Jon Cryer | Club Random with Bill Maher

Bill Maher and Two and a Half Men star Jon Cryer on border policies and media coverage, on how progressive issues influence elections, youth gender-affirming care, and social media “contagion” vs. authentic identity, how Jon grew up in a rough part of the Upper West Side, crime stories and colorful neighbors in 1970s–80s NYC, Jon’s acting journey, the podcast Jon produced, The Man Who Calculated Death, Jon’s on set experience with Charlie Sheen and how the show changed when Charlie relapsed, Elon Musk’s contributions to electric vehicles and space exploration vs. controversies regarding Twitter/X and political stances and much more! Go to https://www. BLUE NILE.com and use code RANDOM for $50 OFF your purchase of $500 or more! Follow Club Random on IG: @ClubRandomPodcast Follow Bill on IG: @BillMaher Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://bit.ly/ClubRandom Watch Club Random on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ClubRandomYouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:28Speaker 01

  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 ven de lejos, y los que no ven de 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.

• 0:58Speaker 02

  Oh no, my phone!

• 1:00Speaker 03

  You dropped this?

• 1:01Speaker 02

  Whoa, a mermaid! Nice catch!

• 1:03Speaker 03

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• 1:09Speaker 02

  Good to know.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  Plus, you can upgrade your phone every year.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  You sure know a lot about Xfinity for a mermaid.

• 1:14Speaker 03

  A lot of devices end up down here.

• 1:17Speaker 04

  Only Xfinity includes device protection for life and phone upgrades every year. Xfinity, imagine that. Restriction supply requires active mobile plus line and device payment plan. Minimum 60 days between each upgrade.

• 1:29Speaker 05

  Chuck said you need to get help. Um, Chuck said, "No, I'm not going to." He said, "No, you know what he did was?" He said, "I'm gonna do it for a week."

• 1:39Speaker 05

  The woke people that you're really mad at, it's me. I wanna put that face on it. That's the, this is the one.

• 1:50Bill Maher?

  John.

• 1:51Speaker 05

  Why hello? How are you?

• 1:53Bill Maher?

  Why hello? Because I asked you.

• 1:57Bill Maher?

  That's right.

• 1:58Speaker 05

  It was meant as just like a placeholder, like, "Why?"

• 1:59Bill Maher?

  I see.

• 2:00Speaker 05

  Comma, "Hello." Like that.

• 2:02Bill Maher?

  Well, I feel like... You've been dodging me.

• 2:05Speaker 05

  Oh, really? Oh, really? What makes you feel like that? I don't, uh, I don't feel like that.

• 2:10Bill Maher?

  Because, uh, um, you know, I feel like we've both been in Hollywood a long time.

• 2:17Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 2:18Bill Maher?

  I mean, I got here in the late 40s.

• 2:19Speaker 05

  Yes, I remember back in the silent era.

• 2:23Bill Maher?

  You shared an apartment with Bob Mitchum for a while, didn't you?

• 2:26Speaker 05

  For a while, but he did way too much. And I was like, I can't handle this.

• 2:30Bill Maher?

  Actually, he was busted for marijuana.

• 2:32Speaker 05

  I'm sure. You know, all kinds of...

• 2:34Bill Maher?

  That was very rare. That was in 1948. Robert Mitchum was busted for marijuana.

• 2:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:39Bill Maher?

  That was not something that you ever saw. I mean, I wasn't alive.

• 2:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:43Bill Maher?

  For the kids out there, they're like, oh, that probably took that in face.

• 2:46Speaker 05

  Who's this Bob Mitchum guy?

• 2:48Bill Maher?

  1948? That sounds about right for these guys. They're like 100.

• 2:54Speaker 05

  Why back in my day?

• 2:55Bill Maher?

  No, I just feel like, uh, we've both been here a long time and yet our paths never crossed.

• 3:00Speaker 05

  Our paths did cross.

• 3:01Bill Maher?

  Like I say, we're good friends.

• 3:04Speaker 05

  Uh, on, on this here show, Politically Incorrect, which I did a couple of times.

• 3:08Bill Maher?

  Well, okay.

• 3:09Speaker 05

  That does not count, I guess, for you. It meant nothing, apparently. Apparently, it was a meaningless time.

• 3:16Bill Maher?

  Well, that was the 90s. We were actually alive in the 90s, kids, and working, apparently.

• 3:21Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 3:21Bill Maher?

  But, you know, first of all, the 90s is a long time ago. And we did 2,000 shows.

• 3:29Speaker 05

  Gah, that was a lot.

• 3:30Bill Maher?

  Politic-- yeah. Five shows a night, nine years. It's a lot of shows.

• 3:35Speaker 05

  It's a lot of people yammering about their, their politics.

• 3:37Bill Maher?

  I mean...

• 3:40Speaker 05

  And it all blends into this political mush for a while, I'm sure.

• 3:45Bill Maher?

  I mean, time plus, like, 2,000 shows times four people on each show, that's 8,000 people.

• 3:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:53Bill Maher?

  Um, but what was your memory of it? Were you happy with it?

• 3:56Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Oh, I had a, I had a good time. I had a good time.

• 3:59Bill Maher?

  I vaguely remember you doing well.

• 4:01Speaker 05

  Yes, I, I, I remember, uh, I remember one older woman who was very anti-immigration. And I remember she drove me batty. Um, uh, but I feel like I zinged her a couple of times. I was like, you're an old lady. I think that was the, the, the height of my, uh, my repartee.

• 4:20Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but who looks stupid now?

• 4:21Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly.

• 4:23Bill Maher?

  I mean, no, I mean, I think the whole country... Even unless you're like stupid woke, I hope you're not, but you know, it is Hollywood.

• 4:33Speaker 05

  Somewhat stupidly woke.

• 4:34Bill Maher?

  Okay. The whole country was like, I mean, I think the biggest issue for the election, one of the biggest ones was Democrats pointlessly, totally just punted on immigration and let anybody who wanted to walk in for three and a half years did. And, you know.

• 4:54Speaker 05

  Well, I think they would probably disagree. The people walking in probably felt like it was a little harder.

• 4:58Bill Maher?

  No, no, no, actually, actually, there's a great 60 Minutes piece on it where the border. I mean, you don't get eight million people here by making it difficult. But there's watch, they're just, I mean, you see they're walking through and that water guys are just watching them do it. They're just watching them walk past. You never saw that?

• 5:17Speaker 05

  I did not see that.

• 5:18Bill Maher?

  See, that doesn't get in the liberal media. That's the problem is the bubbles we live in.

• 5:23Speaker 05

  So 60 Minutes arguably is the liberal media, so I, I, I don't think that that.

• 5:29Bill Maher?

  Right, but 60 Minutes play, 60 Minutes is still a show that I think, you know, can, not as consistent as it used to, but they do things like that.

• 5:44Bill Maher?

  They did, they also did a great piece some years ago about a woman in London who was in the Muslim neighborhoods and, you know, they're screaming at her because she's wearing a skirt and stuff like that. And, you know, the point of it was, you know, there are places in Western civilizations that are like run not by Western standards, and that doesn't mean they're just different.

• 6:07Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, but I mean, there are, there are cultural enclaves everywhere, uh, you know.

• 6:12Bill Maher?

  Right, but we, but we should agree that women should be able to wear what they want.

• 6:17Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 6:17Bill Maher?

  If you don't agree with that, then you're not a liberal to begin with.

• 6:20Speaker 05

  Well, uh, yes.

• 6:21Bill Maher?

  Call me a crazy liberal, but I think women should have freedom.

• 6:25Speaker 05

  I agree as well.

• 6:26Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 6:26Speaker 05

  I agree as well.

• 6:27Bill Maher?

  But they don't in these neighborhoods. It was the 60 Minutes piece that they did.

• 6:31Speaker 05

  Well, one could argue that, uh, that women don't have the freedom to dress where they are in, uh, dress how they want to dress. In many places, they used to get catcalled all the time. They used to, you know, there was...

• 6:40Bill Maher?

  Used to?

• 6:41Speaker 05

  Well, they...

• 6:42Bill Maher?

  We're talking about now.

• 6:43Speaker 05

  Well...

• 6:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah, used to. A lot of shit used to happen, but what's going on now in the world? Would you really want to have your wife live in Gaza? Or any place where...

• 6:54Speaker 05

  Well, I mean, before... War-torn strip of desert?

• 6:57Bill Maher?

  No, no, even before, even before the war, where she would have to cover up?

• 7:01Speaker 05

  Well, I, I, again, that's not, that's not, I, I don't live there. I'm not, it's not my culture, uh, you know, um...

• 7:08Bill Maher?

  But, yeah, and you won't judge it?

• 7:10Speaker 05

  I'm not gonna judge it, no. Uh, but, but again, this is not a...

• 7:13Bill Maher?

  That's crazy woke to me.

• 7:14Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 7:15Bill Maher?

  That's where, that's where it all went off the rails. When you, when we became so tolerant that we tolerate intolerance. I mean, you would never allow something like that to happen in this country. If they proposed a law tomorrow at the L.A. City Council, women have to cover their face when they go out. I assume you'd be against that.

• 7:34Speaker 05

  Well, yes, I would. Um, but again, you know, there are, uh, there are all, you know, again, this is a long, long, uh, subject that, uh, that, uh...

• 7:44Bill Maher?

  We stumbled onto.

• 7:45Speaker 05

  We stumbled onto, exactly. Uh, and, uh, you know, I, I, I also, you know, you, this was, started with the immigration, which, uh, you know, I, I don't feel like demonizing, uh, immigrants and migrants and saying that you want to deport, uh, uh, millions of people. I think the history of mass deportations is horrifying.

• 8:07Bill Maher?

  But there's a, okay, but, but we weren't talking about deportations. Of course, that's horrifying.

• 8:13Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 8:13Bill Maher?

  And an overcorrection. What we were talking about was letting...

• 8:17Speaker 05

  Democrats hunting things.

• 8:18Bill Maher?

  Too many people in to begin with.

• 8:21Speaker 05

  Uh-huh. But too many people, and, and, and what, well, again, I, this is gonna be a long conversation that we probably... Is this how you want to spend your time?

• 8:31Bill Maher?

  I, I never have any plan. I have never...

• 8:34Speaker 05

  You did 2,000 episodes of Politically Incorrect.

• 8:37Bill Maher?

  I, I never have any...

• 8:38Speaker 05

  And you're still going down this.

• 8:39Bill Maher?

  I never have any plan for this show.

• 8:41Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 8:43Bill Maher?

  Uh plainly.

• 8:44Speaker 05

  Yes, clearly, clearly.

• 8:46Bill Maher?

  Um, so, yeah, uh, if you don't want to talk about that politics at all.

• 8:53Speaker 05

  Well.

• 8:54Bill Maher?

  I shouldn't because I really started this podcast to get away from it. So you're right. I kind of fucked up.

• 8:59Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 9:01Bill Maher?

  But I don't know. Sometimes people say things that trigger me.

• 9:03Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 9:04Bill Maher?

  And of course, we just had the election and I feel like I, my conscience is very clear. I warned everybody about Trump and then I warned them. Then I warned them about what would get him reelected, which was stupid wokeness, which is what got him reelected. So I feel my conscience is very clear that I, I told you and I told you and I told you and I lost fans for it. You know, lots of the super woke that like, I'm not, I'm not woke enough. Yeah, but like, I think I had it right. Like that kind of stuff is what lost the election to the Democrats. It's in all.

• 9:37Speaker 05

  Maybe part of it. I don't know. I think a lot.

• 9:39Bill Maher?

  They have polling on it. It's.

• 9:41Speaker 05

  Well, I, I think it's inflation. I think Americans hate inflation.

• 9:45Bill Maher?

