Episode #367 (Originally aired 10/9/15)

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

Start the clock.

Good afternoon.

Afternoon.

Time will be

real time.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, you're so kind.

Thank you very much.

Aren't you nice to me?

Oh, please.

Thank you.

Now, I don't usually.

Thank you so much.

So I don't usually start off the show by saying this, but are there any conservatives here tonight?

Are they?

Because if you'd like to be Speaker of the House,

the position is available.

Wow, did you see all the Republican on Republican violence this week in Washington?

It was pretty crazy.

If you haven't followed what's happening, last week, John Boehner, the Speaker of the House for centuries, it seemed like,

he quit.

So then they found this new guy, Kevin McCarthy, and he was all set to be the Speaker of the House.

But he quit this week before he even got the job.

He said the party needs a fresh face.

A fresh face.

A week ago, we didn't know who the fuck you were.

A fresh face.

How fresh do you need?

What are you on, a congressional page?

Don't answer that.

Well, actually, there are rumors, rumors, I stress rumors, that the reason why he stepped down is because he was having an affair with another member of the House, Renee Elmers.

I know.

It's shocking a woman.

But again, this is a rumor.

I don't like to spread rumors, but this is what they're talking about.

And Renee Elmers had a private meeting with Republicans today, and she said a couple of things.

She said, one, people should not bear false witness.

And two, I'm in room 319 at the Marriott.

So I

said

somewhat.

But

they are so desperate to find someone to take this job that nobody wants that they started to talk about the fact, and I didn't know this, that you don't have to be a congressman at all to be the Speaker of the House.

Don't tell Kanye.

But

who knew that?

So

guess who stepped up today and said he would do it?

Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich stepped forward to say he would be interested in being Speaker of the House and also in having an affair with Renee Elmer.

He smelled a little action and woo.

But this is totally uncharted waters that we were in.

I mean, no wonder the Republicans are going nuts.

They're like, if we don't put a strong leader in place soon, there is a very real risk of Congress getting something done.

So now.

they are trying to convince Paul Ryan.

Remember Paul Ryan?

Mitt Romney's vice presidential candidate.

Right, they are trying to convince him to do it, and they think he might be able to bridge the divide.

He's not exactly a Tea Party guy, but he can communicate with them in a way a domesticated dog can talk to wolves.

But Paul Ryan doesn't want it either.

So most of the party is now just working endlessly, tirelessly, to find a way to get Paul Ryan to change his no to a yes.

They're this close to bringing in Bill Cosby.

We joke.

Oh, we make little jokes.

So Paul Ryan said,

The pressure is so great, he couldn't anymore just say no, no, no.

He said, I'm going to be praying on it.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

We're not asking you to make a burnt offering of your second child.

We're giving you the corner office, you dummy.

So the early word is that he went home to pray on it, and God got back to him and said, don't drag me into this.

But that's not even my favorite story of the week.

It's with Ben Ben Carson, by the way, is for real in the Republican Party.

Oh, yeah, Ben Carson, deal with it, people.

He was commenting on the school shooting last week in Oregon, and he said, I wouldn't have just let them shoot me.

I would have said, hey, guys, everybody attack the shooter.

He can't get all of us.

And then he told this story the next day about the time that Ben Carson himself, he said he did once come face to face with such a situation.

He was in Popeye's Chicken.

This is what he said.

He was in Popeye's chicken, and a guy stuck a gun in his ribs.

And this is what Ben Carson, by his own account, said he told the gunman with the gun in his ribs.

He said, I believe you want the guy behind the counter.

Okay,

this is not quite, let's all get him.

This is offering up somebody else.

Don't shoot me.

Get the guy in the paper hat with the polyester suit.

And funny, the same day, Rupert Murdoch, you know Rupert Murdoch, the very conservative person who owns Fox News, said Ben Carson would be a real black president.

And then, of course, because it used the word black, he had to apologize, and he did.

I don't know what he's apologizing for.

Getting robbed at gunpoint at Popeye's chicken.

It doesn't get any blacker than that.

And also, this idea, oh yeah, we need a real black president.

That has always been the Republicans' problem with Obama.

Not black enough, right?

Okay.

So enough about the Republicans.

One more thing.

The Democrats, this is so exciting.

We're going to have their first debate on Tuesday night.

I cannot wait to see Bernie Sanders debate Hillary Clinton.

It's going to look like an elderly Jewish couple arguing in the deli.

All right, we got a great show.

Rob Thomas is here.

Andrew Sullivan is here.

And Marie Slaughter is here.

And a little bit speaking with former Congressman Patrick Kennedy.

But first up,

please welcome a chief negotiator in the Iran nuclear agreement.

He is also the Secretary of Energy for America, Ernest Munes.

How are you, Mr.

Secretary?

Great to see you.

you're laughing.

Were you enjoying the monologue?

Absolutely.

Oh, great.

