Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #473: Michael Moore, P.J. O’Rourke

Episode Date: September 22, 2018

Bill’s guests are Michael Moore, P.J. O’Rourke, Thom Hartmann, Steve Hilton, Catherine Rampell. (Originally aired 09/21/18) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night series, Real Time with Bill Maugh. So many... I could listen to it all night. But it's such a big news week. I mean, obviously, let's get right to the big story. The fate of the Supreme Court and maybe the nation hangs in the balance. I'm kidding. Stormy Daniels wrote a book about Trump's dick.

It's true. He did. It's called. it takes a village to find it. No, it. It's called full disclosure, and Trump says he isn't commenting. He hasn't seen it.

His dick, not the book. It's been years. And it's not all about his dick, but it's a lot about his dick. Stormy Daniels, who would know, and she says it is small, but it has a big head like a mushroom. That's what she said.

A head like a mushroom. Also, it stands for the national anthem. Other than that, it's a normal, normal penis. But let's get to the other dick in the news. Brett Kavanaugh is the... This time last week, Brett Kavanaugh was heading to be on the nation's highest court. And now he is heading to the world's worst high school reunion.

Because anonymous is not anonymous anymore. We have an extremely credible. woman, a psychology professor, who says back in 1982, when she was 15 and Kavanaugh was 17, Kavanaugh and a friend attacked her at a party, and Republican defenders are saying that we shouldn't

be revisiting things that happened decades ago, which is what I say about Roe versus Wade. Their other big lot is that, you know, if we're judged by what we did in high school, my God, none of us would have jobs. Okay, well, you know what? It's so we all did stupid things.

When we were young, I sold pot in college. But I never pinned anyone down and forced the pot in their throat. You know what I'm saying? Roy Moore is defending. Really, the Republicans, boy, they get in my. Roy Moore is defending Brett Kavanaugh. He said, what they're doing to Brett Kavanaugh makes him very mad. He's also very mad that he wasn't invited to that party with the teenagers.

He loved him. Party. Party, it was five people. I only found this out. Five people. This could be investigated so easily by the FBI, if the Republicans wanted to go that route, you know, an actual investigation. It's okay.

I mean, it's a small community. Brett Kavanaugh went to an all-boys Catholic prep school. It's the kind of place where the kid goes into confession and says, bless me, father, for I have sinned. And the priest says, dude, I was there. But I told you, the Republicans, they all get behind the same story. The one they are all talking about now today, I can't even believe this, is that, listen to this, this is their best defense yet. Dr. Ford perhaps was attacked, but not by Brett Kavanaugh, by someone who looked exactly like Brett Kavanaugh.

This is what his doppel. That's what they're saying. Five people were at the party, and one brought a robot double. Yeah, that's right. Remember 80s parties? they were kind of like that. There were a lot of evil twins. Remember that documentary about Michael Jackson,

where he's nice at first, and then he's a werewolf? Trump, of course, standing by his men. Trump said yesterday about Cabot. He said he's a great gentleman with an impeccable reputation. And he knows this because Brett Kavanaugh spent nine hours

at the White House the first day this broke. Nine hours for a guy with an innocent story, that's a lot of time spent at the White House. Been there all week. But Trump knows this because he said, He and Brett Kavanaugh had a long, serious talk, pussy grabber to pussy grab her. Just to children. And Mike Pence says this will keep happening as long as America ignores the problem of boy girl sock hops.

You know, and Betsy DeVosons, it means we should get rid of high school. So, you know, every... But finally, I'm going to North Carolina over the weekend. I can't wait to entertain the people there. Trump was there. I know. They've had a very rough time. Trump was touring the storm damage

in the Carolinas the other day, and I swear to God, a guy came up to him, and he said, I named my dog after you. Here, boy, here mushroom dick. Hartman, a hook. And a little late we'll be speaking with my great friend, PJ O'Rourke. But first up, you know this guy.

The Oscar-winning director of Bowling for Columbine Sica on Fahrenheit 9-1-1-1. His latest documentary, Fahrenheit 119, opens today. the people's comedian, Michael Moore. That's what you are to me. You are the people's comedian. Not in a North Korean way, I mean. Tribune of the People, and you have done it again, Maestro.

I don't know how you keep doing it. You do what journalism should do, which is you make what's important, interesting. Yeah. And compelling, and you can't take your eyes off it. And this movie, first of all, the title fell right in your lap there, didn't it? Yeah. He was appointed president. at 229 in the morning on 11-9.

That's spooky. 16, yeah. So the movie coming out right before the election, obviously, you want that. You don't make any bones, but you're a polemicist like I am. We want people to agree with our point of view. Yes. And vote. And vote.

And vote. Is that the main message you want to have to have? What's the main thing you want people to come away knowing from this? It's not a democracy. if you're sitting on the bench. Everybody has to get off the bench. Everyone has to participate. It's not a spectator sport.

Right. But what the movie shows and tries to explain as to why sometimes people say on the bench. And I get into talking about this, about the Democratic Party, and it's a bit of a balancing act in this film because it's listed as Michael Morris Trump film, but nobody wants to go to the things.

theater and look at Trump for two hours. No. So I do a favor for the audience. I don't think you see them more than 20 minutes in the film. But it is about the Trumpian time in which we live and how we got here. I think it's great that, I mean, I do this too.

