Winston Marshall | Club Random with Bill Maher

On this episode, Bill sits down with musician, podcaster and one-time Mumford & Sons banjoist Winston Marshall. The two reflect on Winston’s departure from the band following a social media firestorm over a controversial book endorsement, how that ordeal exposed the intense pressures of “cancel culture” within the music world and why Winston ultimately decided to speak his mind despite the fallout. They dig into England’s shifting cultural landscape, the rise of political correctness in both the UK and America, what it’s like to navigate taboo topics in today’s hyper-partisan climate, Bill’s own battle with early 2000s cancellations, the nuance of “platforming” divisive guests in media, and how comedic irreverence can serve as a release valve against excessive wokeness. They also touch on London’s changing face, the lure of extremist ideologies, the importance of honest dialogue across the political spectrum and much more. Follow Club Random on IG: @ClubRandomPodcast Follow Bill on IG: @BillMaher Go to https://www.ffrf.us/freedom or text "CLUB" to 511511 and become a member today Go to https://zbiotics.com/RANDOM and use RANDOM at checkout for 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics. Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/random #rulapod #ad Go to https://www.skechers.com/clubrandom or use code Random for 20% off your first pair of Skechers Hands Free Slip-ins Go to https://OmahaSteaks.com to get 50% off sitewide during their Spring Savings Event. And use Promo Code BILL at checkout for an extra $30 off. Minimum purchase may apply. See site for details. A big thanks to our advertiser, Omaha Steaks! 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone. And including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 0:31Bill Maher?

  Mumford was cool with it, but Sun not so much. No, I'm joking. Who was uncool with it?

• 0:40Speaker 02

  My initial feeling was, I was contrite. I was like, maybe I've done something wrong, like, maybe I've got this wrong. I don't know everything about this topic.

• 0:46Bill Maher?

  It's hard not to feel.

• 0:52Speaker 02

  Hi, Bill. Great to meet you.

• 0:53Bill Maher?

  Oh, you're younger than I thought.

• 0:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah? Thanks for having me here.

• 0:58Bill Maher?

  Oh, I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to this. I know you traveled to get here. I'm most appreciative. Been looking forward to talking to you and finding out about your journey. How's your journey going on this Wednesday afternoon?

• 1:14Speaker 02

  My journey's going great. I mean, you're the one with the big story. I don't know.

• 1:18Bill Maher?

  There's so much else to talk about, like, I don't know, our journeys.

• 1:25Bill Maher?

  I feel like if your journey met my truth, they'd have a great time.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:31Bill Maher?

  Not that I really believe in that my-truth thing. It's like, everyone's got their truth, and then there isn't there, there used to be the truth. That was a different era.

• 1:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, facts. We all have different facts now. But I think where our journeys met is that you did a monologue about me, which included me.

• 1:50Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  A couple of years ago. And, but it was a fantastic monologue.

• 1:54Bill Maher?

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  And ridiculing work ideology and the totalitarian nature of...

• 2:00Bill Maher?

  Well, tell the people. Uh, the people.

• 2:04Speaker 02

  The people.

• 2:05Bill Maher?

  I love the people. Do you drink, Winston?

• 2:07Speaker 02

  I don't, but is it gonna bother if I smoke a cigar?

• 2:10Bill Maher?

  No, everybody should do what they want. If you wanna smoke a cigar, spank a monkey, I don't care, whatever you wanna do. Um, I'm all for that, or I think we're both have a libertarian streak.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24Bill Maher?

  In us.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 2:25Bill Maher?

  Right, okay. So, yes, tell the people, it was, you know, first of all, what year are we talking about?

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Well, your monologue, I think, was twenty-two or twenty-three?

• 2:34Bill Maher?

  No, I think it was a little earlier because I think it was right in the middle of wokest mania.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  The wokest mania was, was, I think, twenty-twenty, and I wonder what, I'd like to know what your opinion on this.

• 2:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  Twenty-twenty, you have Covid, so everyone's locked up.

• 2:49Bill Maher?

  And George Floyd.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  And George Floyd.

• 2:51Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  And it's in the music.

• 2:54Bill Maher?

  When they went out.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:56Bill Maher?

  When they made an exception for the plague that was gonna kill everybody.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:01Bill Maher?

  I'm not saying it was a bad thing, I'm just saying that didn't gotta happen.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Well, everyone went mad, everyone was at home and they got wound up. And the music industry, when BLM came along, that was like, they did black like, black square Tuesday. So, everyone had to put a black square up on their social media. If you didn't, it wasn't that you weren't involved, but you were against it. It was, it was a total, uh, binary. There was one band, I think, um, I might get the details wrong, but Hanson, do you remember the band Hanson?

• 3:33Bill Maher?

  Totally, MMBop.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, they put out a black square like a day late, and they got hounded for it, just putting it one day late.

• 3:39Bill Maher?

  Okay, that is peak woke crazy, right?

• 3:42Speaker 02

  That's peak woke crazy.

• 3:43Bill Maher?

  I remember talking about that with the black square, it reminded me of, uh, what's the movie where we wear pink on Wednesdays? Mean Girls.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Uh-huh, uh-huh.

• 3:53Bill Maher?

  You ever saw Mean Girls?

• 3:54Speaker 02

  Years ago, yeah.

• 3:55Bill Maher?

  You know, that's it.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:56Bill Maher?

  We all, we all wear pink on Wednesdays.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 3:59Bill Maher?

  And if you don't, or if you don't put the black square.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:03Bill Maher?

  That's just crazy.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  So it was, that year was total insanity and, you know, it was worse than that really because even the mainstream media, it wasn't just like the music or creative industries. Mainstream media were not reporting everything correctly. The BLM riots, and this is, I don't think America is quite reckoned with this, I don't think it's reckoned with Covid either. But in the first fourteen days after George Floyd was killed, nineteen people were killed. By the end of October, twenty-five people had been killed.

• 4:32Bill Maher?

  You're talking about in protests and?

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Across the protests, billions of dollars of damage.

• 4:37Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  And it was a lot of black businesses that were damaged. So in the name of black lives, all of this damage was done. For me, that that sort of seemed to be peak woke.

• 4:47Bill Maher?

  And a lot of looting, I mean, justice shopping.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, is that what they called it?

• 4:54Bill Maher?

  That's what I call them.

• 4:57Bill Maher?

  I'm mocking. No, I mean, look, it's so complicated, but you know, obviously, we are all products to a degree of our past. So too with a nation, and our past is one of horrible racism. So the idea that that is not going to eke into the present over and over again in ways like that because of the frustration and the hatred in the past. I mean, every action has a reaction. It's just unrealistic, it is. It doesn't mean you have to endorse looting.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:34Bill Maher?

  Right, you have to keep both those thoughts in your mind at the same time. So, you know, but amid this, and again, I'm not sure what year this is, but it's.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Can I take a slight detour on this? Because it seems like it's happening again with this Tesla stuff. Like the.

• 5:49Bill Maher?

  Tesla.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  They're damaging all these Tesla cars up and down the country. There was one case in Arizona where a driver pulled in front of, I think it was a Cybertruck, and started beating up the person who was driving. And this is, this has all happened since the second inauguration of Trump. So it seems to me that there's a new coming of this anarchism in America. And the, the only Democrats. No, you disagree?

• 6:16Bill Maher?

  I do to a degree, yes. I mean, I think, well, first of all, the Tesla thing is a response to a specific individual, Elon Musk.

• 6:27Bill Maher?

  Who I certainly have mixed feelings about, way more negative than I used to. I mean, if you asked me a year ago, two years ago, I mean, I'm sorry, but my feelings just get worse because he just gets worse. Right? The idea of going through the government and making it more efficient, I endorsed that when it was announced, and then the way they did it was horrendous and gleeful, gleeful in their sadism about, hey, government workers, you're fired, do something decent with your life. What the fuck way is this to? You don't have to be a liberal or anything to just be recoiled at that.

• 7:10Bill Maher?

  And that he turned into Twitter a place with free speech? Yes, I'm a free speech guy up and down the line, but I didn't think that the head guy would be like retweeting the worst of the tweets. That's crazy. Like, yes, the Supreme Court said Nazis could march in Skokie, Illinois, a town full of Holocaust survivors. I mean, that's the bar that we have in this country for how much we love free speech. Okay, so are there going to be some Nazis if you really have a free speech channel? Yes, there are, but you don't have to retweet them. Was he retweeting Nazis? Well, I mean, you know what?

• 7:51Bill Maher?

  I don't read it closely, but I'm getting this from what other people say, and I don't know if it's like specific. It's, look, he did that salute, which I don't think he meant it, I don't think he was like saying, I'm a Nazi. It just, it's just, when you're that close to the fire, you know? Do you think it was like a troll salute? Or do you think it was not actually a salute? I think it was a total accident. Yeah, right. I just think he's an excitable guy. And a bit on the spectrum. And, you know, if you get excited, you might go, hell. It might look like a. I, yeah, I don't think he was giving a Nazi salute anymore than I think Alec Baldwin tried to murder the cinematographer. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

• 8:37Bill Maher?

  Like that smelly one you're smoking.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Is this gonna put you off?

• 8:40Bill Maher?

  I love it. I mean, I hate it, but I love it that you love it. I'm happy that you love it.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Thank you, Bill. So it feels like there's three things there. It's like there's Twitter or X and what it is now before and after Elon. And then there's Doge and how that's going. But my initial point about Tesla was.

• 8:57Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  These people who are driving Teslas and having their cars vandalized, they might have voted Democrat. They, these are electric vehicles, so there's a good chance.

• 9:06Bill Maher?

  Totally.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Especially in Arizona, which is purplish, right?

• 9:10Bill Maher?

  Yes, correct.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  Right, so the chances that the person driving the EV is actually a Democrat is, I think it's more likely than.

• 9:18Bill Maher?

  There's no, there's no excuse for vandalism or looting. And we can't, again, I say we can understand it because of our history and because I could, with Elon and that stuff. Can I understand how a government worker might be so infuriated that they key a Tesla? I totally can. I also say we have to be in a nation of laws and, and people living by laws. So you can't sanction it.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:46Bill Maher?

  You can understand it, but not condone it, either way. And the problem is that, you know, it starts with setting a Tesla on fire. And then they're gonna go, well, if they do that, you know, we can attack a drag queen story hour. You know, and that's how the civil war starts.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Well, I think it might even be worse than that because in America, people carry guns. So now if you drive a Tesla. If I was an American and I had a gun, I'd be, and driving a Tesla, I would now carry a gun. Because if you're gonna get attacked, so what might happen, God forbid, is that someone attacks a Tesla while someone's driving in it and they get shot. And there you go, then you've got a whole other.

• 10:30Bill Maher?

  I had a Tesla up until a couple of years ago. I, nothing to do with the controversy, it was well before that, but I'm sure glad I made the switch. The only reason I made the switch is because Mercedes made an electric car that was similar to the Tesla, but twice as much money. And you could see why it was twice as much. The Tesla is a very, very good car. I have no complaints about it, it was nice. I mean, like, I have complaints about all cars these days because they're just all too complicated and too much of a computer. And there's too many things that are nagging me and demanding I do this and do that and stupid shit for safety that makes it less safe.

• 11:15Bill Maher?

  Like, you know, God forbid you turn on the GPS in this car and it's just, your screen is showing you the... Why are you showing me the intersection that is right in front of my fucking windscreen, as you British would say? It's just crazy. But, okay, they're both very similar. But yes, the Mercedes is more luxurious and they just took it up a notch and I was like, well, I'm a rich motherfucker, what am I doing in this eighty thousand dollar Tesla when I can be in a hundred and forty thousand dollar Mercedes Benz? I'm not some douchebag in a million dollar Lamborghini, it's just a good car. But I'm glad I don't have a Tesla these days.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Well, and good thing you bought the German Merc before the tariffs came in.

• 12:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and when did Germans like a Mercedes Benz ever have anything to do with Nazis?

• 12:09Speaker 02

  So you can't then, you won't be able to drive a Volkswagen. You can't wear Adidas or Puma because they were also...

• 12:14Bill Maher?

  Adidas.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, Adidas, yeah.

• 12:16Bill Maher?

  Hugo Boss, I think, made the uniforms, and I gotta give it up. They were awesome. Nazi uniforms.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  They're good suits.

• 12:23Bill Maher?

  So sharp.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  It's also very unfashionable to say this, and I'm sure I'll get in trouble, but Italian fascist architecture, and not, nothing else about the fascism, but the architecture is beautiful.

• 12:33Bill Maher?

  Absolutely.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  The train stations in Milan, and you go, the, some of the buildings are beautiful.

• 12:39Bill Maher?

  I think neither one of us has any place in our minds for people who can't see keeping two thoughts in your mind at the same time. Yes, fascism is bad and the architecture was good.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  It's sad that we still, I, I still feel I have to caveat, and you still feel you have to caveat.

• 12:54Bill Maher?

  Exactly, I feel the same way.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Is that a shame?

• 12:56Bill Maher?

  And it bugs me. It bugs me.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Do you think we're coming out of that now?

• 13:00Bill Maher?

  We are, but we'll never be fully out of it. There will always be the people in the rear guard, just like there are people who're still wearing masks, you know?

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 13:09Bill Maher?

  Once you start something, it, there, you get a certain amount of cult followers for anything, and then the true believers never die. I mean, a lot of people would say, right now, the Democratic Party is still in that mode, which is going to render them possibly an irrelevant party if they don't change.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  What would you like to see from the Democrats, like, going forward?

