STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE: Bill Maher has received the Mark Twain Award for American Humor. He's been hosting comedy shows on TV for 33 years. And when we met him at his house in Los Angeles, he showed no sign of stopping.
BILL MAHER: Because I (laughter) live completely health-consciously on only the best pot that I grow here and the best tequila.
INSKEEP: He says he's joking about the tequila, but not really about the pot, which he sometimes uses while writing his HBO show "Real Time." The Kennedy Center here in Washington gave Maher the Twain Award in a ceremony that drops on Netflix this month. It is the highest honor in comedy and has gone to the likes of Richard Pryor and Tina Fey, but not Maher - until now.
MAHER: Well, you know, every year would go by. And I'd be like, you know, it's - a lot of these people I'm huge fans of but were nothing like Mark Twain. You know? Billy Crystal - I couldn't be a bigger fan. Not - nothing like Mark. But me? (Laughter) Religion...
INSKEEP: You think you like Mark Twain?
MAHER: Have you seen my work?
INSKEEP: He feels he resembles Twain in his critique of religion and much of the rest of society. His essays and interviews hold an audience of millions. We talked on video for the NPR program Newsmakers with a comedian who often makes news with his opinion of the news. Early this year, he expressed support for President Trump's war in Iran.
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MAHER: War. Did you hear about that thing? You know...
(LAUGHTER)
MAHER: ...The war. We bombed Iran, and it's going on. Now, if you expected me to say I hate it, I don't. Sorry.
INSKEEP: By the time we met, Maher had concluded the war was a good idea badly executed.
What makes you want to talk about the news as opposed to human nature or any...
MAHER: You know...
INSKEEP: ...Number of other things you could discuss?
MAHER: My father was a newsman. So I grew up with it in my house as a kid - you know, small kid. He was still on the air. Sometimes we could hear him.
INSKEEP: On the radio in New York, where Maher was born 70 years ago. Over the years, he has lashed out at the political right, the political left, Muslims, people of every other faith and NPR.
MAHER: I mean, I'm surprised you even had me on.
INSKEEP: Many years ago, after 9/11, his show on ABC was canceled after he made a remark about the U.S. military.
How do you make sure you know you're right?
MAHER: No one knows they're right.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
MAHER: No one knows they're right. What kind of question is that? And...
INSKEEP: Does that mean you don't know if you're right if you're speaking?
MAHER: Oh, I'm right.
INSKEEP: OK.
MAHER: I know I'm right.
INSKEEP: Good exception.
MAHER: No. I'm kidding. I mean, look. A lot of people come back at me for something I say, and I'm just like, OK. But am I actually wrong? Most people don't know much these days because they're in their bubbles. They only get the narrative that is fed to them, their algorithm. It's just so frustrating.
INSKEEP: Have we figured out here a way to think about what you're doing? You're against certainty.
MAHER: Yeah. All atheists are.
INSKEEP: His lack of faith is one key to understanding a comic who pokes fun at many people's beliefs, but whose own place on the political spectrum can be hard to pin down.
I also know you were raised Roman Catholic.
MAHER: Yes. Ooh. I put in the time, bro. All right?
INSKEEP: Here's my question about that.
MAHER: And I want credit for that.
INSKEEP: There's a lot of people who grow up in a religious household, and maybe they change later. They lose their faith. They end up with a different faith. But something about that upbringing sticks with them, shapes the way they think. Is there something about being a Catholic that sticks with you now all these years later?
MAHER: Fear. I mean, if I walk into the church, I'll still get, like, clammy from how they traumatized me.
INSKEEP: Who is they, and how did they traumatize you?
MAHER: Priests and nuns. Mean people - priests and nuns. I remember one time I was slouching during a First Communion practice, and the lady said, the boy who's slouching is going to go to hell.
INSKEEP: For slouching.
MAHER: For slouching.
INSKEEP: I think that's just a short time in purgatory. I'm not a religious specialist, but...
