Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #620: Matthew Perry, Laura Coates, Jonathan Haidt

Episode Date: November 19, 2022

Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 11/18/22) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late-night series, Real Time with Bill Maugh. All right, we're back on. Okay, Matthew, what was it like working on Almost Heroes with Chris Farley? Oh, well, working with Chris was amazing. He's probably the funniest person I've ever met.

Really? Yeah, he was funny. Yeah, he was really, really funny. And he would do the strangest things. We were the leads in this movie. I remember it, yeah. Yeah, well, you're the only one that's... Oh, yeah. With the hot Indian girl.

Yes, yes. And whenever he would have to make an entrance in a scene, we would, you know, rehearse it and then do the scene. And then whenever he would do an entrance, I would open the door and he'd be completely naked. Which was funny to me. I found it very funny, but the 65-year-old script supervisor was like, oh, no, no, no.

I mean, you couldn't even do that today. No. I mean, they would immediately cancel. Yeah. The movie would be over. Yeah. They would shut down the set. He'd be arrested.

Yeah. True. You'd be canceled just for seeing it. I mean, it would just... Laura, what is your take on the World Cup being hosted in gutter? Is that... Am I pronouncing that? I've heard it different.

Qatar, gutter. I'm calling it. Well, any place that has had all the people who spent time building it, up to 1,000 people dying, even building it just to be able to sponsor the event, gutter might be right. Okay. A thousand people have died? I don't know.

I hear the reports, like hundreds of people up to a thousand, and the numbers are shaky because I don't know how many people were involved in the building and the idea of people being forced in some respect to be in this sweltering heat to build this stadium for profit. I mean, there is something we fundamentally have to do better. I know there are avid sports fans. I know football slash soccer fans among the most avid in the world. but there should be a middle ground

that people can safely participate in the building of it. Well, I'm not, first of all, I, I hate soccer as much as I hate Bitcoin. So, I mean, I'm not going to defend soccer. I've always been clear to I would. They call me an Islamophore, but, you know, come on.

There's some bad things that go on in countries like this that we should talk about. So I have no dog in this fight. But when you build something, people do die. I mean, the Panama Canal. No, the Panama Canal is not a soccer stadium. You don't need soccer. And I do need to get sweatpants a day earlier. Or whatever I get from the Panama Canal.

But I'm just saying, even, you know, Mount Rushmore, completely unnecessary. We built it. I'm sure somebody fell off Lincoln's nose and died. Right. I mean, no, I mean, they couldn't have been up on that fucking mountain for like 12 years with dynamiting into his eyebrow and nobody got hurt. Okay, people. It really depends on what was hanging out of his nose. the phrase is if you build it they will come not if you build it they will die right no no i agree that's supposed to be

but i hear a cutter i hear cutter is a lovely place for other reasons uh it probably would not be a lovely place for any woman who wasn't wearing the appropriate dress and wasn't uh paying attention to sharia law and maybe you know if leave the house without the permission of a guard

Okay, that's the shit that goes on in places like gutter that we need to talk about. And somehow the world doesn't because that's Islamophobia, which is bullshit. It's violation of every liberal principle. Women are equal. So that's what I have against gutter. John, do you think Americans will ever share another collective experience that engenders a shared understanding? No, I don't. Right.

We don't even know who. We don't have the same star. anymore. Like people don't... Yeah. I think 9-11 was the last one. And I think COVID, you know, the first weeks of COVID actually may be qualified, but the fact that we so quickly split, and obviously President Trump

has a lead role in that and with his statements about Liberate Virginia and all. But I think there's no possibility for a shared understanding of what's happening anymore. There used to be journalism with gatekeepers and say what you want about it, at least having a democracy in which

people have some shared sense of what's happening makes it possible to have the kind of debates and discussions that we need. So I do think, well, look, if Twitter collapses actually may be. It's not just Twitter. I mean, you know, I mentioned, I was giving a shout out to my friend. You love Jay Leno, too.

We all love Jay Leno. I mean, lots of people, 20, don't know who that is. And we don't know who the stars that they're watching are on TikTok. They're at TikTok stars. I've seen it happen in a restaurant. where like these eight kids come in and they play, ha, ha, ha, and I'm like, who the fuck is that? You know, like, we're TikTok stars.

So actually, so I think a key word here, we talk a lot about polarization, but I think the word I'm moving more to is fragmentation, that everything gets fragmented. And it's not just left, right, and within the left, there are all kinds of fights. Within the right, well, less so perhaps, but it's between...

No, big on the right now. Now it is, yes, now it is. Civil War on the right, Trump and DeSantis? Oh, I can't wait to see. But I just cannot wait for this. That's why I would love to see Trump back on Twitter, because all he'll do is attack DeSantis. And then we'll see what he does, but it'll be fun.

Yeah, but we'll all get collectively stupider from having to watch it. Well, we're going to get stupider on it. I just don't see, I don't see America really coming back until we have that scene at the end of Planet of the Apes where the Statue of Liberty's arms is in the... You know, well, they... Remember that. You damn dirty ape?

