Ep. #626: Sen. Bernie Sanders, John Heilemann, Russel Brand

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, No, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

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

Start the clock.

Thank you, people.

Thank you very much.

How are you?

Thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Ah,

sit down, kids.

You've done enough.

Thank you.

I know.

I know.

It's exciting to be in a

okay.

I know why you're happy.

I know, I know, I know.

Thank you.

I know why.

I know why it stopped raining.

We had a lot of rain, but that was right.

California had rain.

So much, half the state, they say, is out of the drought.

And Governor Newsom's really leaning into it.

His new campaign slogan is: Newsom, he'll make you wet.

The ladies know what I'm talking about.

No,

Also,

Tuesday, a couple of days ago, the California's COVID emergency ended.

So that's nice.

So if you have a friend who is still living like a prisoner, it's because they tried to quit Scientology.

That's

nothing to do with COVID anymore.

Yeah, COVID, big in the news there.

The Department of Energy said that they think it was most likely that it did come from the lab, the Wuhan lab.

I mean, this has been a, I've said from the beginning, should not be political.

Let's just find out the science.

But that's what the FBI says that.

Some people say that.

It could have leaked from the lab.

And this is a big story.

The manager at the Wuhan bat on a stick today said,

where do I go to get my reputation back?

But

we don't know.

That's the thing.

We don't know.

Stop politicizing everything.

We're so arrogant.

They know.

You don't fucking know.

Nobody knows.

Even the Department of Energy, which said they think this is happening, they said we're reporting this with low confidence.

Then why say anything with low confidence?

Well, you know what?

You work for the government.

We have that for you, too.

But

set me.

So what they were staring at their shoes when they said it?

We think it might have

come from the lab, but you know.

I don't know.

We get a lot of shit wrong.

What is it?

Talking like a valley girl?

It came from the lab?

And then people got sick and stuff?

Our government.

So, you know, the Republicans have taken over the House now.

So the Ethics Committee there, they're investigating AOC because of that dress she wore at the Met Gala.

Remember that?

Of the tax the rich dress?

There's something about improper gifts or whatever it is.

Younger viewers who are watching this show

might need to know that this is not the first time the Democrats have had a scandal that involved a dress with something on it.

So, here's a real scandal.

Now, Ron DeSantis, who could be the Republican nominee, he's out in California this weekend working the crowd.

Back in his home state of Florida, a Republican representative there is trying to make bloggers register if they write shit about Republicans.

Okay, I have some real mixed feelings about this.

One, this is an outrageous violation of the free speech.

On the other hand, I hate bloggers.

So,

but

DeSantis is skipping CPAC.

That's the big Republican, well, I guess it's conservative, but it's all Republicans, of course, convention they have every year.

But, of course, the big star, guess who?

Yes, Donald Trump spoke.

It's in Maryland.

And I don't get this about Republicans.

They wheel out this grotesque peroxide blonde.

under five pounds of makeup.

But the thing they're most upset about is Drag queen story hours.

I don't get that.

And but they are.

This is a big thing with the Republicans.

Boy,

they do not like that drag queen story hour.

The governor of Tennessee, a guy named William Lee, is banning drag shows within a thousand feet of parks or schools or places of worship.

I could not agree more.

There's no place at a place of worship for dress up.

And well, speaking of that, remember that Canadian shop teacher with the...

There she is, Kyla Lemure.

We don't know what's going on here, but she's a teacher at the school, and there's been a lot of controversy, obviously a lot of controversy, that she would come to school like that.

Well, finally, she has been removed from the school.

They would have done it sooner, but they couldn't get her through the door.

Okay.

We got a great show.

We have Russell Brand and John Heilman.

And first up, he is the independent senator from Vermont and author of the new book, It's Okay to Be Angry About Capitalism.

Senator Bernie Sanders is on.

Bernie.

How are you?

Great to see you.

I still love you.

So what does that tell you, that the people are with you, that it's okay to be angry about capitalism?

There you go.

And

we're not shocked that that is the title of your book.

I mean, that has been your theme.

I wanted to ask you, what is better?

I know you are a socialist, you're the first socialist in the Senate, or I guess you call it Democratic Socialist, but America already has a degree of socialism.

Don't most sophisticated countries have a quasi-system?

We are part capitalist, we are part socialist.

Isn't it right about getting the right mix?

You don't want to get rid of all capitalism.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

But the point of the book is that right now, we have more income and wealth inequality in America than we've ever had.

Three people or more wealth than the bottom half of American society.

Who are these people?

Our friend Mr.

Musk, Bill Gates.

Who's the third guy?

Bezos.

Bezos, of course.

Correct.

All right.

So you've got three guys who own more wealth than the bottom half of American society.

You now have CEOs making 400 times more than their average workers of large corporations, unprecedented.

That's number one.

Number two, you have more concentration of ownership.

In sector after sector, whether it's agriculture, whether it's transportation, whether it is financial services, you have fewer and fewer large corporations controlling the economy.

You got three Wall Street investment firms, BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, that control over $20 trillion.

That is an extraordinary amount of money.

So you have an incredible concentration of ownership.

Three, you've got a political system today, and you make this point.

all of the time, which is corrupt.

And that is, since Citizens United especially, billionaires now can spend spend unlimited, hundreds of millions of dollars to buy elections.

