Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #722: Gov. Josh Shapiro, Anthony Scaramucci, Lloyd Blankfein

Episode Date: March 14, 2026

Bill’s guests are Gov. Josh Shapiro, Anthony Scaramucci, Lloyd Blankfein (Originally aired 3/13/26) 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. Great to see you. Thank you so much, people. Look at that. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

Look at that. Look at all these people. We sold the place out again. Every week we sell out here. So listen to it. I'm glad you're in a good mood because it's a little scary stuff here. You know what the war going on. They say Iran.

may be sending war drones to attack California. California. Why California? Well, they say maybe because there's so many Iranian dissidents here, or it may be a last-ditch effort to get on Trump's good side. We don't know, but we're looking into it. But, you know, it is. Here we are, week three of the war,

and Americans want to know two things. What is the strategic objective? And two, the shit I get from Amazon. Does that go through the Strait of Hermuz? Yes, if you haven't been following this closely, you know Iran, one of the greatest oil producers in the world. A lot of them. Oil comes from Iran, and it all goes through this bottleneck called the Strait of Hermuz, and the administration seems to be caught off guard that if you attack a country,

they might use their best asset for leverage. This way is all in the sequel to the art of war called the No Shit of Sherlock. So, kind of fuck there in the straight of Bermuz. And of course, this has driven up the price of oil a lot. But Trump yesterday said, you know, the United States is the biggest oil producer in the world still.

He said, when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money. Who's we? Was my question. I think ExxonMobil makes a lot of money. We dig for change in the cup holder. I don't... But Trump said that the Iranians have no Navy, no communications, and no Air Force, and they shot back, and they said,

and you have no affordable housing, no functioning Congress, and no attention span game on. But, look, don't take that the wrong way. I'm on our side. Okay? us winning. Right. I'm not on that page. If Trump did it, so I'm with the Ayatollah now. But I got to say, they are looking a little nervous in our war room.

The Pentagon banned photographers this week for the briefings because Pete Hegsef said some of the pictures of him looked unflattering. Pete wants you to know two things about our military. This is the new alpha male, very masculine, non-woke military. Also, don't get my bad side. So this is the most macho administration we've ever had. Also the gayest. I gotta say, I don't mean literally, I'm just a lot of redecorating.

I'm just saying, also, Trump has a new thing, I'm not making this up. He, guessing other men's shoe size. Have you said, am I making this shit up? I'm not, he has been, he looks at other men and guesses there's shoe size and then they sends them a pair. The entire cabinet is wearing shoes he got them including Marco Rubio

where they didn't fit so he's in clown shoes. I'm just saying it's a little weird for a man to look at other men and go, what's he got down there, nine and a half? But I don't know. Of course it's also today Friday the 13th.

We're applauding that. I'm not superstitious, if you're in Tehran, I wouldn't walk under a leader. Well, they have a new Supreme Leader over there. Oh, good, we didn't applaud that. Yes, it's the late Ayatollah Khamini's son. He goes by the name Nepo Kiblui. And he's very holy man, like his father.

Holy man. Very holy man. But it's a big tidbit. Four times he has traveled to a clinic in England. to treat impotence. Yes, I love the Ayatollahs. They hate the infidel West until their dick doesn't work.

And then it's... Get me on the 2 p.m. to Heathrow, okay? Yeah, four trips. Four trips to this clinic. This guy's got a real problem. I mean, when he gets to paradise, he's going to stay to the 72 virgins. Can we just talk?

And... And... We're not... I'm not even sure if he's still alive. Trump said yesterday, he's alive in some form. Like Mitch McConnell, I assume he means. But, yeah, it's a tough, tough time for the new Iatolle. But he is trying to stay positive.

He said, if I live, I'm the leader of Iran. And if I die, I'll finally be hard. All right, we've got a great show. We've got Anthony Scaramucci, Lloyd Blankfine. But first up, he is the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, whose new book is called Where We Keep the Light Stories of the Life and Service. Governor Josh Shapiro, back with us. There he is.

Hey. I'll see you again. Thank you. I'll look. I'm watching. You've got my own shoes on. All right. You're back with us.

You must have done good the first time. I guess. Yeah. I'd be back. Thank you. That's what we do here, my popular demand. And you have a book. I do.

What is the title? Where We Keep the Light. What is the story with always writing a book when you're running for president? I wrote a book. I wrote a book to try and highlight the people that bring light in my state, the people I see every day doing good things, because our politics don't match the goodness of what I see on the ground every day, the goodness of the people.

And I think hopefully this book will inspire our politicians to start taking the cues from the people who are doing good every day. But don't the politicians, if they're elected by the people, aren't they the representative of the people, doesn't have to go back on the people. If we were in some country where they just top down like Iran, force the people, the leaders on the people, but they are a reflection of us.

Are they not? I think for a long time it was a righteous cycle, right? Where the people would elevate folks who reflected the goodness of the community. That has changed, particularly over the last decade. And I think what we need to do is figure out a way to get back to that. We've got all kinds of incentive structures in our media, in campaign fundraising, and the way we conduct our politics to go to the extremes and to go to the lowest common denominator.

