Ep. #590: Brooke Jenkins, John Avlon, Katrina Vanden Heuvel

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

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

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

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

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

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

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

Thank you, people.

Thank you very much.

How are you?

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, people.

Okay, I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

The congregation will be seated.

Thank you very much.

I know it's a hey, we're champions.

We won the Super Bowl here in LA.

So we're very happy.

And

that

kind of brought the city together, don't you think?

I mean, we had a parade with dozens of people showed up.

The game itself was

exciting to see.

Oh, and that moment after the game when one of the Rams players, Taylor Rapp, I think is his name, is the safety, he proposed to his girlfriend right there on the field.

And then the owners fined him for taking a knee.

So it

kind of ruined the whole.

But hey,

I read this today.

I hope this is true.

California, the first state now to declare that we are at the endemic stage of the

corona thing.

I'm not sure what that means, but it has end in it.

Endemic, yeah, the endemics.

I think it's kind of like marriage.

You live with it, but you ignore it.

That's

endemic.

I kid marriage.

Oh,

speaking of midlife crises,

ready to see where I'm going with this.

There is a German freighter that is on fire in the South Atlantic and sinking.

You know what it has on board?

1,100 Porsches

that are going to fall to the bottom of the ocean.

So if you're out this weekend and you see a douchebag, give him a hug.

That is where I'm going with that.

And

speaking,

I'm the king of blends.

Speaking of douchebags, Donald,

Donald Trump and his son, and Ivanka, they are all ordered this week by a judge in New York to sit for depositions

because of their tax shenanigans with their company.

Trump had a habit of undervaluing his properties for tax reasons, and I don't think his defense is going to fly.

He said, I was just being humble.

Right?

That's not going to work with him.

Oh.

And the other Republican who had a tough time in court this week, Sarah Palin.

She lost her, she had a defamation case against the New York Times.

They had a trial.

She made some good points, but at the end of the day, the jury just couldn't be convinced that she had read a newspaper.

So that's a joy off winner.

And the Republicans have a big

controversy down in Florida.

They have a bill there that they're trying to pass.

They call it the don't say gay bill.

Don't Don't say gay.

They don't,

really.

This is what they want to do.

In schools, they want to make it verboten to talk to the kids about LGBT issues if they're like not age-appropriate in their view.

But come on, this is Florida.

Florida.

We teach our kids about sex the old-fashioned way by fucking the teacher in the car.

I kid Florida.

I love Florida.

I'm going to.

Do you know that I'm doing a new HBO special right here on this network, a stand-up special?

It's in Miami.

We're taping it March 4th and 5th.

Don't be late.

Tickets are still available, I think.

Are they?

I hope.

The Jackie Gleason Theater.

Anyway, it's going to be fucking amazing and then I'll get canceled.

But it's going to be a great show while it lasts.

But of course, now the thing everybody's talking about, I don't know, maybe it's something, I guess.

Ukraine, are you upset about it?

Yeah, me too.

But they say it's really escalating.

The experts say it has gone from Kanye Pete to me and Whoopee.

I know, really, I don't think, like in the last 50 years, I don't think we have had this much tension with Russia.

I mean, it's at the point now where I'm not even speaking to my limo driver.

I don't have a limo or a limo driver.

But

I mean, Joe, love Joe, I mean, he's a sweet guy, but watching him try to out Macho Putin,

I don't know if that's really going to work.

I mean, Putin, you know, he lifts weights, he does judo, he wrestles bears.

It's like they gave a whole country to Joe Rogan.

Biden says he's going to rally the world

behind Ukraine.

I don't know.

You couldn't rally Joe Manchin for child care.

Biden says this will not stand, but he was talking about his leg.

You know, Biden, you know, I don't know, but Democrats, politically, they are in trouble.

Biden's approval rating is 47% in California.

That should be a warning to Democrats all across the country.

When Biden can't get arrested in California, just like our shoplifters.

Well, that's, you know, that's.

We're going to talk about that in a minute.

That's one of the problems.

That's hurting the Democrats, crime.

I saw a headline in the New York Post the other day.

It said, breakdancer stabbed on the subway in unprovoked attack.

Now, it really raises the question, if you're breakdancing on the subway, is it unprovoked?

All right, we've got a great show.

We have John Avalon on Confrida Vandenhoe.

But first up, see, is the former San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Brooke Jenkins over here?

Brooke, how are you?

Are we shaking?

Are we hugging?

Oh, we can, thank you.

Great to meet you.

Okay.

Well, I set it up there in the monologue.

We're going to talk about crime, but especially crime here in San Francisco, where you're from.

And interesting, I mean, this is an amazing story.

Something like 40% of your office, right?

I think that's 59 attorneys who are in the law office in San Francisco, have resigned or left because they don't like what's going on here.

And you're trying to recall, this is, of course, the recall state, everything gets recalled.

It's what we do.

You're trying to recall the present DA in San Francisco.

Tell me why.

Because he's trying to couch lawlessness as reform.

And we are watching as lives are being lost and continue to remain endangered by his radical policies.

And so almost 60 of us have said that's just not something that we can stand by and watch.

And what are the radical policies?

That gangs don't exist, that they're a social construct, that he's not going to use gang charges.

Did he see Snoop at the Super Bowl?

I mean,

gangs don't exist?

What is the point of that?

He simply wants to find ways not to prosecute.

And he touts it as being something that helps black and Latino communities while ignoring that black and Latino people suffer the most oftentimes from street violence.

Is this guy white?

Of course, yes.

Tell me why you say, of course, because it sounds like we probably agree on this, which is

these white people think they're, you know, I always say more offended than the victim.

You know,

I think their heart is in the right place, and they wind up actually throwing an anchor to the people that they think they're helping.

Because, as you say, who's hurt by gang violence?

Right,

it's black and Latino people.

My husband's 18-year-old cousin, a young black man, was gunned down in San Francisco in 2020.

He was walking down the street, innocent young guy, killed in the midst of a gang feud going on in San Francisco.

And right, it's his family that has to suffer and watch, you know, the DA there refuse to prosecute.

his murderers to the fullest extent.

And I mean, San Francisco has a reputation as the most liberal, woke city in the country, but the people there, I feel like they're fed up with this.

I mean, obviously, there's a divide with the people.

I mean, the mayor, I've read some of her quotes on this show recently, Mayor London Breed.

She seems to have really gotten religion on this issue.

The one I just read the other day was something like she said, it is time for the reign of criminals to end in our city.

Sounds like Batman.

And a lot of what we see on the news, I mean, let me show you some footage.

We've all seen footage like this.

This is people looting.

I think it's a Walgreens, but it's one of those stores.

And the question I want to ask as we watch is that there's a security guard watching, taking a picture.

Oh, he tries to grab it.

Nope, sorry, didn't get it.

And goodbye.

Why does that happen?

Is that because of these policies you're talking about?

Because I've seen many like this, where the guard just watches.

You're a security guard.

This is your job to stop this.

Do they think they will be prosecuted?

Are they not paid enough?

Are they stoned?

Why is...

Why are people just, it looks like shoplifting is a legitimate profession now that you can get away with.

Why?

It's no longer a crime in San Francisco, basically.

They know that the DA's office isn't going to hold these criminals accountable.

They're simply going to, even if they are arrested, be let out within hours,

back out onto the street to come back there and walk out with whatever they they want again.

So, why risk their safety?

Wow.

And there was, I mean, you say back on the street, there is a woman I read, is this true who robbed the same Walgreens 128, oh no, a target, robbed a target 128 times.

Yes.

That is really taking the word target too literally.

So,

but say you're a prosecutor.

You want to put the the bad guys in jail.

Kamala Harris, prosecutor.

Amy Klobuchar, when they ran,

it's interesting, they sort of had to defend themselves for what they do for a living.

Both of them were sort of like, you know, how dare you?

You put people in jail.

Yeah, but that's my job, and people sometimes need going to jail.

Right.

I think we are in a culture now where radical extremism is what's cool.

And they have found it appropriate to demonize anyone who wants order in society, who wants to hold perpetrators of crime accountable in society.

If you believe that murderers should go to prison, then somehow you are a beacon of white supremacy or you're a racist.

And so we've found it acceptable that if somebody disagrees with these radical beliefs, that they are the enemy.

of social justice.

But you are for reform.

I mean, there is reform needed, right?

I mean, we would agree on that.

Absolutely.

That the system itself has been racist in the past and probably somewhat in the present.

And so

what reforms are we talking about that you think would be sensible as opposed to the ones that they're doing?

I think we have to take advantage of when the criminal justice system has jurisdiction over someone who's committed a crime.

And if they're a drug addict or they have mental health issues, we have to use that jurisdiction to sort of propel them into treatment, the appropriate treatment,

so that they put their lives on a better trajectory, right?

If it's a youthful offender, that we help them get vocational training, resources to get their GED, so that they don't simply use the courthouse as a revolving door committing further crime.

Ending the drug war.

I mean,

of all the practical steps we could take, ending the drug war.

I mean, it's not like we haven't been through this a century ago with prohibition and liquor.

When you make drugs illegal, people like drugs, then it's going to make criminals rich and other people criminals.

You're going to crowd the jail system.

What's going on, I'm reading in San Francisco, is the tenderloin district, which has always been kind of a bad neighborhood.

Is that wrong negative?

It's there.

Okay.

Okay.

A rough neighbor.

I remember the clubs were there.

But clubs are usually in the bad neighborhood.

That's why they're good.

Okay.

But they have something called a linkage center there where they're...

Now, what is the policy?

Are they giving out drugs?

I mean, I never know who to believe in the press anymore.

No, I think there have been some attempts to characterize what's going on in the linkage center.

Unfortunately, most people haven't had the opportunity to go inside.

I think the spirit behind trying to get resources to those addicted to substances is noble.

I think we have to really make sure, though, that we are holding drug dealers accountable in some form or fashion.

Again, helping people, even if it's not sending them to prison,

that's not the solution, but helping them find a path towards legal employment so that they can take care of their families in a legal fashion.

But right now, we're not doing anything.

We've simply opened an open-air drug market in the tenderloin as though that's fine.

And people are dying.

We've had more drug overdose deaths than COVID deaths last year.

Right.

All right.

Well, listen, I'm glad you're doing what you're doing because somebody needs to speak out, and it's a gutsy thing to leave your job.

I've been fired before.

But what I found is you usually wind up in a better place.

So I hope you do.

Thank you very much for joining us.

All right.

Let's join our panel.

Hey, hey, there they are.

All right.

She is published of the nation and the columnist for the Washington Post.

Katrina Vandenhoe Hoovel is back with us.

Hey.

And he is a senior political analyst and anchor for CNN and author of the new book, Lincoln and the Fight for Peace, John Avlon.

Okay,

so

as long as we were talking about San Francisco, and as long as your book is about Lincoln, and is it...

Is it this Monday is President's birthday or President's?

President's Day, yeah.

President's Day.

We used to celebrate the actual birthdays.

Now we lump them together, right?

Okay.

But it's interesting because I read this week that what happened in San Francisco was

they had a

recall.

This fucking state loves to recall.

They'll recall the ice cream cone.

There was board members, San Francisco school board members, who had canceled Lincoln, who took his name and Washington and lots of other people's names.

Paul Revere, I don't know what he did.

But Lincoln and Washington, they took the name off the high school.

They, this week, were recalled by 70%.

That's what I'm saying.

There are people in San Francisco who are not crazy.

Yeah.

And I feel like this is a harbinger of what is going on in the Democratic Party.

Oh,

no.

No.

No, this is going on in the culture.

But listen, the nation was founded by abolitionists committed to ending slavery.

And Lincoln was many things.

He was the great emancipator.

He was the president.

Wait, wait, the nation was founded by abolitionists?

Yeah.

1865.

Well, that wasn't the founding of the nation.

Yes.

The magazine.

The Nation magazine.

I live in a great place.

How the fuck would I know that?

All right.

I don't blame you, Bill, but listen, listen.

I think, listen, at the name.

So you think the nation magazine is more important than the country?

Okay, as long as I know that.

What I do think is what's more important than the murals

is.

You know what's important in lifetime?

The magazine, not the.

What's important is that people, kids, have access to schools, have equal access, have good education, and that's why the school, three of them are getting recalled because people are kind of fed up.

They're fed up because they were focusing on these symbolic social justice issues, like renaming 44 schools, including all the presidents on Mont Rushmore, and they weren't getting kids into a classroom.

And that frustrates folks.

And there is such a thing as too extreme.

And when you lose 79% in a recall vote in a city that Joe Biden won by 86%,

yeah, it sends a message.

There's a caricature sometimes.

The attempt to make,

I mean,

this is a serious story and one that the Nation magazine's correspondent who writes Left Coast just said, this is blathering, this is idiotic what's happening in San Francisco.

But there's an attempt to caricature progressives

as having extreme views.

When I heard earlier radical extremism and demonization in the same sentence, I want to reach for my...

Listen, radical extremism is common sense in some ways in this country.

Health care for all.

How is arguing about it?

Yeah, I mean, what we're talking about here is the fact that these folks got turned out in San Francisco because they were too extreme.

And look, I mean,

they might have been making an in-kind contribution to the RNC.

That's how crazy the far left is.

They end up creating the caricatures that the Republicans then run against.

We're going to get to this, but I don't think it is the majority of the Democratic majority.

That is the problem.

But let's not conflate health care for all with Lincoln was a bad guy, which is just fucking stupid.

Can I just, can I, look.

The Huffington Post reviewed,

never at a loss for being stupid.

Lincoln, the Spielberg movie, and they said, there's just one problem.

At moments, it falls into the white savior category of films.

I've heard that before.

Lincoln, that's why we have to cancel him.

He was a white savior.

Well, he kind of was.

And is that, who else in 1860 was going to be the savior?

Yeah,

look,

I think it had to be a white savior.

Look,

that narrative aside, we're dealing with history here, and you can't just sort of recreate it from a contemporary perspective.

Abraham Lincoln,

people who really deserve the end of slavery credit, isn't just Abraham Lincoln, it's the abolitionists, it's the black union soldiers, but he presided over the union.

And when people tie themselves up in knots worrying about

stray comments or the imperfections of people in the past,

they're falling into the same fundamental trust.

Lincoln was a great American.

We could learn a lot from him.

Sorry, but

let me add to this, if I might.

And I'm talking about that period.

You like Lincoln?

I think Lincoln was one of the great presidents, but he became a greater president because of the social movements around him.

The abolitionists, the Black Union League.

And you've got to respect that.

We do.

No one's arguing that.

Franklin Roosevelt, I think, is a great president.

You're picking a fight with Strawman.

He didn't show up.

I thought you did.

I thought you did that.

It's like,

I mean, it's ridiculous.

But

not only did Lincoln prosecute the war, which I don't know if any other president would have done that.

He didn't commit emancipation under the pressure of abolitionists.

You know, he was not committed, as Roosevelt was committed to ending the war.

He was committed to keeping the union together.

Lincoln was a single issue,

issue candidate going back to the Senate campaign.

I'm not going to, I mean, you know, Lincoln did more than anybody else to advance that issue.

And the fact that he wasn't, he was conscious of the fact that you couldn't move too far too fast is not a strike against him because he got it done.

Yes.

He got it done.

But they'll look.

And then passing the 12th Amendment,

the 14th Amendment, which is what the Spielberg movie is about.

Eric Foner, the great historian of Reconstruction, thinks the Buffy, what is the vampire?

Lincoln the vampire movie.

He likes that better.

That's a fun movie.

He likes that better.

Perfect for this discussion.

Some moron thinks Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a better movie than Lincoln.

You call Eric Foner an idiot?

That opinion is idiotic.

Oh, no.

That Lincoln the Vampire Slayer

is a better movie than Spielberg's Lincoln.

But here's, you know what, how do you?

I am going to lose it tonight.

Okay, let's move on to.

Let's move on to it.

No, this is still the same subject, really.

But this is so apropos.

30 House Democrats now are not running next time.

These are people who have the seat now.

That's an exodus because they know they're going to get their ass kicked in the midterms.

Democrats had a nine percentage point advantage.

This is only the first quarter of this a year ago.

9 percentage point advantage in party preference.

Now the Republicans have a five-point advantage.

That's a 14-point swing in a year.

57% of suburban respondents said they're going to vote for a Republican in the midterms.

This is the suburbs.

This is where Trump got beat.

This is what you have to win.

Now the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, wow, I guess this is the committee responsible for getting Democrats elected to the Congress,

they're sounding the alarm about the kind of stuff maybe that's come up here tonight.

So they wrote a report.

I think think it's only internal, but we know some of the things that were said.

They said that the voters find the Democrats preachy, judgmental, and focused on culture wars.

Here's one Democrat,

Jim Cooper.

He's retiring, a Democrat.

He said, we're addicted to telling other people what to think.

You can't really win many elections if you're that self-righteous.

What do you think?

What do I think?

I'm a

member of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

You had someone, I think, last week, Ro Khanna, Representative Roe Khanna from Silicon Valley.

He's a member of the Progressive Caucus, which is the largest caucus in the House.

This is a caucus that spends a lot of time on what we call bread and butter issues, on the issues that are really popular with Americans.

Cheaper drugs, not the, I mean, drug prices, drug prices.

All I'm saying is.

Trust me, I do not do cheap drugs.

You don't want government negotiating for your drug prices?

No, but they do, you know, they're really focused on the correctness.

I don't want the government on drugs.

And they also are focused on reaching out to rural voters.

I mean, you got Rocano talking about the...

Well, they're doing a horrible job then because it's also in the news.

Mark Bocan.

They said the Democratic Party is becoming extinct in rural districts.

I just want to give you this a lot.

I'm not saying it's doing well.

I'm saying it's focused on the power.

No, but Bernie Sanders, who shifted the trajectory of our politics, I believe

is a progressive populist.

But pay attention to John Tester.

The Democrats desperately need to have more rural and red state Democrats.

They need to do it by reaching out beyond the base, and you're not going to do it if you're always putting everything through the prism of Berkeley and Brooklyn.

You talk about Jim Cooper there.

Cooper's a southern Democrat who represents an area outside Nashville.

The reason he's resigning is because Republicans in the state have cracked and packed that district into dividing Nashville into three districts so Republicans can win them.

And that's the kind of assault on democracy that's going on right now.

And that's why, however much, we know Democrats are in trouble, their pendulum swings in midterms.

But don't underestimate the impact of the rig system of redistricting.

And folks remembering that, you know, we had a little thing like an insurrection a couple months ago.

And maybe you don't want to give those folks the keys to the car.

Yeah, but maybe.

Maybe you do want to give the keys to the car to those who are supporting really popular programs.

You know, we got at the moment, I think, how many?

We have four lobbyists for every member of Congress.

There's a reason that things don't get passed that are popular.

You're not listening to

Democratic.

You're not listening to what your own Democratic

committee is saying.

Yeah, that's not my committee.

I'm part of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

I don't think the DCC

there's a difference in this country between top and below

establishment and outside of what.

See, what you're doing, you're talking about policies, and I'm saying that's not what the voters are hearing.

What they're hearing is preachy, judgmental, and focused on the political state.

Maybe it's because the media.

No large extension.

Well, we can blame everything on the media.

I don't like the media.

I think there is media malpractice in this country.

At the moment, I'm not sure if it's a matter of fact.

Okay, but we can't reform the media before the election.

The media is not taking us to war.

Vladimir Putin's in danger is taking us to war.

So we'll get to that.

But look, to your point, I mean, part of the problem in our politics, the reason folks are so confused, the far right isn't conservative, and the far left isn't liberal.

And if we could actually start applying more consistent liberal principles, maybe these folks would actually have a shot.

But the fact that Republicans and Democrats are getting their ass kicked in rural communities and red states means they need to reach out more.

And that's

not

talk like a goddamn human.

Also not have this attitude of this is the one true opinion and if you disagree with me, you're a horrible person.

This is a caricature, Bill.

Well, it's a caricature bill.

It is a caricature.

Where I sit, it's supposed to be the left publication.

Okay, well, we disagree with that.

But it's a liberal.

It's really supporting popular programs in this country, and it's not self-righteous.

I agree with you.

We have to listen to people.

Listening to people is key.

And you're not listening to me.

You're not a person that I would listen to.

You're not a person I would listen to.

All right.

Well, I'm listening to you.

I'm listening to you, but I'm just saying I do think they're characters.

All right.

Well,

let me go back to what the stats are.

Obama won 875 counties when he won the last time.

Biden, 527.

875 to 527 in counties.

That's a tremendous falloff.

Now, the caricature is that the people in those counties, mostly rural counties, they're racist.

But they voted a lot more for Obama than they did for Biden.

So that would kind of cut against that theory, right?

Could I jump in for a second?

Yeah, you could.

The 60 counties in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania flipped it to Trump or went for Trump because of endless war.

That's a big issue because these were the counties where they had the most maimed, crippled, and wounded and killed in endless wars.

And I think that's a big issue.

I think that's a big issue right now as we face the possibility of another war.

I'm not allocating who's starting it, but what's desperately needed is a diplomatic, clear, persistent diplomatic resolution.

And I think that

this country needs to rebuild itself.

I think this country needs to

come home and say, not be isolationist, but rebuild this country?

And we have crises, which what are we doing in Ukraine?

Three presidents, Biden, Obama, and Trump, said it was not a national security interest.

I hope it remains free, independent, and sovereign through diplomacy.

We don't can't afford in this time of...

Katrina, you're the publisher of a liberal public.

How about the liberal international order that's basically secured peace in Europe?

The United States.

Oh, for God.

It's a new world.

How about the post-World War order that was actually developed by people to try to secure liberal democracy and it's done a pretty damn good job of it.

Where's the difference between the two?

You want to do

it?

We're going to get.

I really

want to talk about Ukraine, but we kind of fucking have to.

Yeah.

So we will.

But before we do, let me just.

I know.

So things don't get too out of hand.

Let's just take a mid-show break.

We'll do our little comedy piece and then we'll talk about Ukraine.

Is that okay?

Let's do that.

So

we don't get too heated.

All right.

So

what we can all agree on, did we all watch the Super Bowl?

Yes.

Is that okay?

We watch the Super Bowl?

Okay.

I love the Super Bowl.

You love the Super Bowl.

Look, we all love the Super Bowl.

See, we're brought together by the Super Bowl.

My daughter's boyfriend played football in MVP, Oklahoma.

Wow.

We're not talking about that.

About that.

Okay.

Great.

We're all united around that.

So

I noticed in the Super Bowl, now I've noticed this for years,

whatever network has the game, they get to pimp for the big show that they think, because this is the greatest platform you could ever have.

Like 113 million people watch.

So whatever show that you want to promote for the next season, this is the place to do it.

So NBC had the game this year, so they promoted their big new show, which is called Bel Air, which is a reboot of The Prince of Bel Air.

Now, I remember that show, and it was so fun.

It was this cute little comedy.

Now it's been rebooted.

No laughs.

It was not a comedy anymore.

Now it's Bel-Air.

It's about gangs and guns and social injustice, and it's serious as a fucking heart attack.

So we noticed that, I guess the other networks noticed, this is a big trend to reboot your formerly, you know, light-hearted shows as very serious ones.

So here are the ones coming up.

For example, if you love Different Strokes, you'll like this dark reboot.

A tiny man-child snatched from the only home he ever knew by a strange, wifeless white millionaire.

What does he want?

Find out on strokes.

Shit's Creek, very funny, but there's nothing funny about ex-millionaires running a motel in a town that wants them dead on shit's just got real.

The Big Bang theory was hilarious, but Asperger's syndrome is no joke when the show comes back as I can't feel love.

A Free Spirit Redhead and a Cuban band leader played it for Latz in the 50s now see the reboot Ricardo's Scenes from a Marriage.

Bravo takes its Housewives franchise in a shocking new direction on the real housewives of the 101 Freeway Underpass.

The beloved characters from Finding Nemo are back in a dystopian battle for survival on Fish Game.

Everybody loved the homespun humor of Andy Griffith, Deputy Barney Fife, Howard Sprague, Floyd the Barber, Gomer and Guber, but now this town inhabited almost exclusively by single single men gets a second look in Mayberry LGBTQ.

So you do a spit.

And in this sci-fi thriller, aliens are real, and this one only comes alive with an arm up its ass.

ALF, Resurrection.

Okay,

so.

Now that I got that out of my system,

it was good.

Okay, Ukraine.

So we tape this show now at 4 o'clock Friday afternoon.

I just came out as Biden was finishing his news speech.

He did change the tone a little.

He said he thinks for sure Putin is going to invade Ukraine.

And he also said something about going right after the capital, Kiev.

Now, I don't know.

I thought if Putin invaded, it was just going to be the part that he's been trying to bite off for quite a while, the eastern part, which is more Russian than Ukrainian, or at least part Russian.

What do you think now?

Is this, to me,

up until now, it's looked, and maybe after now, it looks like CNN needs ratings.

And, you know, I mean, why are we always, I don't know, I agree with you.

This is every fucking battle our fight.

You know, do we always have to do it?

When we were having war on Wednesday, didn't they say there was war going on?

Yes, every headline was like, save the date.

And if this is about deterrence, no, it's about.

War starts on Wednesday.

No, it's madness.

This is, if Joe Biden, President Biden is saying this is how you do diplomacy, this is nuts.

Because you announcing, I I really think our media to a large extent is frenzied and eager for

war drums and many of the people on our media have a vesting against the media.

