Ep. #597: Bob Odenkirk, Caitlin Flanagan, Mary Katharine Ham

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night Series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

Thank you.

How are you?

Yes, that's right.

Okay, thank you very much.

I

happy, always says such a happy, maskless crowd we have here.

It's wonderful.

And, you know, we were rough last week, but I know you're still in a good mood because it was a holiday week.

We had Easter, we had 420.

Which one one do you think I celebrate?

No, no, they're kind of alike, you know.

Instead of eggs on the morning, I just hunt for the lighter.

Now, the other

thing people are celebrating is they lifted the mask mandate in airplanes,

which I applaud,

you know, on airplanes, you know, where you take it off to eat, so the virus could never attack you then.

You know,

they were uncomfortable, they were pointless, and they got stuck in Mike Tyson's fist sometimes.

Oh, you saw that shit?

Oh, my God.

Yeah, I guess everyone has seen this video of Mike Tyson just wailing on a guy.

And the sad part, you know who the guy was?

Chris Rock.

So sad that again, he,

No.

This is such a sign of the times.

Now the Tony Awards, I guess it's in the next month or so, the Tony Awards had to put out today a strict no-violence policy at the Tony Awards.

They said, any sudden movements, it better be jazz hands.

The Tony Awards?

I tell you,

I feel like the country's kind of coming apart.

Have you been

following the Johnny Depp Amber Heard?

I'm starting to think I may not want to get married.

Oh my God.

We're reading the text.

There's a text from Johnny.

He says, I hope her rotting corpse is decomposing in the fucking trunk of a Honda Civic.

And then things got nasty.

Also, why bring Honda Civics into what

fucking Honda do?

It's like, why us?

She could be in any car.

I can't, I can't, and I can't even.

And then, oh, talk about can't even, she put shit in this bed.

Did you see this?

Now, Amber Heard is a beautiful woman, and I have heard the phrase, I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers, but this is going too far.

This is how married couples communicate now.

You put shit in the bed?

Honey, what I'm hearing is...

She didn't like the Chicken Ale King.

Okay, we.

But Tucker Carlson has the answer to this.

Have you seen this?

He's venturing into the battle of the sexes.

He's got a new documentary.

He's getting all this press.

It's called The End of Men.

The End of Men, because testosterone levels are going down, which they are.

That is true.

He says one of the cures for this, men should, he says, tan their testicles.

Hey, I've been onto this shit for years.

I'm into it.

It's fantastic.

The only problem is I get a tan line between where my balls are

tanned

and where my asshole is bleached.

It just doesn't, you know, it's not smooth.

It doesn't look seamless.

What is with this country and sex now?

Nobody can get it right.

You saw what's going on now this week in the continuing saga of Disney versus Florida.

I mean,

first Disney, they weren't supportive enough of gays.

Now they're being accused too supportive.

The Republicans are all over them.

Ted Cruz said, if Disney gets its way, next thing we'll be seeing cartoons of Mickey and Pluto going at it.

He said that.

I swear to.

You know, I remember when gay marriage was first a thing, one of the Republican talking points is, if we allow that, then people will marry dogs, which of course never happened.

but now their new angle is cartoon dogs this is what we have to worry about

they act like there's a sign when you go into Disneyland that says you must be this tall to have gender reassignment surgery and there's not

but you know

They want to take away Disney's all their rights in Florida.

They're like the Vatican there that they're on.

That's its end.

So Disney's very, the other theme parks have really taken notice.

Universal Studios has a new ride called Harry Potter Loves Pussy.

Rough week for media companies, boy, right?

I mean, Disney might have to move out of Florida.

CNN Plus, you saw that shit, they disappeared in two weeks.

Netflix said they've lost millions of subscribers for reasons we understand.

Competition, more competition now, inflation, also people noticing that all superhero movies are exactly the same.

And young people understanding that they don't have to go through the Netflix and chill charade.

They can just say, you want to come over and fuck.

There's a big reason.

Okay.

Final story.

Kevin McCarthy, you saw this.

He's the House leader.

A tape came out, which he first denied.

Of course, I love this, denies it.

Right after January 6th, the attack on the Capitol, the Republicans were very mad about it, and he's going to call Trump.

and tell him this is not acceptable.

You're going to have to resign.

And Tucker, and he said, no, no,

Kevin McCarthy said, I never said that.

And they came out with the tape.

And they found it.

Exactly what you told your friends.

I'm going to tell Trump he's going to have to resign.

And then, of course, he got on the phone with Trump.

You're doing a good job, boss.

I think he needs Tucker Carlson's magical testicle lamp.

That's what he needs.

All right, we got a great show.

We got Mary Catherine Hammond, Caitlin Flanagan.

But first up, he is the Emmy-winning writer and actor who stars in Better Call Soul, which premiered this week on AMC, and the New York Times bestseller, author of his new memoir, Comedy, Comedy, Comedy, Drama, Bob Odenkirk.

Oh, my God!

Oh,

well, I can.

You know, it's good.

I agree.

I know.

Believe me, I was thrilled when I.

Thank you for having me on.

