Ep. #655: William Shatner, Piers Morgan, Gillian Tett

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

Hey, everybody, how you doing?

Thank you, Free Pool.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

How are you down there?

I see all of you.

I see all of you.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, people.

I know, I know.

Very exciting to be here.

I'm excited.

I think I know why you're happy tonight, because they finally started to shut up about the damn eclipse.

Was this really so interesting?

Ooh, darkness.

Wow.

And of course, being America, it can't just happen an eclipse.

There'd have to be a million conspiracy theories about an eclipse.

Marjorie Taylor Green said,

it's not an eclipse.

The sun was hit by a cargo ship.

I mean.

But on to actually much more sober news.

They say Iran is about to attack Israel.

Yeah.

I know.

And one reason they know, a Harvard completely sold out of turbines.

Yeah, scary stuff.

The White House, White House says they are watching the situation very, very closely, and if it works there, they're going to try it on our own border.

So who knows what's going to happen?

I just know this.

If Netanyahu goes nuclear, I bet you next year there's a movie called Biebeheimer.

But on to the new, really

shocking news of the week.

O.J.

Simpson died yesterday.

I know.

It was a complete shock to people because he had just posted a video saying that he felt great.

It makes you wonder if there was anything else he ever lied about.

But, you know.

Hey, look.

He's a controversial figure, still a hero to a lot of men.

A lot of married guys fantasize about killing their wife and not getting caught, but he actually did it.

Oh, here's some sad marriage news.

The Golden Bachelor getting divorced.

The rose he gave her lasted longer than the marriage.

It's still in that thing on the kitchen table.

Ah, man, this one hit me hard.

I mean, I thought of all the sham, phony, artificial, trumped-up Hollywood marriages.

This was one of the good ones.

Well, be careful with your love life.

I feel like that's the theme of the show this week.

Because I don't know if you saw what's going on in Arizona.

Anyone here from Arizona of birth and age?

Whoa, because the Arizona Supreme Court, they breathed new life, ironically,

into a very old law that says basically abortion absolutely no way, no how.

That's the new Republican slogan on abortion.

Life begins at Reconstruction.

Because

the law is from 1864.

1864, Lincoln was months away from getting shot.

Women and minorities couldn't vote.

The age of consent was 10.

Finally, we have an answer to the MAGA nation question, when was America great?

And you know, this has Republicans scramming.

This is a terrible issue for Republicans.

People don't like this because they hate kids.

That's my

people.

But they just don't want.

And this law, I mean, no exception for rape or incest.

Even Trump said that went too far because those are my hobbies.

And of course, we finally get to see him on trial starting on Monday.

One of the trials, the Hush Bunny trial.

The Hush Bunny, that's of course the Stormy Daniels trial.

That starts on Monday, and Donald Trump says he is very confident he will get off.

And Stormy said, that makes one of us.

All right, we've got a great show.

We have Cheers Morgan and Jillian Tet.

And first up, my first guest is the subject of the new documentary.

You can call me Bill and his album, So Fragile, So Blue, recorded live with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, comes out April 19th.

The man, the national treasure, the legend, William Shatner, ladies and gentlemen.

There he is.

There he is.

The man.

The man, the legend.

The treasure.

In fact,

please.

Whoa.

Well,

here we are in the spotlight.

Here we are.

So great to see you.

You were galloping out there.

I mean, you make Biden look good.

We could go another 10 years.

And I can't keep up with you.

The last time I talked to you, you had just come back from space.

Yes.

Right.

Since then, you have

with the sharks.

Yes.

And now you're going to Antarctica, I hear?

The Christmas week, Antarctica, the voyage of a lifetime.

It's going to be fantastic.

What the fuck?

Why?

That too, but.

But on an iceberg, if you can imagine.

I mean, Antarctica,

it can't be a four seasons there.

Describe the the trip and why you want to go.

Well,

it's to the Antarctic.

Yeah, I know what it is.

That's why I don't want to go.

No, but there's all kinds of things you've never seen before.

Did you get to see anything?

Take pictures for me.

The what?

Take pictures and send them to me.

I will.

Come and describe them first.

That'd be perfect.

I would love that.

But

it's something nobody does very often.

And we're doing that open to the public.

It costs a bit of money.

But there are some wonderful scientists going.

Speaking of the money,

when you went into space, you went on the Blue Origin, right?

I hope you got paid a lot of money for that.

Because, I mean, the marketing of Captain Kirk going into space,

who else could have been.

I hope you got a fortune because we know because.

I went around with a small cup.

But

because

talk about iconic, did you see what the Japanese Prime Minister at the state dinner said the other day?

No.

If you missed this, we had a state dinner for the Prime Minister of Japan, and sort of out of the blue, he just said, I hope our relationship will boldly go where no countries have gone before or something.

But it was definitely a starting point.

