Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime - Episode #370 (Originally aired 11/6/15)

Episode Date: November 6, 2015

Overtime - Episode #370 (Originally aired 11/6/15)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. Here we are. Quentin, what do you make of the idea that this is the golden age of television? Can movies compete? Yeah, well, I think it's definitely a really great age for television right now.

I tend to think of the 70s as the golden age. I think this is a new silver age, frankly, to tell you the truth. But, yeah. The Golden Age of Television was the 70s? Well, I grew up in the 70s, and I really liked the shows back then, you know? Like Hunter? No, that's 80s. That's the 80s.

That is the 80s. That's different. Jake and the Fatman, that's the 80s, yeah. Like James Garner? What was that one? Oh, Rockford Files. That was the good show, you know? Really? Well, yeah, well, I mean, frankly, to tell you the two, I actually get a little tight.

So that's better than the soprado? Well, let me tell you how I feel about it. In one way, it's, like, funny, because it always bothered me in the 60s and then the 70s and shows where, you know, they'd have an episode and it was such a one-off that nothing that ever happened on that show ever affected it ever again. Right. I mean, how many times that little Joe fall in love and then she would die at the end of the episode and she was never brought up ever, ever again, even though that time it was really loved. I liked it better that way. Now we have arcs.

Yeah, now we've slimmed the pendulum completely. another direction where now everything is a soap opera. Everything is a serial drama. If you didn't watch the first episode or the second episode, you're completely lost. Can you imagine if there, in this, everything that, previously on Bonanza? Previously. Okay. David Frum, is Jeb Bush's candidacy salvageable?

Great question. It was never salvageable. Wow. And the book didn't help. Well, the book is an example of why. Because when Jed Bush got asked the questions about Iraq, he stumbled and fumbled, and there was a queue of people offering helpful suggestions about what to say.

But there was no answer. And look, I was involved in this administration. I was a supporter of the Iraq War, and the elder President Bush had some disoblaging things to say about some of us who were involved with that. And I have strong feelings about all of that. But the key fact about this situation for the Republican nomination is, We owe the new nominee of our party, whoever it is, the chance to be his own or her own person with his or her own story not beholden to the recent past.

And that's why the Jed Bush candidacy was a mistake from the start, because it turned the 2016 election into a referendum on things that happened a decade and a half ago. And that's not fair to anybody. It's not fair to the voters. It's not fair to the candidate. It was all a mistake. And he's a crummy candidate. He couldn't. He's just crummy.

He couldn't. He had his unsolvable problem. Like he's not that bright. That's an unsolvable problem. He's not a bright guy. He could have been Andrew Jackson and Ronald Reagan rolled into one. But he wasn't. But he wasn't.

He wasn't either of those. That didn't help. Right. Okay. Anthony Wiener, given his affiliation as an independent, is Bernie Sanders, an appropriate standard bearer for the Democratic Party. Well, it is a big question he hasn't really answered. Yeah, I would have this conversation with him on the floor all the time.

I'd say, you know, come join us. And he'd say, no, I'm not a Democrat. I don't believe in what to you guys. You guys are doing it all wrong. And now he's gone, and now, and that's my Larry David impression. But now he's gone to saying, I don't, I don't only want to be part of the party, I want to be the standard bear for the party. And there is a practical reason he's doing it.

You really can't get elected as a socialist or an independent. But it does kind of eat into his authenticity thing. I mean, he's got to say, look, I'm not really a. Democrat, but I'm doing it to get elected. And I'm not doing this thing for, and I'm doing it for pragmatic reasons. Can you caucus with the Democrat? No, no, he totally, and by the way, I love the guy.

I mean, I love the guy. And I, you know, his views on single-payer health care, I believe it's the right thing to do, and he got the Iraq War right, I got it wrong. That's not the point. The point is of this question is one that I've actually puzzled it a little bit. The guy, if the guy is really this authentic guy, and the

bottom line is, he's making this practical decision to do it, and he's not this pure guy that doesn't do anything. It seems like a minor point. As far as political compromises go, this is way down the list. Totally, totally. But I answered the question. And he is also the second best candidate for the Democratic nomination. So that's cool.

There you go. Gillian, how has the refugee crisis in Europe created a human trafficking problem? I don't know why they're asking you that, but I'm sure you can answer any questions. I actually did just get back from Austria and Hungary and Serbia and Croatia. Yeah, it definitely has because you have countries like... Oh, I'm sorry, Gillian's mom asked. No. So you just got back from you? I did, yeah.

