Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #738: Ryan Holiday, Andrew Cuomo, Kristen Soltis Anderson

Episode Date: August 15, 2026

Bill’s guests are Ryan Holiday, Andrew Cuomo, Kristen Soltis Anderson (Originally aired 8/14/26) 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. It's the dog days of summer. I'm kind of glad. Finally a slow news week. I could use the little break. The biggest story this week

is the guy won the Powerball lottery for a billion dollars. Did you see that in Quincy, Illinois? At a gas station, which is perfect because he plans to spend it on gas. But, you know, a billion. Sounds like a lot of money. But, you know, right of it.

way, the IRS takes a quarter of it. And then, depending what state you live in, like if you live in this state, between federal and state, another half. That's, you know, Tara, how can you live? This guy said he never realized how much he hated socialism.

Speaking of that, good news for the Democrats, the crazy lady in Wisconsin who hates Thanksgiving lost. Cheska Hong out there, yeah. She was ahead by 20 points. but then we found out about Thanksgiving. Doesn't like Thanksgiving.

Also hates Halloween. Christmas, Valentine's Day, the 4th of July. It's actually a good thing she lost for everybody, considering how much she enjoys celebrating. She took it well. She said she just wants to spend more time with her husband, the Grinch. It's a silly story. But you know what?

Oh. Another progressive woman is in the news. AOC. Big announcement this week. You saw, yes, we love it already. Look at this. I don't know. I don't know why we love it or don't love it. I don't know much about it.

What it is is she's free. She announced. She's, wow. I remember when she was like in the 20s, a new one, and now she's 36. She's freezing her eggs. Something career women do. I get it. You got shit to do.

Put the kid on Layaway. I mean, I'm all for it. But, you know, I must say, trying to teach kids these days about sex between the, you might be in the wrong body and your. brothers in the freezer. Explaining the birds and the bees is a lot more complicated than just, hmm, kids. Now, I don't know if this has anything to do with her decision, but she was engaged for

quite a while, and the reports are this week that that's over, that the fiancé, yeah, they called it quits, although she says she hopes they can still remain comrades. Speaking of the eat the rich people, Luigi. Luigi. We have Luigi fans here, Luigi Manjone, the guy who was getting the runaround from the health care system about his bad back, so he murdered a health care executive random. That guy. He pleaded guilty in court. He said, I shot Mr. Thompson and I knew what I was doing, and the Manjone Nistas, that's what they call the groupies outside the courthouse.

They took it hard. One of them said, I don't think this is a concession or a concession. admission of guilt. Mitch, he just said he did it, okay? On the bright side, you'll always know where he is when you call. Now, how about the exciting news of the week? The Trump escaped? Did you see that? The secret...

Oh, see, this hit on there. The secret service got a credible threat that Iran was about to assassinate the president. They had a plan in place as he was coming out of Turkey. so they did that thing with Trump that the Beatles used to do when they go in one car except they did it with planes there were three planes involved

and they put him in the catering cart he can pull this off but he can't clean a pool the controversy with this is that Trump put all his friends on the decoy plane and not all you know he took with him

Pete Hegsef I'm not making that up that is a fact he took Pete Hegzeth in the catering cart and Pete was the perfect roommate in the catering cart because Trump was in with the snacks and Pete was in with the complimentary beer and wine.

Those Iranians, they ain't playing. Iran, they're a filling themselves lately. You know, they said they, well, look, they got the whip hand. Now they said they won't reopen the strait of Hormuz without compensation, without lifting the blockade, without ending sanctions, without releasing frozen assets, or the right to charge ships. Or as Trump put it, they surrendered like dogs.

I tell you, our military situation, did you read this today, that we have a carrier over there, been there for nine months, finally getting a break, thank God. The USS Abraham Lincoln, the conditions on board this ship? Like the toilet, it sounds like a crew ship. The toilets don't work. They ran out of hot water, the food, we were running out of food. A guy jumped overboard.

And many others, they said, we're thinking about it. I don't know about destroying Iran's Navy, but it looks like we're doing a hell of a job with ours. The situation in general, I'm thinking about the homeland too here. Having used up so many of our munitions stockpiles is getting really desperate. The only thing that's left here that's explosive is diarrhea. Last week, what? Last week we learned about there was a shortage of ballistic missiles we have now.

This week we found out we only have a, we used up already a quarter of our drone fleet. The Army has a new slogan, war, while supplies last. Okay, you're great, we got a great show. We got Governor Andrew Cuomo, former governor, and Kristen Salta Sanderson. First up, interesting guy, glad he's on. He's the host of the Daily Stoic Podcast, and the number one best-selling author of the Stoic Virtues series

now available as a box set. Ryan Holiday. Okay, hearing a lot about you and your movement here. It's, of course, not a new movement. Stoicism is very, very ancient. But it seems like this is the first time I've ever recognized it to have a moment, can we say, right in the modern world. You're having a moment. I guess.

