Ep. #646: Rep. Adam Schiff, Stephen A. Smith, Seth MacFarlane

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

Thank you, people.

Hello, humans.

How are you down there?

Thank you very much.

Thank you, people.

All right.

Great to be amongst you.

Thank you very much.

I can sense the excitement.

I know it's blackmail.

You can always sense the excitement at this time of year when we're in LA because it's Oscar week or something.

Right, and people hear, this is a big part of the town industry and everything.

So we get very excited.

The nominations came out.

Barbie got eight, including Best Picture, but not one for the lead actress and not one for the director.

The matter has been handed over to the International Criminal Court.

and is being investigated for a war crime.

I mean,

I don't know why this is such a giant controversy now.

I mean, best actress, that's the category.

You know, she lost two other actresses.

It's not like they gave her slot to Vin Diesel.

Is this really the patriarchy?

Oh,

I tell you, what a week.

First, Margot Robbie gets snubbed at the Oscars, then Taylor Swift gets booed at the football game.

If you know a rich blonde bombshell, give her a hug.

Yeah.

No, the only bottle blonde who did good this week was Donald Trump.

He won.

Yeah, he won the, now he won New Hampshire.

I mean, and of course, very gracious in defeat, as always.

He beat Nikki Haley.

It was the only hope of some to go past Trump.

No, that didn't happen.

So he's furious.

His whole speech is about how furious he is that Nikki Haley is staying in the race.

And I get it.

It breaks a lifelong precedent where he finishes first and the woman leaves.

Oh, I kid Donald Trump.

It's all good fun.

No, I know he's going to be, you know, it's, boy, it's sad.

It's the whole thing is over now.

There's not even a race to follow, but that was always fun.

And Trump is beating Biden now in the national polls pretty strongly.

And all my Democratic friends are saying, relax, it's a long time before the election.

Because, yeah, that's what Biden's whole card is, time.

No, that's what we got to get used to it.

This is it.

This is the race.

Biden and Trump, the race is over.

This is bad news for the country, I think.

Very good news for people who build ramps on debate stages.

Do you know that

Bill Clinton has been out of office for 25 years, is still younger than both of them.

I'm not kidding about that.

That is a true fact.

Their combined age is 158 years old.

The first debate is going to be at the Museum of Natural History.

So

I don't think there's going to be a debate.

I don't think either one wants it.

I don't want it.

You don't want it.

Let's just.

Because neither one of them is really up to it.

They're starting to, you know what's trending on Twitter?

Dementia Dawn, because

Trump was talking about Nancy Pelosi during January 6th, but he kept calling her Nikki Haley.

Nikki Haley did this.

He also referred to the president of North Korea as Ray Dong Chong.

I thought that was.

Yeah.

You know what else Dementia Don said this week?

This is a direct quote.

I don't know what it means.

No one does.

He said, word for word: we are an institute in powerful death penalty.

We will put this on.

Even Biden was like, what the fuck?

Oh.

Speaking of the death penalty, Alabama put a guy to death the other day.

I don't understand this country.

I mean, the easiest thing to do is to kill somebody.

For some reason, we just can't just do that.

We got guns.

We kill somebody easily.

Anybody can do it.

No, they keep giving them all these different exotic drugs.

It half works half the time.

The guy doesn't die.

Now they tried in Alabama nitrogen.

I think they're just going through the periodic table.

And

when they get to iron, they're just going to smack a guy with a shovel.

And finally, listen to this: 28%, 28% of Gen Z now identify as LGBTQ.

I know, we did a chart on this one.

We will all be completely gay by 2054.

28%?

Only 4% of boomers.

28% of Gen Z.

I'm sorry to think Red Bull gives you more than wings.

We've got a great show.

We have Seth McFarland is here.

Wow.

And Adam Schiff.

Wow, what a show.

And this guy, what a show.

First First up, he hosts ESPN's First Take and the Stephen A.

Smith Show podcast, both available on YouTube and his New York Times best-selling memoir, Straight Shooter, is now available in paperback.

Stephen A.

Smith.

How are you?

Yeah, we had fun that night.

Yes, we did.

We had fun at my house.

Yes, we did.

Yes, we did.

I got my first contact high from you.

I'm not complaining I'm not complaining it felt better than I thought yeah well

you look very active and attractive very thin and in shape I had to get it yeah I lost about 38 pounds I really man I after I had cold Ozempic I was so bad nope no sir I swear I swear you know so much weight loss and it's never Ozempic no okay

six it's six days in the gym eat right you know okay I got no worse than being skinny with a pot belly that's just nice

You know,

took the body fat from 29 to 10 percent.

And you were an athlete.

I mean, you played.

I tried to be.

Yeah, well, you did.

So let me ask you this.

I mean, the NFL, when I look at the numbers, the rating numbers, 93, I think, out of the top 100 rated television shows are NFL games.

Even among sports,

it's just nothing comes close.

Why did football win so big out of entertainment, especially just about, against the other sports?

They've done a masterful job of really turning their sport into an event.

Baseball, 162 games a year.

Several months, it don't matter.

You know, wait for the basketball season to get over.

Summertimes, it's yours, early fall, until football starts.

Obviously, basketball, 82 games.

Hockey, 82 games.

Once upon a time, it was 14, then it was 16.

Now it's 17 regular season games.

So it's not just the games itself.

