Max Amini | Club Random with Bill Maher

Bill Maher sits down with Iranian-American comedian Max Amini, a global comedy powerhouse who sells out shows around the world, for a conversation that swings from religion to revolution. Max opens up about growing up as an “American kid” in Iran, getting bullied at school, and quietly whispering that he was American while classmates chanted “Death to America.” The two trade faith stories: Bill admits he still gets sweaty palms walking into a church, while Max shares his father’s Sufi belief that “our religion is love.” They get into Max’s complicated relationship with Iran, the Shah’s legacy, and what life under the country’s religious regime has meant for generations of Iranians. And comedy is never far away, as Max shares his Jay Leno origin story and the best advice he ever received: “It’s never too late, but it always could be too early." Support our Advertisers: Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/RANDOM #rulapod #ad Subscribe to the Club Random YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/clubrandompodcast?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Watch episodes ad-free – subscribe to Bill Maher’s Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://billmaher.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you listen: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/ClubRandom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Buy Club Random Merch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clubrandom.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ABOUT CLUB RANDOM Bill Maher rewrites the rules of podcasting the way he did in television in this series of one on one, hour long conversations with a wide variety of unexpected guests in the undisclosed location called Club Random. There’s a whole big world out there that isn’t about politics and Bill and his guests—from Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld to Jordan Peterson, Quentin Tarantino and Neil DeGrasse Tyson—talk about all of it. For advertising opportunities please email: [email protected] ABOUT BILL MAHER Bill Maher was the host of “Politically Incorrect” (Comedy Central, ABC) from 1993-2002, and for the last fourteen years on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 40 Emmy nominations. Maher won his first Emmy in 2014 as executive producer for the HBO series, “VICE.” In October of 2008, this same combination was on display in Maher’s uproarious and unprecedented swipe at organized religion, “Religulous.” Maher has written five bestsellers: “True Story,” “Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? Politically Incorrect’s Greatest Hits,” “When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden,” “New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer,” and most recently, “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass.” FOLLOW CLUB RANDOM https://www.clubrandom.com https://www.facebook.com/Club-Random-101776489118185 https://twitter.com/clubrandom_ https://www.instagram.com/clubrandompodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@clubrandompodcast FOLLOW BILL MAHER https://www.billmaher.com https://twitter.com/billmaher https://www.instagram.com/billmaher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:25Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by HBO Max. HBO Max presents The Gilded Age. Nominated for eight Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series. In season three, ambition and scandal collide as the Russells take their place at the head of society, while the Van Rhyn household is thrown into chaos. Don't miss the series Harper's Bazaar called Perfect Television. The Gilded Age is now streaming on HBO Max. Watch now.

• 1:55Speaker 04

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• 2:10Bill Maher?

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• 2:54Bill Maher?

  That's right, get yourself a cozy hoodie. Look at this. This is really well-designed. That's right, get yourself a cozy hoodie to snuggle away your sorrows or some new Club Random shirts. Look at all this shit I have. To attract a partner with similar interests and live happily ever after. I've seen crazy rom-coms, so head over to clubrandom.com and bring home some random. I still get sweaty palms if I walk into a church.

• 3:25Speaker 06

  Which decade you became an atheist?

• 3:27Bill Maher?

  Ah, interesting.

• 3:32Speaker 06

  If they just took the good things and didn't bother with those crazy details.

• 3:37Bill Maher?

  I gotta stop you there, man.

• 3:41Bill Maher?

  All right, Max.

• 3:43Speaker 06

  Bill, how are you?

• 3:45Bill Maher?

  You're hiding in the corner there? Is that where they told you to? Is that where they told you to go?

• 3:49Speaker 06

  Pleasure meeting you.

• 3:50Bill Maher?

  We do the show over there. I'm kidding.

• 3:52Speaker 06

  Nice to see you.

• 3:53Bill Maher?

  How you doing?

• 3:54Speaker 06

  Very good. I'm very excited to sit down with you.

• 3:57Bill Maher?

  Me too. I'm always... I don't really ever see new comics. That's not true. I go to the Comedy Store once in a while. Like, we're out to dinner and shit. It's like, what do you want to do? Oh, I'm not gonna go to a club anymore, disco. You know, let's go get some less. Because if it's good, it's good, and if it's bad, it's still...

• 4:16Speaker 06

  100%. It's still good.

• 4:18Bill Maher?

  In a terrible way. You're watching pain.

• 4:22Speaker 06

  How comfortable do you feel when you go into Comedy Store?

• 4:27Bill Maher?

  What do you mean comfortable?

• 4:28Speaker 06

  You mean like, does the 100 people come up to you? Or you get really watched?

• 4:32Bill Maher?

  Well, first of all, they always say you want to go up, which I'm very amused, because I even stopped touring a year and a half ago. I don't really do that anymore. The only stand-up I really get is the monologue on my show. That's fine, but I miss it. But, no, I just like to watch it and, you know... I'm a good audience. I love to laugh. You know, like, I always say, the jokes you write are the jokes you wish somebody told you.

• 5:00Speaker 06

  That's true. 100%. But a lot of comics watch comedy and don't laugh. So you actually enjoy it. You sit down and you laugh.

• 5:09Bill Maher?

  You're right. There's that two kinds. There's the one that's like, just, you know, Leno, I love him to death, but he, you know... You get that little sly smile, you know, which is really more about, I just thought of a better joke for that.

• 5:28Bill Maher?

  He gives you a little... But there's never... Like Seinfeld and I, we laugh, you know? Lots of us do, but some don't. You're right. Some just like... It's like, maybe it's too close to what you do for your living.

• 5:42Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 5:43Bill Maher?

  You know? It is, to a degree.

• 5:46Speaker 06

  I met Leno when I was really young. I met Leno when I was in college. I had just started stand-up comedy, and it was a really remarkable moment for me. This kid and I had a project, and he was neighbors with Jay. And he said to me, you know, for this project, we can interview Jay Leno. I said, "How?" He said, "I'm his neighbor. I'm gonna put a note in his mailbox and see what happens." Every time he sees me, he says, "Hey, Dave." I said, "Okay." So he puts the note and it works. He invites us to The Tonight Show. We go there. We're in the green room. We're excited. He sits down. We interview him. Had the best interview. It was so fun. He was so generous. He was so generous with us. Two college kids.

• 6:31Speaker 06

  And at the end, I had this envelope with a VHS in there. I'm a brand-new comedian. I look at Jay and I say, "Jay, I'm gonna give you my tape, and I'd love for you to give me some feedback." And he goes, "What do you want? What kind of feedback do you want?" I said, "Look, just some advice." He goes, "You wanna get on The Tonight Show?" I said, "Well, that would be a dream come true." I said, "Here's an advice, kiddo. It's never too late, but it always could be too early."

• 7:03Speaker 06

  And it was the best advice I could have gotten at that age.

• 7:06Bill Maher?

  Well, certainly one I've violated many times.

• 7:11Speaker 06

  We all did.

• 7:11Bill Maher?

  Of all the ones I certainly haven't followed. I mean, yeah, I mean, that's true, you know?

• 7:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, every time I got rejected or something.

• 7:22Bill Maher?

  But what's the fun of, you know? I don't want to be a goat among sheep. You know? I'd rather get in the trouble or, you know, have it be backlash or something, because why play the game if you're not playing on the edge of it? But, you know, Jay, I always said, if only people could see him offstage. Like, as great as he was onstage, and I'm his biggest fan, he was better. You know, just like, so much more... The depth to this guy, you know? And he's just like endlessly funny, personal stories. Most of that he left at the door at The Tonight Show. He didn't tell personal stories about him.

• 8:07Bill Maher?

  The guests told the story, which wasn't as good.

• 8:11Speaker 06

  And that era was like that. That era...

• 8:15Bill Maher?

  Not now?

• 8:15Speaker 06

  You didn't tell... No, now it's...

• 8:17Bill Maher?

  Nobody tells stories?

• 8:17Speaker 06

  Now people tell a lot of personal stories. Now the more personal you are...

• 8:21Bill Maher?

  Totally.

• 8:22Speaker 06

  But back then, you didn't know anything about anybody.

• 8:25Bill Maher?

  Right. No, if I had been like one of those comics, you know, that are around today, if I was still doing my act, it'd be like, you know, I'm very traumatized by Todd Blanch becoming Attorney General. And I'd go into hell. I was in real funk about it. But I just want to make the jokes, you know? So where would you put yourself as a comic on that spectrum of, you know, just the jokes versus I have to share my soul?

• 8:58Speaker 06

  I have to share my soul.

• 8:59Bill Maher?

  You do?

• 9:00Speaker 06

  Yeah. That's the only thing makes me feel valuable as an artist. If I feel like I performed that night and I shared something special and I really made people think, and the younger kids in there and the older parents, they walked away with like, whoa. This, you know, I talk about my parents' divorce. I talk about the conflicts in my family. Some of them are pretty...

• 9:26Bill Maher?

  Why did your parents get divorced?

• 9:28Speaker 06

  Persians. Persians are hot-headed and...

• 9:31Bill Maher?

  Oh, please. Like, they're the only people who get divorced?

• 9:34Speaker 06

  And Italians.

• 9:35Bill Maher?

  What is it?

• 9:35Speaker 06

  And Italians.

• 9:36Bill Maher?

  Wait, one is Persian, one is Italian?

• 9:38Speaker 06

  No, they're both Persians. I'm saying Persians and Italians, extra-passionate people.

• 9:42Bill Maher?

