Ep. #441: Janice Min, Daryl Davis

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

Start the clock.

Right here with me.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen,

sound like,

okay, look at me.

Okay.

All right.

So that is so kind of you.

I am hesitant to say that the president has hit a new low because you'll think it's a repeat.

It's not.

It's October 20th, 2017.

A week for the history books, also for the books about abnormal psychology.

So here's what America was debating about this week.

On Monday, Trump called the pregnant widow of a dead American soldier to console her and wound up pouring salt in the wound and feuding with her all week.

Who knew empathy was so complicated?

I mean, if you could take a week where it was revealed that Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted every single female in show business and still be the worst fat gross creep,

that's pretty good.

So,

and you know, all of this came about because the same Trump pattern.

Bluff, lie, attack.

Because you know, he doesn't know anything.

So when he's asked about something, he's got a bluff.

And then when they call him out, when they call him on the bluff, then he lies.

And then when they call him on the lie, he attacks.

So this is exactly what happened.

Three weeks ago, four of our green berets were killed in the African country of Niger, and Trump didn't say anything for two weeks.

But someone put him on the spot about it last week.

So he bluffed and said, I wrote them letters.

Of course, he didn't.

Probably didn't even know about them because they didn't do anything that would get on his radar like Neil at a football game.

Calm down, Bill.

Two minutes into this story, I'm gonna, my head's gonna explode.

Anyway, but then he says, forget the letters.

I was just waiting for the right time to call,

which in the case of the widow of Sergeant La David Johnson turned out to be when she was in the car going to the airport to accept the body.

This is when Trump thinks it is a good time to say to her, he knew what he signed up for.

Somewhere Rex Tillerson is saying, I told you he was a moron.

And then Trump drags General John Kelly, his chief of staff, into this because Kelly's own son was killed in Afghanistan.

And Obama never called.

So he sends out Kelly yesterday to defend his own inept call and stupid lies.

And I feel bad for General Kelly, having to defend this vile nincum poop.

On the other hand, he knew what he signed up for.

Now, look, I know General Kelly is the only thing that stands between us and World War III.

But this was not his finest hour.

He spent a lot of time smearing this congresswoman who was in the car doing her job and she was a friend supporting the widow when Trump's call came in.

So Kelly does what Republicans always do.

They invent new rules.

I thought I had new rules.

No, they have new rules.

Like, you know, if you criticize the president overseas, it insults the troops.

Oh, is that, yeah, that's always been.

No, they just.

So he invents his new rule.

A phone call from a president to a widow is sacred.

And if it comes on a speakerphone, you can't listen in.

First of all, she wasn't listening in.

She didn't tap the woman's phone.

She happened to be in the car.

And also, what kind of Cretan in the whole history of the world has ever had to deny something he said during a condolence call?

So

then General Kelly laments a short list of things that would always,

in his youth, he said, always thought would be sacred, but no longer are.

And he says, women,

gold star families, above all, this is what we should hold sacred, women and gold star families.

Now, if you excuse me, I need to get back to defending my boss, the pussy grabber, who insults war widows.

Really?

Oh,

and it actually gets worse because of this subject coming up.

We found found out this week that back in June, Trump was on a condolence call to a father of someone who died and apparently was so moved by his plight, he said, I'm going to do what no president has ever done.

I'm going to write you a personal check for $25,000.

And then never sent it.

Or what he calls the art of the deal.

But you know,

you know, he needs that $25,000 because this happened this week.

Donald Trump dropped 92 spots on the Forbes list of richest Americans.

He was also dropped to number two on Forbes' list of disgusting sex predators.

So he's a terrible week.

Oh, the right-wing, I mean, not that he isn't a horrible, pleased, Harvey Weinstein, but the right-wing media frenzy over Harvey Weinstein.

I tell you, the men of Fox News are like, those of us who are left here are outraged.

And you know,

it is important to remember while all this sideshow shit is going on.

You know, real policy moves are being made that affect all of our lives.

I mean, just this week, Trump's trying to dismantle Obama's Iran deal, Obama's clean power plan.

One guy I know.

Eric, you brought a friend.

Trying to, of course, get rid of Obamacare.

I mean, everything Obama touched has got to go.

You know those Confederate statues in the South that are such an eyesore?

It's too bad Obama didn't put them up because they'd all be gone by now.

Well, let's end on a happy note.

I know Angelinos are thrilled.

It's not my team, but the Dodgers are in the World Series.

The Dodgers are such a favorite to win.

They have already declined their invitation to the White House.

And you folks around the country should know, if you're going to watch the World Series, Dodger fans are notorious for showing up late and leaving early.

Like Trump in Puerto Rico.

Anyway, we got a great show.

James Carville, Margaret Hoover, and Eric Erickson are here.

And a little later, we'll be speaking with author Daryl Davis.

But first up, she is the former editor and an owner of the Hollywood Reporter Billboard Media Group.

Please welcome Janice Minn.

Hey, Janice.

Great pleasure to see you.

How are you?

I'm well.

Okay, so you're a bit of a newsmaker yourself because, you know, the Hollywood Reporter, right, was the ones who were on this story with Harvey Weinstein before anybody else.

And it was hard to...

It's hard to land that whale on the shore, wasn't it?

It was really hard.

