Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #593: Ernest Moniz, Max Brooks, Kristen Soltis Anderson

Episode Date: March 19, 2022

Bill’s guests are Ernest Moniz, Max Brooks, and Kristen Soltis Anderson (Originally aired 3/18/22)  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. Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much. I know why you're happy.

Oh, this is so nice. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I think I know why you're happy today. First of all, it's spring, almost spring. Patrick Gay. We love spring. And also, we finally did something

together in this country. The Senate voted unanimously. When I've ever heard that? Keep daylight savings time permanent. Something. It's something. Yeah. Now, of course, because this is America, and everyone

has to bitch. There are some people who say, no, we shouldn't do that because it will deprive our biological clocks of critical light sense. Okay, for fuck's sake, just go with something. Would you? I mean, you know, first of all, it doesn't take effect until spring of 2023. Maybe by then we'll be sleeping inside.

If you want to lose an hour, take the 405. You know, just go with something. I'm trying to feel good. And I think, you know, in a lot of ways, things are looking up. Finally, we have a president that everybody loves, and his approval ratings are sky high. It's the president

of Ukraine, but still, it's something. Yes, how about, boy, he is no bigger star than Zelensky these days, boy, and a comedian, he's a comedian, he's one of us, and he's the biggest motherfucker in the world. And he made it a...

You saw the speech? He made an amazingly impassioned speech to our Congress. Obviously, not in person. He couldn't do that. But he said, you have no idea what it's like to have your capital under siege. Well, we do a little. But it was an amazing speech. Again, from a comedian.

How great is that? He made his case for military aid. He made his case for democracy. He compared the attack on his country to Pearl Harbor in 9-11. And then he did his death. dating hunk. And Matt killed. He's

got big shtick energy, this guy. He really does. He is, you know, who loves him? Women are going nuts. Have you seen that? Oh, they love it! He's like the sexiest man alive now.

In fact, you know what women are saying now? You know that thing they always wanted men to do when men are servicing the lady parts down there? that they would spell out the alphabet with their tongue. Remember that? Now they want them to spell out Volodomor Zelensky. Oh, and you know, you saw this?

You know, who really stepped up this week? Arnold Schwarzenegger, did you see that? He made a fantastic... You didn't see that? He made a fantastic video. He really did. He made a fantastic video appealing to the people of Russia, telling them you are not getting the truth.

Now, I hope that gets into Russia. You don't know how much that's going to happen, but now other action stars are stepping up. A Stephen Segal called in sick for a shift at the Moscow Walmart. And Clint Eastwood said he's going to make a movie about a crusty old racist... Who adopts a Ukrainian family and learns to love them. And John Cena just out of habit started apologizing in Chinese. But we don't know how much information is able to get into Russia, but at some point, they're going to catch on.

You know why? Because the economy is in tatters. McDonald's pulled out. And they noticed that. The people in Russia noticed that. In fact, they have approved now, the parliament approved a sort of knockoff of McDonald's. I'm not kidding that they're putting out. Look at this.

This is a real thing. This is their logo. Those words under the logo say, government says you're loving it. And Putin, in response to this, has gone full Trump. Really, he's calling everything fake news. He had a huge rally. Sound familiar?

He wears a hat now that says, make Catherine the Great again. And at his rally, when he mentioned Hillary Clinton, the crowd started chanting, push her out a window, push her out a window. And finally, congratulations to Leah Thomas. You know who that is? She is the transgender swimmer who won the NCAA nationals

of beating two former Olympians. And she said, this just proves a woman can do anything a man can do, especially if she's born with a penis. All right, we've had a great show. We've got Max Brooks and Kristen Sulpice Anderson. But first up, he is the first up. He is the former U.S. Secretary of Energy, my old job, and CEO of Energy Futures Initiative.

Ernest Moniz is right here. Doctor? How are you, sir? Great to say you again. All right. Well, I wanted you here because you know all things nuclear. And I've been hearing that word a lot more than I've heard it. I don't know.

Maybe ever. I mean, I was too young to remember the Cuban missile crisis, but I feel like that's the last time we all in America had this much anxiety about nuclear war. We keep hearing about this, so I thought you're the perfect guy to talk about this. Maybe you'll all all lay our fears,

or maybe we'll all shit our pants and jump out the window. But your head of something called the Nuclear Threat Initiative. What is that? Are they helping? This is about the worries we have now, right? First of all, we don't promote nuclear threats. We try to remove them.

Oh, I understand. But you're absolutely right. There's no doubt that a lot of people, I just saw an article, Gen X, is reliving the childhood concerns about nuclear war. This has all come about because of Putin's rather reckless language in terms of possibly using nuclear weapons. It's the most dangerous period. And what is your organization doing about it?

