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

Episode Date: March 26, 2016

Overtime – Episode #382 (Originally aired 03/25/16) - Bill and his roundtable guests Cory Booker, Jerrod Carmichael, Ian Bremmer, Jennifer Granholm and Reihan Salm 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-nights series, Real Time with Bill Ma. We're back. We were going to get to Cuba, and we ran out of time, and I know you want to disagree with me, and you don't even know what I'm going to say. Well, I want to hear what you have to say. Well, I mean, I think I said it in the monologue. We have, or somewhere in this show, we have stood with worst dictators. I think Cuba in the Freedom Watch list is 62nd out of 177. countries, one being the worst. So it's behind China, I think, Iran, Egypt, which is not a great place to be, but it's ahead of a number of our allies like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. So I guess where I'm coming from is that the United States has all of the leverage in this

situation. And if you're looking at what Roel Castro's plan is, I believe the plan is not to do what China and Vietnam have done, not to have a kind of, you know, basically move away from a socialist economy. I believe they're looking to Vladimir Putin. They're looking to, you know, Chavez is Venezuela. They want to have sham elections, and he wants to install his son or his son-in-law in power, and we're allowing that to happen. Now, we have all the leverage. I believe we should open up to Cuba, and I believe we should normalize relations, but we can, we can demand a lot more because they're at the most vulnerable point. This is what we're going on for 50 years. No, it hasn't been going on, because what I'm saying is that actually we should open up,

but we can now demand more from them in terms of how they treat their citizens and also having an open and competitive political process. These things take time. Of course it takes time. It's But we're never going to have more leverage than we do right now. They used to look to Russia and Venezuela for cash. For cash. Now they can't. They're 90 miles away from the world's largest economy. And if they open the door a little crack, we're going to overwhelm them.

And they're doing that. I feel very comfortable that in five years time, these guys are gone. 50 years of sanctions, that's the fantasy. That's the fantasy. Look. I mean, he went, the president went, he looked at Raoul Castro, he spoke to the Cuban people, he talked about democracy. I mean, that's the first time.

They're not idiots. They know what they're doing. They've given this a lot of thought. And if they believe that Ian was right, if they didn't, they have a plan B, that's my point. Their plan B is sham elections. In 2018, it's all ready to go. But you know, we can't make everybody in the world do

everything we want to do. Of course we can. Of course we can. Of course we can't. Of course we can't. But the point is that why surrender all of your leverage when they're at their weakest point right now? Of course we are.

We can never, we can never, we can never. We're trying something. benefit for us. We're trying a different tactic from the one that didn't work for 60 fucking years. What a crazy idea. The tactic is we have one big carrot to offer that is normalizing relationships and actually offering them the huge economic opportunities that... Ending the embargo would be another big carrot. Yeah. Yeah, we're not doing that, even though most Americans are for doing that. Normalizing relationships is a rather

big thing and having Starwood and having Airbnb signed deals and getting hard currency into the hands of the repressive apparatus. That's how they're right. are going to change. They're going to... Starwood's going to be there. They're going to meet American. That's worked in... That's working Putin's Russia. That's worked... You know, that's going to work in Iran. I mean, that's going to work in all the other authoritarian countries where they figured out... They're smart, too, Bill.

They're strategic, too. They've given this some thought, and they think that they're going to come out ahead. And I think they're probably right. With that said, do any of you have a good cigar connect? Because I just started... This is the man to talk to you. What are the chances of delegates... turning on Trump if there was a brokered convention in July.

I think pretty good, right? I think pretty good, too. Yeah, I mean, it depends on who those delegates are. They're working them now. Yeah. I mean, everybody on the other teams are working those delegates. Are you a super delegate? I'm not a super delegate, and I wouldn't be on that side,

but I know that they are working that. For the Democrats. No. You're not a super delegate? I used to be when I was governor, but I'm not anymore. Oh. Are you a delegate? I'm not a delegate, no.

No. Just watching on TV? I'm just a regular citizen. Wow. I'm very surprised. Will the new voter ID laws being introduced in key states across the country influence the outcome of the election? Fuck yes. Of course.

