Bill Maher talks comedy, atheism and his dinner with Trump | Newsmakers

Most people don't know much these days because they're in their bubbles. They only get the narrative that is fed to them, their algorithm. I don't ask, what will the audience like that I say? I ask, what is true? And they're okay with that. You know, the people who attack me have no argument. They just have a feeling. Their feeling is, I never want to come in second in a I-hate-Donald-Trump-the-most contest. Boring. Okay? Nobody has been harder on Donald Trump. Their other argument is, you'll elevate him? Oh my god, when is he going to become president? He's pretty elevated now. I always say I have a bicameral mind. In other words, if I have a problem, I think about it sober, I think about it stoned. If those two agree, then I will reconcile the bill and sign it into law. Bill Maher has received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. That puts him on a list with the likes of Richard Pryor, Bob Newhart, Tina Fey. We came here to Maher's home, where there's a screening room, to talk about his craft. His more than 30 years in television, and his often controversial opinions. Bill Maher, thanks for welcoming us here. I really appreciate it. And congratulations on the Mark Twain Award. Oh, thank you. I had a great time. I want to begin by asking about that. What does that mean to you, to be on that particular list of people who've had that award? Well, you know, every year would go by, and I'd be like, you know, it's a lot of these people I'm huge fans of. But we're nothing like Mark Twain. Billy Crystal, I couldn't be a bigger fan. Nothing like Mark Twain. They're actors. I was like, well, yeah. But me? You think you're like Mark Twain? Have you seen my work? Religion bashing, hits both sides, political comedian. You don't have the same mustache or hair, however. No, not that part. But you feel that that is, is that the model that you've been going for all this time? Well, obviously, the award is for anybody who has, you know, at the apex of their world of comedy. Yeah. It's a comedy award. Yeah. And there aren't a lot of other comedy awards. There's a million music awards. And acting, that's a whole season. Yeah, sure. It starts in January and ends with the Oscars. Comedy, this is kind of it. And comedian is not the word we would use to describe Mark Twain. Oh, I would. He was a stand-up comedian. Go on? Go on. What's more to go on? He stood up and told jokes. That's a stand-up comedian. I mean, he also was an author. I've written six books. I consider myself, obviously, a comedian first. But, you know, people have a lot of trouble with hybrids. It's amazing. I don't feel like it's that difficult. Like, Bill Maher, is he a comedian? Is he a pundit? Yeah, like Mark Twain, both, you know? I mean, there's many different kinds of comedy. And I was even thinking I wasn't sure that comedian is quite the word to take in everything that you do. Not everything. But, you know, I've done 13 stand-up HBO specials. That's a comedian. You know, that is not a skill you can just sort of roll out of bed and do. What makes you want to talk about the news as opposed to human nature or any number of other things you could discuss? You know, my father was a newsman. So I grew up with it in my house. As a kid, you know, small kid, he was still on the air sometimes. We could hear him. This was the days when all radio was AM radio. Yeah. Or maybe there was FM, but that wasn't the big thing. I listened to the rock and roll station when I was 12. But, you know, every station, even the rock and roll station, had news at the top of the hour. Five minutes of news every hour, and they would interrupt the music, which we hated as a kid. But that's what my father did. And he had a collection of stopwatches. I remember those watches in his bedroom. Because in those days, you'd rip the news off the wire, and you'd have to go on and do it, you know, unrehearsed and have it come in at the exact five minutes. I mean, that was quite a skill. That's what I do now, basically. Really? Yeah. In real time like that? Live radio, and you have to hit it to the second. There you go. Well, then you understand better than most. As you're talking, I'm having a memory about my own youth, and remembering that there was a point when I was a teenager, when I thought that the two jobs I would most love to have would be Peter Jennings, a news anchor of that era, or David Letterman. And you're talking, and I'm realizing you've sort of combined those two, or tried to combine those two. Well, I mean, they're so different. I did a different kind of talk show than David on my idol when I was growing up was Johnny Carson, as was David Letterman. Our generation looked up to him more than anybody else. Peter Jennings, it's funny you mention him, he came up at dinner last night. I hadn't heard the name in years, and then twice in two days. And I said immediately, oh, I