Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #737: Mike Rowe, Tara Palmeri, Matt Welch

Episode Date: August 8, 2026

Bill’s guests are Mike Rowe, Tara Palmeri, Matt Welch (Originally aired 8/7/26) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Oh, man. Shop back to school at IKEA. Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late-night series, Real Time with Bill Maugh. News from outer space. Don't, did you see this? You know, Elon Musk has this company, SpaceX, an amazing company. And they went public a few months ago, did very well. But their rocket crashed into the moon.

I don't know if you said they were a rocket. Not there for, look, that's science. Things go wrong before they go right. But yes, we hit the moon with the rocket. Trump announced today the moon has been completely defeated and they're begging for a deal. Begging for a deal.

Oh, I kid. I kid the Iran war. Is it a war? I don't know. It's a war, not a war. It's complicated. That's its status. It's very complicated. Iran, ooh, now they're saying that they're going to the straight of her moves is open

except they're going to ban ships just from the United States and Israel. This really pissed off Trump. He said, you are so lucky we are out of missiles. Turns out we are. We kept saying to Iran, there's more where that came from. No, turns out not. Turns out not more where that came from.

I don't know. We spent a trillion dollars on defense and were out of missiles. You know, French fries are expensive at McDonald's, but when you look at the bottom of the bag, there's one left. President had a, I would say, a mixed week. He did get his Attorney General through. That's his personal lawyer, is the Attorney General. And he got his Director of National Intelligence through,

but he lost Janine Piro. Even she would not go along with his story about the reflecting pool. And she's pretty far maga, but no, even she wouldn't go along, and Trump said she folded like an umbrella. Don't we want umbrellas to fold? I mean, is that... It's like...

It's like saying about some guy, you know, like, boy, that guy really shot the toilet. Yeah, that's where you shit. But yeah, Janine Piro literally brought a suitcase of evidence to the White House to show it wasn't vandals. It was bad construction. And Trump, not buying it, he was sad. He said, people get away with things into disgrace. He was very wounded.

He said, sometimes I wonder why I even bother making shit up. I tend to president. But listen, while we're obsessing about reflecting pools and the ballroom, that was in the news today, the ballroom, the pool. I say this every week. AI, going to kill us all. Last week, it was they kind of like went into their own evolution. They can evolve on their own.

Now, we found out this week, for the first time, they've created functioning viruses not seen in nature. No date when we'll all be dead, but you can access the new platform through chat RIP. Listen, said this before. I hope the aliens are here. I do. I hope they're here and watching this, and they're going to save us. And by the way, the administration this week, just a few days ago, maybe yesterday,

they unleashed a new trove of UFO files. Interesting things in there. Triangular craft, weird lights over an army base, a stick-like figure with large eyes. That was just an RER in a Grande video. Please. We can. We want her to, maybe that joke will make her eat something. So it's, I'm doing my, I'm saying it, maybe it'll help.

Speaking of eating something, I've got to tell you this, Democrats have found a candidate who hates Thanksgiving and wants to get rid of it. Yes, running for governor in Wisconsin, Francesca Hong. Have you heard about this? Yeah, Thanksgiving, she says, should be canceled. And I say, good. Finally, a politician willing to stand up to big stuffing.

Gotta love the Democrats. And surprisingly, Debbie Downer's policy about Thanksgiving is not popular with anybody, really. I mean, white people don't like it, people of color don't like it, women don't like it, men don't like it. It does have 98% approval with turkeys. But of course, you know, she wrote this,

she said right on her tweet a couple of years ago, I'd get rid of Thanksgiving. Of course, yesterday she went unseen and renounced it. I don't believe you. I don't believe you people who renounced things. We know what you said. You mean it, live by it. He's fucking squirrelly out of it. No, you meant it.

You know why I know she meant it? Because she hates all holidays. She talked about feeling attacked on Christmas when someone put on her computer a Christmas scene. Doesn't like fireworks Fourth of July. Halloween. All the far lefties hate Halloween. Costumes that are inappropriate.

Oh, please. This woman doesn't like Valentine's Day. Another way of capitalism taking over our love life. She said, Valentine's Day, the holiday that brings out the worst of humanity. That's the holiday that... That's the holiday that brings out the worst of humanity? Have you ever been to a Black Friday sale?

People... Well, a hip-checking old lady to get an air friar. That's the worst. Okay, so this is their... Her policy, no Christmas, no Thanksgiving, no July 4th, no Halloween, no Valentine's Day, one place you don't have to worry about running into Francesca Hong, Party City.

Also, I couldn't make a character like this up, and she's running for governor of a big state, Wisconsin. She also said that she once left a restaurant because she had an anxiety attack from being

around, quote, too many old white people. Well, there's an easy solution of that. Don't go to Cracker barrel. All right. We got a great show. Sarah Palmeri and Matt Welter here.

But first up, he is the founder and CEO of the Mike Rowe works foundation and host of the way I heard it podcast, Mike Rowe. It's been so long since you've been with us. I'm glad you wore your blue jeans. You wore the, yes, your work boots, even on a show

like this. You're the blue car. This is so weird. Why? It was literally 13 years ago. We weren't in this studio. Went like that.

