Ep. #487: Matt Schlapp, Noah Rothman

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

Start the clock.

Right here with me.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much,

I know, I know.

This time, I really do know.

I know why you're excited.

Hick and Looper is in.

Hick and Looper, John.

Yeah, the former governor of Colorado.

Now there are 13 people on the Democratic side running for president.

And Hickenlooper, hey, Colorado,

he was governor when they became the first state in this country to legalize marijuana.

So he's

he's a long shot, but he's ahead in the polls among white guys who call each other bra.

And on the other side of the ledger, Hillary made it official this week, will not run in 2020.

But she said she will keep speaking out and will be heard, assuming you can afford her fee.

But it was a little, Hillary is a little bittersweet because today is International Woman's Day.

And yes,

Trump marked the occasion by laying a wreath on the unknown first wife.

It was very touching.

Oh,

you know who else is out?

Bill Schein.

He is Trump's fifth.

He's had five communications directors.

This guy used to run Fox News.

Apparently, he can't get along with Trump either.

So, Bill Schein, he is going to be moving over to Trump's campaign re-election headquarters.

So, he's moving to Moscow.

And, of course, you heard the big news.

Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was sentenced to four years in jail.

And I don't know if he has, I

thank you.

I don't know if Manafort has learned his lesson.

His first question was, does the jumpsuit come in ostrich?

Yeah, he got up pretty easy.

The sentencing guidelines said he was supposed to get 19 to 24 years.

He got four,

otherwise known as the white guy discount.

And yeah, I haven't seen a Trump supporter get off that much since Robert Kraft went to that massage parlor

in Florida, I tell you.

But the judge was in the tank for Trump to begin with.

We saw this, right?

He said Manafort lived an otherwise blameless life.

What?

Manafort's company was known as the torturer's lobby.

They worked for monsters.

These were guys no one else would touch from places like Ukraine and Zimbabwe and Neverland.

So now a few months ago, Michael Cohen was sentenced.

After that, after this now, Roger Stone looks like he's going to go to jail.

They're going to have to run the reelection campaign from inside.

So this seems like it would have been a great week, right, for the Democrats to make some political hay.

But no, of course they're Democrats.

They spent the week arguing with each other about whether one of their own, Representative Ilon Omar,

who has one fan,

was anti-Semitic.

Only Democrats could snatch the issue of anti-Semitism away from Republicans.

In fact,

Congressman Steve King, you know him of Iowa, he said today, wait, I thought we were the the Jew haters.

But this went on all week.

They were arguing about this.

It got so petty.

You know, some people were calling for censure, which is more drastic than a resolution, but not as severe as expulsion,

but harsher than a reprimand, but worse than the silent treatment,

but less degrading than finger wagging.

I mean, it was just so petty.

Meanwhile, Trump did at least three things that would get anybody else impeached this week,

among them, insisting that his kids have security clearance over the objections of the CIA and the FBI.

Why do Trump's kids, by the way, get to play a bigger role in our government than the Queen of England's kids?

You know, her kids just walk around holding hands and wearing different hats.

They're not in charge of the Middle East, for Christ's sakes.

Jared Kushner is called a security threat by our own intelligence agencies.

It's okay to hate him without being anti-Semitic, right?

Also this week, a project of our first guest, CPAC, the Conservative Convention.

It's kind of like the conservative Oscars.

Instead of when you get there, they don't ask, who are you wearing?

They ask, what are you packing?

And it was notable this week because Trump went on for two hours and 20 minutes.

I mean, there were kids who were born at the beginning of the speech

who by the end of it were dating R.

Kelly.

I mean, it was...

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry this shit is in the news.

You know what?

The Me Too movement has finally caught up with the music industry, and it's about time.

They have gotten to pass an assault.

like nobody's business.

I mean, one tweet of an allegation about an actor or director or conductor and they're gone with musicians, everybody's like, I'm gonna need to see a 12-part mini-series on this.

All right, we got a great show.

Michael Steele is here, Mary Kathleen Hamm, and Jonathan Alter, and a little later we'll be singing with author Noah Rothman.

But first up, he is the chairman of the American Conservative Union, my old job, and host

host of Sirius XM CPAC 365, Matt Schlapp, is very brave to come here.

Matt Schlapp in the lion's den, there you are.

Okay, Matt, so you are the man who.

How long have you been running CPAC?

Five years or so.

Five years.

When did it start, CPAC?

God, after Barry Goldwater got killed.

Oh, way back then.

Way back, yeah.

Okay, so.

The original group.

Right, so this year, now, I don't know if you see a lot of liberal media.

I do.

I actually appear on a lot of liberal media.

You're here, exactly.

That's right.

That's right.

And this is something I'm...

That's actually pretty important.

It is.

And I've been trying to get the Democrats to go on Fox News.

They should.

They should, of course.

You check the demos of Fox News.

There's a lot of independents and Democrats watching it.

You've got to get inside the bubble.

That's right.

Right.

I mean, you may not convert a lot of people here, but maybe one.

Well, it was a pretty close election.

You know, an election can be determined based on these kind of strategies, and you should be smart enough to go everywhere you need to go.

But Michael Cohen, at the end of his testimony, gave a kind of a warning.

He did.

And he said, you know, I worked for Trump for 10 years, and I believed him, and I lied for him, and I followed him.

And those of you who are doing that now,

you are going to suffer the same fate as me.

Did you see any sort of ghost of Christmas future when he said that?

No, you did not.

You don't see any parallels.

I don't associate myself with Mr.

Cohen.

I'm sorry.

No, no, but when he said that he lied for Trump, that he supported Trump.

