Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #571: Eric Adams, Joshua Green, Rep. Stacey Plaskett

Episode Date: July 31, 2021

Bill’s guests are Eric Adams, Joshua Green and Rep. Stacey Plaskett. (Originally aired 7/30/21) 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. Great to see you. Okay, all righty. Thank you so much. Great to see more people, more people,

and I missed your partial faces. We've been off for a month. Have you been okay? I was hoping that when we came back here would be done talking about the pandemic, but, of course, now the Delta variant has everyone crazy. I am not worried. I live in California.

The coronavirus in the air is killed by the smoke from the fires. But the CDC put out new mask guidelines now, which is, you know, it's all just so fucking confusing. Indoor, outdoors, vaccinated, vaccinated, masks, not masked. The Walmart choppers don't know who to punch anymore. So now we're back to wearing the mask from the front of the restaurant until the waiter brings the breadsticks. It's called science people.

Sometimes I think we have to cover our faces so other people can cover their ass. And by the way, and by the way, wash the mask. I see people with very filthy masks out there. I don't want to get the Delta variant. Your mask grew the Delta variant. So, listen, I've been putting something off that I should have done two years ago or so

announcing, I'm getting married. No, I'm kidding. It's a fucking joke. It's a comedy show, but let's not be ridiculous. No, it's something far worse. I have to wear glasses. I, uh, cheering like I just came out as gay. What the fuck?

So brave, Bill, to wear glass. It's not brave. I've had three Lasic surgeries. I can't fucking see anymore. I'm at the end of my road. And so, um, yes. I'm going to have to... Is that okay?

You had 28 years of me like this, and this is the next 28 years. Sorry. And, okay. But it has to be done. Life goes on. And these are progressive lenses. Very, all I see now is white privilege.

All right. Anyway. Anyway, back to the masks. Yet, oh, yes, the House, the House of Representatives. They reinstated the mask thing. And Kevin McCarthy, he's the leader of the Republicans. He does not want to wear a mask. And Nancy Pelosi called him a moron.

And then she remembered, wait, this is Congress. We have a certain decorum. She said, my esteemed moron. So, but... But yes, it's getting nasty there in Congress. The Capitol, did you see the testimony? We finally had a little testimony about what happened on January 6th. The Capitol police officers testified,

oh, my God, that they were attacked with fists and chemical spray and baseball bats and threatened with execution. And yet the Republicans, amazing, still portraying the rioters as the peaceful protesters and, what, the cops or the bad guys? What is what the fuck-the-police attitude? on the right, when did the GOP become NWA? And, I mean, Laura Ingram, did you say this on Fox News, gave out acting awards

to these police officers? Twitter was outraged, that more black actors weren't nominated. And, of course, the Olympics are underway. Are you watching the Olympics? Really? Wow. Well, like, a lot of them recently... plenty of controversy.

Did you see the Korean TV network? I had to apologize because the graphics they used for the opening ceremonies, I don't know what they were doing, but they wanted to show some representation of every country as they came out. And they were, I guess, we would say, stereotypical. For Italy, they showed pizza.

For Romania, they showed Dracula. And for America, they showed a fat teenager with a face tattoo fucking his teacher. And then America's had some bad breaks in the Olympics. Shakari Richardson, who was our best hope for gold in tracks, she got tossed out because she tested positive for pot, which is so fucking stupid. Pot is not a performance-enhancing drug.

It is for what I do. It's not for what she does. And then, of course, Simone Biles was pushed to the brink. This is not a quitter. A woman was pushed to the brink. This is not her choice. She went as far as we could make her go. And she had to drop out.

And Shakari Richardson said, boy, if only she had a little weed. Yeah, she got what gymnasts call the twisties. This is when your body doesn't do what your brain tells it to do. Men call it erectile dysfunction. But we do have a new champion for America. Sunni Lee. Did you see that? She won the golden gymnastics.

She's also a very inspiring figure. She said, don't be afraid. She was talking to young gymnastics, I think. Don't be afraid to ask the important questions. Like, hey, doc, shouldn't there be a nurse present? But here's the biggest scandal of all, I think, is Russia. Russia, because they're such cheaters, they get thrown out of the Olympics,

but then the country Russia isn't in the Olympics, the Russian Olympic Committee team. What the fuck does that mean? They don't officially represent Russia, but they really sort of do. You know, like Rudy Giuliani. We've got a great show, Joshua Green, and Representative Stacey Plaskin are here. But first, here's the Brooklyn Borough President,

who's currently the Democratic nominee for the New York City Mayor and author of the book, Healthy at Last. Eric Adams is over here. Thank you, sir. Eric, how you doing? Quite well, Bill. You know, I really have a confession to make to all that all of this was a septifuge. I did all of this just so I could get on this darn show, man,

and I finally got here. I appreciate you saying that because I was going to say to you right off the bat, I'm not going to be coy. I'm a big fan. I love what you're doing. I mean, honestly, I didn't know about you until six months ago, but then everything I read, now when people ask me about you, I'm like, I love this fucking guy.