In a blink. But it was the most... I was just talking in makeup. I'm wearing makeup. It was the strangest week for me because I did your show. The foundation had just announced a scholarship program,

so I'm out there hawking it, and I'm making the rounds. And we had a great conversation, and it moved the needle. Three days later, I wound up having the exact same conversation with Glenn Beck on his show. Wow.

Move the needle. It was great. Went home, felt pretty good, went on the socials. And that's the first time I saw all my buddies on the right completely lost their minds when they saw me talking to you. And all my buddies on the left completely lost their minds when they saw me talk in the back. Fuck both of them. You know what? It was truly the first time, though, I realized, I don't think people are listening to anything I'm saying. I think they're looking at who I'm sitting next to.

Yeah, people don't engage. I make this complaint all the time. I just say to people, whenever they criticize me, are you engaging with the idea? If you are, we're good. If you're just saying, no, you're old, you're white, you're this, you're that, or on the other side, you're black, you, blah, that's not the idea.

Engage with the idea. What a concept. So let's, yeah. So let's talk about your idea. All right. Because, you know, you are the original blue-collar guy. I mean, your obituary is going to say, you know, blue-collar hero, who put that issue on the map.

You really are. And it's ever more relevant. It is. You know? It's a heck of a thing when the headlines catch up to your own smack. Right.

And honestly, no, look, I was trying it on 13 years ago. The foundation had been around for five years. We were doing a pretty good job of shining a light on a bunch of decent jobs that for a whole lot of reasons

people weren't excited about having. Jobs like... Jobs like... Well, welders, steam fitters, pipe fitters. shipbuilders, linemen, plumbers, electricians, you know, that part of the workforce that doesn't require a four-year degree, but kind of keeps the whole country stitched together. Right.

Dirty Jobs was a love letter to those vocations, but it was an entertainment show. The serious part of me, wanted to do something a bit more on the nose with the foundation. So we started these work ethic scholarships. We've given away about $20 million in these things. Thank you. I wasn't looking for applause, but thank you. But you deserve it. Well, I don't deserve it, but I'll tell you who does.

The people, like you, and I'm not just sucking up, but this is... I'll go ahead. All right. Okay. No, no. No, no, I will. This is marketing and PR 101. And it goes both ways.

You know, people always kind of pooh-poop-poop marketing. They're like, whatever. It's the first thing in the budget to go. But the ideas, the stigmas, the stereotypes, the myths, the misperceptions that surround seven million open jobs right now, many of which are in trades and in manufacturing. Those things are real. And it's a mindset, right? And so to get parents and guidance counselors and people to think differently about the nature of the work,

it's turning a tanker around. And so people are paying attention now more than they have. And you have had an effect. An area we've both agreed on for a long time is we don't, instead of trying to make everybody get a college degree, I've certainly done a number of editorials on this, make it so a college degree is not necessary as much for jobs where it isn't. And 16 states have now put that into law. I think that's because you put that idea in the water. That you don't need a college degree for everything.

And that's what we're doing now. This is great progress, I think, because as you say, there's. There's so many jobs that need to be done, and we don't have enough people to do them. I mean, because of so many things that are, you know, the environment is kind of going off the edge and AI and God knows what else. Fires, we saw all the need for rebuilding here. Rebuilding to me is going to be a very big growth industry. And there's just not enough people to do it. We had $1.1 trillion in outstanding student loans when you and I talked last.

Now it's $1.8 trillion. Most of that's held by kids who either started a four-year degree and dropped out or who got one and statistically aren't working or not working in their chosen field. That's a bad number. Meanwhile, we've got $400,000 jobs in construction right now, twice that many in the defense industrial base. It's bananas. And I'm not sure believe me completely, but not a week goes by when I don't get a call for. from some CEO of some consequential company, some of whom you mentioned in the monologue,

or an elected official, governors mostly. And they're freaking out. Like, they've done the math for every five tradespeople who retire to come in. It's been that way for about 12 years now. So never mind the stigmas and the stereotypes. The arithmetic is horrifying. And it's all just conspired into this bullia base of bad, data and I'm telling you they are in a panic. I mean they I mean anybody certainly any company that has

a blue collar workforce is going full on. Jim Farley told me he's got 5,000 empty bays at Ford these are AI proof six-figure jobs right 120,000 a year he can't fill them he can't fill them and that's but they're out there that's what I're everywhere well there's seven million men able-bodied men, mostly young, who are what they call nilf. Nilf is not in the labor force. This is different than unemployed. Unemployment means you're looking, but you can't find a job. This is not looking.

Not looking. The guy who should be sitting here to have that conversation with you is called Nick Eberstadt. And he wrote a book called Men Without Work. He published it in 2005 originally, and then again during the pandemic. because everything he predicted happened. That exact number right now, it's like 6,990,000 able-bodied men. Not only not working, not looking.

That's never happened in our country, not in peacetime. Why aren't they looking? I think it's because the porn is too good. The porn is excellent. It takes away the motivation. You have to be motivated. You have to, oh, I got to get a job to get a girl. Yeah.

