Brian Tyler Cohen | Club Random with Bill Maher

Bill Maher and YouTube star Brian Tyler Cohen dive into the chaos of modern politics in a freewheeling conversation covering everything from wrestling and weed to identity politics and the Iran deal. They debate whether Democrats are too focused on checking boxes to win elections, break down Trump’s psychological warfare, and label one rising Democratic star “a walking campaign ad for Republicans." Stick around for a wild analogy that somehow combines wrestling, lactose intolerance, and socialism. Subscribe to the Club Random YouTube channel: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/clubrandompodcast?sub_confirmation=1⁠ Watch episodes ad-free – subscribe to Bill Maher’s Substack: ⁠https://billmaher.substack.com⁠ Subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you listen: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/ClubRandom⁠ Support our Advertisers: Get 50% off plus FREE shipping on your first box at ⁠https://www.factormeals.com/random50off⁠ and use code random50off Buy Club Random Merch: ⁠https://clubrandom.com⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ABOUT CLUB RANDOM Bill Maher rewrites the rules of podcasting the way he did in television in this series of one on one, hour long conversations with a wide variety of unexpected guests in the undisclosed location called Club Random. There’s a whole big world out there that isn’t about politics and Bill and his guests—from Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld to Jordan Peterson, Quentin Tarantino and Neil DeGrasse Tyson—talk about all of it. For advertising opportunities please email: [email protected] ABOUT BILL MAHER Bill Maher was the host of “Politically Incorrect” (Comedy Central, ABC) from 1993-2002, and for the last fourteen years on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 40 Emmy nominations. Maher won his first Emmy in 2014 as executive producer for the HBO series, “VICE.” In October of 2008, this same combination was on display in Maher’s uproarious and unprecedented swipe at organized religion, “Religulous.” Maher has written five bestsellers: “True Story,” “Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? Politically Incorrect’s Greatest Hits,” “When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden,” “New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer,” and most recently, “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass.” FOLLOW CLUB RANDOM https://www.clubrandom.com https://www.facebook.com/Club-Random-101776489118185 https://twitter.com/clubrandom_ https://www.instagram.com/clubrandompodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@clubrandompodcast FOLLOW BILL MAHER https://www.billmaher.com https://twitter.com/billmaher https://www.instagram.com/billmaher 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

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes, para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro, para los que están lejos, los que no vende lejos y los que no vende cerca, para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos, para los que piensan y los que hacen, para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola, para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.

• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 1:00Speaker 02

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• 1:31Bill Maher?

  And you attribute this to Judaism?

• 1:35Speaker 04

  We can't have milk. I have no gastrointestinal system. I'm allergic to it.

• 1:41Bill Maher?

  You, with your show and getting out of bed at 3:00 in the morning, stoned out of your mind, you're going to report, doesn't have thoughts.

• 1:51Bill Maher?

  Hi.

• 1:52Speaker 04

  Good to meet you.

• 1:53Bill Maher?

  Excuse my left.

• 1:54Speaker 04

  No problem, yeah.

• 1:55Bill Maher?

  Broke my fuck you finger.

• 1:58Bill Maher?

  It's been one of those months. You ever have one of those months where you're just like, all these nagging little injuries? You know?

• 2:05Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah.

• 2:06Bill Maher?

  Not the main ju— not the— just the things that make your life annoying because you're like...

• 2:10Speaker 04

  I've gotten to the point where I have to be careful when I'm like shampooing that I don't do it too hard or I'll like, I'll like tweak my neck, you know? I wrestled like 20 years ago at this point.

• 2:21Bill Maher?

  Oh, really?

• 2:21Speaker 04

  All throughout high— middle school, high school, a little bit in college.

• 2:24Bill Maher?

  Just because you like guys?

• 2:25Speaker 04

  Just because I like guys, yeah. Apparently it's a sport, too.

• 2:27Bill Maher?

  No.

• 2:29Speaker 04

  And, uh, and like, man, it seemed fine at the time, but does it wreak havoc on your body after that?

• 2:35Bill Maher?

  Man, when I was in high school, I remember we had to do wrestling. It was like one of the— there was like winter sports and like when I got— and that was one of the winter ones, you know? Like one week basketball, next week wrestling and, God, did I dread those weeks. I mean, I know it's a sport and I was kidding about the guy thing, although the Greeks would have something to say about that, but like the idea of like getting on the ground with another sweaty man

• 3:02Bill Maher?

  and just wrestling with him, and that's why it's wrestling.

• 3:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, like, look, if it was like a gym class activity, it would have been a lot less fulfilling. Um, you know, we— my— I was lucky enough to be on some pretty good teams in school and so we traveled across the country and, uh, and, uh, so it was great. And you learn a lot of discipline and like, you know, it—I mean, it's the hardest— it's the hardest sport in the world. Sitting there eating, eating lettuce for like 10 months out of the year so that you can keep, keep your weight down.

• 3:30Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that— and taking Ex-Lax.

• 3:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:33Bill Maher?

  I remember the wrestlers in our—

• 3:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:35Bill Maher?

  The kids would— they would take Ex-Lax to make weight.

• 3:37Speaker 04

  We would have guys that would—

• 3:39Bill Maher?

  That's so gross.

• 3:39Speaker 04

  —hold bottles and just spit in bottles all day because you like might get a tenth or two tenths of a pound of like water weight after the full day. Or you'd, or you'd go and, you know, go and run, put gym, uh, put a garbage bag on you.

• 3:52Bill Maher?

  I'm surprised they didn't give blood.

• 3:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, you know, it got like.

• 3:56Bill Maher?

  You can get, I gave blood the other day. You probably, a pint of blood probably weighs.

• 4:00Speaker 04

  Hey, any way to like get down in weight, granted, you generally want to keep as much blood as you could because you're gonna be on the mat 10 minutes later, but, uh, but, you know.

• 4:10Bill Maher?

  Wow, but it just seemed boring besides being gross and sweaty and another man. It just seemed boring because, I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but there was like four moves. Like a sit out and a this and a that and like, you knew there were even, you'd do it to them and they'd do it to you. And it was just, it's just grunting and it was like taking a shit with another person. That's what it reminded me of.

• 4:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, you know, if you're, if you, if you're like deep in it and it's your sport, then, then it becomes just like anything else, right? But, but.

• 4:45Bill Maher?

  You didn't keep up with it.

• 4:46Speaker 04

  No.

• 4:47Bill Maher?

  You're not wrestling guys now.

• 4:48Speaker 04

  There's not a whole lot of like post-college opportunities for wrestling.

• 4:53Bill Maher?

  Good to have you here. Thank you for coming.

• 4:55Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me.

• 4:55Bill Maher?

  Um, yeah, right. It's, it's something, not like pickleball.

• 5:00Speaker 04

  Uh-uh.

• 5:00Bill Maher?

  Like you just say to a, "Hey, guys, why don't we get on the mat with each other this week?"

• 5:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, you know, bailed on that and, uh, and actually moved out here to, to, to work in the entertainment industry.

• 5:14Bill Maher?

  Oh, after wrestling?

• 5:15Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, after college.

• 5:17Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 5:17Speaker 04

  Of which, of which wrestling was a very small part.

• 5:20Bill Maher?

  Right. Well, if you want to be on the floor with guys, there's a couple of directors I could recommend hanging out with where I'm pretty sure that would happen.

• 5:28Speaker 04

  Smooth transition, right, from wrestling to, to West Hollywood living?

• 5:31Bill Maher?

  To Brian Singer's parties. Did I have that name right?

• 5:35Speaker 04

  No, you got it right. That's, that's it.

• 5:36Bill Maher?

  Is that the guy? I mean, they're not gonna sue us, right?

• 5:40Speaker 04

  Say again?

• 5:40Bill Maher?

  They're not gonna sue it. I mean, that was in the paper.

• 5:42Speaker 04

  No, I don't think, I don't think you can sue over the fact that Brian Singer had parties. And those were the kind of parties.

• 5:49Bill Maher?

  It did seem like they were, now, look, I also think it's as politically incorrect as it is to say it, I just, and it doesn't excuse, you know, really bad behavior, but to pretend that the gay world and the straight world are the same is naive. They're not. They're just not.

• 6:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, look, like, you know, my, my, my best friend is gay. I officiated his, uh, his wedding with his husband and, uh, you know, yeah, that's, that's, now, now I've got my, now I've got my cred. I've, I've established myself as a, as an ally.

• 6:23Bill Maher?

  I did too, by the way. I also was at a gay wedding.

• 6:28Speaker 04

  You know, it's, it's interesting because in the entertainment industry, I think there's so much focus on, on, there has been so much of a focus for so long on like, on exploiting the, the differences. And now I think there's a major focus on, on like, okay, you can have a gay couple, but that's not gonna be, like, you can still have a gay couple in the same storyline that you would have for a straight couple. And that's, and that's, you know, a new thing in, in, in TV and film now. Because usually the whole, like, the fact that those characters were gay would be the whole storyline. As opposed to now, it's just like, they're gay, but that's, that's not relevant to the story.

• 7:03Bill Maher?

  That's the kind of progress.

• 7:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:05Bill Maher?

  We make that I'm always complaining the left doesn't acknowledge. They don't want to acknowledge progress because it somehow makes you purer and a better person if you constantly insist that things are worse than ever.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  No, I think-

• 7:19Bill Maher?

  And they're not, they're, they're better than ever, and things like that prove it.

• 7:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I think, um, there's not a whole lot of incentive to continue fighting for progress if you don't get a few moments to celebrate the wins that you've already notched. You know what I mean?

• 7:34Bill Maher?

  Big ones.

• 7:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:35Bill Maher?

  But, you know, it's, I mean, I've been around longer than you have. And trust me, the, the country is somewhat unrecognizable from the one, certainly the one I grew up in.

• 7:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:46Bill Maher?

  You know, I grew up in New Jersey.

• 7:48Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 7:48Bill Maher?

  All-white town. You know, that was just the way it was.

• 7:52Speaker 04

  Where in Jersey?

• 7:52Bill Maher?

  Uh, Bergen County.

• 7:53Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 7:54Bill Maher?

  You know, and of course, this is where the liberals live.

• 7:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 8:00Bill Maher?

  But that's where the liberals were in the 60s.

• 8:05Bill Maher?

  You know, yeah, that's, it was wrong and that's where we were. And it's just, I mean, it's just, you couldn't even like imagine a show like Friends now.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:19Bill Maher?

  If you pitched a show, okay, there's six white, white, stop, stop, come in again, come in again and pitch this again. What'd you say? There's an Asian man in a wheelchair. Good, I'm there. Of course, they always go too far, so there's this way some, too much box checking before they even write the script. They have to check the boxes.

• 8:41Speaker 04

  Well, you saw, did you see the studio?

• 8:43Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 8:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, where they kind of made fun of that, that one episode where they were trying to figure out who should be, who should, I think the, the movie was about Kool-Aid, right? It was the Kool-Aid movie. And so, you don't want too many, well, if there's no black representation in the Kool-Aid movie, and then there's too much representation, and then you have a Kool-Aid movie where it's only black people.

• 9:00Bill Maher?

  It, the way, that was a genius episode. I'm remembering it now.

• 9:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:05Bill Maher?

  Because they worked their way to a place that was completely opposite of where they were intending to go, which was a, I don't know if Seth Rogen, I'm sure he does, he's, my thought of him, I may be wrong, is that he's super woke. But that was not a super woke thing to do. That was a sly, brilliant sort of commentary on when that shit goes too far.

• 9:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:28Bill Maher?

  That they worked themselves all the way back to, what was it? That now it's everybody's black and so it looks.

• 9:34Speaker 04

  Now you have a Kool-Aid movie with an entirely blast, black, black cast. And it's like, who are the executives that greenlit a Kool-Aid, the, the Kool-Aid movie?

• 9:42Bill Maher?

  The way they got there with certain steps along the way. Like first, it was just gonna be, like, the.

• 9:49Speaker 04

  I think it was like Ice Cube.

• 9:50Bill Maher?

  The sidekick was black.

• 9:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:51Bill Maher?

  So then, oh no, that's not good because what are you saying? That blacks have to just be sidekicks?

• 9:56Speaker 04

  Can't be the leading man.

• 9:57Bill Maher?

  Right, and then, so they just kept working their, like, they're caught in their own head.

• 10:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, just spiraling.

• 10:03Bill Maher?

  Spiraling.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, it's interesting to see, like, you know, the, the entertainment industry, when I first moved out here, which was, man, uh, 15 years ago at this point. Um, yeah, it was, it was a totally different industry. Um.

• 10:18Bill Maher?

  No Jews?

• 10:19Speaker 04

  No Jews, yeah, yeah. If Hollywood needed one thing, it was like, where are all the Jews around here?

• 10:24Bill Maher?

  No. When are we gonna be able to break in, the Jews?

• 10:27Speaker 04

  It, it was, it's, it was funny because like, you know, obviously I, I experienced all of like, you know. Filtering and figuring out where, which roles I can audition for, and I was a new actor. So it's like, what smaller roles are gonna, back then, it was still, there were still a lot of, pretty much all of the, the leading cast members were, were white. And so they would fill the minorities with the co-stars and guest starring, guest star roles. And so if you're a young white kid who wanted to move out here, you're probably not gonna get those roles. So it's tough to break in, you know, because they still wanted Brad Pitt to be the leading man, and George Clooney, and, and all that stuff. Now, the whole industry is, is, is definitely changed, but I mean, I, you know, I haven't been in the industry in ten years.