I think people are frustrated with that, rightfully so. And we've got to figure out a way to turn that around. Yeah. What is that way? I think that way is to be a GSD Democrat, which is what I am, a get-shit-done Democrat. I think one of the reasons... Can I say that here? You can say it anywhere now.

A get-shit-done Democrat. You're nobody in politics, if you don't use bad words. Is there? Yeah. No, but look, I think it speaks to part of the frustration people have is they don't see many of their elected leaders putting points on the board for them, solving a problem. And when you don't solve a problem, when you don't fix a system, when you don't deliver the thing they need for their kid or for their household or a job in their community or a safe community, they get more frustrated, more cynical. And our politics gets more broken. I think there's a number of people

doing a great job of that across the country. Unfortunately, the people who tend to make the headlines, the people who tend to dominate on social media, are not the ones who are delivering real results for the people, in my case, the people of Pennsylvania, but I think the people of this country deserve it. I think in cities, people would

say it's dominated by one party. Certainly that's the problem, I think, here in California. Now, you had a bridge collapse, and you got it back up in 12 days. That's right. Unfortunately, that is not the story we usually hear. What we usually hear is nothing can get built and nothing can. We see it all the time. We couldn't build a railroad here in California. We tried to connect to the two ends of the state. It just didn't happen. Too many environmental reviews, too many

consultants, too much lawyering, too much bureaucracy, too much red tape. It just doesn't get done. I feel like this is something your party really needs to take on. Maybe you're the guy to do that? Well, we've tried to do that in Pennsylvania, and I-95 was a great example of that. The expert said it was going to take four to six months to get that rotary open. We did it in 12 days by getting rid of the sort of bureaucratic red tape that dominates thing, by putting the Philadelphia building trades in charge and empowering them to be innovative, and by getting out of their way, breaking away all the things that hold people down and slow things down, and instead make it work.

We didn't stop there, though. We reformed our permitting system in Pennsylvania Went from the bottom of the pack To the top of the heap A business license that used to take Eight weeks in Pennsylvania The day I got sworn in You get that the same day

Buildings that would take three years To get their permits They're now getting it in three to six months Can you move here? But I think that is not our experience here No but I know it sounds nerdy and wonky But if you want to give people... No, it sounds wonderful

If you want to give people a hope and less cynicism in the process. You've got to show them government can work. We can still protect public health, public safety, and the environment, and move quickly. And we're proving that. It was a rough winter back east, and I read, I can't remember what the number now is, but it was

approaching like 30 people, homeless people who died in New York, freezing on the sidewalk. And it just made me think, why can't the Democrats just have the balls to say, well, one, the sidewalk is not for you, for anybody. It's public. It's public.

And just for compassion's sake, we're going to make you get off the street and into a shelter. Why can't we even build shelters? And that's what I think people look at. They say, Democratic-run cities, they can't even do that. And people died for it. I know you're giving me an example from another state. I'm less familiar with that. I can just tell you in our cities in Philly and Pittsburgh, run, by the way, by Democratic mayors,

we've addressed homelessness. We built a shelter in Pittsburgh. We're treating people humanely and getting them the help they need. making it so businesses can thrive in those communities so that they're clean streets and safe communities. Look, to me, foundational everything is a safe community. You don't want to live in that area. You don't want to work in that area if it's not safe. I made a commitment when I was running for governor to hire 2,000 police officers, invest

a half a billion dollars in violence prevention initiatives. Crime is down 13% in Pennsylvania. Fatal gun violence is down 43% in Pennsylvania. We're delivering safe communities. and part of that is having compassion, but also helping people who are living on the street, get off the street, and get in a place that's safer for them and better for us.

So, sounds like you're well on your way to the nomination. I refuse to take any of your bait here. Good for you. But... I don't know if you're clapping for me or you, but I don't think of it. It doesn't matter. We're both on the same show. I get the credit either way.

Either way. But here's the question I have to ask you, which is something I would have never guessed. I would be asking a Democrat in this year, which is that you're a Democrat running possibly for the nomination. For re-election as governor of Pennsylvania. And you're Jewish. Yeah. And this is somehow maybe a complete deal breaker in the Democratic Party. I mean, the speed at which anti-Semitism has gone to a place where I never imagined it would go.

