Andrew Schulz | Club Random with Bill Maher

On this episode, Bill is joined by stand-up comic and podcast provocateur Andrew Schulz. The two swap stories about Andrew’s transition into fatherhood (including fertility hurdles and the emotional roller coaster of IVF), the perils of fame in the digital age, why he once called Fox News out on its overblown “outrage” stories, negotiating free speech in comedy and the ever-shifting rules of social discourse, meeting fans where they are online. They debate America’s “abundance mentality” and how it informs politics, the decline of open discussion in modern media, the rise of cancel culture (and how both the left and right weaponize it), the fine line between comedic license and genuine offense, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, and the peculiarities of personal relationships in the spotlight. They also trade observations on religion, Trump’s enduring appeal, social media mobs, bizarre magazine collections from New York City newsstands, and much more. Go to https://www. RadioactiveMedia.com or text RANDOM at 511511 to save up to 50%, today! Try ZipIntro FOR FREE at https://www. ZipRecruiter.com/RANDOM Get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box at https://factormeals.com/factorpodcast with code factorpodcast Go to https://www.zbiotics.com/RANDOM and use RANDOM at checkout for 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics Follow Club Random on IG: @ClubRandomPodcast Follow Bill on IG: @BillMaher Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://bit.ly/ClubRandom Watch Club Random on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ClubRandomYouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 1:01Bill Maher?

  I would check that stat on Trump and AFC polling.

• 1:05Speaker 03

  I just made that up, but I think it sounds good.

• 1:10Bill Maher?

  But it's a disingenuous argument.

• 1:12Speaker 03

  Why is it disingenuous?

• 1:13Bill Maher?

  Because I just told you.

• 1:14Speaker 03

  You said you can't live there, and I was like, here's another place.

• 1:17Bill Maher?

  Because it's not.

• 1:21Speaker 03

  How you doing?

• 1:22Bill Maher?

  Hey, how are you? Man, you're funny on the Tom Brady roast.

• 1:26Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you, brother. Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me.

• 1:29Bill Maher?

  I feel like that was the beginning of the vibe change.

• 1:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, is that the, uh, is that the, like, I hate even using the term because it's so belabored, but is that the end of woke?

• 1:41Bill Maher?

  No. Well, I know, I just read a story, there's some, like, there were so many stories like this in the last five years. Some, some book by some lady, and like it said, like the most benign thing, and of course, it's in the mouth of a character. She's just trying to say that, you know, how are you going to show someone is an asshole unless they act like an asshole? And then they go after her, and she, of course, a fucking apology, and, you know, they took it out of the book. I think they canceled her book contract. And I just wanted to say, I thought we were done with this shit.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:15Bill Maher?

  But we're never, we're, we're never going to be done with that shit completely.

• 2:18Speaker 03

  Not completely, especially as long as, like, people are free, oh.

• 2:22Bill Maher?

  But I thought when I saw the Tom Brady roast,

• 2:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:25Bill Maher?

  that, that there was a, that that was a... A marker in the sand and and you know like all praise to Kevin Hart for like pulling that up because like I don't think a white guy could have done it pulled it pulled it off.

• 2:40Speaker 03

  He set a tone and he said it was it was like okay to make fun of him.

• 2:44Bill Maher?

  Well, and also just say things I haven't heard people say words on TV. What right?

• 2:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:52Bill Maher?

  I mean, you could you could say any bad word, but you but like, you know, I mean, I'm on CNN now.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:58Bill Maher?

  And they don't I when they when they said, can we put you on CNN?

• 3:02Speaker 03

  They're actually doing something interesting with that Scott Jennings guy.

• 3:05Bill Maher?

  I I call him Lonely Scott because it usually like four people.

• 3:10Speaker 03

  Trying to gang up on him.

• 3:11Bill Maher?

  Lonely Scott.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  But they put a guy who seems to be able to like, I guess, argue from the conservative side on the show.

• 3:20Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 3:20Speaker 03

  And they let him cook, you know, and I've they used to put like Scott.

• 3:25Bill Maher?

  Oh, Scott, of course, well, you got it. Well, my look, I love CNN. I'm thrilled to be I I find I find it such an honor.

• 3:33Speaker 03

  To be back on.

• 3:33Bill Maher?

  Well, that they wanted me on CNN as well as HBO. I mean, HBO have been with forever and I get that.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Why, you thought you were a pariah?

• 3:41Bill Maher?

  Well, I'm just a CNN is like a straight up news organization. So to put me on there without centering.

• 3:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:52Bill Maher?

  I I give them all the props in the world, but you know, they they are trying to recover something that was almost impossible to maintain in the era of Trump, which is how do you like just say it as it is, which is what they always did. There was people on the left, people on the right, Fox, MSNBC, we get it. CNN was down the middle. But you know, when the president does lie.

• 4:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:17Bill Maher?

  You have to say he's a liar.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:20Bill Maher?

  And then you look like you're on the left.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:23Bill Maher?

  And they went too far with that. And now they're trying to correct that and get back to like just the place where regular person says, can I just get?

• 4:31Speaker 03

  Like, just tell me what's going on. Yeah, you did a. You did something like during covid that actually was like incredibly inspirational to us.

• 4:39Bill Maher?

  Oh, thank you.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  And it was the piece about, um, what was it? The like the Chinese flu? Do you remember that?

• 4:45Bill Maher?

  Of course. It was like, I think one of our first ones that we did. Like every, every, um, what do you call it? Disease has been named after a place.

• 4:55Speaker 03

  Phenomenal. And it was just like common sense logic. It's so funny like to even hear that term common sense being used by the right now. They're go-

• 5:02Bill Maher?

  Exactly. They co-opted it.

• 5:04Speaker 03

  They got, exactly. So, uh, but you put out this piece and this is how I knew that it really was impactful. I got sent the piece by four different generations of people.

• 5:15Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  It was my wife's parents. It was my friends. It was like kids around like, like younger that somebody works for me who's like, like 20 or something like that. And then it was, yeah, maybe something. And I was like, oh, okay. So this is cutting deep. People need some sort of, I'm gonna put truth under quotes.

• 5:36Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  But we're living in a little bit of a fantasy land and everybody's terrified to say something. And the piece cut through. And, uh, yeah, it was super inspirational. Then we started doing these pieces and it, I, I think, uh, yeah, I don't know if that's possible.

• 5:48Bill Maher?

  So you call them your wife's parents. You don't say my in-laws?

• 5:52Speaker 03

  So isn't that weird? My in-laws?

• 5:54Bill Maher?

  I don't know. I'm not trying to be your shrink. I'm just saying, why would you avoid that term?

• 6:00Speaker 03

  Well, my wife's parents, you know, they're not my parents.

• 6:02Bill Maher?

  I know. I'm just trying to start trouble. How long, how long have you been, how long have you, how long have you been? Are you expecting a flood?

• 6:10Speaker 03

  Bro, I keep dripping everything all over the floor.

• 6:13Bill Maher?

  No, I, I mean, your pants. How much would it cost just to get that extra? Just to get that extra?

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Am I getting style tips from you? You're wearing a fucking baggy turtleneck.

• 6:21Bill Maher?

  You're doing so well. Why would you not get the extra? What could it cost? I mean, just that extra bit.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  Editor of Vogue coming onto this podcast, sucking shit up my pants?

• 6:31Bill Maher?

  Uh, yes, it rained a little, but we're not gonna need it.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  What, what bigger man was wearing that shirt before you put it on today, Bill?

• 6:38Bill Maher?

  That's a sweater. You know, you're right. I don't like sweaters, but it was cold here.

• 6:41Speaker 03

  Ben Affleck left it with the house.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Celtic screen.

• 6:47Bill Maher?

  Um, how long have you been married?

• 6:50Speaker 03

  Uh, three years.

• 6:51Bill Maher?

  Three years? Oh, so you're like almost a newlywed?

• 6:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, it's early.

• 6:56Bill Maher?

  And how long did you go out before that?

• 6:58Speaker 03

  That's a good question. Another three, something like that?

• 7:01Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 7:01Speaker 03

  I think around that. I might be getting some of this off, but yeah. Yeah, we just had a kid. Kid's like a year and a month old.

• 7:09Bill Maher?

  You have one kid?

• 7:10Speaker 03

  One kid, yeah.

• 7:10Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 7:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:12Bill Maher?

  What's that like?

• 7:14Speaker 03

  It's every single cliche you could ever imagine.

• 7:16Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  Like, it's, you know.

• 7:18Bill Maher?

  Life-changing.

• 7:19Speaker 03

  No, no, it's literally every cliche. And as a comic, you're like shocked. Because you, your ego is like, oh, I have unique takes on everything. And then the only emotional reaction you have is the exact cliche that every other person has said about a kid.

• 7:34Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, everyone has said that to me, like, if you had a kid, Bill, you would, you know, and I feel like I'm the first person who would look in the crib and go.

• 7:43Speaker 03

  Not for me.

• 7:45Bill Maher?

  Still nothing.

• 7:47Speaker 03

  So you don't have kids for them?

• 7:48Bill Maher?

  I mean, I don't want to hurt this kid, but I don't feel especially connected. But maybe that would be wrong. I mean, I don't know. When it's your goo that went into a lady and then came out with like a mini you.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:02Bill Maher?

  I guess it's just, it's sort of an extension of yourself.

• 8:06Speaker 03

  Oh, your selfishness is perfectly aligned. It's, it is, it's amazing how like, my whole life, I thought, and I'm not trying to discredit my pops, his amazing pops, but like, I thought he was doing all these things like against his, like, he was just being a bear for me in everything. And every single basketball game, whatever. And I didn't realize that he could also get joy out of it. And as a parent, you get joy out of it. It sounds incredibly cliche, but it's.

• 8:34Bill Maher?

  Oh, believe me, I've, I've seen parents, and I've seen the joy. And I wouldn't say I feel like I've missed it, but I'm also very cognizant of the fact that that is a type of joy that people have, that may be a greater joy than anything I've ever had.

• 8:51Speaker 03

  Maybe.

• 8:52Bill Maher?

  I'll tell you a story, I won't say who it is, because I just won't. But it's, it's somebody you would recognize, a name you would know, who was a known Lothario.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 9:02Bill Maher?

  Okay. And got married somewhat later in life, and was telling me once, this is a while ago, but he had little kids, and he said to me, we were in my old, similar room to this, just a place to smoke and drink and be real, and he said, you know, I was wiping Cheerios off my kid's chin the other day. And I thought to myself, this is better than any fuck I ever had.

• 9:36Bill Maher?

  And about, and about two weeks later, the girl who I was with at the time.

• 9:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:43Bill Maher?

  Called me almost in tears and she said, Bill, you have to get, and it was this guy from Stop Calling Me. So apparently it wasn't really better.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  I think he was still trying to get after it.

• 9:55Bill Maher?

  And it was my girl.

• 9:56Speaker 03

  No.

• 9:57Bill Maher?

  Well, I'm just saying, but true story. I'm not saying who.

• 10:02Speaker 03

  It's weird that he's thinking about fucking while he's wiping Cheerios off his.

• 10:04Bill Maher?

  I'm just saying, the, I'm, better than any fuck I ever had was someone undercut two weeks later.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Trying to fuck your girlfriend.

• 10:17Bill Maher?

  Okay, maybe at that moment it seemed like it, but you know.

• 10:21Speaker 03

  I want to know who this good friend of yours is that's trying to fuck your girl.

• 10:24Bill Maher?

  Oh, this was many years ago in a galaxy far away and it could be anybody. Uh, and let's just leave it at that, but let them speculate, but it was funny to me. And but I'm sure there are other people for whom wiping the Cheerios off the chin really is better than any fuck they ever had. And I feel sorry for those people because they obviously fuck badly.

• 10:49Bill Maher?

  No, I'm kidding. Children are wonderful is what I meant to say.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  Yes, of course, of course.

• 10:54Bill Maher?

  So, but how's it changed your life? Obviously you don't get enough sleep, right? Is that, are all those cliches true?

• 11:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, obviously, but like life becomes just a little bit smaller. So like so much of your life, I guess in entertainment is like unfortunately dictated by, you know, what you think the perception of you is, or have you achieved these things that you want to achieve? And it is, uh, I would say equally as comforting. Now I'm coming from this place where like I've, I've made a couple bucks, I'm financially secure.

• 11:25Bill Maher?

  Quite a few.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  Doing okay.

• 11:26Bill Maher?

  You're doing great.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  Doing okay. So I care mostly about how my kid and my wife feel about me. And I can feel comfortable if life is good at home and I'm not as worried if like. These people on the internet are saying crazy shit about me, or this thing is happening over here.

• 11:41Bill Maher?

  It puts things in perspective.

• 11:42Speaker 03

  Immediately.

• 11:43Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  Immediately, yeah.

• 11:45Bill Maher?

  Um, do you feel like it helps you, say, morally because something you might do if you didn't have a kid, you'd be more hesitant to do because I.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  Not at all, not at all.

• 12:00Bill Maher?

  Seriously?

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Not like I stopped like.

• 12:02Bill Maher?

  Oh, come on.

