Ep. #497: William Weld, John Waters

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians.

These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds.

Visit progressive.com to see if you could save.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates.

Potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations.

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

Start the clock.

Right here with me.

I appreciate it.

I don't know why you're happy.

Things are going terrible in the country.

Did you see this week, Mueller finally came down from his cloud

and spoketh.

You know, everybody's been waiting for him to speak and to testify and he finally spoke and what he said was word for word, the report is my testimony.

I shall not want.

That was

so get off my lawn and stop asking me to testify and do anything.

Make do with my cryptic pronouncements.

This is what he said.

He said, I love this.

If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that.

Okay, so is he a criminal?

Why say it that way?

What was his wedding like?

Do you, Robert, take this woman?

I don't not take her.

Trump speaks in playground.

What did he say?

No do-overs.

I get that, you know.

It's a little trickier to say I didn't not find evidence.

So you do, don't have to leave it to Congress.

And when I say do, don't, what I really mean is don't do.

And we just want to know: did Trump work with the Russians?

And Mueller's like, you know, it's a little like sex with your ex-girlfriend who hates you, but you're both horny.

You wouldn't call it planning, but you both want the same thing.

So

I'm out.

So

Trump's takes

you.

Thank you for applauding my breakdown.

You know,

Trump's tweet about this yesterday was priceless.

It started with, Russia, Russia, Russia.

President Jan Brady, ladies and gentlemen, is...

Russia, Russia, Russia.

And then this guy,

he'll deny everything all day and then completely admit it on Twitter.

He said, I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected.

And then, of course, an hour later he has to walk it back.

He said, no, no, the election wasn't stolen.

It fell off a truck.

What did I say?

But

liberals have a new hero, Congressman.

Republican Congressman Justin Amash.

Say, liberals,

liberals love any Republican who comes out against Trump.

Or like a gay guy on Grinder who only gets excited by straight guys.

But I'm telling you something.

Between this Justin Amash and Robert Mueller, for what it was, the pro-impeach movement now has mojo.

This thing, seriously, changed the channel.

You can tell it does because Trump is scared.

Trump said the other day, impeach was a dirty, disgusting, filthy word.

And don't even get me started on ethics.

But yeah, 55 Democrats now are for impeachment.

But of course, most of the Democrats are still saying, hey, yeah, impeachment, but what most people care about are the issues.

Can't you do both?

There's 23 of you divided up.

You know, you can't,

fuck, you know.

Missouri now has one abortion clinic.

Missouri Republicans are going to have to send their mistresses to Illinois.

I mean, you can't run on that.

Louisiana now got on the abortion bandwagon that's sweeping the nation this last month.

They voted in the legislature to ban all abortions, even in case of rape or incest.

And there was one redneck in the back of the room who stuck up his hand and said, does that include second cousins?

Yeah, come on, these people, they're sanctimonious about abortion, but they're running Roy Moore again.

It looks like in Alabama,

Roy Moore wants to run again for the Senate.

In Alabama, he's got a great slogan.

Oh, yeah, it's,

when I'm in D.C., I can't fuck your kids.

That works.

But, well,

don't get all excited.

It looks like even if Roy Moore won, he would not be able to serve his term because the Senate is within one mile of a school.

But I gotta tell you,

the big policy news that broke today is that Trump has come up with yet another ingenious plan to stop immigration.

Tariffs.

Tariffs solve everything.

Okay.

He says if Mexico doesn't stop the immigration coming through the border, also from Central America through Mexico, he's going to start putting tariffs on everything Mexican, starting at 5%

and going up to 25% in October.

This is on Mexican companies and everything Mexico sends here.

Okay, so now

we're going to build a wall and Taco Bell is going to pay for it?

Is that?

That's where we are now.

Of course, you know, he never seems to understand Mexico or any country doesn't pay for tariffs.

We pay for tariffs.

And these tariffs from Mexico, our biggest partner, fruits, vegetables, not just that, but cars.

This, they say, will increase the price of a new car $1,300.

Mexico isn't going to pay for the wall.

You're going to pay a lot more for that muffler.

And of course, liberals are incensed about this.

Not about the cars, but do not fuck with the price of avocado toast.

All right, we got a great show.

Lawrence Wilkerson, Kirsten Powers, and Jonathan Swan are here.

And a little we'll be speaking with John Waters is backstage.

I love John Waters.

But first up, he is the former two-term governor of Massachusetts and is running for the Republican nomination for president in 2020, Governor William Wells.

Hey.

Hey.

How are you?

Hawaii, Governor.

Long time nouns.

Yes, it's been a long time.

Were you on politically incorrect?

I was on politically incorrect.

Now you're on the high point of my life.

And were you governor at the time?

I was.

Wow, we had a governor on that job?

Interesting.

Well, you know, that was a different era.

I mean, you're a New England Republican.

You're what I call Republican classic.

Yeah.

And you're sort of an endangered species.

I don't know about that.

Yeah, you are.

In the Republican Party, there's not a lot of...

Oh, if you mean decency and integrity, yeah, that's New England Republican.

Sure, I'll plead to that.

But I mean,

how many Republican senators are there left?

Well, they're not endangered because they're all gone.

Right, yeah.

But it's interesting because in 2016, you ran as an Independent after being a lifelong Republican.

