0:06

Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This

0:09

is Sam Harris. Just a

0:11

note to say that if you're hearing this, you're not

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made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers.

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So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please

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consider becoming one. Today

0:45

I'm speaking with my friend Bill Maher about

0:48

the state of our world. Bill

0:50

probably needs no introduction. He

0:52

is the host of Realtime on HBO

0:55

and he has his own podcast, Club Random,

0:59

before Realtime, which he's hosted for the last 21 years.

1:02

Bill created and hosted Politically

1:04

Incorrect on ABC. And

1:06

he's the author of a new book, What

1:08

This Comedian Said Will Shock You, which

1:11

we discussed at the beginning of this conversation.

1:14

Then we turn to the aftermath of October

1:16

7th, the cowardice

1:18

and confusion of many celebrities,

1:21

gender apartheid, the

1:23

failures of the Biden campaign, Bill's

1:26

relationship to his audience, the

1:28

differences between the left and right politically, Megyn

1:31

Kelly, loss of confidence in

1:33

the media, our expectations for the

1:35

2024 election, the

1:38

security concerns of some old school Republicans,

1:41

the prospect of a second Trump term, totalitarian

1:45

regimes and how they fall,

1:48

functioning under medical uncertainty, Bill's

1:51

plan to stop doing standup, maybe,

1:54

his experience of fame, Jerry

1:56

Seinfeld and other

1:58

topics. Anyway, this was

2:00

fun. And I bring you

2:03

Bill Maher. All

2:10

right, let me just hit the ground running. Well,

2:13

I can edit. So you can't possibly. I'm

2:16

just getting soda, but I just don't want

2:18

you to have to hear that on your

2:21

beautiful podcast. Okay.

2:24

What are you drinking, Bill Maher? This is

2:26

just a little roofie for you, so things

2:28

go well after the show. No, this

2:30

is something. It's like it

2:33

replaces diet soda. It's the

2:35

healthiest version. What is

2:37

it? It's poured into sparkling water. Some

2:39

chemists made it and they convinced me

2:41

it's real. Right. And

2:44

I think it's that. But is it Stevia or what's

2:46

the sweetener? There's a little in there, yeah. But

2:49

I was drinking Stevia soda, but he says there's

2:51

a lot of chemicals still in there. Right.

2:55

And he's always playing the odds. Well, you seem

2:57

to be winning so far. Well, you

2:59

know, let's not even go there. No, we're going

3:01

to go there. We got to talk about,

3:03

well, first I will remind, I

3:05

will have introduced you properly, obviously, in

3:08

the housekeeping, but I will remind people that you have a new

3:10

book, What This Comedian Said Will

3:12

Shock You, which is

3:15

really fantastic because, so I'm listening to it

3:17

as an audio book and you read the

3:19

audio and is based on your

3:21

20 years of your end of

3:23

show editorials, which you, it

3:25

must have been fun to actually go back

3:28

and look at how times have changed. No,

3:30

it was grueling, actually. Well, because I'm not

3:32

a person who does well watching myself. I

3:34

never watch my own show. I should. It

3:37

would be much more professional to

3:39

look at yourself. But I figured, well, I've been on 31

3:41

years. Maybe

3:43

it would make it worse. You know,

3:45

maybe I would see something and get self-conscious

3:47

and it seems to be working and, you

3:49

know. But

3:52

you didn't go back and watch. You must have

3:54

just looked at the transcript. Of course. And look,

3:56

those are my babies. I mean, that's what I

3:58

work hardest on on this show. show. It's what

4:00

I loved doing the most. I

4:02

would give up anything else in show

4:04

business before I gave up that. And

4:08

look, they are good. I mean, but look,

4:10

over 20 years, they're not all going

4:13

to be 100 out of 100

4:15

and some stuff ages badly. Not

4:17

terribly badly, not like I have very

4:19

different political opinions. That was part of why I

4:22

did this, to see if I did. But

4:24

just they're stale, they're making

4:26

fun of John Boehner. It's

4:29

not funny anymore and half the country doesn't know

4:31

who I'm talking about. So there was

4:33

a lot of work bringing them up to date, but

4:35

it was a labor of love. And

4:37

people have been telling me for a very

4:40

long time, I should do this. This would

4:42

make a good book. Well, you took the

4:44

time to write them in the first place.

4:46

So it's really, I mean, they're very well

4:48

crafted, make a little essays. Yeah. And they're

4:50

funny. I mean, everyone who reads this says,

4:52

I'm LOL-ing on every page, which is rare

4:55

for a book, I think. But as I

4:57

read over the book itself, after I finished

4:59

it, I was like, yeah, people. And of

5:01

course they were originally done as editorials

5:04

on a television show where I was

5:06

getting big LOLs. Yeah. And that's something

5:08

I noticed in listening to it as

5:10

an audio book because you're, you know,

5:12

the original form was for you to read it in

5:14

front of an audience. And I'm

5:16

hearing where all the laughs would be. And the, but

5:19

there's no, obviously there's no audience in the audio book.

5:21

There's no laugh track in the audio book, which

5:23

I mean, you could, you know, had you sweetened it, you

5:26

would have had to put in endless pauses because the

5:28

velocity of the laughs is like, it's like, it's like

5:30

every four seconds. There's

5:32

a button and it's really, uh,

5:35

yeah. And my prime directive

5:37

in doing these while there was a few

5:40

one was don't be earnest. I talk about

5:42

that in the introduction, don't be earnest, which

5:44

to me is when commentators

5:47

talk about a subject as if

5:49

it's more important to them personally

5:51

than the starving people in Sudan,

5:54

you know what I'm talking about? And

5:56

also put in the laughs. Don't, it

5:58

just can't just, be, and you

6:00

sir are bad. He got 11

6:03

it and as long

6:05

as the laughs are always in service of

6:07

the point and they don't go too far

6:09

away, then it works for me.

