Ep. #425: Adam Schiff, Annabelle Gurwitch

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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.

Please sit down.

Thank you.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you.

We appreciate it.

Thank you, please.

What?

What up?

I know.

Thank you very much.

I think we're all thinking the same thing.

TGIF

after a week of WTF.

I mean, they're all bad these weeks, but this one

seems like there was like a year's worth of news that was stuffed.

So let's just start at the beginning.

Okay.

The president fired the FBI director, the man who was investigating him.

How'd you like to be able to do that?

A cop pulls you over.

You're under arrest, sir.

Oh, yeah?

You're fired.

Think about that.

And the way he did it, of course, Trump can't do anything without doing it like a little bitch.

One minute into the show, I've lost my mind already.

Pace yourself, Bill.

But it's true.

Instead of calling Comey up like a real man would do and telling him or in person, no, he sends his albino assassin

with a letter that says you are hereby terminated and removed from office effective immediately.

Sincerely, Vladimir Putin.

So

that was on Tuesday.

All the next day, Trump has his surrogates go out there and say, well, this was all very routine.

The president simply lost confidence in Director Komey's ability to mislead.

And it came down down to a character issue.

Yeah, Comey had some.

And

get this, the main reason they said that Comey had to go.

Had nothing to do with Russia.

It was all about how unfair he was to Hillary.

This insulted Sarah Palin's intelligence.

Because, you know,

if there's one thing Trump will not abide, it's bad-mouthing his dear friend crooked Hillary.

Do not lock her up.

Do not, remember they were chanting that?

Do not lock her up.

Yes, I remember.

So

Trump has his people tell this story about Hillary and about how he was just accepting the recommendation of the Attorney General.

And then yesterday, he goes on Lester Holt's show and says, nope, it was me.

No, it was all my idea.

And not only was it all my idea, but I did it for the reason you think

to stop the investigation.

He said this, he said it out loud.

He said, When I decided to fire Comey, quote, I said to myself, This Russia thing with Trump, himself in the third person,

this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.

Putin must be in the Kremlin going, Oh shit.

Or

it's

time to deactivate his microchip.

He admitted obstruction of justice right there on live national television.

And the Republicans, nothing to see here.

Because we all now live in America Ragua.

Would you like a little banana with your Republic?

Can you imagine what the Republicans would be saying if Hillary was doing this?

The articles of impeachment would not just be drafted.

Roger Stone would have them tattooed on his back by now.

And, you know, a little over 100 days we are in this administration.

The attorney, acting attorney general, fired.

National Security Advisor, you're fired.

FBI director, you're fired.

Welcome to Apprentice Nuclear Edition.

Is it any wonder that people are comparing this to Nixon and the Saturday Night Massacre?

And by the way, I love this, the people at the Nixon Presidential Library objected to this, as they should.

What does it say when supporters of the guy who was so tainted by scandal that he had to resign are like, don't bring our guy into this.

What the hell?

And I haven't even gotten to the part

where the day after he fires Comey, he has the Russian foreign minister and the Russian ambassador into the Oval Office, which is never done because they're fucking spies.

So they're never in the Oval Office.

And he would not allow American media in there, just the Russian photographer.

So to recap for you, Trump fires the chief investigator into Russia.

Then he invites the Russians into his Oval Office the next morning, kicks out the American media, but has the Russian state-run press there, and confesses to obstruction of justice on live TV.

But Hillary sent some emails from the wrong laptop.

Jesus.

Yeah.

Yeah, you burnier bus people.

Hillary wasn't pure enough.

Look what you have now.

Comey, for a lot of the liberals, wasn't pure enough.

Who do you think you're going to get for an FBI director now?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's probably not going to be a black guy or a woman.

The administration says they're looking for somebody fair-minded, independent, and Trump's son-in-law.

All right, we've got a great show.

Matt Welch, Killer Mike, and John Favreau are here, and a little later we'll be speaking with author and actress Annabel Gerwitz.

But first up, he represents California's 28th in the House, where he is the Intelligence Committee ranking member, Congressman Adam Schiff.

Hey, Congressman.

Thanks for being here.

And

thanks for a lot of things.

Thanks for keeping your sanity.

Are you keeping your sanity?

How are you holding up under all this?

What about you?

I'm doing okay.

Thank you very much.

Everyday a new adventure.

I'll bet it is.

So, you know, I sometimes watch the other channels to see what they're saying because we do live in two different universes.

And when I see MSNBC or CNN, it's a lot about what you're saying.

On Fox News, the talking point is always,

let's just wrap this up because after all this time, there's no there there.

What do you say to the no there there people?

Is there a there there?

If there was no there there, James Comey would still have a job

and

I think

You know what I think is so important to get across about this because at the root of this is why should people care about this and as important as the collusion issue is

There's a lot at stake here even beyond that.

And what people need to recognize, the Russians intervene not just because they wanted to help Donald Trump and not just because they hated Hillary Clinton.

They intervene because they wanted to tear down our democracy.

Just as they wanted to tear down the democracy in France with Marie Le Pen and why they'd like to see Angela Merkel defeated.

There is a real struggle of ideas around the world of authoritarianism versus democracy.

