Ep. #667: Pete Buttigieg, Larry Wilmore, Rep. Byron Donalds

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night series, Real Time with Bill Maher. Hi, everybody.

How are you? How are you? Hi, people. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Oh, boy, I'm so excited. Thank you.
I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
I know. Well, thank you so much.
I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
I know. Thank you so much.
I appreciate it. Yeah, get it while you can.
We're taking our summer break after this. We'll be...
I know. It's slow news time.
No, got to recharge the batteries and my vape.

No, no, I got, you know.

Okay, so...

But we will be

back on August 23rd to

resume covering the campaign between

Trump and somebody.

We don't...

We don't know who that will be.

Well,

I mean, so much has just happened in the weeks...

We were on a week ago.

Next day, Trump got shot.

Okay?

And let me just say right up front,

you should be as angry about that

as if the candidate you like got shot.

You should.

You should.

You should also be angry that the Secret Service allowed some kid with a sniper rifle and a rangefinder

to get past the metal detectors.

What?

The TSA once tackled me over a bottle of Visine.

So let me... look, Don, I know we've had our little differences over the years,

but I must say, you know, I was in Minneapolis that day.

It happened just a few hours before I had to go on stage.

The first thing I said was, there will be people who find this funny, not me.

There will be people, and there already have been, who made the joke that, oh, it's a shame that it didn't work, this funny, not me. There will be people, and there already have been,

who made the joke that, oh, it's a shame that it didn't work,

this assassination should... Not me.

Liberals don't shoot each other.

And they don't revel in it.

They don't wish for it.

So, that's what I would say to Donald Trump. I'm glad you're okay, because if you weren't,

I couldn't keep making jokes about you,

and I really want to be doing it. Well, here's an interesting phenomenon.
Trump keeps getting attacked by people whose names describe him. No.

The guy in New York,

the prosecutor in the Jeremy Daniels trial, his name was Bragg. This crazy shooter, his name was Crooks.
And I hear there's a guy named Lou Fatfuck who's really out to get it. But, no, you see he's wearing the ear bandage because he lost a piece of his ear.
And the people at the convention, the other Republicans who love him so much, they started wearing... In solidarity, the ear bandage.
Not to be outdone, Biden supporters are wearing pants with a pee stain. So...
But... Yeah, the Republicans had their convention this week.
Did you watch it? It was all about family and trying to humanize Donald Trump. They had a moment here after the shooting and so forth.
So a lot of... Even his granddaughter spoke.
Did very well. That's Don Jr.'s daughter, Kai.
She's at that awkward age. Not quite a woman,

but too old for Matt Gaetz.

And, of course,

of course, the convention is also to introduce

the vice president. We found out who that was

just Saturday. That's J.D.

Vance, the guy who wrote

Hillbilly Elegy, and boy, he ain't

kidding.

He's, uh,

this guy, I've seen him on

abortion. He doesn't believe in any

exceptions. No exceptions for rape

and incest. Different from Trump.
Trump believes

there should be exceptions for rape and incest.

For him.

Uh,

Thank you. exceptions.
No exceptions for rape and incest. Different from Trump.
Trump believes there should be exceptions for rape and incest.

For him.

I kid. Come on.
He's fine.

But I'll give it to the Republicans. They had a very effective convention.

Right up, I thought, till the end.

Last night was the finale.

Okay, we heard from Tucker Carlson, later Fox News.

Heard from Hulk Hogan.

This is true.

A star in the world of professional wrestling.

And Franklin Graham, a preacher.

Can you think of a better lineup to introduce the concept of get ready for some bullshit? Boy. And then Trump gets up there.
Fucking Trump. I mean...
Joe Biden has spent the last three weeks giving Americans a lot of reasons to doubt his mental acuity. And then Trump gets up there and goes, hold my beer.
You know, he had this golden opportunity. If he could just kept it short, if he could just told the story of his horrible day.
that he's only going to tell once.

I guarantee he'll be telling it every day

now.

But he went on for 93 minutes.

By the end of it, my ears were bleeding.

I mean...

Hunter Biden on crack doesn't go on that long.

Lauren Boebert had time to jerk off eight different guys.

Now, I read this today.

The Republican National Convention got an average viewership of 18 million people,

which I thought was pretty impressive.

And then I read the CBS show Tracker...

...gets 19 million.

Tracker. I have two questions.

What the fuck is Tracker. Tracking.
I have two questions. What the fuck is tracking? And would the star of it be interested in accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for the presidency of the United States? Yeah, I mean...
Well, Joe Biden, the week really the worst week he's had in a long time.

I mean, it just keeps getting worse.

Everyone in the Democratic Party now is coming forward

and pretty much saying he should...

Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries,

all these people saying he should step down.

And then he got COVID.

