Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #499: George Will, Martin Short

Episode Date: June 15, 2019

Bill’s guests are George Will, Martin Short, Eliot Spitzer, Charlie Skyes, and Bari Weiss. (Originally aired 6/14/19) 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 Maugh. Start the clock. First is the fake applause, then the real one. That's what the guy told us to do. And that we really like you. I love that.

But I know why you're excited, it's Donald Trump's birthday. And they had a big, they had a big party, cake, singing, candles, and then they played their favorite game, pin the blame on the Mexicans. And 73. 73 he is and remarkable after all these years

still a natural blonde 73 and this week went after Biden on age he said Biden looks different than he used to implying Biden has had work done and let me tell you something

with 23 candidates in the Democratic race last thing the Democrats need is a new face but The president did not get good poll numbers for his birthday, his kind of tanking there. I may explain why they're moving up the war in Iran. Have you seen that? Two oil tankers were attacked in the Gulf, and Donald Trump said he is ready to point names and blame fingers.

There was a grainy video of a small boat that is doing something near the tanker, and Trump says, this proves it has to be Iran. who else has that technology, a small boat. Trump said, do I have to spell it out? Because you know I can't do that. And no, no, he's pissed. There is no way Iran is going to escape Donald Trump's wrath, unless they write a beautiful letter.

That's how you do it, right? If the Supreme Ayatollah wrote a letter that said, I thought I was supreme. But when I saw you, Donald Ford... But... It is a little murky who attacked who. What happened? We first said it was a mine.

But then the tanker's crew said it was a flying object. So that rules out a Boeing 737. And we've ruled out Saudi Arabia because it wasn't stabbed to death. So we don't know what happened exactly. Now... In other names... the president of the United States who for the past two years has been screaming no collusion every fucking second he can.

Like, good morning, no collusion. Good night, no collusion. Went on George Stephanopoulos's show and said, you know what? Fuck it. Collusion. Now, it's like Gwen Stefani saying, you know what? I am a hollaback girl. I'm good about that.

Trump said he accepted help from a foreign country to get from dirt on his opponent, and he would take it again. and he wouldn't call the FBI and Democrats was so shocked they almost took a stand on impeachment George Stephanopoulos was pretty shocked he said I have never witnessed a bigger stain on the Oval Office and I worked for Clinton

now of course the Republican reaction was swift and severe I'm joking of course they could always give a fight I loved it you know all they cared about wasn't that Trump admitted to treason and being a criminal that's old news they were upset that he broke the first

rule of fascist club, he went outside of Fox News. Laura Ingraham said, why did anyone put Trump in that situation? It's an interview with the president. Not putting a baby on a horse. And of course, you know, Trump has many types

of lies. Today came the one I hate the most. The ridiculous insulting walk-back lie that he tells when he says something ridiculous in the next day, the pulling this out of my ass, barely bothering to make sense. Fuck you lie. He was on Fox and Friends doing this for almost an hour.

To get off the phone, they had to pretend there was someone at the door. They don't care. They don't care about any of this. Trump's attitude about subpoenas is, I don't do subpoenas. They got a picture of him the other day walking up to Air Force One, the steps. He had a subpoena stuck to the bottom of his shoe. But thank you all for putting on a brave face tonight. I know you must be upset because I'm sure you've heard.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who reinvented the job of press secretary by not doing it. Sarah says she is stepping down. But, of course, that's her. So, who knows? But, you know, when one door closes, another one opens, Trump actually said she should run for the governor of Arkansas. so maybe it's that. She's also launching a new social media

platform, Rusting Bitch Facebook. I don't know if you know. And she's taken a position on the board at the Burger King because Sue has more experience with whoppers. Oh, you're way ahead of you on. All right, we got a great show. Elliot Spitzer, Charlie Sykes, and Barry White's are here

and a little later he'll be speaking with the great Martin Short is backslaved. First up, he is a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, whose latest book is The Conservative Sensibility. I would say he's part of a dying breed, the true intellectual, conservative intellectual. George Will, ladies and gentlemen. George, great to see you again. How are you?

Okay, well, your book, again, amazing to read you. Even when I don't agree with you, I sometimes I think you're your own worst enemy, because when I read you, I'm like, if this guy can't convince me, I can't be turned, and I can't be on some of your points. You know, as I read this book, I'm like, who is this for? Because there are so few open minds anymore these days. I get it that you're trying to convince people who might have an open mind, but does that bother you when you're writing something?

No, I think books still matter. I know what the new media is about, but I still think books matter. And I'm quite convinced that there are a number of Americans who believe something's badly wrong with their constitutional equilibrium. when you have presidents of both parties who make war without Congress, presidents of both parties who are a supine Congress has empowered now to impose taxes and rewrite immigration law, all on their own. Yeah, you don't mention Donald Trump.

I don't mention Doris Day. Right. This is a book about ideas. No, I know. It's a book about ideas, which, yes. You know, she died recently. I know. ideas and conservatives.

