Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #380 (Originally aired 03/11/16)

Episode Date: March 12, 2016

Overtime – Episode #380 (Originally aired 03/11/16) - Bill and his roundtable guests Jane Mayer, Bill Kristol, Monica Mehta, Sam Stein, and Maria Konnikova answer fan questions from the latest show. 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. Hey, here we are. First question, Bill Crystal, would you vote for Hillary if Trump is the nominee? Ooh, tough, good question. I'd prefer not to vote for either,

so I'd like to find a real Republican to vote for. But if that doesn't happen, if it is Trump and Hillary, would you stay home or vote for Trump? I know you wouldn't vote for Trump. Right. I'm trying to recruit a Republican to run. Make some hate somebody else.

I don't know. I'm serious. I'm serious. Come on, it's past the conventions, it's Trump and Hillary. What do you do? You're going to have to face this. I know you've thought about it. I'll face it on November 6th or 8th or whatever election is.

So you're not going to decide until you get in the booth? I'll watch the campaign. Hillary's really that bad. She's really that evil. She's pretty bad. Really? Can you see me? She's not evils.

You must appreciate it. You don't want Hillary Clinton as president, and if you're a real conservative, you don't want Donald Trump's president. But you can't really picture Hillary with a table full of stakes behind her, can you? I grant you that. I grant you that. Jane, is there any legal action that can be taken against the Coe brothers? Well, one legal action is confirming a Supreme Court justice who might overturn Citizens United.

That's going to be an animating issue in this election. Well, I mean, they're not going to let Obama pick one, right? Which, of course, they'll pick one. They won't even meet the person. Right, right, which is, of course, what they always do, cheat. I mean, it's cheating. But, you know, that's going to get people upset. Depends to he picks.

On both sides, I think, for the first time. Okay. Has the Obama Doctrine been a successful foreign policy? I don't even know what the Obama doctrine is, except maybe don't do stupid shit. Remember he said that? Don't do stupid shit? That's what I, by the way, that is what I'm going to miss most about him.

No new stupid foreign wars. didn't take the bait every time they're bleeding from behind. There were, 350,000 people dead in Syria. There might have been a stupid. Right, and that was all his fault, because Syria was a paradise before. But Libya has not been, Libya has not been a successful foreign venture, right?

That's kind of a stupid. I love the way they pretend that the Middle East is a perfectly manageable place. It's all Obama's fault. It's a very difficult place. I never said it was all Obama's fault. You can't say that that's a success. Syria and Iraq, it's horrible.

But what could anyone else have done? You could have interviewed early and helped Syria. Intervene. troops on the ground in Syria? Well, you certainly could have helped the resistance to Assad and had, there were plenty of people who's the resistance? You know, they tried to find a moderate army.

They went up with five guys. That's not a joke. Five guys. And you know, your war in Iraq went so well. So, we had won it. In fact, we had won it, despite having mismanagement, we had won it by the end of 2008. But we can have that debate some other time.

Okay. Well, we had. We had. Obama said so when he pulled down in 2010. Right there. Right there. But he didn't... Well, you could smirk about it. That was a... That Bush failed to succeed. He failed to carry out to be able to negotiate a status of forces agreement.

Which Bush hadn't negotiated either in 2008. That was a mistake. Okay. But, I mean, it seems like the answer is we have to stay in these places forever to make them work. Well, you know, there's a fact... As to some degree, as we did in Korea, as we did in Germany. There's a fascinating article out right now by the Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg, where he talks about the don't do stupid shit line. And I think Obama was sort of incredulous that people thought it was somehow controversial not to do stupid shit. Like that should be... Yeah, because it's an excuse for doing nothing.

No, no, no, no, no. Don't do stupid shit in Rwanda. Is that a good policy in 1994? No, in fact, I think you're okay with that? The stupid shit is not necessarily never intervening. The stupid shit. Clinton did, right. The stupid shit is right.

And I hope Obama apologizes. You can intervene and do smart shit. What he's saying is you have to know when to intervene and when to do it appropriately. And that's what his doctrine is. I don't think it's, you know, length of that, you know. Libya, the only time I was in the Obama-wide essence when I supported the intervention in Libya,

because I didn't want to see hundreds of thousands of people get slaughtered, and I thought there was a chance to have a decent outcome in Libya, and as Sam is right. There was no follow-up by us, by the Europeans, and now it's a terrible place. So if you're serious about helping people, doing things around the world,

you've got to be willing to stay the course. But, you know, one of the things Obama says in this article is the hardest decisions to make are sometimes not to go to war when you have so much of a drumbeat of people pushing you to do that. You know that... You know that even Mormon missionaries

won't go to Syria? Well, now no one would go there, obviously. Okay. There are a million Syrians in Europe now. All right. Maria, how can the average Americans safeguard themselves from being the victim of fraud? I hear fraud is at all-time record levels.

especially because of the internet, right? It is. It absolutely is. I think the number one thing we can do is apply the, if it's too good to be true, it is doctrine to ourselves. And we never want to apply it to ourselves. Because when it's happening to us, it's just wonderful. Right.

