Jillian Michaels | Club Random with Bill Maher

On this episode, Bill sits down with fitness icon, wellness entrepreneur and straight-talking firebrand Jillian Michaels. Bill and Jillian settle in for a free-wheeling chat that drifts from lighthearted ribbing to debates about public health, politics, and pop culture. One minute they’re laughing about early-morning phone alerts or swapping travel stories; the next, they’re chewing over whether either political party still speaks to the middle. Big personalities and bigger opinions collide, but beneath the jokes they keep circling the same question: how do we stay sane—and a little healthier. Go to https://www.ffrf.us/freedom or text "CLUB" to 511511 and become a member today Get your summer savings and shop premium wireless plans at https://www.mintmobile.com/random Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/random #rulapod #ad Get 20% off your first pair of Skechers Hands Free Slip-ins at https://www.skechers.com/clubrandom or use code Club Random Go to https://www. OmahaSteaks.com to get 50% off sitewide during their Memorial Day Sale. And use Promo Code BILL at checkout for an extra $35 off. Minimum purchase may apply. See site for details. A big thanks to our advertiser, Omaha Steaks! 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

  Honey, that flu keeping you up?

• 0:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't got this.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  You need NyQuil Intense Flu.

• 0:06Speaker 02

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• 0:14Speaker 03

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• 0:45Bill Maher?

  He's butching it up these days.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  I know, I like them.

• 0:47Bill Maher?

  He's got a beard, and I don't mean the old kind of beard. I mean an actual beard. He doesn't need a beard, he's out.

• 0:55Bill Maher?

  At one point, I think he said he doesn't believe in any vaccines.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  But if he did, I would fundamentally disagree with him personally.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Hi, boss.

• 1:07Bill Maher?

  Bitch. How are you?

• 1:10Speaker 01

  I'm good. I'm in my chair with him. He gave me a booster seat.

• 1:15Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16Bill Maher?

  How are you?

• 1:18Bill Maher?

  I'm all right.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  What's going on?

• 1:20Bill Maher?

  You look good.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  I tried.

• 1:22Bill Maher?

  Yeah?

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23Bill Maher?

  Thanks for jumping in here.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  What do you think? I got like a double...

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Because I'm so...

• 1:29Bill Maher?

  Why, you're not that short.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  I'm not short.

• 1:32Bill Maher?

  Well, how tall are you?

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Five two. I lie and say five three, but you know, the license says five three, but...

• 1:37Bill Maher?

  Okay, but you're not in the WNBA. Although I bet you'd be very welcome.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  You think?

• 1:45Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, an attractive lesbian in the WNBA?

• 1:49Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:50Bill Maher?

  I think they'd forgive your height. It'd be like, hey, she moves the ball up court good.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know that I'd be able to do that either, I'm afraid. But you're kind of sad. What's the latest?

• 2:00Bill Maher?

  Can I pour you something? Can I? You're a health nut, right? You don't ever drink?

• 2:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do sometimes. But to try to keep up with you, no. It's treacherous. I have nicotine gum in. I've got sparkling water. I already had a coffee.

• 2:17Bill Maher?

  OK, well, keep up with me. You're sounding like I'm a drunk. I don't drink.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 2:21Bill Maher?

  It's like the only time of the week. Oh.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  I mean, your verbal fluidity.

• 2:26Bill Maher?

  Oh, I don't know. You know what?

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Like I can't actually keep up conversation-wise. So I took every nootropic on the market.

• 2:34Bill Maher?

  Don't worry about it. Because today, I have to tell you something. I rarely wake up on the wrong side of the bed because I make sure I get enough sleep. You know what happened today? And I'm either gonna do something on the show about it, sue somebody.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:51Bill Maher?

  Or like, I don't know.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Let's sue somebody.

• 2:53Bill Maher?

  Go mental on the highway. I got woken up out of a sound sleep early in the morning on my phone. You know, like, really, it gets, you know those alerts?

• 3:02Speaker 01

  The Amber?

• 3:03Bill Maher?

  Eh, eh, I thought, oh, my God, the nuclear attack has started. India and Pakistan, they did it. And now it's spread. It was like, missing adult. Oh, good, let me jump out of bed and go look for it. Has that ever happened to you?

• 3:17Speaker 01

  It happens all the time in California in particular. Remember when the fires were going on? And you were getting fake alerts?

• 3:22Bill Maher?

  OK, but fires is one. There was a giant.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  There were fake alerts, though.

• 3:26Bill Maher?

  There was a giant disaster. This was just some person who wandered off. And what am I gonna do about it?

• 3:31Speaker 01

  I would be, I would sue.

• 3:32Bill Maher?

  OK, there's nobody to sue. But I am.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  In case you knew something?

• 3:36Bill Maher?

  What I am not gonna do. What I'm not gonna do anymore is ever leave my phone even on. It was, it was, it wasn't on like the sound. The sound is off. But they don't care. Those alerts come through. So I'm gonna like, put my phone off in another room.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  I definitely think this is real time material personally.

• 3:58Bill Maher?

  I, I, I think it's psychiatry material. I'm telling you, it's, it's just, it, it has ruined my whole day. First of all, I've been tired all day. You know, if you don't get enough sleep at our, my, not your age, my age.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Uh, my age?

• 4:12Bill Maher?

  Well, your age is not my age sweetheart. Um, so, you know, you're just, eh.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  What is this concoction you've made by the way?

• 4:20Bill Maher?

  It's a drink.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  I'm like, what went in there?

• 4:22Bill Maher?

  You know, Jing, Jing, I drink it. I say this every week. People are like, why are you roofing yourself? It's a way to make sparkling water into a chemical free diet soda. Look, I finally said it right.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  I like it with a little tequila in there?

• 4:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah, oh yeah, definitely, yeah.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  That's beautiful.

• 4:39Bill Maher?

  Hmm.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 4:42Bill Maher?

  And now a little pot because suddenly, you know, I'm coming home to you dear. My, my fantasy wife telling you about my terrible day. Here honey, have your martini. Let me light your joint for you and tell me about your problems.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  I would happily. What else you got for me? I'm here to listen.

• 5:01Bill Maher?

  Oh, I mean, you know, we could talk about the state of the world. I know you do. You're killing it by the way. You know, I always see, not thanks to me.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, boss, you gave me the put. Bill, you, you did.

• 5:13Bill Maher?

  Eh, eh, eh, eh. Yeah, you, you, people are, the talent goes where it's gonna go. All you can do is you can like wave at it as it goes by and say, oh, you have my blessing and I, I love that. But you know, the talent and you're the talent and you did it. And people are, you know, obviously you, you have a lot of haters, but you know what? So do I. So does anybody good. You know, the old, well, I guess it's, yeah, I guess it's kind of an old rap song now. If you ain't got no haters, you ain't poppin'.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  I did not know there was an old, which, who, now which rap?

• 5:44Bill Maher?

  I think it's Rico Ritchie.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Poppin'? You ain't poppin'.

• 5:47Bill Maher?

  If you ain't got no haters, you ain't poppin'.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  You ain't poppin'.

• 5:51Bill Maher?

  And, uh, yeah, and you know.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  As long as I'm poppin'.

• 5:54Bill Maher?

  You are definitely poppin'. I mean, just, just because you, uh, speak kindly of RFK. You know, that will always.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Oh my God, Bill, I almost got in a fistfight at dinner last night with a dear friend over fluoride. And this has never been like a hill that I've wanted to die on. And it was just, it was such a. Limited attitude. And she was telling me she had a thyroid issue and I was saying, hey, you know, do you filter your water? Because there's some potential evidence to suggest that fluoride in the water could have a negative impact and has to do with how your thyroid utilizes iodine. And she looked at me like I had 10 heads. This has been a friend of mine for a very long time. And she's like, oh, okay. Because RFK has started working to remove fluoride from the water. And I was like, do you even know what you're talking about? Tell me what you know about it. Like, how do teeth remineralize? Tell me.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Tell me the work you've done. What experts have you listened to? And then I was explaining that drinking fluoride is not really how it's meant to remineralize teeth, and there's significant concerns, and there's robust data to show that it lowers the IQ in kids. And she goes, robust? And Bill, all because, and I'm, I mean, I'm, this is coming from numerous doctors that I've interviewed over the years. And this woman is an interior designer, mocking me, all because she doesn't think Kennedy. And this is the woman with the thought. And it got so bad, I finally, I never lose my shit. I'm usually really good at having these conversations.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  And by the time it was over, I was like, I swear to God, I don't care if you put fluoride in a fucking drip then. Like, it's just, it's insane.

• 7:38Bill Maher?

  Well, it's funny, because I

• 7:39Speaker 01

  What is that?

• 7:40Bill Maher?

  I talked about that maybe like a month ago on the show. And I certainly have done a million jokes on RFK. I like him. He's sat here. I know him for years. I certainly don't go along with everything and we can get it.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Of course not. He's eccentric.

• 7:56Bill Maher?

