Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #386 (Originally aired 04/29/16)

Episode Date: April 30, 2016

Overtime – Episode #386 (Originally aired 04/29/16) - Bill and his roundtable guests Wayne Pacelle, Thomas Frank, Kellyanne Conway, Mark Leibovich and Rob Reiner 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. Okay, we are here on overtime, and let me ask the question. Rob Reiner, what do you hope your movie, Being Charlie, will contribute to the national discussion on drug abuse? Well, just that. I mean, just that, to have part be part of the discussion. I mean, you know, it's become an epidemic. It's about drug abuse. Well, it is, yeah. I mean, and we've seen it now because it's kind of infiltrated into the white suburban communities.

It's now all of a sudden becoming... And prescription drugs, it's becoming a big thing. It's on all the... You know, it's a big issue in all the campaigns. So hopefully we'll be part of that discussion. Actually, I don't know why they don't talk about it more because it is a big issue. That is a white America issue.

I mean, heroin is exploding in the white community. Absolutely. Because it's cheaper. It's a lot cheaper than the prescription drugs. Yeah. You know, and that's what's happened. I saw my neighbor not off on the lawnmower the other day. Yeah.

I'll tell you, it. It's really getting bad. When that happens, boy. And he has a landscape for our property. Okay. Any ideas who the Republican and Democratic frontrunners will pick as their VPs? I guess we're at that stage already. I keep saying I want Hillary to pick Elizabeth Warren.

That would seal the deal. I would do that. She'll never want to be overshadowed by this if Warren. It could be a Sherrod Brown. It could be. Oh, that's exciting. Yeah, but you know, but you would like that. You would like that.

You would like that. I would love it. If she's smart. Brown with another Republican. She won't do that. Get the base out. The base is going to be out. No, I don't think the base will be out.

If Donald Trump is a nominee, the base is out. I'm with you. You don't have to worry about it. Some Bernie voters are going to vote for Trump. Thank you. They are. Based on trade, based on outsider. Absolutely.

No money in politics. Same view. I think Hillary is more nervous about Bernie voters right now than she is about Trump voters. I mean, I think she is going to, I mean, I think as this thing plays out, she's going to be catering to them more and more. I don't think she's just going to go away.

No, no. But the bigger question is, who would want to be Trump's VP? Chris Christie. That's the question. Many people. Right, Chris Christie. They'll line up. There'll be people.

Everyone needs an act. I mean, it's like it would be a perfect thing. All those quizzlings have already come aboard. Chris Christie, Sarah Palin, uh, uh, doctor. Oof! That's scary. Right. Dr. Gentleman Carson is already, uh, uh, Wayne,

to be a good environmentalist or animal rights. rights activists, is it essential to give up meat entirely? Well, we raise far too many animals for food. It's $9 billion a year. The average American eats 30 animals per year. The global figure is $77 billion. So with 7 billion people, it's 11 animals per person. We've got a small planet that's 70% covered by water.

Of the terrestrial landscape, a bunch of it is rock and ice and desert. The habitable portion is limited. animals, you know, take enormous inputs of grain and water. I mean, we can't afford it. I did an event with Mark Bittman the other night, former New York Times food columnist. He said, if the rest of the world adopts our habits on meat eating, we will need four earths.

Oh, yeah. No, we're cooked. Yeah. And plus, I mean, when you have this many animals, then you're raising them in these horrific factory farms. Plus the methane, the methane. Right. People don't talk about that in terms of the greenhouse gas emissions issue.

Animal agriculture is the number two source in the world. I mean, it's enormous. It's 18%. I mean, the head of the UN program on this says, you know, we need to start thinking about our diet. I mean, we have a meatless Monday program. Just do it once a week even. If you could reduce it by 15%,

which is one day a week, that would be an enormous, be 1.5 billion animals that you don't rate. Are you a vegan? I'm a vegan. When I was a... She said you were a vegan. He said he looks very healthy.

When I was a little Catholic boy, you know... Can't do it. What, I was a little Catholic boy. You know, we never thought about eating meat on Friday because you just didn't do it. Right. You know, and of course in those days, you wouldn't even, vegetarianism didn't exist. No. Well, my book, my...

So you had fish. Right. Now we're killing all the fish. But if we could just replace, start with that. Well, also, you know, in my book, in my book, I talk about these plant-based proteins. I mean, people are melding food and technology. And we're seeing plant-based proteins are going to mimic all the qualities of chicken and pork. They'll have the same taste in the picture.

Peterburger. Taste just like chicken. Yeah. And there's a... It's just like it. What does it? And it sounds crazy and futuristic, but I visited a guy who's doing lab-based meat. I mean, we grow cells for insulin to deal with diabetes.

