Ep. #428: Michael Eric Dyson, Ice Cube

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.

Yeah, 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.

Right here with me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mario.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for

Thank you for letting a sinner in your midst.

Michael Eric Dyson will be out here shortly to

take me to the woodshed.

But first, there is someone who had a worse week than me, Donald Trump.

Oh,

did you watch the Comey testimony?

People actually went to bars and restaurants at 10 in the morning to watch this shit.

I mean, it's all part of the campaign the Republicans have to make America day drunk again.

So,

just to give you a quick recap, the former director of the FBI said on five times during the testimony that the president lied to him.

demanded his loyalty above his honesty, threatened his job,

wanted to shut down the investigation, and when that didn't happen, fired him.

And the Republicans still will not impeach him.

If only Trump had asked Comey to blow him.

But

what was so shocking to people is that Trump did not tweet.

for 46 hours.

That's a new record.

How about it for president?

But of course, he couldn't stay away from it today.

He tweeted, despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication.

And wow, call me what a leaker.

That's what he, but then he wrote hashtag still Putin's bitch.

You know,

America is a funny place.

It all comes down to who you believe.

A pathological liar who has been known to interrupt himself mid-lie to tell another lie.

Or the patriotic Boy Scout who took meticulous notes.

Every meeting, he took notes right after.

Trump needs more meetings where people take notes.

They're called psychiatrists.

But listen to this.

Comey was contacted, he said nine times,

nine times, he's only been office like 100 days by Trump.

Many of those times, Trump asked everyone else to leave the room to the point where Comey had to tell other people,

don't leave me alone with him,

to which every Trump beauty pageant contestant said, Welcome to our world.

But

here's the part I love

of Comey's testimony.

He says, Trump said to him, I have been very loyal to you, very loyal.

We had that thing.

Why does everything Trump say sounds like a wiretap of the Gambinos?

We had that thing in the clam bar, you know,

the piano wire, that thing we did.

Trump probably has a mob name for Comey, Jimmy Too Tall.

Remember when he had him come over to him at the Jimmy Too Tall, come here, you're a made man now.

Someday I may need a favor and that day may never come.

Take the gun, leave the cannoli.

You know it?

But the last person to question Comey yesterday, oh my gosh, John McCain, did you see this?

I mean...

Look, I've had mixed feelings like all of us have, right, about John McCain for years, but he's been pretty good on this lately.

He was my hope.

I've said here, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

And I thought, oh, this is going to be McCain's finest hour.

The maverick, the lion of the Senate, is going to put country before party and stand up to Trump's bullshit.

And then out comes Mr.

Magoo.

No one,

no one knew what this man was talking about.

At one point, the closed caption for the hearing impaired just went, no clue.

He spoke for seven minutes.

The last five were all about who's been messing with the thermostat.

I mean.

But that, you know, that's just age catching up with somebody.

What's Paul Ryan's excuse?

Paul Ryan said yesterday: if, you know, if Comey came out with the same testimony about a Democratic president, we wouldn't be going for impeachment.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

If this was Hillary with the same shit going on, they would have yanked her out of office so fast, the only thing that would be left would be a smoldering pantsuit.

And then he said, he said, Trump didn't mean to obstruct justice.

He's just new at this.

Yeah, right.

Until now, he's been lying in the private sector.

He's just new at it.

In what other profession can you get away with this?

Oh, bear with me.

I'm not a dentist.

I work at a shoe store.

And it's not just him.

This is where we are, ladies and gentlemen.

The main Republican talking point is essentially Trump is too stupid to be guilty of anything.

But if that's the case, isn't he too stupid to be president?

All right, we've got a great show.

David Gregory, Simone Sanders, and David Jolly are here.

And a little later, we'll be speaking with Ice Cube is backstage.

Well, first up, he's a professor of sociology at Georgetown University whose latest book is Tears We Cannot Stop, a Sermon to White America.

Michael Eric Dyson.

Michael?

What are you?

Uh-oh, I can see.

All right.

Now, Michael, you've sat in this chair before when you were the newsmaker.

Unfortunately, this week I find I'm not the newsmaker.

I wanted you to come by here because, you know, I want you to

school me.

I did a bad thing.

Yeah, well, that's a great place to begin, Bill.

A very bad thing.

But look,

in the past, you've been the person who has been on the front line saying that the left shouldn't apologize.

Progressives should resist any sense of complicity with a culture that is too apologetic.

And yet you find yourself on the hot seat here tonight.

What led to that change of mind?

Oh, and I thought you were going to be easy on me.

And you shouldn't.

No, I mean, mean, that's true.

But, you know, honestly, I've said both.

I mean, I have, I remember when Mitt Romney was running, he had a book, No Apologies.

You know, like America Should Never Apologize.

And I said, no, apologies are sometimes appropriate.

There is a lot of bullshit apologizing in America, and I am against that.

But, you know, we shouldn't apologize for slavery and Japanese internment and Abu Ghraib and Indian genocide and Tuskegee and a million.

So when it's appropriate, this was appropriate.