You were always such a great supporter of me and David doing

our Mr.

Show on USBO.

It was like the greatest.

Does anyone remember?

Oh,

come on.

Study your comedy.

Oh, no, no.

Study.

Or YouTube it.

Yeah, YouTube it.

Yeah.

Although, you know what?

That show, and again, you're right.

I was the biggest fan.

You had legions of fans for that show.

One thing about that, which might not work on YouTube, YouTube shows snippets.

The great thing about your show, unlike every other sketch show, all the sketches were connected.

I mean, you know, Starting Out Live does one sketch, and then another one has a completely different sketch.

Yeah, first there's five commercials, but yeah.

Right, right.

But yours, everyone, I thought that was genius and innovative.

Well, we were trying to copy Python.

Is that where that came from?

Absolutely.

Yeah, right.

Of course, they had Gilliam's animations, but we would just make a sketch, go into the next sketch just to keep that energy going and keep things silly.

And it was great fun to do.

I think we did it right a couple times.

We did.

33 shows, that's all, but packed a lot of ideas into them.

And there's a great episode where mediocrity is a monster that kind of just courses through the whole episode riding a big bike.

Yeah, I mean, it worked on a level I've never seen before.

Not to say that other sketch shows aren't good.

I mean, you worked on

SNL.

I worked on SNL.

You know, it's interesting.

There's a roster of like really impressive people who have worked at SNL and bombed out there.

Larry David, Sarah Silverman, our dearly departed Gilbert Godfrey,

you, Zach Galifanakis, Julia Louis Dreyfus.

It's amazing.

And then, of course, this is not to say that the people who

we've seen on that show weren't all so fantastic, because they were.

It's just like there's two different types

of people almost in comedy.

What do you think makes that difference between the person, the kind of person who survives and thrives at a show like SNL and those who don't?

I think I'm particularly

dangerous and intelligent.

I'm a wonderful brain.

I'm unique and special.

No,

they're better than me, and I'm slower than them.

And that's what

I just, you know, that show has these demands and needs that to satisfy the audience with a big

presentation and a kind of a confidence.

And I just didn't have that.

It's broader.

It's just broader.

It's broader.

You know,

But I like broad comedy, too.

I just couldn't do it, Bill.

I just was too young.

You know, a lot of people, that's their first job, and they just don't know their voice yet.

And the show's demands are so immediate and intense.

You do it every week.

You got to put it together in two days.

And I just couldn't pull it off.

I was there for three and a half years.

I learned everything I know there.

I got paid for being there, and they got nothing out of me.

I mean, I wrote the motivational speaker, but that was a year after I left.

But we got a lot out of you.

Now, thank you, buddy.

That's what we have.

I took what I learned.

You had 20 other writers.

That's right, you know.

I took what I learned, and I came to LA, and I made a career.

Well, I think it also has to do, and I saw this in your book, you think there should be an element of anger in comedy.

For me, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, not that there can't, it can't just be silly.

We like that too.

I do too.

Yeah.

But to me, I'm the same way you are.

Like, the best kind of comedy has that.

There's a little nutritious value that doesn't exist everywhere.

Right.

It doesn't end with everybody going, we were just kidding.

It's all okay.

It's kind of got a little edge.

And

I needed that and I loved it.

And that's what I saw in Monty Python and even in SNL in many sketches.

And certainly the early SNL had, you know, it was a generational thing those first couple years.

If you weren't part of that generation, you didn't get it.

And I love that.

I love that in comedy.

I love that there's a show that you have to find your way into the brain of the people who made it.

And yet, you never really wanted to be a stand-up.

You know, Bill, you are a stand-up, and you're a great stand-up.

And for me, it's always such a special.

Finish your slogan.

You really are.

But it's because

you've seen my latest special, adulting.

It's running now.

Yeah, yeah.

This is my guest.

Did I play?

I I have a guest tonight, Bill Maher.

He's got a special adult thing.

Please watch it.

And thank you.

You can go now.

Thank you.

It's so great to have been here.

You know, and I came up in Chicago during the comedy boom, which you must remember.

You started then, right?

Well, are you talking about late 70s, early 80s, yes, when every city, including mid-sized cities in America, had sometimes multiple comedy clubs.

It was crazy.

It was great for a little while, like anything.

And then we ruined it.

And then it

But I just, you know, I couldn't, I think

I couldn't handle the confrontational nature of stand-up.

I mean, a lot of times a stand-up show is a fight between the audience and the performer.

And I was always of the feeling like I would get out there, I'd start my act.

If they didn't like it, I was...

I was like, okay, well, see you.

Bye.

You know, like right away, like, you don't like this?

That's okay.

There's other people.

Exactly what Larry David used.

Can't be like, yes.

Exactly what Larry David used to do.

That's right.

I remember seeing him at the improv.

It's so much fun.

There's a certain genius that's also embedded in that.

You were impatient with the audience being maybe too broad.

Yeah, and drunk.

Drunk, which

makes you stupider, you know, and not being able to appreciate the subtlety of what you were doing.

I mean, you know, you work on a level sometimes.

