Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #597: Bob Odenkirk, Caitlin Flanagan, Mary Katharine Ham

Episode Date: April 23, 2022

Bill’s guests are Bob Odenkirk, Caitlin Flanagan, and Mary Katharine Ham   (Originally aired 4/22/22) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late-night series Real Time with Bill Maugh. Okay, thank you very much. I'm happy, always has such a happy maskless crowd we have here. It's wonderful. And, you know, we were off last week, but I know you're still in a good mood

because it was a holiday week. We had Easter, we had 420. Which one do you think I celebrate? No, they're kind of alike, you know. Instead of eggs on the morning, just hunt for the lighter. Now the other the other thing people are celebrating

is they lifted the mask mandate in airplanes, which I applaud, you know, on airplanes, you know, where you take it off to eat, so the virus could never attack you then. You know, they were the mask, they were uncomfortable, they were pointless,

and they got stuck in Mike Tyson's fist sometimes, you know. Oh, you saw that shit? Oh, my God. Yeah, I guess everyone has seen this video. Mike Tyson just wailing on a guy. And the sad part, you know who the guy was? Chris Rock.

So sad, but again, he... No. This is such a sign of the Times. Now the Tony Awards, I guess it's in the next month. The Tony Awards had to put out today a strict no-violence policy at the Tony Awards. As any sudden movements, it better be jazz hands. The Tony Awards?

I tell you, I feel like the country's kind of coming apart, you know, people. Have you been following the Johnny Depp Amber Heard? I'm starting to think I may not want to get married. Oh my God. We're reading the text. There's a text from John. Johnny, he says, I hope her rotting corpse is decomposing in the fucking trunk of a Honda Civic. And then things got nasty.

Also, why bring Honda Civics into this? What the fucking Honda do? It's like, why us? She could be in any car. I can't. I can't, and I can't even. And then, oh, talk about can't even. put shit in his bed. Did you see this?

Now, Amber Hurd is a beautiful woman, and I have heard the phrase, I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers, but this is going too far. This is how married couples communicate now. You put shit in the bed? Honey, what I'm hearing is,

he didn't like the chicken ale king. Okay, we... But Tucker Carlson has the answer to this. Have you seen He's venturing into the Battle of the Sexes. He's got a new documentary. He's getting all this press. It's called The End of Men. The End of Men, because testosterone levels are going down, which they are.

That is true. He says, one of the cures for this, men should, he says, tan their testicles. I've been onto this shit for years. I'm going to do it. It's fantastic. The only problem is I get a tan line between where my balls are. And where my asshole is bleached. It just doesn't, you know, it's not smooth.

It doesn't look seamless. What is, with this country and sex now? Nobody can get it right. You saw what's going on now this week in the continuing saga of Disney versus Florida? I mean, first Disney, they weren't supportive enough of gays. Now they're being accused too supportive. The Republicans are all over them.

Ted Cruz said, if Disney gets its way, next thing will be seeing cartoons of Mickey and Pluto going at it. He said that. I swear to... You know, I remember when gay marriage was first a thing, one of the Republican talking points is,

if we allow that, then people will marry dogs, which, of course, never happened. But now their new angle is cartoon dogs, is what we have to worry about. act like there's a sign when you go into Disneyland that says, you must be this tall to have gender reassignment surgery, and there's not. But, you know, they want to take away Disney's all their rights in Florida.

They're like the Vatican there that they're on. That's the same. So Disney's very, the other theme parks have really taken notice. Universal Studios has a new ride called Harry Potter Loves Pussy. Rough week for media companies, boy, right? I mean, Disney might have to move out of Florida. CNN Plus, you saw that shit? They disappeared in two weeks.

Netflix said they've lost millions of subscribers for reasons we understand. Competition, more competition now. Inflation. Also, people noticing that all superhero movies are exactly the same. And young people understanding that they don't have to go through,

through the Netflix and Chill charade, they can just say, you want to come over and fuck? It's a big reason. Final story, Kevin McCarthy, you saw this? He's the House leader. The tape came out, which he first denied, of course. I love this, denies it. Right after January 6th, the attack on the Capitol,

Republicans were very mad about it, and he's going to call Trump and tell him this is not acceptable, you're going to have to resign, and Tucker, and he said, no, no, I, Kevin McCarthy said, I never said that, and they came out with the tape. And they found exactly what you told your friend. I'm going to tell Trump he's going to have to resign,

and then, of course, he got on the phone with Trump. You're doing a good job, boss. I think he needs Tucker Carlson's magical testicle lamp. That's what he knew. All right, we've got a great show. We got Mary, Catherine Hamm and Caitlin Flanagan. First up, he is the ending winning writer and actor who stars in Better Call Saul,

which premiered this week on AMC, and the New York Times bestseller, author of his new memoir, Comedy, Comedy, Comedy, Drama, Bob Odin Kirk. It's good to see you, man. Well, I'm going to have, you too. No, no, it's good to see. I agree. Oh, I know.

