Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #719: Jonathan Haidt, Stephanie Ruhle, H.R. McMaster

Episode Date: February 14, 2026

Bill’s guests are Jonathan Haidt, Stephanie Ruhle, H.R. McMaster (Originally aired 2/13/26) 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, people. First of all, we're going to get to all the hard news, but let's talk about what we're really thinking about. Tomorrow's Valentine's Day. I said that for all the men watching who just went, oh, shit. It is. So you're excited about that, Valena? Okay.

It's a stupid holiday. But you know what? People get into it. You know, St. Valentine was a Catholic priest. That's why, to this day, we exchange candy for sex. That's why... And, you know, there's always that Valentine's a movie they put out. You know what the one this year is?

Wuthering Heights. Are you into it? I'm so into it. It's all about the forbidden love of Catherine and Heathcliff. Of course, it's very modernized. Now when their forbidden love gets busted, it's because they see them on the Jumbotron. And, oh, it's so romantic.

You've got to feel the romance in the air. I mean, I know a guy who said, his girlfriend wanted to be swept off her feet and carried off to the tropics. So he reported her to ice. Good news out of Minnesota, people. We've done it. We've liberated.

St. Paul from Somalia. All right. ISIS is leaving town, so that's why you're feeling extra patriotic. Of course, it could also be because Monday is President's Day. Yeah. No, no. This is

the day we pay tribute to all the past presidents, even those in the Epstein file. All the President. And, oh, no, our President now, Donald Trump, he takes very seriously his place in the line of presidents.

He's going to honor it Monday by posting pictures of all the presidents, some of them not as apes. So, but I'll tell you this Epstein story, that is not going away. The Attorney General Pam Bondi, she was before the House Judiciary Committee. This week, they were talking to her about how she mishandled this, and she calmly answered all their questions. I'm kidding, of course. She broke out Jeff Ross's big book of insults for roasters.

At one point, she said to a congressman, you were a washed-up loser lawyer. Begs the question, what is the opposite of legally blonde? Oh, I kid, Pam. I kid, Pam. By the way, she's got a great Valentine's Day card for her lover. It says, kiss me, you fucking asshole. Now, this is all fun.

but we have to get to the story that really matters, which is the EPA. Little history lesson, Richard Nixon, a Republican. Okay, he started the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. Trump has always said it's a hoax the whole thing, but climate change. He said scientists, climate climate change,

he says, are stupid people. He says the idea that greenhouse gases cause climate change, there's no basis in fact. He thinks it's just some bullshit that people made up out of none. nothing to get rich. You know, like crypto. And, yes, his EPA director, Lee Zelton, said this is the single, this is a quote, single largest deregulatory action in American history. Probably true. Also, the biggest

dick move in American history. Guys, this is not made up. You know, this is science. Doug Burnham, he's the Interior Secretary. Listen to this, the way they all line up behind this nonsense. He said, CO2, carbon, was never a pollutant. He said, when we breathe, we emit CO2. Okay, Doug, you know what, let's try this little experiment. Tonight, when you get home, go in the garage, close the door, turn the car on, and let's see if carbon is a pollutant.

But you have to be a little sympathy. A lot of the conservative America is very butt hurt these days. They're still recovering from the halftime show. That Big Bunny did. They hated it because it was in Spanish, but now they're pretending they hated it because it was smutty. And it was sexual, very overtly sexual with dirty lyrics. Well, what do you expect?

He's not called Good Bunny. Trump said, nobody could understand a word that guy said. I never understood a word Mick Jagger said either I still enjoy the show I looked at I looked here like Olympic curling I had no idea what the fuck was happening

but I was like everyone looks like they're having fun fuck it I'm in all right we've got a great show we have former National Security Advisor A. John McMaster and Stephanie Ruhle but first up he is a professor and social psychologists who wrote the bestselling book

The Anxious Generation He recently co-authored another one on the subject, The Amazing Generation, Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen-filled World. Jonathan Haidt is over here. John? Okay, well, look, I'm not going to lie to you. They stand for pretty much anybody who walks out here. But I'm going to say to you, you really deserve it. I mean, this book that you wrote, you started with a thesis that the phone, the smartphone, and all that's contained in it.

and the social media not benign, and adults need to do something about it. And you weren't the only one. We bet Tristan Harris on this show and other people, but you were the main one out there, and this book did a lot of the heavy lifting, and now this is actually happening. So a grateful nation says thank you to you.

And when I say it's actually happening, Australia, right? Am I right, the first country now to ban phones for kids? No, social media. BAN social media accounts. And where else, I mean, you just got through the world tour pretty much? Yeah. Where is this happening and what are they doing? Yeah. So it's now happening, it's going to happen everywhere this year.

So here's... Everywhere. That's my prediction. So here's what happened. Australia, their law went into effect on December 10th. And there was news coverage all over the world. And a lot of the news coverage was people saying or journalists saying, hey, why can't we do that here? And once everybody saw that, then everything changed in a really interesting way. I was just in Europe, and wherever I would go, I was knocking on open doors, people wanted to do this. What I think happened is you had Steve Pinker on here last year. And he has a book out called When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows. It's about the Emperor's New Clothes moment, when suddenly the kid calls out the emperor has no clothes.

