Episode #377 (Originally aired 2/12/16)

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

Dark o'clock.

Good afternoon.

Afternoon.

Time will be

real time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, folks.

Thank you.

Oh,

stop it.

Thank you very much.

Please, what a big show.

Big show.

Thank you very much.

Oh, I

know.

I know.

Please.

I know why you're happy today.

Please, thank you.

Because the president has left the freeway.

That's why.

Did you get caught in the traffic?

Yeah.

Yeah, the president was here.

He was in town to do Ellen.

Yeah.

Isn't that interesting?

In town to do Ellen, which is, and that's what the traffic was about.

It's funny, because, you know, this studio has a helicopter pad.

So no traffic would be fucked up.

So if a president wanted to do a show and not fuck up the traffic, you know what?

I just want to say I know how the Oscars feel because I've got black people boycotting me too.

So, you know, I

never.

You know, we had that petition, you know, passed it before the weekend was out.

I didn't roll up the score.

I didn't say keep doing it.

But you know what?

Keep doing it now.

But you know what?

I still love you.

It may be an insult to you, and I think it is, but it's Valentine's Day, so you got love from this guy.

And I wrote a little Valentine's poem for you.

Would you like to hear it?

Roses are red, violets are blue.

It's time to elect a socialist Jew.

Oh,

you're feeling the burn, I know.

No, we had the New Hampshire primary this week.

Bernie Sanders trounced Hillary Clinton by 22 points.

The last time I got to say a Jew hurt Hillary this bad was Monica Lewinsky.

I think

we'll get over it.

But listen, if you're visiting LA and you're feeling the burn, that just may be the methane.

No, they capped it.

Did you hear that?

They capped.

We've had a horrible methane leak here.

Yeah, they finally did it.

They used a combination of mud and stabilizing fluid and cement, the same stuff Trump uses on his hair.

Well, he won a big victory too.

You got to give him credit.

I know people don't like to hear that, but the people have grunted.

And they wanted Trump up there in New Hampshire.

Did you see Trump's victory speech?

He was very red.

I mean, he's usually like...

He's usually like a pumpkiny orange, but he was red.

I mean, he's like a human terror alert system.

And

the threat to America posed by his candidacy has been now raised to severe.

We'll see what happens.

You know, boy,

this race has shown a lot can happen in a week.

A week ago, Marco Rubio was the chosen one.

Now he's the little broken robot boy.

His Valentine's Day card to his wife is very sweet.

It said, remembering you on this special day.

And then when you opened it, it said, remembering you on this special day.

I mean,

look, politicians all repeat themselves, but this guy, Mike Carr, knows more phrases.

He's like a first-generation iPod.

250 songs.

But of course, the media is obsessed with the fact that two days ago, Donald Trump called Ted Cruz a pussy.

They pretended like the world was coming to an end, which is first of all so unfair to pussies.

But you know

not to defend Donald Trump, but it wasn't said in the bad sense of pussy like you're pussy.

No.

It's just like pussy from pussycat.

That's what that, you know, and you know what it was?

Ted Cruz is for waterboarding

but not enough for it

so he's a pussy this is so Republican this so binary if you're not enough of a dick you're a pussy

and

this is

And this I guess is ironic or just weird, but on the same week, Ted Cruz had to pull a campaign ad because it turned out the actress in his campaign ad was a porn star.

She, I love this, she did a movie called Sex Sent Me to the ER.

And that's a tip-off.

She's not a real Republican.

She has sex and access to health care.

So,

but

okay, now it's on to South Carolina.

That's the next primary.

If Iowa and New Hampshire are the Oscars, this is now the BET Awards.

That's how we do it in America.

First, the white people vote, then the black people vote.

Bernie not doing well, I have to say, with the black voters there in South Carolina, which I don't get.

The only alternative is a white woman with a big ass.

Okay, I get it.

All right, we got a great show.

We have Ana Navarro, Killer Mike, and Josh Green.

And a little later, he'll be speaking with Margaret Cho is here to join us.

But first up, he is the NBC News chief foreign correspondent whose new book is, And Then All Hell Broke Loose Two Decades in the Middle East.

Richard Engel.

Richard Engel.

How are you, sir?

Great to see you.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for having me.

I must say, you look remarkably healthy and relaxed for a guy who spent two decades in the Middle East.

I would think you would look 80 by now.

The weather is generally warm.

The food is pretty good.

Well, what is it about war zones that attracts a person?

I think you see what's going on in the world.

I think you see humanity.

But I could see it.

On TV brought to me by you.

But when you see a situation like two atoms that are smashed together, that's when you understand the universe.

And when you see two societies that are driven together, that's when you understand what the societies are made of.

War is like that.

Is this what you were thinking when they kidnapped you?

And you were a prisoner for five days.

No, when they kidnapped me, I thought,

this is going to end.

This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

It was right before Christmas, and I was thinking, I'm either going to be dead before Christmas, or hopefully I'll be out by Christmas.

And I was out by Christmas and celebrated with my family.

So

that was...

Well, that's nice.

It was a nice one.

So at the Democratic debate last night, Bernie kept talking about blowback in one way or another, which I thought was great because I think that's the concept we should get across to people who may not look so much at the Middle East, that unintended consequences.

And that I think is a lot of what your book is about, the fact that when George Bush said we're going to fight him over there, so we don't have to fight him over here, we actually wound up making them want to come over here and fight us.

