Episode #385 (Originally aired 04/22/16)

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

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

Afternoon, time will be

real time.

Thank you.

I know it's, I know, it's,

I know, I know it's

two days after 420.

You're still high.

Don't even pretend it's about me.

I know what it's about.

No.

Well, what a week.

It was the New York primary this week, and I don't know if our audience is going to like this, but the conventional wisdom now is that it's just Hillary and Trump.

Those are our two choices.

And yeah, Hillary, they both won big.

Hillary, so stoked.

She was drinking hot sauce right out of the bottle.

Yeah, Naberny never got a chance because they didn't allow independents to vote in New York.

We'll get to that later.

I'm a little pissed about that.

And he tried everything to win the black vote.

No, he brought out every person of color within to stand on the stage.

He did.

Spike Lee was there with him, Rosario Dawson, Danny Glover, Harry Belafani.

Nothing.

And Harry Belafani, he's the one who had to break it to Bernie the next day.

He went over to his house, he said, Bernie, daylight come, we got to go home.

But now they say Trump and Hillary, you know, they're pivoting to the general election.

They're trying to be more presidential.

Trump is trying not to tweet

all the time at night, and Hillary is trying not to laugh like she just tricked Snow White into eating poison.

Now, it's interesting, the new tack that the Trump folks are saying, because you know, he's got a new team around him.

They're trying to say that Trump, you know, it's all been an act.

He's really very presidential, very reasonable guy.

He'll be different after the nomination.

Okay, so let me get this straight.

The last 30 years as the world's biggest douchebag, that was

just to get us ready.

Oh, please.

This idea that this guy could ever change his stripes, that he could be presidential.

Yeah, because on election night, Tuesday in New York, for three minutes, he went on stage and he did act like a normal human being and he didn't urinate on the whole audience.

He called Cruz senator instead of lying.

It lasted three minutes.

It's like you can make a chimp ride a tricycle for a little while.

It's like the way Keanu Reeves can do a British accent for a little while

and then he loses it.

But the big loser Tuesday was that master debater, Ted Cruz.

Now, you may recall this, back in January when they were fighting it out in Iowa, one of Ted Cruz's big lamb-basting broadsides against Donald Trump was that he had New York values.

Well, Ted found out what a bad idea that was on Tuesday.

Yeah, New Yorkers have values like revenge.

Yeah, he came in third, Ted Cruz.

That's tough.

Came in third in a race where there's almost not even a third guy.

Okay.

But Ted Cruz, he's getting a little reckless because, you know, he...

Listen to this.

There's this big controversy, I'm sure you've seen it about where transgender people can go to the bathroom in public.

Okay, so this is what Ted Cruz is hanging his hopes on, because Trump, for a second, said something sensible about it.

And Ted Cruz said, Donald Trump a reckless policy that will endanger our loved ones

how is this even an issue water in Flint has lead in it water in North Dakota is on fire

water in California is non-existent

who cares what bathroom a transvestite is in when water comes out of there

whatever

I mean, it's amazing the way everybody

is having to talk about this issue, like it's an issue.

The Obamas were in London today lunching with royalty.

Amazing.

England's Elizabeth II has been on the throne since 1952.

Turned 90 today.

She weighed in on it.

She said, I don't know what all the fuss is about.

I'm an old queen and I pee wherever I want.

Now, it is

the end of a big overseas trip for the Obamas.

He was in Saudi Arabia the day before.

Wow, relations there are at their horriblest.

Mostly because our government is considering revealing what's in the 28 pages, which our first guest will be talking about shortly.

But yes, no, we should reveal it.

This is the 28 pages that have been redacted about what happened with 9-11 and the Saudi government's involvement, which apparently was pretty big.

So the Saudis don't like this.

So when Obama arrived, they snubbed him at the airport.

The king did not come out.

Some local lackey came out.

And to add insult to injury, they kept referring to him as Kobe.

That's wrong.

But hey, you know what?

Obama gave it right back to the Saudis as good as he got it.

He got off Air Force One.

He threw the valet guy the keys.

He said, it's true.

Try not to.

It's new.

Try not to fly it into any buildings.

You see where I was from?

And here's the great Phil Good story of the week.

Harriet Tubman is going to be on the $20 bill.

That's That's not it?

Yes.

That's right.

Interesting.

Harriet Tubman, if you don't know, was the woman who led many slaves to freedom.

She was a slave herself.

Andrew Jackson, a former slaveholder, had been on the 20.

Now he's going to be on the back of the bill.

If you hold it up to the light, it looks like he's chasing her.

But I think this is awesome.

I mean, they should make a movie about Harriet Tubman's life, right?

Just just not by Quentin Tarantino.

I don't want to see Harriet Tubman going, hurry up, motherfuckers.

All right, we got a great show.

Ben Jones, Leslie Stahl, and Charles Cook are here.

And a little later, we'll be speaking with Thomas Middleditch from Silicon Valley.

But first up, he is the staff writer for the New Yorker and Playwright whose play entitled Camp David opens next month in San Diego.

Lawrence Wright is over here.

Great to see you again.

How are you, sir?

