Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #723 Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Paul Begala

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 3/20/26) 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 Ma. All right, he is a CNN contributor in Democratic Party. Siragist Paul Begawa, and she's a Republican Congresswoman for Florida, her advocate, Anna Polina Luna. All right. First question is for you. Do you think we are headed, Congresswoman, for a full disclosure and transparency about UAPs, which we used to call UFOs?

I do. I mean, I think it was just a... didn't they start a website for releasing this information from my understanding they're gonna put it on the National Archives but if they've booked the website so I actually head up the disclosure task force in Congress on declassification of federal secrets and what I will tell you is that's why you know so much stuff I'm a nerd and all seriousness there's some things that we can't explain and there is a problem with over classification but also when you

have duly elected members of Congress being denied access That's a problem because we're supposed to be the, you know, check and balance on some of these agencies. And so you'll see some interesting stuff. The federal government will never come out and tell you what to believe this. I think they're here. Well, there's definitely stuff that we can't explain. I'm not shy about it. I'm still searching for intelligent life on Earth, so I'll be very...

I'm not into that. Well, you may not be into that, but they're into you. Okay. I mean, whether you want and believe it or... not. Why do they always put the probes there? If they're that sophisticated, can't they just like scan this? But you know, but see, there's, okay,

but if you want to be serious about it, there was a error where we heard a lot about probing. That ended. Because, I mean, we never heard about any of it before we got nuclear weapons. Right after the nuclear bomb went off in 1945, suddenly the aliens were like, maybe we ought to pay

attention to these people. Well, there were reports of sightings and whatnot dating back into even, you know, for many, many, many, many centuries. If you're talking about some of the stuff like we see in hieroglyphics and drawings, it could be, yes, it could be like they built the pyramid. That's true. Well, I think that there's a lot of theories,

but based on what we're seeing evidence-wise, there is one specific agency where multiple members of Congress, to include myself, received a briefing from, all of that information will be declassified, and the stuff that we saw in that briefing we can't explain. But, I mean, I think I'd get back to the anal probing. On topic. It seems like there was a time where they needed to do that to find out about it.

I mean, like so many people have almost the exact same recollection. Now, maybe it's some psychological phenomenon that we don't realize, but people independently seem to have this kind of vague memory, and they lost a little track of time. Maybe it was the GHB. I don't know. But it seemed like the aliens were trying to find out, what makes these people tick?

Who are these humans? And then I think they got that information. And in the last 10, 20 years, it's not been that. What it's been has been very, very serious people. I'm talking about military people who are constantly saying, we see things we cannot explain. Either China has a weapon we don't know about, which is unlikely, or it's just something you're going to have to tell me what it is.

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responsible. The conditions apply. SAPPoing. What we've seen in the briefings and I actually asked this question to Secretary Clinton as she was actually

going to had she won her election, be in charge of disclosure and actually releasing some of this information. And she thinks that the American people, I think this is one of the most bipartisan things in Congress currently and by caramel in the Senate as well. But we should be able to release the information that we have specifically pertaining to this

and let the American people decide what it is. Look, some of it is balloons, some of it is drones. And then there's a portion of it that we can't explain where you have credible people from all walks of life confirming it. And I will tell you based on the evidence that we have seen, there are something there. And credible people, not just in the military, but in government,

including Democrats. I was struck by what President Obama said, and I agree with it. The vastness of the universe is such that the arithmetic makes it pretty likely. Right. And the vastness of the university is such, the universe is such. It's pretty unlikely that we're going to cross paths. And I think that's also true. I mean, it just seems to, I'm a skeptic, but I like what you're doing, Congresswoman. Put it all out. Let people decide. I'm a skeptic. Maybe you can do Well, I think this gets into deeper, if you have time, listen to the Joe Rogan podcast they did, but this gets into a deeper discussion on where you are at spiritually. And I think there's just a lot that we have and can't explain.

But look, my biggest concern and why I got involved is because I had the Department of Defense at the time tell me that we were not allowed access and I have the highest clearance possible. So if you have a duly member and elected member of government, not just myself, but other members being denied access, you have this aspect of then who's really in control. If we're writing the checks, if you have the Pentagon failing audits, being denying access, this is a problem. And so there is this aspect of government transparency

going back to how do we actually fix this country and you have to start with transparency. Okay. What do you make of the... This is for you, Paul. What do you make of the recent polling that suggests California may be choosing between two Republican candidates for governor?