I mean, do you remember the time that you almost killed me?

No, I'm serious.

You almost killed me in Aspen.

There was an Aspen Comedy Festival for many years.

I remember we had to go every year.

I fucking hated it.

Aspen in February,

skiing, I don't ski, I don't want to ski, it's cold, I don't want to die in a tree.

The air is thin, I never slept.

It was a nightmare.

You couldn't breathe.

And you did this bit.

I went to, we all had like little,

like a convention, a little booth or something for our

different shows you could go to.

Right.

So I met you.

I forget why you were doing it or what you were doing.

Yeah.

But you did this bit where you were Robert Evans.

Robert Evans.

You're going to do it again.

Robert Evans as God.

Robert Evans as God.

And I remember watching, standing in this tent, watching you, and I was laughing so hard, and then the air, and I thought, oh, fuck, I'm going to die at a comedy festival.

from comedy by another comedian.

Jesus, my son, you never let me down.

Would people have to know who Bob Evans is.

Do they?

I think the cadence in the voice is so funny with the sunglasses and the hair.

They get the general.

And just that God has such a huge ego.

Yes.

Did they do a good job with the world?

I tried.

Some people say that made a big bet,

you know.

It's a great way of thinking about God.

He's just grinning and happy, and he acknowledges all the problems in the world.

But for those who don't know, Robert Evans was this big producer

who ran a studio.

He wrote The Godfather Chinatown.

But he was also this larger-than-life figure, and he had a book out at the time called The Kid Stays in the Picture.

And the audio, the version we used to

tapes back then, you'd put in your car, and you'd listen to it, and it was just the voice you did about his

Malibu life, and you transferred it to God.

All right, now I've ruined it by explaining it.

But isn't it?

It's a baseball players, do me a favor.

Don't pray to me through the whole game.

I'm probably not a fan of your team.

I got 10 other games on the TV.

You should revive it.

I should do the whole thing.

We'll do the.

But see, that's the other reason stand-up was so hard for me is I couldn't tell my jokes more than twice without hating them.

Like, they'd be a good joke, and it'd be like the second time I told it, okay, I told it.

It's good.

Tell each other.

You don't need me to tell you again.

Go spread that word around.

I know.

No, but a stand-up, a real pro has to be able to do that tight 20, right?

That core thing.

I don't know if you do that.

But I was always working, Bill, on a tight zero.

And I got there.

I got there.

It took me a long time, but I got there.

Well, I do a tight 90.

I don't do 20s anymore, but I do shows.

But you know what I mean?

That core material that you bring through you through the years.

Well, see, I found the secret is people say, like, are you on tour?

I'm never on tour.

I do two shows like Saturday and Sunday.

I go home for a month and then I do two more.

And that way it's new but I'm still practicing.

Yeah yeah.

You know?

Keep it fresh.

You do happen to have a TV show.

I don't know if you know about that.

No, I know.

And a podcast now.

But

I find it very sort of bittersweet that we are at the age now, because your book, fantastic book, Comedy, Comedy, Comedy, Drama.

Thank you.

We're at the age now where we are

imparting wisdom.

I wish you wouldn't have written a book when you were 35.

Right.

You didn't have enough wisdom.

And now you have wisdom.

Yeah.

And you're imparting it.

I'm trying to.

I mean, I wish I learned more, but the little bit that I learned is in there.

So please, good luck finding it.

But I did.

I mean, mostly it's a book about...

Thanks.

Thank you.

It's mostly just a book about making your way and not quitting.

It's showbiz, and it's a numbers game.

And if you keep at it and you keep looking for opportunities, and this wonderful opportunity with Better Call Saul is something I never pursued, and Bill, it just came to me, and it's crazy.

Hey, you've never even read for it, right?

I never read for it.

I never took an acting class.

So interesting, though.

Don't tell anyone.

This isn't

broadcasting this.

Tell them all because they're wasting their money.

Right.

I mean, yeah, it's so interesting the way

to name another comedian from our past, Richard Belzer.

Yeah.

Same thing.

Never read for the part that he got, he played for so long on

whenever the fuck that show.

Lord Order now.

Lord Order, yes.

Is it?

Yes.

He was Detective Munch on many versions of the show.

Barry Levinson, the director.

I just said I know the same thing with you.

Like a smart creative director knows, oh, this comedic guy with that mind is going to be more interesting than an actor.

I don't have to see him audition.

Yeah.

I just know.

I know.

I love Bob.

I love them.

They loved you.

Well,

they put you in it.

Like 14 years later, I've been playing this guy forever.

Right, and now it's coming to an end.

And this is the final season right now.

It's our best season, and it's been an amazing ride.

Well, both shows have given us so much great entertainment.

Thanks, buddy.

We thank you for it.

Thanks, buddy.

Bob Otenkirk, God.

Great to see you again.

All right, let's do that God thing.

We'll be the 2,000-hero admin.

I'll be your Carl Reiner.

All right, let's meet our panel.

Hello.

Okay, she is a CNN commentator and co-host of the twice weekly podcast, Getting Hammered.