You go after the Democrats. I mean, that's what friends do. They're honest with their friends. That is correct. Cowards don't. Right. And you are very brave in this. I mean, you say very unflattering things about both Clinton and Obama and Hillary.

Yes, which was hard. First of all, I love President Obama. We may not have a better president in my lifetime. So, I was for Bernie, but I was out there stumping for Hillary in the general election and trying to get people out there.

But you seem to keep harping on this idea. I mean, I came away from it with that old Republican talking point notion, oh, crooked Hillary, she stole it from Bernie. But she didn't steal it from Bernie. I mean, she got a lot more votes than Bernie. Correct. Except we'll never really know

because in the 22 states that he won, which is three less than half the country, half the states. But caucus states. Yes, many caucus states. They've got to get rid of that system. It should just be a primary where everybody votes, and there's no superdelegates. Whoever gets the most votes is the person

who at the convention becomes a candidate. That's the easy way to do you down and to fix it. And the DNC a few weeks ago, they had a meeting and they said they got rid of the superdelegates, but they didn't. People need to understand this. All they did was say

the superdelegates cannot vote on the first ballot at the convention. After that, they could vote on every ballot and everything else. So they did not get rid of the super delegates. And to the Republicans' credit, they actually don't have superdelegates. Whoever's at that convention is,

whoever is there to represent the white people that voted for them. The white people deserve a party, Bill. They're Americans, too. No, they are. That's very true. That's how Trump won. He made his people feel like a minority. Right, right.

And they still think that. I mean, they think reverse racism is a bigger problem than racism. I mean... Right. The problem here, though, is that... And I know this personally, and I feel this personally, and that's why it's in this film, because Hillary lost Michigan about two votes per precinct.

That's it. All right, they never should have lost a blue state. And I interviewed John Podesta in the film, and I said, how did this happen? And how, first of all, the vote got depressed because the people of Flint, when they were told that she got the questions in advance and Bernie didn't,

that they felt used as props out there in the audience standing up and asking their question, and they already knew, Hillary already knew what the question was. So people first were upset about that. In Michigan, this never happens. There were more people, a record number of people voting in the April primary between her and Bernie, than who showed up in the general election in November. And in the film, I show something that, sadly, President Obama did

by coming to Flint and telling people the water was okay. It was still poison. And then he pretended to drink from a glass of water and then said it wasn't a stunt. And it was. And it just put a knife in the heart of so many people in Flint who were hoping he would come, bring the Army Corps of Engineers, dig up these poison pipes, and replace the pipes in the city. And, in fact, he didn't do that.

And then people gave up. And a lot of people stayed home. They didn't vote for Trump. But they just stayed home. And now, you and I wish that that wouldn't happen, and you shouldn't stay home, and you should see clearly how bad it's going to be. But you cannot talk to people who have some. suffered so much, especially in this town, where their jobs were eliminated 30 years ago.

Then the economy was ruined. The pipes are poisoned. And then as I show in the film, Obama sends the Pentagon in to use Flint as target practice. And for 10 days and 10 nights in a row, fires missiles and bombs into abandoned buildings, troops firing their guns. Nobody was told in advance that they were coming. Everybody thought it was a terrorist incident. And it's like the feeling that we're just, we're not.

nobody and America's forgotten us. We're still drinking out of bottled water. And in this small little example, you see how sometimes the Democrats really screw it up. They're the party of the people. They should be there for the people. They should fight for the people. But the good news about this election in November is that people like myself and others, you've contributed to the DSCC. I'm still feeling.

Where do you get this money? Because I, no divorces, no alimones. People ask me this all the time. No divorces, no alimones, no kids. Right. No stupid hobbies like celebrities have. I don't collect fucking cars or motorcycles or paintings. I don't do coke or hooker.

You know, all the crazy shit that people do, I don't do. So a lot of, I'm the men. So there's a lot of money that, yeah. But that's what I'm not. but that's what I spend it on. Right, right. That's what because... Thank you for doing that.

And what I and others have done have gone out and started to encourage... Yes, and let's do it more. ...to run for office. And by the way, that million looked sillier five weeks ago when I did it because the Senate didn't look like it's in play. It is in play. It is very much in play. Yes, it is.

And thank you. If you remember, when I was on your show in June... Yeah. And I said to you, we can win the Senate. And you said to me on the show even then, oh, wait a minute. Where are you going to get this? And I said, well, you border two states.

right here with Arizona and Nevada. Right. Those are winnable states for the Senate. You always straighten me out. No, no. No, it's true. No, but thank you for not asking me to contribute. Right.

Well, you got divorced. You've been. What, you did? You know, I, you know, look, and I, and I, and you've been through a lot. I wasn't going to ask you, you know. It's through a lot, Bill. Yeah, I, this, but there's never,

any of the worst than divorce. I know. Every guy tells me the same thing. No, no, there was the person who built the fertilizer bomb that was going to blow up my house. That guy was worse than the divorce. I want to ask you that. Because, you know, I think getting lost in the story about Professor Ford is that she

had to move out of her house and she gets death threats and there's a smear campaign on the internet and things go viral. And you know, we've become this death threat society. Yeah. And, you know, people say to me sometimes, oh, you know, do you think this could get violent, I think it is violent.

