Overtime - Episode #374 (Originally aired 1/22/16)

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.

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

Okay, we're on the internet.

John Minchum, would a Jeb Bush presidency, and you just wrote the book about his father, more closely resemble his father's or his brother's?

Oh, good question.

I think it would resemble his father's more.

And I think

I do because,

I mean,

the three of them are different guys, despite the genetic material.

And

the old, I know,

that's science denial, I realize, but

trying to talk to the base.

So

what's so interesting about his campaign is he does not have, I mean, W could

at least pretend he was really into campaigning.

His father really did like it, although he didn't believe anything he said while he ran for office.

But he liked, you know, he once shook the hand of a department store mannequin in New Hampshire by mistake.

God only knows what Clinton would have done with it.

So there's that whole problem.

So I think that he, but I think he's more deliberative, and I think his father was clearly more deliberative ultimately than his son.

Okay.

Seth McFarlane, would you ever consider hosting the Oscars again?

Wow.

It's,

sure, why not?

Yeah.

Did they not ask you the year after you hosted?

They did.

Yeah, the ratings were good.

Yeah, yeah.

I was hoping that.

Yeah, people cannot be cowed by the virtual vigilantes.

We have to make a stand.

You know, you did nothing on that show that was the least bit untoward.

Oh,

we saw your boobs.

Was that the thing that the feminists were so upset about?

We saw your boobs.

We saw your boobs.

It was funny, because we do see their boobs.

To me, it was like, you know, I read headlines like the failure of the Oscars.

I was like, well, the ratings were up and the crowd was great.

Like, I've done stand-up where it hasn't worked.

That was a great crowd.

Where are you getting

that that didn't work?

Hate.

There's just so much hate out there.

It's old news.

It's old news.

All right, Michael McCall, which of the Republican candidates are best on Homeland Security?

Well, they're all bloodthirsty knuckle-draggers.

It's so hard to pick.

Oh, yeah.

They all want to carpet bomb ISIS, right?

Can I go to Switzerland on this one?

Or be agnostic like you?

I just want to I want a commander-in-chief that can stabilize the region,

defeat and destroy ISIS.

and protect the homeland.

And I want a strong leader that can do that.

You look at at my book and the recommendations to protect the homeland.

Whatever candidate adopts those recommendations,

I will support.

But defeat and destroy ISIS.

You know, I mean, I know you've spoken against his patient approach, but actually, ISIS is quite a bit degraded since we started bombing, and we've dropped like 28,000 bombs on them.

They have lost major cities in Iraq, a lot of territory.

Even in Syria, they've lost territory.

We bombed their money this week.

They had to.

They had to.

be against that?

They had to cut their salaries by half, and these guys have sex slaves to feed.

I mean, that was not.

It's all right, I'm here for that.

I know.

You learn to accept

the ooh first.

It's like, oh, ooh, I'll be covered, and then I'll decide if it's funny.

Oh, yeah, okay, all right.

But we made some progress.

I was over in Iraq last May, and Ramadi fell.

No, we've taken Ramadi back.

That's a positive thing.

But when you have, you know, go from 15 to 20 to 30, 35 foreign fighters in the region, that's a problem.

When you, over the internet, have a growing ideology, that's tough.

We have to have a counter-narrative to defeat the ideology.

And a drone strike alone is not going to kill it.

No, I mean, that may be what we're doing.

We're going to have to get it.

It can.

It's part of what we...

Strikes are important, but ideology is important.

Can I ask a question?

Yes.

In your view, is Donald Trump qualified to be commander-in-chief?

No, just that's it.

That's fine.

You do.

That's an answer.

Boomblog.

That was the perfect answer.

You can only make it worse now.

If I can take care of it.

If I become his Secretary of Homeland Security, I'll be building that big, beautiful wall and making the Mexicans pay for it.

There you have it.

You've answered, Chairman.

Thank you.

Alan Grayson, well, you know what?

I'm going to ask you a different question.

This is how you can get money out of politics.

But you are the one who is going to bring the lawsuit against Ted Cruz that Donald Trump keeps talking about.

If he's the nominee, yeah.

When Donald Trump says the Democrats, I'm not going to sue him, but the Democrats will, he means you.

He actually mentioned me.

Right.

So, because you think you think Ted Cruz is not eligible to run for president?

Well, he relies upon his mother to try to establish his citizenship.

He was born in Canada.

He says that he's a born, natural-born citizen of the United States because his mother was a citizen, but his mother actually was a registered voter in Canada.

But that doesn't affect her citizenship.

I'm a dual citizen of two countries, and I vote in both.

It did in 1970.

