Episode #394 (Originally aired 07/01/16)

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

Good afternoon.

Afternoon.

Time will be

real time.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, thank you.

Oh, thank you, thank you, people.

I know,

I know, thank you, I know why you're happy.

It's the 4th of July weekend.

Oh, you got a big, long week.

You're not happy about that?

It's the 4th of July.

You know what?

I love these days, the days leading up to the 4th when people are getting ready, communities are planning the parades, and moms are heading to the market to grab some wieners.

Rednecks are saying goodbye to their fingers.

You know, the

days leading up.

Yeah, this is an extra special year to celebrate not being part of England.

Brexit?

Fuck that.

We Brexited in 1776.

We Brexited.

No, no.

I love England.

They're having their troubles over there with it, and they are having regrets it.

I didn't make that up.

That's not our joke.

I'm sorry.

That's in the paper.

That's what they're calling it about the vote to leave.

And also, I love this.

It makes me feel better as a dumb American.

They're dumb there, too.

No.

You know, after the vote to leave, the top Google searches in the UK after the vote were, what does it mean to leave the EU?

What is the EU?

And which countries are in the EU?

This is like drinking everything in your garage and then googling, what's in paint?

Did you see what

you see what the people in Scotland were tweeting back to Donald Trump when he was over there?

He was over there when it happened, and of course he was all for it, and they didn't like that.

The Scottish people were not buying that.

They called him, I love this, a cocksplat.

And also,

a toupeed fuck trumpet.

I'm not making that up.

I don't know what a toupeed fuck trumpet is, but I think it's Scottish for a whiny little bitch.

That's right.

Oh, yes.

Thank you.

Whiny little bitch.

Well, he is.

Whiny little bitch.

Whiny little bitch.

Whiny little bitch.

Oh, God.

I love it.

I've always wanted to lead a mob.

But he is.

You know, we had a, oh, God, I can't even keep up with the amount of terrorist attacks.

We had one today, and then at the beginning of the week in Istanbul, and you know what Trump's reaction to that was?

He said, I like waterboarding a lot.

A lot.

I will commit the best war crimes.

No one does better war crimes than me.

Nobody.

That I will tell you.

Well, we're finding out about the attackers there in Istanbul.

They were from Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.

And this is complicated for Hillary because all those places have paid her for speeches.

And it's complicated for Trump because they provide him with wives.

So it's very

all-week joke.

Well, speaking of that, it was announced today that Melania Trump will be speaking at the convention, the Republican convention, possibly because no one else will.

The Republicans are wrapping up for their big convention.

They have one little problem.

No one wants to go and no one wants to speak.

You know who Trump is down to asking?

Because none of the politicians want to do it.

He's trying to get Coach Mike Ditka,

member of DeBears, and Coach Bobby Knight, that old yellow...

Way to broaden your appeal beyond old white guys, you know?

So even the hookers in Cleveland are...

Even they're like, this is not going well.

They're so desperate, they're offering what they're calling a Trump special.

For $100, any position you want.

They'll make you a great deal.

And Trump says that he was asked, asked by who?

It's his fucking convention.

But okay, he was asked to speak every night.

But he said no because, quote, I don't want people to think I'm grandstanding.

No

You

It would be so unlike you.

I don't want people to think I'm a modest man.

It's like when Hitler said I don't want to make the Nuremberg rallies all about me

Thank you

So

So it's gonna be Melania and you know who else is speaking at the convention for the Republicans Trump's kids are going to speak there.

Oh the Trump kids beautiful, poised, Ivanka, and the two sons.

Dickhead von Fockface Trump

and Thurston Schitbag III.

Those are the two.

I don't like those kids.

I don't.

I don't like those kids.

I know I hide it well, but I don't like those kids.

So on the other side, now Hillary started out with a good week.

The Benghazi committee, after two years, finally came back with their report.

They couldn't find anything new to make up about her.

But then she had some trouble at the airport with her baggage.

And when I say her baggage, I mean her husband.

Okay, here's what happened.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch was at the airport in Phoenix.

It was part of a national tour to promote community policing.

And Bill Clinton was at the airport because that's near where all the strip clubs are.

And

Clinton saw the Attorney General's plane across the tarmac, so he boarded her plane to talk, as one does.

We all jump off our planes onto the tarmac to say hello to friends on other planes, right?

I mean,

so now it's it's a big scandal because Attorney General Lynch, of course, is the person deciding whether to indict Hillary Clinton for the ongoing email investigation.

So, of all the planes to pop on to,

this was the wrong one for Bill Clinton.

Now, Bill says that the conversation with Attorney General Lynch was very innocent.

It was just about grandkids and the weather and how neither will exist if Trump is elected.

But hey!

Harry Innocent!

No, Attorney General Lynch, you do what you want.

I'm just here to talk about the grandkids who will all be dead if Hillary doesn't win.

But do whatever you want.

And today, Attorney General Lynch said she regrets very much the private encounter with Bill Clinton.

And Monica Lewinsky said, been there, girlfriend, at least you didn't ruin a dress.

All right.

We've got a great show.

We have Barbara Lee, Louise Mensch, and Ari Melber.

And a little later, I will be speaking with the hilarious Jim Gaffigan.

But first up, he is the former Republican governor of New Mexico, who is now the 2016 Libertarian candidate for president, Gary Johnson.

Gary Johnson is running for president.

How are you?

I'm great.

Thank you.

Great to see you.

Great to see you.

Okay, well, you know, I see your name a lot lately because you are the third person in the race.

Now, you have to admit, part of the reason why there's so much talk about you is they don't like the other two.

I completely agree.

And you'll take it, right?

Well,

but Bill Weld and myself are the only third-party candidates that are going to be on the ballot in all 50 states.

So there is a justification.

Oh, you will be on all 50 states already.

Because last time I read it, it wasn't up to 50.

No, it's not, but far ahead.

Yes, far ahead of 2012, we were on the ballot in 48 states.

And you're polling at about 10 percent, but if you get 15 percent in the polls, then you're in the debates, and that'll change the game, right?

Right, and it's really key right now just to be in these polls.

We're not in all these polls, and the polls that we're in is always after Clinton and Trump, and then as an afterthought, Johnson.

They posted a poll here a couple of days ago where Clinton, Trump, and then another candidate got 12 percent, not even naming my name.

So it's a rig game.

It is a rig game.

But they, you know, Trump says.

But it is the way it is.

Trump says that too.

But now, I mean, you were a a Republican governor of

New Mexico.

Yep, blue state, Republican governor.

Now, it's not when you were there.

Yeah, no, it was very blue then, two-to-one blue then.

But you're not blue.

Well, what's the combination when you're a Republican?

Republican governor.

And William Weld was a Republican.

The point I'm making is that you guys are.

I don't know if you have changed so much.

To me, you're just, you guys are Republican classic.

No.

And Trump is Republican crazy or whatever.

But, I mean,

if this was, if this was,

what I'm just saying is this was 25 years ago, you wouldn't even be thinking about running as a libertarian.

You would be a mainstream Republican.

Well, always having been a libertarian by philosophy, I mean,

identifying myself as libertarian, really, you could argue I got to serve as a Republican.

I got to serve as a libertarian under the sheep's clothing of being a Republican.

I read the libertarian website.

I mean, it's like, well, we want less governments and we're going to cut taxes.

And I'm like, we already have a party that says that.

It's the Republicans.

What's the big difference?

Well, being fiscally conservative and socially really don't give a damn as long as you don't force that on me.

So people being able to make choices in their own lives, women's right to choose, marriage equality, legalizing hop.

Okay, but

with Donald Trump being the candidate, it seems to me that is kind of where the Republican Party has gone.

Fiscally, well, I don't know where they are fiscally because he's against free trade, but certainly on the social front, Donald Trump, three wives.

Maureen Dowd asked him about abortion and he went, interesting question.

What's your next one?

They don't seem to care.

The evangelicals like him.

I mean, he is not the old school Republican.

Well, when he talked about abortion and when he said, should a woman be punished, and he said, yes, a woman should be punished, and then a couple of hours later changed that to say that the doctor should be punished.

I got so many differences with Donald Trump starting with immigration.

I mean,

when he started talking about going after 11 million undocumented workers, that's just crazy.

But not just libertarians feel that way.

All sane people feel that way.

I think so.

I think most sane people are actually libertarian.

It's just that they don't know it.

But a lot of people

but unfortunately

a lot of people who are not sane are libertarian.

I saw your convention.

I mean the vision of government is somewhere between colonial Williamsburg and Atlantis.

Their economic theory is like

Mad Max takes your gas and you die.

There's some crazy people in your party.

You got booed for saying things that I don't think are really out of the mainstream, like five-year-olds shouldn't get to buy heroin.

Well, or that

I support driver's licenses as a competency to drive a car.

There was also an issue about blind people getting driver's licenses, and those nuts were for it.

I don't think crazy is unique to the Libertarian Party.

I think you go to that Republican convention, you're going to see some crazy, and you go to that Democrat convention, you're going to see some crazy there, too.

True, but somewhere along the way, Libertarian, I don't know, it gets...

Well, Libertarians did make me their nominee along with Bill Wells.

So I think that's...

No, you are definitely in the top of the Sane in the party.

I mean, they got the right guy.

So,

but they want to abolish a lot of stuff.

What do you want to abolish?

You know, they don't like any gun control laws.

They don't like the Fed,

the gold standard.

They want to bring back...

Well, I may not be

in those camps as much, but I do believe that government is too big.

It tries to accomplish too much.

By doing that,

they take money away from me, taxes, and that's money I could be spending on my own.

Well, how much would you cut defense?

To me, that's where the rubber meets the road on the issue.

Well, ideally, you'd set a target to reduce the spending when it comes to defense.

But hey, the key word is defense, not offense, and we need to stop with these movements.

But how much?

I mean, it's like it's not.

Well, if you, the Pentagon itself says that we should reduce bases in the United States by 20 percent.

That hasn't happened because congressmen and women stand up for those bases in their states, and that's why that doesn't happen.

But look, yes,

we can cut

expenditures for the NDP.

Give me a number.

I mean,

we probably spend a trillion when you add in the nukes and the wars and the stuff we put off the books.

Well, I think you could target 20%,

and that wouldn't be the end of the world.

Wow, you're saner than I thought.

I was hoping you'd say 50.

Okay.

And that's target.

I'm looking to be elected President of the United States.

