'I will not miss Scott Walker': Bill Maher on politics, pot and the N.Y. Mets

You get 15 minutes on the phone with comedian Bill Maher, you take it.

Why? Because you never know what you'll learn about the TV talk-show host who is bound for Milwaukee's Riverside Theater on May 5.

For instance, he's still a limited partner of the New York Mets and says: "You'd have to pry that from my cold dead hands."

As a limited partner, there's no role in how the team is run, Maher said, but you can get swell seats, good parking and "I can definitely get Mr. Met to come over and take a picture."

"It's mostly an investment, an amazing investment," Maher said. "And an investment that everyone told me not to do back in 2011."

But Maher figured: "I know one thing, sports franchises almost always go up. And this is a baseball team in New York. They're not making anymore National League baseball franchises in New York."

Maher isn't known for baseball.

His calling card is biting political comedy and colorful conversation, starting with the late-night talk show "Politically Incorrect" in 1993 and then HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," which has been on the air since 2003.

Ask him how late-night talk morphed from apolitical Johnny Carson to all politics all the time, and Maher said he's the guy who changed things.

Critics and others, he recalled, said: "Are you crazy to do a show, a talk show where you are offering your own political opinion because you will alienate half the crowd."

"You know, I said, 'let's give it a try.' Maybe people are more sophisticated, maybe people can hear your opinion and not agree with every one of them and still find you entertaining."

The formula has worked.

He has his point of view, a man of the political left with a libertarian streak thrown in.

"I will not miss Scott Walker," he said when asked about the former Republican governor.

"It's funny, Scott Walker was the one a lot of smart money was on in 2016," he said. But Walker's presidential campaign derailed before the first votes were cast.

Maher is no fan of President Donald Trump, either, but he would certainly have him on his show.

"I've offered that on the air and I've also told his friend Anthony Scaramucci, 'Please tell the president he's welcome to come on.' "

He indicated Democrats aren't a sure thing to win the presidency in 2020.

"They certainly are good at blowing elections," he said.

"There is a wide latitude for a Democrat to run in the center, center left," he added. "Of course that is not going to please all the people who want Medicare-for-all, single-payer and it's not going to please the people who want a much more liberal immigration system."

But Maher asked what are the people further on the left going to do, "Vote for the kids in cages guy? Vote for the guy who wanted to get rid of Obamacare and replace it with nothing? Of course not."

Maher backs his political views with cash, contributing $1 million to Senate Majority PAC to elect Democrats in 2018 and $1 million to Priorities USA Action to get President Barack Obama re-elected in 2012.

"Those contributions aren't cheap," he said. "Sometimes, I think of my stand-up tour as the making-my-money-back-tour. The reason I do it is because I care about the country, I care about my place in it."

Maher said he takes his show and his stand-up very seriously. He filmed a special last year and had a new act in less than a month.

Oh, and about marijuana. Maher, a proponent of pot legalization, doesn't toke up before a performance.

"I pick my places to smoke pot," he said. "And before a show would not be one of them."

Bill Maher plays The Riverside Theater, May 5. Doors open 7 p.m.; show begins 8 p.m.