I wouldn\u2019t come here. I mean, I wouldn\u2019t live here. I come here, but I wouldn\u2019t live here. And it was owned by a woman before. And, oh, my God, the difference. It just speaks to, you know, men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Remember that?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Very much so. Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And that is true and also not true. I think we accent that so much that we forget that. No, it\u2019s a lot of stuff. I certainly know that when I was younger, I would have done better with women if I wasn\u2019t just so, oh, my God, they\u2019re girls, and girls are sexy and great. And if I just was, no, this is a human.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a commonality that you\u2019re so obsessed with the excitement that you miss.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: The big issue is men and women just communicate so differently. Right. It\u2019s pretty inherent. So we want to vent. Women want to vent. We don\u2019t want to hear your solutions to our problems. Right.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Vent. Yeah.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: So, yes. When we\u2019re being vulnerable and opening up about something we\u2019re going through, the last thing we want to hear is unsolicited advice. We just want you to listen. But men are different. Men want to\u2026<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right. And that is one reason I\u2019ve never gotten married. I could not do that. Yeah. I just, I feel these. And by the way, not every woman feels that way. If you really put it to a woman and say, if I just fix this, would you be good with that? Because certainly I couldn\u2019t when I was younger. But as I got older and more successful, it\u2019s like, I\u2019ve learned one important lesson in life. If you throw money at a problem, it usually goes away.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, that\u2019s pretty true.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Usually.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Usually, yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Not emotional stuff, but a lot of other stuff.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Money does solve a lot of issues, that\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: If I just threw money at this problem, made it go away, would that be okay if I just fix this?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Because if you front load the \u201cI\u2019ll pay for it. Don\u2019t worry about it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, but not just that. I mean, not just paying, but also, you know, manly stuff.<\/p>\n
I mean, of the thing you\u2019re talking about, I feel like the classic cliche is bitching about the boss. And I feel like if I could say to a woman, listen, you bitch about this every night, I\u2019m just going to hire someone to kill him.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Ooh, I like that.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Exactly. I\u2019m just going to fix this, and then I don\u2019t have to listen to you talk about it.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And I\u2019m going to fix it. It can be done. I mean, I know good people, reliable people, people who are not going to get carried away and just handle it.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah, but what about you? Do you ever feel like you just want to rage about something to someone? You don\u2019t want any solutions, you don\u2019t want any advice?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yes. I call that my audience.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: That\u2019s true. That\u2019s true. Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n
The Anti-Rager<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No, I mean, I don\u2019t want to rage. I feel like I\u2019m the anti-rager, even though I am very critical, obviously, of both sides and love my job and doing that. But rage, I\u2019m trying to get the rage down and the mental part down. And, you know, I mean, it\u2019s Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You know, my message last week on our last show this season and every Thanksgiving, really, for the last five years has been, I\u2019m in the \u201ctalk to them\u201d wing of the Democratic Party. I\u2019m not in the \u201ccut your people off.\u201d<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Don\u2019t cut them off. And, you know, I have friends who, you know, are not on that side of it and didn\u2019t like what I said and\u2026<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: And they cut you off.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, that\u2019s, it\u2019s such an interesting issue. One relationship is that\u2019s in the balance. I mean, you know, it was\u2026<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: And that\u2019s not a real friend.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, I mean, we weren\u2019t close. I mean, I\u2019m talking like it\u2019s, it was Jimmy Kimmel. I mean, I said it publicly and I like Jimmy a lot. And his wife wrote a thing that said, you know, she did lose family members. She wrote them before the election and said, \u201cHere\u2019s 10 reasons why you just can\u2019t vote for Trump.\u201d And then some of them, you know, just didn\u2019t follow that.<\/p>\n
And I was as kid gloves as I could, and I see they\u2019re mad at me, and I\u2019m sorry. I mean, I was being, again, as respectful as I could, but I don\u2019t agree with that point of view. And since she went public with it, it wasn\u2019t out of school for me to go public with it. I love Jimmy. I always have. I don\u2019t know him that well, but he\u2019s a great guy and we have a connection. We were both fired by ABC. And he took my, I had that time slot. So it\u2019s so interesting. The same ABC, I mean, Disney executive. Both interesting, the connections. And so I hope we\u2019re friends forever. But I don\u2019t know, you know.<\/p>\n
The liberals and the woke. That\u2019s a schism. It just is.<\/p>\n
The Most Miserable Years<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah. I mean, I would say that the time of my life where I was the most miserable was probably 2015 through 2019.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Before the pandemic.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: It was before the pandemic. I mean, wow. The pandemic was better for you?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Things were better.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, look, actually, I hate to admit it, but things did get better for me during the pandemic. I was like, oh, I get to work from home. I\u2019m exhausted. I\u2019m burnt out.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And it didn\u2019t put pressure on the marriage because lots of people\u2026<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, no.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Lots of people said that people broke up because it\u2019s like, oh, I got to look at your a all day. That I didn\u2019t bargain for that.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: That wasn\u2019t at all an issue with us. It did kind of start to be so. My husband was a bartender when the pandemic hit, and so he obviously got laid off right away, which I was, you know, understanding about. I think what started to kind of get in between us, although not to the point where it became a problem, was where I felt like I was working all the time, even though I was working from home and\u2026<\/p>\n
He was a bartender. So he doesn\u2019t really have any other options other than making a career change, of course. So finally got to a point where I was like, you need to make a career change. And I\u2019m glad I did that, even though it was difficult for me to do because being the nagging wife is not my thing. But he was understanding about it.<\/p>\n
And he then pursued what I think he was always meant to do, which is he\u2019s the head baseball coach at a school, and he was a professional baseball player prior to that. When his baseball career ended, that was when he came out to LA and started working at restaurants and stuff to figure out what do I want to do next? And then he got comfortable. You know, I think that happens to a lot of people. So Covid was a bit of a crisis that we took as an opportunity to move forward in life in certain ways, if that makes any sense.<\/p>\n
Marriage and Partnership<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: This sounds like the kind of thing. I never got married, but I\u2019ve never been a person. I think people have this misconception that I\u2019m anti-marriage. I\u2019m only anti-marriage for me. I get it because I see so many of my friends who are married and of course most marriages do fall apart in some way. But I also know plenty of people who\u2019ve had great ones and would be really lost without their spouse. And some people, they\u2019re just, their nature is to have to be in a partnership.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: True.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You know, it\u2019s a two-man seesaw thing. That\u2019s not me. Yeah, I\u2019m a lone wolf, always have been.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: If you know yourself and that\u2019s what you like, then go for it. I mean, life is short.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I\u2019m very social, but ultimately I\u2019m a lone wolf. And that, but this sounds to me like what a marriage should be like. Not nagging. But when you need that person to, you know, you\u2019re on this teeter-totter together to get things even and balanced, they\u2019re there to do that totally. And that\u2019s great. I mean, if you\u2019re of that personality. I think most people are, most people are always looking for, you know, \u201ccomplete me.\u201d And some of that is cliche, but some of it is kind of true. I\u2019ve seen people who were incomplete.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I definitely, I didn\u2019t realize I was incomplete until I met him. And there are qualities of his that I think I\u2019ve adapted for the better. So for instance\u2026<\/p>\n
He\u2019s just such a kind-hearted person who sees the good in everyone. And so when I talk about the period of my life when I was the most miserable, I wasn\u2019t able to see the good in everyone. Right. And so I was very much in the mindset of who you vote for demonstrates what your values are. And if I have determined that the person you voted for is a bad actor or immoral, that means you\u2019re bad and you\u2019re immoral. And it is a terrible place to be where you think half the country is awful.<\/p>\n
Understanding the Other Side<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: That is exactly what my theme was Friday. And you know, so I was disappointed that, you know, I said about the thing again, trying to be respectful. She had said, \u201cI sent my relatives a letter with 10 reasons you should not vote for Trump.\u201d And I first of all said 10. I could think of 100.<\/p>\n
But to me, a better exercise. And as someone who votes Democratic, a better exercise would be write a letter to yourself, 10 reasons why you might imagine those 77 million Americans could not vote. But I want to get back to this husband thing just for a second because I\u2019m so, no, I\u2019m very interested in this. It\u2019s just endlessly fascinating to me, how different people do it, you know, and how they make\u2026<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: We do it real well, I\u2019ll tell you that.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, please. This is a family. Oh, no, it\u2019s not. It\u2019s Club Random. What the f* am I talking about? I\u2019m drinking and taking drugs and swearing. It\u2019s not a kid show at all. And kids, by the way, it would not be the worst message. Kids, if you\u2019re going to do it well, do it well. Do it well. Remember the song, \u201cGive it your All. Doing it, doing it, doing it well.\u201d You do remember it.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Of course I do.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: That is the single best sex song ever.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: It is pretty sexy.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Hello, Cole.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yes, it\u2019s actually, man, they don\u2019t make music like that anymore.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: They don\u2019t make that one anymore. They certainly don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yep.<\/p>\n
Marriage, Success, and Finding Your Best Friend<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And it always, like, it was so sexy. And then when he got to the part when he says, \u201cI was raised out in Queens, she was from Brooklyn\u201d or was made the other way, I was like, yep. What does that. It\u2019s so sexy. And then we have to talk about what borough we\u2019re from. It just always cracked me up.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I know, but it\u2019s like the amazing record. Yeah. The woman who\u2019s, like, singing in a sultry way and moaning at the same time. So sexy.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Oh, and the lyrics, I mean, they\u2019re dirty. Without being like, he\u2019s got some that are like, trust me. Would not win the now man of the Year honor.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, definitely not. Definitely not.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yeah, but this one doesn\u2019t tip over into that.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But see, your dynamic sounds to me like Lifeguard.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Oh, tell me more. What do you mean?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Lifeguard, the movie?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I didn\u2019t see that.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Of course you didn\u2019t. It was from 1976 and I saw it when I was 20. Why? You would have seen it. There\u2019s no reason. But there\u2019s a movie and I did like it when I was 20. Sam Elliott. Do you know who that is? The actor?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No. Sam Elliott.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I\u2019m not great with movies and pop culture, which is hilarious because I started my career as an entertainment.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Sam Elliott. You would recognize him. He\u2019s now on Landman. He plays Billy Bob Thornton\u2019s dad. He looks like he\u2019s a million years old, but in 1976, he was young and hot and he played Lifeguard. And the lifeguard was this guy. He\u2019s a lifeguard. But now he\u2019s 33 and he goes to his 15 year high school reunion and he meets up with Ann Archer, Scientologist. We\u2019ll leave that out of it. Hottie of her day and, you know, kind of reconnects, but she doesn\u2019t want him to be a lifeguard, which is kind of like bartender, you know? But he\u2019s good at it, and he saved lives.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: He was good at bar. He made a mean martini. I will say that sometimes you do.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Kind of save lives. I mean, you do talk to people. And I mean, it\u2019s totally. It\u2019s a great job. But she wants him to, like, grow up because, you know, 30 if we\u2019re going to be together, so he\u2019s got to decide, well, the chick wants me to be a Porsche dealer, put on a tie, and, like, be with the man. But I like being out in the sun and just. And so all I could say is, he went back to the lifeguarding thing. But you could be the Porsche dealer, and that\u2019s fine, too.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah. I mean, look, for me, like, what I get out of my marriage is it\u2019s emotional. Right. It\u2019s more than just, oh, what does he do for a living? And you got to get along with the person. You have to look forward to seeing them at the end of the day. Right. And he\u2019s my best. At the end of the day, he\u2019s my best friend, you know?<\/p>\n
