Ep. #670: H.R. McMaster, John Avlon, Rich Lowry

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night series, Real Time with Bill Maher. Thank you, people.
Thank you. How are you? Everybody.
Thank you. Hi.
All right. I know.
Exciting time of year. Thank you very much.
You're very kind. Okay.
So now we've got a big show. There's a lot to talk about.
Election is only two months away and, of course, it happens every time. It's tied.
Does it even matter who runs? Every year we do this, it's tied. It always comes down to a few thousand people in three states who can't make up their mind between two items on the menu.
You know, the best thing about living in California is that we're not a swing state, so they leave

us alone.

Really.

I mean, all year in L.A., I think I've seen one Trump sign,

and Scott Baio was sleeping under it.

Just a joke.

We kid, all in good fun.

No, we have...

We have much bigger problems out here.

It was 104 today here.

It was, what, 18 in the valley?

I was sweating like J.D.

Vance in a donut shop.

Wow.

It was hot.

Kanye's wife

asked him if she could

put something on so she could take something off.

I mean, it was... But if you're a political watcher, it is getting exciting because the debate is Tuesday, a few days away.
Are you excited about that? I cannot wait to see this thing. Trump and Kamala.
Trump says he doesn't know whether Kamala's Indian or she'll be black that night. So he's preparing two sets of slurs.
Oh, and this is great. They finally resolved the microphone issue of the debate.
They've been arguing about this for weeks now.

Kamala wanted the mics on when the other guy was talking so we could find out what a nut Trump is, you know, like we don't know. And Trump wanted them off.
And Trump won, the microphones will be off. And this is weird.
He also asked that my microphone be turned off. I very, very strict rules during this debate.
No huddling with your advisors during the commercial breaks. You only get, when you're out there, a pad, paper, and water.
And Kamala asked for Tim Walz. But other than that...
But look, the Democrats switched their strategy. They used to be about democracy.
Trump is threatening democracy, which he is. But that shit didn't sell.
Yeah, democracy, whatever. So they went to, he's weird.
People love this. This is selling.
People are buying this one. And it's really upsetting Trump because he was doing an interview with Sean Hannity, and he's kind of obsessed with this weird thing.
He said, no, Walls is the one that's weird. He said, J.D.
Vance is a a solid rock and then he said and you know what i'm a very solid rock that's so trump he always has to be better even when he's calling you a rock he has to be a better rock I mean... It's almost like it's weird.

But...

But here's the other thing that we've seen this many times. We've seen it every election cycle.
They're going through it again. The music that the Republican plays at their rallies is not the people they're playing to want.
Don't play our music. We hate you.
Bruce Springsteen went through it. You, too, we went through this.
Jackson Brown, Rage Against the Machine. Had to tell the guy, look, we hate you.
We think you are the machine. That's why we're raging.
So now... Now I think the Isaac Hayes estate is upset because Trump has been playing Hold On, I'm Coming, and he said, no, you can't play Hold On, I'm Coming.
And Trump said, oh, when else am I ever going to hear that? Come on. And...
Okay, so two months of the election, and again, something we've seen before, and now we see it every time. Russia is at it again, interfering with our elections.
We saw it when they got involved with Facebook, putting shit up there. Remember, 2016, we saw it again in 2020.
All social media. Now, this time, they're big on influencers, gamers, any place where real people are

online. I'm pretty sure my

OnlyFans girlfriend

is taking

orders from Putin, because I asked her yesterday,

I said...

I asked her if she

swallows, and

she said, yes,

Ukraine.

Alright, we've got a great show. We have John

Afflin and Rich Larry are here, but first

I'm sorry. And she said, yes, Ukraine.
All right, we've got a great show.

We have John Avalon and Rich Larry are here.

But first up, he is a retired lieutenant general

and the former White House national security advisor

under President Trump, whose new book is

At War With Ourselves, My Tour of Duty in the White House.

H.R. McMaster is here.

Hey, General. How are you? Great to see you.
Great to meet you. Thanks for having me.
Sure. Okay.
Well, I never saw you smile like that when you were in the Trump White House. I didn't know you.
And first of all, thank you for your service, truly. You have been...
You were in pretty much every war in my lifetime. Well, not Vietnam.
We were both too young for that. But Desert Storm back in the early 90s, then you went back to Iraq for the Iraq War, and then Afghanistan.
Wow, three wars in one lifetime. You think America gets in too many

wars? Or is that just part of the

comes with the territory when you're a superpower?

Should we have been in all those

or any of them? Answer any of these questions.

Well, I'll tell you, I think one of the

themes that goes through the book is really what a privilege it is

to serve and defend the country. And I got to

I really, you know...

You know, I got to be part of

Thank you. And what people don't understand, a lot of times, Bill, is a good military unit, a good army unit, takes on the character of a family, you know? And you're bound together by common trust, purpose, and really, you know, the willingness to sacrifice for one another, a sense of honor.
And so it was a privilege to serve every day. I think in the Gulf War, you know, it was obviously a just war in terms of Saddam Hussein's illegal annexation of Kuwait.
I remember right after the wall fell, this was in 1989, our troop, our cavalry troop, had been patrolling the east-west German border when it happened. I remember I had like a silly argument with my wife right after.
She said, you're just mad because you don't have an enemy anymore. Well, you know, thanks to Saddam Hussein invading But he wasn't really our enemy.
Certainly not for the Iraq war. Well, but if you think about what would be next.
He had nothing to do with 9-11. Well, no, I'm talking about the Gulf War.
I know, but what about the other one?

When you fast forward now to 2003, I think there's a consensus now that if it wasn't a big mistake,

if it wasn't unjust to wage that war, which I think it's important to understand,

Saddam Hussein was trying to convince all of us he had nuclear weapons

because he thought that was the best way for him to prevent

an attack. Of course, after 9-11, that's the way to actually incite an attack against you.
So, and then, of course, in Afghanistan, the war in Afghanistan followed, you know, the most murderous terrorist attack in history, where we lost, you know, 3,000 people on 9-11. Yeah, but not by the country of Afghanistan.
One guy who, by the time we got to Afghanistan, and was already in Pakistan.

But it was the Taliban who played host to al-Qaeda. All through the 90s, Bill.
Remember, they had declared war on us in the early 90s. We didn't take it seriously.
Then there was the first World Trade Center bombing with the trucks underneath the World Trade Center. We fired a few cruise missiles, called it a day.
And so it is really necessary to defeat these enemies of all civilized people, to take away their safe havens. I couldn't agree more.
It's how we do it that we're arguing about. Do we need to occupy whole countries? I mean, what I read about your background and in your book, like when you were in Afghanistan, a lot of what you were doing, if I could just sum it, maybe I'm summarizing it wrong, but sort of monitoring the bribery we were giving out? Is that wrong? Well, I ran a counter-corruption organized crime task force there.
Oh, good luck. That stood up way late.
Well, a friend of mine, General Tony Zinni, is a fantastic person. Yeah.
He called me up and said, hey, congratulations on commanding the anti-gravity task force. But really, what happened in Afghanistan, I think, Bill, and I wrote my last book, Battlegrounds, in large measure to explain this, what went wrong there.
By the time I was confronting the problem of Afghanistan that I cover in detail in a war with ourselves, it hadn't been a 16-year war at that point in 2017.

It had been a one-year war fought 16 times over.

And what happened is, I think, Bill,

our short-term approach to what was a long-term problem

actually lengthened that war and made it a heck of a lot more costly.

And then the abandonment of the Afghan people is such a tragedy.

I mean, it still causes heartbreak for me,

I mean, let alone the Afghans were now thrust back in the air.

I see now women are not allowed to make any sounds in public. Women's voices are now outlawed.
And I see all the college kids are upset and protesting that. Oh, no, they're not.
No, they're not. They're fucking stupid.
Anyway, what I would say to the American soldiers and servicemen and women who served in Afghanistan who were heartbroken, disheartened by the disastrous withdrawal in August of 2021. I would say to them, look at what Afghanistan is now and be proud of what you prevented and be proud of how you helped the Afghan people enjoy that period of freedom from the Taliban from 2001 to 2021.
Remember, the people in Afghanistan lived under the hell of Taliban rule from 96 to 2001 after the Civil War. Now they got it again.
They have it again. So you lasted 13 months under Trump, which is pretty good.
Right. Yeah, exactly.
You know, one of the many, one of the many national security... I mean, he had a lot of generals around him.
I thought, among the generals, that was, like, one of the smarter things he did. I mean, look, I don't agree with everything probably you say, or Mattis, or General Kelly.
They're probably a little more conservative than I am. But I don't doubt that they're patriots.
And smart people, good people, people who have America in mind first. They're not corrupt.
Okay. I worry if Trump wins again, because I feel like there's two kinds of generals in the world.
The kind I just described. Eisenhower would be another one.
Petraeus. Really good people.
I mean, smart people who sacrifice more before 9 a.m. than most people ever do in their whole life.
And then there's General Flynn. Yeah.
Or in another era, you know, General Curtis LeMay, the one in... I wrote about him in Dereliction of Duty, you know.
Yeah, I mean, there's crazy ones during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yeah.
A lot of them wanted to start a nuclear war. What do you see for the next term, and who are the generals going to be around Trump then? Well, you know, I know all these guys and gals, you know, across our armed forces.
I knew General for many years. He was, I'll tell you, Bill, he was a fantastic guy.
Full-on QAnon. I write about it in the book.
I don't know what happened to him. I really don't.
But I do know that he was treated unfairly at the outset as National Security Advisor. He was kind of railroaded out of there.
The FBI interviewed him. He was talking to Russia.
No, I mean, I write about this in the book, but I also write that he's not the same person I knew. Right.
And I think what is lamentable about his behavior on a number of levels is he's been one of the people and one of the dynamics associated with kind of trying to drag the military into partisan politics. We have to really guard against that.
I mean, I tell the story in the book that, you know, I took the oath of service at age 17 on the plane at West Point. I never even voted, you know, because I followed the example of George Marshall to have that bold line in place, you know.
And I think the tone in the book, you know, is one of nonpartisanship. It's critical of President Trump, but, you know...
As it should be. You're right.
But it's not a diatribe against him. You know, he's got some things something's right.
And you seem to have a lot of problems with both sides. I would describe it as reckless versus feckless.
You think Trump... Yeah, right.
I think... Is that right? I mean, you think Trump is reckless, but you think Obama and Biden and Harris are feckless.
Is that... Well, I think their policies have been feckless, in particular in connection with Iran and the Middle East and the support for Israel.
I think what has happened is, when they came back into office, they resurrected the same failed policies of the Obama administration in connection with trying to welcome Iran back into the international order, under the hope that Iran would moderate... That only failed because Trump undid it.
We never really tried it. And I never understood the bug up your ass, not your ass, excuse me, General, but people's ass, about...
Look, I would say we have four enemies in the world. We have China, we have Russia, we have North Korea, and we have Iran.
Thank you. Why are we applauding our enemies? Hey, let's get five.
No. It's the axis of aggressors.

