I don't care. I'm honest. That's my brand this week
on.
The issue is there's a lot wrong with everybody.
An exclusive one-on-one with Bill Maher,
I wanted to know
did the country change or did I change or both.
We talked protests on college campuses for the students to
be siding with them after they committed a massacre of
1400 people, Locism and the far left.
You're going to say men can get pregnant.
We're going to make jokes about
his new book. My theme in the book is I'm
tired of hating half the country
living in California. I love California.
I always have. I have issues with it.
I mean, I wouldn't say we're under taxed.
Plus what question made him say this?
See already I'm stumped and this Get out of here.
The man is talking.
He has something important to say.
Broadcasting across California. You're watching.
The issue is welcome to a special edition of the
issue is from West Hollywood.
We're on Santa Monica Blvd.
Where we're visiting the Woods Co owned by Bill Maher.
I'm so happy that you liked it.
Bill Maher signs the April edition of Los Angeles Magazine.
Maher this month's cover boy.
Right here, please. Real quick.
Maher posing with LA Mag's President,
Publisher Chris Gillanella and Editor in Chief Shirley Halpern.
The article celebrating Maher's extraordinary career Would you welcome,
please, Bill Maher? In 1982,
Maher's first national TV appearance is on The Tonight Show
Starring.
Johnny Carson has some clever thoughts even then.
Religion a big part of his act.
Religion makes you do things that nothing else could make
you do.
Circumcision.
I'm Bill Maher, and this is Politically Incorrect.
In 1993, Maher launched Politically Incorrect on Comedy Central.
Who is writing this stuff?
The idea? One panel, multiple perspectives.
If you're scoring at home,
congratulations. The show moving to ABC in
1997 but cancelled in 2002,
when some advertisers thought Mar was a little too politically
incorrect.
Less than a week after the September 11th terrorist attacks,
we have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2000
miles away.
You just make it up.
You do. By 2003, Bill,
back on TV, I got ever more cranky
about stupid things that people were doing launching Real Time
on HBO Now in its
22nd season. Oh, look at you.
His signature bit since Week 1.
New rules. New rule. New rule.
Someone needs to tell the people who blocked traffic in
the name of a cause.
No one likes you.
It always ends with an extended editorial.
Less about the cause and more about me.
Look at me. Watch me and if you like the
way I'm fighting injustice,
remember to like and subscribe
Those editorials now compiled together in a new book,
What This Comedian Said will Shock you.
I think we are witnessing kind of a bellasance.
I think you are having a moment.
Since 2022, he's also hosted the largely non political podcast
Club Random,
featuring a wide variety of guests.
Club Random.
He's now in business with one of them,
Woody Harrelson. I'm going by the Woods Mar,
a minority owner of the Woods Wehoe,
a cannabis consumption lounge behind a cannabis dispensary.
The space includes cabanas near what feels like an urban
jungle full of plants,
fish and birds. We spoke inside one of those cabanas.
Bill Maher, welcome to The Issue is and thank you
for having us here.
This is such an incredible spot.
That's one of the things I've been trying to
sell. You know, Woody Harrelson bought this place
and he's, he wanted John McEnroe and I involved,
you know, he said
you guys smoke pot with me and
there's a space for you.
And so we threw in and we've yet to see
money because this place is run by stoners.
But people should know it is,
I mean, look, just wouldn't you like to smoke pot
in this room?
It has all these little bungalows.
It's a, it's a pot store with a kind of
a jungle in the background
and all these areas where you can go up.
And I mean, there's fish,
there's vegetation, it's, it's, it really is a great place
if you want to,
you know, get high at the store.
It feels like an Oasis and it really is in
the middle of Santa Monica Blvd.
which is wild. And and Congrats as well on the
cover of of LA Magazine and Congrats on the book,
which is what the, what this comedian said will shock
you.
Yes. And it's a combination of your commentaries at the
end of Real Time with Bill Maher.
Yes. For years, people have been telling me I should
put these together in a book and
they were right. I resisted.
But they were right and I was wrong.
And it does make a really good book.
It's. I would say it's an encyclopedia of every damn
good thing I've said in the last 20 years.
I went through everything. I took out the best.
I put them in or chapters that made sense.
And you can read it like the Bible every night,
put it by your bed,
read it like the Bible.
There's something on every subject.
As you went through that process and looked at everything
over the years,
what did you learn about us as a country and
what did you learn about you in terms of your
evolution?