6:11

And that's always what I followed. And I think,

6:13

yeah, I think you see it reflected in the

6:15

book. So we're talking on the,

6:18

I would call it a set. It's not

6:20

quite a set. This is actually your guest

6:22

house bunker, but we're on your club random

6:24

set. Thank you. Yes. Thank you for coming

6:26

over. I mean. Yeah, no, it's great. Well,

6:28

it's super easy to do it this way.

6:31

As you know, I do all my podcasts

6:33

remotely, but... It must be nice

6:35

to have a little human contact.

6:37

It is good, yeah. Those

6:39

of us like myself who listen to

6:42

you religiously, everyone, we

6:44

do see you kind of as the voice of God. And I

6:47

know you do that in your meditation even

6:49

more, but like that voice, I must

6:52

say I'm very flattered to be here

6:54

because like I say, I listen every

6:56

week and it's almost always some egghead

6:58

like you with advanced college degrees. I

7:01

feel like I'm really slumming

7:03

up your podcast as a

7:06

mere bachelor of arts degree and a comedian

7:08

and you know... As we've seen the eggheads

7:10

are being miseducated at this point. The new

7:12

batch of eggheads are going to be quite

7:14

something. Not the ones you have on them.

7:16

They're always good people. Except

7:19

that Rory guy. Oh, that

7:21

was interesting. Yeah. Well, he is

7:23

an incredibly impressive person, but he's

7:26

quite miseducated on this particular point.

7:28

Really? Yeah. It's really... Isn't

7:30

that a conundrum in life that we all

7:32

think about all the time? How can someone

7:34

be so smart on one thing and

7:37

not get it so much on another and they're thinking

7:39

about the same way about

7:41

certain issues? Yeah. Well, we should talk about this

7:43

because a lot of this

7:46

relates of late to what's happened post

7:48

October 7th. And just we see this

7:50

great fracturing of public opinion. But

7:52

strangely, I've noticed that

7:54

many people in your line of

7:56

work, people in Hollywood, even some

7:58

very famous people... who agree

8:01

with us about how the

8:03

moral landscape looks are terrified

8:05

to say anything. And the people

8:07

on the other side are not terrified. They're

8:09

A-list celebrities who are not terrified to be

8:11

mistaken for Hamas supporters, but

8:13

anyone defending Israel. I know. But

8:16

can you explain, how is it, if the

8:18

Jews control Hollywood, how is it that

8:21

it is so terrifying to state the

8:23

obvious? Is there a difference between a

8:26

death cult and a group of people,

8:28

however ineptly, this attempting to

8:30

defend itself against a death cult? Well,

8:32

I will answer your question. But

8:34

did I interrupt your introduction? Did we never get

8:36

to like where you were, did

8:39

I cut you off for something that you,

8:41

housekeeping? If people, no, I'll do a separate

8:43

housekeeping, but if people notice that the acoustics

8:45

are different here, we're in your

8:47

house. I'm not in my studio, so yeah.

8:49

I see, I see. You're on the lam

8:52

from the people who love Gaza.

8:55

Okay, well, I mean, there's

8:57

so much to this answer, I

8:59

think we both agree, the mouth of the river

9:01

is what I've always called it, of

9:03

the insanity that flows down

9:05

from the left side of the spectrum

9:08

is colleges, universities,

9:11

somehow they became huge asshole

9:13

factories. And they

9:16

teach, I guess, postmodernism. Have

9:18

you ever read that book, or maybe you

9:20

had the authors on

9:23

called, Cynical Theories? Yeah,

9:25

I know. But wherever it's sort of, James

9:27

Lindsay and Clark Rose, yeah. Have

9:29

you read it, do you have an opinion of it? It's

9:32

sort of, if people don't know, it's sort of a dissection

9:35

of where this kind of crazy,

9:37

what we think of, and I

9:39

think we're, you know, old school

9:41

liberals, basically, but what we think of

9:43

as the nuttiness on the left, the

9:46

origins of it, and it goes, it's

9:48

very detailed and arcane, and I don't

9:50

think we can reproduce it

9:52

here, but it's basically started in

9:54

the 70s in France, ideas

9:56

about postmodernism that found their way

9:59

into American- universities. And

10:01

just the term postmodernism I always felt

10:03

was crazy because don't you want

10:06

to be modern? What's after modern?

10:08

Naughty. That's what after modern. How

10:10

much better does it get? After modern.