Tell of my book out there now, Boldly Go.

Yeah, well, I was going to ask you about that.

I mean, you are a guy who boldly goes.

I mean,

when you got the part of Captain Kirk, did you think that that was, was that synchronicity?

Was that they recognized that quality in you?

Or by being that and playing that, did then you just become this person who was so bold?

Don't know anything.

You're going to step out of the studio after this show?

You don't know that a car isn't going to hit you.

Or a bus.

Not the husband.

Or some big guy who says you've set enough, bang, right on the head.

Yeah,

it's not the...

You don't know the future.

The future is unheralded.

Yeah, well, that's so true.

But I was talking more about your personality and whether it was shaped by that character or was it in your character and they recognized that when you auditioned, they went, that's a guy, there's a boldly going guy.

I want to ask about you, not about me leaving the studio.

Well, I just wanted to show you how haphazard things can be.

So

as an actor taking a job, they take the job.

Well, maybe it'll be successful.

I'll do the best I can.

And then invariably,

the numbers are it mostly fails.

And then every so often something is successful.

The fact that Star Trek became a show biz phenomenon that it lasted, what, at 60 years?

There's all these other shows and all these other actors.

Who knew?

Nobody knew.

Yeah, but one thing you say in this documentary, which is riveting, and I've talked to you in person for hours at a time.

We've been to dinner, but this is great because it's distilled, it's a documentary.

The documentary you're talking about is, you can call me Biz.

Yeah, it's out there now.

Yeah, we're plugging it.

Oh,

we're speaking of it at the moment.

In fact,

I would encourage people to turn us off right now and watch it.

No.

But, I mean, it's interesting because, I mean, you talk about that you, when men landed on the moon, which is July 20th, 1969.

Ooh, look at you.

I mean.

It's a pretty famous date.

Okay, but what's amazing to me is that you said you were so down on your luck at the time because Star Trek had been canceled.

You watched it from your truck.

You're talking now about the moon landing.

July 20th, 1969.

Okay.

I watched it

in a pasture on Long Island through a window in my little truck where I was sleeping with my dog.

Okay.

But my question is, Star Trek only was canceled like six months before.

Exactly.

How did you fall so fast from TV star to living in your...

Great precision and intelligence.

How did I know, how did I know that I was going to get divorced?

And how did I know that all that would, you know, just circumstances of life.

But that's quick.

That was.

Yeah.

Because it was only, I also was reading about, because you talked about it, and I wanted to know all the background on the famous kiss episode where you kissed Lieutenant Uhura, because this was

a major moment in American culture.

It was, it was.

Well, yes.

Well, it was.

It was the first time, in a scripted moment, a white man had kissed a black woman.

Can you imagine that?

We can imagine it, and we lived through it.

And for those who say nothing has changed, watch it, because obviously, and the reaction of people.

Things have changed a lot.

There's still things we have to do, course, but things have changed a lot.

But that moment, you were brave because,

from what I understand, NBC, of course, was nervous about it.

I mean, we had seen before when southern stations would cancel shows or not show them for something like that.

And you kind of stuck to your guns and did the kiss.

Yes, I puckered up my lips and

she's no longer with us, but in her lifetime, she was a remarkably attractive lady.

Yeah, but that's not really the issue here.

Oh.

The issue is that I'm guessing, I want to know, like, if you had not insisted on doing it,

would it have not got done?

It would have not have got done.

Well, that's

there.

There we go.

We applaud it.

Okay.

So.

So tell me about, now you have another record.

You've had a lot of records.

Well, I've got more than one record.

I've got many.

I've got a children's record.

You have a Christmas record.

You did a blues record.

You did a country record.

It just happens that way.

I've got this.

I mean, that's what happens when you live a long time,

and live long.

And prosper.

Really?

I'm making a living.

Is that a joke?

It's a living.

Yeah, no.

But I have an album, a children's album, called

Where Will the Animals Sleep?

Which is

one of the big songs on the album,

If We Destroy Our Environment, We Ask the Children, which comes with a book, by the way,

Where Will the Animals Sleep?

And it's an album filled with songs about animals.

That's So Fragile, So Blue.

There's another

album,

which is an album of the performance I did at Kennedy Center some while ago.

And it's called

that's called So Fragile So Blue.

So there's Where Will the Animals Sleep and So Fragile So Blue and this movie.

And what do you think the answer is to solving our problems with the climate?

Conservation?

Just what we've been doing.

You know,

there's no way out except technology.

That's what I thought.

Yeah.

People don't really understand.

They don't firsthand see the

tsunami.

You know, the beach is empty, the fish are flopping on the shore.

Oh, I'm going out there.

But there's a wave coming.

And

I've been asked if I would go back up into space, and I keep saying no because it was such an event for me.

