Ep. #619: Rep. Ro Khanna, Gov. Jared Polis, Robert Costa

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

Thank you, people.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

How you doing?

Alrighty.

Look at all these smiling faces.

Wow.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

I know why you're happy.

The election is over and you don't have to watch the ads anymore is one thing.

I haven't had a text from Joe Biden in three days.

I feel like he's ghosted me.

But hey, how about the American people?

Just, I mean, really.

I didn't have faith.

They proved me wrong.

Never so glad to.

Really?

At the end of the day, you know what?

Democracy,

I think they look at it like the catalytic converter.

They're not quite sure what it is, but they know it would be bad if it got stolen.

But of course, because this is America, we still don't really know

who won.

I turned on CNN today.

It was like, the name of every show was Election Night 2022.

It's Friday.

It's Friday.

Election night is still going on.

Yes, Arizona, Nevada.

Arizona, where your dad retires and your mom dies.

And Nevada, where he finds wife number two.

So that's where the balance is.

Also, Georgia, Georgia is going to be a runoff.

Herschel Walker is very excited.

He's already raised like $3.5 million for the runoff.

He said he wants to make sure that he gets a first term, unlike most of his children.

Well, and also a big race that people watched, Pennsylvania, anybody from Pennsylvania, this was a big one.

Shameful applause.

Well, John Fetterman pulled it out there.

He had his problems, but he

I see this as a victory of substance over style.

He was running against Dr.

Oz, who's a very dapper, media, savvy heart surgeon, and he lost to a guy who dresses like the airline lost his luggage.

Also, a lot of firsts this time.

First Gen Z in Congress.

Wow, 25-year-old in Congress.

Also the first congressperson who ran because of a TikTok challenge.

And the first victory party in his parents' basement.

These are firsts.

Of course, now the big winner on the Republican side is the Florida governor.

DeSantis won by 20 points down there.

even won Blue Dade County, Miami.

Wow.

Won the Latinos.

Well, sure, when you give away free trips to Martha's Vineyard, you know.

But also, I think, you know,

DeSantis had a motto.

I think it resonated with a lot of people, and his motto was, where Florida is where woke goes to die.

Of course, Florida is where everybody goes to die.

So, I mean, but

look,

he's the new golden boy in the Republican Party.

It looks like the media in the Republican Party, certainly the Republican establishment, turning on Trump

for DeSantis.

They like DeSantis now.

So Trump finally knows what it feels like to be traded in for a younger model.

And he's blamed, you just see Trump is going on a rant today, went mental about his screed about blaming, of course, everybody else for this.

He's blaming Hannity, blaming Steve Wynn, blaming the governor of Virginia.

And then Kanye stuck his head in the door and went, don't forget about the Jews.

Trump even blamed, you know who he blamed for Dr.

Oz?

Melania.

I'm not kidding.

Blame Melania.

He said, wasn't her best decision.

And then she was fiddling with her wedding ring and said, well, I've made worse.

All right, we got a great show.

We have Robert Costa and Rocana.

And first up, he is the Democratic governor of Colorado who just won re-election on Tuesday.

Governor Jared Polis is here.

Governor,

great to meet you.

How are you doing?

Wonderful, thank you.

You must be doing wonderful.

You must be feeling great.

I have a strong victory.

Excited about the work ahead.

You're anticipating me.

Okay, but come on.

You must feel great.

You won.

You squashed your opponent, and your party did way better

than they thought.

Way better.

You didn't even see that coming, did you?

I did, really, yeah.

I mean, the two guys, I was just talking about DeSantis, you know, who won big.

From what I read, you and him, those are the two biggest victories I've seen by numbers.

You could be the Democrat DeSantis.

Well, I don't like to think of myself that way.

I know you don't.

You know, look, he's smart on policy, he's done some things right.

What I really don't like about, and I serve with Ron in the House for a little bit, is kind of the divisiveness, attacking people, attacking companies.

Colorado for everybody.

I ran on Colorado for all, more freedom,

lower taxes.

So what is

I'll just toss that out to you.

What is, you know, every Democrat would like to win their election, especially in a purple state like Colorado.

I mean, that's not an easy state, okay?

By 15, 20, whatever you won, 17 points.

What is your secret to being so popular?

You know, first of all, it's to run the state well, and I like to think I did.

We were, you know, we have a very strong economy, a lot of things going for us.

And we focus on saving people money, Bill, which is the real issue right now, right?

Costs have gone up.

People get inflation.

You know, there's talk about the causes of it.

But what's your governor doing?

So we passed over 50 ways to save people money.

We ended income tax on Social Security, income for seniors, eliminated sales tax on diapers.

We cut the income tax twice.

Biggest property tax cut in the history of Colorado.

So that's kind of what we're focused on delivering.

Why diapers?

No, seriously, why is that diaper?

That just stuck out in my mind as a guy who's never touched the diaper.

Well, here's why

do diaper people get a break?

And this is serious.

You actually might someday.

It's diapers for older people and for younger people.

It's all diapers.

No, I mean, it's serious.

It really is.

It's a senior 22.

Well, I'm not going to be in diapers for a while, wise guy.

Okay.

So, but also,

COVID.

That's something else you have in common with DeSantis, I must say.

Both were much more hands-off than a lot of governors.

