Bill Maher Fact-Checks Kid Rock's 9/11 Comparison on 'Real Time'

Bill Maher corrected Kid Rock on live television Friday night after the singer compared Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan, to the 9/11 hijackers on "Real Time."

Maher opened the episode by addressing Trump's 1,300-word social media tirade against him following their White House dinner earlier this month. The comic compared the president to Taylor Swift.

After a sit-down interview with Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who was promoting his new book on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Maher welcomed his panel: Jim VandeHei, the co-founder and CEO of Axios, and Kid Rock.

Kid Rock attended the Oct. 15 White House dinner with Trump, Maher and ESPN pundit Stephen A. Smith. He appeared to defend Maher against Trump's claims in the record-breaking Truth Social post.

"He said I was drunk. I was not drunk," Maher claimed. Kid Rock replied: "You were pretty high."

"We had a good time — and it was four hours, right?" Maher asked. "We had a good time," Kid Rock offered, adding: "I had to leave early, but yes, it was… Was he talking about dinner or the whole thing?"

What triggered the 9/11 comparison?

After the exchange over the dinner, Maher raised the fact that former president Obama campaigned for El-Sayed. Maher said: "As far as this issue goes about Islam in America and candidates who are Muslim, the left is naïve and the right is hysterical."

Maher then quoted Trump, who said of El-Sayed: "If Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and welcome hordes of jihadists to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas."

"You don't really believe that," Maher questioned Kid Rock, who grew up on a sprawling estate in the suburbs of Michigan.

Kid Rock then compared El-Sayed to the 9/11 hijackers: "People talk about assimilation too all the time, right? This man very much has assimilated — good education, well-spoken, even a good-looking guy — [but] you know who else assimilated very well? Those pieces of shit that flew those planes into our World Trade Centers. The Fort Hood shooter. This has happened all over the world, so it scares the hell out of me, this Islamic extremism. I don't know, is he a wolf in sheep's clothing, or is he just a wolf in a wolf's clothing?"

How did Maher respond?

Maher replied: "Not that it matters so much, but the 9/11 hijackers weren't here assimilated. They were from Saudi Arabia."

"The ones who flew the planes were from Saudi Arabia? No," Kid Rock shot back.

The record supports Maher. The breakdown of the 19 hijackers:

• 15 were from Saudi Arabia
• Two were from the United Arab Emirates
• One was from Egypt
• One was from Lebanon

The first hijackers to arrive in the U.S. came in January of 2000 — meaning they were not "assimilated very well," as the man formerly known as Robert James Ritchie so boldly claimed.

The exchange puts a spotlight on the Michigan Senate race, where El-Sayed's candidacy has already drawn attacks from Trump. Whether on-air fact-checking blunts such rhetoric remains an open question as the campaign continues.