On with Kara Swisher - Bill Maher Won't Back Down (But He Might Shock You)

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

When it comes to political comedy, Bill Maher is practically an institution — he’s been hosting a late-night political talk show since 1993 (with a brief hiatus in 2002-03, after Politically Incorrect was canceled following a 9/11 comment). And now the host of Real Time with Bill Maher has a new book out: What This Comedian Said Will Shock You. Kara sat with Bill in his “den of iniquity” to discuss his childhood, politics, the war in Gaza, and, of course, cancel culture.   Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show is brought to you by Nissan Kicks. It's never too late to try new things, and it's never too late to reinvent yourself. The all-new reimagined Nissan Kicks is the city-sized crossover vehicle that's been completely revamped for urban adventure. From the design and styling to the performance, all the way to features like the Bose Personal Plus sound system,

you can get closer to everything you love about city life in the all-new, reimagined Nissan Kicks. Learn more at www.nissanusa.com slash 2025 dash kicks. Available feature. Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees? And it takes forever to build a campaign?

Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. It is old. I've known Bill a long time, and I've been on his show as a panelist and as an interviewee recently for my book, and I've watched him since he started, really. We've both changed. If you've watched Real Time, you know he wraps up the show with a monologue, or an editorial as he calls them, about things he's passionate about. Republicans and Democrats, guns and religion, and of course, drugs.

Republicans and Democrats, guns and religion, and of course, drugs. Bill's new book, titled What This Comedian Said Will Shock You, consolidates these editorials from the past 20 years. And last week, I went to his home studio, a kind of lair, or a villain's lair if you don't like him. Actually, even if you do like him, it's a lair, in the hills above Los Angeles. He records his YouTube podcast, Club Random with Bill Maher, which I taped after this interview, as he smoked weed as usual. And honestly, I drank a little tequila. But in my interview with him before that, he didn't light up, except when we talked about show business, cancel culture, politics, and pretty much everything else. It was, like him or hate him, vintage Bill Maher. Our expert question for this episode comes from Mehdi Hassan,

founder and editor of Zateo and the former host of The Mehdi Hassan Show on MSNBC. Tell me when you're ready. I'm ready. All right. You look so nice. Look how dressed up you are. Really? Yeah.

Very neat. You kind of dress like a lesbian a little bit. I do. You do look dressed up. I kind of feel like one. Yeah. I love girls. That's the old, that's what I get from old men all the time.

I love the ladies. I'm a lesbian. That kind of thing. All right. Let's start. So thanks for inviting me to Club Random, your den of iniquity in the hills above Beverly Hills. I've been on your HBO show real time many times. It's definitely more formal than this.

It is sort of the perfect place to just sit and get high with somebody. And do podcasts. And do podcasts. It's like a teenage boy's dream.. And do podcasts. It's like a teenage boy's dream. It is kind of. I'm trying to figure out what's going on. I have made out in this room. A slave den kind of thing. Well, let's not say that. Right. It could happen. But no, it could not. This is not P. Diddy. Diddy Cave. Yeah, no, no. It could be, though. It has that vibe. That's not looking good. No, no, no. All right be, though. It has that vibe. That's not looking good, that case. No, no, no.

All right, we'll move on from that. So this is where you do record your YouTube podcast. I'm going to do next after we finish this interview. Tell me why you decided to do this on the side. I was talking to your executive producer a little bit. And now lots of celebrities have podcasts, but you were relatively early to it. I don't know if I was early to it, but I did recognize at a certain point that I had to readjust my thinking, which at the dawn of podcasting was, really? AM radio? That's going to

be big? AM radio? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And just shows, and you know this better than anybody, you can't predict technology. I certainly can't. Maybe you can. I did. But you predicted podcasting? Yeah. Actually, I did an interview with Steve Jobs, and he talked about it.

He said broadcasting, iPod, podcasting, actually. Yeah, but that it would become the phenomenon it is? Yes, because I thought people had relationships with their phone, and it made sense. I did it about 10 years ago. Yeah. Well, there you go. But what made you do it? I mean, I'm thinking Piers Morgan is finally leaving the gentle embrace of Rupert

Murdoch. He finally did. He's only doing it on YouTube. Talk about why you did it. Well, why I did it is because real time, which has been on 21 years and before that, politically incorrect, you're sitting under the sign from that old show. They were all about politics. I mean, mostly about politics, but certainly about political culture and serious events in the news. And it's a certainly real-time, once-a-week show. I put my all into it, and I work many, many, many hours a week to make that one hour exactly what I wanted. But you can only have a certain kind of guest on that show. It has to be people who know everything about what's going on in the world. We tell the guests, you have to know everything. You have to be the A team because stories break late. You have to be

able to talk about everything and know everything. That's not most people who you might want to talk to. Most people don't know anything. Certainly show business people don't. Right, right. So you're going for something else. Well, so yes. So if you want to talk to a lot of people, they would be excluded from doing a show like Real Time. But anybody can sit here and get high with me. Right, that's true.

And we can talk about a million other things. And I'd very often be out to dinner with somebody or with people, and they would say, you know, you're so interesting on all these other subjects that I never hear you talk about on real time. Why don't you do a podcast? And again, because I'm not you, I went, oh, that's silly podcasting. And then I was like, yeah, you know what? That's a great idea, and I should. And that way I can talk to a lot more celebrities and people who otherwise are just not politically bent. So when you think about it, I mean, you have the Mac show you just mentioned, Real Time, and now you're on CNN now.

Yeah. Some people are completely leaving all that behind. How do you look at it? Well, they'll have to leave me. Yes, I mean, I can read the paper too, and I can listen to you, and I know that it is always a dwindling audience for that. And I mean, I'd love to get your predictions on that, like where it's going to be in five years. Smaller.

Smaller. I mean, it's always getting smaller. Will it disappear completely? Theater is still important, and yes, smaller. Right. Smaller. And movies. It'll depend on who's lucrative and who's not. Right.

You can make money at it, sure. But I think you're going to have to prove you're worth whatever the fuck they're paying you. What would you do now if you were a young comic? Like, there's a lot of stuff on YouTube. There's a lot of stuff on Reddit. There's a ton of stuff on TikTok. How would you do your career now? Well, I don't know because I'm not a young comic and I don't know about those formats very well.

I never really adapted. That's my fault. But, you know, you can't be good at everything. I am not a young comic, and I don't know about those formats very well. I never really adapted. That's my fault. But, you know, you can't be good at everything. I am not good at technology. I'm not good at learning something that I'm not native to. And, you know, I'm a little spoiled. I have people who can do it for me. So what would I be doing?

I have no idea. I'm guessing if I was born 30 years after I really was born, I would be native to it, and then I would be doing what everybody else did. Because when I came up, I just did what everybody else did. We went to the comedy clubs, the urban comedy clubs, like the Improv and Catch a Rising Star and the Comedy Store out here. And the template was you— And you went around the country. Well, yes. You made a living, barely, as a comedian while you were building up material, which then you, you know, if you were good enough and it was clean enough, you could do The Tonight Show.

And then you would get a sitcom. And that's exactly what happened to me. I did The Tonight Show a bunch of times, and then I got sitcoms and silly movies. And finally, you know, when I was in my 30s, I went, oh, this isn't for me. And I reinvented myself as the thing I should have always been doing, which is what I'm doing now. I mean, I was always interested in politics and the news. My father was a newsman. It was in my house when I was a kid. So I knew my shit. I knew stuff that other comics didn't. And I talked about it when I was young. It didn't

really make sense when I was in my 20s because you don't have the gravitas to pull it off. But as I got older, I grew into it. And so I was sort of uniquely formed to do what I'm doing, mostly, again, because news was in my house. It was always in my house. Talk about your father. Talk a little bit. He was a newsman. He was in the days of radio news when every radio station had news at the top of the

hour. Even WABC with my rock and roll station and Cousin Brucie. And we would be like, as kids, we were like, why are we having to listen to the news for five minutes at the top of every hour? But that's what every station did. And that's what he did. And it was the days when you ripped the news off the wire. Right. I did that. And he had a stopwatch, a collection of stopwatches, because you had to do a five-minute newscast without rehearsing it, coming right in on time. No wonder he needed three martinis when he got home from work at night. That was very stressful. How do you think about your growing up then? How do you look at it?

Idyllic. Idyllic. Like almost ridiculously innocent. So leave it to be compared to what kids go through today and how they grow up. None of the things that kids face today did I even have an awareness of. There was no racial problems because this was, and by the way, I didn't grow up in Alabama. I grew up in New Jersey. But New Jersey after World War II, I mean, I grew up, I was born mid-50s and was a kid in the 60s and the 70s in high school. I mean, this was New Jersey. It was still all white, all white. So there was no racial problems. I don't remember any drug-ish- Right there, you mean. There, you mean. There were no racial problems. I don't remember any drug-ish. Right there, you mean. There, you mean.

There were no racial problems. I mean, but I'm saying, like, this is a northern state. I mean, just to give you an idea of where this country was and how far it's come with a lot of places we still need to go. There wasn't even, like, divorce. I don't remember, like. Just deeply felt unhappiness that was unexpressed. There was. There was a number of suicides in my town.

Yeah. Guys we'd find in the swimming pool. Yeah, in the swimming pool. Yeah. I mean, that happened. That's what it was. You didn't divorce. You killed yourself.

Okay. All right. So it was a much better time. Yeah. No. But yeah, I mean, like there weren't better time. Yeah. No. But, yeah, I mean, like, there weren't broken homes. There wasn't, I don't remember any drug issues. Again, no racial issues.

