Overtime - Episode #484: Chris Christie, Malcolm Nance, Eric Idle, Natasha Bertrand, Jack Kingston

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

Okay.

So before we get to the questions, would you and the governor like to answer what I was saying about it?

I was quoting Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann.

They're very, very esteemed journalists.

They were bipartisan, and they said it's the Republicans' fault.

I think that when President Trump has a good proposal, the country would be better off if Democrats got behind it.

Like which one?

Case in point.

Case in point, how long do you want to stay in Afghanistan?

You're right.

That's the one I'm hoping for.

And I know one of the issues also out there is the deficit.

And if you bring the troops back from these

regime-changed wars, that you would save billions of dollars and lives.

And I think that's something that should happen to be.

But the Republicans voted against him on that.

They finally found something to stand up to him about and was you are not for war enough.

But Bill, there is an opportunity for a core of Democrats and a core of Republicans to say, you know what, the president's got a good point here, let's get behind him.

Well, I'm for that.

I mean, you're right.

The liberals have been hypocritical about that.

They were for ending forever war, and now they're for it.

And when he talked about family medical leave, Chuck Schumer stood up.

I think he was the only one on the Democrat side who did it.

But, you know, there again, reward good behavior.

The First Step

Act, to his credit, Corey Booker brought somebody who had been released from jail, who had been sentenced for a long period of time, and that

criminal justice reform and the First Step Act passed in December.

Great bipartisanship, and it should be done again.

Attacking opioids again,

great national problem, 60,000 people a year die from it.

Democrats and Republicans have a good opportunity to get behind something like that and win.

And then when he talks about wiping out childhood leukemia,

why not erupt with claps and

applause saying, hell yeah, let's do this, because it's a horrible thing.

I don't think the Democrats are for childhood leukemia.

That's what you're saying.

I'm sorry.

All right, all right.

So, all right, you got your rebuttal in.

Governor Christie, do you think there are any Democrats that have your signature in-your-face approach to dealing with the opposition?

Is there a Democrat Chris Christie, I guess they're asking?

Well, thank God, no.

Listen, I think Bernie has a bit of that.

You know, Bernie doesn't back down to anybody, and when Bernie's got a point of view, he's going to say it, and he doesn't really sugarcoat anything.

So I think Sanders is one of those.

Who do you think is the Democrats' best choice to run in 2020?

I think the one that the president would be most afraid of if he can stay in his lane is Biden.

And the reason why is because Biden can go to Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan and appeal to white working class voters.

And if he does that, he only has to peel off 7,000 to 10,000 votes in each one of those states to be able, and he's only going to win two of them.

But there's many states, and he's not going to excite the base anyway.

Actually, but well, he's not going to excite the base.

But you know what?

If that base gets a little bit too excited,

it's going to drive away the rest of the middle of the country.

Because some of the stuff that the base is talking about is

not going to be appealing to the middle of the country.

And this is the same mistake I think Democrats have made in a number of different elections where they say, this is great, we love it, but they don't care about what the middle of the country thinks.

They care about the two coasts.

I'd also put in Tulsi Gabbard, and I'd put in John Delaney.

If they get traction, John Delaney has an incredible business record, and Tulsi Gabbard, I think she has a refreshing voice when it comes to these wars that are endless and regime change.

She's the one the Russians like.

But that investigation.

You're saying the Russians like her.

The New York Times looked at that story that NBC ran and discredited the guy who claims it.

A guy named Jonathan Morgan and a group called...

Okay.

Eric Idle, as president of the Footlights Club at Cambridge, you were the first to allow women to join.

You personally?

I did, though, yeah.

You did.

What motivated your decision?

It was.

What year was that?

It was 1965.

Wow.

And it was before the Cambridge colleges admitted women.

And it was just nuts.

You know, there's funny women.

Hell, we need them in the club.

And Jermaine Greer was the first one to join.

She wrote the female eunuch.

And yet she had more balls than any man I ever met.

But the pythons mostly dressed as women.

Well that was personal reasons.

Is it possible someday we will look back on dressing as a woman and think that that is not appropriate?

What?

I mean, we're only at the beginning of really having transgender awareness.

I wonder if someday we'll look back and go, wow, Tootsie, not funny.

No, I think it'll always be funny.

We'll have to shoot all the comedians.

Maybe if you wear a thong and you don't quite fit, I don't know.

There could be an angle.

It's more like a matter of fact.

I'm just going to bring you in, Malcolm.

This is Robinson.

This is going to go.

This is a sailor, but I don't go that far.

Natasha, excluding Trump, which family member is more likely to be in jeopardy with the special counsel, Don Jr.

or Jared?

Oh, that's a good question.

I think that Don Jr.

is probably in more immediate jeopardy just because of his

congressional testimony.

Yeah, I mean, he has been telling his friends and associates that he expects to be indicted, and he's been saying that for the last couple months.

So, yeah, I think that his accounts about the Trump Tower meeting in 2016,

his accounts about Trump Tower Moscow and how involved he was in that could put him in some legal jeopardy there.

And as we know, Mueller has shown no shyness about going after people for lying to Congress.

Okay, should any serious discussion of the national debt

by the way in the in the State of the Union speech, no mention of that.

Usually presidents at least do lip service.

Trump is like, fuck it, I'm just going to write a check the whole time I'm here.

You know what?

Doesn't matter.

Printing money, he said it.

I see no opposition to that.

Should any serious discussion of the national debt include cuts to the military budget?

Yes.

Yes.

I think it should.

There's no need to respond to that.

What do you think?

Bill.

I guess if you're going to really cut it, you've got to talk about everything.

And military is part of it.

You've got to talk about entitlements.

So, too, which Democrats seem to be completely allergic to.

You know, they don't want to talk about that.

Well, they don't want to talk about

the fact that Medicare and Medicaid, I was a governor, I asked to do managed care and Medicaid.

Now, this is not like splitting the atom.

There's managed care everywhere.

It took the Obama administration two and a half years to give me permission to spend the 50% that I spend on managed care.

Like, Democratic administrations have been allergic to ever saying to anybody, no, you can't do that in entitlements.

So I agree with you.

I'll put military on the table, you put entitlements on the table, and we'll fix the problem.

That's called a grand bargain.

Right.

And Obama tried for a grand bargain with John Boehner, and to the point of the editorial I just did, the Republicans wouldn't let him.

There was a, remember that grand bargain?

And a grand bargain is what we need.

But it has to be giving up on both sides.

Trump completely does not understand this.

His way of negotiating is, I want my wall.

Now, how about you give me my wall?

That's not a negotiation.

Listen, I spent eight years with Democrats in the legislature in New Jersey, and what you learn is everybody has to win.

If you're going to negotiate, everybody has to win something.

And guys down in Washington have forgotten about that.

It's because they don't have to work with each other because they're in these gerrymandered districts where they never have to worry about a general election.

All they have to worry about is primaries.

In New Jersey, I'm a Republican.

I had to worry about my back every day.

So make deals and give them some of what they want so you get some of what you want.

Just remember, he did in February 2018.

Schumer shut down the government.

It was a three-day shutdown over

making a deal.

And now all he's saying is, why don't you vote the way you did in February and we don't have any glitches in the government?

He's only talking about $5.7 billion.

And talking about the military, we all know that's lunch money.

That's nothing.

$5.7 billion in

a $3.7 trillion budget.

When you add up the business.

No, what I'm saying, $5.7 billion in comparison to the other things we spent on is...

That doesn't mean we should waste it on something stupid.

Well,

like Jordan protection, John.

Protection is not necessarily a war.

No, I have a compromise.

Give the Democrats 100 miles, give the wall 100 miles, come back in two years, see which one's more effective, and then build more of that or less.

What about a stealth wall?

Because Trump thinks stealth airplanes are literally invisible.

Thank you very much.

Sleep tight.

All right, you're in a great crowd.

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