Episode #414 (Originally aired 2/10/17)

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

We are still here, here, here.

Thank you.

doing?

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

He can slide out.

Thank you very much.

Hey.

All right.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

That's very kind of you.

Please, I'd like it to go on all night.

But there's, as always with Donald Trump, there's just too much news to get to.

I mean, this administration happens in like dog years.

You know, I mean, there's so much fucking crazy.

It's like three weeks of Trump is like five years of Nixon.

But you know what?

This was a good week for the resistance.

This was a...

This was a good week for checks and balances, a good week for

maybe surviving President Manbaby.

because the federal appeals court unanimously ruled against his Muslim ban, which means refugees from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Somalia are once again free to come here and be Uber drivers.

How about that, ladies and gentlemen?

Yeah, how about that?

Turns out a law isn't just something Steve Bannon writes on a napkin

and Donald Trump signs while making his smart face.

So

Trump has now lost twice in court.

We found out this week his closest advisor, Kellyanne Conway, and his national security advisor, Mike Flynn, are being investigated for ethical misconduct.

They told Donald Trump today that his wall, his beautiful wall, is going to cost twice as much than he thought.

It's almost like he's losing so much, he's tired of losing.

Is that?

And you know, this is a guy who takes losing well, doesn't he?

Yeah, when the ruling came down from the court, he was like, oh, see you in court.

See you in court.

They're judges.

Of course you're going to see them in court.

It's like saying, hey, Chris Christie, I'll see you at the Cheesecake Factory.

Oh, I mean,

there's so much.

You know, how about this one?

Sean Spicer, his

press secretary, will not confirm or deny that he is considering Sarah Palin to be ambassador of Canada.

He said it'll take her a while to learn the language, but we think

it's going to go smoothly after that.

I mean, other countries are literally rolling their eyes.

I mean, that literally.

Trump met today with the Japanese Prime Minister and he held his hand for a handshake for 18 seconds until, yeah, look.

There we go.

That says it all.

Back and to the

Back and to the right.

I mean, what do we tell other countries?

America's under new management.

It's like you ever pull into a holiday inn in a rainstorm and you think it's a holiday inn, but no, now it's a have-a-stay inn.

And there are hookers in the lobby.

crime scene tape and black mold and the remote smells like lube.

That's American now.

But you will be glad to know that the president finally got down to the issue that's really plaguing America.

Which retailers are carrying Ivanka's clothing line?

Now, if you didn't know about this, Donald Trump's daughter wife, Ivanka

She had

a clothing line which was dropped by department stores, including Nordstrom.

Of course, Trump went ape shit on Twitter about this.

You know what?

Of all the people, Mr.

Businessman,

he should understand they dropped it because the merchandise just wasn't moving.

The only one interested in getting into Ivanka's pants is him.

And then, of course, he had poor Sean Spicer go up there and say, this is a direct attack on the president's policies and his family and it's not acceptable.

Okay, first of all, it's not an attack on his policies.

And if it was, so what?

This is a free country.

You don't work for Donald Trump.

We don't have to buy his kids Girl Scout cookies.

And then

Kellyanne Conway goes on Fox News and says, go buy Ivanka stuff.

Go buy it, everybody.

Well, first of all, the joke's on you.

Ivanka doesn't make Fox viewers a size triple X.

But

also, this is patently illegal for a federal employee to go buy a product from, I mean, now liberals are chanting, lock her up, lock her up.

And, you know, Trump voters, of course, now are boycotting Nordstrom.

All of Trump friends are lining up behind him for this.

Vladimir Putin said today he's going to buy all his poison at Macy's.

Ridiculous.

But, you know, I mean, in his Nordstrom tweet, It happened during the intelligence briefing.

We know this.

He's getting the intelligence briefing and he's tweeting about this.

That's the president we have now, ladies and gentlemen.

Enough about the Middle East.

What's the latest on women's ready-to-wear?

Mr.

President, if North Korea gets a hold of that plutonium, shut up.

I'm writing a Yelp review.

But here's the thing that pissed me off the most this week.

Did you see this?

Mitch McConnell told Elizabeth Warren to sit down and shut up.

Right.

Okay.

He said she was warned, she persisted.

Yeah, that's a meme now.

And then he pulled some ancient congressional rule out of his turtle ass

that said you can't accuse another senator of conduct unbecoming a senator.

But that's not what Elizabeth Warren was doing.

She just read a letter.

from Coretta Scott King that was super pertinent to the case she was making against confirming Jeff Sessions.

This is supposed to be the world's most deliberative body.

But Mitch McConnell needs a safe space

with a speech code so your microaggressions don't trigger his hurt feelings.

Whiny little bitches.

Nothing has changed.

That's what they are, whiny little

bitches.

In Donald Trump's Nordstrom tweet, he said, my daughter, Ivanka has been treated so unfairly.

She's a great person.

She's always pushing me to do the right thing.

Hey, Ivanka, push harder.

All right, we got a great show.

We got Piers Morgan, John Waters, and Karine John Pierre.

And a little later speaking with the very funny Mr.

Jim Jeffries.

But first up, he is the junior senator from Minnesota who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

We love the Honorable Al Franken over here.

Al Franken.

Al?

Hi Bill.

You said it all those years ago, but it's going to turn out to be the Al Franken decade.

It's the Al Franken millennium.

Okay.

All right.

So Al, you know, I've talked to you personally about how, you know, I'm a great admirer because you do things that the rest of us wouldn't do, like have lunch with Republican senators.

That's fine.

So you know what they're saying behind closed doors?

They must be kind of going batshit over this Donald Trump administration.

To give us a little insight into what's happening behind the scenes.

Well, there's a range

in what they'll say.

And some will

say that he's not right mentally.

And then some are harsher.

No, no, no, that's not fair.

That was a that was cheap.

That was cheap.

There are some who, I guess, don't talk to me.

And,

you know,

I haven't heard a lot of good things.

And I've heard some great concern

about

the President's temperament.

Okay.

Well, that's very diplomatic of you.

Not very, was it?

I don't think this was diplomatic.

But okay, I'll take it.

I'll take it.

I saw this today.

51% of Trump voters think Trump should personally be able to overturn decisions by judges.

I know you and I are both people who believe in civics, because we're old enough to remember when they taught civics in school.

I remember when you used to be, I've seen you do this on TV, draw a map of the United States from That's geography.

Civics.

No, okay.

Well, I'm with you.

I'm with you.

That's why you're in the Senate on my HBO, Al.

What's interesting about that, I saw that, I think it came out last night or something, and this is apropos of the decision by the Ninth Circuit.

That didn't surprise me, that 52 or 51 percent of Trump voters.

What was heartening was that

it was only about 25 percent of Americans.

So that means that

it was only about 5 or 10 percent of Americans didn't understand civics or didn't understand

that

the federal judiciary is independent.

Okay.

I mean, it was frightening to me that anybody in America would basically be saying we should make this man, of all people, a dictator, because that's what this says.

I know, but it said that 48 or 49 percent of Trump voters

understood this, and that's good.

That's good.

I really, you know, that's

I

Moy,

Washington has really made you an optimist, Al, and I appreciate that.

It's half full.

Yeah, yeah, tactful.

Okay.

So, all right.

So.

I don't know what they're half full of, but they're half full.

So you're going to meet with the man that Donald Trump wants to put on the Supreme Court, right?

Yes.

You're on that committee.

Okay.

Now I'm hoping you're going to say to him, your name is not Merrick Garland, so I can't vote for you.

I was asked by the White House Counsel who, because I'm on the Judiciary Committee, who I would like to see appoint, and I did say Merrick Garland,

or someone like Merrick Garland, who's a consensus guy.

But

my feeling, we're going to have hearings.

You know, I think this guy, I don't want another

5-4

conservative activist judiciary that

votes to

Citizens United and that.

So

this guy's going to have to overcome a huge bar for me.

Okay, but isn't it not about the qualifications, but about the fact that that pick was stolen?

Yes.

It was.

And, you know, I mean.

I agree with you.

But what are we going to do about it?

The Democrats cannot let that stand.

We cannot have two rules, one for Republicans and one for Democrats.

And

okay, Bill, I hear everybody applauding, but just

stop applauding for a second.

They have the majority, and we can't stop them from having hearings, and so we're going to have hearings.

Now, what I'm saying is

that the Roberts Court has been a pro-activist, pro-corporate, pro-pollution,

pro-big money

in campaigns and in elections, and I'm not going to okay

another 5-4 Roberts court.

Okay.

All right.

So Time magazine came out for impeaching Donald Trump.

I have no doubt that if Hillary Clinton was president, they would already have begun impeachment and hearings.

It doesn't matter about what.

They just would have done it.

Times has the emoluments clause, which basically, and obviously the Trump family is in violation of this.

You cannot take gifts from foreign countries.

They're doing it all the time,

to say nothing of the mental problem.

Al, when will the impeachment hearings start?

Let me remind you again that the Republicans are in the majority.

So I think it'll be, it's months and months away.

Really?

Look,

I know everybody wants a quick fix on this,

but this is going to be a bit of a marathon.

But I'm so encouraged.

You're right, that

this week has been incredibly encouraging.

And the energy around the country, we're seeing

red districts where people are showing up at the town halls, hundreds of people are showing up at the town halls.

There's a tremendous amount of energy, and I want to encourage people

to keep that up.

And it really helps.

And we got thousands, hundreds of thousands of calls about Betsy DeVos at the Senate, and that makes a difference because she is on notice now.

And she's not going to be able to do a lot of the things that I think she wanted to do because of that.

Like walking through the water.

What you people do makes a huge difference.

She couldn't even do that today.

It would have been the first time.

Okay, so

Donald Trump.

The first time she went into public school?

Yeah, she couldn't.

The protesters wouldn't let her walk into the school.

Yeah, and it would have been the first time.

I got the joke now.

The audience was laughing so hard.

All right, hard.