It was just leave it to be for time. So how did you get the way you are? So vaguely disgruntled. Well, I'm not disgruntled. Okay. I mean, I feel like. You're gruntled? I'm gruntled. Okay. I mean, I feel like... You're gruntled? I'm gruntled. I'm completely gruntled and feel like my life has just been very lucky.

Not that I didn't have my issues and my problems, as we all do, but when I look back at what could have happened, first of all, I just was always meant to be an adult. I was not happy as a child just because some people aren't. If you're a control freak, it's not good to be a child because you're not in control and you don't like that. And it just grates against you. And also I went to school all the time with a knot in my stomach because kids are feral and they're mean and they're Nazis and you have to teach them to be decent human beings. It does not come naturally. And so I was often the one who was ostracized or bullied.

Not always. There was one kid who got it worse than me, but I was always worried that it would be me. And even when that passed, I still wasn't one of the popular kids. I don't think that's a bad thing for adulthood, that your formative years are not all that happy. Because first of all, what you do get means more to you. Interesting. Yes. And you- Did you want to be the popular kid?

Of course. Who doesn't want to be the popular kid? I would have loved to it. And also I was super shy. So I couldn't talk to a girl even though I was hornier than anybody. So all that, you know, when people hear about my past, they think, oh, that can't be because all the things you are now. Yeah, because I'm 68 now. It was a long journey. So you had to try harder. That's the idea of you have to try harder. I guess so. Try hard and learn to wait. That's the idea of you have to try harder. I guess so. Try hard and learn to wait. Learn to wait for the good things that will come.

But they sure didn't come easily or naturally. I'm naturally a late developer. I think everything in my life has come to me late, including epiphanies, including knowledge, including maturity, and certainly success. So it's interesting because you don't have a lot. I've been watching all your appearances. You were on Fox News at Gutfeld, trying hard to laugh at his jokes. Oh, actually. I think he's a medium funny comic who thinks he's much funnier than he is. I made a joke that night.

I said, this is the best show you've ever done. It actually was. And the ratings proved it. I read it today. That was the highest rating they've ever gotten. And it really was a funny show because they wanted to be on their game for me. And I really appreciate that. And I had watched the show previously and it really wasn't that good. That night was a good hour of television. We had a lot of big laughs. He was deeply insecure around you. He did very well. Yeah, but that's what I mean.

You could see he wanted you to think he was funny. Yeah, and he was. Very much so, which he never does. He usually just tries to run over people. Yeah, no, he was. I want to watch it. I thought that was a great example of, yes, let's talk to each other who don't agree.

And I got my shots in at the beginning about Trump being a dictator. And look, I find it very frightening because I got a great insight into how the right wing is seeing him now. Oh, he's just a comedian. Right. Donald Trump, he's a crazy man who says crazy things. You can't take it seriously. He can't take it seriously.

You can't take it seriously. He's funny. It's just entertainment. And isn't that better than old Joe Biden who's not funny at all? No, it's not. This is a fucking country. They were saying that. They were.

He's just not. Exactly. He doesn't mean it. And you don't get that insight unless you see and talk to those, to the other side. I have heard that. Why don't you just laugh at it? I'm like, no. Some of it seems troubling.

Very troubling. Then I saw you in The View in a purple jacket, by the way. Not purple. What was it? Oh, no. It was puce. What was happening there? You look like an Easter bunny.

I don't see color well. Why are you being mean about this? Everybody fucking loved that jacket. It was great. Those girls were coming. I'm not being mean. I liked it. I liked you in it.

No, you were like, you said I look like the Easter Bunny. You do. I like the Easter Bunny. There's no dislike of the Easter Bunny. That was a cashmere Zegna jacket. It looked great. Those girls fucking loved that jacket.

Every one of them. Yeah, they did. Okay. The reason I'm asking is this book tour is really interesting. I'm watching you all over the place, which is interesting. Your new book is called What This Comedian Said Will Shock You. You know, we share a publisher and editor, John Karp.

Love him. He's a great guy who compared you to, I would say, call them dead, white, funny Pantheon guys. Mark Twain, Will Rogers, H.L. Mencken. Do you think you're in that Pantheon? Yes. Why is that? I'm good, and I like them. No, I don't know. I mean, I read H.L. Mencken. In some ways, I am, and in some ways, I'm not. I mean, H.L. Mencken was a brilliant writer who wrote whole long books. This book is a collection of all the editorials

I've done on the end of the show. For the last 20 years, I went through all of them, reimagined them, rewrote them, picked out the creme de la creme. So basically, it took me 20 years to write this book. Okay, H.L. Mencken didn't have to wait 20 years to write a book. So I'm not that guy. I'm a comedian. I'm funnier than they are. But I'm not like that kind of author. If I hadn't had this basis of material, I probably wouldn't sit down and write a whole book. But having done it that way, all my material in this book is LOL tested.

