Bill Maher reportedly wants to bring back Milo Yiannopoulos after once taking dubious credit for the former Breitbart editor’s downfall.

As you probably recall, American Conservative Union Poobah, Matt Schlapp invited Milo to speak at CPAC claiming that no one was doing more to promote free speech on campus. This riled up the board of directors and a lot of people who considered Milo to be little more than a showboating attention seeker. Then video surfaced in which Milo appeared to be condoning older gay men having sexual relationships with boys. This example of Milo exercising his right to free speech led Matt Schlapp to disinvite the alleged crusader for free speech.

Not much has been heard out of the alt-right provocateur since then, but on the heels of his own speech controversy, Bill Maher wants to bring Milo back on his show.

Just a few months after seeking credit for the downfall of Milo Yiannopoulos, host of Real Time Bill Maher now wants to try to boost the alt-right defender’s profile by bringing him back on his HBO talk show. Maher’s wish to get more face time with Yiannopoulos came to light as part new Esquire profile. The Esquire interview predates Maher’s recent controversy, which erupted after he used a racial slur during last week’s episode of Real Time. Maher has seen blowback for that; Sen. Al Franken canceled his upcoming appearance on the show.

Of Yiannopoulos, Maher said in the profile, “I actually want to have him back. I don’t think he would be that hard to bring around to a much more reasonable position.”

A more reasonable position on what exactly, Maher did not tell the Esquire reporter.

As Yiannopoulos told me, however, his disgrace “had nothing to do with Bill whatsoever.” Instead, it followed the revelation that he had once endorsed sexual relationships between adult men and teenage boys, a scandal he blamed on Old World globalist conservatives out to sabotage his career. Appearing on Real Time, Yiannopoulos said, was “a significant victory,” and in retrospect it looks a lot like his high-water mark.

Now Maher says that he’d like to help rescue Yiannopoulos from his tumble out of the spotlight. “I actually want to have him back,” Maher told me. “I don’t think he would be that hard to bring around to a much more reasonable position.” (Yiannopoulos says another appearance is in the works.)

Maher took credit for tanking Yiannopoulos’ career claiming that he had exposed him as “an emotionally needy Ann Coulter wannabe” which is probably a pretty fair assessment, but Milo is mostly to blame. He simply overestimated people’s tolerance for his ick factor at a time when conservatives were already divided over issues of moral character. That sort of thing has clearly never been an issue for Bill Maher though.