  And Irish, and fucking everybody. I mean, you don't think the Vietnamese throw plates when they get pissed?

• 9:48Speaker 06

  They get pissed, but they divorce like this. Divorce, divorce. But for us, for us, it was a war.

• 9:53Bill Maher?

  Well, in the Muslim world, you can divorce just... The man just has to say, "I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee," three times. Am I not right about that?

• 10:01Speaker 06

  I don't know the details.

• 10:03Bill Maher?

  I do. Why don't you? I do. I know all about that.

• 10:08Speaker 06

  As a Muslim, we say divorce three times, a divorce?

• 10:11Bill Maher?

  You can't tell me you never heard that.

• 10:12Speaker 06

  I swear, I'd never heard this.

• 10:14Bill Maher?

  So you were not raised... I mean, you were officially Muslim, but you're... Okay, just be aware. I don't... Be aware. My opinion is it would be great to be aware that this is a luxury most Muslims in the world do not have, that you have, living here in America. You can like, take it or leave it. I don't have to know much about it. I mean, there's a lot of people of this religion who read one book all their life. You know, and your life is obviously much more varied.

• 10:43Speaker 06

  Well, I'm very lucky. I grew up in a family that was very open, very loving towards everybody. It was not... We were not a typical... So, a bit of a background... Yeah, we were... So I was born in Tucson. When I was seven years old, we moved to Iran. Seven, 88 years old. Yes, to Tehran.

• 11:05Bill Maher?

  Makes a difference, because it's a very... I've said it many times on my show. It's a very cosmopolitan capital. That's why, one reason I thought it was worth trying to tip over that regime, because this is not a... You know, this is not the same as Iraq. This is a pretty sophisticated population, is certainly in the capital, that want to be and have been, have a history in the past, not recent, but the Shah, that era, of being, you know... Much closer to a Western nation.

• 11:32Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 11:33Bill Maher?

  With all the freedom, not all the, but you know, just a more normal than, you know, wearing the veil and the religious police and all the bullshit that I'm sure you are overthrowing.

• 11:44Speaker 06

  They are such rebellious people. They're so cool. They're so cutting edge. You'd be surprised, and I'm not exaggerating, you'd be surprised how many people will know about your show in Iran.

• 11:57Bill Maher?

  Ooh.

• 11:58Speaker 06

  Like those.

• 11:59Bill Maher?

  That's my I love Lucy.

• 12:02Speaker 06

  No. The coolest kids, the coolest. They listen to the most hit music.

• 12:07Bill Maher?

  They like me?

• 12:08Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 12:09Bill Maher?

  Okay, because if my show gets in the wrong hands over there, I, I mean, like.

• 12:14Speaker 06

  No, no, no.

• 12:15Bill Maher?

  Would you go to Iran?

• 12:16Speaker 06

  I can't. They'll kill me. I speak against the regime.

• 12:19Bill Maher?

  So that's a hard no.

• 12:23Speaker 06

  I'm afraid to go to the neighboring country, let alone.

• 12:25Bill Maher?

  Okay, but see, when I say this, they, one reason the left, you know, the far left in this, just hates me. Is that I keep it real about this shit. I, I say this, but it's exactly what you're saying.

• 12:37Speaker 06

  Do you know why?

• 12:38Bill Maher?

  You're, because you can't, you can talk, you can talk shit about your own people.

• 12:42Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 12:43Bill Maher?

  Exactly. But the truth is the truth. And this is the truth, that yes, you'd be killed. I mean, just think about that. And somebody's gonna be like, and I's killed, yeah, okay, I shouldn't have killed those people, but it's not the same thing. It just isn't. Get over silliness, you know, it's just not a thing. This is a state regime that is just totally okay with killing thousands of people in the street and has done it many times. Yes, Trump puts out a meme where he's pooping on them. Did you see the meme? You never saw that?

• 13:14Speaker 06

  No, the meme I didn't see.

• 13:16Bill Maher?

  What? During No King's Day?

• 13:18Speaker 06

  I didn't see that. What was the meme?

• 13:20Bill Maher?

  Okay. Do you know what No King's Day was?

• 13:23Speaker 06

  Yes, of course.

• 13:24Bill Maher?

  Okay, so they had, it was like, I don't know, six months ago or something and all the, you know, this is such, they hate that I have dinner with them, but I couldn't accomplish anything. No, we'll get in the street and dress up as like kings, because he's a king. So they all get in the street and nothing happens, of course. It's just a bunch of people who already agree with each other. And now we're agreeing with each other in the street. Trump's just asshole. Yeah, great. I'm glad this is what we're affirming that we all know for 10 years. Okay, so Trump, his response to that was, he got some AI meme, uh, video of him flying a fighter jet and dropping shit on the crowd.

• 14:03Speaker 06

  I did not see that. That's hilarious.

• 14:05Bill Maher?

  Now, how did that not get on your radar? How do you get your news?

• 14:09Speaker 06

  Uh, social media. I'm heavily getting my news.

• 14:12Bill Maher?

  So social media ignored that story? I can't.

• 14:15Speaker 06

  I don't know how I didn't get it. I, I pretty much get everything on this topic. Everything. I'm pretty, I'm pretty.

• 14:22Bill Maher?

  Making poop videos?

• 14:24Speaker 06

  No, Trump and Iran and the whole conflict. It's, it's, you know.

• 14:28Bill Maher?

  So what do you? So here's the cards on my table. I thought the bombing of the nuclear reactors back in June was great. That, that one to take out the nuclear program, of course, as always. Then it becomes this clusterfuck where, uh, it's totally obliterated and yet somehow we still have to go to war. Okay, it could, had to be one or the other. But, okay, I thought they had, they fucked up the timing. They, they let the people get killed in the streets and then they attacked. They should have done it as a support of the people in the streets while it was happening. That's my bottom line take on this.

• 15:11Bill Maher?

  But look where we are now. What, what do you think, what would you, if you had your druthers, how would this be resolved right now?

• 15:17Speaker 06

  Well, when you start something, you better finish it.

• 15:20Bill Maher?

  Well, that means ground troops?

• 15:21Speaker 06

  That means change the regime.

• 15:23Bill Maher?

  But, but obviously we can't do that only through air power.

• 15:27Speaker 06

  We can't do that. We, we're saying that today, but when, when those thousands of people died on the streets, they came out because they trusted Trump. Iranians were

• 15:38Bill Maher?

  Yep.

• 15:38Speaker 06

  really, really believing that this is their only chance that this is gonna happen. And thousands came out on the street, knowing that they're gonna, they could die.

• 15:48Bill Maher?

  It's, it's, I'm surprised I haven't heard anybody, or maybe somebody has made this comparison, but it's a little like the Bay of Pigs, which even I was too young for. No, I was five. When Kennedy was first president, he inherited a program from the CIA to, uh, take over Cuba because Castro, a communist and a Soviet ally, this is the height of the Cold War, was 90 miles from fucking Boca Raton.

• 16:19Bill Maher?

  Not that I have to tell you about Boca Raton, but, uh, so in April of 1961, Kennedy was off his three months and the program, he didn't stop the program. It had been in the works and it was a disaster. Like they got all these Cuban exiles to hit the beaches and Kennedy was supposed to provide air cover. And that somehow didn't come through or some shit like that. They were slaughtered on the beaches by Castro's. It's very similar. Like the, America, I gotta tell you, the world, just don't trust us. You, you, it, it really, it's like that, the guy in Animal House is like, you fucked up, you trusted us.

• 17:00Bill Maher?

  You know, the number of people we've abandoned, I'm not saying we should have stayed there forever, but like the Vietnamese and the Afghans and the Kurds and the, everybody like, America, no lifeguard on duty, okay? You swim at your own risk, because we will fucking abandon you.

• 17:19Speaker 06

  It's, it's all about where they're getting their information from. If CIA is, is doing a deep dive and saying, look, here's the assessment. There's gotta be an assessment. There's gotta be a, a very detailed information of like, this is what's happening. This is our chances. We're gonna win. And they're, they're going in there and, and everything turns the other way around.

• 17:41Bill Maher?

  You can't, you can't wish a win into existence.

• 17:46Speaker 06

  Unless you, your information is proper. I feel like with Iran, they were very optimistic. And now the narrative is changing. I don't know where were they, I mean, who knows, but behind the scenes, what surprise happened that now we're, we're settling down?

• 18:03Bill Maher?

  Max, your people are a crafty, determined people, you know? They're hard to defeat. They, they, it's like, you know, it, I think a lot of people have said this, that Trump was, um, energized by how easy the takeover in Venezuela was. But, you know, it's like Don Corleone said,

• 18:29Bill Maher?

  technically he was a pimp. This is Barzini, you know? This is Iran. They're not easy to defeat.

• 18:38Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 18:38Bill Maher?

  And they're, they're, I feel like they have the whip hand now because, like, how many times can you say, I'm going to wipe you out? I mean, he, he said wipe you out, destroy your civilization, you know, decapitate. He, he's found more ways than the 56 ways I have there on the wall of him calling me an asshole. He's almost about number of saying how he's gonna wipe them off the face of the earth and it's just not going to happen. I mean, if, if we, you know, you say finish the job, the only way to do that is to attack

• 19:16Bill Maher?

  the country itself so much that you will turn the people against you. Then they'll be against us. I think they're still with us, although pissed off. But I'm, I'm wondering if there are things going on behind the scenes.

• 19:29Speaker 06

  Hundred percent. I, I wanna tell you a few things. When you say my people, they're, they're not my people, uh, for sure.

• 19:37Bill Maher?

