After what began as a fairly non-political conversation on Friday's Real Time, things changed with left-wing comedian and vulgar artist Jim Carrey and host Bill Maher another Carrey painting with this one depicting President Trump as “the Wicked Witch of the West Wing.” After he held it up, Maher proclaimed “I love it.”
While Carrey described the painting that Maher claimed to have bought at a gallery showing a “picture of baby Dumb Dumb,” Maher swooned: “You’re so political with your painting...I love that I bought this and it’s going to get me a lot of money someday.” Carrey talked about some of the paintings that he “can’t put out there,” which supposedly include a painting of “the Lincoln monument with a shotgun shooting himself.”
To Maher's dismay, he pondered what Carrey would do if Trump ended up losing and instead of answering, Carrey melted down over the “megalomaniacal lunatic traitor” Trump before claiming without any shred of evidence or sanity: “We’re in actual mortal danger.” He added: “I sit back and I look at Trump and I go, ‘for God’s sakes, can’t we see this for what it is? It’s a heist.”
With Maher giggling, Carrey continued: “His entire life is focused towards creating chaos...That’s an agenda set by someone else, by a foreign power. And he’s doing quite well with that agenda.” When Maher declared that “a lot of what he does looks like performance art,” Carrey explained that he disagreed.
The comedian opined that the "wounded, wounded being" wasn't “smart enough to do performance art.” At this point, even Maher appeared to have had enough of Carrey’s relentless Trump-bashing, urging his guest to talk about his new book instead: “Let’s not let Donald Trump hijack all of your time here when it’s really about your book.”
For a little bit, the two went back and forth about Carrey’s new book but it did not take long for the conversation to revert back to their sadistic obsession with Trump: Maher remarked that Canadians like Carrey “want to be at the party” but are “very ambivalent about it.” Carrey made it clear that he was “at the party” and trying everything he could “to let people know that it’s not normal to sit and watch a President of the United States obsessively spew out purulent discharges on Twitter all day long.”
Maher, normally all too happy to bash Trump told Carrey “You’re back to Trump,” adding “You’re obsessed.” It says a lot when rabid anti-Trump commentary becomes too much for Bill Maher.
A transcript of the relevant portion of Friday’s edition of Real Time is below. Click “expand” to read more.
HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher
07/31/20
10:39 PMBILL MAHER: All right, he is an actor, a great actor I might…and a comedian, to say the least. Who wrote this? Whose, whose New York Times bestselling novel written with Dana Vachon, or Vachon…
JIM CARREY: Yes.
MAHER: …I’m sorry…is called Memoirs and Misinformation. I read it. I loved it. He’s a national treasure, a national icon, I’m sure he will be a national monument someday. Jim Carrey is…is…
CARREY: We’ve had enough of these crazy monuments.
MAHER: Yeah, we will not be tearing yours down.
CARREY: Build one to me, damn it! I’ll make you…
MAHER: So…
CARREY: …proud.
MAHER: So, I wish we could be together in person because you have such electric energy. It’s almost…
CARREY: I love to touch on you. I love to touch on you.
MAHER: Exactly. That too. It’s…it’s almost a sin that we have to do it by Zoom. But…
CARREY: It’s very difficult.
MAHER: I was think…
CARREY: Very difficult.
MAHER: …thinking about you and like, you’re such a hard guy to predict. I don’t know if being home alone…by the way, you would’ve been great in that movie, I think you, even as an adult, I think you could have done the movie as the child. But that…
CARREY: Yeah, except the…the burglars were imaginary in my movie.
MAHER: In your mind. Yeah.
CARREY: They never existed.
MAHER: So, you home alone all day like the rest of us have to do, quarantining, is that a good thing for you? Do you love that or do you hate that? I could see it either way.
CARREY: You know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s great and it’s horrifying, you know, because I need to be encouraged to be social. You know, I need social encouragement, I need a reason to go out. And even when they tell you you can wear a mask and you can do this and you can do that, I say what of flatulence?
MAHER: Well, wear the mask on your ass.
CARREY: This is something no one’s talking about. Fauci says nothing on the…the subject of flatulence.
MAHER: And what about…
CARREY: You know, these days, you have a reason to be angry when you smelled something.
MAHER: What about painting? I, you know, I have this in my home and I’m going to hold it up to the Zoom camera.
CARREY: Yeah, man!
MAHER: I…I bought this at your…you had a gallery showing and this is your muse.
CARREY: It’s my picture of Baby Dumb Dumb.
MAHER: It’s…you, you have many. I mean, you’re so political with your painting. I have, this is…I love that I bought this, and it’s going to get me a…
CARREY Me too, good thinking.
MAHER: …lot of money someday. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s an amazing…It really is a fucking…
CARREY: It is going to be an accurate depiction of the political record of this, this...
MAHER: It’s called…
CARREY: …this time.
MAHER: …“The Wicked Witch of the West Wing” and…
CARREY: What’s that?
