Episode #354 (Originally aired 5/15/15)

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

Start the clock.

Good afternoon.

Afternoon.

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real time.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay, you're very kind.

Thank you.

Oh, wow.

What a

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

You can

excitable work of people.

Excited, I know.

I usually say I know why you're excited.

This week I'm going to tell you why I'm excited.

Mitt Romney tonight is fighting Evandra Hollyfield.

I'm not making this up.

You've heard this, right?

Yes, that Mitt Romney is fighting a boxing match.

Well, it's a charity boxing match with Evander Hollyfield.

It's just a friendly exhibition to raise money.

Just like the Mayweather fight last week.

This

friendly.

Wow, Mitt Romney, I'm telling you.

They asked him, why is he doing this?

He said, I don't know.

I guess I just like getting beaten by black guys.

Very strange.

But no, everybody this week is talking about one of the worst train wrecks ever, but enough about the Jeb Bush campaign.

Oh,

Tom.

We learned something this week.

There's actually no such thing as a smart Bush.

They kept saying he was the smart.

No, no.

Oh, I think only a Bush could answer a yes or no question two different ways and be wrong both times.

I mean,

it wasn't that hard.

He was asked, knowing what we know now, would you have invaded Iraq?

And he had a different answer every day.

First it was damn right I would, absolutely.

Fucking great idea.

And the next day it was, sorry, what?

I'm sorry,

I misheard or I misinterpreted.

And then the next day it was, well, that's hypothetical.

I can't answer it.

When did a politician ever answer a hypothetical question?

And then finally it was, okay, my brother's a giant fuck up.

You happy?

Every day, a different answer, which is how he got his nickname, the Undecider.

And all this was on Fox News, where the anchors are ordered to pre-like you.

I tell you, I think the Bush family has actually been in decline since the

patriarch Prescott Bush.

He was Jeb and George's grandfather, the first President Bush's father.

He was a good guy.

He was a senator from Connecticut, a moderate, one of the first big advocates for planned parenthood.

If only he had practiced what he preached.

And

Jeb Bush stuck his foot in his mouth again today.

He said, get this, that it would be okay if we repealed Obamacare because soon people will be able to manage their health using the new Apple iWatch.

And I have one.

Let's see if it works.

Surrey,

I think there's something wrong with my heart.

Okay,

I've found three theaters playing Paul Blart.

No, no, not Paul Blart.

Okay.

Now, as for the Amtrak derailment, we still don't know what caused the train crash or why Mitch McConnell always looks like he's just seen one.

But how's this for sensitivity?

Hours, hours after the crash, House Republicans voted to cut Amtrak's budget.

Why do Republicans hate trains?

This is my...

Seriously, they love everything else from the good old days, swing music and Route 66 and segregation.

But somehow,

somehow if you get to work in anything other than a Buick, you're not a real American.

I don't get that.

I love trains.

It's the only way to travel anymore.

It doesn't involve a TSA agent slowly tracing the curve of my inner thigh.

Why do Republicans hate trains?

Well, of course, we know, because they're subsidized by taxes,

as opposed to the interstate highway system, which is a naturally occurring geological formation.

I hope they get to the bottom of why this train crashed, but I don't know if that's going to happen because the engineer involved says he has absolutely no recollection of what happened.

So I don't think he's going to be driving trains in the future.

But he has a very bright future as Tom Brady's ball handler.

Oh, I can't.

All right, we got this.

There's Charles Murray, Heather McGee, and a little later to be speaking with the rapper's rapper.

Killer Mike is backstage.

But first up, she is a beacon for freedom of expression.

His latest book is Heretic, Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now, my friend, and one of my heroes, Ayan Hersi Ali.

Here you are.

How are you?

Good to see you.

Thank you.

I always say to guests when they're here, I'm glad to see you, but it's especially with you.

I'm glad to see you, because I know a lot of people don't want you to live.

Thank you.

Thank you, Brian.

I'm glad to see you.

Yes, absolutely.

So, you know, for people who are not familiar with your story, you were born in Somalia.

Tell us a little bit about your upbringing and what it's like for a woman to grow up in Somalia.

Well, let me tell you the Disney version, which is I was born.

I didn't know there was one.

Yeah,

I was born in Somalia to a Muslim household, and at the age of five years, I was subjected to genital mutilation, like about 130 million women are.

And fast forward,

my father arranges a marriage or forces me to marry, and then fast forward, I'm able to escape that by taking a train from Germany to the Netherlands and asking for asylum.

And fast forward, I learn the language and I assimilate, and I

run for office and I become a Dutch member of parliament.

And at some point, three years into my tenure,

thank you.

Thank you.

Now, why can't everyone do this?

I told you, this was the Disney version.

But three years into my tenure, one of my colleagues decides that I had not told her the truth, which is absolutely true, but everybody knew about it in 2002.

And

she takes away my citizenship.

I'm also at that point under so much security.

And I decide to come to the United States of America and I live happily ever after.

Well,

that's the Disney part.

Right.

And

you're a critic of Islam, and for that, so many.

Well, your book's called Heretic.

So, you know, I don't think I'm talking out of school here.

And the other one was called Infidel.