• 11:07Bill Maher?

  Very often works in reverse, and I'm not even complaining about that, you know? I mean, turnabout's fair play. For the longest time, it didn't work the other way. Now, as always with racial matters.

• 11:21Speaker 04

  I mean, I, I have, I have a really good friend who, who is Indian, like a dear friend of mine, who's Indian, and the roles that he would get were like, all the terrorists in the, in the post nine eleven movie. That's all he could book, and he's like, and he's a brilliant guy, and he's a great actor, and it would just be like, just the terrorists in the, in the, in those movies. And so there's, there's, there's a, you know, a great silver lining.

• 11:44Bill Maher?

  But that's not now.

• 11:45Speaker 04

  No, it's not. And that's what I was gonna say, like, there's a great silver lining where like now.

• 11:48Bill Maher?

  Let's live in the year we're living in.

• 11:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, like now you get to see that, that talent that was relegated to like, you know, the terrorists, terrorist one, terrorist two on the plane.

• 11:57Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 11:58Speaker 04

  So, you know, there's a.

• 11:59Bill Maher?

  But that is something that, again, is infuriating about, uh, the far left, I would say, they'll call them whatever they wanted, this, the, not the woke, the stupid woke. Like, Whoopi Goldberg loved her, but when she said a couple of weeks ago that, um, being black was like, the same as being a woman in Iran, it's like, yeah, nineteen twenty.

• 12:26Bill Maher?

  But not today.

• 12:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:29Bill Maher?

  By the way, I was just watching this series, I guess it's a couple of years old, Tehran. Have you seen it? It's on Apple.

• 12:35Speaker 04

  No.

• 12:36Bill Maher?

  It'd be a good way to get a little education on the subject.

• 12:38Speaker 04

  You know, it's interesting, like, I mean, look, we're in Los Angeles. There's, you know, a military force deployed in the city and granted, you know.

• 12:47Bill Maher?

  Not on the same level at all.

• 12:48Speaker 04

  Not on the same level, of course.

• 12:49Bill Maher?

  Not wrong, I agree.

• 12:51Speaker 04

  But like, you know, I mean, I've seen him, I've seen him in this city and it's weird. It's weird to like see, I mean, first of all, to see any type of police force in Los Angeles is bad enough.

• 13:03Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, it's just a bad idea to get the people used to seeing tanks.

• 13:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:09Bill Maher?

  And military vehicles on the street. That is one thing that's always made this country great, is that no tanks on the street.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:16Bill Maher?

  As bad as it got, no tanks. We don't want to see the tanks. That's not for Main Street.

• 13:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:23Bill Maher?

  You know, and now, you know, it's just, you know, one of the many things I said when Trump got elected. I said, "I'm not going to pre-hate anything, but, you know, I keep a list of what I hate and what I don't hate." And there's some things on the don't hate list, although the execution is never the right. But, you know, ideas like, you know, should Europe pay for their defense? Yeah, not wrong. Should the border be organized instead of just open? Of course, certain things, but on the hate list, which is still quite an extensive list.

• 13:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:58Bill Maher?

  You know, that's just one of the big ones. Like, I do not want military parades. I do not want the army playing cops, you know. I just, it's just, it's just a bad, like.

• 14:13Speaker 04

  Even on the, even on the don't hate list, when you have, when you have, okay, having Europe pay their fair share. It's like, this would be a good opportunity to celebrate some wins, but he's so ham-handed with the way that he does all of his international affairs. That like, you get into office and the first thing you do is start threatening to annex or invade Canada and Greenland and Panama. And it's like, and then, and then you try, and then you think that you created some charm offensive where you have 90 countries in 90 days. And that amounts to like Vietnam. You think to trade deal with Vietnam and can't figure out why nobody else is running to the negotiating table.

• 14:50Bill Maher?

  But have you noticed that the Greenland thing, this kind of just got forgotten?

• 14:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:56Bill Maher?

  You know, on Canada, it was like, he's a different kind of cat. I mean, I gotta tell you, he just is a different kind of cat. And he's not going anywhere for at least another three and a half years. And the other party has no power.

• 15:13Bill Maher?

  You know, just to go Gretchen Whitmer and pretend they can't see you there. Not the right strategy. And, you know, as far as like, the don't hate lists.

• 15:28Bill Maher?

  Like, one of my big ones was always, or the hate list was, you know, standing there with Putin and taking his side.

• 15:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:37Bill Maher?

  My point about like, he's not going anywhere for three and a half years. The unpredictability factor. You're just gonna have to accept that and make the best of it. As opposed to just writing the millionth editorial.

• 15:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:51Bill Maher?

  About, you know, I'm just so not interested in this, I hate Trump more than you do contest. It's not productive, it's not helping, it's not getting anywhere. It's not doing anything for the country. I'm for like, you know, actually making this country work better. And that does not include just ignoring.

• 16:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think, I think in large part, once we recognize the extent to which so much of what he does is a deliberate strategy. Exactly to your point, I mean, is he gonna annex Greenland?

• 16:24Bill Maher?

  Is or isn't?

• 16:25Speaker 04

  It is a deliberate strategy to distract you from, from, I mean, Steve Bannon's whole shtick is that he's flooding the zone with shit, right? And so, once you can figure out, okay, what's, what is, what is there to distract you? So that you're not talking about the main thing versus what is, what is the main thing?

• 16:40Bill Maher?

  I disagree with that, because I think you're giving him in a way too much credit. I don't think there's that kind of thought that goes into it. I think he's just a cat. Who like, you know, he lives on his phone like teenagers. Like, I've seen it.

• 16:54Speaker 04

  And just Aaron's Synapses fire and he just does, just acts.

• 16:58Bill Maher?

  He's an idea guy, like, somebody is, he's a people person. He talks to a lot of people. That's not the worst thing in the world. It would be the worst thing if it was only the ass kissers. And it's probably mostly them, but I think he just likes a wide array. You know, it's a lot of not what I read, it's a lot of what I heard and people are saying.

• 17:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:18Bill Maher?

  And he just, you know, he's an idea guy, like, let's take Kremlin, let's reopen Alcatraz, let's, hey, let's open Alcatraz on Greenland. Talk about ideas.

• 17:28Speaker 04

  I mean, maybe, okay, so maybe it's not a, maybe these things are not deliberate, but I think it still lends itself to this idea.

• 17:34Bill Maher?

  It does.

• 17:34Speaker 04

  That, okay.

• 17:35Bill Maher?

  It's not that Steve, but it's not that Steve Bannon made him into a guy who floods his own machine.

• 17:40Speaker 04

  He knows how to exploit.

• 17:41Bill Maher?

  Steve Bannon found a guy who naturally floods his own machine. That's what, how it happened.

• 17:47Speaker 04

  I think the onus, I mean, for folks like me who are on the left, the onus then becomes, how can we most effectively filter through that stuff and keep our eye on the main things? And that becomes difficult at times when there's 10 different things going on at once.

• 18:03Bill Maher?

  Be honest. Don't just be partisan, just don't be like, don't be, I mean, you do what you want, you're very successful. It's not my way exactly, I mean, I will always call it as I see it, no matter what it is, and I don't care who likes it or doesn't, that's my bond with the audience, it's worked for me pretty well.

• 18:23Bill Maher?

  But it is, you know, in a way harder to do, but for, just to take an example, tariffs. Now, I remember I, along with probably most people, were saying at the beginning, oh, you know, by the 4th of July, somebody had a thing of how the country was, the economy was going to be tanked by then. And I was kind of like, well, that seems right to me. But that didn't happen. Now, it could happen tomorrow. I'm just saying, that's reality. So let's work first from the reality of that, not from "I just hate Donald Trump." Because that's boring and doesn't get us anywhere and lead you to dishonesty. Because the truth is, I don't know what his strategy is.

• 19:07Bill Maher?

  But, look, the stock market is at record highs. I know not everybody lives by the stock market, but I also drive around. I don't see a country in a depression at all. I see people out there just living their lives. And I would have thought, and I gotta own it, that these tariffs were going to fucking sink this economy by this time, and they didn't. So, you know, how do we deal with that fact? Because that's the fact.

• 19:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think first is, and I've learned this the hard way, not to make predictions about what's gonna happen, because it's really fucking difficult to predict anything. And if I was good at predicting things, Hillary would have been the president in 2016, and I wouldn't have sold my Netflix stock back in 2010. But here we are. I think that the way that that's kind of exposing itself right now is with the Epstein stuff. I mean, you had all these Republicans that were clamoring because they thought that Trump...

• 20:04Bill Maher?

  Okay, I'm on vacation a little bit, so I just heard the little bits of this. Tell me in what's going on with Epstein.

• 20:12Speaker 04

  So...

• 20:13Bill Maher?

  He's really alive, like Elvis.

• 20:15Speaker 04

  He's alive, sitting in a cell. No, so Epstein, they had promised, all of these Trump administration officials, Pam Bondi, Dan Bongino, Cash Patel, all had promised to release these Epstein files.

• 20:27Bill Maher?

  Right, I remember that, yeah.

• 20:28Speaker 04

  And when they got in, they would finally uncover these files that would be hidden by the deep state and these communist Marxist Democrats, and they would expose this whole list. So these guys come in. I mean, you've got, like, literally, Cash Patel and Dan Bongino made their entire careers in talking about this stuff over and over and over again. They get, you know, put into the top spots in the FBI, and Pam Bondi at the DOJ, and suddenly it's time for them to put up or shut up. And Pam Bondi and the DOJ release a report saying that there's no Epstein client list. So... Apparently, nobody was benefiting from all of the depraved things that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were doing.

• 21:06Speaker 04

  And man, did that piss the fuck off the entire audience that followed Dan Bongino, Cash Patel, Pam Bondi, Alina Habba, and Donald Trump, all of whom thought that they were gonna hold true to their word to actually get some accountability for like these depraved crimes. And, and like, of course, they're not gonna release this stuff because, first of all, you've got Trump himself who's been in god knows how many photos with the guy. Epstein called Donald Trump his closest friend for 10 years. That was like Epstein's direct quote. And so, of course, these files were never gonna get released. And, and they didn't. But now you have a whole sense of, of-

• 21:43Bill Maher?

  But wait, wait. We are assuming that if I'm Epstein, who was, I said this on my show recently, if there's a guy who's like really rich, and you're not quite sure how he got that rich, he doesn't seem to have any talents, he's a pimp. He's a pimp.

• 22:01Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 22:02Bill Maher?

  That's, there are guys like that.

• 22:03Speaker 04

  Who, who are you referring to?

• 22:04Bill Maher?

  Epstein.

• 22:05Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 22:06Bill Maher?

  That's-

• 22:06Speaker 04

  Well, I mean-

• 22:07Bill Maher?

  He's a pimp.

• 22:07Speaker 04

  A pimp for, for kids, yeah.

• 22:10Bill Maher?

  Dude, I've known guys like this.

• 22:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:11Bill Maher?

  Pussy whisperers. That's what a pimp is. A pussy whisperer. Someone who can like just, they just have this, I don't know what it is. I don't have it. I'm glad I don't have it. But they have an ability to talk women into anything. Like, even when it's not, the woman doesn't benefit that much. They just, it's just, it's just an amazing skill that some guys have. That's who he was. He was a pimp. We are assuming that this pimp kept a physical record. And I'm not, no, maybe that, maybe I missed this in the-

• 22:42Speaker 04

  Correct. Who knows?

• 22:44Bill Maher?

  So they don't know?

• 22:45Speaker 04

  I, I mean, we, we, we don't, we don't know what, we don't know what, we don't know any information.

• 22:49Bill Maher?

  Cause if I was-

• 22:50Speaker 04

  It's a black, it's a black hole.

• 22:52Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 22:53Speaker 04

  Because they keep refusing to release anything. So we actually don't know.

• 22:55Bill Maher?

  I'm just saying, if my business, as it was Mr. Epstein's business, was being a pimp, that's what he was. He was great at that. I've got girls. You say that to a nerd like Bill Gates.

• 23:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:09Bill Maher?

  Hey, I've got girl, Alan Dershowitz, you're an ugly looking motherfucker. Would you like to be friends with me? I know a lot of girls.

• 23:16Speaker 04

  Oh, I mean, yeah, I, look, I, I think there's no doubt about, about why it works for a lot of these-

• 23:21Bill Maher?

  No, but what I'm saying is, if I'm that guy- Do I need to keep a physical record? I know Bill Gates and Bill Clinton and Donald Trump want to come on the plane.

• 23:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:32Bill Maher?

  It would be like me keeping a list of just my friends. You know, like, I know who my friends are.

• 23:37Speaker 04

  Right.

• 23:37Bill Maher?

  Like, I don't really-

• 23:38Speaker 04

  You don't necessarily need to be like, sign here on the dotted line.

• 23:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah, like, who do I want to have dinner with? Let me check the files.

• 23:43Speaker 04

  I think the-

• 23:44Bill Maher?

  Shirley, you keep records on who I like, don't you? And you know, she-

• 23:47Speaker 04

  I think the broader issue, though, is that, is that all of these people were so steeped in, in this idea that if they could just get into a position of power, then they would be able to finally do something and expose it. And it was so anticlimactic and so similar to everything else that's been said from, from the left. That, that, like, it just, it, I think that it's really disillusioning for a lot of these folks on the right who kind of viewed the left as the impediment to getting that justice. And now you're seeing the exact same talking points being trotted out on the right. And like, you know, there's a lot of things that Trump has done, to your exact point, that fall into the category of, okay, this is gonna piss some people off. But it, it usually feels like it has very little staying power.

