Ep. #479: Bob Woodward, Sarah Silverman

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

Start the clock.

you.

Okay, all right.

All right.

All right, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know.

Thank you very much.

I know why you're happy.

No more political ads on TV.

Isn't that a...

Boy, I tell you, that the end it was like only political ads, right?

For weeks.

I have never been so happy to see the Sialis couple back in their fucking bathtub.

I.

Of course the downside with the election being over is that the lawn signs go away and then you can't tell which one of your neighbors is an asshole.

But the election kind of a split decision.

Democrats won the House.

Russia kept the Senate.

And we found out that the divide in this country is bigger than ever.

The red, rural parts came out overwhelmingly for Trump.

The blue urban parts came out against him.

We are really devolving into two countries, the tobacco chewers

and the people who vape.

That's America.

So I don't know what's going to happen.

But no, you know, the election went well, but it wasn't everything we really hoped.

It was that hard-hit ball off the wall that turns into a long single, you know?

It was red wine, but from Trader Joe's.

A new car, but a Buick.

The chicken dish at a nice restaurant.

A hand job, you know, just not everything we were hoping for.

But some...

Some races are still undecided, and Republicans say it is not over until each and every vote has been suppressed.

So that's

now the reason why I'm not terribly optimistic is we have a new Attorney General.

It's,

yeah, have you seen this guy?

It's the guy who snapped in full metal jacket.

That's

and

this was after the photographer said smile.

So

I call him Curly because he's the bald stooge.

And, you know,

say what you want about Trump's other big fans.

At least Cesar Sojak took the time to paint on some hair.

But this guy, Matthew Whitaker, the new Attorney General, boy, does he love him some Donald Trump.

Everything Whitaker has said or written just amplifies Trump's unhinged narratives.

He wrote an op-ed which said the Mueller investigation goes too far.

He wants to indict Hillary Clinton.

He's so far up Trump's ass, Hannity had to scoot over.

And

turns out before he got this job,

he was involved with a company that defrauded

money from aspiring investors.

He was like the hard guy who, you know, beat it out of them.

You know, Trump lives in in this opposite world.

He puts criminals in charge of the Justice Department.

Facts are lies.

He's awake when he should be asleep.

He talks out of his ass, but shit comes out of his mouth.

Look at this.

This guy, Trump says he doesn't know.

Matthew Whitaker.

We know Matthew Whitaker's been to the Oval Office many times.

We have a tape of Trump on tape just from October saying, Whitaker's a great guy.

I mean, I know Matthew Whitaker.

Sometimes I think Donald Trump is really a set of twins.

I do.

There's Donald Trump and Ronald Trump.

And they're masquerading as the same person, but sometimes they just can't get their story straight.

And Republicans, they don't care anymore.

There's no such thing anymore as how it looks.

This election, they elected two indicted criminals and a dead pimp.

I'm not making that up.

That should be the punchline.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Dead pimp.

No, that's the true part.

And Duncan Hunter from right down the road here in California under indictment.

He's been here.

Nice guy, criminal, nice guy.

His slogan was, a man with convictions.

They don't care.

And then, Democrats, no luck.

Last thing we need this week: Ruth Bader Ginsburg

broke three ribs.

She says she's going to be okay, but that is the last time she parties with Brett Kavanaugh.

But

let's end this monologue on a

happy note.

There was some good news.

Let's not bury that completely for the Democrats.

Diversity was a big winner on Tuesday.

More women, more minorities, more gay people.

And just to screw with Trump, they plan on arriving in D.C.

in a caravan.

And

also, two Muslim women are now in Congress.

It'll be great for the world to see that and hear that.

Two Native Americans.

Deb Highland from New Mexico and my favorite Kansas fucking Kansas

Cherise Davids a lesbian mixed martial arts fighter

let's see Trump call her Pocahontas

all right we got a great show we have Brett Stevens Katie K and Cornell Belcher and a little later we'll be speaking with my friend the very funny Sarah Silverman Silverman is here.

But first up, he is the journalistic icon who is associate editor of the Washington Post.

His 19th book is Fear, Trump in the White House.

We got him, Bob Woodward.

Hey.

Great pleasure.

Congrats to you, Jesus.

Oh, please.

You need me like you need a hole in the head.

You must have made a fortune off this one, and you deserved it.

That is a good read, Fear.

Thank you.

And a good title.

You know, you could have had many titles.

But that says it.

That is the essential point I think you're right about Donald Trump, fear of other things like caravans coming and then fear of him.

And what was so amazing, interviewing him two years ago, he gave it to us.

We asked about what real power is, and he said, real power is

fear.

And it was almost like Hamlet in Shakespeare, an aside saying, this is what it is.

This is the driver.

And so ever since then, I thought this

being out of his mouth, it's a way of

scaring the bejesus out of people.

That's the operating style.

And his own party.

I thought it was very telling that at his post-election, I guess we can call it a press conference, although it looks like none we've ever seen before, he called out, not Democrats, people in his own party.