And when I\u2019m at my lowest, he\u2019s the only person that can kind of like, lift me back up, you know? He just gets me. And more importantly, I need a guy who is not, I don\u2019t know, sensitive to the idea that his wife is successful in her career.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Like, there are.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And you\u2019re very successful now.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I\u2019m. I\u2019m okay. I\u2019m doing well.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Oh, you\u2019re doing very well.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Thank you. Thank you.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You\u2019re at Club Random.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: That\u2019s true.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No, you\u2019re Everybod. Everybody wants you as a. You know, you\u2019re a podcast star.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Thank you.<\/p>\n
The Future of Television and Content Creation<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: That\u2019s a good thing to be in this day and age. I mean, I\u2019m in podcasting, but also, obviously, television. And is there even going to be television in three years?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, I mean, not in the way that we traditionally think of it. Right. And I think that\u2019s a good thing. I think it\u2019s a. Right.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, I mean, I don\u2019t buy this house. I mean, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: You made a smart move. I mean, I think you saw the writing on the wall, and it\u2019s better to have, you know, look, I\u2019m.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I\u2019m. We\u2019re both what they call content.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Mm.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Let Them. Let the other people figure out where the content goes is not my job.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Okay?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: The content, I mean, where it goes, I\u2019m the content. They\u2019ll. The other people will figure it out. There\u2019ll be a market for the content that I know. So you can put it on streaming, you can put it in your pants, you could put it in the theater, you could. Whatever you\u2019re going to do, you could do into their brain. I could just tell you what I\u2019m thinking. I don\u2019t know what the f* it is going to be, but I don\u2019t think I can do exactly what we do.<\/p>\n
AI and the Coming Job Apocalypse<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I don\u2019t either. I mean, I am worried about AI when it comes to large swaths of the American population because their jobs will be replaced with AI.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It seems like we\u2019re sailing toward this iceberg totally. And everyone is sort of pretending that\u2019s not what\u2019s going to happen. Even though there are people in the industry itself who are saying, no, this is, this is, you know, it can do 30 to 40% of the coding jobs right now.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: So like, I mean, already so many coders are losing their jobs in Silicon Valley, which is like the most ironic thing in the world.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: So ironic.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right. Like, the first to go are the workers who helped kind of foster this.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: New technology and also the kind of pretenders of the left who are like, care about the people, the marginalized people, as we should. But then it was like, but, you know, that\u2019s. I can say that because, like, my jobs are safe, you know, it\u2019s not going to come from my job. I\u2019m like, I went to college. Okay. I have a degree. And you know, I mean.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yep, yep, yep. That\u2019s such a great point.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Oh, shit. It\u2019s my job.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right, right. I mean, that\u2019s known as the professional managerial class. Right? Correct. Yeah, yes. And so they have, you know, thought that they\u2019ve been safe, but meanwhile, in the background you have new technology being developed that\u2019s going to make their positions totally antiquated, irrelevant, unnecessary. Which, you know, middle management, I don\u2019t know. My heart doesn\u2019t necessarily break for them, but my heart does break for the country. Right. Overall, because I think.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: If we don\u2019t find solutions to this.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Middle management is not.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah. I don\u2019t think people are shedding tears for middle management. No offense to the middle manager.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No, that term does not pull on the hard.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right, exactly.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Ukrainian orphan or, you know.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right, right.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yeah, you\u2019re right.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Or you know, truck driver. Like, I worry about the drivers. Like they\u2019re going to be out of a job soon. So what\u2019s the plan? And that\u2019s the thing that worries me because I look at the political landscape and I think you and I. The one area where I think we have a lot of agreement is where we are willing to be critical of the Democratic Party. I\u2019m obviously also critical of the Republican Party. Neither party seems competent for the moment that we\u2019re in.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: And that\u2019s terrifying.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I agree.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah, it\u2019s absolutely terrifying.<\/p>\n
Political Incompetence and the 18-Inning Game<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right. It\u2019s. It reminds me of the. I\u2019m sure you watch the World Series every inning.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Oh, definitely.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But there was one 18 inning game which is very long.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: That was the Dodgers and.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yes, the Dodgers and the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And that\u2019s twice as long. It\u2019s nine extra innings, a whole nother game. And it\u2019s like nobody scored in those extra innings. It was like, wow, this is there for the taking, for one of you teams to win this game, which was. Tipped the series to you, and nobody could do it. And I was like, that is exactly what the Republicans and the Democrats. I mean, the Republicans, when they came into office, they so had the wind at their back. All they had to do was not get drunk with power.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And f* it up. And of course, that\u2019s exactly. And I don\u2019t think his instincts about fixing this and this and this and this are wrong always. There is lots of shit that needs fixing, and some he\u2019s fixed great in my view. Like, did better in the Middle east than anybody had done. Got NATO to pay for shit. Colleges out of control. Yes. But of course, almost everything the way he does it is just a disaster.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I agree with you on NATO. Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And it\u2019s unnecessary, Doge. You know, it\u2019s like just unnecessarily assholeish to a problem that if you had just, you know, handled it in a just a more humane, human, farsighted way, you\u2019d have the people behind you. And now he\u2019s starting to lose them. Oh, because of the economy.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yes.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And they. Even with immigration, even though they agreed with him, they don\u2019t like the.<\/p>\n
Immigration: Finding a Better Solution<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: They don\u2019t like watching day laborers at Home Depot parking lots get snatched up by masked men. Right. Like, they don\u2019t like seeing, you know, parents get snatched up by ICE agents as they\u2019re dropping their kids off to school. Like, I just. Look, I think Biden really did mess up when it comes to immigration 100%. So I actually really sympathize with people who were furious over what happened with immigration under the Biden administration at the same time, I don\u2019t think most Americans who are. Who think of themselves as hardliners on immigration realize just how integrated undocumented immigrants are in our society. Right.<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m talking about people who have been here for literally decades who do pay taxes, but don\u2019t get the benefits that come along with the, you know, various public programs that they\u2019re funding through their taxes. And there needs to be a better solution than swinging from one extreme to another on this topic.<\/p>\n
And the thing that I am the most furious about, honestly, is Congress. Congress is the most useless branch of our government at the moment. I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s unnecessary. I think it\u2019s an important part of our government. But over the last few decades, we both know Congress has ceded much of their power to the executive branch as it pertains to foreign policy. Big mistake.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: That\u2019s been going on for 70 years.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Absolutely.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Congress is supposed to be the most important branch of. I mean, that\u2019s what the Constitution says.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: They\u2019re the ones who are supposed to write the bill, pass the bill.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Power of the purse, power of declaring war. The President is supposed to just the guy who is supposed to carry it out.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Executes it. He\u2019s the top executive, but he\u2019s like, you know, you hire a CEO to run your company, but he\u2019s not the dude. He\u2019s carrying out what the guy who owns Starbucks is his vision.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Okay. That is, as you say, completely lost. And the only. I mean, I did a piece a few weeks ago about the Supreme Court being the last line of defense here. We\u2019re going to see what they\u2019re going to say about tariffs. Like, whatever you think about tariffs, they.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Have to strike it down.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I mean, it\u2019s a con. It\u2019s a congressional thing.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yes.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And so, like, these kind of basic things. If. And I\u2019m not completely pessimistic about how the court is going to rule. The Supreme Court does have the ability to.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: They\u2019ve ruled against.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Surprise you.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
California\u2019s Political Dysfunction<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And sometimes they take a hip pill and get it right. Not always. And they have certainly gotten a lot more conservative over the years. But I\u2019m not going to do it like the first time. Like, when it happens, maybe I\u2019ll get upset if it\u2019s the thing that is worth getting upset about and talking about and critiquing, and I never pull a punch on that. But, you know, I don\u2019t give a s* about the ballroom.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Me neither.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And if you do, it\u2019s just an indication that Trump is much too part of your personality. It doesn\u2019t matter. First of all, it doesn\u2019t cost you anything.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: That\u2019s the number one thing. That\u2019s the most important thing.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Even if it did, it\u2019s a round. It\u2019s like two seconds of the interest we pay every day.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: But can we talk about the feminine qualities of our president for a minute? Okay.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Everything is so gay. I mean, the\u2014no offense, courtrooms, and gold, gold everything.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: And the millwork on the walls and everything. He\u2019s so proud of it.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s a very butch administration and Hegseth with the, you know, we want no gays. We just want, well shaved, strapping young men in perfect shape. I mean, the whole thing is\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: It\u2019s amazing. It really is.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s very gay.<\/p>\n
The Double Whammy of Incompetent Leadership<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: But, you know, so you have this going on on the federal level, which is bad enough, but as you and I both know as Californians, we get a double whammy of experiencing the incompetence of leadership in our state. And so, I feel like I find myself in this really interesting position of experiencing what corrupt Democratic leadership looks like and how disastrous it is.<\/p>\n
And then on a federal level, I\u2019m not, you know, loving a lot of what\u2019s been happening recently with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: And I just\u2014I understand Americans who have just completely written off politics. They don\u2019t vote, they don\u2019t engage. I think that\u2019s a mistake, but I understand where that\u2019s coming from.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I feel the same.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I just don\u2019t know how to fix it. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s fixable.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s not as long as there\u2019s smartphones. Because that just is making us ever stupider. And I mean, people don\u2019t know anything anyway, so, I mean, they\u2019ve completely lost the thread with education. But can I tell you, talking about California.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yep.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I mean, you\u2019re from here, right?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yes, born and raised.<\/p>\n
The Fire Story<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Okay, so here\u2019s a fire story. In January when the fire hit, Matt Gaetz was a scheduled guest. I think it was January 7th, and he drove through the fire to get here to keep the booking. I mean, I\u2019ve had people cancel bookings for nothing. And then we chatted here right up until the evacuation order came.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No way. Good for him. That\u2019s actually really impressive. No, but seriously.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, my catchline is always, everybody\u2019s a monster till you talk to them.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And then there are certain things you\u2019re obviously going to still disagree about. You know, I mean, Lara Trump was here, like last show we did. And, you know, as all these shows with the Republicans, I mean, they take their beating like a man. They never ever get upset when you\u2014we go back and I mean, there must have been six to eight things, major things that, you know, I just pushed back on, you know, and two minutes later we\u2019re laughing.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s a way to do it where you just cannot expect\u2014you just can\u2019t have that attitude of, you must come around to my way of thinking or you\u2019re dead to me. Unfriend you, cut you off, no Thanksgiving for you. It just doesn\u2019t work. Even if it was the right thing to do, which it is not right, because you are not God and you don\u2019t know what the answer is.<\/p>\n