Mary Catherine Hamm.

I love the title.

And she's a staff writer at the Atlantic and author of Girl Land, Caitlin Flanagan.

Okay, so thank you for being here.

There's a lot going on in the world.

We're going to try to get to a lot of it.

But, you know, they say all politics is local.

And there's nothing more local than your face.

So,

well, I'm talking about the mask.

Oh, the mask, the mask.

You're ready.

I feel like of all the things going on in the world, what people really are thinking about is that this week they said, because people fly a lot, they're on planes.

And they said, I mean, I saw the videos of people erupting in cheers that we don't have to wear a mask on the plane anymore.

Now, there's also, you hear from the people will die crowd, and they're right, people will die, people will always die.

I'm against people dying, but they're always going to die.

And you actually can't stop it.

And masks really, we're finding out a particularly ineffective way

of stopping it.

I just wish it didn't have to be political because I see a lot of people now on the news saying, I'm still going to wear it.

It just becomes an amulet and a symbol of your party, and it should just be about the science.

Well, it's a symbol of our stupidity that we would turn something like that into an amulet.

Yes.

I mean, I understand why people feel that way, but it doesn't.

When I see young people walking alone outside with the mask, I want to punch them.

No.

I do.

I think we're making PPE personal again.

That's what we're doing.

And it's personal protective equipment.

And now, and the word was for the whole pandemic that your mask protects me and mine protects you.

Okay.

Well, now the New York Times and other media outlets and public health officials are doing a thing that I call now it can be told, which is where they tell you the thing that right-wingers and open school advocates have been bitching about for six months is actually true, even though they were telling you it with misinformation before.

So your mask, if you have a quality one, can protect you.

And there is a limit to how long we can go before we modulate to a new form of living.

We have new tools, we have knowledge about this virus, we have new ventilation systems, particularly planes are good,

and we have

we know that masks are a minimally helpful tool.

But we told a lot of people they were maximally helpful, and that was a bad idea, especially for the vulnerable.

But wouldn't they get it just when they said you don't have to wear it while you're eating?

Yes.

Wouldn't just that,

or I see the basketball players playing, gouging each other's eyes out.

And then they go to the bench and they put the mask on.

Saturday Night Live.

They do the sketches and then at the end when they say goodnight, they have the mask on.

It's like,

what world am I living in where people are not seeing this insanity?

In the very, very beginning, even the CDC said, oh, you better not wear a mask because you'll trap the COVID close to your face and you'll die instantly that way.

And I remember thinking, you know, because I've had cancer and it's like whenever your counts are low, they say, oh, wear a mask, you'll be safer.

And then they realized, oh, they were just lying.

They were just trying to save the masks.

You know, and it's, and then they're like, why have you lost faith in America's institutions?

Well, because you lied to us at a really scary time, and we could have handled the truth.

You know what I find so sad?

I was at the mall.

Well, that's sad.

You at the mall.

We were off last week.

I hadn't been to a mall in a long time.

I felt like the mermaid from Splash.

I literally didn't know how to buy something.

I was like, can you just take cash?

I'm old and rich.

Here, just take the cash.

I can't figure this out.

It was very sad.

But what was really sad, this is the century sitting mall here.

A lot of us outside.

The only people wearing masks were like 20.

That's who is wearing the masks.

The people least likely to die from it.

They feel like they have been indoctrinated in a way that.

The only people less likely are the toddlers, right?

Right.

Who we mask incessantly.

I know, I think at the beginning of the pandemic, the word was stay safe, stay home.

Okay, well, that's a very simple public health message, but it actually discouraged and even demonized your rational risk analysis for yourself, which is something that we have to be engaged in.

We have to decide, okay, well, what is my risk level?

Two-year-olds don't have the same risk level as 88-year-olds.

That's just not true.

Being indoors doesn't have the same risk level as being outdoors, but we did seemingly all the opposite things: which is get the kids out of school who are least vulnerable, hurt them that way, close the parks and the hiking trails, which is a thing that we did,

and then have indoor, outdoor spaces to eat that are actually just indoor again.

Right.

And you can take your mask off.

I mean,

it's not trustworthy.

That's the problem in the end.

I don't know how a country this dumb can survive.

It shows how great we are, really, that we can feed this dumb and we're here.

We're surprised.

And we're the top.

We survived.

You're saying the competition is true.

It is.

It's true.

Most of when I saw the kids with the masks, all I could think of is anxiety.

And then right on queue, I'm reading Jonathan Haight's new article about why we have this levels of anxiety among teenagers that is just off the charts.

Now,

this is what I read.

44% of high school students said they felt sad or hopeless.

Now, a little perspective, all my year 17, I was sad and hopeless.

Because I got dumbed.

And, you know, when you're a kid, you don't see anything coming, and everything is the worst thing that could ever.

So some of that is that.

When you're a teenager, you're going to be sad and hopeless.

But it also said a 40% increase in such feelings in the last 10 years.

Also, I thought interesting,

they were looking for the reasons why the kids, the CDC, is looking into this.

29%

lost jobs.

The parents lost jobs in the pandemic.

