Overtime – Episode #651: Max Brooks and Tara Palmeri

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

Hi, CNN.

It's us here at Real Time with my panel, a fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, Max Brooks, and she's a senior political correspondent at Puck, Tara Palmeri.

Okay.

Here are the questions.

Any predictions for the Oscars on Sunday?

Ooh, I'm not the person to ask.

What are you looking at me for?

I ain't there.

I don't have a movie.

I mean, I know, wait, wait, wait, I know.

Bradley Cooper will win something because he seems so desperate for an Oscar.

Right?

Yes.

Well, I can tell you, I mean, my personal favorite as a novelist is American fiction.

That's great.

I think it's amazing.

Everybody is amazing.

So, go, guys.

Okay.

What do you think of,

this is for you, but everybody can answer.

What do you think of Trump meeting with Victor Orban?

He is the dictator.

Is that too strong a word of Hungary?

I mean, he's an authoritarian.

Yeah, he's as close as it gets in the Western world.

He was elected, but so was Hitler.

Right.

And he seems to be elected over and over and over again.

But I think actually most Americans know nothing about Victor Orban, so it probably has no impact on his electability.

And that's true.

You're right.

You're right.

That's true.

Yeah.

But can we educate them a little bit?

Oh, yeah.

So Hungary is a country.

We're on CNN now.

Come on.

So

Who is Viktor Orban?

There is a country.

It's called Hungary.

You may have heard of it.

It's part of my heritage.

Yeah, it's Hungarian.

Oh, that's amazing.

And it is on Eastern Europe, and it became a part of the European Union, but it is definitely the most difficult member of the European Union.

Yeah, it used to be part of the Soviet bloc.

It was part of the group with East Germany and Poland and Czechoslovakia.

And allies with Hitler in World War II.

Well, many were.

Right.

And they were one of the countries that basically were like, don't worry, Hungarian Jews.

We're not going to turn you over.

we're not going to turn you over, you're not going to turn, yeah, we are.

And then by the very end, bam, all at once.

Right, and they have a very strong anti-immigration stance, especially with the migrants that are coming through Europe.

They have been the most resistant to taking any migrants that have come through actually the borders of Eastern Europe as they came through Syria.

And

yeah,

it's an interesting thing to see this country try to have the benefits of the West, but also be resistant as well.

You know who else didn't take any Syrian refugees?

Saudi Arabia.

where they might have fit in a little better.

Right.

I'm just saying.

You know, it's...

Yeah.

I know.

I got it.

Fair enough.

Yeah, okay.

Do you think a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine is possible?

Yeah, we got 80 seconds.

That's fair.

100%.

And this is what so many people don't understand about.

Do you think it's two-state?

I think it's 100% possible.

Biden's the guy to do it because he's established his bona fides.

These things do not happen overnight.

And the first step of making peace is establishing your cred.

There's an old saying, it's either U.S.

Diplomatic Corps or Star Trek VI.

Only Nixon could go to China, right?

He was the only guy with the bona fides to do it.

And Biden was so smart in Israel's darkest moment, right after October 7th, he came to Israel and said, I am your friend, I am your protector.

So now he is in a position to say, as your friend and your protector, I can tell you the only long-term solution for Israel is a creation of the people.

But you're only talking about this from one side.

You do realize that Hamas does not want a two-state solution.

No, no.

They want the whole thing, from the river to the sea.

Right.

But Hamas needs to be isolated, and we need to talk.

The fourth player in this quartet is the Arab world.

Right?

And the good news here is that the world has changed in 20 years, and it's not your father's Middle East anymore.

Right?

This is not dictators in the city.

In some ways.

In some ways, but it's not like in some ways it is.

Yeah, but now there is a new coming war with Iran.

And there are real.

And the Gulf Arabs.

It's a war between Israel and Iran?

No, between the Iranians and the Gulf Arabs.

That's the war.

That's the big conflict.

And the Gulf Arabs are scared to death.

Yeah.

Which is why they tried to do a peace treaty with Israel forgetting the Palestinians, because their attitude is we need to be able to do it.

Well, and again, for those people who we imagine don't know this stuff, but I think they probably do because they're watching ZNN.

The Iranians are Shiites.

And the Gulf Arabs, most of the Arab world is Sunni.

Okay, that's, I think, 85%.

But the Shiites are very strong.

And the Iranians have proxies in almost every country that is surrounding Israel.

They have the Houthis, that's in Yemen, that's to the south.

They took over Iraq because we stupidly went and

undid the balance of power there.

Syria and Lebanon, Hezbollah.

So that is a Shiite-Iranian-led arc that goes all around the Middle East.

