Ep. #673: Fran Lebowitz, Yuval Noah Harari, Ian Bremmer

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Welcome to an HBO podcast

from the HBO Late Night series,

Real Time with Bill Maher. We'll be right back.
Thank you very much. Good luck.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

We've got a great show for you.

I know.

All right.

I don't know what I did.

Thank you very much.

I know.

I know.

It's going to be an exciting time.

It's a little more than a month before the election.

The vice presidential debate is Tuesday.

Are you excited about that?

Really?

Oh, okay, you do you. I'm not excited.

But this I thought was kind of juicy.

J.D. Vance, he's in the debate.

He's the vice presidential candidate.

They got his text messages now. You know,

before he was on the Trump team, he compared

Trump to Hitler. Said Trump was like Hitler.

Hitler.

Turns out, in his private

text messages, as late as

2020, he was saying Trump

is a failure as president.

But he says he has a simple explanation

for why the private messages are different than the

public pronouncements.

He's a huge liar.

No, this is what he says.

This is his conversion theory.

This is what he says, is that he was won over by Trump's performance in office.

Really? Really?

You say he's Hitler, but then maybe not because of tariffs? Okay. But Trump...
But, you know, Trump, I say this every week, but it's truer every week, he's just losing it more. I mean, whether it's the dogs eating the...

You know, last week it was,

I could have been bigger than Elvis if I had a guitar.

I mean...

This week he says, China ruined the furniture industry.

The furniture industry of China.

He said, I'm not making that...

He said, chairs used to last,

but now they're going to last a couple of months.

Yes, that's why when Donald Trump sits on a chair, it breaks.

China.

Oh, man, China.

Man.

The Chinese, they also make pants that split.

Makeup that runs and ramps that make you fall down. Goddamn Chinese.
But, you know, he knows he's losing, and he's losing to a woman. So he's now going after the woman.
He said this week, women, if he gets reelected, women will be, this is a quote, will be happy, healthy, confident, and free. You're promising women will be confident? Are you a dictator or a deodorant? He also said he will be the greatest protector of women.
In fact, he cares about women so much that when he had his beauty pageants,

he used to walk into the dressing room to check up on them.

He's also obsessed with the idea that Kamala Harris worked at McDonald's. Or rather that she didn't.
She says that she did when she was young like zillions of people do. And he says, no, there's no evidence of it.
You cannot prove you worked at McDonald's. First of all, who pads their resume by saying they worked at McDonald's? I think Kamala Harris is playing this one just right.
Now, one of her big issues that she's vulnerable on is the border. So she went to the border this week.
She went to the border in Arizona. She used to be the border czar.
She visited there. So, interesting.

Along with working at McDonald's, now, that's two places she worked that have a convenient drive-thru.

And also working to shore up her vulnerabilities.

They've been a lot of press runners.

She doesn't do interviews.

She doesn't answer.

So she sat for an interview. She said, okay, I will answer your hardball questions.
So she went on MSNBC. Okay.
All right. I wasn't, you know, there were not hardball questions, but I still expected not them to be rubbing her feet.
And, of course, this is the week we see it every year. The big event goes on in New York.
The U.N. meets this week every year in September.
And, you know, I mean, you could say a lot of bad things about the U, and I probably will tonight. There is something stirring, about 133 different nations all coming together, different governments, different economies, different goals, and they all have one thing in common.
They've all bribed Eric Adam. I mean, I like Eric.

He's been on the show, the mayor of New York.

I don't understand politicians.

I really don't.

I mean, he let Turkey, the country of Turkey, bribe him for what?

For like $10,000 worth of bullshit.

Upgrades and flights and hotel rooms.

And what did they get for it?

Oh, the fire department inspection. He called that off on their consult.
I mean, this is so petty. And also, it was going to get caught.
There were other signs Turkey was in the fix here. I mean, he renamed the Lincoln Tunnel after Dr.
Oz. Come on.
Okay, and now to our friends in Florida, Hurricane Helene. Oh, I know.
We are thinking about you, our friends down there, because, oh, wow, that was a bad hurricane. And if you're currently in the bushes outside Mar-a-Lago...
LAUGHTER Please... Shelter in place.
The Secret Service will eventually find you. I mean, every time we have a hurricane, I see the same thing on the news.
Every news has the one guy who they interview who won't go, won't evacuate because God has a plan.

Yes, his plan, he's going to drown you.

Have you read the Bible?

It's a lot of people drowning.

All right, we've got a great show.

Ian Bremmer and Yuval Noah Harari are here.

The First Up Tea is one of the greatest wits America has ever produced.

Currently touring an evening with Fran Lebowitz.

You can catch her next on November 13th in Nashville, Tennessee,

and November 14th in Richardson, Texas. Fran Lebowitz.
You can catch her next on November 13th in Nashville, Tennessee, and November 14th in Richardson, Texas, Fran Lebowitz! How are you? How are you? Good to see you as always. Fran? Yes? Great to see you.
Thank you for coming by for your annual check-in here at Real Time. We need you so badly.
The people love you. They want you.
They need your wisdom. You have wisdom.
And you're hoarding your wisdom. So give this your wisdom tonight.
What is on your mind? Mostly the election, I would guess. Catherine Kamala Harris.
Yeah, the election is on my mind. The state of the world is on my mind.
Eric Adams is on my mind. Well, as in New York, what do you think about that? I mean, I'm so amazed.
Not that politicians can be bribed, but that they can be bribed so cheaply. He's not, you know, he's not a genius, Eric Adams.
So, I mean, when I saw,

I mean, I didn't even vote for him, okay?

