Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #679: Dr. Casey Means, Chris Cuomo, Mary Katharine Ham

Episode Date: November 16, 2024

Bill’s guests are Dr. Casey Means, Chris Cuomo, Mary Katharine Ham (Originally aired 11/15/24) 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. That's pretty good. Thank you. Wow. Thank you very much. That is pretty good for a city

that's supposed to be so depressed, okay? Well, this is our second of the last show, and then you're on your own, and I know I'm leaving in a tough time. The country's like, you know, Half the country is ecstatic about the election, and half the country is very down in the dumps. Liberal women among the most pissed off.

And have you seen this, the strategy, denying sex. No, really, this is a big thing to any guy who voted for Trump. Well, all I could say is, finally, progress has found a way to turn something blue. Well, if you think you were mad last week, this week Trump picked his cabinet. and, boy, he hit the ground trolling. Tulsi Gabbard, Christy, Gnome, Pete Hegseth, RFK, Matt Gates.

Two basic qualities you needed. Absolute loyalty to Trump. And a name that makes liberals cry. Trump's dream candidate is a service animal named Sugar Tits. That would be... The one that caused the most Consonition, of course, is Matt Gates as Attorney General because

Diddy was not available. No, it's... No, it's a... It's a bit of an unorthodox pick. I think we could agree to that. A president... Usually a president wants someone as Attorney General who's familiar with Justice Department investigations, but not a

target of them himself. But, you know, look, as be fair, Matt Gates denies all the allegations, but since 2021, a House committee has been investigating him for sexual misconduct, elicited drug use, and sharing inappropriate images. Matt Gates, the man who answers the question, what if Hunter Biden's laptop was a person? But again, again, he denies it, and I wasn't at the party. I don't know.

I was at the freak off. I was not. I missed that party, so I don't know. But Matt is floating a new policy in the Justice Department. Don't ask, don't card. And he says, Matt Gates says he wants to get rid. I don't even know why this is really his purview in the Justice Department. He wants to get rid of a lot of the agencies that have like three letters.

that's really I'm not making that up three letters like the ATF FBI yet a lot of getting rid of talk now in Washington Trump wants to get rid of the education department which would turn it back to the states which means like in Arkansas you could be taught by nuns and in New York you could be taught by drag queens who are dressed as nuns so it's gonna be a very different world we live in Over at the Defense Department, important job, Secretary of Defense,

Trump picked the weekend guy from Fox and Friends. Really? But only because he found out that Jack Reacher was not a real guy. That's... Yeah, that'll be the defense secretary. Pete Hegseth, ooh, from Fox and Friends. I can't wait to see how he handles military operations.

We'll be right back, but first, more bombs. And, oh yeah. Vanna White works with the alphabet, so she'll be... She'll be the Secretary of Education. This is... And the Secretary of Commerce is the hawk to a girl. So... But you know what?

That's what happens when you lose elections. And don't expect the normal Republicans to save you. There is no more normal Republicans. This is the Trump Party, and if he chooses Kanye to be the ambassador to Israel, say hi to Jesus of Nazareth. Okay. We've got a great show. Chris Cuomo and Mary Catherine Hamer here.

The first up, he is the co-finder of the Metabolic Health Company Levels and co-author of the best-selling book, Good Energy, Dr. Casey Means, doctor. Great to meet you. Great to see you. I've been seeing you a lot lately there, and, uh, They are perfectly timed to be here because one of the appointments that people are freaking about is RFK in charge of health and human services. Now, I know you don't have a lot of personal connection with them. You only met him twice.

We're not going to go there. I just want to talk about whether people's head should be exploding about that because I think RFK, you and I do have something in common, which is that for a long time, we've all been saying, well, the system as it is, the way we do health is already very fucked. So maybe he'll make it worse, but like my head is not exploding about it. And so I saw you do this where I got familiar with you, this video you did where you said you graduated Stanford Medical. And the video was called something like, I learned nothing there about what was important. Tell us what you didn't learn there that you think you should be taught at least in medical school. Right. It's astonishing. It's not an overstatement to say that in my four-year-old. of Stanford undergrad, four years of Stanford Medical School, and four and a half years of

surgical training, I did not learn a single thing about what is really making Americans sick, the true root causes of the chronic disease epidemic that's devastating and torturing American lives, the things like the impact of ultra-processed food on our health, the incredible 80,000 synthetic toxins that are our food, water, air, our personal care products, the fact that there has been, you know, six billion tons of plastic produced since 1907 that have entered our food, our water, even our air. The fact that six billion pounds of synthetic pesticides are sprayed on our global food supply every year, you know, the average child in America is spending less time outdoors than a maximum security prisoner, and yet sunlight actually dictates a huge portion

of our biology. So these modifiable aspects of holistic living that directly impact our cellular health are just not being talked about. We're really focused on silos in the American health care system. We have over 100 medical and surgical subspecialties, and what happens is we miss the the forest for the trees of the root causes of what's making Americans sick. And I think what happened on Election Day this year is that Americans came out and said, we want to bend the curve of the chronon disease epidemic that is destroying American potential. And I think RFK represents someone who's willing to take that on. Yeah. Now look, if he had said, like, I'm going to ban vaccines. I would be very against it. But he said just the other day, he said, no, choice. If you want him,

you have them, it's not going to be mandated. That's, I think, what a lot of people object you do before. I mean, I've said it many times. There are some pathogens that if they were going around, I would fight you for the vaccine. Right. And there are others that, you know, I just didn't want, like the one we just had.