Believe me, I was thrilled when I... You, uh, thank you for having me on. Oh, please. You were always such a great supporter of me and David doing our Mr. Show on HBO. It was like the great... Does anyone remember? Oh, are you kidding? Come on.

Oh. Study your comedy. Oh, no, no. Or YouTube it. Yeah, YouTube. Although, you know what? That show, and again, you're right, I was the biggest fan. You had legions of fans for that show.

One thing about that, which might not work on YouTube, YouTube shows snippets. The great thing about your show, unlike every other sketch show, all the sketches were connected. I mean, you know, Sarnat Live does one sketch, and then another one that has a completely different sketch. Yeah, first there's five commercials, but yeah. Right, right. Yours, everyone, I thought that was genius and innovative. Well, we were trying to copy Python. Is that where that came from?

Absolutely. Of course, they had Gilliam's animations, but we would just make a sketch go into the next sketch just to keep that energy going and keep things silly. And it was great fun to do. I think we did it write a couple times. We did 33 shows, that's all, but packed a lot of ideas into them. And there's a great episode where mediocrity is a monster. that kind of just courses through the whole episode, riding a big bike.

Yeah, I mean, it worked on a level I've never seen before. Not to say that other sketch shows aren't good. I mean, you worked on... Many of them. SNL. I worked on SNL. And, you know, it's interesting. There's a roster of, like, really impressive people who have worked at SNL and bombed out there.

Larry David, Sarah Silverman, our dearly departed Gilbert Godfrey. Yeah. You, Zach Galafinacus. Julie Louis Dreyfus. It's amazing. Yeah. And then, of course, this is not to say that the people who, how we've seen on that show,

they weren't also fantastic as they were. It's just like there's two different types of people almost in comedy. What do you think makes that difference between the person, the kind of person who survives and thrives at a show like SNL and those who don't? I think I'm particularly

dangerous and intelligent, I'm a wonderful brain. I'm unique and special. No, they're better than me, and I'm slower than them. And that's what it is. I just, you know, that show has these demands and needs to satisfy the audience with a big, big presentation and a kind of a confidence. And I just didn't have that. It's broader.

It's just broader. It's broader. Okay, sure, but I like broad comedy, too. I just couldn't do it, Bill. I just was too young. You know, a lot of people, that's their first job, and they just don't know their voice yet, and the show's demands are so, like, immediate and intense.

You do it every week. You've got to put it together in two days, and I just couldn't pull it off. I was there for three and a half years. I learned everything I know there. I got paid for being there, and they got nothing out of me. I mean, I wrote the motivation.

speaker, but that was a year after I left. But we got a lot out of you. Now, thank you, buddy. That's what matters. I took what I learned. They had 20 other writers. That's right. I took what I learned, and I came to LA, and I made a career.

Well, I think it also has to do, and I saw this in your book, you think there should be an element of anger in comedy. For me, yeah, absolutely. I mean, not that there can't, it can't just be silly. We like that, too. I do, too. Yeah. But to me, I'm the same way you are.

like the best kind of comedy? Yeah. Has that. There's a little nutritious value that doesn't exist everywhere. Right. It doesn't end with everybody going, we were just kidding.

It's all okay. It's kind of got a little edge. And I needed that, and I loved it, and that's what I saw in Monty Python, and even in SNL in many sketches, and certainly the early SNL had, you know, it was a generational thing. Those first couple years,

if you weren't part of that generation, you didn't get it. And I love that. I love that in comedy. I love that there's a show that you have to find your way into the brain of the people who made it. And yet, you never really wanted to be a stand-up. You know, Bill, you are a stand-up, and you're a great stand-up.

And for me, I was always such a struggle. Finish a thought, huh. But it's because... Have you seen my latest special adulting? It's running now. Yeah, yeah. This is my guest. Did I play?

guest tonight, Bill Maher, he's got a special Adolting, please watch it. Thank you, you can go now. Thank you. It's so great to look for me. You know, I came up in Chicago during the comedy boom, which you must remember. You started

then, right? Well, are you talking about late 70s, early 80s? Yeah, yeah. Every city, including mid-sized cities in America, had sometimes multiple comedy clubs. It was crazy. It was great for a little while, like anything. Yeah. And then we ruined it. Yeah, we were...

But I just, you know, I couldn't... I think I couldn't handle the confrontational nature of stand-up. I mean, a lot of times a stand-up show was a fight between the audience of the performer. Yeah. And I was always of the feeling like I would get out there, I'd start my act. If they didn't like it, I was like, okay, well, see ya, bye.

You know, like right away. Like, you don't like this. That's okay. That's other people. And you can't be like... Yes. Exactly what Larry David used to do. That's right.

