Ep. #452: Kathy Griffin, Bari Weiss

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Tires matter.

They're the only part of your vehicle that touches the road.

Tread confidently with new tires from Tire Rack.

Whether you're looking for expert recommendations or know exactly what you want, Tire Rack makes it easy.

Fast, free shipping, free road hazard protection, convenient installation options, and the best selection of Firestone tires.

Go to tire rack.com to see their Firestone test results, tire ratings, and reviews.

And be sure to check out all the special offers.

TireRack.com, the way tire buying should be.

be.

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

Start the clock.

Okay,

now

I

love you too.

I usually say I know why you're happy.

I don't know why you're happy.

I know why I am happy because Kim Jong-un of North Korea yesterday told South Korea that he is willing to meet with the leader of the United States.

But Putin wasn't available, so Trump's going.

Trump is going.

Fat man and little boy

are gonna have a date.

It looks like Trump is gonna travel to North Korea in May.

And of course, there are reasons, a hundred reasons, why this is dangerous.

We're talking about, after all, a family that has reneged on every deal they ever signed.

And Kim Jong-un can't be trusted either.

But you know what?

I was watching all the cable news last night and to all these liberals who are reflexively hating on this, A, Obama, remember him?

Proposed the exact same thing in 2008 and they loved it.

And B, you know, fuck you, you don't live on the West Coast where a nuke can get here faster than an Uber from North Korea.

I mean, what is this bullshit?

No president has ever done this.

Yeah, and they all failed.

So I'm going to file this one under so crazy it just might work.

This could be the one thing that Trump honestly is uniquely qualified to pull off because Kim and him, Rocket Man and Rainman,

are

mirror images in a weird way.

They respect and like each other.

You know, Trump said he's a smart cookie.

They have the same interests, flattery, celebrity, tyranny.

They both have daddy issues, and overeating issues, and problematic family members, and inexplicable hair.

They both love missile parades, and they both lie on their golf scores.

And

one day you see staff members working for them, and the next day they disappear.

Who is the one American that Kim likes?

Dennis Rodman.

Well, Trump is the closest thing we're going to get to President Dennis Rodman.

Another stupid argument I heard on TV last night.

Well, we'll just be giving Kim the respect he and his family have always craved.

So what?

So what if it works?

My old old pot dealer used to hang out with me because I'm a celebrity.

I still got free weed.

And you know what?

This, if you hate Trump so much, I do.

This may not even be happening because of Donald Trump.

It could be his tough talk.

It could be because of the sanctions.

It could have been because of the Olympics.

Who knows what is in Kim Jong-un's mind?

It could be because shape of water, won best picture.

And he saw that and thought, well, if you can fuck a fish, you can negotiate with a whale.

whale.

But,

hey, North Korea is not the only place Trump will be traveling to.

Next week, he's coming here to California.

Isn't that great?

He didn't want to, but this is where the porn stars are.

Oh, you've been following that?

We now have a full-on sex scandal in the White House.

Stormy Daniels is now suing him.

That was the development this week.

On Monday, she filed a lawsuit.

Now if you forgot who she is, Stormy Daniels, if you recall.

Okay, the man who got 80% of the evangelical vote for president in 2016 and the star of Toxic Cumload 6

met

at a golf tournament in 2006, after which she was paid to shut up about it.

But Sarah Huckabee Sanders this week really fucked up.

And she said in the press briefing that Trump won an arbitration case

with her, a lie that contradicted her original lie that Trump had nothing to do with Stormy Daniels.

So now it's just a he said, she said.

Stormy says they had an affair, and Trump says they didn't.

But who are you going to believe?

The fake blonde with big tits or Stormy Daniels?

I couldn't wait to do that one.

I must say.

But here's the thing, Stormy Daniels not suing for money.

She is suing for the right to talk about the fat, disgusting Trump sex that she had.

She wants to get out of the non-disclosure agreement she signed, and Trump's lawyers this week said they want to issue a gag order, and she said that cost extra.

So

but

here's why

here's why she has a case because in the settlement papers, first of all, in the settlement papers, Trump goes by an alias, an alias, David Dennison.

David Dennison, because Dirk Digler was too on the nose.

But

the settlement might be invalid because Trump, I mean Dirk Digler,

forgot to sign it.

This happens a lot to a staple genius.

But you know, Trump, he's always going out about other countries are laughing at us.

Oh, and now?

Really?

Not even because the president fucks porn stars, but because she has a better lawyer.

Donald Trump managed to find the one woman in America to have sex with him who then wanted to talk about it.

Usually, when he has sex with someone, he says, don't tell anyone, and they're like, not a problem.

But the best part is that the documents say that Jeremy Daniels has, quote, certain still images, which to me sounds like dick pics, right?

What else can still images that he doesn't want out there?

And you can tell it's Trump's dick in the picture because, well, two reasons.

First,

there's a big sign on top of it, Trump penis.

And also, it's in Sean Hannity's mouth.

Anyway, we've got a great show.

We've got a great show.

Anna Navarro, Eric Erickson, and Trey Crater are here at a little lady.

We'll be speaking with Barry Weiss of the New York Times.

And first up, she is a Grammy winner and a two-time Emmy-winning comedian and an actress who holds the Guinness record for most comedy specials by a woman.

More importantly, she is a good American who loves her country and should be able to work in it.

Kathy Griffin.

I was afraid.

I was afraid.

I was afraid.

All right.

I did.

I cut my hair very, very short.