And you were on the ballot with Gary Johnson,

Libertarian, won almost 5 million votes.

I don't know if people remember that.

It was triple the previous best showing of the party.

Right.

Gary and I had been two-term Republican governors and good friends as fellow Republican governors, and we got along very well.

But you don't get the same blame Ralph Nader does.

Ralph Nader gets blamed for throwing the election to Bush in 2000, but you got five million votes.

I imagine some of those would have went to Hillary.

No, our polling showed three out of four of our votes came from Trump because a libertarian vote is going to be either a protest vote or a change vote.

Those were not going to go for Mrs.

Clinton.

So we definitely

want to.

But

this time you're running as a Republican again against Trump, who's in the white.

That's right.

That's right.

Timing is everything.

And it seems like this would be the time to run as a third party against.

Third party this time.

Because you're not going to win the nomination from Trump.

Well, let's see.

I wanted the direct shot.

Let's land on Earth here.

You're not going to.

Trump has the highest approval rating among Republicans in the United States.

He has hugely high approval ratings among Republican state committees who are all the Trump organization in their various states.

Voters.

Well,

they are voters, but my job is to enlarge the electorate, bring in those millennials, the Gen Xers, but talk about issues like the deficit and climate change and the future of work and the abortion issue is a complete outrage.

Do you think the main issue?

You know what it is?

It's really gender equality.

It's treating women as chattels and carriers.

And it's disgraceful.

And he's all for it.

Okay.

So

don't yell at me, sweetheart.

I'm with you.

But you're making my point in a kind of way, because it all comes down to, every issue comes down to we've got to get rid of Trump.

So if the most important thing is to get rid of Trump, wouldn't running as a third party candidate, because that way you do siphon votes off.

No,

the history is somebody who I remember Pat Buchanan.

I was with George H.W.

Bush riding around in the car.

Pat got only 37 percent in the New Hampshire primary, and it was the beginning of the end for George H.W., who a month earlier had been at 91 percent of the polls.

Dick Nixon won 49 states shortly before being removed from office.

So, a year is a long time in national politics, and I think the cracks are beginning to show in the government-by-tantrum style of the president president

in Washington.

Okay, so

why were you riding around in the car?

I was with George H.W.

Bush, trying to help him not be spooked by Pat Buchanan.

I failed any.

Oh, okay.

All right.

I just thought maybe you were in the car.

So

Okay, so let's say in a crazy world you don't get the nomination and it's Trump again.

How can, you have a lot of political experience, how can the Democrats avoid losing?

Because they're so good at that.

What is your biggest advice just to win?

Because even the rank and file who always care about issues.

My advice is to tell the truth.

It's always the easiest thing to do.

That way you don't have to remember what you said.

And the truth is that Mr.

Trump lives inside his own head.

He lives in a world all his own.

He has a lot of trouble conforming his conduct to the requirements, not just of law

but of any normal.

What's the strategy?

What's the strategy?

Take all your years of political experience.

What's the best path to win?

Is it Mayor Pete?

Is it Joe Biden?

Is it make sure the woman is at top of the table?

I don't know about the candidates, but I will say the Mueller report that just came out, 1,000 former federal prosecutors have just signed a letter saying that this man committed obstruction of justice on multiple occasions, according to the Mueller report.

And that's one thousand, and most of them are career prosecutors.

There's only like 40 who are like me, who are confirmed by the Senate, so-called political appointees.

But 1,000 career prosecutors have said that.

So you know that he committed obstruction of justice.

I would have charged him if I'd been in Mueller's.

I've said the same thing.

So

let me tell you why.

So the Constitution says, Article 1, Section 3, that a president remains liable to indictment, prosecution, and punishment after leaving office.

Now,

if the president could get re-elected, the statute of limitations would have run on

his crimes of obstruction in 17 and 18.

So it has to be the law that you could file a sealed indictment so as not to disturb the president in the conduct of his duties and then have that become public after he left office.

So when you take your case now to the Republican voter, the 90% who are in the Trump camp,

That's your big thing, is Trump's really an asshole.

You've missed it these last four years.

I'm not going to argue with the Republican Party.

Because they love him.

They love him like a couple.

They're the Republican state committees.

As I say, they love him.

But you're going to have to take your case to the voters.

90% of them love him.

I mean, love him.

Love, love, love.

I'm not the electorate that I hope to face.

I want those millennials.

I want the suburban women voters.

I want the people in whom it is finally sunk in that the president is.

So you're going to go around the base.

Oh, yeah.

I see.

Oh, absolutely.

And who's left in the Republican Party there?

That's not a big difference.

Anyone, well, in 20 states, they allow crossover voting.

Oh, and you're going to get Democrats.

Oh, well, I'm not.

I'm not going to.

They don't like any of the 23 they have.

No, no, I'm having a big fundraiser in Washington in a couple of weeks with a donkey on one side and a Republican on the other side, an elephant on the other side of the invitation.

So, no, absolutely.

Okay.

So, let me ask you this question.

I've asked people this for over two years.

If Trump loses, you think he'll leave?

Not voluntarily.

It's very important.

There you go.

Exactly.

I've been right.

No, no.

I mean, he's so.

What is not voluntarily?

Then what is it?

The Marines?

He'll have a run at saying it was a rig game, so I'm not leaving.

I don't think the military and indeed even the Justice Department rank and file, the investigative agencies, would stand for that in this country.