So, you know, we haven't tallied up all those kind of

negatives that went on.

Public health is a kind of health, too.

And I think for adolescents, that's why I have a little leeway if they're 20 years old with the mask on.

We really frightened these kids, and we took a lot away from them.

And they really were living at 14, 15 years old with this idea that they might die and their parents might die and they were completely isolated and I think we've kind of put a deep there's a whole generation that we're gonna have to look out for a little bit because we did something pretty terrible yeah I have an idea the schools were closed for a motherfucking year in all the major blue cities they were closed for a year to in-person learning Kids lost structure, they lost friends, they lost all their extracurriculars, sports, things that made them healthier, places of worship, things they could do with their family.

They lost all those things.

And they were told, even though they were super low risk, that they were either in danger of dying or in danger of killing their grandmas, and they probably shouldn't complain about it because that would make them selfish grandma killers.

That is a very, very bad message for children, and it hurt a lot of them.

Also, it bothers me because it's fake.

Now, I'm not saying there aren't some people who live with their grandmas, but this is a country, unlike most countries in the world, that does not invite the elderly into our own homes.

We put them.

How many of you young people who are so worried about giving it to grandma live with your grandma?

Well, then there are.

That's the way this disproportionately hit people from economic steps.

You know, in the middle-class world, moms and the gated community, I can't wait to get to one.

It sounds fantastic.

But I think there are a lot of lower income, doesn't it?

You know, it's just get it really meals are taken care of.

But I hear, you know, there's a lot of low-income kids in America where the grandmother really takes care of them, which isn't just the caretaking, but that's the person who loves them the most.

And I think they have had a huge loss of that.

No, there does exist that.

But there's also, I think, something disingenuous about that, pretending that we are sharing our lives with elderly people who are segregated from our lives.

You know, you go to London and people drink of different ages in the same pub.

You'd never see people of different ages in a bar in America.

That's true.

Yeah, and I think, well, we did segregate them into Cuomo's rest homes, which was a bad idea, all the COVID-positive ones.

No,

I think, look,

there's a limit on power here.

There's a limit about what public health can do.

I think they sold a message that they couldn't make good on.

Then Fauci comes out just this week again, and I'm not going to do the accent because I'm not going to hate crime the Italian Americans, but comes out and says, like...

More than he does.

But basically, like, the court shouldn't be telling me what to do.

I'm the unelected health official.

Well, that's not actually how the power structure works in this country.

And I think they made promises that they couldn't keep, and they told people they could keep them from dying, right?

This is an ever-present threat.

And then when the mental health crisis happened for these young children, the CDC and all the health officials and all the school officials who told us that closing schools would be no big deal and that learning loss was not a thing and putting them on Zoom and free-ranging them on the internet all day long instead of telling them to play with their friends was going to be awesome.

They tell us they're going to fix the mental health crisis.

Well, I looked at the Surgeon General's report that came out about the youth mental health crisis in December.

Closing schools for a year is literally a footnote.

It's literally a footnote in this report.

And if you can't deal with that failure, then you can't fix the problem.

If you can't admit that.

Well, you can't fix the problem if you don't level with the people and say,

it's a virus.

It's going to, it's already everywhere.

We're breathing it right now.

You're soaking in it.

Viruses are in the air.

You have to win this battle internally.

I think a lot of the problem was it started with Trump, and he was just up there lying so much.

And we all got this sense that he's not telling us the truth.

And the people who seemed more sincere were the ones who weren't saying that it was going to be over by Easter.

Right.

And you had one or the other to believe in, and we just kind of followed in that tradition and ended up where we did.

Yes.

And I think that it was fine to believe that at the beginning, and then to shift.

But the shifting was the part that couldn't happen.

and a lot of people it couldn't happen because Orgeman Bad was saying the opposite thing, and so they couldn't get on board with that.

It's always that.

But can I, one more note about anxiety in America, because this story, I don't usually do these

interesting like personal pieces, but a Kentucky man who was fired days after he had a panic attack at his workplace over an unwanted birthday party

was awarded $450,000 by a jury.

So he has panic issues.

He didn't want the birthday party, you know, hey, we're going to the break room,

everybody.

It's Bob's birthday.

He didn't want, okay, but they did it anyway, bastards.

So he sues.

This is the response from the company itself.

Then they fired him because he was violent in a meeting after this event and had scared his supervisors.

The chief operating officer of the company said they were absolutely in fear of physical harm during that moment.

Oh my god, a moment of fear from the guy who couldn't take a birthday party?

Well,

I hate both of these parties.

I mean,

how does a country that is so frail survive?

Well, the PSA here is nobody likes a surprise party.

No one has ever said, oh, I'm so glad I'm here with my girlfriend, and oh my god, there's the girl I'm dating.

That's not good.

But these cases, they're always more complex than you think.

And he had gone in and said, I have really severe mental problems.

They have this birthday party tradition.

Don't do it.

And then that person wasn't there who was in the, so like from an HR standpoint, the company was totally in the wrong.

And every step of the way, they were in the wrong.

I'm just looking at the bigger issues.