So, like, it didn't take much to see that he was

at best a crook, okay?

So, I didn't vote for him even in general.

I voted for the socialist candidate, even

though I'm not a socialist. I don't remember

her name. I wouldn't recognize her in a crowd of

one.

I did not want to be one millionth

responsible for Eric Adams. So,

this should not come as a revelation. I mean,

And this is... her name, I wouldn't recognize her in a crowd of one.
I did not want to be one millionth responsible for Eric Adams. So this should not come as a revelation.
I mean, the specifics, I agree with you. I mean, when I saw all the specific stuff, like especially the plane tickets, where he asked for, like, three more business class tickets and two more business class tickets, and I thought, Eric, you're stealing first class.
Like, why business class? But for the pettiness of the crimes, don't you think they're coming down on him a little hard? No, he's the mayor of New York. No.
Yeah, I know. I'm not excusing it.
But, I mean, I've seen politicians do slightly worse things. Right.
Like try to overthrow the government of the United States. I mean, it's just...
I don't know if it rises to this level of umbrage by everybody so shocked and horrified. This is the worst thing that ever happened.
It's a little over the top. Well, I don't think anyone thinks it's the worst thing that's ever happened.
It's just that I don't understand why they didn't find this stuff out before. Which, it was very clear.
It's not like, you know, before this he was like Abraham Lincoln and then he turned out to be this. I mean, this was a very apparent thing.
He didn't even apparently live in New York. There's one...
Well... As far as I can tell, there's one rule for being the mayor.
You have to live in New York City. Okay? He...
He said he lived in an apartment in Brooklyn, but he also had a condominium in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which he said, first he said he had nothing to do with. His girlfriend lived in it.
Then he said, well, yes, but his primary residence was in Brooklyn. And I'm thinking, you're a public servant.
What do you mean your primary residence? You know, who are you, Barry Diller? How could you have two residences? You know, I mean, so he didn't even live in New York, okay?

He also ran partially on the fact that he

was a vegan, which I cannot think of anything

less important than what they eat.

Okay?

Then finally,

finally, a bunch of reporters

went into his apartment

in Brooklyn, and one of them opened the refrigerator, which is why you don't want a bunch of reporters in your apartment. And there was bacon in the refrigerator.
Now, I'm no expert on veganism. But I'm thinking bacon, probably not.
Then he said it was his son's bacon, and I think it's because it was his son's apartment. I see.
So right, so... No, I don't think they're coming down to it.

You are much more tolerant than I am, Bill.

Yes.

Okay, so...

Oh, we know that.

And you also don't live in New York,

so you don't care who the mayor is, but I do.

Right.

Yeah, no, I don't.

All right, well, let's move on.

Now, I don't know if you see this program often.

Probably not because it involves electricity. Right.
You have electricity. But I've been obsessed all year with this idea that they had four years to get Trump, five different trials.
And somehow they let it go away. Like he's not really going to get it.
The trials are not going to be apparently involved in this election at all. And the Democrats had time to do this.
Time. Four years.
And they had the power. No.
They were in office, and the attorney general was Merrick Garland. And yet it all went away.
And now the Supreme Court has ruled that he's not liable for any of this. Right, because what he had was the Supreme Court.
Okay? So, you know, the Democrats had, like, elected people. The Supreme Court is completely his, you know.
I mean, it's so disgraceful, this court, that it shouldn't even be allowed to be called the Supreme Court, you know. I mean...
It isn't... It's an insult to Motown to call it the Supreme Court.

It's not even a court.

It's only a court in the sense that the court of Louis XVI was a court.

You know, I mean, basically, it's a harem.

Okay?

It's a harem.

It's Trump's harem.

So I always feel sorry for the three real judges on the court. You know, I know a lot of people have jobs, not me, not you.
And you have to go to work every day, and there are people you don't like at work. But can you imagine having to go to work every day? Alito? You have to go to work with Alito? With Kavanaugh? You know, I mean, it must be horrible.
So what Biden should do, not that you asked, but when they passed that law, the Supreme Court passed that ruling,

you know, where they said, you're not the president, you're the king,

which is what that ruling is.

You can do whatever you want.

You can never be, you know, held responsible.

I thought, you know, Biden's still the president.

No one seems to notice.

But...

Biden should dissolve the Supreme Court.

Dissolve the Supreme Court?

I'm the president.

I'm the king now, like you said.

And go home.

Okay.

Good to see you're centrist.

But you had jury duty recently, did you not?

I'm sorry?

Jury duty?

Not recently.

