Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #635: Keegan Michael Key, Elle Key, Sarah Isgur, Matt Welch

Episode Date: October 7, 2023

Bill’s guests are Keegan Michael Key, Elle Key, Sarah Isgur, and Matt Welch. (Originally aired 10/06/23) 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. Please, we got an amazing show. So, shut up. I know, I love it too. But there's a lot to talk about today. Congress is in chaos.

No, it's not a repeat. I mean, and that could be any show. But you saw her what happened? The Speaker of the House got shit-canned. This has never happened. Yes, Kevin McCarthy, he's from California. He was the Speaker of the House, the Republic, got rid of him. Well, actually, he made a deal with the Democrats to keep the government open, and then they fired him.

This guy has more knives in his back than Britney Spears. He's make little jokes here. Now, but McCarthy's big sin, of course, was working with the Democrats to keep the government open, which Republicans felt was dangerously close to governing. But, you know, he is second in line. Do you know that, the Speaker of the House? That's no biggie. But that's how it works.

President, Vice President, check with Matt Gates. So, okay, so now they're looking for the new speaker. A lot of Republicans throwing their hat in the ring. Jim Jordan, do you know this guy? Former wrestling coach. The perfect preparation for government work. And also famous because he never wears a jacket.

Bob Menendez heard that. He said, where do you keep your gold bars? But we don't know if it's going to be him. Republicans don't know who they want. They don't care as long as they own the lives. And the Democrats, they don't care who it is as long as it's a black lesbian. Oh, we make little joke, please.

But, no, the really big story this week, The substantial story is that even Biden now is admitting that the migrant crisis is real. He said today, fuck it, build the wall. I thought I was getting punked. Well, you know, there's an election coming up, and he's got to move to the center. It was either that or shoot up a case of Bud Light.

But a lot of the Democrats actually feel betrayed by this because it does go against his campaign promises. I mean, they said, we know it's in our platform that it says secure the border, but we didn't think you'd actually do something about it. Here's how serious this situation is. They've been busing the migrants to cities now. They kind of called the Democrats' bluff about sanctuary cities,

and they said, oh, you love them so much, here you go. And the cities don't like it so much. Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, said this is going to destroy our city. He is, Eric Adams, I'm not making this up, and I love Eric Adams. him on the show as much as I can. He went today to Mexico. He's going to Mexico, Ecuador and Columbia. I think door to door.

So really, to tell people personally, we don't have room. I'm not kidding. Don't come. That's pretty amazing. No, he's telling these people, we don't have room. This is New York City. Don't you know our catchphrase? we're the little apple.

And our theme song, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. So go anywhere. Don't come here. So, but it's getting desperate out there. Donald Trump was in court this week. I'm not sure of that.

I'm just playing the odds. But this is almost not funny. I mean, the more. he's put on trial, the more he goes crazy. And he was crazy to begin with. I say this all the time. He's stupid and crazy. There's two different things. But now, I mean, his rhetoric,

he's saying things, he's saying things like immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country. He's saying shoplifters should be shot. This guy's like, yeah. I welcome all kinds in our audience. I don't agree with you, sir. I don't think they should be shot. But, I mean, a lot of the stores have closed because

of too much shoplifting. Lawgreens, wall, Marks Target. They've all closed stores. Sears had the best plan. Make it look like your store has already been looted. All right, we've got a great show. We have Matt Welch and Sarah Isger. But first up, he is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning actor, writer and producer. She's an award-winning film, the TV director, writer and producer. Together, they've written the new book, The History of Sketch Comedy, Keegan Michael, and Elle Key. It's a great pleasure to meet you. Be well. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Giant fan. I hope you know that. All right. Sit down. Wow. Look at that. So I must tell you, I think you are the first married couple that we've ever had on this show.

Oh, really? Wow. Maybe not. At the first one I remember. At the same time, maybe at the same time? I don't, I don't, well, yes, I'm sure we've had people who've been married at different times. But I don't think we've ever had a married couple on together. But I loved your book.

Big fan. So tell me about marriage and comedy. Is humor the key? Well done. Well done. Is it? I mean, that's what you hear. That's like the cliche,

that the thing for a relationship to keep it together, you have to make each other laugh. I think that, well, the comedy certainly came first for us. It was something when we first talked about maybe producing together figuring out what to do. I think Keen Peel was kind of wrapping up, and he was trying to figure out what to do next. And I was like,

well, let's talk about projects and what you're looking for. That was the podcast. No, this was... Well, this was eight, ten years ago. We were trying to figure out kind of what we had in common. And

we started talking about jokes and shows that we found funny and things that we found funny and humor. And we started kind of breaking out breaking down like the math of humor or the science of comedy. The science of what made a funny joke or a term. So hard to put science into comedy, isn't it? I mean, whenever you analyze it too much.