Even viruses want him to step down. But he's okay.
He's okay. He's fine.
He's doing fine. He has very mild symptoms.
Headache, loss of smell, and inability to see writing on the wall. All right, we've got a great show.
Larry Romo and Byron Donald are here. But first up, he was a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 who formerly served as a lieutenant in the U.S.
Navy Reserve. Foreign Mayor Pete Buttigieg is over here.
Pete? Pleasure, sir. Thank you for being here.
All right. All right, Pete, go to judge.
Listen, first of all, I've got to give it up to you, sir. You came here today.
It's a rough week, rough time for Democrats. And you're a Biden surrogate.
That's why you're here. I know a lot of politicians, I've seen it on this show many times, who would have suddenly got a family emergency.
But you showed up. But having said that, can we get serious about Joe Biden? Could I get you tonight to join the list of people? It's going to be everybody at some point who said...
No. No.
No. Okay.
He's got balls, this guy. I got to tell you.
I'm here because I believe in Joe Biden. And let me just...
I get it, all right? I didn't come here to say he's not 10 years older than he was 10 years ago or deny that sometimes he mixes up names, as Donald Trump does, and sometimes said this name when he obviously meant that name. But the thing about Joe Biden is he's really good at being president.
And you can tell because the things we need presidents to do are the things that he's best at, like delivering infrastructure and defending women's rights and fostering economic growth at a level that we haven't seen under any president in my lifetime. One of two things is going to happen in November.
We're either getting Donald Trump or we're getting the Democratic candidate, who is Joe Biden. And those are radically different futures.
And I know which one of those two futures I'm prepared to live in that I want for my children to be growing up in. And that's why I'm here.
But the argument really isn't about that. I mean, I think most Democrats think he did do a good job.
The argument is about can he win? Nancy Pelosi told him this week that she does not think he can win. She's pretty savvy.
What do you think? And all these people, when I came out here, Sherrod Brown, I mean, I said this a week ago. I said that once the dam breaks, everybody is going to be coming aboard.
I mean, how can he survive? And now he has COVID. He's going to really run for president from a hospital bed? He's got mild...
America needs strong leadership. And I...
I mean, it's just... It gets ridiculous, Pete.
He's got a mild sentence. He wants to be back out on the campaign trail in a few days.
And he's going to campaign for the future that we could have. And I guess that's the thing.
The futures could not be more different between Donald Trump's future and the future where Joe Biden wants to lead us. And Americans already agree with us on issue after issue.
So, look, I know that... That's not their big issue.
Their big issue is that they don't think he's young enough to do the job. The more we're talking about him...
That's not going to get better. The more we're talking about him or we're talking about Donald Trump, we look past the fact that this election isn't about one of these two people.
It's about all of us. It's about the country.
And most people in this country want continued economic growth. They agree with Joe Biden's economic policies.
They disagree with Donald Trump's agenda of tax cuts for the rich. Most people agree with Joe Biden on defending a woman's right to choose and disagree with Donald Trump's decision to terminate the right to choose in this country, which is what he did.
On issue after issue after issue, Americans are going to be better off. And our job, I think, certainly my job when I'm in campaign mode and not doing my day job, my most important message is to draw people back to those very different choices that we face.

Yeah, it's interesting.

We can't talk about your day job here, can we?

No, on our side, we weirdly care about things like campaign finance law and the Hatch Act,

so I'm going to be careful to actually behave.

And the Hatch Act says you are, can I say what you are? The transportation secretary? I'm here as a citizen. I know.
That's right. Sorry.
Whoops. Okay.
Of all the problems we have, the fact that we're... Should Joe Biden have fired the Secret Service head? I mean, I don't understand that.
I'm not in on all the details of the whole man's security side.

I know there's a really serious after-action report and process

and a whole lot of scrutiny going on there.

I think everything that led up to that moment, that horrible moment, is under a microscope.

And I believe that President Biden and the administration will do the right thing.

But you didn't need a microscope to see it.

The guy was on the roof, like not that far away,

with a rifle for a long time.

I mean, I don't...

I've seen people fired for less, and it just looks bad.

It looks like, well, the other guy from the other party got shot.

We'll look into it if we have time.

I think it's that when something of this gravity happens,

you don't just dash off a decision. You do a comprehensive process to find every single piece of anything that could go wrong.
And then there's going to be accountability, and there's going to be change. I'm sure of that.
Again, I'm not in the middle of that, obviously. That's not my lane.
But I know that's what's going to happen. Okay.
So, not to get back to the politics, but if we did have an open convention, just hypothetically, don't you think it would be a tremendous opportunity to reset the Democratic Party? And since they're so behind in the polls right now, I mean, when you look at the Senate races in the swing states versus the presidential race, I mean, sometimes the point swing is 15 points. In other words, the Democratic candidate for Senate is like up by eight and Joe's down by seven.

That's a huge difference.

So, you know, we won't get back to what you just said

or what I was contending, but as just,

if we had an open convention,

to be able to have a candidate who could, again,

change the dynamic, like who's the young one in the race now?

What?

Look, I think the convention, a convention is an opportunity to lay out different visions. And we just came through the Republican convention, whatever that was.
I made myself watch, I made myself watch as much of it as I could. Especially last night when we were promised that we were going to get a different, more unifying vision.

And for a few minutes, it looked like he was trying.

And then, I don't know, an hour and a half later, I gave up.

But I still don't know what the hell he was talking about.

And, of course, the other thing you get to do at a convention is roll out your vice presidential candidate,

which in this case was J.D. Vance.

