Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #389 (Originally aired 05/27/16)

Episode Date: May 28, 2016

Overtime – Episode #389 (Originally aired 05/27/16) - Bill and his roundtable guests Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Michael Moynihan, Melissa Harris-Perry, Wayne Allyn Root and Scott Adams 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 Ma. Okay. So we're back here. We're in the future. Yeah, we were saying before,

one question that people in the future are going to have is, why did you think we were so into silver? Melissa Harris-Perry, as a professor, do you find there is a culture of political correctness on college campuses that is stifling, debate, and learning? I don't, but I do think students are... There's no atmosphere of political correctness on campus? I don't find that, no.

Oh, where do you teach? I teach at Wake Forest University. Wow. But I do think that students are struggling with this, and I feel like... Because lots of comedians won't even play colleges anymore, because nothing's funny. Oh. That has not been in my experience. I mean, I was telling Wayne that I've got these 22 students.

and we went to Iowa, New Hampshire, both South Carolina primaries, the North Carolina primary. They're Democrats and Republicans, and I would assign them to work for candidates, even if they didn't, if they're not from that party. And they threw themselves into it. So I had, you know, Republicans working for Bernie and, you know, Democrats working for Rubio, and they were very much into it. But they are struggling with it, and we don't have good language for talking to each other

across difference. And I don't know that we're doing a good job in this country, giving our young people good tools for having conversations across difference. But I think that's our fault, not theirs. As always, nothing's there for me. For Scott, how does ISIS employ tactics of persuasion? Well, the whole thing is persuasion, right? Because they're trying to convince people to literally kill themselves for something in the future.

But what's interesting is that I'm not sure we're using the same kind of persuasion against them because bombing them isn't, you know, changing their minds. If anything, it's probably hardening the resolve. But if you look at Trump's approach, for example, the same tools he uses, I'm not saying that Trump needs to do it, but those tools would work with ISIS, you know, if you adjusted them for the cultural difference. I mean, basically, you just, here's what I would do. I would take an ISIS person or somebody you thought might become one,

somebody who's kind of got the mindset. I would hook them up to whatever kind of brain, you know, scanners we have so we can see what their mental activity is and which part of the brain is lighting up. And then I would A, B, test. I'd say, how about this idea? What happens when you think this? And I would just find out what lit up. Because you could literally persuade them an event.

And by the way, you don't have to persuade all... It has something to do with the Koran, don't you think? But people have to believe it, right? Right. But if you've been reading that book, like, and sometimes only that book, since you could read... 20% of the world can be... 20% of the people can be talked down to anything with persuasion. Sure.

And if you flipped 20% of ISIS, they'd start having a problem. So you don't have to get them all. You just have to get them out. But not everyone can be hypnotized, right? Because someone once tried to hypnotize me, and it was not happening. And I want it to be. Well, maybe you think you weren't. No, I was.

How do you think you ended up in that outfit? So about 20% of people can have a deep hypnosis, where they see things that aren't there, hear things, the rest of us can be influenced. So if they were trying to influence you, it probably would have worked if you stuck with it, whatever you were trying to accomplish. But, no, not everybody goes into a deep chance.

Okay. Michael, what do you make of Germany's decision to allow Turkish President Erdogan to prosecute a comedian who wrote a controversial poem? It's a travesty that didn't get nearly as much coverage because... Right. Well, tell us the story. Well, the story is basically this. I mean, you know, the problems that we have with comedians as you pointed out in this country,

is that Jerry Seinfeld won't go to play to college. He's not doing really risky material, and he won't go to college, but it's slightly different in Western Europe, this supposedly bastard of democracy. And a Turkish comedian who lives in Germany, a resident of Germany as a passport, wrote a poem that was rather rude and pretty funny

about Erdogan, and he's being put on trial in Germany and an old law at the request of Erdogan. And so the government of Germany, obliged Erdogan, who's a knuckle-dragging dictator, and they decided to put him in court. And this kind

of sort of, you know, abrogation of rights in Western Europe, this chipping away at speech, is totally insane. And so much so that when that happened, I didn't even write a column about it, because it's just like, that used to be the thing that would fire me. But not so much anymore. It's not bigotry to stand up for liberalism.

