Ep. #678: Michael Douglas, John Heilemann, Sarah Isgur

Summary

Real Time with Bill Maher - Episode #678: Michael Douglas, John Heilemann, Sarah Isgur
Release Date: November 9, 2024

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Introduction and Opening Remarks

[01:02] Bill Maher opens the episode with his characteristic blend of humor and political commentary. He reflects on the recent election results, expressing a mix of skepticism and bemusement about the outcome. Maher touches on the emotions surrounding the election, noting, “Trump says he's going to deport 12 million people. How are you going to get 12 million people back into Mexico?” [Release Timestamp: 10:00]

Conversation with Michael Douglas

[09:03] - [20:13] The episode features an engaging conversation between Bill Maher and Michael Douglas, a two-time Oscar-winning actor and producer. Douglas shares personal anecdotes, including his father’s admiration for Maher’s show. Notably, Douglas recounts his experience post-election night:

“I go down Wednesday morning, play golf... and I get a hole in one.”
[Timestamp: 11:30]

Maher humorously compares this achievement to Trump’s claims of frequent holes-in-one, highlighting the rarity and significance of Douglas’s accomplishment.

Douglas discusses his documentary, America’s Burning, emphasizing the economic struggles facing the middle class:

“We've lost our middle class. We don't have...”
[Timestamp: 12:11]

He critiques the global economic situation post-COVID and inflation, arguing that support for the middle class has been underestimated. Douglas asserts, “We really underestimated it. And the very fact now that we can talk about Republicans as being the people, the party for the people, and that we are this elitist party on the left, Democrats is wild.”
[Timestamp: 13:42]

Panel Discussion: John Heilemann and Sarah Isgur

[20:35] - [44:55] The panel features John Heilemann, Chief Political Economist for Puck and National Affairs Analyst for MSNBC and NBC News, and Sarah Isgur, Senior Editor of The Dispatch and host of their legal podcast, Advisory Opinion. The discussion delves into the dynamics of the recent election, the behavior of both political parties, and the state of American democracy.

Election Analysis and Party Dynamics

Heilemann praises the Democratic leaders for accepting the election results, contrasting it with the tumultuous aftermath of the 2020 election:

“Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have both came out promptly and forcefully and said he won, we lost, peaceful transfer of power, moving on.”
[Timestamp: 22:57]

Isgur adds that Trump's broad coalition is not solely an American phenomenon, noting the rise of Trump-like figures internationally:

“You can't say that Donald Trump is a solely American phenomenon. And so I think that, that's why I think that the Trump, you know, team could really overread what this election was about.”
[Timestamp: 30:05]

Impact of Media and Campaign Strategies

The panel critiques both parties’ campaign strategies and the influence of media. Heilemann emphasizes the need for Democrats to reconnect with working-class voters:

“If Democrats are going to have a coalition built on college educated Americans, we want people to get college educations, right? But if you want to have a coalition built on that, it can't be just built on that because there aren't enough Americans who have college educations.”
[Timestamp: 41:36]

Isgur highlights the shift from policy-based politics to lifestyle-based voting, indicating that voters are now aligning more with lifestyle choices than traditional policy differences:

“They both love tariffs somehow. And yet what the big difference that everyone's feeling I think was that they're now selling a lifestyle vibe.”
[Timestamp: 43:29]

Character and Public Perception

Maher and the panel discuss the importance of character in politics. Isgur criticizes the Democratic Party for not effectively communicating the character of their candidates:

“The left with Clinton... they are the ones who said character didn't matter in the White House. And now suddenly they think character matters a lot.”
[Timestamp: 40:03]

Heilemann stresses that Democrats need to address their disconnect with the general populace to rebuild their coalition.

Environmental Commentary

[44:55] - [55:31] Shifting focus, Maher introduces an environmental segment emphasizing the dire state of the oceans. He discusses the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the overall decline of marine ecosystems:

“Oceans contain only a tenth of the marlin and tuna that lived in them 80 years ago... the amount of dead zones in the ocean... have increased 10 times over.”
[Timestamp: 52:53]

Douglas chimes in with a lighthearted take on plastics, juxtaposing humor with the gravity of environmental degradation:

“There's a great future in plastics.”
[Timestamp: 52:53]

Maher underscores the critical role oceans play in oxygen production and carbon absorption, lamenting the futility of current recycling efforts:

“Only 9% of the plastic ever produced has been recycled. Recycling is just a way for us to feel good about using plastic.”
[Timestamp: 55:26]

Closing Remarks and Final Thoughts

In the final segment, Maher reiterates the importance of addressing environmental issues amidst political turmoil. He criticizes both political parties for neglecting significant problems like ocean pollution and climate change:

“Our soil, our food, our Kardashians. It's in all of us. Humans now consume the equivalent of a credit card of plastic every week because we eat the fish that eat the plastic and we eat pigs and chickens that eat fish that we feed them.”
[Timestamp: 53:02]

Douglas and the panel conclude by emphasizing the urgent need for collective action to preserve the planet’s lifelines, with Maher urging listeners to recognize the interconnectedness of environmental health and human survival.

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Key Takeaways

• Election Insights: The episode provides a deep dive into the recent election, highlighting the necessity for the Democratic Party to reconnect with working-class voters and address internal disconnects.

• Media and Campaign Strategies: Critique of media influence and the shift from policy-driven politics to lifestyle-based voting, suggesting a fundamental change in voter motivations.

• Environmental Urgency: A poignant reminder of the critical state of the world's oceans, emphasizing that environmental degradation is as pressing as political and economic issues.

• Character in Politics: Discussion on the evolving importance of candidate character and the Democratic Party’s struggle to effectively communicate integrity and relatability.

Notable Quotes

• Bill Maher on Trump's Immigration Plans:
  “Trump says he's going to deport 12 million people. How are you going to get 12 million people back into Mexico?”
  [Timestamp: 10:00]

• Michael Douglas on the Middle Class:
  “We've lost our middle class. We don't have...”
  [Timestamp: 12:11]

• John Heilemann on Democratic Strategy:
  “Anyone who's not asking the question, how do we need to change in the Democratic Party? Is out of their fucking mind.”
  [Timestamp: 32:55]

• Sarah Isgur on Lifestyle Voting:
  “And you fit into one lifestyle vibe or the other. Right? You’re driving an F150 and drinking beer or you're driving a Prius and drinking wine.”
  [Timestamp: 43:29]

• Bill Maher on Environmental Neglect:
  “Our soil, our food, our Kardashians. It's in all of us.”
  [Timestamp: 53:02]

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This episode of Real Time with Bill Maher offers a multifaceted exploration of contemporary American politics, societal shifts, and environmental crises, all while maintaining Maher's signature wit and incisive analysis. The conversations provide insightful critiques on election dynamics, party strategies, media influence, and the urgent need to address environmental issues to ensure the planet's sustainability.

Transcript

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[Bill Maher]

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series Real Time with Bill Ma.

[Michael Douglas]

Thank you.

[Bill Maher]

Hey, look at that. That's right. Exactly. We're fine. Thank you. I appreciate it. So thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate that more than I could tell you. That is the right attitude. We're still gonna have fun. Not the. Okay, you know what we had. Please, please. We had an election. A lot of. You can sit down. That's how upset this guy is. He's not gonna sit again. Well, yeah, a lot of people are freaking. You know what? I open the. The sun was still shining. The birds were still singing. My gardener was packing for Mexico. That's different. Well, you know, hey, I did not vote for the winner. We'll see what the winners do. Now they won. Now they have reality they have to deal with. You know, we'll see what they do. See if they live up to their word. Trump says he's going to deport 12 million people. How are you going to get 12 million people back into Mexico? And today Trump said, I'm way ahead of you. Why do you think I left so many holes in the wall? Yeah. So look, you know what we're going to hear about both tonight on the panel and throughout the whole show. The winners, the losers. My message to the losers. Losers look in the mirror. No. Well, maybe you should. Sorry. Well, that's my feeling. Losers look in the mirror. Okay. You know, for ye. I mean, for months, Democrats have been saying, how is this even close? And they're right. It wasn't. They could not conceive of a second Trump term. But they should have. When does America ever turn down seconds? I mean, come on. Look, these are just the facts. It's just the facts. Trump won all the swings, all Seven. I mean, he ran the table. Trump won so big, he. Today he called the Secretary of State in Georgia and he asked them to lose him $11,000. But you know, he has an amazing coalition. He kept the old crowd that likes him. He got a lot of new voters. He got a lot of people who say they just want to see what he'll do. I call this the get the cat high vote. But I mean, he did better, like in every demographic. The exit poll said he grabbed 52% of white women. He also got their vote. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna keep doing jokes here. Okay? Right both sides, right to the end. And you know what? I think that will be okay with them. We'll test that, but I think it will. But you know, the liberal media, always more offended than the victim. Been saying it for years. They were like, women. Women are so upset about Donald Trump. Women are a little stronger than you think. Women were like. Women were like, whatever, I don't have to fuck them. I just want bacon. But I mean, women, that. That had to hurt for Kamala. I mean. I mean, the whole thing must have been very painful. And they say she saw the writing on the wall around 10 o'clock at night on election night, she called McDonald's.

[John Heilman]

To see if she'd get her old job.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, I know, but I mean, Kamala underperformed in every demographic. I mean, although she is still polling very well among illegal immigrant inmates who want sex change opportunities, totally on her side. Oh, make no mistake, this election was very much about what I've been saying here and lost a lot of fans for saying over the years that this country has had enough of the anti common sense woke bullshit that was. They have resoundingly. And here in LA, Proposition 36, this was the one that said shoplifting, which we'd made just a misdemeanor is now a felony again. Yeah, you know, common sense. Yeah. People in this town, even liberal la, said, you know what, here's an idea. Instead of locking up the toothpaste, how about we lock up the shoplifters? You know, this is not. Bill, you're a Republican. That doesn't make me Republican, you assholes. That just is common sense. I mean, San Francisco had a very ultra woke mayor, London Breed. Well, no, she lost. Even the ultra liberal people of San Francisco had enough of homelessness, public drug use, defecation in the streets. And now London breed's pronouns are she, gone. And you know what? Some of this came home to me personally this week a little bit. I own a Pot store. Do you know that Woody Harrelson and I. I know. Big shock, huh? Woody and Bill, a pot store doesn't add up. No, I do. It's called the Woods. It's on Santa Monica Boulevard. It's a fantastic store. And it got robbed this week, right? The day before election day. They just broke in the window, walked in there and the joke's on them. You know why? Because they caught the guy. Because. Because our pot is so good, he forgot to leave. All right, we got a great show. John Heilman and Sarah Isler are here. But first up is a two time Oscar winning actor and producer who narrated and produced America's Burning, which is available to stream on Apple TV and Amazon. Michael Douglas is here. Oh my go, Michael Douglas. Miley, how are you?

[Michael Douglas]

Very nice.

[Bill Maher]

You? Oh my God, Michael Douglas is here. First of all, I just have to say, you know, you are to have a super duper a list celebrity here with nothing to plug. It's the only time it's ever happened and I so appreciated it. I mean, you're just here because you love me.

[Michael Douglas]

I am. Not only do I love you, but I'm here to tell you how much my father loved you.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, I know. Oh, I know that.

[Michael Douglas]

I know he was and it was on your show, but did you ever get a letter from him ever?

[Bill Maher]

Are you kidding? I have a trove. I treasure them. If my house was on fire, I would grab those.

[Michael Douglas]

Loved your show. Beyond. And loved you. And the last year, the last year of his life, you know, he was pretty much bedridden. And so the only things that he would watch were Ultimate Fighting and you.

[Bill Maher]

Right, same thing.

[Michael Douglas]

And.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, no.

[Michael Douglas]

So, you know, for a lot of you out there who may have a friend or relative who's close to, you know, going for it, you know, get them to watch all the Bill Maher reruns for a happy ending. Okay.

[Bill Maher]

Now, I loved him when we had lunch, I was over to the house a couple of times and he wrote me many, many notes. And the thing is, he would write it and because of the stroke, you couldn't read it. But then he would. Then there would be a typewritten translation.

[Michael Douglas]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

But he would include both. That's what I love.

[Michael Douglas]

I have a little logo at the bottom with his dimples. He draws a little picture. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

No, I mean, he must have been very proud of you because, boy, you make Nepo babies look good more than anybody ever.

[Michael Douglas]

Thank you. The other thing I just have to share a little bit with after Tuesday night Wednesday morning, you know, so pissed at this razor thin race. Right? It was gonna be so close.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, yeah.

[Michael Douglas]

You know, with all these polls and all these televisions and it's. It's a wipeout, which I have no idea how they could happen at all. So I go down Wednesday morning, play golf, which, you know, just to clear my mind, and I go play nine holes and I get a hole in one.

[Bill Maher]

Wow. I know. Wow.

[Michael Douglas]

I know this isn't exactly. Golf is not your. No, no, thank you.

[Bill Maher]

No. But I. But I do have an appreciation how rare it is to get a hole in one and what that must mean. You know, Trump says he gets one, like every other time, but I believe you. You really got one. Yeah. Par three. I'm guessing this was part three. Well, congratulations. That's a big thing. You played the American president. If you were the American president, what would you tell people today about our country and where we are?

[Michael Douglas]

Wow. Well, I mean, it's the economy. I mean, it really, really comes down. We've lost. We lost our middle class. We don't have.

[Bill Maher]

That's what your documentary is about.

[Michael Douglas]

Yeah, we don't. You know, I mean, and it's a global situation. You've seen Germany and Japan, everybody from after the COVID and all of that, the inflation that rose around the world, and we seemed a lot of democracies turned towards autocracies, but still doesn't justify how wrong. How wrong they got it. I mean, in terms of all the polls. But I think we desperately need to support our middle class much longer. And also in 40 years, in 40 years, the stock market has increased, I think, 5,000% and real earning wages have increased 14%. So 50% of the country owns stocks. And you've heard they're not complaining much right now, but those people who are going, you know, week to week with the inflation, it's killing them. And I think we really underestimated it. And the very fact now that we can talk about Republicans as being the people, the party for the people, and that we are this elitist party on the left, Democrats is wild.

[Bill Maher]

It's crazy. And yet there is truth into it. I mean, I understand why people are there. I understand why they just want to break shit also, you know, I mean, that's what. Falling down. One of your great ones.

[Michael Douglas]

Thank you.

[Bill Maher]

That was, that was a. You know, if you kids are too young to remember, it was a movie about a guy who goes into McDonald's to get. To get the whammy burger. Okay. And they don't Serve it. And he's there at 11:31.

[Michael Douglas]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

And they stop serving it at 11:30. And it's just the last straw. And he goes. And he goes nuts after that. And I think. Wasn't Joel Schumacher the director?

[Michael Douglas]

Joel Schumacher, director.

[Bill Maher]

I did a movie with him. DC Camp.

[Michael Douglas]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

How come I get DC and you get Falling Down? That's not fair. But I mean, all your movies, I mean, you do something or did something and I hope you could do it again. And I have an idea for your next movie, by the way, because I.

[Michael Douglas]

Right, all ears.

[Bill Maher]

Ok. Ok. Because, you know, you were able to do something that I think they've kind of lost the skill to do, which is make a movie about something that is also entertaining. Also entertaining. Falling down is entertaining. Traffic is entertaining. Who Flew? One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest? Entertaining. China Syndrome, Wall Street. These are entertaining movies. All disclosure, all about something.

[Michael Douglas]

Well, I'm a material guy. The first work that I got early in my life was in a summer theater working on new plays, on new plays. And so script is everything to me. Structure. And then somewhere along the line, I just realized how ridiculously exposed, expensive. It wants to make two hours of entertainment. So let me try to find something that has like a good meal. You know, it's not like you just eat it and you go on, but you can kind of talk about it a little bit or has a little food for thought afterwards and all of that. And, you know, and I'm a bit of a news junkie and so I kind of feel like I know what's going on, except for this year. But.

[Bill Maher]

Okay, so here's my idea from. Because I could name all these movies again and several more and attach an issue that you were getting at nuclear power, obviously with China syndrome. Wall street was about greed and blah, blah, blah. Media, media. I mean, one reason we're in the mess we're in is because the media landscape has changed. We're both old enough to remember when media was, I mean, a computer in your pocket where you could look everything up. There are some wonderful things about it. And then it just did. Absolutely rat kids brains. I would love to see you make a movie about that subject. And you are not too old to play Rupert Murdoch type figure. No, no, really, That's a great subject for you and a great role.

[Michael Douglas]

That's interesting. Network did a good job. Network, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

But that was 1976.

[Michael Douglas]

I know.

[Bill Maher]

The things it predicted, like Fox News.

[Michael Douglas]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

Came about and then manifested in ways that we couldn't even imagine.

[Michael Douglas]

Well, I am after these elections and the judges, I'm a little offended about television news. I mean, I realize it's the biggest profit center for all the networks. It's the cheapest thing to do with the most return in advertising dollars. And that's what I'm beginning to realize more and more about, about television news. It's, it's. And the other part of it is what we're talking about this is can we shorten these elections? Can we stop? Can we stop two years before the next people are running for. I mean, other European countries, they all, they all do it in three months.

[Bill Maher]

Four months or less.