• 12:03Speaker 03

  I stopped like doing drugs or whatever, like smoking and shit like that. I was never like a big cigarette guy, but like I'll have a bogey every once in a while and.

• 12:10Bill Maher?

  That's hardly anything.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  But I stopped doing it just because I'm like, I'm not about to have some like fentanyl in some drug that I'm.

• 12:17Bill Maher?

  No, but like, say you used to go to Diddy's parties.

• 12:20Speaker 03

  Yes, of course, as we all. Did you go to a Diddy party?

• 12:24Bill Maher?

  No, but I've had a couple of, you know, I, I, I used to run into him every once in a while. He was the most charming guy. He would always make you feel like, even though I didn't know him at all, for two minutes, he would make me feel like I was his best friend.

• 12:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:39Bill Maher?

  There are people, Trump is like that, they say.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 12:41Bill Maher?

  You know, I met him a couple, very similar, like, like charming and like you meet him for two minutes and you're like, this guy really likes me and he, he told me to call here and then you'd call eh.

• 12:52Bill Maher?

  Like, it's all bullshit. It's like, why? I didn't ask for it. I don't, I don't need to be your friend.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:57Bill Maher?

  But, uh, no, I never went to one of his parties. We didn't get to that level or any level. Um, but like something like that where like, oh, you know, I would do this, but I'm not gonna because my child will read about it.

• 13:11Speaker 03

  Not that, but I like, I have no interest in going skydiving anymore. You know what I mean? Like shit that when you're younger is fun and like exciting. Like, I don't need to do all that shit. Yeah. So I guess I am like a little bit more like risk averse. Not maybe risk averse career wise, but like shit that I don't actually really care about.

• 13:28Bill Maher?

  I feel like if I had a kid, I would be walking on eggshells all the time. What?

• 13:34Speaker 03

  Constantly.

• 13:35Bill Maher?

  You mean you are?

• 13:37Speaker 03

  No, I'm saying like you would like.

• 13:38Bill Maher?

  I would, yes.

• 13:39Speaker 03

  Meaning like the things that you say, like the opinions you have?

• 13:42Bill Maher?

  Things I say, the things I do, you know, just, you know, I mean, I wouldn't wanna get caught masturbating or, you know, anything that's benign, which is, I mean, that's a very benign thing. We don't treat it like it's a benign thing.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it's pretty normal. I mean.

• 13:57Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but like, but for example, like no one would ever, if you were like upstairs and your wife said, honey, dinner, and you, you, I'm doing my taxes, I'll be right down. Nobody would say, I'm getting out of the show, I'll be right down. Nobody says, honey, I'm masturbating, I'll be right down.

• 14:16Bill Maher?

  Because.

• 14:16Speaker 03

  They get insulted if you say that.

• 14:18Bill Maher?

  You should be able to say that.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  But they get insulted. I feel like they're, like, I think my wife would probably be like, well, why don't you just wanna have sex with me? Like, I'm here. I don't think they understand that there, these are different things that we do.

• 14:30Bill Maher?

  Wait, say that again.

• 14:31Speaker 03

  Like, I think the woman feels a bit of rejection when you're like, I would prefer to masturbate than just have sex with you.

• 14:35Bill Maher?

  Well, she should. Well, shouldn't, right? Shouldn't she?

• 14:41Speaker 03

  I mean, sometimes you want a little alone time, you know, you wanna have this experience with yourself.

• 14:46Bill Maher?

  I like the question that people say to you when they, when they, you know, if you go to strip clubs, they're like, why? What's, why do you do it? And I'm always like, I don't know, must have something to do with the naked women.

• 14:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:58Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, yeah, I mean, I like girls. I don't think I need to apologize for that, but.

• 15:03Speaker 03

  You think I'm asking you to apologize?

• 15:05Bill Maher?

  No, no, no, no. But there are people who do, that's the intimation. No, I, I would say that,

• 15:12Bill Maher?

  aside from regretting it, it's not having a marriage or a kid is like the one thing in my life I'm so glad that I stuck with, you know, like I made a lot of stupid mistakes, as you do when you're young.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  But not doing that was the thing that you're happy about.

• 15:27Bill Maher?

  I had the right instinct on that from the beginning.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  For yourself, yeah.

• 15:30Bill Maher?

  I would not be happy with either one of those institutions.

• 15:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, even though you don't know, because you never.

• 15:36Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and it's just a personal thing. I mean, there are, I, I certainly know people who, I mean, not being facetious about it, they would be lost without their spouse. They would be.

• 15:48Bill Maher?

  You know, they just, there can't be, now, some of that is codependence.

• 15:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:53Bill Maher?

  But some of it is just real. There just, some people really are happier with that one person and waking up next to somebody. I mean, this Gene Hackman thing is very suspicious that they, the, he's.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  Wife dies a week before and then he dies.

• 16:08Bill Maher?

  Well, first they said the same day, but, but, but it's certainly around the same time, which is very suspicious, even if it's a week.

• 16:16Speaker 03

  You think he killed himself after?

• 16:17Bill Maher?

  Well, I don't know. First of all, I find it amusing that everyone's like, oh my god, a 95-year-old man is dead. What could it be? This great mystery. He's here one minute and then he's gone at 95. They, they certainly are intimating that it's some sort of foul play or suicide. And it's not uncommon.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:36Bill Maher?

  For some.

• 16:37Speaker 03

  Spouses to die within close proximity. This does happen.

• 16:39Bill Maher?

  And sometimes on purpose.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  What do you?

• 16:42Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, if, if she, what, you think she just died a week later? I think, it's like, I can't, I don't want to live without my spouse.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  Right. And they're basically living for each other and then when one of them goes, there's not as much of urgency to live.

• 16:56Bill Maher?

  The branches of the tree have so intertwined.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:59Bill Maher?

  That you cannot.

• 17:00Speaker 03

  Survive without the other.

• 17:02Bill Maher?

  So, I mean, if we're gonna put the pro and con column for marriage, I put in the con column.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  No, that's pro.

• 17:10Bill Maher?

  If they, unless they die and then it's con.

• 17:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, but they went to 90 because they were with each other. They might have died at 70.

• 17:17Bill Maher?

  Whatever happens, whatever happens at 60.

• 17:19Speaker 03

  How many old people do you know that are, how many like 100-year-old people were never married?

• 17:25Bill Maher?

  Great question. I don't know.

• 17:27Speaker 03

  I think you're the oldest single guy.

• 17:29Bill Maher?

  Certainly not.

• 17:31Speaker 03

  I think you're the oldest dude that's never been married.

• 17:33Bill Maher?

  There's lots of single people.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  Nah, nah, nah, nah, cuz.

• 17:36Bill Maher?

  Oprah has never been married?

• 17:39Speaker 03

  But she's kind, she's like gay married or whatever. She's like, uh, what is it called? Like domestic partnership.

• 17:44Bill Maher?

  You're talking about Stedman?

• 17:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. Not, not saying he's gay, I'm just saying they've been together like a, wait a minute, what are you saying? But they've been together like a gay couple where you get married and, you know, but without the law.

• 17:56Bill Maher?

  How do you know what Oprah's relationship is like?

• 17:59Speaker 03

  Because she says that that's her boyfriend.

• 18:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 18:02Speaker 03

  So I'm just gonna believe it when she says it.

• 18:04Bill Maher?

  Right, still. I mean, I haven't seen him in a long time. Maybe, I mean, I mean, whatever it is, whatever she's doing, I'm all for it. I mean, she seems happy.

• 18:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:13Bill Maher?

  And.

• 18:14Speaker 03

  So what do you think it is? You think that he's like a beard for her?

• 18:17Bill Maher?

  No, I.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  What's your conspiracy on it?

• 18:20Bill Maher?

  You know what? My, here's my theory on that in general. People think that the people in show business.

• 18:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:26Bill Maher?

  Are always doing something way more exotic than they're doing.

• 18:29Speaker 03

  Dude, do you, I'm curious about your thoughts on this. I don't wanna say this guy's name, but he had an interesting theory like, and again, I don't wanna talk about like woke or whatever, blah, blah. But he was like, the overcorrection in Hollywood.

• 18:41Bill Maher?

  Oh, totally.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  He, he said he chalked it up to this, he chalked it up to Weinstein. And he's like, Hollywood started to feel as if the world viewed them as Weinstein. And that the two were, you couldn't just separate the two. Therefore, they had to project this like extreme revision of what Hollywood could be. Are those connected, or is this something that happened way before?

• 19:07Bill Maher?

  Well, first of all, I would say it's unfair to say that Hollywood is Weinstein. The music industry, that's why it's totally Weinstein. The music industry has no rules. It's like rape is, is, is like a speeding ticket in the, in the music industry. And I know they hate it when I, when I say that.

• 19:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:29Bill Maher?

  Uh, but it's just true.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:31Bill Maher?

  That's the thing. I mean, the Diddy parties, I mean, I'm sure there was bad fit going on there. But it's not like they were that different and stuff that people in that world, that industry.

• 19:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:41Bill Maher?

  I mean, any woman like who goes after, you know, groupies as we call them, I mean, you know, they're, they're very often the aggressors.

• 19:50Speaker 03

  Do you get a warped sense of like?

• 19:51Bill Maher?

  That doesn't mean you can rape them.

• 19:52Speaker 03

  No, no, I, I understand what you're saying. Like, but do you think that these people in industry get like a warped uh, sense of what they can or can't do to women based on the groupies?

• 20:00Bill Maher?

  Absolutely. Because it's so sexualized.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  And then it becomes normalized. You're like, oh, I can't do this because every girl's trying to do it with me.

• 20:06Bill Maher?

  You must have stories.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  So you agree with Trump grab her by the pussy then, is that what you're trying to say?

• 20:12Speaker 03

  So what you're trying to say is you defend Trump 100% with the grab by the pussy. Got it.

• 20:16Bill Maher?

  No, but that that is not an unfair description of what goes on in the music industry.

• 20:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 20:23Bill Maher?

  If you're a star, they let you do it. If you're a star, they sometimes want you to do it. You know, not all of them, and that's the problem, is that the guys get so used to no woman saying no and just being so aggressive.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:37Bill Maher?

  That they just assume every woman is like that. And then once in a while, they run into one who's like, no, I'm an actual person.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm a human being.

• 20:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah, you can't do that.

• 20:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:46Bill Maher?

  And.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  But this is, I think now the girls are more privy to the fact that they can make way more money off a lawsuit than they can just sucking some guy's dick. So I think there are a lot of them, a lot of these like groupies, they usually get the validation from just hooking up with the rapper. I think a lot of them have, you know, switched their switched their game plan a bit. And now they're like, wait a minute, no, no, we gotta either get pregnant or we gotta catch a case.

• 21:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I always find it amusing when like the female rapper, sometimes their big burn on somebody they're beefing with is like, I could take your man. And I'm thinking, how hard is that?

• 21:26Bill Maher?

  Not even just in the music, music industry, anywhere, like I could take it, no kidding. You can't take it.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  What a threat.

• 21:34Bill Maher?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  You could suck my dick?

• 21:36Bill Maher?

  Right. I'll, you know, dress all sexy and act all sexy and grab his Johnson and.

• 21:43Speaker 03

  They gotta say something like, I could make your man listen to my day.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  I mean, the fuck you could?

• 21:50Bill Maher?

  Then there's a good bit for you. You can do that as a as a bit.

• 21:54Speaker 03

  That's funny.

• 21:55Bill Maher?

  I could.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  Make you listen to my day.

• 21:57Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's impressive.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:00Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 22:36Speaker 04

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• 23:01Bill Maher?

  But you seem like you have a good thing going.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  No, things are cool, man.

• 23:04Bill Maher?

  I mean, things are cool. That's, you know, in a way, that's the best of both worlds if you can, you know, be in a relationship and be happy. My usually what the problem is that people get into relationships, it becomes stale, you know, I mean, I would say you can see, you can literally see it in the tabloids. What they write is bullshit very often, but they can't lie about the looks on celebrities' faces. I just saw, who was it? Oh, Kylie Jenner was at a tennis match.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  Oh, with Timmy Chalamet?

• 23:38Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:39Bill Maher?

  And you could see he's over it.

• 23:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's.

• 23:42Bill Maher?

  You're just, they cannot, you can't hide that part of it.

• 23:46Speaker 03

  I wonder if, I wonder if them, some of them don't even, they can't discern between the attention that they're getting from the media because of the relationship and the actual connection they have with the person. Because if you're in entertainment, right, a lot of these people like addicted to attention. It doesn't really matter what the attention is. And then you get into a relationship and there's all this buzz and they start going, oh, maybe, maybe I really do like this person.

• 24:15Bill Maher?

  Well, there was a lot of buzz on those two before they even were in a relationship. They just took it to another level. No, I'm not saying it was a.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  A relationship amplifies the buzz. Like you take both fanbases, mix them together.

• 24:25Bill Maher?

  But they were huge to begin with. I just find it funny. I mean, when I watched this video of, of she's like just trying to get him to pay attention or he's watching this tennis match.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 24:37Bill Maher?