But you said so many things there that, like, I feel like I've been saying for many years, and people kind of look at you like you're crazy because I think they just are in this world of doctors know everything. And I think you're telling us in medical, you learn, doctors don't. I always say, if they know everything, why do you always have to get a second opinion? Well, they knew everything. You're saying it's an opinion. And by the way, the second one never matches the first one. They're always guessing. I'm not saying they're corrupt,

although there is some of that. You know, if they knew everything, then why would we be spending $4.5 trillion per year on health care costs and life expectancy is going down in the United States? It's why are 80% of health care costs going towards chronic illnesses that are rooted in diet and lifestyle, yet at the vast majority of American medical schools, doctors and training are not taking a single nutrition course. And so you have to ask these questions. If we were crushing it, we would not be spending 2x every other country in the entire world and have the lowest life expectancy of any developed country in the entire world. We are the sickest of the top 11 high-income countries in the world.

We have the highest infant and maternal mortality rates. And our life expectancy is 10 years less than our friends in Japan in Switzerland. Right now, according to the Journal of American Medical Association, the average American man in America, age 73 is their life expediency. It is 83 in Japan and Switzerland. This is something we should all be outraged about. And only one party in our election cycle this year was talking about chronic illness. The words chronic illness, as far as I know, never came out of the Harris campaign's mouth.

And I think that was a real amissed because Americans are, I think, tired of being gaslit about the fact that there's not a problem right now. And when we look around us, and we know there is, and Trump has asked RFK to do three simple things. He's asked to get the corruption out of the U.S. health agencies, produce uncompromised evidence-based research

for our health guidelines, and reverse the trends of the Chronody's epidemic in two years for children and adults so that we can show up for our 250th anniversary of America stronger than ever, that sounds pretty good to me. That sounds good, but, you know, that's Trump talking. That's RFK talking. Well, I'm saying, but Trump has said he's going to let him do all this.

Trust me, the first time Trump gets a call from some big mucky muck at the pharmaceutical industry and says, hey, you're fucking with my profits. Trump could easily reverse all of this. Maybe, maybe, although I don't trust any of it. I'm not a Trumper. But Trump's already a billionaire who can't run again. Does he really need to cout out of industry?

I believe, I believe in my heart that he has been shown some light from RFK about the monumental nature of the American health care epidemic, and it has struck a chord with him. I hope so. And just to get back to, I think, what I'm trying, we only have 10 minutes here. We could talk about this for hours. but just the idea that just a kitchen table it, there's the orthodox view,

and then there's this alternative view. No, you need both. I want Western doctors. I want there to be antibiotics in the world and all. I just don't want to ever need them. I think Western medicine is great, like when you're after you're sick, to save you at the last minute. I don't want to get to there.

Right. And like the orthodox view is the accent is on germs, And germs and genes are very important. I mean, look at Trump. He eats nothing but buckets of chicken. He's got incredible genes. Good genes, yeah. Good genes.

Germs are important, too. But your focus is on cells. That is, you talk about metabolic health. That's what we don't talk about it, right? Because I think that's what it is. And you're the thing about, we have all these specialists, again, not really the holistic view about it. Like we, all these different silos you call them,

I just not really, I don't think, how the body works, it all works in concert. And I mean, I've heard people say that there's really only one disease, which is cellular degeneration. It takes many of these different forms. But it's because the cells are not getting enough of the nutrients they need or they're getting toxicity. You've got it. That's what, right.