Like Jimothy. Yes, like Jimothy. But more ancient. Yes. What? Things have a moment. And you seem to have learned how to monetize this and sell it to the common man. It's like a lifestyle, would you say?

I mean, the daily stoic. We don't have time. You do it on a daily basis. If you only had 10 minutes, because you do it. only have 10 minutes. What's your elevator pitch for stoicism? Yeah. It's certainly not what the word stoic means to people, right? Stoic means has no emotions, has no feeling, has no joy. Stoicism as a philosophy, which has endured for thousands of years, is there to help us through the adversity and the difficulties of life. Because life is difficult, life is painful, things do go wrong.

The stoics do this. They live through the time of Nero. They live through plagues. They live through wars. political unrest, they lived through the decline of an empire. Some of this might sound familiar to you. It's always ongoing. But way less now. Let's not kid ourselves that those things that you described in the modern world are a infinitesitously small percentage of what they were back then. Plagues, you know, the black plague wiped out like a third of Europe. The population didn't recover for 500 years. Yes, yes. This is the greatest time to be able. live in human history.

Okay, thank you. Glad we said that. Which is... No, I mean, because we have to start from reality. Yes, yes. Reality. But so much of the fundamental elements of the human experience

haven't changed. People are annoying. People are obnoxious. There's traffic. There's travel delays. You get sick. You get tired. You get hungry.

You have urges. You have desires. All of the foibles of existence remain unchanged. And the Stoics were writing 2,500 years ago about how we deal with these things. How we persist in doing the things we should do

and resist doing the things we should stop. Who was the first Stoic, and why was he so pissed off? Stoicism, I think, fittingly, comes from a disaster. He's a man named Zeno. He's a merchant traveling through the Mediterranean. He suffers this shipwreck, and he washes up penniless in Athens, and in rebuilding his life,

He comes to discover this philosophy on the Stoopochile in ancient Athens. So Stoicism comes from Sto, it just means porch. It's guys sitting around on a porch talking about life and how to deal with it. And for him, the core virtues of Stoicism, basically he's saying that the key ingredients to a good life are courage, self-mastery, justice, or ethics, and wisdom. And that these are the virtues we have to cultivate if we want to thrive as human beings. So do I have it wrong that there's this idea that the external can't hurt is it's just how we react to it? Yes. You could define stoicism as we don't control what happens. We control how we respond to what happens. We control the story we tell ourselves about it. We control what we do in response to it. We control our emotions in response to it.

It's about the part of it that you do control. That's what stoicism is. But some things we do control. And we should. Yes. I mean, you know the AA prayer? the one the drunk say. Yes. The serenity prayer. I think it's originally started with St. Francis. Lord grant me the power to change what I can,

the wisdom to... The courage to change that thing that can. No, the serenity to accept what I can't, and the wisdom's another difference. If I know that, what more are you adding? I'm just asking. It seems like the whole thing could be said in that sentence.

Well, the serenity prayer sounds like, like it's thousands of years old. It was written by Reinhold Niebuhr on a train in like the 1950s. It's a summary of Stoic Wisdom. It is a summary, Epictetus, a slave in the Roman Empire, says that, you know, the chief task in life is knowing what is in our control and what's not in our control. And the problem is most of the things people spend most of their time on are not in their control. And they neglect the things that are in their control. We spend all this time trying to fix other people, change other people, complaining about things. We spend a lot of time regretting what's happened in the past, and a lot of time worrying about what might happen in the future, and all the while we're neglecting the things that are up there.

It sounds like more of an Eastern philosophy, and of course Greece was... Not that far. Not that far, and when the Roman Empire divided, it went east. I mean, it was the Eastern half, and it has many Eastern ideas, which is more about fatalism. Western man is much more about thinking you control of it. I feel like that's who I am. I feel like, yes, you're right. Of course, I can't control all my fate.

But I always think life is not just about what you get. That isn't really what makes you happy a lot. It's what you avoid. See? Maybe I should have a podcast about what... No, but really, I mean, when you think about just the things you're getting involved in the criminal justice system. I mean, I know this is reminding just a DUI once. It's a nightmare.

You know, debt, feuds, getting people pissed off, making women angry. I could go on. Just taxes, you know, just what you avoid. And I feel like, I, you know, I never like go across the street. If there's any chance a car is anywhere near me because just the slightest that I could get hit by the car, then I would be having pain. So Epictita said one of the signs you're making progress as a philosopher is,

you might not like this. He says, proof is that you're getting in fewer arguments. That's great. Because it doesn't matter what other people think. It matters what you think. And we spend a lot of time trying to change people's minds, trying to reason people out of positions they didn't reason themselves into. And so I do think it's important because there are a lot of overlap

between Eastern and Western philosophy. But I think the critical difference between Stoicism and, say, Buddhism and why Stoicism is having this moment is that the Stoics weren't retreating to a monastery. They didn't go on these long, silent retreats. They were in the arena, literally and figuratively. Marksuelis is the emperor of Rome. There are Stoics who are playwrights and soldiers and entrepreneurs and builders and doers. So we live in the West.