Now, they don't want a girl because they sit home and... Take matters into their own hands? They do. Come on. I mean, come on. Nick would say the question doesn't start with what are they doing. It starts with

what aren't they doing. They're not volunteering at their local church. They're not in the Kiwanis Club. They're not checking out the Rotarians or the Lions Club. They're not in the Boy Scouts or Skills USA. They're not contributing anything in their community. What are they

doing? On average, they're spending between 2,000 and 2,100 hours a year on their screen. It is just, we just haven't seen the like of it before. How are they able to survive? That's, I don't, I can't paint with too broad a brush. Maybe some of them are trust fund kids. Maybe some of them have enough. A lot of it is money from other generations. Sure. You know, they just hate our generation, except when we give them money, that's always okay. Yeah. It's always okay when you get daddy's money. Then the boomers aren't so bad. I shared your monologue from last week.

Oh, yeah. I thought it was really important because you didn't accuse anybody of anything really. Just quoted. You quoted. Yeah. So I put this up on my little page, and I wrote what I wrote, and we have over 200,000 comments on this thing.

You hit something that's so primal right now. And for me, I don't really have a dog in the big socialism hunt specifically, but I've got one in workforce. And when I look at four or five hundred thousand open jobs, and then I look at those seven million able-bodied men, not even looking at the jobs at all, and then I look at this whole conversation unspooling, I don't know if you saw this, but the stat that got me, within the Democratic Party right now,

59% of Democrats who support socialism have college degrees. 40% who support socialism don't. So this thing that's being called a worker uprising, it's really not. It's not. But this is happening because a lot of people with a really expensive credential are in the hole in a big way. And they're pissed. And I don't blame them, honestly. I mean, we can say what you want about it, but they took our advice, man.

They took our advice. We said, borrow whatever it takes. Go follow your dream. And then go get your dream job. And that was a bunch of nonsense. Yeah, they don't want to borrow money to get a degree. for a job that doesn't exist. And I don't want to lend them money

that they'll never be able to pay back to get their credentials for the job that long ago. No, I mean, you had it right all those years ago. Shop class. You know, which, by the way, they've taken out from a lot of schools. I know, I wanted to show you this picture. Do you remember a couple years ago there was a big story, was out of Canada.

This is not America, but it could have been here. A shop teacher, I think her name was Kyla LeMier. You showed the picture. This is a shop teacher. Yeah, there you go. your thought. Well, that's a shop teacher. Two thoughts come to mind.

I'm doing what I can. I think you're doing great. The first thing that has to go, her hair. Her hair is a real hazard. You get around a lathe, that hair, you could... No, look, when we took shop class out of high school,

they said the one-on-one would be a serious look at the changing face of a modern-day proletariat. I mean, I just thought it was apropos for you. It's apropos. I mean, it just says a lot that that is it. No, that's not the typical shop teacher, but... Not typical, no. But at least the shop class is there.

I mean, when we took shop class out of high school, we sent a message to a whole generation of kids. Not just that these jobs aren't worth pursuing, but they're not even worth looking at. We removed all the optical proof from K-12 that that kind of work even existed. So even a guy walking from math to English can't poke his head into the metal shop and go, oh, look, a lathe, oh, look, enormous boobs, whatever they see, that's gone.

So I can't prove it, but I can draw a pretty straight line to every calamity we're talking about right now, whether it's student debt, those seven million men not working, or all these open jobs. It starts with the removal of shop class. Everything that happened after that turned us into frogs in the boiling water and a little more and a little more and a little more. And now my foundation has electricians that we trained six years ago that are making $230,000 a year, $230,000 a year. Right now, no college debt, they're setting their own schedules, more overtime than they can fill. and those stories, man. That's the compliment I meant to pay you and everybody else.

Well, that's you. I've nothing to do with Shop Glass. You have everything to do with it. Let's not make it another 13 years, is my mind. Thank you, Mike. That was fantastic. Mike Rowe. All right, let's meet our panel. Thank you. Last place you should ever find me is Shop Class. Okay, he is an editor-at-large,

at recent magazine, and co-host of the fifth column podcast. Matt Welch, our friend, Matt Welch. And she writes the red letter on Substack and hosts the Tara Palmari show. Tara, Tara, Tara, right? Yeah, Tara. I'm very... Jersey Girl, like you. Tara.

Tara, Palmery, not Tara. Okay, so let me pick up on what he was talking about. Yes, last week I did this whole thing about how the Democratic Socialists, only in recent years, are really communist. And I just quoted them, okay? I just used their own quotes. Now, you can argue with me. Somebody in the audience gasped.

Several people did at one point. That told me, okay, this is new to people. But either you don't know what communism is or you don't speak English. Here's the interesting part. The Democratic Socialists, very recently, were truly socialist. They were founded by this guy, I think his name is Michael Harrington. His name is now a slur. That should tell you where they've gone.

It's like, oh, my God, you're a Harringtonite. You still believe in socialism. So interesting the wrinkle in this story because now that they're communist there's an opening for socialism and you know who's filling it? Donald Trump Donald Trump how else do you explain a 9.9

stake in Intel by the government is that not socialism Navidia we took 15% cut when we let them sell chips to China Nippon steel that's merged with the U.S. steel we have a golden share we basically

run their boardroom now And you know this is socialism, I think, because Bernie Sanders agrees with it all. Oh, yeah. He wants to do it with the AI companies. The free market is dead. They have decided that the government wants to control 30 different companies. And Intel alone, which was a loser because of NVIDIA, they basically own 9.9% of that company. And that's a lot.