So you're the Secretary of Energy.

I'm Emineau.

What's that job like?

Did you have to beat a lot of people out for that?

Did they make your audition?

I haven't asked the President.

But it's actually a more complicated job, I think, than people actually realize.

The Republicans are always trying to abolish the whole department.

Do you take that personally?

Well, you know, actually Reagan

promised the same.

And of course, once they realized that there were nuclear weapons at stake, they changed their minds.

Well, yeah,

tell us what the functions are.

What goes on in the Department of Energy and what would happen if we abolished it?

Well, the Department has lead responsibilities for nuclear security issues.

So we sustain the nuclear deterrent.

We are responsible for trying to control nuclear materials globally, keeping them out of the hands of terrorists, for example.

So nothing important.

Nothing important.

But of course, the other side of the House, very important, is we are responsible for clean energy and addressing climate change through efficiency, renewables, nuclear power, other energy technologies.

Well, that would be the two most important things on my list of what's important, climate change and stopping nuclear proliferation.

Yeah, I mean, really.

But I want to read you this quote.

Donald Trump, the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, he said, we are led by very stupid people.

Exactly.

I'm glad you copped to it.

Egghead.

Okay, so then they asked him if he wanted Sarah Palin in his cabinet.

And he said, This is his quote: He said, I'd love that.

She's really somebody who knows what's happening.

She's a special person.

Yes, yes, she is.

I guess my question to you is, how do smart people communicate to stupid people to at least get the fuck out of the way?

I think the issue is we communicate.

So we have these complex critical missions.

And

frankly, what we find is the more that people listen,

the more they understand and the more they appreciate, I think what we're doing.

But it must be so frustrating for you because the nuclear deal, for example, there's only two scientists, I was mentioning this last week, only two scientists in all of the Congress.

So, and I've seen the polls from people who are scientists, they're overwhelmingly in favor of the nuclear deal.

So are military people.

Yes.

But then college dropout Scott Walker gets to shit all over it.

That's the problem you face.

You have to somehow convince people who don't understand what you're doing that you're right.

And, Bill, we have found that, again, the more we are able to get attention, get people listening, understand what's in the deal, the more they favor it.

Number one.

Is it going to go through?

Are we going to have this deal?

Oh,

it is through.

It's moving forward.

Well, Iran has to say hello.

Well, yeah, but I think we're pretty sure it's going through.

Iran's got a lot of work to do before the deal really kicks off and sanctions relieve comments.

And you used science and brook learning to

make the deal happen, right?

It was an unusual negotiation with Secretary Kerry and me in parallel because the agreement required a pretty sophisticated rollback of Iran's nuclear program.

Okay.

Let's talk about the issue you mentioned before, climate change.

There's a big conference coming up, a UN conference on climate change.

We've seen a lot of these conferences.

They haven't always been successful, but I'm very grateful for people who are trying.

What is your estimation about what's going to happen now?

We have a lot more optimism than we had a year ago.

And frankly, I think the point where we saw a change was when President Obama and President Xi made the joint announcement last November.

Because frankly,

President Xi of China,

because, as you know, one of the many arguments used against action being taken was that, well, China is not doing anything.

Well, China is doing something.

They're doing a lot.

And in fact, since that agreement,

since the announcement last November, the United States has moved forward.

For example, the Clean Power Plan that addresses carbon emissions from power plants.

China has moved forward, announcing a cap-and-trade system just two weeks ago in DC.

So I think the world's paying attention.

The two largest emitters are doing this in a serious way domestically.

Now, we all know that the

commitments that are on the table for Paris, while breaking new ground, they will not themselves get us to the two degrees.

Two degrees.

Two degrees centigrade temperature rise, thank you, that the world community feels is kind of the limit of being safe.

But the way we see it is that we make a really good start in Paris, and as years go by and as innovation takes hold, and we continue to drive down the costs of clean energy, that those commitments will get more and more ambitious so that we can, in fact, reach our goal.

Always has to be money first, doesn't it?

Even when it's your life, it's really money.

Jack Benny today would go, no, money.

I would temper that, Bill, in the sense that we have to remember it is not only about the wealthy societies.

We need the whole world taking part.

We have a couple of billion people without energy or with way underserved in energy.

If they are going to take part, we have to get the cost down.

All right.

One last question.

I want to ask about Moldova, Donald Trump's second wife.

No.

I wasn't aware.

Moldova is a country.

It's one of the former Soviet socialist republics when the Soviet Union broke up.

It's really Romanian.

It's a sliver of Romania between Russia and Romania.

And they have been selling, I think,

cesium.

Is that what they've been selling?

The Russian mobsters in Moldova, selling them to Islamic terrorists, which I think is very scary.

They say they could be used to build a dirty bomb or a Volkswagen.

This is the kind of thing that really scares me when I hear about this, because it happened in 2011.

A Russian mobster sold something, and he said they had them on a wire saying,

I want to sell this to Islamists because they will use it to blow up America.

Drive safely, everyone.

Have a great weekend.

Are you worried about this?

Well, sure, we are concerned.

And in fact, the Department of Energy has been in the forefront of trying to control these materials really since the

breakup of the Soviet Union.

Now,

Moldova is an example where we have seen some attempts to transit some nuclear materials.

And I do say attempts because the cesium incident that you referred to, for example, well, it was blocked.

It did not succeed.

And in fact, by the way, it was not even a particularly radioactive form of cesium

that changed hands.

We caught them with a sting?

I'll talk to the FBI about it, yes.

Because I hope that's what we're doing.

Yeah.

So we...

I hope there's a to catch a predator house where they walk

and then just Joe Pesci right in the head.

Department of Energy, Department of State, FBI, Department of Justice.

We all work in concert not only in Moldova, but

across the entire former Soviet Union and in other countries as well.

We help to shore up

border controls,

etc.

Well, thank you so much for letting me, in so many ways, sleep a little easier tonight.

Thank you, Mr.

Secretary.

Keep going once you're doing, please.

Okay, let's lead our panel.

okay hi

all right here they are he's a blogging pioneer and author of the conservative soul how he lost it how to get it back our friend andrew sullivan looking very stoked

very stoked

He is the Grimy winning songwriter and Matchbox 20 frontman who's now touring for his new solo album, The Great Unknown.

Oh, I've been listening in the car for two weeks.

It's awesome.

Thank you, sir.

You never fail me.

Rob Thomas is over here.

And she was Hillary Clinton's Director of Policy Planning at the U.S.

State Department.

Her new book is Unfinished Business, Women, Men, Work, Family.

Anne-Marie Slaughter.

Hey, Anne-Marie, how you doing?

All right, remember to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

Send us your questions for tonight's overtime so we can answer them after the show.

On YouTube, obviously, we're going to first talk about the Republicans.

I know Republicans who are watching are saying, oh, Bill, you're always making fun of Republicans.

It's not really my fault.

Is it?

You know, and for the people who are not political junkies, who are wondering why are they fighting within their own party, it's still about the Tea Party and the fact that there's 247 Republicans in the House, and only about 40 of these, well, they don't call themselves Tea Party anymore.

Now the House Freedom Caucus.

That is awesome.

Their whole job is just to fuck stuff up, but they're there for freedom.

The caveman caucus, really, and they do feel betrayed by their own party.

I want to read Eric Cantor, who knows something about getting screwed by the Tea Party.

He does.

Right, he lost his job.

He said they don't seem to understand that the Democrats get to vote, too.

And I think that really sums it up.

They seem to live in this world.

Again, it's easy to call names.

They're childish.

They're fact-free.

They are.

They're all those things.

But basically, they just don't seem to understand that tantrums cannot be a way to run a government.

But they also don't understand that once elected, your job is to govern the entire country, not just your 50% of it.

Your job is to pay attention to everybody's needs all across the board and try and make some leeway.

And their whole job is to make sure that no one makes that leeway and no one makes any compromises.

But I think it's more than that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I actually think they don't want to govern the country this way.

The whole point is to blow it up, right?

The whole point is to prevent business as usual.

They're perfectly willing to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood or other things because that's making a point that's more important to their voters than running the government.

But let's try to channel them for a minute because everyone on liberal TV is just making fun.

I'm sure they would say that, well, government doesn't work.

The issues that are important to us, like the debt, just keep getting worse.

So this is the best we can do is just to block.

and yet no the best thing you do is find someone decent to run for president so that you can actually get the three parts of the government to do what you want it to do.

I mean I that's simply called politics.

These people are not interested in the institutions of government.

And you see that all I mean in my own native land the Labour Party is acting out as well, a tantrum against the global economy.

There are parties operating in this era which are just simply performance artists, people venting tantrums, temper, and

no actual practical interest.

I mean, that's the trouble with libertarianism sometimes: is that even though I have strong libertarian tendencies, at some point you've got to get in there and do something.

And at some point, you've also got to recognize there are people in this country, and this goes for the Democrats too, and I think a lot of liberals don't get this either.

There are people in this country who don't agree with you.

And we have to come

everywhere.

And

we don't have to demonize them.

But at some point, to run a country as one, we have to compromise.

And they don't seem able to

get an election, make your case, do your thing.

Where is their incentive?

In the meantime, govern.

Where is their incentive when it seems like the most idiocy is rewarded by the biggest surges in the polls?

Yes.

It seems like...

We're in their districts.

And this is the key point, I think, that the solution to this problem is to end gerrymandering.

That's why those.

rights aren't that good.

But

if it wasn't for gerrymandered districts, these 40 people couldn't behave this way.

They have nothing to lose, as you were saying.

But there have been gerrymandered districts in many places, many times.

Not like

that.

