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Who's Talking to Chris Wallace
Comedian And Television Host Bill Maher Is Interviewed On What He Believes Has Changed About Political Right And Left In U.S.; Bill Maher Discusses Donald Trump's Inability To Concede Electoral Defeat And What That Possibly Portends For 2024; Comedian And Writer Larry David Interviewed On Ending His Show "Curb Your Enthusiasm"; Larry David Discusses Final Scene In His Show "Seinfeld". Aired 10-11a ET
Aired July 06, 2024 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:00:38]
CHRIS WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome. Normally we spend this hour talking about the week's biggest stories with our panel. But on this July 4th weekend, we're doing something different, a special edition of our other show, "Who's Talking" where we sit down with some of the most interesting and entertaining people around. Today you're in for a treat as we bring you conversations with the stars of two of the most popular shows on TV, Larry David, who's unbelievable run on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" recently came to an end, and Bill Maher, whose "Real Time" program goes after sacred cows across the political spectrum.
So as we say every Saturday, sit back, relax, and this time, enjoy.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does that mean I'm a scene stealer?
WALLACE: In a good way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I'm not famous. I'm well known.
WALLACE: Watching that scene?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's hard to watch.
WALLACE: Is this a bit that you're doing for me?
LARRY DAVID, COMEDIAN: No, it's not a bit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Bill Maher, welcome. So good to see you again.
BILL MAHER, COMEDIAN: Good to be here at CNN and on CNN. I know I'm on CNN. WALLACE: You have a new book called "What This Comedian Said Will
Shock You", and it's a collection of your commentaries, your editorials on "Real Time" over the last 20 years. "What did you discover about both how the world and you have changed over that time?"
MAHER: Well, it's interesting you asked that because that's really the impetus to do this. People kept saying to me, well, two things. They kept saying you should really collect these editorials that you do. They're really good at the end of the show. And it is the part of the show I work the hardest on. I probably put 20 hours in to get 10 minutes of content. So these things have been lol tested, shall we say.
So to answer that question about myself, did I change? Did the country change? Look, we're all evolving. Of course, I'm sure I've changed to a degree, but honestly, I really look at this hard and I think it's mostly the politics changed.
WALLACE: Well, let me dig down on the change in politics and we'll take it separately. First the right. How do you think, the conservative movement, the Republican Party has changed since Donald Trump took over the GOP?
MAHER: Well, I mean, where do I begin? They're authoritarian. They don't believe in democracy. I know we hear that a lot, but it's true. You can't say it enough. I mean, I was using the term "slow moving coup" before he was elected the first time. Everybody made fun of me that I was an alarmist, but I turned out to be right about that.
And we see now the sycophants around him, the people who are auditioning for vice president, they've picked step this talking point when they're asked, will you abide by the results of the election? And they say, sure, if it's a free and fair election, which is another way of saying, if we win.
WALLACE: Then there's the left with wokeness and political correctness and, as some of your viewers say, you have taken some shots at them on "Real Time" in recent times.
MAHER: Lots.
WALLACE: Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAHER: Being woke is like a magic moral time machine where you judge everybody against what you imagine you would have done in 1066 and you always win.
Of all the violations of the woke penal code, culture appropriation just might be the dumbest of all.
I've seen the same syndrome happen in comedy clubs, woke hecklers who literally have to wait for the laughter to die down before they yell "That's not funny." (LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: You say liberals protect people. PC-ers, woke people, protect feelings.
MAHER: Yes. I forgot that. Thank you.
(LAUGHTER)
MAHER: I'm going to steal that from myself. That's good. Yes, I mean, I try to delineate a difference between old-school liberals, which is mostly where I would put myself, and look, I mean, on "The View" today, they were arguing with me about the term "woke." And I understand we really should get a different word because it started out as something that was noble, being alert to injustice. And to a lot of people, it still means that.
[10:05:06]
I would contend that, whatever that collection of ideas that I'm railing against, has migrated to a very different place.
WALLACE: What do you think it means now?
MAHER: Well, I mean the term "woke" was what we used for that. But, well, I mean oversensitivity, victim culture, cancel culture, too much identity politics, just ideas that -- embracing a bunch of ideas that I don't think are very valid. I mean, we are now an outlier, for example, as far as the issue of transitioning children gender-wise. The U.K., the Scandinavian countries, which were always countries which we could look to and say, well, look, they're the liberal places. They're doing this. They're to the right of us on that. I mean, we're to the left of Canada on immigration.