Well, ISIS is undoubtedly a creation of the Iraq War.

All the leadership from ISIS were leaders that started out fighting American troops in Iraq.

That is the genesis.

But this book looks at the last 20 years and the sort of the thesis of this book, and there's a lot of personal anecdotes, it's told through my eyes, but

the general concept is there was a status quo in the Middle East that had existed for decades.

And through eight years of military action under the Bush administration, we broke that status quo and unleashed a lot of demons that had been pent up inside the region.

And then over the last very soon to be eight years of this administration, we had quite a bit of an inconsistent policy.

And what we've been left with is that old status quo is totally destroyed.

All of the demons are out.

And it's represented by ISIS, which is this kind of primordial ooze that had always been there and has been unleashed.

And I think its time on this world is very horrible.

It's like a virus

that we're all suffering from, but that it eventually will go away like the black plague and like other viruses and diseases that have come.

But I I mean there's been the problem for a long time in the Middle East that we seem to not want to have dictatorships, but that then seems to be the actual best option.

It seems like there's a vicious cycle when there's a horrible dictatorship.

The people turn to religion

and then when the religious forces take over you actually need a dictator to put the lid back on.

Well, I think what when you look at what's happened, so if you have this the status quo that was there, which was dictators, and they were like a lot of old rotten houses.

They were containing the problem, but also contributing the problem, because if you don't open the windows and the doors, the rots gets worse and worse.

So they were part of the problem as well.

That old system got broken down.

And where I think we're going, and I mentioned this in the book, is I think there will be a new series of strong men to come.

But we also have to be careful.

As people who are human beings and ethical people, we don't want to embrace fascists.

We don't want to just say, okay, do what you want to your people, because I think that's morally wrong.

And I think the last hundred years has shown us that if you embrace fascists, bad things can happen.

If you appease really terrible leaders, you can get terrible results.

But isn't it always about the least awful?

There is no good option.

Just the least.

What is better?

Saddam Hussein or ISIS?

Those are your choices.

There isn't a third one on the menu.

On the menu?

Because in Syria, we tried to find a moderate

quarter off the menu.

Yes, if you have to to look at ISIS or Saddam Hussein, those are pretty bad.

But in Syria we tried to find a moderate army.

We tried to build

one.

The first goal was 5,400 people.

Then we got 54.

Then there was about five or six.

Five.

We got five guys.

Five moderate.

That's a limited menu.

Yeah.

Charlie Rose once said to me, Bill, I have to introduce you to a moderate Muslim.

I said, let's not go to Syria, because there's only five guys there.

Well, I don't think that's fair.

I think.

there's a lot of people who are

terrified.

Yeah, and they're all in Germany now.

And some of them are being sent back, frankly.

I know, but

shouldn't they fight for their own country at some point?

Shouldn't we have some mechanism?

It seems like all the energy is always with the fanatics.

How can we, I know there are moderate people.

I know there are people who want to live in normal societies.

How can we harness that energy?

Why doesn't anybody join an army to fight ISIS?

I hear about them joining ISIS.

I don't hear about the reverse.

Well,

I was just talking with someone in Syria the other day.

And if you're living in Aleppo, which is right now probably the worst place on Earth,

and you're seeing now Russian bombardment intensifying.

You're seeing the Syrian government troops advancing.

It's already been several years in the conflict.

You watch other towns that have been starved out.

It's easy for me and you to sit here and say, you should stay, you should stick it out and fight.

No, no, I'm not saying

what has become a creature.

I'm saying people who went to Germany, how about

I might be one of those people who got on a plane.

But instead of trying to build a new life there, there's so many of them.

How about a recruitment center?

Build the army there in Germany and go back.

The problem is right from the beginning that Syria was a proxy war, and it was always a struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the US and Turkey.

So everyone had different fingers in this pot right from the beginning.

So if you wanted to join a legitimate, clear rebel army that was the cause of good to fight, almost right from the beginning it didn't exist.

So what should we do?

It seems like, you know, I heard President Obama say,

Afghanistan.

I don't think we should try and fix this, frankly.

So he said Afghanistan,

they're using the South Korean model.

In other words, once we go someplace, we have to stay forever.

It's kind of like when you put your foot on a grenade, if you lift it...

If you lift it, it blows up.

Right.

So I feel like that's what happens to us when we invade a country.

Now we stepped on that grenade.

We either die or we stay on it forever.

Well, I think the Middle East, so

And I hope people, if they read this book, will walk away with a way of thinking about the Middle East.

So for decades you had a status quo.

It was broken.

Now it's been destroyed and we're living in this period of real chaos.

I think strong men will emerge.

So I think that the region will solve its own problems without us trying to solve it for them.

But you said that wasn't the answer, strong men.

But I'm saying we should not, we should,

the world community should be very careful to fall over themselves and embrace these small, strong men and say, do anything you want to the people.

Because we live here.

After the show, we're going to have a panel and we're going to go have a couple of drinks, right?

We don't have to live under these horrible dictators.

So it's very easy for us to say, ah, bring in the worst, bring back Saddam Hussein and do what you want for the people.

You reminded me, we've got to get to the drinks.

But I thank you for coming.

I thank you for going.

Thank you.

You're really brave.

I appreciate it.

All right, Richard Engel, everybody.

Let's meet our panel.

Okay.

Here they are.

He's a national correspondent for Bloomberg Business Week.

