Ep. #506: Christina Hoff Sommers, Former Congressman Joe Walsh

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.

CRM was supposed to improve customer relationships.

Instead, it's shorthand for can't resolve much.

Which means you may have sunk a fortune into software that just bounces customer issues around but never actually solves them.

On the ServiceNow AI platform, CRM stands for something better.

With AI built into one platform, customers aren't mired in endless loops of automated indifference.

They get what they need when they need it.

Bad CRM was then.

This is ServiceNow.

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

Start the clock.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, thank you.

I really

thank you.

I need that tonight.

I really do.

Because this week

I can't.

I just can't.

I'm going to tell dog and cat jokes.

I just, I,

I mean, I have heard the phrase people say that this guy would lie about the weather.

I didn't think I'd ever see it.

Literally, I'm not from the president.

I'm so glad football is back because finally some brain damage we can actually enjoy.

Yeah, there was season,

football season started last night.

The Bears against the Packers.

Mike Pence said he is not going to watch that game.

He said,

oh, way ahead of me, this crowd.

Wow.

That's right.

Well, for those of you in the Midwest,

the punchline is, Bears, Packers, that's too gay.

See, these people know about that stuff.

Anyway, Mike Pence.

Mike Pence spent all week in Europe.

This is the side scandal to the weather scandal.

See, Trump was supposed to go to Europe to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II in Poland.

He decided he couldn't go because we needed his giant brain

to monitor the storm that was about to hit Alabama.

So

Pence went and the first stop Ireland, Pence stayed 200 miles from where his meeting was

because he had to stay in a Trump hotel.

And you know, Trump hotels, very different from regular hotels.

When you call down the room service for ICE, a team of immigration police show up and throw you out of the country.

Anyway.

Anyway, Trump did not go on the trip.

He said he couldn't.

He had to monitor the storm and he went golfing.

And the storm, Dorian, okay, it looked like it was about to hit Florida.

It was barreling right toward Florida and it just stopped over the poor people in the Bahamas.

It was like, you know, that's like 15 miles away.

It was heading right toward Florida and it just looked at Florida and went, no.

We're not fucking with Florida.

I'm sorry.

I mean,

we've seen hurricanes turn.

This is the first one that pretended it was on its phone.

So

America got lucky.

We missed the worst of it.

The Carolinas got a lot of rain.

Half a million people in the Carolinas are totally without power.

But enough about disenfranchising voters.

Oh, did you

remind me?

Did you see this story?

Donald Trump.

For the second time in a month, Trump has awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a white NBA player.

A couple weeks ago, he did it for Bob Koozey, who was a great player, and yesterday to Jerry West, also a great player, but

least racist person in the world.

Is that the right moniker for someone who cannot find a good black basketball player?

Is that the least racist?

I don't know.

Anyway.

anyway, back to the storm.

The part that I'm trying to avoid, because it's so fucking depressing, is that Trump, because he's an excitable, housebound senior citizen,

when it was starting up, saw on the TV

where he gets all his information that it was about to hit Alabama.

So he told everyone in Alabama to run for their lives.

And then, of course, it wasn't going anywhere near Alabama because he can never be wrong.

He doctored the map

freehand with a Sharpie

to win a fight about a brain fart that he had five days ago.

And that's when he went under the tent for the concussion protocol.

He has no moral compass and no compass.

Oh, you know.

We laugh.

Wait till he does it with the election map.

No, seriously, if this guy was president of a different country, we would bomb it.

That's my kind of audience right there.

Get her some oxygen, right?

I killed her with that joke.

My salt.

Okay.

But, I mean, it just, the whole thing really with this drum just shows how the two parties are living in two completely different realities.

While this

definitely global warming-inspired, souped-up storm was wiping out yet another Caribbean island, Democrats who are running for president had a town hall about climate.

I said, Democrats, there's going to be bad news.

And the bad news that was

during the town hall, our frontrunner's eyeball exploded.

They didn't see this, Joe Biden.

You know what I'm talking about.

He had some sort of rupture in his eyeball.

Oh, for fuck's sake, this thing is

falling apart.

We haven't even driven it off the lot.

So,

I'm not making this up.

I saw the picture.

Joe Biden's eye ruptured.

He had a bloody eyeball.

And Elizabeth Warren said, turning from white to red, that's my trick.

We've got a great show.

We have Matt Roche, Maria, Teresa Kumar, and John Delaney.

And a little later, I'll be speaking with presidential candidate Joe Walsh.

But first up, she's an author,

campaign manager, philosopher, and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who co-hosts the FemmeSplaners podcast, Christina Hobbes Summers.

How are you?

Great to see you again.

It's been too long.

We go way back.

We go way back.

You used to be a lot

politically incorrect, right?

I remember you were on when your first book came out, which was called Who Stole Feminism?

Yes.

And it's so funny, I was thinking, because my show was called Politically Incorrect.

I thought I was going to defeat political correctness.

Only has gotten worse.

Yes.

I failed miserably at that.

And as far as who stole feminism, whoever stole it, that kind of got worse too, didn't it?

It got worse.

I thought it was going to be easy to get it back.

Yeah.

It's proved impossible.

And feminism is supposed to be about equality between the sexes, mutuality, friendship, civility.

Yet it's captive to a small group of very intense eccentrics who think men are the enemy and that the

look, the goal of feminism was to overcome male chauvinism.

I became a feminist in the 70s because I didn't like male chauvinism.

I still don't.

But the answer is not female chauvinism.

Right.

And now the movement is captive to female chauvinists who want to just emphasize how bad men are, toxic masculinity.

And somehow, you know, people like you, now maybe you don't agree with everything you say, but how did you get to be the right winger?

I mean, you're a Democrat, right?

I am a Democrat.

You're Jewish.

I am a Democrat.

You have a Ph.D.

from Brandeis.

Yes.

Okay, you've been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

You're not a crazy person.

I read about what happened to you at, was it Oberlin College?

At many colleges.

I'm a frequent college lecturer, and when I have been lecturing for years, and usually I'd go to debate and spar with some women's studies professors because I occupy a different position in sort of feminist theory.

But now, these days, I go and we don't, it's not the women's studies people, it's the students who come, the activists, to demonstrate.

They set up safe rooms.

I spoke at Oberlin.

Safe rooms from you?

From me.

And I have to have bodyguards.

At Oberlin, I had a detail of police.

Didn't they also have a therapy dog?

Yes.

Here's the thing.

They weren't.

From you, because you...

No, a young woman.

Well, they had these safe rooms set up, and 30 women and a therapy dog fled to the safe space.

I triggered a dog.

And I feel bad about the dog.

Yeah.

Yeah, see, I mean, you mentioned things that I thought feminism was when it started out.

One of the things I thought it was about was strength.

Exactly.

You know, Wonder Woman.

Yeah.

Strong.

They love Wonder Woman.

Women.

Hear me roar, you know.

Hear me right.

What happened to that?

I'm asking you.

Okay.

The fragility.

It's not just women, let's be honest.

It's the...

Fainting couch feminism.

What?

Fainting couch.

Remember the 19th century where women would like to collapse on an elegant chaz

in the presence of male vulgarity?

Well, what, I mean, we can't handle that.

We want to be in the military.

You know, we want to be running the world.

Well, I'm sorry you can handle male impropriety.

Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have strong rules against sexual harassment as a feminist.

I fought for that.

But that doesn't mean policing men for little minor, you know, all.

Can I read that?

This is Bernie Sanders had to start his campaign for president this time, fending off these accusations that someone in his campaign had committed horrible crimes.

Not horrible crimes, but sexual crimes.

It was lumped in with the meat too.

It was a joke someone heard.

It was not that bad.

Someone's,

he said, can I touch your hair?

And she said yes.

And then he did it for longer than she wanted.

And maybe he was touching her all day.

It was wrong.

Things happen that are wrong.

But here's, listen, another Bernie Sanders campaign said she had to share a room one night with male staffers.

This happens on a campaign.

They're They're on a shoestring budget.

This is what she said.

I was shaking with fear.

Literally, I remember thinking to myself, what am I going to do?

Go to sleep.

You know,

these are not the...

These are not escaped cons you're in the room with.

These are Bernie Sanders campaign.

I know, and this is not what feminism is supposed to be.

But

there are these professors, and they pass along these messages that we're all traumatized, we're all fragile, we're diminished under this patriarchal oppressive system.

This is madness.

American women arguably are among the freest, most self-determining in history.

I was a philosophy.

And at the very moment where we have this opportunity for just

profound equality with men and to take on running of the world with men, at that very moment we start giving, especially undergraduate women at the more elite colleges, we start giving them the message that they're victims, they're fragile,

they need not equality with men, but protection from these toxic masculine.

Here's Joe Biden's Lucy Flores.

I was taking deep breaths, preparing myself to make my case to the crowd.

I felt two hands on my shoulders.

I froze.

Froze from that?

Why is the vice president of the United States touching me?

He's human.

Sometimes humans touch other people.

I get touched sometimes.

I don't want people.

Thank you, touchers.

I was mortified.

This rises.

I didn't wash my hair today, and the vice president is smelling it.

Now we've hit a nerve with the crowd.

He proceeded to plant a big, slow kiss on the back of my head.

My brain couldn't process what was happening.

You couldn't process what's an old man is kissing the back of your head.

This is the madness.

And on the campus, they use the language of catastrophe to characterize like day-to-day life on the campus.

One young woman, I was at University of Pennsylvania, and she said, Oh, I was mini-raped.

A guy walked by and said, Nice legs.

You know?

Well, microaggression, mini-rapes.

Microaggression, microaggressions.

Oh, well, this is the thing.

So if a man,

so you have to define microaggressions, and these are like minor insults, but that somehow remind you of your diminished place in the patriarchal oppressive system.

So apparently using the phrase, you guys,

women can't handle that.

Monster.

Monster.

It trivializes feminism.

It trivializes genuine women.

And the Me Too movement.

I mean, look, we owe, I say we, men, owe women a lot because we're a young species.

We're basically still savages.

And women have borne the brunt of that.

Yes.

They're like, we don't want to applaud that.

We want to applaud opposing that.

Yes, I know what you mean.

But it just goes to crazy places.

Now, I know you have said you think that male

privilege is a conspiracy theory.

No, no, I think that men have privileges, but so do women.

Right.

And I think if you look at contemporary America, what you see is a complicated mix of advantages and burdens for each sex.

For example, women are far more privileged in the classroom.

Young women and girls are far more privileged than boys.

Boys are

barely tolerated these days in many classrooms.

They just not,

a lot of schools of education are captive to these paranoid theories about toxic masculinity and they think that the slightest show of male bravado, so a little boy, you know, can be thrown out of, suspended because he bit

like a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun, and he was thrown out of school.

I know.

He's a talented kid.

I knew people could do the thing with the cherry stem, but

also men die.

Men die.

Younger, they die in workplace accidents.

92% of people who die in workplace accidents, men.

Murder victims, 78%.

Suicide, 78%.

85% go into combat.

For the same crime, 63%,

longer sentences if you're a man.

So, yeah, I get your point that

there's bad things to being a man, too.

It's for both sexes.

But what about the pay gap?

Now, this is probably where you're most controversial.

I'm not controversial.

It's not me.

Any responsible economist who looks at the gap, what you see is that on average, women do, if you look at all the men and all the women in the country working full-time, it turns out there's about a 20 to 23% gap.

Now, is that because of discrimination?

Well, people have tried to find the discrimination, but at first you have to do the proper controls and ask,

what did they study in school?

What is their, what job are they in?

You know, how many hours a week do they work?

How long do they commute?

How dangerous is the job?

And when you factor in these various things, the wage gap begins to narrow to the point of vanishing.

But some of it isn't because women, they say, don't negotiate as well as men for their own behalf.

Well, you know, some Harvard economists like Claudia Golden have looked into that and think that doesn't explain the gap.

Most of the gap is explained by it's at the very high end where men are willing to work just punishing hours

on weekends and long in law firms and in finance.

And that has an enormous.

Maybe they don't do it as much.

They don't do it as much.

And now, you could say it's unfair because

women are maybe taking care of children, or women don't have the liberty to do that.

Now, that's true, and that's an interesting discussion.

But notice that's not because employers are cheating them.

It's because men and women

behave slightly

differently in private life.

So it's something that's not.

Even if it is, and I think it is somewhat the case that women are not as adept at negotiating for themselves, it is incumbent upon them to

learn how to do it.

Thank you.

But also, college majors.

So, if you want to make a lot of money, you should major.

We know this.

The highest, you know, the most remunerative college major is like

petroleum engineering.

You will make more money if you are.

Now, the majority of the majors in petroleum engineering are males, very few females.

And women are much more likely to cut off my dick than in being that.

I know, me too, me too.

Also, metallurgy, naval architecture, very few women, but you make money.

Women are over here in early childhood education, fields they find rewarding.

Yes.

And social work and

gender studies.

Society has shitty priorities.

But that's not a...

But then you can try to change those priorities.

But don't say we are being cheated out of our salary.

It's a complicated issue.

So what I try to do on the Femme Splaners is to show people that women are going to be helped by truth and accurate analyses of problems.

And we just don't have that right now.

We have a lot of spin and hyperbole.

I've got to go get with my therapy dog.

But thank you so much for coming by and femsplaining to us.

Great to see you again.

All right, let's meet our panel.

Hey, how are you?

Hey, John.

How are you?

There we are.

Oh.

Come on, Chair.

All right, he is the editor-at-large of Reason Magazine, a co-host of the fifth column podcast.

Matt Welch, back with us, Matt Welch.

Looks like my father in 1960.

I call him Matt.

He does.

She's the president and CEO of Vota Latino and an MSNBC contributor, Maria Teresa Kumar, back with us.

And he is the entrepreneur and former three-term congressman from Maryland now seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, John Delaney.

Okay.

No overtime tonight.

I have a a show in Vegas.

I don't know how I get there in time, but I do.

Okay, so I thought this would be a good week to sort of commiserate with the vast majority of Americans who say, where do I go?

Because this storm has shown us a couple of things.

Marion Williamson, on the Democratic side, said it's not wacky to believe that if millions of us use our mind, power, and prayer,

we can turn the hurricane away from land.

We can't do that.

And then there are men or nuclear arms.

And then Trump says, nuke it.

This is the American,

the American who says, really?

This is my fucking choice in this country.

Mind power to turn the redefine force choice.

Or nuke it.

That's what America.

We're actually, we're right in the middle of the movie The Fifth Element.

Did you remember that?

I don't.

I think that's the first time.

So it's basically the same thing.

If it's Bruce Willis, it's all all minor

defeating the dark force.

Okay, so I guess my question is: does anyone have drugs?

California and eight other states have legal weed bills, so we can at least commiserate.

I know I do.

And that's a bipartisan support.

All right.

So I thought this would be a good week to talk about.

I brought out this book before.

If Obama did it, we have it.

I mean, the list just, I mean,

I couldn't.

Affair with a porn star,

unsecured iPhone, you know, canceling World War I appearance because of rain, Russian officials in the Oval Office.

I mean, that's too many.

But this week is a perfect week because, one, from the Washington Post, President Trump is so eager to complete hundreds of miles of his border wall,

he directed AIDS to fast-track billions of dollars worth of construction contracts, aggressively seize private lands, and disregard environmental rules.

And he said, if subordinates who are worried about getting caught at this were found out, he would pardon them

should they have to break laws to get the barriers built quickly.

So this is his big thing, the wall, you know, the president.

Obama's big thing was the Affordable Care Act.

What if Obama had said, this is my big thing, let's break some laws to get it done.

And if you do and get caught, I'll pardon you.

Mitch McConnell, anything?

It was a tan suit for Obama.

The tan suit.

Republicans' head would explode.

I mean, what we'd be hearing and listening to, the double standard is just unbelievable.