MAHER: Recently, you have been going after they pro-Palestinian protests on campus which seem to combine two things that you don't have much use for. One, people signing up for a cause they don't really understand, and two, elite education.
MAHER: Well, one of the things I'm proudest of in this book is, as I was going through it, all the things where I've been ahead of the curve on something. And one of them certainly was college. I mean, I was saying long ago the Democratic Party's idea is that the more time you sit in a classrooms in front of a blackboard, the better you are, and the more college everybody gets, the better they are. I think that's just antiquated thinking. I don't think it helps anybody and they're not really learning anything. I think we saw that.
If I had any doubts that it was the left who had changed more than me, that was settled after October 7th, when I saw so many people standing up, these people who consider themselves liberals, the most liberal people, standing up for the most illiberal people in the world.
WALLACE: Hamas. MAHER: Hamas. I mean, it's basically a fascist dictatorship hated by its own people, for good reason.
WALLACE: Well, this gets me to another interesting part of the book and of your evolution, which is how you describe your place in the public square, because in a world in which everyone seems to pick sides, you're an equal opportunity basher. And the question, I guess, I have, is that lonely? And do you think it's risky?
MAHER: It has been lonely at times. There's no doubt I've lost audience, and gained. And the ones I've lost, I don't miss them, because I don't speak for the people who want to be ideologically captured by one side and just want to hear what they already know coming back at them. I think that's the biggest problem we have in the media today. We're all in our silos. We're all in these little bubbles. And they don't even want to hear it. They don't really want to hear the other side.
WALLACE: All right, well, so I'm going to give you a chance to call it out. What do you say about the other what had been called comic commentators like Jon Stewart.
MAHER: I'm not going to talk about other people. I'm not going to do it.
WALLACE: Well, wait.
MAHER: Good try. It's just, it's a fool's errand. They're all very talented.
WALLACE: I understand they're all talented. But you've just said that we can't just be siloed, we can't just be pushing one thing. You've got folks like Stephen Colbert and John Oliver and Jon Stewart who seemed to have picked a side and toe a party line.
MAHER: Yes.
WALLACE: And does that, what's your reaction to that?
MAHER: I watch my show and your show and that's it.
WALLACE: I know I'm not going to get much, but, you know.
MAHER: You've got to try. It's your job.
WALLACE: It's like waving a piece of meat in front of a pit bull. It's like, oh, he's not going to talk about this. I've got to get him to talk about it.
MAHER: Look, I have a different place. That's it. I just do a different thing. And there's this room for everybody. And pick your lane.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:13:56] WALLACE: Starting in 2018, you started predicting with some regularity that if Donald Trump lost his bid for reelection in 2020 that he wouldn't leave. Here you are.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAHER: He's not going to leave even if he loses the election.
I keep saying he's not going to leave, even if he loses.
If Trump loses the election in November, he's not going to leave.
I cannot picture that man gracefully conceding and walking away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: You also predicted months before he lost that his supporters might well march on Washington. What did you see so far in advance?
MAHER: I said it before he was elected the first time. I kept saying "slow moving coup." It's happening and it's going to happen, and it's -- and we see it. I mean, the stages of it, we just keep going down this road. And I noticed that the rightwing now has sort of talk themselves into this idea that he's just this buffoonish comedian. He says crazy things. He's always had crazy things. And of course, this is his superpower, is that nobody really takes him seriously because he's so nuts because he said so many stupid things, because he has done so many ridiculous things.
[10:15:08]
And if you throw paper towels at people and write love letters to Kim Jong-un and stand with Putin and say, I believe him and not are agencies, and all the -- have feuds with Bette Midler and poop tweet every time you're up at 4:00 a.m., all this stuff, so that it gets -- people just tune him out. It's like he's not a serious -- so they don't take it seriously. And that's the problem we have, is that this is very serious. And he's running a much more serious campaign this time.
WALLACE: So what do you think happens if he loses this time?
MAHER: Well, on January 20th, 2025, he's going to show up on Inauguration Aay, whether he wins or loses, because he will claim that he won. That is the one thing I can absolutely predict with utter certainty. He will never, as I kept saying all those years, will never concede an election. He's certainly not going to concede this one.
