Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) and liberal writer Molly Jong-Fast were guests on Bill Maher’s Friday show, where twice the MSNBC analyst tried to slip through some anti-Trump or leftist nonsense, which was slapped down by both Donalds and Maher. Donalds, who’s the 2026 Florida Republican gubernatorial nominee, showed he is prepared for battle. Ms. Jong-Fast tried to give an alternate history on Operation Epic Fury, which even Maher called a dumb talking point:

BYRON DONALDS: “The regime is psychotic. It’s been that way for 47 years. And then they get a nuke?”

MOLLY JONG-FAST: “Well, my question is: the strait was open. Wasn’t the strait open?”

DONALDS: “Yes. The strait has always been the leverage point of the Iranians. Yes or no?”

JONG-FAST: “But the strait was open before Donald Trump went to war with Iran, never explaining to us why.”

BILL MAHER: “He did. He did explain. Please. He did explain. He did explain early on. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. It’s such a dumb talking point. Of course they explained why.”

JONG-FAST: “Okay, so why?”

MAHER: “To stop them from getting nuclear weapons! And also, they were a terrible actor in the Middle East. There was no way there was ever going to be peace in that part of the world as long as Iran was funding—”

JONG-FAST: “But we knew it was an unwinnable war. It’s a humongous crime.”

MAHER: “Well, we did not know that. What they did was they f*cked up the timing, Byron. They should have attacked when the people were in the streets during the uprising. They waited till they got shot and then they attacked three months later. So... he has a good idea, and then the execution is f*cked up.”

And then there was this exchange about the measles and vaccinations:

MOLLY JONG-FAST: “You’ve had to say some stuff. Like last week on Margaret Brennan’s show, you said rampant illegal immigration was the cause for this measles outbreak and not not being vaccinated. I’m curious. Like, I have three kids. You have three kids. Do you not vaccinate your kids?”

BYRON DONALDS: “My oldest son is 23 years old. The vaccination schedule for him was less intense than the vaccination schedule for my 15-year-old son. And if you have talked to my mom, the vaccination schedule for me, being 47 years old, was not nearly as intense as it is for newborns today.

“So I think there are parents, there are mothers who have real concerns about the frequency of vaccines for young infants into just being a toddler. And so I think the order that came out the other day from the White House was, well, let’s just spread the vaccination schedule back out. Let parents have an ability to make those decisions for their children with informed consent. And then the last piece is, let’s also make sure that the human body in its infancy can actually manage the amount of vaccines that are being put into their child. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

BILL MAHER: “I don’t either.”

JONG-FAST: “We have people dying of measles. We had two people in Ohio die of measles. We were almost eradicated from measles and now we have measles again, and there’s a reason for that. And the idea that you said illegal immigration causes—”

DONALDS: “Under the previous administration, more than 10 million people came into the country illegally, and I know for a fact, just like everybody else — you can read your notes too — they weren’t checking their vaccination schedules coming into the United States. That’s a fact. That’s number one.

“Number two, there was a measles outbreak in a couple of the detention facilities on the southern border. There was a measles outbreak in El Paso, Texas. There was also one in Chicago at another illegal immigration facility. Those are the facts.

“So when you let that many people come into your country, when we already know in other countries they don’t have the vaccination schedule that we have, and then when the Department of Health and Human Services is talking about American children, now you’re finding fault with vaccination schedules for American children? I don’t think that’s an accurate way to look at it.”

MAHER: “I had measles as a kid. I loved it. I was home for two weeks. I ate ice cream every day.”

First, I believe that case was based in Pennsylvania, the measles one, and the corner just blew up that whole narrative. 

Last, Jong-Fast would be one of the people who think the NIH was blameless in the COVID fiasco:

DONALDS: "Can we acknowledge that this was same NIH that was investing in other research that shut down half the basically the entire planet? Can we acknowledge that?"

JONG-FAST: "No... I do not believe the NIH caused COVID."

MAHER: "Wait a second! We don't know that. If COVID came from a lab, and that lab was in Wuhan, which is coincidentally right where the disease started. Of course, it could have come from that lab. And of course, that lab has been linked to gain of function research."

"Gain of function is when you purposely soup up a bacteria or a virus that you're studying to make it worse... if it escapes the lab, which absolutely may have what happened there... Gain of function is a real thing, and it may look like it was a very, very bad call in the future. So, I don't know how much the NIH is directly responsible for that, but they had their finger in that pie."

BONUS: Maher is highly skeptical that colleges are teaching their students the benefits of Western Civilization, and how it’s the basis for the very rights we cherish. Wesleyan University President Michael Roth said that was the case; Maher half-jokingly said he felt those students were getting that by watching his show: 

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