And President Trump, after they invested in this company, he then went on to buy stocks in NVIDIA, which shot up 200%. Okay, so he actually made a ton of money on this. His government created a floor on a stock that he owns. It's crony capitalism, too. It's crony capitalism. It's seizing literally the means of production, because let's remember how these things happen.

How did Intel happen, right? One year ago today, Donald Trump was out there saying, we need to maybe fire the CEO of Intel because I think he's a Chinese spy. It's like, what? The president is just singling out a huge CEO of an important country company. And so they had to scramble the jets and have a meeting at the White House. And what happened at the end of that meeting, okay, you stay, we get 10% of your company. That is thuggish behavior. We have never seen anything like this in modern times.

Also the shakedowns. I mean, since he came into office in 2025, he has raised $800 million, mostly from corporations for his ballroom, for the library, for the Freedom 250, which is where they are doing baptisms on the national mall. And it's all going through. foundations and LLCs. Who's getting rich? Who gives a shit about the ballroom? We have to stop talking about the ballroom. It's not about that, though. It's just the stupidest. It's not about that. It's about the money that they are making from the ballroom. Okay. Who's getting the contracts? In a $4, 5 trillion dollar economy, we're talking about the ballroom. It's no stupider than

Burning Man. No, but there's just so many... It's... The ballroom is a device for them to make money. Okay. It's important not to sleep on the problem of seizing companies, which is something that Republicans knew a lot about when they objected strenuously to Barack Obama, joining or, you know, having government motors, right? Remember, they were always saying he's picking winners and losers. At least some of the companies he picked for winners, like Tesla.

What happens is that the government now is your regulator. It's your shareholder, so it's a profit and loss. Sometimes it's your financier. It's giving you money. and then sometimes it's your customer too. The conflicts of interest are crazy. And then from the perspective of the company now, the company doesn't have to think about its customers,

which a company should be doing. It's thinking about one person in the White House right now. So it's doing worse, and we're doing worse. And none of us are saying that we're against socialism. Every modern democracy is a quasi-socialist country, as it should be. The private sector shouldn't do it. Wouldn't say none of us are against socialism? Of any kind?

You're not for Medicare, Social Security. Marine Corps? I don't necessarily call, though. I don't, not against social programs necessarily, many of them I are, I am, but I, socialism as an idea is a bad idea. It's worth calling socialism out as well as communism. Communism is the bad applied version. Socialism ain't no picnic either. But some part of a democracy has to be socialistic. The government has to do certain things that the private sector cannot or should not. Am I wrong about that? The government is there to do things that we decided that we can't do ourselves, right? And that's going to happen in every single company.

I don't call that socialistic. Okay. Well, most people do. It's literally called Social Security. All right. By the way, I found someone who's not a socialist in the Democratic Party, and it's a surprising one, but I was reading a lot about him this week. Mr. El-Sayed, Dr.

El-Sayed. That was the big story in politics this week, is there was a primary in minister. There was a more conventional Democratic candidate. He lost a squeaker to Dr. El-Sayet. Now, he's obviously on the subject of Israel. We're not aligned at all. But it's interesting. He's not DSA.

He says he's not. He says he's not, and he says I'm a capitalist. He does say that. He believes in regulating monopolies, which I think most people agree with. I think right now he realizes he just won the primary election with the help of Hassan Piker. he's probably got to move a little bit to the right. He didn't win Detroit. I mean, he didn't win black voters.

He didn't win rural voters. He won the Super Bowl voter, the white, urban, a college-educated voter. So he's got a lot of work to do, McComb County, Wayne County. But I think the interesting thing about him is he really speaks to the moment, and it's a huge rebuke on Donald Trump. Whether you believe in the DSA or what they stand for or socialism, he is a change candidate. He went out there and he basically said to people who are broke and pissed, I hear you and I am running against the people who are in power right now. And it's not just Donald Trump because the rest of Democrats are only running against Donald Trump.

He's running against Donald Trump and Chuck Schumer who spent 30 million against him and A PAC that spent another 30 million against him. So he's the anti-establishment candidate trying to, he's like, this isn't a gate. I don't get past you people. You want to spend $60 million on me? That's $60 million worth billboards. Thank you very much. So this is just what's going to happen in these moments because Americans love change, and he is the change candidate.

We learn about major political parties by what happens in their contested primaries. And what we've seen now, kind of beginning in New York, but also the grand platinum race in Michigan, in Colorado, and elsewhere, all the tension, all the fights are right there on this. And what voters in Michigan have decided, enough of them, and what DSA and Hassan Piker, a big fan of Chinese communism and Cuban communism.

too. So he might not have DSA on his forearm, but he's hanging out with Hassan Piker, who's a loon. And what they're saying right now is that we don't care if we lose, or we're willing to roll the dice on losing this. This is what the Tea Party was doing with

Sharon Engel and Christine O'Donnell 10 years ago. We will back this person because we want that change agent so much. We want to change the nature and the characteristic of our political party so it's no more Chuck Schumers, because my gosh, how long is Chuck Schumer's going to be with us forever. And so they back a person.

