Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #607: Matt Taibbi, Lis Smith

Episode Date: August 6, 2022

Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 08/05/22) 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. I can make a list of a few who are like beyond politics. Remember Benazir Budo? No? Really? The Prime Minister? Yeah. Are we on?

The Prime Minister of Pakistan? You really? Yeah. Okay. Come on. All right. Are we on? All right.

Okay. All right, we got it. Okay. Okay. Here we are. We're talking about politics hot. For panel, if you had to make a bet on who will win the GOP nomination in 2024, Ron or Don, and that's who it's going to be either Trump or DeSantis, who would you bet it would be? Well, there's a broad open question.

Don. Don. Don. Ron. I'm leaning more toward Ron. Ronald McDonald. I think DeSantis has a shot. Yeah. Oh, he's got more than a shot. I mean, I think he won

Stroopold in New Hampshire. He feels a little Christy-esque to me. Like, he's peaking right now, but he's not actually going to, like, land the plane. Oh, no. Well, he's not Christy-esque. He is very Christy-ass. No.

Christie's twice the man he is. Okay. The U.S. economy added over half a million jobs in July. Is that proof that Biden was somewhat right in claiming, that the U.S. is not in a recession? Yes. There's a lot of suspense there. Isn't it dangerous to do weekly statistics

and try to figure out trends like this? I mean, haven't we learned that things go yearly? Also, like... Two yearly, three yearly? I mean, it's like... Well, do you think no? Like, I mean, that's not a bad sign. It's not a bad sign, but I wouldn't say, yeah, we did it.

It's a moot point question. because people don't, it's how they feel and how they're actual... It's like Trump's finances. Like how I feel about it in the moment is how much I'm worth. Well, he always feels very well about himself. But, I mean, there's an actual definition of recession when GDP declines for two quarters. But no one knows that or gives a shit about it.

No one knows with a quarter of it. It's more of a press definition because there's another definition that's based on the national, what is it, Bureau of, economic research. Yeah, BLS. You've already lost everybody. BLS, right? No one is care. What matters

is how people feel, how much they pay for gas, how much inflation, all that. The unemployment rate is relatively insignificant compared to how people actually feel. I will agree with you on that. And the unemployment rate is 3.5%. That's as low as it ever goes. Now, it also could be people

are in shitty jobs they don't like. I mean, that people... I don't think... I don't think... I don't think she works for you. I don't think audience member here is a shitty job. It's one of the better jobs you can... A recent study shows that loneliness and isolation raises risk of heart attacks and strokes by 30%.

Wow. You know, they should get those people on obesity right now and figure it out. It's a double whammy. What are your thoughts on this, Dave, being that you wrote your latest developed during a time of worldwide social isolation. Absolutely. I mean, you know, statistically they can point to things like that,

and I suppose it's true. I mean, statistically, but it also intuitively makes sense. You know, when your heart hurts, that's stress and that's your heart. I mean, it's not your physical heart, but it does seem to be some kind of correlation. Well, I mean, one of my big issues with Western medicine, why I don't want them ever to tell me what to do with my body

is because I could name it. a thousand things, but right off the top, they pay no attention and give no credence to the mind-body connection. And if you can't, you can't read it on a chart, if you can't quantify it, and that's not, I think in 100 years we will be looking back at the way they do things now, and just the way we look back 100 years ago. Do you really think in 20 years they'll be going like, yeah, 2022, that's when we pretty much had it all figured out.

No, we look back 100 years and go, I can't believe they're doing it. I can name things they're doing right now that I know as a layman that are going to look bad. Right. I mean, 80% of COVID people in the hospital got antibiotics, which don't work on viruses. No, there may sometimes other reasons why you would give,

but just antibiotics, the way they give them out like skittles. I mean, I'm glad we have such a thing, but they're making it so they're not going to work anymore because we overprescribe them. I mean, that's just one of dozens of things. Anyway, don't get me started on that, or do. After the... Thank you.

Oh, yes. Thank you for, you know, monks the swag that you give out. Thank you for the box of Ivermectin. Well, he's written about that. That's a good example. I assume that you're being snarky liberal about that. Iverm... Ivermectin...

It's a snarky. Okay. Well, because that's... But good example. Like, if you only watched MSNBC, what you heard was this was horse medicine. The robs are taking horse medicine. Okay.

It's not just horse medicine. I know. Okay, all right. But, I mean, that's a good example of how people are in their bubbles, and they only read and see one thing. Oh, these rubs. You know, who's a rube?

Anyone who's wearing a mask outside? That's a fucking weird. You know, I don't... I see 22-year-olds wearing a mask outside. What pussy morons? I don't think it was the rube. I don't think it was making fun of the rubs.

I think it was actually casting aspersions on the Republican, on the right elite, who have an anti-scientific agenda to propose. So it's not really... Again, it's a very tricky thing to throw on anti-scientific. It is. I should take it back. back. This is live, Bill.

I only got so many words that are in there. But there's been a lot of bad science on both sides. But that's how science. Look, Bill, science works badly. Science works by making mistakes. Right. That's how it works. Okay.