Well, I think you also have a slight geographical issue of

dispersal of Republican voters around the country.

And whereas Democrats are concentrated in these small urban things, so they do have a structural advantage in the Congress.

Gerrymandering is a problem.

The problem is their ideology.

They are not conservatives, they're fanatics.

Hang on, they're channeling something.

And let's look at who's in the lead in the Republican race.

It's Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

It's the same outsider.

I'm sick of it.

I don't want to do it,

I don't want any part of traditional government.

They're channeling that.

And it's also Obama, let's face it.

They won the midterms, and Obama has been kicking their ass ever since.

And

Obama's long game, Obama's long game is working.

Imagine, like, they now face gay marriage in 50 states.

They're dealing with the Iran deal, detente with Iran.

I mean, these are huge apocalypse shifts that we're doing.

And they find they're winning the Congress and all this stuff is going through.

Andrew, they would say, conservatives would always say, that, you know, everything should go back to the States.

Which is pretty funny because the issues that are important important to you and me

are being won in the States.

And you, Pod.

Hope I'm not busting you.

But

gay marriage and Pot, these were won in the States.

That's so funny that that's what they think should happen, and it's working for us.

Yeah, because it's working for us.

And it shows that really it's about self-interest because, you know, we work backwards from what do you want to put in your mouth?

Now my politics.

It's true.

But don't you think that's also why Trump is doing so well?

Because in some ways he is the anti-Obama.

He represents this ability to say this guy is not our president, this is not America, that characterologically Trump

is as white as Obama is mixed.

He's bombastic in a way that Obama is measured.

He's full of emotion in a way that Obama is totally no drama and cool.

And Americans often, when they look for a new president, they try and compensate for what they think the other one did.

So Trump has this amazing skill, I think, an advantage in presenting himself as the man who will obliterate

the legacy

person.

There could never be an equivalent in the Democratic Party.

Democrats are far from perfect.

I criticize them here all the time.

But you just can't say anything

stupid and have them accept it.

Whereas Donald Trump cannot find a place

where people will not follow him.

Do you remember a couple of years ago where we got all excited?

We almost ousted Mitt Romney just over the idea that somebody snuck a video of him saying something that everybody knew in the first place.

Now there's nothing that you could do that would shock or surprise anybody or put you off.

It's incredible.

I mean, he goes and says, you know, John McCain's not a war hero.

He says one thing after another.

I thought I heard it all.

On 60 Minutes a couple of weeks ago, he said about, they asked him about deportations of the 11 million illegals.

Here's Trump.

We're rounding them up in a very humane way.

In a very nice way.

And they're going to be happy because they want to be legal.

A nice way.

A Rousemid siege will play.

But then when you look at the Democrats, Tom, I mean, Trump,

Trump.

You see who is up against this guy?

This unbelievably useless, terrible candidate of Hillary Clinton, who has so much.

No, why do you know that?

Had she ever given a speech that you were inspired by?

Does she have any good retail skills?

Is she able to come across on TV?

Andrew, I'll tell you something.

I always say this.

I find her slogan,

Are You Ready for Hillary, to perfectly capsulize how I feel about her.

Am I ready for Hillary?

Yes.

Am I excited?

No.

It's like...

It's like, it's like,

it's like getting a shot.

Are you ready?

Yes, I'm ready for it.

Since she started campaigning, her polls have continued to sink.

A large majority of the country don't believe a word she's saying for good reason.

This week...

This week her cynicism reached like an almost perfect Clinton level.

But maybe that's not her fault.

Maybe it's the press who has it out for her, including the liberal press, by the way.

Oh, poor, poor Hillary.

She can't handle the press?

Well, it's not that she can't handle it, it's that people can't handle it.

People believe what they read if they ever fucking read.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Enough.

enough, enough, enough.

So

I'm speaking in my personal capacity.

I run a non-partisan organization, but that's, first place, she is the massive front runner.

So of course, all everybody does is attack her.

And second,

she's a talent-free hack.

She's not talent-free, and

she's not a hack.

What are her talents?

She's incredibly smart.

What has she done in her entire life in Washington?

Oh, come on.

Tell me.

Well, first of all, she changed how...

You go ahead.

Hardly.

Tell me.

As Secretary of State, even.

As Secretary of State, she actually, for all the Iran deal that you're just talking about, she's the one who put together the

Sections Coalition.

She opened to the

only decision you can really put on her was the disastrous Libya invasion, which repeated every mistake that George W.

Bush made, that violated everything that Obama stood for and has led to disaster.

Okay, it wasn't an invasion, first of all.

I'm sorry, if you were because she was not

attack by airplanes.

You would call it a...

They weren't attacked.

First of all, any president would have done the same thing.

There were people on the ground.

Do you remember Obama's statement at the time?

There were people on the ground who were about to be killed.

We came to their aid.

Do you know how many people are being killed right now in Libya because they destroy

stability in that country?