And so people have told me it's just, and when I read it over, it's like, it is. It's funny on every page. I mean, LOL. When I was reading them over, they're all very funny. They are. And different, you have changed some of them. Not changed it, but you've evolved them. And so what you've gotten is more complex.

I hope so. I hope as we get older, we all do. You have a lot of frequent tropes. I'd love to go through them, top among them. You said that you haven't changed, that liberals have changed. Basically, it's not me, it's them. I want to push back because I think you have changed. I don't know if you have to necessarily put yourself anywhere, but you've gotten more complex. I'm going to read you from my son, Louis, who was a fan of yours, is not as much anymore. And I'll tell you why. And trust me when I tell you, he's not that liberal. Okay, let me just let let me go into this with such a brilliant and wonderfully

critical mind. Why add to the negativity all the time? You're so good at calling out bullshit. Now it seems like you're the get off my lawn kind of guy. It would be good to have a conversation with a young person. That's such crap. I'm going to, I want you to hear it. It's so easy. I want you to hear it. It's the easiest, silliest thing to say. Let me finish it, and then it would be good to have a conversation with a young person that doesn't start with you being right, and we're such idiots without any thoughts. That's not what I'm doing. Okay. He said, you are a truly funny guy.

Now it feels like you're not adding to the conversation. Then watch somebody else. I get that. That's not the excuse, though. He liked you. He thought you were influencing him. I've lost audience. I gain audience.

But explain that to me, because I think that I don't, I don't, I am only a truth teller. It can be seen as crotchety mockery dressed up as enlightenment. So I want you to address it. I don't want you to say watch someone else. That's too easy. That's too easy. Because here's a fan who is having a harder time because he doesn't feel like he's listening. But he's not a fan.

Well. is having a harder time because he doesn't feel like he's listening. But he's not a fan. Well. First of all, I'm not going to pretend that a lot of what young people are embracing now isn't stupid, because it is. I hear this all the time from friends of mine who have kids in their late teens or 20s, and they're always complaining to me, because I don't have kids, I guess, about how much their kids are driving them insane with their over-the-top wokeness.

And a lot of, you don't get it, mom. You don't get it. Isn't that what young people are supposed to do? Old thinking. And then, you know, my answer is, why don't you say to them, abolish the police? No, I don't get it. There is, why don't you say to them, abolish the police? No, I don't get it.

You know, tear down statues of Lincoln. Maybe give communism another try. Get rid of the border patrol. It's not the overall. That's not all of them. No, no. But there is a series. There is an embracing of a bunch of ideas. And the problem isn't that I'm old.

It's that your ideas are stupid. They are very often. And I'm going to call them out. And if you want to say that, if you want to pretend that that's about me getting old. By the way, I live in. It's not you getting old. Well, that's, he said, get off your lawn. It's just like the easiest thing to go to is like, I'm going to say the problem is that you're old.

Well, you're right. I'm 68 years old. I can't do anything about that. I probably live a younger life than most of the people half my age and some of them that age. I've never been married. Okay. I just don't live a young, I don't live an older person's life. I am not an get off my lawn kind of person. So I think that struck you. But what I think it is, is the idea of mushing all the young people into one spot that what they say is stupid. It is very complex. I don't have time. Nobody does to say, oh, and by the way, this is not everybody. You just have to assume that.

It's like prefacing everything a writer says with, this is my opinion. We get it. This is your opinion. Let's just start. And it's also kind of have to assume, I don't think it's everybody. And by the way, this is not really the usual reaction I get from, obviously, a smart kid. Smart kids usually say to me that they also are fed up with most of the people in their generation. I would agree.

I just had a discussion with my son about that. He didn't join a protest because he wanted to ask questions. Yeah, they like me because I am willing to call out the people who they know better than I do how tiresome they are about some of the bullshit they believe. What I think he was getting at, and I think several people I know get at, is that you feel that that was you and that you've changed in a way that seems more intolerant to them. I'm not more intolerant. The ideas got dumber. I mean, in the introduction of the book, I bring up- Because ideas have been dumb for a while. Not as dumb. The two instances I bring up in the introduction of the book, I bring up- Because ideas have been dumb for a while.

Not as dumb. The two instances I bring up in the introduction of the book, one is the Mr. Beast thing, which then I did an editorial about. Mr. Beast does a thing, cured a thousand people of disability and is attacked. The Washington Post writer who attacked him for, Mr. B seems to think that disability is something that needs to be cured. Okay, that's an idea that is just so much more stupid than anything I ever heard 10 years ago. The idea that disability doesn't need to be cured. The other one about the Atlantic article, separating sports by sex doesn't make sense. Right. That was one of them. Then they had others that said the opposite in the Atlantic. They've done lots of different-