  That certainly was part of it.

• 9:46Speaker 05

  They hate riots and they hate black women. And they hate trans people.

• 9:51Bill Maher?

  God, John, we're not gonna.

• 9:52Speaker 05

  They just spent hundreds of millions of dollars demonizing trans people and, and that's disgusting.

• 9:59Bill Maher?

  Yeah, we shouldn't talk politics.

• 10:01Speaker 05

  Okay, we shouldn't. We shouldn't. Great. I don't, we don't have to.

• 10:06Bill Maher?

  And this, you know, I mean, I have this kind of relationship with people on the right also who like, like, yeah, it's just gonna take so long to even have this discussion. And I, I, I like, I want, just like I would like to deprogram them. I feel like there's things that don't get in your bubble on the left. That I would love to deprogram, but it's probably not the place to do it.

• 10:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:33Bill Maher?

  But, you know.

• 10:34Speaker 05

  You can try. If, if that's how you want to spend your leisure hours.

• 10:39Bill Maher?

  I mean.

• 10:40Speaker 05

  Deprogramming Ducky. There's, there's a spinoff. There's a spinoff, but, uh, but I, I, you know, I, I feel like. The immigration argument gets sidetracked because people just assume that there's a lot of generalizations about immigrants that dehumanize them and are untrue. You are mad that they let that many immigrants in because you think they what? Increase crime? What? Because they don't. Because they decrease wages? Well, no, they don't. There's a whole bunch of arguments that anti-immigration people make. And you say, okay, Democrats left them in.

• 11:19Bill Maher?

  I'm not an anti-immigration people.

• 11:20Speaker 05

  Okay, so you say, so, well, wait a minute. So you're the one saying Democrats are letting in immigrants and, you know, they punted it. Okay, you're absolutely right. Immigration did go up during those years.

• 11:33Bill Maher?

  Well, asylum. They changed the definition of asylum and they immediately reversed Trump's, like, stay in Mexico or wait in Mexico or something. He had a different policy.

• 11:44Speaker 05

  Chill out in Mexico.

• 11:45Bill Maher?

  I mean, chill out in Mexico. Yes.

• 11:48Speaker 05

  Just fucking chill, man. Wait there.

• 11:52Bill Maher?

  And we were still, you know, letting in as we should. We are a nation of immigrants and we need immigrants.

• 11:57Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 11:58Bill Maher?

  But most Americans felt, including lots of Democrats and people of color, and he won the Latino vote by half, you know, come on, man. Like, at a certain point, everybody was around the idea that, okay, immigration, fine, but it has to be somewhat orderly and not anyone who...

• 12:19Speaker 05

  Yes, and again...

• 12:20Bill Maher?

  And asylum had a certain, specific meaning, which went up in the air. They overcorrected.

• 12:27Speaker 05

  I, you know, you could be right, I don't know. But I also feel like, like, obviously, you can say Democrats took too long to address it, but then they did. And Trump, of course, killed it, you know? So he doesn't care about that. And again, you've been outspoken.

• 12:44Bill Maher?

  That's true, too.

• 12:45Speaker 05

  And I appreciate that, by the way, for you, that you were being outspoken. I appreciate that you lost fans. They, you know what? They needed more free time. It's better that they don't watch your show.

• 12:57Bill Maher?

  It actually is.

• 12:58Speaker 05

  I'm sorry?

• 12:59Bill Maher?

  It actually is. Because they're, you know, here's how I know they changed and not me. It used to be the conservatives, the Jerry Falwell types, who you would do a stick-up-there-ass joke about. Now it's the woke. They're the ones with the stick up their ass. They're the ones who don't have a sense of humor. They're the ones who are too sensitive. They're the ones, you know, marching for Hamas, doing things like that.

• 13:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, again, I think conflating people, uh, marching for, uh, you know, to not have Israelis, the, you know, the IDF, uh, carpet bombing is different than marching for Hamas. And, and yes, Hamas is a, is a terrorist organization. They're a mafia organization. I, you know, I do not support them in any way. Um, uh, again, you know, yes, I know. They're gonna be saying, wow, Ducky, Ducky is not on our side. This is crushing to our movement. This is, we've lost Ducky. Um, but, but my point being, uh, that, that, uh, you know, conflating,

• 14:06Speaker 05

  you know, those two, and, and obviously there are, there are outrages on the right and there are outrages on the left. And the, the right wing, uh, media ecosystem, uh, you know, uh, is, is just a constant outrage engine.

• 14:22Bill Maher?

  Uh, and Constant.

• 14:23Speaker 05

  Constant. And, and that is, that is very pernicious to America, to, you know, having a nation.

• 14:29Bill Maher?

  So I was only watching MSNBC. Not as bad. I mean, the, the, the right wing is definitely more dangerous because they don't believe in conceding elections.

• 14:39Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 14:40Bill Maher?

  We are all, we are already past the, what I called, even before we won the first time, a slow-moving coup. Because when one side concedes, as the Democrats just did, and one side we know would not.

• 14:54Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 14:54Bill Maher?

  You're already past democracy. You were, or already, I mean, they make it sound like, oh, you know, we had a smooth election. Yeah, smooth when they win, that's not good enough for me. It has to be smooth when whoever wins.

• 15:08Speaker 05

  Yes, I agree.

• 15:09Bill Maher?

  So, so I, I have this in perspective.

• 15:12Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:12Bill Maher?

  I think so. But, uh, but what drives them crazy, the reason why they are willing to do, uh, these basically traitorous, extra constitutional things like not concede elections, is because they think the left is so crazy that

• 15:33Bill Maher?

  Whatever they have to do to retain power is worth it. Because if the left takes over, they will destroy life as we know it. I don't think that's true. But when you see some of the things that the left has championed lately, you do wonder. Like, and like I said on my show last week, you lost a crazy contest to an actual crazy person.

• 15:57Speaker 05

  Okay, that's funny, but I disagree.

• 15:59Bill Maher?

  That he's a crazy person.

• 16:01Speaker 05

  I agree that he's crazy.

• 16:01Bill Maher?

  And they lost the contest.

• 16:02Speaker 05

  And you're right, and they lost the contest. So, yeah, it's funny and you're right. But, I'm gonna reel that back in, just because.

• 16:12Bill Maher?

  It's interesting to watch you, having seen you so much on television, that you like, I'm not saying you didn't need the script, but I see that you just, you know, you just are funny like with the timing and the thing, even without a script.

• 16:31Speaker 05

  Oh, well, thank you, and you too.

• 16:34Bill Maher?

  But that's all I have. I'm not, I'm not an actor.

• 16:37Speaker 05

  Ah, got it.

• 16:38Bill Maher?

  I never have a script, except the one I write. But, and it's not this kind of script. And actors are not, it's not in the job requirement to actually be funny.

• 16:48Speaker 00

  Host Thanksgiving with industry-leading quality standards from Whole Foods Market. There are no antibiotics in their meat department, ever. So carve up turkey and spiral cut ham with peace of mind. Shop organic sides like stuffing mix and cranberry sauce from 365 brand. And guess what? All their delectable pies are made with no high fructose corn syrup. Gourmet Thanksgiving flavors with the quality you want, only at Whole Foods Market.

• 17:49Speaker 07

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• 18:17Bill Maher?

  You know, but you know, you just have that thing, you know, the way you you play off something and then.

• 18:26Speaker 05

  Well, that's kind of me to say.

• 18:28Bill Maher?

  No, I'm sure that's why you've had the career you've had.

• 18:31Speaker 05

  I've I've been I've been lucky and and had a had a lot of great, great experiences. And and this is, you know, it's with the the industry. Sort of figuring out what it is again, you know, you know, it's it. It makes me grateful for the for all the opportunities I've had.

• 18:52Bill Maher?

  I think you were lucky being born the person you were who had that timing.

• 18:57Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 18:58Bill Maher?

  And that quick mind, that was the lucky part.

• 19:01Speaker 05

  I.

• 19:02Bill Maher?

  I don't think the career itself was lucky. I think, you know, show business is full of bullshit, but I've always thought the cream rises to the top.

• 19:10Speaker 05

  Well, that's very kind of you.

• 19:11Bill Maher?

  There's a lot of bullshit in the middle and anyone can be a success for two years or something, but careers that last, that doesn't happen unless there's something that, you know, is connecting and they're hitting the ball, you know? They're consistently hitting it.

• 19:27Speaker 05

  Well, thank you, thank you. And I and I've loved I've loved the vast majority of it. This is the down slide.

• 19:36Bill Maher?

  Right here on this show?

• 19:37Speaker 05

  This is the moment that it's all curdling. It was doing I was doing great up until this moment. No, I I I'm actually enjoying myself a great deal.

• 19:48Bill Maher?

  Hey, we can cut all the political part out of it if you want.

• 19:51Speaker 05

  Oh, no, whatever, whatever.

• 19:52Bill Maher?

  No, I'm not kidding.

• 19:53Speaker 05

  Whatever you're comfortable with, I, you know, I I'm happy to talk. Actually, one of the reasons that I'm I wanted to that I'm happy to talk about it. A is it's a terrifying time in in in our history.

• 20:05Speaker 05

  You know, unfortunately, the. You know, the Supreme Court has removed the guardrails in a terrifying way. Um, now the Republicans don't have, there's no meaningful resistance. You know, there was in the first term, there was, there was a certain normalcy bias that they had, but um.

• 20:22Bill Maher?

  I, I gutted the left like a fish last week.

• 20:26Speaker 05

  Thanks.

• 20:27Bill Maher?

  You, you, uh, some of the woke people who are no longer fans would have hated it.

• 20:32Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 20:33Bill Maher?

  Zillions of other people loved it because they deserved it, but I'm just bringing this up to say, the ending concluding remarks after I told them that the Democratic Party had turned into a Portlandia sketch.

• 20:46Speaker 05

  Again, I, I felt like they tacked to the right quite a bit in this, in this, they, they tacked to the right on immigration.

• 20:53Bill Maher?

  Hollywood in the bubble, blue sky.

• 20:57Speaker 05

  Dude, you're, you're a man of the people, Bill, is that it? Much more. Oh, really?

• 21:02Bill Maher?

  You're, you're, you're part of, you're part of the Hollywood community that is embraced. I am not.

• 21:09Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 21:10Bill Maher?

  And that's okay.

• 21:11Speaker 05

  I disagree. We embrace you.

• 21:12Bill Maher?

  No.

• 21:12Speaker 05

  I, I've almost literally embraced you when you came in the room. I, I, I don't, I don't agree, Bill Maher. I do not agree.

• 21:20Bill Maher?

  We won't get off on that, but, but we will get off.

• 21:26Bill Maher?

  Produced by Chuck Lorre. Actually, I'm not saying it's gonna happen, but this is also a show. Because what do you want on a show? Conflict?

• 21:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. I'll take it.

• 21:39Bill Maher?

  You did it like where you were, you know, with Pussyhound guy.

• 21:45Speaker 05

  Sure, that was, that's, you could call him that.

• 21:48Bill Maher?

  And that may be why you and I, our paths never crossed. Because I was more Charlie Sheen for many years.

• 21:56Speaker 05

  Oh, really?

• 21:57Bill Maher?

  Well, I, I mean, never got married, you're married, no kids, you know, I would be out at places you probably weren't out at.

• 22:04Speaker 05

  Probably not.

• 22:06Bill Maher?

  Although I think I caught you out of the corner of my eye at one of Diddy's freak-offs.

• 22:11Speaker 05

  Well.

• 22:13Bill Maher?

  But you were baited.

• 22:14Speaker 05

  I had to swing by. No, I've never met the man. Wish him the best.

• 22:20Bill Maher?

  Diddy? You never met him?

