Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #739: Dana Bash, Jeremy Peters

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 8/21/26) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca. Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late-night series, Real Time with Bill Maugh. All right, here we are on overtime with an author and national correspondent for the York Times, Jeremy Peters.

And she's an anchor and chief political correspondent for CNN, Donabash. Okay. You both have books with numbers in the title, right? 15 elections, eight people. Okay. Let's start with you first. Okay. How did you pick, this is for you?

Okay. How did you pick which elections to include in your book about political elections, moments in history that changed the world. And I noticed you left off 2016. We stopped at Nelson Mandela in the 90s. We decided that... Goes back to Caesar. Goes back to Caesar.

This is the whole range of history. The whole, yeah, world human history. And we decided that we wanted to do elections that were a little bit more in history since it's about history. Right. Because we don't have enough time in between there to judge how it's going to come out. I kind of have an idea, but we decided to give it an exit. Yes and no.

I mean, I've said this before, and people get mad at me on the left for saying it, but I was more alarmed 10 years ago. We were talking about it tonight. I just, first of all, it was 10 years ago. I mean, I was, you know, a slow-moving coup, not that he hasn't tried. But here we are 10 years later. We still have a republic, and they're still trying to do some shit. But, again, I just think he has less power.

than he ever did as president, obviously when not when he was out of office. Yeah, I mean, he's taken a lot of power. He's got a lot of power. And the Supreme Court has given him a lot of power. And the Supreme Court is on his side, and that Congress is... Not always. They stopped his... I mean, they certainly gave a lot. Birth rate citizenship, they stopped, but they've given him incredible immunity powers. Yes, that's the key. Yeah, that is the key. But good point about the tariffs, they have not given him a blank check. No. But to answer your question, we decided to pick...

elections for good and bad that had major consequential changes in society. For example, Julius Caesar, obviously. We talked about not just elections for individuals in elected office, but the Mayflower Compact, for example, which really set up a democratic institution for the people who are coming to this new land at the beginning. And then, as I said, we go all the way at Mandela, but we talk also about Martin Luther King and about global elections that Adolf Hitler. He wasn't directly elected, but an election in Germany, well, an election in Germany in the Nazi party.

He was elected chancellor. Yes, in Nazi party. And then he was made, exactly, made in a parliamentary system precisely. So that was obviously an example of an election that had enormous consequences. not good ones. I mean, at our constitutional convention, when they created the office of the presidency, that was completely unprecedented. Unprecedented.

There had never been, I mean, there had been courts before, for sure, throughout history, and there had been legislatures. What there hadn't been is an executive who wasn't a king. Yeah. And they called him his excellency at the beginning. Yeah. They didn't know what else to call him. And he said, came up with the term president.

No, at every turn, he did the right thing, Washington. I mean, they wanted to make. Hamilton wanted a much stronger presidency than we even have now. And one of the elections that we chose was the election after, because Washington was so unique, the very tough election between Jefferson and Adams. And that could have gone a whole different way, but it ended up working out just by the skin of their teeth

that they were able to sustain this democracy after Washington. Okay. And what about the eight people you talk about? Well, I mean, my idea for my book was that, you know, when you're looking at the chart on the wall or the placemat that they give you when you're a kid of all the U.S. presidents, and you see, you know, George Bush, Barack Obama. Who? Like, explain that. How, when we look back 25 years from now, will we explain Donald Trump's election and his stranglehold on the Republican Party, which didn't just happen overnight? This was decades in the making, and, you know, you could trace it back to, you know, someone you talk about a lot, which was, I think, Trump's template initially, and that's Pat Buchanan.

Pat Buchanan understood the anger and, you know, the raw emotions over immigration. Pitchfork Pitchfork, Pat. Who also, by the way, wanted an electric fence built along the border. Talked about building that, you know, well before Trump was, I think Trump was still a Democrat when this was going on. And, you know, I think that the story of Trump as taking over the Republican Party, it needs to be seen not just as a takeover, but as a real abdication by the Republican Party and its leadership, because they weren't in tune with what their voters really cared about. Guess what? They don't care about corporate tax rates. And the Democrats made it a lot easier for them by harping on cultural issues where the country thought they had lost their minds. That's right.

I feel like the elections we're having these days are still that. We're having, it's like a couple that's having an argument, and they're not having the same argument. The Democrats are arguing economic issues, and the Republicans are arguing cultural issues. The Democrats are saying, these guys are crooks, and inflation is still high, we can do better, and we can give you health care,

and the other people are saying, yeah, but they want to get rid of Thanksgiving. We like Thanksgiving. Yeah. And they can't define a woman, you know, and they think, you know, the WNBA should be full of men. And, you know, they're just crazy stuff. And so they kind of opened the door for that. And let's also not forget, he didn't win.

He just won under our system. Hillary won by quite a few more votes. He did the second time. The popular. Yeah. We have a kind of a weird. I mean, that was a system that not the founding father's finest moment. Oh, and by the way, how we got the electoral college.

It's true, but that's one of the compromises that they made in order to get the Constitution going. There were a lot of them, including, I don't know, leaving slavery in place. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Okay. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk.