[Michael Douglas]

Or less. Yeah, we should be able to do it. And what do we have? 20 billion we spent on this year.

[Bill Maher]

Billion.

[Michael Douglas]

I'm just tired of politics as consuming so much of our time, of our day, of our life.

[John Heilman]

Well.

[Michael Douglas]

It'S supposedly a public service, you know, and yet we spend so much time.

[Bill Maher]

But I don't think you're really speaking for a lot of the people in this country is a lot of our time and we still watch tv. Most people don't get their news from tv. A lot of the young ones, they don't have a tv. It's like having a typewriter in your house. They get their news from TikTok.

[Michael Douglas]

Yeah. No, how about Gen Z? They split 50, 50 on this election.

[Bill Maher]

Right. So, I mean, I don't think that's so much the issue as where people get their news and do they get it at all? One of the most common Google searches the day before the election was did Biden drop out?

[Michael Douglas]

No, no, no, no.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, yes, that's. Yeah, right. They were asking, you know, who's running. I heard there's an election today. Yeah, that's sad. So anyway, I think that's a great topic for you. I loved your.

[Michael Douglas]

I'll look into that. The other issue we've got to. I couldn't read a thing of. Only 30% of our country people have passports. So that means with all you can stay home as much as you want. But I mean, 70% of the country can't even leave the country, so.

[Bill Maher]

Well, now they want to.

[Michael Douglas]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I don't like that either. Be a patriot, stay here and fix it. You know, I said it a couple of, we don't need a revolution. We need to fix it. And we can. I mean, I watch last year Ben Franklin thing. It's a marvelous performance. I love the movie.

[Michael Douglas]

The series.

[Bill Maher]

Reminded me a lot of Spielberg's Lincoln. And it took a specific issue that Was naughty. Like, how does Ben Franklin get France on our side?

[Michael Douglas]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

And again, made it into an entertainment, something that we could watch the process, which usually is not that interesting, but it makes it interesting. That's what good art does. But Ben Franklin, what do you think he would say? You lived in that character for so long now.

[Michael Douglas]

Oh, I think he'd have another drink.

[Bill Maher]

All right, well, I hope you have one with me soon. Would you? I can't tell you how much it means to me that you would come here just to talk to me. All right. Michael Douglas watch for his movie about media coming soon. All right, let's meet our panelists. Okay. All right. All right. He is chief political economist for Puck and a national affairs analyst for MSNBC and NBC News. John Heilman is back with us. Good to have you back. She's the senior editor of the Dispatch and host of the Dispatch's legal podcast, Advisory Opinion. Sarah Isger, back with us. John Kriswill, Seems like every time you're here, we do you dirty. It's hard to follow Michael Douglas. You were here when you had to follow Howard Stern. We put you on ones with Russell Brand. It was not intentional. We love you. I'm so glad you're back. Thank you. I don't know why you always draw the short straw.

[John Heilman]

You know, those are all but one of those people who are people I respect and admire. So there you go.

[Bill Maher]

All right. So programming note, we have two more shows. Now, this is important to what we're going to talk about because I want to address the winners, then I want to address the losers. There's only winners and losers in elections. We have two more shows. Normally, this would be our last show, but we thought, well, we should stay on because it will be a shit show after this because there will be all sorts of lawsuits and the country will be in flames, which I think let's not bury the lead. That the most important thing to say about this election is the reason why we're sitting here so peacefully now is because the one party that still believes in conceding elections lost. If the other guy had won, it would be a shit show. Now, let's not pass over that. And I also just want to say to my friends on the right, I said it to them last week. I said it to them personally, because they all have the same idea about Trump. He says a lot of shit. Okay, now you won't. We'll see if your he just says shit doctrine is real or it's not. But just stop. You won so have you can afford to be magnanimous now my right wing friends and understand that, you know, when we're worried about fascism, it's because he talks like a fascist. We're not plucking it from thin air. That's my message to the right. You say what?

[John Heilman]

Well, I mean to your first point, Trump was out for days, including on election day saying that there are problems in Pennsylvania. So he ended up winning Pennsylvania by two points. All of a sudden all the problem with the election that were that he was going to say this is illegitimate, it's fixed, it's rigged, they all just kind of vanished into thin air. To your point, Kamala Harris and and Joe Biden have both, both came out promptly and forcefully and said he won, we lost, peaceful transfer of power, moving on. And I think given what happened in 2020, in 2021, they have not gotten enough credit for doing that. Used to be the norm, used to not be an issue in American politics. But to see them get out out there, I do that I think was pretty important. And I will say additionally to your point, Bill, I take a lot of shit about this from people when I come out and say it. But I was glad to see Donald Trump win the popular vote. I mean I think if I would, it was not my preference that he be president going forward, but if he's going to be president going forward, not having it be that he got in through the loophole of the electoral college where he gets 46% and still is our president. And by the way, let's just one shot for a democracy that we might want to move toward one day where every election the person who wins the most votes gets to be president. No matter who gets in Electoral college loophole, no matter who gets in with 46, 47, whether it's Democrats or Republicans, it's a bullshit system. If you get the most votes, you should be president. Right? He got the most votes. He gets to be president. And to everybody who is who worried that he was a fascist, who heard John Kelly call him a fascist and say that he admired Adolf Hitler and heard him say that he was going to use the military against his political opponents and fantasized about seeing Liz Cheney shot in the face and fantasized about the press getting also shot in the.

[Bill Maher]

Face, everybody who did all this, some of that's bullshit. And I'm not going to get you.

[John Heilman]

Said all those things.

[Bill Maher]

What do you think, Sarah?

[John Heilman]

Wait, so your point though, Bill? Wait, here's my point. He said all those things. You're right. We'll see what he does. But he said them all. He said them all in the heat of the campaign. We'll see what now happens. But the great thing about him winning the popular vote majority is that everybody who was worried about all that now knows that they are in the minority. America has voted for Donald Trump, and that gives us a sense of who is worried about that stuff and who doesn't care about that stuff.