The Freedom Caucus was launched right in 2015, and look at its founding documents.

They were talking about restraining the executive branch from investigating itself and also to reduce the size of government and to cut debt.

So, how did that work out four years later?

They're doing literally the opposite work right now.

And this is also the stuff about the private property and the domain and the wall and lying.

This is exactly how Trump campaigned in 2015.

Go back to August 2015 and see how he was talking about we're going to get rid of 4 million legal U.S.

citizens who are the children of U.S.

boxcars, right.

Yeah, right?

And also he was saying that he loved the Kilo decision.

Like, eminent domain is great.

So Republicans knew this.

This is how he campaigned, and he won, and this is how he's governing.

So it's a question for them, is this how the party is going to be known about the things that you pretended to care about for 40 years?

And that's going to be difficult for them.

They've been cowards.

Right.

I mean, I think the only time they actually find a spine is the moment that they decide that they're not going to seek for re-election.

And when you look at the George Wills, when you see the Bill Crystals, they're basically sounding the alarm, saying we have to correct the course.

And it's the Republicans that have to stand up for it, but they have to do it

while they are actually elected.

But see, this shows the difference between us and what went on with Great Britain this week.

If you haven't been following Brexit, it's pretty complicated, but I think most people know that three years ago, Britain voted to get out of the European Union.

They're closely allied, trade and many other reasons, trying to unite Europe.

And a lot of Britons, for whatever reason, similar to some Trump voters here in America, said, we don't recognize our country anymore.

We want to get out.

Okay,

so

the 21 people, there were 21 people in the Conservative Party.

Now, this is the Conservatives who are wanting Brexit.

Boris Johnson, who is their version of Trump, took over.

And

I won't go through all the stuff, but the difference is

they voted to give up their careers.

21 people, including Winston Churchill's grandson and some other members of parliament who had been there for decades, voted to give up their careers.

I guess my question is, what is it so great about a friggin' career as a Republican congressman that you don't do this?

They were patriots.

Right.

They actually patriots.

I mean, in 19...

In 1958, John F.

Kennedy said we should not seek the Democratic answer.

We should not seek the Republican answer.

We should seek the right right answer.

And what he was saying is we have to put country ahead of party.

That's what those conservatives did in the United Kingdom, and that is absolutely not what Republicans are doing in the Congress of the United States right now.

There's just no question.

So there's going to be

cowards, they won't stand up to them, they're afraid of losing their primaries.

Because in many of these elections, some of these people have no general election threat.

It's all about the primary.

And they're afraid to lose the support of the president.

And it's spineless, and it's terrible, and it's un-American.

Well, and it's spineless because what we do see is that when Americans vote, we change Congress.

And you look at what, when they try to make a contrast between the Republicans and the Democrats, and there's no difference.

In the midterm elections, we saw the largest turnout in American history and the most diverse.

And we brought in the most diverse Congress.

And in that, we passed background checks.

In that, we passed equality.

We ensured that we modernized our elections.

We talked about passing DACA.

And the list goes on.

And Mitch McConnell, all this legislation sits at the foot of Mitch McConnell, and he doesn't want to do anything.

So when you say there's no contrast between what happens when you participate and we vote and we force our elected to do work, that's nonsense.

Right.

And it's interesting because to put a little more detail on the Brexit thing, the reason why these people were able to stand up or got it in their gut to stand up is because if you leave without a deal, see, Boris Johnson wants to do it without any deal.

The two previous prime ministers couldn't get a deal with the European Union.

It will be chaos in that country.

And you know who wants that to happen?

Trump and Putin.

Yes.

Because it will destabilize, it'll destabilize the European Union.

So that's what they want.

So, Boris Johnson wants to call an election, and he might win it.

And the reason why he might win it, to bring it back to this country, is somebody named Jeremy Corbyn, who is the leader of the left in Britain, and he is like Bernie Sanders times 10.

And this is what I'm asking about this country.

We have a similar sort of situation.

I like Elizabeth Warren a lot.

She's got the big momentum now.

She kind of ate your lunch at the debate.

Well, I don't know about that.

I wouldn't say that.

Wait, wait, wait.

No, no.

Well,

by debate standards, where you get it's the moment and it's the bullshit she did.

I'm not saying she was right because, well, here's what you said.

You said, I think Democrats win when we run on real solutions, not impossible promises, when we run on things that are workable, not fairy tale economics.

See, and then she gave her the opening.

I'm sure it was already written.

I don't understand, she said, why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president just to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for.

Wait a second.

See, I'm with you here.

She's conflating centrism with doing nothing.

Obama was a centrist, okay?

Your hero Obama.

So I like Elizabeth Warren a lot too, but I understand why she's got big rallies.

She's promising a lot of free shit.

I actually think part of what she's doing is basically reminding the people that we promised free shit under the FDR Democrats with the New Deal.

And we actually actually reconstructed and recognized that there were income inequalities that we had to address.

But Bill, that's why we have a primary.

It's an opportunity for the American people to vet

their candidates, to identify who do they actually vote for.

And it's good that we have so many ideas so that we actually start thinking about it.

But we should also remember how we won the midterms, right?

Because we flipped 40 seats from Republican to Democratic, and we took back the House of Representatives.

That was an extraordinary achievement.

And

we did that with candidates who won independence.

Right?

And that's what, I mean, if you think about, you mentioned Obama was a centrist.

You can see, but it's the truth.

Obama was a centrist.

Clinton was a centrist.

Dukakis was not.

Mondale was not.

McGovern was not.

There's a pattern there.

We will win the 2020 election when we capture the center.

Because the president's going to turn out his voters, and Democrats are going to turn out just like we did in 2018.

It was a heroic effort.

to wrest control of our government back to the people.

We're going to have good turnout in 2020.

The key is who will capture the center.

And if we run on impossible promises, I just don't think we're going to do that.

We need real solutions.

But I would actually, I would argue that you have to do two things.

The Democrats brought back the House because they focused on suburban white women who cared about health care, but they also deeply cared about family separation.

It just didn't sit well with them.

But then you also have roughly 15 million folks that are unregistered that are among young people and Latino.

And you have to make sure that you are actually increasing that political base.

And we keep talking about the Midwest.

The Midwest is important, but the American map has been flipped.

You have industry now coming to the South.

You have young people and young professionals coming into the South.

And you have opportunity with 38 electoral votes just in Texas based on the Latino vote and the youth vote.

And the more we talk about how do we expand that electoral base, I would say Texas right now is where California was under Proposition 187.

You had, before then, California was absolutely a swing state.

But who's more likely to carry Texas?

Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren?

We are talking about Texas.

Right, no.

With the big hats.

Well, I don't know.

I mean, with the president.

And the pelvis.

But But I have to tell you that with the eminent domain, I mean, I think it's almost like...

I love Texas, but I don't know.

No, but it's almost like with eminent domains, Bill, it's almost like the president's handing Texas to whatever Democrat comes, right?

But the point is,

this is to some extent a false choice, though, right?

Because the work you're doing is heroic.

We should do both.

We should overcome all this voter suppression.

We should make sure we're running on big ideas that excite people.

We should stand for decency and a set of values.

But we also have to put forth real solutions to the issues that are affecting the American people at their kitchen table.

And that's why things like making private insurance illegal, which I view the politics of subtraction, in other words, we're taking something away from someone, as opposed to the politics of addition, which is to say there's people who are uninsured in this country.

Let's make sure they have health coverage.

I think that's how you win Texas.

Okay.

Well, speaking of Texas, I want to show you something.

Now, we have talked a couple of times on this show about the fact that profanity in politics has taken a big upturn.

I mean, a lot of it is Trump, but it wasn't that long ago when, you know, Bush II was like said asshole or something.

It was a scandal.

And, you know, Dick Cheney got caught off camera saying, fuck you, and fuck your mother or whatever.

I think you started the trend.

No, we have, through the power of sketch comedy, we have made fun of this.

But now, Betto, this guy's a potty mouth.

This is not a joke.

He is selling this t-shirt.

This is fucked up.

This is a candidate for president t-shirt

i know

anyway now

all the candidates want to get in on this

would you like to see some of what the other oh they've all got dirty t-shirts uh joe biden has you're gonna eat this shit and you're gonna like it

it's his t-shirt uh

Amy Klobuchar, vote Klobuchar or she'll throw a fucking binder at your head.

Bernie Sanders, tearing income inequality, a new asshole.

Kamala Harris, California senator, not some jag-off congressman from who gives a shit.

Marianne Williamson, because only love can defeat this cocksucker.

Elizabeth Warren, 1% Indian, 99% white, 100% tired of this shit.

Boy,

these candidates are dirty now.

And Wayne Missim, oh, yeah, I've never fucking heard of you either.

All right, he represented the eighth district of Illinois in the U.S.

Congress and is now challenging Donald Trump for the 2020 Republican President nomination.

Joe Walsh, ladies and gentlemen,

Joe Walsh.

Hey, Joe.

How are you?

Look at you.

How are you?

Okay, you are challenging Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, but some.

Well,

apparently they don't know your history, Joe.

But some bad news for you today.

South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, and Kansas say they will not even allow a primary challenger.

Why are they so insecure?

I thought Donald Trump was 90% popular in the Republican Party.

They can't even have a primary challenger who's going to lose.

You're going to lose.

Not necessarily.

Well, you're not going to take the nomination away from Trump.

Oh, I've got a shot.

Oh, absolutely, Bill.

Look, but think about that.

John, tell him he doesn't have a shot.

And this is from a guy who doesn't have a shot.

John, we're going to do it, right?

No.

Here we are.

The next

general election.

Now.

What I I love about America, hope.

We are not North Korea, we're not Russia.

Think about what Trump did today.

Trump wants to eliminate elections.

He told South Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, and Kansas, no primary elections.

You talk about undemocratic bullshit.

And this is coming from

a t-shirt.

All right, but see, you are doing something different.

There's a few people who are challenging Donald Trump.

Bill Weld, I think, is doing it right.

I mean, who else?

Who are the people?

That's it right now.

Okay, but a few others are

thinking about it.

You're the only one from the right.

Yes.

But I want to ask you this.

You know, you don't like Trump for a lot of the reasons that we've been talking about here in a long time.

You don't like that he lies.

You don't like that he's a traitor.

Stuff like that.

Little things.

But

issue-wise?

What about the judges?

You like that, right?

He's done some good things.

Let's just go down the list and see how much in line you...

So,

anti-abortion judges, you're for that good conservative judges okay just go with me joe uh

pipelines you're for that you pipeline good i've seen your record all the above all the above okay drilling in alaska

think about it think about it

joe you were in

you were a but here's bill here's clear but joe you were a leader of the anti-obama nutcase caucus.

Yes.

Okay.

I helped lead to Trump.

Look at me.

I helped put Donald Trump.

like that on national TV.

No, it is.

Yes.

Bill, two things led to Trump.

A weak, feckless Republican Party that was out of touch with where their voters were, and people like me who let our rhetoric get ahead of us.

But I'm back there pulling my hair out because this thing has nothing to do with issues.

Donald Trump is a horrible human being, period.

I mean, it's about

Trump.

Yes.

Okay.

I'm against the debt.

I'm against tariffs.

This is not about issues.

Trump's unfit.

Again, if you were to beat him and be the president, there's a lot of things on this list they would not like.

And I just

Obamacare, you were for that?

Not really.

No, no, no, no.

Rolling back Dodd-Frank, you're for that.

Tax cuts for the rich, you like that.

Tax cuts for the middle class.

He's like, he's a Republican.

Right.

Exactly.

That's the point I'm trying to make.

Rolling back the power to the EPA.

I mean, I could go down the list.

So I'm just saying.

Here's the point.

Here's the point.

And Matt said it.

And Matt said it.

I am a Republican.

I'm a conservative Republican.

I do not and will not lie every time I open my mouth.

And also, I will not only put my interest at...

I mean,

this is like Bizarro World because we, for the first time in our history, Bill, we have a president who lies virtually every time he talks, and we have a president incapable of thinking about anybody but himself.

And you saw it at the hurricane this week.

I mean, he's incapable of thinking about this country.

Okay, I'm just saying

you would not

no

you would not lie, but you would also would get rid of the Endangered Species Act like he did.

I'm just saying no.

No, really?

No.

Okay, you're right.

I'm good about that.

Okay, I'm just saying, but Joe, I remember you when you were in Congress.

You were part of that Tea Party group.

And just, now, I know you've had to answer a lot of questions about race.

Okay, that's okay.

You know, you did, you admitted also, you know, you said you sent out 4,000 tweets.

Some of them were racist, but you're not a racist.

Yes.

A fine distinction, but let's move on.

But it's an important distinction.

Okay, okay.

But just.

We're all biased, we're all prejudiced, and sometimes we all step in it, and I've stepped in it.

Look at you talking about it.

Look me in the eye.

I'm looking you in.

Okay, no, not like that.

Every vote counts.

If you haven't used all the power in your mind to divert the hurricane, hurricane,

just look me in the eye and tell me that the

seething, frothing hatred that I remember that you had for Barack Obama had nothing to do with the fact that he was black.

Gosh, no.

Gosh, no.

Bill, no, no.

And by the way, again.

Nothing to do with that.

No, no, no.

Look, his policies.

Now, again, oftentimes myself and people like me, I mean, we went to Washington, the Tea Party, to do something about the debt.

But yeah, that won't.

What did you do?

That was not a success.

No, absolutely.

Because neither political party carried.

You failed at that like I failed at political correctness.

It just got worse.

Neither party carried it.

But we tried.

That's the thing.

We're Don Quixote.

The Republican didn't try.

So do you sometimes wish you were the other Joe Walsh?

I mean, do you wish you- You'd written Funk 49 and Midnight Man and Pretty Maids.

He's lived a tough life.

He's still living.

They're out on Tor Nap.

They're in Vegas.

You know, they're doing fucking awesome.

A tough life.

No, he's the guy who wrote Life's Been Good.

Don't you know?

They're the guy who's had to defend himself against...

Okay, so my last question is, you say, Donald, you know, you voted for Trump.

Yes.

You even said, I'm voting for him on election day.

If he loses, I'm grabbing my musket.

I'm going to let you go on that one because musket, we don't have muskets anymore.

Yes.

So I'm going to give you that one and say you are being metaphorical.

Yes.

Still not a good thing to put out the idea that if the election doesn't go our way, we reach for guns.

Would you allow that?

Yes, but still.

Not a good idea.

It's a musket, though.

I know, but

it's still the idea of, I don't like the election, get a gun.

No,

I know, but you're talking about.

I said, I'm going to give you that one.

I'll get that one.

But you said, you know, now you've turned.

So Trump basically conned you.

He's a con man.

He is a con man.

So you were for him.

Tell us why we should vote for you if it took you until 2019 to know that Donald Trump was full of you.

Well, it didn't.

It's a good question.

Fair question.

It's a good question.

It's a fair question.

It's a good question.

Okay.

That's a really good question.

And it didn't take till 2019, for the record.

18.

Last year.

Yeah, last year.

Well, hold on.

Hold on.

Facts, man.

Let's get the facts right here.

At Helsinki, that was it.

When he stood in front of the world and said, I'm with Putin and not with the people.

That's a good place.

But Bill,

we want people, right, who've found the religion.

Yes, we do.

We want you, Joe.

We want you.

No matter what.

We do.

Okay, so, but, okay, so Trump, you didn't get that.

Now you see your area of your ways.

What about global warming?

You were always a denier.

What do you think?

Because we don't want to sit here three years from now and have you go, fuck, I messed up on that one, too.

Not a denier.

And the Republican Party needs to wake up.

I'm telling you this right now.

Wake up and acknowledge, yes, that it's an issue and it's a problem.

Republicans got to be part of this debate.

They've got to acknowledge that it's a real issue.

Baby steps, Bob.

At least that one.

Okay, so speaking of that,

what happened with the Bahamas this week?

It looks like, you know, Puerto Rico, there's an island, Barbuda, that's completely gone now.

It looks like the Caribbean, because of course global warming and the souped up hurricanes, is being wiped out an island at a time.

What are we doing about this?

Are we going to rebuild?

Who would rebuild?

Who wants to rebuild in a place now?

We're not even in the Paris Accords.

We're not even trying to solve this problem, seriously, mankind.

What is going to happen to this region of the country?

I've been there many times.

I went to the 1989 HBO vacation in

Nevis.

I've been to St.

Kitts, St.

John, St.

Thomas, Maustique.

These are beautiful places with beautiful people.

And I feel like one by one, and what are we going to do?

It's going to get worse unless we do something.

I mean, and all this stuff is interrelated.

I mean, we watched what happened in the Amazon a few weeks ago.

There was a reason why this was happening.

And that was that farmers in the Amazon were clearing trees to plant soybeans.

Why are they planting soybeans?

Well, because we're in a trade war with China.

China is the biggest buyer of soybeans in the world.

And we used to be the biggest seller of soybeans.

We're not doing that anymore.

So now there's an incentive for farmers around the world to clear trees and plant soybeans.

The point is we have to lead in this country, but we also have to lead around the world.

Because this is a global issue.

And the fact that we're not in Paris.

No, right.

I think one of the biggest challenges, though, too, is that a couple months ago I had the opportunity to go to Greenland and you saw that one of the biggest pieces of Greenland is that it has so many minerals.

Only a very few individuals will make a lot of money

as fast as it fasts.

And until we recognize that climate hoax is aligned with corporate greed, then no one's going to want to do something about it.

I think, Bill, though, it's also important.

I mean, they said a big CNN climate change with all the Democratic candidates here.

And I find it frustrating because you have people who are very energized about

we're warming the planet and that's bad, okay?

So you have to change the way that we process and make electricity in a cleaner way.

So the United States for the last decade has reduced carbon emissions by 15%.

That's a good trend.

It should be better, but that's a pretty good trend.

What is the way, how is the, what is the single biggest contributor to that?

We swapped out coal factories for natural gas factories using fracking.

And what did Elizabeth Warren, who's talking about this issue a lot, say today, brag about, day one, she's going to ban fracking everywhere.

There's trade-offs involved in all of these energy sources and people ruling out nuclear reactors.

Fracking isn't

better than coal, but there's a better thing.

It's called the sun.

There's a nuclear reactor in the sun.

That's exactly that.

Sure, and that's great.

And I look forward to the nuclear reactor of the sun and hopefully we can do it without a massive system.

We have a mirror in the Wojabe Desert, but we're

we can solve this with innovation too.

And if we want to solve this around the world, we have to put our whole innovation economy against this because we can get off fossil fuels, but we also have to deliver solutions to the rest of the world, in my opinion, which is why we should be putting a price on carbon, right, to discourage any market-based value.

I understand that, but also massively investing in basic research.

Elizabeth Warren

talked about a kind of a conservation core, you know, people, which I think is a great idea.

Get people who don't have jobs, you know.

Absolutely.

That's what they did during the Depression.

You're for mandatory national service.

Are you not?

You're the only candidate who's for mandatory, like you would have to spend a year.

My aspiration is- I'm with you, by the way.

My aspiration is for it to be mandatory.

It would start voluntary because we can't launch a mandatory national service program.

Why?

Well, just the scale of it is so significant.

So I would start with a voluntary program.

They're not doing anything anyway.

Get them off their phones.

You know what?

Let them understand to do something.

They don't do anything.

Everything is so deactivism.

Listen, I want to get it there, but you start with a voluntary program.

Kids graduate from high school, they serve their country.

They could join the military.

They can do community service.

They can become part of the Climate Corps, or they can become part of an infrastructure program.

They would get two years in-state tuition for service.

I think this is the big transformative idea we need because we need to change how we think about our relationship to each other and our responsibility to this nation.

And we needed to be reminded that we, yes,

that we're all in it together.

First of all, I think that young people are incredibly active and they are hungry to serve this nation.

And while they don't believe in institution, they believe in community service.

The reason that you have gig economies, the reason that you have this idea that my institutions may not be working, I may not believe in the news, but I know that I can help somebody out, that is actually part of their DNA.

That I have to say that wasn't part of their parents and wasn't part of Generation X.

There's an incredible opportunity for nation building and I would double down on it.

I think it's people who would actually want that.

They've already done that.

I love the idea and it should be encouraged.

I have a hard time with the mandatory though.

The mandatory required service I think could be very problematic.

Who's at the other end of the mandatory?

It's someone with a gun or someone who could fine you.

That's not patriotism.

That's not creating social cohesion by saying you must do this conscription.

You should conscript people for the army.

No, but let's exactly.

You shouldn't.

You shouldn't.

No, there's a lot of people.

So we have basically requirements.

Even if there's a war, you shouldn't conscript people?

We shouldn't conscript people.

We have a professional army.

There's a reason.

In World War II, we shouldn't have had a draft.

Not in World War II.

I'm just asking, if we had another war like...

No, but if we still had a free, would we still still be in Afghanistan if it was mandatory, sir,

yes, because we already

lived there.

All right, I gotta stop everybody.

It's time for new rules.

Thank you, New Rules.

Okay.

