Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #709: Louis C.K., Van Jones, Thomas Friedman

Episode Date: October 4, 2025

Bill’s guests are Louis C.K., Van Jones, Thomas Friedman (Originally aired 10/3/25) 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. Great to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Right back at you.

I appreciate you being in a good mood because you know you're going to have to live with the government without the government for a while. You know, this... Why are we laughing at that? They did it. I feel like we do this every fucking year, this story. Government shut down, government shut down.

And Trump is devastated about it. You know how much he loves the government? He said, I'm actually going to tell me Wendy's is all out of salad. Shit. Government's closed. I'm going to have to play more golf. But luckily, he's negotiating calmly and in good faith.

I'm joking, of course. he said today, tweeted out that the Democrats are the party of hate, evil, and Satan. That's good faith. Which is so ridiculous. If they ran Satan, they would have won Florida. I kid Florida. I love Florida.

But now Trump knows how to negotiate this. We're going to get over this. You know how you do it? You get everybody in a room, preferably a ballroom. And you say, nobody's leaving here. here until you check out these cherubs. These not, because it is, oh, sheriffs. This is a manly administration.

I don't know if you saw the other big thing that happened in Washington this week, our defense secretary Pete Hegseth. He called in from all over the world, the 800 highest ranking service people we have, the generals and the admirals, from all over the world. Did you see that room?

Oh, my God. There was more crew cuts than in a lesbian bar. Wow. But that is the thing you want to do most. You want to get your most critical people in the command structure all gathered in one room. Hopefully, with the doors locked from the outside. And then Pete gave them a TED talk about how much he has had it with the military, which is too gay, too woke, too sloppy, too badly groomed, too obese.

He's not wrong about that last one for sure. Well, no, these are facts. Almost 70% of the military, did you know, this is overweight. The song the Marines sing now is from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of triple X. Oh, you know, come on. But Pete says that shit ends now. We are changing our motto from Semper Phi to No Fat Chicks.

And by the way, I love this. He included the generals in this. He's too many fat generals, and admirals walking around the halls of the Pentagon. Are you kidding? This is supposed to be an exercise in morale building. Because nothing pumps you up like taking a 22-hour flight to be yelled at

by a Fox News dry drunk about your love handles. And, yeah, I love this. And, you know, a few weeks ago, they changed the name of the, you know, defense department to the Department of War. So that's how we started. He said, welcome. The war department is now the Department of Defense.

No, the other way around. The Department of Defense is now the Department of War, you fucking hippies. And he called them, he said, no more beardoes. I'm not kidding, he used that word. I ever heard that word, apparently, a combination of weirdo and beard. No more beardos. and they did as his shaving private Ryan hunk. It's funny, half the speech was about a warrior ethos that we want and manly men,

and the other half was grooming tips. Really? Because nothing says warrior ethos like, what products do you use? So, to recap, no gays, just buff hairless men. And no beards. That's when Lindsey Graham went, No beers? All right, we've got a great show.

Dan Jones and Tom Friedman are here. But first off, oh, I wanted him on for a long time. An Emmy Award-winning writer, actor, director, and comedian's forthcoming novel now. Ingram comes out November 11th. Louis C.K. All right, I think I will let that standing ovation speak for itself. Sure, thank you. And get right to the book, because, Louis, you're a novelist now.

You've worn so many hats, and now you're wearing the hat of a novelist. I just want to know why. You know, I looked at some of the stats about how which novels sell. Yeah. In a country of, I think, 340 million people, if they sell 10,000, it's like a hit. It's incredible. So you're doing it for the money. Yes, exactly.

Yeah. But really, why get into a dying art form like that? Well, I love fiction, and I love writing. And I wanted to be a novelist when I was a kid. That's what I wanted. but in high school I did a lot of drugs and I kind of ran my brain dry and so then I got into comedy and TV

which is a little easier than writing novels but I think I regenerated more brain cells I don't know what it is but I got into it I got into writing short stories a few years ago and then this one just turned it just kept going I didn't expect it to be one I didn't outline it or anything it just kept coming up well I told you I said it reminds me a lot first of all of Dickens Oh, thanks.

He was a novelist. He was. The kids don't read. They don't make them read anything anyway. And a great one. And also Mark Twain a little bit. It's very Huckleberry, Finney. I mean, it's so interesting because, I mean, why don't you tell basically what it is?

It's called Ingram, and it's the story of a boy in the depression. Just give me the skinny of it. Yeah, so this boy who's sitting on the porch outside his house, and there's like a pig sleeping next to him, and that's his life. Like he's never been to school. His parents have very little, and they're struggling. And one day his father says, I'm going to sell the horse

and, you know, tells his mother to slop all the animals and, you know, to take care of stuff. And he never comes back. So him and his mother are kind of like starving, so his mother just tells him, you should go because I can't help you. So he's like nine, and he just hits the road. And he's never seen a highway.

