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December 22, 2025 184 mins

With over four decades in show business, you might think that Bill Maher needs no introduction. But Posting Through Itcovers MAGA and the far right, and if you have perused politics-heavy corners of social media lately, you know that Maher has emerged as one of the most polarizing commentators of Trump’s second term. 

No longer beloved by liberals, Maher has hosted a bizarre rotation of MAGA friendly guests, including Kid Rock, RFK Jr. and Marjorie Taylor Greene. He also punches left on everything from vaccines to Gaza. 

Jared and Mike welcome comedian Will Weldon on for this three-hour Holiday spectacular. You will leave learning about everything from Maher’s psychedelic, short-lived Showtime show "Hard Knocks" to his alleged relationships with Los Angeles-area sex workers. 

Tune in and find out who is out on these streets rooting for the planes on 9/11!


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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I just do not like the attitude.And this gets back to what you
said when you first sat down there, Like liberals are
different than we were kids. These are not our grandfathers.
Liberals, you know, I, I think liberals are just liberals.
But whatever, for whatever reason, woke became the word.
I know it's not always blah, blah, blah, but that's the word
people use now for left gone toofar and left just change their

(00:25):
attitude in very in a lot of ways, they're the opposite of
liberals. I mean, liberalism was about
let's have a color blind society.
That's not where they're at. They're at, let's notice race
always 1st and fundamentally as the most important thing.
That's not a good attitude. That's not it's not even
appropriate to today, I don't think.

(00:47):
And it doesn't make things better.
It's divisive. It's divisive and it's I don't
think it's consistent with, you know, the, the people I know I.

(01:38):
Welcome back to posting Through IT.
Thanks for joining us another week and joining us for another
installment in our Who the Hell series.
I'm Sherrod Holt. And I'm Mike Hayden.
And I'm Will Weldon. This episode's all about Bill
Maher. Few self-described liberals draw
more anger from the left, from progressive, even from other

(02:02):
self-described liberals, than Bill Maher does.
If you've been on the political corners of social media in
recent years, you've probably seen people getting mad at Bill,
circulating clips of him doing embarrassing things on his show.
Bill has a very dry delivery. Sometimes he tells a joke,
sometimes he just states his opinion.

(02:23):
But it's safe to say Bill reallypisses people off.
The flip side of this is that ifyou search through MAGA social
media, you will periodically seeTrump lovers sharing Bill Maher
clips as a way of boosting theirown argument.
Like see, even Bill Maher can see the truth about this.
Even Bill Bill Maher knows. Mago often uses Bill Maher as a

(02:46):
stock liberal who can see the truth about his own side.
Bill has had a very successful, lucrative and long media career
and his current show called RealTime is on HBO that's lasted 1/4
of a century, which is like The Simpsons in TV years.

(03:07):
I mean, few shows have gone on that long today, Real time
brings in half a million viewerson HBO, including my dad.
And that crosses over to like a million plus if it gets reruns
on CNN, which is, you know, aspires to be the standard
bearer of good old centrism in this country, if this country

(03:29):
has any center left to speak of.As you're going to learn today,
Bill has built a centrist brand by describing himself as a
liberal and being anti Trump while also punching left and
more importantly, punching down.Punching down is Mars favorite
mode of attack as a comedian andas a pundit.
When Mar punches down, he tends to chase safer targets like

(03:51):
Muslims and trans people. He also really likes to target
idealistic young activists, likethe kinds you'd find on college
campuses. Bill's really interesting
because he is Ito has been treated by all these corporate
media conglomerates as the face of centrism, and because of
that, he has a huge influence onthe way that media beyond his

(04:14):
show talks about politics. So today we're going to try to
figure out who the hell. Who the hell?
Who the hell? Who the hell is Bill Maher?
And with us to talk about this is comedian Will Weldon.
I just want to say off script, Ilove will.
I love Will's work. I was really excited, wanted to

(04:34):
reach out to him for this and I'm so happy he said yes.
And he's willing to sit down forwhat is probably going to be
like 5 hours of talking about Bill Maher with us.
In addition to his excellent work as a stand up comic, will
host a very useful and very funny, but useful because it's I
you know, I I can get everythingI need to know about Bill Maher
from will show called I hate Bill Maher and say I hate Bill

(04:57):
Maher podcast. We will put links to his work in
the show notes. Now, just briefly here is here's
my reason for wanting to do a show about Bill Maher.
Who the hell is will Bill Maher?Because because I sort of had to
convince Jared and it really came down to like after October
7th. I think I was really emotional.
I mean, like, you know, I've talked about on the show, people

(05:19):
in my family. I have people who are
Palestinian, things like that. I have a lot of very close
Jewish friends and things. And there was a Facebook
argument I had with somebody. You know, this is the person I
knew from childhood. I didn't, you know, I wasn't
really close to them. And I was pleading with them to
acknowledge the number of children that had been killed in
Gaza. They kind of cut off.
They do that thing that people do on social where they cut off

(05:41):
the conversation. And then they kind of posted
separately a link to something right where they're clearly
talking to me but not talking tome.
You got subtweeted. Yeah, I got subtweeted by
somebody I like went to like elementary school with, and it
was a link to Bill Maher talkingabout Gaza.

(06:03):
I, I just blocked them on Facebook.
It's like a real, like primal moment.
And like since then, I don't know.
There's just something about like, oh, is it really?
That's who you're just going to trot out?
So I just like, since then, I'vejust been wanting to go deeper
on the show on this guy. And yeah, what made you want to
do it? Well, I got to say, I fucking

(06:26):
hate Bill Maher. That's that's it.
I don't like anything about him.I think he's a fraud.
While his shows may have been interesting at various points
and maybe even had some value, Ithink he as a host, especially
with Real Time, has literally never been good at what he does.

(06:47):
And I resent the fact that as mymy brain screams out for some
sort of order and for things to make sense in a disorganized
universe, he is to me just the prime example of how like,
nothing makes any sense, nothingthat should happen does.
And nobody, whoever deserves to,no one ever gets what they

(07:13):
literally, to quote Clint Eastwood in the film Unforgiven
deserves, got nothing to do withit.
I think that is why I started a podcast about how I hate Bill
Maher. I'm really coming to terms with
the fact that we are burdened bymega celebrities who really,
really have either no talent OR they have a certain amount of

(07:33):
talent that that kind of cress. And then they they kind of just
kind of hold on to it by being an asshole.
But let's actually just get intoBill Maher and where he came
from. He's born in 1956 in New York
City and he is a boomer. I look this off to make sure

(07:57):
because 1956, I wasn't sure, youknow, is he like some sort of
cusp of Gen. X or something?
No, he's a flat out boomer. But he's a young boomer, and he
is a young boomer relative to tosay, Donald Trump.
But technically he is a boomer. So Bill grew up in Rivervale,
New Jersey. Rivervale is wealthy.
It's predominantly white. Will what was his family like?

(08:20):
So he was raised a Catholic and his dad is an Irishman.
But he, he stopped, he says he stopped me really being Catholic
when he was like 13 because his dad had issues with, I think
either abortion or birth controlwith the church and ended up
storming out and they, they didn't go back.
And then in his late teens, he learned that he's Jewish on his

(08:43):
mother's side. And it's an odd part of his
identity because he has talked about it, and he has talked
about how he feels pride towardshis dad because he imagines
people weren't thrilled about his dad marrying a Jewish woman.
But he also is like, weirdly evasive when people directly
say, well, you're Jewish. He will sort of obfuscate and be

(09:06):
like, well, you know, because I think he thinks maybe it's like
a really, I don't know. I'm only here to psychoanalyze
the non racial parts of his identity I think.
Well, we're going to get into some of that later, but I, I, I
think it's interesting that he finds out he's Jewish at 19.
He later, or I guess probably early decides he's an atheist,

(09:28):
but he also kind of is a Zionistas well, which is a kind of a
weird combination. I don't know if he would call
himself that, but he calls himself a staunch supporter of
Israel, which to me sounds like a Zionist.
So he was not popular as a kid. He mentions frequently that he
was bullied via ostracization. Well, they wouldn't pick his

(09:48):
song for a Pledge of Allegiance.I don't understand.
Is that his? You put that in there?
Well, so I don't. Know it's just that he'd be like
you know how you pick a song forthe play you sing a song for the
Pledge of Allegiance and they would never ever pick mine and
I've. Asked What does that mean?
I've asked people what does thatmean?
And all of them are like I I couldn't tell you what that
means. That's a joke, Jared.

(10:10):
It's a joke of some kind. He's listed at some places as
565758, so not exactly the most imposing guy in the world.
He worked as a stock boy for theA&P supermarket.
According to things he said on podcasts, he claimed to be very
shy with girls and that he struggled to connect.

(10:30):
That's like a big thing he's been talking about lately, as
Will told us before we went on this podcast.
And here he is on a on a on a recent podcast with Barbara Eden
talking about that he how he's an insect.
One of the problems we have today I'm and and the the sexes
are just moving in opposite directions in every possible

(10:50):
way. I mean, there, there's just a
lot of hate for the other. There's in cells.
Those are guys, you know who that is involuntarily celibate?
They're guys who can't get laid,which, you know, no shame.
I used to be an in cell. We didn't have a name for it.
And when I advertised that I can't get laid, I didn't want to

(11:12):
join a club with other fucking losers who can't get laid.
I just it was like, you can't get laid.
Well, do something about it, youknow, I masturbated and plotted
how I could get better. I OK, and I don't do that today.
They just hate on the way they blame the women.
It's. Like a 94 year old woman he's
talking to there. Yeah, yeah.

(11:33):
And later on when I was pulling the clip for this, he goes on to
suggest that this elderly woman create an Only Fans account
because she would kiss on only Fans.
So Bill attended Cornell University at the same time as
Keith Olbermann, who has not been in the news recently for
any specific reason. Keith Olberman said on his

(11:58):
podcast that Bill Maher started his own college humor paper, so
he's showing an interest in comedy, and that starts to play
out through the 1980s. Tell us about that, Will.
How funny you brought that up about Keith Olbermann's
newsworthiness, because I'm realizing that's something they
would actually be able to have aconversation about these days.
So in the 1980s, he he moved to New York and he started doing

(12:20):
stand up in New York. He likes to talk about this is
like his broke period. He'll be like, I was so broke, I
was so broke. But he he started getting paid.
I mean, it was a stand up comedyboom.
So you could like make money doing stand up comedy pretty
easily. There were like 15 comedy clubs
in every city. And he was kind of in like the
mid tea. He was like a catch a rising
star guy in New York. And then that led to him getting

(12:43):
some success and he moved out toLos Angeles where he was getting
some TV spots. He also his mentor was a ritual.
He said his his mentor is Richard Belzer and his hero is
George Carlin. And actually, when they've been
on real, real time, you can likesee the differences in those two
dynamics play out in the way he looks up to both of them a lot.

(13:07):
But in my opinion, Carlin would hate this stuff that he does.
Am I do? What do you think?
I mean, I don't know. You said he's been on Bill's
show. What I mean, how does that go?
Are they friendly or? Yes, I mean, who?
Look, somebody is like, please, please, I'm begging you, come do
my show. You're the best.
And you get there and they're like this next guy.

(13:28):
Oh my God, he's the greatest guyto ever do it.
And I'd love to be as good as him, but I never will be.
It's Jared Holt. Jared, you'd have a little bit
of fondness for that guy. I probably wouldn't be an
asshole. And it's also, it's like, you
know, Carlin it, it, it's like there weren't a lot of guys who
are trans. There weren't a lot of guys on

(13:49):
TV being like, oh, the man in the sky is going to grant you
wishes. So all those guys got along at
least a little bit. So Bill starts getting frequent
guest spots on Johnny Carson andDavid Letterman's show.
Here he is in 1985 on Carson's show.
He's looking very fresh faced and talking about President

(14:12):
Reagan. It was a popular move.
But see, that is the amazing thing about Ronald Reagan is
that even when he does somethingpolicy wise that people don't
like, he's still popular, you know, and he's such a likable.
I'm that way too. He does something so nice.
I don't like. I want to be mad at him, but you
can you turn on the TV. It's one of those you Reagan.
I'm Oh, Ronnie. Oh, as long as you put it that

(14:40):
way, yes, I can agree with you on that.
You know, you can't not like him.
You see me going on for the weekend Friday.
He's got the black pants walkingthe dog waves.
It's like your dad is running the country, you know?
Will, you're a comedian. How has that been?
If you go like, oh, Ronald Reagan, you know, you want to be
mad at the guy, but then you turn on the TV and you go, I'm

(15:00):
not mad at this guy. That the act out is only only
adds to the joke if it's somehowbrings a new surprise or adds a
new element. The worst kind of comedic act
act outs are when you just do the thing you just said, to the
surprise of no one. You, you guys are sitting there
like just staring depressed as as that rolled and I'm the only

(15:21):
one laughing because I'm like, this is this is the least least
funny, most ass licking comedy bit I have ever heard in my
life. I mean, but yeah, I mean, maybe
I'm maybe I'm just so brain poisoned.
I I prefer bad comedy, but it was just so bad.
It just like so palpably stupid.And and and also it's just such
an effort to say like, oh, I'm kind of the liberal guy, you

(15:44):
know, some of that. But like, please, I don't want
to alienate the many voters in this country who voted for
Reagan, a very popular presidentat the time.
Not exactly the guy would go to for hard hitting political
analysis, but our country did apparently after that.
Will, you mentioned that Bill Maher moved to LA.
What's he, what's he doing in LA?

(16:06):
He just couldn't make it in New York or what?
Yes, thank you for their that very organic Segway, Jared.
So he moved to LA and he startedbooking pilots.
He actually had like a lot of success as an actor, which was
the thing I was. There are a few things I've been
as startled to discover as I wasto discover that doing the
podcast. He had a show with Geena Davis,

(16:26):
Alfre Woodard and Bronson Pinchot who obviously in that
list of 3 is going to be listed last and.
Shout out to Pinchot. Yeah, becoming.
Y'all like Pinchot? I've heard he's a huge He's not
a great guy to spend time with. And then he also was on.
So he did a lot of guest spots. But he starred on Sarah, and he

(16:50):
also was one of the stars of a Showtime sitcom that was sort of
like around the time It's Garry Shandling Show was on, and it's
called Hard Knocks. It's truly weird, but in a way
that ends up being kind of disappointing.
It's can I just say quickly before we play a clip from this,

(17:13):
that like I when I was watching this and I was imagining what it
would be like to watch it on hallucinogenic drugs, it like I
would, I would absolutely someone have to call would would
absorb to call the ambulance forme because I would be like
crying terrified. It's just like it's it's so
stilted and upsetting and weird and the dialogue doesn't make
sense. I don't understand how this was

(17:34):
even on TV. Let's listen.
Who's got a hankering for fried cheese?
Free Silky. Somebody's hungry.
Settle down, Nikki. The plenty for everybody.
Good put. The cheese down silky Nick do
our job. We're taking you back to jail.

(17:56):
I never went they. Threw the case out of court.
You were guilty as sin. I know, but I showed the judge
my lucky photograph, him and theD as daughter Silkies.
On a community service program, create great content.
I love this. The guy who plays Silky was a
producer of Arrested Development, for the record.
Oh wow, he. Was He's like a very prolific

(18:18):
television writer and producer. But what would my thing is like
what, what, what like when I saystilted, like that was obviously
stilted. And also the other thing is it's
just like, where were the where were the jokes?
It was like, what? What's going on?
Wait a second. I know I hate like, Bill Maher,
but even I can see that, the humor in a guy who talks like
this. What's funnier than a guy who

(18:42):
talks like that? And his name's Silky, and you
can't see it, but he's very tallon the show.
That's actually a clip from the best episode of Hard Knocks.
Because it's the weirdest episode.
And then they get progressively less weird and like, way way way
worse. I'm casting you.
Is that guy in my Hard Knocks reboot?
So he was in movies too. He was in Oh my God, DC Cab is

(19:05):
sort of the normal movie he was in, but he also starred in two
movies that were both written and directed by the original
credited screenwriter of Pretty Woman, and they're called
Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death and and Pizza
Man. We've got a clip from Pizza Man

(19:27):
here. I want to know how the pizza
fits in. There's no military takeover in
the United States, is there? The Army, Navy and Air Force
couldn't agree on what kind of shit to serve on a shingle, let
alone how to take over the country, right?
Right. My life.
Well come on, fess up. We smoked pot in college, but

(19:50):
great point. I was just in the long twos.
My father pulled the streets to get me into the national job.
Oh shit, I'm sorry it. Was.
That's enough, Elmo. It was me.

(20:13):
I ordered a piece. OK, I'm just going to stop the
clip here. You didn't get you didn't get
who ordered the pizza? Isn't it Mayor Tom Bradley?
No, it's Donald Trump ordered the pizza.
Right. He's he's shaking down this
military guy being like, who ordered the fucking pizza?
Who? I need my $15.23 and then Donald

(20:34):
Trump is like I ordered the pizza.
Right, right, right. Right.
Yeah. And you might have heard him go.
That's enough Elmo. That's because Bill Maher's
character's name is Elmo Bunt. And it's like, so The thing is,
it is a comedy. It's like a, it's like a satire.
It's working for. Me.
It it's like it wears out its welcome pretty quick because it

(20:57):
is in the scenes are interminably long and I think in
modern movies they cut way too much.
It's like, let the actors act, give the actors like 10 seconds
of a this, this you will beg forthem to cut.
It is you're like, I'm sorry. It is still an establishing wide
what's going on. Nobody's moved.

(21:17):
There's no no business, no stagedirection.
Elmo bunt maxing. No, dude, it's funny you said
that because when I was pulling the clip, you know, I, I have to
like watch it while the audio's recording and all I could think
was just like, get the fuck on with it.
Like what's the? Yeah.
He's he's been interrogating this guy for like a minute and
1/2 right now. It there's he walks in on

(21:41):
Geraldine Ferraro and I think Ronald Reagan in bed together.
Former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley tries to shoot him to
death in a warehouse with an AK47, which bothered me.
They kind of talk shit about TomBradley.
And I'm like, I'm sorry. Tom Bradley is like the most
beloved. Los Angeles hates all its mayors
except except for Tom Bradley. And also Michael Dukakis gives

(22:02):
him a ride to his house. And I want, I really want to
emphasize you could listen to what I just said and then play
clips of every single one of thepeople doing the impressions of
those characters. You would not be able to
identify a single one of them. They are the worst impressions
you've ever heard in your entirelife.
The movie is fascinating but gets like really dull really

(22:24):
quickly. He also has an extended dance
sequence in it. And the one thing I will give
him credit for is it does seem like he is able to do a backhand
spring when he's like 30. In 1992, he kind of makes his
transition into a fully politically, you know, coded
career, I think it's safe to say, because he's on Comedy

(22:46):
Central's Indecision 92. And for people who don't know
exactly what that was, it was sort of an early forerunner for
like the kind of Jon Stewart comedy that would come in the
next decade. And it featured Al Franken.
Chris Rock was involved, AriannaHuffington, who I, who I believe
Will, was like a regular guest. Yes, Bills, for many years after

(23:08):
that. He fakes a proposal to her on
the very last episode of Politically Incorrect.
OK, Yeah. Exactly.
So yeah, that's how close they are.
So, yeah, I mean it like one example of one of the stunts
that they did was that Al Franken went down in the press
pool and kind of did a live comedic run while talking about
George W George HW Bush was talking.