I mean, you support Trump fully.

We've talked before.

You're not unaware of his myriad flaws.

I'm not.

Well, Cohen's flaws.

Okay, no, but

But no, I'm just saying, like, this week we saw Manafort go to jail,

sentenced to jail, right?

Yep.

I mean, Manafort, here's a guy who was deeply into debt to this Russian oligarch, Dariposa, right?

Then he becomes campaign manager for Trump for free, just walks in out of the door and says, you know, Putin really, he's kind of an asset of Putin, and now he's Trump's campaign manager.

You don't think this is going to haunt you in the future?

Look, we all have to put on our big boy pants and make decisions.

And I made a decision back in 2016 that I thought Donald Trump would be a much better president than Hillary Clinton.

People can disagree with me.

Yeah, but now we've seen him as president for the present.

Nothing has changed your mind.

Actually, what he told me he was going to do as president, he has simply done.

All the major things he ran on, people don't have to agree.

Build a wall?

People don't have to agree.

You don't have to agree with what he said he was going to do.

Right.

But what did he say he was going to do?

Build a wall.

And Mexico would pay for it.

He did say he was going to build a wall.

And he is building a wall.

He said he would secure the border.

He's not building a wall.

That's not true.

That's not true.

Well, there's no money to build a wall.

That's not true.

It's the second year in a row that we've gotten money.

So

you want to call it a fence, a wall, a barrier?

It's happening.

Whatever it is,

it's not happening.

You're seeing things now because your cult leader says you should.

Why don't you and I go down to the Rio Grande Valley together?

We'll go see what's being done.

But he said it would cost $25 billion.

He couldn't

because he doesn't have the money.

Because we still sort of live in a democracy.

Okay, so, all right.

So,

all right, but which is why it's the president, because we live in a democracy.

Yeah, well, I don't know how much longer.

He just had a meeting with Kim.

He did.

Right.

And at the end of it, he was talking about the young American who was killed over there, tortured to death.

Yeah.

And he said, when asked about it, he said, Kim told me he didn't do it.

I take him at his word.

What do you think of that?

So something like that that happened after you supported Trump in 2016,

that doesn't change you.

New information.

I've killed that young man.

Trump is a dictator, and I think he is a horrible person.

And I think the bad thing is.

But where does that leave you with Trump?

He's got nuclear weapons.

He's saying to make sure that we don't have.

But where does that leave you with Trump defending Kim and believing Kim?

Well, you probably didn't listen to the two hours and 20 minutes of the CPAC speech.

No.

But he actually brought this up and said that he does believe that the regime is responsible for all of these issues.

That's not what he said.

It was not what he said in Vietnam.

I could read you the quote.

It was a very simple quote.

Kim told me he didn't.

I take him at his word.

I read the quote.

I'm giving you my opinion.

My opinion is that they're both afraid of the people.

These aren't a game where they kill people.

Okay, but he said he believed Kim.

I understand that.

And what I also understand is he's in nuclear diplomacy to try to make sure that we don't have like a nuclear weapon

here in Hawaii.

That's a different answer.

If you're saying it's okay to kill one guy to stop the...

It's not okay.

No, it's not okay.

He didn't say he was glad that these people are being

turned over to their air.

It doesn't terrify you that he he believes other.

He said the same thing about Putin.

They were explaining to him that Kim had nuclear weapons.

I'm talking about the CIA explaining to him.

They were explaining to him that Kim could reach us.

And he said, I don't think so.

I believe Putin.

He told me Korea doesn't have nuclear weapons.

Well, what about giving the Moloss in Iran $150 billion?

That probably is a good question.

Let's answer this great question.

Let's answer this question first.

And we didn't give them the money.

It was unfrozen.

You know that.

But they got the cash.

They got the cash.

We froze the cash.

Yes, they got the cash for something.

He didn't get anything.

They got the cash for dismantling their nuclear program.

So Obama did that.

He put up with the mullah so that he could get what he thought was a higher purpose, which was to rid Iran of having nuclear capabilities.

That's what he did.

Let me ask you this.

And it went into the pockets of terrorists.

His children, this week we found out.

He demanded that they get security clearance, again, over the objections of the CIA and the FBI.

Do you think this is what the founders had in mind, That someone who loses the election by 3 million votes then gets to put his kids in government?

You're a big founder guy, all conservatives are.

You love to heritage society and all that stuff.

Is that what they had in mind?

Yeah, they like the Electoral College.

That's why they created it.

They have no problem with that.

And they don't have any, there was never any issue with Rosalind Carter.

What about kids?

What about when Rosalind Carter would go to government?

She'd go to any meeting.

Jimmy Carter said she can walk into any meeting.

She wasn't elected to do anything.

Dick Cheney's kids worked for him in positions.

Okay, but Rosalind Carter wasn't in charge of the Middle East.

She was in charge of anything she wanted to be.

I don't remember that.

I don't remember Rosalind Carter being in charge of the gun.

No, you're not.

Okay, I don't remember that.

Well, fact you have to.

The fact is that kids never have any luck with that.

Here's what presidents do.

Presidents have advised, they have the advisors they want to have.

They reach out and talk to anybody they want to talk to.

Whether you go through a background process or not, most presidents have decided to confide in their spouses and their children to great lengths.

The difference with these two is they decided to go through an FBI background.

You can do it, just don't tell me it's not unprecedented.

It's completely unprecedented to put your son-in-law in charge of the Middle East.

I agree with that.

Thank you.

So, okay.

So

I have been saying many times in this very chair to guests who were kind of laughing at me that Donald Trump, even if he loses the election in 2020, is not going to go away.