I understand that.

You want to go back to coffee?

Yes.

It would be better than what's happening now.

That's not what the Libyans think.

How do you know you know?

It's chaos.

It is chaos.

It's after the faith.

Which you helped foment.

There are people dying today because of their good intentions.

Why do you hate her so much?

Were you molested by a real estate lady?

I mean,

I just never, no, really.

I never understood.

I could understand you not wanting Hillary.

I don't understand anybody who hates her.

I'm not hurt.

She is a boring sensitive person.

I'm not hating.

It just never should rise to the level of hate.

I just hate to see someone you hate.

I don't hate her.

I just think she's a mediocrity.

And I think

if the Democrats are sane and sensible, this is a dangerous time for people.

You need to find someone with ability and talent and leadership, but not her.

She is incredibly smart.

I've dealt with the smartest people in the entire world at multiple universities.

I've never met anybody as smart as she make the kind of dumb error that she made with the email server.

I mean,

she's coming.

You are so in the bubble on this one.

Let me ask Joe Buck.

60% of the country don't believe a word she says.

Is that a bubble?

That's a good question.

60% of the country believes Noah's Noah's Ark happened.

That's true.

The exact same number.

So don't tell me that that means something.

It does mean something.

No one gets elected president if no one trusts you or believes a word you say for good reason.

Okay.

Do you really believe she genuinely opposes the specific trade pact?

Do you really, the one she argued for, negotiated for,

and this week came out against it?

For one reason, if you're asking me to give a good reason.

If you're asking me if she's a calculating politician, yes.

Is that the most desirable thing in the world?

No, but I live in the real world.

I'd rather have a politician who calculates than one who can't.

She's making me mad.

The question is not whether she can calculate, it's whether she has anything but calculation.

Whether she has any vision, whether she has any core beliefs, or whether she's been a prison of another bubble called Washington,

which tells people just because of their people that they've worked with or the establishment that

they're unimpeachable, they will always be the candidate.

She started her career working for children.

She's worked for women at every single step of her career without ever wavering.

You cannot find one time that she has not stood up for women, that she's not fought for women, that she's not advanced women's rights.

Absolutely never.

Whenever has she actually done that, advanced women's rights.

Her entire career in the state of the world.

She remarked from China as first lady and social media.

We're talking about

the first time.

Okay, you know what?

I get it.

You don't like her.

Next.

I'm very excited because we have a new segment on our show tonight.

It's called, I don't know it for a fact,

I just know it's true.

And

I.

The origin of this is I find myself very often frustrated by something in this world that I just know is true, but I can't prove it.

And so it is the inaugural edition of, I don't know it for a fact.

I just know it's true.

For example, I don't know for a

I don't know for a fact that anyone who wears this shirt is a huge asshole.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that the owner of this giant truck has a small dick.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that Ted Cruz is wearing a bra and panties under his suit.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that these two guys are really atheists.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that when there's an outbreak of headlights, the other mothers look at Kim Davis.

I don't know for a fact that Lindsey Graham draws John McCain's bathwater

and then gets in.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that the Benghazi hearings are just an excuse to discredit Hillary.

Wait, I do know that one's true.

And I don't know for a fact that Donald Trump's father is an orange-haired orangutan.

I just know it's true.

All right.

He is the Kennedy who was an eight-term congressman from Rhode Island's First District whose new book is A Common Struggle, a personal journey through the past and future of mental illness and addiction.

Patrick Kennedy.

Patrick,

how are you, sir?

Great to have you back here.

You know everybody here, I'm sure.

All right, well, thank you for coming back on our show.

I've seen you all over TV.

You are talking about your book, which is really a policy book on addiction and mental health.

Obviously, they're treating it as a kind of a tell-all because you're a Kennedy.

I mean, your father was Teddy Kennedy.

Your uncle was President John F.

Kennedy.

Your cousin was John John Kennedy.

But it's it's not really that, right?

You're really trying to change the policy in this country.

Well, I had the honor of serving in Congress and doing a lot with my late father to change policy in this space.

You couldn't make it up, but my dad was the sponsor of the mental health bill in the Senate.

I was the sponsor of the one in the House.

And we actually had to negotiate with each other on what the final bill would look like.

And what the narrative of the story is that my dad was old school, and frankly, his thinking is still very much alive today in terms of thinking of these things as character issues and not chemistry issues or moral failings as opposed to medical issues.

But he didn't want addiction and alcoholism to be covered in his bill because they made the political calculation that America wasn't ready for that and that what we really ought to cover is just the severe and persistent mental illness, which I agree with.

But if we're going to cover the brain, let's cover the whole brain.

That was our contention, Congressman Ramstead and myself.

And at the end, he came around and said, you know, Patrick, we can pass your bill after all.

And then he helped me pass it.

But what was amazing is that this is the guy that thought I was a loser because of my mental illness and addiction.

