Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #622: Frances Haugen, Bari Weiss, Tim Ryan

Episode Date: January 28, 2023

Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 01/27/23) 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. Look, they're asking for an encore. All right. Here are our overtime questions. This is for you, Frances. Why did Congress fail to hold social media companies accountable for their role in the January 6th attack on the Capitol? It's interesting. So I, despite, I did a huge amount of testimony for the January 6th company.

I know you did. And I believe none of it was included in, like, the final write-up report. Like, it wasn't one of the attributable things. And I think part of it was that the January 6th Committee felt it needed to educate the public on a very broad set of issues. And that I think they had to pick and choose on, like, how many things are we really going to walk people down that road? Which was smart. Which was, I mean, that committee was smart. Yeah.

I mean, didn't do anything. Didn't do anything. I mean, I've seen interviews with Republicans, and nothing changes anybody's mind about anything. But I don't mean. You can't blame the committee. They put out a show. There was a good show, and that was as smart as it. I'm sorry, but they had a lot of fish to fry and that one.

But I want to be super clear. Facebook could have had on the safety measures that were available on the day of the election. They could have turned those on on a day sooner than after 6 p.m. on January 6th, because they had none of them on at 6 p.m. on January 6, and they had them all on by 24 hours later. And they all threw Trump off, right? right after January 6th. And this week he got back on. He's reformed.

It's a miracle. He's a completely different guy now. What happened? It's hysterical. Okay. Barry, given the attack on the synagogue in Jerusalem today, are we looking at a potential intifada in Israel? God, I hope not.

But, you know, was Hamas, I believe, already called it a heroic operation? and you don't make peace with your friends, obviously, but it's very hard to make peace when your enemy is not actually trying to fight for territory, but is trying to fight to eliminate you. The attack happened earlier today. As people were praying, it happened to be International Holocaust Remembrance Day,

the day that Auschwitz was liberated. And it turns out that some 80 years later, people still want to hunt Jews down. Yeah, not just there. Yeah. I mean, anti-Semitism has been on the rise all around the world. I mean, there are people leaving France because they don't feel comfortable in France. I mean, you know, places we didn't think this was possible.

Yeah, I think that people don't... I came on the show after the attack on my synagogue in Pittsburgh, and I think a lot of people, and there's no reason they would know this, don't realize that, you know, for me to walk into a synagogue, even here in L.A., there's armed guards. at Jewish Day schools, at synagogues, it's just at JCC's. It's just a normal part of life as an American Jew, and that's a very, very strange reality.

Okay. Should Alec Baldwin be facing involuntary manslaughter charges in the fatal shooting of the cinematographer on the set of his film last year? No. I mean, look, I mean, I don't know Alec Baldwin very well at all. He used to do this show. He stopped doing it years ago.

So, I'm just setting this up, like I have no personal... I'm not for him or against them. I like him as an actor. I don't really know him. But unless you think Alec Baldwin purposely shot this cinematographer, what the fuck are we talking about? You know, it's like...

Yeah. It's a horrible tragedy. And there may be someone to blame whoever it was job it was to have that gun there. But I don't think it's the actor's job. No, the only... Well, there's two additional things. One, I think he was a producer on the film.

It's not the producer's job either. the guns. I mean, you have to be able to delegate some things in life, no? Well, but the only thing that he said that he didn't pull the trigger and the gun can't go, I mean, I don't know enough about this case, but

he said he couldn't pull the trigger, but how does a gun go off without pulling the trigger? That is a... That's the one thing that I was like, that's a little odd, but... Right, he did say that, didn't it? Yeah. What... I don't know. I don't know. He's an actor. You know,

I can say this. I mean, I just guard them on a judge them on a... But are they going after him because he is a celebrity? Like, what is the... I just think we live in a culture where someone always has to take a blame. Nobody can ever just throw up their hands and go, oh, my God, this is a terrible tragedy. You know, Democrats always have to say,

this could never happen again, no matter how rare, something... We have to spend a zillion dollars, so this will never happen again. They want a boogeyman. And Republicans will be like, well, now they're going after your prop guns, you know. No one can ever just be reasonable about anything. All right. What do you make, panel, of the way different Democratic mayors and governors,

Lori Lightfoot, okay, that's the mayor of Chicago, Eric Adams, that's New York, Jared Polis, we had him here. He's the governor? Governor. Colorado, right. Have reacted to the immigration crisis.

