WATCH: Bill Maher Defends Trump’s Merit-Based Immigration Plan: ‘Sounds More Normal’

Once again, Bill Maher of HBO has allowed some sense to spring forth from his usually irreverent mouth by acknowledging President Trump’s merit-based immigration system as something worth achieving, reports Fox News.

The political comedian made his surprising statement about the Trump administration’s proposed immigration policy during the “Overtime” segment on YouTube, which follows after his “Real Time” show on HBO. Maher first began by asking his panel of guests if a merit-based immigration system “should receive more consideration,” not that it would be similar to “what Canada has.”

CNN political analyst Kirsten Powers denounced the proposal for being out of line with the U.S. immigration tradition, which she claims has always been about people just coming to the country with no regard for their merit.

“This country is based on people coming over here not based on having a Ph.D. or having high-level skills,” Powers said. “Even when we say ‘merit-based,’ it sort of suggests that someone who doesn’t have a high education doesn’t have merit. I think we need people who are unskilled laborers. We need them just as much as people who are engineers.”

Maher disagreed and liked the idea put forward by former Republican governor Bill Weld that the merit-based immigration policy is “worth some fleshing out.”

“Yeah,” Maher said to Weld, “It sounds more normal Republican, the one that was ignored two weeks ago.”

Not all of the segment was in Trump’s favor, as Maher went on to blast the president for slapping a 5% tariff on Mexico in order to stem the immigration crisis.

“But I can understand how that side looks at what happened two weeks ago and went, ‘Oh, well, if you’re not going to even engage on the semi-normal proposal, let’s go back to crazy,” Maher said.

Bill Maher’s defense of President Trump’s merit-based immigration policy comes several weeks after warning the Democrats that Trump will clean their clocks in 2020 if they turn illegal immigration into a “woke contest.”

“If it becomes a ‘woke’ contest, then the Democrats lose on this,” Maher said. “Yes, they look better, but it’s impossible not to look better next to him!”

When panelist Wendy Sherman, who served in the State Department during the Obama administration, said that President Trump invented the “immigration crisis” by cutting aid to Central American countries and separating families, Maher laughed off the comments.

“This is what Democrats say, which only gets other Democrats,” Maher told Sherman. “This is not the speech that is going to win any [swing] voters. You’ve [already] got the compassion vote!”

In March, Maher also denounced social justice warriors as a “cancer on progressivism,” arguing they care neither about truth nor justice. “I don’t think they’re interested in justice; I don’t think they’re interested in truth; I think they’re interested in clicks,” he said. “I think they’re interested in things that make people click, and when I read them it makes me glad I didn’t have kids who would see this. Hey, I got a smattering of applause there.”