David Mamet | Club Random

Summary

Detailed Summary of "Club Random with Bill Maher – David Mamet"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Club Random with Bill Maher
• Host: Bill Maher
• Guest: David Mamet
• Episode Release Date: June 1, 2025

---

1. Introduction and Initial Banter ([01:46] - [02:18]) The episode kicks off with light-hearted conversation as Bill Maher welcomes renowned playwright and filmmaker David Mamet to Club Random. Their initial exchange revolves around maintaining a pool table in the establishment, highlighting the challenges posed by frequent patrons.

Notable Quote:

• Bill Maher ([02:00]): "I never saw you in a hat like that. Is this because you're coming off a directorial?"

---

2. The 2020 Presidential Election and Claims of Fraud ([05:25] - [07:06]) Bill Maher and David Mamet delve into the contentious topic of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. Mamet recounts a hypothetical scenario where Donald Trump contacts him to discuss alleged election fraud, reflecting ongoing debates surrounding the election's legitimacy.

Notable Quotes:

• David Mamet ([05:50]): "They looked at this, Republicans have looked at this. It was tested in court like 60 times. It was thrown out every time."
• Bill Maher ([07:06]): "Republicans have looked at this. It was tested in court like 60 times. It was thrown out every time."

---

3. January 6th Capitol Riot and Democratic Accountability ([12:22] - [13:53]) The conversation shifts to the January 6th Capitol attack, exploring its roots in the refusal to concede the 2020 election. Mamet criticizes the Democratic Party for fostering an environment where half the country might never accept electoral outcomes, posing a threat to democratic principles.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Maher ([12:22]): "What do you think January 6th was about?"
• David Mamet ([13:03]): "Well, you, like me, have built a career out of nothing except talent and a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work. But you're full of shit."

---

4. Conspiracy Theories and the JFK Assassination ([44:04] - [47:46]) Mamet introduces his work on the JFK assassination, suggesting Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA patsy involved in a larger conspiracy. He criticizes the official narrative, citing inconsistencies in the Zapruder film and arguing for a more intricate plot involving multiple gunmen.

Notable Quotes:

• David Mamet ([44:07]): "If you look at it, there are several frames missing. Every frame is numbered. Right. And several frames are just missing."
• Bill Maher ([47:46]): "That I believe in general, yes, I do think so, I do think so."

---

5. David Mamet's New Work: "The Disenlightenment" ([19:03] - [29:03]) Mamet discusses his latest book, "The Disenlightenment," which draws parallels between government and Hollywood, suggesting both operate on the power of myth. He explores themes of societal disintegration and the fragmentation of political agendas under the Biden administration.

Notable Quotes:

• David Mamet ([23:54]): "You do know that there are people listening to this who are hearing you say a bunch of brigands took over prosecuting their own agenda and they're gonna think he's talking about the Trump administration."

---

6. Education and the Impact of Technology ([73:23] - [75:27]) The dialogue turns to education, where Mamet criticizes modern educational institutions for lacking discipline and failing to prepare students effectively. He attributes part of the problem to internet addiction, highlighting how technology hampers students' ability to engage meaningfully with the world.

Notable Quotes:

• David Mamet ([73:26]): "The thing about all these machines is that they're hypnotic. So they're just like cigarettes, right? They get you all jazzed up, and so they make you want to smoke more cigarettes because you're jazzed up."

---

7. The State of California: Regulations, Taxes, and Social Issues ([57:35] - [62:54]) Maher and Mamet critique California's overregulation and high taxation, linking these factors to issues like homelessness and wildfires. They argue that excessive regulations stifle common sense and contribute to the state's social and economic problems.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Maher ([58:17]): "But I think he wants to be president. And I think to be president you have to move to the center."
• David Mamet ([62:47]): "That's not just wrong, it's crazy."

---

8. The Future of American Politics: Democratic Party Challenges ([56:25] - [87:15]) The discussion broadens to the fragmentation of the Democratic Party, with Mamet expressing concern over its inability to present a cohesive message. They debate the necessity of party unity and the challenges posed by internal divisions between progressive and centrist factions.

Notable Quotes:

• David Mamet ([56:25]): "The problem is there's no party anymore. There's no Democratic party anymore. It's completely fragmented."
• Bill Maher ([57:17]): "But you know what? That's the thing. It could be true."

---

9. Hollywood, Foreign Students, and Cultural Impact ([80:49] - [84:49]) Mamet touches on the cultural influence of Hollywood and the importance of foreign students to the American education system. He warns against policies that might deter international talent, emphasizing the risk of a brain drain that could weaken the nation's creative and intellectual capital.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Maher ([81:05]): "And he is fucking with that. People are not going to want to come here and already have stopped coming here."
• David Mamet ([84:46]): "I don't like popcorn movies and you don't."

---

10. Closing Remarks ([86:55] - [89:30]) As the conversation winds down, Bill Maher apologizes for any earlier tensions, expressing admiration for Mamet despite their disagreements. They share final thoughts on political strategies and the importance of dialogue, ending on a note of mutual respect.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Maher ([86:55]): "Well, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you coming by. I'm sorry I pissed you off at the beginning."
• David Mamet ([89:18]): "So I don't get it."

---

Conclusion: In this engaging episode of Club Random, Bill Maher and David Mamet navigate a labyrinth of political and social issues, blending humor with sharp critique. From election integrity and conspiracy theories to education and the future of American politics, their conversation offers listeners a deep dive into contemporary challenges facing the United States. Despite their differing viewpoints, the hosts maintain a respectful dialogue, inviting listeners to ponder the complexities of modern society.

Notable Final Quote:

• David Mamet ([89:18]): "So I don't get it."

---

Highlighted Quotes:

• Bill Maher ([05:02]): "How company management is over the top, it doesn't have to be that way."
• David Mamet ([10:07]): "Well, we know that Russia would put things on the Internet that weren't true just to get people fighting."
• Bill Maher ([53:59]): "This is exactly what a lot of people would say about magnation."

This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the conversation between Bill Maher and David Mamet, providing a clear and detailed overview for those who haven't listened to the episode.

Transcript

[Bill Maher]

What are you going to do as a business owner to ensure that your business survives and thrives during these economically shaky times? Well, why not utilize something stable for your marketing efforts? By tapping into the power of podcasts and radio, audio, marketing can make your brand stand out above your competitors. Go to RadioactiveMedia.com or text random to 511-511-Text random to 511-511-Today Message and Data rate. Christian nationalism is on the rise, and they're working overtime to shove their beliefs into our laws, our schools, and even our personal lives. It's like, hey, I respect your right to believe whatever you want, just don't make me live by it. That's where the Freedom from Religion foundation comes in. They fight to keep church and state separate like our founders actually intended. The only thing worse than someone forcing religion on you is. Is when they do it by law. For membership information, text Club to 511-511. Text fees may apply. You know what's underrated these days? A shirt that actually fits. Not one that looks like it was designed for a bodybuilder or your dad in 1993. That's why I like True Classic. They make clothes for real guys with real bodies and real budgets. So skip the overpriced designer labels. Forget the fast fashion landfill filler. Go to truclassic.com random or hit target or Costco and pick some up. True Classic. Your body and your wallet will thank you. I know. I know. You think liberals want to destroy the family.

[David Mamet]

No, no, I don't think they want to destroy the family. I think they have destroyed the family.

[Bill Maher]

I'll bet you.

[David Mamet]

You know, I don't know. I think he's gotten into. He's got.

[Bill Maher]

That's your. That's.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, he's gotten into the wrong pew.

[Bill Maher]

Randall calling the role.

[David Mamet]

Hey, darling Mer. How are you? Thanks for having me.

[Bill Maher]

Excuse the laughter. Nothing to it.

[David Mamet]

Nothing to it. What's new?

[Bill Maher]

I love the way you're amusing yourself.

[David Mamet]

Oh, this is a great pool table.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, it's amazing. Nothing's ever spilled on it because, like, there's so many drunks around it all the time. I'm not naming names.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, I got a couple extra rooms in my house, but both of three of them. But all of them just, like, six inches too short for a pool table.

[Bill Maher]

I. I never saw you in a hat like that. Is this because you're coming off a directorial. Oh, and you have a book? I mean, my God.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, I know. Well, since I got retired and blacklisted, I've been like a swine.

[Bill Maher]

Well, we're going to talk about all of it, but first, I read in here that at a dinner party the conversation always lapses 20 minutes after the hour and before the hour. So say you. So say the French.

[David Mamet]

No, that's right.

[Bill Maher]

Okay, can we put that to the. Does this count as kind of a dinner party or is this not counting because we're drinking and smoking?

[David Mamet]

No, it doesn't quite count as a dinner party because we have. Because we aren't convivial here. We're actually having a structured conversation.

[Bill Maher]

You think this is structured? Boy, did you get the wrong email. It's definitely not.

[David Mamet]

No. Okay.

[Bill Maher]

Is that what you got from our other times here? That I'm structured? Did I have like an agenda that I know where I'm going with any of this?

[David Mamet]

No, no, no. I think you're doing fine.

[Bill Maher]

This is club random. This is random.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

So. But what. I mean, I find this hard to believe that. And what is the. What is the reasoning this. Why does conversation lag? You say there's like seven minute increments when people are talking. So then like after three they stop.

[David Mamet]

Yeah. So yeah, that's about the length of an old style vaudeville turn. It was about seven minutes. And that's about the length of a guy who's telling a story at a dinner party.

[Bill Maher]

But we're not all telling stories.

[David Mamet]

Say what?

[Bill Maher]

We're not just always telling a story.

[David Mamet]

That's about the length of one story. If you look at it, you'll see it. And the way that I first came to notice it was people quiet down at the theater. They come to the theater at 8 o' clock and at six or seven minutes after eight, there's a hush.

[Bill Maher]

Cause they're waiting for the play to start.