And I don't know, any time you want to be out of the country, that would be the good month to do it, I think. I don't foresee good things happening on my birthday, which is January 20th.
WALLACE: Well, that's ironic, isn't it?
MAHER: Yes, we'll see. WALLACE: So you also have a podcast called "Club Random." And on it
recently you told Jerry Seinfeld that if he wins, not loses, but wins, you're not going to go nuts again. Here you are.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAHER: I'm not going to lose my nervous system about Trump again. If he ends the world, he's going to end the world. I'm not going to -- go nuts again if he wins another term.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: So is it that you think Trump 2.0 wouldn't be as bad, or you just don't care as much?
MAHER: I care. I just I just am not going to -- I guess maybe I was not saying that artfully. What I'm not going to do is just lose my nervous system at every step of the way. I think he just thinks of power. He just wants to get that back. It's like what the documents that he stole. They were mine. Now I own them. And I touched them, and you can't have them. I mean, there was no reason to it. It didn't make any sense. What did he want them for? Nothing. He was never going to look at them. He's never read anything, more than one sheet of paper at a time. He wouldn't know it was in the Constitution if you hit him over the head with it. This is the guy who is going to be probably president again. So --
WALLACE: I think so?
MAHER: I think it probably odds-on, yes. I mean, he's certainly winning now, and Biden does not look like a very good candidate. So I just, I can't do it again. I can't go through this on a day-by-day basis. that's what I meant by that.
WALLACE: So January 20th or maybe Election Day, that's when you lose your mind?
MAHER: We could lose a lot more than my mind.
WALLACE: A couple of final questions. What's the deal would you and pot?
MAHER: I love it.
WALLACE: Why?
MAHER: Why? Have you ever smoked it?
WALLACE: Yes. We were just talking the talk here in the studio, and we said if you had a good joint or you had a good glass of wine, we chose the wine.
MAHER: Well, that's you.
WALLACE: OK.
MAHER: I mean, that's it. It's about body chemistry. Some things agree with --
WALLACE: Well, what is it that you like so much about it?
MAHER: People have different reactions to pot. I would say that the three main ones, it can make you paranoid, it can make your sleepy, a lot of people use it for sleep. Or it can make you high. That's why we call it getting high. Some people are that third category. It makes them better. People think I'm a huge pothead or smoke all the time. I don't. I don't even smoke every day. I smoke situationally. What I want to be at my best at something. So that works --
WALLACE: You don't -- are you high now?
MAHER: No.
WALLACE: So didn't want to be at your best for this?
MAHER: I can handle this without --
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: But what do you mean your best? Do you get high before "Real Time"?
MAHER: No, that would be too tough, because I have to keep too many things in my mind at the same time. And I'm on with a senator and important people, and I have to watch the clock.
WALLACE: So when --
MAHER: Stand up.
WALLACE: Yes.
MAHER: Writing.
WALLACE: Yes.
MAHER: Sex.
WALLACE: Yes.
MAHER: That's my life.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO TAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY DAVID, COMEDIAN: I've been expecting more from myself my whole life, and it's just not there. WALLACE: Larry David is taking his final turn around the curve.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, what the -- Larry?
WALLACE: Ending the latest chapter in a comedy career that started --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's gold, Jerry, gold.
WALLACE: As one of the brilliant minds behind --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The show is about nothing.
WALLACE: Partnering with Jerry Seinfeld and cementing his place in TV history.
JERRY SEINFELD, COMEDIAN: But are you still master of your domain?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No soup for you!
SEINFELD: Not that there's anything wrong with that.
WALLACE: But it's Larry's current act that really put them in the spotlight.
DAVID: Oh my god, this is awful. Who made that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Us.
DAVID: You made it? I want my dollar back.
WALLACE: As he stepped in front of the camera to play some version of himself in "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
DAVID: It's pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.
WALLACE: Now, as HBO's longest running series wraps up its final season, we dig into the everyday events that drive him famously crazy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Happy New Year!
DAVID: It's a little late, frankly, for the "Happy New Year."
[10:25:00]
WALLACE: And ask what led him to say goodbye to this TV persona?
DAVID: How did I wind up here? How did I wind up here?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Larry David, welcome. It's so good to be with you again.