And yes, it is very frightening.

And that was causing Saudi Arabia and Israel to make peace with each other because the friend of my friend is, or the friend of my enemy, or whatever that saying is.

My cousin's cousin is my friend.

I don't know.

But you know what I'm trying to say.

But we're in a better position than we've ever been in between alternate energy tech and alternate energy business practices and infrastructure.

we're not their crack horse anymore.

We're in a position now where if we walked away, we'd be in much less pain than we were 20 years ago.

And 20 years from now, we can just walk away.

And they know that.

So now is the time to really pressure them and say, listen, if you want our support against Iran, you need to back a Palestinian state and use your money to build it and then use your sons in their uniforms to be a peacekeeping force.

But again, you're going to have to convince the Palestinians themselves

that they don't get the whole thing, because they don't seem to really want to give up on that idea.

The whole river to the sea, we get it all.

Well, that's Hamas.

Are we talking that or regular Palestinians?

Most Palestinians are just regular people who want a life.

And remember, it was Arafat who walked away from that.

Right.

It was their leadership.

He was what you would call a regular Palestinian.

I don't know what that means, but you're talking about the West Bank as a Palestinian.

I'm talking about the West Bank versus Gaza.

Those are two different ecosystems.

Okay.

What do you think of Katie Porter's claim?

Okay, for people who don't live here in California, Katie Porter, a congressperson I've had on the show, not successfully.

Did she come with a whiteboard?

I can't remember.

No.

No, but we don't like each other.

No, it's true.

I mean, she would say the same thing.

I can't love everyone.

And she's not very, I feel quite vindicated by this because everyone's saying she's a nud and she's a sore loser.

She claimed that the California primary, she ran against Adam Schiff.

She's a congressperson running for the Senate and now she claims the California primary was rigged.

Yeah, everyone's, yeah.

What do you think about that?

I just feel like you can't use the rigged word, especially when you're trying to...

It's just like, it's tremendous.

It's the R-word.

You can't like cry wolf, right?

You just can't do that.

Adam Schiff elevated his Republican opponent so that he could be in an election where he was up against a Republican rather than another Democrat.

And in a way, he saved the Democrats a ton of money.

Now all this money isn't going into the California race for a Senate seat that will be filled by a Democrat, two Democrats fighting against each other.

It's Republican and Democrat.

A Democrat will win and everyone can put their money into other races.

And

it's just,

you lost.

It's politics.

It's dirty.

People do this tough stuff.

You know, let's get it for it.

It's what I'm always saying to the Trump people.

You think he's so matcha and you're the big tough guys, but the most tough, the basic tough thing that a tough guy would do do is be able to say, I lost, and not pout,

and not be a whiny little bitch.

What do you think of George Santos attending the state of the union?

I was.

Oh, well, you know, you got floor privileges for the rest of your life, so he might come every year.

Is that right?

Yes.

Wait a second.

And it will help his cameo and his future OnlyFans.

He has to be famous.

If he's not famous, then what is he?

And Bill, I don't know if you saw the latest news.

He plans to primary the Republican

from New York who worked so hard to try to evict him from the House.

But I will say, like, privately, you're not going to believe this, but some Republican members say to me, we shouldn't have got rid of George Sandwich until he was actually convicted because we needed that vote.

Seriously.

Oh, I'm sure.

They say that all the time.

They're like, we just, we shouldn't have done it.

We've waited before for other people to be convicted.

And

that's what they privately say.

Well,

isn't Menendez still a Democratic Senator?

I mean, because they need the vote.

This is the guy who was.

Embarrassing, but.

Right.

But when you need the vote, you know, hey, he was stuffing gold bricks in his pajamas?

Well,

we're not all perfect, you know.

But I'm very curious about this.

So, George Santos, he was in Congress.

He got kicked out,

which is very rare.

And I don't think it's happened in hundreds of years.

150 years or something.

Okay, yeah.

They kicked him out.

I mean, even the Republicans couldn't take it anymore.

Okay.

So he's not in Congress.

No.

But you're saying even if you're expelled, you have floor privileges?

Yes.

Like a gym?

Yes.

Really?

But is it floor privilege anytime?

Can he just show up on any day?

I'm pretty sure that you have floor privileges for the rest of your life.

No matter what you do, even when you get expelled.

I am.

Okay.

Can we change that?

I mean, if he's in prison, he can't go to the floor, right?

So it'll be difficult.

but I'm gonna run as a one-issue candidate on this, but I have to say goodnight for now.

Thank you, CNN.

Thank you.

You guys, and we'll see you next week.

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.

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