It's the tailgate parties outside of the arena, in the parking lot and you know down the block and all of this other stuff.

It's the sports bars and it's everything.

You've included everything and so no matter what, whether it's a Sunday, it's a Monday, now it's a Thursday, sometimes when the college football season is over, it's a Saturday.

They've turned their sport into an event and every game practically matters.

You can lose a game in week two and it could detrimentally affect you come week 15.

You can't really say that about any other sport.

You feel like you've got time, you've got got time.

It's very little of that in the National Football League, and as a result, it has raised and elevated the level of urgency.

I'm going to say the other thing I think why I love sports is like I did a whole thing on this show once.

It's the last institution I can trust.

Like, I don't trust anything.

I don't trust the media.

I don't trust the government.

I don't blame you.

No, I read.

I don't blame you.

No, I am.

I don't blame you.

But

there are Nepo babies everywhere.

Even modeling now.

It used to have to really be.

No.

It's all the children of.

Okay, politics, show business.

There are no Nepo babies in sports.

Ronnie James,

everybody wants to see him play with his father, but he will not get on that team unless he absolutely earns it.

I have total trust that the 600 people who play in baseball, whatever it is, 400, 500, and best, are the best in the world.

Am I right?

You're right.

You're right about it if you're talking about the athletes.

There's certainly Nepo babies in the front office.

There's Nepo babies in coaching staff stuff everywhere.

Make no mistake about that

in the world of sports, but not when it comes to the athletes.

Here's the reason why.

You're performing in a public platform.

You don't get to suck, and the audience is going to ignore you.

You're not getting away.

Well, and they want to win.

And they went, well, again, they want to win.

But for example, one of the rare occasions where that happens, Yanis and Takumpo for the Milwaukee Bucks, for the Milwaukee Bucks.

His little brother is on the roster and no gets no playing time whatsoever.

That's the closest thing you can point to to a level.

But that's about it.

You've got to be able to play.

And with Bronnie James, here's the interesting part about that.

I think that kid can play.

I think he's got potential.

Is he there yet?

No, but I think he's got the potential to be there.

But LeBron James went front and center from day one and said, I want to play in the NBA with my son.

And because LeBron James is still elite, averaging nearly 25 a game at the age of 39 in his 21st season in professional basketball, he's such a moneymaker that the thought of LeBron James coming to any franchise, even if it's just for a year, you're thinking about the financial windfall from all of that.

And if LeBron comes there and all we got to do is get Bronnie James, you never know who might decide to do that.

But in the end, if Bronnie James makes it to the NBA and he ultimately survives in the NBA, it will be because he can play, not because of his dad.

So you're absolutely right.

The Nepal babies that you're talking about, that doesn't happen in professional sports.

The public won't let you get away with it.

Yeah, and the end of that thing I was doing was talking about how it just looks to me when I certainly this is just mostly from television, but you see a lot of it, hard knocks behind the scenes, you see the games.

It looks like race relations on teams is good.

Right.

I feel like the, you know, I remember Tyrrell Owens crying about his white quarterback.

Yes, Tony Romo.

You're making fun of quarterbacks.

You're making fun of my quarterback.

Yes.

It's like, you see that they really, they do seem to love each other, care for each other.

Well,

you wear the same uniform, you're under the same meritocracy.

The rules are public, so because of that, you can't politic your way around it.

You can't navigate or circumvent those kind of things.

And a lot of times when people talk about race relations in this country, it comes down to fairness.

I don't care how bad or how good a system is, if you look at the system and you say it's fair and equitable to all of us, I can tell you as a black man, the black community doesn't have a problem with it if it's fair.

It's the discrepancy that takes place and you don't see a lot of that, a lot of the unfairness in sports for the most part.

If you can play, you can play.

If you can't, you can't.

Somebody's not getting a position because they're white or because of their Hispanic or because they're black.

It's because you can ball.

You either can ball or you can't.

So my question is, do we then

try to make that happen in society?

Well, we can talk about making it happen into society, but we all know it's a snowball's chance of that happening.

I mean, because there's always a proverbial glass seal and there's always people in positions of power.

And it's usually not about race per se, as some people would say.

Sometimes it's about people you're comfortable with and people you know and it just so happens to be somebody of the same race, of the same ethnicity.

If you don't get out there and ingratiate yourself with somebody who looks different from you, who has a different ethnic background than yourself, different cultural identity than you do, and you don't

make an effort to make that happen, then you're going to be comfortable with people that are like-minded, that look like you, that come from the same background, and that ultimately are the people, those are ultimately the people that you're going to take care of, and the others get left behind.

And unfortunately, when it comes to folks who are black in America, that's always been the case, which is why race has always been an issue.

And it seems like people want to make it more of an issue sometimes, and they need to be, like this thing that's going on the internet about an NFL game between the white players and the black.

Stupid.

It's stupid.

It's stupid.

And I said it was stupid.

When a former athlete said that, I said that was a very, very dumb thing to say.

There's no doubt about that.

But in the same breath, again, you're going to always have folks who haven't made it or didn't succeed as much as they anticipated to.

Plus, they're going to see examples of others who didn't succeed, and they're going to lean on race.

My attitude is this: as a black man who is unapologetic about bringing up race when it's called for, I also recognize that at times it's not about racism, it's about somebody not liking your ass.

