Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #492: Seth Abramson, Dave Barry

Episode Date: April 13, 2019

Bill’s guests are Seth Abramson, Dave Barry, Cornell Belcher, Wendy R. Sherman, and Matt Welch. (Originally aired 4/12/19) 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 Ma. I know, you're not even excited about me. It's Coachella. That's what it is, right? It kicks off this weekend. Just what America needs.

Another reason to take drugs. No, Coachella lasts two weekends, like a cabinet member who works for Trump. But, you know, and it's pricey. None of that Woodstock come in for free shit. Oh, no. But you get a lot for your money.

I mean, dozens of acts there who are competing for the affection of entitled millennials. I'm sorry, I'm thinking of the Democratic primary. I'm sorry. Give the millennials. Oh, yeah, no. The competition is on. You know who's blowing up in the polls?

Mayor Pete. You just see that? Look at that. They love Mayor Pete. He was here a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. He made a... He made a, I'm proud to be gay speech, and this is red meat to the liberals.

They love... That's your joke in your head. I wasn't even going for that. But no, the battle for the hearts of the Democratic base is on. I mean, Julian Castro is Latino, and Kamala Harris is biracial, and Beto played in a punk band. Mayor Pete's like, I'm gay. Mike drop.

So, Monday is taxed. or as Trump calls it Monday. Yes, as we're all paying ours, he will not release his. You know, the IRS was supposed to get, they were supposed to get his tax returns this Wednesday. Didn't happen. Didn't happen.

You know, there are committees in Congress that are allowed by law to request any tax returns, the IRS, they have to provide them. This is what we used to call a law. We don't have those anymore. Trump finally has the lackey attorney general he always wanted, William Barr. He testified before Congress this week.

He began by thanking the committee for the opportunity to come there and shed more darkness on the situation. This was a bad sign. When he took the oath, he raised his hand. The Sharpie was still in his hand. I don't... But then he threw a bombshell in there. He said that there was spying, or he thought there might be spying, spying on the Trump campaign. Wow! The Trump campaign spying, you know, this is interesting.

In the Trump White House, they don't do evidence. So he's moving forward with investigating the investigators. Wow. Can the rest of us do that? Can the rest of us do that with law enforcement? If a cop stops me, can I be like, how fast was I going? How fast were you going? And why are you following me? I'm going to need to see all your text messages, officer.

So, no, to recap this, okay, here's what's going on. Two years ago, the beginning of the Trump administration, remember Trump was tweeting about Obama, was Wyatt tapping me, a Trump tower. And, of course, you know, everybody thought, okay, he's just a moron is pulling shit out of his ass. Nothing new, nothing to see here. So, you know, the Justice Department looked into it at the time, and, of course, found no evidence. Now, the Attorney General of the United States

without evidence is going to have his Justice Department look into the Justice Department their old investigation, which found no evidence. Does anyone have the number for Michael Jackson's doctor? I need a nap.

I want to sleep for about two years. So Trump spent the week firing people who tough enough on migrants. Kirsten Nielsen, the cage lady, uh, she was not tough enough.

She got fired, although she said they weren't fighting. She said she just wanted to spend more time separating her family. And listen to this. Today, they came up with a new idea. Why don't we take all the migrants that we get at the border and dump them in sanctuary cities?

Wow, this Trump is not playing. He said it again today. He does not want an America of low-skilled immigrants. And Melania said, fuck you, too. That's it. But, wow, I mean, the mean attitude on Fox and Friends, did you see this? They called, I think we have the picture, Central America, Mexican countries. Mexican countries.

By the way, they also once called a couple of weeks ago a selfie. A sea life. They even misspelled spelling me. That's true. You know what? If you guys are going to live in the United States, learn the fucking language, okay? This is where we are right now as a country.

If the Democrats don't see it your way, dump refugees in their city because we're the United States. I know we're not supposed to use words like deplorable. Hard. It's pretty fucking deplorable. We're not supposed to say, deplorable. I'm not supposed to say racist.

Not supposed to say stupid. Backward. Hard for me. Last week, this is not a joke. Last week, Kentucky outlawed bestiality. Last week. And that's not even what blew my mind the most. It was the words that began the third paragraph

of the article I was reading, which said, opponents of the bill. All right, we got a great show. Matt Welch, Wendy Sherbet, and Cordell Belcher are here, and a little later we'll be speaking with the very funny Dave Barry. But first up, he is a columnist for Newsweek and the author of Proof of Proof of Collusion. Oh, good.

And the forthcoming book, Proof of Conspiracy. Seth Abramson, Seth. Great to meet you. Thank you for being here. I hope we will get to the proof of collusion soon. But before we do that, I want to just talk about your technique because I think it's very exciting when there's a new literary event. And I would say what you do is,

that. I mean, you're a, what are the word you use? A curatologist or a curatology or... Curatorial journalist. I can't get that. But I get close. And what you really do is put out a long, long Twitter feed. I've read it. And it's interesting because it's like watching someone write a book in real time. You don't mind if people see that you make mistakes. You erase stuff. You amend stuff. You edit stuff. So is this like the new version of what we went through and maybe the... the 70s when there was the new journalism, when they were mixing fact and fiction, you think this is as big a change?

