Ep. #499: George Will, Martin Short

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

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

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

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

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

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

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

Start the clock.

Right here with me.

First it's the fake applause, then the real one.

That's what the guy told us to do.

And now we really like you.

I love it.

But I know why you're excited.

It's Donald Trump's birthday.

And

they had a big party, cake, singing, candles, and then they played their favorite game, pin the blame on the Mexicans.

And

73.

73 he is, and remarkable after all these years, still a natural blonde.

73, and this week went after Biden on age.

He said Biden looks different than he used to, you know, implying Biden has had work done.

And let me tell you something, with 23 candidates in the Democratic race, last thing the Democrats need is a new face.

But

the president did not get good poll numbers for his birthday, his kind of tanking there.

I may explain why they're moving up the war in Iran.

Have you seen that?

Yeah, two oil tankers were attacked in the Gulf, and Donald Trump said he is ready to point names and blame fingers.

There's a grainy video of a small boat that is doing something

near the tanker and Trump says, this proves it has to be a wren.

Who else has that technology, a small boat?

Trump said, do I have to spell it out?

Because you know I can't do that.

And

no, no, he's pissed.

There is no way Iran is going to escape Donald Trump's wrath unless they write a beautiful letter.

That's how you do it, right?

If the Supreme Ayatollah wrote a letter that said, I thought I was supreme, but when I saw you, Donald Trump.

It is a little murky who attacked who, what happened.

We first said it was a mine,

but then the tanker's crew said it was a flying object.

So that rules out a Boeing 737.

And we've ruled out Saudi Arabia because it wasn't stabbed to death.

So we don't know what happened exactly.

Now

in other news, the president of the United States, who for the past two years has been screaming, no collusion, every fucking second he can.

Like, good morning, no collusion, good night, no collusion.

Went on George Stephanopoulos's show and said, you know what, fuck it, collusion.

Yeah.

Now I'm.

It's like Gwen Stefani saying, you know what, I am a halabat girl.

I'm good with that.

Trump said he accepted help from a foreign country to get dirt on his opponent, and and he would take it again.

And he wouldn't call the FBI.

And Democrats were so shocked they almost took a stand on impeachment.

George Stephanopoulos was pretty shocked.

He said, I have never witnessed a bigger stain in the Oval Office, and I worked for Clinton.

Now, of course, the Republican reaction was swift and severe.

I'm joking, of course.

They can always give a fight.

I loved it.

You know, all they cared about wasn't that Trump admitted to treason and being a criminal.

That's old news.

They were upset that he broke the first rule of fascist club.

He went outside of Fox News.

Laura Ingram said, why did anyone put Trump in that situation?

It's an interview with the president.

putting a baby on a horse.

And of course,

you know, Trump has many types of lies.

Today came the one I hate the most, the ridiculous, insulting, walkback lie that he tells when he says something ridiculous.

And the next day, the pulling this out of my ass,

barely bothering to make sense.

Fuck you, lie.

He was on Fox and Friends doing this for almost an hour.

To get off the phone, they had to pretend there was someone at the door.

They don't care.

They don't care about any of this.

Trump's attitude about subpoenas is: I don't do subpoenas.

They got a picture of him the other day walking up to Air Force One, the steps.

He had a subpoena stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

But thank you all for putting on a brave face tonight.

I know you must be upset because I'm sure you've heard.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders,

who reinvented the job of press secretary by not doing it.

Sarah says she is stepping down, but of course that's her, so who knows?

But

you know.

But you know when one door closes another one opens Trump actually said she should run for the governor of Arkansas So maybe it's that she's also launching a new social media platform rusting bitch Facebook.

I don't know if you know

And she's taken a position on the board at De Burger King because

who has more experience with whoppers?

Oh, you're way ahead of me.

All right, we got a great show Elliot Spitzer, Charlie Shakes, and Barry Weitz are here.

And a little later, he'll be speaking with the great Martin Shorge's backstage.

First up, he is a Pulisa Prize-winning syndicate economist for the Washington Post, whose latest book is The Conservative Sensibility.

I would say he's part of a dying breed, the true intellectual,

conservative intellectual.

George Will, ladies and gentlemen.

George.

Great to see you again.

How are you?

Okay, well, your book, again, amazing to read you.

Even when I don't agree with you, sometimes I think you're your own worst enemy, because when I read you, I'm like, if this guy can't convince me, I can't be turned.

And I can't be on some of your points.

But,

you know, as I read this book, I'm like, who is this for?

Because there are so few open minds anymore these days.

I get it that you're trying to convince people who might have an open mind, but does that bother you when you're writing something?

No, I think books still matter.

I know what the new media is about, but I still think books matter.

And I'm quite convinced that there are a number of Americans who believe something's badly wrong with our constitutional equilibrium when you have presidents of both parties who make war without Congress, presidents of both parties who are a supine Congress as empowered now to impose taxes and

rewrite immigration law, all on their own.

Yeah, you don't mention Donald Trump.

I don't mention Doris Day.

Right.

This is a book book about ideas.

No, I know.

It's a book about ideas, which

yes.

You know, she died recently.

Okay.

Ideas and conservatism.

Would you say he has nothing to do with either one?

But let me ask you this.

Conservatism, you're making your case that you have so eloquently for so long, but I can't really picture a Democratic Donald Trump.