I have been called for jury duty numbers of times, but I have not been called recently. And I always manage to get off.
Like, the one... There were two times I was about to go on.
Like, you know, I don't know... I don't know how they do it here.
But they call three million people. You know, you sit there, like, for days.
Then they call, like, a hundred people. Then you go into the court and then they pick literally out of a hat.
Like, you're in, like, third grade and you're picking, like, who's going to be the head of the school picnic. Okay.
And they pick 20 people. No, I've done it.
Yeah. Yes.
And so I was one of those 20 people and it was a buy and bust. It was before marijuana was legal.
And they, the defendant was in the courtroom. They're ready to go

the second they pick the jury. And

they asked me a question, you know,

can you be fair or whatever? And I said, no.

What do you got around? Why not?

I said, because I think drugs should be legal.

So this enraged

the judge.

I said, look, I am this kind of thing,

this buy and bust thing. This is entrapment.

I said, this cop who's sitting

in the courtroom in his cop suit

Thank you. the judge.
I said, look, I am this kind of thing, this buy and bust thing. This is entrapment.

I said, this cop who's sitting in the courtroom in his cop suit,

I said, he goes into the park

dressed as a drug

dealer, or drug buyer,

buys the drugs, and then

arrests the guy. Then he comes in here, dressed

as a cop. You know,

if you're going to make this illegal, then he should

dress as a cop and run after him. But you got off.
I eventually got off, yes. After being yelled at by the prosecutor.
Speaking of getting off, what did you think of the Puff Daddy situation? Well, I mean, I'm only asked because sex parties, I mean, it's sort of like a trend now. And I'm wondering, I know you were in New York in the 70s when it was a very bohemian kind of place, and you were part of the beautiful people crowd downtown and so forth.
Remember Plato's Retreat? That was a straight place, Bill. Plato's Retreat? Yeah.
But it was a sex party, wasn't it? Yeah, it was for straight people. Okay, but...
Who apparently needed a special club. Even though they had the whole rest of the world, they needed this club.
But what do you think of the fact that this is sort of a new trend in America, because we've heard about the COVID czar in New York.

The COVID czar? You didn't see that?

I don't know what you mean.

Sorry. The COVID czar in New York

went to sex parties when he was telling

everybody else to shelter inside.

And Matt Gaetz

went to sex parties.

I mean, I've seen sex parties in the headlines.

I know.

I don't think that's the only thing that Puffy's being...

I don't know.

I haven't followed exactly, you know, the thing about Puffy.

But what really stuck in my mind was the 1,000 bottles of baby oil.

I mean, like, I know they have other evidence.

I mean, they do have a video of him kicking a woman in the head.

Right.

Okay?

So even if you're in favor of the 1,000 bottles of baby oil, it may be the kicking of a woman in the head. Not so good.
And, but, I feel like the... I've been asking this question for seven years, since 2017 when the Me Too thing happened.
Why? Why not the music industry? I mean, they went after NPR

pretty bad.

They got like four or five guys from NPR.

Like old guys.

They posted like

an outrageous limerick

on the doorway of the bookshop.

The music industry

is this open

cesspool of misogyny

and frankly rape and sexual harassment

and somehow they have just

the angel of death has flown over

Thank you. is this open cesspool of misogyny and, frankly, rape and sexual harassment.
And somehow they have just... The angel of death has flown over them.
Why do you think that is? I think it's because this is a capitalist country and the music industry is much more lucrative than NPR. That would be my guess.
But it's something more... You know, I mean...
I mean, a lot of the stories about everybody, starting with, you know, me too, I've heard a lot of these stories, you know, for many years. You know, so Pafidus was not exactly a state secret, you know, but it was a state secret, apparently, to them.
You know, he's now in jail, I believe, with, I can't remember his name, the cryptocurrency guy? Yes, Frank Benfried. Right, him, Puffy, and now Adams.
All right? It's better to stay out of jail. Look who the roommate said.
You get like... Okay, so...
I understand that FranCon is going on again. You don't attend this.
This is the festival that people have where they dress like you. They adore you.
They're making you into a cult figure. I say it's long overdue.
I never know about this until last year. Is it this time of year? Yes, it is.
To coincide, what, with the UN meeting? Like, you know, which is... Have you ever been to New York to the UN, whatever this thing is called? So, basically, it's almost like the Super Bowl because high-end hookers from all over the country pull in.
Yes. And that basically seems to be the business of the UN because the other stuff, as we know, they're not getting done.
Right. So, the FranCon thing, I never heard of it till last year.
You know, I never heard of it till last year. I think it's in a little bar.
It's not, you know, the General Assembly. No, no.
Okay, so I think it's in a little bar and people dress up like me, whatever that means. Well, anything can get people to read more.
Yes, I don't think they read that. They don't read that.
And one reason I think they don't read as much as they used to is you won't write another book.

And whenever I talk to people and they say,

when you see Fran Nebelowitz,

just ask her, why won't you write another book?

I wouldn't say maybe it's not that I won't.

It's that I have this, like, writer's blockade.

For 45 years? Yes, that's why

a blockade is supposed to block.

Well, what can we do to unblock it?

I don't know. As soon as you know, give me a call.

Okay.

Fran Lieberwitz, everybody.

