Ep. #687: David Sedaris, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Sen. Jon Tester
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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night series, Real Time with Bill Maher. Thank you. Thank you, people. How are you? All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Welcome to Real Time. Okay. Sit down. Thank you. There's so much to get to.

Let me just start with this. Sometimes, you know, you got to hit rock bottom. And it took us six weeks here in America. I mean, even the Republicans now are alarmed what Trump is doing. I mean, they're telling their own people, don't go to the town halls because other Republicans are screaming at you too much. Really, they're turning on Amy Coney Barrett.

They're turning on her. She's a bad one now. And Musk had a shouting match with the other people in the cabinet. The stock market does not... They do not like this kind of instability. This... Tariffs. One day, Trump puts the tariffs on. The next day, he takes it off. The next day, he does it with Mexico and Canada. It's on. It's off. It's on. And then he pulls it back at the last second, like he's delaying orgasm or something. They don't like this.

Canada's very pissed. Canadians here, oh my gosh, because they're so pissed that even though we took the tariffs off temporarily, they're keeping theirs on. And then Trump came back and said, okay, there's now a 250% tariff on Canadian dairy products, which, to be fair, Canadian cows have been taking the jobs of American cows for a very long time.

And it's got to stop, ladies and gentlemen. And then, oh, this story, a story that I feel is a tremendous threat to comedians because you could never have a punchline stupider or funnier than the actual premise. In an attempt to censor some DEI stuff, the Defense Department is deleting all the photos from a database, 26,000 of them, and one of them was of the Enola Gaye,

That is the plane that... I'm telling you, the premise is... That's the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and ended World War II, but they're getting rid of it because it has gay in it. I... When did they find out that every plane has a cockpit? But... I mean...

This world is so upside down now. It took Trump like three weeks to break up with Ukraine and Mexico and Canada, and yet Taylor Swift is the same boyfriend for over a year. She can take it. I know. And then in the midst of all this shit that's going on, Trump makes a speech about how great things are.

Did anybody see this speech on Tuesday night? Oh, my gosh. The Republican side, you know, it was a joint session of Congress, like the State of the Union speech. They loved it. They were cheering and stomping and applauding. Lindsey Graham threw his panties. It was very, very exciting for them. And...

The Internet was all abuzz because at the speech, Elon Musk was there, and he was sitting next to an attractive blonde woman. But it turns out that they were just seated together, never met her, there's no connection, and her due date is in December. Oh, I kid, Elon. No, I think he did try to pick her up. Because he used his standard pickup line. Haven't I fired you somewhere before? Um...

But I thought the highlight of the whole night was when Trump saw John Roberts in the audience, shook his hand. Now, John Roberts, of course, the head of the Supreme Court, is the one who gave him complete immunity last year. Whatever a president does, you can get away with it. It's not illegal. And Trump said to John Roberts, thank you again. I won't forget it. I guess not just actresses are rewarded for playing prostitutes these days. LAUGHTER APPLAUSE

And then, at the speech, there was a lot of rowdy shit that went on. Democratic congressman Al Green, not the tired-of-being-alone guy, a different Al Green, he's 77, he uses a cane, and he was shaking his cane at the president, which I thought was an apt metaphor, a cane shaking for this Democratic Party. Lame.

That's okay. All right. Please. I don't need your pity. I'd appreciate it. I just don't doubt it. But, you know, it's interesting. The Democrats are fighting back in a way. You know how Republicans are always threatening a government shutdown? Well, now the Democrats are going to do that. Yeah. They said they're tiring of all this firing and all this furloughing and all this closing of government departments. And they say, if you don't stop shutting down the government, we're going to shut down the government. That's where America is.

And then the White House, amid all of this, had the first crypto summit. And we're going to have a crypto reserve. Now, some question the associating, the wisdom of associating with a brand that's all just about scandals and thefts and...

but if crypto is willing to work with Trump, I say go for it. All right, we've got a great show. Alyssa Tyler Griffin and Jon Tester are here. But first up, here's the best-selling author and humorist who starts his tour on March 30th across the U.S. in 40 cities. Fuck. Including... I couldn't do that. Boston, Detroit, Nashville, and his latest essay collection, Happy-Go-Lucky, is now in paperback. David Sedaris! Oh, fuck.

David. What is it? Wait. What happened? What? Oh. Okay, so you... I look good the last time I came on here? You do. And you've outdone yourself, and I know... I know this comes because you are a world traveler. You and I are very different in that way. I'm a homebody. You just seem to like to be on the road. You're about to do 40 cities. That's insane to me. But this probably doesn't come from somewhere in America...

No, it all came from Japan. This is what they wear in Japan? No. But they make it there. But I just realized I'd never worn these shoes before, but I could look up women's skirts, but I don't want to. Can I have them? But you go on tour a lot. I just stopped.

You stopped? Yeah, it was in all the papers. Yeah, you know, I mean, I may go back to it. I don't know. I didn't make a big announcement about it, but I've had 42 years of dragging my ass out of bed on Saturday morning, and I just was fucking fed up with it. I liked your comedy special on HBO. I loved it. Thank you. I loved doing it, but you know what?

We'll see. But what is this part of it? I'm very... This is actually like a T-shirt that I wore under the shirt. A T-shirt? See, anyone can buy it. Not everyone can put it together. So I put the T-shirt under the shirt. Wow. You know what? When I look in the mirror, I just see the clothes. I don't see me. You know...

I think everyone has body dysmorphia to some extent, you know. So maybe that's mine. But if you read, there's a kind of body dysmorphia where you look in the mirror and you think, I should be an amputee. And it's an actual thing. And people go to South America and they have their limbs removed because they won't do it in America. But why do they think that? There was an article about it in The Atlantic, and it was a woman who had both her arms removed. But why?

Ever since she was a child, she looked in the mirror and thought, I should not have arms. I mean, that's the unusual side of it. I mean, I have heard a lot about bodies. What we used to hear was that men look in the mirror and they think they're better looking than they are. Wait a second.

Wait a second. And women look in the mirror and think they're versed. I don't know. I've never known a woman who could pass a mirror without stopping and looking, and I never do that. You don't ever do it? No. I mean, why would I? I'm on seven. I don't do it too often. I mean, if I'm getting dressed, I do it. But other than that, I don't. Yeah, right. But women do. Okay. But you're like old school gay. I mean...

Yeah, you are. I mean, I know a lot of people like that. Andrew Sullivan's the same way. And has issues with, like, this new... I mean, there's gay and queer, and it's kind of a different... What is it? How would you say that... What is the difference there? To me, I don't like the word queer. I don't... But well-meaning people will now say, well, as a queer author, and I just cringe. Not because it used to be an insult, but because it's the fourth time in my life I've been rebranded. Right.

And nobody asked me. Nobody ever said, how do you feel about this? And I just don't. And that's what I object to. Also, I think it's kind of like maybe, like I was in Australia recently and met somebody who knows a nun who identifies as queer because she's married to God. And it's not a traditional sexual thing.

No. Relationship. So she identifies with... And I just don't see what I have in common with my mom. No, as a... Well, the outfit. Yeah. But, you know... But, no...

It's a generational thing, because I ask people when I'm signing books, when I meet men my age and older, they feel the way that I do. Well, that's what I was taught as a young Catholic boy. I mean, I was taught with catechism, we went where you learned how to be a Catholic, and we were taught by nuns, and they were mean, and we were told, you know, nuns are married to Christ, who apparently was not putting out, because... No, because that is a type of mean you don't find anywhere else. But...

But speaking of gay and Catholics, you met the Pope last year. I read that the New Yorker piece was priceless. I mean, so funny. But I think you all were saying in the piece, and I'd like you to answer the question here, why you? Like it was a meeting of comics mostly, and you're one of the funniest people I know, but you're not Catholic. No. I have no idea why I was there. And I was minding my own business.

And it was May, and I got an email that said, the day after tomorrow, do you want to meet the Pope? So, and I was in England, so it was pretty easy to go. And I thought, why would I not go? It's a chance of a lifetime.

But so I went and I came back and I said, I met Chris Rock. I mean, I met the Pope and I shook his hand, but I didn't feel it. It didn't mean anything to me. But Chris Rock was there and Whoopi Goldberg was there. Right. Gosh, all these super funny people. And then we went to the Vatican, 6.45 in the morning, and the priest read a speech there.

I mean, the Pope read a speech, and it wasn't very good. I mean, it basically said, laughter makes the world go round. I thought he wanted to have a dialogue. I thought, really, what I thought he was going to do was say, do you think you can give the pedophilia jokes a rest? That's what I thought he was going to do. But he never...

You know, it's interesting. Afterwards, we met him. He sat in a chair, and everybody lined up, and we shook his hand. And this... I had nothing... I said, no, thanks for having me. But there were people there who had something to say, who memorized things in Italian. And this is what the priest would do. Shake the hand. He would, like, take the hand and, like, next. Right. And so it didn't...

I didn't have anything to say. But for people who had rehearsed and really thought about it a long time, I think they were a little bit let down by it. Oh, so he was like working the rope line. Yeah. And so they didn't even get to finish the little spiel that they had planned? But probably it's whether... That's cold. Yeah. Wow, that's cold. But he was on a timer. You know, I mean, he had to go somewhere and be somewhere, and he'd probably be there...

But you would be there all day with people who cared. You know what I mean? Like, with people who don't care that much, you could still get it over with pretty quickly. So Chris Rock cared? I don't know how much he cared, but he was... Yeah, I didn't even know he was Catholic. Mike Birbiglia was Catholic, but Stephen Colbert is Catholic. That I knew. Whoopi's not Catholic, I don't think, and...

Well, there were plenty of people who weren't. So they just wanted to meet this big Catholic celebrity. I don't get it. And look, I don't dislike the Pope. You know, I'm an atheist, but I feel like for Popes, he was pretty good. He was, you know, he would go back and forth. You know, one minute he would like take kind of a hip pill and say, hey, atheists can get into heaven, which was like, we don't believe in it, so we don't care. But, you know, thank you. You know, and then he said some very progressive things about gays. Yeah.

And then, you know, he would remember, oh, but you know what? I'm the fucking Pope. I got to, you know, come down hard on some shit. And he would do that. But that's about as good as you're going to get in that office. Well, people were upset because twice in the past couple of months he used the word faggotry. And I just thought it was funny because...