Well, it's kind of like what are the TV shows that resonate with you? Or what are shows like, there's, modern family has this really high, we call it like a high joke ratio. It's like, how do you tell the stories where you keep getting the jokes in? Or how do you build or heightened? Or why do certain sketches like, to teach your work. And working together and also being married, that's

not a problem. You know, I had a relative, but like they were married, and they also had a furniture store. So, like, oh, we're married, then we get up and we have breakfast, and then we go to the furniture store, and we're there together all day. I'm not saying you have a furniture store.

I'm just saying, is there a problem? We don't work on everything together. We work on some things together. Is that? Right. But we started working first. It's not too much. It's not too much. It's not too much. I think that, you know, When we're sitting there having breakfast with each other, we try to make each other laugh. And so that makes... Even at breakfast. Even at breakfast.

Even before coffee. That's so alien to me, I don't even have breakfast. I don't even... I don't even... I don't even... We're also 11 days apart. So we have a lot of the same references, TV shows, movie. Really? Eleven days apart.

I love that we got an awe on that one. He's older. He's an older man. Do you think that's a key to understanding each other, like being... being so close in age? I mean, could you not have the same relationship if you were dating someone much younger? Just hypothetically, I'm asking.

Just one more thing that was able to kind of help bring us together is we have a lot of the same references. And when I pitched this idea of doing this project, it was a book originally we were trying to put together, I said, there's so much information that you have and I have. And what if we put it all together? And it's so much fun. I mean, we have a lot of fun,

especially when we're watching, a show, I know you're concerned about the science or the math of humor, but when you look at, like, why, that joke made him really laugh. And if I can make him laugh, like, really laugh. Yeah, because you know how it is, you know, comedians are, what we typically do is we just admire. Right.

You know what I mean? We just go, that was good. That was the funny one. That was extremely funny what you just said right there. I've never made Jay Leno laugh. You never made Jay Leno laugh. No, he just, that's good. And then he tops me.

And then he tops you. It's just, it's just, you know. He smiles and then top you. He smiles and then he goes, here's the better one. Hit the better one. Yeah, yeah. Came from a little bit different upbringing.

I grew up in around New York City and my family's Jewish and jokes telling like good, hard, what we call like hard jokes or like a typical stand-up. Like a good setup with a real good punchline joke. This was a big part of our childhood and my family and we... Well, share a joke. Share a joke.

Share a joke. Like a short one. Like a short one, yeah, yeah. Like a good Jewish joke. So this actually is a joke I told him in one of our first, like, meetings. Like work meetings. I was like, okay.

So here's a joke I like. Is an old lady, she yells downstairs, her husband, and she says, Morty, why don't you come upstairs and make love to me? And he says, fine, but I can't do both. I got to tell you I'm going to tell you the older I get the funnier that joke

I'm just saying Why does this just apply to Jews though? It's funny Yeah yeah what? It was a cultural thing I think it's because there was so much hardship And there's just You've got to find a way to get through it

And Well it's funny I mean Mixed marriage jokes My first joke ever Was because I'm Catholic and Jewish My father was Catholic I was raised Catholic, went to church, a Ruth Sunday.

Mother is Jewish. And my first joke ever that Johnny Carson used to make me tell every time was, you know, I'm half Jewish, I'm half Catholic, I had the Catholic upbringing, Jewish mind, I used to bring a lawyer into confession. Bless me, Father, for I have sin, I think,

you know, Mr. Cohen. I mean, that was my... Like you to meet Mr. Cohen? I feel like mixed humor is the best. Yeah. Because you have more to work with. You have more to work with. You have more to work with. You're looking at it from different perspectives. Right.

But you get to see a joke or somebody's sense of humor from completely two different perspectives at the same time. And it's really, yeah. It just, yeah, there's, like you just said, it's more to work with. And it was really fun for me

because when I told him that joke, I said, you've never heard that? But you've never heard any of these? I said, you don't know any of these jokes? I said, look, I'm a little black boy from, a little Catholic black boy from Detroit. I do not know these jokes. I have not heard these jokes.

I was like, my family is going to love you. Well, you didn't know them, but you kind of knew them. through osmosis because Jews and humor it's so built into the system that they came through. You know, I mean, remember Red Fox

the famous thing when he said, get me my Jews back? Oh, right for Sanford and son. Yeah, they fired the writers. They were like, get me my Jews back. Give me my Jews back, right? Give me my Jews back. I feel like the

common thread with maybe marriage and sketch comedy is commitment. Like, you got to have commitment for both. You do. You really do. Yeah. I mean, isn't that the key? I mean, I've never been a sketch player.

You are the genius. To my view, genius sketch player of all time. Seriously, I'm not just saying that because you're here. I've always believed that. When you insulted me, I believe that. You're a genius at what you do. But it is about commitment, right? You always commit one billion percent to the character.

There's never any doubt you're in it all the way. way. Yeah. Yeah. To me, it's always, to me, sketch is performing, it's just acting. I try to act as seriously within the sketch as Merrill Streep would in any drama. Right. You know, because the thing is that you want to be a mile deep in the commitment not only of you to the character, but the character to the situation they find themselves in. And that's always been important to me, is that I wanted to make sure that I'm playing it as deep as possible so that, because it's not about me winking or laughing, it's about you guys laughing, and it's about giving as much

commitment to the project as possible. I feel like Key and Peel, I mean, I'm watching Key and Peel now again because they just put it on Netflix. I mean, I always watch them when they've gone the first time, probably watched it twice, so probably watching it the third time now.