No, it's not. Liberalism is good. No, it's not. Our values, like freedom of speech and separation of church and state and respect for minorities and women as equal citizens. Those are good things. Those are very, very good things. A story today. It's not our fault.

No, it's not, it absolutely is not our fault. When there is, you know, when there are people in different cultures don't follow those things. And we shouldn't say that they're just a different culture. There is a story today. It's not different to be a democracy. It's worse. It's much worse. And I say that from the future.

Or I've seen what happens. All right. Should Congress allocate more funding to help us prepare for? for the Zika virus spreading here. Well, I heard today there is another bug that is absolutely untreatable by antibiotics. So I'm more worried about that one than I am about Zika. But yes, absolutely more funding.

Zika sounds so cute. It sounds like a pop star. Right. Zika. Right. Yeah, Zika. Zika's got the beats. I got a little Zika going on.

Right, yeah. Scott, how do we make ourselves less variegated? honorable to tricks of master persuaders? The weird thing about persuasion is people can tell you what they're doing and doing it right in front of you, and it still works. So, you know, things are priced at $1.99, and everybody knows, oh, you're trying to make me think it's less than $2, and it still works.

Still do it, right. So the answer is there really is no defense. Do you think Trump's going to win? I think he's going to win in a landslide. The election? The general election, and have said that since last summer. and it's because of tools, not because of policies per se.

Of course. But you, wow, that's... Can I interject here? Yes, please. I agree. I was the first guy in the country who predicted Trump would win, and I think it'll be a landslide. It's because of the economy as much as his branding, his persuasion, and anything else you attribute to him. I completely... The economy is horrible.

I completely... And middle-less people are angry and upset. Here's the way to frame it. Yes. And that was so the fault of Obama, who took over when we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. There's two terrible presidents. It's back to back. Bush and Obama, they both added too well. Horrible debt to the country.

Debt is poison. Debt will destroy every country touches. Bush added $4 trillion. Obama has added $9 trillion. By the time he leaves $10 or $11 trillion, it's a disaster. We have too much debt. Disaster. No economist thinks that debt in itself is bad.

No economist. The single biggest threat to America isn't terrorism and national security. It's a debt crisis. Just like Greece. The single biggest threat is the environment. But look at Venezuela. You know, debt has to be bad. Day has to be bad at some level.

It is. I just said that. You did. Debt is bad at some level. But look at Venezuela. Socialism leads to people not having toilet paper. There is no one who ever went to economic school who would say we should have no debt. I didn't say we should have no debt. Okay.

But I certainly would like us to cut our debt dramatically. Okay. Will Britain leave the European Union and what would the repercussions be if they did? Oh, well, there's a brain teaser. I don't think it would be good. I mean, I was reading about this recently, and it certainly would be a lot of... Not a good thing for a lot of the people who came to the UK to work,

and that would be kicked out. And this is essentially the problem in Europe is that, you know, this is breaking apart the Conservative Party in England. I mean, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, is a stay man, and the man who's opposing him Boris Johnson, you know, wants to pull out of the European Union. But there's so much of this stuff, and like this idea of the Schengen Agreement where you can travel in Europe,

you don't have to have a passport, you just go here to there. After the Paris attacks, people started really questioning why these people can come into Greece and move so freely throughout Europe. So that actually buckled this idea that the European Union is a great thing. So the kind of confidence in the European Union after the debt crisis was then compounded again by the fact that terrorists were moving freely throughout Europe. So, you know, I don't think it's going to be a great thing if it pulls out, but people are very, very skeptical. Yeah, Europe, the easy fund of traveling to Europe, those days are. just about over. It might soon be over there. And I would ask the question again, I'm going to bring up the debt

again, why should middle class people of rich nations pay for Greece and Italy and Spain? Why should they pay for that? Wayne, you do realize that Trump's economic plan would increase the debt. No, I don't realize it because I think he'll cut spending. He will cut spending.

He will cut spending. Even if he cut spending to nothing, discretionary spending, not the spending that is already promised, it would increase by $8 trillion dollars over the next 10 years because he wants to cut taxes like they all do. My argument is there's no way to save America.

