Overtime – Episode #685: Kid Rock, Tim Ryan, Pamela Paul

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night series, Real Time with Bill Maher. All right, here we are.
He's a rock star. His seven-city tour begins in March.
Kid Rock. Former Ohio congressman who chairs the Coalition National Allies for a clean-in interview to Tim Ryan and author of The New York Times, the clean-in columnist, Pamela Paul.
Okay. Here are the questions from the people.
The people. That's who we care about.
The people. This is what they want to know.
Fuck my question. How does Kid Rock celebrate Valentine's Day? Well, there we go, right now.
Apparently here on Real Time. I was going to say, you're looking at it.
But you must have something special with your special lady at some point. Not unless you got one at your house.
I thought you were in a relationship.

I don't want to pry.

Should Kamala Harris run for California governor in 2026 after polls show her leading?

I'm going to give that a big no.

She's had her chance several times. She should run far, far away.
I'm a Viragosa guy. I like Antonio Viragosa, the old mayor of LA.
I think he's terrific. Oh, okay.
I didn't know he was in the running. Yeah, I think Kamala Harris would make a great president of a university.
Not that she's a bad person or a bad candidate, or she's smart, but, you know, it didn't work. And by the way, if she does, there would be precedent for this, because Nixon, Nixon lost the White House in 1960.
And then what did he do? He ran for governor of California two years later. It would be the same scenario.
And when he lost that one, that's when he said, you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore. And then he was president six years later, so maybe it'll work.
Kid Rock, is it true that you're planning to do a gospel album? I am. I'm doing a...
Wow. Early beginnings now, doing a gospel record with my old friend Rick Rubin.
Oh, Rick Rubin. Wow.
Did he produce an album the years before? Yeah, he did one record of mine, a record called Born Free. Oh, yeah, I know it well.
Wow. So, a gospel album album.
So how does that fit in with some of the songs you've had in the past? I'm a lowlife. You wouldn't sing that song in church.
I might. Really, I know the Ten Commandments pretty well.
And in those commandments, I've never once seen or even heard thought of one being, Thou shalt not swear. No, no, no.
I'm just saying, and I know the song is, by the way, I love that song, and it's very funny, but I'm just picturing some of those lyrics, like, I got kids I've never seen, and their mama's 17. Are you going to, I mean, are we going to be...
I take... I take sugars out of breakfast.
You're going to add that to my checklist. Oh, I know the whole song.
It's hysterical. The president of Columbia, I guess that's the country, although it could be the university, recently suggested that cocaine was no worse than whiskey.
Oh, it is the university. It's not.
And that it could be sold more safely for illegal. Does he have a point? Cocaine was no worse.
Not in my experience. Cocaine was the worst.
Speaking of, do you realize what's going to happen if Trump can really, you know,

which I believe he's going to do, you know, stop this flow of fentanyl

coming in from China through our southern, northern borders?

He's literally going to make cocaine great again.

I mean, to me, cocaine was the worst. I mean, cocaine is just different.
It just, first of all, it's not cocaine. It's partly cocaine, and then it's whatever they cut it with.
And it makes you only want to do one thing, which is get more cocaine. And it never ends well.
There's a brief honeymoon period,

and then you're just chasing that high.

And that, I only did it for like a year,

and not that much, but it was a terrible year.

What year was that?

I'll tell you what it was.

I think it'd be fun to like,

see what you were doing, you know? It was 1989. My thoughts were short.
My hair was wrong. Exactly.
But would you agree with that? Cocaine's the worst. Yeah, I mean, I managed it for, you know, a good number of years.
But, you know, and I knew a lot of people, you know, on different sides of the spectrum. Some people just swallowed them up.
And other people were able to, you know, pick their battles. I have a day off.
I have a time. We're going to party a little bit.
Move on with life. And that was me for, you know, a good portion of the years early in my career.
I mean, I am in a rock and roll band. But yeah, then it comes to an age where you're like, okay, this is no good.
This is no good. And recently I was with a young singer, and she actually asked me, she goes, are you holding? And I'm like, what? I'm like, 54 years old.
I'm like, let me talk to you for a second. I go, I'm not going to give you the whole preach to you right now before my gospel record's finished.
But, you know, if you're not really here, don't don't go down that path. I go not only because, you know, you don't know where it's going to take you.
You're kind of rolling the dice. You're playing Russian roulette.
But fentanyl hasn't made it too popular of a sport. You're basically, you know, you're one.
Oh, that's what she was asking you about? Fentanyl? No, she was asking me for cocaine. Oh, right.
And I'm like, young lady, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Let grandpa speak to you.
Words and wisdom from Kid Rock. Well, Kid Rock's telling you, hey, slow down.
There's probably a big fucking problem. It's got to be rough.
They used to come for the sex and now they just want your drugs. That's got to be...
That would bother me a lot. Now that the Boy Scouts of America is just going by scouting...
Oh, God, yes. This is right up your alley or somebody.
There's Boy Scouts. Yes, I've seen

in the works for years. It's such an onion headline.
The whole fucking country is such an onion headline. The Boy Scouts of America, it cannot be called Boy Scouts anymore because it's occlusionary.
Like, there isn't a Girl Scouts. Like, this is some sort of crime against nature that we each...
People are different. We were just talking about.
There's it's now scouting America. First segment we were talking about what are we giving young boys? What kind of structure? What kind of discipline? What kind of education? A lot of those projects are really difficult.
I was not in the Boy Scouts would have probably never made it. But those are difficult.
They have to they have to achieve. They have to put forth effort.
They have to overcome obstacles. They have to overcome failure.
That's part of maturing and becoming a full-functioning adult. And to take that away is insane to say this is targeted towards young boys because young boys are different than young girls.
And so the approach needs to be different. They think it's funny when you fart in a sleeping bag.
It is. I mean, girls don't.
The Girl Scouts are much better than the Girl Scouts. I have to say, I understand why girls would want to be in the Boy Scouts because it's a lot more fun.
The only thing, really, as a former Girl Scout that the Girl Scouts had going for them is the cookies. And that's basically it.
And the Boy Scouts are doing, like, learning skills and building fires and going camping. Why can't they institute that curriculum in the Girl Scouts? But, I mean, this is the kind of thing that gets Trump elected.
Thank you.

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RVs are for sharing adventures with family, friends, and even your pets. So if you bring your cats and dogs along for the ride, you'll want Progressive RV insurance.
They protect your cats and dogs like family by offering up to $1,000 in optional coverage for vet bills in case of an RV accident, making it a great companion for the responsible pet owner who loves to travel. See Progressive's other benefits and more when you quote RV insurance at Progressive.com today.
Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates Pet Injuries and Additional Coverage and Subject to Policy Terms. This is the kind, I've said it a million times here, the Democrats, you lost a crazy contest to a crazy person.
It started decades ago, in my opinion. It started decades ago with timeouts and last place participation trophies.
And sorry to put it so harsh, but it seems to me like we lost a good portion of a few generations of men who've just turned into complete fucking pussies.

That's true.

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody.

Thank you.