And I found some vindication when Michael Cohen concluded his testimony, when they asked him, why are you here?

Right.

And Michael Cohen said, I'm here because having worked with Mr.

Trump for so long, I don't think he will leave.

He knows Trump pretty well.

What do you think of that?

I think that's absurd.

You think Trump will leave?

I have these flashbacks to 2016 when I was told that election night Donald Trump wouldn't accept the results of the election.

Right?

Remember that?

That's immaterial because he won.

He said before the election he might not accept the results if he loses.

But Hillary Clinton was the one that didn't accept the results that night.

She waited till the next day, right?

So next day.

I think, I'll tell you.

I'm talking about him just staying there.

Well, you're talking about it doesn't mean you're not.

Okay, so let me ask you this, but is it okay if I have the opinion that I think that if he loses, he will pack up a fight?

Yes.

He might even want to leave because it hasn't probably been that.

No, he's not going to want to leave because he knows he'd go to jail.

He can't leave.

Stop.

He can't leave.

What I'm asking you now is that if he if he doesn't, and he's made murmurs to this, I mean, he said many times.

He doesn't really do murmurs.

He just says it straight up.

Okay.

He's more of that kind of guy.

If he doesn't leave, if it is a free and fair election, and by the way, even if it's suspect, it's up to the courts to decide,

would you break with him then?

If he did not leave,

you would.

You would break with Donald Trump.

I wouldn't break with anyone over there.

Okay, all right.

All right.

Well, look, this is a guy who does things that are out of the norm.

I would agree with that.

The declaring of a national emergency, taking that, which many Republicans are against.

That's true.

Right.

Okay.

So that's taking.

Is it going to be a big vote in the Senate?

It's an open question as to whether or not they're going to have the votes.

When you take upon yourself a power like that, when you say, I want this power.

Actually, Congress passed a law that was upheld by the Supreme Court that gives them that power.

Not to do what he did.

Not about things like this where the Congress has voted on something.

This is about the power of the purse.

He's taking their constitutional right.

This is

all the money bill.

I mean, we can criticize both parties for this.

All that money has been appropriated.

Congress sends all of this extra money into these accounts.

And maybe Congress ought to be a lot more penurious about what they put over in the executive branch.

And the fact is, we have over 30 of these emergencies that have been declared for all kinds of reasons.

Like this, and you know, this one is the President's responsibility, clearly, in law.

Okay, so let me ask you about Fox News.

That was another big story this week.

There was a large article in

the Inquirer.

There will be an Inquirer.

Is that my next question?

I'm very worried now.

Yeah, that's right.

Jane Meyer does not work for the Inquirer.

But she's saying that basically Fox News is running our government, which I think we know because Trump watches Fox and Friends in the morning and then he tweets very often as he's watching it.

Sometimes he doesn't even refer to what he is tweeting.

You just have to know that's what he's watching.

Sometimes he's just going to tweet, oh, yeah.

But

what do you want me to say?

This is completely, but this is unprecedented, too.

I mean, the fact that Sean Hannity does a show every night praising Trump, and then after the show, Sean Hannity and Trump talk.

Now, if Obama was talking to Rachel Maddow every night,

what do you think?

Well, I mean, I remember.

What would you say?

I remember the Obama presidency when Fox News actually wasn't treated like a news outlet, and I think that was in stake.

And I think that what's going on...

This is different.

This is the President of the United States talking every day to the people on the station that he likes.

I'm going to give you a dirty little thing.

If Obama talked to Rachel Matto every day, what would you be doing?

I don't know, did he?

I don't know if he did.

He didn't.

I don't know.

I promise you he did.

I'm asking you what.

See, I have this book.

It's called If Obama Did It.

And I.

I need to get my glasses.

I'm going to present you with a copy.

I just want to read a few things.

If his campaign manager went to jail, if his lawyer went to jail, if his national security advisor went to jail, if his albino assassin, Roger Stone, went to jail,

if he had an affair with a porn store, paid hush money to a porn store, if he used an unsecure phone,

if he gloated

with the Russians in his office after firing the head of the FBI.

Stop me if you find any of these.

If he had unchaperoned talks with Putin, can you imagine if Obama did that?

If he said, I believe Putin, if he gave his children jobs in the administration.

What about this one?

He scammed FEMA, we found out.

He got $17 million out of FEMA for damage that wasn't done during a hurricane to Mar-a-Lago.

That alone they would have impeached Obama over.

You can keep going through all of that.

All right.

I give you there's a lot of materials.

But I'm just.

You gotta allow me.

You gotta allow me to to give an answer.

I am.

Let me give you what's going on.

My opinion in politics

is that everyone can continue to say that he's a, you said a scam artist, that he's a liar, all these questions.

He told people across this country that he was going to do five or six big things, right?

To matter with whatever else he does.

I don't know, but let me just try to answer the question.

For a politician who is actually keeping the big promises he has made, which you really can't deny, he said he was going to move that embassy, he moved that embassy.

He said he was going to get out of the Iran deal, he He got out of the Iran deal.

He said he was going to get out of the Paris deal.

He got out of the Paris deal.

He said he was going to cut taxes.

He's undone a lot of stuff.

But he said, and I understand a lot of you didn't like the fact of what he was saying on the campaign trail, but you can't deny that on these big questions, he did it.

Now, a lot of people on the other side of the equation for me don't like that he did that.

And when people in the news media have this constant refrain that he has been so dishonest as president, they have to understand for the people who supported him, he is simply doing, they view him as doing what he said he would do thank you matt

you coming on here

give him a hand matt slap he came into a place like this all right you're still standing i appreciate it all right let's meet our panel

oh man

That ain't easy.

All right, he's a best-selling author, MSNBC political analyst, and co-director of the HBO documentary Breslin and Hamill deadline artist.

Jonathan Alter is over here, Jonathan.

She's a CNN commentator and author of End of Discussion: How the Left's Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free and Fun.

Mary Catherine Hamm.

How you doing?

And he is the former RNC chair, MSNBC political analyst, and host of the Michael Steele podcast.

Michael Steele's over here.

Good shoot, Matt.

All right.

Let me just read, I didn't have the exact quote for Michael Cohen that I was talking to Matt about.

Given my experience working for Mr.

Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, there will never be a peaceful transition of power.

You know, I've talked about a slow-moving coup.

It seems more like now,

in Trump's mind, it is a necessary coup because the only place he's safe is as president.

He's the only American who has the protections from the crimes that we now know he has been committing.

So he has no place to go.

We put ourselves almost in this situation where he can only be president or go to jail.

So he can't give up this office.

Issue two.

But

he will have to.

And,

you know, look,

you know, he will have to.

But here's the thing that I think it's important, at least for my estimation of it.

Trump likes to throw this stuff out there.

He did it during the campaign.

You referenced the fact that he was saying, well,

I may not do this, I may do that.

And this is just one more narrative.

This is less about the fear that everyone else has when they hear it, and more in how this base responds and moves further into him, almost like a ring around him.

You sort of heard a little bit of that from Matt.

So the idea that he's not going to step down

is ludicrous.

But it's not, but they are already...

Can I read you just what, like his, he said this in February.

The Dems are trying to win an election in 2020.

They know they cannot legitimately win.

They cannot legitimately win.

Here's Press Secretary Kaylee McEnee.

McEnany,

whatever her name is.

These desperate Democrats know they cannot beat Trump in 2020, so they seize the power that they have zero chance at winning legitimately.

They're putting this idea out there that they could not beat Trump legitimately.

You've wanted, you've been saying this for a long time, and you've been right.

I think he will not want to go, but he will have to go.

And the reason he will have to go is that we actually have a system in place for this.

After Congress certifies the election, it then goes to court, right?

And when

the decision

federal marshals.

So there's actually a federal marshal.

So federal marshals,

when there were these court decisions during the civil rights era, remember the federal marshals would escort the little girl into school.

They would enforce the court order.

I hope so.

So they will frog marched him out of the White House.

I hope so.

We'll see.

He's very popular with men in uniform.

I'm actually not with those guys.

The bureaucracy doesn't like them.

Look, maybe I got into Hick and Luber's weed.

Maybe you guys need more of it.

I ain't that worried about this.

I'm not either.

Look, I think he wants to get back to Trump Tower, because I've been in the White House.

There are far more gold fixtures up in New York.

Two, look, nothing he does is slow-moving or subtle, right?

So

I'm not sure that he's making this big plan.

And three, look, there are some things he can do, and I think he will do if he loses.

I also think, enjoy your weed, I think he's going to win.

But, and that's not because I support him.

I just think those are the facts on the ground.

There's a couple things he can do.

I think he's going to win the next election.

Well, look at it, okay, here we are right now.

Okay, he is at 46% job approval, given everything that we know and everything that we've seen.

And Matt is acts exactly right.

That 46% reflects the fact of the things that he's he's done, policy-wise, et cetera.

But here's the rub.

He's at 41% re-elect.

That's the same number that Reagan and other presidents were at at this term, at this point in their

administration.

He was in the middle of a bad recession at that time, and he is enjoying good times.

And he is underwater.

I hear what you're saying, and I know you really want to feel it and believe it.

But here's the fact of the matter.

If the election is held this November.

With anybody?

If the election is held this November, my estimation, given everything I've known and seen and read, Donald Trump wins re-election.

And here's why.

Because there has not been a credible argument made by the opposition party to move those independent and center-right and center-left voters off of Donald Trump.

What is the argument?

But his singular talent is to spin up the other side to pick as crazy a person as possible.

And I have no doubt that Democrats will manage that.

And And then he has to run against that person.

He's happy to do that.

So who could beat him?

Who could beat him?

Many people can beat him.

But I first want to be able to do that.

No, not many people can beat him.

Michael's proposition.

Donald Trump is

Biden.

Biden can beat him.

Biden can beat him.

Biden can beat him.

Trump is the first president.

He was the first president since polling was originated who has never gone over 50 percent.

He is deeply unpopular in this country, and it's hard to see how he gets the independents.

He's in really really bad shape with them.

So can he win?

Absolutely.

Will he win?

Not so likely.

Okay.

I have to say.

I appreciate that.

I really appreciate that.

I'm glad you're saying that.

People should be scared.

And that's the only way we have achieved one side.

They should have been scared last time, but they weren't.

So the Democrats aren't in a circular firing squad.

Right.

They need to be scared so they stop going at it.

And also, they must be aware of this.

He does everything in the open.

You know, I was watching this Michael Jackson documentary.

Did you see it on HBO?

Leaving Neverland.

Okay.

And it struck me that there are two things that are very similar to Donald Trump.

One, Michael Jackson could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his fans wouldn't leave him.

And two, both of them commit their crimes in the open.

Michael Jackson, you could not believe it.

Like, he was always with a child and he would hold their hands.

It would be like dating that child.

And he would admit that he sleeps in bed with children.

And people were like, you know what?

If he says that, how could he possibly be doing something wrong?

This is Trump in the Oval Office with the Russians.

But the telling, but the telling.

We can't even dance.

We can't even dance.

But the telling part of that,

the telling part of that, Bill, the telling part of that, and I think the important aspect of both of these narratives, the Jackson and the Trump narrative, is how the families enabled.

Jackson by putting their kids in that position in the first place.

Of course.

And then because they got caught up in celebrity.

They got caught up in the fame.

They got caught up in the adulation that Michael was showing to them and their kids.

But it was also the fact that if I do it so openly, I can't really be the monster.

You have to believe what

to Michael's point.

Enablers.

The mothers were enablers.

They let their 11-year-olds sleep in bed with Michael Jackson.

Congressional Republicans are enablers.

They're letting Donald Trump ditto the Constitution and basically

in front of him in plain sight.

A lot of people talk about enabling and all this, but when it comes to Trump, I do think people are living in this sort of fantasy world where they imagine that they can just scuttle the duly elected president.

That's not how it works.

Like, as much as him breaking a norm would be staying in office when he's not supposed to, it's breaking a norm to just assume you can get rid of the guy because you don't like the fact that he was elected.

You have to impeach him or you have to beat him.

Those are your choices.

So we had John Legend here a couple of weeks ago, and we were talking about the R.

Kelly situation, and he said he's not going to play R.

Kelly anymore.

What about Michael Jackson?

Are we going to still play Michael Jackson?

Because I'm telling you, this is going to go through the music industry and you're going to wind up with polka music.

The polka community, very clean, very clean.

You know, that's an interesting question because I think one of the differences between the R.

Kelly and the Jackson situation is R.

Kelly's out there right now, real time.

defending himself and engaged in a conversation that people are reacting to spontaneously.

Jackson's dead and gone.

So

you don't have that presence to go after.

So then it becomes a matter of separating the man from the music, separating what he did from the music.

So if I really like Thriller, am I really going to stop listening to Thriller because of this?

I'm not.

Right.

And so if Jackson.

But I am going to stop listening to Pretty Young Thing.

No, because

it came on the other day and I was like, wow, I can't listen to this one any older.

This one bothers me.

So Leonardo da Vinci.

And beat it a little bit.

and beat it a little bit.

There was a biography of Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson that came out recently, and it turns out he had like a 12-year-old boyfriend who was living with him for most of his life.

So should we not look at the Mona Lisa?

Right.

No, no, he doesn't.

So many artists are deeply flawed people, and that's part of where the art comes from.

We all have our limits about what we can accept.

But in this day and age, it is an odd thing to watch Michael Jackson or R.

Kelly be okay, but then like 10-year-old tweets will take down someone else.

Like, how much are we compartmentalizing with which different artists is the question?

All right, so if I get back to Trump for a second, from time to time, we do like to go down our dictator checklist.

We've done this a few times, but when they when he does a new one, we like to add it to the list.

So, quickly, the list we already have, you're a narcissist who likes putting his name on buildings.

You appoint your family members to positions of power.

Your rallies are scary.

You threaten to lock up opponents.

You want missile parades.

You talk about yourself as president for life.

You use your office for your own personal financial gain.

You align with other dictators.

You lie so freely, even your supporters don't know when the truth is or how to expect it.

You made your news station become state TV and now we have a new one this week, Timpani.

You give speeches that are over two hours like Fidel Castro.

And I don't know if you saw that CPAC speech,

but let me tell you, his fans love that CPAC speech so much that they now have, have you seen this ad that's been running on TV?

They're They're selling this.

Watch this.

You've seen him deliver the State of the Union.

You've seen him address the nation from the Oval Office.

But you've never seen him like this.

Donald Trump, live and unscripted at CPAC.

Two hours.

Totally raw, totally uncut, totally outrageous.

You'll get Trump's irreverent takes on the Green New Deal.

Darling, is the wind blowing today?

I'd like to watch television, darling.

Uncons.

I never saw so many beautiful-looking machine guns.

How Democrats make make you sad?

They hate our country.

Sad.

It's very sad.

Plus, you get Trump's classic impressions.

The stuffy CNN guy.

President Trump is waiting for the Mueller request.

The overreaching Democrat.

He asked Russia to go get the emails.

And clueless Jeff Sessions.

I'm going to recuse myself.

But wait, there's more.

You'll also get fake news.

Fake news.

Fake news.

Fake news.

And everybody's favorite, lock her up.

Plus over 20 minutes of material too hot for TV.

They're trying to take you out with bullshit.

Order Now and we'll throw in Trump's hilarious flag-hugging routine.

Donald Trump.

Live and unscripted at CPAC.

Get yours today.

You know I'm totally off script right now.

Order Now and Mexico will pay for it.

All right, here's the Associate and Editor of Commentary Magazine and author of Unjust Social Justice and the Unmaking of America.

Please welcome Noah Rothman.

Noah, how you doing?

Pleasure, sir.

Great to meet you.

I really enjoyed your book.

It deals with themes that I bring up a lot here.

Let's just start off by talking about identity politics, because that's a big thing in your book.

And I think sometimes people hear that phrase, how would you define identity politics?

Yeah, it's tough to define because it's pretty amorphous.

It encompasses a lot of things.

So this isn't really an anti-identity politics book, although I'm kind of

against it.

Identity politics is basically politics in the rest of the world, and it's so ingrained in us, it's probably tribal, it's probably an evolutionary trait.

What this book is against is identity politics as an organizing principle, as an alternative theory of governance that is in many ways antithetical to the American ideal, the egalitarian meritocratic ideal.

I don't think we've improved on that.