But I also think that's Trump's next card to play. Yes. I've already seen him talking about it. If the Democrats take over, he says, they're very violent people. We're the violent people. Right. He turns it, you're the puppet. Or he turns it around.

But that's what he has when the Mueller report comes out, or when some other thing crashes down on him. He's the violent person. He's the sexual predator. Oh, totally. He is an admitted sexual predator. And I don't mean just, just, literally bush and boss. You're the only person on TV who will state exactly what, you know,

if anybody is a public high teacher in here, a public school teacher, there's a law in the state of California and in most states that if, let's say your 13-year-old girl student comes to you and says, my dad keeps saying that if I weren't, if I weren't his daughter, he'd be dating me. My dad said the other day that the thing that we have most in common is sex My my my here's yes this picture my dad wanted me to take with me sitting on his lap and kissing him If you were a teacher and were given that you were required by the law To turn him in that you've shown this on your show

He has done he did this when she was a tween when she was a teen and he bragged about how voluptuous my daughter is and she's a teenager that that The thing is that we let him get away with this. The media let him get away with it. All his friends in the media, Les Moonvis, Roger Ailes, all the Bill O'Reilly's, the Matt Lowers. I show this all in the film. Bill Shine is now... Yes, exactly.

Who was the guy at Fox News when Roger Ailes was there covering on Bill O'Reilly. Now he's the advisor to Trump in the White House prepping Brett Kavanaugh, the Republican... There are always six degrees from sexual harassment, that part. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot closer than just six degrees of it. They believe in this. That's why they don't like this woman who's come forward,

and they want to go after her now, and they've given her until tonight or something. Right, ridiculous. Well, right now, I think, when we're on the air. Because women love ultimatums. That's what... Yeah, especially those who have been victimized by men. You know, nothing like saying to a potential rape victim.

Or, you know, you got till 10 o'clock. Especially when it's... To tell us about the rape. Chuck, you know, it's like... Chuck Grassley, who's 85,000 years old, and it looks like he's out of the crucible, you know? Right. You have to...

Okay. Michael, I gotta go. I can talk to you all night. I'll talk to you after. All right. Michael Moore, ladies and gentlemen, the people's comedian. Go see this movie.

It's entertaining and important. All right, let's be our panel. Thank you. Hey, everybody. All right, here's the syndicated progressive radio host whose best-sother, Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, is being re-released this week. Tom Hartman, welcome back, Tom.

She is the Washington Post, opinion columnist, and a CNN commentator, Catherine Rampel. Hey, here you're going. And he hosts Fox News, The Next Revolution, and his next book is Positive Populism, Revolutionary Ideas to Rebuild Economic Security, Family and Community in America. Steve Hilton.

Hey, Steve, good to have you here. Okay. Yes, a programming note. October 19th, we're on until the, after the election. There'll be no weeks we're not on, but October 19th is going to be a special one. I've been on television for 25 years. But politically incorrect went on in 1993, and I looked at the calendar. It's 2018.

I don't know how it happened. So we're having a show called The Anniversary Show and 15 years here on my beloved HBO. So October 19th. I think you'll enjoy it. We worked hard on it. Okay, so let's talk about this latest news. Senator Grassley, right. It's Friday night, he said, and nothing's been agreed to.

Like Michael said, extending the deadline to 10. She's not going to take it. And then he said, we cannot continue to delay. Why? Why can't they continue to delay it? It's a completely artificial deadline. For some reason, Republicans... Obama, they delayed a year.

I know, exactly. For some reason, Republicans were content to have a seat open for almost a year so they could steal it from Obama, but they can't wait like three days? That's how long it took to do the Indiana Hill investigation. And what's particularly insane is they're saying, oh, well, he was 17. You know, what you do as a teenager

shouldn't have lasting consequences. Just a few months after Brett Kavanaugh ruled in trying to keep this 17-year-old immigrant Garza, I believe her name was, a girl who was pregnant trying to get an abortion. He's saying, no, you're going to have to live with that for the rest of your life. sexual indiscretion. I think that's right

in terms of the big point here, which is that whatever happens with the process, and it's still unclear exactly how it's going to go the back and forth, there's something really important, which is, you know, when it all started, people, as you touched on, they said, well, you know, it happened such a long time ago, and, well, he was drunk

and this is the kind of thing that happens. And what's really important is I think you've just seen this outpouring of saying, no, that is not okay. We can't live in a society where that is acceptable. And I I think that's the big thing that will come out, even though we still don't know exactly what the process is going to be.

And Dan Ginsberg pulled out because he smoked pot in high school. I mean, he stepped down. For the same grace. That year was that? That was like under... 1988. Under Reagan, right. You're pot smoker.

I would also... I smoked pot on this show two years. No Supreme Court see for you. No Supreme Court see for you. Yes. You ought to watch it something. So Elon Musk. Elon Musk learned from the master.