New roles, someone has to help America decide whose weather map is more embarrassing, this guy's

or this guy's.

That was real.

New rule, this hippie smoking a joint at the 50th anniversary of Woodstock has to admit that maybe he took the message of Woodstock a little too seriously.

I mean, everybody loves peace, love, and marijuana, but you know what else is good?

A home, a 401k, and a shower.

New rule, someone has to tell me why Mike Pence can't smile without looking stoned.

He tries to look crafty, but he comes off like he's misjudged some edibles.

It's kicking in.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, maybe I should have just taken half.

Oh, God, what if I'm like this forever?

That man, he's orange.

Neurol, the news needs to stop asking me all the questions.

Did Trump just tweet out classified information?

You tell me.

I'm not the news.

You are.

Wi-Fi 6 will soon be here.

What is it?

I don't know.

I never heard of it till you just mentioned it.

I turned on the local news the other night.

The guy said, weather tonight.

Is it going to rain?

Back to you, Bob.

Neurol, now that Melania has gazed into Justin Trudeau's eyes like this,

not long after Ivanka did it like this,

Trump has to tell us which one made you more jealous.

Mr.

President, I'm kidding.

Please, we all know about the time Trudeau made you really jealous.

And finally, new rule at next Thursday's debate, one of the candidates has to say, the problem with our health care system is Americans eat shit and too much of it.

All the candidates will talk about their health plans, but no one will mention the key factor.

The citizens don't lift a finger to help and then the candidates will go back on the trail the next day and try to prove they're just as big a gluttonous slob as the rest of us.

Sometimes while discussing pre-existing conditions.

But why do people have so many pre-existing conditions?

Being fat isn't a birth defect.

Nobody comes out of the womb needing to buy two seats on the airplane.

Here it is, in a nutshell, from the New York Times.

Poor diet is the leading cause of mortality in the United States.

Everyone knows obesity is linked to terrible conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and virginity.

Not to mention cancer.

But that's just the beginning of it.

There is literally nothing being overweight does not make worse.

Eyesight, memory, pain, fatigue, depression.

You don't poop right.

It weakens your immune system.

We scream at Congress to find a way to pay for our medical bills, but it wouldn't be nearly the issue it is if people just didn't eat like assholes

Who are killing not only themselves, but the planet.

The Amazon fires are because farmers there are burning down the rainforest to make room for future hamburgers and soybeans.

Because here in America, we look at fried chicken and think, that's a good start.

Now put it on a bun.

And add bacon and cheese.

And something no one even thought to put on it.

Make my mouth come.

What's Elizabeth Warren's plan for that?

Europe doesn't look like this because Europe's not always eating for two.

We weren't always like this.

Watching the footage of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, I was struck by how not fat everyone in the crowd was.

We looked like a completely different race of people.

Now look at us.

We wear shirts that our ancestors could have used as a sail.

A hundred years ago, this guy was fat enough to be the fat man in the circus.

Now,

he's a guy.

People know I'm speaking speaking the truth.

After all, isn't that why your Tinder picture is three years old?

Can fat be beautiful?

That's in the eye of the beholder.

But healthy?

No.

That's science.

I know this is a...

I know this is a controversial thing to say now in today's America, but being fat is a bad thing.

We shouldn't taunt people about it.

And overeating shouldn't be singled out as the only vice.

It's not, we all have something, but there's no smoking acceptance or drunk acceptance.

When I drank too much,

yeah, sometimes someone would say to me, You know, that's not great for your health, Bill.

Maybe you should slow down a little.

You went kind of hard last night.

And I would say, Yeah, I know, I'm gonna start next week, and then of course I wouldn't.

But I didn't say, How dare you drink shame me?

Being blotto is beautiful.

Of course, I didn't say that.

I was focusing on the road.

road.

When did it become taboo in this country to talk about getting healthy?

Weight watchers had to literally take the words weight and watchers.

I'm not kidding, out of their name.

It's now WW because merely the idea of watching your weight is now bullying.

What's next?

Banning scales?

Hey, liberals, you know how you hate it when conservatives won't even let the CDC study gun violence as a public health issue?

This is that.

You are the NRA of mayonnaise.

We have gone to this weird place where fat is good.

It's pointing out that fat is unhealthy.

That's what's bad.

Fat shame?

No, we fit shame.

Really?

You You hear it all the time.

Someone sees a merely trim person, you should eat something.

No, you should not eat something.

I should be more unhealthy so you can feel better about your fat ass.

In August, 53 Americans died from mass shootings.

Terrible, right?

You know how many died from obesity?

40,000.

Fat shaming doesn't need to end, needs to make a comeback.

Some amount of shame is good.

We shame people out of smoking and into wearing seatbelts.

We shame them out of littering and most of them out of racism.

Shame is the first step in reform.

It's what goads people into saying, maybe I can do better, as opposed to, I'm always perfect the way I am.

How dare you?

We need to start aiming higher as a country.

This is a good place to start.

We can all keep pretending that health care is an issue between you and the government, but it's really between you and the waitress.

It's not just about being able to see a doctor.

It's also about being able to see your dick.

Okay, that's our show.

I'll be at the Mirage tonight.

And again tomorrow, and at the Ortheaum in Memphis, October 4th.

I want to thank Mac Lelsch, Maria Teresa Kamard, Young Delaney, Jill Walsh, and Christina Hav Summers.

Good night.

Gotta go.

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.