Oh, other articles. Yes, exactly. Okay. But just to print an article, and there's many sentences in there that are so crazy. One of them is like, it said, maintaining the binary in sports reinforces the idea that men are stronger and faster than women. Now, that men are stronger and faster than women is not an idea. You see, I think kids were generally raised wrong. And so they're just never told, oh, that's a dumb idea. They're just indulged. And so whatever brain fart they come up with is treated like it's a valid argument that should be introduced into the conversation with the adults. And there's a reason why when I was a kid, for example, kids were just not invited into the conversation with adults

because they didn't deserve to be. And you don't usually deserve to be. I don't know how old your kid is. When they get into their teens, obviously they can become much more intelligent and up on the news and up on things. I think more to the point is that one, young people should be able to have different thoughts that become dumb. A lot of people seem dumb during the Vietnam thing. Now not so dumb. Maybe dumb during apartheid. Maybe not so dumb. Maybe they're on to something. I don't think those are good analogies for what's going on now, but I agree. Kids could absolutely, it's part of a youth to have dumb ideas, but then don't ask me not to call them out. But I do see you mashing young people together in a way that is much more complex. But I answered that. You don't have the time in one hour a week to say every time, yeah, this is not everybody. Okay, let me just

say it right now, blanketly. It's not everybody. I get it. There are some kids who are smarter than others. And most kids aren't even watching the show because they wouldn't even know what to do with a show like this. We'll be back in a minute. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore.

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Yeah, not out there the way he should be. He can't do nearly everything he would like to do. Because if he does, it'll start it all over again. And then they'll start talking about, you know, whatever the crime was to begin with, which, you know, by his own admission, it wasn't a cool thing to do. But really, do we have to punish him for the whole rest of his life? But it'll start it all over again. He has kids. He doesn't want them to have to deal with it all the time. I mean, does everybody have to live by the worst moment they ever had in their life. So yes, he can play anywhere in the world. He's got a huge fan base and sell tickets, and he can put his movies online and sell them directly.

But that's not the way show business is normally done. So don't tell me that he hasn't paid an enormous price or that he can still conduct his professional life the way he should be able to. or that he can still conduct his professional life the way he should be able to. Or Woody Allen. Woody Allen can't get a movie made in this country because even after two investigations, which exonerated him, and the Hollywood community decided he was history's greatest monster and that he was a child molester and that we could not even countenance him putting out a movie or talking about it or seeing him in any way. Now, if that's not cancel culture, I don't know what is. So talk about on the right, there's many people on the anti-Woodie on side that have made their

own testimony. The investigation, the official investigation. Two of them. Two of them. Many things were problematic with all these investigations. Well, there's something problematic with every investigation. They really don't have a case, the people on the other side of it. First of all, we have to go by investigations. And I mean, every court case probably has something wrong with it. We are humans. It's the only way we can do things is by trying to judge it. It'd be great if we could have some God come down and give an almighty ruling, but we don't have that. We can just do that. We can just go by what we have on earth. And in that system, you kind of have to go by it. If somebody

is exonerated, they're exonerated. It seems to be the case with somebody like Woody Allen. Nope, doesn't matter. But hasn't that been for all of history? Like O.J., he was exonerated, but many people think he probably killed them. You know, he's dead now, so it hardly matters at this moment. But things do stick with people over, you know, Lizzie Borden didn't have a great life after that, after she was exonerated for that killing. So that's not something fresh and new. Cancel culture is not a fresh and new thing. It's human behavior.

Or not, maybe. You don't think it is. I think it's not. Nothing is new under the sun completely. I think it came to be something very different, certainly with social media. I think it certainly rose to a level we never saw it before and became something that was a blood sport. I think a big problem with the woke is that

they don't very often seem to want to fix something. They just seem to want to establish how much more pure they are than the next person about a certain problem and to catch people at something. Do you think that's sort of ended by now or do you think it's gotten worse? Because it does seem to- I don't think it's ended at all. Ended at all. But it seems to exist very much so in the Trump people who, if you step out of line-

Totally. You're done. Yes. I mean, I think I make the point in the book that nobody was ever canceled harder than Colin Kaepernick. I mean, he should have had a point in the book that nobody was ever canceled harder than Colin Kaepernick. I mean, he should have had a career in the NFL and he did not. And that was flat out collusion. I mean, they among maybe not specific and spoken, but the owners of the National Football League certainly recognized that he was more talented than some of the people who were playing quarterback

for them, certainly as a backup. And yet nobody would touch him. If that's not cancel culture, I don't know what it is. So yes, it does happen on both sides. Well, there were two instances. It was just last week that two people, what were those two instances, were canceled. And these were left kind of cancellations. The guy, he did this gesture. He was a sports reporter in Indiana. Caitlin Clark. Right.

Just signed with the Indiana team, I think. Fever. Okay. So there's the initial press conference. And he asks her about the heart symbol that she does, and she says, I do that. I throw that out to my family after every game. And he said, well, you know, throw one out to me,

and we'll get along fine. Right. He's not allowed in the building anymore. Because why? Because he's going... Creepy. It was creepy, but go ahead. I don't think he should be allowed in the building, but you can have consequences for being a creep, right?

