Overtime – Episode #666: Spkr. Kevin McCarthy, Ben Shapiro, Bakari Sellers

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late the moment, Bak Ben Shapiro Show, Ben Shapiro. And a CNN contributor and best-holding author of The Moment, Bakari Sellers.
Okay. So let's get right to the biggest question from the people.
Who do you think Trump should pick for this VP? Boy, he's really, I mean, it's a good strategy. Like, while the Democrats are getting all this bad publicity, just shut up.
He doesn't usually do something that smart. It's like that scene.
It's like that scene in Jurassic Park where the velociraptor learns to use the door handle. Right.
But, I mean, the convention starts Monday. Maybe we'll postpone it.
He's got to pick somebody up. I would tell you that the only person who poses any fear for Democrats is probably Marco Rubio.
Marco, he looks like the future. He has a great deal of experience.
He can talk to Hispanic voters in ways and communicate in ways that otherwise Trump and Burgum would have trouble doing. And he's a notable opponent against Kamala Harris in the debate.
There's no concern over Burgum or J.D. Vance.
J.D. Vance is adiaphras.
He stands for nothing. But wait a second.
I read that because they're both from Florida, Trump and Rubio, that they can't be on the same ticket. Yeah, so Rubio would move to Virginia.
Same thing that Cheney did.

He moved out of Texas, went back to Wyoming.

You can't come from the same state.

I know.

So you move...

You declare residency.

Actually, it would be Nevada, right?

He's probably...

He actually spends a fair bit of his year in Nevada,

and Nevada's the same state.

He would have to resign from Senate.

Correct.

And...

DeSantis would appoint his replacement.

Yeah.

So, wow.

But, you know that...

You just can't be from the same state.

Right.

The other thing is that

Trump has a habit of going off the board, right?

I mean, like, he likes the surprise. This is going to be Apprentice.
It's going to be Kevin McCarthy. He's going to make you all think around.
He's going to make you guess where it is. That's who it is right there.
He's going to make you sign up for... Rubio would be excellent.
Tim Scott would be excellent. If you really want to play the game, I want to win the election.
Pick Youngkin in Virginia. Put Youngkin in play and the race is over.
Well, he's not going to do any of those things. Why Youngkin? Youngkin is still very popular in Virginia.
Look, it is true. And Virginia's key? Well, listen.
If you win Virginia, then it makes the map more difficult. Right now, if you took the polling, you would say Trump has Arizona, Trump has Nevada, Trump has Georgia.
So that gets him to 267. And Maine and Oklahoma and Nebraska go by congressional districts, so they're going to split in there.
He has to win either Michigan, Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania. He has to win one of those three.
He only lost Wisconsin by 20. But the real challenge is black America has switched off of Biden.
They're not voting for Trump, but they're not turning out. So he has to win one of those three.
But if you put Virginia... We haven't had the election yet.
Yeah, I know. I mean, Donald Trump's...
Donald Trump got 8% of the black vote in 2020. Yeah, in 2020.
20% of the men. He's polling 22%.
The highest person in modern history is Nixon. Mr.
Speaker, if you believe that... If you believe that Donald Trump's going to get 20% of the black vote, I will sell you a bridge in Brooklyn.
No, I don't. But I don't believe...
I don't... I do not believe...
If you look at the last election, 2020, Biden only won the election by 48,918 votes, and he had an approval rating of a plus 10. He's now minus 20.
But, I mean, I think... And do you know what else happened in that election when he won so big? Do you know how many Republicans in Congress lost? Incomements? Zero.
First time since 94. Honestly, I'm gonna to be...
You must really miss this shit. I know.
But really, I can see how... I can walk you through any city.
You've got politics in your blood. I was just going to say, I disagree with you, but I honestly find it refreshing that you will even articulate that Biden won the race and Trump lost.
And so... That's what I'm saying.
Good as it gets Republican. I mean, the bar is in hell, but I know.
But that's important. That is important.
The problem that Biden has is that in 2020, the increase in voters turnout was so massive from 2016, unprecedentedly massive. The voting base increased by about 22 million voters.
Normally, it increases maybe four or five million voters per election cycle. What that means is that you're probably going to get closer to a aversion to the mean.
I'd be shocked if you even get as many voters as you had in 2020 and 2024. And a lot of the voters who are not going to be, quote-unquote, showing up, by which I mean, like, not using mail-in ballots.
And what Democrats are doing to one another right now, they're guaranteeing Biden's going to lose. They're weakening it every day.
And in the polling, Biden's the strongest one. I actually argue that Democrats have done more damage to Joe Biden since January 27th.
I mean, June 27th and probably June 27th. The only person who's done the worst still is himself.
Well, I mean, but at the end of the day, what I've been telling everyone is people analyze this race wrong. I mean, you literally have three choices in this race.
You have Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and the couch. Those are your choices.
And the couch is one of the most amazing candidates in the history of American politics. It literally runs no ads It literally runs...
It runs no ads and people choose it all the time.