And I have to tell you, Harvey Weinstein has loomed over me for seven years, the whole time I have done the Hollywood Reporter.

And one of the things.

He literally loomed over you because he's loomed over a lot of people.

Many, many women, yes.

He, you know, one of the first conversations I ever had, I had hired a reporter named Kim Masters, who was the first person I ever hired.

And the first conversation we had, she told me about a conversation she had had with Harvey Weinstein.

And it was off the record, but I'll tell you what she asked him.

And she said, Harvey, well, he said, he said to her, you know, what do you you want to know?

And she said, I heard you rape women.

What do you have to say about that?

And so there are two publicists in the room with them who are sort of like, hummana, hummana.

And so from that point on, because I knew what his answer was, that we really put an effort, put a lot of effort towards trying to.

What was his answer?

I can't say.

It was an off-the-record conversation, but it didn't make sense.

Oh, you took your situation.

Yes, I know.

I know.

But what a.

And I can't impugn him, obviously.

But yet

it definitely

didn't make me doubt all the smoke that was in the air.

But it is funny that in this age where

nothing we can agree on, the one thing that is bipartisan is treating women like this, right?

It's treating women like this.

Yes, I mean that liberals do it, conservatives.

I mean the liberals get caught, the conservatives get caught.

Do you see Is there any pattern you see differently with like between liberals and conservatives on this or how their communities react to it?

I mean, I think the only pattern we see is that how prevalent it is, and how there are walls of secrecy around

these cases of abuse everywhere, whether it's Penn State, whether it's the Catholic Church,

whether it's the White House politics, that these things, there's always a

people covering up for them or enabling them.

Yes, and I've heard the conservatives say, you know, it took a village to help

a Harvey Wancy, but it also took a village to elect the other sex predator.

Well, that, I mean,

completely.

A much bigger village.

Right.

You know.

I mean,

I sort of have this feeling.

I had lunch today with two prominent women in Hollywood who said

that it's actually been a welcome relief to talk about Harvey Weinstein this week instead of Donald Trump for once.

But I have this theory that I think it's all just sublimated anger towards Donald Trump, this whole feeding frenzy.

If you, you know, it's the one-year anniversary of the Axis Hollywood tapes, and he gets elected, and this guy, there is some possible tangible crime and punishment that will happen now.

What do you think?

Conservatives have also said this week that

those of us who laughed at Mike Pence for following the Billy Graham rule, if you're not familiar with the Billy Graham, probably many of you are practicing it right now.

If you're married, you never have a meal or a drink with a single woman.

And I think when you go to any place where that serves alcohol,

you bring your wife because

the chicks could get out of control and protect

my pence.

But they say, well, if that, you know, if the liberals had practiced that, then Harvey, you know, the woman wouldn't be in this situation with Harvey Weinstein.

Yeah, that doesn't quite make sense.

Let's remember: this is the man who calls his wife mommy or mother or whatever's going on there.

He doesn't have like Pence, Pence.

Yeah, no, Harvey, I don't think he did that.

But the

one for Harvey.

But I mean, it's sort of, I mean,

Harvey Weinstein is just emblematic of this whole larger issue that we have not been able to solve.

And hopefully, this makes that conversation happen more of women not being treated equally, not being in positions of power.

And I think this whole thing has made me feel in the last week, I knew this was going on in Hollywood, but not to this extent.

And you feel like, you know, if you're on your iPhone or your phone, like every 30 minutes, a news alert comes out about someone else that was

it reminds me a little, I remember in the 90s, my dear old friend still my friend roseanne yes talked about

child molestation right and i don't think it and i but i remember everybody being like oh she's exaggerating right of course we know it exists but it's not widespread like she's saying it's not she was right right and we found out it is kind of really widespread or way more than we

it's so mind-boggling and i you know i remember when i first learned about campus rape for example and i i remember thinking oh that it could never be that pervasive who wants to have sex with a comatose woman like that's that like how weird weird do you have to be?

Like, there are not enough.

It must be more about power.

Absolutely.

Because I think, like, isn't it easier to, they should teach a course in health class in school, like, how to be attractive to a woman.

Right.

Even Harvey Weinstein, who is ugly,

one might say.

Flat out ugly.

Ugly men can be.

Humphrey Bogart was not good looking.

Correct.

Harvey Weinstein could have lost 135,000 pounds.

Like, just look groomed, dress fly,

be considerate,

like, actually be interested.

There is a way, Harvey, you actually could have gotten a woman to go to bed with you willingly.

I don't understand why that wouldn't have been so much more satisfying.

O'Reilly, you know, it's always about this, you know,

it's more power, don't you think?

It is 100% about power, but you know, Harvey is not, he was not just a sexual offender, he was also physically assaulting men.

And he was known for, you know, he punched his brother in the nose, broke his nose.

He was known in meetings to throw things at people.

And if you ever meet people who worked at the Weinstein Company or Mirror Max Harvey's companies, there is a palpable PTSD around them where, you know, they,

I mean, like, but you know, I would sometimes make this joke with them, oh, are you in a Harvey survivors group?

And it's not funny, you know, and they are really stricken.

But the amazing thing about the secrecy that goes around sexual assault, they would tell you funny stories, funny stories about his temper and freakouts and bad behavior, but no one, no one in seven years would ever go on the record and say he sexually assaulted someone.