Putin is leading the autocratic vanguard and he has imitators in Cairo and Ankara, Turkey, and the Philippines.

There's a real struggle and you have a President of the United States.

Loves dictators.

Loves authoritarian figures.

And, you know, probably the most distressing headline I have seen since the last endless 110 days

was when Angela Merkel came to visit.

The headline in Politico was, Leader of the Free World Meets Donald Trump.

Right.

And this was

so painful.

It is painful, yeah.

And it's not only, I think, disastrous for the United States internally because he has provoked and continued these terrible divisions in our country, but he is dimming the beacon of hope for the rest of the world.

People that are in prison because they demonstrated in Tahrir Square and they were the secular opponents of the regime, and people in the Philippines who lost loved ones when they were murdered in an extrajudicial fashion.

They look to the United States to speak for them.

And it's a grave tragedy all over the world if we lose that mental leadership.

And that's, I think, part of what's at stake, why we need to get to the bottom of what the Russians did here, what the Russians are doing in Europe, and how we fight back.

So

in a bizarre series of weeks, it seemed like this week was stranger than even the ones that came before because it did seem to me like he may have admitted to committing a crime.

He said that he almost said word for word that he fired Comey because the Russia thing, in his opinion, isn't real.

That seems like obstruction of justice.

He also was asked, did you ask Comey for his loyalty?

And he said, no, I didn't, but that's a great idea.

Which also is illegal, correct?

It is staggering.

Plainly what he did, if you can believe him, was at a minimum unethical, improper, et cetera.

Whether it's illegal also depends on whether you think he's telling the truth.

Ironically, the most incriminating things are if you believe him, but of course when it comes to Russia, you really can't believe what this president is saying.

And here he's compounding that by saying, you know, Director Comey, you better look out because I may have tapes.

So is it worse if he's telling the truth and he is guilty of what he accused his predecessor of,

wiretapping people in the White House?

Or is is it worse that the President of the United States will just willy-nilly tell the American people things that are patently untrue?

But if the Republicans had on Hillary, if she was president now and said the same thing, I do feel that they would have drawn up impeachment charges already.

I worry that the Democrats are still too nice.

And I've asked Democrats about this before.

Well, you know, and sometimes

what their answer is, is we don't want to stoop to their level.

To which I say, yes, stoop a little.

You know what?

Stooping in the defense of liberty is no vice.

And you guys, really, it's a bar fight.

First of all, I think you're right.

Democrats are too nice.

I'm too nice.

But make you a mean little...

I'll give you a

German shepherd who was beaten too much.

I'll give you a perfect illustration of

where we were too nice, and that is while the Russian hacking operation was going on, we knew it was going on.

You're talking about 2016 during the

campaign.

During the campaign.

Obama knew.

The president knew.

Did not use it.

Well, the president didn't come out early and forceful in condemnation of what the Russians were doing.

In fact, Senator Feinstein and I had to come out before our own government was willing, before the administration was willing to attribute the hack to Russia.

And here you have a situation where Donald Trump, candidate Trump in July of last year, is saying openly, never mind what his people might be doing privately, he's saying openly, hey, Russia, if you're listening, hack Hillary Clinton's emails, you'll be richly rewarded.

And where Democrats fell down on the job in two ways.

One, the administration should have gotten out there and condemned Russia and called for sanctions then, not after the election, but they were too worried, I think, about being perceived as putting their hand on the scale.

And where all of us in the Democratic Party fell down on the job is we failed to persuade the American people who largely knew what the Russians were doing, why they should care.

And unfortunately, more people.

And why should they, excuse me, why should they hate Republicans?

This is treason.

This is colluding with the enemy.

I mean, even what you just said about Donald Trump inviting them to hack.

If this was, the shoe was on the other foot.

They would not hesitate to use that.

If they knew that the investigation was going on, as Obama knew, he didn't say anything because he didn't didn't want it to look bad.

Well, and when he did say something, when the president did that press conference, I think he really did put his finger on this.

And he was marveling at just what you're saying.

How is it that the party of Ronald Reagan could allow, condone a foreign adversarial party, let alone Russia, intervene in our democratic affairs.

And his answer was, look, we have gotten to a point where the partisanship is such that for the party of Reagan, it's okay if Russians intervene as long as it's to help us.

The reason why the Russians were successful is because we are so bitterly divided.

And one of the reasons this president is so destructive is he keeps feeding those divisions.

And he also keeps playing into the Russian narrative that is behind the dismantling of democracy.

And that is, okay, in Russia, We're not a democracy.

We're a thugocracy.

We're a kleptocracy.

We don't make any bones about it anymore.

But you know something?

America is too.

They're just a bunch of hypocrites.

And we have a president of the United States who goes on the,

may he rest in television piece, Bill O'Reilly's program.

And

he's asked,

why can't you criticize Putin?

The man's a killer.

And his answer is, are we so different?

That's...

A lot of killers.

You couldn't write that in the Kremlin.

You couldn't write that in the Kremlin any better.

Well, how about having the Russians into the Oval Office?

I mean, Kislyov is their spy master in this country.

He's got that Android phone.

I'm not the first one to say this.

