Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #570: Quentin Tarantino, Max Brooks, Dan Carlin

Episode Date: June 26, 2021

Bill’s guests are Quentin Tarantino, Max Brooks, and Dan Carlin. (Originally aired 6/25/21) 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. Thank you very much. Hey. Thank you. What a night, our last show before our July break. Thank you. I appreciate that. No, I know.

It's summer. This week's summer started. It's not the, it's not. popular here in the fire state, you know. But I'm excited because, you know, you can tell it some, and the blockbusters are out. Fast and Furious is out. Fast and Furious Nine. Well, if you haven't seen it yet,

trust me, you have. But, you know what else is hot? The housing market. Don't try to buy a house. Now, off the... It's so hot. Listen to this. People are putting their homes up at... ridiculous prices. They don't even want to sell. They're just doing to see what they can get. I'm serious. They're doing... I saw a sign on a homeless tent that said, shown by appointment only. It's out of control.

Okay, so... Here's the bad side of summer. It is, for some reason, bringing Donald Trump out of the woodwork. Really? He's been pretty quiet for the last six months. Hasn't shown his face a lot. That is ending next week. First he's going to go to the border in Texas. He's going to do a town hall. He wants to discuss a nation's decimated southern border. If only he had four years to do something about it. But that's not all.

He's also going to do rallies again, MAGA rallies. And he's writing a book. He said he's writing like crazy. Exactly. And he said it's going to be. the book of all books. Then maybe he's got this bug in him because he's also going to be touring with Bill O'Reilly.

And Bill O'Reilly's one of the best-selling authors of all time because he wrote all those killing books. You know those books? Killing Kennedy, killing Lincoln, killing Pat and killing Jesus. And Trump's going to top him. He's got killing Mike Pence. Oh, you just see that? There was a report this week. I knew this.

I called it. Apparently, Trump was a lot sicker than we thought. And he got COVID, and that was bad, too. No, he was... No, I kind of knew that at the time. A lot of people said it, I think. You know, he was playing it, and they...

But, no, he was a lot sicker than we thought. His blood oxygen levels were very low at one point. He was on the verge of being put on a ventilator. Doctors at one point were in such a panic because all the orange had drained from his face. Scary stuff. Oh, I know. His Trump's consigliary, Rudy Giuliani, had a bad week.

New York. New York State, listen to this, suspended Rudy's law license. Is that personal for you, sir? Seems very personal to this man of it. No, Rudy cannot practice law in New York. And to add insult to injury from now on, all of his personal and financial decisions have to be made by Britney Spears' dad. So that's bad.

But, uh, Britney, now I don't usually comment on these pop culture stories, but Britney Spears was, you know, a lot of people looking at it was in court this week, speaking for the first time she's 39 years old. She wants to be free of her father who controls every aspect of her life. You know, I mean, going back to 2008, yes,

she did go, we all remember that with the shaved head and the umbrella. she did go a little nuts, but who hasn't shaved their head and tacked people with an umbrella at one point? It was a long time ago. And now, 39 years old, and the father, everything. She can't spend money to decide when to go out,

decide who to see. I mean, fuck, we let someone completely unstable run the country for four years. I think she could get a credit card. And, yes, freedom. This week's all about freedom. free Brittany. And there was a cheer...

I love this story. At the Supreme Court, no less. A high school cheerleader named Brandy Levy wrote on Snapchat a couple of years ago fuck school, fuck softball, fuck cheer, fuck everything. And for some reason, as this is a free speech case,

it reached the Supreme Court. They had to decide. And the Supreme Court did the right thing in a case of Brandy versus whatever, I guess, was the name of this trial. they said, yes, Brandy can get out there and say, fuck cheer, fuck softball, fuck school, fuck everybody. So Brandy was thankful.

She thanked the court and then told the bitches at the Girl Scouts they can shove the cookies up their ass. Freedom! Oh, and here is some more freedom. The state of Connecticut became the 19th state now to legalize recreational marijuana this week. I'll tell you, if this is, If this stuff gets any more popular, I'm going to have to try it.

I hear good things. And another freedom. We have the first out-gay NFL player. This is apropos. Yeah, I mean, apropos of what I was saying a couple of weeks ago about, you know, we're not there anywhere. We still have work to do in things. But a lot of progress has been made. We've come a long way, baby.

And, you know, he came out. And even five years ago, this wouldn't have happened. And all the other players congratulated him. They said they were proud of him. The teams did. The coaches did. The NFL did. And this player, Carl Nassib, he said he was living a lie.

It was just too difficult. And it was hard enough having every week to appear with 10 other guys in the same outfit. He's... I think the team did know that he was gay. Because one time he went into that tent for the, you know, the concussion protocol. that they do? And the trainer asked him, what day is it? How many fingers am I holding up? And what year was the Wizard of Oz

made? That's... I think they knew. So, uh, that's the... That's the plus side of the freedom ledger. On the bad side... Yeah, too bad. Senate Republicans have done it. They block the voting rights bill that the Democrats were putting

forward. Mitch McConnell said it was a thinly veiled ploy for free and fair elections. Democracy dies in darkness, they say. No, it dies in the Senate. All right, we got a great show. Max Brooks and Dan Carlin are here. But first up, I would say, after 30 years in the game,

the jury is in. He is one of the great American filmmakers of all time. His new novel is once upon a time in Hollywood based on his Oscar-winning film of the same name. Please welcome Quentin Tarantino. Hey, how you doing? The Bob Koskis. All right.