That's a creep? Creepy. It was creepy. Yeah. I don't think a lot of people, I don't find that creepy at all. For fuck's sake. Come on, really? Yeah, a little creepy. Okay, well, then I think you're oversensitive. I don't know about that. I'm not oversensitive. But that's our disagreement. All right. Okay. I don't know if you should be thrown out of the building. I do think you can call him creepy though and he could accept it. He was thrown. He can't be on the premises anymore. To me, that's a light remark. Maybe it didn't strike you the way he meant it. Are we really not working with

this much margin of error? Okay. And that was last week. So don't tell me that cancel culture is over. And there was another instance, I don't know if I can remember, but it was the same thing. It was just as trivial. And this is part and parcel to like a generation, again, not all of them, who like throw around the word violence very casually. Violence has a specific meaning, not to them. Violence has morphed into meaning anything we don't like. So what do you do for cultures of people who have taken endless shit for decades and are kind of tired of it? That's sometimes how I feel about it.

Say that again? One of the things that I think has happened is that a lot of people have taken decades and more than that of endless shit and now just want to say something about it. I totally understand that. You know what I mean? I can't tell you how many gay tropes I get. And after a while, I'm like, shut the fuck up. I totally get that. And they're like,

you're trying to cancel me. I'm like, no, I just want you to shut the fuck up. I totally get that. So it doesn't, it's not always like that. And accept it. I often have thought, like, especially racially in this country, it is a little like a relationship fight. Like we were, It is a little like a relationship fight. Like we were, the white people were horribly abusive. And now we're trying to do better. But just like in a relationship fight, you can't just say you're sorry once if you do something bad. You have to say you're sorry a lot. Yes, you do.

Before the person starts to melt. And we are going to be in the phase of I'm sorry for a very long time, somewhat appropriately. I understand that completely. So you're not going to be able to overnight just go, okay, you're all forgiven. Now, of course, this is also complicated because we are at the same time individuals and then seen as a collective of our race. I don't believe in collective guilt. I didn't do it personally, but I did benefit from it growing up when I grew up. I'm sure there were times when in 1980, when I was starting out, did they hire me when they could have hired a black comic who was just as good? Maybe. Yeah, I'm sure. So, and, and, and, you know, when you look at the economics, that's the main thing I think we have to rectify. Like white wealth is like 10 times as great as black wealth,

obviously from the legacy of our sorry past. How do we fix that? Some people say it's reparations. There are versions of reparations that are going on right now. I mean, it's not like we don't have reparations. We have programs that have benefited the minority communities more than other communities. That is a form of reparations. Some people say we should write checks. They did a study of it here in California, and they wanted to give out $1.2 million to every black person in a state that was not a slave state, entered the Union in 1850 as a free state, and lost 500 soldiers fighting for the North. a free state and lost 500 soldiers fighting for the North. And it would cost the state $800 billion when our actual state budget already is $300 billion. So that doesn't seem like a practical

version. So it's easy to think you've taken a red pill. I've heard that from lots of people. You absolutely, most early in saying Republicans had lost the narrative. You specifically, Trump people, are infinitely worse for the country. To me, actual action is worse than just fighting over words like book banning or— They're connected. They're connected. Words are connected to action. Absolutely. But there's actual action, book bannings or trying to roll back—

Which happens on the left, too. It does, but they're more effective of actually passing things that affect people, whether it's on gay and lesbian rights or book banning and actual people actually being cast out. How do you look at the Republican Party, especially the Trump people? I don't know if you can distinguish them anymore right now in that regard. Well, I can never say it enough. And then people still ask me, so I'll just keep saying it. I can never say it enough. And then people still ask me, so I'll just keep saying it. I would never be a Republican for all the reasons.

I never have been a Republican. And then they got worse because they don't believe in the emergency, in my view, of climate change. And they interviews, they kept asking me, what would you, you know, what was the most important question that you would ask? And they're going to have debates now in the debate. And it's only one question. Will you concede power? Will you concede you lost an election? And we see, I mean, I was the one from the beginning when nobody else was saying it, that Trump would never concede losing an election. And now you see that all the people who are auditioning for his vice presidency also will not do it because they ask them the question, will you concede if you lose the election?

And their answer is Republicans, they always get they must get together in a secret underground lair. They don't need to. And they don't need to, maybe, that's true. And they get one answer, and that answer is, oh, I will if it's a free and fair election, which is another way of saying elections only count when we win them. And that is just a terrible, dangerous place for this country to be. So obviously, I think, and have always said and tried to be clear about the fact that the Republicans are the greater threat. That doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of goofy stuff on the other side. And by the way, the most threatening thing about the goofy stuff on the left is that it's what drives people to vote for

the right. A lot of people in the middle and even on the right will tell you, we don't like Trump, but we are more afraid of other stuff. Because it's much more direct in their life. Like their kids coming home from school saying things that they don't think they should be taught in school. Stuff like that. People don't really, apropos to our discussion of why I do this, as opposed, as well as doing real time, most people just don't follow politics. They don't. They don't.

