Bill Maher Takes On Luigi Mangione's Guilty Plea: 'Mangionistas' and the Politics of Assassination
Bill Maher opened the latest episode of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher by grappling with Luigi Mangione's Friday guilty plea on federal stalking charges — and the crowd of supporters who gathered outside the courthouse to cheer him on.
Mangione changed his plea to guilty on the federal charges, telling the court plainly: "I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan, and he died...I knew what I was doing was illegal." He stated that he had used a 3-D printer to build the firearm, citing years of severe pain from a broken back. The federal plea covers the stalking charges; a separate state murder trial for the December 4, 2024 killing of Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare chief executive, is scheduled to begin jury selection on September 8. Deadline
Maher took particular aim at the people rallying to Mangione's side. He referred to them as "Mangionistas," and noted that Mangione's fans took the guilty plea "hard." Yahoo News
The host used the moment to draw a line through several threads at once. Addressing his studio audience, he asked: "Speaking of the eat the rich people, Luigi. We have Luigi fans here?" The question landed as both a joke and a probe — a way of testing how much sympathy for Mangione sits in the room. Deadline
Maher also criticised what he sees as a contradiction on the political left. "It seems like five minutes ago when one of the big causes of the left was gun control," he said, "but now guns are the..." — trailing off to let the audience fill in the gap, in reference to what he characterised as the left lionising Mangione. The Washington Times
This is not the first time Maher has returned to the subject. In May 2026, he used a Real Time monologue to warn about what he called an "assassination culture" on the far left, arguing that recent high-profile attackers have found popular support among young people. Fox News
The Mangione segment was not the only headline from the monologue. Maher also joked about Donald Trump reportedly hiding in an airport catering truck to secretly switch planes and evade a potential Iranian missile. Deadline
For Maher, the Mangione story sits at a junction he keeps returning to: a criminal case that has drawn a following, a political argument about guns that cuts in unexpected directions, and a cultural moment where the lines between protest, fandom and violence are harder to read. The September 8 jury selection in the state murder trial will be the next date in the calendar.