Spent some time reporting on both the government side of it and the refugee side of it. And I think what we have right now, basically, is a situation where Germany has said, come, we'll create a life for you. You have opportunity here. And countries on the periphery, out of very valid concerns about security, about economics, have been a little bit more hesitant. And that dissonance is creating a situation where it's the perfect business opportunity for human traffickers. They could not have it better.

I don't know why we don't create a some sort of system where we could train them to then go back to their own country and fight for that country. Doesn't somebody have to stay in the Middle East and make the Middle East a place to live? Not everybody in the Middle East can live in Europe. That's true. But I think people are looking at, frankly, America's commitment to this. You see countries like Ukraine where people are willing to go ahead. But what about their own commitment to their own culture? No, I think they're profoundly committed to it.

I talked to one Syrian guy. Really? Why are they leaving? Well, I talked to one Syrian guy, a young guy, and he was basically saying that he feels pinched in the middle. He doesn't support Assad. He's going to get cracked down on that side. He doesn't like the Islamic State either.

He doesn't have weapons. He doesn't have, you know, people to fight with. What's he going to do? Find other people to fight with. I mean, where are all these moderates I always hear about? This is, you know, oh, Bill Maher, you're so hard on the Muslims. What about the moderates? I'm all for the moderates.

They're for me, too, by the way, real moderates. Yeah. So let's get a moderate army together. I don't think we have a lot of support for them, though. I mean, look at what's happening in Ukraine right now. You have people who are organized who are willing to fight for their country and die for their country. And the U.S. can't even, like, give them weapons and help them out a little bit when Russia is innovating.

Refugee crisis are about the powerless, right? People who are refugees, the generally the most powerless people around, the idea of all, only if you were tougher. I don't know if that's really the answer. I'm just saying, why don't we help them? But not everybody who is a moderate in the Middle East

can leave the Middle East. I mean, there just isn't room, is there? No, I think we need to be doing more to help those moderates. Right, okay. Let's see. What does the panel think of ISIS taking responsibility?

well, that's a good thing, responsibility, for the Russian airliner that exploded of the Sinai this week. What are the two sides to that? What are the two answers? Well, I'm against. I'm against it. It's bad that they did it if they did it,

and it's a horrible thing that happened, and I mean, I think it's, I don't know what the other... It's not exactly a yuck-fest question, is it? No, no. And this is not always a yuck fest, especially, we're not even on TV anymore. Who gives us shit? I only do this because I have to.

Let's talk about your new movie. Look, they're all ready to see it. Yeah, this is another Western? This is strange to me, because the last one was a Western. I've never known you to do two in a row of the same genre. You're Kubrick-esque in that you're like one, movie doesn't, you know, look like the last one that came along. Why two westerns in a row?

Well, one, I love westerns. And two, part of the thing is, you know, for that almost the exact reason you're talking about, you do something like Kill Bill where I've never done a martial arts movie before. And then you kind of learn how to do it by the course of doing it. It actually is part of the fun. Like, in Kill Bill, I didn't know exactly how I was going to do the crazy 88 fight scene that happens in there, but I figured you commit to doing it and you'll learn. And you knew it would be violent.

Yeah, I didn't know that. I did know that. But the thing is, though, in the case of Django, was I learned how to do a Western. I learned how to deal with the horses. I learned how to deal with the Wranglers. I learned how to deal with all that stuff. And I love it. And so then it came time to do another film.

And it was like, well, now that I really know how to do a Western, let me do it again. I think I can even do a better job. So what's this, what can we expect in this one? Well, this is actually, but again. The hateful age. It's a hateful age. Is that a play on the magnificent seven? No, no, no, no.

No, no, it's not. You have to think of the Magnificent Seven when we hear eight. I can, I cannot, well, I can understand that. But it's not about a team that comes together to do something together. No, why not? It's eight people who are totally fucking hateful. Oh, I see. Yeah, there's not, I mean, part of the thing about the movie is there's not a good guy or woman in it.

There's all, there's no heroes. There's, it's, it's like eight hateful people trapped in this one stagecoats stop, stopover during a three-day blizzard and watching them deal with their issues. So it's kind of a pick-me-up holiday thing. That kind of that? And I was going to say, and it opens on Christmas Day? Absolutely. Bloody Lutely. That's why white people are killing themselves.

Thank you very much, everybody. Have a good night. Watch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10. Or watch them anytime on HBO on demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com. Thank you.