This is what the Democratic Party needs. So just, you're going to be the mayor of New York, unless there's a zombie apocalypse. Just, and you, you know, it's such a great story because you had a message that was different from everybody else's message. And it proves that once in a while in politics, you can put a product out there and the people will say, ah, I didn't know about that, but now that I see it, yes, that's what we need. That's what we want. So just quickly for everybody who's just getting to know you, sum up that message that you had that has taken you to this great victory. Well, really, it's my life story. You know, at 15-year-old, I was arrested, beat by police officers.

And instead of saying, what was me? I said, why not me? I went into the police department, started an organization to fight for safety and justice together. And I did that. Moved up through the ranks, became a captain. And I saw the impact of proper policing, but also they saw the impact of the criminality in our cities across America. and I pursue justice and safety. And I'm just an everyday person,

dishwasher as a child, lived on a verge of homelessness. We used to carry a garbage bag full of clothing in school every day because we thought when we come home we would be thrown out. Went to school at night, a study. I went through my entire educational experience in public school, not knowing I had a learning disability until I stumbled on to it in college and got the resources. And so people just felt,

the authentic story of how I want to turn around the city of New York and inequality and see our economy grow at the same time. And you said when you were running, you were not running just against candidate. You said, I'm running against a movement. What did you mean by that? We see what's happening in America. We see the demonization of public safety, which I believe is the prerequisite to prosperity.

We see the demonization of those. who are high-income earners. 65,000 New Yorkers pay 51% of our income taxes. If we lose them, we lose the teacher, the firefighter, the department of sanitation employee. They pay those taxes that we need. And we just see the divide of our countries.

And listen, this is not a socialist country. Let's be clear on that. This is a country that believes to give people the opportunities and they would be able to exceed and excel in this country. and I believe in that is because that's what I saw on my personal journey and the journey of so many people who come to this country.

It sounds like a long way of saying you have common sense. It seems a lot of times, from my view, lacking in the Democratic Party. Would you believe that that is their Achilles heel? I mean, you have said that they better pay attention to what you achieved in New York or they're going to lose the midterm elections and they're going to lose the next election. Is this what you're doing? talking about that people look at the Democrats and they just see so many things that are goofy because they somehow think Twitter is the electorate and it's not.

So, truth, I could not have said it better. I stated this on the day of the primary. People on social media don't decide these elections. People on social security, they decide these elections, everyday people. But, Bill, you know what we're doing in our country and cities across America? Archbishop Desmond Tutu had a quote, we spend a lifetime pulling people out of the river. No one goes upstream and prevent them from falling in in the first place.

We let people fall in a river of crime, forced to care children, not getting support, homelessness, health, just think about health. You know my story, lost my sight with type 2 diabetes, permanent nerve damage, had an ulcer, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. Because I was feeding my crises, based on what I was eating every day. I changed my diet in three weeks. My vision came back.

Three months, my diabetes went in remission. My nerve damage went away. It was never my DNA. It was my darn dinner. I was feeding my health care crises. And we do that every day in America. I want to go upstream and prevent people from falling in the river of despair. Well, again, this is why we love each other.

I've been saying that stuff about food. forever that you just said. And they just hate me for it. It's like the ultimate third rail in politics. Yes. Do not mention the food, even though it's so relevant to, I mean, it was relevant to the health care crisis in the country before COVID, but even more so after. If you're not in good health to begin with, you can't fight off anything.

That's right. Well said. Well said. And, you know, think about what we're doing. Our country and cities are so dysfunctional. We create our crises. How do you have a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in New York? Spends millions of dollars to fight childhood, obesity, diabetes, and asthma.

Yet every day we serve our babies 960,000 meals in the Department of Education, and those meals cause what? Childhood obesity, diabetes, asthma. You go into the hospital for diabetes, they give you the food that aggravates your diabetes. Prisons are fed food that causes chronic disease. We feed our crises in America. Someone needs to wake up and say, let's stop this silliness and finally start to go upstream on health care, on crime, on education. Do you know in New York 80% of the prisoners in Rikers Island don't have a high school diploma or an equivalency diploma?

If you don't educate, you're going to incarcerate. And we are so used to this dysfunctionality that someone has to say, let's stop this to stupidity and become the New York and the American. that we deserve to become. This guy speaks and applause breaks. But see, tell me what you're thinking about this. I think black politicians in the Democratic Party

have to lead us out of the wilderness because the white, I feel like a guy like you has your finger on the pulse of what the voters want so much better than the people who follow Twitter. And the white politicians

in the party are so afraid of being called insufficiently anti-racist. which is not, of course, something they can level at you. So you're free to speak common sense. You are free to speak these words you are speaking tonight. And, you know, Joe Biden, I think, was saved by the black voters of this country that are getting him as the nominee, rather,

because up until then it was going to be people who were more farther to the left. And there was just a practicality, I think, that goes on in the African-American community, that white people, it's an indulger. to be impractical. It's the ultimate example of white privilege. You know, it's so important, Bill, as we look. I'll never forget as a rookie police officer seeing an 11-year-old child that committed a robbery.

He was arrested two to three times. And when I spoke to that child, I learned that his mother was on crack cocaine, his dad was in jail. He was raising himself. He was out of school for months, and no one discovered that or found out what he needed. We have to understand that we just deserve so much better, and I just don't want New Yorkers to surrender.

I believe we just have to believe again in who we are, and we will see how we can turn around this city. We don't have to define ourselves by three-year-olds being shot in Times Square. We don't have to define ourselves about dividing ourselves on ethnicity. When they looked at my voters, I had this diverse group of everyday blue-collar, I like to say, New Yorkism, all different ethnic groups that stated, this is a common-sense person that is going to show how government must work again for the people and stop betraying the people of this city.

And you were endorsed by George Floyd's brother, right? How do we convince so many people, I would say, on the far left, that, you know, every cop in America isn't the one who did the atrocity to George Floyd. You know, we can't live without the police, you know, as you well know, from your public service. That's a great question.

But here's something else. I was endorsed by George Floyd's brother, but I was also endorsed by Wen Genslu parents. Wing-Gins-Lu was the first Chinese-American officer assassinated in the city of New York. So you see what happened there? I was endorsed by someone who lost a family member from a victim of police misconduct,

but endorsed by the family members of someone whose officer was killed in a line of duty. That is what we're missing. I'm going to rebuild that trust and understand that good guys are losing our streets to the bad guys. They want us at each other's throat. But I'm also going to expect more

from my police officers. You are going to lift up the nobility of public safety. It's noble to run in a building when someone is discharging a weapon, but it's not noble to destroy someone's life by putting your knee on their neck. We're not going to allow those officers to stand out department. I'm going to have the backs of my officers, but they're going to have the backs of the people of the city they sworn to serve and protect. Right. And you're the guy who can get that done.

Well, listen, I know you're a busy guy these days. I notice everybody in the Democratic Party wants to get his picture taken with you now. So I appreciate you making the time to come here. I know you've not been shy about saying you are the face of the Democratic Party in the future. I hope that comes to pass. Great to meet you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Let's meet our panel. Hey.

All right. He is the senior national correspondent at Bloomsburg Businessweek, and author of Devil's Bargain, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the nationalist uprising. Joshua Green is back with us. And she is the Democratic Congresswoman who represents the United States Virgin Islands, representative of Stacey Plaskett. Great to meet you. How you doing?

Okay, so I guess we are a little closer than we were before. I'm surprised because we seem to have gone backwards now. I mean, we are in this, I don't know, phase two would you call it? We were ready for a hot girl summer here, and then we're back to masks and all this stuff. And it's being called the pandemic now of the unvaccinated, because I think it's something like 97% of the people who wind up in the hospital. I mean, it's pretty much obvious that this is what's going on. It's two different types of people. Now, I must say the unvaxed are a coalition.

It's mostly Trumpers who believe that a vaccination will be some sort of fifth column from Bill Gates to put a chip in you, as if we could care about tracking your fat ass to the pigly wigger. But, I mean, it's also religious people, which I wouldn't say is terribly much more logical than that. It's also black folks who say the word Tuskegee, and I can understand that. I think we're not in the, I always say let's live in the year we're living in. We're not living in that year anymore, but I understand that feeling. What? I mean, you know, the analogy with Tuskegee is a little strained, right?

Because in Tuskegee, they weren't infecting black people. They were utilizing them. But what I can say is that I find it really shocking and it's really shocking. really troublesome to me the amount of people of color and young people of color that have been targeted by social media and misinformation to ensure in some ways that we do not get vaccinated. It feels to me as an assault on us not to be vaccinated. It's once again, social media is really targeting black people, Russian bots, so that we do not get this vaccine and therefore become vulnerable to this virus. That's very frightening.