This is going to have to be something that will come to the city of the United States.

And you have said that you have not smoked pot in, what, eight weeks?

Well,

with the legalization of

marijuana products, so edibles.

I had edibles about eight weeks ago.

Okay.

But you have said, and I think this is prudent, that even though you do enjoy marijuana, when you're in office, you won't.

because, you know, the 3 a.m.

call.

It's a 24-7 job.

Right.

And actually running for president is a 24-7

job.

So what's that like not being high?

The sacrifices you politicians will make.

What I want to be careful on is

I don't drink, but I don't begrudge anybody having a drink in the evening to take the edge off.

I don't begrudge anybody having a thought to take the edge off.

Lots of presidents were completely plaid.

Nixon, when he was going through Watergate,

every night.

We know that.

People being able to make their own choices, and in my particular case, and I'm just speaking for myself, like I said,

I really hope you get into the debates.

That would be great.

Thank you, Gary Johnson.

Oh, my gosh.

Good bet.

Good luck.

Godspeed.

All right, let's meet our panel.

Hey!

How are you, everybody?

Okay, he is an attorney, but also chief legal correspondent for MSNBC.

Ari Melbourne's with us today.

Hey, Ari.

How you doing?

She served as a member of Britain's Parliament and is now the editor of the news website, Heat Street.

Louise Mensch.

Hi, Louise.

How you doing?

Hi.

And she is the nine-term Democratic U.S.

Congresswoman from California's 13th Representative, Barbara Lee.

Barbara.

Great to see you.

Good to see you.

Okay.

So

we have an actual person from the UK with, now speak and make me

tell them so

I'm telling the truth, that you sound British.

Yeah, baby, I am British.

We love Brexit.

Okay, so I was mentioning regrexit.

People have some regrexit over there.

Bernie Sanders was commenting on it

this week.

He spoke, he wrote in the New York Times, he said, workers in Britain have turned their backs on the European Union and a globalized economy that is failing them.

And that is not just the British.

He said, increased global economy is failing people everywhere.

Well, Bernie couldn't be more wrong if I may say, and I'm going to disagree with you a little bit here, there is no regrets that in Britain we are celebrating our Independence Day.

All the pollsters that said this and the establishment, they also said that we were going to vote to remain in the EU, and they got it completely wrong.

A lot of people are regrets.

Completely wrong.

No, the majority is entirely in favor, and we are really enthusiastic about the future outside the EU.

Our currency became a little bit more competitive.

Billet was the storm in a teacup.

The stocks went down, the stocks went right back up again.

But

is globalization failing everybody?

Because extreme poverty in the 90s was 40% around the world and now it's 10%.

It's a tough question for liberals because sometimes things help poor people overseas and are not so good for the working class here in America.

And we have to decide who do we love the most?

People are Americans.

It's the 4th of July.

What's your answer?

We love people around the world and globalization is creating havoc on people not only here in America, but...

But what about that stat I just read?

Extreme poverty down 30%.

Yeah, but when you're looking at extreme poverty, you're looking at, what, going from $1 an hour to $2 an hour.

You got to look at the quality of, yeah, but the quality of life, pathways into the middle class.

If your salary dockets aren't hungry.

Would you like that?

Come on.

If you're salary docking, would you like that, ladies and gentlemen?

No.

No.

And I think Bernie's absolutely correct.

I mean, globalization and our trade policies

have fomented what we are seeing around the world now in terms of income inequality, both in Britain and you're for a trade war?

I think he's factually wrong, to be honest with you.

Brexit was actually about free trade outside of the European Union with the rest of the world.

To give you one example, the European Union puts tariffs tariffs on sugar in chocolate imported from third world countries in order to favor France.

That's protectionism, that's tariffs.

I hear Trump talking about protectionism, Bernie Sanders talking about protectionism, and I can't tell the difference.

I think one of the bigger problems with Brexit, though, is it was sold for the poor in Britain, and there's no evidence this is going to help them that much.

You had bus ads saying, we're going to put this money into health care.

An intriguing idea, but as you know, the advocates then, the day after the vote, said, we weren't serious about that.

No, they didn't say that that at all.

They did not say that at all.

Are they going to plan

for the health care system?

$100 million, $100 million we're going to put into the health care system.

And the ads were absolutely true.

And again, you know, we have had the media elite saying workers shouldn't do this.

And the fact is, it wasn't Conservatives that took us out of the European Union.

It was working people.

Wales voted to leave the EU.

The north of England.

It doesn't mean they're right.

I'm just asking you.

I mean, it seems like people on both sides of the pond and in both parties are looking at global trade as the root of all evil.

I mean, Donald Trump this week was talking about how Bernie Sanders, I don't agree with him on a lot of things.

He's a horrible socialist, but somehow economically, I agree with him exactly, which would make me not a socialist.

Okay.

It's the root of many, many of our problems, though.

When you're looking at, here in America, you're looking at inequality.

Yes, our trade policies have created this huge gap, but also you have to look at the Bush-era tax cuts, these wars that have been fought off-budget, trillions of dollars You have to look at the subcrime crisis.

I mean, you know, we have many many factors that have created

inequality here.

Sticking to this one.

I just think that they are selling a lie.

This lie that the jobs can come back.

The jobs are not going to ever come back.

You know how we know?