We have enough to steer by our wake there.

But we've said that about everything so far.

As he becomes more and more addicted, every step of the way we go, that would never happen.

They'd never stand for that.

It's very obvious that he wants to be what the people that wrote the Constitution were hell-bent and determined to avoid, which is a king.

He loves autocrats and he consorts with them.

And he says

free press is the enemy of the people.

It's in the First Amendment.

He says that we just can't have these restrictions on me.

I'm not going to play.

If anyone's investigating me, I'm not going to even engage with Congress.

What could be a more obvious violation of this oath of office?

All right.

I hope when you're president, you'll come back and see us.

You won't forget us because you're too big for it.

All right.

William Weld, everybody.

Let's meet our current.

The next president of the United States.

All right, he is a national political reporter for Axios and is featured on season two of Axios on HBO, which is abused at 6 on Sunday here on HBO, June 2nd.

Jonathan Swan, Jonathan.

She is a CNN political analyst and a columnist for USA Today.

Kirsten Powers, great to have you on.

And he is a distinguished visiting professor at the College of William Mary and former chief of staff to Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson.

Colonel, how you doing?

Good.

Okay.

So let me pick up where we left off there.

I think the debate on impeachment is finally different.

I feel different about it.

I think a lot of people do.

The combination of Mueller, as not great as he was,

but plus Amash, Justin Amash, I feel like,

you know, we've always been debating, well, is it the politically right thing or is it the moral thing?

I feel like, you know, this is where slavery was now in 1858.

It's getting harder and harder not to be on the side of the morally right thing.

Is that a correct assessment?

If you didn't have Nancy Pelosi as the current Speaker, I think if you had almost any other Democrat as Speaker, you would already be there.

Really?

Yes.

It is only because of the political strength and fortitude of Nancy Pelosi and her determination to hold off impeachment that we are not already at impeachment.

There is a significant momentum now towards impeachment in the Democratic House and again she has the power to

basically, if a committee chair wants to defy her, they're not going to do so.

Jerry Natler in Judiciary Committee, there's no way he, if she tells him we're not doing impeachment, Jerry Natler's not going to stand up with a pitchfork and lead the hordes towards impeachment.

I feel what's different now is that it's becoming the politically smart thing.

Whereas they were at the same time.

She doesn't think so.

She doesn't very firmly think so.

But that is moving, is it not?

But I'm happy that Brunsko, Karf, Colin, Powell, and I have found another Republican, Justin Amash.

Yeah, with some courage and ability to stand up.

There's plenty of Republicans on TV

who are anti-Trump.

It's the ones in Congress.

Senator Mosh is a bit of a unicorn in the Republican Party, let's be honest.

I mean, he's not ⁇ he's somebody who has traditionally gone against the Republican Party.

He's been fighting with Trump since the very beginning.

He's been somebody ⁇ he's a libertarian, so he definitely sticks to those beliefs.

And so I think him doing this doesn't tell us anything else about the rest of the Republican.

I'm working with the libertarians right now

to get the United States out of this endless war period.

So the libertarians, in that sense, are the best allies I have right now in trying to get the United States to stop fighting everybody in the world with its military.

Right, but my point is finding another Republican that's going to stand up to Trump.

Well, there are others.

An elected official.

There are others.

You know of others.

There are others.

They're people who are thinking very hard.

Who are they?

Yes, who are they?

Who are these people?

I cover them all day.

I'm not familiar with these.

I want to know.

You have to tell them.

They're covering them all day in a very different mode.

Well, behind the scenes, they do see.

That's right.

But people who will come out like a Justin Amange and challenge the president and actually say he's going to be impeached.

That's just not happening.

Okay, but I'm talking about...

I agree that the leadership of the Democratic Party is composed of gutless cowards.

They're not like Mitch McConnell, who will stick a knife in your back at any time and twist it.

But there are some people who are in both parties actually sitting down right now and thinking about what's going to happen.

We're having a meeting on the Georgetown campus next week, and we're going to talk about four scenarios.

And you can name the scenarios yourself, probably, and what we're going to do if those scenarios develop, the plans we're going to build and so forth in order to deal with it.

Scenarios,

for what?

Like if Trump doesn't leave, that can be a problem.

Yes, things like that.

Things like that.

Or a contested election like in 1800 when Burr and Adams and Jefferson were decided in the Congress.

We're looking at those sorts of things.

Maybe we could have a duel.

These are serious problems.

I'd be willing to do that.

But to me, now, this Justin Amash, he had a town hall, and what was eye-opening to a lot of people was this woman who was interviewed after.

You may have seen this, but if you haven't, I want to show you, because I think this is the heart of the problem.

This woman had never heard of anything bad President Trump did.

I was surprised to hear there was anything negative in the Mueller report at all about President Trump.

I hadn't heard that before, and I mainly listened to conservative news and I hadn't heard anything negative about that report and President Trump had been exonerated.

Isn't that it in a nutshell?

How can you, it has to come, Nancy Pelosi keeps saying, if it doesn't come from the people, but if the people don't hear it.

This woman, this is just in a mush because she's a Republican congressman.

Finally, he pried a little air hole in that bubble.

Yeah.

And this woman heard it for the first time.

Right.

But I guess my question for you is the political question.

You're saying you think it's now politically a good thing to impeach.

