Real Time with Bill Maher - Episode #371 (Originally aired 11/13/15)

Episode Date: November 13, 2015

Episode #371 (Originally aired 11/13/15)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late-night series Real Time with Bill Maugh. Appreciate that, and we're going to have a lot of hilarity tonight, but before we get to the hilarity, and we hope, I just want to say one thing to the people of Paris. Aloa La Patria. And I'm not a very good singer, but that's my way of saying,

we're with you. Okay. Of course, in this country, it's Friday the 13th, and Donald Trump had a meltdown. That shows you the difference between... Did you see the Trump meltdown? This is what we have all been waiting for. Apparently, coming in second to Dr. Ben Carson is really getting under his skin. Donald Trump used to begin his speeches with, you know, I'm the greatest guy in the world.

Now it's all about, I can't believe I'm losing to a black guy. He went totally Charlie Sheen. Seriously, on Dr. Ben Carson. He called him pathological, compared him to a child molester. Donald Trump, the guy who could be president, did an elaborate pantomime for quite a few minutes. Making fun of the time that Dr. Ben claims when he was a teenager, he tried to stab somebody, you know, with a knife,

and it hit the guy's belt buckle, saving from him from going to jail. So Trump acts this out and then says, it can't happen, a belt buckle wouldn't do that. Does anybody in the audience have a knife? Try it on me. And the Secret Service agents were like, this isn't in the manual, is it?

And then Donald Trump said, how stupid are the people of Iowa? There's a great way to get elected, huh? That they would fall for this story. You know what? down, we've had our differences. I remember when you sued me, that wasn't cool. But calling evangelical voters, fools, and idiots for believing in that Jesus redemption bullshit, that's my schick. Okay. And by the way, by the way, Dr. Carson's story may not be all that

bullshit about a belt stopping a knife, because we got a hold of the, uh, the belt that the guy was wearing. Look at the, see, that could stop a knife. It just, this happened to be the, But I love Dr. Ben's response to Donald Trump today. He said, pray for him. I love that. Like he's one of his patients who needs brain surgery. Okay, Dr. Ben, I will pray for Donald Trump. But then, when he's still an asshole, can we agree prayers bullshit?

But, you know, in fairness, almost nothing in Dr. Ben Carson's 10 books. Turns out to be literally true. I'm beginning to wonder if he ever really performed. brain surgery at all. I think he just puts you under and then wakes you up a little later and says, there, there, all done. Kind of like when you take your car into Jiffy Loop and they claim to change your oil, but nothing really happened. Oh, and Dr. Ben, Dr. Ben Carson, I tell you, he's mad to, he is tired of these claims that everything he says is bullshit. He says he has undergone unprecedented scrutiny. He actually said this. He said, Obama was never vetted.

Talk about being in the Fox. Obama was never vet. Obama was vetted more than anybody else. In fact, the fact that there never was a personal scandal with Obama proves that his personal life must be completely squeaky clean, right? Because they were looking for that. Although, I heard a rumor a few weeks ago, Michelle got so mad at him. He came home one night's thinking of booze and cigarettes with bronzer on his collar. She knew he'd been out with John Boehner. But there was another Republican debate this week. Did you see it on Tuesday night?

It was about the economy. It was on Fox Business News Channel. I didn't see all of it. I'm not going to lie. But apparently the gist of it was the plan to make America great again. Is to round up and deport all the Mexicans, which will free up all those sweet, slave-wage strawberry-picking jobs for real Americans. That seems to be the plan.

Also, all the Republican candidates agreed on the minimum wage that it can't go up. Carly Fiorina said the, she said, the secret sauce of America is entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, the minimum wage employees are peeing in the secret sauce because they're very pissed off. But the line of the night, belonged to Marco Rubio, well, of course, Marco Rubio. First, of course, every time he talks has to tell you his personal story.

Came from Cuban immigrants. My mother was a maid. I was in Minuto. Okay. Okay, we get it. But he said something the audience just loved. He said, Welders make more money than philosophers. Not close to true.

But the crowd loved it because it sent a powerful message. Knowledge is stupid. And they love that message. But actually, a welder makes, on average, $37,000 a year. And a philosophy grade makes over 80. For you Republicans, let me clarify, the second number is bigger. And also, you know who is a philosopher? Jesus.

But if he'd been a welder, he'd got to cut himself down from the cross. Finally, remember jihadi John? The sadistic... How brave of you, sir? It's a boojee-hadi jump. Let's give this man a hand for his courage. Thank you. Yes, he was the sadistic executioner.

You see in all the ISIS videos. Well, today, Obama smoked him in a drone strike. So remember that ISIS. Do not cross a black cat on Friday the 13. No is here. Michael Steele is here. Dylan Radigan, and a little later I'll be speaking with such a funny man. Paul Reiser is backstage.

But first up, she is a mother. Muslim feminist and the author of Standing Alone, An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam. Ostra Nomani, hey, for you. Thank you. What a great pleasure to meet you. Thank you. I don't often say this to the guest right off,

but you are a hero of mine. You really are the way you stand up for the things that I've been trying to say, but it means so much more coming from you because I'm not a Muslim and you are. So can this be a mutual gratification? Yes, please do. Just pour it on.