I love that. I'm sure you do. We have jungle primaries out here, right? I mean, I think that means you can have as many candidates. And the top two, it doesn't have to be from different parties. It's the top two, no matter what party. And the top two polling now are both Republicans. That says...

Join me. Come on. It just means the Democrats got to get their act together. I don't live in a state that does this, but I kind of like the idea of these jungle primaries. The idea is, I think, to produce more moderate nominees. Totally, yes. Seems like a good idea. If it produces two Republicans, that's what it produces.

Democrats got to get their act together and hone in on one or two of their strongest instead of having 20. Let me ask a follow-up question. What does that information tell you about Gavin Newsom's chance to get the nomination? Because obviously he's running for president and Judge Shapiro was running for president. And, I mean, Josh Shapiro, he was here last week. He has a really good story to tell about his state. Now, I like Gavin a lot, but that's a lot harder story to tell. Oh, I think my party has more talent than I've ever seen.

This is part of the tragedy of Joe Biden running, is that he had the best bench behind him that I've ever seen. And Gavin is part of it, and Shapiro's part of it, West Moore, Andy Bashir. Now I'm naming people. My buddy, Rahm, has been on your show. He's seriously thinking about it. He's winning the ideas primary. You have a favorite among those?

Well, Rahm is one of my closest friends. Okay, so if he runs up for him, period. I mean, he and I were like brothers. But in terms of talent, we don't know until they're on the track. Let's put them on the track and a little, but I want, unlike in 2024, I want a primary and I want it to be vicious. I want fighting. So you want MAGA? So you want MAGA?

But I think, I certainly don't want MAGA. But when Hillary ran against Barack, I was part of that group. I was for Hillary, but I was like, oh, this is terrible. It wasn't. It wasn't. The toughest primary ever saw my life was Hillary versus Barack, and it made Barack tougher and stronger and smarter. It made Hillary's Secretary of State. Part of United.

So I'm now for tough primary. How about it? My Uncle George always says this. Uncle George's law is about these kind of family fights. He's like, you know why God gave his family? So we wouldn't have to fight with strangers. Okay. I heard Gavin used this phrase culturally normal.

Did you see that? I know. He was asked about, I guess, how the Democrats can win. And I think that phrase is going to bubble up. He said they have to learn to be more culturally normal. How do you think that? Put some meat on those. What does that mean?

We used to be the party in the factory floor, and now we're the part of the faculty lounge. And I say this, I'm a faculty member at UVA. But this elitism, this intellectual elitism on my side is so off-puting. And the sanctimony, the judgmentalism, I saw Andy Bashir recently. He told me that someone talked to him about, and the phrase was, justice-involved populations. Do you have any idea what they did? Prisoners. I grew up in a prison town. We did not call him justice. What we call them?

Crooks, prisoners, convicts, inmates. I think Gavin made a big mistake with his reading comments. And I just think that, you know, I actually know Nick Emanagh, she's now, as you know, very Republican. But I think that she pointed out, you know, this aspect of politicians make these comments and they're not themselves. What are you referring to? Tell them what you're referring to? He was talking to the mayor of Atlanta. Yeah, I don't want to misquote him. but basically the implication was he wasn't, you know, good at reading.

He was trying to say, I'm one of you. Yeah. So he basically said, you know, I'm dyslexic. I don't read very good like you guys. Yeah. And it just came, it just was. But it's insulting, right? It's like the, it's like.

It's insulting. And it's also a function of when you're on a book tour running for president, you do a million events a day. Your brain is fried at 8 o'clock at night. And you're trying to, like, not step on a landline. And you do. And I think we all have to show. some grace when people do that.

I understand. No one thinks he's really a racist. I will say this, though. There have been a number of occasions. I actually reached out to him directly on helping out with the Torrey Lane's case. As you know, Torrey Lanes is convicted for allegedly shooting Megan the Stallion, right?

Allegedly. But there's a lot to that with evidence. Really? Yeah, there is. And his office actually was contacted about potentially pardoning. And what I will say is that you know, I think that there's a lot of people that had reached out to him, but he's not the only one. There's another case specifically that's pretty high profile.

And I just, you know, that'll come up if you runs. This rose on your list of, like, important issues. You would be surprised for the multitasking. You've got to get into the Megan Estallion case. There's, well, we had someone reach out, and this was kind of following the whole issue of, you know, gun law, chain of custody, improper prison and prison reform. And so, yeah, it's like kind of one of our things I doubt.

