Deeply caustic and supremely confident, Bill Maher is the kind of satirist who causes even his many admirers his HBO talk show Real Time draws more than four million viewers per episode to throw up their hands now and again. Avoiding the public comfort of a party line, Maher lights into the political excesses and orthodoxies of the left as well as the right, on an anti-P.C., antihypocrisy crusade that skewers Democrats and Republicans alike. My whole career, Maher says, has been this battle: Why cant I talk on TV the way I talk at home or with my friends? My goal was to take that gap, which on most shows you can drive a truck through, and close it to nothing.

Most late-night hosts dont criticize both the right and the left as much as you do. Why do you think that is? Its hard to answer that question without sounding self-serving. I will say this: Our studio audience is not representative of liberals across the country. Your paper and The Atlantic had long articles1 in the last year saying that 80 percent of Americans think this politically correct BS has gone too far. But the people on Twitter are the people who control the media a lot. Theyre the millennials who probably grew up with helicopter parents who afforded them a sense of entitlement. They are certainly more fragile than previous generations. Trigger warnings. Safe spaces. Crying rooms. Microaggressions. That crowd feels like anything that upsets their tender sensibilities is completely out of line.

Isnt it important to distinguish between the fundamental arguments being made in favor of those sensibilities and the people being loudest on social media about them? Yes. The most important thing that the Democrats can do to win the next election is to broom this element out of their party and stand up to the Twitter mob and the ultrawoke. And I dont like the term woke, because it implies I am asleep. I was woke before some of these people were born. I grew up in a household with two liberal parents who were ahead of their time.2 My father and mother told me about civil rights. I knew what the right thing was. The difference is that liberals protect people, and P.C. people protect feelings. They dont do anything. Theyre pointing at other people who are somehow falling short of their standards, which could have changed three weeks ago. Theyre constantly moving the goalposts so they can go, Gotcha! For example, when I was growing up, the most liberal thing you could do is not see color. Well, thats wrong now. You see color, always, so you can register your white privilege. But I grew up in the Martin Luther King era: Judge by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. I still think thats the best way to do it. Not see it.

But we do see color, and no one is arguing that people shouldnt be judged by their character. So what problem is being caused by the shift you just described? If someone walks in the room, after a minute, I should not be thinking about color. And I am not. Thats how I have always been. I have actual black friends. I dont think they want me to be always thinking: Black person. Black person. Im talking to a black person. Look, I tried to drive a stake through political correctness in the 90s.3 I obviously failed dismally. Its worse than ever.

Youve talked about the negative effects of the Twitter mob on your show, but youve also talked about how most people dont care whats on Twitter. If people dont care about the Twitter conversation, why bother railing against it? Because the Twitter-mob mentality has an effect on the rest of the world. Everyone fears the wrath of the Twitter mob and the social justice warriors and the P.C. police. Religions always talk about the one true religion. Now on the left we have the one true opinion. If you go against that, you do so at your peril. Thats why the air on the left is becoming stale. I railed for years against the Fox News bubble, and that is as strong as ever, but I didnt think it would get this bad on the left. Comedians are afraid to make jokes in clubs, because somebody will tape it and send it out on Twitter and get the mob after you.

Thats a concern we often hear from comedians these days. How much of that fear is coming from comedians still adjusting to the reality of there being possible consequences for their material? You can still make whatever joke you want. The difference is that more people are calling you out if they find it offensive. Thats nave. You can make the joke if you dont mind giving up your career or being fired. Come on. The politically correct people are not concerned about social justice. They care about putting scalps on the wall. Liam Neeson. Remember that?4 Are we at this place where we cant admit that weve ever had bad thoughts and gotten over them and become a better person? You cant judge today by yesterday. We evolve.

Lets take the Liam Neeson thing. Who I dont even like, by the way.

Whats your problem with Liam Neeson? Hes for horse-drawn carriages in Central Park. And Im a PETA board member.

