JD Vance went on Bill Maher's show, and here's a segment of what was, I think, an excellent interview.

I've watched the whole thing (on HBO), and this isn't the segment I'd choose, but what am I going to do? The show selects the clips to share. Watch this though. JD gets a big laugh. 

Bill Maher lay in wait for Spencer Pratt, then suddenly sprang the trap: "Your wife... look I hate to put it this way, but what I remember about this story was huge tits...."

"What is the state of the tits? They're not what you would call huge but they were at one point. At one time they were okay. So what happened there?"

Yes, that's what Maher said to the man's face, 37 minutes into the interview, after some drinking.

I think Maher wanted to destroy Pratt and had that planned. Either Pratt loses his temper and struggles to respond or he displays a Dukakis-like coldness or Franken-like jocularity that would turn women against him.

But no:

Maher: "But so then she had breast reduction?"

Pratt: "Yes, she did.... So I don't think you respectfully would notice anything."

Maher: "I respectfully wouldn't comment...."

Pratt: "Well, you brought it up."

Touché. Maher blabbers — "Well, I just... I'm telling you..." — then jumps to his backup attack: "My history of you is like 2007 douchebag and then years of nothing?"

Anyway, I think Maher came in wanting to reduce Pratt to the nothing he believed he was — a washed up reality show star who's pissed that his own house burned down — but Pratt prevailed and I think by the end Maher either felt supportive or wanted to manufacture some last-minute evidence that he had backed the winner. 

Andy Dick and Bill Maher explain Biden to each other.

I like Dick's set up — "I don't know politics" — and then he does some nice physical comedy.

ADDED: This video has strong Man-in-Shorts content. I think the shorts work well for Dick. He's an odd little man, so shorts are fitting for him. He's not trying to convey the impression that he's A Man.

"I just don't get it. I mean, everybody says, if we're on the moon, we can get to Mars. I don't want to go there either."

"There's nothing out there — except other rocks. Let's fix the shitshow here on Earth."

Said Bill Maher in the monologue of last Friday's episode of "Real Time."

Later in the show, breaking up 2 panelists who were brawling with each other about the democracy in Hungary, Maher butted in to say, "How about that moon?"

A panelist smiled and said, "We can agree on the moon."

Maher: "Well, I don't know if we can agree on the moon. I like — who doesn't like? — the moon. To look at it. From here.

Senator Elissa Slotkin, last night on Bill Maher's show, said that what people want is "more alpha energy."

Elissa Slotkin: You're not going to get me to defend democratic messaging. We can have a whole autopsy about that.

Whether you're a Democrat or Republican, the American people want something different out of their government. Can we have a little bit more alpha energy? pic.twitter.com/h8li6EAbmq

— Blue Georgia (@BlueGeorgia) March 28, 2026

"You're not going to get me to defend Democratic messaging. That's not going to be ever something that I'm going to defend. That's part of the problem and why we lost the last election. We can have a whole autopsy about that. I think, for me, what is important, going forward, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, is like: the American people, they're telling us something, they want something different out of their government. They want, they want some alpha energy from their leaders. And they certainly — whether you agree with him or not — are getting that from some of the Republicans. And my plea to my own party is, like, can we have a little bit more alpha energy? Punch and believe in what we believe in. Show people that we give a shit, and be simple about addressing the needs that they care about the most. And that has been a struggle to be a part of that change."

That came at the end of her interview with Maher and felt prepared and tacked on. There was no time left to explore the term "alpha energy," which just felt ridiculous. Was she saying Democrats need to talk and act more like Trump because they need to get elected and the voters are pretty damned stupid and self-interested?

I see Elissa Slotkin was saying "alpha energy" last summer. There's this interview, in the NYT, from July: "Elissa Slotkin Wants Democrats to Reclaim Their 'Alpha Energy'/In a wide-ranging interview, the junior senator from Michigan took stock of her party’s deep-seated woes, warning Democrats not to be 'so damn scared.'" 

You often talk about the need for Democrats to bring back “alpha energy,” along the lines of Michigan sports coaches. What is something Democrats do that is the opposite of alpha energy?

In the Midwest, alpha energy is about emotion. Whether you’re a coach and you know what your team has put into the game, or you’re frustrated that they didn’t give it their all, you’re not speaking from wonky details. You’re speaking about your gut and your emotion. I think Democrats have lost that.

We respond to people’s pain with a long list of wonky policies.

Alpha energy is synonymous with being bold. Call the tough play, take a risk, be bold. And don’t be so damn scared of your own shadow.

Yeah, my first guess was right: She's saying Democrats need to talk and act more like Trump because they need to get elected. 

Did she answer the question "What is something Democrats do that is the opposite of alpha energy?" Only vaguely. They're "speaking from wonky details" and not "speaking about your gut and your emotion." Her statement of the problem is, ironically, lacking in the quality she's saying they need. 

And what is that quality again? And frankly, I think the idea is based on gender stereotypes but mixes up the male and the female up so we're served an unwholesome stew.

"Adam Schiff falls right into Bill Maher’s trap..."

Adam Schiff falls right into Bill Maher’s trap as he criticizes a statement he thought was from Trump but was actually from Obama.

