← Straight Shooter with Stephen A.
Straight Shooter with Stephen A.
Interview Only: Stephen A interviews Bill Maher about his HBO comedy special.
00:21:57
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- [00:00]
Greg Rosenthal
What's up everyone? It's Greg Rosenthal and I'm teaming up with the king of spring, Daniel Jeremiah. He requires me to say that we're going to be bringing you 40s and free agents, the only podcast you'll need this NFL draft season. From DJs mock drafts to my top 101, free agents will have it covered for you with all new episodes every Thursday keeping you up to date as we head to the NFL Draft. Listen to 40s and free agents starting on March 6th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:31]
Stephen A. Smith
What's up everyone? Julie Swerbinks here along with former NHL player Nate Thompson.
- [00:36]
Bill Maher
We're doing a new podcast together. Here we go.
- [00:38]
Stephen A. Smith
The name Energy Line with Nate and jsb.
- [00:42]
Bill Maher
Each week we'll get together and talk about hockey life. All topics are fair game, right?
- [00:47]
Stephen A. Smith
Exactly. And you'll never know who will drop by to join us.
- [00:51]
Bill Maher
Julia's pretty well connected. She has text threads going that you wouldn't believe.
- [00:55]
Stephen A. Smith
Listen to Energy Line with Nate and jsb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My next guest is a standup comedian, podcaster and host of the long running HBO political talk show Real Time with Bill Ma. He is also an individual that's got a new standup comedy special coming out. Is anyone else seeing this? January 10th is the date. The one and only Bill Maher, my buddy. What's going on? Big time. How are you, sir? How's everything?
- [01:31]
Bill Maher
I feel like the title of that show was made for you to announce it. Is anyone else seeing it? You say that better than I do.
- [01:40]
Stephen A. Smith
Well, please, please. But you do it better. You deserve all the credit in the world. But I want to know how you're feeling right now. Bill, this comedy special is coming out on. Are you in a comedic mood? Are you interested in laughing and having a good time in light of the things that have transpired over the last few months and the last few weeks and what you've had to deal with personally in terms of speaking your piece, particularly to the left, how do you feel about that?
- [02:05]
Bill Maher
Absolutely. In fact, the very first thing I say in this special is we're here to laugh. You know, this show business, okay? If you're still brooding about the election, you're in the wrong building. I'm here just to make you laugh. And I'm not going to pre hate anything that hasn't happened yet. And also, look around. Are you really suffering that much now? Trump could he blow up the world on the second day? Yeah, he could. But until he does, I'm not going to chase every crazy thing he does, and I'm not going to get upset about things that haven't happened yet. And when I look around, America is, you know, it's a place with a lot of problems, but also compared to the rest of the world, it's doing better than most places. And, you know, a lot of people are just living their best lives.
- [03:03]
Stephen A. Smith
Are you this way period, or did it take you a little while to get to this point after the election?
- [03:09]
Bill Maher
No. I mean, I was ready for Trump to win. I thought that she would win. I thought that America always basically moves forward and not backward, but I was wrong. I was certainly not surprised because I did not think she was a great candidate. But look, this kind, it's not like this country does not need some sort of clean sweeping. Now, I don't know what that's going to be. I've said this before. This country needs a colonic. I would not have chosen Donald Trump to be the doctor to administer that colonic. But I'm curious to see, for example, what Elon Musk is going to do. I'm curious to see how influential he's going to be. He is tasked with reinventing the government, basically. He said some things which I think are great, and I'm on the page with. The first thing he said was we're gonna ask everybody in the government who has been staying home, and that's been a lot of people since the pandemic to come back to work. And we expect about 20% of the workforce to then just quit. And we welcome that. And I thought, yeah, that's probably okay, because if 20% of the government workforce quit, would we notice the difference? I'm guessing we probably wouldn't. He also said he was going to go after the F35. Okay, perfect. That's exactly the kind of thing we should do. This is a fighter jet that they've been funding to the tune of like, a trillion dollars. And he said, first of all, it's obsolete. We don't use fighter jets anymore. We won't in the very near future. They're just going to get pilots killed. And we have drones now, so why are we spending a trillion dollars on something we don't need? So if that's what's gonna go on in the government, I'm all for it.