MAHER: Well...
INSKEEP: Is your life, to some extent, a rebellion against that certainty - against the church, in a sense?
MAHER: Well, Barbara, that's very deep. No. I...
INSKEEP: I'm going to take that as a compliment because she was a great interviewer. Go on.
MAHER: (Laughter).
INSKEEP: I have to say, Barbara Walters, for people...
MAHER: Exactly.
INSKEEP: ...Of a certain generation. Go on.
MAHER: She was great, wasn't she? I mean, it (ph)...
INSKEEP: It was great.
MAHER: She was - yeah.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
MAHER: I don't think so. But, you know, who knows what evil looks in the hearts of men?
INSKEEP: In a divided country, Maher has tried to maintain an allegiance to no side as a critic of President Trump, who famously had dinner with him at the White House.
I'm thinking about the conclusion you drew. You found a sane person at dinner who plays a crazy person on TV.
MAHER: Yeah.
INSKEEP: As opposed to an actual crazy person.
MAHER: Yep. Right.
INSKEEP: But we've had another year of his presidency to observe, and you've been critical of a lot of it.
MAHER: (Laughter) Yeah.
INSKEEP: Do you stick with that conclusion...
MAHER: It's why I'm back on (ph)...
INSKEEP: ...That he's a sane person who is just acting crazy?
MAHER: He's so more self-aware than he lets on in public. That's another thing I said. And I - absolutely. So much more self-aware, not belligerent. And by the way, everybody who meets him says the same thing. The...
INSKEEP: Why do you think you would play a crazy person on TV?
MAHER: I think it...
INSKEEP: He has the choice.
MAHER: Well, he is a crazy person in the extent that he definitely has a form of Tourette syndrome. He just blurts out whatever is on his mind often. It's funny. He's both, at the same time, the most full of [expletive] person and also the most honest. You know, I - he - I saw him in a - he was doing an interview very much like this recently with somebody. And he didn't like something she said, and he just went, you're a terrible person. Now, that's just not how we act, even though, to be honest, I've thought that. Not necessarily about you. We'll see, I suppose.
INSKEEP: We may get to that. Yeah. There's time.
MAHER: (Laughter) But just - there's something different about the mind that does that.
INSKEEP: Have you thought differently about him at all, as he has spent so much more time on decorating and on monuments to himself?
MAHER: Yeah. These are the...
INSKEEP: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you choke on the water there, but go on.
MAHER: These are the things I don't care about. This is his genius - getting you to care about a - and look. He brilliantly...
INSKEEP: I shouldn't care about that arch or whatever?
MAHER: [Expletive] no.
INSKEEP: Go on?
MAHER: Absolutely not. Not the arch, not the pool, not the ballroom. This is all meaningless stuff. Care about what's important. I can name the politicization of the Justice Department, DOGE, ICE, corruption - you know, lots of things. This is a country where people get drunk with power when they get in. It happens to the Democrats to a degree, too. And they always go too far and then get - the other side gets elected. And then we just live in this world where we're - everybody's just always undoing what the other one is - has just done.
INSKEEP: Bill Maher has been giving opinions like that on television for decades - opinions that often sound off the cuff, but he says he still cares about every word.
MAHER: Mostly, what I worried about when I was younger was, you know, am I going to be any kind of success? I would not have been a good failure, you know? And I've been on 33 years. You know, if it ended tomorrow, I think we can say it did not come out to be a failure.
INSKEEP: Bill Maher, it's been a pleasure.
MAHER: Thank you.
INSKEEP: Thank you so much.
MAHER: Me, too.
INSKEEP: This was fun.
MAHER: Yeah. This was fun.
INSKEEP: Our full video interview for the NPR program Newsmakers is at the NPR app and on YouTube. He addresses other questions, like why he invited Louis C.K. to join him on stage for the Mark Twain Award, which is on Netflix this month.
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