Ep. #466: Ben Shapiro, Michael Moore
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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, Real Time with Bill Ma.
Start the clock.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, people.
We had a rough week, I know. So
it's a very rough week. I don't know what you're happy about.
Maybe
it's summer. That's what I got.
You know, we're going to be off till August 3rd. I'm going to be working on my bikini body.
Oh, yes, I'm on the Sarah Huckabee Sanders diet. Did you know it? It's
a shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, and for dinner you get thrown out of a restaurant. It's great.
Oh, yeah.
We're all talking about civility this week. Yes, great to be lectured by the Trump people on civility, isn't it?
But yes, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her husband were refused service, you saw at this restaurant called the Red Hen.
And she should have known it was a liberal restaurant. They had a sign right in the window that said, we like our chicken the way we like our kids, cage-free.
And so.
Great.
And
Trump took the whole thing with grace and humor. I'm joking, of course.
He tweeted like a child, like
the restaurant is filthy.
Filthy. That's why I eat chicken from a bucket with my hands.
Meanwhile, they dug this up. Mar-a-Lago, his place, Mar-a-Lago.
In the last three years, 78 health code violations.
The chef's name is Sal Manella.
But I tell you, it is hard to be civil this week when Trump gets a second Supreme Court pick when he never should have gotten the first.
The ghost of Merrick Garland is still haunting us.
But you know, for the Republicans, the Supreme Court's all about abortion, to which they remain staunchly opposed right up until the moment their mistress gets pregnant. And then,
so we'll see.
Yeah.
Yeah, so Justice Kennedy retired and Mitch McConnell has already said, he said these words. He said, we will vote to confirm Justice Kennedy's successor this fall.
He didn't even know who it is.
Remember it was supposed to say in the Constitution, advise and consent?
This guy, they don't care anymore. He was wearing a jacket that said, I really don't care, do you?
You know, Melania was at the Mexican border again yesterday visiting the kids. Her jacket said, same shit, different day.
I don't know if she really got the message.
But meanwhile, the president, her husband, announced that he's going to meet with Putin there July 16th in Helsinki, Finland.
Folks are saying he shouldn't sit down with a criminal dictator, but Putin's going to do it anyway.
Trump is expected to bring up Syria and Ukraine, and Putin is expected to laugh and show the P-tape on his phone.
Yeah, they said today Trump plans to question Putin about election meddling. Yeah, I'm sure.
The question will be, will you please do it again?
So,
all right, but there's a couple of bright spots. We have a new rising star.
She's going to be on our show, August 3rd, when we come back. Alexandria Orcasio, or Okasio-Cortez,
28 years old.
Huge upset in the Democratic primary, 28 years old from the Bronx, and calls herself a Democrat socialist, although because of the negative connotation, she's thinking of dropping the Democrat part.
And Barack Obama was here in Beverly Hills yesterday at a big fundraiser, and he had a message. He said, don't mope.
That's how far we've fallen.
We went from hope to don't mope.
And then he said, he said, do not wait for the perfect message. He said, don't wait to feel that tingle in your spine.
And he's right. Voting, it's like married sex.
Just get in there and do it.
All right, we got a great show. Bradley Woodford, Jennifer Rubin, and Lawrence Wilkerson are here.
And a little later, Michael Moore will be out here.
First off, he's the founder and editor-in-chief of the Daily Wire and host of the nationally syndicated Westwood One radio show and podcast, The Ben Shapiro Show. Ben Shapiro.
Ben.
Great to finally meet you. Thank you.
No, no,
I appreciate it. I always say this to conservatives who come on our show.
I'm a little jealous of their guts because they have more guts than the liberals. Liberals don't go on conservative shows.
They don't even come on this show sometimes. So I appreciate it because you know the crowd is not with you.
I got that impression, yeah.
But yeah, we should, but we, and let's be civil, right? That's the tone of the day. I'm a fan.
Okay, so I'm a fan. Well, let's see if I'm a fan.
See if we're each other's fan at the end of this. But I just want to say, we seem to be living in a time of utter tribalism.
And I think you and I have a few things in common besides we were both uninvited at Berkeley, so to speak.
But we've been coy about our affiliation. Like I've never really wanted to say I was a Democrat.
I always voted Democratic, but they disappointed me a lot. You know, you've been coy about it.
You're a Republican, you're a conservative. Sure.
I think right now, I'm a Democrat.
And
there's only two teams.
And since all the Republicans are now backing Trump, except for the ones who are leaving, But he totally owns that party now.
If you're a conservative, aren't you really Team Trump?
Well, it depends on what. So what I've called myself is sometimes Trump.
People have said there's never Trump and then there's always Trump. Sometimes Trump meaning that when he does something that I like, I cheer.
And when he does something that I hate, which happens, then I boo. And I'm booing as loudly as you are when he does something that's really bad.
But listen, you're very upset about this Supreme Court nominee. I am very pleased about this Supreme Court nominee as a conservative.
He's doing a lot of things that I like in terms of policy.
Now, that doesn't mean that I am cheering his character because I think that it is very difficult to cheer Donald Trump's character, nor do I think it's appropriate. Well, what do you like?
Okay, so I like the tax cuts. I like the colours.
I like the tax cuts.
It hurts me, by the way, in California, but I like it as a general policy. Ladies, he's rich.
Okay.
Okay.
But see, I don't even know what the Republican beliefs are. I mean, you're a young guy, but you certainly remember two years back when beliefs were completely the opposite of what they are now.
Which were
free trade, there were giant
giant deficit hawks.
