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If you're not completely of the one true opinion, then there is no punishment that is too great. On this show, sometimes we talk to multiple people about a single topic, and sometimes we do a solo interview. Today, for our very first and very special one-on-one, we travel to Bill Maher's Club Random to talk to Bill about the upcoming election. If you're exhausted by him, you're already voting for her. I'm Shane Smith, and this week, I have questions for Bill Maher.

I'm very, very happy to be with you today in the headquarters room.

Of Mr. Bill Maher. The belly of the beast. The belly of the beast. Club Random. The head of your... My favorite nightclub. There you go. And the super hot podcast. I want to say thanks for putting us on the network. We're loving it. Well to have you. An honor. It's our honor. And look, it was an honor to work with you at HBO, an honor to work here. At least we're trying. I was saying you're on fire. I watch you.

In fact, I'm going to give you a little compliment. Don't blush. I was just looking today because I knew I was going to come on here, and I'm like, oh, guess who is the most trusted man in news today in America? I don't know most trusted, but I did see that report some months ago that said I was...

Maybe it was the most. I don't know. It is. I'm telling you. You can look it up. I've checked out. I have bona fides. It's hysterical. It's the most trusted man in media is you. I'm not going to be modest about it. I mean, there's not a lot of people who are splitting...

down the middle, not because everything is really 50-50, but I just mean like, are not afraid to call out both sides. And I know that's what this show that I'm on now, your show, is really, I think it's great. One reason I wanted to partner up with you is because I think we're after the exact same thing. I agree. I bitch about it here and on my show all the time, but nothing I read in media do I ever think is the complete story. Yes.

I don't often say, or sometimes I do, but very often I go, okay, nothing you're telling me is exactly wrong. All right. But you left out parts. Yeah.

And I just, I'm tired of having to look at both medias to get the full story. Yeah. You know what's remarkable about you, and I want to get into this, is- Glug, glug, glug. Is if you, like when I was a kid, I became a punk rocker, right? So you dye your hair a little bit. But it was very early on in the punk days. So then the punks sort of take you on, and then the preppies and the rockers or whatever push you further away, right? Yeah.

And so you become more and more punk, and then you're hanging out with guys with facial tattoos and squeegee punks and everything. And so with you, what's interesting is because that's the American political spectrum. So if you start saying, I'm going to say this about the left or I'm going to say this about the right, one side banishes you. Right. And the other side says, come to us. Come, come, come. Red pill everybody. So you get hammered.

as you will if you're the great Nixonian silent majority centrist. You sit there and you go, hey, look, this is fucked up on the Republican side, and this is fucked up on the Democratic side. Then you get hard with each, and everyone starts just yelling at you. This is my long-winded compliment is you've been saying things and putting your neck out there politically for so long.

that it's amazing you haven't gone further to the right or further left and stayed centrist. In fact, I would argue more centrist. I don't even feel like I'm centrist. I would say I'm center-left. But center-left, which is what I've always been, which is what I think a traditional old-school liberal is. I think Joe Rogan had it right when they talked about me once. He was like, to me, he's just like an old-school liberal. Exactly. It's not that hard to grasp.

And, you know, this has been the subject of a book I had out this year. Bestseller. Number one, went to number one, which was great. What this comedian said will shock you. And it's the theme of my stand-up act, which is I haven't changed and I can prove it. I can prove it. You can prove it every week. Yes. Because I know what I said and I can look up what I said and show you what I said. Check the transcript. And, you know, again...

rooting for Hamas, it's like rooting for the planes on 9-11. You know, it's just insane. Well, I want to get into that, but first I want to say, I know you're not supposed to talk politics on your podcast, but this is my podcast. We talk about whatever. This is my podcast, and we are going to talk about politics. We're talking about staying to the center. And look, during this electoral cycle, it's crazy, right? It's one of the craziest ever. You've got assassination attempts. You've got reversal of policy. You've got...

You know, the most insane thing. You've got the front runner bowing out while the front runner at one point bowing out and putting in a vice president. I mean, all kinds of crazy stuff. What do you think about this electoral cycle? I have my points of view and I want to get into, but you're the most trusted man in news. Let's get into it. Let's chop it up. What do you think about this electoral cycle? I know you've gone on record and say you think Harris is going to win.

Why do you think she wins, and what do you think the next few days before the election? What do you think? Well, I mean, it's funny you should ask me at this very moment, because we're taping on October 16th. And I don't know when this is going to air, but probably hopefully soon after. And my show is Friday, October 18th.