  Really? You're not Persian?

• 19:38Speaker 06

  No, no. Iranians all will say this. We are not our government. Those are not our people.

• 19:45Bill Maher?

  They said your people, not your government.

• 19:47Speaker 06

  Yeah, because the people that are fighting today against the US and Israel are not the Iranians. They are, they are this species that they have no sense of moral, they have no morals.

• 20:01Bill Maher?

  I agree.

• 20:02Speaker 06

  They have, they, they, they're hard to understand. Like a regular human cannot understand someone who can murder their own family, let alone the people, for power, for, for sticking to their ideology. They're just something we cannot understand. And so are they ruthless? Are they doing anything and everything in their power to, to stay in that, in their, in their position? Yes. Now, we, I would say as a civilian who's watching the news, not, not an expert, I just assumed when I saw those pagers in Lebanon, when I saw the, the, the exact locations that,

• 20:43Speaker 06

  um, Israeli rockets hit those key people in, in, in the government of Iran. That's how we thought the regime change will happen.

• 20:52Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 20:52Speaker 06

  I think Trump, uh, made it very clear, the war is not on the people of Iran. The war is with the government, government of Iran. So when he said, we're gonna wipe you off the civilization, I don't think anybody was worried. I think we knew that he's just using Trump language to scare people.

• 21:08Bill Maher?

  I think some people were worried. I was worried. Okay, go ahead.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by HBO Max. HBO Max presents The Gilded Age. Nominated for eight Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series. In season three, ambition and scandal collide as the Russells take their place at the head of society, while the Van Rhyn household is thrown into chaos. Don't miss the series Harper's Bazaar called Perfect Television. The Gilded Age is now streaming on HBO Max. Watch now.

• 21:58Bill Maher?

  I don't, I mean, you're right. I mean, it's, at the end, it's 90% chance that he's just spouting off.

• 22:05Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 22:05Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 22:06Speaker 06

  He's, he does it pretty often.

• 22:07Bill Maher?

  But it's still, for a president to say things like that is crazy. But like, does this subject weigh on you? Like in your day to day life, like if, if you're writing a new bit, uh, an emo bit, of course, would, would this emo about this get in there and?

• 22:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, it really weighs on me in the sense that, um, we are, we are so connected. Even though I've been living most of my life in America, my audience is really a very wide range of different backgrounds. The Persian audience makes 10% of my audience today. There was a time that I, I had a bigger Persian community in my shows, but my brand blew up. So now all of the Iranians still come to the show, but now they make 10% of 20,000 seats. So what, it, nothing, I, I realize this now, the older I'm getting. Your ethnicity and where you're from is part of you and it's so

• 23:06Speaker 06

  it's so in it's like involved in your in your day to day that you cannot get away with it. And the more you try to get away with it, it'll surprise you.

• 23:14Bill Maher?

  Get away with what?

• 23:14Speaker 06

  Like to pretend that that's not happening.

• 23:16Bill Maher?

  Why would you? It's the best thing in the world to be part of an ethnic.

• 23:19Speaker 06

  Hundred percent.

• 23:21Bill Maher?

  Especially in show business.

• 23:22Speaker 06

  Hundred percent.

• 23:23Bill Maher?

  It's the white people they don't like anymore, which is fine. I'm not even complaining about it. But let's not pretend that that's not that you're not like much more of on a casting list. Oh, you know, a thirty five year old guy, a person of color, you had me at person. You know, and that's okay.

• 23:40Speaker 06

  Today, today, Bill.

• 23:41Bill Maher?

  Today, right? Turn about is fair play, but I live in the present. It's great to acknowledge the past and we have to, and we also have to acknowledge the present. So, you know, no, I mean, ride it, baby. And that's not why you're a success. You're a success because you're good. But it is, it is a special thing. I've seen this with other comics over the ages. When you are like the first of an ethnic group, again, you probably don't know this name, Freddie Prinze.

• 24:07Speaker 06

  Of course I do.

• 24:08Bill Maher?

  Oh, you do?

• 24:09Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 24:09Bill Maher?

  Okay. I was twenty when he came on The Tonight Show. This is when I was like dreaming to be a comic. It was gonna happen when I got out of college and so I loved The Tonight Show and watched all the comics. And Freddie Prinze came on and just, you know, wiped everybody out. He was the first Puerto Rican. And his catchphrase was, is what his super used to say, it's not my job.

• 24:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:34Bill Maher?

  I still say it. I love it. It's not my job. And I'm just, I'm not quoting. But Freddie Prinze, he blew up and then fucking killed himself. Oh, yeah, that's right. Well, a bad example.

• 24:49Speaker 06

  No, I know what you're saying though, but I'm saying what you asked me is that is this in my daily sort of routine? I don't bring so much of that topic into the comedy because I feel like my audience is such a broad audience. It's not my style. Like I like, I talk about, I'm a storyteller. I talk about my life. I talk about my upbringing. I talk about my family. I talk about, like I talk about moving back to Iran as an eight year old all American kid. And I talk about how it was a culture shock and going to school and, and, and, you know, all of a sudden, as an American kid standing there, the whole school starts chanting, death to America, death to America. I'm standing there going, do they know I'm American? Are they trying to kill me?

• 25:33Speaker 06

  I go home, I'm like, mommy, they're screaming death to America in school.

• 25:36Bill Maher?

  At you?

• 25:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, but they're chanting death to America in Iran every morning in school.

• 25:43Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 25:43Speaker 06

  Like we're like seven, eight year old kids.

• 25:46Bill Maher?

  It's like us saying the Pledge of Allegiance, they say death to America. Okay, cultures are different. You see, it's just cultural relative to my, I've always been on the page with that.

• 25:57Speaker 06

  That's the kind of stuff I talk about because those were my crazy memories. Like all of a sudden realizing, yesterday I was singing Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell in school. Now I'm screaming death to America on this side. I was like, what's going on? And my mom, I remember, she was like, oh, I forgot to tell you. I'm like, you forgot to tell me this? What do I do? And my mom said, just whisper, you're American. Don't say it. Just pretend you're saying it. I said, okay, so.

• 26:26Bill Maher?

  You do a good mom.

• 26:27Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 26:28Bill Maher?

  No, really. I mean, you got it down.

• 26:32Speaker 06

  So that's the kind of stories I talk about.

• 26:34Bill Maher?

  So listen to this. This will blow your mind. I just thought of this. Nineteen seventy nine, I am twenty three. Very big year for mediaist politics. The, uh, it was, they attacked the sacred mosque in Saudi Arabia. That was a huge thing. It was also the year of the Iranian revolution. Probably had a lot to do with why you wound up in America. Because nineteen.

• 27:04Speaker 06

  Well, I, my family moved here before the revolution, way before for school. My dad was sent to Germany and then my mom was in London. Their families were friends. They met in Iran. They got married.

• 27:17Bill Maher?

  Do they ever, they ever talk about nineteen seventy nine to you?

• 27:21Speaker 06

  Of course, of course. It's a huge part of our, our life every day and every, every family's dialogue. But what I'm saying is they, they didn't move out of Iran because of the revolution. And that's where my parents were tricked to go back. So they had left way before the revolution. They had seen Iran at its best. They graduate college. My grandfather's wish was for my father, when he finishes his school, come back and, you know, give back to his own country. But my grandfather died two years before the revolution. And he forgot to write down in his will, son, if there's a revolution, don't be stupid and come back to Iran. So we moved back and that's when my father realized it was a big mistake.

• 28:04Bill Maher?

  Jumped on a sinking ship, huh?

• 28:06Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 28:07Bill Maher?

  Well, listen, so listen to this. I'm twenty three years old. I'm just finished college. I'm following my college girlfriend to her summer job, which was teaching at this college, really high school, summer college, whatever, in Geneva, Switzerland. She was a linguistics major and so she, she was brilliant at language and, yeah, just teach the kids who were from all over the world, but in nineteen seventy nine, most of them were from Muslim countries. There was a lot of oil money going around. Saudi kids, I had little Adnan, I remember him, sir, sir, sir.

• 28:48Bill Maher?

  That's my impression of Adnan. Loved him. And a lot of Iranian kids. And the revolution happens like at the end of when we were there. And these, I remember these kids going ape shit, the Iranian kids, you know, rushing to the phones and they were, I mean, this was like, because these are the kids who were probably part of the regime. These are the wealth. This is Geneva.

• 29:09Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 29:09Bill Maher?

  This was a very expensive school. I fucking hated it. The Swiss, oh boy, warm people.

• 29:17Bill Maher?

  You ever known Swiss? I mean, they're.

• 29:19Speaker 06

  I've been there.

• 29:20Bill Maher?

  They're, they're peaceful, but you know.

• 29:23Speaker 06

  They're better than everybody else.

• 29:24Bill Maher?

  It's, it's, it's, it's not exactly a party town.

• 29:28Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 29:28Bill Maher?

  Anyway.

• 29:29Speaker 06

  So you followed your girlfriend there? You loved this girl so much. You went to Geneva to go to school.

• 29:33Bill Maher?

  Well, college, you know, when you're, when you're twenty two and in love, you know, thank God I didn't make permanent life decisions like many do, people do when they're twenty two and in love.

• 29:45Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 29:45Bill Maher?

  Hey, I was in love in high school and if that girl who dumped me, because I'm sure I deserved it, if she had said, don't go to college, work at the A and P, I absolutely would have done it. I was completely vulnerable to emotional blackmail. I was, I was dumped for the first time, which really is tough because you have no experience with it yet.