love that guy. I thought he did a better newscast. I think the competition was Dan Rather, who took everything very, very seriously. And Tom Brokaw, and they were okay. But Peter said he was Canadian. He just was more urbane. It was like Cary Grant was doing the news. I really liked him. So I have a question for you as you talk about the news. Years ago, I had a chance to interview Steve Earle, the country musician who also spoke out a lot about political matters. Mostly liberal is kind of on the left. And I asked him the question, how do you make sure you know what you're talking about? And his answer was, I'm a citizen, which is not actually the answer to that question. It's the answer to why he has the right to speak. I wanted to know how he makes sure he knows he's right. How do you make sure you know you're right? No one knows they're right. What kind of question is that? Does that mean you don't know if you're right if you're speaking? Oh, I'm right. Okay. I know I'm right. Good exception. No, I'm kidding. I mean, look, one of the titles of one of my specials was, But I'm Not Wrong. I feel like I run up against that a lot. A lot of people come back at me for something I say. And it's like, okay, but am I actually wrong? And then silence drops. Because, you know, people just react by emotions mostly. And most people don't know much these days because they're in their bubbles. They only get the narrative that is fed to them, their algorithm. It's just so frustrating. And I'm always trying to cultivate what I think is unique to my audience. They don't want that. I said it in my Mark Twain speech. There was a big part of it that, you know, I have been sustained by the fans. They've been very loyal. And they want something different than what they mostly get elsewhere. I don't ask, what will the audience like that I say? I ask, what is true? And they're okay with that. And that's the source of our loving relationship all these years. Have we figured out here a way to think about what you're doing? You're against certainty, absolute certainty. All atheists are. Is that the right word for your religion, atheist? Of course. I made the movie Religious. I'm familiar with that. Go on. It's about atheism. And as Richard Dawkins, another famous atheist, points out, atheism is just, we all had many gods over the years, and we got rid of all of them except for most people one. I just went one more. And even, you know, they try to make a big difference between atheism and agnosticism. It's basically the same thing. Atheists don't say, we are a one billion percent sure. Even Dawkins says, yes, you're right. It could be the spaghetti monster on Alpha Centauri. That could be the source of the universe. We just don't know. We don't care. You know, it's not like we're obsessed with it. We just don't care. We just want to sleep late on Sunday, and we don't believe in things that are, you know, many of them obviously created by man at a time when men didn't know what a germ or an atom was. And you don't sit around wondering who created the earth or what happens after you die? We will never know the answer to that question. I don't think even AI can figure that one out. So why waste your time doing it? Just be a decent person for the sake of it, not because you're going to get some otherworldly reward, which is unlikely to be what they say. I want to follow up on one of many things you've done in the last couple of years that have made news. You had dinner with President Trump. Yes. Talked about it on your program, gave a report of what you did. Many people hated that you met him. Some people liked that you met him. I'm thinking about the conclusion you drew, which was that, if I can summarize, you found a sane person at dinner who plays a crazy person on TV as opposed to an actual crazy person. Yeah, right. But we've had another year of his presidency to observe, and you've been critical of a lot of it. Yeah. Do you stick with that conclusion, that he's a sane person who is just acting crazy? He's so more self-aware than he lets on in public. That's another thing I said, and I'm absolutely so much more self-aware, not belligerent. And, by the way, everybody who meets him says the same thing. Why do you think he would play a crazy person on TV? He has that choice. Well, he is a crazy person in the extent that he definitely has a form of Tourette syndrome. He just blurts out whatever is on his mind often. It's funny. He's both, at the same time, the most full-of----- person and also the most honest. You know, I saw him in a... He was doing an interview very much like this recently with somebody, and he didn't like something she said, and he just went, you're a terrible person. Now, that's just not how we act, even though, to be honest, I've thought that. Mm-hmm. Not necessarily about you. We'll see how this goes. We may get to that. Yeah, there's time. But just there's something different about the