  And I'm thinking, wow, we just recognized this guy at the Oscars. He didn't win, but he's recognized now as one of the great actors. We can't wait to watch this guy for the next thirty years. Such a great actor, but he can't even convince us that he still wants to be with Kylie Jenner. This is an acting job that is too much even for him at that moment like.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:00Bill Maher?

  Olivier couldn't have pulled that off.

• 25:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's not being directed. That's the problem.

• 25:04Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 25:04Speaker 03

  He needs to know he's on camera.

• 25:06Bill Maher?

  I think he did and he still couldn't do it because when it's over, it's over.

• 25:11Speaker 03

  Have you ever been with somebody that you felt even for a moment, wow, I'm really enjoying the time I'm spending with this person? And I'd like to continue doing this for the foreseeable future.

• 25:22Bill Maher?

  I did it many times and did it for the foreseeable future many times.

• 25:26Speaker 03

  When it, when that flame burns out, is it just this immediate conversation where you go, hey, I'm done with this relationship and I want to drag this on? Or you do like the classic thing that we all do, which is like, we're a coward and we just kind of like remove ourselves emotionally and hope they break up with us and then.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  Right? Like try to be the good guy, even though we're the asshole is.

• 25:47Bill Maher?

  I mean, I don't know. You're talking about if we want to get out of it as opposed to being dumped.

• 25:55Speaker 03

  I mean, I think a lot of us would rather be dumped when we're the ones that are, we want to be out of it because we don't want to break that person's heart. We still want to be the good guy, even though we're going to hurt that person.

• 26:04Bill Maher?

  I mean, I've had it in the past, one time I could think of maybe twice where I was kind of where you, what you described. I really wanted out of this relationship. It was bad.

• 26:16Speaker 03

  But you didn't want to hurt her.

• 26:20Bill Maher?

  It's just as hard. I mean, relationships are like wars. They're easy to get into and hard to get out of. And this was Ukraine, you know, I just, I just, I needed to like fucking just give him the Donbass region, give her the Donbass region.

• 26:33Speaker 03

  Take whatever you want.

• 26:35Bill Maher?

  You know what? I mean, when you're dealing with Putin, it just sometimes, not that I agree with that, but, but it's so funny. Like when I finally was pushed to the point and said, you know, this.

• 26:51Bill Maher?

  I could just can't do it one more day. Then like, you know, the second she's like, well, okay then. You're like, what?

• 27:01Speaker 03

  Don't reject me.

• 27:05Bill Maher?

  You know, if they're not sufficiently, it just, it's more about.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  You want them to be a little hurt.

• 27:09Bill Maher?

  It's, it's more about ego. I feel a lot of this.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  So you need a lot, you need love on the way out, too. That's selfish.

• 27:16Bill Maher?

  Well, no, look, I mean, I, I, I believe in love and I've had it. And know it well and have it now.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  Oh, you have a, you have a girlfriend right now?

• 27:27Bill Maher?

  Well, let's not get too specific. We don't like to put.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  What do you call it?

• 27:30Bill Maher?

  Labels on things.

• 27:31Speaker 03

  Girlfriend, right? What do you call it? Like?

• 27:34Bill Maher?

  I call it, I call it love.

• 27:36Speaker 03

  You have love.

• 27:37Bill Maher?

  And that's the most important thing.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  That's beautiful.

• 27:39Bill Maher?

  If you have love, you know, it's just a different way of, your, your life is just different.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  Asian girl?

• 27:48Bill Maher?

  I mean, and you know, I can be happy without it. I have been, you know. But it's just different is better. I mean, it is better. It's a dimension that you just don't have otherwise. But, you know, it has nothing to do with marriage. I mean, people, many people are in loveless marriages.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 28:05Bill Maher?

  The trick is to keep love alive in marriage and even harder lust. You know, that's, that's really that in any relationship and that really doesn't have anything to do with the piece of paper that says you're married. That's just his time.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  Right.

• 28:16Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  That's something you need, though. You really need the lust. You need to be.

• 28:19Bill Maher?

  I do. I, I feel, exactly.

• 28:20Speaker 03

  She needs to desire you, crave you.

• 28:22Bill Maher?

  And vice versa. I have the tiger. You know, you have, I mean, I can't live without that.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  I'm going with these Asian references.

• 28:28Bill Maher?

  I've tried, I've tried.

• 28:32Bill Maher?

  I, I've made that mistake before and thinking, oh, you know what? It's, what, how many hours a week do you spend having sex? You know, it is, it's not the majority of the time. So why, why put the? I could be a hundred years old and spend one minute a week having sex. It would still be water flows downhill and that's the direction it flows. And it's just pointless to try to stop it or prevent it or not think about it. I see that they make something now called a loyalty ring. I'm not making this up because I just read it. We have a new rule about it this week. A loyalty ring which can read a man's biometrics and tell, alert the girlfriend or the wife.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  It's time to clear the balls. Empty the balls.

• 29:19Bill Maher?

  That he's aroused when he's not with you.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  That's funny, dude.

• 29:23Bill Maher?

  It's not funny to me.

• 29:24Speaker 03

  No, it's funny that like she's gonna learn that he's more aroused when he's not with her.

• 29:30Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  That, you don't wanna know that.

• 29:32Bill Maher?

  You don't, yeah. Some things are better not known.

• 29:36Speaker 03

  He's at the Equinox gym steam room.

• 29:40Speaker 03

  That ring's going off. You're gonna learn some things about your husband.

• 29:44Bill Maher?

  That would be, that's funny. I didn't take it in that direction, but that, that happens too.

• 29:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:49Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 29:50Speaker 03

  It's probably a net positive for society though, marriage.

• 29:53Bill Maher?

  Absolutely. Are you kidding?

• 29:55Speaker 03

  That's the thing is.

• 29:56Bill Maher?

  Well, just children.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  So that's the thing that is tricky, like, like, I think a lot of times people get, they react emotionally to these things. Like, you know, they might hear you saying that and they're like, oh, he's against what I'm doing.

• 30:06Bill Maher?

  Not at all.

• 30:06Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 30:07Bill Maher?

  Not at all.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  So there's a difference between like wanting to do something for yourself, but acknowledging.

• 30:11Bill Maher?

  Totally personal. Just let us all be who we are. I mean, it's so funny when people judge you or me for this being basically who I am. Because of the same people who if I was gay or trans would be all like, we're born this way. We should, you know, like everything has to, and I agree with that. You are born that way. Or if you're trans, you're actually not born that way. Or whatever you wanna do, whatever blows your dress up.

• 30:37Speaker 03

  I think it's like your, your opinions are so strong that people assume you're trying to project those opinions on people who disagree with you. And you really don't give a fuck what they do.

• 30:47Bill Maher?

  That's interesting. I really don't.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  But I, but I don't know if that comes across. Cause people aren't used to strong opinions. I mean. I grew up in New York, so we have, we're very opinionated people with, and oftentimes with minimal information, and that's what makes the opinions so good, right? Like, I like someone who knows exactly how they feel about the world without researching anything. That's the most interesting person on the planet. So, it's like, but, but, but yeah, I think that like, we feel like it's encroaching on our lifestyle.

• 31:15Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Well, you know what? There's lots of things I do that have lost me fans, and there's lots of things I do like that, that have gained me like the most loyal fans, and I think the best fans in the world. The smartest, sort of most willing to have an open mind.

• 31:34Speaker 03

  Because you push them.

• 31:35Bill Maher?

  Because you have to have an open mind, or else you're gonna hate me. Because I'm gonna say something that is like, not what I already believe, and my fans want that. It's like, oh, that's better.

• 31:46Speaker 03

  Here's an opinion I haven't thought of.

• 31:47Bill Maher?

  That I haven't thought of. And if you're the kind of person, and I don't hate these kind of people, but you know, I understand when they can't hang.

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• 33:25Speaker 03

  There's that, uh, there's that Jonathan Haidt book.

• 33:28Bill Maher?

  Oh, yes.

• 33:29Speaker 03

  The Righteous Mind, it's called.

• 33:31Bill Maher?

  Yeah, sure.

• 33:32Speaker 03

  And, um, it was just really interesting to me, just this idea that like, and it makes sense afterwards, of course, where you're like, we're emotional beings, and then we retrofit justifications for our emotions with our brain. So knee jerk reaction is how I am emotionally. And like, once I started understanding that, you'd hear all these like dweebs like Ben Shapiro, they're like, like, "Facts don't care about your feelings." It's like, it's the exact opposite, right? It's like, the feelings don't care about your facts. Like, you have to meet people where they feel things. If, if you're not meeting people where they feel things, you're gonna completely miss them, or you're gonna be stuck in this little ideological bubble where you're constantly having to appease whatever they feel. And you can't like, actually create anything authentically.

• 34:14Bill Maher?

  I think you, I think that's mostly right, that people want to believe this thing for whatever actual reasons, uh, feeling reasons, emotional reasons, their background, their family, their upbringing, whatever. And then they will find, especially if they have a brilliant mind, like Ben does.

• 34:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's a clearly a very smart guy.

• 34:36Bill Maher?

  So they will find the reasoning to go back, but it comes from the feeling, I think you're right.

• 34:42Speaker 03

  Starts at the feeling.

• 34:43Bill Maher?

  I'm so cognizant of this all the time. I may be guilty of that myself, but I, I try to be the least guilty of that. That is exactly what I'm trying to, I'll give you a great example. I mean, nobody on the left has been a bigger supporter of Israel than me.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:58Bill Maher?

  Uh, and, and believe me, they know that in Israel, and I appreciate that. And, and I wish I could come and visit them as they keep asking me, but that's just a, I'm, I'm just, I'm almost 70, I'm not, I'm not going overseas anymore. Okay. But, um, but there's somebody who the Trump administration just, just is now, is now.

• 35:18Speaker 03

  That's the reason.

• 35:19Bill Maher?

  That's the reason.

• 35:19Speaker 03

  I was waiting for like, there's a war happening actively. And you're simply just like, I'm not traveling.

• 35:27Bill Maher?

  No, it has absolutely nothing to do with the war and everything to do with my urinary tract.

• 35:32Bill Maher?

  Okay, so.

• 35:34Speaker 03

  Israel, I want you all to know that he has a gig in Minnesota in a couple of weeks.

• 35:38Bill Maher?

  No, no, I stopped doing that too.

• 35:39Speaker 03

  Really?

• 35:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I quit at the end of last year.

• 35:41Speaker 03

  Okay, go.

• 35:41Bill Maher?

  So that's, but, but, so there's, the Trump administration's right now deporting this guy who's a, a, I'd just say a Palestinian rabble rouser, Columbia Universe, exactly what who you.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  Khalil something?

• 35:52Bill Maher?

  Yes, Khalil something, and he's right on the edge of like inciting terrorism, but, no. Okay, if I was just going by emotions, yes, I, I think I love it that Trump is throwing this dirtbag out of the country.

• 36:07Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 36:08Bill Maher?

  I will defend him to the death because I'm a free speech guy. You've got to be consistent. If I'm al- if I'm always on the right for what they're doing against free speech, which I am, and way always on the left, I mean, you said woke, I don't want to talk about woke, I'm always fucking with the woke. The woke hate me more than anybody for good reason, because when I stick the knife into them when they deserve it.

• 36:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:32Bill Maher?

  It goes right to the bone, which it should, because they don't believe in it either. So here's a case where, yes, emotionally, because I'm a supporter of Israel, uh, I would like to see this guy out of the country. No, you can't just throw people out because you don't like their speech.

• 36:48Speaker 03

  Especially if you give them, or you grant them some form of, I don't know if he had a citizenship, maybe a visa or something like that, but you're essentially giving these.

• 36:55Bill Maher?

  Green card.

• 36:56Speaker 03

  He has a green card. So if he has a green card, you're giving them the opportunities to be an American, exist as an American for this amount of years.

• 37:01Bill Maher?

  But if you have the green card, you are, you do have the same rights as an American citizen.

• 37:05Speaker 03

  That's what I'm saying.

• 37:06Bill Maher?

  You're, right, okay.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  So we have to give that person those rights.

• 37:08Bill Maher?

  You have to.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  As annoying as that is.

• 37:10Bill Maher?

  As annoying as it is.

• 37:11Speaker 03

  You probably should have looked into his resume before you gave him the green card.

• 37:15Bill Maher?

  Because that's always what, and it's very hard to, I would say, not more than 20% of the people in this country can you get on that opinion. Everybody else is just always going to go right to defending the speech of the people they like.

• 37:29Speaker 03

  Yes, this is what we constantly do. We're hypocrites, but like.

• 37:32Bill Maher?

  Such hypocrites.

• 37:33Speaker 03

  But this is the thing, we have to like, this is, this is where it gets frustrating, these arguments, is like, if we know we're hypocrites, we can't cry about it. We have to meet people where they are.

• 37:41Bill Maher?

  Correct.

• 37:41Speaker 03

  Right, so like, I mean, I'm sure you've seen on Twitter, like, everybody's talking about, you know, Israel and like, it seems like there's waning support in America for Israel.

• 37:50Bill Maher?