And again, imagine ten reasons why they think differently. People are different. They grow up in different parts of the country. They have a different thing that was put in their head as a child. Different personalities. A lot of politics is your personality. People are sometimes just born square. You\u2019re a square. What party are you going to be? You\u2019re going to be in the square party, you know?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And it\u2019s just to hate them for that is just\u2014it\u2019s cuckoo.<\/p>\n
The Value of Political Debate<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, I hate\u2014I don\u2019t\u2014there\u2019s very few people that I hate. I think I can maybe name one. But for me, it\u2019s about a person\u2019s actions and whether or not they are wittingly hurting others and totally okay with that. You know what I\u2019m saying?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: That\u2019s a good standard.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah. And I love political debate. I really do. And I forget oftentimes when I\u2019m engaged in a passionate, you know, political debate that not everyone thinks the way I do because I\u2019m able to get as fiery as we need to as we\u2019re, you know, arguing. But once the debate\u2019s over, it\u2019s over. Right. We just had a policy debate.<\/p>\n
Just because we have different points of view doesn\u2019t mean that I\u2019m going to write you off and I\u2019m done with you. I\u2019ve had fiery debates on the show I host and executive produce, The Young Turks, you know, with the CEO of the company and founder Cenk Uygur. We don\u2019t agree on everything, but we have this ability to sometimes get into shouting matches. And then once we\u2019re done with the shouting match, we\u2019re done. It\u2019s past us.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And that\u2019s good practice for marriage, actually.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah, it is. It is, totally. Because at the end of the day, you\u2019re talking to a human being. You\u2019re fighting and arguing with a human being. And to distill them as one political viewpoint and nothing more, I think is unfair to them. And people change, by the way. I\u2019ve changed.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right, right.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: And going through that evolution has made me far more empathetic to people overall.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Change is good.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Change is excellent, you know? Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I mean, there\u2019s nothing stupider in politics than people who say, \u201cWell, he\u2019s changed his position.\u201d Yeah, he was eighteen. You know, he got new information, came along. Flip flop, flip, flip flop, you know. Totally. If it\u2019s generated by logic, flip flop is good. It means you grew, you learned something new.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Totally.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You went with the facts. You weren\u2019t stuck in, \u201cNo, I believed it when I was twelve and I believe it now. Girls have cooties.\u201d That\u2019s my position.<\/p>\n
Criminal Justice Reform Gone Wrong<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: It\u2019s ridiculous. I mean, also, it\u2019s okay to change your mind if the policies you want have been implemented and it turns out the policies suck and you don\u2019t like them. Right. I mean, it\u2019s okay to admit, \u201cOh, this didn\u2019t work out, let\u2019s recalibrate.\u201d And that was my big issue with Democrats and California in particular, where it\u2019s like, oh, we have done some of these criminal justice reforms and they\u2019ve been kind of disastrous.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: So much. I mean, if I just\u2014I could list just the things that the left has done that they think are helping that are counter to their own goals. They\u2019re literally\u2014your head is up your a, you know. Defunding the police, which, you know, didn\u2019t help African Americans, who usually want more police, not corrupt police.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: It\u2019s even worse than that.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But they want more police. It\u2019s so racist. They think they\u2019re being anti-racist. And actually it\u2019s being very racist to assume that black people\u2014it\u2019s saying, \u201cWell, aren\u2019t they the criminals? We can\u2019t have a lot of cops around them.\u201d No, they\u2019re not.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: So a really good friend of mine who does consulting for media would send me polls. And the polls were about, you know, black Americans and how they feel about policing and what they want. Do they want to defund policing? Do they want to keep the funding levels the same? Do they want to increase policing?<\/p>\n
And I was shocked. Poll after poll indicated no, they don\u2019t want to cut funding for policing. In fact, the problem they have with policing is that they don\u2019t feel that the police force in their community is doing enough to keep themselves safe in their communities, which is very similar to what was happening in the 1990s.<\/p>\n
If you go back and watch local news reports out of L.A., for instance, in the 1990s, one of the biggest complaints from, you know, people living in\u2014at the time it was South Central. Now it\u2019s considered South L.A. One of the biggest complaints was we don\u2019t see enough police keeping our communities safe.<\/p>\n
And so the data is the data. You can\u2019t manipulate hard facts. And for me, when I signed on to criminal justice reform, what I thought I was signing onto was, we\u2019re going to reform our prisons. Our prisons shouldn\u2019t be torturing people. Prison rape shouldn\u2019t just be accepted. Right. I want this to be more than just punitive. I want to rehabilitate people. I want to have a situation in which they pay the price for their crime, but they\u2019re also being rehabilitated so that when they get out, they\u2019re able to be productive members of society.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t actually do much of that in California. There\u2019s one prison that\u2019s been reformed, and it\u2019s actually showing really great results, and I hope that that spreads. But the idea of, \u201cOh, we\u2019re just not going to punish anyone for pretty much anything\u201d is not what I thought I was signing up for, but that\u2019s pretty much what we\u2019ve gotten.<\/p>\n
And preemptively shutting down, you know, four to five state prisons without really having a plan in place for what happens to oftentimes violent inmates was a disastrous idea by Gavin Newsom, to be honest.<\/p>\n
The Trans Issue in Women\u2019s Spaces<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I mean, the bizarre\u2014just this bizarre obsession with putting women\u2014putting rather men, or at least people with penises\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Oh, you can get me in trouble. Get me in trouble, Bill. Can\u2019t get me in trouble.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Why? There\u2019s no trouble for you. Your life is trouble.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I\u2019m supposed to be totally okay.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: There\u2019s no \u201csupposed to be.\u201d First of all, is it bad that\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I don\u2019t want to see a d* in the women\u2019s locker room? Is that bad?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No, it is.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I just don\u2019t. I don\u2019t want to see a c* in the women\u2019s locker room.<\/p>\n
The Transgender Rights Debate<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And you shouldn\u2019t. And no woman should. I mean, this is basic 101. And this is, again, to my point about if I just list it, and I could do it for a long time. The things that they do because they\u2019re so tripped up by their own ultra ideology that they think that makes them a better person.<\/p>\n
To be so counterintuitive about all these issues like this, that this makes them the good people, that they\u2019re way out ahead on this issue and you\u2019re not. And it\u2019s not what people want, and it goes against human nature, and it\u2019s not helping. You didn\u2019t. Yeah. You want to champion women, and you didn\u2019t. You did the opposite.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I know. Because there\u2019s the hierarchy.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You made them uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, 100%. In many ways, when you see everything as a hierarchy, literally everything\u2019s a hierarchy. Well, then inevitably, you\u2019re going to find yourself in a situation where the rights of one group kind of falls by the wayside.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right. It\u2019s a zero sum game.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: And I don\u2019t see it that way. I actually, I respect transgender people. I do not want to treat them like the others. I want them to have rights. I want them to be treated with dignity. Respect.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Exactly.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: At the same time, I also know what it\u2019s like to be a woman living in a state where we\u2019ve decided self ID makes the most sense. Okay, well, self ID doesn\u2019t make the most sense.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Because obviously, as you and I both know, there are all sorts of predators out there who are going to take advantage of that situation. And that\u2019s already happened. Right. So there was that big Wi Spa story, and it turned out that the so-called transgender woman who was allowed into the women\u2019s locker room at a Korean spa in downtown L.A. was not actually a transgender person, was a person who had a long record of sexual exploitation and assault or whatever, pretended to be transgender, gets into the women\u2019s locker room.<\/p>\n
And I felt so bad because I bought the COVID story when it was first reported, but I was wrong to buy it. I should have asked more questions. And that poor woman, she happened to be a black woman who\u2019s complaining at the front desk of Wi Spa. She was dragged through the mud, when in reality, she witnessed this person fondling themselves in the women\u2019s locker room.<\/p>\n
Now, this person is not transgender. This is not an indictment of transgender people. It\u2019s an indictment of a policy that was not thought through. And as a result, there are women who are going to suffer. And as a result, there are transgender people who are going to suffer because people are going to make the mistake of thinking, \u201cOh, well, that guy was transgender, and this is how they behave.\u201d No, this is not how they behave. We need to be smarter about these policies. It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: So good to hear you say that. Yeah, really good. I did not expect that.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Really?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, in general, you\u2019re a lot more reasonable than I thought you would. The fire breathers, you know, are always trying to\u2026<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, if we start talking about Gaza, I think you\u2019re going to disagree with me. Probably. That\u2019s probably where we have the most disagreement. But in terms of the transgender issue\u2026<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, wait a minute. Maybe later. Maybe later.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean\u2026<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yeah, because I will definitely carve you into little pieces on that one.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I don\u2019t know about that, Bill.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Okay.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I don\u2019t know about that.<\/p>\n
Media Bubbles and the Truth<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But on this one, first of all, good for you for saying that. I say it all the time. It\u2019s no shame to say, \u201cOh, I believe the COVID story.\u201d<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah, I do.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Because the COVID story just means that everybody has their own narrative. Nobody pursues the truth on either side. You have to work really hard. But since it\u2019s my job, I do. To get the full story, nobody ever prints the\u2026 If you read the New York Times and the New York Post, it\u2019s like these two, which is, it\u2019s just funny to do it because it\u2019s like, \u201cOh, I see what you left out. Oh, I see what you totally\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I see what you\u2026<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I see what you left out. It\u2019s not that either one of you, of course, they both lie to a degree. And the New York Post is just sometimes just flat out funny in how they do it, but they just omit.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yes.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And, you know, but you sound like, and I say this as a compliment, J.K. Rowling, because this is her thing. And I don\u2019t know if you saw her take apart Emma Watson.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Okay. See, there\u2019s something that was not reported in the New York Times that I saw. We don\u2019t see that. We don\u2019t notice this. This is not worthy of comment. And it so f*ing was. And of course, in the New York Post, they loved it because J.K. Rowling. Brilliant. J.K. Rowling. I mean, not that I\u2019ve ever read Harry Potter. To me, it\u2019s a children\u2019s book, but maybe someday.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Same. Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You know, but a great one, I\u2019m sure. Got kids reading. But I just love her because, you know, she just says it. And she finally had enough of Emma Watson, who was, you know, super woke and, you know, one of the useful idiots also on things like Gaza. And so, you know, which tells you something, that her views on Gaza were just as crazy, I think, as her views on, you know, the women thing.<\/p>\n
And, you know, J.K. Rowling was just unmerciful. She was like, \u201cWell, you know, this is not an issue for you because when you go into a public bathroom, you have a bodyguard who stands outside the door.\u201d You know, and she talked about how, you know, \u201cWhen I was your age, I didn\u2019t have all this privilege that you were always so hateful. I was home working on the book that made you a star.\u201d You know, it was, she just wasn\u2019t having it anymore.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Because you do get to a point where, and I think on a lot of issues, I\u2019m at, I\u2019m at that point where you\u2019re just sick of the BS on both sides. Right. And you want to cut through all of it. And look, honestly, you\u2019re never going to get to the truth if you\u2019re only relying on partisan media. And that\u2019s what I was doing. I was very much in a bubble. I didn\u2019t realize I was in a bubble.<\/p>\n
So now it\u2019s like I have to, do I have to eat my vegetables? To me, eating vegetables, as someone who works in media is reading and consuming content that you know is going to make you uncomfortable because it\u2019s going to challenge what your preconceived notions are. If you\u2019re listening to a podcast\u2026<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: The truth never makes me uncomfortable. It only exhilarates me. I mean, I\u2019m not aware it\u2019s, you know, on whatever side it is.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And when I\u2026 You want to talk about a little bit of that.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: You want to get exhilarated, right? Now I can exhilarate.<\/p>\n