And private knowledge, because everyone already knew that, but private knowledge becomes public knowledge. And so what I think happened was once everybody saw that everybody was praising Australia, then everybody knew that everybody wanted to do this. And suddenly all the politicians realized, wait, the people are way out ahead of me. I want to get back out ahead. And so I met with President Macron in Davos. I met with leaders of labor and conservative in the UK. I met with people in the EU.

Wherever I went, there are parents. And parents everywhere have seen this. and parents who are politicians are very aware of public sentiment. So this past month has been an extraordinary period of global change. This is the tipping point, like this month, especially given what's going on in L.A. with the trials. So it's a different world now than it was two months ago. And that's all true. But your book, The Anxious Generation, I mean, look, I had a book that hit number one for one week last year.

Yours is on the charts for how long has this been? 95 weeks. 95 weeks in the time. I just want to just say it's a victory for the issue itself about social media. It's also a victory for books. That a public intellectual, the term is sort of out of vogue, but you are one. There are not many left. And the idea of a book changing people's minds still can happen.

I just want to take that victory for us. Because it was very influential. This caught people's attention. You just mentioned the trials. What are you talking about? Tell us what you... I know what you mean, the one that's in L.A. that's starting. Sure.

So imagine that there was a consumer product that had killed hundreds of kids and that had harmed or damaged literally millions of kids. But this consumer product had what seemed to be special protection where nobody could sue them. That would be a really bad situation.

and that's where we've been with social media. Hundreds of kids are dead, and a lot of those parents came to L.A. today because for the first time in history, the companies are being held responsible, or at least they're going to face a jury for what they did to the kids. Right.

And what is the young woman who is bringing this case? What is she claiming? She's claiming that she was on... I mean, the people being sued. First of all, two of them already settled. Right? Snapchat. out of the thousands already settled.

But Snapchat and TikTok already out. That's right. On this one case, this first Bellwether case. Right. But this is meta. These are the people who bring you Instagram. And this is Google, the people who bring you, YouTube. That's right.

Okay. So they're on trial. That's right. What is she saying happened, that she was hooked, they purposely hooked it, because it does remind me a lot of the tobacco trials over the 90s. Because it's the same dynamic where the tobacco companies, were up there saying, well, first of all, we didn't know it was addictive.

They did know it was addictive, and they just didn't care. They were giving you this delivery system. So it's sort of the same kind of thing. You have to be responsible for something that's addictive. What is she saying? She's saying that she got hooked on these things and it made her depressed. Yeah.

When you start spending 8, 10, 15 hours a day just on social media, as the average American teen spends five hours a day on social media, about a quarter spending seven hours, just on social media, the ad and all the other stuff, you're going to be losing out on sleep, you're going to be losing out on social relationships, you're going to be losing out on all the things that kids need.

And I don't know the details of that case. What exactly she's alleging about the chain of damage? But almost all these, so many of these kids, the case is that they became addicted, and then that affects their mental health. That pulls them into dark places, that puts them in touch with sexual predators. And what a lot of these initial trials are going to hinge on,

and we saw Adam Osseri testify yesterday, the head of Instagram, he said, oh, no, there's no evidence that it's addictive. He said, heavy users, they have problematic use. 16 hours a day she was on sometimes. That's just, that's problematic, that's not addiction. But these things were designed by people who studied slot machines. Slot machines are addictive. These people, a lot of them took a course at Stanford on persuasive design.

They learned how to use intermittent reward. variable ratio reward schedules to hook people. And they did it. They talked about it. We have transcripts. We have internal reports. They did 31 studies my team has found. If you go to medis internal research.org, we categorized their own studies showing that this is addictive.

They talk about it. They use the word addiction. And so now for these guys to say, oh, it's not addictive, just like the tobacco industry. And would they let their kids? I don't think the tobacco industry. I don't think the tobacco guys let their kids smoke. A lot of these guys don't let their kids use their products. But there's a big difference, I think.

And I think comparing it to the tobacco industry is actually unfair to the tobacco industry. Because the tobacco executives never saw children suffer. They knew that they were going to give them cancer eventually, but they didn't have to look at children suffering and dying. And these guys have to face the reality of these parents coming to them with the photos. It was so moving this morning. About 40 parents came to L.A. There was a memorial showing like tombstones that are like cell phones showing the lock screens with these beautiful kids on them.

All sorts of things. So it's a lot of them are fentanyl deaths because as one young woman said to me, everybody buys drugs on Snapchat. And you had a piece on gambling a week or two ago. Yeah. When you make it frictionless and free, anyone can get any drug this afternoon. Really? No, I mean, that's terrible. I didn't know that.

So a lot of the deaths are fentanyl. I mean, a kid buys Percocet or Xanax, but it has fentanyl, and they're dead. And that's what a lot of them are. And the others are suicide after cyberbullying or sex distortion. In one case, one mother I was talking to, her daughter was cyberbullied into suicide, and this was during COVID, and the kids broke into the funeral to continue the bullying after the grave. And what I take from this is a social psychologist. isn't, oh, those bastards, oh, those cruel kids.

