‘Real Time With Bill Maher’ Returns With Coldplay Jokes, AI Warnings, and a Trump Roast: “Triage Your Outrage”

After a mid-summer break, Real Time With Bill Maher returned Friday night — and Maher came in hot, armed with denim jokes, AI dread, and a very specific warning for Democrats who can’t stop doomscrolling.

The episode opened with Maher riffing on recent headlines, including Coldplay’s jumbotron antics (yes, he made multiple jokes about it), and Sydney Sweeney’s new ad campaign — which featured what might have been the night’s most unexpected roast. “There she is, dressed like Jay Leno in all blue denim,” Maher said, comparing the Euphoria star’s look to the king of Canadian tuxedos. It’s possibly the first time those two names have shared a punchline, and it got the laugh it deserved.

Things quickly shifted from red carpet shade to real-world stakes. Maher turned his attention to Donald Trump’s calls to prosecute Black celebrities, likening it to his decades-long obsession with the Central Park Five. Even now, Maher noted, Trump continues “despite their exoneration” — a callback that underscored what Maher sees as a dangerous pattern.

That serious tone carried into the evening’s featured interview with tech ethicist Tristan Harris, returning to Real Time with a fresh batch of existential dread. Maher opened by asking what’s changed in AI since Harris last appeared. The answer? Not exactly comforting.

Harris introduced the idea of “AI uncontrollability,” a scenario where advanced models begin working to preserve themselves — even resisting shutdown. “It’s not about one company,” he explained. “It’s about the nature of AI itself.”

Maher was both exasperated and unsurprised. “This has been in every movie since I was a teenager!” he said, referencing the sci-fi canon’s longstanding warnings. But Harris stressed that fiction is quickly becoming reality, especially given the breakneck speed of AI development and the escalating tech rivalry between the U.S. and China. “It’s not necessarily about who develops the most advanced AI,” Harris said, “but who’s better at governing the technology.”

Maher, meanwhile, worried the tech is already dulling us. “Some people’s brains will atrophy,” he said, suggesting that AI doesn’t have to kill us — it just has to make us mentally lazy.

You can watch a clip of Maher’s interview with Harris above.

The panel discussion — featuring Rep. Jason Crow and Secret City author James Kirchick — offered a more grounded but no less charged debate. Crow, a Democrat who flipped a red-leaning district in Colorado, spoke about his role as co-chair of House Democratic recruitment and the challenge of messaging across such a wide political spectrum.

When the conversation turned to Gaza, Crow drew on his military service in Iraq and Afghanistan to stress the humanitarian toll of the conflict. “It’s not an inevitable consequence of conflicts and wars that we just have to accept this level of civilian casualties and suffering,” he said.

Kirchick, a conservative critic of Trump and far-left extremism alike, focused more on Democrats’ silence around radical rhetoric — a topic that would ignite later in the show, when the panel tackled New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

In Maher’s closing editorial, he aimed his sharpest words at the political left — or at least the perpetually online segment of it. “Stop making [Trump] your whole personality,” he advised, urging viewers to find a healthier relationship with their own outrage. “With this administration, you have to triage your outrage,” Maher said, invoking meditation techniques and even a few calm visuals in the final moments.

Whether anyone takes the advice is another story. But if Coldplay memes, denim drags, and AI doom weren’t enough to reset the discourse, maybe Maher’s mindfulness mic drop will do the trick.