So, you know, I think you're doing it to yourself.

And we're glad you are.

But why is it that so many liberals, I mean, liberals who absolutely hate blaming the victim,

as they should, as we all should, when it comes to rape cases and stuff.

How dare you blame the victim?

So many blame you.

They turn the finger on you.

You're the bad guy.

How is that happening?

I think some of them are scared.

I think some of them are protective of the people who present to them as, I am the victim.

You know, so many of the so-called spokespeople for Muslims emphasize the victimhood of all Muslims, people they don't really speak for.

And they say, look at her, she's the awful one.

She's the one who's asking questions.

She's the heretic.

She's the infidel.

And I don't know why it works with

liberals.

Yeah.

I mean, when I see a woman in the head-to-toe burqa, I call it the beekeeper suit,

I see someone who is oppressed, because I don't think anyone really wants to live that way, especially in the hot sun.

But I've heard many liberals say, well, that's their custom.

That's their culture.

They want it like that.

They like it.

And I say, they like it.

That's what pimps say.

that's what pimps say it is yeah they like it yeah

and you know they blow guys in an alley and give me the money they like it

as you know right too far no

I don't know how too far that is because even in in every industry in the industry of Islamic extremism there are women who like to cover themselves from head to toe and who like to curtail to this ideology of extremism but if

it, well, if they like it, they like it.

My point is, there are millions who don't like it.

Please don't impose it on them.

Those are the women I'm talking about.

Right, okay.

And now, in your book, of course, you say what I think lots of people have said, Islam needs a reformation.

But you propose a specific plan for this reformation.

Can you give us the thumbnail version?

Okay, number one, I think it's extremely important for Muslims to change their attitude toward the Quran and Muhammad.

Toward the book, it's not a driver's manual, please.

Toward the man, give me a break.

He can't be the most perfect moral guide for all humanity at all times.

Give that or part of that up.

Number two, stop investing in life after death instead of life before death.

Right.

Thank you.

Number three, give up Sharia.

Do you know what Sharia law is?

Give it up.

No, tell us, we hear that word a lot, and there are people in this country, especially now in Texas, who think

they're in

danger of Sharia law taking over.

Alan West in Florida tweeted the other day, he was in a Walmart, and he was trying to buy liquor and they wouldn't let him because it turned out the sales guy was underage so he couldn't sell it to him.

And he said, Sharia law has come to Walmart.

They're crazy.

But

what is involved in Sharia law?

Well Sharia law is the system of law that Saudi Arabia has, that Iran has, that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is trying to implement.

Sharia law basically decides absolutely everything about yourself.

Decides how women and men should interact with one another.

Adulterers are flogged or stoned.

People who drink are subjected to various harsh punishments, death.

I am somebody who left the religion of Islam.

The punishment under Sharia law for me would be to be killed.

If you're gay, you are to be taken to the tallest building in town and thrown down.

And if you're still alive, there's a mob waiting there to leanch you.

We're seeing all of this carried out in many places, formally and informally.

When I say formally, I mean by a government, informally, by people doing it themselves.

And that takes me to the fourth point, which is the commanding right and forbidding wrong, where individual citizens feel that they can tell you what is right, and if you don't, you're not behaving the right way, they can punish you.

And then finally, of course, jihad, holy war, should be replaced with holy peace.

So I've had,

and we know a sharia law is popular in many more countries than you even named.

I mean, when I have liberals on this show, one of the big arguments is, well, you're painting with a broad brush.

Of course, Saudi Arabia is backward, but what about Indonesia and Turkey and Jordan?

Well, I looked up Indonesia and Turkey and Jordan.

And well, here are some of the statistics here.

In Sharia law, 72% of Indonesians favorite.

Jordan, 71%.

Stoning of adulterers, Indonesia, 48% popular.

Jordan, 67%,

death for leaving Islam, Jordan 82%.

These are their bastions of freedom and democracy.

How do we get liberals, and some of them are people I really used to respect,

how do we get them to understand that we are the liberals in this debate?

The people who are facing shining a light on oppression and demanding that it will end, how can that not be the liberal cause?

What do you say to liberals?

I say to them that the cancer of Islamic extremism is an assault on liberalism, on liberal ideas,

on the idea of the human being as, you know, protect the life of the human being, the freedom of the human being, the equality of human beings.

That's what it is, an assault on.

Islamic extremists divide the world into us and them.

And the ones they deem to be them, even if they are pious Muslims, they kill them, they subjugate them, they sell them into slavery, they rape the women, and they destroy arts and civilization.

And we see it on a daily basis.

If you are a liberal and you really truly believe in the principles of liberalism, you've got to stand up to the challenge of the day, and that is Islamic extremism.

Thank you, Ayan Hersiyali.

You're my hero.

You know that.

All right, stay safe.

Ayan Hirsi Ali.

Let's meet our panel.

panel.

Okay.

All right.

He is the iconic indie filmmaker of hairspray and serial mom whose latest book, Carsik, is now in paperback.

John Waters is over here.

We always undergrassed, understated, John Waters.

She is the president of the progressive public policy organization Demos.

Heather McGee.

Hey, Heather, great to have you here.

And he's a conservative intellectual.