Oh, I see where you're going with this. In their hometown. Yes, all those three. have said basically so funny because they either, you know, we're basically saying the thing that they're not supposed to say, which is that I know we're love immigrants and we're sanctuary cities. We're sanctuary city, but we can't take an immigrant. We're all full up right now.

Yeah, what do you think about that in the Democratic side there? Yeah, I mean, they're kind of caught in a political mess. You know, what did you say about the immigration issue when you were running in Ohio against J.D. Vance? I said that we need to know who's coming in and out of this country. I don't think that's an unreasonable request. Right. I think we have... And limited to a degree?

We have... Well, I mean, you know, we are America because we take people from around the world. That's part of our economic engine that we have. So we've got to have an adult conversation about it. But even Canada has restrictions. Yeah, no, you can't have people. People streaming over the border and not know who they are. Because if you don't think there are people who are terrorists or bad actors coming across,

I think there's a way to do it in a humanitarian way and then figure out who's coming in and out. Use the technology that we have now, which is enormous and we could figure it out. How do you keep the fentanyl out of the country? You have to try to figure out how to get that shit out of here because that's killing tons of people. And then if you're here, you know, pay a fine, pay back taxes, pass a background check, and welcome to the United States. It's amazing that, you know, so many issues that you talk about, if people were just not hateful toward each other and could do grand bargains like they used to. Yeah. It's not, you know, there's got to be something in between the rule rapists and come one, come all. Right. Yeah.

And there is. Which is why normal people are insane with what's going on in the country, because these are solvable problems, all of them. The obesity piece, the technology piece, the immigration. It's all solvable if you fucking talk to each other. Like, that has to be a part of it. Okay. A recent study found that less than half, 49.7% of students at Cambridge University

identify it as heterosexual. Love it. That's hysterical. Because I've seen the charge. We did a thing while we projected. And I think we said in 2054, we will all be gay. Because I guess of where it's going. And now apparently, Cambridge is saying, hold my apaltini.

We're going to get there way before 20. So this is the first study I've ever seen where... Or they're just really open-minded. You never know. Sorry. Well, the mind is one thing to have open. I mean, this is... There is something a little more...

I mean... The question says, is it no longer politically correct to say you're straight? I mean, could we have changed that much? We're now over half non-heterosexual? Someone asked me the other day

if I identified as queer, because I'm gay. And I was like, no, because everyone I know that identifies as queer is just straight and they're calling themselves that to sound better. Is that right? Straight people say they're queer? Of course. Are you kidding me? Do you know many people I know in heterosexual

relationships that self-identify as queer? It's a political statement. Okay, I thought queer meant gay. But if they're by, like, where does that fall on this continuum? I'm just confused. I'm confused too. Because like if you have, if you have I identify as confused. So like, we've known since the 60s.

when Kinsey came out with his first studies, the most many people identify as not purely straight or purely gay. People say like, oh, you have to the right person, who knows. So, like, is that what those Cambridge kids are doing? Like, more of them are saying, I'm by, I'm not, I refuse to be gay, or, like, I refuse

to identify. Also, I brought this up before ancient Rome. May I? They're all queer? Self-identify. Again, I don't know. They did not make the distinction we do between gay and straight. It was more like cute or not.

Yeah. You know, like, you know, Mark Anthony, very burning man, yeah. Had a wife. What? She said it's very burning man.

Is that what goes on in Burning Man? Everything goes on in Burning Man. I learned so much. 100% of the people that identify it. This show was like the learning addicts for me.

Okay, we gotta go. Thank you very much, everybody. 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.