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Bill Maher TURNED On Sunny Hostin Live On TV — Transcript · YTtoTranscript

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Bill Maher TURNED On Sunny Hostin Live On TV

IT'S HEAVEN · 3,246 words · 16 min read · EN-ORIG

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Below is the complete, readable transcript of Bill Maher TURNED On Sunny Hostin Live On TV by IT'S HEAVEN on YouTube. Read the full text, copy any part you need, or generate a transcript for any video with our free tool.

and so I was surprised to hear you use the term because historically as you know because I think you're quite brilliant that woke is a word used by the black community to note that we must be aware of social injustices. >> But words migrate. >> Why is that a bad thing? >> It's not a bad thing and and and

originally that was absolutely a great thing. Alert to injustice, who's not for that? But words do migrate. Now, I'll use any term you want. >> Okay. >> Because maybe that is a word that's triggering and so we let's not use that word. I don't know. Want to call it the the super far left? But don't tell me

the left has >> super far right. We was talking about the left. Well, then >> Okay, but but we talked about >> Picture this. Bright studio lights, a live audience trained to clap on cue, and sitting across from Sunny Hostin, a man who did not come to play the game everyone else plays on daytime

television. Bill Maher walked onto that set carrying something the mainstream media has been quietly terrified of for years, the truth. Not the polished version, not the approved version, the raw one. And within minutes, the entire tone of the show cracked right down the middle. You could feel it. The audience felt it. The panel felt it. And

somewhere in a control room, a producer probably reached for a glass of water. But hold on because before this moment fully unravels, tap that subscribe button. Seriously, you are going to want to be here for what happens next. Trust me. All right, back to the fire. >> Trump is almost the same age as him. But

Trump doesn't present that way. You know, you look at somebody right away, you can kind of just sum them up. I mean we are not young, but we don't present as [music] old. Biden does. I saw him yesterday making that speech. I mean, I'm sorry. He's cadaver-like. >> But his brain is good. He's still great.

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>> Well, here's what I said like when I came back after the strike in September, I said, "He should get out." Because he's just lost the faith of people. It's not fair. He's actually done a pretty good job. But I said he's going to be Ruth Bader Biden. That's the term I used. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she stayed

too long at the fair. I remember Obama had her over to the White House like in 2013 to hint, you know, "Hey, >> [laughter] >> spend more time with the grandkids. That would not be a good idea, Ruth?" And she didn't take the hint and she was not in good health and she stayed too long and

she ruined her legacy and got the Supreme Court now to be a pretty right-wing organization. >> Then he said it out loud on live television. In a room built to protect the opposite opinion, Bill Maher looked straight ahead and admitted what half the country has been whispering for two years. Biden looks old. [music] Not old

like your favorite grandfather at Thanksgiving, old in a way voters cannot unsee. And that single sentence detonated like a firework in a library. Because for months, cable news anchors had been sprinting in the opposite direction, insisting the cameras were lying, the clips were edited, the concerns were manufactured. Maher didn't yell it. He didn't perform

it. He just said it. Calm, flat, undeniable and that quiet honesty was somehow louder than any shouting match The View has ever had. >> It struck me that in in the first segment you used the term woke and you said that woke is what was sort of ruining everything and I know that

you're >> No, I didn't say ruining everything. I said that's why Trump could get reelected. >> That's why Trump could get reelected. So, I just the term woke has been in my view co-opted by the right and weaponized and bastardized and so I was surprised to hear you use the term because historically as you know, cuz I think

you're quite brilliant that woke is a word used by the black community to note that we must be aware of social injustices. >> But, words migrate. >> Why is that a bad thing? >> It's not a bad thing and in in it originally that was absolutely a great thing. Alert to injustice, who's not for

that? But, words do migrate. Now, I'll use any term you want. >> Okay. >> Because maybe that is a word that's triggering and so we let's not use that word. I don't know. Want to call it the the super far left? But don't tell me the left has >> the super far right. We talking about

the left. Well, then >> Okay, but but we talked about that. >> But that wasn't even the weirdest part. Watch what Sunny Hostin does next because this move is straight out of the modern debate playbook. Maher critiques woke culture, not justice, not civil rights, not equality, a specific political style. And in the blink of an

eye, Sunny reframes it as if he just insulted Martin Luther King himself. It's the oldest sleight of hand on television. You criticize the tactic, they defend the cause. You question the tone, they act like you attacked the mission. It's a trap door built into every argument and once you see it, you cannot unsee it. Maher sees it instantly

and his face his face says everything his mouth doesn't. >> You know, I I can't say it enough. I think they're the bigger threat. Um but don't tell me that the left hasn't changed. >> Mhm. >> I I mean, I'm old enough to remember when it was the conservatives who hated the Jews.

>> Yeah. >> Okay. Uh that was a joke. But >> Too dark. Too dark. >> maybe it is, but it's >> [laughter] >> but it's true. I mean, you know, if I had any doubt that I was right about the change that's happened in the left, watching people protest for a terrorist organization like Hamas,

uh that straightened me up pretty quick. >> And here's where things completely spiraled. Maher tries to explain something almost every American already feels, but nobody with a paycheck at MSNBC is allowed to say. The word woke used to mean one thing. Now it means something else entirely. Language mutated. The meaning drifted. And a lot

of former liberals woke up one morning realizing the movement they cheered for in 2015 looks nothing like the one screaming at them in 2024. Maher isn't attacking the past, he's mourning it. There's a difference, and that difference is exactly why so many long-time Democrats now feel politically homeless standing on a porch that used to be theirs

watching strangers rearrange the furniture inside. >> it's just astounding to me that they can't tell the good guys from the bad guys. I [clears throat] mean, just the morally. I mean, let me tell you, if you're for Hamas, just live in Gaza for a day, and I'm not talking about while the war is on. I

mean, before the war. Uh trust me, you would go running and screaming and begging to live in Tel Aviv. >> Mhm. >> A place that has your values. I mean, women have no I mean, this is a show watched by a lot of women. Women have no rights >> Right. >> in this place and a lot of majority

Muslim countries around the world. >> Mhm. >> Uh I mean, there's no equal rights as far as speech, dress, opportunities for education, >> Nothing. >> uh reproductive rights, freedom from sexual violence, freedom from sexual harassment. >> community as well. >> you you you that too. Uh but you you you throw around the term apartheid? There

is a gender apartheid in a >> And then the internet noticed something else. Maher stops the philosophy lecture and does something devastating. He pulls out the receipts. Women's rights, gay rights, free speech, religious freedom. Then he holds them up next to Hamas. Actual Hamas. The real thing. Not the version tweeted by a 19-year-old with a

keffiyeh filter. And suddenly the entire moral high ground the panel had been standing on turned into quicksand because you cannot cheer for progressive values one second and then defend a regime that would execute your entire personality the next. Maher didn't shout it. >> the war and they were attacked and they're defending themselves. Now, this

is a war. Do you think Hamas needs to be destroyed? This is the question. Do you you do? >> Yes. So, how can we get back with a ceasefire? >> All right. >> So, Hamas needs to be destroyed because they are a terrorist organization who have who say openly that they want to

commit genocide on the Jewish people, on the state of Israel. That's what from the river to the sea means, okay? And they say it very openly. They said we did this attack. They've attacked the Israel five times. They've started five wars since they were given that land back. They could have chosen to turn

that place into any place they wanted to and they took a lot of money that they took from the international community and they spent it on bombs and guns and building tunnels. >> Can I >> So, if they need to be destroyed, how do we do that? It's it's a war. Um I

don't know how to do that and you don't know how to do that. I assume the rightly do Of course, everybody is, but that's what happens in a war. Here's a way to stop that. Stop attacking Israel. >> need to. The contradiction did the shouting for him. But the next moment changed everything. Watch what happens

when the facts get too heavy. The subject shifts. Suddenly, it isn't about who lit the match. It's about how bad the fire looks on camera. This is the media magic trick nobody talks about. War is horrifying. Nobody's denying that. But horror on television is not the same as moral clarity. Maher calls it out with surgical precision. If you

say Hamas must be defeated, you don't get to also pretend defeat happens in a spotless white room with soft lighting. That's not policy. That's a Netflix pitch. And the panel had no answer because deep down they knew he was right. They just weren't allowed to say it. >> I think what the I mean, a conservative

one said to me, "What you guys in the liberal side of it don't get about Donald Trump is we don't like him either." >> Yeah. >> It's just that in this country, it's binary. I mean, gender may not be binary, but politics is. You only get two choices. And the stuff that they are

afraid of, uh they see Donald Trump as a bulwark against, you know, and that stuff is is closer to the home. It's like my kid is coming home from school and you're not allowed to tell me if they're transitioning. The school is going to take the side of the kid over the parent. Stuff like

that. Uh there is a lot of crazy stuff on the left. That's I mean this book there's stuff that each side is going to like and probably stuff they're not going to like so much in there because uh that's the answer to the Donald Trump situation is um what's going to get him elected is this

woke stuff that a lot of people in this country just don't >> And now, the moment, the one everyone's been clipping. The one that set the room down for a full 3 seconds, which on live television may as well be an eternity. Maher looked at the panel and said what half of the Democratic Party whispers at

dinner parties and denies in public. Some of the extreme voices on the left are hand-delivering votes to Donald Trump. Not metaphorically, literally. Every purple-haired activist screaming into a megaphone at a Whole Foods is basically a Trump campaign volunteer in disguise. Hostin froze. Not because it was rude, because it was true. And truth

on that stage, in that moment, hit like a thunderclap. You could hear the audience breathing. >> It's just nothing. >> Yeah. >> And and it's narrative over truth. You [clears throat] know, I mean it's not like when I hear people talk on either side of it, I always think they're lying. They're just telling me half of