But then I thought, if I went up again,

I would promulgate the idea,

the concept, that there's so much going on by science and scientists and businesses to try and correct global warming, that there is an element of hope that I cling to.

It's true.

And you're always interested in tomorrow.

I think that's the key to you.

And that's why you've lived so long.

I mean, you don't look nearly your age, 93?

I mean,

right?

mind.

I don't mind that you say my age, you know, but when they clap.

Thank you, my friend.

You're the best.

William Shatner.

Thank you.

Give me a beer hug.

William Shatner, everybody.

All right.

Let's meet our panel.

Hey.

All right.

Oh, first up, okay.

Now, sorry, I'll get to you in a second.

He's a New York Post columnist and host of Piers Morgan Uncensored on YouTube, Piers Morgan.

She is the provost of King's College, Cambridge, and columnist for the Financial Times, Jillian Tett, back with us.

I'll get to you guys in a second.

I have been plugging other people's books on this show for 20 years.

Now it's my turn.

Okay.

What this committee is over here.

Yes, I finally did this.

I've been threatening to do this for the people who've been saying to me for years, why don't you take those editorials you do on the end of the show, gather them together, edit them differently, put them in chapters.

It is.

It's an encyclopedia of every goddamn good thing I said in the last 20 years.

And it is LOL tested.

And it comes out on May 21st, but you can pre-order it now from, I guess, simonandschuster.com or wherever you get books.

Okay.

So let's get to the issues.

Sorry, had to do that.

No, I'm happy I did that, and you're going to fucking love it.

I'm happy I did it.

I am.

So we've got to talk about Iran and Israel because of the...

Can we just mention the fact that William Shatner is 34 years older than me and looks younger than me?

I want to be here in the miraculous event I live my life.

I want to be that guy.

And can we also mention that that means that you have still got a couple more sequels to go if you're going to live as long as him?

Well,

you want.

All right.

And now to nuclear war.

But honestly, I mean, they said, before I went out here, they said, you know, before you walk out tonight, and this is Friday, April 12th, at 5 o'clock or 4.15 something LA time.

Okay, they said, we don't know.

It looks like it's imminent.

This has been simmering between Israel and Iran.

Some people say for 30 years.

Iran is really the bad guy in the region, to my view.

And they have all these proxies, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

Not quite Hamas, because they're Sunni and the other ones are Shiite, but they're all kind of on the same page.

They don't want Israel to exist.

So let me just ask these two international scholars, what happens next?

What does happen?

Is this attack coming?

And if it does, what does the United States do if there's an Iran-Israel war?

Well, I think the first thing you have to recognise is it's not just about Iran.

What you have actually developing is this axis of evil between Iran, Russia and North Korea.

And there really needs to be a serious conversation about how the West collectively deals with that broader axis of evil rather than just trying to do a whack-a-mole and responding after crisis after crisis.

So you're saying we go to war with all of those countries?

No, I think it means that America has to firstly stand up and defend freedom and democracy and all the things that the rest of the world has been looking to America for.

We had this astonishing speech from the United States.

Willitarily stand up?

Yeah, we had this astonishing speech from the Japanese leader this week in the United Nations saying we thought the rest of the world looked to America as being a beacon for liberty and democracy and freedom and what the hell has happened in the last few months in the Congress.

And then secondly, there has to be a smart strategy to try and contain and respond to that axis of evil.

And that means doing things like standing up to Russia in Ukraine.

I would imagine you concur with that.

Yeah, I was going to mention Ukraine.

I mean, you look at the on-passe in Congress, and I'm scratching my head and thinking, let me get this straight.

There is a large number of American lawmakers on the Republican side who historically would always be the first to want to stand up to a Russian dictator when they do something despicable.

But for some inexplicable reason, a number of them now sound like they're almost part of the Kremlin press office.

And I don't get it.

I don't get why so many Republicans in this country right now seem to think it's a good idea.

to let Vladimir Putin march into a sovereign democratic country in Europe, Ukraine, steal a load of the land, a third of the land so far, and actually the solution is to let him have it.

And the concept that he might stop there is also for the birds.

And then if you want to bring the Axis full circle, you bring in Iran, who are looking at all this happening and they're going, maybe America doesn't have the stomach for these fights anymore, which maybe a lot of Americans don't.

But America is a superpower.

It is the great superpower.

And we look at it from the UK, for example, and you say, if America doesn't be the global policeman, then who does?

And I urge American lawmakers to look at what's happening and to recognize the danger of letting Putin win in Ukraine, because I'm sure that is what's emboldening Iran right now and other Mafia.

I've got to say, I think Marjorie Taylor Greene's new nickname should be Marjorie Manchurian Candidate Green.

I actually spent part of my life in the former Soviet Union when it was still the Soviet Union, and I've experienced the harsh end of Russian imperialism myself at first hand.

