Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #460: Rep. Duncan Hunter, Ethan Hawke

Episode Date: May 12, 2018

Bill’s guests are Rep. Duncan Hunter, Ethan Hawke, Robert Reich, and Michael Render (aka Killer Mike) (Originally aired 05/11/18) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night series Real Time with Bill Ma. You know things are going bad when the only good news is coming out of North Korea. According to Trump, this week, though, is one you will be telling your grandchildren about because three Korean Americans who you never heard of and didn't know we're gone or safely home, ladies and gentlemen.

And that's good. We like that. Trump met at the airport at 2 a.m. Did you see that out in the dark? And he was very thankful. He said, thank you. We'd like to thank Kim, who really was excellent to these three incredible,

but really excellent. He took them hostage and forced them into a labor camp. What we here call an Amazon warehouse. But excellent. Kanye tweeted today, they only thought they were slaves. North Korea is in your mind. But it was actually easier to get them back than we thought.

They wrote a check to Michael Cohen. Good to go. But now... But now they're famous. Very famous. In fact, two of them have already been Me Tooed. Wow. Oh, you heard, Me Too?

Got another big fish. Eric Schneiderman, you know who this guy is? He was a big liberal hero. He was the Attorney General in New York. going after Trump, a champion of Me Too, accused by four women of violent physical abuse. This one took everybody by surprise. Even the Me Too folks were like, you two? His excuse was he was role-playing.

Yes, that's every woman's dream, isn't it? I'll be Tina Turner, you be Ike. I swear, this is how sad this is. This is the one area where we have bipartisanship, misogyny. Really. The big political news this week is that Trump's amateur lawyer, Michael Cohen, had a slush fund where he would take money in from people who wanted access to Trump, like AT&T and pharmaceutical companies and the Russians, and then pay the money out to people Trump fucked at a golf tournament.

You've heard of a rainy day fund? This is a stormy day fund. This Michael Cohen is such a bad lawyer. His Jewish mother called him today and said, Michael, why couldn't you have grown up to be a lawyer? Yeah, the name of this slush fund was essential consultants. I love this. Essential consultants. There was only one of them. They weren't essential, and they did no consulting.

And their slogan was, there are some things money can't buy. The president is not one of them. But I'm burying the lead here. The big story, the sad news, is that Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. I'm sure you heard this. Here's who wanted to stay in the deal. His defense secretary, General Mattis, his old national security advisor, McMaster,

63% of the American public, the Republican head of the Armed Services Committee. All our NATO allies, the U.N. Security Council, 94% of the experts on foreign relations. Here's who wanted to leave the deal. And that's America under trial. So already Iran and Israel have traded missile fire, and Iran says they are going to restart their nuclear program

on an industrial scale. So that concludes tonight's episode of the Art of the Deal. Kim Jong-un must be saying, tell me again why I'm meeting with this clown. So Iranian lawmakers in parliament, this never happened in their parliament yesterday, burn the American flag, and we're chanting, death to America,

death to America. And Republicans here were chanting, already on it, already on it. That's all Trump does is pull out of shit. If he was a game show host, it would be called No Deal. Wait, he was a game show host. Fucker we screwed. But, no, why did he pull out?

Because of his obsession, of course, with undoing everything Obama did. If he could bring bin Laden back to life, he would do it. He, oh, no, he, he hated this Iran deal. He said he was sick and tired of foreigners not fulfilling their end of the bargain. But enough about my sex. life with Melania. Anyway, we've got a great show. We got Robert Rice and Killer Mike, and a little later where he was speaking with Ethan Hawke is backstage, ladies and gentlemen. First up, he's a Republican who is the first combat veteran of either Iraq or Afghanistan

to be elected to the United States Congress. Three terms of, three tours over there. He's now serving his fifth term from California's 50th, Duncan Hunter. How are you, sir? How are you going? How's been with you, Chris? Glad to have you back. I'm very impressed that you show you. Well, thanks for having me. This is fun. Well, you're a Republican. You are a Trump's first supporter. But a Bill Maher fan. I've been watching for a decade. I really appreciate that. No. And I'm going to make you a deal.

So, I know you have a little campaign finance trouble of your own. Sure. Okay. And most hosts would ask you about that. Let's, I'll let that go. Okay. Because campaign finance is tricky business. It is. The Department of Justice is tricky business. Here's my deal. I'll let that go, but you've got to answer honestly about Donald Trump. Okay.

Don't bullshit me about Donald Trump. Deal. Okay. So, you're a veteran. I am. Right. Three tours, right? Three tours.

Afghanistan and Iraq. Right. Okay. As it said, the way they're treating McCain, this came from Trump originally. It's pretty bad. He didn't like people who get captured. And now we saw this week, this guy on Fox News, say,

torture work. We know it because it worked on McCain. That's where they called him song group. It's pretty rotten. Now, the torture thing is different, but those are bad. You shouldn't make fun of people when they're dying. But when you and I pass away, I'm sure some people are going to tweet bad things about us. I think with the over sensationalism and everything being on the 24-hour news cycle and the tweets,

you're going to have bad people say bad things about everybody that dies, everybody in this room. I'm asking you about you're a veteran. But Trump didn't say this about McCain. said originally about McCain, and then somebody in his White House said a rotten thing about who cares what his vote is. He's dying anyway.