Well, I think it's definitely new. We're in the digital age now, and what we find is not that there isn't enough quality journalism, but that there's actually so much of it that a lot of it falls through the cracks. It gets published, read once, and then forgotten. So what a curatorial journalist does is they look back decades across media that's being published across different continents, and they see stories that are lost and how they connect with one another and how they might be important now but weren't realized as important as at the time.

So you connect the dots. Exactly. You're the guy at the evidence wall. Essentially, yeah. With the red tape. You know, I did a sketch of that once, but mine was, yeah, there it is. We put there's this... Yeah, there's Fat Donnie in the middle.

But you do it for real, and it's interesting. You've said that Donald Trump is the live embodiment of the Internet. What do you mean by that? Well, he is. I mean, he's ubiquitous. He's in our lives every second of every day. He wants to be in our lives every second of every day. lives every second of every day. And he's bad for us, and he fatigues us, just like the internet does.

You also have said he's the first metamodern criminal scandal. This is the first meta-modern criminal scandal. Now, how would you, what does that mean? Well, it means that everything Donald Trump does that is illicit and in another period of time would have been done behind closed doors or secretly on an audio tape that we don't have access to. He does right in public. Russia, if you're listening, or any of his other statements suggesting that he's colluding in plain sight. I'm glad you said that. I've said that. I've said that. I've said, that myself for a long time, so we did something tonight to illustrate this. Now,

the comparison, of course, is always to Nixon, but Nixon tried everything he could to keep it secret. As you say, Trump does the exact opposite. He does it in plain sight. I think this is the genius to his getting away with everything. I don't think he knows he's doing it. I think it's because he's a narcissist.

But this is the effect of it. So what we did was, we took some of the things that Trump has said, again, in broad daylight. We put them on a tape, just like he did with the Nixon tapes. Now imagine if you were hearing this for the first time in this way, where we just got this. Imagine that Donald Trump was surreptitiously taped, and you heard it this way.

President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. I was going to do it. I said to myself, I said, you know, it's Trump in Russia. It's not in Russia. I will say this. I don't see the reason. Now, if people had heard that, Wouldn't we say that's the smoking gun? It's possible. But, you know, the other thing, Bill, is that there are things that he does behind closed doors, right? Negotiating for two years while he was running for president, a multi-billion-dollar real estate deal with the Kremlin and with Russians, right?

But when that comes out, and when we find out about it, he then does 10, 12, 20 things that seem just as bad within the next 24 to 48 hours. And as a result, we lose sight of how important, even the hidden thing that becomes public is. But there was a guy who was trying to put these. dots together for two years, Robert Mueller. Why did he punt on this? Why did he not you know, call I mean, answer the call of

history when it was so plainly his job to do that? I mean, I thought this guy, I guess we all did, was going to be the one to say here, because as I've said before, just what we know. And this is what you do. You put down just what we know. What is in his mind, do you think?

Well, I think a lot of people are saying that he punted, and I don't think that that's accurate, right? On obstruction, he knew that he couldn't indict the president. You can't indict a sitting president under DOJ regulations. And therefore, he wanted to pass that case through to Congress. Had he made a judgment on obstruction, he might have lost gravitas. You might have had 50 percent of the country who are more conservative, considering him to be a boogeyman because now he's put his finger on the scale. He maintained his gravitas by saying, here's all the evidence. It had to go to Congress anyway. So here it is. On the question of collusion, I think we have

to understand that the Mueller investigation hasn't really ended. It has simply transformed into now 20 pending federal and state investigations in jurisdictions all around the country where the evidence that Mueller collected on the question of collusion, bribery, aiding and abetting, money laundering, illegal solicitation of campaign donations is now being looked at by federal prosecutors

from California all the way to New York City and Virginia. And what will be the upshot of that? Donald Trump leaving office? I don't see that from... Well, I'd say this, right? We sometimes say, you know, how could there be no findings? how could there be no finding of conspiracy by Robert Mueller, right? Or that he could not establish beyond reasonable doubt that there was conspiracy.

The interesting thing, Bill, is that no one was really accusing Donald Trump of having a before-the-fact signed agreement with the Internet Research Agency that was doing all the propaganda or the GRU Russian military intelligence that was doing the hacking. That's not how conspiracies work. You don't have to say it. Right, exactly. Michael Cohen said that. He said Trump never gives you an order.

He says what he thinks is reality, which isn't at the time, But you take that as his underling that he would like you to carry out something that would make that happen. Right. And as importantly, that's not how bribery works, which is fundamentally what we're going to be looking at and what a lot of these crime investigations are looking at whether Donald Trump sold America's foreign policy in exchange for personal profit. That's still being looked at by some of these jurisdictions as well as aiding and abetting, which is when you know someone's committing a crime and then you offer them an inducement to continue committing that crime. This bar investigation now is looking into, he wants to look into the origins of the investigation. Well, I think I read in your piece that there were five American allies who warned us about contacts

that they had picked up, their intelligence services, right? Right. Picked up between the Russians, Russian agents, and Trump operatives. Right. This is July of 2016. And this is actually how the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign or several individuals in that campaign started. is our allies, our friends were worried about our national security, so five of their intel agencies told us,

hey, there are meetings happening in Europe between Trump advisors and Russians that are incredibly concerning. And that's what got everything started. It wasn't the Steele dossier. And will that be in the Mueller report? Well, we don't know what's going to be in the Mueller report. Well, how could it not be if that's what happened? You know that happened.

