Bill Maher Had a Lot to Say About Awards (and UFOs)

This week, Bill Maher was in the news for reasons unrelated to a Real Time episode: he’ll be the recipient of this year’s Mark Twain Prize. That Maher is receiving the award isn’t surprising — in the last five years, the likes of Jon Stewart and Conan O’Brien have also taken to the stage of the Kennedy Center to accept it. What is notable here is that the Trump administration had denied that Maher was receiving the award after The Atlantic initially reported the news.

Maher addressed the situation in his opening monologue. “We have reached a compromise,” he said of himself and the president. “I am going to get it, and then I am going to give it to him.” He also stated that he was “not mad that [Trump] did it,” and ran down a list of all of the insults Trump has directed his way over the years.

That covers the current head of state; two of Maher’s guests this episode are people who have been discussed as possible contenders for the Democratic nomination in 2028. First up was Senator Elissa Slotkin, the latest in an array of elected Democrats appearing on the show. Slotkin’s appearance set up a running bit where Maher asked his guests if they had experienced any issues flying there. Slotkin spoke of seeing ICE officers moving Amazon packages in the airport, and went on to describe the current situation of TSA employees not being paid as one way in which we have become “ill as a country.”

Slotkin, a former CIA analyst, discussed a bill that would prevent government officials and their family members from betting on prediction markets. She noted, accurately, that this could be described as both insider trading and “a complete operational security risk.” And she noted that, if and when Democrats come back into power, there was a need to make some traditions into “law with real teeth.”

Maher and Slotkin went on to discuss the party’s positioning on Iran. Slotkin argued that voters “want some alpha energy from their leaders.”

Would Slotkin be the one to provide that? Or could it be Stephen A. Smith, who — along with CNN legal analyst Laura Coates — joined Maher for the night’s panel discussion. Coates spoke about her own experience being a federal employee not being paid during a shutdown. And Smith alluded to some TSA staffers quitting rather than working a job for which they were not being paid — something he sharply contrasted with the Trump family making over a billion dollars since the start of the president’s second term.

Maher brought up the midterm elections, where he offered a mixed analysis. “The Democrats are not going to win this election. The Republicans are going to lose it. There’s a difference between not winning and losing,” he said. (Also, for the record, the Real TIme audience seemed enthusiastic about the prospect of a Smith candidacy.)

There was a lot to discuss this week; unfortunately, this meant that the two final issues the panel discussed only got fairly brief discussions. First, Maher brought up two recent legal cases where Meta and Google lost in court. Coates compared the addictive properties of social media to the tobacco industry; Maher countered with potato chips. This led to a discussion of what the role of parents were in this; this, then, led to Smith talking about spanking.

That, in turn, led to less time for the panel to discuss a recent IOC ruling intended to address questions over trans women competing. Instead, we got a very surface-level take on it, with Smith both declaring his support for the LGBTQ community and stating his opposition to “biological men” competing in women’s sports.

No one brought up the fact that SRY genetic testing — which is what will be used — could also lead to some cisgender women being barred from competing. Parker Molloy has written a detailed look at this very subject, and Defector’s Diana Moskovitz has also written a detailed, insightful critique of the IOC’s stance. At its best, Real Time can provide detailed looks into policies with a wide variety of perspectives represented. That was not the case here.

Bill Maher Discussed AI and the “Anti-Human Future”

Along with the perils of social media and hot takes

Maher closed out the night by discussing UFOs. “If at this point you don’t believe aliens are here and observing us, maybe you’re the conspiracy theorist,” he said. He went on to observe that “serious people” were raising questions about extraterrestrial life — and then politely asked the aliens not to kill us all. “If you wanted us dead, we’d be dead already,” he said.

Other notable moments from this episode:

Maher on TSA employees going unpaid: “It’s not good when people who have no money work in a place where water is six dollars a bottle.”
Maher on the president receiving a new award: “Donald Trump is getting the America First Award. Maybe you never heard of it, because they just made it up.”
Maher on photos of other people’s babies: “To me, this is the equivalent of sending an unsolicited dick pic.”
There will be no new show next week; Real Time returns on April 10.

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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…