I know

why can't anyone just go, oh, yeah,

sorry, and move on?

I want to say that.

As opposed to, I was scared for my life

and I'm suing you for a birthday party.

It's like, it's like,

I have limited sympathy for whatever happens in this fucking dumb country.

I just do.

No,

well, I'd like to say that I've worked in cable news for 15 years and nobody's been enough of a dick to me for me to get paid like that.

I'm like a real

for my colleagues.

To your point, I think there is an issue with like trauma is a real thing and anxiety are real.

These are real issues that people deal with.

Look, I'm a suburban white lady.

It's like the affliction of my people is anxiety, right?

But not every icky feeling is trauma, right?

And I think that is the issue.

We sort of blow these things up and then we don't, we lose our ability to deal with them.

Okay.

So

listen,

I hesitate to talk about Russia every week because it's so, in Ukraine, it's so depressing and there's nothing really I can add to it.

But the sanctions, interestingly, which it's funny, the American people, you've got to love them.

On the one hand, the polls now say Biden should get tougher with Russia.

And they also say, don't send troops.

So I don't know what Uncle Joe is supposed to do.

But the sanctions, I think, are working, they are creating a lot of economic pain in Russia.

I want to show you some of the companies.

We know a lot of them pulled out, and Russia now is trying to create these,

they actually funded new companies to take the place McDonald's pulled out.

This is real.

This is a,

look at that.

That's the knockoff they have of the now

IKEA pulled out.

This is a real Russian company.

Look at that.

They strip off the logo.

Instagram.

Look, that's their Instagram.

I don't know what the words say, but so we have some others.

Would you like to see some of the other products?

I knew you would.

For example,

this I'm suspicious of.

Zarkist tuna.

Zarkist tuna.

Oh yes, this I think is ridiculous.

Squeegee water.

Now come on,

that can't be.

Impossible cabbage is not

never got a dinner.

Oh yes,

Campbell's cream of don't ask.

Craft macaroni and shoe, I think, is

suspicious, ladies and gentlemen.

Look at this one.

You must believe it's butter.

So runchy.

Gee, Yuri's hair smells terrific.

And my favorite,

Puppetine is dog chow with real journalists.

All right.

So I want to go back to what you guys were both saying a minute ago about how everything comes down to red team, blue team.

Because I'm reading about Disney.

I feel like it's one of the saddest stories because Disney, of all the things that I thought would never become political, and you're talking about a guy who doesn't give a shit about Disney.

I never...

I was never interested in anything they made.

I'm not a child.

Even when I was a child, I wasn't interested in childish things.

I don't want to go to Disneyland.

None of that.

And they fired me once.

I have have every reason to hate them.

But I don't hate them.

I feel sorry for them because they live in this country where nothing is ever enough.

I mean, at first, they, you know, Disney, I mean, Florida passed the don't say gay law, so Disney didn't say anything.

They're like, but we're just, okay, we're just, we just make fairies and elves and

riding in tank cars, riding with the...

And so they got all sorts of shit from the left, from that.

And then they were like, okay, because they always were one of the most gay-friendly companies in the world.

And now DeSantis, of course, he's demagoguing this, but he wants to stop them from having their Vatican status there.

And they just want to get people in the teacup.

What do you think about this?

I do hate them now.

You do hate them now.

Yeah, I wanted to go as a kid, but now I do hate them because, like, believe in something, you know, if you have always, you know, the first company in the country to have benefits for gay partners, domestic partners, and then, like, you go nowhere when there's this new bill, and then all of a sudden, you know, you've done something else and you've turned around, have a, you know, have a backbone, believe in something and stick to it.

Well,

so they have to weigh in on every political issue.

Well, that's the thing.

I think the key might be neutrality

on these big culture war issues.

And there's a moral question here where I think the limits of the government powers like you shouldn't be punishing your political adversary because they did some freedom of speech, right?

Like that's a bad idea.

But there's the political part, which I think DeSantis and people who agree with this say we're going to fix this imbalance where six woke employees at Disney say, you guys got to go after DeSantis and the voters of Florida who put all these guys into office.

And Florida goes, nah.

And that's not a bad political move because a lot of people do want someone to stand up to those six employees instead of Disney folding.

And just like, just be in, just be a non-combatant.

I think it's more than six.

Disney has a six-year-old.

But that's a pattern of people knuckling under two very small groups of very vocal activists on these things.

I think anything that deals with children is in a hard spot right now because the country's changing and there are more and more

young gay parents and their kids are more open-minded and more aware of things.

So

I think Disney wasn't terribly courageous in the beginning if they really have children's well-being in mind and if they were doing it because they think this isn't a bad thing for children, then that's kind of interesting as well.

But it hinges on whether there really is something going on in the schools.

that never was going on there before and maybe shouldn't be going on there.

So

we got information today about this because this is about what is going on in schools all across the country, but Florida is of course the focal point because it's Florida.

So they took out 41 textbooks, math textbooks, and at the beginning of the week we didn't know why.

They said there's things in there that are inappropriate for children.

Today they released four examples.