Josh Green is back with us.

Josh Green, hello.

He's a musician.

His latest album is Run the Jewels 2.

And he's a Bernie Sanders supporter.

Michael Render, aka.

Killer, Mike.

Mike?

And she's a CNN and ABC political contributor and a Jeb Bush supporter.

Ana Navarro.

How you doing?

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

Okay, New Hampshire primary, big results.

Trump and Sanders.

Isn't it interesting that Trump and Sanders, who in some ways are diametrically opposed, are also the ones who kind of are alike because they speak their minds.

They're the authentic ones.

And Michael Grunwald of Politico asked an interesting question that I think is worth repeating.

He said, New Hampshire, unemployment rate 3.1.

That's really low.

Gas is $1.98 a gallon.

The murder rate lowest in the country.

Poverty rate lowest in the country, and yet they voted for the guy who said the American dream is dead and the other guy who said, let's have a revolution.

Why so glum, America?

The top-line economic numbers, I don't think, tell the full story.

I was on the ground in New Hampshire and people are angry.

And we ask why, it's because the gains since the crisis, and they've been modest gains, have all gone to the people at the top of the economic ladder.

And working class people aren't stupid.

They know that, they see that, they feel less secure, they don't have as good a job as they used to have, and they see all these billionaires and all this money floating around and they know they're getting screwed.

And I think Trump and Sanders understood the mood of the electorate better than any party boss or any party or any pundit.

And we saw that in the results in New Hampshire.

Look, you can quote those numbers, but when you ask people whether they think the country is in the wrong or right direction, going the wrong or right track, the vast majority of Americans think America is going on the wrong track.

And I think that's true in New Hampshire as well.

They also have a huge problem with drug addiction.

Would you be saying this if it was President Mitt Romney with a 4.9% unemployment rate?

Would you be saying country's in the wrong direction?

I don't know what that motherfucker was thinking.

But

the bill,

it's not me saying it.

I know, but if it was President Mill.

There's 63% of Americans saying it.

And that's what

Trump articles are.

That's because the media and the politics,

yes,

and the politicians who are running for office have a vested interest in getting people aroused, getting them angry, making it always seem like the other side is trying to take the country from your side.

Seems like that's a lot of it.

Look, I agree with you.

You know, we were talking before I got on here, and we...

Oh, I heard you out there.

Real chatterboxes back there.

Look, okay.

I'm Hispanic.

Don't invite me if you want me to be quiet.

Go ahead, Kevin Michael.

I was going to say what impressed me about New Hampshire is the fact that it is a big white state.

They do have low unemployment.

They do have low gas.

And they could have gone totally the selfish route.

They could have gone total Trump, like we're okay to hell with everyone else.

But the people there, I think, want the nation to be more reflective of what they're living.

And that's where people can have jobs, where people do have disposable income in the working and middle class.

And I think it's possible, which is why I jumped on the Sanders train.

But I understand why people jumped on the Trump train.

People are pissed.

But if you're really pissed, I think you should direct it in a positive direction and get on board for this revolution, man.

Look, the other thing,

in New Hampshire, authenticity really matters.

New Hampshire is a very unique experience in the country when it comes to the democratic process.

Folks show up to these town halls and they open themselves up like, you know, open books.

They tell these candidates their real problems.

They, you know, tell them about harrowing things that you wouldn't believe they're being.

Like, my daughter just died of an overdose.

Like, my father was declared dead by the the Veterans Administration, and here he is alive.

What campaign issue is addressed there?

What are you going to do about the drug issue?

What are you going to do about the VA problems?

I think that they want to hear real solutions.

My point is, they like authenticity, and I think they found it in Bernie.

Authenticity.

It's so interesting because we've gotten so used to Donald Trump that an accandidate who just pulls insane shit out of his ass.

Here's what Donald,

here's what Donald Trump said about the 4.9% unemployment rate, which is the fact in America.

He said, don't believe those phony numbers when you hear 4.9 unemployment.

The number is probably 28,

29,

as high as 35.

In fact, I even heard, I love that, that a serious person can just go, I heard

a passing mental patient whispered in my ear.

In fact,

I heard recently 42%.

Do you have any idea what America would look like with 40% unemployment?

With the Great Depression, with 25 people who are jumping out of windows and selling apples on the street.

40%.

And I have to say, I know you hate to hear this, Republicans, but this is just in their gut.

They want to feel...

This is what Obama did to America.

I know they don't think they're racist, but there is no other explanation for a delusion on this level.

You think, wait.

They're intimidating.

Come on, Bill.

You're going to accuse.

You're going to accuse.

First of all, let me just tell you, I don't like Donald Trump anymore.

No, no, you don't.

I know.

And also, I don't think it's fair to paint Republicans as racist when you have two Cuban Americans and a black guy who are running for the Republican nomination.

You've got two white people, two old white people running on the Democratic side.

We'll see who winds up running.

One white guy did, was really at the civil rights movement, though.

And I agree with you.

And the black guy that you like is an esteemed doctor.

He has pictures in my house.

He's tough.

But he does think grain was in a pyramid.

He's tough.

And I know that the problem is when who looks at my side?

And I love him.

I love him.

Here's Trump's magic.

He operates on a different political plane than any other candidate I've ever seen, certainly any other candidate in this race.

And I talked to people, I said, you know, I work at Business Week.

I have the numbers.

I can show them to you.

