Episode #401 (Originally aired 07/29/16)

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

Good afternoon.

Afternoon, time will be

real time.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Wow, I.

Well, I.

I know why you're happy tonight. The conventions are over.

And.

Thank you very much.

And history was made, right? One of our major parties,

one of our major parties nominated a woman and the other nominated a pussy. So, you know, it's going to be an interesting election.

Did you see Hillary's speech? I thought she was pretty good last night. I got to say,

she...

She laid out the choice for America. Do you want a woman who excels when the stakes are high or a guy who sells stakes and sounds like he's high.

But now by all measures, the convention very successful for the Democrats. I mean, their motto seemed to be, no constituency left behind, which is good.

You know, they checked off every one of the identity boxes, Latinos, blacks, gays, Muslim, Asian, dwarfs.

transgender, disabled. It was finally left up to Joe Biden to come out there and go, good evening, I'm a white guy with a dick.

Dickish white guys applauding. I like that.

Yeah, I'm a dick too.

Now I thought the guy who stole the show was the Muslim dad whose

son was killed in Iraq and he went up the boy did he read Trump his the riot act. He said, Donald Trump, you have never sacrificed anything or anyone.

And then he took out a copy of the Constitution, right? And he said, I will gladly lend you mine.

And

every bank in America said, bad idea.

Oh, it was a brutal night for Donald Trump. Hillary's attacks were pretty damn devastating.
I mean, usually to own a Republican like that, you have to be a Koch brother.

I thought her best line was when she said about Donald Trump, a man who can debate with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.

And

then Trump responded with a tweet.

This guy is just too easy. And not just a tweet, he tried to get all the other girls not to sit with Hillary at lunch.

His tweet was, Crooked Hillary made up facts about me, and making up facts about Donald Trump is Donald Trump's job.

Now

there was one little awkward moment at the convention last night. The cameras caught Bill Clinton nodding off

during Hillary. Just for a second, but you know, what could he have been thinking? Was it all a dream?

No, Katy Perry's tits really are that big.

That's what he was thinking. I kid the Clintons.

I love that.

Do you notice they were all decked out in patriotic colors? I don't know if they planned that, but Chelsea's dress was red, Hillary's suit was white, white, and Bill's balls were blue.

So, oh my good, I did.

But you know,

despite a few heckles, I really thought the convention did come together behind Hillary Clinton. I mean, you saw the signs throughout the hall with all her slogans, and she does have a lot of slogans.

You know, you saw, I'm with her, ready for Hillary, stronger together, the other guy is Donald Trump. I mean, he's.

And the speech was also, I must say, notable for what it did not mention. She didn't mention Benghazi.
She didn't mention emails, didn't mention the

TPP.

She did come out for legalizing pot.

Or

at least that's the way I interpret it.

She said she wanted to plant seeds for future generations. What else could it mean?

All right, we got a great great show. Alex Wagner, Dr.
Cordell West, and Matt Welch are here. And a little later, we'll be speaking with my favorite congressman ever.
Barney Frank is backstage.

And first up, he is the senior senator from Vermont. He didn't quite make it to the nomination, but in my lifetime, I have never seen a candidate as beloved as Bernie Sanders, ladies and gentlemen.

Okay.

Well, Bernie, you can see why you're at the nominee. They hate you.

We always have to allow a little more extra time when Bernie is on, just for applause. But I want to ask you, Bernie, how do you rate the convention now that it's over?

Well, I think it was a good convention. I think it brought together people with different points of view within the Democratic Party, the progressives, the more conservatives, the moderates.

But I think what comes out of that convention, Bill, is the understanding that Donald Trump is the most dangerous presidential candidate in the modern history of this country and that he must be defeated.

And

I say that, Bill, not just because of his absurd views on so many issues. You know, he believes that climate change is a hoax.

He wants to give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the top 1%.

But above and beyond all of that, This guy is running his entire campaign based on bigotry, based on trying to divide us up, based on trying to insult Mexicans and Latinos and Muslims and women and African Americans.

Remember that this guy was one of the leaders of the so-called Bertha movement, which tried to delegitimize the first African-American president that we have ever had.

So this is a guy who is dangerous, who does not, I think that Muslim father of the young man who died in Iraq was absolutely right, that somebody like Trump does not understand the Constitution of the United States.

I think you see many Republicans who believe that as well. So this is a guy who must be defeated.

It's no secret, Bill, that Hillary Clinton and I have disagreements on a number of issues.

And what I intend to do the day after Hillary Clinton is elected President of the United States is to do everything I can to make sure that she goes forward as progressively as she can, maintaining the very strong democratic, progressive platform that we pass together.

Well, and I must say, unlike some of your supporters, I think that's why you are a great patriot, because you brought it right back to the central issue. We have to defeat Donald Trump.

You are a warrior, sir, and the hardest thing for a warrior to do is to fall on his sword. But you did.
You have come in line with the idea that we have just two choices.

And, you know, I think of Al Gore

after the 2000 election when the Supreme Court made that decision, Donald Trump

wouldn't have gone away quietly.

Al Gore did the patriotic thing, and you are doing the patriotic thing.

But

it's not just, I think, the right thing to do for the moment. I think what we have got to do, and I said this as best I could in Philadelphia, is that we must continue the political revolution.

We must continue to bring millions of people into the political process to stand up, to take on the billionaire class, to fight for economic and social and racial and environmental justice.

And that fight must continue the day after the election because fundamental changes, transformational changes, Bill,

take time to happen. They don't happen overnight.
And that movement has got to continue.

And what we are doing, by the way, is converting our movement from a presidential campaign to a movement that tries to activate the American people and get young people to start running for office for school board and city council and state legislature.

That is a continuation of the political revolution.

All right, well,

let me follow up on a couple of things you said. You said the movement should continue.
You mentioned young people. Now, I was on with Chris Matthews a couple of weeks ago.

We were talking about you, and the assumption from him was that you could not run again because you're 74. And I said, Chris, you're 70.
I'm 60. If anybody should not be ageist, it's it's us.

I must push back against this idea that people in their 70s are at the end and that you're just dribbling down to the last few days of your life.

People treat their bodies differently as they go through life. They are very different in their alertness, in their health, and there is no reason why you can't run again, from what I see.

What do you think of that? Well, I mean, thank you very much, but it is four years from now is a long time off from now.

My

term ends in two years as a U.S. Senator from Vermont, everything being equal, I intend to run for re-election.
from Vermont, a state that I love very, very much.

But what I will tell you is whatever my political future may or may not be, I will be fighting as hard as I can to stand up for a declining middle class, to take on the grotesque levels of income and wealth inequality that we're seeing right now, to demand that the United States join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to all people as a right to make public colleges and universities in this country tuition-free.

Those are issues that we have got to to continue the fight for.

Okay. I didn't hear the end of that because

people are always applauding you.

But I think I get the gist. All right.

So, you know, people were talking today a lot about the fact that at the convention last night when Hillary mentioned you and the night before when Obama gave you a shout out,

You didn't look too happy.

You know, you kind of didn't crack a smile.

You looked like a husband who was sitting there in the waiting room, you know,

while the wife tries on the clothes. I mean, outside the waiting room.
Not in the waiting room.

But the other moment I saw at the convention, which was the opposite, when your brother came on the stage.

No, when I was talking about you all year, I always said, Bernie Sanders is giving us a new deal. That is the only phrase that comes to mind.

He's saying, look, you pay a little more in taxes, but look at what you get, like more like a European democracy.

And your brother invoked the New Deal. He talked about your parents and their love of the New Deal and how you were carrying on that tradition.
And there we did see a lot of emotion.

You were for Klempt, Bernie. Come on.

Right? I mean, that got to you. What my brother reminded me of is how my parents who died young

might have felt at that moment. And obviously, that was something that

struck a deep chord in me. You know, we grew up in a family, didn't have a whole lot of money.
My father dropped out of high school. My mother never went to college.

I think the idea that her son might be a serious candidate for president of the United States is nothing that they ever would have dreamed of. So that's what struck a chord in me.
Okay.

Well, like I say, Bernie, you're not too old to run again.

Think about it. Bernie Sanders, everybody.
Thank you, Senator. I appreciate your time.
All right, let's meet our panel.

Hey.

How are you, brother?

You wore this suit for me. All right.
He's the editor-at-large of Reason Magazine. Matt Welch back with us.
Hey, Matt.

She is the senior editor of the Atlantic. Alex Wagner.
Hey, Alex. Great to see you again.

And he's an author and professor emeritus at Princeton University. What a panel.
Dr. Cornell West,

what a bunch of eggheads I got over here.

All right, don't forget to send us your questions for tonight's overtime so we can answer them after the show on YouTube. So, both conventions are over.
They looked nothing like one another.

You know, the Republican Convention, that could have been a convention from 1950. And I'm sure they wish it was.

Whereas the Democratic Convention, as I was joking in the monologue, what a rainbow coalition. And I think if 92 was, it's the economy stupid, this looked like it's race stupid.

I feel like I've never seen an election that was more about race. You agree with that, Doctor?

Yeah, but anytime you talk about race, you're talking about class and gender as well as empire because I was moved to see my dear brother Bernie Sanders.

You know, we spent almost a year together on the road. I have a deep, deep love for he and Sister Jane.
I bet you you have stories.

Oh, we got some wonderful stories.

But I do, I disagree with my brother in terms of his political revolution, being able to work through the Democratic Party. What I mean by that is that when he said a few months ago that

Hillary Clinton was unqualified, he said that in New York, I think he still had a point in this sense. that it's still a Wall Street party.

It's still tied to militarism. And I look at Hillary Hillary Clinton, even given his historic breakthroughs, beautiful thing, blow against male supremacy.
You say this to me for a while.

Well, I'm just looking for an editing.

But I look at Hillary Clinton from the eyes of the women and children who were pushed off welfare, from those in the mass incarceration regime, from those in Honduras, in Haiti, on the West Bank, under Israeli occupation, under Hillary.

She was not for kids in those contexts. You're such a complainer.
No, no, no, but it's just

telling the truth. But it's also a matter of this, though, brother.
Okay. Because we talk about just this choice between two.

If you had to choose between Donald Trump and David Duke, who would you choose?