It's only too good for other people. So, I mean, the scams that people fall for, I've gotten the message from somebody you know, and it says, hey, I'm over here and overseas, and I need you to send me $500. You sent it, of course. No, no. No, but the first time I got it, I almost did,

because it never happened before. Right. And somebody looked at it and went, oh, call this person back and ask them any question about who they really, see if they know you. Yeah, I mean, the journalistic dictum, trust but verify.

Right. Because our first impulse is always to trust, especially if emotions are high. Right. So, like, during the elections, right? Everyone is really riled up. People want to trust, don't they? And when you're emotional, you're not logical.

You're not reasonable. And you start acting rather than thinking. And taking that moment to reflect might actually save you from sending $500 to the wrong question. So you're not supposed to send the money? Well, to me, you can send. Okay, fine. Yeah, when Trump, you always talk about how they love their country. I mean, it seems a little over the top or something.

I mean, we all love our country, but it seems a little erotic. It does. And also, when you read... With the raw steaks and wine. They'll take you out. I mean, I read this poll that only 11% of Republicans say Obama loves the country the right way. What? It's creepy, isn't it?

There is a right way. Trump is so good at convincing people that his is the right way. I mean, every single one of his statements, how can you argue with them? They're all so wonderful. It is a little creepy, though, that he said that he would also date his daughter if she was his daughter. There's a little bit, maybe too much of this infection thing going on. That is an amazing book in itself, how Trump is successful with women voters, because

it's not like he's not. And, you know, sexist alert, I know people are going to object to this, but sorry. Women like confidence. They do? I don't think that's sexist to say, right? Women like confidence. I think men like confidence, too. I think everyone likes confidence for people.

And Trump does do better with men, so. It's a tribute to Republican women that they're resisting Trump more than Republican men, I would say that. But it's not an equivalent. Women and men are different. Come on. Men, they like kids. And they're like beauty, and they like ass. And they like new.

You know, I mean, Ashley Madison, when that was hacked, we found out that. This was a cheating site for married couples. 37 million men, 12,000 women. If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about... The voters are kind of saying they like new, too. They didn't want another Clinton. Right. You know, and they didn't want another Bush.

They want new. They want strange. And they're getting it with Trump. All right. Should Hillary Clinton release the transcripts of her speeches to Goldman Sachs? Obviously. Really? Yeah.

What could she be saying there? If it's nothing, then why not release it? What could it be? I'm sure there was some nice language, but probably nothing damning, that she said to some bankers that she probably wouldn't say on the trail. I would bet, if I had to bet,

I would bet that there's really nothing damaging there, but they're very protective that campaign. They don't like to be bullied into doing something. I just think they should just get it over. I'm going to say it. I said it last week on the show. She, if she's the nominee, has to pick Elizabeth Warren

as the vice president. This is the smart move. Energize the base and take the Wall Street issue off the table. They also mention Sherrod Brown as a possible alternative. Ugh, come on. Too boring? He's a great guy, but it's just more boring the same.

That excites exactly nobody. And Hillary already excites exactly nobody. All right. I mean, Trump excites people. Those bund rallies are pretty... Bernie, yes. know. What I've been saying his name.

Sam, why has polling been so unreliable and what are the tools should the media use to report on the election? Well... I think I know, but go ahead. There's a technical answer here. Polling in a primary is really difficult. Sometimes the methodology, you know, you can end up doing, you know, phones versus online polling.

There's different reasons that it's unreliable. In some states, there aren't really good pollsters. I mean, it's a very boring answer. But you also have to keep in mind that polling is not. necessarily supposed to be predictive. It's a snapshot in time. And so you're trying to pick up trends along the way. But isn't it also because it's hard to reach millennials? I mean, they did not get Bernie support in Michigan at all. I mean, some polls had him down by over 30 points, and he won that race. And I think that's because... And that's why you got to look if it's an

online poll and you saw... You mentioned this Sanders number, what? 83%. Yeah. And if you do the math in your head, that's like triple his margin. It's Hillary won by about eight points among voters 30 and over. Right. So that is actually what the polls were showing, so they didn't capture the job voters. They don't have a way to reach. Yeah, and pollsters are trying to incorporate more cell phones into their surveys. The online surveys, which were once terribly unreliable, have become more reliable now that more people are doing stuff online. But it's a changing side.

Do they still do it by landline? A lot of the polls are still doing. Because you know who's entering landlines? Grandparents? The guy who punched the black guy. All right. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10 or watch them anytime on HBO On Demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com.