He's never been anywhere. So it's him discovering the world and surviving. And everything is through his first person eyes. That's what reminded me of the Dickens thing, yeah. Like he doesn't even know what pavement is, so he calls it like hard gray dirt. Right. And so I just took him.

He was in my head, and I just kind of dictated. Usually they say, write what you know. Yeah. This didn't seem like that. No, I'm, man. I imagine it's curious. I just was like, why? I didn't know what the book was when I got it.

I was like, wow. Is this Louis' childhood? Well. I mean, I had, my dad wasn't around, but my mom, my mom worked really hard and raised four kids. But you knew pavement. Sure, I knew pavement, yeah. I knew it really well, actually. I used to eat gum off of pavement.

I'm not even, I did. In the summer, it gets warm, and you can get it out. But I grew up in a suburb of Boston, and my mom was working all day, so I was alone a lot. I had sisters, but they're living their own lives, and I used to, being a boy is, it can be really lonely, you know. Now, I had a great mother. So Ingram is like me without a mom, you know, in Texas, I guess. I mean, you must have done so much research, though, because no? No, nothing. No. I just...

Yeah. But like they were in an oil refinery at one point. Yes. It gets really deep into the details of oil refinery. How did you know? I've never been on one. I have no idea. I've never read about one or watched a movie about one. I just imagined how they must do it, and I made it up. And the other thing is because of Ingram's innocence,

we're only seeing the way he saw it. Do you know what I mean? Right. I just asked him to tell me what was going on. I never felt in control of this story. He just was telling me what he saw, you know. And some of it gets really weird. He sees some things that I'm not sure what they were, so I don't know.

I mean, it's so moving because he just has this cycle of life where he keeps thinking it's going to get better, and then it's three steps forward, two steps back. Yeah. And he keeps trying to connect with people, and they always seem to abandon him. He finally does make one friend, this character, Bart. Yeah.

And then they're roommates at this, I guess, this oil refiner. Yeah. Tough life. And they're in the same small room. And I noticed you go into one, he kind of loses this friend because one night, Ingram discovers masturbation. That's right.

And kind of pays a high price for that. Yeah. Where do you get your idea? Well, like you said, write what you know. Well... That was good, Phil. That was really good. I read the book carefully.

I really loved it. Yeah. So you're going to Saudi Arabia. I am. You're part of this big festival over there. Yes, yes. What do you think about the fact that we have a schism here in the comedy community?

Now, I'm going to throw my cards on the table here. Sure. I have mixed feelings about this, I basically think it's a great idea to go and go anywhere like that. Mm-hmm. Because purists bug me because they think change has to happen overnight. Change doesn't ever happen overnight. No.

There are restrictions on what you can say, because this is the first time. Yeah. But somebody has to go the first time and do your act. You're not allowed to talk about religion or the royals. Well, royals is the government and religion. Without that, I would have no act. Right. Right. I still think the people who are doing it are brave,

and apparently the ones over there are enjoying it. Yes, they're all, what I'm talking about, all the comedians that have been there, and they've been really surprised by what's going on. There is a woman who's a lesbian and Jewish, who did a show there, and she got a standing ovation. And so there's stuff going on that's unexpected in this thing. And people have been playing Saudi Arabia for years.

Like, comedians have been going and playing Arab countries. there was a film festival there recently. Like, it's kind of opened up. But I've always said no to Arab countries doing shows. I do shows everywhere. Like this show, I'm playing in India. I'm playing in Turkey. I'm playing in Bangkok, Hong Kong, all over the world this year.

And when this came up, they said there's only two restrictions. It's their religion and their government. And I don't have jokes about those two things. It used to be when I got offers from places like that, that'd be a long list. And I just say, no, I don't need that. But when I heard it's opening, I thought, that's awfully interesting. That just feels like a good opportunity. And I just think comedy is a great way to get in and start talking. And there's Saudi Arabian comedians there. And I'm going to a comedy club in Saudi Arabia the first night I get there to just see what's

going on. I love stand-up comedy and I love comedians. So the fact that that's opening up and starting to bud, I want to see it. I want to be part of it. I, I don't know. I think that's a positive. I think so true. Dave Chappelle said it was in the press today, saying that you can speak more freely over here than in America. I don't know if that's true. Oh, it's not true.

No, no. Do your hunk on Muhammad, Dave. Yeah. Well, he's a Muslim, David's. I understand. So it depends on who you are and what you want to talk about. Now, you go there, there's a pre-decide like there's a thing you buy into. Do you want to work here, then don't talk about these two things?

Other than that, my act is pretty offensive to most people. So it's going to be interesting to see how that feels, you know. To me, that's just an opportunity. Your act is not offensive. It's edgy. It's offensive. You wouldn't be nearly as popular as you are. No, no, definitely. It's worthy. Look, I think the whole discussion is worthy.

I think it's, I'm glad these guys brought this stuff up. glad that people are challenging this thing, because you shouldn't just pretend it's something it's not. Right. So don't fool yourself. I'm grateful to the comics that brought it up, like David Cross and Mark Marin. It's funny because David and I were roommates when we were 19 years old. We lived together in Boston.