How you doing? All good, mate. It's been too long. So, anyway, this really brought me back to my youth. That was the idea. Yeah, well, the whole movie did, and we'll get to that. But it just, look, I remember when these kind of came out, a boovy. Yeah, yeah.

A book after the movie. Well, imagine me going to a publisher and saying, look, I know the money is in hardbacks, but can we come out with a paperback first? Yeah. Well, it's just, first of all, I just got to say, say this movie, before we get to the book, I cannot, there are no words to tell you how much this movie delighted me, tickled me. And I...

I hadn't heard that on the show yet, so I didn't know how you felt. That's really great to hear. I'm not a movie. No, I know, I know, I know, I know. I know, I know. But I got the impression, well, even though you, there was one time you kicked Django to the curb, but then you refer to it all the time the next week, the next week. I love Django. I see parallels with this one in Django. It's kind of a buddy movie. Right on? The Dalton is a bounty hunter character.

Django, they are bounty hunters. Yeah, uh-huh. You know, and Django has to be an actor. Yeah? I mean, there's a... I love, I love, I love all your... There is not one frame of your movies that I have not seen multiple times.

But I have to say, I'm getting to a point here. Thank you, thank you, man. I appreciate it. No, it's true. To me, this is your, your latest one is your peak. This is my favorite of all time. So, what is this nonsense about you're only going to make one more movie?

Well... Come on. Yeah. Bad idea. You know, well, okay. Look, it's... You're too young to quit, and you're at the top of your game. That's why I want to quit!

How do you know it's the top? Because I know film history, and from here on end, directors do not get better. That's a terrible idea. First of all, you're judging your... by other people. How do you fucking know? You're 58? Yeah, yeah, uh-huh.

58's the new 57. No, no, no. Okay, I mean, plenty of people have done... Well, one, I haven't retired yet. I still have another one to go. What, why just won? Okay, but the thing about... Look, look, one, 30...

I don't have a... Look, I don't... I don't have a reason that I would want to say out loud that's going to win any argument in a court of public opinion or a Supreme Court or anything like that. But it is just, you know, at the same time, working for 30 years doing as many movies as I've done, which, like, not as many as other people, but that's a long career. That's a really long career.

But why did it have? And I've given it everything I have. Every single solid thing I have. You'll be bored. You're going to want to do it. No, really. But I do. But I, look, okay.

But it's a way. This is, okay, this is just a random example. This is a random example. But then, you know, you look at a director like Don Siegel, who actually had one of his best decades in the 70s. Yeah, exactly, with his collaboration with Eastwood. Oh, my God. If he had quit his career in 1979 when he did Escape from Alcatraz,

what a final film. What a mic drop. But I think he goes like dribbles away with two more other ones. That's Don Siegel, who they don't even know who he is. Yeah. But you know who he is. I do. But there's other, Clint Eastwood, you mentioned.

Clint East would... You always bring up like two or three guys. Well, I mean, Brand Torino when he was 110, and it's one of my favorites. He's still making movies. Okay. I'll just... Let me just say one more thing about it.

Okay. To me, we started around the same time. Yeah, absolutely started around the same time. And, of course, I'm at the top of my game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I wouldn't quit... Now, the country's helped you. You have given you shit to talk about.

Okay. All right, anyway. But you accumulate skills. as you go forward, you get better. That's why I'm telling you, I think your last one was the best one. Would you have made, if you were making Reservoir Dogs tomorrow,

would you make the exact same movie? No, of course. You think you could make it even better? That's kind of a captured time in a moment kind of thing, but I actually have considered about doing a remake of Reservoir Dogs as my last movie. I won't do it, Internet. All right, but I considered it.

See? All right, but, you know, I know. understand, your life has changed a lot. Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, a real lot. I mean, I still think if he was the guy who was sitting in swingers. Yeah, right. Right, in your screenplays

in a booth by yourself. Well, I kind of still thinking myself that way and had the root awakening when it's not that way. But you're married, you're a kid, and you live in Israel. Yeah, yeah. I mean, what's... The one. Are you...

Did you become a Jew? No, of course not. Well, don't say it like that. No, no, I'm not going to be that guy that marries an end up. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, like, does the conversion. Okay.

It was not a unreasonable question when someone moved to Israel. No, my wife didn't become a Christian either, all right? But I'm not a Christian. I'm an atheist. Right, great, me too. And so... I'm going to convert to another God I don't believe in. So what's it like over there?

Do you miss L.A.? Yeah, of course I miss L. LA. I mean, oddly enough, actually, Tel Aviv is very, very similar to Los Angeles. The weather is almost exactly the same. Yeah, I mean, it's... And it's a very liberal. You're sweating balls here, you're sweating balls there.