I mean, just this past week, bombings at synagogues in Toronto, Belgium, Michigan, the guy drove a truck with explosive into the largest synagogue in West Bloomfield, Norway, the arrested someone, suspicious behavior outside of synagogue, Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, synagogue. I see a pattern here. And somehow it got to, among the young people, anti-Semitism got to be kind of cool. You think you could, if you did run for president, you could fight this and convince the Democratic Party that being Jewish isn't like the worst thing a person could be now? Let me address both pieces,

the anti-Semitism and sort of the politics of being Jewish, as you ask. when I ran for governor, the first ad that I put on TV was something to show who I am, what motivates me to serve, which is family and faith. And the first ad was my family and I doing what we do nearly every Friday night, which was sitting around the Sabbath dinner table having a meal together. We ran that ad despite a whole bunch of political consultants saying,

hey, don't run that. They're going to know you're Jewish. I'm like, I think they know I'm Jewish. But Bill, I share that with you because after we ran that, I'd show up in North Philly, and folks would tell me about their Iftar after Ramadan. They were excited to share that with me. I'd show up in rural communities where I might increase the Jewish population by 100% when I'd get there, and they'd tell me about what lunch is like after church on Sundays. The point I'm making is that I believe people are good, and they are decent,

and they want to know who you are at a deep level, and when you are open with them, they're more apt to be open with you. I won that election, got more votes to anybody in the history of Pennsylvania running for governor. Because I'm proud of who I am. I'm proud of what motivates me to serve, and I'm proud of my faith. I will tell you at the same time, anti-Semitism is a real problem in this country. And unfortunately, one of the things that has seemingly united the extremes of both parties is a pervasive sense of anti-Semitism and bigotry and hatred toward justice.

Jews. And I think all leaders, Democrat and Republican, have a responsibility to call it out, to speak and act with moral clarity. I'll give you an example of that moral clarity. Governor Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan today spoke out with moral clarity about what happened in Michigan, pardon me, yesterday. But I think it is also important that it not only be words after a violent incident, thank God no one was killed in Michigan. There are seeds of anti-Semitism being planted all over this country. People are being platformed. Folks are looking the other way and nodding toward it and allowing it to happen in their businesses, on their screens, and in their politics. And we have to speak up about it. And I don't care if it's coming from people in your own party, people you

agree with, people you need to vote for you, you've got to call it out. We cannot let this in our country continue the way it is. Okay. So, um, Farno, question. Your fellow Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, he's one of the few people in the party who has come out and said, look, I don't understand that everybody in my party said, we can't allow Iran to have nuclear weapons, and yet when we do something about it, they're against it. Now, our chief negotiator said they were talking to Iran up until the war started. He said, their opening salvo was at the negotiations. We're a couple of weeks away from having 11 bombs. that were bragging about it. If you were the president and you got that information, you'd still do nothing? I never said...

I'm asking. What I would do and what the president in the United States failed to do was be clear with the American people about what the hell we were doing here. Was the plan to go after the nuclear weapons? The weapons, by the way,

he said, were destroyed seven years ago. Or seven months ago, pardon me. Was the plan to go and do regime change, in which case, who the hell is going to take over? I don't think the son's any better than the father. Was the plan to go in there later, but then you got forced because Netanyahu forced your hand? Remember they said that?

So it's a matter of clarity. Walk that back. I think if you don't have clarity on why you're going in, you have no way of knowing how the hell to get out. And so we are in a situation now where we have a commander-in-chief and his sidekick Pete Heggseth who were acting like a bunch of eight-year-old

playing with toy soldiers. We've lost 13 American soldiers in a war that the American people, and by the way, most of the global community, has no idea why the hell we went there in the first place. And the President of the United States, our commander chief owes us in answer. I think people have an idea. What was the reason we went in? Well, everything you said, the nukes, regime change, and just to reshuffle the deck in the Middle East, but nothing was ever really going to get better there until that regime went away. But we'll see how it We'll see what happens

No, but by the way, understand, understand I want to be clear because I've heard your commentary on this I'm not saying the I had told is a good person They chanted for five decades death to America These are people who blew up and killed Americans These are not bad, these are not good people And I am not shedding a tear for them being killed What I am saying to you though is if you're the commander in chief

You have a responsibility to the people you send in harm's way. You have responsibility to the American people to explain why it is you're doing what you're doing and how the hell you get out of it once the mission is accomplished. The president has yet to look the American people in the eye and explain that and that is a failure of leadership. Thank you, Governor. I appreciate you coming blind for the beautiful. Good to see you later, right? Okay. Governor Josh Saperro everybody. All right, let's read our panel. Okay. Hey guys. All right, he is the former White House communications director under Donald Trump,

whose new book, All the Wrong Moves, how three catastrophic decisions led to the rise of Trump comes out this fall, Anthony Scaramucci. And he is the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, an author of the new book, Streetwise, getting to and through Goldman Sachs. Lloyd Blank Fine, Lloyd, welcome to the show. All right, so we are going to talk about the war.

But first, because I've never had two Wall Street guys on the show at the same time. So let's talk about money because you both have a lot of it and you like it. Who doesn't like money? Because I think this is much more actually on people's minds. I mean, Forbes came out this week with their richest list. I guess you guys have been on it. I don't know. We're close to it.

Musk, $840 billion. We are approaching the first trillionaire. I looked it up. You know, John D. Rockefeller at the early part of the last century was worth 2.5% of GDP. But they did something about it. They broke up standard oil. There was antitrust laws that were passed. I mean, they were just saying, you can't one person have 2.5% of our gross national.

