Overtime - Episode #496: Fran Lebowitz, Jonathan Metzl, James Kirchick, George Packer, and Neera Tanden

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night Series, Real Time with Bill Maher. All right, we're here on the internet, so we're going to read some cards from the people.
But first, what happened?

You said something and they're mad at you. I know this feeling.

What the thing you said about the Saudis? You were making a joke and it went too far. We're sorry? Is that where we're at? That's what the producer said.

He said we're getting blowback on Twitter or something. Okay.
Okay. Well, I mean,

I saw your face when I said it. I didn't even realize that I said it.
I had 12 cups of coffee. I regret saying it.
Okay, there you go. I mean, you know, it's like everyone's too,

everyone's too, too, too, too. You know, I mean, it's a live show.
You don't really want to see the president dismembered by the Saudis.

No, I don't. You know, I don't like Donald Trump either, but yes, we, you know, I had Kathy Griffin on, and I said, no, I don't.
Jail is fine.

Yes, I said we should forgive Kathy Griffin, but I don't endorse what she said either. Or did, you know, it was not the right thing.
And no matter who the president is.

Right.

Okay, but

no matter who the president is we do not want physical harm no exact i did not mean that and you do i regret saying it right regret that everyone misinterpreted it yes they misinterpret everything right

why should they stop with me

i really think you should be on twitter

i'm very happy i'm not on twitter

i never said the beatles were greater than god or they were better than him as a thing or whatever it is and now it's all this okay uh james kirchick do you think the way mayor peat speaks about religion god and morality morality will have any on the religious right rethinking their support of Trump?

No. I think it's incredible that the first real serious gay presidential candidate has this totally bourgeois domestic life, happily married,

very kind of, you know, normal, if we can use that term, and is a religious guy who quotes scripture. And he's running against a heterosexual president who's been married three times, is a pagan.

Pagan. Yeah.
Pagan.

You don't hear it. That's worse than what you said.
Yeah.

You don't hear that word very often. Let me a favor.
But now he's a heathen. I don't know about a pagan.
Yeah.

He means a druid or something.

He worships money. He worships idols.
He worships himself, bro.

I think it was a new word for having sex with a porn star.

No, that's the name of a porn star. Yeah.

Pagan.

But Trump is the one that the evangelical Christians support, in spite of all that. And here you have this guy who's, you know, he's gay, and that's his fault, I guess, right?

It's like everything else, he's totally by the book. But see, I think this goes back to the debate about abortion.

I think that what's happening with evangelical right is they have an attitude towards women,

the issues about women's empowerment. They have an attitude about

racism and other issues. And his strongest group of support in the country is evangelicals.
How do you explain that? Abortion. Other

abortion. That's a long game.
He's delivering it. It's exactly.
And he's delivering on being anti-choice.

That is the bargain they make. It's not about religion.
It's about keeping women and other people down. This connects to Saudi Arabia and Iran, where theocracy

is, theocracy turns religion into power. And that is the aspect of the Republican Party is a theocratic party that would enshrine religion as a power that would take away rights from individuals.

It's also displaced, right? I mean, in other words, people who don't have health care or the farmers who are getting screwed by the tariffs. But it's a bigger noble cause, right, in that way.

And so there's also, you know, you're part of this grand narrative. But the really corrupting thing is power becomes their end.
Yeah. I mean,

not, you know, you get the feeling when they start rewriting the rules after a Democrat wins the governorship of Wisconsin that the norms are all gone because power is the end.

And so it justifies anything. And you don't feel that there's a higher morality that they're in pursuit of when they're passing this abortion law.

It is a power move that's saying we control the legislature, so we will control you.

Okay.

Fran, what are your thoughts on the New York Times story about Trump losing over a billion dollars in one decade? I think he was the biggest loser, they said, of all the taxpayers in that 10.

It's amazing. At least one or two every years.
Mr. Brilliant Businessman.
What did you think of that? You mean, am I surprised to hear that? No, but. Not surprised you.

I mean, no one, Trump lost New York City, New York City, nine to one. Right.
Nine to one. Because it's the place where people most knew him.
Okay?

And that is why. And so, you know,

no one in New York even thought he was a realist.

I mean, any Republican will lose it. Not nine to one.
Not nine to one. Yes.
I mean, the Upper East Side, which

often votes for Republicans for, you know,

the presidency because they don't want to pay taxes or they want to pay even less than no taxes, voted for Hillary Clinton. Okay?

Because no one in New York, no one who can make enough money to afford to live in New York City and pay the taxes there is stupid enough to vote for Donald Trump. It's like Bill de Blasio.

Bill de Blasio

running for president. 76% of New Yorkers don't want him to run.

Of his own constituents don't want him to run. 76%.
Anything that gets him out of New York.

We had Bill on. I like Bill.

What goes through a guy's mind when there's 22 people in the race?