• 24:30Speaker 04

  Trump bombs Iran and like, even, you have a few people that came out and said, okay, this guy promised to be the peace, the pro-peace president. But like, for a lot of people, is that really gonna, is that gonna, are they gonna like, change, you know, switch sides, abandon the guy? But like, this feels-

• 24:45Bill Maher?

  I loved it.

• 24:45Speaker 04

  This, this year, as it relates to F C-

• 24:47Bill Maher?

  That was a home run for me and for him. And, and I'm a guy who was always saying, we should, at least when they had the deal, we should try to see if the Obama plan, that, the peace deal that Obama made-

• 25:00Speaker 04

  The J C P O A.

• 25:01Bill Maher?

  Can work. I, I, you know, I don't think I'm telling tales out of school, but once had a long conversation with Netanyahu, who was wanting to talk me into, and, and may I say, right now, all these years later, one, maybe I was wrong. I thought it was worth- A try to bring The JCPOA? Yes. Oh, that's a The Iran nuclear deal. Great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm all for someone who knows shit I don't.

• 25:31Speaker 00

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes. Para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro. Para los que están lejos, los que no vende lejos y los que no vende cerca. Para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos. Para los que piensan y los que hacen. Para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola, para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.

• 26:01Speaker 05

  Nationwide is so much more than a great insurance company. They're one of America's largest financial services companies. Just like I'm so much more than quarterback Peyton Manning. I'm also Peyton Manning. Insurance and financial services together? It's a masterpiece. Peyton Manning does it again. For your insurance and financial needs, Nationwide is on your side. Nationwide Investment Services Corporation, member FINRA, Columbus, Ohio.

• 26:31Bill Maher?

  Whatever that was, I thought it was worth a try to try to bring the Iranian people, who are not an unsophisticated people, into the family of nations again, as they used to be, peaceably and also, you know, the reports were that they were like 15 years away from the bomb. Yeah. And now maybe, but again, here we are in a different place. A, maybe I was wrong and Netanyahu was right. He probably knows a lot more than me. Like, his contention was that, I don't care what it says on the piece of paper or what the inspectors are telling you, they're cheating, they're always gonna cheat,

• 27:10Bill Maher?

  they're trying to get a bomb, they make no secret and never have about wanting to wipe us off the face of the earth, you know? Okay, so we should just, we have to just take them out. And I didn't think that, but once Trump scuttled it in the first term, fait accompli. Now we're into a different era. So maybe I was wrong. Doesn't matter, because once we got to this place, where they really were getting close, I mean, there was a report a little before he dropped the bomb, the first one from the inspectors, you know, the UN inspectors, who said, "Oh, no, that we don't know, and they're cheating." So, it was almost something that had to be done, and, you know,

• 27:55Bill Maher?

  look, Iran, I'm sorry, has been asking for it for the longest time. They have been sponsoring every bad news group in the Middle East, who is anti-Western civilization, places where you couldn't survive a day.

• 28:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:11Bill Maher?

  So, please don't defend them.

• 28:14Speaker 04

  No, I mean, look.

• 28:14Bill Maher?

  No, I'm not saying you would, but...

• 28:16Speaker 04

  I'm not defending Iran. I swear, what the hell did I say?

• 28:21Bill Maher?

  You and your

• 28:21Speaker 04

  What did I say a minute ago?

• 28:22Bill Maher?

  Quers for Palestine t-shirt.

• 28:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:24Bill Maher?

  Get rid of that.

• 28:26Speaker 04

  Look, what I hope happens in Iran is, I think, what everybody across the political spectrum hopes happens in Iran, which is that there's some, I hope that folks in that country rise up, and there's some, you know, some, it can't happen at the hands of the US, I hope that they rise up and and we see something, you know, circa pre-revolution.

• 28:46Bill Maher?

  Here's the key thing about that. Rising up is so much harder than it ever used to be because of technology.

• 28:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:54Bill Maher?

  When we rose up against the British, they didn't have drones.

• 28:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:58Bill Maher?

  They didn't have cameras. You could hide, I mean, this, even up into the Soviet era, this was the case. Now, for you to rise up and somehow evade the authorities who are looking to catch dissidents, almost impossible.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, it happened, you know, well, I don't really know any recent examples in point two where it happened, proving your point.

• 29:21Bill Maher?

  Well, the original revolution, not the original, but the Khomeini revolution, they called that, you know what they called, the cassette revolution.

• 29:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:30Bill Maher?

  They

• 29:31Speaker 04

  Or like six technologies passed that by now.

• 29:33Bill Maher?

  They smuggled in. The dissident's point of view on cassettes and they played them on their fucking boom boxes.

• 29:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:40Bill Maher?

  That's how, and that was only 1978. That's what the technology was.

• 29:45Speaker 04

  The irony is that like now if you want that type of information to, to make it feel like you have, like, like you're a part of a community and that, that you have more people there to rise up with you. Um, the hard part is that, yeah, it's easier to get that information, but it's that much harder for the reasons that you just mentioned to actually effectuate it.

• 30:03Bill Maher?

  I mean, I don't know what's gonna happen in, I mean, there, I saw Bibi was with Trump the other day and they were talking about transforming the whole Middle East. And again, I know Trump, look, I put up my 56 insult.

• 30:22Speaker 04

  I was reading that.

• 30:23Bill Maher?

  You know, I got him to sign that. This is my favorite position.

• 30:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:26Bill Maher?

  56 horrible things he said about me, obviously which were in, I obviously had said something about him that, so like I, no one needs to lecture me about Donald Trump, but, uh, and well before I did the horrible dinner, um, which changed the world completely.

• 30:43Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm curious about that, about the dinner. Do you, do you regret any part of it? Do you regret, do you regret doing it? Do you regret the, the, the?

• 30:51Bill Maher?

  Why would I?

• 30:52Speaker 04

  Before or after? I'm just, I'm just curious, like, the way that all of it played out, how do you think about it? Do you think about it as?

• 30:57Bill Maher?

  The people who hated me from before the dinner, the, the 10% who live on Blue Sky, just found another thing to hate me for. But their, their hatred looks ever stupider as time goes by because their big fear was that, oh my God, I was gonna be seduced. And of course I went right back to tearing him a new asshole every week. If you, if you don't watch my show, that's fine. You don't have to. I don't hate anybody or dislike anybody who doesn't watch it. But then you can't comment because if you have been watching it, you see that I didn't change one bit. So there was no argument there except your emotions, except, ah, he went to see the bad man. Like, yes, I'm thrilled. First of all,

• 31:40Bill Maher?

  You're invited to the White House for a private dinner with the president. Really, you don't go? Well, then you're a fucking idiot, in my view, no matter who the president is. Two, he has all the power, so like, maybe you should talk to him. And then, part two, like, okay, I had to make a report on it, once people knew I went. Should I lie? No, that was not an option, never has been for me. That's my bond with my audience. So I told him the truth, that yeah, that guy who lives there is different than the one you see on TV. And I kept saying, over and over, in the piece, like, I'm just reporting. You, you, you make your decisions, you do what you do. I'm just saying, I went down into the mine, and I'm telling you what's down there, that you don't know.

• 32:23Bill Maher?

  Or maybe you do, but like, to just be like, oh no, how, it's just emotional.

• 32:30Speaker 04

  No, look, if, if I had the opportunity, if, if I had the opportunity to talk to Trump, I'd be, I'd be happy. I try to interview Republican officials, and the, the farthest right Republican that I've ever gotten on was like Adam Kinzinger. To give you an idea, and, and you don't really have to, in this media environment, because it's so bifurcated. And so you have all of these right-wing outlets, you've spoken to, you know, people have come, come here, and you've spoken to them. There's no need for people on opposite ends of the political spectrum to go on opposing viewpoint shows anymore, because there's so many, like, why, why deal with tough questions when you can just get pats on the head?

• 33:03Bill Maher?

  But that's what my show is every week.

• 33:05Speaker 04

  Right.

• 33:05Bill Maher?

  My real type show is like.

• 33:07Speaker 04

  But there's very, but there's, you know, I, I just. In the, in this new media environment, there's, there's very few shows that do that. I mean, I, I reach out to Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, they, their offices will never respond. Yeah, well.

• 33:18Bill Maher?

  Well, you, you gotta, reach out again. You know what? I'll call them all for you, if you want. I will tell them to go on your show, and they will do it. Because that's one thing that is very different from the left and the right. That surprises me, because usually, the right-wingers will go anywhere. I just had that guy on, I loved him, Wesley Hunt, Congressman, African-American Congressman from Texas. Trump's biggest supporter.

• 33:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:41Bill Maher?

  But it's so sincere.

• 33:43Speaker 04

  There's a, that's a, that's a.

• 33:44Bill Maher?

  With Paul Begala.

• 33:47Bill Maher?

  Okay, that's America. And by the way, loved it that they bonded. That's what we gotta do.

• 33:53Speaker 04

  I mean, look, I do debates. Fox LA anchor Alex Michelson, who I think you know. He hosts debates between me and Tommy Lahren. I think we've been on like five times together already.

• 34:06Bill Maher?

  Oh, Jesus, that's like Muhammad Ali fighting a seven-year-old blind girl. Why don't you fight somebody your own size, Tommy? I mean, she's a...

• 34:13Speaker 04

  I was on with Piers Morgan's show today, actually. And went on with Ted Cruz's co-host Ben Ferguson. So, look, anytime I have the opportunity to talk to folks on the other side. But I can also see at the same time why people on the other side of the aisle would say like, "Why engage in this when it can just be easier and not?" You know, and in this digital media environment, you really don't have to.

• 34:37Bill Maher?

  First of all, they should be giving me a fucking medal. All this talk about how Trump is only surrounded by ass-kissers. Okay, but then when you have someone who is decidedly not MAGA go there and speak to his face, things he may never hear, I mean, I said things to hear. They should be carrying me off on their shoulders for saying to him. In private, yes, but I mean, I reported it. He didn't object to it, and he didn't object at the time. Things like, "Why are you scaring people? You're scaring people. Why do you want to do that to your citizens? What you did with Obama's birth certificate was low. You know, 2020 election, you know, you didn't win that." I mean, I'm not saying this is gonna change the world.

• 35:20Bill Maher?

  I'm saying like, your shot, doing nothing, not engaging, has zero chance. Mine, this guy, I'm telling you, I know this cat a lot better than I did before. He's a people person. He talks to people. You have to keep the lines open. The stupidest thing the left does, and this dinner is a perfect example of it, is having this attitude toward the right that, "We won't even break bread with you. We are so far above you that we won't even sit down at the same table with you." That is their attitude, and that makes me sick too. I'm glad I break bread, and that's what makes them...

• 36:00Bill Maher?

  Hate the left so much, they think that they're deplorables. We're deplorables and you won't even sit down to dinner with us. Well, good luck, see how far that gets you.

• 36:09Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, right now, look, we're in a position where Democrats lost the popular vote. They lost the electoral vote and so we no longer have the luxury of excommunicating people from the party who are problematic and so that I think that's the...

• 36:21Bill Maher?

  Or not talking to the other party.

• 36:23Speaker 04

  Well, the hard part is...

• 36:24Bill Maher?

  Who has all the power.

• 36:26Speaker 04

  Anybody who has any semblance of an ego, myself included, wants to see, like you see Trump engage in all this bullshit, the Epstein thing, for example, whatever it may be, the pro peace and then he bombs Iran, says gonna release the Epstein files, doesn't do it. And you have folks on the left who say, who wanna be like, "You fucking idiot, I told you so." Like, how did you not see this was gonna come, that this was gonna happen? How did you not see that when he said he's gonna lower costs for people, that he doesn't give a shit about people? He's promised cheaper healthcare before, he never delivered it. Promised infrastructure before, never delivered it. Promised the jobs boom and manufacturing renaissance. This guy always plays the same populist shtick and he never delivers and so how do you not get it? But I think the way that I have to check myself often now, because the goal is persuasion, right? Like, if you work in politics, the only way you

• 37:11Speaker 04

  win, the only way you exercise power is if you, is if you actually get in office so that you can enact your agenda. That's it. Otherwise, you're just chirping at people on Twitter and like, while that may be fun, not that fun if you're watching the other side enact their agenda and you have ICE agents on the street.

• 37:27Bill Maher?

  Right, you're right.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  So I had to check myself often and instead of those moments where I can just, where I wanna say like, "You fucking idiot, how did you not know this was gonna happen?" To say, like, we're here with open arms and if you want lower prices, that's something that we can, that we can offer. If you want, if you want somebody who's gonna expand your access to healthcare, that's something that we can do. If you think that workers should have dignity, if you think that unions should be stronger, if you see the effects of climate change and think that maybe we shouldn't be digging for more fossil fuels when you have insurance companies that are no longer offering insurance in Florida or California, then like, there's room in the coalition. And I think that's, that has to be my North Star. And again, I have to check myself often because it's not easy.

• 38:10Bill Maher?

  You're doing the right thing. That checking yourself often is exactly how you do it. But to, but to make this full circle to your question originally, like, that thing right there reminds me, see, I have standing to talk to the Republicans because like...

• 38:27Bill Maher?