I think agreeing with that, I think you can break the unvaccinated population down into two groups, really. I think there's a vaccine hesitant who have been victimized by misinformation. A lot of survey research shows that black people, Latinos, minorities, young people. And then you have the hardcore anti-vax, Trump resistors who see it as a way to signal their Republican affiliation to flex for Trump. I think that that first group is reachable. And there's been some evidence that with the spike of the Delta variant that there's a little more willingness to move on that. But the bigger problem, I think,

are the people who aren't getting vaccinated and won't get vaccinated. I think America sort of hit a Howard Beale moment in the last week or so where vaccinated America had said, enough, the onus is on you. It's time for unvaccinated people to bear the burden of this new pandemic. Right. I would just like to add one more to this group. of the coalition of the unvaccin. Who don't, I think, and we don't deserve to lump them all in

with the people who are worried about the chip from Bill Gates. That's just submental. There are other people who work, they would call health nuts. Like left wing? Well, people who have never wanted... Yes. Anti-vaxxers. Well, they...

To different levels. I mean, I've been called an anti-vaxxer. There are some pathogens I would fight you for the vaccine. But it should be... We are not a... all the same in medicine. And I don't think you should lump those people in who just want to live a super healthy life

and have their immune system take care of certain things. But now that we're in this situation we're in, what is the long-term prognosis here? Are we going to be doomed forever to live in varying periods of anxiety where it goes away for a couple of months we get a break and then we're back to this? I mean, I've heard people say, well, look at Asian countries, you know, they've been wearing masks.

You see them all the time. Everyone's wearing masks. And I always say, yeah, and I never see them smiling. I don't want to wear a mask forever. And it's not healthy to wear a mask and breathe your own shitty. I think it depends on how we as a country and we as a government react to this new variant, this new spike in COVID. I mean, there are signs.

Biden has sort of grudgingly tiptoed toward making people get vaccinated, federal workers. He hasn't imposed a mandate. He said, maybe you can just get. tested, but there is movement toward the idea that in order for the good of the country at large, a lot of people who haven't gotten vaccinated

need to get their act together either through stick or carrot, and take the vaccine to stop the spread of the virus. And if that means banning them from airline flights, if they don't have... Well, that's happening. And that will encourage a lot more people to do it, because I've already been invited to

parties where you couldn't be vaccinated. Where you couldn't be? I mean, you had to be vaccinated. Oh, okay. Have fun at your... I mean, there are... It's going to be everywhere. That's what I always tell people.

It's just you might as well get it because it's going to be everywhere. But I think for the group that you were talking about, black people, African Americans, people of color, those are people who, for health disparity reasons, are just not comfortable with government. Don't feel the government is there for them.

Right. So for the government telling them that to be vaccinated, that's a hesitancy, right? But I think the continued communication and seeing the government is there to support you will cause many of those individuals. There are good reasons to not trust the government or the medical community based on history. Now I'm saying get the vaccine.

I'm all for it. I want to get back to life as normal. You want your hot summer. I want my hot summer. Oh, it's a little too hot out here. But, you know, in general, yes, especially because most people in this country, as the mayor, future mayor was just saying,

are not in good shape. And I would very much encourage, especially if you're not in really great shape, get the vaccine. Chris Christie should get it every week. Well, look, what we need for minority communities, what we need for pro-Trump communities, then if they don't trust the government,

are ambassadors who will listen to them, which is why, you know, one idea I'm kind of bullish on, pay Trump for all the new people who get vaccinated, right? You'd see the numbers go up. Pay Trump. Pay Trump $100 for every new person that gets vaccinated. Oh, I see. You would have vaccination rate spike.

Trump would raise a lot of money for his legal defense. It would be a win for everybody, right? Right. And they believe he invented the vaccine. Well, but, look, he can make a legitimate claim that my administration oversaw the production of this vaccine. He could have called it the Trump vaccine. Instead, he's off. He's not anti-vaccine.

He's just disinterested. Speaking to him, in August next, it's tomorrow. The next day, August. Well, it was coming up. I know that. And it's going to be an exciting month because apparently, this is when he's going to be reinstated. He keeps using this term.

And last poll I saw from June, late June, 51% of Republicans think the audits, whatever the hell that is, the audits that they've been doing of the 2020 election. Here we are in August 2020. Okay, that will change things. And first of all, reinstate, but not a thing in a democracy. We don't reinstate the monarch. And it's, it was in the news today, in the notes of the last acting attorney general, this is near the end, Trump says, just say the election was corrupt, leave the rest to me.

Does he ever not sound like a mom boss, leave the rest to me? I'll visit him with Luca Brazi. So in this atmosphere, we heard testimony from the Capitol Hill police. 140 of them were injured. I don't know if people knew if the number was that high. That's a lot of people to be injured. And I feel like Democrats looked at this and went, well, Republicans can't deny this now.

It's on tape. And look at this test. And of course, I don't know, Joe Biden lives in this Frank Capra fever dream where the other people on the other side of the aisle are my good friends, and they're going to see the light, and we're all blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's just we're never going back to that,

or at least not any time I can foresee in the future. It doesn't matter what the evidence is. There's two sides, and they will always, they're now on the side that the cops are the bad guys. It doesn't matter. You say X, they say Y. Well, I don't think the purpose of what we have now, the select committee, is really to get Republicans to agree, right?

Or to say what the truth was. I think the impeachment trial did that. I think Americans understood what happened in the trial. I think the purpose of what was. what we have here is, remember, first, the Democrats, we Democrats, wanted to bring an independent bipartisan commission. And there were 35 Republicans in the House who agreed to that commission. But for Mitch McConnell and, you know, Kevin McCarthy, they basically played themselves in this by not agreeing to that, because now they're going to get what we give them as Democrats with

the select committee. And we're going to do the work that's necessary, not necessarily, to just entirely expose the truth, but also to ensure that this does not happen again. Because you heard my colleague Stephanie Murphy, who sits on the commission, fled Vietnam as it fell. And one of the things she talks about is that an attempted coup is usually the beginning of a successful coup.

And so we as Americans need to ensure that we safeguard our democracy by having the select committee, which is not only going to expose the truth, but make the necessary steps, whether it's in our security, whether it's in shoring up, whatever it is that has happened in social media,

and otherwise that got us to the point where we were on January 6th. And not everything is about persuading Republicans. I mean, as a reporter, I'm just constantly stunned that everything I write about, you know, I go on TV, talk to people, well, is that going to convince Republican voters? Congress has two jobs,

is to pass laws, and it's to conduct oversight. And there's value independent of whether or not it's going to persuade Trump Republicans for having transparency and having this kind of testimony, letting the American people learn what actually happened, who did it, and who's supporting the people that did it now,

even if that doesn't change the outcome of next year's election. And I still think it might. I don't know. When I hear that date, January 6th, To me, it falls right in line with December 7th, September 11th, November 22nd. Dates, you don't have to sell me or a sophisticated audience. You don't have to explain that. We know what those numbers mean.

I don't think half the country sees it that way. I don't think they see January 6th as that kind of date where I do now. I put them right together. Like a dark, horrible day in American history. I don't look. You're never going to convince the hardcore. for Fox News, Newsmax, Trump write that January 6th was anything other than some perfidious plot by Nancy Pelosi to do this or that. But, I mean, look, the last, I mean, if you do want to talk about the political effects,

the last two elections have been decided by suburban voters. And the next one is probably going to be, too. Trump is not on the ticket anymore to draw them out. I think if they're sitting at home listening to testimony from these officers and hearing what happened, some of them, not all of them, but a few of them are having to ask. themselves, are these the people that I want to put back in charge of the government next year? I don't know. Well, listen, we have an example.

Texas just had a special election. The individual that Trump supported was not the winner of that election. He did robocalls. He did everything to try and bring this person into Washington. And Texas, which is still a red state, as much as we would like to turn it blue, rejected Trump, basically, in that special election. And so I think the things that we're doing, Washington by one, a parallel track of oversight, having a select committee on January 6th,

while at the same time doing the things like the infrastructure bill, the American Jobs Plan, etc., are going to be the things that keep this country on the right track. Okay, so listen, we noticed for some reason that people in this country are starting to do something I thought as a trend years ago. Pet confession signs, have you seen this, has made a big comeback? Some of them are pretty funny. Look at it. I ran away and partied all.

night, now I'm pregnant. I thought that was... And I ate the toilet paper during a pandemic. So now, you know, of course, anything in America becomes trendy, now a lot of the celebrities are doing it. Would you like to see some of the things that people... Oh, I knew you would. Okay. Winif Paltrow, my vagina doesn't really smell like that candle.

Bill Gates, I've got $4 billion in my sock drawer she doesn't know about. Kanye West, I would kill for some structure from Britney Spears' dad. Caitlin Jenner, sometimes I miss Morning Wood. Neil deGrasse Tyson, I'm tired of explaining shit to you, morons. That one's popular. Gavin Newsom, my hair amidst pheromones that make your wife horny. That's true. And Jeff Bezos, I let Richard Branson go to space first just to make sure this shit worked.

I would have done the same. And, of course, Donald Trump, I know damn well I lost the election. All right. So in a week where there was a lot of things, unfortunately, to be depressed about, COVID coming back, the fires out here, the Capitol Police story, me having to wear glasses. I must say the award for lowest vilest was the conservatives who went after Simone Biles. This pissed me off in a way. If you think, I mean, let me read some of these right-wing. Charlie Kirk, I know who that is, called her.