His latest book is By the People.

Our friend Charles Murray back with us.

Hey, Charles.

Good to see you.

Okay.

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.

All right, I want to talk about Jeb Bush first.

It's interesting the way the Republicans seem to be imploding week by week.

I had a little fun with him there in the monologue.

But I want to go after some of the things that he said earlier in the week that I think were not challenged challenged by the media, because the first thing he said was, I would have invaded Iraq given the intelligence we had, as he said, by the way, so would Hillary Clinton.

Can I just point out that I don't think Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat or even any other Republican might not have invaded Iraq because Bush was the only one who even thought to link 9-11 to Iraq.

Richard Clark in his book talks about the day after 9-11, Bush going around saying,

is there a link, any reason we can invade Iraq?

And they're like, no, no.

And he's like, well, we'll look harder.

There you go.

That's my point.

Had to get that off my chest.

I hate it when he makes a mistake because I want him to be the nominee because I think we can win.

And the real reason I want to win is so Bill can be first lady.

I want Bill to be an old-fashioned first lady, like Mamie Eisenhower.

You know, like, yeah, like make bacon pies and arranging flowers with an apron.

I think it'll be great.

No, it is a little bit like Jeb Bush never really thought of what he actually would say when this question came to him.

Right.

And, you know, this is George W.

Bush we're talking about.

We're talking about someone who did a lot to this country that his brother's going to have to answer for, whether it's the $2 trillion war or the $2 trillion tax cuts or the $14 trillion

housing bubble wealth loss.

That's a big credit card bill that this guy's going to have to answer for.

Yeah, I think it might be a moment that defines the Bush campaign.

I think Ted Kennedy, we were both old enough to remember when Ted Kennedy was asked back in 1979, why do you want to be president?

And he couldn't answer the question.

And not being able to answer this question,

this is the first one he was going to be asked.

He had to have that down pat.

Well, I mean, that's something you hear in every campaign, that the campaign is a great indication of how the guy would be as president.

I've heard this going back as far as I can remember politics.

They either say, I remember, I can't remember what Republican said, maybe it was,

you know, Romney or McCain before him said, well, you know, if he's as good as he was in the campaign, we're going to be okay.

And I've heard others say, well, if he can't run his campaign, how can he run the White House?

So that is a good question.

But I noticed also that the Republicans this week all jumped on Bush.

They smelled blood, the wounded animal.

So they all jumped in their haste to say, actually, the Iraq war was a mistake.

And

I'd never heard them say that before.

Unanimity.

Unanimity.

Absolutely.

Yeah, they wanted to attack Bush, so they said, because before that, the answer was always, no, the world was better without Saddam, and it was President Black Neville Chamberlain who fucked things up.

Well,

I don't follow day-to-day politics close enough to

be defended.

No, I hate day-to-day politics.

But generally speaking,

by the week, that's this show.

Every couple of years, I have to follow the day's politics before I come on the show.

How flattening it is.

But in fact,

on the Republican side, there's been an awful lot of agonizing and rethinking about Iraq for a long time.

Really?

Yeah.

I've not heard that.

Marco Rubio, I heard him just the other day say, no,

the world is better off without Saddam, which is a talking point from 2004.

Plainly, the world would be better if Saddam was still in power.

Not for the soccer team.

Right, but that doesn't mean that.

The world would be better off.

Yeah, and that doesn't mean it should have cost 4,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians to get there.

Right.

Yeah, I think that's it.

All right, so let's talk about the train wreck.

First of all, it wouldn't be that big a story.

It is a big story, but if this happened in Chattanooga, believe me, it just happened on the Eastern Corridor.

It's like when there's a snowstorm, anywhere between New York and Washington, it's the biggest thing in the world.

Okay, let's talk about it.

I'm on that train always, right?

Because I drive back and forth from Baltimore and

you know the thing that I fear?

I never thought you had to worry about them speeding.

You know, that's the last thing.

I worry about pilots committing suicide, buses going, ah, but not like, you know.

But there is one point on the Acela train that the suicide community knows about, and they can't stop a curve, and they jump out.

And I've been on the train where it's happened a couple times.

They know this.

They can't stop.

And so, and it's a pain.

You know, they have the coroner has to come.

It takes hours.

But

it's a common problem on that.

I'm shocked.

I'm shocked you haven't written a movie about it.

You know.

There we go.

I've been in the Acela a whole lot.

He has guys jumping off the train.

It's never jumping in front of him.

It's not a call for help.

But why are the patriots the ones who don't want to spend money on trains?

It drives me insane.

I know.

This is just no way to run a country.

We are literally squabbling about whether or not we should repair our crumbling roads and bridges from 100 years ago or put in these safeguards that we know that we had that were available, whether we can afford them.

And it's like, meanwhile, across the pond, our competitors are just handing us our lunch, right?

They're creating broadband that is is incredibly fast and wind farms, and they're doing actually exactly what we taught them to do in the post-war period, which was a mixed economy, which is, you know, it's going to take some government.

It is actually going to take some government because there are some things that we can't do ourselves and that no individual company can afford to do.

Heather, I'm actually with you.

I think government should build roads.

I think that's a good thing.

Here's the problem.

There's a bridge in Bayonne that is being rehabbed, okay?

They wanted to start rehabbing about seven years ago.

It's not even a new bridge.

It's an existing bridge they're going to fix.

So far, they've gone through 47 permits from 19 environmental agencies.

It still isn't approved.

The average amount of time it takes to approve a new road project, I mean, roads are simple, is eight years.

I mean, we have a sclerotic system at this point whereby we can't do anything.

There are no shovel-ready jobs.

But President Obama talked about getting rid of regulations like that, not all regulations, but just a common sense approach, I can't help but feel that the reason why this train crashed is because while Obama is president, any victory for him is a

yeah, we can't have a victory for America because Obama is the president.

Billy,

no, come on.

Bill,

I'm saying something.

This is

a statement of fact.

If we appropriated a trillion dollars tomorrow for infrastructure reform, nothing would happen for a matter of years.

And when I say nothing,

I mean basically nothing.

That's not true, because we had the stimulus package and we ended up doing it.

And they were driving around the projects here at work, here in L.A.

These people were out working, and they did something.

Absolutely.

They did a lot.

They made roads and bridges

to help handle the rainfall.

Brought our country back from the brink.

I think, you know, I know that your new book is about regulations and all of that, and I think that there is something to be said for that, but you cannot say that the real reason that Republicans are

doing these reckless cuts is because they're afraid that if they actually did something and be held up by regulations, that just doesn't make any sense.

Okay.

So

I actually heard in Baltimore somebody say they were against the wind farms, you know, because they were Satanist.

So every time I see one of them, have you ever been in a Salem of Wind Farms?

They're very spooky.

Have you ever got out of the car and stand in a wind farm?

Yeah, spooky.

Why would you do that?

It's fun.

Put your finger in.

You can also watch the birds getting killed.

Right,

yeah, I don't like that.

Okay, so Bill de Blasio put out a contract for America.

Remember Newt Gingrich's contract?

Well, this is the liberals' version of it.

And I'm sure someone like you, when you hear about some of the things that are in it, raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks,

pathway to citizenship, but then national paid sick leave,

national paid family leave, universal pre-K,

student loan debt relief.

These are all things that cost a lot of money.

And I'm sure that conservatives say we don't have that kind of money.

And then I look at things like the F-22.

Cost $67 billion.

We barely ever used it.

It did not factor in Iraq or Afghanistan.

It's now scrapped.

Then we went to the F-35.

The F-35 costs,

it was going to cost

$237 billion.

It's now up to $1.5 trillion.

Also doesn't seem to work.

Cannot take a lightning hit.

So they have to stay 25 miles away from lightning.

So

we can get into a war unless it rains.

That's $1.5 trillion

from the people

who want to cut the Amtrak funding by how many millions?

A few millions.

Exactly.

It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

So I actually were...

I was there to sign the contract that the progressive agenda, Bill de Blasio called me a couple of months ago and said, I'm going to organize some progressive leaders to try to make income inequality the defining issue of the 2016 presidential campaign.

And I said, absolutely, I think that has to happen.

But if you look at that agenda,

it's not actually such a left agenda.

We're at sort of like this jump ball moment for what is progressive, where the center is on economic issues.

And if you run basically down all of those, they get majority support from Republican voters, obviously not from Republican members of Congress, but you've got this strange thing where it's not really a left and right issue, but more of like a donor class and everybody else issue.

Where actually

the political science research shows that because the donor class is this sort of gatekeeper right now for who gets to run, whose phone calls are answered, that comes out in public policy decisions that skew towards the wealthy.

Well, I'll tell you, all I can say is.

Heather,

the Republicans I know think that having a candidate who has pledged to the de Blasio program is a wet dream.

I mean, it is such an attractive ⁇ it's as if the Democrats could run against Mike Huckabee's social agenda.

They'd wipe him out.

There is going to be a lot of...

Paid families leave?

We got a whole bunch of independents.

and moderate Democrats who usually vote Democratic because they really don't like the Republican social agenda at all, and that just completely turns them off from it.

On the other hand, these are the people who go to the polls in high numbers.

That means whites vote in greater numbers than most minorities.

The more money you have, the more likely you are to vote.

So the electorate that elects people is much different from the profile of the country.

Can I give you the numbers on this stuff?

Because they have polling, and I know what you're going to say, and you may be right.

Yes, when you give people goodies, when the government does that, it's popular.

But the minimum wage, 63% support going up to $15 an hour.

Pathway to citizenship, 62% support it.

Paid six leave, 88%.

Family leave, 86%.

Pre-K, 70%.

Student loan debt relief, 73%.

They keep saying Hillary's gone left.

Hillary's where she always has been in the center.

She's for gay marriage, 58% approve of that.

Overturning Citizens United, 61% approving that.

Body cameras on cops, 91% approve of that.

Sentencing reform for nonviolent drug offenders, 63%.

So

this idea

that this is far-left stuff, this sounds like.

Well, Bill, okay, well, we can have the show a couple of years from now.

I'm saying

if the Democratic candidate embraces universal pre-K and paid family leave and the sick leave and all of that, all of which are expensive programs, leave the fighter planes out of it, you have a whole lot of votes.

