Ep. #442: Woody Harrelson, Joy Behar

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

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

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

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

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

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

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

Start the clock.

Joseph.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you very much.

I

finally

can't control themselves.

I know, I know.

It's not

I love you too, but I know it's not about me.

You're happy because it's not 100 degrees today.

It's almost Halloween, and it's been 100 degrees all week.

I'll say this for the Chinese.

Their hoaxes are really convincing.

Wednesday was 104 in Hollywood.

As if Harvey Weinstein needs another excuse to open his robe.

Oh, that's, hey, this is

historians will remember.

This is the time that it all changed in America on this issue.

This is watershed stuff what's going on now with sexual harassment.

We're fighting, all the rocks are coming over.

We're seeing the bugs underneath.

Did you see the Bill O'Reilly settlement that came out this week?

Bill O'Reilly, we knew about its stuff before.

This week it came out, paid a woman $32 million.

What the fuck do you have to do

to cost it $32 million?

The

victims of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan got $1,500 apiece.

So

I believe by my calculations, seeing Bill O'Reilly's dick is

21,000 times worse than radiation points of being.

But it's, I mean,

you look at this growing list of people and you see, you know, movie mogul gone, director gone, reporter gone, corporate CEO gone.

President of the United States, he stays.

What's that all about?

But not everybody is willing to turn a blind eye in the Republican Party.

This week, Jeff Flake, the senator from Arizona.

Yes, let's encourage him.

Jeff Flake joined the resistance.

He announced his retirement in a blistering speech on the Senate floor.

He would denounce Trump for all he stands for and says he just can't be a part of this anymore.

He's the Rose McGowan

of the Republican Party.

Except instead of the other Republicans joining him with their Me Too stories, they're continuing to let Trump molest them.

That's the problem.

And,

you know, Jeff Flake.

Jeff Flake is not a hippie.

This is a hard right-winger who votes with Trump.

Same thing with the other Republican of conscience, which is Bob Corker, who this week said, Trump is utterly untruthful and he is debasing the country.

That said, if he can sign our tax cut for the rich, debase away.

Yeah, that's the problem.

You know, senators have quit before their party over arguments like this with the president,

even switched parties.

Jim Jeffords, anybody remember that guy in 2001 left the Republicans, or did Lincoln Chafee over disagreements with Bush.

But these were policy differences.

That's not what's going on with Trump.

People quit Trump like they met him in a bathrobe and he jacked off into a plant.

I mean

maybe I'm being too hard on our president.

I don't know if you heard, but he solved the opioid

epidemic this week.

Yeah.

Did you see that?

Yeah, he solved it.

Yeah.

This was his quote, word for word.

He said, this was an idea that I had.

This was an idea I had where if you teach young people not to take drugs, it's really, really easy not to take them.

See?

Tell people not to take them.

Sheesh, does he have to think of everything?

And then he made a very moving speech about the whole problem.

He said, yes, we've had drug epidemics before, but never have so many of the victims been so white.

But that's not all the president got done this week.

Oh no, he was very excited about releasing the JFK assassination files.

And just as Republicans suspected, they only raised more questions about Hillary's emails.

And you know, JFK, he lived in a time when bad man behavior was never reported, especially among presidents.

And that day is gone, as George H.W.

Bush found out this week.

Yes, kids, I'm talking about the 93-year-old who apparently is addicted to crack.

Ass crack.

93, a third woman has now gone forward to say that he groped her from his wheelchair

and he didn't deny it.

He just said, hey, that's how he rolls.

But here's the part I love.

He didn't just grab the S.

He had an MO.

All these guys have MOs.

I don't get.

Anyway, his MO was, before he grabbed the S, he would always say to the woman,

who's your favorite, you know who my favorite magician is David Coppafield

and then he

and his spokesman and here's the evidence that men still need to do a lot of work here his spokesman said the president to put people at ease

that was to put people at ease

The spokesman said to put people at ease, the president tells the same joke and on occasion has patted women's rears in what was intended to be a good-natured manner.

You know it's bad when W is going, please, Dad, stop embarrassing the family.

All right, we got a great show.

You're a great crowd.

We've got Ben Jones, Betsy Woodruff, and David Prince.

And a little later, I'll be speaking with our friend, the very funny Joy Behar is here.

But first up, he's an Academy Award-nominated actor who stars in the new film LBJ Out in Theaters on November 3rd.

I understand he's very personable.

Woody Harrelson is over here.

Woody Harrelson.

Oh, look.

Bruh, how are you?

I'm doing good.

Yes, look at that.

What did you...

Look at that.

They're yelling at you.

They're standing.

What did you do to become so popular, Woody?

You're such a person.

Hanging out with you, don't hurt.

Yeah, it's nothing to do with that.

Everybody wants to be Woody's friend.

And back in your smoking days, many were.

But let's talk about your movie, because I saw it.

It's a terrific movie.

It's a great piece of work on your part.

Lyndon Johnson, I understand you were reluctant to play it because, as many of us, we didn't like Vietnam.

It's all we could see with Johnson.

But as you grow older, as we both are,

you see people in more you're you're for I think you're more forgiving right and you see the good and the bad together more you think well you know I wanted to work with Rob Reiner because I think he's one of our greatest directors and

the you know

if you look at it's almost like Rob says it's almost the tale of two presidents because there's the Vietnam but then there's all this important legislation that he passed like the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the

Head Start.

No, other than Vietnam,

he was great.

Yeah.

And he passed a lot of legislation that, you know, you had to care to pass it because it was, you know, helping poor people like the war on poverty.

And so he did a lot of great stuff, and he was a very colorful guy.

Very colorful and very, I think you caught this, needy.

You know, he really wanted people to love him.

I feel like that is maybe where you and the character were able to see.

Because you're really,

you like everybody to love you.

Well, you can't.

Like, I don't give a shit.

Well, you do too, don't you?

No, I don't give a shit.

Oh, now, come on.

Plainly, I don't give a shit.

Because you would prefer it.

I would prefer everyone to agree with me.

But

I'm not going to say what I don't think just to make them agree with me.

But let's get back to LBJ, because that's what we're here plugging.

Look at you.

Exactly.

I'm here just because I love you.

Oh, you.

You like LBJ.

Did I?

I do.

No, no.

And I will say, I'll say that I know you guys feel this, that this guy, I've been, you know, we've been friends for a long time.

A long time.

Very long time.

Very long time.

We've smoked a lot of joints together.

And this guy has been expressing what we've been feeling and some of us afraid to express for so long, and I think that's why we appreciate him so much.

Thank you so much for coming by.

Okay, let's, all right, so thank you very much.

That's very sweet of you.

I mean, Jesus,

I'm not like in bad health, am I?

You heard something.

But, okay, but like, let's talk about the vulgar part, because we have a vulgar president now, and before Trump, Johnson was the standard of vulgar.

Like one of the first scenes in the movie,

he's talking, there's people in the room, important people that that are doing government business, and he's on the phone to his tailor talking about how he needs more room because he's talking about how big his Johnson is.

Yeah, yeah.

How could you relate to a character?

He's more...

Did you talk to men with big penises?

He wasn't publicly vulgar like our president incumbent.

Right.

But

he did...

He was vulgar in private, yeah.

And our current he's a statesman.

You've had dinner with Trump, right?

Didn't you have a dinner with him?

I did have a dinner with him one day.

What was that circumstance?

Well,

I got invited by Jesse Ventura, and he said I'm, you know, he was

2002.

2004.

And I was in New York, and he said, would you come with me?

You know, Trump's going to try to get me to be his running mate on the 2004 ticket, Democratic ticket.

And

he was a Democrat then.

Yeah, yeah, he didn't care.

He doesn't.

So

I went and

it was brutal.

It was brutal.

I never met a more narcissistic man.

He talked about himself the whole time.

So he's changed a lot.

He was, you could see the standard he was going to bear for me.

But I had to walk out like halfway through, smoke a joint just to like

steal myself for the rest of the

is is that what you told yourself about why you smoke the joint

interesting

you needed prompting

yeah well let's talk about that because it's funny you I mean you have given it up for about a year and a half now yeah

and I think that's great when we were in Hawaii last year in solidarity I didn't want to tempt you so I didn't do it around you when when we were together but you were one of the pioneers, and I'm not going to try to get you back on the wagon at all.

But I just want to show you.

No, no, I just want to show you some pictures to reminisce.

I mean, you were on our very first show of Real Time.

And there we are in my backyard in 2003.

We're doing a sketch.

Remember, we did a sketch about smoking pot?

Yeah, we did that sketch.

Yeah.

And then, okay, but here's my point.

No, what do you hear?

Here's us this last year in Hawaii after you had given up pot.

And there we are with Jeff Ross.

And, you know,

okay, but not ecstatic.

And

here we are the next night at your house, your porch that you live on, because it has no walls, so you live in a porch.

Okay.

I mean, it's a beautiful view.

It should be.

There's no walls, it's a porch.

Okay, so you know, we look okay there, too.

But here's the year before when we were completely baked.

All right, I'm just saying.

I'm just saying.

I'm just concerned about your happiness.

So let's look at it again.

Not stoned.

Stoned.

Not stoned.

Stoned.

I'm just saying.

That's a strong case.

I'm about ready to fire up a hooter.

No,

I didn't heard that one.

But you haven't given up all your hippie ways, and that's great.

And I'm always amused by the great dichotomy that is you, because you're seen as such a laid-back guy, and you are.

I mean, you are as laid-back as it comes, as I know you.

But you're obviously also a very talented, driven, ambitious person.

You are not in one, not in two, but you're in three franchises.

You're in Hunger Games.

You are in, what's the magician one?

Now you see me.

And you're in the ape movie.

Platinum of the Ape.

Right.

That's true.

Now, how did the hippie,

how did this laid-back guy get to be the guy in Hollywood who's got a monopoly on being in all the franchises?

I mean, there's a little bit of an A personality and a B facade, but I am actually genuinely lazy as shit.

And

I mean, I can get by doing nothing.

You know, you've seen me.

I can really get by doing nothing.

When was the last time you were home?

January.

Yeah.

Because Mr.

Lazy works his ass off.

And where are the benefits?

Because you're leaving a great body of work.

And this movie is part of it.

You should go see it.

Woody Harrison.

Thank you.

