Ep. #450: Anna Deavere Smith , Vicente Fox

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Month series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

How you doing?

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you very, very much.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

What a crowd.

Thank you.

I know.

I know.

Thank you very much.

I think I know why you're happy.

I know why you're happy.

I know.

I know.

Can you guess why today?

Because today, Mitt Romney formally announced he's running for the Senate in Utah, ladies and gentlemen.

Mitt Romney, remember when every liberal in the world hated Mitt Romney and thought he was the worst person in the world?

Now every time I see him, I'm like, if only we had a decent, sane Mormon who believed in the planet Kolob

who could run the country.

Well, the other good news, Bob Mueller indicted, this is big.

I know this is a slow-moving story, the indictments, and and it's like your eyes glazed this was big today he indicted 13 Russian nationals three Russian companies for their plot

for their plot to use social media to rat fuck our 2016 election

and you know how Trump always says no collusion

it's getting close

the indictment

The indictment says the Russians were in communication with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump administration.

Yeah, that's the problem, unwitting.

It could have been anybody, you know?

But it goes into,

this indictment goes into great detail about how when these Russians posed as Americans to sow discord among us, they went to great lengths to appear like they were regular, real Americans.

They bought space on American web servers.

They used American slang.

They gained 50 pounds.

And, you know,

I just want to ask the Trump voters, I know you're out there, I know some of you watch me,

what is left for you?

He's plainly a traitor who doesn't defend his own country.

And released his budget this week.

Remember during the campaign he said, I would never cut Medicare like the other, I would never cut.

The budget cuts hundreds of billions of dollars.

These Trump supporters, they're not conservatives.

They're Drew Barrymore in 51st dates.

If you lose your memory every night, it all starts to make sense.

And then

Trump's EPA chief, you know, this guy Scott Pruitt, who thinks climate change is a hoax, he's under fire because he's been flying first class.

And the reason he says he has to is because people in coach yell at him.

He says it's a very toxic environment politically.

You know what else is a very toxic environment?

The environment.

That's the EPA job.

Yeah, I know.

Crazy.

And they get away with all these serious crimes because they distract us with their silly sex scandals.

You know, now on top of Stormy Daniels...

Well, I mean...

Funny even when I don't mean to be.

On top of the Stormy Daniels scandal, the New Yorker is running an article now that says he had an affair, Trump had an affair, around the same time with a Playboy playmate named Karen McDougall.

It was the same year as the Stormy Daniels thing.

Melania was just right ever having a baby.

And so he was cheating on his newlywed wife and his newborn baby with a porn star and a playmate.

Mike Pence, your thoughts?

Yeah, and this,

you know,

Karen McDougal, I guess it was destined that you would wind up with Trump.

I checked her Playmate data sheet today.

I have all the back issues.

And it said her turn-offs were fat liars who smell like KFC.

So

right there is

in the stars.

And she says after the first time they had sex, he offered her money.

And every time after that, he just said Mexico's going to pay for it.

That's wrong.

But you know how they paid her off?

Trump's buddies at the National Enquirer gave her $150,000 for the rights to her story and then didn't run it.

See?

Enquirer, yeah, their readers are the same demographic as the Trump voter.

Old, white, angry, and challenged by the world's easiest crossword puzzle.

Now, Stormy Daniels got paid off, we found this week, by, well, this is what he says, Michael Cohen, Trump's mall lawyer.

He says he paid Stormy out of his own pocket $130,000.

Even Stormy said, that's hard to swallow, and I'm a porn star.

Oh, you saw that one coming, right?

Anyway, thank you, Republicans, for once again restoring honor and dignity to the Oval Office.

And just in time for President's Day is Monday.

President's Day.

Yes, it's nice that we still live in a country where any child can grow up to be the next Lincoln.

And by that I mean get killed with a gun.

I know, but we have to hear it.

I mean, after that horrible shooting in Florida, Trump never mentioned guns, pivoted right to the NRA talking points.

He said so many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed.

Yes, we saw he was wearing a Make America Great Again hat.

And then yesterday, Trump finally spoke.

He said, we must work together to create a culture in this country that creates deep and meaningful human connections, like I have with my kids, Ivanka, Don Jr., What's Her Face, and the other one.

All right, we've got a great show, friend, Leibowitz Salvon Rushdie here.

And a little later, he'll be speaking with the former President of Mexico, Vicente Fox I.

She is the writer and star of Notes from the Field, premiering February 24th on HBO.

Anna DeVere Smith.

Hey!

How are you, homie?

I can do that in the current era, can I?

We can still greet each other with a kiss on the cheek.

Yes, of course.

Oh, good.

Thank you.

So listen,

your show is pretty amazing.

What you do is pretty amazing.

You can be so many different people in the space of two hours.

A lot of what you're talking about now is, I guess, what they would call the school to prison pipeline.

Yes.

And I certainly thought of it this week after the shooting because, you know, when you learn about what goes on, we seem to, when some kid is in trouble, we push them away.

We don't bring them in.

And once they get in that prison system, it never gets better, right?

Right.

So the school to prison pipeline

I think really came to more sort of public consciousness during the Obama years.

Justice Department had data to show that black, brown, Native American, and also poor white children are disciplined more harshly than their middle class and

upper class cohorts.

A lot of things that a kid might do in school that a white kid would, it'd be called mischief, you know.

And poor kids get pathologized and sent to jail.

And it really starts with expulsions.

and with suspensions.

And they actually could figure out about when a certain number of suspensions might predict that a kid is going to end up in juvenile hall and then from there into that cycle of mass incarceration which of course destroys communities and families and everything else.

You know you brought up the recent events in a high school and one of the things about that is that Nicholas Cruz was expelled and schools have a lot of limitations.

We want to criticize schools.

I'm not so happy after 250 interviews in four geographic areas that I even sort of call my project about the school-to-prison pipeline because what you find out is that it's really poverty that begins to fritter away at people's lives.

But having said that, you know,

he left school.

And once he left school, there was nowhere for him to go.

And if he was able to get any kind of mental health services in school, you know, he was just on the loose.

Right.

And it just, I mean, it can happen anywhere.

Somebody once said to me, you know, there's schools in this country that look like prisons.

They do.

And those kids are more likely to wind up in prison.

And there are high schools that look like colleges.

And those kids more likely go to college.

That's right.

But not always.

And

we've got to get all the schools to look like colleges.

Or I think schools will have to become something like community centers where people can get multiple services.

Parents need to be in there.

And, you know,

so often teachers get blamed for the problems that we have right now.

But you know, I think more schools are going to look like prisons given these recent events.

Oh, of course.

And Trump is taking away more money from, of course, you know, all the money had to go to the rich people's tax cut, so everything gets cut.

But, you know, you play a lot of men sometimes in your shows.

It's probably about half and half.

But, you know,

sometimes in this culture, if you play something that you're not, they get mad at you.

You know, like if you're a white person, you play an Asian.

They say that should have got.

Do you hear that from men?

Like, how dare you talk to you?

Well, you know, I don't really.

I don't support that.

Actually, no.

And I don't know.

It may be one of the few benefits of being African American that I'm less likely to get in trouble for playing you than you would for playing me.

So

what?

Right.

So who is your favorite man to play currently in this show?

You know, I don't really have favorites, but I do, I think, let's just say that I think, well, first of all, John Lewis.

I play Congressman John Lewis, that he ends the whole play.

And,

you know,

my plays usually start with outrage, and then they go to a sort of form of mourning.

And then they usually end up with love or forgiveness.

And John Lewis, really, after this whole play of seeing violent acts, like even on your show, you covered some of the things that I was interested in.

The kid from Texas in a pool party who was thrown across the lawn by a big cop, young Shikara,

in Columbia, South Carolina, thrown across, getting a big, big football coach cop trying to get her out of her chair, throwing her across the room, and even Freddie Gray.

So after all of these kinds of images that are very troubling, I try to bring it all home with acts of courage, Brie Newsome, who climbed the flagpole to bring down the Confederate flag after the Charleston massacre, and then

for John Lewis.

So, I mean, I think to tell these stories of this country, you have to tell it through the voices of many people, not just one race and not just one gender.

You mentioned Freddie Gray.

Those cops are, there were six of them.

They were all acquitted and they're all working again.

And three of them are African American.

So

that's an interesting diagram.

Well, I don't think the race of the cop really matters so much.

That's what I'm saying.

It doesn't.

I mean, because they're in this system

that

I don't understand how they think, but they're working for a system

which has roots a long time ago.

You know, there was a famous prison called Parchman Farm in Mississippi that pretty much was behaving just like slavery.

And people, the convicts had to grow crops and they were very profitable.

And the people who walked around with guns, really

keeping an eye on these worker prisoners, were black men called trustees.

Sometimes they had been murderers.

So it's not a new thing that we would have black cops or black people in that position.

Cops are all about protecting property.

Well, I think they would probably say they would want to extend that a little to protecting people.

Well, people with property.

Well, that

may be some truth into that.

So

you've worked as a professor.

What do you make of the kids today with the crazy hair and the yeah, yeah, music?

Well, it's not about.

It's not about the crazy hair and the yeah, yeah, music.

I mean, I've been teaching for a long time, so I can't confess how long you'll know really how old I am.

But I have three words for you, Bill Maher.

$90,000.

That's what it costs to go to film school at NYU, where I currently teach.