[Sarah Isger]

I think Republicans have a real risk of also overreading what this election was. The first question you should ever ask is, did Trump win or did Harris lose? And those are not necessarily the same thing. We saw the party in power in every Western democracy so far lose support. And look, as a former.

[Bill Maher]

Like in the last year, you mean.

[Sarah Isger]

Yeah. And as a former operative, if you want to know if your campaign strategy worked, your campaign strategy was to pick up this group and this group. So you want to see rises with them, but then you shouldn't see a rise in groups that you weren't aiming for. Donald Trump increased his vote with everyone, which means it wasn't his campaign strategy. I think it was that the American people just they voted for Joe Biden because they were promised normalcy and competency, and they didn't get either. And the most effective ad that Donald Trump ran was the they them ad. You know, he's for you, she's for they them. Democrats thought that was an ad about, you know, transphobia. They missed the point entirely. It was an ad about language that these people are more obsessed with. Whether you have a signature block in your email with your pronouns in it than they are about getting the economy back on track. And so that was just roundly rejected.

[Bill Maher]

Honestly, they did get the economy back on track.

[Sarah Isger]

People don't feel that way.

[Bill Maher]

It's bullshit that he wanted Liz Cheney shot in the face. And it's bullshit that they didn't get the economy, let's call bullshit, wherever it is tonight, the economy. What is an indictment, what I think is a tremendous indictment of Kamala Harris is that she couldn't win an election with the stock market at record highs and unemployment at record lows. If you give me that hand, you should be able to win an election.

[Sarah Isger]

She couldn't win the election because Joe Biden refused to actually be the bridge to another generation that he promised to be. And I know that you're looking at inflation numbers and saying the rate of inflation has gone down. Bacon is still twice as much as it was. Inflation happened, and it's not going away.

[Bill Maher]

Shut up. About bacon.

[Sarah Isger]

You talked about bacon first.

[Michael Douglas]

Jesus.

[Bill Maher]

Bacon.

[John Heilman]

Bill, you and I will have to. Have to just respectfully disagree. I think if we've never. Presidential candidates talking about people getting shot in a. Of course he called for a military tribunal against her. It's like, again, he might not do it, but you don't want to normalize the notion that that's the kind of language. That's the kind of language that we want to have.

[Bill Maher]

No, but that wasn't. But, you know, this is the problem with. I'm sorry, the far left is that I'm not on the far left. You're not going to drag me into Trump derangement syndrome. It's not deranged. To be upset and worried about the real things. Like, he could be a fascist. He wants to be a. I'm very. But if you're going to think I'm going to chase every rabbit down the hole for the next four. Wait a second. For the next four years, you're wrong. I'm not going to.

[John Heilman]

I'm not telling you what to do for the next.

[Bill Maher]

That's who he is. No, no, I'm just telling you I did this once, I'm not gonna do it again. You know, that's who he is. Okay. If he talks about Arnold Palmer's dick or he makes it or he says a bad word or says something that everybody thinks, like there are shithole countries. I'm not gonna lose my shit about it. I'm just not. Cuz that is deranged.

[John Heilman]

Not asking.

[Bill Maher]

That's who he is.

[John Heilman]

Sure. Not asking you to do that. But as you just said, you're worried about whether he's actually a fascist and you're worried about. I think. I think worried about. Those are. To me, those are illustrations of the deeper thing. You point to those examples in the context of a campaign and you say a guy who's talking about, I'd like to use the military against my political opponents.

[Bill Maher]

Okay.

[John Heilman]

These are all examples.

[Bill Maher]

I'm looking for that in any case.

[John Heilman]

But Bill. But Bill, I disagree with Sarah about this. I think that the reality is that under the circumstances, what we've seen from Donald Trump over the course of the last four years, a guy who did, I think we all agree, did try to overturn a free and fair election in 2020.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[John Heilman]

Incited a mob on the Capitol, still has. Talking about and says he's going to follow through on trying to deport 20 million illegal immigrants who are living in this country. Largest mass deportation, he claims, in history. Right. Has said all the stuff he said. He performed better in this election for whatever set of reasons. Partly, I think it's a factor of like what he says, partly because I.

[Bill Maher]

Won'T talk about the other side, the people who should be looking in the mirror. The subject I'm trying to get to, we know who Trump is.

[John Heilman]

Well, that's, this is.

[Bill Maher]

And we agree on him.

[John Heilman]

Sarah says it's basically the failure of Democrats. I'm saying, I'm trying to give more credit to Trump. Trump is saying things that people obviously identify with in this country. I mean, you don't win the way he won overwhelmingly across a bunch of groups like this without having much of a turnout game on the basis of there's something that people love about Trump.

[Sarah Isger]

Except that internationally the same thing has happened and Donald Trump type figures have risen internationally as well. You can't say that Donald Trump is a solely American phenomenon. And so I think that, that's why I think that the Trump, you know, team could really overread what this election was about. They want competency, they want someone focused on the important stuff, crime, as you mentioned, instead of in San Francisco, where they were more focused on renaming the schools than they were on reopening the school.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, all that stuff. But like, what I hear from the, you know, the usual suspects, I'll call them on the left in the media is just, you know, again, not looking in the mirror. It didn't.

[Sarah Isger]

No, they think they didn't call him Hitler loudly enough or that just a.

[Bill Maher]

Lot of people like texted me things like, well, you know, you can't fix stupid. Sorry, that doesn't work with me yet. You're stupid because you're not thinking about the bigger picture. You're not thinking about, maybe we did something wrong, maybe we're not perfect. You know, it's like a relationship. You got dumped, America dumped you. And they're all like, you don't know what you had.

[Sarah Isger]

No, it's not.

[Bill Maher]

Yes, they do. They know what they had. And what they're saying is, we know what we had and you're a mess.