Yeah. I know him a little bit.
What do you think of him? Look, we're from the same generation. We're both from the Midwest, different parts of the Midwest.
Right. I know a lot of guys like J.D.
Vance. I've run into a lot of guys like him.
Not so much when I was growing up in Indiana. Peter Thiel.
Peter Thiel is his big backer. Yeah, for sure.
Okay, if people don't know who that is, he started PayPal.

He's gay.

He's a billionaire.

I mean, I've had a couple of people who knew you were coming on this week say,

ask Pete what he thinks about Peter Thiel being so in love with J.D. Vance,

who is against, flatly against gay marriage.

So I think it's a profound contradiction, but maybe it's not that complicated. I know there are a lot of folks who say,

what's going on with some of these Silicon Valley folks veering into Trump world with J.D. Vance and backing Trump? What are they thinking? Silicon Valley is supposed to be, you know, they're supposed to care about climate.
They're supposed to be, you know, I don't know, pro-science and rational and libertarians. Normally, libertarians don't like authoritarians.
What's up with that? I think it's actually, we've made it way too complicated. It's super simple.
These are very rich men who have decided to back the Republican Party that tends to do good things for very rich men. I couldn't agree with that.
And by the way, that's kind of what you're getting with... That's kind of what you're getting with J.D., right? So I knew a lot of people like him when I got to Harvard.
I found a lot of people like him who would say whatever they needed to to get ahead. And five years ago, that seemed like being the anti-Trump Republican, so that's what he was.
Talked about how he was unfit, how he was cynical. Called him an opioid, which is kind of a weird thing to say about a person,

but definitely a really...

LAUGHTER

But, I mean, for somebody whose identity

is that they're connected to Appalachia,

which has an opioid crisis,

that really is the darkest thing you could possibly say

about Donald Trump, at least in public,

but behind the scenes, apparently,

he's actually calling him Hitler, right?

Seriously. Five years later, the way he gets ahead is that he's the greatest guy since sliced bread.
And I actually watched this exact same process with somebody else I got to know in my days in the Midwest, which was my former governor, Mike Pence, who I watched start out as an evangelical Christian who cared about rectitude and family values, and then get on board with a guy who was mixed up with a porn star, make excuses for him so that he could have power. And then he did.
He got four glorious years, I guess, as vice president of the United States. And it ended on the west front of the Capitol with Trump supporters proposing that he be hanged for using the one shred of integrity he still had to stand up to an attempt to overthrow the government.

So I guess, maybe not as a politician, but as a human being, what I'll say is that I hope things work out a little bit better for J.D. Vance than they did for my parents.
Okay. so um you read a

wrote a very absorbing book called trust

the Okay. So, you wrote a very absorbing book called Trust.
Basically, the thesis is that we do not have a shared reality. A lot of people have talked about the same thing.
I mean, obviously, watching the Republican convention, Democrats are going to still, and Republicans, we're still saying the same thing. We don't.
Any ideas in your head about how to sort of move backward

from that cliff that we're heading towards

of no shared reality and what that brings us?

Yeah, I mean, first of all, take care of the basics,

which is kind of what Joe Biden's about, right?

For all the noise and the things that carry the news of the day,

he's been focused on stuff like getting insulin back down to $35.

He did it for seniors.

He'd do it for everybody, for Republicans to get out of the way.

Stuff like building infrastructure,

stuff like making sure that we have a fair tax code,

things that actually speak to 60% or 70% of Americans.

That's one of the things that amazes me.

I felt it.

I was going through my head

when I was sitting at the State of the Union address,

and I watched Joe Biden name issue after issue

and proposal after proposal.

And even though that you could feel the chamber was divided, you know, the Democrats were standing up and cheering and the Republicans were sitting like this, the country was not divided on those issues. 60%, 70% agree on those things.
So I think part of it is focusing on those things that are unifying. Look, we are in different information realities, for sure, right? One of the reasons I'm here is that this is one space where you actually see people from radically different views at the same table.
Yeah. In the same conversation, which compels you to at least try to be in the same reality.
Right. It's why I actually love local news.
Everybody likes to people often say say, I think, unflattering things about local television. I think it's a great space to one of the last spaces to actually be talking about the same reality.
Maybe just because I cut my teeth as a mayor having to explain myself on local news every day. We need to find circles of belonging and circles of information that are overlapping instead of concentric.
If that makes sense. Well, uh...
I wish you were the candidate, but thank you for coming in. Carrying the water.
All right, Pete Buttigieg. All right, let's greet our panel.
That's right.

All right, he's a producer, actor, comedian, writer,

and host of the podcast, Larry Wilmore.

Black on the air.

Larry Wilmore, my friend.

How you doing, pal?

And he's a two-term Republican congressman from Florida

who was one of the featured speakers this week

at the Republican National Convention.

Byron Donalds.

Byron, I know you're having a nurse to get here,

and I appreciate it.

All right, this is my last chance to plug this book

before we go on.

There is something funny,

and if this committee and said it will shock you,

they did this, 837 people,

this is probably more now, but this is last week,

on Amazon, wrote a review of it.

And then they do something called an AI synthesis.

Here's what AI said about my book.

I'm serious.

AI reads the 837 reviews.

Customers find the book funny and insightful.

Thank you, AI.