MAHER: It’s called “The Wicked Witch of the West Wing” and it’s…I, I fucking love it. And they…they have to come up with a pretty penny to get me to part with this. But…
CARREY: Yeah.
MAHER: If Trump does go away.
CARREY: There’s so many I can’t put out there, Bill.
MAHER: Yeah.
CARREY: There’s so many I can’t put out there.
MAHER: If Trump does go away…
CARREY: There are, you know, there’s the Lincoln monument with a shotgun shooting himself, you know, that kind of thing. You know…
MAHER: But you…
CARREY: I’m saving that. I’m saving that.
MAHER: You’re kind of losing your muse, you know? I mean, what will you…what will you paint if he goes away? What do you…
CARREY: Oh, my gosh, there’s so many things. There’s really so many things but that’s the crazy thing about this era. You know, that this…this one megalomaniacal lunatic traitor is able to capture the zeitgeist entirely almost. You know, and…and everything else is just second-tier as far as our interest goes because we’re in actual mortal danger. You know, so, yeah, it’s…it’s on our minds and he gets our attention and he gets too much attention. And, you know, basically, I…I sit back and I look at Trump and I go for God’s sakes, can’t we see this for what it is? It’s a heist, man. It’s Nakatomi Plaza. Okay? Only Bruce Willis is on the wrong side. You know…
MAHER: And he’s…
CARREY: It’s…it’s like…it’s…it’s a guy who’s literally, his entire life is focused towards creating chaos.
MAHER: Yeah.
CARREY: And that’s…that’s an agenda set by someone else, by a foreign power.
MAHER: Well…
CARREY: And he’s doing quite well with that agenda. And if you look at everything through that prism that Trump is doing, it’s the only prism with which you can look at it and it makes sense.
MAHER: Well…
CARREY: It makes sense as total chaos and destruction meant to…you know, like, the oligarchs’ plan to, you know, divide and conquer. Get us fighting with each other, fighting with ourselves, and…and then they can steal whatever they want to steal, they can turn the world upside down and shake it until the money falls out.
MAHER: Well, as someone who played Andy Kaufman once, it must strike you as it strikes me that really a lot of what he does looks like performance art.
CARREY: Well, exactly. I don’t think he’s smart enough to do performance art but I honestly…I just think he’s a…he’s a wounded, wounded being, you know, and that is the difference. You know, that we talked about…I talked about that…Dana and I talk about it in the book, is…is, the difference between...
MAHER: Yeah, let’s get to your book.
CARREY: …celebrity and tyranny.
MAHER: Let’s not…let’s not let Donald Trump hijack all of your time here when it’s really about your book; which I have here. I…I wrote you after I read it. I loved it. I…
CARREY: How did it happen? How did nine years of conversation and friendship turn into three years of insane work and…and something so, what I think is beautiful and I can say that because I’m only responsible for half of it.
MAHER: Well…
CARREY: And…
MAHER: …it really…
CARREY: You know…
MAHER: It’s…
CARREY: It’s just an incredible gift, I don’t know what else. I’m just like, I’m almost embarrassed about it.
MAHER: Well, let me, let me…
CARREY: When we got on the Bestseller’s List, I was just shocked in the best possible way. And, and, at this point people are going to go like, Jesus, what is this dude? I mean…
MAHER: Let me tell them what the…
CARREY: That’s why I’m holding back my thesis about…
MAHER: Let me tell them what the…
CARREY: …about quantum entanglement.
MAHER: …book is, what the…let me describe a little for people who might want to get this. You’re…you’re fucking up your own plug, Jim!
(…)
10:48:26 PM
MAHER: Once again, let me plug your book. Let me take…
CARREY: Thank you.
MAHER: …one more, one more stab because it strikes me as a book that could only have been written by a Canadian because, you know, you Canadians, you know, you look at America and it’s like you want to be part of it and you don’t. You know, you want to be at the party but you’re very ambivalent about it. And you, you know, you’re a fountain of talent, all the people who have come out of Canada.
CARREY: I want to be…
MAHER: Martin Short.
CARREY: I’m at the party. I’m at the party. I’m…you know, I’m watching the door. I’m…I’m making sure there’s an exit for everybody, I’m trying everything I can to let people know that it’s not normal to sit and watch a President of the United States obsessively spew out purulent discharges on Twitter all day long. You know…You have a question about…
MAHER: See, you’re back to Trump.
CARREY: …you’ve raised a lot about…
MAHER: You’re, you’re obsessed.
CARREY: …whether he will leave or not if he loses.
MAHER: But you’re obsessed. You’re talk…I asked you a question about your book and we’re talking about Trump. And the…Trump really isn’t a big part of the book.
CARREY: No.
MAHER: No. Okay.
CARREY: No. But tyranny is.
MAHER: But tyranny is.
CARREY: Tyranny is.
MAHER: Yes. That’s a great…
CARREY: And tyranny, just the other opposite of celebrity.