Why do you believe him when he says 42% unemployment?

Oh, you know, he's telling the truth.

You know, you guys, it may not be 42%, but it's higher than you say, and you guys always shill for the establishment, whether it's Hillary or Jeb or whatever.

Trump articulates an anger, even if he does it without facts, that is landing with the Republican voters.

Yes.

Okay, and I noticed that they reacted when I said media, which I'm glad, because as much as I hate the politicians every week when I watch TV, I hate the media more.

And I just think people need to know, and we hear it every week, it's a reality show.

It really is a reality show in the sense that the media acts like reality show producers.

Now, we all know reality shows are not really reality, that the producers, before they turn on the camera, whisper, just throw a drink in this guy's face, would you?

You know, start a fight with this housewife.

And I, the media does not care about the truth in this election.

I'm not saying they make it up totally, but they take whatever is going on, like Rubio flubbing, and they make a storyline.

All they care is about the storyline.

Rubio, he's not out because he's the handsome one.

He had to be up, then he had to be down, now he'll be up again.

That's all they care about.

He doesn't have that much power.

Neither does the political establishment.

And we find that out every day.

We've been trying to solve Trump just like everybody else.

And

we report the facts, and people ignore him and vote for Trump anyway.

First of all, not on TV.

They don't report the facts.

There was a giant story this week that totally got buried because because all they do is talk about the horse race.

There should have been a giant headline that said Supreme Court attacks earth.

Let me tell you what happened.

The five Republicans,

the five Republicans on the Supreme Court stopped the EPA from carrying out the Clean Power Plan, which is President Obama's main global warming initiative.

It is the thing that allowed us to take the lead at the Paris Accords in November.

At Paris, we agreed to cut emissions of greenhouse gas by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

This is really important stuff.

And it's unprecedented, by the way, for the Supreme Court to do this, because this has not been adjudiated so far by the Federal Appeals Court.

But they had to step in, or else an oil company might have been hurt.

And

my question is, one, how are these other countries going to trust us now on taking the lead on global warming?

And two, how can anything get done in America when you have to run it by Antonin Scalia first?

Look,

when you have very complex, big, hairy problems like global warming, hairy, very hairy, like immigration, the same thing is happening on the immigration front.

There is a stay on DACA and DAPA, the immigration executive orders that Obama passed.

Why?

Because, Bill, we are a country where there is separation of powers, and these very complex national issues have got to be solved with all the powers weighing in in a bipartisan manner.

And as Americans, we must demand that our president and our Congress work together.

Damn it.

This is not, the status quo today is not acceptable.

That's a lovely speech, but

it's so interesting to me the way Republicans always rail against activist judges, activist judges, except when they don't get what they want.

Then they run to the judges to solve it.

Obamacare, McCain Feingold, climate change, gay marriage.

Then they want Scalia to step in.

And again,

this is so political.

You don't think this is political on the part of the judges?

Because this is the oligarchy at work.

Americans, including Republicans, want action on climate change.

But let me remind you, though, that if there is a president, Raphael Edward Cruz, you might end up with executive orders you really, really don't like.

And you're going to like the fact that the court steps in or that there are constitutional issues that are reviewed and that they're under scrutinize.

So, you know, there are checks and balances in this country.

It is why we have a democracy that has worked for us.

But on the issue of climate specifically, I mean, what this is going to do essentially is going to put up a speed bump.

It's going to delay CPP and it's going to push it to whoever the next president is, right?

If it's the Democratic president, if it's Hillary, if it's Bernie, we're going to get this.

It's going to continue in the same direction.

If it's President Cruz, it's going to stop.

So what this really does is throw even more importance on the presidential race in November because the identity of the next president is probably going to decide what direction we go on climate.

And they are two very different directions.

I just want to read one thing.

I've read it before on this show.

It's a study, I'm sure you were familiar with it, by two Princeton professors who said this is an oligarchy.

And they said, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.

And they wonder why there's a revolution.

All right, so I make fun of Donald Trump a lot, Yep.

But I am no supporter.

He did sue me once.

Only once.

But the media, I must say, makes me laugh because sometimes they go after him in a way that reminds me a lot of who they themselves are.

The Daily News hates this guy.

He is a...

classless bore.

They call him every name.

And then look at their cover when he won the New Hampshire primary.

Dawn of the brain dead.

Clown comes back back to life with New Hampshire win as mindless zombies turn out in drugs.

And this isn't the only one.

I mean, the National Review had a whole issue devoted to against Trump.

And I just think it's open season for magazines and newspapers.

We got a hold of some of the ones that are about to come out.

Would you like to see?

Oh, some of these are.

People magazine, the sexist man alive.

I mean, right there.

A variety.

Hicks, pick, rich, brick.

Oh, the ARP, you know what that is?

That's the retired person's magazine.

They have, we know old, and this shit's getting old.

The National Enquirer has, even if Trump didn't kill Natalie Wood, it's just the kind of thing he would do.

A playgirl had a playgirl first, a dick on the cover.

Ebony Magazine had Trump for president, just fucking around edition.

And of course, National Geographic, the Trump phenomenon.

All right, let's bring out Margaret.

She is an actress and comedian whose new music album, American Myth, drops April 29th.

She's performing at the Just for Laughs Comedy Fest at Vancouver's Vogue Theater, February 19th.

Margaret Cho is over here.

How's Margaret Cho?

How are you, my buddies?

Great to see you.

All right, Margaret.

Now, you know why you're here?

North Korea has launched a long-range ballistic.

No.

I cut my hair like him.

Don't I look like him, kind of?

You don't think so.

You look great.

I could go be his double.

You could not.

You look great.

And you're here because we love you, and it's Valentine's Day.

We love you long time.

No, that's a good question, you know, because we always hear about what the blacks are voting, who the whites are voting for.

Who are the Asians?

Who do they want for president?

Who do you want for president?

Well, I want Bernie Sanders.

Okay.

We are part of the revolution.

Right.

But I think that I think Asian Americans are confused.

I think we really don't know.

We feel this hostility towards us from the Trump camp, which he's very hostile towards all immigrants.

And I guess he has some sort of...

He's always rallying on China.

Yeah, he hates it.

He's called them motherfuckers.

He hates it.

He hates China, and he does kind of a weird Chinese accent.

People go, oh, well, I guess, you know, it's all sort of his...

anti-immigrant stance.

But

he's confusing because I think that

Asians would want to vote for somebody that is about anger.

I think Asian Americans are a lot angrier than we even acknowledge ourselves.

Really?

They must repress it.

I think it's a lot of it's repressed, a lot of it's cultural, but I feel like a lot of people are very confused.

So you're on Fashion Police.

Yes.

And I was watching the Democratic debate last night.

Can I show you what Hillary wore?

Yes.

Now, I know it's unfair because a man can always just put on a suit.

Uh-huh.

But still, why that?

I mean,

I know it's unfair, and yet, that is not a good look.

It's at the very bottom of the Chico's barrel.

You know, it's like she's gone through every Chico's duster that they have, and that's the last one left.

She's safe in a storm.

But now, I know you talk a lot about how women are victims of body shaming and so forth.

Yeah, but I'm not body shaming.

I'm color shaming.

Right.

Okay, all right.

You know, it's not her body.

Her body's great.

Okay.

But, I mean, you do talk about how America is very ageist, very celebrated.

It is.

Sexist.

It is.

Yeah, I mean,

believe me, I know.

I'm 60 now, so, you know.

It's hard.

It's hard.

It's hard to get older and visibly older.

I mean, I sort of am a little bit outside of it.

Visibly out of it.

No, no, no.

I have to tell people that.

But I'm a little outside of it because as black don't crack, beige don't age.

So I look the same.

No matter what I do.

You do look the same.

Yeah.

But yeah, body shaving is, I think it's a fascism.

It's a fascism against women's bodies.

I'm a longtime survivor of eating disorders, so I know that you can be dragged back into the disease anyway.

So, you know, I'm in remission now because I've done a lot of work on it, but it's hard.

Is that because of the sex worker stuff?

Because I know you've written about that too, that you were a sex worker.

I was a sex worker, but that was,

I didn't have much to do with all of the other problems in my life.

Sex work was oddly

enough a positive aspect of it.

And let's be clear when we talk about that.

You were a phone sex operator.

As a phone sex operator.

And a dominatrix?

Well, I was a terrible dominatrix because bad aim and bad arm.

So

those do not make right.

Not to diminish it, but those

seem like two sex work jobs where you actually don't even have to touch people.

Right.

Well, and then with the phone sex.

There's no penetration sex work.

No, no, no.

So, not that.

But it's still sex.

It's sex.

Well, I think it still is.

It still is, but I mean, look, there are so many worse things.

I'm talking about just like in the medical field.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I mean, there are things.

Have you ever talked to somebody who works in an emergency room?

Yeah.

I mean, they pull shit out of people's asses all the time.

Right.

Usually Sharpies.

It's almost always Sharpies.

Whatever it is.

I mean, if I.

No, it's true.

It's 100%.

But if I had to make.

Why Sharpie?

I don't know.

Something about the width of it and the accessibility and people just see it.

So never put one in your mouth.

I'm just saying when you see a Sharpie, don't reflexively put it in your mouth because you just, you don't know.

No, you don't know.

And I'm

and I'm just saying, if I had to either do that, like pull stuff out of people's asses, or blow a guy, I would blow a guy, and I don't want to blow a guy.

Well, sex work, I think, it fills an important role.

I'd like to make that clear to the panel.

I respect sex workers a lot, and I think that they deserve a lot more than we give them.

They deserve decriminalization.

They deserve law enforcement to be on their side.

You know, it's a very stigmatized profession.

Yes.

So they should have respect, just like emergency responsibility.

Oh, absolutely.

That's why there's so much exploitation.

Yes.

Yes.

Another thing you talk about, which I think is very abusing, you coined the phrase white slight.

No, it's like, well, it's yes.

which is white white people think they're under attack well yeah white fragility because they're so upset

we only started talking about race when white people found out about it so all we do now is talk about racism and they're very upset they're very fragile you got to walk on eggshells around white people it was so much easier before when we could just walk on their back

let's

get back to you

well speaking of uh speaking of white people thinking they're under attack i was watching the super Bowl, because every American does, and it was a crappy game.

But the halftime show I thought was pretty interesting, and Beyonce

had a great...

Let's show a little bit of Beyoncé at the halftime.

Now, to me, watching that, I was like, well, this looks like every other halftime show I've ever seen.

No wrong.

It was an affront to everything we hold dear.

It's a

singing and dancing while black and you know once again at the Super Bowl, black people misbehaving.

I didn't know what the right wing was talking about.

Rush Limbaugh said it was representative of the cultural decay and social rot that is befalling our country.

Yeah, same people who think there's 40% unemployment.

Hip-hop expert Rudy Giuliani, it was outrageous.

He said it was outrageous.

I don't know what the heck it was.

A bunch of people bouncing around and all strange things.

What's wrong with a pericomo medley?

Sung by up with people.

And it's just amazing that the two Americas, they were, because why?

Because there was some.

First of all, you can't even hear the lyrics, really.

No, not really.

Who's listening?

Well, she did a video the day before.

She did that.

And the video.

Show the video.

There's a little bit of the video.

But this was not at the Super Bowl.

This is from the video of the same song.

Yeah.

Stop shooting us.

Stop shooting us.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Well,

let me,

speaking of white sliding, white fragility,

white people, it's not always about you.

And what I mean by that is...

When you hear her talk about the record, she says, you know, like,

first, I'm not in the Illuminati.

She's talking to other black people saying, look, stupid, because I'm not at Ferguson when you want me to be, doesn't mean I sold you out.

And then the rest of the first verse is about her telling other black people, I like being black.

This is the type of black I am.

I like the fact my daughter's black.

I like my old Michael Jackson nose.

I like my child with an afro.

I like me.

White people, that conversation wasn't even for you.

Now,

what scares the most.

What she's saying was, ladies, time, it's called formation.

Yeah, absolutely.

Ladies, time to get in formation, which means kill whites.

I think we all know that.

I think that message was clear.

I thought it it meant killed husbands, but I tried to change it and my wife hit me.

But I want to say about the Black Panthers, other white people, the history they teach you in white school is not exactly right.

The Black Panthers were called the Black Panthers, but they weren't just pro-black people.

There was even an Asian Black Panther.

People, it wasn't Margaret.

The Black Panthers were a socialist group for any downtrodden people.

And at that time, they happened to be blacks, but they said all people.

Fred Hampton was 21 years old.

And when he talked, he talked about educating the people, not just the black people.

So, white people,

we're immigrating the Panthers too.

We don't have to be afraid anymore.

Well, listen, I was just like you.

I think, you know, it had to be broken down for days for me to understand what the message was.

I think I was so traumatized by the puppy monkey baby horrific ass.

Right.

I just could not figure out what the message was.

And I do think.

And the people who can't shit ad.

I mean, no,

I mean, the ads.

That was even worse.

That was the most horrible thing.

Were horrific.

So, you know, when I see Beyoncé, who's a great performer doing her dance routine?

As a white guy on the panel, I recognized immediately.

Maybe this is a white political reporter.

But for Trump's American...

He must have been the only sober person watching.

The image of dancing black militants is like their nightmare come to life.

And right in the middle of the big game that every Republican has watched every dance number looks militant like it didn't look like anything different than I've seen but a million times the black power stuff and they're all ginned up because of Trump that's why you're a good reporter you've got an eye for that but Black Pride doesn't have to take anything away from white culture it doesn't have to take anything away it can exist on its own I think this is what black Americans needed it's what all of us needed it's really important but listen we're talking about this racial issue which I think is so important and but we have to learn how to talk about it in in a constructive way.

We cannot continue pitting one group against the other.

Yes, Black Lives Matter.

I need to be appalled when Eric Gardner can't breathe and dies, but we also need to be appalled when the cops get shot sitting in a patrol car.

This is a guy, and we are.

I'm the son of a cop.

I'm the son of a cop.

I put a memorial up last night before I was pulled over for a cop that was killed in Atlanta.

But my question to you is, why don't any of your leaders say what you just said to me?

Like, if the the leaders of your party said that, and I'm not against any black Republican, but if Dr.

Carson would have the balls to say that, he'd have more of the black vote.

And he deserves it.

Killer, can I call you a killer?

Listen.

There is a lot of bipartisan support for criminal justice reform, and there are a lot of people calling for there to be attention paid to this.

But we just can't do it in a way where we are both, you know, pitting each other against

one group against.

You can't say that police officer is wrong in South Carolina for shooting a man as he's running away.

You can say that.

That's no, I don't say that.

There's no, no, I know you, but I'm not saying it's what we're doing.

But your leaders are not.

They are.

Every time I pray for them to get it and say the right thing, they drop the ball.

So you brought up South Carolina

where the next primary is.

And I was very interested to see that you're for Jeb Bush, right?

Yes, I am.

He brought out his brother, George W.

Bush.

Apparently, he thinks he can be very influential with

a key Republican Democratic.

He's like a 90% approval rating in South Carolina.

And this is what I want to get at, because South Carolina, a lot of veterans, a lot of military people who love George W.

Bush.

Do you remember what Jeb Bush's big gaffe was at the beginning of the campaign?

They asked him about, if you know what we know now,

If you know today what we knew then, would you go into Iraq?

And he said yes.

All the other Republican candidates jumped on him.

Ted Cruz said, knowing what we know now, of course we wouldn't get into Iraq.

How could you be so stupid as to be churleing for a war that I was for only two years ago?

Okay.

But they all said the same thing, basically.

Trump brags all the time about he's the only one who was against the war in Iraq.

So, okay, we all agree that the war in Iraq was a mistake.

Shouldn't George W.

Bush be the least popular guy among the military?

It's like battered wife syndrome.