Stan's the test of time, which is not something you can say about a lot of comedy. I mean, going through your book, I mean, you give a lot of props to people, but I must say, like, When you watch old shows, humor is not like music. People want to hear the music from 50 years ago. You watch a sketch from 50 years ago?

Doesn't stand up. It rarely does. Rarely does. Your shit does. Yeah. It's still exactly, it really does. It's amazing. But, like, things change.

Like, I feel like you guys, you know, you give great props to Caliburnet, which right in this building, where that show was done. Yeah. Okay. Saturday Night Live and Caroleonet kind of overall. as sketch shows, right? But very different. Calabronet, they were like always cracking each other up.

Harvey Corbyn and Tim Conn, they couldn't get through the sketch without laughing at what they were doing. Saturday Night Live was like, that's fucking corny. That's right. We don't do that anymore, and they never did. And that just shows things change. So when you watch a Caroleonet sketch,

it does look a little museum-y. Interesting. Interesting. I think... I can feel Harvey Corman's ghost over my shoulder. But you saw in the book, there's so many examples of things, even Burns and Allen or Nichols and May. We kind of tried to pull the things that really inspire us

or brought joy to us. And I think some of the things you go back, I said the book should, next time we do this, the book should have a post-it pad and a pen attached to it because there's so many pieces and gems and Easter eggs that we hope people will go and try to. to find these sketches. Or Bob and Ray.

Oh, yeah, Bob and Ray. Yeah. No, you cover the waterfront. I mean, everybody's in that book, and I brought back so many good memories reading it, so I hope folks avail themselves to that. I've got to go to the panel. I could talk to you all night, but I can't.

Thank you so much for being here. Thanks, Joe's fans. Thank you so much. All right. Great to meet you. Absolutely, he's good. All right. There they are.

Oh, yeah. Let's meet our battle. Hello. All right, here's our panel. He is editor at large of Reason Magazine and close of the Fifth Cullen podcast. Matt Welch is our returning champion. And she's a lawyer and senior editor for The Dispatch and ABC News political analyst Sarah Isger.

Sarah, great to see you again. Okay, so we're going to talk about the border tough because, you know, I feel like one issue since we've been off for these five months has sort of like gathered more intense and the other, and that is that the border crisis has sort of become a national crisis. It was always something like, oh, it's down there, and yes, it's bad,

and now it's all over the country, because they've been busing the migrants and so forth. And this is, of course, having it in the same week, month when I've been reading that Trump's idea that we bomb Mexico has now become, has migrated to be mainstream Republican thinking. So, I mean,

and here's what our homeless, Secretary said, there is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers. Thank God not a wall. It's a physical barrier. And it made me think of David Frum's famous line. I'll read it. If liberals insist that enforcing borders is a job only fascists will do, then voters will hire fascists to do the job.

Liberals won't. I always was scared by that. If we're thinking about bombing Mexico, are we at that point now? Well, I thought they'd already paid for the wall, so it's weird that we still need to build it, right? Right. But, yeah, look, at the point that you are making fentanyl, I think you've given up your right probably to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, so it's not that I'm bemoaning the poor, poor fentanyl dealers. But, like, how?

We're going to bomb Mexico and we're not going to war with them? I thought these were the same people who didn't want to help Ukraine against Russia. Like, what? The whole thing doesn't make a lot of sense. It's not practical. You know, Donald Trump actually on the paying, having Mexico pay for the wall thing, last week he said only lunatics believed him when he said that. Obviously he couldn't get Mexico to pay for the wall.

So what, are we, what about the lunatics now? Do you think it's really about the fentanyl? No, I think it's about how quickly we can get from the word Ukraine to fentanyl to border to cartel in any given sentence in the GOP debate. I think Ron DeSantis got it within seven words last time in the debate. It's amazing how quickly they go there. And you understand the impulse, right? Because fentanyl is killing people in this country in huge numbers, and it's a big problem. And it's also a way of saying, well, you know, even though we're not going to be supporting Ukraine right now, we can still sound belligerent and tough.

The thing is, there's people on that stage who know a little bit better than to say that we can have just a little tiny war in Mexico. It doesn't work that way. If you're a United Nations ambassador emeritus, you should know that you can't just. just use the military in a sovereign country. It just, there's no such thing as a little war, especially with a neighbor and a trading partner. And those are the people, it's the country, with which you need to do any possible deal

having to do with immigration. You have to have a diplomatic deal with Mexico because the people who are coming are coming from Venezuela. They're coming through Mexico. And the fentanyl is coming from China. Is it not? I mean, I think our Secretary of State, Blinken, is there right now,

or he was this week in Mexico. talking about that. And I must say, I'm just learning about fentanyl. The first time I ever heard of it was when Prince died. I never even heard of it. That was like seven years ago? You haven't given birth. They've been giving women fentanyl for a long time.