• 22:22Speaker 05

  I've never met him. Yeah, I consider myself lucky. Never met Jeffrey Epstein either.

• 22:27Bill Maher?

  Wouldn't it be funny if he got out of prison and they said, "How was it in there?" He said, "Yeah, the only thing that saved me was we watched reruns of Two and a Half Men every night."

• 22:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, that would...

• 22:41Bill Maher?

  Suge Knight told me, politically incorrect.

• 22:44Speaker 05

  Really?

• 22:44Bill Maher?

  He watched it every night in prison. And I'm guessing it's a communal TV.

• 22:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:53Bill Maher?

  Who gets to rule?

• 22:54Speaker 05

  I know. Who gets to pick that?

• 22:56Bill Maher?

  Well, I guess Suge Knight probably had more cred.

• 22:59Speaker 05

  He probably has more cred.

• 23:01Bill Maher?

  But you and I in a prison movie, I think.

• 23:04Speaker 05

  That's what the public is yearning for.

• 23:06Bill Maher?

  And we're like, words came, we're having a gun battle, and we're doing that thing in movies where they do, where they have snappy dialogue.

• 23:13Speaker 05

  In between the shots. Listen, man, it's a Butch and Sundance moment. Who are those guys?

• 23:21Speaker 05

  Yes, that's...

• 23:22Bill Maher?

  You know, like bad boys.

• 23:25Bill Maher?

  I told you not to talk to my sister.

• 23:28Bill Maher?

  Really, in the middle of the gunfight.

• 23:31Speaker 05

  I'm sure when you're afraid for your life, that's when the quips really, really kick in. I'm sure the Noel Coward in you comes out at that moment.

• 23:44Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 23:45Speaker 05

  But no, I guess our Hollywood paths did not cross. But, you know, again, I enjoyed coming on your show. And I do, you know, I understand why a lot of actors don't want to talk about politics. I get it. You know, because as an artist, you want people to just enjoy your art, you know, and I still enjoy... There's plenty of people whose politics I strongly disagree with, but I still enjoy their art. I mean, there's John Voight movies that I will love till the day I die because he's an amazing actor, you know.

• 24:16Bill Maher?

  And he's not a monster because...

• 24:18Speaker 05

  He's not a monster. No, I know him, actually. I've met him.

• 24:20Bill Maher?

  I'm all for...

• 24:21Speaker 05

  He's always asking about my mom, you know, in a nice way. Don't worry, I'm not casting aspersions. He's like, "How's your mother?" I go, "Oh, well, John, she's fine."

• 24:32Speaker 05

  But anyway, I apologize.

• 24:33Bill Maher?

  No, but just finishing what I was saying before about, yes, I gutted them, but only so I could get to the end where I said, I'm mad at the Democrats because the issues that are important to me, because that's always a big thing in elections, what issues are important to?

• 24:50Speaker 05

  Bill Maher.

• 24:50Bill Maher?

  To you, the voter. My issues are democracy.

• 24:54Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 24:54Bill Maher?

  And the environment. And now, because the Democrats did what I told them not to do and went to crazy town way too often, now you blew it. You blew it. You blew it.

• 25:09Speaker 05

  I did not.

• 25:11Bill Maher?

  And lost everything. So I have no one to champion and defend my issues.

• 25:18Speaker 05

  But I would say, I would say all of the wokeness that outraged you so much was Republican framing, was right-wing media framing.

• 25:25Bill Maher?

  Oh, God.

• 25:26Speaker 05

  Again, again, the, yes, I am telling you this. I am, yes, that is the case. That is the case, Bill Maher.

• 25:34Bill Maher?

  I do this for a living.

• 25:35Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 25:36Bill Maher?

  I have a whole staff to vet this. I'm very suspicious of everything, from the left or the right. So if you're telling me that I've been hoodwinked.

• 25:46Speaker 05

  Oh, I'm not telling you I've been hoodwinked.

• 25:47Bill Maher?

  I haven't been.

• 25:48Speaker 05

  I think everybody, everybody deals with framing in different ways. You can either deal with the framing and say, no, I'm afraid you're wrong, which I've seen you do, you know, you say you can, you know. Or you can say, wait, I don't, but I don't even believe in the framing. I disagree with the whole framing of the question.

• 26:04Bill Maher?

  I believe in facts. I believe, for example, oh, we're gonna get into this now.

• 26:08Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 26:09Bill Maher?

  But like, America is the only country that does transgender policy the way we do now. We used to be closer to Sweden.

• 26:20Speaker 05

  I'm sorry, you gotta be more specific.

• 26:23Bill Maher?

  Kids can, uh...

• 26:28Bill Maher?

  You know, what do you call, um, gender affirmation can be, okay, have the operation.

• 26:34Speaker 05

  Okay, you understand, first of all, that the, the, the biggest, the, the, the most prevalent gender-affirming surgery is breast removal, tissue removal for cisgender male boys.

• 26:45Bill Maher?

  Okay, but we're not talking about that.

• 26:48Speaker 05

  Okay, but, but the reason I'm bringing it up is because if people are okay with, with, you know, people are always saying, we don't want young people making those decisions for, uh, uh, you know, lifelong decisions, uh, when they're still very young. I mean, that, that seems to be what people are, are.

• 27:05Bill Maher?

  Well, that's where Europe, where all the liberal countries that we used to be aligned with on this issue a few years ago, we are not. Just, I'm just saying, let's not even get into the details. Let's just get into the fact. Just, just start with the fact that America does this in a way nobody else does. That doesn't mean, I'm not saying it's necessarily definitely wrong, although I do think it is, uh, but no other country does self-diagnosis by children, no age limit.

• 27:35Speaker 05

  That is, that's not what's occurring.

• 27:36Bill Maher?

  That is what is occurring.

• 27:37Speaker 05

  It's not occurring. And by the way, the, the thing you're talking about is the thing called the Dutch Protocol, which obviously started in Holland.

• 27:43Bill Maher?

  Started in Holland, yes, I'm familiar.

• 27:45Speaker 05

  Yes, okay. Um, so Europe, so you're saying the US doesn't use the things that Europe does, but, but they do.

• 27:52Bill Maher?

  Which they, which they abandoned. They all.

• 27:54Speaker 05

  Well, no, they did not abandon it.

• 27:56Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they did.

• 27:57Speaker 05

  No, and I, and, and, and we can argue about the CAS review as well. I'm aware of it. Um, yes, which, which did not, which is conclusions did not match its own data, but okay. Um, we'll talk about that later if you're, if you're, if you're open to that.

• 28:11Bill Maher?

  That's true in the weeds.

• 28:12Speaker 05

  Okay, but see, that's what I'm saying is the, the truth is in the weeds, dude.

• 28:16Bill Maher?

  And, and unfortunately. No, I'm for the audience, true in the weeds.

• 28:19Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 28:20Bill Maher?

  I mean, it's, uh, and, and maybe for me at this point, because I don't have the CAS report right in my mind.

• 28:27Speaker 05

  Aha.

• 28:28Bill Maher?

  Many people are always saying, what is that? A, a British woman who is a pediatrician and also was, this was her field of study.

• 28:36Speaker 05

  There was a big controversy about the NHS, yes, about the NHS transgender care. Uh, and unfortunately.

• 28:45Speaker 05

  You know, the NHS is under a lot of scrutiny for many things because, you know, national health care is often very controversial because people have to prioritize very specific care for specific people. It's hard to do that in a governmental way.

• 29:02Bill Maher?

  Correct.

• 29:03Speaker 05

  But there was a lot of people saying that kids who were going through gender dysphoria were not getting enough care before they were making lifelong decisions. And that's a concern, absolutely. But the report said that they were actually getting enough care. But they, as a society, were using it as a way to say, we don't want this to even be a possibility for people under 18. And so, at any rate.

• 29:36Bill Maher?

  Right. And that's too far. And like, it's a shame that we can't ever just meet in the middle of what's common sense. Like, Trump, I see they're like, they're not letting somebody use the bathroom. I mean, it's like, it's just, can we just not do stupid on either side?

• 29:54Speaker 05

  But see, what I'm saying is that parents who have kids who are going through severe gender dysphoria have very limited options to begin with. And they're usually trying to think about the survival of their child. And so, so limiting what they have access to, when there actually is an enormous amount of statistical evidence that supported the Dutch protocols, I think it's wrong to limit their, to, for government to limit what they feel is the appropriate medical treatment.

• 30:33Bill Maher?

  There are cases where it is appropriate, I think.

• 30:36Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 30:36Bill Maher?

  Okay. I think this is the standard liberal position. And then there's like, the people who won't admit that some of this is social contagion. Some of this is just a TikTok trend that got out of hand.

• 30:48Speaker 05

  I don't agree.

• 30:50Bill Maher?

  And that's okay. And that's what trends are for.

• 30:53Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 30:53Bill Maher?

  To be able to come to it and. Go, okay, we've elucidated our points enough. People get where we're coming from. And they just, you know, they'll, trust me, in this town, everybody, you'll be the big champion. You own Bill Maher because they just wanna agree with you. And my take on this, just as like super friend to friend now, is just like, the people in this town, they just wanna be warriors, social justice warriors. So they're just always looking for a cause. And it's so much more often about them than the cause itself. Not that they're not sincere about stuff. But like, what bugs Dave Chappelle so much about the trans thing? I think it's the fact that they wanna make it the social justice issue of their generation.

• 31:37Bill Maher?

  And it just doesn't compare.

• 31:39Speaker 00

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• 32:08Speaker 01

  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.

• 32:38Bill Maher?

  Two other ones. It's important, it's an issue. I think it's great we live in a time when trans people can be respected and protected. But you're asking too much often to rewrite, like, the idea that when someone is born, there is a default setting for humans, male and female. Not everyone is. Now, a real conservative would say, no, everyone is. I would never say that.

• 33:04Speaker 05

  There are chromosomal, there are chromosomal spectrums.

• 33:07Bill Maher?

  There's a default.

• 33:08Speaker 05

  There's, there's.

• 33:09Bill Maher?

  There's a default setting.

• 33:10Speaker 05

  Mappertism.

• 33:11Bill Maher?

  But then there's a whole other, other section, and that's great, and we should protect those people. But don't pretend there isn't also a default setting. And you can't rewrite the world so that every baby is just a jump ball. Oh, it could be anything. No, if it's, if it's got a dick, it's probably a boy. And if it's not, we'll, we'll deal with that, we'll deal with that in a compassionate way.

• 33:34Speaker 05

  Well, yeah.

• 33:34Bill Maher?

  But we'll also be, be apprised of the idea that children don't know shit about anything. Yes, sometimes it is obvious and we should address it that way. But, I mean, kids, Christ almighty, I mean, the idea that I would, as a child, would have had to have dealt with something like this.

• 33:53Speaker 05

  Well, again, the, the people that go through it don't say, this is the life I want. No, no parent wants to be in the midst of those choices. It's terrifying.

• 34:01Bill Maher?

  Some kids these days actually just do want to be trans.

• 34:03Speaker 05

  I don't agree.

• 34:04Bill Maher?

  It's a thing.

• 34:05Speaker 05

  Nope.

• 34:06Bill Maher?

  Oh, come on.

• 34:07Speaker 05

  I don't agree with Bill Maher. That's the name of the show tonight.

• 34:11Bill Maher?

  Well, your, your eyes are not open to that, I think.

• 34:14Speaker 05

  Okay, well, okay.

• 34:15Bill Maher?

  There are some kids, especially, why is it like so much more prevalent like here than Indiana?

• 34:20Speaker 05

  Well.

• 34:20Bill Maher?

  Are they suppressing it there? Maybe a little.