I mean, understandable for him in Florida, or maybe not.

Another governor could have handled very differently.

But you kind of stuck out.

I mean, I saw a headline, or maybe it's a whole article, I think it was in New York magazine at one point, that said, is this the one Democratic governor who's figured out COVID?

And you even made a statement that basically said to people, I think this is back in 2021 when people were still freaking out, and you were like, look, if you're not protected by now, it's on you.

I mean, government certainly has a big role to play when there's a pandemic, but it went too far, in my my view, in a lot of people's view, and I think that's something that made you popular.

Do you agree?

You know, I defined what I thought the proper role was for us early on, which is to avoid exceeding our hospital capacity, right?

We had, at one point, 1,800 people in the hospital in Colorado.

By the way, America's lost over a million people is a very serious deal.

We were very close to hospital capacity, and that's what we managed.

Once it dropped off, it's up to people to take their own precautions.

It's a matter of responsibility, right?

You want to get vaccinated, get vaccinated, go and match what I mean?

Common sense.

Is that how you see yourself as a common sense Democrat?

I know you signed that law.

I thought it was great that children can be

unsupervised outside.

You know, literally,

the way I was raised by my parents, they would be arrested today.

Yeah.

Because

you can be arrested.

Certainly in California, you get in a lot of trouble for just letting a child walk to school or go to the store on his own.

You said this cannot be the case.

It's up to parents, right?

If you want to let your 10-year-old play in the neighborhood park alone, you shouldn't get caught up in child protective services and years of court.

I mean, and that was happening, right?

So we passed a law saying that is not a cause for being caught up in all of this.

And that's a parental decision.

I mean, some parents are helicopter parents, and they're with some kids like to let their kids play eight blocks away.

It's really up to the family, it's not up to the government.

That's what you're saying.

Which is

which sounds like

more like a libertarian, and I know there's a libertarian caucus in Congress, and I think you're the only Democrat in it.

Well, when I was in Congress, Liberty Caucus, Justin Amash, who's a wonderful, wonderful guy, he was one of the pro-impeachment Republicans.

He later became independent and then libertarian.

So I was in the Liberty Caucus, really strongly supported freedom, liberty, with Democrats and Republicans.

There was a small group of us.

Usually we were on the short end of almost every vote bill.

We lost more than we won, but at least we were making the arguments against the Patriot Act, against some of the overreaching of the federal government.

Does the Democratic Party have a problem with this issue?

It used to be the case that you could be a libertarian and a liberal at the same time.

I feel like that's gone away.

I would say we're still the more pro-freedom and pro-liberty of the two parties, but it's a low bar, right?

I mean, you have Republicans trying to micromanage what you do in your bedroom, who you love, when you have kids.

I mean, all these very intimate things.

It's scary, it really is.

But yeah, you also have some on the left that want to manage how you live your lives.

But as somebody who is pro-freedom, I've never had any trouble on the Democratic side.

I wish the Democratic Party was even more pro-freedom, but I do think we advanced the cause.

And this was

a big night for LGBT.

I think we have two lesbian governors now, which we didn't.

Are we over the gay hump?

I mean, as far as like

terrorists,

They encourage me to do the wrong things.

No, no, but you know what I'm saying.

It's a non-issue now.

I mean, and it wasn't long ago when it was an issue.

You couldn't even think about running.

For people, it was an issue.

And now you could be elected to almost any office.

It doesn't seem like it matters almost anywhere in the country.

It was still a thing, Bill.

When I ran for Congress, ran for governor.

Some of the Democratic elder statesmen, they said, oh, you're going to lose our state to Republicans.

Our state will never elect somebody who's gay, trying to pressure me out of it.

But to their credit, the people of Colorado, people in Massachusetts and Oregon said, it doesn't matter.

What we cares about what you stand for and what you're going to do.

It doesn't matter who you are.

America can change, can it?

You know, it's very.

Do you think when you run for president

it actually could be an advantage?

Because the Democratic Party

is very big on checking boxes.

And it's very hard to imagine any ticket now on the Democratic side that would have just two straight

white men.

It's impossible to imagine.

So they need to check boxes.

You check one of them.

Look, you know, I mean, first of all, I have the job I love.

I'm really passionate about Colorado.

I hope everybody visits Colorado and enjoys Colorado.

So you'll never run for a machine.

I love this job that I have.

This is the job I wanted.

Look, it's not a bad thing that the Democratic Party wants to look like America.

I mean, I think it is good that you have a party, you know, on race, on gender, on all these different, on faith, on all these different factors.

I mean, you want to look like America.

People should be able to look at themselves in the mirror and say, hey, there's somebody like me in Congress or somebody like me on the Supreme Court.

That's a good thing.

It is a good thing.

But the question, though, is, is it the priority?

I think that's what people hesitate sometimes about the Democrats.

Is it more of a priority than things like merit that should matter more?

Is it more of a priority than facts or science?

Yeah, it never should stand in the way of merit, right?

You always want the best president, the best member of Congress.

But what I think is exciting, at least where the Democrats are, and I think most Americans are, is these things don't matter.

I mean,

look at President Barack Obama, right?

First African-American president of the United States of America.

An amazing president, in my opinion, right?

Really great.

I worked with him on a lot of education stuff, did a great job.