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Sleep. You have a big exam tomorrow. Shop back to school at IKEA. Do you think Kamala Harris will run for president? Is there a reason to think that she might fare better this go-round? Oh, gosh. I mean, so one thing, one of the things is the most important historical piece of information you need to have when looking at Kamala Harris. chances is remember what her 2019 presidential campaign was like. And I say 2019 because she didn't

even make it into the calendar year 2020 when there were actually primary. She had to drop out before a single election because her campaign, you know, by the accounts of people who served and it was mismanaged and out of money. She never caught fire with the base of the Democratic Party in a way that, you know, I think she and a lot of her supporters, She would as somebody who's a real glass ceiling shatterer. That seemed to not matter as much to voters, especially after you had Obama and then you have Hillary. And so, I mean, I don't want to take away anything away from Kamala Harris's achievements, but the historical nature of her candidacy just didn't seem to mean much.

Debbie Watson & Schultz just won a race in a black district in Florida. and she lost her district when they gerrymandered out of existence. They eliminated it, yeah. Right. So then she ran in a district which is majority black, I think. Okay, and a lot of the people there said, the people on the left said, you shouldn't even run. Right. This has to be a black person running in the district.

And somebody ran against her, I think, who was black. Yeah, there were a lot of them. Yeah, and she won. Yeah, and she won. Easily. I just think that sometimes we, you know, again, it's the white people who, who, just make too big of a bigger thing about race than exists. You know, I always say you can't be more offended than the victim, and they like to be.

In this case, it was also the black representatives who were concerned about the whole, one of the reasons that Florida made the districts the way that they did was, and also just the Supreme Court decision about Louisiana, was to, from the perspective of the black representative, was to diminish black representation. So it is often the white people. In this case, it was both. But the black voters in that district decided that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

would represent them the best. As they so often have in race after race after race where they have rejected the socialist-leaning progressive candidates, I mean, let's not forget, the reason Joe Biden became the nominee in 2020 is because black voters in South Carolina put him over the top, catapulting him past candidates

that were much, much farther to the left and younger. They're more practical. Yeah. It's so funny, the white people who are always obsessed about privilege, they indulge in the privilege

of being impractical. Can I put that in a bumper sticker or is it too long? You absolutely can. And the black voters don't have that privilege. No, absolutely not. Dana, you interviewed Steve Hilton this morning.

I did. Do you think he could win? No. You? I mean, you're a voter here. And it's just Matt. The math doesn't math. It's not because people are not fed up with Democrats here.

They are. Which they are. Doesn't matter. They will vote for failure over a Republican. The Republican votes aren't there. But what a change that was from 20 years ago when you were electing, maybe more than 20 years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger. So, I mean, the Republican brand back then is much different than it.

It wasn't magified. That's Trump. As long as Trump is the guy with the R by his. his name, this state will never. Once he's gone, I think you'll see a difference because we do recognize failure and we do have a lot of it and we're fed up. We pay a lot of money and we don't feel we get our money's worth.

What does the panel think of the backlash against flock surveillance cameras? Why is that funny? Are people right to be concerned about their privacy? Well, you know what flock cameras? I guess everybody does. They're everywhere, right? and they record everything.

They record every car that passes the license plate. There's obviously been some things that no one could defend, like cops using them to track their old girlfriends or new girlfriends or ex-wives. Or work girlfriends. Or work girlfriends. That's not what I mean by workplace. But they also have stopped a lot of crime. So where do you land on this?

I mean, cops make a lot of mistakes. And so do prosecutors, right? And the story I read about this is talking about a woman, I think, in Atlanta, the cops came to her house and they were like, you rob packages from this doorstep. And she said, no, I didn't. They said, yes, your car is right here. We have it on tape.

She had to prove to them only because she had dash cam footage herself of her vehicle that she didn't do it. But I mean, I don't have a dash cam. I also don't have a car, but I live in New York. But, I mean, let's not. forget about the abuse of law enforcement's power that's capable here. I have a totally different perspective in that I learned to drive in New Jersey, Paskett Hill High School.

You? You went to Pascat Hill? Yeah. I don't remember you. What year? Oh, 89. What? Eighty-nine.

Yeah, no, I got a little bit gone by it. But I learned to drive. Yeah. Maybe we had some of the same teachers, though. I'm sure, I bet we did. Mr. Marston? Mr. Williams? Yes.

Wow. Mr. Lewinter? Oh, yes. I definitely had Mr. Lewinter. Little Missouinter. Wow. Yeah. Mr. Mamunis?

No. No. Mr. Mamunis was gone. But, so I have a little bit of a lead foot when I drive, and I get so creamed by those cameras. Speed cameras? I mean, it's not good. I don't think it's fair. I really, I give so much money to the District of Columbia.

Really? In Maryland. It's terrible. I just need to slow down, I know, but I don't even think I'm going that fast. You were such a wild one kind of bet. All right. Thank you very much, everybody. You're a delightful audience on a delightful panel.

Thank you. 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. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar-raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research.

Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world. free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca.