HBO talk show host and comedian Bill Maher confronted Phil McGraw, known as the TV personality Dr. Phil, about McGraw’s participation in raids with Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Friday night’s edition of Real Time.
“Why are you going on these ICE raids?” Maher asked. “I don’t understand that.”
“You’re a guy who we know for so many years who has been working to put families together,” he added. “To bring families who are apart and heal them. And now you’re going on raids with people who are literally separating families.”
Dr. Phil, a former clinical psychologist, responded, “Well, now that’s bulls***.”
“Look, if you arrest somebody that’s a citizen, that has committed a crime or is DUI’d with a child in the backseat, do you think they don’t separate that family right then, right there?” Dr. Phil asked. “Of course they do!”
“But that’s not what’s going on,” said Maher.
Dr. Phil is reported to have taken part in ICE raids twice, in Chicago in January, and in Los Angeles in June, the New York Post noted.
However, the TV personality has denied being embedded during the ICE raids in Los Angeles, which prompted protests. But Dr. Phil’s camera crews did take part.
“MeritTV news crews were on the ground during the recent ICE operations in LA … In order to not escalate any situation, Dr. Phil McGraw did not join and was not embedded, as he previously was in Chicago,” a spokesperson for McGraw told The Independent in June.
Before the confrontation began on Friday night, Maher had argued that the deportation raids were “another thing” that President Donald Trump is doing while he’s “doubling down on unpopular.”
Dr. Phil went on to reference Maher’s monologue in which he had criticized ICE agents for wearing masks. Dr. Phil argued that agents are masked because legislators are doxxing them.
He claimed that legislators are “putting their names, their pictures, their addresses of their families on the internet, they’re putting them on telephone poles.”
“So, of course, they’re wearing masks so they don’t get outed, so people can do violence against their families,” he added.
Dr. Phil argued that he had seen information that justified the raids he had taken part in.
“They’ve got a rap sheet, 12, 14 different cases long of child predators that they’re taking off the street,” he said. “These are the worst first that they’re taking off the streets. Who would want them back in their communities?”
Another guest on the show, ESPN commentator Stephen A Smith, said he backs “closing the borders,” but argued that the actions taken by the administration haven’t matched their promises.
“When you’re going to Home Depot, when you’re going to people’s jobs, when you’ve been given authorization to enter churches and to enter other properties … who they have been targeting has been different than what they originally advertised,” said Smith.
Maher agreed, noting that ICE is entering places where people are “already working.”
“If you can’t go to work because you’re hiding, what other recourse is it for [illegal immigrants] except crime?” asked Maher.