All right.

We love to have you on this show, Lawrence.

And you know why we have summoned you here today?

Because as I was saying, the president was just in Saudi Arabia.

You're an expert on this.

And the 28 pages, again, if people don't know what this is, the 9-11 Commission put out a report.

A lot of it was redacted.

You know Washington, they love their black Sharpies.

They cross out stuff.

But the last 28 pages, the entirety, nobody got to see.

Some people have read it.

Bob Graham, a former senator, he's one of the guys who's been big on this issue.

He said, the Saudis know what they did, and we know what they did.

What did they do?

Those 28 pages are about the Saudi support network for the hijackers who came to America.

The Saudi government.

Well, it was,

there are members, there are people implicated in those 28 pages that are in the Saudi government.

One person would be Prince Bandar, who was the ambassador to the U.S.

at that time.

And his wife sent money to some of the facilitators that were helping.

But there's also an agent.

I mean, I saw the 60 Minute.

This is an open, it's such an open secret.

It was on 60 Minute.

Right.

Leslie Stall could probably tell us about it.

But it said that the hijackers had no money.

They didn't know where they were.

They barely spoke English.

And they somehow, just out of coincidence, ran into a Saudi agent here in Los Angeles.

Right.

Okay, well come on, isn't that the smoking gun?

This happened in January of 2000, 20 months before 9-11.

And there are two reasons why those pages haven't been released.

One is it's going to embarrass the Saudis.

The other is it's going to embarrass the American intelligence community.

And

the CIA.

CIA found out about these hijackers being in, they came to L.A.

and then they went to San Diego.

They found out in March of 2000, they knew that al-Qaeda was here.

And this is back when George Tennett said we're at war with al-Qaeda and all this sort of thing.

And the inspector general at the CIA said 50 to 60 people in the CIA knew about it.

Okay, but I get it we're at war with al-Qaeda.

We weren't supposed to be at war with the Saudi government.

That's our allies.

I mean,

this is what I don't get about frenemies.

You know,

I mean, like when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the Saudis shit their robes

because they were next.

Right.

Who came to their aid?

Uncle Sugar.

Yep.

Okay.

So,

and yet they attack us?

Yeah.

I don't get that.

Well, when you say ally,

the word ally in the Middle East, it probably should just be subtracted from the language.

Obama in that Atlantic article used the term so-called allies, which I think is a better term because we don't share the principles or the interests or many of the objectives with Saudi Arabia or many of the countries in that region.

So it's just not correct to say that they're our allies.

We have associations with them.

We have some common interests.

But I think it's time

not to overlook if they were responsible for 9-11.

Exactly.

Especially since if we know that it was the Saudis who attacked us, wow, that makes the Iraq war even worse.

I mean,

right?

I mean, lots of people have always said, well, we attacked the wrong country, but now it's

pretty out there.

We definitely attacked the wrong country.

And there was an actual right to the...

Well, I'm not in favor of attacking Saudi Arabia.

There's one lesson that I've learned from spending a lot of time in the Middle East, is things can always get worse.

And I think that if you decided to remove the royal family, which I would love to, I have no, I hate royalty, the whole idea of it.

But look what has happened to the royal family.

Even the queen, it's her 90th birthday.

Sorry, queen.

Yeah, that's true.

But

the idea of removing the Saudi royal family is probably not a good one.

No, I'm not saying we should, well, yes, because you know what?

It would be worse.

Yes.

We've learned that lesson in Egypt.

We've learned that lesson in Iraq.

We've learned that lesson in Syria.

Well, learned, obviously, is not what we've done.

Right.

Right.

But I mean in general I feel like Saudi Arabia is the extreme example of the problem many liberals have with Islam in general.

You know it's a little complicated.

It's Muslims who are oppressing other Muslims.

I think they would like to think that it's governments who are oppressing the people.

It's very often the governments who are standing in the the way of worst oppression from the people.

Pakistan, another frenemy.

You know, Pakistan passed a no-child marriage law, you can't marry children,

did not go over well with the people.

The teabaggers found that to be a meddling government getting involved.

A meddling federal government stopping us from marrying children.

So

it's a little tough to decide whose side we're on, right?

You know, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, I think, are the two worst examples of countries that we call our allies.

But especially with Saudi Arabia, you know, it is not a state sponsor of terrorism, but it is a state sponsor of religious fanaticism.

In the last 50 years, they have transformed the world of Islam.

It's not just in Saudi Arabia.

Can you really make a market difference between the two?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I taught in Cairo.

Fanaticism

is not the same as

religion.

It It was 420.

I'm sorry.

What did you say was different?

I'm sorry.

They have taken Islam and completely changed it.

It was, you know, there were Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia,

let's say when the oil boom began in the 50s.

But they got all the money, they spread it all across the Islamic world, and they have transformed it so that Islam is not the same religion as it was in Indonesia.

And that's not connected to terrorism?

Yes, it is.

Oh, good.

It's not.

Not good, bad.

What am I saying?

Not good, bad, terrible.

They're not sponsoring terrorism, they're sponsoring the ideology that gives rise to it.

