Bill Maher isn’t sure what he’ll do if Donald Trump is re-elected president next year.

“I feel exhausted by this man and by working so hard every week to try to find some new angle,” Maher told Variety of his frustration over how much Trump now consumes his show — and his life. “The prospect of another four years of having to do it looms over me like the sword of Damocles. I cannot tell you how much anxiety that causes me.”

Maher has hosted his Emmy-nominated weekly HBO series “Real Time” since 2003, and the show (now in its 17th season) celebrated its 500th episode June 21. Born less than a year after ABC canceled “Politically Incorrect,” “Real Time” evolved from that format to focus more on conversations, mostly about politics, with guests from both the celebrity and political world, and from all sides of the political spectrum.

As he prepared to host his 500th “Real Time,” Maher spoke about the evolution of the show, as well as how he often angers liberal audiences as much as he does conservatives (and why he wears that as a badge of honor).

The host has often courted controversy — including a 2017 episode that got him into some hot water for referencing a racial slur — but he also notes that controversy is part of the Bill Maher brand. “If it ends with me getting canceled or fired, I’ve been through that before,” he said. “All I know is the technology keeps changing, and every time it does, all I hear is, ‘But they need content.’ Well, I’m content, so I think I’ll be OK.”

A transcript of that interview, edited for length and clarity, follows.

Q: Anniversaries can be arbitrary, but what does 500 episodes of “Real Time” mean to you and the show?

A: It’s my life just going way too quickly. I feel like I just began, so I don’t know how we got to 500. I guess that there is a niche that I’ve been filling. My theory on show business is always do something no one else is doing. Don’t try to do something that other people are doing and don’t put out a jazz album if you’re a rock band, don’t do a serious dark drama if you’re the funny guy. Do what they want. It’s not that complicated, show business.

Q: “Real Time” evolved into much more sophisticated conversations than you had on “Politically Incorrect.” How would you say the evolution of you in late night has coupled with your evolution as just a person and as a comedian?

A: It is an evolution. When you think about the fact that I’m 63 and when “Politically Incorrect” went on, I was 37. You’re just a completely different person. Your character hopefully is the same, but I always tell younger people when they’re asking me about the future, “Look, don’t stress it too much because you’re going to be in a completely different circumstance basically every decade of your life.”

In my 20s, my goal was don’t fail, don’t be one of the comedians who is not going to get a career out of this because you’ll be miserable through your whole life. You’re always growing and evolving, so I’m such a different person at this age than I was in my 30s and that can only be reflected in the show. “Politically Incorrect” was designed to be a train wreck. It was supposed to be almost a parody of a talk show. It was confrontational by design and it was on every night.

And then when I moved to this show it was a whole different thing. It was less celebrity-oriented. (Viewers) want a good serious conversation, and I think what’s different about our show is that it is a conversation that invites all points of view. And mostly what you see when people in the entertainment side of political discussion are doing it is a complete 100% pandering to the liberal point of view no matter what it is, and I’m a liberal. But I’m not afraid to take them on, and I think that is the difference.

Q: On a recent episode, you and George Will both lamented that there just aren’t many open minds anymore.

A: I think the frustration for me is more the studio audience than the people on the panel. The audience is more part of the problem. I think we have in this country extreme tribalism. So when I go someplace that’s even a little outside the completely approved group think of the left there is always pushback. That’s frustrating to me because I would like to have a more open conversation. It’s very hard for me to even get the conservatives who come on our show to stick to their guns because that audience is so intimidating. No one likes to be booed, no one likes to be groaned at, no one likes to be laughed at.

Q: What is it like for you when you encounter conservative audiences?

A: I don’t. I never do. When I play my concerts around the country doing stand-up, the entire audience is an audience that hates Trump and they’re going to laugh hysterically at all the Trump jokes. I love playing the midwest, the south, because wherever I go, I’m going to get liberals.

Q: Do you wish you had more conservatives in your audience?

A: I do face liberal audiences who, when I go outside those group-think boundaries, there is groaning and booing sometimes, and I don’t care. That’s my brand. It’s always been that way. The show was called “Politically Incorrect,” and they don’t really hold it against me, and I don’t hold it against them.

Q: You often say you wish you didn’t have to constantly talk about Trump, but he takes up all the oxygen these days. How difficult is it not to talk about him and everything going on?

A: It’s the question that’s on my mind every week doing this show. I think I have a bonding with so many people in America now because we find ourselves in the same place, which is you don’t want to ignore it because that would mean you’re a bad citizen. You can’t just let it happen. You have to try your best to pay some attention because you can’t let it become normal.

But on the other hand, you can’t watch it all the time or else you go crazy. The more you see something, the more normal it becomes, and you can’t let it become normalized. So you’re caught in this terrible middle ground. I don’t have a great answer for that. All I know is if he wins a second term, I don’t know what I’m going to do.