Okay, you can't fight everybody at once.

I would say if you're going to find two

who you could bring into the family of nations,

it's probably Russia and Iran.

Because I don't think the populations of those countries

want to be where they are now.

China, too much of a surveillance state,

too much of a dictatorship.

North Korea is just a bad case of brainwashed people. Those aren't going to happen.
The Iran deal, I mean, I have the things here. Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium was reduced by 98 percent until 2031.
The R&D, the existing facilities redesigned so they could not produce weapons-grade plutonium. International inspectors allowed to access any site in the country any time they wanted.
What do you want? This is what negotiations are. You're not going to do better than that.
No, actually you could do a lot better than that. You could, but not have the other side agree to it.
But I think sometimes what happens is our diplomats, when they're faced with the opportunity to get a deal, they think that they should just make concession after concession, and the deal itself is an achievement, when in fact, in this case, it was a political disaster. For the reason is that really none of those really weak parts of the agreement, because there was a sense of clause, were adhered to by the Iranians.
And soon before the ink was dry, Bill, they said,

hey, here's all the list of sites you can't visit.

And so the verification regime was very weak.

It essentially gave a regime who you cannot trust.

We know that from a four-decade-plus proxy.

You can't trust anybody.

That's why you have this in the treaty that said...

But it was inadequate verification, the sunset clause.

But what happened is, what happened was even worse than the agreement was the sanctions relief that went along with it, The truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that the truth is that happened was even worse than the agreement was the sanctions relief that went along with it. They transferred, you know, $100 billion, more than $100 billion, to the Iranians.
And you know where that money went? Into the coffers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and then increased the stipend of Hamas, Hezbollah, the proxy army in Syria, the Haastashabi militias in Iraq, and the Houthis. And then when the Biden administration came in, they went back to that same playbook with actually kind of the same people.
They undesignated the Houthis. How did that work out? They didn't enforce the Trump-era sanctions.
That resulted in the transfer of about $80 billion into those coffers again. Remember, there were $6 billion sitting in Qatar to be transferred to the Iranians on the eve of the October 7th heinous attacks against Israel.
So I think the words you used, feckless, that applies to the Biden administration. I have one more important question I have to ask you.
Illegal aliens. I mean the really illegal ones, the ones from outer space.
That's what my daughters want to know about. I mean the really illegal ones.

The ones from outer space.

That's what my daughters want to know about.

They're like, hey, you're an absolute advisor.

You know.

Years ago when there were sightings of UFOs, it was some farmer in the middle of nowhere.

Okay, now it's Navy personnel

who say, look, we see this thing

and we cannot explain it.

Look, you're a military man.

I'm sure you have drinks with military people,

just like I have drinks with comedians.

You talk shop.

You guys must talk about this.

What's going on?

That's my next book, Bill. I can't talk about it.

No, no, no, no, no.

I'm telling you, this is my daughter's one.

My daughter's always helping me for information. Okay, I know you know about the aliens.
Well, I mean, here's my theory, is that the president would have to know. When you got into office, if there was Area 51 and this was going on, they would have to inform the president.
Trump was president. He would have blabbed it by now.
Yeah. But what do you think? What are those things worth looking at? Well, I mean, there are things you can't explain.
I mean, there are things that cannot be explained. And so I don't know what the explanation is for those unexplainable things, but I will say that there are phenomena that have been witnessed by multiple people that are just inexplicable by any kind of science available to us.
Well, let's hope your fourth tour of duty doesn't have to be Mars. Thank you very much, General.

I appreciate you coming here. Good luck with you.

Thanks so much. All right.
General McMaster,

let's meet our panel.

Hey.

Hi, guys.

Okay. He is a best-selling author

and journalist who is now running for Congress

in New York's 1st District. John Avalon, back with us, now a politician.
And he's the editor-in-chief of National Review and host of the editor's podcast. Rich Lowry is back with us in a very long time.
Okay, so it's America, so we had a school shooting when schools go back into session. And we're going to have to talk about this because it happens a few times every year.
I think it's happened 45 times already this year, by the way. Here's the new wrinkle in this one.
Now they're blaming the parents, as I think they should. This is not the first time this happened.
This father, Mr. Colt, Mr.
Colin Colt, he gave his kid an AR-15 when he was 14 years old. In Georgia, which is where this happened, you can't buy a gun if you're 14, but you can have one.
Wrap your mind around that. James and Jennifer Crumbly, they were the first ones, I think that was about a year ago.
In Michigan. In Michigan, yeah.
They also were extremely derelict in their duty, I believe, as parents. And I think we were going to talk, and we can also talk tonight, about taking phones away from kids in school.
It's funny. I think the problem here is that parents just don't have the ability to say no to kids for anything.
Phones, guns, just... Kids are a completely different class of people who you should be able to boss around.
That's why we can make them wear uniforms and eat fish sticks or whatever the fuck we do. And we just don't do it anymore.
Yeah, but I mean, a cell phone's in a different category than an AR-15. Yes.
I mean, you know, and let's not lose sight of that reality. The danger is we get numb to this, right? There have been 35 this year, 45.
And so we don't pay attention. We know there's going to be cultural amnesia.
And I think increasing the accountability for the parents who give an AR-15 to their kid makes sense, because they ineffectively enabled