MAHER: “This statement from the administration: ‘The president had the constitutional authority to direct the use of military force because he could… pic.twitter.com/5jg3wpdAQZ

— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) March 7, 2026

And earlier in last night's show:

Bill Maher apologizes to his liberal audience as he delivers this take on the “Iran war”:

“This week, war. Did you hear about that thing?”

“We bombed Iran, and it’s going on now. If you expected me to say I hate it, I don’t. Sorry.”

“Sorry. And you cannot name one horrible… pic.twitter.com/rHnGhMpK2g

— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) March 7, 2026

Trump sought to influence Bill Maher and he's now going to complain that he didn't get as much favorable press/comedy as he thinks — or pretends to think — he deserves.

"Sometimes in life you waste time! T.V. Host Bill Maher asked to have dinner with me through one of his friends, also a friend of mine, and I agreed," said Trump (at Truth Social).

He came into the famed Oval Office much different than I thought he would be. He was extremely nervous, had ZERO confidence in himself and, to soothe his nerves, immediately, within seconds, asked for a "Vodka Tonic." He said to me, "I’ve never felt like this before, I’m actually scared." In one respect, it was somewhat endearing!"

Trump seems to enjoy diminishing Maher, but I suspect Maher adopted this "little me" pose to disarm Trump. Obviously, Maher was bullshitting. There's no one who has never been scared. It's a joke. He's a comedian. And so is Trump.

Trump continues:

"Get out, drink more, and make a series of bad decisions that might pay off."

Earlier in that "Real Time" interview, not on that clip, Scott Galloway said, "We've unwittingly built an economy dependent on our ability to evolve a new species of asocial, asexual men. And what you have is Big Tech is trying to sequester people — especially young people, especially young men — from the most important thing in their life and that is relationships."

AND: Here's the "Overtime" part. Galloway brings out beers for the boys:

This topic reminds me of some thing I've quoted before — from Paul Johnson's "Intellectuals" — about the playwright Henrik Ibsen:

Cheryl Hines does a fabulous job of establishing rapport with Bill Maher right at the beginning of this Club Random podcast.

I'm listening to the whole thing, but only 26 minutes in.

She's fascinatingly skillful at personal interaction... and he appreciates it. He raises the dumb subject of wearing orange — because it's "right before Halloween" — and somehow she's got him talking about women in "blood red" lingerie and how he doesn't want to be touching a woman wearing leather in the middle of the night....

They talk about Bobby and Trump too. Watch it for yourself.

"America is being sued for attempted karma."

"The blizzard struck on Friday evening, coinciding with China’s eight-day National Day holiday, a peak season for hiking and tourism in the area."

"Trekkers had flocked to the Karma Valley, a high-altitude trail at over 4,900 metres (16,000 feet) that leads to the Kangshung Face, Everest’s eastern approach, making rescue efforts particularly challenging."

From "Blizzard traps nearly 1,000 hikers on slopes of Mount Everest/Rescue effort under way for trekkers stranded on mountain following sudden snowstorm" (The Telegraph).

I read this headline out loud to Meade whose response exemplified what human minds can do that A.I. will never do. He said that Hillary Clinton should get herself in shape and climb Mount Everest. I knew where that came from and said we need to write a political satire in which Hillary Clinton, returning to her "Politics of Meaning" roots, gets in touch with the spirit of Sir Edmund Hillary, her (supposed) namesake, and trains to climb Mount Everest.

Normally, I would give this post my "unwritten books" tag and move on, ever onward and upward, but I yielded to the temptation to prompt Grok to outline the book.

"I've been a little bit divisive in the sense that I've been hitting people pretty hard — a little bit, yeah."

Said Donald Trump, on December 17, 2015 — with Jimmy Kimmel, in happier times:

And here's Bill Maher, last night, commenting on the hard hit against Jimmy Kimmel:

Bill Maher has another awkward conversation with an over-90 celebrity he admired when he was a kid. And he's 71.

Last week it was Barbara Eden. This week it's Woody Allen.

 

MAHER: You say... in your unconvincing defense of how you're not an intellectual...  that you never read "Great Expectations," you never read "Ulysses," you never read "1984," "Catch 22, "Don Quixote"....

WOODY: That's right. I've never read any of the ones you've just mentioned.

MAHER: I've read 'em all. You want to get the skinny on them. You want to, you want to get...

WOODY: Yeah, you could condense 'em? 

MAHER: Yeah, well... 

WOODY: I hadn't the patience to read any of them. I was never a reader. I never enjoyed reading as a kid.

"When did uh everyone catch on you were so hot?... Come on... I mean, you must have been like such a smoke show in high school...."

Said Bill Maher, interviewing the 94-year-old Barbara Eden:

Eden is perfectly with it and self-possessed and maintains her dignity as Bill — like probably thousands of men who've had a chance to meet her over the years — seems hell bent on letting her know she was the photograph — or one of the photographs — to which he masturbated when he was a boy. 

"It might sound like snake oil to you, but remember, Bobby Kennedy actually cooks with snake oil."