The editorial at the end this week is about, you know, it's what everybody, the election. It's about the concept of the October surprise and how we've come to expect always an October surprise. And I go through some of the old ones and then say it's the covering news this week, October surprise. And the point is,

Trump cannot be October surprised. We know him so well. And I mean, it's a great joke bucket because what headline would knock him out of the race? You can't imagine one. He's done everything already. So, you know, Trump wipes his ass with shout of turn, yawn.

you know, Trump goes, does blackface for Halloween. It doesn't matter. He's Trump. He's already, but she has the opposite problem. Yes. She is not defined yet. And I just watched, it was just on a couple of hours ago, the Brett Baer interview. So, you know, that's why I'm writing this like very late. What are the takeaways of that? Well,

you know, this is going to be my theme Friday. We know him. So I noticed when many times in the interview, when he went to you, you, you, you did this, what about this now? And she's like, Trump is worse. Yeah. That answer is not working. We get it.

And we get him. She said, people are exhausted by him. If you're exhausted by him, you're already voting for her. They are looking for someone to vote for. And here's my basic take on it that I'll say in a couple of days on my show. The election comes down to me, for me, to two things. One, Trump has a coalition, as all politicians do, of voters. A, yes.

People who really like him. B, people who don't like him that much or certainly are very aware and bothered by his flaws, but still think he's better than far left insanity. On the other side, they have a question about Cam. Are you the person who, to me, represented, I'm saying me, the voter who looking at this, who represented far left insanity four or five years ago? Right.

And we want to know that. We want to know. And of course, everybody asks her those kind of questions in the interview. Brett Baer had the one about, you know, I mean, you could see it on the tape. It's in the, God, I don't know why it's playing in California because she's, you know, not obviously going to lose this state. But I see the ad, or I guess it's on the national stuff like the baseball games. I see it all the time that she's there on tape saying, yeah.

Illegal immigrants in prison can get taxpayer-funded sex change operation. And the question I'm asking is, can you put this many third rail words in one sentence and still be considered a real politician? I mean, it's a crazy thing. And the crowd, the voters, want to know, are you that person or are you this person who is...

And look, I don't go into this, but I think she could say, maybe not, but it's an idea. 2020 was a very emotional, excuse me, time for any person of color. We can't forget that, you know, after all this horrible history, we did see a black man being executed on the street. And I mean, on the street with somebody kneeling on his head.

And yes, maybe the left did go a little too far. And you can probably see in your heart why that affected me. Mm-hmm.

I don't know if this is the way to go. Obviously, Fox News would make so much hay out of this, but at least it's honest. I mean, Obama did it with Reverend Wright. Yeah. When the Reverend Wright thing came up, he spoke from his heart about race. And I mean, you know, I mean, few people are I mean, she does not have Obama's political skills. Or oratory skills.

He was talented. But bowling, she is so much better. Remember when we had that bowling scandal? What did he say? I bowl like a white guy? No, it wasn't that. It was something. I don't know. He had a gutter ball. Right. I don't know. For me, this election cycle, electoral cycle, feels like,

season 52 of the American political game, right? And I'll tell you what that means is that, you know, when I first came down here. Down here from Canada. From Canada. I'm an immigrant. When I first came down here, I studied politics, I studied economics, and

And it was the era of, you know, Bubba of Clinton. And he had just reduced the size of government and took the largest deficit of all time, made it the largest surplus of all time, consensus politics, et cetera, et cetera. And welfare reform. Welfare reform. That's the sentence, yeah. 100%. And that's called triangular. And then Bush got in and increased the size of government, took the largest surplus, the largest deficit, et cetera, et cetera. And I said, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. We just did this.

Between the Democrats and Republicans, no one said boo. Reagan was the – I was about to swear. I don't know if I'm allowed to. I was the fucking president. You can swear on podcasts. I'm a swearer. I'm a swearer. He can swear anywhere. There we go. So Reagan was the – and before Trump, you know, the GOP was there's none more Reagan than me –

And so, you know, he was the best or pro most pro immigration president ever. And the Democrats were anti-immigration because the unions, they switched on that. What I see is like the American government was made to do nothing and do it very slowly. A lot of this to me reeks of bread and puppet theater. It reeks of, you know, here's some agency. And when I say season 52, I'm

I mean, we're now jumping the shark. You have to have the president step down. You have to have three assassination attempts. You have to have all of this stuff for the electoral bread and puppet theater to keep the fucking masses. And you're sitting there going, what really happens? Well, sometimes things do happen. I mean, Obamacare happened. It's a big deal. Roe v. Wade.

Yeah, happen in reverse. Yeah. If you're a progressive. So I'm not saying there isn't anything. If there wasn't anything, it would be Soma and we're all just watching TV. But I'm saying like by and large, the bureaucracy runs America. The economy runs America. Not even the bureaucracy, just the people and the economy. Yeah, the economy. I mean, the...

The one thing Americans are just amazing at, and it is actually one of the great things about this country, is we love money. We do. We love money, and we're good at making it, and we want to make it, and we're free to make it. Much more... I mean, I've heard you just say in the past about Canada, they cut down the tall trees. Yeah, 100%. They cut down the tall trees. I mean, I was reading about Canada's healthcare system in somebody's column this week, and I mean...

the weights problematic for basic stuff like mris but americans americans are you know we will wait for a lot of things we'll stand on line for a stupid phone or god knows what but an mri i i i was surprised because that's a pretty basic one it's not like a real specialty thing yeah but it was like i don't know i'm don't quote me on this but maybe 27 day wait or something oh

More? Yeah. Really? For an MR? I mean, okay. If you need one, you do not want to wait. It's broken. It's broken right now. I mean, America is ugly, but it works. And other countries can be pretty, but a lot of the things that you're supposed to get don't work. I mean, when I grew up,

In Canada, the healthcare system was the sort of envy of the world. And great doctors, no waits, et cetera, et cetera. The story is, now this is all anecdotal because I live here now, but the stories I hear are horror stories of not getting doctors, there's no doctors, waits, et cetera, et cetera. Apropos to our discussion a minute ago about have I changed or has things changed?

Canada, great example of that because I used to call it a big blue state. And it was meant as a compliment because in the Bush-Obama years,

The Democrats, well, it's not the Democrat politicians so much, but the left, the far left, wasn't crazy like this. Now when I think of Canada, because they're, yeah, they're a big blue state. They're a big nutty blue state. Nutty like the way California's nutty about a lot of shit. Yeah. Really, really far left stuff that doesn't make any sense.

To common sense people who are center left, but not far. Yeah. I mean, I read in Nellie Bowles' column this week that the Toronto Medical School or something, only one quarter of the applicants by merit

Three quarters are from something called like the Black Indigenous Peoples Program or something. That doesn't mean that they didn't have to get to a certain level to be considered. But even still, for medical school, I think a lot of people think merit should be a little higher in the pecking order. I don't think, again, everything, I feel like every issue, I could give you a centrist, reasonable policy that most people would agree with. It's a shame we can't ever do that.

But on this one, I would say most people would say, well, DEI has a place because our horrible racial past has to be redressed. But with medical school, it should be a little less than merit should be a little higher for certain things. You know, I'm sorry, but, you know, no one wants a doctor who's not the best. I think that the right thing.

you know, moved too far to the right. The left moved too far to the left. And where, like, I think that there's people craving, not just on media, but,

for centrist sane people saying things, but also sane politicians. The problem is, as you well know, Fox gets its ratings by spreading fear. Absolutely. And MSNBC by snide comedy, not as good as yours. And, you know, you sit there and say, okay, you can't just snidely make fun of Fox News and that's news. That's op-ed. That's not news. And so what we try to look at is finding facts because facts now, like we just did this –

you know, big thing on immigration and finding any fact on immigration is almost impossible. We talked to the congresswoman in charge of the panel with Homeland for immigration and she couldn't tell us.

And I mean, the Republicans are saying 90% of immigrants don't show up for their meetings and processing. And the Democrats are saying 85% do. And you're like, hold on. Same thing with crime. Yeah, same thing with crime. I asked my staff two weeks ago, the

What are the stats? I said, do a deep dive because I read the left-wing media and it's like, oh, crime way down, crime no problem. You read the right wing, it's like the world is coming to an end. And of course, there's things you can cherry pick to make either side. The basic bottom line to me as I went all through this is that

It's just really hard to be a criminal these days because of technology. I really feel for criminals. I do. I mean, it used to be so easy to- No more cash. Used to be, no more cash. There's cameras everywhere. Look at any movie from like the 90s or before and-

It's fun to be a criminal, or it's fun for the movie, because they can get away. Yeah. Because they can hide, because they're in a motel, but they're not, you know, they're paying in cash. Well, that doesn't work anymore. If they spend cash, you're a criminal. You're just...