And I also watch a lot of Russian TV.

It's kind of a late-night obsession of mine watching Russian TV.

Really?

I'm weird.

But I can tell you, for those of you who haven't watched Russian TV,

they are openly celebrating on Russian mainstream TV shows like this, this idea that they have co-opted parts of the American establishment, the American Republican Party, they are openly talking just this week about how, if Russia takes control of Ukraine, it will then go further, and talking about the fact that we don't just want to reconstitute the Russian Empire, we'd quite like to get Finland.

They've even said California.

So

it's getting closer.

Not in getting past my driveway.

And let me tell you, even Republicans themselves are calling this out.

Mike Turner, not really familiar with him, but he's on the House Intelligence Committee.

He's a Republican from Ohio.

I'm sure he's hard right.

Ohio is a very red state now.

He said, it's absolutely true.

We see directly coming from Russia pro-Russia messages being uttered on the House floor.

This is a Republican calling out Republicans.

Michael McCall, I have heard of him.

He's a Republican from Texas.

Again, I'm guessing not a member of

the left.

It's infected a good chunk of my party's base, Russian propaganda.

Okay, so that's where we are.

Now can I talk about American propaganda?

Because there was a rally in Dearborn, Michigan.

It's a large Muslim population.

Chant of death to America.

I feel like we've We've passed something here.

You know, I mean, the left has gotten mad at me for many years for talking talking about Islam.

I try not to do it too much because I know it makes them go crazy, and I've made my point.

But it needs to be talked about now.

When you start chanting death to America in America, I mean, I got it, Charlottesville was real bad when they were chanting death to the, what was it, Jews will not replace us.

But on American soil,

here's the Tarek Bazi is the

organizer of this.

This was at the end of Ramadan International Day of Quds, Al-Quds, which was pronounced originally by, he says, this is why Iman Khamini, that's the Ayatollah Khamini.

Remember him, the Ayatollah Khamini?

He's the good guy now.

Khamini, he would say, to pour all your chants and all of your shouts upon the head of America.

Yeah, I heard this before.

Not coming from America, but the great chastisement.

We will chastise the infidels.

But now it's coming from inside America.

Sorry, got to talk about this again.

He said, we live in one of the rottenest countries that ever existed on earth.

It's not just genocide, Joe, that has to go.

It's the entire system that has to go.

No, it doesn't.

I like our system.

This is America that's crying out loud.

Well, what about...

And there are people who see me say this.

Oh, he's a conservative now.

I'm a conservative.

I have not changed.

I always liked America and thought death to it was bad.

Well, how about.

that?

Why don't we say to them, fine, listen, we understand you're exercising your right to free speech.

Okay, you go to Gaza right now and you chant death to Hamas.

See how many seconds you live, right?

Then you might realize, you might realize the power of living in a genuinely free democratic society that allows you to do what you just did.

I thought that was absolutely shocking, really shocking, that such a large crowd would be going along with that right in the heart of America.

And we're having the same thing in the UK.

Huge, huge weekly protests, many people brazenly showing support for Hamas, chanting from the river to the sea.

In the UK, there are nearly 4 million Muslims, under 300,000 Jewish people.

And this

attempt by people to conflate what the Israeli government is doing, which is you can perfectly legitimately criticize some of the stuff they're doing, if not all of it.

But the idea that this is then imposed on every Jewish person in the way that we're seeing is terrifying for Jewish people.

And it has to stop.

But how about

I mean, the problem basically is that chanting death to anybody is terrible.

I mean, that is just terrible.

And the part of the problem is that we've slid into a situation where everyone regards these geopolitical issues as being a bit like a soccer match.

And, the Israel-Palestine situation is not a case of Arsenal versus Liverpool.

It's not the case that basically if you kick the other team, then somehow your team is going to miraculously win.

Because the reality is there are no winners right now from this situation.

And each team has different, or team, if you like, has different people within them with different points of view.

So somehow we have to get out of this idea of treating geopolitics as just some kind of soccer match.

Yeah, but the problem is that we always expect Israel to act like no other nation would ever act.

I mean, they gave back Gaza in 2005.

They did land for peace, and they got no peace.

They've been rocket attacked ever since, and just lived with it.

What other country would do that?

If we got rocket attacked, would we let it go on for 20 years?

No, we would have

annihilated the people who did it immediately.

I mean, I was really shocked that literally within 24 hours of October the 7th, outside the Israeli embassy in London, I live at the end of that road, There were vast crowds gathering and I assumed stupidly that they were gathering to show support for Israel.

They were pro-Palestinian people screaming and chanting and celebrating in the streets of West London that this heinous terror attack had happened.

You know, I've had a lot of people from both sides on my show debating this, and they can get very passionate on both sides.

I understand that.

But I always ask the pro-Palestinian people that come on one question.