Now, this just happened before we came out here.

I read through them.

A lot of it I feel like is it's okay.

You know, it's like kids should have empathy when they're learning.

Fine, I'm okay with that.

Most of it, I thought, was kind of a nothing burger.

But here's one: measuring racial, this is a math question, measuring racial prejudice by political identification.

Do we have the chart here?

I mean,

this is teaching math, and

why use that example?

You see, very liberal, moderately liberal, somewhat liberal.

What happened to like a train leaves Chicago?

You know, why?

I'm I'll tell you, because I'm a former teacher.

I know exactly what's happening.

Is that with all of this kind of revision to curriculum or adding new curriculum, whether it's gender, whether it's race, new ideas about race,

When a school district says that they can get 80% of their students to grade level as readers and to grade level for math skills, we'll talk about some curriculum revisions or experimentation.

But the public schools are our biggest failed public works progress program in this country in my lifetime.

We have lost our ability to teach kids anything, and now we're fighting on the edges about things.

Let's just put different things in school and let's measure them in different ways.

But we really have a, it doesn't read like a crisis anymore because it's been going on so long, but our kids are deeply undereducated.

And I think it is, it's actually going to end up being a bigger crisis than we even know at this point because the learning loss in these, did I mention the schools were closed for a year?

The learning loss, particularly for the already vulnerable populations, disabled populations, minority populations, is going to be spectacular.

It's going to be ridiculous.

And I think DeSantis sort of earned some cred on the issue of education because he kept the schools open.

So that gives him leeway to have these fights because parents actually have some confidence in him.

And there is an issue in somewhere like Virginia, where Junckin got elected based on this stuff, is that, look, You get a lot of leeway on curriculum if you want to do some woke stuff while you're keeping the school open and you're teaching my kid to read.

If If you shut it for a year and you make me Zoom butler for my kid and I'm part of the curriculum,

you can't tell me to shut up about the curriculum and I would like you to focus on master and that's a good point.

I gotta go back.

I don't know where your answer fits with the question I was asking.

A common problem.

Well, talk to my editors.

Because, I mean, look, the thing I showed there, and again, what was the measuring racial prejudice by political identification as a way to teach about charts and graphs?

But it's not a way to teach about that.

Okay, so that's what you said.

Because the teachers, and I'm not going to blame the teachers, there's so many different failures here, and it's really not the teacher's fault primarily.

But that chart at least becomes something that a teacher can start a discussion with about that subject that they can't.

You're saying it is a good thing because it will...

Now, first of all,

the whole thing is terrible.

We should be able to teach our students, and they should learn something.

Because especially the lower income you are, the more you need that algebraic equation to make some sense for you instead of having a conversation in class about people's political affiliation.

Okay, and just to be clear, I don't think this is typical.

I think this is like, again, they picked...

41 books and they have four examples of the examples.

This was the most egregious, but it does exist.

It is real.

So again, I don't know why Democrats do this to themselves.

I think DeSantis is demagoguing this issue because I think he thinks this is a great way to be the candidate in 2024 by owning the limbs on gays and kids and Pluto and Goofy fucking each other and whatever insanity they're going to.

But I also think textbooks are written by a certain type of people.

What?

No, I'm agreeing with you.

Like, what kind of people?

And parents aren't just a person.

Well, the type of people.

You would put some bullshit like that in a math book.

Yes, okay, good, yes.

Micro people.

Yes.

Or you can sell them in better to these districts.

It was a big business.

Right, okay.

And teachers make the decisions, and teachers are, and the unions are extremely leftist, so there's an inclination to buy those books.

And like with public health, there is a loss of trust, and it is a good play to go after these mad parents.

It will work because they are mad for a reason, and they will not be gaslit and told that there's nothing going on here.

There is something going on.

Thank you so much.

I wish I had two women on the show every week.

I really

like that.

It just makes it

better.

All right, rules, everybody.

You can have that as a souvenir at the show.

You may, Mary, you may have that as a souvenir.

All right.

New rule, the thousands of consumers who say lucky charms gave them nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea have to quit their bitching.

Read the box, it says lucky.

It never said what kind of luck.

New rule, instead of building a wall on the southern border, let's build a labyrinth.

If you want to slow the flow of migrants, this will do it.

And the ones that get through, well, congrats, you're smarter than the average American.

Neural, Johnny Depp is an award-winning actor.

He's got to figure out how to look less totally and utterly guilty.

Here he is in court dressed like a mafia don who just burned down a biker bar.

I don't know who shit the bed worse, Amber Heard, whoever picked out that tie.

Neurull, the Florida man arrested this month with two firearms, multiple syringes loaded with meth, and a live alligator in the back of his pickup truck, needs to take this weak-ass shit to Louisiana.

You, sir, are not Florida man material.

A real Florida man would have also been naked, masturbating, a licensed

pastor, a former Powerball winner, and married to the alligator.

Neural porn video titles have to either get shorter or come up with spoiler alerts.

If you write, Hot MILF rides her jealous son while wearing glasses.

Well, now I know the whole story.

Busty, naive blonde fucked by stranger under the bridge.