Okay, okay.

So that's pretty much the same thing.

Yeah.

They're not sending money maybe to ISIS, but they are sending volunteers to the US.

Which is crazy because it's going to bite them in the ass.

It is.

Because who is on ISIS's shit list right behind us?

Saudi Arabia.

It was on bin Laden's shit list because he knows the royal family behind closed doors, drinks scotch, and gets pussy.

That's absolutely true.

Absolutely true.

This guy said.

Saudi Arabia is a family-run enterprise.

Yes.

Well, it's a theocracy.

No, it's a therapist.

Iran is a theocracy.

Saudi Arabia is a family condominium.

And they have an agreement with the clerics that allow them to stay in power so it's a partnership but but they allow the clerics to go crazy and you can only really worship one thing.

You see distinctions where I don't.

In Saudi Arabia you believe you know this central Wahhabi idea.

There are Shiites that are pretty much oppressed in that country.

But you can only believe one thing.

You can believe it more or less.

And if you believe it less, you're kind of subtracting yourself.

If you're competing for power, you believe it more.

And that's why the cable...

And those don't seem like values America should stand by.

And now that oil is not so much in the equation, do you think we will ever be able to slowly back away from this alliance?

I think we are.

You know,

I think what these billion-dollar weapons sales

really is saying, do it yourself.

Right.

Oh, I wish.

Thank you, Lawrence.

You're always very enlightening on this and every subject.

Lawrence Wright.

All right, let's meet our panel.

Okay, hey, everybody.

All right, he is a writer for the National Review and author of the

Conservatarian Manifesto.

You made up a new word, didn't you?

Now available in paperback.

Charles Cook, yes.

But people can't pronounce religious.

I did the same thing.

She's currently in her 25th.

Can't be possible.

She looks exactly the same season as a correspondent for CBS's 60 Minutes, author of Becoming Grandma, The Joys and Science of the New Grandparenting.

Leslie Stahl,

wow, is on our show.

That's awesome.

And he's the founder of the Dream Corps and a CNN contributor.

Van Jones back with us, Van Jones.

How are you?

Okay, remember to send us your questions for tonight's overtime so we can answer them after the show on YouTube.

All right, once again, we're going to talk about the Republican Party first here.

Donald Trump had a big week in the New York primary.

The conventional wisdom two weeks ago seemed to be, okay, the party is getting to the acceptance moment.

They've gone through bargaining, anger, denial.

Now they're going to accept Ted Cruz.

And then two weeks later, now we're going to accept Donald Trump.

And a lot of the same people who said this guy would be a disaster for the country seem to now be saying, yeah, but we don't want to split apart the party.

Aren't they putting party ahead of country?

I will leave that to you, sir.

What else is there, right?

Well, yeah, they are.

They are.

I think they should be against Trump in all circumstances.

On the original point, which is that

after Wisconsin it was going to be Cruz and after New York it's going to be Trump.

I don't think either of those are true.

I think that there is no such thing at the moment as momentum.

I think you have a divided party.

I think you have a geographically divided party.

There will be states now that Trump wins and states that Cruz wins.

I think it's possible neither will win, and you're going to have a shit show of a convention in

the summer.

But they're saying that Donald Trump has changed, that they've tamed him.

And that's why they're able to get behind him now.

You know, he's been able to get us to adapt to absurdity, okay?

The mere fact

and so scary.

only achievement he has been able to That's a big achievement But the fact that he doesn't drop Trow at one You know press conference means he should be on Mount Rushmore.

He's completely insane that we're even having a conversation about him No, that's I think his greatest ability is is his ability to get people to overlook His flaws and to forget.

I mean he had a horrible week only like was it two weeks before when he said women should be punished for abortions.

He was saying nuclear weapons, I think everybody should get them.

Allies, not-so-allies, a passing mental patient could have one.

Terrible whining.

But he needs to get the Republican Party.

He has no organization.

How's he going to get out the vote if the Republican Party isn't somehow brought around?

He sends his new guy, Paul Manafort, out to tell the Republican Party that there is.

Where's this guy in Paul Manafort?

Well, he's an old-time guy who knows how to run conventions and organize.

He's like the undead.

He's come out of the crypt, you see, and he's going to.

No, but he knows the party.

He's the establishment.

And Trump needs that now in order

to organize for the campaign, which he hasn't done anything to do.

And so they're trying to tell the party that he's going to change, that they're going to fix his personality.

These are direct questions.

Well, you know what they say is...

He can't do that.

How is he going to change his personality?

He doesn't have to because they're presenting the scenario that it's a character.

You know, it's like Andrew Dice Clay.

Sometimes he goes, I'm just being Andrew.

I'm not dice now.

Yeah.

Look.

And then Trump puts on the leather jacket.

Hey, hickory dickory doc.

Mexican went up the fucking clock.

Oh, that's just, that's just dice, but that's not really Donald Trump.

Let me say something, though.

It is important for liberals not to get too happy to put him down.

Just because to put Trump down, I'll tell you why.

He can win the presidency.

I agree.

This is the thing.

All these liberals say he can't possibly win because 70% of African Americans hate him.

