Comedian Bill Burr tore into the “treasonous” media and billionaire “puppeteers” who he says are profiting off the nation’s political division in a no-nonsense interview that also slammed those who try to paint him into one political corner.
In an interview published Friday with Vulture, Burr called CNN and Fox News “a fucking disease” and accused those with the most power in the U.S. of “leading by dividing,” which he warned could tear the country apart if left unchecked.
“My worldview is apolitical and it’s trying to bring people together. I’m trying to do the opposite of what’s going on out there because this is feeling like we’re going to have a civil war if we’re not careful,” he said. “When I was growing up, everybody hated the Russians; now, people hate California or Florida or New York or Texas. And it’s like, ‘Guys, you’re on the same team.’”
It’s a topic that Burr has repeatedly brought up on his “Monday Morning Podcast,” while laying into both the Republican and Democratic parties and their fervent supporters, which he said some people wrongly like to assume he has a chosen loyalty to by cherry-picking and overanalyzing his jokes.
He pointed to Ben Shapiro as one example, with the conservative podcaster writing an opinion piece back in December that accused Burr of “going full asshole” and “woke” for criticizing “selfish” and “greedy” CEOs following the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO.
“Over time, I think he became embarrassed that people on the Right thought he was very funny, so he decided he was going to go woke,” Shapiro wrote after seeing one of Burr’s shows.
The article led to racist, online attacks against Burr and his wife, actress Nia Renee Hill, Burr said.
“At one point, the guy liked me and then, all of a sudden, I’m a fucking asshole. I’m supposed to look at that guy like he’s an adult?” Burr said of Shapiro, who he added “doesn’t even know what [woke] means.”
“He went there to be annoyed so he can then have something to talk about and then he can make money off dividing his own country. Those people, it’s treasonous what they do,” he said.
But it’s not just the right. Both sides do this, and “they’re all fucking nuts,” he said.
“I’m not flying either one of their flags; it’s the people who pay them that’s the problem. And they’re always distracting us with other stuff. CNN and Fox News are a fucking disease,” he said, while accusing media outlets of encouraging hatred by giving it a platform.
“There’s an ugliness out there right now where if you’re a racist, if you’re an antisemite, if you’re a psycho nationalist and you want a softball interview, there’s podcasts out there where you can get one, and they will laugh at your fucking bad jokes and give you this pass. There’s a really ugly thing going on out there, and we’ve already seen what it does to a nation, and it’s not the way to go,” he said.
Check out Burr’s full interview here.