Would you say he has nothing to do with either one? But let me ask you this. Conservatism, you're making your case that you have so eloquently for so long, but I can't really picture a democratic Donald Trump. If conservatism is so great, how did it give rise to Donald Trump? Well, ideas have consequences,

and so does the absence of ideas, and the Republican Party became fixated on simply opposing Democrats, just as I'm afraid a lot of Democrats are fixated on opposing Republicans. And warning to the Democrats who are about to have, what, 23 or 4 on stage? There were 18 on stage with the Republicans, and the most lurid stood out. But aren't some of the Republican ideas of recent years dangerous, anti-science, anti-intellectual, somewhat racist? They seem to have won some elections based on that.

Why did that take root in the Conservative Party? because the Conservative Party became fixated on what I'd call crybaby conservatism, the victimology that they learned partly from the left, we're victims of the media, the Hollywood, academia, etc. And once you begin to be fixated on that, then you decide that elites are bad. And once you decide that all elites are bad, you decide that mediocrity might be a good thing.

The question in society is never whether elites show rule. It's which elites are going to rule. and the problem of democracy is to get consent to worthy elites. Well, I would agree with you that a lot of Republicans have gotten on board with victimology,

especially the president. I called him a whiny little bitch many times. And his people are, too. But you know, you've said, yes, the liberals were the people who sort of got on board with finding new people who were, I think, in your words, hurt,

aggrieved and left behind. But the people, you know, that the Democrats are usually championing, aren't they literally hurt, grieved, usually, and left behind? Women, minorities, homosexuals. Isn't there a rationale to that? There is a rationale to that. But a great many of the people who voted for Donald Trump, there are 402 counties in this country that voted for Obama in 12 and Trump in 16. The Democrats ought to be spending a lot of time there. They ought to go to Howard County, Iowa. Howard County, Iowa, voted by 21 points for Obama in 12, by 20 points for Trump in 16.

That's a 41 point swing. What was up? That's what Democrats have to figure out. Right. Well, I want to get to that, the toxic D. I talk about it all the time. You've mentioned it yourself. And I was reading some of the things you said.

You were on MSNBC the other night. You said you keep in your pocket a card. And I've mentioned the same thing. why in so many states is the D so toxic that people will vote for almost anybody but and I'm with you on some of these

you said I keep a card in my pocket all the things that these Democrats say that cause the American public to say these people are weird oh is there that's it? I'm going to need a bigger card right okay but like terrorists in prison

should be allowed to vote get it see that's where I'm like oh we're on the same page end private health insurance. Right, we don't want to end all private health insurance. Pack the Supreme Court. Again, bad idea. But then abolish the Electoral College? Well, intelligent people of goodwill

can disagree about the value of the Electoral College, but why are Democrats spending all this time on something they know will not happen? The reason they want to abolish the Electoral College is it gives undue weight in their judgment to the least popular states, 13 of whom are all that's required to stop a constitutional.

amendment. So it's not going to happen. Well, of all people you should know that the reason wanted to do something for something that doesn't look like it's going to happen is that 20, 30, 40 years in the future, it will. That's what the Republicans and the conservatives have been so much better at than the Democrats, having an idea,

putting it in their think tanks, breeding it over. I mean, Ronald Reagan was unthinkable in 1964, and then he was president in 1980. That's why. But what about the situation itself? That, not just the electoral college here, an eight-state by 2040 will have half the population.

Just eight states. That means there'll be 16 senators for one half of America and 84 for the other half. That can't be what the founders had in mind. I think it's exactly what the founders had in mind because what they... Well, I don't know what they were smoking, but that can't be right.

They were smoking Virginia tobacco, and what they wanted was a constitution that would preserve the federal nature of our system And the electoral college, under the electoral college, we have 51 direct elections of the president. They just happen to be in states in the District of Columbia. It seems like we're punishing people in cities. Seems like we're punishing where the population is in favor of land and, I don't know, crows. I mean, why did, I keep saying this, I'm obsessed with this, but why are there 40 million people who get two senators in California and the Dakota Territory?

gets four. Yeah. I mean, we need a South Dakota? It should say the redundant state on the license. Well, the founders believed, and some of us still believe, that being a federal republic is a good idea,

and that the states should make presidential decisions to reaffirm the importance of states as, in a good progressives vocabulary, Lewis Brandeis, as laboratories of democracy. We want it more vigorous, more localism in our politics. Okay, and your book talks about, and I'm trying to summarize because it's television, a brilliant 500 pages in a few words, but the mission creep of government. And I've read it, this has been a theme of yours for a long time,

and when I was reading your book, it reminded me of an article I read, I found it. You're saying the federal government, you say the most important word in the Declaration of Independence is secure because it says the government will secure the rights that the government's job isn't to create new ones. Governments are instituted to secure rights. But that's the Declaration of Independence. That's the writing on the box. The instruction manual is the Constitution.