That's what we're worried about. Well, so we have been working, for example, we had a success in January that was rapidly overturned. We had a success when Putin, along with Biden and the leaders of China, the UK, and France, signed a joint statement, first time, that nuclear war could not be won and should not be fought. Well, two months later, Putin says, hey, if things aren't going well, you know, maybe I'm going to use a nuclear weapon. They have a doctrine called escalate to deescalate. And what it means is that if things aren't going well, they might use what they call a small nuclear weapon, five kilotons.

Oklahoma City was two tons, for example, to give you a scale. Was not nuclear. And it was not nuclear. And no radioactivity as well. That's what we worry about the radioactivity. Yeah. So this is not. Well, and at the blast as well, I mean, depends where it lands.

Yes, you wouldn't want to be in the blast, but the vast majority of the world would not be in the blast, but we would worry about radioactive fall out. We would suffer for that. It goes all around the world. Exactly. And so the idea is that they might use one if things are going badly. I might note things are going badly. And the idea is that it would, the enemy would back off. But the reality is, we think that they're going badly.

is at least as good a probability, that it would escalate to a full-fledged nuclear war. I'd say what I worry about even before this is the, you know, there are lost nuclear weapons. We don't know where they all are. There was a movie, I remember, a ticket was with John Travolta called Broken Arrow.

You ever see that movie? Correct. Right. The line that I remember that was so chilling was that the guy says, I don't know what's scarier. The fact that there are lost nuclear weapons, or that there are so many, we have a term for it. That's what a broken arrow is. Since

1950, I think there's like 32. Six of them we've never recovered. One fell off a aircraft carrier into the bottom of the ocean. It's there now. Somebody has the ones we haven't found. Well, hopefully it's still sitting at the bottom of the ocean.

Well, that one may be. That one. But others, unfortunately, American weapons fell in North Carolina, for example. How do you lose a nuke? It's... Really? That's a hard.

It's big. It's considered very poor military practice. But also, but the biggest story there, really, is when the Soviet Union fell apart, there was really no inventory of weapons, but even more so of the material, the uranium and plutonium, to make weapons, because they never bothered to count. And so we went in, we, the United States and other countries, We went in hard, the so-called Nun Lugar program in Russia and Ukraine and Belarus and Kazakhstan to try to nail down all of those materials because the last thing we want is getting into the hands of a terrorist.

Right. Well, they probably use nails. That's my issue, is that, you know, when I see how incompetent this Russian military is, it makes me worry. It makes me almost nostalgic for the days when we thought we could shoot. them down. Remember Star Wars? I mean it was, what was the official SDI? It was under Reagan, but they called it Star Wars.

But the idea was, we don't have to lock them down anywhere because if they come over, we can shoot them down. Now that never happened and it never could. That's a myth. I mean, we could perhaps shut down, you know, like one Israel shoots down, conventional missiles?

Yeah, those are much shorter range. I understand, but the technology exists to intercept something Well, the Patriot, the Patriot defense, for example. But we could probably shoot one down maybe from Iran or from North Korea. But, you know, if we have hundreds of Russian missiles coming in intercontinental, there is frankly no chance to defeat that. So it's all deterrence, that that would be a suicidal mission

because we would do the same to them. What do you think about nuclear power in general? I know you, as something that we need in this country, I think now, I mean, I was always on the fence about this. But as I see countries around the world, and here in California, people who give up their nuclear power wind up using more fossil fuels. Because they have to make up the difference somehow. People want their energy. Now, you're part of something called the Green Real Deal, right? Green Real Deal.

Which is different than, we know what the Green New Deal is. What is different about your approach? The Green Real Deal has the same objective in terms of getting to zero greenhouse gas emissions, if you like, and to do it with social justice. But what we emphasize as things like you've got to use all the tools, including using some fossil fuels and you capture the carbon, including using nuclear power, that there are many tools. And this job is so hard, it's foolish to throw away any of the tools that we can use to them. So you are using nuclear power? Yes. Look, right today, nuclear power supplies 20% of our electricity.

If we were to eliminate that, I don't know how we would end up for it. I mean, California, as we speak, is decommissioning Diablo Canyon. Yes, and I wrote an article in the LA Times against that. Right. Without success, of course. But we need that, and we also need to build a new generation of nuclear. plants. This is carbon-free. It's been safe. And we don't have a lot of options, especially when wind and solar are going to grow, but they are intermittent. And we need also a strong

base load of carbon-free power. That's what nuclear gives us. And right now, there's never been more innovation in this space than we see today. And nuclear is splitting. atoms, right? Whereas fusion is smashing them. Right. But we're not close with fusion. Fusion would be the best, am I right? Correct. But we're not close.