I'm saying it's moving there.

But if you got to that point, why do you think that that would help Democrats get rid of Donald Trump?

Well, because I've heard a lot about how if we do impeach, it will rile up his base.

His base was born riled.

I don't think they can get any more riled up, right?

And I don't think they can get any bigger.

So I think

I don't worry about the base being more crazy.

But I think you do through impeachment.

If you go back to Watergate and you look at it really,

the process itself,

at the beginning, Howard Baker would never have said that the process would end the way it did.

The process itself reveals so much and brought out so much more.

Think about the crimes of Richard Nixon, and then think about the crimes of Donald Trump.

Oh, yeah.

This process would be revelatory to the maximum.

And you'd get all those independents out there who are going to decide the next election.

Okay.

I'm just going to say,

what we saw with that woman underscores the political gift that the Attorney General Bill Barr gave to Donald Trump.

People don't remember that.

The significance of putting out that summary and then for there to be almost a month where that sets what the public absorbs.

as this report.

I mean, there is no more, there is not a single act I can think of during the Trump administration that has been more politically advantageous to the president than that single act of putting out that summary.

Right.

All right, let me ask you about the military, because that is one of your areas of expertise.

And something that I never, I could even imagine as a comedy writer, happened this week when we heard that the president's people, he was in Japan,

told the Navy to hide a destroyer, the USS John McCain, because our president, this whiny little bitch,

they call us snowflakes, couldn't bear to see the name of his dead nemesis, John McCain, on a ship.

And the sailors couldn't watch his speech because John McCain was on the name of their uniforms.

No, he says he didn't order it, but plainly the people around him.

The shocking thing is that the Secretary of Defense, sycophant that he is, military industrial complex representative that he is, says he didn't know anything about it, and yet I'm hearing that it was pretty much a thing that went around the building and then went to Tokyo.

Yeah,

the boat is a trigger for him.

Worse than that, if you listen to Vice President Pence's speech on the plane at West Point, and you listen to Pence tell those young men and women that they were going to be all over the world fighting America's wars in the Middle East, in Venezuela, wherever it might be.

That was the most reprehensible speech in my 75 years on this earth, 70 of which were sentient enough to listen to a speech, I've ever heard.

There's a vice president of the United States on the plane at West Point telling all these people that these wars we've been in now for 18 years aren't going to end and they're going to be all participants in it.

This is crazy.

Where are we at?

So,

I'm going to ask you, everybody, this question:

What does the military see in Donald Trump?

Why do they like a guy who is a draft dodger who denigrated the war hero John McCain and sides with our enemies?

He did it again this week with Kim Jong-un.

What do they see in him?

Why the popularity?

Why does Trump get to get up there and say, oh, I've got the tough people on my side?

The poll showed that the enlisted ranks probably voted in a majority for Trump.

The officer ranks probably split more voting for Clinton than voted for Trump.

But I will tell you that the officer ranks didn't like Hillary Clinton because they thought she was a warmonger too.

When you get into the high-ranking institution,

let's be honest.

Well, you're absolutely right.

You're absolutely right.

The military is still a very male-dominated society.

I don't know where they are now.

We've done some informal polling.

I'm not sure where the military is, but we're very interested in where the military is for this meeting coming up.

Trump floated the idea this week of pardoning war criminals.

People who in Afghanistan were reported by their own troops who did heinous things.

So the back story here is and

it's a quite a revealing backstory is that Pete Hegseth, who is a host of Fox and friends,

who Trump had previously considered to be the secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department, he has been talking to Trump privately, privately, I've been told by multiple sources,

about this issue.

They've been having phone calls about it.

He's been campaigning on television about it.

And that's one of the ways that this got onto the president's radar.

Right.

And I must say, we have done on this show before, a few times, my dictator checklist.

You know, I won't go down the whole list again, but it's very scary.

Military parades, and your family is in the government, and, you know, you...

Also, the thing you just brought up at the beginning, the only other country where that would ever happen, where they wouldn't hide something from a leader because they thought they would freak out by seeing it is a dictator.

Those are the only people that you would behave that way.

Like, oh my gosh, we're just too scared of what he might do if he saw the USS John McCain, and so we'll hide it.

That's just not what you do in democracies.

And by the same token, the patches.

You know, the patches, the Trump patches, right?

Same thing.

But one more thing.

I have to say something dissenting here, though.

I mean, really, a dictator, I mean, he makes a lot of orders that the staff just ignore, and they don't happen.

I mean,

if what Trump had said, we would already be out of multiple trade deals.

There are many things that he's told his staff to do.

It's another thing dictators can get away with, being crazy.

Yeah, no, but no, but.

No, it's truly.

But the point I was going to make there about this is another thing dictators do, which is they bribe the security apparatus.

You can do whatever you want.

You can commit war crimes.

This is what he says to the police.

You can rough people up.

That's how you get the tough people on your side.

That is concerning.

That is dictatory.

Well, yeah, and the other thing he does,

I think one of the biggest things he does that dictators do is the way he's created a spectacle of our, he's made our entire government a spectacle.

And he just makes and he makes everything crazy and out of control in the same way that dictators do so that people will eventually just disengage.

They'll eventually just say, it's too much, I can't handle it, everybody's crazy.

And so he's trying to just degrade every institution that we have.