It's what kind of sick environment are we raising our kids in that this sort of thing is now normal? Kids were always bastards, John. They were. They were shitty when I was a kid. You have to teach a kid to be decent. You never read Lord of the Flies when you were a kid? Kids are shit.

They are, the little Nazis. They have to be taught to be civilized. But I take your point. But an important point you make when you're right, writing about this lately I see is that there should be no parental exemptions, because I think that's what some people want now. They want some exemptions out of this. You say you'd rather have no laws than parental exemptions. Yeah. So the key thing, you know, we can talk about, oh, we need to make this safer, oh, we need more education. We can talk about all that stuff,

but it never, none of that works. All over the world, parents are fighting, they're having the same fight with their kids. Mom, everyone else has a phone. I'm starting fifth, you know, sixth grade. Everyone else has Instagram. And so parents are in a train. kids are in a trap, and we all have to give in because everyone else gave in. So that's called a collective action trap. And so lots of countries are in Europe and Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, lots of countries are going to raise the age to 16. But in some countries, they're saying, you have to be 16 to open an account.

But if your parents give permission, then you can open an account at 13 or 14. And my attitude is, what the hell? Why bother doing it? That just puts us all back in the trap. So we need a clean, like a global norm. Like really it should be 18. This is an adult activity. But I'm saying, let's just, if we all agree to do 16, we can get it, we can get it fast.

And that takes the pressure off of the kids to spend their, to give up their childhood to scrolling. And now you have a graphic novel that's a book really for the kids themselves to explain it. Just plug it one more time before you leave. What's the title? Sure. It's called The Amazing Generation. Right. And it's for kids 8 to 13 years old.

Right. And it's got a graphic novel about what happens to kids when they get a full. And our goal, with my co-author, Catherine Price, we weren't going to preach to the kids. We let older kids talk to them. They hear from older kids, members of Gen Z, who really regret losing their childhood, spending so much of it doing this,

rather than talking to their grandfather before he died. When you're getting life advice from Gen Z, you'd know what's a problem. Thank you, John, for your service to humanity. My favorite public and intellectual. Jonathan Haidt. Okay, let's meet our panel. Okay. Hello.

Okay, he is a former national security advisor, host of the Hoover Institute's podcast, today's battlegrounds, and all for about war with ourselves, former Lieutenant General, H.R. McMaster, General. Great to have you here. And there, Stephanie Roole. She's host of MS. Now's The 11th Hour

and co-host of YouTube Lives. It's happening with Volscian Rule airing every Wednesday. Stephanie Ruhl. Back with us. Okay. Well, I guess. think I'm going to start tonight by saying elections have consequences, because I want to talk about

this EPA thing that's going on. I always thought when Trump first ran the most damage he possibly could do would be the environment, because he was always talking about what a hoax global warming was. And look, I mean, have sometimes they exaggerated, have some, I don't think they did themselves any favors sometimes by predicting like, oh, well, you know, we're going to hit past the tipping point if we don't do something by 2012, and then we did. But it's still really, Happening, guys. It's not a hoax, okay? So here's what's going on. We had something called the Engagement Rule in 2009.

This said the feds got to regulate fossil fuels because we believe they are a danger to public health. Well, what happened yesterday? Trump ended government's legal authority to regulate basically what causes pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency cannot now protect us against pollution. This is like the Navy can't use ships. I'm not surprised.

I'm angry. A year and a half ago, during the campaign, the president invited a bunch of oil and gas executives to Mar-a-Lago, and he said to them, if you deliver me a billion dollars in campaign donations, I will pay you back in spades. And that's exactly what we're getting here, a huge win for oil, gas, and big coal.

Promises Cap T could say. Well, you know, you don't need washed up generals to talk climate science, you know, but I'm a believer, you know, that they're really, global warming is a real thing, right? Man-made carbon emissions are a problem. But, you know, what we were doing wasn't working anyway, really. I mean, what we do in the United States actually doesn't matter if China is building 40 coal-fired power plants a year. So what I think we should do is come together and work together on a market solution that actually works, just like it happened with the fracking revolution, right? The largest reduction in man-made carbon emissions in history didn't come from a

government regulation, it came from cheap natural gas displacing coal. That, I think, plus nuclear fission, that gets us off the path toward global warning and gets us cheaper, gets us cheaper energy. Are we working? Do you actually foresee us in the current environment working in concert with other countries to do that? Well, I mean, no, I think what we can do, but we were working in country, supposedly, and it didn't work. So what you need is a market solution that will get adopted in Africa, in India,

in China, because you're providing energy security for people who need to be lifted out of poverty. China's already moving way ahead of us on this, as well as many other things. But I pulled this card from years ago because I thought you were here. It's the Pentagon. The Pentagon had something called

assessment risk that they used to do. I don't think they'd do it anymore. This is, I think, from 2014, this is, you know, I don't think things have changed. The world's only gotten hotter. They said, climate change poses an immediate threat to national security. This is the Pentagon. It's your group, okay?

