Bill Maher may well be America’s most prominent atheist.

It’s a position strongly amplified in the veteran comedian and TV host’s 2008 film documentary “Religulous,” in which he sliced and diced the beliefs of Christians, Muslims and Buddhists with equally unbridled glee.

His emphatic nonbeliever status notwithstanding, one wonders if this veteran satirist is tempted to say a prayer of thanks for this year’s more-crowded-by-the-week pool of Republican presidential candidates.

Maher, who performs Sunday at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay, chortled.


“It is pretty unprecedented, and it is great for comedy,” said the host of HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” show, which is now on its annual summer hiatus.

“The Republicans say this is not a repeat of 2012, with the clown car (of candidates). No, I don’t think even a clown car could hold 15 people. There are nearly as many GOP presidential candidates as there are Bill Cosby accusers. With John Kasich joining in, it’ll be like the Sweet 16 (in college basketball). It’s perfect!”

He laughed again.

“I was doing a stand-up show last week. I told the audience: ‘Now, I’ll perform my David Blaine magic trick, and name all 16 candidates off the top of my head.’ It took a while.”


Maher, 59, is a 1978 graduate of Cornell University. He majored in history and English, and earned spending money as a recreational drug dealer. He is a longtime advocate for the legalization of marijuana, a position he has often articulated on his show.

“When I was 13 I went with my sister to something called ‘The Concert for Peace’ at Shea stadium. It was an all-day event and I think Credence Clearwater Revival closed the show,” he recalled. “It was probably the first time I smelled pot and heard the siren call!”

Like fellow cable TV hosts Jon Stewart and John Oliver, he likes to provoke thought as well as laughs. On “Real Time,” he combines comedy, serious monologues and lively political discussions with his guest panelists.

Spreading & skewering the news


The show enables him to skewer current events for a national audience. Intriguingly, a large number of his younger viewers eschew newspapers and TV news, instead learning about current events from his show.

“Well, it’s better than nothing,” Maher said from Los Angeles, where “Real Time” is filmed.

“The best analogy would be that when you were in college and had CliffsNotes, which were the guide that summarized the book you were reading. The teacher always said: ‘You can use them along with the book, but don’t use them as a substitute for the book.’ I would say the best course of action is to be an informed citizen. You should absorb the news, straight, before you get it from comedians.”

Does the level of knowledge his audience may (or may not) have about current events affect how Maher presents those topics on his show?


“That’s a good question and it’s something I wrestle with all the time,” he replied. “There are people who watch our show who are very well-informed. They are news junkies who read the paper every day. They don’t need anything explained, so you can go right to the joke or nuance. But you can’t do a show just for those people.

“But … if people weren’t interested in the news, they wouldn’t be watching us at all; they’d be watching ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ But they are watching the show, I think, because they’re busy and don’t have time to catch up with the news. …

“So, somewhere in each show, I want to include every story I think is important for them to hear about that week. These might not be the same stories covered on the nightly news, but that gets to why I think the nightly news is so lacking.”

As with some other comedians, arrogance can be a key weapon in Maher’s arsenal. On his show, this holds especially true when he challenges guests whose views are diametrically opposite to his own.


$1 million contribution

But he’s also a devoted social activist, who is willing to back his views with his wallet. In 2012, Maher made a $1 million contribution to President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.

“It was a great investment. I couldn’t be happier,” he said, offering an array of reasons for his enthusiasm. “It’s a shame he can’t run for a third term. I think he’d definitely win.”

Has Maher ever considered running for public office?


“Well, first of all, I have no desire to run for office,” he said, laughing.

“And, second, I could never even come close to winning, because I’m an atheist. Poll after poll shows Americans would elect almost anyone before they elect an atheist. They would probably elect a pedophile before an atheist. Atheism, in the American lexicon, is just the worst thing you could be.”

Maher received threats after “Religulous” was released. He was also the subject of considerable hostility in 2001, after declaring in an episode of his ABC TV show, “Politically Incorrect,” that the 9/11 hijackers were not cowards.

“We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away,” Maher said at the time. “That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.”