Yes, no, there's no question that that happened. The question is how much of Mueller's report is going to focus on why the investigation started when, as I think many people believe, that's really immaterial to the findings of the investigation. And the steel tape, the steel dossier, and the pee tape, let's be honest. That's the... I've heard you say that you think that's such a real thing,

that the Donald Trump paid two hookers to pee on each other. I don't believe that. I believe they did it. I don't believe he paid them. I'll tell you what I know. What I know, and what we all know, is that in January of 2017, the BBC contacted the CIA and asked the question any good investigative journalist would ask,

which is, do these tapes exist? And we know because the BBC published this in January 2017 that the CIA got back to the BBC and said there are multiple tapes from multiple locations, and they are of a sexual nature, and they involve Donald Trump. What happened after that is British media then followed up on that BBC report, the Independent, the Telegraph, the Guardian, the BBC, and they found lots of evidence that there were witnesses

who saw women who were going to be. be signed in to go up to his room and they were arguing about whether they would have to put their names down. That was all reported in British media. I couldn't tell you why it's not reported in America, but that's why I'm a curatorial journalist. So I can find that information, let people know it's there, even if they're not reading it here domestically. So maybe you're kind of picking up where Julian Assange was before he went bad, because we used to like him. You know, he used to really be doing a good service. And then something happened. I guess his hatred for Hillary Clinton maybe is what turned him basically into someone who was a Russian aide, really, and somebody who helped Trump get elected.

Now, he just got out of the embassy, but it's not going to be good for him. Why didn't Mueller get to him? I mean, it seems like he knows a lot, that whole thing with Roger Stone and WikiLeaks. Why couldn't Mueller have gone after him? Well, Julian Assange's case is in the Eastern District of Virginia, and right now, one of the 20 pending federal and state investigations into Trump, his family, his aides, his associates, his allies, is in the Eastern District of Virginia. And so prosecutors, once they get him state side, will be in a position to ask him questions that all of us want answers to. for instance, did he have contact with Trump advisors, Ted Malick, Paul Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., Randy Credico, Jerome Corsey, all these people who we've seen reports in the past, and again, these are reports that sort of disappeared, and I tried to bring them back through threads on social media, to say, look, this is happening. All these people allegedly had contact with Julian Assange. That could be a focal point for collusion, so hopefully someone's going to ask that question.

Did you talk to these guys? Please keep doing it. We need you on that wall, the evidence law. Coffee, meth, whatever it takes. Stay on the wall. All right, thank you, Seth. All right, let's meet our panel. Everybody. All right, he is an editor at large for Reason magazine and the host of The Reason podcast,

our returning champion, Matt Welch. Matt. He's a Democratic Post, an author of a black man in the White House, Barack Obama, and the triggering of America's racial aversion crisis. Now available in paperback, Cornell Belcher, back with us. And she's the former U.S. Undersecretary of State, who is now director of the Center for Public Leadership

at Harvard's Kennedy School, and author of Not for the Faint of Heart Ambassador Wendy Sherman. Great to have you here. Okay, so it was a terrible week again for democracy, but I feel good about one thing. I feel like the theme I have been pounding for many years here that the real liberals, the regular liberals, are not the same as the people who have anointed themselves as woke,

has finally filtered into the mainstream. That's what we do here. We say things, and years later they say them in the New York Times. And President Obama said, he said Democrats. He fears they are in a circular firing squad. But here's the New York Times. Today, he said, this is their headline. The Democratic electorate on Twitter is not the actual electorate.

Thank you. Today's Democratic Party is increasingly preceding. as dominated by the woke left wing, but the views of Democrats on social media often bear little resemblance to those of the wider Democratic electorate. Is that your experience? We'll let the pollsters talk first.

Well, yes. I mean, to me, it's like Captain Avias. What's happened on social media isn't actually the real world. And when you talk to, you know, real Democratic voters in Iowa and South Carolina, you know, a lot of the issues that are front and center on Twitter and on IG are not these sort of everyday kitchen table issues

that the African-American mom in South Carolina is worried about. Or, you know, the blue-collar worker and I was worried about. They're not worried about a lot of these issues. Into the whole Mueller report, they're not really paying attention to it. I know we spend a lot of time on it here, but they're a lot more concerned about what are Democrats going to do about health care and my rising premiums than they are about Mueller. And that's a tough thing to say because Washington is consumed with it.

But Trump makes Twitter his bitch. And Twitter makes the Democrat candidates their bitch. That's what it looks like to me. There's a sweep, an interesting shift in the world of journalism where a lot of this chatter originates from over the last 10 years has been a remarkable as the local news is sort of hollowing out. People literally are just moving to Brooklyn. That's where all the journalism jobs are going.

Seriously, it's like a huge. huge percentage in the last 10 years. The hipsters anyway. I mean, even the non-hypsters, some of us live in Brooklyn as well. And so there's this sense that the conversations that they're having with one another are the same as you see elsewhere. Gustavo Oriano, great to column with the L.A. Times, has observed that none of the dudes that you see, the Mexican guys who wear the actual cowboy hats and who work really hard for a living, none of them have ever used the word latinks in their life.

Exactly. And when they hear it, they're like, what the hell do we even? been talking about it. Indians don't mind Indian. The truth is, you know, Donald Trump's not my guy, but he knows how to put a narrative on the table. Oh, boy, does he? And he is really

good at it. And we as Democrats have to put our narrative on the table and it's not what is in the Twitter sphere. It is what people are dealing with in their day-to-day lives. And we need to be talking about that. The irony I think about Donald Trump, one of the many, is that he came to office as his great businessman. He's actually a shitty businessman.

It appears. But he's a great politician. The novice politician is a great politician. So, okay, so look, I'm not even a centrist on a lot of issues like the environment and income inequality. I do think radical change is needed. And if Bush was running or Mitt Romney or any other normal Republican, I'd say go for it. But that's not this year. We have to oust Fat Donnie.

That is the main thing. So I think what the Democrats are missing is, the opportunity to use the intense hatred, the people who have already decided they hate Trump, that is an intense hatred they are not using because it gives you wide latitude to be in the center. I mean, let's take two issues. Let's take immigration and let's take health care.

Bernie Sanders came out with Medicare for All. I think that would be great if we were starting from scratch. But say you're a voter who doesn't like Trump, where are you going to go if it's not Medicare for All? You're still going to vote for the Democrat. You're not going to, you maybe lose a few. people who stay home, but mostly you're going to get everybody else who isn't for that, or immigration.

You're going to lose to the kids and cages guy if you're not as left as the Democrats are now on immigration? I don't think so. Well, for me, one, I'm in your aiming to corner on this because I think, quite frankly, we Democrats spend way too much time worrying about Trump and Trump voters. And understand, look, Trump got 46% of the electorate. He doesn't have a majority. In a mayor's poll, a couple weeks back, 54% of Americans say they'd definitely will not vote for Trump. The problem is

the problem is can we put a for a candidate with a vision to recobble together the Obama majority coalition and expand on that coalition? 54% say they would definitely not vote for Trump, but as you know, that protest vote and that third

party vote absolutely killed Hillary Clinton. So to me, it's not about Donald Trump. I think it's different this time. It's not about Donald Trump. I think it's different this time. I bet Bill he will not get above 46%. Right. But you can win with that. Absolutely. That's my point. Absolutely.

Because we have this thing called the electoral college. Right. But I think part of it... Go ahead. Yeah, no. You. I think part of the problem here is everybody gets exercised when people come out with what seemingly are radical ideas. I think it's great we have ideas.

I don't see any ideas on the Republican side. Have you seen a Republican health plan yet? Not me. No. Well, that's going to be his great test as the con. It's Obamacare. As the con man. Obama care was Romney care.

Was from time a health of Republican ideas. Well, he said the Republicans... In Massachusetts. Here's what he said. April 4th. The Republicans are developing a really great health care plan. No, they're not. It will be far less expensive and much more usable than Obamacare, this mythical plan that doesn't exist.

Now we're going to hear about it after the election. Vote will be taken right after the election. When Republicans hold the Senate and the House, we already had that. Again, this is the great test of the ultimate comment. Can you sell the same air twice? Yes. Because this is what... This is what he sold the first time.

Was that I'm going to get rid of Obamacare and give you something better. It didn't happen. Can you sell it twice? I think you can sell a coalition of kind of hatred or antipathy. People who voted for Donald Trump in 2016, a lot of them will say, will tell you that they're sick of political correctness. They're sick of people who talk down to them from their... They're sick of you, Bill Maher. Let's get right to it.

That's what it is. I don't think they're watching film. I don't know. Some of that. Oh, no, they are. Oh, yeah. It's a hate watch. It's like a hate fuck.

If you look at people right now who are, even people who are never Trumpers in 2016, we're conservative or a Republican, and who are coming back into the fold now, what are they saying? Regardless of what you think about what they're saying, what are they saying? They're saying, we are going to vote, I'm going to vote for Trump now because I'm scared of socialism. I think that Democrats right now are going to do Green New Deal, Medicare for all, and they're scaring the crap out of it. Socialism and so you have to stop. But let me jump in on this. One thing I think is, listen, Barack Obama's socialist. They call them socialist. Regardless of the Democrat, that socialists are lying. And what's interesting is, if you look at voters actually

under 35, socialism is more favorable than capitalism. Yeah, but they don't vote. Well, we needed them to vote. But they don't. But what? Right now they, right now they'd vote for Sanders. And in the midterms, they actually turned out at a higher rate which helped us like $10 million. Still not high. You know who votes the older people? And that's what Trump said. He said, you know what? Instead of going after the people who don't vote, I'm going to make the people who do vote like me.

But here's my point, Bill. Why don't we do that? We spent too much time on, and I hate to say this, but a Trump voter doesn't give a shit about the issues. Right? The only issue they care about is tribalism. And as long as he's their tribal, man, they will excuse it. They will excuse anything. Well, so, you know, this week I read Farid Zakaria, Andrew Sullivan, David Frum, pretty serious guys.

They've all been on the show. I like them all. I think they're all smart. No, you don't like any of them? Sorry, I'm sliding to sleep. No good. They have something in common. But they all have, but they're all basically saying the same thing about immigration, which is this argument. They're saying the Democrats are going to lose this issue. Now, I've said before, I don't think immigration in reality is even a top top. issue, but as a campaign issue, I mean, it is what he won the election on before. And, you know, if it becomes a woke contest, then the Democrats lose on this. Yes, they look better, but it's impossible not to not look better next to him. Right. So look, Nancy Pelosi, who is probably the smartest politician right now on the Democratic side. Yes.

She said this week, I could see working on an immigration deal with Trump. She knows. She knows. that we have to deal with it. And I've got to tell you this. I know that some people say, we're purist, aren't that every Democrat wants all the borders to be open. That's not true at all. Democrats want rules. Of course not.

They want laws. But it's the perception. It's the perception. And what we can't forget is what's really going on. Donald Trump has created this immigration crisis. He's created this immigration crisis by taking away aid from Central America. He's created the crisis by putting kids in cages and separating from their parents. if you'll just give me a minute.

This is what Democrats say, which gets only other Democrats. No, but here's something that I think is going to stop everybody. This is not the speech that's going to win any voters. Let me finish. Let me finish. Let me finish. My daughter is an immigration lawyer. I hear about this all the time.

She helps to run the immigrant rights and human trafficking clinic could be you. She went to Tijuana. The last took her law students there twice. Last time she was there, you know what she was She was taking an indelible sharpy pen, and on the back of a two-month-old, writing his mother's name and date of birth in case they get separated. And the next day, it's going to be USA Today, up bed on Monday about this, the next day, eight-year-old twins came up to her and said, can we have a tattoo, too? Now, we all know the history of tattoos, and it's not a pretty one.

So, yes, we need to have rules. You've got the compassion vote. You first, but I want a piece of this immigration. I think you're wrong. I should say, I think the same guys who were wrong about the Iraq war are also wrong about saying that we need to, you know, make sure to forestall fascism by being tough on immigration. That's not what they're saying. That's what David Frum's argument was, is that if we, if a fascist will win if Democrats for the other side doesn't get tough on immigration. That was essentially his argument.

Well, just tough like Obama was. Obama found a way to keep the left, but also. Yes, but he found a... He deported record numbers of people. But here's the thing, Bill. Trump, before the midterms, said this is going to be... the caravan midterms. Right.

And what happened in the midterms? He got slaughtered. There's a health term midterm. There was a healthless midterm. But Chris Kobach, who's the biggest immigration nutbag in the country, ran for governor in Kansas, where Trump won by 20 percentage points, and he lost. He lost on that signature. But those numbers are going up.

But Bill, let me get in. Let me get on real quick. Because I'm not going to be nice on Democrats on this, because I think Democrats need to peel back on this. I didn't take back my country. my country. That is the meat of this, is that people are afraid of the browning of America. And when Trump stands up at his rallies

and says, I'm going to give you back your country, we know exactly what he's doing. He is feeding that. And Democrats say, I'm going to raise your minimum wage. We've got to engage American public on a real conversation that America is getting browner and you shouldn't be afraid of that. And by the way, there's nothing that you can do about it. So you actually have to get

along with me or we become a third world country. I understand. As a As a political strategy, you shouldn't feel that way. When is that ever not worked? Okay, we've got to move on a little bit. Mike Pence and Mayor Pete had a big spat this week.

I don't know if you heard about this. Mayor Pete said, if you have a problem with me being a homosexual, take it up with my creator. And Mike Pence was like, oh, no, we're the only one that gets to use the God argument. And Mayor Pete was like, well, if you're so Christian, how come you're a supporter of that? lying adulterous porn star fucker.

Is that direct quote? I summarized a few. Okay. So we thought this would be a perfect week to do something we do hear a lot on the show. 25 things you don't know about me. It's really something from Us Magazine. We stole it from Us Magazine,

but we do it better, so now we own it. Okay. 25 things about Mike Pence, you don't know. I play the pilot in every airline safety video. Karen and I waited until marriage. to have eye contact. The stick up my ass is made from repurposed driftwood. My wife teaches at an anti-gay school,

but that doesn't make her anti-gay, although she is anti-gay. I can identify brands of white bread just by smelling them. If I could change one thing in the Bible, I'd make Jesus wear a shirt. I call bagels Jew donuts. I can do it. I'm so homophobic, I eat bananas sideways.

Whenever I see a rainbow, I throw rocks at it and say, Begone, gay air. And I won't even use the back door to my house. All right, he's a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, an author of the new book, Lessons from Lucy, The Simple Joys of an Old Happy Dog. Dave Barry's over here. Dave Beck.

How are you? Been too long. It has. Dave Barry, how are you? You look great. How old are you now, Dave? Oh, hundreds of years. No, I'm 71.

You don't look. Look at that hair. Look at that. No wrinkles. Is that Florida? You live in Florida? That's why you look. Yeah.