We'll take that as a challenge.

Good to see you.

Alright, let's meet our panel. Hey! All right.
He is the president and founder of the Eurasia Group and GZero Media. Ian Brimmer back with us, one of our most frequent guests.
And he's a historian, philosopher, and author of the New York Times Best Seller, Nexus, A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, Yuval Noah Harari. Great to have you here, stateside.
Okay, speaking of that, Biden spoke at the UN this week, and he said, in the years ahead, there may well be no greater test of our leadership than how we deal

with AI.

And for a 200-year-old man, I thought

that was pretty forward-thinking.

Does seem like the world is taking

AI very seriously at this point.

I know you think that maybe we should have

the solution originate

in the UN, something like the Paris

Climate Accord?

No.

No, no.

Bad information.

I get bad fucking information.

You don't think there should be some group

that makes a decision about how we handle AI in the future?

Yes, but I think we need to understand the problem

before we rush to solutions.

Part of the big problem of humanity,

especially with AI,

we tend to solve problems and then figure out that we solved the wrong problems. So we need to understand what we are facing before we rush to implement this or that solution.
So what is the problem that we're missing and what is the problem that is really there? I think the key thing to understand about AI is that it is really different from every previous technology in history,

like nuclear weapons, in the sense

that it's not a tool, it's

an agent.

Every previous technology in history,

like atom bombs, we decided

what to do with it, how to develop it,

how to use it. This is the first

technology that can actually make

decisions by itself,

that can actually invent new things, new ideas, new medicines, new bombs by itself. So we do think about it differently than how to, for instance, limit the spread of nuclear weapons.
The opportunities are massive. The dangers are also extraordinary, and they're coming quickly.
So I think you need two different types of governance. And one is more traditional.
One is that right now the U.S. and China happen to be the dominant actors in the world, private and public sector, in AI.
We waited until 1962 to have even the beginning of an arms control conversation with the Soviets when we almost blew each other up in the Cuban Missile Crisis. We can't afford to wait for decades for the Americans and Chinese to start talking about AI arms control agreements, even though we don't trust each other, right? That's critical.
That has to happen. But also, we need to make sure that the world is talking to each other and understanding the nature of these agents, what's happening in AI, both the opportunities so that they can be used in the global south, for example, and by poorer people in the United States that don't necessarily have the education to use it, not just by the people that have access to the biggest companies.
And that is something that has to be done globally. That's something that has been advanced this week at the United Nations.
And with the exception of the Russians who tried to scuttle it at the last moment, everyone else agreed. The Americans, the Europeans, the Chinese.
Turns out when you have a big issue like this, you can actually get countries together and agree to do some things. well I'll believe that when I see it

well

let me ask you something else I probably got wrong. Did you not say that you think that free speech should only extend to humans, not bots? Yes, I did say that.
Oh, good. I got one out of two.
So, meaning if there are chatbots, there's no free speech for them,

which is not something everybody agrees with at this point.

Yeah, and also more importantly, no free speech or no free pass for the algorithms

that are now managing the social media platforms,

which are the most important media platforms in the world.

You know, basically we now have the most sophisticated information technology in history, and people are losing the ability to hold the conversation, to talk with each other, to listen to each other. This is not just a U.S.
problem. It is all over the world.
And this is largely because we gave one of the most important jobs, not just in the media industry, in the world, to algorithms which are not regulated and nobody is liable for what they are doing. You know, the job of news editors was once one of the most important jobs a human can fulfill.
Lenin, before he was dictator of the Soviet Union, was editor of a newspaper.

Mussolini, before he was the dictator of Italy, he was editor of a newspaper. Now the most important editors in the world are algorithms.
The algorithms that decide what you will see on the news feed in Facebook or TikTok or Twitter or YouTube. and they were given a very specific and narrow goal by their human masters to increase human engagement, to increase user engagement.
And they discovered, by experimenting on billions of human guinea pigs, that the easiest way to grab user attention is to press the hate button, or the greed button, or the fear button in our minds. And this is what they've been doing for the last couple of years or decades.
And this is what makes the conversation almost all over the world impossible. They're flooding the world with junk information.
And nobody is liable for that because they hide behind free speech.

But what we want really from the corporations is not to be liable for what the human users are saying. Here, free speech should definitely be protected.
They should be liable for what their algorithms do. I tend to...
For me, the comparison, if we had a new genetically modified food, we would absolutely be testing it before we release it with society. If we have a new vaccine, even if there's a pandemic on, we want to make sure we test it.
It's an emergency before we release it. We have algorithms that we are releasing real time into society and just seeing what happens with the kids, with the adults.
And, you know, let's just see if democracy can stand up to that. That that strikes me as a real problem.
And the companies I'm not anti-capitalist at all. Fran will have a different view.
But I actually think we need more capitalism.

The capitalists that are driving the business models

can't only be capitalists when they're making money

and become socialists when they're causing damage.

Right?

They have to take responsibility for the negative externality.

And they don't want to do that.

And if they refuse to do that, who pays?

We pay.

Our kids pay.

That's the danger.

