Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime - Episode #475: Doris Goodwin, Jeff Bridges, Soledad O'Brien, David Jolly, Andrew Sullivan | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

Episode Date: October 6, 2018

Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 10/05/18) 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. Okay, here we are back on the Internet. Okay, Doris, how would Lincoln have handled today's Republican Party? Well, first of all, I must say, I always hate it

when Republicans go, we're the Party of Lincoln. Parties change their whole dynamics. Sometimes it completely flips. They should be forced to drop that we're the Party of Lincoln. That's not at all the same. same party, right? No, it is not the same party.

But I must say, just listening to you tonight, it made me so good after this acrimonious week to laugh tonight. I mean, it's really important to have that sense. It is. Lincoln used to say, the way you whistle off sadness is through humor. He was able to tell funny stories. I don't see a sense of humor

in our current president. I mean, it's a really missing element. But, I mean, there's involved. Well, he got the UN laughing with him. Yeah, that's true. With me. But I think, what What if Lincoln were here today, what he would be talking about is how to reconcile these different parts of the country. We can't let it be that other people are different from us, and we don't care about what they're thinking and feeling.

We have to remember that a majority of the people want an inclusive country. They want immigration. They want Medicare. They want aid to education. They want mobility. They want the lack of inequities to be dealt with. A healthy planet. And they care about a healthy planet. Very much so. They want it.

Absolutely. And if those people who want those things go out and vote, you're so right, power begets power. There's an expand. President Trump has not expanded his base. It's still in the 30 percent. So we don't have to be so upset about this if we can do something about it. Look, more people are running for office and now. The young people are excited.

More women than ever before. Take heart in that and get them to the polls. Get them to the polls. Carry them to the polls. Let's see. Jeff, should the government be doing more to ensure that kids facing hunger are able to get access to food? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is, you know, where government can really, you know, lend a hand.

Now, I've been working with on the hunger issue for, you know, over 30 years now. I know you have, yeah. And I've had wonderful success by not going up against the feds. You know, I've done a lot of lobbying there. But working with the governors, they seem to be, you know, a lot more into the people. They're where the people are. A lot of these governors don't know that there's a billion dollars of federal funding that's there on their table if they have programs in place to, you know, feed hungry kids. But if they don't have those programs in place, then that means are something else.

Well, it's the same thing with Medicaid expansion. They've got lots of money on the table from the federal government. In Obamacare, the Republican governors chose not to use that money. Why? Again, liberal tears, because it was not costing them anything. costing them anything. What's what feels odd to me too because I consider myself a Democrat but it's kind of a conservative feeling to go more local rather than looking at the big government and that's what I bring up about sure our

environment rather than waiting for those guys I mean you definitely got to do your voting for sure but engage in another kind of way you know this we have another whole powerful way of engaging in all these issues you know to take it kind of personally don't say I'm gonna vote for the guy and And then, you know, you made your vote. Now I can, I don't have to feel guilty. I've made my... You can engage more than...

You know, you're so right. I mean, all the changes in our society have come when it percolates from the anti-slavery movement, the women's movement, the civil rights movement, the progressive movement. It's the citizens that make it. And then the leaders channel with it. You were talking before about government versus leaders.

We can't be waiting for the leaders. We have to take the responsibility ourselves. We are the citizens of this country. Right. You know, I agree. I don't know if you guys Google surfed, you know, I was Google surfing in the morning, and I saw this woman who said something really interesting

because it seems to me that passion is what we're looking. We're looking for people to be passionate about the environment. And she made something really an interesting observation. She said, passion is the flame that comes from rubbing some sticks together. You've got to get in there and get into it and chew it up a little bit. Trouble is we have plenty of passion right now, but it's the wrong kind of passion. Right.

It's a passionate and intense. hatred of the other country. I just, I mean, I wish I could be as hopeful as you, Doris. But when you look at the rhetoric right now, it seems very similar to me to the rhetoric of the 1850s, early 1860s, in which people are talking about the other part of the country, as if it were another country. When people are saying we would prefer to be run by a foreign agent in Moscow than we would by a Democrat, we are at a point where the discourse has curdled to such an extent

that it can lead, especially now, again, if the, you know, legitimacy of this system continues, like you were talking about the popular vote issue and the electoral college issue, presidents elected, gerrymandering, if this continues, we could have a real legitimacy crisis in this country where people will actually turn to violence. And you can see it beginning. You can see it, people wanting to vent this anger in a sense of, in the streets, or by going up against people in the elevators or in restaurant, you can see it beginning to get into the streets. We need targets. We need to have a constitutional amendment to end citizens united. We have overturn that. We need to have non-partisan commissions. There's a move in some states now,

in some local states. Every time you do that, you trigger the other tribes even greater and greater levels of passion. That's the problem. Well, then we have to have the passion that's equal to that. Yeah, I don't think, you know, I need it. I feel like my, you mentioned Bucky Fuller, another thing that he said that really makes a lot of sense as far as what we're talking about. He says, when you want to change something, you don't have to go right up against He says, come up with something that makes what you're trying to change obsolete. You know, don't, you know, spend all this energy and this anger. That anger, we can shift that and get involved with how we see it.

You have to talk to each other. That's right. The lack of communication. I mean, when I was saying earlier in Soled, you thought it was absurd, I think when I look at the media in a certain way, because I'm still basically right of center, I see and hear things that you may not see in here. And when I say that I'm hearing those things, it's usually,

for you to say, I hear you, as opposed to it's absurd. It's an absolute. What is this, marriage counseling? No, no, no, it's definitely. Yeah, man. I hear you. I hear you, Andrew. No, we're married.

It's not, okay. This country is in truth. No, no, no, you know what? That's right. You're married. It's like a marriage. You know, I read an interesting thing. I think it was from our sometimes, Fred, Glenn Greenwald,

saying that, like on MSNBC, they get ratings every segment. Okay. By the minute. You get them by the minute. No. Yes, they're called the minutes. You get them broken down by the minutes. You can follow where you lose your voter.

Right. Okay. So who on MSNBC is ever going to risk their show by saying something that doesn't exactly align with what the audience already wants to hear and think? So that's kind of a hermetically sealed bubble, too. It's just one with a lot more facts where they're usually on the right side of issues,

but not the whole time. No, and sometimes you get into this framework, for example, as I was starting to say, about race or gender, that it's really upsetting a lot of other people in the country you're hearing this, if you wouldn't say that to their face, but that way. I can be agreeing with them and go, oh, for fuck's sake

and turn it off. Really? I can't. Because everything is like, what do you think? Chris, you're so right. It's like, what a surprise. The other thing is, we're all communicating online and on screens, and that's a very different experience when you're talking to someone looking at their eyes and their face

and their body language, and where you actually do have to accommodate them a little bit. David Jolly, are you going to follow other principal conservatives and vote Democratic in the midterm. Ooh, hot seat for you, David, Jolly. No, so look, I love that question because I came out in

October of last year and said, I think Democrats should take the House. I think we'll be safer in a divided government. But Bill, it builds on everything we've talked about. Barack Obama talked about a postpartisan America, but he tried to do

it through a two-party system. I left the party about five weeks ago. My wife and I both are. Because I don't think the future is between the two parties. And I'll tell you the inflection point. We're expecting our first child. And among adults, we can have this Republican on Republican side.

Hey. Yeah. Baby. You're sperm when an old lady. Hey, hey, look at the year. I always get to blow. I made a baby. I made a baby.

Oh, look, it focuses your perspective. And what I would say is this. I'm sure it does. Among adults, we can have a baby. have this Republican on Republican fight. Nearly three years ago, I stood on the House floor as a sitting Republican member of Congress and called on Donald Trump to drop out of the presidential race.

And I have never lost my voice. I have never gone silent as all of my Republican colleagues have withered. And it's got to be tough, because you mean, you know, people are in a party their whole life. Your parents are probably Republicans? Yeah, look, it's incredibly tough, but here's what I will tell you. I hope our daughter learns two things from our

example. The first is for three years, we fought a fight for something we truly believed in. That the Republicans could answer to better angels. But the other lesson I hope our daughter learns is this. There are fights that at times, wiser men and women walk away from. And this is a fight.

Sometimes you've got to start over. Somebody else can fight for the dignity of the Republican Party now. It's not my fighting. There's two parties, the Democrats and the traitors. And it's not a big issue to me. You know, how, you know. I often read that Paul Ryan quote, where he's, that they got him on tape behind closed doors,

saying, I think it's somebody else says, you know, there's two Republicans who, I think, are on Putin's payroll. Kevin McCarthy. There's two Republicans on Putin's payroll, Trump and Roerbacker. And Paul Ryan doesn't go, oh my God, let's go to the FBI. He goes, okay, that doesn't

leave the room right. That's how we know we're I mean, that's not treason. Okay. Soledat, I had a question for you. Well, I don't know. Why don't they use that power. Like, like, um, Jetflake is actually one of the most powerful people on earth. He's a politician, right?

Right. He needs a job of. And a retiring one. What did he get to lose? He needs a job, right? And now he's going to have a nice, cushy, Republican job somewhere. Can I say something? But he could have a nice job like this. Look, listen. Isn't this more fun being with us?

Yeah, look. It really is. When people get mad at me, it's more funny. We're funny. Are we, you get, you know? When people get mad at me for doing TV, I say, hey, call your congressman. I can't help you. But here's what I will tell you, and this is something, look, as we have these academic and intelligent conversations about why, why, why, why, why, why, why. At some point, we get to judge the leadership integrity and the moral fiber of our political leaders,

and we get to say, you made a wrong decision, and you need to leave. And that's where we are right now in the moment of America. Okay. Final question, Soledadadad O'Brien. If or when Roe v. Wade is overturned, how should progressives respond? Ooh. When? With protection.

by wearing a lot of protection. I think one of the saddest things is to hear Senator Collins talk about that as a non-issue when you listen to her very long and tortured delivery of her speech today to talk about, you know, I'm not worried about Roe v. Wade. And I think there are lots of people who are worried about Roe v. Wade. I think she's very wrong on that issue. I don't know. I don't know what the solution to that is, but, you know, hopefully to motivate people to get to the polls.

Can I suggest something very that liberals would actually be better off if Robos's Way disappeared because then they would actually have to go to the people and ask for democratic majorities and in fact there are democratic majorities in most Western countries or the legal

You're not going to get anybody present Sure How do you know that? Believe me, we all know that Believe me, we all know that All right, thank you, everybody. Let's end it right there. 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.