I remember seeing him at the improv. It's so much fun. There's a certain genius that's also embedded in that. You were impatient with the audience being maybe too broad. Yeah, or drunk. Drunk, which makes you stupider, you know, and not being able to appreciate the subtlety of what you were doing. I mean, you know, you work on a level sometimes.

I mean, do you remember the time that you almost killed me? No, I'm serious. You almost killed me in Aspen. It was an Aspen comedy festival for many years. I remember we had to go every year. I fucking hated it. Aspen in February? Because skiing, I don't ski.

I don't want to ski. It's cold. I don't want to die in a tree. The air is thin. I never slept. It was a nightmare. You couldn't breathe. And you did this bit.

We all had like a little... Yeah. Like a convention of me. A little booth or something for our... It was fun. All the different shows you could go to... Right. So I forget why you were doing it or what you were doing. Yeah. But you did this bit where you were Robert Evans...

Robert Evans is God. You're going to do it again. Robert Evans is God. Robert Evans as God. And I remember watching standing in this tent, watching you, and I was laughing so hard, and then the air, and I thought, oh, fuck, I'm going to die at a comedy festival. From comedy by another comedian. Jesus, my son, you never let me down.

But people have to know who Bob Evans is. Do they, I think the cadence and the voice is so funny. It's, with the sunglasses and the hair. They get the general. And just that God has such a huge ego. Yes. Did they do a good job with the world? I tried.

Some people say they made a big bet. You know, it's a great way of thinking about God. He's just grinning and happy, and he acknowledges all the problems in the world. And for those who don't know, Robert. Edward Evans was this big producer. He ran a studio. He was, the godfather, Chinatown. He was, but he was also this larger than life figure, and he

had a book out at the time called The Kid Stays in the Picture. Great book. And the audio, the version, we used to read tapes back then, you'd put in your car, and you'd listen to it, and it was just the voice you did about his Malibu life and you transferred it to God. All right, now I've

ruined it by explaining it. But isn't it? It's a baseball player's. Do me a favor. Don't pray to me through the whole game. I'm probably not a fan of your team. I got 10 other games on the TV. You should revive. I should do a whole thing.

We'll do the... But see, that's the other reason to stand up was so hard for me is I couldn't tell my jokes more than twice without hating them. Like, they'd be a good joke, and it'd be like the second time I told it. Okay, I told it. That's good?

Tell each other. You don't need... You don't need me to tell you again. Go spread it. that word around. And, you know, but a stand-up, a real pro has to be able to do that tight 20, right? That core

thing. I don't know if you do that. But I was always working, Bill, on a tight zero. And I got there. It took me a long time, but I got there. Well, I do a tight 90. I don't do 20s anymore when I do shows. But you know what I mean? That core material that

you bring through you through the years. Well, see, I found the secret. If people say, like, are you on tour? I'm never on tour. I do two shows, like Saturday and Sunday. I go home for a month, and then I do two more. And that way, it's new, but I'm still practice. Yeah, you know?

Keep it fresh. You do happen to have a TV show. I don't know if you know about that. No, I know. And a podcast now. But I find it very sort of bittersweet that we are at the age now, because your book, fantastic book, comedy, comedy, comedy, drama. Thank you.

We're at the age now where we are. imparting wisdom. You know, I wish I hadn't written a book when you were 35. Right. You didn't have enough wisdom. Right. And now you have wisdom. Yeah. And you're imparting it. I'm trying to. I mean, I wish I'd learned more,

but the little bit that I learned is in there. So please, good luck finding it. But I did. I mean, mostly it's a book about, thanks. Thank you. It's mostly just a book about making your way and not quitting. It's showbiz. And it's a numbers game. And if you keep at it

and you keep looking for opportunities and this wonderful opportunity with Better Call Saul is something I never pursued. And Bill, it just came to me and it's crazy. You'd never been read for it, right? I never read for it. I never took an acting class. So interesting.

Don't tell anyone. This isn't... No, no. No, no. Broadcasting this, are they? No, tell them all, because they're wasting their money. Right? I mean, it's so interesting the way... To name another comedian from our past, Richard Belser.

Same thing. Never read for the part that he got. He played for so long on whenever the fuck that show. Law and Order, yes. Is it? Yes. He was Detective Munch and many versions of the show. Barry Levinson, the director.

Yeah, just said, I know this guy. Same thing with you. Like a smart creative director knows, oh, this comedic guy with that mind, it's going to be more interesting than an actor. I don't have to see him audition. Yeah. I just know.

I know, I love Bob. Well, that's what happened. Yeah. They loved you. Well, here it is. Put you in it. Like, 14 years later, I've been playing this guy forever. Right, and now it's been a great, great joy.

And this is the final season right now. It's our best season. And it's been an amazing right. Well, both shows have given us so much great entertainment. Thanks. We thank you for it. Thanks, buddy. Bob Odenkirk.

God. Great to see you again. Thank you so much. All right. Let's do that God's thing. We'll be the 2000-year-old man again. I'll be your Carl Reiner. All right, let's meet our panel.