We live in the world that the Romans made. And so as a philosophy, I think you need, of course, serenity and peace and tranquility in all these things. But you also have to, like, the system doesn't work if people aren't involved doing things and contributing and trying to fix and grow and change. And so the Stoics were philosophers, but only part-time philosophers. They were full-time citizens and professionals and leaders. They were involved in public life. So what do you think now here, why are you having so much success with this? Why do you think this is the moment where it caught out?

To me, you know, it does kind of make sense that people who, especially the younger generations, who think they're in so much pain. Yeah. We both laughed at that. Yeah, totally. But it fits. Yes, look, I think one of the reasons stoicism is working is because

it has been tried and tested over 25 centuries. It's a merciless process of the crucible of human experience testing these ideas and refining them. But I think the reason it's having a moment particularly today is we are seeing a collapse in the other

institutions and ideologies that used to shape and direct people. They aren't going to church as much. They see there is a dearth of great leaders and moral examples. And so we're looking backwards to people who, who from a previous time seem to have figured it out, wrote something down,

have something to share and teach us. And it would be wonderful if these ideas were taught in school, but they're not. And so people wake up and they go, especially, I think young men, they wake up and they go, well, I know what I don't want to be, but who should I be? What should I do?

and they're desperate for advice. And that is a void that if we don't fill, Andrew Tate fills. Gee. Come on. They can't be our only two choices. It's got to be something else on the menu. What about overseas? Is this as big overseas?

Are you big overseas or is this more of an American phenomenon? No, no. It's all over the world. Obviously, in Greece and Rome, Marx-Sraelis and the Stoics are their heroes. I think there are some cultures that are a little bit more naturally stoic than the Americans. There's a, I think, a natural stoicism in the Brits, in the Australians. But it resonates all over the world.

The books are in 40 languages. And you have a banned book library, don't you? I do. I think that's an awesome idea. Because they banned books on both sides. I mentioned it at my Mark Twain speech, the Huckleberry Finn. They don't want that in the schools, even though it's anti-racism. 1984 has been banned because by the communists and by people who thought it was communist.

Right. Right. So when people talk about banned books, they tend to think that it's like it's explicit or erotic or inappropriate. And most of the books that are on these lists most often are the books that you read in high school and you didn't think there was anything wrong with. And people are trying to pull the ladder up behind them, I guess, and say no more generations can read these classics. All right. Well, I hope that bookstore expand. Thank you very much.

It's been here. Fascinating stuff. Appreciate your explaining it to it. All right, Ryan Holiday. Let's meet our time. Hey. All right. There they are.

He is the former Democratic governor of New York. My old job. Andrew Cuomo's here. Andrew. And she's a CNN contributor and a founding partner and pollster at Echelon Insights. Kristen Soltus Anderson,

our returning champion. Okay. You know, I say this often on this show. I don't understand the American economy, but I thought this would be a good week to talk about it because something shed a little light on it this week. Have you heard about Barito Gate? Has anybody heard about the burrito thing?

This is a big thing. If you haven't heard what happened, somebody from Turning Point USA, is that Charlie Kirk sold to? Okay. Okay. It's not really that important to the thing, but he tweeted out

because a student had commented on their platform, a burrito shouldn't cost $20. And this guy challenged that. And it turned out, we did some research on this, it shouldn't cost $20 because it doesn't. It costs $20

because this kid factored in somebody bringing it to him. In an Uber. Yeah. So this is what I don't understand about the economy. Yes, people are struggling, but they're all So expectations are too high.

Is that too much of a generalization about the economy? Well, I think, you know, this burrito gate has really exploded on the Republican side. And Kirsten knows about that more. But, you know, sometimes a burrito is just a burrito. Not this time. This is a fundamental problem for the Republicans. They know they have a problem with young people. They know that the young people have believed they have a real.

affordability problem. And the debate is, well, are these young people just too entitled? They're taking Uber's. They're buying $7 coffees and they're doing it to themselves, which is sort of one side of the burrito-gate argument. The other side is, no, there is a real affordability crisis and the Republicans better step up and address it. And I think that's going to be fascinating to watch bill, because it's going to be an internal debate for the Republican Party. Are they the traditional conservative Ronald Reagan, the private market is God, and whatever it does is right, or are you going to see more like a J.D. Vance come in with an affirmative government should do something about the economy, housing subsidies, etc. I think that's what this is really

getting at. Okay, but just to be clear about the numbers here, you can get one for $2. and you could buy it in the supermarket. And somebody said they feed a family of $8 on $20 by buying ingredients like we used to do. Make your own burrito. That's what I'm saying. One of the things that makes people upset, though, is it's not even necessarily just the raw price of what you're paying, but it's how you feel you used to be able to live relative to now. And I think inherent to people's idea of the American dream,

which lots people define many different ways, is the idea that you can always get ahead, that you can always advance, that you can always improve your quality of life. And if you, rightly or wrongly, think things used to be better. And now, when I'm growing up, I'm getting screwed. I understand why folks in Gen Z feel like, they say they don't believe that the American dream is real.