Because the factories have come back without the workers.

You know who's doing the jobs?

But

robots, robots.

People are always going to be employed.

If it's not one type of employment, it's another type of employment.

Well, yes, but not as much, because robots do the jobs people used to do.

And it's a lie to tell people that that's going to, that we can bring your job back.

And why do we even want the kind of jobs they have in China?

They're jumping off the roofs of buildings over there.

I don't know.

I think free trade has been proven to help the poorest in the world.

They're all getting this, they're not rich, but they're moving out of dire poverty into slightly less dire poverty.

That has got to be a good thing.

So So what you've got now is the two extremes of

two extremes of spectrum.

Trump is a very special spectrum.

And why are you for Brexit?

Because Brexit isn't anti-globalization like you're saying, not at all.

Brexit is pro-global trade and pro-free trade.

Isn't the job of, look, what's happened in this country, I think all over the world, but mostly in this country, is that we're a consumer society.

We're not a manufacturing society anymore.

And those kind of jobs, service jobs, pay less than manufacturing jobs.

Isn't it politicians' job to figure out how to pay more to people in service to the project?

That's where the jobs are.

Yeah, but what we have done, we have provided tax incentives, tax credits for outsourcing of jobs, for companies to take our jobs offshore.

We've created an environment now, an economic environment, where CEOs are making mega bucks, CEO compensation is off the scale.

We've done so much to give the incentive for companies to take jobs offshore.

What we have to do is

bring them back home and make sure we create the type of jobs that this country is.

You got your story and you're sticking to it.

That's right.

I mean, it's true.

Let me ask you,

how much of the Brexit vote was about immigration?

A lot of it was about immigration, but that's because under this crazy system, we had to penalize everybody that did not come from the European Union.

And if you came from the European Union, you could come in, no questions asked.

That was the law.

And basically, we were adding a small city every year, and people felt it was too much, and they were not being listened to.

And when you do not listen to the people, when politicians do not listen to the people, things like Brexit are going to happen.

What about the Islamic immigration issue?

Well, that really wasn't a part of Brexit because Commonwealth countries.

I'm sure it was because I saw the poster that people, that the politicians put up.

They put up a poster that showed people streaming.

It wasn't even into England, but they showed Syrian refugees streaming into Europe.

So it obviously was something they thought thought would affect the vote.

Eventually, the way that Angela Merkel has invited people into Europe, now she didn't mean it, but essentially the EU has become a giant human trafficker.

And people are dying trying to get to Europe because of a misguided, well-intentioned mistake by Angela Merkel.

And yes, that was an issue, but overall, people were just worried about the jobs.

They were worried about the pressure on wages.

They were worried about untrammeled immigration where there was no

I woke up

I just think it's telling, this is a call for the Brits, Brexit, but it's telling that so many of the advocates can't get their facts straight about what the pitch was.

If this pro-trade agreement is now anti-trade, I don't know what the pitch is.

And as for the immigration, this was a huge, huge issue there, as it is in all of Europe.

And there is a question about what you do with the refugee crisis.

But I think if there's anything in common, there's a question in Europe as in the United States about how do we do immigration, but people who say that you're going to end immigration as we know it aren't living in reality.

Absolutely, and we are not anti-immigration.

Yeah, well, there's a huge immigration issue here.

We haven't passed comprehensive immigration reform either, and I think Donald Trump is pumping up this same sentiment, and we have to just really stop.

It's funny, I'm sure Donald Trump wouldn't recognize what happened this week because he keeps saying, Well, if I was president, I would, you know,

what does he say?

He would do something to ISIS the...

Hell yeah, and he would fix it in five minutes, and it wouldn't take long, because

he's got a magic wand, and all of your wildest dreams will come true.

And it's like, anyway, hopeful favor.

Why do you leave the torture?

We did that.

Well, that too.

But we did close to that too, ISIS this week.

I mean, they were fleeing Fallujah, and we smoked them.

It reminded me a lot of the highway of death in the 1991 Gulf War.

I mean, this is what it looked like.

And I guess that's part of the answer.

But for anyone who thinks that that is not going to cause more attacks, like in Istanbul and Brussels and Paris and San Bernardino and Orlando and today in Bangladesh, I'm not saying we shouldn't do that.

I'm just saying this is the enduring dilemma of the war on terror.

When you do that, When you smoke them on the ground, then where do they go?

I mean,

what is ISIS becoming?

It's becoming al-Qaeda because we're taking away their caliphate.

And they don't care if the caliphate takes another 10 years or 50 or 100.

They're working on a completely different clock than we are.

So

they'll just go to this kind of terror.

But you know what?

I think everyone agrees we have to disable and dismantle ISIS.

But we also have to remember we have to have a comprehensive strategy and Congress is missing in action.

We need to have a debate on the costs and consequences of our involvement in this new fronting and and have a debate and a vote and really let the American people know what's at stake and what we have to do.

I mean, that's extremely important.

In Bangladesh, where the attack was today, they've been having a problem for a number of years now, especially in the last couple of years, where you really don't want to be a secular blogger.

Yeah.

Because someone will come up behind you with a machete motorcycle and cut your head off with a machete.

It is truly tragic what has has happened in Bangladesh and worse in that this is now becoming kind of it's almost becoming normal.