Well, that's a Canada thing. Yeah, well, it's a modern thing. No, but I mean, like speaking a minute ago, as we were about like Canada, big blue state gone off the deep end. I mean, the whole thing where they debanked protesters, you know, the big trucker con thing. I mean, I am sympathetic to that. The idea of a government being able to freeze my bank account because I don't agree with their COVID policy. Yeah.

That's not cool. Correct. Not cool, man. No bueno. Yeah. Well, it's also the definition of a police state. And the one thing that we have, and I was saying this to someone the other day, is now through the money we spend

through our cell phones. They know where we are. They know our health. They know our money. They know what we spend it on, where we make it, everything. And you're like, I interviewed the ex-Stasi and they, you know, they had one third of all Germans were informers to the Stasi. Stasi is,

the German secret East German secret police yeah back in the day famously one third one one out of every three people was informing on the other two correct there's an amazing movie about the lives of others the lives of others to my view the greatest single foreign movie so great so great it's such a great movie yeah and and so I've talked to the ecstasy guys and they're like look we would have loved

to have that amount of surveillance. It's literally, you know, the epitome of the police state, Stasi, are saying like now is way, way, way, way, way more than the top police state of all time.

And then they can just say, oh, you don't do this? We're going to take your money away. Did you ever see any of the Bourne movies? Sure, yeah, yeah. Well, in the Bourne Identity movies, you know, I mean, when they cut to the CIA headquarters, they're just God. Yeah. Like...

Get me eyes on, you know, and it's like wherever the person is in the world, get me eyes on, get me his phone number. Like just in seconds, the head of the CIA or whoever's running the operation can just follow you, get your number, listen in on your calls. I mean, it's God. It's God-like. And that's...

You know, that's the world we live in. Again, I just feel bad for criminals. If you believe it's true. It's just so hard. The problem is if you look at some of the reality, like we were doing this thing on the deep state, and basically the CIA and the mafia trying to kill Castro like 200 times and fail every time. They were the keystone cops. If you look at the Secret Service with Trump, they're like, well, we just didn't do anything. We don't know what we're doing. And so you...

So it's either gross ineptitude or they're God or, you know, some guys are God and some have gross ineptitude, but it's pretty amazing. I think it's gross ineptitude. Yeah. Because I know this from personal experience. It's one reason why I'm getting off the road. Gross ineptitude. Right. I just, you just, I don't want to like castigate an entire generation, but it is,

the millennial Gen Z generations who are doing the kind of work that you would encounter when you're starting out in life. That's who is the clerk at the hotel. That's who the person is at the theater who's backstage who's supposed to put the ice in your room. Just basic shit, and they cannot get it done. And I've seen a number of articles recently about other places where

where it's just incommodity, like the fucking space program, the thing that Musk had to go up and save. Did a good fucking job. Yeah. How about that? I'm going to make a rocket to go save the people that NASA can, and I'm going to figure out how to catch rockets in midair, and I'm going to do all this stuff. You're like, I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a huge percentage of our GDP. And this is something we're going to talk about on the show Friday. Yeah. The fact that

A bureaucrat here in California nixed his SpaceX request to launch more rockets from this certain place because of the tweets he writes. Because they... It's like...

the arrogance of that part of the left that has completely forgotten what free speech is and thinks just because they're always the good people on the right side of it, he's said bad things about transgender people. What the, even if it's true,

And it's not. I mean, he certainly has an issue with transgender because he has had a... I mean, that's where his whole thing comes from, really, is the kid. But, you know, I don't think he's saying that transgender is not a thing or should be... I mean, he's, again, basically was a...

left of center person. He is the person who like came up with the electric car and all this stuff. But the, but even if it was true, what does it have to do with him launching his rockets? It's like, they don't understand anything except we are the good people. And if you're not completely of the one true opinion, then there is no punishment that is too great.

And, you know, my friends who argue with me about, Bill, why are you saying these things? It helps Trump. Okay, Trump doesn't need any help from me. Yeah. And I'm sorry, but if you do...

cruddy nutty weird wrong things yeah i'm going to fucking call you out on it just because you're on the blue team you don't get a pass why shouldn't you my thing was you should yeah and we're both doing it yeah my thing was with elon i would say he's a poster child of like exactly you said he made electric cars cool

If we remember before 2008, the number one car was a Hummer, the number one Sennheiser. And then it became a crazy car. He made them viable. He made them viable and cool. Greatest battery technology, which is the whole conundrum around solar. Great for solar. Saved the space program. You know, you sit there and you go, this guy would be the poster child for the left. Hold on. If he wasn't rich.