Who would you choose? Would you choose Lester Edith? I think I'd write in Jill Stein.

I don't know. This is what I'm talking about.
But it's not the choice between Donald Street. No, it isn't for me.

It isn't, but all I'm saying is if you're trying to rock people into just two choices rather than my sister Jill Franklin. I'm running for something because you just

started to get it. I'm running for justice, and I'm always running from the police.

Always running from the police. That's right.

Because that's not a joke either. Not allowed to talk about the police abuse and so forth.

Other than the mothers, I want to hear it from the candidates, not trotting out the mothers who had their tears. Let's hear it from the leaders.
Let's hear it from the people who got policy.

Really?

Yeah. Okay.
What did Obama have to say about police abuse and

not a moment land word? Your turn is up. Okay,

was the. Where are we now in the show?

Historians break through. I think we're up to new rules.
Yeah.

It's over. Show's over.

Was the Democratic Convention really lacking in that area? I thought they hit that note. Yeah, I mean,

I will say to your earlier first question about,

there was a moment, I don't know if a lot of people saw this, where

there was

a rainbow cast on stage. Right.
And the whole convention hall filled with the chorus of what the world needs now is love, sweet love.

And I think for Democrats in the hall, it was kind of this emotionally cathartic moment.

I can also imagine Republicans who had this conclave about ISIS a week earlier in Cleveland probably looked at that and been like,

that's exactly the problem. They think what we need now is love, and what we need now is to arm our exactly.

And I think for people like, you know we went to both conventions to go from one to the other was emotionally like incredibly disjunctive it was taxing to go from Cleveland to Philly and just see the huge gulf that exists my big surprise comparing the two I did not expect the Democratic convention to be the one with the loudest dissent on the floor I really expected there to be a lot of anti-Trump sentiment and there was in the rules committee stuff Mike Lee very passionately you know they got they kind of got screwed on a roll call vote and these kind of things but after that it it was pretty disciplined.

The Hillary Clinton speech last night, which I don't share your assessment of being all that strong, she has to try to do two things at once, which is really difficult.

One is to bring in all the Bernie supporters who are a little restive, and at the same time, a lifeline to Republicans who think Donald Trump is crazy, right?

So she's talking here, and there was probably 25 different chants, most of them emanating from the California delegation, of no more war. And they're immediately drowned out with Hillary.

So that's what you guys heard at home. But there's all these people.
Think about what Bernie Sanders did not say either in this interview or in his speech. He did not use the words foreign policy.

He did not say war. He did not say surveillance.
He did not say drug war or marijuana or all the civil libertarian stuff that's very important to people like me and you and everybody here.

It was absent as part of the whole unity thing. And so there's a lot of Bernie supporters, a minority maybe, but a strong and very passionate minority who are upset about that.
And for good reason.

And for good reason. That's the militarism that I'm fearful.

I think this, and I was doing some reporting on this in Cleveland. There are a lot of young kids who are Bernie supporters and delegates who understand electoral reality and institutional reality.

And are not, actually. And they feel angry that the media has portrayed them as nihilists who want to blow up the party and are going to vote for Trump.

And I think, you know, yes, there were a lot of rabble rousers in the hall.

If you're going to pick the rowdiest people, like the rowdiest people are naturally going to be inclined to go to the convention and make noise.

But I think the vast majority of Sandra supporters sort of understand the stakes here and have been sort of wrongly.

But once Hillary got the nomination, shouldn't they have shut the fuck up? You know, I mean,

at what point, what are they serving at that?

And also, she said some great things that I think if he said, they would have cheered. She said she's not singing his speech in some ways.

She has a way of giving lip service to these progressive issues. We want to know what has she done on the ground for poor and working people.
That's the question. I think, you know, I'm going to

say that. I'm going to Barney Frank answer that.
But

Hillary Clinton, really, you think, has done nothing for poor and no, I didn't say nothing. I said she has not done what people say in terms of her being this great champion for poor people.

That's a lie. But there's only

two items on the menu. No, we got three.
We got Jill Stein. Hold up a sec.
We got four. We got four.
We got Gary. The third one is four.
Okay. You got Gary Gary? We got two and a half

quarters who have any chance of becoming president.

It looks that way, but Bernie started with 3% too. Yeah, Bernie.

So you think Jill Stein is going to be president? Look me in the eye and tell me that.

We shall see.

But it's going to be tough. No.
It's going to be tough.

But part of it is this, though, brother, you got to draw a line in the sand. When I raised the question to you about David Duke

and Donald Trump, in your own mind, you had to draw a line in the sand. I draw a line in in the sand.
It's not a dumb analogy.

It's not dumb at all because all that just shows under certain conditions, you wouldn't make a choice between two folks that you refuse to.

Let me, as long as we're doing analogies, let me give you an analogy. Okay, let's work with you.
You're on a train station. Yeah.
Right here in L.A., you want to go to San Francisco.

There's a wedding up there. You got to get there.
There's one train that's going to San Francisco, but it's a little slower than the one you want.

There's one other train leaving, but it's not going to San Francisco. It's going to hell.

Come here.

Wait a minute. Let me finish.
Let me finish. I let you finish, Durance.

Okay.

That's not fair.

It's not going to hell. It's going to San Diego, which is a lovely city.