We're closer than you think. How close? Let me just first say that you can generate lots of energy by splitting heavy atoms or smashing light ones. On the fusion side, you need to reach enormous temperatures.

A hundred million degrees is like entering table stakes. 100 million. How much is the sun? About 15 million. So more than the sun? Yeah, seven times, let's say. It's very hot. And that makes it very,

that makes it very challenging. Right. But I believe that there is a very good probability that privately financed companies are going to demonstrate what we need in this decade. Okay. And then in the next decade, we'll have power plants.

Let's end on that because it's positive. It's a very positive. Thank you very positive. Thank you very much. Mr. Secretary. Okay, let's meet our panel. He is a non-resident fellow. That's the way to be there at the Modern More Institute at West Point

and host of Max Brooks breaks down on YouTube. Max Brooks. And she is a poster and founding partner at Esselon Insights. Our returning champion, Kristen Soltes Anderson, is back with us here on you all right soon. Okay. So as I was talking to the secretary, I have a lot of anxiety because I keep hearing nuclear war. I keep hearing World War III, which we tried to book someone on the panel who had experience with World War III, but it hasn't happened yet, so we don't. But Max wrote World War Z.

So that's why you're here. And also... We're in trouble. The Russian army has been fighting like zombies. Yes. But I know you were watching our show last week, and you heard me say, why didn't you? Putin invade Ukraine

when his boyfriend Trump was in office. I mean, Trump stood with him at Helsinki and defended him over our own intelligence agencies. So I was just asking the question and maybe you do have an answer.

Why not when Trump was in office it would seem to be the more logical place? No, he didn't invade because he didn't need to. Because you only roll out the tanks when you think you're out of options. And Putin had a grand asymmetric strategy to dismantle NATO from within. And it was working.

When the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces calls NATO obsolete, you are on the road to a fifth column victory. And that's what he was doing. And as a matter of fact, we know now in 2018... Thank you. Maybe. Well, we know this.

In 2018, Trump wanted to pull out of NATO. And it was John Kelly and John Bolton who had to hold him down like a rabid dog to stop him from doing that. And if Trump had won a second term, he would have done it. But Biden being elected caused Putin's plan to go up and smoke. We don't know what he would have done.

We don't know why he did what he did. Now it's not a backfiring. Trump generally did what he wanted to do, no matter who held him down and said what? One of the things that Trump always said, though, was that he wanted Europe to be more in charge of its own defenses. And nobody has done more to advance that cause than Vladimir Putin by doing this invasion.

Because now you have, a country like Sweden or a country like Switzerland has said, hey, we're going to send weapons to Ukraine. Or a country like Germany has said, we're going to increase our defense spending to a significant portion of our GDP. You've messed up as Vladimir Putin strategically, that you have provoked them to do the opposite of what you wanted. This is what's so surprising to me about Putin. We always knew he was evil, but nobody ever called him dumb.

And now he looks dumb. He looks dumb and not powerful. Yes. I mean, I... You know, I honestly, I was wrong. I thought he was not going to invade. I thought it was brinksmanship. But now, like, this could really go so bad for him.

I mean, the Russians have had a revolution before. Oh, yeah. And when you have the morale of the army, we know, is where it is, when you have the economy tanking the way it is, it looks like they pulled back the curtain and the Wizard of Oz is just this old man with a sound machine. Oh, yeah, no.

On Max Brooks breaks down, we broke down that there is a power in Russia that can end wars, and it's the power of Russian mothers. And they marched against the war in Afghanistan in the 80s. They marched against Chechnya in the 90s. And right now, this is why Putin is being so brutal. He has to wrap up this war

before the telegrams start coming home. Right. Because if those Russian mothers know that their son, are dead. And the mothers next to them fear that their sons will be next, and they rise up. Then the next time we see Vladimir Putin shirtless will be in front of a firing school. But even a single Russian mother, let's say that Vladimir Putin doesn't care about any of that. He does have a lot of rich oligarch friends who are really hurting. You've got the guy who own Chelsea

football club. He's now having to get rid of it. His yacht is moving all around the globe trying to get away from people. I'm a big Formula One fan. There was a driver in Formula One whose dad was a Russian fertilizer magnet who paid a lot of money for his son to be a Formula One driver. Well, his services are no longer required. I'm sure Dimitri Mazepin fertilizer magnet is not thrilled that his son's Formula One career is up in smoke so that Putin can kind of try to invade a country and wreak havoc. Why? Why? What do you mean?

No, why are you a fan of watching traffic? That's what I want to. Oh, Bill. Right. If you want me to persuade you to get into Formula One, that's a whole other segment. You're right. That's a whole other thing. Let's skip over that. But, no, when you're a dictator, it is a lot about faith. You know, the people have to believe that you are this omnipotent leader.

