Real Time with Bill Maher - Episode #382 (Originally aired 03/25/16)

Episode Date: March 26, 2016

Episode #382 (Originally aired 03/25/16) - Bill’s guests Cory Booker, Jerrod Carmichael, Ian Bremmer, Jennifer Granholm and Reihan Salm. 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-nights series Real Time with Bill Maugh. Starts a clock. Good afternoon. Time will be... Please, please. We've got a big show.

Thank you. Thank you. There's so much we have to get to. A lot of big news this week. Not all of it great, but let's start with the thing that was pretty great and will be lasting, which is President Obama, the first president in 88 years to set foot in Cuba.

Amazing. Yeah. And contrary to the Republican narrative, he did not go easy on the Cuban dictatorship. At one point, he stood outside a Cuban prison, and he said the prisoners inside here deserve trials, or they should be released, but enough about Guantanamo Bay. Let's talk about Castro's prisons,

because they're terrible, too. Now, of course, the Republicans did they double freak out, because not only did Obama go to Cuba, but he stayed there. when there was a terrorist attack in Brussels. Like Rudy Giuliani said, It's outrageous. He should be in the situation room right now,

plenty to destroy ISIS. Oh, keep your skirt on, Dracula. And then he went to Argentina and did a tango. Two days after the attacks, they really went nuts. It's always one of those Republican rules. We don't know it's a rule until we break it.

A tango? Two days after a terrorist attack? You know you wait three days after a terrorist attack. A tango? Jesus Christ, what is this man thinking? That's... That is not how President Trump would have handled it. If anyone...

If anybody fucked with Belgium on his watch, they would get a very serious tweet about how ugly their wife is. Oh, yes. Let me tell you something. The very mature Republican campaign that we've been watching has moved on from their debate a few weeks ago.

where they were trading barbs about who had a tinier cock. To whose wife is more fuckable? Oh, it's wonderful, isn't it? And this started because Tuesday there was a primary in Utah. Oh, yeah, we're still having primaries. Nobody gives a shit about that. So in the Utah primary, which Ted Cruz won, there was an anti-Trump pact that ran an ad

that included a nude picture of Trump's wife, Melania, implying how awful life would be if we had a former model as for, Lady. First of all, the picture is not that revealing. It doesn't even show her ass. He wasn't even in the picture. And secondly, the picture is not new. It's from the catalog that Trump used when he ordered her. So... But of course, everybody had to act. All mad, Trump's surrogates called it desperate. Trump called it outrageous. Bill Clinton called it a great screensaver. But that was only the beginning.

today, you saw what happened today. Oh, yes, they're all talking about it. The National Enquirer says they have the goods that five women had extramarital affairs with Ted Cruz. Yes, ladies, sex with Ted Cruz.

That's where you close your eyes and imagine your fucking Newt Gingrich. I mean, really. Even Bill Cosby's pharmacist says, I don't think I've got anything strong enough for that. Now, I personally don't believe any of this is true.

I think I know who Ted Cruz is. I'm not saying he doesn't enjoy screwing women. He just does it by defunding plant parenthood. That's how he gets his job. But it was kind of fun watching Ted Cruz deny. He said, Trump is a man, or Trump's henchman, actually, said, is a man for whom a term was coined for copulating with a rodent. This is what he said.

He said, let me be clear. Donald Trump may be a rat, but I have no desire to copulate with him. That's not clear. That sounds like you'd fuck a rat who isn't Donald Trump. And, I mean, I know a lot of people think I'm making this up. No, I'm going to show it to you. You have to see how seriously he delivers this line

to appreciate how insane this campaign has come. Look at this. Well, let me be clear. Donald Trump may be a rat, but I have no desire to calculate it. Mr. Gorbachev tear down that wall. And stop fucking that rat.

All right. We got a great show. Jennifer Graham Holmiss here. Rehan Salam and Ian Bremmer. And a little later, we will be speaking with a very funny comedian. Gerard Carmichael is backstage. Uh...

But first up, before we get to Corey, I would never forgive myself if I didn't make mention of Gary Shandling tonight. Yes, please do. He was a good friend and a great guy. He was part of our HBO family. He was so much fun to be around. Lots of parties at my house where he was cracking me up, cracking everybody up. Just this past January at my birthday party two months ago. Never crossed my mind that night

that thought it would be the last time I would ever see him. I hope he was happy in life. I'm not sure. He always seemed restless. He was searching for something. He was very introspective. He was deep. I'm not kidding.

He was deep. But I know for a fact that he was happy when the jokes were flying. When he was making people laugh or laughing at others because he was a very generous audience and a very generous human being. And professionally, I don't know too many other people about whom it could be said, they had the most innovative TV show

in two different decades. And he did. He did. It's Gary Shandling's show in the 80s and the Larry Sanders show in the 90s. That's called a legacy. A giant, he will be missed. All right.