  One reason I'm bored with the "I just hate Trump more than you do" people. "How could you go to a dinner?" It shows "I hate Trump more than you." Boring. And also, I earned all these epithets. "Smart a smart guy," "Better than Samanex," "Fired like a dog," "Dumbass," "Not an intellectual," "Terrible show," "Moron," "Stupid guy," "Bad ratings," "Failing comedian." I earned these because I did all these editorials about Trump before anybody. I did the one where he's, to your point, where he's a con man. Where he promises things. And I did the one of "He's a mafia boss." I did these a long time ago. Okay, so like, you Johnny come lately, he's like, "I've been there.

• 39:10Bill Maher?

  I'm on to something else. You should get on that page."

• 39:13Speaker 04

  I think the hard part is like, I think that everybody should take the opportunity to go talk to anybody. Hell, if I had the opportunity to go sit in front of Trump, I would relish that opportunity to interview him. Seven days out of seven, I would take that chance.

• 39:28Bill Maher?

  This wasn't an interview.

• 39:29Speaker 04

  No, I understand.

• 39:30Bill Maher?

  It was more like this. Like, "This is not an interview."

• 39:33Speaker 04

  But the point-

• 39:34Bill Maher?

  Plainly. Plainly, "This is not an interview."

• 39:37Speaker 04

  But the point that I'm trying to make is like, I do think that the idea that, okay, he's a different person behind closed doors, it feels almost worse because he should know better than. Like, it's almost, it's bad enough if he was like this guy, right?

• 39:53Bill Maher?

  You know what, but you said it yourself. It feels, and that's the point. It's just about your feelings. I'm not on that page. It actually, logically, I think it's better. I find myself more comforted knowing that, oh. And here's the line I said, that got him mad. I said, "A crazy person doesn't live in the White House." A person who plays a crazy person on TV lives in the White House.

• 40:20Speaker 04

  But isn't that worse?

• 40:21Bill Maher?

  It's not the ideal. I agree. But we're not living in a world of ideas. But what's, logically, what's better? To think that the crazy person you see, who's gonna go invade Greenland and do these crazy things, is like, "That's the only guy." Or to know that, "Oh, wow, there's somebody who's so much more self-aware." Sorry, but he is. Somebody who actually can laugh? I made this point. I'd never seen him laugh in public, and I don't trust people who don't laugh. But I saw it in private. Not a big belly laugh, but like, okay, there's somebody there who's better than the person I've been seeing. To me, that's better.

• 41:05Bill Maher?

  Not ideal. I get it, not ideal.

• 41:09Speaker 04

  Does this question resonate with you? Shouldn't he know better than?

• 41:12Bill Maher?

  Of course, but if shoulds and buts were beer and nuts, we'd have a hell of a party. But I'm living in reality. What world are you living in?

• 41:19Speaker 04

  I, I, I agree, but I'm, but my, my contention with this is like, okay, if this guy is self-aware, then what's the excuse for sending the military into Los Angeles? What's the excuse for pretending, for pretending that he, that he won the 2020 election?

• 41:31Bill Maher?

  Wait, I have my hate list. I give you my hate list. It's a long list.

• 41:36Speaker 04

  But, but that's, that's the part that I think is like, if, if, I don't disagree that he's more self-aware than he's letting on, but that makes it almost worse for me because seeing somebody who, who is, who knows, who knows better and yet makes the conscious decision to engage in this bullshit.

• 41:53Bill Maher?

  People are complicated. Here's my theory on the whole thing, and I don't think it's actually something that hasn't been sort of said before by other people in different ways, but,

• 42:03Bill Maher?

  I think partly because of the way he was raised by his father. Just partly New York.

• 42:09Speaker 04

  Which is to say not hearing the words "I love you."

• 42:11Bill Maher?

  Right, that kind of stuff.

• 42:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:15Bill Maher?

  It's in that great movie I heard you.

• 42:18Speaker 04

  I, I was the, I was an executive producer.

• 42:20Bill Maher?

  My friend Nora was a producer on that. Awesome movie, by the way. If you haven't seen it, The Apprentice. Sebastian Stan.

• 42:28Speaker 04

  And Jeremy Strong.

• 42:29Bill Maher?

  Oh, as Roy Cohen. It's a genius movie.

• 42:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:34Bill Maher?

  That did not get its due because we're so partisan. Half the people were like, "Oh, it's terrible to Trump." And then half the people were like, "It's too nice to him." Because you see him becoming Donald Trump and you do feel, because he is a human. People say, "Oh, you went to the White House, you humanized him." He's a human.

• 42:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:55Bill Maher?

  Okay, could we just get past that? He's not Hitler and he's not inhuman. He's a human, a flawed one. I'll give you that. But he is a human and it's, I forget what we're talking about.

• 43:10Speaker 04

  Well, look, it's a low bar. Like, he is a human, so I will grant him that.

• 43:16Bill Maher?

  Okay, but, but some people don't. And he's also not Hitler.

• 43:20Speaker 04

  Look, I, I think-

• 43:21Bill Maher?

  That doesn't help.

• 43:22Speaker 04

  I think, um, I, I, I've not, I, I have not and won't, you know, throw that around, uh, especially, you know, as a, as a Jew with, with my entire family. But I would also say too, I mean, there, we would be fools to ignore, to ignore by virtue of not wanting to seem alarmist, some pretty telling warning signs that are right under our noses right now. I think, if somebody, I think we, we, the problem that we face is, we become immune to a lot of this stuff. It, it, the, the fact that it's like a slow-moving, all of this stuff is slow-moving.

• 43:56Bill Maher?

  Slow-moving coup. I wonder who coined that phrase in 2016?

• 44:01Speaker 04

  Well, look, you, you, you got, you got your, you got your sign that-

• 44:03Bill Maher?

  Slow-moving coup. I was saying that, before he was elected the first time.

• 44:08Speaker 04

  I'm not taking it away from you.

• 44:09Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 44:09Speaker 04

  But I'm, but I'm saying, we, we, we, we inure ourselves to this stuff. It becomes normalized by virtue of the fact that it's happening over time. But I think if you asked anybody in 2016, hey, how would you feel if, if a president who defied a 9-0 Supreme Court order decided to send the military into American cities with, with no end dates so that he can enact some nebulous plan? You would, you would, you would not hesitate for a second to say, that sounds fashy to me.

• 44:36Bill Maher?

  It does, and it is.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  And, and just because we've, we've been here and we've seen it happen slowly over the course of a decade, should not and does not negate the things that are happening.

• 44:46Bill Maher?

  And music about a third term.

• 44:48Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 44:49Bill Maher?

  All these extralegal things he does. I mean, yeah, of course. I mean, there's, we, we have no argument about that. As, as I always say to the woke, uh, we voted for the same person. You're just why she lost.

• 45:03Speaker 04

  Do you think that there would have been, I'm, I'm curious, do you think any Democrat? I, I have an opinion on this. Do you think any Democrat would have been able to beat Trump?

• 45:11Bill Maher?

  I am all in on Mom Donnie.

• 45:14Speaker 04

  Okay, wait, well, well, let's stick to

• 45:16Bill Maher?

  I'm fucking with you.

• 45:18Speaker 04

  In 20, in 24, do you think any, anybody on the left could have, uh, could have defeated Trump? I have an answer for this, but I want to hear what you have to say.

• 45:26Bill Maher?

  Okay, I mean, I'm a Californian, Californian.

• 45:31Bill Maher?

  And, you know, I'm friendly with our governor, who I also get on his case and have for being far too left. And I'm all, I mean, it's becoming like we're friends. So it's kind of a kidding thing, but you know, like I will talk to him about the first thing when I see him. I won't even say his name. I'll just start on the potholes. Or I couldn't get my solar hooked up. Or all the crazy of California that he has to wear as baggage. I mean, you know, it's a, it's a state where it's hard to buck that. But yeah, I think you could, and he's starting to. He has moved to the right, or let's say the center, on three big issues that I could name. I won't bore the crowd, or maybe we will. But, uh, and this is what I've been hoping he could do.

• 46:16Bill Maher?

  It's a lot of baggage, but I always thought this guy has what it takes to be a presidential winner because, uh, he's just really smart. He's a great fighter, like he's mean, which is great. He knows how to be mean where you should. And he looks great. That doesn't hurt to be the tall, good looking guy in the race. Uh, the Democrats, I think, have maybe learned their lesson and gone through their phase where they couldn't stand the sight of a white heterosexual man. And maybe they're over that now.

• 46:53Speaker 04

  I wonder, I wonder if there will be electoral, like Democrats love to worry about electability. So we'll, we'll often get meta with it and say like, okay, I want X person, but I have to choose Y person because I don't think X person can win. Instead of just choosing

• 47:07Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 47:07Speaker 04

  X person because you want them, because, because you like them. But I think to that point, because I don't think that we've shed our, our interminable fear of not winning elections and focusing on electability. I do think that after Hillary, after Kamala, I don't know that Democrats are going to be able to stomach, uh, uh, putting forward a woman as the, as the nominee, just because of those two reasons. I think that Democrats are, there's a world in which Democrats are going to say, The last, you know, two of the last three nominees were women. Both of those women lost, the man won. And so for fear of losing again to whoever, of whether it's some iteration of, you know, the Steve Bannon, let's put Trump in for a term, or JD Vance, or whoever it is.

• 47:50Speaker 04

  I think there will be a reversion, if I had to guess. But then again, I told you I can't predict anything.

• 47:55Bill Maher?

  I couldn't agree more. There, I would, again, and I have made a lot of predictions, and all of them were right, except Kamala. And that's okay. I mean, I kind of did that as wishful thinking. But this is where it circles back to the Seth Rogen Show. Because them casting the president and vice president slot is exactly that episode.

• 48:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:21Bill Maher?

  They're gonna start out.

• 48:22Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 48:22Bill Maher?

  They're gonna go, okay, we can't have a woman.

• 48:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:24Bill Maher?

  Because we just had two and they lost. But we can't have a white man. Or we can't, we can't have a, we have to have some non-white man presence on the ticket. So it's gonna be, okay, so it's gonna be, say it's Gavin, and then it's gonna be like, okay, and then, okay, Pete Buttigieg, because he's also gay. Okay, but then what are you saying? That gays can only get the second, and they're gonna do the exact episode.

• 48:52Speaker 04

  Probably. I mean, that's what, that's, that's what it, that's.

• 48:56Bill Maher?

  I know.

• 48:57Speaker 04

  I mean, look, the, the, the reality of the situation is that Democrats are the Big Ten Party, and there are a lot of coalitions that are representing. It'd be a hell of a lot easier to be a Republican, you're just a bunch of old Christian white guys, you know? And so.

• 49:09Bill Maher?

  Well, I would hardly call Trump a Christian.

• 49:11Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, but, but that's, that's who he panders to. You know, he's certainly not pandering to the atheists out there.

• 49:16Bill Maher?

  No.

• 49:17Speaker 04

  So, I mean, that's, that's their problem to deal with. The fact that, that they have created, that they have accepted as their deity, a guy who, you know, I mean, not exactly, not exactly embracing the ideals of Christianity on a daily basis.

• 49:32Bill Maher?

  Question to me is like a perfect example of how people want something in the middle. Um, I'm hoping to give them that. Uh, and on either side, they're ridiculous. I mean, the Republicans are definitely too white male. And the Democrats are definitely too, we gotta check the box first. And America just wants something where we just, okay, we acknowledge our terrible racial past.

• 49:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:58Bill Maher?

  I, I think most Americans think it's, it's apropos to, uh, not just acknowledge it, but make certain remedial steps. But it's a different world than it was back in, you know, when we were as bad as Iran. Uh, and, and it's also, um, not correct to completely throw merit over the side of the chip.

• 50:23Speaker 04

  Well, I actually, I actually, I actually think that the defining factor in this upcoming election, again, to, to predict something that I have no idea that it's gonna pan out or not, is, is not gonna be political ideology. It's actually just gonna be, um, a, a willingness to fight. And I, I, I think that far and away is gonna be the number one thing. Democrats for so long have felt like the, the party of strongly worded letters. And for somebody like me who has grown up in the Trump era, like I've come, I've come of age in the Trump era and I've watched as these motherfuckers don't care about anything. Like, we're out here saying like process norms, institutions, and they're like, we don't give a fuck about any of those things. Democrats are like, oh, the parliamentarian says no.

• 51:08Speaker 04

  Republicans are like, fire the fucking parliamentarian. And this has been my whole life in politics, watching this play out, where, where Democrats will play by the rules in hopes, in hope of some elusive reciprocation that never arrives. And we'll say, okay, we'll, we'll, we'll, Mitch McConnell says he's gonna put forward these new rules about the Supreme Court, Democrats get fucked. The, the, you know, the parliamentarian says we can include something, Democrats get fucked. Like, every single instance is, is, is Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown.

• 51:37Bill Maher?

  They have no shame.

• 51:38Speaker 04

  And they, they have no shame.

• 51:39Bill Maher?

  You have to, you have to start with that. When Mitch McConnell did that and said, Well, um, we've always done it where when a guy dies on the Supreme Court, whoever's president gets to pick. I know it's sort of weird because like, you know, five guys could die during one guy's term and no guys could die during another guy's term. So it's kind of a fuck system to begin with, but that's our system and we've always done it.

• 52:03Speaker 04

  Cut to.

• 52:03Bill Maher?

  And he just went, nope, not with this guy.