Now, it was reported today, it's not confirmed, but South Korean press is reporting that Kim Jong-un

killed the people who were negotiating for him because the negotiations didn't end well when he met Trump in Vietnam earlier this year.

That he had them killed.

What is the president going to say about that if that's clear?

Well, the dynasty, the Kim Jong-un.

I'm going to say, I love him.

Grandfather, father, now Kim Jong-un.

This is their tactic.

I know that's how they get rid of him.

You talk about our president.

Well,

don't talk too loudly.

We still have friends and

friends who can help me out.

Let's go to the desk piece, everybody.

It's funny stuff.

I'm glad William Weld was here because he is one of three that I count who might be running now on the Republican ticket.

We have Larry Hogan, he's the governor of, yeah, he's going to be president.

Maryland, he's thinking of challenging him, maybe just in in a mash.

But see, all these guys, they've had one big problem, why they're never going to unseat, I'm sorry, Mr.

Weld, Trump on the Republican ticket.

They're sane.

And to get the Republican nomination, you have to go to the right of Trump.

You have to be more of a caveman.

They don't really have a guy like that in the party, so we made one up.

But like that woman, they don't really always know what's real.

So I think they'll just believe it.

Governor Butch Manley is someone we think can take the nomination.

And we'd like to show you the campaign ad that we've made for Governor Butch Manley.

Are you a lifelong Republican, not sure if you can handle another four years of Trump?

Well, now there's a candidate Republicans can all get behind.

Governor Butch Manley.

Conservative, husband, patriot, fathers to sons Reagan and Churchill, Navy SEAL, hunter, gatherer.

Butch Manley is a proud capitalist who made his money inventing a plastic made only for throwing away.

Governor Manley is author of the Amazon bestseller, What the Fuck Are You Looking At?

Manly's got Reagan's Jaw, Roosevelt's Balls, and Lincoln's Log.

He knows six foreign languages, but refuses to speak any of them.

He chops wood by shooting it with a rifle and has a Confederate statue on his front lawn.

And Butch Manley is staunchly pro-life.

He buys eggs at the grocery store and shoves them back inside chickens.

I'm Butch Manley, and I approve Jack Hidden.

All right, here's the icon of bad taste.

This new book is Mr.

Know-It-All, The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder.

John Waters, everyone.

How are you, Oliver?

Great to see you.

Thank you.

You look fantastic.

You always look the same.

Well, I'm trying to be as disreputable as always.

You are, and I got to tell you, you're a hero of mine because, what are you, 73 now?

Yep, yep.

Okay, and you know, I'm always on this show making the case.

Okay, you know.

It's too young for the you're still alive applause.

Okay, that's actually sort of an insult.

But, you know, I'm always saying, you know,

ageism, don't judge people on their age.

People are 95 and still work in the fields in some places.

And you, you just did ACID for the first time.

Not the first time.

Well, in a long time, right?

Are you kidding?

You think I was.

The last time you were here, you were just hitchhiked across the country.

That's true.

Well, I was 66 when I did that alone, right?

But acid, I hadn't done it in 50 years, and I thought I had a great time then.

So I decided my new stunt for the book was to take acid at 70 with Mink Stoll, my friend that's been for 50 years.

Of course.

And we did.

Mink Stoll.

And

I had such nostalgia remembering that phlegm in your throat, what it feels like right before you blast off, and whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap.

And I don't remember that.

You didn't ever trip.

I did, but I didn't have phlegm.

And I don't, I'm not telling young people to take acid.

You have your pussy micro doses, you know.

But old people,

take it, right?

Take the whole thing.

Old people.

Memories of it, take it today.

Nobody can say it's dementia.

You're tripping.

Right.

So,

but no, but you're you're always fit as a fiddle.

You never canceled the show, right?

No, I never have.

I've done it with a flu.

I've done it.

It makes it old school.

But do you know how to do it when you have to time it wiping your nose with laughs the whole time, you know, when you're doing a comedy show?

It's hard.

You seem to have trouble with phlegm more than I did.

Everything comes down to that.

No, but I did 2,000 politically incorrects.

Never missed one.

I was on your show, though.

Yeah, 500 of these.

Never missed a stand-up show except when the plane couldn't get there.

Old school.

Yeah, I know.

The show must go on.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's interesting.

In your book, you say there's no downside to fame.

No.

The only bad thing that ever happened once, I had a kidney stone, which is the most horrible thing.

And so to go to the doctors and be in the waiting room, they say, hey, it's Joe Waters.

What's the matter with you?

Or worse, who's Joe Waters?

You're sitting there saying, please, please.

But you know what?

If you weren't famous, you wouldn't have gotten the appointment in the first place in that city.

Yeah, that's true.

Not bad.

People come over and say, I hate dinner up when you're eating.

I say, no, you don't.

You just did.

But you paid for this dinner.

Yeah, that's true.

And a long way, you know, leave the tip.

Leave the tip.

But I mean, this fame and then this fame.

I can go out.

You were never Michael Jackson.

No, but that's the point of show business, is to work so hard so you can never go out.

Yeah, that's the point.

Right.

I know what it's not called hide business.

Right.

You know?

Right.

Yeah.

So,

in a weird way, you know, you are respectable now.

Well, try not to be.

No, no, but they say if you, it's like, you know,

what's it saying?

There's like old buildings and whores or old whores and buildings, or something becomes respectable over time.