It's a little like the dollar. You know, you have to believe in it. It's not really backed up by much. Well, you know, Bill, this is why all dictators and all dictators always have to have two armies. Yeah. To protect your borders. The other two protect you.

That is why you have to have the SS or the KGB or the Revolutionary Guard. The Republican Guard. The Saddam Hussein. They're terrified of their own people. They always are. And Putin knows this. Because let's be honest, if this was a popular war, why would Putin be asking for mercenaries from the Middle East?

Why wouldn't he just go on TV and say, all patriots come serve the motherland? He knows that he is running out of time. All right. So let me ask a pollster question, because I think Biden has done really quite well with this. You know, he united our allies, for one. Kind of the Goldilocks approach, he hit right.

We didn't start World War III, and yet we're helping as much as we can and doing pretty well with that. And also, we don't have to wonder what side he's on, that little thing. And yet, when I look, okay, this is recent poll. Do you feel Biden has made the right decisions on Ukraine? 59% said yes. Then the question, do you approve of the way Biden is handling this situation, Ukraine? 43% approve.

49% disapprove. I explain that to me as a pollster. Because what I read there is people just, they just wrote him off, maybe because he's the 2,000-year-old man, which your father will appreciate. You know, maybe that's just it. Maybe it's ageism. Because, like, apparently they say, yeah, we like what he did, but we don't like what he did. I think it's hard for some Americans. I mean, Republicans were the biggest gap on that question.

I saw that exact number you were looking at, that most, the vast majority of Republicans do not approve of the job that Biden's done handling this. But about a third still say he's made the right decisions. And it's probably because they can't point to a single decision specifically that they don't like. They just know, I feel like we wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for him. And so it's this overall general sense of, I don't trust the guy. And that's why his job approval on foreign policy, his job. approval on the economy. They're all pretty low. And even though he has taken this more Goldilocks kind of path, it hasn't necessarily endeared him, even though on things like should we have economic sanctions, should we give military aid, that is, it's not quite the unanimity you saw for daylight savings time, but it's pretty close. So it's the tribalism. It's a long time.

It's the tribalism. They just hate the blue team, no matter what you're Jewish. Even though Biden has come out and said, I want to do economic sanctions, I want to do some of this military aid, you're not seeing Republicans have this backlash against it. And that's what there are some, like, for the right commentators that I think are surprised. What did you think of the State of the Union speech? Do you think he's done a good job now kind of pivoting to moderation? I mean, if the Democratic Party is going to have any chance in November or any election in the future, they're going to have to make that pivot. I thought, you know, if you actually listen to the speech, which I'm sure most people didn't, but, you know, it was like, let's have, you know, negotiating on prescription,

drug prices, minimum wage, raise the corporate income tax, you know, pro-union. It was a pretty moderate, like, none of the bullshit nonsense that gets people pissed off. You know, it was like, let's get back to Democratic Party values, old-school

stuff. Yeah, but at a certain point, the people who watch those speeches are mostly your die-hard fans anyways. And so what's really going to matter to most Americans is when you ask them, what's the number one issue you want, Congress and the President to focus on, it's things like inflation and cost of living. And you can give all the speeches you want, but if gas is still $4, 5, 6 dollars, it's hard for a speech to

overcome some of that. But you know what's on people's news feeds these days is don't say gay in Florida, the don't say gay bill, which we talked about last week here on overtime, so we won't rehash all the ins and out to that. But I noticed that Disney is in trouble because Disney is, of course, a huge company in Florida. I mean, I don't know how many they employ there, but what's there? Disney World. I grew up in Orlando.

I worked at a theme park, a different one. Really? Yes. That works me for Disney. That explains the NASCAR thing. No, I'm kidding. Not NASCAR. Well, whatever.

You know. But anyway, Disney is a $67 billion company, and they made like $300,000 donation to certain politicians who I guess were also associated with this don't say gay bill, which, you know, is not the real name of the bill. You know, I could read you the thing. You know what it is. It's like, you know, they're upset that little kids are being taught about, I guess, gender and sexuality when they think they're too young to hear it.

