Overtime – Episode #697: Jake Tapper, Rep. Seth Moulton

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Speaker 5 Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night Series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

Speaker 6 All right, here we are in Overtime with the anchor of CNN's The Leader, Jake Tapper, and co-author of the new book, Original Sin, Jake Tapper.

Speaker 6 And a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, Seth Moulton.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 6 First one is for you, Congressman.

Speaker 8 As a veteran, what is your reaction to Trump's plans for a military parade next month, which will reportedly include 28 Abrams tanks, 6,700 6,700 soldiers, 50 helicopters, 34 horses, two mules, and a dog.

Speaker 9 That's what it says.

Speaker 13 But he is having his military parade for his birthday.

Speaker 14 Well, it's, you know, he's a draft Dodger. It's his first military thing that he really gets to do.

Speaker 15 But I think,

Speaker 14 obviously,

Speaker 14 he likes Putin. He worships Kim Jong-un.
He wants to be like that. That's what he wants to do.
He wants to be a dictator like those guys, and they have big military parades.

Speaker 16 I mean, it seems to me like if we were taking seriously the idea that our government spends too much money, that Doge comes in there and like says, okay, we need to cut 80,000 jobs from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and we're going to get rid of USAID, and we're going to do this and do that.

Speaker 16 I mean, this seems like it's unnecessary.

Speaker 15 You can help.

Speaker 6 I just don't like the idea.

Speaker 8 I mean.

Speaker 11 To me, the worst part of it is getting used to the sight of tanks in the streets.

Speaker 8 That is something we don't see in America.

Speaker 16 By the way, as a driver in Washington, D.C., like our roads are bad enough

Speaker 16 before the tanks go.

Speaker 14 Let me also be clear about something that if you didn't survive, might not know.

Speaker 4 We hate parades.

Speaker 14 You do not want us, you don't sign up for the military to be in a parade. And $140 million, that could help a lot of vets.

Speaker 16 It's a lot of money. I mean, that's, you know, honestly, like, if we take them at their word, that Doge is about,

Speaker 16 you know, our deficits are too big, the national debt is a disaster, we need to get control of spending. If we take that seriously, this just doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 16 There's literally nobody in the military community who wants this.

Speaker 7 Why don't you guys like parades?

Speaker 7 Because I thought everybody loved a parade.

Speaker 16 I guess you got to march.

Speaker 14 I guess you got to march. Yeah, I didn't sign up to march.

Speaker 14 It's not my thing.

Speaker 10 I'm with you.

Speaker 14 Goose step or not.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 14 That's probably what he's looking for.

Speaker 12 What does the panel think of the Supreme Court ruling that the Trump administration can revoke legal status for 500,000 immigrants who have been granted parole for human

Speaker 7 parole?

Speaker 9 That's a strange word for that, for humanitarian reasons.

Speaker 12 What they're talking about is 500,000 people that the Biden administration let in from, I think, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti.

Speaker 14 And Afghanistan.

Speaker 12 Venezuela. And Venezuela.

Speaker 4 Well, but also

Speaker 14 from Afghanistan, for people who risked their lives,

Speaker 14 not just for Afghanistan, but for the United States of America, who served all, I would not be here today if not for the translators that I had in Iraq.

Speaker 9 I'm sure.

Speaker 10 They saved our lives more than once.

Speaker 14 And that's why veterans are so pissed off about this.

Speaker 14 Because we've fought like hell to get them out of Afghanistan, and now Trump wants to just send them back home to that murderous regime where they'll be killed.

Speaker 14 And it's not just in Afghanistan, but that just shows how morally corrupt he is. And now, look, let's be honest, he's a racist.
He doesn't like black or brown people coming into the United States.

Speaker 14 White Afrikaners, sure, roll out the red carpet. But black or brown people, nope, not allowed.

Speaker 16 The way that the U.S.

Speaker 16 has treated the Afghan allies, not just now, but also right after the collapse of Kabul in August 2021, it's not just a disgrace, and it's not just a violation of a promise that was made to these people.

Speaker 16 It's also bad thinking because we will be less likely as a country next time we have one of these forays into foreign policy abroad, we'll be less likely to have people who will help us in whatever country it is because they will know that we didn't honor our promises last time.

Speaker 14 I remember one of these conversations conversations really well where my translator showed up for work and he said, I can't work for you anymore. My family's been threatened.

Speaker 14 They're going to kill everybody at home. And I had to make the case to him that we're the United States of America.
We've got your back.

Speaker 14 And he bravely kept working for us. And I fought like hell to get him to America.

Speaker 14 Now my family's worried he might get sent back. Right.

Speaker 8 Well, we don't have a great history of sticking by our promises.

Speaker 16 No, same happened in Vietnam, obviously.

Speaker 10 And the Kurds. Yep.

Speaker 7 Remember the Kurds promised them a lot?

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Yeah, although to be fair, we took in a lot of Vietnamese refugees, and they're around northern Virginia today, and they're great contributors to our society.

Speaker 14 I mean, let's also not forget what immigrants do. I mean, immigrants founded Google, eBay.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Right? I mean, they're great contributors to our economy, to our society. We are a country of immigrants, right?

Speaker 16 Pick five of our top ten.

Speaker 12 Biden let it go too far.

Speaker 13 This is a backlash to that. We had an open border policy.
That's it. Under the Biden policy.

Speaker 12 Okay, but you would admit that that's where this

Speaker 7 feeling comes from.

Speaker 8 Of course, it's carried out in a horrible way. But that's where, if you do something, there's always going to be a counter to it.

Speaker 14 I think there's a bit of just racism baked in.

Speaker 4 There is Trump's thing. There absolutely is.
Democrats.