Well, that's an interesting good question because that is one
of the impetuses I had for doing the book.
I wanted to know
did the country change or did I change or both?
And of course, it is probably some of both.
But I I mean, I addressed this very
length in the introduction
because I wanted to do this excavation.
And I think honestly, the country changed more than me.
The politics changed
when Obama was president. The left was not funny.
Obama was not funny, good,
great. The president was not a buffoon.
And there was very little place to make fun of,
you know. And then Woke ISM came along,
which I go into Length is
not an extension of liberalism.
Mostly it started out as a noble thing,
alert to injustice. We're all for that,
or we should be. But then it veered off into
some really weird areas,
and they just took everything.
10 subway stops too far.
And so it gave, you know,
first of all, comedians a lot to work with.
You know, if you're going to say men can get
pregnant,
we're going to make jokes about it,
you're going to leave it open.
OK, So the left got funnier.
I'm a comedian. I'm not going to leave that on
the ground.
And they deserve to be fed up.
Now, of course, I still think the right is the
greater threat.
They they don't truly any more believe in democracy.
They they seem to have this idea that
elections only count when we win.
Certainly the guy they threw their lot in with,
Donald Trump, believes that they've never been too good on
climate change.
They've always been too religious for me.
I mean, they have their things too.
But I think there's there's a lot in this book
for everybody because I think there's a lot wrong with
everybody,
with both sides, and we have to be honest about
it.
And for the people who say,
oh, you're more conservative than used to be,
I don't think so. That's what I look for.
I don't think so. I think things change and I
just won't bend the knee
and pretend that things just because my team is doing
it aren't wrong.
So I'm going to call it out.
When when you do goofy stuff,
wherever you are on the spectrum,
I'm going to call it out.
So you know, I my theme in the book is
I'm tired of hating half the country.
I don't want to hate half the country and I
don't hate half the country.
And I think a lot of the country agrees.
Why do you think that so few people are willing
to do that?
Because it seems like so much of the incentive structure
of the media right now is engineered to doing the
opposite because it's so much easier,
because a lot of the country is frustrated.
Look, I don't blame people for being driven mad by
Donald Trump.
He does. He drives his own people kind of crazy.
And then of course there is A to every action
there is a reaction.
So like, how do you cover Donald Trump if you're
a mainstream newspaper?
He does lie. They knew they were newspapers.
Never would say the president lied.
How do you do that with a guy who plainly
still has not conceded the 2020 election?
How do you do that?
It's pretty hard.
But we are in this place now where we are
entrenched.
But I don't think it's the majority of the country,
because so many people come up to me and say
I'm with you,
I'm a normie. We're normies,
OK? We don't look at every single thing that happens
and just reflexively go,
damn Biden, he's ruined it again.
He's ruined this pot store.
No, he didn't need it.
He's got his flaws and he's not perfect and blah
blah blah.
That's what I think most people want to get back
to normal,
but those people don't have the megaphone.
You're right. It's the people on the fringes and they
have just such an automatic built in audience,
people who want to hear what they already believe fed
back to them.
It's an echo chamber. Yes,
that's exactly right. That's what I've been saying and you
now said it and I could agree with myself
and that's just an easy place to go in terms
of your process for putting these commentaries together.
I know that's something you work on all week takes
a lot.
Can you walk us through your process?
I should be doing it right now because it's Monday
night.
Monday night is when I start.
I mean, you know, it's it's process of
it gets big and then it gets small.
You have to, like, make it fat and then whittle
it down until there is nothing left except what absolutely
has to be there.
That's true of any art.
You know,
sculpture should have no extra clay.
And a great song will have no extra notes,
and a great editorial will have no extra words.
But all the ones will count.
And it has to drive toward a point,
a point that nobody else is making or sometimes even
thinking about.
And then it's got to be funny.
I mean, comedy is king.
Anybody can get up there and pretend that any issue
in the country,
you know, it's affecting them more than anybody else.
And no, it's not. We're all living very privileged lives
in the media.
But you want to make the audience laugh,
though. It helps the medicine go down and it it
helps,
especially when I start an editorial one way and they're
like,
yeah, I agree with that.
And then halfway through, sometimes it'll be like,
hang on, there's another side to this,
and you need to hear that too.
So if you, you get the
trust of the audience by making them laugh and saying
the things that they agree with and that strike them
as reasonable,
then you can turn around and say something that maybe
they hadn't considered but you think they should consider.