Hello. Okay. She is a CNN commentator and a host of the twice weekly podcast, Getting Hammered. Mary Catherine Ham. I love the title. And she's a staff writer at the Atlantic and author of Girl Land, Caitlin Flanagan.

Okay, so thank you for being here. There's a lot going on in the world. We're going to try to get to a lot of it. But, you know, they say all politics is local, and there's something more local than your face. So, well, I'm talking about the masks. Oh, the mask, mask, the mask, right. I feel like, of all the things going on in the world,

what people really are thinking about is that this week, they said, because people fly a lot, they're on planes, and they said, I mean, I saw the videos of people erupting in cheers that we don't have to wear a mask on the plane anymore. Now, there's also, you hear from the people will die. crowd, and they're right, people will die. People will always die. I'm against people dying, but they're always going to die. And you actually can't stop it. And masks really were finding out a particularly ineffective way of stopping it. I just wish it didn't have to be political

because I see a lot of people now on the news saying, I'm still going to wear it. It just becomes a amulet and a symbol of your party. And it just should just be about the science. Well, it's a symbol of our stupidity that we would turn something like that into an amulet, you know? Yes. I mean, I understand why people feel that way, but it doesn't, when I see young people walking alone outside with the mask, I want to punch them. No.

I do. I think we're making PPE personal again. That's what we're doing. And it's personal protective equipment. And now, and the word was for the whole. pandemic that your mask protects me and my protects you. Okay, well, now the New York Times and other media outlets and public health officials are doing a thing that I call, now it can be told, which is where they tell you the thing that right wingers and open school advocates have been

bitching about for six months is actually true, even though they were telling you it with misinformation before. So your mask, if you have equality, one can protect you. And there is a limit to how long we can go before we modulate to a new form of living. We have new tools. We have a new tools. We have knowledge about this virus. We have new ventilation systems, particularly planes are good. And we have, we know that masks are a minimally

helpful tool, but we told a lot of people they were maximally helpful. And that was a bad idea, especially for the vulnerable. But wouldn't they get it just when they said, you don't have to wear it while you're eating? Yes. Wouldn't just that? Or I see the basketball players playing, gouging each other's

eyes out, and then they go to the bench and they put the mask, on Saturday Night Live. They do the sketches, and then at the end, when they say good night, they have the mask on it. It's like, am I, what world am I living in where people are not seeing this insanity? In the very,

very beginning, even the CDC said, oh, you better not wear a mask because you'll trap the COVID close to your face, and you'll die instantly that way. And I remember thinking, you know, because I've had cancer and it's like, whenever you're a counselor low, they say, oh, wear a mask, it'll be safer. And then they were just lying. They were just trying

to save the masks. You know? And then they're like, why have you lost faith in America's institutions? Well, because you lied to us at a really scary time, and we could have handled the truth. You know what I find so sad. I was at the mall. Well, that's sad. You at the mall? Okay.

Not alone. Okay. That's sad. We were off last week. I didn't mean to a mall in a long time. I felt like the mermaid from Splash. Right. I literally didn't out of buy something.

I was like, can you just take cash? I'm old and rich. Just take the guess. I can't figure this out. It was very sad. But what was really sad, this is the Century City Mall here, a lot of us outside. The only people wearing masks were like 20. That's who is wearing the masks. The people least likely to die from it.

Right. I feel like they have been indoctrinated in a way that... The only people less likely are the toddlers, right? Who we mask incessantly. I know, I think at the beginning of the pandemic, the word was, stay safe, stay home. Okay, well, that's a very simple public health message, but it actually discouraged and even demonized your rational risk analysis for yourself, which is something that we have to be engaged in. We have to decide, okay, well, what is my risk level? Two-year-olds don't have

the same risk level as 88-year-olds. That's just not true. Being indoors doesn't have the same risk level as being outdoors, but we did seemingly all the opposite things, which is get the kids out of school who are least vulnerable, hurt them that way, close the parks and the hiking trails, which is a thing that we did, and then have indoor outdoor spaces to eat that are actually just indoor again.

You can take your mask off. Right. I mean, it's not trustworthy. That's the problem in the end. I don't know how a country this dumb can survive. It shows how great we are, really, that we can be this dumb and we're here? And we're the top? We survived.

You're saying the competition is true. It is. It's true. Also, when I saw the kids with the masks, all I could think of is anxiety. And then right on cue, I'm reading Jonathan Hates' new article about why we have this levels of anxiety among teenagers that is just off the charts. Now, this is what I read. 44% of high school students said they felt sad or hopeless. Now, a little perspective, all my year 17, I was sad and hopeless. Because I got dumped.

And, you know, when you're a kid, you don't see anything coming, and everything is the worst thing that could ever. So some of that is that. Right. When you're a teenager, you're going to be sad and hopeless. But it also said a 40% increase in such feelings in the last 10 years. Also, I thought, interesting, they were looking for the reasons why the kids. the CDC is looking into this.

