Ep. #455: Geraldo Rivera, Louie Anderson

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

Okay.

All right, all right, huh.

Thank you very much.

Oh, I first crowded.

It's so hot here.

I don't know why you're fired.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, please.

Oh, what a crowd.

But we got such a big show.

There's so much news to get to.

Okay.

Shut up.

Look, we got to get to the news.

There's some people out there watching.

I don't want to think it's just us, but

here there's some finally good news.

Finally, America is retaliating.

They did this today against Russia, for real.

Where it hurts with the money, with the money.

We put sanctions.

Put sanctions on the biggest Russian oligarchs.

But you know what?

How come when it's a rich creep in Russia, they're an oligarch.

But in America, you're just a visionary.

You founded Facebook.

You know what?

Oh, I kid.

Oh, the tech company.

Did you see what happened at YouTube this week?

I mean, yes, ooh, a woman who was very disgruntled about how YouTube was handling her videos went in there with a gun.

Fortunately, nobody was killed.

But it was weird.

And before she started shooting there, everybody had to watch an ad.

Terrible, terrible, terrible.

But no.

The great news, everybody, is that Donald Trump finally is unfettered.

You know, he fired like all of his original cabinet, so he's got some great new ideas of his own.

Yeah, he's just riffing now.

Like this week, troops at the border.

Great.

Yeah, we're putting National Guard troops at the border.

Even though border arrests from Mexico are at their lowest level since 1971.

Somebody used to tell him, to have a Mexican standoff, you need Mexicans.

And

this is despite his own people telling him that using technology instead of a wall would be cheaper and more efficient.

And he said, if I wanted cheaper and more efficient, I'd let the Mexicans in.

but you know people are saying why now

why now why suddenly now troops at the border well for the same reason everything happens in this country now because the president United States saw something on Fox News

they were showing some fear porn

about a caravan.

Did you hear that?

A caravan

is coming up from Central America, migrants heading north through Mexico.

That's why now.

Because he watches Fox News all day.

If he watched the prices right,

we'd be sending troops to San Francisco to confront Rice-A-Roni.

No wonder this stock market is going up and down every day and tanking and then coming back and going back down because no one knows what the fuck is happening anymore.

We're building a wall, or maybe not.

We're having a trade war with China, or maybe not.

We're getting out of Syria, or maybe not.

Yeah, the president, this president, who has constantly said all the time, never tell the enemy what you're doing, that's stupid, this week announced we're pulling out of Syria.

Well, come on, we're going to need those troops for the upcoming invasion of Amazon.

You saw this?

I told you he's got a lot of ideas.

Yeah, he's got a big feud with, oh, he hates Amazon.

He is mad at Amazon.

He says, Amazon is using the post office as a delivery system.

The mail is not for Amazon to use.

The mail is for coupons I don't want and ads for things I'll never buy that I throw away immediately.

That's what the post office is for.

This guy,

he hates China for making everything we buy.

He hates Amazon for delivering it, and he hates Mexico for dusting it.

No,

he's turned around.

He loved Amazon back when they delivered Melania for two-day free shipping.

No, no, that's, I'm sorry.

Poor Melania.

Come on.

Poor Melania.

She has to listen every day to all this Stormy Daniels news.

Here's what I want to know.

How come Stormy got paid $130,000 to shut up and Melania is the one who won't talk?

Talk, Melania.

Speak your truth, girl.

Be unfettered like your husband.

He's unfettered now.

He's throwing away the script.

He's turning it up to 11.

He's off the chain.

People are so excited on the right.

This week, did you see this yesterday?

He literally, literally, threw away the script.

He was in West Virginia, supposed to be talking about taxes.

This is what he did.

This is for this prepared remarks.

You know, this was going to be my remarks.

It would have taken about two minutes, but

that is so rude.

I mean, Fox and friends worked hard on that.

Boring.

Boring.

Who needs policy experts to pull information out of when I have an ass?

Oh, but that's just that's just when the fun started when he threw the paper in there because then he was free to riff, unfettered.

So he started to go over his greatest hits.

Did you see this?

Talking again about how millions voted illegally in 2016.

That's right, Donald.

If it weren't for fraud, you'd have won California.

You're as popular out here as bumper-to-bumper traffic caused by a mudslide caused by fracking.

But you would have won California.

And then my favorite.

He said his polling is almost at 60%, his approval rate.

60%?

This is what he said.

Quote, he said, a poll just came out from Rasmussen, that's the conservative group, but okay, a poll came out from Rasmussen.

It's now 51, they say, but it's 51, but you got to add seven or eight to that.

You know, like you do with your penis.

All right, we got a great show.

Elliot Spitzer, Heather McGee, and Max Buda are here, and a little later I'll be speaking with Louis Anderson, my old friend.

First up, he's a Peabody Award-winning Fox News correspondent at large and author of The Geraldo Show, a memoir.

Heraldo Rivera.

Hey,

how are you?

Good to see you.

Been a while.

Yeah, great.

In the same stage.

Yes, yes.

Well, we shared a stage in 1994.

Do you remember that?

Gary Shandling.

That's Gary Shandling.

Was he on the show?

Well, there were thousands of people.

Oh, we shared the same stage, my show and yours.