Wow. And we were just scrappy young guys. And Mark was there, too. He was a dishwasher at a place called The Coffee Connection. And we were just kids trying to be comics in Boston. Dave had this bit about shaving the Pope's pussy. That was one of his bits. This is the kind of, and I just loved him because he was so, you know.

And then later, David Cross wrote an open letter to Larry the cable guy telling him to quit comedy. You can look that up because he hated him. So he's an opinionated guy. These guys were my friends. I used to hang out with them constantly. And what brought us together was that we were comedians and we loved comedy. And they're on the other side of the debate. And we've drifted as friends and I miss them.

but it's just funny to me. Today I was thinking about that, that all this crazy thing going on, it's those two guys, and then I walked by a car that didn't have a driver, and I was like, it's the future now. And life is so weird

that my roommate and I are in this, you know what I mean? But I'm grateful for what he said, because you should say that side too. I think everything that's being said about it, about that's a worthy discussion. When are you appeasing? When are you engaging?

And I have mixed feelings, about it too. I struggled about going once I started hearing what everyone was saying. Now you're doing the right thing. But, well, I don't know. There's some there's some good in it, maybe some bad in it, but I think

for me it cuts towards going. And that's my decision. I know where it's coming from because I can see right inside myself. And everything is about the future. What do you think about the future? Like, let me ask you one final question. A.I. I'm so curious about where you are on AI,

because I feel like maybe this is just because we're comics and I love us. So I think that we are like the last thing AI can do. I think if AI could do what you could do, then the world is over. Because what somebody like you does is think of things that have never been thought of before. That's why it's a bit. If anybody who had ever thought of it, it wouldn't be funny. It wouldn't be a bit. And AI can only look into the past and whatever, you know, on the Internet,

forever. I don't think it can ever do what we do. Well, I think AI can imitate us really well. AI can probably listen to me and make a bit that sounds like me, but it can't come up with a new comedian. And like I have a friend who's an editor and editors are getting wiped out by AI, because AI can see the rhythm of editing and it can imitate it. But the problem is those new jobs for editors and writers, the Schleppy jobs, that's where great editors and writers come from. The training ground is doing the early small position jobs and then having an idea, what if you did it this way? The reason that art keeps growing is because there's weird people

with unpredictable ideas like mutating it. But I think the problem, AI will be so efficient that a lot of companies will do it, but it'll freeze. It'll freeze the progress. But that'll just be for the companies that do it. Somebody else will go, we're doing natural art, and they'll end up winning. Because people like to connect with other people.

Art is about connecting with people. So, all right, well, there's a funny thing going on where if you want to write a letter to somebody, you can write the bullet points, and then AI will write the letter. And then the person who gets it can get AI to read it and give you bullet points. So what the fuck is that?

Right. All right. Well, if you're still enjoying 20th, 19th century, stuff. Louis' book it's called Ingram. I loved it. He's the new Mark Twain. All right. Pauley C. Kay. You see you proud. Look.

Be careful over there. All right. I see you soon. Time to meet our panel. Okay. Hey, guys. All right. He is a political commentator for CNN and the founder of Dream Machine.org and Rappore.

com. Van Jones. Yeah, Van Man. Back with us. Looking good, as always. He's a best-selling author. three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter in commerce for the New York Times. Tom Friedman, Tom. It's been way so long since I've seen you. And the comedy and media gods have blessed us,

because you were here on the perfect night, because it's Friday here in Los Angeles, and October 3rd. And it looks like maybe peace is at hand, as Henry Kissinger once said about another war in the Middle East. I don't know. This is just, again, what we're getting today as of October 3rd. Trump said he believed Hamas was ready for a lasting peace,

demanded Israel stop the bombing. Hamas said they are ready to release all the Israeli hostages. Well, you know, after they killed almost all of them. So let's think I get too excited about that. Based on field conditions, I don't know what that means, but this peace plan, you called it a smart plan in your column yesterday. You say yes, Qatar say yes. Where are we?

Well, Bill, this was a very important day, obviously, and the key thing was, what would Trump say to Hamas' response, which was a yes-but, basically? Would Trump say, sorry, yes unconditionally to everything I laid down, or would Trump say, love it, work with it, going with it? And Trump said, love it, work with it, going with it, which means we're at the beginning of another really long negotiation. Yeah, I mean, here's the sticking point.

Gaza will be governed under this pan. this is one of the points of their 20-point plan, by a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee. And there's lots of those over there. I mean, if it's one thing I've always heard about the Middle East, it's passions are low. They run low. So what does that mean?

Can anyone... Well, look, I'll take hope wherever I can find it at this point. You know, any country would have fought back hard if people had done what was done October 7th. We've got to remember that. It's the equivalent of 40,000 Americans being murdered on one day. And so you are going to fight back. You're going to fight back hard. But revenge is not a strategy.