[David Mamet]

No, but why it's six or seven minutes after the hour?

[Bill Maher]

Because I don't know. My guess is because they think, oh, well, we've been here for a few minutes. The play's supposed to start at 8. I bet you it's gonna start right around now.

[David Mamet]

Cause that's exactly my point. Why at that point? Why not after two minutes or after 20 minutes? Because that's built into the human consciousness that at a certain time we start to look around to reassess our. Our situation. Because we're basically animals. And I don't mean just the Democrats.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, I mean, man, each book you get more right wing, I have to say. You get like the last one. I remember you were on my show and it Was like one line in it that was. And I said to you on the air like, are you implying that Trump, that election was stolen by Biden? And no, I didn't. You were kind of like hedging it and now you're like, you know, you.

[David Mamet]

Know what happened to me the next morning. You don't know what happened to me the next morning. I was on your show when you said, are you implying that the Trump admin. That the election was stolen? And I was kind of iffy on it, right. Next morning, 8 o' clock, the phone rings. Woman on the phone says, Mr. Man, what will you hold for the President? I said, wait a second, Biden is calling. It's Trump. He's doing the Biden administration. He says, david, it's Donald Trump. I say, oh, Mr. President, thank you for calling. To what do I owe the honor? He said, I saw you on Bill Maher yesterday, you were great. He said, but you worst out on the question of the stolen election. And then he talked to me for like 20 minutes about how the election was stolen, but it wasn't. Well, I think it was, but they've.

[Bill Maher]

Adjudicated this, they've looked at this, Republicans have looked at this. It was tested in court like 60 times. It was thrown out every time. Trump's own commission, appointed by his own commissioners to look at the election, the cybersecurity commission, it's called or agency. There's two of them, one of them is within the Department of Homeland Security. They all said the same thing. It was the most fair, honest election we've ever had.

[David Mamet]

I'm not talking about the votes, I'm not talking about counting the votes, that the Hunter Biden laptop was suppressed, the COVID information was suppressed. Zuckerberg said himself that the White House pressured him not to bring forward the information on the laptop. Rasmussen said had that come out, there would have been a 17 point spread.

[Bill Maher]

Oh please, those, that's so ridiculous. Those things are true. They did suppress the Hunter Biden. The press did do that. They. I've said this many times myself and Covid, nobody was more out there about fuck you on. We weren't allowed to hear about what we wanted to hear about COVID than I was. But would it have swung the election every election? Some things are suppressed. It's not a very fair game politics. But we do play within a certain type of rules. One of them is no ringers from the outside.

[David Mamet]

Wait, wait. We play within a certain amount of rules?

[Bill Maher]

Yes, we always did before. Like we're not Going to have other countries involved in our elections. That was. We'll do whatever we want to each other, but we're not going to do that. And Trump. Well, Trump publicly said Russia, if you're listening, could you get into Hillary's emails, that kind of stuff?

[David Mamet]

Dude, he was joking about.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, boy, you swallowed also.

[David Mamet]

Wait a second. Are you saying that he would now? Okay, you want to adjudicate the last eight years. Were you saying he was a Russian spy?

[Bill Maher]

I did not say that.

[David Mamet]

Did you say he?

[Bill Maher]

I said he. It's a ringer. You know, Dave, when I used to play in the Broadway show league, and maybe you have. You've had many big successful shows on Broadway. Maybe they had you on the team. Did you ever play in the Broadway show league?

[David Mamet]

No, I didn't. I have no eye hand coordination.

[Bill Maher]

Well, okay. Well, okay. So, you know, it was, you know, you'd play Annie or, you know, man of La Mancha and the comedy club had a team. We were sort of in the Broadway world, and once in a while, a team, you know, it would be like batting third for My Fair lady, and it was Jose Canseco, you know, it was like some bartender's friend who, like, would hit the ball a million. That's a ringer. That's called a ringer. You're not really supposed to be in that game. And Trump invited that in a way nobody else ever did in American politics. I'm not saying he's a Russian spy. I don't think that I even think he really wants to make America great. I do. I just. I don't agree with how he's doing it. And he certainly feathers his own nest in a way no president has ever even come close to doing what he's selling the Bitcoin, you know, have dinners with the open bribery that goes on. Okay. People don't seem to care about that. But he certainly invited another country to do things, and they took advantage of it. Of course. Would it have made a difference? I don't know.

[David Mamet]

How did they take advantage of it?

[Bill Maher]

Well, Trump's campaign manager was sharing polling data with a GRU agent, maybe. Well, okay, that's something that. I mean, even Nixon didn't do that.

[David Mamet]

Wait, that's the first that I've heard. A. And B, if it's true, and I'm not saying that it is, how did that influence the election?

[Bill Maher]

Well, we know that Russia would put things on the Internet that weren't true just to get people fighting. You know, that kind of stuff.

[David Mamet]

Like what?

[Bill Maher]

You know, they would say, like, you know, the Pope declared. They would put up some meme about, you know, the Pope is backing Trump. It wasn't true, but people believed it, and they just started to fight over it.

[David Mamet]

Here's my question. When last we spoke, several years ago, you were stuck on this issue. You're still stuck on it. How come?

[Bill Maher]

Because it's not been resolved.

[David Mamet]

So how. Wait, wait. What is it that hasn't been resolved?

[Bill Maher]

The asymmetry of American elections. The fact that if one party, the Republican Party, wins the election, the other party goes, okay, you win some, you lose some, and they go home. Hillary Clinton went home. Kamala Harris went home. You can't imagine Trump ever going home if he had lost.

[David Mamet]

No. Excuse me. Now, what you're doing is injecting metaphysics into what might be a matter of. So the question is not what he did. The question is not even what he might do. What you've just said is one can't imagine what he would do. But on the other hand, no, no.

[Bill Maher]

I don't have to imagine what he did in 2020, which was never concede the election. I'm not even talking.

[David Mamet]

Dude. He didn't have to concede the election. He lost. If somebody is beaten in a prize fight and the other guy gets the belt, the person who's beaten does not have to concede. It's not necessary. He's lost.

[Bill Maher]

Well, it is necessary. The analogy falls down, because if a bride fighter loses, it doesn't inspire people to riot.

[David Mamet]

How did he inspire people to riot?

[Bill Maher]

By not conceding the election.

[David Mamet]

Oh, come on. Oh, come on.

[Bill Maher]

What?

[David Mamet]

Come on. So, wait a second. He didn't say the words, I concede. And so that meant people rioted?

[Bill Maher]

Yes. What do you think January 6th was about?

[David Mamet]

What do you think January 6th was?

[Bill Maher]

It was about people who did not hear their leaders say, as every other leader in this country has said, after an election, okay, I lost. We welcome the new guy. We had disagreements, but now we're all Americans. When Obama took over, George Bush stood by next to him and he said, we want you to succeed, because when you succeed, America. Trump didn't do any of that.

[David Mamet]

Okay, so what?

[Bill Maher]

So what? It inspires half the country to not accept the basic democratic principle that we have elections, and when you lose, you go away, and then you become the loyal opposition. They don't see themselves as the loyalty.

[David Mamet]

Well, you, like me, have built a career out of nothing except talent and a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work. But you're Full of shit. I don't understand when you say that he did not say the words, I concede, caused half the country, which you just said, to riot.

[Bill Maher]

No, I didn't say half the country rioted. A lot of people rioted and it was less than half the country because he got less than half the votes and still won. That's okay. That's our system. But a good deal of the country approaching half the people who are maga, the people who love him, at least a third of the country will now in the future never accept any electoral results. And a democracy can't continue in that way. You have to have this situation we've always had where the one football coach walks across the field and shakes the hand with the coach who just beat him in the game.

[David Mamet]

Okay, what is it we'd be today if Kamala Harris had run?

[Bill Maher]

What's that?

[David Mamet]

What do you think we would be today if Kamala Harris had won? Well, what would happen? Would Israel still exist? I don't think so.

[Bill Maher]

Still exist? Of course. Why wouldn't they exist?

[David Mamet]

Why wouldn't they exist? Because the Obama, Marxist, Leninist Islamists that were taken up during the. Here's a good question that I would ask you is who was running the country during those. The four years Biden was out of his mind and demented?

[Bill Maher]

Well, he wasn't out of his mind and demented for four years. He probably wasn't out of his mind or demented even on the last day. He just did the view. Did the Democrats do a horrible thing in propping him up and keeping him in office and trying to run him again? Yeah, they did. Of course, I am never easy on the Democrats or the left, and I'm totally with you on Israel, but they would of course still exist because they can defend themselves. But you've said things like, you know, liberals have never done anything for Israel.

[David Mamet]

That's bullshit.

[Bill Maher]

Harry Truman recognized Israel when many people told him not.

[David Mamet]

Excuse me, I never said that.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, you did.

[David Mamet]

Show it to me and I'll. I'll tell you what. Show it to me and I'll give $10,000 to the charity of your choice. No, right now I'm saying, wait a.

[Bill Maher]

Second, I'll find it.

[David Mamet]

You're pretty. No, no. You're pretty good.

[Bill Maher]

I'll find it.

[David Mamet]

Good. I'm going to give 10,000. You show it. You show it to me. I will give $10,000 to the charity of your choice.

[Bill Maher]

Okay.

[David Mamet]

Because you're throwing a lot around, a lot of generalizations, and I have A bigger question.

[Bill Maher]

It's not generalization.

[David Mamet]

Oh, really?

[Bill Maher]

What's the generalization? If I got that. If I got that quote wrong, I apologize and I will take it back.

[David Mamet]

I got another question. I sit down and all of a sudden you're attacking me about. I gotta come up. I have to come up with new idea about Trump and I have to talk. What the hell do you care? Let me ask you a question.

[Bill Maher]

First of all, wait a second. It was not my plan to attack you. And I'm sorry if you think I'm attacking you. Well, okay, we just got onto this. And I'm sorry that I'm not going to pretend that I agree with you.