So, on with the show, as show business always must. He is a U.S. Senator from New Jersey whose new book is United. Thoughts on finding common ground. Those of us who are from New Jersey who know how much that state gets made fun of,

wow, we are proud of him. Corey Booker, everybody. Yes, you do us proud. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Really good to see you. The pride of Harrington Park. Isn't that your home? the hometown I grew up? You know that's very close

to where I grew up. Where did you grow up? Rivervale. We are literally a mile or so away from each other. You know how many black people lived in Rivervale when I grew up? Do you know how many black people lived in Harrington Park when I grew up? How many? My family was the family had integrated the town. We literally had to get a white couple to pose as us

because real estate agents wouldn't show in 1969, 70 they wouldn't show black families' homes in most of the, most of Bergen County. Walk me through this pose for us. How did that work exactly? So an amazing group, the Fair Housing Council,

where the woman back in the 60s, who was the head of the Fair Housing Council, is still head of the Fair Housing Council, she's about 90 years old. And they set up elaborate sting operations where a black family would go to buy a house. They would be told it was sold. The white couple would come after them.

And so the white couple bid on the house for my parents. The bid was accepted on the day of the closing. Instead of the white couple showing up, my father did in a lawyer. And amazingly, well, the story gets more interesting than that. A fight broke out. The real estate agent was so upset they got caught. He went to punch my dad's lawyer.

They got into a scuffle. The cigda dog on my father was a big melee. Sounds like a Trump rally. You know what? But it ended up. This book, I dedicate both to two towns that made such a profound impact on me, Harrington Park and Newark.

Very, very different. But yet so much alike in heart and spirit. Because when I got into the town, it was a community that did not reflect that real estate agency. They really wrapped around my family, and I just benefited from some really great human beings. Well, fast forward to today, and things are so much better. New Jersey is fifth worst in the nation in school segregation, meaning there are schools.

I'm sure you know this. You could explain it better than I can. But what they call extreme segregation, which means half the black kids in New Jersey go to a school that is 90 to 100 percent minority. How did that happen? Well, our extreme segregation is, by the way, many states in America have really bad realities, and so it's not just New Jersey. But you don't think of New Jersey is one of them. No, you don't think a northeastern state, but you see a lot of other states like that, even in the Northeast,

where blacks and Latinos are like that. And please understand, this is a result of conscious housing policy that was overtly racist, whether it's redlining, some of the FHA policies, a lot of the way that loans were being made, restrictive covenants that were happening in the 50s, 60s, even. 1970s that brought this about. And it's hurting all of us as a country because we already know that most of these communities are not just segregated by race or segregated by income. And so you have concentrated poor communities where HUD and others decide let's densely

populate certain areas of our country with public housing. And what's painful about this is that many people, when they think about this, oh, this is bad for black and Latino folks. Well, it's bad for white folks as well. And we need to start understanding as a country that these are the lines that are dividing us, that are weakening us, and in my opinion, undermining who we truly are as a nation, a nation where we need each other.

And I think a lot of it comes from this result that we herald in this country, this ideal of tolerance, as if that's the great aspiration. To me, tolerance just says, I'm gonna stomach your right to be different, but if you disappear off the face of the earth, I'm no worse off or better off. What we really should be aspiring for is what I think patriotism means,

which means love of country, which necessitates love of each other, that we have to be a nation that aspires for love, which recognizes that you have worth and dignity, and I need you, you are part of my hope, part of the promise of this country. It's why our founders who, trust me, had a lot of imperfections in those documents that referred to Native Americans as savages, didn't refer to women at all. Stokely Carmichael used to say constitute, I can only say three-fits of a word because blacks were three-fits of a word, but they got a lot right. And one of the things they got right is that we not only needy Souther, but there's an

urgency. At the end of the Declaration of Independence, they say we pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor. In other words, if this country is going to go far, we need each other. As the old African saying says, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. And what's weakening our nation right now, more than ever, I think, is these perceived lines that divide us when really the ties that bind us are so much stronger. Good speech. Wow. You should be a politician. You silver tongue that's hit out of it.

You nailed it, man. I'm just a Jersey boy like you. Oh, you hit it out of the park. You miss Newark? I mean, we don't read about you anymore, like running into burning buildings and saving dogs and shoveling snow. I am really proud.

I live for eight years in these high-rise, low-income housing that became public housing. I still live right in that neighborhood in the Central War to Newark. So I leave Washington. I come home to Newark, and I'm so proud to be a Newarker. And it's a city that I think is showing this.

In fact, some of the heroes I write about in the book are true patriots who show that never gave up on their city. And basically, it said if the American dream is ever going to be real, it's got to be real here. It's got to be real for everybody. As Langston Hughes said, you know, America never was America to me, but I swear this oath America will be. And that's what Newark's about to me. So I know you're on the Homeland Security Committee. Yes. There's a horrible attack again this week in Brussels.

I know what Trump's message is. It's a horrible message. I don't agree with it. I don't know what the Democrat message is, Democratic message is on this. What is it? Well, so first of all, I don't want to think about one of the great threats to our country through a political lens. I want to think about what's the American message in all of this, and how are we going to defeat what we see is a determined enemy that is doing horrific things,

not just the United States, not just to Europe. I know we got a lot of attention on things that happened this week. but just today there were people killed in Iraq at a soccer game, can't even go to a soccer game. In fact, ISIS has been killing more Muslims than they've been killing anyone else. And so our response has got to be what we're doing right now, which is taking their territory away from them,

this ideal they have, this perverse ideal that they have of creating a caliphate, we're going to take their land back and we're going to win that war in that field, but we also have to disrupt their terrorist networks, and we have to counter violent extremism at home. And so that's not a sound bite. But see, wait, you say violent extremism.

I've said this before on this show. I think the Democrats risk losing this election if they cannot put together the words Islamic extremism as opposed to violent extremism. Please just tell me that you recognize that it is a distinct threat much greater than any other violent extremist threat. You don't really think it's on the same order as the KKK.

Well, first of all, are you really worried about the KKK? Well, what I'm worried about is that you began that question by saying the Democrats will lose if. First of all, the Democrats lose because of how they talk about this extremism, then they've got more problems. My party right now. Maybe that's their biggest problem. Maybe that's

what we'll lose to the election. If there's a terrorist attack, what if this was L.A.X instead of the Brussels airport? I mean, 45% of Democrats already, if you take Trump's name off his proposal to ban Muslims coming into this country, agree with it. Democrats.

Right. And so, look, This is a threat like no other, and it's one that literally keeps me up. Like no other. Like no other. But I also understand, and I'm not creating a false equivalency here, but since 9-11, we've lost 48 Americans, Boston bombing. And to Christian walking into Planned Parenthood in Colorado, massacring people. But Christians are not trying to get a dirty bomb. And I'm not saying that is a false equivalence.

But I'm saying I'm not trying to create the false equivalency. I'm saying that when you say to me, me that this is the only threat we should be talked. I'm not saying only. No, no, no. I'm saying it's distinct and different and bigger. Size matters. And what I'm saying to you is, and what I'm saying to you is, I am, as a senator, spending an extraordinary amount of time focusing on that.

But what frustrates me is here you and I are having a conversation when we pivoted off of Newark, but I've got kids with lead poisoning in the water in Newark. I've got poverty that people working full-time jobs. Different issue. We got to two-go-and-walk at the same time. And so what I'm saying to you is that I think what America's are hungering for is a vision in which we can manifest our strength as a country

by focusing on the whole panoply of issues. And if we... Okay, but fear is important to people. And fear-mongering is weakening to who we are. Well, it's not mongering if there's an attack. I mean, yes, of course Trump is fear-mongering. Right. I think, and Cruz, trying to up him this week

on patrol Muslim neighborhoods. And so why can't we... Disgusting. So why do we play to that level where this is about a two-minute soundbite as opposed to a sophisticated plan to defeat our enemy, not only abroad, but the enemy when it manifests itself here at home? Just say Islamic terrorism.

Just say those words and you'll win the election. Avoid those words and you're going to lose the election. That's my advice. And I hear you. I know you're not running, but... I've got to say... I've heard you mentioned as a VP candidate,

as a Supreme Court nominee, the next James Bond. And, you know, they need a new most interesting man in the world. So, thank you very much to be in here. Do your job. You're doing great at it. All right. Cory Booker, let's meet our panel.

Oh, thank you. How you doing? All right. Here's our panel. He is the president of the Eurasia Group and author of Superpower. Three Choices for America's role in the world. Ian Bremmer back with us. Hey, Ian.

Good to see you. All right, he is the executive editor of the National View and a columnist for Slate, our old friend, Ryhan Salam, back with us for the manyth time. I don't know how many times. And our returning champion, she's the ex-governor of Michigan, and is now very ready for Hillary.

Jennifer Grant Home. You are very ready. I know you are. Remember to send us your questions for tonight's overtime so we can answer them after this show on YouTube. All right, I'm going to continue with that discussion. It was the first day of spring this week, and we had a horrible terrorist attack. I thought of the Arab Spring, and I read this article in the Wall Street Journal.

Sahab Amari is the editor of a book called Arab Spring Dreams. And he says, today the Middle East is less stable and less hopeful than it was before the Arab Spring. He mentions Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Syria, places that had Arab Spring uprisings. We were all very hopeful at the time. He said, at the height of the movement, I edited an end. anthology of essays by young Middle East dissidents. They described an Arab world where women and men were equal, blasphemous cartoonists were tolerated, and gay people could live openly. He asks how those dreams turned into nightmares, and so I would ask that to you.

Well, I think the last 40 years, the Middle East was either stable or had frozen instability for three reasons. One is they could take a lot of money out of the ground. Two, is it bill. Oil. And it was expensive. And the United States, for the world, the United States, number two, was providing a fair amount of security for these countries and wanted to. And number three, despite the fact that they weren't well governed,

the people were pretty quiescent. They didn't have the tools and didn't have the inclination to revolt. 2016, all three of those things, to various degrees, are eroding or gone. And so, I mean, whether you're talking about Obama or whether you're talking about Hillary or the Republican candidates, you can't tell me any of them have plans

that are going to make this any better. The Middle East today is not something we're going to fix. It's much more like climate change. It's going to be two degrees or six degrees. It seems like when there is an uprising, it gets hijacked by the religious nuts. I mean, this is what happened with the Arabs. It didn't start out as an insurgency that it became.

Same thing with Iraq. We had Michael Ware here last week talking about it was an insurgency against the Americans, but it was secular, and then the religious folks hijacked it. Same thing in Syria with ISIS, same thing in Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood. How do we stop this? Were we kidding ourselves when we thought that there was something in an Arab country between the caliphate and a police state? Well, Bill, one of the issues is that people on both sides of these struggles are religious.

This is a part of the world where even the people who are secular are actually a lot more steeped in religion than people in this country who think of themselves as religious. You're right. So part of the story is that when you look at the societies where, you know, look at Tunisia. This is a country where you have more or less a decent settlement. Indonesia is a country where people were very worried about religious extremism, and now you basically have a functioning democracy there. And I believe that the real issue is there were some societies where the dictators wiped out all civil society.

There were no other institutions outside of the state. And then there were some where there were people who were able to start businesses. They were able to have real, meaningful institutions outside of government. And those are the societies that today have a fighting chance. It's not just all about these societies are religious, these aren't. You have religious people fighting on both sides, both for decent, tolerant societies, and also who are fighting in the name of this Islamic barbarism you're talking about.

You were raised Muslim? That's true, yeah. But you're not practicing. You know, I drink, I carouse, I do all of it. But I do, but I take it seriously. But I know, but you do realize, I'm sure you do, how rare that is as a Muslim in the world, that you can openly say that.

and do that. You're lucky. You're an American Muslim. You can drink. You can say, I'm not a Muslim. I mean... Bill, here's the thing to keep in mind. If you're looking at Brussels, if you're looking at these terror attacks, you know, two of the guys who were caught up in them, they ran a bar. These guys were involved in drug dealing and petty crime. You know, when you're looking at this disaffection, it's a sea in which a small number of religious extremists are swimming, but they're swimming in a sea of disaffection of second-generation folks who are living in poverty, and they're actually turning a blind eye. They're aiding. and abetting this kind of extremism,

it's a lot more complicated than religion. And if you limit it to religion, you're missing the fact that religion can partly be the antidote as well as the problem. I'm not limiting it to religion. I think there are other factors. It's other people who don't want to put religion in the stew. And it's a major factor.

And I agree with you. You've got to talk about it frankly. It's definitely in the... ISIS has a thousand names, but all of them have Islamic in them. No denying. So ISIS is a narrow and far extreme sector. of the wide band of the Muslim religion, the Islamic religion.

And this gets back probably to your previous conversation and the point that you've been making a lot, I think, on this show, is why not say Islamic terrorism? However, we've got a huge number of moderate Muslims, not just in this country, but elsewhere, who don't like that term. And words matter. And so why not call it, if we want to ally ourselves,

with the moderate Muslims, why not use the language they're suggesting we use, which is jihadism, and not broad brush an entire religion. And not broad brush an entire religion. With a term they don't want. But think of what you're saying. You're saying that somehow these folks are so combustible

that if we use the wrong word, we're going to nudge them over into strapping on a suicide test? If you... No, I mean, if you... What does that say about the culture? No, no. What does it say about us that we refuse to listen to the terms that they would like to be referred by.

I'm not an official. I've never been an official. I'm not running for anything. I'm certainly willing to say that Islamic terrorism is a problem and a unique problem and there are aspects of the religion that make it a unique problem. We're going to say that. But I also am

very sympathetic and empathetic to President Obama. He knows that's true as well and he refuses to use it because he understands that the overwhelming pull of the United States is to get us more sucked in into wars that we don't have good answers for, and the more sucked in we get, the more problematic, the more painful, the more cost in resources and in human lives. And he'd much rather spend time fixing a relationship with Cuba,

rapprochement with Argentina, pivoting to Asia, than talking more about Syria. I'm with him on that, actually. He also recognizes, though, he recognizes that words matter and that insulting a whole swath of people that come from 50 different countries and represent a billion and a half people is not a great idea when it's one small slice. But it's not one small slice. You know, everybody talks about this like there are no numbers. Obama said it's very important for us to align ourselves with the 99.9% of Muslims who are looking for the same thing we're looking for. Order, peace, prosperity.

I love the president, but he just pulled that number right out of his ass. There are numbers. had a guest on a couple of weeks ago, Rahil Raza. She is a woman who runs the, there she is, the Clarion project. She goes by the numbers. That's what her video was called. 53% of the population of 39 Muslim countries that were surveyed want Sharia law. Sharia law, death for leaving Islam, death for insulting the prophet or the Quran, stoning a woman to death for adultery, amputation for theft, whipping for missing Friday prayers or drinking alcohol. The numbers vary from country to country, but this idea that it's just this small

problem. The reason why this is a unique problem, why I was imploring Cory Booker to say that, is because it is a string thread based on the size. The New York Times says there are 5,000 militant Islamic groups in the world. Armies. like Boko Haram and ISIS and the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Intent, they want to get nuclear weapons, support from the local population. I'm not saying most people want to commit terrorist attacks. I'm saying they have illiberal ideas

that are sometimes in line with what the terrorists believe. And recent events. No one's denying any of this, but here's... Oh, yes, they are. Well, there's some people who are very foolish and dangerous to deny this. I am very sympathetic to where you're coming from, but here's what you need to take. keep in mind. When you're looking at Muslims in most of the world, they are subject to the same

dynamics affecting Christians and other groups. They're secularization. Okay? So the question is, how salient is your Muslim identity? People that we call European Muslims today, used to say they were Moroccans or they were Algerians or whatever else. Now you call them Muslims. Because when you polarize, when you say that being a Muslim is this, it means these things, you make it more significant for people who are on the fence. There are all these people who are on the fence who kind of are thinking that, you know, this is not necessarily the most important thing for me.