And the problem you have now is that this war has gone on so long that 80% of Israelis wanted to wind down. They just want the hostages back. So I'm glad that Trump is trying. I'm glad he's putting pressure on the different parties, but what we know for sure is that the butt is bigger than the yes right now. They said yes to get the headline, but there's a whole bunch of butts here that we're going to have to work, work our way through. My concern is that you have about a billion young people on planet Earth who only heard one thing about Israel in their entire lives. That's just that Israel is hurting the Gossans. They live through TikTok.

That's all they see. That's all they know. and my concern is I think some of my friends in Israel think they've got a hard power military problem against local bad actors. That's true, but they also have a soft power global information war problem with a whole generation that just thinks that they're doing bad stuff. So if they can stop the bombing, which Trump called for, and give people a chance to look at what's going on,

we can put the focus back on the hostages and maybe get this thing wound down. That's what I hope. You said in your column, Netanya, who can declare. with some justification, Israel is defending Western democratic values by defeating the Islamo-fascist Hamas in Gaza. What could be more important than that? I mean, if you agree with that, and I agree with that,

aren't we burying the lead? Isn't that the story of this war, a clash of civilizations, and whose side are we on? The problem for Israel, Bill, is that that has been true on that front with Hamas and at the same time, Israel in the West Bank. has been engaged in a Western-style colonial enterprise. And the problem was it didn't want to...

Always are you saying recently? Recently. I mean, with this government in particular, this is the first Israeli government that came in with a mandate to annex the West Bank. So that's been the problem for the very good. My view on the war was that Israel was fully justified in responding. But this was a very different enemy, Hamas,

because it had basically stationed itself in tunnels under all these civilian hospitals and homes, etc. So there's always going to be a lot of civilian casualties. It seemed to me the key thing for Israel was to make clear, we're going to go after these people, we're going to do what we have to do. They're going to be civilian casualties. But it's for the purpose of changing Gaza and producing a different Palestinian government there. Unfortunately, Netanyahu fought this war for two years now without ever committing himself to any endgame,

particularly a negotiation with a different Palestinian authority or a different Palestinian government. And that's what's hurt to Van's point. That when you're fighting a war and there's no endgame clear, it just starts to look like killing. Well, what would the endgame be? I don't know. I mean, they gave Gaza back in 2005. They unilaterally gave it back. They have offered...

Let me just say that, you know, we can get into this debate. What would the end game be? But this is my reaction to that, okay? The end game, if you can win that debate, but what you win is Israel is you win 7 million Jews, governing 7 million Palestinians. in perpetuity in the age of TikTok. And that's a losing strategy. It is.

And so all I've been about is trying, from the very beginning, figure out how to end this thing in a way where there is a Palestinian partner and you have a real alternative to Hamas. Otherwise, Israel winning, you win Gaza forever. And that's a bad, bad thing if you care about the future of the Jewish state. I agree that's a bad look for Israel.

I just don't know what the better look at. You know, I mean, it's like when you deal with suicide bombers, it's very hard, or anybody who uses suicide attacks, it's very hard to win and negotiate with someone who doesn't care if they live. And let's be honest, Tomas is a kind of a death cult. They have to be defeated, but you have to keep working for an alternative

because if you don't, that is the default. You end up owning Gaza, and that's a really bad thing. One thing about Bibi Netanyahu, who is not my favorite politician at all, is that he could just take a W at this point. I agree with you. Trying to figure out how to get all this stuff worked all the way through is difficult. But Hezbollah is essentially decapitated. That's a win. The Assad regime is gone. Iran has been pushed way back. Hamas definitely is no longer, if they think they can do it October 7th again, they're probably going to reconsider it.

So there is a victory here on the hard power side. I think the problem is now on both sides. how do you begin to reestablish Israel as the beacon for the young people around the world? In 10 years of young people right now, in 10 years they'll be in Parliament, and 10 years after that, they're going to be prime ministers. And right now, they don't get the joke. They've lost the plot. And so I think I'm much less concerned about figuring out what's happening inside of Palestinian society than global youth society, and that's where we're losing the plot.

Isn't part of that because we had to fold everything into critical race theory, and somehow the Middle East became part of... I see it differently. And I love this conversation because I think people, those of us who went to college, give a lot more credit to college courses for how the world works than I do. This is not about critical race theory on college campuses. This is about Iran. Iran and Qatar have come up with a disinformation campaign that they are running through TikTok and Instagram that is massive. If you are a young person, you open up your phone and all you see is dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby,

dead guy's baby. Right. Diddy. Dead guy's a baby, dead guy's a baby. That's basically your whole theme. That's not, that's not DEI. That is a geopolitical adversary that is,

that is deliberately trying to divide the West against itself. That view is not, but the idea that, I mean, you're talking about young people, a lot of them seem to know one thing. White people did some very bad things in this world, and they certainly did. But there are other things to know. Yes.

And not. Including the fact that in Sudan right now, which nobody is talking about, you have Arab militia murdering people by the wheelbarrow, including the fact that Africa right now is being overrun by Islamist terrorists, including Boca Iran with no conversation about that at all. I did it last week. Nigeria. Yeah, Nigeria.