The Tea Party was all about we're going to solve the deficit. Yep.
But they didn't, did they? Well the Democrats ain't gonna do it either, so. I know but they didn't say they were.
Right.
The Tea Party kept saying, we have got to get this deficit down. This motherfucker has ran up a trillion dollars in six months.
What about Russia? They used to be the enemy. What about free trade? I mean, how do you turn on a dime so quickly in a couple of years?
Well, I mean, obviously it's been very frustrating to me to watch so many Republicans do exactly that.
I've been incredibly critical of Republicans who have suddenly become fans of Vladimir Putin or have suddenly become fans of tariffs. I think all of that is idiocy.
But again, I think that with regard to judges, with regard to taxes, with regard to Middle Eastern policy, particularly Iran and Israel, I'm much more of a fan of President Trump than I certainly would have been of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
And by the way, I didn't vote for President Trump in the last election because of my concerns about him. Okay, so you would not vote for a Democrat under any circumstance or some circumstance?
I mean, I would say some circumstance, but the Democratic Party would have have to stop being insane meaning that they would actually have to approach something like moderation in terms of policy and also present a face that doesn't look like people
shouting down people at gas stations or entering restaurants and trying to throw them out.
Okay, well if you're talking about the civility thing, why don't we start with the Republicans stop saying lock her up.
You don't think that's a worse abridgement of civility?
I don't think it's.
I mean, and it's not just lock her up. He talked about locking Comey up.
He talks about locking journalists up. There's a guy who said lock Tim Kaine up.
How about we stop the lock them up?
Shouldn't the civility argument start there before we care about who gets their entree? Well, it isn't just about who gets their entree. It's about who gets harassed in public.
By the way, I'm not going to make excuses for pointing out. Which is more important.
Well, I think that all of it is important. If you're going to ask me, I think we're going to be able to do that.
But it's not funny. We're going to talk at the same time, can't we? But it is not fun.
Can we just say incivility is bad across the board? Yes, but you can't be opposed to the business.
Why is it that we're only opposed when you're a Democrat? You're only opposed to incivility when it's Donald Trump.
But suddenly Maxine walked anti-Maxine. Because Ben, you can't walk into a room and see an elephant and a mouse and not know which one is bigger.
But it's not an elephant and a mouse. It's two.
But it is, really? Yes. Threatening to lock up journey.
I needed 600 officers to protect me at Berkeley. Yes, it's an elephant and an elephant.
Yes, it's an elephant and an elephant.
Joe Biden in 2007. But that didn't come from Mitt Romney, that he's going to put y'all back in chains about black people.
This stuff pre-existed, Donald Trump, but that stuff is terrible.
But that didn't come from the president at Berkeley.
It came from the vice president when he was saying that Mitt Romney, the cleanest person ever, okay, was a guy who was going to put y'all back in chains.
To pretend incivility started with Donald Trump. No, not incivility, but I'm talking about the level to which it's at, where you're through.
I agree with you.
Do you really think Donald Trump respects the rule of law? I mean, if somebody... No, but I think the Constitution itself is a pretty damn durable document, thank God.
I've read your tweets about Kamala Harris. Yeah.
Now, I have some problems with her, too, but you would vote for Trump over her. Yes.
Tell me why.
Okay, so the reason I'd vote for Trump over her is because I agree with him a lot more on policy.
And I actually believe a lot of the damage that he has done to the country in terms of social fabric has already occurred. So I said I didn't vote for him in 2016.
The reason I didn't vote for him in 2016 is because I feared the damage he would do to the social fabric.
And I also didn't think he was going to govern conservative because I didn't see a lot of indicators of that. He's governed a lot more conservative than I thought he was going to.
And as far as the damage to the social fabric, if he's already done it, I'm not actually mitigating against the damage to the social fabric by not voting for him in 2020.
Can I read your, here's something
where we sort of agree, and then I'll show you where we don't. This is, Kamala Harris tweeted, children are our nation's future.
We must listen to them about what they care about and give them a voice in our government. And you wrote, ridiculous.
I'm with you. They're children.
They don't get a voice in.
I think I know what she meant, but it's poorly worded. And you wrote, children should not have a voice in our government.
They're children. And you're right.
This is where the left drives me crazy.
But then you wrote, about children, they are also incapable of fully rational thought, thoroughly uncivilized, and completely driven by by immediate emotional response. I can't think of
a more perfect description of Donald Trump.
So
when you wrote that,
you didn't see the irony when you wrote that tweet and described children that way. It never entered your mind that Donald Trump fit that perfectly?
Well, I don't believe that Donald Trump is a person whose views are leading
in my imagination where the country ought to go. I mean, I don't look to Donald Trump as a thought leader.
I wouldn't look to a child as a thought leader.
I don't look to Donald Trump as a thought leader. What are you talking about? He's the president of the United States.
He's not the thought leader?
Nope. Can he have some thoughts? I don't know, can he? You tell me anything.
I don't know. Well, it seems like his only thoughts to me are to work with Vladimir Putin to make Russia great again.
And what I don't understand. He's been a lot harsher on Putin than Obama was, by the way.
Harsher on Putin? You got... Not in terms of his rhetoric, it's his actions.
He has armed the people of Ukraine with deadly weaponry, which Obama would not do. 200 Russian soldiers were killed in Syria by U.S.
forces under Donald Trump, not under Barack Obama.
It was Barack Obama who was saying to Dmitry Medvedev that he wanted to provide him with flexibility in 2012. Crimea was annexed under Barack Obama.
Wow.
This reminds me of when people, Hitchens, used to come on the show and try to convince me that Saddam Hussein was
a radical Islamist when he was actually a secularist. You have to go a long way to make that argument.
Not in policy.
I mean, he tweeted yesterday defending Putin against what our own agency say, that he said Russia says, again, they didn't meddle in the election.
A lot of crappy stuff. But a lot of what we're doing.
But why have there been 19 indictments and six convictions so far in the Mueller inquiry?
Why so many lies about so many meetings with so many Russians, so many attempts to have back-channel sources? I have a question.
Do you actually think that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin? Yes. Do you
do not?
How can you not?
How can you not? Okay, so
I do not because I watched that campaign. I don't think that Donald Trump could collude with his own left foot.
Well, I don't think he did it, but his son did it.
The people who are Mueller is... And when the evidence comes out, I'm happy to go for the indictments.
I'm fine with the ignorance. Criminal activities, criminal activities.
But you see what you see.
They're not going to say that. But you see Trump serving he didn't do.
But where do you think he's too ignorant to have done it?
Well, he's not too ignorant to be a creator.
He's not too ignorant to be a criminal, man. He's been a criminal his whole life.
But we've seen that.
He's a scam artist. He's a con artist.
I don't know how I turned into the Trump defender here, but is he a doofus or is he an evil genius? You got to pick one.
Okay.
Actually, you don't. You don't have to pick one.
Really? Look, I'm not saying he's like Hitler.
But Hitler was crazy, and he was a genius at what he did, which was lie and manipulate people. So you can be both.
Okay, but let's get back to Russia. Because
I, first of all,
why a nice Jewish boy like you wants to be on Team Treason, I have no idea.
Dude, I'm happy to wait for the Mueller indictments. And if they come down and they target Trump, I'm happy to see him impeached.
But I need to see evidence. What's the evidence?
But you know that the Republican Congress, we saw it this week with Rosenstein at Congress, they are trying to impeach Rosenstein so they can get rid of him so they can so that we don't ever see they don't want us ever to see it.
They know there's something, probably a thousand things in there that are incredibly damning.
You don't think that's if they impeach Rosenstein and yes.
Is that a line for you? I don't know it's the final line because there's still another step that has to happen. Rosenstein has to be replaced by somebody who then fires Mueller.
So if Rosenstein is fired and Mueller is left to his own devices, which is basically, by the way, what happened with this investigation when Comey was fired, then I don't see where the line is.
Mueller is the one who matters here, not Rosa. But Mueller's report goes to the Deputy Attorney General, and if Trump puts Scott Bayo in that position,
he can just throw it in the trash. And if he throws it in the trash or quashes the Mueller investigation, then yes, impeachment should be on the table.
Thank you, Ben.
I want to do it again. I appreciate you coming by.
I know Friday night's a tough one for you. All right, Ben Shapiro, give him the hands.
Let's keep talking. All right, let's meet our panel.
All right, we have to keep talking. Jesus God.
We have to keep talking to each other, right? Okay, he's a distinguished visiting professor at the College of William and Mary and former chief of staff to Colin Powell.
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel, how you doing?
She writes for the Washington Post right-turn blog and is a contributor for MSNBC. Jennifer Rubin, great to see you here.
And you know this guy, the Emmy-Winnie actor, who this Wednesday will join the cast of The Handmaid's Tale and whose latest film, A Happening of Monumental Proportions, opens August 24th.
Bradley Whitford.
Okay.
And before I get to you guys, sorry, a program note. We are off until August 3rd, but not me.
I am doing a stand-up special a week from tomorrow, July 7th, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they just legalize medical marijuana.
Coincidence? I don't think so.
But please tune in for that because I'm going to finally say what I really think.
It's ironic. I always say what I really think.
Okay, so I wish we were on in July because I think it's going to be a very eventful month.
And I also feel like Democrats and liberals are at a low point, and I'd like to be there every night for them. Yes, you look like you're done.
Say something.
What is it?
I just want to say, I think Ben is a classic example of why we are where we are today.
The right, for all their hypocrisy about small government, understands that politics is the way you create your moral vision. We on the left, we think it's culture.
Culture helps, but it doesn't get it done.
They show up. He's doing moral calisthenics over here because he wants the Supreme Court and he wants taxes.
And
we need to project our political purity. And we don't vote the way they do, which is for the consequences of elections.
And that's why we're here, and that can't happen.
Anyone who didn't vote for Hillary.
Anyone who didn't vote for Hillary, which was the only other reasonable choice, the only other possible choice, that looks more and more misguided.
I saw Susan Sarandon, who I love, getting arrested the other day. She's so brave.
But that Jill Stein vote probably doesn't look too good right now.
Listen, it's horrifying for me, who still thinks of herself as a center-right person, to see people like Ben and other people
essentially do the butt-Gorsuch argument. Now we're going to have But Gorsuch and Kavanaugh or somebody terrible.
Everything he does, the racism, the illegality, the corruption, it's all okay because we get the court. That is a betrayal.
It's a fasting bargain. It is.
It is.
And, you know, all he needs is the little devil and the tail.
But I must say, I used to think that
Democrats were so much smarter and tougher. And I finally.
They used to be. That's because they did use to be.
I never thought that.
Now, come on. You didn't think the era of John F.
Kennedy, you don't think Kennedy was...
Republicans, as was just demonstrated there, gymnastically, intellectually, are ruthless. I know.
I served in the administration of the most ruthless Republicans I've ever run into in my life, but I couldn't underestimate them because they were really brilliant at carrying out what they wanted to carry out.
Yeah, I mean, I was mentioning Obama was here yesterday, and I think he was a great president, but I have to say, I think he had one terrible flaw, which is that he went into office thinking if I'm just decent to the Republicans, they will return that favor.
And he should have learned that lesson the first year.
That's not going to happen. Meanwhile,
he was cheating in Ohio. Right.
He should have. Merrick Garland should have been a recess appointment.
He could have done that.
He should have talked about Russia meddling in the election in 2016 while the election was going on. There was too much.
The Republicans are morally responsible for the atrocities that we see on a daily basis, but the Democrats let it happen. They let them eat their lunch.
There is no excuse for why they didn't make the recess appointment. And as far as Russia goes, he has has evidence of Russian meddling.
He knows that Comey is coming out every two seconds to announce that Hillary is under investigation for nothing, as it turned out to be. And he doesn't say anything about Russia.
He doesn't make a big deal. He doesn't lay his cards on the table.
I mean, gosh, I've waited all this time to vote for a Democrat, and they turn out to be a bunch of wimps.
That does wimps.
The mistake was made by letting him become president.
You know, I've seen this in so many thriller movies where the hero, you've probably done movies like this, where the hero says to the civilian who gets mixed up in the whole mess, look, some people will approach you, they'll have suits and badges, they'll look very official, and they'll say, get in the car with us.
Don't ever get in the car. Because once you do that, you have no options, and that's it.
You're dead. And we got in the car.
We've got in the car.
We have to ignore it. Once we're in the car, we don't have any other...
We're not going to win the Supreme Court pick.
I don't know if we're ever going to win another election because I keep saying, and I truly believe he is going to go when he wants to go. And that includes losing the 2020 election.
Well, I'm mildly optimistic, perhaps falsely so, because I do think for once the Democrats have some very good congressional candidates, including your guest who's coming and including Amy McGrath, who was a Navy pilot.
There's a lot of women pilots, if you've noticed, military people, women, who actually have some nerve, who are kind of fresh to the scene.
I'm a little worried about 2020. I think they're going to have to dig up Joe Biden and bring him back before you're going to be able to.
Oh, come on.
Who else do you see who's a person who can get on a stage? Fresh face like Joe Biden. Exactly.
Exactly. People will emerge.
People will emerge. People will emerge.
They never emerged by this time. Trump had not emerged.
Obama had not emerged. Look, we need to acknowledge
Sinclair Lewis said when fascism arrives in America, it will come wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross. And that is what is going on.
Trump literally hugs the flag. Yeah, he's humping it.
He's assaulted it. I know.
It's like it's like me too from the flags. Yeah, the flags.
Me too.
But there's a,
I think what Ocasio-Cortez, there is an opportunity here because the Republicans, I never thought they had it, apologies, but they have completely ceded the moral high ground.
She has said that there is no reason to apologize for morality in 2018. And I think there was an opening, and we cannot afford despair.
My children cannot afford
despair. And Democrats, as
frustrated as we are, need to rise up. This is the most important election in the history of the country.
Explain to me then why Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer spent two days arguing about a restaurant that should be serving. Well, add Stanny Boyer and you've got the problem.
Oh, I mean, it was in Cosmo Henry.
Can I read what Arnie Duncan, who was the Secretary of Education under Obama, said about Sarah Huckabee Sanders not being served at the restaurant?
He said, the history in our country of denying people access to restaurants, to water fountains, and even bathrooms is too raw, too real.
Okay, so Sarah Sanders is Rosa Parks.
I mean,
they are just ridiculous. He was the Secretary of Education.
Education?
That is the problem. Let me read another one.
This is Senator Ben Cardin talking about who Trump needs to pick for the Supreme Court.
Now, first of all, I want to say this bullshit about Anthony Kennedy being the swing voter, he was a hard-right conservative. He wrote Citizens United.
Here we are. Bush
was president because of him. Bush versus Gore, he ruled for Bush.
Gutted the Voting Rights Act. Yes, Citizens United, he wrote, so we have unlimited campaign money.
Against Obamacare, wanted to get rid of that. Guns as an individual right.
That's his legacy. He also, yes, was with the liberals on abortion and gay marriage.
He was in the Army, maybe something happened. I don't know.
The idea that he's a moderate is misnomer. He's like a ping-pong ball in a windchamber.
Once in a while, he lands on the side of the side. Once in a while.
So, and this term, he didn't land on the side of the four liberals once.
How does this guy give up his seat when the guy who's going to choose his successor is
involved, it appears, or could be,
in
colluding with Russia. How is that possible
and obstructing justice? And the Supreme Court may very well rule on that. And humping flags and stuff.
Okay.
So Ben Cardin, I was going to say, he says he's a Democratic senator. He called on the president to pick someone who can garner broad support in the United States.
Like, what year is this?
A person in the mainstream, in the tradition of Justice Kennedy, they are just always fighting the last war. They just don't get it, that this is a whole new world we live in.
And these are the people, I'm sorry, you have to go. If anything, what's her name?
I can't. Sorry, I have to get used to it.
Ocasio-Cortez.
Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you, sir.
Ocasio, Ms. Orkezio,
shows, is that
People
People don't, I think, see Democrat and Republic anymore, especially the ones under 40.
They looked at her and they said, wow, she's smart, she uses social media, she's talking about things we care about. This guy didn't even show up and debate her.
He was going to be the next Speaker of the House. But they just saw old, tired, retread.
Let's get something new, some people who think new.
And I think you're right. Women are going to take back this party.
She ran a brilliant campaign. The ad that she had of her in her daily life changing her shoes at the subway station, feeding the kids, putting the makeup on.
That's what people want.
They don't read a white paper. They don't read a list of talking points.
We can't pay for that because it's too much.
And it gets too granular. She just came out and said, this guy doesn't send his kids to the same schools your kids do.
How powerful is that? And she wasn't afraid to attack them on moral grounds.
And we are often afraid to, and I think we lose a lot of our power
in even talking about climate change that that there is a moral obligation to do this there is a moral obligation for people to have access to health care there is a moral obligation not to sell out
to okay
all right so we are taking our little summer break and whenever we do this we're going to be off for a month people depend on us for the news so we give you the future headlines
the ones you can count on to see in the month of July they are for example oh look the little graphic.
Sarah Palin, still not employed. These are...
Sarah Huckabee Sanders leaves White House to open restaurant that will serve her.
Post admits grape nuts and kitty litter are same thing. Yeah, that's.
These are future.
Lane Bryan admits its stripper name is TJ Max. I always thought that.
Martin Sheen begs border control, please separate me from my child.
Melania denies significance of handmaid's tail habit and cowl. Wow, that.
Comet destroys Asia. White people on Facebook still talking about Anthony Bourdain.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, seen in 7-Eleven parking lot, bribing teenagers to buy beer.
Obama finally breaks silence on Trump. This motherfucker's crazy.
All right, he is the best-selling author, Oscar Ritter. His new film is Fahrenheit 11-9.
He is the tribune of the people that will be in theaters September 21st. Michael Moore.
Michael Moore.
you?
You know the battle? Okay.
Okay.
Michael Moore, look at you with a standing ovation.
All right. I'll do that for you every time I see you.
Somebody tell me you had a Hail Mary solution to this Supreme Court pick. You think it's not a done deal?
Well, I don't think we should give up on the fact, listen, the Senate right now is 51, 49. Right.
Sadly, McCain will not be able to vote, so it's a 50-49 vote. Right.
Come on.
Come on. I know we have to, right, we've got to push it off till after November.
And I don't trust every Democrat. And no, we have to hold the Democratic seats we have.
But look, 90% of incumbents are always returned. I mean, so that should, we should, the Democrats in Montana, North Dakota,
West Virginia, they've got to do their job. They'll do their job.
Our job is to win Nevada, Arizona, and Tennessee and they can all be won. But the vote's going to take place before that.
The city.
No? No.
No, the idea is, no,
we first have to find ways to stop that vote from happening. Find ways? What does that mean?
Well,
I'll join a million other people surrounding the United States Capitol. I will stand there.
I will put my...
This, I will put the bill. Let me tell you something.
This judge goes through for the rest of at least, well, all of our lives, it's a right-wing
court. That's it.
It's over. Combined with the White House and the Congress.
Well,
yes. And if this is the last American president,
then. Okay, all right.
Well, I mean, you're the guy who kind of invented. There's two other possibilities, too, at least for Murkowski and the senator for Maine, Collins.
Yeah,
so I'm not going to pretend on any of that. Yeah, we tried that with the campaign.
The people in Nevada,
they've got an incredible Democratic congresswoman who's running for Senate. They've already voted for her.
They love her.
Arizona, an incredible Democratic congresswoman already elected by the people of Arizona, running.
Where they've got two Republican senators who want to stop Trump, McCain and
so you're saying. And then you've got the beloved Democratic governor in Tennessee
who is running for the Senate. Why can't we do this? Because the Republicans control the Senate and Mitch McCullough is going to call a vote before the election.
I know, and I know, and he's going to
No, no, what are we going to do? No, we can't just. You know, they don't think like that.
They don't think like that.
They do magical thinking and they go, uh uh fertilize egg as a human being.
Yeah, I fertilize egg as a human being.
And they say it over and over, and they've got millions behind them. When are we going to start talking like that? Talking is one thing.
Stopping.
We have to put the same pressure on Murkowski and Collins connected to the health care issue, which was politically
inspiring to me.
First of all, what are you doing on the Handmaid's Tail? You already scared the shit out of us and Ghetto.
Now you're going to Handmaid's Tail from Ghetto.
Can I just
get a plug for the Handmaid's Tail? Yeah.
I have nothing to do with this show. I have nothing to do with this.
No, you can't. This is HBO.
Fuck streaming. Go, go.
We are living the handmaid's tail. Yeah, yeah, great.
We are living till the show.
You've got to watch the show. You don't watch the show.
You should live. I only watch HBO.
Okay.
Where my special is on a week from Sunday. By the way, please watch Bill's special.
Oh, shut up. Okay.
So, we just lost the court.
That's not what's important. No, but seriously.
But here, can I just make a serious point? Yes.
In the handmaid's tale. Oh, geez.
The best part, Bill, let me just tell you this. This is a serious point.
The best part of the show are the flashbacks where she tries to figure out where was the point when it was too late. Right.
Where was it?
I get it. Where was the point where if we had all just risen up? Right.
If we'd just done something, but because it happens in little infants. That's right.
That's how fascism works.
That's how fascism works. They do it in little.
And listen, we have a president. We lose one norm a week.
We have a president who, by the way, was not elected by the people and constantly refers to himself,
constantly
referring to himself in the third Reich.
And
it's
no, you and I were on this page before anybody else that he was serious about running and that he absolutely could won and probably would. Four months ago.
Maybe they will listen to us to the next step. No, well, they didn't listen before.
They're not going.
No, listen, but seriously, they have to listen. They have to, you,
people, where are you?
You have to listen. You have to listen this time because
he is going to win the 2020 election. Even if he doesn't, he's not going to leave.