They want to take on people they don't like.

They want to support people they like.

That's a corrupt political system.

You've got to.

Now you add all that up, Bill.

You add all of that up.

What do you end up with?

You end up with a country which is moving rapidly into an oligarchic form of society.

Middle class declines, rich get richer, and we've got to start.

But I hear you all the time say, you know, the rich don't pay their fair share.

Now, maybe that's true of those three guys you mentioned.

They are pretty rich.

They are very rich.

But

I guess I'm not very rich, but I pay more than half.

I mean, California is 13.3%, and the federal is 37% for people who make over $250K.

I barely make a little over.

Well, I work three jobs.

What can I say?

A night shift, I believe.

It's the drive in the Uber that kills me.

But, okay, so, and then there's the state and local and property taxes.

So

I don't remember the last year I paid less.

The government, and again, I'm philosophically kind of with you.

I've always said

wealth is a fluke.

So I don't ever be like, oh, you know, I deserve all this.

I mean, I did work hard, but it is kind of a fluke what we reward to make someone wealth.

So philosophically, I get it.

I'm okay with giving back.

The government's taking more than half and you want more?

Well, it depends on your income level.

Yeah, if you are Bezos.

More than half.

Yeah, absolutely more than half.

Look, the rich are getting richer.

What's happening to the working class in this country?

What's going on right now, and this is quite incredible, in the richest country in the history of the world.

Over 60% of our people today are living paycheck to paycheck.

We got a health care system, which everybody knows is broken.

Only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people.

85 million people uninsured or underinsured.

You got a child care system, which is an absolute disgrace.

You got 45 million people having student debt.

You have 30,000 people in this city alone, Los Angeles, sleeping out on a street.

So how does taking more taxes, though,

help the person who's living paycheck to paycheck?

That we just give them money?

No, you don't give them money.

Well, you know, during the heart of the COVID

crisis,

I helped author a bill which did in fact in that crisis put $1,400 for every man, woman and child in this country.

And that was very helpful at that moment.

But the solution, Bill, you want to ask what we do?

I'll tell you what you do.

You make public colleges and universities tuition-free so every kid in this country knows they have the opportunity to go to college.

But here's the point.

It's not only more money.

It's taking on the greed.

of the oligarchs.

We're spending twice as much as Canada for health care right now.

They managed to cover every man, woman, and child.

You've got to take on the greed of the insurance companies through Medicare for all.

I have to disagree with you about the college thing.

It's a point I've made here many times.

I don't think the answer is everyone goes to college because it's not

college is bullshit.

And I just think the answer is much more, make college unnecessary.

There are a number of governors around the country who are doing this.

The governor in Pennsylvania, governor of Maryland, they have made federal, the jobs in their government, their state jobs, you don't need the college degree anymore.

Well, I'll tell you what else, and I'm not disagreeing with you.

I mean,

there are many jobs which do need a higher education, absolutely.

But I'll tell you that, we passed an infrastructure bill to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.

You know what?

We don't have enough sheet metal workers.

We don't have enough in this country electricians.

We don't have enough plumbers.

We have to give those people who are good with their hands the opportunity to get the training they need to go out and make houses.

I know you were advocating at the Supreme Court, I think it was last week, right, because, or maybe it was this week, that the Supreme Court is looking at Biden's

giveaway to people who own, who debt.

Giveaway is your term, not my term.

Well, we are, they have college debt,

okay, and we're going to give the money.

We're going to forgive debt.

Well,

we're arguing about the same thing, but there's no argument.

We're giving the money away.

Okay, so I just want to read you this.

Again, this is against why people sometimes, I think, question some of what you're saying.

This is a survey, student loan forgiveness recipients.

73% of applicants say they are likely to spend their extra money on non-essential, including vacations, smartphone, drugs, and alcohol.

They admitted that to the pollster.

Who is this pollster?

NBC News.

52% they are very likely are likely to buy new clothing.

46% they would use the money for vacation and eat out at restaurants.

This is why people have a thing about, I would never call it free money, oh, I guess I just did.

Well, let me respond to that in two ways, Bill.

You talk about giveaways.

Under Trump, the Congress voted for a trillion dollars in tax breaks for the richest people

in this country and the largest corporations.

That's a giveaway.

We just increased military spending with very little discussion, I don't know if you know this, by $80 billion.

Military-industrial complexes.

Voting the Democrats.

The Democrats vote for it too.

Yes, absolutely correct.

Absolutely right.

All right.

But that's socialism, the military.

That's crony socialism.

Well, that's crony capitalism.

But the military isn't capitalism.

That's the government.

No, but it's who owns the military-industrial complexes.

All right, but anyway.

All right.

So when you talk about giveaways, you have major corporations in this country that make billions in profit, don't pay a nickel in taxes.

Billionaires have an effective tax rate lower than that of a truck driver or a nurse.

You have a generation, you talk about this younger generation right now.

I got around the country and I talked to a lot of people.

You know, I don't know anything about that poll, but I can tell you I've talked to nurses who are working their asses off, doing the right thing.

They leave school $70,000 in that.

They can't afford now to get married and have children.

They can't afford the housing that they desperately need.

So the truth is, you've got a generation that everything being equal, the younger generation will have a lower standard of living than their parents.

You and I, and I'm a little older than you, can remember, 50 years ago, what did it cost to go to the University of California?