Doesn't that create rights? Isn't that what the Bill of Rights is? No, the Bill of Rights is mostly a bunch of prescriptions. The government shall not do certain things, shall not establish... But those are rights. Of course they are. And the Ninth Amendment in the Bill of Rights says the enumeration of rights in this Bill of Rights

shall not be seen to disparage the unannumerated rights that remain. Okay. Well, let me read from the article that I remembered from Solonarago because I told you. I used to clip your stuff. You're talking about, it's interesting, Grover Cleveland. You said, if Democrats really want to discourage special interests, follow the example of Grover Cleveland, the last Democrat president who understood the federal government, as the founders did, just what your new book is about,

as a government of limited because enumerated powers. You say in 1887, President Cleveland vetoed the Texas Seed Bill. Do you remember this? Of course. Which appropriated $10,000 to purchase seed grain to drought-stricken farmers. Cleveland said, I could find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution. But what about the farmers? What about the people who are starving?

Because there's a drought. 10 grand? Would it kill you? I mean, it's great to be by the book. But isn't that why Robert Mueller has put us in the situation we're in? Because he can't always go by the book? I think when you start saying, well, the Constitution's all very well, but that's just a book we need not go by. Thereby is the state of anarchy and lawless.

It's a living, breathing document. Jefferson himself said it should be rewritten every 20 years, did he not? Yes, he did. And then Madison corrected him at length in a very good letter, because that way is nonsense. If a Constitution is to constitute, it cannot change with the winds of fashion. Okay. George Will, you certainly don't. I'm so glad you're on our show. Thank you very much again. George Will, everybody. Let's meet our panel.

Hey. Oh, everybody. Okay, here they are. He's the founder and ended at large for The Bullwark at an MSNBC contributor. Charlie Sykes is over here, Charlie. He is the former Democratic Attorney General and Governor of New York, Elliot Spitzer. and she's a staff writer and writer for the opinion section at the New York Times. Barry Weiss, our returning champion. All right, don't forget to send us your questions for tonight's overtime. You can answer them after the show on YouTube.

I didn't want to talk about Trump. I've said that many weeks, but I have to because this week he said he would take dirt from a foreign government. And I just want to read what the Federal Election Commission, the head of the Federal Election Commission, said, I love this. She said, I would not have thought I needed to say this. It'll be a great title for a book about Trump.

I didn't think I needed to say this. Don't put your kids in the White House. Let me make something 100% clear to anyone running for office. It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with the U.S. election. This is not a novel concept. She then talked about the founding fathers. They said they knew when foreign governments seek to influence our politics. it is always to advance their own interests

and not Americas. My question is, what if the Democrats said, forget everything that had happened before, let's just impeach him on this. Let's pretend he was perfect up until the other day with George Stephanopoulos because this is impeachable,

and that's what they would do if Obama did it. Look, can I jump in on... Look, first you don't impeach somebody for something he might do but hasn't done. Trump is a narcissistic demagogue, who is the worst president we've ever had. Let's take that as a baseline. But, but, but, I think, Bill, it is better for our democracy to beat him at the electoral box next year.

We can impeach him. The Senate won't convict him. Let's beat him with Democratic votes. We should do it. We can do it. Let's get a good candidate. I think constitutionally, Andrew Sullivan has a great article about this today in New York Magazine. constitutionally, yes, there are many reasons to impeach this president, but politically, I agree

with Elliot, no, let's focus on 2020, let's focus on restoring the country, not tearing it apart. Just, okay, Charlie? Where does it, like, where does it go, right? What happens the day after the question? Well, first of all, happy John McCain Day. Look, I mean, what the president said to George Stepanopoulos is one of the rarest things in his presidency. He gave an honest answer, which is, sure, if the Russians, spy and hack on my opponent, I want to see it. I'm willing to

collude. But in terms of impeachment, you know, you're right, that you don't impeach him for something he says, but there's so much other material here. This is the moment. I mean, look, what is it going to take for the Democrat? Look, I've spent the last few years watching Republicans lose their

mind. I'm amazed at how bad Democrats are in politics. Right. I mean, I spent the last 20 years watching Republicans lose their minds. It's not the last couple, okay? They're nuts. They're nuts. The Mueller report. But you guys, you guys are fectless and you're gutless.

No, no, not everybody. Not all of us. Some of us weren't, and we got the shit beaten out of us because of it. But I'm with you. The Mueller report, the Mueller report lays out in the clearest possible roadmap to Congress to say, if you're not potted plants, if you're serious about your constitutional responsibility, you need to have these impeachment. Now, whatever the politics are, this is what Congress is.

for this is what, if the Congress does not institute impeachment proceedings, then what they are basically saying is the President of the United States is literally above the law. So, I want to make a different point. I was a prosecutor

for a lot of years. I wouldn't want to bring a case I wasn't going to win. And the House can vote impeachment. There's many ways to win. Yes, you're right. We're going to lose the election in 20 if we impeachers. How do you know that? You don't know that. Yes, I do. You know how we beat him? No one knows anything. You're right.

But we beat him on substance. We beat him because he's wrong on facts, the environment, choice, guns, trade. Beat him on substance. That's good for democracy. We can't normalize it. You cannot say this is acceptable behavior. When the president said what he said to George Stephanopoulos... Well, exactly.