Maybe what matters to me is, you know, what kind of tax code I want or whatever else. But when you focus on this, then you actually create the sea I'm talking about in which a small minority of people who are violent swim in the sea of people who feel marginalized and disaffected. And what you want to do is shrink the sea. They make it larger.

All right. Can I just say, you know, I mean, as the former governor of Michigan, we have the largest Arab American population outside of the Middle East, right? Deerborn is. is 40% Arab-American. If you bring it home... Voted for Bernie.

They did. They did overwhelmingly. The people who are living here, who are living in the U.S., who need to be our allies in this as well, are offended by this broad brush. And in Dearborn, people are completely... These are facts. They're not... No brushing.

What I'm telling you, though, is if people are offended that we are using Islamic terrorism to suggest that all of Islam... believes or acts in that way, that's the problem. I think they should be more offended by the incompetence of their leaders than they should be by the fact that the U.S. says Islam or not. I really do. We can't bomb these guys into submission.

Can I ask a different question, though, about this issue? It is not the only issue, but if you alienate people who we need to be our allies, then we end up in dangering the United States. This would get them more on our side. You know, we don't want to alienate the people who believe in our values. We seem to be always getting out of our values. getting out of our way to defend the people who don't believe in our values, like the Saudis.

Why are they our friends? I think you've seen from Obama. You're so upset about Obama going to Cuba and standing there with Raul Castro, Saudi Arabia is our ally in a far worst dictatorship. Look, Saudi Arabia has done... Look, I'm not a fan of Saudi Arabia, but it certainly is true that they've done a lot to combat our enemies. And the enemy of your enemy is sometimes your friend.

It's not something that we're particularly happy about, but it's a reality. Okay. We must interrupt this discussion to have something very silly. Time for another installment of a segment we do on this show called, I don't know it for a fact. I just know it's true. It's about the phenomenon that sometimes you don't really have the proof for something.

You just know it's true. I'll give you an example. I was watching a little video a couple of months ago when Sarah Palin came out for Donald Trump. Show the video and I'll tell you what I mean. Trump's candidacy, it has exposed not just that tragic, the ramifications of that betrayal of a transformation of our country. See, this is what I mean. When I saw that, I said to myself, I don't know for a fact that Sarah Palin is on meth. I just know it's true.

So here are a few more. I don't know for a fact that the place where Bernie Sanders buys his suits gives you a second suit for free, I just know it's true. I don't know for a fact that Paula Dean gets drunk and says, not everything Hitler did was bad. I just know it's true. I don't know for a fact that the movie,

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 will contain the long. I don't think that's yogurt. I just know it's true. I don't know for a fact that Hillary Clinton has butterscotch candies in her purse. I just know it's true. I don't know for a fact that Fox News anchor Bread Bear

used to be known as the closer at a Cadillac dealership. I just know it's true. I don't know for a fact that when we all have driverless cars, Lindsay Lohen will still find a way to crash one into a tree. I just know it's true. All right.

He is a comedian who's the creator, executive producer and star of NBC's The Carmichael Show. Gerard Carmichael is over here. Hey. How much? Nice you to see you. How you doing? Oh, thank you for dressing up. What's happening? You guys. How are you?

Yeah, yeah. You wore a suit and tie. I appreciate that. You guys look really, really nice. I figured I fit in a little bit. So many people come out here. looking crummy. Okay. So, listen, first of all,

congratulations. What a great start your career is off to. Your show is awesome. Your sitcom is what a sitcom should be. It's always about something. Thank you. Which I think is great. And when I watch it, I feel like we have a lot

in common because we are two guys who want to challenge even the people who like us. Yeah. Well, you don't want people to be bored, you know? People... A lot of entertainment is so mindless. You know, people are just, like, coasting alone, and it's jokes, but it's nothing that intrigues you, nothing like like.

Well, of course, a lot of it is mindless, but even the stuff that's not mindless, I feel, is very often pandering. Yeah. That they never have the balls to say something that their own audience won't agree with. Yeah, yeah. Like, that would be the worst thing in the world.

Yeah. And you are able to do that. I mean, you piss off people. Yeah. Well, it's the beauty of not being a politician. You know, I was backstage, and I realized this segment, there's no way I could top the moment you had with Cory Booker. There's nothing I could do.

His parents have this, like, everything about him is amazing. He, like, builds trees from scratch. I didn't even know it was a thing you could build. It's like his parents have, like, this elaborate. Even his parents' like house story is crazy. I don't have, like, my parents don't have a story that beautiful. The only thing my dad did was once pull a gun out on a nigga that owed him $30. And it's like, that's not nearly as...

entertaining or inspiring, if you will? That's pretty entertaining. That's pretty, I think. To a white person, it's very entertaining. Right. But you're not afraid to get booed. That's what I mean about what we have in common. Yeah.