[David Mamet]

Well, I'm not asking you to agree to me, but I got a good question. You started off with a very difficult question and a question which you have very strong views and I do too. How would you like this part of the conversation to end so that we can move on to something else? What would end it to your satisfaction?

[Bill Maher]

Well, we're at the 20 minute mark, so we could just end.

[David Mamet]

What would end it to your satisfaction?

[Bill Maher]

You want it to end. I don't want to piss you off. I'm your biggest fan. The fact that we don't agree on something so fundamental is still completely okay with me. I don't get it the way you don't get me. You just said I'm completely full of shit. And of course, people who disagree to this level, they think that of the other person. And what we have to do is, of course, learn to live harmoniously with people we just don't agree with that much. So we can just get past this. You're right, we should. And I'm happy to. And there's a million things in here and in the movie that I think are great and I would love to talk about. Okay. Club Random is brought to you by the audio marketing gurus. And Radioactive Media recently ranked number 20 on Inc. Magazine's list of the fastest growing private companies in the Pacific region. What are you going to do as a business owner or CMO to take your steps to ensure that business survives, your business survives and thrives during these economically shaky times? Well, why not utilize something stable for your marketing efforts? By tapping into the power of podcasts and radio, audio marketing can make your brand stand out above your competitors. And it's more cost effective than social media alone. My friends at Radioactive Media know the recipe to launch, optimize and scale performance by building compelling audio campaigns which work. They believe in the power of audio so much, they even use it themselves right here, right now. Go to RadioactiveMedia.com or text the word random to 511511. Discover how audio marketing can surpass your current strategies with new and innovative ways that sound better. Go to Radioactive Media.com or text random to 511-511. Text random to 511-511 today. Message and Data rates may apply. This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. Not everyone is careful with your personal information, which might explain why there's a victim of identity theft every five seconds in the U.S. fortunately, there's LifeLock. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com podcast terms apply. Well, let's, let's. There's two places in this book. Is it out already? The disenlightment?

[David Mamet]

I think it just came out.

[Bill Maher]

Just came out. Politics, horror and entertainment. I mean, there's two places where you like to say in a sentence what the book is. One is, you said it's an attempt to connect, I think, or identify things that are connected, that don't seem to be, but actually are part of a single disease.

[David Mamet]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Okay, that's one. And then another one is like you said, this book is about how government is like Hollywood and they're both like myth.

[David Mamet]

I said they both run out. Yes, that's. That's right. They wrote they both run on the, on the, on the power of myth. So that's correct.

[Bill Maher]

You want to hit either one of those as the, as the way you describe the book itself.

[David Mamet]

So what's the first one that you suggest?

[Bill Maher]

Single disease.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, it's a single disease. So I was looking at the Torah of the Biden years and at the. Absolutely. A bunch of events and actions which were in themselves incomprehensible, but in total were absurd because I couldn't understand a common theme. What was the common theme between saying boys have to play in med sports and saying that Israel is a terrorist state and saying that we have to. That the schools.

[Bill Maher]

Well, the Biden administration didn't say they were a terrorist state. The administration didn't people on the left do?

[David Mamet]

Well, the Biden administration withheld arms, congressionally mandated aid to Israel. Biden and Kamala Harris refused to meet with Netanyahu and they refused to condemn the World Court for calling Netanyahu a. A war criminal.

[Bill Maher]

I'm with you. On all this.

[David Mamet]

Okay, I know you are. So, boys and men's sports, open borders, which is completely indefensible.

[Bill Maher]

Why?

[David Mamet]

It's in the Constitution. If you don't have a border, you don't have a country. Rights for illegal immigrants, climate change, all of these things which are at best debatable. And I said, but more than that, they don't seem to be part of a program. They don't seem to be part. If we say the left has a program, whether it's overt or covert, to do something, these things don't add up to a combined program. They add up to a. I said, okay, I know what they look like. They look like an open city. That is to say, Paris in 1944 or Naples in 1943. 44. Or Moscow in 1812. The inhabitants have left. The attackers have left. The city is open, so it's open to marauding gangs, each of whom is going to prosecute its own program. So I said, ah, that's exactly what the Biden years look like. There's a bunch of people each prosecuting their own programs. It sounds to me this is before the real information about his senility came out. Like a bunch of people sitting at a conference table. One of them says, you know what I'd like to do? I'd like to get out of Afghanistan today. Somebody else says, well, you know, getting out of Afghanistan stands a good idea, but all the Joint Chiefs have said, if you get out today, people will die. No, fuck it. Guy says, I want to get out today. Well, guy says, I don't want to vote for that. So this guy says, I'll tell you what I'll do. You want to open the borders? I want to get out of Afghanistan today. I'll sign you auto pen thing, and you sign mine. Somebody says, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. What about me? I think that men should play in women's sports. Well, fuck, okay. You want to vote for that? What will you do for me? I'll vote for men and women's sports. What do you want to do for me? Okay, I tell you what I'll do for you. I will vote to not meet with the prime Minister of Israel. So what the. Looking at the facts. That's what one does when one tries to make a write a play. I'm going to look at the facts which seem unconnected in saying what connects them. And what connects them is the idea of a committee of brigands who've taken power, and they're each gonna prosecute Their own agenda because no one's gonna call them on it. The cats away in the mouths of his play. So that's what led me to a large extent to identify.

[Bill Maher]

You do know that there are people listening to this who are hearing you say a bunch of brigands took over prosecuting their own agenda and they're gonna think he's talking about the Trump administration. Right.

[David Mamet]

Okay, well, I'm not.

[Bill Maher]

I know, I know you're not. But you understand why some people would think that.

[David Mamet]

Sure. Because they watch the legacy media and they, and they watch CNN news, but.

[Bill Maher]

They'Re going to say, and it sounds to me like you may watch a lot of Fox News.

[David Mamet]

Sure. Okay, let him say it. All right, the question is, if you read the Constitution, which I do, it's pretty easy, about 20 pages, what is the Trump administration doing that's unconstitutional? The answer is nothing.

[Bill Maher]

Well, they're not obeying judges orders. That is unconstitutional.

[David Mamet]

What you're talking about the one district judge who said bring the guy back from El Salvador.

[Bill Maher]

There have been many judges orders about the immigration issue. Yes. That they're just ignoring.

[David Mamet]

Well, no, I don't know. I think your information there is wrong. I think that what they're doing is in some cases they may be, they may be slow walking it, but I don't believe that there's any, any. Here's what they're doing, is that all these rogue district judges are issuing restraining orders against the president in his performance of his constitutionally mandated duty. It's his constitutional duty to take care of the board. It has nothing to do with the judiciary. If someone feels wronged, they have the opportunity to sue, but the court does not have. The district courts do not have under the Constitution.

[Bill Maher]

Well, what's very clear in the Constitution, because it's in both the Fifth and the 14th Amendment, is that they could have said the word citizen both times and they said the word person. A person has a right to a trial.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, they do have a trial. They do have a right to a trial.

[Bill Maher]

They purposely didn't say citizen. That's why it's, yes. Unconstitutionally illegal to take people off the streets without any hearing at all and send them to a foreign prison. Well, that is not in the Constitution.

[David Mamet]

No, but you're wrong as to the facts again, because. Here, let me explain it this way. Say that you have a fellow who hates you, okay. And he is throwing stuff at your car, throwing stuff at you, blah, blah, blah. And he gets sent to prison, okay. He gets convicted. Right. Of harassment or he Gets convicted of assault or whatever, whatever, whatever. Say, okay, he's in prison and he gets out, he's got a parole. But one aspect of the parole is he has a restraining order. He cannot come within 1000ft of you or your house or your place of business. If he comes within 1,000ft of you, your house, your place of business, his parole is violated. It's exactly the same situation as the people who have been convicted of crimes and who have been deported and have then re entered the United States. They have the right to due process to find out whether or not that's the same guy. But prior to that, their crime and their sentence has been adjudicated.

[Bill Maher]

So can I use the topic of further into segue into a plug of your movie?

[David Mamet]

Oh, yeah, if you must.

[Bill Maher]

I loved it. Henry Johnson. I know, it was a.

[David Mamet]

Thank you.

[Bill Maher]

I know it was. Yeah. Well, of course, the first thing I thought was, you know, you have said, I think now, don't throw another ten grand at me if I get the quote wrong, but I think you were even here maybe talking about it, that movies almost don't need dialogue.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, they don't.

[Bill Maher]

And yet this movie is all dialogue.

[David Mamet]

Well, what am I going to do? You know, John Wayne said when he was playing Coriolanus, listen, I didn't write this shit, right, But I did write that shit.

[Bill Maher]

But it's. I thought it was delicious. It's three scenes, really, and Henry Johnson is in all of them. And he's with a different person in each of the other ones. I don't want to give too much away. The first is someone at a firm he was working at with, and then he's in prison. And that's the one with Shia LaBeouf, who has never been better than in that role. He's amazing. And then the prison guard and you know, to me, the through line. Not just through there, but a lot of your work is. You do feel like people are always conning people. I mean, a lot of your work is about con artists and different ways of conning, aren't we? Yes, I. Yes. I'm not, I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm saying that to me is like the through line. If I had to think of like so many of the David Mamet, stuff that I love is like you. You just getting into that subject of people conning each other and all the different ways we do it. I mean, some of them are direct cons, the Spanish prisoner and things that are like classic cons that people are Actually doing as a con, like, those are fun and then it's just the more subtle ways. I mean, Shia's whole speech is really about that, is it not?

[David Mamet]

Yeah, I mean, it's. I'm not quite sure what the play's about the movie's about, but I think it's about a guy who is so accommodating that he not only gets taken advantage of by everybody he meets, but causes havoc around him constantly by his goodwill. Somebody said that there were old fools and young fools, happy fools and sad fools, but there never was a fool who wasn't cruel. So this is a guy who's so good willed and so wants to please everybody. He's a fool that A, everybody takes advantage of him and B, ends up getting everybody killed. The same old story.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. I can't help but see a little politics in that. I don't think so. Between the lines.