They say they don't believe the system works. I think it is true that there has probably never been a better time or place to be alive than the United States of America in 2026. regardless of, I understand there's plenty of things wrong, but I also get for somebody who's Gen Z when they look at maybe their parents' generation and they go, you know, it feels like they were able to buy a house when they were 24.

It doesn't feel like I'm able to buy a house. You can see why, for many of them, they go, you know, they came of age in the COVID era. They've seen a lot. But that's not what the stats say. You guys are talking about feelings. I'm just going to stick to the numbers. Here are the numbers.

Can I? Okay. This is from the Fed. Okay. Two-thirds of Americans consider groceries to be unaffordable. Maybe they are. But wages rose in the last decade, including the pandemic, 46%. Food prices rose 34%.

So wages outpace them by the numbers. What we spend on food. At the beginning of the last century, it was 42% of the budget. And then you go through the years, you know, 1965, it was down to 15%. now it's under 10% of the butt, including eating out more. Also, Gen Z, I never realized this until people started writing about it. As they reached their late 20s now, they're getting much richer than Gen X was. Millennials and Gen Z at age 30, their net worth is around $118,000.

Gen X's was $53,000, like half of that. But Gen X never complains. You've got to love those Gen X. They are the quietest fucking church mice. The Gen Ziers are living with that. The Gen Zers are, like, I would argue, alarmingly high levels of people in Gen Z who are living with their parents

well into their 20s. That's, absolutely. That's another big issue. This is another stat I saw this week that blew my mind. The great wealth transfer, have been reading about this? That's, I guess, our generation there, that's the boomers,

are set to transfer 100, And for trillion, now this is the high end. We don't know. This is over 20 years. But up to $124 trillion, trillion dollars down through the younger generations. It's interesting. A lot of the kids want it now. They don't wait.

It's like, look, why wait till you die, grandpa? Yeah. I'm going to push back against this. Okay, well, first of all, you're right. Waiting for the baby boomers to die. not an economic strategy. No. But I don't think it's that, I don't, I would, I totally disagree that Gen Z and

millennials are just waiting for the baby boomers to hand things over to them. I think for many of them, they feel like the deal that was available to the baby boomers is not a deal that is available to them today. Yeah. That's true too. I'm sure it is. Yeah. You can make the case on the numbers, but it is not with,

they feel, right? And that's part of what we're seeing on the Democratic side also. I think the Republicans are going to have a bigger problem because they start with a problem with younger people. But look at what we're going through right now. We have these young people who believe they have been screwed by life, right? And they are acting out. And they're upset about Trump's election, and they're upset about Israel, and they're upset about affordability, and they are acting out. By the way, they're doing the exact opposite. of what Ryan just talked about with stoicism, right? You should be smart, be controlled, show wisdom.

They're just total rage and emotion and doing everything they can that is stupid and counterproductive. But that is the feeling. Well, I got to say, the first thing I thought of when I saw this stat about transferring $124 trillion, I thought, I wonder how much of that is white money. Because I bet it's most of it, and I turned out I was right. Because of all the racial issues we face, the big way...

I mean, so many of the things these days, it's just performative. I mean, we've made a lot of progress. I know the far left hates to hear that. It's just true. The one place that's stuck is money, which makes sense, because one race had a 300-year head start on making it. And that's what money gets transferred down through the general. generations. That's why the white people have 84% of total household wealth. That's what it is.

So I would just say to the young people who think of themselves as progressives, you know, and you believe in allyship and reparations, and that's where the money is, kids. Well, look, I don't think that waiting for wealth to transfer is a good strategy. I think finding ways to help wealth get created is good. And honestly, this is a, regardless of what you think about Donald Trump, this is a you got to hand it to him. these Trump accounts for young kids, the ability to have money set aside for you when you are very young.