And when they, even if they vote, it's not based on politics and issues. I mean, Biden has done a lot of good things policy-wise. Right. He said that. He said that. And it does not seem to matter. He cannot buy their love with how many student loans he pays off. He cannot buy their love with how much he does for climate. We came out of the pandemic better than any other country in the world. It does not seem to matter. They vote on other issues and other things that are in their mind and things that are directly in their life, the price of eggs, and is my kid going to come home wearing a dress? So they can't imagine a civil war, so they'd rather just vote on eggs.

Unfortunately, a lot of people can't. So then what is Biden to do if this is the situation? He can't buy love. He can't get people to see some of the good things he's done. It doesn't feel equal what's happening between the two candidates. It's not. It's not logical. People aren't logical. It's not fair because Trump is almost as old, but he doesn't present as old. He looks like, speaking of old man on the lawn, he looks like that vibrant old man on the lawn. He's got vibrancy to him. He does. Always on the lawn with you. I know. Yeah. I'll switch you an old folks home. Biden seems like the guy who's moving slowly to the cafeteria. Trump is the crazy person yelling, where's the pudding? Yeah. Crazy looks is energetic. People look at

you and in a second, they size you up without even thinking of it consciously. Dr. Joyce Brothers used to say. I love her. She used to say, you know, when you see someone, she didn't say it this way. I'm going to say it this way. You know, you want to fuck them within seven seconds. Okay. And I used to think it takes you seven seconds.

Oh, wow. It takes me one second. All right. And it's kind of the same way with old. You just, somebody immediately strikes you as old or they don't. Trump just presents as robust. And it's for the detriment of the country. We'll be back in a minute.

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All backed by Constant Contact's expert live customer support. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca. investment approach? What learnings have shifted their career trajectories? And how do they find their next great idea? Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Every week we had a question from an outside expert. I'll play it for you. Hi, I'm Mehdi Hassan, editor of Zateo. My question for Bill is,

you've been a strong vocal, some might say blind supporter of Israel and it's pretty brutal war on Gaza. What I'm wondering is, why as a self-professed liberal, do you just ignore and disregard the testimony on Gaza of every major human rights group in the world?

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights, Reporters Without Borders, Bet Salem, and every major humanitarian agency in the world. Oxfam, Save the Children, Refugees International, Doctors Without Borders,

International Rescue, and every major UN aid agency in the world. UNICEF, the UNHCR, the World Food Programme, led by Cindy McCain, of all people. Why do you ignore all of them and believe instead Benjamin Netanyahu, Bizarre Little Smotrich and Itmar Ben-Gavir and an Israeli military that's been caught lying again and again and again? I'm just wondering, how do you justify

that? That's a question. You spoke out against college students, others protesting the war in Gaza. What would you say to Hassan, who is pointing out that the vast majority of people who are being killed are women and children? Okay. Well, it's a complex situation. No one wants to see anyone killed, especially women and children. And war is pretty rough. and war is pretty rough. All those agencies he named, I'm not that familiar with exactly what they said. Here's the question I have for anyone who has this kind of question. Do you think Hamas should be destroyed? Hamas is a terrorist organization. They've been named that by the United States government since way back. And we are in agreement about this. Go ahead. They need to be destroyed? Yes. Okay, great. I think they do because, after all, it is in their charter that they want to

wipe out Israel completely. I mean, they say it over and over again. They're not hiding it. They don't want to hide it. They were given that land back in 2005. They could have done something very, very different with it. They've started five wars. They've taken a lot of that aid that some of those groups, I'm sure, sent their way, and they did nothing with it except build tunnels and import bombs and rockets to use on Israel. Started five wars, including that last really nasty one. So the idea that they should be destroyed, because after all, they do believe in genocide. should be destroyed because, after all, they do believe in genocide. But the truth is that one side, Hamas, wants to commit genocide and they can't. And the other side could and they don't. If you don't see the moral difference there, I'm sorry, my friend, whoever you are,

I think you're going to have to look harder. So if we agree that Hamas needs to be destroyed, then we're just asking how, how can it be done? And we don't know because we're not the Israeli defense force. I don't know how you wipe out Hamas. I think I know that they have been wiped out by, I think, first of all, it's a terrorist army. So I think they had 24 brigades, and I think they wiped out like 20 of them. So now we're at the end game with this area called Rafah. Okay. Well, I would think that they would have to continue that if they're going to wipe out Hamas. Again, people in war get killed.

It's horrible. But Israel is the only country that gets attacked and then is asked to stop. No, when they get attacked, it's a war. When they fight back, it's a war crime. Here's a real simple solution to this. Stop attacking Israel. Are we done? Yes, that's your answer. That's my answer. Do you respond to the idea of people watching it? And I do think it's different now in seeing this in real time on social media, constantly in your faces, changes.

