On the Oct. 24, 2025 episode of Real Time that aired Oct. 25, Bill Maher stunned the usual liberal applause line by pressing former Biden communications director Kate Bedingfield on Zohran Mamdani’s unwillingness to renounce his Ugandan citizenship. The exchange went tense and the crowd, for once, went quiet as Maher laid out the uncomfortable truth about Uganda’s brutal treatment of homosexuals and asked a simple question about loyalty and conscience. Hardworking Americans watching deserve straight answers, not reflexive defenses from Democratic operatives.
Maher didn’t mince words, saying he would personally renounce citizenship of any nation that codified the killing of gay people, and he correctly pointed out that Uganda’s laws have been among the world’s harshest. That bluntness is exactly what the media establishment dislikes, because it forces the left to choose between moral clarity and political cover. Conservatives should applaud anyone — even a liberal TV host — who refuses to normalize regimes that brutalize innocent people.
Bedingfield predictably tried to change the subject, accusing critics like Andrew Cuomo of “race-baiting” and warning against a panic-driven “fear framework.” That dodge is revealing: when the argument is about human rights, the left reflexively accuses opponents of bigotry rather than confront a candidate’s troubling ties and associations. American voters aren’t stupid, and they won’t be lectured into silence while foreign regimes with barbaric laws are treated as irrelevant.
The substance behind the conversation is explosive and entirely avoidable: Mamdani is a dual U.S.-Ugandan citizen, he has been photographed campaigning alongside controversial figures in New York, and he recently took a family trip to Uganda that critics say shows poor judgment. These are not abstract talking points; they are concrete facts voters deserve to weigh before someone potentially becomes mayor of the greatest city in the free world. If Democrats are so confident in their choices, they should welcome scrutiny instead of whining about it.
Some on the right have hammered for investigations and even denaturalization based on allegations, but experts remind us denaturalization is a rare, judicial remedy that requires solid proof. That is an important legal point, but it does not absolve Mamdani of the political responsibility to answer plainly whether he supports human rights over the laws of a country that has sanctioned violence against a class of people. Americans can be patriotic and just, and they have the right to demand candidates who will stand unequivocally for liberty.
The takeaway from Maher’s uncomfortable but necessary grilling is simple: Democrats cannot have it both ways by promoting candidates with troubling foreign ties and then accusing critics of intolerance when those ties are exposed. Voters should insist on transparency, on a clear repudiation of regimes that violate basic human rights, and on leaders who put New Yorkers’ safety and values first. If the left refuses to police its own, conservatives must keep the pressure on until Americans get honest answers.