But you've got to struggle against that. I mean, that's the thing that we go through every single week that we don't normalize. We don't know what the right politics is because they go by the polls. And, again, Republicans lead polls. Democrats follow polls. If they would do that, maybe they would change the bill. If it looks weak, and the Democrats' big problem is they always look weak. I agree with you. I agree that 99% of stuff, not in this one.

Let me ask you a question. When Bill Clinton was impeached at the end of the day, he won. Different case. Al Gore was not elected president of the United States. And I think the same, well, except that it was not a disaster. It was not a disaster. Look, right now, the Trump White House is succeeding in winning the messaging war. turning this around. They are on the offense.

And you have a president who has been credibly, in documentation, you know, his obstructed justice, and what the Democrats are saying, what we have other things for you. I don't agree with this. I don't agree that you can't do it because of what somebody says.

This is what, he's the president. His words matter. Well, yeah, his words matter. And he said, remember, I was just so amazed by the reaction to the Iran boat situation, a tanker, right? Because you have all of these people who are saying, who are disbelieving sent com and disbelieving the intelligence community. And we have to wonder why is that?

Well, we have a president who every day is waging a war on the truth and on trust. He literally said in 2018, what you are reading and what you are watching is not happening. And so then how do people expect us then to just believe the intelligence communities and him and his word and Pompeo when he's waged a war on it for the past three years? That scared the hell out of me. Or that he's protecting us. It's the fundamental job of the president to going forward. Listen, but you're right about all that. So let him vote an article of impeachment.

Pass a budget, pass a gun control bill, pass a good environmental bill, pass an infrastructure bill, pass a tax reform bill. The House should do stuff that affects the voters in Wisconsin, Michigan. That won't be passed by the Senate either. Then we have a policy to run on it. Then we'd win. Look, I got 70% in New York doing that, okay? This is what wins political elections.

That's neat. No, no. But it said when a Republican, like Justin Amash, is making a more principled case for impeachment than leadership of the Democratic Party. Yeah. He was also the only one to vote for Bill Barr. Now, he's been Attorney General four months,

brought up for contempt twice. Boy. When Republicans come back into public life, they don't fuck around. Twice. And Justin Amash was right. Right there, the lone one. The Maytag repairman of Republicans.

Lonely being that conscious. Right. He's getting called a cuck by all the people who were the originalists and the constitutional conservatives. A cock? A cuck. A cuck. Yeah. It's their favorite insult. What is that again?

A cuckled. Oh, right. It's their favorite thing. I'm sorry. Phil, come on. I'm not married. I'm sorry. You live up again.

You know this stuff. Right. Okay. So. Okay. So Joe Biden says, Trump, with Trump gone, you're going to see things change. He's basically

saying Trump is an aberration. I don't know. I don't know if he's an aberration or a symptom. He's a plague. Of course he is. But the question is, you know, Mitch McConnell, he fucked Obama out of the Supreme Court pick before Trump was there. I think

the rot goes a lot deeper than that. But it's so much bigger. It's a failure of the imagination, I think, to see Trump as just domestic aberration. He is a symptom of a much, much bigger trend, a wave,

which is an anti-democratic wave that's sort of sweeping the West. It's not just Trump. It's Orban, it's Bolton-era, it's all these people, and it's populations that are turning against things that we thought were assumed. Things like liberalism and democracies, they're turning toward populism, ethnic nationalism, and the rest.

I think the real challenge is to find leaders and politicians, and right now I'm wondering who those are in the Democratic side that can make it the case for a healthy patriotism and a common culture. But the question becomes why are people doing that? Why are people turning away from Because we're living through a revolution that's bigger than

the Gutenberg revolution. Really? We're talking about technology. Everything. We're living through a moment in which everything is broken. We don't have common information. We don't know what the future of work is going to look like in 20 years. If I watch MS. And you watch Fox, we live in different epistemological realities. That's harsh. I know

that's what you watch every night. Anyway, but so I see strong men like Trump is stepping into that vacuum and offering very crude and cruel solutions. And the problem is that too many progressives are scared to touch the issues that he touches. They're scared to touch immigration. Right.

You're scared to touch borders. They're scared to touch patriotism. They're scared to touch anything that will give them the width of xenophobia and bigotry and all of the rest of the things that they're terrified of being accused of. And they need to come up. They need to come up.

with sensible answers to those things. And when we see people that are doing that, I think those are the people that can ultimately win the day. But if progressives avoid it, people like Trump are going to continue to win. That's right. Well, I mean, you, it's the question, is a symptom or an aberration?

The answer is he's both of it. Obviously, this division was a pre-existing condition. But Donald Trump's been an accelerant. I mean, he has made politics dumber, meaner, crueler, and more disconnected with reality. And even when he leaves, I mean, and a lot of Trumpism

as just a personality cult, that the damage is going to be made here. We do live in these alternative realities that Barry's describing here, and the dynamic of our politics is not what we are for, it's who we are against and who we hate. And as long as that's the case, then we're not going to get over this. You're both right, but I want to add one point and then say something affirmative. You focused on technology, information, it's economics. Incomes were going down for the middle class

and those below the middle class for 25 years. That breeds anger. Anger is then venom towards those who are different from us, whether it's immigrants or everybody else. And that's why Trump focuses on Mexicans and the Chinese and he gets popular. But let me add this. We have been through this before. We had a civil war. We had McCarthyism. We had Reagan who, we had George W. Bush. Somehow we have survived intensely unpopular presidents. And we forget when Reagan was first elected, we saw him in the same prism as we see Trump and George W. Bush. We will come back from this because we are creative. economy will do better, and we will resound with a democratic candidate who can speak to the unity

of this country. Are you running for office? No, no, I'm running for the hills. I'm running for the hills, but I'm an optimist. I'm an optimist because we've seen wars. We had a civil war for God's sake. I know. And I'd like to not have one of us. And we're going to get through it. But I mean, I can honestly see why conservatives or even independent see you lumping the civil war in with. We had the Civil War. We had the Civil War. We had Reagan. We had George, Bush. You know, I don't really think they're the same. And I think that's not. They are.

They are. They are. They're the same. They're the same. There's a continuum of, wow, of focusing on people and saying that we want to focus on those who are different us. Reagan and slavery.

You were too young. No, no. Okay. The sky is falling. And then the real one comes along and nobody does it. Because you're trying wolf because you can't make a distinction. You guys, I got to go. Freaking out about it.

Then the real thing, the real thing comes along. And it's like, what language do we use when the... Because it's like a car alarm. After a while, you don't hear it, but you hate it. No, no, but you guys are seeing an apocalypse where I'm seeing somebody who is so bad, the decency of the American public. His ratings are in the...

We're going to defeat him, and we have a Democratic candidate who will bring us back. Who's going to beat him? To put George Bush in office right now. Or Mitt Romney. Or Mitt Romney. That's the point. But that's the point. That's the point. You just said that. Interesting story in the news this week.

in Cape Coral, Florida, a mom punished her 17-year-old daughter by forcing her to stand in the middle of an intersection with the old... Remember confession signs? This is kind of bringing them back, and she made her kid have a sign that said, I lied out, humiliated my mother and myself.

I don't even know what the kid did, but I'm for this. No, I think it's... I don't know if you should do it for your kid, but it's now catching on again. So we put a camera out. It's big here in L.A. now, the corner of Wilstra and Lastigandigand.

And look, like you heard, the hot dog guy was out there with his confession sign. Having changed, the hot dog water since 2004. It was a homeless guy. I have a four-bedroom home in Encino. And then celebrity started showing up.

Look, Sean Hannity, when Trump farts, I say that was me. Pete Buttigieg was out there. I'm not really gay. I just needed a better hook than mayor in Indiana. Lindsay Graham was out there. I'm straight. Oh, my God. That's... What a confession.

Tiger Woods One-one, Torni, went right back to screwing the waitress at the Golden Corral. Melania, my secret plan is that in the end, I will sit on the Iron Throne. R. Kelly, I've spent more time in Toys R Us than that giraffe. Sympathy for R. Kelly, I love it. And Vladimir Putin, I'm starting to wish I'd helped Hillary win. Okay. He is a comedy icon who will be performing with Steve Martin at the Budweiser Revenge of

Center in Loveland, Colorado, July 12th, the Pikes Peak Center in Colorado Springs, July 13th, and the Greek Theater here in L.A., July 16th. He is beloved and hysterical. Martin Short, ladies and gentlemen. What have I done? What have I done to deserve this kind of evasion other than provide decades of quality entertainment? Thank you. You're always so reluctant to bask in the floodline. I know. What's with me? You love show business. That's why I do love show business. And you're not afraid to say it. And all your characters, when you think, Jackie Rogers, Jr.

Oh, yeah. Johnny Glick, they're show business people. Absolutely. It's in your blood. Is it not in your blood? You always wanted to be in show business. Who show is it? I'm kidding.

Someone's got to ask something. We're fighting already. No, we are... I love them. You know, we are close friends, you know. We have so much in common. I told you that the last time after I read your memoir. Yeah.

Like the father who didn't eat dinner with us? Yes. Right? The squabbling Irish family. Absolutely. For comedy. You know, the problem with a large penis. All these things. You know what else?

I found, reading your new thing, we are both people who don't have a bucket list. I thought I was... I don't. Yeah, I don't either. Nothing that I want to do that I haven't done. And if I haven't done it at the age of 69, because I don't want to do it. No.

Right. Yeah. I've never been to India. Right. Oliver Shulam, you know. Right. I've never been to any country like, any country that's, you know. That's never.

You can't get room service five stars. You really are of the people, aren't you? No, no. I always say, nowhere where they could take a chicken on a bus. That's my... What a motto. But you're 69. Now, as a comedian, when you hit that age,

did you say to yourself, I've got to do something with that? For the whole year, I'm 69. I can't let... Oh, come on. Please. 69. The kids love me.

No, it is daunting to suddenly be 69. I mean, you realize for the first time, wow. You look fantastic. You have boyish hair. It's getting up there. Look at that hair. It's all crazy. Well, it's a wig, but I know what you mean.