You were the person that got on their nerves, you were the person that didn't know how to act.

And so

that's really what it comes down to.

And you just have to be honest and forthcoming about that and man up and woman up from the standpoint that sometimes it ain't about race or the other clitch cliches you can lean on.

And this is why we love you, because you say it like it is.

Which is why I was very surprised.

Can we talk about DeMar Hamlin?

Has enough time passed.

Okay.

Because America, like, you know, certain things you just can't talk about at the time.

If people don't remember, he's a football player.

There was a big game about it.

Buffalo Bills.

Buffalo Bills against Cincinnati.

Playoff implication game.

Two good teams.

Monday night.

I remember I was there with the popcorn.

Right.

First play,

he's hurt.

And it's not a normal injury.

The ambulance is on the field.

It's track.

You know, we're take him off.

He's not gone.

And he's fine today.

I think he just played in the game.

Isn't he playing again?

Yes.

Okay.

He did play.

He played last week.

So your old partner was Skip Bayless, right?

You have great affection for him still, right?

Yes.

Yes.

Even though you...

Okay, so you disagreed.

I remember he was almost canceled because he said maybe they should have played the game.

They canceled the game.

Now, I remember the first 10, 15 minutes.

They were not saying we should cancel the game.

They thought they were going to play the game.

So at one point, this was controversial.

At least we were thinking about it.

It just bugs me the way we become such sheep, or maybe it's crows, or whatever.

You see birds, they go one, and then one goes the next, and they all follow.

Because they're such fucking sheep, these crows.

Well, I'll tell you this.

I think.

So I don't understand.

And then everybody said DeMar's health is more important than the game.

Of course, no one's disagreeing with that.

What the fuck does that have to do with playing the rest of the game?

Well, how does it, we're not asking him to suit up again.

Okay, he's on his way to the hospital.

All these people who came out to the, these people who

bleed for their team all year long, all the people at home who put on, and the people who went out to the game.

Well, I will come to the corner.

I don't get it.

I don't get the connection.

I will do two things.

Number one, I'll come to Skip's defense in this regard.

I don't think he meant it the way that people took it.

And I thought that the

maybe they should have played the game.

But here's what happened.

You said he was wrong.

He was wrong.

And the reason why he was wrong is because he had the benefit of hindsight, whereas most people didn't.

If he said what he said in just the 15 minutes, that would be different.

But you think they should have canceled the game.

Well, here's why.

Because the players, what wasn't known at the time is that the players were literally on the field crying because of the crying in football.

But there was that night.

But there was that night.

There was that night.

There was that night.

I know.

They thought he died on the field.

But he didn't.

He did it.

But they were so rattled they couldn't play.

Well, I thought football was the tough guy sport.

We play in any weather.

You know, baseball, they're the girly men and came and play in the rain.

But football, we just always play because we're the tough guys.

Yeah, you are.

People can be that way.

But any football player would tell you you can spy softies everywhere.

But you know what?

I mean, every game, every quarter, there's somebody who goes down and he's.

And then the announcers are like, oh, we'll step away.

Meaning,

okay, go to the Budweiser commercial.

This is a mess.

And clean this guy up and get him off the ghost.

They're such hypocrites.

If they really cared that much about the players' health, they wouldn't have canceled the game.

They'd canceled the sport.

And I don't think they should.

Right.

But before they say your name.

Before they say your name with this show, they say they call it real time, right?

Why?

Because it's real.

In the world of sports, it ain't always that way.

In the world of politics, it ain't always that way.

In the world of corporate America, it damn sure ain't always that way.

That's the way it goes.

People lean on perception, they flow with what the public believes it should feels, and they capitulate to that, which is why you have the show that you have, and most people are wishing they did.

Thank you, man.

I'm glad you got the show.

You go on the platform, you can come back to me.

Okay,

Stephen A.

Smith.

All right, let's do our panel.

Hey, you two.

Wow, what a handsome panel.

All right, he is a writer, actor, director, producer.

Oh, gosh, what a so many hyphenates.

His latest series, Ted, it's fantastic.

I've seen it.

It's streaming now on Peacock.

And on February 2nd, he'll be performing with Liz Gillies at the Kennedy Center in D.C.

Jesus Christ.

Seth McFarland is making the rest of us look lazy.

I feel like I'm home.

You are home.

Okay, and he's the Democratic congressman representing California's 30th district who's currently running for Senate and is going to win it, Adam Schiff.

Gloria Sen here.

Good to see you.

So, as I mentioned here, I mean, this is the, I've covered quite a few primary seasons, and I feel like I'm being gypped this time because it's not happening this time.

It's over already.

We don't even get the audition phase of our reality show.

We call an election.

You know, usually February, March, April, with all the primary, and then this state, and it's kind of fun.

And now I feel like I'm snubbed as a citizen.

I've been snubbed.

I feel like I'm not even getting.

And also, when it gets to the general, it's only in eight states.

This is not one of them.

You have no worries in the states as a Democrat.

I mean, you're winning your race, but

the only person you could beat you is another Democrat.

I wish the worst I felt was snubbed.

I'm terrified.

I'm terrified.

How is it possible that this man who says he wants to be a dictator on day one, who has been indicted on 91 felony counts, who has been impeached twice, who led an insurrection, how is it possible that he's running away with the nomination of one of America's great parties?

Well, that to me is terrifying.

That's ego.

Even if you look at what I consider his least transgression,

He's sitting in the Oval Office behind a resolute desk signing hush money payment checks to a porn star.

How is it possible that guy is a candidate for president?

She was apparently the only contractor who actually got paid.

Nevertheless.

Nevertheless.

How is that guy?

How is Adam's kid home?

I'm just going to go home.

I don't need to be here.

Adam will be at the Chuckle Hut Friday night.

Then

he said,

Uncle Funny's in Denver.

That's a good place.

Okay, so

but let me ask you about the, well, let me give you the two liabilities of the other candidate, okay, because this is news this week.

Trump is winning two blocks that he never won before, Hispanics and people under 35.

Let's take the first one.

That's the issue of immigration, or at least it seems that's what the Democrats think it is.

And yet

they're the party that keeps losing Hispanics

to the party of Razorwire now.

I mean, the big issue this week is Governor Abbott in Texas had Razorwire up because he doesn't want them coming into his state.

It's so strange because the New York Times just posted a video on their opinion section that showed Reagan and Bush in the 19th, when I'm assuming it's the 1980 primary, and they were trying to outdo each other as far as who could be more empathic to immigrants.

They were delivering all the talking points.

They were saying, we need to give them a path to citizenship.

This country was built on immigration, all the things that you'd hear now from a left of center or even a centrist Democrat.

And you said it a while back on this show that both parties have moved further to the right.

That the Democrats have become centrists and the Republicans

have become whatever it is they've become.

Democrats also have a wing that has moved much further to the left.

They have.

They have.

I mean, I think they would be very surprised to find that a lot of them that Canada's immigration system

is a lot more right-wing than ours.

Canada.

You mostly have to have skills to get into that country.

It's not like an open border.

Now, of course, they don't have a border with Mexico and so forth.

One of the things I think is crazy, I've had the good fortune to represent Caltech over the years.

Some of the most brilliant people come from all over the world to study Caltech.

They get among the best degrees you could get, and they want to stay when they graduate, and we kick them out of the country.

That is just economic suicide.

They become our competitors somewhere else.

It's much the light of every other country.

They're thrilled.

But talk about a self-defeating immigration policy to kick out some of the best and brightest in the world.

Yeah.

But I also think it's not a great strategy to run a Democratic campaign based on how can they like this guy.

They just, because some people just do.

Maybe, maybe better to look at why they have, I mean,

why is he winning among the people who are rapists

and they bring drugs?

That guy, you know,

maybe there's something flaw in the ointment there.

Well, you know, I think one of the things the president is doing now, which we really haven't done in the last year, is lean into this issue.

Take ownership of this issue and make the case for why what Democrats are offering.

Well, because, you know, Bill, I think what the party has done which is a mistake is take the view that you know when we're talking about immigration that's that's the issue is that's favorable to them we want to talk about the issues that are favorable to us that's a very common political strategy but it's not working we have to lean into this the president today is leaning into this he is calling out the Republicans for killing a potential bipartisan.

There is a deal.

Right.

There's a good bill.

And Trump has pressured all the Republicans into killing it because he wants it as an issue, which is amazing that he wants it as an issue because he's the one who said, I'm going to build the wall and then didn't.

And now he's running on, I'm going to do what I didn't do before.

That's a politician.

Nixon did that with

Vietnam.

Nixon ran in 1968 on, I'm going to end the Vietnam War, and didn't.

And in 1972, he ran on, I'm going to end the Vietnam War.

That's not a politician.

That's a grifter in Donald Trump.

And, you know,

I give him credit for this.

This is a guy who ran for president on a platform that Mexico was going to build a wall and pay for it, an absurd promise.

Mexico, of course, doesn't build a wall to pay for it.

So his cronies raise money from his own supporters to build a wall, and then they steal it.

Right.

And he pardons them for stealing from his own people.

And they still support him.

You have to be.

You got to get over that.

They do.

And that's not going to win you the election.

Okay.

So here's the other group.

Under 35, Trump leads Biden.

Wow.

You lose the kids.

And this is mostly, I think, because of this wedge issue.

I don't know if people really know what a wedge issue is.

That means a wedge within the party, something that divides people within the Democratic Party.

And for that, is the kids love Hamas.

And who couldn't?

Who couldn't resist them?

I mean, they'd behead babies.

Or do they?

Oh, this is interesting.

Yes.

See, now there's something called the October,

well,

they say it's a false flag operation.

They're calling them, remember 9-11 Truthers?

These are October 7th deniers.

Yeah, yeah.

You've read about this?

Yes, sir.

Okay, this is in the Washington Post this week.

A small but growing group denies the basic facts.

Some of they say

Israel staged this.

to justify their invasion of Gaza.

The hostages,

not really, they were kidnapped by Israel, the United States is behind the whole thing.

There's a professor who says, this is a professor in New York.

Don't take what the media says.

They try to say you're supporting rapists and people that behead babies, both of which you know, we know it's not true.

No, we know it is true.

They purposely filmed it.

I mean, we have the footage.

It's very on brand for social media,

and it's very on brand for the planet as far as its relationship with the Jews over many centuries.

We have this weird stalker-ish relationship to the Jewish people.

It's the most bizarre thing.

We have something like 60% of the religious-based hate crimes in this country are committed against Jewish people, which are 2% of the population.