that shit. Oh, totally.
And get

back to the common sense. I mean,

we forget when we politicize

these debates. They should be politicized

because we need a political solution. The guys like

Ronald Reagan advocated for the first assault

weapons ban. He said, I favor

guns for, we have a Second Amendment, for hunting,

for sport, for self-defense. You don't need a weapon

of war in our streets to do that. So obviously, the facts and what the parents know matters, right? You just don't want to charge all parents whose kids go and do this.
But there was this kid that sent a message that father apparently is aware of, and he still bought him this gun as a 14-year-old. Same thing with the parents in Michigan, ran through all these red flags.

And I think the policy that makes most sense is an appropriately crafted,

with all due respect for civil liberties, red flag law.

But the problem is, the places that have them, no one uses them.

So this really needs to be a culture.

If you see something, you've got to say something.

The parents, the families, the peers, the teachers, and maybe these

prosecutions, when they're warranted,

will begin to get that idea across.

So what would a red

flag law look like?

If I'm some...

They passed the law, and I'm a parent, I'm in

the home, what is this red flag law?

First of all, you're a parent, and

you know your kid is disturbed, having

problems, and is interested.

As this kid was. Correct.
So you go to the authorities to say, this is happening, and you go to a court, and the court says he cannot buy or have a gun, right? Because the problem with assault weapon bans, one, what is an assault weapon? The definition goes to cosmetic features of the gun. What we're talking about in all these cases, whether it's a rifle, an AR-15, a handgun, they're semi-automatic weapons.
One pull the trigger. So if you ban a class of them, you're not going to ban all semi-automatic weapons in America.
There's no way. And the handgun, unfortunately, is just as useful if you're motivated.
Virginia Tech shooting, worst school shooting in America, 32, I believe, Virginia Tech kids. Horrific.
It was a handgun. I agree with that.
We spend way too much time talking about the type of gun. The problem is that this country is the gun country.
We love guns, and that's not going to go away. But this seems to make sense, to hold the parents responsible.
It reminds me a little bit of the change this country made in recent years with cops. I remember doing editorials 10 years ago, and it was always about no matter what the cops do, they say, well, it was by the book, and none of them ever are put in jail.
That changed. Now we put lots of cops in jail when they do things cops shouldn't do.
And I feel like this is progress to make parents responsible. And this is something we can work with law enforcement.
Law enforcement doesn't want illegal guns in the streets. And this is something we need to just find more sort of coalitions of the sane, which is a part that gets back to the cell phone thing, right? This is an issue of bipartisan support.
There shouldn't be smartphones in schools because nobody likes it. Not good for the kids, not good for the teachers, not good for learning.
So that's an area where there is bipartisan agreement. Let's act on that.
Let's keep advancing it. Okay, but to your point about the guns being obviously more dangerous in the immediate than the phones.
Yeah. True.
But if you did a really long-term study, I mean over decades, I'm not sure that would come out that way, because suicides alone caused by the phone. We know this happens.
Lots of other bad things happen because of that goddamn phone. And now, nine states now, beginning with this school year, Florida did it last time, but now nine states are on board with taking away the phone for the day.
Like, this should even be controversial. And it is.
No, we can do it. We can do it with what the case was when we were kids.
If they need to get in touch with their parents, there's a pay phone, right? And they can use it for free, even. And they can contact their parents that way, right? You don't need...
This is the justification very often. If you need the mobile phone, because if something happens, you need to get in touch with your parents.
There are other ways to get in touch with your parents. I'm a Neanderthal on this.
All screens are the enemy. They are distraction machines.
Even if you're just sitting and watching TV all day, is that a happy person? No. And we've conducted this mass psychological experiment on our teenagers with social media, and it's been a disaster.
I agree, but I'm not for bringing back the payphone. No, I don't think...
I'm a conservative here. The reaction is...
No, but... Seriously, if you go to a school district and you have this argument, they'll say they need them, or the kids will say, I need them to get in touch with my parents.
There are other ways to get in touch with their parents. Of course there are, and it ain't going to be a payphone.
The point is, though, that this is an area of actually

there's a lot of common sense, broad bipartisan agreement,

and it's the kind of thing that needs to get done

because there is a huge toll on teen mental health,

particularly on girls.

And Jonathan Haidt studied this in his book,

The Anxious Generation.

This is an area where there's, once again,

there's agreement, so let's act on that.

But, again, the parents are the problem.

