Ep. #420: Roger Stone, Jose Antonio Vargas

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 Maher.

Start the clock.

Thank you very much.

Hallelujah.

Okay.

All right, so now we've got a big show.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

I know it's an exciting time.

Very exciting.

Tomorrow's April Fool's Day.

Are you planning something?

I love April Fool's Day, the day when we try to fool people by telling some outrageous lie.

Or or as Trump calls it, tweeting.

Oh, let me tell you, he can try to tweet his way out of this Russia story, but this shit ain't going anywhere.

The Cold War.

Remember the Cold War?

Well, it is back, with one small difference.

The old Cold War, the White House was on our side.

I mean,

there's so many strands and smoke to this Russia connection, but I guess the big headline this week is Michael Flynn.

We had him on our show.

I don't know why he came here, but he did.

He was the national security advisor for a hot minute, and

he is asking for immunity

to sing.

Cannot wait to hear what he has to sing.

But this is the immunity.

This is the guy who led the chants at the convention, lock her up.

And he also said anyone asking for immunity is probably guilty.

So

you know what, Mike?

If you think Hillary's a bitch, try karma.

But no.

This Russia story, thank God Congressman Devin Nunez is on the case.

Have you seen this guy the dumbest thing to come out of California since Dianetics?

I mean

Now last week Nunez who's head of the House Intelligence Committee, which almost cruel to give him that title

He went behind the back of the committee, you saw this to run over the White House to back up Trump's bogus claim that Obama wiretapped him.

Trump asked him to do a job, he did it.

The bad news, he lost all his credibility.

The good news, he just won the apprentice.

But,

okay.

So that was last week.

This week, we found out the information that Nunez told the White House he learned at the White House.

That's right.

Nunez says he needed to go to the White House to tell them what he learned from them the day before.

From three White House staffers who told Nunez, this thing I just told you, come back tomorrow and tell us.

These people are such clowns.

You know who the person in the whole fucking echosphere of Trump I respect the most?

Melania.

The only one

with this common sense to say, fuck this, I'm staying in New York.

I don't want to go anywhere near this dumpster fire.

And speaking of dumpster fires, this is so sad, but you know, when you, elections have consequences, this week, Trump ordered the EPA to dismantle all of Obama's efforts to combat global warming.

Mileage standards for cars, gone, banned the use of the phrase.

You can't even say climate change anymore around the White House.

Signed an executive order.

He was with all the coal mining executives and the coal miners.

Oh, we're going to bring back coal.

You're going to bring back your jobs.

What the fuck is it with Trump and coal miners?

Did they have a video of him getting pissed on?

But,

you know,

coal.

When Obama was, you know, channeling money and funds to green energy companies, Republicans were always saying, oh, he's picking winners.

Yeah, at least he was picking winners winners from the future.

Not picking winners from the 19th century.

It's like saying, we got to get those blockbuster video clerks

back to work.

I got to get them back in the store.

So upset, my tie is crooked.

I mean, even corporations, yes, corporations are speaking out against Trump's climate policy.

Levi's, Staples, the Gap, Exxon.

I'm not kidding.

M ⁇ Ms said, it's gotten so bad, our product melts in your hand.

And

Trump is also feuding with his own party.

You know, the Freedom Caucus used to be the Tea Party.

Now it's the Freedom Caucus.

They're the ones who scuttled his health care bill last week.

Oh man,

they're at loggerheads.

And the Freedom Caucus is 29 white men, and they are very conservative.

They do not approve of Trump's pussy grabbing.

They believe in handling a woman's genitals through legislation.

They are.

They are very conservative.

I am sure they did not like what happened yesterday in North Carolina.

Did you see that?

They repealed their bathroom bill, which restricted transgender people from going, pee at last, pee at last.

Thank Almighty we can pee at last.

But here's my favorite story of the week.

You know, remember when Trump said about health care?

Nobody knew.

Nobody knew it was so good.

Okay, probably this is a theme now.

It also applies to the wall that they're going to build along the Mexican border.

Nobody knew.

They identified just now a new problem, tiny problem.

They just found out that 889 miles of the border is the Rio Grande River, which we share with Mexico.

And if we build the wall on our side, we're giving them the whole river.

Oops.

And yet.

And yet...

His approval rating is still 35%.

I don't know who these 35% are, but can we build a wall around them?

All right, we got a great show.

Rick Santorum near attended and General Michael Hayden are here.

And a little later, we'll be speaking with Pulazer Prize winner Jose Antonio Vargas.

But first up, he is a longtime confidant of our current president and now author of The Making of the President: 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution.

Donald Trump's albino assassin, Roger Stone.

Roger.

Now, you don't mind that I call you his albino assassin, do you?

No, comrade.

Me, Bill.

Okay, well, let's start with that, because we've known each other a long time.

I know you'll be straight with me.

It looks like Donald Trump and his crime family were

installed by Russia to loot and destroy America.

As a longtime Republican, lifelong Republican who cut his teeth working for Richard Nixon, quite a cold warrior, does it give you any sort of unease that we're so in touch with the evil empire these days?

Well, not really.

If you looked at the Obama-Clinton policies, the reset, they rolled into

Crimea.

Syria, we didn't stop them.

We continued selling them, transferring technology to them.

So they really rolled over the last administration.

I think here's what it boils down to, Bill, and that is, do we want to go to war over Syria?

That's what this is about.

Do we want to go to the war?

No, no, this is not about Syria.

This is about our election.

It's about America, not Syria, right?

No, no, no.

It's not about Syria.

It's about America.

It's about

war.

It's about

the neocrons who gave us war, the Bushes and the Clintons, and the chances that you could negotiate a peace before expanding a proxy war in Syria.

I know that your favorite musician must be Muddy Waters, because

that is what you always do.

I just want to give peace a chance.

Is muddy waters.

But that has nothing to do with it.

But it's interesting you mentioned war because both Dick Cheney, not exactly a liberal, and John McCain, same thing, have said this hacking of our election would be considered an act of war.

If we had some evidence or proof of it, right now we have

what we have is inference.

Okay.

Okay, so Senator Mark Warner, who's head of the Intelligence Committee in the Senate, okay,

the first thing out of his mouth the other day when he was asked about this, he said there's clearly a lot of smoke.

And then he said, an individual

with the Trump campaign accurately predicted the release of hacked emails before it happened.

This same individual, you,

also admits to being in contact with Gussifer 2.0, who all of our intelligence agencies says Gussifer 2.0 is Russian military intelligence.

Yeah, I dispute that.

Let's take them one by one.

First of all, I have never said that I had advanced knowledge of the hacking of Podesta's emails.

There's no quote from me.

But you said his time in the barrel is a matter of fact.

Right,

and there's been over 100 stories written from that time to Election Day about his business dealings in Russia, bank deals, gas deals, and others.

That's what I was referring to, including a long piece I wrote on myself on October 13th.

Okay, but

this Gussifer.

The inference that Gussifer, that my Twitter exchange with Gussifer constitutes.

Not Twitter, direct mail.

No, direct mail within the Twitter system.

Okay, but it was not supposed to be public.

But it is public because I released it.

You chose to make it public.

I released it all.

No one else released it.

I released it.

I don't think that's true.

That is absolutely true.

I think you released it after it became public.

I released it after

it became known it existed, which could only be known

if my...

No, no, it could only be known if

my Twitter feed had been hacked.

And I released it.

It's benign.

It's innocuous.

Okay, but here's what Gusever said.

I mean, if you were going to engage in espionage, would you really do it on Twitter?

You're really asking that with Trump in the White House.

Okay.

But here's what...

He did get there.

Here's what.

Here's what Gusever said about you.

Apparently, you and he are big fans.

He said, I'm pleased to say, Roger Stone, you are a great man.

But what?

He's Romanian.

Why are you saying that in a Russian accent?

Please tell me if I can help you anyhow.

It would be great pleasure to me.

And then he said, same day, he said, Rogers Thone, paying you back.

That's very simple.

Because he's referring at the top of that email exchange to an article I wrote on August 5th at Breitbart, in which I argued that he is the one who hacked the DNC.

He said he was a hero.

I think he is a hero.

I'm opposed to the deep state.

I think they need to be exposed.

But true or false,

let's play truth or dare now.

And we're not going to to dare each other.

Okay.

You really think, as a lot of Republicans do, that the Democrats are more of an existential threat to America than Russia?

No, I wouldn't say that at all.

Lying.

But I am disappointed.

I think you do, and I think anything it takes to keep the Democrats out of power, I think you actually believe that.

Well, I'd like to see a Democratic Party that would stand up to Islamic terrorism, that would protect gay people, that would protect Christians, that would protect women.

They don't seem to be inclined to do that.

All right.

Well, let's not get to a place where we agree.

All right.

So here's, Trump was asked on February 16th, can you say whether you are aware that anyone who advised your campaign had contacts with Russia?

And he said, no, nobody that I know of.

Nobody.

So he doesn't know you?

No, but

he doesn't know his.

Hold on.

Any inference that my communications with Grucever 2.0 constitutes collusion is just proved by the contacts.

Who said they met collusion?

Can you say whether you are aware that anyone who advised your campaign had contacts with Russia?

This is proven that all these people had contacts with Russia.

I don't concede that Grousefer is a Russian.

But if you go online, you'll see there are theories about this that they met with Ambassador Kislyak, who was known as the top recruiter of spies in this country.

You can't deny that the contacts with Russia.

And he said, nobody that I know of.

This is just a giant obvious lie.

He knows you.

He knows Manafort.

He knows his son-in-law.

I've had no contacts with Russians.

Let's be very clear.

The New York Times on January 20th says that they have emails, records of financial transactions, and then on the 30th they add transcripts from telephone calls.

Okay, where are they?

Produce them.

Let's see them.

Let's hear them.

But we have meetings.

Michael Flynn is right now asking for immunity because he had contacts with Russia.

Trump knows Michael Flynn, so that's a lie.

Let's talk about Michael Flynn.

He says he has a story to tell.

Tell me a story.

What is the story?

Let's talk about.

What do you think his story is?

I have no idea, but here's what I do know.

I'm not asking for immunity.

I was maligned by a number of the members of the committee who said things that were patently false.

And in a free society, I should have a chance to respond in the same forum.

In the same forum.

And I don't want to need a subpoena.

I don't need immunity, but I want it to be in public, not behind closed doors.

Let's go.

I'm ready.

We've had you on this show from back in politically in Kirk days.

I don't want to see you in prison with that Nixon tattoo on your back.

You're just upset because I'm the only guy you know with a dick on the front and the back.

Okay.

All right.

I'll give you that one.

All right.

Donald Trump Jr.

said this.

Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.

And then he said there's a lot of money pouring in from Russia.

His brother, Eric Trump, said, we had no assets in Russia.

We have no debt in Russia.

I think we held a missed universe in Russia, like he doesn't know that.

Okay, this is called not getting your story straight.

Which one of these two sons of Donald Trump is lying?

Because one says Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of our assets, and one says we had no assets in Russia.

When you run for president, you have to file an extensive financial disclosure.

Well, both candidates did that.

There were no reason to answer my question.

Which one is lying?

Well, it's a privately held company, so I don't know, but the financial disclosure that

we filed with the government showed no Russian assets in the US.

But why, if Kuse says we

have a pretty disproportionate cross-section of assets, would Uday say we have no assets?

He also said we don't have any properties in Russia.

Yeah, Russia has properties here like the White House.

Okay, so

let's move on.

A guy named Clinton Watts, he used to be with the FBI, said this week, if you want to get to the bottom of this, follow the trail of dead Russians.

And there have been a lot of dead Russians lately, people who have knowledge since all this came out about the hacking and so forth.

Now, you don't really plan to sit there and tell me Putin wasn't responsible.

A guy was thrown out of a window.

That doesn't happen just because he slipped on the butternut.

Well,

we had a Defense Secretary Forrest all that happened too.

So,

look.

What?

The answer here is full disclosure.

Let's let the president order the release of all documents pertaining to alleged collusion with the Russians.

But you said you

said you yourself were poisoned.

Yes, I think I was.

And you're on their side.

I'm not on their side.

I'm a patriotic American.

I forgot.

I understand.

Why were you poisoned, Roger?

Because I think a lot of people would not like me to testify because I will put the lie to this Russian myth.

I never had any contacts with the Russian state.

To my knowledge, no one else in the campaign did.

I think perhaps the Democrats could get over the fact that they spent about $2.5 billion,

Trump spent about $278 million, and they lost.

Okay, but again.

That's what this is really about.

Well, actually, they won, but yes, by the Electoral Collins.

You mean by a popular vote?

Yes, by the Populiber.

Okay, but a guy you do talk to is Donald Trump.

From time to time.

From time to time.

Okay, you know, when Donald Trump says, I'm hearing,

I'm hearing that's you.

You think?

I think it is.

I don't think, I mean, you have been on this guy's side since 1988.

Nobody puts words in Donald Trump's mouth.

No, but they put thoughts in his cotton head.

Well,

and it's not that hard to do.

He just won a historic election for some reason.

And the reason is not Russian collusion.

Certainly

that was in the mix.

We found out this week that a thousand Russian trolls were putting fake news stories about Hillary Clinton out there.

Who told us that?

The CIA?

The guys who told us about weapons of mass destruction or Benghazi or Rendition or torture at Abu Dhabi prison, their track record on honesty.

Not too good, Bill.

Okay, well, some of that is not about honesty.

You're talking about the Iraq war.

Okay, a lot of the people in the CIA disagreed with the findings of the director.

Okay.

That's happening today, too.

Okay.

So you're saying that that's not true.

Let me ask you a more general question.

You've been in Donald Trump's corner for a long time.

Yes.

Now you've seen him.

President for 70 or so days.

Any buyers' remorse?

Anything that gives you pause?

You know, for the first year of his presidency, first two years, the courts and the Congress thwarted everything Franklin Roosevelt wanted to do.

You can't judge the Trump presidency on a couple months.

I think his voters want to see him continue to fight for the things he said that he would fight for.

It's not that the travel ban gets knocked down, it's that he keeps trying to pass it.

But Steve Bannon once said that we're in the trouble we are in because of the 60s culture of narcissism.

No, we're in the trouble.

We're in the trouble we're in.

Narcissism.

Is that an issue?

I don't think that's the reason we're in the trouble.

We're in the trouble we're in.

It's in the issue with Donald Trump and narcissism.

I don't think that's the overriding national problem.

We're in the trouble that we're in because the Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama continuum, the neocon continuum has gotten us endless war, erosion of our civil liberties, massive debt and spending, spying on us, and a foreign policy that's incoherent.

All right, let's end on a positive note.

There's an issue we agree on, another one, marijuana.

You think Jeff Sessions is wrong

to be such a hard ass on marijuana.

Is that because you yourself are a Roger Stoner?

No.

Only one out in the states where it's legal.

Okay, well this happens to be our...

One of them.

We looked at our log.

This is our 420th show.

Yes.

420.

So we have a cake coming out later.

Would you do me the honor of bringing out the 420 cake?

I would be happy to.

Candidate Trump said that we should let the states decide.

He was absolutely right.

He needs to get his attorney.

Thank you, Roger Stone.

I wish you good luck with your testimony.

Roger Stone, everybody.

Let's.

There he goes.

Let's beat our panel.

Okay.

All right.

I try every week.

Okay, here is our panel.

He is the only person, well, the only person who have run both the CIA and the NSA.

His new book is Playing to the Edge of American Intelligence in the Age of Terror, now available in paperback.

General Michael Hayden.

General, how you doing?

She's the president of the Center for American Progress, Nira Tandon.

And he's the former U.S.

Senator for Pennsylvania and 2016 Republican candidate.

Rick Santorum is back with us, and

okay

so like I said there are so many stories and strands going on especially with this Russia story it's hard to keep up but

this thing about a thousand Russian trolls putting out fake news stories especially in the swing states I mean they seem to have been targeting it pretty specifically you know people are stupid enough in elections

this is what the founders were most afraid of they didn't believe in people's wisdom.

They prevented most of them from voting.

I worry whether the...

Are you calling for a change in the Constitution?

No, but

I'm just pointing out that, well, you know what, if we went back to what the Electoral College originally was supposed to do, it was supposed to prevent Donald Trump, not elect him.

But that aside,

I mean...

And Russia's doing this with other elections, not just ours in Western Europe.

I worry in the age of the internet and with people like Russia who do not believe in democracy

whether we will ever be able to have an election again that we can believe in.

Is that an unfounded?

Look, I think Russia and probably others were using social media and a whole variety of other things to try to influence this election, just like a lot of other Americans who were putting out false information on both sides of the aisle.

I mean, this is what happens on social media.

Lots of false information gets thrown out there, gets spread around.

Russians were probably part of it.

Is this a problem?

Sure, it's a problem.

But I don't think you can say that this was somehow determinative of this election, number one, or

no, I don't think it was at all.

There were much bigger factors at play here, including the competency of the Democratic candidate.

Yes, that was certainly a factor, absolutely.

But you can't say that it didn't play a part, and the election was squeaky close.

Oh, I don't think it played any major role in this election.

I really don't.

I don't know how you have any evidence that

a thousand trolls made a difference in the election.

There were much bigger issues at stake here.

And the places he won, where Donald Trump won, he won because of his message that he was going to fight for blue-collar Americans, and that was the overriding reason people came to the polls and voted for him.

Look, the reality is we know that the Russians were trying to attack Hillary both from the left and the right.

You saw messages that were designed to depress what you would consider democratic turnout.

And democratic turnout got depressed in certain states.

I mean, I think it's fascinating that people who used to lecture us about Russia's role in fighting communism and fighting Russia over the last 30 years are now like, Russia had something to do with our election, but we can't prove it did anything.

It's too much.

The fact that they did anything should make Democrats and Republicans worried.

But what I think is a bigger issue here is that we face a large problem, which is we have a state actor that intervened in our elections, according to the counterintelligence forces, the intelligence forces.

They did a report, they intervened in our elections.

They're trying to intervene in the French elections, probably in the German elections.

And it's hard as a free country to respond because we don't want it.

We're not going into doing anything in their elections.

There's nothing that we are answering.

And it would be great if we had Democrats and Republicans come together and say, this is a violation of democracy, and we're going to stand together instead of using it for partisan gain, which is what Donald Trump did in this election.

But, I mean, General, you know.

Go ahead.

Just going to add, the Russians put their thumb on the scale.

They had an effect.

It's not an effect we can measure.

It's not just unknown.

It's unknowable.

But they did put their thumb on the scale.

In the business, that was called a

covert influence campaign.

And it's the most successful covert influence campaign in history.

And coming from an agency...

Disinformation, isn't that what they used to call it?

It doesn't have to be disinformation.

In fact, there's no evidence that they changed the emails.

They stole them, rolled them back into our system.

No, I'm talking about fake news.

Oh, that's fake news.

That is absolutely disinformation.

But, Bill, the important thing I want to point out here, though, is that we bear some responsibility, not just cleaning up and turning over all the rocks so that we can better defend ourselves.

But as an agency that may have done covert influence at some point in its past, you can't create mayhap.

You can't create fissures in a society.

Covert influence works when fissures exist and you drive the wedge into the pre-existing fissures.

And give the Russians credit.

They may have known us better than we knew ourselves.

So you knew, I assume, General Flynn.

You met at the General's Club.

Yeah.

He's a tightly wound guy.

For him to be able to say, I'm going to, you know, basically turn state's evidence on Donald Trump, there must be something,

going on that he's very afraid of.

You know, I don't know.

What do you think he's going to say?

You know, there may be less there there than we suspect.

This may simply be his lawyer's gambit to get him out first and with immunity, promising, teasing that there's more there than he might actually have.

So I just don't know.

Okay.

Where is this going to be in six months?

I think, look, it's just been two weeks since the FBI told the country that they have Donald Trump under investigation for in a counterintelligence investigation.

So these are moving, these events are definitely moving.

But Watergate took a year.

It took an effort of really investigating at low, low levels and moving up.

And I think we're in the same situation.

I think I look forward to Sally Yates finally testifying and telling the truth about what happened.

And I find it, I find it

incredible that Republicans in the House are stopping her from testifying.

We deserve to know what happened as a country.

We deserve to have the facts.

And the fact that people are running to defend this instead of being honest is a disservice.

You know what worries me is that's the half the country that probably is your voters, they don't care about this.

They don't care about the other story that made me almost cry this week about climate.

I mean, Donald Trump, the day he got elected, the day the earth stood still,

I thought, you know, maybe he has a chance.

He's not an ideology.

Remember, he had Al Gore over to Trump Tower?

Okay, but it was all bullshit because this week he rolled back everything.

I mean, rolled back fuel efficiency standards for cars, ended research on climate change.

Can't even say the word.

The clean power strategy, getting rid of coal.

You tell me, Rick, I just never understand what Republicans don't get about.

You have to breathe, too.

You do realize that when there's more coal burned, more people get cancer.

I could just take, that's one of many things that is a result of global warming, but cancer.

Cancer.

You do know that the EPA director under Obama said that the Clean Power Initiative would have no effect, she said, no effect on

man-made CO2 emissions.

No, that's what she said.

Go look it up.

No, she did.

I can quote you.

So the bottom line is it's not a matter of

it.

It's not a matter of whether we believe or you believe that

man-made CO2 emissions are causing global warming or not.

logical things can you do about it.

And the most important thing.

Stop throwing carbon in the air.

The bottom line is, as you know,

the vast majority of the new CO2 emissions are not coming from the United States.

They're coming from China.

They're coming from India.

But those things that we are doing.

No.

Those countries are doing it.

Those countries get it.

No, they don't.

Of course, they're building coal power plants right now in China.

They're building them in India.

So the idea that the United States by doing things on the margin, when we already have a lot of people.

We used to be the leader, Richard.

We used to lead it.

We're doing it through technology.

We're not doing it through government

imposing themselves

in the free market of moving where the country wants us to move.

This doesn't make any sense from either a jobs perspective or an environment perspective.

In the United States, there are five-to-one renewable jobs to coal jobs.

So what the Trump administration is doing.

All supported by government subsidies.

That is absolutely.

A lot of them are sitting.

Wind is supported by government subsidies.

Solar is supported by government subsidies.

And coal is taxed to the hilt.

You are just making men up.

No, I'm not sure.

Solar is not, Rick.

Solar is a big business.

Yeah, but it's also supported by government subsidies.

There are plenty of parts of the country

in which there are solar jobs increasing, increasing, having nothing to do with this.

Arizona, major increases.

Nevada, cannot increase.

So's the Air Force supported by government subsidies.

Yeah, well, no offense.

Okay.

From my point of view, all right, the business I used to be.

Give me the climate model you think is true, because whatever one you pick has security implications, and I've got to go do some stuff because of that.

I picked the one every scientist says is happening.

And by the way, the Pentagon.

Paid by the government.

The Pentagon is on the page.

The Pentagon.

Because they know they're going to see the effects of it.

They're going to see refugees.

They're going to see flooding.

They're going to see shit that they have to deal with.

The CIA did a report five years ago about how climate was going to alter effects, create more wars, etc.

That's the problem we're facing.

And instead of doing it, the problem we're facing that Donald Trump identified is that millions of Americans who have been working hard, trying to make a living, who are 74% of Americans who don't have a college degree, need jobs.

And pouring sludge in the river is going to get them hired.

You can criticize and demean those people, but those are the folks who build Americans.

I need to get high.

Where's...

Roger, would you bring out the cake?

Thank you so much.

As I mentioned,

thank you so much, Roger.

Oh, look at this beautiful cake.

Isn't that great?

All right, we're going to share this after the show, Roger.

I know you say you're not a stoner.

Look at that, ladies and gentlemen.

Is that gorgeous?

And this cake is completely baked with pot.

It is a total edible.

General, may I cut you in loose?

Thank you so much.

I just wanted to do that.

So, in honor of 420, we noticed that, you know, there's all these new strains like Alaskan Thunderfuck.

Do you go to the store?

They sell purple monkey balls.

They name them after, there's one named after me.

There it is.

It's kind of a dull name.

I think marijuana would have been a lot better.

But some of the newer strains have come out, and they're right here in the Zigzagit Guide.

Would you like to hear the Zigzagit guide?

You see, it's very different.

For example, there's a pure Harrison Ford.

You'll be cleared for takeoff and feeling like you can touch the sky with this

high-flying buzz, but be prepared to crash hard.

There's the Kellyanne Gonjaway.

Kellyanne.

It's great for mellowing out and watching the microwave.

This is a favorite.

Neil deGrasse.

Watch out, bro.

You'll get so high off this that suddenly the entire universe starts making sense.

Atlanta Falcon Red.

Good stuff.

A scintillating zetiva will have you feeling like you just can't lose for exactly 57 minutes and 32 seconds.

Go ahead and hit it hard because no matter how carefully you inhale, you're still going to choke.

Jared Kushner.

This amazingly versatile strain that nobody ordered

is reasonably effective but doesn't work on on Saturdays

and sometimes goes skiing.

Ben Carson O.G.

It's hard to believe something this simple can operate on your brain.

The perfect strain for the token Republican

Cush Me Outside, America's favorite meme

is now America's favorite strain.

A few hits of this potent blend and you'll be saying, how about that?

And finally, Chris Brownies.

An extremely popular hybrid that produces a smooth full-body high, but beware, it hits you all of a sudden.

All right, he is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and founder of Defiant American.

Please welcome Jose Antonio Vargas.

Jose,

how are you, sir?

Get that out of here.

How you doing?

Great to see you.

Great to see you.

Okay, first of all, I have to thank you here.

I know you are literally risking deportation because you are not completely legal.

Is that correct?

Yes.

So I am one of the 2.5 million undocumented residents of California, 800,000 of whom live in the LA County.

So thank you for inviting me here.

Well, we hope we hope this.

I don't know if I've talked to Roger Stone.

I guess we'll try to figure this out.

Yeah.

Not a bad guy to have on your side.

So what about the fact that Jeff Sessions is going after sanctuary cities?

This is a sanctuary state, pretty much.

And first of all, tell us what that means, sanctuary.

Well, actually, I think we have so politicized this issue that I think it's really important that we define our terms, right?

Yes.

So it is safer, right, for all of us, documented, undocumented U.S.

citizens, if undocumented people who live here can feel comfortable reporting, talking to the cops, right?

Saying, hey, something's happening, something right now in LA, the LAPD reported that 25% decrease in reporting of rapes in the Latino community because there's fear that once you report, somebody, ICE might come get you, right?

And for me too, like the bigger issue here, and you know, Jeff Sessions, the former governor of Alabama, who believes in states,

oh, the former senator of Alabama, who believes in states' rights when he was governor, I mean, when he was senator of Alabama, the fact this overreach, telling the federal government, telling for the federal government to tell the states how they can protect their residents is hypocritical at worst, but to me,

I actually think it's really important.

You mentioned this.

Right now, there's going to be a bill in front of Governor Jerry Browns' desk

asking him to sign the California Values Act that would declare California a sanctuary state.

I think given that this state is home to a fourth of the country's undocumented population, in this state, nearly half of all children have at least one immigrant parent, right?

Hopefully Jerry Brown signs that into law.

But how many people can come here?

I mean, I often think of America like a lifeboat, and a lot of the world is a raging ocean.

So everybody wants to get in the lifeboat.

And certainly,

everybody has a right to be happy in the world.

But if too many people get in the lifeboat, then the lifeboat goes down.

Having traveled to Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, it's not like we don't have, I mean, immigrants come to this country and build businesses.

There's actually room.

When immigrants come here, documented or undocumented, they start businesses.

Like I, for example, I'm a business owner.

I employ 15 U.S.

citizens, I mean 15 people who are here as U.S.

citizens, and I provide jobs as an undocumented person.

So I think for me, it's a matter of the fact that there is no path.

You know, someone right now on Twitter is saying, why can't this guy just get legal?

Probably, right?

The fact that there's no path for people like me to actually fix this, get in line wherever the line is, and try to get legal and do right by the law.

The fact that there's no way to do that.

Also, there's the hypocrisy angle.

You mentioned this, but this was in the paper in the LA Times.

Wages rise on California farms.

Listen to this.

There's a labor shortage.

Yep.

They're giving laborers benefits normally reserved for white-collar professionals, 401k plans, health insurance, subsidized housing, profit-sharing bonuses, still not tempting white people to do yard work.

White people do not want to do yard work.

That's what it comes down to.

The president of Titan Farms, a peach grower, he advertised 2,000 jobs from 2010 to 2012.

He hired 483, 109 didn't show up, 321 quit in the first two days,

only 31 lasted the whole season.

He said, we've never had one come back after lunch.

So

can you imagine?

This is the issue, really, to me, is that they don't want these people here,

but they won't do the job, and they will not admit it.

And we we put a sign outside of the U.S.-Mexico border saying, keep out, then 10 yards in, what do we say?

Help wanted.

Right?

Right?

Right, yeah.

Like, can you imagine?

I mean, look at LA.

This city cannot function without undocumented workers, the state of Texas, 1.8 million undocumented people in the state of Texas.

Can you imagine undocumented people not working in the state of Texas?

Half of the construction industry depends upon that.

This is why I think the opportunity of being here, I have to tell you,

I cannot overstate the level of fear, the level of confusion that our families, my grandmother is probably watching right now going, like, why is he on television?

He should be hiding.

So I can't overstate that enough.

Actually,

my being here is my form of resistance.

I will not be scared.

I will not be scared

to be public and out in a country that has been my home.

The question now is, all of you here, all of you watching, how are you going to provide sanctuary to us in your churches, at your schools, at work?

11 million people, 11 million million undocumented people live within the 43 million immigrants in this country.

Do you think the churches should do it?

Well, actually, right now, you know, there's this woman, Jeanette Visguera, in Denver.

She has taken sanctuary at a Unitarian church because the Catholic church that she belongs to

did not want to help her out.

She's gone to all these churches and she's like.

They're providing sanctuary to the priests.

I'd love your thought on that.

You too.

All right.

So let me move on to another topic that

before

Rick punches me.

Hillary Clinton said this week that she is ready to come out of the woods.

And for me, this is kind of a keep two opposing thoughts in your mind at the same time issue.

One, there's those people who said during the campaign, some on the left, like Jill Stein, that she was the lesser of two evils.

I wish those people, now that we've seen what Donald Trump's administration looks like, would just have the guts to come out and say, sorry, we have to admit,

we were wrong.

But the other side of it is, Hillary, stay in the woods.

Okay, you had your shot, you fucked it up, you're Bill Buckner.

We had the World Series, and you let the grounder go through your legs.

Let someone else have the chance.

This, to me, the fact that she's coming back, it just verifies every bad thing anyone's ever thought about the Clintons, that it's all about them.

Let some of the other shorter trees get a little sunlight.

I don't think it's either either or that way.

So I don't think because

I think it's, I think I hear you on the loss.

It was a terrible, terrible loss.

But I don't think the right response is that Hillary goes into a closet and never speaks again on any issues she's worked on for decades of her life.

Lots of people are speaking out.

Lots of people are able to fight the...

Yeah, but what did she speak out about?

She speak out because Bill O'Reilly made a joke about Maxine Waters' hair.

Okay, she's a surprise.

This is such a bad thing.

She spoke out against racism and sexism, Bill.

That's what she spoke out against.

Okay, she spoke out about a joke.

And listen.

You know what?

This is why the Democrats lost the election in the first place, because they cannot get their priorities straight, and they never fail to take the bait about little bullshit issues of.

I don't think racism and sexism are little bullshit issues.

Why is that racist?

Why is it racist?

Because she compared two black people.

Okay, do you know how April Ryan was treated?

Are you saying that he would have treated a man like that?

Is that what you're saying?

I don't think a white dude would like that.

I don't think that's right.

You're referring to the fact that Sean Spicer said to a woman in the audience, in his briefing, April Ryan,

who is an African-American, and they were going back and forth, and she was shaking her head.

And he said, please stop shaking your head.

And you go immediately to, it's a racist thing about, oh no, he didn't.

Okay, excuse me.

If I'm asking,

if I may.

As someone who comes on this show who can take a joke

about Catholic priests and doesn't scream and holler of how offended I am and how horrible this is,

I shook my head and said, you know, off-color joke, you know what?

We're big boys and girls here.

Right.

You know,

don't be outraged at every offense.

That's one of the problems we have.

Stop the fake outrage is what's going on.

It is fake outrage.

It's fake outrage.

Well, if it isn't fake outrage, then you should learn to take a joke and move on.

You're right.

There is not enough.

You're right.

You're right.

You're right.

The first four or five months of Trump, it means there's been no...

We're all over sensitive about the attacks on women, people of color.

You're right.

That's the problem.

There are real issues about that.

Absolutely.

You should.

Longer view.

General voice clearly.

Longer view.

Something I look on as a real ray of sunshine is the number of veterans who are now in the Congress of the United States.

And they're Iraq and they're Afghan veterans.

And they're coming in with a realistic, less ideological view of life.

You've had folks on the show like Seth Moulton, Tulsi Gabbard on the Republican side.

You've got Adam Kinzinger.

These are the future.

They need to get some sunlight so that they can grow and affect things.

Thank you very much.

Look, the reason Hillary Clinton is still getting a lot of attention is because there aren't any.

There isn't anybody out there.

I mean,

trust me,

there are no Democratic governors worth mentioning in the national conversation.

And if if you look at the

there aren't.

And the bottom line is most of the senators have discredited themselves.

So

there's not a big forest to get in the middle of the fight.

The guy in the party at Devin Nunez talking about people discrediting themselves is a little bit much, for example.

You had a party that the only opponent of Hillary Clinton was a 70-year-old socialist.

So don't tell me that there's a lot of folks out there who are in the Democratic Party.

In 2020, a lot of people are going to run a level.

In 2020, a ton of people are going to run.

Of course they are.

A lot of Democrats are going to be.

The job's available and the guy in it's a fuck up.

Okay.

But

I'm going to ask you another question, kind of related, Ivanka Trump, who play that clip of her saying with Diane Sawyer, saying that she's just going to be a daughter.

People think that you're going to be part of the administration, Ivanka.

I'm...

No, I'm going to be a daughter.

This family lies like I breathe.

They just lie.

Okay, now she's taking, she's got security clearance.

I mean,

remember what...

And they're profiting.

There just came out tonight.

There's like, there are hundreds of millions of dollars that they, essentially, they were supposed to wall off, and they haven't done it.

What if it was...

It's like a profit-making entity for the family.

But it's just because it's his daughter.

What if George Bush, when he was president, tried to hire Ivanka Trump, a former model and a shoe executive?

Were you there when Harriet Myers got shot down by the Republicans?

Harry Myers was kind of like qualified.

But Ivanka Trump, Trump gets to have an office in the West Wing and security clearance?

Yes, Rick, what do you think of that?

Look.

Thank you, Frank.

I've never been given a softball.

So

it's Donald Trump's daughter who is someone who's been a very important advisor, not just in his political career, but in his business.

Look,

if you look at the way that he interacts with his daughter, she is someone who advises him.

And he has every right to seek that advice.

I want to go long again, all right?

The strategic effect of this

is that we're beginning to see a pattern where the president is surrounding himself with family and friends.

And the great fear, whatever the merits of the individuals, is that he's isolating himself from the larger government on which his success depends.

Like banana republics always do.

I would actually agree with Mike on that point, that I think it is important for him to seek folks outside that circle, and I hope he does.

He's a great patriot.

We have to go to New Rules, everybody.

New Rules.

Okay.

New Rule, now that 800 pounds of cocaine is washed up on two British beaches, drug dealers must admit they hate the beach for the same reason everyone else does.

You get sand in your crack.

New rule, if you have a Trump bumper sticker on your Prius, we get to revoke your driver's license.

Because

here's who should not be behind the wheel, the terribly confused.

New rule, now that the TSA rolled out new airport pat-downs that they describe as more thorough and may involve an officer making more intimate contact, they must allow tipping.

And the next time an agent does this to a 13-year-old boy,

he has to sing, Billie Jean is not my lover while he's stinging.

New roll to the New York man.

To the New York man who handed out racist white lives matter flyers, but did not start the interview by saying, I'm not a racist, but, and instead started it by saying, I consider myself a racist.

Thank you.

Finally, a self-aware racist.

Though he ruined it for me later in the interview when he said, I consider myself a toothbrusher.

New Roll, the Idaho woman who last week told police that the reason she crashed into a deer was because she was distracted after seeing Sasquatch in her rearview mirror.

Has to answer this question.

Is this your car?

And finally, new rule, if you get up every day and try to make Donald Trump's ludicrous and dangerous pronouncements sound normal and sane,

you are

an enabler.

20 years from now, when your kids ask you over a glass of Soylent Green,

what did you do during the Trump years, daddy?

You don't want your answer to be, my job was to go on TV and pretend Trump didn't say what everybody just heard him say.

That is an enabler, and that word is not a compliment.

We've heard it a lot with celebrities.

Elvis had his Memphis mafia.

Michael Jackson had a doctor who never said, gee, Mike, your nose just fell off again.

Maybe cut back on the plastic surgery.

Bill Cosby could not have pulled off.

Bill Cosby could not have pulled off 40 years of, oh, let's call it extreme dating

without various underlings who funneled women his way and paid them off, to say nothing of the guy who supplied the horse tranquilizers and never once said, wow, Bill, that is one nervous horse you have there.

One of the great enablers of fiction is Max, the sycophantic manservant to the delusional Norma Desmond in the classic movie Sunset Boulevard, now a Broadway show, and especially timely, because it's about an aging, unstable drama queen

who is able to maintain a fantasy world.

Because even though Norma Desmond is pure, around the bend, bat shit, nuts,

like I say, timely,

She has Max there, and he keeps the world, real world, far out of sight.

In the plot, Norma Desmond is a faded movie queen, a silent film star of the 1920s, but now she hasn't worked in 30 years, but she still thinks she's big.

Because Max, Max goes into the basement every night and writes fake fan letters to fool her into thinking the people still love her.

Is that really any different

than this guy pretending to have intelligence that backs up what his mad boss tweeted at three in the morning?

Or the way Trump's handlers keep sending him to rallies where he only has to see the people who tell him he's doing great, just like it says on his hat?

I'm sure last week when Trump's health care bill went down in flames, he was surrounded by enablers who all nodded when he said, I'm still Bigly.

It's Congress that got small.

Trump has nothing but maxes around him.

Did you know that Devin Nunez once defended Trump by saying, I think a lot of things he says, you guys sometimes take literally.

Excuse me?

We shouldn't take the President of the United States literally?

Right, he's a poet.

When he nukes Finland, it's a metaphor.

Super Christian Mike Pence, seen here cringing from an air kiss because

you don't know how far a syphilis can jump.

Mike Pence conveniently forgot the famous line from the Bible, thou shalt not grabbeth thy pussy,

when he gave Trump the cover he needed to survive pussygate, as did Christian Jeff Sessions, who when asked if he thought uninvited groping was sexual assault, said, I don't know, it's not clear how that would occur.

Sure, Jeff, it really depends on the circumstance.

Like, for example, if you saw a pussy about to fall off a cliff,

you'd want to be able to grab it without political correctness getting in the way.

Enablers Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway are the West Wing's flowers in the attic.

A lunatic locked them up, and now they're crazy too.

This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.

Well, that's pretty good ass kissing, but Rince Prievis, you could do better, can't you?

Well, I think the president's 100% correct, and he hits the bullseye in that tweet like he often does.

Exactly.

Because who can picture Trump and not think accuracy in tweeting?

And have you seen this psycho, who will not only blindly repeat anything Trump says, no matter how crazy.

We know for a fact you have massive numbers of non-citizens registered to vote in this country.

But is such an ass licker

he licks the ass of people who lick Trump's ass.

I do want to say that John Spicer, as always, is 100% correct and that what he said is true and important, and I agree with it.

You know, without these professional liars and deniers, there's no Trump.

It takes a village to help a man-child stay in power.

And the excuse, I'm just doing my job, is starting to sound an awful lot like I was just following orders.

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at the Walt Disney Theater in Orlando, July 8th, and at the Ruth Eckert Hall of Clearwater, July 9th.

I want to thank General Michael Hayden, near attendant, Rick Santorum, Jose Antonio Vargas, and Roger Stone.

Join us off.

We're over time 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.

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