10:12

But this sort of encapsulates the answer

10:14

to your question is how could the

10:16

people who control Hollywood be

10:18

on the side that's against the Jews? Because

10:21

everything, once you go past modern, you're

10:24

sort of back at your own ass again

10:27

with your head up it. It's

10:31

funny, you unwittingly, in

10:33

mentioning that particular book, you have encapsulated

10:35

really the totality of our problem at

10:38

the moment because one of the authors of that

10:40

book, James Lindsay, kind of spiraled off

10:42

into Trumpistan and Conspiristan and

10:44

got very, very weird. And

10:46

James, I hear your

10:48

pain, but he got very, very weird. Helen,

10:51

his co-author but

10:53

it's not to say they're wrong about what they wrote

10:55

in that book at all. It's just that once you

10:57

get sufficiently entranced by

11:00

the horror on the left

11:02

or the horror on the right, you get

11:05

sort of radicalized or self-radicalized or radicalized by

11:07

your audience and you just, very

11:09

few of us have been able to keep both extremes

11:11

in view and in proportion. I mean, they're not that,

11:13

I mean, this is something you point out in your

11:15

book. That equal extremes from

11:17

reason, they're equally extreme. They're

11:20

still very different and we have to

11:22

respond to them differently. Yes. I did

11:24

not know that about Mr. Lindsay. And

11:26

again, this is the issue that

11:28

I'm always dealing with and I think quite

11:30

a few of us are. How do

11:32

you get

11:35

your mind around that problem

11:37

of this person seems so smart on

11:39

these things and we can sit and

11:41

talk for an hour and I will

11:44

talk to anybody here. I'm talking to

11:46

the far sides and always

11:49

came away friendly with everybody because

11:51

we're not dwelling on the politics. And when

11:53

it gets to that moment where it's

11:55

a political, I mean, I

11:57

had the... Who's the guy? Dana

12:00

White. You know, he's

12:02

far right, he's a trumper. We had

12:04

a great time. You just have to.

12:07

There's no other way this country can heal.

12:10

You have to get over that thing in your head

12:12

that says, oh, well, you

12:14

know, four out of five of these compartments

12:17

didn't flood, but the fifth one, that

12:19

can't be enough to sink the ship. You

12:21

know, in the Titanic, there was nine compartments,

12:23

the guy, Victor Garber comes out and says,

12:26

only four of them had flooded, we'd be fine,

12:28

but the fifth one did and now we're going

12:30

down. And I feel like

12:32

that's our minds. It's compartments and

12:35

a couple of them and almost everybody

12:37

will be flooded. I feel like

12:39

you and I and Andrew Sullivan and, you

12:41

know, Barry Weiss and this, there is a

12:43

group of us, but I do feel

12:45

like we're sort of standing like

12:47

this, you know, with our backs

12:49

to each other because there's

12:52

only so few of us and the hordes are

12:54

coming from all around us from both sides.

12:56

So we have to get into that phalanx

12:59

of the Roman soldiers. Yeah, that's a good

13:02

image. Yeah. So

13:04

back to Hollywood for a moment, why is it

13:06

that these celebrities are terrified to

13:08

state the obvious in the aftermath

13:10

of October 7th? And so

13:13

many are not terrified to get on what is

13:15

quite obviously the wrong side of it. To

13:18

be clear, there are people who

13:20

signed letters castigating Israel in

13:22

the immediate aftermath of October 7th before

13:24

Israel had done anything in response. Like,

13:26

how is it that that was moral

13:28

high ground that they thought they could

13:30

stake out and we literally have Jewish

13:33

celebrities who I won't name, who

13:35

won't go on your podcast or

13:37

my podcast or Rogan's podcast and talk about anything

13:40

here because they're afraid they'll never work in this

13:42

town again. Well, the short

13:44

answer is celebrities are stupid. No,

13:48

I exaggerate. Slightly. Well, actually, let me

13:51

just add to this. Now, you're not

13:53

quite exaggerating because a

13:55

Harris poll just came out, a Harvard Harris poll

13:58

came out and they're actually completely out have touched

14:00

with public opinion in the country, 75% of

14:02

Americans want the idea of to go into Rafa.

14:05

75%. Sam,

14:07

let me say this in a nicer

14:09

way. And I do mean this more

14:12

sincerely than my insulting

14:15

comment. People in the arts perceive

14:18

truth differently. They

14:20

get at truth differently, poetically,

14:22

metaphorically. They're not stupid

14:24

in general. There are some, yes. But

14:27

they just... It's

14:29

not an information-based talent that

14:31

they have. It's emotional. It's

14:34

about feeling. That's why

14:36

they're so big on your truth

14:38

and, you know, your felt truth,

14:40

whatever phrases they're using for just,

14:43

this is what I want to believe, so I'm going to.

14:46

The world is not a completely rational place. I think

14:48

you and I think we can

14:50

get at truth better through rationality, but it's

14:52

just not how the people in the arts,

14:55

they're more emotionally linked. That's what

14:57

works for them with the audience. It's just

14:59

who they are. And for many reasons,

15:01

that's why we love them more. I

15:04

mean, we idolize them and adore them

15:06

to the point of swelling their heads where

15:08

they go crazy

15:11

because they're so adored. That

15:13

happens a lot in job business. We

15:15

don't have that effect on

15:17

people, you and I, but we're

15:19

more, I think, sane about

15:22

perceiving truth. So they

15:24

don't know the history of the Middle

15:27

East. All they know is,

15:30

well, the kids are doing it, so it must be hip,

15:32

so you don't want to lose the young audience. So let's

15:34

just get with them. They didn't

15:36

do enough research to realize that it's not even most

15:38

kids, but it's the ones who are on the news

15:41

and it gets on their phone. And

15:43

of course, there's also tremendous peer pressure

15:45

out here. I mean, the

15:47

people who are the far,

15:49

far leftist, I mean, they

15:51

really control the debate. You do not want to

15:54

get on their wrong side. They control the media,

15:56

they control the gossip. So you

15:58

better be exactly like when you we had

16:00

the strike last year. You better be

16:02

exactly on that page and not have any

16:04

questions about the strike. And

16:07

I had questions. Many people

16:09

did, but very afraid to speak. It's

16:11

not that different with political issues either,

16:13

I think. You better get in line

16:16

and believe that and parrot

16:18

that, or else you are

16:21

ostracized in this town. And,

16:23

you know, that certainly has happened to actual conservatives

16:25

and they complained about it, and I don't blame

16:27

them for complaining about it. Bruce Willis

16:29

complained about it. People who were just Republican

16:32

just believed in smaller government and the old

16:34

Republican stuff, which is not against the law

16:37

and is sometimes correct, but it

16:39

got to the point where it was people like you

16:41

and me who aren't even

16:43

Barry Weiss. I mean, we're not even, we're not,

16:45

we don't think of ourselves as conservatives, and we're

16:47

not. We name almost any

16:49

liberal issue and we're like, yes, of course,

16:52

we were there a long time ago. A

16:54

long time ago, we were there on, you

16:56

know, racism and gay rights

16:58

and whatever it is. No,

17:01

I am left on every issue except

17:03

I'm right of John Bolton on jihadism.

17:05

That's the one thing. Me too. Well,

17:08

that's the ultimate blind spot for them

17:11

because, again, they don't know

17:13

things. So it's just, it's really

17:15

as simple as, well, the kids are doing

17:17

it. And also, it's

17:20

about brown people and white people because they

17:22

think Israelis are all white, which they're, of

17:24

course, not. But to

17:26

them, it's the browner, poorer people and the

17:28

whiter, richer people. And I think we know

17:30

who the bad guy in this story is.

17:34

You know, it's really that simple. They

17:36

really can only perceive things simply

17:38

like black and white is the perfect metaphor

17:40

for them. And that's why, you know, people

17:43

of color all over the world

17:45

can get away with anything. I mean, North

17:47

Korea starves its people. You know,

17:50

China puts the Uyghurs in

17:52

concentration camps. A

17:54

couple of African countries talk openly

17:56

these days about marching gays into

17:58

stadiums and killing. them for the

18:00

crime of being gay. I mean, it's

18:03

just comical, the lengths that

18:05

they will go to to not

18:07

see crimes if they're

18:09

not committed by colonizers or the

18:11

patriarchy. But

18:14

it's even the UN, it's

18:16

like a mall cloonie bringing

18:19

an arrest warrant against Netanyahu and

18:21

Sinoir as though they're equivalent characters.

18:24

Yes. I mean, I was on

18:26

The View this week. Oh, I didn't see

18:28

that appearance. Hey, Sam,

18:30

you missed The View that day? Well,

18:32

were you sick? No, I actually, in

18:35

anticipation of this conversation, I've been following a little bit of

18:37

your press. I watched you with Megyn Kelly. I watched you

18:39

in a few places. I saw

18:42

you almost fight with her a little bit.

18:44

Oh, absolutely, yeah. So what happened on The View?

18:47

Well, you know, first of

18:49

all, I was very glad to be there. I hadn't

18:51

been there in a long time. I'm friends, really good

18:53

friends with Joy and Whoopi for years. The other ones

18:56

I did not know, they were new

18:58

to the show. But, you know,

19:00

it's a show that makes news and it's

19:03

well watched and well received and it's

19:06

in the zeitgeist. So I really wanted to

19:08

go there and reconnect with

19:10

my friends. And also, look, I'm

19:12

not going to lie, I'm... They

19:15

walked right into the feminist trap because,

19:18

you know, they started in on, I forget how

19:20

it's up, but Gaza, again, you're right. You're always

19:23

the bad guy if you're defending Israel because you're

19:25

not upset about the women and children

19:27

being killed. Yes, I am very upset

19:29

about it. I don't think that's good

19:31

either. Women and children being killed anywhere

19:33

in the world. My question

19:36

to them is always first, do

19:38

you think Hamas should be destroyed?

19:41

And people almost always say yes. I

19:44

don't know how much they really know about Hamas, but I think

19:46

they kind of get that it is a... They get it as

19:48

a trap. I'm

19:51

not to the trap part yet. Okay, so first

19:53

I lay out the war thing, which is yes,

19:55

it's a fascist dictatorship and it's

19:58

a terrorist army. Both

20:00

those things describe Hamas, and

20:03

they are despised by their own people, and

20:05

they have avowed to wipe out Israel many

20:07

times and have tried many times. And

20:10

quite openly say they will keep trying to do that.

20:12

Does that group need to

20:14

be destroyed? And they say,

20:16

yes. Then we're just talking about how to do it. And

20:19

you're saying, you know better than, look,

20:22

I don't know if they're using too many

20:24

bombs, and you don't either, whoever I'm talking

20:26

to, you just don't. What

20:28

I do know is that the history

20:30

of Israel, I trust them more than

20:32

any other nation to at least try

20:34

to be humane. They've had remarkable patience.

20:36

Well, just for, even if

20:38

they were a nation of psychopaths for

20:40

pure self-interest, given what happens to them

20:42

on the world stage every time they

20:44

kill kids, it's in

20:46

their interest to be more scrupulous than

20:49

any other fighting force to minimize collateral

20:51

damage. There's just no upside

20:53

for them as a nation to be indiscriminate

20:55

with their bombs. So the fact that, you

20:58

know, it's, they had this additional problem

21:00

that they're fighting a terrorist

21:03

army that is using its own civilian population

21:05

as human shields. Yes. That

21:08

has... I've heard you speak eloquently on

21:10

that, the moral

21:12

equivalence, ridiculous part

21:15

of that scenario. Okay,

21:17

so, but this wasn't my... A feminist

21:19

trap. All right, here you

21:22

are defending, and I'm the bad guy because

21:24

I'm for Israel and you're for the Palestinians.