It's in the netting. The netting. It's a wig. No, it's 69. You know, like, for example, I no longer put an angel on top of my Christmas tree because it feels like foreshadowing. So...

I get it. There are things that just scared you, you know? I always say if I wrote a memoir, it would be called, who was in my body? Just because when I look back at things that I do or somebody reminds me of something I did, I'm like, who was in my body? I know that was me, but I don't know who that was.

Well, maybe you're very ill. No, no, no. You don't have things you think... When you did when you were 25, and you go, who was in my body? You know, I wish I was more interesting than that. I mean it. I mean, I wish I could look at pictures of me at 25 and say,

I don't know who that is. I mean, I'm basically the same, I'm doing the same thing. Wow. Certainly the same jokes. Since I was... Really, my whole life, it's just been... And I think that's what's kept me actually young and involved in my life in a great energized way,

Because I don't see limitations. Oh, now that you're in your 60s, you can't do that. No. Well, I mean, you can't play, you know, 25 in a sketch. Oh, I can. If you, no, hear me out. Because when you're timeless, no, if they like me. That's right. But you, I know you said that when you feel like up to the edge of 15, you're a sponge.

You take in everything. And the rest of your life, you're just regurgitating and recycling all of that. Yeah. It's like me saying, oh, guys, I love rap. I don't. Yeah. You don't think. But I love Frank Sinatra because I like Frank Sinatra.

When I was 12 and 13, too. I've been to town. Oh, we know this album. Yeah. When we have a cock, can we go through an entire Sinatra album from the same? That no one else knows. No one else knows. Right.

A man alone. I live alone. Yeah. But I think that you are the most open to it all and you're the most influenced. And then, by the time you're 18, you're ready to do it and see what you've learned. You're on the road with Steve Martin. How many weeks a year? Or how many nights do you do?

You've got these dates coming up. I've seen the show. It's fantastic. Yeah, it's, I always say, our show is like married sex. We do old material three times a month. We do about 45, 50 shows a year. And like most comedy teams,

it's what you really are with them. It's great on stage, but offstage you hate each other, right? No, I actually love Steve. I know, I know. think that what's great about it is that we share many similarities in a work approach,

if it's an audience that we still give a hundred so we don't feel guilty. All those things, but some people don't. And I think that we have a shared sensibility. It's very rare that a joke made him laugh and I wouldn't feel funny, or vice versa. So I always think that you could be the ambassador

from Canada, and maybe, you know, someday you will be. So I just wanted to say... Toronto, last night? How about that? Won the NBA final. I know, pretty good.

They had the basketball chance. And I just, I gotta go to bat for Toronto a little bit. I spent a lot of time in Toronto and Canada in general. They got a little bad rap because when Kevin Durant was injured, some of them applauded. It was a moment. They got caught up in the game. Anybody who thinks that's Toronto does not know Toronto. No, Canada's, they're...

When they won the last night, I think, like, two fans burned a lady's scarf or something. It's just, there's nothing... Right. There's nothing going to happen. One of the thing I love about your show with Steve, you do not mention Trump. Our second guest tonight, who does not mention Trump. And I think that's great because I agree.

You don't always have to go there with people. Well, I do think that we have, you know, 50-50 in the audience. And if we, if there's an attitude from us that says, and they're not expecting it, it's not like we're political comedians, and they're not expecting it. And suddenly we're putting down Trump. It's like if I'm a Republican in the audience, who supports them, I feel, oh, gee, I

I feel a little left out right now. And I think they need a respite from this constant insanity. But I also think I said this last Thanksgiving, when you go home for Thanksgiving, just don't talk about politics. We used to be able to do that. We used to be able to sit with people who we knew was a different

political stripe, and just, we're watching a baseball game. We don't have to always go there. But I have lots of friends who, um, I don't, I don't think I know anyone who supports Trump, but I, I, Well, I do. And that's okay. And that's okay.

But, I mean, I know many, many Republican friends who might, in the past, we would different. But you don't discuss it. You don't. It's okay. You know, Canadians all discuss politics all the time, and it isn't a fisticuffs. It's just a conversation. But it's more Catfields and McCoys here. You know, you and I bond on this. There is too much purity testing, I think, in the Democratic Party. I think now they're going to get in trouble with PACs because they're talking. about not taking money from technology companies. You know, oil companies, you can't have their money,

can't have Wall Street money. Meanwhile, the Republicans take everybody's money. You know, Steve Wynn was found out of you. He got Me Too, oh, we're keeping the money. Harvey Weinstein, they give the money back. Why? His money didn't rape anybody. You know, and...

Why? But, I mean, I think the DNC took in 19 million so far this year, the RNC, 61. Trump has raised 30 million in the first quarter way more than any of the Democrats, okay? This is another way they're going to shoot themselves in the foot. You take people's money and then you fuck them when you get in office. That's how politics works.

I'm with you. Having been there, having gotten money from people then, for whatever reason you say, do you give it back? You're right. The Democratic Party said, we got to win, raise the money, raise it legally, disclose it 100% where it comes from, make an argument to defeat this president. That's how we win.