I saw your special. Yeah. And you say, you know, when the audience groans, you go, you know, keep groaning. Yeah. Just go deeper. Because you feel something. You know what I mean?

Like it could easily be mindless. I could say things. We could say, I could come out here and be like, Bernie, 20, whatever, you. here this is, and you guys would go crazy, and that's not fun. Let me show you. This is a little thing we put together for my, when I did my little birthday rant back in January. And this is a little montage of me with my beloved audience.

Yes. How are they booing me for? Really? Oh, don't fucking start with me. Don't start with me. Oh, fuck you with the boo. What is the booing? It's going to be rough unless you get that stick out of your ass.

Right? Up high, come on. That's go. Exactly. What's amazing... Would that be called gangster in... No. But it would...

It would not. But it would be called intriguing. Gangsta... Gangster adjacent. Yeah, it's in the area. I don't see anybody else doing it. It's the Chipotle of gangster. You know, it's a sign that gangster was there,

but that it's moving out. Who else does that? Who else says fuck you to their audience? I know, you have like, it's like an old married couple. It's just like, oh, I'll really, well, get the fuck out of my face. Right. It's like a very interesting, I like that. But you do the same thing, and that's what I find interesting about you.

And a lot of your shows, I mean, you're talking about things like Bill Cosby. That was a really interesting episode. Yeah, I hear, uh... Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's... You were at his house, Bill Cosby's house. Did you go to the house?

Of course not. I've never met him. I hate him. I always hated him. I never thought he was funny. Yeah? Back in 1980. In 1983, a girl told me a horror story about Bill Clause.

In 83? 83. God damn. Did you alert anybody? I mean, I feel like you could have been... Tell the authorities next time that happened. Yes, I... No, no.

I'm calling from the set of D.C. cab. I have an emergency. You guys, there's a comedian. You all of them. I think that, you know, I went to the house, and it's, you know, a thing where everybody loses. You know what I mean? Like, where it's, if you loved them, if you felt fondly of them, you know, the accusers and all the... Everyone kind of loses in that situation.

The episode that we did on the show was rooted around that. Like, what do you do when someone that you admired it and you put on the pedal? You know, he's guilty, right? I mean, you know, I have eyes and ears. What? Yeah, okay. You know, I mean, but it's, yeah, I mean, it's that line of, you know, obviously you want to be, you know, respectful to the victims.

You know, we're making content about it, and you want to be very respectful for it, and in no way were we trying to do a slant in any direction, you know, but it is a thing where, I mean, you hear the facts, and you hear these things. Isn't that where they're... Shouldn't you always slant where the truth is? No, here's the thing. So the interesting thing about the episode

is I think it's actually much more genuinely provocative, not in the sense of, like, you know, just edgy and just saying things to find this, find the gray area, right? And if, as an admirer of this work, What we focused on on the show was me as an admirer of his work saying, well, okay, guilty, even guilty of whatever the accusations are, what do I do now that, you know, I still admire this person's work. Like, how do I separate the two? And it's a difficult, you know, it's a difficult thing because it's like, I think we all, any entertainer or fast school chain or whatever.

And I think it's that hard. I mean, the work is not even close to what matters as a human being. But you weren't a fan, though. But you weren't a fan. Even if I was. I mean, I was a fan of Roman Polansky. Yeah. But once he drugged a 13-year-old and fucked her in the ass, I was not a fan.

I didn't make that up. That's public record. But you say that, obviously, but also the movies got way worse after that. You know what I mean? No, no. That's not true. The pianist. He won an Oscar for it, and it's a great movie.

And I could acknowledge a great movie. Did you see it? Yeah. And you acknowledge it as great. Yes, but not him is great. Yeah. You have to be able to separate. But you see it.

But you are. kind of like when you acknowledge the pianist is great it's it's kind of a monster can be a great director yeah but that's what that what I'm saying is that's what the episode was like it was saying that like oh even someone that you know accused of these monstrous things you know he's a monster okay so let's talk and with the panel about the liberal bubble because I know you're not afraid to go there and I'm always criticizing what goes on on college campuses there was a dozy this week at Emory University oh my gosh

You know what happened at Emory? Talk to him. I can't almost say it. Somebody wrote Trump, pro-Trump messages on the sidewalk in chalk. Oh.

And I swear to God, the kids went ape shit. It seemed... In chalk, as permanent as we thought his, like, run for president in a bit. One student said, I legitimately feared for my life. I thought we were having a KK...

I thought we were having a KK rally on campus. What were the messages? Just Trump. Like Trump in 26? In chalk. Oh, my gosh. Another one.

I'm supposed to feel comfortable and safe. But this man, Trump, is being supported by students on our campus, as is their right in a democracy. And our administration shows, by their silence, they support it as well. I don't deserve to feel afraid at my school. I so badly want to drop

kick these kids into a place where there is actual pain and suffering. What happened in this country? You know, you know what's funny? I was, I was on the fence about having Skip going to college. But now I've never felt more confident in my decision before. I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, I missed out. I missed out on some things I wanted to miss out on. Well, part of it is just the way the child rearing changed.