Why are we leaving the fighter planes out of it?

That's the whole point, is that we shall leave the fighter planes.

We're talking about boost voting and why they're going to vote.

Wait, so Charles, you're saying that the only way to get to your program is to distort our democracy to keep most of Americans out of the ballot box.

That's exactly what you're saying.

You're saying that

the people who vote, the people who vote want X.

The people who donate want X.

And so we can't have a X.

Trying to forecast what happens.

If the Democrats adopt this agenda, they will get wiped out next year.

If the right gets to define the electorate, that is absolutely right.

And that's

why we're able.

You're right.

And that is on the liberals because,

as these prove, we have the numbers.

We just don't turn up.

You're right.

We let old white people run the country.

All right.

I got to move on.

There's another issue that's the point.

Dear to my heart, I'm conceding.

Take yes for an answer.

Is religion was in the news this week.

Pew Poll does a big survey every seven years.

So what?

Pew?

The Pew Poll?

You've heard of the Pew Poll.

It sounds like Spartan and Church.

The Pew Poll.

You never heard of the Point Point Point Pole.

P-E-W?

Okay.

I guess

we got a whole panel tonight who never reads the news.

I didn't hear of the Pew Pole.

Anyway,

they do a big survey of religion every seven years, and the results are in, and they're pretty amazing.

The number of Christians has gone down from 2007 to 2014, from 78% to 70%.

The number of nuns, well, that's people who none, none of the above.

These are atheists, agnostics, people who just want to sleep in on Sunday.

We're now second.

It's evangelicals, 25%, nuns, 23%.

And mostly this is because millennials.

Of your show.

Because of me.

Absolutely.

You're welcome.

I do what I can.

But

the millennials are mostly.

35% of the millennials are nuns, and they are leaving in droves.

So they're trying to get them back.

They're the key to stopping this bleeding.

So they have put out this.

This Bible to try to get the millennials back.

It's the King James Franco Version.

It's slightly different.

Would you like to hear?

It's very similar.

Like, here's from the Old Testament.

Adam and Eve saw that they were naked, and they were ashamed because they were not toned.

So they sowed fig leaves

together to cover their problem areas.

That's slightly different.

The Lord's anger burned against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness 40 years, where they had no signal.

You can see how this upset the millennials.

And the commandments are slightly different.

Honor thy father and thy mother so that you may live long in their basement.

Thou shalt not steal except thine music online.

That's.

All right, now let's go to the

New Testament.

There are also some different versions.

Again, slightly different.

Oh, Jesus says, take this and eat of it, for it it is gluten-free.

Blessed be thy fruit of thy womb.

It is locally grown.

Jesus, oh, I remember this one, said to Peter this very night before the cock crows, you will deny me three times, because the hater is going to hate, hate, hate.

So verily, just shake it off.

And

we know not on what hour thy lord will return, but thy Uber will be there in four minutes.

All right, let's bring out Mike.

He is an activist and hip-hop artist.

His latest album is Run the Jewels 2.

Michael Render, aka killer Mike.

Come over here.

Killer, Mike.

Come here, Tony.

Great to see you.

This is our panel.

How are you doing?

How often, how you doing?

All right.

Charles, there's not enough people against you.

We wanted to bring out one more.

I want to thank them.

That book you wrote back in 94 made a lot of my teachers kick our ass.

So you ain't gonna prove this white man right.

So, what's wrong?

Oh, yes, yeah, when he was like, genetically, black people weren't as smart.

And I was like, if the motherfuckers run in this country are that brilliant, it's over for us for real.

Those Bush genetics got us far.

All right.

So, Mike, I wanted to have you here because there's certainly been a lot of news lately about things that are of interest to you because I know that you are, your father was a cop.

And I've wanted to ask somebody about this who would know the issue of black policemen because they must be caught in a terrible vice.

Well they are and a lot of them on the wrong side right now.

I just want to

I want to acknowledge that policing is difficult and it's hard and it's a brave few that'll do it.

And if they didn't have them, it would be tough.

It would.

I do not believe in humanity.

I think I really don't.

They may be bad, but you take away that.

It's the purge.

Yeah.

It's the purge everywhere.

I'm pro-Second Amendment, so I wouldn't be against that even.

But my wife actually taught me that if you get too drunk, you can call the police and they'll have to take you home.

So that was a new one I didn't even know.

She's a lot sexier than I am, so I'll imagine the cops wouldn't arrest her.

But I think I live in Atlanta, Georgia.

Atlanta is a black city, top to bottom, has been for the last 40, 50 years or so.

For the last hundred years, black population.

But for the first 70, 80 years, there was no black police force.

Black policing came along in the 50s after a long, hard fight for them.

Black cops weren't even allowed to change clothes with the regular cops.

They had to do it at a Y.

But the community fought for these black cops to be here because they wanted to be policed fair and they wanted to be policed by people who looked like them, who understood the community, who were from the community.

And the fact that we have black cops today that are black cops like the people they're policing, but they don't live near the community.

They don't live in the community.

They aren't active in the community.

That's the cancer in policing.

There's a policeman policeman in North Little Rock named Tommy Norman, white guy.