Hold on a second.

That means, no, no, well,

slow comments, but that's the truth.

But

you should be less happy.

You should be terrified because that means 30%

might be open to them, which means...

Dennis Rodman

loves him.

Now look, we live in LA.

You can't say that.

We don't want to.

So listen, but listen, seriously, if 30% of African Americans are open to him and half of those vote for him, he's president.

In other words, African Americans have to vote 90% against him.

So if 70% are against him, we're going to lose.

So people need to calm down and get...

No, people need to freak out.

Can I ask about Trumponomics, if I may call it that for a second?

Because, you know,

the big selling point for Donald Trump is he's rich, so he must be a business genius, though he knows nothing about money.

Okay, a poll came out this week.

Turns out people prefer inexpensive pants to making America great again.

The vast majority of Americans say they prefer lower prices instead of paying a premium for items labeled made in the USA.

They love that label unless it costs them a penny more.

They were polled to choose between $50 pants made in another country, China,

or an $85 pair of pants made in the U.S.

Two-thirds want the cheaper pair.

See, this is the problem with Trump Anomics.

He wants us to be able to buy $1.99 baseball cap made in a factory in America where people are being paid $30 an hour.

It's not just Trump, though.

I mean, this is actually a problem in American politics in general.

People want to pay lower taxes, they want more services.

And in a sense, they've got that, in that when Democrats win they tend to increase government spending Republicans don't change that when they get in but they do cut taxes people want both parts of that equation you end up with these big deficits and if you look at this election you essentially have Hillary Clinton who's saying well she's not going to increase middle class taxes which is where the money is but she's going to keep entitlements the same and probably add to them and Ted Cruz who says he's going to cut taxes but not pay for it and somehow magically with growth will make it up well neither of those things is true but that's what's happened for the last few decades.

Trump says the same thing.

I agree, I'm saying, but it's not just Trump.

It's Trump is appealing to exactly the same electorate who want it both ways.

You can't have it both ways.

And I must say, Bernie folks.

Sean.

Listen to this.

Well, it's just the truth.

66% of Sanders supporters said they would not.

be willing to pay more than an extra thousand dollars in taxes for single-payer health care, which is very expensive.

Or about the same would not be willing to pay more than a grand for a free college.

They want the revolution, but they don't want to acknowledge revolutions cost money.

I think again, like you said, the central problem with our

emotional campaigns, and Trump knows this better than anybody, and people,

they are appealing to the gut, not to the head.

And a smart politician who wins does that.

Reagan did that.

I bet that.

Ronald Reagan did that.

Right.

Well, look, I just begin to do that.

The winners did that.

Yeah, the winners.

The winners do that.

I think Bernie is different than Trump in this regard.

I think, oh, thank you.

I think, yes.

No, no, but even when it comes to the economics, part of the thing with the young people, people say, oh, these young people, they just want a bunch of free stuff.

That is really unfair.

Nobody says that NASA wants free space shuttles.

You know, nobody says the Pentagon wants free drones.

What you have is a consensus that we all pay taxes, and then you figure out where the money goes.

And what the young people are saying is we're spending money on dumb wars, we're spending money on prisons.

Stop spending money on that and spend money on us.

That's fair.

Absolutely.

That's fair.

There still might not be enough to go over.

There's still not enough.

You could cut a lot of spending and still, with the numbers you just cited, there's not enough money to pay for what Bernie was doing.

Look, $80 billion of

quantitative easing, which is about a quarter.

of what the Fed did, would give everybody free college and an ice cream cone and a pony.

But it wouldn't pay for single payer over a sustained basis.

I mean they couldn't even get single payer to work in Vermont.

It's very expensive.

You know why?

Especially because no one will say on the other side to the suppliers, you have to control your costs.

Nobody's going to say that.

And

as long as they can buy

whatever they want, it's a crazy system.

It's also that Bernie's version of single payer is different than many international versions, because at least what he's put forward, there's almost no rationing.

Now, you know, in the National Health Service, regardless of what you think about this economically, I have different views probably than the panel, but there is a lot of rationing.

Bernie's plan doesn't have that rationing.

Let me ask, I have an actual question, though.

Why do we have private insurance companies at all?

Because, because, I agree.

Shouldn't insurance be for stuff that you aren't sure about?

For instance, you get car insurance because you aren't sure if you're going to have an accident.

You aren't sure if your house is going to catch fire or get a flood.

You get flood insurance, fire insurance.

You can be sure of one thing.

At some point, you are going to get sick and at some point you are going to die.

So we are all going to, why do you need insurance for that?

Don't you just need health care?

Why do you have them?

Why do you even have them?

But I think it's even

more basic than that.

Why should life and death and sickness be up for the profit motive?

It shouldn't.

That's what every other country is thinking about.

You know,

for those who say Bernie might be toast at this point, let me just say one last thing if he is, if this is his last stand.

Why so many of us liked Bernie Sanders.

I was looking at the Fox News website the other day and it was promoting a special Brett Baer called Rising Threats, Shrinking Military.

Okay, both bullshit.

Is ISIS a threat?