I love you, bro.

All right.

I got to run off.

I'll see you in Hawaii, right?

Okay.

All right.

All right.

Mr.

Last year.

Woody Harrelson.

All right, let's lead our panel.

Okay, there they are.

Hey, David.

Okay, here's our panel.

He is a CNN contributor and author of The Instant, New York Times bestseller, Beyond the Messy Truth, How We Came Apart, How We Come Together.

Van Jones, Van the Man.

Okay, she's a politics reporter for the Daily Beast returning tomorrow show.

Betsy Woodruff.

Hey, Betsy.

and he's a senior writer for a national review whose name you may recall has floated to be the presidential candidate of the never Trump movement oh if it had only been so welcome aboard David French thank you David

okay

All right, so let's talk about the Republicans.

They had a big week, and I thought it was a kind of a microcosm of everything that's dragging our republic down because Jeff Flake, this Republican, conservative Republican, gets up there and he makes this amazing speech.

I mean, this was well written and beautifully delivered in the well of the Senate, and it's all about how we can't continue under this man.

You know, it was his have you no decency speech.

And the Republicans said, yes, you're right.

You should open investigations.

And they opened two into Hillary.

I'm not kidding.

Yes.

They're still after Hillary.

The gift that keeps on giving.

Republicans will never get tired of talking about Hillary Clinton.

It always works for them.

But she lost.

She was voted off the island.

I mean,

why is the tribe meeting every week and still snuffing her out?

One of the few things they agree on.

If you watch the health care debacle, they had some trouble with that one.

Watching tax reform, they're having trouble with that one.

Everyone agrees, though, that Hillary Clinton is terrible.

It brings the whole family together.

Well, look, I mean.

Let me offer a partial defense here of talking about Hillary Clinton.

Some of these issues are actually really important.

The story about how millions of dollars flowed into the Clinton Foundation and half a million dollars went to Bill Clinton's pocket and then next thing you know about 20% of our uranium reserves

went speaking fee in Russia

and next thing you know about 20% of America's uranium reserves are in the United States.

I'm not going to quibble that there are some Clinton issues.

Are you saying that they rise to the level of the Trump issues?

No, I'm saying we can do both.

You know, we're a nation.

He's not president.

No, but it's still important how this happened.

Is it as important?

It's important in the way that it's pathetic and it kind of shows that they don't have anything that they want to do to actually help the country.

In that regard, it's important.

It's revelatory.

But the worst, but the worst, I just want to say something else.

I am a little concerned that people are so happy that Flake has made this great speech.

He's so courageous.

When you're courageous, you say, and I'm going to stay and fight.

He said, I am going to get the heck out of here.

And the reason that he ran, scampering out, is because of Bannon.

Bannon has a billion-dollar cannon pointed at the head of every Republican who's against Donald Trump, and these guys are giving these great speeches and turning the party over to Bannon without a shot, and that's not courage.

That's not a problem.

I agree with you.

I agree with you that

I wish he stood and fought.

I wish he stood and fought.

I don't think people are all that afraid of Bannon.

Bannon's got a...

Why not?

Well, because Bannon...

A billion dollars.

Bannon is a creature.

Bannon is somebody that everyone talks about in Washington and on Twitter.

You go out into

actual Trump country.

Nobody knows who this guy is.

They They don't have to know who he is.

They vote for his candidates.

But here's my takeaway from this.

They vote against people who go against Trump.

That's what they do.

Okay, but who go against Trump?

Badly.

Primary voters, Republican primary voters, vote against people who go against Trump.

Against Trump.

Yes.

The takeaway from this week that's really important is that this is Trump's party now.

Yes.

This isn't.

Laura Ingram said it.

She said, we're not an element.

We are the party.

This is kind of important.

That Donald Trump, who we first were laughing at, that he was even going to get the nomination, and then, oh, he's the president, but he's going to get brought down.

I doubt if he'll last a year.

It's now his party.

But that said, people are cutting and running really fast.

Like, we talked about how primary voters vote against people who are anti-Trump, but we don't actually know that.

We haven't had a Republican primary yet.

Jeff Flake has not had a chance to face off against Kelly Ward, who is a very far-right, banned and supported candidate.

We don't know how we do.

But already we have folks who are going to be able to...

Do you want to bet on that one?

Yeah.

We don't know though.

Arizona.

We don't know.

But here's

also the real problem to me is that Fox News has become state TV.

They were always, of course, Republican.

It's different now, as all things with Trump.

It's worse.

And this is a very bad axis of evil because they didn't hear the Jeff Flake speech.

They didn't know about it.

It doesn't exist.

The things that we talk about do not exist because they are not shown on Fox TV.

This This is the Jeff Flake speech live for what it's worth.

They showed it live, but they didn't talk about it.

But they didn't talk about it.

They didn't do it the same time.

Their website, I saw their website.

That's true.

It had no like headline in it.

It was Hillary Clinton, and at the very bottom, they took away from this speech, Jeff Flake.

I could work with Trump on something.

Really?

Oh, there it is.

Yeah.

Wow.

But it's which show?

I mean, Hannity is Trump provda.

Everybody knows Hannity.

They all are.

Brett Bayer is a good journalist.

Other folks like Dana Perino, very high integrity.

Dana Dana Perino is not in Trump's

natural integration.

The Fox News personality who doesn't get enough attention for being very close and friendly with Trump is Lou Dobbs.

I've been told that Trump will actually call Dobbs after his show.

He loves it when Dobbs goes after McConnell and Paul Ryan.

He'll cheer him on.

In a recent interview, Trump asked Dobbs who he should pick to be the Fed chair.

That's not an aberration.

That's the kind of relationship they have.

And this is a Fox business host who is a character.

He gives him his agenda.

The typical Fox viewer is now president, an old white guy with anger issues.

We're not sure why.

No, really.

And so their anecdotal, false, racist view of the country is his view.

And they know that they have this viewership of one person.

That's all they have to please.

They very often do give him his agenda.

You see him saying their talking point.

It is bizarre to kind of see this.

It's sort of like

in the morning, whatever they say on Fox and Friends, he tweets about it and they cover it, and then he brags on them for covering it.

That's weird.

But I also think it's important for progressives and liberals to actually tune in sometimes.

We've got to

be able to get our tolerance level up for this kind of stuff, because otherwise what happens is we literally have no idea.

Like our cousins and people we went to high school with, it's like these people are crazy because we're actually in our own bubble in a certain way because we're not listening to them.

But can I but

there's bubbles and then there's bubbles.

Let me just give you a few Republican views from the latest polls.

68% of Republicans believe millions of illegal immigrants voted in the last election.

So that's over two-thirds who believe something crazy and completely untrue.

This is what I mean about

I can't get legal people to vote.

I spend my day begging legal people to vote.

If we could get, I mean, what superpower would someone have to have to get millions of people to do something that Americans won't do?

73% of Republicans think that voter fraud happens somewhat or very often.

Again, something we know is completely not true.

52% of Republicans, because of that last one I read, voter fraud being so bad,

would support postponing the 2020 election

until we can fix the problem that doesn't exist.

So

that seems bad.

Yeah, so again.

conspiracy thinking is not confined to the right.

Like I'm not going to defend any of that.

I mean you could you could throw out number after number including a large number of Republicans who believe in revoking citizenship for flag burners which is an anathema to the First Amendment.

Sure.

But we've seen polls that said a whole bunch of Democrats believe George Bush was behind 9-11.

We got a problem with conspiracy thinking.

A whole bunch?

Polls in the Bush era

close to 50% believing that Bush had something to do with 9-11.

So

there is a conspiracy theory problem, and a lot of it is because of the thing that Van mentioned.

We're in bubbles, and when you're in bubbles, you think the absolute worst of your opponent.

The president tweeted that millions of people voted fraudulently.

So that's part of why so many Republicans believe this stuff that's not true, because the president says that you're not going to find me defeating that.

I know, but your.

Your argument always seems to be, yes, there is a giant elephant over here, but what about this mouse?

It's also

a mammal.

There's not two things of equal size.

You think...

Totally depends on the issue.

I would agree with you.

Okay.

Well, I'll move on.

And I'll just say, you know what, if Jeff Flake or somebody like that wants to really make a difference, you said he should go back and fight.

What they really should do is run as an independent.

80% of Republicans are with Trump.

That means 20% aren't.

You could get those people.

You could, as a patriotic service, split the Republican vote 80 to 20 and elect the Democrat, like Teddy Roosevelt did in 1912.

How about a hand for 1912?

Look at that.

Everybody's like, yeah, the Bull Moose Party.

Bull Moose Party, exactly, was on the tip of my tongue.

Okay.

Let me ask about opioids because this is what...

the president was attacking this week.

He said we must fight back with a really tough, really big, really great advertising.

And it was rather gentle on the people who are the addicts.

And yes?

Well,

this is one of the things that I think is criminal on the part of Trump.

He and the Republican Party during the primary went out and actually found out, which a lot of people didn't know, that people are dying all over the country.

You know, one of my close friends, Prince, died of the same opioid crisis that's killing people in coal country.

This is a national catastrophe.

More people are dying of opioid painkiller overdoses than they were dying of HIV-AIDS at the height of the crisis.

So you literally have a catastrophe and you could do something about it right now.

It would take money, it would take willpower, you'd have to bring people together.

Instead, you do a press conference, a tweet, and talk about advertising.

You're not going to save people's lives.

You're not going to empty these, you know, you've got morgues that fill up every weekend.

In some of these red counties, they have to order freezer trucks on Friday night because they know the morgues are going to fill up.

You're not going to save those lives and pull niggas out of people's arms with an advertising campaign.

And he's demagoguing his own basis, pain and suffering, and it's outrageous.

It's just outrageous.

I'm going to agree with most of what you said.

Nothing significant has happened here.

This is a...

And that's a crime.

This is a national crisis.

And it's one that, look, we got to face facts here.

We need to, the federal government needs to be involved absolutely.

But this is not something, this is something that in some ways may even be more difficult than the crisis in overcoming AIDS.

Because there was a medicine, medicines that could be developed that you could take.

Here you're dealing with people who are going to crawl over broken glass to get that next fix.

Let me just say, I wrote a book, and a big part of my book is about stuff that we could actually fix tomorrow if we just came together.

And this is one of them.