mind that does that. Yeah, he just speaks his interior monologue, which is just, you know, that is a certain type of mental disorder. But it seems to come out when he feels in any way attacked, which is like outside of his comfort zone. You know, what can I tell you? I mean, I just found a very different person. You know, the people who attack me have no argument. They just have a feeling. Their feeling is, I never want to come in second in a I-hate-Donald-Trump-the-most contest. Boring, okay? Nobody has been harder on Donald Trump. That's why the dinner happened to begin with. It was sort of a Nixon to China thing, you know? Yeah. Let's just talk to each other instead of hurling insults. Well, he's back to hurling insults because I never once changed my tune when I got back to work. I never said I would. And their other argument is you'll elevate him. Oh, my God, when is he going to become president? He's pretty elevated now. I mean, isolate him? He's got a lot of friends, you know? He doesn't read the briefing books. He does everything by people saying, be one of the people saying. Be one of those people who talk to him because he does look you in the eye and listen, and he does change his mind sometimes because he has no fixed beliefs. They need more people like this, me talking to them, not less. Do you talk to him regularly? No, I would not say regularly. Once he went back to insulting me on his social media. But there was a time when he would yell at me on my Twitter, on my texting. He would yell at me. Meaning all caps, texts? No, not all caps, but just, you know, I thought you were better than you. You're still a lunatic. He thinks you're a lunatic. You don't think he's a lunatic, he thinks you're a lunatic. That's just the way he talks. It just is. When he insults me, people say, oh, my God, you see, Trump did it again. He's called you this. That's just who he is. There's no point at this moment, after 10 years, I've done all these jokes. I did all the editorials. He's a mafia boss, he's a used car salesman. I did it. The fact that people can still get their jollies endlessly reading and writing the same story, I get it, he's an asshole. I'm with you. I just don't know how this advances anything. Have you thought differently about him at all as he has spent so much more time on decorating and on monuments to himself? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you choke on the water. These are the things I don't care about. This is his genius, getting you to care about... I shouldn't care about that arch or whatever? **** no. Absolutely not. Not the arch, not the pool, not the ballroom. This is all meaningless stuff. Steve Bannon famously said, the way we win is we flood the zone with ----, and you're eating the ----. You don't have to. Care about what's important. I could name the politicization of the Justice Department, Doge, ICE, corruption, lots of things. Even stuff where it was not a bad idea, but they screwed up the execution, like the Iran war, Doge, ICE, all these things that they could have done better and they just can't help themselves. This is a country where people get drunk with power, when they get in, happens to the Democrats to a degree too, and they always go too far, and then the other side gets elected, and then we just live in this world where everybody's just always undoing what the other one has just done. One other question about this dinner. In recounting what happened, you said that you told the president you're scaring people. And then you said you didn't remember what he said in response. I don't remember exactly what he said, but it wasn't, I'm going to stop. That was the thing that I most wanted to know. A thing I'd like to know, as you spend time with him. Do you think he prefers to scare people? Excuse me, but it also wasn't what he does in public. It wasn't, how dare you, you lunatic left crazy person. It was just like two people talking. Do you think he wants to scare people? Yes, I do. I think that's part of the closing the border strategy. In his view, you have to be, in my view, unnecessarily cruel to get the message across. Welcome, Matt, pulled up. Okay, we got it. We got that message. And that's one of his big flaws. He just thinks you have to do things like that. He does lack a chip for compassion. Not a great quality in a president. I want to ask another question about what you do. You put out so much material. You've done this show for years and years and years. You write what's basically an essay at the end, like a news commentary. You do a lot of bits through the show. You interview people. We all stipulate that it's funny. It always is funny. Everybody else can do these things, but you can't make them funny. I was thinking about somebody else who talks about the news on TV, Greg Gutfeld. In an interview some time ago with the New York Times, he admitted that he sometimes has what he called recreational beliefs. Things