I mean, this is an actual planned genocide. Yes. I mean, they really want to kill all the Christians in that country, and they are systematically doing it. And the fact that there's almost no response from the global left and no attention from mainstream media is a crime against African people, black people, and human rights.

I agree with that 100%. It turns out that there's a double standard for Jews. That is true. No Jews, no news. As long as you can put the Jewish state in the conversation, it's going to be a big conversation. If you can't, you get no attention at all. This is a big problem.

The thing is, though, it's a big problem. The thing is, though, when you're in a hole quit digging, I would like for Israel to stop doing what it's doing now to give people a chance to catch up this conversation. As long as it's just bad picture after bad picture after bad picture, we're not going to be able to get anywhere. Dear Colin, you said, in Washington officials lie in public

and tell the truth in private. And in the Middle East, it's the opposite. They tell the truth in private and lie in public. What do you mean by that? What I meant, Bill, is that when I was a reporter in the Middle East, I'll tell you a story. I was in Israel, and Yitzhak Rabin, then the defense minister,

was talking about South Lebanese. He said, the South Lebanese don't behave and stop doing what they're doing. We're going to break their bones. Happened to me that day I had an appointment with Rabin. That's a pretty powerful quote. Went to his office. Mr. Defense Minister, if South Lebanese don't behave the way you argue, what will happen to them?

He said, if they don't behave the way they should, something bad is going to happen to them, okay? He realized he was talking to the New York Times, okay? So what people say to you in private in the Middle East is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public in their own language. And that's why I always listen to that. And that's why I listened to when Netanyahu went home from the meeting with Trump. He was much more circumspect than he was at the White House.

And look, this is going to be a really hard negotiation. But my approach to it to pick up on Van's point is, I don't want to win a debate. I want to see Israel thrive. And what Hamas wanted from the very beginning bill was to get Israel stuck in the sands of Gaza forever because they knew in this world of social media that's how they could bleed them. That was the asymmetry they could use.

And all I'm saying is, you know, the history of this conflict really is the history of war time out, war time out, war time out, war time out. And what the history is really about is who did what during the timeout. Israel built a pretty amazing economy, society, and country. And Palestinians did for a million other reasons. Get to the timeout. Don't get stuck in their world. That's my whole philosophy.

A little over the news from the Middle East, apropos of our discussion about Saudi Arabia and on the Middle East, I see in Afghanistan, they took down the Internet and now they have put it back up. Apparently they took it down. I read in the paper, there's been some dispute about why they did it. But apparently it was because it causes immorality. This would not be out of custom with. the Taliban. Since we

pulled out in 2021, here are some of the things the Taliban has done. Manikins had to be beheaded. That's not a joke. Manikins. We're too much for them. Manikins. I've seen ones in department stores here that look beheaded. And that's like a look. But here they did

education for girls. No. They couldn't go to the parks. Couldn't go to the parks. Meryl Streep famously said it, testifying, a squirrel has more rights than a girl in Afghanistan because a squirrel can go to the park. They shut down the beauty salons. They shut down.

Women couldn't, of course, they have to wear the full body covering, hearing other women's voices. So they had to, you not only can't talk, now you can't listen. So when I saw this story about the, Afghan internet going down. I said, well, we used to do a thing on this show called Revealing Google Searchers.

And now that they're back up there in Afghanistan, we're going to do a special Afghan edition of Google Searches. Would you like to do this? For example, fun gift ideas for celebrating 9-11. Where to watch tonight's beheading? Well, sure, that's tonight. What's the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and my daughter? Can a chopped off?

rough hand grow back. Well, that's a good. Is Paul Rudd Jewish? Wow. Even... Even in Afghanistan, they're doing after... Oh, step-sister stoning videos. What year is it?

Couldn't the NFL find someone better than bad bunny? Oh, I... Even in Afghanistan, they're asking that. Hmm. Sydney Sweeney fully clothed. Are videos of women driving cars real or AI? And of course, how to cancel Disney Plus. That's everywhere in the world.

All right. So, let's get to the domestic news. Okay, this is, if you went to the Department of Agriculture's website today, said, Trump, you've got to say, politically, no one can touch him. Due to the radical left Democratic shutdown, okay, right off the bat. We've had so many shutdowns. Nobody ever did that, but that's how he plays the game. So if you're not following this, what's going on here is that during COVID,

they expanded the Obamacare credits so that people could get health care. I've never understood, by the way, the bizarre Republican obsession with taking health care away from people. I mean, first of all, I mean, Mitt Romney did it in Massachusetts, and it was a Republican idea. Like, people are getting free health care in the emergency room. Let's stop that. No freeloaders. We're Republicans.