And you're an old whore.

Let's get up.

Yeah, yeah.

And I try to keep up by saying things like, I think Stormy Daniels' lawyer is really handsome and will do well in jail.

I try to keep up, you know, saying that, basically I try to be gayly incorrect and say, yeah, everything they say against us is true.

We do recruit.

There's one.

Get him.

Well, see, that's great.

You've got such a great thing going on because everybody else in show business, they go back in time and look at what people did in the past and, oh, that's not politically correct.

That's not good enough today.

They find things in friends.

They're fat shaming in their home of funny.

Well, the thing is...

But you, you were always trying.

You were aggressively correct.

I am politically correct.

You are.

Weirdly, because I'm never, I make fun of things I love.

And so I'm not mean-spirited, you know?

And what we have to do in this next election is not, I get why the Trump people like him because we hate him.

But we have to make our opponents not feel stupid, which is what we do.

We have to make them feel smart that they're going to change.

And that's the difference.

So trick them.

Yeah.

And we'll be able to trick them because they're stupid.

Anyway, no, I can't, I can't, of course.

But who's going to win?

I mean, they should all have a meeting, all the Democratic candidates, a secret one, and plot, let's pick two.

and all the rest quit now I'm gonna get to that at the end of the day all right but I want to get to gay matters all right gay matters

I love your book you know and books are for wise people you know you're wise it's one thing this stupid society doesn't get that people get wiser when they're old every other society has figured this out well hopefully yeah okay so like you were talking about your younger days in Providence you're still in Provincetown

you still live there yeah yeah yeah what is Bear Week I go there in the summer it's my 54 54th summer there yeah what What is Bear Week?

Well, Bear Week is overweight

marry gay men, but they're getting fatter.

I'm telling you.

And I saw one, I thought it was a hedge, but it was a person.

And when we were tripping, it was bear week.

We didn't go out.

Okay.

I could.

I couldn't.

That's a bear week.

Bears are especially welcomed.

Well, yeah,

they have every week.

They have Gay Pilots Week.

Whoever thought of that?

Analingus Week.

No, no, that's coming.

Okay, so

we.

Sorry, it is

a job.

It's a big anniversary this week,

this month, Stonewall, the famous riot that happened.

If people don't know, there was a gay bar in the village.

One that nobody went to.

It was all like hustlers and hookers and everything.

Yeah, that's great.

But whoever thought.

So it it was the same day Judy Garland died?

Could there be that gay a day?

And is that why, so the cops had busted this place and back then.

And then the Mafia Bar.

Yeah, back then all.

The cops used to

rouse gay folks.

And they would check, drag queens had to have on one pair of men's clothes or they'd be arrested.

Oh.

So they wore jockey shorts under an evening gown.

But yeah, and they fought back for the first time.

For the first time.

And you say this is because Judy Garland had just...

Well, I guess they were feeling in a bad mood.

Okay.

But

I hope people buy your book.

It's a great book.

But you know, I noticed this week with the Mueller report, we were talking about he had to come out and say, read it.

Because people don't read anymore.

I mean, if your book does fantastic, it's not going to do what books used to do when people read.

But who wants to read that?

Because he didn't say anything.

It's like watching the weather and they say a 50-50 chance of rain.

Well, it always is.

Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

But I dug up an old quote of yours.

You said, if you go home with someone and they don't have books, don't fuck them.

Well,

wisdom, I'm telling you, wisdom, quote.

Wisdom.

But I have an answer to that now.

If you go home with somebody and they have books in the bathroom, don't fuck them either.

Because that is disgusting.

Funny jokes.

Oh, the only good thing about death is we don't have to move our bowels again.

All right.

So

let's talk about the presidential race.

I tell you,

it heard.

Yeah.

And, you know, in years past, I've always said, oh, we shouldn't concentrate so much on the horse horse race.

Why can't we talk about the issues more?

But you know what?

The horse race is the issue.

I don't care.

Maybe it's wrong, but I can't look away.

Every week I am into the horse race because I need to know who's the right person for this job.

And

Joe Biden, way out ahead.

What do you think of Joe Biden?

Well, he needs to not only apologize to Anita Hill, he needs to apologize to Long Dong Silver.

Because remember, she had to say that out loud.

She didn't make that up.

He did.

And Long Dong Silver was a real person.

His penis was not, but he was real.

Aren't you glad you served your country, Colonel?

But Joe Button, I have mixed feelings about Joe.

He was never my favorite, but I keep saying, like, if he's the one to beat Trump, I'm all in.

But I do worry.

I do worry.

Like I said, about age, it's individual.

Some people look pretty good.

Anthony Quinn looked like a leading man at 80.

Joe doesn't look good.

He looks like he's on a coin.

And he was talking to a 10-year-old girl this week, a 10-year-old girl, and he said to her, I'll bet you're as bright as you are good-looking.

Which that is just not,

I worry that he's going to say that two days before.

He reminds me a lot of H.W.

Bush in his last days.

Oh, David Copperfield?

Right?

People forget that.

You know, because he was close to the end,

but George Bush used to grab ass and see.

Senior did, yeah.

Senior.

He always passed.

Senior used to say some joke about David Copperfield that was okay.

I'm a waspy Republican, and I made a joke, so I can grab your ass.

The other thing about Joe that bothers me is

he was the one that Colin called all the time.

