Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #728: Gillian Tett & Bret Stephens

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 5/1/26 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGEMGEMP operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Welcome to an HBO podcast. from the HBO late-night series, Real Time with Bill Ma. All right, he's a Pulitzer Prize-winning opinion columnist for The New York Times, Brett Stevens. And she is the head of King's College, Cambridge.

My old job. And the Financial Times columnist Gillian said. Okay. All right. Brett, this is for you. How can Trump wrap up the Iran war and claim success? Oh, what a question. I think the blockade is a good idea.

I think if the Iranians don't come to terms. By the way, I think they'll be under a great deal of economic pressure very soon as their inability to fund themselves becomes more severe. I think he may have to stage operations to seize the

enriched uranium. It's difficult but doable. That was the purpose of this mission. Stopping Iran from getting a nuclear bomb is a very worthy objective. And if then that leads not now or even in six months, but in a year's time,

that pressure leads to the end of this terrible regime. The world will be much better off for it. So right now the war feels like stopping World War II in 1943. You can say, well, it's a failure, but we should continue because the objective of preventing this uniquely evil regime from getting these uniquely devastating weapons is a good objective from the United States.

But you don't want to go back to bombing the country, do you? I would, no, only for the sake of achieving the objectives that we need to achieve, which is... Well, that, of course. I didn't think we were going to do it for shits and giggles. No, but my point, let me just be clear. What Trump says about setting Iran back to the Stone Age, ending a civilization, is despicable.

Okay, that's despicable. All right, we want an Iran, which is the great nation that it is, to rejoin the community of civilized countries and to overthrow a regime, which is opposed by 90% of Iranians. We don't want to devastate the Iranian people. What we want to make sure is that these thugs who run the regime don't have access to weapons. And if that requires us going into places like Isfahan and other sites where we have to get this nuclear material, then to the extent that requires bombing, military action, that's worthwhile.

Good luck on that one. But I'd say, ironically, from the point of view of the markets, the great battle right now is between the TACO acronym, Trump always chickens out, which is one reason why the markets are surging. People think Trump wants an exit ramp. And the new acronym, which is Nacho, no chance of these Hormuz opens. That's for your N-A-C-H-O. No chance Hormose opens. Or not a chance Hormose opens.

And the reality is actually reopening the Strait of Hormuz is going to be incredibly hard. However you, even if you send in troops and try and take over the country or do you swap teams to try and get out of uranium. But in that case, then it's something that we have to do. I've spoken with military experts. They say it's a difficult thing, but that we can do it. And the principle... Do what?

Open the Straits of Hormuz if the Iranians won't yield to military and diplomatic pressure. Because the principle that Iran can control an international waterway is outrageous and dangerous. And by way, I would add, this is something where I know the Europeans have good reason to be extremely upset with Trump for the threats to Greenland and all the rest of it. But the Europeans also have an interest in contributing something. to making sure that this part of international law is respected. I know, like, for instance, the British and other NATO allies have anti-mine capabilities.

They should contribute to them. Yeah, the British have already volunteered to help with the mine sleeping. They're just going around the Cape of Good Hope. Yeah, the British have volunteered already to go in, well, those are the Iranians are going down south, but the British have volunteered already. But, of course, if Trump had actually, one, spoken to the Europeans before we went in

and maybe even ask their advice, two, not threatened to invade Greenland regularly, it might have helped a bit in terms of crying and get some coordination and collaboration. I agree. I couldn't agree more. And the big problem right now is, it's also, if the American SWAT teams do go in

and do this Rambo-S-type mission to get the uranium, what happens after that? Because one problem is, one tragedy about what's happening, is that by bombing Iran in this way, they've actually consolidated support for the regime, and they've killed off many of the leaders who were more moderate. Wait, they could actually

spoken to you. Hang on a second. The leaders who were more moderate just murdered 30,000 Iranians. Like, oh, you know, we could go back to the good old days when they killed 30,000 people in the street. Look, I don't know what's going to happen.

What I know is that in June of last year, before we hit their sights, the United States did, Iran's nuclear program was weeks away from acquiring a nuclear capability. We had, the world had the equivalent of stage four cancer. Maybe now it has stage one or stage two.

cancer. I don't know what comes next, but I think that's better. I think it is better at a minimum to buy time against an adversary like that. And if the result is you create a space where the Iranian people do have an opportunity to rise up, hopefully this time, assisted by their friends overseas, let's try to create that space. There's no guarantee because we're not going to invade Iran and do it for them, but let's at least try to make sure that we don't get to the point when this regime can get so close to a nuclear nuclear. But it'd be nice if, I agree with that, it'd be nice I think President Trump sometimes spoke more about the Iranian people rather than just the oil. Oh, I regret President Trump, but at least he was willing to do something.

And I have to give him credit for that. I just can't oppose him because he's a schmuck. I agree. I agree. Sometimes schmucks help you out. But then you have to start actually talking about the Iranian people who have suffered so badly under this current regime and pay more attention to them and try and support the opposition group that are trying to push for change. All right.