Because seriously, you have honestly taken a position of moral courage. I'm a feminist, liberal, Muslim. I know. A lot of contradiction in terms there. Head spinning. But you have dared to challenge liberals to stand by their values. And I'm winning a lot of them over, by the way. You are.

I really know. It's amazing how they used to boo me and now they don't. I posted that I was coming on your show and got more likes than most cat videos. You know what? I was... I want to read this. I was in Ames, Iowa. I'd go on the road, you know, doing my stand-up last week,

and somebody handed this letter to the stage manager. I won't read the guy's name. You might not want it. He says, Dear Bill Moore, watching your show, I have heard you ask, where are the moderate Muslims? I am a former political prisoner from Saudi Arabia. The moderate Muslims are in jail. Right, right.

Because where did extremism get born? It was born in Saudi Arabia. It was born out of the theology of Islam that we don't want to accept. And today, this sad testimony in Paris, we don't know completely what has happened, but AK-47s, suicide vests, targeted attacks. It's probably not the Amish. Right. Right.

And so President Obama says that he's going to go after the terrorists. Don't want to speculate who. And he's going to go after the terrorist networks, but we don't mention what kind of terrorist networks. It's crazy. Yeah. I don't understand that. And I also don't understand liberals who don't understand this man

who says the moderates are in jail. How could liberals who stood for black people getting to go to college in the 60s and then when I was in college they were protesting apartheid in South Africa? How can they not stand up against Sharia law? Which is the law in so many Muslim countries, which is a law of oppression.

Yeah, I don't understand it either, but what I have figured out is that they run scared. They're afraid of the name-calling that you get targeted with, the name-calling that I get targeted with. They don't want to look bad. They don't want to act like they are intolerant

of a minority community. But at the end of the day, they are on side of the progressive Muslims, the people who believe in sexism and bigotry in the wrong night. They're on the wrong side. It must be even more frustrating for you because for someone to shableness, You've lived this life.

You've actually borne the pain. I mean, let's get a little into your story. You were born in India. You lived in Pakistan. You were with a boyfriend there. You got pregnant out of wedlock. And he left you. Because, why?

Because they always blame the woman. Yeah. Well, the man can go. The woman is left with the evidence of the crime of having had the sex. The crime. Yeah, I was in Pakistan after September 11th to cover the war. And I fell in love, took too seriously, the make love not war patch of my youth. Yeah.

Yes. And then I learned I was pregnant. And I learned I was pregnant four weeks into this other horrible moment that had happened when my colleague from the Wall Street Journal left a home that I had rented in Karachi, Pakistan, never to return. Daniel Pearl. Danny Pearl. You were the last person to talk to him, right?

Yeah. And Danny, I waved. I waved goodbye to him. I said, see you later, buddy, and he didn't come back. I learned later that the men who had killed him had done so in the name of Islam. They had beheaded him, as you know. They had wiped them the floor of the blood from his murder and then laid down their prayer rugs, as if they had divine ordination for what they had just done. Well, that's my problem with religion. One of them is that they, they take something horrific and make it something sacred.

I am absolutely sure that ISIS thinks everything they do, every horrific crime, every atrocity is an act of justice and an act for God. Right. And so when I was sitting there in Karachi and I learned I was pregnant, my boyfriend bailed on me and I was criminal according to the laws of ISIS, the laws of Pakistan. The Pakistan, yeah, the laws of Pakistan. And, you know, I had this existential moment of,

the kind that you talk about all the time, why bother? You know, where is any good in all of this? And for me, I didn't have the courage to tell my father, of course. He's the patriarch in my family. So my mom took him out to dinner, which she's never done in her life. And they went to the crab shack in Morgantown, West Virginia. And I got an email, and he said, Allah is Rahman, Allah is Rahim. So I know your Arabic's not so great, but that means...

I know Yillah. Yes, yes. But that means God is beneficient. God is merciful. And so my parents showed me a grace and the type of tolerance, compassion, and love that they had raised me with in Islam that made me a journalist, that made me a friend of Danny, even though he was a Jew, right? This was the excuse that the murderers used to kill him.

And I don't think any of us who criticize Islam are denying that that element is there. Yeah. It's just not right now ascendant. doesn't seem to be where the energy is. Yeah. So when I get accused of demonizing Islam, Nicholas Christoph, who I consider a friend, was on our show. We had a big debate about this last year.

I saw him recently said, you know, Bilmar demonizes Islam because a small percentage of the faith are extremists. First of all, I'm not demonizing. I'm characterizing. Right. How did we get to this place where just describing something is demonizing? And I'm not so sure it's a very small percentage. Maybe a small percentage you carry out terrorist acts, but it's not a small percentage, right,

who believe in some of the illiberal ideas that support terrorists. Right, because ultimately I don't even believe that a woman should get less inheritance than a brother. Right. But ultimately, what has happened is that the reporting that I've done is that there is this entire network of bloggers, activists, academics, who are from the largest national Muslim organizations like this Council on American Islamic Relations, the highest places in the ivory towers of America, like Georgetown University and UC Berkeley, a favorite of yours, I know. Where I was invited and disinvited just the way you were invited and disinvited.

Right. And what has happened is I call them the Honor Brigade, and what they do is they smear somebody like you, somebody like me, for being witnessed to truth. Because ultimately, the truth frightens them. the liberals get on board. And unfortunately, you've had the deniers and the deflectors on board. And then you've had Sam Harris, Majid Nawaz, I and Hersey, Ali, Ishad Mahjee. And now the Honor Brigade comes after me because I'm on with you also. That's just crazy.

I mean, I find it a badge of honor to be disinvited, by the way. Yes. And we're at a place in history where we have to challenge what does it mean to be honorable. Right. It is not honorable. And what does it mean to be liberal? Yes. And we have to stand up for the true values. In your book, you have a great thing. It's the Islamic Bill of Rights for Women, right? You wrote a Bill of Rights. And some of the things in it seem like they, to us, shouldn't even need to be written down. Right.

Like the right to say whether you want to have sex or not. It seems like it should be. Yeah. It's a radical idea. Radical idea. What are some of the other things? things in the Bill of Rights? Well, my first one was the right of a woman to have an orgasm. Very radical idea. I mean, in a lot of places, the right

of a woman to have a clitoris. Because that is ultimately, let's, you know... That wasn't a joke. Right, because ultimately this is very intentional because when you have this term of female genital mutilation, you remove the woman's right to pleasure.

So there's the right of a woman to say no, because there is this idea that the angels will curse a woman until morning if she denies her husband sex. And so these are just basic human rights. And I ultimately believe that they are rights that Islam does validate. Because while many of the principles that are being practiced today are unequal and sexist, the religion came as a progressive faith. in the 7th century.

We just stayed stuck in the 7th century. Right. So we need to fast forward to the 21st century. Well, what happened in Paris last night, their last night, or tonight? Yeah. Will that change anything, do you think? My mother says that it's almost like the world needs so much blood to be spilled to wake up. And what I say is just what you're saying is wake up.

You know, we have to be honest about the fact that there is an ideology of Islam that is our war of our generation. And this is an ideology that we have to address, and we have to address it with moral courage. And you do. Guaranteed tomorrow, bigot Islamophone. Right, exactly. But thank you for doing what you do.

All right, I'll see you again soon. I hope. Okay, let's meet our panel. Look who's here. All right, he's a former MSNBC host turn sustainability entrepreneur, Dylan Radigan. Hey, Dylan. Nice to see you.

Nice to see you. He is an ex-Letinent governor of Maryland and former chair of the Republican National Committee. You all know Michael Steele, one of our favorites. And he's the host of CNBC's Jay Leno's Garage. I'm not a car guy, but it is an entertaining show. Jay, you are still entertaining. Thank you.

Okay, was the host of the Merv Griffin Show for 22 years, and he was fantastic. Listen to this, wait. He's going to be on December 11th in Oslo, Norway. He'll be hosting the Nobel Prize ceremony. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Well, you know, the guy who puts it together used to run chuckles in Cleveland.

So that's what I had it in. That's very prestigious, Jay. Congratulations. Remember to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, send us your questions for tonight's overtime. So we can answer them after the show on YouTube. Okay, so we are Friday night here in LA. We're alive. It's about 715 on the West Coast.

Paris is 12 hours ahead, I think. So we don't have every bit of information. The last body count I heard was over 150. When the Charlie Edbo thing happened in the week after, everybody said, just we Charlie, but not really. They didn't really stick with them like Usra and I were just talking about. I asked her if things would be different. I'm going to ask you this question that people asked after 9-11,

because I don't think we still know the answer. Why do they hate us? I've stumped the panel again. Because we finance the capital flow into Saudi Arabia that then arms the population that has power in Saudi Arabia to oppress the population that does not have power in Saudi Arabia, which then is deprived of basic resources in Saudi Arabia, which is then radicalized inside the Muslim religion, and then lashes out irrationally, violently, murderously against innocent people who did nothing. The United States lack of internal account.

We need to be accountable in our own government and our own relationship with Saudi Arabia. That's not what terrorists say. Well, when you capture one, or when they leave a note, you know what they say? Because you're there. Because you're in Muslim lands. I have a crazy idea. Why don't we get out of Muslim lands? That's a big part of it.

I think the idea of important. supporting democracy, that concept that sort of emerged in the early 2000s, certainly part of the Bush doctrine at the time, to talk about sort of taking our values and transplanting them elsewhere, has wholly been rejected. Even by the Republican. Even by, yeah. And that's a lot of the struggle you see within the party today, is that fissure that's growing between big government republicanism, for example, and this idea that, you know, Rand Paul and others

we're talking about where, you know, let's be a little bit more common sense about how we project power. It's like when you watch Star Trek. Kirk goes to the other planet and he brings democracy. They don't want it. They don't care about it. We're violating the plan director. Do what Kirk does. And then he always says, what is this earth kiss you talk about? We're financing the oppressor bill. We are financing the oppressor. You know, I think you're seeing that a little through America-centric eyes. I mean, that certainly is part of it. I don't know if that's the main thing on their minds is the financing aspect of it.

I'm saying it doesn't exist without that relationship. So there would be no... In other words, what I'm saying is we politically, the only thing we can control is our relationship and our accountability with our government. And our government chooses to fund and be present in Saudi Arabia. I'm always amazed the number of people who... like Americans, but don't like America. Right.

When you go and they go, Oh, we had some American. They were very nice. I mean, they all think we're like Donald Trump. Loud, brash, making demands. We're going to do this. We're going to kick ass. Well, that's, if they watch the Republican debate

on Tuesday night, that's exactly what they saw. The biggest cheers were for Republicans who got up there and said, we have to kick ass militarily. this nonsensical argument. You mentioned it before. And, you know, let's show a little bit of the debate. This is the debate that Ron Paul ran, Ron Paul.

He actually, good for Rand Paul. He sounded a little like his father. And that's what we loved about him at the beginning. This is a debate with Marco Rubio. How is it conservative to add a trillion dollars in military expenditures? You cannot be a conservative if you're going to keep promoting new programs that you're not going to pay for. I know that the world is a safer and better place. when America is the strongest military power in the world.

Can you be a conservative and be liberal on military spending? Can you be for unlimited military spending and say, oh, I'm going to make the country safe? No, we need a safe country. But you know, we spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined? Yes, what a great thing to say. Because all these other Republicans talk about rebuilding the military. It's already built.

If we're already 10 times what all the other countries combined are, why do we have to keep adding to it? That, for me, was probably a seminal moment in this presidential race, simply because it really exposed the fissure between the neocons who want to expand defense spending and engage militarily. And the pure economic, rational thought about where do you get the money from? How do you pay for it? We just went through that. We just spent trillions of dollars that were unaccounted for. that caused a lot of problems and a lot of pain,

are you willing to repeat that? And I think Rand Paul really pressed, and I think you're going to see more pressing of that over the next few months going into the primary season in February, because that's got to get resolved. And you cannot go forward with this idea that we're going to ramp up all this spending. I mean, Marco's plan is a $2 trillion plan,

a trillion dollars in defense spending and a trillion dollars in a government subsidy program for child care. And so Rand is asking, so where are you going to get $2 trillion dollars from? you're complaining about the $19 trillion debt that we currently have. And that's the rest. My seminal moment in the debate, you had Ben Carson calling himself a failed murderer, and Trump calling him a liar.

When does this ever happen? I tried to kill it. I know you didn't. When does that ever happen? This doesn't have... That's a great thing. Because you can never be too macho. You never can be too macho.

It can never be too macho in the Republican Party. They always talk about, you know, I'm going to wipe out ISIS. First of all, it's not possible. Do you know that, to wipe out ISIS? This idiot talk, we have to stop. If we actually put boots on the ground, what would ISIS do? They would melt back into the population, just like the last time we were in Iraq. You can't wipe them out.

You can't wipe out all your enemies, Michael Gordon. No, I agree. I mean, I think this is Michael Cron. But that's part of the problem that President Obama is facing right now in looking at what he's going to do with the group of 50, you know, folks that he's sending into Syria. Again, you've got the problem with ISIS. The country has to come to grips with how we want to engage militarily in the Middle East

and recognize that we have partners. I mean, look at the courage. Why aren't we doing more with the partners who want to work with us there? I think so this is a place where I actually believe Bernie Sanders has articulated this the best, which is, what about the rest of the world? What about the money in Saudi Arabia? What about the folks in Turkey? Why are the American taxpayers the only government, the only person that's supposed to fund and solve the Middle East?

I've been screaming about this. Where are the Chinese? Where are the Saudis? What is this? There are all the other Arab countries who pretend to hate ISIS so much. Precisely. I tallied up their armies one night. There are over 5 million people under arms, if you look at all these countries,

Saudi Arabia and Jordan and Turkey, that could send troops to fight an army of about 25,000 assholes who have 1970 Toyota pickup trucks. And what they've typically done, Bill... Those are a nice big, though. Those are good cars. Very reliable. But what they've typically done is that they rely on the United States to sort of fill out that card for them. Exactly. And that has been the role that we have taken going back a long time now. But this is a different dynamic.

This is a different war. This is a different level of engagement, as we see in Paris tonight, as we've seen in Boston, for example. But bombing them over there is what is causing the Paris thing to happen. That connection needs to be made. Yes. We don't have to be bombing them there. We don't have to be bombing them. Right.

It doesn't have to be us. Remember after 9-11 Bush was all about, we're going to make an indistinction between in countries that harbor terrorists and terrorists. And it was kick-ass shit. Everybody loved it. Because we had to wipe out the safe havens, right? That was Afghanistan. Okay, all these years after 9-11,

there's way more safe havens in the were then. That we built, that we created, and who's our best ally in Iraq right now? Iran. Exactly. ISIS is, our big enemy is fighting our other big enemy. We don't need to, we just need popcorn. Just sit back and watch this.

This is crazy. It really is. All right. I want to ask about Donald Trump's self-deportation program. Did you catch that part? Yeah, that really, you know, Eisenhower, we like Ike. You know what that was called? It was called Operation Wetback.

What year are we talking? Oh, we're talking about 1955, something like that. See, that was new to me. No, I remember this because I'm not much older than you. I was a little kid. Now, I do remember that. And, you know, there was a guy named Brunel, who was the attorney general at the time. You know what he wanted to do?

Shoot him at the border. No, no, this is real. He wanted to just go down there, kill a bunch of them, and that would stop. He would have the nomination in a heartbeat tomorrow. No, but it shows you how time changed. I mean, when they rounded up all those people, Trump didn't mention 88 of them died. Most of them were round up and left in the high desert. Some starved to death, and some died from them.

That someone would hold this up, this pre-civil rights program as what we should be doing? But Trump made it sound like Hitler. Well, the Jews have so much. We'll put them over here for a while. Yes. And then you can have his store. He doesn't need the whole floor of Macy's. Let's give a floor to this other guy.

But if you notice, the one question that was not answered on that debate stage was the one that John Kasich asked. And so where are you going to take them to? You're going to actually pull up a van? and grab grandma and granddad. He looked like Howard Beal in that way. What are you doing here? What are you crazy? And put them in a van and then ship,

and so what are you going to do with the child that's left behind? So that's the reality that no one wants to address. You're not going to deport 11 million people. Also, get over it. You're not going to do it. And the other reality is... It doesn't mean that we can reform our laws, but you're not going to do that.

If you're physically rounding people up against their will, it wouldn't be more than a week before there was some violent incident. And somebody who's doing the rounding up is going to get hurt or killed by the people he's rounding up. And then President Trump has to say, well, this won't stand. You can't be hurting our deportation force and then

it's on. And then we're having a war against the people who are actually here helping the economy with a smile on their thing. I look over in, this is one bill where I look, I back up and look at it and ask myself, okay, before I get too sucked into the insanity, of what's being discussed, what percentage of America actually is represented in this conversation?

And I remind myself that 85% of America, maybe a little bit more, is not in the Republican Party, and that a big percentage of the Republican Party is not for Donald Trump. So as horrifying as some of these things are, you have to remind yourself that the Republican Party is a American minority, and that Donald Trump is a minority of the Republican Party. But it's the minority that votes. I know, but I also remind myself that you have a lot of people who are not voting for good reason because they're smart enough to see that this is crazy. Well, that's not a good reason.

That's a horrible reason. Well, that's a shitty point of view you have on that. You and I disagree. Yeah. I don't even want you to, like, don't lose my air time to even talk about this horrible theory you have that they shouldn't vote. Fair enough. If they voted, by the way, we could. It's the only way.

I was going to say, we went. to Afghanistan, we did some shows. And we meet all these soldiers. And it's Rodriguez, with the U.S.O. Melendez. So I didn't see one kid that had Trump. Right.

I didn't see one of them from. You know, and every one of these kids had the same story. Their parents are immigrants. This is their gateway. This is their door to become a American citizen. They fight for the country. They fought as hard as any of the other kids.

I got to interrupt. It's best peace time. A couple of months ago, we did a new segment on the show called, I don't know it for a fact. I just know it's true because I think everybody, don't you feel that way sometimes? And I'm the first to admit that there is absolutely nothing provable about what I'm about to say. These are mere assertions, and yet I know they're true. For example, I don't know it for a fact.

This went so much better in rehearsal. I don't know it for a fact that Queen Elizabeth's T is 90% gin. I just know it's true You see what I'm I don't know for a fact I don't know for a fact that Ben Carson has literally been sleepwalking the whole campaign

And does it know he's running for president You know what? I just know he's... I'm doing a bitch Oh I was going to tell you what his website is called Black Lies Matter Did I Run out all the times I did your show Did I run out in the middle of

Small Time News and bring it down. I don't know for a fact that Federal Reserve Chair, Janet Yellen, is actually Newt Gingrich and Drag. I just know it's true. I don't know for a fact that Lamar Odom can still beat the other Kardashians at Scrabble. I don't know for a fact that Carly Fiorina has a coat made out of Dalmatians. I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that Obama ends every day with a couple of hits off the vape and a Miles Davis album. I just know it's true. I don't know for a fact that Lindsey Graham has a huge Barbie doll collection. I just know it's true. All right. Let's bring out Paul Reiser. He is an actor, a comedian, a best-selling author, and a friend of ours.

Oh, a great friend of us. What a great comedian. Paul Reiser is over here. Look at him. Oh, Riser. Look, Jay Leno, remember him from the club? It's confusing me. I don't know what, whose show?