What we're trying now isn't an improvement.

And you lean conservative, but I don't think you're crazy.

Thank you.

Yes, I mean, I no I want to set the standards here like like most Republicans believe reverse racism is a bigger problem than racism you wouldn't agree with that right no I think it's just two sides of the same coin this is a crippling victimization narrative the notion that racism is worse right yeah of course and discrimination is bad

to get to the not crazy part not good um what this what this book identifies is sort of a crippling paralyzing victimization narrative that I think is really attractive to a lot of people on the left and the right.

It's it builds a coalition pretty easily, saying that your lot in life is not your own making.

Somebody else is responsible for that.

You don't have to take responsibility for your own affairs.

That's a powerful organizing principle.

It's crippling.

But right, and some of that is true, right?

I mean, you know what I thought of when I was reading your book?

Do you know the song that Obama used to play when he took the stage or left, actually?

It was called Only in America by Brooks and Dunn.

You know that?

I love the song.

I love the song.

But the lyrics always bothered me a little and I'll read them to you only in America we all get a chance everybody gets to dance that's what you're saying and that is true and

one kid dreams of fame and fortune one kid helps pay the rent one might end up in prison one might just be president and every time I hear it I think yeah but it's not exactly equal who might end up in prison and who might be president Right?

You would admit that.

Absolutely.

Okay.

And when I talk to college students, for example, about this and I say that the American ideal, the egalitarian meritocratic ideal, is optimal, I get a lot of pushback because they say, well, the American ideal has always failed.

We've never achieved it.

And if that's all you know of the American ideal, why would you think it's worth preserving?

One of the things you say on the show often that I agree with and I talk about in this book is that we don't teach civics anymore.

And I don't mean how to pass a bill.

I mean what the founders read and believed, Burke, Montesquieu, Francis Bacon, the kind of people who taught us that the height of a

human aspiration is to treat everyone equal before God, before the law,

and to not see tribes and individuals as representatives of a collective and treat them as such.

We haven't improved on that.

That's really the ideal.

And so the operative phrase, you know, in a more perfect union isn't perfect, it's more.

This is something you will never achieve.

It's aspirational, but you don't have the opportunity or the option to stop trying.

Right.

And I think you're onto something, I talk about it here a lot, that there is a, I would say, a cancer on progressivism with some of the, I guess they call themselves social justice warriors.

I don't think they're interested in justice.

I don't think they're interested in truth.

I think they're interested in clicks.

I think they're interested in things that make people click.

And when I read them, it makes me glad I didn't have kids who would see this.

Hey, I got a smattering of applause there.

Well, social justice is a noble idea.

Exactly.

It is the idea of fairness and equality in a just society.

In practice, it has become antipathy towards notions like meritocracy, like you can rise above your station in life, or colorblindness in institutions.

White supremacists believe all this stuff, too.

Yes, and it seems like

they just say things to dare you to oppose them that would then make you a bad person.

Like they'll say, there are 71 genders.

Disagree with that, asshole.

Would you?

Would you disagree with that?

I would disagree with that.

Yes, I think we could get a signal.

I think we can agree around that.

Tell us the truth about that.

Would you disagree with that?

Just messing around with that.

Yes, okay.

So what about cultural appropriation?

I mean, that's something they talk about a lot.

I feel like that's something that was just made up.

It doesn't really,

no one is hurt by cultural appropriation.

If somebody sings a song that was inspired, I mean, the Beatles sang songs that were inspired by R ⁇ B groups of the 50s, that doesn't mean that those people aren't.

able to sing their own songs.

Absolutely.

So I can kind of see a grain of value in this if you're trying to protect and preserve culture from somebody who doesn't value it and cherish it and from debasing it, I can understand where that comes from.

In practice, again, what this has become is establishing boundaries, is creating a sort of space in which you can, again, project power and influence because culture doesn't, it defies traditional notions of ownership.

Nothing is lost in the transaction, right?

I'm not stealing anything from you by appropriating your culture, especially if I value it and cherish it.

Or wearing dreadlocks.

Why does that hurt somebody if a white person wears dreadlocks?

And if it is done in a way to harm and to offend and to degrade and debase, it's something very different from.

Usually not.

It's just, I like that look.

Right, but it is not, but it's the kind of, well.

What, is that bad?

Not a good look.

I don't think it's a good look either.

No.

No, but I think a lot of it is, to your point, Noah, is how you use it.

If you appropriate it in a way in which you are trying to be something you're not and trying to

ingratiate and make a point politically or socially or otherwise, that's grading on the folks.

you know, that you're trying to supposedly support.

And I don't think we have those kinds of conversations enough where those lines are brightly drawn.

And you know,

when a white woman goes around the country and says she's black and her white parents say no, she ain't that

and she keeps insisting that she's black that that's just bull and we don't we don't like that kind of cultural appropriation you can you can sing that song That's a very extreme example

and that the taco thing actually happened in

in Portland I think it was there was a woman two women who went down to Mexico got some recipes They liked them they brought them back to to Portland, they were very successful, and their very success was such a problem for the social justice activists and the movement that were around there that they hounded them and attacked them and called them appropriators, white women from Brooklyn who were profiting off the labor of

Native Mexicans, and they were hounded out of business, specifically because they were successful.

Most people just want to bitch.

But

I agree with plenty of what you say in the book, but you are turning it into a cartoon.

You're cherry-picking these examples of completely different people.

There are a lot of cherries to pass.

There are a lot of cherries.

There are a lot of cherries, but here's the problem.

You are debasing the concept of social justice.

You have it in your subtitle.