29% lost jobs, the parents lost jobs in the pandemic. So, you know, we haven't tallied up all those kind of negatives that went into. Public health is a kind of health, too. And I think for adolescents, that's why I have a little leeway if they're 20 years old with the mask on.

We really frightened these kids, and we took a lot away from them. And they really were living at 14, 15, 15. years old with this idea that they might die and their parents might die and they were completely isolated. And I think we've kind of put it deep, that's a whole generation that we're going to have to look out for a little bit because we did something pretty terrible. I have an idea. The schools were closed for a motherfuckin year in all the major blue cities. They were closed for a

year to end-person learning. Kids lost structure. They lost friends. They lost all their extracurriculars, sports, things that made them healthier, places of worship, things they could do with their family, they lost all those things. And they were told, even though they were super low risk, that they were either in danger of dying or in danger of killing their grandmas, and they probably shouldn't complain about it because that would make them selfish grandma killers. That is a very, very bad message for children, and it hurt a lot of them. Also, it bothers me because it's fake. Now, I'm not saying there aren't some people who live with their grandmas, but this is a country, unlike most people.

countries in the world that does not invite the elderly into our own homes. We put them, how many of you young people who are so worried about giving it to grandma, live with your grandma? Well, then that's the way this disproportionately hit people from economic. You know, in the middle class world, moms in, you know, the gated community, I can't wait to get to one. It sounds fantastic, but I think there are a lot of lower income, doesn't it? You know, just get it really, meals are taken care of. But I hear, you know, There's a lot of low-income kids in America where the grandmother really takes care of them,

which isn't just the caretaking, but that's the person who loves them the most. And I think they have had a huge loss of that. No, there does exist that. But there's also, I think, something disingenuous about that, pretending that we are sharing our lives with elderly people who are segregated from our lives. You know, you go to London,

and people drink of different ages in the same pub, you'd never see people of different ages in a bar in America. Yeah, and I think, well, we did segregate them into Cuomo's rest homes, which was a bad idea, all the COVID-positive ones. No, I think, look, there's a limit on power here. There's a limit about what public health can do. I think they sold a message that they couldn't make good on, and Fauci comes out just this week again,

and I'm not going to do the accent because I'm not going to hate crime the Italian Americans, but comes out and says, like... More than he has. But basically, like, the court shouldn't be telling me what to do. I'm the unelected health official. Well, that's not actually how the power structure works in this country. And I think they made promises that they couldn't keep, and they told people they could keep them from dying, right?

But this is an ever-present threat. And then when the mental health crisis happened for these young children, the CDC and all the health officials and all the school officials who told us that closing schools would be no big deal and that learning loss was not a thing and putting them on Zoom and free-ranging them on the Internet all day long instead of telling them to play with their friends

was going to be awesome. They tell us they're going to fix the mental health crisis. Well, I looked at the Surgeon General's report that came out about the youth mental health crisis in December. Closing schools for a year is literally a footnote. It's literally a footnote in this report. And if you can't deal with that failure, then you can't fix the problem.

If you can't admit that. Well, you can't fix the problem if you don't level with the people and say it's a virus. It's going to... It's already everywhere. We're breathing it right now. You're soaking in it. Viruses are in the air. You have to win this battle internally. I think a lot of the problem was it started with Trump

and he was just up there lying so much and we all got this sense that he's not telling us the truth and the people who seemed more sincere were the ones who weren't saying that it was going to be over by Easter. And you had one or the other to believe in and we just kind of followed in that tradition and ended up where we did. Yes.

And I think it was fine to believe that at the beginning and then to shift. Right. The shifting was the part that couldn't happen and a lot of people it couldn't happen because Orgeman Bad was saying the opposite thing and so they couldn't get on board with that. It's always that.

But can I have one more note about anxiety in America because this story, I don't usually do these, you know, interesting, like personal pieces, but a Kentucky man who was fired days after he had a panic attack at his workplace over an unwanted birthday party was awarded $450,000 by a jury.

So he has panic issues. He didn't want the birthday party. You know, hey, we're going to the break room. Everybody. It's Bob's birthday. He didn't want, okay. But they did it anyway, bastards. So he sues.

This is the response from the company itself. Then they fired him, because he was violent in a meeting after this event and had scared his supervisors. The chief operating officer of the company said, they were absolutely in fear of physical harm during that moment. Oh, my God, a moment of fear from the guy who couldn't take a birthday party?

I hate both of these parties. I mean, how does a country that is so frail survive? Well, the PSA here is nobody likes a surprise part. No one has ever said, oh, I'm so glad. I'm here with my girlfriend. Oh, my God. There's the girl I'm dating. That's not good.

