Broadcast-network comedy-talk programs such as The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon took two weeks off over Christmas and New Year’s. Real Time With Bill Maher got a winter break college students would envy (two months -- remember, it’s not TV, it’s HBO) but the show returns Friday night, and to promote it, Maher gave an interview to The Daily Beast. He and the Beast’s Marlow Stern talked mostly about the presidential races, though Maher fulminated a bit about how one of his major hobbyhorses, the Tea Party, allegedly came to be.

Highlights from Maher’s remarks (italics in original):

-- [on Obama’s State of the Union address] “I thought it was his best one yet…A lot of what he said needed to be said. It’s probably stuff that made the Republicans mad, like ‘that was the lesson of Vietnam, that was the lesson of Iraq.’ Well, yeah, that was the lesson of Iraq, but that’s what [the Republicans] fuckin’ hated, because they hate to learn lessons.”

-- [on the Tea Party] “Born, bred, and raised from racism…There was no Tea Party during Bush despite the financial collapse, the bailout of the banks, the bailout of the automobile industry—all of this ‘socialist money’ out the window, the thing that they supposedly hate, and yet no movement of concerned white taxpayers sprouting up. But suddenly, a month after Count Chocula takes office, they break out the three-cornered hat!”

-- [on Ted Cruz] “It’s high intelligence in the service of evil…To think of this guy being the president of the United States, this ambition and love of power combined with being on the wrong side of every issue, it’s a very scary prospect.”

-- “Trump has defied everybody’s predictions, and he’s still there…I mean, what would he have to do, fart in Jesus’ face or call Ronald Reagan a fag? I have no idea what this guy would have to do to make his crowd turn on him. He’s like a movie monster who only gets stronger with the stuff that you’re using to try to kill him.”

-- “Hillary’s ace card is women, and [Trump is] turning that on her head by relitigating Monica Lewinsky…Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Gennifer Flowers. And let’s not forget the [Jeffrey] Epstein plane that went to orgy island!...If that came back in a way that was damaging to Bill Clinton—God, underage Russian hookers and sex slaves? Christ, you can get through a few things in American politics, but now we’re in Roman Polanski territory.”

-- “Connecting was never [Hillary’s] strong suit. She’s a policy wonk, which is the Democrats’ strong suit; they understand government. They’re sometimes no prizes themselves, but compared to Trump and Ben Carson, they don’t have to be taught the names of the continents, and they know how government works. Look, she’s too centrist for me and she’s too in bed with Wall Street and Monsanto, but she’d be a capable leader. I wouldn’t be concerned with her blowing the world up.”