If conservatism is so great, how did it give rise to Donald Trump?

Well, ideas have consequences, and so does the absence of ideas.

And the Republican Party became fixated on simply opposing Democrats, just as I'm afraid a lot of Democrats are fixated on opposing Republicans.

And

warning to the Democrats, who are about to have, what, 23 or 4 on stage?

There were 18 on stage with the Republicans, and the most lurid stood out.

But aren't some of the Republican ideas of recent years dangerous, anti-science, anti-intellectual, somewhat racist?

They seem to have won some elections based on that.

Why did that take root in the Conservative Party?

Because the Conservative Party became fixated on what I'd call crybaby conservatism, the victimology that they learned partly from the left were victims of the media, the Hollywood academia, etc.

And once you begin to be fixated on that, then you decide that elites are bad.

And once you decide that all elites are bad, you decide that mediocrity might be a good thing.

The question in in society is never whether elites shall rule, it's which elites are going to rule.

And the problem of democracy is to get consent to worthy elites.

Well, I would agree with you

that

a lot of Republicans have gotten on board with victimology, especially the president.

I called him a whiny little bitch many times.

And his people are too.

But, you know, you've said, yes, that the liberals were the people who sort of got on board with finding new people who were, I think, in your words, hurt, aggrieved, and left behind.

But the people that the Democrats are usually championing, aren't they literally hurt, grieved, usually, and left behind?

Women, minorities, homosexuals?

Isn't there a

rationale to that?

There is a rationale to that, but a great many of the people who voted for Donald Trump, there are 402 counties in this country that voted for Obama in 12

and Trump in 16.

The Democrats ought to be spending a lot of time there.

They ought to go to Howard County, Iowa.

Howard County, Iowa voted by 21 points for Obama in 12, by 20 points for Trump in 16.

That's a 41-point swing.

What was up?

That's what Democrats have to figure out.

Right.

Well,

I want to get to that, the toxic D.

I talk about it all the time.

You've mentioned it yourself.

And I was reading some of the things you said.

You were on MSNBC the other night.

You said you keep in your pocket a card.

And I've mentioned the same thing.

Why in so many states is the D so toxic that people will vote for almost anybody but?

And I'm with you on some of these.

You said, I keep the card in my pocket, all the things that these Democrats say that cause the American public to say these people are weird.

Oh, is there, that's it?

I'm going to need a bigger card.

Right.

Okay, but like terrorists in prison should be allowed to vote.

Get it.

See, that's where I'm like, oh, we're on the same page.

End private health insurance.

Right.

We don't want to end all private health insurance.

Pack the Supreme Court.

Again, bad idea.

But then abolish the Electoral College?

Well, intelligent people of goodwill can disagree about the value of the Electoral College, but why are Democrats spending all this time on something they know will not happen?

The reason they want to abolish the Electoral College is it gives undue weight, in their judgment, to the least populous states, 13 of whom are all that's required to stop a constitutional amendment.

So it's not going to happen.

Well, of all people, you should know that the reason you want to do something for something that doesn't look like it's going to happen is that 20, 30, 40 years in the future, it will.

That's what the Republicans and the Conservatives have been so much better at than the Democrats, having an idea, putting it in their think tanks, breeding it over.

I mean, Ronald Reagan was unthinkable in 1964, and then he was president in 1980.

That's why.

But what about the situation itself?

That not just the Electoral College here, in eight states by 2040 we'll have half the population.

Just eight states.

That means there'll be 16 senators for one half of America and 84 for the other half.

That can't be what the founders had in mind.

I think it's exactly what the founders had in mind because what they...

I don't know what they were smoking, but

that can't be right.

Come on.

They were smoking Virginia tobacco, and what they wanted was a Constitution that would preserve the federal nature of our system.

And the Electoral College, under the Electoral College, we have 51 direct elections of the president.

They just happen to be in states in the District of Columbia.

It seems like we're punishing people in cities.

Seems like we're punishing where the population is in favor of land and, I don't know, crows.

I mean, why did, I keep saying this, I'm obsessed with this, but why are there 40 million people who get two senators in California and the Dakota Territory gets four?

I mean,

we need a South Dakota.

It should say the redundant state on the license board.

Well, the founders believed, and some of us still believe, that being a federal republic is a good idea and that the states should make presidential decisions to reaffirm the importance of states as, in a good progressive's vocabulary, Lewis Brandeis, as laboratories of democracy.

We wanted more vigorous, more localism in our politics.

Okay, and your book talks about, and I'm trying to summarize because it's television, a brilliant 500 pages in a few words, but the mission creep of government.

And I've read it, this has been a theme of yours for a long time.

And when I was reading your book, it reminded me of an article I read.

I found it.

You're saying the federal government, you say the most important word in the Declaration of Independence is secure, because it says we should, the government will secure the rights, that the government's job isn't to create new ones.

Governments are instituted to secure rights.

But that's the Declaration of Independence.

That's the writing on the box.

The instruction manual is the Constitution.

Doesn't that create rights?

Isn't that what the Bill of Rights is?

No, the Bill of Rights is mostly a bunch of prescriptions.

The government shall not do certain things, shall not establish.

Those are rights.

Of course they are.

And the ninth amendment in the Bill of Rights says the enumeration of rights in this Bill of Rights shall not be seen to disparage the unenumerated rights that remain.