So if we could just get on that page, and I think that's where RFK is too. And by the way, Jared Polis, who my Democratic friends will, say, you know, very, he was on here recently. He's a governor of Colorado, a very reasonable guy. He says, I'm excited by the news of our FK. He said he will help us make America healthy again. He will shake up the HAS and FDA. I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines, which he said he will. I'm optimistic about him taking on big farm in the corporate ag, oligapi corporate ag, that's agriculture and horrible factory farming. and that's why we wound up probably, possibly anyway, with COVID the way we torture animals, it goes to us,

all of this stuff. I mean, so, you know, if you want to say he's a crazy person, he certainly said some crazy shit. Sure, yeah. He certainly has said some crazy shit. But we do need shaking up. Yeah, I mean, I think my purpose on this planet is to really help people understand both in health care

outside of healthcare, that we don't have 50 issues that are torturing our lives right now. Fundamentally, we actually have one really big issue, which is the metabolic disease epidemic. Our cells are metabolically dysfunctional, and this is caused by our environment. The modern world, it's really a mismatch with how our cells, what they need to function properly. And so more than a health epidemic, which is what we have in this country, I mean, health is getting destroyed in the United States, which you don't really talk about because it's not profitable to heal in this country. It's profitable to keep people sick. and then drug them, to drug them, cut them, and build them,

which is what we learn how to do. And really what we have here is a disconnection crisis. And the health care crisis is one branch of that tree. We're disconnecting the body into 100 separate parts and not seeing as a unified system. And we're disconnecting the body from the environmental conversation, which actually we're really one and the same. You know, we are totally connected to nature

and in destroying nature through the pesticides and the way we're treating animals. our health is a reflection of what we're doing to the earth. And, you know, I think what is hopeful, at least about RFK's message, is that he's spiritually connected in nature. He has spent his life litigating against environmental debt of station. He bears. Well, he is, he's a hunter.

He's a hunter. And I know almost no people who are more spiritually attuned to animals than people who are hunters, because they study them, they think about them. He sued Monsanto. He sued GE for PCBs and water. He started the Waterkeepers Alliance. He is, he hikes all the time, we see it on Instagram, um, he speaks to Ravens, you know, it's, so, this is not,

no, I mean, he, he, like, he has a connection with them. Yeah, see. And I'm not, I'm not trying to vouch here. Give him a little advice. Just like, not tell us everything. Not, don't tell us, yeah. You know, like, we would be a lot, uh, I, you know, I didn't, you know, I didn't need to know about the worm in the brain.

No. You know. But the broader point is that I think a deeper conversation, about the spiritual connection between humans and the earth and some compassion for our bodies and how they are being destroyed by the modern world as a conversation we need to be having. I agree.

All right. Well, I thank you for taking the lead on that. Thank you for being on our show. Thank you. All right. Let's meet our panel. Okay, look who's here. All right.

She is a Fox News contributor, a host of the Getting Hammered podcast. Mary Catherine Hamm. Thank you for returning, Mary. And he is an award-winning broadcaster analyst who hosts Cuomo every weeknight on News Nation and the podcast of the Chris Cuomo Project. Chris Cuomo's on that panel. Okay. And before I get to you, Sue, a couple of programming notes. This is our penultimate show.

We are on next week also. We usually take off now. People keep asking me about that. If you want to see me do stand-up comedy live, you have two more shots in this lifetime. I got nothing booked for 25 there. I'm tired of dragging my ass out of bed at Saturday morning after working here all week. So I'll be at the beacon tomorrow night,

the 16th in New York, and then, fittingly, at the MGM National Harbor of Washington, D.C. And my comedy special, January 10th will be on this network. Is anyone else seen this? All right, now to you, too. So this week, we saw Biden have Trump to the White House. I think we have some footage here.

very, very normal. I started the show last week saying the same thing. I hate to repeat myself, but I feel like we're gliding over something really important in this world, or at least in this country, which is that when the Democrats lose, the mass is over, go in peace. When the Republicans lose, we have a riot, and we pretend that every election is bullshit. This is already something that has passed us to the point where we're not the country we should be or we used to be. Now, you voted for Trump. Tell me why this is okay with you. Well, genuine thank you

to Biden and Harris for doing what they should do, right? That he didn't do, Trump. Yes, and Biden is, by the way, I'm not sure he knows he's in the room with Hitler, but he gets half credit for doing this peacefully, right? But I think there's another thing here. We've had

a contest in democracy by listening to the voters about what they cared about most. And I think one of the issues with voters, was that making January 6th, 9-11, making that day into everything, did not win that fight. It didn't win the fight about what they cared about.

That's not what I'm asking. What I'm asking is, you know that if Trump had lost this election, right now, we would be talking about the votes that are still coming in in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and he'd be in the courts, and we would just be all in a tigger. One side,

accepts election losses and one side doesn't. This asymmetry cannot continue. And the people who are defending it cannot just look past it like, well, we won the election, so that's it. Well, like, currently Bob Casey, Democratic Senator in Pennsylvania, is doing exactly what you're saying where he's looking for all these votes and trying to, and the Bucks County commissioners are saying, we need fake ones, we need to get all the ones that are unregistered.

No, they're just counting them. No, that's not actually true. They're just counting them. It's not actually true. And if you dismiss that and you don't recognize the moat in your own eye, then that is a problem. So you're saying Bob Casey in this, that's equivalent to Trump in 2020. No, I don't say they're equivalent. I say that you have to recognize that these things happen, for instance, in 2016, in 2000.