DAVID: Thank you so much, Chris. This isn't going to take very long, right? What are we, like a couple of minutes, five minutes? Because, you know, I don't really sit with people as a rule for a long time. Even dinners -- WALLACE: This will be shorter than dinner.
DAVID: All right, good.
WALLACE: We're coming to the end of season 12 of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," and I've got to say you are on fire. In one episode, you get in a fight with a hotel maid, a waiter who has lost his mother, and even with the Siri device in your car. Here's that one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID: Siri, directions to Wolfsglen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Directions to Great Wolf Lodge.
DAVID: No, Siri, Wolfsglen restaurant.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One option I see, Wood's Garden Supply on Benedict Canyon.
DAVID: Suri, Wolfsglen restaurant in Westwood.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One option I see, the Wolseley restaurant in Burbank.
DAVID: No. No. No. You're not listening.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: It gets a lot worse than that.
DAVID: Yes, yes.
WALLACE: But in any case, I was going to --
DAVID: By the way, that scene, the night that happened, when I was going someplace, and that's actually how I reacted, just everything you see in that scene is what I did. And I came in the next day. I said, listen, we've got to shoot this. This is really funny. And so we did, and we put it in the first show.
WALLACE: Why is it that so many things in life, like Siri, trigger you?
DAVID: I have a very low tolerance for stupidity in myself and in others. And so, I don't know. I just notice things that maybe, I don't know, maybe other people don't. Or I think I just, things impact me more, like -- and I have an outlet to do it.
WALLACE: In 2020 in "Curb" you discovered the advantages to wearing a MAGA hat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, two seats at the sushi bar. You know what, actually, I think we'd prefer to sit at a table, please. DAVID: Sad. Very sad, sad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: In your world here, because you live in Beverly Hills or Santa Monica or something like that, what would wearing a MAGA hat do?
DAVID: I'm sure you'd get some very odd looks in Los Angeles if you were walking around with that hat. But yes, I used it on the show, it got me out of a couple of things. I was going to get beat up by a biker. Then I put that hat on.
WALLACE: So how much has the whole 2020 election and everything that has flowed from it pissed you off?
DAVID: I mean, you can't go a day without thinking about what he's done to this country, because he's such a little baby that he's thrown 250 years of democracy out the window by not accepting the results of -- I mean, it's so crazy. He's such a sociopath. He's so insane, he just couldn't admit to losing. And we know he lost. He knows he lost. And look how he's fooled everybody. He's convinced all these people that he didn't lose. He's such a sick man. He is so sick.
Anyway, no, it hasn't impacted me at all.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: How do you wrap your head around the fact that he could very well be reelected president? I mean, right now, I'd say he he's the favorite.
DAVID: He's just such an amazing conman. He has such a gift for lying and fooling people and convincing people of something that's a complete lie.
WALLACE: But the fact, but the point is millions and millions and millions of Americans, more so than three years ago, they buy it.
DAVID: They buy it. It's a testament to his conning abilities. He's the greatest conman we've ever produced.
WALLACE: Yes.
You announced in December that this is not the season finale, but the series finale. This is the end of "Curb." How Come?
[10:30:03]
DAVID: I don't know.
WALLACE: That's it? That's the --
DAVID: It was time, 12 seasons. We've been doing it for 24 years. I mean, it's a long time. And I don't know, do we really want to see an old guy on television just until his 80s. I mean, how long --
WALLACE: It's too late. I'm already seeing --
DAVID: Yes, how long can you watch it? Yes.
WALLACE: What are you going to do with yourself?
DAVID: I'll find some stuff. Yes.
WALLACE: In entertainment, or you're going to just play golf?
DAVID: Oh, no, no, no. I'll do something. Yes.
WALLACE: But "Curb"? And this is final? This is --
DAVID: This is it, Chris. This is it. I'm making a Shermanesque statement.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: If nominated you will not --
DAVID: If nominated I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:35:45]
WALLACE: You started "Seinfeld" in 1989, and I want to play a clip from perhaps the most famous episode, the contest, that won you an Emmy, and "TV Guide," that great authority, said was the greatest episode of TV ever.
DAVID: Is that right?
WALLACE: Yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to be in on this, too.
SEINFELD: No, no.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why, why?
SEINFELD: Because you're woman.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So what.
SEINFELD: It's easier for a woman not to do it than a man. We have to do it. It's part of our lifestyle. It's like shaving.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is such baloney. I shave my legs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not every day.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: So first of all, how did you come up with that idea?