Come on. This doesn't bother you and other veterans? John McCain, a guy who was five years and a prisoner. Let me tell you, to be honest. We make fun, I mean, because we're in the military. It's hard to ask somebody who's been in the military and has made every crass joke known to man

as bad as you can get worse than you make. I mean, really bad jokes. Not bad jokes, but. You're right on both counts. You get really dirty, right? I've made the same John McCain joke with my friends, who are other Marines, right? If I was a pilot as opposed to a ground pounder on the ground,

I'd be a better pilot. I wouldn't get shot down, right? I've made that joke. But I make it to my friends on a national TV as the contender for the U.S. presidency. Shouldn't be done. Donald Trump is a draft dodger. He supported the war, let other people go for him.

I mean, to make fun of a guy who, was tortured? How long do you think Donald Trump would last under torture? Not very long. He'd probably torture as torturers talking about the election. You know, nobody thought I could get to 300. And they killed themselves. Please. It's all right. So torture. I mean, this is a big topic now because we're about to, or maybe we did already, what happened with Gina Haskell, Gina Hospital.

What's her name? I think Haspel. Haspel. Okay. She's up to be the head of the CIA. I think she's going to be confirmed. And I'll tell you. She probably will be confirmed.

I differ with McCain on torture. But she did oversee torture back in the day when it was the Bush administration. When it was needed. I think when you're talking about al-Qaeda and you're talking about ISIS, and I don't call it torture. Let's call it, let's call it really mean interrogation techniques. Let's call it. Oh, no, come on. Our deal is, we're not going to bullshit each other.

They're not on the medieval rack. It's like the end of Braveheart. Oh, stop. Oh, come on. People were in stress positions for a week. Now, I'm not saying these are all good people. Look, if somebody was part of 9-11, yeah, they get what is coming to them. But when we torture people, then you're a veteran.

If you were captured, they would torture you. We would torture you. We interrogate terrorists. We don't do this to, if we're, if those Russian mercenaries we killed, we killed about 100 Russian mercenaries in Syria about two months ago. That's a different thing that people that are going to put you in a cage and burn you alive, they're going to chop your head off on TV. That's what ISIS does.

And if they have nukes, they're going to use them here. We're better than ISIS. I'm going for way better than ICE. Use whatever means we have necessary, or that we have available, to make sure that we don't get a nuke in this country or get hit again like 9-11. I have no problem with that, truly, none. Okay, well, this was after 9-11,

and they didn't get any valuable information. It doesn't mean that guys still aren't trying to do the same thing now, right? Okay. Moving on. Not easy to get down, are you, Congress? So the military budget? All right. I know you're a big fan of it.

Do you go through it line by line? You are a congress. Yes, we go through it line by line. And you think, because a lot of, I read it line by line, and a lot of the stuff, the Pentagon asks for like, we want 70 planes. That's what the Pentagon is asking for. And Congress gives them 90.

Isn't that socialism when you're just making things just to give jobs to people? No, because that's not why we're doing it. But wait, the Pentagon, let me give an example. Congress is giving more than that the Pentagon is asked. Let me give you a great example. In the late 90s, the Air Force did not want this crazy thing called an unmanned aerial vehicle. Why would pilots who run the Air Force want an unmanned aerial vehicle?

So they said no. Congress said, you're going to have it. It's the future. And they foisted the predator, unmanned aerial vehicle, on the Air Force. We made them take it. So that's an example of how you're in the military, so you're in the box. And you have no other perspective but that military perspective. That's why we have civilian control of the military.

So we have a Congress. That's why you have secretaries, and you don't have generals running thing, but a civilian as the president and a civilian as the... So the Congress knows better than the Pentagon what the Pentagon needs. On some things. Yeah, absolutely. Let me tell you one, too. We have one icebreaker that breaks ice, right? That's important for the Arctic. We have one. The Russians have 45. The military doesn't always do the acquisition stuff very well, because they only do two years at a time. They're a northern country. You know, where... we're not at the North Pole. We are. We're an Arctic nation, yeah. Okay.

But, you know, in the first six months of this year, the national debt went up to $1 trillion. And, of course, on Fox News, they're saying, wait till the Republicans take over, that'll end. How do you explain this? I mean, you guys run on fiscal sanity and how everybody else is a spender, but then when you get into office,

the money just flies out the window. So here's what happened on this. It's pretty simple. You had just under four times the deaths last year, last calendar year, 2017, January through December, you had almost four times as many deaths training in the military than in combat. You had 23 or so combat deaths, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Philippines, places all over where we have people. You had over 80 training deaths here in the continental United States. That's crazy.

The Defense Department was chronically underfunded for eight years under Obama, period. And you had massive training casualties now that showed how bad the equipment was, especially the airplanes, because all the good stuff's going forward and all the training stuff is getting worse and worse and worse, right? So we had to plus up the defense budget. And in order to get that past the Senate, that giant budget that was not funded to vote for except for the military part, that was what we had to do. And that's what I had to do. So it was to save lives? Yeah. It was for the military part of the budget.

Yeah. And the Senate exacts a very high cost to get anything done. Otherwise, they'll do nothing. Yeah. The Senate does nothing anywhere. I hate to say, the budget could be a zillion dollars, which it probably will be next year. There still will be training deaths. But not as many.