  To say the least. But on the fluoride thing, I remember when I talked about it on Real Time, again, this was about a month ago. What I was saying was, it was the week they were going after fluoride.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:08Bill Maher?

  And The New York Times had an op-ed piece, how terrible fluoride is.

• 8:15Bill Maher?

  It was either the day before, or maybe the same day, within the paper, within the same paper where you're shitting on it on the editorial page, there was an article saying, I think it was the Journal of American Medicine, but it was some very respectable group saying, "Yeah, we've done these studies and it may not be healthy for you."

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:35Bill Maher?

  And I don't want anything in my water. How about that? If you want fluoride, you do fluoride. I don't think I need fluoride. First of all, I'm not 10 with a mouthful of cavities, okay? I'm not eating chocolate bunnies all day.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  That's the key issue. You nailed it. This diet, but is this even the best solution symptomatically? The answer is no.

• 8:56Bill Maher?

  Right. I mean, so, I don't know. Probably it's mostly benign, but you know, there's a lot of stuff that goes into it. Maybe not, right? I don't know. You've studied it more than I have. Doesn't matter. I don't want it.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  There's concern.

• 9:10Bill Maher?

  I mean, I had a doctor once tried to sell me on the idea, not that I could do anything about it. I guess he thought I had some influence, of advocating for putting statins in the water.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 9:24Bill Maher?

  A cardiologist, yeah.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 9:27Bill Maher?

  I'm sure there are people

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 9:29Bill Maher?

  who benefit from statins. As I always say, medicine is always playing the odds and making sometimes the least worst decision. There are people, just like with the COVID vaccine. Many people would have died without the vaccine and many people probably would have heart attacks without statins. I'm not one of them.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  I would agree with you on statin.

• 9:49Bill Maher?

  What?

• 9:50Speaker 01

  I definitely would say that there's a group of people that need statins and there are great cardiologists that will tell you that. But there's way more to that conversation. And as you mentioned, there's a cost benefit analysis with each and every one of these things.

• 10:03Bill Maher?

  Well, statins I know have deleterious effects on the... I mean, I certainly have talked to enough people who know about this subject. And I can't even... Again, I'm not the guy who can go through the details like you can. But, you know, but generally, anything that...

• 10:21Bill Maher?

  Has a blocking effect. And that's what statins are doing. They're blocking something that's bad for you, right? Isn't basically in layman's terms?

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Well, not necessarily. Is, is high cholesterol correlated to heart disease? Yeah, but is it causal? They're not sure yet.

• 10:39Bill Maher?

  Yes, right, I agree.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  When you speak to guys, like, like, I spent four hours interviewing a gentleman who I happen to think is one of the best cardiologists on the planet. Dr. Arthur Agastin, he invented the calcium score. And I was saying, like, I don't even get it. Am I supposed to be eating saturated fat now? Is sugar the devil? There's no question, sugar is the devil. But he was explaining to me that there are some individuals who have a genetic predisposition to hyper-absorbing dietary cholesterol. It can happen. And there are some individuals that have trouble clearing, that lack an enzyme to clear too much cholesterol. In which case, those are individuals that would benefit from statins. And you know this by going to the appropriate cardiologist and having them do the blood work, ultrasound of your carotids, taking a calcium score, putting, oh, a genetics test,

• 11:25Speaker 01

  putting all those pieces together, and then allowing you to make the right decision for your body with a qualified medical professional. But putting it in the water is one of the craziest things I've heard in a while.

• 11:37Bill Maher?

  No, I mean, things would have to get really bad for me to be on a statin. But I, if I, if I thought I would be dead without it, yes, of course. But I don't think so. But I, I agree. And LDL, now, my understanding is that LDL, that's the bad cholesterol. But I just read something which said, there's actually lots of people who have really shitty LDL scores and no heart problems.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:05Bill Maher?

  So it's just, it's just, it's so rarely as simple as black or white. It's, there's all these, the body is so complicated. I've been trying to make this case for so many years to people, and it comes up in different issues, that it's just, don't compare it to other sciences. I, I remember when the big thing on MSNBC was, well, if you don't, if you're not for vaccines, that it's like denying global warming. No, it's not. Global warming is about climate science, which is infinitely more simple than the body. It really is.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  I know.

• 12:40Bill Maher?

  Not that I could do it, but I actually could learn enough, I think. You know, it's, it's geology, it's chemistry.

• 12:49Bill Maher?

  And the reason why almost all climate scientists agree that global warming is happening and it's man-made, what we should do about it, that's a different debate, is because it's not that complicated. That's not the case with medicine. They just don't know enough.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  And vaccines are so nuanced. That's something that's also like just, okay. I interviewed a PhD on this subject matter very recently, and she was explaining to me the different, just the different technologies, let alone the different pathogens and their levels of danger, and what's dangerous for a baby versus what's dangerous for a person who's 90, and one is a dead pathogen and one is a live pathogen, but the dead pathogen vaccine has something called adjuvants in it, which previously.

• 13:38Bill Maher?

  So this is the old type of vaccine you're talking about, the old dead pathogen.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Well, so there's still.

• 13:43Bill Maher?

  Dead form.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  There's still the dead form, and they still add adjuvants. But back in the day, they would add thimerosal, which is 50% mercury by weight. Now, there's aluminum and things of that nature that are specifically put in the vaccine, she was explaining to me, to wake up your immune system, to become alarmed in the event that your body is like, oh, this thing's dead. I'm not gonna worry about it. So there's that whole concern.

• 14:08Bill Maher?

  That's interesting.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  And then there's the concern of, okay, COVID is something different entirely. It's gene therapy. It's not dead pathogen, live pathogen, adjuvant.

• 14:19Bill Maher?

  No, it's right. It's a very.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  It's a whole different animal.

• 14:22Bill Maher?

  It's a whole different animal.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a completely different beast. And even, did you see this?

• 14:28Bill Maher?

  That doesn't necessarily mean it's worse or harmful, although.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  This one, based on things I've heard.

• 14:36Bill Maher?

  No, I'm saying just.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  More adverse events with this kind of.

• 14:39Bill Maher?

  No, I'm just saying, just because it's a whole different animal doesn't logically conclude that it's worse. But, you know, it's the same thing with satins, with vaccines. Are there ones that I would take? Absolutely. Where I would think it would kill me if I didn't.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Completely.

• 14:56Bill Maher?

  I get it. I think they're an amazing tool. But COVID was, that one never scared me, and I never wanted it. And I'd ever thought it was what they, and it wasn't. I mean, man, there's this new book out. I think the author is David Zweig. And it's about the, mostly about the school closures and what a disaster that was and how unnecessary. And it reminded me of, or maybe it's in the book somewhere, about like the insanity that went on at colleges. Now, we're talking about 20 year olds, the people least likely to be felled by COVID. I mean, you'd have to really try. And the things they were doing at the, you know, elite universities, the same morons who were protesting

• 15:41Bill Maher?

  in favor of terrorist organizations.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 15:44Bill Maher?

  The same morons are, were like, I mean, isolating, like never seeing another student for months. Meals left outside the door, like this was fucking bubonic plague in 1350. It went, I mean.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  My kids still don't read as well as they should because of it. Literally, my son is going into the eighth grade and he's still two years behind in his reading. And I, I would argue without question it's COVID. And I think that you saw different states follow different protocols. I've often wondered if California was the last to reopen the schools. And you gotta ask yourself, or at least I have, and maybe you'll correct me here, but how much did the teachers' union play a role with regard to?

• 16:30Bill Maher?

  Tremendously. Are you kidding?

• 16:32Speaker 01

  And they donate to.

• 16:34Bill Maher?

  The Democrats, oh, absolutely. I mean, I've said it for years. Democrats, they absolutely have to own education because that is that portfolio, their portfolio in the government. If this was a parliamentary government where you get portfolios, they wanted it, they own it. If you go to the Democratic convention, like half the delegates are teachers. I'm, I don't quote me on that.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Really?

• 17:01Bill Maher?

  Oh, yes. It's, look, my sister's a teacher, spent her whole life doing that. So I'm very supportive of teachers and of course I've said many supportive things and meant them. And most teachers in this country are very sincere people who want to educate kids. And look, you're not doing it for the money.

• 17:19Bill Maher?

  Yes, the Democratic Party is way too beholden to the teachers' union. And the teachers' union has to answer for the fact that kids don't know anything. Forget the reading, which you shouldn't, because that's super important, to be able to read, which has gone down. I didn't think I'd ever see that.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Significantly.

• 17:38Bill Maher?

  The actual ability to read. But even if you could, say you, say we get them back where they can read. What are they reading? What are you making them read? I always say this, if you gave the average high school kid an exit exam, I would like to design it. It wouldn't be ridiculously hard.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 18:00Bill Maher?

  Just basic shit.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 18:02Bill Maher?

  Like, name the seven continents, you know, what are the, how many branches of government? And what are they, you know, just really, what's the population of the earth roughly? You know, they don't, when was the Civil War? What century was the American Revolution? I mean, I just have talked to too many young people who don't seem to know anything. Knowing things, it used to be big.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  You know, I was talking to Vivek Ramaswamy about his plans for education. Well, I thought his plans for education in Ohio were...

• 18:41Bill Maher?

  Great. I hope he sticks to that, because this guy is a dangerous nut.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Do you think he's a dangerous nut?

• 18:47Bill Maher?

  I like him. He's a charming guy, but as I said, he's both disarming and alarming.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Well, what do you think about the idea of paying teachers based on how their students perform? A meritocracy with the teachers, so...

• 19:01Bill Maher?

  Oh, I don't think you should pay. You really think we should get into paying kids?

• 19:05Speaker 01

  No, teachers.

• 19:05Bill Maher?

  Oh, teachers.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  So the teachers who get the best results

• 19:08Bill Maher?

  Sure.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  get a lot more money.

• 19:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah, sure.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  And I'd be more motivated as a teacher, but if you're paying them crap and you're treating them like crap, then obviously they're, you're gonna get crappy outcomes out of... The majority.

• 19:20Bill Maher?

  Yes, I wouldn't be against that, I don't think. But it's more like reestablishing standards. I mean, I did a bit on the show a couple of years ago called Bill Maher's Catholic School, which I thought was very funny because I'm such a famous atheist. But the idea of it was not wrong, which is that the only place a lot of people think, and rightly so, that their kids can get like a traditional education is Catholic school. So, you know, just so Catholic schools have many kids in them who are not Catholic. The parents just wanted them to go there because it's the one place where they don't take any shit, you can't talk back to the teacher.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:57Bill Maher?

  You're not, you know, just goofing off all day. And they like actually remember that kids should know grammar and they should know.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  We did that pre-COVID with a school in Malibu. It was a Catholic school.

• 20:13Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  And it was great. And then, of course, COVID happened and we moved out of California and the kids ended up going to a different school in Florida for a while. And they did really well there. But in California, the public schools are struggling, poor outcomes. And the weird part about California is that.

• 20:30Bill Maher?

  But you're moving, right?

• 20:31Speaker 01

  So now, so unfortunately, family stuff has made me come back to California more than I would like to. So we bought a little place in Jackson Hole, so this way I can get back and forth whenever I need to. Wyoming.

• 20:42Bill Maher?

  Jackson Hole.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Jackson Hole, yeah.

• 20:44Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  I gotta get you out there.

• 20:49Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  You know, it's beautiful. I know you're like, oh, you're still a bright.

• 20:53Bill Maher?

  There's a place around here called Beverly Hole that I'm, it's opening.

• 21:28Speaker 03

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• 21:58Bill Maher?

  No, I know, I know. Jackson Hole is very famous because it's, it's like where the rich and famous and the...

• 22:05Speaker 01

  There's some rich people there.

• 22:07Bill Maher?

  It's where the swells go.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  That's Aspen, more Aspen.

• 22:11Bill Maher?

  Well, Aspen is skiing. Jackson Hole, what, there's some big conclave there every year, isn't there? Isn't that where the...

• 22:18Speaker 01

  But I'm not invited to that shit.

• 22:20Bill Maher?

  Okay, but what is it?

• 22:20Speaker 01

  I just like, like, my insurance.

• 22:22Bill Maher?

  But what is the thing that's there?

• 22:23Speaker 01

  My real estate broker.

• 22:24Bill Maher?

  No, no, no, wait.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Those are good people.

• 22:26Bill Maher?

  What's there? There's a big, I think it's the, it's some media summit every year.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  I do think Trump was there for something pre-campaign, but...

• 22:36Bill Maher?

  It's like, oh, the Google guys and Bezos and Zuckerberg, they're all, and the heads of the studio, they all go to, to a conclave every year. Everybody's flying in on their private jets. I'm pretty sure it's in Jackson Hole.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  I wouldn't be surprised, but I would imagine they do these events.

• 22:54Bill Maher?

  It's that kind of place. They, they service a lot of private jets at the Jackson Hole Airport.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  They do, because the tax laws are also exceptionally favorable. But I can tell you that the, the locals are some of the kindest people I've ever come across. It's almost unsettling. Like, it's just...

• 23:13Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  There's so, and you get stuck in the snow, they'll pull you out. You get stuck again, and the same guy pulls you out.

• 23:18Bill Maher?

  I love middle America.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Those kinds of people.

• 23:20Bill Maher?

  For that, for that reason.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  That's... Everyone, you go to the DMV.

• 23:24Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  They answer the phone. "Oh, hey, doll. Yeah, just come on by." I'm like, what? Like, it's, it's, it's the way that you imagine your dream little 1950s town, where everybody got along. The world seemed like a safer place. Everyone's still so sweet and kind. And I'm not invited to the conclave yet.

• 23:44Bill Maher?

  Of course, on MSNBC right now, they're saying, "Yes, but in the 1950s town, there were no black people."

• 23:51Speaker 01

  This is true.

• 23:51Bill Maher?

  Which is also true.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Which is true.

• 23:54Bill Maher?

  But you can't stay mad at the past forever.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Oh, I got a question for you.

• 23:57Bill Maher?

  I mean, we can acknowledge that and then say, "Okay, but you know, there were also 1950s towns that had good people in it. It's just where we were." And by the way, the liberals were racist in 1952, in 1950 also. So, so you don't like...

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Joe Biden is the 94 crime bill. I mean, he is...

• 24:16Bill Maher?

  That was not racist. Black people were asking for that. Yeah, the black congressional black... The Congressional Black Caucus asked for it and voted for it.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  They put more people of color in jail than any other legislation.

• 24:28Bill Maher?

  Okay, but what it was supposed to do was to make black neighborhoods safer and put more cops on the street. And I'm sure it went awry like every government program does. But Joe Biden, Joe Biden is not a racist.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  This is a guy who said he didn't want his kids to go to school in a racial jungle. This is a guy who was anti-gay marriage.

• 24:45Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Like, why the liberals hung their hat on that guy? As the great white hope is bizarre because he was the OG. He eulogized Strom Thurmond.

• 24:53Bill Maher?

  He, but he also won one election. Yeah, he won one and blew one. Come on. Who's perfect? So what? So the country's a dictatorship now. Nobody is perfect, Joe.

• 25:06Bill Maher?

  Oh, he's, he's coming in for his, his trip to the woodshed these days. I mean, now that like, it's been a year since, to be coming up to the year when he did the horrible debate. It's like Democrats are, they need to like park their fury someplace. And, and it's not like he doesn't deserve it. It's just that he was spared it for a long time. But now the, the, the book by Jake Tapper is coming out about like...

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Bill, Jake Tapper is the guy that told everybody he was perfectly fine. Like, there's a clip of him attacking Laura Trump. And he's like, "Oh, you don't know? Are you a doctor?" And this bastard turns... Turned around and wrote a book when he was the one berating everybody, pointing out concerns.

• 25:54Bill Maher?

  Well, first of all, he's a friend of mine and not a bastard, but

• 25:58Speaker 01

  But that was shitty, Bill.

• 25:59Bill Maher?

  That is a legitimate question, which I have locked and loaded already in my mind. He's on the show this month, of course, to plug the book, and I'm definitely going to ask him that very question.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Show the clip of him attacking Laura Trump.

• 26:13Bill Maher?

  Well, it's just that the book, I mean, they announced the book like the day after the election and it was out in February. It was like, wow, like for four years, we were not too interested in this subject. And then suddenly in three months, we have a whole book about it.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 26:29Bill Maher?

  And look, I bet you it actually was pretty easy to research because I bet you a lot of Democrats had kept this inside of them. So all they had to do was like, hi, it's Jake Tapper. Could you get on Biden was such an asshole. I'm like, wait, can I get the question out?

• 26:47Bill Maher?

  I was gonna ask about the tax bill, but okay, you know, I think everybody just had a Joe Biden poops in his pants story. And they wanted to to say it, but you know, um, we were talking today about Trump and he did this and he did that. And I was like, first of all, you know, I'm not a Trumper, despite the fact that we had that lovely dinner.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, I never got the actual details. Were you surprised?

• 27:14Bill Maher?

  I said it on my show. I did.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  I know, but I wanted to ask you.

• 27:17Bill Maher?

  I gave every detail and that's why they fucking hated me, but I don't want to talk about that because it's already been done to death. And it's gonna, people are gonna think, oh, you're obsessed. I'm not obsessed with it. Uh, and people that never, nobody ever gave a shit, really. It was only like this, the same few chattering classes. I always want to find something to argue about. I mean, to me, it's a no brainer. Of course you go to the dinner. How could you not?

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:41Bill Maher?

  And then, and then for me, everything is always a no brainer. If the question is, do you lie about it? No. And then I went right back to being exactly who I was and tearing him a new asshole every week. So, so it was

• 27:52Speaker 01

  I thought it was awesome.

• 27:53Bill Maher?

  There's no there there.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  I disagree. I think there's a lot of there there in a great way.

• 27:58Bill Maher?