Okay.

Well, let me read from the article that I remembered from so long ago, because I told you I used to clip your stuff.

You're talking about, it's interesting, Grover Cleveland.

You said, if Democrats really want to discourage special interests, follow the example of Grover Cleveland, the last Democrat president who understood the federal government, as the founders did.

Just what your new book is about, as a government of limited because enumerated powers.

You say in 1887, President Cleveland vetoed the Texas Seed Bill.

Do you remember this?

I'm sure you do.

Which appropriated $10,000 to purchase seed grain to drought-stricken farmers.

Cleveland said, I could find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution.

But what about the farmers?

What about the people who are starving because there's a drought?

10 grand?

Would it kill you?

I mean, it's great to be by the book, but isn't that why Robert Mueller has put us in the situation we're in?

Because he can't always go by the book?

I think when you start saying, well, the Constitution's all very well, but that's just a book we need not go by.

Thereby is the state of anarchy and lawlessness.

It's a living, breathing document.

Jefferson himself said it should be rewritten every 20 years, did he not?

Yes, he did.

And then Madison corrected him at length in a very good letter, because that way is nonsense.

If a Constitution is to constitute, it cannot change with the winds of fashion.

Okay, George Will, you certainly don't.

I'm so glad you're on our show.

Thank you very much again.

George Will, everybody, let's meet our panel.

Hey.

Hi.

Hello, everybody.

Okay, here they are.

He's the founder and editor-at-large for the Bulwark and an MSNBC contributor.

Charlie Sykes is over here, Charlie.

He is the former Democratic Attorney General and Governor of New York, Elliot Spitzer.

And she's the staff

editor and writer for the opinion section at the New York Times.

Barry Weiss, our returning champion.

All right, don't forget to send us your questions for tonight's overtime so you can answer them after the show on YouTube.

I didn't want to talk about Trump.

I've said that many weeks, but I have to because this week he said he would take dirt from a foreign government.

And I just want to read what the Federal Election Commission, the head of the Federal Election Commission said.

I love this.

She said, I would not have thought I needed to say this.

It would be a great title for a book about Trump.

I didn't think I needed to say this.

Don't put your kids in the White House.

Let me make something 100% clear to anyone running for office.

It is illegal.

for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S.

election.

This is not a novel concept.

She then talked about the founding fathers.

They said they knew when foreign governments seek to influence our politics, it is always to advance their own interests and not America's.

My question is: what if the Democrats said, forget everything that happened before, let's just impeach him on this?

Let's pretend he was perfect up until the other day with George Stephanopoulos, because this is impeachable, and that's what they would do if Obama did it.

Look,

can I jump in?

Look, first you don't impeach somebody for something he might do but hasn't done.

Trump is a narcissistic demagogue who is the worst president we've ever had.

Let's take that as a baseline.

But, but, but.

I think, Bill, it is better for our democracy to beat him at the electoral box next year.

We can impeach him.

The Senate won't convict him.

Let's beat him with Democratic votes.

We should do it.

We can do it.

Let's get a good candidate.

I think constitutionally.

Andrew Sullivan has a great article about this today in New York Magazine.

Constitutionally, yes, there are many reasons to impeach this president, but politically, I agree with Elliot.

No.

Let's focus on 2020.

Let's focus on restoring the country, not tearing it apart.

Just, okay, Charlie.

Where does it go, right?

What happens the day after the impeachment?

Well, first of all, happy John McCain Day.

Look, I mean, what the president said to George Stephanopoulos is one of the rarest things in his presidency.

He gave an honest answer, which is, sure, if the Russians spy and hack on my opponent, I want to see it.

I'm willing to collude.

But in terms of impeachment, you know,

you're right that you don't impeach him for something he says, but there's so much other material here.

This is the moment.

I mean, look, what is it going to take for the Democrats?

Look, I've spent the last few years watching Republicans lose their mind.

I'm amazed at how bad Democrats are at politics.

Well, right.

Wait a minute.

I spent the last 20 years watching Republicans lose their minds, not the last couple, okay?

But they're nuts.

They're nuts.

The Mueller Report.

But you guys are feckless and you're gutless.

No, no, no, not everybody.

Not all of us.

Some of us weren't, and we got the shit beaten out of us because of it.

But I'm with you.

The Mueller Report lays out in the clearest possible roadmap to Congress to say, if you're not potted plants, if you're serious about your your constitutional responsibilities you need to have these impeachment now whatever the politics are this is what Congress is for this is what if the Congress does not institute impeachment proceedings then what they are basically saying is the president United States is literally above the law so

I want to make a different point

I was I was a prosecutor for a lot of years I wouldn't want to bring a case I wasn't going to win and the House can vote impeachment there's many ways to win No, no, no.

Yes, you're right.

We're going to go to the election.

We're going to lose the election in 20 years.

You don't know that.

You don't know that.

Yes, I do.

You know how we beat him?

No one knows anything.

No, you're right.

But we beat him on substance.

We beat him because he's wrong on facts, the environment, choice, guns, trade.

Beat him on substance.

That's good for democracy.

You can't normalize it.

You cannot say that this is acceptable behavior.

The president said what he said to George Stephanopoulos.

They don't normalize.

Well, exactly.

But you've got to struggle against that.

I mean, that's the thing that we go through every single week that we don't normalize.

We don't know what the right politics is because they go by the polls.

And again, Republicans lead polls.

Democrats follow polls.

If they would do that, maybe they would change the political.

If it's people because it looks like Al Gore would have been a big deal.

And the Democrats bigger.

But the problem is they always look weak.

I agree on 99% of stuff, not in this one.

Let me ask you a question.

When Bill Clinton was impeached, at the end of the day, he won.

Different case.

Al Gore was not elected President of the United States.

And I think the same, well,

they said that it was not a disaster.

It was not a disaster.

Look, right now, the Trump White House is succeeding in winning the messaging war.

They're turning this around.

They are on the offense.

And you have a president who has been credibly

in documentation, you know, has obstructed justice and what the Democrats are saying, what we have other things.

And I don't agree with this.

I mean, I don't agree that you can't.

You can't do it because of what somebody says.

This is what he's the president.

His words matter.

Well, Yeah, his words matter.

And he said, remember,

I was just so amazed by the reaction to the Iran boat situation, the tanker, right?

Yeah.

Because you have all of these people who are saying, who are disbelieving CENTCOM and disbelieving the intelligence community.

And we have to wonder, why is that?

Well, we have a president who every day is waging a war on the truth and on trust.

He literally said in 2018, what you are reading and what you are watching is not happening.

And so then, how do people expect us then to just believe the intelligence communities and him and his word and Pompeo when he's waged a war on it for the past three years?

Or for the 2040s?

That scared the hell out of me.

Or that he's protecting us.

It's the fundamental job of the president to blowing the power of the people.

Listen, but

you're right about all that.

So let him vote an Article of Impeachment, but pass a budget, pass a gun control bill, pass a good environmental bill, pass an infrastructure bill, pass a tax reform bill.

The House should do stuff that affects the voters in Wisconsin.

Yet that won't be passed passed by the Senate either.

But

then we have a policy to run on.

Then we'd win.

Look, I got 70% in New York doing that.

Okay?

This is what wins political elections.

That's you think.

No, no.

But it's said when a Republican like Justin Lamash is making a more principled case for impeachment than the leadership of the Democratic Party.

Yeah.

He was also the only one to vote for Bill Barr.

Now he's been Attorney General four months, brought up for contempt twice.

When Republicans come back into public life, they don't fuck around.

Twice.

And Justin Amash was right there, the lone one, the Maytag repairman of Republicans.

Lonely being right, he's getting called a cuck by all the people who are the originalists and the constitutional conservatives.

A cock?

A cock.

Cuck.

Oh, a cuck.

Yeah, it's their favorite insult.

What is that again?

A cuckold.

Oh, right.

It's their favorite thing.

Sorry, okay.

Phil, come on.

I'm not married.

I'm sorry.

I'm not this stuff.

Right, okay.

So,

okay.

So, Joe Biden says Trump, with Trump gone, you're going to see things change.

He's basically saying Trump is an aberration.

I don't know.

I don't know if he's an aberration or a symptom.

He's a plague.

Of course he is.

But the question is, you know, Mitch McConnell, he fucked Obama out of the Supreme Court pick before Trump was there.

I think the rot goes a lot deeper than that.

But it's so much much bigger.

It's a failure of the imagination, I think, to see Trump as just a domestic aberration.

He is a symptom of a much, much bigger trend, a wave, which is an anti-democratic wave that's sort of sweeping the West.

You know, it's not just Trump, it's Orban, it's Bolsonaro, it's all these people, and it's populations that are turning against things that we thought were assumed.

Things like liberalism and democracies.

They're turning toward populism, ethnic nationalism, and the rest.

I think the real challenge is to find leaders and politicians, and right now I'm wondering who those are on the democratic side that can make the case for a healthy patriotism and a common problem.

The question becomes, why are people doing that?

Why are people turning away from that?

Because we're living through a revolution that's bigger than the Gutenberg revolution.

Really?

Like turning away from the moment.

We're talking about

everything.

We're living through a moment in which everything is broken.

We don't have common information.

We don't know what the future of work is going to look like in 20 years.

You know, if I watch MSMEC and you watch Fox, we live in different epistemological realities.

That's harsh.

I know that's what you watch every night.

Anyway, so

I see strong men like Trump as stepping into that vacuum and offering very crude and cruel solutions.

And the problem is that too many progressives are scared to touch the issues that he touches.

They're scared to touch immigration.

They're scared to touch borders.

They're scared to touch patriotism.

They're scared to touch anything that will give them the whiff of xenophobia and bigotry and all of the rest of the things that they're terrified of being accused of.

And they need to come up,

they need to come up with sensible answers to those things.

And when we see people that are doing that, I think those are the people that can ultimately win the day.

But if progressives avoid it, people like Trump are going to continue to win.

Yeah, that's right.

Well, I mean, the question is: is a symptom or an aberration?

And the answer is he's both of it.

Obviously, this division was a pre-existing condition.

But Donald Trump's been an accelerant.

I mean, he has made politics dumber, meaner, crueler, and more disconnected with reality.

And even when he leaves, I mean, and a lot of Trumpism is just a personality cult, that the damage is going to be made here.

You know, we do live in these alternative realities that Barry's describing here.

And the dynamic of our politics is not what we are for, it's who we are against and who we hate.