So what does that tell you?

There's something else going on there.

And this is just the latest.

It's why Israel exists.

And I feel this keenly because I'm the subject of a lot of that hate online.

And it's so hard to set the record straight and correct all the disinformation out there.

For a while, there was a very well-circulated meme that my sister had married George Soros'

daughter.

And I remember when it first came out calling my brother Dan and saying, Your sister married George Soros.

Wait, shit, was that not true?

Well.

I have to delete a few tweets.

Please.

Right?

I called my brother Dan and I said, Dan, we've got some good news and some bad news.

The good news is we have a sister.

Why didn't mom tell us?

And she married really well, but the bad news is she's clearly holding out on us.

But

we try to correct

that kind of trutherism about October 7th, or we had that trutherism about 9-11.

But it's even worse now because the social media funneling effect that just

takes people down that rabbit hole.

Just because it's worth talking about for a second, because we just blew by it.

The fact that you do have people in their 20s, even in their 30s,

who are gravitating to Donald Trump over this one issue, and it's admittedly a horrific issue to process in every way.

And I've been reading about it since October 7th because I felt like I was not educated enough, and I'm still reading about it and still feeling like I'm not grasping every nuance.

I would hope that everybody protesting has done the same.

But it means that

you are giving up on

reproductive freedom, you're giving up on climate legislation, you're giving up on everything that supposedly is important to you and putting it all on the line for this one issue.

Which you're also wrong about.

I mean, it's...

Well.

First of all.

And by the way, potentially giving up gay marriage, as Clarence Thomas told us when he released his opinion.

Right.

Gay marriage will not be an issue among the people in Palestine.

No, it wouldn't.

Nor wouldn't for all your liberals out there.

But you'll be asking why the kids are protesting for Hamas, a terrorist organization?

It's because they're professors.

Let me read some quotes from professors, and a couple of them are from California.

I'd love to know what the leading politician in California says about this.

This is, the Zionists have been exposed for the criminals and bloodthirsty animals they are.

This is a gift from Allah to the world.

He sends reminders to us, whether it was 9-11 or the second infitada, waking the Muslim spirit.

Okay, that's somebody from the University of California, Irvine.

Another one, California, Merced, talks about what Palestinians are doing, bravely paragliding, bravely paragliding over the fence to capture Israeli soldiers.

I don't think it was soldiers.

They were.

What would your comment be to these California professors?

Find a different profession.

It's that, and it's also when you're in your 20s, even if you haven't read everything, even if you hadn't.

I mean, I was this way, it's your instinct to root for whoever you think is the underdog.

And in that region, yeah, Palestine is the underdog.

With relation to the rest of the planet, the Jewish people are the underdogs.

So it's like it's hard to blame anybody and it's impossible not to blame everybody.

I'm just so appalled that

students don't feel safe at school.

They don't feel welcome.

They're taking time out of college because they don't feel

that they're welcome on campus.

And I think a lot of these university presidents have done a terrible job.

addressing this.

They're afraid of their own shadow.

They're afraid to actually speak out about what took place on October 7th.

I think Israel has a right to defend itself.

I think it has a duty to defend itself.

I can also care about the loss of Palestinian lives.

Of course.

It's not incompatible,

but these days it seems like for a lot of people your heart can't be big enough to grieve the loss of Israeli lives and also grieve the loss of Palestinian lives.

Absolutely.

Right.

So what does...

But

what does Biden do about this wedge issue in the party?

How does he get the kids back?

Which sounds like I'm going into the comedy piece, but I'm not going to do that.

I mean, I think...

Maybe next week.

I think the...

Things Biden does to get the kids back.

You know, I agree with you.

But what does he do?

You know, I think he does the right thing policy-wise.

This is an issue of war or peace or life or death, and I think basically he should do what he's doing, which is do what he thinks is right and then figure out how do I deal with the political consequences later.

He has such a powerful case to make with young people.

No president has done more to lift the burden of student debt off their backs.

No president has done more to address what is their most important issue, which is climate.

No president wants to do more on gun safety than Joe Biden.

And so he's making the case.

We're going to help him make that case.

You know, frankly, I think we need people that can talk to young people like you, Seth, and so many people in the industry.

You know, I'm 50, right?

50.

I know.

And look, still jet black hair, a miracle.

And

not just 50 and good looking, but a former Oscar host.

And since this is the week the Oscar nominations come out, we thought we would talk about the Oscars a little.

I thought your year, by the way, was the funniest ever.

I thought nobody ever killed it there.

I know you had your own issues with dealing with the academy and so forth.

But the thing about the Oscars is they do reflect society.

That's why we pay so much attention, partly.

And things are always changing in our industry, like streaming.

You know, it just changed the whole industry.

This happens so often.

So they have to come up with new categories for the awards.

The Golden Globes came up with a new one this year.

They're basically a picture people liked.

They had become such self-congratulating, virtue-signaling boars that they had to go, oh, yeah, let's make a category for that.

People actually paid to see something great.

So,

so here, but so there's so there's an Oscar categories.

Would you like to hear the Oscar chat?

I knew you would.

I knew you would want to hear them.

For example,

this was needed: best editing of a film that's still an hour too long.

Achievement in ethnic prosthetics.

Best achievement in replacing an actor who tweeted something offensive.

