Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime - Episode #420: Leakers, Pence, Privacy, Obamacare

Episode Date: April 1, 2017

Bill and his guests - Roger Stone, Neera Tanden, Michael Hayden, Rick Santorum and Jose Antonio Vargas - answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 3/31/17) 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're back and the albino assassin has rejoined this. I think you've got to take that, Roger. That's a pretty fucking awesome nickname. Albino Assess. Yeah, you should.

You should take it. You should use it as a handle, tweet it. You'll see it in an hour. Have Goosever tattoo it on your back. Roger, would you defend Edward Snowden's leaking of classified information the same way you defend Julian Assange and Guzifer? What do you think about Ed Snowden? No, I probably wouldn't. I think the situations are somewhat different, but I also continue to reject the idea that Assange is an asset

of the Russians. I think he's an opponent of the deep state. All my liberal friends loved him when he was leaking on George W. Bush. What do you think about that, General? I was pretty consistent in my view about Assange. I just like him then. I dislike him now. And he may or may not be a winning agent of the Russian Federation, but he is an agent of the Russian Federation. He seems to have changed. It seems at the beginning to be a little bit different,

but it only seems to be America that he finds shit on, like we're the only country in the world that has shit to be found out. I mean, there are a lot of other societies out there that really do have secrets that are very harmful, and he continues to push only American secrets

out the door. And what do you think... Why is he defending Trump now? I mean, they... WikiLeaks is actually going out of its way to defend the Trump administration. If you check their Twitter feed, they're spending a lot of time doing that. But why did we learn today that the CIA has malware that can mimic transmissions from the Russians? Why would we need such a thing? Oh, I can give you lots of reasons why. I'm sure you could. Roger. You guys did a bang-up job in the Iraq war. An incredibly dark leap to then go to this natural capability that you would expect an espionage agency and immediately jump over here and said they used it to destabilize the American democracy.

So what do you think should happen with Snowden? He should continue to live in Moscow. Exactly. Okay. And, uh... Okay, well, and we'll leave it there. Rick, do you think that Mike Pence can continue to help Trump sway evangelicals in his favor? Look, I think the biggest thing that Donald Trump is, done to help with religious voters evangelicals is the the appointment of

Neil Gorses to the Supreme Court. I mean that that was the reason that many folks lined up behind Donald Trump why he did as well as any Republican with the evangelical community because they knew a Supreme Court seat was open. They wanted someone who was going to be like Anton Scalia. Trump promised he would do that and he delivered. I don't think actually Mike Pence has to do a lot to rally evangelicals where I think they're very happy with what the big biggest issue on their plate. And if Trump would, by

some crazy quirk, wind up not being president because of impeachment or something, I hear liberals some say, well, Mike Pence would be worse, and this infuriates me. Mike Penn would not be worse. We know who Mike Pence is. He's a down the

line, you know, he would be somewhat similar to a Rickentorum presidency, which wouldn't... You probably don't have to worry with, like, North Korea or something. You don't have to worry about crazy war. Exactly. Like, if you were President, Rick, I wouldn't go to bed every night, nervous.

I mean, I... You say that now. You say that now. What do you... What do you not say that? What do you ever say anything like that? No, seriously. I mean, I...

I mean, one's dangerously unstable, right? The concern about... Which one? Which one? Exactly. I mean, there's policy and there's personality. And it's the personality part that worries me way more. I hear that. I mean, that when you think about what's happened with the Pentagon

or who he's, the kind of forces at the NSC, you know, they are people who, you know, should worry all of us about stability in the global order. But, you know, I just, I think that, you know, Mike Pence is no walk in the park either. No, he's not. but I'm glad we agree that he is preferable to Donald Trump. Donald Trump is the worst person in America.

So, like, anyone is... No, not even close. Not even close. Not even close. Not even close. There's other people. Okay. All right.

Did anyone hear that it came out that during the inauguration, George Bush, was over, whispered after Trump's speech, that was some weird shit. And if you'd see his painting, he doesn't have much room to talk. I never thought I would like him so much, honestly. I mean, after that statement.