Because of things like pandemic disease, global poverty, poverty, food shortages, humanitarian in Christ, in other words, messes that are going to be created because of climate change, that the Army might have to step in and help. And today, one of the things Trump did, he directed the Pentagon to buy more electrical, from coal. I mean... You know what this is? I think this is like every reaction

has an unequal and opposite reaction in the Trump administration. Why the hell is the Pentagon involved in climate change? They shouldn't be. They've got, I think, a more narrow mission to focus on, which is to deter war, defend the nation.

Now what you get, though, to the Pentagon embracing sort of climate catastrophism, which they were doing, I think, in 2014, which, by the way, there's been a reversal in that appraisal by Stephen Coon and others have really said, hey, it's not as catastrophic as people had said it was. And so if you spend, you know, 10% of your GDP, these are economists, to reduce the risk of like a 5% risk, you know, a generation ahead, that doesn't make sense. We need

different types of solutions. Okay, this sounds brilliant, but I don't think there's a single person in the administration reading one word of that. We're not even employing America First policies. This is a continuation of Trump-first policies. And if you don't think there's a big cold donor behind this, then I've got a bridge to sell it in Michigan. Again, it's not all happening right now.

The worry is that what happens in the future, I mean, when the planet gets hotter, it does melt the permafrost. When the permafrost melts, it releases crazy amounts of methane and carbon that we're trapped. That just makes the cycle even worse, because then that makes the planet hotter

melts more ice, more goes up there. That's the kind of thing we worry about in the future. Dick Cheney once said about terrorism, if there's even a 1% chance, we've got to act like it's 100%. Wouldn't this be just as much? I mean, I don't have to put it all on you. I mean, you don't have to be... I would just say, listen, I think this is, you know, what your show is about is that, hey, that we can be rational human beings. Yes, I hope. We can begin. with what we can agree on. So I think what happens is the people who steal all the oxygen out of, you know, out from

these debate, are the people, you know, maybe climate catastrophes on the one hand, and then climate deniers on the other. I think the vast majority of Americans are somewhere in between. And we can recognize that what we really do need are these market-based solutions, because really it doesn't matter what we do if China, India, developing economies, you know, in Africa, Latin America don't adopt solutions that provide energy security, but, also reduce carbon emissions. I don't think China's on the page that it's a hoax.

I don't think China's on this page that it's just all made up and we should go more toward coal. I mean, they may not be there yet, but that is their goal. I don't think they're still building a hell of a lot more coal fire plants, you know, and they're doing solar, they're doing kind of all of the above. What they really want is energy security.

And if you're worried about the environment, they've destroyed their environment. So a lot of what we've done is like re-washing ourselves, by offshoring stuff to show. Trump is going to... If the Sierra Club would consider, I don't know, a monument to the president, a few trophies with his face on it. I think they were good. But you're an economist, okay?

I am. All right, okay. So Trump is going to say, this is... The cars are going to be $2,000 less. And they may be. You know, that may be, and that might turn a lot of heads. Sure, if you want to drive in a 1980s gas guzzler while you're smoking cigarettes with the windows closed, throwing a... the windows closed, throwing Burger King out the window. But this is 2026.

I'm just saying what he's going to say. Don't yell at me. This is his argument, okay? And it may be true. Okay, but here's the interesting part about this. China, talking about China, the guy from Ford, CEO, I think his name is Jim Farley, went over there last year. He said, it's the most humbling thing I've ever seen. Their quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see. in the West. The Ford just lost $19 billion on EVs. Trump says that's because they were forcing this on us. They were forcing the EVs.

That's why we're doing this. We're changing everything back to what they used to be, and driving gas guzzlers. Okay, I think the reason why is because not that we were forcing EVs on people, because we made shittier EVs than China does. Ford lost 19 billion, and then this guy goes over there and says, he said, we're on a global competition with China, and it's not just EVs, and if we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford.

Well, you know, this is kind of a situation of our own making. With so many industries, and you know this much better than I do, what happened is China draws you in. They co-opt you with the promise of cheap manufacturing. So guess where we started to manufacture batteries in China? The highest

end batteries in China. We're manufacturing a lot of our EVs, Tesla and other companies, manufacturing in China. They promise you access to their market, cheap manufacturing, and then once they steal your IP, they steal your technology, they pick a Chinese winner, subsidize the hell out of it, shut you out of their market, manufacture it artificially low prices, and take losses on that hardware or an EV, and then dump it on the international market and drive you out of business. How many times do we have to go through

that cycle? Okay, you know what would be brilliant? If the United States got together with a bunch of our allies and created something like, I don't know, the Trans-Pacific Portland. partnership, and these countries work together to battle China, who employs unfair trade practices. We did put together the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It was President Obama, and the first thing Donald Trump did was tear it up. And now here we are. He's launching a trade war that is not bringing an ounce of manufacturing back, where the tariffs are costing the American people, and it actually caused more to manufacture here. Yeah. They said the tariffs,

Apparently are going to cost each American family like $1,000. Who would have thunk it? I mean, what a surprise? Also, they did something, a group called the Democracy Perception Index. They did a survey of 96 countries. Three-quarters of them prefer Beijing to Mar-a-Lago. Like, we're losing the popularity contest to China, which is not a good country.