You know, Heather has two mommies. I mean, but sometimes Heather does have two mommies. He shouldn't make that kid feel bad about it. Okay. But, okay, but look, both sides always have to go too fucking far with everything. But what I want to ask about is Disney. like we are in this place now because some of the people the employees at Disney are like sort of going on

these little coffee break strikes and they're very mad they're writing letters because Disney didn't react strongly enough against the bill because they are in Florida and I don't know what they were supposed to do but apparently more than what they did at the beginning the head of Disney he was sort of he's just like look I'm staying out of it we're a corporation we make movies about animals and enchanted forests this is not my job so but we live in this world where corporations now have to take sides. My question is, is that a good thing, that corporations

always have to take sides on every political issue? In most cases, no. And in part because, one, it's so fascinating, 10 years ago, the folks that would have been the most upset about corporations using their voice and power to engage in political speech was the left. Now it's more often the left that's calling for corporations to engage in political speech to use their microphone to try to advance certain values. I think 99% of the time CEOs get misled when they have, say, their corporate PR department

who is very online, they're monitoring the tweets, they're seeing people are really upset and they go, we've got to put out a statement on this. But I think that Disney example might be a little different, because most people do not want politics involved when they go to the grocery store and they're shopping,

or when they're going to the store and they're putting stuff in their cart. But Disney doesn't just sell widgets. They do sell values at a certain thing. certain level. And so I do think Disney, when it comes to this, whenever you're putting out entertainment, they are trying to not just say for the U.S., but globally, where this company that's all about family values. So they do, I think, find themselves a little more closely tied to this controversy than your average company that has somebody saying, hey, you've got to put out a statement on Instagram, we got to make this go away.

Don't all corporations, doesn't anybody who makes money take a stand, whether they want to or not? I mean, if we were sitting here in 1850 and you'd say, oh, nice suit, where'd you get? It's made of cotton. Where they pick the cotton? Slaves do in Virginia. So wherever the money comes from, there's always a stand. But I think the awesomeness about capitalism is, as the consumer,

I have the choice. I get to vote every day about where I put my money. So when Disney comes out with Moulon 2, Milan fights the Dalai Lama because they want to make money in China, I can say, goodbye, Disney. Or we see it now with Ukraine. But to me, the problem with this,

the biggest problem. I mean, all that is true. Here's the other side of it. We are breaking down, as we were just talking about with tribalism, partisanship, into these two different intractable factions in this country. People talk about civil war, not just nuclear war.

They talk about civil war, like it's really going to happen or could happen. People talk about seceding and all this kind of stuff. The more that things make us into two camps, the worse it is. The more Disney has to be, and Disney, by the one of the most gay-friendly corporations ever.

They just don't. That's just a fact. But we become this country where we have nothing in common. Whereas it used to be like, okay, you're conservative, I'm a liberal, but we both watch whatever the fuck Disney puts out.

I have no idea. I'm sure some wonderful movies for children that I have no idea what they are. Frozen. Did they put out... Is that Disney? Yes, and most of Americans do not want to go, oh, I can't watch Frozen. because it's made by a bunch of, you know,

and conservatives are very used to having to consume cultural products made by people that do not necessarily share their values. But it is now young progressives who make up a large portion of the workforces of companies who are really putting the pressure on, and they are more willing to punish these companies than conservatives are. But I'm just saying America needs more neutral things

that we can all go, oh, you're not completely different from me on all things. If we don't talk about politics all the time, which we'd never used to, then maybe we can... I do think most Americans are with you on that. They do not want to have their politics in everything they do. All right.

Let me change subjects. I saw recently that the Who, that's not the group. That's the World Health Organization. They put out a guideline because we are hopefully coming to the end of at least the most serious phase of the pandemic. And it was about how we could protect health care workers, who, of course, deserve a giant pat on the back. And it was about how they are burnt out after time. two years of

pandemic. And of course, they do need to be protected. What we thought we would do here is tell you the signs that

you may need to need to see to indicate if your health care worker is burned out. Because how do you know if your health care workers burn it?

Here are some of the ways. For example, he dozes off with his finger up your air. That is one way you can definitely after he checks your vital signs, he says,

now do me. That's a... She calls your prescription into jiffy loo. That is... He asks for your health care card and then use to chop up a line of adderol. That is a dead giveaway. He says you need to lose weight

and then gives you the number of a meth dealer. When the fetus appears, on the ultrasound screen, she screams, oh my God, you ate a baby? That's burnt out. It's burned out. The cotton bowl jar is filled with sangria. There you go.

And the only gowns they have left seem to be from a quincynara. Okay. So, so I would like to address just for a second that issue of how do we protect the health care workers? Because I never hear anybody say this answer. You know how you

protect health care workers, people are always like we should thank them, absolutely you should. You want to thank them, you want to protect them, be healthier. Take some personal responsibility and you be healthier. Who winds up in the ER? Unhealthy people.

Especially with COVID. Now, sometimes they can't help that. Of course, you can't always help that. But mostly it's from lifestyle choices. You could be healthier, and that is how you could protect health care workers. as long as we're talking about this, I want to ask about Kyrie Irving

because, like, I'm a basketball fan, the playoffs are starting. And to me, this is exactly why people are fed up with this. I saw a poll recently. 70% of people say, COVID, we're just going to have to live with it. Let's get on with our lives.