It's just not. Musk has now 2.7. There's a lot of talk about a wealth tax, what we should do when people have this much money. but when they wanted, they proposed it here in California and also in Washington State, they leave. Zuckerberg has left decamped to Miami. Schultz, Starbucks dude, he's out of town. Musk did it, Sergei Bryn, Stephen Spielberg moving.

I'm the farthest from a socialist or a communist because unlike the kids today, I don't get my information from TikTok. I know the history. I know communism and doesn't work and neither does advance socialism. But what we have now, I can't make the case that's working either. What is the answer to this income and equality problem that we do have? Next question. All right. I was being deferential with my old boss, but I'm happy to chime in first. Well, listen, there's a lot to unpack there. I think you're right, but I think going

through our history, Teddy Roosevelt, who was actually a Republican and the founder of progressivism, he went and broke up the trust. But there's something called Citizens United, where since January of 2010 bill, you're allowed to give unlimited money to the politicians. It's up eight times the campaign donations, and 36% of the donations are coming from the top 0.1% of the people. And guess what they're doing? They're talking to politicians into not breaking them up, giving them corporate tax cuts and et cetera. And so there's a lot of things we have to do to reform it, but you are right.

But monopoly busting is something that was done in the beginning in the Renaissance era, and we're not doing it anymore because of the undue influence of these people. So, again, I hear no answer. By the way, busting up. And Citizens United, got to break up some of these big businesses,

and you've got to have some type of tax to equalize the situation. So taxing more. So say we taxed Mr. Musk, he's got $840 billion. Say we took away $500 billion and left him with a mere $340 billion. Do you have confidence that that would solve the problem? What would we do with that $500 billion? Like actually just pass it out to poorer people?

I'm not mad at Elon Musk. Elon Musk makes those, he put in all those satellites that are going to make everybody's telephones work better. He has those rocket ships landing in tandem. Unlike the people of Rockefeller's era, like the Carnegie's, these guys who generated

all that wealth today are still in the game, still competitive, still, I think, creating wealth in the country and advancing our economic interests. They have a lot of money. That money gets reinvested. I think the answer to solve the problem

has to be for to a more progressive tax system than we have today, and to give more people for free the necessities of life, like child care, health care, other things that rich people can afford, that poor people have to scrimp to, to give those things, have the higher minimum, and to pay for it with a progressive system, and hopefully, and I know this is everybody always says this,

knock out some of the waste, and maybe you don't have to raise too much the absolute level of tax, but we certainly have to have a much more progressive tax system, and that's the way to do it. The economic system that we have has done a great job creating wealth. Now, it's created wealth by increasing the value of assets, and so people with assets have gotten a lot richer. But the people without assets haven't participated.

They don't have assets, so their assets aren't going up in value. And I don't know what the billionaires don't get about. Those people are going to get mad. I mean, the CEO of Davidia and the CEO of Anthropic, they both said, tax me more. Okay, because they're going to come after us with pitchforks. Read the room. Luigi is a hero. The guy who shot the health care executive.

Tragedy, yep. Yeah, tragedy for that guy. It could be a tragedy for everybody. You had James Telerico on earlier. He said something people should really think about it. He said, you know, we have policies that can help and satisfy the poor, but we have no policies that can satisfy the rich, implying that when you make suggestions like Lloyd is making,

you get tremendous amount of resistance bill, and you get unlimited money at politicians that will stop that type of progressive tax movement or stop those changes that need to be made to make the system fair. I don't know. If I had that kind of money, I sure wouldn't act like the way these guys do and flaunted. Well, you're right. You know, I wouldn't buy a yacht.

you know, peace of mind, much more valuable, I think. I think all the guys you're naming are working like dogs. They're competitive. Again, the people that you named earlier from a different century, they retired at 40, and they did the world tour, and they bought pieces, and they donated to museums. They didn't stay active in their businesses. These guys are killing themselves.

They're going crazy because one guy's model, one guy's model is working better than his, and they're doubling their efforts. This is while they have this. I'm glad they're working and incentivized. I mean, I think a lot of these people are national assets. Now, if you want to put on, I think it's really the political sector that's failing here. I'm not mad at these people that are creating wealth and are creating jobs

and advancing the interests of America. We're mad at them. We're just saying. But they're not doing it. The political sector has to be... But they're not going to voluntarily give it back. No, but it's the politicians. I think the political sector has to deal.

Again, we're doing a very good job at creating wealth. We have to distribute according to our values. But the distribution part is not the burden of the generators. It's a political sector. I think Bill's saying something different. Lloyd, I read your book. It was phenomenal. You grew up in public housing, more or less, in Brooklyn,

and you had this aspirational life, as did I. And when you have a funnel at the top like this, that's so concentrated. People that grew up the way you and I grew up, they feel economically desperation as opposed to aspirational. So there's a sense of unfairness going on. No problem with the LMS have at it. I'm all for unlimited upside,

but we really do need a platform of equal opportunity to get people to the starting gate to make them feel that they too can make it. And I'm telling you right now, the reason why we have so much populism, Bill, is people don't feel they can make it anymore. And people that grow up like you and me, Lloyd, they feel left out of the system and they're angry.