Remember?

50 bucks, 500.

Virtually free, City University of New York, virtually free.

And right now, these young people are leaving school deeply in debt.

They're struggling economically.

They deserve a break.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

But in the book, you say you feel like the Democratic Party,

and you take your shots at them, and

you caucus with them, and you run as one, but you're not completely part of them.

You say they feel like they abandoned their cause to the beautiful people.

Who are the beautiful people?

I'm guessing it's not.

You're looking really beautiful tonight here in L.A.

Me?

Thank you, Bernie.

Here's the point.

The point that I was making is

when FDR was president, when Truman was president, even when JFK was president, you go out on the street and you say to people, which party represents the working class of America?

Most people, I think, agree, would have said the Democratic party.

Correct.

All right.

Today you go out on the street, and that is not the sentiment.

In fact, the Republican Party probably has more adherents than did the Democrats.

How did that happen?

I'll tell you how it happened.

It happened because 30 years ago the Democrats said, hey, Republicans are getting all this corporate money.

We want it too.

Let's go out and get it.

And let's forget about the people who are working 50 or 60 hours a week.

So you're sitting out there somewhere in the Midwest.

You can't afford health care.

Maybe your job went to China and you're earning half of what you used to make.

Your kid can't afford to go to college.

And you're looking at people on television doing all of their stuff.

And you are saying, who the hell gives a damn about me?

All right?

Who cares what my life is about?

Who's addressing the crises facing my life, the pain that I'm experiencing?

We have something, I don't know if you're familiar with the expression, it's called diseases of despair.

Of course.

All right.

And what the doctors tell us, we have a life expectancy above and beyond COVID, which is in decline.

It's in decline because people feel hopeless, their jobs are taking them nowhere, worried about their kids, and they're turning to alcohol, drugs, and even suicide.

All right?

We've got to restore hope to the American people.

Working class are the majority of people in this country.

They are hurting.

After 50 years of exploding technology, they're earning less than

they did before.

All right?

You sound like you're running again.

No?

Third time.

I'm just talking about the book here.

Third time the charm.

People usually write a book when they're about to run.

No.

All right.

Thank you, Bernie.

I appreciate you being welcome.

All right.

Great to see you.

Branny Sanders, let's meet our panel.

Okay.

Hey.

All right, here they are.

He is the host and executive producer of Showtime's The Circus, a national affairs analyst for MSNBC John Heilman is over here.

And he's the actor and comedian to host Stay Free with Russell Brand on Rumble and whose latest latest stand-up special brandemic premieres March 13th.

Russell Brand,

our rock star comedian.

Okay, so I mentioned the California ended our COVID emergency.

I walked in the building today, and for the first time in I don't know how long, the Guard did not have a mask on.

For a while, we haven't had to wear masks because the Germs know who the celebrities are, you know.

But the Guard did.

So I feel like we're entering this phase now with COVID where we are in a period of, we can have perspective, we can look back, it's over.

And so there's been a number of studies recently that have come out about things like natural immunity, mask wearing, lockdowns, and of course the big one this week about the lab leak theory.

I feel like the people who are the dissenters are looking pretty good.

I was one of them.

I remember getting a lot of shit from a lot of places.

Somebody dug this up for me this week.

The Daily Beast, Daily Beast,

had a headline, Bill Maher pushes Steve Bannon Wuhan lab COVID conspiracy.

Yes, it was just Steve Bannon.

Well, it was, you know, the former head of the CDC.

It's the FBI, it's the Energy Department.

We don't know.

Like I said, we shouldn't politicize it.

But would you agree that the dissenters are looking better these days?

You're on my team, right?

Bill,

as a matter of fact, I am.

And I think dissent is a great duty around all topics.

And partisanship, as we've just heard eloquently described by the great senator that you interviewed, ultimately leads us into cul-de-sacs culturally.

What I feel is that we were too desperate to shut down conversation.

In a state of escalated fear, we were unwilling to ironically listen to science.

Science does not exist objectively.

It exists within a subset of capitalist agenda.

And the problem I feel that we had is that only experimentation was taking place that was beneficial to certain interests.

Only arguments were being advanced that were beneficial to certain interests.

Only regulations were being imposed that were beneficial to certain interests.

The Wuhan lab leak theory being just one example.

Fauci himself was seriously considering that this was a likely origin for the virus.

It seems now how could it not be a possibility?

It's a lab in Wuhan where the virus started that studied the virus and was doing gain of function research on the virus.

How could it not be?

Have you any idea how wet that market was?

It was soaking wet.

That market was covered in sputum.

It was an accident waiting to happen.

You may think the Wuhan Institute of Virology is a hotbed of coronaviruses, but have you been down that wet market?

People come staggering out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Get me to that hole.

They're away with the wet market, they say.

They're having a wild time in the Institute of Virology, but when they're down the wet market, gloves on.

Time to be cautious.

That's where the real risks take place.

I want to compliment Russell.

He says, I've never been able to figure out how to get the word sputum into

a political talk show before, but

that was excellent.

Thank you very much.

I mean,

it was actually, I believe, actually appropriately used, too.

I only use the word sputum and the substance appropriately, John.

You'll learn this about me over the evening.

But here's the thing about this.

I mean, I gotta say, look, there are two things to say about it.

One is, Energy Department says the lab.