This person didn't support me enough.

They lost.

You know, this, we've never, you know, Frank Sinatra used to do this with critics in his older days.

He'd be like, this dumb broad doesn't know a good tune when she hears it.

You know.

This is not presidential, but that's the fear.

He's putting, people ask why the Republicans fall in line behind him.

They fear him, right?

Yeah, and

I think the country

fears him, and so the world fears him.

Well, they'd either fear him or love him.

Yeah, but

I think the bottom line in all of this, that the fear has worked, but

we're in a governing crisis.

I try in the book to deal with the substance,

everything in foreign policy, everything in economic and domestic policy.

And it's just, you know,

he's gambling with who we are and what the country is.

And could win.

I think you are pretty much on my page about the fact that this is a lot worse than people think, and they think it's bad.

But I keep saying, I don't think he's leaving.

Even if he loses the election in 2020, and I think what you see going on right now in Florida, there's this recount.

He's involved.

He's already talking about it a lot.

I think that's a dress rehearsal for what we're going to see if he does lose in 2020.

I do not see a scenario that we have seen on January 20th of the next year where he welcomes the winner graciously.

I don't see that.

But what, going back to Watergate

45 years ago, Nixon,

what was said about Nixon was that he had a lust for political power.

Now,

you know, Trump understands lust, to say the least.

And it is

part of his being

to get power over people and to crush them, to demean them.

As you point out, people in his own party,

no one is free.

from that kind of lashing criticism.

And what astonished me in working on this book is getting close to the people who were close to him.

And the closer they were, the more they worked with him, the more anxiety and fear and concern.

So they would take documents off his desk.

The Secretary of Defense had to say, gee, because Trump's, why are we doing all of these things, investing in NATO?

And finally, the Secretary of Defense said, well, we're doing all these things to prevent World War III.

Now think about that.

This is a year into office that the President has to be tutored on what the job is.

Job one,

prevent World War III.

And,

you know, I've

done this for 47 years, and when I learned about that,

I got a chill

to think

that that

is going through somebody's mind of, oh, we don't need all this stuff, let's just go it alone, let's not waste all this money, we're suckers, Trump says.

And then you hear it on the rallies last week, the same idea that somehow we're helping all these people in Europe and the Middle East by

putting our troops there and all the generals to a single person are saying, no, no, no, this is the best money we spend.

It's for our security.

And he does not comprehend that.

Trump does not.

No.

Some of the people you write about in the book

are gone now.

And I remember back in 2017, about a year ago, there was this talk about a sort of a suicide pact, metaphorically, of course, that some of the people in the administration were going to resign en masse.

And I remember saying, no, that's not a good idea, because those people who would not be my choices for the cabinet were still better than what's coming next.

Rex Tillerson, oh, I miss him.

Gary.

He was somebody who stood up to Trump.

This was the A team.

Not my choices, but like normal people, somewhat.

Now we're getting the B team.

They talk about

red lines a lot, you know, know, sessions.

If he gets fired, it's a red line.

This new guy, Whitaker, said, hmm, if they go into Trump's finances, connecting with Russia, which is the whole connection, of course, red line.

To me, this Whitaker guy, that's a red line.

When you start putting the top cop of the country as just a stooge,

just a guy who's there to do the bidding of the supreme leader,

that's the slow-moving coup.

But

the question is, how do you run the Justice Department, which is supposed to deal with law, right?

As we know, Trump really doesn't care much about law.

He's going to do his own thing.

He is his own person, and we have this presidency, which is a projection of his personality.

Yeah, that's unfortunate.

Yeah.

Because he's a malignant narcissist.

And everything goes through that, I think.

I think that's the root of all the evidence.

But he's got ideas that

none of them.

Well, yes, but

they actually masquerade as ideas.

But they really are views, and the staff will say, where did you get these ideas?

And he said, oh, I've had them for 30 years.

And if you disagree, you're wrong.

Well, and he doesn't.

End of argument.

And he doesn't get them from from reading.

He gets them from the Department of People of Saying.

But I think what reporters should start asking him is, or other Republicans, what about two terms for the President?

Would you come out on record and say there is no situation in which a President can serve more than two terms?

If that's not a red line, and I bet you they hem and haw.

Well, let's hope.

I mean, that would be over a red line.

That would be something.

Okay.

Ask Marco Rubio.

He sounds like an asshole about this today.

But look,

you have a lawyer?

Do I need one?

No.

I need a bodyguard, is what I need, though.

To exist.

A lawyer is not going to cut out.

You have to have a lawyer.

Well, I have in the book Trump's lawyer, John Dowd.

Eight months, they work together as closely as people can actually, and they're dealing with the Mueller

Russia investigation.

And so they go through a practice session, and Dowd realizes that Trump cannot tell the truth.

He makes up things.

He lies.

And he finally says, I will not sit next to you if you testify.

with Mueller because I know you will wind up in an orange jumpsuit

because you won't tell the truth.

And finally,

Dowd concludes that maybe Mueller has something, but that the core problem here is

he didn't want to insult the president because he liked the president, he'd worked with him, but he said the real problem is you're a fucking liar.

Bob Woodward.

Enjoying you for a long time.

It's so great to get you on here.

It's a great book.

Thank you.

The great Bob Woodward, everybody.

Thank you.

Let's meet our panel.

Hey, how are you?

Okay, here's a Polish surprise-winning New York Times columnist and MSNBC contributor.

Brett Stevens is back with us.

Brett, how are you doing?

She's a BBC news anchor and co-author of the New York Times best author, The Confidence Code for Girls.

Katie Kaye.

Caddy, good to see you.

And first-timer, wanted him here for a long time.

He was a pollster for President Obama's 2008 and 12 campaigns and author of A Black Man in the White House, Barack Obama, and the Triggering of America's Racial Inversion Crisis.

Cornell Belcher, great to see you.

Don't begin to send us your questions for tonight's overtime so we can answer them after the show on YouTube.

So the Democrats won the House.

They have the gavel.

They have oversight.

They can subpoena us, all that stuff.

Will any of that matter?

Yeah, it was a good night for the Democrats.

How will it matter?

Look, they can now do things that they couldn't before.

I know, Democrats can't matter.

Because they will be able to stop President Trump enacting more tax cuts than increasing inequality in this country.

They will be able to roll.

Yeah, there is policy stuff that they'll

be doing.

They can subpoena the Muller probe documents.

If Muller is about to be fired, they could actually subpoena the documents.

So they can have access to that.

They can ask for the tax returns.

They can subpoena witnesses.

They can subpoena documents.

They can look into sexual abuse allegations against the president.

They can look into what his family has been doing, what his businesses have been doing.

Has Trump hosted?

So we find out he's this horrible crook and criminal and traitor.

And what else do we learn, right?

Then what happens?

I don't see a lot that they can actually do.

I hear a lot of Democrats, I'm going to call for, go ahead, keep calling, call into the wind.

What can you force this man to do?

How can you force him out?

How can you...

Look, investigations that are mainly about what happened 20 or 30 years ago, if it's an endless fishing expedition to prove what we already know about the way Trump dealt

with his finances or with his taxes or with his wives or with his girlfriends, I don't think are effective.

If it's a question, for instance, if the new acting AG, Mr.

Whitaker, tries to quash the Mueller probe, then the best thing that Congress should do is issue subpoenas and threaten to

impeach Whitaker if he does not allow the probe to go forward.

And let the Republicans in the Senate block that.

Let them own that fiasco.

Look, Adam Schiff is now the chairman of the intelligence committee.

That's a big deal.

I mean, we actually have

members who will now investigate really what happened to Russia and perhaps we can stop it from happening again.

I'm a little distraught that Democrats are so and progressives so down about sort of the elections.

We had a big fucking night.

It was a really good night.

We We changed a lot of what's happening in this country.

I find that dangerous, that optimism.

I don't know if we had a great night.

Considering Donald Trump is the worst president and maybe the worst human,

the fact that

so many people still voted for him, we didn't turn the Senate,

no matter what they find or put out in front of the American people, does it matter if he can say it's fake?

Look what?

And if half the people will not.

What did the midterm show you?

That Democrats are doing well in areas of the country that are growing.

They're doing well in the suburbs and they're doing well with minorities.

Republicans are doing well in areas of the country that are not growing.

They're doing well with men and women.

You heard this in 2016 and it won.

It's still, yeah, because the demographics are moving still in the Democrats' direction.

But no, but even

more than that.

There's no denying that.

But overconfidence.

Overconfidence should not be in the Democratic direction.

I don't think Democrats' dominance is not.

It's not about confidence.

This is what happened on election night.

Democrats pulled even with white women.

Democrats haven't been competitive with white voters since Johnson signed the civil rights legislation and realigned the parties.

Democrats won college-educated white voters.

Hillary didn't win college-educated white voters.

Barack Obama didn't win college-educated white voters.

This is part of the effect that Donald Trump's having.

I mean, you know, this past Tuesday, a lot of brothers looked over at their white, college-educated white colleagues and said, thank you, sister.

Thank you

for helping.

We said, I forgot you about what you did in 2016, but we are making progress.

Hispanics turned out and voted in bigger numbers than ever, and two-thirds of them voted for Democrats.

Look, I hate to be the Debbie Downer here, but look, the problem is that Republicans had, in some ways, an even bigger night in 2010, didn't help them in 2012.

They had a huge night in 94, didn't help them in 96.

We shouldn't suppose that what happens in this election is going to count in the only election that really matters, which is in 20.

And if Democrats become complacent and convince themselves that they're going to win and that demographics are behind them and the force of history,

the opposite opposite is happening.

The Democrats are not at risk of complacency.

They're at risk of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and thinking that was a terrible night.

No, we're not saying it was a terrible night.

It just should have been better.

We're saying

you were running against Caligula.

You should have done better.

You should have done better.

And yes.

And also,

let's not

lose sight of what is actual power.

What is actual power?

And power begets power.

He has this man who is the Attorney General who doesn't believe in Marbury versus McMadison.

If you're not a history major, this was the 1803, the early days of the Republic, that established judicial review.

He said

the courts are supposed to be the inferior branch of our three branches of government.

That's like on page one of that three equal branches of government, separation.

This is basic stuff.

He wants us to have a biblical view of justice.

Because he's not just attacking a decision

as a bad decision.

You can imagine a Republican saying, okay, Roe v.

Wade was incorrectly decided.

I don't agree, but okay.

But what he's

attacking here is the structure of American government.

And that's what's so frightening.

It's happening by slow degrees, like a

frog being blown, that you don't notice that this guy that you never heard of until three days ago is now the acting attorney general and doesn't believe in foundational concepts of jurisprudence.

I feel like I'm Pollyanna here, but if you are a Republican who is not...

you can always go to another country and be much happier.

Yeah, like Brazil or the Philippines or Hungary.

No, it's bad out there.

I get it.

It's bad out there.

I'm missing gloom about the state of the world, believe me.

But I think this week, if you are a Republican, for example, who is up for re-election in 2020, if you are Susan Collins, if you are Corey Gardner, you have been put in a position now by this president over something like Matthew Whitaker where you may have to take a stand.

Because Trump is, it's not going to get you elected.

How has that worked out so far?

No, because

they haven't been up for re-election.

It's not going to get you elected, this stuff.

Okay.

Well, by the way, Republicans still vote more.

Like Florida, 62% of registered voters in Florida voted, but Miami-Dade, 56%, Broward, 57%.

The rural counties top 70%.

But, Bill, we don't know because they're still counting.

Well, that makes my point.

I mean, they're still counting.

Well, I don't think they're going to make up 13% of the vote.

No, no, no, no, no.

Gillum is now like 30-some thousand votes in between, and there are a ton of votes still out in Broward County.

I don't know if you, Florida screws up elections, but there's still a lot of votes being, still a lot of votes being

counted out there.

And look, the fact that we are dead even in Florida and that we're dead even in Georgia,

that says Democrats are making progress in these countries.

They are making progress.

We are making.

And the best progress they're making is in the state houses.

Yes, yeah.

The best progress we made last night, Tuesday night, it was not any person.

Well, yes, it's many people, but it's the fact that we are starting to get back those levers where they can't suppress the vote, starting to reform gerrymandering about

the really crazy shit happens in the state ledges, right?

That we've won almost 400 state ledge seats.

Again, that's a big deal.

And the fact that women voted and ran and won in record numbers.

That was a big deal when women decided elections in the government.

So,

look, all I'm going to to say is if

you think that an election which Democrats should have walked away with

decisive, huge victories in both houses ends in this kind of stalemated result, isn't a warning to Democrats that they have to be very careful about what they're doing for the next two years, you're walking into an eight or twenty year Trump presidency, either of which we ought to want.

Exactly.

Millennials, 30% voted.

That's better than ever and still horrible.

If 80% had voted, they could run the country.

They could be the president.

But truth of the matter is you're still...

Look, there's still some parts of this country where the racial antagonism and aversion is strong and

it's going to win out.

Democrats aren't going to be able to compete in

a lot of these states that are growing smaller, less diverse, and they're losing a great deal of population.

If you look at the big states that matter most in 2020, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, where they've taken back the governorship.

Those are states where Democrats have made progress, and certainly Democrats are running better than what Hillary Clinton did last time around.

It's not perfect, but my God, it was a good night.

But there was also the fact, I mean, you know, unemployment's at its lowest level since 1969.

Growth is at 3.7%.

Yeah, but not good, Joe.

3.5%.

The wages are ticking up.

No, but that's another.

But so in 2020, I don't know what the, you're the economist.

you know what I'm saying?

I'm not the economist, but look, that's

no, he's not an economist.

No, but that's, but that's that's an important point which we miss, which is that Democrats aren't taking into account the fact that as in countries like Turkey and Putin in the early years of the, or Turkey and Russia in the early years of the Putin and Erdogan dictatorships, you had economic growth along with the corrosion of institutions.

And that is a recipe for real trouble

four or five years down the road, when you've hollowed out your institutional base and you've strengthened people into kind of cult of personality figures,

that should be a warning to every American.

And he hasn't even played the war card.

Okay, so

people in this state vote on ballot initiatives.

Did you vote?

You all voted for those.

These things really piss me off because, well, first of all, when I'm looking, I'm like, why don't you people in the legislature do your job?

Why am I voting on everything?

That's what we elect you to do.

It's like when the singer goes, hey, you sing.

Fuck you.

I paid.

You sing.

And then a lot of times it's like, oh, this is for clean water.

Doesn't regular taxes pay for that?

That's extra.

That's not.

Okay, I found out lots of, such as California, there's these ballot initiatives all over the country.

Some of them are so ridiculous.

We voted on daylight savings time here.

Would you like to hear some of the ones from around the country?

Because some of these are just

Texas passed Prop 22, raising the legal purchasing age for an assault weapon to four.

Utah passed measure C, which requires male horses to wear underwear.

Hawaii passed Prop 61, which makes it illegal to bogart a joint.

I thought that was.

Tennessee had ballot measure five, which makes it a Class B.

You're to visit the Creation Museum, ironically.

New Jersey passed measure S, which requires every Italian restaurant in the state to have a signed photo of a cask or a surprise.

Just read it.

I had a hard week.

Florida's measure 30 requires every fifth incident of teachers having sex with students to be followed by a five-year-old who drives home because his mom is drunk.

Vermont passed Proposition 3.

New residents will be required to open and close

a used bookstore.

I'm glad you're on my page with this, Cornell.

Thank you.

Cornell's Prop 10 makes it a felony, punishable by death, for a sitcom character to say, well, that went well.

And in Oregon, residents of Beaverton still have to admit, it's still a little funny.

All right.

She is an actress, comedian, host of Hulu's.

I love you, America.

Now in its second season, my favorite, Sarah Silverman, is over here.

What's that?

Television.

I don't know how you do it.

I don't know either.

Well, as you can see, I'm starting to lose it.

It always happens at the end of the season.

Anyway,

before we get to the politics, congratulations.

You got your walk.

Your walk.

Your star on the walk of fame today.

There it is.

Oh, my God.

Welcome to the club.

I have one.

You do?

It's right next to Gary Busey.

Oh, you're kidding.

Not the star, actually, Gary Busey.

You know,

in a time, Bill, where anti-Semitic crime is up 57% since this douchebag has taken office, it is not lost on me that I am very lucky that I get a star and I don't have to sew it on my clothes.

Oh, wow.

You know you didn't.

I did.

I don't know if that's gallows humor or just like it's funny because it's true humor.

Well, I think it's they love Sarah Silverman humor.

Oh, thanks.

No, I meant that still.

I meant that genuinely.

Fuck me too.

You know, when you're a comic and everyone thinks you're sarcastic, and they're gonna go, I love your dress.

They go, fuck you.

Exactly.

So your show is fantastic.

I was on it this week.

I was honored to be there.

And, you know, you do a great service.

You go out and you talk to people who are outside of our little bubble here in Hipsterville.

And you don't even know what oat milk is.

Poor dears.

And do you think you're changing any minds out there?

Probably not.

Yeah.

But

I'm changing mine.

I mean, not politically,

not ideologically, but you do realize there is a difference,

a bit of a difference between the liars and the lied to.

Do they, though?

No, of course not.

Right.

They don't know they're lied lied to.

It's like cults.

Cults don't know their lies to.

Right.

Well, and one good thing, though, I must say about Trump is, I never thought I'd even say those words.

No.

But he has sort of broken down certain norms that we lived with for a long time that didn't really make sense, like extramarital affairs.

I mean, I was arguing with that in the Clinton days.

It doesn't really matter.

That's private.

It doesn't, I remember they used to say, if he cheats on his wife, is he going to cheat on the country?

No.

It doesn't make any sense.

You can cheat on your wife all day long and still be a good president.

We've had many who did.

Another one, language.

Betto said, I love the fuck out of you guys at his rally years ago.

That would have been a big deal because he said, fuck.

No, nobody gives a fuck.

It's true.

And

I like when people use fuck in a positive way.

That's how my dad, I always grew up and my dad says, fuck every other word, but he's a joyful guy.

I'm such a fucking lucky guy.

You know, like he's, it's joyful, and I think that's nice.

I don't like when Trump says stuff like stupid and loser and stuff like that.

To me, that's, you know, I'm not the word police, he can say it, but it just says so much about himself.

And we all know he's really kind of at this arrested development at about eight years old.

Right.

Genuinely.

This isn't a

great compassion for him if he wasn't hurting people's lives.

But those are words that children say before they learn that they're not nice words.

You know, you're a loser.

You're stupid.

That's a bad karma.

What about shit?

I have, okay, you're setting me up, and I, but I do have a theory.

I brought up fuck, so you would say shit.

Oh, you did?

I don't know.

Everything goes out the window once I'm sitting here, but I think the,

this sounds silly, but we all, of course, on this show where I'm on too, we can say shit, fuck, cunt, twat, but but only those.

It makes it really hard.

You have to figure out.

But the rest of the country on television, we just end everything.

We accept that the word shit is obscene, that it's a swear.

And it just means poop.

It just means crap.

There's no reason it should be considered obscene or a swear at all.

But we don't question things that are just the way they are.

And I think that it's

an example of how it's so fucking hard to have any progress because we don't question anything.

Nobody says, why is shit bleeped on TV?

It just means poop.

Poop isn't bleeped.

Crap isn't bleeped.

Duty isn't bleeped.

I'm sorry, you hate that term.

No, I

don't like duty humor.

But he loves me.

Isn't that the great idea?

But you're not saying this is the most important issue.

No, I'm saying it's the least important.

It's the least important issue.

It's just an example of how we don't question anything that is just how it's been.

Well, speaking of questioning, what did you think of Jim Acosta there getting

jim accosted

you just made that up yeah

probably someone must have made that up several times yeah must have um but that was a pretty amazing thing to get thrown out of the press room and also to to have a press secretary sarah soccer bee sanders present a

you said succabe i did yeah i meant succubus um

i didn't mean that see we're both losing it but uh to to submit a doctored tape, like one degree from...

From InfoWars.

Exactly.

That's...

They get their news from InfoWars.

It's par for the course of an authoritarian government.

You know, I mean,

it's not even dog whistles anymore.

It's full-on, who's a racist boy.

Yes, you are.

Right.

It's not subtle.

He's doing it right in front of our fucking face.

But there have to be bad words.

I mean, you've got a president who's shit, and we've become accustomed to that.

So what words are there for that?

Nice one.

Being funny.

So

can I ask you about guns?

Because we had another horrible tragedy this week right here in California, very close to here.

And I know this is an issue that you have tweeted about a lot, talked about a lot, done on your show a lot.

Is there anything new to say?

No, there's nothing new to say.

There should be gun reform, whatever.

I mean, the NRA

is holding, you know, know I think it's a positive thing that a lot of Democrats beat

grade a NRA Republicans that have you know

this midterms and they have F grades and it it showed that it didn't matter

so I mean you know it is it's it's just kind of bananas but again we have a president who you know it's been exactly two weeks since since he announced he was a nationalist and in that time there's been two mass shootings

and

and 14 bombs sent to every single you know person that he he targets in his speeches, his rhetoric over and over again.

He knows that he can start a fight and he doesn't have to finish it because someone else will finish it for him and that's his role in domestic terrorism.

Sounds interesting.

Now that the fascists are in the White House, though, I'm glad some liberals have guns.

Well listen,

I do.

I think about having guns.

Oh, forget it.

No, no, you go.

I think about it.

I absolutely think about it.

I should learn how to use a gun.

I have mace that's always in my backpack.

And now I started sleeping with it close by.

Oh, God.

I don't even want to admit it, but it's true.

We're living in freaking scary times.

Who is...

Everybody answer this.

Who is the best shot that the Democrats have for 2020?

I know it's only three days after the election, but I want everyone to give me your choice or what you think should happen.

I think it's too early.

I know it's not the answer you want to hear, but whoever is the frontrunner,

historically the Democratic frontrunner, does not do well early on.

I tell you right now, there is a hunger for new leadership that's out there, and whoever I think can win South Carolina, I think because of the diversity of the Democratic Party

is going to do well.

So the candidate I think

who can win South Carolina is probably going to be the Democratic nominee.

I think you need a candidate who is from a place as far from an ocean as possible.

You need a purple state candidate who knows how to talk to Republicans who really think that matters where they're from.

Trump is from New York.

No, that's not much.

And he won over all the candidates.

Obviously, I'm speaking metaphorically here, but my point here.

I thought you were meant literally.

My point here is

you need someone like

John Hickenlooper of Colorado.

Oh, please.

No, absolutely.

You need a guy

who is able to change the name.

He changed his name.

He changed his name.

He just needs to change his name.

You cannot do

Fred Frecken Loop.

What was his name originally, I wonder?

Philippe is surprised by how many Democrats say, kind of almost under their breaths, we can't run a woman against Trump as if she'll be mowed down somehow.

I think they should run a woman against Trump.

I think it should.

It's a great idea.

Someone like Maggie Hassan of New York.

But here's the problem.

Here's the problem with that conventional thinking.

We don't get even close to winning Georgia if we run that conventional.

The last conventional candidate they ran in Georgia lost by 200,000 votes.

It's that sort of thinking, sort of insider status pool thinking that keeps us boxed in.

You know what?

Barack Obama was no one's first choice.

And you know what?

That black guy with a Muslim name won back-to-back majorities.

When was the last time a Republican did that?

Right?

We've got to stop thinking about about this establishment, straight-ahead candidates.

Thank God all these women ran because you know what?

We probably wouldn't have won back the House.

Yeah.

When Democrats take over the House in January, they owe it to women.

And that's not why they should run a woman.

They should run a woman because tons of women actually are motivated at the moment to support other women.

And I think the Brett Kavanaugh effect has actually been not to deprive Democrats of votes, it's been to motivate women to go to the polls.

And women are better.

Specifically.

And we're not better.

And we're not better.

Here here, Cornell.

And also, you know why?

Because at some point you bait the bear and he will say something that will...

If you're not going to be able to do that, just

having a female candidate, he won't be able to stop himself.

Because of who he is, he will say something and do something that's not going to be a good idea.

I think Trump seems to avoid Trump fantasizes about

someone like Elizabeth Warren.

And I'm sorry, but that's...