(23:31):
And people found that really funny at the time.
And it really gave birth to thissort of political comedy
entertainment landscape that continues on today and that
launched politically incorrect. What?
Was politically incorrect because this is like his huge
brick right? It's his show.
It's his baby. He talks about how he'd be like,

(23:52):
this was the show I always imagined.
It's me and just, you know, whenI just be sitting around talking
to my friends, I was like, this should be a show, a thing every
single comedian has said at somepoint in their careers, like
hanging out with the other company.
Like this should be a show, but it's him for panelists and the
the intro, there are a few different intros over the years.

(24:13):
There's one where they're sort of pasting his face.
It's like cut ups and of various, you know, moments in,
in history and they're putting his face over at one point, a
guy in a KKK robe, which I also agree is the kind of thing where
if I was watching the opening for my TV show, I'd be like,
perhaps we can choose a different historical figure to
put my face over. And but he is like, he loves to

(24:36):
be like edgy. Like that's like his thing is
he's he's transgressive. He'll be like, we have the
conversations other people don'thave, but when we have these
conversations, people watching at home are like, finally, I'm
not crazy, somebody else is saying it.
Yeah, that sounds about right. He had like a kind of a, what I

(24:58):
would describe as a modified mullet.
Then it's. Tough, yeah.
It's a difficult haircut to lookat.
I don't know why it no one stopped him from doing that, but
it seemed to, it didn't seem to slow him down any.
And some of the jokes that they would tell were it, this was the
tone of the jokes. I you know, I'll leave the

(25:19):
audience to decide what they think of this.
Yeah, yeah. This was what like Bill Maher
was like. This should be a show.
Bill, have you heard about the new book, the new book that's
put out, been put out for perspective illegal aliens.
It's called 1000 Games and Puzzles to do in the Trunk of a
Car. So.

(25:41):
I I can explain what that is. So for the first season of the
show, it ended with a segment hecalled Cleaning Out My Notebook
where he would sit with another comic who is a friend of his,
Bill something, and they would just literally just sit there
and read out of the notebooks they wrote new jokes in.
This is like this, this is the kind of thing that I would

(26:01):
propose to Jarrett to do on the show.
And then he'd be like, no, man. Like, yeah.
But if these guys are on HBO, they're like, yeah, I'll just
read the dumb shit that's in my notebook.
Yeah. No, I I would veto that
immediately. Oh yeah, this is at least Comedy
Central Pre South Park. So like anybody listening to
this is like doubling the numberof people who have heard this

(26:25):
segment on the show before. Like it just it had really low
numbers while on Comedy Central,but I think they were good for
Comedy Central because nobody watched it.
It went to a network that a lot of people watch, which was ABC,
which looking back on it, I, I think that just kind of tells
you a bit about where the country was at, that this was

(26:47):
like major network television, this kind of thing.
And it was very successful there.
Will do you have any theories onwhy it was so successful?
I I mean, it's, it's kind of crazy to think about jokes like
that getting put in front of, you know, the unwashed masses
of, of TV viewers who, you know,these days just want to see the,

(27:09):
the Masked Singer and who's, who's under the mask singing a
pop song. You know, it's like that sort of
demographic is now getting Bill Maher blasted to their living
room. So my first controversial thing
is I think the reason it was successful because it is
fundamentally often sometimes the show is atrocious.
They did, you know, one every night of the week for like 20

(27:31):
minutes. Some of them were so bad.
But sometimes politically incorrect is incredible
television because they don't gofor, like, they're not trying to
get quality panelists. They're trying to create a
scene. So there is an episode where two
of the four panelists are Tom Arnold and Carrot Top, and the
show's on it like midnight. So, you know, before the

(27:54):
Internet. Or some of our younger viewers.
I just want to say Tom Arnold was, but he was he like Roseanne
Barr's husband, right? First husband?
Yeah, he had a whole career of his own.
One of his famous, he had a he did a live touring show called
the Tom Arnold Show where he would have a tank filled with
goldfish next to him on stage. And over the course of the show,
he would kill all of the goldfish in the fish tank over

(28:17):
the course of the show. And that was like his famous.
That was like his famous live show that he.
Did OK. Who the hell is Tom Arnold?
They're getting episode ideas here.
But like, OK. And then Carrot Top, all I know
is as indescribable. Yeah, it's a like he was a prop
comic. He's not like Gallagher.

(28:39):
Gallagher used to like, blow up watermelons and stuff, right?
Keratop. But Keratop was a a prop comic
of some kind. He had a suitcase filled with
gag props, so he'd be like, oh, look at this.
It's a it's a toilet seat for when you have to sit on the
toilet for a long time. And it's like a toilet seat with
the like woven beads that like cab drivers used to have on

(29:01):
their, their car seats in like the 90s.
And he'd be like, and then he, it's just him pulling shit out
of a bag and being like this crazy thing I've come up with
and then tossing it aside. But at some point, he was also
the, he was the most popular, I want to emphasize he was the
most popular comedian in the country for a number of years.
And then as his popularity waned, he was like, well, what

(29:23):
better time than now to start a cycle of anabolic steroids?
And he is now so jacked and so vascular.
You look at him and you go, thisguy hasn't had a glass of water
in 12 years. The question is the you know is
the anti woke though. That's the real question anyway.

(29:44):
I don't. I there were and also I've heard
from people now that his show's really low energy.
So now instead of being like with the thing, that's like,
he's right here, arrow through the head, whatever.
Kill you shut up bro like use toilet seat OK so continue so
about he's like Maher is creating scenes like he said
he's he's. It's people on television who

(30:06):
literally the last episode of Politically Incorrect, Ariana
Huffington and Ann Coulter both go You were the person who gave
both of us our first national media appearances.
We both owe our careers to you. So, like, he would have he,
Christine O'Donnell, if you guysrecall, a Tea Party favorite.
Christine O'Donnell, the witch candidate who?

(30:28):
Yeah, who lost to Chris Coons, who otherwise would have lost to
the Republican. Everybody thought he was going
to end up running against her campaign was sunk by her
appearances on Politically incorrect because she would go
on Politically incorrect and go I'm a witch.
And that's like where all that shit started.
Dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around.
People who who were. Doing these.
Things. I'm not sure how old either of

(30:48):
you are, but Mike, you. I am 46 years young.
Yes. I'm 12 years old, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. You're you're, you're.
No. I'm like your boy audio slave.
I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm peak age to have like had Bill Maher
chattering in the background forlike most of my life.
Like I'd be like with my high school girlfriend and like

(31:09):
looking for stuff to like have on the TV while we're just like
kind of hanging out to like makeout or whatever.
And they'd be like shit like Bill Maher, run it and be like,
turn this guy's socks, turn it off.
So that's like. That's so troubling, making out
to Bill that's that's almost as bad as when we.
We, we would. It would be we We made out to
Beavis and Butthead, that's what.
OK, yeah, my, my friend in my friend in 10th grade fingered

(31:30):
his girlfriend for the first time on the bed behind me while
we were all watching The Dark Crystal.
And that's why the Dark Crystal I like, can't watch it.
It's like traumatizing to relivethat experience just sitting
there looking straightforward, being like, do not look back.
It's it's like, so it's like in the 90s, nobody was going on
television and being like, I don't believe in God.

(31:51):
And Bill Maher was always like, I smoke weed, I'm a hedonist, I
don't believe in God. And I all of those things
genuinely were like very edgy and transgressive at the time.
So it's like, and it's on at midnight and it's cheap.
It's just some people sitting around a table.
So it's like if it develops any kind of following at all, you
can charge more for ads than if you're just running rewind

(32:12):
reruns nobody cares about at midnight.
So you can make more money off of it.
And it's incredibly cheap to produce.
So it's like they got media attention.
It was controversial, it was talked about.
They could get advertisers, theycould also lose advertisers,
happen frequently. But it's like it was a very old
television, old network television model of success
where it's like this isn't primetime.

(32:33):
We don't need a big hit. We just need something that
enough people will talk about. It's worth keeping on the air.
And he always was, until he was very much not for them.
I'm going to queue up the next audio, which is from this show.
I just want to just pause at onethought about it, which is, yes,
it may. I think more of the idea is that

(32:53):
it seemed edgy and transgressiveat the time in the 90s.
But when you look at the 90s as a whole, there was a lot of
people doing that sort of thing and succeeding at the same time.
And the whole body of it feels like a lot of like it doesn't,
you know, it doesn't like culturally there was, it was a
very easy place to be an atheist, for instance.

(33:14):
I think publicly in the 90s it became one.
Maybe it wasn't in the 80s, but I feel like in the 90s it became
a little bit easier. So it may have felt more
transgressive than it actually was.
And like, I just think about that in terms of Bill Maher and
how safe he seemed talking aboutReagan versus where he was a
decade later. I don't know if you disagree
with that. Well, where are where?

(33:35):
Where Where did you grow up? Queens, Long Island.
Yeah, I, I grew up in Arkansas and even like I'm younger than
Mike, but even in my life growing up when I was thinking
like I'm agnostic or, you know, atheist is even too strong.
I, I, I'm just like, not I, I don't feel connected to religion
in my life, but it's just doesn't draw me.

(33:58):
Even growing up in Arkansas, like in the 2000s, that felt
like I had to be careful who I told, you know?
That's fair. That's my like a little bit of
my bias there. People, people look at you
different. Yeah, I grew up like I grew up.
It's different in Canada. The Catholic school system is a
part of the public system there because of the, it's like a deal

(34:18):
they had made with the French Canadians.
But like, I, it was like crazy to me the first time I
confronted the idea of like, notbelieving in God.
It was like so scary to me. And I was afraid people would
find out. So I think it also is like, I'll
also say like, yeah, your point stands that like nobody cool
watch this show. And was like, holy shit, man,

(34:40):
this is crazy. It's like if you were a.
Loser. If if you were a loser, this
shit fucking this shit could rock.
And also he would have like likeBoots Riley was on there in the
90s going I'm a communist to like the jeers and boos of the
audience and other panelists there.
There would just be like people on there who refused to back
down and to the show close credit.

(35:02):
They would book them like they would book people like that
because they didn't. They weren't like we need a good
high minded conversation. They were just like, we just
want people on to be honest and like, we'll deal with that.
It it's like the meme. Whatever, this shit must go
really hard if you're stupid anyway.
Well, Mar got in trouble one of the first times he got, like, in

(35:23):
pretty big trouble on that show you mentioned before his desire
to be edgy and be and be perceived as edgy.
And he got in trouble for sayingthere was no functionally no
difference between children withmental disabilities and dogs.
Do you want to play the clip? Yeah.
I'll, I'll just give listeners aheads up.

(35:44):
He does not describe them as children with mental
disabilities here. But we're going to, we're going
to play the clip just so it's there.
But I've often said that if I had, I have two dogs, if I had
two retarded children, I'd be a hero.
And yet the dogs, which are pretty much the same thing, what
they're they're sweet, they're loving, they're kind, but they

(36:07):
don't mentally advance it all. I'm going to throw my shoe at
you for that one. What dogs are like retarded
children? The show is living up to its
name. Show is really, you know.
What nephew? My 9 year old nephew was
retarded. I've never thought of him like a
little dog. Also just kind of where things

(36:28):
were culturally that that is we're, we're also using that
word in the defense here. That's right.
Yes, that's a good point. I, I mean, my favorite part of
that clip, and yes, I have a favorite part is when it's very
like obvious that the, the audience is turning on him where

(36:49):
they just had enough clearly andthey're like, I just love it
because you can just feel it in the room.
Yeah, because he says it in the audience, laughs like it's a
punch line. They're like, Oh my God, I can't
believe he said that. And then he double s down and
that that the second reaction after he says it again is like
actually Bill, not sure. Yeah, it's good.

(37:12):
It's good when somebody is like,says something and you're like,
ho, ho, he said it again. And they're like, no, I am
deadly serious right now. And you're like, uh oh, we got
to get out of here. Anyway, I don't think there's
much to say about that one. It doesn't like, it didn't even
feel like there was a joke there, right?
It's just like he, he, he, I feel like he's, he's got this

(37:34):
idea, like he's just, he's telling hard truths, but it
doesn't seem to sink his career.He actually does apologize for
that one later. He, he actually does sincerely
apologize for that one, specifically to parents of
children with mental disabilities.
He, he ends up apologizing. There's a Howard Stern interview
where he talked about and he is fine with apologizing but is

(37:58):
very angry that anyone other than those parents got mad at
him for saying that because he'she accuses them of just being
performative outrage merchants. You wrote that the show is like
really sexist and you mentioned that there was like, I, I looked
for I, I, I couldn't find what you, what you mentioned in here,
but there's apparently some super clip of him just saying
like, hey baby, hey sweetie or whatever.

(38:18):
They did like maybe like a 20th anniversary special or something
or 18th anniversary special thatmight be on if it's not on HBOII
think I have it on my computer. I can throw it up for you guys,
but there's just a part in it where he's like, and I was
capable of growth. And they show a, they show a
clip from politically incorrect of him being like, listen,
people, you know, people tell melike, oh, Bill, the way you talk

(38:40):
about women, it's not OK. And I'll admit, you know, I have
a lot of my friends on the show and I'm friendly with them.
And I, I greet them in a friendly way.
And then it's a super cut of himbeing like, hey, baby, hey,
sweetie, hey, sugar. And he's like kissing them on
the cheeks and like pulling themin for a hug.
And, and then he's like, but youknow what?
People have told me they don't like it.
And I, I know, you know, people tell you, hey, this bothers

(39:02):
women. You shouldn't keep doing it.
On the second episode of Real Time, he has Doctor Monica
Crowley on the show and he introduces her by going Doctor
Monica Crowley. The crowd claps.
He looks at Larry Miller and he goes, that's a good looking
doctor, huh, Larry? The crowd laughs and he goes,
how'd you like to get a checkup from her?
And he's like, this guy Never, ever did not change.

(39:24):
EW. She also I think plagiarized her
doctorate is what people discovered, something like that.
Jumping to March 1998, Bill Maher gets in trouble again,
this time for defending a 35 year old female teacher who had
an ongoing sexual relationship with a 14 year old boy.

(39:48):
Here's what he said on the show.A woman who's over 20 years
older and she. Raped this kid.
Raped. What?
Come on, are. You.
Forced, she forced. How do you know and how can?
You. Well, how do you know that she
didn't rape him? How can a woman.
Know that she didn't seduce him.How can a woman rape a man?

(40:08):
I think that you should see the look on Henry Rollins face.
Yeah, that's, that's a good point.
That's a good point. I remember Henry Rollins was
like, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then Bill's response is like, oh, so you're on on her
side the the woman on the panel who's like, what's wrong with
you? Yeah, it's, it's not just any it
that's literally he's talking about Mary Kalik Turno, who he

(40:30):
continued to defend for years afterwards, where he would be
like, no, that was true love, 'cause they're still together.
I have a feeling this might comeup a little bit later.
These attitudes about oh. Yeah.
About younger people and sexual relationships with older people.
But politically incorrect doesn't last forever.

(40:50):
How does that show wind down? It's it's around like the turn
of the 2000s, right? Yes.
So I'll, I'll say I, I didn't send you guys a clip.
I didn't send you guys a clip ofthis.
But in sort of late September, some guys did get a little rowdy
and hijack some planes and fly them into some pretty important

(41:12):
buildings in New York City. So that's.
Actually, what that's that's that's what.
This next clip is in reference to yes.
Hold on. I know.
MMM, You live in New York. Do you know what Will's talking
about right now? I don't know what's going on I.
Think it's I think it was referred to as like the bachelor
party from hell or something. I don't remember the details of
who did it and what the circumstances were.

(41:33):
So it was a very sensitive time in America.
I was in Canada, baby. I was in Canada.
I was primal loser shit. So I moved down here.
I moved to California from Toronto, but I grew up in
Calgary. Oh my God, Calgary's like a
white collar oil town. We're such, we're such posers.
On 9/11 we were like, well, we're a pretty important oil

(41:54):
city. What if they attack us next?
The most pathetic shit. Well, I mean, you know, Trump,
Trump may, Trump may still attack them over that.
So you know. North America was like that, I
said. I grew up in Arkansas.
We were really close to like where Walmart was headquartered.
And they're like, what if they attacked the Walmart Home
Office? And they said OK.

(42:15):
Sorry, OK all. Right, they shouldn't laugh
also. There's nothing I want more than
to America than for America to attack Canada in the way In the
way. I'm sure there were many Soviet
expats who longed for Hitler to invade the Soviet Union.
Like yeah, give it a shot buddy.Go and see how fun the
conditions of that country are once you get 3 miles north of

(42:37):
the border. Yeah.
Well, so basically he says something that as like, I don't
know how you guys feel about this comment, but I just feel
like it's not that bad compared to like some of the other things
he's gotten in trouble for. Essentially what he says is he
says they're basically talking about whether how you should

(42:59):
sort of how you, how should we talk about these terrorists that
pulled off this horrific attack and, you know, on the World
Trade Center. And Bill says you shouldn't call
them cowards. We have been the cowards lobbing
cruise missiles from 2000 miles away.
That's coward. That is staying.

(43:20):
In the airplane when it hits thebuilding.
Say what you want about it, not coward.
Who was his guest on that one? Mike.
There was a, it's of course a panel, so there's more than one
person. But the the one that stood out
to me while he was saying that was Dinesh D'souza, the right
wing conspiracy theorist and crank who you know, you would

(43:41):
think should not have a platformnecessarily on any kind of
sensible political show. But there he was.
And I think he agrees with Bill Maher as well on the episode.
I'm pretty sure Dinesh D'souza is like, yeah, no, we shouldn't
because I think it's in the process of being like, yes, we
should have taken these guys more seriously under the
presidency of that disgusting moron pervert Bill Clinton.

(44:03):
But I still think he is like, yeah, that's that's true.
This is like the one a lot of people point this out as like it
was the one good thing he said he got fired for it and then he
never said anything good again. I don't know if it qualifies
necessarily as good, but I mean,it's like it's a very good like,
but it but it seems like very defensible to me where you're
saying you're saying, you know, it takes a lot of guts.

(44:27):
It's like saying that like, you know, Sean Combs is like was
like a, you know, tenacious business executive, like true.
And he's also, you know, he's also many other things.
But like, I mean, you should be able to isolate and say that
like, yeah, these psychopathic killers, you know, went through
with their statistic plan, but it was right in the aftermath of

(44:48):
that. The next episode comes of this
and got another guest to drop name drop on here.
Who his his his token right wingguy is actually Dennis Prager, a
younger Dennis Prager whose health has declined in recent
years but is responsible for a lot of really dumb university

(45:09):
Prager university tutorials for children and other things.
Not not a not not the best guy, but so he has him on and then he
says he does a kind of a slick marketing thing.
I don't know if you agree with this Will but I thought it was
like a self branding thing wherehe's just like if it'll make the
country whole then get rid of me.

(45:29):
But I just want to say that if destroying this show would
provide a venting for the anger out there, I would gladly do
that for my country in its time of news and.
He's a hero. He's a it is kind of slick,

(45:51):
though, right? It's.
Like, I thought it was like for like, like for a purely
marketing point of view, it was the best way to take heat in
that moment. And he also he had done like 7
HBO specials or something at that point.
He in the past had had dinner with the head of HBO.
Like, I'm sure that guy knew if something happens to me, I'm

(46:11):
taking a year off and then HBO is going to be right there.
Like I'm I really genuinely, fora long time since starting the
podcast, have believed like he knew HBO was always an option.
Yeah, that would make sense. He certainly didn't seem too
worried about losing the show, but he does 2002.