And I don't feel they're hearing this and thinking that's helping. Maybe it is. I don't know. I'm not quite sure what we're saying here. All I know is, like, these people who think that you can be, you said they keep working. They keep working. They also need a lot of security now.

Because is it worth it? Is it worth it to have to have bodyguards around you all the time? when you go out knowing that people hate you so much because you're so rich and because you live so ostentatiously that you can't just freely walk about. To me, there's no greater freedom than that. There's no greater asset than that. I don't see the ostentation. You must...

What? I don't... Were you at Bezos wedding? That's not a... I hang out in a different crowd. Yeah, I do too, but, you know, come on. There's a lot of... I think living in a bob-wired McMansion in a security compound

while your fellow neighbors are suffering is really bad for the economic health of the society. We've got to fix it. Lasagne sur-gillet, puissance-moid for 15 minutes. We'd say that's their dojo. Pre-to-joo? Vive the pleasure with the Ojo.

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depot minimum of $10 $0. Veye to show to a responsible. The conditions apply. Okay, so, interesting story

in the news this week. Donald Trump put out an executive order. You worked for him for a while, remember? Yeah, 954,000 seconds, actually, right? And I say it that way,

it makes me feel better. Right, good. Yeah, I had two... Tolla dude lasted longer than you. He put an executive, it is the policy of the administration to restore federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting policy, to remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage.

Okay, this is my issue with so many things. The pendulum never stops in the middle. Have we whitewashed history somewhat? Yes, we have. But Trump comes in. He wants to, you know, because the left, very often, let's be honest, they don't appreciate it. appreciate America enough. They don't have it in perspective. It's all we did terrible things. Well, we didn't just do terrible things. But Trump wants to whitewash all that. So he has said that the

move to scrub national park sites of signs that cast America in a negative light and leaked an interior department, a leaked interior department database reveals U.S. plans to revise historical information. So this must already be happening. We went to the Smithsonian and got some pictures. Would you like to see what's going on? Oh, my God. For example, George Washington famously said, I can tell a lot.

And every future president should be able to as well. When George Wallace stood in the doorway of an Alabama schoolhouse, he did it because he thought he felt an earthquake. These are definitely not. On December 7, 1941, Greenland attacked Pearl Harbor. I don't remember it that way. The first thing Neil Armstrong did after he set foot on the moon was danced like he was jerking off two guys at once.

That does not say. Most of the U.S. soldiers who landed on Normandy Beach during D-Day were killed by windmills. Ronald Reagan said to Gorbachev, Mr. Gorbachev, build this big, beautiful wall. Thomas Jefferson, and had sex with his slaves because when you're a star they let you do it.

The man who assassinated Kennedy was really named Lee Harvey Ortega. Not true. And in the 1850s, over a million Irish immigrants came to America escaping starvation because Rosie O'Donnell had eaten all the food.

All right, that's not true. But, um, so let's talk about Let's talk about the war for a minute. Okay. Good segue. Trump says, no air force.

Iran has no air force, no missiles, and no Navy. He says, there's nothing left to bomb. Yeah, we have nothing left to bomb. Apparently, they have something left to bomb, which is the Strait of Hermuz. I don't understand this. We have complete military superiority. We're bragging about that, except for the one place where we apparently need complete military superiority. Do you understand this why we can't control the Strait of Hermuz, the one place

we need to control in Iran? I don't think it takes much effort to create an obstacle on a very narrow bottleneck there. So I think they don't have to have much firepower. They're going to need, if they're going to accomplish something, it's going to be by bringing the regime down and getting some sort of compromise on that. It doesn't take much to fire chiefs. drones and menace ships so that they don't go through. But we took four of our mine sweepers in September, and we redeployed them to other parts of the world. And so that was bad war planning, because if we were going to make that attack and anticipated

that they were going to close the straight bill, we would have had those mine sweepers in place. That's been one of the things that's preventing us from getting our Navy in there to take on the convoy. Do you worry that the oil was headed to China? That's 90 percent of Iranian oil went to China. Venezuela, which we took over. A lot of that oil went to China.

You remember what caused Japan to attack Pearl Harbor? It was that we cut off the oil. That's why they said they had to preemptibly attack Pearl Harbor. Do you think China's going to see this as that kind of a threat? If things go on a long time, you know, the way it's going to happen is that the Iranians will let the Chinese ships go through, that ships going through China go through. Which they have been, by the way. The Iranian ships have been going through heading for China. So they know where their minds are.

The Iranian ships are getting through? The Iranian tankers have been getting through. And we're letting them through. And we are letting them through because we don't want to escalate the situation with China. So what is your estimation as how this ends? How quickly and what's the upshot? Because everyone seems to be taking a bet on this.