No, they didn't. No, they didn't. Chris, you want to help me out on this? You don't need help, and I'm just so happy it's not me. I'm just liking the ride. Look, I get my friend's point about wanting to see it everywhere. But as you know, it's about a matter of degree. Look, you just had one of the best conversations I've heard about health in the country in a long time.

And we were talking backstage, watching, and it was like, why can't she be running one of these agencies? We have so much talent. we're so held down by the extra. The extra is January 6th. The extra is all the talk. The extra is what Bobby brings to the game that we don't need to be hearing about or worrying about.

And we get distracted by it. Look, we all know here that if Trump had lost, it would have been drama. It would have been big, dangerous drama. It would be what we were talking about right now. I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have been able to be.

here, I would be standing somewhere in an ill-fitting helmet being like, you know, oh, yeah, it seems to be under control. Texting you. Are you sure I'm okay with this? Right. And it didn't happen. And then you get the

Democrats who will say, yeah, we should have been more pissed about this. You know, maybe we should fight. And it's like, how often are we going to not learn the lesson that someone's got to be better? Someone's got to win and someone's got to lose. We used to accept that, and now one side doesn't.

But, okay, I can't like a win. Now everybody's happening. It's just ridiculous. It's just a ridiculous asymmetry. I don't, I get, I do not think it's as asymmetrical as you say. And I also have, I feel. On the presidential level it is. Okay, Bob Casey, no one gives a fuck or even know who he is.

It doesn't matter. It's a ridiculous argument. It doesn't matter to anything. We're talking about the United States, America and who gets to run it and who gets to appoint everybody. Let's just go on to that because I know I'm never going to make any progress here. I do want to say like I also have some standing because a family member of mine, my husband was at the Capitol escorting people back in to make the vote. Like he did the dangerous thing he put himself on the line. So I feel like our family

had a stake in this and it was a terrible day and a scary day. And also we put it to the voters and had that conversation. True. True. But we just need more guys like your husband in positions of power. And again, I think it's something people have to think about with what we just lived through. I got some heat for who I voted for president, but... Who? My brother. But the choices were... And then I spelled his name wrong, so I don't think it counts. But the choices to me were unaccepted. for this country. And again, you're sitting there with us. You couldn't vote, Jacamo Harris?

A lot of people couldn't. I could have done a lot of things. But my feeling is, we deserve better than this. The process that the Democrats put us through was an embarrassment to Democrats. And I grew up in a Democratic family with one of the greatest they have. They still talk about him at the convention, my father, Mario Cuomo. I'm just saying, we have so much talent in this country. You were just talking to that doctor. We were mentioning other doctors, you know, who want to have real questions about the vaccine and have real pragmatic discussions.

We just keep picking these people that represent the worst of us. I think that's one of the things with voters. You have to have grace for the fact that a lot of people were making a choice between two kind of crappy choices. Which is worse? You hear it all the time. You all say it. Okay. So, but I also think what the voters were saying is that the Trump first term, he was elected as a disruptor.

Right. But the deep state prevented him from doing the disruptor. He's Gulliver, and he was tied by those Lilliputians. You know, he wanted to do it. He wanted to... And they just wouldn't let him.

Well, well, now, now the change are off because he's got a cabinet that, ooh, it's a who's who of what the fuck. Ames... The other day,

And I pick up the USA Today, I was like, is this the new season of Dancing with the Stars? No, this is the cabinet. Christy Knoem, you know, the dog shooter. She's Homeland Security Secretary. Pete Hegseth, he's Defense Secretary. Now, he served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He went to Princeton and Harvard.

Okay, you know, I mean, he said some things. We'd get to it. But look, the people have spoken about disruption, and as you say, they are not completely wrong. This country is like a compacted colon. Okay, it needs... Fibre? It does need something. Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, someone who's the big talking point against her with it,

she might be a Russian spy, and now she's in charge of our secrets. That is a bit... That's an interesting choice. I don't think she's a... question spy, but... Me either. Yeah, okay. Lee Zeldon from your state of New York.

Was my congressman. Okay. He is going to be the head of the EPA. EPA. Yeah. His organization is called Fuck the Whales. Just to give you context. So, I guess what I'm saying is Daddy's Home.

And it's... Any of these names? And Matt Gates. of course, as Attorney General. That's the most controversial one. Let's start with that. Matt Gates. Yeah, I think a Trump transition is like taking an edible.

And for a little while you're okay. And then you're like, oh, there it is. And for me that... That was Matt Gates. This is the question taken to the voters. As you say, they want change, like 33% or so said they wanted upheaval, total upheaval. 50% said substantial change, right? But I think the question is, and I'm not going to, you told other jokes about him, so I'm going to let you do that.