Michigan is a contested state. Democrats absolutely want and need to win it. Yes, and the conventional wisdom is that Democrats walked into a trap. They, as often happens in the primary, the fringe candidate, the candidate on the far left, as in the Republican Party of the far right, wins the primary, because that's who votes in primaries. I don't think that's the case. I think he's probably going to win Michigan. and I'll tell you why, because in the Democratic Party,

when you're a person of color, it allows you to be more centrist. A lot of these people, they just, they simply don't trust white people. And I'm talking mostly about the white people. Are you saying that he's... They don't like, white people don't like white people. Are you saying that he's centrist, though? I'm saying it allows you to be more centrist, like Obama was. They just trust you more.

I mean, look at this Francesca Hung. I mentioned in the monologue, but she's... She said about whiteness and toxicity. She described her son. Now, she has an ex-husband who is white. Okay, she's Asian. She described his wrestling with, this is her own son, being in proximity to whiteness. Of all the things I think the Democrats have to lose, number one, whiteness.

It's not a disease. You look like nice people. You're nice people, right? Yeah, kind of. I think you would be Italian, so it's a late-comer. Oh, yeah, white ethnic, I guess, you know. Okay, well, that, I'm sorry, but that does not count as a person of color. No.

That's a person with a good tan. That's a very different thing. But this has got to go, I think. I think this is their big flaw. I think they're not running on that. Like, she didn't run and campaign on abolishing. No, but people hear it. Sure, because it's in every single one of their tweets from 2020 and 2021.

I mean, these grown-ass adults five years ago were saying and doing absolute nonsense, and now they're running in every Democratic race and distancing themselves from their tweets that they made as, you know, 35-year-olds. Yes, only in America can you be 35-year-old and be like, oh, I'm sorry, it was a youthful indiscretion. I don't know what I was saying. I don't believe any of them. All the DSA people are saying, oh, these things you quoted last week, we don't say. Yeah, you said it, you meant it, stop it.

Yeah, flip-flop. though. This is as old as politics. That's not flip-lobbing. That's lying. That's just pretending you don't. I know who you really are, and that's okay. Communism is an economic system. It always leads to a horribly corrupt, violent

political system, but it is an economic system. You're allowed to vote for it. I'm not saying make it illegal or anything, but just own up to what it is. That's what it is. When you're talking about seizing the means of production, you are a communist. Okay. Just own it. Yeah, I think the interesting twist

right now is that they are trying to distance themselves from their tweets of five years ago because they realize how just completely unpopular it is. And it also reminds us that what did we do 12 years ago? Suddenly we decided that, you know, that biological sex was incredibly fluid, but race was cement. This was bizarre. I mean, race is a much more kind of variable, sometimes even fictitious concept. And yet we're going to die on this hill and then be obsessed. over here with everybody's little single drop of whatever background that they have, it's madness. We need to get away from that madness.

And these reminders that people were saying this five years ago, they are telling on themselves. A person who thought that five years ago right now is not going to be serious today, I don't think. Who is the Democrat who's going to stand up and say, I'm a white guy? I'm not a racist because I don't think white people are worse. We're all the same. Humans are not good people. No. They're just aren't.

We've all done horrible things of every race. Slavery, it wasn't invented in 16, 19. Everybody did it throughout history. They didn't even think it was wrong. In the Bible, there's lots of rules about it. None in the mark, don't do it. There's an additional burden that this places when you are thinking constantly in terms of race.

Who gets off easy in this? White people do, actually. Because we're not obsessed with being white. We don't think about it. It's weird. Anyone who does think about it, we know it's weird and we don't want to hang out with them. It's strange.

But the burden of it is like they're supposed to be a black way to think or an Asian way to think. It's madness. We should think like individuals and not have to be always self-conscious of how we are different than some majority. That is a stupid way and an anti-American way of looking at it. Yeah.

It's just this, it's weird that they, the far-left liberals, they seem to have this self-loathing. Like, that's very important to their identity. That we know we're bad. That's how we know we're good. Anyway. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement,

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We like to cover all the issues on this show, and I noticed that, you know, it was state fair. Why am I even trying to sell this? We're doing it because it's funny, but it is. It's time for the state fairs all around the country. They're having them now in Ohio. Wisconsin, Iowa, New York, Minnesota, Alaska, Kentucky. We've tatered to all types. We're not one of those shows that just caters to one group.

We had Mike Rowan, for God's sakes. So we even picked up a copy, because we care about this so much, of State Fair Living. This is the magazine about state fairs, and it's just fascinating. Would you like to hear some of the articles I thought you would? Okay. Ten Ways to Eat a Corn Dog Without Looking Gay.

Is operating a tilt-a-whirl while drunk illegal? The answer may surprise you. Top LGBTQ's friendly state fairs. None. Original beach boy or old man muttering Barbara Ann, five ways to know. Um, dear state fair living, what are the bearded ladies' pronouns?