It wasn't Dick Luger, it was Joe Biden.

So we got to know Joe Biden pretty well.

And while he was versed in the issues and knew the issues better than Dick Luger, He often would say some things and do some things that were just utterly weird.

Dick Luger, sounds like someone in one of your

drugs.

An older rock card, pretty muted.

The thing about Dick Luger.

The Trump campaign.

He just passed, so.

Oh.

The Trump campaign's.

Not like we were trying to make fun of it.

The Trump campaign has done quite a lot of polling in the states that they need to win, and they're pretty concerned about Biden.

He's crushing Trump in the states that they need, particularly the Rust Belt.

He's taking a lot of those voters, white working class voters that helped Donald Trump win in 2016.

But we forget how early it was at this stage in 2016.

Trump hadn't even announced.

We were still fantasizing about whether it was going to be Jeb Bush or Scott Walker.

So, you know, I think it's a bit of a freeze pattern now until the first Democratic debate in late June.

And, you know, there's four or five people who look like they could potentially get the nomination.

What do you think about Mayor Pete's attack?

What?

Well, I like him.

That name sounds like Buffalo Bob.

I know.

It's a little whimsical.

But the last name, Mai Spellchuck, just still doesn't know who he is.

Oh, I know, I know, I know.

And no,

I like the idea of a middle-of-the-road gay president, but I don't know.

I hope he gets for a running mate maybe like Elijah Cummings or like even better, like Al Sharpton and drag as Shirley Chisholm.

Well, that's not going to happen.

I'm just trying to.

You're not being helpful now.

Well, I'm trying to lighten it up the race.

But he seems to, because he's a veteran, he went to Afghanistan.

He's attacking Trump on this, I noticed over and over again.

And I think it's working because I don't see Trump saying anything back, which is unlike Donald Trump.

Mayor Pete said, frankly, Trump's idea that being sent to fight makes you automatically into some sort of war criminals is slander against veterans that can only come from someone who never served.

He keeps saying this, never served.

He said he accused him, you know, when he was preparing for the seventh season of The Apprentice, I was packing my bags for Afghanistan.

I think that's...

That's really good.

That is really good.

I think this is one thing that could stick to Trump because everything else doesn't.

They don't care that he's a crook.

They don't care that he's a liar.

They don't care that he's a cheater, but scared?

Was he 4F?

Who?

Trump.

No, he claimed he had bones.

I was one Y.

Do you remember that?

That meant they took hairdressers and drug addicts first.

But one Y was a special one that they had for special people.

Does that mean gay?

I think it meant gay.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know, but I was one why they just said, you can't go there.

But yeah, I mean,

no offense, but they made a wise decision.

Yeah, they did.

Picture me on a tank.

No, I can't.

I'm going to put a fly on that argument.

I want to agree with you.

But I've been involved with groups that are trying to look at how we populate the military.

And right now, we've got about 300 million Americans who don't do squat.

We've got less than 1% that's bleeding and dying for the others.

And I think though that seems a powerful argument, that at the end of the day it isn't.

It just washes over most Americans because most Americans look at the military through a lens of apathy, fear, guilt, and ignorance.

And they don't want anything but the NFL game with the military out and the fuel and so they can say thank you for your service and all that bull shit.

Yeah.

Right.

And most veterans don't like that at all.

What I don't get again about his followers is that the way he sides with people who are not America.

What could be more definitional of treason?

What?

This comes to you from the Trump and Great Neck.

Trump New York.

Trump message, make Russia great again.

Yes.

They wanted me to give it to you.

Okay.

But like the people we say, thank you for your service, they're all telling him one thing.

And then he says, no, I'm with this guy.

I'm with Putin.

Yeah, I heard the thank you for your service people, but I'm with Kim on this.

I mean, what does it take?

But you showed the woman earlier.

I mean, most of the people who follow him aren't following any of this.

They don't see any of this information, right?

And ultimately, the reason they support him has has to do with just a couple issues.

It has to do with the Supreme Court, abortion in particular,

and cultural grievances.

I mean, when you really get down to it, it's really cultural grievances.

And increasingly, a lot of 68 million evangelicals.

Yeah, and so it's like, so it's this idea, yeah, and with the evangelicals that he has promised them that, you know, I'm gonna protect you and protect you from all the persecution that they claim is coming towards them.

And so, again, cultural grievances.

And it's true.

It's not just that Fox missed reports, it's what they do.

They just leave it out.

It's just that it's out there.

They just leave it out.

Right.

And the unemployment's very low, and the economy is doing great.

So

those are facts.

Well, it's doing great for some.

Yeah, but I have to say that.

Sure, but

I actually don't think the economy is even, I think it's more cultural grievances.

I think the idea that they ever voted for him because of economic reasons is actually completely disproven if you look at all of the data.

It was driven by cultural grievances in a sense of wanting to go back to the good old days.

Right, but what I'm saying is when you have after the election, you know, the stock market's never going to recover doomsday predictions, and then actually unemployment stays basically the same, those arguments kind of lose their potency a little bit.

Well, we got an.

I keep rooting for the recession.

We got another year and a half.

All right, thank you, panel.

Time for new rules, everybody.

New rules.

New rules, stop telling me we can't use the 25th Amendment to remove Trump for being insane.

Exhibit one: these pants.