Talks kind of black, though.

But

he polices the black community.

And I started following him secretly because every day he was posting him and kids and poor white kids, black kids.

Just he was actually out of his squad car.

And I believe that that's where proper policing happens.

When you're out of a car,

when it's you and another cop engaging the community.

So for kids who are out there who may be in military, who may be coming out, who may be graduating high school or college, we need black policemen.

We need you policing.

But we need you policing and living in the community you police in and knowing the people you're policing.

And I mean, we hear a lot of people say, you know, most cops are good cops.

And I would agree with that.

I don't know if I always agree with that.

You know what, Mike?

I don't know.

It's easy to be a bad guy.

Yeah, I was just saying that because I'm scared of you.

Exactly.

But here's my question.

Now, I've said a lot of bad shit about cops, and I think they know it.

They'll shoot me too near.

Okay, but here's my thing about good cops.

We know what a bad cop is.

A good cop is one who isn't racist,

who doesn't, you know,

abuse people, kill people for no reason, just get his jollies, you know, doing that kind of shit.

But it seems like we do not have any cops who rat on the ones who do that.

Now, that's.

And to me,

Can you be a good cop

if you see a bad cop doing bad shit and you and you still back him up because you know remember that movie Serpico?

It was like one guy one cop said, you know what?

I'm not even going to fuck with you guys.

I just don't want to take the money and they tried to kill him.

Exactly.

Can you be a good cop?

Exactly.

I don't.

I think that the nature of good cop, like when we say good cop, we just mean he hasn't killed anyone this week.

But I think

that good cop means...

I think that good cop means I have to uphold the letter of the law beyond the fraternity of brotherhood policing.

I have to hold up to uphold the law for the community.

And that may involve telling on bad cops.

And it needs to be something that we as a public celebrate.

I'm glad that a lot of police are getting body cameras, but I think what's really needed, God bless the dead, my mentor was appointed.

Her name was Alice Johnson.

She died a few months ago.

Great woman from Chicago.

Taught me how to organize.

George Turner, who's our police chief in Atlanta, appointed her to be the community liaison between the community and between the police force.

Now, she actually was an organizer.

So what did she do?

She organized the community to speak to the police force directly, and it dramatically, for a year or so, changed the way Atlanta policing happened.

Now, we have body cameras, so I don't know if

that office is going to stay, but I pray it does because I saw the difference.

And I thanked our mayor, Kassim Reed, for it.

I thank George Turner for it.

And I pray that we find another Alice Johnson to be the community liaison in Atlanta so we won't have another murder of like a 92-year-old grandmother who was killed by an elite drug squad.

Right.

So

we're having in cameras now, all the black kids are wearing their own cameras on their hats.

That's the new fashion.

I think it's great.

It's great.

Well, you knew that, but not the Pew Study.

No, I never heard the Pew Study.

No, no.

No, would you wear that jacket, Michael?

I'd look for it in my size.

They would have patched you all four together.

I'm such an admirer of you, Texas.

Thank you, girl.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Because this kind of matches that.

Yeah, this, I got to get you one.

This is my band.

Run the jewels.

Can I get you to do that one?

You've never heard of the pew study?

I've never seen that color, and now now I've seen it twice.

So we got to do this.

You got to throw it up.

That's my band.

Oh, I can't do the black handshakes, Mike.

There's a white guy in my group.

I'm with you intellectually, but don't make me do the handshake.

So,

Bill O'Reilly,

what?

You don't like Bill O'Reilly?

Man, I like Bill O'Reilly.

Always going after.

He's a character.

I hate all white people take him so seriously.

He's the character.

But he is always going after rap as the reason for every ill.

You don't like that.

I'm going to go in a black club and see Bill O'Reilly with a stripper in his lap.

I guarantee you that.

No, no, I don't know.

He knows that those books he writes.

That's what Paddy would have done.

And we know it's an act.

And I think the...

No, you're wrong.

I know, Bill.

That is not an act.

Bill is full of shit.

He may be full of shit, but it is sincere shit.

Really?

Of course.

People really think that way.

What are you, Grace?

You can't.

Mike, Mike, Mike,

you're the one living up there.

That means I'm going to fight him one day.

But he, this thing I was just talking about,

the religion, like the Christians losing Christians, he blames that on rap music.

And I, yeah, right, because like the least, the people who are least likely to leave Christianity are black folks.

Oh, no, yeah, no, well, particularly black women, they're not leaving.

My mama and sisters and grandma

is Jesus to the end.

Jesus was like their rapper, though.

He was arguably a black guy, or at least dark, hung with a posse of homies.

One of them was strapped with a knife, went to war with the government, lost,

like a lot of black guys do.

And everybody loved him more after he died, like Tupac.

And

he may not have existed at all.

I agree.

Oh, you agree?

Oh, yeah.

Deny me three times.

Right.

All right.

So, Michelle Obama, let me ask the panel this question, was speaking this week, and she did invoke racism.

She said, among other things, that she was followed in stores.

I imagine you remember that, right?

You've had that experience.

She said, we all know the experience of going to a party, and people assume you're the help.

Okay, this got the usual suspects very angry.