I agree with you.

Like, I thought the lab was always a thing where it could have been, where it could have come from.

And the idea that we ruled that out, which I'll get to in a second as to why, but you still have, I think, eight intelligence agencies.

You have two now, the FBI and the Energy Department that say the lab.

You have four.

I'm saying is, to your point, we don't know.

You have four that still think the wet market, and you've got two who say the website.

And we will never know what you say.

So we don't don't know.

It's the Kennedy assessment.

So why?

We're going to be arguing about it in 50 years.

Well, science would like to know for a variety of reasons, and I think people will still do serious research on this and try to figure it out because it's important to not make sure that the same thing doesn't happen again.

But I will say, if you go back to that time, why did people seize on the notion that reject the lab leak theory?

Because like everything else in COVID, Donald Trump politicized it from day one.

His thing in that first two weeks was Kung flew, and it was not just that it started in a lab, but that like the Chinese had it released it on the world that it was like bioweapon this wasn't a leak it was just not like there was an accident in the lab the notion that was put forward by the administration in some cases was that was that it was in his political interest to make China the villain if it's a lab whether there was a lab leak or whether it was in the wet market can we all agree that likely it was an accident And that's what Donald Trump,

by going to,

this was an act of terror in some way against us.

It politicized the issue as he politicized everything else about COVID, unhelpful.

So everybody else had to take his bait and then double down on stupid.

I mean, that's it.

I'm not forced.

I'm not forced stupid.

I'm just trying to say, hey, it got politicized, and you're right if it would have been better if we hadn't politicized it, to Russell's point.

So, there's a tennis player, Novak Djokovic, he's like the best player ever.

He's ever so good at tennis.

He's dedicated his life to it.

What's your point, sir?

He can't.

Oh, you could see him play tennis.

He cannot equal.

Right over the net, it can be.

He cannot get into America.

No.

He'd like to be playing at the, I think it's coming up, the Miami Open or something.

He is unvaccinated, but he's had COVID twice.

Again, natural immunity.

Something we always used to understand was better than the actual vaccine.

Somehow that got to be reversed.

But

the head of the Miami tournament, I read a quote for him yesterday.

He's trying to get Jokovic in, and he said, there doesn't seem to be any imminent danger.

Imminent danger of a man playing tennis, of a man who's had it twice standing alone, a sport where you're alone in the middle of a stadium outside in a country where everyone's already had it.

No imminent danger.

This country is stuck on stupid.

It just is.

Bill, it seems that it's not solely the responsibility of Donald Trump that this issue has become politicised.

When we take the issue of natural immunity, the efficacy of masks, it's difficult not to posit that perhaps increasingly as centralised authority becomes subject to inquiry that it's never before faced because of the advancement of technology, because of our immediate ability to communicate, they are doubling down on

authoritarianism.

And this example, I think, is a good one.

Similarly, it's difficult, I think, John, for us to condemn what we might regard as the right of politicizing this issue when we're just having a reasonable conversation about the way these regulations are rightly changing after a considerable amount of time around emergent evidence, around natural immunity, vitamin D, steroids, mask of efficacy, the likelihood they emerge from a laboratory to sort of somehow cling to Donald Trump as the source of the problem.

At some point, we're going to have to transcend these differences.

Otherwise, legitimate political figures that genuinely care about ordinary Americans are going to find themselves lost in a party, co-opted by financial interests and military-industrial complex interests, and unable to have a meaningful voice.

Sooner or later, we have to transcend those arguments.

I'll just say one more thing about the pharma part of it.

Purdue Pharma, you're familiar, there's a terrific movie, Michael Keaton movie, Dope Sick, that was about this.

Okay.

And this is.

If you need an opioid, Purdue Pharma will sell you them at a reasonable price, whether you need need them or not.

I should add, these opioids can be quite moorish and even, some would say, addictive.

So do be cautious.

And you would know.

You were there, right?

And there was a time where I did become a little bit dependent on heroin.

Thankfully, Purdue were not operating in my country, so I may not be here now, and I'm very grateful that I am.

Well,

and we are too.

And

there's something called hillbilly heroin.

that's called OxyContin.

And that's what they were pushing.

But I just, in October 2020, when the Justice Department announced Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to felony charges of defrauding federal agencies, violating anti-kickback laws, marketing opioids to hundreds of doctors that it suspected were writing illegal prescriptions.

and then lying about it to the DEA.

So they got slapped with an $8.3 billion fine.

I'm just, my last question is just the cognitive dissonance that I see, that people see, oh my God, the pharmaceutical industry is capable of doing this.

But when it comes to COVID, no questions asked.

It just does seem weird.

Bill, if I may say...

Well, I'll let him answer that.

Well, let John do it.

Well, you have a turn.

See, if you.

John, I'll offer you this challenge.

Get the word sputum into your answer for bonus points.

I've been sitting here thinking about that the entire time.

I could tell because I'm looking below the desk.

Oh!

Here we go.

You know, look, we have a complicated relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.

Anybody who's ever had

a family member who's had cancer

and seen what life-saving drugs can do for people.

It also may have given it to them.

And it may have, but

that's actually kind of my point.

It's like the reality is that if you have a black and white point of view, the pharmaceutical industry is engaged in a giant conspiracy to fuck us all over.

You are denying the reality that many people have lives have been saved by those drugs.