They appreciate Bill Morris' wit and common sense observations.

The book is considered an entertaining read and worth memorizing. That's AI.
Wow. AI, you flatter me and frighten me, let me tell you.
Stop showing off, AI. Really? Okay, so it's interesting.
After the last Saturday, I got so many texts from people that said almost the exact same thing. They put the picture up there and said, this election is over.
And then Trump spoke last night. I don't know how many people saw it.
I mean, I thought the convention was going well until then. I feel like every tragic character has a tragic flaw.

Hamlet could not make up his mind.

Joe Biden doesn't know when to quit.

And Donald Trump can't shut the fuck up.

I think we have a clear race between a man who can't finish his thoughts and a man whose thoughts will never fucking finish. Never.
Okay. Now, Byron, you're not wearing the ear thing in solidarity, I've noticed.
So, actually, funny story about that. At the convention, I'm walking to get some food.
There's a guy on the corner, dressed like Abe Lincoln, and he looks at me and he goes, hey, man, you got to put the white patch on that ear. And I just looked at him and I said, oh, no, we're not doing that.
I got to eat. I'm hungry.
Bye-bye. We're not doing that.
But you know what I'm saying? I mean, all Trump had to do was take the W. And he just couldn't stop himself.
This is, I think it reminded people of what they didn't like about him the first time. He is a man who can't control his appetites, whether it's cheating or if you flatter him, he does whatever you want.
Or he just, he had it on the teleprompter. It was a short speech.
It was a perfect moment to pivot from... He already had the base.
We've known him for 10 years now. He's got them.
He just got shot. This was a moment and he started to do it to say, look, I'm going to be everybody's president.
Because he certainly didn't do that in the first term. But, okay, new guy, a great reason for him to be a new guy.
Right. And he just couldn't do it.
He had to start riffing about crazy Nancy Pelosi and... Oh, my God.
I mean, Bill, it was like a MAGA fever dream, for Christ's sake. It sounded, I mean, to me,

it's true, right?

I'm watching it. It sounded like he

was trying to go to sleep, but his friend was there

so he had to tell him what happened that day.

He was like, yeah.

And then, wait,

wait, wait, wait. And then Hulk Hogan

was there. You remember him, right?

And Kid Rock, I think he was

rapping. Kid Rock, he was cool.
Wait, wait, where was I? I mean, that's what it sounded like. It's like, go to sleep.
Go to sleep for crazy. A couple of things.
First, look, the president had an opportunity to address the country, really the world. Hasn't done that since, obviously, what happened on Saturday.
He took that opportunity to do that. He also is not going to change his policies.
His policies are what they are. I think what's important in this moment...
We're not even on the policy yet. It's always about the policy.
It's always about the policy. Always about the policies.
And it's about the country and it's about the people that he's trying to serve, which is everybody in the United States of America. Here's the things that bother me about him.
I know no politician is perfect. I can let a lot shit go.
Right. But one, he doesn't concede elections.
That's always going to be a deal breaker for me. Does not concede elections.
And has gotten all you guys to pretend that they won the last election. Two, he just lies.
Like he doesn't even care or know what he's lying about. I mean, I have a list just from last night.
The election was stolen. No, it wasn't.
Crime is up. Crime is down.
Worst inflation ever. It's been 23.
It's three. You know, the people coming...
Illegals have killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. A hundred...
Yeah. 107% of new jobs went to illegal aliens.
I mean, you were in the hall. You heard this shit.
It doesn't bother... It doesn't bother...
It doesn't bother you that he just... Whatever he thinks should be the reality is the reality that he then espouses even though you know it's not.
That doesn't bother you. What he talks about is what Americans are feeling every single day, no matter what city and the country you're talking about.
So facts don't matter. Inflation.
Oh, they do. Inflation.
Let's take that one for a moment. Yeah, the year-over-year right now is, what, 3.4%, 3.5%? But the overarching move of inflation from when Joe Biden took office to now is up massively over 20%.
Those prices didn't go away, Bill. Then say that.
Don't say it's the worst ever.

That's a lie.

Because if you're an American under the age of 45 or 45 younger, like I am,

this is the worst inflation you've ever seen.

I heard about inflation from my mom under Jimmy Carter,

and Reagan had to get that under control.

I've never seen anything like this.

It's one of the reasons why young voters, young men in particular,

are saying, you know what? At least when Donald Trump was president, I had more money in my pocket and I could get more things. Because this Joe Biden guy, he's not getting it done.
Yeah, but here's the thing. Donald Trump, you have to understand Donald Trump's DNA.
His cells need him to lie just like other cells need oxygen, you know.

So to him, it's not lying.

It's part of who he is.

Honestly, I don't think he even thinks he's lying.

That's just how he...

That's my point.

Right.

It's not lying.

It's just what he feels.

He said there was a moment where he said, when he was talking about getting shot,

and he said, I looked down and my hand was blood, covered with blood, and there was blood all over the place. And then I showed a picture of his hand with no blood.
I'm not diminishing what happened. I'm just saying in his...
That was so indicative of who he is. In his mind, the thing was just crazy blood, but it was just a little blood here.
You've had those conversations where you might have gotten into an altercation, a shout-in match with somebody, but it turned into, like, the fight from Rocky IV. But in your mind, when you're having to deal with that, yes, it's a major situation.
The man almost lost his life. I'm gonna give him some editorial movement on the amount of blood on his hand.
I'm gonna give him that. I'm gonna give him that.
He's earned that.