Yes. But that's how far. we've come. I think also it's not just about his character. It's about his credibility. And he has raised so many questions about his credibility. If he is willing to lie about this alleged assault, if he's willing to lie about the fact that he received these stolen memos when he was in the Bush White House, if he's willing to lie about the fact that he got these sexually explicit emails from a circuit court judge he worked for who subsequently had to resign because of those emails, how do we know that he's telling the truth about anything else?

He is a liar under oath. Yeah. It's so interesting that... He should be prosecuted for that, and he should be impeached from his current position on the DC service. But let me offer another perspective on it, which you might expect, which is that as this has been unfolding, I completely agreed with the point a lot of people has been making from a sort of independent, reasonable perspective,

which is we've got to let the facts get gathered, give it some time, all of that, agree with that. Until yesterday, actually, when I saw... Justin Gillibrand, and it seemed to me that suddenly it tipped over from being reasonable to being something very unreasonable, and something we should all be frightened of, really, which is she was making an argument that basically he is guilty until he can prove himself innocent. And that is not something I think that we should accept. And furthermore, there's a hypocrisy to it.

I wouldn't mind that so much if the same standard was being applied to others in her party who have had serious allegations made against them like Keith Edison. But that's not happening. What about Eric Schneiderman? No, wait a minute. There was plenty of coverage of that. There will be a decision by the voters. That's called democracy. Right.

Kavanaugh is not facing voters. In fact, if he was, he would be losing by five points right. Totally agree with you, Tom. But surely you'd... That's Apple's... No, I get it. It's a completely different thing, number one. And number two, those allegations are out there.

The voters of Minnesota can decide whether they want Keith Allison under those circumstances and whether they believe that as their attorney general. That has nothing to do with a lifetime appointment on the Supreme. I'm speaking about, which is the attitude, which is that the victim should be believed and should be given the chance to make the case... There's no, what happened.

I'm going to back up even further and say, he shouldn't even be having this hearing, because he shouldn't be up for the Supreme Court, because it should be Merrick Garland. And if we didn't have the electoral college, okay, Al Gore would have appointed

the two that Bush appointed, and if we didn't have the electoral college, Trump Hillary would be president. The Supreme Court would be a liberal court. That would reflect the people. That's not what we have. And I think as long as we have this situation... I mean, if we could live in a completely alternate reality, but...

But Bill, I think... Well, I know. I think the problem with that is... But that's important. No, no. Before 2000, you know, the Supreme Court more or less reflected the makeup of the people's politics. Now because they steal elections,

partly with the help of the Constitution, yes, partly. Now it doesn't. Right, and the electoral college is a vestige of slavery. It was a sop to the slave states. Right. But Bill, when... You know, we've got to strip this stuff out of our Constitution. When you talk about the people's interests...

When you talk about the people's interest, not coming first, I completely agree with you about that. But that's not just because of the court. That's because of our laws. And the fact that Congress makes laws that favor the interests of always the corporate sector, big business, the people at the top. That's the laws you've got to change, and you can't, as long as you've basically got a Congress,

which is... But whose fault is that? Yeah. Everyone. Everyone. It's not everyone. It is. Really, you think the Democrats?

This is not a both sides thing. Really? I mean... Hang on a second. Both parties literally collaborate in a system where they buy the outcomes they want. Big business buys the outcomes at once from the political... Tell me something. Tell me something.

Who passed a tax cut where 80% of the benefits went to the top 1% of Americans? Was that a Democratic bill? Or was that a Republican bill? If you look at the way that... For decades. Literally... In fact, Obama passed the largest middle-class tax cut in the history of the United States.

Literally, for decades, you've seen an agenda push forward that favors the owners of businesses, not workers, that takes power away from communities, that undermines families. All of this has happened under administrations of both parties, whoever controls Congress, and it's been going on for so long. It's been going on since the 1980s. That's not true.

It's not true. It's not. They've both been there in Congress, but the people who push for the programs that you're talking about are from one party. Who's trying to cut Medicaid? Who's trying to cut Medicaid? Who's trying to cut the entire social safety net for four people from middle class?

They always run on, we're going to cut, they always run like Trump did on, we're going to cut your taxes. And then they cut their taxes. That's what happened. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Forgotten Man was not, like, dying for a bigger tax break for corporate. Right.

Which was in the bill, by the way. You say that it only happens... Look at Obamacare, right? ObamaCare. Look at Obama... Was paid for? Wait. Look at Obamacare.

Look who it favored. Literally, who wrote that legislation? The insurance companies wrote the legislation. Max Corkas... No. What happened to the uninsured... ...and. Legislative aid...

...the legislative aid wrote the legislation... ...was from the insurance companies... ...lobians do write Republican legislation, word for word. They did not write Obamacare. They did. That's why the insurance companies did so well out of it, billions of dollars of subsidies. They were in there from the beginning. That's right.

Because he wanted to make it a bill that the Republicans might vote for. That's why it was basically Mitt Romney's old plan. You're right. It doesn't go far enough. But that wasn't good enough for them. Because populists in this country, they're not really populous. The people who have a grievous against racial matters, and it masquerade as economic matters. That's what I think of populist is.