I didnt know that. But the controversy around him was a story for a day, and then the world moved on. His career is fine, isnt it? The world doesnt move on for Megyn Kelly5 and Roseanne,6 and Aziz Ansari7 had to fly below the radar for a year. I think youre downplaying how serious this stuff is. We live in an age where people want to cancel other people and disappear them. Whos going to be left?

Youve had two big controversies during your career. The first was in 2001 when you said that the 9/11 hijackers were not cowards.8 The second was two years ago, when you made that joke using the N-word.9 Did it feel different to be at the center of a controversy during the social media era? Controversies are never pleasant to go through. On the second controversy, Im saving an in-depth discussion for my memoirs. If we were living in a country that could handle nuance, Id be happy to talk about it, but were no longer in that country. Theres no winning there. Youre going to have to read my memoirs. We live in an era where I dont think peoples main focus is the truth and/or sussing out something valuable or teachable. We live in a time in which people are more concerned with scalps and clicks.

Did the discussion that happened after you made that joke reveal anything new to you about our cultures or your own understanding of that language? I just think theres no way to have that conversation with you, David. Im sorry, I dont blame you for trying. Its a shame, because there is lots of learning that can be happening. As I said at the time, anytime someone is hurt by a word like that you have my sincere apology. But thats the beginning of a discussion, and its too bad that we dont live in a place where you can have the end of it.

Well, so my next question is related to the 9/11 controversy. Youve always been critical of all religions, but is there something distinct about your criticism of Islam? Fairly or not, youve been called an Islamophobe a few times over the years. Its ridiculous to label criticism of a religion as a phobia of a religion. Im going to criticize any person or group that violates liberal principles, and so should you. Almost all religions, by their nature, are intolerant and supremacist. At any time in history one religion will be the most fundamentalist. At this moment I think its pretty evident that religion is Islam. Of course, intolerance exists everywhere, but the places where, lets say, human rights workers have their work cut out for them the most are probably traditional Islamic societies. To conflate thinking that with Islamophobia is a facile and unconvincing trick.

I do wonder if, at least in the past, youve done some conflating of your own as far as, for example, treating theocracies or dictators as exemplars of Islamic rank and file. I think you have it backwards. The government of Pakistan is more liberal than the people. Their senate recently passed legislation to end child marriages and local police forces have intervened. Yes, we have things in our country that are at odds with liberal values, but someone once said that, at some point, a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind. Its frustrating for me. I know that people who ask me these questions actually agree with me, and yet theyre like, Are you crazy? Its like, Can I just be real?

It could be that there are complexities that your criticisms of Islam dont address. There are many factors, none of which Ive ever denied. Poverty has been shown to have little to do with terrorism. You can always bring in a million things to make this look like a phobia. But what about white supremacy? Also a bad thing! Never said it wasnt. Its interesting to me that even the people who criticize me about this sometimes have used the word cancer. As in, Islamism is a cancer upon Islam. And to those who say, when I mention instances of Islamism, But its not everywhere, I say, If a doctor tells you you have cancer, do you go, Yeah, but its not everywhere?

Do you see any way out of this cultural and political tailspin were in right now, in which everyones default stance is If you dont agree with me, then screw you? You have to find a way to begin with what you share and then explore why you differ so vehemently on other issues, and thats what we seem to have lost the ability to do. I dont see a lot of desire for people to talk to each other, to accept that, O.K., this person doesnt agree with me on a lot of stuff, but I dont have to think hes a monster. We want to beat our chests and vanquish the other side. Compromise seems like a dead concept.

On the Real Time anniversary special last year, the things people were saying about why they like you especially your fearlessness about saying what you really think reminded me of the things people say about why they like President Trump, whom youre no fan of.10 Is there any way to productively channel peoples enthusiasm for those qualities? So much of it seems like its mostly about the pleasure we get from seeing our opponents insulted. During the second year of Politically Incorrect we had a contest: Politically incorrect or just stupid? We were trying to make the point that saying something thats contrary is not necessarily politically incorrect. Its sometimes just stupid. I define political correctness as the elevation of sensitivity over truth. Thats my beef with it. Were not getting to the truth, because were too sensitive.