Well, I'm pretty sure that nobody knows at this point. That I would say is a safe bet, yes. Yeah, but that's not what we know that. I just want you to know. I'm not running for governor and for president and I didn't fire the first shot. So I'd say I don't know how long this will last, but I know I think the strategies, and I think the question that you posed to the governor more sharply is they are big burden on the safety and health of the world and we decided to do something about it.

I wish that we had done something similar to North Korea when we still had the opportunity to do that because they'll probably be. they'll probably be the source of a lot of mischief to come, and there's nothing we can do about it because they have nuclear war. There's nothing we can do about that. And here, there's something we could do about it, and they don't call you up and tell you when the last minute is. And also in my algorithm of whether to decide to do it or not,

is how close are we to them getting lit? And also, is this an opportunity that's fleeting? And we had a moment of time where there's practically a civil war inside Iran, their capacity to deflect missiles has been removed. And generally, it may be, and we have all these machines in the area, this was an opportunity that we could do something that needed to be done, and you don't know when the last minute is. I think the outcomes, Bill, or, you know,

I think what the president wanted was like a Delci Rodriguez, too, a secularist to take over that he could negotiate with and make a friendly. I think that's less likely now based on what is. gone on over the last couple of weeks. And so I think the next move would be to completely degrade the system and the infrastructure. And then it'll either end up as a failed state or it'll end up as a different form of Iran. And then the question is, will the North Koreans come in and give them nuclear weapons, which he has said publicly he's interested in doing.

The North Koreans are going to give the Iranians of it? Kimmel Jung said that yesterday. He made a statement. Well, that's not going to happen because we're going to make sure that there's not that kind of a regime. understand that. So it's either a failed state or a very severely degraded Islamic Republican state. You mentioned civil war. Yeah, that's the failed state. Let me show you two pictures. There's the picture of people dancing, and this is right after the attack. And I mean, this is what I think of as Iran because I talk to the Iranians who live here in Los Angeles. They love this. We have that

picture of people dancing or... Okay, that's one Iran. Then there's this picture. This was a few days ago. Look at that crowd. That's for the regime. Those are the people. So it's not one way. To me, I look at these two pictures, and I see that is a civil war. And maybe it needs a civil war.

Maybe this doesn't happen any other way. I just don't want us to be involved in their civil war. That might be good for the Israelis, though, because we had... It wasn't so... We weren't in such a great... position. I know people are worried that because of what we're doing, the Iranians are going to get mad at us now. But I think they were pretty mad at us before, and I think they were trying to accomplish as much mischief as they can. We've not convinced them to lose that motivation,

but what we have done is we've certain weakened their capacity to do as much mischief as they were doing in the past. So I think we're better off now. Now, is it a risky proposition? Do we know how it's going to be resolved? No. It could work out. And it could get worse from here. But I would say, from a bet to make, given where we were and where we were headed with them, being motivated and having the capacity, I'd rather have them slightly more motivated, but infinitely with less of a capacity. I'm going to get this straight open one. I mean, I'm looking at the big picture. I think Islam needs a reform.

A lot of people have been saying that since 9-11 and even, what? Are that funny? No, I'm thinking that. I'm thinking that we would probably not be appointed to the committee to reform it. That is true. Although I think we could do a pretty good job. Somebody needs to do a pretty good job. And maybe this is the place where it starts.

I mean, this is not an unsophisticated society. And a lot of the people there do want to live. I mean, obviously we're not asking you not to be Muslim. We're just asking you not to be a theocratic state. I mean, my question is, if we did take, if the best part of it happened, and Iran is now a democratic state, and they can have free and fair elections, what if the wrong people win? Because that has happened before.

Egypt, remember the Arab Spring? And then Egypt had free and fair elections, and they elected the Muslim Brotherhood. That's that second picture of that crowd who likes the regime. Algeria in the 90s, same thing happened. Free and fair elections, they elected the wrong people. And by the wrong people, I mean the religious fanatics. You know, it's very easy to pretend, like the ruling class likes to do in the West, that it's just a few bad apples.

But actually, a lot of people in those societies want a theocracy. Then what do you do? I think that's the biggest issue, Bill, because you've degraded the place and maybe you've pushed more people towards the regime. as a result of all the things that are going on economically inside the country? I'm not pro-democratic. I don't think they have any history going back thousands of years of being democratic. I just want them not to have the capacity to blow us up.

So whatever government they end up with, I hope a George Washington figure on a white horse emerges there, but I put a low likelihood at that. I just don't want them to, I just don't want them to wreck havoc in the world, and I don't want them to have the capacity to reach the United States with its ballistic missiles. And is it going to... Do you guys bet on our markets for a living?

What is the long-term prognosis? What are you telling people who say, oh, you're a financial master? What do I do now with this war is going on? What should I do with my money? Well, first of all, I think we have to support the president in the action because we're all Americans and we want to wish our troops safely.