But you need to question, okay, is this a change agent who knows how to run this agency, who knows the agency well enough to reform it, who can handle a large organization? And in some of these outsider picks, I think you're getting that. I think a Heggseth could be very interesting as a rank and file, a National Guard guy, as opposed to Pentagon brass. I think that could be interesting and effective depending on who he has around him. But the Gates thing is like,

that's my edible moment. Right. And like, I think that... When it's the one that has the mushrooms in it, but they didn't tell you that. That's how they get you, Bill. That's how they get you. They don't get me.

I get them. I got you reporting on that for you if you want it. Oh, good. So I'm down... I have something in my pocket. So I'm down. in Florida doing some reporting. And

I have this question. Like, wow, why? Why come out of the box like this? You know, why is he setting himself up for more drama like 2016, where everybody's going to go crazy about everything he says? We'll never get to the problems. We'll never get to any policy. And I was given an explanation that makes sense, but I don't

like it. The explanation is his concern, the president-elect's concern, is not that he needs these men and in a couple cases, the women, to run the agencies. He has them there for one reason, and they are perfectly qualified to do it. Tell me if they're coming after me.

Yeah. He put Gates as AG, not because he can spell A.G. It's because he can say they can't come after you because I'm here. And the president is truly

paranoid about that possibility. Wait, wait, you're not paranoid if they're out to get you, because there's some out to get you. Who said that? in New York. I mean, Matt Gates is it... Yes, that is true. But not at the DOJ. Well, but... Oh, and those are some of the threats to the democracy that other people are concerned

about, right? Yes. So... But why couldn't you get somebody who's like super qualified and has your back? I would ask the same question. Well... I think there are plenty. Well, here's my answer. I think it's because it matters more

to him to have someone loyal. You can get loyal and qualified. You can, but he prefers the loyal And he gets a little intimidated by the qualified. I mean, let's be honest. I'm sorry. He doesn't care about qualified. No, no, no.

I'm just saying, look, I don't think Matt Gates is a great pick for that job either. And he may not get it. He does have to be passed, and a lot of actual Republicans are speaking out against him. I don't know if you know he's very well liked on the hill. Causes no trouble. But the attorney general is the top cop in the nation. He's in charge of the Justice Department. That's why every president picks someone.

I'm not saying these people weren't qualified, but they pick, that is the one job. You pick, Kennedy put his brother there. Reagan put his personal lawyer. Obama was like, well, I can't have too many black people in the cabinet because they'll say, but that job, yes, Eric Holder. No, I think all these people actually were qualified. I don't know about Reagan's lawyer.

But the point is, In football, it would be the left guard. They've got to protect your blind side. Anyway, I want to do this little pit here because it makes me laugh, and I think it'll make you laugh. I saw last week that the Google searches on election day, the one that's part was, did Joe Biden drop out? Which is pretty amazing.

There's a well-informed public. So now we got a hold of the Google searches. that happened since the election. Would you like to hear again? Where is the McDonald's where Trump works? This is what people want to know. Is America great again now, or is there a waiting period? Can I pre-order the morning after pill in bulk?

That's the... I could see why that will be on. How to get a Gen Z girl to stop crying? How to punish husband for Trump vote, if we already don't have sex. Do we still get to hang Mike Pence, is one of them. Easy to remember compliments to flatter Trump. That's going to be very important.

When will I receive my free Trump bacon? Who won the Deep State? And how soon before that dude is off our girls' volleyball team? Well, let me ask about one of those in there. I read that women are stockpiling the morning after pill. Is that an overreaction? I don't. We have that it?

I don't, I think a lot of this, a lot of reactions to Trump are overreactions. And I do think that observing a Trump presidency and having been in the press when we did it the first time, it does require some emotional discipline and not to jump at every single thing and assume it is absolute worse that it could possibly be because I don't think particularly as a news person you're not serving people

by giving them 11 at all times and one of the reasons that people do not parse and do not listen to Democrats about the threats that they say Trump poses is because they've said every single thing he's ever done as a threat while by the way they're threatening him with the criminal justice system

and abusing it in ways they should not. And so it makes people go, and I think this electorate was this, it makes people go yeller full of shit. This was a yelher full of shit elector. It does beg the question, what do you do if the president, hypothetically, did commit some crimes? Two things can be true at once. Trump did things and says things that have never been allowed before. They have been disqualifying always.

That's why I constantly say, I believe Trump has disqualified himself from office many times over, but that's not my call to make for everybody else. The mistake, I believe, and it's not easy to have this conversation. People are hurting. They are scared. They're legitimately worried. And as we all know, anybody who's in any kind of relationship of any kind, that when someone's upset and you're like, yeah, but you shouldn't be. You know, yeah, you're wrong to feel that way.

you're asking for worse, not better from that person. And there has to be a conversation. And the problem is he's supposed to start it. He should have come out last night when he spoke at Mar-a-Lago. He should have come out and said, I'm not doing all these crazy things, okay? The campaign was what it was. Here's what I want to do. He's supposed to be saying those things.