And there's been, you know, going back to Martin Luther King and a lot of other great Americans who have worked for social justice, you're trying to turn it into a slur.

And it's a little bit like if I said conservatives are acting like jerks at CPAC, therefore this idea of conservative is a bad thing.

No, I think he's just trying to draw a line between traditional liberals and this very far.

And that's all great.

And traditional liberals need to do what Sherrod Brown, I wish he'd been running, did, where he said, don't you lecture me on what it means to be a progressive.

Right.

And they need to be able to say that.

They're saying this.

They need to say this to the

woke sophomores.

Speaking about

identity politics.

This week, the Democrats, as I mentioned in the monologue, they spent the whole week arguing about Representative Omar, who has been accused of anti-Semitism.

And we talked about it a couple of weeks ago on the show here.

And I said,

you know, first of all, I'm a free speech person.

I think you're allowed to criticize Israel without being an anti-Semite.

Having said that, I've read some of her other tweets.

Maybe.

She might be.

I don't know what her thoughts are on this.

But it became an issue for the Democrats of we can't censure this person because it's a woman and a person of color.

And that, I think, is identity politics, is it not?

It's absolutely identity politics.

Look, Democrats explained to us what the problem was here when the Black Lives Matter movement

was active, because All Lives Matter was said to be, you know, that was the inclusive approach to these issues.

No, it was exclusive because it diluted a specific claim against discrete groups who were suffering from a certain form of discrimination.

That's precisely what happened here.

It's just become very inconvenient for Democrats to remember the lessons they all taught us two years ago.

The case against her is fairly strong.

You've got the trifecta of anti-Semitic tropes, hypnosis and secret powers, secret money and influence and dual loyalty, right?

But in the end, because of intersectionality, Nancy Pelosi cannot rein all that in because she's the rich white lady and she's got to lose.

And she has just run into her own caucus of true believers.

And true believers are tough to rein in because they DGAF, right?

And they are going to do what they're going to do.

But this woke-off is going to happen all through the primary, and it's going to be very damaging.

It does.

It will be very damaging.

I agree.

But the point was they did not censure Trump first.

If they had censured him for going against

Muslims, first of all, censure is blacks, Jews, whatever.

It has as much power as a bumper sticker on your car.

It's meaningless.

I agree.

But for them to single her out when he had not been singled out with a resolution for all of the many things he did, this was not unreasonable for them to say, why should she be singled out first?

Having said that, the dual loyalty thing is something that people need to learn about.

This is an ancient slur on Jews.

I have an important question, though.

What's DGAF?

They don't give a fuck.

They don't give a fuck.

Sorry.

But Trump.

That's not the kid.

Trump is now.

Well, we'll have to find one after the show.

There's none here.

Trump is now calling the Democrats the anti-Jewish party.

Could the Democrats lose the Jews?

No.

As a Jew, I will tell you, they usually carry about 70% of Jews, and it's not going to change.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I don't think so.

But can I quote Juan Vargas?

He was commenting on Representative Omar's alleged anti-Semitism.

He said, questioning support for the U.S.-Israel relationship is unacceptable.

Well, that's wrong.

That's a stupid thing.

It is a stupid thing.

That's what you're talking about.

Questions are not unacceptable.

Everybody has to go to DEF CON 1 million for everything.

Everything has to be you apologize, you're censured, how about just I disagree with you

specifically that the influence of Jewish influence in the country and the support for

Israel makes her question the allegiance of the people who are doing the questioning.

In other words, that they were more aligned with a foreign authority than their own.

Again, a very ancient slurry.

She's not talking about Bibi Netanyahu and the coalition government.

She's talking about a very ancient Jewish slave.

And I think a lot of Jewish people haven't been educated on this.

This is an extremely harmful thing to say.

The Germans before the Holocaust, they said our Jews, they owe their allegiance, that's the word she used, to international Jewry.

That was the rap.

So this is not like just some little tiny

insult.

This is a major insult.

The woke sophomores DGAF about that, though.

There's a place about it.

I hope she comes on the show and we can talk.

And she and I would agree about very little about Israel and Palestine.

We would agree that Palestinians are victims, but not of Israel.

Right.

They're victims of other Palestinians, unfortunately.

To flip back to the

Trump piece.

The Trump piece on this, I think, though, that the political impact of what the Congresswoman is saying and has said

is definitely fodder for future reminders from candidates at all levels, including the President.

So the test for Nancy Pelosi and the leadership will be how do they contain going forward any further eruptions that begin to move those numbers on Jewish voters who think that maybe the Democratic Party is less interested and concerned about those things that are not.

You can lose people on the margins of the United States.

You can lose people on the margins.

I mean, right now, the face of the Democratic Party to just the casual observer is AOC and Omar.

And that's going to change when there's a nominee.

But you might mention a test.

Maybe.

The real test is for the Republicans.

So all three of you guys pass the test.

It's the great character test of our generation.

Do you stand up to Donald Trump or not?

What do you tell your grandchildren about what you did in this period?

Did you defend a liar and somebody who is subverting our Constitution, or did you enable him?

Everybody

is somebody who is expressing anti-Semitism in the Congress.

You're not right packaging.

You've passed Republicans.

Yes, you're not.

No,

I agree, but Republicans also have to go after Trump for his many examples of anti-Semitism, which we can go down the list.

Just because it supports Israel doesn't mean he hasn't been anti-Semitic.

Thank you.

It's time for new rules now.

New rules.

Okay, New Rule, now that there are 13 Democrats officially running for president, they have to get a magic bus.

Trump is going to call you crazy hippies anyway.

You might as well drop acid and get laid.