Yes, yeah.

But when I did your show, Gary Shandling was a guest.

Oh, a hook the fuck could remember that.

I had millions of guests I could never remember.

But so, your book, very interesting.

And I know, look, I remember you from Willowbrook.

I remember when, yeah, I mean,

you were one of the original crusading reporters, and you care very much about your legacy being as a journalist.

So I do have to ask, why Fox News?

Well, that's a fair question.

I think that your characterization of Fox is a stereotype, with all due respect.

I'm pro-choice, I'm pro-immigration reform, I'm pro-gun control, and I'm on Fox News.

It's easy, because Sean Hennedy, for instance, is such a big personality to say that he represents a sum total of Fox.

But I think that

with due respect, that there are more voices, it's not state-run TV, it has a conservative leaning.

Well, come on.

MSNBC is as liberal and progressive as you could possibly be, except for this show.

But

we're at HBO.

But there is a big difference between MSNBC and Fox News.

I mean, MSNBC sticks to the truth.

They don't make things up.

I mean, Trump, there's a loop going on between Trump and Fox News.

Would you admit to that?

That he watches Fox.

I mean, what does he do all morning?

He doesn't come down to work till 11.

He's there doing his hair,

watching Fox and Friends.

And then he quotes from Fox and Friends.

Our policy seems to be coming from Fox and Friends.

And then he'll say something crazy, and then they will back it up.

I'm still stuck on your saying MSNBC is the truth.

No, I'm saying they don't make things up.

Russia collusion.

Where's the collusion?

Well, that's what we're in.

It's an illusion.

First of all, that's what the investigation is about, and the report isn't in yet.

So you can't say...

It's 14, 15 months.

I mean, at what point is the reason why if the report that the When the Report comes out, come on, Geraldo, you know that.

When the report comes out.

I'm not saying

it's definitely collusion, but you can't say it's an illusion until the report comes out.

Would you agree to that?

I say that anyone who views the witnesses who have been interviewed, the indictments that have come down, the scope of the investigation so far has to come to the conclusion.

Everybody in this administration

has been talking to Russia.

Are you kidding me?

You would blame them if they had Russian dressing on their salad.

But

see this is what I don't get is I mean I remember thinking of you as a crusading reporter who was fighting against the spin.

I feel like now you are the spin.

That's so bull.

That's really so.

Why is that bull?

You really don't see a Russian connection with the Trump.

I absolutely do not.

Where is the connection?

Give me one, what's your best evidence of collusion?

The Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr., where they said there was no Russians.

Oh, wait, there was one, there was three, there was five, there was eight.

That meeting, which is the one that everyone talks about, was so bland and benign and stupid.

Well, you don't know.

You weren't there.

You only know what they lie about it.

You asked me about Fox News.

Let me tell you how I got to Fox News.

I got to Fox News because I'm a native New Yorker.

9-11 happened, and 3,000 of my friends and neighbors were killed.

I had a cushy job at CNBC, the number one rated show on that network, Rivera Live.

I said, send me to war.

These sons of bitches killed all these people.

Six dads in my children's grade school were killed that day.

NBC said, We're not going to send you to war because your show is too important.

We've got plenty of war correspondents.

I said, I quit.

So I walked away from a $5 million payroll.

I took 40% of that to work as a war correspondent for Fox.

From November of 2001 until 2012, basically that was my job.

I was a war, 11 extended extended assignments in Afghanistan, 11 in Iraq, Somalia, every shithole on earth.

I went there and covered for Fox.

I never got any bad vibes when I was doing that.

The war petered out.

It didn't end.

Afghanistan is still continuing.

We saw what happened with ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

So I started doing more commentary, and then now I get tarred with the brush, oh, I'm state TV or whatever.

I'm not.

No, you you accuse me of being the spin and I find that it's all right if you okay if you don't see a connection between Russia and the Trump organization I'm sorry about I know I know but I bet you a thousand dollars okay

I'll take it okay

but

so I mean where Fox News where a lot of their correspondence is is that Trump is clean and Mueller is dirty

that's what they're they're saying.

Mueller is dirty.

That is what you see on a lot of Fox News.

The appendage is shows in the evening.

I agree.

But Shep Smith in the daytime, Bill Hemmer, those are news guys.

They're straight news guys.

Okay, Red Bear and Wilder.

I'm talking about the shows in the evening that people watch.

Yeah.

Yeah, those shows.

They watch the current.

Or the ones in the morning that Trump watches.

Well,

I'm on Fox France twice a week.

Okay, but at some point it's going to have to come to that.

Is Trump dirty or is Mueller dirty?

Where would you say on that one?

You think Mueller's dirty?

I can't, I don't want to

speculate that.

I don't remember what I'm saying.

But Trump, I mean, like,

I think you don't think this is a sleazy crime family.

Sleazy and crime aren't necessarily the same thing.

No, they're both.

You know Trump is my friend.

I've known Trump for 40 years.

I don't have a problem.

I don't have.

He didn't.

So did Trump.

So did Trump.

I interviewed Trump.

He didn't remain my friend when I felt he had a certain moral lapse.

Well,

in my family, my wife agrees with you.

She doesn't like his policies on so many things that I already listed, so she just can't stand the guy.