• 34:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's a societal suppression, but it's like left-handedism. Left-handed, being left-handed was suppressed for, you know, for thousands of years amongst human beings. But once they, it was, you know, apparently in the 30s, scientists basically said, there's no, there's no, left-handedness doesn't actually do anything bad.

• 34:41Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 34:42Speaker 05

  Left-handedness shot up. People just stopped training themselves to be right-handed. And this is a, this is a, you know, this has happened societally before. And that's the, that's the closest analog that I can think of it.

• 34:53Bill Maher?

  Okay, but I think the numbers are faulty in that one. I mean, how many people are left-handed? 15%? Something like that?

• 34:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, it went from like, like 8% to 15%.

• 35:02Bill Maher?

  15% of us are born in the wrong body?

• 35:05Speaker 05

  I don't know, but I do believe that that parents who are dealing with that situation in their child, need to be, need to be able to make those decisions.

• 35:14Bill Maher?

  I don't think that, I don't think it's as high as 50%. It is a certain percent, but the, okay, but the,

• 35:19Speaker 05

  Statistician in Bill Maher shows up.

• 35:21Bill Maher?

  But numbers matter.

• 35:22Speaker 05

  No, they do, they do, but again, but, but what bothers me is that this becomes a, an issue to demonize people. I mean,

• 35:29Bill Maher?

  But I'm not demonizing.

• 35:31Speaker 05

  I know, I'm not, I'm not saying you are, but I'm saying the right wing framing is, and it often starts with danger to your children, danger to your, danger to your women, the, the, you know, the, the trans people are, are going in your bathroom. You know, and of course, by the way, these bills that, that are ahead in Congress right now are, to, to, uh, force, uh, trans women into men's bathroom, also force trans men into women's bathroom. And these, you know, I don't think Nancy Mace really gets that she's inviting a bunch of trans men into her, into her bathroom. I don't think she gets that.

• 36:06Bill Maher?

  It's horrible. It's horrible.

• 36:08Speaker 05

  So,

• 36:09Bill Maher?

  And I agree with all that.

• 36:10Speaker 05

  But again, the demonization that they spent millions, hundreds of millions of dollars demonizing trans people was, was fucking loathsome.

• 36:16Bill Maher?

  Well, okay, that's politics, sweetheart.

• 36:18Speaker 05

  No, it's not, but again,

• 36:21Bill Maher?

  You give them an opening, excuse me, you give them an opening like,

• 36:24Speaker 05

  An opening like, people deserve respect. Yeah, that's the opening. No.

• 36:28Bill Maher?

  Oh, God. Deprogrammer, please, come in soon.

• 36:33Speaker 05

  Okay, okay.

• 36:34Bill Maher?

  She would not,

• 36:35Speaker 05

  Can we get the deprogrammer?

• 36:36Bill Maher?

  When,

• 36:37Speaker 05

  I want to deprogram you.

• 36:39Bill Maher?

  Yeah. You're doing a bad job.

• 36:41Speaker 05

  You do this for a living.

• 36:43Bill Maher?

  Here's what she would not condemn. Uh, she had said, when they asked her, are you for, uh, operations in prisons, taxpayer paid, in prisons, for prisoners who want to,

• 36:58Speaker 05

  Transition.

• 36:59Bill Maher?

  Transition. Okay. She just said, I'll follow the law. She wouldn't say, no, you know what, I said that in 2019. Uh, that goes too far.

• 37:09Speaker 05

  Well, except that that was-

• 37:10Bill Maher?

  Maybe she would have been somewhat in the race if she said something like that.

• 37:15Speaker 05

  But again, this, this happens, as you said, the statistical amount of trans people is so small, and this happens on so few occasions, and this is statistically meaningless to these people.

• 37:25Bill Maher?

  You just said it was fifteen percent.

• 37:26Speaker 05

  No, but even, I didn't say that, you said it, you're the- I was talking about left-handedness, but I said, I don't know, yeah, I don't know the statistics.

• 37:35Bill Maher?

  It does, but just from-

• 37:35Speaker 05

  But my point-

• 37:36Bill Maher?

  From just looking around the world, you don't think fifteen percent is a little high for that?

• 37:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, it might be, again, I'd be guessing.

• 37:45Bill Maher?

  But see, here's the thing, you're right about a lot of this, what the right, the right did, does demonize.

• 37:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, and that's horrifying.

• 37:52Bill Maher?

  Oh god, it's politics, of course, you have to assume that the other side is going to use your vulnerable points, but here's what the left demonizes. What, they would take my conversation with you right now, which is in no way illiberal, and say, I'm some sort of bigot, because in, in the left's view, um, the far left anyway, any, just questioning of this is a mic drop, oh, you're a bigot. I mean, it happened on CNN recently, like, I will not sit here and hear someone called a boy, you know, and they're talking about someone who's trans, but, um, you know, it's

• 38:35Bill Maher?

  like, we're so pure, we know everything, that's the, that's the given, so, any discussion of this is bigotry to begin with, and that's not where we are with this issue.

• 38:45Speaker 05

  Well, I'll tell you, I can tell you why they feel like that, if it helps you, um, they feel like that because, uh, when their very, uh, capability of being a person is questioned, when just the idea that they exist is questioned.

• 39:01Bill Maher?

  Agreed.

• 39:01Speaker 05

  They, they are dehumanized, and they say that it's bigotry, and now I, now again, somebody calling you a bigot, you know, you can take offense and get angry at that.

• 39:12Bill Maher?

  I do.

• 39:12Speaker 05

  Okay, um, uh, you know, but again, you're fine.

• 39:18Speaker 05

  Somebody called you a bigot. People called me all kinds of awful things.

• 39:22Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 39:23Speaker 05

  You know?

• 39:23Bill Maher?

  What do they call you? Who could be mad at you?

• 39:25Speaker 05

  People are mad at me. You're mad at me. No, you're not.

• 39:28Bill Maher?

  I'm not mad. I'm actually mad at you for engaging.

• 39:32Speaker 05

  Oh, well, happy to.

• 39:33Bill Maher?

  You didn't have to.

• 39:34Speaker 05

  No, I didn't. It's true. What the fuck am I doing here?

• 39:39Bill Maher?

  Fun to let it out, isn't it?

• 39:41Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, you know, uh, yeah, I, I, you know, I, I have, uh, you know, the trans people in my life feel at this point really frightened, you know?

• 39:52Bill Maher?

  Who are the trans people in your life, if I may ask?

• 39:55Speaker 05

  Well, frankly, that's my own business and it's not, you know?

• 39:58Bill Maher?

  I just.

• 39:59Speaker 05

  But, uh, you know, it, it is, it is there in a place where they're personally terrified right now. Um, because not only was, you know, this election was the outrage cycle of this, of this particular election targeted them, but, uh, uh, it was accepted. And people, you know, accept that it's like, okay, yeah, we dehumanize them. It was politics.

• 40:22Bill Maher?

  Well, another reason why the Democrats shouldn't have blown it.

• 40:26Speaker 05

  Well, I, I, you know, again, you can blame them all you want. I, I believe, I, I believe again that there was a worldwide reaction to the inflation bump after COVID. Everybody, everybody, as I said, Americans hate inflation.

• 40:41Bill Maher?

  You keep telling yourself that and you'll lose the next one too. And if they lose.

• 40:45Speaker 05

  I'm not running, but okay.

• 40:47Bill Maher?

  No, well, I mean, the party that we, it's funny, we voted for the same person.

• 40:51Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 40:52Bill Maher?

  We, you know, are generally supportive of the same party. We just have very different views on like how to deal with that.

• 41:00Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, we do. But, but again, I felt like, um,

• 41:06Speaker 05

  the, the Democrats in the very limited amount of time they had to, to fight this election, uh, did can't to the right a lot, you know?

• 41:15Bill Maher?

  Time has nothing to do with it. You could do it in two weeks. If anything, she had too much time. She was doing good for the first two months, the joy she had. And then it just, you know, this, it's so antiquated, this idea that people need more than, she had 107 days. It would have been better if she had seven. Other countries don't take a hundred days.

• 41:35Speaker 05

  I will 100% agree with you that it takes way too long and it's ridiculous.

• 41:39Bill Maher?

  We get it. We get it quickly. You know, it's not like we have to go and see them at the end of a train station where they're doing a whistle.

• 41:49Speaker 05

  It's not, yes, it's not 1910.

• 41:54Speaker 05

  Or Lincoln, you know, having to get, yeah, going on a tour.

• 41:58Bill Maher?

  Are you gonna go see Garfield Saturday? He's gonna be in the back of a train.

• 42:02Speaker 05

  Yes, he's gonna be yelling from the back of a train. I hope, I think he said something that I agree with. I don't know. I don't know what he said.

• 42:09Bill Maher?

  He must have done a western.

• 42:11Speaker 05

  I have never done, oh, well, I did sort of a punk western, but it was a modern day western, so it doesn't really count.

• 42:16Bill Maher?

  You could redo the Don Knotts movies.

• 42:21Speaker 05

  I have been, I have been approached by that. I've been approached to be the incredible Mr. Limpet. I swear to God.

• 42:28Bill Maher?

  You are born to, no, really.

• 42:31Speaker 05

  I got nothing but respect for Don Knotts. Don Knotts was a master. He was a fucking master. I think he was great. I think he was great.

• 42:38Bill Maher?

  I could not agree more. He was, and the movies, which I think are not really, I don't know why, I never see one on, you know, the channels, but as a kid, I, Mr. Limpet and there's some chick, chicken in the west. He was a coward in the old west.

• 42:59Speaker 05

  Yes, there you go. Okay.

• 43:01Bill Maher?

  I think, I think you're, this is like.

• 43:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know, I, God bless him. He was, he left behind a wonderful body of work.

• 43:11Bill Maher?

  Didn't he win like the Emmy like eight years in a row as Barney Five? Something like that. It was like, you know.

• 43:16Speaker 05

  You know, I am, yeah, yeah. No, he's a genius. He's a genius. Absolutely. Absolutely.

• 43:22Bill Maher?

  What were the other ones like that that you look up to?

• 43:27Speaker 05

  Uh, Jack Lemmon I thought was pretty amazing.

• 43:31Bill Maher?

  Jack Lemmon could do. Serious drama.

• 43:34Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 43:35Bill Maher?

  And it could also be the, you know, high energy kind of fun.

• 43:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, it just.

• 43:41Bill Maher?

  You obviously saved the tiger.

• 43:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, yes.

• 43:45Bill Maher?

  Now, that's a movie.

• 43:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:46Bill Maher?

  That's a seventies movie, and I mean that as a compliment.

• 43:48Speaker 05

  Seventies, seventies was a fucking golden era. I mean, Taking a Pelham is still is one of the great.

• 43:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they redid it with Denzel. It was good, but not as good.

• 43:58Speaker 05

  No, no.

• 43:59Bill Maher?

  The sneeze at the end.

• 44:00Speaker 05

  Yes. No, what was great about Taking a Pelham is it's New York City in nineteen seventy four, whatever. And every single New Yorker is a wise ass. Every single one. And it's true. It's fucking true. That's how everybody was in nineteen seventy four.

• 44:16Bill Maher?

  You think they're different in New York now?

• 44:18Speaker 05

  No, no, my mom's still there, actually. She's.

• 44:20Bill Maher?

  Oh, really?

• 44:21Speaker 05

  Eighty nine, still living on the southwest side of Manhattan.

• 44:24Bill Maher?

  I lived in, I lived on the west side of Manhattan and when I was doing Politically Incorrect.

• 44:29Speaker 05

  Oh, really?

• 44:30Bill Maher?

  First, I lived on the east side in a residential hotel. Of course, from Smith and Wolenski's Plaza fifty.