Oh, wow. So your book, I mean, I have to tell you, this is the second guest we've had on in a month who had a book addressed to their dog, where you're talking to your dog. What does that say about our society that people are talking to their dogs in their books now? That books about dogs. sell fairly well probably in the name.

Okay. And being 70, what is that like? Because I'm years from that. And I want to know. I want to... Well, let me just say this. I don't care what else the medical profession does, but they need to find a way to get to the prostate gland other than the way they're getting to it now. You mean up to the... Yeah. I want a procedure where the doctor stands like 85 yards away.

He goes, looks good from here, Dave. You know what I mean, Bill. I've heard the rumors. It's always the last thing the doctor does. Yes. You know, like, you don't want it. He does it. You're both kind of rooting that there'll be a nuclear war.

And so you won't have to do that, you know. Right. But yours is okay? Mine's good, thanks how's yours. Well, I... They gave me a briefing before the show, so I really know already. I don't even know what you guys are talking about. Yes.

Yeah, no, you're lucky. You don't have to know that. We have some other things. You have other things. Wait, are you saying women don't have prostate? No, they don't. No, but we have some other problems. For whatever it does.

I don't even know what it does. But I used to, not that this really is what we're going to talk about, but... No, we're not even close to anything used. But, you know, they used to say if you lost it, not that you'd lose it, you know, they'd take it out. You couldn't have sex. But here, now they have a way to, you can lose it and still have sex. With a woman. I didn't go that far.

Come on that's not a crazy. I'm just asking. So, okay. So, no, do you have a bucket list, Dave? Do you have anything on your bucket list now that you've hit this list? Now that I've been on this show, no, I'm good. You're good? Nothing you never, come on, there must have been something.

Well, or were you like me? I said in my last special, I had no bucket. I thought when I turned six, I thought you'd get a bucket list. And I found out that everything I haven't done, I could give a fuck. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I could give a fuck.

Really? Not really. There's a reason I never went skiing. I don't want to. I get it. No, I don't really, nothing. I'm good. Thank you for asking, though. Okay.

And I have to say, ageism, I feel like, is the last prejudice that you're allowed to hold in this country. But, okay, I'm old. I'm 71. And so I can argue, I can talk about this from the perspective of it. But you've got Pete Rose's hair. How can that possibly be? I have hair and be. I don't have very much.

Well, we could trade later on. No, I mean, as an old person, I talk to groups sometimes with old people in it. And I think the thing is, we're so everybody gets old. There's like no group that doesn't. It's the alternative. Right. And so you're like basically talking about something everybody's an experience. And if you're old, you know it sucks.

You're not going to pretend. Because of the prostate thing. Well, it's one. I don't think that's the direction you go in. But, okay. But I just mean, like, I've heard people say about Joe Biden, whatever you think, about his scandal, and blah, blah, blah. I've heard people say he's just too old.

And you just, you know, I couldn't say, nor what I want to, about Mayor Pete, he's too gay. Or, you know, of course. Or, you know, he's too black. I mean, you just can't say that. Hey, hey, hey. But you can't say that. No, but you can't, but you somehow can say he's too old.

And that's an acceptable. You are getting really close, you know. Inevitably, even Joe Biden is going to die. Yes, but it doesn't look like it's tomorrow or anytime soon. And people are different at different age. Some people, I mean, you do not look 71. I'm not just blowing smoke up your prostate. I mean it, you don't look 71.

I know people who are 50 who look worse than you. You're really obsessing over that. Yeah. No, really. I mean, it depends. How you live? Depends? No, it depends.

There's no sense. But, and I've also, you write about how the younger generation are too sensitive, which, of course, we started to talk about here tonight, and I think it, and when you say that, I mean, because you're not a dirty guy, you're just always been funny. But what's happened is when people make jokes now,

there's a large segment of the, or a significant segment of the population, that doesn't even begin to enjoy it as humor. They're not, they're like, they're looking for a reason to get offended or if they're not offended, they know somebody would be offended or should be offended, you know. So they're really just already parsing it for, you know, what's wrong with it without ever considering whether it's funny or not. And they're Democrats on Twitter, apparently.

Yeah, I mean, like the Biden thing. Yeah, I mean, so we just now discovered that Joe Biden sniffs people's hair. He's been doing that forever. And here's what I, look, we haven't voted yet. I don't want Joe Biden to be the candidate, but no one has voted. Wait, wait. Wait, would you want him to be the candidate if he would win? That's what I'm getting to.

Oh, okay, sorry. We have not voted. Go ahead. I'll just, sorry. We have not voted yet. There has not, we're ways away from even the first prime. So we don't know what food the dog wants to eat. That's the electorate.

We don't, we never know. Right. So if it turns out he is the one to beat Trump, the fact that you wound him, out of the gate pecking in him with this nonsense is so unconscionable to me. And also he's, he is, he is from the time before phones. You know, the kids today, they think it's actually weird to actually have a conversation. It sort of makes them feel awkward.

Okay, I kind of get that because I said last week, I don't like being touched by most people. I don't like close talkers. There are people who, like, I like them, but I haven't seen them in forever. because they close talk and they don't know why I called them. I'm just busy for 35 years. It's because they spit when they talk or they eat garlic and then talk to me. Are we still talking about Joe Biden?