And as long as that's the case, then we're not going to get over it.

You're both right, but I want to add one point and then say something affirmative.

You focused on technology, information, it's economics.

Incomes were going down for the middle class and those below the middle class for 25 years.

That breeds anger.

Anger is then venom towards those who are different from us, whether it's immigrants or everybody else.

And that's why Trump focuses on Mexicans and the Chinese, and he gets popular.

But let me add this.

We have been through this before.

We had a Civil War.

We had McCarthyism.

We had Reagan, we had George W.

Bush.

Somehow we have survived intensely unpopular presidents.

And we forget when Reagan was first elected, we saw him in the same prism as we see Trump and George W.

Bush.

We will come back from this because we are creative, our economy will do better, and we will resound with a Democratic candidate who can speak to the unity of this country.

Are you running for office?

No, no, I'm running for the Hills.

I'm running for the Hills, but

I'm an optimist.

I'm an optimist because we've seen worse.

We had a Civil War, for God's sake.

I know.

And I get it.

And we're going to get through it.

And we're going to get through it.

But I mean, I can honestly see why conservatives or even independents see you lumping the Civil War in with, we had the Civil War, we had Reagan, we had George W.

Bush.

You know, I don't really think they're the same.

And I don't know what that is.

No, no, that's the same thing.

Here's the problem.

George W.

Bush has been a strong as a business.

There's a continuum of focusing on people and saying that we want to focus on those who are different from us.

Well, you did it.

This is it.

They were too young.

The sky is calling, the sky is calling.

That's what the wolf and then the real one comes along, and nobody does

because you're the crying wolf because you can't make a distinction.

You find what you're freaking out about.

And then the real thing, this is a problem.

The real thing comes along, and it's like, what language do we use when the reality is?

Because it's like a car alarm.

After a while, you don't hear it, but you hate it.

No, no, no, but that you guys are seeing an apocalypse where I'm seeing somebody who is so bad, the decency of the American public.

His ratings are in the foot.

We're going to defeat him, and we'll have a Democratic candidate who's going to be a good idea to do it.

I'd give a million dollars to put George Bush in office right now with the money.

Or Mitt Roma.

Or Mitt Roma.

That's the point.

But that's the point.

That's the point.

You just said that.

Interesting story in the news this week.

In Cape Coral, Florida, a mom punished her 17-year-old daughter by forcing her to stand in the middle of an intersection with the old, remember confession signs?

This is kind of bringing them back.

And she made her kid have a sign that said, I lied, I humiliated my mother and myself.

I don't even know what the kid did, but I'm for this.

No, I think it's.

I don't know if you should do it for your kid, but it's now catching on again.

So we put a camera out.

It's big here in L.A.

now, the corner of Wilshire and Last Agentic.

And look, like here, the hot dog guy was out there with his confession sign.

Haven't changed the the hot dog water since 2004.

It was a homeless guy.

I have a four-bedroom home in Encino.

And then celebrities started showing up.

Look, Sean Hannity, when Trump farts, I say that was me.

Butigic was out there.

I'm not really gay.

I just needed a better hook than mayor in Indiana.

Lindsey Graham was out there.

I'm straight.

Oh my God,

what a confession.

Tiger Woods, 1-1 Torney, went right back to screwing the waitress at the Golden Corral.

Melania, my secret plan is that in the end I will sit on the iron throne.

R.

Kelly, I've spent more time in Toys R Us than that giraffe.

Sympathy for R.

Kelly.

I love it.

And Vladimir Putin, I'm starting to wish I'd helped Hillary win.

Okay.

He is the comedy icon who will be performing with Steve Martin at the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland, Colorado, July 12th, the Pikes Peak Center in Colorado Springs, July 13th, and the Greek Theater here in L.A.

July 16th.

He is beloved and hysterical, Martin Short, ladies and gentlemen.

What have I done?

What have I done to deserve this kind of evasion other than provide decades of quality entertainment?

Thank you.

Hello, why are you so reluctant to bask in the floodlights with me?

You love show business.

That's why I love it.

I do love show business.

And you're not afraid to say it.

And like your characters, when you think Jackie Rogers Jr.

Oh, wow.

Jackie Glick, they're show business people.

It's in your blood.

It is in my blood.

Is it not in your blood?

You always wanted to be in show business.

Whose show is it?

I'm kidding.

Someone's got to ask something.

We're fighting already.

No, we are

so much.

We are close friends, you know.

We have so much in common.

I told you that the last time after I read your memoir.

Yeah.

Like the father who didn't eat dinner with us.

Yes.

Right?

The squabbling Irish family

for comedy,

the problem with a large penis, all these things.

You know what else I found reading your new thing?

We are both people who don't have a bucket list.

I thought I was doing...

Yeah, I don't do

nothing

that I want to do that I haven't done.

And if I haven't done it at the age of 69,

I don't want to do it.

No.

Right, yeah.

I've never been to India.

Right.

Oliver Shulam, you know.

Right.

Right.

I've never been to any country like any country that's, you know.

But you can't get room service five-star.

You really are of the people.

No, no.

I always say, nowhere where they could take a chicken on a bus.

That's my.

What a motto.

But you're 69.

Now, as a comedian, when you hit that age, did you say to yourself, I've got to do something with that?

For the whole year, I'm 69.

I can't let.