We're becoming inured to a new attraction, a new horror every other week.

And the thing that drives me crazy about the situation is that we do the same thing over and over again and we expect a different result.

And one thing I would like to see from the United States is a real change of policy towards Saudi Arabia, because that regime is evil.

That regime is evil.

To my mind, they are ISIS with an embassy and al-Qaeda came out of Saudi Arabia, ISIS came out of Saudi Arabia.

These extremist groups, they're mainly Wahhabist, this particular sect that only comes out of Saudi Arabia.

And it kills me to see the Prime Minister of Great Britain and the President of the United States bowing the head to

a place where women cannot drive, where women cannot vote, where women have no rights.

Well, you know, that's.

Okay, but...

Wrong.

That is.

That is hardly not just in Saudi Arabia, you realize.

Yeah, but Saudi Arabia, out of all the countries,

in the world, Saudi Arabia is the worst.

What do you think about the fact that the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, when the bloggers, secular bloggers, just blogging what they thought, were being killed, she said they have no right to speak against any religion.

Shameful.

Shameful appeasement.

Great.

Shameful appeasement.

That's why I love British people.

Okay.

So

changing the subject here, you know, it's the summer when the movies come out, and unfortunately our movies are dumb all year long now.

It used to be just the summer movies, but at first it was just comic book movies, you know, Batman and Superman and Ant-Man and

Lantern Man and Hulkman.

I don't watch them.

And then we went to video games, the Mario Brothers and the Mortal Combrat and the Warcraft and the Angry Birds.

Look at this.

This week, Tetris, the movie.

I'm not making this up.

This is not a joke.

That stupid computer game from the 1990s is a movie, and it's worse than that.

Any product with name recognition, look at this.

Justin Timberlake is coming out with the movie, I'm not kidding, where he's a dashboard troll.

No joke.

So, look at some of the movies coming out.

Hollywood critics

believe a Keurig coffee maker will be the first

will will be the first kitchen appliance with crossover appeal.

It's starring in an epic war drama, Lawrence of Arabica.

That's how crazy the movies have gotten.

Maytag's new front-load washer is going to be a big star.

It's coming out with the League of Extraordinary Gentle Cycles.

Folks, you know, a pink urinal cake

isn't normally that funny, but when it's played by Jonah Hill, you will love Please Tell Me It's Raining.

Oh, this one I actually do want to see.

A box of Trojan Pleasure Pack Premium Condoms overcomes a speech impediment in the silence of the lambskins.

It's surefire Oscar bait.

Oh, and you know how Hollywood works.

Once Justin Timberlake snagged the part of the dashboard troll, other actors wanted to up up, one up him.

Al Pacino is set to play a

tree-shaped car air freshener.

Incentive a taxi, ladies and gentlemen.

It's

The Rock is the Rock in Rock, Paper, Scissors.

It's.

Danny DeVito, Elijah Wood, and Tom Cruise are snap crackle and pop in Rice Krispie's The Movie.

This whole trend is out of control.

Even body parts can have a movie made about them.

Coming this fall, Joe Pesci is the little man in the boat in Johnny Klatoris.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is out of control.

All right, let's bring out Jim.

He is a comedian and the creator and star of TV Lands, the Jim Gaffigan Show.

Jim Gaffigan is over here.

Jim, it's about time we met you, friend.

How are you?

Great to see you.

Thank you.

All right.

Look at how many fans you have.

That's nice.

They think I'm Louis C.K., but that's all right.

No, they don't.

So, look, I know you are nervous about coming on this show because you and I are so different.

But I got to tell you, don't be nervous.

I love diversity.

I'm the guy who's friends with Ann Coulter.

That's right.

No, but we're different, but I think, all right, so

I'm clean.

I'm married.

I have five kids.

I'm Catholic.

But we both like prostitutes.

Now I'm afraid.

Well, I don't.

Obviously, you're married.

You do.

But, Jim.

You like prostitutes, Jim?

Well,

I like women.

I don't like, I mean.

I see.

Anyway, okay.

I just watched my wife watching at home going, what is he saying?

Yeah, I was.

No, I don't participate.

But it is so funny that you and I sort of like cancel each other out on planet Earth, right?

I mean, it's so funny that people, because I think you're a terrific comedian.

Oh, thank you.

How can two people...

you think I'm a terrific comedian?

I do.

Of course.

I opened for you at the DC Infrastructure.

Here's the thing.

Here's the thing.

What people don't realize is that comedians were weirdos.

So like you might have.

Exactly.

Like if Carrotop was here, we love Caratop.

I love Carrotop.

Right?

Exactly.

It's like comedians, we're just these

strange beings.

We are.

And the fact that I'm married, you know, even any comedian, when they get married, there's always the other comedians like, really, you're going to do that to a human?

It's secondary to being a comedian.

It's the comedian and then the Catholic.

I'm not going to.

No, that's all right.

You know, I was raised Catholic.

I was raised Catholic, too.

Look, I lived across from a Catholic church for 15 years.

I never went in it.

I was agnostic.

But it comes down to

I like to think that I'm such a horrible person.

I need to believe that there's something that will forgive me.

That's.

That's.

Jim,

we got it.

I got it.

It's funny, I was just about to say I'm here to save you.

You and I and Gary Johnson got to get stoned after the show.

