Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime - Episode #449: Economic Priorities, Mueller Time, Sinking Bipartisanship

Episode Date: February 10, 2018

Bill and his guests – Adam Schiff, Bari Weiss, Johann Hari, April Ryan and Richard Painter answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 02/09/18) 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. Are they watching? Okay, we're here. I thought what I meant to say, the whole world's watching. And here are the questions we're going to ask. Richard Painter, do you think the ethical degradation seen in this presidency will be a permanent reality for the office?

Well, it couldn't get worse, but... I sure hope. No. It'll take some digging out after, if we survive. This is a low point. He has combined all of the sins of all the past presidency, the one presidency. And don't even get me started.

No, that's why we got you here to get you started. Congressman Schiff, if Dems get majority in midterms, what do you think Congress should work on right away? Good question. Well, I think one of the biggest challenges is face of the country, and it's massed by this sugar high that we have. from the stock market, although that is coming down from that high. Our structural change is going on in the economy.

The effective automation is going to be as disruptive to people in retail as globalization was to manufacturing. And we need to prepare our workforce for that. We need to make sure that young people can get the education they need to be able to compete in a newly automated work environment. We need to make sure that people in the middle of their career who lose their job through no fault of their own are able to get another good job. that pays just as well. And people at the end of their career can retire in dignity.

I hear Democrats say that all the time. Why don't they believe you? I'm talking about the coal miners. Because that's what Hillary told the coal miners. And they just, no, we don't believe you. We don't believe you're going to replace this job or come and change my life in any way. That's the only job I can get. And the mine is here and I want to go down in it.

And I feel like Democrats have a real trouble making that connection and convincing voters that they can do things like that. which is that they have the right answer. They just don't sell it. I think you're right. Well, first of all, you can't give that talk from Washington, D.C. You need to be in coal country, and you need to show people respect. You need to start out the conversation by saying,

I respect what you've done for a living, what your parents did for a living, how you put bread on the table. I can't say that I'm going to change the global economy in energy. And somebody who promises you that, I hope you know they're giving you a line of bull. But what I can say is, I want to work with you to bring other jobs. jobs here. What do you want to see your kids do? And how do we make that happen? That's the kind of conversation I think we need to have in Cold Country and around the nation. It can't be talking down to people. It has to mean showing respect. People in Cold Country were told if their kids just

got an education, they'd be fine, then they got an education and there were no jobs for them. We need to be able to partner federal government, local government, local business, private sector to help create jobs and the parts of the country that have been left behind. This might be a dumb question about the rest of the thing, but like,

if the Mueller report comes in any time this year before the election, right, then it'll be close to over once he gives his report. But if it happened after 2018, it would be better for the Democrats, right? Because they then might be in power.

In other words, wouldn't it be better if the Mueller report came in 2019 when you could impeach him? If it comes in in 2018 when you can't impeach him because the Republicans won't go along with that, doesn't it then just die in the woods? Well... So can't you just stall?

That's messing with twice. Like they did with Gorsuch. What do you get for? Mike Pence. Right now in our committee. Mike Pence is way preferable to Donald Trump. That's definitely true. That's definitely true.

Ultra, ultra conservative. First of all, he's not a Russian spy. Yes. He's not as... He's not wearing clown makeup. You know, he's... And he knows governance. He knows governance. He knows how to govern.

Yes. He's not a complete nut. He's... He's a... He's Bush. He'd be Bush. He's more than the right than Bush, but he won't take us to nuclear war. Right. What I was going to say is... Sorry.

You didn't want me to answer. Yes, I did. I'm so sorry. Look, I think we perceived the investigation. as expeditiously as we can. And ironically, it's the Republicans who are slow-walking things now. They want to basically put the government on trial. This is what you do when you're a defense attorney and the facts are mounting against your client.

And he's looking increasingly incriminated. You basically put the government on trial. So there are witnesses we want to bring in. They keep delaying. There are documents we want to subpoena. They keep delaying. They're the ones who are drawing this out right now. I can't tell you whether it's better or not

for Bob Morrow to finish this year, but I can't say, say this, the most important thing is that he'd be allowed to do his job. That... I want to stay out of his way. For the record, if you're watching Bob Mueller, don't finish this year. Wait till 2019 after the Democrats maybe have at least one house. So this thing...

