Episode #404 (Originally aired 09/23/16)

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

Good afternoon.

Afternoon, time will be

real time.

Real time.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

I appreciate that.

Thank you very much.

Oh, what a crowd.

I know.

It's so exciting.

So exciting in the middle of a presidential.

I love you all right back.

A lot of love in this room, I gotta say.

Okay, but listen, it's fall.

I can't believe it's autumn already.

You know, the seasons turn so.

Do you love autumn?

I love autumn.

I love to watch the gentle flutter of Hillary's poll numbers as they fall to the ground.

Everybody loves autumn.

In Charlotte, the police are using tear gas with a hint of pumpkin spice.

It's just.

Oh, we're following that.

Now, we're live here Friday night, and we have to follow the, you know, there's been unrest on the streets there in Charlotte for the last four nights, so we are keeping an eye on that.

We'll update you as the show goes along.

The Republican governor there in North Carolina called out the state police and the National Guard to make sure that in all the chaos, no one uses the wrong restroom.

Yeah, did you see that two days ago?

This is true.

Black protesters looted the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

And the white people were like, it's on.

Oh, it is on.

And of course, Donald Trump is making the situation better.

As he always does.

He actually said this.

He said, if you're not aware, drugs are a very big factor.

He's like your 90-year-old aunt.

They're all taking something.

Yeah, they're taking something all right, bullets.

But

you know, the other day Trump said African-American communities, because he would know,

are absolutely in the worst shape they have ever been ever, ever, ever.

Yes, of course, Donald Trump, of all people, Donald Trump knows why the caged bird sings.

Because it used to live in his hair.

So,

are you all ready for the big debate on Monday night?

Oh my gosh.

I'm shitting my pets already.

Hillary has been preparing for the debate, of course, as she does.

But you know what?

Does it matter?

The bar for Trump is so low.

It's like being in a spelling bee with a basset hound.

Really?

Yeah, she knew all the words, but you know what?

I like the fact that that dog knew not to shit on the floor.

So it is very nervous, but I still think Hillary can make this work.

Of course, I said the same thing about Brad and Angelina.

So I.

And up until a couple of months ago, we kept booking Anthony Wiener.

So what am I?

I'm not really the one to ask.

That's, oh,

did you see this week?

Again, Anthony Weener.

It's like a yearly thing now.

His dick comes out if it sees its shadow.

Oh my gosh.

This time he was sexting apparently with a 15-year-old.

Oh, you didn't see this?

That's right, you come here for the news.

I keep forgetting that.

I think it's

anyway.

He admits it was flirtatious.

Flirtatious.

One of the texts said, I would bust that tight pussy so hard.

Don't you love HBO?

We can show you.

He said,

I'm quoting, I'm quoting.

He said, I would bust that tight pussy so hard you would limp for a week.

That is pretty flirtatious.

That's halfway to mentoring.

I tell you, that is wow.

But speaking of things going off, there was a...

Since we were on Friday, there was a terrible terrorist attack over last weekend in the New York, New Jersey, my home state area.

No one died.

That's the good news.

We had a terrorist attack and nobody died.

And boy,

were we lucky about that, because the bomb was made from acid, ball bearings, and electronic igniters.

It was either that or a sack full of Samsung phones.

That's what they were.

We know about the bomber.

His name was Ahmad Rahami.

Is it me or is it never Murray Lipschitz?

I'm just saying, I'm just saying.

But look, you know what?

Here's the good news.

The guy's father

loved this country.

He called the FBI, this guy should get a parade.

Called the FBI and said, my son's a terrorist.

And the FBI said, we don't have time for that.

We got 30,000 emails of Hillary's to go through.

But really, I mean,

you know, this guy should get more of the publicity.

I'm talking about the father.

He had a chicken restaurant.

He just wanted to serve the best damn fried chicken in all of New Jersey.

And his son, the bomber, helped him out in the restaurant.

He should have known something was up.

The mascot of the restaurant was Mulah Sanders.

I mean, this

right there was a.

And they were offering a $5 martyr meal.

I mean, come on.

It said right on the carton, if you come back for seconds, you're doing it wrong.

But this is my home state.

Kudos, I must say.

I know he has his troubles these days to Governor Chris Christie, because as soon as the thing happened, he made a moving statement and said, the people of New Jersey have to pull together and please don't let this one incident turn people against fried chicken.

All right,

congratulations.

Max Brooks, near attendant, and Klani Chin are here.

And a little up here, we'll be speaking with the very talented Michael Fronte.

But first up, she's a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist and the author of The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics.

The beautiful and talented Maureen Dowd.

Is that your

pageant?

Oh,

I know you.

Now,

I know Maureen Dowd has been on a book tour and you have a fever, don't you?

You're sick.

Yes.

I much prefer watching you in bed.

We'll continue that discussion after the show.

Well, okay, so thank you so much for being here and doing that.

Boy, you and Hillary, huh?

