Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #403 (Originally aired 09/16/16)

Episode Date: September 17, 2016

Overtime Episode #403 (Originally aired 09/16/16) - Bill and his roundtable guests Kellyanne Conway, Kerry Washington, Adam Gopnik, Margaret Hoover and Ralph Reed 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 Maher. We're back on, Ralph. Many churches are taking in Syrian refugees, but Trump is called for a ban on Muslim immigration. What side do you take on that issue? I think that we ought to take a serious look at who's coming in before we decide who comes in. I think I know personally Christians who have had to flee Syria and are staying in. They're in Lebanon or they're in Jordan. I have a humanitarian organization that I have good friends that support and they've had to get out of there because it's a war zone. On the other hand, you've got a lot of Islamic fighters and some really bad people in Syria.

So it's a very tough issue. And I don't know how, as people are entering, how you're going to be able to tell the good from the bad. It's going to be difficult. It's a hard issue. You can't tell what's in somebody's head. We have a pretty thorough vetting process, actually. You cannot vet the inside of a person's mind. That's right. You can't. But, I mean, they take an extraordinary amount of resources and time to do as much background as they can.

Well, if you look at the San Bernardino killers, though, that was not the case. They weren't recently from Syria. No, but they were people who had been radicalized and were communicating with people online and we didn't know it. Right. So I don't think the vetting system. That has to do with immigration. No, I didn't say it did. with hate speech that happens from people like Donald Trump,

who when he talks about how awful Muslims are. I'm not saying San Bernardino on Donald Trump. But the facts exist that when you encourage racism toward the Muslim community in the United States, the backlash is more radicalization. Two things I think were... But radicalization preceded at any of the case. First of all, I agree.

I know you know your New Testament. I try to know it a little bit too, but I don't remember Jesus ever talking about carefully vetting people before you have it. them come to your table. That's not an important concept. And second, I'm not saying it's unreasonable. Bill's question was about churches and the role of the church in doing those things. And the second point I think that needs making always about this stuff is we do have a system in place.

You were saying, you were saying as much. This is not an emergency in that way. And let's always remember one thing that came up this week. I don't know if everyone saw. It was about polling in 1939 about allowing Jews from Europe into the United States. States. And what everybody said, huge majority was we have to vet these people very carefully because we don't know if we can trust them or not. And huge numbers, we're never allowed into this country with the results we know. So we have a good tradition in our country

of welcoming people in. And a bad tradition of people in people. We're letting millions of Muslims into our country. We have millions. Yes. Yes. We're letting millions. Yes. We're talking about Syria. I'm not. We have a very large Indonesian Muslim community. of the large, Indian, Muslim. Wait, wait. You said we're letting in millions. Yeah, absolutely. Currently letting in millions.

Yeah, they're coming from the Middle East. They're coming from Asia. I don't think millions is the correct number, right? I think it is. I don't think it is. Not annually. I'm not saying annually. But overall.

But, yeah, they're absolutely coming in. And no one's being denied entry into the United States today. Plenty of people are denied entry. No one. And they shouldn't be. Nor should they be. Nor should they be. Okay, okay. Okay, I'm glad we all agree with that.

And by the way, what was going on in 1939 was not just concerns about vetting. It wasn't just that. Right. Everybody knew what was going on in Eastern Europe. Everybody. And our government was totally insensitive to what was happening to the Jews. We turned rescue ships away, and it is a black mark on this country that we're still having to live down. And the reason we did that, you're absolutely right, couldn't agree more. But the reason we did that is because there was a huge, majority of Americans who were frightened of outsiders.

And FDR thought it was politically essential that he not allowed those people in because there would be a revolt against it from the very same, what were they called, America Firsters, whose great-grandchildren now. Let's also not forget that in Middle Eastern countries there used to be Jews. Yes, and they were pretty much, well, there are still some Christians. But the Christian community in Iraq has largely fled. They pretty much ethnically cleansed. Yes.

all the Jews and by the way all those Muslim countries by the way it's the Islamists who are doing that of course they're the ones driving out the Jews they're the ones driving out the Christians they're the ones who are threatening to execute anybody that doesn't convert to their twisted version of Islam let's be very clear what the enemy is okay can we expect more price gouging on life-saving medication like the EpiPen I hope yes well of course we can because we don't we don't have single-payer. You know, I come... We did.

I come from that horrible, radical, revolutionary country called Canada, where we had socialized medicine and single-payer for decades and decades and decades and decades. And it's a weird thing, you know, if you actually come from Canada, if you've lived in Canada, liberty is not suppressed, people's right to freedom is in no way impeded. Did your children have to shed blood to take it back? Oh, totally. Totally. I see.