I'm different.

I can separate the man who's always been gracious to me, always been nice to my family.

You know, we were on Celebrity Apprentice together every day for six weeks.

I've known him really throughout the shit.

He's running the world.

What does that matter that he was nice to you at Thanksgiving?

I'm not trying to be an asshole to you.

You're a smart guy.

This befuddles me.

I looked up to you.

You know, if you don't look up to me because I'm still friends with the President of the United States, then shame on you.

I don't look up to you because the President of the United States is doing that.

Doing the things that he's doing.

Who liberated the developmentally disabled?

I mean, seriously, who stood shoulder to shoulder with the GIs in all of those places?

My friendship with Trump doesn't diminish me.

You know, if he's got problems, you've got problems with him.

Okay.

What do you think about Stormy Daniels?

I'm just, no, here's what I want,

not the infidelity, because other presidents have done infidelity.

She says that somebody from the Trump organization threatened her.

Now, we're not saying they did, they would have done her.

And the New York Times ran a headline that said

adult film star

daughter

threatened by Trump.

That was the headline, something like that.

There was no allegedly threatened, no supposedly threatened.

Trump gets the worst press of any president since Andrew Johnson in the 19th century.

He does.

Well, I mean, everything is...

Because he's not just the worst evil way possible.

Everything is, I mean, like right now, African-American unemployment's at record lows.

Latino unemployment's at record lows.

The economy is humming.

People are 4.1%.

But that happened mostly under Obama.

You know that to be true.

It doesn't work that way.

It doesn't work that way.

He's had, yes, you're right.

Facts don't work that way on Fox.

But that's what the facts are all about.

He's had 14 months of a thriving economy.

But when did the recovery start?

Who was responsible for turning the economy from where it was to where it is?

He continued it.

You showed him throwing away away his script in West Virginia.

When I talk to him, I say, emphasize the things that you share in common with most people.

It's the economy, stupid.

If you remember the West Virginia event yesterday, there's a woman who stands up and says, those tax cuts gave me $2,000 extra in my family's coffers.

$2,000.

What Trump should have done, and what I would counsel him to do, is say, yes, and I want to do more of that.

I want to help a rising tide lift all boats.

We're going to make this country work for everybody using Republican

capitalist kinds of principles.

We're going to do that.

Instead, he goes off on immigrants and he does things that are very visceral.

He's very tempestuous.

His tweets suck.

I wish I could be his tweet editor.

But I think to

when you when you portray the president of the United States as basically the enemy of the American people, I think that that's very dangerous.

Well,

he's certainly the friend of the Russian people, I'll put it that way.

But what I was going to ask is, Stormy Daniels contends.

Stormy Daniels is a very interesting.

Just let me ask the question.

Well, let me just say that.

Of course you don't want me to ask the question.

Her 60 minutes.

Your answer is better than the question.

Her 60 minutes performance was as empty as Al Capone's vaults.

What did she say?

45 minutes they gave her 60 minutes.

If you had left.

45 minutes.

Okay.

Okay, good.

Can I just ask you the one question I was going to ask you?

Just the one.

She says that someone from the Trump organization threatened her, came up to her on the street and said, you better shut up about this because it'd be a shame if your little girl's mother, something happened to her.

Look me in the eye and tell me you think Trump is above doing that.

I'm not saying actually hurting her, but making that threat, sending a goon to do that.

You don't think Trump could do that?

The guy I know would not do that.

He wouldn't do it to you.

He would not do it to me.

But see, this is the O.J.

thing.

You know, a lot of, OJ was nice to me.

Yeah, he was a million dollars.

You know, he had an O.J.

Simpson.

No one knows O.J.'s case better than me.

You know,

it had his bloody fingerprints.

You had the.

That's not the point.

But the point is that

that wasn't the thing.

We both agree O.J.

was guilty.

We had that with Russia.

But the point is a person can be nice to you and then be a monster somewhere else.

Oh, great.

I'm so glad we could agree on that.

Okay.

I'll just ask one more thing and I'll let you go.

But just the lying.

It doesn't bother you, the lying on a scale we've never seen.

Just in that meeting we were just talking about that event we were just talking about in West Virginia, saying that millions of people voted illegally.

He was absolutely wrong about the voter flaw.

It's been proven he's wrong about it.

He's got a all the time about everything.

He's wrong about sending the military to the police.

It doesn't degrade the country.

He has never lied to me in 40 years.

To you, OJ, to you.

But it doesn't, you can't separate two things.

You call me OJ one more time.

I'm not saying you're OJ.

But

you can't separate those two things.

I get it that he has seduced you personally.

You can't overcome that.

You can't overcome that and see that, but over here, this man is this other.

You have a malignancy inside you when it comes to him where you won't give him any credit.

I gave him credit.

He becomes defensive.

And he's a real estate broker

and a reality show host.

He's never had any political experience.

He's into braggadocio.

He's into, you know, big, big stuff.

You know, oh, I'm the most famous.

I'm the richest.

I'm the tallest.

I'm the most beautiful.

There are good people on both sides of this debate.

All right.

Thank you so much for putting up with me.

It actually is good to see you again.

Good luck with the book.

I'm sure the book is good.

All right.