She's ashamed of the country. The Texas Deputy Attorney General Aaron Wright's National Embarrassment, some other asshole I never heard of, but gets quoted by people I have heard of, called her a quitter. Here's Morgan, returning to his more natural realm of being a huge dick. said there's nothing heroic or brave about quitting. Buck Sexton, this feels like the antithesis of what an elite athlete would do.

Oh, no, I'm sorry, the athlete Credo would be. We've had him on the show. Buck, you seemed like a normal nice guy, but you know what, unless you act like a normal nice guy, you're not. You're in the asshole division. I mean, I just want to reiterate what I said. This is not a...

choice. We ran this poor girl, this amazing machine, till it, not permanently, but temporarily just broke it. Yeah. I mean, can you imagine the anxiety? These these armchair quarterback sitting there with fucking crumbs on their shirt

looking at someone who twists and flies in the air and ends on a little strip. And it's like, yeah, well, boy, where's your mental toughness? My response to them is they can kiss my overwork black woman ass. I was going to second that, but I guess I can't. Because, you know, I saw an article today from Glamour magazine,

which really did, was fascinating to me, talking about what this young woman has been through in terms of overcoming the sexual scandal that occurred in gymnastics, having the kind of pressure on her, being the best gymnast that has ever been in this field. And she needs the opportunity if she wants to, to rest. And they were discussing the fact that historically, culturally, black women have never had the opportunity to rest to say, I've had enough, I'm tired. You know, we have built this,

help build this country. She has done what she can. They could never put a candle to them. I think she wants to. I think she, I don't think she wants to. She needs to mentally rest, right? She just, you can't, we pushed her to the ultimate limit. She sucked it up as long as she could. Can you imagine the anxiety? I mean, how do you even sleep? And we know now that when you don't sleep fully, and I mean fully, you're at way less than full capacity. We just... Her choice would always be to persevereating. But that's what's so gross about the right-wing back. I mean, everybody saw this coming, right? It's part of that ecosystem of right-wing baiting that sparks an angry counter-reaction among liberals. Everybody starts screaming and fighting

and trying to cancel each other. And what they've... they've done is politicized something that isn't remotely political. I just find it interesting that it continually appears to be black women that these are going after, whether it was Naomi Osaka, now as Simone Biles, you know, Megan Kelly has... Osaka? Naomi. Naomi Osaka, right? When they went after her, they went after Simone Biles, talking about the athlete who

was protesting. you know, conservative media has made that this is their dog whistle. This is the way to gin up the crowd, to get their people excited. And when you talk about her that she doesn't want to quit, can you imagine the agony that it took for her to make this decision, someone who wants to compete the way she does? In a world, in a country, now, it's just filled with snowflakes and whiners and the entitled and the weak and the brady.

She is none of that and never has been. the exact opposite. I'm telling you, this was not a choice. You pushed someone just so far. Okay, so let me ask you why you're here, because we've never had a representative from the Virgin Islands or any of the American territories. It's so hard for me to ever understand what's going on with this. We have this, I would call it the remnants of the American Empire, I guess, is all you could say. Yes. We're a colony. A colony. I mean, some of these places came from the Spanish-American War. Some of I think we won in a card game. I don't know. I mean, we're talking about Guam, Samoa, the Marianas, Puerto Rico, and your place, the Virgin Islands.

And it's just this gray area that you're citizens, but you can't do everything that a citizen does. You are in Congress. You can do everything a congressperson can do except vote, right? Well, I can... I mean, you were part of the impeachment. Sure. I can vote in committee. Committee?

I vote in committee. But not for the law, right? I can vote to bring it out of the committee, right? I can sponsor legislation. I can co-sponsor bills. I debate on the floor. I do the same thing that other members does. When Democrats are in power,

I vote when we rise in committee of the whole on the floor, but I don't vote on final passage. And what's interesting, you talk about, you know, in a card game or in war, the Virgin Islands was actually purchased during World War I for geographic strategic importance to the United States. We were purchased from Denmark, and the purchase by the United States allowed Denmark to remove itself from a depression to become the happiest nation on Earth. So, but for my ancestors and my family, having fought and done the work that we did to make Denmark rich, they would not have the name now of being the happiest country on the earth.