[Sarah Isger]

It's a dude who got dumped and was like, she was a lesbian anyway.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[John Heilman]

Let me ask, I'm going to ask you a question and respond to that in part by saying this. The scale of the Democratic loss, any sane Democrat who is not sitting down right now and having a deep moment of self scrutiny about the way in which Democrats have become the party of college educated elites and that Donald Trump has put together an increasingly multiracial coalition of working Americans. Anyone who's not asking the question, how do we need to change in the Democratic Party? Is out of their fucking mind. Okay, That's a very. That's a, that's a, that's a conversation every Democrat should be having, and I think many of them are starting to have.

[Bill Maher]

It's early.

[John Heilman]

People are still shell shocked about what happened, but the conversation is going to happen. But here's my question to people who asked that, right? Four years ago, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump, we all admit, by 8, 10 million votes, right? So Trump gets 16% in 2016, sorry, gets 46% in 2016 and becomes president. He has a shitty 2018. He loses to Biden in 2020, he fucks up the midterms for Republicans in 2022. He has this period of extraordinary political weakness for that entire time, and then has a huge night on Tuesday. I want to give him credit for the huge night on Tuesday, but it's not like Trump's been a dominant a colossus since the moment he walked on the stage in 2015. He had a record that was never had a majority.

[Bill Maher]

But you're still talking about him. My question, you cannot stop talking about him.

[John Heilman]

I'm trying to ask you the question of Joe Biden won overwhelmingly in 2020. So what changed that made the Democratic Party that won, that controlled the Senate, won in 2020?

[Bill Maher]

We will answer that question four years. We will answer that question after a word from computer. I thought it was very interesting at the end, the Kamala Harris campaign, their last sort of battle of the bulge thing was to put this ad up a commercial. I want to show it where they were telling the wives of Trump supporters, you know, you don't have to vote like the husband. Show the ad because it was really quite phenomenal. You can vote any way you want and no one will ever know.

[Michael Douglas]

Did you make the right choice?

[Bill Maher]

Sure did, honey. Remember, what happens in the booth stays in the booth. So, you know, you saw the wink and there we put together some signs that maybe your Trump loving wife, wink, wink, really voted for kla. Would you like to see the signs? Okay. She had her hat under her MAGA hat. Oh, well, that's again sign. She may have voted for Com. Did I not set this up? All right, let's. She might to the polling place without her handmaid's bonnet. There, there's this. There we go. Sometimes you have to unplug it and plug it back in again. She donated your old, her, your old clothes to transgender prisoners. Well, that's that's a sign right there. When you forgot something at the store, she says, we're not going back. You. You caught her reading again. Oh, well, her new catchphrase is, if you're so hungry, you cook something. When you ask her why she changed her hair, she says, the important, the important thing is that my values haven't changed. For her anniversary, she wants to go to a freak off. Well, there's. And it's like she's not even trying when she shoots at her case of Bud Light. Okay, okay, so basic question here, because we've talked a lot about democracy and we're all worried about it, but you can't scream about democracy and then have a guy run the table like this and not say, well, it's a mandate. Right? Is that right or wrong? Is it a mandate?

[Sarah Isger]

Yes. The Harvard Institute of Politics student president came out with an op ed today talking about how they weren't going to forego democracy for the sake of nonpartisan. Set aside that they might have wanted to talk to a lawyer before saying their nonprofit was now going to be a partisan organization. But the idea that you're going to be pro democracy by not giving a voice and allowing other students to hear from speakers that belong to the party that just won through a democratic process, like, that's where the left has a problem. They become the party of the faculty lounge. They're so condescending. They're so arrogant. And again, not beat the net. Worse. The whole point is to be exclusionary. They're not accidentally exclusionary. It's the mission statement.

[Bill Maher]

No, I mean, I saw Kamala was on Saturday Night Live as the losing candidate often is. It worked so well for Hillary. Let's run that back. And it just made me think. I'm sure every single member of the Saturday Night Live cast was a Harris supporter, but what if one of them wasn't? What if one of those casts, what if one of those cast members was for Trump? Would they have felt comfortable saying so? I really don't think so. They would have had to keep it to themselves. That's not a good place for us to be. I remember when, and that happens even more on the left. And I remember when Elon Musk hosted. And this is well before he was a Trumper. This is three or four years. He was just the richest man in the world. And a number of the cast members on Sunday Night Live, like, they wouldn't. They didn't want to deal with him. They didn't exactly boycott, but they made it Plain. And I was thinking, really, you have Elon Musk on your show for a week. You could talk to one of the most interesting, brilliant people the world has ever produced, even about this issue that bothers you so much that he's so rich and lots of people aren't. But no, you don't want to even deal with him. That's what I hate about the left. You're brats. You're brats and you're snobs, and people don't like that.

[Sarah Isger]

And not in the brat.

[Bill Maher]

Not in a brat. That's right, not brat. Summer, look how good that worked.

[Sarah Isger]

Look at the dating numbers. Liberal women won't be friends with won't date a conservative man. It's not good for our society if you've replaced religion with politics and we're becoming a post racial society, which is a good thing, but it's being replaced with this diploma divide where you have again, this arrogant, condescending group that says, if you don't vote the way we do, you're a fascist. You're Hitler. You're Hitler. Like, it's 1933 again. As Jen Rubin from the Washington Post tweeted yesterday during the attack on Jews in Amsterdam, she's tweeting about how it's 1933 here. Let's look at Europe for a second.

[Bill Maher]

Well, in some ways, he is Hitler. Like, I'm sorry, but that's just true. Not Hitler, but look, his mother. Just because someone voted, he says he likes their general. You know, I mean, that's Hitler. Like, I wish I had his generals.

[Sarah Isger]

Because someone voted for Trump. You don't get to then ostracize them from polite society.

