On Friday’s “Real Time,” HBO host Bill Maher argued that the rise of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is something the Republicans “brought…on themselves. They made a Faustian bargain with the racist devil, many years ago, and now those chickens are coming home to roost.”

Maher said that given Trump’s rise, “I almost feel bad for them, except I really don’t, because they brought it on themselves. They made a Faustian bargain with the racist devil, many years ago, and now those chickens are coming home to roost.” After reading House Speaker Representative Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) statement that the GOP nomination must reject racist groups, Maher added, “[W]hat about voter ID laws? What about once defending the guy who gets shot, the black guy who [is] unarmed, instead of the cop? I mean, who are they kidding? This is the party they are, and Trump is just the latest.”

He later added, “It was called the Southern Strategy, when Nixon did it. Reagan started his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi. It’s always been a winking campaign to get white, poor people, mostly, who have a resentment, to vote racially. So let’s not pretend this is new.”

After Daily Caller Senior Contributor Matt Lewis pointed out that the GOP field is far more diverse than the Democratic field, Maher responded, “The two Hispanics want to put other Hispanics on cattle cars and throw them out of the country.”

Representative and US Senate candidate Donna Edwards (D-MD) agreed, saying, “[T]his was a marriage that was made following the Voting Rights Act. It’s a marriage that was made when Lyndon Johnson recognized that we would never win the South again. Republicans made their bed, and now they are not just lying in it, they’re swimming in it.”

Maher concluded, “[T]his is what the Founding Fathers feared the most, that the people, the actual people, could get ahold of the — and bring the wrong people in. … Because, in a lot of countries in the Middle East, Egypt, recently, Algeria in the 90s, they [said], ‘Yes, let’s have democracy.’ And they let the people vote. And they elected the wrong guy. They elected some untenable goon, some religious nut, and the army had to take over. And now the Republican Party has the same problem.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett