Ep. #510: Howard Stern, Senator Amy Klobuchar

There's only one place where history, culture, and adventure meet on the National Mall.

Where museum days turn to electric lights.

Where riverside sunrises glow and monuments shine in moonlight.

Where there's something new for everyone to discover.

There's only one DC.

Visit Washington.org to plan your trip.

This podcast is supported by Progressive, a leader in RV insurance.

RVs are for sharing adventures with family, friends, and even your pets.

So if you bring your cats and dogs along for the ride, you'll want Progressive RV Insurance.

They protect your cats and dogs like family by offering up to $1,000 in optional coverage for vet bills in case of an RV accident, making it a great companion for the responsible pet owner who loves to travel.

See Progressive's other benefits and more when you quote RV Insurance at progressive.com today.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates Pet Injuries and additional coverage and subject to policy terms.

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

Start the clock.

I gotta live with it every day.

Thank you.

I know why you're really happy because you're not in the fire.

More fire out here.

You know what?

Brian Williams said this the other day.

It's so true.

If this PG ⁇ E, that's our gas and electric company, turned off power for a million people, that happened in New York, be national news all the time, right?

You know what's going on out here?

The Santana Winds, you know this, they picked up.

So Pacific Gas and Electric shut off the electricity to a million people in case a spark from one of their wires would start a wildfire.

How's that for logic?

Everybody

stay inside and light dozens of candles in every room because we don't want to start a fire.

In other news, the President of the United States is going to be impeached.

Because he treats subpoenas like parking tickets.

He has gone full stonewall on this Ukrainian thing, refuses to turn over any documents, ordering witnesses not to show up to testify, you know, as innocent people do.

He's pulling that old trick that the guilty always do, ignoring the crime and acting outraged about the investigation.

Guys know this one, you know.

Honey, it's not about the dick pics I sent to your sister,

it's the fact that you were snooping in my phone.

That's the real crime.

This is.

This is the great irony of the Trump presidency.

Foreign criminals, that was what he got elected on.

They have to be kept out of this country unless they're here to steal our elections.

Then it's okay.

No, no, no, no, no.

No, please.

Apparently that was not a joke.

Apparently that was a think piece and

does not deserve applause.

Anyway,

but the guy who was, of course, his errand by Rudy Giuliani, now trying to link the Bidens to Romania.

First it was Ukraine, right?

Then it was China.

Now it's Ukraine.

Now it's Romania.

He's Dora the conspiracy explorer.

He's all over the world hunting for this shit.

And that is the story that will not go away.

I know Trump wanted to, but it will not.

That Trump was using Giuliani to investigate Joe Biden.

And by the way, what a perfect story for Halloween season.

A pumpkin using a vampire

to attack a mummy.

It's a perfect story.

And we found out,

I can't make this out, we found out that the vampire has an assistant whose name is literally Igor.

Did you see this story on the news?

Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, these are two of Rudy's associates,

Ukrainian-born, who are helping him to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.

He had lunch with them yesterday, and then hours later, they got arrested trying to skip the country.

Oh, yeah, there they are.

Seems like only yesterday they were chasing Macaulay Culkin around his house.

That's not even the worst of the week.

Today, Trump threatened sanctions on Turkey and to destroy their economy for invading Syria and slaughtering the Kurds, something he gave them the green light to do four days ago.

But we can't have a female president because they're impulsive.

It was

really, it was,

it was only four days ago that Trump was like, fuck the Kurds, they didn't help us in World War II.

He said that.

They didn't help us in World War II.

So wait, now we punish anyone who didn't help us in World War II?

Because you know who didn't really help us in World War II?

Germany was no help at all.

Wow.

And I haven't even gotten to the rally.

Did you see that that he had last night?

He was in Minnesota

Okay, and it went longest one ever went on for an hour and 40 minutes It went so late his orange glow went into night mode

And he kept doing that nasal sniffing thing that he does.

That one is not his fault.

He suffers from treasonal allergies

vintage Donald Trump at a rally.

He called his political opponents very sick, deranged people who want to get this, erase your future.

He called Elon Omar, an America-hating socialist.

He said Pelosi was either really stupid or she's lost it.

And then he got to the point of his speech.

You can't elect Democrats.

They're too divisive.

That one I actually thought was a joke.

But, you know, you never know.

And he also bad-mouthed Jay-Z.

And Jay-Z said today, you know, I got 99 problems, and a whiny little bitch is one of them.

He also said this.

He said in this rally last night, he said, Biden was only a good vice president because he understood how to kiss Barack Obama's ass.

And Mike Penn said, good one, boss.

Oh, and this is my favorite story of the week.

Pence's wife, Karen Pence, was talking at a Women for Trump rally, and she said the words, if you support President Trump, don't be afraid to get down on your knees.

I swear.

Just push Hannity out of the way.

All right, we've got a great show.

We have John Heilman, Shona Thomas, and then Dominic.

And here a little later, we'll be speaking with Senator and Presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar is at the end of the show.

But I'm very happy to have my first guest here.

He hosts the Howard Stern Show.

Can you guess who he is?

He is here in LA to launch the Sirius XM Hollywood Studios.

His third bestseller is Howard Stern.

Comes again, the king of all media.

Howard Stern is over here.

Good to see you.

Wow.

I tell you, Bill.

Thank you.

Very exciting.

You know what it is?

I'm never in Los Angeles, so it seems very exciting when I am here.

Back in New York, no one pays attention.

That's bullshit.

I love it here.

You know, it's fun.

Really?

Because I've listened to you the last couple.

I've listened to you all the time, and you had a lot of anxiety just about packing.

I have seen it.

Why so much anxiety?

It's not Vietnam in the 60s, is it?

In Los Angeles.

For me, it is.

I mean, yeah, yeah.

It's like, I don't like to travel.

I like the comfort of my own home studio.

But I have to say, it was kind of fun coming out here.

You know, with weed being legal.

You don't smoke weed.

I don't smoke weed, but everyone is very quiet.

It's very nice.

Very peaceful.

I like it.

But I know you love your home and you love your quiet studio, but come on.

The one thing you don't get, and don't tell me you don't like it, is that.

Well,

this is stopping.

Stop it.

You like lovely.

This is lovely.

No, I like this, but when I'm working and I'm, you know,

because I wrote this book, you know, part of the thing that I like about doing these interviews is that there is no audience, that the audience, it's quiet in the studio.

You forget that you're on the radio, and a lot of truth comes out.

You were a guest on my show, and I thought that you were amazing.

You really were

and I thought we had this great discussion about your career in comedy everything 90 minutes it went it went 90 minutes and and it was that's what I love about satellite radio yeah the fact that not a lot of people could do it none of you you do it right you you get people to be confessorial why

well I think it's because I'm genuinely interested and I'm inquisitive.

I have a lot of questions.

And I often say this, and I think I told you this, that I got involved in psychotherapy

and I really enjoyed the process of sitting there and being listened to.

And I thought, well,

if my guests could really be listened to and really be heard, it might be a really nice experience.

And because I was on satellite radio and we had so much time that I could sit there with someone and not cut them off, but give them an opportunity to really express themselves.

And I ended up with this great collection of interviews with some of my heroes.

You know,

it's a terrific book.

Thank you.

Now that we've plugged it,

we didn't plug it for Christmas, but Chris pays.

That's right.

It's Thanks Holidays.

I swear to you, that's why I came out to L.A.

The publisher said, you know, it'd be great if you got out there and pushed your book for Christmas.

You're a man of your word.

And I did it.

I did it.

You said to me at Jerry Seinfeld's birthday party, you said, I will do your show.

And that's rare.

You don't do a lot of shows, so I appreciate it.

By the way, you know what's weird?

Thank you.

But you know what's weird about this show?

I've been sitting in my hotel room all day obsessing about it because it's a weird time out here in L.A.

in terms of the actual time that you go live.

Seven.

And I found that, yeah,

I sat in my room.

No, it's weird for me to be weird.

I go to bed at 8 o'clock.

I'm like a big baby.

So I'm like, well, hurry it up.

I was like, should I eat dinner before I come to Bill's show or not?

And what would I eat?

I mean, these were big decisions.

And then I was actually going to be very LA and go to the pool and hang out.

And I went, no, if I do that, my hair won't dry in time.

And I do do want to look my best for this show.

So there you go.

There was my day.

But I'm happy to be here.

I'm happy to have you.

And I'm very happy that we got to be friends again because I swear to God.

Yeah, it was too long.

I swear to God.

When I listen to you, I think there's only two sane people left in America.

And it's me and this guy I'm listening to.

I swear to God, because I invariably agree with you on everything, everything that comes up.

Well, I felt awful that we weren't talking for so long because I'm such a fan of this show, and I think this show is so necessary right now.

And Bill's voice.

And I'll say one other thing, if I may.

I really am shocked.

I know you probably don't care about winning an Emmy, and I know you've been nominated, but you've never actually won.

40 times.

Is it really 40 times?

40 times.

I mean, give the man an Emmy already.

But see, this gets.

You do it.

I mean, not many guys are working live.

But this gets about something else we have in common.

Yes.

Why I don't win that, Emmy?

We're honest people.

People don't like honesty.

They say they do.

The fans do.

But why, if Hollywood is such a liberal town, you would think Hollywood would be...

Because that's why you and I are the last same people, because we're liberals, but we don't go for all the bullshit on the far left.

Right, right, right, right.

And maybe that's, I don't know what it is.

And that's not good enough for the liberals who vote at the Academy.

So you think that the Academy is that well thought out and

they're conspiring against you.

Look,

I really do think you deserve it.

But you know what?

Winning, that's for losers.

That's right.

But it's interesting because, you know, we do have this other parallel.

I mean, I moved here in 2003.

You moved to Sirius, to off-terrestrial in 2005.

It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

Me too.

Yeah.

We both had these second acts.

Yes.

Right, in places.

For me and for you, it's true.

When the United States government decided to go after me, you know, the censorship, the religious right, it really was mind-boggling because the stations that I worked for were being fined.

It was a form of racketeering by the United States government.

They were preventing these companies that hired me to do further business.

So I was really boxed in.

I felt my show was being edited to death.

It was just debilitating.

So moving to satellite radio was a godsend.

And really, it just freed me to do what I really wanted.

So, you know, for me, the show has never been better.

And in terms of my life, I just feel a lot more relaxed.

Well, because, again, like, we are what Frank Sinatra would have said was in the autumn of our years.

Yes, I know.

I know.

It's very depressing.

We've talked.

By the way, not a wrinkle on your face.

Is that right?

That's pretty amazing.

Look at me.

And God knows you're faithful.

Okay, let's.

Oh, you're so homophobic.

You're the one who puts that shit on your hands every day.

You know, that's not good for you.

I'll get to that later.

I just 15 times.

That's horrible.

I know, I got to go to Vegas right after this show.

I know you wouldn't stay anyway, but we have to talk about health off stage sometime.

Yes.

You have some shitty ideas about it.

About health?

Yes, you do.

What are you talking about?

I'm not going to talk about it here.

I want to talk about many other things we have limited.

You know, I'm on Metamucil right now.

Okay.

Extra fiber.

You have no idea how that changed my life.

When my doctor told me to go on Metamucil, I was like, that's for old people.

I don't do that.

Changed my life.

Toto Toilet.

Okay.

Pellet.

I know, I know.

What are you talking about?

Okay.

All right.

But what's so amazing is that when I hear you talk about so many things, I wrote you this note about when you were talking about show tunes in your house.

Yes.

I'm like, oh my God, you think you heard my boy Bill a lot?

Oh my God.

My parents played damn Yankees.

We all had this.

We all had the same boomers.

We all had the same childhood.

And yet, as you point out, the one big difference between us is I am in a committed, loving relationship with a woman.

And you, you know, the amazing thing, the amazing thing about Bill Maher, and by the way, I worked with Bill Maher's father when I worked at NBC Radio.

He was a fabulous guy.

He was.

And there's no, you know, this is so rushed.

I should really have the whole hour to myself.

Come back in your car.

Listen.

But I wanted to say

the thing we really should get into, we really should get into this.

I don't understand.

Like, I don't even see you.

Why are you leaning into me for this?

I don't see you.

I don't see you.

Listen, this is why I don't have a relationship.

I know you're a heterosexual male.

What is it?

Do you ever have like a serious girlfriend where for because we don't see you anyway?

Okay, first of all, this is my interview already.

All right, sit back.

We need way more time.

Way more time.

Let me see, Sabbath.

Are you alive?

Some people might say when you're married, you're not alive.

Oh.

Some people are alive.

I am so happy.

I know, but that's you.

People are so personal about this issue.

No, no, no, no.

We don't have to judge you're not better or I'm not worse because we have different...

Do you have a girlfriend?

I don't need a girlfriend.

You don't need one?

Not in the traditional sense.

It depends on what you mean by girlfriend.

Is there someone that maybe you hang out with that you adore and makes you feel good?

Yes.

How do you

but it's not one person.

And that's where we're different.

You're so angry.

I'm not.

I'm angry.

You're having fun.

But you're taking over my show.

See, you don't know how to.

You ask me a question.

My car.

It was good.

Why are you so fucked up?

No, that's not.

That's going to take more than a minute.

No, I know.

Why?

I mean, you're in therapy.

I don't get that.

And you've been in therapy for a while.

I heard you changed my life.

I know, but you said 25 years?

Yeah, 25 years.

To me, that's a scam.

Either you care about it.

Don't even put that out there.

In my book, I do explain why it was so important in my life.

It made me a better father, made me a better human being.

But when are you done?

It made me happier.

When are you cured?

You know what?

I don't know that I'm cured, but I need someone to talk to who can.

You can talk every day.

But you're not, that's not real.

Stop it.

You know, come on.

Talk of mental health.

If I could say the woman thing, I heard you with Nami Moore this week, Jennifer Anderson, and you've said this too.

You, because your mother was depressed, and you took it upon yourself to cheer her up.

Yes.

You have the savior complex with women.

You're Captain Savajo.

You're right.

No, you're right.

My mother was profoundly sad.

My mother lost her mother when she was nine years years old.

And being raised by a woman who had no mother, in a sense, needed a parent.

Right.

And yeah, I did spend a lot of time with my mother trying to cheer her up and trying to make her happy.

And I didn't want to see her sad.

And I think that has carried over in my adult life.

My relationships with women, I kind of look for someone and I try to be all things and be, you know, a hero and all of that stuff.

And that's not healthy.

And that's one of the reasons I went into therapy.

And I think my relationship with my wife now is a lot more even keeled because I'm not sitting there trying to save her.

I mean except from me.

But you know.

Imagine me crawling on top of you.

So many lifestyle.

I mean Bill, think about it.

It's not a pleasant

look like it was about to happen.

Yeah.

But if you look, look, I mean, when you got divorced, I remember a lot of people said, you know what saved Howard, because that was back when you were an asshole.

And I told you on your show, I was an asshole too.

I just wasn't an asshole to you.

I was an asshole to you.

And I know we don't apologize.

I know.

And I appreciate that.

And I apologize for that.

I really do, because I love the guy.

And by the way, one of the great things about being this age, even though we are older, and the bad thing is we'll be dead sooner.

Right.

The fact that when we were young, not just you, so many feuds and fights.

And when you get to this age, it all seems stupid.

But that's what you're doing.

And you just, it's all about forgiveness and making up.

But that's why therapy really is a good thing.

I didn't need it.

I got that.

But I was at, but okay, that's you.

But I was at war with the world.

I was a guy who was very angry, and I was angry if anybody had a listener or an audience that wasn't mine.

So I was competing with everyone.

And it led to a lot of

friendships that broke up.

So in any case, that's another reason that therapy was good for me.

Not for you, because you're perfect.

Right, no, no.

I'm not perfect.

And by the way, he is perfect.

The 17 women he's dating think he's wonderful.

That's a lot closer to the menu.

I'm sure they're thrilled with you.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's personal.

Some people need therapy and marriage, and some people don't.

What about these women that you're let's not?

Where are they?

No, no.

I invite you to come on my show with all 17.

It's my question.

Yes.

It's my question.

Yes.

My question.

It's not 17.

How many?

Stop it.

14.

Give us a number.

Where do you hide them?

Stop it!

So when you got divorced, a lot of people said, you know, the reason why Howard was able to be an asshole is because his saving grace was he loved his wife.

And in America, there's nothing better that you can do than to love your wife.

So it's like, we forgive him for all the asshole stuff.

Now that he divorced, he's going to lose that.

The fans never left.

No, they didn't.

And you know what?

It's just such a good lesson.

You know, my fans are very loyal to me, and I think the reason they didn't, yeah, and I think the reason, seriously, that they didn't leave is that I was upfront and honest with them.

And I never tried to present myself like the religious right does.

Oh, you know, we have the perfect relationships and marriages forever and this and that.

I didn't lie about that kind of stuff.

And you know, when you present yourself as holier than thou, then people call you a hypocrite.

But if you say, look, I'm human and not everything works out, I think people are willing to.

Absolutely.

And the thing that I love that you're most honest about, that no one's honest about,

jealousy.

It's a theme in your show.

Yes.

You know, you always say it when you are are jealous.

And I'm jealous all the time.

Right.

And I'm jealous of things you have,

not the personal stuff.

Right.

I'm jealous that, you know, you get away with shit I can't get away with.

And that always.

Why is that?

Because, first of all, you don't have a politically correct audience.

This is a good audience, but I sometimes have to fight my way through that bullshit.

By the way, one of the things, one of the things, when I interview...

You have total support when you talk.

You only have Robin, who's awesome.

Right.

And that's it.

Very awesome.

You don't have to.

Right.

Because that's the advantage.

I am such a recluse and seriously shy.

I know.

That going into radio for me as a young man was perfect.

I would sit in these booths by myself in the beginning and I wouldn't have to look at an audience.

And it was fabulous.

Because who wants to look at an audience?

I just would imagine one guy in his car and that's who I was broadcasting to.

And you, you know.

And quite honestly, you said to me in the interview, as much as you love your audience, you also would fantasize about not having these people here, and you can all leave right now.

Actually,

they're getting better.

They're getting better.

They're behaving better.

But it bothers you to have the live audience as well.

It bothers me to not be able to say the thing I want to say that they really agree with, but because they're out in public, they have to be, oh, we're good people.

We can't laugh at that.

Or we have to groan to show that we're good people.

Yes, and that shit pisses me off.

And by the way, as a broadcaster, as one broadcaster to another, I have to tell you, it is very liberating.

I'm not sitting there being

right.

It's only my own fantasy.

I listened to you last week, and you had an Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator.

It's fascinating.

And he did 20 minutes on Robin, I got to come on your tits.

Robin, I'm coming.

I'm jerking off right now.

I'm splooging all over you.

And then I listened the other day, and you have a special guest, and I hear Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice, and I think, oh, it's another Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator.

It's the real one.

Even after you did that, the real one came on.

And that made me jealous.

It was so great to have the governor there because at one point I turned to Arnold, you know, the real Arnold, and I said, Governor, be honest with us.

I need you to tell me the truth.

What's going to happen when we die?

Now, most people, if you said that, would say, How the heck would I know?

I don't know.

He goes, What is going to happen to you?

You're going to lay there dead, and nothing is going to be there.

There's going to be no heaven.

There's not going to be anything.

You're just going to lay there and rot.

And I said, That is a fantastic answer.

What's happening?

No, no, no.

I got to.

What are you going to go do?

I gotta do the panel.

You're gonna talk to these people.

Who do you have on the panel?

You want me to stay or you want to go?

You gotta get back to the table, everyone.

All right, thank you so much.

Come here.

All right, Stern.

All right, let's meet our panel.

All right.

Why are we follow that?

All right, he's the publisher of the web magazine, the federalist, and host of Sirius XM's The Fray, Ben Dominic.

Ben, how you doing?

She's the Washington, D.C.

bureau chief for Vice News, Shauna Thomas.

And he's co-host of Showtime's the Circus.

I'm MSNBC's analyst and co-founder and editor of TheRecount.com.

John Heilman.

Okay.

No overtime tonight.

I got to get to Vegas, the Mirage.

If you're watching Friday Night Live, I'll be there in three hours.

All right.

So let's get right to the issues.

Papa Bowie.

John, no, no.

Come on.

We've got to move on to the next.

Just a second, Bob.

Okay, I understand.

So Mitch McConnell on social media and he said,

the way that impeachment stops is with a Senate majority with me as majority leader.

Sounds like he's saying it doesn't really matter what Donald Trump did or does, I will stop it.

My first question is, do Republicans still believe in democracy?

Well, I would say they would say they do,

but impeachment can't really stop with Senator McConnell.

Impeachment is a House of Representatives process.

And the thing is, it's Nancy Pelosi in charge of that process.

And I think we all sort of know that

it's pretty obvious they're moving towards impeachment.

Now, when it comes to actually removing him from office.

But I mean, actually, in the sense that, you know, when the Benghazi hearings were going on, I mean, Democrats thought they were very unfair and they were being nasty, but they still showed up.

Because when you get a subpoena, you showed up.

Now we're in this phase of government by make me.

I'm just not doing it.

That to me seems like they don't believe in democracy anymore.

First off, you can impeach for anything.

You can impeach him because you don't like his hair.

The Republicans could have impeached Barack Obama for wearing a tan suit.

You can.

It's a political decision.

It's not a legal decision.

And it's up to the Congress to decide.

The only question I have is why they aren't doing it faster.

Because from my perspective, the real risk that Democrats run at this point is having this process drift into an election year in which they want to make this about a lot more than impeachment.

They want to make it about the economy.

They want to make it about health care.

They want to make it about a bunch of other issues.

But if we end up in a situation where Mitch McConnell is getting this on his desk in late December, early January, then it drifts into when all of these senators who are going to have to be part of these hearings

are out on the trail.

Here's the thing.

It's not right.

You can't impeach someone because of the color of their hair, because there's no reasonable legal theory under which the color of someone's hair could constitute a high crime and a misdemeanor.

No, you can't.

And in fact, the original impeachments were done primarily targeting judges who were drunk.

Yes, and the reality is that that's never going to happen.

What's going to happen is the President of the United States, who called the head of a foreign country and said,

I know you guys are in a hot war with Russia, and I know you need this military assistance.

Happy to give it to you, but you've got to do me a favor first.

You got to work with my crooked attorney and his friends, Liev and Igor, and you got to dig up some dirt on my principal political opponent, and then I'll give you the money.

And then he came and said, here's a transcript that's perfect and is going to prove that I'm completely innocent when in fact it proved he's completely guilty.

If that is not an impeachable offense, give it the fuck up.

There is no impeachment.

If you can't impeach the president,

if you can't impeach the president for this, If you can't impeach the president for this, we should get rid of impeachment out of the Constitution because this is what the impeachment clause was written for.

Well, I also think, I mean, mean, one, we're not going to get rid of the impeachment clause in the Constitution.

That would take far too much work in too many states.

But, two, from what Ben was saying, you know, when Senator McConnell, he can drag that out himself, actually.

Like, I understand this argument about, you know, the House of Representatives shouldn't wait that long, they should do this really quickly.

But because it is a political thing, and I agree with you that it is a political act, impeachment is.

It's not exactly a legal act, they have to convince more than just this audience.

They have to convince more Americans that this is a legitimate thing that they are doing.

But if it was going to take

time,

but come on, how many times would the, honestly, would the Republicans have impeached Hillary Clinton if she did

this?

Say Hillary Clinton had an extramarital affair with a porn star named

Daniel Stormy

and then

paid, you know, the campaign funds were used to just make sure that that dirt didn't come out.

I mean, wouldn't that be...

She was an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

What if Chelsea Clinton met with five Russians in a hotel to get dirt and exchange polling data?

I mean, I could go on, there's 20 things that they would have impeached her for already.

In a heartbeat.

And we've played this game throughout the administration where we say Trump does something.

If Barack Obama had done that, what would have happened?

He would have been impeached nine times over.

I just think the notion that they're not moving fast enough, this story broke three weeks ago.

The whistleblower came forward, right?

They're going to be done with this.

Nancy Pelosi is going to have impeached the president of of the United States by Christmas.

And if that happens.

And they'd like to do it before Christmas.

It's going to have taken three months.

We're going to have gone from September to December at the latest, as Shauna said,

it could be Thanksgiving.

He's almost certain to get impeached.

The question is how much more we learn in this period over the course of October, November, and maybe December, and what that effect is on the Senate as they come to have a trial of this matter.

But I still think that's pretty quick.

It's not like this is not the Mueller investigation that's taken a year and a half.

This thing's going to have have moved from start to finish.

How will this Syria story, where he abandoned the Kurds, how will that affect impeachment?

I'm just wondering if it's a one-two punch.

Well, people, if anyone, because the Republicans themselves do not like it.

I mean, look, if you're a fan of Trump and you don't know who the Kurds are, but if you have even a vague idea and you know they've been our allies, we fucked them over once under another Republican president, so they should get used to it.

But now we did it again.

They're the ones who were fighting ISIS with us and for us, and he abandons them and lets them be slaughtered again, which is going on right now.

I just wonder what that does.

Is that something that just says to some people, yeah, this other stuff was bad, and God, he just can't be trusted with anything?

Nothing unites Washington more than getting involved in military missions in the Middle East.

And so in this circumstance, I think you had a unified Washington pushing back against the president.

Of course, we know today from the shelling that's going on that was near American.

But it's not getting involved, but it's getting uninvolved.

Well, but that's what I'm saying.

Washington disagrees with the president every time he pulls back from any scenario like this, which means it creates cracks in the base of support that he has.

In addition to that, it creates cracks among evangelicals and Christians in America who tend to like the Kurds because of their Christian population.

But the outcome of that, I think, is really too early to adjudicate, especially because, you know, in this determination that the the president made,

we are going to end up in the midst of a war that involves multiple factors, that is very complicated, and that doesn't have a clear interest on the part of Americans.

I'm not sure how it's going to play out in the country, but in Washington, it makes him a lot less popular with hawkish Republicans.

But here's what happened this week.

What happened this week was something we've never seen before.

I'm sorry, it makes him popular with

that.

We saw the course of this week.

You saw Lindsey Graham, a bunch of Republican senators, Matt Drudge, Fox News, every Republican in the world, Eric Erickson, all coming out and attacking Trump for the first time ever in the course of his presidency over this issue.

You know, these are a bunch of people who have, especially in the Republicans and the Senate, who are looking down at this impeachment thing coming towards them and saying, we're going to have a giant shit sandwich on our plate.

How big is that sandwich?

How bad is that sandwich?

How much shit is on that sandwich?

And they are pissed about it.

And they're pissed about it, and they all want to attack Trump for putting them in that position.

But if they attack him for that, they're on the side of the Democrats.

So instead, they have found this route, this thing, the abandonment of the Kurds, gives them a way to vent their frustrations at Trump and attack him without being on the side of the Democrats.

They could be on the sides of the Kurds, who, by the way, if you're a Trump fan, you can't even spell Kurd.

Right.

I'm not going to agree with that necessarily, but I do think it does, in some ways, could show Republicans that they do have some power in the situation.

The political problem here for a lot of Republicans is they are worried about getting re-elected, and they are worried about the power of President Trump's words and when he comes out and tweets about something or says something that they are going to lose their election because of that.

But this actually with the Marco Rubios of the world and the Mitch McConnells of the world actually and everyone else, they pushed back and he started to try to kind of backtrack.

He realized he had walked into something that his, I don't know about his base, but his base in Washington, D.C.

didn't like.

I think that is actually instructive.

I also think you have a point.

One of your points is that it brings everything is going to come into the impeachment argument now.

Right.

Like the moment I saw the Syria and the Kurds stuff, I was just like, oh, we're now going to wonder, is he fit to make these kind of decisions, which is going to come into that impeachment argument?

It's not going to be an article of impeachment.

We're not going to see Nancy Pelosi put an article on the floor that says he screwed over the Kurds.

But it does make people start to have this conversation about his ability to make those decisions.

I would be a lot more receptive to the critiques that I was hearing if they weren't en masse from people who supported a dumb war based on bad intelligence that led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives

these are all the most hawkish pro-Iraq people and I think that they should all have a little thing on their Chiron underneath that just reminds people when you see them in mass on any network there is no one on this panel who opposed the war okay that's what should be on all of this because I hear this I hear this drumbeat again and again and we never learn from the mistakes of the past.

We are still in those situations.

We are in those areas.

We absolutely are.

We can't just extract ourselves.

Okay, first of all, some people were against the war.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like Obama.

Yeah.

Okay.

Some people said, I'm not against all wars.

I'm against dumb wars, right?

Yes.

Okay.

There's also two Iraq wars.

I don't know which one you're talking about.

You could be talking about either one of them.

But in the first one, it was George Bush I who promised the Kurds help and then let them die under Saddam Hussein's poison gas.

Yes.

Okay.

But here's

opposing regime regime change lawyer.

But just

here's the political thing, right?

If you were in the unlikely position of being Donald Trump's main political advisor and you were looking at the situation unfolding, the first thing you would say to him is, like, look, you're going to get impeached in the House, but as long as you keep Republicans in the Senate, you're fine.

Don't do anything to piss those guys off.

So what does Trump do?

He gets on the phone with Erdogan.

It's Putin's birthday.

Erdogan asks him for something.

He's like, it's Vladimir's birthday, and I want to build a tower in Istanbul.

And he's like, not thinking about that that's going to piss off every Republican in the Senate.

He just does the deal because he's all impulse.

I used to think it was the TV that was our big enemy with I think it's the phone.

It's the phone.

It's both.

He's a 14-year-old teenage girl in the 60s.

It's the phone and the TV.

He's on his princess phone talking to other crusty old guys who are twisting his hair.

Yes, I mean, you know, today he was talking about how, well, I think we made the deal with China.

How many times have we made the same deal with China?

It's like when we used to kill the number two in Al-Qaeda, like every week.

And I think, you know, he says that the stock market goes up.

Yeah.

But also, how come every Zaney thing he does seems to be exactly the thing that Putin would like?

I mean,

ISIS, I mean, the Kurds who fought ISIS are our ally, and Turkey is our ally in NATO.

Now, in the past, an American president would always say to our allies, I know you guys have differences, but we're on the same team.

The Obama administration actually did that.

Part of the reason why those serious forces are there was to sort of keep everybody in line for as long as possible.

I also think it's very weird that we are in a situation where he pulls back those troops and then

realizes he may have made a mistake and then decides to do the same thing that we've always been doing, which is trying to negotiate between the Kurds and the Turkish.

It like reminded me of the Iran nuclear deal in some ways, in that he pulled back on this thing, which he ran on and campaigned on, and I understand that.

And then

the Iranians started enriching

uranium again.

Of course, why wouldn't it?

And everyone's like, wait, but we already knew that was what would happen.

He pulls out the deal

and then gets mad at them

for doing the things that were in the deal.

Okay, so

he said about Fox News this week, they're not delivering for us, like they're grubhub.

Not delivering for us?

Again, the narcissism, to just say that out loud, to voice that interior monologue, is an amazing sickness.

I mean, I could see him thinking that, but you wouldn't say that.

Okay, so then he sends his,

but he sends his attorney general,

the attorney general of America,

to talk to Rupert Murdoch, the head of Fox News, and the next day, Shepard Smith is gone.

Big critic on Fox News.

The straight newsman, let's put it that way.

They're the straight news guy.

They're a little bit of a

middle.

A little bit of a civil war there at Fox News.

The primetime people are ass lickers, but guys like this,

I mean,

no, no, I don't think that's it.

Sean Hannity?

I don't think that you can say that about Brett Baer.

I think that's very...

I said the primetime people.

I guess I think of primetime differently being from the East Coast.

Oh, okay.

I think Brett Baer in a different case.

You're right.

Brett Baer, right.

He's on the other side of it a little bit.

You know, that could be a really.

Straight news guy.

Right.

Straight news guy.

The primetime people are.

But I read this week that four in ten Republicans think that Trump did not mention Biden in the Ukraine call, even though Trump himself admits it.

Yes.

Well, but the call was perfect.

That's why.

The call was perfect.

The call was perfect.

Because they're watching Fox News and they're watching those ass lookers you're talking about, and they're hearing a totally different version of reality that's spun out every single night on that network.

And the reality is, the thing that I would be freaking out if I was Trump, it's not just they're not delivering for him.

It was the Fox News poll this week that said 51% of the people in the country are now for not just impeachment, but removal.

That's what's a Fox News poll.

Right.

That's the way to match.

That's the way to match.

And when the aforementioned, and when the aforementioned Brett Baer went on the air that night and put that thing up big, that was the thing that caused Trump to lose his shit.

He was like,

you're not just not delivering for me, you're shoving it in my face.

All right, thank you, panel.

I am now going to bring out the senior senator from the great state of Minnesota and a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

Please welcome Amy Klobucher.

Amy, how are you?

So great to see you.

Thank you.

All right.

Amazing.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

Okay, so Trump was in Minnesota.

That's right.

He says he can win it.

That is the state that they are in.

That's wrong.

So.

That's wrong?

Yeah.

Well, that's the one they think they can flip.

Well, that is not going to happen as long as I'm leading the ticket.

And one of the reasons that I think we need to bring more people in is because we've got to win not just Minnesota, which was close last time in his race, but then I came storming back in 2018 and won every Republican congressional district.

And what we need to do is to extend that out to Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania.

I just went to all of those states, states, met with carpenters, met with dock workers, people who he had made promises to that had been left behind by President Trump.

And so what I want to do is build a blue wall around those states.

I heard that term last time.

But

I'm going to make him pay for it.

I think you probably could.

I hope you can.