But these cases, they're always more complex than you think. And he had gone in and said, I have really severe mental problems. They have this birthday party tradition. Don't do it. And then that person wasn't there who was in a... So, like, from an HR standpoint, the company was totally in the wrong. And every step of the way they were in the wrong... I'm just looking at the bigger issue.

Why can't anyone just go, oh, yeah, sorry, and move on. I want to say. As opposed to, I was scared for my life. And I'm suing you for a birthday party. It's like, I have limited sympathy for whatever happens to this fucking dumb country. I just do. No, I, well, I'd like to say that I've worked in cable news for 15 years and nobody's been enough of a dick to me for me to get paid like that.

I'm like a real... Right. For my colleagues. To your point, I think there is an issue with, like, trauma is a real thing, and anxiety are real... These are real issues

that people deal with. Look, I'm a suburban white lady. It's like the affliction of my people is anxiety, right? But not every icky feeling is trauma. Right? And I think that is the issue

that we sort of blow these things up and then we don't... We lose our ability to deal with them. Okay. So, listen, I hesitate to talk about Russia every week because in Ukraine it's so depressing and there's something really I can add to it

but the sanctions interestingly which it's funny the American people you've got to love him on the one hand the polls now say Biden should get tougher with Russia and they also say don't send troops so I don't know what Uncle Joe is supposed to do but the sanctions I think are working they are creating a lot of economic pain in Russia

I want to show you some of the companies. We know a lot of them pulled out, and Russia now is trying to create these, they actually funded, new companies to take the place. McDonald's pulled out. This is real. This is a, look at that.

That's the knockoff they have of the now. IKEA pulled out. This is a real Russian company. Look at that. They strip off the logo. Instagram. Look, that's their Instagram. I don't know what the words say,

but so we have some others. Would you like to see some of the other? products I knew you would. For example, this I'm suspicious up. Zarkis tuna. Zarkis. Oh, yes. This I think is ridiculous.

Squeegee water. Now, come on. That can't be. This, I know. Impossible cabbage is not never got a dinner. Oh, yes. Campbell's cream of don't ask. That's...

Oh, um... Kraft, macaroni and shoe, I think is suspicious ladies in the tournament. Um, look at this one. You must believe it's butter. It's... So rushy. Gee, Yuri's hair smells terrific.

And my favorite... Putin is dog jail with real journalists. All right. So, I want to go back to what you guys were both saying a minute ago about how everything comes down to Red Team, Blue Team.

Because I'm reading about Disney. I feel like it's one of the saddest stories because Disney, of all the things that I thought would never become political. And you're talking about a guy who doesn't give a shit about Disney. I never, I was never interested in anything they made. I'm not a child.

Even when I was a child, I wasn't interested in childish things. I don't want to go to Disneyland. None of that. And they fired me once. I have every reason to hate them. But I don't hate them. I feel sorry for them.

Because they live in this country where nothing is ever enough. I mean, at first they, you know, Disney, I mean, Florida passed the don't say gay law. So Disney didn't say anything. I'm like, we're just, okay, We're just make fairies and elves and riding in teacups, right? And so they got all sorts of shit from the left, from that.

And then they were like, okay, because they always were, one of the most gay-friendly companies in the world. And now DeSantis, of course, he's demagoguing this, but he wants to stop them from having their Vatican status there. And they just want to get people in the teacup. What do you think about this? I do hate them now. You do hate them?

Yeah, I wanted to go as a kid, but now I do hate them because, like, believe in something, you know? If you have always, you know, the first company in the country to have benefits for gay partners, domestic partners. And then, like, you go nowhere when there's this new bill. And then all of a sudden, you know, you've done something else and you turn around, you know, have a backbone. Believe in something and stick to it. Well, so they have to weigh in on every political issue. Well, that's the thing. I think the key might be neutrality on these big culture war issues.

And there's a moral question here where I think the limits of the government power is, like you shouldn't be punishing your political adversary because they did some freedom of speech, right? Like, that's a bad idea. But there's the political part, which I think DeSantis and people who agree with this say, we're going to fix this imbalance where six woke employees at Disney say, you guys got to go after DeSantis and the voters of Florida who put all these guys into office. And Florida goes, nah. And that's not a bad political move. Because a lot of people do want someone to stand up to those six employees instead of Disney folding. And just like just be a non-combatant.

I think it's more than six. But Disney has a pattern of people knuckling under to very small, groups of very vocal activists on these things. I think anything that deals with children is in a hard spot right now because the country's changing and there are more and more gay, young gay parents and their kids are more open-minded and more aware of things. So, you know, I think, you know, Disney wasn't terribly courageous in the beginning if they really have children's well-being in mind and if they were doing it because they think this isn't a bad thing for children, then that's kind of interesting as well. Okay, but it hinges on whether there really is something going on in the schools that never was going on there before and maybe shouldn't be going on there.