that are fun to profess to believe on television, whether you actually believe them or not. That rings so true to me of Republicans these days. They're kind of winking. I just had J.D. Vance on the show a couple of weeks ago. I mean, as the president would say, hit them hard with things. I talk to these guys like we're in a bar. I think they like it. I just said to them, this election stuff, this ---- has to stop where there's only two outcomes. Either you win or we cheat. He danced away from that answer. They know who they work for. They know the bullshit that they're saying. It's like, what's the point of just pausing there and saying, well, then you have to leave. They're not going to change. They're in power. It's always, I think, better to engage and to feel like, oh, this is a person who at least has the respect to listen to my bullshit. Because what the right wing hates the most about the left is their condescending attitude, and I don't blame them. The left has this attitude like, and this is true of the Trump dinner, you are just too deplorable even to break bread with. That really gets them, and I don't blame the feeling they have about that. Talk to them. As I always say, everybody's a monster until you talk to them. Is there anybody you wouldn't talk to? Of course. That Fuentes prick. People like that. Like actual... Nick Fuentes, yeah. Yeah. He was an activist or whatever. He's a Nazi. He's, you know, plain, I mean, look, nowadays everybody's crazily anti-Israel, but that guy is, you know, when they say Trump is Hitler, such a dumb thing to say. First of all, counterproductive. Also, he's not Hitler. But this Fuentes kid? That's Hitler. I mean, yeah. As I read that thing about Greg Gutfeld, I was thinking about whether you would ever do that yourself. Have a recreational belief. Totally not. That's exactly the opposite of me and why my audience stays with me. It's your goal to be who you are and say what you think. Yeah. The poster we put up says he's not in it for the likes. And that's why they like me. The great irony of my career. He's not... They know I'm... Even if they don't agree, they know I'm not just saying it. You're surely aware of the dangers of being on television. It's not good for a lot of people's personalities. Do you think about that and how do you manage it to try not to become almost a caricature of what you are on TV? I'm so the opposite. Ask anybody who knows me. I'm exactly the same person. Do I look like I'm acting? You've done some acting? Oh, yeah. You were on Murder, She Wrote many years ago. Yes, in the 80s. That's right. In the 80s, I mostly was still a... I started as a stand-up. The template back then was you know, you started in New York and when you have like five or six good five-minute chunks that you could do on The Tonight Show, you go out to California. And that's what happened to me. And you get on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and he gives you one of these and hopefully you get a sitcom and all that happened to me. I went right... It was like I was following the playbook. But, you know, at the end of the decade it was like, okay, I've done three sitcoms. I don't really want to be the office creep. I feel like I'm shortchanging myself. It's not really what I was ever meant to do. And I was fortunate because you know, show business is mostly the cream rises at the top but there are some people who I think are very talented and they never make it because it is somewhat luck. And I could have been roadkill. I'm well aware of that. I was like 36 I think when I got politically incorrect. You know, that's about right to, you know, walk into something that's actually gonna sustain you for your career, the thing you're supposed to be doing that the audience takes to. But, you know, you wouldn't want to do it much later than that. But I'm curious if this is something you have to work at. To not lose yourself in all the bright lights and celebrity and everything else. I'm not like Michael Jackson in 1985. Good to know. No, no, I mean my life is a great balance of that. Everything you'd want from being, you know, rich and famous. Why guilt? Why not say it as it is? I have. Without a lot of the things I don't have to worry about like the paparazzi following me like Britney Spears or something. You know, I'm not gonna get killed going through a tunnel. And yet everything is fine, you know, and lots of people have no clue who I am. That's great too. And I like the people who like me and, you know, mostly what I worried about when I was younger was, you know, am I gonna be any kind of success? I would not have been a good failure, you know. And I've been on 33 years. You know, if it ended tomorrow I think we can say it did not come out to be a failure. 