And I think the ultimate outcome will be that straight gets opened no later than mid-April. But my money... What do I do with my money? Yeah, so sit tight. Sit tight because there's going to be a lot of volatility between now and April, but I do think that the mission is ultimately going to be successful. The straight's going to get open.

Are you still into crypto? Yeah, I do. I own some Bitcoin. I know you don't like it, but, you know, I know. I know she said that very quietly. I mean, I watch your show. I mean, I watch your show and listen to your podcasts. I know you don't like it, really.

I put a lot of money. Except that... I hate it. I hate it, too. I like... I mean, okay, we just identified the oldest people on the pound. But it's like...

It's like I'm shorter, because every time it goes down, it makes me happy, even though I don't have anything involved in that. Tell me that before we got on the past. Oh, I didn't know that. For my feelings. But you don't see it as a big slush fund

for every criminal in the world. You know, I'll tell you what. If you gave me two hours with you alone, and I laid it out for you, his buddies like Stan Druck and Miller, Ray Dalio, you pick the guys who have done the homework, Paul Tudor Jones, Mike Novagrats.

If you do the homework, I would just say 9 out of 10 people end up owning some of it. But if you've made the money in fiat currency and you're of a certain age, people aren't necessarily inclined to do that homework. I guess I'm too old to like it.

Because you said that. I didn't. Just a minute. I didn't. I can't figure out what it does. It's a medium of exchange. It's a medium of exchange. you can't buy anything with it. It's a store of value.

Showing your age. That's very volatile. And I think, and it's not a hedge of anything, because when the bullets start to fly, gold went up and crypto went down. I think it's the highest purpose is, you know, to pay ransoms and to extortionists. And I don't know why the U.S.

Give me a second. I don't know why the U.S. government, I don't know why the U.S. government or any official sector would support something, where you couldn't tell whether or not somebody was paying the North Koreans. Right.

Okay. Well, we had a former CIA director write a white paper on that saying how easy it is to track these things because of the blockchain. So that is an early statement about crypto that's no longer the case. But I hear you.

You don't like it. But your team at Goldman Sachs never really did 100% research on it, and they still don't like it. And they've missed a two plus trillion dollar market and our friend Larry Fink who didn't like it now has the largest Bitcoin ETF in the world. So all I'm saying is there a lot of smart people that like it. And somebody like you, Bill, if you really sat down and learned about it, I think you'd be

less skeptical. You're saying you wouldn't be? I believe you would be. Look, I learned about it. I have to be a chicken to know what an egg is. Okay? You know exactly what it is. All right. Well, thank you guys for enlightening us on the economy. Time for New Rules. Okay, new rule, now that a new study reveals that young people want male characters and movies to move away from masculine stereotypes and toward vulnerability

and connection. The next James Bond must be Ed Sheeran. Say hello to the next Gen-O-7. He likes his soy milk shaken, not stirred. He has a license to kill, but prefers to listen. And pussy galore isn't his girlfriend.

It's his nickname. Uh, Neural, now that Michael Jackson's brother Marlin claims that Michael was taught the backward dance move we call moonwalking by an eight-year-old boy, someone must ask him, are you sure the kid wasn't just trying to get away? Uh, Newell, the San Diego Bishop, who resigned this week for allegedly embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars has to try and get Trump to give him a pardon. Here's what you do. Change your twiddle handle to Maga Bishop Dude with lots of American flags, post daily that you've been treated unfairly by the radical anti-Trump Pope, and then, well, you'll need to move 50 million

into untraceable Trump family crypto via a bank in Qatar. So maybe try embezzling more money? New real stock photo companies have to come up with a different way to depict male impotence than the guy sitting on the edge of the bed in shame. Maybe it's not even his story.

fault, not to point fingers, but isn't it the same woman in every picture? Maybe he should be the one shooting daggers of disappointment at her while she sits on the side of the bed asking, why can't I get a dick heart? The new call-a-boomer payphone that connects students at Boston University to a senior living complex in Reno, Nevada, might not wind up getting the cross-generational communication they were looking for. you think we want to listen to a bunch of TikTok educated Nudniks talk our ears off about Palestine and your gender identity?

You want to hear something from my generation? And finally, new rule, as this Sunday's Academy Award show is the 10th anniversary of the Oscars So White campaign, someone must wear a ribbon that says, we won. Just as a way to remind progressives, hey, you're progressive. Progressive. Progress is what you're selling. take the win. The Oscars are no longer a long, boring show full of white people. It's a long,

boring show full of all people. In the last decade, Best Picture has gone to everything, everywhere, all at once, Green Book, Parasite, Coda, Shape of Water, Moonlight, not to mention Nomadland, which might be about Somalia, but no one has seen it, so it's impossible to know. And acting Oscars have gone to Will Smith, Michelle Yose, Zoe Scyll. Dahlana, Divine Joy Randolph, you, you young Yun, I apologize already for some of these names. Regina King, Viola Davis, Kikyu Wan, Daniel Kowlua, and Mara Shali Ali, twice. Eight of the last ten best director prizes have been won by underrepresented groups, not to mention 60% of the honorary awards.