Yes, but the caliphate will not be extended to Kentucky.

People don't read the papers, so they don't know, actually, we're rolling back ISIS.

They are losing.

And even if they were a threat, they're not the kind of threat that we need to have a bigger military to fight.

It's a different kind of threat.

And

of course, our military is not drinking.

We have the most ridiculous rock with your cock out mass

mass murder machine the world has ever seen.

So who at the debate would stand up and challenge them?

And say that?

No one.

No, but when Ted Cruz or Donald Trump says, we need a bigger military, who is going to challenge them?

Hillary Clinton?

I don't think so.

But Bernie Wood.

Bernie Wood.

That's why we like Bernie Standards.

She would not, because she's the biggest hawk in the entire lineup of people running.

But I have a question for everybody.

Can I ask a question since that's my job?

Right.

Why have we so many people that nobody likes?

I used to think the candidate who was the most likable was going to get elected.

That's out the window.

It's not how America works anymore.

Why is it not how America works anymore?

Because it's a hate fuck election.

It is, it is, it is.

It's true.

No, but

if you're not liked as a leader, it becomes very, very, very difficult to govern.

It does.

Likability is why the Congress votes for it.

It's really an essential.

These two Trump and Hillary, by the way, have the biggest unfavorables

ever.

Like they are below the last five losers in the last five presidentials.

I read that very thankful.

Now, but Hillary, I hate to say this since I wrote this book, but I found out that people would, if she used her being a grandmother more often,

it would soften her image because grandmothers have this wonderful.

You're a new grandmother?

Is that one?

I'm a new grandmother, wrote a book about being a grandmother.

But I looked into this about whether her being a grandmother would help her with the likability issue

and it would and she's not a grandmother exactly so why isn't she using it more

all right why isn't she using it more well I'm glad you mentioned Hillary because I think the audience knows one of my guilty pleasures is reading the tabloids and this week

25 things you don't know about me on that

to say I was tickled and delighted that this was the cover of us weekly is an understatement.

And you know, I mean, I was in this once, 25 Things You Don't Know About Me.

I there's mine yeah see yeah see

okay so like Hillary some of the things I love to snack on hot chili peppers and I put hot sauce on everything that was an actual controversy last week but she actually does Bill Clinton proposed to me twice before I said yes

the first time was about a threesome but

When I was a girl, I wrote to NASA to ask if I could become an astronaut.

They wrote a very polite letter back saying they didn't take girls.

They're going to regret that in about a year.

I am and always will be a Beatles fan.

I also really love Adele because I'm trying to get the millennials.

Okay.

But, you know.

We have something called equal time in America, so now the other candidates are getting their 25 things you don't know about me.

Well, here's Ted Cruz is coming out next week.

Here are some of Ted Cruz's 25 makes you don't know about me.

I spent my entire freshman year of high school stuffed in a locker room.

As a child, I used to imagine what it must be like to have an imaginary.

My favorite beetle is whoever your favorite beetle is, if it would help you like me.

Mirrors don't show my reflection.

I named the stick up my ass, Hank.

Here, Van,

take some of your heart medications.

You've got to be off the air, man.

Boy, what'd you hear?

My Cuban half once robbed my Canadian half at knife points.

My children love to play hide and seek, sometimes for weeks at a time.

Jesus once descended from heaven just to punch me in the face.

And of course, I smell with my tongue.

All right.

Let's bring out Thomas.

Thank you.

He is the star of HBO's Silicon Valley, whose third season premieres on April 24th.

That's Sunday, Thomas Middleton.

Hey.

How are you?

Great to see you here.

All right.

Well, you know what?

I often resist

when I'm requested to promote something on the network.

I feel it looks like I'm pimping.

But your show is so fucking funny

that it is an

honor to pimp your show.

It's an honor to be your prostitute.

I'm your honing.

It's a great show.

And it's one of my most look-forwardable shows.

When I see it coming back, it's a very exciting moment in my house.

Well, boy, howdy, are you going to like this third season?

Really?

Ooh, baby.

Wow.

It's good.

I don't know.

I like that one.

So I'll ask you just one regular talk show question about it, and then we'll get on to what we really want to talk about.

Okay, so

the real people of Silicon Valley, how do they feel about the show?

Because I remember when The Godfather was being made, the mafia hated it.

And then when it it came out, they loved it.

Is it the same thing?

The mafia loves your show?

Yeah.

Yeah, the mafia totally digs Silicon Valley.

So many nice gigabytes on the program.

I love all these guys that talk about, you know, hack in the mainframes and whatnot.

No,

I get a lot of people coming up to say, you know, hey, I work in tech, and

the best compliment is, I can't watch your show because it gives me too much anxiety about my real life.

Yeah, which happens a surprising amount.

Or, you know, like someone will quote some scene or something, and it's like that happened.

There's very little send-up that the show does.

A lot of it just recreates it, and it's like, that's how ridiculous it is.

That's a great sitcom.

Yeah.

All right, so let's talk about what we really want to talk about.

It is Earth Day, and you are a real serious environmentalist.

I mean, like, well,

I feel like I'm not Leonardo DiCaprio, but I do it a little bit.