Did you see that? 70%. Okay, that's where America seems to be. Kyrie Irving is a great basketball player. He can not play in New York in home games, because that is their own. law. He can play on the road, and he does. The other day, they saw him sitting in the stands, one row behind, but he couldn't step on the court. There he was maskless with all the other maskless people sitting in the stands, but if he stepped on the court, he would somehow be a

threat to humanity. And I believe that if he had been, say, a player for the Orlando Magic, he would have been allowed to play in New York as a visiting player. I should have said he's unvaccinated. That's why he can't play and he will not get vaccinated. Okay, that's his choice. It should be respected more than it is. But okay. Why should we respect that? Should he go in with a loaded gun and spin it around?

He can hurt somebody. I'm sorry, Max, but that's arrogant about health in general. Why? Why? Because you're assuming that we know everything about health and we don't. But we know the vaccines work. We know they're safe. We know you're protecting people.

You did it? I did it. Did you do it? I did. We did it. We all do it. Okay. Well, first of all, there are a couple of types of different, I did it. I didn't want to do it. We all did it. I didn't want to do it.

I didn't want to do it. I was scared to death. But I'm more scared to death of infecting someone that I love and passing it along. That's you. Then don't, then... But we all have to live together. We all have to live in a country. The problem is that's how the vaccines were originally sold, right? As this wee protection, it's going to be something that you do for your

community. And the problem was that the delta and omacron variants changed that. The science of it, suddenly the CDC comes out July of last year and goes, well, the vaccines are good at protecting you from severe illness, but they're less good at protecting you from transmission. It assumes we're all more afraid

of COVID than anything else. I'm more afraid of cancer. Now, am I saying the vaccine causes cancer? Of course not. What I'm saying is we don't know a lot about health. We don't know what causes cancer. We don't know what confluence of different things. I'm not saying it's the vaccine. I'm saying, until we answer basic questions about health,

don't tell me how to handle my health. There are a couple of different types of people who don't want the vaccine. There are idiots who think it has a microchip in it. And then there are people like Kyrie Irving and Aaron Rogers and Djokovic who are finely tuned athletes who are very careful about everything they put in their body. And they want to handle their health with their natural system. That should be respected. Well, you're afraid of cancer.

You're afraid of cancer, but cancer is not contagious. No, you should be able to do what you want with your body, but if your body affects someone else's... So I should... I should... Wow, that's a lot of asking of me. I mean, you're right. I will go to certain steps to help other people.

Right. But if you're asking me... I mean, remember when Obama was saying, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, and everyone was very upset when that didn't apply. like 2% of the people. But what was the point of that? The point of that was you get to listen

to your doctor's advice. What if my doctor's advice is different than what your doctor's advice is? Wasn't that the whole point of I get to keep and listen to my doctor? The vaccines are great at protecting you from severe illness. And so I think the problem

is that a lot of the messaging through all of last summer was about this collective action problem. And now we've seen over the last couple of months, we went through the Omicron phase. A lot of people who were vaccinated said, I was boosted, I wore masks, and I still got this stupid virus, I'm done. And so now it can't be the collective messaging, we're all in this together. Those people have already gotten the vaccine. Because they were wrong.

It's got to be about what's my own risk calculation. And that's the point. They were wrong about that. And I don't blame them for being wrong about it. They said, Joe Biden said only six months ago, if you have this vaccine, you're not going to get the disease. not true. Again, I'm not blaming you. I don't think it's because of corruption. I'm just saying, you don't know a lot about how the body works. We know more than we used to. We don't know enough to assure me that you could just tell me, because you're wearing the white coat, do what I say. Just do what I say, and trust me, because when have we ever been wrong? And my answer is you've been

wrong a lot. Not your fault. That's just where we are. Here's something they were not wrong about. is that it doesn't just, getting a vaccine doesn't just save you from dying. It keeps you out of the hospital. Have you ever heard of something called a Code Black? Anyone ever heard of this? Do you know what a Code Black is? Code Black means there are no hospital beds left, not just in the hospital, in the entire city.

So if you don't get vaccinated and you get COVID bad enough that you have to go to the hospital, you may survive, but you are taking that hospital bed away from someone else who may need it for some other reason. But we're not there now. We're not there now. No, no. Now we're in a good place so we can enjoy our lives. But I don't see people enjoy.