I didn't even know that was a word, but it's a... It's a keeper, you know? It's not what you'd call a person. No. You know, it's not like, shut up, fag. It's more like, take your faggotry outside. It didn't bother me any. Um... I can see a store at the mall, you're selling this, and it's called faggotry. I'm just saying. Am I wrong? Yeah.

Are we going to get cancelled for this? Are you even worried about getting cancelled? I don't know what it means. People come up... I'm not a comedian, but I write. You're as funny as one. Oh, well, that's kind of you. You totally are. I said that to you last time. I hate when they call you a humorist. Because a humorist to me is like, oh, a guy who's kind of funny, whereas this guy's very funny. But go ahead. Well, wait a minute.

You were just... What was the question? Are we going to get cancelled? Or do you care? You know, whenever I do a show or do an interview, that's always a question. All around the world. Are you worried about being cancelled? And I think, what did I say? And then I realized, I don't have a job. But most people have a real job and they can't say anything on their job. So compared to them... Compared to them...

They're hearing things that... I'm saying things they could never say at work, but it's nothing. Like, it's... I don't... Well, but there are people who say cancel culture isn't a real thing, and I would say to them, it just happened again at the Oscars. Now, you may not think it happened, but the movie that was going to win it all was Emilia Perez. Right. LAUGHTER

And, you know, I got it. Hollywood loved this. They're finally going to have the person who was a trans person. God bless her. And she did a great job. And I read her tweets. It's just a little childlike in her tweets, you know, that I sent. It's just a little Kanye-esque. Just whatever's on the brain comes out. I mean, one, you know, Hitler. Just don't mention Hitler at all. I feel like it never comes out good.

And then some things she said, which are just, oh, yeah, you know what? I've said things like that. It's just very, very honest. But, of course, for the woke community, it was way too far. And this movie that was going to win it all and was the frontrunner and she was going to get it all suddenly was out to lunch. And good news for Anora, that's what happened. So, yes, cancel culture is still with us. It may just be a little more subtle.

But to me, it's never the things... Like, I had an essay in The New Yorker about my old friend Dawn, who I've known for 50 years, right? And she had a collapsed lung, so she was nervous about COVID. So a couple of years ago, we were at the airport, and I said, you know, she had a mask on. I said, it's time to give it up. Look around. Everyone else, go ahead, take your mask off. So she did. Immediately got COVID, right? But... But...

That is a funny story. No, but we've been friends forever. But she was fine after she got it, right? Yeah, it was a little moment in the essay. Anyway, the essay came out, and all these people, oh, you're ableist, and you bullied a vulnerable person into taking a mask. It's like...

The things you think people will be offended by are never the things. You can't even guess in advance what they might be. Correct. So there's nothing I can do about it. That's the same. I couldn't agree more. I don't read any of it. Right. I don't either. But when something gets on through my transom and I'm like, that's what blew their gasket? I would never have guessed it was that thing. And I don't give a fuck.

I know. Love you for coming by and taking the time. Great to see you. I know you didn't need to. I appreciate it. All right. Time to meet our panel. OK. Hi, you guys. He is a former Democratic senator from Montana and co-host the podcast Grounded. John Tester is back with us.

And she was the former communications director for President Trump and is currently co-host of ABC's The View, Alyssa Farah Griffin. Okay, so did you watch the speech on Tuesday night, the long 100-minute speech? Regrettably, but yes. Most of it. All right, so Trump said some things that were not exactly true, and when I say not exactly, I mean not at all.

And I just think we should talk about that by saying, I don't want to talk about that. Because if you're a conservative and you see him say many, many things that are not even close to true, you just don't care anymore. This is so baked in the cake. That is who he is. They do not take him literally or think he needs to be taken literally.

That's an amazing advantage in politics, I think, but that's in. And if you're a liberal watching MSNBC every day, you're obsessed with this. And you've seen all these things where they exposed it. I'm bored with that shit, okay? This is what he does. It's, I just take everything with a grain of salt. If he says Zelensky's approval rating is 4%, it's 57%.

It's like, you know, dog years. If somebody says the dog is four, oh, the dog is 28. So do you agree we should stop obsessing about his lies? Yes. I think the era of rambling fact checks and going line by line through what he says, I don't know that it matters. I'm actually not convinced Donald Trump is trying to pick up any new voters. All he's

needs to do is keep his approval rating with the Republican Party roughly where it is. And to be honest, as much as that speech drove me crazy, a lot of people were really happy with it. He threw a lot of red meat to his base. He rattled off things that his voters love. And never mind the lies about Social Security and so on. He gave them a lot of what they... He's not trying to reach the other side because he doesn't need to anymore. And he's not going to run again. Wink, wink. Lindsey Graham would say otherwise.

The part about the speech that I thought was pretty amazing is that you talked about a lot of stuff, but Democrats get, you know, they get criticized for not talking about kitchen table issues like cost of groceries and all the things that revolve around inflation and all that. I never heard a lot of solutions in that speech.