Do you condemn what Hamas did on October the 7th?

It is terrifying how many won't condemn it, who won't accept that what that was was a terror attack so catastrophic to the psyche of Israel that of course they were going to respond in a ferocious manner.

They knew that.

Hamas knew what was going to happen.

Let me give one kudos before we wrap this segment up.

The mayor of Dearborn condemned this.

That's what has to happen.

It doesn't mean anything when I do do it to Muslim Americans, to many of them probably, because I'm not part of that tribe.

He said, and then the council said, your messages of extremism do not resonate with us.

Thank you, sir, or council, whoever said that.

That's what has to happen.

Okay, if I can change the subject radically.

Something more chipper.

I was much more chipper.

I saw an interesting study in the paper this week about how to deal with anger, sort of apropos of what we're talking about.

We do live in angry times.

And, you know, I mean, when you think about it, anger management, that didn't even exist like 50 years ago.

Now it's a cottage industry, but of course, not everybody can afford anger management.

So we were talking about, there was a whole thing about what you can do if you get pissed off at something, write a letter to the person who pisses you off, or maybe just to the universe, and then don't send it.

But get it out on paper.

So I sent out a team of investigators all across the country

to go through people's waistbags.

I have them right here.

It's not like I'm making this up.

So would you like to hear some of the anger?

Okay, so these are some of the angry notes that people, they bowled them up and they

Taylor Swift, we got one from her.

Jesus Christ, every time I pick up a guitar now, Meat Hat thinks I'm writing a joke about it, a song about it.

This is from the

CEO of Boeing Airlines.

Nobody ever talks about all our planes where the goddamn doors don't fall off.

This is

from Lindsey Graham.

From Lindsey Graham.

Ooh, all of a sudden, Tim Scott is getting married.

Like, I never thought of that.

Let's see.

This is from, oh, this is from Joe Biden.

Oh, we got into the White House.

There's only one guy in this whole freaking country who has to get on a plane by walking up a giant flight of stairs in front of everybody.

You try it, assholes.

Very pissed off.

This is, oh, P.

Diddy, we got into his garments.

Hey, haters, Priscilla Presley was 14.

Where were the tanks on Elvis's long?

Well, that's.

Sort of.

of.

This is from, oh, Kamala Harris.

For the love of Christ, you feeble old fuck, it's Kamala, not koala.

Oh,

I didn't realize she was that angry.

Okay.

This one is from, oh, Morgan Wallen.

He said, I thought rock stars were supposed to throw shit off roofs.

Led Zeppelin put a shark in a a groupies cooch.

Calm the fuck down.

Oh, Melania.

We got into Melania's garbage.

He said,

hey, mushroom dick.

Did you also borrow hairspray from your porn whore girlfriend and never give it back?

And

did we get, this is from, oh, Donald Trump.

He wrote Bill Maher is a low ratings no charisma whack job and for the record my dance moves do not look like me jerking off two guys at once

Let's talk about the big domestic issue this week for the folks who heard me reference Arizona in the monologue and were like oh uh what WTF what

wait a second tell me more yeah what happened is the Arizona Supreme Court gave a go-ahead to basically enforce a very long dormant law from 1864 that says abort can you what was abortion even like in 1864 this is before antibiotics before

doctors I mean I don't even know what they were having to know you really want to know I mean it's pretty grim

was it like jesse james just pushing you down a flight of stairs or something

i think we better not go there okay yeah well whatever it was this is where this is where they are and they have just i keep saying it they're the dog who caught the car for 50 years they talked about getting rid of abortion they did it and it's super unpopular and now they have to basically lie i mean trump some of his statements on this it's sounds just like what he said about health care you know he's um make both sides happy he's gonna to

get together with all groups.

They're going to negotiate something.

Something terrific, I'm guessing.

It's very probably going to be

15 weeks seems to be a number of people who are agreeing.

Can he lie his way out of this?

Because he also goes on record all the time.

I get credit for this.

For 54 years, he said the Supreme Court didn't do this and I made it happen.

It's crazy.

Absolutely crazy.

I mean, he's trying to have it both ways and it's just not going to wash, I think, with a lot of the voters.

Shades of Handmaiden's Tale coming back all over again.

Arizona is definitely in play again.

They thought Arizona had gone fully red.

I think this makes it a swing state.

I mean, that changes the election a lot.

I mean, you said it was the Democrats' kryptonite against the Republicans' issue, because obviously, and Trump, I think, has recognized the peril of this issue electorally for him in the upcoming election, which is why you're seeing him row back.

Your question, though, can he get away with it?

Actually, I think what he's done this week is quite smart politics.

I actually agree with what Donald Trump used to say about abortion.

I'm pro-choice.

I believe in a woman's right to do what she wants with her body.

This is what he used to believe and said so very proudly.

So he's done a complete U-turn on this for political expediency, I suspect.

But I do actually think it's probably quite smart politics what he's doing.

He's deliberately muddying the waters.

He thinks he's got the evangelical vote anyway, which I think he's probably right to assume.

And I think he thinks that independence, as long as he can create an atmosphere that he's not draconian, even if some of these states are now behaving in a draconian way, then he may get away with it.

I think what's actually more interesting than what Donald Trump said is what Carrie Lake said, in that she has been trying to

distance herself from it.

Well, she endorsed it.

And then she basically, in the last few days, had tried to distance herself from it.

And that shows how worried they are about the electoral impact of this.

Okay, now Carrie Lake is the person who's going to to be the Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, right?

So

this is basically her campaign.

This is make or break for her.

Yeah, two years ago she said she was...

But that's what they all said.

It was in theory it was just a great idea.

Let's get rid of abortion.

And then they found out what people really thought about it.

And it's just, it's this, this, to me, this election is going to come down to immigration versus abortion.

They're going to run on the border and

the Democrats are going to run run on the woman's right to have an abortion.

I mean it's an interesting issue.

It never used to be such a hot issue in America, abortion.

It's only in the last few decades it's suddenly become this big political fighting block thing.

Really?

And if you look at it, really, if you go back like 30, 40 years, it wasn't such an incendiary issue.

Whereas if you take Europe, for example, by comparison, the 60 countries of Europe, actually there are many countries in Europe where it's completely illegal to have an abortion.

Poland, Malta, you know, places like Andorra, you know, so and if you look at Germany and France and countries like that, it can be 10, 12 weeks is the term limit that you're allowed to have an abortion legally.

So America is not such an outlife.

It does go to the states.

I think a lot of Americans on the left do think that this is somehow a really unique American problem or an issue that only pertains to them in terms of the legality of abortions.

Actually, comparative to Europe, it's not massively dissimilar.

But the thing that's crazy is at a time when America is facing so many huge geopolitical threats, where there's a huge tech revolution going on, where the economy is faced with all kinds of challenges, the idea that you're fighting an election around this issue seems to be, you know, just strange.

Back to the 19th century.

Well.

Not if you believe it's murder.

You know, that's why I don't understand the 15-week thing.

Or the Trump's plan is, let's leave it to the states.

You mean, so killing babies is okay in some states?

Like, I can respect the absolutist position.

I really can't.

I scold the left when they say, oh, you know what?

They just hate women, people who aren't pro-life,

pro-choice.

They don't hate women.

They just made that up.

They think it's murder.

And it kind of is.

I'm just okay with that.

I am.

I mean, there's 8 billion people in the world.

I'm sorry, we won't miss you.

That's my position on that.

That's quite a lot of people.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm not sure if you're a child.

Is that not your position if you're pro-choice?

Isn't that mainly because you don't like children?

No, no.

I mean,

but if you are, you said you're pro-choice.

That's your position, too.

And by the way,

I also, I share, I do respect people who completely disagree on this.

It's one of those issues.

You know, they always say to English people, don't come to America and start talking about guns and abortion.

Here we go.

But

I think it's something I can respect the other side of this, absolutely.

But what I think I don't respect quite so much with Trump is that he's clearly danced a complete U-turn on this.

And I think it's for political reasons.

He did it in 2016 to get the evangelicals with him.

He said, I'm going to pack the court.

I'm going to get Ms.

Dunland and overturn Roe versus Wade.

So they all came with him.

And I think now he feels he's got them.

And now you're seeing him.

And again, I say, look, I don't support what he's doing, but I do understand the political reasons he's doing it.

And I think it could be quite effective actually in neutralising what is becoming a massive banana skin for the party.

And I think that's what he's recognised, and he's getting ahead of it.

I think

it could work for him.

And heaven only knows what Ivanka Trump is thinking right now, because, of course, she tried to campaign for women's rights and present herself as very much, you know, part of upholding women's freedoms.

And also, Joe Biden, I mean, I'm sorry, but if he's going to start making women's rights the centerpiece of his campaign, okay, let's talk about women's rights and the progressive left, shall we, about allowing trans athletes to compete in women's sport and wrecking women's sport and the integrity of women's sport, because the President of the United States at the moment thinks that's pretty much okay.

And I don't think that is okay.

I think you should be protecting women's rights through stock.

If I were the Republicans,

if I was Donald Trump, and I'm sure he will, that would be an attack line for me.

If you care about women's rights, let's see how far that goes.

Well, I'm sure they're taking notes.

I'll send an invoice.

No, but I do think it's, you know, it's...

The Americans have often taken notes from British commentators.

Well, yeah, I do not think that the left in this country in the last few years have shown anything but disdain on that whole debate around women's sports and safe spaces and prisons and the rest of it.