So explain it first, because I kind of, I know the story. It's been called a couple different things, baby bonds, but essentially if you are born in the United States during Trump's presidency, you get, I believe it's $1,000 that can just go straight into an account. I think that, I believe Dell is also funding some of this, that there's, essentially it just means that you have money that's going to set aside and can grow over the,

the course of your lifetime. Compound interest is insane. This is an incredible way to help kids get the next generation. Sorry for millennials and Gen Z, but for Gen Alpha and whoever comes after them, being able to have that money start early is enormous. No, I remember, they will say, yeah, they'll say that pays one-tenth of the interest on their college debt, you know, which many of these kids really are struggling with, and that is a problem. I remember George Bush wanted to put the money that we, when you start paying into Social Security, when you're 20 or 18 or whatever it is,

into the stock market. And he would, wow, what a terrible idea. Not a terrible idea. You're not going to be able to touch it to your 65 anyway. Look at the chart of where the money in the stock money. It outpaces just putting in the bank by exponential number. So why didn't we do that? Well, because politics, I guess.

It didn't seem like it. This seems like it's the same thing. Well, this is, I think, a little different because people don't... I think people are... I actually don't know what the investment rules are around it, but the idea that you're starting so early just gives... I mean, time is just such an accelerant when it comes to being able to grow wealth

and being able to start so young. I'm hoping that that will help these younger generations, especially kids who are not coming from white families or families where they're going to be able to inherit that wealth, I think it's going to be hugely helpful. And, Andrew, as someone who ran against Mandami in New York for the mayorship, what do you think of his plan to help us with affordability?

I mean, he's opening these city-run stores, grocery stores. I don't think they have one yet, but that's the plan, that we sell meat and bread and other items, I assume, for 30% below market rate. His quote was, the mayor, said, I look forward to the competition. May the most affordable grocery store win. Well, it's not competition.

If you're undercutting legitimate businessmen by 30%, I wonder who's going to win. But who's subsidizing that? Who's paying for that? I guess richer people, and that's the plan. But you think it's workable? It never has before. Of course not. It's emblematic of this entire approach, right?

It's all symbolic. They take a really serious issue, and food insecurity is a serious issue. And they offer this simplistic solution, bumper sticker solution, that's not going to make a damn bit of difference. His plan is first five grocery stores. in New York City, okay? For the entire city. Jesus Christ, five loaves

of bread, two fish, could only feed 5,000. You're not going to do 8 million people with five grocery stores. The grocery stores are subsidized $100 million. That's how the 30% discount comes because he's subsidizing them with tax dollars.

All it's going to do is put the surrounding mom and pop stores out of business, and then anyone can go to the store. So it's not for poor people, lower-income people. It's anyone. You can go shop and get the 30% discount. But I wouldn't. And neither would you. The rich people aren't going to go to that store.

They want to make the point of socialism. This is socialism providing the goods. There's nothing that makes someone hate socialism more than trying to go to a government-run grocery store. In 1989, Boris Yeltsin comes over to the U.S. This is when, like, the U.S. and the USSR were starting to become, it was thawling. He comes over to visit Texas. He goes to NASA. He sees our technology there.

And then he goes to a Texas grocery store. And Boris Yeltsin walked away. The Houston Chronicle said he was dazzled by the jello pudding pops. And things that... Seriously, in the store. And he went back to the Soviet Union and was like, guys, we've got it all wrong. And that was it. That was the end of the Cold War.

We just had all the soccer tourists do the same thing. They lost their shit in the grocery aisles of the American supermarket. It turns out. This is a solved problem. And look, I get it. So the affordability of groceries. Right problem to tackle, wrong solution. We actually have solutions in that you have grocery stores like Aldi, like Little, that are aimed at sort of getting discount food in people's hands.

Create the economic conditions where an Aldi or Little wants to open up shop in your town rather than government deciding it's going to get into the grocery store running business. Exactly. Look, what we get on the state side is exactly what you said, number one, provide an incentive for private stores to go into these. communities because they don't want too many of them. And number two, for low-income people who can't afford food, subsidize their food bill. And in New York, 40,000, 50,000, up to 60,000, depending on your family condition, you can get a thousand dollar credit per month for food. That's a smart

way to do it, you know. But this is not about smart. This is about performative, as you said. Performative politics and performative government. That's not going to make a damn bit of difference. Speaking of money, and who has it, there's a story I wanted to cover. Now, this show, we take our responsibility very seriously here to alert the audience to important new trends that are coming up. And there is an important one.

It was in the Wall Street Journal this week. The headline was, this summer's hottest accessory is a private equity boyfriend. This is... What? You're laughing. But for successful women, like yourself, I'm sure you're taking, but for successful women, you've got to have a private equity boyfriend.

Reese Witherspoon has one, Nicole Kidman, Olivia Rodriguez, Andy Cohen, it's the biggest thing. So we were curious, we were curious, what are the pickup lines that the private equity boyfriends are using, so we Googled it. Would you like to hear some of the, okay. This is some of the private equity types. Are you from the Midwest?