Ruined

sexy, big-ass female mature boss seduces Hindi auntie at work.

Well, now I guess I don't have to watch it, do I?

I say bring back the classic titles like Deep Throat, Behind the Green Door, and Town Hall with Matt Gates.

And finally, new rule, the Washington Post is wrong.

Democracy doesn't die in darkness.

It dies in plain sight because enough people think democracy is a luxury America can no longer afford.

That is pretty much the position of the Republican Party now, that you can vote for anyone you like, but it doesn't count if it's not us.

Heads we win, tails we coup.

I know that some people like to say there's not much difference between the parties, but actually in America 2022, there's more of a difference between the parties than there ever has been in American history.

Really.

And here's why.

Democrats, for all their flaws, still see democracy as the essence of America.

They see America and democracy as inextricably linked.

They believe that one without the other is unthinkable.

Republicans?

Thinkable.

Very, very thinkable.

Republicans now seem to be okay with America continuing to exist as a country, but without being a democracy.

Utah Senator Mike Lee says, we're not a democracy.

Democracy isn't the objective.

Liberty, peace, and prosperity are.

We want the human condition to flourish.

Rank democracy can thwart that.

Which is a weird idea for a campaign ad.

Vote for Mike Lee because voting is bad.

But beyond that, this is a true sea change in American politics.

And Mike Lee is not the only one saying it out loud.

Here in California, someone named Rachel Hamm is running for Secretary of State, and she says, I want to make it hard to vote.

I want it to be a privilege to vote.

Again, this is a fundamental change, openly bad-mouthing democracy and saying out loud that voting is a privilege and not a right.

Lauren Culp is the Republican candidate for Congress in Washington state and he called democracy mob rule.

And that is a big talking point from conservatives these days, that the founding fathers feared mob rule.

This from the party that on January 6th encouraged a literal mob to attempt to rule.

If you violently attacked the U.S.

Capitol, kicking in doors, breaking windows, killing cops, chasing duly elected representatives out of the building, all with the intent of overturning a lawful election and hanging the vice president for certifying it, you know, in the name of patriotism, maybe you've lost the thread of exactly what it is you're supposed to be loyal to.

I'm no constitutional scholar, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't say, in the case of an election loss, break shit and install your guy anyway.

And

please stop imagining that you're blowing our minds when you point out that America is not a direct democracy.

It's a republic.

Yes, duh, of course, even at the time of America's founding, direct democracy, where everyone who could vote gathered in the square like an ancient Athens and put a white or a black pebble in a big pot.

Yeah, that was impractical.

So democracy added the idea of representatives, and with the addition of a constitution that guided us and protected minorities, we became a republic.

That is, an improved type of democracy, not something apart from democracy, still a system where we vote, the votes count, and the winners, with reasonable restraints, are put in charge.

That's the best, albeit imperfect, way to do this thing called government.

And we all used to get that.

But now many Republicans have decided that democracy is what's wrong with America.

A lot of people drive themselves crazy asking Republicans for evidence that Biden somehow stole the election.

But that's a fool's errand.

In the circular logic of today's right, the evidence that the election was stolen is that they lost.

The logic goes like this: We all know America should be made great again, and one side wanted it made great again.

It said so right on their hats.

So, logically, the other side wanted America to stay bad, and there's no way Jesus, who loves America, would let that happen.

Same thing with voter fraud, which has been studied a million times, all with the same result.

It's negligible and doesn't affect elections.

Again, missing the point.

The evidence of voter fraud is that sometimes Democrats win.

This is madness.

Democrats and Republicans have always certainly had their differences.

Taxes and guns, abortion, wearing cowboy boots with a suit.

But neither ever really doubted that our system of accepting electoral loss was what made America different from so many countries who could never get that right.

It was as much as anything what made America great, despite the fact that in a democracy, yes, The people who win sometimes get things wrong.

Maybe that's why Churchill called democracy the worst system of government, except for all the others.

The left today is getting a lot of things wrong.

Police departments gutted, kids taught crazy shit, unpopular thought being scrubbed, trying to reframe America as irredeemably racist.

I get the panic.

But solutions short of junking democracy can and must handle this.

What do tough guys and true patriots do in times of panic?

They don't panic.

But conservatives now sound creepily like the generals in some country where they finally experimented with democracy for the first time and, well, they didn't like it so much.

I'm afraid we let the voters decide and they fucked up.

Next month, the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, is holding their convention in Hungary.

Hungry?

What's the matter with Kansas?

Well, apparently it's not authoritarian enough because the new platform from the right is making the world safe from democracy.

That is our show.

I'll be at the Mirage in Vegas, May 20th and 21st, the State Theater in Minneapolis, June 4th, at the Marat Theater in Indianapolis, June 5th.

I want to thank Mary Catherine Hamm, Caitlin Flanagan, and Bob Odenkirk.

Stay tuned for YouTube on Overtime.

Thank you.

I mean, Overtime on YouTube.

Catch all new episodes of Realtime with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10 or watch him anytime on HBO On Demand.

For more information, log on to HBO.com.