I mean, and you were going back and forth with
writers all week.
No, no, they all. I mean,
I usually give them what the
what the theme is, what they should write on
before the weekend. They work on it probably over the
weekend
and then I get it on Monday.
Like everybody does a pass and I go through
everybody's version of it and then do my own and
put it all,
stitch it all together. And,
you know, it's a
Being a good editor is is really what a writer
is.
Yeah. You know, writing is rewriting.
Up next, Maher weighs in on the protests on college
campuses.
On a week when chaos on college campuses took center
stage.
We catch up with HBO's Bill Maher.
I know last week's commentary was about the students on
campus and this activism here.
What is, what do you make of
where that is going and what's happening at places like
UCLA and USCI
mean somebody has to do a page one rewrite on
elite education in this country because it just went completely
off course.
Obviously, if you have students who are siding with terrorists,
I mean it's and and not just Hamas.
I mean obviously the Israeli situation is complicated.
I can see being sympathetic to the Palestinians.
They do have a plight.
I mean they they have a story to tell.
It's valid.
We're not going to go into all that.
But Hamas is a terrorist organization.
The people who hate Hamas the most are the people
who live under their rule,
the Palestinians who live under their rule.
So for the fact that.
So for the students to be siding with them after
they committed a massacre of
1400 people, the most brutal massacre we've seen
in I don't, I can't memory of mine.
And then a few weeks later,
they started going through the old writings of Osama bin
Laden.
Most of these kids hadn't been alive when 911 happened.
They were like, wow, this guy sounds good.
He hates America. What's not to like about that?
Now they're down with the Houthis and Hezbollah,
which is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Do they have a clue
what side they're putting themselves on?
This is coming from somewhere,
from their professors, from their colleges,
and from TikTok and from TikTok.
Yes, that's true. But it's certainly backed up by the
people who should be instructing them better.
They've got to look in the mirror
when we come back. Bill Maher on why he lives
in California.
Some are saying that, Bill,
some are saying that. Some are saying that at NYU
they hate the Jews.
Comedian Matt Friend recently appearing on Mars Club Random podcast.
You also are doing Club Random,
this podcast that has just taken off.
Congratulations on that, where you have people
at your. The extension to your home.
It's people hang out and it's it's so fun popped
in and that that show is
completely the opposite of real time in the sense that
it's not
political. It's not intended to be political and it's not
something I work one second on except when I'm actually
there.
It's just what I would be doing here if I
was if this was a
relaxed kind of night where I didn't have to work
and I could smoke pot,
I'd sit here with a friend and we would just
shoot the whatever
and whatever comes up. I have no agenda.
I have no idea where I'm going to go with
it.
That show is completely produced,
directed and starring marijuana and kind of like
this place, like this place.
And it's it's been a joy because there are so
many people who are not really appropriate to do real
time.
Real Time is it's a political show and you have
to really know what's going on in the world.
Not everybody does. That doesn't mean they're dumb.
It just means that's not where their interests are.
And we want to put on the A-Team for the
audience.
The audience who wants to hear that show wants to
watch people who know what they're talking about.
They want to watch the pros.
Well, that's not what most celebrities are and most people
are.
But I want to talk to Sammy Hagar or whoever
was,
you know, Jerry Seinfeld was there yesterday.
That was, yeah. How cool is that?
Great. I mean, that's a friendship of 45 years.
So, you know, whether I'm talking to somebody I've known
forever and we're getting together in a way where we're
always starting with,
we should do this more often and this is a
great reason to do it.
Or it's somebody who I've never met.
Then I think it just,
either one is just a pleasure.
It's good pleasure to get to know somebody and it's
a pleasure to get to
like hang with somebody I know real well.
And and as a Californian,
we're the California show. What do you make of?
I know you've talked about your solar experience with the
show.
We have solar, ladies and gentlemen,
we have solar. I was bitching about it on television
for six months.
What do you make the state of,
of California, Governor Newsom and sort of where we're at?
Well, it's a love, hate,
you know, always has been.
Wherever you look, wherever you live,
it's a love, hate relationship.
Name one place that's perfect.
It'll always looks perfect from the outside.
You know, I am from the East Coast.
I lived in New York twice.
I mean, I've been very honest about my feelings about
New York.
And I've paid the price in the media because most
of the media is based in New York and and
they're very chauvinistic about their city.
