On Friday night, Pulitzer Prize–winner Ronan Farrow and author of "War On Peace" stopped by "Real Time with Bill Maher." As soon as Farrow took the hot seat with Maher, he was belittled about his age.
“You have had quite a year, you got the Pulitzer Prize. Are you 30 yet?” Maher said.
“I am 30,” Farrow responded.
“Just 30,” Maher said.
“That’s old in TV years,” Farrow replied.
“Oh, f*ck you,” Maher said back.
“I notice the president spoke to Congress and really echoed a lot of the thoughts in your book,” Maher continued. “Unfortunately, it was the president of France.”
The two continued to discuss America, democracy and diplomacy, during which Farrow cited a Pew Research study that claimed people trust the U.S. less than Germany.
“We’re not still holding the German’s responsible for you-know-what, are we?” Maher said.
“I’m not going to touch the Holocaust stuff tonight,” Farrow responded.
“I’m just saying it was a very long time ago. How long do Germans have to say we’re not those people any more?” Maher said.
Maher went on to ask Farrow about his “other big area.” He was referring to his award-winning reporting for opening the floodgates on the Harvey Weinstein scandal, which may have helped spur the #MeToo movement, placing conversations about sexual assault and harassment in a new light.
“You wrote the article about Harvey Weinstein, it was supposed to go on NBC, right?” Maher asked.
“It was,” Farrow replied.
“But it wound up at the New Yorker because NBC — now they’re dealing with a story about Tom Brokaw and Matt Lauer, and gosh, what’s in the water over there?” Maher asked. “And Bill Cosby, it’s very fitting you’re here, right after he gets sentenced — or not sentenced, but found guilty.”
Maher continued to call these men the “big fish,” but asked if #MeToo was “causing a backlash that’s hurting it?”
He referred to Al Franken, Aziz Ansari, and Garrison Keillor.
“Everyone had this pent-up desire to show their penis that we just didn’t talk about for years and years,” Farrow joked.
“Not everyone,” Maher said. “But a shocking number of people.”
Maher said he has thought that “maybe” the movement has “gone too far here.”
Farrow said that people have been good at “self-regulating” and used the article about Ansari that was published in Babe as an example.
“It was clearly a single-source narrative about a date gone wrong, and there was a debate about how far gone wrong it was, but I don’t think anyone saw that and said, ‘Oh he’s Harvey Weinstein, this is a multiple rapist,'” Farrow said.
“But he’s not around anymore,” Maher said.
“Is that true of Aziz Ansari?” Farrow asked.
“I think so,” Maher replied.
Farrow responded by explaining that conversations around sexual harassment and assault have been kept silent for decades, thus causing “so much pent-up anger and heartbreak and lack of accountability, that I do think it’s understandable it’s coming out in torrents right now.”
Watch the full discussion here:
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