Thank you. externalities.
And they don't want to do that. And if they refuse to do that, who pays? We pay.
Our kids pay. That's the danger.
Absolutely. And the other thing is that this is just, you know, extremely primitive AIs.
The algorithms, the AIs that manage the social media platforms, they are just the first generation. We haven't seen anything yet.
In 10 or 20 years, we will have far more powerful AIs, and we need to start thinking very seriously, how do we manage that? Again, understanding that these are not tools in our hands, these are agents that can make decisions that we can't anticipate, that can invent new ideas from new texts to new financial devices that really go beyond the human imagination. And as you say, it incentivizes hate.
Hate and fear. And you mentioned also greed.
I would say the only thing that could trump that would be sex. Which is coming.
I mean, they used to say, if you put porn on television, it would get the highest ratings. If you had normal television, you allowed that people, the lizard brain would go to that.
But they don't allow anything dirty on TikTok. Look, Yuval's worried about...
He's worried about 10 to 20 years out. I'm worried about two to three years out.
When you're rolling out AI algorithms, bots, that are trained on your personal data, you're going to spend more time with that entity, with that bot, for your health, for your finances, for your personal relationships, and yes, your love life, than anything else. Again, I don't feel very comfortable just releasing that because it's profitable.
That's the sex you're talking about, Bill.

Listen to this. Actually, I'll split this out today.

Fifty-four percent of respondents in a survey agreed with the statement,

I've disengaged from politics because I can't tell what's true.

And I thought... Throughout this campaign, I've been reading the paper, of course, many different papers.

One day, I'll look and it'll be like, crime is way down. The next day, crime's way up, depending on where you look.
I'm in this business, and I can't tell you whether crime is up or down. Because I feel like I'm one of these people.
Although I can't disengage, it's my job. But I don't know what's true or not.
And then I read about Janet Jackson. Did you see what she said about him? No.
Oh, okay. You people know.
She was talking about Kamala Harris. And she said, well, I heard her father's white because that's what Trump said.
And this is Janet Jackson. And they were like, why are you saying this? She said, that's what I heard.
And then lots of people were like, oh, it's a conspiracy. It's like, oh, please, don't overthink it.
This is exactly what Trump does. People are telling me.
I'm hearing. Don't overthink it.
It's just that people are not that bright. They're not well-informed, especially celebrities.
So it's not a conspiracy. This is just somebody said this to her, or she saw it somewhere, and this is what she is now thinking.
You know, Bill, the most important issue to Americans in this election, it's not state of democracy, it's not abortion, it's not immigration, number one issue they consistently say is the economy, right? Yes. And yet the way people feel about the economy when you poll them before 2020 election and right after the 2020 election flipped completely.
All the Democrats were unhappy with the election when Trump was, the economy when Trump was president. Now they're happy.
All of the Republicans were unhappy. Now they're happy.
That's the most important issue we're voting on. And literally the only thing that matters to them, principally, is not the state of inflation.
It's not the state of unemployment. It's not the interest rates, Lord knows.
Not the stock market. It's just what's your guy telling you.
What's your gal telling you. You can't maintain democracy in that environment for long.
Okay. I think the key issue is that democracy is based on trust, whereas dictatorship is based on terror.

If you...

If you systematically

destroy trust in institutions,

destroy trust in the media,

in academia, in the courts,

and so forth, some people think that this

is liberating the people

from these institutions. It's not.

When you destroy all trust,

the only thing that can still work

Thank you. and so forth.
Some people think that this is liberating the people from these institutions. It's not.
When you destroy all trust, the only thing that can still work is a dictatorship. So this is what would-be dictators do.
They systematically destroy trust. And the other thing to realize is that the vast majority of information is not truth.
A key misconception, especially in places like Silicon Valley, is to equate information with truth. Most information is junk.
I mean, the truth is a very rare and costly and precious sub-kind of information. Because, you know, to write a truthful story, you need to invest a lot of time and effort and money in research and fact-checking, whereas fiction is very, very cheap.
Okay, well, listen, I have to interrupt because we like to follow the trends here very carefully, and as I was mentioning to Fran, one of them is sex parties. I just can't ignore it.
I can't ignore it. It's all...
Everybody's having sex parties. Puff Daddy was having sex parties.
Matt Gaetz is having sex parties. The COVID czar in New York was going to sex parties.
And by the way, I bet you there's very few crossover for these three sex parties. I don't see Puffy at the COVID czars party yet.
So anyway, it's so popular now. There's actually a magazine about it.
Oh, here it is. It's called Better Homes and Hard-Ons.
Would you like to see some of the articles that are in Better Homes and Hard-Ons? A thousand bottles of oil. How dry is your baby? Another awkward drugstore.
Five hot sex positions

guaranteed to get your host masturbating.

Well, that's...

Pooping at the party without being

a party pooper. There's

an article you'd want to read.

Health conscious? 12 superfoods

you can shove up your ass.

Why is Justin Bieber crying in the corner?

Another sign's the party's over.

Nice to finally fuck you

and other orgy icebreakers

Party planner round table

which balloons look most like dicks

Ew gross, it's you

how one too many Moscow meals

led me to having sex with my own husband

Thank you. How one too many Moscow meals led me to having sex with my own husband.