All right, you know. But the thing is... But it's like L.A. if L.A. was really, really tiny. If Los Angeles County, you could ride around on a bike, about four hours, it would be like what Tel Aviv is like. But they have, like,

magnificent restaurants and cool bars and cool clubs. Yes. All the I mean, a lot of the stuff that Los Angeles, I mean, I'm not even talking about New York, Los Angeles in particular. All right. They have there's a very similar vibe. Except tiny. Were you

there during the recent unpleasantries with the rocket? Really? Yeah. No, I was there through the whole time. You had to go into bomb shelters and stuff? Yeah, no, it was like a, you get a you know, I remember you know, it happened for about a week or so. but the first one was like, okay, here, there's a citywide siren.

We're going on. And that's letting you know, the Hamas missiles are on their way. And then you go, and I take my 15-month-year-old son and my wife, and we go down into a bomb shelter. We were lucky enough to have something like that. We go down to a bomb shelter and close the door, and then you hear this, boom, boom, boom, boom. and that's the missiles being blown out of the sky.

By the Iron Dome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So would you make a movie about that? Well, I mean, Israel would be, I mean, a lot of your movies are on the idea of revenge. Yeah, yeah. One reason we love them so much. I mean, you have a great way of pulling the arrow back.

Right, yeah. When you fire it, it is just so satisfying. I mean, this is, yeah. This is the revenge capital of the world. Yeah, yeah, right. I mean. I mean. It looks like it could be a great area, and you could make one over there.

You could make movies there, too, you know. Yeah, no, I'm very aware. I don't know if I would make... I wouldn't make a movie about the political climate there. I'm just not... No, but about... I'm not connected enough to it. However, having said all that, though, I mean,

if you actually shoot a movie in Jerusalem, there's no place you can put the camera that you're not capturing something fantastic. I mean, you have a, literally, a rooftop restaurant scene, and you just see this, like, you know, sea of domes and see of this magnificent architecture just going on for miles and miles and miles. So one thing before we run out of time,

I have to say to you, besides the great entertainment, I have always really appreciated the way you pushed back when anyone tried to stifle you, shut you up, shame you, bully you, corral your artistic license. They tried it with the last one

with Once Upon a Time in the Hollywood some bullshit about Margot Robbie does have enough lines. And you do what I wish other people would do. Instead of apologizing, like a little pussy, you say, I don't agree with your assessment. Yeah, yeah. What's so hard about that? Can you teach that to others?

Because it's your movie. I agree. Look, it's... Even like a pressure situation where it's like, oh, okay, your movie's opening next Friday. So that's kind of a pressure situation in some of the things. So you know, whatever. You know, you don't want to make noise that's not the noise you want to make on the day your movie opens or something like that.

But nevertheless, if somebody brings up something that actually is legitimate, I'll even have a conversation with them about it because I'm actually into interesting thought. And I don't have to even agree with you. Oh, but that's an interesting point. Right. That's an interesting point. And I'm able to talk about that.

But when it's just BS, when it's just bullshit. Well, it seems like criticism in the recent years has gone to this place of not just, okay, you can criticize a movie, but they seem to be saying, this isn't the movie I would have made. Oh, no, no, that's definitely the case.

And it's like, because you can't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you can't make one and you didn't make it. It's like... I had a situation like that where somebody asked me about something, well, why didn't you do this, this? I go, oh, would you have done that?

Yes, I would have done that. Okay, well, they're asking me something about the con film festival. Why don't you do this at the con film festival? Are you saying you would have? Yes, I would have. Okay. But you never would have written that script, and you never would have made the movie. And thus, you would never be at the con film festival in the first place.

So it's a mute argument. So are you... But there has become a thing that's gone on. It seems like in this, especially this last year, where... What's the word I'm looking? Ideology is more important than art. Way more. Certainly to the awards. Yeah. And it's just, you know, it's like, you know,

ideology trumps art. Ideology trumps individual effort. Ideology trumps good. Ideology trumps entertaining. There's two kinds of movies, virtue signalers, and superhero movies. Yeah. So, I mean, you're always, you know, lauding.

we both know the 70s as kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We idolize it. We've done... We live through the New Hollywood. Right. But that was a golden age. Whenever you catch a 70s movie,

you know, whether it's three days or the condor, it's like, oh, my God, what a... You know, the godfather. And are you bullish on the future movies? Because... Well, look, you have to always look at... Are we going to get back to that place? Look, this happens.

This comes in waves. This absolutely comes in waves, all right? So it's like, okay, just looking at the 40s, All right, that was during the war time, but that's also the time that you had film noir, where you actually, even though with the Hayscode, you had these dark, dark stories that were being told. But then after the war was won,

then you had the 50s, which was the first of the completely homogenized decades. You couldn't say shit if you had a mouthful. All right, and every bestseller, every play that was turned into a movie, if there was anything sexual about it or anything, that's all going to be drained out of the, the movie, it's going to be weaned out of the movie, it's just the way it is.