It's the... What? It's the parents.
I mean, we're all sitting here like, isn't it obvious? Just take away the phone. I mean, they take away your phone when you go to a concert sometimes.
You put it in a pouch. That's all they want to do.
That's it. Who's objecting to this? It's the parents who are objecting to it.
Because, why? Because they need to be in touch with their little darlings at all times? Well, this is where the paypal comes from. I think that's part of the problem.
But this is a collective action problem. Because, Bill, kids are not quite as easy to handle as you might think.
Oh. And we're not talking about it.
Yeah, I know nothing about this. But if every other kid has it, it becomes much harder.
And there are parents that are very strenuous about it and hard-nosed about it, and they'll deny it anyway. It makes it much harder.
If everyone denied it in school... That's why, actually, part of the effort is sort of collective action with the kids.
The parents say no kids are going to have smartphones until they're teenagers. And that can help if it's done together.

Okay.

So I read a third of kids are now behind grade level.

Yes, she said.

I think that was the same person who applauded for our enemies, too.

Behind grade level is what, in my day, we used to call getting left back.

I remember when I had to get on the pay phone and tell my mom that.

She was pissed off.

But I don't know.

I can't, I can't, I'm just going to tell you what I read.

And you tell me what the truth is about our education.

It seems to me like it's screwed and tattooed and blued. But okay.

Barely a third of fourth graders nationally are proficient at reading and even less in math. This is from the Illinois State Board of Education.
26% of Chicago public school students can meet English language requirements. 26%.
17.5% in math. Proficiency in math in Chicago public schools has dropped 78 percent since 2012.

Reading has declined by 63 percent.

And yet the National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP, like I have to tell you,

says they do the testing and they've done it for decades

and we're about where we were in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

I guess my question is, were we that fucking stupid in the 70s, 80s, and 90s? Probably. Really? Look, I think there's always a tendency to romanticize the past, right? And to sort of you know, we forget the moral panics that existed in the past, but you've got to deal with the data that we're dealing with and there's always room for improvement.
We should stop doing, by the way, demonizing public schools and public school teachers in this effort, it seems to me. I don't think that helps solve the problem.
I also think part of the problem is we actually cut civics education. And this is a big deal for me, right? Because we want to strengthen American democracy.
If kids don't know our history, if kids don't know civics education, we're not preparing to be citizens of a democratic republic. And that's really screwed up, and we've got to fix that.
Maybe it's just anecdotal and they didn't mention the 60s here when I was a little kid. Okay, but I feel like the kids in my era, even the dumb asses, could have passed an exit exam when they got out of, when we were leaving high school.
Like, do you know basic shit? Even, even Stevie Murkowski could answer. So speaking of kids, I keep reading that there's all these people who want more babies in the world.
Maybe you're two of them who just think we, the worst problem we have is underpopulation. I think these people are insane.
We don't need more people. I keep reading now also about the U.S.
Open is going on now, and people are just like, it's too crowded. There's too many people.
And this has hit the whole world because there's a new term, over-tourism. There's just too many people crowding the places people want to go.
Barcelona has had huge anti-tourist rallies. Look at that.
Go home. Tourists, go home.
Athens has had it up to here. Vermont, listen to this, had to close streets because too many Instagrammers wanted to take the perfect picture of the autumn leaves.
So I remember when tourism posters were all about, come to see us, we want you to come. Now we need anti-tourism posters.
And we found a few. Would you like to see the people? These people don't want you to come.
Get out of here. Okay.
For example, friends, you're not imagining it. We despise you.

Beijing has... What happens in Beijing is captured by our vast network of spy cameras.

I don't want to go there.

Vatican City has kids ride free.

Come on.

Uh, Croatia, it's cheap for a reason.

Uh, India, you should know we're due for a train accident.

Thank you. India, you should know we're due for a train accident.
Mexico, if you think our food goes right through you,

just wait till you see our bullets.

Oh, but that one's okay. I love that.

The Indian one was terrible, but this one.

Oh, Thailand.

Any vacation can make your friends envious.

Only Thailand makes them think you're a pedophile.

Los Angeles.

See our historic homeless encampments. And Amsterdam.
You know you can get stoned in America now, right? All right. So, uh...
I was mentioning in the monologue that Russia is at it again with the election interference. It seems to me like this was not that long ago, 2016, when I really had never heard of anything like that before, when Trump came out and said, if you're listening, and then George Stephanopoulos asked him, is it okay if you take information from some other country? Yeah, I think it could look at it, he said.
I mean, it just went from, like, unheard of to heard of, and now I feel like it's the virus that got out of the lab and is just here with us now. Because not only is Russia doing it, China's doing it, Iran is doing it.
It's funny, Iran is for Kamala and Russia is for Putin. So maybe they'll just cancel each other out.
But this is a huge fucking deal. It is a huge deal, I know.
Because foreign disinformation is trying to undermine our democracy. And the fact that this most recent indictment that shows that a lot of conservative influencers were parroting Russian talking points and being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, that is a real problem when all of a sudden the talking point, all these self-styled nationalists who are doing the bidding of foreign adversaries who want to weaken democracy, that is just how crazy it is.
And it explains how some good a lot of good people have been duped by Donald Trump. And all this sort of anti, you know, frankly, American rhetoric that is designed to divide us.
And that's why I think people are just so damn frustrated. We have a revolt of the reasonable on our hands and it's about damn time.
I just, I'm not with the idea that we wouldn't be divided if it weren't for Russians trying to meddle in our society. We've been divided the entirety of our history of the society since the revolution.
Divided during the revolution. That's why a huge amount of people fled to Canada.
Okay, but that's a strong-man argument. No one's arguing that we're not divided.
This is a different argument. But to your point about duping.
Okay, let me read this to you. This is interesting.
The Justice Department charged two Russian media executives, they call them. They funneled money to this place called Tenet Media.
I never heard of them. They're in Tennessee.
But they, 2,000 videos, they put up 16 million views on YouTube. Okay, so a lot of people saw this stuff.
Our friend Dave Rubin has been on the show. He's a friend of mine.
He was one of them who got money. Okay? He says he was duped.
Now, maybe he was. He said he asked for more information about where the money was coming from.
and the Russians made up a fictional Belgian banker committed to free speech. I guess Dave didn't look further than that.
But my question is, to the people who are duped, the fact that what the Russians want you to put out is to begin with so close to Republican talking points, that's not a red flag to you? That's not a problem to begin with? That we can't even tell the difference between the two? That's the point. Because I really look, I mean, honestly, as someone who's been a critic of Trump, but you run a long-time conservative publication, how do you explain that sort of creepy confluence between the Russian talking points and what passes for Trump talking points these days? Yeah, so, I'm a Ukraine hawk.
I don't like what any of these guys said about Ukraine. But unfortunately, they were saying it before they got Russian money.
And if you read the indictment, there was a huge effort to dupe them. Maybe they shouldn't have been so credulous, but they created this fake character in the whole thing.
So it's a little bit like P.J. Eurowicz used to say about politicians, the really disturbing thing about politicians is they're not in it for the money.
So it's the same thing with these guys. They're saying this...
It's so true. They're saying this before.
They are in other countries, not this year.