Unless you get on board with New Yorkers,
the greatest city in the world,
you're the enemy. And I think I really did pay
a price.
I don't care. I'm honest.
That's my brand. And my honest feeling is I love
California.
I always have. I have issues with it.
I mean, I wouldn't say we're under taxed.
And
and of course, you know the regulations.
I once wanted to cut down a tree in my
yard.
There's a hundred just like it.
You can't do that without.
I'd get the approval of the
Environmental Review Board, the city,
the states, the Parks Department,
the Fakawi Indian Dr. the Security Council and the 11
Berkeley students were living in the tree,
right.
But you know, all and all,
I mean, I came out here and it just you
just vibe with the city or you don't.
And I never vibe with New York.
I didn't like the weather.
It's too cold in the winter,
too muggy in the summer.
I don't like living in a building
and get along with the girls.
California. It's just my. I just,
it's my cup of tea.
So you know what you'd say,
what you want about me at California or this state
or whatever.
Why does everybody live here?
Everybody who can lives in this.
You'll be a shock of the people who you don't
think live here,
you know? You think, oh,
Johnny Depp, sure. He's got a place in France.
No, he doesn't. I mean,
he does, but he lives here.
Everybody lives here. Why does Jay-Z live here?
He can live anywhere in the world.
He lives here. You know what I mean?
I mean, there's something to it.
We come back, Marr plays personal issues and answers some
questions he's never been asked before.
See already I'm stumped.
And we wrap up with something real fun.
This is 30 seconds rapid fire stuff of your cultural
favorites.
It's called personal issues. I'm warning you,
I'm always bad at rapid fire.
OK, so take your time.
Then what? Bob Costas Harvey Levin say Real Time is
their favorite TV show.
What's your favorite TV show?
See already I'm stumped.
This one, this one. The issue is,
what's your favorite book of all time?
You know, I loved Heart of Darkness.
I haven't read it since college.
It's probably probably one you get cancelled for liking.
Now in college, it was good.
Yeah. Favorite sports team. I think we know what that
is,
right? Well, I was a part owner of the Mets,
right? So I got to go with the Mets
and who is your role model
again? See, I should have answers to these questions.
I'm 68. I haven't thought about who my role model
is.
I I don't know.
I don't know. Yeah. I mean,
I guess different people for different things.
There are people I admire who I think are
like, I just looked at who's better than me and
things,
you know, like Obama. I couldn't do that.
I couldn't. I couldn't get elected president.
I certainly couldn't get elected as the first black president.
I mentioned Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno.
They were, I mean, they were like mentors to me
when I started because they were a little older and
like they were,
they always stayed exactly who they were,
you know, They were never seduced by the great success
they had.
And they always were like
more mature than me certainly and the other comics
and and just just let a life of exemplary behavior
which is not always something I can say about myself
and certainly most of the comics I know.
I will just say this in terms of you honestly
are one of my role models
and I you're one of the reasons that I got
into this business
our show is based off of.
OK. I'll. I'll just finish this nice moment and then
we'll add it.
Don't interrupt this right out loud.
This is the part we want to get on the
date,
get out of here. The man is talking.
Yeah. Something important to say yeah
shoe. I will just, I'll just say this,
no, honestly. Like your show is one of the reasons
watching Politically Incorrect and watching Real Time is one of
the reasons that I got into this business.
That's great. When we launched the show,
the issue is our set design was based off of
real time.
Our our sound our music was based off of real
time and you have I think what you do and
trying to bring people together and talk about things and
show both sides and have an actual conversation is so
important.
Thank you. And. And honestly,
you've changed my life in such a big way and
I think have changed so many other people.
So that is the nicest thing I've heard in a
long time.
I really appreciate it. I know it's heartfelt.
Thank you. For sure we'll see each other in the
future because I think you got a big future.
Thank you very much. That means a lot.
Bill Maher, thanks so much for coming on.
The issue is
our thanks to Bill Maher for a conversation I'll never
forget.
Also a thanks to the folks here at the Woods
for hosting us.
All right. We got lots of plugs to get in.
This cover of LA Magazine is on news stands now.
You can pre-orders Bill's book right now,
which comes out later in May.
You can watch Bill on Real Time with Bill Maher
Friday nights on HBO or on the Max app.
And you can listen to or watch Club Random podcast
on YouTube or wherever you stream your podcast.
Got enough plugs? OK. Thank you for watching.
The issue is we really appreciate it.
We'll see you next week with more.