• 30:08Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 30:08Bill Maher?

  Have you ever, are you, what's your thing? Are you married?

• 30:11Speaker 06

  I'm single. I think I'm the comic.

• 30:13Bill Maher?

  Ready to Persian mingle.

• 30:15Speaker 06

  You're my role model. You're my role model.

• 30:17Bill Maher?

  Why? Because you want to never get married?

• 30:19Speaker 06

  I'm, I honestly have.

• 30:20Bill Maher?

  By the way, since you didn't know about the divorce, the divorce, the divorce, do you know about temporary marriage?

• 30:27Speaker 06

  Yes, I know about that, of course.

• 30:28Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 30:28Speaker 06

  Of course.

• 30:29Bill Maher?

  Could you explain, explain that to me, temporary marriage? Tell me what that is in your, in your understanding.

• 30:34Speaker 06

  It's pimping at its best. You just say three lines and she has to be like, oh, thank you very much. And she's, yes, she thanks you for doing it the proper way.

• 30:43Bill Maher?

  Well, it's, it's cheating, but like you, you get this, I think they gave one to the current Ayatollah. Or he had one or, I don't know, but it just means like a temporary, it's basically you get laid one night, but that, you didn't just get laid, you had, I mean, can you imagine coming home in this country? Honey, I'm sorry. It was just a temporary marriage.

• 31:05Speaker 06

  It's the Muslim version of Vegas. You still have to make a transaction. You have to offer something and then you have to, you know, read this and then you temporarily are mine with this agreement. And the same thing happens, you know, in whatever state prostitution is legal. It's literally that.

• 31:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I, I must say, you know, some of these, it goes on in the world now, harems. I mean, I hope I'm not talking out of school, but I think for sure, I've read, maybe it's just, you know, scuttlebutt, but like the Saudis probably, the princes, we certainly know about the Sultan of Brunei inheriting, I mean, not inheriting, inviting women from, definitely the States go there to party.

• 31:58Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 31:58Bill Maher?

  People are fucking weird.

• 32:00Speaker 06

  You can't be a king without a harem.

• 32:03Bill Maher?

  What is wrong with people, Max? What are we gonna do about this problem, people?

• 32:08Speaker 06

  Oh, my God.

• 32:09Bill Maher?

  The problem that won't go away.

• 32:11Speaker 06

  Never, ever. Never, ever.

• 32:13Bill Maher?

  So you want to stay single forever? Is that what you're, I hear you're saying?

• 32:16Speaker 06

  So far, I'm, I haven't been married, so the topic is, I really, I tell you, I'm in this state of mind where.

• 32:26Speaker 06

  I've been thinking, maybe magically, I'm gonna meet this person. And this person has not come along so far. So I wonder, um, I don't know. I, my life is, I'm very happy. I'm not a, I'm not a type of person who wakes up depressed because I'm not in a relationship.

• 32:43Bill Maher?

  Why wouldn't you be? You're, you're still young, you're good-looking, you know, you're, you're famous. I mean, you know, the bitches must be all over you. Why, I mean, it's just, it's just unrealistic to not want that. My saying is, water flows downhill. At a certain point, that'll change. But like, right now, this water's flowing downhill. You'd be crazy to try to stop it.

• 33:11Speaker 06

  And it puts me, it's a lot of pressure when you're with somebody. Oh, it adds, it doesn't add anything but pressure. So I, I'm curious about-

• 33:20Bill Maher?

  Well, we hope that it adds positive things as well. It's not just pressure. But I hear you about the pressure, usually.

• 33:27Speaker 06

  The pressure is here? That, what it adds on is not even a quarter of that?

• 33:32Bill Maher?

  I, I'm living to tell the tale that you actually can, there are at least a few humans, I must assume, uh, more than one, who, absolutely no pressure and no fighting and, and none of that. But it took me a very long time. Uh, it was just, you know, you're just, I don't know how you make that happen, certainly not on Instagram.

• 33:51Speaker 06

  You can't be with somebody who's controlling and-

• 33:54Bill Maher?

  But generally, relationships, I agree, are, are, at least in my experience, way more the cause of stress and anxiety than career.

• 34:03Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 34:04Bill Maher?

  Career, I can-

• 34:04Speaker 06

  Of course.

• 34:05Bill Maher?

  Career, I can control. Not all, not totally, but we can-

• 34:11Speaker 06

  Career, you can say no.

• 34:13Bill Maher?

  And, or yes, or, and you're, you're not ever fighting with yourself. You're sometimes debating with yourself about the, what the right thing is to do. But, you know, it's not like your other self is gonna go, you know, fuck you, why don't you go fuck your whore? You know, I don't ever say that to myself, even though we have disputes.

• 34:33Speaker 06

  So do you ever, do you ever come, like, where, where you stand with not having kids? Do you look back and you say you wish you had kids, or you?

• 34:40Bill Maher?

  Thank you, Jesus, is what I say. And I, of course, I'm an atheist, so that, but thank you, Jesus. Because it's the one thing I never wanted when I was young and it never changed, and it would've just fucked up my life. Now, there are people who say, you don't know, 'cause it didn't happen. Absolutely true. You can't prove a negative. And they're right. Um, I know, just from looking from the outside, children are the most transformative thing for people. I've just seen too many people transformed by them and I'd be, like, I could probably put together a reel of people who sat in that chair and said, and then when the baby came out, my whole life changed, it wasn't about me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

• 35:24Bill Maher?

  For every one of those, there's somebody who's like, yeah, the baby came, and I would just go right on with my life the way I always did, and the baby suffers, you know? But I just knew I would be that other person who would just be like, oh, it's, it's just not what interests me, a, a baby. Any, really, anyone's stupid.

• 35:45Bill Maher?

  And babies and children are incredibly stupid. I mean, it's not their fault. Their brain is just, they don't know anything until you tell them. But it's just, that's boring to me, you know?

• 35:54Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 35:55Bill Maher?

  I want the, the conversation to start at a certain level.

• 35:58Speaker 06

  Well, I, I, I tell you, this is how I see it, bro. They say when you have a kid, you know, you have a purpose, and now you have this person that you're gonna put all your effort in and bring somebody very valuable to this world and make the world a better place. If that's what it is, if that's one definition of the topic, I feel like I am, I have thousands of kids in this world, and I'm making much more of a better impact with my comedy and what I'm, because I feel like having a family is gonna really hold me back from what I'm doing.

• 36:34Bill Maher?

  Bro, you don't need to apologize for it. Just live, uh, all you have to say is, it's fun. It looks, it, it looks more fun than marriage, and that's because it is. All married people do is bitch and complain about marriage and then ask, why aren't you married? 'Cause I listen to you.

• 36:55Speaker 06

  That's a great bit for me.

• 36:56Bill Maher?

  You know, I don't know whether-

• 36:58Speaker 06

  It's more fun.

• 36:59Bill Maher?

  It just, you don't have to apologize for it. Just be it. And, uh, you know, you may well, I didn't, but you may well come to a different, where, life is a series of passages. You know, each decade, you're kind of a different person.

• 37:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's true. That's true.

• 37:18Bill Maher?

  You know, you're in your 40s, right?

• 37:20Speaker 06

  My 40s, yeah.

• 37:21Bill Maher?

  That's a, that's, I remember my 40s. It was a very distinct period, nothing like 70. You know, I don't know what the whole decade's gonna be like, but I really can only comment on 60s, but 60s, 50s, 40s, all very different. Very different. So, you know, you, you, you don't know whether that will continue. Maybe that will be part of a, a passage you go through.

• 37:47Bill Maher?

  You don't seem to have had a midlife crisis, nor should you.

• 37:49Speaker 06

  No, but I like what you're saying. Every decade, we change. That's, that's really profound. And if we do change, and that's, that's, that's, you know, uh, then it's okay to, to admit, to say, hey, that decade, I didn't see it. This decade, I see it this way, so I wanna, I wanna change my opinion and go right or left.

• 38:09Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I can, I can name for each decade of my life, probably, what, if I had to, gun to the head, central focus. Like, central focus of zero to 10, stay with mommy. It seemed very important to me in that, they, you know, they came to get me for nursery school, and I wouldn't go. Like, I was supposed to go to nursery school, that's the one before kindergarten. Now they start them like, I don't know, they're, they're one and they're like fucking going off to something. But, no, this is like year four.

• 38:45Bill Maher?

  And I just wouldn't go. I just, no, I'm good here at home with mommy, you know, like, so that was like, that. Then the next tape, decade, like 10 to 20, I would say, central focus, don't be bullied. Don't get bullied, don't be the one who's ostracized. There was just way too much of that in that era of my life. Not physical bullying so much, got beat up once, it wasn't that, it was, I, almost worse. You could be psychologically shunned by the, you know, boys are just horrible. You know, so every decade, you, you know-

• 39:23Speaker 06

  Which decade you became an atheist?

• 39:26Bill Maher?

  Ah, interesting.

• 39:29Bill Maher?

  It really wasn't until like, I would say, mid 30s, because I was raised Catholic. So, you know, for, that's just something they drill into you, like they drilled mercury into my teeth with, with just about as healthy for you. And, uh, so that was in my head. I, I still get sweaty palms if I walk into a church. You know, I mean, yeah, you know, I don't know if you went to-

• 39:55Speaker 06

  See, I've, I've been to church, I've been to synagogue.

• 39:58Bill Maher?

  Mosque?

• 39:59Speaker 06

  Mosque also, back in Iran, obviously, not here.

• 40:03Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 40:03Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 40:04Bill Maher?