Okay. Well, that's why. That's exactly why, we've done. That's exactly why we've got to make an argument for how we can make things work for working people once again in this country. Like tag team wrestling, I'm going to bring out an ally of yours now. Okay. But first we're going to do 25 things you don't know about me. Now this is something that I have to admit.

It's in Us Weekly every week. I even did it once in Us Weekly, but we stole it and now I think we owed it. And the guy who really needs it this week is Brett Kavanaugh, 25 things you didn't know about Brett Kavanaugh. Albino's call me Whitey. I spent my teenage years completely blacked out, yet I remember never doing anything wrong. That's so interesting.

If you leave me in a hot car, I melt and become Ted Cruz. That's, I didn't know that about Brett Kavanaugh. For my first communion, I drank Christ's blood out of a red solo party cup. When I was a young man, mother and I ran a motel. When a waiter asked what I'll be having, I refuse to comment on a hypothetical. I've never pinned someone to a bed and covered their mouth with my hand. I use a pillow like when I killed Scalia.

My spirit animal is the alligator on an eyes odd shirt. In high school, I was voted most likely to need 65 character witnesses. The other day, I bumped into President Trump, and he said, pardon me, and we both had a good laugh. All right, he's the author of the new book, None of My Business, and Editor-in-Chief of the Web Magazine American Consequences. One of my mentors, PJ O'Rourke, is over here. Okay.

How you found? They're looking good. How are you? I'm good. I can't complain. I can't complain because the whole economy is about to fall apart. You know, knocking out everything you guys have just been talking about because everybody is going to be like living in the street, you know,

and licking water out of the gutter. eating their pets. It's going to be very bipartisan. This is sort of a continuation of the discussion. We were having the subtitle of your book, Why I'm Not Rich and Neither Are You. And I would say... Well, you are.

Well, you were before you donated all that money to the Democrats. So you've been rich. Yeah, let's give that a rest. Okay. Because it does... It hurts every time I hear it. Yeah, yeah.

Especially if they lose. But, I mean, I read in your book, your father made $10,000. Yeah. And yet you lived in a house that was a pretty nice house. Yeah, two cars. On the table, only one bread earner you needed, two cars. So who took all that money? Who squeezed the middle class?

See, this is what I'm getting at. Who did that? Who? Was it immigrants and single moms on food stamps? Not so much so. I'll tell you, one group of people that were at fault, the middle class. because instead of having that little lifestyle that we had, now everybody has to have two of those lifestyles because they get divorced.

So it doubles the cost immediately. You've got two families. These things do seem to go. Yeah, you're right. Well, there are three big things that vastly increased the cost of middle class life. One is medical care, and I'm not really going to get into that so much because while we had a great middle class life, my dad lived to be 40, Really?

Yeah, really. So, like, you know, something blew up in his brain. I mean, today we would have seen it coming in, like, only half of his brain. So he just would have been crippled instead of that. But anyway, because we made a lot of progress medically. So my theory is we get a little something out of the increase in medical care. I'm not sure what. But housing has obviously gone insane, and education has gone insane.

And a lot of that has to do with, we lived in a, you know, what was basically an inner city neighborhood, a close to downtown neighborhood, that had good schools and was safe. That has gone away. Now you either have to pay a fortune to send your kids to school, or you have to move to someplace that costs a fortune in order to have decent schools.

And what is your feelings about the new economy? I mean, I was laughing the things you wrote in your book, but I would like you. You don't own any cryptocurrency. No, I don't. But I've had the same idea that you have about a Bitcoin. and, you know, I'm probably missing the boat. Okay, the whole new economy, the whole digital economy,

it's the product of the evil high school math club with weaponized slide rules. Really? Yeah, definitely. You know, I mean, you think back 25, 30 years ago, and you look at the top 10 corporations in America, and you knew them. You knew what they did.

They made stuff. They provided services, and you used that stuff. They made Chevroletes. They made electricity. They made toothpaste and stuff. Now you live. look at the top corporations, and they make what? Money. Money.

Exactly. Right, it's money moving money, yeah, right. Yeah, money and trouble. And trouble, as far as I'm concerned. But, but again, I hate to keep heartbreaking at this point, but like, it's the 10-year anniversary of the financial collapse. And we're headed right for another one. Who was more at fault for that? Who was

really fighting for the banks to be able to do whatever they want? And then after Obama got in, then we passed Dodd-Frank and we reigned them in again, and now Trump gets in and get the shackles come off again. I don't see this as a, they're both equally

responsible for the problems we have economically. Amen. I'm just no? Well, a lot of it though has to do with us allowing our money into the hands of people who are a lot smarter than we are.

Now that's not usually how I describe Republicans. I mean I am a Republican as you well know and I vote for Republicans because Republicans have fewer ideas. We got the silly party and the stupid party, and I go with the stupid party, I feel. But now

the Republicans are, they're getting a lot of ideas and that's a bad thing. They're just not cut out for ideas. But to get back to the financial stuff, you will find that it's a bipartisan group of very smart people over there who are tricking us. In 2008, they came up with this wonderful

little package of mortgage things where you couldn't figure out whose house it was or who was living in it or where your money went or where your money was supposed to go. And they said, trust us, you know, buy these. Now it's, to my mind, even worse. Now we've got these, the Fang corporations of Facebook, Amazon, so on, that we just have no idea how they work or what they do. Yes, we do. You don't know if Amazon works? I don't think the next financial crisis is going to come from Facebook. Amazon, it's a glorified yard sale. How do you get to be the richest guy

in the entire world by holding a glorified yard sale? By selling shit so people don't have to go to the store. I mean... And people like it. Yes, people do. You know, people usually like what gets them in trouble. And also undercutting the... People like drugs.