Because

I hate to see you in, or anybody in that state.

I don't understand that thing that people do, that they have to like sort of take upon themselves more burden than life gives you anyway.

People are always apologizing apologizing to God.

Oh God, I fucked up.

I'm so bad.

I did a shitty thing.

And of course you made me exactly the way I am, but it's not your fault.

Yeah, look,

I get

the construct of what you're saying, but I'm saying that faith is this incredible leap that like I can't articulate, I can't defend, but it's something who I am.

And

I would be lying, I would be inauthentic if I said I didn't believe believe it.

No, no.

And I have many friends who are people of faith, and I love them equally.

And you walk the walk.

I really admire that.

I mean, like, you opened for the Pope.

I know.

Well,

thank you.

So I just want to know, when you opened for the Pope, as he was coming on, did you just whisper in his ear, shit crowd?

Did you do one of those?

No, I did.

You know, the irony is, is like, I didn't even, I opened for the Pope Mobile.

I opened for the car.

I did a set and then Sister Sledge performed and then the Pope Mobile came in and he did a laugh.

By the way, that was not the only time as a comedian I've opened for a car.

I was at the Iowa State Fair and I opened for Kyle Bush's NASCAR.

It wasn't Kyle Bush.

I did 15 minutes and then they wheeled out his car.

I opened for automobiles.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

Well, I I once opened for Niels Lofgren, so

top that.

Okay, so what about the fact, though, that American Catholics, they love the Pope,

but they don't really

do anything he tells them to do?

I mean, there is poll.

Well, it's true, there's polling on this.

American Catholics overwhelmingly get divorced, masturbate, have

at the same time

have premarital sex, have anal sex, all these things that are pre.

This is the first time she's ever heard anal sex before.

Oh, no, she's British.

Yeah.

But no, no, here's, I mean, look, it's, you know, I am a Catholic American, and it's kind of like being a Cubs fan.

Like, the Cubs are doing well this year, but any Cubs fan is just like, well, you know, it's not going to work end great.

Right, yeah.

And so, but I am, you know, I, you know, because I had to adjust to this because I live, most of my peers are atheists, and most of my adult life I was an agnostic.

But, you know, I am Catholic, but then again, I'm an American.

And look, the Americans participated in slavery, genocide, a lot of horrible things.

And I'm still, and I believe in democracy, and democracy has done horrible things.

Does it affect your vote, your faith?

No, I don't think so.

You'd vote for somebody even if they weren't a person who you thought was a good religious person?

No, no, I don't.

It wouldn't matter whether they believed in anything.

Who are this election?

I'm for Donald Trump.

No, I'm not.

The least faithful person ever.

No, but the funny thing is, is I'm convinced I've never met someone who supports Donald Trump.

It's like I've never met them.

Wait a minute, do you support Donald Trump?

And the thing is, it's like I know people have voted for him.

But, you know, the thing is, it's like, I'm from Indiana.

I'm from a red state.

I, you know, I travel across the country constantly.

I don't, I mean, I see him on the news, but I don't run into people that are going to vote for him.

Well, but that's a little bit of living in a bubble.

I mean, what do you do before and after the show?

You probably just go to your hotel room.

You're married.

You don't do shit.

Yeah.

I mean, I get out.

I mean, I eat a lot of steak.

Another thing you don't, We have nothing in common.

We have nothing in common.

But we're falling in love with each other.

I was just going to say,

I'm going to take you to a Mets game very soon.

There we go.

So let me ask about Bill Clinton.

I was mentioning it in the monologue.

What is going on with Bill Clinton?

I mean, they always say he's the big dog, and it reminds me of Big Dog's fart.

This isn't a real scandal.

If there's a conference,

no, it's not.

It's a meeting on a plane, which, as you described in the monologue, was dumb.

But the issue in having the government investigate itself is always whether it's going to be fair or not.

That issue existed before the stupid meeting.

It exists after the stupid meeting.

It would exist if there was no stupid meeting.

Ken Starr was a runaway political special prosecutor.

People may remember that.

It didn't matter whether he met with the House Republicans or not.

So this has become one of those Washington things where everyone wants to make it about the meeting and not the point.

Yeah.

And let me let me say.

that's that sounds like real

MSNBC boiler clip, Larry.

I love you, but I'm not sure.

No, it's not a lawyer, I will tell you.

As a lawyer, there is no guidance, there is no conflict of interest around interaction.

Indeed, an attorney general has open investigations through the FBI of multiple members of Congress going, and they'll end up interacting because they know each other.

She's sounding today like she's going to have to quit.

But no,

the Attorney General

politics, not a lot of people.

The Attorney General has a lot of integrity.

She was very forthright.

And she said very clearly, as she had said before, she's going to go and make decisions based on what the FBI recommends, that nothing has changed.

And in fact, she said that

she would not do that again in terms of this meeting.

The optics were horrible.

And we've got to remember, there's been a $7 million investigation around Benghazi costs the taxpayers $7 million.

It has a lot to do with it.

It has a lot to do with it because when you talk about what this meeting was,

you got to look at it in context in terms of what the Republicans are trying to do.

The president comes to try to get on your plane.

He did put her in a tight spot.

He was dumb.

That doesn't go to her ethics.

If the president wanted to get on your plane, that's a tough call, right?

