LARRY KING | Bill Maher! Exclusive, the show is canceled

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, Bill Maher! Exclusive, not just politically incorrect, the show's canceled. Is he upset? What happens now? Bill Maher, in his first interview since losing the late-night gig. We'll take your calls. He's next on LARRY KING LIVE.

It's always a great pleasure to welcome Bill Maher to this program. He has been on many, many times. We have had him on a much happier occasions. But we now begin with the sad news of the loss of his show. Were you surprised?

BILL MAHER, COMEDIAN: Well, you make it sound like I died of cancer.

KING: No, no, no. It's not that serious, but it's close. It's show business.

MAHER: Yes, but, you know, we had a good run, nine years. That's a long time to have a television show. And I'm very OK with it. I can go back to my first love, Larry, which is illustrating children's books.

KING: Nine years. What, was it five on Comedy Central?

MAHER: No. Five and a half on ABC and three and a half on Comedy Central.

KING: How do they let you know when something like -- who calls? How does this happen?

MAHER: You know, I cleaned up my office on September 18th, which was the day after I made those remarks about the terrorists not being cowards.

KING: You mean, you expected it then?

MAHER: Yes. I pretty much knew it. I mean, you could just feel it. I've been in trouble over there many times. And I was just moving more closer and closer to that executioner's day. And I knew that was kind of it.

I thought it was interesting about two weeks ago, Bush called the terrorists very clever killers. And I thought, boy, the last time I complimented them, I lost a show, which really just shows you how much things have changed in the eight months since September 11. And it really is about timing. You know, what I said -- if I said it today, no one would even blink.

KING: Do you think -- it wasn't ratings? It wasn't loss of advertising?

MAHER: That's what made me angry, was I read in the press -- and by the way, the press is not conservative as people -- some people say its too conserv -- some people say, oh, the press is liberal. It's not either. It's lazy and obnoxious.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Maher
• King
• Larry
• Cnn
• Giuliani
• Barack
• Obama
• Hillary
• Bush
• Iraq
• Cheney
• Katrina
• FEMA
• Walter
• Reid

[shatner99]

you are so lame, guy in funny towel hat thingy

[obaidkarki]

@shatner99

haha unintelligible

Let me give you another chance.

its $1000 funny towel i don think you can afford it

see at the gas-station sweetheart

[obaidkarki]

Hitchens' merciless skewering of Falwell--"an ugly little charlatan"--was entirely appropriate. Ultimately, however, Jerry Falwell was an easy target, and the rhetorical glee that Hitchens evinced by flagellating a dead man repeats itself, endlessly, as an underlying problem with the polemicist's book and his arguments about religion in general: When it comes to faith, Christopher Hitchens likes to fight straw men.

[novelistix1691]

Peace to Islam! I dont have a religion but I respect yours. People have a huge misconception of Islam. So dont mind these brainwashed Americans who dont know the first thing about your religion except that some islams supposedly hit the towers. Love and Peace.

[noxville24]

you're brain is flat you hating ignorant

[vegasnegas111]

@RogerDodger69 Galileo was a white European who said the earth was round. Quit being a dumb idiot yourself.

[vegasnegas111]

@obaidkarki Lol, you got ripped off. I saw one like that at Walmart selling for $1.50 in the toilet paper aisle .

[art0neable]

@RogerDodger69 i dont know wtf meso americans are but i suppose it was the injuns amirite. And they thought the earth was on a giannt turtle no?

[NoSheepPeople]

@catfrenzy Will you admit the same for the violent, xenophobic, and women-hating parts of the Old and New Testaments. Do Christians demand other Christians of that? You can start with Exodus and start working your way to the New Testament.

You gots' lots' of explaining to do.

[corgi37]

I respect people who follow any faith (to a point). But it aint for me.

I AM GOD!

[lord69z]

Your videos are so useless.

[RogerDodger69]

Only white Europeans thought the world was flat. Semitic peoples (both Jews and Arabs and many other civilizations that no longer walk the earth), chinese, meso-americans, were people with advanced mathematics and astronomy. READ MORE, you dumb idiot.

[mastertheillusion]

Bravo.

I don't follow the dogma of any religion of earth, I pick and choose what is relative to any condition I find myself in. I wish more would see how all things are relative. 99% of Islam are tolerate loving people. 99% of Americans watch the news. 1% know what is relative.