Okay, first of all, we don't need anyone in film school.

Well, we have enough filmmakers.

But people think that.

This has got to end.

We've got to get the kids back to studying real shit, okay?

If you want to be a filmmaker, you will find your way to do it.

The arts do not need the help of the government.

I know that's a conservative position.

You probably hate it, but that's my view.

Well, I think the government needs the help of the arts.

Maybe the other way way around, yeah.

But I'm sorry, so $90,000 to...

To go to acting school as a graduate actor.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, look, college, that's going to be a big issue in the next election.

Democrats want free college, and they want single-payer.

They want some real high-ticket items.

But they don't have the balls to say, you know where the money is?

The Pentagon.

Defense really means defense contractors.

That's where the money is that we need to get to fix the things in America that need to be fixed that would actually make us safe.

Well, what Notes for the Field is about really is that the question I pose is about investments.

What are we going to invest in?

And in my case, I'm asking, are we going to invest in education?

Are we going to invest in prisons?

And it's now certainly headed to the prison side.

Are we going to invest in mental health?

Are we going to invest in prisons?

It's leaning towards the prison side.

And we have a country, Vivek Murti, who was at one point our Surgeon General, went around the country and he interviewed a lot of people and he found out this is a country in pain, not physical pain, pain emotional pain so true going to continue that right over there thank you so much you're always such a pleasure to talk to you all right on and

these two again the literary lion whose latest novel is the golden house i read it it's awesome salmon rushdie is over here

and she's a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, who is speaking at Veneroya Hall in Seattle this Sunday night.

Friend Leibowitz.

Okay,

so let me pick up what she just said about it's a sick country.

I feel like when we were in school, I never, I had such an idyllic upbringing.

It was just like leave it to beaver.

I never entered my mind that someone would come into the school with a gun.

So what went wrong in America?

Quickly.

And how to fix it.

Come on.

Yes, but for a masking.

Well, in one word, what went wrong is guns, and how you fix it is by stopping people having them.

Well, that's.

That would help.

But just like, this is where, you know, where I came in.

The first of your shows that I was ever on was politically incorrect,

which was the show that happened immediately after the Columbine shooting.

Yes.

And I remember being on there with Ted Nugent from the NRA.

Oh, the things I've done to you over the years.

I mean you put me in touch with real intellectuals.

Yes.

But

it just seems as if in 20 years we haven't learnt a goddamn thing.

Well, and the cure is just there in front.

You can see what the cure is because other countries have taken it, have done it.

Maybe I'm just.

Yeah.

They ain't us.

Maybe I'm a cockeyed optimist, but I feel like something is different about this time, and maybe it's because

the children are speaking out.

We're hearing from them directly.

I feel like this is a powerful weapon that we haven't had before.

It's like in Vietnam we had Walter Cronkite, and now we have, you know, a 16-year-old girl.

Did you see this tweet?

Trump tweets out, my prayers and condolences to the family of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting.

No child teacher or anyone else should feel unsafe in the American school.

Sarah tweets back, I don't want your condolences, you fucking piece of shit.

My friends and teachers were shot, multiple of my fellow classmates are dead.

Do something instead of sending prayers.

Prayers won't fix this.

I've been saying that for years.

It's so great that the kids have caught on to that and that we can stop with the prayer.

But they don't vote.

They can't vote.

That's the problem.

They'll be voting very soon.

I would have them voting now.

A 16-year-old?

They can't do worse.

Right.

A six-year-old.

I mean, could we have a worse Congress?

Could we have a worse administration?

We couldn't.

No, that's, yeah.

Even if they were in the Congress, they'd be,

wouldn't you, that the one thing that would not be a party political issue is

protecting our children in school.

You would think that's one thing, it doesn't matter what you think politically, how right-wing or left-wing you are, that every parent in America would think, I don't want to think of my kid going to school, is today going to be the day.

And yet, it is a party political issue, astonishingly.

No, I mean, people.

It's because you use the word think.

Okay?

They don't think anything.

You have a party that is really keen on protecting the rights of unborn children, but once they're born,

you know, the hell with them.

On your own.

Yeah.

Well, you know, when people say,

are we normalizing Trump?

You know, we've normalized mass murder of children, so I think we can normalize anything.

I mean, when Columbine happened, it was like the biggest story of the year.

And then it became like, you know, a bad car accident or something.

It was reported.

We forgot it in the next couple of days.

Well, except we try to protect people in cars.

We make them wear seatbelts.

We made them bolt their children to the back seats, you know, dress like astronauts.

And we also say that if you're in charge of a car, you have to pass a test.

You have to prove that you know how to drive a car.

Well, that's, yeah.

See,

what solution I think we can have to this is I think I hear too much accent on

let's get rid of the AR-15s.

No, we should get rid of AR-15s.

I think gun nuts, first of all, they love guns.

It's their hobby.

They have lots of them.

They'll find a way to get off as many rounds as they want.

I think it has to be in very strictly taking the word of the NRA, which always says, why are you messing with us law-abiding?

Everything is law-abiding.

So that means this kid was looked into 39 times.

They were at his door.

Will you have these things on your record?

That church shooter a few months ago, I think in South Carolina, lots of things on his record, lots of red flags.

I think if you have wife beater, anything like that, you can't get a gun.

You have to have a completely clean record.

That, I think, would take care of a lot of this.

Because not that many people,

not that many people have guns anymore.

It's just the people who have a gun.

No one should have a gun.

Why should anyone have a gun?

Well, in America, I need a gun.

Yes, I need a gun.

You need a gun because you have the show.

If you need a gun, you need a show.

You would need a gun.

But most people don't have the show.

They don't need a gun.

I didn't want to say it.

In most countries of the world.

And another dog I could use.

You know, in most countries of the world that I know about, it's actually quite hard to get a gun.

Even in shithole countries like India,

come from, you know, out there in the shithole world.

Right.

Well, it's actually quite hard to get a gun.

Well, that's partly because they're expensive.

It was hard to get them in the Old West, too, because guns are not cheap.

No, no, but what I'm saying is, there are

most countries have sensible rules about how you get hold of a gun.

And this country is reducing the number of rules.

Yes, okay.

Every minute.

So let me ask about this Mueller indictment.

I was trying to tell them this is actually big because two things came really sharply into focus.

One, that this is not a hoax.

Even though Donald Trump has been saying it's a witch hunt and a hoax forever,

this makes clear not a hoax.

This really happened and that they were really trying to get Trump elected.

Well, first they were just against Hillary.

Putin knew Hillary was the stronger.

I know you don't like her, but Putin knew she was the stronger candidate.

I love her compared to Donald Trump.

What do you mean?

Oh, I know.

I adore her.

Oh, right.

Hillary.

Bernie is the one you like.

Yeah, Bernie is the one I like.

And they also tried to help him.

Yes.

They did try to help Bernie.

And I haven't heard a word from him today, have you?

No, but I don't think he was in collusion with them.

No, I don't think he was in collusion with them.

But since Russians were so active in doing that, those Bernie people who were frothing at the mouth at the mention of Hillary Clinton might think about that the next time they start frothing.

And today, you know,

I think Mueller was very smart because he's going really carefully step by step to establish, yes, it was real, it really happened.

There's no smoking gun so far that links it to Trump, but you know, that may be the next step.

But what I think is odd is all the statements saying there's no indication that this affected the election result.

You know, if you think about what the Russians were trying to do, they were trying to help Jill Stein.

Jill Stein.

Anybody, yes, anybody who heard Hillary.

Yeah, Jill Stein got 51,000 votes in Michigan.

Right.

You know, the margin of victory was, what, 12?

Yeah.

You know, they were trying to help, not after they decided to stop helping Bernie Sanders, they tried to foment discord between the Bernie and Hillary camps.

Sure.

And that happened.

Everything the Russians were trying to do

happened.

And how can you then say there's no evidence that they were instrumental?

How can they not be impeaching him now?

Because Trump gets his information from the same place that Robert Mueller got his information for this indictment, the FBI.

So he knew this all along as well.

This whole time that he has been saying what what he's finally admitted that this wasn't happening, today he finally said it did was happening.

He knew.

But he said, that's an impeachable offense to me.

He said his country was under attack

and I didn't do anything about it.

He said, I talked to Putin and I believe him.

What if after 9-11 Bush had said, you know, I talked to bin Laden, I believe him.

You know, I'm surprised he didn't.

You know, I mean,

he knew it wasn't true.

He didn't care.

Yeah, it's.

I mean, people still say, even you still say, why did he do this?

Because he's a liar.

Yeah.

You know, and he doesn't get his information from the same place.

They do.

No, we do.

He gets his information from Fox News.

He doesn't listen to the FBI.

He said last week that he doesn't read the intelligence report.

Right.

No.

He said it last week.

And no one even reads them to him.

Marshall comes in with puppets and acts it out.

I mean, this indictment is 37 pages.

He has not read 37 pages in his life.

Okay.

That's true.

And earlier in the week, by the way,

before the Senate Intel Committee, all of our head Intel people were there.

Oh, it was a who's who.

The director of national intelligence, Dan Coates, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, FBI Director Christopher Wray, the NSA dude, Admiral Mike Rogers, all of them agreed.

when Dan Coates said, frankly, the United States is under attack.

Is under attack.

These are the words that that Andrew Card whispered in Bush's ear.

Remember?

And almost all these people are not.

While he was leading the little goat book.

While he was leading...

Yeah.

And almost all these people.

But he only sat for seven minutes, not two years.

But almost all these people are Trump appointees.

Yes, absolutely.

You know, this is not like the left wing presenting a point of view to Trump which he has to distrust.

It's his own people.

Sure.

And the Republicans, Congress can declare war.

They could say this is a cyber war.

They don't need the president to do that.

What happened to the word appeasement, by the way?

You know, it's too long.

Is that just for what?

It's too long?

It's too long.

But Republicans love to throw that word at Democrats.

Another one thing where two rules.

They get to say impeasement.

We don't.

If this isn't appeasement, I don't know what it is.

I know, but for someone of my age, which you are older, you're younger, but not vastly.

For someone of my age, the idea that the Republicans are for the Russians and the Democrats are for the FBI.

I know.

I know, it is.

We used to hate the FBI.

They hated the Russians.

Exactly.

It's the world turned upside down.

It's like you saying, please bring back Mitt Romney.

I mean, how did that happen?

I remember when we were abusing Mitt Romney.

I gave a million dollars to see he didn't become president.

But, you know, things change in perspective and Mia Copla because Mitt Romney wouldn't be that bad.

I mean, he was a bad candidate, and he

wouldn't be that bad.

He sold his soul, but I think what would be very good for America would be if he were to run as Republican classic, you know?

Because there are lots of Republicans who want that.

Same great tax cuts, a third less racist.

Come on.

And what we need to do, I've said this before, is what happened in 1912 when Teddy Roosevelt split the Republican Party.

He started the Bull Moose Party and handed the election to the Democrat.

Mitt, you got to do it.

You think Trump is going to be running in the next time?

Yeah, you don't?

You don't think he'll be improved?

I think he'll be in office.

Oh, I don't know about that.

I don't think he'll be impeached.

You know, I think he'll quit.

He'll quit.

He's not a quitter.

He's a quitter.

Okay, he is a quitter.

You know,

because he's worried about they're going to find out about the money.

That's what this is about.

This is about money lawyers for him.

And if they get too close, he'll make something up.

You know, I want to spend more time with my family, although how he could, I can't imagine.

That is the one excuse that.

And I'm ruining them all out of the White House.

And

if he feels they're really close to him in this money thing, I think he'll leave.

Yeah, I mean, the one thing that came has sort of been almost established is I've sort of Luke Harding's book, Collusion, which talks about the

20 years of Trump being supported essentially by the Russian mafia, with the money being channeled through European banks.

Now,

now, Mueller has subpoenaed material from the European Bank, Deutsche Bank, that was doing this.

Fake news.

That's his answer.

That's what he'll say to all of this.

That's why he doesn't quit.

I don't think he's a quitter, but we'll see.

All right, you know, we try to keep up with the latest trends here on real time, and pet shaming is not really one of them.

That's been going on for quite a while,

but we use it as a bit.

You know, people put things up like, I eat bunny poop for, you know, your dog has,

or your cat, you know, I watched a mouse eat my food and did nothing.

And

it was cute for a while.

And then people started to do that, that would hang confessional signs around themselves.

And now celebrities are doing it, or so we're saying.

Would you like to see some of the celebrity

confessional signs?

Okay, like Jeff Sessions, I've already ordered the arrest of Black Panther.

Donald Trump, I don't pay hookers to pee on me.

I pay them to leave when they finish peeing on me.

Melania Trump, I've gotten so good at leaving my body during sex, I can actually go shopping.

Prince Harry, grandma thinks she's black Irish.

Stephen Miller, I collect skulls.

Mike Pence, I'm only here for the shirtless guy from Tonga.

Coldplay, we don't get it either.

Hope Hicks, I miss the real friendships of modeling.

Steve Wynn, I'm three bankruptcies, two hair transplants, and nine gropings from the White House, and it's all falling into place.

All right, he is the former president of Mexico, and he's on our show.

That's fantastic.

You won't see him at a Trump

Riley Chandig Build That Wall.

His new book is Let's Move On Beyond Fear and False Prophets.

Vicente Fox.

Oh, you got one too.

How are you?

A people be.

Amen.

Okay.

Look at that here.

You're a folk hero now.

Yes, sir.

Do I call you Mr.

President or El Presidente or?

Amigo.

Just call me Amigo.

Okay, Amigo.

Okay.

So

you really have become a...

Oh, yes, you know them.

Hi.

They're good.

I'm the one that let them in.

Yeah.

You've really become kind of a thorn in Trump's side, but all your stuff is going viral.

You're blowing up, man.

Well, when it comes from the heart,

when it comes when you're offended, like we all 120 million Mexicans,

and the ones here in this great nation,

you have to stand up.

You have to react.

You have to do something.

Although, my visa is almost gone.

Okay, so I love this tweet.

Boy, this is the day for dirty tweets.

You wrote, at Real Donald Trump, your mouth is the foulest shithole in the world.

So

did I say that?

Yes, you did.

I have it right here.

But, you know, and this is kind of a trend because Trump calls Kim Jong-un fat and little man and rocket man, and Kim calls him a dotard and that nut in the Philippines, Dutarte, he called Obama son of a whore.

And

what's going on with world leaders that used to be so

respectful and now it's shithole and fuck you.

Well,

some take the initiative, we others react.

And speaking about this sad, very sad event in Florida these days,

When you speak out of the White House, this aggressive, violent language, when you discriminate, when you are racist, that's what you get.

That's what you get.

We need harmony, we need love, we need happy communities.

And those concepts don't come out of his mouth.

What comes out of his mouth is what you said.

No, that's true.

And

the wall, you're going to pay an alum summer rule to be in staff.

No, let me...

Do I have to repeat?

No, no, no, no.

So let me ask you about drugs.

Are you holding?

No.

That's not the question.

No.

I do miss the truth.

The violence in Mexico is off the charts.

29,000, I think, was the figure I read last year.

But most of those deaths are because of a a drug war, which is fueled by the United States.

We are the customers.

Yes.

And also, probably they get the guns to do the killing in this country.

Yes, I had to come through Seattle.

I was main speaker at this global conference around cannabis and drugs.

Cannabis?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Okay, it's okay.

It's an OCC.

Well,

let me tell you, in Mexico, next May the 30th, we're holding a global cannabis summit because we have to change precisely that huge problem we have in Mexico.

We must move ahead with legalization.

And fortunately,

fortunately, finally, Mexico took the step.

Today, in all of Mexico, federal government and local governments will go by this legalization,

leaving behind prohibition and getting into regulation.

For medical use, first step.

But we want to push forward because we need also legalize the rest because our problem in Mexico is, and this will be a surprise to you.

But the headquarters of crime and cartels are here in the United States and they are hiring Mexican cartels to bring in the drug from the South, from Colombia, from Venezuela, and from elsewhere.

And I question myself, what happens once that drug crosses the border?

What is the DEA?

What is the CIA?

What are they doing?

If it's prohibited, apply the law.

But fortunately, many states today here...

As long as the profit motive is what it is when it's illegal.

I mean, we've been going through this for so many decades, learning the same lesson over and over again.

You will never stop drug trafficking as long as there's this much money in it.

Now, in this state, we just legalized it.

And I happen to know a grower just by chance.

No, really.

He told me the price dropped like overnight from $1,600 a pound to $200.

Round of applause from the crowd.

He was like, oh.

And consumption does not increase.

So there is some good news, ladies and gentlemen, this horrible week.

Consumption does not increase.

You move that massive amount of money from criminals into government through paying taxes.

And this is the difference, sitting on your side with Chapo Guzman or sitting here with farmers, businessmen that are today running that new industry.

And this is the paradigm that we want to change in Mexico.

Moving from crime, from killings, from all these young kids dying in Mexico streets into a new industry.

And this is what will happen pretty soon in Mexico, and it's happening here.

Fortunately,

you're a follower of American politics, and I know you two are.

Let me throw out to this whole panel some stats that I find amazing.

Trump, 41% approval rating.

Even after all the bigotry and the insane tweets and the treason.

But here's more.

This is Politico Morning Consul poll.

National Security, the party ignoring the Russian meddling.

Republicans lead Democrats 46 to 33.

On immigration, they lead 43 to 37.

On the economy, they lead 45 to 36.

Jobs, they lead.

I don't get it.

Is it the Democrats so lame that they can't sell?

their program or is it people just don't pay attention or both?

I think that people have just completely stopped believing the truth.

They've just completely stopped believing what they hear.

And you could say to them anything and if it happens to coincide with their prejudice system, they will accept it.

And if not, not.

And that's why it seems to me like Trump's numbers have stayed roughly speaking the same for a year.

They've been down to 38, they've been up to 41, but there's like 40% of America.

But that truth softening has been going on in our social lives for a long time.

I mean, I've heard for a long time, people, that's my truth, you know.

And I always think, yes, but then there's the truth.

We still have that, I hope.

But what should the Democrats do?

I mean, some on the left say it's a waste of time to go after the white working class, but you know, in 2016, 44%

of the voters, white non-college, 30%

white college.

So,

you know, I'm no Paul Manafort or anything.

Because I don't have a walk-in closet full of pinky rings.

Let me tell you.

But I can figure out that you can't ignore 44% of the population and expect to win.

We have great experience in Latin America.

We went all along the 20th century in the hands of dictators, authoritarian regimes, corruption.