Let's meet our panel.

All right.

Crazy.

Just the beginning.

All right, let's meet our panel.

He is the former Democratic governor of New York, Elliot Spitzer.

All right, she's the founder and president of the public policy organizations Deimos and Deimos Action, Heather McGee.

And someone I've wanted on this show for a long time, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Road Not Take, Edward Lansdale on the American Tragedy in Vietnam.

Max Boot, great to have you here.

Okay.

So

let me ask about the sanctions against Russia because Mr.

Heraldo Rivera would be very angry at me if I didn't give Trump the credit he maybe deserves.

We are finally asking for sanctions, putting sanctions on Russia, and this is the kind of stuff that will really hurt the kind of people who we want to really hurt.

The people who have white leather interior in their car

and dissolve bodies in acid.

I think he's doing this because Mueller is getting close.

That's my theory.

Because it's not in his character to do something punitive against Russia.

I think he's doing it because Europe led the way after the attempted assassination in London.

The EU stepped forward.

Every other country said we have to do this.

He's in a corner.

Part of it's mower and we don't know exactly where that will take us but there's an awful lot of smoke, a lot of people cooperating, indictments that are going and pointing very close to the top.

But he had no choice on this.

Even the Republican leadership was saying, Donald, you've got to do this.

This was not something he chose to do.

And there was also a law in Congress, and that was over a year ago.

And I actually applaud this is, again, a piece of credit that I wouldn't normally give.

Bipartisan, veto-proof majority.

This is actually him or his administration moving forward with the things that they put in place.

I mean, I agree, this is a good thing, and I'm somebody who's been very critical of Donald Trump.

I lost the Republican Party because of Donald Trump.

But he sometimes does do the right thing, and this is the right thing.

But even when he's doing the right thing, he shows how schizophrenic he is in his relationship towards Russia.

Because who is announcing these new sanctions?

It's not Donald Trump.

It's Steve Mnuchin, the Secretary of the Treasury.

And it almost seems like we have two policies towards Russia.

There's the policy of the U.S.

government, and there's the policy of Donald Trump.

The U.S.

government is doing things to Russia.

They're imposing sanctions.

They're sending weapons to Ukraine.

But meanwhile, Donald Trump, this guy who has nothing but bad things to say about everybody from Oprah to Alec Baldwin, he has nothing bad to say about Vladimir Putin.

And it's, you know, I don't know if this is because love or fear, and I don't know which is more frightening, frankly, but there is definitely some kind of weird relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

And the fact that he still won't come out and say one negative thing about Putin, even while he's imposing sanctions on him, should kind of make you scratch your head and say what's going on.

Even when they break up for a minute like this,

they're a little like Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez.

They never break up for long.

They always kind of get back together.

Okay, so

now

Putin was in

Ankara, was it, I think, the other day, with the leaders of Iran and

Assad.

They're carving up Syria.

Syria is, and we are just completely left out of it.

A, is that a bad thing?

I mean, a lot of liberals have called for, let's just get out of the Middle East.

And two, if there was a Trump doctrine,

You know, presidents have doctrines.

Bush had,

if we don't make any difference between the terrorists and the countries that harbored them, Obama's was, don't do stupid shit.

Remember that.

What would be the Trump doctrine?

I think the Trump doctrine has confused the hell out of everybody because nobody can follow what the hell he's doing.

And Syria is a great example of it, where he sent these troops and we were achieving a lot of success against the Islamic State, and he's bragging about it, and to some extent, he's justified in bragging about it.

But then, just as we're about to actually put Islamic State away, he wants to take our troops out.

And this is going to be a huge windfall for Islamic State.

Same thing with Iran, by the way.

He constantly badmouthed Iran.

He wants the pull out of the Iranian nuclear deal in May, but at the same time, he's going to hand Iran this incredible windfall by taking the American troops out.

He's going to allow Iran to take control of eastern Syria.

And this is going to be a huge threat to our ally, Israel.

So you just

can't make sense of his words and his actions.

They simply do not add up.

His doctrine is one of being completely

and totally impulsive.

He does not think, he does not listen, he has no sense of history, he's never read a book, and as a consequence,

this is unfortunately the case.

Picky, picky, picky.

You know, but because of that.

Like Geraldo says, if you're going to look for the bad.

But with him, it's too easy to find.

But the consequence is, as Max says, he disregards everything said by the experts.

And even if there's an argument which never should have been in there, at this point in time, to step out does, as you just said, leave the entirety of the field to Russia.

And Putin is now dominating the Middle East in a way that's bad for everybody.

He listens to experts.

He listens to his experts on Fox and Friends.

That's his doctrine.

It's the Fox and Friends doctrine.

Okay.

Let me move to domestic affairs.

I want to defend Laura Ingram.

I know that sounds ridiculous,

but it has to do with the Parkland kids and guns and free speech.

Now, I think those kids did a great thing.

They put this issue in a place we've never had it before, and I wish them success.

But, you know, if you're going to be out there in the arena and make yourselves the champions of this cause, people are going to have the right, I think, to argue back.

Now, Laura Ingram, and we go back to early days of politically incorrect, oh my God, there she is, right.

Oh, where did the years go?

Yeah.