Guess your weight worker tells all. A Zempec is ruining my job. I'm sorry, he's in a better. place and other things to tell your kid after the goldfish dies on the way home. Gold cotton candy, taste the president's hair. There's many important stories, but I want to talk about cancel culture for a minute because I saw this story this week. A actor on Broadway named Gino Seegers, I hope I'm pronouncing that right.

I may, oh, there he is. He was set to star in a movie called, a movie, a play called, maybe a musical, I don't know, called Hades Town, Hades Town, not Hades Town, Hades. He was going to play the devil. And then they found out he is the devil. So he will not be playing the devil. Why? Because they got a hold of the old tweets. I guess they're not that old.

But the lesson here to me is that cancel culture is not dead because he is shit can from the show. And that in certain precincts of this country, you are not allowed to have any opinion that doesn't conform exactly. And I mean exactly to the one true opinion. He said, he's talking about trans people, I'm not against anyone living out their lives the way they want, but I am against their rights superseding the rights of other people.

Now, if you made this argument in any sort of reasonable debate, it's okay. About anybody. About anybody. Superseding your rights. It's, it's, we do not have the right to have a differing opinion. This cannot go on. I don't think it can go on. I guess it will go on.

I think it was a calculated marketing decision because Broadway obviously has a very big population that runs it, gay population, people that buy their consumers that buy tickets are gay. I think that they probably decided that this online mob that moved very

quickly against them, they made some comms and marketing decision, and they were like, we don't want to have a boycott of our show, so let's just get rid of them. I think this is more of a market decision in terms of Broadway, because he'd be welcome at the Pentagon under Hegset in a second. I just Every time

Every time I read one of these stories I always like You know they usually portray Like you know his hateful statements that he said I'm like all right What paragraphs are going to be 12 or 19 that we're going to get to what the statement is And is it going to be remotely hateful

I didn't find it Did you find I don't find I mean there are some other ones He said He said now of course Some people will come to me and say Oh Gino They meaning Dren's

folks don't feel that way. They're just tired of being hunted. They're tired of being oppressed and persecuted. I'm sorry. I don't see that. I don't see transgender people becoming oppressed or being persecuted. Well, of course not. You work on Broadway. But, you know, he's just

basically saying there isn't some pogrom going on out there. Jews are getting stabbed every day somewhere around the world. And let's say he's wrong about that. Like he's just materially wrong in an analysis. Okay. You can say something that's wrong. You can say...

No, you can't. You can't. That's the thing, is that you just can't. This is not the only one this week. The Indiana fever star Sophie Cunningham. I don't follow the WNBA as closely as I would like to. Not because they're women. Just got time proofs, all sports.

I don't want college either, okay? What? It's okay. I'll get you back. I know, it's okay. I don't even have to apologize for it. Okay? She said,

I got a lot of feedback, negative feedback about me hating trans. She didn't say she hate trans. She said, I am here to extend love, but I also think that love is truth and being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room or young girls in sport who shouldn't have to go against biological men. Again, this is where about 80% of the country is? And Martina Navratilova is and has been for a long time? Right.

prominent athlete and lesbian. What? The lesbian part is just the funny part. No, I mean, that's relevant to the discussion. And someone who had a trans trainer. I mean, Renee Richards was your trainer for a long time. But not all gay people are necessarily the same in terms of like their beliefs on this. Of course.

I mean, I'm just, Martina Navratilova is not an insignificant person in this debate and can't be called a maga Barbie, which is what people are calling Sophie Cunningham, because she's blonde and she pointed at people. and she knows that she has a fan base of people who are on the 80 side of the issue instead of the 20 side of the issue. And there's an attempt to kind of demonize her. And I think the interesting part is that it's failing. I mean, she has to answer questions at every press conference in the WNBA. And she kind of just matter of factly gives it back. And she's not really suffering all that much.

I think the culture has changed a lot in healthy ways. But just as in Broadway, just as in the sports press corps, strangely enough. There are places where they try to enforce the 20 against the 80, and it looks ridiculous increasingly. So you think it's also marketing when they made Patty Lepone of Broadway bend the knee, because she had a controversy about a year ago. If you don't know, Patty Lippon, she's a big Broadway star. And she was working in a theater that was very, shared a wall with another show, happened to be a black show, and the noise was bleeding through the wall. And Patty Lepon said, can we work this out? And she was

history's greatest monster for suggesting black people are loud. That's not what she was saying. She was just saying, people in my show can't hear because of your show. Maybe we can work something out. And she was made to apologize. All of Broadway had to put out an open letter. They all hated her. She had to... This is madness. I think that the arts are controlled by liberals. Yes, you think? And so, therefore, they get to set the rules. They get to set the I mean, that's what they do.

I don't think that's liberal. That's regressive. That is not liberal. Liberals don't know what liberalism is anymore. By the way, Patty Lepone was on this cruise ship. Did you read about that? The cruise ship that went... There was a gay cruise ship.

She's a gay icon, Broadway star. Okay. So she's on this gay cruise ship. Would not let it dock in Turkey and Egypt. Would not let the cruise ship dock. And a lot of people were saying, well, I mean, on the left, they were saying, well, you know, this is this rightist backlash against gay people. No, it isn't.