He doesn't want to say them. And it is very frustrating for people that he is allowed to say and do whatever he wants and there is no accountability on his side. Then his side says no accountability. The guy was investigated and prosecuted constantly for years. And that's when everything started to go like this. But they didn't go to trial. You know, that's the problem.

I don't think Merrick Garland will be remembered well by history. They went to trial in New York. But he caught a conviction. They tried to go to trial in Georgia and that one shit the bad. I mean, it's like... Well, they had the one trial in New York. talking about the Stormy Daniels trial, the least of them, the one that didn't really matter. They didn't have the one about, can you find me 11,000 votes?

To me, that's kind of a smoking gun. I mean, the problem is the cabinet that I think a lot of people see now, again, different than the first Trump term, is that guardrails. We hear that term a lot. Like, I made a small list of things that Trump suggested in his first term, like nukeing hurricanes, bombing Mexico. shooting protesters in the legs, using a nuclear weapon on North Korea, and then blaming it on somebody else, trading Greenland for Puerto Rico,

putting a moat filled with alligators on the border, and, you know, not to mention lock her up stuff. So these are all things that, you know, he floated. Maybe he's, you know, a spitballer. He is. But what I'm saying is like, There's been a thousand books about the Trump presidency that have come out, and most of the people who used to be in the administration

who talk about these things and then say, and then I stepped in, and we didn't bomb Mexico. And then I stepped in, and we didn't shoot protesters in the legs. I don't see anybody on the list, the Lee Zeldons, Tulsi Gabbards, Matt Gates, Pete Hedgeseth's, Christy Nomes, who's going to step in? Well, the main person is Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller isn't going to be a cabinet position,

but he is his main policy architect. Right. And he is the man people will remember as thinking it was a good idea that Muslims in general shouldn't be allowed in the country. And that is a little bit of a concern for me, but I'll tell you what, I don't know. And M.K. will have a better sense to this.

But I don't know that he had people telling him, no, you're not going to do that in 2016, 27, 28. And he said, oh, okay, I relent. I don't know that it really happened like that. I was never satisfied that these guys all started telling their stories after they got out of the positions of power. You know, even Barr after that letter that he wrote. And Kelly and Mattis, you know, oh, I couldn't say it then because the country needed me. No, he's the elected guy.

If you had something to say, you should have said it then. It would have had credibility. I think the argument from the people on his campaign or from people who are watching is that Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, is the more conventional Republican figure who would be that person. and who has did quite a job during the campaign and got him here, I would also say, again, voters, 30% of them voted for upheaval, 50% for change. Now he also, so he promised change and he will deliver it clearly. Biden promised normalcy and did not deliver it.

Well, he didn't deliver it because Trump kept running. That's one reason why he didn't deliver it. It also didn't deliver it because in like June of 21, he was like, put your mask back on and also nobody can go to school all that spring. Trust me, I'm with you on that. Yeah. We're going to hear that very soon. And the civil liberties violations of people during that time and the distrust zone, those came home to roost during this campaign, I think.

I think it was a late reaction to that in some ways. I think it was part of the married woman vote. I think there were a lot of moms out there who remembered what they had to live through, right, wrong, good, bad, and we'll never really know because nobody will do a review of the pandemic. The two parties can't just immediately point at the other one and say this is on you. And if it's not advantage, it's not going to happen in this two parties. system. That's all they want is advantage. But we are in a situation now where I get that it may, it feels like you should be panicking. These picks are a sign that this is going to be really bad. I see it differently. I see these picks as a sign that he may not be that effective.

And I don't mean to put them all in the same bucket. I don't, I don't see Tulsa Gabbard the way some people do. I think Ratcliffe and some of the other picks make, make sense within the scope of what we're seeing. Solicitor General or Interior. You create a cacistocracy, which I couldn't believe was a word. Turns out it is. Government by the rich. No, government.

That's plutocracy. Cacistocracy is government by the worst. By the worst, right. And what does it tell you that the Greeks came up with that word? We've been doing this for a really long time, putting bad people in positions of power. So if that's the way it turns out, all I say is, you know, the older I get, I know this, I don't control. a lot of what happens. I don't control who he picks. I don't control what they do. I do control how I react to it. Yes. And I really believe our Democrat brothers and sisters need to focus on that

and wait for things to happen and then react to them. Because if you jump on everything he says and everything that comes out, you get exhausted. I'm not going to do it this time. And to your point about our colleagues and friends on the left, you are panicking. And I I understand there's pain there. The voters, they lost to Donald Trump, the person who you say is off the table as an option. This is ridiculous what you've done. Many of those people are Democrats.