And he's not, that's, well, I don't think that's the first time. That's what you have to understand.
He doesn't leave after the second term, if he doesn't have to, and nobody stops him. This man believes in being president for life.
Yes. He said a few weeks ago, Roosevelt got four terms.
Why can't I?
Yes. Go down the hole.
He loves President G, President Kim,
for life. He loves the dictators, baby.
He loves the dictators. And
I'm telling you, my friends, if we don't stop it now, you'll look back at the show where we were all goofing around talking about the handmaid's tail. But this is the moment.
The moment
that he said that he was going to appoint someone to the Supreme Court, and we know this is the person, as you said earlier,
talking about
we talked about his fucking show for five minutes.
The handmade stale.
So my movie, I'm in.
I'm finishing my movie and getting it out before the midterms because I want millions of people to get to the polls.
And when you
see this.
I'm.
We're going to bring Trump down.
Good luck with that. Anyway,
I'm saying we have to try. But let's get realistic and not just be the people who are like screaming, how dare you? You know, it's got to be very focused.
Let me make a suggestion.
Instead of circling the capital with a million people, take the million people to Maine and go to LL Bean and tell them in Maine, you need to leave Maine unless Susan Collins votes the right way.
That's how you play hardball. You do it smart.
You go to Alaska. You say, you know what, all those Alaskan crews, we're going to start boycotting Alaskan cruises if your senator votes the right way.
Did you say I had a dumb idea? No, no.
I don't think so. You start really playing hardball, but you do it right.
You don't just like circle it. It's like when the airlines a couple of weeks ago said we're not going to go to the bottom.
We're going to get to a point, my friends, where we're going to have to circle Washington. We're all going to have to go there.
Maybe. I'm sorry to say it.
We could stop that now if we all rise up now. But I'm telling you, I am not, I'm sorry, Bill, I am not going to participate in providing hope.
for people.
Anybody who's hanging on hope, that implies there's no sense of urgency. This is not about somewhere over the rainbow.
Optimism is dangerous. Optimism is very dangerous.
This is not about warm and fuzzy now. This is about all of us coming together to stop this madness and stop it now.
And I don't want this interview being replayed five years from now on season seven of The Handmaid's Tale.
Let's talk Turkey.
Because it's actually related to this. There was sort of an election in Turkey.
And this guy in in Turkey, he's like the Turkish Trump, this Erdogan guy.
And
it's apropos to what you were saying about how fascism comes in slowly. He's been there 15 years, and the parliament basically has no power now.
He does throw journalists in jail and political opponents. It can happen here.
This country could become basically what Turkey is, an ex-democracy, where the guy wears a suit.
He was elected to begin with, but it's not really a democracy.
And we don't really have to.
Europe. It's happening in Poland.
The German fascist party is now at 25, 30 percent. It is happening all over Europe.
We thought that those were our democratic allies.
First of all, they realize they have no friend in America these days. But secondly, you see it in country after country.
These were democracies.
And now they have the name of democracy, but they have thugs, they beat up people in the street, they imprison journalists, they take the independence of the courts away. Does it sound familiar?
Yeah, we always see it.
Excuse me. Do you think this is appeasement?
Look at what happens when he meets with Putin.
No, I think we need to have a meeting. We're getting very, very close to developing doctrine the Russians already have.
We're working on it.
And the missiles, nuclear tip missiles, to accompany that doctrine. And we're getting back to a point where we could actually find ourselves contemplating nuclear war.
But why have a meeting with someone who attacked us in 2016? But you need to talk to your enemies.
Talk to your enemies.
But without preconditions? I mean, really? Would we have had just a friend? We don't need any preconditions at all.
I'm not saying I'm in favor of this particular president talking
about ruler in Moscow.
We need to talk. All our intelligence agencies said that Russia attacked us in 2016.
Yes, it was cyber. It wasn't with armaments.
Well, but it was still.
Russia did no more than we have done to any number of countries since 1947
and the creation of the United States. But it doesn't make it right.
It doesn't make make it. It's still up.
That's true. That's very true.
I'm sorry, but I'm on our team.
It doesn't make it something that should stop a meeting between two leaders who own more nuclear weapons than everybody else in the world combined and who are getting closer and closer to the United States.
I can only imagine what the Republicans would say if a Democratic president was meeting with the Russian leader after being attacked and having all our agencies say it wasn't.
What would they say if Obama had met with North Korea's dictator with the flags and the kissing and the wonderful gods.
It's Trump. No, I'm saying it's
because it's Russia. Well, you're saying it because it's Trump.
No, you're saying it because it's Trump because of what Trump has done.
Trump has been a money launderer. Trump said,
what, 10 days ago?
I have two journalists in my family. President of the United States went out and said that journalists are the enemy of the people.
Are you fucking kidding me? It's not because it's Trump.
Erdogan means the same thing.
I know, but we're trying to not become Erdogan. You're making me a defender of Trump.
No, I don't like that.
But like I said, there's only two sides now. There's really only two.
We're on the verge right now of losing the INF treaty, the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty.
We're on the verge of going back to a situation like that we had at the worst part of the Cold War with the USSR. We have to start talking.
Maybe Trump will go there and make a fool of himself.
I give it a 50-50 chance.
He's going to be meeting not with a savvy North Korean, he's going to be meeting with probably the chess master of the world, Fradme Putin.
The only reason for Trump to meet with him is to give him more stuff. Of course.
He's coming like with the little money bags, and he's going to put it on Putin's desk, and it's going to be Ukraine.