And if a child, you know, we have... How many children do you have left from the fight? Well, after they take... The Canadian government claims one child and sacrifices it in order to pay for the socialized medicine. But, you know, the simple truth is I have a wonderful nephew who was born incredibly prematurely, bless us, Kerry's not going to be blessedly, and cost hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to care for that child.

And his parents had to pay not a son. single dollar because that was something that we understood as a community responsibility. That's a blessing. It's a blessing. And if I might say, it's a Christian blessing. And it was always supported by the churches in Canada. Speaking as somebody who's A, the son of an MD and B was born severely premature at a time when many who were born, I was born six weeks premature and most people at that time didn't survive that. I'm not going to make any jokes, well. I say absolutely nothing. All I say is you recovered beautifully. Bill, Just be, just...

You're recovered beautifully, Rob. Just feel free to be yourself. No worry. No offense taken. But I believe very strongly that this, that health care and choices about health care is too important to be left to government. And I think that a far better system is to allow the market to work, allow people to choose their own doctor. And the fact is there are, there are Canadians who have to come across our... But, Ra, it's not true.

But the market is why... I'm saying, Ralph, let me just finish my point. That's why they jacked up the cost of the epipen. I'm not justifying what happened on the epipen. But that's what happens with the markets. Because people in the market want more money. There is a reason why most cutting-edge pharmaceutical. Right.

Can I make my point? Yes. There's a reason why most cutting-edge pharmaceutical medications are not invented in Canada. But there's a reason why they're invented elsewhere. Ralph, you- Because the government fixes. the prices. And once you do that, you kill R&D budgets, you kill innovation, and you kill the discoveries that save lives. And when you raise the price to the EpiPen, you kill the patient.

I said, Bill, I made it clear. I'm not, I made it abundantly clear. I'm not defending the price gouging that they did. But that's the essential market. I believe in a sunset provision that leads to generic drugs, but you can't have the government setting prices and expect people to do the honor of life and death? Ralph, all I can tell you is I've lived in Canada, which has a single-payer system. I've lived in France, which actually has a complicated private and public system together. I've lived in the United States. And let me tell you that people in Canada and France are, as a rule, far more satisfied with the way they get medical care and with the security they get. And their freedom is not limited in any way. It's this should not be a political. This is not. This is

not a left-right issue. This is an issue of common sense of pragmatic evidence. I didn't say it was a right issue. One more question because Carrie's going to have her baby. Here in the United States, not in Canada or France. Was the hubbub over Hillary's pneumonia, a media creation, or was she being purposely evasive? Well, I think she was being somewhat evasive, but I don't think it's a horrible crime to have a malady and think, you know what, I'm not going to tell anybody, because I'll get over it before they even know. She tells you totally a catch-22, because she's a sort of caught in this position where she's saying, they're saying she doesn't have enough stamina. She's a first woman. We don't have in this country a gold in my year, like somebody who was

70 years old and became prime minister. We don't even forget. We don't even have Margaret Thatcher. I mean, she is the first woman and she is going against all these years. So she does, I mean, you can understand she was going to, she's tough. She's going to power through. Except for then it catches up to her. And so she's there, she couldn't have won one way the other, but her secrecy is the part that undermined it. I could not disagree more strongly. As a candidate for president and as somebody who aspires to the highest office of the land, your priority should always be the public's right to know. Yeah.

And the minute she was... She should. The minute... Donald Trump has certain... Can I finish my point? Yeah, finish your point, but... Don't walk into a track here. This is exactly...

The minute she was diagnosed with pneumonia. She should have had her doctor issue a statement. She should have come forward in issued a statement. And if she had done that bill... It would have been... Her having the episode that she had at that 9-11... Memorial would have never hurt her politically nearly as bad as it did. I think she should have done.

I think she should have found, I hear you, I think she should have found a doctor who wrote a letter saying she would be the most healthy president in history. And then I think she should have gone on like a, I don't know, like a medical daytime talk show and talked about it. I think that's what she should have done. I think anybody who can campaign. I also love her joke, her joke about like, well, at least five. Finally now, Republicans are paying attention to women's health.

My favorite. A deeper issue, which we none of us want to look at is, there's no real correlation between how healthy a president is and how well they perform. FDR, let us remember, was in a wheelchair. JFK was seriously ill throughout his presidency. I think Woodrow Wilson would be an exception to that. Woodrow Wilson might be an exception to that, although Mrs. Wilson,

although Mrs. Wilson actually did a decent job in... Not elected. Not a good argument. Not a good argument. Hey, Adam, that leads to Bill. I'd stay away from that message. Not the worst possible. Or Malawi are running the country. And the other thing I think worth saying is that what Hillary has, the pneumonia can be cured.

What Trump has apparently cannot be. 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.