Ep. #446: Michael Wolff, Saru Jayaraman

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

Start the clock.

Thank you so very much.

All right, sit down.

Let's start the show.

Thank you.

I love you too.

Thank you for...

Thank you for.

I still come back every year.

Thank you very much.

I know.

I know.

I love you too.

Thank you.

That is such it, boy.

You know what?

I was reluctant to end my vacation, but

that makes it worthwhile.

I was in Hawaii.

It was so relaxing until the missile alert came in.

Right on the phone.

Did you see this shit?

Not a drill.

Suri, where could I get new underwear?

But you know, Hawaiians are so laid back.

You know, people saw it on their phone.

They just swiped left.

I saw one guy, he texted, new phone, who this?

But happy new season, happy new year.

It's 2018.

Oh, my gosh.

Thank you.

2018 on the Chinese calendar is the year of the shithole.

I don't know if you know that.

Well, you know, see, this is the thing about Donald Trump.

Well, look, I'm going crazy already.

It's all for sure.

I've got to keep it.

But this is the thing about Donald Trump.

He just says shithole.

Everybody laughs at that, and it's a big thing, but actually, he changes real stuff because that was the immigration deal they were trying to do and saying shithole torpedoed it.

And now they're going to cut down the government.

We're waiting on that right now, live Friday night, because Donald Trump, you know, he wants to change the immigration process.

He says, why can't we do immigration more like the way I got Melania by using a catalog?

He actually said that he said that we should bring in more people from Norway and today Norway responded, they said, thank you, pass.

So now we have this government shutdown looming and it is a stalemate because the Democrats are not budging on the Dreamers and

Trump is even more dead set about his stupid wall because his chief of staff, John Kelly, went on TV this week, oh, and he said Trump on the wall was uninformed

and evolving and Trump was furious.

He said, I am not uninformed, and who is this John Kelly?

And what's evolution?

But

I'll tell you what evolution is.

Trump, for two years, telling all his fans every time he got in front of them, it's going to be a giant concrete wall, an actual wall 30 feet high from coast to coast.

No, no, it's a fence.

Or sometimes a stream or a thin sprinkling of cinnamon like you do with ants, you know.

But

if there is a government shutdown, Trump says not to worry, porn stars will still get their hush money.

So don't worry.

Oh,

you saw this story.

Oh my God.

Any other president, this would be enough to get him out.

But yes, Donald Trump.

Only man ever, by the way, to pay a porn star to keep her mouth shut.

So, and you know what?

Ms.

Story,

I'm not even going to say allegedly.

I've been sued up.

I'm 1-0 in lawsuits with Donald Trump.

So if I lose this one, I'd be and one.

And they paid her $130,000.

You don't pay someone that kind of money if there isn't something there.

So in 2006, only months after Melania has given birth to their son, Donald Trump is shtupping this porn star who was also cheating on her boyfriend, and he knew because she used to come home with orange on her collar.

But

the porn star, she probably has fans here.

Stormy Daniels, Stormy Daniels, star of Young and Anal.

Oh, to be young and anal.

No,

Young and Anal, trailer trash nurses for goodwill humping

and porking with pride too.

And here's what we learned from her and her affairs with Donald Trump.

She said, first of all, he didn't use protection.

He said he'd only use a condom if Mexico paid for it.

What the fuck?

Gotta love Donald Trump.

He's the world's biggest germ of foam.

Won't shake hands.

Just raw dog with a porn start, no problem.

She also

says he chased her around the room.

in his tidy whities.

And when Trump heard tidy whities, he said, what, you mean my voters?

And

I love this part, that he made her lots of promises, like he was going to buy her a condo, but she knew he was a con man who would never keep his word.

Oh, if only the voters of Wisconsin had the same perceptive abilities as the star of working with pride, too.

And so he chases her around the room at his tidy-whities, and finally she says they get on the bed.

He starts kissing her, and she says to herself, Ugh.

Here we go.

But she's a pro.

She powered through it.

She said, you know, sometimes if you have to have sex with a guy like Donald Trump, you just shut your eyes and pretend it's Harvey Weinstein.

All right, we've got a great show.

Larry Wilbore and Andrew Sullivan are here.

And a little later I'll be speaking with author and Dr.

Nastarul Jayraman.

But first up, oh, wow, he wrote the book that President Trump didn't want you to buy, so you did.

Slaughter of Fire and Killing Inside the Trump White House.

Michael Wolf.

Michael, how you doing?

Great to see you.

Wow.

Look at that.

Well, you have done the impossible.

You have made America read again.

You know,

if it's a book that brings down this presidency, I'm going to bow to the God of irony.

Well, it.

But

with all due respect, it's a great fun book to read, but it's not bringing him down.

His popularity has not gone down one bit.

His base wouldn't read it.

The people who read it already hate him, but it's fun.

And it's informative.

You just can't move these people.

That's the thing.

And I know you've been out talking about it all.

I want you to tell me something that the other people have not noticed in this book.

Is there something that you think, boy, why don't they ask me about this that I put in there that they're not talking about?

There is, but I can't tell you what it is.