And think, you know, what I kept thinking is, if it's just like this in Hollywood with rich, famous people.

Right.

When do we get to the

poor women in the country?

That's, you know, I think about some.

Absolutely.

Because,

you know,

here we're working at the Tyson food plant, chopping heads off chickens on a conveyor belt all day for $10 an hour, and the shift boss, you know, is like hinting he wants a board job, or I could hire somebody else.

What is that poor woman?

Well, okay, I mean, I think, you know, this also made me think this week about, I mean, this is a country that since 1923 has been unable to pass an equal rights amendment.

That we are, that we, you know, we believe, we say, and you grew up thinking that women are treated equally, and then, but no one is able to legislate that because people, I think,

too many people at heart don't want it are not comfortable with it and it's a basic just we're basically fundamentally saying women should be paid the same should have equal rights and we can't even as a country agree on that so whether you see how that trickles down to workplace harassment the ability to have recourse the ability to go to HR department and not have not think that HR department's not going straight to Roger Ailes and asking Roger Ailes how to fix it and you've seen that you saw that happen at the Weinstein Company you know you feel I think if you're a victim of sexual harassment or assault you feel trapped.

We're also losing our ability to talk about things.

Right.

I mean, SNL didn't do Harvey Weinstein jokes and got shit about it.

Right.

And then James Corden did some and he got shit about it.

So which is it?

And aren't publicists telling their clients, like, just don't talk about it.

It's terrifying.

It's a terrible state for America to be in about any issue, just in general.

Like, we are just too afraid to talk about this.

Right, right.

Right.

Well, I mean, I feel like we're a little bit in like Robespierre French Revolution times here.

I say it every week, the Purity Police.

Well,

and I'll give you two examples this week that I thought were really unfortunate.

One of them was Ben Affleck, who released a really nice statement about

supporting the women.

And there was

an unfortunate, very inappropriate incident he did 12 years ago, I believe it was, on MTV's TRL where he grabbed a woman's breast.

I think under no circumstances anyone thinks that was a good thing.

But it has, do you think Ben Afflecks will ever talk about this topic again?

Never in a million years, I'm assuming.

And then another incident, Molly Ringwald, the actress who a lot of us grew up with, she wrote a piece in The New Yorker about

why she left Hollywood, moved to Paris, and a lot of it involved sexual assault and harassment, you know, including when she was the age of 13, some crew member asking her to dance, and he had an erection.

I mean, it was just, you know, really creepy stuff.

But in that story, it referenced an incident when she quit Hollywood.

It's a pickup quote of a pickup quote, like a movie line, a publication that doesn't even exist that picked up a quote that Esquire thought was real, it may have not even been real, from Jeffrey Katzenberg, who I'm sure you know, a big executive here in town, one of the legends here.

And he was attributed with saying this quote at the time when Molly Ringwald left:

I wouldn't even know who she was if she sat on my face.

Okay, so,

so Jeffrey Katzenberg, who does not, I have never known, I have never known to speak like that ever.

Right.

Suddenly in this position of having

that.

He's not that funny.

No.

No, he just, that's so not him.

It's so not him.

And so he is in this position of suddenly issuing an apology for taking it.

It's my manager.

For something he doesn't even, he's not even sure he said.

But this, you know, he had stuck his neck out earlier.

He released the email.

He wrote to Harvey Weinstein after Harvey Weinstein asked him after the New York Times story came out looking for support.

And all of a sudden,

Jeffrey is...

like in this position of, oh my God, do I continue talking about this topic?

Liberals have to stop losing their shit.

Calm down.

Calm down.

Know who the enemy is and embrace each other.

Thank you so much, Gregory.

Agree with me on that.

I really appreciate it.

Great job, Dan.

Okay.

Thank you, Jennis.

Let's meet up.

Hey, Vigay.

How are you?

Thanks for coming.

Thank you.

Okay.

Hi.

Okay, he is a legendary Democratic strategist who helped elect President Bill Clinton.

James Carville is a patrol.

Mr.

Popularity, huh?

Wow.

It's all good.

All right, she is a CNN political contributor and the president of American Unity Fund, our friend Margaret Hoover.

Hey, how are you doing?

And he's a controller, host and founder of TheResurgent.com, whose new book is Before You Wake, Life Lessons from a Father to His Children, wanted to get you here for a long time.

Thank you for coming.

Eric Erickson.

Republicans are grave.

They come on my show.

The Clintons never have come on my show.

Just saying it.

Okay, so.

I can't fight it.

You know, this issue with the widow, I was like, you know, Donald Trump's not going to pull me into his bullshit orbit again.

But, you know, it's like gravitational.

It's like amazing the way his talent for getting everybody in America to talk about this.

So can I ask, though, about General Kelly?

Because you know I know first Ivanka was going to save us and that didn't work out.

And now General Kelly is going to save us but he smeared and lied.

He smeared that Congress lady and he lied about it.

So now he was supposed to be the Trump minder but now he acts like Trump.

I mean, General Kelly, you can be this guy that everybody says, you know, you are the man of unimpeachable integrity, or you can take political hitshots and be the hatchet man.

You can't do both.

Right?

I think he needs to come out and apologize for the statement.

I don't think it was an intentional lie on his part.

If it's a pattern of behavior of his, maybe it is, but right now I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that he misspoke.

Probably some other person in the White House gave him the wrong facts, but he needs to apologize for that.

But then he needs to send them.

It's more than that, though.

I mean, it was Spicer-esque, actually, when he came out.

It was like Sean Spicer in that moment after the election, right, where he says, these are the largest crowds in the history of any inauguration.

And

he was really good for

half of the talk, John Kelly, and then and then he went down the spicer road.

And it's that working for this president demands,

the president demands that people who work for him go out and do his bidding at the expense of their own moral authority.

And this is where Kelly sort of lost.

Because everything works backwards from there are no sorries in Trump world.

Everybody gets tainted by Trump.

He will never say, it's so easy to say, oh, I didn't say the right thing to the widow.

It will never happen.

But not to undermine what Kelly has done right.

I mean, he has made the White House a lot more functional.

I mean, Corker was a bit right when he said it's turned into an adult daycare center, but it has, in the sense that Trump's tweeting has gotten sort of, I mean, it's still bad, but it is kind of contained.

And he's part of this containment faction, this axis of adults in the West Wing that is keeping us from going off the rails.

Well, that's why I'm asking and worrying about the guy who just did this.

Look, I think what happened was, is General Kelly told the president when he called this war with her that

when people are fighting men and women understand that when they take on this mission they could die for the country or for each other and it's something that binds them together and you have to make that point of course Trump has no empathy and his sentence structure

is completely gone he can't he can't tell he can't say two sentences no I'm serious that's been that's been documented so he gets on the phone and he says well that's what he signed up for and General Kelly heard what he wanted.

I mean the truth of the matter is, is somebody has to look.

You know, when President Reagan was president toward the end of his term, Howard Bacon had a memo and they seriously were looking to see if he had any kind of cognitive issues and they decided that he did not.

I don't think Trump is capable of making those two thoughts.

So I just think he went right to, well, that's what he signed up for, and then General Kelly wanted to hear that.

And that's not the way that

the width heard it.

Democrats should politicize this Niger episode because a lot of it sounds very similar to Benghazi.

I know there are differences, but we didn't have enough assets on the ground, right?

We got surprised.

And that's what they would do.

And, you know, until...

I think Senator McCain is already calling federal matters to find out what happened.

I know he's not a Democrat.

I think the Democrats could.

You know, we just can't do that.

I mean, Trump, do you think, does anybody really think that Trump could find Niger on the map?

Does anybody in the world think that he even knew he had people there?

Let's just say, in all seriousness,

just

four names, Brian Black, Jeremiah Johnson, Dustin Wright, LaDavid Johnson.

In this entire conversation, their names haven't come up.

Those are the four men who died.

And now we've got everybody knows the congresswoman and everybody knows the president.

These are the heroes.

Yeah, the reason we know the Congresswoman.

Because of Congresswoman,

politicizing it to what end?

Just remember, like, Benkasi didn't work out for Republicans politically.

I mean, I mean, yes, because because I know what you're going to say.

So please go for it.

Go for it.

Do it.

The convention was

all about Benghazi.

Here's what.

No, no, no.

Do you think that helped Republicans?

Like, did you think that's why Donald Trump got elected?

Elected?

Because of Benghazi?

Because if you pulled any independent in that period, independents heard the word Benghazi and they went, no efficiency.

It's a Republican.

Of course, well, there are no.

General Flynn would not be comfortable in a Democratic Party.

And a Democratic Party would not be comfortable with General Flynn.

So if people went out and gave a speech like General Flynn gave at the Republican Convention, that couldn't happen.

They don't care.

As long as the Democrats keep bringing a knife to a gunfight, they will lose.

Let me just read.

It's partisan, though.

Like you go back and forth in the show, I've noticed between wanting to try to like survive Trump by pulling us together and being better than Trump, and then there's like this other instinct to like win each battle and not the war.

And it's like, which one is going to win?

Here's what Trump said at the convention.

In Libya, our consulate, the symbol of American prestige around the globe, yes, move over Mount Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty, the symbol of our freedom, was the consulate in Benghazi.

Was

was brought down in flames.

Libya is in ruins.

Our ambassador and her staff were left helpless to die at the hands of savage killers.

Giuliani said her dereliction of duty and failure to keep her people safe safe played a major role in the horrific Islamic terrorist murder.

That's how they played the game.

Well, and the way the Democrats play the game is they go on TV and say it was a YouTube video and a protest when it was actually an organized attack.

And I think had Donald Trump, and I'm actually surprised he didn't do this, go out on TV and immediately start saying something that was nonsense, that's your opening for Benghazi.

I think it was an unforced error in the rush up to the campaign in 2012 that helped Republicans.

I think these are largely different, in particular because the rules of engagement in Niger were a situation where we weren't even allowed to have aerial drones.

Neither one was a scandal.

Both were a mistake.

The difference is they have no shame.

They say that global warm is a Chinese hoax, although a hurricane hit Ireland in mid-October.

If I'm a Republican and I say, I'm not, I don't buy into this evolution stuff.

That doesn't matter.

If a Democrat said that, we would say, you can't say that.

I mean, that's insane.

Look, you're a Democrat.

You just can't be anything but a Democrat.

You can't believe that.

That's just the nature of who you are.

We cannot believe that the Earth is 5,000 years old or climate change is a Chinese hoax.

We just can't.