(46:34):
But But before he gets there, hestarts to get increasingly
comfortable attacking Arabs and Muslims on the show, sometimes
directly to their faces. There's a kind of a notorious
clip with Lebanese author and professor Assad Abu Khalil
around the time that the US invaded Afghanistan.

(46:55):
Let's listen to that real quick.They have nothing to explain.
They are just like any other American.
And simply. Simply, it is high time that you
believe that Muslim Arabs are just as entitled like anybody
else to have their own shares ofkooks, raises and terrorists
without having to judge the entire legend except.
Except that what's facetious about that argument, excuse me,

(47:17):
is that the kooks and the terrorists in the Christian and
the Jewish world are truly just a little fringe.
In the. Muslim world.
They draw from a vast pool, poolof support which is not in any
other religion. Well, so don't try to feed me
that let. Me feed you Well now I know you
know you're not Arabic. But well, I I just realized.

(47:38):
Not only do you know Arabic, butyour math is not great.
So you think that 19 Muslim Arabs who were behind the
September bombing speak for a billion and 200 million people
in the world? And how do you say?
On what basis that there is? I've had many Muslims here say,
you know what, most it's 20% andI go well, OK, that's 20%
million people I. Teach the Middle East.

(47:58):
It is nowhere around that you. Teach in America.
Most Muslim and I go to the Middle East and I lecture.
A lot of stuff like this. Yeah, this is the other thing
too. It's like I'm politically
incorrect. He would talk to anybody.
He he is more racist towards Muslims, Arabs, but politically
incorrect. The the show is ended and it's

(48:21):
kind of the end of the era wherehe is willing to just be openly
rude to his guests. Willy nilly with Willy nilly.
Oh my God, I've never said Willynilly in my entire life.
That's in the script for anybodywho's listening to this.
I I read it in a script. That's why I said that.
I would never say that in my ownrecord.
MM put it in the script. Yeah, Mike's corny.

(48:42):
Everybody make fun of Mike. All right, all right.
He the the show gets the the show is is the show dies like a
slow death because the all the advertisers pull out because he
does genuinely lose a lot of audience.
So ABC is like the show will endat the end of the season and he
goes on Larry King Live and he actually is quite gracious about

(49:03):
it all things considered. And then he complaints about the
feminization of America in reference to news orgs kind of
respect respecting Daniel Pearl's widow or I can.
It's a it's Daniel Pearl's mother.
So, yeah. So he's the Wall Street Journal
journalist and, you know, he wasbeheaded.

(49:24):
And it's his his death was put into a lot of propaganda films,
which became like a real technique of Islamic terrorists
in the Middle East. They would, you know, behead
people and then turn that content into propaganda and, you
know, circulated around to, you know, strike fear in the heart
of Westerners as well as try to bring people to their side

(49:47):
locally. And yet she didn't want it out.
And he basically said that this was making PeopleSoft.
Yeah, it's like he's like, he's like, oh, what are we a bunch of
chicks now? We won't even put a snuff film
on the news. Oh, I didn't know we were a
bunch of. I didn't know we were a bunch of
fucking chicks, man. We won't watch a guy get his

(50:08):
head cut off on the news. By the way, you can't see this
on the podcast, but he does a nice little head move that feels
like Nomar when he does it. Now he, he likes to slump back
and get the hand in front of andthen he he also goes on and
talks about how Israel has neverdone, Israel's never done

(50:29):
anything wrong, which is sort oflike, and then this is sort of
like, I think the big news appearance he does before
floating around a bit before hisnext big job.
Well, his next big job is Real Time, which is the show that we
talked about has been on for 1/4of a century.

(50:52):
The culture pretty much reabsorbs Bill Maher almost
immediately. February 21st, 2003, he is back
on air. The first episode he has Ann
Coulter on who becomes a regularon the show.
And they often just kind of bicker and like, take jabs at
each other. But she's on a lot.

(51:15):
What were his? In the six hundreds they were.
Twice. They.
Absolutely they. That gets you into Yale and
this. OHH, that's they were.
About what gores were. They were twice what Bill
Bradleys were. No, they yes they were.
You just make shit up. You do.
You just make shit. I love to see Queen Anne just

(51:36):
defending George W Bush, by the way, like his.
SAT. Scores.
Yeah, pathetic, Pathetic. But she's on a lot.
Will, you said earlier that didn't Anne say something to the
effect of like you were, you were my first big show that I
did right? Yeah, Politically Incorrect.
The last episode of Politically Incorrect.
She and Ariana Huffington are like this.

(51:56):
You, you gave us our first national TV shots on this show.
Like we owe you our careers. And it's like, look, I'm not
wild about either of those figures, but one of them I am
extremely not wild. About Yeah, Mike, you have some
thoughts about Ann Coulter What what did she do with this career
after Bill Maher launched it I'm.

(52:17):
Going to get like the the average listener of posting
through it is, is left of center.
I don't know who like might be right If they're just kind of,
you know, interested. They, they like our analysis,
even if they don't agree. But people may not fully know
the whole deal with Ann Coulter.A lot of people know Ann Coulter
as just being like, oh, I hate Ann Coulter.

(52:38):
And particularly people who are of people who are like my age,
that's like all they know. They just, I hate Ann Coulter.
She's just so nasty and she's always saying a nasty thing.
And that's kind of the way she is just like a cartoon white
woman who seems nasty and, and that's it.
But the reality is that Coulter has contributed, like, scores,

(53:01):
scores of pieces to Videre, which is, you know, one of the
most influential white nationalist publications to ever
exist. She is close friends with Peter
Brimwell. She worked with Peter Thiel, you
know, in an attempt to to, to get Kris Kobach into Senate.

(53:22):
Thank God that didn't work. Kris Kobach being like so
extreme that even voters in Kansas ruled him out of a
primary. He was talking about doing drone
strikes in Mexico as part of histhing.
Of course, Pete Hegseth is like probably like an inch away from
actually doing that. But that's a different story.
And I just think it's important to highlight that Ann Coulter

(53:43):
became a celebrity that everybody knew and everybody was
like, oh, I hate her. But in reality, she was an
extremist. And whether you want to call her
a white nationalist or not, you can certainly call her racist,
which I think many people did asshe was coming up.
And it it, it was very easy to see that.
But I mean, she was really a bigpart of the anti immigrant
movement, the nativist movement in this country, like the real

(54:05):
racist rights stuff that gave birth to Trump.
And in fact, her book Adios America was the big inspiring
text for Trump's whole, you know, 2016 campaign take off.
She's on Bill Maher's show a lot.
The most featured guest, the most frequent guest is Andrew
Sullivan, which is a name I haven't heard in forever.

(54:28):
Feel like the world got too weird and like moved on from
his, you know, just just having a reasonable think about this.
Well, maybe Charles Murray makessome good points in his racist
books. Who knows?
I'm just wondering. I'll tell you where he's been.
He's been on Real Time with BillMaher, like, at least once every
single season. Yeah, he's on Club Random, too.

(54:50):
Imagine that, Those two guys just hanging out, drinking
whiskey, smoking cigars. Hell yeah, dude.
The best time you've ever had. What else are they going to do?
They're not a they're not a bunch of chicks.
Before we go further on this, doyou have, can you give us any
insight into like what, what hisattraction is to these far right

(55:11):
figures? Right, because he's supposedly a
liberal. He wants to be reasonable.
Right. And that like if you want to be
reasonable, you, you would not platform somebody who is has
written scores of articles for vdare.com, right?
So I have to disagree. The the reasonable thing to do
is to have anyone with any clouton your TV show.

(55:35):
And then when they say somethingtruly, heinously, like racist or
bigoted, you lean back in your chair and go, OK, well, moving
on, that's how you be reasonable.
And then you go with and you go,see, we can get along.
We can talk and be friends. We're a model for the country.

(55:57):
And Milo Yiannopoulos goes, yeah, great being here with you,
Bill. Yeah.
Well, we're going to get into, we're going to get, we're going
to get, we're going to get into him in a second.
Yeah. So 2003, as we said, launches
real time with Beaumark. Just tell us a little bit about
the early days of it. He's take, he's like as you
mentioned, he's taken a year where he's kind of just laying
back in the cut just waiting plot in his next move and then

(56:20):
he comes back with this show. Tell us a little bit about the
differences. Yeah, I, I believe at this time
he in between or maybe a little later, he was also hosting a
very short lived Amazon TV streaming show where he would
hawk products off of Amazon withguests.
Awesome. Also, I just like to say in
addition to all that, Ann Coulter also looks like The

(56:41):
Babadook's wife, so. I I was going to go with Cruella
Deville. Oh yeah, yeah.
I went a little super. I almost said Bob the Babadook's
white wife. But then I was like, that's
weird to add white, but it's. So, to quote another movie
character I love, I have such sites to show you Real TIME
launches in 2003. Yes, the listener to this

(57:04):
podcast has opened the puzzle box.
And now you will be torn asunderby hooks as you lick your lips
and into the camera say Jesus wept.
And then Bill Maher will go the man in the sky.
So real time launches in 2003. It's actually so the original
version of the show is fairly different because so it it at

(57:25):
the start there's like an opening comedy sketch, a very
brief opening comedy sketch. And then it's he comes out, he
says hello. The first episode, the crowd
goes crazy. Like for the first probably two
2 1/2 seasons, the crowd gives him like a 2 minute standing
ovation every episode. But for the 1st 10 episodes, he
comes out, he's like, thanks forbeing here.
We're going to do this, this andthis does the monologue.
And then he goes, somebody we'regoing to be talking to a little

(57:45):
later, later. But who's going to give us a
sneak preview of tonight's like featured segment?
It's Paul F Tompkins. And then you're like, wait,
what? And Paul F Tompkins is like,
thanks so much, Bill. And then he kind of previews the
bit he's going to do later. And the intention is to give
Bill Maher enough time to go from where he's doing the
monologue over to the desk or the spot where he's going to do

(58:09):
the interview. This rarely happens.
It is always awkward. He never has enough time.
He goes too slow. He often calls Paul F Tompkins.
He'll be like, give it up for Paul, or he'll go Paul Tompkins.
Like he seems like he forgets his name.
And then? Wait, wait.
I just need to interject for people who don't know Paul F
Tompkins. He disgrace he is.

(58:29):
A disgraceful thing to not know.I mean, he's not a disgrace.
I know his wife. She was on the show.
I would never. He's he's, he's one of the sort
of, you know, second tier stars in Mr. Show, which is a great
show if I really recommend it, but not one of the ones who
stormed the Capitol on January 6th.
Oh, they were comedy partners. And there's AI think The Daily

(58:51):
Beast maybe has like a comedy podcast.
And he was like, the host was like, would you like to talk
about Jay Johnstone? And Paul Tonkins was like, I
very much would not like to talkabout Jay Johnstone.
The guy was like, really? And he was like, yes.
And then it just went to commercial and they came, came
back and talked about something else.
But he would do like a brief, you know, story of the week
monologue. And then they would go back to

(59:13):
the panel. New rules would be maybe a
minute. He, he would just do 6 quick new
rules. There'd be no ending monologue.
And then at in the first episode, he was like, the other
thing I think is there isn't enough great stand up comedy on
TV anymore. So we wanted to end the show
with a really funny stand up comedian.
So for the 1st 10 episodes, one of them ends with a music act,

(59:35):
the other ones end with stand upcomics.
They're all Largo performers, which is like an alt venue.
Largo is like an alt venue. All the Mr. Show guys did Largo.
That's here in Los Angeles. Except one episode this, the
featured stand up comic is Earthquake.
And he fucking murders. He murders so much harder than
anyone else has ever murdered onReal Time, including Bill Maher.

(59:57):
He kills so hard. But the first episode, the final
guest is Sarah Silverman. She finishes her set and he
goes, Sarah Silverman, everybody, God, Can you believe
she kisses Jimmy Kimmel's cock with that mouth?
And that's how he ends the last episode.
What the fuck? Jesus.
What the fuck And I? They were like friends.

(01:00:19):
Oh my God, that makes me. So uncomfortable that makes me
like, I'm sorry, I don't like I've seen or heard a bunch of
stuff, but like, I don't know, like, you know, I know there's a
lot of anti Arab racism in the in the mix here.
That makes me like really uncomfortable.
Like that's a that's fucking imagine saying that about a
woman, you know, like in front of people.
That's fucking crazy. Yeah, he, I cut him saying that

(01:00:42):
into the opening of the film Killing Them Softly, where it's
like Obama's speech intercut with like incredibly discordant
strings that are very upsetting.It works perfectly.
And that's the moment when I was, I was like, this podcast is
moronic. I shouldn't be doing this.
And then when he said that, I was like, no, I'm definitely on
to something here if this is something the guy said on the
first episode of his show. But it's like the whole thing is

(01:01:05):
he is uncensored. He's like unshackled from the
network TV sensors. He doesn't have to worry about
ads anymore. Like, he's just free.
He doesn't have to worry about advertisers, no censorship.
He can say what he wants. And like he definitely takes
advantage of that like language and content wise because he is
often like disgusting, like sexually disgusting in his

(01:01:28):
comedy. He.
Also has this new rule segment which is really smug.
So we have a clip of it. This is the first new rule
segment. It's not like.
New rules and the reason why it came about is while I was off I
got ever more cranky about stupid things that people were
doing. Especially when it becomes a
sheep like headlong rush where lots of stupid people do the

(01:01:48):
same stupid thing. For example, new rule.
No more whining about the French.
At least they're standing up to the Bush administration, which
is more than I can say for the Democrats.
And and by the way, it doesn't make me UN American to say I'd
rather live in Paris than in places where cheese only comes

(01:02:11):
and individually wrapped slices.Oh no.
Can he say that? Can he say that?
I just want to say this guy. 'S unhinged man, I just think.
That because it was the first new rule segment.
But it really does help get intosort of like his whole shtick,
doesn't it? Because it because it's always
about these stupid people. Everybody's so stupid, right?

(01:02:33):
Like everybody fucking stupid except for Bill Maher.
It that's his his contribution to culture truly is.
There are a lot of people who I think are not particularly
familiar with him. But if you were to be like, if
you were to be like, yeah, I think there's like a new rule,
someone you're talking to will go new rule.
Like that's his grand contribution to culture.

(01:02:54):
So the show is really gaining influence real time during these
Bush years. And I, you know, this is my own
analysis, but this is what I see.
I see two things happening. Islamophobia is really, really
mainstream still, right? It doesn't really go away after
911. It becomes, you know, just part

(01:03:16):
of the culture. And then, of course, there's
violence in the Middle East thatthat gives, you know, fodder for
Islamophobes. And there's, as Jared knows very
well, there's this whole networkof Islamophobic organizations
and pundits and things that are in the United States making a
whole bunch of money off of this.
So that's happening. And that helps because he's
willing to say really bigoted things about Muslims.

(01:03:41):
And then there's also this otherthing, which is that fatigue
over the Iraq war is growing. And I'd like to hear, you know,
your analysis of this. But as far as I can tell, he
benefits from being right about Iraq for the most part.
He starts opposing it. You know he says things
questioning Iraq in 2002. He deserves like probably some

(01:04:02):
modest amount of credit for that.
While it's true that that peoplewere in favor of the Iraq war to
a degree, it wasn't like Afghanistan stand by any means.
I remember from John, like, you know, people were starting to
turn on Bush, not so much that it made a difference in the 2004
election, obviously, in which Bush routed Kerry, but he was a

(01:04:24):
oh. God.
Yeah, but but, you know, I remember being in Booth Bay
Harbor, Maine, of all places, asthe first bombs kind of dropped.
And we all saw it on CNN and with a few of my friends who
were up there just like, you know, smoking pot, drinking
beer. I don't remember what, what,
what the context was. We were out there hanging out

(01:04:45):
and we saw like all these pop upprotests along the way.
Now, granted, it was New Englandand, you know, it's a sort of a
blue area, but, you know, peoplewere opposing this war.
It wasn't like Afghanistan, where it was very rare to see
anyone opposing it. So, you know, he does that and
he he at one point calls it, youknow, justification built on

(01:05:06):
lies. I'm just curious what your
thoughts about that will in general.
Yes, also very quickly. The other thing about new rules
is they are often not rules likehe'll be like new rule.
The woman in Minnesota who freeda bear from its cage at the zoo
has to answer one question. Did he then try to steal your
picnic basket like that? He'll do that and he finishes

(01:05:29):
and you're like, that is in no way a rule that is like a
question or a request. He so he very yeah, before we go
to a rock. He was adamantly opposed to it.
He's against it wholesale. He's like, this is horseshit.
We shouldn't do this. These shouldn't if we did do it,
these shouldn't be the guys who do it.
The and he, he has that stance the entire time.

(01:05:54):
Once America invades Iraq, he switches to, well, we should
want it to work. You know, we didn't want him to
do it. He actually has the same stance
about Bush stealing the 2000 election.
He'll be like, well, he did it and it worked, so why are we
still talking about it? So he was like, you know, a
rock. Let's hope it works.
And then it gets to a point where after the Iraqi elections,

(01:06:17):
he starts going, look, it looks like this thing worked.
And while Bush may have lied andgot us into the war for the
wrong reasons, it was the right thing to do because now we will
have spread democracy. And mixed in amidst all this, as
you're saying he is, he's constantly saying stuff like,
like, oh, how can we He'll be like, but do the can these

(01:06:39):
people, are they even ready for democracy?
Like, do these people even do they even like, could they even
handle it? You know the average guy in
Iraq, you know he'd rather Saddam be back in power then see
his sister walk down the street in a miniskirt.
Which is one of my favorite things he said because it
betrays the fact he did not knowSaddam Hussein was like a
secular dictator in the region. It took him like 3 months to

(01:07:02):
finally start correcting his guess and going well hold on,
Saddam was a secular dictator. You never know up to him and was
like hey you sound like an idiot.
Yes, Yeah. He never acknowledged that he
was doing it before. And then after the election he
starts going well, now it seems like isn't there hope?
Doesn't it seem like Bush will will have been right about this
and that there's hope in the region?

(01:07:23):
And if he had a the conservatives would be like,
yes, exactly. And like Ariana Huffington would
be like, what the hell are you talking about?
No. And then he'd look at the
conservatives on the panel and be like, I remember when
liberals used to be able to envision a better future.
And this like he would talk to somebody like Fareed Zakaria or
Thomas Friedman on the one-on-one interview.

(01:07:44):
And the way he talked to them, you'd be like, oh, he reads
these guys. And that's why he thinks this is
good is because both of those guys were pro Iraq war.
And for years and years and years after it was clearly a
disaster. Still tried to find ways to be
like, maybe it's good, maybe it was good, maybe it wasn't.
Maybe it's turning around. So like, it took him a while to

(01:08:06):
go back to like, well, this was a disaster.
And I think he even admitted that when he was like, well, it
looks like I was wrong to hold out a little hope on this one.
Well, well before we move on from this, I think that that's a
very interesting framing becauseit sounds like he gets the
advantage of being anti war by being anti war to a degree.

(01:08:30):
He also doesn't isolate the conservatives and he's sort of
able to kind of straddle that and sort of seem reasonable to
this, you know, amorphous centerthat you know, I don't even know
if it exists or not, but like, you know, he he's always
entertaining both of these positions all the time.
He's juggling them to make them work.
And it doesn't matter if it is not coherent.

(01:08:52):
It's not a coherent ideology because no person who was in
favor, you know, who is against the Iraq war would second guess
and say like, well, actually nowlet's let's like teach these
people something. They'll they'll, you know, teach
a man to fish and he'll eat a lifetime.
I don't know the fuck. But like, yeah, I mean, it's not
consistent, right? It's not like a like a, you

(01:09:13):
know, a, a really consistent political position or a moral 1.
He would say like, well, I'm willing to grow and change, but
then like if somebody corrects him on one episode the next
week, he'll still be saying the same thing he just got corrected
on. Like he he still, he only
changes when he wants to change.Like he's only willing to quote

(01:09:37):
and quote grow in his opinion about something.
If he makes the decision, nobodycan give him information unless
he wants that information and wants to absorb that
information. Moving forward to 2008, there's
a Bill Maher movie that comes out religulous.

(01:09:58):
It's directed by Larry Charles. You have in the notes here.
This is the guy who did Borat and Bruno also directed
Seinfeld. I don't want to isolate our
audience, but I am not a fan of Borat or Bruno.
I just want to say just not sorry.
I only like the Ali G movie I feel like.

(01:10:19):
Over time, those movies look worse and worse.
But anyway, whatever. If people want to come at me,
I'm happy to have a conversation.
Please continue to listen to ourshow.
Freaking Bill. Maher over here, huh?
Really challenging his audience's expectations and
beliefs. It's just like.
Guys, if we need to kick Mike off the podcast to save the
country, that's something that we're willing to do.

(01:10:43):
I just Jared. If I wanted to watch improv, I'd
go to a local community theater.Oh, thank you.
Well. That's not a.
Rule will Jared, since I'm sinceI'm so smart and big brained, I
think I should explain to you, since you didn't isolate this
yourself, that religulous is a play on words that makes

(01:11:07):
religion sound like the word ridiculous.
So I, you know, I just have. To let you know about that,
That's crazy. Anyway, this move, this movie
sucks ass. It's really fucking bad.
It's one of the worst things. It like I, I put in the notes
that this was a real moron test of its era where it's like if,

(01:11:30):
if if I talked to somebody and they were like, it's like, yeah,
I'm going to see religulous. Yeah, I'm going to see, I'm
going to go see it actually whenthey, when, when, when, when
they were done. You'd be like, oh, this guy's
fucking dumb as shit. It is like you could see at the
trailer that this was just Bill Maher, like going around to make
religious people seem insane. And probably, you know,

(01:11:51):
subconsciously this my opinion, just adding a bunch of other
religions into it so he could really focus on Islam anyway.
Yeah, it. Was really I just.
Googled what year did Reddit launch for no reason.
It was 2005. This movie came out in 2008.
This is feels like a very Redditera, but it's it's it is very

(01:12:14):
like it is very like, oh wow, and and like what he does in the
entire thing. And I I mean, will you want to
contribute here? But he just finds like the
people he can talk down to, who can he?
He can seem smarter than. He doesn't speak to any kind of
like religious scholars or anything like that.
Yeah, first of all, don't tell me what to do.
Second, thank you for not letting me get my joke out.

(01:12:35):
Where I was going to say I thought Religulous was a
combination of religion and homunculus.
I don't know where I would have gone with that.
I don't know. I'm so glad I didn't have the
chance to try to riff off of that idea earlier.
I saved you man, you should be thanking me.
Yeah, I really, yeah. Yeah.
I appreciate you guys knew in that moment we got to keep going
and not let this guy get in here.

(01:12:56):
I, I could see the gears turningin your head and I said we got
to, we got to move now. He talks to a rabbi and a mom
but never in a homunculi and then we just sit there in like
dead silence for 5 minutes. So the the movie is literally
him going around to religious people, but like it's but at one

(01:13:17):
point he loses a debate to like some guys in a rest stop, some
like truckers or something in a rest stop where he's like the,
the Holy Ghost, the father, the son, what is this?
And one of the guys is like, I always just thought of it the
same way. Like, you know, he's like, how
can a guy be 3 things? And one of the guys is like, Oh,
I always just thought of it like, you know, matter can be a
solid, a gas or a liquid. And then it cuts to Bill Maher

(01:13:39):
in the car and he's like, whoa, I never thought of it that way.
And it's like you just lost to some guys on their break getting
like uppers from a truck. Stop.
It's funny, you are describing the person who was so excited to
see this movie. You are describing my former
mother-in-law. I saw his mother.
Former mother-in-law. Yeah, my my first wife.

(01:13:59):
She was very, very kind. Worse person.
I said worse. So yeah, they were very nice.
I don't think we ever fully understood each other though.
Much better relationship with myin laws.
Now I'm older and more mature. Let's really buckle down and get
into this guy's. Here's the thing with Deb.
So the other thing is he goes way harder on like he's getting

(01:14:21):
along with everybody in the movie except for the Muslims,
The Muslim, he'll be like, look,your book is calling for the
deaths of people and killing andsomeone would be like, no, no,
it's an old book. It's just stories.
Like it's how you interpret them.
And then later he'll be like, well, of course they weren't
going to admit in front of me that they believe in violence
and they're violent people. So he'll be like, you're, you
believe in violence, right? They'll go, no, not at all.

(01:14:43):
Nobody I know does. And then it cuts to him alone,
like a coward, where he's like, they were lying.
They would never admit in front of me, an outsider, that they
believe in violence. It's really like it's it is one
of the worst films like that came out in my life.
Yeah, it ends with, I'm pretty sure it ends with him giving
like a really sanctimonious yes.Like he's like at some like

(01:15:07):
battle site or something. And he's like, well, he's.
He's saying this is where the Christians like, expect, like,
whatever. I don't.
Know and there's no he's and throughout Israel and throughout
the sea, and there's a Bush on fire.
Yes, that's a shot. Yeah, I'm.
Gonna play. I'm gonna play a clip of that
because people just, even if listeners don't want to hear it,
I want to hear it again. If you belong to a political

(01:15:32):
party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry,
misogyny, homophobia, violence and sheer ignorance as religion
is, you'd resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an
enabler, a mafia wife for the true devils of extremism that
draw their legitimacy from the billions of their fellow

(01:15:52):
travellers. If the world does come to an end
here or wherever, or if it limpsinto the future decimated by the
effects of a religion inspired nuclear terrorism, let's
remember what the real problem was.
That we learned how to precipitate mass death before we
got past the neurological disorder of wishing for it.

(01:16:14):
That's it. Grow up or die.
Oh, grow up. Also just the music too.
Yeah, it's like the trailer for Mad Max Fury Rd.
Grow UPS as a guy whose like entire brand is around like
smoking weed like until he's like age, whatever.

(01:16:35):
No, there's nothing wrong with smoking weed.
There's not. That's not my point.
It's just sort of like is that is he really gonna like come
down on people for not being mature enough?
Furthermore, bigotry, misogyny. Oh, OK, thanks, Bill.
Yeah, yeah. I was like, oh good shit.
Like really do something about that.
Yeah, yeah. Something you know, Bill Maher
is definitely an authority on. Uh, new rule Bill, stop signing

(01:17:00):
your tweets, huh? Yes, exactly.
I do think he's mature though because he's a 70 year old man
who wears like Supreme T-shirts and owns a house next to his
actual house that he calls his party house.
And he calls the basement club Random.
And that's where he has his podcast club Random, where he
smokes with smokes weed with women in their 20s.

(01:17:22):
Right. And Kid Rock.
So 2012, I think it's it's easy to reimagine Obama as this just
like hurtling comet that could never be taken down.
I was in India at that time in 2012.
But I remember very distinctly thinking like he could lose at

(01:17:43):
one point. Like I felt like, you know,
Romney felt like he had a legitimate shot.
The attacks on Obama were becoming pretty effective in the
Tea Party movement had really shifted a lot of the political
weight in the country. I think it was obviously that
was very influential on what would come right with MAGA.

(01:18:03):
And in that moment you put in the doc that he donated
$1,000,000 to Obama's re election campaign.
So there's two things here. One, wow.
And two, he had $1,000,000 to give.
Well, that's a lot of money to give to Barack Obama.
Yeah, and in the clip and they put in the doc, Piers Morgan is

(01:18:25):
interviewing him on CNN about it.
And even Piers Morgan is like, you had $1,000,000 to give out.
But here's what Bill Maher says or why he gave to Obama.
And I think it it's kind of illuminating.
Because these Republicans scare me.
You know, if this was Europe andwe had ten parties to choose

(01:18:46):
from, maybe I'd feel different. Yes, Obama has disappointed me
in some ways. But after watching these
Republicans debate for this lastyear and hearing their ideas for
the country, not only do I thinkthis is for the betterment of
the nation, I would do this on aselfish level.
Because if we elect a Republicanand they go back to the policies

(01:19:07):
that were there before Obama, I could see my money getting
vaporized like it did in 2008 when I had it with Lehman
Brothers. So yes, this is an investment
for Bill. But I mean it gets him a lot of
Lib cred, I mean. Loves to complain.
Now he's like, oh, all these other talk show hosts, they have

(01:19:28):
to appeal to their liberal audience and like, we all know
who they're voting for. And Johnny Carson never would
have been like that. It's like, this was a guy giving
$1,000,000 to a presidential candidate and like going around
giving interviews about it. It's like really kind of
egregious. To make a comedian doesn't have
to be like a journalist, right where we have certain lines

(01:19:50):
like, you know, I'm publishing investigative reporting about
the right, for instance, and andif I go and I simultaneously
give a lot of my money to any kind of non right candidate,
then it looks like it's part of a partisan operation.
The whole thing top to bottom, among other ethical issues as
we've seen with. You know, the stories that have

(01:20:13):
come up recently with people you, you, you need some
separation. But he's technically should be
allowed to do it. It it's just more a question of
like his show is a political talk show and he is, you know,
he's making his branding $1,000,000 to Obama guy.
I don't know. I'm about, I'm trying to make
some sort of moral consistency argument, but it just, yeah, he

(01:20:36):
gave $1,000,000 to Obama becausehe liked Obama and he thought it
was better for his money overall.
Also, I don't know if I put it in the dock anywhere, but for a
while he was a minority owner ofthe New York Mets.
So that's why. That's Mike's eyes just lit up.
Is that actually true? I didn't.
You're telling me now for the first time.

(01:20:58):
That's 100% true. Damn, Mike, you you root for
Bill Maher's team. It must have been during the
Wilpon years. Is this, this is a, this is a
conflict of interest of the show.
God damn it, we're going to haveto scrap the whole episode.
This is difficult. This is difficult for me.
I believe he sold them, sold them to Steve Cohen with
everybody. I.
Oh yeah. So he's part of, he's part of
the, he's part of the Wilpon Group then?
Yes, yeah, he was a minority share owner.

(01:21:19):
Yeah, there's so many pictures of him with Mr. Met.
Jared could put together a really long slideshow to really
torture you. Of all the photos of Bill Maher
with Mr. Mitt. The way to really torture me,
though, is Gavin McGinnis in Mets gear, which is really
brutal for me. He's.
From like Montreal? Isn't he that asshole?
Yeah, he's he's, I don't want totalk about that guy now we we

(01:21:41):
have to do his another time. But yeah, so we're looking at he
does this and then he's really at the same time he's like this
big liberal guy. He is hitting Arabs and Muslims
really, really hard. Jared 2014 anti Muslim comments
about ISIS that he is on the Charlie Rose show.

(01:22:05):
So yes, does ISIS do Khmer Rougelike activities where they just
kill people indiscriminately whoaren't just like them?
Yes. And would most Muslim people in
the world do that or condone that?
No, but most Muslim people in the world do condone violence
just for what you think they do.First of all, they say it.
They shout it from the absolutely.

(01:22:27):
There's a Pew poll of Egypt donea few years ago. 82% I think it
was, said stoning is the appropriate punishment for
adultery. Over 80% thought death was the
appropriate punishment for leaving the Muslim religion.
I'm sure you know these things. I know I'm well, I do.
But I but I know that this religion.
Is like other religions. Is just naive and plain wrong.

(01:22:50):
It is not like other religions. So I guess the whole religulous,
like all religions are bad or dumb really.
Not really I guess, right? Other religions are not like
that. It it kind of puts religulous in
a a different position, right? Where it's like if he criticizes
all religions like it's very SamHarris esque.

(01:23:11):
Where it's like I criticize all religion but especially this
one. Yes, yes.
Well, you mentioned Sam Harris and Sam Harris happens to be on
the panel with Ben Affleck when he gives his very famous kind of
viral early viral push back to Bill about his anti Muslim

(01:23:35):
bigotry. The solution?
The. Question No.
The solution is to we've killed more Muslims and they've killed
us by an awful lot. We've invaded more Muslim.
I'm not proven more killed an awful lot.
And yet somehow we're exempted from these things because
they're not really a reflection of what we believe in.
We did it by accident. That's why we invaded.
We're not. We're.
Not convincing anybody it's. Not specifically telling you

(01:23:56):
that I disagree. With what you think I know and
we're I don't understand. If you don't understand.
My argument Your argument is. Like, you know, black people,
you know, they show. No, it's not an argument.
No, it's not. It's based on facts.
I can show you a Pew poll of Egyptians.
They are not. It's that Pew poll again.
He's really he really likes. He loves that fucking thing.

(01:24:17):
Poor Egyptians taking so much heat on the pod lately.
Also also Bill Maher did go on Joe Rogan and say how come
nobody talks about black on black crime so he does now also
do what Ben Affleck metaphorically accused him of
doing, just literally. Well, I feel like that Ben
Affleck moment was the first time I remember people kind of

(01:24:39):
waking up to this question aboutBill Maher being bigoted and
like publicly because he was such a huge star and he did it
and and Bill Maher seemed to be like really on his back feet
kind of just nervous about it. I don't know how you how you
read that moment. Well.
He loves celebrities, so it madehim uncomfortable that Ben

(01:25:00):
Affleck would be mad at him. I think he might have bought a
house from Ben Affleck at one point.
But he it, it's funny because like, Sam Harris and Bill Maher
still whine about that to this day.
Like they will still bring it upand whine about it with each
other. And like, you know, Ben Affleck
is not, you know, broing out with Matt Damon, being like, I

(01:25:20):
can't stop thinking about the time I got into a fight with
Bill Maher and Sam Harris. That should be a show.
Well, they can't too homophobic if you've got Matt Damon on
there. But it's it it he he doesn't

(01:25:42):
like he he likes disagreement, he doesn't like arguing.
And so some people he will talk to like their children, But if
he views their status as being above his, it just upsets him.
And now he's kind of started doing a thing with anybody where
when he's really losing and can't see any way forward, he'll

(01:26:03):
just be like, well, let's just move on.
There's no point in talking about this.
I think just to just with Ana Kasparian was just on Club
Random and when they're talking about Israel and Gaza, he was
get got to a point where he was just like, well, let's forget
it. This is boring.
I'm bored and if I'm bored, the audience is bored.
So let's just move on. Right.
He doesn't want to appear to be in over his head in front of the

(01:26:24):
audience. I think this is probably going
to come with my summation because he needs to be
considered smart, right? It seems to be like so much part
of his brand. Complaining as all by by all the
conservatives complain about this about me and most liberals
that were dismissive of conservatives, the rednecks, the
Tea Party, we quote, we think they're stupid and racist and I

(01:26:46):
say they're stupid racist. But then, OK, so just tell me
what I'm I should do in a week like this, where the the the
unparalleled leader of the partynow Donald Trump unveiled a plan
that is so stupid and racist. Trumpism is rising.
It's not like he hasn't emerged as a political force quite yet,

(01:27:08):
but it's in the air, right? You know, for people who focus
on the right and the far right, like Jared Knight sort of do
with this on this podcast, you would, you know, things like the
Daily Stormer were starting to form and then you were getting a
lot of like, you know, differentforums. 4 Chan was becoming a
much bigger deal right around this time.

(01:27:30):
Yeah, you've got the Gamergate era.
YouTube is starting to get populated with anti social
justice warrior content. Like something really nasty is
starting to brew up in the culture.
And somebody who is on those Daily Stormer forums was Dylan
Roof. Oh.
God, I thought you were going tosay Bill Maher.

(01:27:53):
No, no, no. He's, this is not that type of
podcast. But yeah, I mean, you know, Roof
was on those, you know, on thoseextreme radical right forums and
he went in and murdered 9 black parishioners at this church in
South Carolina. You highlighted Bill's response

(01:28:16):
to that. And I thought it was really
interesting. Even earlier on, like I'm
watching episodes from after Katrina right now.
And at least for now, his response very much is just the
Bush administration has blown this so badly.
They've abandoned these people. And like the conservatives will
come on and he'll be like, you can't, you can't seriously be

(01:28:37):
defending this. Like it's sort of the most angry
he gets with his guests. It it's feels a little bit like
the way he would talk to people.I'm politically incorrect, but
in the same way with the but then by the end he would be
like, but come on, we all agree and we're all friends and we
want what's best, whatever. And it it's a similar thing he
does after the Charleston churchshooting because you know, the

(01:29:01):
episode right after he's like clearly very upset about it.
And his jokes are bad. They're always bad.
And he's not good at being sensitive.
But when he's just talking on the panel, when they get into
it, he's like, look, this guy was on the Internet and he was
talking about writing things, really horrific things about
black people and reading really horrific things about black
people. And he looks like this at this

(01:29:22):
writer from Breitbart who is on the panel.
And he goes, your website writesa lot about black people and it
writes stuff that is not so nice.
And it's a moment where you're like, wow, how nice.
It's great. The rare show that has these
kinds of fringe figures on. And then he will just sit there
and be like, hey, what about thefact that you like, couldn't

(01:29:44):
like you quite possibly contributed in some way to this
like mass casualty, like white supremacist mass casualty event.
And the guy is like, really on his back heels.
And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa,whoa, hold on.
But then he ends up being like, well, look, you made a movie
about how religion is bad. This happened in a church.
Couldn't you also blame that a little bit?

(01:30:06):
And Bill Maher kind of is like, well, you know, you got me
there. And it's like, no, he doesn't.
He. Doesn't got you there.
That's the stupidest fucking point.
It wasn't a religion thing. But his his sense of his odd
sense of decorum and also, you know, he's talking to a white
man. So like his sense of.
Decorum is like a woke left typewhen pushing back though.