Really? Oh yeah, that's part of what you get with like a C-section or whatever, yeah. Fentanyl? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We actually do use fentanyl for real reasons. It's just that if you use it for not real reasons, you die. So, you know, low stakes game. It's cheap.

Again, I keep learning about fentanyl. What I learned this week is, that one reason it's so dangerous is now they put it in everything. It's like the cilantro of drugs. Yeah. Kids, kids, kids. Kids, you know you can listen to me about drugs, because I know. But like, don't do drugs, kids. I mean, I didn't realize this. It's like cocaine. It's in the cocaine. Yeah. I mean, or whatever they're doing, the academy. You know, when I was at the Department of Justice, we, had a 13-year-old boy die because he ordered drugs off the dark web. I think he thought he was

getting pot like gummies, something like very easy. Turned out there was fentanyl in it. He and his friend took them. He died. He died. The friend lived. Okay, but we're not going to bomb China too. Well, maybe we're not going to bomb. Maybe not over this. But the pandas? They take our pandas. It's not enough. These neocons are never going to get what they need. No, it's cheap to make, Bill, is the problem. And the other problem is that we are too busy at all times looking at a new scary drug and saying, you know what, we're going to do this time, we're going to drug war. This drug war is going to be the one that finally works out for us. It doesn't work like that.

One of the reasons why fentanyl is used, it's much cheaper to make than heroin. It's synthetic. You can make it in a laboratory. You can set it in mail. You're going to be bombing the postman here pretty soon because you can get it actually in envelopes. That's why they're cutting it in drug deals. But part of it is a response to the fact that you cannot get opioids.

You cannot get pain medication in this country to the same degree that you could 12 years ago, right? because we did a crackdown on the pill mills in Florida. We were worried about all these overdoses that were happening with opioids. Fentinol is taking those overdoses, turn it into a hockey stick. Precisely because of that reason. It's being cut in things. What happens in the black market for drugs? What happened during alcohol prohibition?

You get bathtub gin. This is bathtub heroin. We don't know what's in it. We don't know what's... We should make it legal? We should make pain medication much more legal in this country. Maybe we should deal with pain and not medicate all the time. it's okay to be in some pain.

Absolutely. Well... Who likes pain? No one likes pain. I mean, just tell people. That's not a policy. Just tell people. Yeah, we should change the culture a little bit.

We should do that too. It's one thing to have surgery and you get out of it and you're like, oh my God, I hurt. And they're like, I will make sure you never hurt again. Like, no, the pain's going to go away in a couple days. You don't need opioids for that.

Right. When I've been in hospitals visiting people, I've seen there's that chart on the wall of there's 10 faces of like, so the nurse can know. Yes. Yes. Yes. And, of course, everyone goes right to 10. You know, like, give me the good stuff.

And they were like, one out of 10. And I was like, are you kidding me right now? I don't even know. I don't know numbers right now. Just take the baby out. Get the baby out. Let me get back to the border issue politically. Because I feel like this is a disaster for the Democrats.

Because one, I mean, Trump today said he wants Biden to apologize. because it looks like Biden is adopting his policy. This does not look good for the Democrats. Also, they look like sanctuary city hypocrites. They were the ones who said, look, we're the compassionate people.

Everybody should get a shot here. And then when they started sending... I mean, the quotes from Eric Adams, this is the mayor of liberal New York, this issue will destroy our city. The governor, if you're going to leave your country, go somewhere else. Keep walking

is from the governor of New York They put out a flyer New York Did he now Says New York is one of the most expensive cities in the world You are better off going to a more affordable city And also the club scene is dead

But I mean there is a little You know I understand a little I told you so from the people on the border I mean I'm from Texas I actually think it's a little bit even worse than what you're saying, because not only were they saying, you know, oh, we're sanctuary cities, we provide housing to everyone. We'll guarantee health care and education, but definitely don't come here.

But they were also saying, you know, if you're in Texas and don't want that, you're racist. You're a bad person. And now that they're having just the smallest fraction, there were two million border crossings last year. New York, which is by far the largest number, has 110,000 people. and they're like, oh my God, our hospitals won't work. Our education system is falling apart.

What happens? I mean, they need to apologize to Texas. Also, let's keep in mind. I mean, Eric Adams, I'm not quite as fond of him as you are, but I don't host a television show because he's really good television. But Eric Adams said, we're full as New York City. New York City has lost half a million residents in four years.

New York City is not full. It is these shelters where they promise everyone that you have a right to. Those are full, and they're full with migrants right now, and so you do have zero-sum contests for whatever resources are there. New York, it's a very unusual law. You certainly don't have that in Los Angeles, where you have a right to a shelter bed. That's what's being overwhelmed, and because of the way New York is governed, which is very badly, I said as a resident of New York, then they're unable to absorb people. We're talking about numbers that pale in comparison

of the numbers that were coming into this country in the 70s and 80s. The Mariel Boatlift was 110,000 people in a week and a half or whatever it was. Miami survived. Not only that, but kind of thrived from it, too. But we are not in a place right now where we have that same kind of capacity to deal with people. And it's a damn shame because this is the biggest crisis, biggest refugee crisis. In the history of the Western Hemisphere, 7 million people are an advertisement for why socialism doesn't work in Venezuela right now. And we need to come up with a bigger, hearted, and smarter way of dealing with it.