If you say that the pharmaceutical industry has no,

is incapable of error or

malign behavior, you're equally an idiot.

The reality is that in a capitalist society, there are going to be companies that seeking profit will do things that are incredibly innovative and good, and do things that are incredibly

terrible

and exploitive.

That's just,

that seems like the right position to have.

I agree.

Let's just be skeptical.

Right, right.

Okay.

And that's across the board.

Sure.

All right.

Moving on.

Well,

out of respect for you and your show, I've brought some facts.

Would you.

If you'd like, they're actually.

You just get the fuck out of here.

This is not the place.

No, we do.

We like facts.

I love facts.

I wouldn't have mentioned it.

I'm English and you know that politeness is our fundamental religion.

But they do pertain to this issue, so may I say something?

If they inconvenience you, I'll stop saying them.

The pandemic created at least 40 new big pharma billionaires.

Pharmaceutical corporations like Moderna and Pfizer made $1,000 of profit every second from the COVID-19 vaccine.

More than two-thirds of Congress received campaign funding from pharmaceutical companies in the 2020 election.

Pfizer chairman Albert Baller told Time magazine in July 2020 that his company was developing a COVID vaccine for the good of humanity, not for money.

And of course, Pfizer made $100 billion in profit in 2022.

And may I just mention that finally, and this is also a fact, that you, the American public, funded the development of that.

The German public funded the bioNTech vaccine.

When it came to the profits, they took the profits.

When it came to the funding, you paid for the funding.

It's difficult not to...

But I will just add one thing.

It is possible that these are

reading capitalists who made a lot of money.

Yes.

And also, there are a lot of people who did need the vaccine.

There are a lot of people who did need the vaccine.

I never wanted to be told I was one of them who had to take it.

But there are lots of people who needed that vaccine and would be dead without it.

That is true, too.

Bill.

That is true, too.

More facts.

All I'm querying is this.

Yes.

Is if you have an economic system in which pharmaceutical companies benefit hugely from medical emergencies, where a military-industrial complex benefits from war, where energy companies benefit from energy crises, you are going to generate states of perpetual crisis where the interests of ordinary people

separate from the interests of the elite and cottage industries and build once you create an industry like like checking you i still get checked to see if i have covid because it's a cottage industry people started making money by sending a nurse to my house and now no one wants to give up that gravy train anyway you've not played anything against cottages though have you no because i'm english and the cottage is my proudest traditions

i don't know if if if you're on tick tock but uh i i cannot get enough of watching dogs do mischievous things

it's just adorable.

But I found out this week there's actually a dark side to TikTok.

They're completely rotting the brains of an entire generation of people.

And worse than that, they apparently now have the ability to get young girls to think that older men are actually teenagers talking to them.

I saw this.

Can you show this picture?

This is what you can do.

Look at this guy.

That's what he really looks like.

And then you can, with the filters, talk to somebody looking like this.

Not this guy in particular.

Don't write him.

So we thought as a public service, we would, in case you're on TikTok and you're a young girl watching this show, you'll see this.

Be careful because there are signs that the teenager you're talking to might actually be an older man.

Would you like to hear something that is...

Okay, right.

When you ask him to talk dirty, he says, I hear Kevin Costner may leave Yellowstone.

When you ask if he's ever gone viral, he says, once on to catch a predator.

That's.

Boy, these pictures of these guys are.

When he brags about his dick, he says he's hung like Milton Burrell.

Well,

that is a giveaway.

He asks you where you were when Reagan was shot.

His idea of an influencer is Dale Carnegie.

He knows the three branches of government.

Well, that's a giveaway right there.

The BuzzFeed survey he's excited about is which Jake and the Fat Man character are you?

On the bookshelf behind him, you can see a frame Dilbert cartoon.

He mails you a dick pic.

And there's a name plate on his desk that says Congressman Matt Gates.

All right, so

speaking of the kids, Fox is ghosting Donald Trump.

They're not using that word, that's my word, but they were talking at shadow banning.

They're not apparently putting him on anymore.

This is a giant sea change in, I think, politics.

Obviously, the media in this country rules politics.

Rupert Murdoch was under oath this week in that defamation suit for the Dominion voting people.

Under oath.

He said he knew his hosts,

the hosts of Fox News, were endorsing the fraudulent lie that Trump had won the election.

He said, this is, quote,

I would have liked us to be stronger in hindsight.

He's 90.

How long do you have to live before you

hindsight?

If I was just a little older and more experienced, I would have seen this.

But what do you think about this?

To many people,

it has been evident for quite a long time that Fox News is not a news network in any meaningful sense.

You don't have news networks where,

or Sean, where you have like a network anchors who get to go and endorse candidates.

You can say what you want about MSNBC or CNN, but that's not allowed there.

Sean Hannity is at the end of the day.

But they do.

They would go to events.

I mean, I've never, there's no news network, no anchor at CNN or MSNBC who's ever appeared on stage at a campaign rally with a presidential candidate and endorsed them publicly.

It's never happened.

But we know who they're for.

Having ideological bias is not against the rules.

But a news network that has people who are passing, as Murlock also admitted in that deposition, that he would give the Trump campaign heads up on what the Biden ad strategy was and give them previews.

He admitted himself to being someone who was working hand in glove with the Trump administration rather than ostensibly trying to run a news network.