This was getting pretty massive. You had a massive spike in training deaths due to a lower budget. So you are glad that Trump pulled out of the Iran deal? Yes, I am. Let me tell you. So you can look at it. the Iran deal at the same way you look at North Korea, right? You had a lot of people poopooing unilateral action, moving our giant fleets to South Korea, moving people into

South Korea, getting ready for Korea war, right? That's what we were doing. People put that down massively, now we see what's happening on June 12th. I think you see the same thing with the Iranian deal. I simply don't trust the Iranians. I think they have enough Iranians now to have bombs. That's what this deal was all about. I mean, everybody who I listed in the monologue there, has said that they're including General Mattis said I read it three times. I doubt if Trump has read it once. Right? That's the president's

take. Okay. But that's true. He He said this verification is really robust. I mean, there are, they have been many inspections. Everybody has said, even the Israelis who are against the deal have said the inspections are working. Iran is complying.

Except for those places in Iran where you're not allowed to inspect. What places? Are those? Military installations. Military installations, they're like super deep underground bunkers where they have the centrifuges. And you gotta realize they already have enough uranium now, low-grade uranium to put on a very large missile, meaning the less enriched your uranium is, the bigger than missile you have

to have. They already have that. They probably already have the missiles right now, right? And all the JCPOA did, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that Trump pulled out of, that just pushed them off 10 years and not being able to validate. everything, but they came out of it in 10 years. And we paid them billions of dollars. In 10 years, we could bring them into

the family of nations. That's what the... I think we can do that now the same way he just did. Do that now. You mean, while they're chanting death to America in the parliament? But North Korea was the same thing. But you know, you did them such a big favor because the country is really on the brink. The economy is terrible. And the people there

were very furious at the government. And now they're furious at us. I don't think so. Of course. No. I think they have seen what the Iranians have done with the money that they got from going into the JCPOA, buying arms, supporting Hamas and Hezbollah, doing very bad things with the money that we, as taxpayers, gave them. That's what the Iranians have been doing with the money. I think the people in Iran want their crazy religious government to go away so they can be more like us.

And they're happy to have us help them in any way possible. And your method is to strangle them economically. That's what's going to win them over. Yeah, the government. Okay. Worked in North Korea. I mean... Okay.

So, why are there so many Russian connections with the Trump administration? And do you worry about democracy being in trouble around the world and here at home? I wish I had an answer for you. It's strange. And I think Trump had a lot of sleazy people working for him that he didn't necessarily know. I don't think he knew that Colin had all of these side deals. I don't think that he knew that Manafort had all of these side deals. Really, because I don't think Trump's down.

in their business dealing, saying, I want to know exactly what you're signing for. But it seems like everybody had some connection with Russians and all these meetings with Russians and all the lies about the Russians. Everything comes up Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. Like Marsha, Marsha. Lots of money coming in from Russia,

and I think that's what it is. They have the money. You don't think there's any connection there? You don't think it's a little collusion-y? No, I think, no, not with Trump, but I think you had, no, not with Trump. Not with Trump. No, I don't think Trump was working with Trump.

But would you turn on him if that was the case? I mean, you're enough of a patriot to have joined up and fought for this country overseas in two theaters. If it turned... If you want to compare, though, all of these different things that we see in the media right now, with the actual payments made to the Clinton Foundation. Stop it. Just stop it. Come on.

Let's go to the actual Russian payments. Stop. Stop. That's not a talking point. But that's not a talking point. Those are real things. You had the Clinton Foundation. investment in the Clinton Foundation. Oh, for fuck.

No, but we did. I can't even. I can't even. You know that's bullshit. You're breaking my deal. You're breaking the deal. You are breaking the deal. You have nothing straight up with Trump and the Russians.

Nothing. You had these kind of sleazy guys around him that are now getting in trouble. But Trump is not. I don't think Trump knew what was going on. Okay. But if he... Is Trump the smartest guy in the world or the dumbest guy in the world?

But if he... Should he testify? Bill Clinton had to testify for four hours about the blow job. Shouldn't he... To avoid a grand jury, right? Shouldn't he, shouldn't Trump have to answer questions about a foreign power meddling in our government? No, I don't think he should in this case.

Really? Yeah. No, I think the DOJ... And that's just partisanship. No, I think the Department of Justice... You used to be the rule of law people. Remember the rule of law? Until the law gets political,

and the Department of Justice has gotten political. So it wasn't political under... It wasn't political under Clinton, but now it is. And Mueller's the dirty guy in the way. It's an executive branch. The Department of Justice is an executive branch service, meaning it's not under Congress or anything. It's under the executive branch.

It's not in the service of the president. It's in the service of the nation. No, but it's in the executive branch. He appoints the Attorney General, right? So the Department of Justice is under Trump, kind of, right? There is no oversight for the DOJ. No, that's not the case. The Attorney General, who he appoints overseas the Department of Justice.

But it's a separate entity. No, true, but it's a... But it's in the executive. Okay. Like the Department of the Interior. It's the same kind of thing. Thank you, Congressman. You're a brave man to come here.

I think you're a great guy. I really hope you'll lose your next election because I think you're wrong about everything. Duncan Hunter, but thank you for your service. All right. Let's meet our panel. I don't know what to tell you. All right, here's our panel.

He is the former Labor Secretary. He was now a professor at UC Berkeley. His new book is The Common Good. Robert Reich. And he's the active. Who's a Rapp says, Killer Mike for Run the Jewel's Michael Render is over here. Right. Don't forget to send us your questions for tonight's overtime.

It's we can answer them after the show on YouTube. I'm going to start with this. Almost 60% of the people on the latest poll in America say things are going well. Now, you have to not care about democracy, Russia, corruption, the environment. Can you imagine how many people would say things are going well if we didn't have a jerk in the White House? I mean, 90% of Americans would think things are going well. Well, I know it's always the economy, stupid, but are we a people now who only care about money?