So I'm sure the people are very nice. But the leadership and what China does on a human rights level, on so many levels, is really quite evil. Absolutely. I mean, so here's where we are missing opportunities, right? First of all, if you care about Chinese economic aggression, industrial espionage, subsidies, overcapacity, overproduction, dumping on the international market, getting grip, an artificial grip on the most critical supply chains to use that grip on those supply chains for course of purposes, then we need collective action to work on that. But if you're kicking everybody in the ass,

who could help you, maybe you're not going to get the cooperation. I mean, one of the things I used to say to the president as a reason why I was only there for 13 months. I would say, hey, I would say, Mr. President, if we shoot all of our allies to get to China, China wins. And so we should be working more cooperative. Just explain me the Canada thing. Maybe you have some insight into the thinking,

because you mentioned the bridge. There's a bridge that Canada is building, between, there's one there now, but they're building a better one, between, I assume it's over the Detroit River. Detroit and Ontario. Yeah, of course. Okay. Trump, this is Trump this week. As everyone knows, the country of Canada, also known as Canada, has treated the United States very unfairly for decades.

How? Canada is building a massive bridge between Ontario and Michigan. Prime Minister Carney, well, that's an improvement. when he's called him Governor Carney before, wants to make a deal with China, which will eat Canada alive. We'll just get the leftovers. I don't think so.

The first thing China will do is terminate all ice hockey. What the fuck is he that? What? I can usually suss out something in this. I don't know where the... What... What? Why will China take over, destroy hockey?

First of all, general. Canada is not only responsible for hockey, it's also responsible for heated rivalry. So there is nothing greater in this country. But this bridge, this bridge was paid for by Canada. The bridge was built with U.S. steel. but this bridge will take toll money away from another bridge that connects Michigan and Canada. And that bridge is owned by a big Trump donor,

who on Monday had a meeting with Howard Lutnik, our Commerce Secretary, and immediately following that meeting, Howard Lutnik called up the president, and poof, we no longer want this new bridge. Yeah, I think this is the kind of thing that is causing him his popularity to go down. I mean, a number of things. the economic things, but also

even the common person I think understands that is always this self-dealing involved with everything that goes on. And, you know, we're still a democracy. You know, it's only early in the weekend, but...

And the immutable laws of democracy are when you get weaker politically, which he is now, people do begin to stand up to you. We do see more people standing up. This Canada deal, There are some Republicans who join Democrats who said, we are not going along with your tariffs on Canada

because they want to make a deal with China who's going to get rid of hockey. And why is Carney going to China? He's going to China because of the gratuitous insults. Like, what good does that do with the mean that shows that was part of the United States? And then to disparage their contributions, okay, hey, they do need to spend more on defense. But if you want the Golden Dome, not a bad idea in my view, You need Canada.

You know, so say, hey, guys, how about spending more on defense? You know, I mean, we have legitimate issues with Canada, but the gratuitous insults, and, you know, I fought alongside Canadian soldiers. They're incredibly tough, brave. They were in one of the toughest parts of Afghanistan, and they took a hell of a lot of casualties in Kandahar province, you know, fighting after the 9-11 attacks against our nation. We love Canada. We love Canada.

We should credit for president. The president did shake the tree. He did shake the tree when it came to our NATO allies and said, pony up more money. And you have to give him credit for that. I do, absolutely. But listen, it's Valentine's Day. Let's get to the really...

Are we getting back to the... The important to know, the important news out of the White House is that there is a baby boom going on there. Ushah Vance, pregnant, Carolyn Leavitt, pregnant, and Stephen Miller's wives where they're all about to have children. You know, they love babies over there at the... the conservative side of America.

I don't understand it, but they think we need more babies. I always think we need less. Definitely less around me ever. So anyway, since there's such a baby boom going on at the White House, we thought we would show you what some of the things that are being bought these days for the baby shower that's upcoming. But you like to see the...

This is the MAGA baby shower. These are some very interesting stuff. For example, there's a onesie that reads, not an anchor baby. That's... Somebody's also getting a doll that cries liberal tears. There's a baby mobile with the faces of the cast of Fox and Friends. That's so great for the child.

Baby's first blanket pardon. Exactly. Oh, this is interesting. Stroller nuts. You know, that's like the truck nuts. Well, they love those truckwrecks. Oh, a baby monitor that alerts you when your child is woke. Autism-free infantilinol.

That's very important. Oh, the Venezuelan boat bath toys. And my favorite, a diaper that reads, don't claim Trump. This is Biden's mess. Okay. Lazang sur-gillet, Pucance-Moyerned

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responsibility. The conditions apply. Now I have to ask about the story that is just absolutely transfix this nation

which is the kidnapping of Savannah Guthrie's mother. It's a sad story. I hope it will come out better than the news

we've had so far we still have our fingers crossed but we seem to be in phase two now of the reporting. Phase one was we're obsessed with this

now I see all these articles analyzing why are we obsessed with this. My view is I don't want to become the kidnap country. I mean, obviously it's a humanitarian story, and we care about people. But, like, we've

seen things come to this country that we didn't think would ever come, like pandemics and terrorism on a grand scale. You know, Mexico and some other countries around the world, you have to always wonder what's going to happen when you leave the house. I don't want to be this country, and I think people are, I mean, this is what got Trump elected. We're going to get the gangs out. And then, of course, he went too far and he lost himself even on that issue, which was his best issue with the voters. But we don't want to become the kidnap country, right? Absolutely. And, you know, who knows really who this kidnapper is at this stage?

But if you look south of our border, there's a real problem. You know, first of all, an unsecured border is a really bad idea, it turns out. And Trump, I think, does deserve a hell of a lot of credit for reestablishing border security. And what's happening in Mexico is 30% of the territory in Mexico is under the country. control the cartels. They control the police forces. Now, because of Amlo, Lopez Obrador, having judges elected, they control the judges. And they're moving into different verticals, right? So, you know, human trafficking has been shut down for them, but then our car's trafficking is still going. And now they're responsible for a large percentage of the fuel sales, the legitimate fuel

sales in Mexico and are profiting from that. They're becoming all-powerful. I mean, we have a lot of issues to work out with Mexico, but I think Mexico has almost an existential crisis going on now, and it's in our interests and certainly in the interest of the Mexican government to go after that problem. Let me bring the economist in on this one, because kidnapping was waning because one of the

reasons why it was so hard to pull off, because you had to transfer money, and money was always traceable. I mean, every movie is, you know, drop the money in a bag off the bridge, and then a guy in a motorcycle gets it, no cops, you know. And they always would find, not with crypto. This is the part

of this story, I think, when you talk about more that I don't hear very much in the media. Crypto, crypto, the criminal's best friend. I never like this shit. I always thought it was a big scam. It is a big scam. And, you know, it's, the guy who, the bit dance guy that got pardoned by finance, finance, whatever it was.

He, you know, it was because, well, he facilitated money laundering. It's all money laundering. Crypto is money laundering. You take real money and you buy the money. this fake money, which is a pool of untraceable funds you can do anything with. That's why criminals use it for sex trafficking and drug trafficking and kidnapping and other criminal enterprise. And then you, whatever, they do whatever you want, and then you can buy back the profit

with your real money. Eric Trump said it in broad daylight. The reason the Trump family got involved in crypto was following January 6th when banks said, we're taking a break from you. So when actually real regulated financial institution said, we're taking a break, that's when they turned to crypto. And when they realized what a supergrift and phenomenal hustle it was, they went all in.

And when you bring up Binance, that's the founder, CZ, right? This guy was sentenced to prison, right? He then buys a huge stake in the Trump family crypto business, world liberty, financial. And poof, he's out of jail. He now is still one of the largest holders of Trump meme coins as well as the business. I'm saying a pattern here. I'm saying a real pattern with Trump.

in a year. What kind of crypto regulation is there at this point? None. Well, I'd love to hear what you think about this, because there has to be a way to regulate it so you can get the benefits of crypto, which is kind of democratizing finance, cutting out the middleman, whatever you think of decisions to debank people, some of those decisions were politically motivated. Do we want to be on the receiving end of being debanked for something? I don't think so.

And then when you go to authoritarian regimes and the ability to move money in and out of those authoritarian regimes, maybe we might want to support some of the people in Iran who so courageously stood up before that horrible regime gunned down 30,000, you know, 30,000. You know, so there's some benefits to it. How can you address kind of the anonymity issue so that you don't have human traffickers and you don't have organized crime networks moving money and still have the democratizing feature of it? Smart regulation, right?

The answer isn't yes regulation. no regulation. But what we have in this current administration, they basically are no longer, there's almost no prosecution of any white-collar criminals in the crypto space. There's almost no regulation whatsoever. During this week's testimony, you mentioned Pam Bondi's testimony this week. She was asked about any sort of prosecution in the crypto space, and what did she do? Punted. That may have been the moment when she brought up the performance of the stock market, which I'm pretty sure has no bearing on what our Attorney General is testifying about. So you just mentioned Iran.

I see that they... Well, first of all, I thought if he was going to attack, he would have done it by now. Because he did say a while ago when they were starting to kill people in the streets, we're not going to let you go away with this, and then he just let them hang out to dry. America's not a very reliable ally.

I thought he was going to be different on that. Anyway, now here we are. There's two carriers now. This is just as a couple of days ago now in the region. He also says we have a discombobulator. I don't know what that is. I'm glad we have it, though. Aren't you glad?

I'm glad it's on our side. I don't know. It sounds like something Benny Hill has. I don't. I guess I am. Yeah, I totally don't want to be a discombobulator gap. But, okay, so this week they put out this. that we have to talk to our allies first before anything happens.