  Oh, absolutely.

• 37:52Speaker 03

  So, so here's, so an example, which you hear people say all the time, like, obviously, the politicians have no clue how to communicate, most of them, and they're just like, "Well, this is our closest ally." And then you get asked, "Why?" And they go, "Oh," they don't know, because they're just being told that they're the closest ally.

• 38:09Bill Maher?

  Well, closest ally in the Middle East.

• 38:11Speaker 03

  Regardless of what it is, it's like, I think-

• 38:13Bill Maher?

  Well, that's very important. They're the closest ally in the Middle East, because they're the only country in the entire Middle East-

• 38:19Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 38:20Bill Maher?

  -that anyone in this country, these fucking hypocrites, would even survive for a week in. You wouldn't want to live.

• 38:28Speaker 03

  I don't know if that's true anymore, like, the UAE, I've been to Abu Dhabi-

• 38:32Bill Maher?

  The UAE is not the Muslim world. If you're talking about Dubai-

• 38:35Speaker 03

  But they're in the Middle East, that's what you're talking about.

• 38:37Bill Maher?

  Okay, but you're talking about a tiny, tiny percentage of what typical life is like in 60 Muslim countries. You're talking about a little enclave-

• 38:47Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:47Bill Maher?

  -that they carved out so Westerners could come-

• 38:50Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:50Bill Maher?

  -and spend their money.

• 38:51Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:52Bill Maher?

  We're talking about less than, far less than 1% of the way life is like. You would not want to live even in a moderate country like Jordan, and your wife certainly wouldn't enjoy living there.

• 39:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:05Bill Maher?

  Okay?

• 39:05Speaker 03

  That's, you're making logical points, of course.

• 39:08Bill Maher?

  Well, these are factual points.

• 39:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, sure, they're factual.

• 39:10Bill Maher?

  They are.

• 39:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it doesn't matter, it's like, I gave you another option that is true.

• 39:16Bill Maher?

  Well, but it's, it's-

• 39:18Speaker 03

  I think, matter of fact, I would even argue that life is more relatable to the average American in the UAE or in Dubai than it is in-

• 39:23Bill Maher?

  Again, but it's a disingenuous argument.

• 39:26Speaker 03

  Why is it disingenuous?

• 39:27Bill Maher?

  Because I just told you, because it's-

• 39:29Speaker 03

  You said you can't live there, and I was like, "Here's another place."

• 39:31Bill Maher?

  Because it's not typical. I said, "The entire Middle East." So if I, okay, so here, here-

• 39:36Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 39:37Bill Maher?

  Here's the thing, here, if I throw, if I say, "You have to move somewhere in America,"

• 39:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:43Bill Maher?

  "And I'm gonna throw a dart at a map with a blindfold on,"

• 39:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:46Bill Maher?

  "And-" Could you survive anywhere else in America where that dart? You absolutely could. You could live in Salt Lake City. You could live anywhere in America.

• 39:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:54Bill Maher?

  If I throw a dart at a map

• 39:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:56Bill Maher?

  of the entire, all 16 Muslim majority countries, uh, will you say you'll live there?

• 40:03Speaker 03

  I could survive in every single one of them.

• 40:04Bill Maher?

  You couldn't.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  How? No.

• 40:06Bill Maher?

  What?

• 40:06Speaker 03

  How could I not? I'm not a gay guy. Like, I'm not, you know, I could live in any single one of them.

• 40:12Bill Maher?

  You're in Kabul, your wife would have to wear a tuff, head to toe burka every-

• 40:16Speaker 03

  That's on her.

• 40:19Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 40:20Speaker 03

  You're talking about me surviving. You're like, I could live very comfortably in every single country. Like, again, let's not move the goalposts. You're asking if I could live comfortably.

• 40:29Bill Maher?

  You could live with yourself, knowing that that's how women are treated in your world.

• 40:34Speaker 03

  I hate this moral argument, like, we give a fuck about women around the world, like, no, but this is like-

• 40:39Bill Maher?

  Yeah, you said you'd be happy.

• 40:40Speaker 03

  This is such a bullshit argument.

• 40:42Bill Maher?

  It's not a bullshit argument.

• 40:43Speaker 03

  No, I didn't say happy. I said I could live. You keep moving the goalposts.

• 40:46Bill Maher?

  Okay, cool, I'm sorry.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  Let's stay on what you say. I could live easily in every single one of the countries outside of the wars that are existing. But you're saying in peacetime?

• 40:53Bill Maher?

  Easily?

• 40:54Speaker 03

  Easily. Easily. You live easily.

• 40:56Bill Maher?

  You could easily live in Kabul, Afghanistan.

• 40:58Speaker 03

  Is there war happening? Is the Taliban doing their thing?

• 41:02Bill Maher?

  No war. No war. War is over.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  War is over? Oh, good. I could kick it in, I could kick it in Kabul for a month, easy. Enjoying life. Now, am I doing stand-up every night? No. But could I take a little vacation?

• 41:17Bill Maher?

  I don't know if you're kidding with me.

• 41:19Speaker 03

  I'm just telling you, it's, I, I, I think it-

• 41:21Bill Maher?

  I'll give you two options. Either you're kidding, or this is stupid.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  Well, that's this pretentious-ass shit.

• 41:26Bill Maher?

  It's not pretentious.

• 41:27Speaker 03

  You're doing the thing that you're do-

• 41:28Bill Maher?

  It's not pretentious.

• 41:29Speaker 03

  You are doing the thing-

• 41:30Bill Maher?

  That you could live in Kabul and be happy, or, or get by, or you could be no big deal.

• 41:36Speaker 03

  You're doing this thing that gets-

• 41:38Bill Maher?

  It's not, it's not virtue signaling to say-

• 41:40Speaker 03

  I didn't say virtue signaling, but that is, if you don't agree with me you're dumb, is why Trump is elected. And this is what Democrats do.

• 41:47Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but sometimes, sometimes dumb is dumb.

• 41:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, but people are dumb. So deal with that shit. Like, you know what I mean? Like, stop acting like everybody's smart. Like, this is the problem is like you have all these people that go to Ivy League schools and they're like, "We know better than everybody else and we'll just tell you what to do and you guys are all stupid and I know you feel like you want this, but you don't really want this and if you disagree with me, you're an idiot." And then, all of a sudden, they go, "You know what? Fuck you guys, I'm going for that one." It's very simple.

• 42:13Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's true too.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  So, we can't speak down to people if we know that they're gonna react emotionally. I guess what I'm trying to say is,

• 42:18Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 42:19Speaker 03

  Even with the, even with the, like, for example, the Israel conversation, right? So, if I know people are reacting emotionally to this, right? Who is the burden on, if, if we have this deep connection with Israel, which I believe we do, right? Do, is the, I think if the burden is on Israel to prove to the American people, who definitely they rely on for support in this conflict. I think if the burden is on them to communicate to the American people why it's advantageous to America to continue to support them. Like, and if they can't communicate a reason, you can't, you can't be upset at the American people for being confused about it. We had that same energy towards Ukraine, we go, "Wait a minute, they're getting how many billion dollars? Okay, over here, if eggs were cheap, I don't care about where you throw the money. But once eggs get expensive, I start going, "Where, where's the money going?

• 43:04Speaker 03

  Two hundred million dollars going over there?" So, when economic times are very difficult here in America, or any country in the world, there's gonna be some questions asked about where this money is going.

• 43:14Bill Maher?

  As there should be.

• 43:15Speaker 03

  As they should be, I think it's a very normal thing. And unfortunately for Jews, when economic times turn shitty in countries, people start looking and they go, "I think it might be their fault."

• 43:24Bill Maher?

  But why is that throughout history?

• 43:26Speaker 03

  Because there's an ambient, there's an ambient, uh, energy towards Jews. This is just my opinion, but it's ambient energy towards Jews.

• 43:36Bill Maher?

  What a great phrase, an ambient energy, you're so right.

• 43:39Speaker 03

  Because it's, it's not a bright light bulb.

• 43:41Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 43:42Speaker 03

  It's a small one.

• 43:43Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 43:43Speaker 03

  And it comes from the fact that, like, most people don't know Jews. They, they've never met a Jew, they have no fucking clue. They think Jews are like Jerry Seinfeld. They have no clue that there's Sephardic Jews, they have no clue that there's these African Jews, like,

• 43:54Bill Maher?

  Try being one in Kabul, Afghanistan.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  It's probably difficult. So like they just don't understand what it is, right? They've never met one.

• 44:01Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  They only know the stereotypes. And I think they kind of almost like lock up Jews into the similar ilk as like the Rockefellers or the Vanderbilts. They think they're these elitist people. I don't think Jews even realize that. Because I think Jews are, not all Jews are going, yeah, yeah, we're rich and we have all this money. They're just going, I think a lot of Jews in the Northeast are looking at the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts going, that's some pretty cool shit. I mean, Ralph Lauren definitely was like, hey, that WASP stuff? That's pretty cool. I want to do that.

• 44:27Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 44:27Speaker 03

  Right? There's like an envy of, of the WASPs in the Northeast from the Jews, I feel like almost. I mean, I feel like they really, they admire it. Anyway, the average person is looking at them as like these elites that they can't touch. And I think that there's like religious teachings that see like this separatism. It's like, they're not trying to proselytize. Why don't they care if I go to heaven? Why? Like, my whole life is about trying to get as many people to go to heaven as I possibly can, but like, they don't, they don't care. Like, I think it's just hard for them to, to get. And this ambient light that has this like, kind of like, these like negative stereotypes they own or control. And when the economy's good, I don't give a fuck. I don't care if you're sending USAID to do tranny plays in fucking Pakistan. I don't care.

• 45:09Speaker 03

  But the second I can't afford eggs, I go, no more tranny plays. And why is that group of people seem to have a lot of power?

• 45:18Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 45:18Speaker 03

  And that light, that's ambient, gets bright.

• 45:21Bill Maher?

  That's not wrong. And you're right, I shouldn't say stupid.

• 45:26Speaker 03

  Thanks, bro.

• 45:26Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, you're right. I get excited sometimes and I blame the pot. But you're right. I can think it.

• 45:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, you don't say it.

• 45:35Bill Maher?

  I'm still thinking, but you're right. You shouldn't say, no, you're right. I shouldn't say it.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  I tell this all the time, like, uh...

• 45:41Bill Maher?

  But you wouldn't survive in a couple. Anyway.

• 45:43Speaker 03

  I tell this all the time to people, like, like when we get into these arguments, like, like, I don't know, but like the trans shit is like a perfect example. Like, I was talking to this, this journalist and, you know, I was like, what do you think we disagree on? And he goes, ah, well, you know, some of the trans stuff or whatever. I'm like, well, what about? And he's like, ah, well, you know, the, the, the trans women in sports. And I was like, well, what do you think about the trans women in sports? He's like, honestly, I think it's a red herring that the, uh, the, the, the right uses. And I go, you didn't answer my question.

• 46:13Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  And he goes, well, I mean, you know, I just feel like it's not really a talking point that really that matters that much. And it's like, I said this, I go, listen, if I say something that bothers my wife... I don't explain to her why she shouldn't be bothered.

• 46:28Bill Maher?

  Smart.

• 46:29Speaker 03

  That, I've done that for years and it drives her fucking crazy.

• 46:32Bill Maher?

  You do, I've learned that well, women too.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  We learn that the hard way.

• 46:36Bill Maher?

  We learn it the hard way.

• 46:37Speaker 03

  What we do is we go, okay, I'm sorry that made you feel that way.

• 46:41Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 46:41Speaker 03

  We meet them where they're feeling. And I feel like so much in the discourse, it's like explaining with facts why the other person is wrong. Instead of understanding what they're experiencing and just, just feeling.

• 46:52Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, this honestly is what I've been preaching. I'm sure you know.

• 46:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course.

• 46:56Bill Maher?

  But like on my show.

• 46:57Speaker 03

  That's why I'm here.

• 46:58Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, Kid Rock was here a couple of weeks ago and he said, I want you to meet Trump. I, he said, I'm gonna take you to the White House. So now we're gonna do that.

• 47:07Speaker 03

  That'd be, I think that's a good conversation.

• 47:09Bill Maher?

  Lots of people on the left will be like, how dare you talk to this man? It's like, fuck you, you know, I'm not playing this game with, that you mean girls play.

• 47:17Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 47:18Bill Maher?

  Where like, oh, you know what? You can't sit at my lunch table because I'm just not talking to you. Not talking to you, you lost the election. Who the fuck do you think you have to talk to? You know, it's one thing if you win it.

• 47:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:30Bill Maher?

  It's another thing if you lose it.

• 47:31Speaker 03

  You gotta start talking to people.

• 47:32Bill Maher?

  Have to talk to, and I see Gavin Newsom is doing this now. He's changed his tune, he's got a podcast and he, the first guest was Charlie Kirk.

• 47:40Speaker 03

  I thought that was.

• 47:42Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 47:42Speaker 03

  I thought that was brilliant.

• 47:43Bill Maher?