Don't worry about where the money comes from. Just win the goddamn race. And social justice warriors, I know you've written about this recently, are finally finding that maybe there's a price to pay. You're talking about the bakery story? Well, there's the bakery story. There's the subway story.

Well, what's the bakery one? That's easier, right? The one at Oberlin? Yeah, so the facts of the Oberlin one is there's this bakery that's across the street from Oberlin College. The campus community had used it for years. In 2016, a black, I believe he was a black student,

comes into the bakery, and there were two other students with him. They get into some kind of altercation with the employee at the bakery who thought that they were stealing something. A year later, it turns out, they were stealing something, and they pled guilty. Now, the problem is that in the year that ensued, Oberlin students backed up, this is crucial, by administration officials and some professors,

alleged that the bakery was guilty of racial profiling, of assault, and of systemic discrimination. The college stopped using the bakery, which I think that they had been using for years. And basically, the bakery won, I think, something like $33 million in P&D. But they won big money from the college. How did bakeries get to be so? I don't know. Would they have ever made $33 million in those three years? No.

That's $85 million. That's a good cookie. It was I belies. Wedding cakes? Why is it? The point is that for too long, a lot of people have said, what goes on on campuses is excessive and crazy,

but who gives a shit? Well, this bakery cared, because it ruined them. It ruined there. To give you another very quick example, there's a Jordanian American writer, herself, I think, a self-identified social justice warrior,

whatever you want to call it. She was very much a person of the left. She goes on the metro in D.C. takes a picture of a metro worker eating a sandwich, which is, I guess, not allowed under D.C. subway rules. Posts a picture of it. Then she gets piled on because the woman, the metro worker, was black, and everyone's saying, how could you shame this person?

And they're right. Why would she have posted that picture? It was ridiculous. But they go on, basically, incessantly, even after the woman who posted the picture apologizes. Her book contract gets canceled. She went into the hospital for severe anxiety and panic. and even, I think, went back to Jordan

because she feared for her life. Now she's suing the book publisher for $11 million, so we'll see how that one turns out. So what are they saying about you right now on Twitter? Me? Just for saying this. Oh, I have no idea. But the idea, here's the point.

The idea that Twitter is not real life and that Twitter is like some fake reality, first of all, it's belied by the fact of this president, but also anyone who is on it and sees the kind of reputational damage it can cause, certainly in my own life, knows that it is real statements and real speech. I don't understand.

I don't understand. I'm not on Twitter. You have the privilege as a 69-year-old with a very good wig to not have a big wig. Now that's the point. To not be engaged. But for a lot of younger people, this is the way that you promote your work.

It's the way that you... But it is also this culture of the bullying and the calling me out, which... Yes. I agree. I think there are many wonderful things about Twitter, but everyone I know who's been on Twitter at one point goes off Twitter in a huff. Yeah.

Because it's a place you can be witty. Or if you say anything that's remotely, then it's... Which is dangerous. I would never do it, but here is the good news and the bad news. Twitter gives you access to the entire world. The bad news is there's no editor, right? It used to be there were five mainstream journalists and papers. You could trust them to pass judgment, and it would be sound judgment.

Now with Twitter, everybody can be a... editor and everybody can be a critic. And so you suffer the consequences. You get the upside of publicity, the downside of the idiocy of the masses. And so you've got to weigh that balance. I would never do it. You're smart enough not to do it. But many people... I think if you're able to look at it objectively and say,

they're idiots, I don't care about that, but that's interesting. You can do that. That's why God invented the mute button. And you can unfollow people. But this whole issue of what's going on at places like Oberlin or the attempt to ban Chick-fil-A from the San Antonio Airport and all of this. And I'm tired of the term political correctness. This is the term.

It's like performative wokeness where what we have to do is in our monoculture, we have to find a way to humiliate, to drive people out that we disagree with. And I will tell you that there is a huge backlash. You know, all the issues that we're talking about, we talk about this political divide. You know, the folks on the right were bailing on liberalism, you know, make this the Flight 93 election. They're basically saying the left wants to destroy you. They hate you.

They want to take away your rights. They want to destroy your business. Unfortunately, you have anecdotes like this that make that plausible. And the Oberlin case might be a tipping point because it shows there is a price for this bullying. How do we get mainstream liberals to stand up to that faction? Well, Pete Buttigieg did actually say that maybe he would be the bridge between the gay community and Chick-fil-A. This was a positive moment. It was maybe not a sister-soldier moment,

but it was a positive, it was so rare. Rob Barr is so low, that would bridge between Pete and Chick-fil-A. Yeah, that's right. But it's true. No, it's true. We're not going to get there soon, and the reason I say that is when Harvard fired the dean of the college for representing a horned defendant, but even Harvard College said,

we do not respect the process. They said, we don't respect the obligation of lawyers to take unsavory clients. They were caving to the same sort of pressure from students. And so I said, that is a spinelessness that should be shamed of what they did. But it's going on everywhere. It's David Remnick.