But the whole active defense of Vladimir Putin, right?

I mean, it used to be a Republican was you stood up to Russian aggression.

And then all of a sudden Donald Trump came on and people said, well, not so much.

Right?

And all of a sudden you see these talking points making their way into Congress.

And, you know, they've kind of, they've jumped the shark on this stuff.

And this is just evidence, right?

When the Russians were like Tucker Carlson's visit to the supermarket,

that's a little bit too much even for us, you know?

I reject all this stuff. I argue against it all the time.

But the fact is, Donald Trump gave lethal arms to the Ukrainians.

Vladimir Putin did not... Why stop?

Vladimir Putin did not invade Ukraine on Donald Trump's watch.

Our enemies feared us under Donald Trump.

No, no, they thought he was a patsy that they could do whatever they want. Why didn't they take Ukraine then? Because they were waiting for a second term.
Oh, please, look. What has happened in this administration, NATO has expanded under this administration.
The international community has rallied to stop Russian aggression, and Republicans have been protesting that and criticizing Ukraine. Some Republicans.
And taking too many. Too many.
Six months. Six months Ukrainians twisted in the wind while Republicans held up aid for Ukraine while they were defending for democracy.
The new aid package passed with bipartisan majorities in both houses. All right? And the idea that the people we have now in charge, they invaded, they took Crimea under Obama and invaded Ukraine under Biden.
Why did that happen? Dick Cheney just endorsed Kamala Harris for president in part because Donald... This is why it's difficult to, you know, be for Donald Trump.
So let me ask you a sodium pentothal question. I just gave you the sodium pentothal.
That's my favorite question. You really want Trump to lose this election, right? No.
No, you don't, really? No, there is a theory among... Wouldn't it be easier to get rid of him? Because if he lost another election, that would be 2018, 2020, 2022, 2024.

I would think,

and I've certainly been the last one to say

Trump's Dover now. Lots of people do.

I was like, no, no, no.

But I think this would be it for him.

I think he'd still be, he's not like Joe Biden.

He's not going to go peacefully

out to pasture.

But Republicans will have

had enough of Trump. Not of Trumpism, but of Trump.
And you'll be done with all that chaos. You can't be certain of that, Bill.
The one thing that's certain, if he loses, Kamala Harris will be president of the United States. And I wholly oppose almost every single one of her positions.
I think she's a vacuous opportunist. I totally reject the idea that in the space of 48 hours, she went from a subpar vice president, everyone recognized as such, all of a sudden to the second coming of Barack Obama.
It is preposterous. But you were saying, you were calling Donald Trump, you know, a vacuous opportunist and a threat to the republic as early as this year.
I think the problem is this election is too big for teamism. That's why I like seeing Republicans come out, because the opportunity of this election, I really think, is to build a broad, bipartisan, patriotic coalition to defend American democracy, so then we can get back to arguing about marginal tax rates later.
But it ain't now. We've got to rebuild the middle of our politics and the middle of our economy and get people hopeful on the other side of it.
If Donald Trump loses, he'll question the election, right, and deny the loss. If he wins, guess what's going to happen? He's not going to question the election, right? That's your selling point? You think he's going to cancel the midterms? No.
You think he's going to cancel the midterms if he's elected president? No. What's the threat to democracy? The threat to democracy is exactly what you pointed out in editorial after editorial, which is actually assaulting the peaceful transfer of power.
Assaulting our democracy. Assaulting anything resembling constitutional conservatism, which is why we've got to get past the, but he's wearing my jersey.
And therefore, that's good for me. But it's more than that.
Actually, this is a country over party election. I think that's what people are responding to.
You're worried about the... I'm worried about rewarding someone who tried to overturn our democracy.
Yeah, you're damn right I am. So you're worried about the institutions of this country.
Yes. You have a Democratic Party now that is committed to court backing, right? No, that's bullshit.
That's committed to eliminating the fall buster. No, that's bullshit.
You have a president of the United States who refused to enforce the laws at the border. Does that concern you? That's not true either.
Everything you're saying is not true. You had a president of the United States who legislated and funded on his own a massive student loan program.
Hold on. Hold on.
Give me a second. Do anything for you? If you say you're not on a team, you won't criticize your own side.
By the way, we absolutely need to pass the bipartisan border security bill. And Donald Trump pulled the plug on.
I would vote for it on day one because we need strong borders. So what happened the first three and a half years? I think Biden was too slow to take action on the border.
But when we had a bipartisan border security bill, Trump pulled the plug because he didn't want bipartisanship to get credit. I think the big difference is we know bipartisanship is the solution.
And too many folks on the far right do whatever Donald Trump says, and they think bipartisanship is the problem. That's what we need to do is we build a middle of our politics.
That's what we need to do is we build a middle of our politics. That's what Joe Biden could do it on his own if you're serious about it.
And what happened? No, that's not the critique. When it didn't pass, what happened? You could stop fentanyl, stop trafficking, strengthen our border security.
That's what should have gotten done, and it will get done, and we shouldn't play politics with border security. When Biden said he didn't have the authority to do anything on his own,