And when you think about the early 80s, you know, you've got, you know, missing children. daycare centers run by Satanists and all of this stuff. And then you have a generation of kids who grew up in that environment. You know, in the 70s, you know, you'd ride the subway when you're nine years old, you know, whatever, it was just not a big deal. But now you have a whole generation who grew up this way, just really cosseted. And now you're seeing the effects in what's going to be scary is as people go out into the world and they discover that it can't be cossed in those ways.

They're going to encounter dangerous ideas that are very different from their own. They don't seem to get that concept at all. Everything seems to take a back seat to their feelings. and their sensitivity. Democracy they don't give a shit about. Free speech doesn't matter. It's all about, oh my gosh. But how much do we have to worry about it? Because it's not going to last. It's not going to, you know, survive contact with reality. Right. Once you're kind of in the world, no, but seriously, it's just,

so true. So true. I mean, really. That's a great... You are painting them with a broad brush, too, Bill. I'm just sorry. I'm just reading the facts. I know one story, but you can't sit there all like this. Oh, this is only one story of many. It happens all the time. time on campuses. Watch this show. So, okay, so let me get to this other issue that happened this week, which is about, I think,

manliness because the candidates were going back at each other about their wives. And I just got to say part of this problem is the media. I turned on what is it called now? Meet the Press Daily on

MSNBC. Okay. Just show this little clip. This This is how Chuck Todd opened the show today. If it's Friday, it's a week that started with a major terrorist attack and the likelihood of a big commander-in-chief test. And yet, it got turned into an unbelievable exchange over candidate wives and the National Inquirer. How did we devolve to this?

Yeah, how? Who? Who's talking about this? I don't know how this happened. This, this... It is... This... How?

This complete lack of self-awareness on the part of the press that they are the problem. No, but it's two-year, $10 billion election. You can't sustain interest in Americans for anything for that long unless you feed them something, right? Okay, but this is a news channel. Ostensibly. Yeah, but it's entertainment, though. No, no, no. This is an entertainment show. That's a news channel.

But CNN has the same, you know, obligations. Well, however, there's the same obligation to advertise as dollars as... That's the problem. Yeah. They say get the money out of politics. We got to get the money out of the news business like it used to do. That's nuts. That is completely nuts.

That's not. Here's a question, though. Here's a good question. Who do you trust, though? Who should we trust? Well, I don't trust anybody anymore, but I certainly don't trust somebody who... Well, look, I buy the idea that the profit motive is leading to this lowest common denominator. thing. But, you know, the thing is that the deeper problem is that people don't have relationships

with people they trust. You are not a big fan of organized religion, but guess what? In an era when people would go to church regularly, you know, those are the people who are immune to Trump's appeal. Because they actually have neighbors. They talk to people. They have other authority figures they can turn to beyond just what MSNBC or whatever else is saying at any given moment. That's the real problem that's going on right now. The ones that are mostly... The ones that are All those relationships that go beyond the family are just not there. The ones that are most immune to Trump's appeal are the 18 to 22 to 26-year-olds. The same ones that were complaining about Emery.

And by the way, they're not on MSNBC. The average age of a watcher of MSNBC, I think it's 64. It's 67 for Fox News. It's 68. It's 62 for CNN. These guys are not paying attention to that. And they're the anti-Trump voters because they know it's a bunch of BS. But back to your point, though, these news channels that have got to fill air,

you can have somebody like Donald Trump just calling in from his pajamas in his room and they will take the call there's no requirement for equal time they're not you go to these debates they've got them in tears so that the people at the lower end don't get equal time I mean how do people really how can they discern when

one guy is sucking up all of the oxygen and they're allowing it to happen it used to be a lost leader at the news division it didn't always used to be this way CBS didn't care if they made money from Walter Cronkite That's what the Beverly Hill billings are for. Okay, if you gave Scott Walker $1.9 billion in free media, he wouldn't know what to do with it.

You need people who can actually create drama and excitement, and sadly he does. One more question about one more issue. A-PAC, that is the Israeli lobby, but it is not the same thing as Israel, although every candidate in America seems to think it's the same, was this week. All the candidates spoke there, except for Bernie, the Jew.

I love that. Bernie skipped it. Trump, for the first time, used a teleprompter, which tells you something, which is that you have to kiss the ass of APEC so carefully that even Donald Trump didn't want to fuck it up. But Europe has been real assholes about Israel. I mean, in general, the U.N., as of 2015,

the United Nations Rights Council had issued more official condemnations of Israel than the rest of the world's nations combined. I wonder now that Europe has been attacked 14. times, I think, now in a little over a year, and they say ISIS has 400 fighters that they're ready to introduce back into Europe, and they're trying to get a dirty bomb. Maybe Europe will have a little more sympathy for what Israel goes through. I think they are. You know, you've got millions of refugees that are making their way into Europe. The Europeans can't stop them, and they also are incapable of integrating them into their societies.