[David Mamet]

I don't think so.

[Bill Maher]

No. Okay.

[David Mamet]

No, listen, I think I've been fairly clear. I've written a whole bunch of plays and movies and shit and fiction and so forth, but then independently I've written a bunch of political stuff. But I'm pretty clear about keeping the two. In fact, I'm dedicated to keeping the two separate.

[Bill Maher]

But I think a lot of people would be surprised if they heard a playwright of your magnitude say, I'm not sure what the play's about. Is that the way it's supposed to be? That it's a mystery even to you? To a degree.

[David Mamet]

Well, here's the thing. If something is a work of art, which I think that if you're a creative person, you aspire. There's mass entertainment, right? Then there's entertainment and then there's. At some point it's possible for it to be art. And at some point you aspire, however popular your stuff may be. And I want to be popular, you do too. But at some point you say, I would like to aspire to the realm of art, which means something beyond the ability of the consciousness to quantify. Right. You say, oh, again, I laughed, so obviously that's a comedy. Or I cried, so obviously that's a drama. But art is something beyond the ability of the consciousness to quantify. So if somebody said of the Chopin etude, what does it mean? But Chopin was a fuck. I don't know. I do it the best I can. So I'm trying to aspire to have my stuff, a beard, which is to say beyond the human capacity to encapsulate. Because if you encapsulate it you stop thinking about it. Oh, I get it. Right, let's see.

[Bill Maher]

Maybe I'm not that bright because like one reason I enjoyed it so much is because when it got to the end, I said, I get it what I thought you were aiming for and in your artistic way. And maybe I'm just too one dimensional and I should be thinking about it more. And maybe I could never get it, but I really took it, you know, and I relished in it. That, you know, do gooders are people who try to do the right thing. Sometimes they wind up hurting the people even more. Not always. I mean, we shouldn't end do Gooderism, but there's a certain level to this guy that he keeps in all these iterations being taken in. And it's, you know, a fool, whatever your quote was.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, but see, it was great that you said I get it. But that to me means differently. Differently than I understand it. I get it means. Oh yeah. Which is what craft is in playwriting. Where you at the end someone stands. Oh my God. It was in front of me the whole time, everything that I thought, this doesn't make sense. This doesn't make sense. Ah, now it makes sense.

[Bill Maher]

Yes, I must say. And maybe we talked about this, but you know, to me, great art movies anyway plays like the ending. That's the hard part. Anyone can think of a movie, how do you end it? And to make the ending both surprising and inevitable. Inevitable, yeah, that's the trick. And I felt like you ducked the landing on that one.

[David Mamet]

Well, that's what Aristotle said. He wrote that book called the Poetics a little while ago. He said the ending has got to be surprising and inevitable.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, really? He said that?

[David Mamet]

Oh yeah, he said that's it. So if we know that as dramatists, it's no different than a joke. The ending's gotta be surprising. Oh, aha. And inevitable.

[Bill Maher]

And makes sense enough.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, I didn't see that. I didn't see where you get.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[David Mamet]

That's why we laugh.

[Bill Maher]

That's right.

[David Mamet]

Right. Because reconvinces us happily that we really aren't that fucking smart. Right. So the joke and the good play frees us from our self absorption. I'm so smart. Or why am I not doing better? Or someone's trying to fuck me over. No, no, no. It's because I'm too lazy. I'm too this, I'm that. No, I'm not. I'm da da da da da. That's what we do on our stupid minds all day long, right? So a joke frees us from that.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah.

[David Mamet]

Trip Planner by Expedia. You were made to have strong opinions about sand. We were made to help you and your friends find a place on the beach with a pool and a marina and waterfall and a soaking tub. Expedia made to travel.

[Bill Maher]

But okay, so you say you separate the political from the other, and yet, like, did you not say last time that you were working on a jfk?

[David Mamet]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Okay. And also Lincoln Gay?

[David Mamet]

Oh, yeah, that's coming up.

[Bill Maher]

Okay, so if you're doing Lincoln and Kennedy, how can you separate the political?

[David Mamet]

Well, because the politician. Listen, it's the same thing as saying, I want to do a movie about doctors. That doesn't mean I want to operate on people in a fucking audience. Right.

[Bill Maher]

Okay, so what's going on with. With Lincoln Gay? I'm anxious to see this.

[David Mamet]

No, no, no. I'm working on this. Working on this movie now. But these two con men who.

[Bill Maher]

J. Con men, sure.

[David Mamet]

Well, I love you.

[Bill Maher]

You love your con men.

[David Mamet]

I do, too. We all do. Right?

[Bill Maher]

They're fun. They are great. It's always interesting to watch a con and someone being conned.

[David Mamet]

Yeah. I was just writing about today, like, we just. Please screw me over. Please lie to me. Is so much a part of our human condition. As Ricky J. The great magician, said that the more intelligent the person is, the easier they are to con because they believe in their own intelligence. So they're trying to beat you to the punchline. I know what you're doing. So while they're trying to beat you to the punchline, their attention is over here while you're picking their pocket.

[Bill Maher]

So was Lincoln gay?

[David Mamet]

I mean, probably because. Well, the question, to me, a different question. Who writes it became part of an American culture. And it started with biography to say, oh, who did what with his? Who did what with his dick? Right. As if that was important. As if that were important. Whereas we see now, now it's become part of the culture. Thank goodness. The fuck difference does it make, right? So all of the. Like, Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years in prison for homosexuality by a section of society, which is the British aristocracy, the British upper class, all of whom were homosexual, practiced homosexuality in some form or another. But he broke the taboo about talking about it.

[Bill Maher]

Look at the hypocrisy about homosexuality in the Muslim world.

[David Mamet]

Well, yeah, sure.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, anytime you cover the women and segregate the women to that degree, you're going to have rampant homosexuality, which I guess is. I guess is hotter. Because if they catch You. They throw you off the roof.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, that's right. But no, see, that's why the Muslim countries, a lot of the time, they will not build a story that's more than a house that's more than two stories tall.

[Bill Maher]

Is that true?

[David Mamet]

Yeah. Because if they catch you fucking another boy, they throw you out. Dwarf, I'm kidding with you.

[Bill Maher]

But you know what? That's the thing. It could be true.

[David Mamet]

I mean, it could be true. So the question to me is not whether or not Lincoln was gay. Who knows? But there's somebody who's that. These con men find a guy who's that interested in the subject that they say, wow, I can take advantage of this guy, right? He's so interested in being right above the subject that I can sell him this letter that proves that Lincoln was gay.

[Bill Maher]

Right? Because at the end of it, he asked for Streisand tickets. I mean, what was in the letter? I'm very curious that. That would, like, lead one to. Because I know that people did not write letters in that era where they would be explicit about it.

[David Mamet]

Well, quite to the contrary, actually. When Oscar. Well, Oscar Wilde's. A little bit later. Oscar Wilde's 30 years later. But they passed this rule law in, like, 1893 that made, as they said, sodomy a crime in England. They made it a crime for the first time. And somebody said that in Chelsea, which was the artistic bohemian area of London. After they passed it, the Aaron, Chelsea was born black with the smoke of burning love letters. So he had a very good friend, Lincoln, named Joshua Speed, who he lived with for many years.

[Bill Maher]

But didn't everybody on the frontier have to bunk together because they were on the frontier?

[David Mamet]

Hey, as we say. Let me finish. So anyway, he wrote a lot of letters to Joshua Speed, which are the Lincoln Library somewhere. And they're very loving letters, right? And so some guys who were. Who were interested in gay history have always said, oh, the letters might say this, the letters might say that. But I'll bet you there's another letter where the whole thing comes out of the closet.

[Bill Maher]

Why were you attracted to this subject of all the things you could write about?

[David Mamet]

I don't know. I mean, you know. What are you drinking?

[Bill Maher]

Tequila.

[David Mamet]

Well, why not vodka?

[Bill Maher]

Because I like this better.

[David Mamet]

Okay, there you go.

[Bill Maher]

I know, but. Okay, I mean, you could fill in this. Your thing is a little deeper than what liquor I like. You could fill in the details a little, like. No, the muse just strikes you that way.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, sure. Somebody asked me a long time ago where I Got my ideas and I told him. And I'll tell you that there's a little Mexican guy, he's got an El Camino, and he parks in a Vons parking lot on Encino every Saturday, and he sells ideas off the back of the truck.

[Bill Maher]

Really? And you'd take advantage of that, huh?

[David Mamet]

You bet I have.

[Bill Maher]

All right, so what about the JFK one?

[David Mamet]

Oh, that kind of fell apart through the people who were making the movie ended up suing each other, and I ended up going wee, wee, wee all the way home. But some very good things happened from it, one of which is I cast Shia, who was gonna play Oswald, and Louis was gonna play.

[Bill Maher]

Perfect casting.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, Louis was gonna play. Louis was gonna play Jack Ruby.

[Bill Maher]

Louis, Lucy K. Was gonna play Jack Ruby. Yeah.

[David Mamet]

The cast went on forever. It was great.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, wow.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, John Travolta was in it.