  Yeah, maybe.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Because people need to talk. And I, this goes back to what I'm seeing with people on the left. Where I thought there would be this kind of like, alright, these 80/20 issues are killing us. Let's be more moderate. Let's move more to the middle. Let's look at where we went wrong. Let's look at all the disenfranchised Dems or the quote 90s liberals that have now voted for the Republicans. And instead, it's I resisted all counts. I will, I will put a friggin fluoride drip in my arm because Kennedy says so and Tulsi is a Russian asset. I, it's the, it is the, I was on the phone with an MIT engineer the other day who was making a case, I can't even believe this, for petroleum-based food diets.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  And she's like, well, you know, I hope you know that you would need to eat a truckload of Red Number 3 or whatever the hell it is for it to be a real concern. And I always say, hold on. Are you listening to yourself? Like, first of all, let's say that was true and you were just consuming Red Number 3, not the other 10,000 chemicals in your food and the shit in your water and the shit in your air and the shit in your beauty products and the stuff in your home cleaning supplies. Let's say that was true, right? Beetroot butter, an option, an option that exists in Canada, the EU. Why are you making a case for petroleum-based food diets? Cause Trump?

• 29:21Bill Maher?

  That's why I drink gin. Nobody, but I'm, this is another, you know.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  But see, you going and sitting down and talking is exactly what we need. You're role modeling what we need. We need to work across the aisle. We need to talk to each other. That was actually incredible and I love that you did that. And fuck these haters.

• 29:43Bill Maher?

  As long as you keep your integrity, which I did. That's why they have no argument. It's so funny the way, when they come at me, it's just like, well, you know, the line I think that was triggering, and I'm like, you're already lost with me. What you're just saying is you're emotional. You fucking woman. You were triggered?

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Triggered.

• 30:00Bill Maher?

  And I mean woman like in the old 50s. That's not, not women of.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  In that 1957, no black people.

• 30:06Bill Maher?

  Not women of, not women of today. But like, you were triggered. Okay, like, this, this argument has no purchase with me. Because you're just saying, and I get it, Trump drives people crazy. But he didn't drive me crazy, and he's not gonna drive me crazy. They did go crazy. Here's how crazy people went, as long as we are talking about this now. When I first, when, first, I mean.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  I loved it. I think you should.

• 30:31Bill Maher?

  My boy Kid Rock, I love, when he asked me, I said, "I'll go," and I thought, "Oh, now we'll keep it quiet." Of course, he talked about it immediately, so then I had to, like, answer questions about it. And when it first got out there, before I went, a number of people said to me, "Don't go," because they were afraid, like he was, like it was that scene in Braveheart, where they lure you and then lock you in and kill you, or the end of, the, the end of the girl with the dragon tattoo, where the guy knows he shouldn't go down in the basement, and this guy seems normal. And then I got the bag over my head, and I need her to come and save me. And, and like, really, you think he's going to kidnap me? It's actually literally dangerous?

• 31:13Bill Maher?

  I mean, this guy really gets into people's minds, and I certainly understand why.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  It's wild. You do?

• 31:20Bill Maher?

  And he's gotten into mine in the past, but you're not gonna, you're not gonna get there now.

• 31:26Bill Maher?

  I am not on the page with a lot of what is going on in this country.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  I get it. I understand.

• 31:32Bill Maher?

  It's dangerous, and it's unprecedented, and it's un-American, and it is moving toward autocracy, and it ain't cool.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Can you give the top issues? Are you talking about, like, the Supreme Court saying?

• 31:43Bill Maher?

  It ain't cool to ignore judges, it ain't cool to disappear people, it ain't cool to not know the Constitution and not care what's in it. So I'm not on any of this page, but I never have patience with people who have this complete cognitive dissonance between how great their life actually is in the moment and how much they're freaking out. I just can't take that. I just can't take the people who come up to me in very fancy restaurants, "Bill, what are we gonna do? Go back and finish your $800 dinner, you fuck. Go, you, you're, you're fine. What are we gonna do? What are you gonna do?"

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Well, here's what I find interesting.

• 32:22Bill Maher?

  Fuck your secretary, like you did last week. That's what you're gonna do, you asshole.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Here's my question about that. So, listen, this Kilmar Brago Garcia guy. All right, this is a guy who did cross the border illegally, who did beat the shit out of his wife, who was suspected of trafficking, and there's video of the police pulling him over and then ICE not showing up. But this guy's a piece of shit scumbag. And there was a deportation order on this guy. He then turns around and says, "Hold on, I need asylum from other gangs that are going to kill me." And it's like, "Well, hold on. You're claiming you're not a gang member, but you're worried competitive gangs are gonna kill you." Fair, I get it. The Supreme Court says, "No, no. This guy needs his asylum case adjudicated." And I get it, and I get the alarm. And it's like, "Let's just play by the rules here, even though we all want, or I think the vast majority of us would want,

• 33:14Speaker 01

  a person like that, gone." That said, here's my question. If Clinton deported 12 million and Obama deported 3 million, did each one of those guys really get due process? Or are we just alarmed now because it's Trump?

• 33:31Bill Maher?

  The issue is not that. The issue is that he did not get any sort of hearing. They just disappeared him out of the country into a foreign prison.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Well, he had a deportation order.

• 33:41Bill Maher?

  Doesn't matter. He was about to go on trial for something.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Kilmar Brago? You mean the asylum? Did you adjudicate his asylum case?

• 33:50Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  Okay, I get it. And I know that's why they want him back. And I see the concern, and I am with you on that concern.

• 33:57Bill Maher?

  But here's like the common man's view, and I understand it. And in some ways, I am the common man on this, but at the end of the day, not. Is that if someone isn't in this country legally to begin with, why did they get a trial? The answer is because it says that in the Constitution.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  I know.

• 34:14Bill Maher?

  They could have chosen the word "citizen." And in the Fifth Amendment and in the Fourteenth Amendment, they chose to say "person." They knew the difference. They could have said "citizen." They said, "Any person here, you can't do that without giving them their day in court."

• 34:32Speaker 01

  I understand.

• 34:33Bill Maher?

  You know, that's it, and...

• 34:34Speaker 01

  You're right about that, and I get it. I'm just simply saying, for all the "what are we gonna do bill," one of the things that I've pointed out to friends is, realize this has been going on forever, and you're just now paying attention. Because if you think Clinton gave 12 million legals due process... I don't think so. And that would be my real question is how much of this is new news?

• 34:56Bill Maher?

  Well, and you know, the bigger thing is that every action has a reaction. So if your action is what the Biden administration did to have a policy of come one, come all, kids stay free.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:09Bill Maher?

  Of course, the reaction when you lose the election. That's the thing, you know, like everyone's always like, Bill, what are we gonna do? Did you see what Trump did? I'm like, you know what? I have about, I have about a hundred fucks a year to give. So I just can't give every day on this. Okay, I just got the hundred. So you know what? You shouldn't have lost the election. So don't, this is who he is. You knew this is who he was. You said it was an existential problem if he won again. And yet you went with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. So.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  She's your frontrunner, guy.

• 35:43Bill Maher?

  I'm gonna go back and finish my dinner.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  Exactly. Can I ask you? This is the part that I'm befuddled by. When you look at the polls, or at least what I've been seeing out there in the social media zeitgeist, is that she is the frontrunner, followed close, I guess, not a close second, but then.

• 36:02Bill Maher?

  That's just name recognition.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Okay, fair, fair. And one would hope, honestly. Because I've been underwhelmed by her for quite some time, whether you like her or not.

• 36:12Bill Maher?

  Oh, it comes down to Kamala?

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:15Bill Maher?

  Oh, totally underwhelming.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  And then, but then the next one in line is AOC?

• 36:19Bill Maher?

  I mean, I voted for her, but totally underwhelming. I even said in the, the one, the editorial I did, you know, the Friday before the election, I was trying to get her elected. But I did say, do I love everything about her? No, not close. But who told you you have to love everything? That's American politics.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Okay, here's my, here's my question. Okay, so you're totally right. You have to love everything about her. No, there are obviously many that...

• 36:47Bill Maher?

  But yes, or underwhelming.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Okay. So why is it that the Democrats didn't look at the reasons they lost and then try to come more to the middle? Instead...

• 36:57Bill Maher?

  They're doing it finally.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  Not AOC, not funny.

• 37:01Bill Maher?

  Matt Taibbi, he can be so funny. I think he had, I think it was in a way, the funniest line he said, "AOC is practically a police sketch drawing of what Americans don't want for president."

• 37:16Speaker 01

  She's leading.

• 37:18Bill Maher?

  But it's 2025. The election isn't for three years. This means nothing.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  You know what it is?

• 37:24Bill Maher?

  This means nothing.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  It's the fact that I thought this...

• 37:26Bill Maher?

  You're not gonna do it. I would bet my house on that. They are not gonna go that route. They get it?

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Do they?

• 37:34Bill Maher?

  Yes. They will... The Democratic Party wants to survive. Every party does. As they say in Jurassic Park, "Life finds a way." I see it out here with the ground dogs in my lawn. I see it with the...

• 37:47Speaker 01

  The Democrats.

