Bill Kristol told Maher his claim “is total bullshit.”

Via Politico:

The Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol fired back at liberal comic Bill Maher for saying the tea party was about President Barack Obama being black, calling the claim “total bulls—-.”

Maher began by slamming the tea party for condemning the bailouts during his HBO program “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday.

However, Kristol disagreed saying the bailouts happened in 2008 under the Bush administration and before the tea party, which he said was founded for different reasons.

“They were right to be worried about [the bailouts] and to think they were a really bad precedent, but that is not the origin of the tea party. What happened — what was the origin of the tea party 5 years ago? It wasn’t about bailouts,” Kristol said.

“Sure it was,” Maher said.

“It was not. It was about a mortgage bill. Then it was about Obamacare and then it was about the stimulus—” Kristol replied.

Maher interjected, “It was about a black president. But let’s—”

“That’s bulls—-! That is total bulls—-!” Kristol said. “You think tens of millions of people, just out there, they just—-even you don’t believe that. You’re just saying that.”

“I totally believe that,” Maher responded. “It happened a month after he took office. Suddenly white people were very upset about debt, even though [former President George W.] Bush had raised the debt way more than Obama had.”