I mean, you're talking about reality.

Do you want to win win or do you want to be inspired?

I think it would be better to win.

Well, here's the here.

I'll do a Kamala Harris over Elizabeth Warren.

Let me throw out some names.

And

what I think is that we should, what we're going to do, we're going to have a primary campaign, and the people will decide, and that's how it should be.

And this time, I hope the Democrats pay attention to who gets big crowds, because Hillary couldn't.

I think she would have been a fine president.

But that's the Elizabeth Warren argument, because she did get big crowds.

Yeah, I love Elizabeth Warren.

But I'm not sure she's the candidate.

But I'm not so sure she doesn't remind people too much of Hillary Clinton.

And that is one thing we have to stand up.

And we don't know if Kamala Harris could get big crowds because she's never really been tested in that.

Right.

But Sarah's about to agree with me, so I think it's important.

Go ahead.

Well, just that.

I think that's what you're saying: is whoever it is come out late.

It's like, you know how they hold the big Oscar movies until right before the nomination?

I do think there is something to it because people get used to people and then they go, what's that shiny?

I agree.

That's right.

And there's more stuff they can find out about you.

That's what Obama did.

He was smart.

Chris Christie, the opposite.

He could have had the nomination in 2012, but he didn't.

He waited too long and then his fat ass got in trouble.

I'm not sure he was racist enough either.

We're allowed to fat shame.

We're allowed to fat shame if they're Republican.

Don't you know the rules?

Like Trump is, yeah.

Oh, we are?

Yes, of course.

We're the blue team.

We cheer for us and hate them.

See?

There's no principles.

Okay, but here's the thing.

The Democrats, now, I think Betto and

our governor here, Gavin Newsom,

are

the two white guys who have some pizzazz.

Other than that, I think all

the pizzazz

Mitch Landrew.

Yep.

Mayor of...

I know, we had him on.

I don't know about that.

But other than that, I think all the star power in the Democratic Party is African-American.

Gillam.

I'm sorry.

And how are they going to deal with it?

What's your connection?

There's Gillum, right?

Yes.

You mentioned Kamala Harris.

I think Eric Holder's pretty fantastic.

Corey Booker.

Corey Booker.

And I'm leaving.

Deval Patrick.

Oprah.

Oprah.

You know, I mean.

Stop that.

She's a real billionaire.

Yeah, right.

She is a real.

So Michael Levinati said, I think it better be a white male.

He then went on to say,

should it carry more weight?

Absolutely not.

He's not saying it should be that way.

He's saying in America, if you want to win, when you have a white male making the arguments, they carry more weight.

Yeah.

That's almost a definition of racism.

And everything.

Well, he's not saying it's.

I think he's basically saying it should be me, right?

I think that's what he's saying, yes.

No,

I...

So if we had to pick today the best person to defeat Donald Trump.

Negan.

A walking dead reference.

We get it, Grandpa.

Okay.

Interesting.

So what about the Republican side?

Could there possibly be a

primary challenger?

Could Mitt Romney somehow stop being a rudderless weather vane,

find his balls inside of his magic underwear

and take on Donald Trump

under the banner of Republican Classic.

There used to be a Republican Party.

Donald Trump took it over and changed it and made it into something completely different.

And I want to run as Republican Classic.

We see them on TV all the time.

You're one of them.

No, I'm not.

I used to be.

You're not a Republican classic?

Well,

I don't know what that is.

I used to be a Republican until about three years ago.

Okay.

A Republican Republic.

But many of your positions are classic Republican positions.

So look, I mean,

the only way a Republican is going to defeat Trump in a primary is if there is, say, a catastrophic war with North Korea or a devastating recession or some other kind of calamity.

So none of those seem like very appealing ways to get away from the...

What about tons of mass shootings on an epic scale?

Well, the disgrace is that

we shrug after

five days after each one of them.

And until we start thinking beyond, you know, tepid gun control measures and start rethinking the Second Amendment, that's going to go absolutely no way.

But who is we?

Is it us or is it the people representing us who are taking money?

from the NRA and various places who aren't representing us.

And it's not just the NRA, though.

Lots of people in America legitimately like their guns.

I fucking love guns.

Okay, well there you go.

I mean

the counties in Florida, the county where Parkland High School was, again, we don't have all the votes, but they didn't look like they came out in great numbers.

The party belongs to Trump now.

It is almost like a cult of Trump.

They are more,

they stay more loyal to Trump than they did to George Bush.

And the truth of the matter is, unless you're going to run to the right

of Trump around racial anxiety, unless Mitt Romney is literally going to start flogging immigrants on television, he's not going to beat Donald Trump in a primary.

I'm sorry, you're the comedian, I'm taking a moment.

No, no, please do.

We love Connie.

Sorry.

But we're not expecting

that Mitt Romney can beat Donald Trump.

We're just expecting that if he drew out 20% of the vote, that would elect the Democrat.

That's what a real patriotism is.

A third party run as a third party.