• 13:32Bill Maher?

  Much more centrism, much more get rid of the woke baggage, you know? Uh, old school liberal is what I usually describe myself as, and, but that's very often, uh, the opposite of woke. Woke would like people to believe that they're some sort of an extension of liberalism, but they're not. They're usually something that's quite opposite. Liberalism was, we should have a colorblind society and not see race at all. That's not what the woke believe.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would say it's...

• 14:02Bill Maher?

  They're the opposite.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Quite.

• 14:03Bill Maher?

  Let's make, put race at the front of everything.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  Yep, absolutely. Oppressor and oppressed, sacred, uh, make a sacred the oppressed. Uh, but I, I, I say it's kind of the difference between liberalism and progressivism. I don't know if you would identify ever as a progressive.

• 14:18Bill Maher?

  Well, you know, now we're talking about words that have, when everyone hears these words, they, in their minds, have their own definition, that's the problem.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  Right, quite.

• 14:27Bill Maher?

  You know, woke, I talked about this with John McWhorter on my show a couple of weeks ago, he's a brilliant linguist, and I was... Saying, he's got a great book now about pronouns, because they're so in the news. But, you know, woke is, I was saying, language is something you cannot control.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:48Bill Maher?

  It's a living, breathing thing. The words change and the meanings change and you cannot do a thing about it. It's literally crowdsourced.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:58Bill Maher?

  And the crowd changed the meaning of the word woke. It was originally something good, being alert to injustice. And it still has that meaning, but I'm sorry, it became the watchword for every kind of excessive woke bullshit thing.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Mm.

• 15:15Bill Maher?

  Like, you know, let's, let's have penises in the women's swimming pool.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:20Bill Maher?

  Have penises in the women's locker room, you know.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Or let's cut off the genitalia of children.

• 15:25Bill Maher?

  Yes, that kind of stuff. And, you know, I, it's not my fault that that happened, but woke, progressive, liberal, I don't know what, I just know what I believe. And I know that, to answer your original question, is it gonna go away? I don't think so. I don't think it, it ever goes away fully. And it's, if the, the Democrats will either make the hard edge of it, they have so many opportunities to sister soldier this shit and just do something that would make Americans go, oh, you know what? Good, because Trump is starting to really make me nervous.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  Mm.

• 16:07Bill Maher?

  And it'd be nice to think if the other party wasn't so married to these cultural issues. And here's the Democrats' big problem is, in their minds, these cultural issues that the right is, in their view, obsessed with, sometimes, yes, do I really care if the transgender congress lady uses the ladies room or men? Well, I don't give a shit where she takes a pee. Okay. But a lot of it is like, Democrats have this view like, well, these are not real issues. Well, they are to a lot of people. Like, people with kids in school and stuff.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:42Bill Maher?

  Who think that they, they should be able to have the say above the school in the lives of their kids. I mean, this was not even controversial when I was a child.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, quite.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  Well, protecting, that's when I got really worried is when they're doing this to, what they were doing to children, but also to women. I feel like maybe this makes me trad, but as a man, I have a duty to protect the women in my life, my mother, my sister. It is a responsibility and it sounds, it might sound silly, but if there are men in the women's bathrooms, I can't protect them there. But maybe that's a sort of...

• 17:18Bill Maher?

  Boy, you must have to beat them off with a stick. You're a rock star. You'll, you'll look great. By the way, I have sticks available for $29.95 and $59.95 for rock stars like you who have to beat them off with a stick, but...

• 17:34Speaker 02

  So you're beating them off with a stick?

• 17:36Bill Maher?

  No, I'm just selling...

• 17:38Speaker 02

  It's your collection?

• 17:38Bill Maher?

  I'm just selling the sticks. I don't need the sticks.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  You don't need the sticks?

• 17:41Bill Maher?

  No, I'm like...

• 17:42Speaker 02

  I don't believe you.

• 17:42Bill Maher?

  I'm like 70.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  There's a, I saw a queue as I walked in. Beautiful women.

• 17:47Bill Maher?

  Oh, well, you know, I mean, please. As I said about Castro, he's a man of the people, but he is a man.

• 17:58Bill Maher?

  I devote my life to bettering America. I don't have time for anything social or women. Please, I'm all, I'm all in for America. You love, but you love America.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  I love America.

• 18:08Bill Maher?

  Isn't it great?

• 18:10Speaker 02

  And if I can flatter you on that mission...

• 18:11Bill Maher?

  Oh, finish your thought.

• 18:44Speaker 00

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• 19:14Bill Maher?

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• 19:59Bill Maher?

  We've also got stuff to elevate your bar. Wow, with random mugs, tumblers, and decanters for your spirit of choice, or for sparkling water like me. Then you can add your Jing drops. And everyone can ask you what you're dosing yourself with. It's the gift that keeps on giving. All of our merch is available exclusively at clubrandom.com. While you're there, you can catch up on all of our recent episodes and then head over to the merch store to pick up some swag and bring some random home. Once again, that's clubrandom.com.hore. No, no, not the .whore part, just clubrandom.com.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  I think that your monologues are best in the game.

• 20:46Bill Maher?

  Thank you.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  And you actually called out the bullshit and you don't care about calling out your own tribe.

• 20:52Bill Maher?

  So let's get back to that, that we forgot about. So it was the middle of wokeness and you had bought a book online.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I bought a book.

• 21:03Bill Maher?

  What was it, the book?

• 21:04Speaker 02

  It was Unmasked by Andy Ngo, who's a

• 21:06Bill Maher?

  Yes, yes.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  Conservative journalist who's beat is Antifa and the BLM riots.

• 21:14Bill Maher?

  Even if it was Mein Kampf. It's your right to buy a book. And then your band members, right, were like, you gotta, I mean, they used to throw the band, people out of the band for like, really crazy shit. I mean, Led Zeppelin, I think, used to fuck groupies with the fish. I do, I, I feel like I read. Am I wrong? Again, allegedly, but I feel like there was a shark involved.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  A lot of young groupies as well.

• 21:45Bill Maher?

  Crazy, and you just ordered a book? By a conservative writer? I mean, the fact that that was even a controversy just blows my mind.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  It, it seems absolutely ridiculous now, and it was ridiculous at the time, but

• 22:01Speaker 02

  I think in the moment it didn't necessarily, or maybe it did from your point of view, but I think in the music industry, creative industries, that there was that sort of tension that was, that was building and people lost their minds. Again, as we said earlier, it was, people were locked up at home, locked up, but people were locked down at home. And what I, I did say about the book was, congratulations, Mr. Andy Ngo. I, I can't remember the exact words, but you're a very brave man and I recommended it, which if I said that about Mein Kampf, would be a problem, I think.

• 22:33Bill Maher?

  I think it's an important, important note. It wouldn't for the kids at Columbia.

• 22:38Bill Maher?

  Who are marching for Hamas.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, quite. Yeah, I read for the Columbia University apartheid divest substack. And it's all pro Hamas, pro Houthis, pro Hezbollah, pro Nasrallah. It's it's unapologetically anti-Western.

• 22:58Bill Maher?

  And if that doesn't make my point about liberalism is not the same as wokeism.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 23:05Bill Maher?

  Nothing does. If you don't get that, then you don't get anything and I'm just wasting my time talking to you. But anyway, so I'm very curious, the other members of the band.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 23:15Bill Maher?

  Mumford was cool with it, but Sun not so much. No, I'm joking.

• 23:21Bill Maher?

  Who was who was uncool with it?

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Well, the after this, so this tweet goes out and over the course of the weekend, it ends up trending on Twitter. I had I had about 3,000 followers on Twitter. That's another crazy thing about it. I had no followers. It ends up going up all the trending lists, both in your country and my country. And it, I think, I don't remember the exact timing right now, but it ended up being a segment on The View, a segment on Tucker, and it was.

• 23:52Bill Maher?

  My thing.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  Your thing.

• 23:54Bill Maher?

  Obviously, it got on my radar.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so then.

• 23:57Bill Maher?

  Well, it's because you apologized for it. That's what I was critiquing, was that like, you know, you should stand up to these. And then to your great credit, you recanted.

• 24:08Speaker 02

  Right, so that's a few months later. So in this first weekend, I put this apology out.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  The band were very upset and I wanted to, you know, make it right and I wanted to stop the attacks on the band. I thought I had a duty to protect them. And in that sense, you know, I wasn't a lone artist. I'm I had colleagues, so to speak, it's not feels weird calling a bandmate a colleague, but and they had families and I needed to get the the heat off.

• 24:37Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  And I also, I was also. Conscious that I might actually have done something wrong. And thi- this is something that I um, I, I briefly spoke to Shane Gillis, the comedian about. Because he went for a cancellation.

• 24:53Bill Maher?

  Yes, he did.

• 24:54Speaker 02

  At SNL. And he's talked about this on, on his show. Uh, but he, in this period, he was like questioning everything and uh, w- w- wondering like, maybe he'd done something wrong. And, and this is one thing that when, you know, when you get criticized, my initial feeling was I was contrite. I was like, maybe I've done something wrong. Like, maybe I've got this wrong. Maybe I don't know everything about this topic.

• 25:16Bill Maher?

  It's hard, it's hard not to feel when the whole country, I know this has happened to me a few times, turns the, the white hot light. It's over here on these people and they're, and they're in the barrel. And then suddenly it's like.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:31Bill Maher?

  That's, and it feels.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  But also, I, even though I'd done media and stuff with the band before, I'd never been singled out and I'd never had this kind of media. So this was all new. I was like, what the fuck is going on?

• 25:41Bill Maher?

  Right. Suddenly you're, in, in the course of a day, you're history's greatest monster. You know what? As we're talking about this, I'm remembering the line we did, which was pretty funny, which was, you're going after this guy for reading a book? He's a musician. Don't worry, it won't happen again.

• 26:03Bill Maher?

  That's a terrible thing to say.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  No, it's pretty accurate.

• 26:05Bill Maher?

  It's kind of funny. Come on.

• 26:07Speaker 02

  Um, so then, so I put this apology out and over the coming months, I really look into it. I was like, what the hell is going on? And I, I ask other journalists, I, I look into Andy Ngo's work and then Andy gets attacked again. So he'd been attacked previously.

• 26:26Bill Maher?

  He was physically attacked.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  He's physically attacked previously.

• 26:29Bill Maher?

  As I recall, right?

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Twice. So the, uh, once before this moment, which is why I, I felt so inspired to call him brave. And then the second time in that period. And when he got attacked a second time, for me, I was like, I'm, I'm one of the bad guys now because I'm on the side that's pretending. By, by this, this apology. Now, from the outside, you might be like, oh, no one actually cares. But when you're in, inside it.

• 26:50Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  It weighs heavy on your conscience. So at that point, I was uh, really like, uh, I was losing sleep. I wasn't eating properly. It was like driving me crazy. Um, and. I felt like I was one of the bad guys to.

• 27:07Bill Maher?

  Was the band close at that point or were you going through? I mean, because Mumford and Sons was huge. You're still big, you're still, you're still at the Hollywood Bowl, like three nights in a row. But there was a time when like they were like, and this is a little after that, but like, you know, wanting all, winning all the Grammys and like, it's like an it band.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  We had a period.

• 27:29Bill Maher?

  You had, you would be it band.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Twenty twelve, twenty thirteen.

• 27:33Bill Maher?

  That's amazing. I mean, most people don't ever get to that. And you can't be that forever. Even the Beatles were only that for six years, you know.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, imagine they did all that in seven years.

• 27:43Bill Maher?

  But, so where was the, and normally when a band is that successful, they hate each other anyway. For all the reasons bands hate each other, which as many rock stars have explained to me, is basically two things. One, you didn't like my song.

• 28:01Bill Maher?

  Two, you took that girl.

• 28:05Bill Maher?

  Is that wrong or right?

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Band dynamics are crazy. Like you're living with these people. You're working with them. You don't, you, you go away for months at a time. And when you're starting out as a band, you're like, we're quite literally sharing beds for like months on end. So it's an, it's a completely bizarre relationship that you have. And then your identity is tied up with the band in, in the public and you're tied with each other. So it's a completely bizarre, anomalous relationship. I don't, I don't know what the equivalent is to that sort of relationship.

• 28:38Bill Maher?

  I mean, as a Beatle nut, I know all the stories. And among them, that's my favorite is they would do these gigs in the rear, right? Leading up to Beatlemania, you know, like sixty three. I guess it was already happening in England, but, you know, and they would, but there would be all of them in one van and no heat in the van in England in the winter. And they'd drive up, you know, have to drive. Six hours to the gig.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:10Bill Maher?

  And they would be lying on top of each other in the back of the van for warmth. That's a tight band.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a tight.

• 29:18Bill Maher?

  That'll get you tight with a band. But then usually there's the ti- then things get, you know, it's funny, in those years you see pictures of them and they're always smiling. And then you see the pictures of them from sixty eight on and it's just like.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's gonna sound a bit gay, but I'm actually quite romantic about that period that we had in that band. Because this, there's a, you know, you're traveling, you're seeing the world for the first time.

• 29:41Bill Maher?

  And you're climbing the mountain and it's going well.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 29:45Bill Maher?

  And just for your soul, for your spirit, it's the greatest.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 29:50Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  Um, so, yeah, we had that in twenty twelve, twenty thirteen and we, we won the Grammys around then and uh, it was a completely, it was a privilege to be part of it and I'm incredibly proud of all the music we made.

• 30:05Bill Maher?

  And also it was going against the grain, like no one would have predicted that kind of band.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  Well, I've got a theory about that.