Because I'll tell you why, because for black folks, that word,

I don't care who you are, has caused pain.

I'm not here to do that.

Now, the guy who was here, it's not his fault.

I feel bad about him, the senator.

It's all on me.

But he said a weird thing.

The comic mind.

goes to a weird place sometimes.

But it doesn't matter that it wasn't said in malice.

It wasn't,

if it brought back pain to people.

Right.

Well, then I, and that's why I apologize freely and I reiterate it tonight.

Well, you know, that that's sincere.

Right.

But look,

but

you're used to those cheers.

I'm not that big of an asshole.

All right.

But you're used to those cheers, but you've got to understand.

Now, you know, I've taken a lot of heat, people saying you're a coon, you're a sellout.

Why would you dare go on the show with your guy who's your friend?

Because

they figure that I'm going to be complicit with you, that I'm not going to challenge you, that this is an easy pass.

But do you understand why people are skeptical and the pain and the suffering?

Look, when you made the point about the house in, and then you, you know, black people were saying, look, it's not as if black people in the house were any better off than people in the field.

Both of them were subject to slave dominance, hegemony, hatred, rape, and the like.

And as a result of that, as a result of that, people think that that's insensible.

But surely you must know all that was not going on in my mind.

Right?

Well, of course.

And as far as to your question about you're going to, look, I know we're friends.

Right.

And that is not a greater bond

than your bond with the black community.

I hope we're friends forever, but anyone who knows you knows you're a straight shooter.

I mean, I feel like I got Robert Mueller here.

You know.

Right.

I got, so, you know.

Well, let me ask you this.

So One of the things that, you know, my book, the book you mentioned, is about white privilege.

I talk a lot about white privilege.

When I was here before, I spoke about that.

And people believe that one of the things you did last week was an unconscious reflex.

Nobody would ascribe to you any malicious intent, but that's the point, right?

That it grows out of a culture that reflexively identifies that particular word with some heinous acts in history.

And so they think it's a matter of privilege that it doesn't happen.

Let me read you something that my son, a well-known authority on this, this is what he texted me.

He said, I know white boys like that who get a pass, who earn a pass from the work they put in, but the coolest and most honorable white boys are the ones that choose not to act on that pass because they understand the history, pain, and insensitivity behind the use of the N-word.

So do you truly understand

the need to name and to challenge that unconscious white privilege that exists and how it hurts black people, even if unintentionally?

Yeah, but of course, I think I do.

I mean, we're all evolving.

We're all who we are.

By the way, this happened once.

A guy said a weird thing, I made a bad joke.

Yes, it was wrong, and I own up to that.

But I mean, it's not like I've made a career of this.

It's not like I went out there last Friday and said, oh, I'm going to break some new ground tonight.

Right, right, right.

You know, it happened and it was wrong, and people make mistakes.

We're all sinners, and we've got to, yeah.

So, but I but I totally get that.

Look, I mean, we are all evolving

at the pace of day by day.

I grew up in an all-white town in New Jersey.

Not Alabama.

That's the country.

I was born in 1956.

I grew up in New Jersey in the 50s and 60s, and race wasn't even an issue.

It didn't exist.

Except my parents told me the right thing about it.

And I've tried to, by the way, portray the right thing about it.

Well, there's no question.

As you have said.

Well, that's why I'm here.

That's why I'm here.

There's no question.

But here's the issue.

You just put your finger on an extremely important point so that those people over there, right, we think about in the age of Trump, we think about the nefarious resurgence of racism under Jeff Sessions and under Steve Bannon.

There's no question about that.

So that even if your intent is certainly not

to cause any kind of pain or horror, you do know that the use of that word then triggered, I think,

not only only the unconscious, but the way in which black people feel on their haunches now because of the resurgence of racism that you,

that the reason I'm here is because you have attacked that.

You are the one who said denying racism is the new racism.

You're the one who called Donald Trump out on his racism and forced him to show his birth certificate.

But what's interesting and tricky here is that when I talk about white privilege in my book, I talk about people who are consciously the allies.

allies of black people, but who may also inadvertently, unintentionally, but nonetheless lethally participate in a culture that ends up hurting, as you've acknowledged, black people in a way that has to be grappled with.

That's why I think there was so much outrage and hurt and pain.

People don't think, oh, Bill Maher is a racist.

I don't think most people thought that.

What they thought was, if even Bill Maher

can at some level capitulate to a level of unconscious privilege, then the rest of us are in a serious spot.

Okay, but.

Look, I'm not here to make excuses, but first of all, the word is omnipresent in the culture.

So the fact that it was in my mind is, you know.

Also, is there part of what you're saying true?

Absolutely.

As I said, I'm just a product of the country like everybody else.

But I just don't want to pretend this is

more of a race thing than a comedian thing.

Comedians are a special kind of monkey.

So to speak.

We are.

Fuck with me.

We are a trained thing that tries to get a laugh.

That's what we do.

That's all we are always thinking.