So a lot of people have said for a long time that Fox News isn't a real news network.

It's a propaganda network.

It's now all out there.

It's all in the Dominion suit.

They knew that Donald Trump's claims of election fraud were bullshit.

They knew that they were horrified by what happened on 1.6.

We now know that all of the major anchors, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingram, Sean Hanney, the ones who stood up all day long and said, there's voter fraud, there's voter fraud, this was a fraudulent election.

In real time, we're saying, this is fucking bullshit.

We shouldn't be saying this.

And if there's, it's the most clear open and shut case of just the reality that a lot of people have seen for a long time being laid out in black and white on the page and and the and it has caused an enormous now an enormous existential crisis for Fox News which is why you see them saying

we need to stay away from fucking Donald Trump now and go and run into the arms of Ron DeSantis meatball Ron as

there's no equivalent of Fox News in in the UK is there there's no requirement Bill There's no requirement for an equivalent.

We have a monarchy still.

I think

you do.

If I may say so.

And you insist on living in your home country as opposed to a normal celebrity who would have moved here.

I mean, even your Prince Harry and Princess Megan have moved here.

What is wrong with you?

I will not be drawn on the subject of the division in the royal family out of respect for the late Queen.

Now, I will say...

I will say...

John, I've not known you long, but I love you already.

But I have to say that it's disingenuous to claim that the biases that are exhibited on Fox News are any different from the biases exhibited on MSNBC.

It's difficult to suggest that these corporations operate as anything other than mouthpieces for their affiliate owners in BlackRock and Vanguard.

And unless we start to embrace, and also mate, like just spiritually, if I may use that word in your great country, we have to take responsibility for our own perspectives.

I've been on that MSNBC, mate.

It was propagandist nutcrackery on you.

I went on a shape called Morning Joe.

It was absurd the way they're carrying it.

Morning Joe.

Yeah, I don't know what it was.

It wasn't morning.

There was no one called Joe there.

No one could concentrate.

They didn't understand the basic tenets of journalism.

No one was willing to stick up for genuine American heroes like Edward Snowden.

No one was willing to talk about Julian Assange and what he suffered for trying to bring real journalism to the American people.

And I think to sit within the castle of MSNBC throwing rocks have Fox News is ludicrous.

My friend.

Make MSNBC better.

Make MSNBC greater again.

My friend, I would love.

I would.

The moment the moment.

Why are the monetarites people win on Joe?

Russell.

Russell, darling.

The moment that you give me a specific example.

An actual example.

Okay, I'll give you a question.

Wait, wait, wait, just leave.

Just we need just specific examples.

How about a specific example?

Let me just tell you what the specific guy I'd like to hear of.

I'd like to hear a specific example, approval specific example, of an MSNBC correspondent or anchor being on television, saying something they knew was false, and were saying behind the scenes to people, this is, I'm about to go out, and we know that we know that the election wasn't stolen.

Or something equivalent.

But I will go, but

I will go out on television and say the opposite.

I will lie.

When's my answer?

Just give me the specific example.

I'm just saying a basic part.

Give me a specific example.

All right.

I'm with you.

I think it's a false equivalency, Russia.

No, it's not a bias.

You're unbiased.

It's a false equivalency.

It's not about bias.

It's a false government because you don't actually know anything about any of these organizations you're talking about.

You've been on MSNBC once.

Big fucking deal.

My darling, it was more than enough.

You can't come up with it.

You have a single actual fact.

Do you want an example?

Do you want an example?

The ludicrous, outrageous criticisms of Joe Rogan around ivermectin,

deliberately referring to it as a horse medicine when they know it's an effective medicine.

What a medical Maddow turning up on the TV saying, if you take this vaccine, you're not going to get

You have to listen.

Do you think you can improve America by determinedly and avowedly condemning Fox News without acknowledging that you're participating in the same game?

Did you not just listen to Bernie Sanders, someone who plainly, legitimately believes in this country and believes it's possible to change, but is bound by corruption, is bound by the lobbying system?

Surely it's clear to you, Bill, as one of the great pundits and experts and comic voices, that systemic change is required.

Money has to be taken out of politics.

We need new political systems that genuinely represent ordinary Americans so that we can overcome cultural differences.

And bickering about which propagandist network is the worst is not going to save a single American life, not improve the life of a single American child, not going to approve America's standing.

in the world and the world needs a strong America.

I'll tell you that.

I'll tell you that.

So you have an obligation, a duty, not to condemn these people.

No, I have a duty to actually say things that are true.

And I'll tell you, when Bernie Sanders comes out here over time, we can have a conversation with him and ask him whether he thinks that MSNBC and Fox News are the same.

Oh, we're going to go to the next one.

I can tell you right now what the answer to that question is going to be.

You are not getting in the green.

So

let's not cite Bernie Sanders as if he agrees with this argument.

They are not the same.

Before we run out of time,

and while I have you here, because I don't get you here much.

I know.

If you want, I'll come around your house and do your podcast.

Yes, you're going to do that.

But also, we'll talk about it.

We'll talk freely, Bill.

We'll express ourselves that expression.

We're not talking freely now.

We'll definitely smoke.

But I want your English.

I want to ask you about Brexit because, I mean, we've had big news about Brexit in the last couple of weeks, which is, again, sort of similar to the pandemic issue.