Sex party etiquette.

Five polite ways to say, not in my hair.

And holy shit, what to do when you run into your priest. Okay.
We are... We certainly are an eclectic show, aren't we, the way we cover the gamut? Now, back to the U.N.
Thank you for not bringing us into that. No, I was definitely not going to bring you into that.
But let's talk about the U.N. What a segue.
Where they're probably having sex parties, by the way. I mean, please.
The U.N., everybody I know who's in New York, like Fran, they all hate this. I mean, all these political nepo babies and dictators and potentates around the world flying in, tying up traffic, doing God knows what.

Again, the hookers all fly in.

It's true.

The UN, true or false, put it this way?

False.

The UN is a joke.

False.

False.

Let me finish.

The UN is a joke and a corrupt one, but there's no sense getting rid of it because we would just reinvent it again. But it is a joke.
Number one, we're New Yorkers, and we have no problem walking. We love the subway.
It's not a problem that there's traffic. We know how to deal with that.
You love the subway? We're okay with the subway. Subway's fast, it's cheap.
It's cleaner than it used to be. It's okay.
Yeah, I used to take it. I didn't love it.
It's okay. Number two, the United Nations is a place where the world actually gets together and talks.
This is a world that increasingly people are isolated. People are focusing on what they hate or what they like.
If you actually had this meeting four times a year, as opposed to just once, you'd have more movement towards diplomacy. You'd have more hookers.
I think it's important to remember that it takes a very short time to destroy an institution and it takes decades to build one. And we need institutions.
Otherwise, human society doesn't function. I said we shouldn't get rid of it, but it's a fucking joke.
Currently sitting on the UN Human Rights Council are China, Somalia, and Sudan. That's a joke.
That's a joke. Okay, great.
So now we're agreeing. Terrific.
From 2015 through 2022, basically the last 10 years, the U.N. General Assembly has adopted 140 resolutions, these are scolding a country, on Israel, and 68 on all the other countries in the world.
Correct. We're talking about Russia, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Myanmar, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Yemen, Somalia, all of those.
Bill. And other bad boys.
Bill. 68, Israel alone, 140.
Bill, your problem. That's a joke.
Yes, but your problem is not with the UN. You said the General Assembly.
Who do you think the General Assembly is? You think that's like some group of people disassociated from the rest of the world? Those are votes taken by countries, 193, in the world. Now, if you say you have problems with lots of those other countries because they're voting consistently against Israel, sure, I'm with you.
That's a problem. That's not the United Nations.
You've got to talk with those countries, Bill. Yes.
Once again, I said we should keep the United Nations, but admit it is a joke. And by the way...
A joke by what standard? I mean, what do you expect... When you have human rights violators on the order of China and Somalia being on the Human Rights Committee, that's a joke.
When you have... I mean, they found that some of the people in the UN were involved in the October 7th attack in your country.
They were not just supporting them, but actually involved in the attack, UN people. So you discover that history is not just, that there is no justice in the world.
And now the question is, what do you do with it? So you have, first of all, to acknowledge the reality. These are the people on the planet.
I mean, maybe I would have liked to have another humanity, but this is the humanity we have. And we have to work with them.
You guys are very forgiving. I rarely take issue with you.
No, no, please do. I don't think we're disagreeing that much, because I'm not saying get rid of the UN.
I know you're not saying it, but you're saying it's a joke. It is a fucking joke.
I don't accept that at all. I don't accept it all.
The United States, the biggest contribution the U.S. makes to the U.N., it's not the $700 million they spend on U.N.
dues. It's the $7 billion they spend for the World Food Program.
And that's money that goes to Sudan. That's money that goes to countries that are in desperate humanitarian aid.
The U.N. is like the Catholic Church.
You're right. The Catholic Church does good charity work and other than that.
And there's a lot of child fucking. So we call that a push? No, we don't call it a push.
I happen to be very proud as an American that after 1945, when we won the war that almost destroyed us, that we decided that we were going to create an institution that reflected our values, human rights that we used to really believe in in this country. And I think part of the reason that the United Nations

gets so much hell from the U.S. right now

is because we look at ourselves internationally

and we don't like the hypocrisy.

And we feel shame. We're not like Donald Trump.

And so it's problematic for us

that we no longer stand up

for a lot of that fundamental declaration of human rights,

a lot of those sustainable development goals

that we want for the rest of the world,

but we're not taking care of a lot of Americans at home.

I think that hurts us.

That's what I believe.

According to the Washington Post, since

2010, there have been more than 1,200

reported allegations of

sexual abuse in UN

peacekeeping missions.

More like, get a peace mission, apparently. 1,200 allegations of sexual abuse in UN peacekeeping missions.
More like get a peace mission, apparently. 1,200 allegations of sexual abuse from the peacekeepers.
All right, let me ask another question about international affairs. The war is going on now with Israel and Hezbollah.
It looks like it's full on. When we were attacked on September 11, 2001, Bush put out a doctrine called the Bush Doctrine.