Just the way it is. You just always knew that going in. And to me, it's one of the worst decades in Hollywood is the 50s. And the 60s, pretty much from like 1960 to 1966 was the 50s part two. But then what we think of as the 60s starts in about 67, and that's when New Hollywood comes out. And that's an absolute positive response to the homogenized 50s. So it's going to come back again. Okay, and then we goes into the 70s, but then we went to the 80s. All right.

And that's why you came up with politically incorrect, because that was the first, this is basically the 80s part two, what we're living through right now. Well, I'll just take one more go out of it. There's going to be a new golden age. Please be there and part of it. All right. Wait to see you again, Quentin.

I can't wait to read, wait to read this on my summer vacation. All right. Quentin Tarantino, let's meet our panel. Okay, hey. All right, here they are. He's a senior, a senior resident. Not a senior. He looks young, but he's older than that. He's a fellow at the Atlantic Council and a non-resident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point. Max Brooks is back with us.

Maxie. And he's the host of the podcast, Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, and author of the New York Times bestseller. The End is Always Near. Love that book. Dan Carlin is over here. Okay, so this is a Friday where we have Breaking News and the Breaking News and the Breaking news is Derek Chauvin got 22 years. Some people are

some are applauding. I also saw people on TV saying that wasn't enough. Right, and this should be a lesson to the extreme wokesters on our side who want to do away with prisons, right? Because what do you give Chauvin? Art therapy?

I've heard of a... Well, I've not heard of abolishing prisons, but I wouldn't put it past them. But I have 15% of Democrats want to abolish the police, which is crazy. I mean, look, I mean, people throw around the term systemic racism a lot nowadays for everything, but the criminal justice system really has been full of racism and it has been systemic. I mean, that is the epicenter of the problem.

If the goal here is to have this be a deterrent, though, and to send a message to people who might do what that police officer did, I think 22 years in prison to a police officer sounds like a pretty, good deterrent. I was a peon at a news station here during the Rodney King trial in Seamy Valley, and that's pretty much an open and shut case. And when those officers were acquitted, and

the cameraman turned to me and said, we're going to have a riot tonight, I mean, that's more likely, historically, what you get in these situations. An officer getting 22 years, I mean, this is a pretty historic change when you look at the trends normally. This is a change. And I think we have to be careful because the cops are demoralized

and they don't all want to be they are not all Derek Chauvin and then all will be thought that way. Also, I saw on the front page of the New York Times Today was a story about a gay police officer, I forget the city she was in, quitting because tired of being spit on,

tired of being yelled at, tired of being branded a racist assassin. You know, I mean, the people want to abolish the police, these must be fans of the Purge movie series. Right. Because you're not going to like it. And I see that the Democrats have

finally caught on to this idea because crime is going to be the big issue because it's way up and I see Biden now was saying defund the police. I said refund. Refund. He's literally saying he's literally doing that old bit.

Refund the police. Because you don't want to be on a place on this issue where you look like a Johnny come lately. I'm talking about all the Democrats and people don't trust you on this issue. That oh now, now they get the message. Now they're coming over to

crime is an important issue. This cuts across race, AIDS, everybody, nobody wants to get mugged. We're shot. And this is the onus is on us because we're in power now. So it's put up or shut up. So when someone like Rashida Talib tweets out, no more

police, no more incarceration, the system is unreformable. Okay, well then come up with an alternative idea and try it out in your district and give us a working model. Or else, up before you lose us another election. Now, that's where you got

no abolishing prison. She said it. Right, she said no prisons. Really, so then what do we do with the Aryan Nation and those pieces of shit that killed that black guy who was jogging? What do you do with all of them, right? Kumbaya? No, concrete and steel. There's some bad people.

But defund the police is the worst marketing political slogan I've ever heard. I heard somebody else say, why can't you just say improve policing, better policing? I mean, there's a lot of ways to sell... Reform. Yes, there's a lot of ways to sell this that make it sound like you're actually. actually going to make the lives of police officers better, too.

Defund the police is a political loser from a marketing stamp. Well, there is a reason for this. There is a reason for this. And we can admit this now that the Democratic Party has a department of self-sabotage. Right. And they meet...

Always have. They do. They meet at Oberlin over a cup of kombucha and white guilt. And they think, well, how are we going to fuck everything up? Well, let's see, defund the police? How are we going to lose Florida? Oh, a Jewish communist named Bernie Sanders who's anti-Israel but pro-Fidel Castro.

Perfect. lost. But both parties have the sabotage wing, don't they? Not with language like that. The Republicans are the opposite. They're geniuses of languages. When they were losing on the estate tax, they changed it to the death tax. And nobody likes

death. No. All right. Sookin a death. Let's talk plague. I've been waiting for you, too, guys. No, really, because you're historians. And I was a history major myself, and I want your perspective on this. I mean, your book has a whole chapter on plague.

It's fantastic. And you know, I don't think people, first of all, have any perspective about the plague we just went through. It was, I mean, it was a bad thing, but, you know, it killed less than half a percentage point of the, less than one half percentage

of the population. Bad, I'm against death. I don't care who knows it. It's sad when anyone dies, and we don't want people to die, and it's worse when it's people we know or ourselves. But, you know, but Earth is a timeshare. We can't all be here at the same time.

That's just the way it works. So compared to the plague of Athens, a quarter of the population, of the whole population, which would be like 85 million people, the plague of Justinian, which you all remember these. 540.

That was in the 6th century AD. Athens, which is, of course, ancient Athens. We know them. That was half the population. And the black death killed two-thirds of England, right? The population, I don't think, recovered for 300 years. And kept coming back. That's the part people forget.

So, I mean, what really killed you is you go through it, you live through it, you survive, and then two or three years later it comes back with a vengeance. And so if we had this thing... It was like plague plus herpes. Yes, and if it came back, if we had this four times in the next 20 years, imagine how much more traumatic that would be than just going through it once. Right. Well, how is it going?

I mean, the black death changed everything. Barbara Tuckman said it was really the father of modern man because it created an immense labor shortage for the first time the peasants had some leverage in the market and also changed people's attitudes.

They didn't believe in things anymore. The church took a big hit. There was orgies because they were just like, fuck it, we're probably going to be dead tomorrow. It's like a Star Trek episode, right? Yeah. So what about this plague light that we had?

How is that going to permanently change things? I think there's a parallel with the peasants in the Middle Ages who had more leverage because we see it right now. Nearly half of all small businesses can't find enough workers. For the first time, workers have some leverage. Not because people died so much because they got money. from the government. I think it's going to...

I think it's wrong to assume the entire population will go in one direction. I think we are so divided. People will respond to a post-plagg America differently. I think there's a portion that's going to stay in the cave, no matter what you tell them. I think there's going to be a portion like me that is slowly and cautiously coming out

and ready to run right back in when things get bad. And then there's going to be another portion that's going to make sure the next pandemic is syphilis. I'd tell you be a little bit of a devil's advocate, though, and there's a chance that we're hard to think. I mean, if we have to do this again in a couple years, there's a chance that we know better what to do.

You know, if you get another, I mean, Bill Gates was talking about variance and all these kinds of things hitting us in the future. I have a feeling it's not going to seem so weird if we have to put on masks again and go through this all again. I don't know that we're going to not be traumatized, but I have a feeling it's maybe hardened us a little bit and maybe given us a little taste of what human life throughout most of the eras, and still in a large part of the non-developed world is like.

I mean, pandemics and diseases are a reality for them that we've been able to avoid. It's only very recently that people are able to feel as safe as they do. The pandemic of 1918, 19, 1919, was a disaster, the Spanish influenza. Yes, another bad. That killed about 5% I think of the point. Yeah. No, we're generally living in good times, but, you know, that's not...

It also hit us at... It hit us at the worst time because we've also... lost so much of the living memory of pre-vaccine America, right? The last generation that grew up before vaccines, they're mostly gone. And so there isn't a gut fear of microbes the way they're used to be. Twenty years ago, if you'd have told your grandparents you're not going to vaccinate your kid, they'd smack you in the back of the head. Because they know what it was like to grow up without polio. And back then, the only medical insurance was a big family. And that was it. So now we take this all for granted and maybe it will bring respect back to the invisible enemy.

And what about the fact that a lot of people don't want to leave home now? I mean, I think they probably didn't before. They didn't really, it turns out they don't really like the office. 10% of, no, 44% are willing to take a 10% pay cut to never have to go back to the office. They really didn't like the break room. Or the commute. Or the commute, but they never crossed their mind that they could get away with not going. Now, of course, that has become the norm. And they don't want to go back.

Now, some of that's good. We'll save on polluting the air with some less commute. I don't know if it isolates us. I don't know if it'll be terrible. I happen to like coming to a communal place. I don't have a family. This is my family. If I never do another Zoom call,

too soon. I'm just fucking with you. They really are. It's a, you know, we'll miss them of the next. And we're going to come back to the office, and I'm all for that. I think that's terrific. But, you know, not everybody likes it that way. And with not having to commute,

people can live in different places. The cities are going to be probably not emptied out, but people can move far away. They don't have to live in the city center anymore or anywhere. You can live in the middle of nowhere. as long as you have Zoom. The technology's made it possible, right?

I mean, you couldn't do this in the 70s. So, okay, one last thing about the plague. It took a lot of the belief people had in the Catholic Church away because the church was there to protect you and then people saw nothing could protect you. And this is probably one reason why the Protestant Reformation started. This is what Barbara Tucker meant by the beginning of modern. man. I noticed that our church, well, this week they said they are going to deny Biden communion.

I mean, the American church is going in a completely opposite direction of the Vatican itself. The American church is like Mel Gibson's dad territory. Oh, yeah. And the Vatican is much more modern. And the court is not going in the same direction as the people in this country. They voted against gay parents can't adopt. This is the recent court that we have now with six and a half Catholics on it. COVID restrictions on churches, they would not put that into effect. Employees, employers can deny contraception. The country is getting much more atheistic, much more anti-religious, and the court is getting more religious.

What's the upshot of this going to be? Well, I can tell you, I'm half Catholic. My father is Jewish. My mother was Catholic, so I know that church. pretty well, and I can tell you, certainly when it comes to Biden's stance on abortion, children in general. When it comes to children in general, I think the

Catholic Church has about as much moral authority, right, as Bill Cosby's marriage books. He has marriage? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, fatherhood. You're done. You're done. Right, okay.

All right. So anyway, it is our July break coming up now. We're going to be off for a month. we do this every year, don't panic. We know that people depend on us to know what's going on in the news. So what we do before we take a break every time is we do future headlines.

We will, even though we're not on for the next month, you're going to know what's going to happen. Future headlines, ladies and gentlemen. This is our edition here for 2021, summer break. For example, Trump Presidential Library to be first containing KFC franchise. Texas GOP passes bill

making voting booths in black communities invisible. That will happen. Red Lobster admits bay shrimp, cicadas, same thing.

Kirk Kirk Cameron asked Siri for directions to Christian cinema. Ends up at home of Kirsten Cinema. That one may not happen, but it's possible.

Matt Gates announced a scholarship program for teen girls ages 15 to 17. That will happen. Dems to counter GOP voter restrictions with series of angry tweets. Russian cyber attack cripples porn hub, war to begin Monday. And, of course, Hasbrobe reverse his position, will give Mr. Potato Head massive cock. I don't know if that one's going to happen. And I just want you to know, we bragged about this once before, but I'm going to show it again.

Once in a while when we do these, we actually do get it and predict it, and it happens. Look at this. We did this before it happened. Trump declares end a coronavirus as he is hospitalized for a coronavirus. Yep. Well, as I mentioned in the monologue, we found out this week that he actually was very, very sick. And I read all the things they gave. I remember this at the time.

There was like three major things. An anti-clone, what is it? You would know. Anti-microids, something that, it was something heavy. And then Remdivor, that one, and then something else. And it just made me think, because he was not a healthy man. I mean, he's not now. He just, I mean, he's overweight.

He paid no concessions to health. I mean, he eats, you know, steak with ketchup on it. It's just, he's just. Okay, really? I mean, okay. It just says to me that they do know how to cure this. That if they throw the fucking kitchen sink at it, they could even save him, and they did.

So it's really just a matter of our will and I guess money. You know, if this... If they have these drugs, I don't know why everybody, they couldn't get them in anybody. But what I really wanted to ask about was the lab leak theory. Yeah. Because you guys would be great to ask about this. I've been saying, and I'll just reiterate what I've said from the beginning,

this should never have had a political dimension, how this disease started. There is nothing political about it. Nothing. No. Whether it came from somebody eating a bat or whether it came from a lab that was studying bats, not a nefarious plot, it's just hard to keep things in a lab. Yeah. You know?

Where are you on this? But we will never know where it came from in China, because we will never get answers from them and they will get away with it and it will happen again because it is indicative of our toxic, hoaring relationship to the People's Republic of China. And the tragedy is that...

Whoring because we... Because we initially invested in them thinking that our money would make them more like us. And the tragedy is the reverse happened. Their money has made us more like them. We now kowtow to them. We apologize for them and to them.

Did you see John Sina's apology? Yes. The biggest, toughest guy in the world who could kill us all with his thumb had the most groveling, heartbreaking apology for what? For calling Taiwan a country? Yeah.

That was it. Yeah. Instead of a rebel province that one day the PRC hopes to crush and absorb. Right. No, China does bad things. I mean, they just closed the newspaper, the last standing newspaper, in Hong Kong.

I mean, I remember when they were Hong Kong, It was passed over in 97. Oh, no, Hong Kong's going to be its own enclave. We're not going to interfere. And now there's pretty much no democracy in Hong Kong. I mean, just what they do with the Uyghurs, gathering up this minority and putting them in camps. Right.

And liberals don't want to say anything because they're Asian, and they don't think very clearly about this. So they conflate it with anti-Asian hate crimes here. It has nothing to do. One has nothing to do with the other. I don't want to defend China here, but I could think of about 20 countries, and maybe us under the President Trump,

also that would have been very careful or maybe even obfuscate where things came from, disease was. Oh, yes. I mean, you think the Russians are going to say, oh, yeah, it came from here, sorry. I mean, and there's liabilities. There's all kinds of things that follow from this. There was a leak of anthrax. Well, yes. You remember this from... The 1970s. Smallpox in the 1970. In 1979, there was a leak from a Russia. They covered it up for years. Yeltsin finally admitted it in the 90s, a leak of anthrax. Spared law. So there's a communist country that's denied.

a leak from a lab. It's happened before. Right. And the Soviets made the unpardonable mistake of not making cheap crap that we needed. Right. Right. If they did, we would have forgiven Chernobyl. Right. If somehow our crap was

made there by their slave labor, we would have said, Chernobyl, Shrenoble, what? I need my sneakers. And that would have been it. But, Max, how do you know? If the Russians don't tell you, or if the Soviets don't tell you, it doesn't matter what you owe them, you don't know. And that's the problem, is that we thought that we were attaching human rights to commerce. But the Chinese have an alternative model, which is commerce without human rights.

And we are giving that to them. Just wait. Wait till Disney makes the next movie where Mulan fights the Dalai Lama. But let me back it up. Under what circumstances do you think the Chinese would have released this information? Turn it around an attack. It would have been very simple. It would have.