Let me totally switch subjects. I went and read your novel.11 Im verklempt. Thats something no interviewer has ever said to me.

It has this lovingly detailed evocation of a very particular time in the comedy world, back when the boom was starting to happen in the late 70s, and how that was a real moment of change for comedians and their work. Have you seen any similar sea changes since? Im probably not the best one to ask, because it has been a long time since I was in the comedy clubs. I do hear a lot of complaints that comedians are frustrated that they cant freely try out new bits. When I was coming up, the great thing about the comedy clubs was that they were laboratories for our experimentation. That was the deal. They didnt pay us, and we didnt have to be good and werent but thats how we honed our craft. Now people are afraid, and comedy does not function well in that atmosphere of fear. We want to be saying whatever, especially if its funny, and it hurts us that the audience wont trust us. Do you really think Im on the side of the bad people? Chris Rock, Larry the Cable Guy and Jerry Seinfeld a few years ago all were talking about the fact that they dont work campuses anymore. Jerry Seinfeld is too out there? His act is so clean it whitens teeth. Comedy is about saying those true things that everyone else isnt saying. Thats where the fun is.

You mentioned colleges. Students are another group that you talk a lot about on the show. There has been no time over the last 50 or so years when people havent been criticizing college kids social and political ideas. But isnt that a reaction to the fact that college is a place where students are pushing hard and figuring out their ideas about the world? Isnt that what these kids are supposed to be doing at that age and in that setting? I dont think someone whos at Harvard is a child, and I do think they should know that everybody in America gets a lawyer. Yet they did not understand that.12

The students at Harvard werent saying Harvey Weinstein wasnt entitled to a lawyer. They were objecting to a residential dean being his lawyer. Thats different. Well, thats wrong, too. Everybody gets the lawyer that they want. Harvard doesnt understand the very basis of the Sixth Amendment? I dont think a lot of us who are criticizing that are criticizing the kids as much as the administrators.

Who you think are spineless. Very spineless. The way parents have been spineless in disciplining their kids. When I was growing up you could never drive a wedge between your parents and the teacher. Now the parents always back their precious darlings, and thats why you have grade inflation and kids who leave school without knowing anything. Its not the kids fault that he doesnt know anything. Its the teachers fault. Thats not helping our country. Being brought up this way is going to lead these kids to ruin. Of course, theyre not all brought up the same way. I dont think in the middle of the country theyre raising their kids like that. I saw Mario Lopez got in trouble, did you see that?

I didnt. I saw this headline: Mario Lopez Apologizes. It was this groveling apology to the L.G.B.T.Q. community. You know what the problem was? They asked him about this trend in Hollywood of letting your 3-year-old decide their gender and Mario Lopez said maybe 3 is a little young for that decision.13 Monster!

This is making me think of when you had Dr. Debra Soh14 on the show talking about gender dysphoria, and you were pointing to what you see as the problem of parental permissiveness towards gender identification and transitioning. You were saying that parents let their kids gender reidentify because its easier than telling them not to. That seemed pretty glib. It was.

Its a bit hard to imagine that parents who support a childs transitioning are doing it because they think its the easier path. Thats not true. I know people whove done it, and that is exactly what it is. They never discipline their kids. They think theyre making it easier by giving the kid what they want. I mean, youre right, what I said was glib, but I am serving many masters. Real Time is an entertainment show on an entertainment network, and Im a comedian. Not everything I say can stand up to the scrutiny of the ultimate fact-check. But I think that there is some truth to this. There are kids and this is what Dr. Soh was saying and I wasnt disagreeing with who have transitioned who were really just gay. I dont think its the worst thing in the world to wait a few years to find out whats going on. Im not a doctor. Im not a scientist. But if I had a kid I would tell them: As long as youre living under my roof youre not cutting anything off. Until youre 18. Then you cut off whatever you want. Here I am, being glib again.