33 years is pretty amazing. It is. I want to ask something more about faith. You said you're an atheist. I also know you were raised Roman Catholic. Yes. I put in the time, bro. Here's my question about that. I want credit for that. There's a lot of people who grow up in a religious household and maybe they change later. They lose their faith. They end up with a different faith. But something about that upbringing sticks with them, shapes the way they think. Is there something about being a Catholic that sticks with you now all these years later? Fear. I mean, if I walk into the church I'll still get, like, clammy from how they traumatized me. Who is they and how did they traumatize you? Priests and nuns. Mean people. Priests and nuns. Nuns, they're married to Jesus and apparently he's not putting out because only people who are deprived like that or mean like that. Little kids who don't know what... If you tell them they're going to hell when they're seven they're going to believe it. Things like that. Do you remember a specific thing that happened? Yes. I remember that. I remember one time I was slouching during First Communion practice and the lady said, the boy who's slouching is going to go to hell. For slouching? For slouching. I think that's just a short time in purgatory. I'm not a religious specialist. So did you then go home thinking about hell? One time practicing for the other one. What's the one when you're 13? Confirmation. Yeah. Which I never quite got to. I rammed my head. We had this little ball field in the backyard and there was like two posts holding up like my father put up like chicken wire. It's a backstop. And I ran my head into the post to have an injury to avoid going to Communion practice. Wait a minute. You deliberately ran your head? Confirmation practice. Yes. Because why? Because I wanted to get out of going to the best plan I could think of. What made it so horrible that you wouldn't want to sit there? It was the priests and nuns. I just told you. They were like, wow. There is a fly here. You could be like Obama in that famous interview and grab it. Better not get Lyme here. From NPR. That would be sad. Yeah, it was just traumatic. It was very traumatic. Is your life something of a rebellion against that? The life you've chosen to lead? The mosquito is now by your nose. I'm just sorry to say. There we go. Take a moment. Now it's gone. He's not going to get me. And I'm a PETA board member. I'm going to kill this ************. I'm told there's not a lot of Lyme in Southern California. Well, yeah. You never know. Anyway, what was the question? I'll be darned if I can remember. Is your life to some extent a rebellion against that certainty? Against the church, in a sense. Well, Barbara, that's very deep. I'm going to take that as a compliment because she was a great interviewer. Go on. I have to say Barbara Walters for people of a certain generation. Go on. She was great, wasn't she? Yeah. I don't think so, but who knows what evil looks in the hearts of men. I feel like once I was able to gain the perspective of an adult about religion and what they had told me and how they scared me, I think I was over it. I'm not a believer in wallowing, either in myself or a great approver of it in others. I think we condone way too much wallowing in this country as opposed to just saying to people, look, yes, traumas happen and some are worse than others for sure. This hardly was the worst. I mean, it's not like I was molested by a priest. And I'm a little insulted by that. But, okay, it was still traumatic to me. The people have had worse and obviously people get over things in their own time. But certainly, as we know from lots of people who do just at one point in adulthood say to them, okay, I'm just going to make the conscious decision to not think about that anymore, to not let that be the thing in my life that controls me. And there is a certain amount of conscious decision making you can do in the service of that. I think I did that at some point. I want to ask about an aspect of the Mark Twain ceremony that people will have an opportunity to watch. People get up on stage at the Mark Twain Award and there are people that have some meaning to you and they celebrate you or roast you. And one of them was Louis C.K. Some people will be mad about that. Some people will celebrate that. I just want to know how you think about it. What did it mean to you to bring him up? Because this is clearly your choice. Anyone who's still mad at that has no concept of appropriate punishment. We do it in the law. Not everything is a hanging offense. If you're in show business jail for 10 years, maybe that's enough. I mean, he owned it. It wasn't cool. Is it your whole life you have to? And I just got to correct one thing. It's not like they just showed up. The best part of this whole thing was those are the people I invited. These are people I asked. And everybody said yes. The one person who couldn't be there was Jerry Seinfeld who was on the road but made an awesome video while he was on the road. Everybody else said right away. And this is a two day event. I