There are, in fact, medicines now.

You have medically assisted treatment where you can get people to, instead of having the detox and die model where you get people just well enough to go and overdose, you could actually fix it.

But you'd have to bring people together to do it.

And Trump doesn't actually want to solve the problem, he wants to demagogue about it.

In other words, the idea that there's nothing we can do is false, false, false, and we need to get on this right now.

Another piece of this problem that's really important and doesn't get enough play is the fact that, for instance, a lot of drug warrior types, including our attorney general, liked to talk about how marijuana is a gateway drug.

In reality, a lot of prescription opioids are legitimate gateway drugs to heroin use.

And this is really important.

Well, it's the same basic drug.

Right, exactly.

They're both opioids.

And there's CDC data that shows recently, I want to say the most recent CDC data maybe shows that of the opioid overdose deaths that happened, about

almost half of them are from drugs that were prescribed.

Legal drugs that doctors are giving people.

And they're just duffish.

Doctors were under pressure to prescribe these things.

Pain became the fifth vitamin.

They were under pressure from big pharma that was pushing.

Not just big pharma, not just big pharma.

Not just big pharma.

And the other thing is that then Donald Trump then lies about it and says, we're going to have a big wall because the wall is going to keep out the opioids.

You're going to have a wall around CVS?

What are you talking about?

People are getting this stuff in drugstores, man.

He's just totally wrong.

And doctors have to take responsibility.

Yeah, doctors have a responsibility too.

But I mean, I'm sorry.

Oh, no, no, no.

I get passionate about this.

No, I see.

I wasn't even thinking you were going to go there with it, but it was enlightening.

But listen, it's Halloween time.

And

we've been making fun of this guy, Roy Moore, who's going to be the senator.

He's going to be the senator in Alabama.

That's really him.

That's how he dresses.

It's like howdy duty if he

watched Fox News all day.

And we thought, you know, this is interesting because this guy does not need a Halloween costume because

he is a Halloween costume.

And we found that actually in Washington, a lot of people fit that description.

They don't need a costume because they are one.

For example, Sarah Huckabee Sanders does not need one because she's going as Marie Osmond after a bad breakup.

She doesn't.

No costume.

Congressman Trey Gowdy is going as the last face you see before the car trunk closes.

Ben Carson is going as the guy at the end of the bar who keeps saying another thing.

Joni Ernst is going as your high school gym teacher's roommate.

Paul Ryan is going as an emotionally damaged former child star.

Betsy DeVos is going as a woman who just found out her new neighbors are Mexican.

Yeah, that's exactly.

Mike Pence is going as the guy who always tells his barber, a little shorter, I don't want to be mistaken for a beetle.

Steve Bannon, there we go.

He's going as that weird shit you see growing on trees.

And Don Jr.

and Eric Trump are going as the top of a gay wedding cake.

Okay, let's bring out George.

She's a co-host of ABC's Deview and author of The Great Gas Bag and A-Z Study Guide to Surviving Trump World.

Joy Behar is over here.

Hey.

Hey.

You're so cool.

You too.

Hi, ma'am.

How are you?

Yes, Joy Behar.

It's so great to see you.

Thank you.

You never grow old.

You always are the same.

No matter what you're doing.

You're always talking about being old on this show lately.

I know.

Are you afraid to die now?

I always was, but now it's more likely.

But

I wanted to have you on just because I love you and you always make me laugh, but also because I feel like I'm also having an argument, like almost on a weekly basis with other Democrats, where you are on my side.

Yes.

I keep saying Democrats are too nice.

They're too nice.

And you are my ally, right?

They don't go for the jugular.

You don't go for that.

When they go low, we go high.

No, when they go low, we should go lower.

Exactly.

Okay.

Yeah, listen, you're the first perpetrator of this.

He wants the gumbayat.

Forget the fuck the kumbaya.

These people on that side are crazy.

Don't you understand?

They're crazy.

You don't deal with white supremacists.

I'm not talking to you.

I'm talking to you.

You can talk to him, too.

But yes, I mean, what happened to that gene in the Democrat

makeup?

I mean, it wasn't that way with Bobby Kennedy and Ted and John F.

Kennedy.

They were tough.

They weren't this kind of too nice Democrat.

They were busy getting laid.

All right.

Well,

certainly part of it, I think, the problem is political correctness.

Yes.

I believe I did a show about that some years ago.

Well, I remember when John Kerry was running, I saw him at something, and I said, you've got to deal with these people.

You need to be tough.

What are you going to do to deal with these Republicans?

He was like, don't worry, I can handle it.

No, he didn't.

He didn't.

They don't.

They don't know.

I know.

Somewhere that gene is, it went recessive.

And also, you have to speak very simply to people.

They don't want to hear all this wonky stuff that you hear on CNN and MSCBC.

Go right for the jugular the way Trump does.

He's smart in that way.

He is.

It's the only thing that's smart about him.

Exactly.

He's a terrific con man.

Yeah.

But I mean,

you play

clubs, not clubs.

Not anymore.

No, not clubs.

I don't mean clubs.

Like, what do you think?

Theaters.

Theaters, yes.

And

it's a little, the atmosphere is a little more constrained than it used to be.

Well, you can't say anything now.

I mean, look at you.