So we got information today about this because this is about what is going on in schools all across the country, but Florida is, of course, the focal point because it's Florida. So they took out 41 textbooks, math textbooks, and at the beginning of the week, we didn't know why. They said there's things in there that are inappropriate for children. Today they were least four examples. Now, this just happened before we came out here. I read through them. A lot of it, I feel like it's, okay, you know, it's like kids should have empathy when they're learning. Fine. I'm okay with that. Most of it I thought was kind of a nothing burger. But here's one, measuring racial, this is a math question, measuring racial prejudice by political

identification. Do we have the chart here? I mean, this is teaching math, and why use that example? You see, very liberal, moderately liberal, somewhat liberal. What happened to, like, a train leave Chicago? Right. You know, why... I'll tell you, because I'm a former teacher. I know exactly what's happening. Okay.

Is that with all of this kind of revision to curriculum or adding new curriculum, whether it's gender, whether it's race, new ideas about race, when a school district says that they can get 80% of their students to grade level as readers and to grade level for math, We'll talk about some curriculum revisions or experimentation. But the public schools are our biggest failed public works progress program in this country in my lifetime. They have, we have lost our ability to teach kids anything, and now we're fighting on the edges about things,

let's just put different things in school and let's measure them in different ways. But we really have a, it doesn't read like a crisis anymore because it's been going on so long, but our kids are deeply undereducated. And I think it's actually going to end up being a bigger, crisis than we even know at this point because the learning loss in these, did I mention the schools were closed for a pocket year? The learning loss, particularly for the already vulnerable populations, disabled populations, minority populations is going to be spectacular. It's going to be ridiculous. And I think DeSantis sort of earned some cred on the issue of education because he kept the schools

open. So that gives him leeway to have these fights because parents actually have some confidence in him. And there is an issue in somewhere like Virginia. Whereas Youngkin got elected based on this stuff is that, look, you get a lot of leeway on curriculum if you want to do some woke stuff while you're keeping the school open and you're teaching my kid to read. If you shut it for a year and you make me Zoom Butler for my kid and I'm part of the curriculum, you can't tell me to shut up about the curriculum. And I would like you to focus on math. That's a good point. I got to go back. I don't know where your answer fits with the question I was asking.

Oh, that's a common problem. I'd talk to my editors. Because, I mean, look, the thing I showed there, and again, what was the measuring racial prejudice by political identification as a way to teach about charts and grass? But it's not a way to teach about that. Okay, so that's what you're agreeing. Because the teachers, and I'm not going to blame the teachers, there's so many different failures here, and it's really not the teacher's fault primarily. But that chart at least becomes something that a teacher can start a discussion with about that subject. You're saying it is a good thing because it will...

Now, first of all, let's be... The whole thing is terrible. Okay. We should be able to teach our students and they should learn something. Because especially the lower income you are, the more you need that algebraic equation to make some sense for you instead of having a conversation in class about people's political affiliations. Okay, and just to be clear, I don't think this is typical.

I think this is like, again, they pick 41 books and they have four examples of the examples. this was the most egregious, but it does exist. It is real. So, again, I don't know why Democrats do this to themselves. I think DeSantis is demagoguing this issue, because I think he thinks this is a great way to be the candidate in 2024 by owning the limbs on gays and kids and Pluto and goofy fucking each other and whatever insanity they're going to... But I also think textbooks are written by a certain type of people.

Yes. What? Type you would put some bullshit like that in a macs. That type of people. Or you can sell them in better to these districts. It's a big business. Right. Okay.

And teachers make the decisions, and the unions are extremely leftists. So there's an inclination to buy those books. And like with public health, there is a loss of trust, and it is a good play to go after these mad parents. It will work because they are mad for a reason and they will not be gaslit and told that there's nothing going on here.

There is something going on. Thank you so much. I wish I had two women on the show every week. I really do. We're available. It just makes it. It's just better. All right.

New rules, everybody. You can have that as a souvenir of the show. You may have that as a souvenir. All right. New rule of the thousands of consumers who say, Lucky Charms gave them nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Have to quit their bitching. read the box. It says lucky. It never said what kind of luck.

New Rule, instead of building a wall on the southern border, let's build a laborance. If you want to slow the flow of migrants, this will do it. And the ones that get through, well, congrats. You're smarter than the average American. New Rule, Johnny Depp, is an award-winning actor. He's got to figure out how to look less totally and utterly guilty. Here he is in for it dressed like a mafia don't know who just burned down a biker bar. I don't know who shit the bed worse. Amber Hurd, whoever picked out that tie. New Rule, the Florida man arrested this month with two firearms,

multiple syringes loaded with meth, and a live alligator in the back of his pickup truck. Needs to take this weak-ass shit to Louisiana. You, sir, are not Florida man material. A real Florida man would have also been naked. masturbating a licensed pastor, a former Powerball winner, and married to the alligator. Neural porn video titles have to either get shorter or come up with spoiler alerts. If you write Hot Milf rides her jealous son while wearing glasses,

well, now I know the whole story. Busty naive blonde fucked by stranger under the bridge, ruined. sexy, big-ass female mature boss seduces Hindi ante at work. Well, now I guess I don't have to watch it, do I? I say, bring back the classic titles like Deep Throat, behind the green door and town hall with Matt Gates. And finally, new rule, the Washington Post is wrong. Democracy doesn't die in darkness.