Why do you like a guy who sent you to lose lives and limbs and be away from your family to a war we now agree was not necessary?

You know he's also

we've also shown

I think there are few former presidents that have done as much for veterans for wounded warriors as George Williams.

But they wouldn't be warning.

Well you know why the

military

respects him?

Because they recognize you have leadership abilities.

Leadership absolutely.

Leadership abilities.

Yeah, well, I guess

I watch a lot of Velocity TV at home looking at how to work on cars and whatnot.

And there's one commercial that comes on, and it disgusts me every time it comes on.

My heart goes with the soldier.

He's on it and he's shaking.

Throughout the entire commercial, they show you, and they give you a pitch of a wounded warrior syndrome.

And I said the exact same thing you said.

Why don't we stop sending poor and working-class boys to war?

And then we don't have to have those commercials.

We don't have to have a charity.

We don't have to get angry that the VA hospital won't see them for post-traumatic stress syndrome when they come back.

So we have higher suicide rates.

If we do the right thing by avoiding war, we don't have to have that guilt.

And I agree.

I totally agree.

I'm sorry.

No, no, please.

I mean,

I think George W.

Bush is a war criminal.

You know, he sent all of these people to die.

And

some of them came back worse than dead.

Let's not throw that term around so loosely.

I mean, I'm not a macromedian and everything, but you know, war criminals are Nazis.

War criminals putting us in.

He's in a box and hasn't showed up at the last two Republican conventions.

A lot of people do feel that way.

And only maybe in the insular community of the South Carolina Republican Party does he have some oomph.

I don't think Jeb would have him out on the campaign trail if he weren't in some real trouble electorally.

Well,

think about this.

You know,

where does Hillary Clinton bring out a bill where he can actually help?

So, you know, think about

a politician actually being strategic as to where they use their assets and their resources.

Well, I don't think he's much of an asset or a resource.

Well, the people of South Carolina disagree.

Let's let them vote and then we'll find out

if they disagree or not.

I'm not sure that.

Do you disagree that his approval numbers in South Carolina are through the roof?

I'm not convinced yet that he's going to be an asset for Jim.

Okay, do you disagree that his approval numbers in South Carolina amongst Republicans are through the roof?

I don't trust polls anymore.

Not after what we've seen this year.

It's like popular.

Can I just tell you something?

Can I just tell you something in a respectful way?

But as a comedian, I don't exactly agree with what she said either, but we comedians hate it when we make a serious point and somebody says, you're a comedian.

Okay.

Okay.

Because, yes, we're comedians and we also can make good points.

Okay, true.

I'm just telling you.

I want to tell you that as somebody who actually lived through a civil war in Nicaragua and fled war in Nicaragua, fled communism, when you throw around a term like war criminal, it is personal to me.

But just, okay, and comedians personal to us.

Okay.

Some things are funnier than others.

But it's not funny.

I'm just, I'm talking about all the people who came back from a war that we shouldn't have gone to because of George Bush.

That's why.

I think he's a war criminal.

Okay, Margaret, you think he's a war criminal?

You know, I think he was commander-in-chief.

I think he's got to live with some of his, you know, mistakes.

I think he does.

And, you know, I think he also showed great leadership qualities.

We did not get another 9-11 under him.

He was able to pull this country together after 9-11 in a way that we haven't seen.

This really, okay, this bothers me too.

This is something Jeb always says.

You know, my brother kept us safe.

I remember that one day he did not.

And this selective memory that we have about is somehow the terrorism started the day after 9-11.

We remember this.

There was memos coming in all the time that supposedly were read to him.

Osama bin Laden

is standing right behind you.

Well, Bill.

And there's, you know, there's people who lost loved ones in San Bernardino that feel exactly the same way about President Obama.

So we can...

Do you really think President Obama could have done anything to stop San Bernardino?

Tell me what Obama should have done to stop San Bernardino.

Do you think we have the same intelligence capacities that we did before?

Well, if we don't, it's it's because Congress voted them differently.

And yes,

we have incredible intelligence capabilities, and that would not have stopped the San Bernardino killers.

They still have not been able to open their phone.

But

I think there's a reason why Jeb started out as the frontrunner and has fallen.

I do think that a lot of people have thought about this as this crazy primary season has gone on and decided they're going to reject that establishment.

They're going to reject that way of thinking.

I I think it's also happening to a lesser extent on the Democratic side.

They've looked at Hillary and Bill and all the turmoil that comes with them.

And that's why you have so much energy, unexpectedly.

I'm not a fan of behind a Trump fan.

I'm not a Trump fan, but when he says Jeb's a stiff, and if he wasn't in politics, you wouldn't hire him for a job.

He's kind of right.

I mean,

he,

come on, Jeb.

Look, Jeb Bush, whom I've known my entire adult life, does not throw around

bad words.

I know.

He does not insult people.

He actually respects the presidency.

You know,

he has been very successful in business.

And unlike Donald Trump, he didn't get a million dollars from his daddy to start his business.

Right.

He had no advantages being the son of President George Bush

all from the beginning.

Come on.

Of all the arguments you can make.

Of all the arguments you can.

I actually know the guy.

I know, but of all the arguments you can do.

I actually know the guy.

But

to bring the daddy into it, if you know anything about the Bushes, they don't get trust fund.

They're not trust fund babies.

And I can tell you that Jeb Bush began his career working in Venezuela.

Jeff W.

Bush bought a baseball team with like bubblegum.