Well, you can.

We can, because we're a little grandfathered in.

Again, with the old age reference.

No, you know what I mean.

Yeah, we're grandfathered in.

We're grandmothered in in my case.

But I don't like to work anymore as a stand-up hardly because anything you say, they write it down, they tape you, they tweet about it.

And like James Corden got in trouble last week with Rose McGowan.

It's like, lay off the comedians, okay?

Leave the comedians.

We're like the philosophers of the toy, not Socrates and Aristotle, but we are the philosophers right now.

And we don't, and also,

the thing about comedians...

No, Matt.

We are.

The thing about comedians is that because we can work in the clubs, we don't care about these jobs like this job or my job.

We can always work, so we will say whatever we want.

Well, speak for yourself.

I want to go back to the club.

Jesus.

But, all right, so let's talk about men and their bad behavior, because

this, like I said, is a watershed time.

Things will never be the same.

Right, right.

Why do you think now?

I mean, why is sexual harassment?

A year ago when the Trump tape came out.

Why not five years ago or ten years ago?

Why not at the dawn of the women's liberation movement?

Why is it now that finally, I mean,

it's kind of amazing.

I'm a little, I don't think, I'm not too optimistic because

Anita Hill came out, and then we have Clarence Thompson.

But it's a different, but come on, it's a different era with social media and all the women joining in and all these.

Yeah, but they're still most men of the people in power.

They're the ones in power, they're the ones who intimidate the women, and they're the ones who say, you're not going to get the job unless you let me look,

unless you look at my penis I mean

that's basically that's what they're saying

I know when you read about the you know they all have it they all have

what are you looking at him for I don't know

they all have an MO yeah it's just like like Cosby like here take some drugs right knock you out right

that's true it's his or or you know like masturbating or just rubbing an erection I like I thought I didn't know women all my life I don't know men I

This.

I know.

What did Bill O'Reilly do that got that woman $32 million?

What could you possibly?

How vile does it have to be?

I know, I know.

Well,

I wouldn't fuck him for $32 million.

I don't know what he did to that girl, but

he's not worth $32 million.

Right.

Uh-uh.

And I must say,

when you look at the list of people who do it, it is always married, guys.

It's always married, yeah.

Just saying.

Why is that?

Because they have shitty sex lives.

Oh, yeah.

I think they're not having a sex, satisfactory sex.

They're bored at home.

Is that it?

No, no, no.

That's got nothing to do with it.

Nothing to do with it?

Halpern is accused of masturbating on the desk while he's talking to somebody.

What's that got to do with him being married?

Let's not bring the wives into it.

Yeah, let's leave the wives out of it.

Well,

bringing the wives.

Minding their own business while these jerks are jerking off.

My book.

Your book.

I have a book.

I flew 3,000 miles to block the book.

You're a block.

Donald Trump.

Boy.

What?

The book is called The Great Gas Bank.

What's it called?

The Great Gas Bank.

What's it about?

I toyed with other top titles.

What do you think of

War and Hairpiece?

That was one.

Moby Dickhead.

What other titles did you think?

Also, The Son-in-Law Alison.

The Son-in-Law Also Rises.

How about that?

But I wrote it for

Trump anti-Trumpers.

If you're a Trump supporter, don't buy the book.

I forbid you to buy the book.

Who's the book for?

It's only for us.

Look, I think we have to be as sophisticated as the problem we're trying to solve.

You are correct.

There's some stuff we're going to have to fight about, and I love you for it.

But you mentioned Bobby Kennedy.

Bobby Kennedy was tough on his opponents, but he also went to Appalachia, and he talked to those poor white folks and got them on his side.

All I'm saying is we got a great circle that includes women, people of color, Muslims, everybody, Jewish people.

Let's just get the circle bigger to take his base away from him.

And tell you what, if you don't go and if we don't go, the Nazis are going to go and I'm not going to let that happen to my country.

I'm not going to let that happen.

But that 30% never starts on that.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

They never turned on it.

Hey, listen,

can we be honest?

At 120 million votes, we lost this thing by 70,000 votes spread out through three states in the Rust Belt.

And of those 70,000, some of those people had voted for Obama.

We just got to go back and get those folks, and we have the courage to go.

Well, those you can get.

And that's what the book is about.

Both our books worked out.

You can't get.

My book and Beyond the Messican Truth.

Get it out.

By the way, Beyond the Messican Truth.

Ban Jones.

I've obviously lost control here

to these capitalist hippies.

Okay, so Democrats always say they want to win, but I just don't see a lot of soul-searching on some of the issues that might help them.

48% of Democrats are concerned about immigration.

And here's what Andrew Sullivan said this week.

He said, the Democrats' current position seems to be that the DREAMer parents who broke the law are near heroes.

And their rhetoric, the Democrats' rhetoric, is very hard to distinguish from a belief in open borders.

Democrats increasingly seem to suggest that any kind of distinction between citizens and non-citizens is somehow racist.

And when you see in Europe there's a rise of all these sort of like Trump-light guys and it's always in countries that were lax on immigration.

And I think this is an issue Democrats have to look in the mirror a little about because I think Andrew Sullivan is not wrong about this.

Here's where I take some exception.