(01:30:29):
He's just like lost it on other guys for way less.
But also this is like, you know,it's season 13 episode 20, which
was Oh my God, it was 10 years ago.
So like it it he was at that time a different more he was a
more coherent guy at the time. You know, he was, he could be in
the middle of a big like anti PCculture Jag, but then something

(01:30:52):
like that happens and it's goingto like sort of shake him out of
it and bring him back down to reality and be like, well, it's
easy to talk about the straw manin my head until something this
horrific happens in real life and then he's sort of forced to
confront the reality of what's going on.
Well, I would just before we move on to the next segment,
remind people or inform people who don't know that Breitbart at

(01:31:15):
one point had I believe, a vertical called Black Crime.
Do they still? I don't think they did.
No, they, they took, they took it down once People were like,
why is this A tag on your website?
When people were like, you do know that you have a vertical
called black crime, right? So 2016, Obama returns the
favor, I think, so to speak, andsits down for an interview with

(01:31:37):
him. Tell us a little bit about that.
There was like a lot of pressureto make this happen, like from
his fans. It was like, I think they might
have done a letter writing campaign, but it was very much a
thing where they very vocally were like, we should it
honestly, you look at it and you're like, this feels a little
bit like a make a wish thing or something.
Like they were like, well, Bill Maher's really sick and it's

(01:31:58):
always been his dream to interview a president because at
the end of the day, this guy is like a power worshipping freak.
So like nothing is more impressive to him than being
around a president. As will come up as will come up
again later. But yeah, he he sits down with
his interview for him. That's also, I don't, I haven't
seen it in a really long time, but I recall, from what I

(01:32:21):
recall, it seems like Obama was way more engaged when he was
talking to Marc Maron in his garage.
Then he was talking to Bill Maher as his presidency.
Well, he, well, he, he Bill Maher sort of is like, wait,
aren't like atheists like a persecuted class in the US And
Obama's like, no. Yeah, I I mean, this is an audio
podcast, so people can't see Obama in this clip, but I think

(01:32:45):
your read of it is correct. Will Obama kind of seems like he
would rather be anywhere else. I don't know if anybody from my
tribe of atheists ever thanked you for giving us a shout out at
your first inaugural, but you didn't mention non believers.
You. I think it was more than once,

(01:33:06):
more than one. I mean, it's not just in that
speech. I've done it often.
Well, we appreciate it because we do feel like untouchables to
a degree. I mean, I don't know if you saw
the latest religion survey, but almost 1/4 of the country are
nuns. I don't mean the ones who hit me
on the knuckles with a ruler in Sunday school.
I mean, they put none for religion, right?

(01:33:28):
They're not. No.
They're atheists, agnostics, or they just don't want to get up
on Sunday morning. And we have no representation in
Congress. If if our numbers were
represented, there be over 100 Congress people, right, who felt
that way, right? It just seems like we are not
included in the basket of diversity in America, which is

(01:33:51):
odd because we are the biggest minority.
That is a bigger minority than any other minority you can name.
And these like, we should get a little more love.
I'm also a black. I'm an atheist.
Whether there is active persecution of atheists, I think
that there are certain. Well, I, I, I, I think for a
candidate. I, I, I, I think you're right

(01:34:11):
that there are certain occupations, probably most
prominently politics, where there would be a bias against
somebody's who's agnostic or atheist in running for office.
I think that's still true. Outside of that arena, though,
you seem to have done all right with your TV show.

(01:34:33):
I, I'm at, I don't, I don't get a sense To the extent that
they're boycotting you, it's because of your other wacky
ideas rather than your particular view.
He's too polite. He's too polite.
Just like, yeah, Bill, I think you might have had some trouble
in your career for all the othershit you did.

(01:34:57):
Just like the background being like, Yep, uh huh.
Yep. Like, come on, man.
Just this is this is classic. This is how this guy is an as an
interviewer, you just had these moments where you're like, can
you just ask the goddamn question already?
Who are you? Well, I know who you're trying
to impress. You're trying to impress the
cool president of the United States.

(01:35:17):
But like, just like wandering around in an open field of
descriptors and it's like, buddy, leave the Meadow and ask
the fucking question already. Well, I, I find it telling that
he has this like one opportunityto speak in front of a president
and he uses it just to basicallyremind people of his personal

(01:35:38):
branding, right? It's like all the problems that
are in the world and everything that's going on that you could
draw attention to in that moment.
It just sort of like, by the way, you may not know this, but
I'm an atheist. And it's like, oh, I do
actually. Thank you.
Yeah, he's talking to the country's first and so far only
black president. And it's like, you know, I'm a

(01:35:59):
bit of a minority myself. And it's like, and Obama just
has no fucking idea what to do with that.
Yeah, he might as well might as well just sit down and be like.
So, Mr. President, you probably know I get a lot of like young
trim, you know, I pretty good for myself and Obama's just

(01:36:20):
like, is there a question? Yeah.
Let's talk about this one, Jared, because I think this is
one we both were aware of at thetime from our work, which is in
February 2017. He rather inexplicably, and I
say inexplicably is because it'slike who, Warren?
Who would demand this? Who would ask for this had Milo

(01:36:40):
Yiannopoulos on his show? And he, Yiannopoulos said.
You're the only good one in reference to liberals.
No, you're correct about that. So I don't know that's.
Very all I care. About.
All I care about is free speech and free expression.
I want people to be able to be, do and say anything these days.
You're right, that's a conservative.

(01:37:01):
I care about the environment andliving also and but free speech.
Living. But I mean, you're right.
I mean, you know, we've both. Have a position now.
We have both been disbarred at Berkeley.
You know, I I would, I gave the commencement.
Much more dramatically, I just like to say, I mean, they just,

(01:37:21):
they just disinvited you. I had riots.
People got people, people got. Beaten up.
Right. No, you do.
Horrendous. OK, you win, babe.
You, you, you beat me out there.There were no riots.
It's not a competition. You know, it's not a
competition, but. But like when you make liberals
crazy, Yes, for that part of liberalism that has gone off the

(01:37:42):
deep end. Most of it.
Yeah. Well, I don't know.
You're the only good one. No, I.
You're literally the only good one.
I am so. Side has gone insane.
The Democrats are the party of Lena Dunham.
These people are mental, hideouspeople.
The more that America sees of Lena Dunham, the fewer, you
know, votes the Democrat Party is ever going to get.
This is the people that should. Let's not pick on fellow HBO

(01:38:05):
stars. OK, I just, I, I think it's a
very important to slow this downfor a second because for people
who don't know Yiannopoulos and like what he was it with the
time that he went into this interview, why people in
Berkeley set fires and why therewas rioting.
He's like one of the faces in America of like rising white

(01:38:28):
supremacy in America. And I would say like he's most
high profile media thing was triggering a racist troll storm
against Leslie Jones, actress Leslie Jones, in which people
like defaced her website and putpictures of chimps and, and
gorillas and stuff like that andrepeatedly sent that and, and,

(01:38:51):
and, and, you know, just, it wasa constant wave so bad that she
had to shut down her social media site and go dark for a
while. I mean, she was really
trumpetized. It was like it was, it was a
troll storm unlike almost any that anyone's experienced.
And he did that because she was a black woman.
The end. Who didn't like Trump?
The end. And also when he worked at

(01:39:12):
Breitbart, he was one of the main people at that publication
that laundered the, you know, what was calling itself the Alt
right into quote UN quote respectable, if you would even
call Breitbart that conservativemedia because Breitbart was also
at the top of its game. You barely hear about Breitbart

(01:39:33):
now, but it was, you know, full-fledged operation.
These guys know how to work him so so well.
Steve Bannon is was on the show 1 time as well and it just was
like these guys just talk circles around him.
And because he thinks his job isprimarily to be a good host,
he'll just like let them. Like he'll just sit there.
He won't, he won't ever throw the hammer down and just be like

(01:39:56):
no, no, no, no, no. Stop and get them to stop.
They keep talking. He'll stop interjecting and just
let them go as long as they want.
And Bannon is a smart guy, for example, who knows how to
manipulate really well. And I would I, you know, I just
from my, my experience knowing both of them as personalities,
Bannon's a lot smarter and savvier than Bill Maher.

(01:40:19):
And that puts him, you know, if you get a guy who can really
fall for flattery, there you go.I mean, it seems like all you
have to do with Bill is just be like you are liberal and he's
like, thank God, yes, thank you.Say that, say that again that
I'm liberal, and then just be like, but you're so reasonable
and cool. Yeah, if you go, I'm not, you're

(01:40:41):
liberal, I'm not liberal, but I think you're great.
He'll be like, yeah, and I thinkyou're great, too.
It's like a Pavlovian response. That's all you have to do.
And he's like, yeah, we can all get along.
There's no reason to fight. Also in 2017, Bill does that
thing where when, you know, you know, when Trump comes in into
the office again, everybody feels like they can get loose

(01:41:03):
and start saying all kinds of things.
Well, he's on air and he's speaking to Ben Sasse and he
airs out the N word. And like he he actually really
airs it out. He actually says the word, you
know, the whole thing. Yeah.
And he says it in the context ofa house N right, as opposed to

(01:41:27):
being a field worker, because Ben Sasse is you can do you want
me to come and work in the fields?
He says I can't do that. I'm a house blank.
This gets him a lot of negative attention from black people.
There's a lot in general. I I your take will I cut a
little clip of Charlemagne the gods response, you know, in the

(01:41:47):
immediate aftermath, which I thought was kind of interesting.
He he ate so much shit over this.
Like I think he had Ice cube on his show right afterwards to
really like give it to him. Killer Mike I don't remember.
Killer Mike is like a friend of his.
I don't know if he was on the show or if he just did media
rounds. Being like that was unbelievably

(01:42:09):
stupid and bad. What he did and said.
It's the most sorry he's ever seemed since Howard Stern had
him on his radio show after 911,after the his 911 comments.
And Howard Stern, Robin and for some reason Stephen Baldwin, who

(01:42:34):
called in all gave it to Bill Maher really hard over his like
just like gave him a public humiliation ritual over the
radio on the radio. And like, I'll say the
difference there is that one. It was like they're going a
little overboard. The N word thing.
It's like it's crazy. It's crazy that he kept his job.
This is the only thing he's everdone on real time where it seems

(01:42:58):
like there was a real shot at him losing his job over it.
And you can tell how it affectedhim because he won't talk about
it. There have been interviewers in
like magazines and stuff who have said and when I brought it
up to him he said he wasn't interested in talking about it.
So here's Charlemagne the God talking about talking about what
he did in the immediate after sugar.
Honey iced tea would a chuckle. The reason I chuckled because I

(01:43:21):
actually thought that the joke had great timing and he actually
used it in the proper context #2I chuckled because I knew as
soon as those words left his lips that this one isn't going
in well for him. Number 3A white person can never
use the N word in any context. I also chuckled because that was
a rookie mistake. I don't expect that from a

(01:43:42):
veteran Caucasian like Bill Maher.
Bill Maher is 61 years old. So a a veteran Caucasian.
I like that though. I like that as they take it it
it is true though? Like he, he knew that.
I think that the reason why that's sort of interesting to me
is because he points out that Bill would have known what he
was doing when he did it. So Wayne Brady actually in 2012?

(01:44:06):
I forgot about this until just now.
Wayne Brady in 2012 was kind of like in Omen that this could be
coming down down the hill because Wayne Brady was on Aisha
Tyler's podcast Girl on Guy and talking about how Bill Maher
would use him. I think it was during the
debates and Bill Maher was like,you know, we want, you know, we

(01:44:28):
want Obama during the debates tobe like a, a brother, brother or
like we don't want him to be like Wayne Brady or something
like that. And Wayne Brady was extremely
mad about that and says like, oh, OK, I've got the quote.
He said just because you fuck black hookers, just because you
had that particular black experience, I have to stop
myself getting into it because Irealized the things as if I had

(01:44:50):
gone on a show or even doing it online, I'm not going to win.
Because as soon as you back off,he still has his platform to say
whatever he wants. So like, Wayne Brady, they're
kind of implying like, listen, Iknow you think you're like, down
and that black people are down with you.
But like, you're crossing a linetalking this way.
And looking back at having looked back at this since I've

(01:45:10):
been doing the podcast, I was like, oh, this was like the
warning shot Bill Maher fired that eventually led to him
sitting in his chair on television talking to a white
senator from Nebraska and going,you know what?
I can just say the N word on television.
Ben Sauce being actually the whitest senator.

(01:45:33):
So, yeah. And Ben, Ben Sasse, yeah.
I mean, that guy, that guy rockets into space when Bill
Maher says that to him, he is. He is on the moon.
He is. So just like I, I don't want to
be here. I don't know.
What to do? No, his I'm.
Surprised the headlines weren't Bill Maher says the N word.
And then right under that Senator Ben Sasse, dead of

(01:45:53):
suicide in 2017. He.
He. Shit out of diamond as soon as
he got out of the office trade. But let's let's keep this moving
along. I want to talk about what what I
I framed this and you see, you know, you can I disagree, but so
many of these biographies take aturn around COVID around 2020.
It's just so important to see because the culture shifts in

(01:46:14):
such a radical way at that time.And so the post COVID era is the
last era we're going to talk about with Bill Maher.
Go ahead, Jared. COVID is a time where a lot more
liberals left as they begin to start questioning Bill Maher and
his popularity. You're also seeing a lot of guys

(01:46:35):
in the replies of his Facebook post saying, Sir, I'm a Trump
supporter and you're the only liberal I like.
So will give us an overview of what's this is the era that you
focus on I think the most on your show is like, you know, he
expands in a big way. He gets a podcast, there's all
kinds of things happening. Tell me a little bit about what

(01:46:58):
happens to Bill post 2020. My sort of armchair diagnosis is
that he resents the year and a half of his life he lost to
COVID because he is terrified todie.
He talks about it a lot, how afraid he is to die and how he
wants to try to live as long as possible.

(01:47:18):
He really hopes that the singularity will happen so that
his he's like, you know, as longas my brain and my Dick can be
kept alive, I'll be happy. That's like a an almost direct
quote from him. And I think he resented that.
And I don't know. So right after Trump gets
elected, he is full on Russiagate.

(01:47:41):
Like I'm with the resistance. You know, I bet you 1000 rubles
Trump won't make it to the end of his term.
And I think I, I don't know specifically what it was, but
yeah, COVID radicalizes him. I think he resents using the
year of his life. I I think it's like shared, like
you said, people are starting tobe like this shit sucks.

(01:48:02):
Like I really started in there were billboards up around Los
Angeles and I noticed early, pretty early on, he would, one
of his big things is he'd anything he didn't like.
That was why the Democrats lose.Like any of his personal
grievances, he'd go on TV and go, the Democrats lose because
of this specific thing I don't like in culture that I can kind

(01:48:27):
of vaguely tie to the Democrats.And then he put it, started
putting up billboard to be like,real time Bill Maher, not a
safe. There are no safe spaces here.
And it's like, well, that's the safest space there is.
Like, I began to resent how unbelievably proud of himself he
was. And it's just like he once once

(01:48:49):
it was legal to be gay and get married, he was out of
transgressive things cause weed was on the path to at least
getting, you know, legalized in most states medically.
We never mentioned that, but that is a bit I I, I briefly
mentioned something about smoking weed.
It's like, that's a big. Part of this, that's his thing.
Yeah, that's a big part of his branding and good for him.

(01:49:09):
Yeah, he loves, loves to smoke. He loves to be like fat people
in the disgusting things they put in their body.
Like just like pound like like 4ounces of weed in like 1 single
sitting. What kind of what kind of weed
do we think Bill Maher likes to smoke?
You think he's more of an indicaor sativa guy?
What is it? What's the kind that makes you

(01:49:31):
slur your words? Forget what you're saying, make
a ton of noise as you. For for me, that's all weed.
I I don't smoke weed so anytime I do I'm like.
Yeah, whatever type of weed makes you as bad of a podcast
host as humanly possible, that'sthe one he's smoking.
Right, right. Yeah.

(01:49:52):
I mean, I indica for me, but notwhile I'm on the air.
Yeah, it it's so he's got at that point he's got nothing
left. And it is like a thing he likes
to say a lot. I didn't change the left change.
I'm not bad. They got bad.
They're out of control. They're crazy.

(01:50:13):
And he did get worse. He did change.
He did get worse. But it is also like, yeah,
people continue to want more progress.
And I don't know what wall he hit where now he all progress is
bad. He's really into the idea.
It's true. He's like people can't say
things are good. It's he calls it progressive

(01:50:35):
phobia. He also is always complaining
he'll that people put a modern lens on figures of the past.
Like he'll be like, oh, of course we judge, you know, like
he's one of those guys. He's like a a Christopher
Columbus defender. I don't know if it's that
specifically, but spiritually heis he'll and all those things,

(01:50:56):
though I'm trying to make sure I'm not jumping ahead, but like,
it really is like trans people are the one thing he has never,
people can't really find a time when he was pro trans rights.
And so it seems like that is also maybe one of the big things
that has radicalized him into genuinely becoming like a
deeply, deeply socially conservative person.

(01:51:19):
And then what came with that is also fiscally conservative
politics 'cause now he's always ragging on socialism.
He hates socialism. Five years ago he was like, this
country needs socialism. He loved Bernie Sanders.
I pulled a clip of one of his mom Donnie rants for for later,
but I think you highlighted thisand I went and got the clip.

(01:51:40):
His conversation with Jon Levittlove Lovett is I was confused
with like the other Jon Lovett. Isn't there like, a comedian?
Jon Lovett's OK? And then there's also Jon
Favreau. And Jon, it's it's.
I believe the Chapo trap house calls on the the pod Johns.
The pod Johns, Yeah. Yeah, OK.
I don't know. I can't differentiate one from

(01:52:00):
the other, and if any of there'sany cross population between
listeners of that and our show, we welcome you and we have no
contempt for these hosts. Yeah, I just don't know his
name. I'll say if you are a listener
of both of this show and their shows and you subscribe to the I
Hate Bill Maher Patreon, you can, if you'd like, skip the

(01:52:22):
episode about Bill Maher on Jon Lovitz podcast.
Perfect. So he's yeah, he he's, you know,
he gets Lovett is kind of like pushing him on the trans issues
and he gets kind of mad at him and just ends the interview.

(01:52:42):
As many naughty questions, the least bad answer and the least
bad answer to not is. Not that the government decide
from above, it's just to leave it up to people and parents and
the kids and the doctors. Right?
You want the government to ban gender affirming care for kids?
You want you want to lose every election, just keep coming down
on the side of parents coming insecond and a who gets to decide

(01:53:06):
what goes on with. My kid content, I'm not.
First of all, I'm not talking about winning or losing.
I agree. I agree with all that, but I'm
just talking about the issue itself.
What did that card say? Can I take this one home?
As a as a sure, As a souvenir? I'm going to put it in my
scrapbook. He's playing the cue cards to
make about that. Yeah, so.
So he kind of pitched it surround with the cue cards for
a little bit, and then he's like, all right, this is good

(01:53:27):
and love. It's just like, so you're
leaving and he's like, Yep. And the interview just stops.
Yeah, he won't answer the question.
He is a he is a, he's a coward. Like he's, he knows people will
get angry with him if he says what he believes, which is that
he doesn't believe that being trans is real.

(01:53:49):
And he's gone all the way to now.
He'll where he'll be like, oh, the woke left who believes crazy
things like there should be penises in women's change rooms,
like the kinds of things where if you.
Confronted, but just indistinguishable from like the
Daily Wire. Yes, yeah, it he really loves.
He loves Barry Weiss and so he is a devout.

(01:54:12):
He's clearly a devout Free Pressreader, but don't roll your
eyes. She is a hero in journalism,
hey. That put some respect on that
name. That's the editor in chief of
CBS News. She just, she just landed a huge
interview. Did you see she got Erica Kirk,
who's done, who's done like 73 media appearances this week, got

(01:54:33):
a big one. Hey, if you want your national
news program to get about as much viewers as a mid sized news
blog, she is she is the person for you.
It's he he won't, he can't be honest about it.
At one point, he genuinely during that interview, he he's
like, you know, some of it is a social contagion.