Speaker 7 But there was also an open border policy, it seemed like, under the Biden policy.

Speaker 14 And we couldn't admit it was a problem.

Speaker 8 And the Democrats.

Speaker 7 Okay. Yes.

Speaker 16 I think you're complimenting it by calling it a policy. Just

Speaker 16 not to talk about my book again, but one of the things we discovered when we did this book, Original Sin, me and Alex Thompson, is

Speaker 16 there's a

Speaker 16 Senator Bennett from Colorado who went to an event in June 2024 where Biden seemed non-functioning.

Speaker 16 And he left that event, and this is in the book, thinking this is why our border policy, our immigration policy is such a mess. This guy can't manage the portfolio.

Speaker 16 There are competing groups within the administration, and he's not engaged for whatever reason. And that's why this policy is such a mess.

Speaker 16 And I know that the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Mayorkas, he thought there was going to be an order early on in the Biden years shutting down the border or at least providing more security, and the order never came.

Speaker 16 So people talk about what are the repercussions of Biden not being

Speaker 16 what we expect a president to be just in terms of functioning 100% of the time. This is one of those things.
So I think calling it a policy might be a little optimistic.

Speaker 8 Honestly, it's not just Biden.

Speaker 17 I mean, I mentioned this during the show that our governor here recently reversed one of the policies we had here, which was free medical care to undocumented migrants, which pissed off a lot of people who think that that shouldn't be happening, that, you know, we should take care of our own, and that's why our taxes are so high.

Speaker 13 And, you know, it was a rather generous

Speaker 13 policy you got.

Speaker 12 Yeah. As someone who wasn't even a legal citizen, including like being driven to appointments, I think I read.

Speaker 16 Now, I mean,

Speaker 7 if that's something that a state like California, which is right on the border of Mexico, is offering, can you blame people for pouring over?

Speaker 16 I love all these changes that Newsom's doing, the conversion on the road to Des Moines.

Speaker 8 Somebody's got to do it. I mean, this is what we were talking about.

Speaker 15 Look,

Speaker 14 I'm a Democrat who believes that health care is a human right, but the bottom line is there are a lot of Americans who don't have health care.

Speaker 14 And it's about to get a lot worse because of the bill that Republicans just passed in the middle of the night.

Speaker 14 15 million Americans, not illegal immigrants, 15 million Americans who are going to lose health care because of what Trump and the Republicans are doing. So we've got to keep that context in mind.

Speaker 14 But the reason why people are pissed off is because a lot of people don't have good enough health care in America to.

Speaker 17 But what the Republicans would say, what some people would call a conspiracy theory, and what they would just say is just their theory.

Speaker 17 is that it wasn't a mistake that the border was left open. They think that the people who come will vote eventually for the Democrats, and that was their plan.

Speaker 14 Yeah, at the same time as Trump goes around telling everyone that all the Mexican immigrants, all the black people, they all voted for me this time. So it doesn't matter if you're consistent here.

Speaker 14 They're just trying to scapegoat people.

Speaker 16 I think there's a much more innocent explanation, which is there are a lot of people, a lot of progressives, who think that the United States should be a refuge for anybody who wants to come here and build a better life.

Speaker 16 I mean, it can be

Speaker 16 well-meaning, if even a mistake. I'm not saying it's the right policy, but I don't necessarily think it was a nefarious intent.
I think they think this is a much better country to live in than

Speaker 12 if you took everyone who actually wanted to come there, you would double the punishment.

Speaker 16 Not my policy, but I'm not sure. I'm just saying,

Speaker 14 I should incentivize legal immigration, right? Not illegal immigration.

Speaker 14 When I was talking about my translator who lived in my hometown, I was on my fourth deployment to Iraq, and he was living in my bedroom back home, ironically.

Speaker 14 And he was fighting through the legal process to get qualified to become a citizen, which he did, and he's a citizen today.

Speaker 14 But along the way, someone told him, you know, you ought to just go to Mexico and walk over.

Speaker 4 That's the problem.

Speaker 14 When people think you can do that and get away with it, it doesn't. Immigration is great.
It's been essential to our society. None of us would be here today without our immigrant ancestors.

Speaker 14 But let's make it legal.

Speaker 8 Let me ask you one last question as a

Speaker 6 person with military background.

Speaker 7 I I saw in the paper today

Speaker 7 Trump is talking about his golden dome.

Speaker 9 You know, Israel has the iron dome to shoot down missiles, and it's been a tremendous success over there.

Speaker 12 He, of course, wants to up that to a golden dome.

Speaker 4 I mean, somebody's got a freeze.

Speaker 11 Very hard to parody this guy. He beats you to it every time.

Speaker 7 It's a golden dome. Okay.

Speaker 11 He offered Canada this deal, join as the 51st state, and you'll get the golden dome free.

Speaker 13 The Golden Dome will cover you too.

Speaker 10 Otherwise it's going to cost $61 billion if you want coverage of the Golden Dome for Canada too. I mean we could do it, but it's going to cost $61 billion.

Speaker 11 Or you can join as the 51st date and get it for free.

Speaker 12 It's your choice and we will throw in the undercover.

Speaker 15 I mean

Speaker 14 what is your we have a we have a problem with terminology here because Israel also just unveiled what they call the Iron Beam and part of the Golden Dome is shooting things from space but we we also want the iron beam or the golden dome shooting things up.

Speaker 14 So, we're trying to decide how do you distinguish the golden golden beam here from the golden beam there. And I think we should call the one coming down the golden shower.

Speaker 14 And then that's probably something that Trump would like even more.

Speaker 8 All right, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 15 We're not going to tap that.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 5 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.