• 52:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, we're gonna change that.

• 52:08Bill Maher?

  You know, like, the law became make me.

• 52:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:11Bill Maher?

  So Trump did not exactly invent that. Mitch McConnell kind of invented that.

• 52:16Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 52:16Bill Maher?

  And Trump ran with it. It was perfect.

• 52:19Speaker 04

  He was a symptom of the larger disease, but the disease was there.

• 52:22Speaker 00

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes. Para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro. Para los que están lejos, los que no vende lejos y los que no vende cerca. Para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos. Para los que piensan y los que hacen. Para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola, para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.

• 52:54Speaker 01

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• 53:22Speaker 06

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• 53:48Speaker 07

  I love you, you love me, it's Hershey's, wee wee.

• 53:52Speaker 04

  But I think that, going back to that point, whether you are willing to come in there and actually fight back, and look, you can fight for virtuous things. Like, you can fight for expanded access to healthcare. You can fight for women's reproductive rights, climate change, stricter gun laws, whatever it may be on the left. But like, the key word is that you're actually willing to fight. And we just don't, I mean, Democrats are older. They are of a different generation. They don't have leadership that is going, for whom fighting and winning is gonna be their MO, is gonna be their North Star, and they need it.

• 54:25Bill Maher?

  But you also have to fight against your own parties or own factions fringe.

• 54:32Speaker 04

  I feel like it will, it will, I think a big part of the reason that so many warring factions on the left are so unsettled right now is because we're not in power anywhere. And so now comes the point where everybody wants to come out of the woodwork and say, "It's because of this. It's because you didn't do all of this like me, like my positions, because you didn't put forward these positions that I espoused." So there is no winning formula. And so as a result of that, everybody thinks their formula is the winning formula. And I think that once we win, all of a sudden it'll be like, "Oh, you're right, that's how you did it. Oh, Barack Obama won by doing X, Y, Z, that's how to win."

• 55:11Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 55:12Speaker 04

  And it quells some of that turmoil that I think is brewing right now.

• 55:15Bill Maher?

  I don't disagree with that at all. I'm just saying apropos to your question you asked a half hour ago or whenever it was, about do I regret going to that dinner?

• 55:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:25Bill Maher?

  Not in the least, because I now have standing with the Republicans in a way you don't, which is why they don't do your show and they do mine. Because, and I've said it a couple of times on my show already. I said, "You know what? I went to the White House. A lot of people on the left said you shouldn't even do that. And then I told the truth, and they really came after me." Remember I had dinner with Hitler, according to Larry David? Come on, man. Why don't you play the Hitler card? You lost. But, okay. So what I can say to Republicans and have said to them is, "You know what?" I told the truth. I didn't shrink from that, and I took the heat from the left.

• 56:08Bill Maher?

  Now I want you to do the same thing. You do it. You take the heat from the right, because I want you to be honest. Do you really think it's cool to talk about running for a third term? Because I know you don't. And I have standing to say that to them, because I already got my beating from the left about me telling the truth.

• 56:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:28Bill Maher?

  That's a really important weapon to have in your pocket.

• 56:31Speaker 04

  If I would, I agree up to the point where an important weapon to have, but like, you said it yourself, this is a shameless Republican Party. And so when you come out-

• 56:40Bill Maher?

  Shameless, but at least they hear it.

• 56:42Speaker 04

  I mean, I mean, I wrote a book that, whose title was Shameless. Like, that is the title of my book. And that came out last year. And so like, I, I get it. And I think that that's actually their greatest weapon. And-

• 56:54Bill Maher?

  In a way, yes.

• 56:55Speaker 04

  Because, because how do you shame, how do you shame the shameless? What, what tool do you have? What public pressure can you impose on somebody for whom shame doesn't exist anymore?

• 57:05Bill Maher?

  To get back to what we were saying a little while ago, and I never finished it. I guess we go, some, one of us is stoned. But like I was saying, why Trump is different in public? And I'm saying his father, you know, the way he was raised. He just has it in his head. And you know, as a political animal, it's not completely wrong. Uh, that if you ever give an inch, if you ever show any weakness-

• 57:31Speaker 04

  That's the Roy Cohn School of Management.

• 57:32Bill Maher?

  Right. If you ever apologize, say you were wrong about anything, it, it is interpreted by a certain percentage of the lizard brain as weakness.

• 57:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:42Bill Maher?

  And that's why, in public, he never goes there. It's just always, "You're an asshole, and I'm right, and I was never wrong, and it was a perfect call." And then, there's just, I don't give an inch. But that's not who he actually is. That's what I found out. So, the fact that I have more information than you, the fact that you would think that's bad? That I have more information?

• 58:06Speaker 04

  No, I don't, I don't think it's bad that you have more information. I just think it doesn't count for anything-

• 58:10Bill Maher?

  Oh, it does.

• 58:12Speaker 04

  That's who he is in private because nobody get like you don't you don't get points.

• 58:17Bill Maher?

  I feel like what.

• 58:18Speaker 04

  You don't get points for for saying something. You don't get points for being self-aware in private. You get you get points for what you actually do on the world stage.

• 58:25Bill Maher?

  I'm not looking to score points.

• 58:27Speaker 04

  Not you, I'm saying I'm saying for him.

• 58:28Bill Maher?

  I'm looking to make the country better. And by the way,

• 58:33Bill Maher?

  what happens in private is what always motivates him, I think, in public. Again, he doesn't do a lot of reading. It's a lot of, I was talking to people. People are saying, well, who are these people?

• 58:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:49Bill Maher?

  Uh, I would much rather there be people like me in his ear. I think there should be more people like me. And he and the thing is, I'm telling you, he will listen. He's that. That's also the thing about him.

• 59:02Speaker 04

  I would rather have moderating forces there, too, but I think that world is I think that world is gone.

• 59:07Bill Maher?

  He reinvented the entire Republican Party.

• 59:09Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 59:10Bill Maher?

  I mean, right? I mean, all the things, it doesn't matter. It's a cult of personality. It's also his superpower. It means that he can turn on a dime or go against the promise he just made, just like the most amazing used car salesman.

• 59:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:23Bill Maher?

  And the people will go along with it.

• 59:26Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 59:26Bill Maher?

  It does not matter.

• 59:27Speaker 04

  I don't know if that's if that's a plus for him or an indictment on the rest of the party.

• 59:31Bill Maher?

  Well, it's a plus for you as a politician or a leader. I mean.

• 59:34Speaker 04

  And and an indictment on the rest of the GOP.

• 59:36Bill Maher?

  Elon Musk was the greatest guy, and now he's the worst.

• 59:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:38Bill Maher?

  And Putin, like, OK, this apparently was his negotiating strategy. One, surrender, give Putin everything. And then, when he disappoints me and doesn't like take yes for an answer, then I turn on him. And I, you know, like, I just cannot predict this guy or what will happen. And I'll tell you this, though, he is lucky. He's a lucky motherfucker. I'm not a I'm an atheist. I don't know a person who believes in that crazy shit or weird. But I'm, I mean, there is, I don't know, if he sold his soul to the devil, that is certainly possible. But he has a luck. I mean, winning the first election, you had to have pulled an inside straight like you can't believe in politics.

• 1:00:23Speaker 04

  I didn't watch the returns until late at night in 2016 or late 2015 because I was like Hillary's gonna win. I was working that night and I was like, I'm fine, like it's all good. No, I was, well, I was, nobody, nobody works as an actor. Like, I was, I had my other job, which was I was personal training at the time.

• 1:00:42Bill Maher?

  Personal training?

• 1:00:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:44Bill Maher?

  What about the wrestling?

• 1:00:45Speaker 04

  Uh, well, no, it was just like weight, weight training with like clients.

• 1:00:48Bill Maher?

  Another way to get near guys who are training.

• 1:00:50Speaker 04

  That's right, that's right.

• 1:00:51Bill Maher?

  I'm not saying anything, Brian.

• 1:00:52Speaker 04

  They were especially confused when I was like, you have to show up in a singlet.

• 1:00:55Bill Maher?

  But, but let's be honest. You did find a way to put your hands on men again.

• 1:00:59Speaker 04

  Hey, you know what, I, I, I had learned.

• 1:01:01Bill Maher?

  Are you a married man?

• 1:01:02Speaker 04

  I'm not.

• 1:01:03Bill Maher?

  What is your personal life like? Let's get off politics. This is, this is club random.

• 1:01:08Speaker 04

  It's weird being in LA because everything feels very delayed in LA. Like, I'm from Jersey, like you, and everybody was, was married, had, had their families right away, like 20, 23, 24 years old, uh, with all my friends. I went to, to Lehigh University, so all my friends that I graduated with from Lehigh, all my friends I went to college with.

• 1:01:28Bill Maher?

  Pennsylvania, yeah, Lehigh.

• 1:01:29Speaker 04

  All, all got married right away. Out here, it's like, uh, there's a, there's, there's definitely a, a, a Neverland, you know, feel to like.

• 1:01:39Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:01:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, there feels, there's, there's, you know, there's like a, there's like a major delay. I mean, all of my friends.

• 1:01:45Bill Maher?

  I don't know what you mean by that delay.

• 1:01:46Speaker 04

  Like, people put, I think, I think with the entertainment, all of my, my whole social circle is, is, uh, is, is folks in the entertainment industry. And I think that there's such a, I feel like you can, when your, when your career is in order, it allows you to get into, uh.

• 1:02:03Bill Maher?

  Restaurants?

• 1:02:04Speaker 04

  Say again?

• 1:02:05Bill Maher?

  Restaurants.

• 1:02:06Speaker 04

  Right, restaurant, first of all, restaurants. When your career's in order, I feel like the rest of your life can kind of fall into place. Um, but nobody's career is ever in order out here because you're just hustling the whole time if you're in the entertainment industry. And so there's this, this unrest, there's this like. There's this like sense that you're not settled in anything and so and so I don't know if it's like the hustle and I'm sure other industries are the same but but I've seen it to a degree that I've not seen it anywhere else and any other industry.

• 1:02:32Bill Maher?

  That's exactly probably how I felt when I was your age. That's not how you feel now.

• 1:02:38Speaker 04

  When when did you?

• 1:02:38Bill Maher?

  You know, you're not you're not gonna feel that way. I mean, I'm I'm a seventy, you're not gonna feel that way because you have established yourself. You're right. When you're

• 1:02:47Speaker 04

  It's new though.

• 1:02:48Bill Maher?

  Your mid thirties.

• 1:02:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:49Bill Maher?

  You're still striving and by the way, I'll tell you something about your future. It's like this is a lot better mentally because at least for me.

• 1:02:59Speaker 04

  What is?

• 1:03:00Bill Maher?

  Well, because one of the greatest anxieties I ever had um was am I gonna be a failure, you know, how's this gonna end up?

• 1:03:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:09Bill Maher?

  You know, once you've sort of like gotten past that where like, oh, even if it ended tomorrow. I mean, I've been on TV thirty two years. Straight, okay, it's like, no one's gonna say that was a failed career. So like, you know, you there's a certain equanimity that comes over your mind.

• 1:03:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:29Bill Maher?

  When you have that, that you just don't have at your age.

• 1:03:31Speaker 04

  When when did you when when did you start Real Time?

• 1:03:35Bill Maher?

  Well, I started Real Time in two thousand two, but I had done Politically Incorrect for nine years.

• 1:03:39Speaker 04

  And how old were you when you started?

• 1:03:41Bill Maher?

  Thirty six in Real Time.

• 1:03:44Speaker 04

  I'm thirty six.

• 1:03:44Bill Maher?

  Politically Incorrect, yeah.

• 1:03:45Speaker 04

  But like

• 1:03:46Bill Maher?

  And until then, I feel like I felt like I didn't I hadn't gotten my ticket punch because

• 1:03:50Speaker 04

  But you grew up in Jersey and so you grew up around regular, normal people who were not in the industry.

• 1:03:55Bill Maher?

  Oh, not at all.

• 1:03:55Speaker 04

  And and I'm sure that those people got their lives started way in advance of you, that they were having kid, that they already had two, three kids.

• 1:04:02Bill Maher?

  I never wanted to have kids. So that was a victory, not a

• 1:04:05Speaker 04

  Right, but but you saw people getting started with their lives in a different way than than when people come out here.

• 1:04:12Bill Maher?

  What I saw that caused great anxiety was people, comics who I had started with in the clubs in New York, starting to get like famous because they got to the sitcom level.

• 1:04:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:24Bill Maher?

  For example.

• 1:04:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:25Bill Maher?

  And I was still like in the and I was like, oh, my gosh.

• 1:04:29Speaker 04

  Was there a point where you didn't where you didn't know if you would like make it?

• 1:04:33Bill Maher?

  Totally, that's what I'm saying. That's what causes all the anxiety.

• 1:04:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:37Bill Maher?

  I mean, I came out here. And I'd done a few Tonight shows and they loved me and, you know, when you're the new piece of meat in town, you're always gonna do well and I got on sitcoms and, you know, it was all going uphill. And then, you know, at a certain point it plateaus and you're like, oh, fuck. I don't wanna be the third lead on Bringing Up Chunky, you know. And then there's a part where you're, there was like the early 90s. I was like, oh shit, am I, I'm home all day writing scripts. Am I gonna ever really? And then I got politically incorrect and, you know, never looked back. But it takes a while to get that sort of feeling that, oh, I.

• 1:05:21Speaker 04

  I'll be okay.

• 1:05:22Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I'll be okay and I'll be remembered as a success.

• 1:05:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:25Bill Maher?

  Some, and maybe it's not important to some people.

• 1:05:28Speaker 04

  No, I mean, look, I, I think if you're in this industry, if you're in, if you're in, and I say this industry, if you're in entertainment, I think that there is a, and I don't say this in a bad way 'cause I'm in the same industry too, but there is a degree of like, there is a degree of narcissism, right?

• 1:05:41Bill Maher?

  Sure.

• 1:05:41Speaker 04

  I'm sure there's a nicer way to, way to put it, but, but I think anybody in this industry is not, is not an introvert, right? And so there is that sense of, you know, anybody who's, wants to get in front of people, wants to entertain people, wants to move people, there is a degree of that. And, and if you feel like, you know, you're, you're doing this job and you can't break through and that there's, and you're not gonna be remembered or not, you're not gonna get a good part, you're not gonna be able to show people what you can do, then like, there, there is that nagging sense of like failure looming.

• 1:06:11Bill Maher?

  And there is also the possibility, although I would say it's fairly slim, but it is, you know, one, one of 10 chambers in the gun where you are really good and you still don't make it.

• 1:06:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:24Bill Maher?

  Some of it is just.

• 1:06:25Speaker 04

  I, I would give it more, more than one chamber.

• 1:06:27Bill Maher?

  You think so?

• 1:06:27Speaker 04

  Like, oh, I mean, this, I, I see the way, I mean, I've been, I've done the whole thing, the auditions and this and that. The easiest, the easiest jobs I've gotten and the best jobs I've gotten have not been because you walk in an audition room and they pluck you out of 30 people who auditioned. It's because somebody who's already on a movie tells the executive producer that, hey, I, I'm gonna do this, but you're gonna put my, you're gonna put my buddy in as, as guy number two.

• 1:06:51Bill Maher?

  And.

• 1:06:52Speaker 04

  This is, this is a nepotistic town.

• 1:06:53Bill Maher?

  It totally is. And even if that happens.

• 1:06:58Bill Maher?

  The luck part comes in is, is that movie gonna be a hit?

• 1:07:02Speaker 04

  Are you gonna be in the final cut?

• 1:07:04Bill Maher?

  If you, right.

• 1:07:04Speaker 04

  I've gotten, I've gotten, I've, I've gone through the whole shitty process of getting an agent, getting called in for an audition, getting, getting a call back, going for producers, booking the role, shooting the thing, and don't even make the final cut. So all you get paid for is your, is your day rate for, for the actual shoot, and you're not even in the thing. And so you have to go through all these steps, and at the end of the day, you might not even get anything for it.

• 1:07:26Bill Maher?

  Right. And if the movie isn't a hit, no one will see it.

• 1:07:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:30Bill Maher?

  You know, and if it is, even if you had nothing to do really with making it a hit, but you're in it, then you, then your ticket goes way up.

• 1:07:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:40Bill Maher?

  You know, so, yeah, there is.

• 1:07:42Speaker 04

  It's all like kind of a crapshoot.

• 1:07:43Bill Maher?

  There is some luck. I do also think that the really superior talent always wins out. I just think there's no way to keep down, sometimes you have to keep knocking on the door for a while, but there's no way to keep down one of those giants talents. I mean, there's no.

• 1:07:58Speaker 04

  Cream rises to the top.

• 1:07:59Bill Maher?

  Yes, I mean, show business has a lot of bullshit in the middle.

• 1:08:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:03Bill Maher?

  But the creamed, I mean, there's no way Steven Spielberg wasn't, you know, maybe Jaws, what if Jaws was not a hit? What if somebody, people, in 1975, people were like, sharks? It's the last thing I wanna see.

• 1:08:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:15Bill Maher?

  I'm swimming in the ocean, for Christ's sake. But they did, but like, would he have never risen? No, I don't think so. I think it would have taken the next one, and the next one, and that's how real the, you know, the, the contenders, not the pretenders.

• 1:08:30Speaker 04

  It's a, it's, it's a tough industry, though. I mean, like, you know, I moved out here to, to act, and, and that exact scenario that I played out, which is like, getting an agent, getting representation, trying to get in these rooms, which is half the battle, then when you get into the room, trying to get a call back, trying to get people to like you, the directors, the producers, whoever's sitting in that room. And there's a lot of people, the reason that I started doing digital media, digital political media, first of all, I'm, I'm passionate about politics, and that's been my whole life, but my whole career in entertainment has been. A lot of people, has been me waiting for people to say yes. And I can't move forward unless every single person, every step of the way says yes. And if there's one person who says no, I'm done.

• 1:09:14Speaker 04

  And so I started doing videos on-

• 1:09:16Bill Maher?

  Way too collaborative.

• 1:09:18Speaker 04

  I mean, I started doing videos on Facebook and I would shoot them alone. I would set up my camera, hit record, I'd write my own scripts and I continued to.

• 1:09:25Bill Maher?

  You made the right choice. I mean, acting is such a one in a million shot. I mean, even if you're good at it, you can be like the greatest character actor in the world. You make middling money.

• 1:09:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:36Bill Maher?

  All the money goes to the above the title stars.

• 1:09:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:41Bill Maher?

  At the end of the day, people know your face and you can't even get a table at a restaurant. And if you dare to like turn a roll down because they're not paying you enough, they'll go, "Well, go to the next character actor who is also very good at his job, and also people don't know his name and he'll be fine."

• 1:09:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:59Bill Maher?

  You know what? We don't, we don't, the world has more than one Charles Durning.

• 1:10:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:04Bill Maher?

  I don't mean to insult Charles Durning, who was terrific.

• 1:10:07Speaker 04

  But like, you know, the world is changing too because when I, when I grew up, like that was, I mean, TV and film are like the thing, right? Everybody, everybody wants to be a movie star. And now these, these kids, like Gen Z and Gen Alpha, they watch YouTube. And so I talk to my niece and nephew-

• 1:10:26Bill Maher?

  Right, oh sure.

• 1:10:26Speaker 04

  And, and they love YouTubers.

• 1:10:28Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:10:29Speaker 04

  And, and it's weird because, you know, I grew up idolizing like, you know, Tom Hanks and, and all these guys who, who I, you know, Russell Crowe and, and Adam Sandler and all the guys that I grew up watching on TV, watching in their movies. And it's just a different, it's a different world where like now people watch streamers and, you know, stare at YouTube all day, stare at Twitch all day.

• 1:10:50Bill Maher?

  I try not to pander to that, but I do have a new YouTube coming out about how to shave your back. I'm just saying, guys-

• 1:10:57Speaker 04

  Huge, huge demand for that among the Gen, Gen Alpha contingent.

• 1:11:03Bill Maher?

  But isn't that your impression that that's a lot of what goes on? It's like, it's like opening presents and-

• 1:11:09Speaker 04

  I mean, like, it, it is weird because you have, you have the, we grew up- In an era where you have the best 22 minutes of TV that get filtered down so that you're never, so that there's never a dull moment.

• 1:11:23Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:11:23Speaker 04

  And the streamer, and streaming is inherently four, five, six, seven, eight, as you know, hours of, of a lot of filler and it's, even my videos are short. Like my, my YouTube videos average about eight to 12 minutes. And I make sure that there's not even a breath. So it's just, it's just protein, right? No, no, no, no empty calories. But, but streaming is a whole different animal and people will just sit there. I mean, viewing habits have changed and people will sit there and watch these, these, uh, these people who kind of like, um, inform their, inform their, their whole worldview. Yeah, I mean, you know.

• 1:12:00Bill Maher?

  I mean, when I started this, the first year we were doing like an hour and the biggest complaint was.

• 1:12:05Speaker 04

  It's not long enough.

• 1:12:06Bill Maher?

  And I would always say, wow, the American attention span, it's either eight seconds or three hours.

• 1:12:12Speaker 04

  That's been, that's been the hard part.

• 1:12:13Bill Maher?

  There's no middle ground.

• 1:12:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:12:15Bill Maher?

  And but yeah, one hour was like, you are cheating us. And so I was like, yeah, hey, can I get high for two hours? You bet I can.

• 1:12:22Speaker 04

  Yeah. Have you, have you ever had, do you, do you notice like a market change from as you smoke more and more? Do you, are you, uh, are you different or are you basically steady the whole time? I smoke, I smoke.

• 1:12:36Bill Maher?

  I wish I could get that high. I've been smoking for half a century, more than your, been time you've been alive. I wish I could get that high, but they just don't have it. And I mean, I'd have to mainline it or something.

• 1:12:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:48Bill Maher?

  And that's okay. I don't need, I don't need to get crazy high.

• 1:12:50Speaker 04

  Do you ever, do you ever impose, uh, like, do you ever impose like, um, you know, week long or month long, um, stops so that, so that when you smoke again, it'll be more potent, be more effective?

• 1:13:04Bill Maher?

  Uh, that has been one of my New Year's resolutions.

• 1:13:07Speaker 04

  For how many years?

• 1:13:08Bill Maher?

  Since 1975. Seriously, I would love to do that. Um, yeah, no, it's never the, it's like the guy in Airplane, I picked the wrong week to. Stop sniffing glue, you know, I mean, there's just never a good week and you know, what I have to say about pot is that it's not something that calls to me to smoke it, which I would call an addiction. When I was smoking cigarettes, it demanded that I smoke a cigarette.

• 1:13:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:37Bill Maher?

  Pot never, I don't even think about smoking pot unless I have a reason.

• 1:13:41Speaker 04

  Until the joint is in your hand every day.

• 1:13:44Bill Maher?

  As you can see. Figure, no, until I have a.

• 1:13:48Speaker 04

  Tell me more about how you.

• 1:13:50Bill Maher?

  Well, because you're seeing me at a moment where I smoke pot.

• 1:13:53Speaker 04

  Right, no, I know.

• 1:13:53Bill Maher?

  But like, I really don't, like, I'm not like watching TV at night and go, oh, boy. I wish I was stoned right now or like, ah, I gotta get up and I, it doesn't even cross my mind.

• 1:14:03Speaker 04

  It kind of does for me, like, I.

• 1:14:06Bill Maher?

  You smoke?

• 1:14:06Speaker 04

  I, I smoke every, well, because, because.

• 1:14:09Bill Maher?

  Oh, okay, I get it, I get it.

• 1:14:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, that would be any, any useful conversation.

• 1:14:14Bill Maher?

  I get it. Same reason I don't smoke for real time.

• 1:14:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:17Bill Maher?

  That would be a disaster because it's too much. Some things you can do stoned, I, I mean, I can, I won't talk for everybody, and some things you can't. But the things that I can, I always want to do stoned.

• 1:14:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:30Bill Maher?

  You know, this fucking, you know, there's certain things, I'm sorry. Writing, you know, that are like just easier, better.

• 1:14:38Speaker 04

  See, I, I can't do anything where I need to be, where I, where I have to make cogent thoughts. I, I, that's, it's, and which I think is actually a good thing because I, I reserve it for fun. And which, which for me is at the end of the day, like, I, I usually finish, I, I'll work like fourteen, about fourteen hours a day and I'll start at seven or eight in the morning and I'll go until about nine o'clock at night.

• 1:14:59Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 1:14:59Speaker 04

  And which means I only have like a couple hours of, of downtime.

• 1:15:03Bill Maher?

  Your girl must be pissed at you.

• 1:15:04Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm a blast to date.

• 1:15:06Bill Maher?

  Do you live together?

• 1:15:07Speaker 04

  We do, yeah. But it's, it's always.

• 1:15:09Bill Maher?

  Do you work out of your house?

• 1:15:11Speaker 04

  I work out of the house, so I'm, so I'm, I'm around all day long. It's not like she's hurting to see me.

• 1:15:15Bill Maher?

  You could go from. Working dude to Mac Daddy in five minutes.

• 1:15:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, if I was working, if I wasn't working 15 hours a day, then yeah. But I mean, I do, look, I work out of my house and there's plenty to keep me busy the whole day.

• 1:15:31Bill Maher?

  And you attribute this to Judaism?

• 1:15:33Speaker 04

  This must be my, we can't have milk. I have no gastrointestinal system. I'm allergic to anything with whey protein, with whey, casein, any dairy. Say again?

• 1:15:44Bill Maher?

  Are you serious?

• 1:15:45Speaker 04

  I actually am, I actually am serious.

• 1:15:47Bill Maher?

  Why? Is that a Jewish thing?

• 1:15:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a Jewish thing. We're built, like, we are not a robust people. Jews, Jews, we may be like the attorneys and the doctors, but like, give us a cup of fucking milk and we're done.

• 1:16:01Bill Maher?

  What is about, I've heard that, why is that?

• 1:16:03Speaker 04

  Because we're 2% of the world's population and there is a certain degree of.

• 1:16:08Bill Maher?

  Not even, not 2%.

• 1:16:10Speaker 04

  Is it not even 2%? Is it 0%?

• 1:16:12Bill Maher?

  15 million people out of 8 billion?

• 1:16:14Speaker 04

  Is it 0.2%?

• 1:16:16Bill Maher?

  That's more like.

• 1:16:17Speaker 04

  0.2%?

• 1:16:18Bill Maher?

  It's definitely not 2%.

• 1:16:20Speaker 04

  Because we're 0.2% of the world's population and.

• 1:16:23Bill Maher?

  8 billion, so 2% would be 800 million, right?