Mike Douglas should be sitting there, and I'll be all confused. Oh, it's so good to have you. You know, I've been trying to get you here for the longest time. I got here soon. I didn't realize you had a show. Yes, I... You know what? It's been 22 years.

It has been a lot. And you always have said to me, I'm too stupid to do you. No, no, I didn't say, you know, here's it. Have you gotten smarter because... No, sadly. I so admire you, and I love what you do. do on the show. And everybody,

and everybody, it's just this wonderful conversation. And I just felt like I wasn't smart enough or informed enough. And I saw you a while ago, and you said something that changed it. And you said, I think it was a compliment. You said, oh, are you kidding? We have guests

much stupider than you. I said, well, all right, that seems promising. Those are the non-Michael Steel Republicans. Anyway, but... No, I don't... I just like...

Like, what you just had going here, these heated arguments, I love that. Well, we're not going to have a heated argument. No, but I don't have to do that. Yes, we will. I insist. Jay was here for the argument. No, no, it doesn't always have to be heated arguments.

Sometimes we don't. Sometimes we don't even have a conservative on. Sometimes the conservative, like Michael tonight, is very reasonable. It's doing a very nice job. Because they get intimidated by the audio. No, no, no. But you are back to stand-up. I think this is awesome. You haven't done it in how long?

I took a little break, 20 years. 20 years. Is it riding a bicycle? It's not riding a bicycle. It's like pushing a bike up a hill with your eye. That's what it was. It's a little bit of hard. That's how difficult getting back.

But actually, I have this gentleman to think. Because I didn't mean to take... I was just polishing one joke. I didn't want to go out before. You want to get it right. Wow, yeah, that's a perfection. Well, there's an attention to detail that I have. But, no, so I didn't mean to,

but I had just, you know, gotten out of the habit, and I always meant to get back. And a couple of years ago, I was thinking, said, I want to get back in a stand-up, and I bumped. I went to Vegas to see Jay, and Jay said something that just opened my eyes. Yeah, you should know it. And that was it. And I did.

No, you know, you can say, you grew up there and do the whole thing yourself. You talked with three other little actors and have a little play. Or you could do the whole thing. Because he's great. You know, he said, well, you should do it. You're very kind.

I'm having so much fun. Of course. The big adjustment, having, you know, in the 20 years, apparently I got a little older. And so it was a little bit of training. You see, you guys have been doing it all the time, so you didn't have this drop-off. But I was just sort of re-getting back into it, like the mindset of being peaking at night. I remember I called up the club. I called a local club down here.

And I said, well, I said, I was just sort of, I was. I want to come down, try out some new material. I'm thinking of going out. And he said, anytime you want, come on by. The show starts at 10. And I actually went, at night? Oh, no. Oh, you have gotten out.

Wow. Yeah, come on. I'm in pajamas 845. I don't see how this is going to work. And I really don't. And, of course. That's what Seinfeld and I would talk about. What if you took a vacation and you liked it?

That would really suck. Yeah. Well, luckily, we don't. That's right. I'm having such a good time. And you, of course, work very blue. I've heard you're right. It's all prick-dick, cock sucker. That's the name of my next album.

Prick-Dick-cock sucker. But it's all bleeps. You don't know what he's saying, but you know you can figure it out. There's enough asterisk in there. No, you don't. But like comedians all complain these days that when you do stuff in the comedy clubs, the least little politically incorrect thing you say could wind up on Twitter. A lot of them have been reprimanded. No, well, I kind of, I don't step.

You're on Twitter? Do you? I tweet occasionally. Really? But, you know, but, yeah, you do. You're a tech person. I didn't know that about you. I wouldn't call it a techie. I see, I think the techie stuff has actually made us dumber.

I think, I mean, with so much information, but what's happened to this, I have this theory, that we have put all information in our devices, so our brains are no longer necessary. What's that? Because you used to, seriously. Yeah, that's brilliant. You used to put information.

Somebody told us something. You're right. You go, okay, I got it. Now, you put it here. So here is everything. Here, nothing. They could take it out. It's like, it's like useless, like tonsils.

brains are the new tonsils. You know what I mean? They can take it out. What are you in a bowl of ice cream to be home the next day? It's not an issue. What do you make of what's going on on campuses? Let me ask everybody this. Oh my God, it's all guys.

I just realized, shit. I got to have a woman. Oh, it is unbelievable. I did a college, and I just were telling a story. And I said, so I go in the house. My wife's in the kitchen. No, our house has a kitchen. My wife was just in there.

But I, boo. That is. No. That's unbelievable, but so believable. Yeah, yeah. That's probably hard to believe. I got to stop you. You know, Newhart told me.

Newhart has one of the most hilarious, but the driving instructor. And he did a college. And he goes, all right, this is Mrs. McGillacuddy, whatever the name is. Let's take boo. And he couldn't figure out why they were booing because, oh, it was an old lady driving. See, that was sexist. Okay. So what's going on at the University of Missouri, there's a lot going on on campuses.