It was, we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. As Israel goes after the terrorists in Hamas, in Gaza with Hamas, and now in Lebanon, I see there are protests in this country already pro-Lebanese.
why does that apply

not to Israel

and only...

Why do we get to just say that and Israel doesn't about, you know,

if you harbor terrorists, we will go after you?

It seems like it should apply to both.

I mean, if October 7th had happened here, population-wise,

we would have lost like 50,000 people.

Thoughts?

Thank you.

Thank you. had happened here, population-wise, we would have lost like 50,000 people.
Go on. Israel obviously has a right to defend itself, and if Nasrallah is dead, for instance, as some reports say, then a lot of people, not only in Israel, but also in Lebanon, also in Syria, will not be said.
I mean, this is a chaos agent that brought death and destruction and misery, and not just to Israeli citizens, also to millions of Lebanese and millions of Syrians, and wanted to see the Middle East go up in flames. The question is, how do we go beyond that? I mean, we've seen the movie many times.
You know, in Hollywood, you kill the bad guy.

The movie is over, happy ending.

But in the Middle East, it's not Hollywood.

You kill Saddam Hussein, there is no peace in Iraq.

You kill Muammar Gaddafi, there is no peace in Libya.

The question is, how do you go beyond killing the bad guys and actually creating peace and a better life

for millions of people?

Well, how did we... It's not like we haven't done that in the world.
We killed Hitler and we killed Tojo and Germany and Japan became very valuable, peaceful members of the world community. How did we do? Because things were done beyond just killing them.
Yes. It was not the only thing that was done.
No. The rebuilding.

Look, first I want to thank you as the non-Jew for having me on the show to discuss this issue today. I'm not Jewish.
No, no, I know. I'm just giving Yuval and Fran.
But it's okay. I mean, I think that this is an issue globally.
After 9-11, we made a lot of mistakes. And it hurt the United States internationally.
after October 7th, which, you're right, was the equivalent of far more than 9-11 in the United States, President Biden came out and said, don't make the same mistakes the Americans made. It's not like the U.S.
isn't supporting Israel right now. This week, the United States sent another $8 billion in military support to Israel.
No one is cutting the Israelis off. No one's sanctioning the Israelis.
There's enormous amount of support. The problem, and by the way, Netanyahu is winning.
You know, I mean, he was to blame for taking his eye off the ball on defense on October 7th. But today, just this week, Likud, his party, for the first time since October 7th, is polling better than the other parties.
Yes. So he kills Nasrallah.
He moves the 60,000 Israelis back to the north of the country. That's the equivalent of 2 million in the United States.
Imagine if for a year after 9-11, New Mexico was just empty. So you understand he's going to be supported there.
He could declare an end of major military operations in Gaza. He'll be applauded in Israel.
His policies in the last year have been condemned by much of the world, but in Israel, they're very popular.

And the reality is that if he wanted to, after all of this, declare elections,

good chance he'd win.

That's where we are.

I mean, I was in a meeting a few days ago with all the leaders of the Middle East,

and they were all saying, this is the worst we've seen since the war in 1967.

It's a disaster. We need a two-state solution.
It's all going to hell.

What are you going to do about it? Anyone? Nothing. Nothing.
What they're going to do about it is probably forget the Palestinians again. And Israel has the ability to defend itself.
They'll continue to. That's where we're heading on the Middle East right now.
You agree with that? And the big question is, what is the plan for the day after? What is Netanyahu's plan or his government's plan for the day after? Do they have any plan? I know that the extremists, the religious zealots, they have a plan. They also want to see the Middle East on fire.
They want to see greater Israel. They want to see even the temple rebuilt.
They have messianic visions. And you know, in the Middle East, you have to take the messianic zealots seriously.
They are shaping reality often more than anybody else. And this is extremely dangerous, not just for the people of the Middle East, but for people all over the world.
Yeah. Thank you.
All right. We've got to go to New Rules.
Appreciate it, guys. Okay.

All right.

New rules.

We need to track down this car from 2021.

I have so many questions about Bud Light is my vaccine.

Like, did you ever think maybe I should look up how to spell vaccine? And how did you feel in 2023 when you found out Bud Light turns you gay? Neuro, someone has to explain to me the business model of the American drugstore. We'll sell drugs, but also alcohol, sweatpants, Halloween crap, and overpriced USB cords.
And, uh... And, yeah, we'll only hire one employee to manage it all, who also has to serve ice cream and take passport photos.
And when the shoplifters show up because nobody's minding the store, we'll lock everything behind glass and make customers wait 45 minutes for a jar of Vaseline. I'm telling you, it can't fail.

New rule, people who are still wearing masks in public in September of 2024 have to write the reason why on the mask.

And here are the reasons we will accept.

I have a cold. I have a cold sore.
My lip piercing got infected. I'm Asian.
I'm a huge pussy. And I've been in a coma since 2021.
Wait, are we not still doing this? Neural, now that it's officially fall, don't ask me to go on a hayride or visit a pumpkin patch or check out a corn maze or any other happy seasonal bullshit. This is California.
We don't do fall here. When our...
When our leaves turn brilliant orange, it's because they're on fire. the mom whose video of her baby getting stuck in the doggy door went viral has to answer the question, why didn't you put down the phone and help your baby? I mean...
This video goes on for a while. What's mom and dad waiting for? The golden hour? Hitchcock treated Tippi Hedren better when they were making the birds, for God's sakes.
If this is how you parent humans, you should probably stick to doggies.