Best use of a freeze frame, followed by the words, you're probably wondering how I got here.

The Michael Bay Coolest Fireball Award.

The least annoying picture where the plot is driven by a simple misunderstanding.

Best song performed by someone your niece can't believe you've never heard of.

Oh, I love this one.

Best movie that opens with an armadillo scurrying across the eye.

I've seen that a lot.

And, oh, yeah.

Finally, best use of a real-life TV talk show host whoring himself out to make the movie seem more realistic.

And how is President Ellis responding?

Well, I thought it would be easy to get without laughing.

I had no idea this could actually be a job.

I mean, I knew it could be a hobby.

I mean, Nigeria, Chicago, Mexico, I'm surprised it got lasted as long as it did.

Can we just settle this strike, please?

Teachers have been out of the classroom for so long, middle schoolers are starting to have sex with each other.

This is fucking bullshit.

Boy, I get a lot of.

I mean, you missed one, but that's a lot.

We tried to get it in, but it didn't.

Okay, so, and since it is Oscar Week, we have to talk about Barbie because that's what everybody is talking about.

I know it's really beneath the dignity, but what's one reason why we like you so much?

You're such a regular guy, you know.

You can just hang with us here having our brewskis.

So anyway, the big controversy is it's a movie about the patriarchy, and then when Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig didn't get nominated, they said, ah, see, look there.

They proved it.

That's the patriarchy in action.

My question is, is this country still a patriarchy?

I don't think you can judge that from Barbie not getting nominated, but I...

I don't know.

I'm not.

You're right.

In general.

I'm sorry.

At the risk of alienating half my fan base, I think the 2016 election proved that it is.

Because, Wait a sec.

So it was impossible people couldn't have not liked Hillary for any other reason that she was a man?

I mean, she was just that super likable.

Compared to the alternative, yes.

Again, you guys just don't get it.

You're going to beat that drum till he's president again.

Okay.

But,

yeah, well, look, I like Hillary, and I don't like Trump, but there are other, I've heard many people say, yes, I would absolutely vote for a woman, just not that one.

It's not always that.

But what about the patriarchy issue?

I mean, I just say, though, I would vote for a corned beef sandwich over Donald Trump.

And

I'm a vegan.

So I don't say that lightly, but at least that corned beef sandwich would have some intelligence and

not be a dictator on day one.

I was saying this before everybody, so I'm just bored with it at this point.

But, okay, so here's what I said about Barbie.

It came up on the show last week.

I

Googled what the Mattel board was, really was.

In the movie, it's 12 men.

In real life, it's seven men and five women.

So they were caught lying in their own movie.

Also, I must say, like, there was, I remember, I saw it in the theater,

and I liked it.

You know, it's entertaining, but at one point, the Barbies have to, like, win back the Kens.

And they do it by, like, acting helpless.

Like, oh, I don't know how to use a computer.

Could you help me?

And the woman I was with said, I don't know any woman today who would do that.

So, you know, I just think it was 2008.

Miss Morgan.

Seth?

So a majority of women are, women are now a majority of associates in law firms.

That just happened this week.

So, I mean, I don't know.

No,

colleges, women are killing it over men.

Also, the workforce.

Boardroom, I quoted this, like I think the last year I had stats for, 46 percent of new board members were women.

The place where it really goes downhill for CEO.

That still looks like 1980.

Can I just say, though, that women still have to work far longer to make the same pay as men?

Well,

we don't have equal pay for equal work.

That's not really true.

There are reasons why there is a disparity, but to say it like that is very misleading.

I've done a deep dive on that.

There are reasons why that would pick different fields, pregnancy, stuff like that.

There are laws.

You can't just not pay for something.

Oh, you squat to pee, you don't get as much money.

You can't do that.

That's against the law.

It has been.

I've disagree with you.

You think someone is paid just because they're a woman?

I think that

he's done a deep dive into women.

Trust him.

I may not have binders of women.

I may not have binders of women, but

look, women work just as hard, often much better, much smarter, and they don't get paid as well.

And what's more, lots of women are kept out of the workforce, and this does contribute to the disequal pay because they can't afford child care.

And they can't afford to join the workplace.

And that's on us because we haven't made child care affordable and accessible.

That has to change.

But I think we are far from an equal society at this point.

No, we are.

We are not a completely equal society.

I'm just asking you kind of a different question.

And what is the solution?

I mean, to like the CEO issue, where there's so few women's CEOs or minority CEOs.

Do you actively do something about that?

I mean, football, they force you to pretend to interview coaches of color.

That's such a hard question to answer in 30 seconds.

Well,

we got like 10 more minutes.

Really?

Because it's like, you know,

sometimes you have to goose the engine in a certain way to get it to shift gears.

Sure.

And can that get out of hand?

Sure.

But are we there yet?

I don't think we're there yet.

I think we're still goosing the engine.

I completely agree.

Yeah, I'm asking.

What goosing the engine means?

Yeah, that's right.

How do we goose it?

Give an illustration.

I used to chair the intelligence committee until Mr.

McCarthy thought otherwise.

And the intelligence community used to be, still is, very male-dominated.

It is also very white.

It's very non-diverse.

And frankly, if we want the best people, we need to diversify the intelligence community.

If we want to be able to have people that can

work all around the world, we need an intelligence community that looks like the rest of the world.

There are too many white spies.