Okay, so... J.D.
Vance.

Here's a quote from him.

Many of the most unhappy and most miserable and most angry people in our media are childless adults.

This seems to be a big theme of his.

He also said, we are effectively run in this country, be it the Democrats, be it corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable in their own lives. He mentions Kamala Harris.
I think she has kids, doesn't she? Pete Buttigieg. I know he has kids.
AOC. Well, she's early 30s.
People don't always have kids. The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.
Okay, I know you're talking about me. But, I mean...
I find this very offensive. This idea that, like, there's only one way to be happy.
And I know this was trying to be a more inclusive convention.

Well,

I mean, let's be honest.

This convention, it was more like a white trash front yard party.

You know?

I mean, it really was.

I mean,

I'm watching it,

that's all I can think of. My favorite

was Nikki Haley,

who, God bless her, like,

her head was completely

disagreeing with her mouth. Like, it couldn't

Thank you. That's all I can think of.
My favorite was Nikki Haley, who, God bless her,

like, her head was completely disagreeing with her mouth.

Like, it couldn't... It was.

Like, her mouth is saying, vote for Trump,

and her head's just going like that the whole time.

You know, like, her head was like,

what are you talking about, mouth?

Shut the fuck up.

What's wrong with you?

All right, let me say this.

Nikki Haley was way more convincing than Pete Buttigieg was over there. Really? Oh, yeah.
Pete already knows the deal. Pete knows that Joe Biden can't win.
Everybody knows that Joe Biden can't win. The only people that don't know are Joe Biden and Joe Biden.
That's a good point. That's because Joe wants Air Force One.
That's why. Well, I can't argue with that.
All right.

So every time we take a little break, we do something called future headlines,

because people depend on this show to get their news.

Absolutely, as we should.

So we're going to be off until August 23rd.

We have to provide you with the headlines, even when they're in the future.

So would you like to see the future headlines?

Future headlines.

Secret Service announces new security

policy. Check area for shooters.

Travis Kelsey dumps Taylor Swift for Hawk to a girl.

Absolutely predictable.

Yeah, I understand.

Queers for Palestine founder

visits Palestine, changes mind.

Trump urges national unity,

vows revenge on enemies.

J-Lo, Ben Affleck, divorce,

start dating again, remarry. January 6th, rioters measure J.D.
Vance's neck for noose, just in case. Elon Musk begins construction on evil lair.

CDC discovers bird flu epidemic started from Lick Your Windshield Challenge. And Biden back campaigning after forgetting he stepped down previously.
So let me ask a little bit more about the convention. I said the first night, Amber Rose was there.
Yeah. Talked to her in the back.
She was good, man. Don't lie.
She was good. No, I know.
She was good. Van Jones knew she was good.
Why do you say that? Because Van Jones even said it that night. He was like, man, this is a major blow to the foundations of the Democrat Party.
And he's right. You got a black woman, influencer, entertainer, talking straight to camera.
I talked to her in the back. She was like, I'm nervous.
I don't do this. I said, well, look, listen, the crowd is already is hype.
They already have all the energy. Just let the crowd take the speech with you.
She just went out there and delivered it. People embraced her.
They loved it. It was awesome.
She was great. And she said the party doesn't care if you're white, black, straight, or gay, which, you know, liberals roll their eyes at that.
But I always think you have to recheck things. Now, I mean, look, the history of the Republican Party in the last 40 years, there has been a lot of racism in it.
You would admit that, right? I would tell you our party's changed a lot. A lot.
That's what I'm asking. Yeah.
Oh, the party's come a long way and it's continuing to go even more ways. Look, you had Amber Rose, you just talked about her.
You had the mother of the fallen soldier, Mrs. Brame, out of New York City.
Myself, Wesley Hunt, John James, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy. I mean, I can go down the list.
I remember Republican conventions eight years ago, 12 years ago, there might have been one or two black people on that stage. Our party is growing.
It's getting more diverse. And when you're in those convention halls like I was for five straight days, nobody says, ooh, that guy's black, let me take a picture with him.
They're like, man, that's Byron, I love him. White, black, Hispanic, doesn't matter.
I wouldn't say this. That's good.
Just because you add more raisins to the potato salad, it doesn't make the potato salad any better. It does not necessarily make it better.
You know, yeah, we're okay with women, but we're going to make it very hostile towards women's rights. You know, this whole thing of repealing Roe v.
Wade and the cynical way that was done shows no respect for the autonomy of women over their bodies. I'm sorry, Rebecca.
Okay. That's not a party...
Wait, let me say this. That's not a party that has changed.
That's a party that has stuck to his guns for over 50 years, which I give it credit for, by the way. Yeah, but it's not because they hate women.
It's because they think it's murder. Bill, but they don't respect women's ability to make that decision for themselves.
That's not true at all. That's not true at all.
That is not true at all. I'll say my point.
Trust me, I'm very pro-choice. I know, I know, but the thing about abortion, we've talked about this before, too.
The sides are actually flipped on this. The pro-life side is actually a very liberal position, whereas the pro-choice side is a very conservative position.
I know you're saying, like, what? The reason why it's a very liberal position, pro-life, because it wants the government to step in and interfere where the agency of this child, it doesn't have agency. The government has to step in on its behalf.
That is a liberal action. Whereas a pro-choice position is about the liberty of the individuals at stake here.
The woman's liberty is what's at stake. That's what privacy means.
That's why it was based on the privacy clause. Because we have liberty in this country and the ability to make your own decisions.
That's what's at stake in that decision, is that you're taking that away. Okay, well, two things real quick.

