Overtime - Episode #424: Russia probe, the French Election, the War on Terror

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

Philip Maud, what do you think will come of the investigation into Trump campaign advisor Carter Page and his ties to Russia?

And I might add to that, what about Michael Flynn and his ties and everybody else's ties?

Look, the reason Carter Page is being featured is that he's prominent in the press, not because he's the most prominent investigative target of the FBI.

I think there will eventually be an indictment.

The FBI director is not going to embarrass himself by publicly telling the American people he's open an investigation, and then, especially after the Hillary debacle come out six months later presumably this summer this fall and say I made a mistake now somebody's going to get indicted I don't know if it's Carter Page that dude's chump change I think it's somebody higher up the food chain but don't don't don't you get those guys to to flip on the people high in the food chain isn't that the way you do it is you you get Michael Flynn you say Michael you want to go to jail or you want to talk about Donald Trump that's yeah there are a couple ways you do it number one they've got to have a significant amount of intercept that is communications with the Russians that led them down this path it ain't Carter Page saying, I talked to an academic in Moscow.

That doesn't get you a judge to say, I can read his email.

It's some sort of communication that it was suggesting he's doing something wrong.

And then you're going to get, as you say, people are going to flip because you're going to walk in saying, son, you either got a federal charge or you're going to talk.

That person's going to go home, their wife and their kids, and they're going to say, I don't want three hots in a cot in a federal pen.

I'll talk.

So they are going to talk.

So this is going to go forward.

This will go ugly.

I don't know when, sometime this year it'll go ugly.

So my prediction with John Kasich could come true.

In two two years, he could be a very wounded minimal.

Bill, you don't understand.

A campaign manager is not a critical member of the campaign.

I don't know if you picked that up during the...

That's a joke.

What I'm talking about is Paul Manfred.

I'm laughing on the inside.

No.

No, what I'm talking about is, you remember when this started coming out, the White House started saying, Paul Manafort is...

Manafort.

Paul Manafort was not somebody who was really critical.

He was only the campaign manager.

So I think what you're going to get, and we've seen this already, is distancing from these folks when the indictments come out to say they were peripheral to the campaign and as soon as we learned about Michael Flynn we fired them.

But they always try to distance themselves.

I mean Nixon tried it.

Remember he threw John Mitchell overboard and then Haldeman and Ehrlichman and eventually you run out of people to throw off the bow of the ship.

Trump's used to firing people.

He's used to firing people, right?

He's got the catchphrase.

Gabe, do you think misogyny played a role in the media coverage of Hillary Clinton?

I think without, you know, these are complicated issues, but I think without question, misogyny is baked into the culture.

So yes, it did play a role because the media is just a reflection of the culture.

And, you know, this sort of dovetails and ties into the Fox News story because for 20 years, Roger Ailes programmed Republicans to think of women as sexualized objects.

And so when you have a woman running for president, that line of attack that Trump played, which is that she's not up to the job because she's a woman, I think had political resonance.

No stamina, remember?

And I think

Republicans have for years tried to feminize Democrats.

I mean, we all remember John Kerry on the windsurfer and going back and forth or in the bike.

One main reason they were able to feminize Democrats, soft on Russia.

Yeah.

The way they are able to just turn on a dime, there is no shame in their game.

It is unbelievable.

Principles, not today.

George, on the anniversary of killing bin Laden, what is your assessment of the U.S.

war on terror?

Oh, yeah, it's the anniversary of this.

It's also the anniversary, I think, of mission accomplishment.

Mission Accomplished, the flight close.

Close to the anniversary, yes.

Yes.

I think we are in danger of reigniting the global war on terror by sheer rhetorical bumbling.

Obama tried to keep it in a manageable place where we don't let down our guard, but we don't turn this into World War III.

Light footprint.

Right.

We try not to create a war between the world's Muslims and the United States.

I think Trump, if only the Ninth Circuit would let him, is trying to take steps back in that direction.

The fact that Michael Flynn is gone is a major thing because H.R.

McMaster, who I've interviewed and written about, is the opposite.

He is not the sort to get into that game.

Flynn absolutely was.

He wrote a book about it.

So I think the fact that Trump has no

coherent views about this, and now the guy who has a voice in his era is H.R.

McMaster, is probably the best thing we have going in not getting back to the government.

And

Trump's about to make his first overseas trip.

He's going to

Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Vatican.

He said,

my friend, the Cardinals,

they're very happy I'm going to that great town, Rome.

He's going to Rome and Israel.

No golf course in the Vatican, but I think.

But what is behind that?

We're going to drop in on the world's three great faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and oil?

Visiting his properties?

I guess so.

I mean, that's an on-trip.

Okay.

Will Trump's religious liberty executive order help placate his evangelical base?

I don't know if they need placating.

They loved him.

They loved him.

They loved him from the city.

I mean, can you figure this out?

We have...

Who wouldn't love a thrice?

We have a guy

A guy who serially grabs women,

a guy who makes fun of disabled people, talks about a woman's menstrual cycle, makes fun of the face of

an opponent, and evangelicals say, this is our hope for the future.

If you can figure out American politics, you're a better man than I, because that makes no sense.

But it didn't have anything to do with that.

It had to do with the fact that they had so much attention placed on abortion.

That's the court.

I mean, they got their guy.

So

they work through

a pawn like Trump to get there.

They are eye on the prize.

In a way, the Democrats are way behind on that.

That's right.

Mitch McConnell knew what he was doing when he kept that seat open because he knew in the voters' minds, ah, there's a Supreme Court seat open.

Elect the guy who will put the anti-abortion guy in there, and that's what we care about.

Okay.

Will the hacking attack, oh, there was a hacking attack, right, against French candidate Emmanuel Macron

doom his campaign?

So it looks like Putin's at it again, this time in France.

He's at it again, but

there's a significantly broader gap in polling between Maureen Le Pen and Marcon.

So hopefully there's not too much in there.

Marcon has

a,

shall we say, different personal background than most politicians to begin with.

Yes.

It's very hard to slander a guy who married his mom.

Didn't he?

She's a little bit older, but

he

a little, I think he was 15 and she was 39, is what I read.

It was true love.

I mean, are you against

what makes him unique in French politics is the fact that he is both

more of a market liberal as well as cultural liberal, which in France is a little anathema because they have such a strong

kind of social system that folks don't want to give up.

So that made him a little complicated for a lot of French voters.

But watch this, Bill.

This is critical to French peace.

Watch next week during the hearings and think about the hearings in the last week or two.

How often do politicians on both sides of the aisle want to point fingers?

That's one question.

Next question that I want to see answered that you won't get answered.

This shows the Russians learned nothing.

from American sanctions, which we knew would happen.

How often will there be a question in the coming months in congressional investigations about how we protect candidates in 2018 and 2020?

That's a more boring question.

It's not as sexy as going after Carter Page.

That's the question they should be asking.

They won't.

That's what we do here.

Boring, not sexy.

All right.

Thank you, everybody.

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