He said we have to check with international law and then we need more time to put things in place. I read that as saying they're going to attack this weekend. Maybe. You know, I think the chance are pretty high. You do? You do. You know, and I think the reason why they were kind of left out to dry there

after the president's, you know, pledged to support them is we didn't have enough defensive capabilities in the region. We had plenty of assets there to conduct strikes against what you might think. The tools of repression of the regime, maybe the besiege or RGC facilities. But we didn't have enough to go after what they might do in response. You know, the counter-missile, the counter-drone defenses, going after the IRGC Navy, which has been harassing our ships in the Bob El Mandeb area

and then up in the Persian Gulf. Okay, but if our goal is to stop killing the protesters in the streets, that's the Revolutionary Guard. These are the thugs who've taken over this country 50 years ago and still have it. Okay. It's a combination of a theocracy and this mafia. Okay. What is entailed in this attack that is going to topple the Revolutionary Guard? Who are we firing guns at? Who are we firing our missiles at? And how will it affect the people in the street? I don't get it.

Well, I mean, you could go after the leadership. And what the Israelis did in that 12-day campaign is they took out two dozen leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. So if you're a leader of these organizations, the Basij and the RGC, you might maybe think twice before you, now you've gunned down, you know, 30,000 people again. So I think that there is some capabilities that are relevant to dissuading them from the kind of mass massacre and brutality that we saw. It's really unprecedented since World War II. I mean, 30,000 people, these are reliable numbers, killed in a 48-hour period. What I would like to see are a number of other actions taken, international. Why the hell is there any Iranian embassy open anywhere in the world?

Kick those guys the hell out. And a lot more financial pressure. We're doing that. I mean, there's more that can be done outside of the military instrument as well. And it's a week in the regime. Okay, so that's diplomacy. And if what we're doing this weekend potentially is bombing Iran, then bombing is trumping diplomacy.

And isn't the big question we have to ask, let's say you bomb the hell out of them. Let's say it's a brilliant execution, right? What next? next. People in Venezuela may be thrilled that Maduro isn't there, but they're panicked saying what's next? And we've yet to hear this administration articulate

any of that. And if one were a true cynic, they might say, could the exact timing of this bombing be the president who understands politics and media better than maybe any other modern politician? So on Sunday, when most likely all the Sunday shows will be covering Pam Bondi's disastrous hearing, Howard Lutnik's disastrous hearing,

the reports out across the... about the Epstein files, we're not going to be talking about that, because Iran will be the only thing in the news. The only people talking about that are the people you and I know on the coast who watch those shows. Nobody gives a shit about the Sunday shows. You don't think America? No. Hold on. That's not America. How many people watch the... They do. The Epstein files, they do. They don't watch the Sunday shows and make their decision. But President Trump does. Oh, yes, he definitely does. And that's what I'm talking about. The other factor is Ramadan begins next week. So that may be another end of this.

But I mean, I was very supportive of bombing the new. facility in Iran. I thought that was great. I don't, I understood the goal there, and I understood how it could just be ended with the bombing itself. I don't get this one. But I have like half a minute to ask you this last question, because you're the military guy. The START Treaty, we're familiar with this. This is the treaty we've had for 50 years between United States and Russia. Well, if you don't know what the START Treaty is, it stopped. It's now expired. We have nothing that says that Russia and the United States can't now build any number of nuclear weapons. What is your take on that?

I'm okay with the Star Treaty going away. Really? Because I think it's the first step to now doing something more broadly. You know, China is increasing its nuclear forces by 400%. 400%. They're not a party to the treaty. It's kind of the same as the intermediate nuclear force treaty that went away. It was important that that went away.

we were constraining ourselves. Russia was violating it, and China wasn't even a signatory. So that we were taking off the table for us the development of land-based long-range strike capabilities. So I'm hopeful that this might be the beginning of maybe getting back on the path towards some kind of a dialogue about strategic forces. President Trump, this is a priority for him. I got to tell you, I mean, he would talk about it often.

He hates nuclear weapons. Putin kind of plays that card a lot with President Trump. Hey, Donald, you know, wouldn't it be great if we could work together? And it's all lies. But anyway, he plays that. But the real key is to bring China in and to do it to reduce the stockpiles, control them more effectively, but then also work on nonproliferation. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I got to go. Time for new roles, everybody.

You know, well, someone with a psychology degree has to tell me why the ultimate act of joyous abandon is dancing on a car. Big Bunny at the Super Bowl dancing at a car. La La Land dancing on a car. Fame dancing on a car. Michael Jackson dancing on a car. Tony Caton for White Snake dancing on a car. Whoever these guys are, dancing on a car. Choreographers have ruined more cars than ice. Why? Geez, there's got to be a fresher way to show your fun and full of life.

Like singing into a hairbrush. Uh, no, well, someone must tell the Norwegian biathlet who won a bronze medal and then promptly confessed to cheating on his girlfriend on live TV. sometimes just say I'm happy I won. But congratulations on the bronze. And also for winning the gold

for biggest dumb ass. New World of India's intent is to intimidate us with a show of military forces. They're going to have to release a different picture. This photo doesn't say lethal combat unit. It says the guy behind me is marching too close.

Newell, you can call it skiing, you can call it snowboarding, you can call it bob sledding, the skeleton, the luge, but what we must all admit is that most of the Olympics is just one sport. Different ways to fall down a hill. Somebody had to say it. It had to be said.