So there is.

Fuck you, Mike.

Teasing us like that.

There is something in the book that I was absolutely sure of, but it was so incendiary that I just didn't have

the ultimate proof.

Considering what he's done,

is it a woman thing?

Well, I didn't have the blue dress.

No, is it about a woman?

It is.

Oh, it is.

It is.

Oh, it's somebody he's fucking now.

It is.

Oh.

And it's...

Who is it?

You just have to read between the lines.

What lines?

Tell us the lines.

You say it's in the book.

It's toward the end of the book.

Okay, well, it's in the book.

Yeah, you just have to.

You'll know it.

I'll know it.

Now that I've told you,

when you hit that paragraph, you're going to see a bingo.

Okay.

I'm not going to make the joke.

I was going to make it.

Okay, so listen, the womanizing thing, though, you do have a lot about it in the book.

I mean, that I found fascinating, that you were basically saying that this is sort of the point of Trump's whole life.

I love the way you say, you know, the empire, it really was a boutique industry kind of.

He really didn't do anything all day.

The whole point of his existence was chasing tail 24-7.

24-7.

That was it.

That is the, he's the man.

I am an old-fashioned playboy.

That's the kind of thing that he says, and he says it proudly.

Yeah, and I always thought, I may have said it last year on that show, I thought one of the biggest adjustments for him was when he moves into the White House, he can't play the, you know, when it was, oh, Milani, I'll be home at 8, and then he has hotels, you know, he goes to dog tournaments, we see he has all these places where he can get together with his mistresses.

That's hard to do in the White House.

That's probably why he's so pissed off all the time.

Except now he's got

back doors and back doors.

There are back doors.

Oh, it's a gay liaison.

You know, listen.

I didn't think of that.

Sean Spicer.

If I can get into the White House, you know, points can get into the White House.

And this is the other thing that's so fascinating about your book.

Besides what's in the book, just the fact that you were able to hang out.

Hang out.

Like it's a dorm room.

Like, you know, just, this is the White House.

That just blew my mind that people weren't saying, who's this guy?

Why is he here every day?

He's listening to us.

Every day I waited for someone to notice me, say, please get out, but they don't.

They actually do the other thing.

They sort of say, okay, come, come, let's talk.

And what do you attribute this to?

I attribute it to Donald Trump.

This is like...

He said, okay, he liked you because you were a New Yorker.

Well, sort of New York.

There is, he gave the first approval.

I said, I'd like to come, you know, come down and observe.

Then he thought I was asking for a job.

I said, no, no, no, no.

I said, I want to write a book.

And he said,

you just saw he was deflated a book.

Why would you want to do that?

But then it was kind of like, okay.

And what was the title?

You didn't call it Fire and Fury when you were talking to them, right?

It was like the Grand Transition or something.

Yes, the Great Transition.

The Great Transition, of course.

That's funny.

You know, when Larry Charles and I were making my documentary Religius, we didn't call it that.

We called it a spiritual journey.

And then they let us interview them in the church.

Now I told Trump, he said, you know, I said, I'm going to call the book the great transition, the first hundred days.

Right.

He said, a boring title.

Right.

Oh.

Right.

So the other thing that where you actually had an impact is because of the book, there was a lot of talk about maybe he's just flat out batshit nuts.

People were diagnosing.

I mean, there was talk about that before, but it reached a fever pitch to the point where he thought, we had his physical last week, that he also asked to take a cognitive test and then bragged about how great he did, even though it was a test that it's the kind of test they give an old lady when she's wandering down the middle of a highway in her underpants.

It's also, you can get the test on the internet, so you can get the questions beforehand.

It's 30 questions.

The first four are what month is it?

What day is it?

What year is it?

What city are you in?

And who's the president of the United States?

Yeah, well, it's.

But he aced it.

Okay.

So,

you know, it goes up, your book goes up to the point where John Kelly takes over.

Okay, so that is the big watershed moment.

But this week, now he's apparently feuding, as I referred to in the monologue, with John Kelly, because Kelly committed the ultimate faux pas and he criticized Trump on TV or inferred that he was not perfect.

What do you make of this?

And apparently I read now that John Kelly threatens to quit all the time.

That's the only way you can get Trump's attention?

Everybody tries to quit the whole operation.

Is that true?

Yeah, it's like,

how do I get out of here?

So

why does he still command so much loyalty?

He's been so rotten and said rotten things to just about everybody.

And all I see is month after month, Republicans not fighting him more, lining up behind him more, lying for him.

What do you attribute that to?

Well, I mean I think the loyalty thing, my book is sort of the example that these are the most disloyal, loyal people

who ever existed.

But also the Republicans, you know, there was, you know, Mitch McConnell said, this was early on, he will sign anything we put in front of him.

So he just becomes

for everyone in some way a useful fool.

Now the problem with that is he's the useful fool but then he goes wacko and says something which destroys everybody's plans to use him.

So

what are you in

What are you in awe of with him?

I'm not saying admire.