And this is not the first time this has happened, the first time in this subject, but not the first time I've gotten in trouble in private,

as well as in public, because that's what comedians are somehow wired to do, is like, always go.

We want to make those people laugh.

And sometimes we transgress a sensitivity point.

I mean, my friend Kathy Griffin,

who, by the way, owes me

a fruit basket for getting her off the front pitch.

Yeah.

No doubt about that.

No doubt.

But, you know,

there's a similarity there because, like, what she did, as much as I hate Trump, yeah, that's wrong.

You don't do that to whoever the president is.

Right.

But,

you know, she was going for a laugh.

And I understand that we sometimes do cross the line.

Where I

wanted to say to her is, she said, Trump broke me.

No, he shouldn't.

And my career is over.

No, it's not.

You make a mistake.

You don't have to go away.

Everyone makes mistakes.

No question about that.

Let me say this.

Passing Griffin should not go away.

No, no, no.

You know, I talk in this book, and I think you and I have talked about this offline, that when I first heard niggas say it to me, I was a seven-year-old child with my friends in the South.

I reread it this week.

I mean, I felt even worse.

I mean, look, and it's real because that kind of crashing consciousness that I am different, that I am forever consigned to a different box, relegated to a different reality, so that even with, I think you're absolutely right in terms of the comedic line, you know what people would respond to that by saying, but look, there are trigger points, even in comedy, that lines you should not cross, as you said, Kathy should not do.

And when it comes to race, you know that.

I mean, it's not that I'm introducing a new concept to you, you understand that.

But the reality is that there are so many people who are vulnerable out here, who are black people, brown people, red and yellow people who are vulnerable who don't have the protection of a culture, so that their comedians might make jokes.

Think about it.

I thought about Larry.

Larry David, look, you remember Larry David?

one of my favorite scenes from Curb Your Enthusiasm is when a black man comes up to him and says, hey, you my nigga.

And Larry David wants to show affection.

So he wants to go, you're my,

he says, are you, are you my Caucasian?

So

what he understood, what he understood was that's a line he can't cross.

And because he understands he can't cross it, even his comedy has to be disciplined by it.

Now, now, as you've already said, the reason I'm here, wait a minute, the reason I'm here is because I'm willing to take the heat for people because I think that the Bill Maher I know has been on the front line protecting, arguing, standing up, standing up

for

people.

You made a mistake, you've acknowledged that mistake, and I think it's important for the nation not to rush past that, but to understand that even as

celebrated and as conscientious a figure as you, if you can make a mistake, that means the rest of us can.

So we have to grapple with how deeply rooted that is.

So for me, look, I know you're not a Christian, and you're an atheist, and I'm a Christian, but I tell people often I'd rather work with you as an atheist because you ultimately believe in the principles of justice.

But my Bible tells me to whom much is given, much is required.

You've been given a great deal.

And as a result of the great deal that you've been given, I want to see you continue to stand up and trumpet justice for those who are vulnerable.

to reinforce their standing in a culture where you've gone after the powerful and done it in such a powerful way.

That's why I text text you often every week after the show and say, Bill, you got in their faces again.

And in getting in their faces again, that means standing with those who are vulnerable to those who are able to have their rights.

Look, I mean,

every quarterback throws an interception.

No doubt.

No doubt.

And I try to squeeze them in.

Yeah.

More than most.

Yeah, yeah.

You're Brett Farbing the game there.

Yeah.

Well, I'm just saying, you know, what bothered me about this is that

it costs me a lot of political capital.

I'll use that term, even though I'm a comedian.

But I'm a comedian who's doing something a little different than most, which is, of course, I'm trying to entertain and be popular.

That's my political capital.

But at the same time, I'm saying things that are sometimes unpopular even with my own liberal group, which most people don't.

So I'm always

aware of, like, well, I'm willing to do that.

I'm willing willing to spend political capital for a cause or a view that I think needs to be out there.

This wasn't that.

This was just a mistake.

This was just a dumb interception.

Right.

Well, no doubt.

But again, I've been on 24 years.

Right.

Well, there's no question.

And the thing is,

as I said.

As I said, you know, that this would be a teachable moment.

It is a teachable moment because you happen to be the kind of person whose conscience causes you to be reflective.

There's so many more millions of people who exercise white privilege without any sense of consciousness and who refuse to own up to that in a way.

And I think whether or not you intended that to be the case, it at least opens up the possibility that we can have that conversation.

And I think that's a consequence.

You mentioned a few minutes ago the fact that I introduced that phrase into the language: denying racism is the new racism.

Yes.

I mean, a vast majority of Fox News viewers think racism doesn't exist.

Right.

That we've made it up.

That we've made it up.

And that the real problem is reverse racism.

Absolutely.

I mean, there's a lot of work to do, and your book talks about what, let's get to what people can really do.

Because you talk about reparations and you talk about reading.

Right, right.

Just

the time we have left.

Tell us about those two things because you think they're important.

And you know, when I talk about reparations, I'm not saying that every white person should give their money to black people, though, after the show, if anybody is willing to do that,

I certainly want to be available.

But I'm talking about practical things.

Let me tell you what.

Some people, some white folk read my book and wrote me and said, look, I took you seriously.

I went out and bought some computers that were tore up, that were jacked up.

I got them fixed.

I took 20 computers over to the local school with African-American people.

And they sent me the pictures of them, and it was incredible.

So those are the kind of practical things, practical wisdom, practical justice that can be rendered in the name of that.

And then reading, reading, look, look, all of us need to deepen our awareness of what's going on.

As you know, Bill, I mean, and you'll have that conversation later, black people ourselves are at war with each other about whether we use the N-word or not.

Some people think we should, some people think we shouldn't.

I'm not a racial loyalist in the sense of I believe we should be fundamentally aligned to a certain position that says if you believe this and you're legitimate, you're black, and if not, you don't.

I don't believe in that.

I believe in the same kind of thing you believe in, the kind of irreverence.

But having said that, what I also understand is that reading and engaging the world around us, learning something about the world before you.

So many people speak about race and they have racial amnesia.

They're caught in a fog of this memory.

They want to see the world the way they want to see it.

They listen to Fox all day long.

They believe that the president is the greatest man, I'm talking about the present president, in the history of the world.

And what they fail to understand is that this new age in which we live has certified and legitimated the resurgence of some of the most heinous expressions of anti-blackness that we've seen.

And we need you as an ally, and I'm glad we got you, brother.

Dr.

Professor, my friend, thanks so much, Bob.

Michael Eric Tyson.

Let's meet our panel.

All right, thank you, Mike.

Okay.

Okay.

Everybody, here they are.

He is a CNN political analyst and former host of Meet the Press David Gregory.

She is the former press secretary for Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign and a CNN political commentator Simone Sanders.

And he is the former Republican congressman from Florida's 13th district, David Jolly.

Hey, David, how you doing?

Don't forget to send us your questions for tonight's overtime, so we're going to answer them after the show on YouTube.

Okay, so I've said this many times on this show.

I think like this week we saw the testimony.

It's all about Donald Trump and his crime family.

But we lose sight of the big issue, which is the headline should be, Russia attacks America.

And that is in the present tense.

Senator Warner said this week, it's much broader than we knew.

We found out they're getting, they tried to get into, maybe did, the voting machines themselves.

That was a big talking point on the right.

Well, they didn't get the actual machines.

And it's ongoing, and we have a president, the commander-in-chief, who doesn't care about a war that's happening.

He's a wall.

Can we win a war when the commander-in-chief is a wall?

Is my question to this panel.

Well, we have to deal with the underlying offense.

It was an attack on America, as Senator McCain said, an effort to undermine our democracy, interfere with our election.

It doesn't matter that there isn't evidence that it actually worked.

If you're Vladimir Putin, you're sitting back watching this Comey testimony thinking, oh my God,

I didn't realize I could pull all this off with such little investment.

But it is appalling that the president of the United States thinks more about himself, his own jeopardy, his own insecurity, and his own ego, and not what his responsibility is to the office of the presidency, which is to protect the country.

That's a fact.

It's crazy.

You know, this should not be a partisan issue.

It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green Party, whatever, because next time it could be the Republican Party that is attacked, that is targeted by the Russians.

So I actually don't think we have a commander-in-chief in the White House.

I think we have a businessman who thinks he's running the country like a business, who doesn't care about the implications of the office.

And that is concerning to me.

That's dangerous.

Very dangerous.

The most damning part of Comey's testimony, because all of the he said, he said is out there, the most damning part was in the first two minutes, where James Comey said yes, yes, and yes to the fact that Russia as a state actor tried to interfere with our elections.

And then what does the president do today?

He picks a bar fight with the FBI director instead of recognizing his role as the commander-in-chief.

And he displayed his incompetence by continuing to ignore the Russian interference with his government.

And in all these

meetings, these nine meetings, Senator

Never knew this guy, Martin Heinrich, good for you, from New Mexico.

You know him?

Yes, I've heard of him.

I've heard of him a couple times.

He asked, Come, he said, in all these meetings, did the president ever ask you about the Russia attacks and how you're protecting the country?

Comey said, no.

I had lots of those talks with Obama.

Well, but I think if you release the facts, it's all about him.

Well, but

not only, not only is it just about him, but he's not even thinking, he says, well, if I'm not being investigated, then I'm vindicated.

Let's pass out cigars like his lawyer did.

It's over.

You want to say to him, here's a little news flash for you, Mr.

President.

If people close to you are implicated in this, it undermines America's trust in your administration, in your government, and in you.

And

you're part of the whole deal.

Let's be honest.

The President of the United States has financial ties to Russia, and that's why he will not release his tax returns.

That's the bottom line.

That's also why he's not asking about the investigation.

That's it.

He can pass it through a bunch of S-Corps and all of his businesses, but the reality is he has a conflict of interest in countries across the globe, Russia being number one, and his sons have admitted it.

Yeah, they have.

They have.

Is the president above the law?

No.

But I remember when it was Bill Clinton.

The president's not above the law.

But what I hear on TV every day from your network a lot is that he kind of is, that they can't get him on this.

No, I don't believe anybody is above the law.

What I hear on TV, and not just our network, but other networks as well, is that the Republican, the government, people in the government, particularly Republican members of Congress, are so willing to bend the rules and change the rules just to fit them so that the current President of the United States, who happens to be a rich white man,

can adhere to the rules.

Look, they would never have done this for President Obama.

If this was Hillary Clinton, oh my God.

This is absolutely, this is just egregious.

So everybody should be up in arms because this is a double standard.

So I'm a recovering attorney.

Here's where the law catches up with the President of the United States, and it's called perjury.

What the President said today, put me under oath, might be the single dumbest thing he's ever said in a history of really stupid things that this president said.

Consider how he handled the simple inquiry about, did you fire Comey because of the Rosenstein memo or because of Russia?

He changed his story three times.

In politics, that's a lie.

A lot of politicians have lied.

You've known a lot of them.

You've had a lot of them right here.

Right.

But under oath, it's called perjury.

And frankly, for Bill Clinton, that's ultimately what led to his impeachment.

But what is the president doing here?

What game is he playing?

Now, here's the problem that the president have, which is he brings the intellectual rigor to this fight that he brought to the birther lie against President Obama.

Nothing, which is to say that that was a lie.

He lied about Ted Cruz's father.

He accused the former president of wiretapping him.

Yet we're supposed to believe him and not Jim Comey, who's got his issues.

But

I'm struggling when all these guys around the president say that Comey should man up and he should have stood up to him instead of running to the car to write these memos.

You want to man up, first of all, take on Vladimir Putin, too.

Why don't you put up or shut up?

If you have tapes, put up the tapes.

We can figure out what's telling the truth.

What the hell was that today?

That was bizarre.

And we're going to find out everything.

He still thinks.

It's in an episode to come.

That's the thing.

It's in an episode to come.

Stay tuned for the next episode.

And you know what confused it more this week?

Somebody came out named Reality Winner.

This is very confusing if you didn't follow this.

This is a person's name.

I heard this on the news.

I'm like, who are they?

They turn it up.

It's a Kentucky Derby horse, is what Reality Winner is.

Not actually

a government employee, but go ahead.

Someone actually purposely named a child Reality Winner.

You know what?

We can't choose our names.

Right, we can't choose our names or our parents.

Okay, so,

but she's a 25-year-old NSA worker who is now going to jail, apparently, apparently because she leaked something very important.

This is what I was talking about before, about how the

GRU, that's the intelligence agency in Russia, really the KGB, attempted to hack the computers of voting officials in this country.

They put cookies in 122 websites of county clerks, city clerks.

Okay, they were trying to fuck with this election in a very real way.

And she revealed this.

And, you know, I said this last week on the show.

The Democrats, they don't go for the jugular I saw Tim Kaine saying well she did a bad thing but we got the crime is not the leaker the crime is the crime Democrats have to start saying that the crime is the crime look I think there look I think there are a lot of Democrats up there on the Hill right now who are being pushed by the base which is really important because the base is demanding that folks stand up that they resist that they ask really good questions

And sometimes it doesn't show through all the way.

But I do think that Democrats are building a case to be able to take on the party.

Now, I am also one of those people that are like, look, the house is on fire, and some of the Democrats are still looking for the keys to walk through the front door.

But I actually, we got to do better.

I have a slightly different view than you do on this.

Look, it is a crime to lee classified information.

And it's important.

And any contractor or government official is risking doing that.

And as a journalist, you know, journalists take risks to trying to protect those people.

The Obama administration was very aggressive going after illegals,

journalists legally as a result of those leaks and President Bush before him, although they weren't even as aggressive as the Obama administration.

The government does the best it can to protect that information because it's illegal and somebody who engages in it is taking the risk and they have to pay the penalty.

But you're raising a different point, which is we can accept that.

There are consequences.

I'm talking about winning a political argument.

This is what the Democrats are not doing.

The Republicans know how to go for the juggular and win a political argument.

Of course, it's not always factual.

How about just saying Donald Trump has made us less safe?

They've said that.

So

let me ask this, because David's right, the crime is both.

And listen, I know members of Congress don't have a high favorability rating, right?

But I read the Snowden papers, and it leaves you changed about how you approach leakers.

I think she was wrong, and this was illegal to do this.

But your question about what are the Democrats doing, it's the lost opportunity going into 18.

Who are the leaders?

Okay, let's take a long lens approach to this.

Never before have Democrats had a better opportunity to take the House of Representatives than looking at 2018.

And are you really going to do that with the same leadership of 10 years ago with Nancy Pelosi?

Oh,

y'all can't comfort Nancy Pelosi.

Look, Nancy People.

No, no, no, no.

My point is.

Nancy Pelosi was the one on the House floor yesterday while everybody was focused on the Comey hearing.