The real issue... The real issue isn't whether we will have another recession. We will. We will. That's how business cycles work. The question is not whether but when, right? The thing that I'm worried about is how screwed we are when it comes. Because right now, we have like the...

Eat your pets. Really screwed. We have, we have, like, think about who's leading our economic policy. You have the producer of the Lego Batman movie. You have, like, people who play economists on TV and people who are picking trade wars for no good reason and making everything we buy, including houses, in fact. I hear he's going to ruin Christmas. He is going to ruin Christmas.

That's a... That's an issue people can understand. Trump ruined Christmas. All of a sudden, the Nerf gun will cost as much as a real gun, so you have to get a real gun for your kids. But you think that's still made in the United States. Christmas could be depressed because of this, because of the terror? Yeah, I think it's very possible.

And dim sum could cost $1,000 a plate. Because, you know, they're running out of ways to retaliate. We don't really have, we don't export enough to them. The issue is that we have now placed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods. and it's going to hit basically all of your favorite Christmas presents. Mittens, computers, baseball. I don't know about ugly neckties. They might be on it.

They might not be. Reptile skin jackets, in fact, yeah. All these things are on there. It's actually going to improve, so it's going to improve Christmas. I don't know. Maybe he's trying to teach us the true meaning of Christmas that it's about loving one another. You know the Grinch, at the end of the Grinch, the Grinch hasn't changed of heart, so who knows what a lot. Yeah.

The real problem is we've learned. lost the ability to respond to these things. Interest rates are not high enough to be lowered in response to a crash. We have pissed away our ability to respond to a serious economic crash, and there's another one coming because the last one wasn't

completely resolved. Actually, the bigger problem than monetary policy being sort of crippled here is fiscal policy. Because we just passed this enormous tax cut. There are no bullets left. And the deficit now is going to be a trillion dollars. That's just what we run up in a year. Remember, I didn't remember when this,

Remember when the Tea Party was very upset when Obama was running up deficits that were necessary to get us out of Bush's recession? You know, again, I have to say, what was it about Obama, where it was intolerable? But they don't make, where are they? Why aren't they in this place with Trump? What's different about Obama?

I can't think. Can't put my finger on it. When you think about the, look, as you're talking about the way that, the way that, for so many households, economic security has completely collapsed in the last few decades. That's not just this financial stuff.

That's also the cost of housing and health care. Housing is getting more expensive because of the tariffs. We put tariffs on lumber, on steel, on appliances, on flooring. Compared to the price of... Because the house builders and the zoning regulations

favor those who already own property jobs. But I have a solution to all this. The zoning regulations are set at the local level. Exactly. That's not said by Congress. Exactly. That's why you need to do. changed them. What does that have to do with

anything we're talking about? Because that makes... Because it makes... It has a lot to do with your life if you can't afford a house. If you can't get on the housing ladder, because it's so expensive, and that is the reality. Okay, what's your solution, and then I want to answer. I was in Mogadishu, okay?

Somalia. In Somalia, yeah. And things had really, really falling apart. You have been all over the world. I have covered some of the stuff, and so I'm with this reporter who'd been in Somalia for six months, and who has, who has, knew his way around. So we go down to the market. We're surrounded by armed Somalis that we've hired to protect us because he can't go anywhere without him. But even so, he is carrying a Glock

9mmeter and we get down to the Margot in Mogadishu. He pulls out this gun. I've never seen a reporter carry a gun in my life. And he holds it up in the ear and he racks around, big dramatic gesture and I'm looking at him like what? And he grins like a maniac and he says, I call it the visa card of the future. So I think before we're heading our pets. Okay. So the sole discussion makes me think that, you know, this word elite. Everyone hates elites.

And we all, when you hear that word, have a different idea. I think when you say elite, you're thinking of something completely different of what I'm... When I hear elite, I think of Brett Kavanaugh. That's exactly who I think of. The guy who went to the asshole factory prep school. Right, which may or may not be why he thinks he can get away with doing anything. Who, you know, Heritage Foundation, all through this pipeline, you can be mediocre and still advance. That to me, that's who the elites are.

And I think when the Trump people talk about the elites, not that you're necessarily a Trump person, it's like some liberal arts professor at Oberlin. When Republicans use the word elite, they're referring to smart people. When Democrats use the word elite, they're referring to rich people. I mean, it really just kind of boils down to that. You're right. When I say elite, I mean, like, wise-ass pundits who appear on TV. Yes, definitely. I agree with that.

We're all elites, but I think the most important thing is not who's in it, but the elitism. Are you an elitist? Are you in favor of things that help the people at the top? Or are you in favor of policies that help working people? And again, which party builds that criteria? But you've got to get over this. A democratic party, Steve.

Both parties, honestly, you've got to understand. both parties have totally let people doubt for decades, and that's why we need something new. But this is what... It's to be crazy about the politics. I saw it this week with Kavanaugh. It's like everything with Trump world divides into two realities. Obvious truth and a crazy conspiracy theory.

Either... Yes, it flipped over. That's right. We don't know. I thought about this all this. We don't know exactly what happened in that room in 1982, and I did some research on this. Troumba.

You traveled back. and done with it and had a beer. Trauma doesn't necessarily make you remember everything better, but also the fact that it was trauma. I'm pretty sure something happened in there that severely traumatized this woman. But they want us

to believe that she, I don't know, traveled back in time from when she was 15 to fuck up Brett Kavanaugh's life. And put a witness in the room? And put a witness in the room. And the one asking for the FBI investigation. You know, to believe anything from Trump world, you have to like get into this

It's like the Arab street. And it's bizarre. Lying to the FBI, you go to jail. She's saying, I want to talk to the FBI. He's saying, and his friend is saying, No, I don't want to talk to the FBI. That should tell you everything you need to know. Republicans keep their eye on the ball, though. Or some other part of the body.

Very often. Well, I think what Republicans are doing is keeping their eye on their constituency. It started out as we're all about the rich people, but there aren't enough rich people to get them elected. So we've got to bring in the rubs. So let's throw out some gun stuff, but mostly let's throw out some God stuff. And then all the religious people flock around and they want abortion. That's what I mean.

But that's the eye on the ball for them. Abortion, Brett Kavanaugh, Catholic, come on. Catholics teach you, especially his upbringing. It's always wrong. You know he's going to get rid of Roe v. Wade. They know that. And it's everything about getting Brett Kavanaugh. And for Trump, there's a lot of conservatives.

of justices who might do that. There's only one who's on record saying you can't ever ever go after a president when he's in office. For Trump it really has to be this one guy. Which may be why they don't want to pull him, right? I mean, there's a long list

of these right-wing justices waiting in the wings. They could easily swap them out. There's a reason why they haven't. It's got to be... Well, he make masturbation illegal. That's what worries me. Who? Cavanaugh. I mean, because we're talking Catholicist It's not just abortion, you know?

Well, he said in the hearings, the birth control pills are abortifacians, and they're not. I mean, you know, he doesn't even understand simple science. But that shows you know when you don't, honestly, you know when you it's when you talk like that and you use language like the rube and all the rest of it, honestly that is exactly the reason

that he got elected. You, you caused it. Oh, my fault. Your fault. But you know that. You called them roobes basket of deplorables. Right. Like, they would have voted for Hillary anyway. That's the biggest bullshit thing. I hate this idea that we can't talk about the two things

they don't want us to say. Stupid and racist, even though check and check. I'm tired of pretending. They don't even vote their own economic interests. All right. But I want to ask one last question about how every time we seem to get to one of these things, these scandals or big news stories of the whole country's watching,

it just makes us more divided. You see the people pushing us. away even further. And it's like the Republican Party is just becoming okay, we see, you know, the 11 men, 11 older white men on the Judiciary Committee. It looks like the town elders

who banned dancing on football. And, you know, I heard Ted Cruz this week. He's attacking Beto O'Rourke because he was in a rock band. My brother. Oh, my God. Brother. What year are you people living in? And then I look at the statistics.

We're becoming divided by party gender-wise. I mean, there's going to be no women in the Republican Party. Married women. Married women are about equal. I'll leave you to what you want to say about marriage based on that. Depends on which Mary is talking about, yeah. I mean, they didn't even like Hillary that much, and she won 63 to 32 unmarried women of all races. We're dividing now by gender.

We've been divided by gender for a long time. Not as much as we are now. Right, I mean. But it is the case that, like, since 1980, Americans really hate each other. It comes right now. Let's face it. We think the gender divide is big now. Wait a year until Kavanaugh or clone is on the Supreme Court and Roe is overturned.

And we go back to, I mean, I'm old enough to remember a kid in my high school, a girl in my high school, who just stopped coming to school one day because she had died from becoming septic from an illegal abortion in 1967 or 66, whatever. So you think if the Democrats get elected, suddenly Americans will love each other? I think if this gets overturned, you've got a general, you've got women who are under 40 who have no idea what it's like to live in a country where women who get abortions go to jail, people who perform. But they're not over time. That's not going to happen. But they could chip away at it. There are a number of cases that are working themselves through the lower courts at this point.

All of these test cases from various red states that are trying to cut back on your ability to get abortion based on the number of weeks or whether the hospital has a, like, a hallway that's wide enough or what. whatever, there are all of these test cases. I'm not making that up. That's real. That's one of their rules. That's real. You know, there are all of these test cases working their ways through the courts, and even if you don't end up overturning Roe v. Wade entirely, you're going to see this steady chipping away at abortion rights. And that's going to exacerbate that gender divide you're talking about.