I agree that you know, beating people up who have some concerns about the law being broken and calling them a bunch of names and big and stuff like that is just not constructive because it keeps us from being able to have an an honest conversation.

But as a matter of strategy, I don't think that the Democrats should throw away the Latino base chasing hardcore anti-immigrant people.

If you are hardcore anti-immigrant, you are always going to be able to find a Republican you like better than a Democrat.

So I think that we could be more nuanced, but the idea that we should somehow become a party that's tough on immigrants, if that's what you're saying,

this strikes me as fighting the last war-ism, because right after 2012, the Republicans did this big self-diagnosis, and they said the path to winning is to be more open to immigrants.

And that is exactly the opposite of what happened in 2016.

And I think what's happening, I think the Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot in this sense.

What Van said 70,000 votes, I would even narrow it in three cities, basically.

Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Detroit.

If you have the President of the United States...

Using the bully pulpit to directly attack the most popular African Americans, not just

in the country, but in the world.

NFL players?

NFL players.

Steph Curry.

Who attacked Steph Curry?

Steph Curry was invented in a lab by dads who want their kids not to get in trouble.

I don't know why you would attack Steph Curry.

Does that mean you could turn out 70,000 more people without changing some of these stances?

Republicans, I think, are way too cocky politically with such a narrow victory.

And so I really think that fighting the last warism may not really apply when we get to 2019 and 2020.

It's going to be a different landscape.

And the other thing is, taking a step back from like the politics, who's up, who's down piece of this, if Democrats want to pitch themselves as mean to immigrants, they can make that case.

Obama dramatically expanded the practice of family detention, which is the practice of taking women and children, including babies, and putting them in literal prisons.

We have facilities in Texas and Pennsylvania that are full of women and very young children.

Right now, about 3,000.

Obama dramatically expanded that practice.

So Democrats might, their talking points might sound like, you know, open borders, immigrants are great, blah, blah, blah.

But in reality, there's a lot that Obama did.

There's a lot of the Obama legacy that's very troubling to immigration attorneys that I talk to regularly, to people who are undocumented.

This notion that Democrats have a spotless record on it and are really soft on enforcement is just not true.

Well, then they have the worst of both worlds, as usual with them.

They're actually doing bad, and their reputation is the opposite, also not getting them votes.

Right.

So they've...

Well, I I mean, that was true in other number of things with Obama.

He had the reputation as the peace president, but by the time he left office, he had boots on the ground in Syria, had boots on the ground in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in North Africa.

I mean, you know, we're learning now there's a thousand troops in Niger or 800 troops in Niger.

The first detachment got there during the Obama administration.

Who knew that?

So there was a big disconnect, I think, between what a lot of people thought about Obama and what Obama thought.

Absolutely.

I think that you're trying to figure out what's the pathway out of this ditch that the Democratic Party has fallen into.

And I think everything should be on the table.

For me, I want to figure out a way for us to hold on to those.

You got 11 million people in the country.

They don't have papers.

But if you left tomorrow, the economy would collapse.

And so you do have a country that's based on the hard work of a lot of undocumented people.

I want to respect those folks.

And I don't think that you have to, there's almost this false thing now.

Do you like the immigrants or do you like the white guys who don't have jobs?

I think you can like both.

And I think you can have policies to help both.

And I just think this false choice we've been pushed into now, we have to pick among pain, we have to pick among funerals, we have to pick.

Listen, why don't we just get everybody together who doesn't have anything and go fight the bad guys?

That's what I want to do.

Yeah, why don't we just get everybody together?

The togetherness shit has gotten to stop.

But, you know,

something you said earlier, Democrats are too nice.

Yeah.

You know, Joe Biden said about Mitt Romney, he's going to put y'all back in chains.

Okay.

That doesn't sound sound very nice.

I mean, the Democrats in 2012.

It's amazing the way your ability to cherry-pick one little thing

on any issue and make it look like it's a very good idea.

That's one little thing for the vice president of the United States.

That's a guy in America that everybody loves.

I don't remember the conversation.

Who was he saying that about and to?

He was talking to African-American audiences, talking about the Republican, that horrifically scary Romney-Ryan ticket, that they're going to put y'all all back in chains.

So the GAF meister

said something which I'm sure he regretted.

Oh, by the way,

if a guy like Joe Biden says something like that, well, he's capable of saying he's sorry.

I've seen him do it.

Sure.

The guy who's in charge now is not.

So

this,

you know, every issue, this is what we go through.

You know, if it's global warming, it comes up, you know, that's like, well, you know, we used to have cold periods, and scientists predicted it would be a cold period.

And we had had hot weather back in the 1900s so what and it it doesn't move us fixing problems it doesn't help but if the idea of fixing problems is the Democrats need to be nastier that's not going to fix the problems

it's but people but people do want tough realistic sometimes you have to be nasty to show what is real but you know that's exactly the Republican argument that I dealt with for months as I was getting slaughtered by Republicans for opposing Trump we got to be nasty to win we got to be nasty to win I was saying no.

Appeal to people's, the better angels of people's nature.

And they told me, no, we got to be nasty.

We got to be nasty.

And they won.

And you're not president.

Well,

but basically, I think I'm not.

What sort of argument is that to make when you're sitting here?

If you had won that argument, I couldn't get you on this show.

Well, that's true.

But I think on the substance of what's going to make this country a better place, the argument, and listen, the idea

that Trump won simply because he was nasty I think is wrong I think if Trump had won to run against

but you're you're right

listen you're you're you're right listen people are having a very hard time and people want to know that you're going to be tough enough and strong enough to deal with their problems I mean listen and there's some stuff that we should fight about we should listen you want to persecute Muslims you want to you want to disrespect Jewish people you want to attack frankly immigrants you want to you want to attack women we should have that fight but we can't only fight and still have a country that's all I'm saying.

Beyond the battleground, we can find some common battleground, too.

If only one side is playing with civility, that side is always going to lose.

That's called bringing a knife to a gunfight.

That's called

2008, 2012?

I don't know.

I don't think that's true.

Okay, I got to go to New Rules.

Thank you, everybody, for your passion.

We love passion.

All right, New Rules.

Someone has to help me decide who in this photo I should feel more sorry for.

Jimmy Carter, who kind of got pushed into the background, or Barack Obama, who's just about to meet David Copperfield.

New rule, now that we know George H.W.

Bush's go-to joke while groping women is, you know who my favorite magician is, David Copperfield, David Copperfield has to admit that ironically, when he grabs a woman's private parts, he always says, you know who my favorite president is?

We're not saying David Copperfield really does that.

It was for the point of the joke.

New rule, the PC police on Twitter have to calm the hell down about Ellen posting this sexist picture of herself with Katie Perry.

Ellen just thinks she's having a little harmless fun.

And Katie thinks she's meeting Justin Bieber.

Speaking of Justin Bieber, New Rule, tattoo artists have to admit that the tiny bird tattoo is their gateway drug.

That's Justin Bieber's first tattoo.

And here he is today.

He used to be such a cute kid.

Now he looks like the prisoner you have to have sex with to get toilet paper.

New rule, if you don't stop taking pictures of your baby's butt painted like a pumpkin, I am quitting this mommy group.

If I wanted to see an orange ass, oh, y'all saw that.

Sometimes the obvious ones.

And finally, new rules: someone must tell me why the people who wrap themselves in the flag are always the ones most clueless about what it represents.

I like the way Trump turned a respectful protest about police brutality into a patriotism-pissing match.

The nerve of these young black men kneeling while an American idol runner-up sings the bombs bursting an air song.

How dare you exercise your freedoms while we're honoring them?

We will not stand for not standing.

Trump literally said that soldiers have died and we need to stand because they were fighting for our our national anthem.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

No one ever died for the anthem.

Some have died trying to sing it.

But Trump knew that for conservatives, the anthem is their senior prom theme song.

It makes them all misty-eyed the way I get when I hear the captain and Tenniels do that to me one more time.

Remember this guy, John Boehner?

So unpopular with his own Republicans, they booted him out of being Speaker, but they never criticized him for doing this.

I poured my heart and soul into running a small business.

It's providing for the safety and security of the American people.

No, sir, whenever he'd cry like a little bitch because someone mentioned small business owners

or he saw a tiny American flag in his club sandwich.

They all would think that was great.

What is it with these people always falling to pieces over flags and anthems and commercials for pickup trucks?

And

all these throat catchers, Route 66, and porch swings, and barber shops that still offer a shave and cowboy hats, unless you're a black congresswoman.

Farms,

old barns,

pictures of wheat give them a hard on.

For the party that thinks of itself as the tough guys, they're so susceptible to sentimentalism.

That's why they love the paintings of Thomas Kinkade with his vision of America as one big hobbit village of fairy tale cottages.

And of course, Christmas.

They are so head over heels Lady Gaga in love with Christmas.

They even imagine liberals have somehow banned everyone from talking about it.

Until Trump got elected, and now the bed has been lifted.

We can say Merry Christmas again.

They really believe this shit.

It's like no one ever broke it to them that the bearded guy who delivers goodies isn't real.

But nothing triggers that soft, mushy part of a right-winger more than the military.

They love the military the way eight-year-old girls love horses.

Wholly and completely with a slight tinge of sexual frustration.

They get a tingle in their taint when the

blue angels fly overhead.

They they cry during the president's Martian fighting speech in Independence Day.

They see a guy in uniform at the mall and say, thank you for your service, even though the guy's thinking I'm a security guard dipshit.

Last week in his heroic battle against a grieving widow, Donald Trump sent General Kelly.

out to talk to the media and offer us a lesson about honor.

And when that honor lesson included blatantly lying about Congresswoman Wilson, General Kelly was criticized, which President Trump's spokesperson said was highly inappropriate.

That's right, it is highly inappropriate to ever question a general, which it is.

In North Korea.

But I thought this was America.

This impulse to tell people not to protest against the police, not to question the generals, This is not American, and that is the problem with all the fetish patriotism.

It starts with goosebumps, but it ends with goose steps.

All right, that's our show.

I'm at the mirage tonight.

How is that possible?

I'll do it.

And tomorrow night, I want to thank my guest, Van Jones, Betsy Woodrum, David French, Troy Behart, Woody Harrelson.

Thank you, folks.

I gotta run.

Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10, or watch him anytime on HBO On Demand.

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