And because he became rich... No, no, no. It's not that he's rich. Well, hold on. Let me finish. Because... And we at Vice, and I publicly apologize, Elon. We at Vice used to shit on him. And I'd be like, why are you shitting on the guy? He's great. Well, because he's rich.

Here's what happened. Go back to the punk rock thing is he was left and he was doing all this great stuff. He got rich and then he became part of them, not us. And then when he got pushed away, the right said, come, come, come, come, come. Right. And he went. And then all of a sudden they're like, you're the savior and Trump's going to be your best friend. And yes, we agree with you. And this is great. And you're great. And freedom of speech and acts and all this stuff. And the kids had come over to this side and the left said, fuck you, because you said a few bad things. Okay. You're.

You're leaving, oh, well, a few bad ones. A lot of bad ones. You're glossing over it. Okay, you go, you go. Well, I'm just saying, I think you're glossing over a big part of it, which is that he does retweet and give a high five on the company he bought, X now,

to insanity right wing insanity there's nothing no conspiracy theory or crazy shit that you can't say on X where he won't go interesting so true

Why is he doing that? Because, look, I know him a little bit, not well, but he's certainly not a bad guy. He's an interesting guy. He's a fun guy. But he's a little on the spectrum. How could you be that big of a genius and not?

But in 100 years, will we remember this part of him? No. What we're going to remember is the rocket he caught. And Mars. And Mars. New planet Earth. I don't agree with going to Mars, but OK. And you left out one big one.

The satellite system that basically makes Wi-Fi possible. It's pretty amazing. I mean, this is what one of the biggest projects that the Biden administration had is hooking up the whole country to Wi-Fi. Yeah, he hooked up the whole world. Rural areas, they were like the TVA in the Depression. They couldn't do it.

And they didn't do it so far. And he's doing it with, because instead of doing it like with tables in the ground or whatever the fuck they're doing, he's doing it with his satellites. For the world.

And for the world. It's pretty, it's pretty, it's pretty. So like, what's the lesson here? People are complicated. Yeah. You know, Wagner was an anti-Semite and he wrote great operas. Yeah. And Michael Jackson fucked little boys and Beat It is still awesome. Right. You know, I mean, people are just complicated and he's complicated and you could hold and you have to hold both opinions in your mind at the same time, I think, to be a serious human being. Yes,

As I said, don't gloss over the fact that his what he recommends and and approves of on Twitter is very often just misinformation. It's crazy shit and it's wrong and it's not helpful and it's not helpful for him wanting to be Trump, wanting to get Trump elected president, who is not somebody who I could ever respect. Yeah, man, I respect you if you vote for him, but, you know, it's quizzical to me.

But he's also this other guy who's come up with this crazy, insanely good stuff that will, not to mention like people who are paralyzed now can pick up something with their mind. Yeah.

Come on. Come on. Come on, man. Come on, man. I mean, come on. We're going to start our own come on, man. Come on, man. Come on, man. Elon Musk. Yeah. Merrill Lane. Come on, man. Come on, man. So, look, I agree. One of the things that you brought up there, though, with all of those examples and us as well is freedom of speech. And I think, like, freedom of speech isn't for what you believe in. You know, it's for what you don't believe in. Of course.

And censorship, speaking about Canada, we had this sort of Sex Pistols school of marketing, which is get banned and go to number one. And so because they have censorship there, we would get censored. You're talking about with Vice. With Vice, yes. The early days of Vice. The early days of Vice. The Canadian days of Vice. We would get censored, like shut down by the government.

And then the kids would go, oh, this has got to be good. So I grew up sort of, I made my bones in censorship. And that's, you know, you've got to love the First Amendment. It's funny that early Vice is something that Trump would and his bro fans would love. Sure. Because it was a bro. Yeah. I mean, it was, you know, but...

you know, things that are fun. National Lampoon. Sure. Was also sexist and this and that, but funny, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, and you have to trust certain people that they know, they're not really bad people in suggesting bad things, but, you know, shit is funny. Yeah. And human nature is not what the left, far left would like have you believe it is. Yeah.

sometimes, and we can laugh at that. We can enjoy differences. And we can say things without having fear of being canceled because you're like, look, we should be able to go out there and talk about stuff. If you can't talk about stuff,

Then where is democracy? We've so regressed in that area. I mean, we were so much further along, I would say, 10, 15 years ago. Yes. And then, I mean, Gen Z, which was supposed to be a backlash to the oversensitivity of millennials, actually was worse. And then it just really all fell apart as far as what, you know. You know what I think, too, is this over-reliance on advertising. Advertisers became the new censors.

