Overtime - Episode #499: George Will, Martin Short, Bari Weiss, Eliot Spitzer, Charlie Sykes

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

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

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

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

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Yeah.

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

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

Okay,

here are the questions.

George Will, what do you think of Bernie Sanders taking up the mantle of FDR in defense of democratic socialism?

What he said comes under the rubric of plagiarism.

It's a clear restatement, a tepid tweaking of the State of the Union address Roosevelt gave in 1944.

So the wave of the future turns out to be 75 years ago.

Elliot, what are your thoughts on New York law that would allow Congress to access Trump's tax returns?

Look, I am all for it.

I think that a state can determine when its own tax returns should and should not be public.

I think it's an embarrassment that somebody would be the president without releasing them.

Any public official in New York these days does, as a matter of course.

New York should pass the law and see what happens.

Okay.

We're moving right to these questions.

This is great.

What do you mean?

The show's over.

It is?

Yes.

I got to watch it.

When did you move to HBO?

We're doing this on Twitter now.

Oh, good.

Ooh, I shouldn't have said that.

No, no.

Okay.

But we are on Facebook.

No, I know.

I mean, we're on YouTube.

What the fuck?

I don't know.

We're on the Google.

We're on the Google.

We're going to the Google machine.

We're on the toilet.

That's what you were on.

Martin Schart, what do you think of Canada and the European Union's plan to ban single-use plastics by 2021?

No, you're against it.

I'm sure you're for it.

I'm sure you're for it.

I never understand why brilliant ideas take 15, 20, 30 years.

Well, I mean, California has basically the same thing pending, but even if we pass it, not till 2030.

Really, California?

Progressive California, seat of the resistance, you can't do better.

That's what America, George, you're a historian.

Why is America like I've fallen and I can't get up?

You know, we just can't do anything.

We built the Empire State Building in the Depression.

In the Depression, sure.

In 410 days.

We built the

Pentagon during wartime in 16 months.

You can't negotiate the environmental and racial set-asides in 15 months now.

During World War II, did we not ban cars?

I mean, stop building cars except for military use?

All the car fact.

Can you imagine doing that today, that kind of sacrifice?

That kind of mobilization saying, okay, no more cars.

You know what?

We need the factories for planes and tanks.

No more cars.

Bill, this will come from a nice liberal Democrat.

Sometimes there's too much due process.

I think George would agree with that, right?

I mean, there's too much due process.

Nothing important gets done because everybody has a way of stopping things that are important.

And too much petty regulation.

A great New Yorker, Senator Pet Moynihan, one of my very best friends, said, America used to be a society that rewarded people who did things, now we reward people who stopped things.

I've always said I'm a Moynihan Democrat.

Do I have any more questions for me?

No, you can go.

Even though I

know.

I just want to hear him talk.

Yeah, right.

Well, you ask him a question.

I mean, I have a million things I could ask you.

No, no, no.

I want to go to your prepared text.

No, no,

this is not my prepared.

These are questions from people.

Barry Weiss, will the protesters against Hong Kong's proposed extradition bill be successful?

I don't know if they'll be successful, but the fact that one in seven Hong Kongers has been taken to the streets to defend democracy against, I mean, it's a complicated situation, but essentially defending democracy against Xi and China.

And the fact that no one here seems to care about it, that the President of the United States, who's supposed to be the leader of the free world, to my knowledge, has said nothing in support of those peaceful protesters.

It's a Shonda, as we say in Yiddish.

It's ridiculous.

Gee whiz.

Gee.

Get it?

Gee whiz.

That's our Ashi.

I got it.

All right, I got it.

Let me say one last thing.

It is fascinating to me

that it's not about Trump.

Who cares about Trump?

Trump is the con man.

He was voted for Democrat most of his life.

It's everyone else.

That's what's

the ones that will be judged

by history in the most depressing way.

Mitch McConnell, who listen, he not only is confusing, but this is a man who in his entire life never took a good picture.

No.

Can we come back to Hong Kong for a minute?

Because

I can't match that one.

I actually think what's going on in Hong Kong is a remarkably affirmative, wonderful thing.

It is.

Because it is maybe the first sign that China is being seen for what it is, which is one of the the most repressive, autocratic regimes in the world.

And I think it's about time people saw that.

I mean, I think what's going on in Hong Kong is great.

Yeah, but it might be against my turn.

But can you believe that our government's doing nothing to China?

They're not going to win.

And so here's going to be another defeat for democracy.

Here we are in 2019, and democracy is in retreat all over the world.

But it shows

there's organic opposition, which is a wonderful thing.

It will succeed in the long run.

We like everything organic here in California.

So

I read that you turned down the part in Dumb and Dumber.

Now, I never saw the movie because I didn't want to ruin the book.

I did it.

You did.

You could have been the Jim Carrey part or that.

No, no, Jeff Dempsey.

That was too all.

I read the scripts.

I said, this is too highbrow.

What a shame.

I know.

I wouldn't be here with you people.

I had my own island.

But all actors have one of those, at least one of them.

Absolutely.

Burt Reynolds has like 10.

Burt Reynolds turned on like 10.

Like every great movie in this episode.

You could be in The Godfather.

You could be in Three Days of the Condor.

You could be in the...

Nope, I want to do something.

But Cannonball 8, I'm there.

George Will, do you believe the expanding powers of the presidency can ever be reversed?

Yes, I think the physics of our politics is at work now.

This is the optimistic view, which is that Congress, it turns out, can be embarrassed.

And the president can, now that progressives who created the modern presidency have seen that they're not always going to occupy the modern presidency, they're going to rethink the separation of powers, which they began to undermine when Woodrow Wilson became the first president to criticize the American founding because largely of the separation of powers.

But they don't want it.

When Obama was being taunted by the Republicans about Syria, remember this?

And he said, you know what?

I'll go into Syria.

Give me authorization.

It's your job.

It's in the Constitution.

And they, of course, were like, no, because then if it goes badly, we're to blame.

But he went into Libya without anybody's wherewithal.

Well, sure, he said.

But it's more likely to happen on domestic policies where the Democratic Congress is going to try to restrain Trump and regret that it gave President Obama all the powers he had.

And courts are going to do the same thing.

Charlie, what do you anticipate the first round of Democratic debates to reveal about the candidates?

Oh, yes, we didn't really mention that tonight.

We should have.

Wait, they got the first two nights, 20 people.

I don't even know who some of them are.

Mary Ann Williamson?

Well,

you don't know Marianne Williams?

Oh, I cannot wait for that.

She literally departed.

The Department of Love or something.

Right.

She's like a new age office.

But Marianne Williamson is one of the reasons why God invented the mute button.

And I think what people are going to find is that

as these debates go on,

they're going to have the greatest candidates, and people are going to go, you know, mute for this person.

You never know.

You do not know.

You might be doing something.

That's right.

You know, some of these people who are we do know

who is not going to be president who's not going to say anything right but andrew yang i mean that that's an out-of-the-box choice and way out of the box he's he's doing quite well you know trump i might say everybody thought he wasn't going anywhere i said he was so listen to me

also

what about

How bad do you feel if you're one of the three who didn't make the cut of 20?

This is like not getting a rose on the first night of the

time.

This is why Democrats are so bad at politics.

You have the governor of Montana who actually

might have something to say that people would be interested in because he's a Democrat who wins in a Republican state.

And instead, we have to listen to...

I'm sorry, you know, Marianne Williamson.

And

I'm a little hung up on her.

Here's the good news.

Iowa is so small, 20 candidates, they can meet everybody.

Six months from now, when these crises happen, we have no idea today what's going to happen.

And despite all the pundits who are going to tell us what's going to happen, they have no idea.

I'm not a pundit.

You guys are both pundits.

Who's going to win the nomination?

Who's talking about

the public?

Who's your money on to win the nomination?

We have no idea.

Who do you think, if you had to bet now your own money, who's going to win the nomination?

My own money?

That seems very unfair.

I know it's wrong so far.

I'm going to say Biden because the Democrats are going to be too afraid to go with somebody who might lose to Donald Trump.

I don't agree with that.

And at a certain point, you're going to have the panic set set in.

You think it's going to be Biden?

I think at this point, people are in politics and active in the nominating electorate because politics is fun.

I think the most fun candidate for Democrats is Elizabeth Warren.

Okay.

Well, leave it.

I think it's Mayor Pete.

All right.

You think Mayor Pete's going to win the nomination?

Absolutely, because I think when you talk about

these debates, he is incapable of anything coming out of his mouth that isn't impressive.

I think he's going to be phenomenal on television, and I think he'll then do a lot of, he'll be everywhere.

And I think if the millennials would actually vote, if you're 18, 37 seems pretty old.

Right.

But do you think he could beat Trump?

It's going to be the dirtiest election ever.

I mean, no matter who it is.

You know, Trump is like an old series that you like the first half season.

I'm telling you, people will get bored.

I think his shtick is wearing thin armor.

Well, it already has, and he's down in the polls.

We'll see.

All right.

Thank you very much, everybody.

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