TRANSCRIPT

                          May 26, 2024

                           NEWS EVENT

      BILL MAHER, HOST OF HBO'S "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER"

    BILL MAHER, HOST OF HBO'S "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER" AND

     AUTHOR OF "WHAT THIS COMEDIAN SAID WILL SHOCK YOU," ON GPS

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     BILL MAHER, HOST OF HBO'S "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER" AND

     AUTHOR OF "WHAT THIS COMEDIAN SAID WILL SHOCK YOU," ON GPS

     MAY 26, 2024

     SPEAKERS:

     BILL MAHER, HOST OF HBO'S "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER"

     FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST GPS

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN, GPS HOST: No one across the political spectrum is safe

from the acid wit of Bill Maher, the comedian and host of "Real Time" on HBO.

On recent episodes of his show, he has brought his sharp analysis to big

issues in the news such as the presidential election and college campus

protests.

I wanted to talk to him about all that and more. He has a new book called

"What This Comedian Said Will Shock You." And I should note that HBO and CNN

share the same parent company, Warner Brothers Discovery.

Bill Maher, pleasure to have you on.

BILL MAHER, HOST, HBO 'REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER': Always great to see you.

ZAKARIA: So in the middle of your book, you write, "Some people think I've

changed. I assure you I have not. I'm still the same unmarried, childless,

pot-smoking libertine I always was. I have many flaws, but you can't accuse me

of maturing."

MAHER: That sounds like a really funny, good book.

ZAKARIA: So I want to put to you, because I know you like, you know, listening

to disagreement. People who say to me, and there are many, who say I love Bill

Maher. But he has matured too much. He's become cranky. He's become crotchety.

He's become one of those old guys who says the kids are crazy.

MAHER: Really?

ZAKARIA: It was better in my day. What do you say to them?

MAHER: They're wrong. I mean, they're wrong and the kids are crazy. It's

interesting, they have this idea the younger generation, maybe every

generation does, that just because something is new makes it better and that's

not true. New is not synonymous with better.

ZAKARIA: You're just sounding like an old-fashioned conservative.

MAHER, But it's -- OK. I heard a couple of people say, or maybe they wrote it

online that, well, I'm a hypocrite because you were for the demonstrators in

1968 or whatever it was when they were demonstrating against the Vietnam War.

Yes, that was very different. First of all, the students weren't against their

own. These students were threatening other students. That didn't happen in the

Vietnam War.

And being against the Vietnam War was -- made sense. It was a war that we

probably should not have been in. This is --

ZAKARIA: But let me ask you --

MAHER: This is demonstrating and protesting for a terrorist group, I mean,

Hamas is --

ZAKARIA: Well, to be fair, a lot of students -- there were a lot of outside,

you know, people have mixed together what students are doing, what outside

protesters are doing. But let me ask you a broader question, which is, a lot

of people will say, look, this is how you get change. You -- it's noisy. Some

people say the wrong thing. Some people go too far. But the whole tradition of

this kind of expansion of rights, it's messy, it's chaotic.

You know, yes, we're -- you know, there's probably a bunch of excesses as

there were probably was in the '60s. There was the Black Panthers and the

Weathermen and things like that. But they think of you as somebody who was,

you know, you were OK with all that, but you've turned.

MAHER: I haven't turned. Yes, people have said to me, you make front of the

left more than you used to, and guilty. I have because the left has changed.

Now, the right has changed also, and even worse. I mean, the right doesn't

believe in democracy anymore. I mean, they've thrown their lot in with the

sociopath named Donald Trump, who only things elections count when we win. OK,

well, that's worse.

But it's not like the left hasn't changed also. So I'm going to call it out

wherever I see it. I mean, there are things that have to do with, you know,

gender and race and free speech, and just ideas about, you know, you can be

healthy at any weight and gender is always a social construct and maybe we

should give communism another try and maybe we should get rid of capitalism

and the Border Patrol. And let's tear down statues of Lincoln and get rid of

the police. Just, you know, know, no. It's not that I've gotten old, it's that

your ideas are stupid. OK. And --

ZAKARIA: Common sense is still common sense.

MAHER: Yes, common sense is common sense, and I'm going to call it out

whatever it is on the spectrum.

ZAKARIA: Let me ask you about a related thing that you've written about and

talked about, which I find very interesting. You think that men in particular

have lost -- young men have lost the ability to communicate, to date, to know

how to court women.