I want to remind you, he's a Republican. We've... Right. Right. He is actually... But he's an American. First and foremost. Bob Mueller is an American.

He's going to do this job. responsible way. They're all Republicans that Trump is fighting against. That's one of the most amazing ironies of the whole thing. Comey was a Republican. Rod Rosenstein. You can't even get along with your own team. But Jimmy swung the election to him.

So this bizarre... That. That's what Nate Silver thinks was the key turning point. And so it's particularly absurd for Trump to be now claiming the FBI were trying to destroy him when they were in fact helping him. The majority of America agrees with you, I'm sure, because the majority of America

sees something totally different than this 39, 40, they won whatever percentage that President Trump has. But you have to remember, one of the reasons why we're in the situation now is because things were not played out the way they were supposed to play out, and they have to play out the right way. So you cannot say, well, it was done this way. It has to play out the right way because it's too much covered up, too much shifted and everything.

I mean, for instance, just with this memo situation, the Democrats had something that gave, from what I'm hearing from my sources, a rebuttal, line for line, am I correct? Line for line against Nunez. And they even gave a different timeline. But the president, again, wants to keep his narrative and show the people what he wants to show versus what the other side has

that could actually be more factual than what Nunez has. And Nunez was actually, what did he, he recused himself. How in the world can he even present? And he used to be close to him, didn't you? This is the president on the Nunes memo. I'm vindicated.

Right. This is the president of the Democrats. This is the president on the Democratic response. I'm, it's classified. I mean, you used to be pretty good friends with Devin, right? We used to get along very well together. Same home state, same support and love of Oakland Raiders. Well, he didn't used to be a nut.

What happened? You know, I think what happened is the chairman got very close to the president during the campaign. He was part of the transition team. He had a seat at the table. That's a heady thing. Right. And then when he was put in charge of an investigation, he still wanted to maintain the seat of the table.

Absolutely. He couldn't do both, credibly, and the investigation is what suffered. A lot of relationships were broken in Washington. Dems and Republicans were able to at least talk, work things out. I mean, I had a lot of Republican sources and Democratic sources, and I lost a lot. What they perceived to be that I'm a liberal, what they perceive, I don't tell my politics,

but I've lost a lot of Republican sources and Republican friends through this last two years. The whole thing makes no sense. This Nunes memo doesn't say anything other than the FBI was doing its job of going and getting surveillance. If I was a warrant, people are hanging around with Russian agents.

What was the FBI supposed to do? That is their job. What they're trying to do is Alex Jones, just create a haze of bullshit around it. That's what they do. Right? And they're good at it. So now, 70% of Republican voters

think the FBI is biased. against Trump, this hazea bullshit work. And everybody who gets caught in the net, the Mike Flins and so forth, ban on now, you know, have to go and see Mueller. Do they get a message from Trump, do you think, saying,

don't worry about it, I'll pardon you? The biggest message was the pardoning of Joe Arpaio. That case... Joe Arpaio. That case wasn't even over yet. And the message he sent there was, you have my back. I won't even wait until your sentence

to use a pardon. When he was asked about Flynn, he said, well, we'll see about that. In other words, we'll see what he has to say. Is he with me? Is he against me? Of course, that is so destructive of our system of justice. But then that's the point. Yes.

Yeah, it's especially horrendous with Arpaio. I actually interviewed Arpao. I went to the prison where he made women who had serious addiction problems, go out on a chain gang wearing t-shirts saying, I was a drug addict while members of the public mock and jeer at them. I mean, this is one of the most wicked people you can conceive of. And Trump championing him, reveals so much about Trump.

And now he's running for Senate, right? Yes, he's 87. Right, so we have Chelsea Manning and Joe Arpao. This is the state of our politics. Chelsea Manning did some really admirable things. Joe Arpaio spent his career devastatingly destroying. Chelsea Manning has aligned herself with Mike Chernovich and the alt-right. No, but the state of our party.

Which was she went to get intelligence on those people. State of Our Politics is a state of our politics. Boy Moore was a state of our politics. We've got to remember that too. When I'm lost on the panel, the show's over. Thank you. 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.