Democracy was not there, or even freedom and innovation was not there.

And now we can see the genius of people.

And this president you have here,

I mean, it

applies with what we had in Latin America for a century.

So, what is to do?

Because something has to be done.

And one thing to do is to put in front of him a

Congress that has majority on the opposition.

This is the formula we found out in Mexico so that it can stop him,

so that you can domesticate him through a opposition congress.

Domesticate him, yes.

And

this nation doesn't deserve what it has to do.

Okay, but that's what I'm trying to get at: is how are Democrats going to win this next election?

Now, things look pretty good because they flipped 30 seats, but in the Obama years, they lost 1,000 state seats, state legislature seats.

That's a lot.

So there's a long way to go.

And this week I saw in the news that Bill Clinton is now verboten on the campaign trail.

He's too toxic because of harassment allegations in the past.

I mean, it was only 2012 where he was the star at the convention.

Remember the 2012 convention?

Obama called him the explainer-in-chief.

He was dropping all these stats.

And now nobody wants to be near him.

Now, maybe that's right because of his allegations, but that's exactly what happened in 2000.

Al Gore wouldn't go near Bill Clinton, remember?

Because of the blowjob.

I can't be associated with the blowjob.

And look how well that turned out.

You know, I just have, don't you think, I mean, speaking as the senior citizen president,

don't you think?

Oh, she's here.

Ladies are always right.

But if you weren't here, then I don't know.

Don't you think it's time for the baby boomers to step aside?

Yes.

Don't you think it's time for

Bill Clinton and Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton and Donald F.

Trump.

They should, could they please thank you for your service?

Could you go home and water the plants?

Yes,

I'm not.

And I think, you see, I think the answer to your question is that what's happening across the country is a whole new kind of person is running for office.

You know,

there are all kinds of people who've never run for office before.

A lot of them are women

running for office.

And they're looking very much much like flipping seats which are safe in the other direction.

So I think that, that younger generation of different people running for office, not these tired old farts.

I was not advocating for Bill Clinton to run for president again.

I'm just saying that the Democrats have an interesting way they handle their own internal problems, which is the opposite of the Republicans, because they still wheel old man Bush out.

Remember David Copperfield?

But I think the grassroots grassroots are interesting right now, you know, because what's happening at the grassroots is something different.

And that may be where the hope lies.

In this book, in this book.

Your book.

Let's move on.

Oh, your book.

His book.

Yeah, you forgot about it?

He's here by accident.

That's right.

Yes, okay.

Your book, yes, sorry.

Let's move on beyond fear

and false prophets.

Fear, because I sense in this nation a lot of fear after September the 11th.

And it's understandable.

It was a very sad day.

But fear is not a good advisor.

We must move on.

It's not enemies everywhere in the world.

We in the world are shocked for what we see on this leader here in the White House, shocked.

And everybody is pissed off.

Pissed off, yes.

What we have to do, the leadership of this nation is absolutely lost.

We don't know where we're going.

We don't know what's going to happen.

And the world needs this great nation leadership.

We need it.

We do.

Are you going to run here?

What's the page?

But yes, I mean, and it is the assessment.

It's really about the soul of this country.

When I hear people talk, as I have all week after the shooting, about, well, mental health, and we definitely should have better mental health treatment.

But, you know, this country is not built for mental health.

It's kind of a sick country at its heart.

It's way too greedy, get to macho mountain, competitive.

It's built for money.

It's not built to be happy.

And by the way, in that...

Let's always substitute a complicated thing for a simple thing.

You know, mental health is very complicated.

You know,

guns are very simple.

So they don't mention the guns.

How do we stop the shootings?

Take the guns away.

You know, this guy had mental health issues.

Probably he did.

No question.

But if he had them without the gun, it doesn't matter.

Those kids are alive, and he's, you know, he's still unhappy.

But, you know, I mean,

he got expelled from high school.

So did I.

But I didn't go back and shoot the place up.

And by the way, to connect it to the drug debate, I think it's, they put too many of these kids.

on too many psychotropic drugs when they're way too young.

And I don't think we know what it's doing to them.

I really don't.

When you're riddling and Prozac and all this stuff when the kid's six years old, by the time he gets to be a teenager, what he goes off is meds.

He's never been normal in his life.

I'm not surprised half of them go nuts.

I'm not either and I'm not saying there shouldn't be mental health services which this administration cuts and cuts and cuts and cuts, you know, but the gun is what shoots people.

That church you mentioned before, you know what they did?

They tore the church down.

It was a hundred-year-old building, and the response was, tear the church down, because guns don't kill people.

churches kill people.

That was the response to it.

Yeah.

Well, when that woman drove her kids into the lake, some other people about a few months later went to look where that happened, and then their car went in the lake, and they said, We should drain the lake.