• 30:13Bill Maher?

  Banjo's gonna be the next bit. No one was saying that. So it was like a, a kind of a big flex.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  There was a, a whole group of bands of, of sort of folk acoustic instruments that came up around that period. Fleet Foxes.

• 30:27Bill Maher?

  Don't know them.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  Um, Lumineers were about then. Back in Britain it was Noah and the Whale, Laura Marling.

• 30:33Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:33Speaker 02

  Um.

• 30:34Bill Maher?

  Yeah, there's always like five versions of the DVR that comes out and then nobody uses Betamax. You know, I'm sorry, but that's just the way of the world. You know, there's winners and losers, okay?

• 30:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um. Well, my, my sort of theory about this and is tangential, I think, to our perhaps the conversation, but is that there was a desire after the crash in two thousand eight for things that were authentic. For, uh, and, and that, that the subconscious, the public, the sort of collective subconscious wanted.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  Acoustic music at that point, having had many sort of decades of synthetic music and life was synthetic to a point.

• 31:13Bill Maher?

  Oh, you mean like autotune?

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, autotune or synths or just electronic music. Now, I like electronic music, it's not a dig against that.

• 31:21Bill Maher?

  You do.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  Very much. But I think that that whole wave, that whole movement was a kind of reaction to what had happened in 2008. So I sort of see it as a, and.

• 31:32Bill Maher?

  I think it was a reaction of people leaving their phone messages at the beginning of their record.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, we had about 10 years of that, didn't we? Eminem and.

• 31:43Bill Maher?

  Get me a little banjo, I cannot listen to this guy talking.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  I remember that.

• 31:50Bill Maher?

  And then there were usually like something that just, okay, you're the biggest, baddest dude on the block. I get it, all the bitches want you and.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, quite, and so they wanted something more helpful. So it was reflected in the songwriting as well. Yeah, I think you're right about that.

• 32:07Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 32:08Speaker 02

  And, and so all of the, even all those bands, just leaving aside what instruments they were playing, the songs were far more personal and heartfelt. And so I think there was a sort of societal desire for that. But maybe I'm reading into it a little bit too much.

• 32:25Bill Maher?

  What I'm asking is like, at the time of the, of Bookgate,

• 32:32Bill Maher?

  with Mr. No, and Mr. No's last name is spelled G N O, correct?

• 32:37Speaker 02

  N G O.

• 32:37Bill Maher?

  And, I mean, N G O. He's Vietnamese by origin.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  That's correct.

• 32:41Bill Maher?

  Right, in case people think we're talking about Dr. No and try to look this up. It's like, where's this No guy?

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:47Bill Maher?

  I don't know.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  Quite.

• 32:51Bill Maher?

  But at the time of Bookgate, where was the band?

• 32:56Bill Maher?

  The day before the book thing happened, were they good? Was it all love?

• 33:01Speaker 02

  We had all been on, we were all, it was pandemic, so everyone was in different place. This is of March 2021.

• 33:08Bill Maher?

  But did you hate each other or like each other at that moment?

• 33:12Speaker 02

  I would say there was, if I was being honest, it's probably like a different mixture of emotions, like some of us are getting on, but there are always ups and downs with that. So I wouldn't say necessarily that it was.

• 33:24Bill Maher?

  It must be just like a relationship, but with four people. Like as complicated as a relationship can be, and then times the drummer.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  We didn't have a drummer, by the way.

• 33:35Bill Maher?

  Well, but most bad, you know what I'm saying?

• 33:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:39Bill Maher?

  You know, it just, it's gotta be rough, but fun. Okay, so then the book thing happens.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  Thing happens, and then, so then after a few months, Andy gets attacked again, and then another thing that happened and.

• 33:53Bill Maher?

  But did the band splinter on you as the issue? Like some people were, hey, we're too hard on Winston, and some people were, no, we're not hard enough. Burn him, burn him.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  I was invited to stay in the band on the condition that I.

• 34:09Bill Maher?

  I don't read?

• 34:10Speaker 02

  Yes, I don't read any more books. No, not quite, but I put the apology out and.

• 34:15Bill Maher?

  Oh, really, by all of them? They all signed on to that?

• 34:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 34:20Bill Maher?

  Wow, I wish I'd attacked them instead of you.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  What are we making it right now? And we, the, I came to the conclusion that I had to withdraw. Basically, that it's the apology note that was really burdening.

• 34:39Bill Maher?

  That was sort of under coercion. It's a little bit of a hostage video.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  I will, I will say that I chose to do it.

• 34:48Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  And so I, I take responsibility for that.

• 34:52Bill Maher?

  Good for you, but it is a little bit of a hostage video.

• 34:55Speaker 02

  And I did want to make it right by the, I wanted to make it right by that. And I know, I'll go further. I'd say that I was, like I was saying earlier, I was genuinely contrite and I was.

• 35:04Bill Maher?

  For what?

• 35:05Speaker 02

  But I, I didn't know if there was something about this whole story that I didn't know.

• 35:09Bill Maher?

  Well, you didn't, and there's not, and you shouldn't be contrite. But like, I would compare this to me getting the vaccine. Like, I didn't want to do it. It was a bit of a hostage video, but I weighed, do I want to live my life? Which I couldn't have done if I didn't get it. I couldn't have been, they wouldn't let me near the building where I tape my show.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  Really?

• 35:31Bill Maher?

  The vaccine in 2021 when they, we got it. You just had to get it.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  Were you skeptical then?

• 35:38Bill Maher?

  I didn't, I, I am not skeptical of vaccine. Yes, I am. I'm skeptical of everything medical. I'm not anti-vaccine. I'm absolutely pro-vaccines for anything. I was just reading about the shingles vaccine. I don't think I'm gonna get it because I know the bad side to it, but I don't know. There was a new report. I'm always up for new information.

• 35:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. And what's your feeling now towards your place of work? The studio where they made you do it? Did you ever confront them?

• 36:03Bill Maher?

  If they made me get another one, I don't, I think I would stop going to, into that place of work. Okay?

• 36:10Speaker 02

  They're quiet.

• 36:11Bill Maher?

  Sometimes you gotta like, yeah, do something you don't love to continue on with your life. And there is nothing immoral about that.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

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• 37:04Speaker 02

  Or I'll, I'll add to that, then, when, for a lot of people, and we're talking about cancel culture more broadly. People have careers, mortgages, families that they've got to support. It's a big deal to walk away from your, your job. It's a big deal to walk away from that. And so I, I don't. Of all the people who went along with things that they shouldn't have gone with, I I understand it's way more complicated.

• 37:29Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Than we we might perceive and and certainly all the people commenting at the time of what I was going through, they didn't know half the stuff that was going on. So so I I'm although I've criticized cancel culture, I understand when people are in these positions and I'm sympathetic towards it. And so in that period, the other thing, and this might sound a bit pretentious, but it's true, is that there's an essay by Alexander Solzhenitsyn that he published in nineteen seventy four when he was exiled from Moscow, and it's called Live Not By Lies. And there's a paragraph in it about the artist, and it's something, a paraphrase, it's something like, how dare you call yourself an artist if you're not prepared to stand by the truth?

• 38:12Speaker 02

  And this essay, this like every time, I read it like four or five times and it hit me every time.

• 38:18Bill Maher?

  And I want you to finish that thought, but I'm just gonna put this in context.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:22Bill Maher?

  You know, stand behind, yeah, we're all for that in principle. Alexander Solzhenitsyn was in the Gulag.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  I know, I'm not, I'm not saying.

• 38:31Bill Maher?

  No, no, I'm just saying, like, he has the credentials to say, you know, I was really standing behind it. I mean, he wrote the Gulag Archipelago.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:41Bill Maher?

  He wrote the the book for folks who are too young to know or whatever, but that really exposed the fact that the Soviet Union had an archipelago, in other words, a chain of prisons.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 38:58Bill Maher?

  You know, like Hardee's, but not nearly as nice. But a chain, like a whole chain throughout the country, an archipelago of Gulags, which are horrible prisons.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  Yep, where millions went and millions were killed.

• 39:11Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:12Bill Maher?

  And he's he did his time there because he was a dissident and anybody who dared to speak out against the Soviet Union, that's where they went. And then at a certain point, my memory is fuzzy on this. I mean, he came here. I mean, he was a.

• 39:28Speaker 02

  He came to Vermont, Vermont, sorry.

• 39:30Bill Maher?

  Vermont, exactly.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:32Bill Maher?

  I always thought, well, it's cold. It probably reminds you of Russia. You know, so you you feel kind of at home in the winter, it's horrible. And, uh, you know, it's full of leftists.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  But a strange coincidence of of life is that I became friends with the Saltzman family after this. So they still live in the house in Vermont and um I even spent Thanksgiving with them.

• 39:56Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 39:57Speaker 02

  And there's tunnels all underneath the house because even when he was in Vermont, he was paranoid that the KGB were going to come and get him.

• 40:04Bill Maher?

  Holy shit.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  There's barbed wire all around the house and around the property boundaries and. Yeah, a wonderful family and they they they take it seriously. And I think one thing I picked up from them is, yes, we don't have gulags, but the the sort of society that tells these little lies, that's the end, that's the end goal that you get to. And so I wouldn't say we're there or we were there, but if you participate in the lie, that's that's the danger. And so in that sense, it's relevant, what Saltzman wrote is relevant, I think.

• 40:37Bill Maher?

  It's also relevant that Trump, right now, the Trump administration is disappearing people in the way dictatorships around the world. I think the word first came to be commonly used about Argentina in like the seventies and the eighties. It was a junta, it was a dictatorship, you know, as as most of South America was in that era. And, uh, you know, if you were distant, you would just be one day you're on the street and next day you're, you know, we've all seen this scene in the movie, they put the hood over you and put you in the backseat, you know, you're just never seen again.

• 41:13Speaker 02

  Who are you referring to? What incidences are you referring to under Trump?

• 41:16Bill Maher?

  He's just people who he has taken off the street claiming that they are Venezuelan gang members. And we know, we know at least some of them are definitely not. One guy was a, I think, a hairdresser.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  He was a makeup artist, I think.

• 41:32Bill Maher?

  Okay, he was a gay man. He wasn't in the gang. He did hair for the gang.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  You did have for the gang. They and the story, that story, which I don't know the full of it, but I, I think it's the one where he ended up in the Salvador prisons.

• 41:48Bill Maher?

  Yes, and they're sending them to, I mean, it's, it's, it's just certainly something America has never done. And to my view, should not be involved in doing.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Sending, sending anyone to.

• 41:59Bill Maher?

  Just, just like, without any recourse to any trial, just taking someone off the street based on a tattoo.

• 42:09Bill Maher?

  I mean, tattoos, I'm so glad I have any. Watch out, baristas.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Even if they're known to be illegal immigrants?

• 42:17Bill Maher?

  Well, if you're an illegal immigrant, I can see at most kicking you out of the country, but not kicking you out of the country into a Salvadorian prison.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  Or at least not without a trial, yeah.

• 42:30Bill Maher?

  I mean, what does Salvador and their prison system have to do with our issues here? I mean, it's just, it's very extralegal and it's very third world, what third world dictators do. And ignoring court orders to stop doing it. You know, we all want to get rid of the gangs. I agree. I don't want to get killed by a gang member. You know, gang members, they very often have to shoot some rando as their initiation. Well, I don't want to be somebody's teardrop.

• 43:01Bill Maher?

  Okay? Tattoo. I don't want to be that guy who was sacrificed so you could get your teardrop, you know?

• 43:09Bill Maher?

  But I also don't want to live in a country where you disappear people. So, you know, we, let's not become the Soviet Union.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 43:19Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, one of, one of the things that liberals of, of former age really have to answer for is, they loved Stalin, a lot of them in the 30s. And, and a lot of conservatives liked Hitler.

• 43:37Speaker 02

  Liberals or socialists? I don't, I, I mean, I don't want to get into the semantics of it, but, but were liberals really supporting Stalin? It was the socialist left that was supporting.

• 43:47Bill Maher?

  I think it was part, well, first of all, this is before we knew about the Gulags. Okay? But yes, communism.

• 43:57Bill Maher?

  Socialism, all that stuff, especially you're talking about, I mean, the depression happens in 1929. Stalin was newly part, he became, becomes premier of Russia in 20, in 1924. So, they didn't know a hell of a lot about him. They knew there was a revolution, a communist revolution. If you really wanna learn about this in an entertaining way, watch Warren Beatty's brilliant movie Reds. But, you know, communism was not seen as an evil then, because, especially because we had a depression. Capitalism was the bad guy. We just had this big depression. So communism was very attractive to a lot of people.

• 44:38Bill Maher?

  And the Communist Party ran candidates on, on the ballot. It was something you could vote for. It wasn't until later, but, you know, a lot of people kind of got it that Stalin was a bad guy and a dictator from the beginning. As was Castro and Che Guevara and, and the asshole in Venezuela and lots of other people that, that liberals, including liberal friends of mine, somehow think are cool to be friends with or laud. Che Guevara was a murderous psychopath.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 45:10Bill Maher?

  He looks good on a T-shirt, that's it.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Yep. They were, they were locking up homosexuals and, and the Cubans did a lot of terrible things. It's always strange to me to see people wearing Che Guevara T-shirts still. And, and we, we talk about the, the riots and BLM stuff, but the Antifa side of it, they were communist and it's, we wouldn't tolerate them supporting Nazi ideology.

• 45:33Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  And I don't, it's still the case today that even though we know everything we do about communism, we know, well over a hundred million people were killed, it's still not seen as evil.