It's because they're Muslim countries. They don't think gay people have equal rights, or in some ways, some instances, don't think they should even be allowed to exist. This is what the problem is. They don't know where liberalism is. Yeah. I mean, that's illiberal. Yes, and we are in a situation where there are large minority strings in both major parties

in the blocks that comprise. them that are anti-liberal. The post-liberal right has been talking about this for a long time. They look at the Enlightenment founding principles and say, I don't know, that's not common good. We need to think about common good. And on the left, we've seen for a long time now a very anti-liberal set of sort of speech ideas and just the amount of social pressure that was enacted on people for many, many years. And everyone went through with it. There was a backlash. You know, if you are facing your HR person trying to tell you a bunch of of nonsense and you know if you speak up and say that sounds like a little crazy, you're going to

get into a world of hurt. A lot of people went through that and told themselves like the solution to this is to vote for Donald Trump and now I'm sure there's some regrets about that. I mean, there's always going to be a consequence to having an unpopular opinion. Someone could see, hear one of my opinions while I'm sitting here and they might not want to open a door to me. And I just think a lot of it is driven by the market. Some of it is driven by fear and if they make decisions in 48 hours, It's super rushed, and especially with the way that things move right now, the online mob, it can get together in a matter of minutes. But I do think that you don't know if what you say is going to close doors. You don't know how you are offending people at any time.

Well, I'll give you a good example of that. And if they have power and money, then they make the decisions. That's usually how it works, you know? I'll give you good example of that, apropos of the idea that the liberals are fetishizing the wrong people. Melissa Chaudry, she was also running. She was, you know, pretty staunch liberal. She was asked about LGBT rights, which she has supported, including, as she has supported, justice, health care, protections, and housing and unemployment.

She says, then why is that not on your website? Her answer, because a lot of Muslims do not feel that way, unfortunately. Oh, since they don't feel that way, we just throw the gay people under the bus. Yeah. And this is what liberalism is now? Yeah. I mean, there was some of this in the Michigan. primary of, well, it didn't want to come out too strong about the Ayatollah being killed,

because a lot of the constituents out there are a little upset about that. Well, you can probably take a position about the Ayatollah being killed, or about Hamas being bad, or Israel having a right to exist, which El-Sayed several times has said he found it hard to get to a yes, let's say. Right. And I don't think El-Sai-ed is a terrorist or, or, I don't know enough about him to know what he thinks about. some things, some of these issues.

But I assume he's running in America. He wants to be an American. He wants to have American values. I certainly would hope that to be the case. But, you know, come out forthrightly and just say, we do not want to be the country that doesn't allow gay ships to dock.

Okay? Is that that hard to do? Okay. So Trump got two guys in this week. Two of his people had a pretty good week with their. Todd Blanche, his personal lawyer, which, okay, Jack Kennedy had his brother as the Attorney General. Okay, and Jay Clayton. John asked Ossoff, who I think that's the guy the Democrats should be looking to.

I think he says some great things. Of course, he's a Jew, forget it. He said to Todd Blanche, who could not, or maybe it was Jay Clayton, who could not get himself to say that Trump lost the 2020 election. He said to him, aren't you embarrassed? This is the right question to be asking, Republican. Aren't you embarrassed? That you have to sit here knowing that Donald Trump is watching you

and that you can't say what everybody else in this room knows, including you, that he lost the 2020 election. How can you do your job under those circumstances? That, to me, is the question the Democrat should be asking. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. It goes to your Janine Kiro thing in the monologue, too. Your job, the way you got that job,

is by nodding enough when the president of the United States said something that was just absolute BS. You got that job for that reason. And then you will come up when this happened with Dan Bongino and everybody else. Suddenly you come into the office and you can't keep doing the lie in office. And it's very difficult. And so then you have to go and have a rough meeting with the president. Think about that world that we're in right now.

Like that is, you either have to say that the 2020 election was rigged or in the case of RFK Jr., that the 2004 election was rigged. against Democrats. Look that up if you haven't. But that is a really bad place. We're in an epistemic dead end right now. All right. Thank you very much. Very fun. Time for new rules, everybody. Okay. New rule, now that Janine Piro stood up to Trump and said she won't prosecute the guy Trump

accused of vandalizing the reflecting pool, she has to tell us, why don't you want America to be great? And don't think Trump isn't going to get back at you. That 200, percent tariff on French wine, now it's 300%. New rules, scolds and prudes have to stop saying there's something weird about Maine

Senate candidate Troy Jackson being married to his second cousin. Have you ever been to Maine? There are three things to do. Marry your cousin, get Lyme disease, and kill camp counselors. And they're not actually married. They just have a couple

of kids. Marrying your cousin, that would be gross. New Rule, since I couldn't make this year's International Outporn Festival in Nada, Switzerland, please sign me up for next year because I'm dying to find out where you put the weed and how you light it.