It's going to be the Baltics. It's going to be, I don't like NATO, I don't like the EU.
So if he does that, Jim Mattis is going to walk out, and then we can all get really worried.
Yeah, I'm really worried. He's not going to Helsinki on 16 July and do anything like that.
If he does, his Secretary of Defense is going to say goodbye, Mr. President.
What do you think he cares? You think Trump cares who walks out the door? He's gotten rid of everybody so far.
Kelly's about to go. How are we going to know? They're going to be in the room together.
It's a scenario in the coal mining. At least we can get more concerned.
But we already got, I mean, there was, I never thought I'd be at that place where I thought, oh, my God, if only the guy from Exxon was still there.
But,
you know, why can't they get someone from Chevron to talk sense to Donald Trump?
He's gone, and McMaster's gone. They're all gone.
Trump is an egomaniac. He thinks he can do it all himself.
And why not? He's winning.
His disapproval rating is 51.3%. Disapproval.
That means half the country approves of Donald Trump. Well, you just put your finger on one of our biggest problems.
We're 50-50 right now.
On any key issue, we're 50-50. And you can't be a democracy and you can't rule with your favorite.
But that's wrong.
but we're actually 60-40 or 70-30 but one side doesn't get out and vote well I mean if you look at right if you look at all these issues
I'm talking about critical it critical issues no but even on those issues 67% of people do not want to repeal Roe v. Wade
70% of people are pro a DACA solution 60 to 70% of the people do not want a wall again and again the problem is one side does not vote
if you don't show up
the other side will Or no. They don't vote or they don't even know about these issues or what side the person is on.
I mean, Harley-Davidson, this is your issue. Your whole life was saving jobs.
Somehow Donald Trump has stolen your issue.
But he's not really delivering. I mean, how does he keep the Harley-Davidson people on his side when he's losing them jobs? Well, he won't.
People will.
Listen, the Harley-Davidson people and the people in Michigan, the states that Hillary lost, they wanted to throw a Molotov cocktail into a system that had hurt them.
They are not Trump lovers,
and Jennifer's right, they have to get out and vote. But this is the beauty and the genius of Trump and why you have to step back for a second and admire him the way Patton admired Rommel.
That Trump, Trump, when he says he's going to do something, he's going to do it. And he is relentless.
Even though he did what he did this week with the children in the cages, but he's still going to have the internment camps. He's never going to give up on this, never going to give up on the wall.
They are never going to stop. And we never act like that on any of the things that we say we believe in.
They are relentless. They are motherfuckers to the core, and we are like,
that's how we are.
He reminds me a lot of Dick Cheney. He's not as smart as Dick Cheney, but he's relentless.
He's ruthless. He's going to live as long.
He doesn't doesn't back down.
And here's some more bad news, as long as we're having a horrible week. Millennials.
With support among millennials, is tanking for the Democrats. White male millennials are now fully on board the Trump campaign.
These are the young people.
We always say, let's get the young people out to vote. Well, maybe we shouldn't be wishing for that because they might not be voting for the candidate we would like them to.
How about this?
31% of likely voters in the Rasmussen survey say it's likely in the next five years America will have a second civil war.
Well, first of all, Rasmussen is like Kool-Aid drinking. You know, they have monkeys, you know, calling people on the phone, and it's nonsense.
But
aside from that,
this is not nonsense. I heard Oprah do a focus group on 60 minutes.
Oprah, that's not Raspusson. We're supposed to like Oprah.
Okay.
She did a focus group on 60 Minutes. Everyone in the focus group said this, that they thought a civil war was coming.
What does that look like?
Read Ron Chernell's book, Grant. Right.
And you read that book, and you find two periods in there that are stunningly like today, the period 1850 to 1860, and then the period when Grant, as the commander of all the armed forces in the United States, had to defy his president and act unconstitutionally in order to keep the results of the war and the million dead alive.
Grant actually acted outside the Constitution. He sent Sherman and Sheridan to stop the killings in New Orleans and Charleston and other places when Johnson wanted them to go on.
Johnson wanted to give the slaves back to the South. Johnson wanted to repudiate the whole war.
We're in a period not unlike that today. I think it's as serious as Michael pointed out.
It's very serious. We're in a period where...
Also, Bill, you've said this week after week. Fascism is at the doorstep.
We are slow-moving coup.
People are afraid to use the word, but I think that we've got to be very serious about this. I mean, when those,
No, I was just saying that the,
you know, fascism, FDR and Churchill defeated fascism. One of those people was in a wheelchair, and the other one was a drunkard,
to be kind.
And he was sober in the morning. Yeah, but see, but the point is,
if they defeated fascism, Look what we've got. We've got a country, as Jennifer said, where the vast majority believe in women's rights, environmental stuff.
Don't put people in jail for using drugs.
All of that stuff, the majority are with us. We are the majority.
Why don't we start acting like we're the majority? Why don't we start? Because we already got in the car. That's my problem.
That's the problem, is it? Because now you can't get back to court.
Look, what we're facing is desperate, but it does not compare, for example, to the systemic repression and the walls to liberty and violence that the civil rights leaders face. That's right.
And we can,
the moral arc, you know, bends toward justice was said by a man who was saying it humbly. People made it bend.
They bent in. You have to make it happen.
You don't get a democracy.
You got to make it every day. And we can't give into this place.
That's right. And so tomorrow, there's 750 demonstrations across the country tomorrow.
750 demonstrations.
Anybody who says, I've got to get the kids to soccer practice, I can't go, I've got to do this or that. Martin Luther King, he had four children.