Because I'd like to ruin your downtown. I guess I'll have to offer your ass a buyout because I see it just won't quit. I'm not into A-No, but I have had the Securities and Exchange Commission up my ass. I don't know if you're running a Ponzi scheme, but you've already made off with my heart. I see us growing old together. you growing old. I have access to Peter Thiel's blood guy. You look like a younger Charlize Theron, which is good because the real one put out a restraining order on that. Your place are mine. Actually yours, because mine has been docks by mandonnas.

On my boat. I don't want to brag, but if it had any more coke on it, Pete Hegset would blow it up. Prize on that trend. Okay. Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this. season. Save on lunchbox savers like Zincis sliced deli meat products for always $375. And get life brand pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole

world and more. So you're our favorite pollster here on this show. You've got all the polls. You have all the facts. Nobody likes them anymore. Nobody ever liked them. But we need them. We need to get, and we need sometimes to like maybe get better stats because I don't know if people are answering the landline anymore or however they're getting their info.

But I have to ask this question because I keep reading these statistics about how much the American public has gone independent. Like 45% of people now say they're independent. This never happened when we were young. They were either Republican or Democrat. There was a few independents. The numbers that say they're dissatisfied with both parties. And yet, why never the third party? And then I read last week, Tucker Carlson, he's going to be the third party guy.

Now, look, Republicans, I love them, but you know what? They always go lower. Like, just when you think you hit the bottom of the barrel, there's more under the barrel. There's levels of, they, it's true. They just find new levels of crazy. I mean, Tucker Carlson, he's. the third party? Why do they say the American public

that they want this sensible middle, but then when it comes time to actually do it, they run right to the extremes. All right, where do we start? There are an awful lot of Americans who feel very politically homeless. They look at the Republican Party, they look at the Democratic

Party, and maybe they agree with the little of Colomé, a little comedy, but they're not in on all of one or the other. The problem is all of those people who are politically homeless do not agree on a whole lot. There are some who like Tucker Carlson. There are some who like Mike Bloomberg. Those people do not actually agree on much, besides, I don't really like the two political parties. That's what makes it so hard for a third party to take off. There are structural things built into our system about single member districts

and what's, you know, the Constitution. It is rigged. By both. Neither party like wants to get the third party on the ballot, right? That's the truth. That is the truth. And look, we've had, you had Ross Perrault back in 92, get almost 20%, but it's hard to get more than that because it's hard to get a group of people who are

independent but also agree on enough stuff altogether to come together to form like a coherent political movement that is so distinct from one of the two parties. And that's why usually it's like a Ralph Nader on the left or a Tucker on wherever he is these days. Isn't it more that we're all in bubbles

and in our own media echo chambers. And so they got us cockfighting. And it's so easy at the end of the day to get people just to go, oh, fuck them on that thing and go right back to the team, my team. I find my frustration in life is always trying to get people to a sensible middle. They just don't seem to want to do it at the end of the day.

No, yeah, I think it's both things. First of all, there is a real structural problem. The Democrats don't want it to happen and the Republicans don't want it to happen because it would diminish both parties. so it doesn't happen. Many contests, most contests, you can't vote as an independent. If you could vote as an independent in party primaries, that would make a dramatic difference in this country

because they would be a moderating influence. But neither party really wants to do it. And then push comes to shove, as Kirsten said, people will say, yes, I'm not happy with either party. But at the end of the day, they go Democratic or Republican because they don't think the independent candidacy is really viable. But Tucker Carlson, I mean, he used to do this show, and my old show with the bowtied, normal sort of Republican, conservative, and then he just went to Crazyland.

And made $100 million. There are, like, here's the irony. If I was constructing the third-party candidate who would have the best chance of succeeding, It would be somebody who says, I'm anti-establishment, I'm skeptical of us getting involved in foreign wars. I'm a little more socially conservative and pretty law and order, but I'm more economically populist.

I think the capitalist system sucks. That's like the pieces you could assemble to make a reasonably successful candidate. The problem is that Tucker Carlson's doing that plus a lot of other stuff that makes him not even remotely palatable to the vast, vast, vast majority of Americans. And when I look at my polls and I see, you know, right now Republicans kind of split on whether they like Tucker Carlson or not. Many of the Republicans who like him, I think, are unaware of some of pieces of this journey that he's gone on since,

bow-tied guy who had come on real time or dancing with the stars, and the very dark places that he has gone now. It does speak to the vulnerability of Trump. I mean, the fact that they smell blood in the water. The fact that the poll numbers are down, they don't like the war. They don't like what they conceive as inflation, which is the tariffs, the things that made people's lives more difficult. And so Tucker Carlson, I mean, he put out like a 10-point plan. That's what people who are going to run for office do.

It was bullshit, but he put it out. I think, yeah. Well, you have to have a 10-point plan for anything, right? I think it's going to get worse after the midterms. I think they're sensing that the Republicans, are going to have trouble in the midterms in November, and then you're going to really start to see the vulnerability of Trump, because then they will all come.