21:26

And then I just always say, if you

21:29

had to live in Gaza for even one day,

21:31

and I don't mean during the war, of course

21:33

that's a nightmare, but just under normal Gaza, you

21:35

would run screaming and begging to live

21:38

in Tel Aviv, where

21:40

people share the values that you

21:42

prize. And if you're

21:44

looking for a cause, how about

21:46

women? Because this is a show

21:48

hosted by women and mostly women are in the audience.

21:51

So now you're in my feminist state, you

21:53

can't argue with this. This is the final

21:55

jujitsu move. But

21:57

all you have to do is describe.

22:00

like in most Muslim

22:02

majority countries, including certainly Gaza,

22:05

like what women go through. For

22:07

these people who are so obsessed with

22:09

this word apartheid and thinking

22:11

that Israel is an apartheid state, which it

22:13

is not, there's a real

22:15

apartheid in the world, a gender apartheid.

22:18

I mean, where one half

22:20

of the population, not

22:22

black and white, just male and female, is

22:25

treated completely different with no

22:27

equal rights in speech or

22:29

how you can dress or

22:31

reproductive rights or education opportunities,

22:34

certainly freedom from sexual violence and sexual

22:36

harassment. I mean, I could go down

22:38

the list, I guess I did to

22:40

some degree. That isn't the

22:42

issue of the day. That's going

22:44

to be my next editorial. Like,

22:47

I know you're looking for a cause, kids, which

22:49

is great. I think that's a great impulse. How

22:52

about this one? Because it's really

22:54

big. The moral confusion is so

22:56

complete, however, because the hijab

22:59

became the symbol of female empowerment for

23:01

the women's march. You have a shepherd

23:03

fairy poster of a woman, a gorgeous

23:05

woman in a hijab, just excluding the

23:08

male gaze with this

23:10

religious symbol, which is in

23:13

fact the mechanism of enshrining

23:15

this gender apartheid in Muslim majority countries. And

23:17

you have women who are struggling to get

23:20

out from under that. And the moment they

23:22

show their hair in Iran, they're thrown in

23:24

prison and raped and tortured and killed sometimes.

23:26

Again, the image I have of you

23:29

sticking your head out so far, thinking

23:31

you're so progressive, but actually it being

23:33

back around under your ass. Up

23:36

your own ass, yes. Again,

23:39

another example. Yeah. All

23:41

right. So back to you and what you're up

23:43

to here. How

23:45

do you think of your own audience at this point? You've

23:49

got two very different gigs.

23:52

You're just talking on both platforms, but you

23:54

have your HBO show and you've got club

23:56

random. I have, I mean, obviously

23:59

they couldn't be more. different in terms of

24:01

just the execution. I mean, it's just

24:03

this you must love doing this. I

24:06

love them both. And that's why I

24:08

mean, this moment in my

24:10

life is great because I feel like

24:12

it is more complete with Club Random

24:14

because now these

24:16

are the two sides of me. I mean, suit

24:18

and tie and certainly not stodgy.

24:20

I mean, I think people see Realtime

24:22

as a pretty hip show that's pretty

24:25

freewheeling. I was shocked when they let

24:27

me put it on CNN. I mean,

24:29

when they asked me to and I said, well,

24:31

what about all the language and the, yeah,

24:34

we don't care. So are they airing? I haven't

24:36

actually watched it on CNN. Are they airing all

24:38

full episodes? No, I know, but it's the exact

24:41

same cut. No, they had to, we cut out

24:43

one segment because they have to put in commercials.

24:45

Right. But they don't edit it, which I was

24:47

shocked. That is shocking. Now

24:49

you can say fuck on

24:52

CNN and nobody cares. Is that one good

24:54

thing that Trump did to the universe? Yeah,

24:57

but it is amazing the way that

25:00

happens sometimes where you don't realize where

25:03

the river

25:05

has flowed to until something indicates and

25:07

then you go, oh, wow, you

25:10

can say fuck on CNN and nobody cares.

25:12

That's where the country is. That

25:15

is different from even 10 years ago, certainly

25:17

20. And when I first

25:19

did the Tonight Show, you couldn't say ass

25:21

on TV. So we've

25:23

come a long way, baby. But

25:26

I love this because it's exactly

25:29

who I am when I'm off working

25:32

and we're just sitting around and I'm always

25:34

stoned for it. That makes a big

25:36

difference. And there's no agenda.

25:39

My show, I have an agenda. I look at

25:41

that show real time as a show that catches

25:43

people up on the news who

25:46

don't have time to follow it every day or maybe

25:48

they do and they just like an analysis of

25:50

it. There's both sides of that. But a lot of

25:52

people watch it to get the news. It's

25:55

like, oh, this is what happened this week. So

25:57

I have a clear agenda and I

25:59

work. many, many hours to make it

26:01

just right. It's like football players versus baseball.

26:03

Once a week, you really want to get

26:05

it right. But this

26:08

is just, it can be anything and

26:10

most of the people here are not political people. That's

26:13

great because I don't always want to talk about

26:15

politics. It's a bit of a busman's holiday for

26:17

me. Yeah. I think real

26:19

time got better when you went

26:22

to just two people on the panel. Totally.

26:24

It was too crowded. Too crowded. Yeah. Could

26:26

not agree more. I forgot what forced that.