They are make America healthy again moms. They are minority voters who were having a really hard time and were not spoken to about their issues. They were talked to about how Trump was off the table. And I thought, I don't know. These two seem like they have a lot of downsides, each of them. And this guy's talking about some of my real problems. Lazzang sur-gillet,

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So let's talk about the other guy who's in this cabinet and you said to Stephen Miller is going to be like the first buddy. It looks to me like it's Elon Musk. He seems to be this minister without portfolio who can walk into any meeting,

any room that he wants to. It feels like he walks into Trump when he's on the toilet if he wants to. And he and the vague Ramoswami are going to be in charge of like reinventing the government and efficiency. Now, I've seen this movie before.

I remember Al Gore was charged with that. You remember that way back in 1992? How'd that go? But, of course, Elon Musk is a far cry from Al Gore. Al Gore was part of that system, and Elon Musk is straight from the outside. Now, Elon Musk is the greatest engineer maybe we've ever had in the world. Certainly, in the president, there's no engineering problem he can't solve. I mean, that rocket that comes back, and as Trump said,

Can Russia do it? Can China do it? I got to say, I kind of like that. I'm an American. You know? Can they do it? No. I regret it. Okay. So he can do that. But government is such a different discipline.

It is nothing like engineering. Can Elon Musk's brilliant in this one way? Can it translate to government, do you think? Can it? Yes. Will it? I don't know. And him naming the agency once it exists after. his cryptocurrency was not helpful to him and not getting a conflict check up the wazoo as soon as he decides to do anything.

You just said you weren't going to be bothered by the little shit. Not me, but that's what's going to happen. You know what I'm saying? Like how I decide to cover it is something different. My point to people about Elon is, well, that's what he did at Twitter, X, is he greatly reduced what he saw as redundancies

and people who weren't focused in the way that they needed to move forward. Now, the problem is, that's a business. Government isn't. And there are a lot of jobs that are done because people need those jobs. And there are redundancies and there are layers. And you're going to have to figure out what you do with those people. You don't just fire them and let the market absorb them. So you're going to have to have a plan. But I don't have a problem with bringing in outsiders because to MK's point, we know why people voted for Trump. And I get the trope that not all Trump voters are bigots.

It's not fair. It's not kind. And it's not right. But a lot of people who tend to be bigots did vote for Trump. Fine, fine. But you're dealing with people who decided that there's something that matters more to them than how he is. And most of the Trump voters I know don't talk like him, don't act like him, don't want him in a room with their wife. But they believe that he sees the need to disrupt what they do too. And that's why they voted for him. And now it's up to him to do it. And I think you've got to give them a chance to try. Yeah. Well, we have no choice.

Okay, so... He was given the power to make these choices. I think that Elon Musk is an incredibly creative thinker who, when he gets his mind to something, can do things that have literally never been done before. So taking on bureaucracy is going to be one of those things. Of course, they said they're going to cut $2 trillion. You couldn't do that without going after the Pentagon.

To me, that's where the rubber will meet the rub. Or entitlements, which Trump has also set are off limits because traditional conservatives do not run this party anymore. Right. But why not go after the Pentagon? They should. They should have always done it. It's completely bloated.

We built it up because of a Russia that is now in a trench warfare with Ukraine, which is like the New York jets of the military, except Ukraine has heart, right? I mean, they're fighting for their country. The jets could still come back if they wouldn't ever. every game of this year. There are better ways to do literally everything in government. The question is, can you actually make government changes?

I got to cut it off there. Thank you, guys. That was fun, but it's time for new. Now that 80,000 pounds of Costco butter has been recalled because it didn't warn customers that butter contains milk. Costco must make a line of food spread called, I can't believe it is butter. Or how about that?

this. We could stop trying to idiot-proof the world. If you're lactose intolerant, don't eat butter. If you're allergic to peanuts, don't eat peanut butter cups. If you're allergic, if you're allergic to fish and someone offers you a tuna sandwich from Subway, you'll be fine. Now that North and South Dakota have voted not to legalize recreational marijuana, liberal potheads must stop naming their kids Dakota. Why pay tribute to these weed-hating buzz kills?

Also, I know from living in California, where you meet a lot of Dakotas, if you name a girl, Dakota, she will wind up a stripper. And if you name a boy, Dakota, he'll become a girl who'll become a stripper. Well, if the Republicans need a new mascot, I nominate former representative Michael Grimm. Michael voted to repeal Obamacare, but he recently fell off his polo pony and was paralyzed. So now he's got to go-fund me, begging strangers to pay his $2.5 million in medical bills. I'd like to help, Michael, but I just can't send you money because that's socialism. And that's bad.

And if you think that's cold, where do you meet your Haitian nurse? No, well, someone has to ask the researchers who've determined that the tarballs that washed up on Australia's beaches aren't tarballs at all, but actually lumps of sewage made up of human feces, bits of plastic, human hair, drugs. Is that supposed to be good news? Hey, back into the water, everybody. They're not tarballs. It's just shit-hair and meth. Uh, no, well, now that the North Korean soldiers in Ukraine have access to the internet for the first time and are, are predictably gorging on porn sites, they have to check out my new porn site dedicated exclusively.