MAHER: Yes. I think this is going to be a very big problem. I think young men

thought it was a great thing when Tinder came along. Oh, my gosh, look, I

don't even have to talk to a girl. It's all right here on my phone. I can just

scroll through, like it's a menu, like I'm ordering from Grubhub. But the

truth is that Tinder is mostly men. You know, it's like two-thirds of men who

were on the site. So that's not good odds if you're a man.

And then most women on it say they will swipe left on anyone who is not six

feet tall, which would leave us out. So what is the upshot of this is going to

be? My guess would be a lot of horny, frustrated, angry Trump voters is I'm

guessing where these guys are going to go. You know, they already have this

group called incel. Have you heard of that? Incel stands for involuntarily

celebrate, and they're very angry and very vocal, and I don't blame them.

I remember when I was an incel, but, you know, we didn't have a word for it.

Women have not changed that much. I know if you look in the media, it looks

like we're all fluid and gay and trans and on the spectrum and non-binary. But

I don't know. You know, "The Bachelor" is still on. I just don't think women

have changed that much. And they're communicative creatures. You have to talk

to them.

And I think men are losing that ability. I think they, you know, they just

think they can send a text of an eggplant emoji and write, what's up? And

they're going to be home, Fareed. No. You have to court. Yes, you have to do

some courting. Women have not changed in that regard.

ZAKARIA: All right. We have to take a break. We will be right back with Bill

Maher. We're going to talk about Republicans and their craziness, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: And we are back with Bill Maher with his new book. So, Bill, you've

talked a lot about how the left has gone crazy. But to be fair to you, you've

always also pointed out the right has gone even crazier embracing Trump.

I want to ask you why you think it happened. Because, you know, this was the

party of Ronald Reagan, free markets, free trade, loved immigration, very

optimistic. What do you think made it -- you know, it's now doer pessimistic.

America is -- it's American carnage.

MAHER: Well, I think the basis of it is we started to hate each other. I mean,

you mentioned Ronald Reagan. Famously, he used to have a drink at the end of

the day, often, with Tip O'Neill, who is the leader in the House and a

Democrat. But they were just to Irish pals who get together and have a scotch

at the end of the day.

And they knew they weren't going to get along on many issues, but they didn't

hate each other. They could drink together. That is inconceivable today.

Can you imagine Joe Biden having a drink with Mike Johnson? It just would

never happen. When you hate people, you don't listen to them. So, it doesn't

matter how reasonable they might be.

We have reached this place where each side thinks the other side is an

existential threat. You hear that term from both sides all the time. That is

just a terrible place to be. Because we find ourselves in this situation where

both sides are literally siding with enemies of America rather than the

opposition party within the country.

I mean, you see Republican MAGA people with t-shirts that say, I'd rather be

with Russia than Democrats. I mean -- I mean, Trump stood with Putin against

our intelligence agencies. Fox News literally uses Russian talking points. I

mean, Tucker Carlson went over there and did the whole dog and pony show

backing up Putin basically. And on the left, you see them marching for Hamas,

a terrorist organization. This is a terrible place to be and it can happen

here.

The last chapter in the book is called Civil War, and its -- you know, you

hear more about it all the time. People who are actually pining for it, civil

war, come on. Let's do this thing. Let's get this going. Let's have this

national divorce.

It can't work. It won't work. Half the country is not going to self-deport,

even if you win every election.

ZAKARIA: So, what should -- I mean, somebody like Obama came in trying to be

the unifier.

MAHER: Right.

ZAKARIA: I remember he famously would invite the then speaker John Boehner to

White House screenings.

MAHER: Right.

ZAKARIA: Boehner went there a couple and got -- got so much shift for it,

never went back. Biden has tried, you know, to reach out. What's the strategy

that might work?

MAHER: Apparently not that. I mean, I think we're past that. I don't know. I

don't know what it is.

I mean, I think this goes back to the Supreme Court fights that we had like in

the -- was it late 80s or early 90s? This goes back a long way. So, it's going

to take a long way to get back to some sort of normalcy.

I don't know. Sometimes you have to hit bottom before you can go back to the

top. I don't know what that means in this country. But I know one thing,

Donald Trump is not going to concede the election.

So, what happens in January 2025 on the 20th, when inauguration day rolls

around and he didn't win the election? He's not just going to go away. And if

he wins and he's the president in January 20 of 2025, he's never going to give

that up because he doesn't understand the constitution, doesn't care about it.

I don't think he has ever read it. He just knows power and winning, and our

side is right.

ZAKARIA: Where do you get more hate mail from, the left or right?

MAHER: I don't know because I don't read it.

ZAKARIA: Or backed out.

MAHER: I don't care.

ZAKARIA: Bill Maher, pleasure to have you on.

MAHER: Thank you. Always.

END