Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
My next guest is a stand up comedian, podcaster, and
host of the long running HBO political talk show Real
Time with Bill Maher. He is also an individual that's
got a new stand up comedy special coming out. Is
anyone else seeing this? January tenth is the date? The
one and only Bill Maher, My buddy, what's going on?
(00:24):
Big time?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
How are you? Sir?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
How's everything?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I feel like the title of that show was made
for you to announce it. Anyone else you say that
better than I do? Well?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Please please, but you do it better. You deserve all
the credit in the world. But I want to know
how you're feeling right now, Bill, this comedy specialist coming out.
Are you in a comedic mood? Are you interested in
laughing and having a good time in light of the
things that have transpired over the last few months, in
the last few weeks, and what you've had to deal
with personally in terms of speaking your piece, particularly to
(00:59):
the laugh how do you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Absolutely? In fact, the very first thing I say in
this special is we're here to laugh. You know this
show business? Okay? If you're still brooding about the election,
you're in the wrong building. I'm here just to make
you laugh. And I'm not going to pre hate anything
(01:25):
that hasn't happened yet. And also, look around, are you
really suffering that much? Now? Trump? Could he blow up
the world on the second day. Yeah, he could. But
until he does, I'm not going to chase every crazy
thing he does. And I'm not going to get upset
about things that happen happened yet. And when I look
around America is you know, it's a place with a
(01:49):
lot of problems, but also compared to the rest of
the world, it's doing better than most places. And you
know a lot of people are just living their best lives.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Are you this way period or did it take you
a little while to get to this point? After the election?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
No, I mean I was ready for Trump to win.
I thought that she would win. I thought that America
always basically moves forward and not backward. But I was wrong.
I was certainly not surprised because I did not think
she was a great candidate. But look this, it's not
(02:30):
like this country does not need some sort of clean sweeping. Now.
I don't know what that's going to be. I've said
this before, this country needs a colonic I would not
have chosen Donald Trump to be the doctor to administer
that colonic But I'm curious to see, for example, what
Elon Musk is going to do. I'm going to I'm
(02:52):
curious to see how influential he's going to be. He
is tasked with reinventing the government. Basically, he said some
things which I think are great, and I'm on the
page with The first thing he said was, we're going
to ask everybody in the government who has been staying home,
and that's been a lot of people since the pandemic
(03:13):
to come back to work. And we expect about twenty
percent of the workforce to then just quit, and we
welcome that. And I thought, yeah, that's probably okay, because
if twenty percent of the government workforce quit, would we
notice the difference. I'm guessing we probably wouldn't. He also
said he was going to go after the F thirty five. Okay, perfect,
(03:37):
that's exactly the kind of thing we should do. This
is a fighter jet that they've been funding to the
tune of like a trillion dollars. And he said, first
of all, it's obsolete. We don't use fighter jets anymore.
We won't in the very near future. They're just going
to get pilots killed. And we have drones now, so
why why are we spending a trillion dollars on something
we don't need? So if if that's what's going to
(04:01):
go on in the government, I'm all for it.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
What are your thoughts about somebody that would sit back
and say, okay, Elon Musk. I believe South African obviously
owns Tesla, owns x formerly known as Twitter, one man
having entirely too much power, and now he has just
the ear of the president, if not more, once Donald
Trump is inaugurated on January twenty first, is this guy
(04:25):
really going to look out for America's best interest or
is he going to look out for his own best interests?
How does Bill Maher answer that question in light of
all that you've seen, Because you've been one of the
avid individuals speaking out on behalf of Musk, because you've
always been incredibly impressed by his brilliance, his genius. He's
been on your show at least once that I can recall,
(04:48):
and obviously you felt the way that you felt about him.
What are your thoughts about him?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Well? I thought, first of all, it's kind of ironic,
you know, that the world's richest man and a former
Express president who is a billionaire worm the election and
really stuck into the elitists. Huh, that's right. But you know, look,
I've criticized Elon where I think he was wrong or
(05:14):
he wasn't being honest. I mean Twitter. Look, when he
took over Twitter, it was way too left. I mean
that's why I stopped going on it, because you know,
as I used to say anything I want to say
on Twitter, I can't say on Twitter because you'd be
(05:34):
immediately excoriated because it was politically incorrect. And it used
to be when it started, a fun place where you
could just say funny things, and then it got to
be a place where the woke took over and everything
was just a minefield. And why put it out there
just to get yourself into trouble? So I stopped going there.