New rules, instead of looking at us like it's our fault you're stuck in a manhole cover, this rat has to consider cutting back on the pizza.

New Roll, and this one is for people whose ships sink in a storm and then they swim for miles and finally make it to the shore.

You know when you get to that sandy stuff, yeah, you don't have to crawl.

You can just stand up and walk now.

You know, we call this last section dry land.

Also, if you've been in the desert for days and you're dying of thirst and someone gives you some water, don't pull it all over your head first.

It only works if it gets in your mouth.

New rule, now that companies are making portable lactation rooms so women can breastfeed with a little privacy.

They have to make a similar room for men for those times when we really need to rub one out.

Here, here.

Now.

Now.

Did you say here, here?

Okay, all right.

Now people will ask if this yank tank is

really necessary.

No, but wouldn't you rather have a guy using one at the airport than sitting next to you on a flight to Hong Kong?

New role, red solo cups must come with warning labels.

Oh, yes, with helpful hints like, that Hitler salute seems funny now, but it's not.

He is not the gender you think she is.

And yes, Taco Bell is still open.

And finally, new rule, stop acting so surprised that Trump thinks he's God's gift to America because that's exactly what evangelicals keep telling him he is.

Last weekend, conservatives had their big annual convention, which featured such speakers as Glenn Beck, Devin Nunes, Judge Janine Pirro, and of course Trump himself.

It was a virtual Woodstock of the mentally impaired.

And

one speaker, Mike Lindell, the my pillow guy,

said this.

I see the greatest president in history.

Of course he is.

He was chosen by God.

Yeah, Mike's pillows are made from foam, but his head is stuffed with feathers.

But Mike's belief there is not unique.

A significant portion of our population believes that in 2016, God put Donald Trump in office.

And I was giving all the credit to Putin.

And if you watch the 700 Club regularly, like I do,

you know that evangelicals are now making the claim that Trump is a modern-day version of King Cyrus.

King Cyrus.

He's King Cyrus.

King Cyrus.

Yes, King Cyrus.

And the Bible.

Why Cyrus?

Well, because evangelicals needed to solve this little problem they have, which is that they want to support a Republican president, but this particular one happens to be the least Christian person ever.

A man who loves flesh peddling, coveting, cursing, cheating, bullying, bragging, sloth, adultery, and ripping off charities.

And who lies more frequently than the rest of us pee?

The type of man who would go into a confessional booth and never come out.

So

how to square that circle?

Just say Trump is like King Cyrus.

Trump has the Cyrus anointing.

God was raising him up like Cyrus.

They're calling our president, Donald Trump, they're calling him Cyrus.

Donald Trump is a Cyrus, gets it.

President Trump will be like Cyrus.

Donald Trump is like a

modern-day

Cyrus.

Yes, I know what you're saying to yourselves.

Bill, who the fuck is Cyrus?

Okay, I'm going to tell you.

Cyrus is the ancient king of Persia who conquered Babylon, where the Jews were living in captivity.

This is before Miami.

Now, Cyrus didn't do it for the Jews, he did it for Persia, his country.

But it had the happy side effect of allowing the Jews to return home to Israel.

So Cyrus, you see, is an unwitting conduit, a vessel for God's will.

Except Trump isn't a vessel for God's will.

He's a vessel for fried chicken.

And

the analogy on which the whole thing rests is shit.

For one thing, Cyrus wasn't a fat, orange, conscious scumbag.

He just wasn't Jewish.

But nothing in the Bible says he was the antithesis of what the Jews believed in, the way Trump is the antithesis of what Christians are supposed to believe.

Cyrus wasn't a notorious sinner.

He wasn't a pathological liar.

He didn't call scribes the enemy of the people.

He never paid a concubine hush money.

And Cyrus wasn't the leader of the Jews.

If Trump equals Cyrus, he would have to be a foreign leader.

who unwittingly helps America.

We're the Jews in this analogy.

But they don't care.

You see, that's religion for you.

The more it doesn't make sense, the better.

Because it proves your faith.

So when the name Cyrus comes up amongst Christians,

they all nod approvingly that they're down with the code, like when potheads hear 420, you know.

They also get this believe it's significant that the chapter in the Bible that mentions Cyrus is Isaiah 45, and Trump is the 45th president.

You can't argue with science people.

And

to be frank, I don't believe anyone even checks biblical passages anymore.

You say a biblical sounding phrase with a couple of numbers after it, and religious nuts will crochet it and hang it up in the kitchen.

I mean,

So, Cyrus is just more evidence that the Bible will always be used as a justifier for whatever you want.

Jeff Sessions used Romans 13 to justify the child snatching at the border.

Senator Kevin Kramer used Thessalonians to argue for throwing families off food stamps because it says, if a man will not work, he shall not eat.

Senator Inhoff uses Genesis to deny climate change because that's where it says, as long as the earth remains, there will be springtime.

It just starts in January now.

You know.

You almost have to respect their focus.

They decide what they want and they work backwards to find a few phrases in the Bible to justify it.

Us secular types, we don't have that luxury.

We see Trump colluding.

We can't point to Isaiah 45.

All we have is U.S.

Code 2381, the part that says whoever gives aid and comfort to the enemy is guilty of treason.

Okay, that's our show.

I'll be at the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Dallas on March 16th.

And at the Sanger Theater in New Orleans, April 6th, I want to thank Jonathan Opner, Mary Catherine Hamm, Michael Steele, Noah Rothman, and Nat Schlapp.

Stay tuned for overtime on YouTube.

Thank you, folks.

Catch all new episodes 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.