I was driving around L.A. finally, because we can come into the office now, driving on the way to the office the other day. And I saw so many young, always young people with masks outside. Outside. These are the people who follow the science. Well, that's not the science. We were never going to get it outside. There's a very big difference in risk perception.

and it actually correlates very strongly with political ideology, that even for people who just think of themselves as liberal, not very liberal, but just liberal, they're actually no more likely than folks who are pretty conservative to say they're very freaked out by COVID. It is just the very liberal slice where about half of them still say, I am gravely concerned about the threat of COVID. And so they're kind of in some ways out there on their own on this,

but even for Americans who fall in that other, I'm a little worried about it, but not too much. The way most people look at COVID is everybody who's more cautious than me is a lunatic who is overly cautious, and everyone who is less cautious than me is reckless. And that's the way most Americans, regardless of what their actual risk perception is, feel about this. Right. But the people with the masks, it's based on bad information. I've seen the polling on this.

Like an astounding number of Democrats thought that the number of people who got COVID, who had to go to the hospital was over 50% when it was under one. That's bad information. How did that happen? Again, it's the people overestimate the extent to which all sorts of negative things will potentially happen to them. We just as a species are really bad at risk perception. And I think it's one thing to say, look, even if there's a very low risk of a really bad outcome happening to me, I want to do things like maybe I'll wear a mask to try to avoid that really bad outcome. Is the queen still alive?

She is. Okay. Didn't she get it? And she was vaccinated and boosted. And she's 150. And she's trucking, man. She's going. Okay.

So, you know... All right. I saw this in the paper today, and I have to ask you both about this. 84% of people think it is a serious problem that people can't speak freely without fear of retaliation.

I've never... I've seen that number way over 50%. I've never seen it that high. Even the New York Times editorial board, wow, that's a lot because I would formally have put them in the part of the problem category. Even they said, however you define

cancel culture, Americans know it exists and feel its burden. What do you think about that? It was a pretty big change for them. Or at least it was surprising. One of the things they're getting some pushback on, and I'm sympathetic to this pushback, is that their definition of freedom of speech in this article

is that you should be able to say what you want without fear of blowback. And I don't think that that's the case. I think that you should be able to say what you want and that sometimes there are consequences for the things you say. Those consequences can mean you get criticized by other people. Other people still have the right to exercise their freedom of speech to say you're wrong.

So this comes into the question of, well, when does my right to free speech infringe on your... run into your right to criticize me back. I do think that that's where the New York Times folks got this a little bit wrong. But generally, I was glad to see them come out and take this sort of a stance because it was surprising to me. And we have to have this. This is the agreement we make to have a free and open society.

Feelings will be hurt. Egos will be bruised. There will be differences of opinion. I mean, look at us. I'm married with a kid. I don't smoke weed and I read comic books. My life is your worst nightmare. We're here.

We're here. Really? And mine is your biggest dream. Anyway, we've got to go to new roles. Thank you, Pat. Now, I'm kidding. All right. Time for new rules, everybody, new rules.

New rules, just because you're used tamaric to something, add tamaric to something. It doesn't mean you're detoxing. I'm not saying it isn't good for you. I'm saying you're a drunk who tender dates in New Jersey. And a spice rack can't help you. You want to eat something that will really clear out what you did last night? Try del taco. Neuro, someone speaking for all men has to tell smile makers

the designers of this new dual stimulation vibrator that simultaneously arouses both the G-spot and the clitoris with two separate motors, nine different pulsation settings, and squeeze control technology. You win. No, our dicks can't do that. but good luck getting it to take off its shoe and kill a spider Newell, now that a camel at a petting zoo in Tennessee

went on a rampage and killed two people, don't act so surprised. We live in a country where once a week a disgruntled employee shoots his co-workers, is it really a shock that a camel who spent his days being groped by school kids lost his shit? Just be glad the monkey didn't escape because in Tennessee they are allowed to open carry. New Rule, if you went to journalism school, but your job is to recap episodes of The Bachelor, you need to go back to journalism school. Sorry, but I'm confused by this new genre of journalism,

where it's your job to watch TV shows and then tell us what happened on the show. If we watched the show, what's the point of recapping it? And if we didn't watch, thanks a lot, asshole, you just ruined it. New Rule, now that Clarence Thomas' mega-activist wife, Ginny Thomas, admits she was at the January 6th stopped the steel rally. Clarence has to tell us,

what is dinner conversation like in the Thomas household? I mean, do you actually agree with your wife's crazy politics? Or is this one of those, you know, the crazy ones are always better in the sack kind of situation? Because if it's the former,

this has real ramifications for federal jurisprudence and the integrity of the Supreme Court itself. And if it's the latter, hey, I got you, bro. And finally, New Rule, if you become the opposite of what you always were, you have to change your name. It's become a trend in America these days, morphing into something completely different from what you were founded as, but still pretending you're the old you. TLC stands for the Learning Channel. They used to have shows like Learn to Read and Ready Set Learn.