26:28

Did you just have an accident? Okay. It

26:30

was the pandemic. Pandemic did us a lot

26:33

of good, got us a better audience also

26:35

because we had to socially

26:37

distance. The

26:39

crowd was like only a third of the

26:41

size and they were awesome. I was

26:44

like, why don't we

26:46

just keep, I'd rather have these people. For

26:50

a while, there was people who, I don't know why

26:52

they persisted in coming to a show. They must have

26:54

known was going to be somewhat upsetting to them or

26:57

to me. Because they

26:59

were a very far left woke crowd

27:01

and I've never been there. But

27:05

there was years when I was fighting

27:07

with my own audience. Saying

27:09

stuff that was perceived

27:11

in any way as not being towing

27:14

the woke line. I

27:17

have pictures on my wall of me doing this, giving

27:19

the finger to the crowd and I would be. A

27:23

lot of people said they liked that. It was

27:25

interesting. I could see how that is interesting. It's

27:28

certainly not what you see in other talk shows.

27:30

The talk show host saying fuck you to your

27:32

own audience. But they would just

27:34

annoy me with their lack

27:36

of open-mindedness. You have some

27:39

of these great moments where you sometimes

27:41

you'll tell a joke and it won't

27:43

land. You'll look with contempt at

27:46

your audience like, okay, I'll wait. I'll wait for

27:48

the laugh. You're going to

27:50

fucking laugh at that. Yeah. But

27:52

now, the audience has

27:55

been awesome. And they're my people.

27:57

There are people. They laugh at

27:59

both. sides and

28:01

they don't hold it against you. They

28:03

definitely cheer stuff that's anti-Trump and stuff.

28:05

I think they're where we are basically,

28:07

which is, you know, give us back

28:10

old school Republicans, give

28:12

us back a party that we might

28:14

even consider voting for, not these nuts,

28:16

and also get rid of the far

28:18

woke nonsense on the left. By the way,

28:21

on the view they were saying I should

28:23

not use the word woke, and

28:25

I was wondering, I was going to ask you about this. It

28:28

is a word that triggers people. And

28:30

it is a word that, like a

28:33

lot of people, including a lot of African

28:35

American people, I understand, it

28:37

has a special meaning of its original meaning, which

28:40

I think we all think was great, to be

28:42

alert to injustice. And then it

28:44

migrated to a very different place, much the

28:46

way the word violence, for example, has migrated.

28:48

It used to mean, oh, I

28:51

know what violence is, it's physical and it hurts,

28:54

and now it's just like anything I don't like. Yeah,

28:56

except for clitorctomies and suicide bombing. That's

28:58

not violence, that's just this voice of

29:01

the oppressed. Right.

29:04

But so I

29:06

would love to find some other word and get

29:08

people to use it for woke. Well, I'm sort

29:10

of out of touch with the original roots of

29:12

it. I mean, when I started

29:15

hearing woke everywhere, it was already

29:17

contaminated with a fair amount of

29:19

moral confusion. It was an old

29:22

school term from decades ago. And

29:24

it was certainly understandable why black

29:26

folks in this country would need

29:28

to, for their own

29:31

survival, stay woke. And it's

29:33

a shame, because it is a great word

29:35

with a great history. But yeah, I mean,

29:38

it was a hostile takeover. So

29:41

in thinking about your audience, the point

29:43

you're making about going against

29:45

the audience and that not

29:47

being conventional, that's especially true

29:49

out in my world. I mean, many of us

29:51

talk about a phenomenon that we call audience capture,

29:54

where if you have a podcast

29:56

and it's really all of alternative media, so

29:58

podcasts or newsletters. It

30:00

relates to what we talked about earlier

30:02

where people get radicalized by their own

30:04

audience because they begin to cater to

30:06

the signal in their audience that

30:09

is driving clicks or driving subscription.

30:12

My audience wants to hear just more and more

30:14

about how Trump is awful. And then you just

30:16

see how that person or

30:19

that channel becomes,

30:22

on the one hand, boring, not

30:24

to the fanatics, but also

30:26

just less than scrupulous

30:28

in how they call

30:30

balls and strikes because now

30:32

they're on team, whatever it is.

30:35

Well, I think the best example

30:37

of that is certain people have

30:39

gone over to MSNBC, well,

30:42

like Nicole Wallace. And

30:44

I like her very much, done my

30:46

show and I see

30:48

her. I think she's great. She's very

30:51

pro and very smart. But

30:53

she was hired, I think, as I'm

30:56

sure she was, she was a Bush spokesperson.

30:59

She was hired as the conservative. But I

31:01

think this is probably when Trump was, maybe

31:04

it was before that. But anyway, it

31:07

was like, okay to have a conservative

31:09

if they were like anti-Trump. I mean,

31:11

David, not David Brooks, Brett Stevens also

31:14

said, I think, or indicated to

31:16

me once that he's invited on

31:18

that network. But usually it's only

31:20

limited to certain... Never Trumpers. Yeah,

31:23

a certain area that is not

31:25

going to upset the MSNBC audience.

31:29

You have a conservative on, but he's agreeing with

31:31

us on the doctrine that

31:33

we've all agreed on. Yeah. And a lot of

31:35

that doctrine I agree with too. I just

31:37

object to forcing it. But

31:40

anyway, so I think somebody like

31:42

that, they go over to MSNBC

31:45

as a guest on the show a lot

31:48

and they do well. But

31:50

again, they were a conservative.

31:52

They were Bush administration person. Then they

31:55

get hired. Now

31:57

you're there every day. The only people you

31:59

talk to. And suddenly,

32:01

you go right from just

32:04

a conservative but a never-Trump-er

32:06

to a full-on liberal. That's

32:09

a little creepy to me. I've noticed this, well,

32:11

I've noticed this much more in the other direction.