You rook at all. I mean, we've got to hit bottom before we... Let's just enjoy the ride down. Matthew, your mother worked... What a setup. Let's just enjoy the road down. Matthew. Your mother worked as a press secretary

for then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Justin Trudeau's father. How does that association inform your view of politics? Well... At first, when I was a young kid, I mean, my mother basically was what Allison Janney was on the West Wing. White House Press Secretary. Yeah.

And... For Justin Trudeau's father, who was the prime minister. That's right. For years and years. Right. Dapper guy. Very dapper guy. And went out with some amazing women.

Yes. Not that that's what makes sense. Did I say makeout with? I meant dated. No, I understand. I understand. I totally understand. My feeling about that was that she was working very hard,

so I didn't get to see her as much as I wanted to see her. That was basically it. So now there's a big rumor going around that I beat up Justin Trudeau when we were kids. I saw that, yeah. Yeah. And I don't really believe that I did that, but he picked up on it, and he tweeted me back, and he said, I hit him back because who wouldn't want to hit Chandler in the face?

And so I tweeted him back. now that you have your own army, I'm not fighting you anymore. Good luck with all your endeavors, and that was it. Canada has an army? Canada has an army. It does?

Yeah. Doesn't do much. No. They don't wear the red, do they? The Mountie thing? Yeah, yeah. Not the Army. And the big head thing.

Oh, my God. Are they on horse? Well, they're not the Army. They're just people for show. Did they still have that? Mounties? They do? And they faint all the time because it's so odd. Okay. Eight billion people

we passed on the planet this week. I don't know how they know that, but I guess it's a rough estimate. We don't know who the guy is. Nick Cannon. It is Nick Cannon. We just know Nick Cannon's the father. I hear people talking all the time about how we need more people. We need less people.

Am I crazy about this? Elon Musk wants more people. There's lots of people saying this. Like, oh, we've got to like keep having babies. No, $8 billion is already way too much. Right. I'll agree. I'm done. I mean, I had two kids. I'm done. Right. Yeah. I'm done. Done. Thanks. And that was just during the show. We still got it, I'm telling you. It's true. So, we're still counting votes in some places.

We just found out, I mean, when was the, it was 10 days ago? Why can Brazil do it in three hours? And we, these votes keep trickling in. What is it about, they do it in banks, they count things effectively, casinos? You know, when money's on the line, except for SBF, They seem to, like, be totally cool with it, but we can't... What is that? We've got to fix that.

Well, I imagine other countries have a much more centralized uniform system, and I believe it's the case that each state makes all of its laws, so that's part of it. But, yeah, you'd think that, you know, if we can put a man on the moon, we could count the votes in 10 days. We can't put a man on the moon. We have to stop saying that. We have to subcontract that.

We don't put... That's a very anachronistic saying, John. Oops. When was the last time we put a man on the moon? In 19702? I think 69. No, 69 was the first, but not the left. So, you know, we can't put a man on the moon.

But REM had the song in the 90s, right? What? REM had the song in the 90s, so that counts. That was about Andy Kaufman. Well, fine, sue me. Remember that song? Andy Kaufman's the reason that there shouldn't be 8 million people on the planet. I also read this week about sperm.

Great. I'm glad you read the two things. No, that sperm counts are dropping. You read this? First of all, good because of the $8 billion thing. Doesn't bother me at all. But, I mean, isn't this a bit of a canary in the coal mine? I seem to remember a movie where we couldn't propagate

and they had to keep the one lady alive who was going to have a baby because of me... Remember that movie? Okay, so, like, what's going on with sperm cancer? I've been looking into this because I'm trying to understand both what's going wrong for girls and what's going wrong for boys And if you look both at Circulating testosterone levels and at sperm counts both are dropping and there seems to be a bit more of a steep drop-off in the early 2000s And so I have no idea whether this is because boys suddenly started playing a lot more video games or because

New plastics and how would that affect sperm Well just you know, I don't know it's just let's You just put it's a correlation because... Yeah. Well, sometimes something psychological can. I mean, I've heard that people... Don't people... Kids reach puberty earlier than they used to?

I mean, when I was a kid, it was 12. 11, 12 was the earliest. And now I think it's much earlier. And they've had... And they don't know exactly why that is. There's one theory for girls especially is greater body mass index. It is the case that if you're heavier,

you, for hormonal reasons, you reach puberty earlier. So part of the drop is thought to be because everyone was getting fatter and that's leveled off now. But I think the other leading theory is plastics and chemicals and we're now assuming so much.

I mean, there's now plastics in the rain. That's right. And aren't they endocrine disruptors? Yes, that's right. So I think hormonal explanations are probably where we should be looking here. Matthew Perry, your theories about sperm. Aren't you glad you did this show?

All right. That's it. Congrats. You read Chapter 11. You should know. Thank you very much. We were a great audience. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10.

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