It dies in plain sight because enough people think democracy is a luxury America can no longer afford. That is... That is pretty much the position of the Republican Party now, that you can vote for any one you like, but it doesn't count if it's not us. Heads we win, tails we coup. I know that some people like to say

there's not much difference between the parties, but actually in America, 22. There's more of a difference between the parties than there ever has been in American history. Really? And here's why. Democrats, for all their flaws, still see democracy as the essence of America. They see America and democracy as inextricably linked.

They believe that one without the other is unthinkable. Republicans, thinkable. Very, very thinkable. Republicans now seem to be okay with America continuing to exist as a country, but without being a democracy. Utah Senator Mike Lee says, we're not a democracy.

Democracy isn't the objective. liberty, peace, and prosperity are, we want the human condition to flourish. Ranked democracy can thwart that. Which is a weird idea for a campaign ad. Vote for Mike Lee because voting is bad. But beyond that, this is a true sea change in American politics. And Mike Lee is not the only one saying it out loud.

Here in California, someone named Rachel Hamm is running for Secretary of State, and she says, I want to make it hard to vote. I want it to be a privilege to vote. Again, this is a fundamental change. Openly bad-mouthing democracy and saying out loud that voting is a privilege and not a right. Lauren Culp is the Republican candidate for Congress in Washington State, and he called democracy mob rule. And that is a big talking point from conservatives these days, that the founding fathers feared mob rule.

This from the party that on January 6th encouraged a law. literal mob to attempt to rule. If you violently attack the U.S. Capitol, kicking indoors, breaking windows, killing cops, chasing duly elected representatives out of the building, all

with the intent of overturning a lawful election and hanging the vice president for certifying it, you know, in the name of patriotism, maybe you've lost a thread of exactly what it is you're supposed to be loyal to. I'm no constitutional scholar, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't say, in the case of an election

loss, break shit and install your guy anyway. And please stop imagining that you're blowing our minds when you point out that America is not a direct democracy. It's a republic. Yes, duh, of course, even at the time of America's founding direct democracy, were everyone who could vote gathered in the square like an ancient Athens and put a white or a black pebble in a big pot? Yeah, that was impractical. So democracy added the idea of representatives and with the addition of a constitution that guided us and protected minorities, we became a republic, that is, an improved type of democracy.

Not something apart from democracy. Still a system where we vote. The votes count. And the winners with reasonable restraints are put in charge. That's the best, albeit imperfect, way to do this thing called government. and we all used to get that. But now many Republicans have decided that democracy is what's wrong with America.

A lot of people drive themselves crazy asking Republicans for evidence that Biden somehow stole the election. But that's a fool's errand. In the circular logic of today's right, the evidence that the election was stolen is that they lost. The logic goes like this. We all know America should be made great again

and one side wanted it made great again. It said so right on their half. So logically, the other side wanted America to stay bad. And there's no way Jesus who loves America would let that happen. Same thing with voter fraud, which has been studied a million times, all with the same result. It's negligible and doesn't affect elections. Again, missing the point.

The evidence of voter fraud is that sometimes Democrats win. This is madness. Democrats and Republicans have always certainly had their differences. Taxes and guns, abortion, wearing cowboy boots with a suit. But neither ever really doubted that our system of accepting electoral loss

was what made America different from so many countries who could never get that right. It was, as much as anything, what made America great. Despite the fact that in a democracy, yes, the people who win sometimes get things wrong.

Maybe that's why, Churchill called democracy the worst system of government, except for all the others. The left today is getting a lot of things wrong. Police departments gutted, kids taught crazy shit, unpopular thought being scrubbed, trying to reframe America as irredeemably racist. I get the panic. But solutions, short of junking democracy, can and must handle this. What do tough guys and true patriots do?

in times of panic? They don't panic. But conservatives now sound creepily like the generals in some country where they finally experimented with democracy for the first time

and, well, they didn't like it so much. I'm afraid we let the voters decide and they fucked up. Next month, the conservative political action conference, CPAC, is holding their convention in Hungary.

Hungary? What's the matter with Kansas? Well, apparently it's not a full. authoritarian enough because the new platform from the right is making the world safe from democracy. That is our show. I'll be at the Mirage in Vegas, May 28th and 21st. The State Theater in Minneapolis, June 4th, at the Marat Theater in Indianapolis, June 5th. I want to thank Mary Catherine Hamm, Caitlin Flanagan, and Bob Odenkirk.

Stay tuned for YouTube on overtime. Thank you. I mean overtime on YouTube. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10 or watch a many on HBO on demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com.