So, I mean, it's just these barriers that are in people's minds still, like somehow I can't do this.

I think these are falling away.

And that there really is no barrier for anybody of any background, no matter their race, who they are, who they love, their faith, or if they're of no faith at all.

There's really no impediment there to serve in any office.

Well, I don't know about the no faith at all one.

Yeah, I think there's a.

I don't think an atheist could get elected dog catcher in this country.

You know, one of my friends in Congress, Jared Huffman, Northern California, he's a humanist.

He's

an atheist, humanist, and he won by record margins in Northern California.

And he's, I think, the first in the United States Congress to openly identify as a non-believer.

Well, there's one.

So you can look yourself in the mirror, Bill, and say, yes, someday you can serve in Congress, too.

Oh.

No, thanks.

So

you passed, Colorado passed mushrooms.

Yes.

Was this something you were passionately involved in, mushrooms?

I mean...

Not personally.

No, but

you never did mushrooms?

No, I never have.

Oh, you'll like it.

Now that it's legal, you're going to have to.

So, you know, today is Veterans Day, by the way.

And I want to thank to our veterans, those who serve, thank you to all of our veterans.

Amen.

There is a lot of promise that some of the mushroom-based therapies, natural medicine show for post-traumatic stress disorder, for depression, studies out of Johns Hopkins and others.

And we want to make that available.

I mean, we all know the bureaucracy at the FDA.

This stuff takes...

decades or years and it comes out costing a thousand dollars in a pill it's ridiculous right so we want to make this available it's promising We're going to work on getting it right from a health perspective in Colorado, but anything we can do to help those with PTSD and depression.

It's okay to do just for fun, too, right?

Yeah, our law was not really about that.

So, I mean,

it's more like the medical side.

I mean, people can grow it for their own use, but you can't sell it.

It's not like, so we have both medical marijuana and legalized marijuana.

I'm a strong supporter of both, right?

But this is more like the medical side for mushrooms.

And then, yes, there's no criminal penalties if you grow it yourself for recreational.

But what we're excited about are some of the medical opportunities.

You got her done.

We appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Good luck in your run for president.

All right, Governor Paulis, let's meet our panel.

Thanks for coming.

Hey.

All right.

Here they are.

He is the chief election and campaign correspondent for CBS News and co-author of Peril Robert Costa is with us

again.

Good to see you.

He is the congressman representing California Silicon Valley who previously worked for President Obama as the author of Dignity in a Digital Age, Making Tech Work for All of Us.

RoCana is over here, fresh from victory, I assume.

Exciting week.

Exciting week.

Yes, we had an election, and I must say, my old friend, Missam, Chris Matthews, used to always say, this is why we love politics.

Especially when there's a surprise.

You know, you just don't know.

And I mean, I thought this election, it's kind of like a colonoscopy.

I was expecting it to be unbearable, and it really wasn't that bad, you know?

You must be very relieved, for your part.

You didn't see it coming in.

No, I didn't.

I thought we would be down much more.

But here's what I actually want in a very simple way.

Democracy, because the people who got less votes decided they would concede.

I mean, what a novel concept.

What a novel concept.

You know, you had mimic odds.

The Trump guys say, oh, I got less votes.

Let me concede the election.

So what does that tell you?

It tells me that there are sane people in this country.

Exactly.

We're not as crazy as we thought.

You know, the democracy is more resilient.

And I think that that shows that that extremism, election denial, people had had enough of it.

And that's why we did better than expected.

And we just can't accept the conventional wisdom all the time.

It was hammered day in, day out by the media at times, that it was all about the economy.

It was all about the economy.

But reporting to me always reveals everything.

When I would travel around the country, people would talk about abortion rights.

They would talk about democracy.

That having democracy in this country is a decision, and they wanted to preserve it.

I also think

I've heard people say

folks tell lies to pollsters, and sometimes they do.

I don't think it's lying.

You know what I think it is?

Different surroundings.

You're asked the question on the phone by a pollster, and at the time you are, you totally think, yes, this is about gas prices.

I'm mad.

I filled up the car today.

And inflation and I'm pissed off and the crime and bad.

And they really thought that.

And then you get in the voting booth.

Focuses the mind.

And it's like you see the flag and you remember, oh, fuck.

Yeah.

America, democracy, that whole thing.

And that stuff came home.

It came the most inspiring election I can remember since Obama.

And they're choosing candidates.

I mean, you look across the board, so many Republicans were endorsing Trump's lie about the 2020 election.

And voters went in there, and I talked to many of them throughout the past year.

They say, we don't want to put someone in office who's not going to accept defeat.

Plus, I think they looked at the economy.

People were upset about gas prices.

And they said, well, what are the Republicans going to do?

Are they actually going to rein in the big oil companies that are making record profits?

They're running on the tax plan that basically destroyed Great Britain.

That didn't solve inflation.

So it's not like they had any

plan for inflation.

And just so folks who are watching and say, well, gee, I turned on CNN today and it seemed like it was even.

What do you think?

Saying the Democrats won so big.

How unprecedented it is, people should know, in a midterm election, okay, midterm elections, the party that is not in the White House always

wallops.

2010, Obama was in the White House.

The Democrats lost 64 seats, okay?