We're all shaving our heads now, the pissed off women.

We're angry.

We're shaving our heads just for fun, to scare you guys.

Bill, first of all, I really want to thank you for being one of the first and only

people to publicly support me and say what happened was bullshit.

It was bullshit.

Yeah.

Publicly.

Well.

Yes.

Publicly.

Because I got texts from celebrities that were like, don't tell anybody I sent you this text, but I support you all the way.

I love you.

Jerry Seinfeld.

No, I'm kidding.

No, I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

By the way, as if we have each other's numbers, me and Jerry Seinfeld.

But go ahead.

Exactly.

I happen to know they don't.

Well, we've missed you.

You know, I mean,

it's true.

Oh, my God.

And

one thing nobody could ever take away from you, you are a hard worker.

I love it, man.

I love it.

You got where you are through hard work.

You, joke by joke.

One dick joke at a time, baby.

I never had a writer.

I never had a studio.

I never had a manager.

Just out grinding it out, and that's what I love doing.

So for you to have it all taken away.

It just really pissed me off more than anything.

Because, I mean, look, you took a picture.

You took a very bad selfie.

I blame the photographer.

I've been on these photo shoots, and they're always trying to do something provocative.

So they said, hey, why don't you pick it up?

The wacky picture.

The wacky picture.

And it turned out to be a little too wacky.

It was quite wacky.

Okay, it was very wacky.

But, you know, if this wasn't the United States of babies, you know, would, the first thing you said was, look, I went too far, I get it, it should have been over.

Okay, there, she gets it, fine.

But of course, everybody has to go batch it nuts about everything all the time.

Yeah.

And actually, the selfie analogy is really good because almost like imagine if you took the word, you had the worst selfie in the world, you went to bed and you woke up and you found out that the president tweeted about it, which then mobilized the alt-right, Fox News, everybody else, and then you know, they also thought it was illegal, which

distasteful but not illegal, illegal covered by the First Amendment no I went through

while we still have one while we still have one

I mean I went through something like this yours is worse because you were actually interrogated you were detained two months federal investigation by two departments from the DOJ the Department of Justice right I mean after 9-11 I had this on my wall for a while the variety headline that says you know White House keeps heat on ABC's I remember very well yeah okay so and it was bad.

Ari Fleischer was talking about me in the press conference every day but you had it far worse because you literally had your livelihood taken away from you.

Yeah.

My show kept going.

Our ratings never dropped.

I even had my I was on in the middle of a 50 city tour and I had like 25 dates up until the following February because this happened on May 30th.

TMZ was reporting my show cancellations in real time, which scared, I think, the theaters.

So these theaters, which I don't blame because all of a sudden, you know, normally they do like stomp or mamma mia, and all of a sudden they're getting robo calls from like a bot farm in Macedonia going, if I see that bitch on stage, I'm going to cut her in the cunt, chop her head off, and put her head up or cunt.

That was, no joke, that was the number one reason that the

folks who are angry want to kill me.

That's the number one procedure they want to do.

Moving on.

Yeah, it was ugly.

And I mean, but it really got out of hand, I think, when the official security apparatus of the United States of America, which you'd think would have something better to do, and I am sure knew better than you were somehow a threat to the president,

interrogated you.

I mean, flying is still a problem for you, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, you were on the D list, now you're on the no-fly list.

The D-list is much better.

D-list is much better.

Yeah, way better.

Yeah, I'm on the Interpol list.

And so when I couldn't get work here after that.

Interpol.

For international criminals.

Yeah.

So I did an overseas tour.

I did 15 countries in 23 cities and I was detained at every single airport, which is frightening because

they scan your passport.

They see, you know, and by the way, this is really scary when you're at the Singapore airport and you see the person go like this.

And then there's like whispering and then they put me in like a detention room and you don't know how long it's going to take.

And I'm thinking, you know, I got to, excuse me, I have an eight o'clock show.

I got to make soccer moms and gay guys laugh.

Let's go.

But

in all seriousness, there were times when they took my devices.

They can do that.

And you might think, you know, we all have our rights, but when you're in that moment, you're really at the mercy of one or two people in that room.

So it happened, it happened at LAX, it happened at London Heathrow.

And it's scary every time because you don't quite know what it is.

So if you had to do it all over again, I mean, I assume you wouldn't take the picture.

But

I'd do Mike Pence.

No, I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

Ten months I waited to do that joke.

Yeah, okay.

But would you do anything over the way it was the aftermath of it?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, everything about the aftermath was, you know, it truly is a historic situation.

So one of the things I like doing about touring is, as you know, you're on stage and you can really tell your story without censorship and stuff.

So the current show I'm doing actually does have like a couple serious moments in it because when I described the interrogation, you could hear a pin drop.

I mean, like I said, I've just done 23 cities in 15 countries.

And the intensity of those moments when my First Amendment attorney said to me, you know, if this doesn't go well, you'll leave here in handcuffs.

And the DOJ called my attorneys every single day for two months.

Did you come in yet?

Did you come in yet?

Every day they called and said, we can do a, it's called a no-knock, which is what they did to Paul Manafort.

Sure.

A no-knock, come in.

You know, and I'd be like, fine, come on in.

We can take my Backstreet Boy CDs.

So it was crazy, but that's how crazy it was.

So I was determined to not do like a perp walk.

So it cost me a lot of money, of course, but at least we were able to negotiate the interrogation happening in my attorney's office.

But just being told, you could leave in cuffs.

Yeah.

And it came straight from the DOJ in the White House.

And that's the administration that we have now.

So that's what I am here to talk about is I really believe that it happened to me and I really believe it could happen to you and other people, or people's kids or relatives, it could happen.

It's gotten crazy.

Well, I mean, we're not gonna

hopefully take that picture,

but I do believe what you're saying in general is correct.

Everything that was unthinkable two years ago is thinkable now: dictatorship, fascism, all those kinds of things.

So, I don't know if you're deportations are going to be a nuclear war, nothing is off the table.

Correct.

Okay, so do you think so?

I know some friendships were casualties in this.

I'm down to three gay guys.

And you.

And you.

But I hear you're fluid.

I hear you're fluid, which is very trendy.

Very trendy, Bill.

Very hot.

Sells tickets.

I'm just going to play straight man today.

Oh, and I got canned from CNN, which sucked because I was never an employee.

I only worked there one night a week, but they made like this sweeping statement.

And

Don Jr.

was like, of all people, like Don Jr., that freaking Cro-Mag, like fairly human, whatever his deal is.

He goes on like Good Morning America and says, we don't just want to ruin Kathy Griffin's career.

We want to decimate her.

And that was like months after the photo.

But do you think...

I'm not decimated.

Right.

No, you're not.

You look very strong.

Oh, no.

I mean, we need comedians.

I mean, I know that sounds like a pat on the back is one of them, but we really do, especially in this era and in any era,

to sometimes go over the line so we know where the lines are and also to establish that we do live in a country with free speech.

That was as distasteful as it might have been to a lot of people, it was free speech.

And free speech is still kind of important, and I think it's...

It's important.

And also the alt-right has kind of co-opted it.

Like,

you know, a speech at Berkeley and somebody knocks over a garbage can, sets it on fire, and if it's an alt-right person, they'll say that's free speech.

But they kind of co-opted that.

But, you know, you and I do the kind of comedy that pushes boundaries.

And then to do that, you have to move them and then cross them and push them again and see what works.

And I'm finding, like, I know you're on the road as well.

I'm finding that people are wanting that kind of comedy.

We're in such an intense time.

People don't want dog and cat jokes.

No.

I mean, they definitely.

It wasn't a real deal.

And they want to be very mean to Donald Trump.

And I can do that.

I can do that.

You can do that too.

I'm definitely trying.

I do have, by the way, I have a small Victorious announcement.

Okay.

Okay.

So I'm dipping my toes into touring again, even though the Trumps, nobody wants me to work again.

But I'm dipping my toes in, and I just booked today.

I'm going to do a show at Carnegie Hall in New York.

I've heard of it.

And

I'm also going to go right to Trump's backyard and do a show at the Kennedy Center.

All right, Kathy Griffin, triumphant.

Thank you, baby.

You did great.

All right.

Yes.

Go out and see her on her tour.

She's as funny as ever, right?

It's mostly funny.

Always funny.

Always funny.

All right.

Thank you.

Let's meet our panel.

Okay.

All right, everybody.

He's a conservative radio show host, founder of TheResurgent.com, and author of Before You Wake, Life Lessons from a Father to His Children.

Eric Erickson's back with us.

Hey, Eric, how you doing?

Great.

Okay, she's a GOP strategist and political contributor to CNN.

Ana Navarro always makes me laugh.

And he's a stand-up comedian who'll be at the Pantages Theater in Minneapolis March 17th and the Fargo in Fargo on March 18th.

Trey Crowder.

Hey Trey.

Okay.

So were you listening to the monologue or do you watch something else while I'm on?

Okay, I'm sure a lot of people weren't thinking that is what I was going to say about Trump and North Korea because, you know, we live in this tribal world where everything has to be either the blue team or the red team.

And look, this deal may blow up before we finish talking about it right now.

But

I just want to read Obama's quote from 2008 and just remind people where he was, because he was asked in a debate if he would meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba without preconditions.

And he said, I would.

And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them, which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration, meaning the Bush administration, is ridiculous.

And Hillary cackled, and the State Department tut-tutted, and everybody said bad.

But the base loved it, and he won the primary, and he may have helped them win the general election.

And if it was good enough for him, I think it's good enough now.

I think there's one key difference there, and they're very keen on reminding us of this.

Yeah.

Donald Trump is not Barack Obama.

No.

Well

I'm I'm with you on give it a chance, it's better than the alternative and I'm all for diplomacy.

But I mean still I'm not going to sit here and say that I have a lot of inspired confidence in this working out.

I mean to me watching these two guys debate on what to do about the nuclear situation in North Korea is like watching two hammered drunk bricklayers debate about what to do with a brain tumor.

I admire their enthusiasm, but thank God.

You're already at the worst place it could be.

I mean, I was in Hawaii just a few days before that alert came over this year.

Oh, wow.

And I have friends there who said, of course we were shitting in our pants.

It came over in our phones.

The missile is in the air.

This is how real this is right now.

Absolutely.

Look,

I remember when Barack Obama said that, I was against it.

I was against him giving concessions to the dictator in Cuba.

I thought that was not a good idea.

To me, this is different because this guy's got nukes.

There is a sense of urgency now.

And I live in the East Coast.

I live in Miami.

You're going a lot faster than I am.

But I think there is a sense of urgency that makes it,

let's explore whatever solution there is.

That being said, the idea of Donald Trump negotiating with

Kim is like, what are they going to do?

Put their

buttons on the table and see who's got the bigger button?

But

probably.

But that's the bluster part of it.

It's not unprecedented in the history of diplomacy for the peace breakthrough to come after the two guys have their whose dick is longer shouting match at each other.

We've had three consecutive administrations that every time North Korea saber-rattled, we paid them money, we gave them food.

And now we've got a president through, I mean, you can say it's incompetence or something different, what have you, he said, not going to do it this time.

And suddenly they want to come have a face-to-face meeting.

Give it to them.

I mean,

I started to say, what's the worst that could happen?

We know what the worst that could happen is.

Let's try something.

But the worst has already happened.

Except for the bomb actually exploding.

It kind of reminds me of you know when we talk about mass shootings and somebody says it's a liberal talking point and i'm certainly not for arming people but they say but if somebody else was in that room with a gun it would have made it even worse really right really it could have gotten worse than just the guy who's a nut spraying the room it can't get any worse

except for being annihilated

well so you think trump could bring the nuclear war on by going there not that's not going to happen if he's going to bring it on it's going to be through the title You know,

he doesn't understand diplomacy.

I agree with you.

He doesn't understand math or spelling or science.

But he does understand schmoozing.

And there is something about these two guys I think that is very simpatico.

They say go in there, have a Yo Mama contest.

You know, Yo Mama is so ugly and just, you know, go at each other with insults.

But I also, look, I agree with you because that's the insult phase.

This entire thing has been going in crescendo, you know, with North Korea.

It's gotten worse, increasingly worse.

And so there is a sense of what more could happen.

You know what?

Kim, he's, what, 32, 33?

He's been in office five or six years.

He's done a lot of bad things.

We saw him assassinate his family members and so forth.

Well, it's a rough gig over there, I'm guessing, when you take over, and you have, and he's a ruthless dictator.

He learned it from his father.

You got to eliminate the competition first.

Trump's a businessman.

He would think the same way.

Maybe he did that, and now he's ready for something new.

He's going to be in office another 50 years.

He can see that map.

You know that map they show at night of the two Koreas?

South Korea ablaze with electricity, North Korea completely dark.

His people are in the dark about that.

He has seen that, and he's probably thinking, hey, it might be fun to join the world, have lights on.

You know what?

Can I tell you something?

Before we forget, Puerto Rico thinks the same.

It would be nice to have their lights on.

We've done things the same way for so long.

We've gotten nothing.

They've gotten closer and closer and closer to a bomb.

With American experts saying they're not going to get a bomb, it is time to do something different.

Well, not for nothing, but I'll be stunned if it actually even happens.

So he's already walked back some.

But, you know, never underestimate how important respect is to people.

You know, just the idea of him getting this meeting could calm things down a lot.

Sometimes that's all they want, is to be treated like an equal.

Like, oh, wow, we went to a meeting with the United States, and now we can all breathe a little.

And I will tell you, it's not only Kim who wants respect, it's Trump who wants respect.

And, you know, he listens to the media, and I think that if he sees people giving him affirmative

encouragement, you know.

Kim likes porn stars.

Right.

Yeah.

Bring Stormy Daniels.

Big hit.

Okay, so let's talk about the other war, the trade war that Trump started.

This is pretty crazy.

First of all, answer me this, panel.

Somebody answer this for me.

Donald Trump went to Wharton, right?

Always the smartest.

He does not seem to understand what a trade deficit is.

He talks about it like we give them money and they give us nothing.

That's not a trade deficit.

That's Trump University.

He doesn't get the idea.

Come on, this has got to be an act, or he must understand that we get something back.

You know, for all of the Donald Trump on the campaign trail, bashing liberals and liberal academics, he's being led by Peter Navarro, a fringe liberal.

No academic.

Yeah, no relationship.

And he's being basically, I guess his dad liked Peter Legend.

Peter Navarro was a university academic at, I believe, University of California at Irvine.

He's written a number of papers on China, none of them in majority.

He was a Democrat candidate.

Yeah, he was a Democratic candidate repeatedly, very liberal, wanted to ban the incandescent light bulb.

Donald Trump bought into his China rhetoric and brought him on board for tariffs.

There is not a liberal or conservative economist alive or in the past 100 years who thought they were a good idea, but this guy apparently knows the buttons to push with the president.

But you know, as with everything, he made this big pronouncement, and now we see him doing caveats and conditions and pulling back.

It's, you know, it is the only consistent thing about the...

about Donald Trump is his inconsistency.

We saw him do it with immigration.

We saw him do it with guns.

We saw him do it with barring gaze from the military.

The guy, you know, can hold more positions than the Kama Sutra.

Yeah.

I'd really gouch my eyes out now.

No.

Everybody came with their jokes tonight, huh?

I don't, I know, right?

I thought I'd have a shot at this.

No, I don't think that, I don't think he understands it either, but I do think he understands that his base also doesn't understand it, really.

You know what I mean?

The tariffs and everything.

He knows they're going to see it.

But I'll tell you what he does understand.

It's a lowering of the stock market

that went down.

But tell me this.

Why is this fringe economics, but not trickle down?

Why is his tax cut

in prosperous times?

There's almost no economists who think that that's a good idea.

Oh, I would disagree with you on that.

I think there's definitely a liberal-conservative divide on economics, but.

Oh, it's hardly an equal divide.

You can always find a few nuts anywhere.

Listen, but there is very few people who are.

I mean, the University of Chicago is a prominent economic school that pushed Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s on the idea of supply-side economics.

