Ep. #603: Dr. Cornel West, Kellyanne Conway, Josh Barro

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

Start the clock.

Thank you, Facebook.

How are you?

Thank you very much.

Okay.

How are you?

Thank you.

Thank you.

From the balcony.

There's no balcony.

I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

What a revved-up crowd we have, I'm sure.

This is

because you've been watching the hearings, the January 6th.

No, just me.

Okay.

Well,

that's why I'm here to watch things for you.

Anyway, this is kind of a big thing.

January 6th, remember that when they tried to coup and the whole thing?

Okay, so let me just sum it up for you.

Like, if this was a game of clue,

it would be Captain Pumpkin

in the White House with the remote.

Okay, then.

But

a lot of people thought it was going to be the same old news.

Actually, there's a lot of new footage because there was a guy, a documentary filmmaker, who was embedded with the Proud Boys.

Little note to the Proud Boys, if you're going to commit treason, don't bring a film crew.

I would say...

And we know now that, I mean, everybody told Trump that he lost the election.

Hannity, they have texts from Sean Hannity.

saying to Trump, no more stolen election talk.

Okay, that's proof that Trump knew knew that the calls were coming from inside your ass.

Now, this

pretty much did lay it out pretty well, I got to say, that Trump was, first of all, fully aware that he lost the election, but he still opted to just go with the lie that it was a big fraud and that he conspired to thwart the

whatever.

I'm so angry about all this

About Biden getting elected when he was fully, rightly elected.

If only someone, someone had been around to say that Trump was never going to concede the election.

I don't see him leaving under any conditions.

Oh, I'm the guy who says he's not leaving even if he loses the election.

People have been saying I'm an alarmist and I'm crazy because I keep saying he's not going to leave.

He's not going to leave even if he loses the election.

There's a lot more of those, but we didn't want to waste your time there.

Even Ivanka testified by videotape.

Ivanka,

while the riot was going on, begged him to do something.

But of course, Donald Trump, one thing he's learned to tune out, it's Ivanka saying, Daddy, please stop.

Oh, little shows.

We make little shows, too.

And listen to this, we found out when

the mob was chanting, Hang Mike Pence, Trump said, maybe our supporters have the right idea.

Pence deserves it.

Yes, he wanted to murder his vice president, which is completely normal in North Korea.

This is what I would call a smoking noose.

And of course, Republicans have now mounted a very, very aggressive defense to all this.

Yes, so what?

That's what they have.

No refutations, only distractions.

You think what Trump was bad, what he did with his number two?

What about what Amber Heard did with her number two?

You know, that's just their whole.

Fox News wouldn't even show it.

They had their regular programming.

They put it on Fox Business Network because I think we could all agree this is a business story.

The Fox News website today had, you know, what the big thing was on it?

Brittany Spears.

One of her exes crashed her wedding.

This is like if during Watergate, the Washington Post ran a story about Cher falling in the pool.

And yet Democrats are going to get their ass kicked.

You know, this is, I mean, we had an election.

Did anybody realize that?

We had a mayor right here and voted on our election.

In seven states, and you know, the Democrats are in big trouble because, I mean, they're even turning on their own people because of some of this far-left stuff.

In San Francisco, can't get much more liberal than that.

They threw out the DA, Chesa Boudin.

They didn't like like his campaign slogan, a homeless man shitting in every pot.

And of course, you know, inflation.

This is what people vote on.

There was a headline in every website today: gas now $5 a gallon.

And everyone in LA went, oh, finally, some good news.

And there's a new thing, shrinkflation.

You know what this is?

They don't want to raise the price too much to alarm you.

So they just don't give you as much of everything.

They say if this continues,

food portions in this country should be almost normal.

Yeah.

I mean, what's really alarming is that people have now spent all the free money from COVID.

So like Target, they have too much stock.

They announced they're slashing their prices.

Their new new slogan is Walmart prices without Walmart people.

And

shortages.

People do not like shortages.

Now they say there's going to be a Tampax shortage.

Okay, you're not going to be able to get an abortion.

Can't buy a tampon.

If you missed your period, just start hoarding babies.

Formula right now.

Oh, fuck it.

You know what I was trying to say.

All right, we've got a great show.

Josh Barrow and Kellyanne Conway are here.

But first up, he is a professor of philosophy and Christian practice at New York's Union Theological Seminary.

Dr.

Cornell West is over here.

Doc?

Wow.

All right.

That's it.

Give it up.

How are you?

Great to get a reception like that from a man like you.

I appreciate it.

It's been a long time.

It's been

on you, my dear brother.

We still here, though.

Yeah.

We still here.

A lot of good people are gone.

A lot of good people are gone.

A lot of very high-quality folks are gone, though, buddy.

So we're celebrating being alive.

All right.

Absolutely.

And we want to celebrate.

Mary Knowles.

Mary Knowles.

Mary Knows 28 years.

Yes, 28 years of high-quality folks.

Producers on the air.

Absolutely.

Indeed, indeed.

Yes.

But yes, we are still here.

Now, what did you think of the hearings?

I was just mentioning the hearings.

What did you, the big story going on?

What's your take?

Well, you know, brother, I'm not surprised by evil or paralyzed by despair.

And we're at such a low moment in the history of the country that we have to be unflinching in our attempt to recognize levels of corruption, organized hatred, institutionalized fear,

and hypocrisy, and at the same time straighten our backs up and be willing to bear witness to integrity, honesty, and decency.

So I'm glad that they exposed, you you know, lies and crimes and so forth.

Criminality tends to go hand in hand with mendacity.

But we shouldn't be overwhelmed by it.

That's the fear I have of my fellow citizens and fellow human beings.

You know what I mean?

So we had an election here,

and the person who got the most votes, it's a Democratic primary, but it's going to be a Democratic winner in the fall.

Okay.

So it was this guy, Rick Caruso, white guy, billionaire, and Karen Bass.

I know them both, like them both.

She's a black congressperson.

Sure.

He beat her by 30 points with black men.

What's up with that?

You know, it's hard to say, though, man.

My dear brother, Mark Ridley-Thomas, who I love like a brother who's been mistreated in so many different ways, that when I saw what Caruso did in his head, I had real critique of that.

So that I have a certain suspicion of certain politicians who come flying in from the top with billionaire money and think somehow they're going to be messianic in terms of dealing with the mess that sometimes they actually help cause.

Now, I'm not saying that in his case, but if I looked a little deeper, I might see some connections.

So in that sense...

So he wasn't in politics before this.

No, but I know, but that's what it is.

As you know, the organized greed has such an impact on our electoral political system that it makes it so truncated.

We got a choice between neo-fascists like Brother Trump or milquetoast neoliberals like Brother Biden.

Wow.

I'm so happy to make a world-shaking decision.

You know what I mean?

And you think of all the decent people in America.

All the decent people in the country, how do we end up so hiding?

These mediocre folk at the time.

But I see Biden is down with his

black folks.

Can I just read,

I've looked into this.

Here are some of the things he's done.

Sure.

Pointed one of the most diverse cabinets in history.

First, of course, black and female vice president.

Directed federal agencies on the first day to address the impacts of systemic racism.

Extended the eviction moratorium that disproportionately helped black families remain safe during COVID.

Executive order improved educational opportunities for black people.

Barred the use of chokeholds.

DOJ sued Georgia over

discriminatory voting laws.

His cash relief program cut black child poverty by 40%.

And Juneteenth is now a federal holiday.

And first black woman to the Supreme Court.

No good.

No.

Well, those are wonderful given.

So why do you call Scripture to which?

Milk toast because

he still is tied to Wall Street.

He's got crimes of foreign policy.

No, but he's a policy.

Saudi Arabia is mistreating the Yemenite folk.

Committee crimes against Palestinians.

He's not going to say a word about.

And look, he's in town right now.

We just had the People's Summit, as you know.

I know.

Right across from him, right?

So we had the Summit.

And what are people doing?

With Latin America.

We are on the cutting edge of human rights.

We are USA in Latin America?

On the cutting edge of human rights with one.

Two year white guy impression again.

We are on the

precious brothers and sisters in Latin America, we overthrowing democratic parties, we in friendly terms with dictators.

Let's just be honest and candid, and most importantly, though, let's be honest and candid and say we're living in the real world.

Nobody gets everything.

Nobody gets everything.

It's like,

oh, I'm not at all.

But you are.

I mean, okay, so

like you mentioned, he's talking to Saudi Arabia.

I agree.

You should reset the button.

Yes, of course.

It's committing crime.

It's a tremendous hypocrisy.

He's a politician.

That's what part of the gig is.

Wait a second.

Let me just finish.

Yes, he doesn't want to invite the people

to the Avenue of the Americas.

You got New York City on your mind.

The summit of the Americas.

No harm in that.

No harm in that.

I live in Harlem.

I live in Harlem.

Because he didn't invite Cuba and Nicaragua and Venezuela because they are led by dictators, which I agree is so silly because he's about to meet with Saudi Arabia because they have the gas.

And you've got to gain the gas.

And he's going to come from Brazil sitting with him meeting in private.

but if you don't get

if you don't get the people gas and the people have a lot of gas already

if you don't get the they

they're gonna lose badly but they're gonna lose even worse it's just gonna elect a Republican so this is the world that we live in people do have to make compromises even good people but there's a difference between and you know based on your wonderful Ivy League training at Cornell University

and the few colleges, you have to say.

Prudentia.

Phronesis.

Practical wisdom is not opportunistic judgment.

Just like pragmatism is not opportunism.

If you make wise judgments relative to constraints,

principles can be compromised, but the principles are still retained.

Once you have very little principles, it's all about power.

all about manipulation, all about spectacle, all about image.

That's very much what American politics is about these days in both parties.

Spectacle, studio, share shows.

And so when you say, well, if they're hypocrites, we got to allow for the hypocrisy.

No, not at all, especially when you blues men like you and I, because I know your sensibility in terms of how you wrestle with catastrophe.

When you're a blues man or a blues woman, what does that mean?

You don't tell the truth with style and a smile, no matter what the consequences are, and walk off and say, I hope to do better, try again, fail again, fail better, like Samuel Beckett said.

Okay, I think I'm down with that.

And you would agree with that.

Yes, you'd agree with that.

But Doug, I mean, you mentioned Cornell, and you know, you've taught at a few colleges.

And you...

Just did three.

Just three.

Okay.

Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.

Pretty good one.

Okay.

And now you're at another one.

Now I'm at Union, theology.

Seminary.

You had a great, great, great seminar.

Okay, and I loved what you wrote a couple of years, maybe a year ago, when you said Howard University had cut their classics department.

And you condemned that.

And I thought that was great because

it was anti-tribal.

You were saying, we need the Western canon.

Oh, of course.

I mean, Diderot, Shakespeare, Dante, the greatest literary figure of the last 150 years.

Chekhov himself.

And it's hard to say good things about Russians these days, given that vicious attack on our precious Ukrainian brothers and sisters.

But Chekhov lives.

Just like after Hitler, gangster that he was, Beethoven lives.

So we have to be able to make those kind of distinctions.

Very important.

Very important.

But you said there's a massive failing in our schooling.

You said we're schooling, we're not giving education.

That's right.

I don't know if we're even schooling.

But I mean, some of that, I mean, anti-racist dogma teaches things like that math can be racist,

that things that they associate with whiteness.

I'm not sure what that exactly is, but like being on time.

Do you agree with that stuff?

Yeah, but you know, brother, you know me long enough to know that I am a fallible, finite, fallen follower of Jesus of Nazareth.

And what that means is, is that spiritual and moral greatness

have nothing to do with skin pigmentation, gender, sexual orientation, or national identity.

It has to do with human beings making choices in the name of love and justice, not hatred and revenge.

In the name of integrity, honesty, decency, and so forth.

I mean, you know, I get in trouble by calling Trump a brother.

How come you call Brother Trump a brother?

He's made in the image of God.

He chooses to be a gangster.

Right.

He chooses to be.

I was a gangster before I met Jesus, and now I'm a redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities.

Meaning what?

We're humans all the way down.

You could be an atheistic brothers and sisters.

I'm going to love you anyway, whether you're right or wrong.

But at the same time, you and identity

sounds like you're making an argument against identity politics.

Well, it's against identity politics when it swerves from moral greatness and spiritual greatness and integrity, honesty, decency.

Now, somebody like John Coltrane, he is as black as he can be in the most beautiful sense, but a love supreme ain't about just loving black people.

It's loving everybody.

Right.

You see what I mean?

I do.

Absolutely.

Steven Sondheim, Jewish as he can be.

His middle name is what?

Joshua.

One of the greatest musical

geniuses before he died.

But as he digs deep into his Jewishness, following Oscar Hammerstein, his mentor words, he end up embracing all of us.

Listen to no more.

And I act to of Into the Woods.

He'll touch the depths of your soul in the same way Aretha will touch the depths of your soul when she sings respect.

That's what quest for moral and spiritual greatness is about.

That's little to do with just worldly success.

Preacher.

Thank you, Doc.

All right, Dr.

Cornell West, there's no one like him.

Please meet on the panel.

Okay.

Okay.

Hey.

All right.

He is the host of the weekly podcast, Very Serious, and author of the Very Very Serious Newsletter on SubSack.

Josh Barrow is right over here.

I know.

Barrow.

I'll get into it.

One of these days.

I know.

And she's the former senior counselor to President Trump and author of the New York Times best-selling book, Here's the Deal, a memoir, Kellyanne Conway.

Very brave of you

to come here on such a difficult week for you.

Right?

I mean, we didn't plan this, right?

You were booked for a long time.

Right.

Right.

You're not supposed to be here on the week of the the January 6th hearings.

But I was here January 15th last year, nine days after January 1st.

I know, but this has got to be a

time for you because we're having these hearings about the administration, which you still kind of defend.

I don't know why, because, you know, I mean, one thing we found out from these hearings is that everybody told him he lost the election.

Bill Barr said it was bullshit.

His own daughter told him that.

Hannity told them that.

And you, I understand for a long time, you told him that.

I told him that.

But he says you're lying,

and you still kind of defend him.

I don't understand that.

Well, let's unpack a lot of what you said.

First of all, January 6th was a terrible day in our nation's history.

Nobody's going to argue with that.

I said that day.

Well, we're arguing now about

how culpable Trump himself is.

You seem to hesitate on that issue.

But guess what?

They don't even have the balls to call Trump.

They didn't subpoena Donald Trump, and they're not going to.

Like he would have showed up.

Well, hold on.

Subpoenas, hold on, Bill.

They didn't do it with Mueller.

The breathless Mueller report, we went on for three years.

That was a big dud, as was the Mueller testimony.

They impeached him twice and did not convict him in the Senate.

They're like Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football every single time with him.

Oh, the SCNY, that'll be the time that investigation goes away.

But look, when it comes to January 6th, I will say now what I said on January 6th: get out.

What are you doing?

Why did you breach the Capitol?

There obviously was criminal activity that day, and that should be prosecuted.

Okay, but let's just ask.

But why is every day January 6th?

Why does the calendar say January 6th every single day to some people?

Because on that day, apparently, he asked for his vice president to be murdered.

Now, how do you spin that?

Those are reports I've seen that people were saying that.

And if people were threatening the life of the vice president, I'm sure there are great federal laws against that.

Let's use them.

Yes, sir.

Trump gave that speech on the South Lawn where he said all those awful things about Mike Pence and urged that raucous crowd to go.

What did he say?

He said, fight like hell.

Yeah.

It was entirely foreseeable that that crowd was going to behave in a violent manner.

Fight like hell means.

That's why you have Republican members of Congress.

When the guys are taking the field.

That's why you have Republican members of Congress asking what we're going to do about these people who might come in and try to do something violent to us.

Debbie Lesko, a conservative congresswoman from Arizona, was very concerned about that.

And that's part of what's made the investigation feel a little bit absurd at certain places because this happened right in front of us.

We saw Trump do this on television on January 6th.

And so it's like, yeah, now we have these reports that he said that he wanted Mike Pence, that it was cool with him if they hang Mike Pence.

But he took these actions that clearly put the vice president in physical danger after spending days

pressing the vice president to break the law.

Practical question.

This is a little new that he said Pence deserves it.

Maybe Arthur.

I've read that in reports, but I worked with them for five years straight.

I know you weren't there then.

Hold on.

I had last time.

I was the testimony of people who were there then.

Okay.

Let's say we find, let's say there's a smoking gun tape like there is with the call to the Secretary of State of Georgia, where he said, I need to find 11,000 more votes.

I need to find 11,000 more votes.

Is that something that should prevent this man from ever running again, or at saying he wants to hang his vice president?

Should he be able to run again for president?

I've seen that 17 times in the last five minutes.

Hold on, that's what this is about.

At least you admit it.

At least you said the quiet part out loud.

That these investigations are about preventing him from ever running again.

Should he?

And the left should, hold on, they should just admit that.

They should say we have absolutely no man with a plan in the White House for paying $5 a gallon for gasoline.

Infant formula is nowhere concerning.

Can't continue

part of it.

Let's just say that.

Excuse me, that's what happens every single day to Americans, though, Bill.

It's a real concern.

Okay, it is, and we will get to that part of the show.

But let's talk about what we're really talking about now, which is Donald Trump.

Now he's talking about Donald Trump.

He hasn't been president in a year and a half.

Should he be able to run again, given that this also was not

ad hoc.

This was a planned coup.

This is something else that came out.

This wasn't an act of passion, a crime of passion.

This was premeditated.

He had this seven-point plan.

I think that's why they focused so much in the hearing on trying to establish that he knew that he had lost the election, that all of these people had told him what you told him, that he did not win this election, because

in court filings, the committee has already suggested that they have sufficient evidence that

Trump committed a specific crime, that he tried to obstruct an official proceeding by trying to get Mike Pence to act outside of his constitutional duties and authorities and decline to count the electoral votes that would have given Joe Biden the win in the election.

They say that the Department of Justice could charge him for that.

And so

that case, I don't know that it's the most important thing for the public, whether Trump knew that he had lost or not, but that's important for establishing the crime in order to show that he acted corruptly.

He has to have known that he was not entitled to the win that he was seeking to obtain through the vice president failing to count all of the electoral votes.

So that would be the thing that DOJ could charge around if they were going to bring criminal charges around.

Right, but only if he believes that he lost.

Whether it's just the fact that I think they're coming up short before the December 14th deadline, and other people were telling him, by the way, I wrote it in my book a long time ago.

I said it a year and a half ago and not under oath.

I said it, it's on page whatever, and it's in there.

But on this matter, tell me why, Bill, even just today, Biden Harris put out a big fundraising letter.

They're trying to raise money off the January 6th committee hearings.

Why?

Why are the Democrats in the New York Times and elsewhere saying, we hope this will energize our base?

Because they know that the base is demoralized.

I agree with all that.

I think that's important things happen.

You try to gain advancements.

Sorry.

Thank you for admitting it.

But that's how a democracy works.

And this is also...

Raising money off of January 6th committee.

But this is what you're good at.

This is the side issue that's not really what we're talking about.

Raising money?

No.

let's focus just for now on what the real issue is.

Should Donald Trump, a man who did these crimes, be able to run again for president?

Yes or no?

Yes, unless you prosecute him with a crime.

Hold on.

You're saying he did.

Well, this should be prosecuted as a crime.

By the way, that's not what these hearings are.

These hearings are not a courtroom.

If they want to prosecute him with a crime, they haven't.

They're not even calling him as a witness.

But shouldn't he be?

You don't want to rematch a Joe Biden because you see in all the polls it says Trump would beat him because Joe Biden's a terrible person.

But this is a pre, again, different issue.

We'll get to it.

This is a precursor to what is apparently coming, hopefully, from the Justice Department, which is to charge him with these crimes.

This is what the committee is doing.

They're laying out this case.

Am I wrong about that?

That's what the committee is doing.

It's clear that they would like the Justice Department to charge it.

Now, I don't know what the Justice Department is going to do.

They're not supposed to talk about what they're thinking about doing before they bring an indictment.

We saw with James Comey breaking that rule.

So

I don't know whether they'll prosecute him or not.

I mean, the difficulty, as Kellyanne points out, is that you have to convince a jury that he knew that he was not entitled to the thing that he was looking for.

And it's always difficult with Donald Trump to demonstrate what his mental state was.

He could believe anything, basically.

But it's also a question for a jury.

They could bring the indictment, it would be up for a jury.

Well, we're nowhere near that.

Just so we're clear, these hearings are not about that.

They hired a Hollywood, they hired a news producer to make it a production.

And that's okay.

But that's not pretend that we're...

I mean, it wasn't valid.

The footage is the footage.

Right.

The footage is appalling.

I've said that for a year and a half.

I know.

But every day on my calendar, say January 6th, people are trying to pay their mortgages, buy gas

going into the formula.

Here we go.

Every day is January 2015.

We're bringing the doctor back to the gas prices, which has nothing to do with this.

It is finished.

It's got everything to talk about.

If I promise...

People are heard.

Okay, I know.

But if I promise you one more time that we will get to talking about gas prices,

these hearings are not in a courtroom.

I don't want to mislead people who are watching thinking that somehow you're saying he committed crimes.

If he committed crimes, then somebody will have to prosecute that.

But that's not what these hearings are.

Well, they are.

They're

not.

It's a

crime time.

It's a precursor to the prosecution by the Justice Department.