  And he mentioned me, he said, like, I take my, I'm, I'm, I'm noticing what Bill does, talks to both sides. Like is left leaning, but not afraid to criticize the people in, on his team. Like, we gotta get more of this going.

• 48:00Speaker 03

  There's, they always say that.

• 48:01Bill Maher?

  This has to become the center. This has to become a real center. Right now, it's like, it's a, it's a few lonely islands that I need to like, become a bigger fucking sandbar.

• 48:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, for real, you're right. Like, it needs to be normalized. And I think that like.

• 48:17Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 48:18Speaker 03

  I think we're so, uh. I think that Americans, we like bravery. You know, like, we have very, um, what is it? High risk tolerance, meaning like, we take risk. Like, I think it's kind of like in our DNA to take risk. All of our family, whoever came here from your family years ago, they left their entire family and they just moved here. So, we just have the DNA of crazy people, really, that are like, willing to risk it all, right? So, when we see people that are afraid of having conversations, I think there's like, almost like a primal instinctual reaction to it.

• 48:50Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it's not American.

• 48:51Speaker 03

  It's un-American. And I think that was, I don't want to politicize this shit, but like, I think that was a little bit of the concern with Kamala on the campaign trail. You know, it looked like Trump was willing to talk to whoever.

• 49:03Bill Maher?

  He was.

• 49:04Speaker 03

  He was. Like, his camp, when we spoke to him, they didn't give us any notes.

• 49:07Bill Maher?

  He's gonna talk to me!

• 49:10Speaker 03

  And think about all this shit-

• 49:11Bill Maher?

  Who's been meaner than me?

• 49:13Speaker 03

  I mean, only J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance is the only one who said meaner shit about Trump than you.

• 49:18Bill Maher?

  Yeah, well, lots of people have. But like, I mean, you know. And he said, "I have five pages of things." I asked my staff once, and I guess it's six now, because it's been a while. Like, just write down all the things he said in tweets and at rallies. It's five pages long. Crazy, low, low energy, ratings disaster. You know, like, every bad thing that he just pulls out of his ass. But I don't, I don't care, and he doesn't care.

• 49:42Speaker 03

  He doesn't care either.

• 49:43Bill Maher?

  He doesn't care.

• 49:44Speaker 03

  And you don't give a fuck.

• 49:45Bill Maher?

  It's all performative, like, not on, I mean, look.

• 49:49Speaker 03

  No, you guys might feel it, but it wouldn't stop you guys from having a discussion with other, because you're not pussies.

• 49:54Bill Maher?

  We're not pussies.

• 49:54Speaker 03

  It's very simple. It's like, are you a pussy, or are you not?

• 49:57Bill Maher?

  And I, I learned that once, I had a, my longest relationship, uh, way back in the early 90s, and her father was military.

• 50:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:07Bill Maher?

  And he and I did not see eye to eye politically, but he liked me, because I wasn't a pussy.

• 50:14Bill Maher?

  That's my model for meeting Trump. It's like, you know, be respectful, which he deserves. He won, not, not one, but twice. Like, funny, my girl said to me, what are you gonna wear? I said, I'm not gonna dress like Zelensky.

• 50:28Speaker 03

  Not a fucking Lululemon outfit.

• 50:30Bill Maher?

  Not gonna be a black t-shirt.

• 50:33Speaker 03

  Zelensky pulled up looking like a Yoda instructor.

• 50:35Bill Maher?

  Not gonna be a black t-shirt, man. I am wearing a suit and tie.

• 50:38Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 50:39Bill Maher?

  Jordan Peterson gave me a suit. He sat here and he said, like, I want you to have a suit. And I, Jordan, I don't, I don't like suits. I'm not gonna send you a suit. I'm gonna wear that suit.

• 50:48Speaker 03

  Yup, dud.

• 50:49Bill Maher?

  The Jordan Peterson approved suit.

• 50:52Speaker 03

  It's a good, I mean, I guess, whatever. It's a sign of respect, but...

• 50:54Bill Maher?

  It's a sign of respect. It's the White House.

• 50:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, even if, even if you disagree with the person in it, you are respecting the law of the lands. You are respecting the position in general.

• 51:04Bill Maher?

  And you also have to respect that, you know, the guy did win. It's more than half the country or whatever. I mean, you, I just, I keep saying it. I'm not going to hate. You can not like Trump. You can hate him. You can't hate everybody who vote for him.

• 51:19Speaker 03

  Yes, and you have to understand why.

• 51:20Bill Maher?

  I'm just, I said it in my last special. I don't hate half the country and I don't wanna hate half the country.

• 51:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:26Bill Maher?

  You know, I, it's just not where my mind ever wants to go for my own mental health.

• 51:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:31Bill Maher?

  Is all this hate.

• 51:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:32Bill Maher?

  So, yes, I will talk to anybody.

• 51:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:35Bill Maher?

  And it's, it's, you know, it's, it's an honor to be invited to the White House under any circumstances.

• 51:41Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 51:42Bill Maher?

  So, you know...

• 51:43Speaker 03

  Also, it allows you to have a platform with him where you can tell him the things you disagree with, like, any...

• 51:49Bill Maher?

  I, I think it's, it's, it's...

• 51:51Speaker 03

  Somebody, somebody was saying that to me.

• 51:52Bill Maher?

  It's generous.

• 51:53Speaker 03

  They were like, why?

• 51:54Bill Maher?

  To allow that to happen.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  Of course, but this is also part of American discourse. It's very important. Like, even the, like, I think he needs to do the White House Correspondence Dinner. Just because I think a very unique thing about it...

• 52:05Bill Maher?

  Totally.

• 52:06Speaker 03

  Like, we humble our heroes. It is a very beautiful thing about American culture, right? Is that we will make you beg for our support every four years. You don't just get to be king.

• 52:18Bill Maher?

  That's why it was great when Ricky Gervais hosted the Golden Globes. We take the... piss out of the big ones.

• 52:25Speaker 03

  The big ones, the elites.

• 52:26Bill Maher?

  We take the piss out of them.

• 52:28Speaker 03

  And you saw the reaction, right?

• 52:29Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 52:30Speaker 03

  Everyday people.

• 52:30Bill Maher?

  Visceral.

• 52:31Speaker 03

  It was visceral. And I think it's important.

• 52:33Bill Maher?

  And that the Tom Brady roast kinda got back to that.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  Hundred percent. Here's this guy whose life is perfect. He's got absolutely everything.

• 52:39Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 52:39Speaker 03

  He's submitting himself.

• 52:40Bill Maher?

  Fuck him.

• 52:41Speaker 03

  And that, that, but look, that's the human interaction.

• 52:43Bill Maher?

  It is.

• 52:44Speaker 03

  I'm sure that when you got successful and like, you know, I, I get some success, like you realize, oh shit, there are all these people that are like, they're hating on me for things that like, aren't even true and they're saying these things about me.

• 52:54Bill Maher?

  It's a compliment.

• 52:55Speaker 03

  That, but also that's a part of success. Like that's, that's the cost of success. It is what it is.

• 53:00Bill Maher?

  That they care enough. You're not writing about them.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  Facts. But it is, it is a beautiful part of American culture where we get to like, whole, we get to put the heroes up on a pedestal and also humble them at the same time. And the thing about Trump doing is like, he's already done a roast. So it's not like he's afraid to do a roast. You know, so I, I think we gotta get back to that. Now, you gotta.

• 53:22Bill Maher?

  He did have some ground rules though.

• 53:23Speaker 03

  For the roast?

• 53:24Bill Maher?

  Yeah. I think it was just.

• 53:26Speaker 03

  Don't say he's broke.

• 53:27Bill Maher?

  That's it.

• 53:28Speaker 03

  I've heard that before. Don't say he's broke.

• 53:30Bill Maher?

  Just.

• 53:31Speaker 03

  Isn't that crazy? He's like, yo, talk about my kids.

• 53:35Bill Maher?

  I'm a racist. Cheater.

• 53:40Speaker 03

  Don't say I'm poor.

• 53:41Bill Maher?

  Just do not say.

• 53:43Speaker 03

  Being poor is the worst thing you could possibly be.

• 53:46Bill Maher?

  I know.

• 53:48Speaker 03

  Why, why do you think that he's able to connect to working class people despite coming from money?

• 53:53Bill Maher?

  He is them.

• 53:54Speaker 03

  That.

• 53:55Bill Maher?

  I mean, he is that. Did you see The Apprentice? The movie?

• 53:58Speaker 03

  No, no, but I.

• 53:59Bill Maher?

  May I suggest a date night with the wife?

• 54:02Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, please.

• 54:02Bill Maher?

  Please. It's such a great movie.

• 54:04Speaker 03

  This is with Sebastian Stan, right?

• 54:06Bill Maher?

  Correct.

• 54:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:06Bill Maher?

  Who is brilliant in it. It's funny, I saw him as Tommy Lee. I didn't really love that.

• 54:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 54:12Bill Maher?

  Performance or movie.

• 54:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:14Bill Maher?

  But he is so brilliant as Trump. And it's a, it's a brilliant movie that was not given its due, even though both he and Jeremy Strong were nominated as best actor. Both of them should have been. Or maybe it was best supporting, but whatever it was, they were both brilliant performances. Jeremy Strong as Roy Cullen.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:33Bill Maher?

  Who apprenticed Trump to be who he is. Um, but of course, we're in such a politicized time that the people who just can't stand Trump hate that it humanized him.

• 54:46Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. It wasn't mean enough.

• 54:47Bill Maher?

  It wasn't mean.

• 54:48Speaker 03

  Therefore, you can't give him the thing.

• 54:49Bill Maher?

  It's funny, the first half of it, before he meets Roy Cullen, it does humanize him because he's a human. So like it shows him when he was first like working for his father.

• 54:58Speaker 03

  That's funny.

• 54:59Bill Maher?

  And he's collect-

• 55:00Speaker 03

  How dare you humanize a human being?

• 55:03Bill Maher?

  I mean, I think he's a human being who has a narcissistic syndrome that makes it hard for him to be logical.

• 55:09Speaker 03

  You think someone who ran for president is a narcissist?

• 55:11Bill Maher?

  Okay, so, well, not to that-

• 55:13Speaker 03

  What a crazy idea.

• 55:15Bill Maher?

  Nobody has been a narcissist to that degree, so please.

• 55:18Speaker 03

  I don't know if that's true.

• 55:21Bill Maher?

  Yeah, okay, well, we, it's good that we don't agree on everything and still can be friends. But anyway, the-

• 55:27Speaker 03

  Okay, go on, go on.

• 55:28Bill Maher?

  The point is that in the first half of the movie.

• 55:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:30Bill Maher?

  Like, it's just how he started out in life, like he was collecting rents.

• 55:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:35Bill Maher?

  For his father. He didn't start out like, okay, so he's collecting rents. And you know, when you collect rents from people.

• 55:41Speaker 03

  You gotta talk to people who's-

• 55:42Bill Maher?

  Like, one person opens the door and throws hot water at him.

• 55:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:45Bill Maher?

  Like, people do that when you go to collect. So it's not like he started with the silver spoon exactly. He did to a degree, but it just shows, like, he wasn't like everywhere where we are. And then, you know, and then the second half, it's the opposite. The Trump people think that's too rough on him, so everybody abandoned the movie. But for those 20% in the middle.

• 56:08Speaker 03

  It's fantastic.

• 56:09Bill Maher?

  Who are willing to just watch a piece of art for a piece of art. It's a fantastic movie.

• 56:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:14Bill Maher?

  And it really gets at a lot of what's wrong with our discourse, is that you can't just look at the movie. You have to make a political decision about it.

• 56:25Speaker 03

  And this is how like, this is how I think people get caught up in, like, they don't even create based on their own opinions. They create based on the algorithm. Like, the algorithm teaches them what they want to do.

• 56:35Bill Maher?

  So true.

• 56:36Speaker 03

  Right, because they see a video, get like, a lot of views, and they go, oh, I guess, I guess this is what I want to do.

• 56:41Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 56:42Speaker 03

  And it's like, oh, no, no, you just never had an interesting thought by yourself. You're waiting for something to stick, and you want attention, right? And it's like, the people who made that movie actually had the bravery of going, I'm gonna potentially piss off both sides that would support this.

• 56:55Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 56:55Speaker 03

  And what you're left with is 20%.

• 56:59Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  Which is, I mean, I don't know, that's why I think it's, and well, I said to you in the beginning, like, that's why I think it's brave, when you're willing to piss off your base, I think it's very important.

• 57:08Bill Maher?

  It is.

• 57:08Speaker 03

  But what you get is the trust.

• 57:10Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 57:11Speaker 03

  How many people are trusted? People will trust you.

• 57:15Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 57:15Speaker 03

  Even if they disagree with you, they'll be like, he's not grifting, he's not lying.

• 57:20Bill Maher?

  It means, it means the world to me.

• 57:21Speaker 03

  And when you meet people, there's a connection that they have with you. And then there's other people who are just, they're like, what I would say is more grift, where you go, I know what the base wants, I'm going to echo those sentiments, they're gonna consume it because it makes them feel good, but the second that I disagree with them, they will abandon me.

• 57:39Bill Maher?