What Democrats should do.

You don't believe it either.

What Democrats should do is use the opportunity to actually drive the question of why are there 800 special forces in Niger?

Why are we spending another $100 million on a drone facility in Niger?

Because we already have a $100 million drone facility in Niger to have a conversation about what our forces are doing doing around the world.

I mean, use this as an opportunity to actually force a substantive debate about our engagement around the world.

That would be informative and do a service for the country.

Well, you just started it.

There you go.

Can I read what Sarah Huckabee Sanders said about General Kelly in the briefing?

If you want to go after General Kelly, that's up to you.

But I think that if you want to get into a debate with a forced or Marine general, that's highly inappropriate.

I hate this.

It's highly inappropriate to question the president's chief of staff.

Is this already a dictatorship?

No, but it's jackassery.

And I say this as a conservative.

You know,

this, it's, it's ridiculous.

The idea that we can't question the chief of staff of the White House, I'm a conservative and a Republican.

I questioned George W.

Bush, and his White House didn't get mad about it.

Here's the scariest thing.

Trump tweet last week, network news has become so partisan, distorted, and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked.

Talking about the word revoke, when we're talking about broadcast, it's one thing to say fake news and I hate him in the failing New York Times, but this is a new place he's going.

But he can't do that, right?

Because that's not how the FCC works.

You have, you know, there's not one license, there's 24 NBC licenses across the country.

First of all, we know how it works.

No one cares what Sarah Tucker Bisander says.

She's not.

I mean, you look at that poor woman and you actually have, there's some sympathy you have for her.

I mean, she's.

Trump, on the other hand, he's the president of the United States.

He's not some, look at Sean Spice.

I mean, no one, who cared?

He looked like he was in so far.

He was head and lying so much you know he was doing.

It's one thing, but she can't think of anything else to say.

What can you say?

when the chief of staff says that a woman said something at a dedication of an FBI building that the tape says something else.

Well, you got to go, you got to make something up.

Well, who's going to question a four-star general?

Actually, everybody questions four-star general.

Generals question people in a while.

I wonder if

Trump tweeted, Obama is hiding under my bed.

And they asked her the next day, she would say, well, I have not discussed that with the president.

He may have tweeted it.

You know, can I just say, my problem is not what the president said, per se, although I got an issue with it.

It's that if Barack Obama had said it, Republicans would have pitchforks and torches in the street, and suddenly suddenly the polling has shifted.

And I was an elected Republican.

I am a conservative, and it disturbs me that any man, regardless of either party, can say something and the people in his party suddenly agree with him when it's unconstitutional.

Okay.

So

you're here.

So I don't know if you're familiar with the name Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, but I couldn't avoid it this week because she is running for the seat of our old friend Ileana Ross Lathan, who was on this show many times, and she's running there in Florida and she's got an interesting profile.

She believes she was abducted by aliens when she was seven and taken aboard their spaceship and believes that in the ensuing years they sometimes telepathically communicate with her and that the Coral Castle, anyone from Miami, that's a tourist attraction down there, it's made of limestone, is actually an ancient Egyptian pyramid.

Not the same one that Ben Carson thinks that has grain in it, but

so you know the Republicans, they always turn into a skid and they just embrace it.

So she's she's not

shying away from these beliefs.

We got to hold up some of her campaign posters.

Bettina Aguilera, I see a shining city hovering over my house.

Vote for me, or my intergalactic overlords will harvest your tissue to feed their pod spawn.

Are you better off than you were four light years ago?

And I know light years is a measure of distance.

Don't write me, nerds.

Don't nerd me.

I have a beam.

No one prop 51.

Yes, on area 51.

Black holes matter.

You can have my probe when you pry it from my cold dead anus.

But Tina Aguilera, still not as crazy as Scientology.

And

at least I'm not Putin's bitch.

Okay, let's bring out Daryl.

He is a musician, author of Clandestine Relationships, a Black Man's Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan, and subject of the film Accidental Tourists.

Please welcome Darrell Davis.

Darryl.

How are you?

Great pleasure.

It's my pleasure.

Oh, wow.

Well, I tell you, you have the most interesting story.

I saw your film.

I had to get you on here.

A lot of people talking about making changes.

You actually do it.

You go out there and you seek out Ku Klux Klansmen.

You become their friends, and you take their garments.

Indeed.

How many Klan robes do you have now?

Well, actually, I just got three in the last month.

These are from people who've retired them because you've been...

They were active Klan members who've decided to change their ideology.

So I would say now

roughly 42 or 45.

And you always get the robe as your...

That's like...

Well, I get the robe or other art, y'all.

You deserve it.

You know, t-shirts, belt buckles.

Yeah.

Right.

Okay, so how did you get into this?

You lost a bet or something?

I mean,

what sort of

black man says, I want to go meet Klansmen.

Well, what it was, you know, my parents were in the Foreign Service.

I spent a lot of time overseas, different countries every two years.

And overseas, as a kid, you know, I'm 59 years old now, but in the early 60s when I was a school.

A younger man.

Indeed, I am.

So my classes overseas were filled with kids from Italy, Nigeria, Japan, Russia, whoever had an embassy in those countries, we all went to school together.

And so while I was being multicultural, so to speak, my peers back home here in my own country were either going to newly integrated schools or still segregated ones.