[Bill Maher]

I think I finally understand the assassination. You know, this guy Marcelo, the mob boss, he was pissed. There was three wings that were very pissed at Kennedy. One was the mafia. They felt they were double crossed because they helped Kennedy win. And then Bobby Kennedy prosecuted them when he was attorney general. Okay. Then there was like the standard right wingers that are always here in this country. Let's not get into that again. They're wonderful people. You know, they were the John Birchers back then and they became the birthers. They're now they're maga. They're always there. It's about a third of the country, very far right wing. That was that guy, Guy Bannister. He just hated Kennedy because Kennedy represented everything that was just horrible about America. And then there was Ferry, Daniel Ferry, played by Joe Pesci in the Oliver Stone movie. And he had run guns to the Cubans. You know, they were trying to. Castro took over in 59. They were trying to oust him. So he felt double crossed by Kennedy. The Bay of Pigs. So you have three people here in this Agatha Christie story who really want to kill John F. Kennedy and then Oswald. I mean, what's so weird about the Oswald thing that we just gloss over is the time he spent in the Soviet Union, our desperate enemy at the time. It's treated in the press as if it's just another interesting fact about Lee Harvey Oswald. Oh, and did you know he spent some time in the Soviet Union and he was this dam collector? You know, it's. Yeah, he was there in the Soviet Union and then came back to America and shoots the president.

[David Mamet]

If he. If he shot the president.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, you don't think he shot The President?

[David Mamet]

No, I don't think so.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I mean, he, I, yeah, I, I think there was a conspiracy and there were other gunmen. I mean, you, you.

[David Mamet]

I think there were other, certainly other gunmen. I don't know. I don't know that he was one.

[Bill Maher]

But he was the perfect patsy.

[David Mamet]

He was a perfect capacity. So the perfect movie about the Kennedy assassination is the Parallax View where Warren placed this. It's a wonderful talk about everything coming together in the last 10 seconds. Warren is this investigative reporter trying to investigate, blah, blah, blah, and at the end we find out 10 seconds to go. In the movie they've been leading him on to the point where he's up on a catwalk with a rifle and he's going to be the patsy. But did you know that one of Marcella's girlfriends was Lee Harvey Oswald's mother?

[Bill Maher]

I did not check it out.

[David Mamet]

He was all over Oswald. He was part of the whole crew at the Jack Ruby's bar.

[Bill Maher]

Yes. There's lots of witnesses who saw them together. I mean, it's just passing strange to me that we just gloss over that part of like if you just wrote a script and said, okay, well these two bitter enemies and one of them defects to the other country and then comes back and kills their leader. You would think that that was a little suspicious.

[David Mamet]

Well, I think he was fairly obviously a CIA low level throwaway that he went over. They said, fuck it. Okay, go over to Russian and they put him assembling radios over there.

[Bill Maher]

In the book?

[David Mamet]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

The disenlightenment.

[David Mamet]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Sorry, I forgot the title. I think you say you don't believe in the Zapruder. Film is faked.

[David Mamet]

I know it's faked. Everybody knows it's faked.

[Bill Maher]

I didn't.

[David Mamet]

Well, if you look at it, there are several frames missing. Every frame is numbered. Right. And several frames are just missing, in fact.

[Bill Maher]

And there's no other explanation for what that could be than foul play?

[David Mamet]

No, there've been a couple of explanations, one of which is that they were too brutal. Another one of which is right around the.

[Bill Maher]

But they would have to be deliberately taken out.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, they've been taken out. Another one of which is the blood spatter is painted on. How do I know it's painted on? Because I can make movies for 40 years. You can see it in one frame it doesn't exist. In the next frame it does exist, and in the next frame it doesn't exist. So what would actually film goes by 24 frames a second if it were actual Blood spatter. You would see it grow, and then you would see it disperse, but it's just painted on as if it's very, very.

[Bill Maher]

So who did it? Who thanked the Zapruder film?

[David Mamet]

Well, I wrote that movie, too, which has yet to get made. About the guy who faked the Zapruder film.

[Bill Maher]

Well, see, that's a different movie. That's interesting.

[David Mamet]

That's a good movie. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

You wrote it.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, it's already.

[Bill Maher]

But it's just.

[David Mamet]

I was going to do with Cate Blanchett that fell apart the last minute. Maybe I'll do it some other time.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, I would have jumped on that one.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, me too.

[Bill Maher]

No, I mean the. I mean, getting her for the movie.

[David Mamet]

Oh, she was great. I went down to see her and she said, yeah, I'll do it. She was going to do it for nothing. She just loved the part and doesn't answer.

[Bill Maher]

What part is there for a woman there? I don't. There's none in the story.

[David Mamet]

Aha. So the movie is about this woman whose grandfather made a lot of money in the movie business. Then it turns out he was working for the Air Force during the Area 51 alien incursions. Right. In Roswell, New Mexico. And that he was altering the. Doing the same thing with the UFO footage. So she chases that down, and that's not true either. And then people start trying to kill her because she's getting too close. Too close, too close. Then it turns out he was the guy who altered the Zapruder film, that they were shot by Zapruder, who'd been in the oss, the precursor to the CIA. It was shot, obviously, in Dallas, but instead of giving it to Kodak in Dallas to develop, they shipped it to Los Angeles.

[Bill Maher]

But what's the part they took out and why?

[David Mamet]

Well, the part that took out and why was they were shot from the front. He was, you know, he was. He wasn't shot from the back. He was shot that. This. They blew his head apart from the front with several shots to.

[Bill Maher]

That would have been Oswald.

[David Mamet]

No, because it wasn't from that angle. It was from the street angle.

[Bill Maher]

But the. But the way the Zapruder film is, as we have seen, it only makes you more suspicious. It doesn't, like, cover up the crime. It makes it look more ridiculous.

[David Mamet]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Was that their intent?

[David Mamet]

Well, no, no, no. I don't know. Also, Dershowitz was. Alan Dershowitz, I know pretty well was clerking for one of the guys on the Warren Commission who told Dershowitz, who told me Da Da, da. That the whole thing was a cover up, but that we had to do it for national security reasons.

[Bill Maher]

That I believe in general, yes, I do think so.

[David Mamet]

The other thing is, how do that this guy, they said, oh, we, we determined in one hour that this. A, that this guy is the shooter and B, that there are no other shooters. They didn't know.

[Bill Maher]

No.

[David Mamet]

And the other thing is the single bullet theory, of course is nonsense.

[Bill Maher]

It's so ridiculous. There's just no way to talk your way out of it.

[David Mamet]

Except. Except everybody shut up. And, and anybody, anybody who says. Anybody who objects as a conspiracy nut.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I mean, you mentioned UFOs. I happen to think UFOs get lumped in with conspiracy nuts unfairly because there is nothing unscientific about thinking that there could be other life in the universe and, or they could be watching us right now or could be in the next room and we don't know. That's not unscientific. That's not a conspiracy theory. You. Is that where you are with that?

[David Mamet]

Well, my wife and I saw the ufo. We saw him and I saw him twice.

[Bill Maher]

I know lots of people who are not crazy. People who have seen what some people would call a ghost, and a few people who have seen something that you would call an alien. Now I've quizzed them very closely, trying to ascertain were you drunk, were you dreaming? And like, if somebody put me through that and like, I, I would be very frustrated because I know when I'm drunk or dreaming. So I don't know what to say about that except I gotta think that whatever stations we're tuning into on our radio, there are other stations we're not receiving. I don't know what exactly they are.

[David Mamet]

I agree. But here's the other thing. I think that if the front page of any. Does people read newspapers anymore? If the front. They do. The New York Times still publishing, of.

[Bill Maher]

Course, and it comes out and I get the actual dinosaur print edition.

[David Mamet]

Oh, that's great.

[Bill Maher]

And it pisses me off as much as it pisses you off. So I'm not the horrible person who you thought I was when we sat down and you said I was attacking you. I'm not. The New York Times, I understand, is a slanted and it's full of shit. I think that too, but I still read it because I want to know what that side is thinking. Also. It's not all full of shit. They have some great writers, some great columnists who I still love, and they also have reporters everywhere in the World. And even though what I'm reading even now from overseas, I feel like, okay, this is still everything has to have your kind of times slant to it. I still can get the information. I want to know what's going on in Mogadishu. And nobody else is there. So, yes, it still prints.

[David Mamet]

I would love to know where Mogadishu is. Where is it?

[Bill Maher]

Come on, man.

[David Mamet]

That's where I left it, right? My point. Oh, it's gonna be in the last place I look. But my point about the New York Times, it's funny that they're still publishing, is that if they came up with the big scarehead tomorrow, aliens land in New Jersey. Everybody would say, yeah, okay, don't you think? Let me say, yeah, what else is new, right? Not that they'd seen UFOs, but I got. I got my plate full already, okay? I got to deal with this, I got to deal with that. So there's aliens here gigas want to hate.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I mean, they could make things better. I mean, look, AI, let's get. I mean, I'd love to know what you think about that. Like, what's. This has changed so much. I was at dinner in November of 22, okay, I think that's when it was maybe 23 even. And I remember it's right after the season ended, somebody first had ChatGPT and showed it to me on their phone. This is only a couple of years ago. And they said, write a scene where Bill Maher is on the show Succession and Logan Roy wants to hire him away from hbo. And like in two seconds, it had printed out this scene, which was not genius and not what a real playwright can do, but was. Would be a start for a lot of people. And I thought, well, life is different than it ever has been before.

[David Mamet]

Sure.

[Bill Maher]

And we are now accelerated it. And, you know, everybody I know has it on their phone. They. They. I mean, we do have like a. A robot butler. It may not be a physical one yet, but they use it for every possible thing, sometimes valuable. I hurt my finger playing ball and the person I was playing with looked up right on GP Chat CPT and showed it a picture of this. And then the thing was able to identify it and tell me what to do. And I mean, I just. Now some of this is good, but instinctively I feel this is going to be very bad.

[David Mamet]

Well, the big changes in civilization, everything changed. First one was the industrial revolution, and the second one is the computer revolution. So we're in the midst of being everybody in the western world. Is undergoing a certain kind of moderate cognitive dissonance because nothing makes any sense anymore. So because they're undergoing cognitive dissonance, they do what somebody does, they lose their mind and start looking for people to blame. Whether that's Biden or whether it's Trump or whether it's the transsexuals or the transphobes, whether it's Israel or et cetera, et cetera, whether it's tariffs or lack of tariffs. People want, rather than having cognitive dissonance and being in effect basically catatonic by the change, they want to be able to become phobic and say, okay, I get it. It's that it's just like crazy. People say it's that guitar that's trying to kill me. Right. Because they're nuts. So to a certain extent we're nuts.

