Comedian Bill Maher denounced the Left’s embrace of gender ideology earlier this week and claimed many on his side of the political spectrum are not scientifically sound.
During a discussion with fellow comedian Patton Oswalt on Maher’s “Club Random” podcast, which aired Monday, the two discussed the post-election soul-searching among Democrats, with Oswalt pushing back against the notion that Democrats have veered too far to the political fringe.
Patton Oswalt: “If people think [AOC] is too far left, that shows another way that this country is broken right now.”
Bill Maher: “I don’t think it’s necessarily broken in that way. It just shows how the country is not there.”
Patton Oswalt: “This country is not as mature as… pic.twitter.com/p1H9Ijgs96
— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) November 17, 2025
Oswalt suggested that the widespread notion that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is “too far left” shows the country is “broken,” adding that the U.S. is still reeling from having “freaked out” over the election of former President Barack Obama.
“This country is not as mature as it thinks it is,” said Oswalt, who is outspokenly liberal and has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump and likened his presidency to “an 18-wheeler full of monkeys and PCP that has crashed into a train full of diarrhea.”
“We elected Obama, and clearly the country freaked out. We’re still living in that freak-out. We are not as progressed and evolved and intelligent as we think we are, because we keep freaking out about this stuff,” he said.
During their conversation, Maher pushed back against Oswalt’s suggestion that the country is broken and that the political Right is the only side that has “freaked out” in recent years.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily broken in that way, but it just shows how the country is not there. That is not where the country is,” he said.
Maher noted that “the Left freaked out about a lot of bulls—.”
When Oswalt pressed him, Maher rattled off that he believes the Left has “freaked out” over “gender, race, parenthood, schools, homelessness, crime, the border, education.”
“We stopped being a scientific people,” he added.
When Oswalt countered that “the Left certainly stayed scientific,” Maher shot back: “No, they didn’t! … Gender bulls— that they went way too far with? That’s not scientific.”
Maher suggested that while children should be taught about sexual and gender identity minorities and the importance of respecting everyone, Democrats in California went too far.
“They started to teach that every baby is, I don’t know, [let’s not even put the gender on the] birth certificate,” Maher said, referencing the 2019 California law that allowed non-binary markers on state-issued documents, which was the first of its kind in the U.S.
“Were we teaching that?” Oswalt asked, to which Maher replied: “Yes, we were. It was a law here in California. Don’t put sex on the birth certificate.”
Maher has been repeatedly outspoken about what he has characterized as the potentially catastrophic political consequences the Democratic Party faces for embracing transgender ideology, especially when it undermines parental rights.
“If you want to lose every election, just keep coming down on the side of parents coming in second in a ‘who gets to decide what goes on with my kid’ contest,” Maher said earlier this year during a tense podcast with comedian Jon Lovett, who served as a speechwriter for Obama.
“That is something that’s not going to go well with the average voter,” he said at the time.
During his conversation with Oswalt, Maher also revealed he decided to stop doing live tours last year because of the increasing hostility he faces from both sides of the political aisle.
“I feel like it was a great choice because I don’t want to be out there in this country in this political atmosphere,” he said. “I could get shot by the Left or the Right. I mean, it’s just — it’s a good time to not be out there.”
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