But you don't have a hacking cough.

You seem seem fine.

You look great.

Thank you.

Okay.

So we'll try to make this short so you can get back to your bed.

I was looking forward to dinner with you, but I guess that's off now.

Oh, no way.

That's on.

Oh, fucking A.

Okay.

All right.

So

I'm a better friend than Donald Trump, because I know you've been friends with him for years, and yet, here's what he tweeted about you recently.

Wacky Maureen Dowd, who hardly knows me, makes up things I never said for her boring interviews in column, a neurotic dope.

Crazy Maureen Dowd,

the wacky cop,

for the failing New York Times, pretend she knows me well, wrong.

Which is it?

Are you wacky or crazy?

Well, I wasn't friends with him.

I just interviewed him.

Friendly?

No.

Over the years?

No, I would interview him when he would go out on early expeditions as a presidential candidate.

But I was deeply troubled by his tweets because

obviously he didn't put a lot of time into them because he was just recycling things he had done about other women journalists.

So he always calls them crazy or neurotic or wacky.

And I would have preferred

a better nickname, like at least W gave me Cobra, which has some reptilian black.

Yeah, that's very hot.

Cobra, yeah.

Kobe Bryant's a black cobra.

Yeah, it's very good.

Yeah, but you're right.

I've always said this about Trump.

It's so many red flags about him, but the fact that he tweets at three in the morning is such a psychotic thing to do.

I mean, we all have our ways of getting off to sleep.

I whack off, you know.

But that's peaceful.

That's positive.

This guy, I mean, some people listen to music, they listen to radio.

Who at 3 in the morning, your ratings are terrible.

That's a sick way to get off to the corner.

I asked him if he did it in his jammies, and he said yes.

He gets in his PJs

and tweets his.

His PJs also have a long tie.

But I noticed that the media, including your newspaper, the New York Times, getting a lot tougher in actually calling him out and actually saying he lied, which I think is a much-needed development.

Have you noticed that?

Were you responsible for that over there?

Yes.

Okay, great.

Now,

my next question is: will it make a difference?

I mean, how in your book, you talk a lot about your family.

And I noticed once in a while you actually give your column over to your conservative brother or sister.

Or, as I like to call them, my basket of deplorables.

But you actually resented that when she said that

about your family, because it's your family.

And obviously when I read your brother, he's such a bright guy.

It's hard to wrap our head around this notion that bright people can disagree with us so much, right?

I know, it's so funny.

So all my fellow columnists are going out on these Margaret Mead anthropological road trips to Kentucky to hunt down the rare creature called the Trump voter and

try and understand them and reason with them.

And one of them did an open letter like, I would like to meet one of you so I could talk to you.

And I just have to go home.

Right.

Just have to have Thanksgiving dinner.

Exactly.

Also, I notice in the book you talk a lot about Bush 41.

I mean, that's when I first came to know you in the paper, is you covered his election before you were an op-ed columnist.

And you have a kind of a

very, a very,

I don't know, it's a darling little relationship you have with him.

You are tough on him, but he loves you.

He loves you almost like a daughter.

He, well, he calls it like a love-hate relationship,

which are words I prefer to use in my private life,

like about ex-boyfriends and things.

But

he was very upset when I first came to cover him because he had expected someone from the New York Times with a name like Clyde Farnsworth III,

who would

drink martinis with him and talk about the Atlantic Alliance.

Then he got me.

But then we got used to each other and it was kind of like a screwball comedy where I was the Irish working class girl and he was the waspy upper class president who had been taken to kindergarten in a limousine.

It's like Titanic.

But you're Leonardo DiCaprio.

Yeah, not for the likes of you, boyo.

But he's for Hillary.

Isn't that amazing?

Yes, yes.

So he came out this week.

He came out this week with

Bush 41.

Right.

So I went down to have lunch with him in 2011, and it was right at the height of the birther thing, and I was talking to him about that.

Donald Trump was leading the birther movement, and former President Bush goes, he's an ass.

About Trump.

Yes.

And then he was talking about how much he really loved Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

And so I can only imagine how painful it was for him to see Jeb, who he had always wanted to be president,

you know, get destroyed in the debate stage by what Trump refers to as a one-day kill, which is the low-energy, low-energy.

Right.

Oh, yeah, he drove his shoe.

And so Bush Sr.

would throw his shoe at the

shoe.

At the TV set.

When Trump would come on.

Throw his shoe.

Yeah, when Trump would come.

That's what the Arabs did to his son.

I know.

I know.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

That's a

Yeah, when he saw Trump, he would just throw it.

And yet, okay, so he's, Bush 41 is voting for Hillary, and Ted Cruz today

came out for Trump.

Ted Cruz, who, I had to write it down, called Trump utterly amoral, a liar, and a sniveling coward, and I'm for him.

Well, when, you know,

When Trump suggested that his dad might have been part of the JFK assassination, if that doesn't get Cruz to distance himself, what would?