• 45:43Bill Maher?

  We know it. The kids don't know it.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  But that's inexcusable.

• 45:48Bill Maher?

  It's, well, the-

• 45:49Speaker 02

  Because it's out there, that information.

• 45:51Bill Maher?

  The entire educational system in this country is inexcusable.

• 45:56Bill Maher?

  But I don't expect the kids to know it because their own teachers probably don't know it. I mean, I've seen some of the TikToks of teachers. These are, and this is my favorite kind of information because it's direct to me. There's no filter. I'm not reading this. It's not somebody's opinion. It's some teacher who made it TikTok. And she's 28 and she's talking about, you know, basically how she's is indoctrinating kids to be at least consider homosexuality. Come on, Johnny, you're six years old. It's about time you considered whether you're homosexual. Well, it's really not.

• 46:37Bill Maher?

  We were all homosexual at six, by the way, because like I didn't like girls till I was 12.

• 46:43Speaker 02

  Does that make you a homosexual? Were you sexually attracted to boys when you were six?

• 46:47Bill Maher?

  I'm not attracted, but girls had cooties.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  Many still do.

• 46:54Bill Maher?

  Many still do. They had cooties and you couldn't admit you liked a girl. No, you hung out with boys and did boy things. Girls sucked. Girls were terrible. I had a button night. I bought it at Valley Fair. It said, I hate girls. I swear to God, they were made a button.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  How old?

• 47:14Bill Maher?

  I think, I feel like this was like 12 because there was a, it was that moment in adolescence when some of the boys you know are starting to defect because they're reaching puberty.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Traitors.

• 47:28Bill Maher?

  Traitors, exactly, traitors. You like girls?

• 47:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, super gay.

• 47:33Bill Maher?

  Super gay. And so, yeah. I mean, so when you're young, I mean, you really, it's like prison. It's just a bunch of guys and that's all you want to be around.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  Well, I went to a women's rights march in Dublin and there were, there was an anti-women's rights march or they would probably call it like a pro-trans march, but they were, they had placards with Lenin's face on.

• 47:57Bill Maher?

  Oh, sure.

• 47:59Speaker 02

  You say that the teachers, and I agree with you that it's teachers who are pro-commists, but I don't understand.

• 48:05Bill Maher?

  Well, not all of them.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  Not all of them, of course, but there's many who are.

• 48:09Bill Maher?

  What I'm saying is, many young teachers, from what I've seen, and I'm sure most teachers are great people, my sister's a teacher, I have the greatest admiration for teachers. My cousin's a teacher, yeah. But, I'm sorry, I've seen the TikToks, there are some dumbass teachers out there. And the fact that, and the idea that they're actually teaching kids shit is frightening.

• 48:32Speaker 02

  And Marx is considered...

• 48:35Bill Maher?

  Yes, and they have dumb ideas about Israel and Gaza, like I've seen polling like a third of the people under thirty think it might be worth another try, communism.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  In Russia?

• 48:48Bill Maher?

  No, in here!

• 48:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, in Russia.

• 48:51Bill Maher?

  Probably Russia too.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  A poll recently that Stalin is still considered the greatest leader.

• 48:55Bill Maher?

  Absolutely, people like a strong man.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, they do.

• 48:59Bill Maher?

  People like a strong man, they do.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  I was in Iraq a couple of years ago, and I was very surprised to find... I was there, visiting Yazidi camps in the north, but I went down to Baghdad, and I was very surprised to find that the young generation, who have lived in just, it's been conflicts for twenty years, more, and they actually have a favorable opinion of Saddam Hussein at this point. So, yeah, people, it's amazing how these people can have a resurgence, you know, people that we clearly consider...

• 49:35Bill Maher?

  Saddam was a bad guy, but I'll say this, you know, when the soccer team did not do well, Uday and Hussein used to torture them. But I'll say this about that soccer team, they never phoned it in.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Well, I want to ask you about your cancellation, because you were like OG cancellation.

• 49:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  And it's relevant to this, right?

• 49:57Bill Maher?

  That could be my rap name, OG cancellation. I love it.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  It was in, it was directly after nine eleven.

• 50:05Bill Maher?

  Right after nine eleven, yes. Where were you? How old were you?

• 50:08Speaker 02

  I was at school.

• 50:09Bill Maher?

  In twenty, in two thousand and one?

• 50:11Speaker 02

  Two thousand and one, I was.

• 50:12Bill Maher?

  You were in high school or something?

• 50:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was pointing out the guys who were trying to be friends with girls and, and calling them bastards.

• 50:19Bill Maher?

  But it got on your radar, or you read about it later?

• 50:21Speaker 02

  I read about it later.

• 50:22Bill Maher?

  Okay. Yeah, I mean.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  Do you think that that was a cancellation in the same way we consider it now?

• 50:28Bill Maher?

  Well, it was a, it's so interesting, the arc of my career could be like the plot of something because it's full circle in the sense of two thousand and one, I get cancelled by the right for saying something that the left loved about Islam, basically. I was saying they're terrorists, but they're not cowards.

• 50:53Bill Maher?

  Fast forward two years later.

• 50:55Speaker 02

  It was a joke, right? Was it a gag or?

• 50:57Bill Maher?

  No, not at all.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  Right, okay.

• 50:59Bill Maher?

  And it's not a gag today.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 51:01Bill Maher?

  They stayed with the suicide mission, they're not cowards. Okay, America did not want to hear that. Uh, but then later, like, the left always wants to cancel me because I'm clear-eyed about Islam.

• 51:16Bill Maher?

  Post nine eleven and before I was also, but I mean, it wasn't really an issue then, but like, uh, yeah. Um, Sharia law, not compatible with Western civilization. And you say that, and half the woke people just walk right out of the room that cannot even be heard, even though it's completely true.

• 51:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:37Bill Maher?

  And that's called Islamophobia in their minds. So it's, it's exactly switched around. Now it's the left who can't take the truth about Islam. Isn't that funny?

• 51:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:50Bill Maher?

  First the right can't, now the left can't. And that fits into my theory that when historians write the history of our country in this age, they won't break it down into the factions we do, they'll just say, as a people. They were stupid about this, this, this, this, and you can find it on both sides.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 52:09Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, I would still say more on the right, they scare me more and are more often virulent about how they would carry out some of this stuff, but, you know.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  But it was on the right here in America, where in the music industry, it was, was it Tripp Gore and that, the sort of parents?

• 52:26Bill Maher?

  Tipper Gore.

• 52:27Speaker 02

  Tipper Gore?

• 52:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  And the parents were wanting to censor all the rappers, was it?

• 52:32Bill Maher?

  Totally right, yes.

• 52:34Speaker 02

  And that was very much coming from the conservative side.

• 52:36Bill Maher?

  Big thing in the 90s, when my first show, Politically Incorrect, was on the air, that was a big issue. Tipper Gore was Al Gore, Vice President, Al Gore, Democrat. His wife was all about, these rappers have got to go.

• 52:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:54Bill Maher?

  And it's not like she was completely wrong. I mean, I don't believe in censorship of any kind, but she wasn't wrong that it was a bad influence on kids. I mean, I just feel, I always felt it was like the perfect revenge that black people got on white people, like, okay, you treated us so bad for a long time, and now we're gonna write lyrics to songs that your white kids in the suburbs are gonna listen to, and your daughter's gonna wanna be a hoe.

• 53:23Bill Maher?

  And that's our revenge on you, and it's at the beginning, and you deserve it, and I'm sure white people do.

• 53:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:29Bill Maher?

  But.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  So how did the cancellation affect you emotionally, like, back in 2001?

• 53:35Bill Maher?

  It was the same, probably the same thing you, I was just talking about with you. When, when the bright, hot, hot light turns on you, it's, it's not a good feeling. I mean, it's, it's not a warm, bathed in a warm glow kind of light. It's like an interrogation lamp, light, times a terrible tanning bed, and you just feel singed.

• 53:59Speaker 02

  Was that your first sort of controversy?

• 54:01Bill Maher?

  No, no, but it was the one that, you know, rose to the level of getting me fired. I mean, all the sponsors pulled out, and then it was just a matter of time. I mean, I never blamed the network for firing me. You can't keep a show on the air if it has no sponsors.

• 54:17Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean.

• 54:19Speaker 02

  How did that affect you in your work going forward? Did it give you a fire in your belly?

• 54:25Bill Maher?

  I, the, the, the shows we, this happened on November, uh, of course, November, uh, November, September 11th, September 11th, we went, that was a Tuesday. All the shows all across America were off the air that week. Okay, no comedy, just the news. Okay, we get that. Then we all went back to work the next week. So Monday after September 11th, September 17th, what I call the tragic events of 9/17. And, um, we, uh, and that's a guy on the panel, a super hard, hardcore conservative guy. I mean, I would call him nutcase conservative.

• 55:06Bill Maher?

  I mean, since then, he wasn't such a nutcase then, but he went, I mean, full, I don't know, past MAGA. But he said, uh, he's the one who said it. He said, uh, the terrorists weren't cowards, they were warriors. And I just agreed. And then he was in a cab, never asked about it again. And, uh, then some disc jockey in Texas, who, uh, this was so instructive about it. It's, right away, nobody cared. Because they don't really care. But it's so easy to gin people up. And somebody did. But it took a few days to go, hey, don't you hate this?

• 55:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:48Bill Maher?

  Hey, hey, this, don't you, uh, yeah, I do. I fucking hate that.

• 55:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:52Bill Maher?

  And then they were all, and so then it, it snowballed. And once, once the snowball starts, um, they love it. I mean, again, this was six days after 9/11. They were looking for, uh, somebody to hate. And, you know, I again, did a service for my country.

• 56:07Speaker 02

  I had a similar thing happen with, um, uh, with Jordan Peterson. And he came to the studio, this was in 2018, and we took a photo together. And, yeah, I think he put it on his Instagram.

• 56:19Bill Maher?

  How dare you.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  And it took three, three months later, the music press, three months later, so not immediately, three, it, three months, it's been in the public domain for three months. And then they, music press do the dog pile, ah, you know, Jordan Peterson is this terrible, I don't know what words they used, probably said Nazi or something like that. And they go.

• 56:38Bill Maher?

  You're either a hippie or a Nazi. There's no in-between.

• 56:42Speaker 02

  You're both.

• 56:45Speaker 02

  So they're kind of looking for to take down these scalps.

• 56:52Bill Maher?

  Oh, scalps. You've said the exact right word. I always say that. It's about scalps. These people who consider themselves or would like to think of themselves as journalists, especially the internet types, stop it. Just please. You know, I get it. This is what you do. You could in your life have chosen to do something more dignified, like, I don't know, play piano in a whorehouse. But this is what you chose. Just own it. Just admit it. You're not a journalist. You're a scalp hunter. It's okay. We all got to make a living. You know, I got groundhogs in my lawn. Do I kill them? No. I don't care if I have a lawn. Everybody's got to make a living. I get it. You know what? It's a lot so. You sell heroin?

• 57:37Bill Maher?

  That's fine. It doesn't interfere with my business. Every man's got to make a living. Just admit what you do. You sell heroin.

• 57:47Speaker 02

  Do you think that being alone through that period, or did you feel alone? Did you feel like you had good people around you? What was it like being in the comedy industry then?

• 57:56Bill Maher?

  Well, you know, Dr. Film.

• 58:00Speaker 02

  Oh, right, sorry.

• 58:00Bill Maher?

  You know who that is?

• 58:05Speaker 02

  Sorry, I don't mean if we don't do a cross-examination.

• 58:08Bill Maher?

  I love being...

• 58:09Speaker 02

  Lie back, relax. Tell me about your mother.

• 58:13Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Let me think. I mean, it's a great question. I'm glad you're asking me because I haven't thought about it in such a long time. I mean, it is 24 years ago. Wow. Jesus Christ, time goes fast. You know, at first, there was that period where we were trying to, you know, get out of it, basically. I remember I had to talk to the first... Oh, please don't sue me for this, or if there's something suing here, just take it out. I don't have the energy. But I remember talking to the head guy at FedEx, was like one of our big sponsors, and they were going to pull out.

• 58:53Bill Maher?

  And we got on the phone, and I've never met him in person, although he did lie to my face over the phone. And I think he's ex-military. And, you know, I have no animosity toward this. I can't remember his name. But he did tell me on that phone call where I was like, please don't pull out. Like, hey, I understand exactly what you were saying. Which lots of conservatives did. Rush Limbaugh defended me. But people from both sides, and they produced articles from other people and other thinkers who had basically said the same thing. Just, you know, there's not a moral dimension to being brave. You can be brave in the cause of something evil. You know, it's not that hard to understand. Yeah.

• 59:38Bill Maher?

  Anyway.

• 59:41Bill Maher?

  But that didn't work. Like, and then, you know, once once one crow turns and flies in the other direction, all the other fucking crows do it. So that's what happened. These sheepcrows all flew away. And then there was no sponsors. But that period, so we went off the air. We were on for another nine months after this happened. We didn't go off the air until the end of June of the next year. I loved those shows because we were kind of freed. You know, before that, the show was a designed train wreck where we would have, you know, Carrot Top sitting there with Bob Dole. You know, it was just, it was meant to be stupid in a way,

• 1:00:26Bill Maher?

  but also revealed, people loved it. I loved it. It was right for the time. But after that, the country was in a more somber mood. And so the shows were more gravitas. There were more like substantive people on the show. Gone was Paulie Shore. And in was like some expert on Middle East history, you know, stuff like that. So I, and the audience never left. I never was mad at being canceled. I was only mad that they did put out the lie at one point that we lost our audience. We didn't. My audience never goes anywhere.