I hear the music sucks, but the snacks afterwood are amazing. New Rule, now that scientists have created the first ever 3D map of the nerves running to and from the female clitoris, they have to tell me, why does it look so much like the cover of the Eagles

one of these nights album. Neural designers at the AI Moga Company must tell us why their new humanoid robot comes with blonde hair and a fat ass. You're working too hard. Have you met a human male? We'll stick our dick in a vacuum cleaner. Here's a sign you're living in a future nobody wants

when you meet a girl at the club and tell her, back that thing up. And she says, you mean to the cloud? Stop threatening to put everyone in jail who you just don't like the way Senator Rand Paul is trying to do now with Dr. Anthony Fauci. Who was back in the news because Senator Paul, formerly of the Privacy is Everything wing of the Republican Party, got hold of Dr. Fauci's personal diary and published all of it.

Rand, babe, your entire brand is Senator Wright to Privacy. You're the Libertarian. guy, the Fourth Amendment guy. It's your family legacy. Your entire political career has been about warning us about government overreach. You printing someone's diary? It's like AOC

wearing a gown that says, tax the poor. And so we enter yet another story, news story that illustrates the Rorschach test, that is America. Dr. Fauci, depending on your politics, is either an esteemed, dedicated public servant, or a vain,

flawed bureaucrat. Well, it's both. Life's complicated that way. You know what's really complicated? Science. And Dr. Fauci definitely got some of that wrong. He said if you got the vaccine, it was highly unlikely you'd get COVID or transmitted. Wrong.

Okay, but that's not because it was part of some self-dealing plot. Things were changing rapidly. They just got it wrong. That's science. Reports of Fauci deliberately lying are based on lazy research, including from centrists that got timelines wrong or transposed. But Fauci could be unforgiving, too. In his diary, he described a dispute with another medical advisor, Scott Atlas,

who wanted to keep the schools open, which Fauci told his dear diary, borders on criminal. No, he's not a criminal and you're not a criminal, which should be obvious since only two months later when Atlas resigned, Fauci wrote, the one area he was correct was in saying that school children are not the drivers of the outbreak.

Okay, so can we not call people criminals just for the part they got wrong? Look, from the beginning, there were two schools of thought on how to handle COVID. One was the model they followed in Sweden and Florida, two places that have nothing in common except a love of old people in sweaters.

But both places thought it was smarter, and both did quite well, by laser focusing on protecting the vulnerable and letting life go on for everyone else. They thought it was a good idea to get out and go in the sun for vitamin D and fresh air. You know, crazy stuff. Not crazy stuff. The other side, well, let's just say they erred on the side of caution. Really, really into airing on that side. I showed this picture last week. That's a Democratic Socialist meeting in Colorado. Last month. Now that's extreme, but it's the direction that that half of the country tends toward. David Leonhardt studied this issue and wrote of Democrats during the

pandemic. Organizing their lives around COVID is core to their identity as progressives. And that is the place where I have a problem with the hero worship of Anthony Fauci, because it seems fame is a drug with a hundred percent addiction rate. Have you read, some of the shit in Fauci's diary. Last week I played a game here called, Who said it? Fouchi or Trump? Let's play. It is not hyperbole

to say I am the most famous and talked about person in the country. The nurses went absolutely wild to see me. I am such a valued spokesperson and a good communicator. One person said that Tyra Banks was sexy, but I was even sexier than she was. None of that

is Trump. That's all Fauci. Writing to him, himself at 80. Why? So we can read it back when he's 100 and remember what a hot piece of ass he was at 80? Talk about main character syndrome. Fauci drops celebrity names like 60 Minutes drops correspondence. It's like finding out that in the 1950s, Jonas Salk kept a diary as he was developing the polio vaccine, but it was mostly about how he got to meet howdy-duty.

Now, am I saying all of Fauci's decisions came about because he was lapping up the adulation? No. But you have to try awfully hard not to notice how much Fauci is energized by being embraced by one particular cultural tribe. It was Julia Roberts who was telling Fauci. He was Jesus with a petri dish, not Randy Quaid. And that side likes to think of themselves as the purely science people, even though keeping kids out of school. even though keeping kids out of school that long and traumatizing two-year-olds with masks

wasn't good science. Fauci supported some strange policies for such an esteemed epidemiologist. Natural immunity doesn't count now? Meaning, even if you've had the disease, you still had to get the shot? That sounds more like what Pfizer and Fauci's celebrity friends wanted to hear.

He let this shit go to his head. Turns out the really dangerous, contact, wasn't shaking hands, it was kissing ass. And yet, he is very, very far away from being a criminal. Please, he's not Dr. Mengele because your kid had to take algebra on Zoom. He put in a lot of service for the country, but at the end of the day, he was somewhat seduced. I mean, ask yourself, what happens every time in high school the nerdy kid gets invited to the cool kid's table? Okay, that's never happened.

If it did, look, when someone strokes your ego, it affects your opinions. And it's all too easy to go from everyone says I'm amazing to, only idiots disagree with me. Hollywood co-opted Fauci, and Fauci told the country what Hollywood wanted to hear. If you go outside, you'll die. So send your assistant. All right, that's such a lot. Matt Welch.

Tara Pomerie and Mike Rowe, Clubbrenum, Drop, every Monday on YouTube or listen to wherever to get your podcast. Now watch overtime on YouTube. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. 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.