There's nothing I admire about him, but there are things about him that I am in awe of.

like the size of his balls

aren't you just in awe of the size of his balls

you know come on I mean I am in awe that that there is actually someone who can go through life reach the age of what is it 71 right now

and still act like he should get what he wants when he wants without anyone saying otherwise.

Demand, demand, demand.

Because everything is so unfair.

His favorite word is unfair.

He's the luckiest guy in the world and he's got this chip on his shoulder.

That's what I understand.

That his whole attitude is when will white men born to great wealth finally catch a break in America.

Anyway.

Or he is, as everyone,

literally 100% of the people around him

always return to saying, well, he's like a child.

Right.

And sometimes he's a 16-year-old, he's like a 16-year-old child, or an 11-year-old, or a two-year-old.

I notice now on Fox and Friends, they talk to him directly like they used to on Romper Room.

I see Donald.

It's the funnest book I've read in a long time.

I just hope the world stays where it is.

Thank you so much.

Michael Wolfe, great job.

Michael Wolfe, everybody, and let's meet our panel.

Thank you.

Okay.

Hello, boys.

All right.

Here they are.

He is a writer-at-large at New York Magazine and author of The Conservative Soul.

Our great friend Andrew Sullivan has come back to welcome me.

And this big guy, the co-creator of HBO's Insecure and the host of the podcast, Black on the Air, who will be speaking at the LA Women's March on Saturday.

Be careful what you say, Larry.

Larry Wilmore.

Even when you say the right thing, it's the wrong thing now.

Okay, what are you going to do?

All right.

So great to have you guys here.

Let me start off with this.

What's new?

We were last on in November 17th of 2017.

What I think is the big new thing is what we were just starting to get into there is that the entire conservative establishment is lying for Donald Trump.

When Tom Cotton, the senator, and who is it, Purdue, the other one, they were in the room when he said shithole.

And everybody heard shithole, and we all knew he said shithole, and they came out and said he didn't say shithole.

The homeland security person perjured herself.

Said she didn't know there were white people in Norway.

His doctor lies for him.

He's six foot three, grew an inch.

And he's 239 pounds.

Got to lose a little weight, but he's lying his ass off.

The corporations are doing it.

Walmart, you know, says, well, thanks to the tax cut.

And then we find it's not thanks to the tax cut that they're raising wages.

The economy is great.

They have to compete.

This is a vast right-wing conspiracy.

It is.

I mean, I feel like he's got them all in a sunken place, you know.

It's like, I mean, it was fascinating when he said people are scared.

to leave, like, like Trump and Pence are

that creepy white couple and the Republicans are those 13 kids or something, you know.

No, not to make fun of them.

I'm not making fun of them, but you know how to...

No, but it seems like...

Appapt analogy?

Yeah, why are they afraid?

You know, and the fact that they would twist and turn to lie.

Like the woman, the Norway thing, Bill, the Norway thing.

She can't understand that it's made up of mostly white people.

I mean, are there some Norwiggas running around?

I'm not aware of them.

Harry, I will not allow, I will not allow that kind of language on my show.

I'm sorry, I can't understand it.

No, I can't either.

It's a function of two things, it seems to me.

It's both he has to lie because he needs to cover up what's actually happening.

What's their mind?

Number one.

No, I know, and they have to follow.

They have to follow because it's a cult, and he's the cult leader.

And it's in a tribe.

And in a tribe, if you stand up against the leader whom everybody is supporting, then you are ostracized.

You're finished.

And it's amazing.

You'd think Washington would be a little bit more grown-up than this, but they aren't.

It's astounding.

And it's so scary because

now that the nutty guy is the one that they're following,

really scary, nutty stuff becomes more mainstream.

The latest one is, you know, this Hawaii threat really shook me because I go there around that time of year.

And

sober over there.

Yes, and I mean, well, you know, if it was Obama, well, it wouldn't be, but now that President Stable Genius

is

threatening North Korea, I mean, this could really happen.

And the main, this is getting mainstreamed by, I see this David French, you know, this guy, we've had him on the show.

He's the guy that Bill Kristol wanted to run last time.

He's in the National Review.

He says, you have to understand that the odds are overwhelming that you'll survive an initial blast.

That's unbelievable to me.

You'll have three heads, but you know.

He says it's a Hollywood myth.

that a strike will vaporize an entire American city, much less the suburbs.

We're out in the sticks.

We won't even notice it.

This is scary stuff.

And 46% of Republicans want war with North Korea.

This is what I worry about.

When the funny then becomes the not-for-we've always lived with nukes, right?

I mean, that was what the Iraq War allegedly was about, remember?

We lived with nukes.

We've struggled with nukes with Iran.

I once asked

the last president,

what kept him up awake at night?

He said,

Pakistan's nukes.

They're everywhere.

I think the difference is that we don't have someone in control now that we trust to have the composure, calm, and reticence to handle a crisis.

And so therefore, we're so much more frightened.

And we have reason to be.

I just want to mark the

moment when this went from unthinkable to thinkable.

Yeah.

We're moving into thinkable, and I don't want to be.

We've never seen anything like this.

Remember how people were scared of Reagan, and that seems close now?

And MIT.

Yeah, and MIT.

How can people be afraid at the same time?

What's the work for this?

At the same time, there is a dictatorship with access to nuclear weapons that could possibly attack the mainland of the United States.

So it's not like they're conjugating this out of thin air.

Yeah, so let's provide you entirely right now.

So let's provoke them to do that.

Well, of course not.

Of course not.

Yeah.

Okay.

So let me ask you about

any news on the shutdown?

Voting because they're voting now.

Voting now.

Okay.

So we're exciting live TV.

So immigration.

So it looks like it's a base versus base fight.

You know, the Democrats, now there's a bunch of them running for president already.

And this is an issue, you know, some people would say this is what loses Democrats' election, identity politics.

You would say that.

Yes.

I mean, I don't think, I think this is really dicey for the Democrats.

I think if they shut down the government because they want to protect the dreamers, who some people would call illegal immigrants, and because they want to prevent the war, they're going to look really bad in middle America.

They're going to look like they'd rather shut the government down than get serious on immigration control.

And that's not a good position for the Democrats to be in.

Yeah, but, you know, I get tired of the Democrats being afraid to play hardball the way Republicans play it.

Oh, yeah.

You know.

I mean, it's true.

So what would hardball look like with this?

Well, remember, Mitch McConnell, I think Judge Scalia was murdered by that pillow for a whole year.

He was dead.

Absolutely.

Mitch McConnell held up for a year.

Yeah.

Right?

Yes.

For Gorsuch.

That's playing hardball.

And by the way,

how important is that Supreme Court pick?

He knew how important that was.

They weren't afraid to do that.

But I don't know how that was.

But hardball versus hardball, it escalates, you know, like a nuclear

conflict.

And at some point, whoever's in power is going to have to govern the whole country.

Someone at some point is going to have to bring this country together.

And unfortunately, those kind of tactics only deepen the divide and make everything harder.

And that's what I'm concerned about.

They're getting polarized on both sides.

The bases are enraged.

There's less and less in the middle.

And the reasonable debates are now being swamped by personality cults, by reality television, by Twitter, but all this feeling.

There was not one day in eight years that Republicans said, I will work with Barack Obama.

Not one day.

There wasn't one day.

Absolutely.

And not for any issue.

You're right.

You're right.

I know, but is it going to help us just go back at it in the same way?

It's going to help us.

You don't have to do the same thing, but you can learn how to fight properly for the things that are important.

Like even for the dreamers, let's upcoming dreamers.

How about undocumented Americans, which is what they really are?

I mean, people have been here for their whole lives, pretty much.

But how about doers?

Instead of dreaming.

You know, I mean, I told you.

It's esoteric.

Look, I'm for them staying too, but I see a lot of footage on TV of people crying.

And I think that this is what you're talking about.

I think this is what people go, oh, well, this is the Democrats.

This is what they care about, people crying.

I got problems with you.

Why not?

Excuse me for asking a really impertinent question, but why not give him the wall?

For Pete's sake.

Why not?

Well, first of all.

But I'll tell you what, because it's not.

It's not feasible.

It's not feasible, in which case, it's not going to get built.

It's going to take way longer than even two Trump terms.

Give it to him.

Not only that, but when you give it to him, you get the dreamers, you get more people to stay here who are already illegal, you can use that leverage on the other issues, and you can credentialize yourselves with America by saying, we're not against border control.

Andrew, that would work if he knew what he wanted, but he doesn't know what he wants.

All he knows of what he wants is Trump.

He's a narcissistic sociopath.

He's only interested in feeding his ego.

Yes.

He doesn't have position.

He can't bargain with him.

No.

But could I interject something here?

If somebody would actually

introduce facts into this,

I'm not talking about us, I'm talking about Congress.

You know,

we are to the left of Canada on this.

You know, usually when an issue in Canada comes up, people say, oh, you know, the health care system or pot or gay marriage.

They're always to the left of us, good liberal Canada.

Canada allows 28% of people in through family.

We allow two-thirds.

They have a point system in Canada.

It's much stricter.

It's not what Trump would call chain migration family.

It's education.

Do you speak English or French?

Work experience.

Do you have a job offer?

Age, adaptability.

Immigrants admitted based mainly on employment skills.

America,

14%,

Canada 58%.

Bill, there's nothing wrong with rules for immigration, but I'm a little more cynical about what

this is what the Democrats are fighting against.

But no, no, no, no, no.

Here's what the real fight is.

That may be what they're fighting against, but the Republicans are actually fighting for is they feel immigrants, especially low-skilled workers, are actually Democratic voters, and that what the Democrats are doing are importing voters.

It's true.

They say that themselves.

You're looking at me like that.

Why is it a crazy idea?

I know.

Why is it a crazy idea to say we want anybody from anywhere in the world, but who can really contribute something?

We don't have

obligations to do that.

I wish you would say that.

We know.

We actually shit whole countries.

Well, don't make me just.

I'm not defending Trump.

We don't know.

But we don't know.

This diversity lottery.

This diversity lottery that he goes on about.

Well, why does that exist?

I mean, do we actually have to have

every single country

representationally?

It's crazy.

Why not just get rid of it?

This is so easy to deal with.

And we can save the dreamers, but the base is forbidding this from happening.

I'll put it in another way.

The Republicans are seeming to betray their own...

ethos and ideology and the things they used to always stand for.

They used to be that party of, hey, you can come from anywhere and you can have the American dream here.

The Republicans held that up as a badge of honor in in their sleeves, and they're going against that.

They're saying, no, you only can be of a certain station and come here.

The upper mobility has to start here.

It can't start here anymore.

No, it just says if you want to be able to do it.

It's betraying their own dream.

All right, let's get to some good news, though.

Trump had his physical

and he is the healthiest man ever to live.

And, you know, which is

true.

He's such a city roach.

Remember the.

Right.

I mean, he doesn't matter what he eats, eats, you just can't kill him.

It's so true.

But the person, that's so true.

The person who is not in such great shape is Chris Christie.

He is from my home state of New Jersey and he just retired as the governor.

And

here in the comedy business,

when a guy like Chris Christie retires, it's a very dark day.

We have been dining out on his fat jokes for a long time.

And we will mourn this.

and that's why we put together this little tribute.

Someone has to pull Chris Christie aside and tell him the lap band goes on the inside.

McCain thinks megabytes is the Secret Service code name for Chris Christie.

Andre 3,000 pounds.

First time he's ever won a landslide.

He's caused a few.

But the first time...

It's been a long time since we've seen his balls.

If there's one thing he's good at, it is clogging major arteries.

The only exercise Chris Christie gets is pumping the nacho cheese dispenser.

Chris Christie is handing out candy wrappers.

He is the reason we only get McRib once a year.

There are skeletons in his closet of cows.

All right, she is the president and co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunity Center United and the director of the Food Labor Research Center at UC Berkeley.

Please welcome Saru Jaraman.

How you doing?

Great to see you again.

Good to see you again.

Okay, you were so great the first time.

Glad to have you back.

Thank you.

And more relevant than ever, some of the things you were talking about, you've always been a great tribune for the restaurant workers of America.

Let's first, before we get into the connection to the harassment news that's

around,

let's talk about tips, because this is very relevant to a country that's always debating minimum wage.

This is one of those areas where America is pretty unique, right?

That we still do it by tips?

We're so unique because actually tipping originated in feudal Europe.

It was like aristocrats giving something to serfs and vassals.

When it first came to the States, rich Americans brought it and actually it was around the time of slavery, around emancipation.

And the restaurant industry at that time demanded the right to hire newly freed slaves, not pay them anything, and let them live on customer tips.

And so the idea of a nothing wage, then zero, now $2,

comes from slavery.

It comes from the idea that mostly black workers could earn nothing and live on tips.

And now here we are 150 years later with a minimum wage of $2.13 an hour.

millions of women across America living on tips.

Yes, and it's an industry where like one out of 12 people in the country work.

One out of 11 of people right now.

It's almost 13 million workers.

That's astounding.

Yeah.

And tell us why it is connected to harassment.

And if there was not a tipping system, that situation would get better.

You know, right now, 70% of the millions of women, millions of people across America who live on tips, who worked on the tip minimum wage of $2 and $3 and $4 an hour, 70% of them are women.

And they live, you know, working at IHOP and Applebee's and Olive Garden.

And their median wage, including tips, is about $9 an hour.

They suffer from three times the poverty rate of of the rest of the U.S.

workforce.

But worst of all, they are having to put up with anything and everything from customers.

No matter how they touch them or treat them or talk to them, because that's where their income is coming from.

That's how they're getting paid.

That's how they're feeding their families, not from a wage.

The wage is so low, it's going to taxes.

So they're having to deal with...

The customers are harassing them.

The customers are harassing them, but get this.

The customers are harassing them because they live on tips.

But because they're living on tips, the manager says, dress more sexy, show more cleavage, wear tighter clothing in order to make more more money on tips.

Would you believe when we were doing this?

Because then the idiots just think that's an invitation.

Exactly.

Well, not just that.

The co-workers of management.

Exactly.

Well, speaking of Hooters, when we put out this research, would you believe the industry named a new segment, a recognized segment?

It's called the Brestaurant.

The Brestaurant is a new segment in the restaurant industry, and it's not just Hooters and Tilted Kilt and Twin Peaks.

It's Olive Garden and Applebee's and Denny's, where women are told, show your breasts.

But the thing is,

not fully.

No, but show more breasts.

Oh, I see.

It's a breastforce.

Show cleavage.

Yeah, show cleavage.

At Denny's.

I can't tell you the number of workers we've had from Denny's who tell us, my boss tells me, go home and dress more sexy and

show more cleavage and come back so you can make more money in tips.

What a fucked up country, this is.

And nobody else does it, just us.

Just because I'm the toad in the punch.

No, go ahead.

I mean, one of the things that tips, I mean, I'm not addressing this situation, but more generally, it seems to me, the point of tips is it does incentivize good service, right?

And it's a way in which a customer can reward good service.

Well, there's...

But we don't do that with lots of other places where there's service.

We're incentivized.

Do you tip your doctor or your lawyer or your teacher?

I mean, these are hardworking immigrants.

Your pilot.

Many of them are immigrants, by the way.

Really hardworking immigrants.

But there are, you know, we don't tip anybody else.

This is the only industry where the actual bosses say, we shouldn't have to pay our own workers.

You, the customer, should pay our workers for us.

Plus, you know, I've read recently about a lot of these high-level chefs who went down in the Me Too thing.

And it's interesting.

It said the theme that ran through it for me was that when they weren't harassing, they were screaming.

Yeah.

You know, and when people ask me about the Me Too thing, the first thing that always comes to my mind is, I hate bullies of any kind.

Yeah.

And this is a type of it.

And

I'm wondering,

what other industries do you think have not been talked about yet?

Now we're talking about restaurants.

Yeah, I mean, farm workers face this on the job.

Domestic workers face this on the job.

Pretty much in every industry, women who don't have power.

And you know the...

You know what one I haven't heard, and I'm going to get in trouble for saying it, cops.

Fucking cops, man.

I mean,

every woman I've ever known has a story about, you know,

Because they have power.

Exactly.

The ultimate power.

But when you change that dynamic, you know, there are seven states, for example, in our industry that got rid of the lower wage for tipped workers.

And they have half the rate of harassment as the 43 states that have this lower wage.

And it's because in California, which is one of the seven states, a woman doesn't have to put up with anything and everything from her boss.

She gets a full wage from her boss.

You know, and so she doesn't put up with everything from the customer.

And that's why, thanks to the Me Too moment, New York is about to follow.

Governor Cuomo actually just announced, thanks to leadership by women in the legislature, like Andrew Stewart Cousins and Ellen Jaffe, that we're actually going to get rid of that lower wage for tipped workers in New York.

You're going to keep the tips.

Absolutely.

Well, that's all I'm worried about.

I think

you should be able to reward your waiters.

The tips work.

That's a great job.

It's a great incentive.

We actually tip better in California than most other states.

But the thing is, workers, women get a wage.

Women get an actual wage.

It's a little like making someone jump for it.

You know, it's a little, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it can be, it's an anachronism at this point.

Let this one go.

I'll give you the wall, but there is

New York.

Everybody wants to tip in New York.

They don't care what they do.

Yeah.

And they expect you to tip in New York, too.

That would be fine, as long as, again.

No, you're walking down the street.

Oh, hey, hey, whoa, what's up?

No, I have.

One thing I have found, people love when you give them money for whatever reason.

I don't know what it is.

But there is one, speaking of me too, there is one person who I'm thinking of this week, and I'd like to make a personal plea to join, and that's Melania Trump.

Because, you know, she had to live through the Hollywood access tape, right?

And the reports of 19 accusers, is it on Donald Trump now?

Yeah, more.

And now, Stormy Daniels.

Come on, Melania.

This is your Me Too moment.

If she came out,

right,

and said,

marry for money, but divorce for yourself.

That's my philosophy.

I really think it would make it, I think it would be.

If you welcome her into the movement, they would

stand with her.

I think it would change a lot of things.

I mean, the fact of the matter is, I mean, Trump, sorry, but Trump is just such a dick, man.

I mean, he is.

I've

been getting this, Larry.

No, here's the thing.

When he's finished, you know, being president, whatever that is, America's going to say me too.

Okay?

I mean, speaking of bullies, Trump is a restaurant owner.

Yeah.

And he's trying to pocket his workers.

Well, he doesn't pay them money.

Exactly.

And now he's proposing a rule that would make tips the property of owners rather than workers.

So he's trying to give himself another bonus.

Yeah, and he's.

Talk about harassment.

When he walks into a restaurant, the women go running.

Yeah, but

so why do all these, why did all these, why did white women 52 to 43 vote for him?

That's a great question.

In your opinion.

Well, that's a great question.

Yes.

You know, I mean, a lot of our folks, restaurant workers, feel really, really...

Disillusioned, disgusted, disengaged from the political system in general, from both parties.

They feel like nobody's been standing up for them.

A lot of them voted for Trump because they thought thought he didn't represent the establishment.

And a lot of them are telling us they are disappointed.

He does represent the establishment.

He represents the 1%.

They're not finding he's standing up for them.

Despite the fact that the last year has shown the strongest gains for working class wages in this country for 20 years,

that's because of Obama's.

Yes, exactly.

I mean, that's, of course,

of course.

But do you think that's what his voters are going to think?

You guys keep talking about his voters like there's some monolithic.

The people are now giving him a 40% rating, higher than he's had in a very long time.

He's gained every day since that tax cut went through.

The economy is booming.

People, trust me, people are dumb enough to think

that in the eighth year of recovery, when it really does help people at the lower end, always does at the very end, he will turn around and say, don't think about that.

I did it.

And you know, circumstantially, that's when it began to happen.

That's my concern in terms of reelecting Trump, that the economy is working very much in his favor to the very people, the working classes,

well, it may be working now, but I've seen this movie before, what happens when the Republicans juice up the economy, just like they did with that tax cut.

Remember what comes next?

The crash.

Now, I thought it would happen before.

Especially, well,

war usually helps the economy.

That's what he'll do to get out of the crash.

But what's interesting here is that this is a rare time, too, when every other major part of the developing world is growing together.

There's a lot of momentum behind this current growth right now, more than you would think.

I'm sure you may be right.

I'm certainly getting out of the market pretty soon in my own retirement savings, but it may not happen.

We've expected it to happen.

It's been eight years now.

The 90s, the golden loft economy may be back.

It's not happening for everyone.

We have the highest rates of income inequality since the Gilded Age.

People are struggling across the country i just was in michigan and minnesota this week people are struggling that wage of two and three dollars is not going up so some economy maybe only for some

well

they are doing that you're wrong their wages are not going up they are look at the data look at the data you know what can has more branches than any other store the dollar store They have like $27,000 stores and dollar generals, more than anything else.

But here's denying that.

Here's the thing, though, Bill.

The appearance, whether some people are not making it, as you say,

but I have to agree with Andrew in the sense that the appearance is,

for the most part, that there is a robust economy right now.

Well, there is.

Hold on, but history has shown that we do not throw out a president during a strong economy.

If the economy turns, yeah, there's a chance.

But I'm one of those people that think Trump gets re-elected with a strong economy, and his personality is tertiary at best.

It's always...

Oh, I'm sorry, I know.

I don't like to, I'm throwing it up in my mouth as it says.

I don't like to believe it.

No, no, no.

But I have to agree with you.

This is all about personality.

It is a cult of personality.

That's what we found out in Michael's book when Steve Bannon thought he could go up against Donald Trump.

He thought he could actually steal the Trump voter because he had the ideology.

And the Trump voter is like, you're not a star.

We like this badass guy with he's got the plane and the hot wife.

He's the president.

He's the star.

Steve steve bannon steve bannon was like come on guys we're getting out of here yeah but guys

come on guys we're

but they but his voters bill like the stuff that he's doing they don't care when sarah huckabee colonel sanders comes out and lies to everybody but she comes out

i don't know what i said but but trump says trump says the earth how very dare you

trump says the earth is flat and she comes out and said now come on that's that liberal media right twisting his his words.

He says the earth is flat right here.

You heard what he said.

He's a reality TV star, yes.

He shouldn't be there, yes.

But he has tapped into certain issues like trade, immigration, and low wages.

That's what I'm saying, that won in this election, the last election, and they're fused, Bill.

They're fused.

People can't see the issue.

It's just a bought from him.

But it doesn't matter what the issue is.

He has proved that because

if I told you two years ago that the conservatives in this country would think Russia was their friend and the FBI was their enemy.

These people, I'm sorry, Republicans, I know I'm hard on you sometimes, but they're sheep.

And it's so easy to drive.

It's so frighteningly easy to drive them to a different meadow.

If you, I mean, the FBI, law enforcement, that was always their thing.

You could never say a bad word about the FBI or the CIA, and now they're a hotbed of liberals, and now they're corrupt, and we don't like them, but we're footsie with Russia.

That's crazy.

That makes me think he could say anything.

Yeah, sunken players.

Pretty much.

Everybody, though.

I mean, yes, there is that base, we have to admit, that will follow him no matter what he does.

40%.

Let's talk.

I mean, this is a lot of people.

It's not the same thing as his hardcore base.

And he has doubled the African-American vote up to two.

But he has.

Yes, but I'll tell you.

He has nothing to do with it.

But in this last year, Trump's first year, has been better for African Americans in terms of the economy than many previous years.

I'm just telling you the truth, okay?

You may not want to hear it, but this is the reality.

They're doing better because people at the bottom are now doing a lot better.

If they keep doing it, but they're not doing up.

Their wages are not going up.

Neither are their wages.

No, their wages are not going up.

We have the highest percent increase among those people over the last 12 months.

Not among

the lowest third who are living in poverty.

I'm sorry.

It's not going up.

Their wages have stagnated.

Okay.

We're going to run out of time.

I want to ask one last thing.

It was Martin Luther King Day on Monday.

And whenever this holiday happens, all the Republicans, they talk in such glowing terms about Dr.

King and everything.

I've got to march with it.

And like, what would they be saying about him on Fox News if he was alive?

Well, we know what

how they would have treated him.

Radical would be the kind word.

Well, we know, we saw how they treated him when he was alive, which is why he's not alive right now.

But what would the Democrats say about him?

Surely they would look at him and see this Christian fundamentalist.

This person is driven by religion more than anything else, and he would have no role in the current Democratic coalition.

Well, the Democrats were Dixiecrats back then, and they were more racist than anybody.

I know they were.

They didn't like him.

Martin Luther King would appear now, right now.

I mean, I was a crazy idea.

But Democrats would be like, who is this faith

What were you getting this?

Democrats aren't atheists.

I'm the atheist.

I hate this, this lumping in on an issue that I've done all the heavy lifting on.

I'm sorry.

Democrats are perfectly fine to say they're Christian.

