Overtime - Episode #445: Trump Nukes, Panama Papers, 2018 Democrats

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

We're on our last overtime of the year for Rebecca.

Is there any connection between domestic violence and terrorism?

Yeah, a very firm connection.

In fact,

I can't remember the percentage of mass shooters who are, and terrorists who have domestic violence in their past.

Also, animal cruelty.

It's always in the past of.

Right.

It's actually one of the things that

links everything from domestic.

Like allowing people to kill elephants and then send their parts back.

All of it.

All of it.

Yeah.

Violence against women and mass violence.

Should we, and are we able to, rethink President Trump's access to the nuclear football?

Well, no.

The president.

I mean, that's.

Isn't there some sort of architecture, though, in place, don't you think, with all those generals around, or maybe this is a fantasy of mine.

But don't you think John Kelly and Mattis and these people have discussed that he can't?

Absolutely.

There are discussions among people in the White House who have concerns about the president's, quote, temperament

and what to do in moments when that temperament seems out of whack.

And knowledge.

He only owns.

Well, that's the other thing.

Only this year seemed to discover that nuclear weapons were bad.

Look.

Nobody knew.

The repertorial fact of his ignorance in terms of what he knows about what goes on in the world, the history of the United States,

is really extraordinary.

And again, it's a fact that we've never had a president who knows less about the history of his country, about what goes on in the world around him.

This is extraordinary.

It doesn't mean, though, that he doesn't have good instincts.

He's had good enough instincts to win the presidency.

That's a whole different category.

It is.

It is.

I don't know.

It's a personality disorder.

Yeah,

I'm not making a psychiatric.

But do you think we have a chance that these generals have gotten together and said we cannot

allow him to have access to the nuclear code?

I don't think it could be anything.

No, no, no, no.

I don't think they could do that.

I think they can say, like, if the order comes and we know it's that crazy, we just don't do it.

Like, they could distract him with a cheeseburger.

Right, right.

I mean, it's pretty complicated how it actually works.

There is the National Security Council.

There are the chairmen of the Joint Chiefs.

And by the way, missiles are not just ready to fly.

They have to be fueled.

They have to be targeted.

That's why we have the defense condition.

We are now at DEF CON 5.

We would have to go all the way down to DEF CON 1 to launch a nuclear weapon.

And the reason we have those defense conditions is to give the grown-ups time to intervene.

Bill, your new book is about Vermont

seceding from the United States.

You think the idea will catch on?

Well, probably not in Vermont.

I mean, it's more plot device.

We're an old state, and saying

Social Security will go away might be enough to bring us to heel.

But I never quite understand California.

I mean, this is 40 million people.

It's an economy the size of Germany, and you've got the same two senators that we've got in Vermont for 600,000 people.

It's kind of weird.

So wrong.

I mean, I've...

We're glad that you stay because the country's sort of screwed without you.

I know a lot of the country thinks Jesus personally handed the Constitution to the founding fathers,

but it needs a page one rewrite, that Constitution.

It really does.

I mean, there's some great things in it, and there's some shit that really has to go.

But we also don't teach civics in school anymore.

We don't teach kids.

The reason that's in there was for a very good reason because back in the day there was no California.

The biggest, most powerful state was slave-owning Virginia.

And you didn't want Virginia running roughshod over tiny little Vermont.

And so that's why we have

every state.

Vermont didn't even join in for 15 years.

We were an independent republic until we became the 14th state.

And that's one of the reasons that it's, you know, that that resistance spirit, the spirit of Mr.

Sanders, whoever, stays pretty strong.

That's right.

He's still an independent.

Okay.

What pressures do the government or big corporations put on journalists to not report information they do not want exposed?

Not Not usually very successful.

There was a lot of rumors about Mueller hiding information, or having the mainstream media had all this information about

the Panama Papers and all of investigation details that they said they held back on purpose, the mainstream media.

Is that a real thing, or is that something I'm reading on a Facebook private papers?

I don't know the specifics, but I cannot imagine that once

having had

those papers, the Panama papers, and then doing the necessary checking and reporting and follow-through, I can't imagine any responsible news organization that wouldn't go with the information in them.

Today's story, though, is that the Koch brothers are about to buy Time magazine.

I mean, the list of things that are owned by Murdoch's and Koch's and things just keeps growing.

Well, that brings us to Citizens United.

Isn't that something if we get the right people elected and Democrats in office and women in office, whether they are, I mean, don't you think that is something, I know we have

a different leaning bench right now for the Supreme Court, but that is something that takes everybody's money out of politics.

And if we had publicly funded elections, I know that seems like a long shot, but doesn't everybody want that?

Who wants to make money to these candidates all the time?

Everybody wants that except the most powerful members of the donor class who determine who gets elected.

So regular people who don't want to give $5 to every candidate they like.

I mean, that's something worth discussing and actually entertaining as an idea moving forward.

And that's the danger of getting rid of the Johnson Act.

This is something that we're not discussing.

If we get rid of the Johnson Act, which separates church and state, because remember, religions are international.

And a lot of countries have state religions.

And if you get rid of the Johnson Act, there is nothing to stop Vladimir Putin giving a billion dollars to the Russian Orthodox Church, which will then donate it through an American Russian Orthodox Church to the candidate of their choice.

And we didn't get to the topic of the tax bill, which is pretty big today.

But I mean, that is a bill written for the donor class.

That's why they want to keep the situation as it is.

It's a distinction of plutocracy.

It It is.

And what we have been developing over the past 30, 35 years in this country, particularly through tax and economic inequality and the middle class falling farther behind, is a kind of plutocracy that we've never had in this country since the Gilded Age.

And it really is the great domestic political question.

But they're no longer hidden of what are we going to do about this.

They're not even trying to hide it.

I mean, today's news was

no tax exemptions for teachers buying buying classroom supplies.

Yes, tax exemptions for private jets.

So, I mean, that's America.

Lindsey Graham has said this is because if we don't get this,

the donors will dry up.

We won't get money.

Chris Collins, this representative from New Jersey, has said the same thing.

They're openly admitting that they have to pass these tax cuts for the super rich, robbing the middle class and the poor, so that they can keep getting their money to keep getting elected.

If that's who you work for, that's who you work for.

That's right.

All right.

Last question of the year.

Who do you see stepping up to the plate in 2018 and 2020 to lead the Democrats to victory?

All of us.

And this is something that we, this is a mistake that we cannot repeat.

We did this in 2008.

We elected Obama, and in Obama's...

And it was, yes, we can.

Yes, and in his speech, he said, listen, now the hard work begins.

And we all said, okay, benevolent king, go fix everything.

We're going to discover Netflix and Tinder.

And we can't do that.

Power comes from the bottom.

It comes from us.

We're responsible.

We have to be power bottoms, everybody.

Power Power Bottoms.

Come on, gay.

Thank you very much.

What a great way to live.

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