Bobby Kennedy just shot up and went,

what about the worm in my brain?

All right.

Well, what do you make of the Democratic

Socialists of America,

DSA, pulling its endorsement

of AOC for WTF? Okay. What do you make of the Democratic Socialists of America pulling its endorsement of AOC for not being sufficiently anti-Israel? Did that happen? Yes.
Okay. Oh, I...
Yeah. I was in the who cares category.
Yeah. Same.
I'm just looking for... Honestly, I'd like for the Democratic Party to pull its support from the pro-chemist wing of the Democratic Party.
That would be... Well, I actually think...
I actually think this is... I think that...
Even without the age... Excuse me, but this...
You should care, because even without the age issue with Biden, there's going to be the genocide Joe protesters at the convention. This is a split in the party.
But let me articulate this. I think that both parties have a real issue with anti-Semitism.
And I don't think it has any place. I mean, I've seen the ads with the Star of David that you all ran in different House raises.
I've heard the words that have come out of Donald Trump's mouth before mean, I, we can't turn a blind eye to the anti-Semitism that's in the Republican Party.

We've seen January 6th, we saw people, we saw people in Charlottesville yelling, all

the worst.

But hold on.

Here's where this comes in.

But hold on.

Can I finish this talk?

Can I finish this talk?

Go for it.

Okay.

The only thing, the only, the way I wanted to bring this full circle is that, yes, Democrats have to combat the anti-Semitism that's within our own party as well. It needs to be rooted out completely from both parties.
That's my only point. It has no place...
It has no place in the American political... I agree.
I... I obviously agree.
And I personally have been targeted more than probably anyone else in America by alt-right anti-Semites. Okay, like truly by the statistics as a conservative.
Now, let me say that the vast disproportion of people who are anti-Semitic in America right now, unfortunately, I wish this were not true. I wish it were a non-bipartisan issue and there were no anti-Semitism.
But the vast disproportionate is inside the Democratic Party right now, which is why the Democratic Party seems unable to divide off from, say, Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib. It's why they've had such trouble in simply declaring the obvious, which is that Hamas should surrender.
It's why Joe Biden, by the way, the other night, even at that foreign policy supposedly masterful display, he had a tough time explaining exactly. He didn't mention the word hostages one time when he was discussing Israel and Hamas.
And there are five American hostages sitting in Hamas tunnels right now, and he's still talking about slow-walking military aid to Israel to finish off that war. That is because he is deeply concerned that he's going to lose that part of his base that is anti-Semitic.
So, so... But it's not equal.

There's only one party in Congress that equated Hamas equal to America in the same place.

Well, I mean, but...

They're sitting elected to Congress.

Let me also just call bullshit for one second.

Because there was a $31 billion MOU that was signed by what president?

Barack Obama.

F-35s were delivered to Israel under what president?

Barack Obama.

The Iron Dome was created under what president?