on the border, is this correct?

Much more important.

Pass the law.

Pass the law.

Excuse me.

Well, you won't answer the question.

Pass the law.

You won't answer the question.

Over here.

Can't you two see you're in love?

There's everything. Can't you two see you're in love? Thank you.

There's everything.

Can I run to the payphone after this?

My first call will be to John.

Every position, it's so fucking boring.

Every position has to be so maximalist.

Everything you guys both said, I could argue either side,

because there's nuances to either side that you just don't want to acknowledge. Here's my question.
Yesterday, the NFL season started. Now, in the past, Taylor Swift was...
She was always in the same box with Brittany Mahomes. And now, they can't sit in the same box.
I guess because Brittany liked some of Trump's tweets. And Taylor's for Kamala.
Don't you think partisanship has gone too far? Not for that reason, but I do. Look, you know, I'm married to a Republican.
We've got to stop demonizing people we disagree with. I think there is a lot of common ground.
That's actually what I think people are pissed off about. They're frustrated with the lies from the far right and the identity politics from the far left, and we need to focus more on what unites us than what divides us.
I completely believe that. One final question.
Free speech question, because that's important to me. Okay, Facebook says that you can put out from the river to the sea when you're talking about Palestine.
Okay, people know my position on Israel. I'm pretty strong on that.
And I'm not at all fooled by the meaning of river to the sea. But, you know what? You're either free speech for free speech or not for free speech, and I am.
And Facebook is right. You should be able to say, from the river to the sea.
The answer isn't to ban that. It's to expose it and to mock it.
I don't want to ban people saying, from the river to sea. I want to look them in the eye and say, you know what? You wouldn't last a day in Gaza.
You would be running and screaming to live and begging to live in Tel Aviv. I agree with you on both those things.
But, you know, one out of five Americans under 30 now thinks the Holocaust is a myth. Okay? That's a fucking problem.
And that's a failure in education. It's a failure of teaching people about dictatorships as well as democracy.
And that is actually usually the line. Where does that line stop? Holocaust denial.
I said it. Stevie Murkowski would have known that.
Now it's time for New Rules, everybody. Okay, New Rule.
The Kansas City nuns who dug up this dead nun and said she barely rotted at all, and that proves something, have to be more specific. I've got sauerkraut in the fridge from 2005, but it's...
Jesus's... It's...
It's not on its way to becoming a saint. It's on its way to becoming alcohol.
And... But the ironic thing is, my miracle whip, that went bad.
New rule, the women who buy this gynecologist-recommended anti-sagging bra have to answer one question. If this issue necessitates your gynecologist getting involved, just how far are your breasts sagging?

I mean...

Look, I get it. Gravity takes its toll on all of us, but if your OB-GYN is saying, you're going to have to move those, I can't get in there.
You need more help than a bra. Oh, my God.

New rules inspired by You need more help than a bra. New Rule, since biologists believe animals develop camouflage

to blend into the environment and evade predators,

someone else to explain cows.

No wonder Donald Trump can catch them and eat them all.

The only place they can really hide is the Museum of Modern Art.

New Rule, now that California has been found to be the most catfished state in the country, excuse us for trying to see the best in people. Oh, sure.
Sure, you can mock some basement-dwelling Twitch streamer who believes a supermodel when she says she wants to marry him and all she needs is credit card. But giving strangers the benefit of the doubt is in line with our West Coast values.
But guys, I gotta say, if a woman lives in a country you can't pronounce, she might not be real. And if all her pictures look doctored and covered with filters, she's probably right here in L.A., so go for it.
No, well, now that Katy Perry is boasting that when her fiancé, Orlando Bloom, does the dishes, she rewards him with oral sex.

Someone has to warn her, that's a slippery slope.

If doing the dishes gets you a blowjob, what's she going to do when he cleans the gutters?

And finally, new rule, if you want to win my vote, don't give me the ick. You know what the ick is, right? It's a term mostly used in the dating world to describe that moment when one of the people, usually the man, does something so icky that the woman cannot forgive it or forget it.

Like sending a dick pic or...

Being mean to the waitress.