We grow cells for organs. Why can't we grow tissue if we want that? I mean, it sounds absurd, but a smartphone probably sounded absurd in 1990. Right. Did you eat the lab taste? I did. I did. So I guess I may not be a vegan after that.

But yeah, it was just like beef jerky. beef jerky, you know, I don't think beef jerky is going to excite your palate very much, but it was okay. People love beef jerky. You know who loves it? The rouges. Yeah. Right next to the slim jims on the checkout. Exactly. I mean, it's an impulse bomb.

It's like, oh, I wasn't thinking about buying beef jerkyy. Yeah, how can I resist? It's right next to this. Well, the violence of protests outside recent Trump events have any impact on his campaign or rhetoric. I mean, I think already the threat of riots at the convention, which he put out there, has had an effect. Because the people who are voting, the people of the delegates, they're the ones

are going to be at that convention. They don't want a riot. Well, fairly or unfairly, you can draw a straight line from Donald Trump's dissent among female voters to the March 11th rally in Chicago, which he canceled. And then he retweeted Heidi Cruz's picture. He wasn't doing as poorly among women before all of that. And now you see the city of Cleveland, I believe, extra riot insurance because they're getting ready for what may or may not happen, but this is, you know, that's not... I'm looking forward to it. I missed 68, right? I wasn't there. I was three years old. I'm excited.

It was rough. Were you there? Well, I wasn't there, but I was of age and watching that. But that was different. Sixty-eight was Democrats fighting within their universe. I mean, the Trump protests were mainly Democrats. I mean, it was Black Lives Matter, and it was other folks who don't like... Well, but he was talking about if he doesn't get the nomination.

Oh, yeah. His brown shirts are going to, yes, they're going to get very upset. And then, you know, I'm not saying I'm before riots. I'm just saying it's going to happen. And the media will be right there? But there is no scenario in which Trump doesn't win the nomination and then goes away quietly and gives gracious speech and endorses Cruz or whoever. It's never, ever going to happen.

So it's nominate him or nothing. Are calls for a third party candidate to enter the race likely to garner any real movement? I think that's a great way to stop Trump. Trump. Put somebody up there who will siphon off enough votes. I think that's the only way. I love it. Then you guarantee Hillary. You don't actually. I think a lot of Hillary voters or not, or Bernie voters even, would love a place to go that is not Hillary. And I think, unfortunately, for that idea, the time to do that was two months ago. Yeah, yeah. And that, whatever, the never Trump. Bloomberg was thinking of that for a woman. But it wasn't it in. It just, but there was just no movement on it. It was great, you know, punitive talk. If you want to stop Trump, I mean, Hillary is going to beat him. I mean, that's what Every... Stop saying that.

It's not... She is. She is. Every poll shows this. Come on. You can't run for president. You're not Jewish. You don't believe in Kinahorah.

What are you saying? You don't even know what that is? I don't even. It sounds Indian. It's when you say something, don't say it because it's going to kill us. But this has logic behind it. If you make them complacent that the election is in the bag, they are not going to come out to vote. And it is not in the bag.

I don't put it. anything past this stupid country, including voting for Trump. I remember when they were laughing at the prospect of Ronald Reagan. But the man was the governor of California for two terms. No one's been able to predict anything. Everyone who thinks that they know what's going to happen is on something. He can't run for president. And it's April.

You can't. Would the polls mean nothing? As Trump keeps saying himself, I haven't even started on Hillary. But you can't run for president by going down the list of American ethnic groups and insulting them all in turn. It just doesn't work. We'll see. But everybody pretends that Trump was going to implode 20 times?

But this is within the Republican primary, which is a tiny universe compared to what we're talking about. I mean, the other thing, the notion, the 50,000 Pennsylvanians who cross over, I mean, that's the scary number for Hillary. This is a hate fuck election. People, race to the bottom. Most of them are, how much do you hate that? Listen, for years, starting in 1960, we, with the exception of 72, we always went for the presidential candidate that we saw as more inspirational, forward-looking. just pleasant. And now, you know, it's hard to know who's among the five that are left. Who is that this time? Seriously. Everybody is prophesying gloom and doom. It's really not about

energizing your base so much as hating on the other side. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Not everybody's prophesizing positive. He is a ridiculous. Hillary. Hillary's not prophesizing us. Hillary is probably. Hillary is already great. Hillary is the one who said, we don't have to make America great again. America is great. No, she says, America is great. She says we don't put it up walls with tearing down the Bill Clinton she is not. By the way, Bill, that is itself a sign of weakness that she is running as a candidate of complacency, which is not a good thing to be doing.

Right, so why are you saying it's in the bag? It's not in the bag. 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.