I just don't get it. How many times did they try to kill Obama? Then they did get rid of the mandate. It still survived. But this is the only leverage Democrats have. Democrats want to restore this and some of the Medicaid cuts. This is about health care. Democrats think this is the one issue we have, and this is the one leverage we have,

which is to shut down the government, because after all, they don't have any other power. And the question I'm asking is, who's going to win this? Can they, because people will lose that. Kaiser predicts premium payments in 26 will more than double if the ACA enhanced premium tax credits expire. Can the pain that people feel be connected to the Trump administration? This has been the hard thing for Democrats. always. Can you connect the pain

to the people providing it? Look, I'm going to maybe piss off some of my Democratic friends, but I think you can always trust our party to do the wrong thing at the wrong time for the right reason. Okay, so here's a problem.

Right now, if the Democrats don't do anything and they pass this clean resolution, which they don't want to do, if they did it, guess what would happen this month? Premiums would start going through the roof this month. By the time you at the end of November, you would have Americans marching in the streets saying, I can't pay 150% more for my insurance premiums.

What the heck is going on? Instead, we decided to not let that happen and shut the entire government down. So now people are going to be mad about the post office and 100 other things that Republicans can then blame on us. So I'm like, I get it. The base is upset. The base wants us to do something. Please do something to do anything.

But something probably shouldn't be throwing a bunch of people out of work in the federal government. and crushing America's government's ability to function right before the pain was about to start. So that's my concern. You know, my reaction is related to your reflection about what they put on those websites. It did at the Department of Education too. Like if you got a out-of-work message,

it came up and said, you know, basically the Democrats closed the government from, they forced people to put that on, or they just put that on people's phone messages or email messages. I'm actually looking more at independence. Because the question for me is, not what's happening now. What's going to happen in the midterm?

Because everything to me is about the midterm. Democrats have to get power. And I think the key is going to be what independents do. They really gave Trump the last election. And I want to go back again to your introduction. I think independents are looking at all this stuff, Hanks his speech. Trump's press conference with Netanyahu, these kinds of things.

And they're sitting back and saying, there is some crazy shit going on, okay? And I am not comfortable with this. This is just really getting out of control. My hope, my sense, because I'm kind of an independent myself, that that's where people are feeling, and that's what will determine the 20... Honestly, Tom, the midterm. Crazy shit has not moved them for 10 years.

I remember being on this show the night of the debate when Trump was ranting about their eating the dogs. And I was like, that has got to be. That just was the most unhinged thing. But we have had an election. I mean, I take it for what it's worth. You know, Sioux City, Iowa, these seats that have flipped. Spanberger in Virginia now hugely ahead.

I just think a lot of independents are looking at this and saying this is getting, and not just this, but the whole authoritarian move, this is really scary stuff. And I think that's what I'm hoping for. There's lots of things they don't like. To your point, I mean, I look at the list of, apparently I didn't see this. but I'm just going by what the list of government offices, departments that are affecting this the most.

So I assume the Trump administration is the one who decides when they cut off money when the government's because we have no more money. October 1st was the fiscal new year. I always throw a rager. And now there's no more money, but they have some, but they keep some people working. Well, like EPA, they close down like 89% of the EPA. Surprise.

So they're just going to close down the shit. They wanted to close down anyway. The economy, we were going to get very, very bad job numbers today. And, of course, Donald Trump, aka the luckiest man in the world, now we won't have those numbers at all. But if the economy goes in the shitter, he's going to say, well, the Democrats closed down the government. That's what did it.

It was all going fine until then. I like the fact that we have this leverage, and I just want to use it at the right time. Wait, give it till, I would have said. And the weird thing is, I talked to Chuck Schumer about this like three months ago, and he was kicking me in the butt because I had been tough on him for not allowing the government to shut down. And he convinced me that shutting the government down is stupid. Then I call the TV, and he says, we're now shutting the government down.

So hold on a second, guys. He once convinced me to give him a million dollars and not put down the drain. Exactly. So, look, my view is the Republicans were about to let us. a bunch of Americans, 15 million Americans, step on a rake called their insurance premiums going through the roof. That's when you shut the government down. But you do it before, and now it's just going to be one more piece of garbage coming up the American people. I just think the timing is not that great, but look, maybe it'll work. Okay, so you mentioned the Pete Higg said thing I was

talking about in the monologue, and the kicker was somewhere in the middle, or maybe it was at the end when Trump got up there. And look, I don't know if this is a riff or this is a major policy change because sometimes he just riffs and he just says something and you go, what? Training grounds for the enemy within was the phrase that stuck out in my mind. This is what he said.

He said, President, I've got an idea, said, he said, we should use troops in cities, our dangerous cities. Troops. He's talking to the troops here. Use them as training grounds. In other words, in case we have to fight the homeless overseas.

We're going to use the military. Now, again, sometimes he just says shit. I remember when, after one of the school shootings, they were having a roundtable thing, and he said to Mike Pence, it was the price. He said, Mike, maybe we take away the guns first. Can you imagine if people really took him seriously, especially on the right, take away the guns?

And then it was to forgotten the next day. Now, maybe this will be forgotten the next day. But it's scary. You know what kills me about that whole story, though, that whole event, Bill, if I could say, is I just came from Kiev. I was there a couple weeks ago. You are watching there the greatest freedom fight on the planet, okay? Ukrainian struggling, inventing, you know, drones themselves. They're scraping like anything to beat the Russians back.