Yeah, and they have a panel now with like 42 economists who all said this was a bad idea.

Well, you taxed them.

You do, but I mean, you have a bunch of liberal economists who say that.

You have to do it.

A bunch of people who have walked into that one, Eric.

This is, you know, this isn't a situation like tariffs.

There actually is an academic divide on this.

With tariffs, it's like the anti-vaccine crowd where you have doctors saying don't give kids vaccines.

That's tariffs.

There's actually a pretty academic, rigorous group of conservative economists who support supply-side economics.

Okay, I have a question.

So growing up poor my whole life, when is it going to start trickling down like that?

I don't understand.

Like how much longer does it have to go?

And also, I bet there are all these people out here who have gotten thousands of dollar taxes.

Eric, you know, they just tried trickle-down economics again in Kansas.

It was a disaster.

I mean, they have tried this experiment.

I don't know why they keep trying because we already have the results.

But whenever they do this, you cut taxes somehow to this magical point, and then unicorns fly out of my butt, and revenues.

When Ronald Reagan cut taxes in 1981, when George Bush cut taxes in 2001, we saw an increase of revenue.

The problem is the spending side of Republicans who say they want to cut government, and they never actually do.

If they actually did reciprocal cuts, you would actually see an increase in income in government.

That's because Republicans used to be anti-spending.

They also used to be against adulterer precedents.

Yes, they did.

We'll get to that.

I can see it's in your draw.

When it comes to stimulating the economy, I mean, you give more money to rich people, they buy like oil futures and shit.

But you give more money to poor people, they buy eggs.

It's a philosophical business.

Bills and services.

I mean, I just do this.

You're going to get taxes given to people who pay taxes.

This is a, you know, for the last...

For the last, what, three months since the tax cut passed, we have seen very good headlines come out of this tax cut.

We have seen good numbers.

We have seen good job numbers.

It's an experiment.

and we're going to see what the short term is looking good and it's helping Trump.

We've got to see what the long term is going to be.

It's going to be an experiment.

Either Republicans were right or we were wrong.

Unfortunately, he's going to screw something up.

Okay, well people keep, I mean, his Gary Cohn, his economics advisor, left over the tariffs.

I mean, the White House, people are leaving this White House.

Can you imagine the fact, though, that this guy who apparently, you know, who everybody reported and said that he thought of leaving over the response to Charlottesville, over Trump equating neo-Nazis to those protesting against him, found his moral compass over tariffs.

At least he finally found it.

Right.

What about a few administration officials to quit over something on principle?

People have not fled the White House this much since the British were burning it in 1840.

So what happened is they're going to put up some motivational posters.

You know these motivational posters?

We have some here like, you know, people put these up in their office.

Teamwork, great things are done by a series of small things done together.

And, you know, it gets morale up at their office.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

So, would you like to see some of the ones they're putting up at the White House?

Because

these are a little different.

And

that one's like, it's been 16 days since our last indictment.

You missed 100% of the pussies you don't grab.

Hope, she doesn't work here anymore.

Teamwork, a better word for collusion.

Character, always stay in it.

Yeah.

Integrity, when in doubt, just chant lock her up.

Sacrifice, there's no I in treason.

dream big ask the ugly married guys who dated Hope Hicks

and believe at the end of this shit show there's got to be at least a book deal all right let's bring out Barry she is a staff editor and writer for the opinion section of the New York Times Barry Weiss is back with us hey you

how are you I'm good how are you weren't you just here yeah I was just here you must have done so good you came back so quickly.

But you did do it.

Everybody loved you.

And also, you're sort of on my side about a lot of issues.

And by this point of the show, I'm so argued out.

I got to have someone to agree somebody.

Okay, I'll pick up the flag.

No, but I know we're both sort of fighting the outrage machine, you know, the professional outrage people.

And let's just first get out your, because I saw you got into some hot water for nothing.

I've gotten in a bunch of hot water for nothing.

Okay, but the immigration rate, it's gotten to the point where, like, I don't even know what the fuck they're mad at anymore.

I used to at least go, okay, I I get it.

I understand.

It's ridiculous, but I get now I don't even understand what they're mad at.

The tweet was what?

You were watching the Olympics?

Mariah Nagasu, a person born in California, her parents are Japanese immigrants, landed a historic triple axle at the Olympics.

I tweeted out a video along with a lyric from Hamilton that said, immigrants, they get the job done.

Now the actual lyric is we, I got the lyric wrong.

How dare you?

And I was jumped upon.

Now here's the thing.

Anyone,

I despise xenophobia.

Anyone who reads my work knows that I love immigrants.

And the idea that...

No, hold on, the idea that I would in any way contribute to a culture of hostility towards minorities and immigrants is horrible to me.

And I feel awful that anyone heard it that way.

What is your estimation of why there is this fringe on the left that attacks people like you and me who they must know are not racist?

Is it just lazy?

That it's just too hard to attack the real villains?

I think that of course.

So So you fight battles way behind enemy lines.

I think A, it's the narcissism of small differences.

Anyone that departs from woke orthodoxy gets a lot more heat, in my opinion, than people on the actual right.

I also think that offense-taking is being weaponized.

It is a route now to political power.

Saying that I am offended is a way of making someone radioactive.

It's a way of smearing their reputation, of making them a liability.

Because once you tar someone as a racist or a misogynist or a fascist or whatever the word of the day is, you know, it's a way of sort of taking them down a peg.