2018, Trump is in the White House.

The Republicans lost 42 seats.

Here, it's basically a draw.

I mean, not since right after 9-11 is the only time because people were freaked out and George Bush was in the White House.

The Republicans held on to the House.

So basically, Trump is as scary as 9-11.

Well,

that's really the message.

I think that's the takeaway.

But Bill,

give our president, Joe Biden, credit.

And I say this as a Bernie Sanders guy.

He has led.

He has inspired confidence.

The student loans was popular.

The reforms he made on marijuana was popular.

The fact that he's bringing back manufacturing jobs were popular.

He exceeded expectations.

Nobody wants him to run again.

Well, I don't get that.

Here's what I don't get.

You know, we finally have the Republicans not unified.

Civil war between DeSantis and Trump.

Can the Democrats just once be unified?

Not let's go and get it.

That'll never happen.

That'll never happen.

happen.

Can we be the unified party, Fruit?

You know, here's the thing.

You know what would unify America?

You know what I think would get 85% approval on any ballot if you said to the people, okay,

we won't run Trump if you don't run Biden.

Everybody, almost everybody would take that deal.

I really wonder if the Republicans are going to run Trump.

I was talking to people in his inner circle earlier today, and they say he's moving toward a run next week.

He wants to make an announcement, but people say he's in self-destruct mode.

In his inner circle.

He's been in that since he was 10 years old.

It only works.

And this time, though, some Republicans might call his bluff.

Santa, Junkin.

I agree.

I've said many times here, I'm not going to be the one to say the wicked witch is dead because I've seen

Jason come back from the grave too many times.

But I must say, it does seem closer than ever.

Time, time is such a great ally when the enemy is something that exhausts you.

He's exhausting.

And now it's like election after election.

It's finally, finally, maybe.

Yeah, well, people get bored of the apprentice, too.

I mean, things have a run.

I think he's.

Right.

Yeah, I think he's going to be.

Right, I really wonder in the Republican Party who's going to run against him.

If he gets in next week, is DeSantis in his early 40s going to want to risk his entire career?

Some of his...

Risk.

Why is that a risk?

Well, look, he goes after you personally.

He goes after your family.

He goes...

A lot of people don't want to get in the arena and get bloodied up.

Look, there there are people, though, who are different than Donald Trump and the Republican Party, Marco, Rubio, Ben S.

DeSantis is not one of them.

Let's just be clear.

DeSantis is, for people who care about the First Amendment, I mean, he's bullying Disney if he says the wrong thing.

I don't think even Trump went that far.

Well,

where is DeSantis on election denial?

Where is DeSantis on abortion rights and having even an exception for rape and

incest?

Well, I think Florida, I think one reason he did well in Florida is because didn't he have a 15-week rule, which is similar to what they have in Europe?

He did not go as far as the...

Well, he's not been clear.

He's not been clear whether he opposes an abortion national ban.

Does he oppose what Lindsey Graham says?

But he certainly didn't do what a lot of very conservative people did in conservative states, which was say, this is like moment of birth, you know, moment of, rather, moment of conception.

That was the, you know, I think in Missouri they called it after the first heartbeat, which sounds like a Celine Dion song.

The Republicans got everything they wanted.

Mitch McConnell overhauled the judiciary.

They got what they wanted from this Supreme Court, and they paid a political price.

A lot of Republicans across the country didn't believe voters would come out on this issue in such massive ways.

Well, there were two issues: it was Trump and abortion.

And I think on the abortion issue, it's what I've been saying for many years, especially now that parents raise children so horribly and they're

People don't like children.

They don't want more of these feral little entitled monsters in the world.

And I think

I love my kids.

It's displeased.

Well, they're not watching, so don't worry.

But I mean, I understand what you're saying about DeSantis.

The reason why I think DeSantis is so strong is because he can do both things.

He can do the performance art that seems to have you so exercised to the bass, most of which I don't really know if it's that damaging.

He picks a fight with Disney.

Does it really affect anybody?

I mean, I read the don't say gay, which is not the name of the law.

They called it the don't say gay law.

It could have been called the let's do things in schools the way we did five years ago law.

It really could have.

So what I'm saying is he can do both that, but he, yes, he knows how to rile up the base.

I agree.

He's a politician.

But he also can be a normal governor.

In other words, after the storm, he can stand with President Biden like a normal governor does and work with him and then send some migrants to Martha's Vitamin.

You know, and that's a very powerful thing to have both those elements.

Well, first of all, what he did with Disney is say, if you disagree with me, if you're taking an opinion criticizing what I did, you can't do business in our state.

You're going to be singled out.

That's a dangerous violation of the First Amendment.

But the other thing is, look, Trump, when he ran in 2016, he said, they took away your means of making a living.

They shipped your jobs offshore.

The community, small town, rural America was decimated.

I'm going to bring back production.

He had an economic theory.

He understood people's pain and people who were left out.

This president, Joe Biden, actually for the first time is bringing production back after 40 years, bringing manufacturing back.

Ron DeSantis has no economic vision.

He's got no foreign policy vision.

So he's going to run on picking on transgender kids.

That's going to be his platform.

What's that going to do in Youngstown, Ohio?

What is a governor's foreign policy plan?

And that's what he's going to say,

that's why he's not going to be a political police.

Florida.

Florida is not in the U.N.

It's like,

Jesus Christ.

I mean, the Republican Party, though, may not be defined by Trump and DeSantis in the coming months.

You could have a Speaker, Kevin McCarthy from California, with the narrowest of majorities.

I spoke to him in recent days.

He says investigations on COVID are coming on Afghanistan.

They may try to impeach members of the Biden cabinet, may try to impeach President Biden himself.

That's on the horizon, potentially in January.

A totally turbulent Congress.

You're going to be in it.

Right.

Right.

I mean, they would make it.

Let's see if McCarthy even gets the votes.

I mean, he's not going to have an easy time if it's a slim riot.

He might have to try to deal with the Freedom Caucus.

They may want some Democrats over McCarthy.

I mean, he does not have the confidence of a lot of the folks in his caucus.

But the other thing is that, look, when Newt Gingrich came in, they overreached.

And if McCarthy thinks that going after President Biden or his family is good politics, he's got a root awakening.

He might not, but Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's going to be hovering over his shoulder.

What people want is for folks to solve their problems.

They want people to bring back good jobs here.

They want people to deal with the gas prices.

And if the Republicans are going to say, well, we're going to have a two-year show on Hunter Biden, they're going to be punished and they're going to be able to do it.

Well, I hear President Biden is telling his friends he wants to deal directly with Mitch McConnell, that he doesn't want to deal with McCarthy in the House Republicans, that 2023 is likely going to be Biden cutting deals with McConnell on things like the debt limit to keep this thing going.

Again, it's all going to come down to whether the Republicans look at Trump and go, the guy who said,

you're going to be so tired of winning.

No, we're tired of losing.

You're a loser and you keep losing.

I mean, Georgia.

How many elections has he now fucked up in Georgia?

I mean,

look at where Brian Kemp got.

Brian Kemp, the governor, got so much more votes.

Not since Sherman has anyone caused this amount of damage in Georgia that he has caused to the Republican Party.

Yes, exactly.

All the people, it's funny, the deniers didn't do well, and the defiers

did well.

You're right, Brian Kemp defied him.

Raphsonberger, the guy, you know, the, I want to find 11,000 votes.

Turns out integrity works.

Sometimes it does.

No, the American people, I've always said they're brilliant and I love them.

I'm glad you're now optimistic, though, Bill, about American democracy, because you you had some dark moments.

And now you're back.

Last week I had a dark moment.

And

I hope it scared some people into voting.

So you get credit.

You get credit for the election.

You said democracy, you and Biden.

Maybe that's the ticket.

Biden more.

Democracy is at stake.

No, all right.

Well, listen,

speaking of prognosticators, it was a bad week.

I saw this.

This is the headline in, the headline, the cover of Newsweek.

It's Trump on the cover.

You ain't seen nothing yet.

Now, of course, he could still make a big comeback, but I feel like this is another thing that was done when we all thought it was going to be a big red wave, and it looks really bad now.

And

this happens all the time.

It happens in publishing.

We've noticed it here on this show.

We do a segment called Books That Didn't Age Well.

We used to have a graphic for it, we lost it.

But anyway, this

But Liz Truss is the prime minister, was the prime minister for 45 days

in England.

And

as soon as she was elected, they put out a book called Out of the Blue, Liz Truss.

There it is.

Now she's going to do great.

Well, I mean, this is an example of what we're talking about, books that did not age well.

Would you like to see some of the others that...

Yeah, there's a lot of them that did not age well.

There's like

Herschel Walker's What to Expect When You're Expecting did not age well

Did not age well

Paul Pelosi's Home Security for Dummies did not age well

Adam Levine's big book of baby names was just not

a great idea for a book.

Kanye West's Uncancelable, How to Insulate Yourself from Media Fallout was not.

That didn't do well.

Elon Musk's Stealth, The Art of Taking Over a Company Without Making Waves, was not

Thomas Friedman's reissue of The World is Flat with a new introduction by Kyrie Irving.

Was just

Queen Elizabeth kissed my ass, Betty White, living to a hundred and line

And to Tom and Giselle Brady, meshing marriage and career, our guide to having it all.

Anyway, let's

so

let's talk about the Democratic side of this.

Now, I mean, most people do not want Biden to run.

But he said a boost by what happened on Tuesday.

But even the exit polling from that said two-thirds people do, including including most Democrats, they saw him as a temp.

They saw him as a guy who did a job.

You know, he's the sheriff who came to town, and he did it.

He got rid of Bad Bart or whoever the bad guy was.

And now, and come on.

I mean, look, and I'm...

In his inner circle,

he's been running for president since 1990.

And now he got it.

He checked that.

And now he checked that box off.

It's off his bucket list.

He was president.

But is Roe going to challenge him in the primary?

Is Roe going to challenge him in the primary?

What a question.

No, because look, the polls keep showing that Joe Biden wouldn't win.

I knew that when I was co-chairing Bernie Sanders' campaign, we thought he was never going to win.

And then guess what?

He won.

And the polls kept saying that he wasn't going to do well in the midterms.

And guess what?

He did well in the midterms.

This is one of the most resilient people in American politics.

He has extraordinary resilience, what he's gone through.

And I genuinely believe this.

Look, I wasn't for him in the primary.