Paying for dinner with a coupon.

Getting his mother to call you when you dump him. Asking for sex in baby voice.
Once you give her the ick, it's a wrap. Now, in politics, Donald Trump has pioneered the concept of the ick to frontiers no one ever thought possible.
And that is saying a lot, considering that we once had to learn that John Edwards was going down on his five-month pregnant mistress, because who doesn't love to see a politician kiss a baby. But Trump, he is in a league of his own.
From the way he talks about his daughter to the way he talks about his dick. I guarantee you there's no problem, I guarantee.
From doing disabled voice

to humping the flag. I guarantee you there's no problem.
I guarantee it.

From doing disabled voice to humping the flag to last week getting into a shoving match in front of the eternal flame.

And don't get me started on. It's what's going to decide this election, and it's the best thing Democrats have going for them,

which, of course, was the cue for the far left to say,

hold my beer.

A couple of weeks ago, Bobby Kennedy,

scion of the most storied dynasty in Democratic Party history,

dropped out of the presidential race

and threw his support not to the Democrat, but to Trump.

And everyone all at once,

said the same thing.

Bobby Kennedy did something weird?

A Kennedy in league

with a Republican?

That's like ordering white wine with Bear. Now look, I like Bobby and always will.
And there are things he has been right about that no one else would touch. But yes, I also think he's weird.
I couldn't support him for president. His wife is Cheryl Hines, who Larry David was quoted as describing as the best person I've ever met, the one person in Hollywood who doesn't have a single enemy.
Well, now she does. Because she didn't throw her husband under the bus when her husband made a decision

about something which she's made plain she disagrees with,

but that didn't satisfy the obnoxious posers

on the aforementioned far left.

Thousands tweet-screamed at Cheryl things like,

how do you live with yourself? Do better.

I can't even enjoy the episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm

with you and them anymore.

It's no wonder Larry divorced you. Yeah, that's a character on TV, but okay.
The tweet that got the most attention was from actor Bradley Whitford, who wrote, Hey, Cheryl Hines, way to stay silent while your lunatic husband throws his support behind the adjudicated rapist who brags about stripping women of their fundamental rights. Gutsy.
Great example for the kids. Profile in courage.
Yeah. Well, you know what I think is not gutsy? Mansplaining to a woman, but of course not to her face.
How she should sacrifice her marriage all so you could read something on Twitter that met with your approval. You want to know why I have a bug up my ass about the left more than I used to? It's shit like this.
There's an ugliness they never used to have. The liberals I grew up respecting, none of them are like this.
Going after the wife, even the mafia doesn't do that. There's a lot of people these days who I call liberals in theory.
In theory, they hate bullying. Terrible.

In practice, their attitude is,

it's not bullying when I stick your head in the toilet.

In theory, liberals are compassionate.

In practice, this guy can't even understand one of the most basic dilemmas common to all humans,

that when you're married,

sometimes you have to swallow some shit.

You know, take one for the team.

Do things you don't want to do.

Do things you don't want to do,

like, I don't know, have children. Look, marriage is like a bong.
For it to work, you have to take a few hits. I've never even been married, and I know this,

that it's a delicate dance.

It's a delicate dance, and you're not going to love

everything your spouse says and does.

But I promise you, no couples counselor has ever said,

have you tried screaming at each other?

No. tried screaming at each other.
And that is what is so galling about this. It's exactly what Barack Obama had just told the Democrats at their convention not to do.
Our politics have become so polarized these days that all of us across the political spectrum seem so quick to assume the worst in others.

Unless they agree with us on every single issue, we start thinking that the only way to win is to scold and shame and out yell the other side.

Bradley, did you go to the bathroom or something when that came out?

Because it's almost like he was talking to you directly, like by name.

Don't scold.

Don't shame.

Don't out yell.

Clinton had the same message.

I urge you to meet people where they are.

I urge you not to demean them.

Treat them with respect. And that's the thing.

The actual power of the Democratic Party are generally a pretty sane crop of people. The worst of them are leagues better than the worst Republicans.
The Democratic politicians are not the ones calling to defend the police and other goofy stuff. But the kind of people who are,

the kind of people who are always howling on social media,

yeah, that's who gives a lot of people the ick

when they hear Hitler.

And look, I get it.

Trump is awful. He's not Hitler.
But he is possibly the worst person since Hitler. I kid, Don.
We'd love to have you on the show. But it's true.
But it's true. He drives people insane.
I get it. And you know what? I used to know Bradley a little bit.
He wasn't this guy. And while he may relish writing Cheryl Hines off, I'm not writing him off because that's not the way to handle this.
President Obama, if you would, one more time, please. Our fellow citizens deserve the same grace we hope they'll extend to us.
So I get it. Trump makes us crazy.
He just does. I found a gray hair myself the other day.
And I might need glasses soon. But we have to resist the siren call of being an asshole.
You don't like Trump? Then don't be like him. Okay, thank you very much.
That's our show. I'll be at the Cobb Energy Center in Atlanta tomorrow night, the Riverside of Milwaukee on Sunday,

and the Orpheum in Memphis, September 28th.

I want to thank John Ablin,

Rich Lowry, and Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster.

Now go watch Overtime on YouTube.

Thank you, folks.

Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10,

or watch him anytime on HBO On Demand.

For more information, log on to HBO.com.