"I am so pro separating the art and the artist... The one I can't do is Cosby...."

"I loved his sitcom.... I always thought it was weird though that his job was a gynecologist who worked out of his basement.... In his home!... He would walk up and take gloves off in the living room.... And you'd be like, wait, were those gloves just inside a woman? You're supposed to take them off, I think, like, right away.... I get obsessed with people that hide in plain sight. You're like, yeah, his job was, I think, obstetrician, they give women anesthesia in a basement. That means when you walked up the stairs, she was still passed out. In his basement...."

Said Whitney Cummings, on Bill Maher's podcast.

I like this comment over at YouTube: "Bill has been beat at his own game. Whitney is the supreme lord of interrupting and not letting people talk."

I didn't watch the Cosby show. I know the Cosby character was a doctor but did he work out of his basement and take the gloves off in the living room? Where does the comic exaggeration begin and end? I ask Grok.

"Yeah. I mean, man, each book, you get more right wing. I have to say, you get, like, the last one. I remember you were on my show, and it was, like..."

"... one line in it that was — and I said to you on the air — like, are you implying that that, Trump, that election was stolen by Biden... you were kinda like hedging it. And now you're like, you, you...."

Bill Maher lapses into near-babbling in the presence of David Mamet, who remained calm and quietly eloquent. The quoted part begins around 5 minutes in. 

It gets quite awkward, and Mamet finally — close to the 16-minute mark — frames a question: "How would you like this part of the conversation to end so that we can move on to something else? What would end it to your satisfaction?"

It's such a writerly — multi-level — phrasing. An ordinary person would continue the decline, carping in the usual lefty-against-righty fashion. Someone with a little more distance and self-possession might say, Can't we talk about something else? But Mamet creates the scene in which he's the character who's doing something cagey with the Maher character. He's insulting him in a devious way with this sarcastic notion that he might be there to please him: What would Maher like, what would give him satisfaction? And the key word is end: "How would you like this part of the conversation to end... What would end it...?" Is he threatening to walk out? The dramatic tension is sublime. Maher, you idiot! You have the great dramatist beside you. He's giving you so many points of entry into a beautiful dialogue. Take one! 

So frustrating! Worth listening to though, for Mamet. Here's his new book: "The Disenlightenment: Politics, Horror, and Entertainment" (commission earned).

Democrats attempt to teach themselves how to speak with American men.

"If film and if film and TV productions continue to move out of California due to tax incentives in other states what might the future look for Los Angeles? Is there a risk of it becoming the next Detroit."

That's a question from the audience, and Bill Maher snaps, "Well, there's no need to shit on Detroit in the question! Detroit's a fine city. Detroit!"

That was Friday night, but here's a headline that appeared in the London Times earlier the same day: "Why Hollywood could be the new Detroit/It’s a town built on one industry. So what happens when everyone realises it’s cheaper and easier to film in Hertfordshire?"

So you can see the need to "shit" on Detroit. It's a city with one iconic industry, and it lost it and went into severe decline. It pithily expresses the threat to L.A.

In that Bill Maher/"Overtime" clip, Adam Schiff says that because the movie industry is a "prize economic and cultural driver of the United States" — and he loves movies — the U.S. needs to offer tax incentives.

The other guest, Bret Stephens asks: "But why should it just be for Hollywood? It should be for normal people. It should be for any kind of entrepreneur, not just celebrities... whose pictures and whose faces you know.... It shouldn't just simply be a favorite industry — Oh, we can't lose our our movie stars!"

"Larry David had one of the stupidest op-eds in today's New York Times in which he compares Bill Maher having dinner with Donald Trump with having dinner with Adolf Hitler."

"Um, you know, Larry David, that's a form of Holocaust denial. Comparing Trump to Hitler is a form of Holocaust denial because Trump didn't have gas chambers, he didn't have shooting squads, he didn't take babies, and throw them into ovens, and if you're making a comparison what you're saying is Hitler didn't have any of those things either. So shame — shame — on you Larry David. You know, we used to be friends, boy. No more. And the one thing: about Larry David he stopped being funny, I don't laugh at his jokes anymore because I know they're not jokes. That's who he really is, so they're not jokes...."

Said Alan Dershowitz, trashing Larry David's trashing of Bill Maher's dining with Trump.

Here's David's NYT op-ed "My Dinner With Adolf" — free-access link — which begins:

Imagine my surprise when in the spring of 1939 a letter arrived at my house inviting me to dinner at the Old Chancellery with the world’s most reviled man, Adolf Hitler. I had been a vocal critic of his on the radio from the beginning, pretty much predicting everything he was going to do on the road to dictatorship. No one I knew encouraged me to go. “He’s Hitler. He’s a monster.” But eventually I concluded that hate gets us nowhere. I knew I couldn’t change his views, but we need to talk to the other side....

Read the whole thing. I gave you the free link. Now, I do think what Larry wrote there is funny. It just violates a rule of taste: You shouldn't compare anything to the Holocaust. 

We can talk about why that rule fell out of fashion. But whether Larry David is violating a strict and important rule or just going with the flow of the current taste within his hyper-elite stratum of society is a separate question from whether it's funny.