We had something, now we have some perspective.

65% of the British people want to do over.

It's re Grexit.

They wanted to leave the European Union.

It sounded like a good idea at the time.

And now, listen to this.

Their economy is worse than Russia's.

Last year, their economy shrunk more than Russia's.

So I don't catch your tone.

No, I'm just saying.

We're trying our hardest.

I like this argument because it's one that Russell and I are going to agree on, I believe.

Yes, I think it's a good idea.

I think it didn't seem like a good idea at the time, did it?

Do you think Brexit sounded like a good idea?

No, he was not for Brexit.

No, that's what I'm saying.

You said it sounded like a good idea at the time.

I don't think it did.

I was being sarcastic.

I think that Brexit, Brexit came about as a result of the ongoing vilification of ordinary people.

People feeling that they have no authority, that they have no voice.

When they were given a binary choice, they saw a button marked fuck off to the establishment, and many, many people pressed it.

Because the fact is that the political establishment does not operate on behalf of the ordinary citizens of my country in much the same way as it doesn't in your country.

And people are disillusioned and dissatisfied.

Britain weren't great before Brexit, Britain weren't great during it, and it ain't great now.

But I can understand why people are disillusioned with centralised bureaucracies like the EU because they don't do nothing for ordinary people and they're disenfranchised and they want new alternatives.

And the ongoing condemnation of ordinary people, particularly when it's 50% of them, doesn't seem like a sensible way to heal a troubled culture to me.

But I say that description that Russell just gave of people saying, being frustrated, being disenfranchised, all of it, which we totally agree about, and saying fuck you, was the same thing they did.

Obviously, the connection between the parallel between that and electing Donald Trump is clear.

People drew that parallel at the time.

How did it work out?

I mean, yeah, I totally, I'm with you on the frustration and the rage and the justified

sense of anxiety, all that got them to hit that fuck you button.

How's it worked out so far for the British?

What I would say, Johnny.

For the British economy.

How's it worked out?

I don't think that piety and condemnation and judgment of people who understand how

desperately

did Brexit work out?

I really don't work out.

No,

that's the story.

It didn't work.

It does.

Because nothing works for them.

Nothing will work because it's tied up by this, because it's systemically tied up.

Because both parties in our country are fundamentally the same as one another.

Neither of them offer meaningful alternatives to ordinary people.

And they're bored and they're tired and they're watching now, maybe not on this channel, but later on YouTube, and they're tired of being spoken down to.

They're tired of being criticized.

They're tired of being told that their opinions don't matter, and they have to be heard.

They don't want to be how'd that work out for us, John.

It's not the kind of shit they want to hear.

You can't say to somebody who was never able to see a doctor after the Democrats passed Obamacare and now can see a doctor and isn't dead because of that.

You can't say the parties are the same or exactly the same in one party.

That's just not true.

But billions.

There's lots of people who are alive because they passed that bill.

I regard you as an optimistic man.

I regard you as a patriotic man.

Why would you invite the people of America that are suffering under penury to accept anything less than the best that this country could achieve?

Oh, this party is a tiny little bit better.

Why don't you shut up and get out of your life?

Because that's not good enough.

Being alive is not just a tiny bit better than being dead.

The difference between universal.

But what quality of life?

The quality of life.

Don't fall into that rubber rhythmic, that rhetorical humanity.

People are in total despair.

You live in this city.

You're working around looking into people's lives.

Do you want to pretend like the difference between universal health care and not having health care insurance in this country is a trivial difference?

John, if you're asking me, do I absolutely reject the paradigm of your sewn-up, stitched up, lobbied for, bought out, corrupt political system, then I'm telling you I do.

If you're asking me, do I believe that American people deserve better?

I'm telling you that I do.

Is it possible?

Of course.

When we awaken together, when we reject this paradigm, and every time you say it's better to be alive or dead, sit down and say thank you for the corruption, you're telling American people that it ain't possible for it to improve.

And you're better than that, Bill.

I believe you.

I mean, you're better than that.

He's better than that.

He's the one that's not.

I love that you're an idealist.

Yes.

But again, you have the luxury of being an idealist because you're not the one who needs health care and didn't have it and then has it.

I mean, it's that kind of thing.

Do you know what I mean?

You talk for the common person.

That's where I'm sitting.

But it's the the common person who says, thank you that I could see a doctor now.

And yes, humanity only advances in incremental stages.

We can't get it all at once.

I know it would be so much greater if we could get it all at once, but we can't.

Gotta move on.

New rules, everybody.

I'm sorry.

All right.

New rule.

The people behind the new property brothers cartoon have to answer one question.

Have you ever met a child?

I avoid them myself, but I'm pretty sure they're not into flipping real estate.

This raises so many more questions than it has answers.

Like, why does mommy watch it by herself in the tub?

Neural, stop showing me pictures of that giant Jesus statue in Rio being struck by lightning.

It's not a sign from God.

It's what happens when you leave stuff out in the rain.

And it's Jesus, not Frankenstein.

No matter how many times it gets zapped with electricity, it's not coming back to life.

And I live in America where Jesus is already too much of a lightning rod.

New rule, the Australian woman who got a womb transplant from her mother so she could have her daughter must realize this would not be a touching story in reverse.

If a guy told a doctor,

I'd like it to use my dad's penis to bone my son,

it would not be heartwarming.