Oh, come on.

Please.

69.

Kids love me.

No, it is daunting to suddenly be 69.

I mean, you realize for the first time, wow.

You look fantastic.

You have boyish hair.

It's getting up.

Look at that hair.

It's like, it's all crazy.

Well, it's a wig, but I know what you mean.

See, the netting.

The netting.

No, it's 69, you know.

For example, I no longer put an angel on top of my Christmas tree because it feels like foreshadowing.

So

things that just scare you.

I always say if I wrote a memoir, it would be called, Who Was in My Body?

Just because when I look back at things that I do, or somebody reminds me of something I did, I'm like, who was in my body?

I know that was me, but I don't know who that was.

Well, maybe you're very ill.

No, no, no.

You don't have things you think

when you did when you were 25, and you go, who was in my body?

You know, I wish I was more interesting than that.

I mean it.

I mean, I wish I could look at pictures of me at 25 and say, I don't know who that is.

I mean, I am basically the same.

I'm doing the same thing.

Wow.

Certainly the same jokes.

Since I was,

but really my whole life, it's just been, and I think that's what's kept me actually young and involved in my life in a great energized way, because I don't see limitations.

Oh, now that you're in your 60s, you can't do that.

No.

Well, I mean, you can't play, you know, 25 in a second.

Oh, I can.

If you like, no, give me up.

Because when you're timeless...

No, if they like me.

That's right.

But I know you said that when you feel like up to the age of 15, you're a sponge.

you take in everything and the rest of your life you're just regurgitating and recycling all of that.

Yeah, it's like me saying oh guys I love rap

Frank Sinatra because I like Frank Sinatra.

When I was 12 and 13 I've been to town.

Oh, we know this album.

Yeah, when we have a cocktail we go through an entire Sinatra album from that no one else knows.

No one else knows.

Right.

But a man alone.

I live alone.

Yeah.

But I think that you are the most open to it all and you're the most influenced.

And then by the time you're 18, you're ready to do it and see what you've learned.

So you're on the road with Steve Martin.

How many weeks a year?

Or how many nights do you do?

You've got these dates coming up.

You're seeing the show.

It's fantastic.

Yeah, it's, I always say our show is like married sex.

We do old material three times a month.

No,

We do about 45, 50 shows a year.

And like most comedy teams, it's what you really are with them.

It's great on stage, but off stage, you hate each other, right?

No, I actually love Steve.

I do.

I know, I know.

And I think that what's great about it is that we share many similarities in a work approach.

If it's an audience that

we still give 100, so we don't feel guilty.

All those things, but some people don't.

And I think that we have a shared sensibility.

It's very rare that a joke made him laugh and I wouldn't find it funny, or vice versa.

So I always think that you could be the ambassador from Canada.

And maybe, you know, someday you will be.

So I just wanted to say.

Toronto last night

won the NBA final.

I know, pretty good.

They have the basketball champs.

And I just, I got to go to bat for Toronto a little bit.

I spent a lot of time in Toronto and Canada in general.

They got a little bad rap because when Kevin Durant was injured, some of them applauded.

It was a moment.

They got caught up in the game.

Anybody who thinks that's Toronto does not know Toronto.

Last night, I think like two fans burned a lady's scarf for Trump.

There's nothing happening.

There's nothing going to happen.

One other thing I love about your show with Steve, you do not mention Trump.

Our second guest tonight, who does not mention Trump.

And I think that's great because I agree, you don't always have to go there with people.

Well, I do think that we have 50-50 in the audience.

And

if there's an attitude from us that says and they're not expecting it it's not it's not like we're political comedians and they're not expecting it and suddenly we're putting down Trump it's like if I'm a Republican in the audience who supports him I feel oh gee I I feel a little left out right now and I think they there's they need a respite from this constant insanity but I also think I said this last Thanksgiving when you go home for Thanksgiving just don't talk about politics we used to be able to do that we used to be able to sit with people who we knew was a different political stripe and just we're watching a baseball game.

We don't have to always go there.

But

I have lots of friends who I don't I don't think I know anyone who supports Trump but I

do.

No, actually that's true I do.

That's okay.

But I mean I know many, many Republican friends who might in the past we did but you don't discuss it.

You don't it's okay.

You know Canadians

all discuss politics all the time, and it isn't a fisticuffs.

It's just a conversation.

But it's more cat-filled to McCoy's here.

You know, you and I bond on this: that there is too much purity testing, I think, in the Democratic Party.

I think now they're going to get in trouble with PACS because they're talking about not taking money from technology companies.

You know, oil companies, you can't have their money, can't have Wall Street money.

Meanwhile, the Republicans take everybody's money.

You know, Steve Wynn was found out, he got me too.

Oh, we're keeping the money.

Harvey Weinstein, they give the money back.

Why?

His money didn't rape anybody.

You know?

And

what?

But I mean, I think

the DNC took in $19 million so far this year.

The RNC, 61.

Trump has raised 30 million in the first quarter, way more than any of the Democrats, okay?

This is another way they're going to shoot themselves in the foot.

You take people's money, and then you fuck them when you get in office.

That's how politics works.

I'm with you.

Having been there, having gotten money from people who then, for whatever reason, you said you give it back.

You're right.

The Democratic Party said, we got to win, raise the money, raise it legally, disclose it 100% where it comes from, make an argument to defeat this president.