Which is the problem. That's the problem. All right. It is. No time left. New rules, everybody. New rules. Okay. Get ready to laugh.

No, no. The rule, not every movie set in the future has to be either a super clean utopia or a smoldering post-apocalypse. Isn't there something in between? It's always either the Earth is a giant apple store. or Burning Man got way out of control. New Orleans, if you have to install a soundproof booth in your hipster workplace

so employees can have a little privacy, maybe it's time to consider the hot new concept for the office called rooms. Seen here in an artist's conception. Yes, every employee gets their own room with a door that closes, so they don't have to listen to Cheryl talk about her boyfriend all day. True, there's less interaction with other people, but on the bright side,

wait, that is the bright side. Now that Georgia has all but outlawed abortion, they'd better prepare themselves for more of what happened this week. A newborn was saved after someone abandoned the child in the woods in a plastic grocery bag.

Now, we here in California would never stand for such a thing. A plastic bag? New Rule, the makers of make your own dildo. Real thing. The do-it-yourself molding kit that allows you to create a rubber copy of any penis. Have to tell us why the guy on their box looks like he's proposing with it. And what exactly is she supposed to say?

Your dick? Without you attached to the end of it? Yes. Yes. A hundred times, yes. New Rule, Augustine Alanis, the 30-year-old Florida man who has seen the movie Avengers Endgame

114 times, must not tell me how it ends, or begins, or what happens in the middle because I don't give a shit. But I do have a spoiler alert for you, Augustine Alanis. You die alone. Little meaning.

Okay. And finally, new rule, let's use Father's Day to ask Republicans how the Daddy Party went from these guys to this guy. Yes. Sunday is Father's Day, and it reminded me that political wonks and pundits have always

referred to Republicans as the Daddy Party. Democrats, they were the Mommy Party, the nurturers, the caretakers, the compassionate ones. Democrats worried about your health care and education, and Republicans were all about security and fiscal responsibility. And they used to take their role very seriously, the no-nonsense,

keep you safe, pay the bills party. But Republicans really aren't the daddy party anymore. They're more like the absentee father party. Going through the midlife crisis, making bad decisions with all this pretend confidence. It's like the entire party's wearing a toupee. Under Trump, they've become the deadbeat dad. party. The dad who spends money we don't have. And who blows the family budget on stupid shit,

like a wall we don't need. This dad hangs out with the wrong crowd. Alienates the neighbors. Canada and Mexico? We used to get along great with them, and now they bring the kids inside when they see us coming. And what kind of dad doesn't keep up with routine repairs? You know you're a president who has let the place go when your wife has had more work done than the roads and the bridges. And this is not a personal attack on Trump as an actual father. He clearly has a supportive, loving

relationship with one-fifth of his children. But someone has to explain to me why at Trump rallies it is a common refrain to hear that Trump is the strict dad American needs. They really do

see him as a father figure. You know, a strong but quiet, strict but fair man who gets up in the morning puts on two pounds of concealer, inflates his hair and spends the day tweeting like a mean girl. Atticus Finch meet Faticus Bitch. Back when Milo was a thing, he used to literally call Trump President Daddy. But he's hardly the only one who sees Trump that way. Jerry Falwell Jr., said of Trump, He reminds me so much of my father.

Yes, because they're both con men. Kanye West thinks Trump is the father he never had. You know, my dad and my mom separated, so I didn't have a lot of male energy in my home. It was something about when I put this hat on and made me feel like Superman. Well, of course he loves Trump. He's a sucker for a giant ass.

As for those of us just trying to survive, in this American family, we have to come to terms with the reality that the daddy party is the asshole dad party now. And the patriarch of it all is a hot mess. And you know what happens when daddy's a useless piece of crap, right?

Mom has to take over. And that's why Democrats, they're no longer the mommy party. They're the single mother party. They're the party that has to work two jobs because daddy went out for cigarettes and never came back. The single mother party now

was the only one that cares about the kids' future. The Republicans, they're the party of the Koch brothers. Pollute all you want now because tomorrow, not our problem. We'll be gone. When Trump was in England last week, he was amazed at Prince Charles's concern for the planet and its longevity. He is really into climate change.

And what he really feels warmly about is the future. What a weirdo, huh? Caring about the future? Boy, Bill Barr was recently asked about his legacy. Does not care. He said, I'm at the end of my career, everyone dies. Rudy Giuliani said the same thing. I don't care about my legacy, I'll be dead.

Which is shocking. I thought he was dead. So, happy Father's Day. But keep in mind, if Republicans made a commercial for life insurance, it would go like this. You love your family. What if you weren't there to take care of them? Oh, well, shit happens.

All right, that's our show. I'll be at the smart financial center in Triggerland, Texas, September 21st, with the Civic Center Music on Oklahoma City in September 22nd. I want to thank Charlie Sykes, Elliot Fitz of Barry Weiss, Martin Short, and George Will. Stay tuned for overtime on YouTube. Thank you. all new episodes of real time with Bill Marr every Friday night at 10 or watch them anytime on HBO on demand.

For more information, log on to HBO.com.