And I'm really concerned not about people that have a public platform like me or like you, but the downstream effects of these smearings.

Because here's what happens if you're someone who wants to get into the public square and wants to say something provocative and peep your head out over the parapet.

You are not going to do that.

You are going to hesitate from doing that if you know that there's a mob awaiting you.

And you see what happens to very, very prominent people for saying sort of the smallest things.

Yeah, Matt.

Can I say one more thing?

No, no, just husbanditis, I call it.

I'm just shutting up.

Well,

I really, I've been revisiting the Philip Roth book, The Human Stain.

Okay, The Human Stain, two sentences on it.

It's about a classicist at a small liberal arts school who uses the word spooks, meaning ghosts.

He means it literally.

It's taken as a racist slur.

And what happens to him is personal ruin.

Now, the irony of this is he himself is a light-skinned black man who's passing as a Jew.

I'm reminded of this because we sort of live in the age of the digital stain.

What people are trying to do is to take even the most well-intentioned and anodyne comment, intentionally torque it, and then throw it out through the echo chamber of social media in order to ruin people's reputations.

And I think it's very strange that we're the most privileged people in human history, objectively, and yet people are spending all of their time on Earth hurling pixels at one another.

I find it a very, very strange use of people's time.

Well, I mean, it's so well said, all of it.

And

I also think people are schizophrenic.

They're the real people who talk in private with their friends and how they conduct themselves in a setting that's not.

And then there's like, because everybody's on social media, that's like their avatar.

And that person is super politically correct about everything.

It's like everybody has their own publicist

who's them on social media.

And it's making...

But also, it's the opposite.

Also, in real life, people are civilized.

People say, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that.

I have a misunderstanding.

But on social media, they're acting like tour kimadas.

I mean, it's bizarre.

You know, we should also not lose sight of the fact of how much the Russians have been influencing and involving themselves in social media fights on both sides to sow discord in America.

I don't know how much of those attacks that go against you or against you or against me are actual people and how many are bots.

Well, most of it is actual people.

That is an issue, but we're prominent people

at publications that you and I read and respectable publications.

And

rather than talking about, I don't know,

I find it amazing that there are feminist websites that are dedicated to attacking people as being insufficiently feminist rather than, I don't know, talking about gender apartheid in Saudi Arabia or Iran.

It is a real perversion of priority.

Oh you're talking to the right guy there because I've certainly taken my lumps to make it that way.

It is true.

Of course it's true.

No one is talking about that in the leftist media.

Why is that?

That's a question we should be asking.

Well, I've talked about it here many times and we'll come back.

You have to come back soon and we'll talk about just that.

But let me ask about the movies because

you watched the Oscars?

I did.

Okay.

I didn't see it.

Okay.

Florida working.

But, you know, what I heard was that nobody wanted to say anything, that you can't talk anymore.

Well, you can talk about intersectionality or about how the ideal man doesn't have a dick, which was the Jimmy Kimmel joke.

I mean, I don't think that that appeals to most Americans, and I think that there's a real-time.

The dick is still popular.

I have done an informal call.

I'm still enjoying it.

Exactly.

It's done many bad things, but it is still popular.

So, you know, I think that, look, I think that there is an incredibly important role for culture and for artists and for movie makers to move the culture in amazing ways.

Ellen changed the culture.

Will and Grace changed the culture.

Get out this year.

Call me by your name.

I do believe that art has a really important and crucial role to play in cultural progress, but I don't think that people are tuning into award shows to be hectored to by celebrities.

And I also hate it that if you don't like Black Panther or Wonder Woman, neither of which I've seen,

but if you don't like them, you're a bad person.

Well, yes, and the amazing thing.

And that's just fucking bullshit.

But there's also...

You know what?

That just gotta end.

There's no bottom to it.

Black Panther is now getting torn apart because apparently there was a lesbian plot line in an earlier iteration of the movie, but they took it out.

Now it's a homophobic movie.

Oh my.

Or Emma Stone.

Emma Stone.

Emma Stone tried to, you know, be woke and say the right thing.

She introduced the category for best director, and she introduced it as For Men and Greta Gerwig.

Well, she got torn apart as a white feminist, which is now an insult, because she didn't mention Jordan Peale and Guillermo del Toro were also in that category.

It's like being angry at someone for complimenting the sunrise and saying, why aren't you talking about the sunset too?

I mean, it's nothing.

People are always looking for something to be mad about or offended by.

Even if they like you.

You know, like they can agree with you on 95% of everything you say, and that 5%

of the country that sounds like you

think about all, yes, and you're red state, too.

What do they think about this insanity?

You mean the movie where the lady porks the fish failer?

I think it's a little weird.

Yeah,

well, that's true, too.

I mean, the movies are not what America is watching.

I mean, I feel a little distanced from what the movie winners are lately.

I haven't seen the fish fucking movie either.

I mean, no, look,

I think I'm going to hate it, but I might love it.

I might love it.

I might love it.

I think I'll hate it, but I might love it.

So I'll tell you what.

I can't remember the last time I saw a best movie winner for the Oscars.

Right.

I go to the movies all the time.

I take my kids to the movies, but it's like what Hollywood thinks are the greatest movies.

They're not what my family goes to see.

I mean, for God's sakes, The Dark Knight should have gotten the

best picture back when, and that led to the initial controversy.

They've been talking about it ever since, and they keep getting even more esoteric in the movies.

But look, on a serious note, I do think that the country is in a state of hypersensitivity because

of what's coming from Donald Trump.