She went to the House floor and was saying, saying look these Republicans are trying to hurt you they're here for the banks they are not here for the

little people because they should kill Dodd does anybody care yes they do no I don't think they care if y'all think I'm not sure what they care is the younger voices coming up too younger voice

I'm the 27 year old and so do you think do you think you're right you're right no that's a that's exactly

it's a fair question

So if Democrats take the House in 2018, should Nancy Pelosi be the next Speaker of the House and Stanny Horton?

No, answer the answer.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

This goes to to Bill's heart.

I'm arguing as if like the electoral issue for Democrats and young people in 2018 is Russia.

I am here to tell you that the more potent issue for people across the board, Obama Trump voters, young people, seasoned folks, is health care.

I agree with you.

It may be,

but to your point,

Democrats, I think, have to do two things.

They have to zero in on your point.

Is America safe?

Is it less safe?

Are we dealing with the offense?

What are the results that Trump is or is not accomplishing?

And I I do think that Democrats do get too far out ahead.

They want to impeach him, you know, three days ago.

There's plenty of Democrats.

There's plenty of them.

Can I introduce another way they might get him?

Because even Republicans were talking this week about how he is insane.

And there are, no, I mean, literally, I mean, Joe Scarborough said if any CEO in a Fortune 500 company was behaving this way, he would be removed immediately.

He would have a psychiatric evaluation and would no longer be the CEO there.

I mean

Jennifer Rubin, who is a very conservative writer for the Washington Post, he said there are serious concerns about this president's mental stability.

One is prompted to ask if he is off his rocker.

He's not getting more hinged.

And David, you said a legitimate

A legitimate line,

you said a legitimate line of questioning is his fitness.

It is his fitness.

But most Republicans are still behind him.

So, I want to ask those Republicans who are still behind him, what would it take?

Simple question.

And we've prepared a little primer for you.

What if he showed up at a press conference in full-on Johnny Depp Tonto makeup?

What if he installs his own orb?

What if instead of pardoning the White House turkey, he starts fucking it?

What if he puts his son-in-law in charge of Middle East peace?

Oh, he did that.

Too late, too late, too late.

What if he invites everyone into the bathroom on Air Force One to see his Air Force Two?

What if he meets the queen and rings her left nipple like a doorbell?

I mean, geez.

What if he declares Newt Gingrich's wife America's national bird?

What if he spent hours every day in front of the orangutan cage at the National Zoo yelling, am I good enough now, Daddy?

Am I?

All right, let's bring out Ice Gields.

He's an actor, producer, and iconic rapper whose historic album from 1991 death certificate is now re-released in the 25th anniversary edition with three new songs.

Ice Cube.

How are you?

Good to see you.

Okay.

All right, so I know you're here to promote an album.

I know you also want to talk about my transgression.

What do you want to do first?

I knew you was going to fuck up sooner or later.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I love your show.

You got a great show.

Thank you.

You know, but you be bucking up against that line a little bit.

You know, you got a lot of black jokes.

You know what I'm saying?

You do.

Well,

against racists.

Not, yes.

Sometimes you sound like a redneck trucker.

No, I don't.

Yes, you do.

Now that I got to do.

No, I don't.

That I got to push back on.

All right, it's my opinion.

Okay, it is.

My thing is.

You've never heard that opinion before, but.

My thing is this, you know, and I'm cool with you.

I like your show, to be honest.

I just want to know two questions.

What made you think that it was cool to say that?

You know,

I just explained.

There was no thought put into it.

Obviously, I was telling Dr.

Dyson, comedians, they react.

And it was wrong, and I apologized.

And, you know,

more than that, I can't do.

I accept your apology, but I still

think we need to get to the root of the psyche because I think it's a lot of guys out there who

cross the line because they're a little too familiar or they think they're too familiar.

Or it's guys that, you know, you might have a black girlfriend or two that made them some Kool-Aid every now and then.

And they think they can cross the line.

And they can't.

You know, it's a word that

has been used against us.

It's like a knife, man.

And

you can use it as a weapon or you could use it as a tool.

It's been used as a weapon against us by white people.

And

we're not going to let that happen again by nobody because it's not cool.

Now, I know you heard

it's in the lexicon, everybody talking,

but

that's our word now.

That's our word now.

And you can't have it back.

I know they're trying to get it back.

This guy, and I'm not talking about you, Bill.

I'm not talking about you, Bill.

But I'm talking about guys who cross the line every day because they got some black homies.

They got some friends.

They think it's cool.

And it's not cool because when I hear my homie say it,

it don't feel like venom.

When I hear a white person say it, it feels like that knife stabbing me, even if they don't mean it.

So, you know, I like your show, and it's a great show.

And I just don't know sometimes, is this a political show, or is it a show about jokes?

And sometimes, sometimes the jokes, I know I understand the format, and, you know, you got to say it's a comedian show, but this, to me, is a political show.

And I think you just have to...

not step on some of the political messages that you're saying with a joke because some things just ain't funny.

You know what I mean?

This is real right here that we're going through.

And I'm not trying to get on your case, Bill.

I'm telling you, I like your show.

I like you.

But I think this is a teachable moment, not just to you, but to the people that's watching right now.

