Club Random Podcast: w/ Adam Carolla (Transcript)

Editor’s Notes: In this episode of the Club Random Podcast, Bill Maher is joined by Adam Carolla for a candid and often hilarious conversation that spans from personal history to sharp political commentary. The two veteran comedians explore a diverse range of topics, including their shared experiences with uninvolved parents, the importance of discipline over shortcuts like Ozempic, and the frustrations of navigating California’s extensive bureaucracy. As the dialogue shifts toward the state of the nation in 2026, Maher and Carolla offer their unfiltered takes on identity politics and the evolving cultural landscape. This long-form sit-down provides a fascinating look at the perspectives of two influential voices in media today. (Feb 9, 2026)

TRANSCRIPT:

The Pendulum of Success

BILL MAHER: Guest number one, remember always when you’re on like the Tonight Show, the cop always said, like guest number one. Yeah, on it. How are you, pal?

ADAM CAROLLA: Good to see you, brother.

BILL MAHER: How you doing?

ADAM CAROLLA: I’m doing well.

BILL MAHER: I hear all about you. Your show’s good. Better than ever. You’re getting your walk on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Your divorce went through. You must be on cloud nine.

ADAM CAROLLA: It’s good. Look, it’s a pendulum, and it’s either coming down or it’s heading up like, you know, the business, and it’s been heading up for the last short period of time.

BILL MAHER: Well, yeah, but sometimes one part of your life is going great and the other isn’t. I certainly have had that situation. Like, I remember when I was in my early mid-30s, you know, I was in a very successful relationship, but my career had taken that dip. Right. You know, the worst part of a career, a comic. Two really bad parts. One, when you start, that’s really tough. Like, first year or two. And then there’s like, oh, you think you’re on your way. Right. You know, you do a couple of sitcoms, it’s like. And then, you know, there’s that, like, not so fast.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, no, it’s weird. Like, I got out of the gate. The first two shows I really did, which was Loveline on MTV and then the Man Show on Comedy Central. Both of them were destined for other networks. Loveline was supposed to be a syndicated show, and the Man Show was a pilot from ABC. And they didn’t get picked up, but they both ended up on MTV and then ended up on Comedy Central. And that was my first two endeavors.

So I was like, oh, this is so easy. You know, it just—by the way, if the first network doesn’t pick you up, the second one does. And it just all came so quickly and so easily. And then I realized at some point, oh, no, it’s a slog. It’s a struggle. There’s lots of setbacks. That’s the way it goes.

Career Ups and Downs

BILL MAHER: Even Frank Sinatra, you know, maybe the greatest career, or certainly among the top five, who was like a giant phenomenon of the star, like Justin Bieber at his peak, whatever that was. Harry Styles today in 1939, early 40s, the war years, Bobby Soxers, just people screaming lines around the block, just like. And then you go to 1950. He couldn’t get arrested. That’s the subplot of the Godfather, the movie plot. Like Johnny Fontaine never gets this part. That was Sinatra, supposedly. You know, Sinatra had the same story. Somebody had to threaten the band leader to get him out of his contract.

ADAM CAROLLA: You know, it’s kind of sad that guys like Elvis weren’t alive to see the ascension the second. You know what I mean? Like, when Elvis died, he was kind of a joke, and everyone wanted to see Crosby, Stills and Nash and not your dad’s fat guy with his suit on and stuff like that.

BILL MAHER: There’s a picture of him right over there. I’m sorry. And he’s not.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, but what I’m saying is, is my daughter and her friends saw the Elvis movie 19 times. You know, they don’t—Elvis didn’t get to see his movie. Yeah, they loved it.

BILL MAHER: They loved the Baz Luhrmann movie.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes. And what I’m saying is, is nobody was bigger than Elvis. And then Elvis became a sort of parody of himself and was sort of on the decline and gained the weight, the drugs and everything else. And then he died. He didn’t get to then swing back and experience this resurrection.

BILL MAHER: He did. Not in your liberal bubble, Adam. But he had a very brief period where he was the thing that’s 1956 until he goes into the army in 19—I mean, really just a couple of years. Then he went into the army. When he came out of the army, that f*ing criminal immigrant. Illegal immigrant. Who was his manager, the Colonel Tom Parker. Thank you. Yes, let’s name him. He’s very famous. Yeah.

He kept him in this sort of indentured servitude. Elvis, with all his psychological problems and mommy and daddy issues and all this stuff, and he just couldn’t break away from this guy. So he kept him in the movies. You know, these, what Elvis called travelogs, they’re all the same—Clambake and Speedway and, you know, like forgettable songs and—

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: Because most of the country. Not your liberal bubble, Adam.

ADAM CAROLLA: I do hang out with those people.

BILL MAHER: Was still going to see Elvis movies?

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, I get it. I guess what, you know what I say when I interview an athlete or anybody who had great success or was the Super Bowl MVP or something like that, I always ask him, was your dad around to see it? You know what I mean? Because it’s poignant to me.

Fathers and Success

BILL MAHER: Poignant to me because my dad wasn’t around to see you win the Super Bowl.

ADAM CAROLLA: No.

Basically in life.

BILL MAHER: Right, right. Yeah. Sorry for—I’m not kidding around, but you’re very successful guy. You’ve made quite an impact on society. And any father would go, oh, my God.

BILL MAHER: But especially because my father was a newsman and a funny guy, and I’m a funny guy who made it successfully talking about the news. So it would have been—it would have been different if I went into the soft ice cream business. It was a giant success. But the fact that I sort of followed where he was heading, I think would have been very brilliant.

ADAM CAROLLA: But when he died, you were dealing weed and eating top ramen and that’s his last memory of you, right?

BILL MAHER: No. Basically, he saw me do the Tonight Show, but he never—he died just before Politically Incorrect went on, which would have been the perfect thing for him to see. And I wish I was one of those people who could say, well, but he’s watching from upstairs. But unfortunately, he’s not upstairs. He’s dead.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, if it’s any consolation, my dad made it all the way through my career and still didn’t give a s*, so.

BILL MAHER: Really?

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes. Never. Never a thing. Never had cable. Never knew what I was doing.

BILL MAHER: So why is—

ADAM CAROLLA: I don’t—you know, I don’t know how it works, but my mom and my dad somehow found each other, like the two parents who care the least maybe was at some sort of symposium for parents, potential parents who didn’t care, but neither one of them ever had cable. They never knew what I was up to. They never had any interest, and weren’t there to see any of it.

BILL MAHER: And what about childhood? Same deal.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah. Yeah. I’ll tell you something about disappointers. They never disappoint. They’re always who they are.

BILL MAHER: Right.

ADAM CAROLLA: It’s never like, oh, no, my mom was the best and then lost total interest, you know, in me once I—

BILL MAHER: Got together and there. When you were kids. When you were a kid, but just not interested in you.

ADAM CAROLLA: They had kids and didn’t know it, but were there. You know what I mean?

BILL MAHER: Wasn’t that sort of good? Sometimes, yeah.

Growing Up Independent

ADAM CAROLLA: I mean, in general, you get a very realistic version of the world. You know what I mean? Like, nobody’s going to hop out and make you dinner and make you breakfast and tuck you in and sort of take care of you. Like, it was like, it gives you—when your parents and especially mom aren’t big fans and don’t do a lot, you get really independent and really fast and you get a very sober version of the world and how you fit into it, you know?

And is anyone going to do anything for you or you’re going to have to sort of take care of your own stuff. Like, there’s a version of it where the mom dotes over the little prince and he can do no wrong. And those guys get ruined because they show up in the real world expecting to have rose petals thrown down at their feet, and they get disappointed. Another direction. So, like, it is good in terms of getting independent and getting realistic. It doesn’t make for a great childhood, but it’s like, no, it’s good.

BILL MAHER: It’s good training not to make everything political, and we sure don’t want to do that. But it does to me when I hear stories like this, and you hear them all the time, just make me more angry at the Democrats for going so in on identity politics. Because, you know, life is such an unpredictable mishmash of advantages and disadvantages.

It’s so simplistic to say, well, you know, because your race, because your religion, because whatever this thing you identify, that is what is the defining thing in America. No, these are the kind of things that are very often defining thing in America. Your parents sucked. Now, that could have made you a giant failure. I’ve seen it work that way, and I’ve seen it work the other way, where it makes you work harder and be better and somehow get further maybe than you would if they weren’t shitty.

So to reduce life to those kind of simplistic boxes. I think it’s so crazy because, you know, who knows what. Who you would be or what you would be if your parents had been different.

The Fire Department Story

ADAM CAROLLA: I mean, for me. And also I was poor and I was sort of rudderless, and I was a bad student. I didn’t go to college and so on and so forth, and the economy was bad. And it was—when I graduated high school, I just was unmoored and just sort of floating out in the sea. I did not have a direction. I didn’t have a skill. I didn’t know anybody. My parents were sort of don’t ask, don’t tell.

And I literally was walking around North Hollywood applying for jobs at supermarkets and stuff like that, and there was no jobs. And I went to the North Hollywood Fire Department, and I just walked in and I said, I think I could be a fireman. I played football. I’m like, I’m strong. I don’t have any fear. I think this would be a good job for me. I’m not good with the essays and the typing and all that stuff, but I’ll go up a ladder and go into a building.

BILL MAHER: Yeah, I don’t think you have to sell yourself that much. Just say you’ll do it and they’ll give you the application.

ADAM CAROLLA: I was eager for the fray, and the guy gave me an application. He said, don’t expect to hear from us for a long time, really. And this is in the 80s, and I suppose you’re white. We’re not hiring white people.

BILL MAHER: He said that.

ADAM CAROLLA: He said, well, he was a white guy, and he was like, you know, between the two of us. So they were—expecting a phone call.

BILL MAHER: So they were overcompensating and making up for our sorry past. Where yes, the blacks were—

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes, they were. But to your point, I was my first—I was first poor before I was white. You know what I mean? I was poor too, and I needed a job. So they should hire sort of based on who needs it, not the color of your skin is what I was saying. And I couldn’t get on with the LA Fire Department because I was white. And that goes way back. You know, affirmative action, I think is way predates DEI and all that kind of stuff.

BILL MAHER: But same idea.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, it’s the same thing. It’s basically ecology and then climate change and global warming and all this stuff.

The Complexity of Identity Politics

BILL MAHER: There’s sort of different things. The reason why it’s always problematic is because we do need to compensate in the whole. For the groups in the whole. The problem is that then it’s individuals who actually, in your case, for example, pay the price, you know, for, you know, things you personally didn’t do and your race did.

But you can’t also deny that our race, we have some responsibility. Not responsibility, but complicity, because we benefited from what advantages our entire race have. But then when it gets down to the individual level, you see where the bitterness comes in. I mean, who wouldn’t be bitter if they were just the way blacks felt the same way. I’m being locked out of this job and you don’t know me. You’re not—you’re judging me based on this thing.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah.

BILL MAHER: And so, like, you know, it’s a tough one.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, you know, you bring up a good point. And I kind of experienced it in a weird story, which is I then couldn’t get a job as a fireman. So I wandered onto a construction site and I became a laborer. I just dug ditches and cleaned up garbage for seven bucks an hour. And that was sort of my lot. And then I worked.

BILL MAHER: So what? White people were still doing that?

ADAM CAROLLA: Listen, like I said, poor peoples who I worked with.

BILL MAHER: Right.