Yes, he would have to run as a third party, yes.

Classic.

And that could form the genesis of a new party sometime down the road, just as the Republican Party replaced the Whigs in the 1850s, but it has...

I have to wrap it up.

Thank you, panel.

No.

But it is time for new rules.

New rules.

Okay.

New rule, you're rich and fat.

Buy a looser shirt.

Here's how you can tell your collar's too tight when it gives you camel throat.

New rule,

if you don't want people to believe you just punched a guy in the face over a parking space, don't come out of the police station with a look that says, I'll punch you in the face too.

New rule hipsters must end the new trend of bringing their babies babies to bars.

Babies are cock blocks.

The last thing you want to see before having sex with a stranger you met in a bar is the consequences of having sex with a stranger you met in a bar.

New rule, instead of going through all the expense, inconvenience, boredom, and discomfort of ice fishing, just tell your wife you hate her.

No, I love our time together, honey.

I'd just rather sit out in the snow freezing by myself for hours staring in a hole.

New rule, before I use this new emoji, someone has to tell me what the hell it means.

Is it, I like you, but I'm drunk.

Call 911, I'm having a stroke,

or the Sarah Huckabee Sanders stink eye.

And finally, new rule: the next time you hear someone say you may be cursed to live in interesting times, punch them in the face.

Because after two years of Trump chaos, that line isn't cute anymore.

In fact, you have my blessing as your political rabbi

to take the rest of the year off from following politics.

But not till next week because we have one more show.

But 2018 has been a year, I think, in which we all asked ourselves, how could something seem so endless and yet also go by so fast?

It's like if Quentin Tarantino made Gone with the Wind and you're watching it on an airplane and the airplane is crashing into a mountain

of cocaine.

Trump is the Santa Claus of chaos and every night is Christmas Eve.

He's somehow everywhere in the world, only he's not bringing you anything.

He's breaking the shit you already have.

That's him on the roof.

Now he's coming down the chimney and eating your cookies.

Now he's kissing mommy and grabbing her pussy.

He's the gift that never stops taking.

Each morning you confront the news with the same thought Stormy Daniels said she had when Trump sat down next to her on the bed.

Here we go.

By the way, Michael Cohen paid Stormy to go away, but Stormy did not go away.

She stuck to Trump all year like toilet paper on a shoe.

Anyway,

every day it seems like it's the same thing.

You open your news feed,

face palm.

In fact, I think as long as Trump is president, the face palm should replace the handshake as a way for two people greeting each other to acknowledge: yes, everything is a shit show, and no, there's nothing new to say about it.

Hey, Bob, how are you doing?

Hi, Sarah.

Now, all year long, and going back to before the election, I have been calling the Trump phenomenon a slow-moving coup.

Well, this week it started moving a little faster.

Matthew Whitaker, this is what I'm talking about.

In third world dictatorships, the chief law enforcement officer's main qualification is he doesn't enforce the law.

Officials of independent mind are hounded out or shoved aside.

This isn't a cabinet anymore, it's the Queen's corgis.

Whitaker wants to shut down the Russian investigation, despite the fact that in March, against the advice of everyone, Trump called Putin to congratulate him on winning his election and also our election.

He then met Putin in July, and that meeting, secret.

His deal with Kim Jong-un, secret.

His taxes, secret.

What is happening to America?

We know less about our government than what goes into jerky.

In mid-2017, I first read you my dictator checklist.

But since this week is the week we now have added, install your personal protector as head of the justice department, after adding in September, install your personal protector on the highest court.

Let's review the dictator list one more time.

You're a narcissist who likes to see his name and face on buildings.

You appoint family members to positions of power.

You hold rallies even when you're not running and they are scary.

You talk about jailing the press and political opponents.

You want to hold military parades and muse openly about being president for life.

You use your office for personal financial gain.

You love other dictators.

You lie so freely your supporters don't know what the truth is anymore and don't care.

For a coup to work, it is first necessary for truth itself to be destroyed, as well as the people who try to report it.

So the dictator is free to say anything and his followers believe it.

Adding to that dictator checklist, we now have state TV in this country, an actual propaganda channel where the reporters openly endorse the leader, and we have people who oversee the elections they are running in.

In August of this year, Trump's semi-liquid mob mouthpiece,

Gooi Giuliani, said,

truth is in truth.

Ah.

This has been deep thoughts with Nasferatu.

Truth isn't truth.

So, truth isn't truth.

The press is the enemy of the people.

There are alternative facts.

There's no proof of anything.

What you see and hear isn't what's happening.

And you know, at some point, people go, you know what?

Fine.

Fuck it.

Truth isn't truth.

Facts aren't facts.

What I see isn't happening.

Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.

Strawberry Field forever.

Please pass the joint or some crack because I can still reason and it hurts.

Thank you very much, everybody.

You've been warned.

All right, I want to thank my guests: Brett Stevens, Katie Kay, Cornell Belcher, Sarah Silverman, Bob Woodward.

Join us down 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.

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