But like, I mean, I feel like my heart's in the right place, but I don't think I study it as closely as you do.

Well, now I'm good.

You're selling me too hard.

Now I have only

down to go from

as I try and.

So you tell me, it's Earth Day.

So much of the news is bad.

You didn't even know that.

Wow, I really read the notes wrong.

Are you hopeful?

I mean, is there anything to be optimistic about?

Is it too late?

That's a big question.

I don't know.

I mean, it's certainly when you spend like 10 minutes on the internet looking at article after article after article, it definitely feels too late.

I would hope not.

But, well, I tell you this.

You know what?

This is something that helps me combat feeling overwhelmed with all this stuff, because sometimes I do get overwhelmed tossing and turning up each night.

Do you guys all remember the

Neil deGrasse Tyson reboot of Cosmos?

At one point, he lays out the vastness of time on this big sort of like solar map, because you measure how old everything is with light and all this kind of stuff.

He says, oh, this is trillions and trillions of years.

And here's us.

It's like a blink.

It's a sliver in this whole thing.

And if you're ever worried about climate change, just know that regardless of what happens in a million years,

no one will care because we'll be gone anyway.

So that's the optimistic

weirdly enough, that's given me comfort.

I mean.

Well, I'm glad you mentioned

headlines because I think one reason why people don't do more is because they don't read headlines anymore.

They read bullshit that people post on their Facebook page.

So

We put together a scroll of some headlines, and I think if you saw this, you would be as alarmed as we are.

This is just going back a couple of years.

Almost half of Americans live with unhealthy levels of air pollution.

WWF says the world has lost more than half its wildlife in 40 years.

How most coastal cities will face routine flooding in our lifetimes.

What's causing Texas earthquakes?

Fracking, most likely.

How climate change is behind the surge of migrants to Europe.

Move faster, please.

Ocean life faces mass extinction.

All right, move at your pace.

2015 is the warmest year on record.

I feel like

it's more powerful if it moves quickly.

There's a little monkey that needs to be in the middle of the middle.

An Sika epidemic, a warning on climate change.

Seas are rising at the fastest rate in the last 28th century.

Rising sea levels may disrupt lives of millions.

The researchers estimated that the cost of relocating the 13 million people displaced would be 14 trillion dollars.

U.S.

emissions are drastically underestimated, a new study shows.

Scientists warn of perilous climate shift within decades, not centuries.

Numbers of managed honeybee colonies plummeting.

Melting ice sheets changing the way the earth wobbles on its axis.

We're changing the way we fucking wobble on our axes.

America.

That's how we do.

Seeing the bright side, I love this.

Climate-related death of coral around the world alarms scientists.

Wildfires, once confined to a season, burn earlier and longer.

Great Barrier Reef, half of natural wonder is dead or dying and is on the brink of extinction, scientists say.

say.

That's the bad news.

But that's what you're missing when you don't read the paper.

Yes.

There is good news.

I mean, yes, there is.

Yeah.

I mean, for instance, just to try to bring, like, basically, you've got half the audience here having committed suicide while you were doing it.

So for those of you who are still alive,

even here in California,

we have something called Cap and Trade.

It died in

D.C.

past year, and guess what?

It's actually working.

They said if you'd passed it it was going to destroy the economy, it wouldn't work, et cetera, et cetera.

A billion dollars now has been transferred from polluters to poor people here in California to put up low-cost solar panels to put people to work with urban forestry and gardening.

A young woman named Vianne Trong with Green for All is the kind of the architect of this polluters pays fund.

It turns out you can charge polluters.

If you litter, you get charged for littering.

These big polluters get charged nothing.

You can charge them.

You can take the money and use the money to actually clean stuff up.

That's a good way to go.

It's working in California.

And who's working right here in California?

And whose idea was Cap and Trade?

Cap and Trade came from the Heritage Foundation.

Came from the Republicans.

It came from the Republicans, and John McCain.

They used to be for it when they were, so did George Bush I.

Where did this idea that global warming isn't real come from?

Who started that and how did it spread so quickly?

Ooh, I have to cop to something.

I don't know if this is the show to do it.

Said a couple things in the late 80s when I was a kid.

No, no.

No.

No, but...

No, we are the only civilized nation in the world with one of our major parties who just completely doesn't believe it's real.

I mean, Donald Trump, where's my Donald Trump?

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S.

manufacturing non-competitive.

For those of you who might sit out if Bernie Sanders doesn't get the nomination, that's Trump.

Hillary Clinton says global change is the most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face as a nation and a world.

That's your choice.

Don't be assholes about it.

You know,

one of the things, and I'm curious how you deal with this.

You know, I got a chance to work in the White House for a while.

In the Pentagon, There's no debate about climate disruption.

Right.

It's baked into every single scenario going forward.

Why is it that this particular load of HUI has worked so well on the right?

Well, so I think I've talked about this on this show many times before, and as I've said before, my view is that you have to separate out the problem from the solution.

So when you look at the last IPCC report, the fifth version I think, you see a range of possible

outcomes and then a price tag on them.