• 1:01:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:04Bill Maher?

  I I don't, maybe I'm not like doing Taylor Swift numbers, but they never leave.

• 1:01:11Speaker 02

  I think that's really key, like the market doesn't care, the media process care, but the people actually don't care. Best example of that is Kanye West, he can put out the most crazy antisemitic, I think, I don't know if this was a joke or not, but someone, I saw a post on X. That that his new album cover was just a swastika and and that he there's he was the logo for.

• 1:01:33Bill Maher?

  Probably is.

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  Sunday Service is the SS logo.

• 1:01:35Bill Maher?

  Well, did you see the video where he's in the black Ku Klux Klan hood?

• 1:01:39Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, he's talking, he's doing an interview in it, but but he's still gonna sell tickets by the bucket loads, like the people do not care.

• 1:01:47Bill Maher?

  Well, do not care, and let's not even pretend that many, there are some who agree.

• 1:01:55Bill Maher?

  I mean, you're English, I think, I'm getting this by the.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  I'm in English, yeah.

• 1:01:59Bill Maher?

  Getting this by the accent, I mean, I don't read about the guest before the joke. I have to say, there is not a name that is more non-Jewy than Winston Marshall.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  I'm actually, my grandmother was a Holocaust survivor.

• 1:02:13Bill Maher?

  That's ridiculous.

• 1:02:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:15Bill Maher?

  Really, Marshall? It's something the Secretary of State in the nineteen, Secretary of State Winston Marshall of the United Kingdom met today with Premier Kucherov. The talks were considered to be frank, but substantive, and Mr. Marshall said he will meet with Secretary John Foster Dulles of America on Tuesday. In other news, the hula hoop is.

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  Imagine my parents disappointment when I told them I wanted to be a bander player.

• 1:02:42Bill Maher?

  What did they say?

• 1:02:43Speaker 02

  Uh, I think initially they were like, keep your options open for other things, uh, but yeah.

• 1:02:48Bill Maher?

  But, okay, so first tell me about London, because I've been to London, I think, five times, something like that.

• 1:02:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, what's your experience? Do you like it?

• 1:02:58Bill Maher?

  First time I was there was nineteen eighty-four, it was completely white.

• 1:03:04Bill Maher?

  Not that I'm in any way saying that's a good thing. I'm just saying this is the reality. And this is why sometimes we get frustrated with the woke. Because like, take the V. It's great. I agree. It's great. That we've made the world this more diverse place. But just don't pretend that, that, I think Andrew Sullivan wrote once, I mean, he was quoting a stat that, like, in the 50 years from maybe 80 to now, um, almost like, the, the percentage of non-white residents of London went up like 50%.

• 1:03:46Bill Maher?

  In other words, the first time I was there, it looked crazily like, you know, England of the Middle Ages or something. And then it was like New York.

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  Well, the-

• 1:03:56Bill Maher?

  That, and I, again, that's not a lament. That's a, hey, good. We won. We made the world this melting pot.

• 1:04:06Speaker 02

  I, I think the lament comes, for me, not when it comes to the ethnic racial makeup, but rather that we are people who actually no longer share a common culture.

• 1:04:18Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:19Speaker 02

  And that, and, and because we've had mass migration, you know, net migration up to 1.2 million in our small country, that's a lot, uh, some years. This happened under the Conservative government, I might add. But really, it started after the war and it was turbocharged from 1997 after Tony Blair and just went into, went crazy after the Tories, um, their, their last tenure. And the problem we've got now, we have terrible, um, uh, problems of social cohesion. And we, this riots all through last year. It's that we had no long, we can't even identify what it is to be British anymore, or what it is to be English. And it's tricky because unlike America, which has, let's say, a Declaration of Independence,

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  which, even though it's a multicultural society, there is a meta-culture that unites Americans.

• 1:05:09Bill Maher?

  I mean, I saw that- Some Prince Charles, Prince, King Charles was somewhere like some hallowed British place from a thousand fucking years ago. And they did the call to prayer from there. Do you know what I'm talking about?

• 1:05:27Speaker 02

  There was a, at the beginning of Easter, oh, sorry, at the beginning of Lent, they

• 1:05:32Bill Maher?

  Ramadan, maybe it was.

• 1:05:34Speaker 02

  It was also the beginning of Ramadan.

• 1:05:36Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  And, well, they hosted some sort of celebration for Ramadan at Windsor Castle. I don't think King Charles was there, but King Charles tweeted at the beginning of Lent, nothing about Ash Wednesday, he tweeted something about Ramadan. And he's head of the church. And so

• 1:05:58Bill Maher?

  The Anglican Church.

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  He's head of the Anglican Church, yeah.

• 1:06:00Bill Maher?

  The king is the head of the Anglican, okay. That goes back to Henry VIII, right?

• 1:06:04Speaker 02

  Henry VIII, yeah. And then Elizabeth I, that sort of period, yeah.

• 1:06:09Bill Maher?

  Who did it because he wanted pussy.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:06:12Bill Maher?

  Yeah, okay. Just as long as we know where this is coming from.

• 1:06:16Speaker 02

  He's a shagger. He's a good lad.

• 1:06:18Bill Maher?

  Right, but I'm saying people should know their history. He was married. He didn't want that girl anymore. And then so he said, well, I will switch religions to get some pussy.

• 1:06:31Speaker 02

  Exactly right. I mean, that's it.

• 1:06:33Bill Maher?

  I'm just putting that out there. But, look, this is why I think atheists have it right, which is, I don't want the call to prayer, and I also don't want the call to Christian prayer. Like, no prayer. That's what was one of the great things about America, separation of church and state. Like, it's just not part of it. You do whatever you want. You want the call to prayer? Good. Like, I resented it when I was in Jerusalem for a week, when I was making the movie Religulous. And you feel, you hear the call to prayer five times a day in Jerusalem. This is the Jewish capital, and I have to hear the Muslim, yeah. Well, I know. I mean, I don't want to hear anybody's prayer.

• 1:07:18Bill Maher?

  It's not, I'm not, I don't want to do something five times a day.

• 1:07:21Speaker 02

  I would push back, which is that

• 1:07:23Bill Maher?

  Masturbate. That's what I do five times a day.

• 1:07:28Speaker 02

  Hopefully not in this chair.

• 1:07:29Bill Maher?

  And it reminded me, I'm like, oh yeah. Then go at it.

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  The American Declaration, there is God in it. It's, you know, you'll know the exact line, but the Creator is mentioned in it.

• 1:07:44Bill Maher?

  Yeah, Creator.

• 1:07:44Speaker 02

  So it's not an atheist.

• 1:07:46Bill Maher?

  It's vague.

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  It's vague, but there's theism in it.

• 1:07:49Bill Maher?

  There is.

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:07:50Bill Maher?

  There definitely is.

• 1:07:51Speaker 02

  And so then, I guess, the problem with a totally atheistic world is what gods replace, those gods, and I think that that's what we've been seeing in the recent years. I do think wokeism is part of that, and, you know,

• 1:08:04Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:08:04Speaker 02

  the environmental stuff is a similar thing.

• 1:08:06Bill Maher?

  It's a new religion.

• 1:08:07Speaker 02

  It's a new religion, and so it turns out we actually need some sort of metaphysic to structure our moral code, I think.

• 1:08:15Bill Maher?

  That's gonna be tougher now that AI and, you know, robots are coming along. I mean, I just don't see, like, people being big into God when, like, you got the robot there. You know, I mean, they say that's, like, only maybe five years away. Just like we've seen it in a million movies, the, you know, hello, what can I do for you? You know, people will have their, like, fucking robots around.

• 1:08:41Speaker 02

  And why will that turn them off, God?

• 1:08:44Bill Maher?

  I just, I don't know. It just seems that they can't really exist in the same universe. I mean, either man could do that, and that is God. I mean, or there is some, it just, you know. But maybe I'm wrong. I mean, like, certainly people have used cell phones for terrorist attacks to enforce a seventh-century view of the world. They use 21st-century technology. So you're right. People can put their mind in two different places and not be the least bothered by it.

• 1:09:20Speaker 02

  And I think the point I'm trying to make, though, is that people still need a moral code. Well, they need a connection and community, and that's a very important part of the rigor of religion, I think, but people still need to know how to act, and I don't think robots will necessarily disrupt that. I don't know enough about AI and robots to sort of understand necessarily what's going on there, but I think that we need to align ourselves somehow in our decision-making.

• 1:09:49Bill Maher?

  Can I tell you my London story?

• 1:09:51Speaker 02

  Please.

• 1:09:52Bill Maher?

  Okay, so last time I was there was 2015. I was on a vacation. I actually was touring Europe. I played five different European capitals that speak English. So in London, and I was with a brilliant recording artist who recorded that day, and the guy in the studio said, "You know where you gotta have dinners?" And of course, because the hip music crowd wants the place that's most out tray. It was in a neighborhood that I was way, I guess, east London, maybe it was, whatever it was. I remember we got there and I was traveling. This is 2015, right after the attack.

• 1:10:31Speaker 02

  Vatican?

• 1:10:32Bill Maher?

  Yes, correct. I mean, there were two attacks in Paris. I mean, Europe was on edge, as was I, traveling there. So I had my security person plus two Israeli bodyguards. Okay, so we go to this neighborhood and we're walking around looking for this restaurant. And it's like, it's not like a, not what we call five star. You know, it's like authentic, that kind of shit, which I'm like too old for to begin with. And I'm looking at, like, there were some hard looks on the street. That was all I'm gonna say, from people. I mean, it was a completely, seemed to be, shall we say, West Asian neighborhood? I don't know.

• 1:11:17Bill Maher?

  And I had just seen a 60 Minutes report about no-go zones, as some people call them and other people say they don't exist. Well, they're, in the 60 Minutes report, there are Muslim men who are screaming at a woman wearing a miniskirt. And she's saying, "This is England," to your point about this. So, you know, and, but not in that neighborhood, it's not.

• 1:11:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:42Bill Maher?

  Well, and I, and I remember the, we were walking along, and before we ever got to the restaurant, I remember vividly one of the Israeli bodyguards saying to me the exact words, "We gotta get up out of here right now."

• 1:11:59Bill Maher?

  They just felt unsafe here. And, you know, that's what we did.

• 1:12:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:06Bill Maher?

  Um, but I hear the food was fantastic at this place. I mean, I don't want to shit on it.

• 1:12:12Speaker 02

  They make great food.

• 1:12:13Bill Maher?

  It was.

• 1:12:15Speaker 02

  This is, this is, I mean, sorry to get sort of bleak, but this is like one of the big problems facing my country right now is that. So there was a Henry Jackson Society did a, a, a report and last year. And they're a think tank. Henry Jackson Society.

• 1:12:29Bill Maher?

  Henry Jackson Society?

• 1:12:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:31Bill Maher?

  I don't know.

• 1:12:31Speaker 02

  And they, they did a survey of British Muslims. Uh, three quarters of British Muslims do not believe that Hamas committed murder or rape on October 7th. Uh, the majority of British Muslims think Jews have too much power. Uh, the, uh.

• 1:12:52Bill Maher?

  So does my agent.

• 1:12:53Speaker 02

  A third of. A third of British Muslim want Sharia law. And so the real.

• 1:13:01Bill Maher?

  Sharia law, that's a problem.

• 1:13:03Speaker 02

  That's a problem. And, and so we've got a real problem with this, these two groups mixing.

• 1:13:08Bill Maher?

  This is the difference between your country and mine. Um, in my country, um, Muslims have assimilated well. You know, I, I don't think a third of American Muslims want Sharia law. They may have heard the word and maybe don't even know. And they would just reflexively, because this is the kind of bullshit I get um, for speaking honestly about this issue. They might reflexively go, yeah, Sharia law, but trust me, you want to live the American life that you're living. All these Americans who defend the, yeah, you would not want to live the life that you are supposedly defending. You like it here for good reason.

• 1:13:53Bill Maher?

  That's why you or your parents or their grandparents came here because you wanted to get away from that bullshit. And Sharia law, yeah, you're not gonna wanna live where homosexuality is illegal, sometimes punishable by death. You're not gonna be able to wear that bikini. I know that. And you're not gonna have another religion, or even be able to consider it, that would be blasphemy. And adultery, yeah, that's a capital pun. You know, it's like, come on.

• 1:14:25Speaker 02

  Well, I've got a friend from Baghdad, and he says, the joke there, I'm not sure it's actually a joke, I think it's half true, is that if you want to go to the West and work, go to America. If you wanna go to the West and not work, go to Europe. So, you know, there's, there's different people, I think, coming to America.

• 1:14:42Bill Maher?

  There's plenty of people here who don't work. I promise you, there are plenty of.

• 1:14:47Speaker 02

  You're starting to sound like a conservative.

• 1:14:48Bill Maher?

  A lot of people on this. Well, there are a lot of, I was, you know, asking today in a meeting about, I don't know why this came up, but somebody was telling me about like seven, something like seven million young men, like eighteen to thirty maybe, I don't know, something like that, who, um, like pandemic, okay, that, but like, never like went back into the workforce, even though there were jobs open. Like, there's just a lot of people who like, how do you live? I just, that's the one question I want, how do you live? You don't seem to have any sort of actual job, not just men, certainly women too, firstly out here. Like, how do you live? Well, how do you get your money?