[Bill Maher]

This is what a lot of people think of the right. You're describing exactly what a lot of people would say about magnation.

[David Mamet]

Yeah. And it's exactly what 51% of the people would say about the left.

[Bill Maher]

And it's true. I'm one of the ones, I'm always there with you on that. They're just aggressively anti common sense people, people who just want to. And this is what loses them elections. People just look at them and go, why are you obstinately trying to be so counterintuitive? And I can't let people like that control the levers of power. I get why Trump wins. And I'll give you something else about your boy. Like I don't think he's read Spengler and I don't think he's read Toynbee and I don't think he's read a lot. But he gets on a whatever level, basic level, that Western civilization good. And I'm on that level too. But I know it because I actually read this shit and I know what happened in history and blah, blah, blah. Western civilization, good. The ideas of Western civilization, good. And the ideas of, well, let's keep the women covered up. And people don't have, you know, you have to have a two story home because you can throw the gays off the roof. Like I said this on my show a couple weeks ago, I was talking about the college kids. I was like, not only do they hate America, not only do they hate the civilization they should adore cause it's given them everything, including their rights as well as their material comforts. But they love the wrong one. Yeah, they love the wrong. They want to globalize me. Intifada they hate the right one, the one of free speech and free elections and women are equal and gays. All this stuff they supported and they embrace this other one that is so anti liberal. So I get why it's very appealing if you just look at the big, big, big picture, to have the guy who goes, I get it. Western civilization. Good. Although those Qatari planes that are free, that's sweet and Western. Yeah. And that to me is probably what's gonna be the issue of the next election again. Because the Democrats, they cannot seem to divorce themselves from this. We're with the Palestinians.

[David Mamet]

Well, the problem is there's no party anymore. There's no Democratic party anymore. It's completely fragmented. It might reform. But when they keep saying we have to find a mess, have to find a message. Well, if you don't have a fucking message, what are you doing being a political party?

[Bill Maher]

That's not the issue. They always say that. We didn't. Nobody heard our message. They have a message. People just didn't like it.

[David Mamet]

That's certainly true.

[Bill Maher]

Right? Yeah. Their message, again, is that we will always count on us to always go against the grain of common sense. We will back the thing that doesn't really make any sense here in California. If someone breaks into my home and I shoot them, I could go to jail. You see how counterintuitive that is, people? But we will back that.

[David Mamet]

But why are we living here? As Elon said, it's the most expensive weather in the world.

[Bill Maher]

That's a great line. Yeah. It is to this state, sunshine. What oil is to oil producing countries. It corrupts them. It allows them to get away with things they never would be able to get away with if they didn't have the oil. And that's what sunshine is out here.

[David Mamet]

You're absolutely right.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. But yet we. I mean, do you know how important sunshine is?

[David Mamet]

I love it.

[Bill Maher]

Who doesn't love sunshine?

[David Mamet]

But, you know, my wife grew up in Scotland and like anyone who comes from the British Isles, the moment they see California, they say, I'm leaving. You know, everything I left behind. Fuck it. You can't get me out of here. You know, it's nice. It's beautiful weather 400 days a year.

[Bill Maher]

Fuck Scotland. I felt that about New Jersey.

[David Mamet]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And New York. I came from New York and I moved here on New Year's Day. And, you know, I was zipping up my jacket a little bit and coming from the freezing cold of it, I was like, why didn't I do this three years earlier?

[David Mamet]

Yeah, indeed.

[Bill Maher]

But are we over taxed? Yes. Are we over regulated? Yes. And the tragedy is that it doesn't have to be that way. You could have the sunshine and the common sense.

[David Mamet]

Because the problem about being overtaxed is a. It's confiscatory. Is that because I got a couple bucks? Probably. But it's also because. What's the money being used for? Yeah, well, because it's not being used for the cops. It's not being used for the fire department. Schools are. The schools are the worst in the nation.

[Bill Maher]

Terrible.

[David Mamet]

So why. Why are the taxes going on?

[Bill Maher]

No, I mean, I've confronted our governor about this many times and I mean, I know this guy is probably not your cup of tea, but at least we see. I mean, Gavin Newsom was like the poster boy for the far left California government, blah, blah, blah. And he's come around on women in sports, he's come around on getting the homeless off the streets. He's come around on free Medicare for.

[David Mamet]

Well, I know how to fix that, is elect him. Elect him. He'll go right back to the left.

[Bill Maher]

Maybe. But I think he wants to be president. And I think to be president you have to move to the center. I mean, at least we see a movement. I mean, you would agree that we need two parties, right? We need a choice. Absolutely. Okay, so it's good that there are voices on the Democratic side who are coming more to the middle.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, but some of them are and some of them aren't. I mean, I really. Fetterman is doing is extraordinary because he's a Democrat who's actually has self respect, the opposite of which is shame. They'll say any fucking thing in order to get a vote or money or airtime. I think that's a concept which is kind of foreign to Gavin Newsom. I get it. As the election time comes closer, the lies are going to come closer to trying to lure more people in. The funny thing to me is that anyone still believes. Listens to their pronouncements rather than looking at their. Looking at their record. Have you driven through the Palisades in Malibu? You've seen that?

[Bill Maher]

Why would I purposely. I'm not a ghoul like you.

[David Mamet]

No, no, I get it. Because I was over there visiting somebody and they gave me a pass to come back through. It's, it's, it's beyond anything. I mean, it's out miles and miles, and then you, you get off of the PCH and drive up Sunset into Pacific Palisades, one of the richest, most beautiful communities in the United States, which burned down because they didn't have any water in the wet in the reservoir.

[Bill Maher]

Right. I mean, I'm thinking back now to January and what I was saying about that shit, which seemed to me like the reasonable middle position which I always think of myself maybe, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, maybe everybody else is right. I just think. Was wokeness a part of it? Yes, but there was also 100 mile hour winds. They also built the city in a stupid place to build a city. So if you ask me, that was 80% of it. But when you're living in a disaster zone like this, you can't afford to make any errors. And they made plenty of errors. And the police chief, I think the top three spots in the police department, of the fire department, I think were lesbian, something like that. And it's like, I think lesbians can do the job. Of course. I just don't think you should pick among lesbians when you're looking for a chief. And I think that's what they did. It was like they check, that's the Democrats problem. They check the identity box first. Well, sure, I think they decided they wanted a lesbian. And like that's not right.

[David Mamet]

Well, here's what I think. I mean whether they're a lesbian or not doesn't, I couldn't care less. And it certainly doesn't affect their ability to do the job. But the woman who I believe was the fire commissioner issued a statement when she first got the job saying that her first priority was going to infuse equity and inclusion in dei.

[Bill Maher]

Yes.

[David Mamet]

I would have thought it was to put the fucking water in the fire engines.

[Bill Maher]

Right. Put out the fires. Another one said when there's a disaster, be it a fire or something else, when the first responder gets there, people want to see someone who looks like them.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, that's cute.

[Bill Maher]

What?

[David Mamet]

That's cute.

[Bill Maher]

That in a nutshell is what's wrong with the left, right?

[David Mamet]

Yeah, they're crazy.

[Bill Maher]

Well, okay, but come on. Okay, so, so if we agree on that, what, what drove them to that place. Can you, can you take me on the journey? Because I always try to make the distinction between liberal, old school liberal, which is what I basically think of myself, and woke, which is this kind of shit to me. This is not the, this is not the liberals that my parents were, that I grew up with. Maybe you were in the 80s or some shit like that. Maybe not. I mean, you were always out there.

[David Mamet]

I mean you, I don't know. I mean, you know, as Lennon says it always starts in the schools. Right. That the schools got taken over by this. By the horrible. Yeah, terrible. And so now we have people like Randy Weingarten and so forth, clumping for the right of the schools to teach whatever they fucking want in contravention to the wishes of the parents and common sense. So if you get the kids young, those kids are going to become the teachers. And if you get them young and you get them into the elite institutions, they're going to become the levers of government. And then you're in a lot of trouble.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, I mean, you have a line in the book there about. I'm forgetting how it says that. You said it so well about today's liberals, like, relish the odor of sanctity as if it was courage. Something like that.

[David Mamet]

Oh, it's a good line. I hope I said it. That's a good line.

[Bill Maher]

You don't remember?

[David Mamet]

No, I don't, but thank you. Yeah, I like it.

[Bill Maher]

But I mean. And again, if I had to encapsulate the problems with the left, it would fall under that category. It's so important to them always to be the good people and, you know, to have the lawn sign in this house, we believe. And of course, they're always very hypocritical, which is the infuriating thing about them, about so much of this. They're so obsessed with privilege while they live these very privilegey lives. I call them liberals in theory. You know, they're liberals in theory, but they actually treat their housekeeper like shit. You know, they treat their assistants like 247 slaves. They just do things that are so, to me, unliberal. Things that my father or mother would never do because they were old school liberals who like, treated people really well.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, I believe in treating people well.

[Bill Maher]

No, no, I know, but I'm just saying that is their. To me, that's the thing that bugs me most about them when I think about them, is that you're only liberal in theory. Yes, your politics are liberal, but I actually see the way you act.

[David Mamet]

Well, exactly. So I don't understand how any. Not a good person, but a rational person who wants to run for reelection can say we have to have men and women's sports and expect people to vote for them. And maybe they're right. I don't know. I just. I don't get it.

[Bill Maher]

There's a clip I saw the other day that's just lol about. It's like the. The steeple chase, like the high where they did, you Know, they run and then they jump over a thing, whatever they call that race. And it's like these, you know, like beautiful life women. And then this is like one just tree trunk leg person who's just. And it's just like, come on, man, like, again, we can't vote for you if we think there's a worm in your brain of some kind. You know, we can't vote for you if you just obstinately want to die on these hills. That make no sense. You know, men, good men can get pregnant and so forth.

[David Mamet]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And that. But that's what opens the door to, you know, we don't need to get into it. But what I think is a greater threat. But, you know, what can I say if somebody sent me a very sad email the other day about a very dear friend of theirs who was unfairly, I think, like frog marched out of the country for being a migrant, and all I could answer back was, you shouldn't have lost the election. That's what happens when you lose elections. Elections have consequences. You went way too far with your crazy left wing bullshit. And the people said, no, he's less crazy than this. And you just, you did it to yourself. So I'm real sorry about your migrant friend, and that isn't right. But it's predictable and you could have stopped it if you really thought Trump was the existential threat he was then, you know, to your point earlier, why put up Biden if it was really that important? I mean, Democrats will never be able to answer that question if that election was really that important. You couldn't summon the courage to confront an old man that your time has passed.

[David Mamet]

That's a good question. That's a good question. And part of the answer is, as always, who benefited?

[Bill Maher]

Three Bono.

[David Mamet]

Exactly. So. And the answer is the mice who could play. While the. While the rat's away, the cat's away, the mice could play. So a lot of people having a very good time, having a lot of power with absolutely no responsibility and thinking that they were secure from any oversight because of the press, and they were, but now we'll see.

[Bill Maher]

But since there's been this vibe shift, like it hasn't helped you in the business. I mean, you said before when you sat down, blacklisted and blah, blah, blah.

[David Mamet]

No, the business is over. You know, that it's.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, but it's more that the business is over.

[David Mamet]

Well, no, no. A, the business is over. B, I'm real old and C, I'm working a lot. I'm just you know, I'm not working as I was working 40 years ago in the last decade of the studio system. That's all gone, right. But I'm making movies, I'm doing plays, I'm writing books.

[Bill Maher]

What about streaming? Do you think that that is helpful? Hurtful? Is that. Could that be good for you? Could that be a. Sure, yeah, sure.

[David Mamet]

Why not? Why not? I mean, the worst thing in the world for me was have to sit in a room with a bunch of idiots who knew nothing about movie making and explain to them what the script meant, right? And so, to a large extent, I didn't do it. I said, you know, make the movie or play me or trade me. But the only worst thing to that is to sit in a room with a bunch of idiots who don't know what the script meant and have no idea who I am. Right. It's like Joe Mankiewicz, he came in when he was an old guy and the studio executive said, what have you done? And Mankiewicz said, you first.

[Bill Maher]

Well, you know the Shelley Winters story, right?

[David Mamet]

Well, what's that?

[Bill Maher]

Shelley Winters had three Oscars, and she was asked to audition, and she walked into the office and she put her Oscars down on the guy's desk and said, maybe you don't know my work.

[David Mamet]

That's good.

[Bill Maher]

So what are you. What are you writing now?

[David Mamet]

Well, I got this movie, Henry Johnson, and I got the.

[Bill Maher]

But you wrote that.

[David Mamet]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

What are you writing now? What are you.

[David Mamet]

I'm working on that. The Confidence movie. And I think I got somebody who's gonna make it. And we got some really interesting people involved in that. And I got a couple other little books coming out that over the years, especially during COVID I did so much stuff that now it's all jammed up and I made a huge mistake. Many decades ago, I realized that. Cause I like to write a lot. That I needed to create other identities and pen names, and I should have done it, but I never did.

[Bill Maher]

You mean, like, who was the one who wrote all those French mysteries? And it wasn't really the person's name because they.

[David Mamet]

Oh, Simoneau.

[Bill Maher]

Simoneau. George Simon.

[David Mamet]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Yes. Yeah. It's a way to be more prolific. I mean, you're so prolific as it is, but yeah, I guess you could write other things, or it could be like the front. It could be like the blacklist era, because you're blacklisted, you know.

[David Mamet]

Exactly.

[Bill Maher]

So, of course, your style is, you know, very often distinctive. It's be. But somebody could be like, now, as long as they had the COVID But I think that's going to change. I. I do. What about overseas? I would think you would have, like, a Woody Allen kind of thing, Jerry Lewis thing. Like, overseas, like, they would adore you in ways that this country sometimes is too provincial.

[David Mamet]

Oh, I don't know. They seem to like my work a lot in Italy, and I got a lot of supporters. In fact, that Henry Johnson movie premiered at the Taormina Film Festival. That was a world premiere. Other than that, I've always been very interested in education. And I wrote this novel that was coming out soon called Some Recollections of St. Ives, which is a false memoir of a guy teaching for 40 years at a New England prep school. I'm very, very happy with that. So that's coming out next month.

[Bill Maher]

And do you know what that's about? Or is that one where you just.

[David Mamet]

No, I wrote. That's all written already.

[Bill Maher]

I know, but you said before, you don't always know what it's about.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, it's about education. It's about a fellow looking back and saying, really, what is education? What did we do at this school that's different than other schools? What have I learned? And so, years ago, I said to my wife, I want to write a book about education. She said, please, please don't. So instead, I wrote a novel about a school.

[Bill Maher]

It is. I mean, you could easily write a series of books on how the downfall of education is the source of all our problems in this country.

[David Mamet]

Well, I think so. But see, the other thing is the contributory factor is the Internet, because kids are addicted to these. You know, I got a bunch of kids, and they came into the end of the addiction. They were addicted to this stupid fucking machine, which means that they don't see the world. And you walk around my neighborhood, you see not only teenagers on the stupid fucking machine, but guys pushing a baby carriage and the fucking babies on the stupid fucking machine.

[Bill Maher]

No, not a baby.

[David Mamet]

Yes, indeed, Indeed. I have pictures.

[Bill Maher]

Babies have. Babies don't have cell phones. You're saying babies have cell phones.

[David Mamet]

Whatever they. Not a cell phone. Whatever they are. The little games, right? So the thing about all these machines is that they're hypnotic. So they're just like cigarettes, right? They get you all jazzed up, and so they make you want to smoke more cigarettes because you're jazzed up. The periodicity of the machines is hypnotic. You can't look away. So you have to give yourself a reason that you've been hypnotized. And you say, oh, it's Because I like secession rather than the Game of Thrones or because I need to stay involved, because I need this, Because I need to da, da, da, da, da. But to me, the giveaway phrase, I think I put it in the book is I just have to. What are you doing? 10 o' clock and what are you doing? I just have to do this right. You don't say, I just have to have a drink of water.

[Bill Maher]

But I mean, I know maybe, I'm sure it's just that I'm from a different generation, but I can look on. I mean, I'm barely on these sites, but I must be on Instagram. I have it. And if I go on it, all it is is dogs doing funny things. Because it must have been that the only thing I ever clicked on.

[David Mamet]

Yeah. Was dogs.

[Bill Maher]

Was dogs doing funny things. So it was just an endless scroll and I could watch it all day. It's endlessly amusing. But I don't. But I say to myself, because I'm a sentient being after two minutes, well, that was great. But I do have a life to live. You mean that's beyond the ken of the younger generation. They can't just discipline themselves enough to do that?

[David Mamet]

Well, they can't discipline themselves to do anything. Cause why should they if their parents don't discipline them? The school doesn't discipline them, the church doesn't discipline them, the Boy Scouts doesn't, the military doesn't. Why should they learn discipline? Yes, we learn discipline when we have to, not before.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, I mean, that was one of the themes of my last stand up special was that I really placed it back on parents. If you indulge your kids, if you kiss their ass so much when they're kids and tell them they're really just shorter adults and that their thoughts are just as valid as that of an adult. I mentioned the time, or it actually wasn't the time. It would have never been a time, but. But I would often see my parents when I was a kid discussing personal, not personal, but political events in the living room with their friends. The idea that I would have walked into that room and said, you know, I have some thoughts about Vietnam. And yet I see I've been to people's houses where their kids invite themselves into adult conversations and are not reprimanded for doing so. So if you bring up a child that way, and of course they're not, you know, the brain is not even fully developed if you bring up a kid that way, and then they start saying, you know, well, men can get pregnant. And whatever the latest crazy thing is, of course that's what's going to be the downstream upshot of bringing up kids that way. That their stupid ideas are just as valid and should be taken seriously. It kind of reminds me of the way, you know, sometimes in medieval times or renaissance times, any time when they were still having kings and the king would die and a 4 year old would take the throne. The dauphin. The dauphine. Right. And then there would be a regent. But you know, at a certain point the kid would make pronouncements.

[David Mamet]

Wait a second, we talked about Hunter Biden.

[Bill Maher]

You saw me lower my left and you put in and you got the hook.

[David Mamet]

You calmed down and I drilled in.

[Bill Maher]

But it is kind of like that when you have to take the rantings of a child seriously. Because that's what would happen is that the five year old would say something ridiculous and then the whole court would have to pretend that it was something that we should. The council were meeting on the idea that we should examine his poop twice a day.

[David Mamet]

See, that's why we have to have school choice. Because if the government is going to tell you where you must send your kids and you don't like what they're teaching you in school, you've just given your kid to the government.

[Bill Maher]

Did you take your kids out of school?

[David Mamet]

I took. I had a. I had a couple of kids from a previous relationship who went to a employee, impossibly elite, loathsome woke seminary in Santa Monica. And then I had my daughter Clara, who dropped out of school when she was 14 because she just couldn't take it anymore. And she became an emancipated minor, really? And went to work on a Disney show for two years and she was great. So she didn't have any school. And then my son went to a couple of schools and he got on. He just did something extraordinary. He's 25 and when he started 20, he says, Dad, I want to create a video game. I said, okay, good, good, good. You may not know every young kid of that age wants to create a video game. That's the dream. Five years later, he's taught himself code. He's created this video game. It's just released it, it's on the Internet. I said, how'd you do? He said, it's been on for a week. Oh, I just made $5,000. I said, what? This is the kid, you know, sitting by himself. So I should maybe cool my jets. Because he spent all these years sitting on his computer. He made this Gorgeous video game. Now he's going to make another one.

