Bill Maher Talked Ivy League Drama and Economic Distress

It’s hard to be a satirist these days. “We are at war with so many people we’re changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War,” Bill Maher said in his opening monologue this week. “I’m not making that up.” Some of the biggest laughs the Real Time host has gotten this year have come less from pitch-perfect punchlines and more from a bewildered recounting of current events.

Here’s Maher on the aforementioned renaming efforts: “[Trump] said, ‘It sends a message that we are fierce warriors.’ And then he went back to his Twitter spat with Rosie O’Donnell.”

The night’s first guest was no stranger to the show: Steven Pinker, author of When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life. But while their conversation began with the two men largely simpatico, some distance soon opened up. Pinker defended Harvard against the Trump administration’s cuts. Maher brought up an obvious question: what about the university’s massive endowment? Pinker clarified that this wasn’t a viable solution, as most of the endowment is earmarked.

Pinker went on to discuss the subject of his new book, the concept of “common knowledge.” For instance, he told Maher, we all accept that currency has a value. (There was also some discussion of the work of Yuval Noah Harari in there.) The two men discussed the concept of “norms” in politics, and Donald Trump’s efforts to “flout that in public,” which can lead to those norms fading away.

For the panel, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and former Trump economic advisor Stephen Moore took to the stage. Moore defended Trump’s economic policies, even in light of a disappointing jobs report. Maher pointed out that the Trump administration’s tariffs have alienated numerous longtime allies of the U.S., and cited India as one example.

Collins has become a frequent guest on the show, and she’s developed a good approach to her Real Time appearances: combining firsthand anecdotes as a report with a solid overview of the current geopolitical picture. This included a discussion of a number of tech CEOs dining at the White House recently; “It was amazing to watch everyone’s faces as the other person was talking,” she said.

Another current event that came up over the course of the conversation was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s recent Senate hearing. Maher stressed his disappointment in RFK Jr., who he’s long been sympathetic towards. “The knives are out for Bobby Kennedy, and I’ve got to say, I’m with the knives,” he said at one point.

Later, he clarified his stance on Kennedy. “He’s also just….nutty,” Maher said. Collins, meanwhile, weighed in on whether Kennedy’s performance there might put his job in jeopardy. “I think, until the president loses confidence in him, he’s fine,” she said.

Bill Maher Featured Breathing Exercises and Academic Critiques

There was a lot to discuss on a new “Real Time”

Moore and Collins were often on opposite sides of debates, as when the Federal Reserve came up. “Jerome Powell is no saint,” Moore said, to which Collins accurately observed, “…but Trump picked Jerome Powell.”

Many of the current events discussed were relatively bleak, yet this was also one of the funnier episodes in a while, especially when Maher observed that as they started a fitness challenge, Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr. had an unsettling resemblance to Hans and Franz.

The closing segment of this week’s episode saw Maher returning to his longstanding concerns over the president deploying troops to American cities. “The Pentagon is not Paw Patrol and Seal Team Six is not Adam-12,” he said. “We don’t need to send in the Marines to pacify Shake Shack.”

He was also candid about where this was likely to go: “Once it’s normal to have an army loyal to you already in the streets: game over. That is how all future political disputes will be decided. Folks, it’s not worth the trade-off.”

Other notable moments from this week’s episode:

Maher on the jobs report: “22,000? Diddy hired more than that for a party!”
Maher on standing ovations at film festivals: “We get it, Europe. You know how to clap.”
Collins’s occasionally bewildered reactions to Moore’s comments were memorable to behold.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…