You should not vote more than once.

Well, I do.

Well, you might have a problem there.

Where are you a resident?

Why are you voting where you're not a resident?

Because I'm legally allowed to, and I'm a citizen of the country, and I pay my taxes, and I want myself to be aware of that.

I think there might be police waiting to arrest you right after the show is over.

I highly doubt that.

It could happen.

If there are, if there are, I suspect it's for an entirely different reason.

What is the other country?

This is like a Ross Rachel thing.

Okay, you're a British.

As I would hasten to point out, as I would hasten to point out, I actually believe Donald Trump is.

I'm an English qualified lawyer, and on the basis of the way that British nationality transmits, because his mother was Scottish, and I don't believe she ever rejected.

I'm totally serious about this.

It's silly.

Unless he's what.

No, I'm totally serious about this.

I know you are, but it's silly.

Well, yeah.

I don't care.

I know you're serious.

Oh, I don't care.

All of us have.

No one ever thought that that was part of the problem.

Oh, I don't think it's a problem.

I'm just saying I think that it's a little bit funny that he's like attacking Cruz on this when he is a dual citizen.

That's all I'm saying.

I'm fine with it.

I don't like Trump, but if we had another dual U.S.-UK citizen, I'd be happy to see my people.

His mother was a Scottish citizen and not an American when she became.

She became one, but you maintain dual.

It's very hard to give up British citizenship.

You basically have to walk into the embassy and say, I revoke my British citizenship, which is.

He was born in America.

Cruz was not.

I'm not saying Donald Trump isn't an American citizen.

I'm saying

they were both born with dual citizenship.

That doesn't make you not American.

I'm American.

I'm a dual citizen.

But if his mother was a Canadian and not an American, then he is not a natural-born citizen.

She was an American.

Well, how do you know that?

She was a registered voter in Canada.

Isn't it an exciting case?

By registering to vote someplace, you don't give up your nationality.

She must have been a Canadian citizen or she was a Canadian registered citizen.

The United States allows people to have dual citizenship.

Not in 1970.

I hope, I just wait for the moment when we discover that W.

If it is about your mother,

no one ever doubted that Obama's mother was American.

Right, right.

Somehow that switched.

Well, that's bullshit, too, but it's all the same bullshit.

That's what I'm saying.

Trump's full of this bullshit, and if you want to jump on board, that's fine, but I think it's fucking crazy.

Wow.

No, no.

What's not crazy is to defend the Constitution.

It's the Constitution we're talking about here.

The Constitution says

if you're less than 35 years old, you can't be president.

I'm sorry, but there's a lot of people less than Mark Zuckerberg's less than 35 years old.

He can't be president.

George W.

Bush elected

to go read what was written by a team of former solicitors general from two different administrations, two parties in the Harvard Law Review about this.

And you need to study the history of British immigration law because it's the precedent on which our immigration law is established.

I'm sorry.

We didn't, I don't think we meant to lawyer up the panel.

Okay.

I apologize.

Okay.

Well, all I know is

either you guys want to hear this?

I mean,

if Ted Cruz was really Canadian, could he be that much of an asshole?

Isn't he singing a duke?

He is Canada's revenge for acid rain.

I guess so.

So, did Sean Penn's interview with El Chapo breach any journalistic ethics?

Well, they got on his case because El Chapo did have a final say over the article, but El Chapo didn't change anything in that article.

I would say in defense of my friend Sean Penn that that's pretty much the standard in journalism these days is that you people give the people that you're interviewing a veto power over it all the time anyway because they don't want them to go away.

I won't insult you, Donald Trump.

I need you for ratings, and you have to be back here tomorrow.

So, I'm not going to ask a follow-up question.

Well, where do you get it?

I will say, as somebody who does political communications for a living, I wish this weren't the way that things go, but it is shockingly common for the subject of a profile or an interview to be given an opportunity to read it and, like, suggest amendments or raise objections before the thing.

Now, did George W.

Bush, George W.

Bush, ask you to

do it?

No?

He gave gave me everything.

He gave you full access and just said, go ahead.

In fact, he hasn't read it yet.

As he put it.

Really?

Is that true?

Come on.

No, as he put it, I know how it turns out.

He's totally wrong.

No, no, no.

He lived the life.

But he trusted you because you're seen as a fair arbiter.

Yeah, I spent a lot.

I hope so.

You did Jefferson, and you weren't mean to him.

Well, yeah.

Jefferson didn't object.

Jefferson didn't object.

Hamilton did.

But that's all.

What a great joke for history majors.

All right.

Thank you, everybody.

We got to go.

I appreciate you being here, folks.

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