And Elon said, well, when I take over, I'm going
(05:56):
to make it an even playing field. I'm going to
make it a place where the left and the it
can both be. But he didn't. He just completely reversed it,
and now it's just a place for the right. So
he didn't follow up on that, and I keep saying that,
and you know, and he also like applauds people on
Twitter who should not be applauded, I mean really crazy,
(06:16):
kind of far right people. So you know, he also
says things that are just not true very often. He
doesn't seem to care about researching things very often. But
I mean, good God, Tesla, Starlink, Neurolink, SpaceX. I mean
(06:37):
one man has created like three or four of the
most important developments in technology in the last twenty years.
I mean, you got to give the guy a little
credit for that. And also, I will say this about him,
I don't think he cares about money now. He has
way too much of it. There has to be a
(06:58):
certain point, and I am certainly no socialist, but there
has to be a certain point where we just decide,
as we did, by the way, one hundred years ago
when it was John D. Rockefeller. John D. Rockefeller had
I think at one point two was worth two percent
of the gross national product of the country, and they
did something about it. They made laws about monopolies and
(07:20):
so forth. They broke up standard oil. I think Elon
is approaching that money. There's certain there's certain number that
I think we just have to say to somebody, Okay,
you won, you won the money game, but like, how
much is too much? Can it? Can one person have
a trillion dollars? It just seems like that's taking it
(07:44):
a little too far.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Again, I don't think he's I don't think he cares
about money. That's not what motivates him. And I would
be curious to see what he's going to do, because again, America,
it's not like it's not completely bloated. It is and
it's gotten out of hand and somebody needs to go
in there and do what he proposes to do. But
(08:11):
we'll see in uh, in execution, everything is in the details.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I recently sat down with a guy by the name
of Dave Rubin. I'm sure you are aware of who
he is about. That's where he bragged about going to
the Lakers game with you. I told him you and
I went to the Lakers game together as well recently,
and and and we just he and I just finished talking.
And one of the things that I called him, I said, listen,
he's he's not a lieutenant or general or whatever, but
(08:40):
let's say he is, meaning Bill Maher, consider me a
soldier because I stand directly behind him. In support of
all the things that he has said, particularly over the
last several years, about the left and how the left
pretty much lost its way. Getting personal with you for
a second, how difficult, if difficult at all, has it
(09:01):
been for you to deal with some of the things
that have been thrown in your direction just because you
were on your show telling the truth about what the
left did wrong and how it got in its own
way and what it needed to do to fix the party.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Your thoughts, you know, you know, Stephen, and you can't
have everything. That's what you come to if you live
long enough. Would I like to have everybody on my side?
Would I like to have everybody be my fan? Of course?
Was it not great when some super woke people left
because I wasn't on their page? Yeah? I wish everybody
(09:40):
was still my fan, But you can't have that. Do
I think I deserve a bunch of Emmys that I
would never get because this town is woker than I am. Yeah?
I do. I don't think we have the same criteria
about what constitutes excellence. It's okay, you can't have everything.
I would take a million time if you offered it
(10:01):
to me. Against those things, the joy of being able
to speak my mind as I see it, and the
love that that gets me from people from all stripes
who appreciate that the things that people say to me.
I've been at with every type of celebrity. They don't
say the things they say to me to other celebrities.
(10:24):
That means more to me than anything, but things that
people say to me, and how much it means to
them that they feel like there's somebody out there who
is never pulling a punch and who will just call
out anybody wherever they are in the political spectrum if
he thinks they're saying something goofy. That really means the
world to me. So I have that, and that's plenty.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Absolutely you deserve, and make no mistake about it. I
wanted to know, in light of what you just articulated
your thoughts about Mark Zuckerberg coming out recently. I think
it was yesterday or so, and he was talking about
how what role Meta is going to play and now
they're no longer going to fact check and they're not
going to be as stridently in favor of the left
(11:08):
or whatever the case may be. I think that he's
just trying to curry favor with Donald Trump or whatever.