And right now our politics are incapable of coming up with it. Yeah, and I feel like we can never do anything just in the middle. There's nothing between bomb Mexico and come one, come all? I, like, and that, I mean, I mentioned this in the monologue. The Trump rhetoric is just getting scary, especially since we have this example right this week of Trump rhetoric, which is crazy, which is crazy, the guy at the end of the bar saying, we should bomb Mexico. and then a year later, it's Republican policy. Okay, he said, immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country.

I mean, I know you're not supposed to compare to Hitler, but I got to compare to Hitler. I mean, that's Hitler-y. Poison the blood? It's blood and soil. It's classic. It's terrible. And we, long since it should have gotten past the point

where when we hear that to not have a response to it. And I have a feeling like Trump has been talking for so long, people are just, I'm too tired to process it. Yeah, but again, it migrates this stuff. The other one this week from him, we will stop immediately all the pillaging and theft. He's talking about shoplifting.

Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store. So we're going to go John Wick on the shoplifters. Again, there's there's no

middle ground between what a lot of these liberal cities are doing, which is, oh, it's, you know, they say it's, it's not a violent crime. Yeah, it's not if you don't try to stop it. That's right. I mean, this is a luxury belief where you have liberals who aren't actually affected by crime. You know, if you live in a rich neighborhood, what your one-tenth is likely to be affected by violent crime in your life compared to if you live in a poorer neighborhood or make less money. And yet this week we had two progressive activists killed and you had a congressman carjacked at gunpoint, like on the hill, like one block from,

where they work. They all live in a dorm together. It's kind of weird. Who lives in a dorm? The congressmen all live together. Like, you know that show? Yeah. Congressman live in a dorm? Man. They do. No, they don't.

Come to D.C., it's a weird place. Yeah. To the car. Boy, I learned so much on this show. I did not know that. He said he was going all night. They knew because they could hear it. They live in a dorm.

and get... I heard about the car jacket. Yeah, yeah. And that's in Washington, D.C. Yeah, yeah, right at the door. Yeah, I mean, it's unbelievable. And this is a luxury good. You get to believe this stuff,

but you don't actually have to live with it. And so you also, you know, in California, Governor Newsom, for instance, is having to have this sort of sister-soldia moment. He just filed a brief at the Supreme Court saying, actually, please, we want to be able to take homeless people off the street. That's what the conservatives have been saying.

So, again, it's this hypocrisy problem. You don't have to live with the problems. You get to have these... sounding compassionate beliefs. It's not compassionate, for instance, in the immigration crisis, to be paying drug cartels. I mean, billions of dollars that are going to drug cartels to move people, to smuggle humans over the border.

They don't care if a five-year-old girl gets left in the desert. That's the cost of doing business. They don't care if a pregnant woman drowns in the Rio Grande. That's not their problem. Same thing with this. It's not compassionate to say, like, well, I'm fine with the homeless people in tents shooting up fentanyl. In fact, I'll give them a clean syringe.

That's not compassionate to tell someone that they should, you know, die on the sidewalk. I agree. And it's also it's also just psychologically demoralizing these things. Like, if you're in a store and you can't shop freely, you know, Biden's

always saying, why don't people like me more? Like, you know, and then they cite numbers. Because it just doesn't feel good when you see tents everywhere on the street. It just doesn't feel like the country's right. It just doesn't feel good. When I've got to get a sales associate to unlock the hair scrunchies.

The tie pods. Always the tie pods. The what? The tibods are always locked up. My girlfriend went into Old Navy today and to D.C. And she just texted me that there was one person at the cash register, which deeply annoyed her. They finally had the shirt that she wanted in three colors. But there were three security guards.

So three security guards, one cash register person. You're not going to get a John Wick policy at stores from the federal government. You're probably not going to get a war on Mexico. can be alarmed at the rhetoric, but to the David From point, the way to combat this, the way to deal this both politically in terms of policy, is not to, A, pretend like it's not happening, which a lot of people do. Oh, there isn't really much theft going on in these stores in San Francisco. They're just trying to get out of their corporate responsibilities, whatever, try to save money. No, don't tell me what I'm seeing is not happening. Right. You're going to

lose elections. You're going to make bad policy. You have to have enough basic self-confidence to say, yeah, if everyone is shoplifting, if there's like gigantic bags and people, holding the door open for people as they're getting in their getaway car, maybe we ought to be able to enforce that particular law. They will need to interact with the police, those people. It's not a really difficult thing to come up with, but the way that our political conversation has been in between, you know, Trump doing the John Wick and other people, either in denial or saying,

well, that's just, you're trying to over-criminalize property theft, which is a ridiculous thing. Okay, so one of the great crux of all time is this Bob Menendez, who's currently now, he's indicted on bribery charges. He's from my home state of New Jersey. He's the senator there. And he was the one, we made a lot of fun of him. He was putting, they found in his house tons of cash and gold bars.

