'You think it's funny?' Megyn Kelly spars with Bill Maher — and his audience — on Trump

Former Fox News and NBC News host Megyn Kelly went toe-to-toe with liberal HBO comedian Bill Maher on Friday night as she tried to insist a second Trump administration will look a lot like the first.

The debate kicked off with Maher noting to Kelly and his "Real Time" audience that America mistakenly thought Russia would stand alone when it invaded Ukraine. Instead, Russian President Vladimir Putin has become "chummy" with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as well as North Korea and Iran.

"These are the dictator countries. This is a very World War II feeling here," Maher remarked to his guest. "The dictator countries are getting together."

He added that the world appears to be "uniting" with "good guy" Democratic countries against the "autocracies."

"And if your guy gets in, we're going to be on the wrong side of this one," he said, to applause.

ALSO READ: Not even ‘Fox and Friends’ can hide Trump’s dementia

But Kelly disagreed, responding that if Trump wins, she thinks America will return to what it was like when he was in office, when the country didn't get involved or start a war.

"Putin did not invade Ukraine until Biden took over," she said.

Kelly pointed to the withdrawal in Afghanistan that "projected weakness through the world."

"That is what's proactive," said Kelly. "Weakness is proactive."

She insisted that Trump "destabilized" dictators while in office because he was unpredictable, such as what she called a "strategic strike" that killed Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani in January 2020. This kept these countries on their heels, she said.

Maher interjected, "It's what he might do to us that I'm a little more worried about."

Not to be deterred, Kelly doubled down, noting Trump was in office for four years and didn't go after political enemies with the Department of Justice.

"That was Joe Biden and Kamala Harris," she said.

Maher eventually pushed back that Trump attempted to do "fascist things, and he was stopped."

But Kelly wouldn't listen and pivoted to attacking Biden's action of "flouting" the law by issuing executive orders forgiving student loans.

Maher was not impressed with the rebuttal.

"Really? Student loans?" he said.

She continued asserting that the Biden administration "unleashed" the Department of Justice on his political enemy, Trump.

As the audience laughed, Kelly retorted, "You think it's funny? Because it isn't. You want to talk fascism? That's fascist."

Watch the heated exchange below or at this link.