Last question now, then I'll let you go.

I appreciate your time.

Okay.

Politico says that there was a meeting yesterday, and Donald Trump, with 10 senators, six of whom were Democrats, and Donald Trump Trump said to Kelly Ayat, who was the senator, Republican senator from New Hampshire, who lost narrowly, as he did

in New Hampshire, Donald Trump said in this meeting, thousands of people were brought in on buses from neighboring Massachusetts to illegally vote in New Hampshire.

So once again, the president is seeing multitudes that no one else sees.

And it said there was an awkward silence.

An awkward silence.

And there were six Democratic senators in the room.

I was hoping that you, if you were one of those senators, you wouldn't have just been awkwardly silent.

And you would have said, no, excuse me, Mr.

President, that didn't happen.

I would have said something like that.

You would have.

I would have said, oh, come on.

What?

You've got to stop doing this, Mr.

President.

Right.

You know, just stop it.

I mean, the three to five million illegal people didn't show up

and vote for Hillary, all of them for Hillary, and it didn't happen.

And just stop doing that.

It is

very disturbing.

And I asked Jeff Sessions about this in the judiciary hearings, and I said,

you know,

the Attorney General is the one in charge of the laws in this country, including election laws.

Did you kind of discuss this with him?

You know,

are you concerned about this?

And this is very, very, very

disturbing that the president has a habit of

either imagining things or making stuff up.

That's not,

it's really outside the norm

of

not just of presidents, but of human beings.

All right, Al, you were great at the hearings.

We love you for it.

Senator Al Franken, everybody.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Al.

Let's meet our panel.

Hey, how are you, Pal?

Hey, Phiers.

Okay.

Oh, look, the applause died soon.

All right, okay.

All right.

All right, make it a proof.

All right, let's meet the panel.

He is a filmmaker, a filmmaker, please, an auteur, a maestro, a

trailblazer.

I'll fire whoever wrote that.

Thank you.

And one of my first gay friends,

who's an author whose annual Valentine's Day comedy tour will hit Seattle this coming Monday.

John Waters is over here.

She's the senior advisor and national spokesman for moveon.org.

Corrine Jean-Pierre, great to see you here for the first time.

And he's the U.S.

editor-at-large for DailyMail.com.

We used to see him on CNN.

I was on there all the time.

I even hosted it once.

Pierce Morgan is over here.

All right, don't forget to send us your questions for tonight's over time so we can answer them after the show on YouTube.

So as I said, it was a pretty good day for those of us who think we're in the resistance.

You know, they said that old cliché, the Constitution was created by geniuses so that idiots could run it.

And we're giving that a good test, aren't we?

The judicial branch really did check the executive branch, and that's what we want to happen.

The lesson, I think, here is that it is personal.

People think they're so high-minded.

He insulted judges.

When he said that thing about the so-called judge, and if something happens, blame him, I think every judge in the country was like, you know what?

There are other people than you, Donald Trump, who have an ego.

He's insulted so many people.

He's insulted the CIA and heads of corporations and senators and now the judiciary.

I just don't think you can insult people like this for that long and ever have any sort of success doing anything.

Well, what about what we've just heard, though?

We've just heard a senator say he's mentally ill, right?

He's an idiot.

I mean, this is a two-way street, isn't it?

Now, I wouldn't have personally voted for Donald Trump.

He's not my politics.

And I'm not even American, so I couldn't vote for him if I wanted to.

But, you know, I didn't think anything could match the hysteria that I've seen in Britain since we left Europe, and I voted to stay in.

But this hysteria about these racist, sexist Neanderthals who've seized control of our country.

And now I come to Los Angeles where if you don't say that Trump's the new Hitler, you get tarred, feathered, and dragged to Santa Monica Pier and you get drowned.

and beaten within an inch of your life.

And I just think it's time everybody took a massive, gigantic chill pill.

But he is mentally ill.

He's not mentally ill.

He's a president of the United States.

He won a free democratic election.

You don't think kings can be mentally ill?

Well King George III had a few problems and if he hadn't, if he hadn't, we might still be ruling America.

He takes it personally and you know says terrorists about everything.

And to me, I can understand in some way, like I sometimes wonder, moderate Muslims, aren't they against all gay people?

But still, I don't say they can't come in.

It's like Catholics have been terrorizing me for decades.

And I don't say no Italians.

But that's an interesting point of view I have not heard before.

And I think, you know, you're on the page with a lot of Republicans because I think what they can do is separate the crazy.

You may call it, oh, not mentally ill, but it is crazy.

There is crazy out there.

And they think, well, you know, we can put that in the box over here and just use him for for policy.

But I don't think that works because eventually the crazy is going to sabotage the policy, even if the policy was good.

Yeah, I just wanted to say to Pierce's point, I think the thing to understand is that if you are not white male straight,

you fear a Donald Trump's presidency because there is no place for you in a Donald Trump presidency.

And I think that's the thing that you're missing.

And if you look at the 18 months of what Donald Trump did and what he said, he ran the most anti-immigration campaign that we have ever seen.