But it's what's even more interesting is the fact that we remain in this perpetual state. of a colony because of little-known Supreme Court cases called the insular cases, which were in 1900, the same Plessy v. Ferguson, separate but equal judges determined that people from the territories are, in fact, alien races, savages who cannot understand, this is the exact language of the case law, who cannot understand Anglo-Saxon principles of law, and therefore they cannot be afforded the same, the same rights that average American citizens can because they wouldn't know what to do with them, right? So the Virgin Islands, we are the people that brought Denmark Vessi. Camille Pissarro,

the founder of Impressionism, is from the Virgin Islands. Tim Duncan is from the Virgin Islands, right? One of the greatest Mr. Fundamental himself. And, you know, they're talking about we cannot understand Anglo-Saxon principles law. Here's the best one. We gave this country Alexander Hamilton, who is from Singapore. We wrote, we developed the Constitution and the national banking system, and yet we're savages who cannot understand. So what's the answer? What do we do in the future?

That's the past. What do we do now? I mean, we have these places that are in this gray area. Do we either let them loose and be their own separate countries, or should they be states? Those seem to obvious examples. or I've been to the Caribbean many times. Is there a possibility of like a Caribbean nationhood of some of these islands joining together?

I think it's interesting when people say, oh, we should cut them loose to let them be independent. When the United States purchased Louisiana purchase, they never thought about cutting it loose or our manifest destiny. We gave those areas the resources and the economics, you know,

the Homestead Act and others. So you're saying make them states? No, so that they could grow their economies. Shit, and the Virgin Islands, we would just love to be able to vote for president. We fight in wars more per capita than any place else in the United States. Well, what are you telling me? You want to stay in this gray area but vote?

I think for Puerto Rico, they want to be a state. So give them their statehood. And I think for the rest of us, we need HR1, the bill that has not moved. I have a provision in there, which creates a task force to look at what has been the economic damages to the territories and how do you allow the territories to receive a vote for president as well as to have full representation in Washington and to have a status discussion with them as to what they want their status to be.

What would you like us to be? It's up to you. I think people should be able to self-determination. Right. I mean, I know there's only 100,000 people in the Virgin Islands. It seemed to me it would make sense to have a sort of a confederation of Caribbean islands. They have a lot in common.

You know, we're Americans. We don't want to be British. We don't want to be a part of the others. Those other islands, Well, they were owned by British. I thought we were cutting off who used to own us. You know, we still have the culture and many of the trappings of other places. But my grandparents...

We used to be British. Well, my grandfather came to Washington with others and demanded that we be part of the draft. That we wanted the responsibility along with the privileges of being American citizens. We want to be fully American. And however we can make that happen. Okay. I mean, the...

The position of U.S. presidents in both parties on state and Puerto Rico all the way up into Trump had been let them decide. If they decide they want to join, then we'd be open to it. But the problem now is there's no possibility that Republicans would let areas. Which is interesting because the representative from Puerto Rico to Congress is Republican. So even just thinking that we are a monolithic people that are going to be one or the other is prejudice in itself. Presently, the members of the territories in Congress are split. between Republican and Democrats. You think we're brown, so therefore we must be Democrat.

And that's not the case. Okay. Thank you very much. Very enlightening. I needed to know all that. Time for new rules, everybody. New rules. Wow.

New rule, the gun company that is making this gun, which is a real, fireable, actual, lethal gun, but redesigned to look like a Lego toy. Have to tell us what the hell were you thinking? Don't you realize how dangerous this is? What if someone's... steps on it in their bare feet. New Rule, you can't blame defund the police for the rising level of violent crime.

Blame all the podcasts from white ladies about murders. Follow the money. Who benefits her murders? White ladies with podcasts about murders. And it's a vicious cycle. When's the best time to mug someone when they're listening to a podcast? New Rule, the next time some millennial at a party asks what TV show you're binging, just make one up. Tell them it's San Garen, a Swedish drama about a transgender hitman

who falls in love with an opera singer. It's on Boopy Plus. What, you never heard of Boopy Plus? And then while they're all Googling it, you can slip out the back door and go to a real party. New Rule, now that Dollar General has hired a chief medical officer and says they'll provide health care services to rural areas, it's time to reconsider Medicare for all.