ADAM CAROLLA: I did all sorts of carpet cleaning and manual labor and stuff with white, you know, with Todd Euler and Ray Oldhoefer and guys like that. Just dudes, you know, just poor dudes lived in apartments, you know, didn’t have any money and. But there’s an interesting story that at a certain point, I got a job. A job opened up for earthquake rehab for the city of Los Angeles. And it was a prevailing wage to.

BILL MAHER: The one in 94.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, pre. The one in 94. 72 was the first one, I think, and then 94. But they were going to retrofit all these old brick buildings in Koreatown. And this is about 87, maybe 88.

BILL MAHER: I mean, every year they say it’s a big one. It’s coming.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah.

BILL MAHER: And then it’s. And I’m sure it is, but, boy, they. They did kind of boy who cried wolf? Me a little. A lot. I’m sure it. I’m sure the plates are not happy. Those tectonic plates, they’re, you know, they’re. They’re unstable.

ADAM CAROLLA: They’re.

BILL MAHER: They’re like a. They’re like your bipolar girlfriend. It could happen at any minute, or you could have a lovely dinner. I don’t know. It’s. It’s just hard to say. But. Got bad news.

ADAM CAROLLA: This is all unreinforced concrete. So if it hits now, we’re dead.

BILL MAHER: This place is going nowhere.

ADAM CAROLLA: We’re going to be in tune.

BILL MAHER: Going nowhere. This is going nowhere. So be the last thing standing.

The Earthquake Rehab Job

ADAM CAROLLA: So I got this job doing earthquake rehab because it paid like 18 bucks an hour, which was big bucks.

BILL MAHER: They called it rehab.

ADAM CAROLLA: Earthquake rehab? Yeah, Seismic work.

BILL MAHER: They call it California, even.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, The Betty Ford van was parked out front. So I get this job, and it’s a city job, it’s a government job. And they need a certain amount of women and African American. They need representation. Well, we can’t find any black guys who know earthquake rehab.

BILL MAHER: Or don’t forget the lesbians. They.

ADAM CAROLLA: I don’t know if they can check.

BILL MAHER: For that, but they.

ADAM CAROLLA: There were few on there. So we end up with a black man named Chipper. And this guy’s going to college, and it comes from money, but he’s got. He’s going to get this job working earthquake rehab and making good money, and he doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know anything. And he’s. He’s not a carpenter. He’s there. They hired him because he was black, and they need representation on the joint.

BILL MAHER: You’re a carpenter?

ADAM CAROLLA: I was by then, really, because I’d been doing it for about five years before I got there.

BILL MAHER: Use me, Jesus.

ADAM CAROLLA: But here’s the part that’s interesting. There’s a guy on my crew named Jeff who’s always wanted to be a fireman, but he’s white and he can’t get on. So he’s a carpenter, but his dream is to be a fireman. And years later, I ran into this guy, Chip Chipper, the black man carpenter, when I was doing a school function thing years Later, I was already like a celebrity at that point. He said, hi. I said, hey, Adam. Remember all back in the day and everything? And I go, good. And he goes, that guy Jeff, keep in touch with him. I go, no, not really. He was a racist. I go, I don’t think he was. He was a nice guy or whatever. No, he was racist. And I said, why? He said he hated me the whole time. And I realized he hated you because he wanted to be a fireman, but he couldn’t because of his race. And. And you were only hired because you’re black. And that reminded him of that. And he, like, took it out on him. So it creates a weird Hatfield’s and McCoys.

Race and Politics

BILL MAHER: There’s no perfect answers in any of these naughty questions, especially about making right for horrible things that happened in the past. Now I can see people listening to you and saying, oh, Adam, you have a chipper on your shoulder because this happened and it is colored, no pun intended, your views on race politically for all the years that came after. Is that true, sir?

ADAM CAROLLA: By the way, I gave Chip my bags. He didn’t have bags. He didn’t have belt. He didn’t have belts. I gave him a electrician’s bag that I had, and he put it through a Gucci belt and hung it as his bags on the job. And I was always good with Chip. But I do realize that this guy Jeff hated him because of the script being played.

BILL MAHER: Yeah. I mean, that is a microcosm of something that’s happened millions of times, I would imagine, in America. But again, what is the alternative? You always have to ask that question. Is the alternative that we should have done nothing to recompense for the horrible past? No, I don’t think that’s the answer either. You know, it’s hard not to do it and in some way be clumsy about it. We did over. In my view, the woke movement got. Went over its skis or whatever that saying is, and went too far with it. I mean, there were universities, like, I think it was Michigan who had 200 DEI officers.

ADAM CAROLLA: Okay?

BILL MAHER: A college, at the most liberal place in the universe, you need 200. I mean, this is just very Soviet because, you know, What are DEI officers? They’re basically political enforcers, certainly when you have that many. So did they go too far? But this is the story of America with everything these days. Did Biden go too far with letting people in?

ADAM CAROLLA: Of course.

BILL MAHER: No rational person would argue that. And then no rational person would say, yeah, and what Trump did in response to it wasn’t too far the other way with what’s going on in Minneapolis and all this stuff that even his own people hate now. And I just look at this, and I always say to myself, doesn’t anybody want to win this game, this political game? It’s so easy for somebody to win this game, and you both just go to the extremes and lose.

Political Extremes and Signaling

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah. So here’s what I basically say. When they try to force you into a Prius X, amount of people go, I’m getting a Dodge Ram truck, and I’m putting a lift kit on it and some of those truck nuts hanging from the different differential and rolling coal. Right.

BILL MAHER: You know what that is?

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah.

BILL MAHER: What?

ADAM CAROLLA: So wait, hold on one second. I just want to say that when they push you this way.

BILL MAHER: Yep.

ADAM CAROLLA: They. Then a group, a large group goes that way.

BILL MAHER: Yes.

ADAM CAROLLA: But another group splinters off and goes harder the other direction. And now LA, which used to have just Camrys and Honda Civics, has either electric cars or Dodge Ram trucks or.

BILL MAHER: The Musk thing that, that, that. That personnel carrier thing that. What’s the Tesla that.

ADAM CAROLLA: You know, the cyber truck. Yeah. Yes. That sounds like Damnation Alley with George Peppard from 1978. Exactly. I mean, that thing is crazy.

BILL MAHER: It’s an ahole mobile.

ADAM CAROLLA: Okay, Right. But so now we’re at a point where we. Everybody is projecting and everyone is signaling their base. So when you see a white guy and he has Oakley Blade sunglasses on top of his trucker’s hat upside down, you go, okay, that guy’s a Trump voter. And then when you see Gavin Newsom with his legs crossed further than his knees are overlapping each other by 12 inches, the wrong direction, then you go, okay, he’s signaling to his base. The deep knee cross back up here.

BILL MAHER: Yes, I. I totally understand your point about signaling, and I think you’re right. I did not get the memo on Newsom’s legs.

ADAM CAROLLA: What.

BILL MAHER: What is. Is this a thing in the. Is this somewhere on the Tucker Gram that I missed signaling people with his legs?

ADAM CAROLLA: If you watch. If you see pictures of Newsom with the leg cross, it Is that. Okay, first off, guys would do this a lot.

BILL MAHER: I do it. I do it, too, because I’m a guy.

ADAM CAROLLA: And then women would do a sort of this. Yeah, but the deeper the blue you get, the deeper, more compressive, the further it gets across. When you see pictures of Newsom with his legs crossed, it’s insane. And the thing that’s funny is Trump sits with his knees apart, and then he makes a diamond with his thumb and forefinger, and he puts it in front of his nut sack and says, focus on this.

BILL MAHER: Plus the giant tie pointing to him.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right. If you see Justin Trudeau or Gavin Newsom or any of these people do panel their legs. And if the guy is from the New York Times who’s interviewing him, he’s got the super deep leg cross, too. It’s sort of a signal to the base.

BILL MAHER: I must. I didn’t know about all that.

ADAM CAROLLA: Oh, yes.

BILL MAHER: Okay. I’m learning. That’s why we do this show, for learning. But I must say, I always thought it was a little weird when men cross their legs like you’re describing. Nothing wrong with it. Just. But it was just not how I cross my legs. It just. It just. There’s something about it that. I’m sorry, it’s just not manly.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

BILL MAHER: And you’re saying that this is a signal.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes, it is.

BILL MAHER: You can see it. You don’t think it just could be. That’s how they do it.

ADAM CAROLLA: It’s more than a coincidence that it is almost strictly the domain of the liberal politician and the liberal who does these super deep.

BILL MAHER: I’m going to need to, like. I want to signal that I’m a centrist. I’m not that guy, but I’m not this ahole.

ADAM CAROLLA: No.

BILL MAHER: Okay, so I’m here.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right. But the thing about Newsom is. Newsom isn’t here. Here was a woman in a mini skirt doing panel on Carson in the. In the seventies. He’s further than. Here he goes. I’m telling you, Bill. Yes.

BILL MAHER: Maybe it’s just a flex on how flexible he is.

ADAM CAROLLA: I’m telling you, Obama does the deep one.

BILL MAHER: I mean, Chris Christie couldn’t do it.

ADAM CAROLLA: No. Oh, no. I mean, Pritzker and Chris Christie. No. I mean, they. If you see Obama, if you see Newsom, Justin Trudeau deep. I think if you saw pictures of them ten years ago, you wouldn’t see the deep cross.

BILL MAHER: You think Obama does it.

ADAM CAROLLA: Obama does the deep cross, too. Yeah, Obama. He’s signaling that he’s progressive.

BILL MAHER: Well, but he’s. But he’s centrist and he’s very. I always thought he was. I mean, I’m a big fan.

ADAM CAROLLA: I think he may be, but I think he thinks his base or who he’s talking to is not that he.

BILL MAHER: Did get more leftist after he left office. I mean, the party in general did. I mean, Biden was much to the left of the Obama administration.

ADAM CAROLLA: Biden administration, Yes, I agree. But then Clinton was, you know, I mean, when you. When they pull these clips up of these guys talking about immigration from 20 years ago. It just.

BILL MAHER: I never saw a picture of Clinton crossing his legs because he was always getting blown. He was getting blown and the girl was blocking it.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right?

BILL MAHER: So I think that said something.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, he didn’t want to crush her hat by.

BILL MAHER: Okay, well I I learned so much.

ADAM CAROLLA: Oh, you’re going to see Bill.

Trump’s Second Term and America’s Future

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So what’s your, are you optimistic about where we are now?

ADAM CAROLLA: Are you?

BILL MAHER: I mean, it’s one year into the Trump second regime. It’s the beginning of the year. It’s a good time to assess, maybe predict, just, you know, take your temperature on where you feel. How do you think 2026 is going to end? I mean, I just turned 70, so it’s a big milestone year for me.

ADAM CAROLLA: Wow.

BILL MAHER: Yes.

ADAM CAROLLA: Congrats.

BILL MAHER: I love it when you get so old they congratulate you for being alive.

ADAM CAROLLA: And you walked here, congratulate you.

BILL MAHER: So, yeah, so it’s, I, to me, it’s a, you know, any year that ends in six is a big year. New decade starts, you almost feel younger because now you have a zero at the end.

ADAM CAROLLA: That’s right. But really you’re in overtime.

BILL MAHER: Not quite. Not in this country.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, no, no.

BILL MAHER: Russia. I would be.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah.

BILL MAHER: That’s why I’m not Russian.