And there was not the amount of diversity in the classroom that I had overseas.

I was literally living 12 to 15 years ahead of my time when I was overseas.

So I was already prepared.

Like Obama.

There you go.

Exactly.

And he learned a lot.

Exactly.

Yeah, he precisely.

It was great that he had that outlook on life from living in a lot of places.

So I was unfamiliar with racism.

And then one time when I was back here at age 10, I just landed in Belmont, Massachusetts, suburb of Boston, and I joined the Cub Scouts and we had a parade along with the Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Brownies, and the 4-H Club from Lexington to Concord to commemorate the ride of Paul Revere.

And I was the only black scout participating in this parade.

And somewhere down the parade route, I began getting hit with bottles and soda pop cans and rocks.

and debris from the street by just a small group, maybe four or five white people, a couple kids, couple adults.

And I thought, being naive, oh, those people over there don't like the scouts.

I didn't realize that I was the only scout getting hit until my den mother, my scout leader, all came rushing back and huddled over me and escorted me out of the danger.

And when I got home, my mom and dad, who were not at the march, were asking me, how did you fall down and get all scraped up?

I told them I didn't fall down.

I told them what happened.

And for the first time in my life, believe it or not, at the age of 10, they explained racism to me.

I'd never heard of it.

And I could not get my head around the idea that someone who had never seen me, spoken to me, or knew nothing about me would want to inflict pain upon me for no other reason than this: the color of my skin.

So I did not believe my parents.

My parents had never lied to me before, but on this day, I did not believe them.

But you're still friends with some of these guys.

You've confirmed that.

Well, you mean the ones in fourth grade?

The one who's converted.

No,

yeah, absolutely.

You know, the ones who gave up the robe.

Absolutely.

And you're even godfather to one of their kids?

That's that is correct.

His wife, yes.

And

are today's Klansmen different?

Is it not your grandfather's clan?

It seems like they're different.

It's not my grandfather's clan.

No.

No, no, definitely not that.

Are they different?

No, the ideology is pretty much still the same.

However, today, they've kind of like, you know, shred the hood and the robe, especially in public.

A lot of them still wear it, you know, for ceremonial purposes, things like that, but they want to assimilate into the mainstream.

Really?

You know, but that actually started back in the 80s, you know, where they want to assimilate and blend in and say, hey, you know, we all think the same way.

Come join us.

We'll fight the fight together.

It really seems like white men have just been rousted, like, you know, racially, sexually.

you know, with women, with the race issue.

They just don't feel there's a certain percentage of them.

And Trump is their hero.

He's the last hurrah.

He's the last guy defending this life that is gone with the wind.

Well, you know, really.

But

you think he's the best thing that happened, right?

Yes, absolutely.

I think Donald Trump is the best thing that has happened to this country.

And let me explain why, okay?

We cannot, you know, for the past eight years, everybody blamed the rise in racism on Obama.

Everybody blamed Obama for everything.

He walks down, you walk down the street, trip on the sidewalk, it's Obama's fault.

Right.

Okay.

And now today we're blaming Trump for racism.

Racism existed before Donald Trump, before Obama, before Bill Clinton, before George Bush.

The people to blame are ourselves for not addressing it and putting a taboo on the conversation of talking about racism and getting this country straight.

Our country is going to be one of two things.

what we make it or what we let it become.

And, you know, the Klan is also about religion.

It's a Christian organization, right?

I mean listen to the look at this.

43% of Americans identify now as white and Christian.

43%.

In 1976, it was 81%.

So they're not crazy that that world is going away.

Yeah, but

don't tie Christianity to the Klan.

I mean, there are people who call themselves all sorts of things, but they burn crosses.

My Savior was nailed to one.

Yeah, I understand.

But religion is what people make of their own religion.

We know that.

If I might add something in there, I'll tell you a true story.

This Klansman was riding in my car with me, and we were talking, and I asked him exactly what you said, you know, about burning the cross.

You know, if you're a Christian, why do you burn the cross?

And he said, well, the flame represents two things.

One, it represents purity.

You know, if you ever get a splinter in your finger, your mom takes the needle and puts it in the fire and digs it out.

So we use the flame symbolically to signify the purity of the white race.

The second reason why we burn the cross is because we are Christian Christian and we're lighting the way for Jesus Christ.

I said, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I said, hold on a second.

I said, you obviously have a different Jesus Christ than I do.

And he says, well, no, Daryl, there's only one Jesus Christ.

I said, no, there must be two.

And he says, well, how do you figure?

Is your Jesus Christ black?

I said, no, he's not black.

I said, but he's not white either.

If anything, he was olive-complected based upon the area in which he appeared.

And he says, well, if you know, if you're a Christian as you say you are, you know that Jesus Christ is coming back.

So we're lighting the way for Jesus Christ.

I said, that proves that you have a different jesus christ than i do because my jesus christ lights the way for me who the hell are you to light the way for jesus christ amen

well it's uh you know it's

it's always great to use logic on psychopathic murderers because it's so effective but i hate to be the skunk at the garden party but that's why religion is dangerous because it's completely fucking made up so that anybody

So that anybody can put anything they want on it, including horrific shit.

Atheists who are communists have killed a whole lot of people in the 20th century.

That's a dumb canard.

Come on, the atheists.

Atheism had nothing to say.