There is obviously something happening.

I've written this over and over again.

You cannot change the environment.

You cannot pump things into the environment without changing it in some way.

But the relationship between what you do and what might happen is pretty unclear.

And the IPCC admits that.

Now, as far as I'm concerned, there is more.

Do they admit that if we stop pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it wouldn't change?

No, no, no.

There is, of course, a relationship between the two.

But there is a...

That's what we're talking about.

Yes, but there is a cost to that.

There is a cost to that.

But it can't be more than the 14

trillion, I just want to

help displace people.

Let me finish.

Let me finish.

There is a cost to that.

You have a world now in which a billion people, a billion and a half people over the last 20 years have been brought out of extreme poverty.

We've almost eradicated polio.

Advanced countries do good things.

A lot of people are less poor than they were.

There is a cost to doing something about this.

So the question is, how do you move forward?

Now, from my perspective, I would say the way you move forward that is the best way of doing it without re-impoverishing people is to embrace fracking and to embrace nuclear energy.

Nuclear energy, especially.

Okay, boob.

Why?

When we have the sun.

But we don't have enough technology yet.

Well, eventually, maybe.

Eventually, maybe.

And by the way, there are no terrorists who live on the sun.

We're talking about admitting that there's global warming and then arguing over what to do about it.

Right, which is

people who deny that there's global warming, which means you can't even have the discussion

of how to solve it.

Isn't part of it?

Isn't part of the language as well?

You know, we say global warming, then there's like snow, and they say, see, okay.

Right.

And then

they say, okay, all right, okay, you're just kind of slow.

So we said, okay, then, you know, climate change.

And then even people like Ruby will say, but the weather always changes, okay?

So what if we said climate disruption?

Well,

but in fairness, I would think around it.

I think this goes both ways too.

There isn't, whenever anything bad happens, there is a tendency on the left as well to say this must be climate change.

The oceanographers are always saying, guys, calm down a little bit, you're misleading people.

So, yes, of course that happens.

People mistake weather for climate.

But there is an alarmism here that doesn't do any service to the climate.

Don't you think it's slightly different when after the 19th hundred-year flood in a month, people go, wow, something's bad?

Isn't that different than saying nothing's happening?

Alarmism is called for.

Extremism in the defense of the planet is no vice.

But what level?

Is lying okay?

Oh, no, not lying.

No, no.

Who's lying?

But one more thing.

There's no lying.

Those headlines that I rattled off, they're not.

I just got back from the Arctic.

Really?

Yeah.

The ice sheet is melting.

Of course.

And the Pentagon is worried because the Russians and the Chinese are trying to now get all the resources that are now being revealed because the ice sheet is melting.

You see it.

You watch it.

But one thing I agree with you on, though.

One thing I agree with you on is that we need to have effective measures.

And we shouldn't do crazy things that cost money, wreck industries with no plan.

And that was called cap and trade, which came from the right.

And we actually accommodated ourselves to that.

And then once we adopted a heritage, a foundation proposal, you know what it was called?

Socialism.

So even when we do what you say, they still attack.

Okay, but those are the same.

But to push back, but to push back for a moment.

To push back.

Whenever I mention nuclear, which President Obama also supports, not as the entire solution, but as part of it, people boo and they mention carbon taxes, which Obama and Hillary and Paul Krugman oppose.

There is some common ground here.

There is no...

Well, you know what, let me tell you, actually, they are right because it's regressive.

It's a regressive policy.

Brookings is correct.

It falls five times more hard on the poor than it does on the rich.

There's a reason that there's a race.

Wait, wait, let me tell you what Obama's big victory was in the climate area.

Peabody Energy, the world's largest coal company, filed for bankruptcy last week.

It was worth $20 billion.

Now it's worth $38 million.

The coal industry has gone from a market cap of $69 billion to $4.8 billion, a 94% drop.

In other words,

Obama won the war on coal, and of course it was a war he couldn't even say he was fighting.

Okay, but what is the fight?

This is one of his greatest adjustments.

But what replaced it with fracking?

Because coal is...

What replaced it was fracking and the left doesn't like fracking.

No and they shouldn't.

Neither should you.

Why are we

compromising?

Yes.

Why is there this compromise to say, okay, look, you got rid of one bad thing, now you got the other bad thing.

We want any bad things.

I feel like we're all like one TED Talk away from, like, just watch Elon Musk and how much tiny geography we need for all the solar energy in the whole world.

It's a matter of time.

We have this big fusion reactor and this is a much slower process than that.

The fact is it is as long as people are dragging their feet.

And you're talking about costs, right?

This is not a science fiction movie.

This is not a science fiction movie.

Coal has diminished as fracking has increased.

People need their lights on.

People also don't want their bills to go up, and that hurts poor people as well.

It's all right to say that in the long term, technology will save us here, and it probably will, but it doesn't happen like that.

No, no, no.

This is a great conversation because the solution, once you admit there's a problem, the solution's hard, but you have to throw these things on the table and figure it out.

Well, it's a great conversation.

I have to end.

Sorry, but yeah, I know.

I wish we could, but I have to go to new rules, everybody.