Every time he went out, from the time he was 26 years old, that's when the Montgomery bus boycott was, 26 years old, till he died at 39.
And he went out and he knew that he may not make it back. And those four children would not have a father.
What are we willing to commit to? What would you give your life for? What would you be willing to actually put yourself on the line for? That moment is now.
We are going to lose our democracy if we haven't already. We have no choice, my friends.
We We all have to rise up. New rules.
Please.
New rules.
Appropriate. Still got a show to do.
We're still on the air.
Okay. New rule, this 4th of July, don't take smartphone video of the fireworks.
You're never going to watch it. If you do take video, put another phone in front of your phone.
So when you watch the video, you can relive it in the same stupid way you saw it that night.
That's what the importance.
New world, journalists reporting on the recall of 228,000 pounds of spam due to metal objects in the food?
Have to define food.
Let's be honest, the most dangerous metal object you can find in your spam is a fork.
New world, everyone can stop spelling ambulance backwards. And all the times I've seen one behind me, I never thought, hey what's that ek the lubma making so much noise
new rule online stories have to stop sending me emails that say we miss you I needed a filter for my air conditioner it doesn't mean we're having a relationship
in fact I'm not even sure I want to order from you again because you're so clingy
And frankly, I'm beginning to suspect you only want me for my money.
New rule, now that Facebook has announced they're launching a dating feature, don't.
Nobody wants to be on a dating site with their parents.
Plus, they already have a dating site for people who are related. FarmersOnly.com.
And finally, New Rule, someone must design a stylish tick collar for humans humans
because Lyme disease is becoming alarmingly common and this is one disease you do not want to get.
Symptoms range from fatigue to confusion to learning problems, what doctors call the full Johnny Depp.
And a new CDC study tells us that this summer is going to be great for ticks. which are still mostly mysterious to Americans.
So let me explain ticks in terms my politically savvy audience can appreciate. Like, Rudy Giuliani, they latch on, suck blood, and sicken everyone around them.
Like Trump, they're very hard to remove.
Like Chris Christie, they gorge themselves until they nearly explode.
And like Stephen Miller, they just make you want to squeeze their head until it pops.
Kidding, Kidding, civility.
And ticks are not actually insects, they're tiny arachids more closely related to spiders or Jeff Sessions.
And they're very, very tough. Simply removing one requires a magnifying glass and tweezers, like when Stormy gives Trump a hand job.
And I hate to tell you, it's not just ticks anymore. Mosquitoes are in more places and can carry the Zika virus, yellow fever, West Nile, malaria.
You know, 30 years ago, this wasn't a problem because we had this powerful pesticide called winter.
Yeah, global warming isn't just about souped-up hurricanes and year-long fire seasons and inundated cities.
Rising temperatures have caused the creepy crawly population to breed out of control because their season is longer and their range now is further.
What used to live in the tropics is now coming north. Forget the border wall.
We need a border net.
These are the migrants we should be worried about.
And
all of this made me think about a piece I read a few months ago in the failing New York Times.
which made a point I thought deserved amplification.
Author Pagan Kennedy said, when it comes to staying healthy, it's the decisions we make as a collective that matter more than any choice we make on our own.
In other words, no matter how much you do for yourself, how right you eat, if the air is full of lead and the bug populations are out of control and your city is underwater, it doesn't matter.
You can eat kale till it comes out your ears.
You can stay hydrated, slather on, sunscreen, steam your vagina, eat your placenta.
Work at a standing desk and put a healing crystal up your ass, but
there is no escaping the environment we all live in. In Los Angeles, hardly anyone smokes anymore, but we are all still breathing this.
You hear it all the time in this town. I eat paleo.
I eat organic. I do a juice cleanse.
Ten days are nothing but cayenne and papaya.
Okay, but aren't we expecting a little too much from the papaya?
Poor papaya is like, isn't it enough? I'm delicious. Now I got to clean your colon too?
In the 1970s, when America passed a law to get the lead out of gasoline, the lead levels in our blood dropped by more than 80%.
In the 80s, when fluorocarbons were destroying the ozone layer, we banned them and the hole closed up. But that was back when Scientific American was the name of a magazine.
Now it's a contradiction in terms.
This battle will not be won in the checkout line at Whole Foods. To address a problem of this scale, we need governments, preferably ones that don't employ Scott Pruitt.
The Times article pointed out that the grave is littered with health food pioneers who didn't even live to the average lifespan.
Yule Gibbons swore he'd live forever thanks to a diet of wild plants, and now he is a diet for wild plants, dead at 64.
Adele Davis was so ahead of her time in saying we should avoid starchy foods like white bread. Ironically, is toast.
Dead at 7.
Nathan Pritikin of the Pritikin Diet, dead at 69. Clive McKay thought the path to living past 100 with severe caloric restriction, dead at 69.
Last words, I'm fucking starving.
Michelle Montagnac sold 17 million copies of Eat Yourself Slim and died at 66 just before finishing his next book, Drink Yourself Erect.
Jim Fix wrote the complete book of running, which his heart stopped doing at 52, dead while running.
Meanwhile, David Crosby is fine.
I don't know the secret to a long, healthy life, although I sure hope Ruth Bader Ginsburg does.
July 7th, what's my special? I'll be at the Dark Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on the 14th and Mirage in Vegas, July 20th and 21st.
I want to thank Lawrence Wilkerson, Jennifer Rubin, Bradley Woodford, Michael Moore, and Ben Shapiro. Join us now for overtime on YouTube.
See you August 3rd. Thank you, folks.
I mean, July 7th.
Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10 or watch him anytime on HBO On Demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com.