• 1:15:31Bill Maher?

  I feel like if I, if I had truth serum, I could get to any human being's core in three questions, but they had to take the truth serum.

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  The, the, um, the Muslims who, in America, the, I believe the majority voted for Trump. So that the Muslims who are here are quite conservative, I think.

• 1:15:55Bill Maher?

  Well, that's, that's where it gets so naughty, it's so funny, because, yes, there, there is that element. I mean, it works both ways. I mean, on the one hand, you'd think they would be against the guy who put the Muslim ban. On.

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  But it wasn't a Muslim ban. It was, it was, it was, it was something else that it was spun that way.

• 1:16:16Bill Maher?

  It, it, okay. It was spun that way and it was sort of that way from some, some certain countries. I mean, it was assuming everyone in Yemen is a Houthi. You know, bent on killing us. They're not, but, you know, was it the, look.

• 1:16:37Bill Maher?

  Each side goes, bends too far one way. The, the Democrats bend too far in, everybody's really a good person and they deserve to live in America. And that's ridiculous.

• 1:16:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:49Bill Maher?

  And the conservatives go too far, which in, in the direction of just take him off the street. I don't have any evidence he's in a gang.

• 1:16:59Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:16:59Bill Maher?

  But you know what? You gotta break a few eggs and like, could we ever land in the middle? No, that's my big issue.

• 1:17:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:07Bill Maher?

  We never landed the middle.

• 1:17:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:09Bill Maher?

  It just drives me insane. But I feel like that's my audience, that's my contingent.

• 1:17:15Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:17:15Bill Maher?

  And I feel like you're that guy too. I feel like.

• 1:17:18Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:17:18Bill Maher?

  You know, you have a, a big following now because there are people, there, there is a hunger for like a sort of a, well, these guys are not really conservatives. I mean, look at them, they're, they're kinda hip, you know, like, but they don't, they just won't get on the crazy train.

• 1:17:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:40Bill Maher?

  To woke town.

• 1:17:41Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:42Bill Maher?

  And I feel like that's your lane now too, and you're, you're a great voice.

• 1:17:46Speaker 02

  I still consider myself a, a liberal, although it's a weird time now.

• 1:17:50Bill Maher?

  Me too.

• 1:17:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:51Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:51Speaker 02

  Being, being liberal, you get lumped in with conservatives, although that will, I think, change quite quickly as, as the sort of,

• 1:18:00Speaker 02

  the Trump term maybe continues and we'll see, we'll see how it's panning, panning out already. The, the American political space seems to be sort of tearing into different factions and, and so, uh, yeah, I guess I agree.

• 1:18:16Bill Maher?

  But.

• 1:18:19Bill Maher?

  But your country, I mean, has these kind of issues that my country just does not deal with. I mean, the, the, the one about the, um.

• 1:18:33Bill Maher?

  Raping of children.

• 1:18:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:36Bill Maher?

  I mean, like gangs who preyed on young girls. Girls always from like unfortunate homes where they needed a role model. They needed a father, they needed money.

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:50Bill Maher?

  And and these were all like Pakistani or Indian guys. And they were and these were, this is like in the Midlands, the the middle of.

• 1:19:00Speaker 02

  It's actually up and down the country. So it's over fifty cities, all the way from Edinburgh down to the southern part of England, to Oxford and and a lot, a lot of it in Manchester area and Birmingham area. And over the last few decades, tens of thousands of girls have been brutally treated by what are majority Pakistani heritage rape gangs. The girls are, most of them are, I wouldn't even say working class white girls, underclass in the, in the, in the way they're treated by society.

• 1:19:36Bill Maher?

  Vulnerable.

• 1:19:36Speaker 02

  Vulnerable. And white girls, and a lot of them treated this way because they're Kaffa, because they're not Muslim. And it's also affected Hindu communities as well. And it's, it's playing out even, even yesterday I woke up to the news that the Labour government are not going to do a full inquiry into it. And it's, for some reason, I'm really.

• 1:20:02Bill Maher?

  And this went on for like twenty years.

• 1:20:04Speaker 02

  Because some of the girls have been brutally murdered, right? And at least five, five or six of them have been brutally murdered. There's one girl, I think her name was Charlene Downs. I think that was her name. And she was, in the court case, the prosecution of her murderers, there was an audio recording played of the murderer laughing about cutting her up and putting her in the kebab meat.

• 1:20:30Speaker 02

  And.

• 1:20:32Speaker 02

  Horrific as all of that is, the way in which the establishment, Conservative and Labour, have, everyone, the Westminster Uniparty and have completely, and the media classes, they've all sort of been complicit in this, what I say is a cover-up of what's been going on. And it's, it's, it's, you know, George Freud is, and everyone in the world knows who George Freud is. We should know the names of these girls. And we don't.

• 1:21:05Bill Maher?

  What I read about it is that the press downplayed it, as did the officials looking into it, because they did not want to be charged with racism.

• 1:21:16Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:21:17Bill Maher?

  So in other words, in the service of not being called a racist, you did something that was so immoral. And this went on for like 20 years, right?

• 1:21:28Speaker 02

  More, yeah.

• 1:21:29Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:30Speaker 02

  Political correctness literally kills. And there's another example, like the Manchester Arena attack in 2017 at the Ariane Grande concert.

• 1:21:38Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:21:39Speaker 02

  The, the, one of the security guards didn't approach the, I think he's a Libyan, the killer was, the bomber was a Libyan guy, didn't approach him because he was worried that he would be called racist for doing so. And this, this is with the grooming, the rape, I mean, it's really a rape gang scandal. That was the case at every, every single level, from the councils to the police. There was an example of the one girl trying to report on it, and she was arrested for being drunk and disorderly. She was trying to report on her own rape, and she was arrested for being drunk and disorderly. And so it's, it's everywhere, it's the shame of Britain. And actually, it didn't.

• 1:22:21Bill Maher?

  But do you blame the media for not making this more wide? I mean, here in America, this got on people's radar because Musk started tweeting about it.

• 1:22:32Speaker 02

  And in Britain, that's the thing, it's so shocking. It wasn't until January this year that it was, it became a national story. It became the story in the country. It took Elon Musk to do that. Now, whatever his reasons for doing that, I don't know. But how is it that this horrific story took a guy from America tweeting about it to make it the story? That's a really big part of it.

• 1:22:55Bill Maher?

  I mean, I looked into it. It's not like the New York Times didn't cover it. But I would say this, if the New York Times had wanted to put this on everybody's radar, they could have. They covered it, they didn't ignore it. But to me, it was as big, it's what, what do you choose to put on the front page? That's your choice. That's an editor's choice. When it was the Catholic Church molesting boys? And I was a young Catholic boy and I was not molested and I'm a little insulted. Uh, no, but, but, but it's, it's not maybe quite as widespread as that. But it's kind of on that level.

• 1:23:39Bill Maher?

  It's systemic, you know? And it has to do with the sacred cows that we dare not, we dare not say the Catholic Church is actually what it is. Um, which, and you look, I, I would.

• 1:23:52Speaker 02

  I reported on, so I've been doing my show, I've been doing my show for a year, but I was doing media stuff for a couple of years before. And I'd been covering it and I noticed in the comments, it's like, oh, it's a far right talking point. You just see that it's, there's a big part of the country that really just write it off as the far right. And so it's been the case that the, the, the people most courageous to do it have been more fringe actors, more fringe characters. So you're right, that it was covered in some mainstream media. It wasn't completely like shut down.

• 1:24:26Bill Maher?

  But they just didn't, you could just tell. When they don't want to make it a story because it just doesn't feed their narrative. And their narrative. Exactly. Their narrative is multiculturalism. Their narrative, and they're gonna stick to this story, is that cultures are different, but they're all alike, really. No, they're different and they're sometimes not alike. Theocracy is not just different than democracy. It's worse. You know, there's like, I don't know how many countries, five, 10, I don't know, with the word Islam in the title of the country would be like the Christian United States of America.

• 1:25:11Bill Maher?

  Which, look, there's people in this country who would love to see that. Yep. And not just a few of them. And they're in Congress. And it could happen. But it hasn't yet. But they're there. I mean, your thing before when you said they raped and murdered these girls and pimped them out because they were, what's the word that means not Islamic? Kaffa. Kaffa. Okay, for anyone who doesn't understand what this debate is really about, it was never about race, so don't call us racists. People are, religions cross racist. Lots of white people are Islamic. It's not a race, it's a religion, it's a different thing. And religion is just an opinion.

• 1:25:56Bill Maher?

  And it's about ideas. And ideas matter. And when the idea is that, A, women are second-class citizens to begin with, and please don't even pretend to tell me that that's not a pervasive feeling throughout the Islamic world. It's explicit in the ground. Women are not equal like they are in the West. Shut the fuck up. And two, this thing about not Islamic, like if you're not part of Islam, are you really a human being? No, it's not like there aren't Christians who are like super But Christianity, I'm sorry, is different. It's more that, you know, hate the sinner, love the sinner, and like, we'll convert you.

• 1:26:39Bill Maher?

  And Islam is more like, no, this is the way it is. This is the superior religion. You either get that, or you don't. I hope you get it, because if you don't, I have no sympathy for you. You're not really part of what we're doing here, runner.

• 1:26:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:58Bill Maher?

  And that's not a good attitude. Ideas do matter, especially in this.

• 1:27:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:04Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 1:27:04Speaker 02

  I suspect that a few things need to be done with regard to, not just the grooming gangs, but all these sort of issues. But I suspect that if, let's say, the Christian side or the non-Muslim side just say, enough of this, and there's going to be punishment. Instead of bowing to if those perpetrators actually understood that there'll be repercussions, I think that would actually stop.

• 1:27:29Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean.

• 1:27:29Speaker 02

  Well, I would hope it would massively decrease anyway.

• 1:27:32Bill Maher?

  The answer to this is moderate Muslims. Because I hear this all the time from people. Bill, the way you talk, you know they're moderate Muslims? Yes, I do. I'm very aware. But you know where moderate Muslims live? Here, in Canada. They live in the West. Doesn't that tell you something? You can't be a moderate Muslim in most Muslim countries in the world. That's a problem. London has a moderate Muslim mayor. That's what we need more in the future. Your mayor, still the mayor, right?

• 1:28:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, Sadiq Khan.

• 1:28:11Bill Maher?

  He's like, I don't want women to cover their faces. That's the message he can only deliver to other Muslims. They have to be brought, I think, into that way of thinking.

• 1:28:24Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know about, I don't know enough about Sadiq Khan and his personal faith, but I would say that moderate Muslims like Majid Nawaz or Ed Hussein.

• 1:28:34Bill Maher?

  Love them.

• 1:28:34Speaker 02

  They have been unbelievably ostracized from their community for speaking out on these issues.

• 1:28:42Bill Maher?

  Even ostracized from American liberals. Liberals.

• 1:28:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. If I can make the case for the Middle East or the Muslim world, and maybe this is a white pill, I'm very encouraged by the Abraham Accords.

• 1:28:57Bill Maher?

  Me too.

• 1:28:59Speaker 02

  Trump achieved in his first term. And if you look at the signatories, most particularly the Emiratis, they are better at calling out Islamism in the West than we in the West are at doing it.

• 1:29:12Bill Maher?

  Is that right?

• 1:29:13Speaker 02

  And their leadership, for me, gives me huge hope for relations between Muslim-majority countries.

• 1:29:19Bill Maher?

  This is the United Arab Emirates.

• 1:29:20Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:29:21Bill Maher?

  And that's Dubai.

• 1:29:23Speaker 02

  Exactly, Abu Dhabi.

• 1:29:24Bill Maher?

  Abu Dhabi, Dubai.

• 1:29:26Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:29:26Bill Maher?

  These are the names people know and people go to and see Instagram pictures from.

• 1:29:32Speaker 02

  They, they...

• 1:29:33Bill Maher?

  Instagram, that will be the key.

• 1:29:35Speaker 02

  They, they...

• 1:29:36Bill Maher?

  The whole fucking Muslim world is Instagrammable and not just Dubai.

• 1:29:42Speaker 02

  Morocco, Marrakech.

• 1:29:44Bill Maher?

  Do they do that for Marrakech?

• 1:29:45Speaker 02

  It's a beautiful...

• 1:29:46Bill Maher?

  Can you wear a sundress?

• 1:29:48Speaker 02

  I think, yeah, you definitely can. The, the, the king of Marrakech, this is...

• 1:29:53Bill Maher?

  When you can wear a sundress wherever you want in the Muslim world, I'll shut up about it.

• 1:29:58Speaker 02

  The, the, the king of Morocco banned selling of the hijab, I believe, or the knickhab. It's one of the, one of the apps.

• 1:30:07Bill Maher?

  One of those habs.

• 1:30:09Speaker 02

  But I, I see a lot of hope in, in those nations because they also want to trade with Israel. They want relations with Israel. And so I'm, I'm not so blackpilled. For me, that's where I have my hope.

• 1:30:22Bill Maher?

  Dude, there was a woman once who sued because she wanted to have a Muslim woman in America, wanted to have her driver's license picture with the full face covering. I fuck you, shit you not. That's a real thing.

• 1:30:40Speaker 02

  I had an experience through the pandemic. I was working at a food bank near my house and.

• 1:30:45Bill Maher?

  You work in a food bank?

• 1:30:46Speaker 02

  In the pandemic I did.

• 1:30:47Bill Maher?

  Jesus Christ, rock star, great looking, you work in a food bank. This is a fucking lifetime movie waiting to happen.