I think he's doing this out of real patriotism.

He's doing it out of of real patriotism.

He wants to bring this country together.

He wants to bring jobs back.

He has a sense of decency.

And look, he's earned the right to make the decision.

What the Congressman just says encapsulates why he's likely to run for re-election when you talk to his advisors, because you were co-chair of Bernie Sanders' campaign.

And that wing of the progressives are not angling to take on President Biden in the primary.

Governor Newsom, not trying to take on President Biden.

So at this point, if he decides to do it, he may have a clear path.

A clear path?

Oh, I don't think

to the nomination.

I don't even think that.

You think someone will step up?

I think when the polling shows, this many people don't want him to run.

And look, nobody rails against ageism more than I do here on this show.

I'm against it.

I think it's stupid.

Most other countries in the world are not like America.

They venerate old people.

They understand their wives.

But

this is America, you know?

It's the gun country.

It's the ageist country.

It's just the country we live in, okay?

okay?

And they just don't like it.

And if it's Trump against Biden, the electorate will be so turned off.

And also, I'll give you another reason why, a good reason why Biden shouldn't run.

The Kamala problem.

Now, I like Kamala Harris,

but for whatever reason, it just didn't work out, okay?

I think she would make a great president of the University of Santa Barbara here in California.

But

if Joe doesn't run,

then we don't have to worry about her running, because it's hard to get rid of your running mate that you ran with last time.

But if you don't run, then that kind of goes out with you.

I sat down with her ahead of the election, and she said this whole election is going to be about democracy and abortion rights.

And people looked at those comments and said,

what's she talking about?

She called it.

Lots of people said that.

A lot of people said the economy was going to be everything.

Well, yes, like I said, people thought differently when they got in the booth.

Okay, so great, great, but okay.

Let me put it another way.

Couldn't Biden wind up doing a kind of Ruth Bader Ginsburg thing where he stays on a little too long and takes down the whole thing with him?

That's what I worry about.

He's in good health.

He's in good health now.

No, and he's, you know, he's someone.

Let me say this.

People say he's a little befuddled sometimes.

No.

Oh, come on.

Look, he's.

He keeps saying his son was killed killed in Iraq and he wasn't.

The times I've interacted with the president.

Yes,

he's not seen I think.

And been there

for hours in meetings, he is perfectly coherent.

But here's the thing: you know, young people came out in record numbers in this midterm.

Still shitty, but yes, record.

Yeah.

Why?

Because the president forgave student loans, because the president listened to them and did reform on marijuana, because the president has passed the biggest climate bill.

Not everyone's a total salesman on the president.

I sat down with Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking black American Congress, the majority whip, and he told me on election night bill, he said, regardless of what happens tonight, the Democrats have a message problem.

When I said, should Biden run in 2024, you know what Jim Clyburn told me?

I declined to comment on that.

We'll see who has the best role to play in the months to come.

Clyburn, a seasoned guy, is saying, let's just see what happens.

And he said, our party would be better if we had people with President Obama's skill set on speechmaking and President Biden's policies.

But he didn't necessarily say Biden needs to be the standard bearer.

I thought that was interesting.

Sure, but look, yeah, if we could have Barack Obama as the nominee, I take that too.

But you know, the Democrats, you know, we're also capable of nominating people who won one state.

So you really want to roll the dice with an open primary process.

I mean, we have the incumbent in the White House who has beaten Donald Trump, who is the incumbent president with huge advantages, and just had

a terrific

he will definitely beat Trump again.

Would he beat DeSantis?

That I don't know.

And it's going to look weird because he will be like literally twice as old as him.

No, really.

And DeSantis has like three little kids.

You know, that always plays well in America.

America likes new.

It really likes strange.

We want some strange.

You know,

you said DeSantis shouldn't run.

DeSantis should run now and quickly.

This is the problem Chris Christie.

Right, he could have have run in 2011, 2012.

Sometimes in politics, you have one chance.

Well, you don't, the longer you stay at the fair, the more you get beat up.

The more, more, like when Obama ran, they said he has no record.

And he went, good.

Great.

I'm glad I have no record because people don't give a shit.

Comparing DeSantis to Obama is like that line that Lloyd Benson had with Dan Quill is no John F.

Kennedy.

DeSantis is no Barack Obama.

Well, I mean, it's not.

That's not that wasn't.

DeSantis may have a, this is his moment in the sense that the Republican Party, for the first time in seven years, is starting to say, hmm, maybe not on Trump.

That gives us a lot of things.

Exactly.

Right.

Okay, so what does Merrick Garland do?

Now, Trump is probably going to run again simply to avoid jail, right?

Or does it?

Isn't that a great reason to run?

I mean, he would anyway, because he's an egomaniac.

His advisors tell me he would love to be a federal candidate if an indictment comes.

So he can say that.

That's all political.

So Merrick Garland is in this ridiculously hard place as head of the Justice Department.

He's got to thread this needle where he doesn't want to look partisan, but it's his job to hold people accountable.

And you cannot have it that a guy attempts a coup, which he absolutely did, and the only punishment is that it fails.

That cannot stand, right?

I agree with that.

I think Merrick Garland is...

So what does he do?

But if he indicts him, then he makes him a martyr as he's running for president.