Well, and then in the intervening years, I mean, she just has become a deliberately terrible person, I think, you know, just saying horrible things.

But you know what?

Here's what she she tweeted David Hogg rejected by four colleges because he put that up there because of course we have to share everything to which he applied and whined about it.

Okay,

maybe you shouldn't say that about a 17-year-old, but again, he is in the arena.

And then he calls for a boycott of her sponsors.

Now,

what is

really, is that American to call for a bully?

Really, that's.

Let me explain something.

Because I told you.

And he complains about bullying.

That's bullying.

I have been the victim of a boycott.

I lost a job once.

It is wrong.

You shouldn't do this by team.

You should do it by principle.

I agree.

but but but

but listen here's the thing

we agree we I was I was a lawyer once I was attorney general I think requires you to be a lawyer right

we

agree on 99% of stuff out there she has the right to say whatever she wants with very very few exceptions we have the right to speak back and when we have the speak back to the speaker no no when we no no when we have the right to speak back boycotting think of the civil rights movement boycotting is part of free speech saying i don't want to work with that person.

And then.

Saying,

I will not buy a product from that person.

Really?

That's speech.

And of all the things Laura Ingram has said over the years,

this was the thing that broke the kennels back.

I agree that this wasn't the worst thing.

So she's been mean, terrible to the LG GTQ community, to African Americans.

But the fact is, I hate when the term free speech is used in this commercial context because the First Amendment doesn't guarantee you the right to have a SOAP advertisement in between your segments, which is what

we're saying.

But effectively, it is about government infrastructure.

But effectively, it is the modern way of cutting off free speech.

She can still talk all she wants.

That doesn't mean that all these big companies have to underwrite her speech to millions of people.

And what I would say is, I mean,

it's a very chilling atmosphere when this happens.

Because it could happen to any of you by the way.

I completely agree.

I completely agree.

It's the price that we pay.

I don't think that Johnson ⁇ Johnson's and all of these other mom and apple pie brands are going to want to stick with Fox News in the long term as they go down this hole of attacking every single segment of their consumer base.

And Fox News knows that.

Do you think it would be fair for the victims of gun violence to say to the companies, you can advertise on her show, but we're going to boycott your products if you do that.

Because we don't want to buy products from companies that give her money.

Is that fair?

Because she said a kid

mind about his college

not getting into a college.

Take the substance of that concept.

So the concept.

Discuss the concept.

Can we organize and say we won't work or buy products from a company that does horrible stuff?

Yes, you can.

But that's the same thing.

I'm saying it's wrong.

But no, no, no.

You're saying the First Amendment has certain limitations.

You cannot yell fire in a crowded theater, and you cannot say that David Hogg doesn't test well.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

He can say it, bro.

He can say it.

I would agree with you to the extent that I don't think that the reason to boycott Laura Ingram is because of her comment about David Hogg, because as Heather was just pointing out, she said much worse things.

I mean, she is part of this Fox News propaganda machine, which is bombarding the American people with alternative facts, i.e.

fake news, every single day.

And that's the reason why large companies should not be underwriting her message.

It goes way beyond David Hogg.

All right.

I'm going to have to move on in a second, but

it can't be the case that you are your own human shield.

I understand they're in high school.

So if they say something,

people do have the right to answer back.

My friend Killer Mike said something on NRA TV recently, and it was perfectly reasonable, and he had to apologize.

And he shouldn't have apologized.

All he said was, we're a gun-owning family.

And

that's a perfectly reasonable point of view.

But it's a reasonable point of view that this argument we're having about guns.

You're conflating two issues.

One issue is not whether or not the comments are reasonable or whether the boycott is a good or a bad boycott.

The question is, is, do you have the right to boycott?

And what I'm saying to you is

the right to boycott is central to the First Amendment.

You have the right.

That's all I'm saying.

We agree.

And you have the right to support Donald Trump like Coraldo does.

No, no, but I mean, it's right.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

But we have the right.

The First Amendment isn't about right.

Right or wrong, it's about the right to say.

I'm saying this is an end around the First Amendment.

No, no, I disagree.

Okay.

Time for the

time for something else.

You're You're outnumbered, I guess.

One of our favorite.

Yeah, they've all been wrong before.

Anyway, one of our favorite segments is called, I don't know it for a fact, I just know it's true.

And, you know, this is...

This is something we do from time to time because sometimes things come along where I have to admit, I do not know it for a fact.

I just know it's true.

For example, I don't know for a fact that if Trump messes with our free two-day shipping from Amazon Prime, he'll finally lose white people.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that the first thing UPS teaches its drivers is: fuck it, park wherever you want.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that somewhere in America there's a weatherman named Stormy Daniels.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that Eric Trump thinks Cambridge Analytica is an encyclopedia.

I don't know for a fact that Vladimir Putin's re-election slogan was, are you better off now than you would be if you were poisoned?

I don't know for a fact that this is...

That this is the first bunny Trump hasn't fucked and forced to sign an NDA.

I don't know for a fact that the one thing Trump can't let his followers find out is that Melania's real name is Maria and she's from Guadalajara.

I don't know for a fact that when the Me Too movement comes to cartoons, that horny French skunk is in deep shed.

