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