And the part of the story I love the most is he actually Googled. We know this. You can easily find people's Google searches. How much is one kilo of gold worth? And we've done this bit on the show before. This is the perfect week to do it again called Revealing Google Searches. Because, yeah, because we're not saying these definitely say something about somebody, but I think what you Google reveals a lot about you.

For example, we found Travis Kelsey, Taylor Swift relationship history. I, you know, it's not. Vladimir Putin Googled how to make a plane crash look like an accident. Well, Whitney Spears Googled what to wear during welfare checks. Leonardo DiCaprio, how to talk to your girlfriend about 9-11. Marjorie Chelle Green, good things hit her did.

I bet you she's actually done that, so. Kevin McCarthy, best way to kill Matt Gates. Hunter Biden, clean urine for sale. Well, that's it. Senator Tim Scott, things straight men in relationships say. Melania, best cities for single. women. And Nick Cannon, what is a condom?

All right. So let's talk about the Speaker of the House thing, because this is unprecedented. You know, we're coming up on our 250th anniversary as a nation. There's a word for that. I'm not smart enough to know what it is, but it's like... It's very long.

It's many letters. You know it? No, I can't say it. It's like vice-ascotennial. All right, but we're going to be 20th. This has never happened. So I looked up, I was, I was Googling myself. Like, just rush up, what does the Speaker of the House do?

I know it's important. Appoints people to the committees. Who gets to speak in Congress? Counting the votes, sending bills to the White House, going to the White House to negotiate with the President. So it's like really important job. And they just shit-gam this guy. Eight radicals did this.

I just want to know, why are they so emboldened now? Why did this never happen in 246 years and now it did? Yeah, so I hate to go back this far, but like 2002, we passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. This was McCain-Feingold getting big money out of politics. It sounded like a really good idea. These big donors don't represent the interests of normal Americans. All true. So when we did that, we set this very pretty low cap.

And what's happened is we have. We've shrunk the influence of large dollar donors in the United States. and what's taken their place is small dollar donors. And it turns out that small dollar donors also are not representative of the people of the United States. If you're giving $5, $20 to a candidate, you're kind of weird. Like, why aren't you, you know, going to Applebee's?

Like, that's a weird use of money. And so you end up with these people and how politicians get that money from them is through outrage and anger and tiny little sound bites and memes on social media. Well, at the same time, the party's got a lot weaker because those large dollar donors are out. So you're saying the person who just sends you $5

who really should be spending it on toothpaste, that guy is going to be a weirdo. That's your theory. No, and that person is now who the Matt... He's a radical. Yeah, they're not representative. If you only have $5 to spend, to spare, and you send it to a politician, you're an angry person.

Is that? Yeah, and you're on social media too much. And so these guys are reaching out to them through social media. So Matt Gates became famous this week. So you're saying Matt Gates is not beholden to party money because of these guys. I see this theory. That's right. And so you have, you know, AOC on the other side.

She's one of the most prolific fundraisers in the Democratic Party. Have you checked her legislative record? Other than renaming some post offices, she's one of the least productive members of Congress. Because those small dollar donors don't reward compromise. they don't want to actually see legislation. It's way easier to get them turned on on social media by telling them what the other side is done wrong. So the MacGaithes of the world do better

when their team loses. But there's also this self-perpetuating cycle that goes on, right? So if you're appealing to whatever donor through kind of outrage clicks, right? If I'm so mad right now, I'm going to send $5 or $500, whatever, you're reacting to something. There's another thing that happens, and all the speakers of the last 25 years

have all done this, which is that they're not legislating. They are going to the meetings of the White House because that is where legislation is coming from. It's not supposed to. Legislation is supposed to happen with 12 spending bills every year. It has been on record since 1974. That originates in the Congress.

Remember the little I'm just a bill stuff. That's where it's supposed to happen. It hasn't been happening. We have been governed for the last 25 years a third of the time by continuing resolutions, by the last-minute deal cobbled together between the Speaker of the House, the Senate Majority Leader and the President and their officials.

That's it, in that little room over there. So you don't have budgets and amendments and debate on the floor. None of that happens. So instead, you have people railing against Washington, getting into power and getting into, you know, rehearsal gigs for their next TV show on OAN or whatever when they leave Congress, but they don't have any power to do anything. So they actually matter themselves.

They have more to rail against, and the actual process of legislation, And this is a both sides issue. It doesn't happen, actually. We have some big bills that are spent. They're usually spent in the last minute. But mark my words, either in November of December, we're going to do the same thing that we do every year, which is the cromnibus. We're to cram an omnibus spending package together at the last minute, and either you're going to vote for it or you hate the troops.