The Gaza Debate<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And now you\u2019re going to say genocide. And I\u2019m going to say, \u201cWell, you don\u2019t know what the word means.\u201d And it\u2019s like you don\u2019t even know what the words mean.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I\u2019m Armenian. I know what the word means.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Okay. It\u2019s when you try to wipe out an entire population of people, which they didn\u2019t come close to doing. I mean, they prosecuted a war in which they were attacked, which everybody gets to do.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Which, by the way, let me just say, if they were doing, if they were literally going after Hamas, which they, legitimate. That\u2019s totally legitimate. But that\u2019s not what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Hamas hides in tunnels underneath hospitals. You can\u2019t go\u2026<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Hold on, hold on, hold on.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Hamas is the bad guy. If you don\u2019t get that, you don\u2019t get much.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: What Hamas did on October 7th was disgusting killing. I mean, I don\u2019t think, I don\u2019t, I don\u2019t at all hold back on that. In fact\u2026<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, that\u2019s the easiest thing in the world to say. Nobody disagrees. Nobody disagrees.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: There are people who disagree.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Actually raping babies. Yes, there are.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: There are people who, I\u2019m wrong. Because Hamas, they\u2019re freedom fighters. What kind of freedom are we talking about here?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: The people see Hamas, the people who hate oppression so much are on the side of the people. And it\u2019s not just Hamas. If you social justice warriors, if you have any other issue besides gender apartheid in the world that is above that, you\u2019re just a joke. That if you hate oppression\u2026<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I do.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yeah. There is one issue which should be above all, because it affects more people. Hundreds of millions of women who have basically no freedom in the Muslim world.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right. So we should slaughter them instead, which is what\u2019s been happening.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, you should, you should prosecute a war to the end. That doesn\u2019t, that does involve slaughter of every war.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: You know, I think, listen, civilians get killed in wars. I think everyone knows that. Everyone acknowledges that.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Especially when you hide. Especially when you hide behind them.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: But when 83%, according to the IDF\u2019s own data, and this is reported, by the way, I consume Israeli media on this. I don\u2019t consume American media on this. And Israeli media is super honest, way more honest than our media is. So when the IDF\u2019s own data indicates that 83% of the people that they\u2019ve\u2026<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Killed are civilians because they hide behind them.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: But, Bill, do you understand that by killing so many civilians, they are essentially multiplying extremism?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I do understand that. Do you understand that there\u2019s very often in the world two very bad choices and you only have\u2026<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, I\u2019m an American and I have to vote in presidential elections. Yes, I do know that.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You don\u2019t have the good choice, you have the bad choice and the even worse choice. Israel has been being attacked by him. First of all, the entire Arab world rejected them for 75 years. They kept trying to make a deal. They kept saying, \u201cNo, we want it all.\u201d That\u2019s what \u201cfrom the river to the sea\u201d means. It means we want it all. We don\u2019t want to compromise. They\u2019ve never wanted a compromise. Israel gave Gaza back.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: But did\u2026<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: They gave it back.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: But, Bill, in 2008, let\u2019s say our country was occupied by Mexico, right? We have a bunch of people who are occupying our land, and then they decide, \u201cYou know what, we\u2019re going to\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And they weren\u2019t occupied.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Let me finish. Let\u2019s say Mexico decides, \u201cYou know what, we\u2019re going to leave, but we\u2019re going to control their electricity, what goes in, what comes out.\u201d<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Because they were attacking.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: We\u2019re going to mow the lawn and just randomly decide we\u2019re going to slaughter people because they allegedly threw rocks. They have literally\u2026<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, they didn\u2019t. Allegedly.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, Israel has nuclear weapons, Bill.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: They have nuclear weapons and they don\u2019t\u2026<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: And they have the world military superpower backing them, right?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, they have nuclear weapons. Which they don\u2019t use. If Hamas\u2026<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, no, they don\u2019t use it to pretend\u2026<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: If Hamas had a nuclear weapon, how many seconds would it take before they used it on Israel?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I have no idea.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Three. Three is the answer. Three seconds.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: How do you know that, Bill? Come on.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Because it\u2019s in their charter.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: If they use a nuclear weapon against Israel, I\u2019m pretty sure the very land that Hamas cares about would be done for.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Okay, well, then they would be martyrs. And that would be a good thing because that\u2019s their death cult view of the world. It\u2019s a good thing when you die. That\u2019s why they strap suicide vests sometimes on children. The fact that you can\u2019t see the moral difference between these two sides always amazes me.<\/p>\n
Israel-Palestine Debate Intensifies<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Among people, I actually don\u2019t see the moral difference when you have, like, Bezalel Smotrich and Ben Gvir literally talking about exterminating the entire population of Gaza.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Okay. They\u2019re not talking about extermination.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: They are. I mean, the statements are brazen, they\u2019re upfront, they\u2019re honest. This is what they actually want to do. I mean, the West Bank is another example. The West Bank had nothing to do with what happened on October 7th, but they\u2019re annexing that land anyway. They\u2019re raining terror on innocent people, innocent Palestinians. They\u2019re driving them out of their homes.<\/p>\n
Like, listen, I am willing to admit, because it\u2019s the truth, that what Hamas did on October 7th was a f*ing atrocity. Killing innocent people.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Couldn\u2019t admit that.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: But you have a difficult time at least acknowledging the atrocities that have been committed against innocent civilians in Gaza.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, it depends on what you call an atrocity. All wars are going to have atrocity.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: A double tap on a hospital.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: All war.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: A double tap on a hospital. So when the first responders show up.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I don\u2019t know exactly what you\u2019re talking about. I vaguely remember the thing.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yeah. First of all, that\u2019s an old terrorist trick. That\u2019s what they do all the time.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Okay, but are you at least going to acknowledge that the IDF doing that was wrong?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yeah, I\u2019m sure. They have committed what we would call war crimes. As every army does. In every war.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right. Including our own.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right. In every war, including the Civil War. I forget who it was who made the good point. Like, during the Civil War, a lot of people would say, especially in the South, that Sherman did not have to burn Atlanta quite as badly as he did. I mean, we were pretty brutal. But would you also then just say, well, we don\u2019t know who the good guys were in that war?<\/p>\n
No, I think it was the North. I think that they committed atrocity in Atlanta yet. That\u2019s true. They burned when they shouldn\u2019t. And they were very rough on the South. They were still the good guys. They were fighting against slavery as Israel is fighting to survive. And also, you know, they are the front line in the Western world.<\/p>\n
Expansion and Colonization<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I totally disagree with you on this entirely. I think much of the problems we have in the Middle East is due to the enabling of this expansion. Look, it\u2019s an expansionist policy. If Israel wasn\u2019t trying to continue expanding in the Middle East, I don\u2019t think they would be dealing with the enmity like the enemies that they\u2019re dealing with.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: They\u2019ve never been asked. They\u2019ve never been trying to expand.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: They\u2019re trying to annex the West Bank right now and Lebanon, southern Lebanon and Syria, which they\u2019ve succeeded in.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: These are all places that they were attacked from when they became a country in 1947. They said, okay, we will accept half a loaf. They had as much right to that land as anybody. There was a continual presence there since a thousand B.C. when King David had a king.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I don\u2019t care about that at all, okay?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But it\u2019s relevant.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: You can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s relevant to people.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Wipe out innocent people because used to live there like centuries ago.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You\u2019re calling them colonizers. They\u2019re not colonizers.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: They\u2019re expanding and they\u2019re annexing land. That\u2019s what colonizers do.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Again, they were willing to take half a loaf. Then they were attacked in 19. Excuse me.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: It\u2019s way more complicated than that, but it\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, I don\u2019t know if you know the history.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I do really well.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Really?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Tell me the war.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: So, for instance, when were they.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: When were they attacked?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Okay, so in 1967, when.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: That was the first time.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, that wasn\u2019t the first time.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: When was.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: But when you say that they have offered land to the Palestinians, land that belonged to them in the first place.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It didn\u2019t belong solely to them.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: The whole point of this whole two-state solution was, okay, we\u2019ll give you this territory if you promise not to militarize. Without a military, you don\u2019t have a country. You don\u2019t have a country without a military, you don\u2019t have a country without borders. Right. Without a military, you can\u2019t defend your borders. So if I were engaging in these negotiations with the Israelis, I would say, listen, I respect the territory that you\u2019re offering. However, we need to militarize. We need to protect our borders. To me, that\u2019s a big thing.<\/p>\n
Gaza and Hamas<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But that\u2019s not what they ever used it for. Again, they gave Gaza back in 2005. They could have chosen.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: They didn\u2019t give Gaza back in two. They left Gaza, but didn\u2019t really leave Gaza. When they have complete control over the.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Territory because they kept being attacked, they extend. Just let me finish one second.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Go ahead, go ahead.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: They could have turned Gaza into a state that was much more like, I don\u2019t know, Dubai or something. If they wanted to, they didn\u2019t. Hamas took over right away. They never had elections after that. They\u2019re a terrorist.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: You\u2019re right about that. You\u2019re right about the elections.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: They\u2019re a terrorist mafia. Their own population is terrorized by them. They don\u2019t like them. All they did was import weapons from Iran, build tunnels and use it to prosecute this war against Israel. They never used it. So of course Israel is going to be defensive. Their issue was they were not defensive enough, which is why October 7th happened.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: So you\u2019re making good points. I\u2019m going to concede to some of them, not all of them, but I.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I don\u2019t even know why you want to talk about this.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I know, I know. I\u2019ll ask you one more question.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s frustrating because my problem.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: My problem is, okay, even if I concede entirely to everything you\u2019re saying, how about a little bit of ire directed toward Benjamin Netanyahu, who\u2019s the guy who facilitated the funding and has totally admitted to facilitating the funding of Hamas? Why did he prop up Hamas? Because he wanted to essentially discredit the PLO. Okay.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I mean, there\u2019s all kinds of what abouts. You can say, what about ism?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: The very man propped up Hamas now saying that he needs to fight them. I mean, and now he\u2019s also funding Abu Shabaab. Why are you funding Abu Shabaab, who\u2019s also, who has ties to ISIS?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: These things are not wrong. It just looks like you\u2019re looking for something to make a false equivalency.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: This is what I want.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Look, I get.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I want Palestinians to live in their own territory. I want them to be able to govern themselves. I want Israelis to live in peace and safety.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Then stop attacking them.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, they\u2019re not going to attack them as long as they\u2019re doing what they\u2019re.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Currently doing they\u2019re doing in retaliation for being attacked. Of course it is. They\u2019ve been attacked. They were encircled. Lebanon. Why are they in Lebanon? Because Hezbollah was attacking from there.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right. In response to what they\u2019re doing in Gaza. Yes.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, before that. They\u2019ve had four wars there.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Was it when they were trying to annex land from southern Lebanon that they were attacking?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: They were not trying to annex land. They were trying to put a border between the country that was continually attacking them. If they were, if we were being attacked from Canada, I imagine we would want a little border between Maine and Canada.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: True. I don\u2019t think you\u2019re building that border. We wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I don\u2019t know where we\u2019re getting this information.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, it\u2019s not TikTok. Very well read on this. Very well read on this. I care about this issue a lot. I see. I do. Yeah.<\/p>\n