I wanted to know what you made of that, and
what do you think is going to be the fallout
from that, knowing what you know about the political stratosphere
and specifically about Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I'm a free speech guy, you know, I believe not
an absolute free speech. That's not even in the Constitution.
And of course we have the example of you know,
yelling fire in a crowded theater and so forth. There
are things that you can do. But I think he's
basically right. We've gone way too far toward fact whose facts.
(11:48):
I mean. COVID was a perfect example of this, and
I think that's something that really opened a lot of
people's eyes to what's going on with censorship in this country.
We were not allowed to really discuss this, and it
was a new phenomenon, this new pathogen we had. It
should have been discussed. We're finding out now as each
(12:13):
week rolls by more and more it's pretty obvious that COVID,
the origin of it was the lab. I think in
fifty years when people look back, they'll say, wait a second,
there was a lab in Wuhan where the disease started,
that was studying this disease and using gain of function
(12:34):
research on it, and they were debating whether this was
the cause of it. Now it could have been the
wet markets, absolutely, we don't know for sure. But the
fact that we weren't even allowed to discuss that it
was coming from a lab, which again it probably was.
Now we know that. You tell you all you need
(12:55):
to know the fact that Justin Trudeau just stepped down
in Canada. I mean, this guy had a very high
approval rating five years ago and he left really very
unpopular because Canada became that kind of place where you
really did not have the kind of free speech we
do and many other countries in Europe. Now this is
part of what Mark Zuckerberd was talking about. We don't
(13:17):
want to become like these countries in Europe where they
have rules about what you can say that's going to
be censored simply because it's hurting somebody's feelings. You know,
you can't say something about Islam because it's Islamophobia. But
what if it's true. You know, we just had a
terrible incident in New Orleans that was a jihadist attack.
(13:40):
We want to be able to speak about that plainly
and honestly without worrying somebody's going to say, don't say
that because it's not all Muslims. Well, no one's saying
it's all Muslims. We're saying we need to discuss about
this honestly and openly and patently. And you can't do
that if somebody's looking for your shoulder and saying, well,
(14:01):
this is going to hurt somebody's feelings. Okay, feelings are
not as important as the First Amendment.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Fair enough, and it's one of the things that people
allude to and complain about, as you have about the
left because of what culture. With that being said, one
would ask Bill Maher in this day and age, why
would you still call yourself a liberal or a Democrat
as opposed to an independent, considering how you're thinking and
how polar opposite that appears to be to what's transpired
(14:30):
with the Democratic Party, Because I'm reading this article from
the Wall Street Journal, and essentially the paraphrase not exact,
not your exact words, but you were talking about, you
know what you still consider yourself, but that party is
not the party that I've been looking at in recent memory.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, well, I've always been an independent. I mean I
never threw in with the Democrat because I always knew
they'd disappoint me at some point.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
But I've Georgia Party. I've Georgia Party.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah. But old school liberal, yes, I mean that's I
think what I always was and always will be. As
I say in the special, the people who are saying, oh,
you're a Republican now, No, I'm not a Republican and
I never will be a Republican for all the reasons
I haven't been. They're too religious. They're fiscal hypocrites who
(15:16):
think it's awful when America spends money it doesn't have
except when they're in office, and then it's always perfectly okay.
They're in denial about racism, they're in denial about the environment.
They're always blaming the underprivileged when they should be blaming
the overprivileged. And then they added to that shitty mixtape
(15:37):
they don't believe in democracy anymore, and they threw their
lot in with the sociopath named Donald Trump, who thinks
that elections only count when they win. So they have
a sizable lead in being the more threatening party I
think to this country. But that doesn't mean I'm going
to hold my tongue about what I think is wrong
about the left, and I don't and old school liberal
(16:03):
I could give you so many examples. It's a very
big part of the show where I'm talking about the
fact that people somehow think that wokeness is an extension
of liberalism, when very often it's the opposite of liberalism.
I mean, just like the Israel situation, the liberal position
(16:24):
has always been a two state solution. I still think
that's the solution. Well, that's not the position of the woke.
