Netflix's Tim Dillon Calls Hannah Einbinder a "Dumb Bitch" and "Psychopath" for Pro-Palestine Speech
"It was a Roman salute, you dumb bitch."
In a new, Patreon-exclusive episode of his podcast The Tim Dillon Show, Netflix’s Tim Dillon called Hacks star Hannah Einbinder a “dumb bitch” and a “psychopath” during commentary on her speech condemning Donald Trump, climate inaction, and the US-backed genocide in Gaza as she accepted an award from the Human Rights Campaign this week.
Dillon, who in 2021 was banned from Airbnb after launching a harassment campaign against the lesbian couple who owned a Palm Springs rental he threatened to burn down, clarified that he largely agreed with Einbinder’s comments about Palestine. What bothered him, he said, was her smug tone and what he took as her implication that he himself was complicit in the genocide.
The comedian, a white nationalist and 9/11 truther who sold subprime mortgages prior to the subprime mortgage crisis, also took issue with the idea that it is controversial to condemn the genocide or US support of Israel more broadly. Coincidentally, he released the episode the same day that Variety reported on Disney’s efforts to stifle Snow White star Rachel Zegler’s pro-Palestine comments. One day earlier, the New York Times reported on the Trump Administration’s attempt to deport a 21-year-old Columbia student and legal resident who participated in pro-Palestine demonstrations.
Excerpts from Dillon’s commentary with his guest Ray Kump follow below. I’m sharing them because they reflect the natural endpoint of the contrarian impulse that defines his school of comedy. As he says over and over again, he agrees with Einbinder. (With exceptions: during a part of her speech condemning oil executives, for instance, Dillon says, “The reality is, we've never found something to replace oil.”) But because she is a liberal—and, I might suggest, a woman—accepting an award from an organization he elsewhere lampoons for its support of trans people, it’s not good enough for her to say things she agrees with. Her tone is wrong, she’s smug and performative, she’s making it about him, the guy who voluntarily watched her speech and talked about it on his podcast.
Seth Simons
Toward the end of the excerpts, you’ll see the logical contortions it takes to maintain this stance. After scorning the idea that pro-Palestinian activism is controversial, Dillon and Kump argue that “there is no debate” over the matter, because the US government is fully behind Israel. Later, they ask why she waited until the genocide was in progress to make this anti-genocide speech. As usual, the proud freethinking comedians don’t seem to understand what political speech actually looks like. Their only real principle is nihilism.