You see, I've been consistent on that, too, though. I liked him, though. I liked him, then I like him now. Well, look, I mean, Donald Trump is not your typical Republican. That was certainly not a typical Republican inauguration address. It refuted a lot of the Bush doctrine. It was a weird should. And so I'm sure he was offended by it. It had three different appeals for racial unity, which everybody seemed to ignore.

But it was right there. Racial unity? Yes, absolutely. Oh, my gosh. What were they? How can you? Tell me. Gee, I don't have my copy on me, but he's... She just said it.

They're there. They're there. I was sitting 10 feet away. They're there. Because you're very close to the president. Right. I mean, a presidency that's run by Breitbart News. I mean, let's think about this. We have a presidency that is being run by Bright Bart News. As opposed to the New York Times? No, as opposed to the white nationalist and the supremacists who run Bright Bart News. We have to call that what it is.

This is not alternative backs. This is what the left does. It's name calling when you can. I'm not the left or the right. I'm not the left or the right. I'm sorry. Right bar used the term, I'll just say, use the term kike. Do you think that's right? That's right that they did that?

I'm on a way of that. I'm unaware of that. Okay. We'll tweet it out later. Bill, there's an important line in the speech. And the president said, I pledge allegiance to the American people. That's not common in the American tradition. You know, I take an oath is to the Constitution of the United States.

It's to the process. It's to the ideas of America. America. Not the blood and soil. And that is a clear distinction. It's different. We'll see where it goes. How would you grade Trump as commander-in-chief in light of the recent uptick in civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria? Yeah, I would not be a harsh judge because I was complaining with regard to the Obama administration being late, light, under-resourced and over-regulated. He's pushed decision-making down into the forward area. and I don't know, I really don't know, that there's cause and effect between the decision-making pattern and the effects.

What we've got is a lot of indirect fire in a tough fight in a heavily populated area. Right. I mean, we're trying to dislodge ISIS from one city and it's taken months and months and months. So for the people who say the Westboro Baptist Church is the equivalent... Bill, I'm more concerned about after we win and we take Mosul and we take Raqa. because if we could kill our way out of this,

we'd have been done a long time ago. Exactly, right. What does the panel think of the House vote on Tuesday to roll back the FCC's Internet Privacy Protection? Right. Well, the crowd groaned there. Yeah. We don't have a lot of privacy protections anyway,

but this was another giant blowjob to corporations. Yes. Trump ran. Yes. I'm against it. Oh, you're against it. I don't think we should be, we should be regular. the net. And we shouldn't be handing control

of the net to the United Nations. That's not what this was. This was saying corporations could take your browsing history and sell it. Yeah, I'm against that. I'm against it. They do it now. They're doing it now.

They do it on Google and Facebook, which are voluntary. You enter those on your own will. This is the... Where can you... What other search engines... What search engines out there don't... Don't do it. It's not even a search.

So you say it's voluntary, but there isn't one that doesn't do it, so it's really not voluntary, is it? Can I just say the bottom line of this is like they're all libertarian until it helps corporations, and then they're not libertarian at all. The theory is we've got to stop the government from protecting you until it helps a corporation. This was a partisan vote. Republicans were all on one side of it.

Democrats were all together. Do you want your browser history? I mean, who knows what you're looking. Or Rogers. Or Rogers. You guys are. You guys are always the biggest freak. Everybody knows that.

You guys, you are up. Behind closed doors. Oh, come on, Rick. If you only knew. If I only knew. And now we all will. Now we do. Yeah.

Erase quickly. Okay, Nira, will Obamacare explode if Congress doesn't amend it? That's a great question. Absolutely. I mean, actually, it was illustrative of this whole discussion. What we learned in this debacle of the revoke

Republican effort to destroy the Affordable Care Act is the Congressional Budget Office did a determination and actually said the false out the false stuff out there is that Obamacare will die well it's in a death spiral all of that is frankly BS there are challenges they can be fixed and you know what if Trump wants to deal with Democrats to actually make progress well that's not that's not gonna happen no it may not but like let's try and get let's stop trying to get rid of how coverage but they're but they're not even the fact that they are actively sabotaging. And then he's not going to get any Democrats to fix it.

