"My goal is to tell the truth as I see it and not be afraid. What sort of person are you if you only say things that you know people will applaud?” That pretty much sums up the modus operandi of firebrand left-wing comic Bill Maher, who is rarely out of the news in the United States for causing some controversy or other.
It was a very Beasty episode of the HBO series Real Time with Bill Maher. On Friday night, The Daily Beast contributors Ana Marie Cox and Liz Mair joined Maher and some bald guy from The Weekly Standard to discuss the latest current events topics. But prior to all that, Maher conducted a sit-down interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who came on the program to promote his book Let the Science Speak, as well as the full-page ad Kennedy recently ran in USA Today claiming that thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative used in vaccine medications, causes autism.
When Bill Maher takes the stage at the start of his weekly "Real Time" program on HBO, he feels like he was just shot from a cannon. By the time he opens the program with a monolog, he has spent every waking hour since getting up on Thursday preparing for the show, he said in an interview. He has little choice. Unlike most other talk shows, Maher's program is live and he must pivot from standup comedy to serious encounters with authors and politicians, and then wrap everything up with the delivery of one of TV's most barbed commentaries - all without a break.
Bill Maher has ignited the fury of One Direction fans after comparing former member Zayn Malik to a terrorist. The US comedian and host of Real Time with Bill Maher sparked outrage after showing a photo of the singer, who left the boyband earlier this month, alongside another of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Though his show is off the air until next week, Bill Maher did criticize the discrepancy between regulations regarding marijuana and alcohol on his Real Time blog on Friday.
Arianna Huffington, Sharyl Attkisson and Tom Rogan also appeared on Friday's "Real Time with Bill Maher" VIDEO
Salon spoke to Maher about his new comedy special, Sofia Vergara, why he hasn't been to the Emmys in a decade
How a cynical stoner Johnny Carson disciple with a habit of going too far managed to occupy an important place in the national conversation.