Because of what his comments are.

Yes, yes, yes, he is constantly.

I'm sorry, guys.

I'll tell you what.

But this didn't start with Donald Trump.

It didn't start with Trump, but he's made it worse.

He's made everything worse.

He's constantly attacking the legal, attacking innocents, attacking.

People are feeling under attack in our up and down.

You have it backwards.

The country was so politically, you know what I'm going to say.

It was so politically correct that he was the antidote for

lack it is.

He's not politically correct.

Well, the cure is better or not.

He's not politically correct.

And you don't think he's made it worse.

You don't need to correct it.

Of course he's made it worse.

He's made people hypersensitive.

He's not like Donald Trump.

It's not like imitating Donald Trump.

It's not

a hair trigger waiting to be offended.

It's not to have thin skin.

It's not to further divide and divide and divide the left.

We should be meeting Donald Trump's illiberalism with liberalism, not right.

Right.

Well, I think we need to confront Donald Trump with purpose.

Instead of people saying that you're a xenophobic or an anti-immigrant, this week they should have been focused on the fact that the doctrine

is not a problem.

Look, Donald Trump is the comment section of the internet come to life in the White House.

And just as you're not supposed to read the comment section, I think the media spends way too much time parsing every little idiot thing he says on Twitter.

You should ignore that stuff and focus on the big picture.

He's President of the United States.

That's very hard to do.

Yes, he is President of the United States.

But again, I mean.

So let's talk about the bigger issues of Donald Trump.

Stormy Daniels.

How about that?

No, I mean, it sounds facetious, but honestly, I think this could, in a weird way, be the thing that brings him down.

Because this is, why do you think that?

Well, I mean, we'll look at what brought Clinton to impeachment, first of all.

But second of all, my colleague Michelle Goldberg had a great column about this where she explained this is not a sex scandal.

This is a, you know, a campaign finance scandal and a transparency scandal.

And, you know, I think that this seems like if this brings him down rather than a certain amount of time.

Can I ask you something?

Who's going to impeach him?

Republicans?

I mean, Paul Ryan said today.

Fair enough.

Paul Ryan said this week that the Stormy Daniels thing was not on his radar.

Well, then his radar is broken.

We know that because it's on everybody else's standards.

In my life, I was a campaign finance lawyer.

God help me.

It doesn't matter because you have a FEC that is split Democrat and Republican with an independent investigative unit that doesn't bow to either side politically because it's got the protection of a 50-50 split on the FEC.

They begin investigating things.

If your lawyer is...

trading in his home equity to pay someone $130,000 to keep them silent to benefit your campaign.

I don't care what he says.

This was a benefit, an in-kind contribution, an out-of-pocket contribution to benefit Donald Trump's campaign.

There are huge potential legal violations for this that, I mean, go back to the John Edwards situation when people were doing it from him saying, let's not tell him we're doing this.

He still got indicted for it.

Yeah, but John Edwards was held accountable, though.

Like, right.

Donald Trump never is.

I'm with Ana.

They don't give a shit.

But this is where you're coming from.

The party of family values.

I'll tell you what means.

You are one of the few evangelicals, Christian leaders who are actually holding Donald Trump accountable.

I am apoplectic at the Christian right saying he gets mulligan's for having one affair, two affairs.

I mean, it's just

the hypocrisy.

Can you imagine just for a moment, if it had been Barack Obama,

I would have done that?

The hypocrisy is.

Barack Obama wouldn't have done it.

I mean, even as a repression.

And by the way, if he did it, Michelle Obama would have killed him.

But one of the reasons I remember giving out why we couldn't vote for Hillary was because, can you imagine the scandals?

Can you imagine the fatigue we'd have with the scandals with Hillary?

Well, you remember Donald Trump showed up to a debate schlepping all of, you know, all of the people who had accused Bill Clinton.

If we put his accusers, we're going to need a stadium.

That's what we're going to do.

You could be running a wet t-shirt contest in a parking lot in Panama City, and if Trump showed up, it would lower the tone.

But yeah, and they let him get away.

They don't, it doesn't seem to bother them.

The Christian right, the family values people, they just want to be a family.

Just one of the people on the Christian right, I've got to say, and this is heartfelt.

They're pretty cool.

Pastors who surround him, who are in a transactional relationship with him, who, if they really care about him, they would, if they believe their faith, tell him to repent.

And they're not because they're in a transactional relationship, and one day they will be held accountable by a very angry God.

Okay.

Just want to mention one more thing.

West Virginia.

Yeah.

The teacher strike.

Ronaldo.

They won one.

Yes.

And

you're looking at me when you say that.

Well, I mean, it's the ultimate red state, Mr.

Red State.

It's trending that way.

Right.

And this was a union thing.

And I think people saw teachers, and, you know, they saw them like literally bringing bag lunches to the students who very often don't get a meal except when they go to school.

So if the schools are closed, the kids don't eat.

And, you know, I just kept thinking the reason why the state is so strapped for cash, one, trickle-down economics, they tried that bullshit.

And two, because Trump lied.

He didn't bring coal back.

Right.

Because you can't bring coal back.

And so I just wonder when those people are going to catch up to it.

Forget about the moral dimension of it.

Just what about the economic dimension of it?

I think that, so I think it is a win for liberals, but I think there's a real opportunity there for it to be an even bigger win on a grander scale when it comes to the American left if they see it for the opportunity that it is because of everything you just said because they got their pay raise in West Virginia but their leadership's going to pay for it by slashing funding from other places like maybe Medicaid or community colleges pretty shitty way to go about it if the Democrats realize they could come in here and tell these people

We are the party of labor.