Well, not a loser, right?

But he could have been more in a position.

Well, he said I he said a lot of things like all I needed was a good swift kick in the ass, which in part he was right, but in part.

It's a generational thing,

more than anything else.

He's World War II generation.

So were my parents.

I get that.

They're very different.

And one thing I really learned from this book is that the Kennedys, I think when America thinks of the Kennedys, they think of two things, liberalism and tragedy.

And the way the Kennedys dealt with tragedy is the way a lot of people in that generation dealt with tragedy.

You medicate with booze.

That's right.

You deny.

That's right.

Stoicism, secrecy.

And that's a lot of what your book talks about, is that, you know, when you had your problem, when you, I mean, you famously were on Ambien and drove into the, you weren't even knowing you were awake, right?

You drove into the barricade at the Capitol in the middle of the night.

And you say, your father, you know, it wasn't about, how are you?

It was about, what are we going to tell the press?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, as you said, that's the way he was brought up to think.

And frankly, his thinking is still very much present.

I think he came a long way, and we as a country have come a long way, but we're still stuck.

The politics of actually enforcing the parity law is in a stalemate.

The President has not required insurance companies to disclose how they make medical necessity determinations, which is still a way for them to deny care for people with people with these illnesses.

And so, but there's no one knocking on Secretary Burwell's door saying, saying you have to disclose utilization management criteria because no one knows what the hell that is.

But what it is, is how they are denying your son and daughter from getting care or your mother or father.

And that's how insurance companies still get away with murder in this country.

But there's no advocacy because, Bill, there's no one who's standing up and saying, I'm an addict, like they would cancer, and I demand that my rights could be well, I am, but I have a lot and somebody.

Now,

I saw your father in a bar once, in the 90s, in Washington, D.C.

First of all, I was amazed that Senator Ted Kennedy could just be at a regular bar.

It was like across the room.

It was like seeing a white albino in the wild, you know?

And I didn't talk to him or anything, but I saw from across the room.

He looked like he was having a great time.

He looked like a fun drunk, as opposed to a mean drunk.

Is that true?

Yeah, I think that my dad was a great person.

Well, that's something.

No, it is.

My dad was an incredible human being who

loved people.

And he was great at politics because he genuinely loved people.

And people often think, you know, people who drink a lot, you know, it's gregarious and all the rest.

But my dad loved people whether he was drinking or not.

And so that was the great thing about him.

And you think he could have been president if he had found a way to...

Well, think about the fact he was the greatest senator in the history of the country or arguably one of the top five in the whole history of our country were a little prejudiced but okay okay

but he managed to do that you know with a couple of hands tied behind his back in terms of his full potential and i just think you know clearly he could have been president in my view if he hadn't had those struggles the remarkable thing is that well the the the car thing didn't help And that was a result, frankly, of the fact that Racine is both of his brothers murdered.

Everybody else says they were assassinated, but what they really were were murdered violently.

And then nobody bothered to say that you know.

You can't blame Chapaquittic on the brothers being murdered.

We could say he was sad because of that.

You could say that when both of your siblings are violently murdered and everyone knows you're drinking yourself into the ground because of it, that someone would step in, because these are real illnesses today, if you had experienced that kind of post-traumatic stress and said, you need help.

Instead, they said,

keep going, keep going.

And that's how tragedies take place.

Okay.

We'll agree to disagree on that one.

Okay, so let me ask you about school shootings because everybody from Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump, every time there's one, keeps saying, well, it's because America doesn't know how to treat his mentally ill.

And I'm sure you would agree with that.

We don't.

We don't do enough.

But a lot of these shooters, we find out,

Dylan Roof, remember him in South Carolina, on Xanax, the guy in Santa Barbara, Xanax, Adam Lanza, Selexa, the Aurora shooter, Zoloft and Clonaza Pam, the Columbine kid, Luvox.

You know, there's four million teenagers who are on either ADHD drugs or they're on antidepressant drugs.

I think the gateway drug for kids is this.

I don't think it's beer.

I don't think it's pot.

I think they get our kids hooked on this shit.

Some of them need it, but maybe we use way too much.

Would you agree with that?

I'd say that the pharma companies definitely have a lot to be blamed for in terms of over-promotion.

But the notion that anybody taking one of these medications is to be blamed for taking them is also wrong because...

We're not blaming the person who's taking it.

We're blaming the parents and the doctors, the pharmaceutical companies, whose goal, after all, is not to make people well.

Their goal is to sell more drugs.

The truth is, but at least what this does is it makes it more difficult to think about taking your medication or admitting you're taking medication or getting mental health because there's stigma involved here.

Yeah, I get what you're saying, Bill.

Pharma has got its problems.

But what I'm saying is the end result of having this attitude is that a lot of people don't continue to take their medications when they really need it and their brains demand that they get it.

Right, they feel stigmatized when they do and they shouldn't.