ADAM CAROLLA: I think that if Trump, I think ultimately, you know, people care about gas prices and egg prices and, you know, stability and, you know, their paycheck and affordability and basic stuff. You know, can you afford a house and stuff like that? I think if Trump comes through with all that stuff, then I think most of America will sort of be okay with it.

I don’t think the Democrats are going to be okay with it because they’re going to sort of agitate. And I think essentially the plan is chaos and agitation and then a sort of a “Don’t you want this to stop?” And most people do.

BILL MAHER: And it’s, it’s actually the Democrats are agitating.

ADAM CAROLLA: I do really well.

BILL MAHER: I mean, there’s some agitating on the right. Come on. I mean, ICE is agitating.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: But even they’re admitting it now.

ADAM CAROLLA: But they go to states and municipalities where they just go do their job and there isn’t shots and bottles and they do.

BILL MAHER: And I always like to look from, you know, as a history major, like, what will the historians say when they write about this in a hundred years? Well, first of all, a lot of shit will have happened. So it’ll only get a paragraph. And that paragraph will probably begin with because the Biden administration went so far with letting in illegal immigrants. There was a backlash that followed in the Trump and then blah, blah, blah. And all his excesses there.

So everything, every action is a reaction. We have to acknowledge that. But we are living in the present, okay? And in the present, I mean, I said this to Senator Kennedy on the show last week, you’re going to get the dog shit kicked out of you in the midterms, because this is not what people voted for.

Trump’s down with all the people who he won back to degrees they didn’t think possible when he won in 2024. I mean, he did better with minorities and Hispanics and young people. They’ve all went like, oh, well, you blew it. So I don’t think, to me, that’s not even. I mean, I would bet the House on that, that the Democrats are going to win big in the midterms.

ADAM CAROLLA: I think. I think what people want sort of micro and macro is they don’t want chaos. And if there’s chaos, they’ll vote to stop the chaos. And anyone who’s been married will tell you, like, look, I, you know, she’s wrong. She’s. I don’t disagree with all this shit, but just turn the page. Like, I just don’t want to deal with the chaos.

And so I think that’s kind of Democratic strategy, which is the chaos will end when we get rid of this guy or when we’re in charge. I do think they’re causing the chaos, but I think it’s part of a strategy, and I think it’s a good. I think it’s what’s going to win.

Marriage, Divorce, and Relationships

BILL MAHER: I know someone who got divorced recently, and I was, as always with married people, shocked to hear it, because married people are geniuses at hiding it until it’s announced. And she said, “When we stop fighting, that’s when you know it’s over.” And I thought that was really so. Not that I’ve ever been married, but I certainly know that feeling.

ADAM CAROLLA: Like, no, there is.

BILL MAHER: When the woman stops fighting, it’s like, okay, you’re not even worth fighting with.

ADAM CAROLLA: It’s like when the football coach stops yelling at you. That’s the bad part, because he’s lost, right? He doesn’t find any potential left in you. He doesn’t think you could be better player than you are. Like, when you get ignored, that’s when you should worry.

BILL MAHER: Is that what happened in your marriage?

ADAM CAROLLA: No, I don’t. My marriage is weird. I. I didn’t. There wasn’t, you know, the stuff you fight over in a marriage. You know, if they did the list of the top five things couples fight over, you know, money.

BILL MAHER: Money is number one by far.

ADAM CAROLLA: Not an argument, you know.

BILL MAHER: No, they have surveys about it.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah. Money, right. How to raise the children, you know, that’s two.

BILL MAHER: That’s number two.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah. Infidelity, you know what I mean? Like, there’s all the sort of top things people fight over.

BILL MAHER: Lack of affection.

ADAM CAROLLA: That could. Could have cracked my top 10.

BILL MAHER: No, I’m saying that’s on their list.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, yeah, that’s the. We didn’t.

BILL MAHER: From both sides.

ADAM CAROLLA: We didn’t really have the stuff that most people have, which is peculiar, you know.

BILL MAHER: You didn’t have any of that.

ADAM CAROLLA: We didn’t. We never fought about money or how we’re going to raise the kids or who’s cooking my meals or anything that. That could. We didn’t fight over that either.

BILL MAHER: But that could have been an issue. I bet you you did. You didn’t say it, but, like. Because men and women define affection very differently.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes, that’s true.

BILL MAHER: Right.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, it’s true. I mean, what I do is I do things for women like, I built you this gazebo. They go, I don’t care. They don’t stroke my hair.

BILL MAHER: Exactly.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, I know. I get it. It’s a flawed relationship from jump street because we’re speaking two different languages under the same roof, essentially.

BILL MAHER: Usually that is. I mean, you can find your way out of it. Thank you, Jesus. But I mean, that is the norm. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. That whole thing, and that’s a key part of it, is that a man’s idea of affection is a blow job. You know, between the 11 o’clock news and when the late night shows come on.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: A woman’s idea of affection is, you know, three days of listening or something. You know, I mean, it’s just. It’s just crazily different.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, I mean, we are very different. And I think part of the fix we’re in from a society standpoint is trying to pretend like we’re not. For the last 20 years, you know, women should have careers, go to work and for. They don’t need kids. They define them and that sort of.

BILL MAHER: We shouldn’t say they should have careers, but they certainly can, right?

ADAM CAROLLA: No. Everyone can have everything. But I feel like we’re trying to talk women out of an imperative that has not been healthy for them.

Women’s Liberation and Life Choices

BILL MAHER: There was a conservative kicker, Harrison Butker, for the Chiefs, who was destroyed over this. Not destroyed. So he lost his job because he can still kick good and good. And I defended him. And I remember starting out saying, I have nothing in common with this guy. He’s a super Christian, you know, he’s whole about the family and the wife and having kids and blah, blah, blah.

And all he was saying was like, you know, whatever. Like my people like, hey, shout out to the ladies who want to have kids. It’s like, okay, that’s your view. And then they just. There was some, I think it was the ESPYs and people got on stage, went like, everybody here should be happy to be here except for you. And they literally pointed him out by name in the crowd kind of thing.

That makes me fing hate the far left assholes who do that in their fing bad attitude. That’s just his view. And you know, a woman once said to me, that is women’s liberation too. If you want to have children, if that’s your goal in life, if that’s what you think you were put on earth for and you don’t want to go to an office, that’s liberation too. You should be able to do that without being shamed for it.

And you know, this is a lot of the country who thinks this way. Like have kids, you know, meet a football player and settle down. I mean, fing Taylor Swift is always going out with these gay English guys and then she meets a fing man meat from America and she’s happy. Okay, that’s not everybody, but obviously that’s some people and don’t shame them.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, she was going out with the electric cars and then she got the Dodge Ram and now she’s happy with the gun rack. We’ll be right back.

BILL MAHER: That’s great. If I was doing an old fashioned show, that would have been a great place to take the commercial break. Such a great line.

COVID, Health, and Body Positivity

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, thanks. And yes, I completely agree with you. And it drives me nuts when people. But it drove me nuts when during COVID you were talking about exercise and losing weight. No sugar and no sugar, no sugar. And everyone was trying to assassinate you.

BILL MAHER: Crazy person.

ADAM CAROLLA: He’s just saying diet and exercise, why does that make him the worst?

BILL MAHER: Well, but I also was saying that what they didn’t do, shame on them. Was ever have the balls to say to Americans who were dying, the things you’re dying from are old age, which you can’t do anything about, and obesity, which you can, but we’re too f*ing scared to say to you.

If Ozempic had come along a couple of years earlier, they could have been there. But we were still in the you can be healthy at any weight insanity.

ADAM CAROLLA: We were in the Lizzo fat stage.

The Ozempic Debate and Body Positivity

BILL MAHER: Lizzo looks great in her bikini. I remember seeing that headline, right? And you know what? Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder. You can think Lizzo looks great in a bikini. I’m a little different.

ADAM CAROLLA: You cannot not be driving that Ram truck. You cannot.

BILL MAHER: No, but some people do. But science is not in the eye of the beholder. I agree. From the people who are like, we’re the science people. But in the science.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, listen, doctors traditionally have told you the same thing for the last 40 years. They go, quit smoking, lose weight. Now they’re just, quit smoking. And you do you well.

BILL MAHER: And now they say, quit smoking and do Ozempic, because suddenly the body positivity thing. Oh, I don’t remember ever. Yeah, you said it all the time. Now you don’t say it because you have Ozempic. So you can actually do what I was saying all along, which is lose weight.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: Because the body is not listening to your nonsense. The body is following what the body follows, which is biology.

ADAM CAROLLA: I have an Ozempic issue, and I’m curious.

BILL MAHER: Oh, I got many.

Discipline vs. Quick Fixes

ADAM CAROLLA: If you agree with it or not. I have a problem with it in that. And most people go, well, so what? You know, you lose the weight. It’s important. Oprah tells you, you know, it’s a genetic thing, and you got to do it. You got to listen. Why do we listen to Oprah? But all right, she’s going to tell you, whatever.

I have a problem. That’s not about weight. It’s more about discipline. I believe that an important part of life is discipline. And everybody I know who’s successful has discipline. They and everyone historically who’s ever been successful, they get up, they do their homework, they show up.

BILL MAHER: There are exceptions. And they’re called musicians. Right?

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: Musicians do not need discipline. They don’t.

ADAM CAROLLA: But listen, they don’t even have to.

BILL MAHER: Go on stage nearly at the hour that they said they were going to.

ADAM CAROLLA: That. That.

BILL MAHER: And people still put up with it. They can show up three hours late because they were watching a football game that they did not want to miss.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes, Axl Rose can show up that late. That is true.

BILL MAHER: He’s hardly the only one.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right. No, that is. That is true. But at some point, they sat in their basement and practiced the guitar for 11 hours a day.

BILL MAHER: Yeah, they did.

ADAM CAROLLA: And they had that. And now they can do it drunk and late, but they can still. There was a discipline. And to me, discipline is super important in life. It really helps. It helps kids. It helps adults. Everything good out of life sort of comes from delayed gratification and discipline and diet and exercise is really the daily discipline reminder.

If you really think about, you know, if you think about I’m climbing Mount Everest. All right? But that’s a once in a lifetime discipline, you know, or I’m going to get my pilot’s license or some other thing that’s a discipline. Or there’s boot camp in the Marines, but diet. Every single day you wake up and you go, God, I’d love some Pop Tarts. And then a little voice in your head goes, no, no, no, no, no, don’t do it. Don’t do it. You know what I mean? And that’s you exercising discipline and do.

BILL MAHER: You keep Pop Tarts in the house?

ADAM CAROLLA: No, I would never. I wouldn’t bring them in the house. But I will tell you this, and I have one more reason to hate.

BILL MAHER: Do you keep Pop Tarts in the house? I want answers to your customs, God damn it.

ADAM CAROLLA: Just the fruity ones, never the chocolate.

BILL MAHER: These are the hard hitting questions that you get on this show.

ADAM CAROLLA: I’ll tell you, Bill, do you keep.

BILL MAHER: Pop Tarts in the house?

ADAM CAROLLA: Not like you’re ever going to have any kids. But one more reason not to have kids is Pop Tarts will be in the house. And when you have kids, you open the pantry and you see a line of Pop Tarts and breakfast cereals, cookies and s’mores, and you just go, yeah. Oh, my God. And then you open the. You open the fridge and it’s all the pizzas and Italian takeout and pasta and all the carbs and all the Fruity Pebbles.

