Bill Maher and Jerry O’Connell didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye on the latest episode of the “Club Random” podcast. The two got into a pretty heated back-and-forth on Monday over the state of modern liberalism, specifically focusing on the Boy Scouts’ decision to let girls join the ranks.
Maher didn’t hold back, calling the integration of the Boy Scouts “fucking stupidly counterintuitive.” He argued that while the impulse to help marginalized people is noble, “super woke people” have taken things “10 subway stops too far” just to make themselves feel like social justice warriors.
According to Maher, there’s no “war” or “hate crime” happening in scouting—it’s just a matter of how boys and girls naturally are.
O’Connell, who has 17-year-old twin daughters, took a much more measured approach. He told Maher he wasn’t angry but was trying to understand the logic, suggesting that maybe the goal was to “take away the stigma of gender” and make kids feel safe during a “precarious age.” He pointed out that he sees the younger generation dealing with these issues every day.
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The debate eventually shifted from scouting to the way major cities are being run. Maher pointed to the deaths of homeless people in New York City during the winter, blaming “woke” policies for failing to get people into shelters.
He used it as an example of where he feels “sensible people” and “old school liberals” like himself are being left behind by ridiculous extremes.
O’Connell stood his ground on the politics of it all, reminding Maher that people in New York and Los Angeles actually voted for leaders like Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Mayor Karen Bass.
“This is where we live,” O’Connell said, essentially telling Maher that these policies are what the local voters asked for. Even though Maher still calls himself a liberal, it’s clear he’s increasingly fed up with the direction the party is taking.
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