  I mean, Matt Taibbi has written brilliantly on this, and he says, well, he, I mean, he's a big media critic, and some of it, I think, goes over the top, but his basic thesis, and he's so true, was that media, at some point, became a group of people who, the way they run their businesses, first we ask, how would the audience that we're servicing

• 58:01Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 58:02Bill Maher?

  want us to interpret this story?

• 58:04Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 58:05Bill Maher?

  And then we give them that. Now, of course, a lot of them become brainwashed, and they just already think that way.

• 58:10Speaker 03

  Bro.

• 58:11Bill Maher?

  Um, but, but that's not what media used to do, it's not what it's supposed to do.

• 58:16Speaker 03

  So, it's so funny, it's like, uh, and there was a show on Fox called Red Eye, do you remember that show? Where like, comics would go on it, and they basically just, you could, eh...

• 58:28Speaker 03

  You could just go and like, it was a great opportunity for a young comic and you make fun of different shit, right? And like, I was in-

• 58:33Bill Maher?

  What was this on?

• 58:34Speaker 03

  It was on Fox, Fox News, like, super late at night.

• 58:36Bill Maher?

  Fox News?

• 58:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, Greg Gutfeld hosted it before he had his show.

• 58:40Bill Maher?

  Not Fox, Fox News.

• 58:41Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, Fox News.

• 58:42Bill Maher?

  That's why I never saw it.

• 58:44Speaker 03

  Probably. But, but there was like, it was, it was a cool opportunity as like a young comic.

• 58:47Bill Maher?

  Right, sure.

• 58:48Speaker 03

  And, um, th- this does connect to what you were just saying. But, uh, I bet, I remember I would go on and like, I was so naive, dude. Like, I grew up in New York City, like, I don't fucking know, like, I thought that there was some... Whatever. Uh, and every-

• 59:04Bill Maher?

  And what?

• 59:06Speaker 03

  I don't know, I thought that there was like a little bit of authenticity or purity to what we were doing. I didn't know that there was like an agenda, right? So I'm just on here-

• 59:12Bill Maher?

  So what, who was doing?

• 59:13Speaker 03

  To the program, right?

• 59:14Bill Maher?

  Oh, okay.

• 59:15Speaker 03

  Or even to the network, right?

• 59:16Bill Maher?

  Okay, sure.

• 59:17Speaker 03

  So, I'm going, so, I was, so some story about like some random college in like Oregon about like, "Hey, we're not gonna, we're gonna have like a no white people on campus day or something," but like some random-

• 59:27Bill Maher?

  Oh, I know the story.

• 59:28Speaker 03

  You remember the story?

• 59:28Bill Maher?

  Brett Weinstein was the professor-

• 59:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 59:30Bill Maher?

  Who got, lost a job for it.

• 59:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 59:33Bill Maher?

  Yes, they had like, I don't know if it was officially called that-

• 59:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:37Bill Maher?

  But it was basically no white people day. Because white people are toxic and so we can't have them.

• 59:42Speaker 03

  It's absurd and ridiculous. And then like, I remember us talking about it and I was like, and I said on the show and I was like, "Swain, is this like kinda what we do? We just take like the most obscure, ridiculous, left-wing thing and we just pretend that that's like what everybody thinks?"

• 59:55Bill Maher?

  That's what Tucker Carlson does every night.

• 59:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I didn't, you got, I'm, I grew up in New York City in a fucking dance family. My, my parents had a dance studio, like-

• 1:00:03Bill Maher?

  Is that right?

• 1:00:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, it's as Democrat as it could possibly be, right? So like, I'm here and I'm seeing this and I'm just like, "What's going on here?" And then everybody kinda looked at me like I didn't know what the shtick was. Like, it was like, like, you know, like I broke the kayfabe or whatever they call it in wrestling.

• 1:00:20Speaker 03

  And I, I didn't get that like, sometimes you don't even need to communicate to the people on your network what they need to do.

• 1:00:27Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:00:27Speaker 03

  It, it's like in the ethos. When you're in the building, you wanna get raises, you wanna be rewarded, so you start echoing the sentiments and reward the people that are echoing it, and then the other people fall in line. So no one explicitly has to tell you, "These are our points of view."

• 1:00:42Bill Maher?

  You know, I said almost the exact same thing recently. And somebody who I mentioned and they got mad at me.

• 1:00:49Speaker 03

  Who, Tucker?

• 1:00:49Bill Maher?

  No, I'm not gonna say.

• 1:00:50Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:00:51Bill Maher?

  But I don't wanna make it a feud.

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:53Bill Maher?

  And I'm, I'm, I actually apologized. I didn't wanna, maybe I shouldn't have brought up specific names.

• 1:00:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:00:59Bill Maher?

  But I was saying almost the same thing that you're saying, that like, it's amazing how

• 1:01:06Bill Maher?

  we just get kind of seduced by the people around us.

• 1:01:11Speaker 03

  It's, it's, it's, yeah.

• 1:01:12Bill Maher?

  And, and the people, you know, who are providing the craft services.

• 1:01:19Bill Maher?

  You know, like.

• 1:01:20Speaker 03

  No, you all fall into it.

• 1:01:22Bill Maher?

  I'm eating your doughnuts. What am I gonna be against the candidate? Come on.

• 1:01:27Speaker 03

  He's probably a good guy, right? You like him, huh?

• 1:01:30Bill Maher?

  I didn't buy his doughnut. What am I, a schmuck?

• 1:01:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, you fall in, that's like a human thing. You just fall into it, so.

• 1:01:40Bill Maher?

  It's, yeah.

• 1:01:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm curious.

• 1:01:42Bill Maher?

  It is, it is like, it is a constant matter of vigilance not to. So I, that's why I, I so applaud the 20%, I mean, I'm picking that number out of my ass, but it's probably close. So applaud them, because it's, it's not easy. I mean, I do it for a living.

• 1:02:00Speaker 03

  It takes courage.

• 1:02:01Bill Maher?

  So it's okay. I'm getting paid to do it.

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:02Bill Maher?

  You're not. You're just doing it as a citizen.

• 1:02:05Speaker 03

  That's what I.

• 1:02:05Bill Maher?

  And a thinker.

• 1:02:06Speaker 03

  I always say this, like, like whenever I'm going through something or somebody's trying to like, position me in some certain way, and I have empathy for them doing that, by the way, like, they see a headline.

• 1:02:16Bill Maher?

  Sure.

• 1:02:16Speaker 03

  And they don't understand the context of anything, and then.

• 1:02:19Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:02:21Speaker 03

  Their views about the world, they might see something like that, and they'll be like, I don't agree with this type of stuff, and then they put that on me, and that's okay. I'm sure I've done that a million times with people.

• 1:02:28Bill Maher?

  Sure.

• 1:02:28Speaker 03

  It is what it is. It's a human thing.

• 1:02:30Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:02:31Speaker 03

  But I have, I have like a great appreciation to the people that will defend me. Despite what the idea about me might be. Because they get nothing out of it besides wanting to show support to someone they care about. They, like you said, you get paid. Like, we're able to do comedy and podcasts and shows, like, it's really awesome. But the fan that's willing to take that on the chin, like, they're at a family dinner and they're going, yeah, I was watching Bill. And they go, oh, you know what he said about that? Like, that.

• 1:03:03Bill Maher?

  So true.

• 1:03:04Speaker 03

  They're incredible.

• 1:03:05Bill Maher?

  Yes. The, the peer pressure of, of work coworkers, uh, you know, newsrooms have become kindergartens. Because it's the mob mentality of the newsroom, but many, I'm, I'm not making this up. Many people have written stories about this, like, the newsroom.

• 1:03:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:25Bill Maher?

  At the Washington Post or the New York Times.

• 1:03:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:28Bill Maher?

  Is such a mean girls emporium. And if you step outside the bounds of what the group think is.

• 1:03:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:36Bill Maher?

  I mean, we've seen this many times at the New York Times. Barry Weiss had to leave and she started the Free Press.

• 1:03:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, she's great. I was just talking to her.

• 1:03:44Bill Maher?

  Yes. And Nellie Bowles, her wife, the same thing, New York Times, and they just, Pamela Paul, who I just was on Real Time the week before. And loved her columns in the New York Times, which were not unreasonable at all. They were, they were exactly where I am. I always agree with.

• 1:04:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:03Bill Maher?

  They're leaning left, but afraid to call out woke on nonsense.

• 1:04:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Bill Maher?

  And she apparently couldn't survive there. I mean, that is a very bad place.

• 1:04:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:15Bill Maher?

  For media to be in.

• 1:04:16Speaker 03

  I, I think there's this tricky decision where it's like, hey, we can also criticize the administration when they do things wrong. Like, they're in power now. When they weren't in power, I understand how you want to get them into power. So you're like, let's turn a blind eye to things that we maybe disagree with. Now they're in control. They are the institution. We have to criticize them. This is part of, so.

• 1:04:40Bill Maher?

  You, you won and you're in. You get the jokes.

• 1:04:43Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 1:04:44Bill Maher?

  You won, you're in, you get the jokes.

• 1:04:49Bill Maher?

  Well, we'll see if he agrees at the dinner.

• 1:04:51Speaker 03

  This is why disseminating disinformation and talking to the people you disagree with is really important.

• 1:04:56Bill Maher?

  Very important.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  Because there's a lot of people, myself included, just uneducated people who will go with the trend that kind of makes me feel good as someone who pays a lot of taxes.

• 1:05:05Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:05:05Speaker 03

  I'm from New York, I'm like, yeah, I pay all this fucking taxes, what am I getting out of it, right?

• 1:05:08Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:05:08Speaker 03

  And then I, I need somebody to go and have a conversation where it's like.

• 1:05:12Bill Maher?

  I can never, no story that I read anywhere do I trust fully. I have to read a second story or a third about this subject before I feel like, okay, now I got the full story. Why didn't you first assholes tell me the full story?

• 1:05:27Speaker 03

  Because people don't want the full story.

• 1:05:29Bill Maher?

  They really don't.

• 1:05:29Speaker 03

  They want to feel good.

• 1:05:31Bill Maher?

  Right, they want to feel good.

• 1:05:32Speaker 03

  Feeling good, and you know who knows that? These corporations, not even corporations, but these, you know, businesses that run these, you know.

• 1:05:39Bill Maher?

  And masturbators.

• 1:05:40Speaker 03

  Oh god, do they know it.

• 1:05:43Bill Maher?

  We just want to feel good. Are we bad people?

• 1:05:46Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:05:46Bill Maher?

  Are we bad? We're not bad people.

• 1:05:48Speaker 03

  No, I mean, you know.

• 1:05:49Bill Maher?

  It's monkeys doing.

• 1:05:50Speaker 03

  Dude, have you ever watched, did you watch that chimp empire show on Netflix?

• 1:05:54Bill Maher?

  No, but I'm a big fan of chimps and I support their cause monetarily. I support a chimp cause, yes.

• 1:06:01Speaker 03

  You put your money behind the chimps?

• 1:06:02Bill Maher?

  Yes, absolutely. The producer, one of the producers of my show, um, is, uh, has a big charity for chimps.

• 1:06:09Speaker 03

  Who? I met them tonight, right?

• 1:06:11Bill Maher?

  Um, no, no, my, my, my real time show, my HBO show.

• 1:06:15Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:06:15Bill Maher?

  Um, and that charity, they have a big, um.

• 1:06:19Speaker 03

  Chimp Foundation.

• 1:06:20Bill Maher?

  Chimp Foundation and a chimp, uh, reserve in Georgia.

• 1:06:24Speaker 03

  Oh wow.

• 1:06:24Bill Maher?

  Where the chimps can be chimps.

• 1:06:26Speaker 03

  They can chimp it up.

• 1:06:27Bill Maher?

  You know, no tuxedos.

• 1:06:28Speaker 03

  None. They get to let a rip out there.

• 1:06:31Bill Maher?

  No tuxedos, no cigars, no riding tricycles.

• 1:06:35Speaker 03

  You gotta watch this chimp empire show and it's like, you kind of watch it and you're like, oh, this is too close to who we are. Like

• 1:06:44Bill Maher?

  They're very close. True.

• 1:06:45Speaker 03

  They're close. And then there's other things that.

• 1:06:48Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:06:49Speaker 03

  Like this idea of like having to like maintain the alpha, right? Like you also see how that's destructive in terms of like creating any technology, like sharing any advantageous information. Like there's this one dude who needs to show he's alpha and every once in a while he just fucks up everything in the neighborhood. He's like a like a drunk dad or whatever. It just comes around.

• 1:07:06Bill Maher?

  You're talking about a chimp now?

• 1:07:07Speaker 03

  Chimp, yeah.

• 1:07:07Bill Maher?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:07:08Speaker 03

  And he's like, I need to show everybody I'm alpha. So he just starts fights with people, fucks shit up and does whatever. And the problem with that is that you can't sit around and develop fire when you're worried that this guy is gonna punch you in the back of the head every second. So everybody's just kinda like on edge, hoping this alpha won't start shit.

• 1:07:27Bill Maher?

  Doesn't that describe, I'm sorry, but doesn't that describe today's administration?

• 1:07:33Speaker 03

  Talk to me.

• 1:07:34Bill Maher?

  We just.

• 1:07:34Speaker 03

  Talk to me. If you push back against me, if you push back against me.

• 1:07:38Bill Maher?

  It just sounds exactly like what's going on now with the tariffs and everything else. And like he's gonna take over Greenland and we're gonna invade Canada. And everybody is just like, is this alpha?

• 1:07:49Speaker 03

  No, no, no.

• 1:07:50Bill Maher?

  Just gonna do some crazy shit. I mean, the stock market is down.

• 1:07:54Speaker 03

  Okay, so.

• 1:07:54Bill Maher?

  Over a thousand points. I'm sure that affects you a little bit.

• 1:07:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

• 1:07:58Bill Maher?

  You have stocks.

• 1:07:59Speaker 03

  I do have stocks. I should know more about it, but yeah.

• 1:08:02Bill Maher?

  Yeah, don't panic. It'll go back up.

• 1:08:04Speaker 03

  That's what we hope. Yep.

• 1:08:05Bill Maher?

  But, you know, it does, I'm sorry, but it just, when you said that, I can't help but think that's exactly what Elon Musk, you know, brilliant guy. I have defended him many times, more than most people have, but you know, I don't like that he, I don't like, I, I, I support that he took Twitter and turned it into something freer, but he just turned it into something really almost as right wing as it used to be left wing, which would be okay too, except that he very often retweets some of the worst stuff. Why? He had a great idea that, oh, I can go in with my Doge boys and, and find the waste.

• 1:08:49Bill Maher?

  But the way he did it was very, I'm on the spectrum.

• 1:08:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, I think there is that. And I think he is on the spectrum and it's probably harder to relate emotionally to things. I am a little bit more optimistic about the intentions of the administration. It doesn't mean it's gonna work out, but. I don't think that that Musk is trying to get richer.

• 1:09:08Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:09:09Speaker 03

  Like, I think he-

• 1:09:09Bill Maher?

  He's definitely not. I've always defended him on that. He does not care about money.

• 1:09:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:14Bill Maher?

  I mean, I've-

• 1:09:15Speaker 03

  He's got all the money. Like, I think he thinks that this actually will help America.

• 1:09:19Bill Maher?

  I've been with him at times, and he did not have a house.

• 1:09:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:24Bill Maher?

  He was like staying at a friend's house.

• 1:09:25Speaker 03

  It doesn't matter to him.

• 1:09:27Bill Maher?

  He's a- he will sleep on the couch.

• 1:09:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:29Bill Maher?

  Or sleep at the Tesla factory, as he did to get that going. I think he's, you know, he brags about, "We work the weekends." You know, he's a, "Let's have pizza at 1:00 in the morning and keep working."

• 1:09:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:40Bill Maher?

  And then sleep here.

• 1:09:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:42Bill Maher?

  That's what- he's an engineer. That's what turns him on.

• 1:09:45Speaker 03

  And, and I respect that. I think it's important.

• 1:09:47Bill Maher?

  Right, but, but nobody, like, put any sort of brakes on this. And to, to do it this way, and to be, and to take such glee in the cruelty of it. The people who got letters that said, "Do something valuable with your life." Now, you can't tell me that that's-

• 1:10:06Speaker 03

  These are the things that are antagonistic and twisting the knife that I don't think is helpful for the discourse.

• 1:10:11Bill Maher?

  Horrible.

• 1:10:12Speaker 03

  But I will say that, like, I think if there's one thing Democrats could learn, it's the importance of the American sentiment, where it's like, Americans like abundance, and we like hope. Barack sold us on hope, and we will buy that every single time.

• 1:10:27Bill Maher?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:27Speaker 03

  I think Amer- I think that sometimes Democrats are too, like, safe. They, they, they don't sell me on abundance. It's like, Trump goes, "We're gonna take Greenland." "We're not even really gonna take it," but he says it, and then Americans go, "All right, that might be kinda cool." Right? Like, so Democrats, what is your build the wall?

• 1:10:44Bill Maher?

  I think it is kinda cool, as long as it's not by force.

• 1:10:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, if it's consensual, it's cool.

• 1:10:49Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 1:10:49Speaker 03

  But if you're growing up in Greenland, you don't wanna be part of America? Like, you outta your mind?

• 1:10:54Bill Maher?

  Greenland, we're not raping it.

• 1:10:58Bill Maher?

  We're asking, we're asking, it's consensual. So it's a consensual thing.

• 1:11:04Speaker 03

  What I would tell anybody, like, what I would try to explain to Democrats is like, you have to give us hope and abundance. Like, I need a slogan. Build a wall is emblematic of something that people feel, right? So it could be as simple as like, dollar eggs. Hey, if we get in power, we are subsidizing eggs. You will never have to worry about getting your kid eggs. It's a dollar egg.

• 1:11:27Bill Maher?

  That is a road you don't want to go down. You do not want to go down subsidizing food staples. It's what they do in third world countries.

• 1:11:35Speaker 03

  What we do in America, what we do with the dairy industry, what we do with the rice industry, what we do.

• 1:11:38Bill Maher?

  Well, we do it on the.

• 1:11:39Speaker 03

  Corn industry, like, of course, we've been doing it for years.

• 1:11:41Bill Maher?

  We do it further down the trail, like, yes, on the, on the chain. They do like grain and stuff. Yeah, you're right, but not like at the, you're talking, it sounds to me like you're talking on the supermarket level.

• 1:11:53Speaker 03

  No, I'm talking about on the farmer level. And again, listen, I.

• 1:11:57Bill Maher?

  The chicken.

• 1:11:58Speaker 03

  I'm talking about the chickens.

• 1:12:00Bill Maher?

  But what comes first?

• 1:12:02Speaker 03

  You know what?

• 1:12:04Bill Maher?

  Has anyone ever really asked that question?

• 1:12:05Speaker 03

  Now we're getting into it.

• 1:12:07Bill Maher?

  Has anyone ever really?

• 1:12:08Speaker 03

  It's more about like, how do you, how do you communicate to Americans that we want to meet you at your needs? And how are we going to say that? And how are we going to say certain things that are going to penetrate the discourse? Americans don't have a fucking, like, Democrats don't have a slogan that tells like a hardworking, but poor American that they're going to be able to get more.

• 1:12:26Bill Maher?

  They had a slogan in the last election. It was free tits for prisoners. Okay, not a great one.

• 1:12:37Speaker 03

  Bro, that, that crushed. Dude, it was so funny, that one commercial. I, I've been talking to the guy, I don't know if he wants to put a main name, but the guy who made the commercial, the Trump is for.

• 1:12:47Bill Maher?

  You, she's for them, that's.

• 1:12:49Speaker 03

  And they open with, you know, Charlamagne, you know Charlamagne, the god, him and I do a podcast together.

• 1:12:53Bill Maher?

  Oh, I know you do.

• 1:12:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, so like.

• 1:12:55Bill Maher?

  Love him.

• 1:12:56Speaker 03

  It was, he's amazing.

• 1:12:56Bill Maher?

  Tell him I, tell him I said hi.

• 1:12:58Speaker 03

  I absolutely will.

• 1:12:58Bill Maher?

  Every time he, he references me on the show, it really tickles me.

• 1:13:02Speaker 03

  I appreciate it.

• 1:13:03Bill Maher?

  Hey, I gotta go home and watch Bill Maher.

• 1:13:05Speaker 03

  Oh, he, he watches you religiously.

• 1:13:07Bill Maher?

  Oh, I know.

• 1:13:07Speaker 03

  He has a lot of respect for you, but he's the GOAT. He is like, to me, he's like a-

• 1:13:11Bill Maher?

  Great reach, great influence.

• 1:13:13Speaker 03

  And also like, I don't know if this is fair, but a lot of times I judge people like, based on like where they've come from and how far they've gotten in their life. You know, like, so to go from, you know, billionaire to like 1.1 billion, isn't as impressive as to go from

• 1:13:27Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:13:27Speaker 03

  Trailer park in South Carolina to one of the most powerful voices in

• 1:13:31Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:32Speaker 03

  Is like, anyway. But, we're talking about that, like,

• 1:13:38Speaker 03

  just knowing how that kind of ended up happening is kind of funny, but like, how do, how do Democrats start communicating? Because, say what you want about AOC's politics, she communicates to the people in her district that she wants to help them. Bernie communicated in a way that he wanted to help people.

• 1:13:53Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:13:53Speaker 03

  I think, I think AOC and Trump polled the same in her district. What does that say? That says that those same people will cross the political lines to the people they feel are looking out for their best interests. So how do Democrats start organizing in a way?

• 1:14:11Bill Maher?

  I mean, I, I would check that stat on Trump and AOC polling.

• 1:14:17Speaker 03

  I just made that up, but I think it sounds good.

• 1:14:20Bill Maher?

  Come on.

• 1:14:21Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? Like, I think, hey, I think it sounds good. Hey, you don't look up that Bronx district.

• 1:14:27Bill Maher?

  I love the honesty even when it's dishonest.

• 1:14:30Speaker 03

  No, no, no. I think there is facts there. They, they polled very similarly in the area.

• 1:14:33Bill Maher?

  I mean, she, here's what did happen. Trump did very well in the Bronx. You're right.

• 1:14:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:39Bill Maher?

  Trump did very well. Uh, that could be a, a true stat, like, like favorability rating, but that was one of the districts that was most shocking to leftists. You're right, you know?

• 1:14:50Speaker 03

  And they should learn, like, like, instead of, I think the, the knee jerk reaction is to make the opposition radioactive. And it's like, guys, they like the opposition.

• 1:15:00Bill Maher?

  The first thing Democrats have to do is stop the bleeding on the left, on the far left. Stop the, stop people from being able to go, you know, I don't really like Trump and he seems pretty bad with women and that doesn't sit well with me and the wife sure hates him.

• 1:15:20Bill Maher?

  But you know what, at least he likes America. At least he thinks women are the only ones who can have babies. You know, things like that. Those are the things that people go, I just can't vote for those people. They just seem crazy. They just seem like they are not tethered to reality, which is when you lose that contest to Donald Trump, who's also not tethered to reality in many ways. I mean, you're saying something.

• 1:15:45Speaker 03

  Dude, I wonder if like, and again, I don't know too much about like the Ilhan Omar's politics or whatever.

• 1:15:50Bill Maher?

  Oh, Ilhan Omar?

• 1:15:52Speaker 03

  Ilhan, Ilhan?

• 1:15:54Bill Maher?

  Ilhan Omar.

• 1:15:55Speaker 03

  You call her Ilhan Omar?

• 1:15:56Bill Maher?

  I call her that because that's her name. She's the representative from Minnesota.

• 1:16:01Speaker 03

  I think, whatever.

• 1:16:02Bill Maher?

  Maybe I'm saying it wrong.

• 1:16:03Speaker 03

  Ilhan, I thought it was, but I guess, I think that like.

• 1:16:05Bill Maher?

  Whatever it is, I don't like her.

• 1:16:07Speaker 03

  So the point, the point that I'm trying to make here is that like.

• 1:16:10Bill Maher?

  Is she, is she a representative of America or Palestine is my question?

• 1:16:14Speaker 03

  Well, here's the thing that's important. It's like, I think that she has the, and I don't even know if she understands this as privilege, but like she has an identity outside of being American. Like she, she has this separate identity from another country that has thousands of years of history and that's baked into who she is. Some of us.

• 1:16:31Bill Maher?

  Where you would happily live.

• 1:16:32Speaker 03

  Where I would happily live, like, and it would be so great.

• 1:16:35Bill Maher?

  And you know, she married her brother.

• 1:16:37Speaker 03

  And it is what it is.

• 1:16:38Bill Maher?

  So you could do that.

• 1:16:39Speaker 03

  I mean, if I had a sister, that, no.

• 1:16:42Bill Maher?

  You can marry a sister. I don't know what you could do.

• 1:16:44Speaker 03

  But the point is like.

• 1:16:44Bill Maher?

  You could do anything to a woman. Okay, so let's just, let's put that right on the table.

• 1:16:50Speaker 03

  So, so the point I'm trying to make is like, some of us only have America. We only have this, so when you attack this, I'm gonna defend it till the day I die. I love America more than anything in the entire world. It's the greatest country in the human existence, is the greatest experiment in existence and has succeeded. So, we only have this. You have to find a way to communicate what you believe to be the shortcomings of America in a way that doesn't make us feel like you don't love it.

• 1:17:19Bill Maher?

  Totally.

• 1:17:20Speaker 03

  My mom is an immigrant. She loves, like, you cannot tell my mom that she cannot, that I cannot achieve anything, that she cannot achieve anything in this country. It's one of the reasons why I think it's important to bring in immigrants because they remind us of the opportunity.

• 1:17:33Bill Maher?

  And they're appreciative because they know what it's like in these other countries.

• 1:17:37Speaker 03

  And we don't, we don't.

• 1:17:39Bill Maher?

  Right, well, I do, you don't.