BILL MAHER: Fruity.

ADAM CAROLLA: It’s all there.

BILL MAHER: I had Fruity Pebbles in my pantry once.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, that. That’s not. That’s.

BILL MAHER: That was my girlfriend.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah. Yes. That’s the kids in the pot. That’s not. Okay. So I open. You open your. You open the fridge at night and you’ll find a whole pizza in there that they ate, you know, half of. Or. And then.

BILL MAHER: But they can get away with it because.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, they can. But you’re there, right? And you had a drink and you’re starting to look at those Pop Tarts in a real loving way. And then a point in your brain kicks in and goes, no, no, don’t. Don’t do it. Right? Do it. And that’s the same thing that Sundays, do another 10 minutes on the treadmill, right? You’re working, right? You’re work.

BILL MAHER: You’re doing the monologue for your show.

ADAM CAROLLA: And you’re tired and you want to watch TV. But no, no, no, no, no. Let’s give it a little more time. You got a book, There’s a date.

BILL MAHER: I have got to be published. Never phoned in. One minute. One minute. I’ve never phoned in one minute of Politically Incorrect. Real Time. 33 years on TV that you can’t get me on.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, I. Absolutely. Once in a while I do.

BILL MAHER: You know, yes, you’re right, mostly. But what I usually tell myself in those moments is I know you want to give in to the, you know, short term, save it for when you really need it.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: Because sometimes you do really need it.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right?

BILL MAHER: Right. Sometimes you have to give in. And it is the right thing to do to have the Pop Tart. Right, Right.

ADAM CAROLLA: Said it.

BILL MAHER: Sometimes it’s the right thing to have the Pop Tart.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, what I’m saying is the diet is an everyday sort of exercise. It’s. It’s gravity. It’s always on top of you, and it never goes away. And you don’t know how many times a day you discipline yourself to go. I mean, how many? I can’t tell you how many. I work with young people, you know, and, and, and I’m there during the day, and they go, we’re going to the Habit or going to In N Out Burger. We’re doing a lunch run. You want anything, boss? And I go, yes, I do. That’s what my brain thinks. Like, I want a double double and fries, smothered. And I go, no, no, I’m, I’m good.

BILL MAHER: I’m in a restaurant, the waiter says, would you like a drink to start? Right, yeah, I’d like it.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: But I’m not going to order it.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: Because I don’t drink except here.

ADAM CAROLLA: And then dessert. Me too. That’s why I’d appreciate not taking three years off because I need a pop. But no. And then dessert, we got key lime pie. And you’re like, ah, but, you know, so I think Ozempic is great for weight loss but bad for discipline.

Supporting Truth Tellers

BILL MAHER: You’re so right. I’ve said I made the same point as much as I can. And boy, of all the third rails you can touch in America, this is the one that they just cannot accept. You cannot be honest about obesity. And it’s like, I’m always. First of all, I never do the cheap jokes about it. And believe me, those jokes are submitted. I could. I’m just trying to state the facts and say it outright.

And I remember, you know, James Corden, you remember that when he went after me and you probably defended me, you know, you have been before. I get too stoned to forget to mention this. You’ve been so supportive of our little enterprise here, and we appreciate it so much. Well, you’re telling the truth.

ADAM CAROLLA: And as are.

BILL MAHER: Yeah, as are you. I mean, it’s just. It’s just. But it’s very appreciated because, you know, so it’s so hard to not be on one of the extremes.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

BILL MAHER: To not have a team. I mean, it just really sucks. And especially in this town where everyone’s on one team and it’s. And it’s not. I mean, as I always say to my woke friends, we voted for the same person. You’re just why she lost.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: And they do not like that.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: They are very exclusionary.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

BILL MAHER: You know, they really just don’t want to breathe the same air. If you’re not exactly with the group, think.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

BILL MAHER: Which is, while they’re not that bright.

Finding Common Ground

ADAM CAROLLA: I know. And it’s set. It’s counterintuitive to me because I always feel like you should be looking for things you agree on, not looking for things you disagree on. And it just makes life so much easier and so much better. And it’s almost like saying, look, we like to go out to dinner. Let’s not try to figure out what food you hate and I love. Let’s try to figure out the food we both love and let’s go enjoy ourselves.

And it’s pretty easy to do because if you think about most people who you may disagree with or maybe I disagree with, it’s not. It’s not 10 out of 10 things. It’s. We agree on 8 out of 10 things, and maybe we have a disagreement about 2 out of 10 things. People say to me all the time, oh, you’re, you know, Republican and right leaning. I go, listen, I don’t own a gun. I’m not religious at all. I’m for abortion and pot smoking and everything. How. How right can I be?

BILL MAHER: You put your finger on the thing that makes me so incensed about the woke and the far left, which is this, that they. They want to characterize people. You, me, Barry Weiss, you know, who’s a lesbian, and Jewish. Things that used to be our. We need no further credentials to let you know that we are certainly not conservatives. We’re not right wingers. We’re not whatever you think. And yet it’s never enough for them. It’s never enough that we’re just not willing to go along with your insanity. That doesn’t make us conservatives.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right. No, I agree. I Agree. Barry’s great and there’s many people that way. And again, it’s interesting because they feel compelled to put you somewhere. And if you don’t conform and identity problems, it doesn’t work. Yes. Then they have an issue with it. But I think. Well, first off, here’s the thing. Imagine if you had to conform. I mean, imagine if COVID came around and you just had to go in. I did all in on all of it.

BILL MAHER: I did have to conform. I didn’t want the vaccine at all. Not that I’m against all vaccines, just I didn’t think I needed that one. But I had to have it. I couldn’t have continued my life.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: They wouldn’t have let me do the show and I had to do it here. I did it in this room.

The Need for Nuance

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, that’s. That’s basically what I’m saying. Let’s talk about the vaccine. The vaccine came around and COVID came around and I have twins and at the time, boy, girl with the f*ing Pop Tarts. God damn it. And There were like 14, you know, and 14. There were 14 at the time of COVID And I had at the time elderly parents.

And so people would come to me and they go, what about the vaccine? And I would go, well, my elderly mom and my elderly dad should get the vaccine and my kids shouldn’t get the vaccine. And they go, so you’re against vaccines? And it’s like, can we have a little f*ing nuance here, you idiots?

BILL MAHER: That is such a perfect microcosm of reasonableness to me.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right?

BILL MAHER: Yes. 14 and 94 are different.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

BILL MAHER: And if you don’t see that, you are not the science people.

The Science of Vaccines and Personal Health

ADAM CAROLLA: No, you’re actually anti-science. Because my 14-year-olds don’t need it at all. Because health. They’re healthy, thin and active and my elderly parents do. And so that’s where I come down on this. Why is that an issue? I don’t even get why that’s even a thing. Why would you even say anything about it?

BILL MAHER: No, that’s such a, it’s like the perfect example to prove why we, you know, I say this like we should. Like we’re going to do anything. I say we should, but we should come to the middle where there is always to literally every problem that seems so intractable. There really is some pretty easy, if people would just stop being so extreme. Middle ground, grand bargain.

We used to have grand bargains in this country where they would, each side would come to the table and they would understand we’re not going to get everything. You know, we’re going to get Greenland, but we’re not going to actually own it with the deed.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right, right.

The Greenland Question

BILL MAHER: Come on. I mean, look, is he the first guy to ever suggest we should have Greenland? No, he’s not. I mean, so there’s that side, like, and I always bitch about the media. It’s like you never read the whole story in either organ. You have to read something from both sides to get the full story.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: So, like, I never read in the, or read in the leftist press that, no, he’s not the first president to even suggest this. Like, presidents have thought about Greenland before.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

BILL MAHER: Okay, but then of course, it’s insane to say we’re going to take it by force. That was crazy. But, you know, Greenland. Is it the craziest idea anybody has ever had? No. And could it be super valuable? Yes. Is it worth, like making the whole world hate us?

ADAM CAROLLA: No.

BILL MAHER: You know, again, there’s always just a middle ground, even on something like Greenland, which, by the way, before he came along, I’d never been thinking about.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, I agree.

BILL MAHER: He does, but maybe we should have. Maybe we should have. That’s also should be on the table. Maybe we should have.

Trump’s Bold Ideas

ADAM CAROLLA: I agree. I don’t, you know, I don’t know if there’s a, you know, I don’t. You know, Trump has, well, he has like, he has bunches of different ideas. He has, you know, let’s make Canada the 51st state. But I think he’s just talking, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t know that he really thinks that. Then he has stuff like, let’s move the embassy from Tel Aviv to, you know, wherever in Israel.

BILL MAHER: Jerusalem. Jerusalem, which, which every president had on his desk. They just pocket vetoed it for administration after administration. It always should have happened. And he did it right. And I make no apologies for giving him complete credit for doing the right thing that everybody said they were going to do and then they didn’t have the balls to do it.

ADAM CAROLLA: But the left said the Middle East is going to be on fire if you do it. Nothing happens. And nothing happens. Right. So there’s a lot.

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BILL MAHER: It’s been the Jewish capital since 1000 BC.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right. So, so then there’s the stuff he does do that everyone says is never going to work, but it does. And then there’s the stuff he doesn’t do that he probably never was going to do. But most interestingly enough, I guess with Trump is he brings up a lot of stuff where you go, I never thought of that. I never thought about Greenland.

BILL MAHER: I always call him President “I’ve got an idea.” There’s just not anything he surveys that he doesn’t think he can fix, whether it’s the ballroom, the lack of at the, which, by the way, I don’t give a s* about either way. Or the Kennedy Center or NATO or Greenland or, you know, credit card rates are too high.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, but he does do a thing like sometimes somebody goes, why don’t we take Palestine and make it into a golf resort and have beautiful, it’ll be like Miami Beach, you know? And I go, you know, everyone’s first impulses, this is outrageous. And then the next one is like, well, I don’t know. Maybe there’s something there, you know?

Gaza and Western Civilization

BILL MAHER: Of course, he’s always over the top, the way he describes anything. But the idea that Gaza could have always been Abu Dhabi, which is not a golf resort, but which is a very successful Western, shall we say, influenced culture, still a Middle Eastern country, obviously, that is rich and doing well, and the citizens are prospering. Other people have said that for decades.

Gaza could have been that. Israel gave it back. Gave it back. It wasn’t a negotiation. It was like, okay, you know what? You take it. And what did they do? They imported missiles from Iran and built tunnels and did nothing but try to destroy Israel. That’s what they did with their independence. That is not the fault of Zionists or anybody else in the world but them. Yes, that’s what they did from 2005 when they had it all to their own. They could have made it Abu Dhabi.

No, it shouldn’t be Miami Beach, either. Look, Miami Beach itself is too much for me. I once thought about moving to Miami Beach when the pollution here got so bad I couldn’t see the sun for a week. But I pulled back.

ADAM CAROLLA: They created what they’re living in. And I don’t know why that’s so controversial. You know, I don’t know why we are so, because energized with that.

BILL MAHER: I have a list of like 30 important things that Trump has done in the first year that I am against and that I do not like. But his idea, his just sort of macro 30,000-foot idea that Western civilization is the civilization we should defend and that it is under attack and that Israel is the front line in that fight is right.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

BILL MAHER: And I am aligned with that point of view. Does he carry it out the way I would like? No, he carries nothing out the way I would like. But I can’t deny that that’s the truth, too. Western civilization, I believe in it, yes.