  Well, there are times in life when you think, yeah, I probably should've talked to somebody. You know, burnout, stress. One of those weeks where every little inconvenience ruins your day. And then you look for a therapist, and somehow the hardest part isn't admitting you need help. It's figuring out, who takes your insurance? That's why there's Rula. Rula helps you find licensed in-network therapists who fit your goals and needs, not just whoever is available. They work with over 100 insurance plans, and the average copay is 15 bucks a session. That's how insurance is supposed to work. No wait lists, no back and forth.

• 40:45Bill Maher?

  Rula connects you with providers accepting new patients, sometimes as soon as tomorrow, and sticks with you throughout your journey. Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance. Visit rula.com slash random to get started. That's R-U-L-A dot com slash random. You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

• 41:57Bill Maher?

  But you don't do the five a day.

• 41:59Speaker 06

  Well, my father was very anti-Muslim. My dad was very spiritual. He was a Sufi, so he was...

• 42:08Bill Maher?

  Sufi Muslim, huh?

• 42:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, he was really anti-extremist mentalities. And I asked my dad, I was a kid, and I asked my dad, I said, "Dad, what is our religion?" And he said, "Our religion is love. We love everybody. That's our religion." I said, "Dad, people are asking me in school, I don't know what to say, they don't understand Sufi." And he didn't, my dad liked the idea of saying, "We're Sufi, not a Muslim," first, because the Islamic sort of, what's portrayed as Islam is something that is complete opposite of what, everything my dad believed in. And so, he said, "Our religion is love."

• 42:47Bill Maher?

  Well, unfortunately, it's portrayed that way because it's followed that way by a lot of people. It is definitely followed that way.

• 42:55Speaker 06

  Because it benefits, that narrative benefits their ideology and it's almost like a business.

• 43:01Bill Maher?

  I mean, but no one's making it up that Islam is a much more fundamentalist. The people following the religion are more fundamentalist about it than Christians are. Christians were that way like 500 years ago. The Pope was the big swinging dick on the world, you know, he could make anybody do anything. We're not there anymore. Now he's just a, you know, he's a figurehead, a bobblehead. People like him, he's American, you know, you know the Pope we have now?

• 43:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, of course.

• 43:30Bill Maher?

  Real name Bob, stripper named Leo. I like to say. But, no, he was like, he could command you to do things in 1055. I mean, that's much more like an Imam today, or something like that. So, you know, the reason you're here, I mean, the reason why you like it here is, you don't want Sharia law, right?

• 43:58Speaker 06

  Hundred percent.

• 43:58Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 43:59Speaker 06

  I like how you checked in, right? Right. No, we definitely don't want Sharia law, Bill. Like, this comedian came in, I had no idea if he was a part with Sharia law or not.

• 44:21Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it was all fun and games till the bomb went off.

• 44:26Speaker 06

  It was the other decade of my life. I was an atheist and I changed to be a Muslim on this podcast. I converted.

• 44:34Bill Maher?

  But no, so, I was, when I got to be, well, I hated the church from the beginning, and catechism, which is where you went, it was like Catholic school to learn how to be a good Catholic. And we were, I was very young, and then they were mean, and the nuns, the whole thing. So, finally, my father pulled out of the church, thank you, Jesus, when I was like 13. And from that point on, like, I didn't have anything, I didn't have the Catholic Church, which, you know, I kind of believed, but I hated, and, but I wasn't an atheist yet. You know, so I was kind of like wandering and didn't think about spirituality or religion much, except of course, when you're in trouble, and then you bargain.

• 45:17Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.

• 45:19Bill Maher?

  You know what, I think the last thing I did religious wise was, I bargained with God and got, it got me to quit smoking.

• 45:27Speaker 06

  Did it, it worked?

• 45:28Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I think so. I think that was partly in my mind, that I made an imaginary...

• 45:35Speaker 06

  How did you bargain? You asked him to help you?

• 45:37Bill Maher?

  No, no, I just said, "If you let me win this battle with cigarettes, then I won't..."

• 45:45Speaker 06

  I'll become an atheist.

• 45:46Bill Maher?

  No. And it did have the opposite...

• 45:49Speaker 06

  He's like, "Okay, if I get rid of you and all your bargains, I'm okay with that."

• 45:54Bill Maher?

  You know, maybe I'm remembering this, it's 40 years ago, but I feel like there was something, I feel like that was my last hurrah with, but maybe I'm getting the timeline wrong. But, yeah, I, I went through a period where there was nothing, and of course, when you're in a vulnerable state like that, you are susceptible to, you know, you will, you will listen to astrology.

• 46:23Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 46:23Bill Maher?

  You know, bring in the next bitch. Numerology, oh, right. I was very into numbers for a while.

• 46:31Speaker 06

  Really?

• 46:32Bill Maher?

  Well, I was a numbers runner. Me and Ortiz.

• 46:36Speaker 06

  Now, you know, you're, it's kind of a great place you're in because when you do all your, I mean, I've watched your shows for many years, Bill.

• 46:47Bill Maher?

  Oh, great.

• 46:48Speaker 06

  And my favorite time of watching you was when you were on HBO.

• 46:53Bill Maher?

  I'm on HBO now.

• 46:54Speaker 06

  No, when you left, when you left ABC.

• 46:57Bill Maher?

  Oh, left ABC.

• 46:58Speaker 06

  And the whole transition was really cool. And then you made a, you wanted, to me as an outsider, it looked like you wanted to make a show 10 times cooler than the other show.

• 47:10Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 47:11Speaker 06

  It was, it was really fun. The discussions, the topics were a lot more...

• 47:16Bill Maher?

  We've got to have you back. Well, thank you, I mean, that means a lot to me, I appreciate that.

• 47:23Speaker 06

  Really?

• 47:24Bill Maher?

  I got to say, before I forget, do you have any plugs? Because I know you don't need them, but like, I've said this many times on this show, one thing I always respect is success, numbers. Including people, I use the example of Taylor Swift, I don't know why, but just because she's the most successful. Don't get the music, but totally respect the fuck out of the success. Because this is a world of so much bullshit. Everything is spin. You can't spin numbers. Numbers are real. I like things like that, Rog. No, it's not your opinion. It's the numbers. And your numbers are big.

• 48:08Bill Maher?

  I mean, you get a lot of, yeah, just, that's, they can't take that away from you.

• 48:14Speaker 06

  No, it's amazing, and...

• 48:18Bill Maher?

  It's so different than when I was starting, because you don't need like a network to hire you.

• 48:24Speaker 06

  You never had that problem, you were always hired.

• 48:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but I did...

• 48:28Speaker 06

  You always had an incredible...

• 48:30Bill Maher?

  And also fired.

• 48:32Speaker 06

  And then hired immediately.

• 48:33Bill Maher?

  Yes, that's true.

• 48:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, look, your career is so... Your career is so... You're like a rock star in suit. You're like a bad, bad rock star, like, you're like a bad boy that wears a suit and speaks so eloquently.

• 48:51Bill Maher?

  That is exactly how I tell my...

• 48:52Speaker 06

  But you're really a rock star. And then you come to your space, and look at this, this is a man cave at its best. And now, like, when I, when I came into this door and I saw your space, I'm like, this makes sense.

• 49:06Bill Maher?

  Well, thank you. Speaking of my great party house, are you drinking? Do we have, do we have a drink for you? Do you drink?

• 49:15Speaker 06

  Upon the Sharia law that I've been obeying.

• 49:18Bill Maher?

  Well, I didn't want to say, but you know, hey, let's not kid ourselves. Certain things Muslims generally don't like. Liquor, dogs, not crazy about the gays, women, touchy subject, but you know...

• 49:33Speaker 06

  Love dogs.

• 49:34Bill Maher?

  You do love dogs.

• 49:35Speaker 06

  I have good gay friends.

• 49:36Bill Maher?

  But isn't that a thing with Muslims and dogs?

• 49:39Speaker 06

  It's one of those things that were...

• 49:41Bill Maher?

  I don't understand.

• 49:42Speaker 06

  They believe that the dog saliva is, contains a lot of bacterias, and so it's haram, right?

• 49:52Bill Maher?

  I'm in trouble again. No, I agree, I would never, some people kiss their dogs. I, that's crazy.

• 49:59Speaker 06

  Yeah, but I love dogs. I grew up around dogs, so it's, it's animals, we love, like, my family, we love animals.

• 50:06Bill Maher?

  The Bible is full of crazy nutty shit from Jews about, don't eat lobster with, you know, don't eat milk with meat, or whatever, that's what ancient people did.

• 50:17Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 50:18Bill Maher?

  Is they, they kind of got it that like, oh, maybe if we do, we seem to get sick every time we ate lobster with whatever, milk or whatever. So let's make a law. Slavery, no, we never, they never made a law about slavery. Never, nobody ever said, "Don't do it." It just even occurred to them. But this thing of eating...

• 50:40Speaker 06

  If we all took everything in moderation, whether it was the Bible, or the, for the Jews, Muslims, the Christians, if they just took the good things, and didn't bother with those very crazy details, and the world would have been a lot more balanced.

• 50:57Bill Maher?

  I got to stop you there, man.

• 50:59Speaker 06

  You don't like any part of it.

• 51:00Bill Maher?

  It's not really accurate. Because the Quran and the Bible are not like the same book, just in a different language. They're just not. First of all, the Bible is two halves. One is the prince of peace, whose message was very different than Muhammad, who was a warrior. Christianity is founded on being a martyr and suffering.

• 51:25Bill Maher?