(01:54:55):
He accuses teachers of grooming students.
And Jon Lovett is like, well, that, but that, you know, that's
what they said about gay people,right?
And I found out actually this. Is a big part of it, yeah.
Yeah, my, my guest on the show on that episode, Ella Dawson
actually told me that Jon Lovetthas either a trans male or like
a trans mask partner. So I think that's he's he's

(01:55:18):
really gotten into like trans issues over the last few years,
like in particular. And at one point he's like,
that's what they used to say about gay people, though.
And then Bill Maher is like, no,listen, he keeps getting mad at
him for like interrupting him. Even when he doesn't interrupt
him. He's like, you look like you're
about to interrupt me. But he's he's like, no, it's
like, you know, the thing where,you know, the FBI would find

(01:55:40):
like depressed Muslim men and then pretend to be a woman and
convince them to do to do terrorism.
And then before they did the terrorism, the FBI would arrest
them. It's like that.
And Jon Levitt goes, yes, right.You're saying being trans is
like being recruited into al Qaeda.
And Bill Maher's like, well, that's very glib thing to say.

(01:56:01):
And it's like, yeah, but you diddo that.
You didn't. Said that.
You said it's very. Glib when you take my words and
then spit them back to me like. Literally one of those guys
who's like, how dare you summarize what I've said and
repeat it back to me more concisely.
And it there's and there's no, there's genuinely no rhyme or
reason because he talks about trans stuff and it's like it's

(01:56:23):
clearly bad. You know, he has all these crazy
ideas about like weight and health, but then or about like
vaccines and masks and shit. And he'll be like, don't tell me
about the science, OK? We don't know anything about the
human body, which I'm always like, my wife and I did IVF.
We know a lot about the human body.
You would be blown away by the intricacies of the human body we

(01:56:46):
know about. But then he'll say that.
But then he'll be like ripping on fat people and he'll be like,
it's just science, OK? We know these things about the
human body and it's like this guy is just making it up as he
goes. Which is the stuff he doesn't
like. And then and then and his and
that kind of worldview, there's like no fat chicks worldview is

(01:57:06):
something that is frozen in the 1980s or whatever.
When he was first doing comedy. You know, we can we can get to
it later. But he gets really upset when
people say, do you know this? Hey, you're the like get off my
lawn guy, right? He really takes offense to that
when people pointed out. So a lot of clips you might see
these days of Bill Maher making crazy comments like this or, or,

(01:57:32):
you know, just filling himself in front of his.
His guests are on a podcast he started in March 2022 called
Club Random. What a shitty name for a
podcast. Club Random?
You got to be fucking kidding me.
No effort there will tell me about Club Random.

(01:57:53):
Well, Jared, I'm afraid that I can't fully tell you about Club
Random because no man or woman or person has enough time on
this earth to fully tell you about Club Random.
Club Random is something you would read about in the Bible
and then run to your parents crying and upset and they would
go. These are just stories that are

(01:58:14):
meant to teach you about life. They're not real.
You don't have to actually worryabout them.
Grow up, Grow up is what they would say.
Club Random Yeah was a podcast he started and it's him in his
basement. It's sad now they've settled
into he sits there and he smokesweed, drinks, smokes cigars with

(01:58:37):
his guest in the basement of hisparty house, which as I
mentioned is the 2nd house he owns next to his actual house.
And it's sad now because it's always set up where it's two
chairs with like a table in between them.
And he says that he has crew that worked on the Bachelor as
the like production staff on it because there are there are
cameras in the walls. So it'll be it usually it's

(01:59:01):
front on the two people talking,but then it'll cut to an angle
that's like diagonal down where you're getting like the back
left part of Kid Rock's head andmost of Bill Maher's face.
But a part of Kid Rock's head islike blocking Bill Maher's face.
Also, he's always mixing drinks.So like he'll be talking and

(01:59:23):
then you just hear like metal and ice clinking around like it
sounds like they. Ice is a big part of it.
It's just a lot of like rustlingfor ice, like.
It's like ASMR it's it's like 1 camera cuts and you just hear
like every drop of saliva on theend of his like shitty rolled
joint like. He and what's sad though is for

(01:59:44):
the first few months they were really experimental with the
camera angles and setup. So sometimes it'd be him at the
his bar. It's him at his bar with like
Greg Gutfeld. And because of that there is no
angle they have where they are both in frame.
So it could be one of those really bad movies with a movie
star who's washed up and refusesto be on set for anything other

(02:00:06):
than their close-ups. So it could theoretically just
be body double S with dialogue overdubbed, but.
It's the lighting is insane. It's like fluorescent.
It's all it's sometimes it's litfrom behind with like a neon bar
sign the IT. Feels very pink, like my my room
that I'm always like the people will know who they've been on
the show. I have a very like mood lighting

(02:00:28):
to keep my brain normal but it'slike that except like the set
it's very pink and and and a little garish.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's streamer lighting, but without the like
frontal light. So it's just lit from behind the
guests and and he sits there. Some episodes are like 2 hours

(02:00:48):
and 45 minutes long and the guests he has on are
celebrities. Far right figures and men with
horrific accusations of intimatepartner violence against them.
Thank you for. Bringing that up because I was,
I was going to move you there next.
Yeah, it's a yeah. Guys who abuse women who he

(02:01:09):
wants to help launder their reputation.
Like those are the people he hason.
Those are the three types of guests he has on Club Random.
Yeah, one that you pulled, Mike,is Terrence Howard.
Actually don't know too much about this guy.
Why? Why?
Why'd you pull this one? Well, I pulled it.
I pulled it because because Willsaid Will told us that.

(02:01:30):
Who is fucking insane? He wrote in the doc.
He's invented a new. Math.
A new math where 1 * 1 = 2. Yeah, so Terrence Howard, for
people who don't know, have been, have been, have been
accused of domestic violence multiple times and very serious,
actually. And he, you know, it's really

(02:01:53):
weird podcast from what I could see.
I didn't watch the whole thing, but I found it like just
surreal. I couldn't turn it off.
At one point he says that you shouldn't jail guys because who
kill other guys over women because we're basically 98%
chimp. There's only 1.3%

(02:02:13):
differentiation between us and them and that one point, 3% we
call human and we have to abide by that.
But 98.7% of us is still trying to be that gorilla 8 That's who
we are. We are.
So how are they locking? People up for killing someone
that's sleeping with their wife when 98% of them is that what

(02:02:38):
you can't do that to the chimpanzees.
All males fight over women in every species I know.
But again, it's going to be harder in your life because
married chicks are still going to like look at you and go on
their pass. Yes, correct.
And you too. You still get it.

(02:02:58):
So please, please, it's, it's not a fair fight and.
OK. All right, Bill.
OK, so like, to me, I just want to say in that in that small
clip alone, Will and I want to know what you think of this.
That is more than just, OK, let's give Terrence Howard a

(02:03:19):
platform. We don't believe in cancel
culture. That is like, it's like, you
know, I'm going to agree with him about his psychedelic chimp
fantasies. Like, it's like, it's like, he's
like, really like, he's like, he's like, he's like, this is my
guy right here. He also is like at one point he
goes he's like they're they bothagree his kids, Terrence

(02:03:39):
Howard's kids shouldn't get the vaccines because they don't need
them and insurance. Howard is like the whole thing
with the vaccine is before when they use the duck embryo for it,
because they would grow vaccinesand duck embryos.
He was like they would that and then when they gave you the
vaccine, it wouldn't, it had nothing to connect with your
DNA. So nothing would have.

(02:04:00):
But now because they have the abortion clinics and they use,
they use aborted fetal fetuses to to, you know, deliver the
vaccines, now you get it. And because it's human, it
bonds. It can bond and change your DNA.

(02:04:20):
And that's why we have the psoriasis now.
That's not where I thought that was going to go.
It's so funny I the fact that heends with you're like listening
and you're like, that's why we have what what is it going to
be? And when he says psoriasis
you're like huh, I understand psoriasis is annoying but like
if it's psoriasis or giving my child measles, I'll just get

(02:04:43):
psoriasis. So just, you know, you have in
here generally that he's just railing against woke all the
time. In our opening clip, we had him
talking about woke to RFK Junior, who is releasing his
harvest, who knows where these days.
It doesn't sound like Olivia Nuzzy anymore.
And you know, he had Marjorie Taylor Green on and you

(02:05:06):
mentioned that, you know, she said like AI.
He something about AI being programmed by woke.
Yeah, he everything is woke, everything he'll he's said
multiple times he'll be like talking about he'll be like and
yes, some of these people have the woke mind virus, which yes,
is a real thing. And it's like OK, no, it's not

(02:05:28):
like it's not it metaphorically,OK, but it's not a no one
actually thinks it's a virus in your brain.
But he, yeah, he talks like thatall the time and he's really
hung up on AI. He so he hates AI because he
believes all the AI hype. He always says stuff like AI is
already smarter than we are. Who knows what AI can do.

(02:05:50):
He'll be like, maybe we can liveforever because of AI.
Have you seen that video? It's like the robot that in like
I think China that like starts like they're like repairing it
in a factory or in a like a warehouse and starts like
wigging out, like flipping out and like flailing its limbs
around. And he'll be like, look, the
robots are fighting back. But his thing whole thing with

(02:06:11):
AI, he's like, you know, AI, yes, you know, there are
problems. And one of the problems is that
it was programmed by the woke. And I can tell this, I swear to
God this is true. He said this.
He goes and I can tell this because somebody, he's always
saying somebody did things. He's like, somebody showed me
this, somebody did this. It it feels a little bit like he
wanted, like the way Todd Glass has talked about all the jokes

(02:06:33):
he did over a stand up career where he'd talk about things he
did with his girlfriend and now he's out of the closet.
He's like, yeah, those stories were true.
It just wasn't a girlfriend who was with me during those things.
Yeah, yeah. It's like he's asking AI what he
asked. He clearly asked Like ChatGPT.
What's my best stand up special?And it told him it was one of

(02:06:54):
his old ones from 2005 because I'm sure the algorithm combed
letterbox, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and was like, well,
this one has the highest review score combined, so that must be
the best one. And he goes, that's how I know
it was programmed by woke. First of all, it shouldn't even
have an opinion on this. It shouldn't be answering this

(02:07:14):
question question. It shouldn't have an opinion.
It's like, well, you asked it, what are you talking about?
And then he goes and I can tell it's woke because that special,
there are all kinds of jokes about George W Bush and gay
marriage. And so of course the woke love
that, whereas my new specials are much better, but they have

(02:07:35):
jokes criticizing the woke. So that's why AI doesn't like
it. And I can tell you his newer
specials have some of the most scathing reviews from people who
open the reviews by going. I am a huge fan of this guy.
I watch his TV show every week. This is the worst comedy special
I've ever seen. You know, you know, though what

(02:07:58):
I have to say about the AI thing?
Well, sometimes you can teach anold dog new tricks.
And my man, my man may be a little forward thinking.
He's into the AII. Just want to point out when he
had Marjorie Taylor Green on as well.
I just made a little note of this.
He let her air out her comments about a national divorce without
much pushback. When it's just like really the

(02:08:20):
most offensive thing, You know, the, the, the mainstream liberal
press really focuses a lot on the Jewish space lasers thing,
which is kind of cartoonish and you know.
She also denies saying that. And he goes, oh, great.
Of course they he's like, yeah, of course you didn't.
The press lies about everybody. And it's like, yeah.
My gosh, She she said Rothschild.
I didn't even know Rothschild was Jewish or whatever.

(02:08:41):
It's like, OK, well, we were dealing with a complete moron or
someone's lying to my face. And actually, both could be
true. Yeah.
And they're both bad. I mean, but he she talks about
like, go you the national divorce.
She's like, yeah. And he's just like, how would
that work? Isn't Atlanta in a in a state
that's kind of purple and it's kind of blue there?

(02:09:02):
Like he doesn't. She's talking about civil war,
in which Americans start killingone and over another in a power
struggle. Bill.
But he doesn't seem to be bothered by that.
I believe that episode he, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I
believe also on that interview episode, his one-on-one
interview was with that guy who just put out a documentary about
FUF OS. And at the start of it, Bill

(02:09:25):
Maher is like, so before people used to go be like, we are a
little nutty. If you believe this is true, I
would say now with all this evidence, you're a little nutty
if you don't believe it's true. And then they proceed to have
this interview about this documentary about UFOs beginning
from the place of obviously thisis all true.
UFOs are real. They can defy the laws of
physics. Everyone who says they've seen a

(02:09:47):
sighting, one of one is telling the truth.
No one would have any reason to lie.
And it gets so crazy that at onepoint he goes, so some people in
your movie have a theory that aliens are intentionally
crashing spacecraft for us to find so that we can reverse
engineer the technology and learn from it.
What are some cases of technology that might have come

(02:10:08):
from that? This is the hard hitting,
rational stuff you would expect.Yeah, this guy sounds.
Really religious. This guy sounds really great.
The same guy, The same guy who told us that we're all fucking
idiots if we go to Mass. It turns out there is a man in
the sky with a beard, but he's also extremely tall and grey and

(02:10:29):
thin and he's crashing his car on purpose so that we can invent
like submarines or whatever. Like, it's he.
It's absolute crackpot shit on the most highly regarded station
network or cable. It airs every week.
It's been on for 23 seasons and if you have any sense and you

(02:10:52):
watch it, you'll be like, it feels like a weird form of gas
lighting where you're like, well, this has been on so long.
I must there must be something wrong with me for watching this
and go all of these. There's a gas leak in this
studio or something. What the hell is going on right
now? Well, you, you put together a
bunch of like like a like a super cut of him saying things

(02:11:18):
like for, for a podcast hosted by Matt Bernstein.
Is that his name? Yes, yes, it's fruity.
I unfortunately deleted all thatstuff because I was like surely
no one else would be mad enough to ask me to do this again.
Well, well, we can. We can, we can sample Matt's
work here if you just want to hear a little clip clip of him,
you know, saying the same thing over and over again for a

(02:11:40):
minute. And you wonder why the left
catches more jokes from me. They changed, not me, OK?
I mean, they left me. I didn't leave them.
I mean, I I'm I'm the same. It's not me who changed.
Yeah, I feel I'm the same guy. Yeah, I didn't change.
The left changed is is a it's like an honest to God.
That's his mantra. And then a thing he also says

(02:12:01):
all the time is he goes. I tell my woke friends we both
voted for the same person. You're just.
Like when Young Jeezy says that's right or whatever, it's
like a refrain that that they just like, throw out.
Like as an adlet. Yeah, DJ Clue.
Yeah, yeah, new shit, new shit. He also the other thing, though,
about his whole I tell my woke friends you're just why she

(02:12:22):
lost. He also said in 2022 that the
Democrats were going to get killed in the midterm because of
wokeness. And I'm going on paternity leave
for January, but when I come back.
I'm going to watch. Congratulations.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
While unfortunately I I don't know if you've met my wife, but

(02:12:45):
it turns out my baby is going tobe 1/4 woke.
I found out my I found out my yeah, my wife.
My wife is half, she's half wokeon her dad's side and she's 1/4
DEI on her mom's side so. My God dude, your kid has no
chance of defeating the Republicans now.
Yeah, no, she's going to cost the Democrats so many seats in
the next election. Very much a critique, a critic

(02:13:09):
of what goes on on the fringe ofthe left.
I mean, woke culture has just. That's one reason why the
Republicans are going to do so well in this election, because
the left has gone super crazy with lots of shit that the
average American just never voted for, doesn't recognize in
this country, doesn't want and pay attention to, and doesn't.

(02:13:30):
OK, so we're moving along in this code post COVID era.
He's wrong about the midterms and of course then October 7th,
right? Not not a great moment for for
anyone. And as Israel starts to
retaliate and launch operations into Gaza and it becomes

(02:13:54):
apparent that it is a genocide, he engages in a lot of genocide
denial. Yeah, so Bill Maher's always
been a Israel hawk. When he went on Larry King in
2001, basically said Israel has never done anything wrong and
that everything would be fine inthe Middle East if people would

(02:14:16):
just stop attacking Israel. And this has come up a lot since
October 7th. He's been Wheeling this line out
a bunch, so there's a moment that we have here in the Dock
the second time Ben Shapiro is on Club Random.

(02:14:40):
The second time. The second time.
The second time, Ben Shapiro is on Club Random.
Thank you every time you. Slow that down running back.
Like every time you see Ben Shapiro, you're like, God, I
hope I get a second shot at thisguy 'cause there's just so much
good stuff here. There's just so much we didn't
get into while it blew weed smoke in your face for 2 1/2
hours. Anyway, they're mocking the New

(02:15:02):
York Times for writing a story about the IDF using kidnapped
Palestinians as human Shields when they think there's
improvised explosive devices around.
Dismissing the idea that a war crime is real, he wheels it out.
To be realistic about the largerparameters here, what does a

(02:15:23):
nation do when it is being attacked?
You know, I keep saying this is all very simple, stop attacking
Israel, stop attacking Israel, and then we won't be having
these fights about when should we have a ceasefire, which is
always the day after Israel attacks, right?
That's. Right.
There's never a better time for a ceasefire in an Israeli war

(02:15:47):
than the day after. I thought it was just, yeah,
that's right, Ben Shapiro says to Bill Maher, the liberal
pundit. That's definitely right.
There's nothing more complicatedgoing on than that.
Also special guest appearance bythe ice clinking around in his
glass during that clip. We weren't talking about that.
Dude, after you said that, now we're playing these clips and
I'm just hearing people's mouthssmacking and like.

(02:16:08):
Oh, that's coming. Dude, these these producers.
Will Will has left us a a delightful super cut.
Of my lip pervert. My pervert shit.
Yeah, he may have hired producers for The Bachelor, but
I'm convinced that they hate him.
Oh, there's some I, I keep mentioning the Bella Thorne

(02:16:28):
episode. If you watch that episode, it's
like the third episode of the podcast.
If you watch that, you'd be like, why would anyone ever put
this out? Like, why would you not go to
your boss and go, we can't release this.
You grab her at various points during the interview like this
is not acceptable. I I start to wonder if it's like

(02:16:51):
and at one point while he's likegrabbing her hand, the camera
zooms in on it as if they're like hit the prosecutor that
like prosecution team in court against him.
But I sometimes wonder now if club random if he isn't paying a
ton of money for this show and this is not a form of like elder
abuse being done to him like sincerely.

(02:17:13):
Well, well, we're gonna get to the to the stuff with women in a
second. And he had Bill Burr on.
I mean, like they've had a sort of back and forth I think for a
while. So, I mean, a lot of people
played it up like Bill Burr destroyed him.
But it seems like they have a fairly friendly connection,
unless I'm misunderstanding it. Like they've been on each
other's shows a bunch. Yeah, so when Bill Burr was on
Club Random and Bill Maher triedto whip out that thing that Ben

(02:17:38):
Shapiro was like, mm, hmm. Yep, Yep.
Just stop attacking Israel. That's it.
That's the whole that's the whole thing going on in the
Middle East. He pushed back on it, kind of
mocked him. This went around it went, you
know, semi viral online as like Bill Burr decimates Bill Maher

(02:17:59):
Bill on Bill violence. But but like you said, like they
they seem to have, you know, at least some kind of cordial
relationship at the end of this podcast, Bill Burr is like, Oh
yeah, I had a great time. Thanks for having me on.
But here's that clip. Very.
Simple solution to all this problem in the Middle East.
Stop attacking Israel. Hey, you're just attacking
Israel. You just solved it.