I can't tell you the exact moment. government has failed its people, but pretty close has got to be when you're telling your dollar store cashier. Give me a pack of Mariburros, and is there someone in the back who can stick their finger up my ass and tell me if my prostate feels funny? New Rule, someone needs

to put a stop to the new trend of storing your loved one's ashes in a 3D printed urn in the shape of their head. It's your dearly departed, not the haunted mansion. Although it does finally answer the great riddle of marriage. When can I get a little ahead? Over

my dead body. You like that one, huh? And finally, new rule, please don't make the Olympics into the Oscars. Oh, what's that? They did already? Yeah. You know, back in April when the Oscars aired, I commented in this space that the theme of that evening

was, we dare you to be entertained, lest your mind waver for a few hours from thinking about these sad things and bad people in the world. Well, thank God we found some of those bad people in the Olympics now, and not a moment too soon. The director of... No, that

was sarcasm. The director of the opening ceremony was fired hours before, what did we? Before the event, because they found out there was a Holocaust joke and a comedy routine he did decades ago. Well, you know, context

is everything. Obviously, it didn't strike people as beyond the pale at the time. Young people have to stop flattering themselves at their Nostradamus. And, would have foreseen had they been around then, everything that's unacceptable now. And for further context, Mel Brooks wrote one of the most successful musicals of all time around the song, Springtime for Hitler.

Why do we allow the people who just want to bitch to always win? Days before that firing, the opening ceremony's musical director, musical director, was also forced out because someone dug up an interview with him from 1994, where he admitted to bullying classmates as a child. As a child. Remember when your teacher used to try and scare you by saying this is going to go on your permanent record? Yeah.

No longer an empty threat now. And the creative director of the entire shebang of the whole Olympics got shit canned because he once made a fat joke in a private conversation. This is called a purge. It's a mentality that belongs in style. Russia. How bad does this atmosphere we are living in have to get before the people who say cancel culture is overblown, admit that is in fact an insanity that is swallowing up the world?

I'm back. Not the audience. I'm back. There's still. And that is not a conservative position, my friends. My politics have not changed, but I am reacting to politics that have. And this is yet another example of how the woke invert the very thing that used to make liberals liberals. Snitches and bitches, that's not being liberal. The Associated Press

is a real news organization, yeah. So why am I reading this headline? Olympic surfing exposes whitewashed native Hawaiian roots. Yeah, the Olympics added surfing this year. Good. Surfers deserve to be recognized as athletes. I'm sorry.

What I meant to say is, no, that's cultural. appropriation. The AP says that for Hawaiians, probably all two of them, including surfing in the Olympics, is an extension of the racial indignity seared into the history of the game and their homeland

when white outsiders took over their spiritual art form. Or just people having fun in the ocean. I must say, of all the violations of the woke penal code, cultural appropriation just might be the dumbest of all. First of all, there are 25

thousand islands in the Pacific. How do we know a Hawaiian was the first to stand on a board in the water? It seems like something anyone in any ocean would eventually get around to. And if you're a surfer, it doesn't matter if you're black, white, or in between. You all taste the same to sharks. But let's say a Hawaiian did invent surfing. Should he or she have kept it to themselves? Most of human history is a horror story, but the good parts are about different groups coming together and sharing. It's sort of the whole point of the Olympics, which itself comes from Greece,

where wrestling was invented as a way for completely heterosexual men to get to know each other. Badminton has roots in India. Tennis comes from France. Skiing from Scandinavia and Taekwondo from Korea. Judo was appropriated

from the Far East and skateboarding from the far out. What is this new rule that the first thing to do, that the first to do something are the only ones who get to have it. Jewish people spent most of their history wandering, but when they see other people milling

around, they don't say, can you not? That's sort of our thing. You know, change is not synonymous with progress. Newer doesn't automatically mean better. This new idea that each culture must remain in its own separate silo

is not better, but it's not progress. And in fact, it's messing with one of the few ideas that still really does make this melting pot called America great. Not everything is about oppression. Stealing natural resources from indigenous people. Yes, of course. That is exploitation. But I swear, not one Beach Boy song resulted in any Hawaiian having less waves to surf. Not one African record buyer stopped purchasing local music after Paul Simon made Graceland. But lots of white buyers, and in America were turned on to and then bought African music.

And today, Korean boy bands make Western-style music. You don't get to number one singing this. And that's the great thing about cultural mixing. It makes things better for everyone. BTS can be a hit in America, and I can get kimchi on a taco. Isn't that better than everyone walling itself off from outsiders? I thought walls were supposed to be bad. But we're living now in a world

where straight actors are told they can't play gay roles and white novelists aren't allowed to imagine what it would be like to be a Mexican immigrant, even though trying to inhabit the life of someone else is almost the very definition of empathy, the bedrock of liberalism. And by the way, if anyone deserves to bitch about stealing in the Olympics,

it's the horses in the equestrian events who have to watch humans get medals for everything they do. All right, that's our show. Bob Costas, the great Bob Costas, back on HBO. Next, don't miss it. I'll be at the Buddy Holly Center and love it tomorrow night at the Pabst Theater

in Milwaukee, August 14th at the Rhyman in Nashville on the 15th. I want to thank my guest, Joshua Green, Representative Stacey Plaskin and Eric Adams. 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.

Thank you.