mean, these people are busy and to interrupt their lives like that that to me was what meant everything. Jay Leno and Whitney Cummings and Louis C.K. and Woody Harrelson and Aryara Huffington and Stephen A. Smith and John Mellencamp about ready to go on the road would come and sing the song at the end for me. That was everything to me. We could do another half hour talking about John Mellencamp. He's a friend of yours I believe. He is a friend of mine. I want to follow up on Louis C.K. though. In making that invitation are you just inviting a friend or telling the world something? It's already been told to the world. Really? Do we have to just dwell on this forever? He's effectively come back. That's fair enough. Well, you know the speech he made, interesting that you're bringing this up. He, everybody else had something in the teleprompter. He had nothing. He just went out there and said, you know what? I just want to tell this one story about Bill. I had no idea what he was going to say. When he said it, I was so moved because I'd never heard him say that to me privately in so many words. He just said, you know when I was at kind of a low point Bill reached out to me and said, you know, I think enough's enough and if you want, anything I can do to rehabilitate, I'd love to do it. You can come on the show talk about it or come on the show and we don't address it at all would be my preference. Just like, okay we did it. You went to jail, you know when you're out of jail, you're out of jail. We don't do that a lot in this country. Or even, like, obey law. I just had Kevin Spacey on. Another one you're probably like, oh, how could you have him on? It was five accusations I don't know if they were all trials, but they were all something where there was an official exoneration. Woody Allen two exhaustive police summaries, not to mention how preposterous the story is that he was molesting his own daughter in the attic there. Doesn't matter. People just want to believe what they want to believe. So, when the jury comes in on the side you like, oh, perfect the jury spoke but when they don't, it's like, oh, no, screw that forget it. I don't care about the police investigations. I don't care about the exon. Like, either the law means something or it doesn't, you know and not every punishment should be forever. Have some grace. Is that why you called Louis C.K. not just now, but years ago when he was in the middle of everything? Because you felt it was important? Well, it wasn't when he was in the middle of everything, it was after quite a period of time. When I, the judge, felt he had, I mean people get, like, two years for rape. You know, I mean the weird sort of no rules for how we mete out punishment in this country for offenders is pretty weird. I mean, Garrison Keillor had to go away but people will be there globalize the infitada yeah, Garrison Keillor's gone but, like, let's cheer for the Hamas rapists who did October 7th? I hear you. I hear you. Your audience is going to love this, by the way. The audience is a little more diverse than you might think. Really? Sure, some people... I mean, I'm surprised you even had me on. Because I just think of this place as so different than what it used to be, and like I would, what I always want people to do, but it's so hard to get people to do these days, is just just engage with the argument. You can hate me, whatever, for whatever your reasons, you know I'm too old, whatever I am are you engaging with the argument? Tell me if I'm wrong about something. And then we're going to be cool. But that's not what either extreme does in this country anymore. And I, maybe I'm wrong but I think of this place as like on the far extreme of the left. But I could be wrong. Maybe there's a little more variety in who we talk to than you might have been told. Who you talk to is different than, like, what people believe. Are there beliefs that the audience can be examined and say, oh, you know, I think that's a good point. Maybe, or is it just like no, that's not conformed to the one true opinion. So, you know, I mean it's... Well I'm with you, we want to hear all kinds of people and we go out of our way to do it. I've got a couple of other questions. You just referred to people saying maybe people say you're too old or whatever. I am interested in that challenge, if that's the word. George Clooney was on NPR once and talked about how he'd made a conscious decision that he was going to grow old on screen. There were other things he could do with his life. But he decided he was going to do that and he said it's not for the faint of heart. And you can imagine all the reasons why. Oh, please. It's pretty easy for a pretty boy like him. If I looked like him, I'd like to grow old on screen, too. Well, you're growing old on screen. Yeah, yeah. So how much do you think about that? How much of a challenge is it? I mean, if you're asking specifically about TV and looks, that