Okay, how about saying, I'm the Attorney General, I'm looking into your wife, I'm about to indict her or not.

Get off my plane, like Harrison Ford.

Get off my plane.

I mean, and to spend 30 minutes, that's a long time to be talking about your grandchildren.

And now, by the way, he screwed Hillary.

He probably never did that, but

because now,

when it comes to her desk,

now she's like under a microscope like she never would have been before.

Because they were near salted peanuts?

It doesn't make any sense.

The issue is.

Because they talked in private for half an hour.

Wouldn't the political conflict exist if they never met?

In other words, the real question, which I think is a fair question to your point, in any legal inquiry like this is, do you have someone at the top who's going to be impartial or not?

Her impartiality as a member of an administration that might want Democrats to win already in question.

The meeting doesn't melt her brain.

But she also reinforced the fact that she was going to make the decision based on the recommendations that came from the FBI.

She said that she was very forthright and honestly she should be due from the FBI.

All right, moving on, moving on.

Jesus Christ.

Okay, so let's, this I thought was so positive this week.

I don't know why it happened, but the Supreme Court, like, took a hip pill

and got two cases right.

Right?

I mean, women,

they said,

yeah, I mean,

the Supreme Court told Texas

you can't keep dicking around with abortion rights with your stupid ruses to get women to not come to your clinics or closing clinics like they, and then also safe from abusers,

Yeah, Texas Republicans basically said, okay, we get it, abortion is legal under the law.

We'll just close all the clinics and say it's for women's health.

This was a big gamble, and they lost really big this week because the Supreme Court, including a Republican appointee on the majority, said, that's a lie.

And now you have the strongest pro-choice precedent in 25 years, and it's going to probably shut down those kind of laws in other states.

So it's a pretty big development.

But this tactic,

let's talk about the

broader tactic that conservatives have used for years against people who want abortion rights, which is to nibble

death by a thousand cuts.

I mean, this law in Texas basically said, well, you can't, we're not against abortion, we're trying to protect the women.

The hallways have to be eight feet wide.

The doctors have to have admitting privileges.

What if liberals did that with guns?

We said guns are legal, but you know what?

You have to have a Navy SEAL marksman on the property whenever you

want to sell a gun.

they've been trying to overturn Roe versus Wade.

They haven't been able to do that.

So, you're right, they've been nibbling away.

This court decision was a major decision for women and women's health, but we also have to look at expanding access to abortion rights for low-income women, which means getting rid of the Hyde Amendment, which in the 70s was put on so low-income women could not have access to abortion.

So, we have to increase access to abortion rights and comprehensive health services for women.

And this was a good step in that direction.

They've been trying to restrict access.

We're trying to increase access.

Donald Trump needs to hire you to give him a tutorial on staying on message.

I would never want to work for Donald Trump or anyone like him.

He would betray me.

I work on these issues every day.

No, I work on these issues every day.

I'm trying to do the right thing for women in this country.

So last.

My last

question is

George Will.

Now some people probably don't know who George Will is, but he's been there he is.

Yes, this mouse-faced asswipe.

No, you know what?

I say that because he was mean to me.

He was very mean to me once, but you know what?

The truth is he's not my fan, and I've always been his fan.

I don't agree with a lot of what he says, but he's a brilliant writer.

I have read him every time he writes something for like 35 years.

He, and I admire this too, quit the Republican Party this week.

That's amazing.

You would admire that.

But look, as a conservative, I understand why George Will did what he did, and he didn't quit the Republican Party over Donald Trump.

He quit it over Speaker Ryan.

No, hold on, Bill.

Hold on, Bill.

He quit over Speaker Ryan endorsing Donald Trump.

He said, this is no longer my party.

Yeah, that's right.

Why?

It's because the day that Speaker Ryan actually went out and endorsed this man, who has made racist comments, it's shameful as a conservative right now.

I am ashamed.

I am ashamed.

Not like with Trump.

Not like with Trump, but close.

Speaker Bryan says, okay, these things you're saying about the judge, Curiel, are racist, but hey, I endorse you anyway.

Please.

That's the moment at which you quit on the GOP.

And frankly, but even before that, George Will was talking about leaving the party.

He was talking about he was, months ago, he said he was not going to vote for Donald Trump, and it was Republicans' duty to elect Hillary Clinton and just suck it up.

Yep, he's totally right.

Republicans for Hillary, and again, really, Donald Trump is what he is.

He is what he is.

You knew what he is when you brought him in.

The shameful thing is watching the party of Lincoln, the party of Harriet Tottman, allow this man to become the North.

I think we're getting a little out over its game.

I don't think it was ever the party of Harriet Topman.

Can I say it was?

And the Lincoln.

And the Lincolnshire.

We got to put out.

It was a gun-toting

Time has ran out on the lines.

That was a long time.

Can I say something?

It was a run out.

Because

they asked for a Donald Trump, what they've been doing over the years.

The Tea Party, the birth of movement.

You know,

telling the president you lied, the food stamp president, everything.

They got what they asked for.

Promoting racism.

You know, that's Donald Trump.

Yeah, but that's Donald Trump.

They got it.

They got it.

You're talking about the party of Harriet Tubman.

The House Republicans right now are trying to pass legislation to prevent Harriet Tubman from being put on currency.