Because if anybody said anything that they didn't like, they'd say, you know what? We're just going to hold our ads. Yeah, right. And by the way, it started on the left because we eat ourselves. But then like Tucker, like everybody got to end. There was nobody that was immune. You thought if you were on Fox...

that you were immune. But everyone started, and that's the basis of censorship. Oh, we're going to make a big noise and tell somebody censors this, which is obviously bad. Well, you don't have to censor it. You just get the advertisers to pull their money. And then advertisers are now being our cultural arbiters. And you're like, yeah, that's not good. That's not correct.

No, and it's funny the way they can do it on both sides. They can do it to Bud Light and they can do it to Chick-fil-A. Sure. And it just makes life tedious to have to think about politics when you're ordering chicken. It's fucking chicken. I don't give a fuck.

who the person selling it to me votes for. Yeah. I really don't. Or beer, not that I ever drink beer, but if I did, I don't give a shit who's doing ads for it. Why would you? Why would you? One of the worst things we did was to make everything political. Everything. Everything. And I was talking to someone here today and I was saying, it's like a sports team.

and you're the Steelers and I'm the Eagles, and I'm gonna hate whoever you do. Or like, there's this funny thing of why, I remember I was living in Scotland and I was like, why is Scotland rooting for Uruguay? Why is Scotland rooting for Brazil? So they'll beat England. And so that's American politics today. I remember when I was interviewing. Yeah, I think the Irish were for the Nazis. Yeah, yeah.

Because they were fighting England. The sea, oh, the sea, oh, the glorious sea. Long may it stand between England and me. It's a sure guarantee that somehow we'll be free. Thank Christ we're surrounded, be water. Yeah, they were just like, well, if the Germans get in, then we can be free from England. Yeah. I mean, that says something about hate when you're like throwing in with Hitler. Yeah. Although I do see on the right, there is a lot of...

World War II revisionism. Putin. Right. Like, maybe we backed the wrong guy in World War II. I mean, anytime you think one side is the stupidest, the other side is like, hold my beer. Yeah.

Hold my beer. Yeah. Because if you think that was dumb, here we go. Just give me a minute. Well, to go back to the Republicans and Democrats switching on immigration or on fiscal responsibility, how about the switch from Russia the boogeyman, Putin the Hitler, to no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He's our best pal. I mean, I often wonder, what would my father do 30 years ago?

If he came back to life tomorrow, an old school Irish American, Kennedy Democrat, and what would he make of both sides? I mean, the Republicans sucking Russia's dick? I mean, he grew up in that Cold War, fought the Nazis. But overnight. Was in World War II. Yeah.

Right. And same with the left. I mean, that would be harder for him because he was a lifelong liberal Democrat. But I mean, if I just said, Dad, I know you've had a 30-year nap, dirt nap, but I just want you to know men can get pregnant now. So you did become a comedian. Great. That's very funny. What's the punchline? That's it. Men can get pregnant now.

But that was a big surprising one to me, the sort of about turn on Russia. And, you know, look, and how quickly the party picked it up. That's the other thing. I can understand why, you know, if, for example, and not to get into conspiracy theories, but Russia has openly said that they will

you know, and during the Cambridge Analytica times, that they will try to influence our elections. Openly said that. We actually hacked a voting machine back in the Vice days, and it's trivially easy. You have nation states going against counties. You have to win about 22 counties in America to win the election. And you're like, why wouldn't the...

who've overtly said that they will do it, why wouldn't they go in and look at voting machines? Now, there was a 9% lead for Hillary. There's a 3% win, so it's an 11% differential. The largest differential in history. The Russians said that they would try to hack our machines. Did we ever do an audit? Did we ever look and say, hey, this is a bit weird, an 11% differential? Nope. We certainly looked at every place where the Trump campaign was.

I mean, they went to court, I think, 62 times. Right. That was, I'm talking about the Hillary election. Okay, that was 2020. 2020. Right. So you think the Hillary election. 16, 17. No, I don't know. I'm just saying there was the largest. I mean, she didn't even win it. I know, but the largest differential. Right. Was this 11% swing. But you're saying it's easy to hack a voting machine? Trivial. And you did it? We did it. Yeah, we hired a hacker. And we hacked a voting machine.