Because that is the only thing that's going well. Rappers seem to care a lot about money. Everybody cares about money. Absolutely. I think that we're caring about money to the point that we're just joining teams, and we feel like our team is winning, so it's okay. But overall, people aren't doing well. People are having to get more jobs.

People are getting lesser-payer jobs and double working and not spending enough time with family. So I think people are in the part of a relationship where they don't want to admit this chick ain't for me. I think that's right. Well, we'll see. Bill, the official rate of unemployment is down to 3.9%. But that does not include all the people who are working part-time.

They'd rather be working full-time. And all the people who are too discouraged to look for work. And all the college graduates who are working, you know, in jobs that they're over-qualified for. and all the part-time workers who don't know where they're going to get their next job. I mean, it really is a very rough economy right now. Is there going to be a reckoning?

I mean, what do you foresee in the next year or two? You're a great economist. I think in October 12th next year. Wow. You're really nostrilamus. You're going to really have to watch out. No, there are a lot of dangerous signs right now. Stocks are way overpriced.

There are bubbles. You know, every country, every major big boy country, paid down their debt now that things are good. Things are pretty good around the world, except this one. And we just exploded the debt. Right. We're just talking about it. It is something that is potentially a huge danger.

And Republicans, you know, they've been talking about this ever since, you know, when I work for Bill Clinton, all we heard every day was you've got to get the deficit down from Republicans. And you did, yeah. We got it down to zero. I want to talk about a subject that is... I want to talk about a subject that is... that is not in the news this week, which is guns.

Because you can never talk about guns when it is in the news. Yeah. You know, in those rare weeks when we're not having a mass shooting, this is the time. We're in between shootings. Let's talk about it now. Yeah. Okay, because you got into a little trouble when you were on NRA TV,

and you said it was that walkout day when the Parkland kids were having a demonstration all over the country. Yeah. And you told your kids, we're a gun owning. family, don't walk out of that school. We're not doing that. And I said the next week, that's perfectly your right to say it.

Okay, I'm not going to start on the PC nonsense of not being able to speak your mind and diversity of thought, but we should have diversity of thought. And I think liberals are going to have to come to terms with the fact that there's a racial component to this debate. Oh, yeah.

Please. Your key. Amir Loggins and Christopher Trellar wrote about a week after my time on the whipping post about African American and gun ownership. They wrote an article in the Washington Post that said, Killer Might Be Right. And it specifically highlighted over the last three or four hundred years how gun laws were not only used against African Americans and indigenous populations, but created to control them.

Going back to the 1600s, if you had a gunsmith store, you were any type of metal smith, you could not work legally on an Indian's gun. Fast forward, you could, they had slave patrols, well, no, not slave patrols, but slave They had literally, they deputized all white citizens in Florida to be able to go into black households and take guns out, arbitrarily, which lends itself to the guy, I forgot his name, who was over the Department of Justice saying that Anglo-American history was law enforcement. So pretty much if I'm a white man in America, you're telling me that by owning a gun, I am a part of law enforcement. What happens because of that? You kill black children because their music is loud. when you're in that emboldened, you track a black boy behind a building,

you engage him in a fight, you begin to lose, you murder him, and then you are let off the hook because of staying your ground. At the same time, a black woman named Sawatu Salomon Ra, Salama Ra, is in Detroit. She is in an argument, as people get in all the time in Detroit, in Atlanta, and towns, other places where cars and people are involved. She feels as though she's threatened, she's about to be hit by a car, Car, Carr appears about to ram her.

She pulls an unloaded pistol, makes a threat. Same way they tell you to do this. If you see a bear coming, just make whatever is threat and scared of you. She's now in jail for two years while seven months pregnant. She didn't engage. They were engaging one another. She didn't track a child.

She didn't murder that child. She's not free. So what I was saying on NRA TV and any other TV that would have heard me is that for African Americans to align themselves, with the gun law lobby, stop and have a conversation with your allies. And say this, these laws are going to affect us worst, and they're going to affect us first. If you put more police in school,

you're going to see more African-American children engaged by police in a violent manner. The same way a little girl was slammed out of her desk, the same way little girl was slammed at a pool party. And I'm simply saying to our allies, wait and let's talk about it, because laws that are introduced are going to affect my community worse than first. And I'd be a fool of a black person. the case that the police... It's a matter

of self-reliance. Police don't always show up in the poorer neighborhoods. They're not going to... In the poorer neighborhoods. They're not going to show up in rural neighborhoods because we underfund our police forces. They lack the training they properly need, and we don't have the type of officers we need in the community. Mike, I couldn't agree with you more in terms of equal rights. I mean, let's face it. This is

not a country that has distinguished itself with who are the equal rights on racial basis. But there's a difference between that point, I think, and maintaining that we have to get rid of assault weapons, we've got to have universal background. That's absolutely critical. When you say that's absolutely... Why is that critical?

Yeah, why is that critical? Because, see, one of the problems that gun people have with liberals talking about guns is that liberals don't know what they're talking about when they're talking about guns. At all. I'm not a gun expert. I don't like guns. I've said many times I have a gun because self-reliance. Okay, and the police might not get there, yada, yada, yada.

But, I mean, there was, I think, only 400 deaths from all types of rifles last year. Absolutely. I don't know if that is the key issue. It's a big applause break for liberals when you say assault weapons. But, you know, the Virginia Tech shooting was the biggest one ever, I think. That was a handgun. And you're saying to a population of people, and you know you'll understand me on this, you're saying to a population of people, this guy's a tyrant.

You're living under the tyrannical times, and you're comparing him to Adolf Hitler. When you do that to my community, I must take it seriously. I must take it seriously, because not only am I seeing gun violence around crime and poverty in my community, I'm seeing officers of the state

murder my children, murder my women. So when we start to say, tyranny could never happen. If you're African-American, tyranny is happening now. Not happening, not potential. happening, we are being murdered at a higher rate and engaged by agents of the state.

And when we say assault weapons, we ignore the fact that the Second Amendment says in case of tyranny. If a soldier or a cop can own a version of an AR-15, I'm not comfortable in a country where I'm being asked to the arm, and they are not. Well, here's what, let me let me just say. In terms of assault weapons, there are no such things also. There are rifles that look scary and there were defined in 1994. in the assault weapons ban, which went into effect. And I was there, and all I know is that for the 10 years, from 1994 to 2004, when the Republicans got rid of the assault weapons ban, there was a 24, no, there was a 42% drop in mass killings,

defined as killings of five people or more at the same time. Now, you can define assault weapons any way you want, but I am just telling you we had a law. Let's go back to that law. Yeah, that's fine. But we come right back. around to law and what law looks like when applied. In 1994, we also had a crime bill. That crime bill made five grams of crack, which is this big, equal to a half a brick of cocaine.

I saw tons of black men and women wiped off the streets with sentences they didn't deserve simply because the leaders in the African American community didn't say to their allies, stop, wait, let's see how that is going to affect me first. So this is a nation of laws. But again, African Americans, it is going to affect you first and worst if we simply jump on the bandwagon and say, pass all new laws. But when you talk about tyranny, let me just say as an, not an African American. No more house jokes. I've been saying for a long time that Donald Trump is bringing fascism to this country. Madeline Albright wrote an op-ed in the New York Times a few weeks ago saying the same thing. It said fascism is coming. Okay. You know, the shoe's on the other foot now. If you read,

really believe that Donald Trump is an authoritarian leader capable of using force to suppress the opposition, I wonder if liberals are going to be rethinking their feelings about guns a little bit. Well, but, yes? Bill, I mean, you know, you've got bottom feeders like Roger Stone and some of the other people associated with Trump who have been talking about a civil war if there's an impeachment. Well, I'm sorry, if we don't stand, And I'm talking about progressives, liberals, people who care about this country. If we don't stand for the rule of law, we don't have anything left. Right.

Okay. I just, I don't know why that's... I'd like to say, please, for those who may be interested in the sister Sawatu's case, freesawatu.org, please go, please support her. Let's get a pregnant woman out of jail and home with her family. Okay, so I don't know if people realize, but the 2018 election is really underway because we had primaries this week, I think, in four states, was it? Yes, the process has begun of really picking the people who will be on the ballot in November.

One of them in West Virginia was Don Blankenship. You know who this is? The billionaire mine owner whose mine killed a lot of people. He went to jail for it. So he thought, I should probably be a senator. He didn't win, but I have to show you his campaign ad because this is real, and it's just too fucking funny. Politicians have run a lot of crazy ads.

They blew up the coal mine. and then put me in prison. Now they're running ads that say the coal mine blew up and I went to prison. There's no surprise there. But if you want jobs, if you want to end the drug epidemic and you want to protect the unborn, you need to vote for me.

Swamp Captain Mitch McConnell has created millions of jobs for China people. While doing so, Mitch has gotten rich. In fact, this China family has given him tens of millions of dollars. Mitch's swamp people are now running false negative ads against me. They are also childishly calling me despicable

and mentally ill. The war to drain the swamp and create jobs for West Virginia people has begun. This is... And that's... And that's the one they put on the air. Would you like to see the outtakes? The ones are... Okay. Here's the one that didn't make it to the air. Hi, I'm Don Blanketship and I'm tired of Paul Ryan.

He stole my ladder one time. Vote for me or I'll throw a rock at your house. Maybe you heard that I was in... in prison that I'm not crazy, but you know what? I'm all so stupid. I love cold country. My lungs are so black I once had the hiccups and a canary flew out. China men have been stealing our jobs and saucer men have been abducting our cattle. Obama says when mine leaked into groundwater can cause intellectual impairment, but I drink mine water all the time and I'm fine, and I drink mine water all the time and I'm fine. Are you tired of hearing the word corruption? Me too. It's long

and I don't know what it means. Whenever I see a map, I put a line through Canada and ride Pussy Land. I once hit a crackhead with my car. I don't know if he's dead, but I do know I'm wearing his shoes. I spent a whole year in jail,

and one time when I woke up, I thought someone had drawn a dick on my face. Turns out it was just somebody's dick. Do not let anyone ever, ever, don't ever tell you how to vote. Vote for me. I'm Don Blankett. He's a big-time movie star.

I'm a big fan. His latest film was called First Refuge. It's terrific. Opens May 18th. Ethan Hawk, ladies and gentlemen. Ethan Hawk. Thanks, right.

Thanks for having me. Oh, yes. I finally got you here. It took a long time. I'm such a big fan of yours. I would say I would see you even in a bad movie, but you don't ever do a bad movie.