• 44:38Speaker 05

  Oh, sure. Okay.

• 44:40Bill Maher?

  Sure.

• 44:40Speaker 05

  Smith and Wolenski's, sure, I remember.

• 44:42Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 44:43Speaker 05

  Wolenski's.

• 44:44Bill Maher?

  Then I lived on Seventieth. In this building that was kind of distinctive, it like had a name for it and all this Egyptian art on the walls or something, anyway.

• 44:54Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 44:55Bill Maher?

  Seventieth and Broadway, but, you know, New York and I never got along.

• 44:59Speaker 05

  Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

• 45:02Speaker 05

  You know, I grew up there. I'm, I'm, I'm born on.

• 45:05Bill Maher?

  I was just there. I just played the beacon. I mean, I love it for a weekend, but like, living there, I found to be tough.

• 45:13Speaker 05

  It's not for everybody.

• 45:14Bill Maher?

  It's not for everybody. First of all, you just have to like or be okay with living in buildings.

• 45:21Bill Maher?

  It's.

• 45:21Speaker 05

  Okay. Well, that's not, most of human history of people have lived in buildings.

• 45:27Bill Maher?

  No, they haven't. They lived in.

• 45:28Speaker 05

  Oh, you mean in multiple dwellings? Single dwellings.

• 45:31Bill Maher?

  Like, I don't live in a building. I live, I live next door.

• 45:36Speaker 05

  But I don't, I like living in a, I like apartment living. The best, the best thing about apartment living, and I'm just, is super. Tendence is just guys who just you just call up and say, get in here because something has gone horribly wrong. You know, and that you don't have in your single family home. You don't, there's not somebody you can, well, maybe yours.

• 45:56Bill Maher?

  The last time I had a super is when I lived on Eighth Avenue in New York and it was not.

• 46:01Speaker 05

  It was not the.

• 46:02Bill Maher?

  Portraying.

• 46:04Speaker 05

  It was not the dream service situation that that I'm.

• 46:08Bill Maher?

  I could have knocked on the door. Doosan.

• 46:13Bill Maher?

  Come in and I believe he was Colombian and he, I, I, if he had some. He was running some weird shit out of the building and I mean, could you get him to do something? Yes, but I mean, this was on Eighth Avenue. You know, it was, you, you sound like you lived in a nicer sort of building where the, the super was. I don't know.

• 46:37Speaker 05

  Uh, no, I mean, no, my mom, when we were, when I was growing up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, it was really, it was not a great neighborhood at the time. Um, it has since become very gentrified. But at the time, no, it was, we had, uh, you know, we had heroin acts coming in and stealing our, uh, uh, fixtures. They would steal the, you know, the, the, the, whatever lamps there were on the walls and stuff. We had, uh, you know, uh, uh, bulletproof glass in the lobby and stuff.

• 47:05Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 47:05Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't the Wild West. I mean, the closest thing to the Wild West was I, we had a neighbor, Mr. Green, who. Mr. Green used to come by and he would bring oxtail soup for my mother. He was very nice, bald gentleman. Uh, and he goes, oh, is, is your mother around? Well, I brought some oxtail soup. Well, I did not know, but Mr. Green had a secret double life. Um, one night we're, we're in the house and we hear a pop, pop. And somebody runs down the stairs and my mom was like, what the fuck happened? And, um, and, uh, we, it turns out. Mr. Green, uh, had, he liked to, uh, uh, uh, partake of, uh, ladies of the evening. God bless him, Mr. Green.

• 47:46Speaker 05

  Uh, uh, but this one particular lady of the evening, uh, had shown up, but then showed up with her boyfriend who proceeded. To tie up Mr. Green.

• 47:54Bill Maher?

  Boyfriend, you made a pimp?

• 47:56Speaker 05

  Yes, I imagine, I, I, you know, again, I, I, I'm a romantic. I prefer to see it as just a love relationship.

• 48:04Bill Maher?

  It is of sorts.

• 48:05Speaker 05

  Of sorts. At any rate, he tied up Mr. Green. And started to ransack his house. The pimp did? The pimp did.

• 48:11Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 48:11Speaker 05

  Um, tied him up next to his bed, but Mr. Green reached under his bed and found a pistol. Uh, aimed from the hip. Swear to God, from the hip, because Mr. Green was tied up.

• 48:25Bill Maher?

  Just like in a movie.

• 48:26Speaker 05

  It's just like in a movie and shot the guy in the head, in between the fucking eyes. And the next time when he came over with the oxtail soup, he insisted, I come over to the house so he could show me where the bullets ricocheted. So that was, that was my building growing up.

• 48:42Speaker 05

  Uh, but mostly it was nice.

• 48:44Bill Maher?

  If you called the police, would Kojak come over?

• 48:49Speaker 05

  Just because of the resemblance.

• 48:51Bill Maher?

  No, no, I'm just saying.

• 48:53Speaker 05

  But the seventies, yes.

• 48:54Bill Maher?

  The great seventies. Do you remember Kojak?

• 48:56Speaker 05

  Yes, Telly Savalas, who loves you, baby? Yeah, he got famous for having a lollipop. That was, that was Telly Savalas's.

• 49:04Bill Maher?

  I don't think they show that. They should redo that one. That was a great character.

• 49:08Speaker 05

  But maybe it's time.

• 49:09Bill Maher?

  No.

• 49:10Speaker 05

  Shave the beard.

• 49:11Bill Maher?

  You're not, you're not Kojak.

• 49:12Speaker 05

  I don't have to.

• 49:13Bill Maher?

  Kojak, Kojak ain't. Kojak ain't woke. Let me tell you, bro.

• 49:18Speaker 05

  Maybe not. Maybe not. We'll, we'll, we'll, uh, yes, we'll, I'll do some research on Kojak.

• 49:22Bill Maher?

  Kojak is the guy who's after the judge. Yeah, you see the defendants, and I see their victims.

• 49:32Bill Maher?

  I gotta get the scum off the street.

• 49:34Speaker 05

  Yes, that was, that was true. The seventies was the scum off the street. But it was also Serpico and, uh, you know, there was, uh, yeah, it was also, it was, it was an interestingly grungy. Awful period. Whenever I see period movies about the seventies, I'm like, there's not enough litter. We need more litter. I don't buy it until the litter is fucking a foot deep. Um, but it is.

• 50:06Speaker 05

  Oh, man.

• 50:07Bill Maher?

  That's good.

• 50:07Speaker 05

  But actually, I, I, I, the reason I came on this podcast, besides that I enjoy your work a lot. I must, I must plug.

• 50:15Bill Maher?

  Please.

• 50:15Speaker 05

  It is actually relevant.

• 50:16Bill Maher?

  Please.

• 50:18Speaker 05

  Because, uh, because basically I, I, um, I've got a podcast that I produced. I'm not in it, but I produced it that, um, is coming out called, uh, The Man Who Calculated Death. And it is a, it is an insane story that absolutely fell in my lap.

• 50:32Bill Maher?

  The man who calculated?

• 50:34Speaker 05

  Death.

• 50:35Bill Maher?

  Death.

• 50:35Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 50:36Bill Maher?

  Interesting.

• 50:37Speaker 05

  Absolutely insane story. Uh, basically, I was at a dinner party with, uh, a friend of my wife. And, uh, she, at one point, she, she knew I was a big fan of the space program. I, the history of the space program is something I'm, I'm fascinated with. And she said, oh, you know, my, my grandpa worked on the space program. And I was, oh, that's wow, that's awesome. And she said, yeah, and then before that he, he worked for Hitler. But anyway, da, da, da, da.

• 51:00Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 51:01Speaker 05

  Just, yes, she continued on in the conversation.

• 51:04Bill Maher?

  Wernher Von Braun?

• 51:05Speaker 05

  Uh, actually, he worked with Wernher Von Braun, um, because she, she had been on this-

• 51:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah, we had a lot of Nazis.

• 51:11Speaker 05

  Yes. She, she had, she had been on this crazy journey because two years before we had this conversation, her mother, uh, had been diagnosed with cancer and literally on her deathbed, her mother admitted to her. She said, I, I've been writing a, a memoir for five years now, but I won't finish it because I'm dying. Will you finish it for me?

• 51:29Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 51:30Speaker 05

  And so Suzanne had to, her name's Suzanne Rico, she was an anchor woman here in Los Angeles. That's how my wife knew her. Um, Suzanne had to go back through her family's history that she'd only kind of dimly been aware of, um, and discover that her grandfather actually was a guy named Robert Lussner, who was one of Hitler's most important scientists. He invented the V1, which was, he and Wernher Von Braun were in a race to make secret super weapons for Hitler.

• 51:56Bill Maher?

  My mother was in London when those bombs fell on it.

• 51:59Speaker 05

  Exactly, and they terrorized London. And so Suzanne basically had to go on this, this journey, sort of rediscovering her family's history and understanding, uh, you know, what the family went through to get through, uh, uh, World War II and, you know, Operation Paperclip. Bringing the secretly bringing the Nazis to the United States and and plopping them down.

• 52:19Bill Maher?

  That's what it was called?

• 52:20Speaker 05

  Operation Paperclip, yes.

• 52:21Bill Maher?

  I never knew that.

• 52:22Speaker 05

  Yes, it's a fascinating story.

• 52:24Bill Maher?

  Well, here's a moral question.

• 52:26Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 52:27Bill Maher?

  And that probably for our show that we're gonna do called The Purist and the Pragmatist. The pragmatist would say, uh, bringing Nazis, ex Nazis here to run our space program was the right thing to do.

• 52:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:40Bill Maher?

  What does the purist say? You agree with that?

• 52:42Speaker 05

  The purist, uh, uh, um, well, you know, uh, uh, they, the argument at the time was, these were the good ones. Uh, you know.

• 52:51Bill Maher?

  No, the argument was, we need a space program before the Russians get one.

• 52:54Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 52:55Bill Maher?

  And Nazis know how to do it, because Germans are smart and efficient. I always say this about Germans. They're so efficient that when they turn their efficiency toward mass death.

• 53:06Speaker 05

  Even then.

• 53:06Bill Maher?

  It's bad for them.

• 53:10Bill Maher?

  But it's true. They're just, it's not like their ambitions to wipe out people was any different than Genghis Khan or lots of other people. They just were, they had 20th century technology. And they just are so crazy efficient. Germans and specific and detailed. So like, when it was like, how do we kill all these Jews? It was like.

• 53:34Speaker 05

  Be efficient about it, I guess.

• 53:36Bill Maher?

  Did you see that, um, movie, uh, The Zone of?

• 53:40Speaker 05

  Zone of Interest, yes. I did see that movie.

• 53:43Bill Maher?

  The Zone of No Interest.

• 53:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was a little slow. I will say, the movie was a little slow.

• 53:49Bill Maher?

  What I got out of it, no, I didn't, no, it was, it was not bad, but what I got out of it was a kind of a, a movie version of the famous saying from Hannah Arendt, the banality of evil.

• 53:58Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 53:59Bill Maher?

  It was, and of course, if you're showing banality in a movie, you're.

• 54:03Speaker 05

  It's a little slow.

• 54:06Bill Maher?

  You know, it could have used Chuck Lorre to punch it up a little.

• 54:09Speaker 05

  Oh God.

• 54:10Bill Maher?

  You know, you come in and you're just like this bumbling guard from, you know, that because you're, you know, if you don't know this story, this German family and they're they're having this wonderful idyllic life in the Liebenstrom, the living space that Hitler wanted, but it's right next to Auschwitz.

• 54:30Speaker 05

  Yes. Oh darn. That's the only place that we could get a big enough place for the family. Well, actually, it's interesting because that's what the, a big chunk of, of the podcast is about is, is a family, what happens to a family as authoritarianism, authoritarianism gradually takes over their country.