And you know, I also think, I was watching CNN as well, and they replayed the tape of Ari Fleischer in 2001 saying to you, Bill Maher, you better watch what you say and watch what you do.

And they are bringing that spirit back.

When Jen Saki or Ned Price, defense and White House, tell a journalist, if you raise questions about intelligence, you are parroting Russia talking points.

That is a smear against the United States.

That was an absolute smear against a journalist doing their job, but that's not what we're actually talking about.

What we're talking about is actually trying to defend a liberal international order against Vladimir Putin.

It's not a failure of diplomacy.

It's not NATO's problem.

It's Vladimir Putin's problem.

And if you doubt that, go talk to the folks who live in Crimea.

We have a real problem.

The administration's trying to actually do something interesting about getting information ahead of false flag operations that will be used as a pretext to do invasion.

But if you actually care about people, then you can't, and you care about liberal democracy, then you can't simply say we're not in favor of war, so we're going to let people invade other countries.

Okay, but we're not going to be able to do that.

We're not saying that.

I'm in favor of democracy.

I'm not sure when the White House is.

But just not fighting for it.

No, when the White House is not a fighter.

Fighting to what degree?

Let me ask the question.

Wait, wait, wait.

No, no, no.

Let me just ask one question.

The war is unimaginable in this situation.

These are nuclear-armed countries.

The miscalculation has been a problem.

If we didn't go to war during the Cold War with nukes, we're not going to do it over Ukraine.

So I'm I'm not worried about that.

Wait a second.

Biden says, has said, we are not sending troops.

Yes.

Yeah.

You agree with that.

We should not.

Okay, so then it's not part of NATO.

Okay.

But then we are just sort of.

What we need to do, what we need to do.

They're in Ukraine, the U.S.

advisors, and 3 billion or more weapon systems.

The danger is miscalculated.

Okay, but we're not sending troops.

We're not sending troops.

So no one is...

President Biden said it's not in NATO.

So we're not.

And also Ukraine is not a NATO country, so therefore Article 5 does not apply.

But still, NATO has a responsibility to try to rein in aggression by Russia, which you can do through a massive regime of sanctions.

And Putin has, I think, dramatically miscalculated.

It's not just Putin, it's the entire country.

Russia has a blob, too.

Don't you think there's always a reason why the defense contractors are ginning us up

to put more money into their pockets and to get us upset about some new boogie military?

Guys, I love the Eisenhower defense military

complex speech.

It's a really important speech.

It's a really important concept.

It should.

But this is about,

right now, if you want to take a big step back, we do have a challenge of our time, unfortunately, defending liberal democracy and the rise of autocracies.

And so you have to create lines

by democracies uniting together to stop authoritarian aggression that would destroy the rule of law and free people.

And why that's controversial.

It's not controversial.

But

who's against democracy?

I just feel we do better to rebuild it at home.

President Biden went out to the world to say, we're a democracy, you're an autocracy.

We wouldn't get the voting rights bill passed.

Yeah, I agree with you.

I'm saying we need to

rebuild the democracy in our country, which is fragile.

What I would do right now is rebuild a security architecture from Russia to Europe that is not based on NATO, which is a military institution, which mandates that countries have compatible weapons with the United States and a lot of money.

You think it's a coffee clutch?

So, John, let me ask you this.

This country, we've had since 1823 the Monroe Doctrine, Yes.

Which says, and this is 200 years old, when we said, look, anybody within 1,000 goddamn miles of us, that's ours.

The Caribbean, all of Latin America.

That's the Monroe Doctrine.

Do not fuck with us anywhere near us.

But Putin,

Ukraine is the ancestral home of Russia.

Kiev, that's where the Russian state started in Kiev.

They have a deepest.

Kiev and Rusk is the first era of Russian history.

No, I'm just saying.

I'm not saying

he's a good guy or that he should invade it.

Ukrainian

decide whether they want to be taken off the Russian.

And

some of them are within the corner.

Not deeply divided.

You're absolutely muddying the point and echoing Russian talking points.

But I'm just saying that is.

But just

looking at yourself.

That is where the debate in this country has broken out.

You don't say to someone who is speaking from 30 years of knowledge about NATO, Russia, or hijab.

Putin wants to talk about the state.

And you say I'm parroting Russian talking points.

No, when Putin wants to talk about the point of view.

Do I speak when I speak of nuclear issues?

Is that a Russian?

When Putin took

crime,

his argument was, his argument was, you know what?

These are all native Russians, so let's not worry about structures like

people being able to decide their own destiny and national sovereignty.

This is not.

NATO is a military institution.

NATO is a structure that was put together to stop Soviet expansionism after the Second World War.

And there is no more Sovietism.

The Soviet Union, and it was a broken problem.

It's a broader problem.

You want to expand it.

I appreciate it.

There is no more Soviet Union.

What NATO was formed.

Or what should stop the Soviet Union?

It was disbanded.

Yes.

Yeah, I think it was.

You both think NATO should dissolve.

Well, I don't know about NATO.

What is the point anymore?

Because

it looks like we're just against you, Russia.

And Russia does need to be contained to a degree.

But Russia is not a power other than its nuclear weapon

and its army.

The reason NATO exists and the reason democracy should be actually uniting in structures way beyond NATO is because in the wake of the Second World War, War, Soviets were expanding and the European nations said, you know what, we need to unite together in order to stop that aggression.

That aggression, whether it's happening under Vladimir Putin or the former nation, still seems to be in play.

And democratic nations have a right to unite to try to stop that kind of aggression.

Otherwise, you're enabling autocracy's rise.

I disagree with that.

Let me go back to the...

I think

you rebuild democracy not by going out in search of demons.

And I think there's a transpartisan element in this country which understands we do better by rebuilding at home and then working with other countries.

The United States is no longer, by the way, Kamala Harris, vice president, is at this Munich Security Conference.

In 2007, that's where Putin staked out that we are no longer in a unipolar world.

After Iraq, the debacle of Iraq, and other wars, I just feel like

it's easy talk to say they're autocracy, and they are many of these countries.

So if Putin invades Ukraine, do you think the U.S., that your preference would be just let him take it?

No, we're not saying that.

We're not saying let him take it.

Saying we already said we're not going to send troops, so we can't stop him from taking it.

If you begin by saying you're not sending American men and women, and then you don't have a

national security interest.

And again,

you're going to tell people in the country that they're defending NATO?

They're standing up for NATO?

Is that their?

You're standing up for democracies against autocracies, you're using financial mechanisms to punish and constrain aggression.

I'm boring with this discussion.

I know, you know what?

Hang on.

on.

I'm bored with the whole estimate.

Crypto.

Man.

Let's go back to the Democrats.

Crypto.

Let's go back to the Democrats.

Do you know here's something?

Did you know, Katrina, you talk about the media?

Yes.

More Democrats watch Fox than they watch MSNBC.

I was shocked.

This is from our friends at Nielsen, who do the ratings.

I love them.

In prime time, 39% of Democrats watch Fox, only 31% watch MSNBC, and 30% watch CNN.

What, you're denying that?

You're not getting a comment out of me on that one because I, I mean, I think

that you go on, and RoConna and I have talked about this,

you go on Fox if you're invited, say, on Tucker Carlson, and you don't check your integrity at the door, you speak your mind, because you're reaching people.

You might not otherwise reach, but there is a problem.

You should go on Fox.

There is a debate,

and I'm being honest, about people who won't go on Fox.

But what do you think about the fact, I mean, I think you want to reach people.

But what do you think?

No, okay, we're talking about two different issues.

I've agreed with you from the beginning.

I've implored Democrats, go on Fox.

You can't just preach to the choir.

I'm saying this was shocking news to me.

And that's prime time.

All day on 25 to 54, 42% of Democrats

interest Fox.

Is there regional breakthrough?

MSNBC, 25%.

They're killing them.

So the Democrats are watching Fox.

What does that mean?

What does that tell you?

I think they'd be wiser if they read more and didn't watch TV at all.

Yeah, but

that's true of everybody.

Fox is not a news organization.

Most of the journalists have been drummed out of there.

They are a right-wing talk TV.

And a lot of folks find that entertaining.

Some people try to figure out what the opposition is saying.

It's its own echo chamber.

So, you know, we're going to do the news.

We're actually going to

try to do the news and bring people actual information because freedom of the press is under attack.

a very good thing.

Haven't the other two cable networks gotten more like Fox?

Not that their politics is the same, but in the sense that you can't trust when you watch them.

I just can't.

It's like you're going to present the things that your audience already believes.

There's going to be no, it's not like this show.

No, but there's not going to be some, there's no debate.

We were talking in the green room or whatever room it is about how there's this show does have,

but this show doesn't.

I don't know what I've.

I took a shot at the green room.

That's.

I'm saying, we were talking about how this show gives a breadth of space for conversation.

Right.

There are very few shows today

where you have

civil,

intelligent conversation.

But whenever a story breaks, I'm like, I read it from, I try to read it from both sides.

Because whatever I read from one side or watch from one channel, it's like, I can't trust you.

You're telling me half the story.

You're not telling me the half you don't want me to know.

And then I read the other half and I'm like, oh, okay, I see what this is.

That's the problem with our media.

I gotta go.

Time for new rules.

Anyway,

no rules.

Okay.

New rule, now that Kanye West has worn his full body invisibility costume to the Super Bowl,

he has to sell a home version for men who have to go places with their wife and want to doze off without being detected.

Parent Teacher Day, Thanksgiving, movies where older actresses get their groove back.

She'll never know.

Are you awake?

Is it even you?

The Kanye West Cloak of Invisibility.

Wear one and you'll never again hear the words, stop making that face.

New ruler, now that Johnson ⁇ Johnson makes baby cologne, they have to tell me, who is this for?

Douchebag toddlers who didn't have time to shower before they hit the club?

Just admit it's leftover vaccine.

Here's why babies don't need cologne.

They already smell like shit.

New rules, for the next Olympics, get the performance-enhancing drugs out of figure skating and get them into curling.

That whole sport would just make so much more sense if I knew they were high on something.

New Real, now that this Catholic priest in Phoenix has resigned after an investigation found he had been performing baptisms wrong for 20 years because he used the words, we baptize instead of I baptize, thereby invalidating thousands of baptisms, someone has to tell the church, nobody gives a fuck.

Really,

of all the areas for the church to investigate, this is the one you follow through on.

Besides, God is a conservative.

He doesn't care if you use the wrong pronoun.

New rules, now that we have Replica, the AI companion bot who is always here to listen and talk, let's also introduce Dr.

Replicatz,

the AI psychiatrist who also pretends to listen to your problems but doesn't charge $500 an hour to say, and how did that make you feel?

And finally, new rules, someone has to tell China, you can steal our trade secrets, our software, and our intellectual property, but we draw the line at our hot freestyle skiers.

Now,

if you've been like me over the past few weeks glued to your TV watching the Olympics, that makes exactly two of us.

We knew there were shithole countries, but who knew there was a shithole superpower?

But

I'm sure you've heard about American citizen Eileen Gu, the beautiful model, influencer, and now now gold medal winning skier who was born and raised here in America but who chose to ski in the Olympics for China.

Cool, huh?

Is it?

Is that cool now?

To choose to represent a totalitarian police state over America?

The Olympics pretends to only be about sports, but of course the games have always been a bit of a proxy war for which country has the best system.

And by choosing Teen China, Eileen Gu became a living symbol of China's triumph over the West, which wouldn't bother me so much if I thought China had triumphed over us in the ways that really matter.

But they haven't.

Now, we do have human rights issues right here at home.

We do.

But we're still at least for another three years

a democracy based on freedom.

And they are an authoritarian surveillance state based on how would you like to disappear for a few months.

Like that tennis player who recently vanished for a while when she said she'd been raped by a government official.

We do still throw too many black people in jail, but perspective matters.

China has basically jailed an entire ethnic minority, the Uyghurs.

a situation that both the Trump and Biden administrations has called a genocide.

America is not close to that.

And it's a cynical dodge to pretend that China's sins should be overlooked because we all do it.

No.

In 1997, Britain returned Hong Kong to China with an agreement that Beijing,

from Beijing, that Hong Kong could retain its free press, honest courts, and democratic government.

Well, they lied.

Democracy and freedom are being crushed there, and China doesn't want anyone to talk about it.

And because so much money is involved, no one does.

Two Two years ago, when the general manager of the Houston Rockets, Darryl Maury, tweeted, fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong, he was forced to apologize.

In America, we're supposed to root for democratic government, not apologize for it.

But the NBA has a television deal with China worth a billion and a half dollars.

So LeBron James said Maury needed to be educated on the situation.

The situation being, I got some shoes to sell.

Kowtow is a Chinese word, but boy, Americans have gotten good at it.

For years, Google proudly refused to kowtow to Chinese censors, adopting the slogan, don't be evil.

But the Chinese market proves so lucrative that, well, okay, a little evil.

That's the deal China China offers American companies and celebrities.

We'll give you access to our billion-plus consumers as long as you shut up about the whole police state genocide thing.

John Cena took that deal.

Well, come on, China accounts for 34% of the global box office, and he's a movie star now.

So, like the Uyghurs, last year he learned he needed to get some re-education.

You see, he, John, referred to Taiwan as a country as if it was a separate country from China, which it is.

But China would like to do to Taiwan what it did to Tibet and what it's now doing to Hong Kong.

So we were treated to this video.

And I thought steroids shrunk your balls.

Wowie, when a country can make your big mustly macho man action stars grovel in their language, you know you're somebody's bitch.

In the original Top Gun, Tom Cruise wore a bomber jacket with the flags of several Asian countries that are our allies sewn on the back.

Well, the flag for Taiwan has now magically disappeared for the upcoming Top Gun Maverick.

Well, he used to be a Maverick, now he does whatever China says.

So.

So can you really blame 18-year-old Eileen Gu, who's already made over $31 million as the face of 23 brand products in China, for following in the footsteps of other American celebrities?

Some of Gu's defenders say it's racist to ask if she's still an American citizen, and she herself won't say.

Why is that racist?

Why was it racist to think that COVID might have originated from a lab leak as opposed to from eating bats?

Besides the fact that the idea that COVID came from eating gross, weird food seems way more racist than the idea that it came from a high-tech lab.

Besides that, the definition of woke was supposed to be being alert to injustice in society.

But because the woke now see race first and everything else never,

fear of being accused of racism has given a free pass on human rights abuses to China and any other places that are perceived as non-white.

If China was in Europe, would they get away with having concentration camps without more of an outcry from America?

If men were forcing women to wear this in, say, Massachusetts, would that go as unremarked on as it does?

The Chinese classify transgender as a mental illness.

They just edited Friends episodes so that Ross's wife is definitely not a lesbian.

How would that go over here?

Didn't Martha Luther King say an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere?

Can we still quote him?

In 2020, NBA players wore jerseys that said, freedom, speak up, and justice.

But I guess those things only matter for home games.

Sorry, Uyghurs.

Someone has to tell me where we got this rule that you can't criticize China because I suspect we got it from China.

Because after all, it's where we get everything else.

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at the Mirage in Vegas tomorrow night and somehow tonight and again tomorrow night at the Smart Financial Center in Sugarland, Texas, April 9th, at the Tulsa Theater in Tulsa, Oklahoma, April 10th.

I want to thank Katrina van den Hoovel, John Avalon, Brooke Jenkins.

And now go to YouTube and join us on Overtime.

Okay.

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

For more information, log on to HBO.com.