A new old, the 21-year-old woman who went backpacking through Australia thought she got a stomach bug and ended up delivering a baby must admit that she wishes she had just gotten a stomach bug. Because at least with that,

All of the shitting, pissing, and crying only lasts a few days. And finally, new rule. This Valentine's Day, men have to give women what they really want, to grow up and start being men again. They learned a new word recently, hub son. Hubson, like husband, but it's the son. It's grown men who freed themselves from the shackles of wage slavery to live at home, rent-free with the parents, or just mom.

They're also called kept sons. live with mom and do all the jobs dad used to do, you know, fix stuff around the house, take out the trash, make sure when it's mom's turn to host book club, the girls have it off Pinot Noir. You know, I wondered why Porn Hub

had so many stepson videos. It's because sons are dating their moms now, that's why. And it just works, okay? There's no awkward getting to know you phase. And if someone asks, hey,

How did you two meet? You can say, funny story, she pushed me out of her vagina. Is it any wonder so many women these days are asking, where have all the real men gone? I mean, look at their dating profiles. Living with mom is not one of the turn-ons. Guys in jail do better with chicks. Men are so consistently disappointing these days

that there's a new trend where women are in lieu of dating, going to the shelter and walking a dog instead. At least that way, there's some chance of ending up with a nose in your crotch. Sociologists say we're going through a sex recession, which is like a regular recession, except in a regular recession you get laid off, and here you don't get late at all. 24% of men, 22 to 34, say they've had zero sexual activity in the past year, what we used to call being married. 44% of Gen Z men report having no relationship experience at all.

during their teen years, except with Adderall. This is not healthy, although it does explain the steep drop in cooties. Scariest of all, 45% of men, aged 18 to 25, have never approached a woman in person. The only women Gen Z men talk to these days are Siri and Alexa, and a fat guy in the Philippines is pretending to be the guy they think they're sexting with

on OnlyFans. Women are feeling so sexually unfulfilled lately that there's a new type of literature that's propping up the entire book-buying market. It's called Romantasy. Kind of like the old romance novel, epitomized by Fabio on the cover. Except women are so horny now. Even he's not enough.

They want to fuck an actual animal. I'm not kidding. In the drawer with the vibrator in it now are books with titles like, My Minotaur Husband. sleeping with monsters, the dragon's bride, stalked by the Cracken, and Radley's home for horny monsters. Tales of romance, but with minotors and centaurs, werewolves, vampires, anything but a human man.

Seven foot tall, winged shadow demon, absolutely. Viking warrior who carries you off over his shoulder, no problem. That's the message of these books. If I can't find a man to get me off, I'll get dragon. to do it. Morning Glory milking farm is the story of a millennial girl who takes a job at a minotaur milking farm. You know, a minotor milking farm?

And well, one thing leads to another and she winds up fucking a guy who's half bull. Which brings me to Taylor Swift. Hear me out. Hear me out. I think Taylor Swift epitomizes the journey that a lot of women have been going through. been going through. Yes, women wanted men to be more sensitive. Sensitive, but not some

noodle-bodied human turtleneck who wears the same clothes they do. Timothy Shalame is very talented and I'm sure very sexy to women, but on the hunk scale, he feels like the leftover pieces from after they made Bert Reynolds. Taylor Swift went from writing

songs about what a dick this guy was to her and what a dick this guy was to her to what a dick this guy was to what a dick this guy guy has. She dated a procession of skinny, fay, gay adjacent, meek, porcelain doll, shy guy, twink-like, tortured poet, metrosexuals in America and Europe. But the second

she got some old-school wood from the heartland, it was game over. So welcome home, Taylor and happy Valentine's Day. But, I mean, Taylor is hardly the only one. You can hear it in the lyrics from all of today's female pop stars. They're practically screaming that they can't get no satisfaction. Doja Cat raps, I don't really got no type. I just want to fuck all night.

Charlie XX and Billy Elish have a song that goes, Try it, bite it, lick it, spit it. Pull it in the side, get up all in it. Geez, when they're not saying fuck ice, they're saying fuck me. Problem is, they're living in a world full of guys who are afraid to even make eye contact without an NDA.

Because in America, the pendulum never stops in the middle. The younger generation of men caught the backlash from like, you know, five million years of human history. And I feel for you guys, you were born in a society that said just being male was toxic. And in a world where everything you said was mansplaining and everything you did was an eye roll and merely approaching a woman could get you canceled, it got very easy for men to just give up. And when they did, porn hub and Tinder and only fail, were right there to take up the slack. Thing is, the technology changed.

Women didn't. They still want eye contact and face-to-face conversation, and also a pair of balls would be nice. Because in real life, I'm sorry, I mean IRL, when a girl blows you off when you ask her to dance, you can't just type fuck you and log off. You have to take that long walk of shame back to your table to tell your friends,

No, she's a lesbian. All right. That's our show. I want to thank my guest for the National Security Vice and HR McMaster, Stephanie Wool, and Jonathan Haidt, from random drops every Monday on YouTube or listener to get your podcast. Now go watch overtime on YouTube. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Happy Valentine's on. 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.