And Hexas is talking about lethality and all this fighting spirit. Meanwhile, they're not giving a dime, a dime in their new budget for Ukraine. Okay? So, like, what is all this lethality for? Number two, while I was over there, I thought we were giving the money to the other European countries to get weapons to the Ukraine. No, no, no, no, the other Europeans are giving their own money to buy weapons from us to give to the Ukrainians, okay? So it's a little different. Number one, we zeroed them out.

Number two, while I was over there, Russia sent 20 drones into Poland. What was Rubio's, our Secretary of State's response? Well, we're still studying. It could have been an accident. 20 drones over six hours was an accident, you know? Then they sent Miggs over Estonia. So these guys are doing this whole ethality thing, and we're fighting spirit and do more push-ups

and get rid of your beard, okay? And meanwhile, Putin every day is fighting a hybrid war, and we're leaving on the field the greatest freedom fight on the planet right now. I agree 100%. Also, I agree 100%, but also, what a small, insecure man, heck said this. To be sitting up there, cleaning about how, you know, basically girls aren't good enough and all this sort of stuff. Nobody on planet Earth.

I mean, it's just weird. Like, nobody on planet Earth is sitting here saying, we used to be afraid of the United States military, and now we're not because there are women in there. Literally, we are the most feared military in the world. That's why the world is as stable as it is. And nobody's complaining about it, except this one dude who decides that he just can't stand the fact that there are women who have arms. As a father of a daughter, I think every girl dad should be offended by what he said. The women who are in our armed forces can kick his ass any day of the week.

I'm depressed. To pick up on Van's point, when I'm depressed, what I really enjoyed doing is traveling with the U.S. military. That's right. Because what you see is our real strength. It's our ability to make out of many one, okay? That's actually our real strength.

And when you see them operate in the Middle East where people can't make out of many one, that's when you understand the real secret of our sauce. So, headlining your paper today, top story, most voters say U.S. can't repair severe divisions. and they went into the fact that five years ago, even, during the pandemic and during the George Floyd protests, even then, people thought, well, we are going to get through this.

And now they seem to be on the page of, it's not going to happen. What do we do? Do you see the story? Yeah, I think what's new about this moment, one of my teachers and friends, Doe Seidman, likes to say this, we aren't divided. We are being divided by companies for profit, okay? And we have our divisions.

We always have. Always has it. But it is now a giant, what is new in my life is it is now a giant industry to make people stupid and angry. And I'm not sure what happens. We're going on algorithms. Right, exactly. And Facebook and all the things that these people do. And we'd be, you know, the way I look at the world right now, we're going through a lot of social change.

We're going through a lot of technological change. The pot would be boiling. But then along came Mark Zuckerberg and turned the heat up on the pot. And then along came Trump, and he took the lid off the pot. And he made it permissible, popular, and profitable. To say and do things to and about each other, we never did before. And all three of those things need to be addressed. The crazy thing for me is when you talk to people, when you ask people to put the phone down for a second,

and you actually talk to people. Actually, people are not as divided. But the thing is, at some point, you on your phone, you ordered a... a yoga mat or something, your algorithm figured out, you're a liberal. Then your neighbor looked up a truck, you're conservative. And from that day forward, you got different information every day and nobody sent the notice. And so now you literally think your neighbor is insane because how could they possibly think this stuff? But if you put your phone next to their phone, you're in different

algorithmic universes and that is brand new and very dangerous. All right. Thank you. We've got to end it there. Great work, guys. It's time for New Rules, everybody. Thank you. Okay, New Rule, children's animators must tell me why they always draw the sun with sunglasses on. Sunlasses are supposed to protect your eyes from the sun.

Why would the sun be wearing them? It's like when they do cartoon pigs and they're wearing a barbecue apron. Jesus. Why don't you just put a happy baby on a box of condom? New Rule, using a skincare brand called activist doesn't actually make you an activist. You know what Malcolm X, Caesar Chavez, and Lequileza all had in common? None of them sold an active hydration serum. This stuff may be great for those fine lines and wrinkles, but I just don't see how it leads to restore it.

of justice for marginalized communities. That said, I never go anywhere without my tube of, this sunscreen kills fascists. New World, someone has to explain how I can be a red-blooded, freedom-loving American male and still want to be taken over by this Chinese all-female brigade.