Dangerous.

First of all, communism, you take out any saving grace.

It's all people.

The mob is the religion.

Communism was the religion, and the leader, Stalin, was the god.

But, okay.

I just want to say, religiously unaffiliated in this poll, this is the latest PRIRI, PRRI poll.

These are people who do this every year.

Nearly one in four Americans are now religiously unaffiliated.

In 1976, that was only 7%.

18 to 29, 38%.

And when you talk to people about it, they kind of are saying, I don't go to church because the only people who still go are assholes.

You know, like, and the refugee thing kind of brought this to light because that's like a traditional thing the church always did.

We bring in refugees.

Well, the evangelical base doesn't want to let in refugees.

So the young people are like,

that's not very Jesus-y.

So what's the point?

Well, first of all, I still go to church.

I don't think I'm an asshole, but that's all right.

I didn't say anybody.

And I'll just say, this man is a better human being than I am.

Okay, I'll just flat out say that right now.

Everybody wishes, come on.

Look, people are religion that all kinds.

I mean, there's nuns in tennis shoes that work in hospices.

They're entirely different than people that are burning crosses to light the way for Jesus.

I mean, it's an atheist,

some are some of the smartest, most innovative people, nicest, and most humane people you'll ever met.

Some are not.

But I mean, just the fact that a person is faithful or a person goes to church

doesn't necessarily mean that they're an asshole.

They're as buried as anybody else.

But we'll show you.

Well, what you often say is that people who are religious aren't smart, right?

They're dumb.

They're stupid.

Right?

And that's like three-quarters of the United States States still.

It's still 75% of the country if 25% is unaffiliated.

But that's not what I said.

The movie Religilist starts with the question, how can otherwise intelligent people believe in a talking snake?

The question is, how can you just wall, I think all of you are intelligent, and I guess you're all religious.

I don't know how people can.

I don't know how people can wall off a part of their mind and believe in something that's an obviously debunked Bronze Age myth.

It permeates everything I do and reminds me of how terrible I can be.

It shapes my life and gives me great comfort.

My wife is battling incurable cancer right now.

I'm glad I believe in an afterlife and a God who I can pray to.

There are some people who are terrible human beings who hide behind religion.

We've seen a lot of them last year supporting a man who doesn't believe anything they claim to believe.

And it's disappointing and it hurts

my cause.

But I do think that a lot of people haven't been religious for a long time and they're only now just comfortable admitting that.

They're not all assholes, but 80%

of the big churchgoers voted for Donald Trump.

You know, a lot of people.

A lot of people struggle in doubt.

Me.

Okay, and some people, do you say some go, you know, that's the point.

And there's somebody else, you go, and you know, somebody else subs and say, that's the point.

I mean, struggling in doubt is all part of the, it all comes to the thing.

Certainty is a difficult thing to arrive at.

But it's a framework.

And, you know, people, the problem is, is when somebody actually picks up the New Testament and reads it, that's when you get into trouble.

Well, that's.

Okay, as long as, yeah, as long as what they say, if they ask you for your shirt, you give them your coat.

Uh-oh, that's true.

And that's what I'm saying.

I'm saying, in the past, I wouldn't expect

conservatives to be perfect Christians or perfectly Christ-like, but it seems like they don't even make an effort to be the least bit like what Jesus would do.

Right.

So

many, many, yeah.

That's why Martin Luther King said that

Sunday mornings from 11 a.m.

to 12 noon is the most segregated time in this country because everybody calls themselves Christians, but each one goes to different churches.

Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, etc.

They all are reading the King James Bible, but each one is interpreting the verses differently.

Okay, so can I show a little video before we run out of time?

This is Santa Rosa, California this week.

And,

you know, I know the...

the global warming is a hoax, like you said, James, and all that stuff, but I have never seen a picture like like that.

That looks like Dresden or something.

Looks like something after the war.

And I just am bringing that up to mention that all these people who, these Republicans who criticize Donald Trump, they vote with them on issues like this.

Issues are what matter.

Let's try not to take our eye off that ball.

Bob Corker, who said the White House has become the adult daycare center, votes with Trump 95.8% of the time.

And Marco Rubio, who said we're about to turn over the nuclear codes to an erratic individual, votes with that nut 95.8%.

Mitch McConnell, who said it's pretty obvious he doesn't know a lot about the issues, votes with them 95.8% of the time.

Ted Cruz called him a pathological liar, utterly immoral, only 93.9%.

So

that's the situation.

Why?

Because that includes the data, I think that probably comes from the report I read at 538, but it includes referrals from committee, floor votes, naming post offices.

You mean all is accomplishments?

It includes

on the votes that matter, when you read them out, there actually is real disagreement.

That's why Ted Cruz, for example, has a lower number in the 90s.

Ben Sasse is even lower.

But when you include referrals from committee and motions to proceed to debate in that number, of course it's going to be very high because they actually have very few accomplishments.

But they still haven't broke it with them because they want that text.

Well,

I think what you see in the Republican Party is this sort of two strategies, containment and then there's accommodation.

And the accommodationists are going along with Trump for different reasons.

Some of them are scared to death of the base and they're afraid to actually be honest and sincere.

There are some of them who are actually principled and think he's the president and maybe we'll get some good policies out of it, right?

And so you may disagree with the results of those policies, but it is principled in their own way to still deliver to their constituents what they've promised.