The elements of it that we, that everyone in this country, not everyone, but lots of people, just take for granted, your free speech and your right to wear what you want and be who and love who you want. This is not everywhere in the world. And this civilization that you seem to want to promote to this status of being the downtrodden people who deserve our most heartfelt sympathy, well, that’s also the civilization that is most oppressive to women and gay people and other people that are sort of important to your coalition.

America Compared to Utopia

ADAM CAROLLA: I thought, well, I think of it this way, which is America is constantly comparing itself to some civilization that never existed, some utopian, you know, civilization. And it’s really, I mean, it’s really this because, you know, it’s like, you know, we invented slavery. We were the only country in the world that ever engaged in this and stuff.

BILL MAHER: I got to stop you, because there are people listening to this. I hope not many, because we have a very smart audience who heard you say sarcastically, “we invented slavery.” And they went, “yeah, we did.”

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah.

BILL MAHER: Because there are lots of people who think that, right?

ADAM CAROLLA: Okay, so we didn’t. Every nation and every civilization had slaves. And we were probably late to the slave war.

BILL MAHER: Wasn’t even really usually about race because they did it with people because travel was so difficult. Who lived near them?

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: Who looked like them?

ADAM CAROLLA: Everybody’s involved with this. And we had a war to stop it. And so all we can do is sort of compare ourselves to civilizations that either exist now or before. So it’s almost like saying, you know, it’s like saying, oh, you know, the Seattle Seahawks, 13 and 3 or 14 and 3 or whatever. Bitch. Big whoop. What about this team that never existed that went 17-0 for the last thousand years and won every Super Bowl? It’s like no team has done that. You can compare yourself to other teams in the league.

BILL MAHER: Didn’t the Dolphins go 17 and oh?

ADAM CAROLLA: And they went, I think 14-0 or something. Maybe it was before the 17-game season, maybe with the playoffs.

BILL MAHER: I think it was a 14-game season.

ADAM CAROLLA: 14-game season, then playoffs and whatever. Yes. One team ran the table one time.

BILL MAHER: I’m just saying don’t s* on Don Shula, Douglas Presley or Pop Tarts or Larry.

ADAM CAROLLA: Zonka when you’re here, right? Never. But one team did it once. It’s been 50 years. So here’s what I’m saying. We don’t compare ourselves to a team that never existed, that never lost the Super Bowl and never lost a game. We have to compare ourselves to other teams in the league.

BILL MAHER: Yes.

ADAM CAROLLA: And we are essentially the Pittsburgh Steelers that’s done a lot of winning and had won a bunch of Super Bowls or maybe the 49ers or whatever it is. And then other places are the Cleveland Browns and they’ve never won a Super Bowl and they don’t have, they don’t have more than 500 type seasons. They’re always, there’s deficits. But the whole point is, is why are we comparing ourselves to teams that never existed?

American Ideals and Reality

BILL MAHER: Or to put it another way, have we not lived up to our ideals? Of course we have not. We’re humans and compromises have to be made. But the ideals that everybody around the world, including those who s* on us want us to live up to, we created, right?

ADAM CAROLLA: We got, we created those ideals.

BILL MAHER: Could we get a little credit for trial by jury? A little credit for equal rights for minorities? A leak, you know, freedom of the press? These things weren’t like given to us when they were, you know, in 2001 throwing the apes and throwing the bone.

ADAM CAROLLA: Up in the air.

BILL MAHER: They had to be won. Hard, hard winning fights, hard battles that we had to take, undertake to get to these places. People didn’t just come along.

ADAM CAROLLA: There’s also kind of a bottom line, which is if we’re as whatevers you guys all say we are, why is everyone trying to get here? And if we’re so oppressive to minorities and people of color and people who look different than us, why are they the number one group who’s trying to get into this country? You do the math. I mean, there’s a, there’s a, there’s.

BILL MAHER: A lack of perspective. My complaint is just, it’s never that, you know, we, I’m not saying you don’t study slavery.

ADAM CAROLLA: Of course.

BILL MAHER: Even when I was a kid, we studied slavery and we were told it was bad. Did we obsess about it?

ADAM CAROLLA: No.

BILL MAHER: Maybe we should have a little more. But I mean, I was in 8th grade history class. I remember this with a conservative teacher. I remember this guy. I remember my parents didn’t especially like him. They thought he was and he was. But of course in those days they didn’t put back that out very much in the classroom.

But even as an 8th grade kid, I could kind of read between the lines. I remember there was a demonstration about the Vietnam War and he kind of let us know. He took a dim view of that. Okay, fine, but we didn’t get too political. But even with this guy, I got it. Slavery bad.

ADAM CAROLLA: I saw Roots with my mom in North Hollywood in our—

BILL MAHER: But your mom was never there and—

ADAM CAROLLA: Now you watch Roots.

BILL MAHER: I didn’t watch Roots with her mom.

ADAM CAROLLA: She never left the house, so she was always there. She just didn’t have basic cable.

BILL MAHER: Wait a second, Adam. Girl, I feel like I have just been taken in by a sob story. And now you tell me you let it slip because you’re drunk that you eat Pop Tarts and you watched Roots with your mom.

ADAM CAROLLA: That’s right.

BILL MAHER: Tell me about it. Tell me about that experience.

ADAM CAROLLA: I think Alex Haley was probably a seven part series.

BILL MAHER: Yes.

ADAM CAROLLA: An odd number series.

BILL MAHER: I remember it so vividly. I was in college. It certainly got on everybody’s radar. It was January. It was—I remember it aired in January when everyone was inside, nobody was out, it was freezing cold. And there it was, this groundbreaking. And it was great.

And I remember it had in it an actor who was one of my favorite actors because he was the star of Combat.

ADAM CAROLLA: He later—Oh, LeVar Burton.

BILL MAHER: No, no, no.

ADAM CAROLLA: That’s a joke. Morrow. Vic Morrow.

BILL MAHER: Vic Morrow, who was the star of Combat.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

BILL MAHER: The greatest show ever. Which Steven Spielberg made into the greatest movie ever called Saving Private Ryan. Greatest combat episode ever.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

BILL MAHER: But Vic Morrow, unfortunately later lost his head filming a movie. Literally.

ADAM CAROLLA: That was the craziest thing with the helicopter crash. Two kids.

BILL MAHER: Well, it wasn’t a crash. The blade cut his head off.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, yeah. No, I mean, the helicopter crashed and the blade cut his head off. It was also holding two kids.

BILL MAHER: Children. Two. But they survived, right?

ADAM CAROLLA: No, no, no.

BILL MAHER: They died too.

ADAM CAROLLA: Would you think it’s possible for him to hold two four year olds and have a helicopter blade go across his chest?

Lessons from Roots

BILL MAHER: Anyway, let’s get back to Roots, a subject you’re trying to avoid because it exposes your lie about your bad childhood.

ADAM CAROLLA: I watched it with my mom and the whole time she just looked at me and she went, “Do you see how bad we are? Do you see what happens?”

BILL MAHER: I see a parent caring for you. There. That’s what I see. The parent caring and asking and trying to teach you a lesson by watching Roots with you.

ADAM CAROLLA: The lesson was learned.

BILL MAHER: What was it?

ADAM CAROLLA: We are evil. We have a horrible history and this is all our fault. And that’s the message that stuck with me. But I learned it as you learned it. This thing where it’s like they’re trying to erase history. It’s like—

BILL MAHER: What do you mean?

ADAM CAROLLA: I’m totally aware of this. I feel like everyone is aware of it. And I don’t—I don’t feel like there’s anyone who can escape it at this, at this time.

BILL MAHER: I’m not sure that all the time in Mississippi, they were teaching that Lincoln’s birthday was a great thing.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: I’m not sure about that. And they did call it—they did not call it the Civil War. They called it the War of Northern Aggression.

ADAM CAROLLA: In Mississippi, I believe in the south.

BILL MAHER: In the south, there was that. You can, you know, please go to the stacks, look at the microfiber. Am I behind the times on this?

ADAM CAROLLA: Okay. No, no. I was looking at microfiche earlier. Yeah. I pulled my Stutz Bearcat into the library and I got my raccoon coat out and I said, do you know what?

BILL MAHER: Oh, it was after that, I said—

ADAM CAROLLA: Twenty-two skidoo to the library.

BILL MAHER: No, no, no. We’re talking about the 1980s. Yeah, I know, but—Yeah, but I think you will find that in the Southern states there is a different view of it, but in general, we acknowledge it.

And what I was trying to tell, for example, Marshawn Lynch was here recently. And I don’t feel like he really had been apprised of the idea that slavery had occurred all over the world throughout history, you know, and I tried to make the case that humans are not good people. It’s just not whites that are not good people. Humans are not good people. No, I mean obviously they all basically act the same.

ADAM CAROLLA: Africans were very involved with the slave trade.

BILL MAHER: They’re very involved.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right. And so we have a narrative and the narrative is one that paints a kind of a picture that is not totally accurate. And by the way, if you were—if I was Marshawn Lynch and this is kind of my problem, I guess with the media, which is if somebody said to me, “Look, cops shoot black people and they shoot white people and they sort of equal opportunity offenders,” then I would go, okay.

But if the narrative is black people have a target on their back and cops are gunning for them and they’re not welcome in this society and there’s systemic racism, then that would be very agitating to a black person. Well, I would assume it’s also what I call a zombie, like, right.

BILL MAHER: What? Was it true? Of course it was true. Could you find it true in pockets of America today? Possibly.

Police Encounters and Compliance

ADAM CAROLLA: What percentage of cop shootings or cop anything’s fatalities or whatever would go away if the person just 100% complied with whatever the orders were, roll the window down or hands on the wheel, whatever, whatever people think is demeaning or beyond the scope of his ability. I contend it would all go away.

BILL MAHER: I will give you that point.

ADAM CAROLLA: Almost every bad cop killing that we hate, that if the person white or black, because we’ve seen white now in Minneapolis, if the person just went, “Whatever you need, okay, I’ll do it.” It would end tomorrow.

BILL MAHER: I will give you that point.

ADAM CAROLLA: And there could still be bad cop shootings.

BILL MAHER: Okay, but, but I’m going to give you that point. Give me, give me this point.

ADAM CAROLLA: Okay.

BILL MAHER: Okay, here’s the deal. Here’s our grand bargain.

ADAM CAROLLA: Our grand—

BILL MAHER: I’ll give you that bargain, that point. You. Yes. If you don’t f with the cops, you will probably not get shot. Also the cops have to have different training so that job one isn’t “If you don’t respect me to the utmost degree, I get to fing shoot you.”

A lot of them just have a bad attitude. That’s what we saw with the one this last week in Minneapolis, this Alex Preddy guy. Okay. What he did basically was not conform to doing what you—exactly what you—And yes, you should, but also it can’t be means for an execution.

The cops are—it attracts too many people, that job. Who want to be bullies, give people a badge. It’s a license to be an ahole. Now some of that is going to have to get in. That’s just the job. Okay. Yes, but you could have training that tries to ameliorate that issue, that problem that if you just don’t do exactly what I say, I have the right to f*ing kill you.

ADAM CAROLLA: You—

BILL MAHER: That’s got to go away. The sign on the door says to protect and serve. That—that refers to us, not us, not you.