And I don't know for a fact that Donald Trump has never even met Carly Simon, but he still thinks the song is about him.

All right, he's the comic whose latest book is, Hey Mom, Stories from My Mother, but You Can Read Them Too.

Whose new comedy special, Big Underwear, is on Amazon, who is the Emmy-winning star of baskets.

Take a look.

I don't want to look bad on TV.

You won't.

I'm a rodeo owner.

I know.

Can you believe it?

Christine, why don't you just go out and buy something new, honey?

I've already tried everything on at the dress barn.

I'm in between sizes.

Well, please welcome my old friend, Louie Anderson.

Louie,

it's been so long.

How are you, everybody?

Louie Anderson.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I do not want Trump missing with Amazon until my book is off the bestseller list.

Please, Donald, please.

Well, Louie, it's been such an argumentative show.

It has been, but it's been good.

Oh, wow.

I love the piece with Geraldo.

Because I love that you stuck to your guns, and I love that you still are, you still like Geraldo.

Yeah, absolutely.

and I think we have to you know who else I like is Roseanne I love Roseanne and congratulations Roseanne we can say that

yes you know people got shit my friend Sarah Silverman got shit for congratulating Rose it's ridiculous that we can't even

and Roseanne is crazy yes but that's beside the point beside the point exactly

everybody has someone crazy in their family sometimes it's you yes well oh oh no I mean you're anything.

Oh, I get it.

Yeah, I get it.

I'm so happy to be here.

I miss you.

I haven't seen you in so long.

I know.

We know each other a very, very long time.

Since the early, early days of the comedy store when we were going to write the

sitcom or something.

Yes, we did.

Was it brothers or buddies?

We did.

We tried to write a sitcom together once.

You were going to be a conservative.

No.

Oh, no.

I'm sorry.

But look, congratulations on every, I mean, you're always working.

That's right.

And you do so many different things.

You know, you're a game-journer host, and now you've got this brilliant Emmy-winning performance.

And that is your mother you're doing.

Yeah, right.

Or Azella Anderson.

Okay.

Love you, mom.

And the book is about your mother.

I mean, she's kind of your hero because she helped to step in between you and your bad father, right?

Bad father.

Yeah, you know, drunken, you know, so I forgive him, but drunken, and, you know, 11 children, and she stood between him and us, and she saved us.

I mean, she deflected and protected, and then also fed us, which

really was, you know, why I'm so fat is because,

well, no, it's not.

I wasn't going to mention it.

Well,

it's the elephant in the room.

It's the.

No, but, you know, I don't mean to say that she was bad by feeding us, but when things were rough,

afterwards, hear her have some soup, have some food.

Comfort food.

Yeah, comfort food, yeah.

I miss her, I love her.

And

she really has made this character come to life.

I'm so happy she has a starring role on TV.

Yeah, and playing a man, playing a woman, has anybody given you any shit for taking a job from a woman?

Because you know.

Because, no, that goes on all the time now.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I don't know.

You dare not cut it, you know, until you until you said that.

I really have never thought of it because

I am

I don't want to start trouble.

Well, I don't mind.

I know.

I just think that I agree.

I understand that thing, but this is a comedy.

Right.

We're not trying, you know, we're trying to make a comedy.

And I would, if I was just a guy there, it would be terrible playing.

I know what you mean.

I do not try to explain logic to the

security police.

They just want to be mad.

Yes, it's true.

They want to be mad.

Why doesn't a woman get that part?

Because

that woman is not funny, so she can't have it.

The woman is going to play it.

You know, can I just say this?

Zach wanted a woman.

He had her picked up.

Brenda, it was a British actress.

I never can remember her name.

I should call him Faker.

But she was busy, and she couldn't do the part.

And then Zach said, I have an idea of a voice.

And he said the voice, and somebody said, it sounds like Louis Anderson.

Yeah, Zach went like that, and he went, call him.

And they called me and that's really how I got the part.

Screw Judy Dench, huh?

Yeah.

So I read that you cry every day.

Yeah.

Tell me about that, because I am not a cry.

You know when I cry, I cry at movies.

Yes.

It's so easy to get me to cry at a movie and so hard in life.

What does it say about me?

Let's talk about me, Louis.

Yeah, I would guess that that would say about you is that you're extremely vulnerable.

I mean, that you're.

To movies.

No, to.

No, but that you're a vulnerable person and crying would leave you because you're, you know, you would be wide open on that front.

And that could be where maybe that's what.

But how do you get yourself to cry every day?

Do you just think of something sad?

No, I'll be talking, you know, like on the book tour, I've talked about my brother who was no longer with us.

Okay.

And, you know, I just I miss him.

I miss him.

I miss him.

It's that.

And also, you know, we talk about everything that's going on

right now.

The girl who shot up the YouTube thing.

Right.

You know, we used to, you know, I have mental illness in my family.

And

we used to have safeguards for mental illness.

There used to be hospitals and places and checking on in a neighborhood when things went bad.

We knew the police.

We were connected.

We have stopped being connected as human beings.

That's so true.

We are not connected.

And if my

If our neighbors were doing something across the street,

my dad would go, what the?

Honestly,

what are they doing over there?

And he would call someone and roll over there.

What are you doing over here?