DAVID: I had a contest with a friend.
WALLACE: Literally?
DAVID: Literally.
WALLACE: That contest?
DAVID: That contest.
WALLACE: Who couldn't put it off longer?
DAVID: Yes, yes. Had a contest.
WALLACE: And what were the results of said contest?
DAVID: I was clearly the winner. Yes.
WALLACE: Really? What did you go, two days?
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID: Anyway, that's where they came from.
WALLACE: And how much trouble did you have getting it passed the NBC censors?
DAVID: Usually, the network would -- when they would come into the room after a show or after a run through, they would look at our board and see upcoming shows. And they'd say, what's that one about, what's that one about? And for "The Contest," I didn't put it up on the board because I didn't want them asking what it was about because I knew they wouldn't do it. They came to read through. They heard the show.
WALLACE: Right.
DAVID: And in my head, I'm going, well, if they don't let -- if they don't let us do this, I'm done. I'm quitting. As soon as they say no, we're not doing it. And I've gotten hold speech in my head.
WALLACE: Right.
DAVID: Sorry, good luck. I'm done. That's what I was going to do. I was going to quit.
But then we have the read through. It got great laughs. They came back to our office, and they didn't say a word. I was stunned.
WALLACE: Maybe a little disappointed, too? DAVID: Yes, it would've been a good scene.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID: I missed out on a big dramatic moment.
WALLACE: So why do you think they let it go?
DAVID: I don't know. I don't know. I guess because they heard laughs. And when they hear laughs, it kind of changes their thinking about something.
WALLACE: There's another episode I love in which George is trying to impress a girlfriend at a kids' birthday party.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Smoke. Everybody, I think I smell some smoke back here. Fire!
(SCREAMING)
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was an inferno in there, an inferno!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There he is, that's him!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Incidentally, was the clown with the big shoe, he's the one who put out the fire. After the clown and the kids and the old lady and the presumed girlfriend all come out and excoriate George, a fireman says, how do you live with yourself? And George says, it's not easy.
DAVID: Yes.
WALLACE: So, and George is supposedly based on you, so same question. How do you live with yourself?
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID: How do I live with myself? It's again, it's not easy. Yes, it is not easy. I don't know. I just try and get into a routine. And so if I do the same thing tomorrow, that I'm doing today without, of course, seeing you, I've got through it. And OK, do the same thing, you'll get through that one, too. So I have to have I have to have a very regimented life. I don't like traveling. I don't like going anywhere. I like -- I like going to the office.
(LAUGHTER)
[10:40:07]
DAVID: I like going to the office. I like playing golf. I like being in my house.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID: I'm so dull and uninteresting. I really don't enjoy being out and socializing and making small talk. I don't know.
WALLACE: Is this a bit that you're doing for me?
DAVID: No, no, it's not a bit, it's not a bit. It's not a bit. Ask anybody who knows me. You know what, I wish it was a bit. I wish it was. I long to be somebody else. I wish I could enjoy things that most people enjoy. But I can't. Yes. I don't know. I mean, something went off somewhere.
WALLACE: Something went terribly wrong.
DAVID: Something went wrong, Chris.
WALLACE: Speaking of things going wrong, you wrote for "Saturday Night Live" for one season.
DAVID: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID: You've really done some background stuff.
WALLACE: Yes. And the story I heard is you're writing for "Saturday Night Live" an entire season. You get one sketch on the air.
DAVID: Yes.
WALLACE: And you get so fed up that at one point, one night, you go to the executive producer and you say to him, I quit.
DAVID: Yes.
WALLACE: And you realized overnight --
DAVID: It was laced with profanity, by the way, the "I quit" speech.
WALLACE: Right.
DAVID: It was one that I was going to deliver it to the "Seinfeld" -
WALLACE: About the contest. But this time --
DAVID: This time I actually did it. Yes.
WALLACE: OK. And then overnight, you realized this is a big mistake and that you show up for work on Monday pretending nothing ever happened?
DAVID: Yes.
WALLACE: Is that a true story? DAVID: Yes, 100 percent, yes.
WALLACE: And how did that go?
DAVID: It went well.
WALLACE: Did nobody say, hey, what are you doing here?
