The third Real Time With Bill Maher of 2025 featured an unexpected moment of candor from its host. Maher told the evening’s first guest that he was about to say “something I’ve never done here before — an apology.” That guest was Peggy Noonan — author, most recently, of the book A Certain Idea of America — and Maher regretted how he’d treated her when she was a guest on Politically Incorrect years earlier.
Maher has, in the past, discussed why he doesn’t apologize much — making this a relatively surprising moment. Noonan accepted the apology, and during their conversation the two discussed the current state of American politics — and the country as a whole.
For Noonan, part of that involved the importance of becoming a gentleman and her frustrations with young men not understanding this. “They don’t have anyone modeling that for them. They’re not making their way through life with a certain dignity,” she said. “It’s not about how you dress and superficial things like that; it’s the generosity with which you treat people.”
Noonan wasn’t the only writer to appear on this week’s episode. Devolution author Max Brooks and Henry V author Dan Jones showed up for the panel discussion, which covered a fair amount of territory, from Jones’s nostalgic invocation of 1990s-style triangulation to Brooks weighing in on the current debate over DEI politics.
For his part, Brooks called DEI initiatives “a great policy that was delivered poorly.” He also noted that many of the debates surrounding this weren’t exactly new, and cited an episode of All In the Family. More broadly, he raised the question of how issues are perceived and the impact that can have. Jones was relatively simpatico with this argument, and observed that social media “rewards divisive thinking.”
Jones also argued that “[t]hat search for the center ground is missing at the moment.” That push for centrism was something that Maher returned to later in the episode; his closing monologue made the case for Bob Dylan’s “Everything Is Broken” as a new national anthem. He touched on all sorts of dysfunction across the country, from partisan conflicts to the price of real estate. (“Could a folk singer afford an apartment in New York today?” he asked.)
“There’s something really ugly about a government of billionaires blaming the desperately poor for all our problems,” Maher said near the end of the segment. It was a sobering thought, but it felt in keeping with the debate that spanned the program.
Bob Dylan’s Been Getting Very Retro at His Recent Concerts
He’s been playing covers of famed 1950s songsOther notable moments from this episode:
- Maher on the current state of the nation: “This administration is eleven days old. Seems longer, doesn’t it?”
- Brooks argued that Desert Storm had been a watershed moment for the U.S. military, but not for the obvious reasons; instead, it had told the nation’s rivals that asymmetry was the way to go.
- Jones cited what he dubbed the “spoiled asshole theory of history.”
- Turns out Max Brooks can do an excellent impression of a Dickensian street urchin.
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