Overtime - Episode #435: Gerrymandering, Voter ID, Presidential Pardons

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, real-time with Bill Maher.

Okay.

You must have done well.

We got encore of applause.

Okay.

Here are the questions.

Paul Bagala, do the Democrats have an effective strategy to combat gerrymandering?

Yes, well, they're working on it.

Eric Holder, the former attorney general, is leading a movement to do that at President Obama

to help support it and fund it.

There are no two better people, people, but we've got to do it.

I mean, by the way, if we want to tear down monuments to slavery and segregation, let's start with denying the vote to African Americans, which states across America have done, including my beloved Texas.

I know you've worked on that, Rev.

You know what we also have to work on and be careful of is while this is all happening in a longer-term plan, Trump's team is making a play to undermine the census and defund the Census Bureau.

So they'll not be able to count and accurately represent who is in the country and who lives here.

This one I didn't know about.

Every time I think he's really exhausted.

He'll compromise and count him as three fifths though.

But

illegal immigrants won't take the census because they're afraid of a knock on the door in a way that they weren't as much last time we had a census.

So if they're going to be

undercounted.

Illegal immigrants are going to be undercounted.

They've been counted in the past because they've had the implicit

guarantee.

The hypocrisy with all those who are ashamed, embarrassed by Trump's Charlottesville statements are not ashamed of his in fact using, shifting government funds for

violence by

white supremacists to anti-affirmative action.

They are not ashamed of his appointing Jefferson Beauregard Davis.

So I suspect that come no

come September, his agenda will be intact.

That's what's strange.

His legitimate may still be intact after all this madness.

Frank, what explains why some parts of the country remain so backward when it comes to gay rights?

Is it even true anymore?

Yeah, it is true.

The numbers are over 50% nationally that they support gay marriage.

Yeah, well, this is only going one way long term, because if you look at the polls, it's generational more than anything else.

So even if you poll evangelical Christians under the age of 30, more of them support gay marriage than not.

But in the South and in some other regions, the church still holds great sway, and a lot of this really does boil down to that.

Right.

Yeah.

it is a church thing.

Look at me attacking a church.

Next to a reverence.

Jesse Jackson, are voter ID laws the new Jim Crow?

As part of the new Jim Crow, the scheme,

actually,

the idea of voter fraud is a fraud.

Yes.

And

in Detroit, 77,000 voters were not registered at the top of the ticket, which means it was some hanky-panky going on.

The very

first paragraph in the

New York Times editorial on November 9th is the Republican chairman celebrating the fact he suppressed the black vote by 9% and increased the white vote by 21%

because of voter suppression.

So those who deny the right to vote now, in fact, use purging as their weapon.

Okay,

what does the panel think about the rumored Kasich Hickenlooper unity ticket to challenge Trump in 2020?

Wait a second.

Kasich, Hickenlooper is Democrat?

And Kasich.

Ohio is Republican.

Ohio, Colorado.

Lawrence O'Donnell last night was saying that Paul Ryan is actively challenging him because he went to Seattle or something and made a speech.

You think,

I don't know, I don't think any Republican is going to unseat Trump from the nomination in 2020.

Kasich will run, I think.

Really?

Against.

I mean, he's been making all the the noises for it.

Really like John Kasich?

Go.

Compared to Trump, absolutely.

There's that.

John Kasich is like, he has a very sort of Lindsey Graham-ish record when it comes to just constantly favoring interventions around the entire globe in ways that the media doesn't really give him guff for.

You know, this crazy false equivalency that I hear on this panel every fucking week from people who pick apart little things that, you know, I don't like any of these guys either.

I don't like Kasich.

I don't like Bush or Mitt Romney and all these fucking people.

It's not the same as this demented man-child in full makeup

who could blow up the world and poop tweets at 3 a.m.

I mean,

I'm not saying they're the same.

I'm saying that a lot of people have a soft spot in their heart for Kasich because they haven't actually looked at what he's done, either as governor or as a candidate.

I have a soft spot for normalcy and sanity and somebody who's not going to blow up the world is what I...

Okay.

Does the panel think Trump will scrap NAFTA if it's stupid I'm sure he will next question

scrap NAFTA anybody anyone want to bite on that one he said he would renegotiate will Trump will he pardon himself

I think there's no line he would if he could I'm going to fire Mueller he's going to pardon I said this earlier the Ohio pardon was awful in and of itself, but I also think it was a signal to the targets of the Mueller investigation that I got your back.

I think there's no line.

Bill, I think your editorial is great tonight.

There's no line he won't cross.

Got to write it down.

If it's not written down, he'll do it.

Or you have businesses go to him and make something happen.

Or the generals, right?

Somebody else has to weigh in for him to say, oh, okay, I don't care enough about this to argue with you.

I'll let you deal with it.

Whether it's the Afghanistan war for the general or NAFTA and businesses.

So that's...

Which means that McConnell

must write it down.

They cannot say he's a bad guy because he is unkind and then embrace his agenda.

Like Like they did, they kind of wrote a little law that said you can't fire Mueller, right?

They haven't passed it though.

Right.

One of the guys who wrote it, Tom Tillis, got a call from President Trump greaming him out about it.

Oh, I'm sure.

But they do.

They've all put their spines in a blind trust, these Republicans on the hill.

And I would pick another body part, but you know, my mom watches.

But it's a clean show.

My mama, you know.

But another Russian ambassador turned up dead today.

I didn't know that.

Yeah.

Like it happens all the time, and it doesn't seem to be natural causes.

And I'm sure every time it does, Trump goes, geez, I wish I could do that.

But again, when O'Reilly asked him about that, he said, Putin's a killer.

He said, You think we're so great?

Exactly.

Actually, I do think we're so great, and I think Putin is so evil.

And I'd like my president to be able to say that.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

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