The \u201cWhere Would You Live?\u201d Question<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Let me ask you one question, and then maybe we can get off it, because otherwise I just want to go. I want to go have dinner.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I\u2019m not interested in this.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s not really what I started a podcast for. You seem to be itching to get to it, and now that you have, I\u2019m not going to back down on it because I don\u2019t want to do it. And I\u2019m not Jewish, by the way.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Oh, I didn\u2019t accuse you of being Jewish. And it wouldn\u2019t matter if you were.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No, but I\u2019m saying I do this because I think it\u2019s the right thing and because I feel like I know the history and the politics of it.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I respect your perspective. Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But if you had to live in the Middle East, so tomorrow, Ana, you got to go live in the Middle East, where would you live? You can pick one city, any city you can, you know, as far away as, say, Pakistan. You could live in Karachi. You could live in Cairo. You could live in Amman, Jordan. You seem to love Lebanon. I mean, Beirut\u2019s nice when the bombing\u2019s not happening and the assassinations have stopped. Or you could live in Syria. I hear that\u2019s wonderful in the summer.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Well, we now have Al Qaeda terrorists leading Syria.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Or the Houthis, I\u2019m sure would make room for you. Tel Aviv or in the West Bank. Ramallah, I think, is wonderful for a little, in the fall, it gets lovely. Where would you live? What city would you live in? What do you think you\u2019d be comfortable in that dress?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I\u2019m sure it would not be comfortable in this dress in any of the various Middle Eastern countries that have been destabilized by.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You\u2019re not really blaming it on whitey.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Listen, are you.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You\u2019re blaming Islam on whitey.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I\u2019m not blaming Islam on whitey.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: What? You\u2019re saying we destabilize? That\u2019s why you can\u2019t wear that.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Did we not. Did we not.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Wait a second, wait a second.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: We were funding terrorist organizations in Syria during the Syrian civil war starting under the Obama administration. That\u2019s why. Did that not destabilize Syria?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No. What\u2019s destabilized?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: There\u2019s a literal.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: We\u2019re talking about your dress.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Why? It looks good. I know it looks good.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You\u2019re saying you can\u2019t wear that dress in Syria because of Whitey destabilizing?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I didn\u2019t say that.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Okay. That\u2019s my mouth. Okay, great.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, it did destabilize very countries. Are you going to deny that?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I went. Asked about the dress and you went right to destabilize. So is that why you couldn\u2019t wear that dress? Why couldn\u2019t you wear that dress? Why couldn\u2019t you?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: You want me to talk about why jihadism and it\u2019s bomb. But why won\u2019t you listen?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Why won\u2019t you?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, I won\u2019t.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Why?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I don\u2019t believe in jihadism. Which is why I\u2019m furious.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s not just that.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: The United States just had Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Terrorism, the White House, jihadism, that is preventing you from wearing that dress there. Are you saying every Muslim is a jihad? I don\u2019t think they are.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Okay.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Why can\u2019t you wear that dress?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Let\u2019s focus for a second.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No, you won\u2019t. You won\u2019t answer this question.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I\u2019m not going to defend that religion. That extremist religion at all. Why can\u2019t you just say this discussion is about? This discussion.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No, it\u2019s very much what it\u2019s about.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Very innocent human beings that I don\u2019t want to be slaughtered regardless of what their relationship is.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No one does. Then stop starting wars.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Stop attacking Israel. It\u2019ll stop. Okay, but the fact that you can\u2019t answer that question, and you know that.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I don\u2019t know what the question is. What\u2019s the question?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You keep doing what\u2019s my question.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: What\u2019s your question?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Because you don\u2019t really want to hear it.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, go ahead. I will give you space to speak. Go ahead.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Okay. The question is if you could live anywhere, right from North Africa all the way to. We left out Uzbekistan. You could live there. Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Riyadh.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: None. None of the above. None of them.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Or Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: None of them. Literally none of them.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But if you had to choose one, you would so it to you.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I would not to you.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Karachi, Pakistan, and Tel Aviv, same thing.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I would figure something out. But I.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Powerful. Not as smart as I know you are. That\u2019s. That\u2019s. Come on.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I have.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You\u2019re going to get killed. You\u2019re going to get killed for that. For good reason.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yes, you are. And for good reason. Okay.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I\u2019m Armenian. I\u2019m Armenian. I have literal family members who currently live in Iran. I have no love for the Iranian regime. Let me be clear about that.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I left out Tehran. Would you like to live.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Hold on, but let me just say something.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: There is so much disinformation. Armenian Christians who are part of the Armenian diaspora as a result of the 1915 genocide against Armenia.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I know it.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: They\u2019re living in Iran right now. They\u2019re going to church. They\u2019re being left alone by the ayatollah, as awful as the Ayatollah is. So look, I\u2019m not saying I would want to live in Iran. I don\u2019t want to live anywhere in the Middle East. I want to live here in the United States of America, the greatest freaking country in the world.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You\u2019re like a politician. You\u2019re avoiding Iran.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, I\u2019m being super honest with my.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No, you\u2019re not. No, you\u2019re not.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: 100%, I\u2019m being honest with you.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No, no, no. Because the question is, if you had to pick a city and you\u2019re not answering that question, you\u2019re doing what. You\u2019re doing what politicians are doing and saying, I don\u2019t want to live in any of them. I want to live in America. That\u2019s not the question.<\/p>\n
The question is, if you had to pick, would you rather live in Tel Aviv? Because I promise you, you wouldn\u2019t last a week in the other places, and you could easily live in Tel Aviv. So if you don\u2019t think that speaks of a difference between cultures and civilizations, then okay, we\u2019ll leave it there. But I promise you it does. And if you had to actually do that, I think you would agree with me.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I think given my very harsh and vociferous criticisms of the Israeli government, I probably wouldn\u2019t feel so safe living in Tel Aviv right now under this government. Under this government.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: First of all, they have free speech there, so it would not be an issue. But that is a side issue we\u2019re not really talking about. We\u2019ll just say just a person. Not you with your vociferous talking. Just a regular. A woman of your age.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I\u2019m sure a woman of my age who grew up in the Western world would probably feel the most comfortable in Tel Aviv. I will concede that.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Wow.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Okay. But we\u2019re having a discussion about which culture we like, when in reality, I\u2019m having a discussion about the value of human life and wanting innocent people to live.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Whether there is Raleigh, we\u2019ve been here.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Muslims in some other Muslim country.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You know what? When I\u2019m bored, I know the audience is bored.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: So I\u2019m going to cut it there because we\u2019ve been around that mulberry bush before.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: So I don\u2019t want to go around it again.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Okay. You want to talk about husbands again?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Anything, any. Anything else? Because listen.<\/p>\n
Finding Common Ground Through Disagreement<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I am able to sit with people I disagree with.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yeah.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: And it is what it is. We disagree on this issue. I don\u2019t think that this issue alone is the makeup of who you are as a person. So I just want to be clear about that.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yeah.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I think that we need to be able to have these kinds of discussions, as fiery as they are, because this is how we come to a solution or a conclusion. You need the tension. I think the tension is a good thing.<\/p>\n
At some point, this country lost the ability to sit with that tension because that\u2019s where we grow, that\u2019s where we learn. Right. And so, you know, you\u2019ve brought up some thought provoking things. I hope I\u2019ve brought up some thought provoking points. I doubt that was the case.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But I will say this show, whatever the f* this is.<\/p>\n
This happens. First of all, it\u2019s ironic because I started this because, I mean, I have a show about politics. I don\u2019t, you know, I have a job. This is like, let\u2019s do something completely different where we don\u2019t have to talk about politics. And, well, politics is everything. Well, especially with someone who\u2019s political.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But even people who are sometimes not. Because, I mean, again, I said if I\u2019m going to do a podcast, it\u2019s going to be completely different than real time. Real time. A lot of preparation. This.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Zero.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I don\u2019t know what the f* I\u2019m doing here. I\u2019m high and I\u2019m having fun and I\u2019m enjoying. So it does get like this. It got like this with Laura. Not to this degree with Laura, but it would always go back and forth. This one is the biggest challenge of to get back into a good mood.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Can you do it?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You can do it.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I\u2019m having. The first time ever I\u2019ve had a little. I\u2019m having a little trouble.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, Bill, it\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s okay. It just. It\u2019s just very frustrating.<\/p>\n