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Thank you, rear leader. And corny ex-girlfriend walked in on me eating. Okay. And finally, new rules, someone must tell the usual suspects on the far left that the saying is, when you're in a hole, stop digging, not keep digging.

Talk about doubling down on what got you fucked in the first place. Even the one concession I've heard a few people on the losing side offer that liberals should stop saying that Trump voters are stupid comes with a kind of unspoken parentheses. We know they are stupid, just don't say it. Yeah. Yeah, I got bad news for you. They don't have a monopoly on stupid. You wear queers for Palestine t-shirts and masks two years after the pandemic ended. And you can't define woman. I mean, person who menstruates. You're the Teachers Union Education Party and you've turned schools and colleges into a joke. You just lost a crazy contest to an actual crazy person. You love to speak truth to power, and we always should, but you have completely lost the ability to speak truth to bullshit.

The Democratic polling firm Blueprint told Democrats months ago that black voters, aka their supposedly liberal base, were more likely to find the president too liberal than too conservative. They also found that voters didn't just want Harris to distance herself from Biden. They wanted her to distance herself from what they believe the entire Democratic Party has become a Portlandia sketch. A bunch of privileged mean girls complaining about privilege

and trying to make fetch happen. What a shocker that the people who see everything through the lens of race and sex see their election loss as a result of racism and sexism. Yes, if only we weren't so irredeemably unenlightened, we would have elected a black president by now. Oh, what? We did? Oh, all right, and then reelected him.

Maybe you missed it because it wasn't on TikTok. And sexism, Hillary got three million more votes than Trump, which in a normal country would be called a victory. It wasn't 21st century sexism that prevented a woman from being president. It was the electoral college. Democrats run for office as if the voters don't live here, as if they don't go to the grocery store and Starbucks and the office, But they do. They live here, and they actually see women and people of color. And it doesn't look like some patriarchal racist nightmare. Do problems remain pertaining to racism and sexism? Of course. But a poll last year asked if America is the greatest country in the world. More blacks than Hispanic Americans agreed with that than the white progressives. It asked if racism is built into our society. White progressives agreed with that at higher levels than black.

black and Hispanic people. It asked if government should increase border security. Same result. Hispanic Americans are less okay with illegal immigration than whitey. The votes are in. They don't want your pity. And black people can't afford to indulge rich white people's need to endlessly flage themselves. They just want prices to go down and good jobs and the police when you call them. Black people, they're just like us. Kamala spent 100 days telling voters, I know it feels like crime and illegal immigration or bad, but fuck your feelings.

Look at this chart. Yes, there's a lot to not like already about the new regime, but maybe take one week to ask what you did wrong. The basis for democratic campaigns has become, we're the smart people. That we know from the get-go. No need to look into that. We know that a priori,

which is a Latin phrase. red hat people wouldn't have a clue about. But they don't need to. Have you seen my in this house we believe lawn sign? See, it says right on it. We believe in science. Right, which is why you demanded no one even debate whether COVID could have escaped from the one lab in the one city where they were studying it. How far-fetched!

The New York Times called it racist. Democrats have become like a royal family that because of so much incest has unfortunately had children who are retarded. And the same thing can happen to ideas if they are also conceived in an atmosphere of intellectual incest. Maybe take the close pins off your noses and actually converse with the other half of the country.

Stop screaming at people to get with the program and instead make a program worth getting with? What good is liberalism? if you don't win elections. Last week, Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton said, I have two little girls. I don't want them getting run over on a playing field by a formerly male athlete.

But as a Democrat, I'm supposed to be afraid to say that. Yes, there's the problem in a nutshell. Because Congressman Moulton sounds reasonable to me, but his campaign manager immediately resigned in protest. Let me make this as plain as I can and to the smart people. The campaign manager who resigned, yeah, let that person go.

Marginalize that guy. Try making too woke be a cancelable offense. It's important for America to have a center-left party and for that party to be competitive. And a good first step toward that goal would be to make the voters not want to punch you in the face.

I will conclude, I will conclude by saying the reason I'm so mad at the Democrats is because as a voter, the issues that were important to me were democracy and the environment. And now, there's no one to champion or defend either of them

because you, with your aggressively anti-common sense agenda and shitty exclusionary attitude, blew it. You lost everything. House, Senate, White House, Supreme Court and left us completely unprotected and ready to be. be violated. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Actually, we're on next week. We're on next week for

our season finale. I will see you then. That's our show. I want to thank Mary Catherine Ham, Chris Cuomo, and Dr. Casey Means. And now go watch overtime on YouTube. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. 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.