• 1:17:40Speaker 03

  You haven't traveled because of your UTIs. You don't even leave the country.

• 1:17:44Bill Maher?

  I, I don't have to, first of all, I have traveled. And second of all, you don't have to travel to understand what's going on.

• 1:17:49Speaker 03

  Have you lived outside the country?

• 1:17:51Bill Maher?

  No, but I read. I can read about what's there.

• 1:17:54Speaker 03

  This is this Ivy League shit that's so annoying to Americans.

• 1:17:57Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:57Speaker 03

  Yes, stop reading so much, it's gay.

• 1:17:59Bill Maher?

  Oh, now I see you're just fucking moving when you say these things, okay.

• 1:18:03Speaker 03

  But, but, but, but in terms of living outside, like, I've lived outside the country and it's important. And I haven't lived in the Middle East, but living in Spain, there are little things that you will appreciate that we have here that even in a major city in Spain that they didn't have, an AC unit.

• 1:18:18Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 1:18:19Speaker 03

  Like, a little thing we take for granted.

• 1:18:20Bill Maher?

  Totally.

• 1:18:21Speaker 03

  That we don't realize how amazing we have it here.

• 1:18:25Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and that's just the physical part of it, yes, the technological part of it. The toilets always work, that kind of stuff.

• 1:18:32Speaker 03

  It's.

• 1:18:33Bill Maher?

  But it's also, we do have free speech that they don't even have in Europe. I mean, in Europe, you and I both would get a knock on the door from the police in some countries. Germany, I mean, 60 Minutes just did a story on this.

• 1:18:46Speaker 03

  You would definitely get a knock on the door in Germany.

• 1:18:48Bill Maher?

  Eye-opening, well, because if you say something.

• 1:18:52Speaker 03

  I'm making.

• 1:18:53Bill Maher?

  No, I, no, if you say something, like, really, I feel like mildly

• 1:19:01Bill Maher?

  insulting about a political leader.

• 1:19:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:03Bill Maher?

  They can knock on your door and like, take away your, it's crazy. They, they don't have the same tradition of free speech as we have here.

• 1:19:11Speaker 03

  Pretty awesome.

• 1:19:11Bill Maher?

  They don't have a First Amendment.

• 1:19:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:13Bill Maher?

  It is pretty awesome and we take it for granted.

• 1:19:15Speaker 03

  We do.

• 1:19:17Bill Maher?

  So it's the physical part, it's that part. It's also this part. We have this idea, as with all our problems and all our shittiness, people have the idea here that tomorrow can always be different. You can always reinvent yourself, you can start something new.

• 1:19:35Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:19:35Bill Maher?

  There's not other countries, including the Western European democracies, which are great countries, but, you know, in France, you take the baccalaureate when you're 16. You're kind of, your life is kind of there decided at 16.

• 1:19:48Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 1:19:48Bill Maher?

  Yes, you're either gonna go on to be a tradesman or a professional of some sort. They're, they're, they're much more structured and strictured than we are.

• 1:19:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:58Bill Maher?

  And this country is kind of like, "Okay, well, tomorrow I will be an influencer who eats my asshole." You know, and, and you can make that work. I don't admire that you can. But you, but people make shit work and can, and don't have this idea that there's any cutting down of the tallest trees. Like, everything is open.

• 1:20:20Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:20:20Bill Maher?

  And there is, there is a greatness in that.

• 1:20:23Speaker 03

  This is something that like, you cannot underestimate. When Americans lose, like, every American thinks they're gonna be a millionaire. The day they're born, they're like, "I'm gonna be a millionaire one day." And we run on that. That is the energy that we run on. And the second Americans start to feel like that's not an opportunity for them, shit gets dark fast.

• 1:20:43Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:20:43Speaker 03

  You need to do whatever you can to reinforce this idea that it's really immigrant mentality, even though the people are born here.

• 1:20:51Bill Maher?

  Totally, absolutely.

• 1:20:52Speaker 03

  You can make it.

• 1:20:53Bill Maher?

  You can.

• 1:20:54Speaker 03

  And that's what makes, I mean, I mean, that was

• 1:20:57Bill Maher?

  And you can.

• 1:20:57Speaker 03

  forefront of everything.

• 1:20:58Bill Maher?

  The reason why it resonates in people's minds is because it does happen.

• 1:21:03Speaker 03

  You see retards become millionaires. Like, actual people who are retarded can become millionaires. Dude, you know what I realize is like, a lot of times, I think the perception of comedians is that, like, we say something, and if you're offended by it, we're angry. And it's like, you can react however you wanna react to things.

• 1:21:19Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:21:19Speaker 03

  I don't police your reaction. If you're offended, that's okay.

• 1:21:22Bill Maher?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:21:23Speaker 03

  But, and if, if I was talking to you and you're like, "Hey, that, that, that makes me feel uncomfortable, that word." I just won't say it around you.

• 1:21:30Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:21:30Speaker 03

  I don't care, like, but that doesn't mean I won't continue to make a joke that might have it in it, or say something with other people. But on a one-on-one level, like, I don't want you to feel uncomfortable.

• 1:21:40Bill Maher?

  Do you look through your social media and see what people are mad at you about?

• 1:21:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think I check. I also think it's like important to get like a litmus test. Like if I'm writing something, like if I'm writing my, my hour, right? I block out everything because I don't want to create for my haters. I feel like a lot of people fall in that trap of like, how can I appease the people that don't like me? I want to make something that I really believe in and I think is like honest and authentic to me. And then after releasing it, I think it's important to understand like how you're taken in the marketplace. Oh, do people think I'm this, there are people think I'm like this right wing MAGA lunatic because I had Trump on the podcast.

• 1:22:22Bill Maher?

  I think that. No, I'm kidding. But what a great segue to plug your special.

• 1:22:28Speaker 03

  No, no, I don't want to do that.

• 1:22:29Bill Maher?

  I do want to. But you know, you just said I spend my hour writing. I'm interested in that. You purposely write the special. You don't, it's not like the stuff you gather over.

• 1:22:39Speaker 03

  No, I gathered the like, this one was different. Like this one is, it's basically.

• 1:22:43Bill Maher?

  And it's called?

• 1:22:44Speaker 03

  It's called Life, but it's.

• 1:22:45Bill Maher?

  And it's on Netflix.

• 1:22:45Speaker 03

  It's on Netflix and.

• 1:22:47Bill Maher?

  And it's on now.

• 1:22:48Speaker 03

  It's on now. Yeah. And it's, it's basically about me trying to get my wife pregnant and like, I found out my sperm sucks.

• 1:22:53Bill Maher?

  You know, science knows how to do that now.

• 1:22:55Speaker 03

  We had to use science. That's the story.

• 1:22:57Bill Maher?

  Right?

• 1:22:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it's about.

• 1:22:58Bill Maher?

  What'd you have to do? Turkey baster?

• 1:23:00Speaker 03

  I had to do, no, we tried turkey baster.

• 1:23:01Bill Maher?

  Are you serious?

• 1:23:02Speaker 03

  That didn't work.

• 1:23:03Bill Maher?

  No. Don't do, use one that you used with the turkey.

• 1:23:06Speaker 03

  See, that's what the problem was. Yeah, I used that and yeah, my wife gave birth.

• 1:23:11Bill Maher?

  Jiblets came out.

• 1:23:16Speaker 03

  So, but yeah, so it was just the story of us having to do it. Like usually the woman is the one that's obviously concerned about her eggs and these things, but with me.

• 1:23:24Bill Maher?

  God damn it, I was gonna do that bit.

• 1:23:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, right. You would never have kids.

• 1:23:27Bill Maher?

  About I was trying to get a girl pregnant.

• 1:23:30Speaker 03

  You're out there trying to fucking boycott.

• 1:23:32Bill Maher?

  But you did finally get it done.

• 1:23:34Speaker 03

  We got that.

• 1:23:34Bill Maher?

  What was the problem? Why?

• 1:23:36Speaker 03

  My sperm doesn't swim and it's shape weird.

• 1:23:39Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it always comes down to something silly like that.

• 1:23:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23:42Bill Maher?

  And I don't feel that, that, that in any way affects your masculinity.

• 1:23:47Bill Maher?

  I don't think that at all. I think you're just as masculine as the next guy if the next guy is Richard Simmons. Anyway.

• 1:23:56Speaker 03

  I don't know it's crazy like emotional reaction. When, when, obviously I had like whatever interactions with the, with the doctor about, but like there was this like week or two afterwards where I thought that. Like primally, my wife would no longer be attracted to me. Like there would be this like instinctual thing that would happen.

• 1:24:12Bill Maher?

  There is. Absolutely. You may not think it, but it's absolutely true. It's called the ick.

• 1:24:18Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't believe in it.

• 1:24:21Speaker 03

  I don't believe in that.

• 1:24:22Bill Maher?

  You may, you may not believe in the ick, but it believes in you.

• 1:24:24Speaker 03

  No, no, I don't believe in it. I'll tell you why I don't believe in it. I think there's so much societal pressure on women to be married that they would rather be with a person. That they don't like than alone. I think women are terrified of being alone.

• 1:24:38Bill Maher?

  Certainly that describes the world of yesteryear. I think women today, I think you're describing something that is a little in the past.

• 1:24:45Speaker 03

  No, no, I, I.

• 1:24:46Bill Maher?

  Not, not that there aren't many women like that still. There are, but I think way less than there was 25 years ago.

• 1:24:52Speaker 03

  Let's say maybe there is, but let's say hypothetically, some of them are still locked into these institutions. Obviously, like you grew up religious, right? Not you, but like someone.

• 1:25:00Bill Maher?

  Catholic, yes.

• 1:25:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, some, some women grow up religious, right? That have like, they have strong family values in the religion.

• 1:25:04Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:25:05Speaker 03

  Catholics, Jews, Christians, and there's this huge pressure to like get married and like start a family.

• 1:25:10Bill Maher?

  Sure.

• 1:25:10Speaker 03

  And I think that that pressure that women have, men don't have it. Like our biggest fear is being with someone we hate. Clearly you have it. Right? Motherfucker.

• 1:25:20Bill Maher?

  Clearly.

• 1:25:22Speaker 03

  This guy got a whole bunker built.

• 1:25:23Bill Maher?

  I feel like I've walked the walk, okay?

• 1:25:26Speaker 03

  If you could see this whole room, it says, single. Like, there's a stripper pole behind me.

• 1:25:31Bill Maher?

  Well, my tax forms are single, you know, I'm, I don't. I'm not trying to hide it, man.

• 1:25:36Speaker 03

  So, so like, I, I think what happens is these girls end up in, they end up relating, in relationships with these dudes that they actually don't like. And then when you don't like someone and you are with them, everything about them disgusts you.

• 1:25:51Bill Maher?

  Because you know you settled. And that's a horrible thing to live with. That's the ick.

• 1:25:57Speaker 03

  So what I'm trying to say is it's women's fault.

• 1:25:58Bill Maher?

  No, it's very true. I mean, you said that there's societal pressure and religious pressure, family pressure. There's also biological pressure.

• 1:26:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:07Bill Maher?

  It is just part of a lot of women's DNA.

• 1:26:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:10Bill Maher?

  I'm, I should mate and, and take care of a man and be a nurturer and have children and nurture them. And that, nothing wrong with that.

• 1:26:18Speaker 03

  No, it's beautiful.

• 1:26:19Bill Maher?

  And you can do that and still be a brilliant person.

• 1:26:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:22Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:22Speaker 03

  But do it with someone that you like so that you don't have to ick.

• 1:26:24Bill Maher?

  But if you, but you know, but you know, people, it's like a game of musical chairs. At a certain point, you, you fear the music is gonna stop and you're the one without the chair.

• 1:26:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:34Bill Maher?

  So you're gonna, you're gonna go for a chair. And then that's the problem. You're married to a chair. That's not a fun existence. It really isn't. It's not a fun existence.

• 1:26:45Speaker 03

  So you gotta hope you get it right.

• 1:26:46Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:26:47Speaker 03

  And the older you get, I think the harder it is. Like, if you're trying to meet somebody at forty, right, and you're meeting another person around that age, like you both have built these lives that are completely separate. Like, the odds of you being able to connect to that person and all your little idiosyncrasies matching up, that's one in a million.

• 1:27:04Bill Maher?

  Well, I did it at sixty-three, but that's all I'm gonna say about that.

• 1:27:07Speaker 03

  So far, so far.

• 1:27:09Bill Maher?

  I loved meeting you.

• 1:27:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I loved meeting you too, man. Thank you so much.

• 1:27:12Bill Maher?

  I'm so flattered that you came out here to do this, cause I know you're busy and I know your career is on a fucking skyrocket.

• 1:27:18Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you, man.

• 1:27:19Bill Maher?

  So the fact that you would come here and do this with me in my crib, I really appreciate it.

• 1:27:24Speaker 03

  Anytime, man. This was so much fun. A real honor, man.

• 1:27:29Bill Maher?

  Thank you.

• 1:27:30Speaker 03

  Dude, that was fun.

• 1:27:31Bill Maher?

  Yeah. I really appreciate it. I really, I really made it.

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

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