- [05:06]
Stephen A. Smith
What are your thoughts about somebody that would sit back and say, okay, Elon Musk, I believe South African Obviously owns Tesla, owns X, formerly known as Twitter. One man having entirely too much power and now he has just the ear of the president, if not more. Once Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 21, is this guy really going to look out for America's best interest or is he going to look out his own best interest? How does Bill Maher answer that question in light of all that you've seen? Because you've been one of the advent individuals speaking out on behalf of Musk, because you've always been incredibly impressed by his brilliance, his genius. He's been on your show at least once that I can recall. And obviously you, you, you felt the way that you felt about him. What are your thoughts about him?
- [05:54]
Bill Maher
Well, I thought, first of all, it's kind of ironic, you know, that the world's richest man and a former ex president who is a billionaire won the election and really stuck it to the elitists, huh?
- [06:11]
Stephen A. Smith
That's right.
- [06:12]
Bill Maher
But you know, look, I've criticized Elon where I think he was wrong or he wasn't being honest. I mean, Twitter, look, when he took over Twitter, it was way too left. I mean, that's why I stopped going on it, because as I used to say, anything I want to say on Twitter, I can't say on Twitter because you'd be immediately excoriated because it was politically incorrect. And it used to be, when it started, a fun place where you could just say funny things. And then it got to be a place where the woke took over and everything was just a minefield. And why put it out there just to get yourself into trouble? So I stopped going there. And Elon said, well, when I take over, I'm gonna make it an even playing field. I'm gonna make it a place where the left and the right can both be. But he didn't, he just completely reversed it and now it's just a place for the right. So he didn't follow up on that. And I keep saying that. And he, you know, and he, and he also like applauds people on Twitter who should not be applauded. I mean, really crazy kind of far right people. So he, you know, he also says things that are just not true. He doesn't seem to care about researching things very often. But I mean, good God, Tesla, Starlink, Neuralink, SpaceX. I mean, one man has created like three or four of the most important developments in technology in the last 20 years. I mean, you gotta give the guy a little credit for that. And also, I will say this about him, I Don't think he cares about money now. He has way too much of it. There has to be a certain point, and I am certainly no socialist, but there has to be a certain point where we just decide, as we did, by the way, 100 years ago when it was John D. Rockefeller. John D. Rockefeller had, I think, at one point, was worth 2% of the gross national product of the country. And they did something about it. They made laws about monopolies and so forth. They broke up Standard Oil. I think Elon is approaching that money. There's certain number that I think we just have to say to somebody, okay, you won. You won the money game. But, like, how much is too much? Can one person have a trillion dollars? It just seems like that's taking it a little too far.
- [08:50]
Stephen A. Smith
I totally agree with you.
- [08:51]
Bill Maher
Again, I don't think he cares about money. That's not what motivates him. And I would be curious to see what he's going to do. Because again, America, it's not like it's not completely bloated. It is, and it's gotten out of hand. And somebody needs to go in there and do what he proposes to do. But we'll see. In. In execution, everything is in the details.
- [09:20]
Stephen A. Smith
I recently sat down with a guy by the name of Dave Rubin. I'm sure you are aware of who he is. Yeah, I know Dave Brag.
- [09:27]
Bill Maher
I went to a Laker game with him.
- [09:29]
Stephen A. Smith
That's right. He bragged about going to the Lakers game with you. I told him you and I went to a Lakers game together. Yes, we did as well, recently. And he and I just finished talking, and one of the things that I called him, I said, listen, he's not a lieutenant or general or whatever, but let's say he is, meaning Bill Maher. Consider me a soldier, because I stand direct behind him in support of all the things that he has said, particularly over the last several years, about the left and how the left pretty much lost its way. Getting personal with you for a second, how difficult, if difficult at all, has it been for you to deal with some of the things that have been thrown in your direction just because you were on your show telling the truth about what the left did wrong and how it got in its own way and what it needed to do to fix the party? Your thoughts?
- [10:21]
Bill Maher
You know. You know, Stephen, you can't have everything. That's what you come to if you live long enough. Would I like to have everybody on my side? Would I like to have everybody be my fan? Of course. Was it not great when some super woke people left because I wasn't on their page. Yeah, I wish everybody was still my fan, but you can't have that. Do I think I deserve a bunch of Emmys that I would never get because this town is woker than I am? Yeah, I do. I don't think we have the same criteria about what constitutes excellence. It's okay. You can't have everything. I would take a million times if you offered it to me against those things. The joy of being able to speak my mind as I see it, and the love that that gets me from people from all stripes who appreciate that. The things that people say to me. I've been out with every type of celebrity. They don't say the things they say to me to other celebrities, that means more to me than anything. But things that people say to me and how much it means to them that they feel like there's somebody out there who is never pulling a punch and who will just call out anybod wherever they are in the political spectrum if he thinks they're saying something goofy that really means the world to me. So I have that, and that's plenty.