it. >> Yeah. >> And I never trust them anywhere until I check out the other half. >> And then the sentence that summed up the entire era. Maher, almost tired of repeating it, said the story matters more than the facts now. Let that sink in. The label matters more than the reality. The vibe matters more than the

outcome. Group loyalty matters more than being right. That's the disease. That's the operating system running underneath every panel show, every campus meeting, every corporate memo. And Maher just yanked the wire out of the wall in front of a live audience. This is why they don't invite him often because he doesn't play the game. He points at the

board and asks who wrote the rules. >> Because this is a a word that's triggering, but I mean, those concepts that are different than they were 5 years ago. I mean, we used to do uh I well, you did it. I was a guest on the the What was the homeless show? Comic Relief. Remember that? You were

great show. >> Yeah. >> And homeless was a term that I thought we kind of came up with because people were calling them bums and vagrants and hobos. Homeless No, no. >> It's unhoused. >> Well, it's it's people experiencing homelessness. Uh like but they're experiencing it on the street. Okay, the liberal view of

that was for compassion's sake. We're the liberals. We're compassion. Let's get these people off the street. That's not the view of the whatever word we're going to come up with for this. Their view of the homeless is uh they're an endangered species that needs to be protected in their natural habitat. Living their best life under a bridge.

>> What happened after that was even more bizarre. Mar pivots to language, not policy. Language because here's the thing nobody wants to admit modern politics has become a spelling bee for feelings. Homeless became unhoused. Then unhoused wasn't gentle enough. Then it became people experiencing houselessness. Meanwhile, the actual tents on the sidewalk multiplied. The

problem didn't shrink. The vocabulary just got longer. Mar held that mirror up so cleanly, the whole studio squinted. Because [music] if changing a word solved poverty, San Francisco would be a paradise by now. And last I checked, it isn't. That's the punchline nobody laughed at because it wasn't a joke. >> the time, but for me, you know, the

bottom line is that the term woke is now being used to ridicule people who are advocating against social injustice. Um and I I I think it's become, you know, sort of co-opted into this uh co- alleged culture war. And I was, quite frankly, insulted by uh what Bill Maher had to to say. I think he

completely missed the mark in in in so many ways. And we don't have time for me to outline them. Uh but he he just missed the mark. >> And this is the moment that really exposed the game. Hostin didn't counter the argument. She said she was offended. That's it. That's the whole rebuttal.

And listen, being offended isn't a debate. It's a feeling. But somewhere along the way, feelings became a substitute for logic on daytime TV. Once I'm offended becomes the trump card, the person with the better point becomes the villain by default. It's an emotional force field. Nothing gets through. Not facts, not history, not nuance. [music]

Maher recognized it instantly. He's been dodging that same shield for two decades. And on this day, he just walked around it like it wasn't even there. >> That That Is this some Is this some >> [laughter] >> The Mandalorian's Gina Carano is a person I'd never heard of and resent that I have now.

She's some conservative wrestling chick who kicks ass on a show I wouldn't watch if I was in prison. And she made some Nazi analogy. Who doesn't these days? You're like the Nazis is the new I don't like you. >> Here's the wildest part. Maher has been screaming this into the wind for a

decade. 10 years. He watched it coming like a slow-moving hurricane. The comedy shows changed, the colleges changed, the newsrooms changed, the friend group texts changed, and every time he pointed at it, the same crowd told him he was old, out of touch, past his prime. Half the country is quietly nodding along because the guy they tried to cancel

five different times keeps being right. And that's the twist Hollywood didn't see coming. The comedian they laughed at turned out to be the one holding the map. >> But if he was alive today, he would, too. And if you weren't alive if you were alive then, you wouldn't. >> [music] >> Portland Public Schools has a plan now

to teach kids that the idea of gender being mainly binary was brought here by white colonizers. The curriculum guide says, "When the United States was colonized by white settlers, their views around gender were forced upon the people already living here." Not even Star Trek would try that star.

>> [applause] >> Where they discover a planet and give them separate bathrooms. It's like they finally discovered a unified theory of wokeness incorporating all their ideas about race, gay, gender, and colonizers. Like the New World was a great big diverse dance club and the pilgrims were the bridge and tunnel crowd who came in and

ruined everything. >> And this is where everything comes full circle. Because the fight was never really about Sunny Hostin. It was never really about Bill Maher. It was about the invisible pressure cooker inside modern media, the one that whispers to every host, every guest, every anchor, "Stay in line, smile bigger, agree faster, don't ask that question."

>> [music] >> Maher stepped into that pressure cooker, unscrewed the lid, and calmly walked out. And once one person refuses to play the script, the whole illusion cracks. >> [music] >> The lights look different. The applause sounds hollow. The moral certainty starts to shimmer like a mirage in the desert. >> [music] >> That's what viewers watched happen in

real time. Not a debate, a demolition. If this breakdown hit you the way it hit me, smash that like button, share it with a friend who needs to see it, hit subscribe, and ring the bell so the next collapse doesn't slip past you. Because trust me, there's another one coming. There's always another one coming.

>> [music]