The Left\u2019s Language Wars<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Let\u2019s talk about the transes again.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: The what?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: That\u2019s what the conservatives say, the transes. The left turned on me. The first thing that the left turned on me over was I just kind of got sick of the lingo that was kind of being pushed on us and the way that.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Lingo?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah. I don\u2019t have kids. I don\u2019t want to have kids. And I don\u2019t want to be called a birthing person. I find it super insulting. You know what I mean?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You never will be.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: And that doesn\u2019t mean I hate trans people or I want to take rights away from trans. It just means this is my preference. So AOC used \u201cbirthing people\u201d or \u201cbirthing person,\u201d of course. And it was in the context of women\u2019s reproductive rights being stripped away from them by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
So I\u2019m already pretty furious about what had just happened in the Supreme Court and the reversal of rights that we\u2019ve had for decades. And then on top of that, you have AOC refer to women as birthing people because she wants to be inclusive.<\/p>\n
And, yeah, I, you know, had a little bit of a moment where I was just like, please don\u2019t call me on X Twitter at the time. Please don\u2019t call me a birthing person. I\u2019m a woman. I want to be called a woman.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: So you fought with AOC on X. I mean, on Twitter.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, I just. I didn\u2019t even mention AOC. I was just making a point to the public. This is where I stand on this specific issue. Right. The terminology that\u2019s being used to refer to women.<\/p>\n
One of my friends who works for a different media organization put out five different videos condemning me about it. And I\u2019m just like, is this really. This is worth destroying your friendship over? Really? This is insane.<\/p>\n
And you know me. You know me well. We are friends. And you know that I\u2019m not transphobic at all. I just think the feelings and the concerns and the worries of biological women matter, too. And I guess it doesn\u2019t matter for at least some component of the left. I wouldn\u2019t say the entirety of the left. Not even close.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But, I mean, the phrase I\u2019ve always used. One of my big complaints about the left has been the one true opinion there is the one true opinion.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And when you deviate from that, that it\u2019s so ironic. The people who absolutely hate bullies so much are the biggest f*ing bullies in the world, 100%. And they just want to bully you back into the corral.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah. And you can\u2019t do that with me.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You definitely can\u2019t do it with me.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But, I mean, they\u2019ll love some of what you said there because, you know, the useful idiots, this is the thing that they love, and the people who are marching for the terrorists and stuff.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: But you want to go back there.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No, I don\u2019t. I don\u2019t want. I don\u2019t want to go back there. I don\u2019t want to go back. I don\u2019t want to live there. I want to live. I can live in Tel Aviv or anywhere else. They\u2019re all the same. What does it matter? I just want to live. I do love America. Do you love America?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I love America.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I do, too.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I love America so much. And it makes me so angry that it\u2019s not that our people aren\u2019t being tended to. You know what I mean? And I\u2019m not saying that in the context of oh, we want government to take care of all of us at all. No, no, I\u2019m just talking about. I just feel like our country is being looted right now, and it makes me so furious.<\/p>\n
The Cost of Living in Modern America<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I feel like I was reading this really great article about\u2014and I kind of got this, but he put the meat on the bones for it. To me, it started out just talking about how the idea of the poverty line was based\u2014I didn\u2019t realize this\u2014like in the 50s or something, based on like three times what a family paid for food. So because you paid back then, about 33% went to food.<\/p>\n
But we\u2019re in a very different place now because we only really pay about 5%. Food is cheap, but rent, rents and stuff, mortgage, childcare\u2014like, there\u2019s all these other things. And he just broke it down. And of course, this is for families, people with kids and who need childcare. The two families that both people have to work and\u2014but like really like a hundred\u2014I think it was $140,000 just gets you to like\u2014that\u2019s insane.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Like a\u2014like just like getting by basically, a little better.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But yeah, but maybe not even like, you know, big vacation or just like\u2014not in LA. Yeah, right.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: For sure.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It definitely depends on where you live. Right? But like the numbers that, you know, we used to think $150,000\u2014I read that stat recently that like a lot of people make\u2014wow, America is pretty rich. Not really. Right? Not really, because $150,000 with that kind of a nut is not rich at all.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: It\u2019s true.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s okay. You\u2019re not\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: It\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Actually, like, if you make really low money, you get a lot of government benefits, but then when you make this kind of money, you lose them all. So you wind up as close to the bone almost.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, you don\u2019t even have to get to $150,000. I mean, the poverty line is considered so utterly low that people who are very obviously living in poverty\u2014like, they\u2019re not making enough income and should qualify for various, you know, programs to kind of get them on their feet\u2014they don\u2019t qualify for them. Right.<\/p>\n
Taxes and Where the Money Goes<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: So explain to me the American economy, because I don\u2019t\u2014I never can quite get it why we\u2014they take so much of my money.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right? Yes, yes.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s not like\u2014yes, some couples taxes. Whenever I hear like, rich people don\u2019t pay tax\u2014what I\u2014I can\u2019t remember the last year when I didn\u2019t give more than half. And I\u2019m not even bitching about it if it went\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Listen, there is now more than half.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: That\u2019s a lot more than half.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: There should be a moratorium on the discussion. And yet still poorly, whether we increase taxes or whatever. And look, I actually think that there are some examples of corporations in particular who get\u2014like, they get taxed. Amazon should not be getting a tax refund.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: That\u2019s ridiculous.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: That\u2019s the thing is that we\u2019re like in the\u2014just the rich people that aren\u2019t really that rich who get hit hard. And when you make hundreds of billions, then you pay nothing.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: It\u2019s insane. It\u2019s insane.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Partly because you have an army of lawyers and partly because it\u2019s in stock and things. And the tax code is, you know, Reagan tried to make it simple. It\u2019s not simple. And they\u2014and they game the system.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: That\u2019s true.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But like, you know, just don\u2019t tell me we don\u2019t pay a lot of tax. How can you\u2014and I\u2019ve seen the stats. The government says, where\u2019s the money going? Confiscate a lot of money. And I\u2019d be okay with it. But yes, where is it going? Why is there still homeless? And why is there still, like, not railroads built in California? Why? Why? And it\u2019s just like stupidity and f*ing bureaucrats and just everybody with their beak at the trough.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yep.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And just this, all this bullshit. And a lot of it does come from the left.<\/p>\n
California\u2019s Dysfunction<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Like, I mean, look, what\u2019s happening in California, I think, is a really good example of what\u2014graft, waste, all of that looks like. So, for instance, if you look at the state of California, people are paying their taxes. Okay? Our state taxes are super high. Municipal taxes, sales taxes, very high. It\u2019s very expensive to live in California.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Very.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: And I\u2014<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: State tax alone is 13%.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right. It\u2019s insane because of what we get in return, which is squalor. Homeless encampments. Okay. Story after story involving audits showing that various nonprofits have just stolen the money, have decided to take the money, pad their pockets.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s safetyism.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yes.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Overregulation, red tape.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yes. In California there is overregulation, especially as it pertains to real estate construction. We need to build more houses.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I said this to Gavin when last time he was on my show and like, \u201cOh, absolutely.\u201d And you know, like, \u201cYes, I\u2019m going to look into the red tape thing.\u201d It\u2019s just that is the one that I think is so hard to ever\u2014it\u2019s like they always say, \u201cI\u2019m going to Washington. We\u2019re going to get rid of the waste and fraud.\u201d They never do. No, everybody has their plan, DOGE, or whatever Al Gore had. And, and, and you know, \u201cWe\u2019re going to\u2014we\u2019re going to\u2014the lobbyists. We\u2019re going to f*ing get rid of that.\u201d And they never do.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s that smarmy, sleazy mud flow of consultants and people who just make their living not really making anything or doing anything or fixing anything.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: So true.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Just little\u2014everyone has their little piece and it winds up the people. We pay a lot of taxes and it doesn\u2019t quite get to the people or\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, it doesn\u2019t. That\u2019s the thing that drives me nuts in California. It\u2019s not like we\u2019re nickel and diming people. We have funded various programs to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. $24 billion in homeless funding.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Octomom alone. I mean, remember Octomom?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I do remember Octomom. Is she in the news again?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I\u2019m just saying. Yeah, she got a lot of\u2014I don\u2019t know what it would cost privately to birth eight children.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: You couldn\u2019t pay me to do that. There\u2019s no amount, apparently.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Apparently we couldn\u2019t pay you to get one. Right.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: True, true.<\/p>\n
Kids and Parenting<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yeah, I see. I totally understand that. But I\u2019m a man, of course, I get it. And I never want to get the one thing that\u2019s been steady in my life. When I was a kid, I didn\u2019t like kids. And I still don\u2019t like\u2014I never really\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I love kids. I just don\u2019t\u2014I don\u2019t want to be responsible for any of that. Although that for sure, I don\u2019t want\u2014but, like, I don\u2019t want to be responsible for any of them. And I\u2014I\u2019ve said this before, I\u2019ll say it again. I don\u2019t know how parents avoid violence because, like\u2014because when it comes to my family, when it comes to people I love, they don\u2019t always\u2014<\/p>\n
That\u2019s true, that\u2019s true. But, like, I just think about\u2014okay, I\u2019ll tell you a story. Because this resonates with who I probably would be as a parent. When I was in fourth grade, I remember waiting for my mom to pick me up. I was at the corner of the school, and as she\u2019s turning the street to pick me up, a group of boys from my class pass by me and one of them slaps my ass.<\/p>\n
And my mom sees it. My mom sees it. I\u2019m a fourth grader, so I\u2019m like, what, eight, nine? Right? My mom\u2019s crazy. So she like, literally stops her car in the middle of the intersection. In the middle, runs out with a rolling pin\u2014because she did have a rolling pin in the car\u2014and she just starts chasing them because she wants to beat the s* out of them.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: A rolling pin.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: And that was the right thing to do.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: What year is this? This was a rolling pin.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: This is in the 1990s, early 1990s.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Why in the car?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: She would threaten us with it if we were acting up.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Really? The old rolling pin.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: The rolling pin. When I was that age, obviously, I thought my mom was crazy, and I was, like, very, very embarrassed by it. But now as an adult\u2014oh, I totally get it.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Like, did she catch the kid?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I don\u2019t\u2014I think she, like, got one, like, swipe in, but nothing crazy, luckily, because she probably would have gotten in a lot of trouble. But\u2014<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But, Ana, if you were telling me this story and it came from the 1960s, I would say that\u2019s how we did it. Parents could absolutely hit another kid\u2019s\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Another friend, parents, kids.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: It was great.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It was very much \u201cit takes a village,\u201d you know?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But the 90s, I\u2014I feel like\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, no, the 90s were so different, Bill.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I feel like the 90s were so great. They would call the cops. Already we were into the \u201ccall the cops\u201d phase.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: There were no cell phones. There was no, like, \u201cOh, let me get my phone out.\u201d<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I know, but hitting another kid with a rolling pin, I feel like would\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Not in this part of California.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Wow. Good for you. Well, it certainly isn\u2019t that way now.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, no, of course not. Are you kidding me? My mom would be in prison for the rest of her life, probably.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yeah, exactly.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: She\u2019d be\u2014even in California for the\u2014<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Rest of her life. Yeah, exactly. No, they used to, you know, swat. You know, just\u2014you could swat a kid, like, if\u2014and\u2014and your father could be looking at this, and it\u2019d be like, \u201cThank you, Bill. I appreciate that. You know, he was getting out of line.\u201d<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: My mom, at, like, open houses\u2014this is when I was in elementary school\u2014I\u2019ll never forget it. She would literally tell the teacher, \u201cListen, if my kids are acting up, I give you permission to spank them.\u201d And I\u2019m like, \u201cMom, don\u2019t say that. Like, you\u2019re not supposed to say that.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she was very much of the mindset, and this was an old school mindset that doesn\u2019t exist anymore. If the teacher says that you\u2019re misbehaving, you\u2019re in the wrong. Whereas now I feel like if the teacher says the kid is misbehaving, the parent fights the teacher, which I think is a mistake.<\/p>\n