32:13

You have people just like us, or

32:16

they used to be just like us, who

32:18

began to react to

32:20

the craziness on the left. And

32:23

there's something that I think, tell

32:25

me if it's true for you, there's something more annoying about

32:28

the extremism on the left and on the

32:30

right. Correct. Viscerally,

32:33

yes. The right is more intellectual. I

32:35

know in my mind the right is

32:37

way more dangerous. But you're right.

32:39

But it's not nearly as annoying. It's more

32:42

obnoxious. First of

32:44

all, it's embarrassing because it's sort of

32:46

our team, more my team for sure,

32:48

and I think yours. So

32:50

it's like, you're embarrassing us on that,

32:53

our team. Well, you're also destroying institutions

32:55

that I really care about. I don't

32:57

care about Liberty University. It was already

32:59

destroyed. But the New

33:02

York Times and the ACLU, Harvard,

33:04

like I care about these institutions.

33:06

Right, exactly. So do

33:08

you think of your audience as just a unified population?

33:11

The audience for Club Random is the same

33:13

as the show or...? No. I

33:15

mean, it's all over the map and stand up. I mean, I

33:17

can say, I mean, it's good in the

33:19

sense that it's a very wide range. Some

33:22

younger, middle, I mean,

33:25

Gen X, a lot of those, but

33:27

millennials too. And the TV

33:29

show gets a younger number, you

33:31

know, median number than the late

33:33

night shows. And it's

33:35

politically all over the map too,

33:38

not of course a lot of

33:40

woke anymore. I think I lost that audience. I

33:42

think they walked out the door and it's okay.

33:45

The super far left. I'm not... The

33:47

people who are giving purity tests, I

33:50

am not the one to be passing a purity test.

33:52

And that's okay. I don't miss them

33:54

and I replace them with I think many more

33:56

people in the middle. And

33:58

also I definitely... Yes, it's

34:00

true. Here for more conservatives, but never

34:03

really the hard right asshole

34:05

conservatives. It's more like the guys on the

34:07

golf course who used to

34:09

think I was a huge liberal asshole and

34:12

now think, oh, okay, at least

34:15

he has the guts to call out where

34:17

the left went crazy. And maybe they think

34:19

they, in their mind, maybe they think they

34:21

saw the crazy on the left before I

34:24

did. I would contend, and one

34:26

reason I went through all those editorials is to

34:28

find out if, actually

34:30

no, the left did get crazier.

34:32

I don't think I missed something in 2012

34:34

under Obama. I

34:37

think he was pretty sane and I don't think

34:39

Gen Z had come along yet. And

34:41

I don't think you could point

34:43

to a lot of specific things that

34:46

were not where they are today,

34:48

including, of course, marching with terrorists,

34:51

stuff like that. So I

34:53

think you and I had a pretty similar experience over

34:55

the last 10 years in purging

34:57

our audience of the

35:00

two extremes, discovering that

35:02

the far left hated us suddenly because

35:04

we weren't woke. And

35:06

then also discovering that because we

35:08

had made sense when

35:12

aimed left and certainly made sense

35:14

on the collision between

35:16

Western culture and Jihadism, we had

35:18

a lot of far right proto-Trumpist

35:22

fans who suddenly were blindsided by

35:24

the fact that we didn't recognize

35:26

Trump's brilliance. Exactly. I've

35:30

had that, yes, I've had to face that

35:32

disappointment in people's eyes also. And

35:35

that's again what I mean about how

35:37

can you think this, this, this, this,

35:39

and not this? Right. And

35:42

we just have to, you

35:44

know, get past that because I would

35:46

love to know what your prediction is

35:49

for, let's say the month of

35:51

January 2025. Yeah. Where,

35:53

how do you see that month? I mean, I

35:56

have a birthday that month, happens to be inauguration

35:58

day. It could be a big. month. It

36:00

could be, you might be, we might be

36:03

having your birthday in a bunker somewhere. JS

36:05

Luckily, we have one. JS Yeah. I

36:08

mean, it is amazing that we're here and

36:11

that the Democratic Party had

36:13

years to watch

36:15

this slow moving catastrophe. And

36:18

they couldn't figure out how to put

36:21

anyone else in position other than

36:24

Biden. I mean, who appears

36:26

to be, this is, it's

36:29

hard to know because you don't see that much of him, but it

36:31

wouldn't be surprising if week

36:34

by week, certainly month by month, he's

36:36

just getting obviously worse as a candidate.

36:38

JS That's happening now. JS Yeah. No,

36:40

I know. I mean, like, I feel

36:42

like, I'm hearing rumors that it's just,

36:46

they're shielding him from the cameras. JS It's only going

36:48

one way. JS Yeah. No, it's not. There's no way

36:50

he's going to get more pep in a step. JS

36:52

No. It's a shame. You know, politically,

36:55

he's a disaster policy

36:57

wise, not a disaster

36:59

at all. JS Although the way

37:01

in which he's tried to split the difference

37:03

on Israel has

37:06

been quite stupid politically.