Almost all of them are.

How about how he respects him now?

Let's talk about the president.

Most presidents, you know, as a, not even as a true edict, but what they do is respectfully do a day of service on MLK Day.

He chooses to play the whitest sport possible.

Golf on MLK Day.

That's his way of showing how he feels about Martin.

He wants to bring back the Confederate statues.

So that's enough said.

All right.

Thank you, everybody.

Time for New Rules.

Okay.

New rule, have a plan if a ballistic missile is heading your way.

Everyone in Hawaii who got the message said the same thing.

They ran home, shut the blinds, and closed the drapes.

Were you hoping the missile would think you weren't home?

It's a warhead, not a Jehovah's Witness.

Neural, someone has to tell Pope Francis that it's okay if he feels a little awkward.

I never knew how to slow dance the stairway to heaven either.

Neurul, since Tinder recognizes 37 genders and Facebook says there are 51, Speedstick has to stop living a lot.

Now there are certainly more Speedstick variations than just deodorant, antiperspirant, or deodorant/slash antiperspirant.

Stand in your truth, Tricurious Speedstick.

No one's going to judge you.

Except you, Axe Body Spray.

You're a douchebag.

Neuruel, hey, characters on Hollywood Boulevard, you can't all be Fat Spider-Man.

Neuruul, let's all agree that when the Catholic Diocese in Australia commissioned this statue of St.

Dominic offering a loaf of bread to a young boy,

they didn't think it all the way through.

On the upside, Subway restaurants have finally found their new spokesman.

Father Footlong.

And finally, new rule in 2018, it's more important than ever that we all keep laughing.

The nothing is funny people

are trying to take over the world and we can't let them.

Which is why I recently posted this picture of me pulling an Al Franken

on a sleeping Bob Saget.

It's a joke, a joke about another joke.

So I'm just saying here at the beginning of the year, if something like this is too rough for you, don't watch.

Now I'm also going to admit something right here up front that may influence what I'm about to say tonight.

I have a penis.

And while I admit that having one does predispose a human to being aggressive and oversexed, I don't concede that it makes me automatically wrong about everything.

And I say that as a true supporter of the Me Too movement.

I even wore black during the Golden Globes.

I was home watching TV, but still...

I wore black.

But I was also mourning the ability to think rationally.

I'm down with me, too.

I'm not down with me, Carthyism.

Something is way off when Senator Kirsten Gillibrand can go unchallenged, saying,

when we start having to talk about the differences between sexual harassment and sexual assault and unwanted groping, you are having the wrong conversation.

Can't we just be having an additional conversation?

Can we

Can we only have one thought now?

I get it that Al Franken had to become roadkill on the zero tolerance highway.

A highway, it seems, only Democrats have to drive on.

But do liberals really want to become the distinction deniers?

The people who can't tell or don't want to see a difference between assault in a van and a back rub by the water cooler?

Masturbation is normal and healthy, but not in the park.

Giving up on the idea that even bad things have degrees, that is as dumb as embracing the idea of alternative facts.

I get it when Trump's side doesn't want to talk.

He only knows 88 words.

But we are supposed to be the conversation people.

Justice requires weighing things.

That's why lady justice is holding a scale and not a sought-off shotgun.

Senator Gillibrand went on to say, you need to draw a line in the sand and say none of it is okay.

Yes, agreed.

But we can't walk and chew gum anymore.

We can't agree that groping and rape are both unacceptable and one is worse.

Apparently.

Apparently, not because when Matt Damon said there's a difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right,

liberal Twitter responded, No, there isn't Jason bourne yesterday.

You think he ate a lot of shit in the Martian.

Minnie Driver responded by saying, you don't get to tell women that because some guy only showed them their penis, their pain isn't as great as a woman who was raped.

What?

This is madness.

No woman in the world, if she actually had to pick, would choose rape over merely seeing a penis.

So why do we all have to pretend Minnie Driver's statement is noble and Matt Damon is crazy?

We are losing the thread back to thinking itself.

You know the Declaration of Independence starts with the words, we hold these truths to be self-evident.

Self-evident.

As in some things are such obvious, indisputable no-brainers that we start from that point.

Assuming we're all generally on the page that shit is measurably chemically different than shinola.

But it seems that now building blocks, basic building blocks of thought like there are facts

and things have degrees are being tossed aside.

Mike Pence and Isis are both homophobic, but Mike doesn't throw gay men off the roof, so he's better.

This isn't that hard, people.

This isn't that hard.

I know we can do it because we do it with other stuff.

Every millennial I know thinks it's ridiculous that the government lists marijuana as a Schedule I drug, along with LSD and heroin.

Because it is ridiculous.

Because things have degrees.

There are four degrees of murder.

three degrees of Burns, six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

All right, that's our show.

You are great.

I'll be at the Florida Theater in Jacksonville, March 3rd, and at the Mirage back in Vegas, March 9th and 10th.

I want to thank Andrew Sullivan, Larry Millware, Cyru Jai-Roman, and Michael Wool.

Thank you.

Joining us now and overtime.

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.