But we should. Yes, it does. Until it does it. Okay, so therefore, therefore, don't say, Fauci says, if you don't believe in me, you don't believe in the science. Well, that's, yeah. There's no the.

Yeah. Okay? Yeah, well, I think. You've been wrong about a lot of shit. I think Fauci's time is coming on. Well, also, I mean, Fauci, 81, he didn't have trouble with COVID. Biden, 79, didn't have trouble with it. The Queen's 150.

Can we stop with the forever flow? We also sometimes work backwards from, like, the politics of it. Like, when Donald Trump came out and said that he took hydroxychloroquine, for everybody, that was, like, automatically the drug doesn't work. Whereas the drug, it's not a drug's fault that Trump like. There's no Republican or Democratic drugs. Ivermectin has been given to millions of people. I don't want it. It's not my cure?

Right. But there is an agenda to throw a lot of stuff out there to see what sticks from one side rather than the more monolithic scientific side on the other side. I agree with that, but again, it's not the drugs fault. No, no. Right. So you still have to... I began this by thanking him for the ivermectin in my dressing room.

Me mocking way. After the U.S. announced killing Al-Qaeda leader Hamanzawa-Hiri, some people are asking if this truly makes America safer. What are your thoughts? Well, can I lead? I have some thoughts here. Please, too. You know, the idea

that, because it's 20 years later, that we should somehow let this guy go and retire in Florida is absolutely fucking ridiculous to me. My view on this, is that we should find and hunt down

every single person who helped plan and execute the 9-11 attack, even if it takes us to the gates of hell. And I know where they are. I know. They're golfing with Trump in New Jersey. It was the Saudi Arabians. That's who did it. And you know what's amazing to me about this is?

And no one should ever compare anything to the Holocaust, and I'm certainly not going to do that here. But we... But... But... You can learn from the Nazi hunters. We can learn from the Mossad. Because you know what?

Those motherfuckers are still hunting down Nazis today. No. Yeah, they are. Yes, they are. They would have to be a hundred. Exactly. They are finding the hundred-year-old ones.

You're talking about the act of Nazis in the past, not the ones in the present. Exactly, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you commit these... atrocities, you can't, you're not let off the hook. I don't care if it's 20 years later. If it's 30 years later, oh, there's going to be some retribution from Al-Qaeda? Like, what, they're just sitting on their hands and like, oh, we're all good with America now? No.

So my only pushback on that, I did a story on, uh, that touched on Al-Zawahiri a couple of years ago on the drone program. We've been trying to kill this guy for a long time. And he's been reported dead at least twice before, uh, there's a human rights group in Britain called Reprieve that reported that we bombed a school and there were 79 kids and 20, I'm sorry 76 kids and 29 adults

who were killed. Trying to get Alice over here? Trying to get Alisela here. There were two big attacks in 2006. There were some others. My point is we're going to create more. That's a fact? That's a fact. That we killed all those people and we know it was trying to...

You can go back and... Oh, I'm just asking because I never heard that. Yeah, there were two big attacks and there was the town called Har and another one in it called Shengai. The point is, we're going to make more Al-Zohiris that way. And that's what I worry about. But we apparently have improved the technology because we got the flying ginsu knife. Also, I must say,

I find it so interesting the hypocrisy of the al-Qaeda leaders because they said, bin Laden was living in a cave, remember? He wasn't in a cave. He wanted to be in Abadabad. He had a nice house. And the second we pulled out of Afghanistan, Al-Zahiri moves back into Kabul. They want the nightlife, they want the good restaurants.

They don't want to live in the cave out in the fucking mountains. They want a place in town. They want to be in the city. Yeah, Belmont was all like hashtag about a bad. But one other, and so I don't need to be too serious here. But one other thing about this was a lot of Biden's critics said that when we pulled out of Afghanistan, that we were going to let the terrorists just run wild there.

And this sort of blunts that criticism. Wait. Who said... A lot of Biden's critics. But the terrorists are running wild. The Taliban are completely back in charge and they reneged on everything they ever said they were going to do. Women are back to being third-class citizens

and they're letting the terrorists move back into their Piairet in downtown Kabul. What are you talking about? You know what's not running wild is the head of al-Qaeda, al-Zawahiri. Okay? So I think that matters. Well, there's always... Okay. Well, he was, and we got him. But they let him back in. The Taliban were not good partners,

not honest negotiating partners. So look, I'm all for... I think Biden did the right thing by pulling out of Afghanistan. You think that? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And it was a tough decision. Yeah. It was the right to... And did he stick the landing? No.

It's so disappointing why something that consequential couldn't have been done with more efficiency. It just makes me worry for... And 10 years ago. Yeah. What? Or 10 years ago. 10 years ago.

But the fact that he finally did it, they had time to plan it, and when they finally pulled it off, it's like they only thought of two days before. And it just, it makes me worry about everything in this country because this country just really can't do anything efficiently. And I thought the military was the last line of defense. All right. I've kept you long enough.

Thank you very much. You're rehired, ma'am. 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.