Justice involved populations, Congresswoman, gets your own. reform, right? It's like... They're not prisons anymore. FCC chairman, Brendan Carr issued a new warning, threatening broadcasters that are running

hoaxes and news distortions. Does the administration have legitimate gripes, or are they just unhappy with negative coverage? Yes, the chairman of the FCC is threatening people. Threatening...

I mean, God, the hypocrisy on both sides, but really, I mean, this is the country of everything's terrible unless our side does it. Well, look... When Biden was president, it was terrible infringement on free speech. And now this guy's the head of the FCC, basically saying,

we're going to take your license if we don't like the joke you do? Well, I think joking's a big difference than running foreign propaganda. And I think this gets into a bigger... Who's running for him? Well, getting into a bigger kind of discussion here. What we're finding specifically with, you know, our amazing country and having our first amendment, is that countries use it against us,

and there have been instances. And I think that this ties into kind of the conversation of influencer disclosures on who they're taking money from, whether or not people are advocating on behalf of a foreign government. And so tying to that, I had read loosely into this, and what I will say is that, you know, if you have someone that's knowingly engaging in pushing propaganda for a foreign country

and you actually can catch them, you know, that's a little bit different case. If you have people that are knowingly making false statements, you know, drive-by-character assassination, different than joking. Okay, but that's not what this is about. They're threatening people. They're threatening networks.

The whole point of the First Amendment is to protect us from the government. Yeah. Okay. Corporations, CNN could fire me tomorrow. They have a perfect right to. Okay, fine. That's not censorship. That's just, I did a bad job, they fired me.

But the government weighing in saying, you have to fire Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Bill Mar. That's bullshit. That's fashion. It's a big difference. I think there's a line, though. I think there's a line, like certain networks. You can't say certain things on television, right, or else you're civilly liable.

And I think that this kind of ties into, look, admittedly, I have to look into it more. But what I will say is that I think the FCC, if people have licensing, I'll get into this real quick before we move on. When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, I actually contacted the FCC and I asked them to take down the videos

that were being reposted of him because there were other outlets that were posting it very quickly and they were refusing a takedown and the family wanted those videos. down. And they contacted the different social media platforms

and they basically said, like, your terms and conditions say that you have to adhere to certain guidelines. And if you guys are not going to do that, like we have to reevaluate. And it did admittedly force these people to take down that assassination. And anybody who made fun of that was repulsive. Yes. And yet,

in a free country with free speech, bad taste cannot be outlawed. I mean, after he was assassinated, we've He basically had blasphemy laws here for a couple of months. I don't know if it's still going on. But you just could not say anything about Charlie Kirk. And, you know, to be...

People said certain things, but I think there's a big difference between things and actually glorifying his assassination and wearing shirts with blood on it, calling and saying that he was rightfully executed. Horrible. Just like when Donald Trump Jr. mocked Paul Pelosi when he was fighting for his life. Yeah, exactly.

It's like... That was... Pauling. Everybody criticized... Who said those things? Everything's terrible until our side doesn't. And then it's perfectly okay. I'm not making excuses, but what I will say is there is an aspect of our own First Amendment currently

that's actually being exploited by places like China that's inundating with propaganda. And there are people, there are very wealthy people that are currently being investigated without saying too much, that have been caught tied to terrorist networks and other countries like China pushing propaganda in an effort to break our country apart. is a fact. I will come back and explain and I can do an entire segment on China. No, no, no, no. You're all good. You're good at this. You're good at your job. It's not just a job. I believe in this. No, I go. No, you do. Oh, I. Final. Final question for you. Who better represents the future of MAGA, J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio? Oh, that's a dirty question. That is a dirty question.

You can't answer? So I just, well, I don't know if it's true, so I don't want to speculate. I think them as a ticket would be a winning ticket. But who's on top? Well, I think they'll have to battle it out. But I think that Secretary Rubio has done a phenomenal job in foreign policy. He really has. He was the only cabinet appointee that was actually unanimously voted it to the position.

And he also has, I think, one of the higher-reported. ratings currently. Okay. And so he's done great. But JD is also someone that I campaigned with actually in California during the presidential primary and someone that I think has the ability to connect with people on a level. You know his story, Hillbilly, L.EG. He's the type of person that did come from a normal upbringing. We need more of that in Washington, D.C. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. 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.