But you can't have 100 guns in here.

I don't mean you should do that.

We don't want that either, right?

You don't want people.

You don't know what you want this.

You want a little of that, but not too much.

You want your mom going, well, I'll call Shirley because she knows you're going to be able to do that.

Right, exactly.

And she'll connect with

the people.

There was a book once called It Takes a Village.

Yes.

And that's what that was about.

Yes.

And of course, that's a wonderful book.

It was, that the right wing hated.

Yes.

Because it was socialism.

You don't mind.

But really, it was just neighbors helping neighbors.

And it really is.

And you know, all of us, if right now

something happened, all of of us would band together to help each other.

So why do we need to wait until something happens?

Well, or we'd band together and eat each other.

I mean, you don't know.

You know who'd be good.

They'd kill first.

They don't know.

They kill first.

Okay, so.

Let me ask you brought up the YouTube shooter.

Now, of course, this is someone who obviously has mental problems.

But I also think it gets to a larger issue.

I want to ask everybody about this.

It seems to me that Andy Warhol, remember he said everybody's going to be famous for 15 minutes?

Yes.

Okay, it seems like social media is a way that everybody has achieved this.

I mean, she had 11,000 subscribers on one of her channels.

That serves the same function as fame.

You have people who you don't know contacting you, wanting to hear what you have to say.

You get that same rush that it's an addiction like any other addiction.

True, right.

It's the worst one.

Okay, so I...

Which happened to me when I had the family feud and lost it.

It was really, really rough on me.

Because people used to stop you more and more.

Well, because I was counting on that fame somehow to make me feel better.

And it was a really good thing for me to go through that.

Luckily, I had a lot of support around me, so.

And you're still famous.

Well, but you know what I meant by that, though, right?

So something must have happened that arrested that.

And I think they talk a little bit about it, but I didn't mean to step on your...

No, no, no.

I'm just trying to make the point that I feel like fame now has jumped the shark to a place where this this woman thought it was a right.

It went to

first, you know, nobody could be famous because how do you get that for the masses?

And then we found a way everybody can be famous and now somebody has taken it to this level of if you take my fame away or somehow curtail it,

you're screwing with my right to be famous.

And there's something particularly about social media.

Even if you don't have 11,000 followers, young people, you know, they're constantly, we all are constantly looking at how many likes our posts get.

And the studies show that we think going onto Facebook is going to make us feel better, but it actually makes us feel worse.

That social media actually hasn't connected us.

It's made us more socially isolated.

The isolation rates is something that the former surgeon general was starting to look into as a cause of stress and heart disease and

premature death among older people.

I mean, this is actually a big dimension of our society that I think we aren't looking at enough.

And I have to admit,

I probably spent way too much time on Twitter and pay too much attention to tweets.

But social media, I think, does raise all those issues that you just brought up.

But at the end of the day, people have been going crazy for a long time, even long before you had social media.

And I think what we really ought to be addressing are the issues of mental illness, as Louis suggested, but also the issue of guns and the fact that we have more guns than people in this country.

That's a big problem.

And it's so easy to get guns, including military-grade hardware.

So that's you know you have these troubled people who may be set off by social media but if they don't have the weapons they don't have the ability to inflict their pain on other people but there was there was just a report this week that the the murder rate in london is worse than it is in new york and it's because of knives

look well i don't think i don't think we worry we worry about mass knivings that's not a but that's what's happening but that's what's happening in london and i would also worry about people driving a truck well a lot of that has to do with the success of the nypd and the fact that we have very strict anti-gun laws in New York City.

It's very hard to get guns in New York, and that's not the case in a lot of other places in the country.

But I think it's the point Lily made.

There was another great book called Bowling Alone that sort of preceded the social media phenomenon.

But the isolation in our society, I think, is made exponentially worse by the social media because, as Heather said, there's a fakeness to it.

You look at how many tweets people are following and all the rest.

It doesn't matter.

It's not a genuine personal interaction.

We had lunch next to a family today here in Beverly Hills.

Four people, two parents, two kids, all of them looking down at their iPhones.

Not a word being conversed.

And I said, this is not a social interaction.

It was very sad.

Okay.

I got two minutes left.

I want to ask about Martin Luther King.

It was the 50th anniversary of his assassination this week.

And if you saw some of the comments put out by people like Donald Trump, I ask every citizen to join me in remembering this great American hero and to carry on his legacy of justice, equality, and freedom.

Ted Cruz says, while America has made great strides on the road to racial equality, work remains to be done.

It seems a little hypocritical to always be jumping on Martin Luther King when you want to look like you're on the right side of racial equality.

It's incredible.

Watching that video of Donald Trump, the man who was endorsed, whose candidacy was endorsed by the Klan, who said that neo-Nazis marching with torches were very fine people, I wanted to snatch the words Dr.

King right out of his mouth.

And I keep wanting to do that

every time.

Frankly, the Republican Party responded to Dr.

King's achievements by realigning to becoming what a Republican strategist at the time would call a white man's party in all but name.

And the way that Donald Trump just absolutely has embodied a Southern strategy that stokes white resentment as its primary way of making sure that no majority of the white population votes for a Democrat, as they have not since Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act.

