It’s been a busy news week, but Bill Maher had one story in mind for his opening monologue on this week’s Real Time. “I’m not going to pretend I can really think about anything other than the Trump/Elon thing,” he said — and went on to compare it to “Godzilla versus King Kong…if Godzilla was on ketamine and King Kong had a comb-over.”
Elon Musk’s suggestion that he might start a new political party also came up for some scrutiny. “I don’t know if we’re ready for a party from a guy who’s on Ecstasy, mushrooms and ketamine — although the convention does sound like a blast,” Maher said. Musk was a subject he would return to later in the episode — along with technology in myriad forms, which was also a running theme for the night.
Whitney Cummings was Maher’s first guest, and the quips began to fly. In response to Maher’s comment that is “obsessed with robots,” Cummings replied, “I have a sex robot. I’ll give it to you for a steal.” She then discussed the downside of having a robot built of herself five years ago: “You age and they don’t.” Cummings addressed the role the robot played in raising her child. ““My robot breastfed the baby,” she told Maher. “There’s already microplastics in our breast milk. I figured it’s probably safer.”
For his part, Maher was frustrated by the etiquette he had evolved around robots. “I used to swear at my car,” he said. That’s changed. Now? “I treat my car very politely,” he continued. “That’s sick.”
Having read a recent New York profile of Cummings which suggested that her politics (or at least some of her material) had moved somewhat rightward, I wondered if her conversation with Maher might touch on that. Near the end, it did, to a degree — but Cummings also took issue with how she’d been portrayed in the piece. That said, she did also spoke about becoming more conservative after having a child — though that was less a case of candor and more a bit about wanting to hunt coyotes.
Jonah Goldberg of The Dispatch and Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC took to the stage to discuss the week’s news — which involved the Musk/Trump rift, the upcoming budget bill and entitlement reform. Ruhle was eminently critical of Musk’s work with DOGE, which she called “a huge wasted opportunity.” She argued that true reform hadn’t taken place, while the cuts that were made — to things like medical research and the weather service — could do plenty of harm.
After that, the panel turned to AI, with Goldberg pointing out that AI boosterism from AI company heads was self-serving and might be less than accurate. Maher and both panelists stressed the importance of guardrails along the way, though they differed on what they predicted AI’s impact on employment would be. “You’re not going to be replaced by AI,” Goldberg told Maher, who responded — very reasonably — “I’m not typical.”
This Week’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” Had Show Business on its Mind
From Barry Diller’s memoir to Diddy’s trialIn his final segment of the night, Maher took on the idea of attempts to find a “liberal Joe Rogan.” His argument was that Democrats should instead work on winning back Rogan himself. “I don’t think his mind is completely inflexible,” Maher said. “His neck, yes, but not his mind.”
The argument was more complex than most of the episode-closing editorial segments. But for all that Joe Rogan was his way into this argument, Maher soon made the case for Democrats trying to win back Elon Musk as well. Here, the rhetoric turned more arbitrary, with Maher citing SNL cast members being wary of Musk’s time as host. Maher argued that this was a case of the SNL cast being judgmental, though there’s now evidence that the reason cast members may not have warmed to Musk was because he made one of them cry.
This line of debate was at its most effective when Maher grew more specific, focusing less on Musk or Rogan specifically and more on voters who might have opted for Donald Trump in 2024 but have since become disillusioned with him — possibly because of the administration’s policies harming them. “When you elect a bull to run through the china shop,” Maher said, “sometimes the china that gets broken is you.”
Other notable moments from this week’s episode:
- Cummings on why she doesn’t use Botox: “I also want people to know when I’m mad at them.”
- Cummings also shared a story about someone approaching her in an airport to tell her, “Pandas are fake.”
- Maher on AI’s ability to write comedy: “It already can write jokes; they’re just not fucking good.”
- Maher was horrified to learn that there’s an Instagram page that’s nothing but stick reviews.
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