconsciousness, and death at concentrations as low as 0.1% (1,000 ppm) over a few hours, or much lower over longer exposure.

This is the classic mechanism behind “running a car in a closed garage” suicides/accidents. It’s colorless, odorless, and extremely toxic at relatively low levels.
Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is what humans exhale (~4–5% in breath), what plants use for photosynthesis, and what comes out of tailpipes in much larger quantities than CO (modern cars produce far more CO₂ than CO due to catalytic converters reducing CO emissions). CO₂ is not acutely toxic in the same way. You can breathe air with 5–10% CO₂ for short periods without immediate death (though it’s uncomfortable and eventually dangerous at very high levels, like >10%).
The real concern with CO₂ is long-term: it’s the primary greenhouse gas driving climate change by trapping heat in the atmosphere, not by directly poisoning people in a garage scenario.
Maher’s punchline/joke only works if the exhaust danger is from CO₂ — but the lethal component in that specific suicide method is CO, not CO₂. By mixing them up, he undermined the scientific accuracy of his own point about why CO₂ matters as a pollutant (in the regulatory/climate sense, not the immediate poison sense).

Critics pointed this out immediately: the “idiot” label swung back at Maher for the chemistry mix-up, even though his broader intent was to mock Burgum’s downplaying of CO₂’s role in climate/environmental policy.

This is a perfect example of modern day liberals. So arrogant. So sure of themselves. Yet they are wrong and wrong in embarrassing fashion.

The one thing that is constantly lost in the climate change debate is the impact of climate policies on the standards of living of people. Climate policies make people poorer. Climate policies are a big reason Russia felt emboldened to take Ukraine. Don’t let the left lie to you. You can be against pollution and care about nature in general without backing radical climate policies.