The idea of addiction is only one small part of that.

And I think you're really, really brave for bringing that out because I think more people in your position that would do that would take that stigma away.

But I also think that it's part of a bigger problem of just the deplorable way that we treat people with mental illnesses in general in our country and the way that we push them aside, put them on greyhound buses and such.

I just want to push back on this idea that pharmaceutical treatment for depression is somehow wrong or a con.

It's not wrong, but it can be overdone.

It can.

But it can also be underdone.

Especially with kids.

It can also be underdone.

Maybe the kid just is a kid.

Maybe he doesn't have ADHD.

Maybe he's a boy.

Look, I.

As the mother of boys, maybe he has ADHD.

With minors.

Really?

That's what you think?

Not all boys by any means, but I have two boys, and I think there are definitely plenty of boys who have ADHD who are really helped.

But maybe that's just part of being a boy.

No, I often have to.

Bill, my mom is bipolar and been bipolar since I was, you know, since I was a kid, a little boy.

And I've seen her hospitalized for this throughout her entire life in mental institutions.

And

those pills that she now takes are essential to her well-being.

But we're not saying that's not true of certain people.

I'm just saying.

I'm saying in fact it's true that the mental illness is

actually more widespread than most people seem to understand and that effective treatment, I agree with you, obviously, just handing out pills to kids is a dumb and reckless thing.

But let us not stigmatize.

That would be a good idea for them, though.

Let's not stigmatize it.

I don't know how you can be against both.

I tell my mom, look, you keep taking your pills when she's terribly depressed and doesn't want to take them anymore, because that's also a feature of depression.

You don't want to take the pills, so you get more depressed.

My statement with her is: look, mom,

if you don't keep taking your pills for depression, I won't keep taking my pills for HIV.

How's that?

That's a deal, right?

And that's how I help, in some way, keep her stable, even now, and she's 80 years old and she's still dealing with this stuff.

So

discredit what Bill said about Big Pharma, though.

Except,

I think you're too hard on Big Pharma.

Look, I would not be.

You know, they're going to be okay.

I would not be sitting here today, Bill, without without Big Pharma.

Let me tell you that.

I would not be sitting here today.

That's true.

And so let's

see.

And this is not one of millions and millions of people, and that's without a doubt.

I don't think it makes sense.

And it's one of the most miraculous things that's happened in this country is the development of pharmaceuticals for treatments of various diseases.

Can it be overdone?

Yes.

But is it a massive advantage to living in the 21st century?

Absolutely.

And

no one is refuting that.

You seem to be.

All I'm saying is that they give too many pills to too many kids who don't need it.

And as far as the other other issue,

you know, I think big pharma, of course, it's very easy to attack Western medicine.

I do it all the time.

Because, for example, in the pharmaceutical industry, they're not developing new drugs that we need, like antibiotics.

Because the antibiotics we have are starting to not work, because there's no money in it.

They want the drugs that people need every goddamn day, the lipitors.

And people who need drugs every day, I don't know, maybe there's a better way to address that problem.

Or they want to raise the price of it by 5,000%

once they duplicate it.

Right.

Yeah, how about that?

You can hold both things, but I just want to emphasize what Patrick said that I think is so important: that

it's chemical.

It's not character.

It's chemical.

And forever in this country, it was there was something wrong with you, and you should be tougher.

And if you're depressed, just buck up.

No, it's chemical.

And you take the drugs and you feel a whole lot better.

Even now, my mom thinks it's her fault.

Okay, enough about your mom.

You know, Bill,

leave my mom out of it, okay?

Leave my, like, I introduced the topic.

Next, Andrew's mom.

Let's get into that.

Well, he's talking about his dad, he's talking about addiction.

It's a perfectly dissonance point to me.

We circled this area.

Oh, shit.

Now we only have two fucking minutes.

All right.

Well, you know what?

I do this show for the people who need to be caught up on what happened in this week.

In two minutes, I'm going to tell you three big developments overseas.

First of all, Russia is in the war in Syria in a big way.

Secondly, we're ending our program.

America is to train Syrian rebels.

Maybe that's because we tried to recruit 5,400 guys.

We found 54.

And we trained five.

And then we wound up with five.

Five.

We could find five moderates.

We have 500 million?

Five guys in all of Syria.

Five moderates.

Right.

I'm crazy about Islam.

Anyway,

and the third thing is, of course, America mistakenly bombed a hospital, a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan.

This is what happens when you have an endless war.

You know, it's like in football when the defense is on the field too long.

They're going to make mistakes.

I think as horrible as it is, their entire mission statement is we're going to go into a war-torn country and we're going to operate there.

There's inherent dangers that come with that and it's always going to be a part of it.

War is very ugly.

But it's unbelievably necessary right now.

You think that war is necessary?

No, I think in general wars are always going to happen.

Maybe not necessary isn't the word I mean, but they're inescapable.