It liked it in Arizona, everybody who was watching that five-hour. Wasn't that a fiasco? Total fiasco. They went from 200 polling sites to 60 in a heavily Latino county. People had to wait in line for five hours. Wouldn't it be great if the Supreme Court just once went? We got this wrong. You know, we gutted the Voting Rights Act.

thought America was better than it was, and it turned out we could not have been more wrong. Is there any argument on the other side? The problem is that when we talk about voter ID laws, you've got very different laws in different states. Some of those laws, Pennsylvania, for example, that's a really bad law. But then if you're looking at Rhode Island, you're looking at Tennessee, you're looking at other states, they're not all the same. So the problem is when we talk about voter ID laws, you're talking about a bunch of different provisions. They're all for limiting. 21 states since 2010 have adopted more restrictive, make it more difficult to vote laws.

21 states have. This will be the first presidential election for 16 of those states. They're largely in the south. They're largely trying to affect minorities and students. Two quick points. Two quick points. One is this is a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. And any time we're restricting votes, it's bad.

But the unspoken truth that's happening in America and the biggest disenfranchisement we've seen since we were fighting on the Edmund Pettus Bridge and others were fighting for voting rights. is the disenfranchisement that's going on of people who've been convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. We right now have a country where the drug war, the drug war is not a war on drugs, it's a war on people, particularly poor people, particularly minorities. And so now you have a nation where you have swing states like Virginia and Florida, where one out of every five African Americans has lost their right to vote. And so we have this outrageous reality in this country right now, where our prison population since 1980 has grown 500,

percent, federal prison population, 800 percent, more people in jail today for nonviolent drug offenses and all the people in jail for 1975, being locked up for doing things. The last two presidents said they're doing, and now they're in a second-class citizenship, a caste system where they can't get jobs, they can't vote, they can't get Pell grants, they can't get food stamps, they can't get housing, public housing. They've entered this caste system, and it's an affront to our democracy because basically what we're doing is millions of Americans, we're cutting them out, taking away their voice and their participation in our country. Yeah, what he said.

Well, look, and you also have conservatives and liberals who are agreeing on this and who are seeking to reform the system. It's not a partisan issue. I'm partnering on legislation with everybody from allies from the Koch brothers to others trying to fight something, a system that's completely broken. One of the greatest tragedies going on

in our country right now is that what we are doing to entire communities, like the one that I've lived in for the last 20 years, is we're devastating these communities, a chance for an African American to be arrested. And by the way, no difference between blacks and whites for using drugs. No difference for dealing drugs, except for some studies show that young white men have a higher rate of dealing drugs and young blacks,

but an African-American will get arrested for drug crimes about four times more than one. And this actually might make communities more dangerous. That's the really scary thing, because if you want to be tough on crime, it turns out that actually using incarceration too much, you actually change the dynamics in these communities in ways that make them more dangerous for the people who live there. And that is really, really bad. I used to deal drugs, did you?

I did not deal drugs. Right there. Did you ever deal drugs, Drog? What's that? Did you ever deal drugs? No, but back of my day, I was known as an excellent bagger. You used to deal drugs? Oh, in college, yes.

Well, yes, yes. I was going to say just pot, but that would be a lot. I mean, when I got out of college, it was just pot. But in college, it was whatever my dealer had. So you would buy from your deal? You were like a middleman. You'd buy from your dealer and you'd sell that? Oh, that's not very.

Very nice. I thought of myself as an entrepreneur. Middleman. It was the 70s. No, but it still goes on today. Look, I went, when I went to Stanford, and there was a lot. That's how I got through college, by the way.

Well, there's a lot of drug use going on there. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You paid your way through college stealing drugs? Yeah. That's a... Wow. Yeah. Maybe I'm gangster now.

Wait, wait, wait. For the record, for the record, still no. They're interested. Why, because I'm white? Yeah, kind of. A little bit. No, no, no. You're gangster. Fine, Bill, you're gangster. More gangster than you. Is Donald Trump, Ian Bremmer, off base,

and suggesting that the U.S. rethink its involvement in NATO? You know what? Let's ask a different question that's close to that. Trump said this week that he was not putting nuclear weapons off the table dealing with ISIS because we need to be unpredictable. You know, you had me at. Trump and nuclear weapons. That's all very unpredictable. I mean, that's a crazy thing to say.

