The HBO host, during his Friday (February 1) airing of Real Time, had on Will Hurd, a Republican congressman representing Texas’ 23rd District. While in their interview segment, Maher asked Hurd why he’s a Republican, to which he replied: “I’m a Republican because I believe in limited government.”

“I’m a Republican because I believe in the rule of law,” he continued. “I’m a Republican because I believe in economic opportunity.”

Maher then followed up and claimed that the GOP isn’t successful at the politics Hurb believes they are. “They don’t do that,” he said. “I’m just asking why you’re a Republican? Because they’re not good at the debt, that was their big thing. You said limited government, they don’t do that. They took over the Congress in 2011 and they raised the debt a trillion dollars a year.

“They’re not good at national defense—the president’s a traitor,” Maher continued. “What’s in it for you? What is in the Republican Party for you? You were in the CIA!”

Hurd replied: “I was in the CIA for almost a decade. I was the dude in the back alleys at four o’clock in the morning collecting intelligence on threats to the homeland.”

And here’s where it went off the wheels: “That’s where you’d collect it, huh? Wow. By the Popeyes Chicken?” Maher joked.

People didn’t find it the least bit funny.

Bill Maher has yet to respond to the backlash over his Popeyes question.

This isn’t the first time Bill Maher has been in hot water over racist comments he’s made. The 63-year-old caused outrage when he used a racial slur during an interview with Republican Senator Ben Sasse in 2017.

In 2015, while interviewing One Direction member Zayn Malik, Maher joked that he looked like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers. He’s also been accused with bonding with racists like Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulous.