Overtime - Episode #508: Samantha Power, Sarah Haider, Heather McGhee, Tim Naftali, Andrew Sullivan

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, real-time with Bill Maher.

Thank you very much for that warm reception for my fantastic panel.

And here are the questions.

Heather, what do you think of today's climate strike?

Thank you.

Oh, boy.

Sorry.

I'm so excited.

I'm so excited.

Climate strike.

This is a huge deal.

What is it?

Tell them what it is.

All over the globe.

All over the globe, young people are saying,

what the fuck, excuse me,

and have walked out of school walked out of their jobs from Nairobi to Toronto to New York to LA I was very sad that I was not able to be there in person but I heard so many incredible stories of young people from all walks of life who just are very clear about the stakes and are very clear about the corruption and the rot at particularly in our country that is stopping us from doing what we need to do to ensure the planet will be fine.

It's our people that won't be fine.

It's the animals and the wildlife of society as we know it.

And so, I mean, you literally have had, I think the estimates have been, you know, well over 10 million people, young people, doing the biggest mass action in the history of the globe today.

What will actually change?

I mean, it's.

It's not like Trump is going to see it on TV and say, call the EPA, I'm reversing my policies.

But maybe get young people to vote.

More.

That's not.

The Trump problem,

Trumpism goes away when people vote.

The problem is people don't vote.

People don't take participation seriously.

And

if you get them out marching and you tell them, you know what, you can actually make something of this by voting, it's a start.

But it's an important

part of it.

I think we should note voter suppression is a part of why people in this country don't vote.

Yeah, that's part of it, too.

Sarah, how do you suggest helping atheists normalize religious dissent in countries where a criticism of religion might lead to jail or worse?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, the first step would be something that's obvious, that we stand for religious dissent here in the West.

We know what's happened to...

Yeah.

We know the way that cartoonists and novelists have been treated in the West in the past when

there's the Rushdie affair that happened, and we had the Danish cartoons, and we had Charlie Hebdo and the massacre in Charlie Hebdo, and there were too many people, and it's so shameful to even think about it.

There were too many people who were looking at those massacres and at those dead bodies and thinking, well,

but what did they really say?

And did they really hurt?

We need to think about not offending religious sensibilities.

I mean, which was an appalling thing to do.

So the first step would just be to not do that and stand for liberal principles here.

Yeah.

Yeah, the Pope said it, you know, that they were asking for it.

Yeah.

You know, which is

very insulting to Muslims, by the way.

Also, it's the soft bigotry of expectations

that you can't do this without them exploding.

You know, we should expect better.

Okay, Andrew, what do you think of the British Parliament's revolt against Boris Johnson?

You're British?

I am.

Or you used to be.

I grew up there.

I think they're playing a dangerous game.

I think that the people of the United Kingdom voted by a clear majority, a small one but a clear one, they wanted to leave the EU.

If the Parliament decides they're not going to do what the people wanted, the response is going to be wild anger.

fury and of course the empowerment of the populist far right.

And what Boris Johnson is attempting to do right now is to prevent that happening to try and get a deal, which I understand is actually closer than most people seem to think.

And if Boris Johnson does that, I think he's going to win the election with a landslide.

Right now, you won't hear in the American press that Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party, supporting Brexit, are 12 points ahead of their closest rival in the polls.

It will be a landslide for the right wing, for the sane right-wing and the Conservative Party, if Boris can pull it off.

So I think the Parliament's risking alienating a lot of people in the United Kingdom.

Okay, Tim, do you think New York will prosecute Trump while he's still in office if they find he committed crimes?

Now, yeah, this is interesting.

Now, New York is going after him, the DA there, and Trump is suing

to stop the state of New York from getting always the taxes.

Is it really that hard to get somebody's friggin' fucking taxes?

Well, actually,

actually,

there's a precedent.

If the House started impeachment proceedings,

they could act on the precedent established in 1974 where Nixon's taxes were turned over to the House Impeachment Committee.

So there is a precedent, but they have to make the decision that they're having an impeachment inquiry.

It's also true that in an impeachment inquiry, they would have much stronger chance of getting this conversation with the Ukrainian president out there.

It's a much higher standard when you're impeaching the motherfucker.

But let me tell you how you do it.

Let me tell you how you do it.

One of the problems that the House has always had with the intelligence community is that the intelligence oversight people are here and then the appropriators are there.

If you can get the chair of the House Appropriations Committee to tell the DNI,

the DNI, no funding unless you give this information, you watch.

You don't need an impeachment hearing.

You just tell the intelligence community.

But then isn't that an easy political jab to say, well, the Democrats are cutting off funding for our national intelligence operations.

Keep us safe.

If the issue is bribery.

You don't want to keep us safe.

If the issue is bribery, but what about our troops?

No, no, this is a good idea.

Don't you want to honor them?

If the reporting is correct, this is a bigger deal.

I think in the end you win.

Thank God we don't have a hollowed-out military anymore.

All right.

Thank you, everybody.

I appreciate it.

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