• 54:50Bill Maher?

  Where?

• 54:52Speaker 05

  I'm sorry, in Germany.

• 54:53Bill Maher?

  That's what the podcast is about.

• 54:54Speaker 05

  That's what the podcast is about. Yes, because it's about.

• 54:56Bill Maher?

  Like what year?

• 54:57Speaker 05

  Because, because Robert Luster, the guy who it's about, the man who calculated death, he was a famous German pilot. He, he actually built his own planes that he flew and became a celebrity, actually. And his, his family, he became an engineer. He invented the BF 109, which is probably the most famous fighter plane.

• 55:18Bill Maher?

  So the 40s is a.

• 55:19Speaker 05

  Yes. So, so yeah, this goes from the 20s.

• 55:21Bill Maher?

  The war ends in 45, then we import the Nazis.

• 55:25Speaker 05

  Yes. He actually was in hiding for a couple of years after the war because he was sure he would be tried for war crimes. And, but then the CIA found him and rather the precursor to the CIA, the OSS.

• 55:40Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 55:41Speaker 05

  And, and brought him to the United States illegally at the time. Undocumented immigrants.

• 55:47Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 55:51Speaker 05

  You know.

• 55:52Bill Maher?

  We need.

• 55:53Speaker 05

  And yeah, but it was interesting because that's a lot, the podcast goes into, you know, what, what exactly was he complicit in? What wasn't he complicit in? You know, some of the V1s were built at concentration camps.

• 56:04Bill Maher?

  Well, I would listen to that. That's interesting to me.

• 56:07Speaker 05

  And Suzanne Rico did an amazing job.

• 56:09Bill Maher?

  Can I hear this?

• 56:10Speaker 05

  It is on, it's on Apple Podcasts as we speak, Spotify.

• 56:14Bill Maher?

  Oh, it is right now.

• 56:15Speaker 05

  It's wonder, it's exclusive to Wondery Plus. So if you, if you subscribe to Wondery Plus.

• 56:20Bill Maher?

  What is the title one more time?

• 56:22Speaker 05

  The man who calculated death. It's clearly a catchy title.

• 56:25Bill Maher?

  I'm the man who smoked pot, so I, you know, don't, don't hate me for, uh, the man who calculated death.

• 56:33Speaker 05

  This is probably not the, the optimum time to approach you.

• 56:36Bill Maher?

  This is totally the optimum time.

• 56:38Speaker 05

  Oh, really? Okay, okay.

• 56:39Bill Maher?

  This is when I'm at my best.

• 56:42Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 56:42Bill Maher?

  I, I never drink all week. I save it for this. It's, it's the joy of my life to be able to get to know somebody. It's usually not this contentious, but I don't.

• 56:51Speaker 05

  That's okay.

• 56:52Bill Maher?

  But it's, if it's okay with you, it's okay with me.

• 56:55Speaker 05

  It is, yes.

• 56:55Bill Maher?

  Because I love honesty and I love getting right to it. What do we really think and feel? And, and I also just love that we can continue and it's like, okay, he's him, I'm me. We're not the, you know, da da, da da, da da.

• 57:11Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 57:12Bill Maher?

  And, but, but we still have so much in common and can like each other and just go, there's always gonna be things about other people. You're gonna go, mm, I don't know why that, I can't believe they think that way. But, you know, it doesn't matter.

• 57:26Speaker 05

  And again, I do wanna compliment you, especially in the, in the context of talking about the rise of authoritarianism is, is, is you have been a very clear voice. Um, talking about the very specific issues that have arisen.

• 57:38Bill Maher?

  Nobody was taking me seriously about Trump for a longest time. And it was like, obvious to me, this is someone who can never say, I lost, I concede an, an election. Um, he couldn't do, I do this in my act, but I'll just say it to you.

• 57:55Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 57:56Bill Maher?

  I don't wanna be, you know, I, it's called an illegal spritz in comedy, but, but it is just the truth also, of course, cause, you know, I don't really write jokes. I just, you know, observe them. But like, when a football coach loses a game, you know, football coaches, that's all their life is. They have no other life. They all just live for it. I mean, Bill Belichick now has a 23-year-old girlfriend. But trust me, for all the 40 years he was coaching, he did not. Because Tom Brad, Tom Brady was his girlfriend. So, when they lose a game, it is just the worst. But they force themselves to walk across the field.

• 58:36Bill Maher?

  And put out their hand, they seek out the lead, the winning coach. Nice game, Andy. And that is what this man can never do with elections. And, you know, he jokes about, maybe, maybe after this one, which, you know, and is it really a joke? See, this is my thing with the, my friends on the right, I keep saying to them, you guys say, your big theory is, he just says a lot of shit. Okay, we're gonna put this says a lot of shit doctrine to the test. Because that's not good enough for me. People who say shit usually do it.

• 59:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:16Bill Maher?

  And, you know.

• 59:18Speaker 05

  And I don't know that the people, a lot of people that voted for him, heard some of the shit that he was saying. You know, because he just yammers on with that word salad, you know.

• 59:26Bill Maher?

  That's his superpower.

• 59:27Speaker 05

  I know, it is.

• 59:28Bill Maher?

  He's so all over the map about everything.

• 59:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:31Bill Maher?

  That nobody takes him literally about anything, which is the biggest advantage a politician could ever have.

• 59:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:38Bill Maher?

  You don't really believe what I'm saying anyway. You just trust me that I have the instincts of, uh, let's not live in crazy town and we won't get over there again.

• 59:49Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 59:49Bill Maher?

  You know, let's not live in John Cryerville, wink, wink.

• 59:54Speaker 05

  It's fun in John Cryerville. All I, all I can tell you.

• 59:58Bill Maher?

  Is it? You think you have a fun life?

• 1:00:00Speaker 05

  I do.

• 1:00:01Bill Maher?

  I'm sure you do, yeah.

• 1:00:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:04Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and you've been married twice?

• 1:00:07Speaker 05

  Yes. That's, that's, that's immediately what you go to. You're like, wait, you've been married twice? And you actually had fun? No, let's, wait a minute, wait, I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to go through this a little bit. Yes, I have been married twice, I have two kids.

• 1:00:26Bill Maher?

  From the same marriage or the?

• 1:00:28Speaker 05

  No, I had, I had a son in my first marriage and another one by my second.

• 1:00:33Bill Maher?

  How long was the first marriage for?

• 1:00:35Speaker 05

  Uh, four years.

• 1:00:35Bill Maher?

  Four years, that's about the right time for a start. I've heard the term, I don't wanna cast aspersions and I'm, but I've heard people use the term starter marriage.

• 1:00:44Speaker 05

  Um, you know.

• 1:00:45Bill Maher?

  I think it's not an aspersion on the person so much is that you're usually young when you do it. So you don't know enough about being a person.

• 1:00:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, and sometimes you don't get married for for great reasons, you know, and and that that happens, you know, and that's nobody, you know, I I I. I don't want to say it's nobody's fault because you did it. So it's it's it's your fault. But but at the same time, you know, as you as you get older, things change and you you you had, you know, you saw a situation a certain way and you said, OK, this is the best thing to do, and sometimes it just wasn't. So, you know.

• 1:01:24Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, when I think back at what I would call the vulnerable years, when I mean, I did get engaged once when I was twenty nine. And, you know, I I, you know, always got my toe out of the trap, but.

• 1:01:39Bill Maher?

  It was it almost, yeah, it almost happened a few years later, and I would have been so unhappy and it would have fucked up everything. I mean, somehow. I've done so many stupid things, but somehow that load start, like knowing that I am just not the kind of person who can be married. I at least kept to that, and that was correct. But.

• 1:02:02Speaker 05

  That's fair.

• 1:02:03Bill Maher?

  Like so much else, I would just like.

• 1:02:06Speaker 05

  And I.

• 1:02:06Bill Maher?

  I always say to myself, when I live my life over, I'm sure not going to do that because that was so stupid.

• 1:02:12Speaker 05

  And I, well, interestingly, I do think that there's a there is definitely a societal stigma to not getting married and to not having children. That people, you know, people judge people. I'm certainly judging you right now.

• 1:02:27Speaker 05

  No, I'm not. But I I I don't think it's fair. I think people.

• 1:02:31Bill Maher?

  That was great.

• 1:02:32Speaker 05

  OK.

• 1:02:34Speaker 05

  I think, you know, if if people know that about themselves and, you know, it doesn't mean they're shallow. It doesn't mean that they don't. They don't have empathy or don't understand people or don't understand the human experience or whatever. I I think it's I think it those are ridiculous stigmas.

• 1:02:51Bill Maher?

  Thank you. I mean, it used to be much more, I think, of what you're describing now. Now, as far as what an outlier it was in society, I remember on Politically Incorrect in the nineties. And when, but again, this is the nineties. Uh, it was a little bit of a, you're a weirdo if you never got married. Um, I feel like it just became, no, that's a, so many more people are doing it, by the way. It's just a life choice. And we do get more, especially with social media and that fucking magic light box that transfixes everyone and addicts everyone and changes our brain chemistry, basically. Um, it's harder to connect and stay like

• 1:03:35Bill Maher?

  married and that kind of stuff. I mean, our attention spans just aren't there.

• 1:03:41Speaker 05

  You just can't pay attention to the same person for that long. I, I, yeah.

• 1:03:47Bill Maher?

  I mean, well, that is a big problem with marriage is that, I mean, that is the main problem. People can pretend it's other problems, but it's just hard to be with the same human being. But how, no one is that scintillating. I mean, I, I'm not, uh, I just don't think anyone is. And I, that to me was what, a main reason why I never got married is like, that model is not gonna work, so I'm gonna find other models, literally.

• 1:04:15Bill Maher?

  We'll be right back.

• 1:04:15Speaker 05

  Boom, yes.

• 1:04:18Speaker 05

  Although I have to say, I, I love, I love being married to my wife. It is.

• 1:04:22Bill Maher?

  And that's another, just a different personality type. And it's, yeah, it's very, I envy that to a degree because, you know, it simplifies life.

• 1:04:31Speaker 05

  It, it, it does in some ways, and also just, um, having somebody else to, um, go through life with.

• 1:04:38Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:04:39Speaker 05

  Like, just to go through the, the times that are great. Like, you're, you know, you're gonna say, I just had the best interview with John Cryer to an empty house. No, full of models, I'm sure.

• 1:04:54Speaker 05

  But, um,

• 1:04:57Bill Maher?

  It's not exactly empty right this minute, but sometimes, but I, I live alone and, uh, like living alone and, um, I don't know if that. Is something that you could ever change about yourself. You just have to recognize it about yourself. I did have that instinct early on. It was the correct instinct. It just has everything to do, as everything does, with when your personality is formed in those first few, some would say months, but years of life. You know, you're pretty much, at least this is what the experts tell us, you know, set. And I certainly have known parents who have said to me, you know right away what this kid is like, like one or two, like, oh, that's a wild one.

• 1:05:44Bill Maher?

  And I don't have that experience, but I think that's probably right. So it's just kind of what your personality is. I think politics is something that much more comes out of personality. You know, you're a Republican. Yeah, you're a Republican because you're a square. You know, that's your personality, you know, not you. But like, you know, certainly in the old days, when I was a kid, the Republicans were more the country club types.

• 1:06:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, now they're the fire-breathing, you know.

• 1:06:16Bill Maher?

  It's kind of switched up.

• 1:06:17Speaker 05

  Destroy the establishment, let's, you know.

• 1:06:20Bill Maher?

  The Democrats got to be the elitist.

• 1:06:22Speaker 05

  But again, I don't agree with that.

• 1:06:24Bill Maher?