ADAM CAROLLA: I agree. I agree. But here’s where I think Pop Tart—Pop Tart. Here’s where I think you may be wrong.

BILL MAHER: Not that we’re two drunks, I don’t know who are just like ranting. That’s not what this show is. Two guys at the corner of the bar just ranting at each other. My legs like a straight guy.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah.

BILL MAHER: I don’t know who, who makes the rumors up.

ADAM CAROLLA: I think there’s a problem. And the problem is human nature. I don’t know about training 23 year olds. If you have a gun and it’s strapped to your hip and some guy’s calling you a sucker for the last two hours and spitting in your face, you have a gun strapped to your—And you played a little football in junior college.

BILL MAHER: I don’t know a human being.

ADAM CAROLLA: I didn’t go to high school. The guy wouldn’t shoot you. So true. True. So we’re right, we’re creating something that’s unrealistic. They’re going—you’re saying to every—I went to high school with here’s a gun right now I’m going to stand in front of you and call you a b and spit at you.

BILL MAHER: Right?

ADAM CAROLLA: But don’t use that gun. Don’t ever use that gun. At some point I might start pushing you. But don’t use the gun. But only if you see me reaching for something that might be a gun, then you can use that gun.

It’s an impossibility to not do it. I’ve said this to people a million times. Don’t look at cops as cops. Look at them as dudes with guns. And you wouldn’t go up to a dude with a gun and start calling him a pussy and getting in his face and saying his old lady’s a skank. He’s got a gun. Just treat it like he has a gun.

BILL MAHER: That’s so brilliant really, that dudes with—cops are dudes with guns. That’s so brilliant.

ADAM CAROLLA: That’s all they are. And they may have badges and they may have hats, but for that moment, they’re dudes with guns. And act accordingly. And don’t walk toward them screaming, “Shoot me” or “I dare you.” They’re dudes with guns.

Strip Club Wisdom

BILL MAHER: You know what it reminds me of? Many is the time? Well, a few times I went out to a strip club with some guy who’d never been there before, and like, they’re—the froth is coming out of their mouth. They think they’re going to get blown in the Champagne Room. And my advice is all, just pretend this is a regular bar.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right?

BILL MAHER: Just pretend it’s a regular bar. And then if a hot chick comes up and starts talking to you, think how happy—

ADAM CAROLLA: Right?

BILL MAHER: Okay, that’s happening. You’re not going to get blown in the Champagne room or you shouldn’t. If you are, you’re in the wrong kind of strip club. It’s not going to be good for anybody. Just—just be happy for what this is.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: And not have these expectations.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

BILL MAHER: So let’s go to the strip club.

ADAM CAROLLA: I agree. Where’s my gun?

BILL MAHER: So you don’t have a gun, but you would go to a strip club?

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

BILL MAHER: You’re single now?

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah. Well, no, I have a girlfriend.

BILL MAHER: How long?

ADAM CAROLLA: She’s like five foot eight. I don’t know. Why do you care how long she was? She a Marlon?

BILL MAHER: Yeah. Okay. Groucho. Very good.

ADAM CAROLLA: Groucho. How dare you demean me.

BILL MAHER: Oh, no, Groucho’s a genius. Genius. That was like a Marx Brothers.

ADAM CAROLLA: That was a Marx Brothers. Yeah. I’ve never—I don’t know that it’s even a joke. How long?

BILL MAHER: But yeah, because if you say, how—

ADAM CAROLLA: Long have you been going out? We don’t get it. But you just said, “How long?” That’s why it triggered me.

BILL MAHER: It’s perfect. It should be classic Marx Brothers or something from that era. It’s a joke that somebody should have written in 1922. I’m sure some vaudevillian guy—I would think I would have been aware if they did.

ADAM CAROLLA: Sometimes “How long” is a brand new joke?

BILL MAHER: Well, they just found a letter that was mailed in 1922 that got there. You know, sometimes a diamond just does stay in the rough.

ADAM CAROLLA: All right, I will take full credit for the—

BILL MAHER: So how long have you been going out with this alleged girlfriend?

ADAM CAROLLA: Three years.

BILL MAHER: I hear she’s from Canada, which is what people say when they want to think you have a girlfriend, but you really don’t.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, she’s from here. Yeah. So—

BILL MAHER: So this was going on during your divorce?

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, yeah. During the divorce, yes. Yeah.

BILL MAHER: Wow. That’s a patient woman who’s. Because usually women are turned off by a guy going through a divorce.

ADAM CAROLLA: That’s why. Yeah, No, I agree. And she’s a saint that way. And, you know, divorce is like. You know, it’s really. Divorce is kind of an interesting metaphor because it sort of ties into all the Somali fraud and everything else, which is like. And here’s why.

BILL MAHER: Wait, wait, wait.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes, we’re. Now we got.

BILL MAHER: We got the. I missed the recap on this streaming show. How did we get to Somali for. On.

ADAM CAROLLA: I’ll bring it home.

BILL MAHER: Okay.

California’s Divorce Laws and Perverse Incentives

ADAM CAROLLA: For you. Which is. The laws in California about divorce entice people to do the wrong thing and entice them to be bad and immoral.

BILL MAHER: And what is. What is the wrong thing? What is the abuse?

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, if you say, look, I’ll give you. I’ll give you an example. Child support. So they go, look, here are the laws in California for child support. You have to pay some exorbitant amount for child support. You know, in my case, I know it was like $19,000 a month. Like my f*ing mom ever spent $19 my entire life, you know, sitting there.

BILL MAHER: Watching a lot of Fruity Tarts reads, a lot of Fruity Pebbles, black and.

ADAM CAROLLA: White Zenith TV, like. So, first off, the fact that it takes 19 grand a month to raise kids is. Is insane. There should be just a set amount. You know, it’s three grand. It’s 20.

BILL MAHER: Because you’re rich, right?

ADAM CAROLLA: It’s only because I’m rich. That’s fine. But you pay $19,000 a month for child support, right? And then what happens is, is, oh, one of the kids wants to fly out and look at colleges in Arizona or Seattle or something like that. And they go, who’s paying for the tickets? And you go, well, take it out of the 19 and the go. No, that’s not covered by the 19. And you go, I don’t get it. It’s child support.

BILL MAHER: What is covered by the 19?

ADAM CAROLLA: I mean, like, dental.

BILL MAHER: Every month. It’s literally every month you have dental.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, what I’m saying is, is you go, oh, your daughter wants to go to a prom, and she wants to buy a prom dress. So we’re going to split the price of the prom dress. And you go, no, take it out of the 19. They go, that’s not covered by the 19.

BILL MAHER: I’m asking what is.

ADAM CAROLLA: I give Food, shelter.

BILL MAHER: I don’t think I spend $19,000.

ADAM CAROLLA: That’s the whole, that’s the whole point. Well, you’re on Ozempic, so.

BILL MAHER: No, I’m not.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, that’s what I heard, Bill, you’re pretty high. The point is.

BILL MAHER: Pretty high.

ADAM CAROLLA: That.

BILL MAHER: All right, that’s undeniable.

ADAM CAROLLA: All right, the point. The point is. I’m talking about the system, Right? All right, so what’s left over on the night after the month with the 19 goes into your ex wife’s pocket or the other person’s pocket. So we created a system where I pay in 19. It doesn’t cover the prom dress or the flight to Arizona to look at colleges. And if there’s anything left over at the end I don’t get it back, it goes to your ex wife.

That’s a f*ed up system that’s incentivizing that them to spend less on the kids because it goes into their pocket. So California has tons of rules that incentivize women to be immoral and do the wrong thing morally.

Now you go to Minnesota and Somalis. There’s a whole bunch of systems that go, look, how’s your kid doing? He’s fine. Do you think he’s on the spectrum? I don’t know. Sometimes he closes his eyes when I talk. That’s good. He can get $2,400 a month. You go, what? Because he closes his eyes? Believe me, he’s on the spectrum. Now go get your $2,400 a month.

We incentivize the wrong thing in this country. And this country is not filled with bad people and it’s not filled with criminals. It’s filled with weak people who will do whatever they need to do. I tell people all the time, everybody, almost everyone I know, if they find a wallet on the ground and it’s got an ID in it and it’s got cash in it and it’s got the guy’s kids pictures in it, they will return it. They’ll do the right thing.

If you find cash on the ground, you take it, you put it in your pocket and you keep walking. You don’t turn it into the lost and found. You can’t leave cash on the f*ing ground. That’s what we’re doing with all these centers and kids lunches and kids first step forward and all these. Of course there’s $24 billion out the window with homelessness. We’ve incentivized people to do stupid. All these NGOs and nonprofits and groups that are advocates for they’re going to do this because they’re human and they’re going to do the wrong thing, just like people do in divorce.

Normalizing Homelessness

BILL MAHER: And it starts with the stupid idea again. The left going way too far, missing their stop on the subway and falling asleep on the train and waking up in Canarsie with the idea that we need to normalize homelessness. Defend it. Defend it like it’s a marginalized group. There are unhoused neighborhoods and we should do something about doubt it. But the answer among liberals used to be get them under a roof, whatever it takes, as opposed to what the woke say, which is like, how dare you disturb this protected.

ADAM CAROLLA: They’re like majestic creatures in the wild. Panda bears or something. Just stand back. Give them some bamboo, let them breathe. Well, here’s a point that I said on the first day when the fires hit in Malibu. I lived in Malibu. I live in Malibu, but I was evacuated and I went to a hotel room.

BILL MAHER: This is the one a year ago, the fire, the big fire.

ADAM CAROLLA: This is the big fire. Yes. That’s the one that took down Chicago in 1911.

BILL MAHER: Do you know that I was taping here with Matt Gaetz, who came up from San Diego, drove through a fire to get here, and we taped right until they told us to evacuate really here. And he was charging his car in my garage. And the second. I mean, we taped right up into the moment, they said, you have to go now.

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ADAM CAROLLA: Matt Gaetz drives an electric car. Yes, that’s the news.

BILL MAHER: And drives through a fire to keep an appointment. I got to give him that.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, I was evacuated from Malibu and I ended up in a hotel room. And I where in Burbank, California. And I beautiful downtown Burbank did a mean. Johnny Carson’s ghost were in this hotel in Burbank. And I did my podcast from that hotel room because my studio was powerless because the winds had taken out the power lines and I had no power, but I was able to do it.

And I said that morning after the fire, I said, look, first off, no permits. You guys think you’re coming back with permits. You’re not coming back with permits. You’re not getting any permits. That’s the way the city rolls. I was a. I was a contractor. There is. You guys don’t know it, but there’s no permits, which I want to talk to you about.

But I said at the time, I said, look, there’s 5,000 people that are unhoused overnight night overnight. There’s the entire population of Malibu, the Palisades, Altadena, we’re talking. There are about 5,000 structures. We’re talking about.

BILL MAHER: Some of them tragically, did not even have second homes.

ADAM CAROLLA: I. I know some of the folks had to go all the way to Aspen to their second, third home. Sad. Oh, guys had to hang out with Costner.

BILL MAHER: There’s nothing sadder than the second home.

ADAM CAROLLA: Homeless. The. They are second home. But I said. But Altadena is working class and real.

BILL MAHER: Absolutely.

ADAM CAROLLA: It’s not Pasadena and it’s not Palisades.

BILL MAHER: Even people in the Pacific Palisades.

ADAM CAROLLA: Palisades, for sure.

BILL MAHER: Some of those people bought the houses in 1950.