And it was easy. And we're like, OK, we did it just to prove. By the way, again, I have no dog in the race. Right. I'm just saying I spent a lot of time in Russia. I spent a lot of time talking to Lavrov, who's a smart cat.

who said, yeah, we're trying to fuck your election. And I said, the foreign minister, sorry. You're going to have to explain this to your audience. Yeah, Lavrov is the foreign minister still of Russia, and he was under Gorbachev. He's been there forever. He's the guy when Trump fired Comey, and then there was a picture of him laughing in the Oval Office with two Russians. Mm-hmm.

Like, again, as if anybody else could get away with it. This is what I was trying to say in my October surprise editorial. It's all baked in the cake that he's the worst person ever. Can you imagine Kamala Harris laughing with the Russian ambassador right after she fired him?

The guy who was investigating her, it would be over. But that's who Lavrov is. Yeah. He's the ambassador. The foreign minister. Foreign minister. And he's been there since Gorbachev. He is very savvy cat. He's an old school zero sum game. And he said to me, and we sat there in his office, and he said, yeah, we're going to try to fuck with you. And I'm like, why? And he said, because you have the ruble.

You guys have fucked us. You have the ruble. People are starving and we're going to fuck you any way we can.

And I was like, oh, yeah, well, that makes sense. And so we went back after him saying, we're going to fuck with your election. And we hacked the machine. And we're like, yep. I mean, if we can do it. No, I mean, I always thought the revisionism about there was no collusion. Russiagate was a hoax. That's the hoax. There was collusion. It's on tape. Russia, if you're listening. What candidate ever said that? And plainly, his...

factually, his campaign manager was sharing polling information with the GRU guy. Kalimnik was sharing information with, who is it? That's why I'm saying, look, I have no dog in the race, Hillary Trump. What I'm saying is, wouldn't we look into that as a foreign power influencing our elections, A? And then B, they said they would do it. And then C, might that be the beginning of our switch upon Russian influence

Being our buddy versus our enemy. Well, I did an editorial on that some years ago, and the conclusion I came to was that the reason the Republicans love Russia now is it's because the world is being taken over by brown and black people, and Russia is the last place that is organized.

all it on white, even the drink, white Russia. I mean, it's just... Hold on. Do you think the Republicans like Russia because they're white? They're white and they're proud of it. And they're one of the last places that says, we are keeping this country white. And if you don't like it, too bad. That's who we are. You don't think it's because they went to the GOP and said, hey, instead of being these two large superpowers, well, we're one superpower, you also ran...

but we're going to play ball with you and we're going to help you.

I mean, I think that's part of it, but I think the other thing comes first. Right. I think the underlying issue is that there are still racists in the Republican Party. I mean, you know, as someone once said, and I think it's true, certainly not everybody in the Republican Party is racist. But if you are racist, and you're looking for a party among the two big ones, that is the one you're going to go into. And there is a general... And look, some of this...

is semi-valid about immigration, not just here, but all over the world, is out of control. And the very content and nature of societies is changing. Sweden, you know, Germany- England. Yeah, right. You let in enough immigrants, and I believe in immigration, but there's also such a thing as too much of anything. And when it makes people in their own country feel like they're strangers in their own country, then you do have problems.

Russia does not have those problems because Russia is like, this is who we are and we're going to go with this. This is our brand. Well, it does have those problems. They have people coming through the war that Afghan people came. They have Dagestan, Chechnya, all of whom

are problems within the Russian. If you go to Russia... I don't think there's a large DEI program coming out of the Kremlin. So Chechen mafia is a problem. Dagestani terrorists is a big problem. They're white.

Well, like, Kazakhs are not, like, you know, they're Asian, Asiatic. Kazakhs are Asiatic. Yeah. But the thing is, is there's a terrorist problem within Russia that comes from Dagestan, that comes from Chechnya. Yes. Oh. And so they would say, look, we have our own problems. I guess not so racially, but what was I going to say? Russia. You got to say that for the Russians.

They stick with their foreign ministers. I mean, Gromyko was there for like 40 years. And this Lavrov...

Molotov before. I mean, in like 100 years, they've got three. It's like. Well, they stick with their team. They're like Tom Landry with the Cowboys. Exactly. There you go. They're like the Steelers. They stick with the coach. But so when I talked to Lavrov as well, he was like, look, if you put missiles in Ukraine, we're going to invade.

If you put missiles, it's like us, it's like Cuban Missile Crisis or putting missiles in Canada or Mexico. If you put missiles in Ukraine, we're going to invade. And he said it for, I don't know, five, six years. We put missiles in Ukraine and he invaded. We said, what the fuck are you doing? Well, I've always been on the page, and I'd say I have some very esteemed company like George F. Kenan and others who said...