  Islam, their best century was their first. They came out of the desert and conquered the whole world, and they didn't do it by asking. It doesn't happen that far, that quickly by asking. There's a reason why the Saudi Arabian flag is two swords. Okay, everybody was like that back then. They were just very successful at it. But that, that influences what's in the book. The book is, the Bible is an anthology of so many different authors over different eras, and some of it is batshit, and some of it is, is poetry, and some of it is stories. You know, most of it happens like in the first five pages. God creates the world, and Adam

• 52:10Bill Maher?

  and Eve, and Noah, and the flood, and that all happens like before page three.

• 52:19Speaker 06

  There's one part they say, um, we believe in Jesus, and we believe in Moses. You just take that part, and you take everything.

• 52:26Bill Maher?

  In the Quran. Yes, they believe.

• 52:27Speaker 06

  Just take that part and move on, get along. I mean, you know.

• 52:31Bill Maher?

  Yeah, you can find some, that's a nice, I mean, I don't know how many nice ones there are like that. And what they're saying is that Muhammad is the last prophet, but they do recognize the earlier prophets.

• 52:42Speaker 06

  Just take the earlier prophets and focus and get along. The point is, you know, there's so many, there's an angle in life. There are people in this world, you can look at something and look at it from a positive perspective. And, and other, same, same situation, another person will look at it, and all they will see is negative. And.

• 53:02Bill Maher?

  This country has a big problem, especially with the youth, of only seeing negative. And a lot of it is because they just don't know what the fuck they're talking about. They think they have it worse than anybody, and they have it generally better than anybody.

• 53:17Speaker 06

  Yeah, I agree with you. I think, and again, the reason for that is, you know, the grass looks greener from the other side when you're 24/7 on social media.

• 53:25Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 53:25Speaker 06

  And thirteen-year-old kids today, they must have it hard. We never knew what the neighbor's shoes look like, what they're having for dinner, where they're going on vacation.

• 53:36Bill Maher?

  I at least had to wait to when I went to school to get bullied. But when it's on your phone.

• 53:43Speaker 06

  Yeah. And they unfollow each other, they write, I mean, all of these stuff.

• 53:47Bill Maher?

  It would be like in my day, the bullies coming to the door all night. If, if every time I looked on my phone, there was something, and, uh, kids are just fucking cruel. There's a great book that, I think they just redid it as a movie, Lord of the Flies. It was just out on, I think, one of the streaming services. And it's about these kids, I think they're like ten to thirteen, who get shipwrecked on an island, and exactly what would happen. They act like the animals that humans are, right below the surface. You know, they ostracize this one kid called Piggy because he's weak. But, you know, you see this in nature. You

• 54:31Bill Maher?

  think nature is always so sweet because somebody sent you a, a video of a little squirrel, and he's napping on a bear, and they're cute, and no. They, they kill, not only do they kill other species, they kill their own species when they're weak. They'll peck you to death.

• 54:47Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 54:48Bill Maher?

  Fuck you, you're weak. It's like, they have no fucking professional courtesy.

• 54:54Speaker 06

  No.

• 54:54Bill Maher?

  In the animal world.

• 54:55Speaker 06

  So you and I both were bullied.

• 54:58Bill Maher?

  Oh, you were bullied, right.

• 54:59Speaker 06

  Better, you're not so, because I was the American kid in Iran. You can't imagine how much. I was bullied till I was 12 years old, in the most craziest ways. I was, I was the American kid, and, and they hated me just because.

• 55:12Bill Maher?

  Did you have to sometimes pretend that you were more religious and?

• 55:16Speaker 06

  No, I never needed to. Like, I mean, I guess, at that age, you, you know, you're not that sophisticated to come in the next day and be like, wala, hala, ala, wala. Like, whoa, look, the American kid is, is, um, you know, no, it wasn't that. It's just the jealousy. And, and bullying is just, they look at you and, and whatever, the bullies are usually kids that are coming from very troubled families, and they're coming to school, and they want to reflect that pain on other people. And so, but just by default, I was a great target. I was a kid who didn't speak Farsi so well when I first got there, and, and I was bullied a lot, and, and now I'm thinking, I'm listening to you, uh, and I'm thinking, maybe that's why we're both single, and we don't want to be married, because, uh, marriage looks like bullying.

• 56:02Speaker 06

  You wake up in the morning, and she bullies you.

• 56:04Bill Maher?

  I, I, my last special, remember the one before that, I had a bit, which was exactly when people, when people say, happy life, happy wife. It sounds so sweet. It's actually a threat, isn't it?

• 56:15Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 56:16Bill Maher?

  It's, it's, it's, Elton, happy life. Hey, it's a nice life you got there. Shame if anything would have happened to it.

• 56:22Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 56:23Bill Maher?

  You know? And, uh, but, look, women, first of all, they don't even want to hear this discussion. It's because it's threatening, because, you know, they can pretend what they want about how different we all are. Please, there's a reason The Bachelor is still on. Most women are same as they always were. They basically, you know, have a wild period in their early twenties, and then they're looking for a husband. Not because they, they were gold diggers or whatever, it's just natural to pair off. They like that security, and they like, and who can blame them? And there are wonderful things about, have you been in serious relationships?

• 57:00Speaker 06

  I have. I've, I had like.

• 57:01Bill Maher?

  Like, what's the longest one you ever had?

• 57:03Speaker 06

  Uh, the longest, three and a half years.

• 57:05Bill Maher?

  What a pussy. No, I'm kidding.

• 57:06Speaker 06

  That's it. You?

• 57:08Bill Maher?

  About.

• 57:11Speaker 06

  Okay, we, we match on the, on the relationship length, too.

• 57:17Speaker 06

  Okay, been bullied, longest three and a half years.

• 57:20Bill Maher?

  Well, you know, it's like, it's, yeah, it's just, I feel like, in another era, it was easier. You lived on the prairie, you never even saw another person. It wasn't that hard to stay married. But we live in like this constant, hyper, intense bombardment of stimuli all the time.

• 57:43Speaker 06

  That's true.

• 57:43Bill Maher?

  Including sexuals. It's just, it's like, it's asking our brain to do something that's, that's very hard to, I think, pull off.

• 57:53Speaker 06

  Especially, especially for us. We're comedians, show business. It's extra, it's extra complicated.

• 58:00Bill Maher?

  I mean, if we were, I was gonna say magicians. If we were musicians, if we were magicians, we'd never get laid. No, actually, magicians get laid a lot.

• 58:10Speaker 06

  Is that right?

• 58:10Bill Maher?

  That's how fucking dumb women are. They fall for that stupid shit.

• 58:16Bill Maher?

  Of course, I'm kidding. Disclaimer, all jokes on Club Random are jokes.

• 58:23Speaker 06

  On tequila.

• 58:25Bill Maher?

  They used to run a thing at the bottom of Politically Incorrect, the opinions of Mr. Moore are Mr. Moore's opinions.

• 58:31Speaker 06

  That's great.

• 58:31Bill Maher?

  That was all the explanation. It's like, it's, you know, it's, it is what it is. I'm sorry that you were too young to have been on that show. That would have been great to be on Politically Incorrect.

• 58:43Speaker 06

  I watched it. I watched it religiously.

• 58:46Bill Maher?

  Marilyn Manson and Mrs. Brady. It was, uh, it was such a, uh, purposely stupidly cast show. I mean, that was the fun of it.

• 58:57Speaker 06

  But the show, the show had a really great formula. Every, every episode, you know, you had this, you had this great formula where a lot of people were challenged. I remember Ben Affleck on your show. You challenged him pretty, pretty hard a couple of times, especially on this topic of Islam and, uh.

• 59:15Bill Maher?

  That's why he hasn't done the show since.

• 59:17Speaker 06

  Christianity, and, and, yeah, yeah, I remember there was a clip that, that he got mad at you.

• 59:21Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:21Speaker 06

  For your Muslim views.

• 59:22Bill Maher?

  Me and Sam Harris, yes.

• 59:24Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 59:24Bill Maher?

  I remember that. And, uh, yeah, I mean, it's, I, I love him, but, uh, you know, we, we just are gonna disagree on that one for the, I don't know, I, you know, if I talk to him privately, or, it's been, you know, 12 years, maybe, I, I think there's a middle ground. I think he even communicated with Sam Harris after that, and they, I think, every, it got exaggerated, and it got, um, for some reason, it just, it got emotional. And that's what people love.

• 59:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, of course.

• 59:57Bill Maher?

  More people mentioned that episode to me than anything.

• 59:59Speaker 06

  More reading.

• 59:59Bill Maher?

  And it wasn't the best episode we ever had, but it got emotional with a movie star. That's America.

• 1:00:05Speaker 06

  Yep. You should bring him back to the show and have.

• 1:00:07Bill Maher?

  Oh, I ask him every year.

• 1:00:09Speaker 06

  And have me.

• 1:00:09Bill Maher?

  He used to live, I bought his house from him.

• 1:00:12Speaker 06

  I'll, I'll be the, the middle person as the expert in Sharia law, and, and we start with divorce, divorce, divorce. I learned that now.

• 1:00:20Bill Maher?

  Temporary marriage.

• 1:00:21Speaker 06

  Temporary marriage.

• 1:00:22Bill Maher?

  And also, like Sharia.

• 1:00:23Speaker 06

  People love the temporary marriage. I mean. He should, he would absolutely love it. Look, look, it would save him a lot of headache.

• 1:00:33Bill Maher?

