Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #520: Senator Amy Klobuchar, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, Katie Couric, Van Jones, Bret Stephens

Episode Date: February 15, 2020

Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 2/14/20) 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. Katie, do you think the media has learned its lessons from 2016 and will cover the election differently in 2020 or is Trump destined to suck up all the oxygen again? I would say Trump's destined to suck up all the oxygen again.

It's pretty hard. Yeah, he's a genius at it. That is his genius. He games the press, I think. Yeah. And he's, he is, that is his one skill. such a good marketer and such a good manipulator of the message, right? But I think also, from the very beginning, I think we fell into a particular kind of trap

where we said, we don't want to normalize him. So anything he does, it's, you know, outside the norm we're going to react to aggressively. Well, he loves that. So he knows now that we're going to respond. I sometimes think, what if you just had a week? It was no matter what you do, we won't cover you. And just like cover other stuff. And, you know, see, I mean, it can't work any worse.

He thinks all attention is good attention. But I think that media outlets have to make a concerted effort not to fall into that trap. You know, the problem is something called the most popular list. Because the moment you have a title that says, Trump, whatever, it is going to pop. The more outrageous, the more... If I write a column about the oppression of Uyghurs in Western China, you're talking about a million people in gulags. but people aren't going to care. If it's Trump's latest bad tweet, it will pop.

And so some kind of self-discipline is required by journalists. Exactly what you said. A week of a Trump kind of purge. But outrage on both sides sells, and that's why both sides does it. They manufacture it when it doesn't exist. You'll probably keep trying to do worse and worse and worse things until he finally gets that attention.

But I agree it's hard every single day to figure out what you do and don't respond to because some of the things are. really horrible. And, you know, if he's going to fire Vindman and his brother and interfere in Roger Stone's sentencing and, I mean, you have

to say something about it. You can't let that go. But it's tough. Okay. What do you think about Trump's 2021 budget? It is horrible. He is a liar. He goes into

the state of the union and says, I'm not touching your Medicare. I'm not touching your social security, I'm going to invest in education, and then he comes out with a budget that cuts Medicare, cuts Social Security. And takes money from the Pentagon for the Wall. It takes money from the Pentagon for the wall, which now, by the way, remember when Mexico was going to pay for the wall? I mean, Mexico is definitely not paying for this wall.

It is the American taxpayer. His fans have goldfish memory. They really do. I hate to say it, but they, you know, like goldfish, they'd say they go around the thing and they see the little palm tree every time they go, hey, look, a palm tree. And his fans are like, Mexico will pay for the...

What, no. I never said that. He's amazing the way he can pull that off. Brett, were you surprised to see Rush Lomba make derogatory remarks about Pete Buttigieg kissing his husband so soon after receiving his presidential medal of freedom? No.

Van, do you share some congressional Democrats' concerns that a Bernie Sanders ticket might impair their chances to hold onto the House in 2020? That's a part about Bernie Sanders we didn't discuss, is the down-ticket drag, perhaps. Some people, I'm sure, are not going to want to run with a socialist at the top of the ticket. You know, it's hard to know.

What I do know is that Bernie's particular brand of socialism is probably better described as grandparent envy, right? If you're a young person, like, think about it. Your grandparents went to college for like four bucks, right? You say, I want that, right? Your grandparents, they get sick, they got Medicare, they want to see a doctor. I want that. Like, it's not the socialism that we remember from the 70s

where, like, you want to nationalize everything. It's literally just young people want what their grandparents have. I wish you would just call it that. But here's what I don't understand about Bernie. I mean, one of the themes, that he and his supporters make is we don't want Venezuela, we want Denmark, and the Danes will tell you we're a highly socialized economy, but we're also a very vigorously capitalist economy.

So what part of capitalism does Bernie like, and why doesn't he ever talk about it? Well, because I think he's trying to write some of the things that have happened over the last 30 years where we have really seen this economy go towards the biggest corporations and the wealthiest. So he has to call that out, right? Sure, but he can also say we want a dynamic economy.

We want world-class companies. We want to be leaders in various answers. Why doesn't he say that? But he's not taking on any of those. He doesn't not say them. He's talking about the root causes of what's out there. You know, when I talk about Medicare for All, I say, well, look, I'm not asking to buy my computer from the government or my coffee from the government. I come from Seattle.

But I do want my health insurance guaranteed and paid for by the government. And I think that is a distinction that's really important to make. But you have to understand how threatening he is because you have been reading for quite a while and you do not like Donald Trump. You think he is an existential threat, blah, blah, blah. But your recent column said, but if it's Bernie?

I'm not going to vote for Trump. I didn't say that. I did not say I was going to vote for Trump. I will vote for a giraffe. But that's kind of, it's a bit of a cop-out. Well, of course it's a cop-out. Either he's so existential. There's only two choices.

That's, yeah, I'm going to write in Mickey Mouse. I mean, look, in terms of my vote, I live in New York. Of course, Bernie Sanders is going to be the... So you would vote for it if it was Trump or if it was Bernie? No, I don't want the Democratic Party... But you're helping Trump if you don't vote for Bernie. To put the country to a choice where people like me will say, these are two bad alternatives, and too many voters will say, you know what?

It's like the meatloaf song when it comes to Bernie Sanders. Like, I will do anything for love, but I won't do that. But that is Bernie Sanders for most Americans. But you know what? I don't know that that's true. I mean, we have gone the same route of putting up somebody who is much more moderate, who plays to independent voters, you know, a tiny slice in the middle. And here we are with Donald Trump.

I mean, you got, you know, Jim Messina saying in 2016, give me, I wake up every morning and I drop to my knees and pray, God, give me Donald Trump. That is the arrogance of the Democratic Party sometimes to think that everybody is just going to come out and work. He wanted to run against him. He wanted Donald Trump. Correct. He wanted Donald Trump to be there because he was sure that Hillary Clinton would beat Donald Trump. So, you know, there are probably a lot of people who are saying you put some, you know, a Bloomberg, some person up there.

I'm not, I don't know. We never know. I'm not going to vote for that person. It's our job. Always surprising. Who would you like Bernie to pick us as VP? Oh, I don't know. I haven't gotten there yet.

We've got to win. We got a win in South Carolina. I know who the VP is. Stacey Abrams. She's definitely the VP. Her phone is probably bringing off the last. Everybody wants Stacey. I mean, Stacy is amazing.

She's a dear friend. And she is a fabulous politician. And, you know, she, I think she would be a fantastic vice president and hopefully president someday. Great. Okay. Thank you, everybody. Happy Valentine's Day. 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.