That's a conservative position.

Hold on a second, hold on a second.

This is important.

Because with respect to abortion,

with respect to, you're saying, being pro-choice,

fully respects a woman's agency,

fully respects a woman's choices in her rights.

It puts the decision in her hands.

But you also have that unborn child.

That child is unborn.

Viability starts at about 21, 22 weeks now with modern medicine.

Who knows where that's going to go?

And when you talk about repealing Roe v. Wade, that's not what happened.

A case came through the channels of our legal system.

The Supreme Court looked at that case, looked at Roe v. Wade,

which even Ruth Bader Ginsburg said was a very poorly written decision,

even though she's very pro-choice. She said it was imperfect, but she said it was the law of the land.
But at the end of the day, and then the Supreme Court came out with a new decision, and they said this is now in the hands of states, actually going back to what it was before 1973. I'm sorry, why did they want to do that, Byron? Why did they want to mess with it in the first place? I wonder what they grew up to.
No, no a legal question, a legal question came before the court. And if a legal question comes before the court, the court has a responsibility to answer that.
But that question has come before the court before. It came before the court in the early 90s, and they made a different decision.
But the court did not say that we're going to outlaw abortions. That's not what they said.
Yeah. That is not what they said.
Be accurate. Now, in the Dobbs decision,

they said that this is now going to go to the states.

California, where we're saying...

I'm sorry, roads aren't built

that lead to nowhere. They go somewhere.

We're watching it right now.

Where's this road leading it right now?

What is happening right now?

It's not leading to more autonomy.

Actually, that is not true.

Right now, in a post...

In a post-Roe v. Wade world,

post-Roe v. Wade, there have actually been more abortions conducted in the United States than before Roe v.
Wade. So what you're saying is not accurate.
Number two, each state is now deciding what abortion regulations are going to be. Medical procedures are regulated at the state level, not the federal level.
Medical licensing for doctors and nurses is done at the state level, not the federal level. And every state's going to make these decisions.
There are some rights that don't need to be adjudicated by individual states. Civil rights is one of those rights as well.
When you have another right, civil rights is actually a great deal. I'm glad you brought that up.
That was federal legislation. And you know why? Because people wouldn't do the right thing.
No, you had a segment of people taking away the liberty of another segment of people, namely black people in this country. Our liberties were being taken away, primarily by Southern whites.
Our liberties were never given to us. By taken away by Southern whites.
We are allowed to have our liberties by God, not by government. God gives us liberties.
Government secures them. Government is the agency that gives us our rights.
Government secures them. God is not in the White House.
It is government that's in the White House. Local officials in southern states were denying us those rights.
That's the history. You had local officials in southern states denying the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of black people in America.
Because they didn't view black people as humans. They viewed them as exotic pets.
And that's why the federal government stepped in with civil rights legislation. You agree with my point.
Thank you for that. I appreciate that.
Yes, the federal government had to intervene in that. But when you're talking about abortion, you have the liberty.
No, but the federal government had to intervene on that. When you're talking about abortions, in some respects, along the same line of civil rights, you're talking about the rights and the liberties of the woman who is carrying a child.
Correct. And abortion is highly personal.
And that's why this is the most divisive topic in our politics. Also correct.
But there is the rights of the unborn child. And no matter how anybody feels, half of our country does believe that an unborn child has rights.
Okay. Half of our country does.
Here's the road that you're on. And that's why you have, that's why every of you have a decision.
That's fine. I'm not going to argue

over the science of that because I understand

there's something to be said about that.

But a person becomes a person at

birth. Okay?

Wait, wait, hold on. Because

wait a second. I'm not talking

about, I'm not talking about

biology and I'm not talking about religion

because we can have different definitions of when you think

life begins. Okay? I'm not arguing that.

But personhood begins at birth. It always has.

It's, when you see a tombstone, it's

Thank you. biology, and I'm not talking about religion because we can have different definitions of when you think life begins, okay? I'm not arguing that.
But personhood begins at birth. It always has.
It's, when you see a tombstone, it's from the moment they were born to the moment they died. It doesn't say the moment of conception to the moment they died on a tombstone.
It doesn't say that, okay? That's how we have always measured personhood. Personhood also has a definition with the government.
Personhood also is defined by where, when, and where you are born. Citizenship is determined when and where you are born.
Not when you're conceived or where you're conceived. Good God, do you know what the country would be like if we determine personhood by where people are conceived? First of all, Republicans would lose their fucking minds.
Well, two quick things. Two quick things.
I'm not wrong about that. Two quick things.
I wanted to hear your point. Number one, you have to fully acknowledge that half of the country disagrees with your point.
You're talking about life, not personhood. But we are a constitutional republic.
Based on laws. So the laws that are created in this nation do reflect the will of the people.
Based on laws. And the people are massively divided on this issue.
Right. This is why...
Based on religion and morality,, which is different. Now I'll let you talk.
You can let me talk? Sorry, go ahead. This is why...
This is why the Supreme Court actually letting the states deal with this, it took it out of the hands of the Supreme Court, and now you have citizens... I just disagree with that.
You have citizens, legislatures, governors, you have ballot initiatives in a lot of states where now the citizens

are taking this matter into their own hand.

