“This is the moment that it’s all curdling. I was doing great up until this moment.” That’s Two and a Half Men and Pretty in Pink star Jon Cryer barely 10 minutes into a sit-down with Club Random host Bill Maher, who has become quite the “Old Man Yells at Clouds” meme as of late. Unlike many other guests (aside from the great Bill Burr and Jane Fonda), Cryer engaged with Maher’s self-satisfied conservative arguments and pushed back on his usual assertions. “I Don’t Agree with Bill Maher. That’s the name of the show tonight,” Cryer would awkwardly mutter to himself during the conversation. “Well, your eyes are not open,” replied Maher. So what happened?
Well, the two began by reminiscing about Maher’s old show, Politically Incorrect, and Cryer’s one or two appearances on the show that Maher had no recollection of. That’s all it took to segue into a heated discussion about immigration and why the Democrats lost the 2024 U.S. election. Before five minutes had passed, Maher was calling Cryer “crazy woke.” It really started when Maher discussed a 60 Minutes piece “about a woman in London who was in the Muslim neighborhoods, and they’re screaming at her because she’s wearing a skirt and stuff like that. The point of it was, you know, there are places in Western civilizations that are like, run not by Western standards, and that doesn’t mean they’re just different.”
“Well, yeah, but there are cultural enclaves everywhere,” replied Cryer.
“Would you really want to have your wife live in Gaza or any place?” asked Maher. “Even before [Oct. 7], where she would have to cover up?”
“Well, again, that’s not — I don’t live there. It’s not my culture, you know,” answered Cryer.
“And you won’t judge it?”
“I’m not going to judge it, no, but again —”
“That’s crazy woke to me,” replied Maher. “That’s where it all went off the rails, when we became so tolerant that we tolerate intolerance.”
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“This is going to be a long conversation,” Cryer eventually said. “Is this what you want, how you want to spend your time?” Apparently, yes, since Maher can’t resist the urge to try and feel intellectually superior to people; he is a biological manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. He and Cryer went on to discuss why the Democrats lost (of course, Maher blamed the “woke,” while Cryer blamed inflation), what’s going on with Gaza, and issues surrounding transgender care. You can easily predict which side of that issue Cryer and Maher are on. “Who are the trans people in your life?” Maher asked Cryer.
“Frankly, that’s my business.”
Bill Maher’s Bitter Far-Right Fans
You can easily gauge Bill Maher’s new audience demographics by the comments on his YouTube videos for Club Random. Whether they directly reflect Maher’s headspace or are simply indicative of the kind of fish he’s catching with this new bait is up for debate. Most of the comments are simply insults against Jon Cryer, who is obviously taking the more liberal positions in the conversation. @santosateos1452 writes in the top comment:
As a kid I never missed an episode of Two and a Half Men, I loved that show about a promiscuous alcoholic and his stupid brother. Today I realize that the success of that show was due to the fact that they used a real promiscuous alcoholic and a real idiot.
@montelou42 agrees, writing, “Jon Cryer was a part of my youth and he’s a decent actor. However, after listening to this conversation he is a royal nut about political and policy issues. I’m glad he’s not actually in politics. He’s lived such an elite life away from regular people so long, he doesn’t have a clue.”
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“It took 7 minutes for me to learn Cryer is more dumb that [sic] his character on Two and a Half Men,” writes @gregbaxter7871. “Why do they refer to ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION as Immigration?” asks @dcmiller4550. “I lasted 14 minutes with this one. Listening to Hippy and Dippy for longer than 14 minutes made me want to break into the capital with horns,” writes @paulzpc. Finally, the unknown and unremarkable @aaronrhawbaker626 writes, “You know that he’s an absolute idiot when even Bill rolls his eyes at him.”
The conversation itself, despite some heated exchanges and charged words, was ultimately pretty genial, with the two men commending each other on multiple occasions and eventually settling into Hollywood talk, with Cryer going into detail about his time working with Charlie Sheen. Still, by the end of the podcast, Maher said, “You probably hate me now.”
“I don’t hate you,” replied Cryer. “Hopefully we both have careers after this…” You can watch the whole Club Random episode here.
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