The resulting uproar led ABC to cancel his show, which the network debuted in 1996, following Maher’s four-year tenure with Comedy Central. He still likes to shake things up on “Real Time,” where his panelists on a single show have included fellow comedian Jerry Seinfeld, former Mississippi Gov. (and erstwhile Republican National Committee Chairman) Haley Barbour and then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Other guests have ranged from Jay Z and Ann Coulter to Arianna Huffington and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista.

Bob Dole & Hillary Clinton

But the political and social landscape has dramatically changed since 1996.

It was then that Maher came here to host a week of “Politically Incorrect,” which aired nightly from downtown’s Lyceum Theatre while the GOP convention took place at the nearby San Diego Convention Center. He had Chris Rock reporting on camera from the convention, while Arianna Huffington (in her pre-Huffington Post days) and Al Franken (in his pre-U.S. Senator days) appeared each night as “Strange Bedfellows” in, fittingly, a large brass bed.


“I’ve been surprised and disappointed things have become more polarized and more politically correct since then,” Maher said. “I did a show back then railing against political correctness, only to find that — with the advent of the Internet and Twitter — it got worse.

“Today, (Democrats and Republicans) have nothing in common. If you look at President Obama’s health care, for example, Obamacare is pretty close to what the Republican plan was. The plan Bob Dole put forward to counter what Hillary Clinton was proposing was pretty much Obamacare.

“Let’s remember that Obamacare is anything but a government takeover of health care. I wish it was. That’s called a single-payer plan; that’s what all the other big-boy countries have. But we had to develop a system that is a ‘market place,’ which is still a terrible idea.”

And how does Maher respond to charges that President Obama is a socialist?


For starters, with a sputter. Then with some characteristic zingers.

“If President Obama is a socialist, he’s a lousy one!” Maher said. “The stock market has pretty much tripled under his watch. These people have no idea what ‘socialism’ is. It’s a word they know means something super bad, like atheism... It’s hysterical, because America has been a quasi-socialist country, like every modern country.

“And these people who call Obama a socialist would never give up their Medicare or Social Security. They are the same people who never question the giant check we send to the Pentagon every year, which is mostly a socialist program. The military is real socialism, in the sense most of that money is not needed and the military is a jobs program.”

From sitcoms to gravitas


Having an edge has been a distinct advantage for Maher. So has the growing intersection of comedy and politics, although it’s not always easy to distinguish between the two in an era when Anthony Weiner had to resign from Congress because of a sexting scandal and, more recently, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a current presidential candidate, made a video of himself destroying his cell phone in a blender, in a misguided riposte to fellow presidential candidate Donald Trump giving out his number.

“Things have changed quite a bit,” Maher agreed.

“Back in the early 1980s, we (comedians) all wanted to be on sitcoms. That was the big goal of everybody, to come up with clean material so you could do ‘The Tonight Show.’ And then you’d be seen on (Johnny) Carson and they’d give you a sitcom, which I did. I did three sitcoms in the ‘80s. But I think I was always destined to do what I’m doing, humor mixed with news. My father was a newsman and news always dominated my material.

“It’s harder when you’re young, though, because you don’t have the gravitas. The audience looks at you (funny), like: ‘What does this young guy know about anything?’ When we started ‘Politically Incorrect’ in 1993, we took a lot of criticism for debasing politics. People said: ‘How can you do this? You’re taking it into the gutter!’


“I’ve been very fortunate. Just to be making a living is nice, and to do what you like is extremely lucky. I have always maintained that wealth in this country is almost always a fluke. If you can throw a baseball 100 miles an hour, you can sign a contract for $140 million. Well, that’s just a fluke. …

“It’s very similar to telling jokes for a living. I’ve liked jokes since I was 10. My sister is a teacher; she should make more money than I do. So, yes, I’ve been lucky.”

Bill Maher

When: 8 p.m. Sunday


Where: Humphreys Concert by the Bay, 2241 Shelter Island Drive, Point Loma

Tickets: $80

Phone: (800) 745-3000

Online: ticketmaster.com