We have legislation over our own corporations, where we say you're an American, you will not build your factories in a country that will not release data on viruses that will kill Americans. There was a wonderful movie, Tarantino, I'm sure he's seen, it was called Destination Tokyo. It was a World War II movie,

where a bomb hits an American sub, it doesn't go off, and they pulled the bomb out, and it says, made in America, because we were selling scrap iron and oil to the Japanese before. And that oil and scrap iron came back as weapons to kill us. So they...

If I could go back to plague just for a second. They have smallpox in Russia and here. Yes. We keep a... Each country keeps a small amount alive. We could wipe out smallpox forever. And smallpox is one of the bad ones. Yeah. They found the virus, by the way,

several times they found vials where they just didn't even know they were. Yeah. No, we do this, I assume, because we don't trust each other. Because we have to... Just like they're... You might need it. They're like germ nukes. Right.

We don't trust. And it's much less than we used to. We used to have in the Cold War massive biological weapons factories and stockpiles. And we talk about how the Nazi scientists helped get us to the moon. We actually did that with the Japanese. They had a huge biological weapons program, where we don't know how many Chinese they killed.

Unit 731. Yes. And after that, we took their scientists here to help us design our biological weapons. And after the Cold War ended, we have reduced the stockpile, but we still need to know how it operates. We cannot start from scratch.

If, God forbid, we get hit with a biological weapon. All right, let me ask you about the media aspect of this, because I find this outrageous. Facebook banned any post for four months about COVID coming from a lab. Of course, now even the Biden administration is looking into this. Google, a Wall Street Journal reporter, asked the head of Google's health division,

notice that they don't do auto-fill searches for coronavirus lab leak, the way they do it for any other question. And the guy said, well, we want to make sure the search isn't leading people down pathways that we would find to be not authoritative information. Well, you were wrong, Google and Facebook. We don't know. The reason why we want you is because we're checking on this shit. He said, we want to ensure the first thing users see is intravation from the CD.

the Who? That's who I'm checking on. The Who's been very corrupt about a lot of shit, and the CDC's been wrong about a lot of shit. This is outrageous that I can't look this information up, and now they're doing it with this drug, Ivermectin. They threw Brett Weinstein off YouTube or almost. He's one strike away. YouTube should not be telling me what I can see about Ivermectin. Ivermectin isn't a registered Republican. It's a drug. I don't know if it works or not, and a lot of other doctors don't either. This dovetails into the monopoly thing, though. If you didn't have such control over, over, I mean, searches, for example,

this wouldn't be as much of an issue because if you didn't go to Google, you could go somewhere else. And you can go somewhere else. But when you have a market, what is it, 90% Google controls and searches? Yeah, I mean, at that point, this is a function of the monopoly. When it becomes the word for doing it, you have a monopoly. Yes. You know.

People don't say, I'm going to bing something. No. It's like if you only had one newspaper, right? And then that newspaper has all sorts of responsibilities if they're the law of the land or the official word. So, yeah, it's a function of the monopoly. All right. We're running at its time, but I wanted to talk about cyber hacking. Yes.

I know that's a big thing with you. Yeah, this goes to something much deeper, and it affects all our lives, and it started with one historical moment. And Dan's going to do a wonderful 72-hour podcast about it. I know. I do. But I'm going to give you the quick and dirty one. Good.

1991, we fought a war called Desert Storm, and it was about Kuwait and oil, but it was also about deterring future aggression with massive overwhelming force, which is why we put it on 24-hour cable news. We wanted to show future aggressors. If you mess with America on the battlefield, we will atomize you.

But that's not the lesson the enemy took. The lesson they took was, if you're going to mess with America, don't go anywhere near a battlefield. And so they have been developing alternative, asymmetric ways to kill us. us. So cyber. I mean, it would have happened anyway, right, but they are doing cyber information,

economic warfare, and doctrine to hurt us without firing a shot. And they're a generation ahead of us. Biden knows this. A generation. They are a generation ahead. If you thought Sputnik was something, try what we used to call the Garasimov Doctrine or read a book called Unrestricted Warfare by Choose Two Chinese Colonels, which you can buy on Amazon, in which they call the Heroes of Desert Storm dinosaurs. They know this.

If the British Navy rules the waves, guess what the Kriegs Marine does? Go underneath them in U-boats. And that's what they're doing. I don't think this is, though. I don't think this is this movie. Sorry, I'm going to run over time. You guys were great, but it's time for new rules. Sorry.

Okay. New rule, now that the Olympics has added skateboarding as an official Olympic sport, they must change their drug policy so that athletes are banned if they don't test positive for drugs. Neuro Louise Fisher, the Danish radio journalist,

who broadcast a story about a swingers club by interviewing a man while she was having sex with him. Must be nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Lots of reporters come across a great story, but how many let the story come across them? Newell, it's not cool to break up with someone by text. It's taking the coward's way out. It leaves your partner with no sense of closure.

And it's super rude if you do it while you're lying next to them. That's really... That's... New Rule, high school yearbook photos need to go back to the way... Look at the... High school yearbook photos used to look. Look, as you age, you get worse looking.