• 37:48Bill Maher?

  With the ducks. I have ducks and they go in the pool and I yell at them and they get out. I think I've trained them now. I praise them and they stay out. I yell at them when they get in. I see it all around. Life finds a way.

• 38:01Speaker 00

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• 38:05Speaker 05

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• 38:10Speaker 00

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• 38:21Speaker 00

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• 38:30Speaker 06

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• 38:56Bill Maher?

  And the Democratic Party, I do think, understands that they are at an existential moment. Parties don't have to survive, the Whigs came and went and others. And they understand they're not going to win with the AOC wing. And it's going to be a bitter pill for the Latinx, gluten-free, non-binary Hamas lovers in the party. But they're just going to have to swallow hard at the end of the day. And I think they will. I think, again, because entities want to survive.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  I actually hope that you're right. Because I think we need, obviously, we need two healthy parties. It'd be nice to have some alternatives. And, you know, of course, we want to see common sense reign supreme on both sides. But here, can I ask you this one? Is there anything Trump's doing that you think is good? And I'm asking genuinely.

• 39:52Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Like, the tariff thing. Is this a disaster? Do we not know yet? Or is it genius? I swear to you, I'm asking honestly. I really, I can't understand it. I understand why he's doing it. And I feel like if it works, it'll be, no.

• 40:07Bill Maher?

  It's a terrible, well, there's no doubt, even the people on the other side of this debate would concede, I think. There's no doubt that, to some degree, some countries have been playing unfairly in the trade war. And China was the biggest offender. And it's bugged a lot of people for a long time, and Trump the most. Still, we were killing it with the rest of the world. I mean, right before the election, The Economist had a cover story. The American economy, the envy of the world. And for good reason. When you look at the numbers, I mean, our worst state's GDP is higher than France and Germany's and England's.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:48Bill Maher?

  I mean... We're just, I attribute this to just America. We love money. We're fucking greedy and nothing can stop this like all the pandemic, whatever the fuck. We are, we still just wanna make money and have the good life and be on the yacht with the Kardashians. And so we just have this drive and nothing stops us and we just make, and we do.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  At the Jackson Conclave.

• 41:18Bill Maher?

  We do, we just wanna have a leopard skin something and we just keep, so we kill it economically. So there was certainly no need for Trump to like blow the whole thing up. I mean, I said, I think on my show, if you had a building and you, and you wanted to demo it, wouldn't you take out the valuable stuff first, you know?

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have to admit, I've wondered that.

• 41:44Bill Maher?

  I mean.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Like what?

• 41:46Bill Maher?

  But you know.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, like piece mail it out maybe or give people a little warning.

• 41:50Bill Maher?

  China, and of course, a lot of people already lost money because the people have businesses where stuff has to come in. And I mean, the reason why he finally pulled back and made a deal with China is because his people started to really complain.

• 42:07Bill Maher?

  So.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Are you happy with that deal?

• 42:10Bill Maher?

  What?

• 42:10Speaker 01

  Are you happy with that deal? I really don't understand yet.

• 42:13Bill Maher?

  I mean, he lowered the tariff on China from 145 to 30. I mean, that's, ooh.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  But they dropped our tariffs, so didn't they? In which case, like, that's my question is, what if it works? If it works, will he be a genius? You've got improved national security, more manufacturing jobs, better trade deals.

• 42:31Bill Maher?

  If it works, I'll be the only person on the left who acknowledges it.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 42:35Bill Maher?

  Because they just won't ever do that. And that's why I think I have standing with a lot of people in this country on both sides because I just, I just don't play that game.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  You don't.

• 42:45Bill Maher?

  So like if, and it's possible, you don't know how things will work out. Look, in 50 years, people might be saying, you know, when George Bush went into Iraq, it was at the time criticized, but now blah, blah, blah. I I'm not, I don't think that's gonna happen, but you just don't, I've lived long enough to know. You predict the future, you're a fool, you know, that especially that far in the future. So I don't know, you know, but I'll say this, the idea, and I've done a couple of bits about this on the show. The idea of bringing manufacturing back here is stupid. It's just, first of all, Gen Z is not gonna do it.

• 43:23Bill Maher?

  They are just not the crowd.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  They're like Nvidia chips and all that though. Like you're still bringing it here, you've got.

• 43:29Bill Maher?

  Well, we already have that, we're already killing them with that.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  I thought we were, well, again, Nvidia brought some of the chip manufacturing over from Taiwan. And you've got like a national security issue where China.

• 43:37Bill Maher?

  Well, we better, because we we still get most of them from Taiwan, I think, you know. I mean, if China takes Taiwan.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  We're screwed.

• 43:44Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  But then you make a case for for his arguments, so to speak, because there's a national security problem. If China's making all of our shit, our drugs, our tech.

• 43:52Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Like, I mean, so then I kinda see what he's doing, I'm just like, do we have to do it like this?

• 43:57Bill Maher?

  Antibiotics. I mean.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying, like, do you?

• 44:00Bill Maher?

  You and I both don't like antibiotics.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  But sometimes you need them.

• 44:04Bill Maher?

  But sometimes you need them.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:05Bill Maher?

  And you damn well want them in the world.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 44:08Bill Maher?

  And we already have them under attack because they don't work as well as they used to, because people have overused them.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh yeah.

• 44:15Bill Maher?

  I mean, I've been hearing that for years, so.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Oh, it's a huge problem, and in the animal feed is a big part of the problem.

• 44:20Bill Maher?

  That's part of it, is that they put it in the animal feed, which is horrible, and then we eat the animals. Yeah, I know.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  You get these resistant strains of bugs.

• 44:30Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  And it's going to be, or it could potentially be catastrophic. But recently, I was unfortunate enough to come down with whooping cough, and I had to do intrave- bill? Oh my God, I've never been so sick, and I.

• 44:44Bill Maher?

  How do you get that? What is it?

• 44:46Speaker 01

  On a plane to Jackson Hole, I'll have you know.

• 44:49Bill Maher?

  Really, you got it on a plane?

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Oh my God, and I was, it was February, I'll never forget, it was February, we were flying out there. And there was a family behind me coughing, and I was like, that's not good. And sure enough, within three days, I had a feather in my chest. And by, I don't know, week three, I had frigging needle in my arm at the doctor's office for antibiotics. I had done two rounds of Z-Pak. She, my doctor hit me with a prednisone pack, something called budesonol, inhaled steroids, Allegra allergy medication, allergy nose spray because of all the, oh my God, I didn't want to tell you. It was so disgusting.

• 45:30Bill Maher?

  Snot.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  A snot, double round of a Z-Pak, didn't work. Intravenous Cipro in her office, and it took 100 days for me to get better. 100, it's called the 100-day cough. And by the way, it's not because I'm an anti-vaxxer, I'm just outdated on my frigging vaccination, I guess. I don't remember the last time I got the booster. It's like a T-DAP booster for tetanus, whooping cough, and I forget in the sick, I can't remember the last one. But this, by the way, is where you look at vaccines and I'm like, no.

• 45:59Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  But, but man, I needed, I haven't taken antibiotics in 10 years. I took so much antibiotics. I think I emptied out China of their antibiotics. There's a time and a place, and when you need them, you need them. And it's generally, in those cases, for me, it's like it better be life or death when I take that stuff.

• 46:17Bill Maher?

  Yeah, because now you have to repair your body from.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. It's been, luckily, I know how to do it and I'm healthy and I know a huge amount of incredible doctors and gastroenterologists that.

• 46:28Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but a lot of times, Western medicine, you know, those doctors are not going to say, after you finish antibiotic rounds, you know what? Now your, your, your body's sick because you just killed a lot of it with those antibiotics. It killed the bad stuff, but also, so now what's really imperative is you do this, this, and this. You're not going to get that from 90% of the doctors in this country.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  The ones I know.

• 46:52Bill Maher?

  Once you're, once you're over the whooping cough, you're over it and they're done. They're done with you.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Mine, I had three doctors helping me with this, actually. My, my friend runs a wellness clinic. I, I think, you may, I may have introduced you, Brigham Buehler has a company called Ways to Well, and there's a doctor there named Dr. Dr. Rexford, who

• 47:11Bill Maher?

  Doctor expert?

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Doctor Rexford.

• 47:14Bill Maher?

  Is that what is, is that what you said?

• 47:16Speaker 01

  Doctor Rexford, and she made me like

• 47:18Bill Maher?

  Doctor, her name is expert?

• 47:20Speaker 01

  Doctor Dinesh Rexford.

• 47:22Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  But yes, she's an expert. And then my doctor in Los Angeles got involved, Dr. Baker. And then my gastroenterologist, Dr. Sabine Hazen, got involved. And all three of them rebuilt Humpty from the ground up. But holy shit.

• 47:38Bill Maher?

  But is whooping cough always this bad?

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it kills people. And that's why when you're going to have a baby, they make you get the whooping cough vaccine. Because if babies get it, they will die. And this is kind of the conversation of, does a baby need a vaccine for hepatitis B? Like, how do you get it? I'm sex and needles. Probably not if mom doesn't have it. But whooping cough, I mean, for me, for my family, it's a, it's a big hell yeah. They're different. It's a nuanced conversation.