If they go to Arizona, Kentucky, Oklahoma, where they're about to strike, we capture that.

They're going to be in West Virginia.

If they had any way to do it.

I'll tell you, I think that what we saw in West Virginia and what we saw today in Florida with the gun law that was finally passed in Florida after three mass shootings in the last three in the last two years, what we saw is a victory for activism.

One was for the teachers in West Virginia and for the students of Parkland that demanded action and said, We're not going to take this crap anymore from the Florida legislature and the leaders, and they got results today.

Good for them.

Thank you, panel.

Time for new rules.

Move this show along.

go to Vegas.

All right, new rules.

Since the shape of water just won the Oscar for Best Picture, Hollywood has to do what it does best.

Beat it to death with sequels.

Beautiful stories about lonely people banging animals.

Jake Gillinall in Broke Back Mountain Lion.

Woody Allen in Take the Bunny and Run.

And John Voigt in Midnight Cow.

Too sensitive for that.

Neurule, if you're driving with something that could poke through my windshield and kill me, tying a hanky on it doesn't make it okay.

Neural, the Honest to Pause website has to explain, if your article is all about how this kitten and this baby owl are best friends, How come the look on both their faces says, if you were a little smaller, I'd eat you?

New rules, people turning into werewolves have to stop staring at their hands.

They're like, Am I turning into a werewolf?

I feel like I'm turning into a werewolf, but I'd better check mywo.

Oh, fuck.

Yep, werewolf.

They're like people here in LA in the rain.

They check the TV.

See, I knew, rain.

New rule, I don't want to try your homebrewed beer.

Keep your carbonated bong water.

There's a term for guys who make booze where they live.

Inmates.

And finally, New Rule, it's time to admit President Trump has actually accomplished one good thing.

He's ruined the phrase thoughts and prayers forever.

Of course, the problem with thoughts and prayers has always been that thoughts are the opposite of prayers.

One is from the Enlightenment, and one is from the exorcism.

But it wasn't until Trump tweeted his thoughts and prayers after the Parkland shooting, and one of the survivors tweeted back, I don't want your condolences, you fucking piece of shit.

Prayers won't fix this, that prayer officially became an eye roll.

Yes, America's finally getting it.

Prayer doesn't work, because if it did, every drug test would come back clean and there'd be

and there'd be no need for the morning after pill.

But it's more than just prayer.

Thanks to Trump, piety itself has ceased to be a third rail in American politics.

How could it anymore when the world's least godly man has been so fully embraced by our most religious people, the evangelicals?

Oh, they love them, some Donald Trump.

A man who's been to church four times in his whole life, three of them to get married.

The only time he touches a Bible is for depositions.

And if he ever went to confession, they'd have to take a meal break.

He's into golden golden showers, not the golden rule.

It's true.

He does not tweet people the way he wants to be tweeted.

So when Trump got his mulligan from the values voters, that's when we knew religion had jumped the shark and it was finally safe to say, none for me, thanks.

I had bullshit for lunch.

Look at some of these recent examples.

Billy Graham, my entire life, I've watched presidents from both parties suck up to this blowhard like he was the American Gandhi.

But when he died last month, it got covered like Olympic curling.

Local storyteller dead at 99.

Amarosa last week openly mocked Mike Pence for believing Jesus tells him to say things.

Mocked by Amarosa?

It's like getting dunked on by Kevin Hart.

Even Oprah was widely made fun of when she said, God, if you think I'm supposed to run for president, you got to tell me, and it has to be so clear that not even I can miss it.

And a lot of America said, oh, please, not the I have to check with my imaginary friend excuse.

which was bad enough when people like Scott Walker said, I am certain this is God's plan for me.

Something God also told Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Ben Carson, Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Sarah Palin.

God is a nice guy, but he doesn't follow politics.

But folks, this is progress.

I used to be a lonely pioneer here, calling religious thinking a neurological disorder, but now it's like anal.

Everyone's doing it.

And in that, there is a lesson for the Democrats.

Things that used to be third rails don't have to be third rails forever.

Republicans get that.

For 50 years, their fundamental principles were law enforcement good, Russia bad.

And then it was Freaky Friday.

20 years ago, the idea of arming teachers was universally derided.

But now, while we point and laugh, they're doing it.

Democrats, on the other hand, begin every gun conversation with, I support the Second Amendment,

because they fear this is one of those third rails that can never be touched.

Even shooting victims, the minute they wake up from their coma, their first words are, I still support the Second Amendment.

Now, would it be a hard slog to change the public's mind on guns?

Of course, but a hard slog never fazes conservatives.

Ronald Reagan used to be a joke, now he's an airport.

The Second Amendment is just words humans made up at a certain moment in history when they felt right.

It's an amendment, not a commandment.

And we could make up...

And we could make up new words again.

Instead of the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, we could change it to the right of the people to apply for the privilege of possessing non-military style weaponry, as long as they're not batshit crazy shall not be infringed.

Sorry, Trump, no guns for you.

All right, that's our show of Iet the Mirage this weekend.

And at the Taft in Cincinnati on May 5th, and at the Hard Rock Creek in Cleveland, May 6th, I want to thank Eric Erickson, Ana Navarro, Trey Crowder, Barry Weiss, and Kathy Griffin.

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.