So I think you might be a little behind the line there.

Listen, I think it's right that you throw the racist founder of the Democratic Party off the bill and put a gun-toting Republican on it.

And that's the kind of party that we want back.

I mean, Donald Trump is so bad that

even Ditka won't.

Endka won't go to it.

Even Mike Ditka won't.

Right.

All right.

Thank you, panel.

Time for new rules.

All right.

New rule, now that a new study finds that butter not only doesn't cause heart disease, but actually prevents diabetes.

Food researchers have to put out a pamphlet called, We Have No Clue, Eat What You Want.

With a special edition for the southern states called As You Were.

New rules, since no one is really sure if Caitlin Jenner still has her balls.

Sports Illustrated must be more careful with the titles of their cover stories.

Neural Us magazine must tell Pope Francis and Pope Benedict who wore it best.

Then someone's got to tell these guys, hey, leave some room for the Holy Ghost.

Neural, stop making food that tastes like other food.

If you've ever said, I wish these potato chips tasted like southern biscuits and gravy, has Lay's got a chip for you.

Mm, mm, mm.

It's like they strangled Baula Dean and stuffed her in the bag.

But why stop there?

Why not cheese that tastes like root beer?

Or guacamole that tastes like the first girl you ever love?

Call me old-fashioned, but when I bite into a burrito, I want it to taste like what it's supposed to taste like: E.

coli.

New rule, now that we're all finally trying to respect Indians properly, presidents have to stop putting on that headdress.

It doesn't say I respect America's First Nations.

It says I slept with the village people.

Obama looked ridiculous, isn't it?

Coolidge looked ridiculous.

So did FDR and Nixon and of course Trump.

And

it isn't it.

And finally, new rule if Republicans, if Republicans are going to keep calling states laboratories of democracy, they have to start looking at the results from the lab.

California raised taxes on the wealthy a lot.

And our economy is booming.

We just passed France and India to become all by ourselves the world's sixth largest economy, soon to be fifth.

Thanks, England.

Whereas states like Kansas and Louisiana, that went back to the old trickle-down theory of cut taxes on the rich and they'll always do the right thing,

are financial catastrophes.

The results from the lab are in.

Our mice are thriving.

Yours are dead.

Now, they say the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results, but I'm beginning to think that's actually the definition of being a conservative.

Because

it's not like we haven't tried trickle-down before many times.

It's not new.

Despite the fact that when he took office, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback said, we've got a different way and it works.

And by works, he meant it works the night shift at Del Taco.

Yes, somehow for the millionth time when rich folks got a big tax cut, they pocketed it.

And now Kansas is in a recession with a huge deficit.

The band, Kansas has more money.

Down in Louisiana, Bobby Jindal tried the same stupid thing that Brownback did.

And big surprise, the same result.

A billion-dollar surplus surplus became a $2 billion deficit.

And now everything's getting cut.

Because apparently when you take in less money, you have less money to spend.

Crazy.

I guess you aren't richer the less cash you have, unless you're Donald Trump.

Okay,

so now let's travel west to the laboratory called California.

which not that long ago was being called an economic basket case.

Unmanageable, they said, a failed state.

But this is when we had either Republican-led legislatures or a Republican governor

who turned out to be such a disaster.

Even his maid said, I can't believe I fucked that guy.

And here's the part where the experiment becomes crystal clear.

Because after Arnold left office, we eliminated what scientists would call variables.

In this case, the Republicans.

Democrats, from governor on down, control every office and voting body in this state.

So we can really study what happens when liberal policies are tried unimpeded.

And the only thing I have to say to Republicans about that is, scoreboard, bitches.

Republicans claimed cap and trade would drive up utility bills, but our electricity tab is now among the cheapest in the country.

And I ought to know because I use a lot of juice in my basement to grow my orchids.

My orchids.

Orchids, they're pretty.

Yeah.

California.

California gave illegal immigrants driver's licenses and college tuition, and conservatives said encouraging immigrants like that would destroy the economy.

But it didn't.

Immigrants just take jobs Americans don't want to do, like raising their children.

So

maybe we are being invaded by Latinos and Asians, but it's not making us weaker.

It's making us hotter.

We did all the stuff conservatives warned us would make things even worse, but the sky didn't fall.

Unemployment did.

And growth shot up to over 4%.

And a $26 billion deficit became an $11 billion surplus

for a rainy day, whatever that is.

And that is mostly because we, horror of horrors, raise taxes on the rich.

Fox News said we were insane that the rich would flee the state.

I mean, what does Laguna Beach have for for wealthy people that they can't find in Nebraska?

Folks, if states are laboratories of democracy, Why are we wasting time replicating failed experiments?

I thought the idea behind science is that you try something and if it doesn't work, you try something else.

You run these experiments so you can see which ones work and the ones that do are replicated to other states, and the ones that don't are sent to Florida.

All right, that's our show.

We're off next week.

We'll be back on the 15th.

I'll be at the Uptown in Kansas City August 7th, the Ovens in Charlotte, August 9th, and the Ryman in Nashville, August 20th.

I want to thank Ari Melver, Louise Mensch, Louise Mensch, Barbara Lee, Jim Gaffigan, and Gary Johnson.

Join us now for overtime on YouTube.

And thank you.

Okay.

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.