You know what I'm saying?

Dude, I'm not, I'm not.

I think the people watching right now are saying that point has been made.

Not by me.

Okay.

All right.

All right, man.

But you made it.

I made it.

I made it.

I'm done.

And we can laugh now.

We can tell Joe.

Would you like to?

I mean, I agree with what Ice Cube said, but furthermore, I also think it's about the context in which the joke was made.

Like, we know you apologize, but in the context, you were, you essentially, by referring to yourself as a house anything, you attempted to whitewash who was really enslaved in the house.

You know, as a white person in America, you would have been the master, the slave owner, not someone enslaved in the house.

And it was mostly black women who were enslaved in the house, who were raped, who were beaten daily, day in and day out.

They endured endured physical and mental abuse.

And so, for a lot of people in America, that was like a slap in the face to black America, particularly to black women.

And so, I'm with Ice Cube and Dr.

Dyson.

This is a teachable moment.

And in this teachable moment, we have to talk about just educating and taking it farther.

Look, this is on the backdrop.

We are two years shy of the 400th anniversary of the first 20 African people being brought to this continent as slaves.

This is on the backdrop of Confederate monuments of the Confederacy being taken down from Charlottesville, Virginia to New Orleans, Louisiana, and people protesting about it.

We got to fight white folks on taking down the statues of the Confederacy.

This is on the backdrop of right here in LA, not two weeks ago, when LeBron James was called the N-word, one of the most powerful

people and most known people in the world.

And so it's a teachable moment for everyone to understand that it is more than just a word.

Black people are literally fighting the systems of white supremacy and institutionalized racism every single day.

And we, every single day.

And

for some people, it does not matter how much money we make, what job we do.

I have, I was literally on the campaign trail with Bernie Sanders.

I was attempting to be yanked out of the entourage for no other reason except I was a black woman walking with Bernie.

That is an issue.

And so we have to remember that we still have some work to do, and we still got some farther places to go.

Maybe we need to take a group field trip on now to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

We're going to just do it because to put some visuals to the things that we're talking about.

Can we plug your record before we run out of time?

Yeah, yeah, let's plug the record, man.

Let's do it.

It's a great record.

It is a great record.

It was a great record 25 years ago.

It's been re-released with three new songs.

Yeah.

So the injustice that you were shining a light on 25 years ago,

what is your assessment of progress in that 25 years?

Man, the only thing changed really is the calendar.

You know, what has changed, though, you know, to be honest, is the scrutiny of law enforcement.

Before NWA and before we did fuck the police, then what happened was the police could do no wrong.

If they saw you in court and they pointed you out, you were guilty.

After that song and after Rodney King,

you saw the police being more scrutiny.

They're on trial now for their conduct, and we're getting real to the bottom of some of this.

It's slow justice, but it's moving in the right direction.

And

what about, now there's a song here, a new one, you know, Good Cop, Bad Cop.

Yeah.

Okay.

From the guy who did fuck the police.

Yeah.

What is your, what are your, what do you, how do you assess the LAPD?

I mean, it must be awkward if you get pulled over.

No, no, they got, you know.

It's actually, you know,

they treat me well.

Are they better?

Of course, with me, you know, they know I got lawyers and

shit like like that now.

But, I mean, in general, are they better than they were 25 years ago?

You know,

I can't say, you know, because I don't get pulled over all the time.

But the thing is, is, you know, good cop, bad cop, is we appealing to the good cops out there.

Turn these dudes in, man.

Turn these motherfuckers in.

The bad cops.

We sick of them.

What they doing is they turning our,

they turning this community against the police department.

And the black community understands the police department, understands why they're there, really like good cops.

It's just them bad ones, those bad C's, those bad apples, you know, and the good cops is now our last line of defense, you know.

So that's what I want.

I want the good cops to start getting these bad apples out the bunch.

Okay.

So I I know a lot of people in this country, especially after President Trump's trip overseas, are saying to foreigners, you know, we're not him.

Donald Trump is not us.

They want the people overseas to know that.

Is that true?

Do you think we're not Donald Trump, or do you think Donald Trump is, we have to own Donald Trump?

No, I don't think we have to own Donald Trump.

No, you know, as a society, we did elect him.

People did elect him.

You know,

everybody,

you know, it's crazy people in every country, man.

And, you know, so

we got a crazy one running in the White House, and that's just it.

And that don't make us crazy.

Okay.

But you know what?

We do have to own the president.

You know what?

The test of a free country and of a democracy is to stand up when it's hard.

We have an electoral system that elected this man, and we have deep political fissures in our country.

But being a democracy and being free is standing by it when it's tough.

And it may be tough for a lot of people, right?

I don't agree with that at all.

Why don't you agree?

I mean, you know, everybody look at,

you know, all the bad people in the world.

You know, are you blaming the Syrian people for Assad?

You know, are you blaming

Iraqis for Saddam?

You know, you don't.

You can't blame the people for a guy who gets his way up in there through whatever back channel political

gangster shit that's going on.

You understand?

If If I may, how's that?