The Breakdown of Authority<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I\u2019ve always said that there used to be an ironclad wall. You couldn\u2019t break the chain\u2014your parents and your teacher. And now the parents take the side of the kid.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah, that\u2019s where it all went.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Oh, it\u2019s a total mistake. Yeah, but I mean, you seem like you\u2019re from such a traditional family. They must have been a lot of pressure to have a kid. I mean, it sounds like you\u2019re from\u2014you know what I call villagers? People who have, like\u2014what?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Don\u2019t say that to my dad. Okay.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, people\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Because in Armenian culture, calling someone a villager is like\u2014<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I don\u2019t mean it as an insult.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: The villagers, you know, I don\u2019t mean it that way.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I use it in terms sometimes with women. Like, women who, like\u2014and I don\u2019t mean this as a bad way, but, like, there are women who, like, they mate for life, you know?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, I\u2019ll mate for life, but not to have kids.<\/p>\n
Parenting and Personal Choices<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right. But I mean, like, and that\u2019s what I\u2014yes, I call them villagers. Like, most modern women, like, no, they\u2019ll f our men a little before they. But some women are like, no, we only do it if we are, like, fing super serious. And that\u2019s great. I mean, not for me, but I mean, in general. Yeah, it\u2019s great if that\u2019s your thing. But I call them villagers because it\u2019s like, not that they literally live in a village, but, you know, it\u2019s just the villagement. And that\u2019s not an insult. Just, you\u2019re villagers and I am not. I\u2019m a city boy.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yep.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You know, I know what you mean.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah, totally.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But you must get a lot of that kind of pressure. Or maybe they\u2019ve stopped. Maybe they gave up.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Well, what happened with me was I remember being in high school or college and I went out to sushi with my mom and my aunt, and I got my mom warmed to the idea that I\u2019m not going to have kids very early on. So I just remember having\u2014<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I love the way you put that.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You got warm to the idea you\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Have to, like, ease them into the notion that your daughter is not going to give you grandchildren. And that\u2019s okay, because when you\u2019re sick and when you\u2019re battling cancer, your daughter is going to be by your bedside, as I\u2019ve been throughout the past year. You know what I mean? And so I just\u2014I don\u2019t know. You just know you\u2019re a man. But I know that you probably went through the same thought process I did when, you know, you know, I\u2019m not really fit to be a parent. I don\u2019t want it. And to be a parent, you need to want it.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: That\u2019s so true.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You have to be willing to basically trade your life for theirs.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yes.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Not completely.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: And I don\u2019t want to do that. No, it is completely. It is completely. I have to say. Well, you know what?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s completely. Because the parents of the modern era f*ed it up and made it completely. My parents did not. I don\u2019t know where I was yakking about this recently, but I saw this person on TV, a woman. It was TMZ. I can say it. And she was talking about\u2014they got into some discussion about kids. And she said, \u201cI wish I could have one hour a week, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Like, I can\u2019t live like that.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s just like, like everything. Every day, I never have a minute to myself. I\u2019m packing lunches and I\u2019m doing this and I\u2019m picking them up. And I just thought you guys did it to yourselves. My parents did not feel these kind of obligations to be around me all the time.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And they\u2014and we were both happier for it. You did it to yourselves. And you do have to trade your life for your child. Yes, if you\u2019re a decent person and if you\u2019re going to bring a child into the world, but not to the degree the parents of today do it. And they didn\u2019t make it better for him. They ruined two lives. Congratulations. There\u2019s a f*ing hat trick for you and society.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I agree. I mean, my most fond memories of growing up is when I\u2019d be outside riding my bike and playing with my neighborhood friends for hours on end. You know, at some point, you know, my mom would demand that I come home, but for the most part, you know, when I was out playing with my friend, she just kind of let me do my thing.<\/p>\n
Now, I will admit, like, we kind of\u2014even though I grew up in Reseda, California, at the time, it was like a little bit of a suburban feel, you know, and it felt safe even though it was the 90s when crime was supposed to be much higher.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But it is the suburbs, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah. Reseda, California.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Sure.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: It was just, you know, working class community. It wasn\u2019t like\u2014when you think of suburbs, you think of like, beautiful, like, no polished, you know, landscape and everything. We didn\u2019t have that.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You just had a lawn.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah, yeah, a lawn. We had a front yard.<\/p>\n
Suburban Neighborhoods and Housing<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I mean, I went back to my house recently, like two years ago at that Thanksgiving, probably two years ago this week, and I wanted to see the house I grew up in and the neighbors who were still living there when I was a kid.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Wow.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Oh, yeah, yeah. Who never been next door neighbors. Oh. And their son is one of my best friends still, you know, from like, from like 8 years old. So I said, can, you know, can you ask the neighbors if I could see the house I grew up in? And it was completely unrecognizable. Yeah, they had\u2014just because it was very small.<\/p>\n
But the neighbor\u2019s house, which was the same model, really, when my parents bought the house. This is World War II generation people. On the GI Bill after the war, in the 1950s, you didn\u2019t even see the house. You saw a model. They built these neighborhoods and it\u2019s like, oh, yeah, you got 24B. It\u2019s looked like every other house.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yes, yes. That\u2019s\u2014yeah, that\u2019s the neighborhood I grew up in. Track homes built in the 1950s.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: You know, each one was like a tiny bit different. Right. Like so each other house, like one looked the same as the next one. Not the next one, but the one over. Right. Like, like\u2014so there was a little bit of variation, but not much. But the point is, why can\u2019t we do that now?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Do what?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Like, we desperately need more housing.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: So why the f* are we trying to reinvent\u2014reinvent the wheel? Why can\u2019t we do the same thing we did in the 1950s? We mass produced housing.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You know what Levittown was.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yes, of course.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I mean, that was the first suburb that it was like, again, they\u2014no variation in those houses. So just like they just mass produced a suburb.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Let\u2019s do that again.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yeah, we could.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Why aren\u2019t we?<\/p>\n
California\u2019s Homelessness Crisis<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: We\u2014because we can\u2019t even get the homeless. We\u2014the homeless houses cost like\u2014no, they keep like a million dollars a piece.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I know. I\u2019m working on a piece up right now, an investigative piece on Project Home Key. And it is\u2014so Project Home Key is the policy in the state of California to\u2014it\u2019s like the housing first policy. Right. Like we need to take every homeless person and put them in a hotel room that we have converted into an apartment. Which, fine, I respect that idea if it\u2019s done efficiently and properly, but that\u2019s not what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Hotels. Who came up with that? Because the Roosevelt Hotel in New York that was used for\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, I think the idea was we have a bunch of these motels and hotels that are like dilapidated. What if we buy them and just like convert them to apartment\u2014build apartment units. Which sounds like it makes a lot of sense, except in practice, it\u2019s actually been a bit of a disaster.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, they weren\u2019t building apartments. They just put them in the hotels. I know how I acted on the road in hotels all my life. It\u2019s just a bad idea. Hotels do not foster good behavior. They just don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Well, it also just inherently, like the policy inherently minimizes the complexity of the issue in California and I\u2019m sure other states as well. I\u2019m sorry, but if you take someone who is addicted to fentanyl off the street and you just park them in an apartment unit and pretend, as Karen Bass has pretended, we\u2019re going to offer them wraparound services, but they really don\u2019t. They\u2019re going to overdose in the apartment. And that\u2019s what\u2019s been happening.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sorry, but the homelessness issue isn\u2019t as simple as, okay, we\u2019ll give them a home. No homeless people. They fall into different categories. There are the homeless people who are not on the streets. Right. We need to make a distinction between street homelessness and the people who are couch surfing or staying with family. The single mother with children who left her abusive husband, but she\u2019s staying with friends. It makes sense to help her out by putting her in one of these units.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No, it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: You don\u2019t think so?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No. I could tell you how to solve this, but there\u2019s probably laws or bureaucrats or whatever. Here\u2019s what you do. First of all, citizens own the streets. You can\u2019t be on the street. You can\u2019t control this sidewalk. I am a citizen. I pay taxes. The sidewalk is mine, not yours. Sorry. No tents.<\/p>\n
We put you in a barracks. A nice barracks, but a barracks. I\u2019m sorry. You are where you are in life. We are going to help you. We are not going to judge you. But that\u2019s where you are. You have to be in a barracks. Now, they always\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: What do you mean by a barracks? Like, I just want to understand.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: A barracks is a\u2014is a big room with a lot of beds and a shelter.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: You mean a shelter?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: A barracks, whatever. But they say, well, they don\u2019t want to go there because they don\u2019t the crime. Okay, pennies on the dollar. Hire a security guard for every row of beds and have them so you\u2019re safe there. We guarantee you safe there while you\u2019re there.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: We also have an adjacent barracks where there\u2019s counseling and there\u2019s drug addiction. People get off drugs and there\u2019s food, and it\u2019s like, do that. When we think you\u2019re ready to go back into society, then we\u2019ll have people who are trying to repatriate you back into society do that. But putting them in hotels or pretending that being on the street is just a lifestyle, which is where they\u2014<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, no, I\u2019m not buying that.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I know, but that\u2019s where they went with that. Again, another example of thinking you\u2019re helping and you\u2019re actually stupid. You\u2019re hurting the marginalized people you\u2019re supposed to help.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Okay, let me just be clear about one thing. That obviously it struck a nerve with you and it struck a nerve with me as well. I don\u2019t give a f* about your lifestyle choices at all. I really don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Good. I thought it was something good.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: You are not entitled to overtaking a public park.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Because you want to live on\u2014right. And I know people, by the way. I was part of the group of people in this country who didn\u2019t think that even existed. Who the hell would want to live on the streets? That doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, it does. It exists. Unfortunately. It does.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yeah.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Cuckoo.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Most of them are mentally\u2014something mentally is off.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right. I don\u2019t think that comes even close to representing, like, half the homeless population in California. It does not. Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: A lot of people are like one paycheck away.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right. I agree.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You know, you go from\u2014well, you go from, I\u2019ll have the rent next week, I promise to\u2014sorry. That\u2019s the third time you lied about it. And now you\u2019re in your car.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah, totally.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And then after your car comes the sidewalk and those people can be helped. Yes. And that\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to say.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yes.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Get you someplace warm.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yes.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Where there\u2019s soup. Okay. And security. It\u2019s not that hard to do whatever f*ing stupid laws are in the way of it. It\u2014if only a politician could come along and just cut that Gordian knot. Because it\u2019s not that hard to do. And it doesn\u2019t cost a million dollars per unit.<\/p>\n