You can't argue with a straight face, or even a gay face. that the Academy in 26 still overlooks minority achievement or that Hollywood is biased in favor of all white people, just Australians. But come on, man, can we live in the present? No Academy

member this year filled out their ballot thinking, well, I didn't think Shalome was very good, but I'll vote for him because he's white. Hollywood isn't a secret cabal of racists. It's a secret cabal of people terrified of looking like racists. And I'm just

tired of no matter how much progress has made, social justice warriors, feeling the need to gaslight us as if none of it had happened. A couple of years ago, the Academy established a very complex rulebook that said you couldn't even be considered for best picture unless you met certain criteria like 30% of the crew or two department heads had to be from underrepresented groups and a main storyline had to be as well. Well, there goes my idea about a polka band in a ski town. I mean, please, don't get us wrong. We're not saying you can't hire who you want

or make a movie about whatever you want. Okay, that's exactly what we're saying. I'm surprised Trump hasn't sued them over it. But seriously, by this standard, you couldn't make Titanic today in hope to get nominated, or Braveheart, or Amadeus. Apollo 13 was about a bunch of white people

because white people have done some stuff. but somehow without a production code hidden figures got made and completed the historical record about how we got to the moon Sinners this year is up for more Oscars than any movie ever Sinners is good

it doesn't need affirmative action neither did parasite or shape of water where she fucks a fish how much more diverse can you get A few years ago Denzo Washington said we ought to be at a place where diversity shouldn't even be mentioned like it's something special. Exactly.

Sometimes I'm the Equalizer. Sometimes it's an old English dude. Sometimes it's Queen Latifah. I mean, the whole thing is so Hollywood, a room full of no-nothings who call themselves the academy, making everyone tremble before their judgment, even though their judgment is often terrible and fails the test of time.

Maybe the hashtag should be, Oscar's so wrong. Citizen Kane, it's a wonderful life, 12 angry men, singing in the rain. Dr. Strangelove, raging bull, pulp fiction goes on and on. Not a single best picture among them. Brilliant, brave, groundbreaking, intellectually honest films constantly lose to much more forgettable, trifling, sentimental stuff. Saving Private Ryan lost to Shakespeare in love. Sunset Boulevard lost to All About Eve.

Glory to Driving Miss Daisy. Gangs in New York to Chicago. Munich lost to crash. Citizen Kane lost to How Green was My Valley? Whatever the fuck that was. Reds lost to chariots of fire. Shawshank Redemption lost

to Forrest Gump. Some of the most iconic directors of all time. Hitchcock, Kubrick, Tarantino, Kurosawa, Bergman, Fellini, Rob Reiner. Have zero wins for best director. The Oscars should give out a new award. The

Kanye West, I'm going to let you finish award. Yeah, just put Kanye in the audience every year to jump up and say, I'm going to let you finish, but Shawshank is one of the greatest movies of all time. And the Acting Awards, no better. They're constantly giving out the makeup for a snub Oscar. When an actor gets one because the Academy stepped on its dick, the first ten times the guy should have won. Al Pacino in The Godfather, Godfather 2, Serpico, Scarface, Dog Day Afternoon, I Could Go on, Crickets.

Then he plays a blind guy who screams hoo-ha and welcome to the winner's circuit. It's like honoring Michael Jordan for when he played baseball. But you know why he won that one. Blind guy. I mean, afflictions win. Oscar has been given to so many people with diseases it should wear a hospital gown.

I mean, blind, deaf, ALS, cerebral palsy, amputee, there's nothing more automatic, well, except if you're mentally challenged in some way. In Hollywood, never say the R word, but if you play it in a movie, they will give you a trophy. And the Academy is also constantly giving it to an actor when they're really giving it to the character the actor played. Not that these weren't all fine performances, but if you, as a nominee, are up against someone who played Gandhi, or Lincoln, or Aaron Brockovich, or Norma Ray, or Ray Charles, or Harvey Milk, or the guy in Philadelphia, or the dude at the Dollar's Buyers Club, just stay home. It was never going to happen.

Also, stay home if you're up against someone who, you know, we suspect might not be up for an award again, or just up again. Art Carney and Harry Entanto beat Jack Nicholson in Chinatown, John Wayne in True Grit, Henry Fonda, Jack Palance. I call this the Grandpa's Last Christmas Award. And it's always a lot. The only thing the Academy Prizes more than this is if an actor makes the ultimate sacrifice, gaining weight,

or losing weight. Or even, dare I say it, making themselves unbeautiful. Fake, ugly nose, please, do you even have to ask? Oscar should have another new category this year. Best glue. All right. That's our show. I want to thank my guest,

Anthony Starry, Lloyd Blankfine, and Governor Josh Shapiro. Club Random drops every Monday on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Now go watch overtime on YouTube. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, 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. on.