Of course. I often wonder if we could have done World War II. Of course. Fight the Nazis with visuals that we,

bombing Dresden, bombing this, bombing women in China. Yes, absolutely. Maybe there should be more films of stuff that goes on in the world that we're not seeing

that the kids, and not all the kids, of course, just the ones who are protesting. That's your new thing. Not all the kids. No, not all. But a lot of them are for that side. Suddenly, I mean, curiously, they're not concerned about Boko Haram, which kidnaps whole villages of women. They're not concerned about the Chinese who have put the Uyghurs by the millions in concentration camps. North Korea starves its people. A number of

African countries openly say that we should kill gay people just for being gay. They're so concerned about apartheid. There is a giant gender apartheid going on in the world right now. If you want a cause, why don't you take up that one? All right. Last questions. Biden, Trump 2024. You and I both said that Trump wasn't going to sit by and accept the results if he lost. I said it early, too. I thought that.

So right now, when you're looking at this election, you know, you had urged Biden to quit. He's not stepping down. Right. You had talked about that. I said he's Ruth Bader Biden. But what is going to happen here from your perspective? Where do you imagine, and I know a lot of people have talked in the past, it's the democracy, it's at stake. In the last chapter of your book, you write, never forget a single shining truth about democracy. It means sharing the country with assholes you can't stand. But that chapter is called civil war. So I'd like you to, and at the

same time, at the very last line- I'm against it. Yeah, you're against it. I'm trying to avoid it. All right, good. All right. But the last thing is you can't call yourself a patriot if you can't say united, right? Right. It's the United States. I mean- But how can you be united when this is the situation? I'm saying there are people calling for civil war. There are people calling for a national divorce. And I'm saying that's impractical and undesirable, that you have to understand that you're sharing the country with assholes you can't stand.

I'm talking to both sides there because both sides think the other side is a bunch of assholes. That's okay. That's okay. It's a big country. okay. It's okay. It's a big country. We don't have to like everybody in it, but we have to come to some sort of way of living together where we're not at each other's throats and we're not talking constantly about maybe coming to blows, which on a national level means serious violence. And it can happen here. I go into the thing about Sarajevo and what happened in the Balkans. I mean, they had the Olympics in Sarajevo in 1984.

And it was a very civilized place. And the Croats and the Muslims and the Serbs, they all lived together. And then within a few years, it was a hellscape. And there were snipers shooting at people when they left their apartment. And it can happen here. It absolutely can. You get to this place where you think the people who are on the other side of the political divide, the other tribe, where you think that they are just the other, where they're just not people who deserve to live at all. And I've seen that term, don't deserve to live from both sides.

Yeah, it can happen here. So that would be the ultimate message in that book. That's why I put it as the last chapter is, yeah, we can't go there. I don't want to go there. So you say you don't want America to get a divorce. So be the marriage counselor. What do you think needs to happen and is going to happen? And what role do you play in that? Well, I mean, this is what I'm trying to do is, first of all, warn people that it could happen. Don't think it's impossible. Just don't think we're not that country. We didn't think we were the country that would be wearing masks and we became that country. We didn't think we were the country that got hit by terrorism. And after 9-11, okay, we're that country. And we could be

this country now. We're already the country that doesn't accept elections. I mean, this is something that goes on a lot of countries where there's an election and it doesn't mean the next day we are over the election and we know who the next leader is. We are not there anymore. We are that country that's going to fight about it. I don't know what day this election is in November. Let's say it's November. Tuesday. Yeah, Tuesday. I know it. I don't know what day this election is in November. Let's say it's November. Tuesday. Yeah, Tuesday, I know. But I don't know what the number is.

Say it's November 5th. It's not going to be over on November 6th or November 7th or 8th. And Trump, whether he wins or loses, I promise you, is going to show up on January 20th for the inauguration because he does not concede elections. So we are that country. And I don't want to be the, the, um, civil war country either. So instead of being the Cassandra, I'd like you to be positivity in that way. What do you do then? If you want to be, if you don't want to divorce, what's the solution? Not having married. Stop hating everybody. Stop hating people who are different than you.

Stop hating everybody. Stop hating people who are different than you. You want that. They want that too. Stop hating them. Just accept it, that people are very different. It's a big country with lots of people who don't think like you. They weren't raised like you.

And they don't really want any part of the way you live. It's okay. You don't have to hang out with them. And you don't have to hate them. And by the way, this country isn't as different as we think it is. I mean, we've all kind of like adopted little parts of each other. I did an editorial about this this year with I think we used Jelly Roll as an example. I mean, he's a country singer, but he's got tattoos.

You know, Beyonce has a country album out. It's that kind of stuff. You know, let's just culturally appropriate from each other and not think that that's a big sin. So are you a hopeful person, Bill? I got to go. Okay. Then we'll end on that. All right, go get your weed.

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