Seriously, ladies, strip me naked, put me in a tiger cage. And let's violate the Geneva Convention. And don't hate me if I say, I'd like to love me for a long time. New Rule, now that there's an AI-powered necklace you can buy called Friend that listens to everything you say and then gives you positive feedback,

I'd just like to say to the poor, lonely people who buy this, if you think you have no real friends now, wait till everyone sees you talking to your necklace. New Roll, directors have to find a better way to show that their anti-hero doesn't give a fuck than putting him outside in a bathrobe. In the movie, one battle after another, Leonardo DiCaprio spends the whole movie outside in a bathrobe, just like the dude in the Big Lobowski, and Tony Soprano, and Hawkeye in Mash, and Ferris Bueller,

and Brad Pitt and Fight Club. Man, if wearing a bathrobe all day made you this cool, wouldn't Joe Biden still be president? And finally, new rule of all the ways America continues to divide itself. nowhere is it more pronounced than in gender, and until the Democrats come to grips with that, they won't have much success winning elections. Let's just put it out there. Women are the Democrats' base,

and men who get hit in the head for a living are Trumps. They're the bro party, the party of car shows on the White House lawn, and breaking shit and seeing what happens, and busting balls and shooting stuff like beer. and laws. Oh, yeah. It's been that way for a long time,

the mommy party and the daddy party, the party of pussy hats and the party of truck nuts. But that divide is on steroids now and getting worse. In the 24 election, young men preferred Trump by two points, and young women, Kamala,

by 24. The only way Trump can appeal to women 18 to 39 is making him one of his lawyers. men and women can barely date anymore because they can't stomach each other's politics. That's why everyone is gay now. We're just done with each other. If you don't believe me, ask yourself,

what podcasts do I listen to? Trump Bros. have 50,000 of them about politics and protein powder. While in the woman's fear, the podcasts are all about balancing career and motherhood until eventually true crime happens and someone gets murdered. They like murder, we like killing people. Here's a mind-blowing stat about the divide. 73% of boomer men disagreed with the statement,

mental health challenges are an important part of my identity. 72% of Gen Z women said the opposite. They agreed mental health challenges are an important part of my identity. Okay, let's say it all together. Women are better than men. They're smarter and kinder and make way better firefighters. But I'm never moving past it. Isn't really the campaign slogan we're looking for.

I'm sorry, Democratic women, but this is your party. You have a special responsibility to look tough. Senator Alyssa Slotkin seems to get that, and not just because of her service in Iraq and with the CIA, but because she says things like Democrats need to fucking retake the flag. Democrats have to stop being weak and woke, she says. Good message.

Because no one's holding women back anymore. In many ways, they're leaving men in the dust. Women are much less likely to be unemployed now, less likely to blow a month's pay on draft kings. And much more likely to complete college. The only writing young men do these days is engraving their bullets. Booing into applause. Very rare.

America now has 14 million women-owned businesses, which generate 2.7 trillion in revenue. Yeah. Women launched 49% of all new businesses in 2024, and the number of black women-owned businesses outpaced the growth rates of every other demographic. I'm spitting facts. In the Barbie, in the Barbie,

in the barbie. Barbie movie, when she storms into the Mattel boardroom, it's 12 people, all men. But Mattel is a real company, and in 2023, their boardroom was actually six men and five women. Perpetuating victimhood, especially when it's false,

is not a great advertisement for leadership. Kamala Harris' new memoir of the 24 election is called 107 days, but it should have been called, everyone sucks but me. 107 days is a victim's title, because get it, she only had a

107 days to win. Yeah, and a half, and a billion and a half dollars. And a built-in army of about 75 million people who'd vote for any human-adjacent life form that wasn't Trump. But in 107 days, nothing is ever Kamala's fault. Biden lets her down by not stepping down sooner. Pouty face emoji. Gavin Newsom, he was asked for his endorsement, but texted, hiking, we'll call back.

But then never did. And then he didn't even ask her to prom. America, America itself, lets Kamala down by not being ready for the running mate she really wanted Pete Buttigieg. So she stuck with the Home Depot paint salesman. And the rest is herstery. Poor Kamala, we made her the star of a rom-com

and didn't even give her a gay best friend. Pamela writes that on election night, when it was clear she lost, an aide peeled the words, Madam President, off the cupcakes before handing them out. Oh, geez, that's like a scene from Bridget Jones runs for president.

For Christ's sake. Look, ladies, I know this isn't fair, but we're all always running against the worst cliche of who people think we are. Women Democrats can't look over-sensitive or preachy or unable to laugh at themselves. They also can't look silly like Gritchin Whitmer did trying to hide in the Oval Office.

They have to look brave and strong. It wasn't a good look for the woman party that all the guys were speaking out for Jimmy Kimmel when Trump went after him, except on the woman's show, where for five days the outspoken hosts were suddenly as quiet as a geisha. Then on the fifth day, they rose and said,

no one silences us. No one had to. You silenced yourself. Lopi Goldberg continued, did you all really think we weren't going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel? No, I thought you would, but then you didn't. Five days? Talk about needing extra time to get ready.

And if you can't take a brief breath and laugh at that, you're making my point for me. All right, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. We're off next week. Back on the 17th, I want to thank Van Jones, Tom Freeman, and Louis C.K. Club random drops every Monday on YouTube or listen to ready to get your podcast. Now go to overtime on YouTube.

Thank you very much, ladies to go to. 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 to HBO.com. Lazzang sur-gillet, Pucance-moirene, for 15 minutes. We're like to dojo. Pre to play a joy?

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