Here's some of their present and recent offerings. Cake Boss, Gypsy Sisters, Toddlers and Tierras, Extreme Couponing. What not to wear. My teen is pregnant, and so am I. Thousand Pound sisters and Alaskan women looking for love. And that's just the shows about the Palin's. The A in A&E stands for arts. Seriously.

They used to show the symphony. Now they have deep-fried dynasty, hoarders, storage wars, ghost hunters, and psychic kids. You know, for people who find the learning channel too intellectual. The History Channel has no history. has no music. I'm just saying you can buy a petting zoo and turn it into a bondage dungeon,

but you've got to change the sign. For decades, Playboy was the go-to whack-off magazine for heterosexual men with reviews of movies that came out six months ago and a lot of information about stereos. And fiction by Kurt Vonnegut.

But mostly the masturbation thing. Which was facilitated by pictures of naked women who were naked. Well, in 2016, Playboy did away with the nudity. They took the tits out of Playboy. It's like taking the cats out of cat fancy. Last year, Playboy put a gay man on the cover, which, I guess, we're supposed to celebrate,

even though it was 2021, and there's already a dozen magazines for gay guys, 13, if you count Martha Stewart Living. Do we really need LGBT? representation in Playboy? This is a transgender teenager on every show on television except reruns a voyage to the bottom of the sea.

The same thing is going on with the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, which now celebrates all kind of bodies except, you know, the good kind. Was it really such a crime against humanity to have one magazine once a year that was about finding creative ways for supermodels

to hide their neples? Now it looks. It's like it's edited by the Huffington Post. Jeez, you have every other magazine. Do you hate Dad that much? If he can't rub one out in the garage, what is he supposed to do in there? Actually, sand something?

This is not progress. You haven't reformed the soft-core gentleman masturbator. You've driven him to creepyporn.com. Or, how about Valentine's Day? which was always a day to celebrate coupled them. It wasn't complicated. Flowers, chocolates, blowjob. And yet,

every year now, I more and more hear this idea that Valentine's Day is also a day to celebrate being alone. Be your own Valentine. That's right. On the one day, we're specifically set aside to honor bonding between two people. Don't do that.

Make it about the opposite of that. Be your own Valentine. Get your own cheap, stale chocolate. It's CBS. You don't even need to have sex with someone else. You can go fuck yourself. The Boy Scouts of America used to be an organization for boys

because girls have cooties. But now the Boy Scouts accept girls, which I guess is inclusive, but it ignores the very important need for boys to sometimes get together as boys to fart in a sleeping bag and laugh at that, which girls

don't find funny. It also ignores the fact that there has always also been a scout troop for girls. You may have heard of it. The Girl Scouts? Can't anything just be what it is anymore? Weight watchers used to be a club for people to lose weight back when that was a good thing. Now we're so through the looking glass that obesity, the absolute undeniable number one cause for ill health and death in America,

is called body positivity. And people are shamed for losing weight. It happened to Adele. Weight Watchers is so intimidated, they change their name to WW. Why not just call yourselves, wait, wait, don't tell me. The ACLU has long been synonymous

with freedom of speech. They defended it from even the most hated groups like the Nazis, the Klan, even the Jehovah Witnesses. It was never about what you were saying. the liberal principle of your right to say it. Well, they have new guidelines now, namely that before taking a case,

ACL lawyers should consider if the case might cause offense to marginalized groups, or if a potential client's values are contrary to our values. Contrary to our values? Your values are free speech. And the First Amendment, those are your values. Your whole purpose in life is not to be worried about offense to marginalized groups

because we understand that free speech is an even more important value than never being offended. Because you're the ACLU, not UCLA. And finally, there's the Republican Party. It used to stand for something, being heartless squares, but something. Oh, and patriotism.

They always wanted you to know. They loved America more than you. America first. Love it or leave it, flag, pin in the lapel, thank you for your service, America. But now Tucker Carlson is literally reciting Russian talking points,

becoming so valuable to the Kremlin that they put out a memo asking their propaganda outlets to replay as much of Tucker Carlson as possible in Russia. After the Capitol riot on January 6th, 147 Republican lawmakers in a congressional vote

objected to the certification of an election they knew was legitimate. Okay, you can't be the super patriots who love America and also run on a platform of let's ignore the vote. You can't represent a form of government you yourself don't believe in. If you do, then you have to get another name. Like maybe the Trump Party.

He's pretty modest about putting his name on things, but maybe he'll license it just this once. All right, thank you very much. That's our show. I'll be at the MGM National Harbor in Washington, D.C., May 1st, at the Mirage in Vegas, May 20, and 21st, and at the Marat in Indianapolis, June 5th. I want to thank Max Brooks, Kristen Solis Anderson, and Ernest Moneys. You can go to Utah now and watch us for our retirement. 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.