They're going to do it. There's going to be funding for everything. And in the meantime, the size of the government will reliably double every 15 years, which is what we've been doing for a while now. But it's been forever since they've said this is going on and it's going to kill us and we're still here. It's the success curse. We're big enough to keep failing.

But at one point, will it all fall down? We're, you know, we're, what, seven years away from taking haircuts on our Social Security by law. Like, there's not enough money in the trust fund. So everyone has to take a 25% or 20% haircut. I think that'll get people's attention when we get there. And we're getting there.

So we either have to do something. about that or it's going to do something to us. Voters have to stop punishing people who actually legislate. You can't get everything you want. And so you have these safe districts where the actual threat to you is from a primary. And so you keep moving to your outer flank, whether it's right or left and it's a mess. And in the meantime, you have the Obama pen and phone problem, right? Oh, there's a political crisis.

Congress, you should handle it. Oh, you're not going to handle it? I'll handle it as president. Why would Congress compromise? Why would they risk their political future in their next election from a primary? if the president will do it through executive action. Of course, then someone sues about it, and the Supreme Court's like, oh, right,

the President can't do that. And then the Supreme Court's ratings fall, and everyone's like, the Supreme Court's so political. Congress, do your job. All right. So, okay. So here's a number that caught my eye this week. 63% of Americans,

I've never seen the number anywhere near this high, want a third party. Now, in the past, I've always thought, okay, that's bullshit, because they say that, and when it comes time to it, all the third party guy does is get somebody else elected. You know, Bill Clinton owes election to Ros Perot. And Hillary would say Jill Stein cost her the election, and Ralph Nader with George Bush, blah, blah, blah. But I don't know. Last week I was saying about Biden that, well, you know, he's done fine for the first term, but he's going to be Ruth Bader Ginsburg, if he tries to run again, and for the people who say,

yeah, but he's the one who beat Trump in 2020, I say things change. Has enough changed now with this issue that actually, if we had somebody who was charismatic, if we had the right person, could they lead a legitimate third party? How can everybody be so fed up with the extremes and both parties,

and yet when we have this alternative, we could have a third party, nobody goes for it? ballot access. It is really, really hard to get on the ballot in 50 states, because you know who controls who can get on the ballot in the 50 states? The Republicans and Democrats? That's right. So look, if you gave me $50 million in a time machine to go back six months, I might be able to get you on the ballot in some states. So this idea that some candidates going to pop out of the woodwork and just get on the ballot isn't going to happen. That's not how that works. No labels is a third-party

group that's been working on ballot access, but the problem with no labels is they don't have a candidate. So that's cool to be on the ballot with like fill in here. But, you know, you look at third party successful-ish third-party movements. You know, they're either incredibly famous people. I'm thinking here like Teddy Roosevelt, hugely famous, right? He was president when he ran. And then he was a third party. No, I'm saying that's why he was pretty famous.

Or you have a policy that everyone can kind of rally around. That was kind of Ross Perrault's thing, right? Remember the graphs and the stuff? But that was a... Joe Manchin isn't going to do that. No. John Huntsman isn't going to rally America. You need, like, Matthew McConaughey to be the no labels choice.

And I told you all this from Texas. Shits off, Fonda. No, we don't need that. We don't need that. And I like Matthew McConaughey. And Oprah, you can pick which one's top of the ticket. Haven't we learned that celebrities should not be in politics, to begin with?

I don't know, let's ask Robert Kennedy Jr. What? Let's ask R.F.K. Jr., whether he's going to do it. Who will like... Junior is a celebrity because of politics. That's a little different, not because he was in a movie where the asteroid was going to destroy the earth. Correct.

Yet. Americans are notoriously third party in the streets and major party in the sheets. That's what they do. And it is the same

that's a cheetah. It's the same The same poll, it's interesting, they've been asked this question for 20 years, and the same poll hits all-time lows right before a presidential election. That's fun. I wonder why that is. Well, because everyone is starting to get scared that the bad guy is going to win. And this is actually part of the reason why that number is so high. And I know it seems a little paradoxical, but it also makes sense. We, right now, I think more than 60% of Americans don't want either of those guys to run who are absolutely going to win the nominations unless they die or something. Why is that? I think we're all part of the problem. Yes. Which is to say that we get all hepped up and we are so scared that he's going to win

and believe me, as someone who's never voted for a winning presidential candidate, I'm always scared that they're going to win and they always win. It's terrible. But we get so scared they were like, okay, this person who I objectively loathe

or find to be reprehensible in any way, at least he's not the bad person and I will vote for that person in the election as someone against. We are so negatively polarized that we talk ourselves into not just voting for candidates we don't like, but backing whole ideas and parties and schemes that we wouldn't have done before. Because, you know what, this is, sorry, this is a war. We have to pick up a club.

Until we get out of that mindset, we're going to have these numbers all the time. All right. I got to end it there. You two are very entertaining, but it's time for New Rules, everybody. Okay. New Rule, now that China is canceling Pandalone agreements, and U.S. zoos will be without any for the first time in 50 years. Let's just go ahead and get rid of zoos once and for all.