DAVID: I got some odd looks from the writers, people who witnessed my meltdown. And the executive producer who was running it, didn't see it. He asked me what I was working on, and I told him, and then he moved on to the next person. I just sat there, and he went down the line of the writers, asked them what they were working on. Got to me, what are you working on? I told him, and then he went to the next one.
WALLACE: And you turned this into a storyline for George.
DAVID: For George, yes.
WALLACE: Who quits, realizes it's a mistake, comes back to work, and --
DAVID: Yes, yes, pretends it never happened.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:47:12]
WALLACE: You and I went to dinner with your lovely wife, Ashley.
DAVID: Yes.
WALLACE: Last fall, and you very nicely picked up the check. And the next day I wrote you, I thought, a very gracious "Thank you" note. And you then responded, and I have saved this. And I literally quoted this. You wrote back to me and you said, keep in mind, next time when you pick up the check, you will not be getting a next day thanks.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: What's so objectionable --
DAVID: How many thank yous do we have to give out?
WALLACE: I gave one.
DAVID: No, I understand. But if you if you take me out to dinner and I say, hey, Chris, thank you so much. Why do I have to do -- where does it say I have to send something the next day? Why? Everybody is sending all these next day thank you texts. You thank somebody when you leave. That's enough.
WALLACE: I wanted to do it. I'm not asking you to send me a thank you note. I sent you a thank you note, but you had to respond to it.
DAVID: I know, because I just wanted you to know in advance that I wasn't going to send you a next day thank you text if you took me out to dinner the next time. I was going to thank you after the dinner, before I got in my car. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. thank you so much. Thank you. And that's sufficient. You don't need a next day text, do you? Why do you need the next day text?
WALLACE: I kind of would appreciate it. Because otherwise you've just gotten in the car, you've driven off, you've never given a second thought to me and how gracious I was.
DAVID: But I said, thank you.
WALLACE: I understand. But it was a momentary thank you. It needs to at least last until the next day.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID: I think that's ridiculous.
WALLACE: So tell me something else.
DAVID: Yes.
WALLACE: An everyday social interaction that kind of greases the wheels of humanity that you've think is stupid.
DAVID: I mean, there's 12 seasons worth of it, like the "Happy New Year". I don't understand why anybody would say "Happy New Year" to me. I can't even respond to it on a text, "Happy New Year". Why? Why are you sending that to me? I don't care. I don't care about a new year. What's the difference? What's the difference? "Happy New Year", what does it even mean?
WALLACE: Well, there's even a better question, which I think was actually in one of your episodes. How long after January 1st do you have to keep saying "Happy New Year"? In other words --
DAVID: Yes, was nice and said January 7th, but now I'm revising that to January 3rd.
WALLACE: January 3rd.
DAVID: Yes.
WALLACE: That's it?
DAVID: That's it.
WALLACE: Do people come up to you and sort of say, almost like a rabbi, how long do I have to say --
DAVID: Yes.
WALLACE: They do?
DAVID: Yes, I get questions like that.
[10:50:00]
WALLACE: And you pronounce?
DAVID: Yes, and I have answers for all of them.
WALLACE: So January 3rd.
DAVID: I'm changing it to January 3rd, yes. Yes. And here's the thing, because I'm Jewish, I also get the "Happy New Year in September at the Rosh Hashanah.
WALLACE: Yes.
DAVID: Yes, and I get it then. So I'm getting a twice a year.
WALLACE: It's a nightmare.
DAVID: I don't need it. Don't wish me "Happy New Year." I don't even care if you wish me happy birthday. What do you think about that?
WALLACE: Well, now we're really treading on sacred ground here.
DAVID: Really? No, that's fine. "Happy Birthday" is fine. But, but, I've said this, and I think I did a movie where I talked about this, that the birthday is turned into a job. You're getting 25, 30 texts of "Happy Birthday". They all have to be answered. And it's a job.
WALLACE: Well, I agree with that, but here's the interesting question --
DAVID: Do you agree that you have to respond to the "Happy Birthday" text? You have to say something.
WALLACE: You have to acknowledge it. If I send you a happy birthday and you don't respond, I consider it a snub.
DAVID: Yes.
WALLACE: Isn't it? It's a snub. In fact, I question the whole basis of our relationship.