I've done some bad movies. Like, what's a bad one you've done? Well, why would I bring it up on television? I mean, I like the way you think. I was almost on the show for the movie Good Kill. I loved that movie. Yeah.

And that movie was, it's a strange movie because it doesn't have any friends that movie, because it's about the drone program. And I play a pilot and, you know, doing all these drone strikes and the effect that it has on the pilots. And the left hated that movie because it was anti-Obama. And the right hated the movie because they perceived as anti-military. And so nobody cared about it. But it's a very smart movie.

It's a very, well, that's the bigger problem is that smart movies of any kind don't have fans. Movies, there's only like two kinds of movies. the blockbuster, robots and monsters, and then movies like this that I see in a hotel room. And you have to seek those movies out. You really do. And that's one of the things that is, I've noticed more and more,

is that we're all actually only as good as our time period. We're only really as good as our community and our surrounding. When I think about the movies that I grow up, watching, take One Flew of the Cuckers Nest or something, like a movie. That movie's a great film, but it was made by a studio. Studio put it out in the malls.

Everybody went to see it, it got awards. But now that's an art film, or I don't even know if they would make that film. They wouldn't. Because it's got a sad ending. But it's a strange thing. The more they feed people popcorn, the more people just want popcorn. Like I said, it's either the robot movies

or the ones that win the awards that people don't see. I mean, I finally caught up to a fish called water. No. Fish called Wanda? That's a long time ago. If you finally caught up with a fish called Wanda, you know, the one that won the best. Shape of water.

Shape of water. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. And the shape of what. And I said on the show, when I hadn't said, I think I'm going to hate it. I didn't hate it. I thought it was kind of...

You liked the fish better than you thought you would. Well, I... I mean, it's... First of all, it's an old story about, you know, a woman who falls for, you know, King Kong, Beauty and the Beast, Quasimodo. Men are so bad.

Swamp thing, you know, like women. Black, what was that? Swamp movie? Creature from the Black. Yeah, creature from the black. Right. Yeah. And it's always the same thing.

that men are so bad that women will actually go out with a monster or an animal or quasi-modo a deformed person. Anybody who would just be nice to me and I will go out with you I will fuck a fish

before I okay so but let's let's plug the movie app coming out see it's called first or form yes it's terrific I saw it I loved it yes because again it's a movie you know I love movies where the character, where you see

why somebody changes, and it's realistic. Because that doesn't happen a lot, even in life. So in this movie, you play this pastor, right? I'm not going to give too much of it away, but you give counseling to a guy who is almost on the verge of being what I would call an echo terrorist. I mean, he is very...

I think he is on the verge of that. Right. He's in a serious depression over the fact that the planet's on fire. Right. He doesn't want to bring a child into this world. How do I explain to my daughter that I brought you into a world

that's on fire? and nobody cares. And your character, a pastor, and, you know, religion very often is not on the forefront of fighting for the environment, becomes an environmentalist of sorts. I mean, the movie's about more than that, but that part I thought was just terrific. Well, it's written by Paul Schrader, who wrote Taxi Driver, along with many other great, great films. And he's, yeah, he's... What I love about is every now and then a writer, a really fine writer can give voice to something that we're all thinking. It's like an unanswerable question. It's something, you know, when you have these thoughts in your head and you're upset and you're watching the TV

and you hear people arguing and you want to believe in God and you have faith and you're watching the world and you can't make sense out of it. And art, a great song, a great piece of music, a great movie, can ask the question that will vibrate within you. It doesn't give you an answer. It just gives you access to your own voice.

And I think Paul did that with taxi driver. taxi driver, and he's done that with many films. And this felt like an honor being a part of this movie, because he's speaking to right now. Where is our, we call ourselves a Christian country. You hear that spoken about a lot. And what are we asking of ourselves in regards to leadership and stewardship of God's Earth, right? And this is a very, it's a serious question. Now, why did God bust his ass to make this beautiful planet for six days? Only to have us rat fuck it, really is the question he's asking. It's a turn.

And it's a question how that intersects with depression. Right. How that intersects with love and hope. Where do we carry hope? Where do we carry despair? What's worth fighting for? One of the things that's super interesting about the movie is my priest. He's working at an old parish that used to be a part of the

Underground Railroad, right? And he gives these little tours about the underground railroad, and we all come to view social activism, or as even zealotry of what those, you know, the abolitionists were risking their lives, and people thought they were crazy. The same way they might think an eco-terrorist is crazy now. And it's an interesting, Schrader puts my character

in a really interesting position, because all day I'm talking about these abolitionists and how much with the benefit of time we respect them. Well, what do we, you know, easy to write off these die-hard environmentalists, people that are willing to hang themselves from trees or stand in the front of a tank that, you know, there's kids that standing rock that don't have good water.

You know, we all are watching this happen. And what are we willing to do about it? You know, and we're so grateful to those abolitionists now. Well, what are we doing now? It's a good question. It's a great question. The other movie I saw you in as a documentary called The King. It's about Elvis Presley.

I want to ask you about this, because the question of cultural appropriation comes up. I mean, Chuck D's in it, a lot of people are in it. It's a really an interesting movie about the life of Elvis Presley. It's comparing the life of Elvis, the 50s to now, basically equating it with the American journey, starting as a spiritual beauty, you know, after the war. Everything's beautiful. It's got hope.

Well, on the back of black music, makes a lot of money, you know. Then kind of joins the military. Starts thinking like a military man. doesn't, you know, starts prioritizing money in such a way that he winds up in a jumpsuit unable to go to the bathroom on a heart attack, you know, on the toilet, right?