  That's perfect. The way that came around to that, that's hysterical. You're right. If anybody could use the temporary marriage, just for J-Lo. But, no, I mean Sharia law, people hear it, I don't know if they, some people are hearing that term for the first time. Some people hear it and, oh yeah, vaguely, I guess that's just like their catechism. No, Sharia law is a, it varies from different countries, but there's about sixty Muslim-majority countries. I mean, you know, they got very mad, uh, here for a minute, about eating at the Polo Lounge, because it's owned by the Sultan of Brunei. And they have a form of Sharia law there, you know,

• 1:01:16Bill Maher?

  which includes, like, it is illegal to be homosexual. Not just like, oh, you know, we're giving you the stink eye. Like, you know, in some countries, I think, you know, it's like you can be put to death for it.

• 1:01:31Speaker 06

  Iran. Iran, yeah. Iran, you're allowed to be a trans.

• 1:01:37Bill Maher?

  Correct. And that's why they have a big trans business.

• 1:01:40Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 1:01:41Bill Maher?

  People will, will cut their dick off so they don't get prosecuted for being gay.

• 1:01:46Speaker 06

  Yep. It's really, that, that part is extremely sane. They can't be gay, but they can be trans. In a way, they're more advanced on this topic. In so, you know, in comparison to so many other places. But yeah, no, that's, that's definitely one of the countries.

• 1:02:06Bill Maher?

  Yes, I, I mean, there's a cruise ship, I don't know if you saw this story, a gay cruise ship. I think it's called the Scarlet Letter. Anyway, it was, um, floating around the Mediterranean. I know it was a big deal, because the, the entertainment on board was Patti Lupone. Do you know who that is?

• 1:02:28Speaker 06

  No.

• 1:02:28Bill Maher?

  Big Broadway star.

• 1:02:30Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:02:30Bill Maher?

  Not that big in like movies or television, but like Broadway people know, she's a, been in many shows, and she's a big Broadway star. And so for like eleven hundred gay men on a ship, Patti Lupone is like you and me, you know, having, you know, I don't know, the Rolling Stones. It's just, it's a, it's a legacy act, but it's a big one. So this was a big thing, and it got turned away, the cruise ship, in Egypt and Turkey.

• 1:02:58Speaker 06

  Oh, they didn't let the ship go on the water?

• 1:03:01Bill Maher?

  They didn't let them dock, because

• 1:03:04Speaker 06

  Oh, wow.

• 1:03:04Bill Maher?

  It's just against Islamic, this is what I'm, this is Sharia law.

• 1:03:09Speaker 06

  They were afraid of liking it too much.

• 1:03:11Bill Maher?

  They, they thought Well, no, they just

• 1:03:13Speaker 06

  They thought they're gonna go on that, the gay guys will go on, you know, out in the, on the streets, and everybody will fall in love with them.

• 1:03:20Bill Maher?

  Well, I, I mean, again, I don't wanna tell tales out of school, but I've heard that there is a lot more homosexuality that goes on behind closed doors. Any, anytime where you shroud the women, and where you really can't date the way we do in the West with women, you know.

• 1:03:39Speaker 06

  Hundred percent.

• 1:03:40Bill Maher?

  Men are going to gravitate toward

• 1:03:42Speaker 06

  Hundred percent, anything, anything, a hole in the wall. Nah, in this case, you know, all boy schools, they have more, um, you know, gay experiences and, and, and, uh, than, than when the schools are mixed. So you're absolutely right.

• 1:04:03Bill Maher?

  There's a, a Rolling Stone reporter, I'm remembering this, so correct me if I don't get all the details, but it was soon after nine eleven, and he went to investigate, I think, in Pakistan, a, a Madrasa. And I believe his reporting was that he was hit on a lot.

• 1:04:20Speaker 06

  Wow. They just, they were just extra friendly. Cause, cause you know, another thing is really interesting, when you go to those regions, the guys that are not gay, the, the culturally, they're so physically comfortable with each other. They hold hands.

• 1:04:39Bill Maher?

  I remember this

• 1:04:40Speaker 06

  They put their arms around each other.

• 1:04:41Bill Maher?

  I remember this, the Saudi kids in, in, when I was in Switzerland, absolutely. We would take them, there was like a day, we would shop, go shopping in Geneva. That was like an activity. And they would come with like suitcases full of hundred dollar bills. I mean, it was funny, they would, they would buy a shirt, a thousand dollar shirt, and throw it away after wearing it one time. I mean, these kids had new money, and they just did not know what to do with it. But I remember that specifically, like one day we'd go to the park or some shit, and they would hold hands, boys, and also a boy would be sitting in the, in, on, you know, a blanket in the park, and the other boy would have his head in his lap.

• 1:05:17Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:05:17Bill Maher?

  You know, just like you would on a date with a girl.

• 1:05:20Speaker 06

  And you, you would look at it as an, as an American, you go, my god, they're definitely gay.

• 1:05:24Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:05:24Speaker 06

  And they're like, oh, no.

• 1:05:25Bill Maher?

  No, exactly. No, I know. I remember, I once, I said, I once said to Adnan, uh, Nassir, is he your brother or your cousin? And he went, yes.

• 1:05:38Bill Maher?

  His father probably had forty wives, or, you know, I mean, Bin Laden was the, um, twentieth of fifty-five children.

• 1:05:48Speaker 06

  Wow.

• 1:05:49Bill Maher?

  Always the middle ones that give you trouble.

• 1:05:51Speaker 06

  Twentieth of fifty-five?

• 1:05:54Bill Maher?

  His father had fifty-five children.

• 1:05:55Speaker 06

  He never pulled out?

• 1:05:57Bill Maher?

  That poor woman.

• 1:05:58Speaker 06

  Wow.

• 1:05:59Bill Maher?

  No, not from now.

• 1:06:00Speaker 06

  Not from a woman, of course. Wow.

• 1:06:04Bill Maher?

  Yeah, so, I'm not judging that part of it.

• 1:06:09Bill Maher?

  I mean, that's, as long as it doesn't tip over into intolerance. But, you know, yes, that's where the gay issue, the, the woman issue, uh, free speech issue,

• 1:06:23Bill Maher?

  blasphemy laws, all things that can get you killed. And sometimes things that are just personal, like adultery, uh, larceny, cutting off hands sometimes. I think some of this is changing. It's always gonna be slow. I think the leader of Saudi Arabia, okay, he cuts off a reporter's head every once in a while, and that's wrong, I don't care who knows it, I think that's wrong. But he has done a lot for Saudi Arabia.

• 1:06:49Speaker 06

  Well, he's

• 1:06:49Bill Maher?

  He really has.

• 1:06:50Speaker 06

  He's changing the country.

• 1:06:51Bill Maher?

  He's finally a change agent.

• 1:06:55Speaker 06

  And look, that change that he's making is not just for Saudi Arabia. It's gonna affect the whole region in a very beautiful, positive way.

• 1:07:03Bill Maher?

  Yes, and what I like about him, and why I think he's smart, is because he's young enough to get, how fast can I move this change? Cause you, if you do it too fast, they'll revolt against it. The conservatives will not have it. But I think even they know that that era, I, I know they relaxed things like women can drive, which I'm sure was a relief to a lot of Muslim men. Guys, you know what, this could be good for us. It's such a pain in the ass to have to drag her ass everywhere. She wants to get her nails done, I gotta take her to the mall, cause she can't drive, and she needs a male guardian.

• 1:07:45Bill Maher?

  Just let them, you know, I think we're at that moment, and I, I think he gets a lot of credit.

• 1:07:50Speaker 06

  I think he's very, um, up to par with the technology, because he's like, look, uh, pretty soon the cars are gonna drive themselves. So let them have a little fun in between. And we'll be all safe.

• 1:08:01Bill Maher?

  Exactly, we were gonna go right from women can't drive to nobody driving, so you're not missing anything.

• 1:08:07Speaker 06

  Exactly. No, but I'm, I really am, I'm happy about what's happening in, with, with Saudi. I think, um, this, this, this king is, has a, has a vision. He's clear on his vision, and he's gonna make the region healthier, more balanced.

• 1:08:26Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:26Speaker 06

  I, I, I think I'm all for it, and I don't know, uh, obviously you know about the whole controversy that happened with the comedians who played Saudi Arabia Comedy Festival.

• 1:08:35Bill Maher?

  I thought it was great.

• 1:08:36Speaker 06

  I thought the same thing.

• 1:08:37Bill Maher?

  I thought it was absolutely, and by the way, I've talked to definitely Jeff Ross, somebody else who was over there, um, and they loved it. They loved it.

• 1:08:48Speaker 06

  Of course.

• 1:08:49Bill Maher?

  And, and it was

• 1:08:50Speaker 06

  Well, the hospitality of the, of the Middle East when it comes to UAE, um, and, and Saudi, Bahrain, uh, they really, they really do a phenomenal job, you know, entertaining their guests. You know, you go there as a comedian, they take care of you, the shows are amazing. The people there are so receptive to comedy, it's so exciting.

• 1:09:14Bill Maher?

  Would you do that show?

• 1:09:14Speaker 06

  Hundred percent I would do that show.

• 1:09:16Bill Maher?

  Because a Persian in Saudi Arabia, I don't know if people know, but these are the traditional enemies in the Middle East.

• 1:09:23Speaker 06

  True.

• 1:09:24Bill Maher?

  That is, I don't think folks often know, that's the dynamic, that these two superpowers, Persians, Iranians, who are Shia Muslims, and not Arabs, and Saudis and most of the rest of the Arab world who are Sunnis. And facing each other right across the Strait of Hormuz. And that's really what the game is all about. If, if you can get these two factions to actually liken, uh, work together, but, you know, I know from studying religions, as much as I tried to, they hate the, uh, what they would call apostates.