Drug Courts and Criminal Justice<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: So one of the policies that California actually got right. And we\u2019ve moved away from it, unfortunately, is drug courts. So the way drug courts worked in California was if you committed a crime, not just simply having possession of drugs or using drugs publicly, but if you committed a crime because of your drug addiction.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right.<\/p>\n
Drug Courts and Rehabilitation<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: The judge would give you an option. Okay, well, you robbed someone in their own home in order to feed your drug addiction. You have one of two options. You can either go to prison or rehabilitation. We could put you in rehab and you can get clean. You make your decision now, and a lot of people, understandably so, and this was the smart decision, would opt for rehab.<\/p>\n
Drug courts used to work. I mean, they worked in California. Why did we move away from them?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And I just had drug court.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah, we had drug courts. Yeah, yeah, I did a lot of\u2014<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Just about drugs.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Just about drugs. Because, listen, I don\u2019t agree with throwing people just willy nilly throwing people with addiction in prison. That\u2019s not the right solution. But when you give someone who\u2019s in the throes of addiction the option, either you can go to prison or you can get clean, they\u2019re going to go for getting clean.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I think I could do a show called Drug Court.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I like it.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I like it a lot. I think I have the credibility, I have the drugs.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I love that you\u2019re smoking a joint.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: While I have a drug court. I have the drugs right here. And I know a lot about the subject and I think I\u2019d be a very fair justice meeting out, you know, because, look, I\u2019ve never been somebody who thinks that drugs are all good. I don\u2019t believe my hippie friends who want to tell me that this is health food. It\u2019s not.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yeah, it\u2019s not, but it\u2019s not. It\u2019s more benign than the other drug I\u2019m doing, which is beer, by the way.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I love pot.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Oh, really? Why did you say so?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, I wanted to kind of get a feel for you before I partook. Decided to partake.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I think we, I think we\u2019ve gotten both ends of it, baby. Yes, we did.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I think we got, I think we hit the gamut tonight.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: We did, we did.<\/p>\n
Finding Common Ground<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And thank God we did. It is almost impossible to leave here not with good cheer. I just, you know, even, that was the, that was the highest we ever went up, I feel, to the almost into the Bezos area where you\u2019re actually technically in outer space and came down. But we still did it. We still did it.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: We did it.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: We f*ing did it.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: But I\u2019m capable of it, and I knew you were. You would be capable of it too, because you\u2019re an adult and you\u2019re able to, let\u2019s, let\u2019s joust a little bit. It\u2019s okay. We can joust and we can come back from it. You think you have to joust? Don\u2019t you want to joust?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You think you\u2019re the first Jew hater I talked to? I joke, I joke, I joke, I joke. See, I\u2019ve joked. That\u2019s what happens out of you with comedians with the joking and then we\u2019re coming back and we\u2019re drinking and we\u2019re laughing and we\u2019re funny. So.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: What do you do for fun when you\u2019re not my husband? Wow.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah. Look, I\u2019m telling you, man.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Like that, huh? Wow. And how long you been together?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: We\u2019ve been, see, we just celebrated our 10 year anniversary.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: How long were you married?<\/p>\n
Meeting Her Husband<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: So before that, first of all, I met him at a club and\u2014<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Nothing wrong with that.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, there\u2019s nothing. I mean, people are meeting each other online, so meeting him at a club, I find that super romantic. I met him in person. That\u2019s incredible.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Bigger hoes than you out there, trust me.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Oh my God, by the way, I mean, I thought, oh, I\u2019m not going to marry this guy. He\u2019s just a hot guy I met at the club. So I\u2019m going to, because I\u2019ve always been a good girl. I\u2019ve always been in one super long monogamous relationship to another.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: You\u2019re a villager. I knew.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I\u2019m a little bit of a villager, I guess. But don\u2019t tell my dad. Don\u2019t tell my dad.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No shame in being a villager there. Shame in not. They would say. That\u2019s what the villagers. No shame in being a villager.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: So. But he. What can I mean.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And it\u2019s good for the guy. He doesn\u2019t want to feel like his girl\u2019s, you know, dirty draws all over town.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, definitely. He definitely, you know.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Right.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: He told me after the fact, he\u2019s like, yeah, I just knew you were a good girl. Which even though I was doing my best to make him think I was a naughty girl, you know. But no, he knew. He knew.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not going to say anything that I wouldn\u2019t want my parents to know about.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Take that as a non denial denial.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Exactly. Okay. But what was meant to be, ooh, this is me being bad. Of course I end up marrying him. Of course.<\/p>\n
Relationships and Attraction<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I always felt, and this is sort of the pattern of my life, when the sex happened right away, it made everything easier and better. It\u2019s like if we\u2019re attracted, the rest is sort of bullshit and then you\u2019re starting the thing on a lot. Every serious girlfriend I had, they never put me through the agony of guessing which date it was going to happen on.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Right, right, right.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And I always so appreciated that, that it just, it\u2019s, you know, it just, it carried through the relationship.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah, that\u2019s a really good point.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It wasn\u2019t like, oh, I think girls, some girls think, oh, once he\u2019s f*ed me, then he\u2019ll have had me and leave. I guess if that was the only thing about you that was interesting, I might do that.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I thought sex was super boring. I mean, if it was great, it was a good time.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: He\u2019s going to come back for more. It\u2019s like, no, I\u2019m like a raccoon who just tipped over the garbage. I\u2019m coming back for more. This was awesome in here tonight. I\u2019m coming back to this house.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yep. Yep. I mean, he loved it so much, he wanted to do crossword puzzles with me after the fact and didn\u2019t want to leave, you know.<\/p>\n
Crossword Puzzles and Complementary Knowledge<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: How funny, if I was allegedly seeing somebody, I mean, we allegedly would be doing crossword puzzles together because, and this is someone who did not have a good education because nobody does of her age. They just stopped educating people. But the crossword puzzle is something, and it\u2019s amazing. I was never able to do the New York Times Friday or Saturday.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Those are tough.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: They get harder as the week ends.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: They do. They sure do. Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And I still can\u2019t. But when we do them together, we do it in 20 minutes because I know what happened with the Ottoman Empire, and she knows Scooby Doo.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Oh, my God.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: No, it\u2019s true. It\u2019s like complementary knowledge.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Oh, I love it.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s a beautiful thing. Yeah.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: It\u2019s a beautiful thing.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I didn\u2019t know that you were into the post coital crossword puzzles. Me and my husband are.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Oh, I didn\u2019t say they were post coital.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Oh, okay.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But, I mean, they could be.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: But are they pro coital? Does it turn you on?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Well, I mean, kind of. Are we always having to be coital? I mean, who can live under that pressure? I mean, coital, I love coital, but not every moment is coital, you know?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Fair enough.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Fair enough. So you got to give it a rest.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I want to get my cardio in.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Honey, my d*\u2019s tired. Get the puzzle.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Oh, my gosh.<\/p>\n
Wrapping Up<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: All right. Well, I guess we got back to laughing. Look at that.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I told you we were capable of it.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: We\u2019re totally capable of it. I\u2019m so glad you came here to yell at me and laugh with me.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yes. Thank you for having me.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I would do it over in a minute.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Same.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: And I\u2019m glad. Mostly, I think we are on the same page with so much stuff that matters. About talking to each other and not cutting off and accepting the differences.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I love my country and I love the people within it.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yes.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: And that means loving everyone, regardless of where they stand on politics. Once you see human beings as human beings and you don\u2019t boil them down to a political identity, you live a life that\u2019s far more enriched and you actually show that you do love your country. Loving your country means loving the people within. You know what I mean?<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I do know exactly what you mean.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: I mean, I\u2019ve had whiskey, so I\u2019m starting to get a little bit, you know, lovey dovey and whatever.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Very glad I got to know you. Your star is only rising. And I think that\u2019s good for the country because you\u2019re smart and you listen and you have, you know, a great voice and, yeah. So I think our trails will pass again and that.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Thank you, Bill.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: All right.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Maybe next time we toke up together.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Yeah. And next time you\u2019ll feel comfortable doing that, right?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah, for sure.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: All right.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Yeah.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Having a baby, that\u2019s still up?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, no, that\u2019s off. Off the table.<\/p>\n
Population and Resources<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: Good for you. We don\u2019t want any more babies.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: No, no, no.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: I never understand that whole Elon Musk thing. And he\u2019s not the only. But is that a good thing?<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: To have a bunch of kids from different women.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: But what happened to the population? Too big. We only have so many resources. They just, among the things that they can just pretend. Like the thing we were saying about AI taking all the jobs and more people with only so many resources on Earth. We just pretend that that\u2019s not a thing anymore.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Club Random.<\/p>\n
Yeah, I guess the narrative changed entirely.<\/p>\n
BILL MAHER: We\u2019re doing our part.<\/p>\n
ANA KASPARIAN: Club Random.<\/p>\n
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