  But that's what Ameri-- but.

• 1:06:25Speaker 05

  I get it.

• 1:06:26Bill Maher?

  I know you don't.

• 1:06:28Speaker 05

  That's the right-wing framing, right there.

• 1:06:29Bill Maher?

  It's not right-wing framing. That's your indoctrination. You've got to get out of MSNBC all day long.

• 1:06:35Speaker 05

  I don't watch on MSNBC.

• 1:06:38Bill Maher?

  Well, they're watching you.

• 1:06:39Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 1:06:40Bill Maher?

  Because you're channeling them.

• 1:06:41Speaker 05

  Gosh.

• 1:06:42Bill Maher?

  I mean, that is not right-wing framing.

• 1:06:45Speaker 05

  Yes, it is.

• 1:06:46Bill Maher?

  That's just how America sees it.

• 1:06:48Speaker 05

  I'm sorry, but the pro-union party, the Democrats.

• 1:06:51Bill Maher?

  The Democrats are not seen as the working party.

• 1:06:54Speaker 05

  They're not seen as it because of the right-wing framing, Bill Maher.

• 1:06:58Bill Maher?

  That is part of it, of course.

• 1:07:00Speaker 05

  Yes, that is part of it.

• 1:07:01Bill Maher?

  But they're going to take advantage of that. That's, yes, you're right. There is a certain amount of that that you would expect the opposition party to try to take advantage of, but they give them these openings. Yeah, do I understand why Sherrod Brown, who's very pro-union, lost in Ohio, where there's a lot of union jobs? Some of that is because of propaganda, and some of that is because they just didn't see what his championing got for them.

• 1:07:30Speaker 05

  Well, and, but I'm gonna say this one more time, and you're gonna get so annoyed at me, and inflation hit very hard, and their salaries did not catch up. Boom. That's why.

• 1:07:44Bill Maher?

  You know what? Denzel has a great.

• 1:07:46Speaker 05

  I'm sorry?

• 1:07:47Bill Maher?

  Quote, Denzel Washington. "If you're looking for an excuse, you'll find one."

• 1:07:52Speaker 05

  Yes. Well...

• 1:07:54Bill Maher?

  So inflation wasn't good, but like, if you wanna look for excuses, you'll find it. If you wanna look in the mirror and ever win an election again, follow me if you wanna live.

• 1:08:05Speaker 05

  Well, again, I'm not saying there should not be introspection. I think the Democrats and the left are too much, are the kings of introspection, but, no, I'm saying, obviously, we're in a different fight now, because, and by the way, I'm not a Democrat, I'm a registered independent.

• 1:08:25Bill Maher?

  Me too.

• 1:08:26Speaker 05

  Okay, but I believe the fight now is to retain something of a democracy, something of a civil democracy.

• 1:08:36Bill Maher?

  I am an independent, but I've never voted for the Republic.

• 1:08:41Speaker 05

  Oh, I have. So that's how we're different. And I really...

• 1:08:44Bill Maher?

  Who did you vote for?

• 1:08:45Speaker 05

  I'm not going to say.

• 1:08:46Bill Maher?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:08:47Speaker 05

  But, no, you know what, I am gonna say, because it deserves some introspection on my part. It was Rudy Giuliani in New York City.

• 1:08:56Bill Maher?

  You don't have to be ashamed of it.

• 1:08:57Speaker 05

  Well, you know...

• 1:08:58Bill Maher?

  He was a good mayor.

• 1:08:59Speaker 05

  He was, he was, he did change how New Yorkers felt about the city. He took problems that people felt were just intractable in New York City, and made people feel like, oh, we can do something about these things.

• 1:09:12Bill Maher?

  It's so funny, because like...

• 1:09:13Speaker 05

  And that I'm grateful.

• 1:09:13Bill Maher?

  What he did was unwoke some bullshit that was going on in the city. He was a Republican mayor, so it sounds like when when these issues were in your life personally.

• 1:09:22Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:09:23Bill Maher?

  You kind of liked it when the Rudy.

• 1:09:26Speaker 05

  Boo.

• 1:09:27Bill Maher?

  Why is it, but okay, that's easy to do, but engage with the actual thought why it's wrong. Engage with that.

• 1:09:33Speaker 05

  I'm sorry.

• 1:09:34Bill Maher?

  I'm saying it sounds like when when you were living in New York.

• 1:09:38Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 1:09:38Bill Maher?

  And these issues impacted you directly.

• 1:09:41Speaker 05

  These issues impact me directly now and I'm and I'm not voting for Trump.

• 1:09:45Bill Maher?

  Because you're rich right now, you're rich.

• 1:09:47Speaker 05

  So.

• 1:09:48Bill Maher?

  So you're not like on the street, but Rudy Giuliani, you liked him because he made New York more livable, which was less crime, you know.

• 1:09:56Speaker 05

  Well, he he.

• 1:09:57Bill Maher?

  Get the squeegee guys.

• 1:09:59Speaker 05

  They they, yes, they they introduced broken windows policing, which which at the time was supposedly statistically based. And you remember they had the.

• 1:10:07Bill Maher?

  Explain the theory.

• 1:10:08Speaker 05

  The theory of broken windows is was that that by prosecuting petty crime, petty.

• 1:10:16Bill Maher?

  Like broken windows.

• 1:10:17Speaker 05

  Yes, quality of life crimes, like the guys who would squeegee your car whether you wanted them to or not.

• 1:10:21Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:10:22Speaker 05

  Um, that by that it it increased an atmosphere of civility and lawfulness.

• 1:10:30Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:10:30Speaker 05

  Um, and to the extent that that some of that worked, but it also resulted in some very bad things. Uh, the stop and frisk policy that was that was incredibly racist and was and and New York City has dealt with incredible racism uh over since its founding. Um, uh, and so, you know, the, you know, I could say, yeah, it was, you know, it was nice not to have the squeegee guys, you know, but but again, I, you know, the the man has has imploded as a human being, Rudy Giuliani.

• 1:11:04Bill Maher?

  What what do you make of of people like, I mean, there's so many people you think of like Harvey Weinstein, Diddy, like people who are like at the summit and then they're just in places now. I mean, Rudy's not exactly in jail, but he's certainly in show business jail.

• 1:11:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:24Bill Maher?

  And I mean, Epstein, I I mean, to go from like how they live to.

• 1:11:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, Junani was revered for decades. He was America's mayor.

• 1:11:36Bill Maher?

  He ran for president on that.

• 1:11:37Speaker 05

  Yes, yes. And yeah, again, I don't know why the people in Trump's orbit gather there and are dismantled and destroy their lives and throw their lives away to be loyal to this man. I don't understand it. You know, my understanding with Rudy in his case was that he actually has a serious drinking problem. Again, I don't know. I don't call it defamation because I don't know for sure, but that's the story.

• 1:12:07Bill Maher?

  That is, that is brooded about.

• 1:12:09Speaker 05

  Yes, yes. So it could be that. I don't know. I don't know. Again, I don't get the appeal of Trump as a politician in any respect. But obviously, I'm outvoted, literally. So I certainly not the kind of politician you'd worth throwing your life away on. But plenty of people will line up to do it.

• 1:12:33Bill Maher?

  No one has been harder on Donald Trump or, you know, tweeted at me a million times, never complimentary. But I do, I do understand, I certainly understand why he won, and we don't have to go back over that. Some of it was what the Republicans do, but they ran a smarter campaign as they often do. And some of it was what the Democrats do. But there are moments where I, you know, I look at him and he'll do something where I go, first of all, I understand why it works. But then it's not as I actually like it. Like when he was talking, the night he won, he was talking about the Elon's rocket that came back and they caught it. He's like, can Russia do it?

• 1:13:15Bill Maher?

  Can China do it? No. America did it and it took it. And I was like, yeah, you know what? That's not, that's not bad to me, that someone likes America and is proud that we can do something amazing like that that nobody else can do. Now, does this make up for the other?

• 1:13:33Bill Maher?

  Of course not. I'm just saying that there are, you know, I thought it was good that he moved the capital of Israel to Jerusalem. And if he does something in the new term.

• 1:13:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, the embassy. But what, now what do you, what do you like about that, just out of curiosity?

• 1:13:49Bill Maher?

  Jerusalem?

• 1:13:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:51Bill Maher?

  Well, it's been the Jewish capital for like 2,500 years.

• 1:13:55Speaker 05

  Years, yeah. No, I'm legitimately curious. I'm not, this isn't a gotcha.

• 1:13:59Bill Maher?

  I mean, there's no, there's no reason why. Every other country in the world gets to have their capital where they want it. And every American administration promised they would do it and then just pocket beat on it and forgot about it for four years. It was the right thing to do. You know, again, in a sea of things I didn't agree with, but you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to judge anything until it happens. This country needed a slap in the face and a colonic. He would not be the guy I would have chosen to deliver the colonic. But I get, I get the need for the colonic. It's not like we're not bloated and sclerotic and, and wrapped up in a bunch, in a lot of dumb things that we do.

• 1:14:44Bill Maher?

  And we'll see. I mean, they're disruptors. They certainly got that. That's what, that's what the Democrats asked for when they invited this disaster is, you know, now, now we'll find out what it's like to have Bozo the Clown be the Secretary of Education.

• 1:15:00Speaker 05

  Well, I mean.

• 1:15:01Bill Maher?

  It's so beyond parody.

• 1:15:03Speaker 05

  Yes, he, the circus is literally in town with the, with the Trump cabinet. But, but it is interesting because to me, it makes it all the more clear that the, that the Republican project for the last 50 years is to delegitimize and, and dismantle the United States federal government. And they've said that, I mean, you've got Grover Norquist.

• 1:15:24Bill Maher?

  Not dismantle, but, but, well, Grover, Grover Norquist once said, strangle it in the bathtub.

• 1:15:30Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 1:15:32Bill Maher?

  That's too far, but is it super bloated? Yes. Even Al Gore, back in the day, was put in charge of doing what Elon is exactly says he's gonna do now. So they, they got it back in the 90s that this thing is out of control. Government is completely out of control.

• 1:15:50Speaker 05

  But I believe it's a.

• 1:15:50Bill Maher?

  That's so true.

• 1:15:51Speaker 05

  I believe it's a Trojan horse just to, to dismantle the things that they don't like. And, and so.

• 1:15:59Bill Maher?

  So I'm saying, my issues. The environment and democracy.

• 1:16:04Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:16:04Bill Maher?

  And the environment is, my issue is gonna suffer horribly because these clowns are in there.

• 1:16:11Speaker 05

  You're right. What on earth are you putting in there? What is this?

• 1:16:15Bill Maher?

  That's something, something Bill Cosby gave me. I didn't ask.

• 1:16:20Speaker 05

  What could go wrong?

• 1:16:21Bill Maher?

  It's, it's Cosby's finest. Look.

• 1:16:25Speaker 05

  Oh my god.

• 1:16:26Bill Maher?

  Let's not judge him just because it's seventy-nine accusations.

• 1:16:30Speaker 05

  Seventy-nine rapes or whatever. But, but, okay. Well, God bless you. You don't, you don't have to tell me.

• 1:16:36Bill Maher?

  So what's your relationship with Charlie now? I'm not, I'm not saying he's, don't connect those two.

• 1:16:43Speaker 05

  It's like, wow, okay. That's a segue.

• 1:16:45Bill Maher?

  This thing has made me think of him. I, I, I don't think he's a rapist. But he's done other bad things.

• 1:16:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I don't know. He, uh, we don't have a relationship anymore.

• 1:16:56Bill Maher?

  Oh, that's a shame.

• 1:16:57Speaker 05

  I, I, I wish him the best. I, I, we have some mutual friends still. Uh, and I've heard he's been sober for a while, which is great to hear. I know that he has, um, uh, reconnected with Chuck Lorre, who was, uh, the producer of my show.