• 1:30:55Speaker 02

  But it's in a very Muslim part of London. And there was a very sweet moment when I had, because it was locked down, so you couldn't, they couldn't come inside, so they had to queue outside. And I would get their order and then go inside and then come out. And there was a line of five, literally five women in full knickabs. And I took the order, went in, came back out, and they're all looking at me and I'm like, I'm looking at these five women, I'm like, I have no idea which one of you just took the order. And then they're kind of like moving and then they, one of them waves and realizes my dilemma. And then all of them lift up their knickab and show me that they're smiling. It was, it was like the most sweet, wonderful little exchange, yeah.

• 1:31:38Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that would be sweet if we could forget that so many in the women, women in the world. If you're looking for a cause, kids, is that they can't even show themselves smiling because their face is covered. I dated a woman once, I had one date and then the cop, and I remember I got home, my friend said, how'd it go?

• 1:31:58Speaker 02

  That must have been so hot.

• 1:31:58Bill Maher?

  He said, how'd it go? I said, great eyes.

• 1:32:03Bill Maher?

  I just made that up, I did not have such a date, don't sue me, I'm always afraid of being sued.

• 1:32:10Speaker 02

  Isn't there a Kobe enthusiasm about a blind man dating someone in a knickab or something like that?

• 1:32:15Bill Maher?

  Well, you know, Ray Charles, blind, you're familiar?

• 1:32:20Speaker 02

  Very familiar.

• 1:32:21Bill Maher?

  What do you think of Ray Charles?

• 1:32:22Speaker 02

  Love Ray Charles.

• 1:32:23Bill Maher?

  Yeah, okay, so good. Well, you know, Ray, blind, he would, he would squeeze their wrist.

• 1:32:33Bill Maher?

  And he felt he could tell if she was hot by the wrist, you know, like

• 1:32:38Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:32:39Bill Maher?

  A thin wrist, I think was like. And I have to say, I saw that in the Jamie Foxx movie from like 2005. And ever since then, I can't get out of my mind and he's not wrong. I've got to say, I have put this to the test for 20 years. The man is not wrong.

• 1:33:02Speaker 02

  Did you get to fill the rest of your Nickhab date?

• 1:33:05Bill Maher?

  My what?

• 1:33:05Speaker 02

  Your Nickhab date.

• 1:33:08Bill Maher?

  Right. That's what I should know.

• 1:33:11Speaker 02

  Would have been the test.

• 1:33:12Bill Maher?

  So, so tell me about the neighborhood of London you live in, because I'm fascinated by London. I've read it's the most expensive city in the world.

• 1:33:19Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:33:20Bill Maher?

  It's certainly, I mean, part of it is called like, um, what's where all the Russians live, like something.

• 1:33:26Speaker 02

  Nice bridge or.

• 1:33:27Bill Maher?

  I don't know, like London grad, something like, I've heard something like that. Because it's a city where like, people like Russian oligarchs can go and live the high life and park their money and not be living in a fucking.

• 1:33:47Speaker 02

  The oligarchs can't since the Ukraine war started.

• 1:33:50Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:33:50Speaker 02

  They had to.

• 1:33:51Bill Maher?

  But weren't, what was all the talk about so many Russians in London? Rich Russians.

• 1:33:57Speaker 02

  We had a lot of rich Russians before then, and most famous would be Roman Abramovich, who owned Chelsea Football Club. But yeah, they were parking a lot of their money.

• 1:34:05Bill Maher?

  And they're gone now?

• 1:34:06Speaker 02

  Since the war, yeah.

• 1:34:07Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:34:08Speaker 02

  He had to sell Chelsea.

• 1:34:10Bill Maher?

  But they, they kicked them out?

• 1:34:12Speaker 02

  Uh, the details, I've forgotten exactly, but they had to, uh, they weren't, uh, like, they, they weren't allowed to keep their assets there or something like that. They were forced to sell.

• 1:34:23Bill Maher?

  Oh yeah, that was part of the sanctions on Russia after the Ukraine war started. Oh, okay.

• 1:34:28Speaker 02

  So it's it's not so much, but it's it's it's kind of sad what's happened to London. There's it's so unbelievably expensive and a lot of people have moved out. At the same time, we've got huge masses of of people moving into Britain, as I said earlier, like every year, like, you know, up to net a million a year. And they London is the place where they come. And and it's almost like a sort of feudal system because it's like a techno feudal system. You have a class of people who are Deliveroo Uber Eats drivers who because that's the kind of work they can get. And there is no chance with the amount of money they make doing that or Uber drivers that they're ever going to get to the next level. And then the the middle classes are squeezed out.

• 1:35:12Speaker 02

  So a lot of people my generation, when they start want to start a family, there's no chance they can do it in London, so they move to the countryside.

• 1:35:17Bill Maher?

  It's very similar to New York.

• 1:35:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:20Bill Maher?

  Of course, same it's the exact same story. You can't live in Manhattan.

• 1:35:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:25Bill Maher?

  Or in L A.

• 1:35:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:28Bill Maher?

  People, you know, the cops live in Simi Valley. It's a long way out there.

• 1:35:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:34Bill Maher?

  So so where do you so you live out there?

• 1:35:38Speaker 02

  I I live in London, like I'm, you know, the band did well. I'm fortunate I can afford to to to live there and and I I'm a Londoner.

• 1:35:44Bill Maher?

  So it is London, you said.

• 1:35:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm oh, I'm north in the northern part of London.

• 1:35:50Bill Maher?

  Is that a good part?

• 1:35:51Speaker 02

  It's a very, I mean, the most progressive borough of the country.

• 1:35:56Bill Maher?

  How far is it from Abbey Road?

• 1:35:58Speaker 02

  Oh, not that far, probably a half an hour drive.

• 1:36:01Bill Maher?

  From Abbey Road?

• 1:36:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:02Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 1:36:03Speaker 02

  Or, yeah, um, oh, you've been to Abbey Road?

• 1:36:06Bill Maher?

  No, but I have the album.

• 1:36:08Speaker 02

  It's a great album. It's a great album. You should you should visit. You could do a little photograph doing the Zebra Crossing.

• 1:36:14Bill Maher?

  Oh, like every other person.

• 1:36:17Speaker 02

  Exactly, join the queue.

• 1:36:20Bill Maher?

  I'll do it with you. How about that?

• 1:36:22Speaker 02

  Wonderful, I look forward to it.

• 1:36:23Bill Maher?

  We'll get two other guys.

• 1:36:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, who can we?

• 1:36:26Bill Maher?

  I'll be Ringo. You can be Paul, you're the cute one.

• 1:36:29Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:36:31Bill Maher?

  And we'll get some spiritual person.

• 1:36:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:33Bill Maher?

  You know, to be George.

• 1:36:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, we need a spiritual person.

• 1:36:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:37Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:36:38Bill Maher?

  And then, uh, yeah, Russell Brand, no.

• 1:36:42Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:36:46Speaker 02

  You want to talk about Russell Brand?

• 1:36:49Speaker 02

  Are you following his story?

• 1:36:50Bill Maher?

  Oh, he's been here, he's out there.

• 1:36:53Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah?

• 1:36:53Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:36:53Speaker 02

  How did that go?

• 1:36:56Bill Maher?

  I mean, I, I mean, Kanye's also been there. I loved him both.

• 1:37:00Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 1:37:01Bill Maher?

  I loved both nights. I, that doesn't mean I, we couldn't even air the Kanye one. Oh, no, they would have canceled me.

• 1:37:09Speaker 02

  What did he say?

• 1:37:09Bill Maher?

  Well, it's usual. I mean, I thought I could talk him out of antisemitism. I feel like I did, and then he would, and then he would like, meh, go fall back into it, you know? I just don't think this is a guy who, you know, he's, he's perceiving truth on a different level. It would be the most charitable way to say it.

• 1:37:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:29Bill Maher?

  So, um, and I don't want to contribute to antisemitism. And he just crosses a line for me.

• 1:37:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:36Bill Maher?

  But, uh,

• 1:37:37Speaker 02

  So, do you feel a responsibility?

• 1:37:39Bill Maher?

  I loved, Russell Brand's, you know, brilliant conversationalist.

• 1:37:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:44Bill Maher?

  Did I love the episode? I did. Once again, keep two thoughts in your mind at the same time. I love the episode and I don't love the accusation about him. I, I mean, all, all these things, I always say, if you weren't there, don't just, just don't pretend you know. You don't know. No one knows unless there's a film of it, okay? I know Puff Daddy beat the shit out of Cassie because I saw it on video.

• 1:38:12Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:38:13Bill Maher?

  That's different than, I know, you don't know shit. But do I get the right to, you know, form an opinion about what I think is likely?

• 1:38:26Bill Maher?

  Generally, I go with, you know, if 20 people say it,

• 1:38:34Bill Maher?

  it's a lot of smoke for being no fire at all. You know what I'm saying? It's a lot.

• 1:38:40Speaker 02

  Do you think with someone like Kanye, hosting this show, hosting your other show, to what extent is like the, you, you have a feel of a sort of sense of obligation to be, you make editorial decisions? Not to have guests or?

• 1:38:54Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:38:55Speaker 02

  Because the, and the reason I ask this is,

• 1:38:57Bill Maher?

  Oh, you're right.

• 1:38:57Speaker 02

  One thing we're seeing in like the podcasting world in America is certain characters are going on to long-form podcasts and having free rides and, and there's sort of, I would say Nazi revisionism going on and, uh, World War II revisionism and, you know,

• 1:39:12Bill Maher?

  It's just about me saying the uniforms look good.

• 1:39:19Bill Maher?

  I'm not gonna recant.

• 1:39:22Speaker 02

  Do you, do you, do you, do you know the question I'm asking, it's sort of with-

• 1:39:26Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, who do you platform?

• 1:39:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:39:29Bill Maher?

  Is what you're asking. That, that's a big word on the left.

• 1:39:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, quite.

• 1:39:33Bill Maher?

  Platform, which means let someone speak who you don't agree with automatically? Cause that's not what we do here at MSNBC.

• 1:39:43Bill Maher?

  You know? So, yes, I'm a big platformer. I love to rehabilitate people. I love to have people on. I had Armie Hammer here. I think I'd helped him a lot. Kathy Griffin. People who like, they've cast out from the Garden of Eden. But I would like to say, oh, let's take a, Roseanne, let's take another look at this. You know, yes, should we judge everyone by their worst moment? Maybe let's not.

• 1:40:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:10Bill Maher?

  Maybe let's not do it that way. So, but there are people, like, I just did not want to contribute to what Kanye's putting out there. It's already way too mainstreamed. The, I mean, please, he's all over the media. The fact that they report on it like he's some sort of scamp.

• 1:40:30Bill Maher?

  You know, Kanye, you with your hate the Jews, I love Hitler thing, you crazy-

• 1:40:35Speaker 02

  Is it terrible?

• 1:40:35Bill Maher?

  You're crazy. You're a crazy guy. He's a crazy guy. He's like Charlie Sheen. Lots of people, just crazy. They just, and no, that's way worse than anything I've ever done. I think.

• 1:40:49Speaker 02

  Well, am I, do you think with someone like Kanye, I'm wrong when he does his stuff like Terrible is, like, I find it funny? And it, I, I don't feel this way about other people doing it, but when Kanye does it-

• 1:40:58Bill Maher?

  It's performance art.

• 1:41:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:41:01Bill Maher?

  Is what you're saying, right?

• 1:41:02Speaker 02

  Or, or it's like, there's something about Kanye where it's like, he doesn't quite, I feel he doesn't quite know what he's saying.

• 1:41:07Bill Maher?

  He doesn't.

• 1:41:08Speaker 02

  So it, I, so it doesn't, it doesn't offend me-

• 1:41:11Bill Maher?

  Totally true.

• 1:41:11Speaker 02

  Doesn't offend me like others doing it.

• 1:41:13Bill Maher?

  No, it's, it's sort of the way you don't hold it against a child. No offense to you, Conway, Kanye, but, you know, when, Richard Pryor used to have that bit, when a kid says you're ugly, you're ugly. You know, and like, you don't hold it against the child for saying, mommy,

• 1:41:35Bill Maher?

  that man's ugly. Because it, yeah, I mean, that's not the greatest defense I'd like to have in my life is like, hey, I'm childlike. But, um, yeah, he's got a combination of just a screw loose, plus celebrity privilege. I don't think people really understand.

• 1:41:56Speaker 02

  What is celebrity privilege?

• 1:41:59Bill Maher?

  You're a rock star, you're asking me that?

• 1:42:01Speaker 02

  Well, when you say it, what do you mean?

• 1:42:03Bill Maher?

  What I mean is that of all the levels of show business, you know, the very top of where people lose their shit is music. Your business, sir.

• 1:42:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:42:16Bill Maher?

  It just is.

• 1:42:17Speaker 02

  It is, yeah.

• 1:42:17Bill Maher?

  Movie, yeah, thank you. Movie stars can be close, but not quite. Comedians, it's just getting sad after the, okay. You know, newsmen, I mean, you know, I once saw, never mind, I can't say that. No, somebody, let's just say, I once saw a 60 Minutes correspondent trying to get laid, and I've never been sadder in my life. But, okay, so musicians, like rock stars, it's just like, you know, for whatever, we all love music more than almost anything, a lot of people. And even if you don't have anything going else in your life, it's great to have your music, you know, it's just, it's just way up there.

• 1:43:01Speaker 02

  We let.

• 1:43:01Bill Maher?