ADAM CAROLLA: School teachers. Exactly.

BILL MAHER: And they got in before it was the.

ADAM CAROLLA: They bought a house in the Palisades for $49,000 in 1963. Exactly. And the guy, a school teacher. His wife was a secretary. Not all people who write.

BILL MAHER: It’s not all Tom Hanks.

The Real Cause of Homelessness

ADAM CAROLLA: But here’s the point. The point is, the fires hit last night. These people were unhoused, and they were literally homeless because their house was burned to the ground. How many of them are sleeping on the sidewalks this morning? And the answer is zero. Nobody who is literally unhoused is unhoused. So what happened?

Well, they have a network. They’re not fentanyl addicts. They didn’t run afoul of everybody in their family and everyone in the world. They. When I was homeless, and I was homeless, Dr. Drew, Jimmy Kimmel, my network, like, reach out to me and said, do you want to stay in my guest house? Do you want to flop on my sofa? I have a credit card. I could stay at a hotel. Like, I have a network. I built a base.

It’s not like the home was the reason I wasn’t homeless. I. I have a base. Everyone is homeless overnight. No one slept on the sidewalk. So it’s not the homes. It’s something else. It’s mental. It’s addiction.

BILL MAHER: It’s also money. The biggest difference between black and white in America is legacy wealth. That’s the huge thing. The average. I don’t know. I’m going to. I’m not going to try to quote, because I’ll get it wrong. But, like, the average wealth of, like, a single black woman is very low.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

BILL MAHER: And, like, the average wealth of, like, white people is, like, $170,000 because of all the years and decades and centuries where we only got to accumulate wealth.

ADAM CAROLLA: But hold on. Asians are above us. Us. And Nigerians are above them. Like, it’s not all skin color.

BILL MAHER: Nigerians come here.

ADAM CAROLLA: They’re Very successful Asians come here. Armenians.

BILL MAHER: But if you’re talking about why people couldn’t find a home when their house burned down, some of it absolutely. Is because you have a more. I hate the word privileged network. And, like.

ADAM CAROLLA: But I build it.

BILL MAHER: Yeah, I built the network. You built it and you inherited it.

ADAM CAROLLA: I didn’t inherit it.

BILL MAHER: Well, you did somewhat by being white. That There is some truth in that. There is some truth in that. There is just more white wealth in America.

ADAM CAROLLA: There is more white.

BILL MAHER: Okay.

ADAM CAROLLA: I don’t know how.

BILL MAHER: So when you have a tragedy, there is a lot more people who say, I have a credit card, like, among the black community. Some of them don’t even have credit.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, no, listen. My built the wealth, which is I hung out with dudes who don’t have anything, and I somehow met and made my way toward Dr. Drew and Jimmy Kimmel and Mark Garrigas and things like that. I made that.

BILL MAHER: I know, but.

ADAM CAROLLA: And it wasn’t because I was white.

BILL MAHER: It’s because I moved through the system.

ADAM CAROLLA: I know.

BILL MAHER: Listen to who your friends are. That’s not the average person’s friend. It’s certainly not the average person’s friend.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, I’m not saying it’s the average person’s friend.

BILL MAHER: I mean, you know, and Jimmy Kimmel, you know, he’s very mad at me. And I know you’re close to him. I hope you tell him that, you know, I’m sorry. That, you know, he. They got bent out of shape. I don’t think I did anything wrong. We can have disagreements.

ADAM CAROLLA: I agree.

Political Tribalism and Cancel Culture

BILL MAHER: You and I don’t agree on everything. Look at this clash now. And yet we’re cool. Like the Republicans are always. This is the difference between the right and the left. It bugs me so much. My tribe is supposed to be the left, but these are the people who just can’t talk to you unless you’re exactly there. Whereas the Republicans, they always f*ing come to my show. John Kennedy from Louisiana was on last week. Took his beating like a man.

ADAM CAROLLA: Like they all do.

Government Overreach and Permitting Nightmares

BILL MAHER: And we came across lovingly and smilingly and happily. And we can disagree. You and I aren’t always completely on the same page, although we’re very close because we’re both smart guys. But I just don’t get that from Jimmy. I’m sorry. I think this is one of the nicest guys. I did a mea culpa when we exchanged emails. Not about what he was complaining about, but just saying, you know, sometimes I am a little brash.

About me when they compare me with the other late night guys, and I’m like, I’m not like you guys. I’m not. You could all exchange your monologues, all of you, and no one would know the difference in tone. Whereas me, I’m not there.

ADAM CAROLLA: I don’t.

BILL MAHER: I’m not in on your. I’m not. I don’t just buy into the left wing. And I never stop making fun of the right wing bullshit at all, right? And if that’s not good enough for you, then I think you’re the.

ADAM CAROLLA: And I don’t.

BILL MAHER: I don’t think Jimmy is an. I think he’s a great guy. And it bugs me that, you know, because of what the latest thing was, that, you know, we’re.

ADAM CAROLLA: We may never talk. You guys should be thick as thieves and on the same page. And I’ll tell you something interesting. Talking about left and talking about right and disagreement. I said to Tucker Carlson once, and this is probably about six, seven years ago, I said, Tucker, why don’t you get together a network of Republican or sort of conservative. Why don’t you put together your own kind of conservative network?

And he said, it won’t work. And I said, why not? He said, they all disagree with everything each other is saying all the time. And I said, what do you mean? He said, well, I mean, you take something like Covid, half Republican, and I don’t mean Republican, I should. Conservatives are going, get the shot. Get the shot. The other are going, never. It’s poison. You know what I mean?

BILL MAHER: That was the one who got the shot, right?

ADAM CAROLLA: And they’re constantly. You see Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly, and they’re all sniping and battling.

BILL MAHER: Ben Shapiro and Marjorie Taylor Greene this Friday.

ADAM CAROLLA: This cabal, right, of people constantly disagreeing and arguing all the time about everything. See, you can’t get them on the same page. But he said the left, you can get them on the same page. You can get them to agree to stuff. You can get them sort of. You take Covid. I didn’t hear any dissenting voices on it yet. You, because you are intellectually honest and you’re not exactly left wing, but CNN, MSNBC, even ABC, they’re all just Ivermectin.

BILL MAHER: And they were just Joe Rogan, and they were just organs of the.

ADAM CAROLLA: They were just organs of the government.

BILL MAHER: Organs of the government, which is not their function. They’re supposed to be watchdogs of the government, right?

ADAM CAROLLA: So.

BILL MAHER: But it’s so funny you say that, because I think of it as the opposite. You said, you know, the right wing. Oh, there’s so much dissent. I mean, I feel like now in the last month since Minneapolis, there’s been dissent on the right. But I think, in general, I think of them as we just whatever Trump wants, we rubber stamp. I mean, you can’t tell me that Congress.

ADAM CAROLLA: I don’t mean Congress. I mean amongst the tastemakers, you know, your sort of Tucker Carlson’s, your Candace Owens, your Ben Shapiro. You’re right. They’re all over the map, all battling.

BILL MAHER: They’re fighting each other.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right. And on the left, everyone’s sort of lockstep in terms of the taste makers. Right.

BILL MAHER: Ben Shapiro, yarmulke.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: Tucker Carlson, Hitler.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right, right.

BILL MAHER: Not so bad.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right, right. So what the. But all I’m saying is, is whether you agree or disagree, at least they’re being honest. Because when you hear the dissenting voices.

BILL MAHER: You’re hearing Candace Owens is honest on it. You think she, you think Candace Owens believes what she’s saying?

The Question of Authenticity

ADAM CAROLLA: That’s a tough one, I got to say. And by the way, I don’t follow her. I just hear the sort of rumblings. I did say to Chris Cuomo when he said to me, you know, do you really believe Ben Shapiro or Dennis Prager or Tucker Carlson? I go, oh, they believe it. You can disagree with it all you want, but that’s how they think. I mean, and I would say the exact same thing about you as I would say about Ben Shapiro. 100%. You guys believe what you believe.

BILL MAHER: Absolutely. And you.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, I’m. That. I feel that way, too. It doesn’t make me.

BILL MAHER: And by the way, there’s nothing you believe that you have anything to apologize for, even if someone disagrees with you. But by the way, Candace Owens, he.

ADAM CAROLLA: May be a provocateur, like I may be. I mean, she is a provocative. To her. What I’m saying is, is she may be saying things that she knows isn’t true to create something. I do not think you would do that. I think Ben Shapiro does that. I think I do that. I don’t think many other people do that.

BILL MAHER: All I know is she’s very entertaining, which can be dangerous because she has some ridiculous beliefs. Yes, but I mean, she’s entertaining. When I finish listening to her, I’m over the moon. Not that we landed on it.

The Jane Fonda Moment

ADAM CAROLLA: I do want to bring up something that I watch all the time, and I cite it and I appreciate you. When you had Jane Fonda on the show, and you were.

BILL MAHER: Oh.

ADAM CAROLLA: And so I want to tell you something about you on this show. On this show.

BILL MAHER: Not that this is a show.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah.

BILL MAHER: Whatever this is. I would hardly call it a show, but it is entertaining.

ADAM CAROLLA: But I want to. There’s a couple things I said my entire career. I said, listen, I used to be a contractor. I used to have to pull permits. I used to have to deal with the city plan check and all of the above. I had to deal with all of it. And I would always say, look, if you’re living in Santa Monica and you have rent control, apartment, good. Vote the way you vote. I get it.

But buy a piece of land, get a home. Go to the city, try to pull a permit, and then tell me how you feel about this government, because I think it’s too big. And you go, what? We get rent control. You get rent control. Go buy a piece of property, try to do a remodel, go talk to the city, and then tell me how you feel.

BILL MAHER: Because you’re doing this to your home.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right. And I’ve done.

BILL MAHER: You were wiped out.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, I know I wasn’t wiped out. My home is intact in Malibu. Everything around it is burnt. But my business was doing it.

BILL MAHER: Why did your home survive?

ADAM CAROLLA: God loves me. You should know that, Bill.

BILL MAHER: No, really. Everything around you burned.

ADAM CAROLLA: I would say 80% of what was around me burned.

BILL MAHER: Did you take precautions that others didn’t? Did you wet in the roof?

ADAM CAROLLA: No. No, I didn’t.

BILL MAHER: I just changed my roof since last year. I have a whole different roof.

ADAM CAROLLA: I know.

BILL MAHER: It goes in the pool.

ADAM CAROLLA: You pump it.

BILL MAHER: You shoot the pool up on the roof.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, I did nothing. And just complete luck of the draw. Like the Hood, the SS Hood, which was a British ship, sunk, blown up by the Bismarck in World War II. And 1,800 sailors went into the ground. Sorry. Went to the drink, and six sort of came up. Six guys just floating in the ocean and 1,800 dead. And you go, what did you do? And the answer is, I don’t know. I just popped up. That was basically me in Malibu.

BILL MAHER: Yeah, I called this Club Random, not Club Fate.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right, exactly.

BILL MAHER: I believe in random.

The Solar Shack Saga

ADAM CAROLLA: Jane Fonda came on your show and you were talking to her about regulation and over regulation and red tape. And she said to you, I don’t think there’s enough. And I was like, are you nuts? And I realized she didn’t know what was going on. Then you talked about your garage door. But the point is, is you got turned a little bit with your solar shack.