And finally, new rule, the smartest thing Democrats did this year was finding their patriotism again. If you told me a year ago that if Kamala Harris would be the nominee and in her acceptance speech, she would use the word privilege, I would not have guessed that she used it the way she did.
The greatest privilege on earth, the privilege and pride of being an American. Yeah, and Tim Walz also began his speech with a great line saying, we're all here tonight for one beautiful, simple reason.
We love this country. And yet this message doesn't seem to be catching on with a lot of the younger people.
None of them are standing up and screaming, that's my country. Quite the quite the reverse.
Quite the reverse. The protests that started off as justice for Palestine have morphed into a broader kind of America is the problem.
We fucked up the whole world thing. Last weekend, there was a pro-Palestine rally in Seattle, and when the rapper Macklemore said, fuck America, everybody loved it.
Yeah, fuck America. Yeah, I'm sure it was a big hit with the Queers for Gaza crowd.
Literally advocating for a government that would imprison you or kill you for being queer

from the safety and security of a country

that doesn't do that.

Yes, America, the only place in the world

where a white guy from the suburbs

could become a millionaire rapper

because here every person, regardless of race, class, or gender, has the right to be talent-free.

And guess what document allows you to protest and chant,

hey, hey, ho, ho, followed by something really stupid.

Yeah. Constitution Day was last week.
It's an actual federal holiday, but no one noticed, despite the fact that it's probably the greatest legal document ever. Is it flawed? Of course.
It was written by humans, and they were all white men, as depicted in this illustration from Google AI. But how about looking at the actual ideas in it? I won't hold my breath for that, because only 14% of 8th graders are proficient in history now, and only 22% in civics, which may be why 4 in 10 Gen Zers say the authors of the Constitution

are best described as villains.

Wow.

It's amazing, since in 1970...

In 1776,

James Monroe was 18,

Alexander Hamilton was 21,

and James Madison 25.

Joe Biden was only 30.

America's founders, they were the Gen Z of their day.

And when they were your age, they started a country.

What the fuck have you done? So, no, the Constitution isn't perfect because it wasn't written by Taylor Swift, but... And yes, the founders made excruciating compromises, obviously slavery.

But slavery was a deal-breaker for the southern states, so there would have been two countries.

And then to end slavery in North America, it would have involved invading a sovereign nation

instead of having the moral high ground of keeping a union together. It would have involved invading a sovereign nation instead of having the moral

high ground of keeping a union together.

Would that have been better?

History's complicated, and

Gen Z reasoning is not.

They think they're pure, but they're really

just simplistic. They know two

things. White people did some very

bad things, and...

No, that's it. That's all they know.

That's what they do. That's what they do.
Well, I know that too. But I also know other things.
Like how in 1776, slavery was a lot like flying private today. If you could afford to, you would have done it too.
Everybody did it of all races throughout history, in the Bible, and all over the world. If you hate George Washington for slavery, are you prepared to hate the woman king? Because her empire was built on it too.
And where do you imagine is this place, outside of your brilliant, pure minds, that's so much better than America? At least America self-corrects a mechanism for which was actually written into the Constitution. The citizens of Gaza cannot assemble in protest of their own government, cannot do or say what they want, or practice whatever religion they want, or have a free press.
All rights guaranteed in just our First Amendment. The irony in all this is that the world the founders birthed, flawed though it may be, provides the bedrock for everything that makes life good for the very people who hate them so much.
It's so easy to take for granted individual liberty, a bill of rights, the rule of law, checks and balances, getting a trial by jury, the peaceful transfer of power, protecting minority rights and democracy itself.

But those are the things that make our pampered, privileged, bratty lives so relatively cushy.

No one starves here.

Even our poor people are fat.

Not everyone has to be bribed.

Anyone can get rich.

The cops are flawed, but we're not a police state.

The drinks don't make you go blind, and no one pushes you out of a window for a bad Yelp review. Our government takes a lot and fucks up a lot, but it also gives a lot.
Health care, retirement, money, unemployment, disability, college grants, food stamps. Maybe in the blissfully perspective-free mind, this all add up to a low bar that America has reached.
But you have to ask, why do millions of people every year risk their lives to come here? Because they want what we got. The founders were flawed, but they did build a place the whole world wants to break into.
No one is paying a coyote to smuggle them into India or Russia. Immigrants don't see us as the problem.
They see us as the solution. And there's a reason they kill themselves to get here, and it's not just the ponds full of delicious ducks and geese.
All right, that's our show. We're off next week.
We'll be back October 11th. We'll be at the Taft in Cincinnati this Sunday, the Majestic in San Antonio, October 12th, and the Tulsa Theater in Tulsa, October 13th.
I want to thank Ian Bremmer, you both know, Ahurari, and Fran Liebowitz. Now go watch Overtime on YouTube.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I appreciate it.
Thank you. Okay.
Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10.

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