HBO’s Real Time host Bill Maher warned of the rising influence of China globally and in the United States — a concern routinely ignored by Democrats in his own party. China, Maher cautioned, is growing in dominance as America continues to allow cultural issues, such as the political correctness of iconic children’s books, to distract from more pressing issues.

“You’re not going to win the battle for the 21st century if you are a silly people. And Americans are a silly people,” Bill Maher said during his monologue Friday night. “Do you know who doesn’t care that there’s a stereotype of a Chinese man in a Dr. Seuss book? China. All 1.4 billion of them couldn’t give a crouching tiger flying fuck because they’re not a silly people. If anything, they are as serious as a prison fight.”

Maher used the bulk of the monologue to highlight the advancements China has made, though he acknowledged the authoritarian nature of the regime.

“There’s got to be something between an authoritarian government that tells everyone what to do and a representative government that can’t do anything at all,” he said, detailing that China has “built 500 entire cities from scratch, moved the majority of their huge population from poverty to the middle class, and mostly cornered the market in 5G and pharmaceuticals” in two generations.”

“In China alone, they have 40,000 kilometers of high-speed rail. America has none. … We’ve been having Infrastructure Week every week since 2009 but we never do anything. Half the country is having a never-ending woke competition deciding whether Mr. Potato Head has a d— and the other half believes we have to stop the lizard people because they’re eating babies. We are a silly people,” he continued, referring to America as an “impacted colon of a country” in terms of moving legislation and getting things accomplished.

“We see a problem and we ignore it, lie about it, fight about it, endlessly litigate it, sunset clause it, kick it down the road, and then write a bill where a half-assed solution doesn’t kick in for 10 years,” Bill Maher said. “China sees a problem and they fix it. They build a dam. We debate what to rename it.”

“We bingewatch, they bingebuild,” he continued, touting what the communist nation did when the coronavirus struck Wuhan, the place of origin of the novel coronavirus .

“When COVID hit Wuhan, the city built a quarantine center with 4,000 rooms in 10 days and they barely had to use it because they quickly arrested the rest of the disease,” Maher said. “They were back to throwing raves in swimming pools while we were stuck at home surfing the dark web for black market Charmin. We’re not losing to China, we lost. The returns just haven’t all come in yet. They’ve made robots that check a kid’s temperature and got their asses back in school. Most of our kids are still pretending to take Zoom classes while they watch TikTok and their brain cells fully commit ritual suicide.”

Meanwhile, China, he said, does not get sidetracked by cultural issues that often dominate the establishment media and the political left.

“Do you think China’s doing that, letting political correctness get in the way of nurturing their best and brightest?” Bill Maher asked. “Do you think Chinese colleges are offering courses in ‘The Philosophy of Star Trek, ‘The Sociology of Seinfeld,’ and ‘Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse’? Those are real and so is China. And they are eating our lunch. And believe me, in an hour, they’ll be hungry again.”

President Biden, who has not wholly addressed lingering concerns over his son’s business dealings with China, famously dismissed the country’s threats during the Democrat Primary race, declaring that it was “not competition” for the United States.

“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” Biden said, adding, “I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us.”

However, he changed his tone last month, declaring that China will “eat our lunch” if the U.S. does not sufficiently tackle infrastructure. “They’re going to, you know, if we don’t get moving, they’re going to eat our lunch,” the president told senators.

“We just have to step up. And so what I’d like to talk to these folks about — since they are the key committee — is how we begin this. I’ve laid out what I think we should be doing,” Biden added.