The security people are saying this.

He's still using the Android phone after they hung her for using the wrong computer a few times to send out wedding invitations or whatever the hell was going on there.

They probably already, well, they probably already own them.

What am I talking about?

It doesn't really matter that.

In the category of you can't make this up, which is the category we live in now,

you have photographs of Kislyak and Lavrov with the president, not because our own press is allowed in, but because the Russians take the pictures.

And

you can't make this sale.

You're either with us or with the Russians.

Remember Bush, you're either with us or with the president.

You know, I will

want to hear.

I will tell you this.

If there was ever a time in our history where the argument there has to be a check on this executive, we need to change the Congress so there is a Democratic House or Senate or both because this president needs a restraint.

That argument is now.

Well, I feel like people are making that argument.

Do we have some footage of that town hall?

I mean, people are going to town halls now and yelling at Republicans based on the Russia story, right?

We need a bipartisan select committee to investigate this.

When are you going to open your eyes?

We all see it.

Why?

You don't see what's going on?

You don't see it?

When are you going to decide to be an American and not a politician?

Okay, that's...

That's what I want you to sound like.

How can they?

I'm assure you in the White House that's what they think I sound like.

Okay.

How can they govern if that's what's brewing out in America?

What are the Republicans saying to each other behind closed doors?

They must be shitting their pants.

Come on.

Well,

you know, they

have to do it.

It's in my contract.

You can say it, I can't.

I know.

They all want something from this president before the wheels come completely off the wagon.

They want their tax cuts.

They want their regulatory repeal of the mining regulations, et cetera.

Money.

And then they'll find their spine.

There are a few people who are speaking out, and I think, frankly, this is John McCain's finest hour.

Probably his most important public service since Vietnam is what he is doing now.

And I wish we had more Republicans in the House, or maybe even one in the House, who was willing to follow his example.

So I know back in March you said that the case with the Russia collusion is more than circumstantial.

Can you tell us anything more?

And if you can't tell us that, can you tell us, like, when you picture Donald Trump in, say, two years,

what is he wearing?

I'm orange maybe.

I would go to his face.

I'm already trying to get the image of him in a bathrobe out of my head.

Right.

All right.

I don't know, honestly, where the investigation will end up.

It's too early to say.

It's a mammoth undertaking because it's global in reach.

It involves a lot of witnesses who may or may not want to cooperate with us.

We're working with a very small staff.

One of the reasons why it's so important that we oversee the FBI investigation and not let that go or be impeded in any way, they have the scope, they have the resources, they have thousands of agents all across the globe.

There are things they can do and must do that we can't.

So part of our responsibility is to doing our own investigation, and we are trying.

Part of our obligation is to make sure the FBI does the job they need to do.

All right, well, there's nothing writing on this except the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the fate of the country.

But if you screw it up, I'm going to get mad.

No pressure.

All right.

Thank you, Congressman.

And keep doing what you're doing.

I know you'll stay at it.

Adam Schiff, everybody.

Thank you, Congressman.

Let's meet our panel.

Hey, guys.

All right.

All right.

Welcome to our Assaults Party.

He's the editor-at-large of Reason Magazine and co-host of the fifth column podcast.

Matt Welch is here.

Matt, how you doing?

He's an activist and musician whose latest album, Run the Jewels 3, is available now.

Michael Render, aka Killer Mike, is over here.

And he's a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama.

We like him, who now co-hosts the podcast, Pod Save America.

Jon Favreau.

Not that that Jon Favreau, the slender Jon Favreau.

Don't forget to send us your questions safe for tonight's overtime and so we can answer them after the show on YouTube.

Okay, my first question for you boys is what's going on right now inside the FBI?

Because I've heard conflicting reports.

Some people say I heard that Huckabee ladies say they don't like Comey.

And then some other people say no, they're very upset about Comey being called a grandstander in a showboat.

What do you think?

Do you depend on the FBI still?

I don't know if I believe the White House characterization of what's going on in the FBI at this point.

No.

No.

I think most of the FBI agents, I mean, you heard Andrew McCabe, who's the acting FBI director now, say that Comey enjoyed the confidence of most of the people in the FBI right now.

So, and I think the fact that Trump pissed off the FBI, I don't think you do that when now you have Comey out there who has nothing to lose.

You have all these FBI agents.

I mean, a lot of liberals wanted his head.

I'm sorry Comey's gone.

I was never on the

let's kill Comey Page.

And purity is what is going to be killing the Democratic Party.

There has been also a lack of a strategy, I would argue.

If you start from the proposition that Donald Trump has authoritarian tendencies, and I think there's some reason to suspect that, you ask yourself, okay,

what does he have latitude?

What can he do?

What are the access of power that he can actually go for?

And it's the Justice Department.

It is the FBI director.

So you're going to want independent-minded cusses, people who have been stuck their neck out against powerful politicians, even if you hate their guts.

You're going to want people like that in those positions.

Yeah, I think Comey is a Boy Scout.

I mean, I agree with what Senator Warner keeps saying.

I think he made some missteps in the fall.

I don't think any of us here thought it was a great idea to release the 11 days before the election, that stuff about the emails again.

Wasn't great.

But

the story wasn't over.

He was still on the case, and he was not a guy who you could buy off with loyalty.

What do you think they're going to get now?

And for all those liberals who were like, Comey has to go and Comey's the bad guy, now you've given them a talking point.

Oh, you wanted Comey gone.

He wasn't pure enough for you.

Hillary wasn't pure enough for you.

The idea that you're going to let Donald Trump appoint the FBI director, that that's going to be better than

Comey, is insane.

Insane.

Thank you.

But there's only a four.

It's five.

Mike, you seem very...

You're giving me looks, but you're not speaking.

No, I'm just, my people ain't had the best history with the FBI or Donald Trump.

I'm watching the tennis packs.

But

I thought what's best for you.

No, no, I thought like you, I thought the guy was a Boy Scout.

And what I mean by that is you might not always agree with it, but they try to play the game fair.

I thought that 11 days before the electorate was weird, but I felt like he'd take a fair shot at Hillary.

I thought that the investigation at Trump was fair.

I was actually impressed that he seemed to be in the middle going, figuring out, you know, the whole thing.

And I'm glad to see that at least now we distrust our president as a nation versus this small section distrust.

I think if I were a libertarian, a Republican, a conservative, I'd be hard pressed not to distrust a president who would get rid of Comey at this time.

And there's a 52 to 48 advantage, a slender advantage in the Senate right now, and you have senators, not just John McCain, also Ben Sasse, Richard Burr on the Republican side of the aisle, squawking about this.

What they have to make sure, and people need to pressure them to do is don't approve John Cornyn.

Don't approve someone who has shown himself in this process to be more of a rubber stamp towards Donald Trump.

Have someone use your exercise and oversight function in a way that they did not do, and I think disastrously, and they didn't get a lot of help from Democrats, I don't think, with Jeff Sessions.

Jeff Sessions is a toady who has terrible ideas about the drug war and a bunch of other stuff.

He just announced a memo today extending mandatory minimums again back to the dark old days of 2013 and 12 and before all that.

And I think people need to focus their energy on people that they can block.

And also, can I?

I don't think this is said enough.

Bill Clinton, probably a friend of yours.

No friend.

No.

No one, but no friend.

Okay.

But a lot of this is because of Bill Clinton.

The reason why Comey had to say what he did is because the Attorney General had to recuse herself because he walked on her plane.

Let's not forget that.

Bill Clinton, once again, fucked up his wife's.

life.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

If Bill Clinton hadn't walked on Loretta Lynch's plane, then she would have been making the statement instead of Comey.

Yes, he made a statement we don't like, but he was given an almost impossible situation.

That's where we are.

Bill Clinton.

Let's put the blame where it belongs.

I wish that back then people were as in favor of special counsels and

prosecution as they are right now.

I would like to see more consistency on both sides of the aisle.

It's a good idea to have

an independent investigator investigating the president.

The president of the United States, who, no matter who it is, has an inordinate amount of power over the rest of us, we should be throwing darts at the guy.

But, Matt, you're kind of a Republican, right?

No.

I've never been a Republican.

I've never been a Democrat.

I've voted for the...

But you have the glasses.

If these are Republican glasses, then half your staff has Republican glasses.

But you're not independent.

But you're not a Democrat.

Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

What are you?

I'm an independent.

I've never been there.

I'm an independent.

I never thought there really existed a bed.

Okay.

But But I say I'm one too.

But I caucus with the Democrats.

But you give them money.

I mean, it's not a small.

Well, I gave one guy money, yes.

Which was pretty.

And it shows a lot of perspective because I was so afraid Mitt Romney

was going to be president.

I've said this, I would give Mitt Romney that money.

I would give Mitt Romney a million dollars.

I would become a Mormon.

I would wear the magic underwear.

I would stay away from caffeinated drinks.

I would baptize the dead.

I would believe in planet Kolob.

I would do anything for Mitt Romney to take out.

Okay.

But what do you think the Republicans are saying behind closed doors?

Where is Bobby Jindal?

Where is Mark Rubio?

Where's Paul Ryan with their badass renown?

Like, I really would like to.

Yeah, like, like, how about just the people Trump insulted?

Yeah, like, why can't they find their ball?

Exactly, man.

Like, where's the gun-loving, fierce Christian kickassers now?

Like,

they think now that Satan is in Oval Office, why don't we have your fierce ass fighting against the forces of evil?

Yes.

How many times?

How many times can Paul Ryan sit there and say, oh, I'm not commenting on this tweet?

I don't comment on what the president could tweet tomorrow, I fixed the election with Putin.

And he'd be like, I'm sorry, I don't comment on this tweet.

Right.

I'm just looking for my tax cuts.

Paul's doing it.

That's something he does when he's on the job, taking a crap.

We don't comment on that.

We comment.

You're right.

That was too far.

Okay, so every week when he does something crazy, there's this like secondary list of crazy that I feel compelled to say because if it was any other president, these would be giant headline stories.

Now, the ones I already mentioned, he admitted a crime on TV.

Another crime he said he didn't do, but it would be a good idea if he did.

Had Russians in his office.

How about this for the crazy list that didn't even make the top five?