And I don't know that he cares, as you already pointed out. But in the end, you know, people are still very, very concerned about inflation. They're concerned about the price of food. They're also very concerned about whether we're becoming Putin's best buddy or we're going to maintain the relationships we've had for the last 80 years with folks in Europe and Australia and the Pacific Rim. Yeah, I guess they are. I mean, to me, the telling line in the speech was when he said...

I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud. It's all about love. You know, he's a little boy who did not get enough love, I guess. And he wants to make them, it sounds like a relationship fight. You know, there's nothing I can say to make you smile or like me or appreciate me.

Where the Democrats, I think, where they made a mistake was is they should have had a little fun.

And they should have stood up. He said some things that I agreed with. He says they should have stood up and applauded and cheered and not sat down until they made him sit down for cheering. That's what drove me crazy, because Trump is good at producing TV. If you didn't agree with the thing he said in that joint address to Congress, the shouting out of the kid with cancer, the highlighting we caught a terrorist that day, these moms who lost people, those will live online. People are going to see them. It's going to resonate. It pulled my heartstrings, and I can't stand the guy.

And Democrats didn't match his theater with equally compelling theater. I mean, there's no better metaphor for the Democratic Party than a man waving a cane right now. It's just not... But it was a pretty damn nice cane. It was a desperately nice cane.

So I asked them to dig up a little piece of tape about, I think this was Biden's last State of the Union arrest. Apropos to who doesn't stand and applaud for what, Biden said he was talking about political violence. And we'll just show it. It speaks for itself. Political violence has absolutely no place, no place in America, zero place. Again. So they couldn't stand for that.

They couldn't applaud. There's no place for political violence. So it's a two-way street. Well, they're in the chamber January 6th took place, and so it would be a little too on the nose. And besides that, just because they didn't do it doesn't mean the Democrats shouldn't have. Stand up when you say something right. Give them the applause. Right, but that's just not where we are in this country. So here's the quote I thought was apropos of what's going on on the left. And by the way...

If you watch the speech, I saw mostly the clips of it, and mostly it was people in the audience, the guy with the cane, people with, like, paddles. Oh, there's the cane dude. And then there's... Okay, you know, here's our pussy hat uniform. And these, you know, looks like you're at an auction signs. I mean, it was...

John Fetterman called it a sad cavalcade of self-owns and unhinged petulance. I love him. I said he should run last week. The Democrats seem so lost. And here's Jasmine Crockett, who is, I thought, a big leader in the Democratic Party. Her quote is, this is a terrible nightmare. Somebody slap me and wake me the fuck up because I'm ready to get on with it. Uh...

On with what would be my first question. And also, this is the way a... This is like how a podcaster talks or some shit. Fuck it. Can you imagine, I don't know, Obama saying, oh, man, dude, this shit is whack and fuck it. Slap me. I'm fucking over it. No.

I mean, come on, man. But also, they're elected members of Congress that, yes, well in the minority. It doesn't mean you have no power. The sort of idea of all you can do is a poorly orchestrated press conference or hold up a sign, it's not really true. Like, get creative with the House rules. See what you can do. I actually honestly don't hate the government shutdown idea. I think Democrats need to show that they're willing to play hardball.

No one wins in a government shutdown, let's be clear. It's not good for the public. But they need some kind of an actual action beyond just whining outside of a federal building. And... Okay, but wait a second. Wait a second. Where the Democrats missed it is that they could have stood up and brought people in who have been affected by these policies in an incredibly negative way, and there's plenty of them, and talked to those folks and distributed out...

So they were talking to their neighbors. Okay, I don't know. When the Democrats threaten to do it, it's always the end of the world. How can you do this when you shut down the government and we don't pay our bills and all the rest of the shit that goes on and you're going to crash the economy, but now it's okay? No, I did not...

I do not endorse a government shutdown. I think everybody loses with a government shutdown. It's not the right thing to do. And so they should work together, hopefully in a bipartisan way, to come up with an agreement so that the government stays open. Because it is a total waste of taxpayer money and services its Elon Musk on steroids.

All the services go away. The only pushback, and by the way, I agree it's not actually good for the country, but a political strategy standpoint, the Republicans control both chambers and the White House underscore that. Say, Mike Johnson, you need to find the votes. That's true. John Thune, you have to find the votes. Maybe at least take it to the edge, as they often do, but there's got to be some sort of owning the power that you have in Congress, or then get out and have a podcast. There isn't. There isn't. You know what? People come to me all the time when I'm out, like at the Oscar party,

Bill, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? I don't know. You're at the Oscar party. Have a great time. Yeah, exactly. What are we going to do? Your life is falling apart, you fucking Tony. No, but, you know, what are you going to do? Be a viable alternative. You can't do anything because you lost the election. You lost all three branches of government. Okay, so you actually, the only thing you can do...

is be somebody who, a party, who when the independent voter looks at the scene, says, oh, you know what, I don't like what Trump is doing, but these people are crazier. Now, apropos of this, I know I pick on the New York Times a lot. They should take it as kind of a compliment because they're so influential. But here's the headline yesterday that I thought just says, God, you people don't get it.

headline, party divided, talking about the Democratic Party, party divided on resistance, stand up to Trump or try to court the center. It's not an or. That is how you stand up to Trump. You court the center. You go to the place where people are going to vote for you. Yeah, you go to the place where the people are. And that way, those disenfranchised Republicans have a place to land because they don't think the other party's crazy.

And if they're able to do that, and you do that by talking about common sense stuff that people deal with every day, if you're able to do that, then I think it is the best remedy to take care of Trump. I mean, I think of you as not quite a radical Democrat, but you couldn't hang on to your seat in Montana. Well, that's true, because there was more people that voted against me than voted for me. I know that part of it, John. I'm just...

But why? I mean... Well, because if you want to know the truth, the top of the ticket lost by, what, 30-some points? That's my point, yes. That's right. And the truth is the top of the ticket has to at least be competitive if you're going to win in a red state or even a purple state. And the top of the ticket did not perform because I don't think the top of the ticket embraced the issues that Americans were talking about.

We got wrapped up in all the cancel culture's crap. Yeah, and the identity politics. But I thought Alyssa Slotkin did an excellent job laying out a message in the response. Listen, no State of the Union response is going to change the world. But she gave Democrats the playbook to win back the center.

going to ignore it. Like, if you watch the DNC candidate forum, it was lunatics behaving like lunatics. It was all, say your pronouns, tell me which group you fit into, because we're definitely not bringing groups together. We're dividing them more than ever. And it didn't seem like they learned anything from why people rejected them. If they ran an Alyssa Slotkin message and talked that way, they would get back to being a majority party. 100%. 100%.

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Somebody gets it. Our governor.

Did you see what happened this week with our governor? Two people made me very happy this week. Him and Amy Coney Barrett. We'll talk about her later. But he's got a new podcast. And he said, this is from Politico, Newsom said the creative inspiration for his podcast came from Bill Maher. I'm just giving the news. I'm not...

I'm just telling the news. It's not that it's about me. The provocative HBO real-time host who leans Democratic but has increasingly taken flack from progressives in recent years over his eagerness to criticize the party's woke left flank. That's true. Hey, they wrote a sentence about me in the press and got it completely right.

That's exactly right. Newsom said about Maher, I watch him because I appreciate how he calls balls and strikes. He takes shots at both parties. And he said, they asked him about females in sports. Would you say no to men in female sports? He said, it's an issue of fairness. It's deeply unfair. Okay. It's so funny. Gavin, I do love this because I do think he's a great politician. I know he's slick. Yeah, they said there's something about Clinton.

He's a great politician. He's really smart. He can talk great. Chicks dig him. And I've always been saying, if he would just tack to the center. Well, it happened this week. He said, I had one meeting where people started going around the table with pronouns. And I said, what the hell? Why is this the biggest issue? Well, given like two weeks ago, it was the biggest issue for you. But I don't care. I don't care. You made the switch and I love it. That's what I'm saying. You made the switch and I love it. Well...

In that statement, Gavin Newsom is 100% correct. We're talking about a very, very, very small number of people who, by the way, men shouldn't be playing in women's sports. That's a bunch of crap. Another Democrat saying it. But the truth is, is that it is blown so far out of proportion that show me a guy who's playing in women's sports in Montana. I can't wait to see where it's at. Because the truth is, the truth is, if it happened, it would be big, big,

big, big news. It doesn't happen. And instead, we're talking about that, and Congress is acting on that, instead of acting on the issues that impact Americans. Right. So... It is not a big issue, but it does happen. And here's the thing. It's like, of all the things Trump is doing, all this crazy shit, and the other sentence that I think stuck out for me in his speech was, he wants a revolution of common sense, that this guy can even propel...

And then incredibly get the vote of people that he's the common-sense guy. That's what Democrats should take to heart. He's claiming the mantle of common-sense. But, like, this issue, 80% of people are with what you and I just said. Like, women should...

Biological, but it shouldn't be. 80% popular. And yet that's the one that the Senate votes on this week, the Democrats. They would not go near that. Or they actually said, no, no, no, we're going to stick with what we're doing. Mistake? It's such a mistake. Well, and I did feel like Democrats kind of centered a little bit on the Lake and Riley Act. Again, an 80-20, if not a 90-10 issue that if somebody is here in this country illegally and commits a crime, they should immediately be deported.

So I'm like, there's some movement there. But this issue, it is going to be a drag. And by the way, like, for the LGBTQ community, I'm an ally, I'm sure you are. This is not the issue you need to fight on. 67% of Americans want to see more laws to protect anti-discrimination laws against that community. Go for issues that actually matter. And by the way...

That's all trans people. How many trans people are elite athletes? Like, I just, I don't know that this is the issue. It's a common sense issue. Men and women are different in sports, okay? It's just different. Yes, the WNBA, great. But if you played the Lakers, the score would be 100 to 3, okay? So we kids can't have it.

All right, here's another issue I think that's really interesting that's going on in this country. I think they do better in 100 to 3. Caleb Clark's pretty good. I don't know. They shoot pretty well. They do shoot pretty well. But the other guys are taller and stronger. And it's Luca and LeBron James. Okay, let's just not go there, John. So this...

There's a lot of new stuff that's going on, but one thing we've known about Trump for quite a while is that in the world, the countries that we traditionally liked, you know, like England and France, those kind of places, he doesn't really like. And the people that we traditionally didn't like, like Saudi Arabia and Russia, he likes.

So this is not new, but it has changed so fast, especially after that Oval Office meeting last week with Zelensky, that the government has decided they're going to have to do what governments have done over the years, most famously in World War II. They put out patriotic posters.

Because you have to get the people on board with what you're trying to get them to do. Yes, remember those, we can do it, and I want you for the army, and loose lips. All this stuff to exhort the people. So now we have to get them on the page of these are our old friends or our new enemies and vice versa. So would you like to see some of the new patriotic posters they have? All right. For example, there's I'm Sticking with the Union, the former Soviet Union.

Um, unlike some people, he always says thank you. Um, Europe, your ancestors left for a reason. Watch out for Canada, the quiet, polite neighbor you never suspect. Um, I want you to cut dictators some slack. Um,

Support North Korea. When has Dennis Rodman ever been wrong? Stand up to democracy. Wait, what?

OK, so I mentioned Amy Coney Barrett. What is her name? Amy Coney Barrett. OK, now, I certainly have done a lot of jokes about Amy Coney Barrett. I mean, I'm an atheist. She's a crazy Christian. It was a marriage made in comedy heaven. And she is. Like, she is not just Catholic. I mean, you know, as an ex-Catholic, I never make any bones about it. I'm bitter.

I'm bitter what they did to me. But that's not why I was criticizing her. It's just because she was literally in kind of that culty kind of, I mean, they made a lot of handmaid's tale jokes. But it's very close. I mean, you know, that place that she was in with the, you know, the men have dominion over the women and stuff that doesn't exactly get you now as Woman of the Year award. Okay.

But, so when she went on the Supreme Court, you know, I threw a fit like everybody else. But, you know what? This is so interesting about the Supreme Court. Because when you have a job for life, you know what? You

You don't have to be what people think you were going to be. And she did it. She ruled against Trump in Department of State versus AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition. This is the U.S. AIDS thing. U.S. aid thing. I mean, that's the first thing Elon Musk got rid of was U.S. aid, aid to various countries. Some of it is, I'm sure, bloated and corrupt. And a lot of it was necessary and was keeping people alive. Anyway, she voted against him. And now...

Immediately on the right, I know you were talking about this on your show, she's a rhino. That's a Republican in name only. And she's a traitor and a Judas. And she's got her head up her ass. And worst of all, she's a DEI hire. They went right to that. They went right to it. Can't make it up.

I never thought I would live to the day that Justice Amy Coney Barrett is a RINO or a DEI hire. This is, by the way, her ruling was actually the constitutional conservative opinion, which is Congress as a co-equal branch is actually who appropriates funding, not the executive branch, and they just can't willy-nilly decide to get rid of it. But all

Also, just this idea, this is a woman who was top of her class at Notre Dame. She clerked for Scalia. She has seven children. We remember the moment in her confirmation hearing. She held up a notepad, had no notes. She is brilliant even if you disagree with her. And conservatives celebrated her when she got on the court, but because she decided against Trump once, she's a rhino, kick her out. I mean, that's the moment we live in. The problem is, is people don't understand civics.

We can talk about education down the road if you want, but the truth is they don't understand civics. We've got three equal branches of government. Congress is AWOL. They have done nothing to put this president in any kind of checks. The only check that's left is the Supreme Court. And if the Supreme Court does their job and follow the Constitution and follows the law, and I'm not a lawyer, but if they do their job, this country will survive. Right. But...

This three branches of government stuff, that's been eroding for quite a long time. It has. And from both sides. I mean, it's been a slippery slope. Yep. We need to dig up Robert Byrd and bring him back. Because when there was a Republican president, he was liberal. When there was a Democratic president, he was conservative. Why? Because he didn't trust the executive branch. And that's what Congress needs to get back to, in holding the executive branch accountable. And by the way, executive means the whole Congress. Yeah.

And when he was young, he was in the Klan. I was going to say, we're not all bad people. Not everybody's perfect, exactly. Well, what's going to happen, like, I mean, the tariffs, that's something that if you were in Congress right now, I mean, what would your constituents be saying to you? Because you had a lot of farmers. Aren't there a lot of farmers up there? I happen to be one of them. Yeah, I'm a farmer. Oh, that's right. I can tell you. Thank you.

That's why you have... Yeah, well, that was from... I also have cut meat for a while, too. So that was... Yeah, that kind of... You know, Rahm Emanuel was here last week, and he doesn't have a finger. What is this, a friend now on you? I don't want to break this to you, but Rahm Emanuel is a piker. This is the real deal, okay? Right, okay. Well, no one's going to give me the finger on this show. Let's have him make sure of that.

We know what we're doing here. I still can. But the truth is, it's going to kill ag states. It's going to kill them, both on the market side, because we depend upon exports for our markets, and on the input side, where we buy a lot of our inputs, especially in Montana, right from Canada. Those go up by whatever percent the tariff is. The profit margin isn't high enough, and the only way we get out of that is if Trump starts writing checks to farmers.

Which he did in the first term. Which is not exactly Republican, by the way. Just old school, it wasn't. And by the way, it's not good for agriculture. I mean, they call that socialism. And that's not good. We ought to be dependent on our markets, and they ought to be vibrant markets and competitive markets. Thank you.

And we could talk about consolidation of agriculture, but... Vibrant competitive market. I think what you mean is we need a crypto reserve. I mean, if we're going to talk economics, let's be reasonable people here. So, I mean, this is like... I mean, talk about the grift is in. I mean, this is pretty crazy. I mean, Trump's fans who bought his meme coin have lost $12 billion. $12 billion.

I think 80% of, you know, because I've always said this. I believe they call it a shit coin. They might actually have one called a shit coin because one of them, I think fart coin or one of them is, one of them was a joke and now it's a real, but the whole thing is a joke. Always was. It's a Ponzi scheme. There's no there there.

So, of course, he embraced it. After first, he didn't embrace it. And now we're going to have a reserve. Now, a reserve is like we have an oil reserve. That's in case we have an emergency and then you can tap the reserve. What will we tap here in case talk to a girl like sells out again? I don't even know what a crypto reserve means. Do you know? Great. OK, but.

There's all that crap. And then there's also the fact that people can funnel money into the president and buy the president's goodwill. And they don't necessarily have to be our friends.

And there's no transparency there whatsoever. I think that's the reason for it. I also think we're just in a moment where he's intentionally creating massive market uncertainty. The tariffs, I know Trump believes in them in his bones. That's one of the few policy things he truly believes in, build a wall and that tariffs somehow bring down costs for American consumers. Nobody around him actually agrees on this. But the fact

that like businesses in America are like, oh, we can't forecast out six months or a year because we don't know if we're in a trade war with, you know, our friends to the south or to the north. It's a chaotic way of governing. And I worry that a lot of the voices who are around him the first term that kind of talked him out of some of this chaos and that made him actually build a really thriving economy for most of his term until COVID hit. Those aren't the people who are there now.

So you say you can tell that these are the things that are important to him. What? I'm just... What? You're so nervous that I'm going to ask you something terrible. I'm dying to know what you're going to ask me. How do you know that? No, really. You work closely with him. How can you tell? Why do you say that? I'm curious. What are the tells? Well, how...

Well, having been in a lot of policy meetings on a number of subjects with him, he believes in the border issue. He likes—I think he also really likes the branding of the build the wall. But tariffs are something—I think this goes back to, like, the 90s, when he first started talking politics. He believes it's the way to take on the big guys like China, and he thinks that people are taking—other countries are taking advantage of America.

I don't know as a businessman with international businesses why he still thinks this is going to work for us and that he doesn't see that it's a cost to consumers, but it is something he believes in. I think half the things he rattles off in the State of the Union and whatever, he doesn't care about, but he knows his base does, but this is something he really does. But there's one thing he doesn't understand with tariffs. He thinks the other countries that we're putting tariffs on pay for those tariffs when it's actually the American consumer that's going to pay for those tariffs. I mean, I hear that all the time. Everybody on this show says that.

I can't believe that's true. That the American consumer is going to pay for his hair? No, no, no, I believe it is true. I can't believe that he believes that. There's something else going on here. I think he knows that. I just think he... There's something about disruption that he likes, that he's comfortable in disruption. Maybe it's what I said at the beginning, he needs love. And somehow this is going to get it for him. I don't know. But, like, a lot of the stuff that he's doing makes no sense. Some of it...

There could be a good side to it because, yes, crazy man says this, and then you see like with Gaza. You know, once they saw that video of the bearded belly dancers and him sitting in the pool with shirtless Netanyahu, they were like, Jesus, we better get a real play. And they did. Maybe we'll go back to the table. You know what I mean?

And I think people, you know, when Kennedy ran, his thing was, let's get the country moving again. That was his slogan. And it was vague. What does that mean? People feel like the country was stuck. And it was in a lot of ways. You know, the Middle East situation, Gaza. It was like, it's been going on forever. More than my lifetime. It's always been the same thing. They hate each other. They fight. And Ukraine, that was a stalemate. And he's like, let's try a new strategy. Giving up.

That's right. You know, it's just the fact that it's new is good. I feel like that's just as deep as it gets with a lot of people. He's a businessman. If he truly understands business, he should understand that tariffs aren't good for business. The second thing is that if you take a look at some of the stuff that he's done to get things unstuck, they're making them worse by getting them unstuck.

I'm making it worse. Take a look at Ukraine, a country that wanted to be democratic, wanted to be like us, wanted to have freedom and liberty and all that stuff that we have. They had it. Yeah. Maybe. And he's saying, no, no, no, no, no. You go under a communist regime where you can't do anything without being monitored. That's insane. That's not what this country's about at all. It looks not in my life. No, it's not. To give him some credit, I think that...

Every time he does something chaotic that drives me crazy, like how he's treating Ukraine right now, he then does something people really care about. He has been 10 times more proactive on getting hostages back from Gaza than it felt like the Biden administration. That matters to people. It is tangible. And I'd also say even some of these things that seem ridiculous and silly...

plastic straws. People love plastic straws. They're going to talk about it. It's tangible. It's real. He knows little things to do to make people who are like loosely with him just kind of stick with him enough. Okay. All right. Thank you guys. Time for new rules. Okay.