Trump was at one of his daddy needs love rallies last night in Las Vegas. And I just want to, you know, again, all this talk about the Democrats are just as bad. He said, if the Democrats win, you can have rampant crime, totally unlimited immigration, and the collapse of the economy and the collapse of Medicare. One party, certainly this one president, just pulls shit out of his ass and says anything. That alone should tell you there is a difference. You know, if you've raised toddlers, and I have, there's really no mystery about Donald Trump. No.

There really is no mystery. I'm going to get to it right now. A big old toddler. All right. Thank you, panel. It's time for new rules. All right, new rule, Christy's auction house, which calls this 1972 David Hockney painting

one of the great masterpieces and says it encapsulates the essence of the tremendous complexity that exists within human relationships. Has to admit it could just be a guy trying to tell his brother, dinner's ready. I should like that.

New rule, instead of arguing about Ernie and Bert's sex life, I mean, they're obviously lesbians. We have to answer the real question. Why don't they have jobs? Bob builds, Dora explores, Thomas pulls a train. Ernie and Bird are just too idiot to hang out.

Is there money in that? I'm asking for a friend. New rule, old married couples have to decide which makes them more happy, treating their erectile dysfunction, or getting a reverse mortgage. Close to the bone. Close to the bone.

That's why I'm doing it. Because according to the pictures, I see in magazines, I can't stop from coming to the house. The level of satisfaction is exactly the same. Erectile dysfunction, reverse mortgage. Erectile dysfunction, reverse mortgage. Maybe you're one of those couples that enjoys the beach.

Erectile dysfunction drugs make the beach awesome. You know what else does? Getting a reverse mortgage. New Rule, if Roger Stone wants to be taken seriously, he must stop dressing like a Batman villain. This look doesn't say political consultant, it says my umbrella sprays purple knockout gas.

New Rule, the two people at every crowded party who decide the best place to stand and talk is in the doorway must be followed just to see if they're the same assholes who block the intersection when my light turns green. And finally, new rule, now that the 25th Amendment, The one about removing a president who's incapacitated keeps popping up in the news.

Someone has to explain to me if it was written specifically for this guy, then who is it for? According to Bob Woodward's book, Trump's lawyers told Robert Mueller that Trump could not testify because he was incapable of telling the truth. This is what Slingblade's lawyer argues when he's accused of murder. My client is incompetent to stand trial. Now, I know everyone by now knows that Trump is a narcissist, but we have to stop treating that like it's an unfortunate personality tick and start treating it like what it is, a serious and dangerous mental illness.

Trump likes to tag everything with in history. He did it again this week. We have the greatest economy ever in the history of our country. it's always bullshit but in this one area he really might be the most extreme case of narcissistic personality disorder in history

Nixon was bad at the end he was talking to the White House paintings but Trump thinks the paintings are talking to him when Trump masturbates he fantasizes about himself masturbating this isn't a quirk

like having a fear of clowns or calling your wife mom It's in the big book of crazy. Trump sets off 100 bombs a week and we chase all of them. But all his flaws are really outgrowths of one thing. If there was a nutrition label on his ass, it would say 35% fat, 65% narcissistic personality disorder. It all comes from that. Narcissism is why he has no empathy.

His first thought after the planes hit the towers on 9-11 was, now my building is the tallest. His whole life is the old joke about the doctor who tells his patient. I've got good news and bad news. The bad news, you only got a week to live. The good news, you see my nurse, I'm banging her. It's an old joke. You'll get over it.

Narcissism is why Trump can be a traitor and think he's a patriot. Because it's like what JFK said. Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for me. Narcism is why our government is now so corrupt, because the only quality that matters is being an unbearable suckass to Trump. No president has ever consulted more widely or talked with more people from more backgrounds

to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination. Oh, please, you had him, that presidents cannot be prosecuted. Narcissism is why we have a foreign policy based entirely on whether or not when our leader meets your leader, he thinks they like him. He said about President G, I like him, and I believe he likes me a lot.

Oh, I hope so. Maybe you guys can watch the notebook together and braid each other's hair. Same thing with Putin. He said, I hope I like him. I hope he likes me. And then there's his buddy in North Korea. I just came on stage and I was told that Kim Jong-un said some terrific things about me. Great. Maybe you'll sign your tits.

That's all you got to do is say something nice. Donald Trump is the world's cheapest date. He likes me. I like him. Who knows what's going to happen? Like what? You're going to fuck? Who cares whether other heads of state like ours? These other leaders are laughing at him. as if Putin is in the Kremlin going,

Oh, I hope he likes me. I would poison myself if I thought Donald Trump didn't like me. Take selfie of me. I send it to Trump. And, most chillingly, narcissism is why Trump is so stupid. The president of the United States,

the planet's most powerful human in a data-driven world full of shifting information, can never learn anything. Narcissism makes you unteachable. You can't correct him because that would mean he was wrong and that's impossible.

He's infallible like the Pope or Oprah. Trump's brain is like a cell phone with a full mailbox. You can call, but you can't leave a message. It's our show. 26 and 27 at the Castle Theater and Gahulu, Hawaii, December 30th, and at the Blaisdale in Honolulu on New Year's Eve.

I want to thank Tom Hartman, Catherine Rampel, Steve Hilton, And Michael Moore, join us out for overtime on YouTube. Thank you. Catch 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.