They want from the river to the sea. So you
can have that position, but don't tell me that's the
liberal position. The river to the sea does not mean
a two state solution. It means you want all of
(16:46):
it for the Palestinians. That's fine, that's your position, it's
not the liberal position. I haven't changed you have.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Is anyone else seeing this? Your stand up comedy special
scheduled for January Tate debut in January tenth on HBO.
As you were putting this together, formulating your thoughts, Bill Maher,
if you I'm assuming you had to worry about because
I don't think you're worried about anybody, But if you
had to worry about anybody in today's world, where you
(17:17):
gotta worry about anything that you say or whatever. Who
are you more worried about the right or the left
when it came to making sure that you said what
you needed to say. You are an authentic, as honest
as you possibly could be, But you didn't cross the line,
who would you find yourself more worried about? As a
comedian in this day and age.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Well, first of all, my job is to cross the line.
That's what a stand up comedian's job. Not all stand up,
not no comedy. Some comedy's just silly, but not mine.
So you know, how do you know where the line
is until people like me cross it to a degree.
(17:56):
I'm never upset when people in the audience recoil. You know,
I don't want to make the whole show recoiling. You
want to be popular. But there's a couple of times
in the show where people just are like, oh, you know,
I mean, we were just talking about the Israel situation.
There's a line in there where I say, you know, really,
(18:17):
marching for Hamas you're marching four terrorist groups, it's like
rooting for the planes on nine to eleven. Well, that's
a line that gives people pause. They're like, whoa, did
you really go there? And that happens a number of
times in the show. It should That's what a comedian
should do, at least a comedian like me. That's what
(18:38):
my job is. So do I worry about the people
who get so upset about that that they're not going
to watch. They're not watching anyway. They left the building
a while ago with me. They know I'm not safe.
And if you want safe, or you want someone who's
just going to tell you what you already believe and
just be the echo chamber for you, I'm not your
(19:00):
guy and never have been. So do I worry about
those people? Not? Really? The other people I could worry
about would be Donald Trump. I mean, he does flirt
with authoritarianism, there is no doubt about it. Do I
think he's gonna start arresting comedians? I really don't. But
you know he's talking about invading Greenland and annexing Canada.
(19:25):
You know, he says a lot of he says a
lot of stuff Steven Day, He really does. I don't
think it's gonna happen. But let me put it this way,
under George Bush or anybody else, it never even entered
my mind. With Trump, anything's possible. Anything is possible.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
My very last question to you would be this, Outside
of making people laugh, which I know you want to do,
this is a comedy special after all, does anyone is
anyone else seeing this? Is there something else you're hoping
to accomplish with this comedy special? And if so, what
is that exactly?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah? I mean, I think there's a theme to it,
and that is that we have to talk to each other,
that we can't just cut each other off. That's one
thing I really don't like about the left these days.
They're very exclusionary. If you're not exactly on the page
with them, if you don't believe in the one true
opinion that they have, then they don't even want to
(20:26):
talk to you. We saw this after the election where
a number of people were advising family members to cut
off people in your own family over the holidays. We're
talking about Thanksgiving and Christmas because they voted for the
wrong guy in the election. You're not going to talk
to people in your family. Yeah, no, no, no, that's
(20:49):
not good. I'm not down with that. So I think
if there's any message I want people to have, it's
you're going to have to talk to people. Because half
the country is not self deporting. They're still going to
be here, and just because they voted for Donald Trump,
which I would never do, doesn't mean they're bad people.
(21:09):
I don't want to hate half the country, and I
don't hate half the country Bill ma Man.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
I love the relationship that we've cultivated. I love my
appearances on Club Random. I've had an absolute blast. It's
the only time of my life I've had a contact
high in front of the camera. It's all because of you.
Snoop Dogg is very, very proud of me for that.
I wish you nothing but the best. Can't wait to
see this comedy special coming out January tenth. Is anyone
else seeing this? You know I will be in front
(21:36):
of my two watching. I can't wait to see it.
Happy for you, proud of you, and looking forward to
talking to you. Down to line, my brother. You take
it easy, okay.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Thank you, man. I love you and I hope I
get to see you soon.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
You will all the best of you.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Take care,