37:09

JS Yeah. It certainly could. In the beginning, he was

37:11

great. And then he was wackled. JS

37:13

Well, his biggest failure to

37:15

me when they look

37:17

back on it, I think, is that

37:19

he did not have the stamina, maybe

37:21

it was strength, maybe that's an age

37:23

thing, I don't know, to

37:26

fight with his own far

37:28

left. JS He needs a sister soldier

37:30

moment. So does she, Kamala Harris, because

37:32

people are looking at her as

37:35

the likely person to finish the term. JS

37:37

And they're not going to do it. JS

37:39

And she needs to stiff arm the far

37:41

left. JS She can barely manage

37:44

the script as they write it, let

37:46

alone have the guts to, you know, or

37:48

whatever it takes to… JS

37:51

You don't think she can just put on the

37:53

old prosecutor hat and be kind of law and

37:55

order in a way that would reassure the middle

37:57

of the country? JS For whatever

37:59

reason. And I like to

38:01

still like her as a

38:03

person, but for whatever reason, it's

38:06

almost like someone who does well

38:08

in the comedy clubs and then they get on

38:10

the big stage and they just

38:13

don't do well in the Tonight Show and the career

38:15

is over. Like she got on the

38:17

big stage and for some reason, just

38:20

part of it is the perception and then maybe it

38:23

fed on itself, but does not

38:25

look confident and I

38:28

just think it's a mental block kind of a

38:30

thing because yes, that would be great if she

38:32

could with confidence go out there. I mean, you

38:34

know who could do it? Because he's

38:36

got that kind of confidence, it's Gavin Newsom.

38:38

I don't think he's going to do it,

38:41

but he could switch on a dime because

38:43

he's just a great debater who's very confident

38:45

in what he's saying, no matter what it

38:47

is. But he seems... And he knows his

38:49

facts. Because he can tap dance that way,

38:51

he does seem like he

38:53

lacks a core of real conviction. I

38:55

mean, he's a kind of a weather

38:57

vane politically. I

39:00

don't see it that way. I see him as

39:02

way too far ideologically captured by

39:04

the left. Well, yeah, that's where the

39:06

weather... That's where the wind has been

39:08

blowing and he's just stuck. He's the

39:10

governor of California. I mean, he was

39:12

out front on a couple of those

39:14

issues like gay marriage and stuff when

39:17

very few people... Yeah, that was courageous.

39:19

Yeah, so I think he's shown that.

39:22

I'm not against a guy who's a great

39:24

politician. I mean, Clinton... Haven't

39:26

you seen those bad ads, the political ads against

39:28

Newsom that are just so easily cut by everyone

39:30

on social media where they just show him walking

39:33

and talking about the California way, intercut

39:35

with just homelessness and tent cities and...

39:37

Sure. Whatever's true in California

39:40

might be beside the point. The optics for

39:42

the rest of the country is that California

39:44

is a failed state that's just filled with

39:47

Fenton Allatics and sex crimes and drag queen

39:49

story hour. And you got Gavin presiding over

39:51

all of it. I don't know how he

39:53

gets out from under that. Well,

39:56

I mean, I thought he

39:58

would be a great replacement. for Biden

40:00

as many people did, and I still think

40:02

he could pull it off, but

40:05

the polling is very bad on him. Oh,

40:07

I haven't seen that. Is it bad? Yes.

40:10

Somebody sent it to me because I was saying that I think he'd be good

40:12

and they were like, yes. And

40:14

it's basically, it's California. It's

40:17

what you're exactly talking about. He is

40:19

tied to this image that

40:21

we're a hippie commune, we've

40:24

lost our mind, and

40:26

you know, Portland, that's Oregon.

40:28

Fuck that. Just close enough. We

40:32

get tarred with that as well. Yeah,

40:34

Portland's even worse than San Francisco as far

40:36

as like going, didn't they have

40:38

the no police zone? Yeah. That

40:41

was a great idea. Who

40:43

could have thought that crime might go up

40:46

when you kick the cops out? And again,

40:48

like I know there are people, and

40:50

you must know this, that are listening

40:52

to this right now, like hate listening

40:54

because they're the two biggest smug assholes

40:57

in the world are sitting there talking

40:59

like they know what the fuck

41:01

is up. And then people on

41:03

both sides will be thinking that we're that

41:06

guy. Yeah. Well,

41:09

we've got a lot to apologize for. Yeah.

41:12

I mean, I think the middle, in part

41:15

what has happened is that with social

41:17

media, we have built this hallucination

41:20

machine where the extremes seem

41:22

to take up much more of

41:24

the real bandwidth of the world

41:26

than in fact they do. And so that are to

41:28

represent much more of a public opinion than they do.

41:31

You've got like 8% on each tail

41:34

that is just incredibly loud. And

41:38

some of them have bought armies, then

41:40

we've got outside actors like China and

41:42

Russia stoking that schism

41:44

in our society. But the

41:46

schism is there, but still there's this vast

41:48

middle of the country that

41:51

understands that you don't want to be giving

41:54

double mastectomies to 12 year

41:56

old girls and that

41:58

a coup when trying to

42:00

transfer power is not a

42:02

good thing in America. And they

42:04

don't want either of those extremes. And they

42:07

don't want apologies for either of

42:09

those extremes. I mean, how is it that

42:12

in the Republican Party, the

42:14

party line is January

42:16

6th was nothing. Like, I mean,

42:18

I understand that there's footage of

42:21

cops, in many cases, terrified cops,

42:23

letting people into the building. Because

42:26

on the other side of the building, people are getting

42:28

stabbed in the face with flagpoles. But

42:31

how is it that you, however

42:33

much you want to diminish the significance of

42:36

the violence on that day, how

42:38

is it that you can claim

42:40

that nothing was actually in jeopardy

42:42

when you have a sitting president

42:45

trying to ignore the results of

42:47

an election, and the only bulwark

42:49

against him really actually trying to

42:51

hold onto power is

42:53

Mike Pence and a few other people having

42:56

their consciences still tethered to

42:58

the Constitution rather than the

43:00

personality cult. Well, I'm

43:02

gonna answer that by saying I was

43:05

on Megyn Kelly also, unless this week

43:07

in New York. And I

43:09

was surprised, you know, I like her.

43:12

I think we're friends now. If

43:15

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43:18

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43:21

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