It would be an award-winning children's book.

New rules, when appointing to federal

top federal officials, it's okay to exclude the ones who look like Batman villains.

This is former Energy Department official Sam Brinton, who we all defended as totally not a weirdo, just a guy who likes women's clothing, until it turned out he likes to steal people's luggage at airports and then wear their clothing.

And I'm sorry, but I believe the technical term for that is weirdo.

New rule, let's just skip the Oscars and give best picture to everything everywhere all at once.

Then we can put it in our Netflix queues with all the other movies we said we watched but never did.

Like Coda, Nomadland, Moonlight, Mank, Reticence, Whiplash, Minari, and Birdman.

And if you just said, hey, I did watch those, sorry, ha ha, reticence doesn't exist.

And finally, new rule, let's put a trigger warning on trigger warnings.

A new study from Flinders University analyzed a dozen other studies on trigger warnings, and they all came to the same conclusion.

They don't work.

Not only don't they protect your feelings, but if you actually have been traumatized by something they're warning you about, a trigger warning makes it worse.

It's like if seat belts were made out of broken glass.

It winds up just being a reenactment of the old joke, how do you keep a pussy in suspense?

I'll tell you later.

Now for those of you who have been living on an offshore oil rig for the last 10 years and don't know what I'm talking about, a trigger warning is a kind of close your eyes, here comes an ouchie

that like so many bad ideas in recent years got started on college campuses.

Students started demanding them so they could get ready in case something in a book or a piece of art or a history lesson reminded them that life included bad things and not just good and sometimes people were mean.

You can't have that just sprung on you.

Several universities in recent years have even compiled lists of words we should be warned about to get rid of altogether, including balls to the wall,

no can do, you guys, master, white paper, man in the middle, gyp, off the reservation, peanut gallery, insane, and virgin.

Virgin?

We can't say virgin as opposed to what?

Person experiencing not getting laid?

You would think that one would take the care, the cake, for the oversensitivity, but the students at Brandeis said, hold my baby bottle.

They made a list of expressions they don't want to hear because they remind them of violence.

Terms like killing it, beating a dead horse, and yes, even trigger warning.

I guess they don't teach irony in college anymore.

Anyway,

at some point, the trigger warning escaped from campus and got out into the real world, and now they're everywhere.

Warnings at the top of Reddit threads and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram posts.

Warnings before your favorite serial killer series, before news articles.

Disney put an advisory on the movie Dumbo,

warning viewers about stereotypes because otherwise you might think it was a documentary about flying elephants.

Turner Classic Movies still wants to show you classic movies, but before we do, first there are a few parts we'd like you to feel really bad about.

Now enjoy the show.

Theaters do it now too.

The storied Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis tipped off their crowd that a play included simulated gunshots, strobe lights, and haze.

Haze.

In case you've been groped by a thick fog.

A theater in Brooklyn alerted the audience to expect moments of darkness and violence.

And this was for Oklahoma.

My senior class in high school put on Oklahoma, and I thought it was corny and provincial then.

I cannot imagine the fragility of someone who needs to be warned about it.

How do these people get to the airport, let alone through childhood?

London's Globe Theater felt the need to tell the audience that its production of Rome and Juliet includes suicide.

Okay, but Romeo and Juliet has been in your Netflix queue since 1596.

You've had 400 years to prepare.

And also,

It does kind of give away the ending

I Don't under I don't understand how a society that's so in love with spoiler alerts can also be into trigger warnings Tell me what's gonna happen, but don't tell me

And again all the research shows that these trigger warnings don't even work what they do is reinforce the idea that trauma is central to your identity and that you should let it define you instead of dealing with it, dispatching it, and moving beyond it.

People wonder why the younger generations have so much anxiety.

It's this stuff.

Lots of stuff makes us uncomfortable.

You know what makes me uncomfortable?

This bullshit.

People who start every conversation with as a person who,

as a survivor of, I'm triggered every time I see a trigger warning

because I'm reminded of how weak my country has become.

It's like wearing a mask on your mind.

We keep finding out about new health problems kids have from being locked inside for three years, exposed only to filtered air during the COVID era.

Turns out that's not healthy.

But you know, there is an alternative way of dealing with anxiety.

And let me put it in comic book terms so the kids can relate.

Bruce Wayne, you're familiar, was afraid of bats.

So what did he do?

He became Batman.

That's the way to go.

Because honestly, we cannot go any further in the other direction we've been going in.

We've already passed the point of parity.

A student group in Australia recently called for trigger warnings on eye contact.

Even the Taliban are okay with eyes.

Eye contact?

Were you traumatized as a child after losing a staring contest?

What's next?

Trigger warnings for conversations?

Having everyone walk around with name tags that say, hi, I'm Dave.

Please don't bring up doorknobs.

I'm Josh.

I have a drug problem and a hairy back, so don't mention Cocaine Bear.

All right, that's our show.

It'll be at Valleys Lake Top of March 11th, Golden Gate Theater at San Francisco on the 12th, and the theater at NGM National Harbor in D.C., Washington, April 22nd.

I want to thank John Heilman, Russell Brand, and Bernie Sanders.

Now go watch Overtime on CNN tonight at 1130 or catch it Saturday morning on YouTube.

Thank you, folks.

Okay.

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.