• 1:16:29Bill Maher?

  Wait, wait, what's 10% of 8 billion?

• 1:16:31Speaker 04

  Oh boy.

• 1:16:32Bill Maher?

  I'm the stone one, that would be 8, that would be 800 million.

• 1:16:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:37Bill Maher?

  Okay, so it's not that, that's 10%. So it's a fifth of 800.

• 1:16:42Speaker 04

  160 million.

• 1:16:43Bill Maher?

  It's not what Jews are.

• 1:16:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, in any case.

• 1:16:46Bill Maher?

  It's a 0.02 or something, yeah, okay.

• 1:16:49Speaker 04

  So, anyway, that's why we're allergic to dairy. That's why, that's why our gastrointestinal systems are failing as a collective whole.

• 1:16:57Bill Maher?

  It's interesting that the Bible, especially books like Leviticus,

• 1:17:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:01Bill Maher?

  have a lot of laws about eating. And they're right next to like slavery, not a problem, just, you know, don't beat your slave.

• 1:17:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:11Bill Maher?

  Or if you kill your slave, if you kill another man's slave, he gets to take your slave. Like, lots of rules about slavery, none of them don't do it.

• 1:17:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:19Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 1:17:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:19Bill Maher?

  But right next to that is like, don't eat lobster.

• 1:17:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:24Bill Maher?

  Like fucking don't mix meat with with milk.

• 1:17:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:29Bill Maher?

  Okay, slavery, lobster. And they and it's just so funny that people take to me that they take this shit seriously because it was obviously written in an era where people were just, I'm sorry, no insult to the people back then, but you were early on in the human.

• 1:17:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, you're talking about like bleeding people out via leeches and.

• 1:17:49Bill Maher?

  Oh, that was much later.

• 1:17:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:51Bill Maher?

  That works. They still do it. Do you know that?

• 1:17:54Speaker 04

  No, I didn't know that.

• 1:17:55Bill Maher?

  They absolutely still use leeches.

• 1:17:57Speaker 04

  But but but does it work?

• 1:17:58Bill Maher?

  Sometimes it's the best way to bleed someone out. Can you imagine?

• 1:18:02Speaker 04

  When you say the best way to bleed someone out, is that a thing?

• 1:18:05Bill Maher?

  Like they do it in the hospital.

• 1:18:06Speaker 04

  And leeches are the best way to do it?

• 1:18:09Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:18:09Speaker 04

  You mean in some places?

• 1:18:10Bill Maher?

  In some instances, not places, instances.

• 1:18:15Speaker 04

  What what would? I'm just so curious what what an instance would be.

• 1:18:18Bill Maher?

  I'm not Dr. Oz, bro.

• 1:18:20Speaker 04

  Where they're like, we have, we have a pick line here, but hear me out.

• 1:18:25Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:18:25Speaker 04

  Hear me out.

• 1:18:27Bill Maher?

  Sometimes the natural way is best.

• 1:18:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:31Bill Maher?

  Let me introduce Dr. Ho, my Chinese.

• 1:18:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah, no, they that was just a bad example, but I get your point.

• 1:18:40Speaker 04

  But but anyway, going back to the going back to the weed thing, yeah, that's that's I I guess I guess I only I I keep it to non-work stuff. And so for me, it has a good association because it means that I get to watch movies, I get to eat, um, and I enjoy food more like you just enjoy everything a little bit more. And it's a quick way, it's a quick way to to wind down without a hangover. And I have to be on camera every single day and I work seven days a week.

• 1:19:06Bill Maher?

  So you you use pot the way most people do more for relaxation. See, I'm the opposite. I use it for work, not to sex as work, but it's effort, you know? It's like you've got to be, it's it's good, but like it's not passive. And not watching a movie is passive. I would never get stoned to watch a movie.

• 1:19:23Speaker 04

  I've had a couple of instances where I've where I've smoked and I'm I'm like, for all intents and purposes, out of commission. And then something happens in the news and I think like two or three times. And this is over like the last, you know, the last few years, but like two or three times where, I mean, I'll usually wait until it's pretty late at night, but we live in the Trump era and anything can happen pretty late at night.

• 1:19:44Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:19:45Speaker 04

  And I'm already high and I'm like, see something break and I'm like.

• 1:19:50Speaker 04

  Okay, I'm gonna try. And I just like, and I have to just power through.

• 1:19:54Bill Maher?

  And you have to get it out that fast?

• 1:19:55Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:19:56Bill Maher?

  Your audience wants you to react to something that quickly.

• 1:19:59Speaker 04

  That's the whole, that's the whole game. That's, that's how it goes on YouTube. I mean, like, you, you, you.

• 1:20:05Bill Maher?

  Wow, I'm like.

• 1:20:06Speaker 04

  News has a, news has a couple, you know.

• 1:20:08Bill Maher?

  I'm so the opposite. I'm on vacation, this is our summer break.

• 1:20:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:20:11Bill Maher?

  I mean, right after we went off the air, Trump dropped his big bomb.

• 1:20:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:20:15Bill Maher?

  Like, and I'm not on social media. I'm like, you know what? If you wanna know what I think, you'll wait for me to come back in August.

• 1:20:23Speaker 04

  You're, you're, you're lucky in the sense that you're established.

• 1:20:26Bill Maher?

  I'm sure that's not the right way to do it, but I.

• 1:20:28Speaker 04

  No, but I mean, look, you're established to the point where you can do that. I, I, I mean, I'm.

• 1:20:33Bill Maher?

  I'm just saying I shouldn't. It's not.

• 1:20:35Speaker 04

  No, I mean, but shouldn't, shouldn't, but like, but you don't need, you're not, you're not trying to make a name for yourself. You know what I mean? You've got, you've got your, you've got your show.

• 1:20:43Bill Maher?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 1:20:44Speaker 04

  This is still part of the rat race and making sure that you can get your, you know, get your news out before everybody else.

• 1:20:49Bill Maher?

  It's cooler. You'll wait for me, bitch. Yeah, you'll hear what I said about the bomb. Well, now they know I said it on the podcast.

• 1:20:56Speaker 04

  That's right, that's right. But like, you know, it's a, it's, um, it's, it's, it's all kind of like, you know, I, I left the entertainment industry because it felt like too much of rat race. I'm in a different kind of rat race, but it's, it's, you know, it's the same thing.

• 1:21:08Bill Maher?

  Also, you're still in the entertainment industry. You're just, you know.

• 1:21:12Speaker 04

  Writing, writing my own material.

• 1:21:13Bill Maher?

  Well, and also for people whose idea of entertainment is something intellectually nutritious.

• 1:21:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:20Bill Maher?

  And something that has to deal with what's going on in the world. I mean, when, when you eliminate like, the percentage of the population that they don't like you, they don't like me, it's not because of our, but they just are not interested in what we're talking about. What was the thing that you called the Iran deal before? The JBB.

• 1:21:38Speaker 04

  Oh, JCPOA.

• 1:21:39Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, like, I didn't know that one either. They don't even know about the Iran deal.

• 1:21:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:43Bill Maher?

  Or care.

• 1:21:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:44Bill Maher?

  Did you see Trump the other day at the White House when he was putting up two giant flag, flag poles? And he had like six construction workers behind him. And of course, he's Trump. So he goes out there and he just starts riffing and the picture, even the New York Times couldn't help themselves by showing a realistic picture. All the construction guys behind him, just smiling from ear to ear, laughing.

• 1:22:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:08Bill Maher?

  Because he was just like, whatever he was talking about, I mean, and they were like, wow, we're just here at the White House putting in a flagpole and this dude wanders out.

• 1:22:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:17Bill Maher?

  And just starts spewing. And like, that is a connection to the everyday person that most politicians, love him or hate him, they just do not have.

• 1:22:27Speaker 04

  It'll be interesting to see like, who the Democrats do choose to put forward, because I think.

• 1:22:32Bill Maher?

  Who do you want?

• 1:22:33Speaker 04

  Who do I want?

• 1:22:34Bill Maher?

  Yeah, who is your, you must have an idea.

• 1:22:36Speaker 04

  I don't know who I want yet.

• 1:22:39Bill Maher?

  Come on.

• 1:22:39Speaker 04

  Dead honest truth, I don't know who I want yet. I want, I want someone who, like I told you before, is gonna be a fighter. I don't really know, like.

• 1:22:47Bill Maher?

  Well, I'll give you my top two, my top three. Gavin, Pete, Ari, not Ari, he's my agent, his brother.

• 1:22:56Speaker 04

  Rahm Emanuel.

• 1:22:57Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:58Speaker 04

  Rahm Emanuel.

• 1:22:59Bill Maher?

  And I get it, they're all white men, thank God, thank God Pete is not interested in vaginas.

• 1:23:09Bill Maher?

  So there's something in there. But those are my top three.

• 1:23:12Speaker 04

  Retain your progressive bona fides?

• 1:23:14Bill Maher?

  Oh my God, well, this is, I'm talking about, these are the Democrats.

• 1:23:17Speaker 04

  No, no, I know.

• 1:23:17Bill Maher?

  But.

• 1:23:18Speaker 04

  I think some other names.

• 1:23:19Bill Maher?

  Those are three, I think, very talented politicians. They all have something that recommends them highly. They're all, they're all good. All those three guys are good. Those are, that is a talented field to like, make the final choice from, is my estimation.

• 1:23:38Speaker 04

  I think, I think those, those names are very likely to be there. I think Wes Moore is another name to keep an eye out for.

• 1:23:47Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I don't.

• 1:23:48Speaker 04

  The governor of Maryland.

• 1:23:49Bill Maher?

  I just don't know enough about him.

• 1:23:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, agreed.

• 1:23:51Bill Maher?

  That's the only reason why.

• 1:23:52Speaker 04

  Which, by the way, might, which, by the way, in this environment, may play to his, his favor, because, you know, Pete has baggage with the Biden administration, Gavin has baggage, because he's the governor of California, the big punching bag of the United States. Wes Moore has no, he doesn't have name ID, but he has no baggage right now.

• 1:24:08Bill Maher?

  But here's, here's something that some percentage of voters will think, if it's Wes Moore. They'll think, okay, the Democrats put up Kamala, who really wasn't that great, because they're the Democrats, and they just had to put up someone, a person of color. So now you got this guy Wes Moore and come on, isn't he there just because he's a person of color? I'm not saying that's what the truth is.

• 1:24:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:24:33Bill Maher?

  I'm saying that's what, that's what the Democrats bought themselves with going too far on the DEI train. That's what they bought themselves. Suspicion now for any person of color who is at the head of the ticket.

• 1:24:48Speaker 04

  I, I think, I think he will, I, I, I know him to a degree and I think that he will, um, that he'll, he'll dispel any of, any of those rumors.

• 1:24:57Bill Maher?

  Good.

• 1:24:58Speaker 04

  And, uh.

• 1:24:59Bill Maher?

  The more the merrier that are qualified.

• 1:25:00Speaker 04

  I really honestly like think these days, you know, it's, it's, it feels less to me like it's gonna be about checking any boxes and more about who the person is. If, if, if you look, if you look at like.

• 1:25:13Bill Maher?

  That's optimistic.

• 1:25:14Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, I mean, look, you have to have some, you have to have some optimism in this space. If you don't, you'll just, you'll go crazy. Like if you, if you have no sense of hope and you work in Democrat, and you work in Democratic politics.

• 1:25:24Bill Maher?

  Honestly, the fact that New York is considering electing Mamdammy, Mamdon, Mamdonny mayor, uh, is not a great harbinger for the Democratic Party. That is not a great look.

• 1:25:40Speaker 04

  It is, it is, it is, um.

• 1:25:42Bill Maher?

  And maybe you like him, maybe he's your boy.

• 1:25:44Speaker 04

  It is a testament to the fact, here's what I think. I think it's a testament to the fact that, that despite what in the past might have seemed like, seemed like disqualifying factors, um, I think that people are drawn to, to the individual candidates who can, who can, who can stand out among fields of very rote, boring politicians.

• 1:26:06Bill Maher?

  You kinda look like him, you know?

• 1:26:07Speaker 04

  I, I, I look, I, I look like, uh.

• 1:26:09Bill Maher?

  I'm just saying.

• 1:26:10Speaker 04

  I look like Zohran Mamdani.

• 1:26:11Bill Maher?

  I don't know how you could like this guy, but okay.

• 1:26:12Speaker 04

  I, I, I think he is, I, I, I really don't, I really don't have a, a whole lot of opinions on the New York mayoral race because I don't, I don't, I really haven't followed that, that race.

• 1:26:21Bill Maher?

  Oh, fuck. Come on. Who are you fucking talking to here? You with your show and getting out of bed at, at three in the morning, stoned out of your mind, you're broke to report, doesn't have thoughts on the New York mayor race? Where New York City is about to nominate, well, he's definitely gonna be the Democratic candidate for mayor, someone who has said things like, uh, we should, the government should take over the means of production? I'm not going to suggest what political party of the past that is aligned with, but I think we all know it begins with a C.

• 1:26:53Speaker 04

  I think-

• 1:26:53Bill Maher?

  That's pretty crazy stuff. And the ugly streak of antisemitism that is going through the far left of the Democratic Party, that is going to be the downfall. I mean, I would hope that at least the Jews would get on that page.

• 1:27:08Speaker 04

  I think, well, here's what I do think, as it relates to like Jews in New York. I think that if the Jews wanted a candidate to consolidate behind, if M'Donny was not their speed, that they made a mistake by putting Cuomo out as the-

• 1:27:25Bill Maher?