• 48:06Bill Maher?

  Right. This sounds like one I might go for.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  Oh, Bill, you do not want whooping cough. If you, if you're outdated on a whooping, and it's going around, for sure.

• 48:15Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, they'll tell you like, oh, there's, there's 23,000 cases. And you're gonna think it's nothing until it's not. Until it's not nothing.

• 48:23Bill Maher?

  Obviously.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's no joke. And you are so sick, you, this is so not pleasant for your show, and I apologize. But you're so sick that you cough to the, to the point of actually, it's so disgusting. I'm sorry, I'm actually throwing up. My wife was freaking out. She's like, I don't, we need to like, we gotta go to the hospital. And for the first couple of weeks, I was like, I'm not going to the fucking hospital. I'm, I'm, Jalen Michaels, I'm not going, I'm going to the hospital. And by the time I called, when I was back in Los Angeles and I called Dr. Baker, like, she's incredible, Dr. Susan Baker, big shout out for you. Um, I called her at six in the morning on Sunday, and I was like, Doc, I need to go to the hospital. And she knew right away. She was like, oh, my God, you have whooping cough. And she, man, she hit me with the horns.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  And then everybody else tried to piece me back together along with her. But it's like, you can't F with these things. That's why when people get so tribal about, I love my fluoride, or I'm never getting a vaccine, you're just an asshole. You're an idiot. There's nuance to the conversation. And this is why health should never be a political football, ever.

• 49:26Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  But somehow I took you off piece with China, but

• 49:29Bill Maher?

  No, no, I'd rather talk about this because I care mostly about my own personal health.

• 49:36Bill Maher?

  Fuck the audience.

• 49:38Bill Maher?

  Whatever. I mean, no, I mean, this is what-

• 49:39Speaker 01

  It's no joke, that one. Really, I'm not kidding.

• 49:41Bill Maher?

  No, I forgot about that one.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's like, cause it was almost gone. My, my brother had to come get me at one point and he's like-

• 49:49Bill Maher?

  So where's RFK? Here's the great question. On the whooping cough vaccine. Because if, is he? I don't trust him to be reasonable. That's, I, I love him, but I don't trust him to be reasonable. When I think of RFK, I am BPO, big picture only. Big picture.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 50:10Bill Maher?

  I'm glad he has this, this view that, that we're being poisoned slowly by, you know, the-

• 50:19Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 50:20Bill Maher?

  Everything. Exactly.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 50:23Bill Maher?

  And that's, that's the ma- that's the big picture. And I'm down with that. Um, and then certain specific things. Like, yes, let's get rid of the red dye number two. You know, you were talking about that before. You need a truckload. I was never on the page of this theory that they have in western medicine. A small amount of poison is fine. Like, I would prefer no poison.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. But even conversely, why argue for it?

• 50:50Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Especially when an alternative currently exists. And the food companies are using those alternatives in other countries that banned these ingredients that are in our food and get in-

• 51:00Bill Maher?

  And does it even affect the taste if they make the-

• 51:02Speaker 01

  No, it's about attracting children.

• 51:05Bill Maher?

  Thing-

• 51:06Speaker 01

  That's what it is.

• 51:06Bill Maher?

  And a lot of adults who act like children.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Bingo.

• 51:09Bill Maher?

  I mean, a lot of it, it's not like only children are like, no, I want red ones. I don't care, I don't care if it kills me. I want the red ones.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  The glow in the dark. This, that is, that is why they do it. With, so, there's a, there's 10,000 chemicals that get into our food supply through something called the generally recognized as safe rule. Which is the corporate capture that RFK speaks so eloquently about, where the food companies can vouch for the safety of these ingredients despite the fact that- In pretty much every other part of the developed world, ninety-five hundred of those ten thousand are banned. So he's got a pretty solid point there. If you look at the conversations that he's having around vaccines, if we looked at something like measles, mumps, rubella, he's not taking away the vaccines, and I think we've seen that already. So we can all calm down. You want your MMR vaccine, go get it. You can have it.

• 52:00Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  What he is advocating for-

• 52:02Bill Maher?

  You like your vaccine, you can keep your vaccine.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Go get it. What he's advocating for is greater transparency and better safety testing. So, for example, when he was talking about the MMR vaccine, so measles, mumps, rubella, they'll tell you, "robustly tested, robustly tested." Now, individually, they were, but not as a trifecta. And so, there have been some concerns that are valid over the ways in which these vaccines interact when combined. What he's asking for is the ability to test that. And when they tell you, "Oh, no, no, no. We've got this great system in place to monitor for long-term dangers." No, they actually don't. That's theirs, which is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. I'm getting vaccinated as well.

• 52:50Bill Maher?

  I've made the same argument myself.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  So, he's simply saying, "Let's have gold standard testing here." And I'll tell you, I got in-

• 52:57Bill Maher?

  I mean, he has said much more radical things.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  He has, but name one, and let me see if I can try to rationalize it for you.

• 53:02Bill Maher?

  I, I, he, he said, at one point, I think he said he doesn't believe in any vaccines.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  I haven't heard him say that, personally.

• 53:10Bill Maher?

  I think, I think, I mean-

• 53:11Speaker 01

  But, but if he did, I would fundamentally disagree with him, personally.

• 53:15Bill Maher?

  Right, or wrote it. You know, there's things he's written in, in his books that are, you know, that are, I think, way out there. But, okay, but it doesn't matter, he is where he is now. And if, if the idea is that, my idea about vaccines even before COVID, you know, why they called me an anti-vaxxer, was I was just saying, unless it's, I feel it's necessary, and, you know, like, Whooping Glove sounds like a good candidate.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  That's a good one for, I would recommend it.

• 53:42Bill Maher?

  That sounds like a good candidate.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  Personally.

• 53:43Bill Maher?

  I'm going to err on the side of-

• 53:48Bill Maher?

  Do I think vaccines are probably harmful? No, but I don't know what causes cancer. Do I think vaccines do? No.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  I don't either personally, but...

• 53:57Bill Maher?

  No, but is there some combination of influences in the body that we didn't have 50 years ago? Of all these different things? That vaccines could play a part? Or some combination of vaccines? Or how many you get? I mean, there's a lot of nuance. It can't just be vaccines are our hero. Let's always get as much in you as to as young as we can.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:21Bill Maher?

  It's just always good.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  Let me throw this at you.

• 54:25Bill Maher?

  That I don't know.

• 54:26Speaker 06

  You don't have to pause your career to keep growing. Ohio State's online master of public health is built for professionals ready to lead. Learn part-time through flexible courses and immediately apply what you learn to your work and the communities you serve. With three start terms, take the next step when it works for you. Learn more at go.OSU.edu/onlineMPH.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  OK, so in 1986, the pharmaceutical companies lobbied Reagan, the Reagan administration, to give them blanket immunity on vaccines. Now, why would they do that? Because vaccine injuries do happen. They happen.

• 55:06Bill Maher?

  As every drug does have side effects.

• 55:08Speaker 01

  Exactly. Now, upon receiving this immunity, they put, oh my gosh, I'm going to get this number wrong, and please forgive me, I can't recall, but there were like 30 something more doses added to the schedule within the next 10 years or so? And this becomes the question. It's like there's 72 doses, not 72 vaccines for all the haters out there, but there's 72 doses of vaccines now under the age of 18. And there was a fraction of those when you and I were kids.

• 55:37Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 55:37Speaker 01

  And the question becomes like, well, hold on. Does a six-month-old need a COVID shot? Like, do they need hepatitis B? Do they need it in this timeframe? To ask these questions? What's wrong with asking the questions? And it, OK.

• 55:52Bill Maher?

  And what's wrong with the common sense scientific answer? No, babies don't need COVID. Covid shots or like sexual disease shots.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  Unless mom has Hep B, you can test her for that.

• 56:03Bill Maher?

  You know, it's, there's always, I always say, there's always an actual easy, not easy, but certainly easy to understand, centrist position on almost every issue you can name. It's just that we're, we're just not the people anymore who can get to it. We're too tribal.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  Too tribal.

• 56:23Bill Maher?

  And too hateful. When you hate, you don't hear the argument.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 56:28Bill Maher?

  That's, if I had one theme, that's what it is lately. It's like, and again, that comes back to like the Trump dinner and shit. Like, these people who just want to hate and.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Resist at all costs. Just resist.

• 56:42Bill Maher?

  The haters and the clickbaiters.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  But see, you think the Democrats are making progress. I don't see it.

• 56:49Bill Maher?

  Their, their, their, their party voices are, I could name Gavin Newsom certainly in the last.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  Bill.

• 56:57Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  I do see what you're saying.

• 56:59Bill Maher?

  Yeah, you can, you can hate him.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  I struggle on every level with him. I don't buy it.

• 57:05Bill Maher?

  Yeah, people strike.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  I don't buy it. He is doing what I wish the Democrats would do, but with him, I just don't buy it.