Yeah,

I can tell you, Sam.

How would we know?

How would we know?

I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

You would never make it in an ICB.

Oh, believe me, I know.

You look so much like a CIA agent.

I couldn't.

You are central class.

I couldn't even play.

When I was a kid, I couldn't even play hide-and-seek.

I'd be like, I'd see the guy walk by the closet.

I'm here.

I'm in here.

I couldn't handle it.

Yeah, I'd be freaked out by me, too.

It's okay.

What are we talking about?

I don't know.

You were saying something coherent.

Saying that

to diversify a part of our government that is very non-diverse takes a concerted effort.

It takes a willingness to go out and recruit.

It may not be top of mind for a lot of people and a lot of women to think, oh, the intelligence community, that's where I want my career to be.

And so recruitment is a big part of it and making sure people know, women know there are opportunities and

frankly, it is so good for the agency and so good for our government generally and for our society to make sure that we're tapping into the best talent, which is half of the country.

Okay.

Let me, before I do run out of time,

basically, more

Sydney Bristows.

Nobody got that reference.

No.

Even though I'm glad that nobody else didn't get alias.

Nobody watched alias.

Oh.

All right, okay.

Whatever.

Call yourself progressives.

Two.

Okay, good.

Two interesting developments in the world of media, social media.

The Florida House

day passed a bill banning children, well, like, you know, children under 16 from using social media.

And in New York, about as different as you can get from Florida politically, Mayor Adams, the first to declare social media a mental health crisis compared to

well i i found a way to unite the country

so um any comments on these developments in the social media world there was there was a god i'm trying to remember the name of the book i think it was called the chaos machine yeah yeah you gave it to me yeah by

member yeah

by uh max fisher that that um

talked about the fact that when you read an article on social media, like let's say you follow the New York Times on Instagram, and you read one of their articles, and you process it a certain way,

the second you start reading the comments,

your initial impression of that article is radicalized one way or the other.

And first of all, I have no idea what these outlets gain by allowing comments

on their sites.

It's like this reporter took the time to research this, to fact-check it, oversight from an editor, and if they got it wrong, then they have to print a retraction.

What if it's just slanted?

What if it's wrong, but what if it's just slanted?

What if it's not wrong?

It's just slanted.

And that's what somebody's pointing out in the column.

Then write a letter to the editor, do your research, and formulate your argument.

But that appears a week later.

So what?

What's the answer?

But then I've forgotten it, or I don't see it.

But it's like

there's this thing we take for granted now that the journalist who did the work gets to have their

piece put on the same shelf as everyone else's spur of the moment bullshit.

You seem to trust journalists more than I do.

I trust certain journalists, yeah.

Yeah, I do.

Certain ones I do.

Not a lot.

Not a lot.

No.

And everything I read, whatever source, it's only half the truth.

They print the narrative.

They don't print truth.

That's a generalization, though, isn't it?

Well, it is, but it's because it's generally true.

They print the side of the story.

By the way, that's exactly what Donald Trump wants.

What you just said is exactly what he he wants.

It doesn't matter.

Don't trust the reporter.

Don't trust the journalist.

Well, Hitler was a vegetarian.

It doesn't mean I'm like Tom Hitler.

But they print the half that they want.

That is going to make people like you, who are a partisan, very partisan, you want to read something that, oh, that makes me feel good.

I read John Bolton's book, for fuck's sake.

I'm not partisan.

I slogged through that thing.

Jesus Christ, you have my condolences.

Yeah, I don't know why you would do that.

Bill, I think this is the most cross-cutting challenge we have at all, overall, which is people simply don't get their information from the same place.

They tune into the news they want to hear to reinforce the views they already have.

They have social media algorithms queue up what they want to see.

They're in the audience-stroking business.

That's what the media does.

That's what they are.

To some extent, that's true.

But I think to generalize the majority of it is general.

All right.

Well, I'm also in the audience-stroking business.

You'll have to go to New Rules, right?

Because that's a very popular segment here, but you you guys were great.

Okay.

Nothing wrong with audience stroking.

All right, New Rule, if you're a head coach in the NFL, you have to look like you play football at some level.

I mean, you don't have to be reacher, but

Jesus Christ, you guys look like you played soccer at Wesley.

Guys, this is a coach, okay?

This is a coach.

These are coaches.

You want to be on my sideline?

You have to look like the kind of guy who could die from COVID.

New rules, stop treating Madonna's meet-and-greet with Lil Nas X backstage before his concert like it was some heartwarming reunion.

I'm no facial expression expert, but every picture tells a story, and what these pictures say is: who is this lady?

I'm not playing.

Tell me who this older white lady is.

And is someone going to get this bitch off of me?

Nick Roland, I don't want to make everything about race, but someone has to tell me why only white guys take their shirts off at the game.

Why is it cool at the game but sad on the subway?

In the words of America's number one football fan, you need to calm down.

New world Middle East peace negotiators must consider making this offer.

Hamas pledges to stop attacking Israel, and we'll hire them to build our infrastructure.

I mean, these people can build a tunnel.

They built over 350 miles of tunnels without waking anybody up.

New York's been building a subway under 2nd Avenue since 1972.

This could be a win-win for everybody.

New rules, people in movies have to learn that when you're holding a gun on someone, you don't have to get right up on top of them.

That's one of the big advantages of a gun.