Your only consolation is that in high school, you look like this. New Rule, someone must tell me why robots in science fiction movies are always so sarcastic. You're lost in space, and the robots like, Nice going, Magellan.

Fuck, robots are the very last thing on the list that should be sarcastic, and I hope that extends to sex robots. Who wants to finish in here? That's 90 seconds, I'll never get back. My robot voice.

And finally, new role, Americans need to re-watch Ken Burns' great documentary on Prohibition, because people are starting to notice America has a drinking problem. Now, I can't believe, that we would be ever so stupid as to outlaw booze again. But that

doesn't mean we shouldn't take notice when the nation goes through one of its periodic binge-drinking phases like we are in now. Since the turn of the millennium, alcohol consumption in this country has risen steadily and alcohol-related deaths have doubled. Even millennials, who used

to be the more sober generation, are now dying of cirrhosis of the liver at record rates. And that was before COVID hit, when lockdown nation really hit the The pandemic was an excuse for people to drink more, drink in the day, and drink alone. A conditioned psychologist called Melania. We lost all sense of time, and the rules went out the window.

Restaurants were delivering cocktails with hard liquor. I know this because they were delivering them to my house. Because as long as I had liquor, I didn't care there was no toilet paper. But just as a historical trend, this can't be good. There is a word for what? everyone in society gets drunk just to get through the day. And that word is Russia. And I do

mean through the day because even before COVID, we started putting liquor everywhere. Every month you could see some viral video of an all-out brawl at Chucky cheese because even this children's restaurant serves beer now. United,

Southwest, and American Airlines have all either cut back or stopped serving alcohol because there have been so many recent incidents where the Act like Mel Gibson at a traffic stop. The flight crew has to treat us like children now. I will turn this plane around, and no one will go to Dallas, Fort Worth. Grocery stores now serve beer on tap.

The first time ever, husbands are asking, Honey, you need me to pick up anything at the market? Supermarkets also invite customers to shop and sip from their open wine bars. Belly up, mom. Leave your troubles in the produce department. and your baby in the car. You'll get over it.

But hey, if you get drunk at Whole Foods, please remember, vomit in a reusable bag. Movie theaters now also serve beer and wine and sometimes hard liquor. So does Taco Bell and Disneyland and Starbucks. You thought they had trouble spelling your name on the cup before. And, of course, what's the point of living large if you can't get offered a drink when you shop? and get your hair done.

Book clubs have long been just an excuse to guzzle wine the way fishing is really just drinking on a boat and hunting is drinking in the woods and bowling is drinking with rented shoes on, you know? Aquariums serve alcohol now. And zoos? Zos? Who get shit-faced at the zoo? When did people start saying, you know,

if I'm going to stare at a polar bear taking a nap, I'm going to need a couple of stiff ones? Alcohol is everywhere on TV now. Hosts of the Today Show have it on their desk. I've seen guests on Watch What Happens Live, have it in their hands. And, of course, stars of the real housewives have it on their faces.

Now, maybe you recognize yourself in some of this. Ask yourself, do I drink in the morning? Do I drink alone? Do I receive mystery packages from Amazon that make me? asked, when did I order snow shoes? This is all eerily familiar. In the prohibition documentary, the first episode

is called a nation of drunkards. And it describes how on farms in the 19th century, there was a barrel of hard cider by the door, which you dipped into every time it came and went. Ken Burns writes, Americans routinely drank at every meal, including breakfast. In many towns, a bell rang twice a day to signal what was called grog time.

so that men could stop whatever they were doing in factories and offices, mills and farm fields, and drink. Well, here in the now times, we seem to be heading back in that direction. And I think the reason is this. The COVID epidemic may be subsiding, but the epidemic that preceded it, the anxiety epidemic, is not. And usually when people drink, it's to alleviate some form of anxiety. As we reenter society, half of Americans say COVID has been so stressful, they worry they'll never fully recover.

We're using liquor as a crutch for our pandemic exacerbated problem of being socially impaired. We call it social media, but really it's the opposite of social. And our increasing detachment from one another in real life and dependence on screens and online relationships makes us ever more vulnerable to the lure of liquid courage. when it comes to really interacting with people. But drinking, my friends, is not the answer. Okay, it's part of the answer. I'm not going to lie. It's part of the answer.

Yes. Taking the edge off a bit, yes, I myself have a long history of using liquor to take the edge off, usually off some other drug, but still. But not at two in the afternoon, not at the pigly-wiggly, and definitely not at the zoo. We have got to get a handle

on our anxiety, and it can't be through the bottle. Everybody needs to just get a grip. Now, if you'll excuse me, my vacation just started, and there's a cool one waiting for me in the dressing room. All right, that's our show. We're off until July 30th. I'll be at the Toyota Music Factory

in Irving, Texas, July 11th. The buddy Holly Center in Leveck, the 31st, and at the PAPS Theater in Milwaukee, August 14th. I want to thank Max Brooks, Dan Carlin, and Quentin Sarantino. We'll see you in a month. Have a good July. Thank you, folks. 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.