Barack Obama. And so...
But I've been somebody who's always said that Israel is an American value. I've always, I've always said that.
October 7th was one of the most devastating days that I've ever seen with my own eyes. The Democratic Party is not the same party that Obama had today.
It actually is. And Barack Obama signed into law the Iran nuclear deal.
Barack Obama made Benjamin Netanyahu walk out of the back door of the White House. Barack Obama was the most anti-Israel president in the history of the United States.
He was. He was.
Every American president... The only possible exception might have been H.W.
during his term. I think that's a teapot.
Whatever. A teapot.
But every president, every American president has been a strong backer of Israel. We're talking about the rank and file now.
We're talking about people now. But this is also the problem with the issue and the conversation that we're having.
Because back in 2006, 7, 8, 9, 10, all the way through those early times, Israel was truly a bipartisan American value type of conversation. Until when? Until N? Until when? Until when? Netanyahu came and spoke at this.
No, no, no. And I'm just telling you, those two men did not like each other.
They despised each other personally. For a person who served in Congress during that time and watched it, it was Obama and Iran cutting a deal directly against, where Schumer even sat there and was quiet, where Steny Hoyer let it go through.
That was the turning point. No, never again.
We would go to Israel together. Never again.
He broke it. The partisanship that we are discussing right now, the fact that this has become a partisan issue is...
It's wrong. It's wrong.
And I tell people that all the time. We agree on that.
Yeah, but I have to call bullshit on this. On me or him? Him.
Okay. Which part? On this with the Iran deal, because I hear this all the time.
And this is kind of germane to our discussion before about the immunity. Because the fear is that, oh, as soon as a president leaves office, he's going to be prosecuted and persecuted for something he did while he was in office.
And the Supreme Court said, but yeah, presidents while in office do things that they think at the time are best for the country. I didn't think going into Iraq that George Bush did was the best thing for the country, but I think he did.
And you can't go after a president for that. Obama thought making a deal with Iran was the best thing for this country.
And it may have been. We don't know because your asshole boyfriend pulled out.
And idea was to bring Iran, which is not a country of unsophisticated people, into the fold, into the family of nations. And it was a very effective deal.
They would not have been able to produce a bomb for the next 15 years. We had, we have the facts of this.
Let me return with facts on the bullshit. It had a sunset provision on the Iran deal that allowed them at a certain point to have a bomb.
Not only that, as John Kerry, the Secretary of State, openly acknowledged, it allowed for the development of ballistic missile technology. It made Iran part of the world economy again.
When Joe Biden came into office and reoriented the Middle East away from the Abraham Accords and started trying to recut a deal with Iran, Iran got significantly stronger and it is now Iranian agents in Yemen, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq, in Jordan. They're going to have the bomb a lot sooner.
But you know how they pay for it? When Biden came to office, they produced 4,000 barrels a day. Today they produced more than a million barrels a day.
Of? Oil. We still have the sanctions against their oil, but Biden allows them to sell it.
That's where they started funding all the terrorism around. You want to know what happened on October 7th? Never would have happened had Biden not allowed the money to go.
I don't really care how they paid for it, Kevin. But they couldn't have done it if they didn't have the resources.
The goal is to stop Iran from getting a bomb. Exactly.
And that's what the Iran nuclear deal was supposed to do. It allowed an agreement for them to have one.
Take Israel's perspective for just one second. I always do.
No, but, I mean, if one party has a relatively strong interest in Iran not getting a bomb, it would be Israel. More than the United States.
They are the regional actor that Iran has threatened with bombs. And plenty of people in Israel.
Did Israel support the Iran deal or not? Netanyahu did not. There were plenty of people in Israel who did.
That is not true. That's not true.
Of course it is. There was no dissent in Israel.
You think Jews don't argue about this? Bill? Please name. Please name.
Seriously. I've read it.
I've read their column. Please name the political party that endorsed the Iran deal in Israel.
I don't remember. It was 10 years ago.
I know. It basically does not exist.
That is just not, it's just not as a factual statement that in Israel the Iran deal was even remotely popular right, left, or center. It was not.
All right. Well, we got to go.
Thank you very much. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10.

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