Let's just tell people who are not caught up to this. Some of it is good, some of it is bad. The fight to cleanse America of our original sin of racism, you know, takes different forms. And that's progress. It used to be about slavery. Then it was about hanging people. And then it was about fire hoses. And I said on this show, some incident this year, I said denying racism is the new racism.

And that's progress. That's where we are. But it still must be infuriating to black people in America because there is still so much racism. when they hear the Republican Party's official position, which is, it's over. Racism is over, it's all in your head. Come on, Michael. It's not the official position.

Kind of. It wasn't... It's not the official position. It wasn't the official position. It wasn't the... It wasn't the position. It wasn't the position when I was there, so when I was running it.

However, we made that very clear. The question today is, and there was this at the University of Missouri, there's a clueless white guy. Let's call him that. But he's not a one. criminal, who's the president of the university. He was not sensitive, according to the students.

Is that Wolf? Yes, Tim Wolf. Actually, he has a new position. What? He's with Cracker Barrel now. Jay misses his job so much. See, I side with those kids. When I saw it, when I saw...

Well, let me tell him who... Go ahead. He's the president of university. There was a few racial incidents on campus. Some yelling of the N-word. somebody wrote a swastika. Not good stuff. Somebody ran by with a pickup truck.

Okay, bad stuff, but I mean, this is America. There's racism in it. The question I'm asking is, do we purge even clueless people from their jobs? Is that where we are with the battle against racism? Maybe the answer is yes. Sure. It is. I say yes.

Clueless guy. You know why? Because if you're president of the university, you shouldn't be clueless. You know something? When I see those, when I saw the faces of young African-American kids, when they had won, they looked like Julian Bond in 1965. They looked like all the black students had protested when I was in college. They did the sit-ins. They didn't think they would get whatever it was to use the waterfront, whatever the segregation was.

So it's just a different version of that. So I applaud them. I mean, they look like they won something, and they looked like one of those people could be a senator. And it makes you talk about it. The conversation continues to permeate deeper into the system. You have all the structural racism that we all know about and we talk about it, but it doesn't get talked about as much as it should and it doesn't get dealt with whether it's the prison. Then they turned on the media and said it was a media-free zone.

You know, they characterize themselves as the protesters in Tiananmen Square, but sometimes they look like the Chinese Army. I mean, their right to never be offended does not supersede the First Amendment. But the attention that their demand, however irrational the response may be, the irrational response pales in comparison to the structural racism that still exists. And those are rationalists. Get national attention that has value. You've got to put all of this in context because a lot of times people come to stuff late and they miss it.

And so you have to understand one of the things, the impetus is behind the students' protests, was that for months, not a few days, not a few hours, for months they had been ignored by the administration. There was nothing done to mitigate or at least have the conversation about the concerns of racism and bad language and all that stuff. This even goes back beyond a few months. It goes back over a period of time that these students have had to live in this environment where they've had to deal with this by themselves. And after a while, enough's enough. And you just say, includelessness. And cluelessonist is no longer an excuse.

And it wasn't until the football team walked out. Right. If the English Lent Department had walked out, nobody would have done anything. Right, right. Exactly. So let's talk about Yale. Now, we did a funny thing on our show a couple of weeks ago was the day before Halloween about Halloween costumes.

And I was saying, lighten up. You know, I mean, Halloween costumes, it's a day that you're supposed to be politically incorrect. You know, there's nothing horrible about dressing up as a mariachi player. Mexicans aren't mariachi's. That itself is a fucking concept. costume. Okay, so. I didn't do it, man. So look at it. I know, I know. I know. So, okay, so anyway, so somebody, so at Yale, they put out a memorandum saying, yes, be sensitive to the costumes.

So a Yale lecturer writes an email just saying, can't we, she said, is there no room anymore for a child or a young person to be a little bit obnoxious, a little bit inappropriate or provocative. Basically what I was saying. Well, the backlash against this. Her husband had to go. They were screaming at this man to get off the campus. You're disgusting. How do you sleep at night? They, they opt. This is students. Here's an op-ed in the Yale Herald. He seems to lack the ability, quite frankly, to put aside his opinions. Yeah, maybe he's allowed to have opinions long enough to listen to the very real hurt that the community feels. He doesn't get it.

I don't want to debate. I want to talk about my pain. This isn't editorial. I have friends who are not going to class, who are not doing their homework, who are losing sleep, who are skipping meals. About an email over a Halloween costume that doesn't even exist? Yeah, but what happens? Over an email. Who raised these little monsters?

Well, what happens is, but the pendulum... What happens in any argument? The pendulum is here, and this time it's swung all the way to the other. side. And before it swung all the way to this side, you could use the N-word, you could say whatever you want. You could call a government operation wet back and nobody's saying anything about it. Okay? There wasn't like a... So now the pendulum has swam back. So now, oh, now the other side gets a taste of what it's like. Well, that's basically what... Will it come back to the center? I believe it will. Okay, but this is crazy stuff. But that's, no, that's the

opposite of what we see happening in Missouri. And that's spreading. That's not just, yeah. And that is a level of intolerance that really does infringe upon free speech and the opportunity to actually communicate, you know, whatever you think. I mean, this is not bad. Yes, but it's chastising the God for writing an op-ed. Yes, but all of it is fueled by the failure to resolve the structural racism. In other words, that's hypersensitive madness. No question.