And with them come some very, very ugly things.

Yes, if you stay long enough, I mean, you can't occupy a country for 14 years and expect never to kill any nice people.

Yeah, but this one's harder than that.

I mean, I actually, I don't think it's a war crime.

I do think it was an accident.

But it's also true that the

U.S.

military had the coordinates of that hospital.

They knew there was a hospital there.

And they've been changing their story, right?

First, it was the Afghans called it in.

You know, you need an investigation, and yes, they operate in those zones, but they also operate in those zones with a guarantee that the forces who are dropping bombs are going to do everything they can to avoid it.

Okay, out of time.

Thank you, everybody.

Time for new rules.

All right, new rule.

If cops want to appear less militarized, they have to lose those boots.

Unless you're getting your horse ready for the steeplechase,

let's admit that jack boots are only appropriate in two places: neo-Nazi rallies

and gay porn.

Those are the only two.

New rule, now that ISIS has opened an amusement park for kids, someone has to break it to them that their image is still going to be somewhat negative.

But meanwhile, welcome to Jihad City, the angriest place on earth,

where you can visit yesterdayland,

throw stones at an adulterer to win a stuffed bear, and enjoy the photo booths that are set up all over the park.

Oh, wait, those are the women.

New rules, squirrels need to calm the hell down.

Nobody wants your stupid acorns, okay?

Plus, you live in Southern California.

Winter's not coming.

Your nuts are safer than Caitlin Jenner's.

New Roll, someone has to tell Mr.

Bean that nobody over here gives a damn anymore.

Sorry, Mr.

Bean.

New Roll, scouts for major league baseball teams have to stop ignoring the Palestinian territories.

Look at this kid's form.

I bet he throws 90 miles an hour.

I didn't catch your name, son, but how'd you like to stop throwing at Jews and start throwing for one?

And finally, new rural primitive tribes deep in the jungle who traditionally object to Western intruders taking their picture because they believe it steals their soul are correct.

They were right all along.

Taking pictures of everything absolutely does steal your soul.

Look at these idiots on a gondola in Venice, missing out on Venice.

Look at this fool lining up a picture of a bull about to gore his ass.

Look at these two dummies taking a selfie at the pivotal moment of their wedding ceremony.

There's a photographer standing right behind you.

Can't you put your phone away and be fully present for this?

You're getting married.

It might be the last time you look into each other's eyes and smile

Yeah

Something deeply stupid is going on in our culture.

And although I'm sure there's a temptation on the part of millennials to say I just don't understand it because I'm older No,

I understand it.

It's not hard to understand.

It's just fucking stupid.

Look at these people.

They traveled thousands of miles to take a shitty picture of the Mona Lisa,

the most reproduced image in the history of the world.

There's a postcard of it in the gift shop downstairs.

This is the actual Mona Lisa.

Look at it.

Here's something even worse.

And not just because the people in the shop think a man in a white dress has magical powers.

No, because they've got maybe 10 seconds to actually see their hero.

And they're choosing to give that up to view him through a phone.

Gosh, if there only existed some sort of professional whose job it was to take great photos of big events so you could enjoy the moment.

We could call them photographers.

You know, if I met the Pope, I'd want to look him in the eye.

I'd want to feel those popey vibes.

I'd want to see if he could make me cry like John Boehner.

And look at this, the Pope visited a classroom, and the kids were turning their backs on him to take selfies.

Someone should have told those kids, you're never going to get another chance to actually meet this man.

And also, for God's sake, kids, never turn your back on a priest.

You know, virtual reality is great, but you know what virtual means?

It means almost.

Stop living an almost life.

Walk down any vibrant city street today, and you'll see hundreds of people ignoring it while staring into their phones.

In New York, there's something interesting to look at every three feet.

A street performer, a peddler selling African art, a mime being murdered,

a rat carrying a pizza,

Bill Cosby coming out of a drugstore,

Chris Christie fighting a rat for a pizza.

And you want to look at your phone?

Even when people do actually get together, they're not all there.

Half the time you're out to dinner with people, they want the phone on the table

just to check

in case something better comes in.

It happened to me the other night.

I was so insulted, I could barely take pictures of the food.

It would be like in the middle of talking to you fine people if I was also checking up on another audience.

And you know, most distressing of all, polls show that up to 10% of people now look at their phone during sex.

Call me old-fashioned, but I still think that during sex the handheld device should be your dick.

What's next?

Texting the person you're actually fucking?

Are you close?

No service.

How the fuck am I supposed to come now?

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at the ponds in Vegas, October 24th at the Sigh Stevens in Ames, Iowa, November 7th at the Performing Arts Center in Providence, Rhode Island.

Your old homes, November 15th, I want to thank Andrew Sullivan, Rob Thomas, and Marie Slaughter, Patrick Kennedy, and Secretary Ernest Muniz.

Thank you, folks.

Join us on Overtime.

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