And I said it a million times, live and rent control, fine, go get your own home and try to pull a permit. You’ll start thinking more like me. And you try to get your solar shack permit. And that took two years.

BILL MAHER: Two years. While I was yelling at them on the air. This is how arrogant the government is in California. This is how bad it is when one party controls any government of either party, right? I was embarrassing them on the air, right? For weeks and still nothing happened, right? Until the governor himself intervened and said, you know, this is getting embarrassed, right?

And of course it was a bunch of bullshit. None of it ever needed to have to happen. It wasn’t even the one that bothered me the most. The one that bothered me the most was my garage door. When I moved into this house, it had a three garage door, okay? It doesn’t fit three cars. I don’t know what these cars are. They fit three motorcycles, right?

So, okay, I don’t live in a mansion. I don’t want to. I live alone, okay? I’ve got a wonderful house, happy to have it. No one would mistake it for, you know, lifestyles of the rich and famous, okay? So I wanted to change my three car garage, wink, wink, to what it should be, a two car garage. This took three inspections, inspections for my. I’m just changing my garage. Why do you have to be involved in my life when I’m changing my garage? If it falls down on my head, that’s my fault for doing it with a bad contractor, right?

ADAM CAROLLA: And now you get to rebuilding the Palisades in Malibu and it’s not happening because of this.

BILL MAHER: But here’s the question. The New York Post, which I always loved because it kept me connected with the city of my formative years and now it’s the California Post and you can’t get the New York Post out here. So they ruined my life because I wanted the New York Post because I grew up in New Jersey. My father commuted to New York, okay? New York sports teams, New York radio, New York television. I was a minority owner of the New York Mets. I started my stand up career in New York, started my television career in New York. I want to know about New York. It interests me. Doesn’t exist anymore.

So the California Post and they printed this interview with Trump. I did one too. The inauguration and Trump says, well, we’re going to go in and we’re going to change the permitting laws. Now he is obviously a guy who just pulls things out of his ass. I get the impetus to do this. Why wouldn’t you want to do that? He again, he’s the guy who sees a problem anywhere and he goes, I can fix that. Right, but is there any jurisdiction for the president to override local permitting laws?

Trump and the Permitting Problem

ADAM CAROLLA: I think they’re. I don’t know about precedent because no one cared and it never existed. And if you’re building a log cabin in 1871, there’s no court case right on that. I think he can. Because I’ve heard something about it. But the point is, is it’s a metaphor for government and the size of government. When you can’t do what you want to do on your land that you own and that you pay taxes on and you need to ask f*ing permission from them to do stuff on your land.

BILL MAHER: Exactly.

ADAM CAROLLA: Then we have gone across a Rubicon. We have crossed a Rubicon. And the fact that I bought a warehouse in Glendale, California just for fun. Just for fun. And I wanted to put some cars in there and what have you. And I was building a storage loft on it.

BILL MAHER: Do you have that many cars?

ADAM CAROLLA: I do have. I have 13 Paul Newman race cars. I have all the Paul Newman race car.

BILL MAHER: The common man, Adam Carolla seeking for John Q.

ADAM CAROLLA: Six pack, watching Roots, eating Pop Tarts, sitting in a Newman race car. That’s it. Keeping it real.

BILL MAHER: Keeping it real with my 13 cars ahead.

ADAM CAROLLA: So I went, they busted me and they said, you got to pull a permit, blah, blah, blah. They will walk in onto your property and tell you to stop and pull a permit. And I went in to the planning commission of the city of Glendale and I said, I want to pull a permit to do some building on my warehouse.

And like 25 year old chick behind the counter goes, what are you going to do with that warehouse that I bought, by the way? And I said, I’m going to put some cars in there. And she goes, they might let you do that. And I thought they might let me do that with my. It’s property. It’s infuriate, it’s insane. And it’s.

BILL MAHER: It’s huge.

ADAM CAROLLA: And it’s a California thing. And unfortunately it’s a blue thing. It’s kind of a left thing. It is. And it’s in. It is. They’re encroaching on everything. It’s just step back. Stop making rules. You don’t.

BILL MAHER: I tell this. I haven’t every time I talk to him.

ADAM CAROLLA: Just knock it the f* off.

BILL MAHER: Just leave people alone. And he says, we’re doing it, but I don’t see it, to be honest. Well, also, he says he’s doing it when I confront him with it. But I don’t see it.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, because they’re there to make rules. That’s why they got into power. They like it.

BILL MAHER: They like it.

ADAM CAROLLA: What I want.

BILL MAHER: That’s it. They like it.

ADAM CAROLLA: I want. You know, my favorite answer from a politician is, I don’t know. I’m not. I’m not in charge. Ask your dad. I don’t run your house again. You want to go to the beach during COVID? Go to the beach during COVID. I’m not here to tell you not to do that, not to drag.

Parental Rights and Government Overreach

BILL MAHER: In more politics on this, but, like, this is the same issue really, with children, is that parents do not want to think that anyone, including government, is above them in deciding what goes for their children.

ADAM CAROLLA: Children.

BILL MAHER: And that is not the philosophy of the state of California.

ADAM CAROLLA: Not at all.

BILL MAHER: That is not. I mean, Democrats seem to be determined to die on this hill of trans.

ADAM CAROLLA: Again.

BILL MAHER: There could be an easy grand bargain. I be the first one to defend trans people. It’s a real thing. Not everybody who’s born in the body that they were supposed to be born into, or however you want to put that. But there is a default setting for human beings.

And to keep this secret from parents, the parent issue that we’re talking about, like the personal life issue, the government too, into your personal life. It is amazing to me that Republicans can’t do better in this state, because I certainly know, like, umpteen liberals, liberals, people who vote Democratic, who complain about these things, about the parent issue, about the permitting kind of issue, about the regulation issue.

Taxes, like, so many taxes. But my road still sucks. You know, it’s like. But why do. Then why does the state stay in this monoparty stasis?

California’s Political Fashion

ADAM CAROLLA: I don’t. I don’t know what it is. I mean, I think there’s an element of sort of fashion where we just go, oh, that’s cool. There’s a little Emperor’s New Clothes. I mean, I definitely felt it with COVID. People acted like they didn’t really believe in COVID. I mean, in the sense that people had a mask on, but it was around their chin.

What I’m saying is, is you should wear a helmet when you’re riding a motorcycle, because there’s a real danger you could be concussed or worse, riding a motorcycle.

BILL MAHER: Even Gary Busey.

ADAM CAROLLA: Even Gary Busey. And I’ve never seen anyone riding a motorcycle with the helmet under their arm. You know what I mean? Because they understand it’s a real danger and they could be hurt. But I saw people with mask around their nut sack and their chin and over their head and stuff, and it’s like they were trying to get along.

And people in California, I’ve realized, get so caught up in the sort of fashion of things that they just want to get along and they don’t want to get in trouble and they don’t want to get yelled at. They don’t want to. They want to be a nail that a hammer is going to find.

BILL MAHER: So they go, no, no.

ADAM CAROLLA: Gavin Newsom’s great. No, no. Karen Pass is great. Put the mask on.

BILL MAHER: No, no.

ADAM CAROLLA: Get the jab. No. For sure. No. The border. No Race said no one’s illegal. No one said all people are legal. Everything is love. Science is science.

BILL MAHER: We’re just.

ADAM CAROLLA: We’re down with everything. Please leave me the f* alone so I could go home and eat my Pop Tarts and watch reruns of Roots.

BILL MAHER: I’ll just sign your petition outside of Whole Foods, right?

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: Just let me get it. Let me get it in my car.

ADAM CAROLLA: I bought a smoothie for $41. I’ll sign your. I just want to get to the.

BILL MAHER: Prius for $41, I’ll sign you a thing that says, I hate privilege.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right? I hate privilege.

BILL MAHER: Now, excuse me. I’ve got a castle to buy in Ireland.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: To escape privilege.

ADAM CAROLLA: That’s right. Right. And a tea time to make.

Closing Thoughts

BILL MAHER: So great to have you. Always great. I mean. I mean, what can I say? That was more fun than you can have with your pants on. Of course, I’m 70 now, so it’s not such a big brag.

ADAM CAROLLA: That’s amazing, Bill.

BILL MAHER: I know.

ADAM CAROLLA: You look great. And. And I will say this, too. No, I’m not. I’m not just doing the shoot. But you’re getting sharper and keener and faster and more lucid and the clarity and the truth. And I. I think there’s a part. No, I think there’s a part. I’m not trying to extend another seven minutes, but I think there’s a part of getting older where you go. I can tell the truth.

Like I. I have. You have f you money, which is better than f me money, which means you can say whatever the f* you want.

BILL MAHER: I sure don’t have to give $19,000 to a bunch of brats, too.

ADAM CAROLLA: But, yeah, I get it. You know how many Pop Tarts that buys. But, no, I. I appreciate you and Stephanie’s incredible.

BILL MAHER: I appreciate everything.

ADAM CAROLLA: It’s weird to be at the top of your channel game at 70.

The Ultimate Tragedy of Life

BILL MAHER: Well, you know what is the ultimate tragedy of life, I think, is that you spend an entire lifetime working on this thing that’s inside your skull. Like gathering information, adding new information, experiences, everything you read, everything that makes you smarter, kinder, better, more aware, more able to make great decisions as opposed to stupid decisions.

All that goes into this thing. And then because this thing gives out, you throw it in the trash with it.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: It just seems crazy. It seems I could. I could see getting rid of the body.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

BILL MAHER: But they should have some way of saying of doing a preservation of this thing inside the skull that put all this years and time and effort to gathering all this. And you might say, well, you can pass it on. You can pass on, like, 10%.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, yeah, I agree.

BILL MAHER: You have to learn your own shit. Everybody does. And so it’s just. It’s just such a waste.

ADAM CAROLLA: So basically, I’m hoping, Bill, you’re essentially saying you’re Ming vase on top of a pedestal that’s crumbling, stumbling, and you’re going to crash to the ground. Well, that’s a good note to go out. Yeah.

BILL MAHER: And the Ming is really what you want to say. All right, well, thank you. Great to see you, pal.

ADAM CAROLLA: Good to see you back. Well, that’s fun.

Club Random Podcast: w/ Adam Carolla (Transcript)

The Pendulum of Success

Career Ups and Downs

Fathers and Success

Growing Up Independent

The Fire Department Story

The Complexity of Identity Politics

The Earthquake Rehab Job

Race and Politics

Political Extremes and Signaling

Trump’s Second Term and America’s Future

Marriage, Divorce, and Relationships

Women’s Liberation and Life Choices

COVID, Health, and Body Positivity

The Ozempic Debate and Body Positivity

Discipline vs. Quick Fixes

Supporting Truth Tellers

Finding Common Ground

The Need for Nuance

The Science of Vaccines and Personal Health

The Greenland Question

Trump’s Bold Ideas

Gaza and Western Civilization

America Compared to Utopia

American Ideals and Reality

Lessons from Roots

Police Encounters and Compliance

Strip Club Wisdom

California’s Divorce Laws and Perverse Incentives

Normalizing Homelessness

The Real Cause of Homelessness

Political Tribalism and Cancel Culture

Government Overreach and Permitting Nightmares

The Question of Authenticity

The Jane Fonda Moment

The Solar Shack Saga

Trump and the Permitting Problem

Parental Rights and Government Overreach

California’s Political Fashion

Closing Thoughts

The Ultimate Tragedy of Life

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