Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #385 (Originally aired 04/22/16)

Episode Date: April 23, 2016

Overtime – Episode #385 (Originally aired 04/22/16) - Bill and his roundtable guests Lawrence Wright, Thomas Middleditch, Charles Cooke, Lesley Stahl and Van Jones answer fan questions from the latest show. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Saving those children is how we all go home. From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night series, Real Time with Bill Maugh. All right, here we are, and these are the questions people have sent in. Leslie, what inspired you to write your new book, Becoming Grandma? Let me take a wild guest. You became a grandma. Our audience. Woo! You can't keep up with it.

I will tell you how it happened, because the publisher first asked me to write an inside story of 60 minutes. and I knew that if I did that and told the truth out on my ear. So then this was the second idea. Went with the second idea. But really, what's going on with Steve Kraw? He was getting something, wasn't he?

I'm not going to tell you because I'm going to talk to you about being a grandmother. Okay. The book, can I talk about the book for one second? Of course. It's not just about being a grandmother. It's about... I'm misleading. It's not just about the pleasure of being a grandmother.

It's about the science, the biochemistry. It's about the history. Of grandmothers? It's about the tension with your daughter-in-law. The history of grandmothers. You have a child. Grandmotherism was invented in the late 17th century. Before that, non-existence.

Yeah, I was going to say. Grandmothers, human grandmothers are one of the few, humans are one of the few animals on the planet that have grandmothers who nurture and take care of babies. Animals die when they are no longer able to reproduce, generally speaking. Right. So humans that we live and live in long enough to take care of our children's children is the very reason that humans even exist.

It's called the grandmother theory. When I was a child, I even had a great grandmother. mother. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's unusual for our much. Really? All right.

But today it's not so unusual. You were a child. Yeah, I was a child. Yeah, I was a child. Not my great-grandmother, she was old. But people got married younger and younger, so there were a lot. But grandmothers, going back to the caveman times, took care of the babies, and we've gotten away from that. And I'm writing a book to say...

You can be a grandmother at 40. I remember in the movie, the Verge? What was the 40-year-old virgin? 40-year-old virgin. It was like a hot grandmother in there. Have a child at 16, and the next child has a child. Sure. Right.

Children having children, as Newt Gingrich used to say. Van Jones, do you see hope for bipartisanship in the efforts to reform our criminal justice system? You know, actually, I do, and you just... Fucked out. What's your grandmother like? She provides a lot of care and nurturing for the grandchildren. It's amazing thing.

In the black community. Exactly. Grandmothers. I think they're great-grandmas. However, right, and great-grandmas. However,

technically they are called big mamas. We don't call, we don't have, is that right? That's not just in the movie. It's not just in the movies. I had a big mama

and a big daddy. They were also played by Martin Lawrence. So that is a thing. Okay. Sorry. No, but I do, you mentioned Newt,

Gengrich, Newt and I actually had a TV show together called Crossfire for about half an hour. And then afterwards, it turned out... Well, it was a reboot, of course. It was a reboot. But it actually turned out the only thing we agreed on was the idea that the criminal justice system has become, from the point of view of conservatives, a big, failed government bureaucracy. They grows and grows and goggles up more money the worst job it gets. And so we can actually work together on one thing, cutting that stuff out. That's the only thing you agreed on? And on everything else we just...

Handicapped on the moon? We, listen, whatever it, what? No, come on. What? Newt wants the handicapped on the moon. Am I, anybody know what I'm talking about? I'm not making this. Yeah, we build a nice little moon base forum, a bunch of pillows.

They love it. You're going back into your mafia character. Newt's a mafia character, apparently. No, he says because there's no gravity, and so it wouldn't, it's, it's, Newt Gingrich. No, he's got great idea. I haven't read all these ideas. He's got great ideas. Okay.

Obama is in Britain today, your home country. Does the UK-US special relationships still exist? Yes, it always will. How could it not? Then the mother country. Yeah, there's a lot of... What about the grandmother country? He's very popular.

It's very popular. I was reading this morning. Obama? Yeah. As he should be. 79% or something. But he has annoyed some people. And I think quite fairly they're annoyed by wading into the debate

over the European Union. Yes, he commented, didn't he? He went a bit further than commenting, I think. And firstly, it's odd, given American independence to get too involved in whether a country should stay with a larger political union. It does affect us, though. No, it does. It does. But I also think that he sort of threatened the country today. He said, well, we won't be too interested in a trade deal with you guys if you leave the EU.

And come on. I mean, Britain and America, the trade between the two countries is extraordinary at any given points. So I don't think he quite meant it. And what is your feeling about the European Union? Stay in? No, I would leave. I would leave. For me, it's a matter of sovereignty more than anything else.