He also met in December with, I think it was Flynn and Giuliani and Sidney Powell and talked about martial law and seizing the voting machines and rerunning the election.

Again, I mean, come on, you know what?

I write about this in my book, that they let charlatan after supplicant after showman in front of the resolute desk at a time when the president should have been focused on a peaceful transfer of power and bragging about his four years of real economy.

But you're not afraid of that.

Why are you so afraid of him beating Biden?

Because he's a criminal who doesn't abide by American democracy.

That's why.

Because he doesn't care.

Because

he knows he lost the election.

He doesn't care.

I think he thinks he won't.

Hey, Bill, he thinks he won the election.

I disagree with you completely.

Neither one of us knows what's in his mind.

No, no, he thinks he won the election.

That is just incorrect.

He thinks he won the election.

I'm one of the few.

Well, that's even sadder.

Again, it's this debate.

Is he stupid or crazy?

No, no, no.

But he's right.

We're missing.

But to Josh's very important point, Bill, we're missing the condition precedent here.

If the condition precedent is that everybody was telling him you came up short or that you lost, and he doesn't believe that.

But then why would you want someone that delusional to be president again?

Because there are a dozen other denominator Republicans that could be denominated.

He tried to get all these people, all these institutions, to overturn the election.

He went to the Justice Department.

He went to secretaries of state.

He went to state legislatures.

He went to the courts.

It was laughed out of like 50 of them.

He tried to get Mike Pence to do it.

He talked about martial law, the Army.

He tried every possible way.

You wore the red, white, and blue patriot uniform at the inauguration.

Don't you believe in the country that this is subverting?

Honestly?

So here's what I believe.

You're down with all that.

All that's okay with you?

Bill, it's never been okay.

And I wrote a whole bunch of people.

I know, but how can he be okay to run again?

And I didn't wait for people to put me under oath to say it.

I said it.

You didn't.

I said it again, and yes, I did.

You're not saying what you need to say, which is Trump should never be president.

You guys want that guarantee because you know the current president stinks.

And don't tell me he's not the issue.

If this is all true about Trump and a majority of America agrees with you, he'll never be president again.

It sounds like you're worried.

I am worried because I don't trust Trump to run.

Biden would even know who the hell he's running from.

I'm very worried.

Biden would love to run against Trump

because this is all baggage for Trump.

Hold on.

It is otherwise about the United States.

Biden's economy versus Trump's economy.

Gas was $2 a gallon.

We had energy independence.

We had Keystone Pipeline.

That is a problem for Biden whoever he's running against.

It was not in Ukraine when you were in the United States.

Tell me, Rider, come on.

Gas goes up and down.

Democracy is from.

$5 a gallon is way up.

I know.

You don't need to be a poster.

You don't see that as a more ephemeral issue than democracy.

No, not to people who are hurting.

Maybe not to rich people.

Really?

To rich people?

Only rich people care about democracy.

No, I just said, no, no, no.

You said maybe gas doesn't really matter.

It only matters to people.

I didn't say that.

I said it goes up and down, but democracy is fatal.

I've never.

That's an uncertainty.

The inflation rate for it today is a 40-year high.

So people, listen, the forgotten man, forgotten woman, forgotten child is always my jam.

They are hurting right now under this economy.

And you have a White House that won't even acknowledge the problem, won't say they're, gee, we know you're hurting.

Okay.

Give us a little bit of time to course.

Since you insist on talking about only this, let's

do our little mid-show desk feast, and then we'll get to this because it's only going to be about gas anyway.

I mean, this is, I feel like.

I answered all your questions about January 6th, and I wrote about it in my book.

Okay.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, summer travel season is upon us.

Hard to believe anything.

Can't we let the voters decide who the next president should be?

Yeah, we will.

We'll get to it.

There you go.

I'm all for that.

Anyway, as always, as I do at this time of year, I look up on WikiTravel because

there it is.

And it's very revealing because they have travel tips for people people going to every country, including people coming to this country.

So I think it says a lot about what's going on in America.

These are some real ones from Wiki Travel.

Don't offer bribes to police officers.

I mean, you know, in some countries, that's dérigueur.

I mean, yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

American coins do not display the numerical value on the coin.

Again, good to know if you're traveling from another country.

This is a real one from Wiki.

Don't wear a t-shirt with the Confederate flag on it.

I mean

some places it actually would be popular, but it just didn't

not here, thank God.

Okay, so would you like to hear some others that they...

Ah, I know you would.

Like, here's a great tip.

In America, it's considered rude to stare at people when they're masturbating on the subway.

Did you make that?

Don't be offended if they spell your name wrong on your coffee cup.

They can't can't spell the American names either.

In Los Angeles, that parking lot where everyone leaves their engine running is called a freeway.

English is not the official language, but if you speak anything else, a white lady is going to yell at you.

Americans only use the metric system to buy drugs.

That's a good thing.

definitely

keep that in mind.

Oh, here's a great tip.

Housekeeping in upscale hotels will often leave a chocolate on your pillow.

It has nothing to do with Amber Hearst.

It's considered inappropriate in America to strike other people's children, and believe me, you're going to want to.

Oh, great tip.

Best Western and Best Western Plus are the same thing.

And in America, we call our fake housewives real housewives.

And the cities are filled with homeless tents.

The government is broken.

Everyone hates each other.

But Americans will punch you if you don't agree it's the greatest country in the world.

All right.

So,

let's see.

What other issues are there?

Other issues.

Gas.

Biden's bad approval rating on everything.

Gas.

Let's talk about gas.

No one's mentioned that so far tonight.

Gas.

I understand gas is high.

Yeah, and we talked about January 6th, but gas is high every day.

Gas is low.

Okay.

Okay, but.

Okay, I'll give you another issue.

Gas goes up and down, doesn't it always?

Yes, but it's way up.

It is way up.

Yes, it is.

Come on, the inflation report is at a 40-year high.

People are hurting.

All right, I'll give you another issue.

I agree.

Why don't we have protection for Supreme Court justices?

Why did Chuck Schumer say, Kavanaugh, you will pay for this?

Okay,

I'm very concerned about that.

They should all be protected, though.

I will agree with you that it's pretty much.

Maybe we all should clap for that.

It's more of a case of media bias.

Yes, if you hadn't seen the story, somebody came to assassinate Brett Kavanaugh.

Yes, Two days ago.

Okay, and

I'm even with you on this one.

Good.

Okay, and they stopped him.

Okay, but he was, he's from California.

He could have been inspired by, yeah, Chuck Schumer said some very inflammatory words, the kind of thing that people on the right say, and then there's a horrible shooting and they blame it.

It is rather comparable.

And Chuck Schumer did walk it back.

Nobody on the right ever does that.

He did.

I saw this.

No, he did.

He said, look, we from Brooklyn, we speak too strongly.

He said something about how, oh, you know,

they were talking about Brett, this guy was upset that Brett Kavanaugh is going to overturn Roe versus Wade.

Okay?

Yeah.

And,

interesting, upset about that he wasn't doing enough for gun control and then shows up with guns to kill him.

Exactly.

So again, cuckoo people do cuckoo things.

Okay.

The point is, I think your point, and the point I would agree with, is the New York Times buried this.

Yeah, it was like a a little middle of the fold.

If this had been a liberal Supreme Court justice that someone came to kill,

it would have been on the front page.

And that's what's so disappointing about a paper like the New York Times.

Because they just wear their bias on their sleeves.

And if it's not part of something that feeds our narrative, fuck it.

And there are protests in front of Amy Coney Barrett's house, where we all know there are seven children in the side.

There are protests in front of all the conservative justices, or all the constitutionalist justices' homes.

Listen, protesting is a part of democracy.

It's our right.

But when it turns deadly, when people are threatening justices' lives, I want to have protection.

Every single senator voted in favor of the actual protection, and it's stuck in the House.

This is the kind of thing that drives America crazy when Washington can't do something as simple as pass the law that we should all agree with just to beef up their security.

This is right on the merits they should pass this law.

I think inflation is the number one thing people are focused on.

I don't think this is a huge.

You mean not January 6th?

No, no, I think January 6th is important.

I agree.

It is not going to be a dominant issue in the election campus.

I agree that that's still important.

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be.

But I think as per,

we also had Steve Scalise,

then the Republican majority went to the shopping shop.

About

four years ago to baseball practice by a politically disgruntled man.

Yes.

I do worry about this, and I think it's related to the perception that a lot of Americans have where they don't think these institutions are legitimate anymore, and that creates the willingness that certain nutty people have to go and try to take matters into into their own hands and shoot people.

And I think it's a really worrying trend in our politics.

And I agree

it's not solely limited to one side of the aisle.

So I'm so offended, though, that they say Ruth Sent us.

They say they're doing this on behalf of the late Justice

Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The protesters are part of, quote, Ruth Senta.

She never would have condoned that kind of violence.

One of her best friends was Justice Antonin Scalia.

Well, I don't think the protesters condone the violence either.

I mean,

which is not to say that the protests in front of people's homes are wise, but I wouldn't conflate the protesters with this one guy who was trying to kill Brett Cavanaugh.

Or the Bernie Sanders supporter who shot him.

But

would not conflate them with him either.

Maybe a feeble defense of Democrats a little bit here, but it looks like there is a backlash to this kind of thing.

There needs to be.

It's bad.

Yes, but I think it's going on.

And we saw it this week with some of these elections.

I mentioned it in the monologue.

The DA in San Francisco.

You know, they tossed him out, and they had tossed out the school board in San Francisco about a year ago.

Okay, that's San Francisco.

61 percent, it wasn't a a squeaker.

61% voted for Kickball Him.

But that's a good thing.

That's a corrective from the left.

They're saying this stuff has gone too far because, again, I think January 6th is very, very important and I think democracy is very important.

But yes, it's not the stuff that's close to home.

Republicans appeal to people on the stuff closer to home.

You're stepping in it.

Human feces on the street.

You're stepping in it.

Yes, that's going to get people to vote.

And the fact that gas, I know, very high.

It's not just gas.

It's It's public agency.

Right.

And it's drugs and this boot in the middle.

Well, I read mobile park homes are

the prices.

I mean,

boy, when you're priced out of trailer living.

No, I mean, people are.

It's not just gas.

I mean, and the president likes to blame this on the war in Ukraine.

And the war in Ukraine is part of what is driving the price increase, but it's not the bulk of it.

It's not all of it.

You have the huge fiscal response that we had to COVID.

The government basically sent out too much money.

And it gave consumers so much money they go out and they try to spend beyond what the actual productive capacity of the economy is.

And the only thing that can happen then is that prices go up.

I think the Federal Reserve didn't act quite quickly enough to realize that they need to take their foot off the gas, start putting it on the brake.

They've corrected on that, and that's, you know, it's going to be quite expensive to get a mortgage for some time because of that.

It's going to be a little painful.

That will push inflation down.

The public safety piece of this is really important there is because I think that's the classic case, Bill and Josh, of politicians telling you, don't believe what you see, believe what we And people will always go with what they see.

They like to complain about what offends them, but they vote according to what affects them.

And they see here in Los Angeles, they saw in San Francisco, homelessness, larceny is up.

I think here for Karen Bass, a very well-respected African-American congresswoman of many years who also served in the state legislature, to be kept under 40%

by Rick Caruso, a billionaire, saying, I'm just going to go around the city council and declare homelessness an emergency and tackle it the way a business guy would.

And he also said he's going to hire 11,000 more police officers.

And I think two short years, less than two short years, after the Defund the Police movement didn't exactly pan out the way some people had planned.

There's something to people rising up, even in these more quote liberal cities, and saying enough.

Let's talk about it.

I agree.

People vote on safety.

I mean, we saw it after 9-11.

That was the big safety issue, terrorism, then it was COVID.

Whatever people feel,

it's human nature.

I mean, now it's monkeypox.

You know, that's bullshit, but they will get people ginned up about that.

Well, it exists.

It exists, yes, but you're not going to get it.

I mean, if anyone's going to get it, it's probably me.

Why?

Because I'm a gay man.

It's spreading among men who have sex.

Who's fucking a monkey?

No.

There's human-to-human transmission of it.

Right?

There's human-to-human transmission of monkeypox.

Okay, but

it's not a COVID-level problem, but it is a real problem.

People shouldn't dismiss it, especially if they have particular risk for it.

Okay, I'll start hoarding bananas tomorrow.

I don't know.

I mean,

I can't do monkeypox.

I can't.

I mean, there's just too much else going on.

I can't deal.

I just can't get into monkeypox.

But the safety one, let's talk about that.

Because

I feel like the police, you know, I mean, we love the police.

We can't live without the police.

Shouldn't defund the police, although we might want to move around funds with the police.

But I feel like since 2020 and the riots, the George Floyd protests, they've had a case of, shall we call it, long blue flu.

You know, we had long COVID.

I feel like they've had that blue flu for quite a while.

Many of them have quit?

Not quite.

Many of them quit.

But also, it's just, look, police are doing a thankless job, and they really like to be thanked for it.

They really do.

And until somebody, and I have a feeling I know who, this guy who's going to go, police are our greatest friends, and they're the greatest people in the world, and they should do whatever they want to do,

that guy is going to come along.

That guy is just always nesting in all of your brains.

We're nesting.

He's not gone, and he's going to run again.

He's also not the president.

He's not the mayor of Atlanta.

But he could be because you won't.

But look, let me say this about the police.

I think that folks want to, that's why Joe Biden is even saying, I'm not for defunding the police.

We have to defend and fund our police.

Look, people do want our law enforcement to be more deeply respected and more generously resourced.

That includes the military, veterans, police.

And I'm not here to disparage them.

I think that they run towards the violence when the rest of us run away from it.

They run into firefighters, run into burning buildings to save us.

So I will always respond to the...

Well, they didn't in Uvalde.

I mean,

that's right.

That's a big problem.

They shouldn't get that blanket.

They always do the right thing.

They don't always do the right thing.

They should get with other public employees that, like, they often might not do their jobs well.

Like, I mean, even private employees too.

Like, a lot of people are kind of lazy.

They do whatever the easy thing it is that they can do at work.

And so I think, I mean, Uvalde was an extreme example of this, but yeah, no,

a lot of the police, I think you're right, have been sort of slacking off.

Now, it's a bad interaction with some of these lefty DAs because what the police say is, well, why would I arrest this person for this when the DA is not going to charge them?

Which is not a crazy thing to say.

I mean, in San Francisco, it's like

you have all this retail theft.

California changed the law.

It's only grand larceny if it's over $950.

So you get these organized gangs doing retail theft in San Francisco.

And you have all these car break-ins.

And then what the police say is basically, well, you know, there's not going to be a prosecution.

And so it's a single digital.

Why bothering?

The DA used COVID as an excuse really to empty the jails up to 40% after COVID.

And last year in San Francisco, 640 people died of drug overdoses, more than people died of COVID.

And I think people see that too, Bill, and they say, look, Fentanyl is the number one killer of 18 to 44-year-olds in this country.

What are you, the DA, or what are you the police doing about that?

But in San Francisco, they're going to need a deal with the mayor is going to appoint a new DA who will presumably be more aggressive.

And so it should basically be, okay, now the DA is going to charge more.

Now, the SFPD has to go out and actually enforce an arrest.

And that's on the mayor to make sure that happens.

So we'll see how that works out there.

But that's, you need those two things.

I got to go.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, you two.

That was pretty interesting.

Time for new rules.

Okay.

New rule, whoever keeps posting online this moving photograph of a park ranger rescuing a baby elephant from drowning has to stop.

Enough already.

We've all seen it.

And quite frankly, I'm not so sure that's what's going on here.

New Real, someone has explained why the rules for being around the royals are the same as the rules for running into dangerous wildlife.

Don't approach them.

Don't look them in the eye.

Right?

Don't turn your back on them.

And if you make the mistake of bringing one home, it never ends well.

Neruel, stop saying the saddest thing about this picture of a Russian soldier that it makes you think of the war in Ukraine.

The saddest thing is he's 22.

Why is that so offensive?

New rules,

While I'm off for everyone letting their freak flag fly, the people who buy this human foot sex toy with a fake vagina in the heel

must be monitored by the state.

I'm with the Family Research Council on this one.

If you're trying to stick your dick into a foot, you're doing it wrong.

And think about the risks.

You think herpes is tough to get rid of?

Try toe fungus.

New rule, before you judge Courtney Kardashian's fertility doctor, who told her the best way to get pregnant is to swallow Travis Barker's semen four times a week, keep in mind this is what her fertility doctor looks like.

And finally, new rule, now that we live in an age of uber corporate responsibility where every large company in America bends over backwards to get on the politically correct side of every issue, Hollywood has to tell us, why doesn't that include gun violence?

When liberals scream, do something after a mass shooting, why aren't we also dealing with the fact that the average American kid sees 200,000 acts of violence on screens before the age of 18?

And that, according to the FBI, one of the warning signs of a potential school shooter is a fascination with violence-filled entertainment.

It's funny, Hollywood is the wokest place on earth in every other area of social responsibility.

They have intimacy coordinators on set to chaperone sex scenes.

They hire sensitivity readers to go through and edit scripts.

Disney stood up to the don't say gay law.

Another studio spent $10 million to digitally remove Kevin Spacey from a movie.

But when it comes to the unbridled romanticization of gun violence, crickets.

Weird.

The only thing we don't call a trigger is the one that actually has a trigger.

If you make a movie today, you can't show bullying, fat shaming, slut shaming, girl chasing, gay baiting, ethnic stereotypes, or underage hookups where drinking is involved.

You know, what we used to call comedies.

But those things are bad, and everyone knows you can't platform bad things.

You know what?

You can still platform one guy who's the hero getting over a grudge by mowing down a multitude of human beings?

Because no impressionable young male would ever imitate that.

Now, the usual suspects on the far left will say that I'm delivering some sort of conservative rant here or that I'm undermining gun control.

No, it's neither, it's just what's real.

There's a pie chart of why mass shootings happen and we don't know exactly how much of each of the pieces is responsible, but the major ones are mental health, that is broken young men who feel like losers and want the world to hurt like they do, easy access to guns, kids having smartphones, which makes losers feel even worse because of the bullying and all the fake lives that look better than theirs, And yes, yes, crazy amounts of gun violence in movies and TV.

We don't show movie characters smoking anymore because it might look cool and influence children, but you're telling me these cool dudes don't influence them?

They say the success of Top Gun Maverick will be a great boost to Navy pilot recruitment.

Great.

But then you can't say it's just a movie when it's this.

That was cool.

And

it's not just the idea presented over and over and over again that guns are the best solution to life's problems.

It's why the hero is using a gun.

They call them action movies.

They should call them revenge movies because that's the plot of every one of them.

And there's a sick similarity in the revenge fantasies Hollywood turns out and those of school shooters.

I want revenge.

I want them to know that death is coming.

And there's nothing

they can do to stop it.

Here's a list of just the action movies that have vengeance in the title.

Blind Vengeance, Bitter Vengeance, Cry Vengeance, Sweet Vengeance, Dark Vengeance.

Fast Vengeance, Blue Vengeance, Forced Vengeance, Heated Vengeance, Naked Vengeance, Acts of Vengeance, Deadly Vengeance, Out for Vengeance, Bound of Vengeance, Fistful of Vengeance, Streets of Vengeance, Angel of Vengeance, Ministry of Vengeance, With Avenge, Codename Vengeance, Fort Vengeance, Kickboxer Vengeance, Ninja Vengeance,

and Taste of Vengeance, my least favorite Chinese restaurant.

Vengeance has been in more movies than Pets and Sunglasses.

There's even a movie called I Am Vengeance Retaliation, even though retaliation means vengeance.

It's like calling your movie, I am pregnant, expecting.

Getting revenge on them that wronged you is what happens.

It's all that happens in movies that are made for and loved by young men.

It's the male version of getting your groove back or Meryl Streep getting a big kitchen.

Like every school shooter, our movie heroes are grievance collectors.

And when it comes to action movies, there's one story.

He was a nice guy, but they pushed him too far, and now it's on.

They took my daughter.

They killed my father.

They killed my fiancé.

They killed my family.

They killed my family again.

They killed my puppy.

All of which doesn't just create a culture of violence, but a culture of justified violence.

Liberals hated it when

Kyle Rittenhouse hated him, but somehow the liberal capital of the world is okay with making 500 movies about vigilantes.

They hate it when gun people say it takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun, but then they endlessly produce movies with that exact plot.

Now, thanks, one guy.

Now, am I saying don't make these movies?

No, not at all.

I'm never forced censorship or organizing society around what crazy people might do.

But don't look me in the eye and tell me this isn't a big part of the problem.

Every bad idea a kid can get about how to handle feeling abused and disrespected is in all these movies, including the ridiculous cliché that if you are the good guy, the avenging angel who's doing all the killing, you never get shot.

And if you do, it's nothing.

This is how bad guys get shot in movies.

Don't applaud that.

Really?

This is how heroes get shot.

It's nothing.

You just put a little gauze on it.

It's nothing.

It's like a birthday punch.

That's the message from the people who hate guns the loudest.

Don't worry about them if you get shot.

The worst that'll happen is you might have to sit beside the ambulance with a blanket.

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, June 18th, at the Wang Center in Boston, July 9th, and the Chicago Theater in Chicago, September 10th.

I want to thank Josh, Will Barrow, and Kellyanne Conway, and Dr.

Cornell West.

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.

For more information, log on to HBO.com.