  They did, but that's past history.

• 1:27:27Speaker 04

  But that, but so, but you're-

• 1:27:28Bill Maher?

  On my hate, on my hate list, Trump talking about how he's gonna have to like take, go after New York City. Like, I thought the Republicans were all about states' rights and get the federal government, they're too powerful, out of our lives-

• 1:27:43Speaker 04

  No, they're, they're full of shit. They'll say whatever they need to say at the time, but that, these like, these flashy bumper stickers go-

• 1:27:49Bill Maher?

  None, none of these things that Trump does elude me or stop me from criticizing.

• 1:27:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:27:53Bill Maher?

  I get it. Like, the idea to, as much as I don't want M'Donny to be the mayor, the idea that the President of the United States would say, "Well, the federal government is gonna have to straighten out your city." Again, guys, Republicans, I have standing to say to you, be honest, that, you know this is exactly the opposite of what you've always said you think the federal government should be. Not someone who says they can come and straighten out your city.

• 1:28:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:28:23Bill Maher?

  Because that wasn't okay in Alabama, was it?

• 1:28:25Speaker 04

  No. I mean, what I, I mean, like, you know, for these local races, I, I truly don't really focus on the local races, other than LA, because this city I know, and I've been focused on like-

• 1:28:36Bill Maher?

  Well, you should start. Because this is, this thing in New York is not just, this is New York. We're not talking about-

• 1:28:43Speaker 04

  It's, it's the mayor's race.

• 1:28:45Bill Maher?

  It's a mayor of New York City.

• 1:28:48Speaker 04

  I understand, but.

• 1:28:48Bill Maher?

  New York City is different. It is our financial capital. It is our cultural capital in many ways. It's New York.

• 1:28:56Speaker 04

  I would say LA is the cultural capital. Our biggest export is culture.

• 1:29:00Bill Maher?

  Well, look, I mean.

• 1:29:02Speaker 04

  The entertainment industry, the TV and film industry? Although I have.

• 1:29:06Bill Maher?

  My early years were all dominated by New York as a suburb of New York. My father worked in New York, New York TV, New York sports teams. And then I lived there twice in my life.

• 1:29:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:29:15Bill Maher?

  I very much know New York. I'm not fond of it, you know. I respect it, but there are reasons why I never wanted to live there. It was, I love here. That's just, you know, a personality thing. But New York is New York. It's definitely, it's the media capital, the financial capital. It is a bellwether like no other city is in this country. So don't tell me that who the mayor of New York is doesn't matter.

• 1:29:44Speaker 04

  Let me play devil's advocate for a second. Do you think, let's say, you know, on the seize the means of production? Do you think the mayor, that one person, if he is a democratic socialist? Do you think that he would have the power and influence to be able to like usher in socialism?

• 1:30:01Bill Maher?

  He definitely has the power and influence to elect J D Vance or whoever is the Republican candidate next time. It is a walking commercial for the Republican Party nationally.

• 1:30:12Speaker 04

  The Republicans are gonna.

• 1:30:13Bill Maher?

  When you let the Democrats, socialists, and now they're actually calling themselves socialists. When you let them take over a major American city, this is what you get. The state-run grocery stores, which work so well in Cuba and the Soviet Union and Venezuela. Just bad ideas. And again, this ugly streak.

• 1:30:32Speaker 04

  Well, you look.

• 1:30:32Bill Maher?

  Ugly streak of antisemitism.

• 1:30:35Speaker 04

  Who's the most popular politician on the left?

• 1:30:38Bill Maher?

  AOC? I don't know.

• 1:30:39Speaker 04

  One of, but who's, you know, Bernie, Bernie is a Bernie.

• 1:30:43Bill Maher?

  Bernie, yeah.

• 1:30:43Speaker 04

  Bernie is, I mean, he's not, he's a, he's not a capitalist, you know?

• 1:30:47Bill Maher?

  No, he's not, and he's also not president.

• 1:30:49Speaker 04

  He's not, he's, but, but neither is-

• 1:30:50Bill Maher?

  And never would be.

• 1:30:51Speaker 04

  But neither is Mumdani.

• 1:30:52Bill Maher?

  No, but he will, trust me, he will be featured in the campaign commercials.

• 1:30:58Speaker 04

  But they're gonna feature people, they boogeyman everybody.

• 1:31:00Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but you don't have to boogeyman him. He does it to himself.

• 1:31:03Speaker 04

  But, but they'll do, but they'll do it regardless. Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Gavin Newsom.

• 1:31:08Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but-

• 1:31:08Speaker 04

  They, they make anybody into boogeyman. Uh, I think it was-

• 1:31:11Bill Maher?

  Just have more weight when it's real. I mean, when you can really show it, I mean, you know.

• 1:31:17Speaker 04

  Look, I'm, if, if he becomes mayor, I'll tell you, one, one thing is, is certain. I'm, I'm rooting for him. I, I, like, I, you know, I, I come from a long line of Brooklynites. Uh, my whole family's from, from Brooklyn before we eventually moved to New Jersey and I moved 3,000 miles away, but, but, you know, I, I wanna, I wanna see New York succeed. I wanna see him succeed.

• 1:31:37Bill Maher?

  I, I do too.

• 1:31:39Speaker 04

  You know, and so, and so, I think in instances like this, um, where A, I, you can call yourself a democratic socialist, whether you're gonna be able to unilaterally usher, I mean, I know how LA works, I know how LA politics work, and I know that if the mayor wants to do something, they're probably not gonna be able to do it because the LA city council is an impediment to that, because all of our local politics are an impediment to just about anything that you wanna get done. Things happen so slowly.

• 1:32:05Bill Maher?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna let it go.

• 1:32:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:32:07Bill Maher?

  I'm gonna ask you a couple of personal questions, and then we're gonna play the game with my-

• 1:32:12Speaker 04

  Uh, let's do it.

• 1:32:12Bill Maher?

  Do you, do you, do you read The New Yorker?

• 1:32:14Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:32:15Bill Maher?

  Never read The New Yorker?

• 1:32:16Speaker 04

  No, uh, I, I, I-

• 1:32:19Bill Maher?

  But you're kind of a New Yorker.

• 1:32:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I, I grew up like on The New York Times, and that slowly devolved into, and I use that word on purpose, devolved, but devolved into like getting my news on Twitter. And so, what, if, if there's a news-

• 1:32:30Bill Maher?

  Still?

• 1:32:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:32:32Bill Maher?

  Even after Elon?

• 1:32:33Speaker 04

  It's, it's, do, do I wish our news sources weren't controlled by megalomaniacal billionaires? Yeah. Do, is that gonna stop me from getting accurate news? No. I mean, look, you have to also be smart about it, like, you can't, I'm not gonna go on to Twitter and, and fall victim to like, you know, and, any fucking- You know, random account, post something, I'm not just gonna blindly believe it. I know what sources I believe on, that are on Twitter, but it's, you know, it's, I, I, I know what journalists I can trust, I know what news sources I can trust, but I get them on Twitter, that's the fastest way to get news, unfortunately.

• 1:33:08Bill Maher?

  Wow, I would not have even guessed that it kept that cachet, but I guess, you know.

• 1:33:15Speaker 04

  I do it through gritted teeth.

• 1:33:18Bill Maher?

  I mean, well, you gotta give it to Elon then, because like even after people started to hate him and light his Teslas on fire, they somehow still couldn't get off Twitter, because.

• 1:33:28Speaker 04

  But that's not, that's not because of Elon, that's in spite of Elon.

• 1:33:32Bill Maher?

  Well, that's true too.

• 1:33:33Speaker 04

  Twitter is a commodity.

• 1:33:35Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:33:35Speaker 04

  And I think.

• 1:33:36Bill Maher?

  But it's also because the alternative, because, and I, I went after him for this.

• 1:33:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:40Bill Maher?

  Like, he, he went back on a big promise he made, which was, he wanted to take over Twitter because it had become a left-wing echo chamber, which he was completely right about, it had. But then he just made it a right-wing echo chamber.

• 1:33:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:54Bill Maher?

  He just, he just reversed it. He didn't do what he said he was gonna do, which like, I just want free speech, and nobody put their thumb on the scale, and it just, it just switched. That's not cool. But the, the reason why it survives, I think, so well is because the alternative was blue sky.

• 1:34:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:11Bill Maher?

  Which is just that 10%, the ones who absolutely hate me, the ones who just like to live divorced from reality, and that is their right. But they just wanna hear coming back to them what they already believe, and it's, it's, and sometimes it's true, and I would agree with quite a bit of it, but I, I don't wanna just be in an echo chamber.

• 1:34:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:33Bill Maher?

  So like, all these things, and I could keep listing these things, that the, the left does not condemn enough, and now you see politicians on the left who are starting to come out of the woodwork and do that, and until they, and I'm sorry, but people like you, start condemning that stuff, that party is never gonna even come close to winning another election.

• 1:34:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I, I think that, that. There is an issue with like some of the groups that are that are I think probably think that they mean well by saying okay even with these edge cases even with these like crazy like transgender reassignment surgeries in prison right like edge case. By putting politicians on record they're actually doing more harm than good because the American people are not there that's clear and

• 1:35:22Bill Maher?

  Should they be?

• 1:35:23Speaker 04

  Uh should they be like transgender like on the issue of transgender reassignment surgeries in prison I don't think that that's no I don't think that that's like something I'm that I'm willing to like that I don't think that

• 1:35:38Bill Maher?

  Does it even need that many words how about just no that's stupid?

• 1:35:41Speaker 04

  That I don't think that's a hill that I'm willing to die on and so

• 1:35:44Bill Maher?

  Should a hill should even fight for?

• 1:35:46Speaker 04

  So like I think the groups that that think that they're helping are in fact hurting themselves and the people they purport to want to protect by getting people on record in a party where I think the expectation is that you have to fight for all people no matter how how like off the beaten path you know like like transgender reassignment surgeries in prison like those people but like I I think that it's there is a fundamental misunderstanding of how A information can be weaponized and B the number that like the number of those people that that fall into those categories is like minute like single digit numbers of people

• 1:36:25Bill Maher?

  Again it's not the number of people it's the number of people who are defending it

• 1:36:30Speaker 04

  Yeah I understand what you're saying

• 1:36:31Bill Maher?

  Okay that's that's what's important and you know I know she said during the campaign I never said that and then they're like you know like come on they have film of you doing it

• 1:36:40Speaker 04

  Yeah I think there's I think there's a sense that like and this is this is a tough a tough juggling act because there's a sense of like

• 1:36:50Speaker 04

  No one, like, everyone's okay. Every, like, whatever you choose to do is okay. You know what I mean? And it's this weird, like, I mean, this would normally be like a libertarian stance, but libertarians don't believe in this anymore. But like, whatever you wanna do is fine. And, and I think that's, that's the hard part to reconcile because, like, do you, do you understand what I'm saying?

• 1:37:12Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:37:13Speaker 04

  Like, if you want to, whatever, be a trans, be, be a trans person, like-

• 1:37:18Bill Maher?

  Protected by law.

• 1:37:20Speaker 04

  Correct, but like, but like, I think there's this sense of like, among Democrats, whatever you wanna do, whatever you wanna believe in, whatever, however you want to dress or love, whatever, is okay. And, and the, the part that butts up against that is, is okay, what protections should be made? What, what, in sports, how should, how should that reconcile?

• 1:37:39Bill Maher?

  It would be hard for you to point to somewhere in the legal system where we don't alwa- already have protections for every imaginable minority or, or marginalized group. It would be hard to find that in the law. I'm not saying everyone obeys the law all the time. Um, but as far as in the law, systemically, I mean, you know, you can't really find that. And, including the, the one that the Supreme Court made recently, that included trans people in the, like, was it 1964 Civil Rights Act or something like that? Okay? You know, so, look, you know, humans are humans, they're gonna believe stupid shit

• 1:38:24Bill Maher?

  and there're gonna be a certain amount of racists and bigots and this and that, but, you know, you, you can't legislate humans.

• 1:38:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:38:32Bill Maher?

  Uh, you can, all we can do is, you know, we have, uh, look, I think we live, you're happy you live in America, aren't you? As opposed to anywhere else, you're not, you're not asking for the check, right?

• 1:38:43Speaker 04

  I, I'm, I'm happy I live in, in Los Angeles, I'm happy, I'm happy I'm living in California, I'm lucky as hell to live in America.

• 1:38:49Bill Maher?

  Even with fires and all those problems we have out here.

• 1:38:52Speaker 04

  I wouldn't wanna live, I, I, I would not wanna live anywhere else and I would not live anywhere else.

• 1:38:55Bill Maher?

  I feel the same way.

• 1:38:56Speaker 04

  See, right?

• 1:38:57Bill Maher?

  Okay, well, you promise me one thing. If anybody gives you any shit-

• 1:39:01Speaker 04

  No, for you.

• 1:39:02Bill Maher?

  From the right, will you call me?

• 1:39:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:39:04Bill Maher?

  And I will make some calls.

• 1:39:11Bill Maher?

  You meant that? You call me if you have any trouble. Alright. I will call Matt Gaetz, who's here. I mean, like, I met Charlie Kirk. Yeah, I saw, I watched the Charlie Kirk. I know all these dudes. Yeah. And they, they...

• 1:39:26Speaker 00

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