• 57:11Bill Maher?

  You know what? People have that right to just, it's like the same thing we do with movie stars. There are movie stars who like, I have no reason why I don't like them. I just don't.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  I have reasons.

• 57:25Bill Maher?

  I just don't like, look at you.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  I got a lot of reasons why I don't like him. I, I, I do not like him, but I, he's doing what I want the Democrats to do. He's talking to the other side. Now all of a sudden, he's like, we gotta clean up these homeless encampments. But for me, I'm like, well, what'd you do with the 24 billion you spent on it for the problem to get worse? And now all this information is coming out about fraud. Now you care? Cause like, come on.

• 57:50Bill Maher?

  He's got a lot to own. Most politicians do. I love him. So that's it. You know what? I don't give a shit what anybody thinks and I don't give a shit when you think.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  I know. And by the way.

• 58:04Bill Maher?

  See, I don't.

• 58:04Speaker 01

  But I would never judge you for sitting down with Gavin. That's what makes me love you. Whereas the other side attacked you for sitting down with Trump.

• 58:11Bill Maher?

  I sat down with Trump. I like Gavin. Uh, Trump is, as I said, very likeable too in person, you know? I mean, I know that blows people's minds, but as long as it doesn't affect my judgment.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  Do you like the job Gavin's done? Do you like the job he's done?

• 58:25Bill Maher?

  Well.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  We spend the most here and get the least.

• 58:27Bill Maher?

  Up until, like, literally, the week before he started on this path back toward the middle, um, I remember having a conversation with someone who knows him and knows California politics. And I said, is Gavin ever gonna go back to the middle? Because I, I really liked this guy for the longest time, but he's, and he knows it. I've been very critical of, of, of the, shh, let me finish.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Sorry, boss, okay.

• 58:57Bill Maher?

  Uh, is he, I said, he's, I've been very critical of his moving, of, of his being way too far left, the way he's governed this state. Um, and then lots of, I mean, I remember doing 10 years ago, more California booster editorials, like, because we had lots to brag about. And then we went crazy too far left. He was the governor, um, for a lot of it. And I was like, you know, I always thought this guy was such a great, um, always in command of the facts, obviously great looking. He just, you know, looks to me like presidential timber. And, you know, he's a great debater.

• 59:41Bill Maher?

  I mean, he, he can be mean, which is great, like that debate with DeSantis. Um, and, uh, I just think if he was just, if he could just make that move to the center. And she said, yeah, I don't think it's gonna happen. And he did it a week later. And like this, he's rolled up one after another, like girls in, you know, biological women.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  But he didn't change a law. He just said, yeah, I can see why that's unfair. And they did nothing. And he supported the law that facilitated it.

• 1:00:09Bill Maher?

  You know what? When you don't like somebody, all you see is like, it didn't happen tomorrow, and it's imperfect and this. And that's not how I see politicians.

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:00:18Bill Maher?

  Uh, they're, they're, you know, they're all so. Imperfect. Um, and again, it's like I said with the movie stars. It's just some people you just don't like. There's not really, you think it's much more logical than it is. Trust me, lots of people on your team, sweetheart, have done so much worse things than Gavin Newsom ever did.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Totally agree with you.

• 1:00:40Bill Maher?

  But you just like that, and that's okay. You can, you can.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  I don't though, Bill. To be honest with you, I still consider myself a purple person. I think I'm playing a game of lesser evils. And I, I think that the way DeSantis ran Florida is superior to the way Gavin Newsom has run California.

• 1:00:56Bill Maher?

  I might agree with that.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  But that's, but that's the argument that I'm making. That's what I'm saying.

• 1:01:00Bill Maher?

  Okay, but DeSantis is not, is not a Democrat. And there are lots of things DeSantis did that are gross.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  I understand, but, but if you look at the way he runs the state, like I could give you another example.

• 1:01:12Bill Maher?

  No, I, especially with COVID.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  COVID, homelessness has improved, crime has improved. The state has a surplus, not a deficit.

• 1:01:21Bill Maher?

  I remember doing a whole editorial about how DeSantis was better on this than with California. And I remember seeing, I think part of it was that I personally saw it firsthand, the first place I went when they let us travel again. I think, I think it was June of 21. The first gig I did in a year and a half was in Sarasota, Florida, somewhere in Florida. And I mean, it was just so different than California, which was, felt like, I mean, you would drive around at night and you'd feel like you're in a, uh, behind the iron curtain country. You know, oh, this is what Prague looks like in 1965, you know, just

• 1:02:07Bill Maher?

  just dour, you know?

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:09Bill Maher?

  Like communists to eat dour. And it's like, it was so unnecessary to be sliding the meals to the Yale students.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh.

• 1:02:17Bill Maher?

  To the trans.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  Completely.

• 1:02:19Bill Maher?

  I mean, just the, the way they lost their shit, a certain part of it. And I, to this day, I don't think they realized the kind of credibility they lost. When they did that, I mean, that's why RFK, for all his nutty sides, still has like a very loyal following of a lot of

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  If I could

• 1:02:40Bill Maher?

  Maha people, right?

• 1:02:41Speaker 01

  Well, yes, but I would also put this to you. And I don't think that RFK is perfect, obviously. And if he did say like, I don't like all vaccines. Well, I haven't seen that, but, and he hasn't said that now. And he's not taking away vaccines. But I would agree if he said anything like that, that would be alarming. With that or did something like that, that would alarm me. However, when you look at where we've been and the abject failure of the people that have held his role previously. If we looked at the guy before him, Xavier Becerra. This guy's not a doctor, not a PhD. He's a lobbyist and I believe he was a lawyer. And this is a guy that moved to remove all age restrictions on gender-affirming care. And my answer is, where's everyone's outrage?

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Where was the outrage? You know, transition and nine-year-old? That's fricking nuts.

• 1:03:32Bill Maher?

  Nuts.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  And anything, there's nothing RFK could say. I don't think that would scare me more than that, to be dead honest, Bill. This is, this is where

• 1:03:39Bill Maher?

  Oh, I was all over that issue, you know.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  Oh, you were.

• 1:03:42Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, of course.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  And you're like a lone soldier out there on this issue.

• 1:03:46Bill Maher?

  On that, on the left, yeah.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  Yes, that's what I mean.

• 1:03:48Bill Maher?

  Because, but again, good to see that, and it's not just Newsom, let's get off him. But Ro Khanna, there's a whole Pete Buttigieg is butching it up these days.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  I know, I like that.

• 1:04:01Bill Maher?

  He's got a beard, and I don't mean the old kind of beard. I mean, an actual beard. He doesn't need a beard, he's out. But yeah, I mean, and the things they are saying are the very things I've been saying for the last like five years.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  I like that, that makes me very hopeful.

• 1:04:18Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah, no, again, they want to survive. They want to survive. And this is, they get, so I think Pete Buttigieg is going to be very much in the race. I think he, he checks a box that a certain part of the sentimental side of the Democrats needs. He's not A straight white man, he's not much.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  He's a marine though, isn't he?

• 1:04:43Bill Maher?

  They don't care about that.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  Speaks multiple languages.

• 1:04:46Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  See, I actually care about that. To me, I'm like, marine, speaks multiple languages. I think it was a Rhodes scholar, or am I wrong about that?

• 1:04:52Bill Maher?

  No, what they care about is that he represents a marginalized community.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  Okay, but Bill, that's what's gross, that's what people reject.

• 1:05:00Bill Maher?

  Of course it's gross.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  That's what, that's what nobody cares about anymore.

• 1:05:04Bill Maher?

  I'm telling you, this is what matters to them. So if he can, so he can, just the way Obama, being an African American, could be much more to the center. Because he like already sort of, look, I'm, I'm not a white, straight man. So right away, I have more credibility. And Pete, you know, it, no, it's not as good as being black, but it's like, look, I'm not a white, straight man.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  Crazy conversation that we're having though.

• 1:05:34Bill Maher?

  And so, so he can, and he's a great debater. I mean, he's, he's a, I mean, I don't think the Democrats are actually in bad shape. If they get on this page, they have some, some really good people.

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  Where is Josh Shapiro? Where is this guy?

• 1:05:48Bill Maher?

  Pennsylvania.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  But why is he not making more noise? Why is he not like this phoenix from the ashes?

• 1:05:54Bill Maher?

  His house burnt, eh, yes, because his house burned down.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  Well, but.

• 1:05:57Bill Maher?

  Somebody fucking burned his house down.

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  No, I, I guess for me, I'm like, okay, he was, he's liked. He's done a good job there. He's relatively moderate. Like, I thought this was gonna be the guy.

• 1:06:07Bill Maher?

  It's 2025. The, the race is not on yet. We haven't had the midterms, for fuck's sake.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  Okay, all right. That's fair.

• 1:06:15Bill Maher?

  No, this is just, they are, the Democrats are turning a battleship around.

• 1:06:20Speaker 01

  I hope you're right.

• 1:06:21Bill Maher?

  In the river. Oh, they definitely are.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:06:24Bill Maher?