That's okay because they're against it, and it's not their philosophy. But what can Democrats do to combat that so that they can't kill it? Well, we did defeat them last week, and they defeated themselves. Yeah, but I'm talking about the act itself. Yeah. So here's the thing. I think the truth is that there are places, there are challenges, but the law is stable. That is what the Congressional Budget Office.

So you can shake your head, Rick, but that is what they found. It's not. I mean, look, there are, here's the reality. California is a perfect example of a state with great insurance markets where the prisons have been low. Sure. If you support it, it works. Yeah, if you let it function, it works well.

States like Kansas are trying to do Medicaid expansions now because they recognize the law is here to stay. That's what we should have. People who are not trying to sabotage coverage for people who are their constituents that actually try to make this law work. And if they do that... Let me get an opportunity to present a little alternative viewpoint. Number one, this is a bill that...

puts over $700 billion. The Democrats say, oh, health... Obamacare. Obamacare is $700 billion. Take it from... It's a huge... It's a huge amount of money. It's not $7 billion a year.

It's a huge amount of money from people who will not miss it. That's where the money comes from it. No, it is. You know that kind of fact. Rick. It's Cadillac taxes. $720 a year? No, it is redistribute...

Rick, it is redistribution of wealth. I don't know why you... Democrats just don't own this. I know you hate that, but I don't think people do. It is redistribution of wealth. It is absolutely robbing the race to make sure that poor people. It's a huge redistribution of wealth.

Right. And it's a system where the government is controlling what access you have to insurance. Everybody, not just the people who didn't have insurance before. No, they're helping you get it. We have set forth a plan that very few businesses were able to comply with the exemption. And so now everybody, almost everybody,

has to have plans that the government's says are best for you. And have to have coverages, the government says, and best you. You know, we had a debate about essential health benefits plan. I gave you a lot of chances to talk about this. Go ahead. And the reality is that, yes, we dramatically expanded a number of people insured, over half of which was through government programs, Medicaid.

Medicaid was the biggest part of the expansion. Even Kansas, but now even Kansas voted for the Medicaid expansion. I don't know whether Kansas is going to expand or not. But, come on, that ultimately become the law or not. It's, well, you're right. Because they want people to not. Because it's free money. Exactly.

It's health care. Free money do you take care of people's health. You know, we had a debate about this. Isn't that a good cause for free money? You're telling the state that if you take this money, you're going to get free money from the federal government if you spend it. To take care of poor sick? And you know what? We had a debate.

We had a debate about this. And Republicans couldn't pass their own bill because it had 17% approval what they tried to do. You know, that's it. Don't you think of. They couldn't pass this bill because they didn't fundamentally change what was in place right now. Okay, keep telling yourself. The bottom line, what had to happen, if they were going to change this, they needed to follow the path that previous Republican Congresses who made big entitlement reforms followed.

I was involved in that bill. It was a 1996 welfare bill. And what we did is we eliminated the federal entitlement. We gave all the money to the states and said, states, you determine the policy that's best for you. You design your own Medicaid program. You design your own private sector markets, and you go out there and innovate. And every state will have the chance to do that. We'll find states that do it really well.

We'll find states that do it really poorly. And guess what? States learn from each other. There's a lot more experimentation. There's a lot more innovation. There's a lot more freedom. And that's what works in America. Government control for the top down does not work.

Okay. And that's what Donald Trump ran against. So the people who get bladder cancer in a state that experiments badly, they just die. Yeah. But the people who get it in the state that's good at it, they live. This is not the farce. This is the farce behind. The farce is about health care.

This is always about health insurance. There is everybody in America, prior to Obamacare, was legally required. If you went to a hospital, the hospital must treat you. Yes. And the bottom line is that when the insurer, and you disagree with me, and they fact-checked you, and you were wrong. Which is, when you gave people. insurance under Medicaid. Actually, emergency room visits went up. They didn't go down. People still use the hospital as their primary care. This is an argument you've used for not having insurance,

but people, like you have insurance and are okay with us. I want people to have insurance, but I don't want the federal government dictating to me what my insurance is. I want markets to work so people have freedom. Exactly. Freedom. Thank you very much, everybody. I appreciate you, to help with us out. 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.