It's not the lake, it's really not the lake's fault.

All right, you're a very entertaining panel, but it's time for new rules, everybody.

All right,

New Rule, get a room.

I don't know anything about ice dancing routines, but I'm pretty sure that when it's finished, I shouldn't be more exhausted than they are.

New rule, let's call therapists what they really are, friend prostitutes.

Because when a friend tells you to see a therapist, that's just their way of saying, I don't care about your breakup.

Why don't you rent someone who does?

Neural, now that magician David Copperfield has been accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman, he must get a new headshot.

Neural, someone has to tell the Chicago news station that thinks the Pyeongchang Olympics are being held at P.F.

Chang's,

You're too stupid even to be on television.

First of all, P.F.

Chang is Chinese, not Korean, and everyone knows the difference between Korea and China.

Koreans sound like this.

And Chinese people sound like this.

We want deal.

New rule,

from now on in Los Angeles, this will be called a freeway

and this will be called a parking lot.

And finally, New Rule psychologists have to explain how in the age of Me Too, the number one movie in America is about a woman on a leash.

Or how in romantic comedies there are only three plots.

She married her boss, stalking is romantic, and I hate you and then I love you.

Now it's true that men made most of these movies, but women bought most of the tickets.

I sure wasn't the one who wanted to go see Failure to Launch.

And 50 Shades of Gray, written, directed, and devoured by women.

Because people are complicated.

That's why there's a Facebook category, it's complicated.

We don't know why we're attracted to a woman or a man or, if you've seen shape of water, a fish.

Sometimes people at work fall in love.

Sometimes people try something new in bed without having a pre-production meeting about it.

Not every guy who makes a woman uncomfortable did it because he's an asshole.

2017 was a great year for women because finally men have been put on notice.

Harassment is going to be noted now.

So you're going to have to think of another way to meet women.

All men are playing with five fouls now, as they should.

But the movement falters if it thinks we can make pain-free the messy transition from two people not in a relationship to two people who are.

A Harris poll says 38% of Americans have dated a coworker and 31% of office romances have led to marriage.

The rest ended happily.

And yet Facebook and Google have policies where you can only ask a coworker out once.

If she or he says no, you cannot ask again.

Right, because feelings in humans never change.

We're rocks.

Fuck, women like these rom-coms precisely because the men do change.

Christian Gray starts out as a sadist, and by the end he's traded in his butt plug for a heated toilet seat.

Love actually is somehow a lot of people's favorite movie, but if it was made today, it would have to be called inappropriate actually.

It's nothing but men hitting on their underlings, and one character is such a stalker, he shows up at the door of his married crush who winds up chasing him down the street and kissing him.

Most women I know call the police if you leave a note on their car.

I'm not saying men act the way they do primarily because of movies, but they have been getting this message for a long time that this is what women want.

And it is what women want.

but only from the men they want it from.

Problem is, we don't know which one we are.

You know, when Tom Cruise barges uninvited into the home of the assistant he's hired and had sex with and says, I'm not letting you get rid of me.

How about that?

Adorable.

If it was Ted Cruz, not so much.

Snow White is the 10th highest-grossing film ever.

It's about a prince who kisses Snow White when she's out cold.

Cute from a prince from Bill Cosby, not cute at all.

John Cusack, always cute.

Am I right, ladies?

Always cute.

Always cute.

Even when he shows up outside his ex's house, playing the music they used to have sex to.

In real life, The cops arrive, mistake the boom box for a gun, and shoot him 57 times.

Who's more beloved than Rocky?

But his first date moves

wouldn't go over too well at the Me Too Film Festival.

Should go.

Don't go, please.

Don't go.

Don't go.

Not very PC, but Rocky was determined not to spend another lonely night beating his meat.

You know, I also wouldn't try the chair through the window move used by William Hurt in Body Heat, but it worked for them.

And this isn't just in our unwoke past.

It's this year's Oscar nominees.

Beauty and the Beast is about a simple country girl who's kidnapped, but it turns out is a prince, so it's okay.

If you think there's a power imbalance when the conductor dates the cellist, imagine being hit on by a hulking dog monster.

Phantom Threat is about a powerful older man who picks up a waitress.

Call Me By Your Name is about a 24-year-old who has a gay affair with a 17-year-old.

And The Shape of Water is about a cleaning woman at a secret government lab who takes the creature from the black lagoon home and bangs it in the bathtub.

If that's not workplace sex, it's certainly stealing office supplies.

All right, that's our show.

We're off next week and back March 2nd.

I'll be at the Florida Theater in Jacksonville March 3rd.

I want to thank Steinbot Rushdie, Fred Leibowitz, Vicente Fox, and Adam DeVere Smith.

Try to stop for overtime on YouTube.

Thank you.

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.