I don't think he's going to look at the politics.

I think he's going to follow the...

Come on.

No, I don't think Barbara.

I think people like in the Congress shouldn't.

That's why we shouldn't be talking about it.

We may look at the politics.

He isn't.

He is by the book.

Here's the only thing he's going to look at.

He's going to want to make sure that he can convict.

The last thing he wants to do is indict someone and then not be able to convict them in the jury.

I think if he believes he has the evidence to convict someone for a crime, he will indict them.

Here's what I know.

I've spoken to lawyers, sources who are close to the January 6th grand jury, the DOJ's grand jury on January 6th, they just said, be patient, wait.

This is a sprawling investigation going into everything from not only the violence of the day, but Trump's pressure campaign on alternate electors, those fake electors in the states, on pens.

I'm told this Justice Department investigation is almost like a RICO case.

Everybody's being brought in to talk.

And what will the result be?

Well,

the challenge is: will it be an indictment, not just on records and how he handled records that were marked as classified, but will this be a conspiracy, a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election?

That one they should forget about.

I mean, it's to me the classified documents that he took to

cargo and put in the shack with the croquet equipment.

It's totally wrong.

It absolutely should be indictable.

But it's like Ukraine, when they impeach him for Ukraine, it just is not going to catch on.

It just, in the people's minds, it's just not going to be a thing.

But a coup?

A criminal conspiracy to overturn the election.

Come on.

You got to.

That's what they're looking at.

Yeah.

And I think they will.

So, all right.

So before we run out of time, I just want to run down a few other names since I couldn't get Governor Polis to say he's running for president.

Maybe I can get it to you to say it because

Paul is going to wrong?

Well, he said it.

Well,

he wouldn't even.

As a reporter, I think if President Biden doesn't run, Polis runs and Connor run.

I think it's going to be the widest open nomination fight we've seen.

I think they both run.

Right.

And it's perfect because no straight white guys.

I will say this, David.

The last thing you want is a straight white guy.

Sorry, Gavin Newsom.

I will say this,

all the question you asked.

I don't think it should matter.

I don't think it should matter whether someone's Indian America gays or I think what should matter is what is your vision for this country.

There are places in this country for 40 years we've had places that have declined.

People are hurting.

They're telling their kids to leave communities.

Who's going to bring production back?

Who's going to bring manufacturing back?

Who's going to bring this country together?

That's the only thing that should matter whether someone's white, straight, gay, Indian, whatever.

It should have absolutely no idea.

It shouldn't.

Right.

But it will.

I don't think it will.

It will.

Look,

I have no dog in this fight.

I'm not running for president.

I don't care if it's two white men or two or two fucking purple people.

But I'm just saying the Democratic Party, where they are with identity politics, they will never have two straight white guys, and maybe they shouldn't.

I'm just saying that's a fact.

That just can't be.

So, you got to be check one of the boxes.

Luckily, you do.

I think they're looking for a winner, too.

I mean, Paul is winning big in Colorado, says a lot.

Whitmer winning big in the Michigan gubernatorial.

There's a whole new generation coming up.

You talk about 2010.

You know what happened in 2010?

A whole generation of Democrats wiped out rising stars because of that Republican wave.

We've seen in the past decade a new crop come up.

Yeah.

No, here's Frank Bruni put a list together.

Let me read some of the people who think this might be the bench.

Kamala Harris, well, we talked about her.

Pete Buttigej, gay, great.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer, yep.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, Rochana, Governor Jared Polis, Gavin Newsom, sorry,

and Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Those are his lists.

Anybody on that list think is better than anybody else?

Joe Biden, who meets your criteria.

I'll tell you the one thing that the Democrats need.

We need to have a clear vision of patriotism.

We need to say that this country has made tremendous progress on race.

We really have.

We made tremendous progress on gender.

We are the greatest country in the world.

It's as crazy as I thought.

And I think that that message of an inclusion and a vision for the country.

I'm celebrating the progress we made.

Nobody's being being so down on ourselves.

That's a democratic problem.

I was telling you, the one thing Liz Trust did is pave the way for a British Indian to become prime minister of

my grandfather spent four years in jail with Gandhi in Indian independence.

Two generations later, you have someone Indian who's leading Britain.

How can you not say that history is moving forward?

Of course, history is moving forward.

All right, on that note, we'll conclude tonight.

Very entertaining, guys.

Time for new rules, everybody.

New rules.

okay

new rural news photographers have to admit they carry little pink dolls in their luggage

for when they cover disaster stories sure

sure the scene is tragic but it needs something to make people go oh

Because the first rule of journalism is the sadder the photo, the better the seat at the correspondence dinner.

New rule, if you buy this cigarette holder ring so you can smoke while leaving your other fingers free to play video games,

congratulations, you managed to do what 50 years of PSAs and morning labels could not, making smoking uncool.

New rule, before you get the warm and fuzzies for China based on this quaint photo of a Beijing man taking a picture of a tree, consider that this is China and the tree is also taking a picture of him.

Nerul, now that we know a federal officer working on the case of Brooklyn fugitive Koshan Burton, coincidentally bumped into him and arrested him while vacationing at Florida's Disney World.

He has to please tell us that as he slapped on the cuffs, he said, it's a small world after all.