When the Cold War ended, it was a mistake to try to sign up people for NATO. Yes. Because, wait a second, the whole Cold War was about, we're fighting communist Russia, communist Soviet Union. There is no more communism around.

Or Soviet Union. So why are we still making them the enemy? If the contention was they're the enemy because their ideology is wrong, which it was, and that they're an empire, which it was, and they were intent on taking over the world, which they were, but that's all gone now. Why is Russia still the enemy? Shouldn't...

I mean, some people went as far as say, invite them into NATO. Well, then that would be stupid. Who are we fighting? But we didn't have to like keep the NATO idea going. And we just kept treating them like you're the enemy. And it, uh,

I think it was a mistake. So when Putin first got in, I said, OK, I don't get it. Like, is he, because he came from the KGB, is he like communist? Is he ultra right? Or sorry, is he right? Is he like dictator or is he communist? Like, where is he on the spectrum? No, Shane, you don't understand. He's patriot. He's for Russia. He's for Russia. I'm like, I get it.

But if we were going to put like a flag next to his thing, what is it? So I was just going to say, but like the thing that he was pissed off about, which again, talking about the great majority, is they believe that under Glasnost and Yeltsin especially, that America and the rest of the world. What was that? Yeah.

But America and the rest of the world feasted on the corpse of Russia. No, what was Glasnost? The audience wanted to know. Oh, yeah, sorry. So Gorbachev got in, and I have a personal story about Gorbachev.

that led to glasnost there was a guy much like trump he was a sort of his name was eugene whalen and he was the minister of agriculture in canada wore a cowboy hat he was sort of an outsider you know and gorbachev at the time was the uh minister of agriculture for russia we were so union and so he came to canada i was a kid i remember this vividly and they they took him to a supermarket

And showed him the supermarket, a Canadian fucking supermarket, like a Ralph's, Canadian version, A&B.

And he said, yes, you know, we have stores like this in Moscow, you know, showcase stores. You don't have Tim Horton. Exactly. There's a good Canadian reference. So we have showcase stores in Moscow as well. So Eugene Whalen literally kidnapped him, took Gorbachev in his truck or whatever, and just went off to another city and went to a regular supermarket. And it was, of course, the same as the other supermarket.

It was apparently at that point that Gorbachev realized we're fucked. We have to do glasnost because if this is every fucking supermarket in Canada. So with all the spies that Gorbachev has in America and Canada, he didn't know that? Nobody sent a... Well, he wasn't the chief minister yet. He was the minister of agriculture. Okay.

But anyways, it was one of the defining moments of Shakespeare. But you would think that somebody who was, I mean, they've implanted so many people in this country. It's the subject. But they weren't getting back, wow, their supermarkets are amazing. I know, but isn't that the subject of a number of, what was it, The Americans? Is that the show that was on this? Sure, yeah, but that's later. Okay, but it's like they do implant people in this country. Sure, they still do. Nobody sent back...

in the microfilm, a little thing. They've got 27 types of doodles of fucking cockadoodles. I guarantee you they didn't. I guarantee you they didn't. You had to come here to see it. I guarantee you they didn't because they would be like, why would... Anyway. The incompetence. So Glasnost was... Gorbachev got in and said, we can't win.

this race were bankrupt and basically opened up the borders, which led to, you know, the breakdown of the Soviet Union, which Yeltsin got in, democracy and Yeltsin sort of, you know, famously was not necessarily great. And then the only people who had any

capitalist experience with the mob. So the mob sort of took over. And then the biggest mob was the KGB. So they said, you know what, actually, we'll be taking everything back now. And then, well, I mean, there's no daylight between the two questions. Is he a communist or is he a dictator? They're the same thing. Well, a communist leader is always a dictator because it's the worst. Communism is probably, sorry, kids, I know this is going to give you anxiety, but

But communism is probably the single worst idea that was ever tried. It didn't work. I mean, it works in books.

Well, exactly. Yeah. So on that light note, I think we've pissed off communists, Gen Z, Russians, sports fans, Republicans and Democrats. Good. I would just like to say thank you, buddy. Free speech, free speech, Bill Maher. Yeah, that means we're doing our job. We're doing our job. I'm very happy to be here. Check out our podcast. Shane Smith has questions. The one we do together for Club Random.

On YouTube, Shane Smith Has Questions, and wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you, and thank you, Bill. Hey, pleasure.