(02:18:20):
I actually did go. That's fantastic.
I'm the one who's actually braveon this.
Yourself on the back. Let's go to Russia and the
Ukraine. How do you solve that one, Bill?
This is why this is not yours. Makes some hard noise.
It's not your thing, it's what you might.
It isn't. Yes, it isn't.
You're like that guy that has a fantasy football team and thinks
he's a fucking GM. Like why am I?

(02:18:41):
He's talking about Mike right there.
That's that's a shout out to Mike.
This is literally true. But I mean that that's why you
pay him the big bucks. That was a really good lion.
And it's actually very true too.Is that like Bill is like really
smelling his own farts on like alot of these foreign policy
issues? The thing where he's saying I am
brave is because Bill Burr saying like, look, I'm with the

(02:19:05):
kids. Like it's bad that kids are
dying. And Bill Maher is like, oh, it's
so easy to say that. It's so easy to say that.
And so Bill Burr is. Like, oh wow, it is easy to say
that if you have a heart, yes. Bill Burr's like, oh wow, what a
hero. He's like, I am a hero like I
am. It is brave to say that.
And he gets into the like, Bill Burr's like, no, Hamas, I'm not.

(02:19:25):
I'm with the kids because they don't the Palestinian Diane,
Bill Maher does a thing of like,well, what's the difference
between Hamas and the Palestinians, really?
So here's the thing. We're talking about this clip,
the Ben Shapiro clip. Ben, the Ben Shapiro episode is
from after the Bill Burr episodeof Club Random, because Ben
Shapiro on that episode says to Bill Maher, you know, I thought

(02:19:49):
Bill Burr was a real asshole when he was on your show before.
Ben Shapiro keeps trying to start beef with Bill Burr and
Bill Burr is smart enough to know like, why would I engage in
this? Like why would I give this guy?
Attention and like boost his credibility but like Ben Shapiro
whines about Bill Burr on the show and Bill Maher does this

(02:20:11):
thing where he's like no no, we have this professor this dynamic
where Oh my sort of bait him andI let him be like oh oh you know
he gets mad he's like oh you think you're so smart you think
you're so smart I'm kind of likeoh Bill yes, come and get me
like he acts like this is all him.
I'm the floor general baiting I'm Sun Tzu baiting my my

(02:20:35):
enemies into coming at me and doing exactly what I want but on
the episode of club random Bill Maher is like fucked up by the
end. He is insanely wasted and Bill
Burr was on club random like years before and they had an OK
time. And then Bill Burr came on the
Thursday afternoon podcast, which is Bill Burr's other like

(02:20:58):
second podcast after the Monday morning one.
And Bill Maher is so standoffishand hostile for most of it until
finally Bill Burr is being like friendly.
He's asking him questions about what stand up was like when he
was young. Bill Maher keeps getting mad and
taking offense that Bill, he's like, oh, stop acting like I'm
so much older than you. It's only 13 years, an

(02:21:22):
objectively large amount of years.
And by the end they're kind of joking around a little bit and
they're having an OK time. And that's when they're like,
you know, Bill Burr's like, I, Ihad a blast, by the way, 'cause
Bill Burr's been like breaking his balls.
But at the end, he's kind of being like, hey, I'm being
friendly. And Bill Maher's like warmed up.
He's uncrossed his arms. He's like, I had a great time.

(02:21:43):
I don't fully remember, 'cause I'm just going to watch this
again for the show, like over the weekend.
I haven't seen it for like a year and a half.
I recall by the end Bill Burr not being as enthusiastic about
Bill Maher as he was at the end of his podcast.
So I wouldn't be surprised if these two guys have not talked
by the end because he is like authentically annoyed by him

(02:22:04):
sitting there and being like, here's how you solve the war.
Like Bill Burr's the kind of guywho hates, he says this is
you're. Also, just the condescension of
this is my thing, This is not your thing.
You're a dumb comedian. Yeah, and.
He's like making fun of how he dresses earlier.
And that's when Bill Burr is like, you don't look good, you
don't dress good. You dress like a defendant.
You look like you're trying to get off of a drunk driving

(02:22:26):
charge. Like they're they're playfully
bantering. And then Bill Burr seems to lose
his patience with them as the episode goes on.
And by the end, Bill Maher is like he's just drinking water on
Bill Burr's show. By the end of Club Random, he is
genuinely like a blasted out of his mind like he is wrapped.
And I don't think Bill Burr has a ton of respect for that by the

(02:22:48):
end. Bill Maher has really, you know,
picked a bone with young people who have supported Palestinians
or or said that it is bad that they are being massacred with
seemingly no consequences from the world taking aim at people

(02:23:09):
like Chappelle Rhone quote from him and says you killed at
Coachella this year, but when Hamas killed at a music festival
like like making a punch line out of that.
Yeah, he goes. He's really it's it's his whole
thing is he keeps being like, you know, you have this song
where you go, I went down on youin a bathroom.
But if you went down on someone in a bathroom in Gaza, they'd

(02:23:30):
throw you off a roof. Like it's that period of so.
Therefore, therefore, all these children should die.
Yeah, it's the period of Hasbro where it's like, oh, well, you
know what? They kill every gay person in
Gaza the second they find out they're gay.
Their launch, It's like really taking delight in describing the

(02:23:51):
deaths of gay people and being like, no, no, I'm defending gay
people by like taking a weird delight in describing their
deaths at the hands of the evil and exotic Muslims I have
conjured up in my brain. So Bill Maher also takes issue
with college protesters. He has made this joke so many

(02:24:15):
times and it always bombs. It's the same joke every time.
Every single time he goes, they're protesting for Hamas.
That's like rooting for the planes on 9/11.
And of the clips that we have inthe document, I watched all of
them, and in none of them does the audience seem to pick up

(02:24:37):
that this is supposed to be a punchline.
So I'll play a little example ofthat just.
Find a reason why I thought I was right about doing this.
It happened after October 7th. I mean, people demonstrating for
Hamas, for Hamas. It's like rooting for the planes
on 9/11. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(02:24:58):
Well, and it's. A joke?
Fuck's sake, I mean that. It's always a good joke when you
have to immediately tell people.You have to tell people that
that's a joke. OK, fuck it, one more.
Or the lab. And again, like, for the people
who say, you know, you've changed, I didn't change the
left, change. The idea that there would be
kids protesting for this terrorist organization, Hamas,

(02:25:24):
that's just crazy to me. I mean, it's like, it's like if
they were around on 9/11, they'dbe rooting for the planes.
Yeah, well, a lot of that comes from.
The interviewer does not stop. It does.
Not Larry. Register.
It doesn't even register as a joke.
Like rooting for the planes? When I talk about it on the

(02:25:46):
podcast, as my guest pointed out, I feel like we were all
rooting for the planes on 9/11, but unfortunately, the planes
lost on 9/11. I would not call that a victory
for the planes. What happened to the planes?
Like the joke truly makes absolutely no sense.
It's incredible. And he did it on his most recent
comedy special, which he says isthe best he's ever done, I

(02:26:08):
think. He's got to smoke a little less
weed. I mean, my, my disagreements
with his politics, his life, everything about the guy,
whatever aside, we'll get into the very end of this podcast.
But he could smoke a little lessweed.
I mean, like, is he concerned that his cognitive abilities are
are declining because he was a little sharper than his career?

(02:26:28):
Anyway, so. So Trump wins in 2024 and Bill
says he's not going to let him drive him preemptively crazy
this time. And he has dinner with Trump.
Set up by Kid Rock. Was that?
Wait, what? Yes, Kid Rock.
He had Kid Rock on Club Random and Kid Rock was like you got to

(02:26:49):
meet this guy and Bill Maher's like I'd love to have dinner
with him. And then like he had dinner with
him like 2 weeks later. That's how close Kid Rock is to
the president. He got Bill Maher at dinner with
him in like a matter of weeks. Dude, this this country's so
cooked dude. Yeah, we're fucked anyway, so
this doesn't go over very well. People don't like it.

(02:27:11):
Larry David writes an op-ed in the New York Times.
There's sort of a humorous op-edabout this, sort of like
comparing it to like a dinner with Hitler.
My dinner with Adolf. Yeah, dinner with Adolf and Bill
Maher gets mad and said it's an insult to 6,000,000 Jews.
And I wonder, I wonder, I wonderif Larry David's also Jewish, by

(02:27:34):
the way. I know I didn't know I hooked.
That up on Curb Your Enthusiasm.I feel like it'd be rude to ask.
Could be anything based upon theway, you know, either way he
presents himself anyway. So he's, you know, he's really
unfunny about this as you mentioned.
Well, and I have that he went onTMZ's 2 Angry Men to defend the

(02:27:58):
dinner and he basically said that he should be a hero.
That's my question to those people.
And by the way, I had my people go through the numbers.
It's really only the 10% of the far, far left who hated me
before this. So it hasn't those same people.

(02:28:19):
And I would say to them, as opposed to what?
I have the opportunity to go to the White House and talk to the
president and not give up my principles.
It seems like nobody noticed that I didn't go MAGA.
I had the opportunity to talk toDonald Trump and say to things
to him that maybe he never hears.

(02:28:40):
Oh I'm sure you fucking really spoke truth to power, bud.
I suppose I got invited to chum it up with the president.
I haven't. And what was I supposed to do?
I should be celebrated. And also, I had my people look
into this. They ran the numbers, whatever
the fuck that means. I the numbers, yeah, I want to

(02:29:01):
say so. Jared pulls the clips.
I just want to say I've watched this whole thing.
There is no further clarification on what the
numbers are, what numbers he's referring to, who these people
are, how they would run any sortof number, and how it could
churn out a number where it's only 10% of the far left that
has a problem with it. How many all like the numbers?

(02:29:24):
It also just like doesn't make sense right?
Because he's like, my people ranthe numbers and the only people
mad about me kicking it, slurping back a cold one with
Daddy Trump, are people who hated me already.
Which is why I'm about to rant for the rest of my fucking life
on every single show I do about how like people were mad that I

(02:29:47):
just went and had a conversation.
If nobody's mad about it, why are you?
You know, I don't know. He had Matt Gaetz on Club Random
and another one of his mantras is.
Of course there's another man. There's another man who who's
whose reputation needs reclaiming.
Literally says to Matt Gaetz, I don't believe you did anything
because if you had, you'd be in jail right now.

(02:30:10):
That's how it works in America. He keeps going.
He's like, he's always saying he's like, the left hates me,
but I don't care. He said it.
I'd seen him like, say it like adozen times.
And I'm just watching the Matt Gaetz episode live and he goes,
the left hates me, but I don't care.
And I pause it and I go. It feels like when you say that
all the time, you actually do care.

(02:30:30):
I unposit and Matt Gaetz goes, actually it seems like you do
care because you talk about it all the time.
And it's like imagine. Oh my God.
Imagine like I just got read to filth by Matt Gaetz.
I also want to just interject here, one other thing.
It's like I didn't go mega. I didn't go mega.
I didn't have Kid Rock introduced me to the president

(02:30:56):
Donald Trump, who talks about like, like basically wiping out
all of his enemies like some kind of insane king.
And if Kid Rock introduced me toDonald Trump, I didn't go MAGA.
I just happened to do that. That's like a, it's like a
really crazy thing to like mentally process and like, what
truths would he really drop out of?
Like he'd be like actually like it's, you know, it's wrong to

(02:31:18):
use the N word. Like, you know, he's not the
person to even say that, right? So.
The truths he dropped on him, he's like, and I told the
president, you're scaring people.
And he listened to that. Like, that's his big thing.
He's like, I told Trump, you're scaring people.
And he's like, at one point Trump said, like, you know, I
didn't win in 2020. And Bill Maher goes and I told
him, wow, I never thought I'd hear you say that.

(02:31:41):
And then he kind of left. He didn't get mad at me.
He's a much more reasonable guy then he portrays himself in
public. Like that's the tone of the 12
minute bit he does about the dinner with Trump.
He also, you know, he claims I went in there, you know, after
this like monologue, he does this 12 minute thing about how
reasonable and normal Trump is in private.

(02:32:03):
He's actually a pretty pretty just standard sane kind of guy.
He's not the guy you see on TV. You know, he says he didn't give
up anything. He's still him.
But then he had Lara Trump, Trump's daughter-in-law on Club
Random and actually said that hehe did change.

(02:32:27):
He did give up his principles. And then I and then I said.
But you know what, I will also admit, not that one, but yes,
have I taken some cheap shots? I have, and that's not
necessary. And by the way, I'm kind of
bored with it. You've been on the public stage
here for 10 years, more before he was run for president.

(02:32:49):
And since then, no jokes about his weight, no jokes about his
hair, his makeup, his nothing. Melania, I have enough on my
plate with the policy. I don't have to go there.
So I thought, like, you know, this is how people bridge.

(02:33:09):
Yeah. They you make a little thing
here, I make a little move this way.
It doesn't hurt me. It doesn't hurt you.
OK, he said. I make a little move this way,
you make a little move. What move do we think Bill Maher
invents Trump to do? Blow up people in the Caribbean
Sea. That's it's like, who the hell
does this guy think he is? To be like, well, you need

(02:33:32):
people like me in the president's ear.
And it's like, I need you in thepresident's ear, like I need my
mother in the president's ear. I at least think my mother
would, you know, a blab, some secret Donald Trump told her in
confidence while she was at a party.
At least I know I would get thatout of my mother hanging around
Donald Trump. What benefit is there from

(02:33:55):
Donald, from Donald Trump spending time with Bill Maher
and the policy thing? He also does not criticize the
policies like there's like no substantial policy criticisms
either. Well, policies he does
criticize. Check this one out for a segue,
Will it's a lot of the left wingones.
You mentioned that he you know, years ago was like we might need

(02:34:18):
a little bit of socialism in this country and now he is just
like raving A lunatic about it. We have here at the doc.
He ended this season of real time by again complaining about
people who were mad at him for meeting Trump and then just
ripping into socialism. So the DSA specifically.

(02:34:42):
Mom Donnie, as we've discussed in different episodes on here,
presents a real problem for people who have issues with
Muslims, who have issues with the left.
He is like a kind of perfect storm for them, and he's like a
perfect storm for Bill in many ways, don't you think?
Well, I mean, like he's like, you know, he's a, he's ADSA
Muslim brown guy who, you know, happens to inhabit all the

(02:35:09):
policies that Bill make Bill nervous.
Yeah, now I am a little confusedbecause as someone who's been
watching a fair amount of real time from over the last few
months, I could have sworn his last name was pronounced Mandami
Madati Domnami. I I've never heard the
pronunciation of Mom Donnie before.

(02:35:30):
Are you sure that's the correct way to say that?
Because. Maybe, maybe Bill was talking
about someone else. We should cut him a break here.
No, it's like, it's like a, you know, a fifth grader's
understanding of how to bully somebody, right?
I mean. I, I think it, I think it is
both he doesn't respect him and he genuinely can't do it.
Like he'll literally be like, did I say like you can see him

(02:35:53):
get frustrated with his inability to say it, which is
more pathetic because it is Mom,Donnie, it's your mother and a
guy named Donald. It couldn't be easier for
someone to break it down for him.
But he so one of his big things is he's talked a lot this year
about like the Democrats losing young men, the Democrats losing
young men. Oh, the Democrats need white

(02:36:15):
men. They need to be sensible.
They need to stop all this woke stuff to get white men back.
And it's like we'll look at the candidates that young white guys
vote for. It's it's Mahmdani.
And previously it was like Bernie Sanders.
So The thing is that nothing, nothing presents a challenge for
Bill Maher because he just lies.He just lies and makes up his.

(02:36:35):
Own reality, he'll just change the argument or the narrative
when he's confronted with some sort of obstacle.
Yeah, it has. It has to be some version of the
world where Bill Maher can stillbe the smartest guy in the
world, right? Yeah.
You're going to steal my Thunder.
That's what I want us to talk about at the end.
But yeah, I mean, so I want to move here because there's just

(02:36:57):
been a lot of talk. And I know it's something that
that is interested of interest to you.
Will. There's been a lot of talk about
Bill and his relationship to women.
We've talked about it a couple times through here.
I'm fucking obsessed. All right, all right.
This is we're now entering the pervert section of the podcast.

(02:37:18):
So if that's you, turn it up. We, we, we recently sold for
charity Will and, and we, we would love to share one with you
A like T-shirts in the style of the TPUSA freedom shirt, but it
says femdom. So we're no stranger to sexual
commentary and fun. But Bill is a different, he's a

(02:37:38):
different case in many ways. I, you know, we, we played
earlier that he would refer to himself as an insult when he was
younger. And there are a lot of sex
workers who have come forward online to sort of drop the T
about their interactions with him.
You know, I would just say, let's leave that alone here and

(02:37:59):
just let him do his business with sex workers in private.
But he's also made jokes, like, about only fans.
He once said, boy, if there's one thing millennials love more
than canceling the patriarchy, it's women having sex for money.
Maybe he's just trying to feel young by he.
Have you ever thought about that?
He's 70 years old. He he also did a whole ending

(02:38:22):
show monologue about Honora in Hollywood's obsession with sex
workers. And he compares it to slavery at
one point during it. And that's, that's what sparked
like one of the references here in the doc.
That was what that was what sparked this woman posting on
TikTok about him because, like, yeah, he's like, is it really

(02:38:43):
good that we're encouraging women to think sex work is like,
an OK thing to do? Well, you have this clip that
we're about to play here with a a a porn star named Tiana Trump,
no relation to Donald Trump because she is black.
And she wouldn't be the most surprising thing in the world to

(02:39:06):
have Stron Thurmond 2 point O wandering around.
That's that's true. Tiana starts to talk a little
bit about Bill Maher in sort of,you know, just sideways terms.
And then the hosts are basicallyyou're talking about Bill Maher.
And then they sort of dropped the act and she just talks about
her interaction. And Make Love and.

(02:39:28):
He was like. Slow down baby.
Like every time like. You know, I'm trying to get this
shit done. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You wouldn't get the fuck out ofthere.
At this point. Because he's just like, hey, I'm
with a 60 year old white dude who's slicking his hair back and
he's pale. That's.
A pale motherfucker. He's almost see through.
That guy is almost see through. And when you're having sex with
him, you're probably just like, hey, just let me get this money
and get the fuck out of there. Yes.

(02:39:49):
Yeah, Oh. And my boyfriend was waiting, I
think. Outside, and the Camaro parked
in his. Garage.
I don't know if he knows he was out there waiting.
Because he wouldn't bill. Put me in the guest house.
It's the party house, yeah. Oh, oh, keep.
Playing that's like, right we get.
Coming. It's a guest house.
Right. And then I think it's his yard
and then his house. Yeah, yeah, I didn't.
Get to go in that far, but I gotto see his guest house get.

(02:40:11):
To fuck him in the guest house, yes.
Shit, you didn't even get to fuck.
Him in the main house. No, that's some slave shit.
Maybe. Maybe the second slave?
Shit like. That's.
Fucked up because he got in trouble.
For that, you know that, right? Wait for what?
For making a slave comment to about being a house.
That's what I wanted to keep in there because I think it's

(02:40:32):
important to remember that you're dealing with a black sex
worker here and the context of him saying that.
Has her come all the way out to his house, but then won't even
let her come into his house so that he can do whatever.
He also IDs her and gets mad at her because she says she's 21
and she's actually 18 at the time but he still has sex with

(02:40:54):
her. He still.
Doesn't. Yeah, she says on the clip.
She says that he that he said toher.
I don't like liars. I was like shaking his head.
Whatever. Thanks Dad.
Let's go have sex now. If you're in the document that
another woman on TikTok said that sex workers charge him
$5000 an hour because he's so insufferable.