is a relevant factor. I don't care what people say, no one would ever admit it, but there is a point where people just don't want to look at you. That's just human nature. And I'm certainly not going to have plastic surgery or anything. At the moment, because I live completely health-consciously, only the best pot that I grow here and the best tequila. That's your health secret, tequila and pot. No, I know. I eat very well. And I try to get sleep. Health is a real hobby of mine. I'm not the healthiest person in the world, but those are the worst two things I do. I have literally three or four drinks at most a week. I used to have that before I went out. And the pot. People think I smoke pot all day, every day. I don't smoke every day. Never have. I smoke situationally. And is it good for me? No. I don't believe my hippie friends. It's not health food. But, you know, we all got to have some vice. I want to ask about that because you told an interviewer a couple of years ago that there were a limited number of occasions where you would use pot. Yes. One of them is sex. Let's not talk about that because it's a family network. But another one is writing. You said that you use pot to write. Sex, writing, and stand-up. Okay. It's what I used to love. How does it help you write? I would think it would cloud your mind. No. Drugs work differently on different people. They just do. Some people smoke pot and they get sleepy. It's often used as a sleep aid. But, you know, after all, somebody called it getting high. Other people use it for creative means. They're much more energetic. Much more. The last thing I would ever do if I wanted to go to sleep was smoke pot. It would keep me up all night. It'd be like you drinking a pot of coffee. People have different body chemistry. Drugs hit you different. I did cocaine stupidly for about a year and a half at one point after resisting it throughout the entire 80s when everyone was doing it. It was never my drug. But you know what? If you insist, you can get your body to... Good to know. It had the opposite effect on me than it had on most people. Have you ever ridden while high and then you come back to what you wrote and you don't even remember what you wrote and what your point was? No. I mean, there's certainly things I edit out. Basically, it makes me think better, quicker, faster. Things are moving around more. Also, it just changes my mood immediately from looking at a blank piece of paper and going, I've got to do this to... Oh, great. This is fun. It just flows out of me. Of course, then you edit. Also, when you're sober, I always say I have a bicameral mind. In other words, if I have a problem, I think about it sober. I think about it stoned. If those two agree, then I will reconcile the bill and sign it into law, but the two sides have to agree. Got it. Better than a therapist. One other thing I want to ask about, and I think of it because I've done my job not quite as long as you've done yours, but more than 20 years. After all that time, I feel that I'm still learning how to do the job, figuring out ways to do it better. That's what I want to know. You're still learning. Still learning and still finding... I'm a tinkerer. I do like work. I do like a routine. I like the process. It's amazing. After all these years, I will still, once in a while, find a way. Oh, yeah. If I do this in the afternoon, that's a little more efficient. It's amazing that it can still surprise you with something you could do better. I imagine there are people in business that's what they do. Like, oh, you know what? If we move the pallets over here after the assembly line, then we can make profit more, 2.7 million, that kind of ----. I'm not a businessman, but I'm sure that's what they do and how they get their jollies. That's what you're still doing after all this time? Yeah, yeah. I just do it with jokes and ideas. Is that true with writing a joke, telling a joke, carrying something off? Is there even a little subtlety like how long to pause? That sort of thing that you learn a little more. You're talking about timing now. Well, that would be one thing. Well, Bob Hope said there are three elements to comedy. One is timing, which you cannot teach, and he's totally right. The other one was material. I don't remember what the third one was. We'll look it up. I must be doing it. I've been on 33 years. But the timing one, everyone would agree who's ever done comedy, you cannot teach it. It is so split second. You either feel it correctly or you don't. And that I think I got because I had a funny father, a living room comedian, which is the case with a lot of comedians, have a father who's kind of funny and you want to emulate him, but he's not like a professional. And my mother was witty also. The family would watch comedians on TV and enjoy them. I absorbed that when I was young. I wanted to be a comedian. I knew I did when I was less than 10 years old. So it was