He talked about Mexicans calling them rapists and criminals.

He talked about Muslim bans.

And

it is fearful, folks.

But he was also the first Republican president to stand there on Inauguration Day and actually talk about the lesbian and gay community of America.

Now, I'm not expecting to read the Republican platform.

Read the Republican platform.

It was the most divisive inauguration speech I have ever, ever heard.

He did say it, and he got absolutely zero even acknowledgement for saying it.

So I say, look, if you want to terrorize him and demonize him, fine.

But it has to be fair to be effective.

And all this squealing and howling.

Here's the thing.

He needs to be self-defeating.

He's the president of the United States.

He needs to put his big boy pants on.

Then don't be president of the United States.

That's what you're going to get.

That's why you get criticized.

Let me just show you.

First of all, let me just show show you something he said this week.

Show the taper.

I was a good student.

I think it starts with his reacting to the motion.

To your point about whether he is mentally ill or not.

I understand things.

I comprehend very well.

Okay?

Better than, I think, almost anybody.

Okay, not only is that mentally ill, but it reminded me of this movie.

I can handle things.

I'm smart.

I like everybody says.

I dump.

I'm smart and I want the specs.

You know,

other presidents have lost in court before.

Here's how a former president

who was so much more mature than the president we have now, who we so wish we had back, handled it when he lost in court.

First of all, it's the Supreme Court decision.

We'll abide by the court's decision.

That doesn't mean I have to agree with it.

See, I thought you thought I was going to go for Obama.

I thought you were going to do Nixon.

That's right, okay.

But isn't that something we're at a place where we're missing George Bush?

Yeah, George Bush.

I mean, Barbara.

It bothers me that you're trying to make the case that this is somehow normal.

This is not normal.

We're not wrong to be saying that we are trying to cling to some sort of normalization.

Okay, but let me throw you back at George Bush then.

Because people say Trump's a monster, right?

He's the new Hitler and so on.

George W.

Bush was the one that took this country and my country into an illegal, unethical, immoral war in Iraq, which killed a million people and thousands of troops.

Let me finish my point.

And killed a million people and thousands of troops, right?

That is a monstrous act.

It was taken as revenge against a country that had nothing to do with 9-11.

That is the act.

Trump's been there three weeks, give him time.

So my point is, my point is

where this is going when somebody says, I'm the smartest person ever in the history of the world.

You have to foresee that.

My point is you have to save the outrage for genuinely outrageous things.

Because otherwise, we all get fed up with the outrage.

But we're comparing him to Hitler.

But I'm sick of talking about Trump.

Everywhere you go, that's all people talk about.

But I'm sure that the, you know, the gypsies and the homosexuals are tired of talking about Hitler too.

And you notice notice I didn't mention the Jews because he didn't either when he talked about the Holocaust.

You know, it's tempting to say he puts out so much crazy shit every week.

We're just going to throw up our hands and ignore it.

No, I'm not there yet.

Put up the list.

We made a list of the crazy and the lies.

This is just from one week.

Here's the crazy list.

Okay, crazy.

Number one, so-called judge.

He called a judge a so-called judge.

Keep going, let's hear the list.

If something happens, blame him.

Blame the court.

That's insane.

See you in court, he said to them.

You think our country is so innocent.

That's what he said to Bill O'Reilly.

What's crazy about that?

Well, when I said it, they fucking threw me off ABC.

All right.

No, no, seriously.

What is crazy?

What is crazy about that?

Let's.

Okay, you're right.

Do you think America's innocent?

Seriously?

What Roberta said about the Iraq war?

Do you think that's innocent?

No, but I just think that isn't.

But America has done bad things.

Sorry, everybody.

But how come...

So's my country.

That's not.

Putin is a brutal dictator.

But America is not innocent.

There's no Camp Coast.

Yes, but it was in response to a question when Bill O'Reilly said, Putin's a killer.

And he said, yeah, a lot of people are killers.

You think we're so innocent?

I don't think America is innocent.

Britain's not.

This is something Noam Chomsky says.

It just shows that the Republican Party.

Well, it just shows the Republican Party has no principles.

No principles.

It's just about who wins.

As opposed to the Democrats who are currently behaving in exactly the histrionic way that they warned us Trump and his supporters would behave when they lost.

This goes back to the same thing.

Exactly the same way.

This goes back to what Bill was saying.

This is not business as usual.

We have someone who is disrespecting the people of this country.

He's become mentally insane and an idiot tonight.

But it means it's time to riot.

But it's not.

It's not time to riot.

It's time to glam down.

We do need a resistance.

It's time to say hey, chill, Bill, and calm down.

It's not.

You know what?

You're so British.

You're confusing.

That's not a miserable.

You and the the Trump voters are confusing usual with normal.

Yes, it's good to like upset business as usual, but it's not normal when the CIA says we can't tell the president's secrets because we don't know if he will share them with Russia.

That is time to panic.

Are you crazy?

Let me connect how the lies, you know, you say that this is what the Republicans want to do.

I just want to put that in a box, the crazy, the lies.

I'm not a Republican.

Well, you sure sound like one.

I don't sound like one.

I'm not a Republican.

I wouldn't have voted for him.

I'm not a Republican.

I'm actually, I watch your share of your week.

I agree with almost everything you ever say.

Right?

That's not my point.

My point is: the hysteria is not going to get the Democrats back into power.

It's going to have the opposite effect.

It will empower Trump.

It's not working.

Well, not hysteria, but certainly the demonstrations and all that.

Marching every time he tweets is not the way to be.

No, no, it has worked because look at that.

streets.

We won the court order last night.

It is working.

It is working.

If it wasn't for what Democrats were doing this week, we would have never heard of Betsy DeVos.

We never finished the list of lies.

Let's do our list of lies.

He said this week the murder rate is highest it's been.

It's actually the lowest it's been.

Okay, then he said the media doesn't report terrorism.

Then he said any negative polls are fake news.

This is in one week.

Then he said the cabinet, longest cabinet delay in history, factually just wrong.

He's that thing I just told Al Franken about bussing illegal people.

These are all just out-and-out lies.

And here's the thing: you could say, oh, they're just crazy lies.

Does it matter?

Here's the connection.

Jeff Sessions, our new attorney general, said about crime, I wish the rise that we're seeing in crime was some sort of aberration or blip, which it exactly is.

Show the chart.

There's a chart that we see of crime.

Okay.

But Jeff Session says, no, my best judgment is this is a dangerous, permanent trend.

Wait a second.

Then you have Sean Spicer saying the Yemen raid, which was a giant, dismal failure.

We didn't get the guy we were going after who's now gloating and talking about the fool in the White House.

We killed children and women.

They knew we were coming.

It was not a success.

But he's saying,

because Trump says it's a success, we all have to.

Why have you left out the fact that they killed 12 al-Qaeda operatives?

Is that not significant?

They killed 12 al-Qaeda operatives.

They did.

Yeah.

Why have you left that out?

Probably because they were eight years old.

Oh, because it sounds better to say they just.

They weren't, though.

They weren't, though, but that's not true.

And my point about the crime figures is

what is true is that the crime figures in 2015 rose by the highest spike since 1971.

The figures for 2016 are likely for serious murder and gun-ready crime, also likely to rise by a similar amount.

I think everyone should be worried about the massive spike in crime.

I think there isn't a massive spike in crime.

You are crazy.

Because we just saw the chart.

Look at the chart.

You took the chart up.

Do you think

it doesn't look

like it?

Look where it was.

Look where it is.

Look at the little 2015

highest spike in crime, serious crime in this world.

Look at the

71.

Look at the

I live in Baltimore where the gun violence is.

Look where it was.

Look where it is.

Look at the last two years, Bill.

For fuck's sake.

Can I just put in one thing?

That basically, I live in Baltimore, the gun violence is terrible.

One is too much.

Every family that had their kid killed, they don't care if it went up or down.

So here's the thing they should do.

Can I give one advice to the guy, the new Attorney General?

Hire more gay cops.

Lavender blue can make black lives even better.

Well, here's what the

What the White House and the Attorney General is trying to do, they're trying to stoke fears into the American people.

Sorry, the fear is not.

That is what they're trying to do.

No, what he wants to do is he wants to make sure that they put policies forth that's going to hurt the black community and the Latino community.

That is what's happening.

That is exactly what's happening.

I would love to continue broken.

No, then you're reading a different chart.

You know, we were talking on the show last week that everything is politicized now, and that includes Valentine's Day.

You know, marriages have broken up because of being, of Trump being elected.

Wives just wouldn't stand it.

They told their husband, they said, you know what, if you vote for this asshole, I will personally take it, and I might leave you, and husbands dug in, and now they hate each other.

So here are the cards for them.

And, you know,

here's the ones from the conservative husband to my liberal wife.

Treat my penis like your election day loss and put it behind you.

You see, these are the.

Wow.

Our lifetime together hasn't changed you at all.

Your ass isn't big, it's alternative small.

You see, they.

You're the love of my life.

There's no refuting.

I love you more than Trump loves Putin.

Okay.

All right, and here's the opposite one.

These are the one from the liberal wife to their conservative husband.

Having kids with a Trump voter made me so sad until I remembered, you're not really their dad.

Roses are red, violets are blue.

I'm fucking the gardener to get back at you.

He may be rich, but your president's stupid, and both of you, him and you are hung just like you.

I must be be your Syrian refugee of love because you never let me come.

You've got a heart like a lion and a dick like a cannon, but your ideas repulse me.

Go fuck Steve Bennett.

All right, he's the Australia comedian whose unusual punishment tour plays Minneapolis on February 24th.

Jim Jeffries.

Here is Jim Jeffries.

How are you, Jim?

Great to see you.

Okay, how you doing?

I wanted to have you here because I thought last week we were going to be in a war with Australia.

I'm happy to be here before the Australian travel ban comes in, actually.

I wanted to have a friend on that side of the world.

What are they saying about that in Australia?

Well, they're actually happy because two weeks ago you didn't know who Malcolm Turnbull was.

No one in America knew who the Prime Minister of Australia was.

Now it's like a big deal.

It's like his approval rings through the roof because he told Trump to fuck off.

Is that right?

Yeah, yeah, they love him now.

Because this is a whole thing like a Mexican president.

Like Pierce said, America's not innocent,

Britain's not innocent, but Australia is fucking innocent, man.

Like Australia's innocent.

Like today, so...

Well, not to its own people, right?

Well, no, no, no.

The Aborigines.

Well, you know, that was...

That was when there were British people killing him.

We became Australians a lot later.

But it's weird because there's only one country that has been an ally of America since the Second World War, who's been in every war with America since the Second World War, and that's Australia.

Because other countries have dipped out, like Britain did not go to Vietnam, Australia went to Vietnam.

France did not go to the war in Iraq, although I feel they might go to the next one.

But Australia has always been there.

There's one other country, New Zealand.

Australians love Americans.

We've always heard that,

and the proof is that most of our actors...

You don't?

No, i love american

i mean you live here why why did let me ask you that why did you choose i mean you it's not like you came from some third world hellhole you came from australia why do you want to live in america um i love america i have my son's american and plus i can make a lot of money out here in comparison to australia i actually got that order wrong uh the money was first

my son then i love america no i like look america's a great place man and let me ask you i know you talk about about religion.

You're not for it, as I am not.

And I've been having atheists on my shows for 23 years, even before people knew what atheists were, almost.

There shouldn't really be a word for it.

That's what I find weird.

There shouldn't be a word for believing in nothing.

Right.

Yeah, no, you're right.

Yeah, there shouldn't be a thing.

I hate people who are really adamant atheists, who try to convert people at parties and stuff like that.

I think one of the privileges of being an atheist is you don't have to do anything on Sunday.

Right.

And a lot of people feel that way.

I mean, you know, it's very surprising when you ask an audience,

how many are atheists, agnostic, or none?

Just write none.

I mean, you know, America didn't used to be that way.

Well, I don't, I like atheists, but I'm not a big fan of agnostics.

Just, what do you go fucking side?

Stop being so wishy watching.

Like, because if you're an agnostic, you're not getting into heaven.

There's no way you're you're getting into heaven going, ah, good, you're here.

You know what I mean?

Like,

at least I'm committed right to the bitter end.

I feel like, just don't hedge your bets.

Pick a fucking side.

Okay.

So you have a rant about guns, which went crazy viral.

Yeah.

That people, especially the liberal folks, love.

And I know you have this feeling that anyone who has a gun just loves their gun.

But you know there are people in America who have a gun who don't love their gun.

Well,

I assume they like their gun.

They wouldn't have it if they...

I don't have a gun.

I don't have a gun if I don't like my antibiotics, but

in case I need them, I wouldn't.

But you love the result.

Yeah, exactly.

But that's different.

You love the result.

Well, the thing is, if I had a gun, I'd probably kill myself, so I wouldn't love the result.

That's why I feel like...

Are you depressed?

At times, sure.

Because most gun deaths are suicides.

Of course they are, yeah.

Whether it be

yourself or you get a cop to shoot you or what have you.

I look, I'm a.

Yeah.

I'm a.

No, that's what it looks like.

Like police suicides, of course.

That's how I'm going down.

It's very easy to do it in America.

Little blackface.

No, I look.

What I think about guns liberty.

A joke in support of what you actually believe.

What I think about guns liberty.

It's very simple, right?

So in Australia, there hasn't been any mass shootings since the Port Arthur attack.

And that's when

we banned guns.

So that makes sense that it hasn't happened since then.

Maybe it could be a coincidence.

But America can't do that.

Well, you had the same amount of police shootings and fatalities in the first month of January that Australia's had in the first last 25 years.

Oh, yeah, we're the gun country.

Yeah, and so people can say Black Lives Matter and all this type of stuff, but it really comes down to it is racism in some parts, but it also has to do that everybody has a gun.

But it's always think that someone's going to be shooting you.

If you think someone's going to shoot you, you're going to shoot you.

It's also a little racist to say that everyone who has a gun loves a gun because there are people who live in poorer neighborhoods than you do who really need a gun.

Well,

when you live in a shitty neighborhood where the cops don't show up, I'm new money, Bill.

I didn't always live in rich neighborhoods and I never had a gun.

Why is it?

Why is it on guns?

Because I had a big thing about gun control at CNN when I was there.

Yeah, no, that's why you got fired.

Went down like a lead balloon, yeah.

It's why I went back to the gun.

No love with the Commonwealth.

How do you know that?

The Australians were British convicts.

We know the background.

Shocks fired.

That's right.

But the point I was going to make was this.

It seems to me on the guns thing, there is a massive inconsistency, nay, hypocrisy, between the President's stance about dangerous people coming into this country needing extreme betting.

And at the same time, there is the absolute opposite when it comes to checking who is buying guns in this country.

I agree.

I agree.

Why would it not just be absolutely consistent with extreme betting to prevent violence to just bring in universal background checks on every gun purchase in America to make sure the people buying them aren't criminals or mentally insane people?

And yet it's not happening.

And 32,000 people a year die of gun violence in America.

Another 70,000 get hit by gunfire.

To put it in perspective, Britain, which is one-fifth of the size of the United States, we have 32 gun deaths a year.

You have 85 people dying from guns a day in this country.

Do you know about this group called GAG?

You two guys watch here.

This group called GAG, which is gays against guns.

Republicans think it's fellatio on firearms.

I just wondered if you knew about that.

That's a good group, right?

Gag.

They're here.

I've Googled it.

Yeah, yeah.

I've gotten different things up in a seat, I can bet.

Okay, can I ask about a real issue?

Because, you know, it's important to talk about Donald Trump.

And it's also important to talk not about Donald Trump.

Not that he doesn't affect everything, because I'm talking about Obamacare now, but this is a real issue that affects a lot of people's lives.

And it's interesting that the Republicans are really pulling back on this now.

Because, of course, they never had an alternative plan.

And now people are showing up at the town halls screaming at them because we have our own tea party now, which is awesome.

But what could Trump care be if you think about it?

When you get an operation, the doctor brands his name on your organ

or

free facelifts or

reasonably priced hair transplants.

Yeah, well,

it's easy to make fun of his hair, but have you noticed recently, it's different.

He has like a duck tail now, a juvenile delinquent.

It looks like Johnny Depp and Crybaby hooked up with Bob's big boy.

It's really impeachable.

It is.

But it came out that 35% of Americans said that they thought Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act were two different things.

That is depressing.

That is depressing.

Well, in their defense, they do have two different names.

Yeah.

So

I'll give the Republicans just one credit, which is they've been able to do something that Democrats and President Obama was not able to do, which is sell the importance of ACA and Obamacare.

And now you have Republicans, as you were mentioning, running away from their town halls because

they can't explain why they are going to repeal Obamacare without a replacement.

And they are very much the dog that caught the car.

And for six years, they never did anything.

They didn't work with the Democrats.

They just decided we're going to repeal, repeal, repeal, with nothing to follow that up with.

And now they're realizing rhetoric is not policy and they cannot govern it.

But the truth about Obamacare

where universal health care is for all.

So we, you know, I totally applaud the idea of Obamacare.

The problem with it was the implementation has led to people having massively.

They wouldn't let him do it right.

The problem was, and always will be, that we still had to cut in private industry.

With the profit motive,

you cannot have life and death pitted against the profit motive.

This would be a great time for the Democrats.

It wouldn't pass, but people would like it to introduce single payer.

Why do people

have great misgivings about Obamacare but love Medicare?

Because Medicare is simple.

It's simple.

Medicaid, Social Security, simple.

You get a check.

Okay, Obamacare, just too complicated.

People don't like complicated.

And it will always be complicated as long as we have expensive, right?

We can't be unaffordable care ice for many people.

So it hasn't been without flaws, right?

But we all know it hasn't been without flaws.

What I'm saying is Republicans refused to work with Democrats for six years.

That is the fact.

Well, I don't see many Democrats working with Republicans now.

So I'm making this.

That's because Republicans haven't offered anything.

They just said

repeal.

So what is it?

Show us.

What's the replacement of the people?

It would be great to think that Washington would now come together for the sake of the health of the American people, wouldn't it?

That would be a great thing.

How would you replace it?

That's the reason.

But what's the replacement?

What's your replacement?

There are clearly parts of Obamacare which work very well.

There are parts of it that don't work well, and it's become unaffordable for many Americans.

But again, you know, you've got to get in there with the Democrats, and you've got to work it out.

Well, the Republicans need to step up and do that.

Stop the gouging.

I mean, it was in the news this week.

Remember the EpiPen?

It went up from, I don't know what, to 10 times as much.

That's gouging.

They just did it with the, there's, you know, people who have opioid addiction and they needed basically an EpiPen for junkies.

That went up from like several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars.

That cannot stand.

And this

could I ask this one last question.

The people who said during the campaign that Hillary Clinton was the lesser of two evils, could we get the apology right now?

Yeah.

Why?

Why?

Why?

As if, are you serious?

I'm serious.

Like Hillary Clinton would have a cabinet with Betsy DeVos

and fucking Rick Perry.

She wouldn't have a Muslim ban.

They wouldn't have a Muslim ban.

They wouldn't be feuding with everybody in the world.

They wouldn't be doing this shit in Russia.

Are you crazy?

Calm down, Bill.

There is no Muslim ban.

If there was, 85 off.

Sorry, why don't we fuck off?

It's fucking Muslim ban.

They said that was the Muslims.

This is the point.

This isn't talk about the hysteria.

I'm talking about 85% of the Muslims.

This is what you do.

This is what you do, Pierce.

You say, he hasn't done this, he hasn't done that, he's not going to do all these things.

Give him a fucking chance, mate.

Do you know what I mean?

And why not?

He didn't kill the Jews on the first day.

He worked up to it.

I have to stop you.

That is the exact...

That is the exact ridiculous, hysterical, over-the-top nonsense.

If people

are in Germany

right away, then it wouldn't put it.

He's not the new Hitler.

You just like that you won the apprentice and you have a famous friend, mate.

That's all you're fucking like.

Can I say one thing?

I know it.

That's all you like.

That's all you like.

He is not losing my views.

And you are also not hastening.

Can I say this might be the worst thing?

This might be the worst thing that could happen.

And you all haven't even considered this.

Just suppose, just suppose that Donald Trump and these horrible white men and the one black man that's even worse, Ben Carlson, suppose that they made everything better.

Wouldn't that be awful?

Yeah, it's not going to happen.

Thank you, everybody.

Time to move.

Time to rule.

Niro, before you get on your high horse and start criticizing this man's decision to support Donald Trump, show me one other time when he made a bad choice.

New Roll, the international symbol for choking must be changed from this to this.

I don't care.

I can't feed up there.

Sensitive people.

New Roll, you can buy these lollipops to celebrate the brand new Chinese Year of the Rooster, but you have to call them what they are.

Cocksuckers.

New Roll, Sean Spicer has to stop sounding like he's using the white guy voice that black comedians use

when they make fun of how white people talk.

No one had numbers because the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall, does not put any out.

I don't even think that's Sean Spicer.

I think that's Dave Chappelle and Whiteface.

New Roll, now that we've all seen this picture of a

yes, it's real, of a young Donald Trump in his bathrobe flying across pink pillowcases with a come hither look, he has to answer this question: How was he?

New Roll, someone has to tell the owners of this Chinese food restaurant how much we appreciate their honesty.

You didn't promise the world and we weren't expecting it.

We're in a strip mall at 2 in the morning.

We're high.

Does the beef in your beef and broccoli contain any beef at all?

Yes?

Then in the words of President Trump, we want deal.

And finally, new rule with Valentine's Day coming up.

Everyone must take a minute and remember their first love.

I sure remember mine.

I went off to college at 18 and I fell hard.

Not for a girl.

That would have been my first choice.

But I was a slow developer socially.

You know those letters that college guys send to Penthouse magazine that begin, I never thought this would happen to me.

Yeah, well, that never happened to me.

But I did fall.

I did fall in love with books and ideas and knowledge.

And also my hand, that's true.

But there is no doubt that it is a truly a kind of love affair when you go off to a place where you have intellectual epiphanies because learning is so revered, and the celebrities are the smartest people.

I may have been able to get a blow job in college, but I got my mind blown on a regular basis.

But you know, that was another country.

One of the saddest things about the one we live in now is we don't seem to want smart people in our lives anymore.

Smart presidents, can't have that.

Scientists, what do they know?

Newspaper editors, liars, fake news.

You know, people used to get their news from newspapers because professional newsrooms took separating fact from fiction seriously and employed people who had studied how to do that.

But now people get their news on Facebook by sharing, or as it used to be called, hearsay.

Instead of all the news that's fit to print, you click on a link from your cousin Jody who runs the Tilta Whirl.

Why waste money on a subscription to a newspaper when they would just blow it on war correspondents?

To honor the Ben Bradleys of the world who brought a president to his knees way before Monica Lewinsky did.

A student in a social media focus group once said, if the news is important, it will find me.

Except it doesn't.

And that's how we wound up with President Bannon and his dummy Donnie.

It's not surprising that it can't find you, since on social media, news competes with videos of Russian car crashes, creepy clowns, and a rabbi doing the mannequin challenge.

And you know how they say you can't make this shit up?

Turns out you can.

By Election Day last year, the top fake news on Facebook was getting more shares, clicks, and comments than the real news.

Millions of people believed some straight-up bullshit that the Pope had endorsed Trump.

When in fact, after Trump won, what the Pope said was, I'm praying for his enlightenment.

To which God said, I've done a lot of miracles, but give me a fucking break.

We used to respect scientists.

That's why every stoner in the 70s had a poster of Einstein on the wall,

right next to the one of the naked black chick with the huge afro.

But now only 36% of Americans say they have a lot of trust that information from scientists is reliable.

Well, 98% of scientists say humans evolved over the millennia, but that view is shared by not nearly as many real Americans.

Trump supporters don't think species can change over time, but they do think Trump used to be all about himself, but now he's working for us.

This Valentine's Day, can we please fall in love with knowledge again?

You know, under President Obama, the Secretary of Energy was first a Nobel Prize winner and then a nuclear physicist.

Not that Trump's pick for the job doesn't have impressive credentials.

How did it happen?

We went from being led by the smartest person in the room

to the biggest jackass on Twitter.

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at the Sanger Theater in New Orleans, March 18th, at the Civic Center in Oklahoma City, April 9th.

I want to thank John Waters, Kareen Jean-Pierre, Piers Morgan, Jim Jeffries, Adel Frank, and joining us down 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.