I think Bill de Blasio is literally thinking there's a mayor of South Bend, Indiana who's doing really well, and I represent a place that is like 20 times, 300 times as large and have to make bigger decisions.

I think the size of the crowd is actually making more and more people. It seems like there's seven or eight potential realistic presidential candidates.

There's maybe 15 who are running to get a TV show or a radio show or a book deal. And then there's Beto O'Rourke who's like having a midlife crisis and inflicting it upon all of us.
That's not fair.

And it's playing out on live television every day across the country. Why do you say that? That's interesting that you.
Betto? I'm just asking why you put it together.

I mean, he just reminds me of these guys guys I went to school with who smoked a lot of dope and pretended to do the reading. Okay.

Well, they apologized for it. Right, yeah, right.
I mean, I...

Hey, you're a good person.

Nothing against those guys. They are some of my closest friends, but they shouldn't be running against Betho.
Here's the thing.

I like Betto, too, but I did tear him a new asshole for all the apologizing.

Yeah, it's silly. It's silly.
You know, if you keep saying sorry, you look like a sorry candidate.

Okay, the one thing I'd say is if you're actually thinking about what Democrats have to do, the fact that Texas was a two and a half point race is an important issue.

So whatever Democrat, whoever Democrats are. He ran against Ted Cruz.
No, Ted Cruz actually. He's the most unlikable man in America.

I'm not sure Ted Cruz has a higher support in Texas than John Cornyn does right now.

Conservatives like him. We don't understand it, but they like him.
And I actually think, if you're thinking about these things,

having a candidate in Texas who does well, having a lot of candidates who, a Latino candidate, maybe brings more Latinos into the primary.

Getting more and more people interested in the primary is actually a good thing. There's also a guy who should be in the race, but isn't Yeah.
I mean, but Sherrod Brown. Yeah, yeah.

I think Sherrod Brown is. Sherrod Brown.
The senator from Ohio. Yes, I know who he is.

Why?

What about him is so different than the other 23?

First of all, he's like, what am I getting from him that I don't care about

Amy Klobuchar? He doesn't throw a stapler shit. He won Ohio.
He's a liberal Democrat. I like the teacher.
Who wins in Ohio? Who speaks for the city? He wins in Minnesota. Ohio is a tougher state.

Ohio's tough. Okay.
Yeah. And he's a good guy.
He's interesting. I wish he'd run.

Well, no, don't say that.

24, Bill, 24.

We are taking the sign-up sheet down. Okay.

If you haven't signed up

for the soccer team yet, I'm sorry.

This is how Trump won the nomination, by there being so many reports. No, candidates split the vote up.
It's very different, though. Democrats are very focused.

The one thing that is so far good about this primary focus. No, no, no.
You never say a bad word about it. You never say a bad word about any Democrats.

What I say is that I think it's very different from the tough look. It's very different from 2016.
Democrats actually don't want candidates ripping each other apart.

They actually are trying to, they are negative. Give it time.
I just thought Joe Biden, the reason why he's doing well is because people want a safe candidate. They don't want it.

He's saying he's not going to attack other Democrats. Democrats who've tacked other candidates have actually come down on the polls.

That is a sign of a rational party that has identified Donald Trump as

Bernie.

Wouldn't you say that

it's a process of like, in other words, we're trying to figure out what our message is. Last time we had one candidate in a certain way, and now we have these disparate messages.

And so if this process leads us to- The Republicans had 16-year-olds. No, I understand that.
I understand that.

And we had a lot of people running in 2008, and then we had to run away from the city. Frank was just saying, I think that's part of the problem.

When you have so many people running for the nomination, what they're concentrating on now is not how to win the election. They're concentrating on how to separate themselves from these other people.

What is my lane? What can I do to make myself stand out? I mean, that's why Betto did his reboot.

Or that's why some of them, like, suddenly take a stand, like, wow, I want to get every gun out of America because then I'll be that guy and I'll get the...

Really, it's going to be when people start dropping out of the race.

Will people join forces or will people be... I mean, it really depends how long people stand.

I asked them,

will they join forces?

I think actually, as you said earlier, the Democrats are super focused on electability, which means actually trying to make an argument about how you can win the general election, not just a bad person.

But they look like clowns. When you have 20 people...
I mean, if you have a debate, they're going to have to have have three nights. First, they were going to have two nights.

Now it's Coachella.

We're like...

We have to go every...

Let me see Coachella. People like to do it.
I know, but yes, because that's a music festival. This is just...
But would you watch three nights of debates with nine people every night or something?

I agree about this chasing electability, because Democrats end up going for someone they think other people like. And it turns out nobody likes the person.

They should vote for the person they like, not the person who's supposedly going to win, because no one knows who's winning. But I agree that it's a long process.

I agree that I think people demonstrate ability in that long process. Fortune cookies for everybody.
Thank you very much.

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