Bill Maher Exposes QAnon’s Shady Leader, Skewers The Dems & Asks Oliver Stone What Films He Couldn’t Make Today
After the week that was — when a QAnon backer won a congressional primary and President Donald Trump embraced the, uh, fringe group during a White House briefing, Bill Maher felt it’s time that America learned the true identity of the shadowy figure behind it all.
“It makes perfect sense that I — libertine, atheist, pot-smoking Trump-hating Bill Maher — am Q,” the Real Time said. “I am, which I revealed on this show two years ago.” He then cut to a quick clip from that night and returned, bathed in blue light and sitting at a laptop, and said it’s true because, as serious followers know, “It makes the least sense. … Assume the opposite of the opposite of what you know is not true. Then and only then are you thinking like a true QAnon.”
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Watch the segment about the group that believes “Q” and Trump are battling an international cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile elites who devour babies above.
Maher also said during his monologue that Real Time “will return to the studio next week” for the first time since March 13. He has been doing shows from home with laugh tracks and remote interviews since April 3.
His marquee guest was the outspoken, maverick filmmaker Oliver Stone. The three-time Oscar winner, who Maher called “one of my favorite directors,” talked about his new memoir Chasing the Light, and the longtime acquaintances discussed the then-and-now of Hollywood.
“Here’s my question to you: What movie could you not get greenlit today?” Reacting with a chuckle, Stone said: “I think it’s very hard to get a movie made today. I think the subject matter has to be kosher, politically correct. My movies were always rough-hewn, and they were always personal points of view. And, you know, there were pretty controversial. So I don’t think that I would be doing very well today.”
Maher also said he worries about “what movies are not being made today. … It seems like, based on what you’re saying, that we’re missing out. Because we’re not going to know what movies aren’t made because we don’t see them. What movies would you make today if you could — if somebody gave you an unlimited budget and said … ”you go make it’?”
The filmmaker said he’s “had so many movies that went through the pipeline and didn’t get made — almost 10 years of my life wasted.” Stone said he spent a lot of time working on the My Lai Massacre film Pinkville in 2007. “We almost made it,” he said. “It was canceled because the financier got scared.” He also noted he worked on a Martin Luther King film, MLK, “twice,” and they both didn’t make it through because, again, it was controversial” because the film “also showed his sexy side, his love of women. And that touched off a furor.” He also noted that, since 9/11, “making a movie critical of the US military is off-limits.”
In his monologue before the Stone interview, Maher yawned about this week’s Democratic National Convention. “You ever tune in to the Jerry Lewis telethon at like 2 in the morning?” he asked with a smirk. He also talked about newly minted Dem presidential nominee Joe Biden and his “rap name: the Fresh Prince of Smell Hair.”
Mocking the former veep’s sit-down with pop star Cardi B. early this week, Maher noted: “It was a very nice interview, and it ended well when Cardi said, ‘This is why I will vote for you. And Joe said, ‘and this is why I picked you as my running mate.”
What Worked, And What Didn’t Work, At The Democrats’ Unconventional Convention
Maher’s interview guests tonight also included for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican who spoke during Night 1 of the Democratic National Convention on Monday; Rev. Dr. William Barber II, co-chair of Poor People’s Campaign; and Thomas Frank, author of The People, No. A Brief History of Anti-Populism. Here also did a mid-show bit about “a new voting demographic out there they’re calling rage moms.” Watch his monologue and the Kasich interview below.
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