It's time for new rules.

All right, new rule, if you don't smoke pot on any other day, don't smoke it on 4.20.

It's like taking up drinking on St.

Patrick's Day.

At best, you'll be getting in the way of the professionals.

And at worst, you'll find yourself going through a car wash without a car.

New rules clickbait sites that promise, I won't believe what my favorite stars of the 70s look like now,

have to understand, I probably will.

The concept of aging is familiar to me.

Like, here's Anthony Hopkins in his 30s.

Now here he is is in his 70s.

I believe it.

Maybe you should try this one.

They say Dick Clark never aged.

And you won't believe what happened to him.

He died.

New rule, showrooms in Beverly Hills that offer rare and exotic cars like Lamborghinis and Maseratis have to understand that in a city full of wealthy movie producers and successful Persians,

those cars are neither rare nor exotic.

You want to drive a rare and exotic car in Beverly Hills?

Try this 84 Buick Electric Station.

New rule, not that the first naked restaurant is opening in London.

Don't order the flaming dessert.

What a great new concept in dining.

Farm to table to crotch to hospital.

Yes, a restaurant where the only response to, can I please freshen your coffee is, fuck no, stay the hell away.

Not to mention that awkward moment when you say, waiter, there's some soup in my hair.

He's shaming me.

New rule, news organizations have to stop reporting that the Japanese island of Ooshima has been overrun by cats.

I'm no journalist, but clearly it's more accurate to report that the Japanese island of Ooshima has an extreme shortage of lesbians.

And finally, New Rule, white people,

have to find some middle ground between racists and people who see racism everywhere.

Because at this point, I can't tell who's more annoying, conservatives who don't care about anyone who isn't white, or liberals who hate themselves because they are white.

There's got to be some sweet spot between the PC police and the Baltimore police.

Now, I don't know how we got to this place where Caucasians in America are either non-stop apologizing for the unbearable whiteness of their being,

or they're Trump voters who somehow have convinced themselves that it's white folks who can't catch a break in America.

68% of Fox News viewers believe reverse racism is the bigger problem.

Racism, they say, what racism?

Look at all the black doctors on Gray's Anatomy.

Now,

these are both stupid positions, but we expect stupid from conservatives.

So let me tonight talk to the liberals for a minute.

Attention, whole food shoppers.

Put the kale down.

We need to have a talk because this idea that being white automatically equals lame is getting out of hand.

You know who I'm talking about, the kind of person who goes away to some exclusive vacation spot and comes back and says, it was nice, but so many white people.

The kind of person who watched the Super Bowl halftime show and tweeted some version of cold play just made me sad to be white.

Why?

Because they're super successful at a job you'd give your left nut to do?

I know you're trying to demonstrate to minorities that you're a sympathetic ally by dumping on your own whiteness, but most minority folks could give a shit.

They think it's ridiculous, you, pretending you're making a difference when you're just making yourself feel better.

It's so white.

It reminds me of how in the 90s, liberals attacked the Seinfeld show because all four characters were white.

But I don't remember any black people caring about it.

They just watched Martin instead.

Cut to 2016 and social justice warriors are doing the same thing with HBO's girls.

All her friends are white.

Well, I know a lot of white people too.

There's just so many in this country.

But, hey, the person I have gotten high with the most in my whole life, and that's saying a lot,

is this hard gangster best of your mind.

Do I get points for that?

Or am I furthering the stereotype that black folks smoke too much weed for the record they don't?

I believe they smoke just the right amount.

Did you hear that Bernie Sanders said the word ghetto last month and had to spend the whole week explaining that he didn't mean it in a good way

or a bad way or whatever way we're not allowed to mean it?

The iPhone has Surrey in it.

They should make one just for white people with an app called Sorry.

Watch any sitcom, commercial, movie comedy.

The go-to punchline is always the tight-ass, limptic, docker-wearing, tiny penis,

bland, food eating white guy.

White men can't jump, they can't dance, they can't fuck.

Really?

Even this guy?

He's 90 and he still does all of them.

And look, I'm not saying being a white male doesn't have its privileges.

Of course it does.

I'm just saying constantly crapping on yourself doesn't fix anything.

It's a perverse sort of narcissism.

The more you hate on your own whiteness, the better person you are.

I hear it all the time.

Check your white male privilege.

Okay, you're right.

I'm very privileged.

I checked.

Now what?

Should I tweet an apology to Kendrick Lamar while I lop off my cock?

I'm sure that would help because Bruce Jenner was a boob even among Kardashians, but now he has boobs, so she's Rosa Parks.

I'm not saying transgender isn't an issue either, or that where people go to the bathroom in public doesn't matter, but come on, it's easily solved.

If you look like a woman, use the woman's room.

If you look like a man, use the men's room.

If you're a bearded dude in a dress, hold it until you get home.

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at the Majestic in San Antonio, August 6th, The Ovens in Charlotte, August 19th, the Lyman in Nashville, August 20th.

I want to thank Charles Cook, Leslie Stoll, Van Jones, Thomas Middledich, and Lawrence Wright.

Join us now on 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.