As opposed to, say, a knife or a frying pan.

You can be across the room so this doesn't happen.

Every time.

Every time.

Now go sit with the guy who throws the grenade too early and gets it thrown back at him.

And finally, new rule, in the future, all American school kids must be made to study the Constitution, not ours, Brazil's.

Because plainly that one is working a lot better than the one we have.

America ran a very clear scientific experiment with Brazil recently, where we face the exact same situation.

And let's just say when it comes to democracy, we're the ones who got waxed.

Brazil, you know.

I needed to stroke the audience more on that one, I guess.

So here's what happened.

In 2020, American incumbent President Donald Trump, a thrice-married far-right populist, lost his re-election bid and then embarked on a campaign of outright lies to convince his supporters the election had been rigged, which resulted in the siege of the American capital on January 6th.

Fast forward almost two years to the day, January 8th, 2023, and Jaher Bolsonaro, Brazil's thrice-married far-right populist incumbent president, known as the Trump of the Tropics, repeats the

repeats the Trump playbook exactly after he loses his re-election bid and thousands of his supporters storm the Brazilian capital.

Both insurrections failed, but here's where we see the difference between a healthy democracy and one that's hanging by a thread.

After January 8th, almost all of Brazil turned on the plotters and made Bolsonaro a pariah.

But after January 6th, Trump went on to his winter palace in Florida to accept tributes and replot in opulent splendor.

Bolsonaro also went to Florida where he ate by himself at a KFC.

It's a real picture.

Today, only 6% of Brazilians say they support the mob that sacked their capital.

But in America, Trump's more popular than ever and on track to regain power.

In Brazil, not only has Bolsonaro been banned from running again anytime soon, but the country united around their new leader, who walked arm in arm with congressional leaders from the left and right in solidarity against the uprising, arm in arm.

In America, no arm in arm.

Arms, yes.

Plenty of that.

And threats.

Most Republicans were literally scared to death to do the right thing.

They didn't want to be hung like Mike Pence or castrated like Lindsey Graham.

Because

the thing is, in Brazil, their conservative party is where ours was during Watergate.

When Republicans were willing to throw Nixon under the bus because they still had ideals higher than owning the libs.

So what changed?

Well, part of it is structural.

Their Constitution is only 35 years old.

Ours is 235, and it looks it.

We not only still use old-timey words like gerrymandering, we still practice it.

The average Republican congressman is in a safe seat with an electorate he chose himself.

And he's only scared of two things.

a primary opponent with more guns on his Christmas card

and getting a nickname from Trump.

Trump has proven that in America you can absolutely attempt to coup, and at the very least there's no immediate repercussions.

The only way we are allowed to punish a president is through impeachment where the jury is the Senate.

Except California has 68 times the population of Wyoming and yet we both get two senators.

We both get two jurors.

In Brazil, elections are overseen by a special electoral court with judges who serve two terms.

We don't have that.

We have a partisan Supreme Court whose terms expire when they do.

And who are mostly picked by presidents who lost the popular vote.

And our elections are run by the state, so you got a hodgepodge of 50 different election systems with 50 different rule books.

And we're the only nation on earth that chooses their election by way of an electoral college, which is somehow even worse than regular college.

And if all that isn't bad enough, it takes America two months to count and certify the votes, which gives the losers plenty of time to plot and make mischief.

In Brazil,

popular vote always wins.

Everybody goes to the polls on the same day, and the official commission declares the winner that night.

And then everyone goes outside and flashes their tit.

As opposed to here,

because about 40 years ago we changed television news gathering from a public service to a division of the company that has to make a profit.

We let various shit-disturbing, ratings-hungry news outlets call the election and tease out the suspense like it's the golden bachelor giving out the final rose.

It used to be people's opinions were shaped by the news.

Now the news is shaped by people's opinions.

Opinions.

It's all we hear in the media all day long when we're not hearing it from our friends on Facebook.

And by friends, I mean,

by friends, I mean Russians.

And there's one more thing.

We're just a shittier people than we used to be.

Sorry.

Sorry, but we ran the experiment and we lost.

In Brazil, the politics of grievance has its limits.

Here it doesn't.

There are 172 election deniers currently sitting in Congress, but Republicans only threw out one guy, and ironically, he was from Brazil.

So, yes, our conservatives deserve the lion's share of the blame.

They're the ones who are sticking with Trump.

But it's also not that simple, guys.

It's also the fact that since Watergate, the parties have flipped personalities.

Democrats used to be the party of the working class, and Republicans were the elitist, Chardonnay-sipping assholes, the snobs on the winning side of the diploma divide.

But that got switched up.

And people really hate a snob enough, in fact, to vote for Trump, who recently said, it's nice to have a strong man running your country.

Well, many Brazilians remember when it wasn't.

They lived under a real dictatorship less than 40 years ago, and so they have an immunity that we do not.

It would be nice if we could get that immunity without having to get the disease.

All right, thank you guys.

I'll be at the Fillmore and Miami Beach on March 23rd, Ruth Eckard Hall in Fleetwater, March 24th, and the Center for the Performing Arts in San Jose, April 20th.

I want to thank Jeff McFarland, Adam Schiff, and Stephen A.

Smith, Gratwatch Overtime on CNN at 11:30.

Or catch him Saturday morning on YouTube.

Thank you.

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.