All right.

Well,

Jeb Bush began his career working in a bank in Venezuela.

We respectfully agree to disagree.

Thank you, panel.

We must move on to new rule.

New rule, Chris

Chris Christie must look on the bright side.

Now that he's dropped out of the race, he can stop doing all those embarrassing and humiliating campaign stunts and go back to the simple dignity of his real job selling Musinex.

New rule, someone must tell hipsters that instead of paying over $100 for Levi's new wedgie-fit jeans that are worn high around the waist and lift and separate your ass cheeks, you could just try pulling up your pants.

Neural, stop making Kleenex with lotion.

The reason I need a Kleenex is that I just use lotion.

Neural Bernie Sanders has to admit he's waiting for a Polaroid to come out of of the bottom of this girl's canvas.

It's okay, Bernie, you're old school.

That's why the chicks dig you.

New rule, this is for Valentine's Day.

Someone has to inform women that when we men slip off our underwear, dangle it on our big toe, then flip it up and catch it, we expect a round of applause.

And finally, new rule for this Valentine's Valentine's Day.

People who love marijuana

have to do me this favor.

Stop treating it like you could never lose it.

You know, not a week goes by without someone asking me to get into the pot business with them.

Don't get left behind, they tell me.

We can make a fortune selling marijuana or Billy Buds or silly Billy's wacky tobacco.

Everybody seems 100% certain that a completely weed legal America on the model of gay marriage is right around the corner.

Yes, the pot lovers say it's only legal in four states now, but Bill, the rest are gonna fall like dominoes.

I hear it all the time.

They're gonna fall like dominoes, dominoes.

Hey, let's order from dominoes.

Okay.

You hippies need to get your head out of your grass.

Progress doesn't just automatically snowball.

Think of other rights we never thought would be rolled back.

Look what's happened with abortion.

Since 1991, 81% of abortion clinics have closed.

In Mississippi, it's easier to get good Thai food

in Mississippi.

In Texas, you have to drive 500 miles and sit through an informational video where Ted Cruz calls you a whore.

So too with POT.

In 2013, LA had nearly 700 dispensaries.

But since then, over 500 have been shut down.

And dispensaries still can't get banking services because they're too skeevy.

The banks, not the dispensaries.

And we still do not have a major politician who will simply say, legalize it nationally, period.

President Obama has tried to move the needle a little.

He says pot is not very different from cigarettes and no more dangerous than alcohol, but it's a bad habit.

And this is what passes as supportive,

even though none of those statements are really true.

It's not a bad habit, it's a fantastic habit.

Unless, like anything, you overdo it.

It's way different than cigarettes, mainly not linked to lung cancer, and no more dangerous than alcohol.

Try way, way, way less dangerous.

Somehow, this is the year when everything from socialism to mass deportation is on the table, and voters love the authentic guys who speak their minds.

But when it comes time for Congress to consider common sense pot legislation, it's like smoking a joint with Woody Harrelson.

They just won't pass it.

And I'll tell you why, because pot is not like gay marriage.

With gay marriage, no one stood to lose money if the law changed.

But the war on drugs keeps billions flowing to DEA agents and police and prisons.

And legal weed would mean Americans had an alternative to altering their mood by downing OxyContin and Budweiser.

Or as Rush Limbaugh calls it, lunch.

I was reading recently about a guy named Raymond Schwab from Kansas.

He's a Gulf War veteran who wanted to move to Colorado to treat his chronic pain and PTSD

because while the VA gave him lots of prescription drugs, for him, pot is the only thing that actually works.

So Raymond thought moving to Colorado, where pot is legal and he could even grow it, was a great idea.

Kansas, not so much.

They got wind of the move and took away his children.

Now I'm not a big fan of children,

but I believe if you like yours, you should get to keep them.

Maybe that's my New York values talking.

But this is what happens when pot is legal in some states, sort of legal in others, and completely illegal in places like Kansas, where frankly they could use some.

We can't leave this up to the states because states' rights is always code for taking away rights.

And since liberals have never accepted states' rights as an excuse to deny black people education or voting or outlaw gay marriage or abortion, why do they accept it with this?

When only some people have it and some don't, that's not equality, that's Wi-Fi.

I can't think of another example of a drug that's legal in one state, but not in another.

It's not a tenable situation.

Because when I leave Colorado, Oregon, Washington, or Alaska, my back pain doesn't go away, or whatever it is I have.

I'm kidding.

I use medical marijuana because my third eye has glaucoma.

And you know,

it's acting up right now.

Maybe.

Maybe I should.

maybe I should treat it as his private property and I do have a card.

So

in conclusion,

please remember

Please remember that legalizing pot is a long way from a done deal.

I know you're tired, I am too, of making the same old, obvious pot arguments like how pot is less dangerous than other legal adult activities.

But somehow you can drink alcohol, you can smoke cigarettes, you can do that thing where you have cut off your oxygen with a belt and masturbate.

Which is not only dangerous, but take it from me, it'll get you kicked out of Macy's menswear like that.

All right, that's our show.

We're off next week and back on the 26th.

I'll be at the Paramount in Denver April 9th, at the Comerka in Phoenix, April 10th, and at the Florida Theater in Jacksonville, May 14th.

I want to thank Josh Green, Killer Mike, Ana Navarro, Margaret Cho, and Richard Engel.

Join us now on Overtime.

Oh, look at him.

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.