Whats something encouraging to you about millennials? And whats the most disappointing thing about your own generation? Aside from ruining the world environmentally. Weve left a dark, stinking husk of a planet, havent we? My generation started this mess. The Baby Boomers were the first Me generation. They were the first spoiled kids. There definitely was more discipline, but there was also more indulgence, and that seemed to continue on and on. So I think we have to look in the mirror as to when that trend started. As for the most encouraging thing about millennials, its idealism. You need people to look at anything with a fresh pair of eyes. That sort of idealism is essential to temper the necessary cynicism.

And you dont see any idealism in the identity politics of younger people? I dont know how thats connected to idealism. What Im complaining about is fragility. What Im complaining about is people who were overindulged as children and somehow believe that they should not have to endure even the slightest measure of discomfort.

Im sure Im overly Pollyanna-ish about all this, and obviously not everyone is arguing these issues in good faith, but isnt the root of what youre identifying just peoples attempt to figure out how to get through life with more dignity and less pain? But there are negative repercussions. People get disappeared. When I was a young person the conservatives were the ones who I dont know what youd call it.

Drew hard lines about what was or wasnt culturally acceptable? Thank you, yes. Now its reversed, and I feel like thats backwards. Young people should be the free ones pushing the boundaries and not the ones inhibiting us. Well, Im not a woman, so I could not possibly know that experience. Im not a person of color, so I cant speak about that. Professors are afraid to speak, because what they say, even if its science, might go against the politically correct notion. This is pernicious. Im sorry, but I have to lay that at the doorstep of the far left and the younger generation. Its not the worst thing in the world to hear something you find somewhat offensive. You can turn the channel. Look at something else. Go to a puppet show; youll never be offended.

Im curious about how your own comedy has evolved. Back when you were doing Politically Incorrect you used to do a lot more hubba hubba jokes about women. Its funny you mention that. When I turned 50, I had a talk with my writers and I said, no more Im-in-the-hot-tub-with-twins jokes. Back in the 90s it was a different point of view to say, Im single, and that is not a bad choice. I stood up for that idea and it was not well accepted at the time that you can have children, thats fine, but I do not want them. I was a bit of a militant single person. But when I was 50, I said, Im too old to be doing these jokes. At a certain point its not funny anymore. Its creepy. I never did those kind of jokes again.

Do you still have a stripper pole in your house? Its not in my house.

Guest house? Well, yes. I bought my house in 2001, and in 2004 my next-door neighbor was selling his bachelor pad. He had a small house he lived in, and there was this other little bungalow on the property that I use if I have a party. I dont know how you knew that I had a stripper pole put in.

Let me ask you a nonpolitics, noncomedy question. I know that youre a big Beatles fan. In one of your books you said you could probably do a better job interviewing them than anybody has yet. I definitely could.

So if you could snap your fingers and have Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr on your show, what would you ask them? I would love to present my theory as to why the Beatles really broke up. Which is that John Lennon could not keep up in the battle for A-sides. Imagine writing a song as great as Revolution and it loses out to Hey Jude. Thats, I think, why John Lennon didnt want to continue going with the Beatles. I dont think he liked losing. Paul McCartney would never admit that, by the way.

Well, there you go. O.K., back to your work! For more than 25 years youve been going on TV and making jokes about Republicans being hypocritical and corrupt and Democrats being too PC and lacking backbone. Does it ever feel like youre banging your head against a wall? These people dont change. Yes but I never thought that people would hear my jokes and go: Hes right! Ive got to amend my behavior right now. But Im very fortunate as a standup comedian who still goes on the road a lot, because Im always given new material. I had John Boehner jokes, and now I have Mitch McConnell jokes.

I wonder if you could get away with Mad-Libbing your material. Just swap new names into old jokes. I have repurposed junk. I think I had one about Newt Gingrich having the moral compass of an opportunistic infection. Who doesnt that apply to? I have a plethora of material, but if an old joke perfectly fits somewhere Im not above repurposing. You know, John Lennon wrote a song called Child of Nature, and it was a great tune. He repurposed it with different lyrics a few years later as Jealous Guy. Artists are blue jays. We find little scraps here and there and build a nest. Were shameless about it.

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Bill Maher on the Perils of Political Correctness - The New York Times