There's a very important distinction.

The people that say something against Trump don't have to run for reelection in 2018.

75 to 80 percent of the Republicans are with Trump.

And so Bob Calker,

he can say anything he wants because he's not running for reelection.

Name me somebody that comes up that has to go out and face Republican voters that do this.

And I mean, it's just not going to happen.

And the reason I believe that there is a God, because he sent us a signal.

He sent a hurricane to Ireland in mid-October.

If that doesn't get you, he's like shaking you.

You don't understand that?

That's right.

I mean, I'll be making a point.

That's what Pat Robertson says.

He did a BM.

All right, in the one minute I have before New Rules, I want to read something.

It's quoting Abraham Lincoln, because in a week that was about fallen soldiers.

I remember this.

It was in my favorite movie, Saving Prophet Ryan, and this is a letter that Abraham Lincoln.

I think we can show it, but I'll read it if we can't.

There it is.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.

But I cannot refrain from tendering the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

I think that's how you do it.

We don't expect that, but that would be the top.

All right.

Thank you, panel.

time for new rules everybody new rules

okay

new rules now that nabisco is offering the new mystery oreo where they don't tell you the flavor you have to guess

their next cookie must be called just shut up and eat it you fat fuck

Come on, Nabisco, if I wanted what I'm eating to be a mystery, I'd order Chinese food.

It's snowflakes, you know.

All right, New Rule, now that Taco Bell has launched its own clothing line, Urban Outfitters

has to start selling tacos that make you sick.

And if you do purchase an item from the Taco Bell line, may I recommend this jacket?

Because it helpfully warns the people behind you that you've just been to Taco Bell.

Neural, stop criticizing this couple that decided to go ahead with their outdoor wedding in the middle of a hurricane.

She got to see just how committed he was to the marriage, and he got to experience one last time getting blown.

Neural fashion bloggers have to stop trying to make these nose hair extensions a thing.

I look at that and I don't think there's a sexy, off-beat pixie girl.

I think, oh, my dentos, my dentist, Barry Menkoff.

Oh, fuck.

You get what I'm talking about.

New rule: the smuggling ring courier caught trying to board a flight from Sri Lanka to India with nearly a kilo of gold hidden in his rectum.

Has to admit, when they busted him, he nearly shit a brick.

Some highbrow, some lowbrow.

And finally,

new rule, if Russia is going to keep attacking America, then America really should fight back.

The conventional wisdom is that in the 1980s, Saint Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviet

defeated the Soviet Union.

And then the Berlin Wall came down and everybody was friends.

But what really happened was we stopped fighting the Cold War, but the Russians never did.

They may have changed the name of the KGB, the way Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC, but

trust me, they're both still out there poisoning people.

There is an entire building in St.

Petersburg filled with a Russian troll army, hundreds of employees of their defense department sitting in front of computers, pretending to be Americans, and creating thousands of tweets, memes, news site comments, and flat-out fake stories designed not to take sides on any issue, but just to get us fighting about it, to create chaos.

the better to elect the chaos candidate.

Here's an example of a Russian created meme from 2016.

It says, up to 5.7 million illegals may have voted in 2008 election.

Well, that, of course, is ridiculous, but it nevertheless reached 10 million American voters by way of Facebook, millions more through Twitter, and one guy on Bing.

Hillary Clinton spent over a billion dollars on the campaign, and the Russians beat her with $150,000 because they were able to turn Facebook into FakeBook.

Or a more apt name might be Shit Starter.

Because that's what they were doing.

That's what their meddling was meant to do.

Start shit.

And boy, was that easy to do since Facebook is the place where thinking went to die.

All the time, people used to just waste reading books and newspapers.

Well, now they're sharing.

Sharing.

Isn't it great that we all share?

Putin thinks it's great.

That's why he only had to spend 150 grand, because we spread his propaganda for him.

And it really bugs me that Facebook took that word and rat fucked it.

Sharing, as I recall it, meant actually giving something of yours away to another.

Another kid forgot his lunch, you gave him half of yours.

Sharing.

But how is it sharing to send me a picture of your lunch?

That's just saying, I've got food and you don't.

Facebook sharing isn't sharing.

It's mostly humble bragging.

Oh, so embarrassed, didn't realize there was a hole in the knee of my jeans and now my penis was showing.

It's a lot of that bullshit, and it's a healthy amount of, here's something I want you to know I have.

For something called sharing, there's an awful lot of, look at me, look how talented my kids are, look what great concert seats I have.

Look, I'm in Italy, and you're in Pacoima.

And the Russians saw this, and they took our everyone needs to smell my every brain fart culture and used it as the engine for spreading their bullshit for the purpose of starting cock fights.

Except we're the cocks.

We're the brainless birds pecking at each other.

That's what Putin knew, that with social media, it would be easy to get America to start cockfighting.

He just made sure the tiniest cock won.

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at Madison Square Garden, November 11th, and at the Blaisdell

in Honolulu, New Year's Eve.

Oh, yeah, with Bob Sagett and Reggie Brown, the

Maui Arts Center, and Maui New Year's Day.

Thank you, folks.

I want to thank James Grabel, Margaret Hoover, Eric Ellerson, Daryl Davis, and Janice Winn.

Join us down for overtime on YouTube.

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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