Let's do another question. All right. How should policy measures for you respond to reports, how should policymakers respond to reports that AI can help generate instructions for biological weapons? Yes, all the things we're talking about this week, this is probably the one that's going to be affecting our lives the most. AI can help generate instructions for biological weapons.

That is true. COVID was bad, and the lab there and blah, blah, blah. This is just doom-state stuff. Yep, that is absolutely true. It is doomsay stuff. It's been true for a while. It's terrifying. You can't put the genie back in the bottle right now.

Unfortunately, you can't just switch off all the AI in the world. I suspect the only way to fight the risks of AI is to use more AI to try and monitor what's going on. Really? Yeah. Do you have an answer? No, I think you're right. Unfortunately, it's too late.

I mean, if I could wave a magic wand and actually end AI, I might actually do it, so that 17-year-olds won't have their papers written for them by a machine, and they could learn to think by learning to write. Well, the answer to doing that is basically going to do handwritten essays. Yes. Or to have one-on-one supervisions, again, not to talk about Cambridge, but that's what we do there. We actually have hand-written papers and exams.

Blue books can save human civilization. Exactly. Okay. You can say analog is a new luxury good. Yes, it is. So your country is banning cigarettes after 2000. from anyone who was born after 2009? Under 18, yes.

Right, well, I guess that's what it is. If you were born after 2009, do the math, yeah. You'll be illegal to buy cigarettes. Why? I mean, don't people get to make their own mistakes? Don't we get to do what we want to do? I mean, you're an adult and you can't have a cigarette if you want. I mean, every time I think this country is too woke,

I look at what's going on in your country, and I'm like, wow. These people are really fucked up. Does that make you feel better? It does not make me feel better, but it puts some perspective in this situation. Okay, personally, I don't agree with a complete ban. I do agree in not selling cigarettes to under 18s,

but I don't agree personally. But how did England get so leftist? I mean, I've read that the United Arab Emirates will not send their students to the UK because they're afraid they're going to be radicalized. I think that might be some of the fake news that you're concerned about. No, no, no. There are plenty of UA students, students from the Gulf.

Well, maybe now. But this is something they did recently. They said they're going to end scholarships to the UK. And where did you read that? Because, I mean, again, there's been an awful lot of stuff on social media. A lot of the fearmongering about the UK right now is whipped up. This idea is somehow London is a no-go zone. It's full of, you know, people walking around the Sharia law and all that on every street.

A lot of it's whipped up. Well, but hang on. Two Jews did get stabbed this week. Just, you know, somebody went just Jew hunting. They did, and that is horrific and tragic and appurrent. Okay. The UK is not the only place where we've had attacks on Jews at all. And all of that is appurant.

All right. It's not, from everything I hear, Jews in the UK feel less safe than they have since the days before Cromwell. It is, and I think that the British government needs to sort of, understand just how serious this is a threat, not just to the Jewish community, but to British democracy itself, because attacks against Jews are always the indication that there's something deeply rotten in the value system of the country where this is springing. And I understand that there's the particular problem of attacks from, you know, radicalized young people against Jews, but they are swimming in a larger current where Palestine action,

goes and swings a hammer at a policeman, and the person who swung the hammer gets acquitted by a jury. I mean, I was just in London in April, obviously, you were there, but I was flabbergasted by the extent to which the city seems to have mobilized on behalf of a particular cause. So, again, it's a little bit like our earlier discussion. You know, when you have a huge mass of people who think that Israel is a demonic state. It's not, and that's okay. It's at some point going to translate into people who think it's okay to target individual Jews. It's okay to send a car bomb into a Manchester synagogue because

they're mad about what's happening in the Middle East. I agree with you. Antisemitism is a apparent. However, that is abhorrent. However, Australia had a massive anti-Semitic attack in Bondi Beach. America has also had a lot of anti-Semitic attacks to sort of single out the UK because two people were stabbed at least not shot but stabbed I think it's under the fact that's happened in the UK

Exactly but there's been a lot of anti-Semitism right across the Western world including in America Final question What's the impact of Spirit Airlines Shutting Shutting that Do you think Trump will end up bailing them out?

He said we're just going to buy it It seems to be his answer for a lot of things We're just going to buy it. Yeah, the irony is you've got a supposedly right-wing government that's turning more nationalist in terms of their attitude with the economy in the left-wing. And the idea that, you know, the White House was criticizing Mamdani in New York for daring to think about creating some state-owned grocery stores and then rushed out and basically are investing in all these mineral and that resources groups

and talking about buying spirit airlines. I mean, that is not capitalism as most people know it. Well, I have a plan for it. He can buy it. He can call it Trump Airlines. It can go bankrupt like the first. Trump Airlines, and it'll be a metaphor for his entire career. We'll leave it there. Thank you very much.

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