- [11:49]
Stephen A. Smith
Absolutely. You deserve it. Make no mistake about it. I wanted to know, in light of what you just articulated your thoughts about Mark Zuckerberg coming out recently. I think it was yesterday or so, and he was talking about what role Meta is going to play, and now they're no longer going to fact check, and they're not going to be as stridently in favor of the left or whatever the case may be. I think that he's just trying to curry favor with Donald Trump or whatever. I wanted to know what you made of that and what do you think is going to be the fallout from that, knowing what you know about the political stratosphere and specifically about Donald Trump.
- [12:27]
Bill Maher
I'm a free speech guy, you know, I believe not in absolute free speech. That's not even in the Constitution. And of course, we have the example of, you know, yelling fire in a crowded theater and so forth. There are things that you can't do. But I think he's basically right. We've gone way too far toward whose facts. I mean, Covid was a perfect example of this. And I think that's something that really opened a lot of people's eyes to what's going on with censorship in this country. We were not allowed to really discuss this, and it was a new phenomenon, this new pathogen we had. It should have been discussed. We're finding out now as each Week rolls by more and more. It's pretty obvious that Covid the origin of it was the lab. I think in 50 years, when people look back, they'll say, wait a second. There was a lab in Wuhan where the disease started, that was studying this disease and using gain of function research on it. And they were debating whether this was the cause of it. Now it could have been the wet markets. Absolutely. We don't know for sure. But the fact that we weren't even allowed to discuss that it was coming from a lab, which again, it probably was. Now we know. That should tell you all you need to know. The fact that Justin Trudeau just stepped down in Canada. I mean, this guy had a very high approval rating five years ago and he left really very unpopular because Canada became that kind of place where you really did not have the kind of free speech we do and many other countries in Europe. Now this is part of what Mark Zuckerberg was talking about. We don't want to become like these countries in Europe where they have rules about what you can say that's going to be censored simply because it's hurting somebody's feelings. You know, you can't say something about Islam because it's Islamophobia. But what if it's true? You know, we just had a terrible incident in New Orleans that was a jihadist attack. We want to be able to speak about that plainly and honestly without worrying somebody's going to say, don't say that because it's not all Muslims. Well, no one's saying it's all Muslims. We're saying we need to discuss about this honestly and openly and patently. And you can't do that if somebody's looking over your shoulder and saying, well, this is going to hurt somebody's feelings. Okay? Feelings are not as important as the First Amendment.
- [15:10]
Stephen A. Smith
Fair enough. And it's one of the things that people allude to and complain about as you have about the left because of woke culture. With that being said, one would ask Bill Maher, in this day and age, why would you still call yourself a liberal or a Democrat as opposed to an independent, considering how you thinking and how polar opposite that appears to be to what's transpired with the Democratic Party, because I'm reading this article from the Wall Street Journal and essentially, to paraphrase, not exact word, not your exact words, but you were talking about, you know, what you still consider yourself, but that party is not the party that I've been looking at in recent memory.
- [15:47]
Bill Maher
Yeah, well, I've always been an independent. I mean I never threw in with the Democrats because I always knew they'd disappoint me at some point.
- [15:56]
Stephen A. Smith
I've joined your party. I've joined your party.
- [15:59]
Bill Maher
Yeah, but, but old school liberal. Yes. I mean that's, I think what I always was and always will be, as I say in the special, the people who are saying, oh, you're Republican now. No, I'm not a Republican and I never will be a Republican for all the reasons I haven't been. They're too religious. They're fiscal hypocrites who think it's awful when America spends money it doesn't have except when they're in office. And then it's always perfectly okay. They're in denial about racism. They're in denial about the environment. They're always blaming the underprivileged when they should be blaming the overprivileged. And then they added to that shitty mixtape. They don't believe in democracy anymore. And they threw their lot in with a sociopath named Donald Trump who thinks that elections only count when they win. So they have a sizable lead in being the more threatening party, I think to this country. But that doesn't mean I'm going to hold my tongue about what I think is wrong about the left and I don't. And there's a lot. And old school liberal. I could give you so many examples. It's a very big part of the show where I'm talking about the fact that people somehow think that wokeness is an extension of liberalism when very often it's the opposite of liberalism. I mean, just like the Israel situation, the liberal position has always been a two state solution. I still think that's the solution. Well, that's not the position of the woke. They want from the river to the Sea. So you can have that position. But don't tell me that's the liberal position. The river to the sea does not mean a two state solution. It means you want all of it for the Palestinians. That's fine. That's your position. It's not the liberal position. I haven't changed. You have.