Rush Limbaugh said she was playing the race card.

Laura Ingram said a litany of victimization.

They act like her very existence is kind of a deliberate provocation.

I think they wanted her to go down to this, to Tuskegee, right?

To this, where these working-class Alabaman kids and actually just like give them the okie-doke, right?

To say, okay, because Barack and I are in the White House, like ding-dong, racism's dead.

That's what they wanted her to say.

And the fact is, we don't do that with each other.

We don't

tell that lie, right?

We actually tell the true American story of black people in this country, which is one of resilience.

And resilience has two parts: it has struggle and it has overcoming.

And so often, the right wing just doesn't want, wants to deny either one of those parts, right?

Either black people never struggle or they never overcome.

But you have to see, sometimes I'm so naive because on racism, because it used to be, I grew up with like George Wallace and dumb racist that was easy to make fun of, right?

But now they're like censors, you know, like stupid censors are easy to work with.

But real racists today, they don't say it out loud.

They're the scariest ones, you know?

And they're like liberal censors.

They're the scariest ones.

Were you in Baltimore when the riot happened?

Oh, yeah, but I feel, you know, the night Baltimore was burning, I was filming a cameo in the new Alvin the Chipmunk movie in Atlanta.

So

I may not be that qualified to talk about it, but I...

But he's your best friend.

Yeah, but I was.

Look, I was arrested in Baltimore in my life, and I was in a paddy wagon.

They didn't break my back.

So I guess, you know, but at the same time, there's a cop bar I hang out in, and they're very nice to me.

So it just depends.

But I know, here's how you solve it.

Two ways you want to solve it, what I think in Baltimore.

is one like jury duty once a year every family has to move to the exact economic opposite neighborhood and live there they have to get their hair done there they have to send their kids to school there they got to go to the store there and then you move back right the other one is don't make it a race thing make it a class thing there's just as many poor white people in Baltimore poor white people don't riot rich white people do

so get

college kids yeah I mean who would if there were any rioters in Baltimore that were white, they were upscale.

When rich white kids riot, they call it celebrating.

Okay, yeah, well,

did Che Guevara take toilet paper?

You know, I mean, really,

I'm for that.

Toilet paper is expensive.

It's a fortune when you go in and buy a paper.

Why did they burn down the CVS?

That's you.

Why don't you just think?

Go burn down a country pump.

People always say that.

Well,

they burned down a CVS.

They stole stuff they needed.

You know, you need medicine.

You need socks.

You might need a blood pressure regulator.

Like, so, but when people say, why do you burn down a CVS?

Why are you burning down your own community?

Well, because of black people being denied loans, because of black people being snookered out of their homes and gentrifiers coming in or not coming in, because that's happened, you live in a community you don't own.

You're a renter.

You're just occupying a space.

The police are there.

They're occupying you.

So when you say, burn down my community, what did I burn?

Most CVSs do not hire people who work within 10 miles of there because they're afraid of theft or them letting their friends take something.

So what did I destroy besides an economic or economic eyesore that won't hire me anyway, overcharges me for drugs, and I got to wait till the next morning for my painting?

Are we saying no small store owners got burned out in Baltimore?

That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is there were a litany of black men who had t-shirts on standing in front of stores protecting stores.

And that's not what the media showed you.

The media went out and found children

and found children that said, hey, let's show these kids wild and out and make that the representation of Baltimore, and that was a lie.

But they need to get the poor white people to hook up with them, too.

Because they're sand town.

Have you ever been to Pig Town?

Yes, sir.

You know, they team up together.

And they did that in First Council.

Yeah, they did that in First Commission.

And I have just a couple of minutes to ask the lightning rod question, which is it came over the wire today,

the news that Joe Carr Sarnaev is going to get the death penalty.

I was actually surprised, you know, because...

I wasn't.

No.

No.

Well, you rooted for the death penalty.

No, I am against the death penalty very much, and I campaigned campaigned in Maryland against it, and it is extreme.

I get why the people on that jury who said they were not against the death penalty would give it to him.

I understand that.

He's the poster boy for it, as the Wall Street Journal cried.

But we have to put up, I'm against it for him because, like freedom of speech, we have to pick up with the worst, we have to put up with gangbang porn, we have to put about Nazis marching, we have to put up with the extremes of it to have the basic freedom of it for everybody.

So, you don't kill people and tell them that's how you do it.

And he was 21.

I get why they gave it to him.

And also, didn't they sentence the people to have to live through this for years and years because the appeals are going to be?

Well, they got rid of DC Palmer pretty quickly.

You know, if you're interested in punishment, it's

a little different.

Well, I mean, he was equally hideous.

You know, I mean,

you know,

yeah, they got rid of him in a month, it seemed like.

But they're also giving him what he wants.

He wants to be a martyr.

Well, he does.

It would have been a worse fate.

But I think people can do things that forfeit their right to live.

I think that there are acts of margin.

On the other hand, if you're asking about punishment,

solitary confinement 23 hours a day in front of the Supermax is 40 or 50 hours a day.

Now that is cruel, unusual.

But you know I think that is cruel and unusual.

Judy Clark, the lawyer, she's the only person I want to meet in the whole country actually.