[Bill Maher]

But was that enough to make a living? I mean, is it.

[David Mamet]

It's enough to start. I said, you know, dude, you're doing much better at your age than I was at your age. You know, I was just starting to. I was driving a cab for a living. Right. He's working on a straight job too. I said, you know, one thing at a time. So what are you going to get out of going to school? Also, why are these parents, these idiots, sending their kids, especially the Jews, sending their kids to these, quote, elite universities? It's insane.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I think because when the parents went to those elite universities, they were elite. People don't understand that it's not your dad's college.

[David Mamet]

That's true. That's. Boy, that's true. But because these colleges are living on fumes now.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I mean, your boy's going after them hard. Okay, but you know what? Look, I'm so. Again, everything is always over the top. Like, was I with him that I've said it for years about Harvard and these places, especially after October 7th, that they're just asshole factories and. That's right, they're asshole factories and they don't understand. They have no perspective on anything, which is how they wound up on the wrong side of what's liberal. They cannot figure out who the good guys are in this battle. As you say in your book, Israel is really the leader of the free world now. I think that's kind of true.

[David Mamet]

Thank you.

[Bill Maher]

But to ban all foreign students, I mean, most of the foreign students who come here are not for the globalizing, the infetata. They're Chinese and they're for.

[David Mamet]

How do you. I know you'd like to believe that I would too. How do you know?

[Bill Maher]

You think most of the foreigns didn't know? Some because they're coming to America for the same reason many of them have always come to America, because it's a beacon of hope and it's a place where you can study and where you can learn and where the labs are good. And that's why we have kicked ass in the world with 4% of the population, because we stole ideas and good people and good brains from all over the world because they wanted to come here. And he is fucking with that. People are not going to want to come here and already have stopped coming here. And we don't want to have a brain drain out of the country, which is also happening. We want to have a good.

[David Mamet]

We're here.

[Bill Maher]

What we're here. We're here because we're too old to leave. We want to have a place that attracts the best brains. That was always one of our big secrets. This is.

[David Mamet]

Here's the thing. I don't want my tax dollars to go to give an endowment to Harvard.

[Bill Maher]

I don't either.

[David Mamet]

Okay, so Trump says, Wait a second. You have to do away with the antisemitism. They say, fuck you. They say, wait, no, no, no. You really have to. It's against the law. It's against the Civil Rights Act. You have to stop.

[Bill Maher]

They made some concessions.

[David Mamet]

What were they.

[Bill Maher]

Do I have it written down?

[David Mamet]

Exactly. So they said they were gonna make some concessions. I don't know if they made any, but here's the thing. If it were blacks or gays or women, absolutely. Oh, they made some concession.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, my God.

[David Mamet]

So the Trump says, you have to fucking stop it. They say, I'm not going to. So they say. So he says, okay, guess what? I'm gonna have to raise you back. We're gonna play hardball. That's what he's doing.

[Bill Maher]

Yes, I understand.

[David Mamet]

Did you ever play poker?

[Bill Maher]

No.

[David Mamet]

Okay. When you play poker, you have to dominate the table. You can't just say, I'm gonna call your bet and see what happens. You have to raise people. You have to put people on the back foot. You have to make them respond to you. So that's what he's doing.

[Bill Maher]

But if you don't have the cards to do that.

[David Mamet]

What?

[Bill Maher]

What? If you don't have the cards to.

[David Mamet]

Do that, then don't play the hand. But if you do have the cards, you have to make. You have to make people fear you and wonder what you've got so that once in a while, when you don't have the cards, you. You muscle them. And either you win or once in a while, they call you and they find that you're bluffing so that the next time you can win, it's playing the long game.

[Bill Maher]

Is that what he's doing with tariffs? Is that.

[David Mamet]

Sure. Of course that's what he's doing.

[Bill Maher]

That's okay.

[David Mamet]

Of course. That's. What.

[Bill Maher]

What do you think about tariffs on foreign films he wants to put on?

[David Mamet]

I don't know. I. You know, I don't know. I think he's gotten into. He's gotten.

[Bill Maher]

That's your. That's your business.

[David Mamet]

Yeah. He's gotten into the wrong pew. Right. The point is. Listen, the thing about somebody who. In a position of great power is that they are enthralled to the people that they choose to advise them about the people that they should choose. Right. So we're the same thing. You go buy a house, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're gonna say, I want this. Who am I gonna pick for the architect? Who am I gonna pick for the designer? Who am I gonna pick to do the permitting? And then you're fucking fucked. You better hope you guessed right. Right. So somebody is advising him about getting into the film making our films better here by putting tariffs on foreign films. That's not going to make our films better here. The reason the films aren't better here is Hollywood. Right. So the way to make the films better is to let the market work.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. I mean, you're the guy who says, you know, they should make popcorn and not diversity rules. And I agree with you.

[David Mamet]

Yeah. Also, it's just that.

[Bill Maher]

But I like popcorn movies and you don't.

[David Mamet]

I love popcorn movies.

[Bill Maher]

You hate Titanic as a garb piece of shit.

[David Mamet]

But I went to a movie just the other day and I ate a whole bunch of popcorn. But then I. Well, I think there was something in it.

[Bill Maher]

What are some popcorn movies?

[David Mamet]

You like popcorn movie that I like? Well, you know, I like old movies.

[Bill Maher]

Most people wouldn't consider those popcorn.

[David Mamet]

Say what?

[Bill Maher]

Most people would not consider that a popcorn. I mean, I just watched a bunch of old movies. I like them too.

[David Mamet]

Yeah. But I have really good popcorn that we cook at home in an air popper.

[Bill Maher]

But okay. I mean, you said the business is dying. They just. They just had their best box office weekend ever because of Lilo and Stitch, whatever the fuck that is. And Mission Impossible. Mission Impossible is the ultimate popcorn movie.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, exactly.

[Bill Maher]

So do we hate it?

[David Mamet]

What comes after the ultimate.

[Bill Maher]

Ultimate two still ultimatum.

[David Mamet]

So you're absolutely correct. You know, he lived to be forever. At some point, Tom Cruise has got to shuffle off this mortal coil.

[Bill Maher]

He says he's going to do action movies when he's a hundred.

[David Mamet]

Good God bless him. But how many other people are employed are here doing movies?

[Bill Maher]

No, I'm just saying the communal experience of going to the movies is not dead.

[David Mamet]

Well, I went to the communal experience of a movie to see this movie on the third Street Mall, which is dead. With a couple friends. And the two of us were there with one other person.

[Bill Maher]

The mall is dead. Not the third Street Mall. I love the third Street Mall.

[David Mamet]

When's the last time it's dead? There's nobody there.

[Bill Maher]

Why?

[David Mamet]

Because it got closed down because of COVID and then I closed down because of the Riots. And then I closed down because of the homelessness. So 90%, I think, of the stores are empty. There's nobody there.

[Bill Maher]

Shit.

[David Mamet]

It's terrible.

[Bill Maher]

Okay, well, that is not a good argument for California izing America.

[David Mamet]

No, no, no.

[Bill Maher]

That's going to be a tough one to get around.

[David Mamet]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you coming by. I sorry I pissed you off at the beginning. I adore you and I hope you don't hold that against me. I so did not intend to, like, immediately get onto that subject. We just did. I told you there was no agenda here. It just happened.

[David Mamet]

I appreciate it. Also, you know, I like what you said about your meeting with Trump, because you were just telling the truth.

[Bill Maher]

Just told the truth?

[David Mamet]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I want everyone to keep talking.

[David Mamet]

I do, too.

[Bill Maher]

And especially for the Democrats who have no power. How ridiculous to think you can get away with not talking to people when you have no to your poker thing. You have no cards.

[David Mamet]

Yeah, there's no.

[Bill Maher]

You have no cards.

[David Mamet]

Listen, things died. The Whig Party died. It was replaced by Republicans in 1860.

[Bill Maher]

Parties can die. And the Democrats, they will either go to the middle and stop being the party of I can't trust you because you're always counterintuitive, or they will die. And I think they will go to the middle. I think they will survive because, like, things want to live.

[David Mamet]

Well, I hope that they do. I mean, people like Fred and people like Josh Shapiro, they're great. But I mean, you know, Pocahontas and the governor of Maine who says, I insist on boys in the girls bathroom.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[David Mamet]

That's crazy. It's just fricking crazy.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[David Mamet]

That's not just wrong, it's crazy.

[Bill Maher]

I know you think liberals want to destroy the family.

[David Mamet]

Liberals want. No, no, I don't think they want to destroy the family. I think they have destroyed the family.

[Bill Maher]

I'm glad you. Okay.

[David Mamet]

But they helped destroy my family.

[Bill Maher]

But they didn't really do it on purpose.

[David Mamet]

Wait a second. What you're saying is, I didn't know it was loaded, right?

[Bill Maher]

Yes.

[David Mamet]

That's what Lee Harvey Oswald could have said. Right.

[Bill Maher]

Okay. But liberals actually think they're doing good. I know a lot of times it's really just about making them feel good, which is what's so obnoxious when they do that. But they're not actually trying to.

[David Mamet]

We understand as dramatists, is that nobody ever did something for a bad reason.

[Bill Maher]

But see, this is why I think I understand Henry Johnson.

[David Mamet]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Because I think he thinks he's doing everything. I think that's what I think the movie's about.

[David Mamet]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I got you.

[David Mamet]

Oh, good. Thank you. Thank you so much.

[Bill Maher]

All right.

[David Mamet]

You okay?

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. Did you hurt yourself? Basketball, rebounding.

[David Mamet]

Jam it.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah.

[David Mamet]

Oh, that's terrible. Okay.