Exhibit two.

There is no exhibit two.

We just circle back to the pants.

I need to see those pants.

I don't know what's sadder about this picture that the president went to Arlington and his pants fell down

or that he just said, mommy, this golf course is hard.

New rule, now that the Noah's Ark replica in Kentucky is suing its insurance company for rain damage.

Farmers has to sell a special irony policy.

Also, read your current policy.

It specifically says no pets.

New World Sports Illustrated has to quit bragging about its first supermodel in a burkini.

Religion is for sad little men who want to look at women but fear the wrath of God, whereas the swimsuit issue is for husbands.

Neural

Robotics from the company that makes real dolls cannot claim that their new robot could pass for human.

And wise asses have to stop saying she could pass for a vanka.

That

is ridiculous.

That is obviously a bunka on the

I'm going to say left.

New rule, now that climbing Mount Everest is so common that you have to wait in line for hours to get your picture taken on the summit, don't expect me to see your life as so different from mine.

You climbed Everest.

I do rush hour on the 405.

And finally, new rule, if you're a Democrat, the conscience of your party shouldn't be a Republican.

Recent polls show that Democrats have lost their enthusiasm edge over Republicans, and it's no wonder.

They seem to have shed none of the bad habits that hurt them in recent elections.

The identity politics, the purity testing, the petty infighting.

Losing to Trump should have jolted them into a higher state of seriousness, but it did not.

23 candidates?

That's not a primary, that's an Avengers movie.

Stop worrying about what your lane is.

Everyone's focused on their own micro-targeted path from New Hampshire to the Iron Throne.

They've all got their eye on the pizza hut at the end of the game, but no one's playing well enough to earn it.

I say it's time we moneyball this thing.

Democrats need a coach, and this year, I have tried to be that coach.

Do you get invited on Fox Food?

Yes, I do.

You do.

I do.

You should go.

That's who needs to hear your message.

You've got to get in the bubble, man.

It's about the audience that's listening to it.

No, I am.

At least they would hear the argument.

I will go.

Great.

For you.

I appreciate it.

Okay.

Yeah, this has now become an issue for all the Democrats with many going on, Fox.

But if I'm going to be your coach.

Oh, wait,

I have a whistle, too.

All these candidates have to remember one thing.

Winning is a habit.

Unfortunately, so is losing.

You know who said that?

Vince Lombardi.

And he knew two things Hillary Clinton did not.

How to win and where Wisconsin is.

And that is rule number one.

Go where the votes are.

Get out of Wokeville for a day.

See what's going on in Mullettown.

You've already got NPR.

Go on Fox.

And you can't let Trump completely own the low road.

If he's going to call people names, he should get it back.

A few weeks ago, when it came out that he lost more money than any other American over a 10-year period, I suggested this.

Elizabeth Warren, start calling him Brocajontis.

Brocajontis.

And it was just stupid enough to go viral.

Rule number two is, as far as the 2020 election goes, the sign-up period is over.

No more candidates.

We're full.

Rule number three, Democrats must stand up to Twitter.

Catering.

to one contrived outrage after another makes us look weak.

Just because woke babe 99 gets mad at you doesn't mean the rest of America gives a crap.

It's great you're gender fluid, but most of America thinks gender fluid is what comes out during a wet dream.

And for God's sake, stop apologizing for everything.

I know more about what Democratic candidates have apologized for than I know their stance on the issues.

Four, I want all Democrats to memorize these two words.

Message, message, discipline.

Republicans win for two reasons, teamwork and cheating.

And they are really good at both.

Democrats snipe and bitch at each other.

They're like that couple that's divorcing, but they came to the dinner party anyway.

Not Republicans.

And that is something else I have tried to impress upon the candidates.

What about if the Democrats would call these Trump tariffs, which I heard today the largest tax increase really since 1993,

why can't the Democrats do what Republicans do?

All get in a room and get a talking point that they all say and call it the Trump tax.

I want all you motherfuckers running for president to be saying Trump tax, Trump tax, all of you.

MSNBC sometimes shows a montage of a dozen Republicans saying the exact same thing on a certain topic, like, gotcha.

They all said the same thing.

That's not a gotcha.

That's how you win.

You're afraid that being on message makes you look too much like a politician?

And let me tell you something.

The millennial vote will not be won through tweeting and emojis or calling your budget plan fire.

They can smell desperation through their phones.

So just cut the crap and just do you.

Enough with the videos.

People want an authority figure as president, not someone who looks like a 10-year-old in a barber's chair.

Joe Biden gets a colonoscopy every year.

If he stays the frontrunner, we're going to have to live stream that.

From now on, no stunts.

No stunts.

Like two weeks weeks ago when Congressman Steve Cohen brought KFC into the session of Congress to remind everyone that Bill Barr was too chicken, get it, to testify.

You know, a picture is worth a thousand words, but none of those words should be, look at that idiot.

If you want to bring something nasty and greasy into a House hearing, subpoena Don Jr.

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at the Fox Theater in Detroit, June 22nd.

The Ruth Eckert Hall and Clue, one of Florida, August 4th at the State Theater in Minneapolis, August 17th.

I want to thank Jonathan Tuan, Christian Powers, Lawrence Wilkinson, John Wallace, and Governor William Weld.

Stay tuned for overtime on YouTube.

Thank you, folks.

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.