Why?

Well, because she did Susan Smith, the Unibummer.

She does all.

She's never talked to the press.

She has never let her clients talk to the press.

And this is the first time she's lost.

And if she wins, she gets them life without parole, not the death penalty.

She's Clarence Darrow, isn't she?

Right.

All right.

Thank you, panel.

It's time to go to Uros.

Neural, don't fall asleep in front of Kim Jong-un.

He had his defense chief executed for the crime of nodding off

at some event, possibly a performance of the children's orchestra.

Yeah, so if you're in Kim's inner circle, just to be on the safe side, you might want to pick up a pair of these.

New Roll, when Courtney Love is accused of not paying her bills, you can't report it as news.

Courtney's psychiatrist says she owes him 48 grand, and that's just for steam cleaning the couch.

New rule, someone has to explain to this Kentucky man who accidentally shot his own mother during a church wedding

that when the minister says, forever hold your peace, you just

want catches you having sex with the tailpipe of a car,

stop it

sir when they said you needed an emissions check they meant the car

man I thought I was getting screwed at the pump anyway

I can't unsee that I can't unsee

new role don't be like Luis Lang the South Carolina Republican who refused to buy Obamacare until he started going blind, and now he wants Obamacare.

Don't worry, Mr.

Lang.

President Obama is aware of your situation, and he has something for you.

And finally, New Rule, someone has to tell me why.

Oh.

We sure jumped that.

Someone has to tell me why Americans won't take anything seriously unless it's delivered with a British accent.

Why in movies, even ones where the actors are Americans playing people who are not British, they still put on a British accent?

Here's Brad Pitt as Achilles.

He's from the Midwest, and we know the ancient Greeks were not.

But neither were they from Notting Hill.

So why does he have to say sword?

Why is sword more serious than sword?

Here's Marlon Brando as Superman's dad.

All that I have, all that I've learned, everything I feel.

Brando, the greatest actor ever.

You mean even he can't talk American?

Did biblical people have British accents like Jennifer Connolly here in Noah?

I can't bear to think of them dying.

Her 600-year-old husband is putting three million animals on a houseboat,

but she's using a British accent because she doesn't want to sound silly.

In World War II movies, even the Nazis have British accents.

Game of Thrones takes place in a world completely made up up by a dude from Bayonne, New Jersey, and they all have British accents.

Last season ended with the king dying on the toilet.

Done with an English accent?

Classy.

When Elvis did it, just gross.

Obi-Wan Kenobi lived in another millennium in a galaxy far, far away.

So naturally, he had a British accent.

As did the bad guy in the movie, and even the fucking robot.

And I bet if you cracked open the other robot that only made beeping noises, there'd be a guy in there with a British accent.

All right, I'll stop, but before I do, did you know that among the many items that are sold as part of the merchandising for 50 Shades of Gray,

there is a butt plug

advertised online.

The 50 Shades of Grey, Something Forbidden, Silicon Butt Plug.

Using something Forbidden is deliciously taboo.

For real?

That's right.

If you have an English accent, you can literally tell us to stick it up our ass.

Yes, that's for real.

Or that our dick doesn't work.

You've seen the Viagra ads.

You know what?

Plenty of guys have this issue, not just getting an erection, but keeping it.

She's like a sexy Mary Poppins.

Just a spoonful of sugar makes the dingling pop up.

You were a flaccid loser.

Now you're the dick of Windsor.

So what is going on here?

Oh, I think we know what's going on.

Americans, we talk a big game about we're the greatest country in the world and American exceptionalism in the indispensable nation.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, whenever I hear someone bragging on themselves like that, I always think they're covering up a massive insecurity.

And our reliance on the British accent to convey gravitas is kind of our way of admitting that we know we're not really a serious people.

I mean, come on.

We drink wine out of a box.

We invented Mormonism.

Our best-selling author is Bill O'Reilly.

Most Americans don't know that the Big Bang theory is also a theory.

I mean, look at

all the childish stuff that defines America, superhero movies, climate change denial, Palins,

Pharrell's hat,

pajama jeans for people who want to wear pants but don't want to feel overdressed at Walmart.

Come on, we know us.

We know we're the folks who gave the world Kim Kardashian's giant ass.

And when I say Kim Kardashian's giant ass, of course I mean Kanye West.

And therein lies our special relationship with England.

They have the gravitas, we have the swag.

It's how we act,

it's what we do,

it's who we are.

We have the aircraft carriers, but they have the guy who knows a sentence needs a subject and an object.

Oh yeah, that war sounded a whole lot better coming out of Tony Blair's mouth, which is why the British accent is dangerous and it should always come with a warning that this movie isn't really that profound.

This reality show judge isn't really that smart.

This war isn't really that good an idea.

And this product still goes in your butt.

All right, coincidentally, I will be playing the Hammersmith in London on May 23rd.

We're taking the next two weeks off so I can do my European tour.

We'll be be back June 5th.

I want to thank John Waters, Heather McGee, Charles Murray, Killer Mike, and Ian Herci Ali.

Join us now on Overtime on YouTube.

Thank you, folks.

All new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 11 or watch him anytime on HBO on Demand.

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