But it's not where you want to go. You want to go to San Francisco.
The only other train is going in the opposite direction.

Do you get on the train that's going in the direction you want to go, but slower, or do you go to San Diego? Well, let me answer the question. Can I just answer the question?

I love this analogy, though, but let's look at it this way. Back to Brother Matt's point.

The Clinton train, Wall Street security surveillance, militaristic,

not going in the same direction I'm going. It's just better than a neo-fascist like Trump.
That's the thing. You really think Hillary Clinton is on the same spectrum as a neo-fascist?

No, I said neo-fascist like Trump. Right, but you think she's in...
Okay, I'll call it. She's a neoliberal.

She's a neoliberal. Okay.
I'm not calling her neo-fascist. I'm glad.
Let's clarify that. Okay.

But I do believe neoliberalism is a disaster.

I do believe that when it comes to poor people and when it comes to people in other parts of the world dealing with U.S. foreign policy and militarism.

Oh, absolutely. Ask the people in Libya about that.
Okay. Ask the people in the West Bank about that.
Okay.

But once again, Donald Trump is insane.

It's not just insane. He is insane.
He's a neo-fascist. That's just not insane.
He's getting crazy. No, no, no.

Neo fascist.

Not insanity. There's vicious hatred.
Here is his tweets. He said about Hillary, I was curious to see whether she'd do a class act and not mention my name or mention it with respect

after their convention was basically lock her up and it is your patriotic duty if you see her to kill her. Okay.

He also said, I'll tell you, I think I have the best temperament or certainly one of the best temperaments, of anyone that's ever run for the office of president. Named Donald Trump.

Fun thing. Literally.
Fun fact about temperament. A majority of his own supporters, when you break it down by poll, say he does not have the temperament.

His supporters does not have the temperament to be a United States president. He doesn't have the temperature.
They support him anyways, which is a very interesting thing.

He may not have the temperament to tweet, though.

On Twitter, and he should be allowed to access his own Twitter account.

He should be on a park bench feeding kids. I mean,

the idea that we're... That's a lot like the office of president.

I loved what Hilary said last night. She quoted Jackie Kennedy about little men moved by fear and pride.

You know,

that was beautiful.

He can walk back a tweet. You can't walk back a nuclear launch.
Well, I also think the word little has particular resonance when it comes to Trump.

I mean, and I say that like, ha ha, but also humiliation is the the only way to puncture his balloon.

That's why Mike Bloomberg got under his skin by suggesting that maybe he's not so rich, if you know what I mean. But they've been human.
What are you talking about?

It's not working. They've been golfing together for years.
Sure, sure.

They have golfed together, but to say they've been golfing together. Well, I'm not going to get together.
But the humiliation is not working. Let's get it.

He's at best, or at worst, tied with Hillary. Even after their connection to him.
It's too easy to view him as an isolated individual and bash him.

He's speaking to the pain in the country because white working class brothers have been overlooked by globalization, by these trade deals. You got to speak to them to pull the rug from under him.

It's easy to bash him individually. Everybody knows he's xenophobic and mediocre and navel-gazing and a whole lot of other things.
But somehow he's got all these people behind him.

But I mean, wait,

mediocre? You're nicer to him than you are to Hillary.

Did I say Hillary was mediocre? What? Hillary is brilliant. She's smart.
She just doesn't have a whole lot of integrity.

That's a very different kind of judgment. But

he brings up a point which is very interesting.

The Republican Party under Trump, which is now completely transformed or largely transformed, the RNC chair, Reince Priebus, went up and said, and we have a nominee who will punish American companies for moving factories overseas.

That is now the Republican Party position, the party that was supposed to be for international trade and capitalism. So they are fighting the Democrats on the same kind of anti-trade bill.

That's a big word. He also wanted to punish women who got abortions, if you recall.
Right. These people on the right who claim they love freedom, they don't love freedom.

They want an authoritarian who will install exactly what they believe. Although Hillary Mush, anyone who...
But Hillary Clinton also said that

she would punish American companies who go overseas in her speech, too. So both sides are now doing that as their own.
Yeah, but the putative language on the right is so much more pronounced.

And I think that the thing that is disturbing about things like events like Cleveland is just how cathartic this anger seems to be, how delicious it is for a certain subset of the electorate. And

you talk about offering an alternative.

Being mean and being divisive and cutting people down is incredibly intoxicating. And the more you do it, the easier it is to do.
And the question is, how do you counter that?

It is a really, it is pernicious, and it is very very much at the foundation of his candidates. But you don't.

I don't know what fear, though. I have to cut you off.
Fear of Trump, Tom for Fritz. No, you got to have some hope.
You got to have some vision. And you got to have some comedy.

You know, one of our favorite

comedy bits is something called, I don't know it for a fact,

I just know it's true. Because

so many, thank you. I mean,

it happens so often in life, right? We say to ourselves, I don't know it for a fact, I just know it's true. So we have tonight special convention edition.

I don't know it for a fact. I just know it's true.
For example, I don't know for a fact that the celebrities from the Republican convention were catering the Democratic convention.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that Donald Trump buys his furniture from dictator warehouse. I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that if you took a drink every time a Democrat said, our children, you'd never be able to have children. I just know it's true.
Oh my God.