You must be happy that the crazy lady in Wisconsin lost, as for the Democratic Party. The, you create, it is so shocking to me how the Democratic Party has gotten itself into this situation, where it is so counterproductive, right? We hate Maga, we hate Trump. So we go out and nominate people who make it harder to win in November. None of it makes any sense.

I get the anger. I get the frustration. But it is all counterproductive. They're mad at Trump. They're mad at Israel. They're mad at the establishment. They're mad at the Democratic Party. So they do emotionally the exact opposite, right?

And it's just not going to work. they are electing people who are going to make it harder to win. Yes. You've already seen a little bit of this. Speaking of polls, there was a poll that came out this week that showed the Republican candidate up by, I believe, four points against Abdul al-Sayed in Michigan. Now, the polls in Michigan and the Democratic primary

weren't particularly good, but that's a race that was not necessarily the one that Republicans initially thought was going to be their best chance, but are now looking at it as a real opportunity. that even in a very bad, what is likely to be a very bad election year for Republicans could be a pickup. But Democrats have also been saved by their own base a couple of times this year so far. And I have long believed that Democrats are on a slow path toward having their own Tea Party movement kind of situation. I do think that if Democrats take the House, you are going to have a situation where a, let's say, Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, has to figure out.

How am I going to fund the government? How am I going to pass a funding bill that Donald Trump signs? and that's when the real bloodbath begins within the Democratic Party. I couldn't agree more. Look, you have these moderates who are just afraid of the extreme left. They're just afraid. They are. And when they start with this, well, we're a big tent party.

No. That is a lot of crap. Big tent party meant all races, color, creeds, we're open-minded. But a tent is a finite object. It didn't mean Nazi sympathizers, you're welcome. Anti-Semites, you're welcome. Abolish the police, closed prisons, open borders, do away with the Constitution. That's not the Democratic tent. It's just not. But they are afraid, Bill, of the extremists. And they are placating them, and that is going to make the Tea Party of the Democratic Party.

And that will make us a fringe party. We will defeat ourselves on this path. Okay, so lightning rounds. So, President Trump foiled the assassins again this week. He jumped on the plane that wasn't the plane, but he left everybody else on the other plane. If the Iranians were going to shoot down that plane, goodbye Marco Rubio and a lot of other people.

No, I'm not judging here. I'm sure that's what the Secret Service told him. My question is, because I've heard it is the president's discretion if he could do that or not. Do you think any other president would have done it differently? Like, say, Jimmy Carter, he was like, Mr. Christian guy. Would he have left his friends on that other plane? What about Obama? What about Reagan?

I feel like when you're Donald Trump... Well, no, Donald Trump has had a number of credible threats on his life traced back to the Iranian government. Yeah. He got his earshot. I don't blame him. So I kind of think of... If you're Donald Trump, you do what the Secret Service tells you to do. Yeah, I would.

I think they all would. I think they would. I think they would do what the Secret Service said to do. Yes, it's his decision, but you rarely go against what the Secret Service is advising. Right. All right. Thank you, panel. Time for new rules.

AOC has decided to share with the world that she's freezing her eggs. Mitch McConnell's wife has to tell us if Mitch has passed away. I mean no disrespect, but we do need to set a bipartisan baseline for too much information. I don't want to invade anybody's privacy. I just need to know what's in the freezer. I'm hoping to put a little more lead in their man's pencil. Might want to consider getting him the herbal supplement horny goat weed. It's known as Nature's Viagra. And even if it doesn't work, ladies, remember goats, they'll eat anything.

The airport duty free store has to be. come right out and say it, you think we smell. What other explanation is there? Your store carries two things, cologne and liquor. Who buys cologne at the airport? Why not just come home wearing a sign that says, honey, I'm having an affair.

And if I'm going to spend $50 on a bottle of something at the airport, it's going to be water. Well, if you're a South Korean company looking to do business in America, run your brand name by an English speaker first. I'm talking to you, cum ho tires. I'm just trying to help because I see big problems. Like some guy telling his girl,

honey, we can't go out to dinner tonight. I just dropped 500 bucks on a couple of cum ho. So now that Georgia's Jesse Davis is accused of trying to run over a woman in a parking lot just for saying good morning, someone has to ask him two questions. Why would you do that to a nice lady just out? for a jog and could you look any more like a Chucky Dog? Dude, I don't know where all this pent-up animosity towards women is coming from,

but have you tried horny goat weed? New Rule, if you want the American dream, you have to take the American values. There's no bigger issue in electoral politics these days than immigration, and there's no doubt, at least in my mind, that both sides went to extremes. Biden's policy of open doors and then Trump's policy of broken windows. Now, I'm on the page of America doing what it used to do so well, stealing hard-working, talented immigrants

from around the world and making them Americans. But something has changed in the equation. Now, most immigrants still want to assimilate. But some now have this other attitude of melting pot. Fuck you, you melt. Look, you don't have to love everything about America.