DAVID: Yes. So what I'm saying is I would rather not get the "Happy Birthday" text because I have to return it. That's all I'm saying. I'd rather not get it. If you want to say it in person if you see me, hey, happy birthday. Hey, thanks, happy birthday. But don't send me a text that I have to return. That's a job. No?
WALLACE: No, I will say, and God forbid --
DAVID: So you're with me on the birthday?
WALLACE: Yes, I do agree with you on the birthday, and I God forbid, it's a big birthday. Like you and I are almost exactly the same. I think you're like four months older than I am. And 75, a nightmare.
DAVID: Yes. WALLACE: A nightmare, because you're going to get a lot. And it's not a birthday you really want to celebrate to begin with. And now suddenly you've got to respond to everybody. It's a nightmare.
DAVID: Exactly. Exactly. So if there's anything that I can do to change that --
WALLACE: I'll sign up for that, as a matter of fact. You enlisted me.
DAVID: So you would rather -- let me get this straight now, you would rather people not say "Happy birthday," send you a text, a happy birthday text, because you have to return it, right? You agree?
WALLACE: Yes, except that I have to say I'm a bit of a hypocrite because I do send people happy birthday texts. But guess what? After today, never again.
DAVID: Or you could do this, "Happy birthday. No need whatsoever to reply to this happy birthday text."
WALLACE: In fact, please don't.
DAVID: In fact, please don't. There you go.
WALLACE: All right, I want to ask you a question.
DAVID: Sure. Sure. What do you got?
WALLACE: Because my father always said people are fascinated by how much rich people are worth. I remembered him famously asking Johnny Carson once what he's worth.
DAVID: That's a terrible, terrible question to ask Who does your father think he was, by the way?
WALLACE: We know.
DAVID: Yes, we know. But still.
WALLACE: So here's the question.
DAVID: I hope, I hope that Johnny Carson said to him, Mike, none of your business. That's none of your business.
WALLACE: He in effect said that. So here's the question.
DAVID: Yes.
WALLACE: On the Internet, I actually looked, the over-under is half-a- billion dollars. We're not doing a split here.
DAVID: By the way, I'm out of water, OK. I'm out.
WALLACE: You're out of water?
DAVID: Yes. Is there anybody, can I get more water here? WALLACE: No, that's it. That was the allotment. That's it. No, I'm sorry.
DAVID: First of all, how dare you?
WALLACE: I've done 100 interviews --
DAVID: How dare you?
WALLACE: I've done 100 interviews and everybody takes that amount of water, and they pace themselves through the show. So that's it.
DAVID: Well, I didn't think we'd be going this long.
WALLACE: I think you're avoiding the question.
DAVID: I'm avoiding the question? I'm going to say --
WALLACE: Over or under a half-a-bill dollars?
DAVID: -- what should have been said to your father, none of your -- business. How about that? And that's ridiculous. That's ridiculous.
WALLACE: What?
DAVID: What you just said.
WALLACE: A half-a-billion?
DAVID: That number is so preposterous, OK. Ridiculous.
WALLACE: How about $100 million.
DAVID: OK, how about you shut up, OK? How about you shut up? Is that all right?
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: I've got to say, you know, 100 interviews, nobody has ever said that to me before.
DAVID: Just shut up.
WALLACE: OK. All right, we got that straight.
Finally, I want to end with the "Seinfeld" finale in 1998. Here it is.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JERRY SEINFELD, COMEDIAN: See now, to me that button is in the worst possible spot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really?
SEINFELD: Oh, yes. The second button is the key button. It literally makes or breaks the shirt. Look at it. It's too high. It's in no man's land.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Haven't we had this conversation before?
SEINFELD: You think?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we have.
SEINFELD: Yes, maybe we have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[10:55:08]
WALLACE: And 76 million people watched that. It was the sixth --
DAVID: And 76 million disappointed people, yes.
WALLACE: Well, I'm going to get to that.
DAVID: Yes.
WALLACE: It was the sixth most watched entertainment event on television at that time. And as you point out, some people weren't thrilled by that ending. What do you think of that ending? You wrote it.
DAVID: I thought it was pretty good.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID: Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
WALLACE: Like "Curb your Enthusiasm," you can watch my entire conversations with Larry David and Bill Maher anytime you want on Max. Just look for "Who's Talking."
Thank you for spending part of your holiday weekend with us. The panel and I will be back next Saturday morning here on CNN. We'll see you then.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