He said about health care,

in a few weeks I know more about it than anybody else.

And then he said it should cost $15

a month because he thinks it's life insurance.

He's lost a mind that wasn't there to begin with.

He knows more about health just a few weeks.

How about the fact that Jared's sister is selling green cards for $500,000 a pop in China.

How about the fact that he said

he invented the term prime the pump?

Yeah.

He said that never happened.

Before, he was proud of it.

Just a couple days ago.

He came up with it.

He's like that guy in high school.

I studied that.

And he did it to the editors of The Economist magazine of all places in the world.

He's primed the pump.

No, he is a low-information voter who became president, right?

Like that is.

That was network stopping.

stopped it.

That was...

Oh, thank you.

That's what it means.

I learned about healthcare.

Now I read something.

I only saw headlines before.

That's right.

And he's still trying to prove that he won the popular vote.

He appointed Jeff...

No, he appointed Mike Pence, Igor.

to go out and get him a brain and to

start a commission on voter fraud to find the 3 million fake Hillary voters that don't exist.

He will never let that go.

One reason he was mad at Comey is because Comey wouldn't back him up on the wiretapping.

He not only says crazy shit, but then he insists that the Republicans back him up on it.

You see the spiders, too.

Business works that way, though.

Like if you in the record.

Yeah, business.

Like if you're in the record industry, the lead guy picks the worst song and everyone else kisses his ass until he leaves the room and then they're like, Mike, your shit's going to flop.

You know what I I mean?

He sees that.

Right.

And that's the answer to when people say, wouldn't it be great if we had a businessman?

He's running a casino, not a country.

He's.

And we know what happened to his casinos.

Yeah.

Okay, should we do this thing now?

Okay,

one of the problems, you know, we media types have every week is that we don't want to keep talking about Donald Trump, but you also can't not talk about Donald Trump.

But I realized recently that after all the commentary, all the words printed and said every week, there's still one thing that nobody calls Donald Trump on.

And

look, yes, sometimes I do go too far.

But tonight, I'm just going to say it.

Donald Trump is fat.

Donald Trump is fat.

I mean, along with everything else, he's fat.

He's a fat, fucking fat fuck.

But, you know, because he's tall and he wears these big, boxy, dark suits and he giant ties and strides around like Mr.

Macho Man, people see him as just robust or powerful, but he's not.

He's fat.

Look, here's a quick comparison.

There's his ass, and there's Kim Kardashian's ass.

Reality stars.

Anyway, I've written a book.

It's called The Art of the Meal.

A thousand and one Trump fat jokes.

Would you like to hear some?

Okay.

Trump's so fat,

most of the voices in his head are chewing.

He's fat.

Nobody says it, but he's fat.

He gets winded riding the escalator.

The same guys

he sent to get Obama's birth certificate are now looking for his dick.

Who is he fat?

He once bragged that he moved like a bitch on Mrs.

Butterworth.

Oh.

It's a book I have.

Bestseller.

The banks want to break him up.

What?

It's.

His secret Secret Service code name is Chris Christie.

All right.

Let's bring out Annabelle.

She is an actress and New York Times best-selling author.

Her newest book is Revenue You Go.

There they are.

Stories about my family you might relate to.

My friend, Annabelle Gerwich.

Annabelle O'Dudd.

A woman.

A woman.

Thank you for...

Thank you for bringing some femininity and some pulcritude to our panel.

Thank you, I brought my uterus.

We were.

Okay, so this is your book.

Oh, no, this is not you.

That's my book.

I'm sorry.

Our books are competing.

I hate this.

But your book is very, very funny.

Probably funnier than my book.

Although my book, Trump, 100,001 Fat Joke, pretty funny.

No, your book is about family and it's about tribal.

I thought it was very apropos for now because we're so tribal as a country.

And, you know, it's about, you know, your family, dysfunctional, you say all families are.

And, you know, when the family breaks down, what do you got?

The tribe.

Right, but this is the thing, is you know, that's what I'm trying to challenge this idea of family, right?

I mean, whenever, oh, yes, you know, whenever a company or a business, they want your money, what do they say?

We're going to treat you like family, right?

That's when we should run in the other direction.

Because what is filled with more drama or dysfunction than a family, right?

So I feel like we're over-sentiment, sentimentalized family, because, like, I have, I'm very close to my sister other than that I have no family I have cousin no I shouldn't say that I have cousins like real cousins like my father right sister's kids who I have not talked to in 25 years not because we're not feuding I like them neither one of us just could give a shit well okay now

and is that wrong should I feel guilty about it no you shouldn't feel guilty about it

yes but here's the thing Bill see we basically have the same brains and the same biological needs needs as we did as Homo sapiens 70,000 years ago.

We need community.

We are a tribal species, so you really can't get away from it, even though many people experience their family as a hostage situation.

But I mean

100 years ago, even 50 years ago, everybody lived in a house with family members, and now the majority of households are single households.

Right.

So I feel like humanity is outgrowing that maybe after 70,000 years.

Well, you know, that's one of the reasons in the Western world why there's so much depression, so much isolation that causes that when that's what we actually need as people.

But see, what happens is the way we live now, we don't just talk about family like our blood relations, right?

We go out in the world and we make chosen family, right?

We have sororities and fraternities, we have urban tribes,

work families, exactly.

But of course, the total irony is that no matter how hard you try to escape your crazy family, you just end up in another crazy family.

You mean even the ones you choose?

Even the ones you choose because groups become dysfunctional.

Yeah, I mean I know what you mean.

Like I'm thinking of the old Mary Tyler Moore show that

was so groundbreaking because it was saying, oh, here's a woman, she doesn't have a family like Sitcom's always had.

It's not her father and her real brother.

It's Mr.

Grant is the father surrogate.

Right.

Exactly.

And Murray is the brother and Suanne is the crazy nympho sister, whatever it is.

Totally.

Typical workplace dysfunctional family.

Except that now people don't have a workplace.

If you have an Uber driver, Murray is not riding a shotgun.

Mr.

Grant is not in the backseat.

That's really true.

You know, that's one of the stories I write about in the book.

I do.

I start with my own family, my own crazy family as the launching off point.

But one of the stories I write about is the loneliness of the gig economy.

You know, a lot of economists, the gig economy, you know, people are piecemealing living together, right?

And what's missing from that, we know it's hard economically unstable, you don't have job benefits, but emotionally, people miss these work families, you know, and so I write a story about, well, this is, you know, you may not be aware of this, Bill, but there's not a woman that I know, myself included, who hasn't gotten a phone call from a girlfriend or a family member inviting me to their house to try a skincare line.

line or a clothing line and to hang out with their sisters, right?

You've all gotten those calls every woman in here has gotten these calls and I'm gonna tell you what it is

yeah we do it too right guys

remember last Thursday yeah we were

and

thanks for the tips on shaving my nuts

okay but what it has to do with is you get there and you think you're gonna hang out and get some sisterhood time but what it actually is it's recruitment for multi-level marketing corporations who are capitalizing on the loneliness of the gig economy for women who are 80% of their salespeople, but they don't call it salespeople.

You see, they invite you to join their tribe or their family.

Right, there you go.

And what you find out is it's not just hanging out with your girlfriends.

You're going to be spending a lot of time alone at home on your phone, sending emails to everyone you've ever met and in your family to try to make them your business partners and they never want to talk to you ever.

Everything fits into the theme of your book.

It does.

Just like in my book, The Art of the Meal, 2001,

Trump is fat and people have to stop

avoiding that thing.

So what says family more than family meals and what drives you crazier than having a meal with your family?

Well you also write something interesting about the fact that when somebody like this takes away health care,

it's not just the people who lose the health care that suffer.

It's people like you, like, you know, you're taking care of your mother, now she doesn't have Medicaid.

Exactly.

I mean, anybody who thinks that they're not in a category whose health care premiums are going to go up, because for instance, they're not a senior, right?

Well,

don't forget, you're going to get a call one day which is: Dad just had a fall, mom went out for milk in Miami and wound up in Baltimore.

This is what happens in our lives.

This is one of the stories.

What?

What happened?

I don't get it.

Dementia.

Oh, I see.

Dementia.

Yes, dementia.

Oh, I don't know.

I thought maybe she met a guy or something.

I didn't know what you were going to do.

That would have been welcomed, actually.

But no, but this is what happens is we, you are the one who are going to have to assume that.

The family members, the caregivers are 34 million Americans who are caregiving right now.

I write about this, my own experience with my parents in the book.

So you're the ones that are going to have a lot of people.

Why do you have it?

I mean, you also kind of have a thing, you know, I'm an animal lover, but you know, you think that people love their pets as family surrogates too much.

And I don't know if you can love a pet as a family surrogates.

Okay.

I love my pets precisely because they allow me not to have a family.

So since.

So much.

Is that wrong?

Love my dad.

Although your pets aren't going to take care of you when you're old, right?

And neither is his cousins for crying out loud.

Not now, not after watching this.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

You can't.

It's just as much on them.

Right, they haven't reached out to me too.

Watch, I bet you after tonight, we'll get together.

You can't say I'm not an animal lover.

I'm just saying.

No, I know.

Let me just say, I'm asking the question, our pets, our families.

See, what happened was I was noticing.

See, my totally bit finger.

Totally.

I was noticing on my Facebook page, right, my friends were calling their pets their fur babies or their four-legged family members.

And some days it seems like a pet genocide is happening on my Facebook page.

Lost our angel.

How will we live?

Right, I know.

Right?

And we make assumptions of Bill.

We make assumptions that people are good people by the way they treat their animals.

And we forget, Lenin loves cats.

Hitler loves his dogs.

That's a, oh, come on.

That's a red hairy.

That's a shihzu.

It's just a shih tzu or poodle.

It's going to die in six years.

You buy a new one, like a car, and you name it the same thing.

You walk that motherfucker to the park, you let it,

you let it, you let it, you take more pictures.

Like, I don't, like, my family's from the rural south.

Like,

it's a tool, it's an animal that it's supposed to chase coyotes away at night.

It's not really like your son.

There is.

I know, but there's something between that and Michael Vick, which is what you're saying.

No, no, absolutely.

Look, look,

trust, trust.

I'm not saying you should dog fight.

I'm adamantly against it.

Shouts out to my friend Big Boy, who raises dogs and will not sell to a dog fighter.

But we must admit that I'm from a part of this country where people fight chickens and dogs.

Mike Vick was not right, but animals are essentially tools on farms.

Like I can remember my great-grandmother, 100 acres down in Tuskegee.

The dogs were specifically to keep foxes and coyotes away.

They slept outside.

They ate whatever you had left over.

And my aunt in Atlanta, her dogs were named Izzy and Pop, and they slept in her sofa.

And her house always steak like dog peeps.

Okay.

But can I just say, I want to redeem myself, though.

I just want to say that I am not above this kind of being an animal lover.

I'm an empty nester now.

My son went off to college.

I cradle my cat.

I did contemplate breastfeeding him, but

you know what?

You can't do that because cats' tongues are like sandpaper.

You have to have some really tough nipples, Bill.

Not tough nipples.

And I do.

But I heard this joke.

Now, if this is somebody's comedian's joke, please forgive me.

I just heard it.

It sounds like one of those things that somebody writes in prison.

But it's funny, and I think it's apropos.

And the joke was: like, if you lock your wife and your dog in the trunk of the car and you open the trunk, who's happy to see you?

All right.

So,

President, former President Obama.

You can't even say it.

Obama.

No, I, no, I...

President Obama said, you get this week, he said, you get the politicians you deserve, which is something I've been saying for years.

Interesting the way politicians, when they're out of office, say the things I always say.

Okay.

So, but then France had an election, and they thought it might go the way that our election did, and elect Marine Le Pen, and they didn't.

By

total money, they elected somebody else.

So I'm interested to know what you guys and you, girl, think about, you go, girl, that's what I meant.

Think about why their election went so differently and what are they doing differently than we're doing.

I mean, before you pat yourself on the back as France or anybody else here,

the National Front got twice as much vote as it did before.

These populist movements are growing all over continental Europe.

They might not be winning every election in Austria, but they came damn close.

In Sweden, it's gone from zero to a lot.

They run the government in Hungary.

And France has had 25 years of a really, really lousy economy, and they get terroristed every five months.

It's not a great situation.

Can't take it away from us.

Can't we be happy for one second?

Okay, we can be happy.

And the guy likes Cougars.

So the National Front got less than they expected to get, even.

They thought that 40% was a failure.

They got less than that.

I also think Macron was...

an outsider.

He was anti-establishment.

He sort of ran credibly as someone who was outside the system.

So he tried a little populism himself, himself, which might have helped him a little bit.

And the French are more sophisticated.

Can we just say it?

Putin tried to hack their election also, and they were like, ooh, that's gross.

And these are people who eat slugs.

But they also don't have a Fox News.

They don't have a Fox News.

There you go.

Of course.

They don't have Fox News.

What they do have is, you know, health care, and I just would feel wrong with my uterus here to not mention that there are 13 men sitting on a panel deciding women's futures.

And I no wait, let's explain to them what you mean by that.

Now that the health care bill has moved to the Senate, they have a working group to work and craft this legislation and it is 13 straight white, well they say they're straight.

They have a habit of getting caught in men's room stops.

Okay, but 13 white men.

And Tetris.

And so, you know,

look, what do I know?

I'm just a comedian with a retired retired uterus, but

let me just, well, I'm in menopause, which is a pre-existing condition, okay?

Are you in it right now?

Right this minute, Bill.

I don't want to frighten you.

Nothing's going to happen right here, but I am in it.

Okay, I had a C-section pre-existing condition.

Surviving the Trump administration has raised my anxiety level.

I've had to up my antidepressants.

More pre-existing conditions.

I'm worried.

I'm concerned.

I mean, here's my note.

I'm concerned just about to the end of the show.

I know, you're worried.

I'm not going to strip off Hot Flash or anything, but I really think if any of these men had balls, they would give a position up to someone like Susan Collins.

But this shouldn't even be, it should be had.

Like, that's the thing.

Like,

we're constantly in this country.

Take this note from black people.

Don't just ask for a representative.

Go for the full Monty.

Like Georgia, my state is 30% black people.

I want to see 30% of the house black people, you know?

Like, so

it matters.

Women make up half this country.

Half the House and Senate should be women.

Half your school board should be women.

It should be governed like that.

And what I want to say about France, since we smoke weed and play concerts there four times a year, I'm there.

And bonjour, au revoir.

Every time we land, people are protesting something.

They're literally saying, this is not right.

We're uncomfortable.

uncomfortable, so the line is constantly being pushed there.

And I think in this country, we could do better to get off the sofa or if we're jogging to grab a latte, to have serious conversations and then plot, plan, strategize, organize, and mobilize.

Aggravate the shit out of there.

So Phil, I think on your Fox News point, that there's something the inverse happening in France.

They don't talk about, or they haven't typically talked about, Muslim immigration in the media, something that you've talked about here on the show.

I'm not saying that you want to talk about it or agree with the National Front on this, but they made it a taboo subject.

They make a point out of criminalizing things like denying the Armenian genocide.

I think you shouldn't deny the Armenian genocide.

It shouldn't be a crime.

So they've made taboo a lot of subjects, and that's exactly where the National Fronts and the Le Pen family can say, see, I'm the only brave truth-teller around.

So

that's why Trump got elected.

Well, I mean, that is.

Because the Democrats had a policy on terrorism that made most of the country roll their eyes.

I wish we could talk more about this, but we're at the end of our panel time.

Thank you very much.

Very fun.

Time for new rules, everybody.

New rule, now that Tucker Carlson is the new king of Fox News.

Now that Tucker's the new king of Fox News, he has to come up with the second expression.

and his show has to be more than just inviting liberals on and then making this face

we did not doctor this these are actual screenshots of tucker carlson with a guy who wants to get rid of the electoral college a guy from black lives matter

a woman who compared trump to hitler mike farrell Jorge Ramos, the president of Wesleyan University,

a college student who defended flag birding.

This show shouldn't be called Tucker Carlson Tonight.

It should be called Did I Just Shit Myself with Tucker Carlson.

New rule: I don't care if Henry Kissinger is a war criminal when he starts melting.

You don't just sit there and make vagina hands.

Somebody had to say it.

New rule alien movies have to put the letters closer together.

Is this a thriller or an eye chart?

And why alien covenants?

Everybody knows when people get sick of your movie series, you call it apocalypse.

X-Men, apocalypse.

Superman Batman Apocalypse, Resident Evil Apocalypse, Apocalypse.

It sends an important message to your fans.

We're almost done.

New Rule Dove is free to market these new bottles that reflect the fact that women come in many different shapes, they say.

But they have to admit that the product names are a little offensive, like Dove, obvious boob job,

on

dub skinny bitch thinks her shit don't stink

and dub great personality

new roles and chipotle just announced a zero tolerance policy for workers who hide cameras in their restrooms They have to tell me, are there other places where you get off with just a warning?

I don't know how they do things over at the IOP Johnson but here at Chipotle our customers expect one thing and one thing only in our restrooms and that's explosive diarrhea

poor Chipotle

and finally new rule the tycoons of social media have to stop pretending that they're friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they're just tobacco farmers in t-shirts selling an addictive product to children.

Because let's face it, checking your likes is the new smoking.

A recent 60-minute segment exposed what's called brain hacking, how everything Silicon Valley develops is purposely designed to make us feel compelled to check in constantly.

They want you to use it in particular ways and for long periods of time because that's how they make their money.

Every time I check my phone, I'm playing the slot machine to see what did I get.

This is one way to hijack people's minds and create a habit, to form a habit.

That's right.

Apple, Google, Facebook, they are essentially drug dealers.

And I thought, where have I heard that before?

Oh yeah, on 60 Minutes.

We're in a nicotine delivery business.

And that's what cigarettes are for.

Most certainly.

It's a delivery device for nicotine.

Yep.

It was never about smooth tobacco flavor.

It was about the nicotine and the other drugs that cigarette makers deliberately put in to make it addictive.

The moral rot in this country began when corporate America decided it wasn't enough to just successfully sell your product.

People needed to be addicted to it.

Keebler's cookies are not really made by elves and trees.

They're engineered in labs, like all processed food, with precise combinations of salt, sugar, and fat that are specifically designed to not satisfy.

The reason you can't eat just one pretzel is the salt is like the nicotine in the cigarette.

It's the drug, and the pretzel is the delivery system.

That's how twisted pretzels are.

Food companies are not in the satisfying hunger business.

They're in the finish the whole bag business.

They're in the we own you business.

You are our junkie slave.

You can't resist this shit.

Just put it in the cart and shut up before we make you suck your dick for it.

Suck our dick for it.

What am I saying there?

You heard the guy in the 60 Minutes piece.

Every time you check your phone, you are pulling that slot machine handle because you might get a reward, a text, a like, a dick pic from Anthony Weiner.

We all know the feeling.

You post a picture on social media, and when the likes pop up, it floods your brain with gratifying dopamine.

Facebook purposely holds back the likes sometimes, so you will keep checking.

How come my friends didn't love that picture of my soup?

What's wrong with me?

Oh, wait, wait, wait until they see this picture of my water bottle.

It's come to this, you don't exist until you get a smiley face, and then that's not enough.

You need a thumbs up, or better, a giant thumbs up.

A giant black thumbs up.

This is why the average person interacts with their phone over 2,600 times a day.

It wants all your attention all the time.

It's not a service, it's Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.

I'm not going to be ignored, Dan.

A third of Americans check the phone during meals.

19% have checked it in church, mostly Grinder.

Pedestrian deaths are way up because people in the crosswalk looking down are getting run over by drivers looking down.

The whole damn country is constantly looking down.

There is something being crushed out there, but it ain't candy.

Philip Morris just wanted your lungs.

The App Store wants your soul.

All right, thank you very much, everybody.

That's our show.

We added a second one at the Fillmore in Miami Beach, August 6th.

Thank you for the popular demand.

I want to thank Mac Welch Killer Mike, John Favreau, Annabel Gerwich, and Congressman Adam Schiff, who will join us now for 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.