Maher defends the idea that ‘bad people’ can do good amid the Cesar Chavez controversy

Comedian Bill Maher waded into the moral debate during Friday’s episode of Real Time, saying that society needs to accept the unpleasant truth that “bad people” can still accomplish good things.

“Stop asking me how bad people do good things,” said Maher as he closed the show.

“Here in California, we have recently been busy removing the name from every building in the state because the famous labor leader Cesar Chavez turned out not to be the saint we were told,” he said, referring to emerging allegations that the well-known labor activist sexually assaulted young girls.

The allegations, highlighted in a recent New York Times report, include claims by women such as Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas, who say Chavez abused them on multiple occasions in the 1970s.

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“Officials here have been scrambling to get his name off the schools, half of the kids in LA now go to TBD Elementary,” Maher added, drawing laughter from the audience.

Maher said the debate highlights what he calls “the age-old conflict of the deviant versus the exploited,” presenting a strong moral question that weighs personal wrongdoing against the wider impact on society.

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Workers assemble a mural by Emigdio Vasquez featuring Cesar Chavez and other figures at Santa Ana College in Santa Ana, Calif., Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) (Jae C. Hong/AP)

“Chavez undoubtedly made millions of lives better, so the question is, if you could go back and kill him to spare the little girls he was beating, would you?” he joked.

“The purist says yes. I say no,” he continued, citing labor activist Dolores Huerta, who he said was among those accused of being harassed by Chavez, noting that he prioritized the farm workers’ movement over exposing his own behavior.

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Cesar Chavez, then president of the United Farm Workers, speaks in California in 1988. (Bob Riha Jr./Getty Images)

Maher went on to say that history is littered with flawed figures whose good contributions go hand in hand with serious wrongdoing, pointing to Thomas Jefferson’s controversial relationship with slave Sally Hemings and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for allowing women to drive in the country. He compared that to the death of a journalist blamed on Saudi Arabia, according to a 2021 unclassified report.

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Maher also pointed to President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and entertainment figures, noting that audiences tend to separate art from the artist, citing artists like Kanye West who continue to sell out arenas despite previous controversies.

“Here where people always say, ‘Why can’t we have great deeds done by good people?’ I don’t know. Because we live on Earth. Things are not right here,” said Maher.