We don't. That's why Yelp was invented. You know, if you do get past ice, America's actually pretty cool. We say you do you. Eat the food your grandma cooked. Speak another language at home. Celebrate religious holidays. We welcome your food, your art, your fashion, your first ladies.

You have to answer one question. Do you like Western civilization? Because that's what we are, and that's not negotiable. Let me ask our audience. Do you think gay rights is one of our values? values that's non-negotiable. Great, I'm going to hold you to it. A few weeks ago, a liberal Democrat named

Melissa Chaudry running for Congress in Seattle was asked why, among the many progressive causes listed on her website, LGBT rights was conspicuously absent. Because, she said, a lot of Muslims do not feel that way, unfortunately. Now, here's where liberal sphincters just tightened because they heard the word Muslim. and have been brainwashed into thinking,

oh, some Islamophobic bullshit is coming now. No, just facts. And a little honesty to the people who see everything as oppressor versus oppressed but can't see who actually does a lot of oppressing. So let me ask, is this the progressive policy now? Is Ms. Chaudry right? We throw gay people under the bus

anytime it clashes with what makes Muslims uncomfortable. Last month, a gay cruise ship with 2,000. passengers that was sailing the Mediterranean had to turn around and change course because Muslim countries wouldn't let it dock. They tried to get into Turkey and Turkey was like, no homo. They tried Egypt? Nope, just straight denial. This poor gay cruise ship couldn't find a home. It was like the grinder version of the Odyssey. Happy ending, they eventually sailed on to Greece, where the Greek said, are you kidding? We invented that shit. I got to say, you know, Egypt and Turkey, they have no problem saying, our culture, we just don't do that here.

We need a little of that attitude here. How about homophobia? We just don't do that here. We'll make you bake a wedding cake. But not everybody sees it this way. Linda Sarsor is a big progressive hero, and she says, our number one priority is our community. It is not to assimilate.

Okay, but that's not really how immigration works. If I move to Japan, I don't get to say, Okay, everybody, a couple of changes. First of all, shoes stay on in the house now. Also, no more tentacle porn, that's gone. Look, lots of people, not just Muslims, of course, do lots of fucked up shit. We don't have to go along with it. A number of cultures still practice marriage by capture, where if you fancy a gal, you simply abduct her and claim her as your fiancé. You may recall Borat tried it on Pamela Anderson.

It's a real thing, and it's always a touching scene when the green. room gets down on one knee and to propose, and the bride still has the bag over her head. Okay, but we don't do that here. Linda Sarsor was forced into an arranged marriage at 17, but defends the practice, saying it made her, quote, become mature much earlier in life. I'll bet. But here, we think that's a little too close to Epstein stuff. Honor killings, not letting women show their faces, polygamy.

cousin fucking female female genital mutilation. There's lots of stuff we don't do here and it's not negotiable and it's not white values. These are liberal values. People fought and died to establish them and it's not racist to say if you want to come here

to help form a more perfect union, great. But some things are too fundamental to change. The separation of religion and state, for example. And I would say the same thing Christian nationalists. Democracy, not theocracy. Free speech, even about

religion. Equal rights for women. LGBT. That's America. And none of it, none of this is available in Sharia law. Which a third of British Muslims want to see be the law in England. And you can't have both. You can't have England and Sharia law.

And the left's reaction to is is the worst that could happen from it is it will get right-wingers elected. Maybe, or maybe the worst that could come from it is in 20 years the UK is turning away gay cruise ships. You can, and I'm sure some of you are, screaming Islamophobia, but that's just a bullshit word to cow people and to not talking about this. This has nothing to do with non-whites becoming the majority. I don't give a shit about that. I don't give a shit about colors. White people. They're white. They're not pandas. I care about liberal values being replaced by illiberal ones. Last month, more than 70,000 Moroccan migrants breached the border and poured into a part of Spain called Sueta.

I feel for them. But I also understand why a lot of Europe freaked out about it. I sympathize with refugees. But when I see them interviewed, it's always, there's nothing here for me. The economy sucks. I don't see a future. I sympathize, but what you need is not asylum. What you need is LinkedIn. Build something in the country you live in. You got a bad economy? You know that cruise ship that couldn't dock?

Do you have any idea how much money 2000 drunk gay men would have spent in the beach town? All right, that's our show. I want to thank my guest, former governor Andrew Cuomo. Kristen Salpas Anderson and Ryan Holiday. Clubrandum drops every Monday on YouTube. or listen wherever you get your podcast. Now go 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. Larry David is back in the new HBO Original Limited series. What a pleasure to be a part of such a historic occasion.

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