This idea that you can be a biological male and trans, and I have full respect for trans people, absolutely, I want them to have fairness and equality in life, but not when it erodes the women's rights to fairness and equality.

What do you think about OJ?

He did it.

He did it, right?

We all knew he did it at the time.

We know he did it now, and now he's dead.

We can all say he did it, and we don't get sued.

I think that was me.

You got sued?

No, no, I'm just saying

he can't sue us, so he's now dead.

I mean, look, I just think

it was a travesty of justice, but it was fascinating how that played out in America and to watch that as I did from the other side of the pond, to see how many people were prepared to accept that he probably got away with it, but thought it was one in the eye back from the justice system.

That's not what it was.

No,

I don't think people ever really interpreted that the right way.

I think what it was, I think black folks knew very well he did it, and I don't blame them one bit for cheering him on.

I mean, when you're on the wrong end of the justice system, for as long as they had been, when they finally got one,

even though he was not exactly the best recipient of that, I mean, of course, it was, I mean, when we saw that split screen, of white people going, oh my God, oh my God, justice has not been done, and black people screaming in joy, totally understand it.

You can't have two different complete histories in America and then expect people to have the same reaction to something like that.

And to be, I just thought as, yes, it was a miscarriage of justice, but for white people to be that upset about the one time, the one time a black guy gets off, I thought that was the gross part of it.

So how that was part that I really thought was...

Has that changed today?

One?

Do you think that has changed today?

The reaction, if something like that happens.

No.

That's a really interesting question.

If you're going to ask about interracial kids, like Star Trek.

Right.

You know, and you think it's different now?

It is different now.

Everything is different now.

There's a whole complete different generation that never experienced the kind of racism that the people alive in 1994, who were born in whatever, 1964 or 1954, anything like that, they did experience.

So, but would there still be a lot of that reaction?

Of course, for understandable reasons.

Do you think he did it?

Of course he did it.

There's no doubt that he did it.

I mean,

Pierce, her blood was in his socks.

No, I know.

I mean, I mean...

No, no, no, no, I know.

I'll just clarify what your position is, because I know mine, but.

No, of course he did.

That wasn't the issue.

And the jury knew it, too.

It was payback.

And it has to, and on a very larger scale, that's happening in America and will happen for decades to come because the legacy of our despicable racial past doesn't go away in a generation.

It takes a very long time.

Even people today, younger people, maybe they didn't have anything terrible that happened to them, but they're like, yeah, but I know what you did to my grandfather, and that was some shit.

And I loved him, so I'm mad for him.

That's not going to go away in my lifetime or yours.

All of that is true, but let's not lose sight of the fact that the end of the day there was a terrified woman who got murdered.

Yes, that's true, too.

And that should not be forgotten, and that was a travesty and a miscarriage of justice.

Karen.

No, I'm kidding.

No, no, I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

No, no.

You're right.

No, I was watching the news reports of it and they showed the film of, you know, her trembling on the phone.

He's back.

I think you know him.

I mean, the fact that it's also about, one reason why that story resonated so much, it was also about celebrity.

What you could get away with where you were a football star and when the cops came to the house it was like hey could I get an autograph right after I stop you from beating your wife?

You know I mean there was a lot of that shit.

Anyway I got to go to New Rules.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

New Rule, now that West Virginia passed a bill allowing residents to make moonshine in their home, someone has to break it to them that this won't help the whole West Virginia stereotype.

What's next?

You're the only state that doesn't ban Beastie Alley?

Oh, never mind.

New rural young people who are constantly taking pictures with their phone must be sentenced to six months with an old school camera

and have all their film developed at Osco Drug.

That's right, you only have 24 pictures and you won't get them back for two weeks.

Now who wants to take pictures of their food?

It can't all be tens.

New rules, someone in marketing has to tell me why laundry detergent comes in powder, pods, pens, liquid, gel, foam, spray, but salt just comes in the shape of salt.

Why didn't they make liquid salt?

Oh, wait, they do.

New roll, you can't pick apart every verbal gaff Joe Biden makes if you yourself have forgotten something in the past week or ever walked into a room and thought, why did I come in here?

My favorite is when someone says, what was I just talking about?

Oh, I don't know, something so boring even you stop paying attention.

New Roll, now that we know that cicadas, the large flying insects that come out every 17 years, possess a urine stream stronger than humans, and I assume racehorses,

and also have an STD that turns them into zombies,

they must consider moving to Venice Beach.

So I love Venice Beach, but it is nothing but zombies with STDs who smell like pink.

I kid the people of Venice Beach.

You're nothing like cicadas, except for the part about not working for the last 17 years.

And finally, new rule, if we want to save our country, we should follow the advice good liberals have given for decades and learn from other countries.

Especially those beacons of progressivism like Canada, England, and Scandinavia.

