Bill Maher’s First “Real Time” of 2025 Took On Wildfires

With some criticism of AI for good measure

Bill Maher on wildfires
Bill Maher had a lot to say about wildfires.
HBO

It’s safe to say that the scope of Real Time With Bill Maher is national. When politics comes up on the show, it’s usually in a national context — but not always. Given that Maher’s frustrations with local politics occasionally come up on the show, it’s not surprising that the L.A. wildfires were the central topic of this week’s show, the first new Real Time of 2025.

Maher also kicked off his 2024 by discussing local politics — in this case, with Governor Gavin Newsom as his guest. This time this year, he was quite critical of elected officials’ response to the wildfires, including both Newsom and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass. Things kicked off when Maher brought up the local alert system in his opening monologue: “Did you get enough alerts on your phone that made you shit yourself?”

Up first this week was Rick Caruso, who ran against Bass in the 2022 mayoral election. Maher brought up the fact that Caruso has at times been a registered Republican, Democrat and independent. “You’re running out of parties to leave,” Maher quipped.

Caruso brought up his time as a commissioner for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which he argued gave him a good sense of how the city’s infrastructure worked. He brought up warnings and policy proposals he’d made years earlier about the possibility of devastating wildfires — including moving power lines underground. 

While Maher seemed largely sympathetic to Caruso’s arguments, the two men did clash a few times. Once was relatively jovial in tone, with Maher asking if he should have stood on his roof with a garden hose at the ready to stop any fires that came near his home. Caruso made a compelling argument that, no, this was not a remotely good idea.

Things got more complicated when Caruso brought up fire prevention efforts in developments his business had worked on. Maher zeroed in on one detail: “You call it ‘rapid response.’ People call that a private fire department.” Caruso said, essentially, that that was correct, but the existence of a private fire department had allowed the city’s fire department to do its work elsewhere. 

Maher brought up the obvious corollary to that: “Not everybody can afford the private fire department.” Caruso pivoted from there to a more good-government approach, saying that public fire departments should be better funded. It sounded like he was readying another run for mayor, but he told Maher that he was unsure if he would, and that he currently wanted to “focus on rebuilding.”

The wildfires and their aftermath also came up repeatedly during the night’s panel discussion, for which Larry Wilmore and Republican strategist Erin Perrine joined Maher on stage. Wilmore made the case for humor during trying times, and all three discussed whether or not the fires’ aftermath will create an opening for the Republican Party in California.

Much of Maher’s final segment this week also found him criticizing various elected leaders around the city and state. “We just got our ass kicked by fire, something Neanderthals fought to a tie,” he said, giving the general sense that he took much of the response to the disaster personally.

A little earlier in the episode, Maher spoke warmly about the city. “L.A. is built in a really stupid place to build a city,” he admitted. “But when it’s not on fire, it’s really lovely.”

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Other notable moments from this episode:

  • Maher on the year to come in politics: “Take a deep breath. Wait, wait — we’re in L.A. Don’t take a deep breath.”
  • Maher on how Sacramento sought to reduce fire risk after past wildfires: “Goats, man! Fucking goats!”
  • Wilmore, comparing Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump: “Jimmy Carter’s problem was that he was a micromanager; he wanted to do everything. Trump’s problem is that he wants to get credit for everything.”
  • Maher was very skeptical of CEOs pointing out that AI could replace human employees on a larger scale. “They don’t give a fuck about the repercussions of AI taking everyone’s jobs,” he said in one of the episode’s more chilling moments.

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