And so as a consequence, not only will you see more voters being more sympathetic to Israel, but the Israel-Palestine model, wall them off, watch them carefully, that's going to increasingly be appealing to larger segments of European society. And that's something we have to watch very carefully. Well, please. I was just going to say, just back to the APEC speech by Donald Trump, of course he did have to use the teleprompter. The one moment where he goes off script, though,

He says that Barack Obama is the worst thing to ever happen to Israel, which they had to come back and apologize for the next day. He is, when Hillary Clinton got up and said that loose cannons sometimes go astray and shoot wrong, she's talking about him. That man is such a loose cannon that he is a danger to this country. I am going to get to that. Oh, okay. Thank you, panel. It's time for new rule.

All right, new rule. Bashar Assad's wife, Asma, how? has to be told, girl, you can do better. Maybe in Syria he's President Assad, but over here we'd go by a different name, Bashar, your Uber driver. New Rule, Ted Cruz must apologize for this attack ad featuring a photo from Malania's modeling career.

Come on, Ted. Ronald Reagan beat George Bush the first in the 1980 primaries, and he did it without once bringing up Barbara's modeling career. New Rule, the 11-year-old Minnesota boy who was arrested after still building a cement truck from a work site, ramming two police cars and leading the cops

on an hour-long high-speed chase, has to sit down so I can tell him something. Son, you're my hero. I never wanted children before, but I want to adopt you. Some kids your age sit around and play Grand Theft Auto, but you are Grand Theft Auto. New Rule, if Obama really wants to help put a Clinton back in the White House, he has to stop reminding us

what happened last time. New Rule, the Australian woman who says she has a rare disorder that prevents her from swallowing has to come up with a better excuse than that. And finally, New Rule, Hollywood has to remake Sophie's choice. But this time, it's about the current battle for the Republican nomination, and Sophie's horrible choice isn't that she can't save both her children. it's that one of them has to live. Now, I know that picking between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz

is driving Republicans crazy. Mitt Romney got so angry today, he punched the wall and yelled fudgesicle. I almost feel bad for Republicans, although not really, because they did it to themselves. Jesus, you guys started out with 17 candidates, and somehow you wound up with Mussolini and Joe McCarthy. In recent weeks, Republicans have even been coming up to me on the street or at a party or in an airport restroom and...

And saying, Bill, give me a hand. They say, sure, Trump and Cruz are both despicable ass clowns, but which one is less awful? Glad you asked, I say, because there always is a more correct choice. And I'm not just saying this to my Republican friends. I'm saying this to liberals, too. Hillary Clinton is not a sure thing. You need a fallback besides suicide in Canada.

Somebody's got to stay here and eat all this kale. So let's look at the differences, and there are real and important ones between Cruz and Trump. They're not the same. Comparing them as apples and orange. Donald Trump is like Ebola. He'll violently kill you right away.

Cruise is more like the Zika virus. We won't see the damage until future generation. Donald Trump wants to build a wall to kill. keep out creepy foreigners. Ted Cruz is proof we need it. Ted Cruz has a daughter

who doesn't want him to touch her, whereas Donald Trump's daughter is fine with it. He said it, by the way. He said it. But perhaps the most important difference between the two men is this. Donald Trump

is the most thin-skinned person in human history, and reacts to the smallest slight with the hair trigger wounded ego of a male flight attended. Whereas Ted Cruz is immune to insults, because he's learned to live in a world where everyone, everywhere, has always hated him. Vaudevillians used to say they were born in a trunk.

Ted was born stuffed in a locker. Like a growing number of Republicans, Lindsey Graham publicly supports Cruz, even as he mentions that Ted makes his skin crawl. It's sort of like when they ask a gay actor to kiss a woman, they'll do it but only because it's their job. In fact, it's exactly like that. And then there's Trump,

whose three main endorsers are Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, and Ben Carson. Or as I call them, catty, fatty, and batty. So that's it, Republicans. I feel your pain. You're stuck between a rock and a gross place. the house of asshole or the house of douchebag Team wherewill for team vampire Verizon or AT&T

but we have to accept that being a grown-up means hard choices between disgusting options you have to decide we all have to decide so let me just say in the choice between Trump and Cruz I four squarely choose, Ted Cruz.

That's right. My choice is Ted Cruz. Because here's the deal breaker with Donald Trump. He's a lunatic. If a non-rich or non-white person said the things he says, they wouldn't put him in the White House. They'd put him in Bellevue. We can't make a crazy...

We can't make a crazy person, Commander, in chief, there are actual job requirements. It's not like Mardi Gras Parade King. Do I think President Trump would actually disappear people? No, but I can't rule it out. With him, I can't rule anything out.

What does he do on day one? Send Megan Kelly to Guantanamo Bay? Or me? He's already sued me. The president signs off on a kill list every day and sends out the drones. And I like going outside. So, yes, Ted Cruz will be our worst president.

But Donald Trump might well be our last, which is why I say, better dead than 10. That's our show. We're off next week, but we'll be back April 8th. I'll be at Riverside in Milwaukee. June 5th, Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh, July 8th, and the Capitol in Portchester, July 9th. I want to thank Ian Bremer, Ryan Salern.

Ryan Salam, Jennifer Grant Holmes, Gerard Carmichael, and Corey Booker. Join us now for overtime on YouTube. Thank you, folks. 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.