And I agree we should, as long as we're honest about the lessons we're learning, and as long as we're up to date on the current data, such as the unemployment rate in the U.S.

is 3.8 percent, and in Canada it's 6.1.

And of the 15 North American cities with the worst air pollution, 14 are in Canada.

I'm not citing these stats because I have it out for Canada.

I love Canada and its people, and always have.

But I hate zombie lies.

Zombie lies.

That's when things change, but what people say about them doesn't.

Yes, for decades, places like Vancouver and Amsterdam and Stockholm seemed idyllic because everything was free and all the energy we needed was produced by riding a bike to your job at the windmill.

Canada was where all the treasured goals of liberalism worked perfectly.

It was like NPR come to life.

but with Poutine.

Canada was the statue of liberty with a low-maintenance haircut and cross-country skis, a giant idealized blue state with single-payer health care, gun control, and abortion on polite demand.

Canada was where every woke white college kid wearing pajama pants outdoors

who'd hat it up to here with America's racist patriarchy dreamt of living someday.

I mean, besides Gaza.

There's only one problem with thinking everything's better in Canada.

It's not.

Not anymore, anyway.

Last year, Canada added 1.3 million people, which is a lot in one year, the equivalent of the U.S.

adding 11 million migrants in one year.

And now they're experiencing a housing crisis even worse than ours.

And we're sleeping in tents.

The median price of a home here is $346,000.

In Canada, converted to US dollars, it's $487.

If Barbie moved to Winnipeg, she wouldn't be able to afford her dream house, and Ken would be working at Tim Horton's.

And because of mortgage debt, Canada has the highest debt-to-GDP ratio of any G7 nation.

I don't know what that means, but it sounds bad.

So does their vaunted health care system, which ranks dead last among high-income countries in access to primary health care and ability to see a doctor in a day or two.

And it's not for lack of spending.

Of the 30 countries with universal coverage, Canada spends over 13% of its economy on it, which is a lot of money for free health care.

Look, I'm not saying Canada still isn't a great country.

It is, but those aren't paradise numbers.

If Canada was an apartment, the lead feature might be America adjacent.

And if America was a rental car, Canada would be America or similar.

And again, honestly, Canada, I'm not saying any of this because I enjoy it.

I don't because I've always enjoyed you.

But I need to cite you as a cautionary tale to help my country.

And the moral of that tale is: yes, you can move too far left.

And when you do, you wind up pushing the people in the middle to the right.

At its worst, Canada is what American voters think happens when there's no one putting a check on extreme wokeness, like the saga of Canadian shop teacher Kayla Lemieux, whose pronouns are she, her, and those.

Kayla is now back to being a guy named Kerry, but two years ago when they showed up to teach children, the progressive high school they taught at said that they, they, the school, not the person.

Really, you couldn't have found another word.

We were using that one.

Anyway, okay.

They were committed to a safe environment for gender expression.

Safe for who?

What about the children?

What about the equipment in that shop class?

You know, there were...

You know, there was once a weirdo D-list movie producer in the 60s named Russ Meyer who made low-budget B movies like Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill, and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, always featuring women who look like this.

His movies played in pornhouses and were featured in Hustler and Playboy.

Okay, fine.

But who says, no, when it comes to huge, ridiculous tits, let's save that for the kids.

And this is why people vote for Trump.

They say in politics, liberals are the gas pedal and conservatives are the brakes.

And I'm generally with the gas pedal, but not if we're driving off a cliff.

On the trans issue, America is no ands, ifs, or buts about it, absolutely alone in the world now, an outlier country.

Last month, England's National Health Service announced that there's not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of puberty blockers for third graders and that they were going to stop fumbling around with children's privates, because that's Prince Andrew's job.

Sorry, you two.

They're very sensitive about the royal family, I'm telling you.

I found out.

We'll make it exceptional.

All right.

So, too, with all the other good-placed countries, in direct opposition to America's choice to affirm children's wishes on switching gender no matter the age or psychiatric history.

The far left, which always like to use, well, Europe does it.

Yeah, no, that doesn't work on this one anymore.

Or on immigration.

Sweden opened its borders to over a million and a half immigrants since 2010, and now 20% of its citizens are foreign-born, and its education system is tanking, and it has Europe's highest rate of gangland killings.

And one result is that the far-right parties are in the government now there for the first time.

To which liberals say blaming immigrants for the rising crime rate is racist.

Yeah, but is it true?

Of course it's true.

It's not a coincidence the quality of life went down after the Somali gangs started a drug turf war using hand grenades.

Calling it racist doesn't solve the problem.

It hands future elections to someone who will solve the problem and who, I promise, you're not going to like.

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at the Eccles Theater in Salt Lake, April 21st, Arizona Financial and Phoenix, May 4th.

And I want to thank Piers Morgan, Jillian Ted, and William Shatner.

Now go to 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.