The very idea that you have this tweet storm of Republicans on the anniversary of his death, on his birthday every year, saying all of the platitudes while trying to take away health care and having a war on the poor and not caring about police violence.

Obviously, I have some feelings about that.

And

as a former,

you know, as a

former Republican myself, I have to be in violent agreement here with Heather because I think if Donald Trump were being honest, he would be paying tribute to George Wallace, not Martin Luther King, because he is the most openly racist president of my lifetime.

And, you know, this.

But he's nice to Geraldo.

Well, there you go.

Can I add one thing?

The only thing I'd add...

That is akin to the Republican hypocrisy on every issue.

That's the sadness.

Every issue, they are that hypocritical.

Okay.

Thank you, panel.

Time for new roll.

All right, New Roll, stop telling me to boycott Laura Ingram's advertisers.

Her advertisers include Jenny Craig, Preparation H, and Terminex.

I'm already boycotting them

because I'm not a fat guy with hemorrhoids and termites.

What?

New rule, blacks, Latinos, and Asians have to stop asking how come virtually all of the White House interns are white.

Instead, white people have to start asking, how come we're the only race stupid enough to work for free?

New rule, and this one goes out to the teenagers who've made a fad of snorting condoms.

Don't snort condoms.

But if you do, please remember to take the dick out first.

Neural, forget getting into heaven.

Jesus has to tell us how to get those abs.

Talk about CrossFit.

I say talk about CrossFit.

Neural,

someone must tell the guy,

someone must tell the guy in England caught on camera having sex with a golf hole,

you don't know much about golf, buddy.

When you're on the green, you use a putter.

It's on the fairway you use your wood.

Another dick joke.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, dick jokes, too.

And finally, new rule, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but this country needs to treat children better.

I know it's crazy, right?

Me sticking up for kids, it's like Mike Pence fighting for gay adoption.

Even when I was a kid, I didn't like kids.

I remember being in kindergarten thinking, these people are such children.

Why am I even here?

We're drinking milk and napping.

I could be doing this at home.

But a few weeks ago, I saw that a second-grade teacher in Arizona had posted her pay stub, and it went viral, probably because she's one of the people we trust to care for and educate our children.

And she makes $320 a week.

Jesus.

We pay such lip service to kids.

They're the future, our greatest natural resource.

We'll do anything for them.

And then we nickel and dime their teachers.

If we really think children are our future, shouldn't the people who mold their minds make more than the night manager at GameStop?

There is a revolt brewing in the teacher's lounge these days in schools all across this country, and it's long overdue.

Time's up, meat pencils down.

Teachers are tired of being told what Sarah Palin once said of a teacher, that her reward is in heaven.

Maybe, but the rent's due here on earth.

Elizabeth Millich, the teacher who posted her pay stub, wrote, I buy every roll of tape I use, every paperclip I use, every Sharpie I grade with, every snack I feed kids who don't have them.

How do people, even the burdened taxpayer, justify this?

We were all kids once.

We remember our teachers.

You have those moments of early learning imprinted in your brain.

A teacher was your first mentor, your first role model.

If you grew up in Florida, your first lay.

In West Virginia, where the revolt started, teachers were just asking for for a 5% pay raise.

Not a lot, but it helps when you have to pay for your own paper, your own pencils, and now your own bullets.

Here's an idea.

Don't give the teachers guns, give them a living wage.

They're not asking for the world, just enough of a raise so they don't have to drive an Uber three nights a week.

Teachers, it turns out, do drive Ubers and work as cashiers at Hardee's on weekends and sell their blood plasma to make ends meet.

It isn't supposed to be a side hustle teaching.

In Kentucky, teachers are protesting Governor Matt Bevin's attempt to reduce their pension fund.

Bevin said the teachers have a, quote, thug mentality.

He said, it's about just straight up wanting more than your fair share.

So true.

You know, when I think greedy, the first thing that comes to mind is a public school teacher who takes the bus to work and spends her tax refund on crayons.

If we really cared about kids, would we give them an education secretary who needs to stay after class?

If we really cared about kids, it wouldn't be so hard for states to pass laws against marrying them.

That's right.

Fun fact, child marriage is legal in every state.

What?

Yes, true.

In America, you don't even have to start your own crazy religion to have sex with children.

You can just marry them.

And that's every state, not just the Waffle House states.

Wow.

More than 200,000 children were married in America over the past 15 years, some as young as 10.

In 24 states, there is no minimum age to marry.

It's me too for Hollywood, but we're okay with this.

And again, this is coming from me.

Me, someone who has no use for children.

And don't even get me started on babies.

No, I don't want to hold your little Roswell alien.

Some people call kids gifts from God.

I call them reasons for earplugs.

I don't like seeing kids.

I don't like hearing kids.

I do not like kids on a plane.

I do not like kids on a train.

But as much as I personally can't stand to be around them, I would rather American children be well-educated, productive, contributing citizens, as opposed to what they otherwise might become useless burdens on society.

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at the Powell Performing Arts Center June 23rd in Atlanta and at the Ryman Theater in Nashville June 24th.

I want to thank Elliot Spitzer, Heather McGee, Max Booth, Louis Anderson, and Geraldo Rivera.

Join us now 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.

For more information, log on to HBO.com.