That is the way a constitutional republic is supposed

to operate. It's like when the obvious things...

Let me just say this real quick. When the obvious

things take committees to do,

that's bullshit, okay?

What do you mean you take committees to do?

What are you talking about?

You have something that is rightly decided, abortion, I agree.

Can I talk?

I'll say this last thing, Bill.

This last thing.

I didn't mean it.

No, no.

We got all that built up.

This is real life.

See, here's the thing.

Come on, Bill.

Tell your shit, man.

No, no.

It's real time.

It's real time.

No, no, no.

It's real time.

I'm sorry.

I'd be happy to start my vacation early.

I don enjoying it. But I think we've gone around the mulberry bush on that.
Well, the last thing that I'll say... And it's a good example of something that people will never agree on.
And we still have to be able to be civil. And I thought you guys were.
Of course. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, what? No, I ain't mad at him. But I gotta say, back to the thing about your party, like, I noticed Mrs.
Vance. Yes.
Because she's of Indian heritage. Yes.
Okay, so that's a person of color. Yes.
I feel like there were times where she didn't look too happy to be there, but they all looked happy to have her. Of course.
Which I,, Melania didn't look happy to be there. In all fairness.
Really? Listen, man, we're being fair. I disagree.
Oh, trust me. She was happy.
I disagree. She was happy.
I thought Melania looked... I thought she was in her element there.
It was dicey at first. Really? It seemed that way.
She's a very private person. She loosened up.
She's a very private person. Yes.
I thought she looked to me like she was very happy to be getting the spotlight. She was beaming on the stage.
Yeah, on the stage she looked great. Where else were we talking about? Well, in the box.
When she first walked up there, it was just a little awkward trauma. Well, then she had to be with him.
You know what? You know what's talking about? I'm just talking stagecraft.

The stagecraft that was really awkward was when Joe Biden had to tell Joe,

you did such a good job, Joe.

You answered all the questions.

That's backstage.

Right.

That's true.

That's backstage.

I agree with you.

I agree with you.

Yes.

You drink?

All right.

That was very entertaining.

Thank you, guys. Have a good vacation.
It's time for New right. That was very entertaining.
Thank you, guys.

Have a good vacation.

It's time for new rules, everybody.

New rules.

All right.

Okay, new rules.

Since they just unveiled eight new official emojis,

someone has to tell me what the purple splooge one means.

Maybe I have a dirty mind, but I can't help thinking it came out of this. You know, people who make up reasons to hate J.K.
Rowling have to get the wand out of their ass.

They currently want her canceled because she once called Lolita a great and tragic love story.

That doesn't mean she supports pedophilia.

It's a novel.

That means it's made up. What kind of imbeciles think you can live inside a book? New Rule, now that polls show that the most anti-Trump voters are single women and most pro-Trump voters are divorced dads.
Someone must start a dating app that connects the two groups called Hate Fucker. Where women meet men whose only topic of conversation

is the crazy bitch who's making his kids hate him.

Ladies, want to spend two weekends a month

in a semi-furnished studio apartment

with a damaged man and an eight-year-old named Olivia who hates you?

Well, we'll make that dream come true.

And check out our other site, Axe to Grindr. You will know that not one but two women who didn't know they were pregnant recently gave birth in restaurant bathrooms.
Congress must pass the Oblivious Helpless Female Unexpected Contractions, also known as, oh fuck. Don't just do it for unsuspecting mothers, do it for Taco Bell employees.
They already have enough of a mess to clean up in the bathroom. New Rule, someone must tell researchers who are using AI to develop a translator for dogs, there are better ways to use AI.

Dogs only say three things. I'm hungry,

I'm scared, and fuck Christy Noem.

I guess you could use it on

Biden's dog, but he's already been run

out of the White House because everyone hates him. And so has the dog.
And finally, new rule, there's nothing on Earth, not even an assassination attempt, that can't be made just a little worse by adding religion. Since the bullet that was meant for Donald Trump missed him last Saturday, Republicans have been indulging in an orgy of magical thinking, saying things like, Trump wears the armor of God.
Boxing star Jake Paul tweeted about the miracle at Butler Farm showgrounds, when you try and kill God's angels and saviors of the world, it just makes them bigger. Which sounds like something a guy who gets hit in the head for a living would say.
The internet quickly filled up with images of angels and Jesus protecting Trump, like this one from Congresswoman Maria Salazar.

Steve Scalise said,

Yesterday there were miracles, and I think the hand of God was there too.

Steve was also shot, but God was having an off day.

And that bullet missed his ear and went into his spleen.

And of course, it was inevitable that someone named Kevin would tweet this video of a flag from the rally that got twisted up in a wire and said, It looks like an angel.

Look, it's an angel, and it's wearing a flag.

Just like Sarah Palin used to do. My point is that Donald Trump, even if you like him, is powerful enough as a past president, a likely future president, and to be perfectly frank, a cult leader.
America doesn't need a demigod. From the pharaohs to Julius Caesar to Hirohito,

many cultures have tried it,

the earthly being who is simultaneously divine,

or at least god-ish,

and it never turns out well.

And look, I'm not anti-religion.

Oh, wait, I'm very anti-religion.

That's right. Come on.
And the theme of that movie was, I'm sorry, but religion is stupid and dangerous. And I don't say that in a mean way.
It's true.

No one thought that movie was mean-spirited.

Not even the religious people I interviewed.

You also shared the name Miranda. Maybe you're

Carmen Miranda. Maybe the second

coming of her. You should have fruit on your head.

Instead of fruit in your head.

Alright.

Thank you. Can I come over there and give you a hug?

Yes. I hug everybody, so can I give you a hug? Thanks.
Thank you. Can I come over there and give you a hug? Yes.
I hug everybody, so can I give you a hug?

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Hey, you didn't have a heart on there, did you?

No. Sorry.
Can't do that.

Well, thank you for what you did, Jesus, man.

Amen.

Thank you for being Christ-like and not just Christian.

Thank you.

Okay.

Hey, my wallet.

How you doing, Bill? God bless you. Hi.
Hey, my wallet. How you doing, Bill?

God bless you.

Hi.

Seeing you around.

Welcome to our world.

I'm seeing you around.

Yeah.

Thank you.

That's the way we need to be with religion.

Not condescending, but also, it's the 21st century.

Enough is enough with interpreting every random event as a DM from heaven.

There's a kind of person in this world who loves to see signs in everything, never asking why, if God has something to communicate to us, he doesn't just fucking say it. He's God, for God's sakes.
Why show up in a flapjack or... or a frying pan or Or a Walmart receipt.
And don't get me started on the dog's ass. I mean...
It does look like... No, just say it.
What's with drop... What's with dropping...

Okay with the dog's ass.

What's with dropping clues?

You know, he makes statues cry.

He makes clouds look like stuff.

He puts rainbows in the sky.

I mean, not anymore, since the gays stole it. The people who see angels in flags are the same people who saw a cross of steel beams in the rubble of the World Trade Center.
Because after he kills you, God likes to leave a calling card like a serial killer. People see signs because they want to see them.
It's why stalkers think Taylor Swift is blinking marry me to them in Morse code. But it gets dangerous when the signs make someone think God is on their side.
Republican Congressman Mike Collins said after the shooting, God spared Ronald Reagan for a reason. God spared Donald Trump for a reason.
God doesn't miss. Really? Tell that to John Lennon, Lincoln, JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King.
Look, the asshole who shot at Trump was cowardly, unpatriotic, selfish, vile, and weak, and he should rot in hell. But thinking that God protects your heroes, but not mine, that isn't cool either.
Magination, because they are religious by nature and given to magical thinking, have been trending towards demigod worship for a while now. The shirts and flags and posters depicting Trump the Redeemer, the crosses and religious imagery that were heavy in the crowd on January 6th.
But Trump didn't survive the attempt on his life because of divine intervention. He survived because a virgin couldn't hit the fattest president since Taft.
And I'm... And again, make no mistake, I'm glad he couldn't.
But Trump is alive because he's the single luckiest motherfucker who ever lived. His whole life...
His whole life is a string of you gotta be fucking kidding me. Just this week, the judge overseeing the case of him stealing classified documents threw the whole thing out.
Of course she did. That's always the way it goes for Trump.
He inherited $413 million from his dad, lost it all, and used the write-off to never pay taxes again. His only form of exercise is eating.

But he's somehow stronger than ever at 78.

Meanwhile, Richard Simmons, dead at 76.

And now he's running against an incumbent president

who's a gentle breeze away from death. And then there's the guy who shot at Trump.
McLovin from the movie Super Bowl. Look, I I fervently hope that nobody ever shoots a Trump or any candidate,

but if you have to have someone do it, it's kind of lucky to have it be the world's biggest loser.

And it all just makes religious-minded people see Trump as something preter-human now,

when in reality, he puts his pants on one one leg at a time, after sex with a porn star. You want to vote for him? Fine.
But don't pray to him. He's already all in on being godlike.
He said this week, the doctor at the hospital called it a miracle. I'm not supposed to be here.
I'm supposed to be dead. Yeah, so is Dick Cheney.
But karma isn't cooperating and karma isn't a thing. All right, that's our show.
We're off until August 23rd. You can see me at the Toyota Oakdale Theater in Wallington, Connecticut.
July 27th at the Calm Energy Center in Atlanta, September 7 and at Riverside we rebooked it in Milwaukee September

8th. I want to thank Larry Wilmore

Byron Donald, Pete Buttigieg

now go watch Overtime on YouTube

thank you very much ladies and gentlemen

alright guys 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.