When was the last time you saw a child enjoying the zoo? Here's a hint, never. The zoo is animal jail with balloons. You know someplace sucks when the best case scenario is you catch a monkey jerking off. I can't show that one enough. All right, new rule. Micaiah Coleman, the woman accused of attacking and injuring three TSA workers,

sending two of them to the hospital because they took away her apple juice. Must be given an endorsement deal by Mott's. Mott's apple juice. It's not just good. It's missed your flight to Cleveland. Fuck some people up and still smiling your mugshot good. No rule, someone has to tell America's new primetime sensation, Gary Turner, a.k.a. the golden bachelor, that, hey, you're 72. You're retired. You have a nice dog and a house on the lake. You have a good life. Why do you want to fuck a little? at all up. New Rule

articles mentioning the social media platform X can stop saying formerly known as Twitter, yeah, it's X now, not Twitter. We all got it. The important thing is it's still a place to dash off a half-baked brain fart after taking an ambient

and then waking up to find your career is over. New Rule, stop saying America no longer innovates. Hey, we're the first country to develop a mini chainsaw just for seniors. That's right. Apparently, seniors love the mini saw, which does beg the question, what do seniors need a small, small portable chainsaw for?

Damn kids always texting during the movie? Well, you can't text if you don't have a hand. And finally, new rule, this dangerous idea that has taken root in America that something is true, merely because you want to believe it's true, has got to go. I have spent an awful lot of time on this show in the pre-Trump and then the Trump presidency years trying to convince people that this man would never concede losing an election

no matter what the truth was. And what made me so sure of that was that America had become a place where truth no longer mattered. It was all about whether it felt right in your gut. Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden. I can't be right. That's what many of his fans. said and still do. Any time an issue didn't go their way, the response would be crisis actors.

That's what that was. Fucking crisis actors. False flag operations. The deep state. When the right does this, we call it conspiracy theories, and rightly so. When the left does it, we call it emotional truth. Which brings me to Hassan Minaj, the comedian who answers the question, what if Jesse Smollett did stand up. If you missed it, the New Yorker recently ran a comprehensive expose about how many of the stories Mr. Minaj tells in his act to elicit sympathy for himself as a Muslim and a person of color are completely made up. Now let's pause here to acknowledge that Muslims and people of color in America have, of course, faced prejudice and discrimination. And this country has a racial history that is nothing short of despicable, and some of it continues to this day.

The question I'm always asking is, where exactly are we with this now? Because it's not as good as the right says it is, and I think it's also not as bad as the left says. But if you have to fabricate the stories of your mistreatment, isn't that itself a comment on where we are now? One of Mr. Minaj's stories is about a white girl, he asked to the prom, who spurned him on the big day when her parents didn't want pictures taken with a brown boy, except it never happened. Then there was the time the FBI hunted him down as a suspected terrorist and threw him against the hood of a car, except for the part where they didn't do that at all.

The New Yorker writer who interviewed Menaz asked, does it matter that neither of those things really happened? Yes. Yes, it does matter. It does matter. If you want to speak truth to power, I'm going to go on a limb here and say you have to include the truth part. Because he's done this before with me,

accusing me of saying Muslims should be put in internment camps, something I've never come close to thinking, let alone saying. And it's an odd thing to claim, given that this show is, you know, recorded with cameras and audio. So I ask you, a guy saying,

he saw me saying, round up the Muslims on TV, even though I never did. How is that different than this guy? And I watch in Jersey city, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. This country needs to make a grand bargain.

Bullshit is bad, no matter who says it or what you call it. Menard says the emotional truth is first. The factual truth is secondary. That's the part of the zeitgeist he has captured. That it's all about getting to the truth man. And what better way to do that than by lying. I think the younger generations have a real problem with wanting to build their identity around being a victim. They want to have racism to fight, not fight racism, have racism to fight,

so badly that when it's not there, they make it up. And there's enough real racism in the world that making up more doesn't help. Minaj told the New Yorker that his actual life was too dull to provide juicy material for his act. Isn't that a good thing? He seems to literally feel cheated by progress. The progress that has denied him any good stories about being oppressed by the man. Dude, America is far from the worst. You're a Muslim married to a Hindu.

If you were living in India, she'd have to murder you. And that prom date that he talks about, he didn't disguise her identity very well. And now she has had to deal with death threats and docs. there are consequences to lying. And funny side story, you know who she married? Another Indian guy. Hearing that, even Minaj himself must know, man, if people don't like you now,

it's probably not because you're a person of color. It's because you're shady. Okay, that's our show. I'll be at the Fox in St. Louis tomorrow, October 7th, the Orpheum in Omaha, October 8th, and the MGM Grand in Vegas, November 3rd, and 4th. I want to thank Matt Welch, Sarah Isger, Keeke and Michael, and L.Kee,

Go watch overtime on CNN tonight at 11.30. We're catch it Saturday morning on YouTube. Thank you, folks. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10. Or watch them anytime on HBO On Demand. For more information, log on HBO.com.