• 1:10:08Bill Maher?

  In other words, the, the, the branch of the religion that still is our religion, but isn't the one we follow, more than they hate the infidel. Like, who did ISIS kill first? Like, the wrong type of Muslims.

• 1:10:21Speaker 06

  Hundred percent, they were, they were designed for that first. Then they became this, the ideology took themselves to the West. They say, but, but frankly, I tell you this, um, for me, it's very different. Saudis love me. UAE loves, one of my biggest draws, uh, you know, crowds that I have, it's, it's in UAE. Because, you know

• 1:10:48Bill Maher?

  So you play there, you play UAE.

• 1:10:50Speaker 06

  But it's one of my biggest, most

• 1:10:51Bill Maher?

  Right, because lots of Iranians.

• 1:10:53Speaker 06

  No, lots of everybody.

• 1:10:55Bill Maher?

  Everybody, but, and also, and Bahrain?

• 1:10:58Speaker 06

  Bahrain, huge, I mean, ten years, fifteen years I've been playing these regions. They love me, because I'm Iranian-American, and I'm really just Max. I'm not the, the necessarily, they're not coming to see

• 1:11:10Bill Maher?

  And they speak English?

• 1:11:12Speaker 06

  Fantastic English. They speak great English.

• 1:11:14Bill Maher?

  And you never said anything that got in trouble, in any show?

• 1:11:16Speaker 06

  No, because that's not, um, and, and I go back to this family dynamic that I was telling you. I grew up differently, and I, and I give you a couple of examples, and, and it gives you a nice picture. I grew up with this family, that they were very different. We were not, we were not the, the typical, first of all, you know, most Iranians are not really religious in that sense. Most Iranians are not.

• 1:11:42Bill Maher?

  Well, most Iranians here

• 1:11:44Speaker 06

  No, no, I, I, historically

• 1:11:46Bill Maher?

  Many in Iran are religious.

• 1:11:48Speaker 06

  Um, no, I tell you, historically Iranians, the difference between Iranians and Arabs is that Arabs, religion is their culture.

• 1:11:59Speaker 06

  Iranians, their culture is the Persian sort of traditions. So we are not, our culture is not a religion.

• 1:12:11Bill Maher?

  But Ayatollah Khomeini did have a sizable fan club.

• 1:12:14Speaker 06

  Ayatollah Khomeini, he was not even Iranian. He was Indian background. He was a Muslim from India.

• 1:12:22Bill Maher?

  Whatever he was, when he died, I seem to remember them losing their shit on his coffin. Like, "Ah, Khomeini, Khomeini." Somebody was very upset when he died. Come on, it's a mixture.

• 1:12:34Speaker 06

  I said majority. I think we're talking about, I believe.

• 1:12:38Bill Maher?

  Again, in the capital, I think it's different than in the sticks.

• 1:12:41Speaker 06

  I think everywhere, we're talking about 70/30. And that's what the statistics coming from Iran now.

• 1:12:47Bill Maher?

  Good.

• 1:12:48Speaker 06

  Thirty percent are the religious supporting sort of government population.

• 1:12:55Bill Maher?

  I'm with you. You know who else the Iranians like? Me.

• 1:12:58Speaker 06

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:12:59Bill Maher?

  I mean, not like you, but like, trust me, if I walk around Westwood, they really appreciate, I've heard it a million times.

• 1:13:09Speaker 06

  Hundred percent.

• 1:13:09Bill Maher?

  I came to this country so I don't have to wear something on my head. And thank you for expressing that.

• 1:13:15Speaker 06

  Yes, of course.

• 1:13:15Bill Maher?

  I hear that all the time.

• 1:13:17Speaker 06

  Because historically, they never had to. You know, historically, the Persian culture has always been very open. If the grandma was more conservative and she wanted to wear the hijab, everybody respected her.

• 1:13:31Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:13:31Speaker 06

  And if the daughter was wearing a miniskirt and going out with her boyfriend, everybody was okay with it. The last 47 years, there is a whole different ideology inserted into this culture. And we believe it's designed by the West. They came and took Khomeini and they put him in Iran. And they said, this is what's going to hold back the growth of this civilization.

• 1:13:58Bill Maher?

  You think the West put Khomeini in power?

• 1:14:00Speaker 06

  Yes, Carter.

• 1:14:02Bill Maher?

  Put Khomeini in power?

• 1:14:03Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:14:04Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:14:04Speaker 06

  We believe that, we believe that when Carter was the president, 1979, with the help of, you know, France and Germany, they overthrown the Shah of Iran and they put Khomeini in Iran.

• 1:14:17Bill Maher?

  Why would they want Khomeini more than the Shah? The Shah was our guy.

• 1:14:22Speaker 06

  The Shah became too threatening. He raised the price of oil and he wasn't listening. And...

• 1:14:29Bill Maher?

  And he got sick.

• 1:14:30Speaker 06

  Well, he got sick.

• 1:14:32Bill Maher?

  He died soon after. I mean, he chased a cure around the world. He wound up in Panama at one point. What do you think of his son?

• 1:14:39Speaker 06

  He's incredible.

• 1:14:40Bill Maher?

  You like him?

• 1:14:41Speaker 06

  I like him.

• 1:14:42Bill Maher?

  You think it'd be good if he took over?

• 1:14:45Speaker 06

  He doesn't want to take over. That's why I like him even more.

• 1:14:48Bill Maher?

  I'm sure he talked into it. I'm not sure he doesn't want to.

• 1:14:50Speaker 06

  His agenda, he said, I know he doesn't want to. Exactly, exactly. He just wants to help create democracy. I think, just like every Iranian, he just wants to see this country go back to this free, true democracy that it was.

• 1:15:08Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:15:08Speaker 06

  And I don't think...

• 1:15:09Bill Maher?

  Well, it was a democracy with a savage secret police.

• 1:15:13Speaker 06

  You're talking about Mossad?

• 1:15:16Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:15:16Speaker 06

  I'm sorry, you're talking about Savak.

• 1:15:18Bill Maher?

  Yeah, Savak is what it was called. Savak. That was the Shah's secret police. I mean, it was a dictatorship to a degree. But, you know, I mean...

• 1:15:28Speaker 06

  True, true. But I say this, no government is perfect.

• 1:15:32Bill Maher?

  The world is exactly, always about the least bad choice.

• 1:15:37Speaker 06

  That's it.

• 1:15:37Bill Maher?

  Not the great choice, the least bad. That's what I think mature people understand. It's so easy to be a purist. The least bad choice is what, if we're going to get real, is the best choice to make.

• 1:15:51Speaker 06

  No, I, you said it best. How, you know, and Savak, as bad as it was, it didn't come out there and kill 50,000 people. Mass murdered their own people. Shah of Iran, when the people, you know, did an uprising back then, he got up and left the country. He left the country.

• 1:16:12Bill Maher?

  Because he had no choice, because they were going to kill him.

• 1:16:15Speaker 06

  Well, he could, he could do what this government did. He could take out the machine guns and murder, you know, thousands and thousands of people and stay in power. That's how these people are in power.

• 1:16:25Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:26Speaker 06

  I mean, the uprising in Iran was millions.

• 1:16:28Bill Maher?

  Maybe. I feel like it had gotten past that point with the Shah. Sometimes they just know when the jig is up, when it's turned. And even your people who are your loyal people, they don't want to fire into the crowd. You know, they were with you for a long time, but no, we're not going to fire into the crowd. That's the turning point. Unfortunately, that has not happened with the Revolutionary Guard, because those are the most, you know, dedicated, balls-to-the-wall motherfuckers that they have. And they are going to be hard to, anyway.

• 1:17:06Speaker 06

  No, they're murderers. There's a huge difference. I feel like the Shah of Iran really, really cared for his people, for his country. He tried to keep control. When he realized the people don't want me, he got up and left. This regime will never leave.

• 1:17:26Bill Maher?

  All right, I got to get up and leave. I really appreciate you talking about this subject with me. I didn't know if like that was something you were like, oh, I don't want people to know what I think because they don't... No, but you were no pussy about it. You just told me exactly what you... I really appreciate it.

• 1:17:41Speaker 06

  Bill, you're the man.

• 1:17:42Bill Maher?

  Because you'll get some shit, but fuck them.

• 1:17:44Speaker 06

  But you talk about these a lot in your shows.

• 1:17:46Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:47Speaker 06

  I feel good, sort of like giving you my perspective.

• 1:17:49Bill Maher?

  I appreciate it. It's awesome. People will love it. Thank you. It's really great meeting you.

• 1:17:54Speaker 06

  Thank you, buddy.

• 1:17:55Bill Maher?

  Let's do it again at some point.

• 1:17:56Speaker 06

  I had so much fun. Thank you so much.

• 1:17:58Bill Maher?

  All right.

• 1:17:58Speaker 06

  This was a good time.

• 1:17:59Bill Maher?

  Well, I used to throw parties here.

• 1:18:01Speaker 06

  Well, I'm single.

• 1:18:02Bill Maher?

  I was going to say, I'm always looking for millennial friends. Because like, too many of my friends my age, you know, they don't want to like, party too hard. I don't want to party too hard. I'm a little fucked up now.

• 1:18:19Bill Maher?

  I didn't smoke one bit.

• 1:18:21Speaker 06

  No, let me know when the next party...

• 1:18:22Bill Maher?

  Because I hate it.

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