• 1:17:11Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 1:17:12Speaker 05

  That their, their friction was what broke up, uh, what, what, you know, caused that huge conflagration on the show.

• 1:17:20Bill Maher?

  Why were they fighting?

• 1:17:22Speaker 05

  They were fighting. Well, it was really, it was really sad, actually. It was incredibly tragic because, uh, Charlie was, uh, relapsing at the time. Uh, Chuck, uh, you know, has been very upfront.

• 1:17:33Bill Maher?

  And there was a period where he was sober?

• 1:17:35Speaker 05

  Yes, he was sober for the first few seasons of the show.

• 1:17:37Bill Maher?

  For the whole time?

• 1:17:39Speaker 05

  The whole time, as far as I know. I mean, obviously, I'm not the, the, the police.

• 1:17:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I had dinner with him in twenty-ten and he was completely sober.

• 1:17:47Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, and he was proud of his sobriety.

• 1:17:50Bill Maher?

  And charming.

• 1:17:50Speaker 05

  And incredibly charming and smart and great at what he does. Absolutely, uh, a wonderful comedian, gifted with his timing. I mean, I loved working with him. We had a great time.

• 1:18:02Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:02Speaker 05

  Um, but he started, you know, after his, his marriage went south with, went south with Denise.

• 1:18:10Speaker 05

  Having, you know, clearly he was, he was using again. And he started, you know, it, it, you know, on the show, he was still very professional. Um, he was good to work with. Um, but what happened was he, you know, he started having these things happen. You know, he got arrested at the Plaza Hotel for trashing the room. He got arrested in Colorado. Uh, for fighting with his, uh, with his wife. Yes, that was, that was the Plaza. Um, and.

• 1:18:40Bill Maher?

  He was beating hookers with other hookers.

• 1:18:44Speaker 05

  I don't know what happened.

• 1:18:45Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:18:45Speaker 05

  Uh, but he, uh, uh.

• 1:18:47Bill Maher?

  He is Houdini. The fact that he could get a Super Bowl ad.

• 1:18:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:52Bill Maher?

  After all the things that he's in, on the press for doing, some of them on tape.

• 1:18:57Speaker 05

  Well, cause it's, cause it's oddly, he has a brand. He has the brand that is him. Exactly. And that's one of the reasons that Trump gets away with what he gets away with. He has the brand and it's on brand. I mean, part of the reason that Biden suffered so much after the Afghanistan withdrawal was it was off brand. You know, it, it was, it was a mess. And up to that point, remember he was bowling incredibly well.

• 1:19:17Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:19:17Speaker 05

  Um, but then it was this, oh no.

• 1:19:19Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:19:20Speaker 05

  They're, they're, they, they don't actually have a handle on this. At any rate, with Charlie, um, he, uh, once the, what happened with the show was he, he fell off the wagon. It was obvious. They were doing all kinds of things to sort of work around it. He was missing days on the set. Um, he would still show up on Friday night and he knew his lines and he was ready to go and he could do the show. Um, but he was barely functioning and Chuck, who's been very upfront about his own struggles with alcohol. Um, was confronting him and saying, you need help. You have to do something. And Charlie's, you know, just said, no, I don't. Uh, and that became the, the, the.

• 1:20:00Bill Maher?

  Was that the period where he, there was a tremendous publicity blitz where he was like tiger blood and he was just on something ever?

• 1:20:08Speaker 05

  Well, what caused that was that he, that, that Chuck said, you need to get help. Um, Charlie said, no, I'm not going to. He said, well, no, he know what he did was he said, I'm going to do it for a week. And then he said. Then I want to go back to the show. It didn't make any sense at the time, but it, but it, I think it makes sense to me now. He was already in, having monetary issues at the time. Which is astonishing because he was the highest, he's, he's remains the highest paid actor in television. So he needed the show to go forward. So he was fear, and Chuck shut down the show. And so that was what caused, became the flashpoint. And eventually he got fired because of all the tiger blood nonsense and.

• 1:20:51Speaker 05

  And he was, and he was doing anti Semitic shit. And it was just like, what the fuck is happening here?

• 1:20:57Bill Maher?

  I remember doing a thing about that and, and. My main thesis, as I recall, was, okay, you can say you're the greatest rock star of all time. And you're this great vampire with tiger blood, but you're on a sitcom on the old people's network.

• 1:21:15Speaker 05

  CBS, exactly, exactly.

• 1:21:17Bill Maher?

  It's not, what the rock star, it's good. You know, I, I have the highest respect for people like who are, do, do something that like, has just huge mass appeal, like which I will never do. And I'm okay with that. Everyone has their great niche. I love where I am. But I will never have that. I mean, it wouldn't be right for me anyway, but Taylor Swift, I don't get that. But, you know, I, I have total respect because Trump, you know, you got this tremendous army of people to either watch your show for years.

• 1:21:59Bill Maher?

  It was one, like every year, wasn't it? Like one, one, one, one.

• 1:22:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, it did great.

• 1:22:05Bill Maher?

  That's, you know, there's a certain, like, automatic respect you have to get for success in my book. Even if it's not what I would watch or do or vote for. You move people.

• 1:22:19Speaker 05

  I, yes, I, I, I, there, there was absolutely, we were, we had a lane that really worked. You know, and I was really proud of it and we had a, we had a wonderful time. And again, he was really good to me. But when the breakdown happened, that's when he just started lashing out at everybody, including me. And so obviously the friendship broke down. And years later, um, uh, he came asking, he wanted to reboot the show. And this is after we had already done it with, with Ashton for a, a couple of years. And, uh, and, uh, and I said, no, I don't, this doesn't make any, I don't, you know, that's a roller coaster I don't want to get back on.

• 1:22:57Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:22:57Speaker 05

  Thank you very much. Um, and then he started going into, um, uh, social media and, and acting like I was begging him to do the show again, which I was like, oh, that's just not cool. Um, uh, but, but, but, uh, and, and, and it's frustrating to me because he still keeps up the Tiger Blood persona socially, on social media and stuff.

• 1:23:18Bill Maher?

  He's been sued for his blood.

• 1:23:21Speaker 05

  I know. But, but he is, to my understanding is he's been sober for a while. Uh, and, and the mutual friends that we have, and again, and he and Chuck Lorre, as I said, they've reconnected and he actually appeared on Chuck's, uh, most recent show on AB, on HBO.

• 1:23:36Bill Maher?

  You're gonna wind up all working together again. Every band gets back together when the demand is enough. Mike Tyson just got back in the ring. He's a thousand years old.

• 1:23:47Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 1:23:48Bill Maher?

  He looks like my Uncle Phil in there.

• 1:23:51Speaker 05

  Yes, he had, he had about two rounds of like a little fire in him and then it was, nope, gone, done, done for the evening. Uh, but yeah, I, you know, again, I, I, I like him and I wish the best for him and I'm really glad he's sober and, and if, and you, if you have him on the show, you'll have a great time and you'll have a great show.

• 1:24:09Bill Maher?

  I've been trying to have him. I would, no, really, I would love to.

• 1:24:12Speaker 05

  Um, but, uh, but working with him in any kind of a regular capacity, I will not do again.

• 1:24:18Bill Maher?

  I'll tell you.

• 1:24:19Speaker 05

  I'll do a one-off, sure, but I wish him the best.

• 1:24:21Bill Maher?

  That dinner that we had, it was about 2010, I think it was six people. We had a mutual friend, so it was him and his girlfriend, me and the girl I was with at the time, and Charlie and Brooke. The wife.

• 1:24:32Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:24:33Bill Maher?

  Yeah. When he held the knife to her throat again.

• 1:24:35Speaker 05

  Oh, Jesus.

• 1:24:36Bill Maher?

  This guy gets a Super Bowl. Anyway, so at the end of the evening, you know, I go for my wallet and he's like, and he throws down, I remember it was the time where you couldn't get like one rounded drinks for this probably now and I think it was at the Polo Lounge. He throws down six hun- six hundred dollar bills.

• 1:24:57Bill Maher?

  I guess what the bill was five hundred or four, whatever it was. And if, and ever since then, like this girl and I, whenever we would be someplace at night and we wanna get out quickly, we would say, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna sheen it.

• 1:25:14Speaker 05

  He's become a verb.

• 1:25:16Bill Maher?

  Sheen it means like you throw down cash and you're out. This is more than it is and I am blessed I'm gone.

• 1:25:23Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:25:24Bill Maher?

  So he was, he's a cool dude. I mean, you know, the charisma is there.

• 1:25:28Speaker 05

  He has, yes, he is absolutely charismatic and, and what's great about that and what's lousy about that is all encased in one being, you know?

• 1:25:36Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:36Speaker 05

  And, uh, uh, you know, and again, I'm gonna say it one more time, I really wish him well. I, I loved, I loved working with him when it was good.

• 1:25:44Bill Maher?

  Again, you'll be working together again because it becomes, it's, it's a, it's a force in the universe. And also, you know, it's, there was an undeniable, like, uber chemistry that, that probably cannot be extinguished. I mean, people can drift, but I don't know if that is, isn't so innate that it wouldn't always be there. And then they'll offer you the right money and like, everybody loves money. I mean, you're not so woke, you don't love money.

• 1:26:15Speaker 05

  No, no. But now in the future, whenever you think of the, the woke people that you're really mad at, it's me. I wanna put that face on it. That's the, this is the one, right here. Just say John Cryer. Actually, whenever you say that, it was John Cryer who brought us to this awful pass.

• 1:26:32Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:26:33Speaker 05

  He's the one who did it.

• 1:26:34Bill Maher?

  It's every Hollywood actor who sits there.

• 1:26:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:37Bill Maher?

  You're two guys who don't agree on much. You made me laugh.

• 1:26:40Speaker 05

  Oh, good.

• 1:26:40Bill Maher?

  Like continually.

• 1:26:42Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:26:42Bill Maher?

  I'm sure as much as you probably hate me now.

• 1:26:46Speaker 05

  I don't hate you.

• 1:26:46Bill Maher?

  I know.

• 1:26:47Speaker 05

  There's no hatred.

• 1:26:48Bill Maher?

  Me neither.

• 1:26:49Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 1:26:50Bill Maher?

  Much as we disagree, I think you would at least, um, give me this, that my laugh is genuine.

• 1:26:56Speaker 05

  Yes, you're laughing, yes.

• 1:26:57Bill Maher?

  I do not laugh. Like a talk show host.

• 1:27:07Speaker 05

  That's, I, I thank you. That's, that's, that's kind of you to say, and I, and I've enjoyed my time a lot. And I enjoyed doing Politic Correct back in the day.

• 1:27:16Bill Maher?

  Who can make each other laugh, probably, you know, find a way to agree on more than they disagree. But, you know, we'll just say it's the beginning chapter.

• 1:27:27Speaker 05

  Yes. Of our love relationship. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. That went in a weird direction. My pleasure.

• 1:27:35Bill Maher?

  Great to be on the back of this train with you.

• 1:27:38Speaker 05

  Yes, thank you, America.

• 1:27:40Bill Maher?

  Me and Vice President Garfield. Pledge to America.

• 1:27:44Speaker 05

  Garfield got assassinated, by the way. Just a, he got shot in a train station.

• 1:27:50Bill Maher?

  Chester A. Arthur is the one who took over, right?

• 1:27:52Speaker 05

  Yes, I believe that.

• 1:27:58Bill Maher?

  Vice President Arthur and I.

• 1:28:02Speaker 05

  After you.

• 1:28:06Speaker 05

  Hopefully, we both have careers after this.

• 1:28:14Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:28:44Speaker 03

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