- [17:57]
Stephen A. Smith
Is anyone else seeing this? Your standup comedy special scheduled for January, debuting January 10th on HBO. As you were putting this together, formulating your thoughts, Bill Maher, if you see I'm assuming you had to worry about. Cuz I don't think you worried about anybody, but if you had to worry about anybody in today's world where you got to worry about anything that you say or whatever, who are you more worried about the right or the left when it came to making sure that you said what you needed to say. You are an authentic, as honest as you possibly could be, but you didn't cross the line. Who would you find yourself more worried about as a comedian in this day and age?
- [18:39]
Bill Maher
Well, first of all, my job is to cross the line. That's what a standup comedian's job. Not all stand up, not all comedy. Some comedy's just silly, but not mine. So, you know, how do you know where the line is until people like me cross it? To a degree. I'm never upset when people in the audience recoil. You know, I don't want to make the whole show recoiling. You want to be popular. But there's a couple of times in the show where people just are like, you know, I mean, we were just talking about the Israel situation. There's a line in there where I say, you know, really marching for Hamas, you're marching for terrorist groups. It's like rooting for the planes on 9 11. Well, that's a line that gives people pause. They're like, whoa, did you really go there? And that happens a number of times in the show. It should. That's what a comedian should do. At least a comedian like me, that's what my job is. So do I worry about the people who get so upset about that that they're not going to watch? They're not watching anyway. They left the building a while ago with me. They know I'm not safe. And if you want safe or you want someone who's just going to tell you what you already believe and just be the echo chamber for you, I'm not your guy and never have been. So do I worry about those people? Not really. The other people I could worry about would be Donald Trump. I mean, he does flirt with authoritarianism. There is no doubt about it. Do I think he's going to start arresting comedians? I really don't. But, you know, he's talking about invading Greenland and annexing Canada. You know, he says a lot of. He says a lot of stuff. STEPHEN A. He really does. I don't think it's going to happen. But let me put it this way. Under George Bush or anybody else, it never even entered my mind. With Trump, anything's possible. Anything is possible.
- [20:48]
Stephen A. Smith
My very last question to you would be this. Outside of making people laugh, which I know you want to do, this is a comedy special, after all. Is anyone else seeing this? Is there something else you're hoping to accomplish with this Comedy special. And if so, what is that exactly?
- [21:06]
Bill Maher
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a theme to it, and that is that we have to talk to each other, that we can't just cut each other off. That's one thing I really don't like about the left these days. They're very exclusionary. If you're not exactly on the page with them, if you don't believe in the one true opinion that they have, then they don't even want to talk to you. We saw this after the election where a number of people were advising family members to cut off people in your own family over the holidays. We're talking about Thanksgiving and Christmas because they voted for the wrong guy in the election. You're not going to talk to people in your family? Yeah, no, no, no. That's not good. I'm not down with that. So I think if there's any message I want people to have, it's you're going to have to talk to people because half the country is not deporting. They're still going to be here. And just because they voted for Donald Trump, which I would never do, doesn't mean they're bad people. I don't want to hate half the country and I don't hate half the country.
- [22:16]
Stephen A. Smith
Bill. Ma. Man, I love the relationship that we've cultivated. I love my appearances on Club Random. I've had an absolute blast. It's the only time in my life I've had a contact high in front of the camera. It's all because of you. Snoop Dogg is very, very proud of me for that. I wish you nothing but the best. Can't wait to see this comedy Special coming out January 10th. Is anyone else seeing this? You know, I will be in front of my tube watching. I can't wait to see it. Happy for you, proud of you and looking forward to talking to you down the line, my brother. You take it easy, okay?
- [22:47]
Bill Maher
Thank you, man. I love you and I hope I get to see you soon.
- [22:50]
Stephen A. Smith
You will. All the best to you. Take care.
- [23:00]
Bill Maher
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- [23:30]
Greg Rosenthal
What's up, everyone? It's Greg Rosenthal, and I'm teaming up with the King of Spring, Daniel Jeremiah. He requires me to say that we're going to be bringing you 40s and free agents, the only podcast you'll need this NFL draft season. From DJs mock drafts to my top 101, free agents will have it covered for you, with all new episodes every Thursday keeping you up to date as we head to the NFL Draft. Listen to 40s and free agents starting on March 6th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.