That's how we win.

Don't worry about where the money comes from.

Just win the goddamn race.

And social justice warriors, I know you've written about this recently, are finally finding that maybe

there's a price to pay.

You're talking about the bakery story?

Well, there's the bakery story, there's the subway story.

Well, what's the bakery one?

That's easier, right?

The one at Oberlin?

Yeah, so the facts of the Oberlin one is there's this bakery that's across the street from Oberlin College.

The campus community had used it for years.

In 2016, a black, I believe he was a black student, comes in to the bakery, and there were two other students with him.

They get into some kind of altercation with the employee at the bakery who thought that they were stealing something.

A year later, it turns out they were stealing something, and they pled guilty.

Now, the problem is that in the year that ensued, Oberlin students, backed up, this is crucial, by administration officials and some professors, alleged that the bakery was guilty of racial profiling, of assault, and of systemic discrimination.

The college stopped using the bakery, which I think that they had been using for years.

And basically,

the bakery won, I think, something like $33 million in peace.

They won big money from the college.

How did bakeries know to be significant?

I don't know the height of quotes.

Would they have ever taken $33 million in those things?

$35 million.

That's a good cookie.

But it was rivalous.

Wedding cakes?

Why is that?

The point is that for too long, a lot of people have said, what goes on on campuses is excessive and crazy, but who gives a shit?

Well, this bakery cared.

because it ruined them.

It ruined them.

To give you another very quick example, there's a Jordanian-American writer, herself, I think, a self-identified social justice warrior, or whatever you want to call it.

She was very much a person of the left.

She goes on the metro in D.C., takes a picture of a metro worker eating a sandwich, which is, I guess, not allowed under DC subway rules, posts a picture of it.

Then she gets piled on because the woman, the metro worker, was black, and everyone's saying, how could you shame this person?

And they're right.

Why would she have posted that picture?

It was ridiculous.

But they go on basically incessantly, even after the woman who posted the picture apologizes.

Her book contract gets canceled.

She went into the hospital for severe anxiety and panic, and even, I think, went back to Jordan because she feared for her life.

Now she's suing the book publisher for $11 million.

So we'll see how that one turns out.

So what are they saying about you right now on Twitter?

Me?

Just for saying this.

Oh,

I have no idea.

But the idea, here's the point.

The idea that Twitter is not real life and that Twitter is like some fake reality, first of all, it's belied by the fact of this president, but also anyone who is on it and sees the kind of reputational damage it can cause, certainly in my own life, knows that it is real.

And that's what I'm saying.

Why does anyone go on Twitter speech?

I don't understand.

I don't understand.

I'm not on Twitter.

You have the privilege as a 69-year-old with a very good wig to not have...

Should have a wig.

Now that's the lie of every way that she believes.

To not be engaged, but for a lot of younger people, this is the way way that you promote your work.

It's the way that you engage in the market.

But it is also this culture of the bullying and the calling me out, which

is a lot of fun.

I agree.

I think there are many wonderful things about Twitter, but everyone I know who's been on Twitter at one point goes off Twitter

in a huff.

Yeah.

Because it's a place you can be witty.

Or if you say anything that's remotely, then it's a good thing.

Which is dangerous.

I would never do it.

But here's the good news and the bad news.

Twitter gives you access to the entire world.

The bad news is there's no editor, right?

It used to be there were five mainstream journalists and papers.

You could trust them to pass judgment, and it would be sound judgment.

Now with Twitter, everybody can be an editor, and everybody can be a critic, and so you suffer the consequences.

You get the upside of publicity, the downside of the idiocy of the masses.

And so you gotta weigh that balance.

I would never do it.

You're smart enough not to do it.

But maybe you can't do it.

Well, no, no, no, I think it's

able to eventually.

I think if you're able to look at it objectively and say, they're idiots, I don't care about that, but that's being interesting.

That's what you're doing.

You can do that.

That's why God invented the mute button.

And you can unfollow people.

But this whole issue of what's going on at places like Oberlin or the attempt to ban Chick-fil-A from the San Antonio airport and all of this, you know, I'm tired of the term political correctness.

This is the term, it's like performative wokeness, where what we have to do is in our monoculture, we have to find a way to humiliate, to drive people out that we disagree with.

And I will tell you that there is a huge backlash.

All the issues that we're talking about, we talk about this political divide.

The folks on the right who are bailing on liberalism, make this the Flight 93 election, they're basically saying that the left wants to destroy you, they hate you, they want to take away your rights, they want to destroy your business.

Unfortunately, you have anecdotes like this that make that plausible.

And the Oberlin case might be a tipping point because it shows there is a price for this bullying.

How do we get mainstream liberals to stand up to that faction?

Well, people

did actually say that maybe he would be the bridge between

the gay community and Chick-fil-A.

This was a positive moment.

It was maybe not a Sister Soldier moment, but it was a positive.

It was so rare.

The bar is so low that the bridge between Pete and Chick-fil-A.

Yeah, that's right.

That's true.

No, it's true.

We're not going to get there soon.

And the reason I say that is when Harvard fired the dean of the college for representing a Horned defendant, but even Harvard College said, we do not respect the process.

They said we don't respect the obligation of lawyers to take unsavory clients.

They were caving to the same sort of pressure from students.