New rule, let Black Adam out of the theaters before you bring out Black Panther.

I mean, Republicans are scared enough.

Last year it was Black Widow, Black Friday, Black as Night, and Meet the Blacks 2.

The year before it was Black Bird, Black Box, Black Beauty, Black Bear, Black as King, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and today, today, they released a movie called, Is That Black Enough For You?

Yes, it's a great time to be a black actor, and a terrible time to own a movie theater in Idaho.

And finally, new rules, someone needs to explain to me how there have been over 1,200 books written about the Trump presidency.

Books that were mostly competing to reveal every detail of his life.

And not one of them tells me the one thing I'm most curious about.

Who is Donald Trump fucking?

He's fucking somebody.

And it's not Melania and it's not nobody.

He's a dog and always has been and I doubt that went away after he became the most powerful man in the world.

How is it possible?

I don't have the answer to this question.

Who is blowing Donald Trump?

How could it be that if you read every page of Fire and Fury, Confidence Man, Team of Vipers, a very stable genius, betrayal, disloyal, revenge, unhinged, rage, fear, peril, blitz, full disclosure, the divider, and the room where it happened, you'd still have no idea what happened in the room.

We know everything else about the guy down to the most minute detail because everyone around him has the loyalty of a pet scorpion.

All White Houses are a bit of a sieve, but the Trump White House leaked more than Nick Cannon's condoms.

Well,

we know he cuts his own hair with giant scissors.

We know he listens to show tunes to calm down.

We know he gets two scoops of ice cream and everybody else gets one.

We know he tweets on the toilet and throws documents down the toilet.

We know he cheats at golf, was once caught eating paper,

doesn't like dogs, is a germaphobe, uses a tanning bed, once cashed a check for 13 cents,

has his pants steamed while wearing them,

sleeps four hours a night, and hesitated to give Don Jr.

his name because what if he's a loser?

We even know that his penis is shaped like a mushroom.

How is it possible we don't know who is servicing it?

And don't tell me it's nobody.

He's on tape bragging that when you're a star, you can do anything you want.

Okay, that guy didn't just go away.

Alpha dogs never die.

Never.

Anthony Quinn had a baby out of wedlock at 78.

His wife was very mad at him, and then he did it again at 81.

Italy's lecherous old prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was having bunga-bunga parties in his 70s.

Do you think Donald Trump just one day said, yeah, sex was fun, but I think I'll switch to building ships in a bottle?

And again, we know it's not Melania.

Please, please, it's just not.

She won't even give him hand.

No, no.

She hates him, and he's made it plain he's not into women her age.

To him, she's a mild, a mom I'd like to divorce.

Do they even live together?

Is she alive?

He seems to live completely as a single man.

Still alpha, still crazy, and I bet still horny.

It doesn't add up.

Someone or some team of people...

Lindsey Graham could be involved.

Possibly Hannibal.

Someone is blowing Donald Trump, and it's a scandal.

We don't know what the scandal is.

We certainly know all about his past sex life.

The cheating, the groping, the walking into the dressing room at beauty pageants, hot for daughter,

telling 10-year-olds he'll be dating them in 10 years,

the parties with Epstein, the grabbing pussies, the porn star mistress, everything.

And then the historical record goes blank.

What happened?

Why can't we unearth his bone?

Not even anything from the last two years when he's at Mar-a-Lago?

He lives at a country club with hundreds of people coming and going.

He wouldn't even have to fake how the group he's got in.

And they must get in.

He's a man who lives to be adored.

And Florida is full of thousands of unhinged MAGA sluts who

see him as sent by God to save America.

And it's well-known evangelical chicks are the freakiest.

Cult leaders get laid.

There is no way this is not happening.

Who is blowing Donald Trump?

I have to know this.

I have a right to know this.

It's not like these are the days of JFK when the media covered up indiscretions for the sake of the country.

Oh, right, the media has too much class to blab.

This would get the most clicks ever.

Twitter would be so lit up, Elon would have to hire back all the employees.

I mean,

I don't count on the news media for much anymore, but I do expect them to tell me who's fucking who.

Unless,

no, it couldn't be.

Well, unless the answer, Donald, is you just can't.

Well, I

I remember...

I remember you once guaranteed that there was no problem.

I guarantee you there's no problem.

I guarantee it.

Well, maybe there is.

Maybe there is a problem, in which case I feel for you.

No, I'm just saying.

I'm not trying to bait you into a response to prove your dick worked.

Maybe it does.

It's possible theoretically, but

really, there's no other explanation how a cult leader with hundreds of willing groupies who's not restrained by his wife, by his options, or by morals, could not be having sex with anyone.

I wouldn't be surprised if you nicknamed your penis Mike Pence.

Because it's not hung like it should be.

anyway.

Donald, I know you're thinking about running again, so I just want to say good luck with the campaign.

And now that your own party thinks of you as a loser, remember, no one wants a limp dick in the White House.

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at the Hulu and Madison Square Garden in New York tomorrow night.

Fox Ridge in Connecticut on the 13th, and the Mirage in Vegas, November 25 and 26th.

I want to thank Robert Costa, Rochana, and Jared Polis.

Now go to YouTube and join us on Overtime.

Thank you, folks.

Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10, or watch him anytime on HBO On Demand.

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