But don't they have the best of both worlds, because they're not on the currency? I mean, they are quasi-independent from it. It seems like they, as opposed to most countries who have to throw their whole lot in. To me, it's just a question of basic sovereignty. If you elect people, they shouldn't give away the power you've loaned them. And that's what's happened with Europe. You know, the parliament was elected by the people, and then the parliament gave it to people who aren't elected,

and they can make laws within England. don't think America would accept that with another country. This debate is going to be settled by ISIS, by the way. Well, I think... No, I mean, I actually don't think... A couple more attacks, and they're not going to want. Maybe. I don't think Britain will leave. I think they'll stay.

Do you think Obama's become a completely different person? No. He was so careful for eight, seven, eight years, and all of a sudden, he's saying things about Saudi Arabia... Senioritis. Yeah. Is it senioritis? It's like in high school. Your last six months.

Senioritis. Throw it up and he doesn't say anything. Yeah. What's he got to lose? He is so outspoken. We call it thwagger. Yeah, that's right. Oh, swagger.

Is that what it is? That's right. Okay. How should the government combat the epidemic of prescription drug abuse? Well, that's relevant because we heard the sad news about our friend Prince that apparently he was... Yeah, we all love Prince. But that's the news today that apparently he, you know, probably... And by the way, this is a common story in...

show business. I could think a lot of people, Jerry Lewis, Chevy Chase, comedians who did pratfalls hurt themselves, musicians who hurt themselves, and that's when you have to start taking. They give you oxycontin, they give you oxycodone. It's basically heroin. I mean, poor people wind up

doing heroin because they can't afford the prescription drugs anymore. But apparently... Well, that has not been confirmed, and obviously I'm somebody quite close to him and quite close to the family, and I'm wearing my rest in purple. So, you know, but taking him out of it because that has not been confirmed, what I will say is that I'm glad that we're finally able to have a conversation. When I watched

the Republican Party hugging heroin addicted folks, opioid addicted folks, it makes me very happy, but it also makes me very mad because those same Republicans and Democrats, when the problem was crack, showed no mercy, no compassion, no one. understanding at all and locked up a whole bunch of people. So I do think that now that it's hitting everybody, hopefully we can come up with a more compassionate response. Okay. Thomas Middits, do you find that to make it in comedy these days, you must be active on social media?

I think if you'll look at my Twitter feed, you'll find that I don't. I'm like one tweet about what my poo looks like a week, I'm out. Oh, interesting. Get a squatty potty. Peace. Later. You don't do a lot of tweeting? I don't know.

Well, I mean, here and there, but... Yeah, no, I should be better at it, too. But when I do it, I enjoy it. It's fine. I fought it at the beginning. But it is, what? It's like epigrams, you know, like in the old days, you know,

the old Victorian writers or... Some old writers. Francis Bacon, whatever that era was. There was an art to being very concise. You know, a stitch in nine saves time, those kind of things. Or being a moron like that orange guy running for president. And part of the problem that we have is that... Don't bring color into this thing.

Come on it. But part of the problem we have is that the reason I think that Trump has been so successful is because this is a new media moment. You know, FDR... That's so true. Right. FDR understood radio, he dominated. Right.

JFK, understood television, dominated. So true. Obama understood the internet dominated. This guy understands social media and reality television, and he's dominating. And everybody else is playing by the old rules. You're right. So that's, you know, and I thought, and I think we thought

he was going to leave the entertainment world and come over the wall into politics. He's pulled politics over into the world of entertainment. We're now living in his reality TV show, and I don't like it. I don't like it at all. That's good. Lawrence Wright, your play camp David is about the 1978 negotiations between Egypt and Israel.

I remember that. You remember that. You remember that. You kids don't. Do you see any reason to hope for further progress for peace? Wow, that's a tough one. There's always, I mean, if you look at Camp David, Carter, Began, Sadat, you had a failing president. At the time, Carter was failing? Yeah, I mean, you know, stagflation, all the gas lines, farmers, when the tractors in the, yeah. Exactly. Right. So he was, he started out with very high pole numbers and they just was ski slope down. And then Amwar Sadat, we think of him as being such a noble. He was an assassin. He'd been in prison twice.

He managed to kill one of the government ministers. He was a Nazi sympathizer. Monarchum Began was a terrorist. Blow up to King David. Yeah. So you had an assassin, a terrorist, and a failing president, and they made peace. So don't tell me that you need the right. people. You just need people with political courage. Now, Jimmy Carter gets shit on so much.

What a balzy guy. I'm the only president who didn't fire a shot ever in office. He brought the hostages home, and they all live. They all survived. Sounds like a pussy. The Iranian husband? Yeah, Jimmy Carter. Well, they landed the day. The second Reagan became. Well, they waited because

deliberately, but he didn't, by just being calm and not taking any except for that. He tried to fire a shot. He just missed. But anyway, I mean, I love Jimmy Carter. Right. The helicopter crashed.

Yes, it did. And you know, when Obama went to get bin Laden, he said, huh, let's send an extra helicopter. Yeah, that was a good idea. Pretty badass. All right. Thank you, everybody. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10.

Or watch him anytime on HBO On Demand. For more information, log on tape. log on to hbo.com