I don't know for a fact that in order to prepare for the role of American psycho, Christian Bale followed Eric Trump around for a month.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that the only thing Debbie Wasserman Schultz fears more than Bernie Sanders supporters is humidity.

Don't read ahead. I just know it's true.
I don't know for a fact that every time Ben Carson mentions Jesus, Jesus throws up a little in his mouth

and says, please shut the hell up. I just know that's true.

I don't know for a fact that Scott Bayo thinks Trump is going to appoint him Secretary of Television. I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that Donald Trump will, in fact, appoint Scott Bayo Secretary of Television.

Just know it's true. I don't know for a fact that Hillary's main fashion inspiration is the teletubbies.
I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that Rudy Giuliana prepared for his speech by studying the Tasmanian devil. I just know it's true.
All right, he is the former 16-term U.S. rep from Massachusetts.

He's a surrogate for Hillary Clinton, the evil one. Please welcome Barney Frey.

Barney.

Boy, my friend. Always great to see you.

Well, Barney. You were in good company at the Democratic Convention.
I heard you booed. And everybody.
I was booed. I didn't boo.
I was the booey.

I'm saying you were booed, booed and so many people I like were booed. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie himself was booed.

What about this purity in the Democratic Party?

Well I would ask people on the question of what's the effective way to get social change? How much compromise should you make? How hard should you fight? And then in the end, what should you do?

Let me suggest a role model. Bernie Sanders.

I am puzzled as to why people who correctly saw saw in him a smart, tough, disciplined advocate for change have now decided that it doesn't know what he's talking about.

Why did Bernie Sanders, who was such a great exemplar of how to bring about fundamental social change, lose all his credibility to some of his supporters?

I just wish they would follow through with Bernie Sanders. I also would say, by the way, and I understand the

terrible choice. that Quenel proposed, but I would differ with it in this regard.
You said, what did Hillary Clinton ever do, the poor people? Here's what happened to the Clinton administration.

The first thing we did was to raise taxes on the rich. The Clinton administration got that through by one vote in both houses, no Republican.

We lost some votes over it, but the Congressional Budget Office ruled that the taxation system became less regressive, more progressive as a result of that in 93. We raised the minimum wage.

Hillary Clinton. It can't help poor people.
Yes, of course it did. Of course.

And we raised the minimum wage. And in terms of health care, Hillary Clinton took a hit because, and by the way, people forget she was generally seen as the left wing of the Clinton administration.

She pushed not just for universal health care, but when that failed, she came up with one of the most important improvements for poor people we've ever seen. Children's Health.

The Children's Health Program. So

it's not a question of, and as far as Wall Street is concerned, this notion that because she got paid after being in office by Wall Street,

Donna Bash asked a great question. She asked Senator Sanders, how did that affect her policies? I am obviously happy with much of what we did in the financial reform bill.

We have the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Just today there was a story about how they're protecting people against abusive debt collection practices.
She's been a strong supporter of that.

And in the period since she was Secretary of State, when the Republicans have tried to weaken that bill, she has worked hard to strengthen it.

That's why Elizabeth Warren and she worked so well together. So I defy anyone to show me how she had any way on public policy not done that.

Now the question is, okay, does she give speeches and get money from Wall Street? And let me say perhaps my view that that is not terrible is colored by the fact that so do I. I am retired

and I'll tell you why they say, but why do they give you the money? I have no influence left with, I don't vote on it anymore. You know why they give me money? I'll tell you why they give me.

You give Wall Street speeches? Yes.

The author of Dodd-Frank with your name on the bill. And they come to me and they want me to talk about it and what I think about it.
And they don't come to me because they're making me.

I talk to them for the same reason I'm here. I'll be arrogant.
I'm interesting. So people pay.
People pay.

But in terms of Hillary Clinton, there is zero sign that

there are no public policy issues she does. And again,

I'll cite Bernie Sanders as the best way to bring about social change. And it's to do two things.
It's to vote for Hillary Clinton in November, and as he said, keep up the movement.

On the day after the election, have a late lunch and then go back to doing that same kind of work.

And let me make this point, as opposed to the Jill Stein approach, who has done more to bring about significant change in the last few years? Jill Steiner Bernie Sanders.

He did by getting into the process. He's already made progress.
And now he says the point, the best thing to do is to capitalize on what we've done and write that into law and take up the fight again.

Jill Stein is now in her, I don't know, she's kind of Harold Stassen, her protest candidates.

She's in her, I don't know how much run for office, and she'll come and she'll go and she'll have no impact. Well, no, can I say a little word of that? Absolutely.
Because, I mean, one thing I'll...

Bernie used up all this time with one

docker.

Which is why we love him. But Brother Franks is right.
He's very interesting. And it's always fascinating to listen to you.
Would you?

Can I get a speaking fee out of this?

But I'll know one thing. Wall Street didn't pay you $225,000.
No, I'm a little jealous of him.

All right.

But the point is this, but you don't want to confuse movement activity with progressive on the inside.

And see, Bernie Sanders was distinctive because his campaign was accenting the movement among young people.

We know if all Americans under 30 were the only ones allowed to vote or under 35, he'd be president today.

It was a movement people. But once you get inside, and that's where it becomes...
Excuse me, you're wrong. That's where the seduction is.

Cornell, Bernie Sanders has been a, this is his 26th year in the Congress. He is a very effective guy who shows that the best way to have your movement.
Now let me finish. No, but

let me me finish. Let me finish.
I'm saying Bernie Sanders is able to work on both fronts. Yes.
Okay, we agree. He's an insider.
And that's much more effective than working only in the workforce.

That's not true. Are you denying the role of social movements in the making of America? I'm talking about abolitionism and civil rights movement.
I'm talking about all that.

You're changing the subject. No, Jill Stein.

I'm talking about. Jill comes out of the movement wing.
Jill Stein comes out.

Jill Stein hasn't come out before. I'm comparing right now Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders.

And I'm saying that his mode of being an activist, of mobilizing people, but working also within this system, and then at the moment when you have made progress saying, what do you do on Election Day, that that has been much more effective?

Bernie Sanders can take credit for things in the platform, for changes in the rules, for diminishing the number of superdelegates. Till Stein was a complaint.

Oh, but we already did some of that. But some of us have already accomplished nothing.

I'm talking about making a law. Also, activists do make.

No, but this is very important because all of the brothers

activists in the streets

do make can reshape the climate

activists make a difference

liberal I'm looking for you won't be here as a

What do you say? What do you say?

Jill Stein didn't go to jail. She goes to dinner.
I said what

Jill Stein doesn't go to jail. She went to dinner.
She's been to jail? What are you talking about? She has been to jail.

You were so

requisite. You were giving her a speech and she was going to jail.
I have been working.

Why do you have to go to jail? Yeah, why do you have to go? I mean, why is that a job? No, no, but just as an activist.

I mean, if you don't go to jail, you're nobody is a good person. No, but as a gay brother, you know, the gay movement in the streets made a difference for you to make your entree into the city.

No, but I started out. You can't deny Stonewall.
I started my gay work. From Stonewall.
Stonewall. But here's the deal.
And I'm glad you brought up the gay advice.

Because overwhelmingly, those of us who have fought for change for that are for Hillary Clinton in November, because we want a Supreme Court justice to break the tie in our favor on the question of using remittance rights against us.

Overwhelmingly, yes. And the LGBT movement, like Bernie Sanders and unlike Jill Stein, has been a combination of outside activity and then following through inside.

What I am rejecting is the model that says Elections are irrelevant because she's not an electoral serious candidate.

And the activism is helpful, but when it is tied to the kind of sensible political strategy, that's when it makes a difference.

Don't you hold it against her, though, that she only came around on gay marriage in, what, 2013? She supported

the Defense Marriage Act. Talking about Hillary.
Talking about Hillary Clinton, I said this last night. She is, if you're looking for the person who leads the parade, that is not who she is.

She is not that guy. That's right.
No national political,

no national Democratic political figure was for marriage earlier, not Barack Obama, not Joe Biden, New Jersey.

But here's the deal: when we had marriage in Massachusetts and the Republicans tried to have a constitutional amendment passed to wipe out same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, she helped us defeat it.

So she took a very strong position defending it, and that was essential because we needed that beachhead of showing how all these fears about same-sex marriage were nonsense so we could then persuade them.

Why was it so that no elected official would take a stand on something so fundamental as precious gay lesbians? I didn't say no elected officials. You said no national elected officials.

No, I said national white.

I said no national political figure. A lot of us who elected officials

are liberal icons like the woman talk. Yeah.

You need to be wearing all white to get any attention on this stage.

Well, no, but I would say respectfully, Dr. West, I mean,

you know, revolution and sort of outside activism, liberals have a pretty good lock on that.

What they don't have a particularly good handle on is is running for office, going into state legislatures, getting involved at the local level,

which, by the way, really matters if you're talking about all the ideals of the activist movement. And I think Bernie's message to go and run for office.

If Democrats had more governors, poor people would have more

care. Exactly.
Because it's Republican governors who have denied the Medicare expansion.

No, not every level.

Plenty of elected officials who have same-sex marriage for many, almost all Democrats, very few Republicans. Well, tell me that

I'm not going to be able to do that. Tell me for president.

Nobody who thought they could run for president doing that. But if you look at Hillary Clinton on every other LGBT issue, she has been great, marching in a gay pride parade in 2000.

And that's why I will just tell you, overwhelmingly, every gay and lesbian elected official in Congress, all of the activists and all the organizations, are deeply committed to her winning.

And I say, you start with the Supreme Court. And you said we didn't mention foreign policy.
I hadn't heard you talk about the Supreme Court. Oh, no, the Supreme Court is very important.

And Jill Stein's going to get me the right nominee? No. And also.

If she wins, she will. But she's not going to win, and we all know that.

She's not even going to get into the debates. Well, no, that's not true.
It is true. We don't know about that.

You're trying to go to San Francisco, and she's a local underground at Tallahassee. That's right.
But once again,

you're on the train platform.

Okay.

You've got to get to San Francisco. You're going to miss the wedding.

Okay, I like the fact that in 2010, the Democrats passed health care legislation that was the most progressive ever, and Dodd-Frank, I think, was the same year. Could have been more progressive.

Okay, everything could be better. No, can I just add? Public auction.
Public auction. Yes, and Hillary.
Well, we're seeing something three times out of.

Here's the problem. We passed both of those with no votes to spare.
Of course we want to do more, but I'm talking about the people who helped us win elections.

We should have, I would have liked to have done more in in both cases. I'm glad we were able to do it, and we did.
We literally didn't have a vote to spare. We didn't have the votes for that yet.

I hope we will by people running for office. Okay.
Not going to jail. Can I ask another question?

You got to do both. No.
Going to jail isn't going to get us a public option. Getting members of Congress is.

No, but that's the

politicians are shaped by the climate of opinion that the activists help create. Don't downplay the role of the activists.

We're not downplaying Hillary Clinton's platform looks like what it does today. But at this point, it's just a platform.
That's what it.

Nobody went to jail at all this suffering out here.

Nobody went to jail for the public option. That's an internal pressure fight that we've been fighting.
The National Nurses United have been going to jail for the last 50 years.

Let me ask you a question about something we agree on. We don't like Donald Trump.
Okay.

He is, as a candidate now, he is poised to get intelligence. Well, that's not what I meant to do.

I mean,

briefings.

Candidates get intelligence briefings from the CIA about national security issues, which is not a law, by the way. I think a lot of people think it's a law.

This is just a tradition that was started under Truman, that if you're the nominee, you get these briefings. And a lot of people are saying, we should not do that with Donald Trump.

He has no impulse control. They'll tell him something about national security.
He'll tweet it the next day.

That is the expectation. It will be on Twitter.
I mean, either through Donald Trump or China.

Well, but I have a question as to why he wants it, because she said, as Hillary Clinton alluded to, he knows more than the generals. So he should be briefing the generals.

I mean, if I knew more, if I knew more than somebody else, I wouldn't sit and listen to people who knew less than me.

True. Can I ask you a question about the generals, though? The General John Allen, four-star general, yesterday at the convention, it's a pretty remarkable scene.

He was barking about American exceptionalism, voice just hoarse, throbbing, talking about if you mess with America, we're going to come out and get you. There's flags all over the place.

And this is after a lot of talk about God. That was directly for you, Bill, I think.

And then while this was going on, there were people trying to start a No More War chant being shouted out by chants of USA. This was a Democratic convention.
Did you like that?

I'll be honest, I didn't see that too.

You know what I like?

I like that Hillary Clinton in her speech said, talking about ISIS, she said, it will not be quick and it will not be easy.

Which is realism, as opposed to Donald Trump, everything, it'll happen very quickly.

I'll watch ISIS very quickly, national debt very quickly, national debt very quickly.

I'll do everything very quickly.

That's his thing. He's like

the real housewife of New York, Mool. That's his thing.

I don't know what that is, but that's all he does every day. That's a gif.

I think there are a lot of Democrats who want to reclaim the mantle of patriotism. Why can't Democrats wave flags? I mean,

they do, and they are. And I think there are patriotisms.

And let me answer.

That would not have happened if Donald Trump wasn't playing footsie with Putin. And that's what's motivating many Democrats.
It is not simply... Sure.
Not just Democrats, by the way. That's a...

Well, you asked the Democratic Convention. The fact is that Putin is one of the worst people in the world today.
I think it's very interesting.

Donald Trump talks about standing up to China, he's not going to never,

but he makes love to Russia. Absolutely.

And so what you heard with General, and by the way, the notion that he's going to sit back and encourage this thug to do in Poland or Lithuania or

Latvia or Estonia what he did to Ukraine, that's what you had, that's why people were supportive. Not that we want to go to war, and I voted against the Iraq war.

I've been against these things, but encouraging this vicious thug to impinge on new democracies just to his west. That's what Donald Trump is doing.
It's a disgrace.

I think what Brother Matt was talking about, and I agree with you, but I think what Brother Matt was talking about was

he was talking about the militarism that goes with the waving of flags. I was in the Democratic National Convention.

USC, I am talking about waving wars. That's what you're also in mind.

That is because people have allowed flag waving to be imbued with militarism. Not all the time, but sometimes it is.
But how do you reclaim that not by actually visualizing?

Where in that platform is militarism? I didn't see any. And what I'm explaining.
No, but militarism was...

What did Hillary say about Libya? We came, we saw, we died. They sodomized the people.
I don't think she said that about Libya. I don't know.
With a knife. And he was a terrible.

Excuse me. It's a terrible dictator.
That can't go around solemizing folks with lives just because they're gangsters. Could that be your brother?

No, he's a gangster, but you don't do that to national leaders. But I'm explaining.

It was a violation of international law. We've got to have some moral support.
And that was the liberal law.

I've got to explain what I meant with Matt. I'm sorry, Bill.

You know what? Support militarism, too, with these invasions and occupation. It was Gaddafi who was oppressing millions of brown people.

So was Saddam Hussein? There's a whole lot of gangsters around the world. I'm around sodomizing them with knives.
Totally transforming. Wow.
Jesus Christ.

We've reached asdomizing with knives more short. I'm responding to the match.
I'm responding to a specific point. I listen to what people say and try to respond and not distort it.

He was asked, you have the chance, USA, USA. I am saying that Donald Trump's encouragement of Putin and

making America complicit in his brutality is what was behind those chances of USA, USA. Thank you, panel.
You are awesome.

Neuro,

you are coming back to the new one

after this show.

Neuro, my mechanic, must stop.

This seems so out of place now.

Neuro, my mechanic, must stop showing me the old part that he replaced. I don't know what it is, and you don't know what it is.

For all I know, it's like the bill, something you just pulled out of your ass.

Jesus.

I'm trying to find something we can agree on.

New rule, if you're a famous big box retailer with a pro-family reputation and you sell this massager at your store, and this one, and this one,

congratulations, you're in the sex toy business.

Neural, the makers of the new wine for cats called Pinot Meow,

which asks cat owners the question, why drink alone, have to understand something. This is infinitely more sad than drinking alone.

Neural, someone has to tell Bombay night frogs, which have been observed mating in a position called the dorsal straddle, where the male ejaculates on the female's back and she lets the sperm run down her back to fertilize her eggs, that they've been watching too much porn.

Neural, those new credit card chip readers have to read my chip faster. We used to be efficient shoppers.
You've turned us all into the old lady who wants to pay by check.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And then it starts beeping at me when it wants me to pull it out. Like if I leave it in too long, I'm going to make a MasterCard baby.

Come on, make this whole process go faster. This is L.A.
I've got traffic to sit in.

And finally, new rule since half the country will believe an evil cartoon version of Hillary Clinton, no matter what she says or does, she has to embrace it. Sweet Grandma Hillary,

she did on fine in 2008, but this year, the voters are not in the mood for steady as she goes. They're pitchfork angry and they don't want America's nicest grandma.

They want the wolf with bits of grandma in its teeth.

They want a ruthless mafia boss who will protect their frightened souls, which is why Hillary has to own all the nasty things the haters say and run as the notorious HRC.

Now,

try as I might, I cannot make my brain work like a Trump voter. Maybe it's my mother not drinking when she was pregnant, but

I just don't get how Trump has been able to convince so many people that even though he's a lying, cheating, conniving scumbag, that's why we should vote for him because he's going to use all that on our enemies.

Sure, he's a scumbag, but he's our scumbag. He brags about gaming the system, paying off lawmakers, shafting workers, using bankruptcy.

He says nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. But there is one person who knows the system better.
And maybe that's why her laugh sounds like this.

So, if America thinks it can only be safe right now with a vindictive, power-hungry sociopath, That could be good for Hillary because that's what Republicans keep saying she is.

So why not go for the best, the notorious HRC?

And

the next time they call her crooked Hillary, she should say, damn right I am. Crooked for America, Hillary.

And then she should end every one of her campaign ads with I'm Crooked Hillary. And not only do I approve this message, I will cut a bitch.

I mean, why not?

For a quarter of a century, Republicans have been creating this incredible supervillain named Hillary Clinton, who is a serial killer and a traitor, a terrorist mastermind, a sex-addicted lesbian,

and we found out last week from Dr. Ben Carson, oh, yes, he said it, a devil worshiper.

Nobody could accuse this Hillary of being low energy.

She's a combination of Lady Macbeth, Cruella DeVille, and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.

Donald Trump puts buildings up. She buries people under them.

You know, there actually used to be a website called the Clinton Body Count, which ran a tally. of the people that Hillary and Bill had secretly killed.
It was over 90 people.

She should demand it be brought back and say, stop lying about my record. I've killed way more than that.

When Donald Trump gets mad at somebody, he sends out a mean girl tweet in the middle of the night. That's cute.
Here's me killing bin Laden.

And Gaddafi's ass is a little sore these days, too.

Hillary should say, I can't wipe out ISIS, please. I will wipe them out and make it look like a skiing accident.

I'm crooked, Hillary, and I don't give a fuck. So take a step back or you're next.

My pantsuit is stitched together from the carcasses of the multitudes I have made disappear.

You want a strong man? I'm a stronger, stronger, strong man than that whiny little bitch could ever be.

And to those who accuse Hillary Clinton of not being able to work with Republicans, she should say, Republican prosecutor Ken Starr exonerated me.

Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy of the Benghazi Committee exonerated me. Republican FBI Director James Comey exonerated me.
You're right. I don't work with Republicans.

I beat their ass at their own game.

People say, lock me up. Fine, lock me up.
You think I'm scared of a stretch in the joint?

I can run this motherfucker from the inside.

Oh, my God. what?

El Chapo got nothing on me. Carl Rove says I have permanent brain damage.
Uh-huh. I do.
That's right. I'm the crazy guy on the subway.
You sure you want to make eye contact? I didn't think so.

Oh, and one other thing. Ben Carson? was right on the money when he said I pal around with Lucifer.
Who the hell do you think Tim Kaine is?

All right, that's our show. I'll be at the Cape Cod Melody in Hyandas, Massachusetts, August 26th, and back at my home at the Mirage in Vegas, September 3rd and 4th.

I want to thank Matt Welch, Alex Wagner, Dr. Corna West, Barney Frank, and Bernie Sanders, Greg and Staffer 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.