We're going down unless you increase growth. You've got to dramatically expand growth. You can only increase growth by cutting taxes and cutting regulations. Reagan did it, and Trump will be another Reagan. Okay. I miss that. I'd love to hear that. I think they yelled Judas like at the Bob Dylan company.

Some people... I went online that part of what was interesting to me about what Michael was saying around the question of Europe, that, again, I think we don't want to miss by simply arguing around the Trump piece, because I think he's just such an easy target to just make it about Trump. And then we miss that this, like, the anxiety about the outsiders and the anxiety about the economy is not only not just a Trump problem. It's also not just an American problem. And so, like, it's this big question about how we're going to have to change a big international conversation about what is public,

what is government for, who is the we? And like, these are things that I think we're going to have to be able to do better than just a partisan conversation, just a conversation that happens in the context of an election. Like, these are big conversations about... Should we have borders?

That's the biggest question. What world needs to be debating? We have borders. But they're poorest people are pouring over them in Europe and America. And they're not pouring over them. Poring over. Poring over. And I think you and I might come do a different answer on that, but They're pouring over. They're not pouring over.

Net immigration from Mexico has been zero since 2007. Again, a fact. I know facts don't get in the bubble. And you wanted to get rid of the TSA earlier. But they're not pouring the same. One of the interesting shake acts of this election to Melissa's point is that American politics is actually becoming more Europeanized. The idea that now we have...

Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders, it's a Central Democrat. You have a mainstream liberal. And on the right, you have a populist candidate. and you have the mainstream Paul Ryan types. That is something that every European country deals with, and it has long dealt with, because they have parliamentary democracies

and they have coalition government. And this is, we are not becoming more European just because of Bernie Sanders. We're becoming more European in every possible way with this kind of fractured two-party system. Also socially. Is splitting apart in so many ways. Socially.

I just don't want us to miss, like, miss, like, the magician, hypnotist trick of like, look over here at the shiny thing while the real thing is going over here. I'm the shiny thing. indeed sir you are the shiny things last question does the hubbub over bathroom laws

and conservative states mean the nation is less united over social issues than we thought well I thought that the culture wars might have been over and it looks like maybe not quite yet because they are pretty upset about the fact that like three people

will be using a bathroom that wouldn't be the bathroom that they started to use when they were born But this is like the battle in New Orleans at the end of the War of 1812 when nobody had told them that it was over. And it was just like this final battle. Right. Like someone came on horseback like a week later and said, you know, it's done. This is the last gasp of the 90s culture war.

No, you're giving the elitist response, man. You guys are so elitist. I'm for gay rights. I'm for gay marriage. Transgender, you're pushing way too far. You're pushing middle class people beyond the point they're going to go. I'm just telling the truth. You're pushing them beyond the point.

Why? It is willing to be. I agree it's a dumb issue for the Democrats to fall on their stories. I think it's a giant mistake as Democrats. I'd actually say it a different way. I live in North Carolina. And so HB2 gets passed. And what's fascinating to me is it ain't a big fight.

Because the next day, the entire like system of the economy, all the national folks. I mean, folks came. So that same state legislature had passed all of these bills that were deeply troubling and problematic around, for example. example, voter ID. And the country was kind of like, meh. But as soon as HB2 happens, the NCAA, the NBA, we're like, oh, hell no, I bet you you won't. And they all, with complete clarity, said, we will not come and do business in North Carolina. And that's fair. And that's true. And that's wrong with that. Right. So what I'm saying is, that ain't a culture war.

At the point in which they extract economic costs from the state, it changes the calculus dramatically. And it really does feel much more like Michael's point that it is, it feels much more like the last gas when, in fact, when corporate America is on the side of, no, we really don't play that, then it's really not beyond what about people will go. It's totally fair, and I agree with that. I'm for free markets, capitalists. If you want to put them out of business, great, put North Carolina business. But guess what?

It's going to backfire because Target's the one is going to be out of business tomorrow. No. No. But you're doing this. Your boys for it. I know that. Donald Trump said, Caitlin Jenner, welcome to use the bathroom. It's a minute.

Invitation. Yeah. I still don't have a bathroom problem, but, you know, if you then matters. Thank God. I got to go right now. Thank you very much, everybody. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10. Or watch them anytime on HBO on demand.

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