But the foundation for that hypersensitive madness is the level of incarceration. Right. It's the treatment of the cops. And we have cameras everywhere now. You can see the cops walk up and they, see a black guy and they kill them. You're like, that cop just walked up and shot that black guy. I mean, think of all the things people said about women in the office.

Hey, baby, grab her. Oh, what she's so sensitive about her. Right, sure. Just grabbed her. Well, now that wouldn't be. Of course. But I think it's the same thing. Okay.

So I just, one last question. If the football team, the college football team, which is always bitching that they don't get. And they're still not going to class. If they don't get paid. If they were. Right. Right. You're cool one of whatever.

Are you kidding me? Right. If they were able to force this guy to resign, why don't they go on strike and get themselves paid? Yeah, that's a great. Time for new rules, everybody, new rules. If you hire someone like Ben Carson did to sandblast Bible quotes into the walls of your home, make sure they know how to spell proverbs, lest thou appear an idiot.

Thanks, fellas. New rule, Los Angeles have to stop freaking out about the Navy shooting off ballistic missiles. It hasn't rained here in four years. Anything that falls from our sky and isn't Harrison Ford is a nice change. New World, the woman in this Australian wine ad who sets... Oh, who sets the wine glass there and says, taste the bush, has to explain to Americans under 50 years old, what's a bush? New World, the magazine's, wine spectator, wine advocate, wine enthusiast.

Wine and Spirits, The World of Fine Wine and Decanter, must all merge into one magazine called Drunk Snob Geographic. New Rule, now that salsa has surpassed ketchup, as America's favorite condiment, Donald Trump must build a wall around Isle 7 of Safeway. Back to Mexico, chili con-can-caso and refried beans, and you too, Candle of the Virgin Mary. You can come back legally, but for now,

we need those shelves for mayonnaise and Mountain Dew. And finally, new rule, someone must remind white Americans that even though other people are winning small victories and making slight gains, you're not losing. You're still way, way ahead. For example, before the recession, whites had four times the wealth of blacks and Latinos, but since the recession, that's gone up. Now, they have six times as much. So if anyone should be bitching about wanting their country back, it ain't you. Now, I bring this up, I bring this up because last week, the National Academy of Sciences reported that the death rate for white Americans, 45 to 54 and no college degree,

had risen markedly in this century, a time when an increase in the mortality rate for any large group is virtually unheard of in an advanced nation, or even in this one. But middle-aged American whites are dropping like flies. Overweight, depressed, poorly dressed flies. Dropping from what? Drugs, alcohol, suicide, and possibly trying to fit into skinny jeans. The suicide rate for whites is now four times the rate for blacks. And in the last decade, 90% of the people

who tried heroin for the first time were white. It's hard out there for a wimp. And that's why tonight I'd like to remind white people of something very important they may have forgotten. You're white. cheer the fuck up. Jesus, look at history. It's always a great time to be white.

Think of all the advantages. Sorry, bro. Think of all the advantages you have. Tops don't shoot you for having your hands in your pockets. When people follow you around a store, it's because they want to help you find something. Major party presidential candidates aren't proposing to deport you. You can walk through an entire wedding.

reception without anyone trying to order a drink from you. And how about this perk? If you're white, you're much more likely to be not in prison. Blacks and whites use marijuana at virtually the same rate, not counting Miley Cyrus, but blacks are charged with possession almost four times as often. And crack cocaine will send you to jail for much longer than powder cocaine, the preferred brand of white people. In fact, if the cops see a Caucasian man walking down the street with white powder under his nose, all they say is, man, that must have been a great donut. Hell, you can be a co-cat and an aimless drunk until you're 40 and still wind up president in the United States.

Which reminds me of another great thing about being white. You could be a complete fuck-up, and people still hire you. Studies show white applicants with a criminal record are as likely to get hired as black. applicants without one. Prison time served by blacks, deal breaker. Prison time served by whites, interesting water cooler conversation.

And whites are still first in line for legacy admissions to colleges and businesses and politics because the well-connected parents of white people tend to be white. Also, you're much more likely to be the boss. Fortune 500 CEOs are 97%

white and 3% Oprah. The media net worth of a single white woman $42,000. Of a single black woman, $5 because she spent it all on a weave. Fuck you, you politically

correct assholes. One joke. One joke about the blacks, Victor. There you go. Like the old joke. Yeah, exactly. In short, when you're white, you don't need to be that good. There was a popular band in the 70s

called the average white band. They admitted they were average, but it didn't matter because they were white. All right. I want to thank my guest, Tilligan, Radigan, Michael Steele, Jay Leno, Paul Reiser, and Usra and Nomani. Join us now for overtime on YouTube. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10th, or watch them anytime on HBO on demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com.