Well, I mean, I would say number one, Trump's slogan is not make America great again. It's America first, and it's let's find everyone else to blame. Mexicans are going to come to rape our women. Japanese and Chinese are robbing us blind. The Europeans are taking advantage of our goodwill

on security. Muslims are all going to blow us up. That's a problem, right? And we see that with NATO as well. But I have to say, at least from my perspective, I think the likelihood that Trump actually could win a general election, given the astonishing negatives he has among young, among women, among just normal Americans, is really, really low. And I know we're talking about it because we have to and it's entertaining. But I just don't believe more than entertaining.

He could be the Republican nominee and probably will be. And by the way, in this country, the Republican can always win. You know, they always said, well, you know, the Republicans are losing. losing minorities and they're losing women. Yeah, but they never tried a race war election. They never, like, really roused up those people who, when you lift up the rock, you find out what's livid in this country.

And Obama got, like, 40-something percent of the white vote against Mitt Romney. Trump's going to get more. And combine that with voters. He's nine percentage points behind Romney among white voters. But what I will say, I'm... Trump is? Yes, in a general election.

Yeah, he's well behind. Romney among white but he's going to move to the middle. He's going to move to the middle. That's the premise. Look, I don't think he will move to the middle. He doesn't know how to do that. No, he does not know how to adjust. I think that he's who he is. Who are you talking about Ted? No, I'm talking about him. Trump. He doesn't know how to

adjust either. No, no, Trump's speech. No, Ted will know how to move to the middle. No, I disagree with you. I think that Trump will not. Trump knows only one speed. No, he will try. No, he will say stuff that is appealing. He's not obligated to be consistent. No one Exactly right. 70% of women, for example,

can't bear the thought of voting for Trump in a general election, all women. He's going to say, yes. But he's going to try to figure that out. Remember, he's super smart. He went to Wharton. So he's going to try to figure out the language that makes him more palatable to groups.

He's going to do that. What he might do is divine. He's never done that. What he might do is deliver a serious blow to the Republican Party for 10 years. Maybe one time where he got more reasonable. He calculatedly said, you know what? I think I'm going to be told.

He says that he doesn't want to see poor people out in the street. He wants to have health care for everyone. I mean, he said that, right? He said the thing about trade, which is a democratic position often, and he thinks that we should be creating jobs in America. He has said stuff that is appealing to my side of the aisle. And I think that he will, yeah, I mean, he will try to moderate. He's constitutionally incapable of not doing crazy when he's in front of a camera, right?

That's the point. Yeah, but we saw it read from a telepharmine. We saw him in APEC reading from a teleprompter. We saw him being disciplined. Right? You know, it happened once he could do it again. He fucked it up anyway. Yeah, one little thing he went on.

And I tell you what's interesting about Trump, I've never seen white people scramble before. Like, I've never seen, like, white America really, like, confused and, like, what the fuck are we gonna do about that? It's very interesting. It's very intriguing. Like, Donald Trump, I've compared, Donald Trump to me is, is, like, white Hurricane Katrina.

It's like, we didn't know. realize it was going to be, the levies have broken, and everyone is panicking right now, and it's very, it's interesting to watch. I live here, too. I live here, too. But here's the thing. Trust me, it's going to be worse for you than us.

I'm from the hood. I don't trust anybody. I think everybody's corrupt. But you don't think it matters if Trump is, or anybody? No, of course it matters. I mean, it definitely matters. I'm just saying it's an intriguing thing to watch. I mean, I think, you know, I've, I've had a healthy mistrust of literally

every candidate that's ever existed in my lifetime. So I'm like, yeah, he's in the pile with the others. Who in Obama? With Obama, listen, we were all very excited. We were all very, we were young, we're excited. We were very happy, you know. And until Corey runs, you know, we're just going to hang up. When is that going to be, I was about to chime in and say that these are the days where I'm going to run, but not necessarily for something, more like from something. But you're going to give the white people a turn, and they're going to fucking. up and then you're going to be like, come on.

Obama was pretty good, you miss him. The first time I was on the show, you said that, hey, this Obama, if he gets this thing right, you remember this joke, don't you? They're going to think that these black guys are good at this thing, like basketball. They're going to be put the black guys. That was my introduction to this show. And here it is, eight years later, and I'm still suffering through the same joke. Oh, okay.

Thank you very much. We've got to go. 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.