(02:41:15):
Yeah, that's what it, that's what she wrote.
There also was an Onion headlinefrom like 2000 or 2001 and the
headline was Bill Maher gets into argument with Republican
sex worker or Republican prostitute.
He did an episode of politicallyincorrect from the Playboy
Mansion and Adam it's that is despicable.

(02:41:38):
That is a despicable 20 minutes of television.
You will. It's like, appalling, except you
will come away with a new and intense respect and appreciation
for Scott Weiland, who at one point says, hold on, guys.
I think it's really disgusting that we are saying that just
because you spend some money on a woman, she's obligated to have

(02:42:00):
sex with you. And then he proceeds to get a
bigger laugh than Bill Maher or Adam Corolla does the whole rest
of the episode. Oh my.
God, Adam. Corolla, Jesus.
Christ, so Adam Corolla is making jokes about.
They had Scott Weiland killed over that.
You know that I'm I'm going to be Candace Owens.
They gave him a hot dose and it it's one of the questions Bill

(02:42:22):
Maher is like, OK, first question, if a guy flies a woman
out to see him, isn't she obligated to have sex with him?
And over the next 8 minutes it becomes so clear that that just
happened to him and he is just like he is just working through.
That rocks. That fucking rocks.
I love that he's just spending that money to fly her out and

(02:42:43):
she's like, actually, no thanks.Yeah, I'm.
Going to go see my friends but at one point Adam Corolla makes
a joke about getting prostitutesand Bill Margos.
Adam, you don't go to prostitutes do you?
And Adam Corolla goes not the ones you go to.
And Bill Margos, I don't go to prostitutes and it feels like

(02:43:04):
the I think you should leave sketch where he goes to the
manager of the restaurant goes hey, can you tell my date to
stop eating all the fully loadednachos and then when his day is
what I wanted to move tables because I see it's cold.
Bill, Bill, Bill. You see a sex worker every other
day. What?
What? And some of them are black porn

(02:43:29):
stars. Who's what?
What are you talking about? And then I also told before we
started recording, I, I mentioned a story somebody told
me on the podcast where she wentto Hawaii with the theoretical
promise that she would be opening or she would be emceeing
the shows. Bill Maher used to do every

(02:43:50):
Hawaii, every New Year's in Hawaii, as if those poor people
haven't suffered enough at the hands of America.
Every New Year's Eve, he would do a run of shows in Hawaii.
And somebody she used to open for was like, come with me,
Maybe you can like MC. And then instead, Bill Maher had
Sean Penn MC the comedy shows. But at one point early on, they
went to a strip club and Bill Maher was like, hey, give me the

(02:44:13):
youngest girls you got and send them to the private room we're
going to be using. So he's a cool guy who's normal
T. Brad he There's no love.
Jared has his face on the mic. He told Howie Mandel that he's
an He's like, I'm an expert on women in their 20s.
That's a literal direct quote. He was like women in their early

(02:44:36):
20s. They're wild.
They're too wild even for me. But it's sounding like women in
their 20s are an expert on him. Oh yeah, they know how to get
what they want out of him. Oh my God.
I forgot to say you guys, the clip he had, he went to Billy,
he had Billy Joel on Club Randomand he told Billy Joel he's like
during COVID, I tried to write asong.
It's called The World Makes You Lie.

(02:44:57):
And Billy Joel's like, OK, that's and the episode is so
good because Billy Joel's like, yeah, look at this fucking guy
I'm talking to like the whole time, he's just like leaning on
a piano and he's like, Christ, get a load of this guy.
I don't got to say nothing during this interview.
He's talking the whole time. And Bill Maher's like, this song
is called The World Makes You Lie.
And Billy Joel's like, oh, OK, that's a good title.

(02:45:17):
And Bill Maher goes, yeah, it's about how the world makes you
lie about things like, say, the age difference in a relationship
because society says it's inappropriate.
I mean, it cuts to Billy Joel. It cuts to Billy Joel, who is
now stone faced staring at him. What the fuck is like?

(02:45:40):
The world makes you lie about things like, oh, I don't know.
The age of my girlfriend. Yeah, why do they?
Make me do that. It's not.
It's so unfair when you think about it.
He had Haktua on Club Random andshe was like, I, I should set
you up with my granny. I should set you up with my

(02:46:00):
granny. And Bill Maher starts laughing
and goes, oh, if you only knew about me.
And it's like, man, why are you trying so hard to make people
think you are like an illegal sex criminal?
Like, why can't you be able to? I think it's a little normal.
I think that's like the one fullepisode of Club Random I've
watched. Is the Hawk 2 2:01 just because

(02:46:21):
like she's on there and the whole thing about like the hawk
to a girl is she made a joke that went viral and then tried
to start a media career but jokeabout but but she has jobs.
Or. She has nothing to say, right?
I mean, there's just, there's just like not much going on up
there. She's she like, doesn't want to
be political. She doesn't like, she's just a

(02:46:43):
character. It's like people invited on the
show so that they can be like, we did a show with the hawk to a
girl and then she gets there andit's like, what kind of music do
you like? She's like, I like country
music. And they're like, wow, very
cool. So this is happening during the
Bill Maher show, except he keepsasking all these questions and
like really felt like during theshow he's like kind of trying to

(02:47:05):
hit on her about like so humorous.
You made a joke about sucking Dick.
That's why he. Probably had her over.
He saw a young woman talking about is it oral sex or a hand
job. The Octo.
Oral sex. It's a yeah, it's a blow job,
yeah. Blow job, not a hand job.
I could like if you because you could spit on it for a hand job
too. Yeah.
Like he's, you know, he probablywas like, OK, this is a young

(02:47:27):
woman who made a joke like this.And I wonder if she'd be
interested about him being next to a man with a lot of money and
power. Yeah, I think he it kind of he
at some point, though, he shiftsinto being just paternal towards
her because there's also a pointwhere he's like, here's what you
need to do, OK, here's what you need to do with your career,

(02:47:48):
what you need to do. You need to start a podcast
about sex. And it's just like, hey,
shithead, do you not think that's the first thing every
other moron has pitched to this woman?
The second they got in the room with her.
How many don't like sex? It's like it's just also like,
it's just like I got my big idea, my Mad Men sign of you'll

(02:48:11):
be like got an idea for you, ma'am.
Boom, sex. OK, so so there's like you're
just a span of person, somethinglike really worked out for you
with that sex joke. Hear me out on this.
What if we did like more of that?

(02:48:32):
Do we think that could be good? When, when I was I did this like
big Comedy Festival in 2012, back when people saw a lot of
promise in what I was doing. And so I was taking like agency
meetings afterwards and one of the places, they had like 19
people in the room. And I'm just thinking back to

(02:48:53):
that because they weren't a verybig agency.
So they were like literally desperate.
They were desperate to beat any other agency in signing
somebody. So they went all out and then I
still signed somewhere else and but they had like 19 people in
the room and they were like all talking.
They're all pitching so much. And now I'm just imagining that
exact scene, like 19 people in the room.
It was actually Rose Mcgowan's former agents.
And when I sat down in the chairin the room, they mentioned she

(02:49:17):
had just been in there. And then they made some
disgusting sexist comment about her.
And I remember being like, I remember being like, cool.
I've entered a room filled with people who literally do not know
a single thing about me or my comedy.
This is a great way to start this off.
But I'm just imagining her sitting down 19 guys and all of
them just sitting down really intensely and being like, hear
us out sex. Like the the one thing anybody's

(02:49:42):
ever heard about you. That's our pitch to you.
And then they are just like. If you're not convinced,
consider this. Sex sells.
It's like a billboard or a blackboard and they flip it
around and it says sex and then also sells on the other side.
OK. So, so before we, there's so

(02:50:04):
many things that you dropped into the dock that were great.
Well, we're not going to get to everything.
We skipped over some of the stuff that I put in the dock, I
think. Hey, you don't have to.
You don't have to make me feel better about it.
I know I overload things. I got a lot of Bill Maher on my
mind. No, I, I, you know, I like, I'm
like, I'm like pickled from sitting at the desk and working
on the Bill Maher thing over thelast few days.

(02:50:25):
Yeah, I do. Every time I've texted you this
week, I've been like, hey, dude,what's you're like Bill Maher?
She's like Bill Maher. Well, I need to get this.
It's like, it's like, it's like having like a an evil spirit.
I need cleansed and I think I'm almost done with it.
I think it's gonna get out afterthis.
So, So I for the last thing, this is just no context here.

(02:50:46):
He is talking to Neil deGrasse Tyson briefly.
Neil deGrasse Tyson kind of pressed him and was like, hey,
why won't you play in college campuses anymore?
And Bill's like, nobody does that anymore because they're
just awful and whatever. And he's like, well, isn't it,
you know, wouldn't what if you had to start over and do it now?

(02:51:07):
Wouldn't you do it differently? Wouldn't you try to get in or
you kind of to kind of get off my lawn now?
And Bill doesn't react very wellto that.
You read the politics, did you? I didn't read the politics.
Yes, you did I. How the fuck do you know what I
did? Because you I know, I know your
jokes of the error. They were great.
Well, a lot of people think they're great now.

(02:51:28):
I don't. I don't know if you don't
anymore. No, no, what I meant was.
Am I not? They were enough.
They were. Jokes that would work on a
college campus? OK, surely there's a portfolio
of jokes that would still work on a college campus.
Surely. I would hope not.
From what Maybe some college campuses?
The ones you read about are fucking insane.
Given up on the entire generation and you don't know

(02:51:50):
how to make them. Live up on any place that
doesn't even remotely attempt tobelieve in free speech and
thinks that anything that that they hear, that they don't like,
that they don't agree with is violence.
These people are fucking nuts and you should be calling them
out. Somebody like you who has
standing with kids should be not.

(02:52:11):
You're doing what you're doing what parents do.
You're taking the path of least resistance and therefore hurting
the kids and yourself. Parents ruin both their lives.
They ruin their fucking spoiled kids lives and they ruin their
own lives because the kids rule the roost.
So that's what you're doing on anational level.
I'm feeling more like on the porch get.
Off my lawn, Really. I feel like we're in the Barber

(02:52:32):
shop. That works too.
I said, as I said, the Boo boos,Ice spice, Neil deGrasse Tyson,
the things, Zoomers, zoomers everywhere, being like that guy
fucking, he's fucking dope. That's what they're saying all
over, all over the country. And if Neil deGrasse Tyson was
like, hey, knock it off with this woke shit, they'd be like,

(02:52:54):
I don't know, He's, he's a pretty smart guy, right?
He's really upset there. Well, that's why I want to close
on that. He's really upset and I think he
like it really transitions us well to the to the big questions
at the end. But you know, I mean, he seems
really pissed off that he was even asking him about that
stuff. He's unbelievably brittle.
It's the same, he's the same with Jon Lovett.
It's why he gets so upset at JonLovett.

(02:53:16):
And it's not even like not even being challenged, but just the
idea. And yet it's it's a part of the
reason he's so bad at comedy now.
It's like the Matt Chrisman theory of political comedy where
it's not funny because they get themselves so angry that they
just start screaming like a lunatic.
So like, it's it's not funny to hear a guy blow his mic out

(02:53:37):
because he's yelling about the woke.
Like even if the joke was well written, you'd still be like,
like, I don't like this. This is an unpleasant noise in
my brain to process. Yeah, if you're too sincere, it
stops being a joke, you know? I also like the part where, and
I thought this is really tellingwhere he says essentially lots

(02:54:01):
of people like my jokes and it'slike really tense, right?
You know, and he seems like you can feel his insecurity.
Suddenly it reminds me of like, have you ever seen the movie
Planes, Trains and Automobiles with John Candy and Steve
Martin, the John Hughes movie? And, and there's a part in which
he's he challenges him. The John Steve Martin character

(02:54:22):
challenges the John Candy character and it gets emotional
and the John Candy goes character goes like, I like me,
my wife likes me. And it's like it's all of a
sudden it's like, it's really, it's sentimental, but you're
like, Oh my God, this guy's in pain.
And and it just doesn't start tobe like lots of guys, lots of
people like my jokes. It's like, it's like that's like
the least funny thing that guy'sever said and that's saying

(02:54:43):
something. Well, this feels like a good
place to wrap it up. I This has got to be the longest
podcast episode we've recorded, but I've had a fantastic time.
It's a Christmas present. Yeah, I'm.
Coming out for Christmas. So, so yeah, if the holidays are
getting weird, hopefully this gave you a bit of escape.

(02:55:04):
And I know my dad watches a lot of Bill Maher.
A lot of people's parents I knowwatch a lot of Bill Maher.
And it's a big game. What better time to teach you
about Bill Maher then before you're going to be around all
your parents who might show you epic based Bill Maher clips.
You know, or, or I you have something to push back when your

(02:55:25):
zoomer cousins are like you haveto watch this Neil deGrasse
Tyson TikTok that I saw. But will it's it's been an
absolute pleasure. Before we get into the final
question, tell us about your podcast.
Where could people find it? What?
What is the mission? It feels a little bit like being
like it's the opposite of the mynot involved in human

(02:55:48):
trafficking shirt is raising a lot of questions already
answered by the shirt. It's a thing where it's like
it's like my appearance on this podcast is answering a lot of
questions. You just asked me about my
podcast. Like I hate him.
It's I hate Bill Maher. People know where to get
podcasts. The free feed is almost all real
time episodes. I'm theoretically working like

(02:56:11):
in order from the pilot through the show.
I understand that's not feasiblein the law.
I'll be like in my 60s I think when I finish or something
insane. But I jump around I'll do like.
I'll do the most recent episode sometimes if it seems like it's
worth covering or if I just needa break.
I had a concern that I would look into the eyes of my newborn

(02:56:32):
child and go, I don't want to live a life where I focus on
hatred all the time and just stop doing the podcast.
So I did an episode Francesca Fiorentini and I watched the
episode from right after Obama got elected to see if I felt
like that was the best possible chance he had to be good.

(02:56:53):
Those were the best conditions for him to be good after Obama
wins. And I think I ended up titling
that episode microaggressions exclamation mark.
So he did not succeed at my mission for him of being good.
And once my baby is vaccinated, I will resume doing stand up
comedy again. I just don't you.
Know and when when Will is on the road in your town.

(02:57:16):
Go see my man. Oh, thank you.
Yeah, it's been a long time. I might be terrible.
I might be terrible at it. Now I'm going to have a lot of
ring rows to shake up. In our in our conclusion, this
is the part for everybody who listens to The Who the Hell Is
episodes where you give your deeper thoughts about things.
Who the hell is Bill Maher? Really reasonable, rational guy.

(02:57:37):
It seems like, you know, he justwants to get along.
He is, no. Who is Bill Maher?
I think really depends who you ask.
If you ask a regular person, Bill Maher these days is pretty
fucking annoying, pretty weird, probably a sex pest to put it

(02:57:59):
lightly. And really, you know, any sort
of liberal credentials he may have earned, any bona fides, I
think are just completely down the toilet.
He is, you know, mostly beloved,I think by a right wing
audience, sort of the demographic that like my dad's

(02:58:19):
in, for example. I mean, I just know he watches
the show. So I keep bringing it up of
people who are like generally Republican, but are not down
with like the Trump movement. And this is like for, for all
the people in the world that want to consider themselves
smarter, right? It it's like a show for people

(02:58:40):
who want to feel smart. And I mean no disrespect to my
dad when I say that, right? It's just I, I think that's what
Bill Maher's character is. He's like the guy who helps you
make you feel smarter than otherpeople.
I'm going to leave my take therefor now.
But Mike, after everything we'vegone over, who the hell is Bill

(02:59:04):
Maher? I think Bill Maher really does
represent the center, like the idea of the center in this
country. And it's not a good thing
because, you know, this whole idea of left right in this
country is such it is so imbalanced, right compared to
who is creating harm for humanity and, and, and who is
not. It's just completely skewed and

(02:59:27):
imbalanced. And, and, and I did for that
reason. I wish we could get out of the
left right binary discussion, but he really does represent it
in many ways, because what what the center does in this country
is give the right an opportunityto crush the majority of the
country. And what Bill Maher does is
punch down and suck up to power.And that's like the only thing

(02:59:50):
he really does. And that's why, you know, I
mean, he left to the side of Israel immediately after October
7th. It was where the power structure
needed him to be. He didn't he didn't pull his pre
Iraq war where he had on. You know, they have made him
that way. They will continue to put him on

(03:00:10):
CNN. He's been on CNN.
You know his reruns have been there for a while because he is
the perfect representation of the center, which is to keep
capitalism flowing, keep the stock market going.
Continue to empower these kind of fascistic goons.
And he doesn't he's he's, he does that when when he

(03:00:30):
repeatedly platforms people likeMarjorie Taylor Green and and
Kid Rock and like RFK Junior andstuff that is not an accident at
all. It's to help normalize stuff
that people in a vacuum would think are awful and against
their interests. So will you have spent a lot of

(03:00:52):
time looking at this individual?And I'm just very curious like,
who is he? What do you think he is?
And I can either be a personal thing, like what do you think
he's like as a person? Or it can be.
What do you think he represents?I'll give you the floor.
Bill Maher is America, you know He has never been.

(03:01:17):
Not just not perfect, but perhaps he even not ideal in his
role. But there was a role and you
could understand some of the benefits that came with the many
negatives. But as time has gone on and he
has been worn down by age and being sedentary and just

(03:01:41):
becoming stuck in a single place, he no longer even has a
beneficial role in the world. And you watch his show, you get
nothing out of it. You come to America, you get
nothing out of it. You know, the Grand Canyon, who
gives a shit is any is a hashtagadult thing not funny.

(03:02:03):
It's the same thing, you know, So I say he who is Bill Maher.
Bill Maher is all of us. Bill Maher is the very notion of
life, but especially death itself.
You are in the the grand scheme of things, no matter how much
you wish it weren't so, You are nothing.

(03:02:24):
You are nothing to anyone. You will never be anything.
And despite, despite whatever material rewards this world has
gifted you in the moment, unlessyou somehow managed to exceed
the accomplishments of Alexanderor Genghis Khan, you will end up

(03:02:45):
as less than a less than a footnote in the least read
version of John's bathroom reader.
In a bathroom that is locked up,abandoned, burned down, and then
launched into space. And that's who Bill Maher is.
Thank you very much for that. I haven't.

(03:03:05):
I haven't. I have no response.
Will Walton, thank you so much. Thank you so much and I want to
get in case, you know, for people, unless you're you're,
you know, to to be a little religulous.
A religious and a homunculi. I want to wish.
Everyone hip Mike, for God's sake.
Dude, happy Hanukkah and a MerryChristmas because this is a

(03:03:25):
Christmas holiday. This is one for for people.
Everybody who's traveling, they're, you know, they're
banging this one. We're rocking the box with you.
Thank you. In the box?
What the hell does that mean? It's been a long podcast.
Oh, there's a magic man in the sky making a box rock.
Oh, OK, Mike. That's me.
I'm I'm the magic man. You have to think about how much

(03:03:48):
death, suffering, and most importantly, Mike, misogyny has
come from that box of rocks. Hey, hey, hey, hey.
I think it's time for everybody to listen to a long super cut of
Bill Maher smacking his lips together.
Should we all smack our lips to just so the transition is smooth
for everybody? Let's go.

(03:04:32):
Yeah.
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