He said his wife was a dog.

Right.

I mean,

but you know, Trump also said at the time, I would never accept Ted Cruz's endorsement today.

I am honored to accept Ted Cruz's endorsement.

Well, the Republicans have been very cowardly about that going along with Trump when he's insulted them.

And the only two have really stood up

are Susan Collins and Jeff Flake.

Susan, yeah.

Well, that's two.

That's two.

Okay, so let me read what Obama said.

There's a reason why we haven't had a woman president.

We as a society still grapple with what it means to see powerful women, and it troubles us in a lot of ways.

What do you make of that?

Well, I certainly think that

you know, the election of the first African-American president

stirred up a lot of racism, and the first woman on a major ticket stirs up a lot of misogyny.

But I think President Obama's line was more of a rationalization, kind of to explain why Hillary isn't doing well.

Because the funny thing about Hillary is, usually with the woman, you'd be worried that she's not tough enough, but no one ever worries about that with Hillary.

Like, we know she can pull the trigger.

I mean, we just wonder about her aim sometimes.

So,

you know, but usually,

Oh, wait, but usually women have a virtue, women politicians have a virtue advantage.

And that's what her problem is because people don't think she's honest.

So she doesn't get that.

But

okay, well, that's interesting.

But what about the health?

The fact that she had pneumonia for three days while campaigning and still campaigned.

Yes, they did load her,

They did load her into a van like a grandfather clock at one point, but

okay.

Okay, first of all, being president is a lot easier than running for president, right?

Stamina-wise.

Okay, and also, I mean, she took three days off for pneumonia and came back and looks fine.

I mean, if that isn't enough for people, what does she have to do?

Run the dicathlon?

Yeah, well,

she and Trump have more stamina than anyone I've ever seen.

I've been on a book tour for three days, and I already have a spring angle and a fever.

And a fever.

Yeah, and as David Axelrutt said, it wasn't about the health, it was about the stealth.

It just evolved into this microcosm of the pattern she always has where she blocked out the press, misdirected, and it snowballed into something it shouldn't have been.

All she had to do was, you know, say, I don't feel well, I have pneumonia.

All of us would have understood, but instead it's like, I feel great, you know, everything's fine.

Well, I mean, she's a little paranoid because, frankly, people like yourself

are always criticizing her, so she doesn't want to talk to the press.

Thank you for being here in your sickness.

You look great, you sounded great.

Maureen Dad, let's get you off your bed.

All right, the great Maureen Dad, everybody.

Thank you for doing this.

All right, let's meet our panel.

Hey, everybody.

Okay, here they are.

He's a fellow at the Modern War Institute and at the Atlantic Council.

Max Brooks, back with us again.

Hey, Max.

He is the former policy director for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and also a fellow.

Wow, a lot of fellows here tonight at Stanford's Hoover Institution, Lonnie Chen.

Hey, Lonnie, how are you doing?

And she's president of the Center for American Progress and former policy director to Hillary Clinton.

Near attendant.

Hey, Nira, great to see you.

Hey, nice to see you.

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

Okay, the first debate is Monday night.

We're going to live tweet it, so I will be saying a lot of things about it.

Liberal, what?

You're laughing already?

A little anxious about your tweets, tweets, but you know, I'll get through it.

I'm for her.

No, no, no, no.

You liberals have to learn who's on your side.

I know.

I know.

Yeah, well, why didn't you come on the show then?

Okay,

liberals are very nervous for good reason because this race is pretty tight now.

And

I have this horrible feeling that Hillary Clinton is just fighting the last war.

You're a war expert.

You wrote World War Z.

You're a fellow at war places.

You know, it's like she's the the British in her red pan suit,

and Trump is fighting a guerrilla war.

And I'm not just saying that because his father's an orangutan.

But, let me, no, listen to this.

She's spent, her campaign has spent $96 million in ads, his $17 million.

That's a five-to-one advantage.

In Florida, she's spent a fortune, he's spent nothing.

She's got a big ground game, he's got nothing, and he's ahead.

But that's not her fault.

That's because the media has forgotten what their constitutional duty is.

Really?

It's all the media's fault?

Well, the reason we have a free press, the whole reason it's in the Constitution, is to inform us, the electorate, about what we're voting on.

And they've forgotten that.

They think this is a circus.

They think this is dancing with the stars.

And so they have given Trump probably a trillion dollars worth of free press over the course of this campaign.

Well, a billion.

I don't know about a trillion.

Yes, he's gotten a lot of free press.

You're right, absolutely.

We just saw that infomercial that he did for his hotel.

They all showed up like Pavlov's dogs and with the stakes, and then eventually he said, Obama's an American and walked off.

But I'm asking about her strategy.

I mean, he's out there like giving speeches to his basket of confusibles.

Okay.

But I just, I just, it looks to me, you know, Jeb Bush spent $130 million to beat Donald Trump and wound up with four delegates.

It looks like Trump might be one of those problems liberals think they can throw money at to make government.

Yeah, no, no, and I don't think we can throw money at it and that that's all they're gonna be.

We'll see this on on Monday.

I think Hillary is not gonna be like Jeb Bush.

I think if he throws punches, she's gonna throw punches back.

She recognizes that this is a debate about who is going to have have the nuclear codes, who's going to be leader of the country.

So she'll share her vision and values and talk about what she wants to do, but she's also going to stand up to him in a way, that's my sense, she'll stand up to him in a way that a lot of Republicans in the primary were too scared to do.

I mean,

I

actually think that she's got to come out aggressively because that is going to knock him off of his game a little bit.

You know, the worst thing that can happen to her is to have him go 90 minutes and look presidential.

That would be the worst thing that happened to her.

And so I think she's really got to be on her game in the sense that she can't just let Trump skate.

Now, Trump, on the other hand, I think he'll come out and just be Mr.

Cool, right?

Which we'll see if he could play that character for 90 minutes.

That'll be interesting.

Or any character for 90 minutes.

Well, that's the thing.

I mean, people.

Are you a Trump supporter?

No, I'm not.

A Republican, but not a Trump supporter.

Yeah, that's right.

Okay, all right.

That may be the last thing.

I'm not the guy to mayor yet, okay.

But are you going to vote for Hillary?

No.

See, I don't get this.

I'm not going to vote for this.

I don't get this.

It's a Sophie's choice, but I'm going to kill both my kids.

I don't get that.

I live in California, Bill, just like you do.

Or you don't live in California.

You live with California.

Yeah, I live in California.

For me, I just feel like I can't vote for him.

I can't vote for her, so I'm going to vote for someone who I feel comfortable with.

Yeah, that's bullshit.

Okay.

So

let me ask about their responses to the bombing, because I've been saying for a very long time that I'm worried about the Democrats on the terrorism issue.

I mean, Trump obviously is giving paranoid lunacy aimed at dumbasses.

I don't agree with his prescriptions, but Hillary says things like: the kinds of rhetoric and language Mr.

Trump used is giving aid and comfort to our adversaries.

That's what she said.

But that doesn't really tell you how she's going to stop the attacks.

She just seems to lecture us on how to be a better person.

This is what I worry about with the election.

If there's a terrorist attack a week before the election, and then Mr.

Dumbass Strongman comes in and says, we're weak, that's what we're weak.

You know, a tragedy for him, always an opportunity to gloat.

I called it.

I should be a newscaster.

Because that's what newscasters do.

They predict things.

I actually don't think, you know, everyone says he's a a chaos candidate.

I actually don't think people in times of crisis want more chaos.

I think they actually want someone who seems like they know what they're doing because you actually become more worried about terrible events unfolding.

I mean we saw that this week.

His numbers did not move up in a lot of polls.

They moved down because I think a lot of people

You know, I think a lot of people particularly women wonder about a guy who's gonna just say whatever in a time of crisis when that can actually mean you're inflaming enemies of the United States.

You know, Nira, I don't know that people see him as a chaos candidate.

I think he is a chaos candidate.

I get that.

But I don't think people see him that way.

I think people see him as, oh man, he's a truth teller.

Right.

You know, America is under attack.

Even though he's the biggest liar ever

in America.

And there's no accountability for that.

There's no any accountability.

Well, it's changing.

As I was saying to Maureen, that's finally changing.

And maybe in the debate on Monday, there will be some accountability, but then you've got him playing the moderator game.

Well, yes, he's already, and you know, he always like.

Definitely plays the ref.

He already says it's rigged.

Everything's rigged with this guy.

It's not rigged.

The election is rigged, the primary is rigged, the debates are rigged.

When are white men born to great wealth going to catch a break in the

middle of the river?

Everything is always so rigged against him.

It's not only that.

I mean, they literally say if the moderator holds him accountable for facts, that's rigging.

That's bias.

If you actually say, this is a fact, this is not a fact, that is bias.

Because talking about facts in the world of Donald Trump is biased.

And you hold the bias.

You see the double standard.

You see the double standard with health.

You look at Hillary, she had pneumonia, and everyone thinks she's on death's door.

And Trump, this walking aneurysm.

Somehow we look at him like he's John Hamm.

I don't know who's doing that.

Who's doing that?

Right, Huffy.

I mean, the man looks like he is one widow maker heart attack away

and somehow we look at him like he's Bruce Wayne.

Well

I love his comment.

I eat fast food because at least I know what's in it.

Poison, piss, and shit.

But I know it and I eat it.

I mean, yes, I agree with you.

I mean, that

funny.

Okay, so

he is for profiling.

That's what he said.

But he said we should do it the way Israel does.

And like every once in a while, Donald Trump says something right.

Because we profile already.

We just do it stupidly.

All police work is profiling.

Discrimination does not mean prejudice.

Discrimination means telling unlike things apart.

Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying, I'm profiling.

There's a difference between, okay, a bulletin goes out and it's a person who's African American or Muslim or something, or not Muslim, who's brown, and you look for brown people instead of white people.

Okay, that's one thing.

The profiling he's talking about, which he has said in this primary and this general election,

is to basically

scrutinize all the mosques,

look for all Muslims, have a Muslim ban.

And I think the thing here is this isn't an issue about people's feelings, it's about what's effective.

And it has been shown to be ineffective to basically make Muslims feel like they're the enemy.

Of course, but the FBI was told by this guy's father, who again should get a parade.

Yeah, Yeah, I agree.

Told by this guy's, I think my son's a terrorist.

And he's reading a lot of stuff about terrorism, and he's a big fan of bin Laden.

These are trouble signs.

I mean,

shouldn't, I mean, come on.

I don't want to come down too hard on the FBI, but

also he went to Pakistan

and stayed for a year.

But they investigated

to visit Syria.

Which just passed a law on how to beat your wife.

Not what should happen to you if you do.

How to beat your wife.

This is the thing, right?

The problem with what Trump says on these policy things, the times that he does actually try to verge into policy, is that he's almost the worst caricature of what a conservative policy position might be.

So it actually makes it more difficult to have a conversation about profiling.

So let's talk about profiling for a minute.

What they do in Israel is they do behavioral profiling, right?

They say, hey, this guy is walking through an airport with an empty suitcase.

It's a little strange.

They're not out there just saying, hey, you look Muslim, why don't we profile you?

Also, what they do is they hire really smart people.

This is not the TCA, which just guys giggling at your balls when they're looking at the screener.

You know, if we would pay people $100,000 to do this job, we could get the kind of people who do it in Israel.

And again, we're just talking about a few questions.

We're not talking about the rubber hose or sending you to a black site.

I mean, I don't think this is too much of a sacrifice.

This is one of the fundamental problems we have with national security in this country, and indeed with all civilization in this country, is that we don't understand that it's expensive and we all have to pay for it.

And this is the first time we had a major tax cut in the middle of a war.

That's not what you do.

You have a tax increase to pay for the war so you can hire the right people to do the right job.

You can't hire people who couldn't get a job at Starbucks to look for terrorists.

That's not how it works.

All right.

So,

well said, sir.

All right, so I mentioned that George Herbert Walker Bush, Poppy Bush, the patriarch, what is he, 92 now or 94?

He's up there.

There he is.

He is going to vote for Hillary, and of course, Trump took this well.

Of course he did.

I'm joking.

They got into a Twitter war.

Do you believe that?

Would you like to hear the Twitter war that Bush 41 is in with Donald Trump?

Okay.

So as soon as Trump heard that Bush was voting for Hillary, he tweeted out, Bush 41's mind is shot.

That's why he's voting for crooked Hillary.

And then 41 shot back, hey, Donald Trump, if you're any more mentally ill, Texas would execute you.

It's a war.

It's a Twitter war.

Trump, if I want any shit from you, I'll look in your adult diaper.

Bush, I'm rubber your glue.

Whatever you say bounces off me and gets stuck in your hair.

Hashtag bad weave.

Trump, I like presidents who don't throw up on the prime minister of Japan.

Bush, I couldn't help it.

He was wearing one of your ties.

Trump, I don't know which one of your sons is worse, low energy or low IQ.

Bush, your sons look like the bad guys in Miami Vice.

Trump, too bad you won't be alive to see a President Trump.

Bush, if there's a President Trump, no one will be alive.

Trump, my wife's a 10.

Yours is a 1910.

Bush, at least I didn't pick mine out of a catalog.

Trump, Bush Library sounds like an adult bookstore.

Bush, hey, where do you put your foot when you need your mouth to blow Vladimir Putin?

Mic Drop.

All right.

His latest album with this man Spearhead is Soul Rocker, and his new video, good to be alive today, is up on michaelfronte.com.

Please welcome Michael Fronte, ladies and gentlemen.

Hey, there he is.

How are you, brother?

Great to see you.

Yeah.

How are you?

I am so happy to be here.

Really?

When, you know, my friends found out that I was going to be here, I had at least six of them say,

bring Bill a bag of weed.

Like, I need a bag of weed.

But I'll take it.

Well, you know, that's the thing.

I always think of you, and I listen to music all the time.

By the way, you know, I do about 60 to 70 stand-up dates a year.

And you have walk-in walk-in music, you know, while the audience is coming in.

One of your tracks is always on my walk-in music.

Really?

Either east to west.

Nice.

Okay.

So we don't stop.

That's a great one.

It always gets the people up.

Because, you know, it's funny, you have such happy music, but it also has a very political message.

It's kind of hard to get.

At the front of my show, I just have a

tape of me.

I have a Bill Maher cutout.

Yeah.

People can just come and take a selfie with Bill.

But I always think you're Jamaican because you have a reggae flavor in

your music

and you like weed.

You have a great song, Ganja Babe.

I mean, I love that record.

You know my whole catalog.

I do.

I am a very big fan of yours.

I don't have people on who I don't like because I don't lie.

I can't lie like the other hosts and go, wow, you're great if I don't think you're great.

That's the only thing that ever prevented you from becoming an actual politician.

Right.

Many things, like the bag of weed.

But what was I asking you?

I don't know.

Oh, you're not Jamaican.

We were talking about short-term memory loss as a result of ganja.

But you're not Jamaican, are you?

No.

But you seem like you should be.

What is it?

I don't know, man.

Yeah.

It's a reincarnation.

I spent a lot of time in Jamaica.

We made a lot of records in the day.

Oh, you did.

Okay, there, there it is.

But not everybody with dreadlocks is Jamaican.

Okay.

So,

you know, it's funny because I'm listening to your new album, which is great, just like your old ones.

And even when you have like a love song, it does get to the political message.

You know, that first track about I'm crazy for you.

And then you get into the themes.

Like one of your big themes is always something I agree with totally: militarism.

Militarism.

Too much money spent on.

Too much money spent on

arms and guns.

Of all the discretionary spending that's done in Congress, which is the amount of money that Congress votes on each year to spend, 51% is spent on the military.

And everything else combined, you know, healthcare, education, even veterans, roads, all the other stuff is lumped into that other 49%.

And I just feel like at times it would be great to see more money from the military go into education, go to veterans, go to health care.

Well,

you know.

Which is especially true because that money is not needed.

I think I said it last week on the state.

Well, that's not about defense, it's about defense.

Contractors.

And that's the thing that pisses me off.

I'm giving you X amount of dollars, and out of each of those dollars, it's going to

a giant new hummer.

Right.

Well, yeah, absolutely.

That costs $20 billion.

And of course, if you listen to Trump and the other Republicans, not just him, they all say,

we have to restore our depleted military.

Our depleted military.

We have the most outrageous rock with your cock out,

knock your dick in the dirt mass murder machine the world has ever seen.

It's so ridiculous that they can sell that, and nobody looks into the facts and goes, oh yeah, maybe it isn't depleted.

As if they're out there having a lemonade stand and a baked cookie baked.

Right, exactly.

It's just the depleted helicopter.

okay so you know you're a tireless worker for the poor as i said and you do it without shoes on i mean you have no shoes you do everything

you you do everything yeah we do every

everything without shoes uh because

this has been going on since you know 2000

because you are in support of people who don't have shoes i started traveling to different countries in the world where people couldn't afford to wear shoes and i tried to play soccer with them i'd take my shoes off and i couldn't even take three steps.

I was like, ouch, ouch, ouch.

So

I decided I would go three days at home just to see what it was like to be barefoot.

So I did a shoe fast, so to speak, in San Francisco.

And I found out that,

well, the first thing I learned is that

stepping in dog shit is

worse barefoot than if you have shoes on.

Yeah.

But

I started going for three days, then I went for a week, then I went for a month and a year, and now it's been been 16 years that I've been barefoot, just kind of in solidarity with people who can't afford shoes.

And with that 10-year mark, I started partnering with an organization called Souls for Souls that collects shoes and brings, I started after Hurricane Katrina, and they collect shoes and bring them to 62 countries around the world whenever there's natural disasters that occur.

Well,

that's pretty good.

It's with a bag of weed in it, too.

I was going to say, are you sure you just haven't misplaced your shoes?

You know, the other day,

we're doing some, I live in an old warehouse in San Francisco, and we've kind of been renovating it bit by bit.

So we're going through some, putting in some sheetrocks, there's dust all over the house.

And I come in the house and my wife is like, make sure when you come in the house, you put on your shoes so you don't get dust in the bed.

And then take them off before you get in the bed.

The opposite of what most people.

Okay.

So

let's talk about the cops because your brother is i have a brother who's a police officer a brother who's a police officer and uh and he's african american yes this is interesting because i mean in the shootings we saw this week again uh we see a african american police chief in charlotte some sometimes some of the people who do the shooting are african americans yeah it looks like when you wear blue it's thicker than black

No, I mean the police.

You know,

I come from a very unique family situation.

My father is African American and Native American.

My mother is Irish, Belgian, and German.

But you're adopted.

I was adopted.

I'm insisting.

I'm insisting on that.

I was adopted by a Finnish American family, second generation from Finland.

And my mother had three kids of her own.

Then she adopted myself and another African-American son.

I have one sister who's a lesbian.

I have a brother who's a police officer.

And this makes you

uniquely authorized to say that not all cops are bad people.

No.

Not all black people are criminals.

And not all white people are racists.

But it seems like in the news, the way that it gets played out is you have to be on one side or the other, as if you can't have compassion for a mother whose son was shot by police and at the same time have compassion for cops who go to work every day and have to do one of the toughest jobs in the world.

It is what...

Okay.

Well.

But it's but it's not one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.

They have stats on that.

Okay.

It's not in the top ten.

Things like fishermen, electrician, cab drivers, those daredevils.

Yeah, but the fish don't have open carry laws.

Yeah.

Look, I could never be a cop, and I admire that they can.

But look,

you have to do it better.

No doubt.

And I say this in support that the

shooting in Tulsa, the woman cop who shot the guy, now she is charged with manslaughter.

I mean, she shouldn't have done that.

But I must say, she is also a victim.

She's a victim of bad police training.

Police do not train the way they should.

You know, if you're that nervous, you can't do this job.

The Charlotte shooting, which...

We have some video, this happened today.

This is the cell phone tape of the guy's wife who was shot.

We don't need to show it, I guess.

He doesn't have a gun.

He has a TBI.

He's not going to do anything to you guys.

Keith, don't you do it.

Did you shoot him?

He bet not be fucking dead.

Okay, we don't know whether he had a gun, but even if he did, you don't have to kill every time somebody does something that makes you nervous.

We have to train our police to not be that guy who just empties the clip.

And you know

if i was the police academy i would say wait till later in the encounter before you shoot they seem to be teaching shoot first thing in the encounter yeah and i think that i mean i think the truth here is that we actually have police who have been better trained in parts of the country and the the reality here is that it seems in in all of these instances when we have african-american man after african american man after african american man killed by police what's happening is there's a moment and in that moment the police officer just assumes the African American man is a threat.

And we have to get the training that does exist elsewhere to say that African American man is not necessarily a threat as a human.

There's a lot of use of force training.

And there's an issue of implicit bias and there needs to be guidelines across the country about how to use force.

And there's also this idea that any black man, if they did some minor infraction infraction and then got shot, deserved it.

Like as if it was a death penalty to just be having your hands on the steering wheel instead of giving your license immediately.

But it's also not helpful to police.

It's not, I mean,

when the African-American community or any community feels threatened by police, it actually makes policing much harder to do.

And it threatens more police over long term.

People are doing a good job.

And also, by the way.

It's an open carry state, North Carolina.

So we apparently live in this country where it's open carry really just for white people.

And also,

by the way,

it's open angry just for white people.

Because like when you talk to the Trump people, they're angry.

And then the media, they talk about it like that's a virtue.

Oh, yeah, Trump's tapping into their anger.

It's good to be angry.

But black people can't be angry.

They can't protest.

Let me, I'm sure you saw, there was

a congressman, Robert Pittinger, today, yesterday, said black protesters, quote, hate white people because white people are successful and they're not.

And then, let's show the tape of Kathy Miller.

She's Trump's main surrogate, I guess campaign manager in the key county in Ohio.

And this is what she says about black folks.

Racism until Obama got elected.

We never had problems like this.

You know, I'm in the real estate industry.

There's There's none.

Now, you know, with the people with the guns and shooting up neighborhoods and not being responsible citizens, that's a big change.

And I think that's the philosophy that Obama has perpetuated on America.

I think that's all his responsibility.

And if you're black and you haven't been successful in the last 50 years, it's your own fault.

Yeah.

There's going to be no.

But this is great because if she's right, we only have what, a few more months of crime and racism.

Once he's out of it, we go back to the good old days.

When Hillary becomes president,

then that's when we'll get sexism.

There's no sexism.

Because we've never had sexism before.

You know,

I think that the Trump,

one of the things about the Trump candidacy is it has surfaced a certain amount of sort of, it's okay to say these things, right?

A lot of them.

And, you know, I think, look, look, I think if we're being honest about this,

it's up to people across the political spectrum to say, you know, it's not okay.

And to vote.

It's not okay.

Yeah.

We'll work on that.

We'll work on that.

But no, look.

You don't get a protest vote in a democracy.

You don't get a protest.

That's a tantrum vote.

Well, it's not a tantrum vote.

That's a tantrum vote.

Because how can I go to the polls and vote for someone who I don't believe in?

Because I don't believe in the democratic leader of this city.

I say to you what I say to my 11-year-old.

You get what you get and you don't get upset.

I'm not upset.

I'm not a democracy.

Sam, I am

a citizen.

I am going to happily vote

whomever I vote for.

You don't want to vote.

I have a list of countries.

It's bigger than just not voting for somebody you believe in.

It's that Trump is so dangerous.

Trump is so crazy that you can't possibly let him in.

And so I don't understand if you feel that way.

This isn't apples and oranges.

This is apples and having your house burned down.

You don't want to vote.

There's a list of countries where you don't have to do that.

Fair enough.

But my point is this.

It's glad you came on, okay?

No, I mean, look, we need you,

we need moderate Republicans like you.

I get what you're saying.

But my point is, I cannot in good conscience also go into the voting booth and vote for someone who I don't believe in.

Can you?

That's my problem.

Right, but can you

do that?

You can watch nukes and our Supreme Court commands on balance.

I live in California.

All right.

If I lived in a different state,

I'd have to think really hard about this.

You'd have to think really hard.

I would.

I would.

I would think really hard.

Let me tell you something.

Republicans, above all, love money.

You know, I just

going to wipe out your bank account even before he takes office.

Think about that.

All right.

Time for new rules.

True.

I totally believe that.

I get out of the stock market.

All right.

New rules.

Stop worrying about what's going to happen to high school English teacher Jennifer Green Johnson, who was suspended for allegedly telling a student to grow some balls,

calling another student a bitch, and asking another, why don't you lick me where I fart?

She's been hired by Hillary to help with debate prep.

New rule, my car needs quieter locks.

Geez, I'm on TV every week calling out uptight white people.

Looks bad when I'm idling next to a bus stop and people hear.

Neural, now that Tom Hanks has played a Navy captain, an Army captain, a container ship captain, and now an airline captain, let's just get it over with and go right to making Tom Hanks is Cap and Crunch.

Neural, whoever made this naked Donald Trump statue deserves an award for authenticity.

It looks so much like the real thing that Melania closed her eyes and fucked it while thinking about money.

Maybe true.

Could be.

Could be.

Neural, someone has to tell the Australian woman who spent $500 on surgery for her goldfish that there's a reason it looks good as new.

It is new.

Lady, there's no such thing as goldfish surgery.

You should have realized that when you were in the waiting room and you heard this.

And finally, new rule, next time Apple wants to do something truly innovative and really think different, they should try not releasing a new phone.

Because somebody has to teach Americans that we don't always have to have something new or better every year, or in the case of our upside-down economic system, every quarter.

The only people who really need you to get a new phone every year are the shareholders.

But just because they need to sell it so they can jerk off the stock price, doesn't mean you have to stand in that nerd line and buy it.

You're not early adapting.

In fact, quite the opposite, you're taking too long to catch on.

Now,

before we go any further, I know what the people on the nerd line are thinking.

Oh, Bill, how can you say the iPhone 7 is the same as the 6?

The old phone had an A9 processor and a camera with an aperture of 2.2, and the new one has an A10 and a 1.8.

Sorry, not sorry.

And

the old phone weighed 143 grams, the new one 138.

I guess you could keep lugging around a 143-gram phone in your pocket if you want your ass to stick out like black china.

You like the way I channel the nerd in my head?

Okay.

All right.

So you.

I get it.

I get it.

The new phone, a thing of wonder.

They made the camera work better in low light, which, let's face it, is only going to encourage Anthony Weiner.

But the question I'm asking is, do your friends really need clearer pictures of your lunch?

You've already got in your hand a device that has all your email, all your music, the internet, GPS, takes pictures, gets you laid,

gets you a car and driver when you're drunk, films cops when they shoot you.

And oh yeah, it's a phone.

It does everything but scratch your nuts for you, and I'm sure there's an app for that.

It has Pokemon Go and Grindr, an app which enables guys to Pokemon and Go.

So why do I keep seeing headlines like, why Apple needs a new hit?

The bad news on Apple's stock is only beginning.

Is a new iPhone enough to snap Apple's sales slump?

Sales slump?

Since 2007, that phone has made over $621 billion.

To put that into perspective, take the amount of money Donald Trump has given to charity and add $621 billion.

Americans keep asking, why doesn't our economy work for people like me?

Because it's not designed to.

Because somewhere along the way, we bought into this insane idea that everything always has to get bigger, especially sales.

Having a really good year and then just repeating it, not good enough.

In corporate America, the stock market is the tail that wags the dog.

Growth, growth, holy growth is the only thing that ever matters.

Better than last quarter.

Beat expectations.

Eat more hamburgers.

For Apple, revolutionizing the world wasn't enough.

That was last quarter.

And it's not just them, it's every company.

Do you ever wonder, for example, why shaving needs to keep reinventing itself?

Men used to shave with a sharp rock, and Keanu Reeves still does.

Then there was the straight razor, then the single blade, then the double blade razor, three blades, and now the quattro.

Let me tell you something, if you've got something on your face that doesn't come off after three blades,

that's not a whisker, that's a tumor.

Or look at that Wells Fargo scandal.

It's that very pressure for growth, constant endless growth, even when you're filthy rich, that led them into a crime where they cheated and deceived their customers.

Now fortunately Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found out and put a stop to it or as I see it cowboy zero Indians won.

All right that's our show.

I'll be at the Mirage in Las Vegas September 30th and October 1st.

I want to thank Max Brooks, Buddy Chen, Naritin, Niriton.

I can't pronounce anybody's name right, but that's Ronkey.

And Maureen Dowd, I got that one right.

Join us now for overtime on YouTube.

Thank you, folks.

Watch 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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