  Um, and they'll get it, hopefully mostly turned around by the midterms. Um, and then we'll see, and then we'll see.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  What happens with the Ilhan Omars and the AOCs and, I cannot remember this woman's name, so sorry. The woman who like cut the guy off on the wheelchair at the airport and I only.

• 1:06:42Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Like, these are the people, the loudest, most obnoxious, offensive.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Like far left, that seems to be getting the most attention. The Squad.

• 1:06:54Bill Maher?

  They do, they always get the, the fringes always get the most attention.

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:58Bill Maher?

  They get the most attention on the other side, too. But we shall see, you know, how they do it, but how good they are at doing it. But, but they are definitely moving in that direction.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  I mean, that's definitely hopeful.

• 1:07:13Bill Maher?

  So AOC and Bernie, I saw a great headline about them, the old man and AOC. You Hemingway fans will appreciate that one. They, they will be out there getting their crowds. You know, they, there is certain amount of the energy of the party is with the, the far left. You know, they're Democrat socialist, they're not even Democrats. They're, they're, they're, you know, for more socialism and that's it.

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  From the private jet that they're flying around the country on, though? I mean, that is not lost on me, for God's sake, really?

• 1:07:50Bill Maher?

  Are they on a private jet?

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  Yes, on the fight the oligarchy tour, getting on their private jet and off their private jet. And they, I mean, I just, I can't, I'm like.

• 1:07:59Bill Maher?

  That to me is the least of the issues. I mean, it's sure a hypocritical in a way, but the, the deeper issue is, do we need more socialism in America? I mean, we can have that debate, just, I would want people to understand, which I don't think they do, the people who go to those rallies, we already do have a lot. So the debate, we can have it, maybe we should have it, but it has to start at the realistic point of, we're not at zero here. We already have a lot of socialism in America. We are a quasi socialist country, as all Western democracies are and should be. There are things that we, we privatize now that I think should be government run. I don't think prisons.

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  Oh, God, that's what I was gonna ask you.

• 1:08:46Bill Maher?

  Should be privately run, you know.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  Incentive is not good.

• 1:08:50Bill Maher?

  It's not.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:51Bill Maher?

  I mean, you know, the guards have a union and their product is prisoners. They want more prisons.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Horrible.

• 1:09:00Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it's horrible. And why do prisons have to be just these hellholes? I mean, can you, couldn't we just keep people behind bars without making it a torture chamber?

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. I wouldn't care, by the way, if they were despicable human beings. Like, that's the part that's kind of. If a guy steals a car, you know, if he, if he commits like, if he's a thief, fraud, I totally agree. If the guy is a pedophile, I don't care where he goes. You lose me. And I know that you, I love that you are so good at kind of like, but that's not the humane way to handle it. That's not what the law says. That's not how we do things here. But just me to you, if a guy kills a kid, I would friggin', I take, I would like, I would, don't even wanna,

• 1:09:46Bill Maher?

  I mean,

• 1:09:48Speaker 01

  I would, I don't care where he goes.

• 1:09:50Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, having never had kids, I don't have that same feeling for kids. I, when, when, when people say that, we're like, the worst thing you'll probably do as a kid, I always just think of Nikki Glaser's great bit where she goes, kids, I mean, we get so sentimental about it, but in 10, in 10 years, it's just gonna be some guy named Doug.

• 1:10:10Bill Maher?

  I'm like, exactly. It's just gonna be some guy named Doug. So like, is it really, uh,

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  Well, let's say, let's take the, okay, without naming names, I know there is an individual that you're very close to and you care very much about. And let's say somebody did something hideous to her. Would you give a shit what their prison looked like?

• 1:10:28Bill Maher?

  Well, she's not a child. I mean, young, yes.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  But, but, no, no, no, I don't mean that. I'm saying, take the kid part out of it.

• 1:10:34Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  If somebody did something hideous to another human being that involved violence.

• 1:10:41Bill Maher?

  I'm not against the death penalty. I think the death penalty is more humane than keeping someone housed like in solitary, solitary, that's really kind of like cruel and unusual punishment. So, you know, of course, we all, um, you're probably too young to remember this, but Michael Dukakis,

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  Oh, I remember him, of course.

• 1:11:01Bill Maher?

  Man for president in 1988 blew it when some, the, some, uh, one of the debates, somebody asked, if someone raped, uh, and killed your wife, Kitty Dukakis, raped her violently at knife point, what would you do? And he, well, I would check the amendments. And I was like, and, and you know, he just should have said what you said.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:24Bill Maher?

  I would have fucking killed the motherfucker. That's it. And he, He just went into politician mode and America went, no. And that's when Donald Trump said, I'm gonna be president someday by just being balls out with everything. And never giving a fuck what I say. And, and that's one pledge he's kept.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  Yes, this is true.

• 1:11:45Bill Maher?

  He certainly never, you know, gives a shit what anybody thinks. He just says it. That is one of the secrets to his political success. We've never seen that before.

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  No, and I think also he sees the people in the middle of the country. And I think they felt demonized and

• 1:12:04Bill Maher?

  Absolutely.

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  Attacked for such a long time.

• 1:12:06Bill Maher?

  They, they bond on a level of, um, you know, he was from Queens, which is in New York. You know, could be Mars. You're not in Manhattan. I mean, this is what Saturday Night Fever was about. Tony Maher, he just wanted to get from Brooklyn, the Bulls, into Manhattan if he could make it in Manhattan. And that's Trump. Like, he's an outsider, deplorable, you know? I mean, it's the same mentality, you know?

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  They're still doing it, though. Like, again.

• 1:12:37Bill Maher?

  Who's doing what?

• 1:12:38Speaker 01

  For example, the whole deplorable thing.

• 1:12:40Bill Maher?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  They're still doing it. Even when you, you, I, listen, I've met Tom Hanks a couple of times and he was very kind and very lovely. And his wife was exceptionally lovely. But when he was on Saturday Night Live.

• 1:12:53Bill Maher?

  I hated it too, and I said it on my show. I know. I hated it. Wearing the MAGA hat, not shaking hands with a black person. And I, that's when I thought, you people don't know MAGA people.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:13:05Bill Maher?

  I mean, they have their issues, and I certainly have my issues with them. But they're, they're general, I mean, of course, there's some racists everywhere who are that bad. But generally, the, all the MAGA people I know have no problem shaking hands with the black person. You're just hysterical and you're, and you're not helping.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  Nope, not at all. Deplorable squared.

• 1:13:30Bill Maher?

  Not helping.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 1:13:31Bill Maher?

  And, uh.

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  I don't get it. This is the part where I'm like, is this Titanic?

• 1:13:37Bill Maher?

  Also, but mostly what I hate is, it's what I call a zombie lie. Don't lie to me. It's a lie.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:45Bill Maher?

  That MAGA people are, won't shake hands with. I get it, it's part of a skit and it's exaggeration and that's comedy. It's a little too delicate a subject to just make, to go there.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:13:58Bill Maher?

  For that one, so you know. Look, we all in comedy step over the line sometimes or do one that they wanna take back. I doubt if they wanna take that one back. I think, they probably think it's great.

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:14:11Bill Maher?

  But I'm telling you, as a liberal, I don't like it. Again, because lying offends me, a full, I'm a comedian. When the premise isn't real, I can't go with, I can't get, the joke is not gonna work. The premise has to ring true. That premise doesn't ring true. It might have rang true, I don't know, X years ago. It doesn't now. So, you know. But, that's where we are. Everybody has to just play the hate card. Because that's what gets clicks. That's what gets you, uh, loved by your side.

• 1:14:46Speaker 01

  Right, your side, a hundred percent. And there's safety there.

• 1:14:49Bill Maher?

  They just wanna feel that, that, oh yeah, that's right. That, he's Hitler. Let's go right to.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 1:14:58Bill Maher?

  Your devil.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  Ridiculous, yeah.

• 1:15:00Bill Maher?

  And, and.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  But you lose people.

• 1:15:02Bill Maher?

  It's just.

• 1:15:02Speaker 01

  No one's listening on the other side. And then even people on your own side are like, well, I mean, not really. Like, what does that even mean nowadays? I'm not totally sure.

• 1:15:11Bill Maher?

  Well, I gotta go.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:15:12Bill Maher?

  I gotta. I'm one of them.

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  Gonna go get your whooping cough vaccine?

• 1:15:17Bill Maher?

  You know, I have to tell you something. It kinda was on my mind the whole time we were talking. When you said that, I was like, Jesus Christ.

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  I get it.

• 1:15:27Bill Maher?

  Does Chilean still have the whoop?

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  No. No.

• 1:15:29Bill Maher?

  Oh, I know, I know.

• 1:15:30Speaker 01

  No, I got it in San Diego.

• 1:15:34Bill Maher?

  Thank you.

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  Thanks for everything.

• 1:15:36Bill Maher?

  Always great to see you.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  This is fun. Do I get a?

• 1:15:38Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  A little insult for everything?

• 1:15:41Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:15:45Speaker 03

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