Last word, Mr.

David.

President, David John.

He's our president.

He is a lying, incompetent, unqualified president, but he's our president.

But if I may revisit very briefly the race question, because there's something I've got to say to you, Bill, which is important.

Look,

I'm a white Republican.

I'm the guy that should be asking for a commercial break, right?

The GOP handbook says, don't agree with Bill Maher, but I want to say something to you.

You apologize, and at some point, America has to accept apologies.

And more importantly, let's start focusing on the people who speak irreverent words and refuse to apologize, because that's where the hatred in the heart is.

That's the hatred in America today: the people who say it and refuse to apologize.

So, God bless you for apologizing.

Let's talk about it.

We got to go to New Rules.

Thank you, everybody.

New rules.

New Rule, if you're a new parent and you own this baby stroller, don't buy this barbecue grill.

You're probably exhausted and accidents happen.

Hope you don't have this.

New Rule, Apple is free to launch their new home pod, a new device that hears everything you say, knows the answer to everything, and controls your entire house.

But they have to call it the iWife.

New rule, Tom Cruise can't smile in front of an ominous photo of himself.

It makes him look like he has split personalities.

One a universally beloved movie star, the other a shadowy member of a diabolical cult.

I mean, no, that's not true.

New rule, someone has to tell anti-fascist

protesters that when you all dress in the same masks and clothing, you kind of look like fascists.

No one looks at this and thinks, oh great, the Freedom Marchers are here.

They look at this and think the Freedom Marchers are here.

New rules, now that Bill Clinton is co-writing a thriller with James Patterson called The President is Missing,

Hillary must write one called Look Underneath the Desk.

And finally, new role of Jared Kushner is going to be in charge of peace in the Middle East, trade with China, solving the opioid epidemic, reforming the criminal justice system, and reinventing government.

He must speak.

We're almost six months into the Trump administration and we have yet to hear Boy Wonder talk.

He doesn't even have to explain what he's got planned for all these departments where he's now Charles in charge.

He just has to tell us one thing.

How does a 36-year-old who's never worked in a job his daddy didn't buy become the second most powerful man in America right behind Putin?

But I got to tell you the answer.

The reason why Jared doesn't speak is he doesn't have to.

He's never had to ask for anything.

He didn't have the grades or SAT scores to get into Harvard, but then his father gave Harvard $2.5 million and they suddenly realized that Jared was Ivy League material after all.

One clue your enrollment may not be entirely merit-based when your acceptance letter comes with a receipt.

You know, people who come for money love to call the people who don't entitled.

Oh, they're dead set against the underprivileged getting special consideration because that disincentivizes self-reliance and it's not achieving through merit.

Meritocracy is the last thing they want, because if we had that, they would stop winning.

That's the other reason Jared doesn't talk.

He's a fucking idiot.

The first thing he did with his inherited wealth was buy a newspaper in 2006, you know, just as print media was taking off.

Then in 2007, he used his father's fortune to pay the highest price ever for a New York City building, right before the economy and New York real estate collapsed.

The secret to real estate is buy low, sell high.

Four words, and Jared got two of them wrong.

Jared's the one who told Trump that firing Comey was a good idea.

He's the

This guy is recorded so much he's up for a Grammy.

Okay, all right.

I got a laugh at him.

The tragedy of the Trump voter is that they never learned to stop hating the underprivileged underprivileged and start hating the overprivileged.

The greatest

The greatest con Republicans ever pulled off was convincing the working class that it was immigrant dreamers and single moms on food stamps who are blocking them from the American dream, and really it's undeserving schmucks like Jared who've sucked up all the wealth in this country.

And

that's the thing about rich guy affirmative action.

It's quiet and invisible, but very toxic, like farts from a vegetarian.

We have a Treasury Secretary now, Steve Mnuchin,

also known as what men look like to strippers.

Who is a former partner at Goldman Sachs, who got to be a partner at Goldman Sachs the old-fashioned way.

His father was a partner at Goldman Sachs.

And this will shock you.

Steve wants to get rid of the inheritance tax, which would mean half the members of Trump's cabinet would save their kids a billion and a half dollars when they die.

Oh, rich kids.

You know, they don't inspire a lot of love just by looking at them.

But judging by every single Republican policy, they are our most precious natural resource.

And those policies, like taking away your health care so millionaires can get a tax cut, couldn't happen without you, Trump voters.

Without your help, dumb rich ass clowns like Jared Kushner won't get any richer and may be sentenced to a life of being, it pains me to say it, slightly less obscenely wealthy.

But it's not too late.

You can help.

Act now and call the number below and donate what you can to the RNC's.

Donate what you can to the RNC's Save the Rich Fucks campaign.

Call now at 1-800-78373-FUX.

That's 1-800-373-FCKS.

Leave you out because God knows they will.

That's our show.

I want to thank David Gregory, Simone Sanders, David Jolly, Ice Cube, Michael Eric Dyson.

Join us now.

We're overtime on YouTube.

Thank you, folks.

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

For more information, log on to HBO.com.