All right, now that Tesla announced a recall of 380,000 vehicles for a steering issue after issuing previous recalls of 240,000 for a backup camera problem and 2 million for an autopilot problem and 1.8 million for detached hoods and over 50 other recalls, someone must ask Elon, are you sure you're worried about the right employees not doing their jobs? Oh, we kid.

No, no, the internet has to stop pretending there's a wrinkle cream that can turn back the clock this much. Come on, if rubbing some cream into your face subtracted 20 years from your life, porn stars would look 10 years old. Thankfully, there is still one way for us to look at this and then see this. It's called Budweiser.

New Rule, someone must tell the man who got arrested for a second time for trying to have sex with a train seat. If you want to get off a train, just wait till the next stop. And the trying to have sex part, if you can't close the deal with a train seat in ten minutes, you just have no game. New Rule, before they built this uniquely shaped hotel in San Diego, they should have considered what it would look like on an exit map. LAUGHTER

If you get the order to evacuate, please study it before going down. It's really not that different than anywhere else. Have a plan, stay calm, and head for the labia.

New Rule. Before this Rhode Island woman who says she suffers from restless genital syndrome, a condition that causes genital tingling, takes any more extreme measures like having surgery or more operations, she has to do one thing. Move her phone. Thank you. Thank you. And finally, New Rule. Memo to Democrats. If you ever want to win an election again, the absolute most important first step is stop doing this.

We gather in celebration of the Oscars on the ancestral lands of the Tongva, Tataviam, and Chumash peoples, the traditional caretakers of this water and land. Yeah, I don't know if we're still saying cringe. But if we are, that's this. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Either give the land back or shut the fuck up.

Look, I understand the desire to right the wrongs of the past, especially when you get to take the moral high ground and then build an 8,000-square-foot mansion on it. Are they for the mansion people? That's something. And I'm sure Julianne Hough is sincere about her love for the Chumash people, but I doubt she drives to work in a canoe, scavenges for acorns, or lives in a dome house made of reeds and dried mud.

That's Woody Harrelson. You want to thank a tribe for Hollywood? Start with the Jews. Now, a few weeks ago in New Zealand, a modern, educated, technologically advanced country, they passed a law making a mountain a person.

True. Because their indigenous people, the Maori, believe that mountains and rivers are their ancestors. And so the mountain has been legally recognized to have all the rights of a human being, which is more than you can say for Bianca Sensori. But she is a person, and a mountain isn't. And yet it... I'm sorry, I mean he...

Or she. Or they. Now has all the responsibilities, liabilities, duties, and powers of a human being, which, if you follow that to its logical conclusion, means the mountain can get a driver's license, vote, or adopt a rescue dog, and you should see its dating profile. Thank you.

Can we please get over this idea that ancient people weren't just as full of shit, in fact, more full of shit than humans today? It's so simplistic, this idea of guilt by civilization, that being ancient and indigenous and not us was always better than us. It wasn't. The Maori in pre-colonial times were like most indigenous people, quite warlike.

frequently fighting other tribes, with the winners enslaving the losers and even eating them. Yeah, have the mountain tell you that story next time you get it drunk. Today's hippies love to harp on how the 1950s was backward, and 1950s was backward, as every past era was, but somehow they see indigenous life in the 1550s as the pinnacle of enlightenment.

Besides being ignorant, it's hypocritical because, you know, the ancient lifestyle is available to you. You could live outside and forage for food and wash your clothes in a pond. We have that today. It's called being homeless, and it sucks. It is...

It was no fun being alive before anesthetics or refrigeration or germ theory or the fork or FaceTime. Socks are great, too. But, Bill, they lived in harmony with nature. Yeah, they had to, because no one had invented the toilet yet. The march of civilization has been bloody and painful, but we generally got to a better place.

Not a worse one. And not just technologically, but how we treat each other. You ever see the movie Apocalypto? Where the peaceful, enlightened Mayans built a big ziggurat so they could literally make heads roll in order to appease the gods and make it rain? Yeah, you don't see that on the Land O'Lakes box. If we're going to do acknowledgements, shouldn't we acknowledge that that was kind of fucked up? LAUGHTER

Did you know that well before 1619, Indians practiced slavery here in America? And the Apache, Iroquois, and Sioux all tried to wipe out their fellow tribes. I know it's comforting to think that there was this ethereal time and place before white guys in suits, when everyone was a gentle, nature-loving child poet who split their time between riding deer and drinking dew.

But it's just not true. What the European invaders did to the Indians? Not good. But also, not unusual. American Indians waged wars constantly, like Blake Lively. And the Comanche were polygamists whose leaders could bear children with a dozen women, like Elon Musk.

Ancient horseshit isn't any better than its modern version. That's all I'm saying. Today in America, we have something called corporate personhood, which has gone a long way to corrupting our elections. But that's what we go by, that corporations are people. They're not, and neither are mountains. Okay, that's our show. I want to thank my guests, John Tester, Alyssa Farah Griffin, and David Sedaris. Now go watch U-Time on U-Time on YouTube.

Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10:00. Or watch them anytime on HBO On Demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com.