And he, the Jareki, the director, is kind of equating that to Trump. But what about the question... Yeah. Why? What about this question of whether we can culturally appropriate? I mean, some people say it's okay, that everything is out there,

and some people say it's not fair. There are people in this movie who are not happy with Elvis Presley for stealing black music. What do you think, Mike? I think cultural appropriation, whether it be jazz, rock and roll, and now rap, according to any people, it's going to happen because the largest society is, of course, dominate white culture.

But Elvis really let us down when he could have stepped up for things like the civil rights movement, and he punked out. And the reason I say he punked out is because people like the stones, people like even Zeppelin and Sabbath, not only accredited black musicians, they brought them out on the road. And they stood up at times.

deserve to be stood up to you. That's all he had to do. You know, he's still, you know, Crud's music for, that's all right, Mama. That's Crud's song. And he could have given the guy credit. He could have had black musicians playing his band. He could have given Chuck Barry.

That's why I listen to the Armin brothers. Wait, what? So I listen to the Armine Brothers. Yeah, I was more than the Johnny Cash and that was his, I have an uncle who loved him. But I saw him the same way, even as a kid, I was like he's not, he don't like us. And, you know, years later, it proves.

He, no disrespect to him, but I feel kind of like kid rockers. Like I thought kid rock is a totally different dude. And then when he started taking some more conservative views that were directly against the guy that I thought I met. You know what I mean? That's no diss to him. You have every right to think like that. But if you're going to do our music, if you're going to say, for instance, do hip hop or rock or blues, when the people who create that, the culture who creates that, when I ask is on the line, step up and be there, you know? So you're a Bernie guy. Yeah, I still am a Bernie guy.

I talk to him this morning. But you talk to Bernie Sanders this morning. Yeah, he called. I said, Hello? I said hello. Mike, this is Senator Sanders. And I was like, I have you as OG Bernie Sanders in my phone. Are you joking right now? No, no, I swear to go out of my children. What was he called? First call of the day. First joint, first call, Bernie. What was he calling about? You know, we have, we have racists coming up in Georgia. You know, we haven't had a Democratic governor in Georgia, you know, since the state flag change. from a purely Confederate flag to a Confederate light. And we have a strong chance to get a Democrat in there.

And he was just asking and we're going back to school. Right. Right. That never called me. I was for him. You emailed me at three in the morning. I also was smoking a joint then. Thank you.

So, but after Bernie lost, I mean, you didn't really switch over to Hillary. No, I did not. And I'll tell you why. Why that? Because, I mean, you must admit that she would be a better president than the person we got. My aunt would be a better president. Okay. So why in a world when there are only two choices to make? Well, there weren't only two choices. And I was on the ground. But at a certain point, there was. But I saw a guy get robbed. And for all that was more than good about me, I couldn't unsee that.

Really? I could. I swear to God. And this is the thing. He got robbed by Hillary? He got robbed by the DNC. Like, I saw that on the ground. Okay. Like, they would let other surrogates in. They would hold us out. You know, but this is what I did. is a dirty game. Gotcha.

People have played it a lot dirtier than Hillary Clinton. I told people after the race, go home, go local, stay progressive. Birmingham, progressive Democrat is now in office throughout the South. Doug Jones ain't regret, but he got in. We did a great job on the ground of making sure that progressists who were Bernie crats got in office. If you look at Newark, I don't know if he supported Bernie, but you have Ross Veracca in office now. And activist is now the mayor of a city. What I don't regret about not voting Hillary is, since the Senate.

Then, I have seen Bernie active. He's been at Georgia Tech giving speeches. He supported Senator Fort, who ran for mayor of Atlanta. He has been active on the ground, and I guess he'll is still looking for the hot sauce. Like, she ain't been on the street. She ain't been in the street, bro. You got to be in the streets, bro. Let's hear from her old boyfriend.

I supported Bernie as well in the primaries. And that was hard because I worked with Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, and I was part of that administration. In fact, even when she was Hillary Rodham, Keep it among the... Oh, I voted Bill. I dated her wife. Yes, I said, her old boyfriend. Yeah, I know.

I'm not going to say any more about it. But I supported Bernie because I believed in what he was saying. But the minute he lost that primary, I said, look, we're in a winner-take-all system. And anybody who doesn't vote for Hillary Clinton is in effect

going to vote for Donald Trump. And that's the problem. All right, wait on to talk about it. I got one last question. Uh, Cynthia Nixon is running. Used to be on Sex and the City on this network. She's running against Cuomo for the governorship of New York. And she has a plan for black folks to have the pot trade

just the way we gave casinos to the Indians as a form of reparations. Brilliant idea. And I'll tell you why. Mike, your thoughts. Yeah, bad word usage in reparations because reparations is a sensitive word. Because I feel as though African Americans deserve real reparations from the United States. The Conner Bill, H.P. 40, should have been studied. And we need land.

We don't need just education and health care, no shade. But we need physical land, just like land lotteries were given. But in terms of drug war reparations, we deserve all the drug war reparations because we have showed the burden of the drug war. That's true. Mike, I think that this is so... Her idea, with all due respect, it's so... meaning.

Yeah. Why not? I don't feel to me. No, I would be. But if you want reparations, let's give black people a piece of Wall Street. No. I'm not against that, but again, I'm talking about drug war reparations. I don't want you to just give me some of Wall Street because it could fall tomorrow, according

to what you say. Yeah. I want physical ownership of the industry that's going to boom like alcohol, Mr. Wright. I think, that's what I want, I want to own the cup. the cup. I don't want to be a part of what I want the cup. And we deserve it. We are serving in the time we're serving alone. We deserve to own 50% of the marijuana market. We're partner with you. I just asked it for after the show because I know you're holding. Okay, it's time for new rules, everybody. Thank you panel.

I didn't get in my joke, but she said she called me this morning. Cynthia Nixon called me this morning. Oh, okay. I'm the man out here. All right, new rule hockey fans must admit. there's a fine line between enjoying the the NHL playoffs and watching homeless people beat the shit out of each other. New Rule, since they're so close together, Cinco de Mayo, and Mother's Day

must be combined into one holiday called Cinco de Madre. That's where Mom gets breakfast in bed that consists of a pitcher of margaritas and then kind of gets flowers when she wakes up in the rose bushes. New Rule, someone has to tell these members of the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement,

you look like, like waiters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Heil Hitler. Can I get a refill on the iced tea over here, please? New Rule, I don't want to watch you, DJ.

You call it performing. I call it pressing play. Take away the lights and the smoke machine, and it's you making a mixtape. You want to entertain me by pushing buttons? Go make a frozen daffery. New Rule, someone has to inform Florida Congressman and Trump

Askus or Matt Gates that this isn't a selfie. It's a go-fuck-your-selfie. And finally, new rule, New York City has to stop exporting its garbage to the rest of America. The infamous garbage barge, the train of sewage sent to Alabama. And worst of all, now the city's most toxic trash

has been carted off to Washington, D.C. No, New York is not sending us its best people. It's a great town, but it also breeds a certain type of obnoxious, in-your-face meathead that used to be safely quarantined by the lack of decent pizza west of the Hudson. But now they've gotten loose and taken over the whole country. Trump, little Trump, Giuliani, Michael Cohen, the mooch, the manuchin, big personalities, colorful characters, guys who eat on the phone, human steamrollers who would man spread on a life raft. what the heartland used to call assholes.

And someone from real America has to tell me why you like these guys now. How did the salt of the earth people get hooked up with the salt and the wound people? It's like watching the country music awards hosted by Andrew Dice Clay. What happened to your values? What happened to good manners and monogamy?

You're the, my word is my bond people. These guys lie just to stay in practice. You're all about an honest day's work. Trump watches TV until noon. You're frugal. They spend like identity thieves who got a hold of your pin number. You're stoic.

Trump's a whiny little bitch. Well, here's my theory. You didn't like it that the country had been taken over by liberals and feminists and elites, whatever. So you were feeling vulnerable and disrespected. So you brought in some muscle from the East Coast for protection.

and now you're married to the mob because that's what this administration is, a protection racket. That's what freaked out Comey about Trump. He had served Democrats and Republicans. He never worked for childish Gambino. He couldn't believe it when Trump said to him, I hope you can let this go. Like the health inspector just found a finger in the linguine.

People call this presidency a reality show? It's more like a Scorsese movie. Everything Trump does is modeled on the mob. When he was accused of sexual harassment, he brought in Bill Clinton's accusers to sit in the gallery at the debate, just like Michael Corleone brought Frank Pantanjali's brother into court. Who does Trump surround himself with? Disposable lawyers and idiot members of his own family.

Who's his worst enemy? The FBI. Where does his money come from? He's in construction. Forget about it. He's so much like a Don, his name is literally Don. What part of this isn't mob like? They're using a legitimate front business, in this case the White House,

to enrich the family. He's got a consigliary who says things like men are disposable, but a fine woman like a vanka? Who's writing this dialogue, Mario Puzzo? Women and children, they can afford to be careless. But not men. Trump had a personal Luca Bratzi-like bodyguard.

He's got the Jew bookkeeper. He's got the up-and-coming good earner, scaramucci, who's cut from the same cloth as the dawn, rayon. He's even got the fat guy from New Jersey who keeps around to make himself look thin. And Joe Pesci is the campaign manager. Oh, and of course, Frado.

Fredo, who they send to handle little things, like peace in the Middle East. And then there's the muscle end of the family. Last week on Fox, Giuliani said, Michael Cohen did his job. He made it go away. Made it go away? That's what a fixer does.

He makes things go away. That's why Cohen always has the look of a rat that can't get out of the toilet. And I must say, as someone who never liked Donald Trump even before he got into politics, his being president has been quite a revelation. I always thought of him as an egomaniac and a blowhard. but I didn't realize until this very year

that he was a cheap hood all along. A common thug. I never knew that. Michael Cohen once said to a reporter, Tread very fucking lightly, because what I'm going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me? And according to Stormy Daniels,

Trump set one of his goons to tell her, hey, that's a beautiful little girl. Be a shame if something happened to a mom. This is what you get. when you get in bed with the mob. And maybe that's okay with you. Maybe you said to yourself, this is the business we've chosen.

But I've got to say, if you sold your soul to get protection from these two grandmas, the big pussy is you. That's our show. I'll be at the Mirage in Vegas, May 18th, and 19th, and at the Ryman in Nashville, June 24th.

I want to thank Robert Reich. Mike Render, Ethan Hawke, and Duncan Hunter. Join us now for overtime on YouTube. Thank you, folks. Watch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10 or watch them anytime on HBO On Demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com.