kind of in my blood. I was very lucky with that because you can't teach it. Do you ever go to air and you're just disappointed with what you've got? I'm not ever, I would say, disappointed anymore. I don't ever watch my own show partly because I was there. I don't need to. But also I would just brood about what I could have done better. I mean, a lot of the show is ad lib with the panel. I mean, not everything is going to come out the way you want it. I mean, I'm always, I'm a perfectionist. So it's like, oh, I could have, could have, should have said that or I, you know, went too far with that or a lot of times it's just you get cut off. I was, I was making this point and I really needed to make the other half of it for people to understand what my real view on this. But this guy cut me off and I'm serving many masters. I got to let the panel talk and then we never got back to it. So people only heard, things like that go through my head. But I don't mess up the show anymore. I mean, the first year, I said it in my Mark Twain speech, first year was not a very good show. Like many shows aren't the first year. You got to find your, and that's one reason why I'm so grateful to HBO because they don't go by how good you are. They go by how good they, they think you can be or at least they did that with me. Yeah. And that's a big thank you to them for that. But no, I, you know, I go by the Don Rumsfeld, you don't go to war with the army you have. I mean, the army you'd like, you go to war with the army you have. Yeah. I feel like every week that's, if I had another hour, would I, not usually, the editorial at the end, I work on that like probably 20 hours a week. That's, 20 hours a week for five minutes, sometimes longer. Yeah, probably eight to 10. But I rewrite that every day. By the time Friday comes around, it is exactly what I want usually and no extra words and, you know, no fat, no whatever, all my goals are usually fulfilled there. The rest of it is a little more of a crapshoot and, you know, like I say, you don't want to spend your life brooding about how it could have been better. Everything could have been better. I don't know who said it, but a work of art is never finished, it's only abandoned. Last thing then, your parents are gone, is that right? To my knowledge, yes. Just checking. Well, one never knows. We were talking about religion and faith, they might still be around. Yeah. What do you think they'd say if they could have gone to that Mark Twain ceremony? No, but I talk to them every day. Good to know. I'm kidding you. I don't talk to them every day, they're dead. Okay. Okay, so what's the question? What do you think they would say if they could have attended? Oh, it's so sad that my father died right before I started doing Politically Incorrect because here's a father who was funny and in news and here's his son getting a show where you're being funny about the news. I mean, he saw me on Johnny Carson and, of course, is very proud when I was starring in Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. Congrats on that. And, of course. How did you avoid the Oscar on that? Anyway, go on, I'm sorry. Yeah, and so if he could have just seen that, it would have been like such a perfect full circle moment. But, you know, you can't control those kind of things. My mother lived another 15 years after he died and she did see me, you know, on both Politically Incorrect and then on Real Time and she was always like a real mother to the end. One time I was staying in Washington, we were doing the show there and she would ask me about the hotel when I was on the road and I said, how's the room? I said, well, they gave me the presidential suite and she said, why? And I said, well, I'm kind of That's what your mom is for. I said, I'm kind of a big shot now. And she said, I know, I just remember when I was holding your little hand. Did she ever really disagree with something you said on an issue? Um, Or make it clear without quite saying, which is a thing my mom might do. That is a great question. Um, it's, you know, the mists of time. Uh, it's so hard to pull it up. You know, stuff like that. I can't, nothing springs to mind. Um, but you've made me want to think about it and I would probably go issue by issue and think this one, this one. But no, nothing, nothing springs to mind. But, you know, come on, your mother. I mean, I remember when OJ's mother was in the gallery and it's like, she thought he was, he can't blame the mother. That's the job. It's your mother. If you can't, you can't get your mother on your side. Your mother was on your side. We can say that. Totally. Bill Maher, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Me too. This was fun. Yeah, this was fun. New episodes of Newsmakers can publish anytime. You can stay caught up by subscribing on YouTube or following on Spotify or catching us on the NPR app. I'm Steve Inskeep. Thanks for watching NPR's Newsmakers.