Yes, because I'm saying I would rather be spit at and have garlic breath in my face than live on my phone. And... And I'm going to run on that platform. But Bill, damn you to hell. This is a... This is a competitive Democratic.

I'm not a Democrat. It's a competitive Democratic primary, unlike last time around. Last time Hillary Clinton kneecapped most of the competition, and then everyone just went to the barky old socialist guy because there was nobody else running except for Martin O'Malley, whoever that was. So, of course, people are right. Of course, people are going to actually compete on things

that Democrats care about on Twitter and elsewhere. And this is one of them. And if you think there's going to be four hair sniffees by the time this thing is done, You were, I mean, three or four months ago, this can be, it's going to be 14. You know, the media wants this to be, you can see them egg this on.

They want it so badly. And also, they're so disingenuous. The way they're like, make something a scandal. And then stand back and go, well, we have to cover it. It's a scandal. Yeah, because you made it a scandal. Yeah, because you made it a scandal. He does it to children.

Is he also a pedophile? It's a to men. Is he also a homosexual? Let's put that out there, Bill. Right. So I just want to know from all of you, gentlemen at the table, all of you gentlemen at the table, don't you find it a little strange that the women seem to be getting a little bit less press

than the woke men? Woke men? Yeah, I mean, yeah, see, they understand. So you take Beto O'Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, who might think are terrific, right? Getting lots of press, coming up in the polls, everybody thinks they're exciting and wonderful. Excuse me, what happened to Kamala Harris? What happened to Amy Globuchar? We already did her.

We already did her? Put her aside. No, it's that kind of... Kamala Harris dominated coverage when she first came. Yeah, for like a day. There's so many. For like a day.

But real quickly here, listen, this is the nature of the beast. I'm sorry. It is a nature of the beast. Yes, I'm a political hack. This is what I do for a levy. But isn't... It is nature of the beast.

If Joe Biden's old ass is in my lane, I'm going to attack him. Because I have to attack him to get ahead of it. Then you're going to end up with the guy, the front runner is going to be the guy who's against circumcision. But we said... You know, he's the only one left.

Okay. But again, I couldn't say black ass in my lane. But you could say old ass in my lane. Yes, exactly. Let it go, Bill. Let it go. We haven't said... But it's true.

We haven't said young ass. If Cory Bucket's black ass is in my lane, I'm going to attack him. Okay. Is that better? All right. But you're saying whoever is paying you, you're going to attack everybody else. I'm going to attack who's ever in my lane. Because I have to...

You want to get ahead of them? Yes. It's bad, but it's the nature of the game. Okay. So, we have just a couple of... to ask a couple of more questions. One, I want to ask about this spying, Bill Barr. You know, I never thought Bill Barr, as some pundits thought,

was going to be a straight shooter. But I didn't think he would be promoting their conspiracy theories. I think spying did occur. Spying from the FBI who opened it. He said it may not even be the FBI. It might be the intelligence community. And then he goes on to say... Might be a fat guy in his bed.

Right, it might be a 400-pound fat guy sitting on his bed. But then he goes on to say, I don't exactly have any evidence. And I'm not saying it occurred. Right. But I feel like I have to make sure the procedures were followed. Excuse me. I think Devin Nunes ran an intelligence investigation for two years when he was chair of the Intelligence Committee. Did they come up with anything?

I don't think so. He wouldn't even say that the Mueller investigation has not been an illegal witch hunt. He said, it really depends on where you're sitting. On whether it's a witch hunt. What is in this guy's? But I agree with his decision. to investigate how the original search warrants came about, how it was done. I think we want an inspector general, not the attorney general,

but these departments have a body that does this to make sure that every jump ball wasn't judged in this one direction. Well, there is an inspector general's report that's due out, I think, in a couple of months, but it won't be by the inspector general because that person's acting. Yeah. Every person is acting. Every person is acting. Okay.

Here for me is a problem. You want the Attorney General to be the Attorney General of the United States, not Attorney General of Trump. When the Attorney General is saying spying, he knows that's a loaded word, Bill. Of course. He knows that's a loaded word. He's playing.

Spying in surveillance. I mean, that seems like a weird thing. There's a big difference. It's between old ass and black ass. There's a big difference. See what I did? Come back around. All right.

So, final question. Taxes. Taxes for everybody on Monday. Except for the president. Except for the president. I love the way what was once a talking point, that this was already litigated, the American people don't care, migrated from just a talking point to now the official answer to actual questions from Congress people. Three years is an audit, and it's still not done.

Well, here's Trump. This is perfect, like, this basket of lies. He says he'd love to release it. No, you wouldn't. He said, I'm under audit. You're probably not. He said, I can't if I'm under audit. That's a lie.

And people don't care. Actually, they do care. And he said he was going to do it. And they said they wanted to see it. Over 60% want to see it. So that's the deplorable lie basket. So here's another interesting thing. Illegal for the IRS to create now,

they're trying to have a law, tax preparation software. In other words, Elizabeth Warren is out there saying, you know, we could make this so simple. The IRS could just send you a bill. They know what you made. And they're making it a law so it's actually complicated

just because the accountants have a powerful lobby. Isn't that American? You want to understand how politics and money really work in this country, look no further than this. Because this is something that, quite frankly, is outrageous. It is. And it's only happening because of big money and lots. But some of my best friends are lobbyists.

