Late-night host Bill Maher said progressive darling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) would be a “fantastic candidate” for the White House – if she “had some deprogramming.”

That half-hearted endorsement came during a discussion with comedian Patton Oswalt on Maher’s “Club Random” podcast on Monday, as the pair drank glasses of brown liquor.

“If she had some deprogramming, she could be such a fantastic candidate,” Maher pontificated about AOC.

“She’s never going to resonate with people outside of the bubble she lives in, in the very, very far left,” he added.

Maher nodded to the New York Times – claiming he has long fought the newspaper over the need for more moderate Dems in politics – which recently published an editorial calling for more centrist figures in politics.

“I mean, the New York Times of all people … just put out a huge editorial basically saying exactly what I’ve been saying,” said Maher – the host of “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO.

“The only way Democrats will ever win again, not that the Republicans are probably even going to give it back, is to be more moderate,” he continued.

Oswalt defended Ocasio-Cortez, pushing back on the idea that she is too far left.

“If people think she’s too far left, then that shows another way this country is broken right now,” he said.

Maher responded: “Well, I don’t think it’s necessarily broken in that way, but it just shows how the country is not there. That is not where the country is.”

Oswalt tore into the Republican party, arguing that the US as a whole is not as “mature” as it thinks it is because GOPers have “kept freaking out” since Barack Obama’s presidency.

But Maher hit back that Democrats have “freaked out” over a whole host of issues, like “gender, race, parenthood, schools, homelessness, crime, the border and education.”