Do you think the Democrats, though, are too into identity politics?

I mean a lot of people in the middle of the country, which you represent so well,

they see that D next to someone's name and it's just something they can't get behind.

Why is that?

Why is that D so toxic?

Well, first of all, it's not toxic to everyone.

And we have a real fired-up base right now, and that is going to be so important.

People who have felt hurt by this guy, hurt by his rhetoric, wake up in the morning, seeing him go after their entire city and calling it rat-infested.

Those things have happened.

But when you get to the middle of the country, his trade war has hurt a bunch of our farmers.

They've got soybeans mounting up in bins.

His rhetoric is not what people want to have their kids listen to, and they have to turn down the TV every single time he goes on TV.

I remember the days when, if you didn't agree with the president, or maybe you didn't even vote for them, you'd be proud to say, This is my nation and this is my leader.

That's not true with this president.

When you look at what he has done, so to me, this is about economics and not standing up like I would and taking on the pharmaceutical industry and not doing anything when it comes to training people and making sure they're ready for the jobs of tomorrow and immigration reform.

It's about all those things, but it's also about values.

We believe in America and He has put patriotism behind his own interests.

That's what those calls were to the head of Ukraine Ukraine and the call to the president of China when he's looking for dirt on an opponent.

He's putting his own political interests, his own partisan interests, his own business interests in front of America.

And that's why I see a different kind of election.

I see a fired-up Democratic base and with someone like me leading the ticket where you can bring in independents and you can bring in moderate Republicans and you can win big, not just win, and then you can govern in a different way.

Because this guy has divided people in a way that we have not seen in this country.

So what do you see as your path to the domination?

Well, my path, first of all, starts with a show because they say I haven't had a viral moment.

So going on

the same night as...

Let's get Howard Stern out here and really start a viral moment.

Going on the same night.

Howard, we need a viral moment.

Right now, what could go wrong?

But no, seriously, and that's what these debates have been and I have been on a steady course I think Americans don't want the loudest voice in the room anymore they got that in the White House

I think they want someone that is tired of the noise and nonsense and want to get things done right I don't yeah I

I don't know if those moments are so great I mean Kamala Harris had moments and she's not doing too good you know

you're right moments don't make

yeah and I think that moments work when they actually happen that people don't manufacture them right for me in the Kavanaugh hearing I didn't exactly predict that the nominee was going to ask me if I blacked out

but I had a moment where I had to respond in that moment

right I remember that yes and I because he likes beer right right and he was asking if you like beer just as much

and I showed some grace under pressure and I think that's really important in a president so for me it is of course going to those states I don't have as much money as a number of my opponents but I have enough money to win we're doing this the right way the grassroots way and building up endorsements and support and that's how you win an election in America and that's yeah I mean obviously

obviously this is a fight between two wings of the party which is almost every election there is a center in the Democrat a center left wing you're plenty liberal you're plenty progressive and then there's a far left which I think would be represented by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Okay.

Yeah, okay.

We all like them, too.

Are they too left?

Is Elizabeth Warren too far away to get elected in a general election?

Again, I want to win big.

And if someone is looking to kick 149 million Americans off their current health insurance in four years, then I'm not your candidate.

You're not on the candidate.

If you want to use a bunch of hardworking people's money to send rich people's kids to college for free, then I'm not your candidate.

And just because people say ideas are bold doesn't mean they're bold.

They may be bad.

And so my bold ideas are this.

Make it easier for kids to afford to go to college, but don't forget that there are many paths to success and that right now we have a huge need in our country for jobs that require one and two year degrees and we should not leave those people behind.

Remembering that we need to take on pharma prices, a public option, take on climate change in a big way, something that this president has just gone backwards on.

Work with the rest of the world, not leave our allies behind.

Don't coddle dictators.

And when I was listening to the panel before, I was not in Washington, but I was not for the Iraq war, but I would never leave those Kurds left for slaughter like this guy has done.

That is not what America does.

That's not what you do.

You honor your commitments,

you make your promises and your threats, and you keep them.

And this is the whole world is watching right now.

So I think to get back to the center-left argument, I think you're probably more in the, again, center-left, not far-left.

And that's, it's going to come down to one candidate from each.

Now, right now, it's Joe Biden, who is the leader of the center-left part.

One applaud.

And

I've always said, I like Joe, he's never my favorite, but if he's the guy to beat Trump, I was like, let's not kill him because if he's the one.

But I must say, my confidence that he can beat Trump is waning.

He looks like a depreciating stock to me.

And I've always said, also, we were talking about age with Howard.

I've always fought against ageism because it's a judgmental thing that, you know, very few, you can do that about very few other things in America anymore.

It's a case-by-case basis.

Elizabeth Warren is 70, she looks 50 and acts 20.

She took selfies with 4,000 people.

I don't even know if I trust someone who wants to be president that much.

Joe, I don't know.

And Bernie, you know, just had a heart attack.

I think

that, you know, I'm not trying to get Joe out, but we do need someone in the center who's, say, younger and femaler.

Honestly, you know, I...

Right.

So my case is this.

Yeah.

I have won every single race every single time, all the way back to elementary school, where I have...

These guys always say they've won everything.

So when my slogan I've discarded was all the way with Amy Kay.

Yeah, that's just not good.

It's not true.

So

and I've done

by going not just...

What happened?

By going not just where it's comfortable, but where it's uncomfortable.

By bringing people with me, by reaching out to people, by unifying them, and seeing that common ground.

And that's how I've gotten things done in Washington this way.

I think you could be the dark horse because, you know, it is going to come down to that battle.

And maybe they're at loggerheads.

This has happened at conventions before, and they have to find somebody who's a compromise.

And, you know, you're a woman, let's face it.

When you're...

But that's just important in today's politics.

If you're a white man.

Well, a lot of women won hard races.

Laura Kelly, new governor of Kansas, right?

Right.

And you saw that.

But I'm saying it's a lot easier to be on the center side of things, as Obama was, if you are not a white man.

If you're a white, straight man, it's like, ugh, you know, then you're suspect.

But a woman.

I want to make it clear, and I am excited to be one of several women in this race,

which is just unheard of in our politics.

But I'm not just running on that.

No, I know, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Right.

And that can, we can get to that, and then you lose a lot of people.

I remember being up in northern Minnesota with our steel workers and they would always,

I finally would say, you know what, I'm not running as a woman.

I'm running on my record.

And if I would just run as a woman, I wouldn't win, because they would be like this.

I said, because half the voters are men.

And they go, yeah,

that's exactly right.

So I think what that is about is running on your ideas, running on your merit, running on turning ideas into action and having people's back instead of just going to the extremes all the time time in our politics.

We have that right now.

And I just see a better future for our country.

I think your moment is to come.

All right.

Thank you, Senator.

Amy Klobuchar, everybody.

All right, it's time for new rules back over here.

All right, okay.

Okay, hello again.

New rules, someone has to ask all these self-righteous people tweeting, I stand with Hong Kong against China, do you know where that phone was made?

Because it wasn't in Santa's workshop.

It was in the People's Revolutionary Phone Factory.

If you're serious about this, you're going to have to tweet with a phone made here in America.

Neural, now that Facebook has developed an AI program that can see people's outfits and photos and suggest changes that would make them more stylish.

Okay, great, but you first.

New role, don't feel bad that renowned director Martin Scorsese says Marvel superhero movies are not cinema.

He obviously hasn't seen Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Actually, Scorsese's right.

Superhero movies are all the same, whereas his new film, The Irishman, is a mob movie starring Joe Pesci in De Niro.

You got it.

Thank you.

New Roll, the Philadelphia Man, awarded $8 billion from Johnson Johnson for a drug he took as a child that made him grow breasts.

Must admit that when he heard $8 billion, his nipples got hard.

New Roll, someone has to ask the fire department at Tennessee's Rock Haven Lodge nudist park how they keep volunteers.

Boy, you think you have a bad view where you work.

Try being the second firefighter up the ladder in an all-nude fire company.

And finally, New Roll, someone has to tell me how it is that for most consumer products, there's such stiff competition that a common sales pitch is, if you find this item at a lower price, come on in and we'll beat it.

But a knee replacement can cost $17,000 in one hospital and $61,000 in another in the same city.

With most products, you as the consumer get lucky and there's no possible way to gouge you like that.

And that's when you hear...

Since they've beat anyone's advertised pricer, your macro says free!

That's how capitalism is supposed to work.

A weirdo in a bad suit pledging he'll kill his whole family before he's undersold.

But that doesn't apply to the big ticket items like the Pentagon and hospitals and infrastructure where everyone gets to wet their beak before anything gets done and that's why nothing ever does get done.

Why can't we help the homeless?

If you look around this city lately, you probably are saying to yourself, either the homeless problem is getting worse or camping isn't what it used to be.

You know, after World War II, there was a huge housing shortage in L.A.

when all the vets returned home and had nowhere to live.

So the government found some empty space and, in a matter of months, built quantit huts for 6,000 people, all for a total cost of what in today's dollars would be less than $18 million.

Well, that was then.

In the bond measure we passed in 2016 to build housing for the homeless, each unit was projected to cost $140,000, which is more than the asking price for this four-bedroom Dutch colonial in Little Falls, New York.

And now that we're actually building these apartments, the cost for each unit has risen to $531,000.

How is that possible, you may ask?

Do they each come with a Lambo and a shark tank?

Of course, they still make those Kwonset huts, and one today would cost about $8,000.

But it's hard to skim money off eight grand.

But $531,000, sure.

About 40% of that cost goes to something the city calls soft costs and I call bullshit costs.

Layer upon layer of middlemen, inspectors, contractors, lawyers, lobbyists, and oh yes, labor unions too.

And my favorite, consulting.

A lot of consulting going on in America these days.

Everyone seems to need consulting.

Apparently, nobody in America anymore knows what the fuck they're doing.

So we need consultants to come in and be paid to tell you how to do the job you're supposed to do.

Oh, and until the $531,000 apartments are built, we're putting special port-a-potties near the homeless camps, which cost $320,000 each for port-a-potties.

That's some good shit.

And California finally conceded it needed to scale back our big high-speed rail project because it was costing $200 million a mile,

as opposed to France, where building high-speed rail costs $13 million a mile.

And it's not like France is cheap or doesn't have labor unions.

France is nothing but labor unions.

They have strikes like we have mass shootings.

But what they don't have is this level of systematic graft and greed.

Now, Donald Trump certainly represents many of the ills our country has been living with for a long time, but perhaps none more than that America is now scamerica.

The money should say, in gouge, we trust on it.

A vial of insulin costs about $5 to produce and is sold for over $500.

Why?

For the same reason it costs $8 to get Pringles out of the mini bar, because they can.

Why if at one Philadelphia clinic they can do a colonoscopy for a grand, does another one in the same city charge $4,000?

Because the price comes out of their ass.

There is a breaking point in an economy when the scam parasites kill the host, and we're coming up to that point.

So before we finish rooting out corruption in Ukraine, how about we take a swing at it here in America?

All right, that's our show.

You're watching this live Friday night.

I'll be at the Mirage in two hours.

And again, tomorrow night at MSN Mediterranean Garden, that is, in New York, November 9th, I want to thank my guests, Ben Dominic, Shawna Thomas, John Heilman, Indy Club Rashaw, and Howard Sparrows.

Thank you, folks.

No overtime.

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.