So big money and lobbyists. And that's how the system works. It is corrupt and it's unbelievable. And it's from both sides. Yeah, it was bipartisan and overwhelming vote in the House. All right. Thank you, panel. Time for new rules, everybody.

I got to get to make a little overtime tonight. I'm in Vegas. in two hours. All right, at the Mirage Hotel. New Rule, Felicity Huffman, didn't need to say, my daughter knew absolutely nothing. Obviously, that's why you had to cheat her way into college. New old Bristol-Paylon must not feel bad about suddenly leaving her MTV show, Teen Mom, OG.

Quitting halfway through something is in your jeans. And speaking of In Your Jeans, maybe considered doing one thing with your life that isn't centered around you getting, being or having been pregnant. New Rule, now that the Sultan of Brunei has made the punishment for gay sex, death by

stoning, someone needs to ask him, just how many outfits do you have, girlfriend? New rule, since Joe Biden is forbidden to ever again feel the warmth of a human's touch, and Robert Kraft can't even get a simple massage.

Joe Biden has to jerk off Robert Kraft. And if they fell in love, and De Niro and Michael Kane played them in a movie, it would win every award on Earth. New Roll, since they're making new episodes of the Twilight Zone, and Kristen Nielsen needs a job. Let's just send Kirsten Nielsen to the Twilight Zone. Oh my God, on this planet, I'm in a cage. And finally, new rule, let's take a break from bashing millennials for their safe spaces, man buns and avocado toast,

and give them credit for doing something right. Having less sex than other generations and so less babies, which is good for the planet. Every week, it seems there is a new study about how little sex millennials are having. Researchers at the

Nunya Business Institute have found that people between the ages of 18 and 30 just don't fuck like they used to. due to financial constraints, career aspirations, and mostly an unwillingness to put down the phone. Also, more young adults, of course, are living at home, and it's just awkward to say,

Dad, can I borrow the bed tonight? But instead of asking why America's young people are having less sex, let's just be glad they are. Earth Day is coming up, and I can't think of a better gift to our planet than pumping out fewer humans to destroy it. People talk a lot about bringing a cloth bag to the market and driving electric. But the great under-discuss factor in the climate crisis is there are just too many of us,

and we use too much shit. Climate deniers like to say, there's no population problem, just like out the window of an airplane. Something about empty space down there. But it's not about space. It's about resources. Humans are already using 1.7 times the resources, the planet can support. The world's population is increasing by a million people

every four and a half days, and that's just on the 405. We don't need smaller carbon footprints. We need less feet. I mean, some days, a simple trip to the grocery store takes hours between the traffic and finding parking, the lines. I tell you, I don't know how my assistant does it.

So it's no wonder millennials are freaking out about having kids. They in Generation Z are waking up en masse to the idea that way too early in their lifetimes, the planet is going to be a shit show. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently did a live Q&A on Instagram

where she said it outright. She said young people are asking, is it okay to still have children? Now, of course, the Republicans had to respond because they're obsessed with AOC. It's ironic. She's against fossil fuel, yet she gives fossils fuel.

Utah's Republican Senator Mike Lee went so far as to rebut AOC's threat to stop breeding by saying climate change is an engineering problem and problems of human imagination are not solved by more laws, but by more humans. Which is easy for Mike Lee to say he's a Mormon. When he dies, he gets his own planet. The solution to so many of our problems, at all times and in all places, is to fall in love, get married, and have some kids. Blch.

Sure. Sounds like something Colin Firth says at the end of a rom-com. But again, remember, Mike Lee belongs to a cult that believes all sorts of fantastical nonsense. It's called the Republican Party. But I got to tell you, liberals are also at fault on this issue. I've never heard a liberal say that falling birth rates are a good thing, which they are. Everyone talks about falling birth rate like it means there's something desperately wrong with a country.

They're depressed. They're not fucking enough. You know what, whatever problems are caused by falling birth rates aren't nearly as dire as the ones brought on by overpopulation. In 1900, there were less than 2 billion people on Earth. Now it's approaching 8. We can't just keep going on like this. The world is just too crowded. When was the last time you sat comfortably on an airplane?

Wouldn't it be nicer to just have fewer people around? You know, it's no secret that there are a lot of Jewish people in show business. So, on days here in Hollywood, when it's a Jewish holiday, the traffic? Delightful. Delightful. That's what we should be sure. shooting for to make every day look like a Jewish holiday in Los Angeles. So,

please, masturbate, don't procreate. Yank it until Trump is throwing paper towels at you. And remember, the best thing you can do for Earth is not have kids die and stay dead. Have a great weekend, everybody! All right, that's our show. We're off next week. I'll be back on the 26th. We at the Grand Theater at Foxwoods and Mash and Tuckets. America, May 25th, the Fox Theater in Detroit on June 22nd.

I want to thank Matt Wells, Cornell Belcher, Wendy Sherman, Dave Barry, Seth Abramson, off to Vegas. Good night. 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.