And so I said, that is a spinelessness that should be shape.

They should be shamed of what they did.

It's going on everywhere.

It's going on everywhere.

It's David Remney.

Which is the problem.

That's the problem.

All right.

No time left.

New rules, everybody.

New rules.

Okay.

Get ready to laugh.

No, no.

No rule.

Not every movie set in the future has to be either a super clean utopia or a smoldering post-apocalypse.

Isn't there something in between?

It's always either the earth is a giant Apple store

or Burning Man got way out of control.

New Earl, if you have to install a soundproof booth in your hipster workplace so employees can have a little privacy, Maybe it's time to consider the hot new concept for the office called Rooms.

Seen here in an artist's conception.

Yes, every employee gets their own room with a door

that closes so they don't have to listen to Cheryl talk about her boyfriend all day.

True, there's less interaction with other people, but on the bright side, wait, that is the bright side.

New rules, now that Georgia has all but outlawed abortion, they'd better prepare themselves for more of what happened this week.

A newborn was saved after someone abandoned the child in the woods in a plastic grocery bag.

Now, we here in California would never stand for such a thing.

A plastic bag?

New rule, the makers of Make Your Own Dildo,

real thing, the do-it-yourself molding kit that allows you to create a rubber copy of any penis, have to tell us why the guy on their box looks like he's proposing with it.

And what exactly is she supposed to say?

Your dick without you attached to the end of it?

Yes, yes, a hundred times yes.

New rule, Augustine Olanis, the 30-year-old Florida man who has seen the movie Avengers Endgame 114 times, must not tell me how it ends

or begins

or what happens in the middle because I don't give a shit.

But I do have a spoiler alert for you, Augustine Alanis.

You die alone.

Little mean.

Okay.

And finally, new rule, let's use Father's Day to ask Republicans how the Daddy Party went from these guys to this guy.

Yes,

Sunday is Father's Day, and it reminded me that political wonks and pundits have always referred to Republicans as the Daddy Party.

Democrats, they were the mommy party, the nurturers, the caretakers, the compassionate ones.

Democrats worried about your health care and education, and Republicans were all about security and fiscal responsibility.

And they used to take their role very seriously, the no-nonsense, keep you safe, pay the bills party.

But Republicans really aren't the daddy party anymore.

They're more like the absentee father party

going through the midlife crisis, making bad decisions with all this pretend confidence.

It's like the entire party's wearing a toupee.

Under Trump, they've become the deadbeat dad party, the dad who spends money we don't have

and who blows the family budget on stupid shit, like a wall we don't need.

This dad hangs out with the wrong crowd,

alienates the neighbors.

Canada and Mexico, we used to get along great with them, and now they bring the kids inside when they see us coming.

And what kind of dad doesn't keep up with routine repairs?

You know, you're a president who's let the place go when your wife has had more work done than the roads and the bridges.

And this is not a personal attack on Trump as an actual father.

He clearly has a supportive, loving relationship with one-fifth of his children.

But someone has to explain to me why at Trump rallies it is a common refrain to hear that Trump is the strict dad America needs.

They really do see him as a father figure.

You know, a strong but quiet, strict but fair man who gets up in the morning, puts on two pounds of concealer,

inflates his hair, and spends the day tweeting like a mean girl.

Atticus Finch meets Fatticus Bitch.

Back when Milo was a thing, he used to literally call Trump President Daddy.

But he's hardly the only one who sees Trump that way.

Jerry Falwell Jr.

said of Trump, he reminds me so much of my father.

Yes, because they're both con men.

Kanye West thinks Trump is the father he never had.

You know, my dad, and my mom separated, so I didn't have a lot of male energy in my home.

It was something about when I put this hat on, it made me feel like Superman.

Well, of course he loves Trump.

He's a sucker for a giant ass.

But

as for those of us just trying to survive, in this American family, we have to come to terms with the reality that the daddy party is the asshole dad party now, and the patriarch of it all is a hot mess.

And you know what happens when daddy's a useless piece of crap, right?

Mom has to take over.

And that's why Democrats, they're no longer the mommy party.

They're the single mother party.

They're the party that has to work two jobs because daddy went out for cigarettes and never came back.

The Single Mother Party now is the only one that cares about the kids' future.

The Republicans,

they're the party of the Koch brothers.

Pollute all you want now because tomorrow, not our problem.

We'll be gone.

When Trump was in England last week, he was amazed at Prince Charles's concern for the planet and its longevity.

He is really

into climate change.

And what he really feels warmly about is the future.

What a weirdo, huh?

Caring about the future?

Boy, Bill Barr was recently asked about his legacy.

Does not care.

He said, I'm at the end of my career, everyone dies.

Rudy Giuliani said the same thing.

I don't care about my legacy.

I'll be dead.

Which is shocking.

I thought he was dead.

So,

so

happy Father's Day.

But keep in mind, if Republicans made a commercial for life insurance, it would go like this.

You love your family,

what if you weren't there to take care of them?

Oh, well, shit happens.

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at this morning, Fernanche Center in Trickerland, Texas, September 21st.

The Pacific Center Musical in Oklahoma City, September 22nd.

I want to thank Charlie Sykes, Elliot Spitzer, Barry Weiss, Martin Short, and George Will.

Stay tuned for Overtime on YouTube.

Thank you.

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.