  So people, musicians, I've learned this from certainly personal experience with ones I know and just reading about them. There's just a level of being able to live in a bubble, above reality, that will not affect you. You are, here is the world and you're in a glass-bottom boat. And you can see the sharks and the craziness, but it just, it's like, oh, there's a shark. But yeah, but it can't get you, you're in a glass-bottom boat. That's Kanye. It's like, I can say I love Hitler, and yeah, I mean, they'll, will the sharks be trying to, no, they try to get him.

• 1:43:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:39Bill Maher?

  They just can't, because I'm on this, and, and music puts you on that level.

• 1:43:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:45Bill Maher?

  It makes you, uh, it deifies.

• 1:43:48Speaker 02

  It's strange, that.

• 1:43:49Bill Maher?

  It is, right?

• 1:43:50Speaker 02

  It's, it's, it's the same behavior.

• 1:43:52Bill Maher?

  Do you miss it?

• 1:43:56Speaker 02

  This was the Keith Richards. We celebrate him for having been a drug addict for a long time, but if he was a politician, it would be the end of it. It's a completely different moral standard for musicians. We actually encourage them. We'd be disappointed if Keith Richards stopped, you know.

• 1:44:12Bill Maher?

  Well, he actually did.

• 1:44:13Speaker 02

  Oh, boring.

• 1:44:15Bill Maher?

  He doesn't even smoke anymore.

• 1:44:17Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 1:44:18Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I think that's... But anyway, he's every day, he's playing with the house money.

• 1:44:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 1:44:24Bill Maher?

  I mean.

• 1:44:25Speaker 02

  I wanted to ask you as a comedian, if you're following what's going on with a show like Kill Tony. Have you seen that show?

• 1:44:32Bill Maher?

  No, what's that?

• 1:44:33Speaker 02

  It's run by Tony Hinchcliffe, and it's kind of like American Idol, but for...

• 1:44:38Bill Maher?

  See the Puerto Rico joke?

• 1:44:39Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:44:40Bill Maher?

  Okay, for those who don't remember, Trump had a rally, a campaign, he was running for president, at Madison Square Garden, I think.

• 1:44:48Speaker 02

  Exactly, yeah.

• 1:44:49Bill Maher?

  A few months before the election, and all the, you know, big, as I recall, conservative stars were there. It wasn't quite like CPAC. Do you know what CPAC is?

• 1:45:02Speaker 02

  It's like a conservative convention?

• 1:45:04Bill Maher?

  It is. I think it's Conservative Political Action Committee, but it's the big conservative event of the year. Everybody, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, it's a virtual Woodstock for the mentally impaired.

• 1:45:16Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:45:19Bill Maher?

  And they have, you know, every conservative, it's like four days, and they flesh out the conservative agenda, and then break down into smaller groups to have gay sex.

• 1:45:33Speaker 02

  I've actually heard.

• 1:45:34Bill Maher?

  As I understand it.

• 1:45:37Bill Maher?

  It's not quite like that, what we're talking about, but it was Madison Square Garden, which, now, some people have tried to make an issue that, oh, there was a Hitler, pro Hitler rally in the 30s, yeah, and a million basketball games in between, okay? You could just as well say they had it in a place where Bernard King, like, scored 30 points a night. Shut the fuck up with that bullshit. But, okay, so Tony Hinchcliffe is this guy who, like, he was the comic who opened for the whole thing. And he did tell that joke about, um, what's the joke about Puerto Rico, something like?

• 1:46:13Speaker 02

  Being it's a garbage in the.

• 1:46:15Bill Maher?

  Something garbage and Puerto Rico. It was not, it was funny, but wrong, but I don't give a fuck because you know, wrong. I'm sorry, life's too short. Uh, unless someone's actually literally hurt by it, I, I, I just can't. So what about Tony Hitchcock?

• 1:46:31Speaker 02

  The reason I bring it up is he's got this show and it's the biggest comedy show in America. I think it might even be in the world in terms of views. Kill, Kill Tony is a weekly show. It's out of Rogan's Club in Austin, the mothership.

• 1:46:43Bill Maher?

  Sure.

• 1:46:43Speaker 02

  And why it's so interesting to me is that they, it's, it's the inversion of virtue signaling. It's vice signaling.

• 1:46:53Bill Maher?

  That's so brilliant. Yes. Vice signaling. You gotta copyright that. That's so exactly on the money.

• 1:47:01Speaker 02

  We've had all this political correctness, killing comedy, killing the arts for a long time. And it seems to me that it's burst out on a show like, I actually think it's an old show. He's doing it for over 10 years and I think it's originally from Los Angeles, but uh, they, they make fun. They have the, the comics that go up to try and do their minute and try and impress the world and, and make it. A lot of them are literally disabled and whoever it is.

• 1:47:25Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:47:26Speaker 02

  They will humiliate them. If it's a disabled person, they will humiliate them for being disabled.

• 1:47:31Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:47:31Speaker 02

  But it's equal opportunities kind of humiliation and whoever it is that go up there. But for me, it's so interesting because I really see it as a, a reaction to everything that's happened. All this, this uptightness, the jokes you can't make and.

• 1:47:45Bill Maher?

  You know what it reminds me of is Howard Stern in the nineties. Do you know who Howard Stern? Okay. You know, the king of all media and I'm friends with him, hopefully still. We've had ups and downs, but I do love Howard and I'm a great admirer of all his achievements and what he actually does. And you know, I can listen to him like I can listen to a few people just kind of on end. He's just an interesting. Charismatic guy, even if it's just his voice. But, like, uh, oh shit.

• 1:48:18Speaker 02

  But he would do crazy things, right? He would get like girls riding a rodeo on a dildo or something like that.

• 1:48:23Bill Maher?

  No, what he would do was like what you're just saying about the disabled.

• 1:48:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:48:27Bill Maher?

  Like, he did crazy things. He made me do a version of Politically Incorrect on his show. But instead of, of course Politically Incorrect was a show with four guests, but they were purposely kind of mismatched. The intellectual, the politician, the idiot comedian, you know, this kind of stuff. Okay, so he made me do one, once with like his version of Politically Incorrect, which was so much more outrageous. I could never have done it on ABC. But in his version, it was a Klansman, a retarded person.

• 1:49:02Bill Maher?

  And I can't deny the genius of them coming up with that parody of my show. It was taking my show and like going to a level that, and you know, like, in my darkest moments, am I like, hmm, maybe I really should have done that show. No, I would not want a Klansman and a retarded person on my real show. But for his show, and it sounds like that's what Tony is doing.

• 1:49:27Speaker 02

  And that was in the 90s, right?

• 1:49:29Bill Maher?

  90s.

• 1:49:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so the first wave of political correctness was the end, sort of mid 80s, right?

• 1:49:34Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it goes way, I mean, Politically Incorrect, that sign, that giant sign behind you. That is from the fact that in 1993, when that show started, the term politically correct was around, but not incorrect.

• 1:49:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:49:54Bill Maher?

  It was a way of saying, here, this movement that has started of political correctness.

• 1:50:02Bill Maher?

  I'm not with it. Right, okay. I'm not with it. But that movement was in the eighties. Not eighties, I would say it began in the early nineties. Early nineties. Yes, that's when you start to see like kids who get trophies just for participating. You know, a kind of a victim culture is what you see, like everything that used to be a sin is now a disease. I remember having bits about that. Actually, you're right, that was in the, so it did start in the eighties. And do you think Howard Stern's show was a reaction to that? Your show actually was? Yes. Yeah, okay. Yes, and I've heard people talk about the success of it because when you listen to it, you were in your car

• 1:50:41Bill Maher?

  on your way to work. And so you were in this safe space, just you in your car with the windows rolled up. And you could laugh at this stuff that you couldn't and weren't allowed to at home with your wife and at the office with your coworkers. But when Howard said retarded and cleansman and, you know, and I think it was a retarded person, a cleansman, oh prostitute. Wow, that's Full House. I think, I'm remembering this from years ago, but it was something like that. And, you know, I mean, I did have to tip my hat to kind of the genius of it. At the time, did it feel great? No, but I went with it. Oh, it didn't feel, you weren't enjoying it?

• 1:51:26Bill Maher?

  I did, because you know what? I can play that game. I could, I love playing the straight man. All I had to do was get out of the way, which I know how to do. I just recently did it with, Dana Carvey was on my show a couple of weeks ago. Martin Short was on my show last year doing his Jiminy Glick character. Just do your, I love doing that. I love doing that when there's one of those crazy, out of the box, not like me, just crazy wild energy comics. That's not my game, that's not my lane.

• 1:52:01Bill Maher?

  But love to like let them just do their shit and let me just enable you. I feel so, I feel so good about that.

• 1:52:09Speaker 02

  And so I see what's going on now as a similar sort of valve. The way you describe it, it's like it's a valve for society, people secretly listening in their cars.

• 1:52:17Bill Maher?

  Correct.

• 1:52:18Speaker 02

  And so that for me tells me it's not just Kilt Tony, there's all these other comedians. I mentioned Shane Gillis earlier and it's just that even using words like gay and retarded again, which you could do back then, and then you couldn't use those words anymore. Now those words have been rehabilitated.

• 1:52:33Bill Maher?

  You can say gay.

• 1:52:36Bill Maher?

  You can't say like.

• 1:52:38Speaker 02

  But you couldn't say gay like gay in a kind of funny.

• 1:52:40Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:52:41Speaker 02

  Stop being gay.

• 1:52:42Bill Maher?

  That's so gay.

• 1:52:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's so gay.

• 1:52:44Bill Maher?

  Right, no.

• 1:52:45Speaker 02

  But you could in the 90s, you couldn't in the 00s. And now you can again.

• 1:52:49Bill Maher?

  Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean, you try it.

• 1:52:56Bill Maher?

  And the fact that we can't is so gay.

• 1:53:01Speaker 02

  So, okay, you haven't seen the show, but knowing it exists, does that give you sort of?

• 1:53:06Bill Maher?

  I'm sorry, but that's another one like woke. It's like crowdsourced. You know what? The crowd decided that gay has this other meaning. Yes, we don't mean just strictly homosexuality.

• 1:53:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:53:19Bill Maher?

  It just has this other meaning of like, I'm sorry that it's connected to gay because it shouldn't be.

• 1:53:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:53:26Bill Maher?

  But it just does.

• 1:53:27Speaker 02

  And woke now, even though people used to call themselves woke, is now just a derogatory term. No one calls themselves woke anymore because the crowd decided it was something else. So it's kind of.

• 1:53:35Bill Maher?

  But I'm sorry, what were you gonna say?

• 1:53:37Speaker 02

  We've, you haven't seen Kilt Tony, but knowing that this exists, does that give you hope for the future of, like, is that a good thing you think that?

• 1:53:48Bill Maher?

  What gives me hope is that they never got rid of me. Fuck Kilt Tony, I don't know what the fuck he's doing. It sounds like he's pandering to one side. I'm doing something much more difficult, which is not pandering to either side.

• 1:54:03Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:54:04Bill Maher?

  I mean, we're not gonna talk about the Trump dinner, but like, you know, I'll just tell you one thing.

• 1:54:13Bill Maher?

  You'll hear Friday, but now it's already Sunday. It's so hard to keep this in my mind. But there was a moment where he said to me.

• 1:54:26Bill Maher?

  A lot of people told me that they liked that we're having this dinner, but not all. And I said to him, same. A lot of people told me they really liked doing this, but not all. And we kind of agreed that the people who don't even want us to talk, we don't like you.

• 1:54:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:50Bill Maher?

  We're gonna, we're gonna talk. I know that bothers some people. And I don't think those people are like being practical. And I don't think it's good for your psychic health. You know?

• 1:55:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you're leading by example.

• 1:55:07Bill Maher?

  I'm just gonna talk to everybody, you know? I just don't think there's any other alternative, especially since the left has no power. It's like, it's one thing to like play hardball when you got some marbles. You don't have anything. You lost everything by being too woke. Sorry, but that's what it was. And now, you know, just like fucking play the hand you're dealt. You know? And that doesn't mean you're surrendering or anything, but like just, but I think you're on my page with that.

• 1:55:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, you do it on your, on your show, on the, we have a panel of, everyone's represented, right? You try and get everyone.

• 1:55:51Bill Maher?

  Everyone's represented. And they should be, because.

• 1:55:54Speaker 02

  You've got to get away from the siloed.

• 1:55:56Bill Maher?

  Absolutely.

• 1:55:57Speaker 02

  Media landscape.

• 1:55:58Bill Maher?

  And I see more Gavin Newsom, our governor here, has a new podcast.

• 1:56:02Speaker 02

  He had Bannon on.

• 1:56:03Bill Maher?

  And he said, I have Bannon on Friday.

• 1:56:05Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 1:56:06Bill Maher?

  Yeah. This is just coincidence. We didn't book him because this was my day back from the White House dinner. It just happened that way, but yeah. But Gavin Newsom, our governor, said he's, he's already done it. Started a podcast, but he said, he quoted me. Said, you know, I want, or cited me, said, we, we want that kind of show where we talk to other people. And I don't know what, you know, what is your other alternative to that?

• 1:56:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:34Bill Maher?

  You know? So, anyway, I'm glad your voice is out there. And when, you get back here a lot?

• 1:56:43Speaker 02

  I come here four, maybe four times a year.

• 1:56:46Bill Maher?

  Call me when you do?

• 1:56:47Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:56:51Speaker 02

  Because you know, I love to hang out with the rock star. Uh, former. No, thank you so much for having me. It was so much fun. Yeah, a real pleasure. So much fun. Thank you so much. Thank you.

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