[Bill Maher]

And also, like, the problem with the left is that they don't want to deal with anyone who just likes Trump. I keep. I've been saying this for years. You can hate Trump. You can't hate everybody who likes him. It's half the country. And they're not all bad people. It's politics. Isn't an extension of a person directly like that. Yes, it's easy for you to think you're better than Trump. He steals from charities and suggests shooting protesters in the legs. It's not a high bar.

[Sarah Isger]

But you know who.

[Bill Maher]

But that's not who these people are.

[Sarah Isger]

You know who ended the character debate in this country? It was the left with Clinton. Right. I mean, they're the ones who said character didn't matter in the White House. And now suddenly they think character matters a lot. I thought character mattered the whole time.

[Bill Maher]

Well, Clinton has a way better character than Trump. Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. What was. What was Bill Clinton's giant character flaw? He likes pussy. Oh, pussy.

[Sarah Isger]

That doesn't like him back. By the way, he was accused of rape pretty incredibly.

[Bill Maher]

That's true. That's true.

[Sarah Isger]

And the left told us he was the feminist president that we were supposed to get behind him as women, because otherwise you were a traitor to your gender. And by the way, people who didn't vote for Kamala Harris, I'm seeing a lot from the left say that it's because they're sexist. No, you don't have to vote for the woman who's only been in campaigning for three months because the dude put her in a position to fail.

[John Heilman]

So don't yell at me about this. Didn't hear me say that. I would say that. You know, at the end of this campaign, the Harris campaign spent a lot of time trying to talk to, like, very publicly, to the chagrin of a lot of people on the left trying to talk to Republicans. They went around, you know, people got mad at her for spending so much time with Liz Cheney, going to places to try to talk to Republican. Former Trump voting suburban women. That was a core part of their strategy. Did not work at all.

[Sarah Isger]

Not give them any concessions on policy, not tell them.

[John Heilman]

But the notion that they were just standing around calling all these people Nazis or something is bullshit. They didn't do that. They did a different kind of strategy.

[Sarah Isger]

Oprah literally said the night before that there wouldn't be another election if Trump won. And by the way, the Trump folks said there wouldn't be another election if she won.

[Bill Maher]

I don't know.

[John Heilman]

Bill, you think there's going to be another election?

[Bill Maher]

I don't know.

[John Heilman]

So there you.

[Bill Maher]

Maybe not. So, I mean, like, in every autocracy, there are elections, but they're not real elections. Yes. Could we be there?

[John Heilman]

They elect a legislature in Russia called the Duma. You have to read about it either, because it's a bullshit thing. But here's the point. You can yell at me about. I don't know why you're yelling at me about. Again, Oprah Winfrey. I'm not trying to own Oprah Winfrey. I'm just trying to say I think a lot of people who are worried about the future of American democracy have that question. As do Bill.

[Bill Maher]

Absolutely.

[John Heilman]

So here's the thing that I think, Bill, you're profoundly right about, which is to go back to our earlier thing, the central thing that's happened in our politics over not forget about the Clinton era, because Clinton was in fact a Democrat who appealed to working class voters all over the country. It's how he won. Barack Obama in fact appealed to a lot of white working class voters all over the country. It's how he won his two elections. Since then there has been a resorting of the parties and the main thing that now splits the parties is this question of do you have a college degree? Do you not? And that is a broad social, cultural, economic fact that has led to a lot of people who don't have college degrees thinking that people who do, especially Democratic electeds Democrats on television, the left, et cetera, they feel like they're talking down to them treating them like shit, being condescending, not just the most egregious woke stuff about pronouns in general. They feel like coastal elites are smug and condescending and shit on them all the time. If Democrats are going to have a coalition built on college educated Americans, which inherently isn't a bad thing, we want people to get college educations, right? That's good for people. We want them to aspire to that. But if you want to have a coalition built on that, it can't be just built on that because there aren't enough Americans who have college educations. And you're going to have to talk to working Americans. That is something Democratic talk to somebody.

[Bill Maher]

With for the last anybody other than people who are exactly like you. It's not just this live cast that all is one thing. The guy who left NPR, remember he said totally. It was like 87 of 88 people. There were on the exact same page, Twitter, before Elon took over. Now it's obviously the reverse, but that was like 99% Democrat. You can't have the Harvard, you can't have all these places, the newsrooms in America where nobody is allowed, who doesn't think exactly like you, not just cleaving to the one true opinion.

[Sarah Isger]

Do you know what's amazing though? The two parties, it used to be our divide was over the role and size and scope of government, right? That's what divided the two parties. That's not the case anymore. The Republican Party no longer fights about that. They're a populist party. And when you looked at the policy differences between the two candidates, and I know no one will believe me here, they actually weren't that different. Right? He moves into the center on abortion, she moves into the center on immigration. They both love tariffs somehow. And yet what the big difference that everyone's feeling I think was that they're now selling a lifestyle vibe. And you fit into one lifestyle vibe or the other. Right?

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Sarah Isger]

You're driving an F150 and drinking beer or you're driving a Prius and drinking wine. And yeah, guess what? The beer drinking party won. No shit.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. The thing you said about let's end on here's a positive from this. We are less racially tribal than we were five days ago. I think this election proved it. Not that. I mean, he still got killed in the black vote overwhelmingly. Right. But it's the Latino vote not so he won others ultimate irony is the guy who started out as a politician, the rapists wins the rapist vote wins the. Because people. Yeah. They're like, you know what? You know what? People don't care about a joke about Puerto Rico. They don't give a shit who Bad Bunny's voting for.

[Sarah Isger]

He's a shot comment who happens to be a politician.

[Bill Maher]

I would say celebrities is an albatross around your neck. You shouldn't have a People look at that and they go, celebrities are not like us. They don't understand our lives. Taylor Swift, that was going to be a big thing.

[Michael Douglas]

No.

[John Heilman]

Your point about Hispanics, Latinos in America that got that Donald Trump got, I think close to 45%, which is a lot. George W. Bush did that back in 2004. Republican Party then squandered them in a variety of ways. But now Trump seems to have gotten them back. The smartest thing I've heard about this, and it goes to one of the points that I totally agree with you about. I think some of the woke stuff matters a lot less than like the immigration issue, where people having a sense that the Biden administration did not care about controlling the border, even people who wanted to be liberal and inclusive and led a lot of immigrants in wanted to do that in a controlled way as opposed to an out of control way. But here's the best thing I've heard about this recently. My friend Mike Murphy, a never Trump Republican who said maybe it's time to stop calling Hispanic Americans and Latino Americans. Hispanic Americans. Latino Americans, let's just call them Americans.

[Bill Maher]

From now and definitely don't call them Latinx. You know, some. Again, Trump understands the. He just does. Some white lady at NPR comes up with Latinx and they think that's their way. Trump understands that if you're a Mexican immigrant here, a legal one, and you're working probably a blue collar job, who are you worried about taking your job? The guy coming across the border. So of Course they're like, oh, I like this guy who's going to build a wall because that's the guy who's going to take my job. Basic shit. Thank you. We got to go to new. Okay, new rule. New York City's ethical culture. Feldston School, which encouraged students to stay home and skip classes this week if they felt too emotionally distressed by election day, must change their name to Pathetic Pussy Academy. Pathetic Pussy Academy. Preparing America's next generation for a home hopeless addiction to Xanax. Nero, stop telling me about the health benefits of the no Nut November Challenge, where for the whole month of November, men pledged to not masturbate. I don't even want to know. For three reasons. Okay? One, I believe that masturbation is good for the body and mind, like pickleball. Two, I bailed on the challenge on November 2nd. And three, whacking off is like baseball. I prefer the Yanks to the Dodgers. Thank you so much. I'm very, very proud. Very proud. New rule. With all that's going on right now and all the stress, don't hit me with a headline like Putin's exploding sex Toy terror Plot. And it's only partly true. And the shipment was intercepted. And good, because I can't think of a more embarrassing way to die than death by pocket. Wow, what a world we live in. It's enough to make you think twice before sticking something up your ass. I can't believe we're on cnn. Also, new rule. Now that Tucker Carlson says he was physically attacked by a supernatural demon that left claw marks. Yeah, he must be given a special award for the most quick thinking response to a wife asking, where'd you get those scratch marks? Oh, oh, and honey, it must have been a demon that travels a lot because look, it also left a receipt in my pants from the Ramada Inn. New rule. Someone asked to ask the Colombia pro Palestinian protesters who went to the emergency room complaining of nausea, abdominal pain, headaches and irritated eyes after being sprayed with a non toxic novelty fart spray called Liquid Ass that is completely harmless. Hey, by any chance did you go to Pathetic Pussy Academy? And finally, new. Now that the great garbage election of 2024 is over, let's talk about actual garbage. You know, when the aliens who are currently living amongst us and watching us slowly annihilate ourselves, when they write the history of earthlings, they will note that this election ended with an impassioned debate about who was garbage, starting with Trump insult comic who said, I don't know.

[John Heilman]

If you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah, I think it's called Puerto Rico.

[Bill Maher]

Well then it was on. Liberals said that was racist. And the Trumps people heard that and said, oh, then I like it. But here's the thing. There actually is an island of garbage in the ocean. But the only person who mentioned it during the whole campaign was the insult comic. I don't know what AI would say if you asked it. What was actually the most important issue of our time, because I don't want that nosy little bitch in my phone, but I'll just tell you the answer. The ocean, it's dying. It is dying. We're killing it. And we can't live without it. We might, might be able to invent our way out of the mess that we've made of the atmosphere. There are promising new technologies for capturing carbon. But the oceans, that is a whole other kettle of dead fish. And this island of floating garbage that politicians dare not speak its name, it's actually two. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is three times the size of France, a country large enough to accommodate Gerard Depardieu. And the Western Garbage Patch near Japan. And they're not actually islands. There's nothing in them big enough for Kate Winslet to float on. It's not like we could fix this by sending an army of volunteers out there to pick up your intact water bottles. Truth is, no one really knows how big the garbage patches are because most of it is under the surface. Trillions of micro particles from decades of discarded plastic. Yes, of all our addictions, plastic that is the one that is going to kill us. There's an iconic scene. Remember this in the Graduate, where Benjamin gets some advice about his future. I just want to say one word.

[Michael Douglas]

To you, just one word. Plastics.

[Bill Maher]

Exactly how do you mean?

[Michael Douglas]

There's a great future in plastics.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, everybody laughed at that, but turned out that guy was right. Plastic is in everything now. Our soil, our food, our Kardashians. It's in all of us. Humans now consume the equivalent of a credit card of plastic every week because we eat the fish that eat the plastic and we eat pigs and chickens that eat fish that we feed them. And no, Ozempic doesn't fix that. So I know this may seem awkward topic for a week that was all about politics and so many other things. Democracy and the economy and racism, sexism, all important issues. But you know, the frog in the proverbial slow boiling pot isn't getting any younger or cooler today's. Oceans contain only a tenth of the marlin and tuna that lived in them 80 years ago. Which may be why the tuna sandwich at Subway is most Miracle Whip and Hair. In the same time frame, the amount of dead zones in the ocean, areas where the oxygen levels have fallen so low that fish that enter them suffocate and die, have increased 10 times over. You know when people say that people can do anything? It's true. We found a way to drown fish. Scientists say our oceans are dying, and people think, oh, well, I'm here on land and I don't like sushi anyway. But the oceans generate 50% of the oxygen we need to breathe and absorb 25% of our carbon emissions. The ocean is the life support system for the planet. It's like we're on a ventilator and purposely stepping on our own hose. Oh, but Bill, I recycle. Yeah, that's a con. It's been studied. Only 9% of the plastic ever produced has been recycled. Recycling is just a way for us to feel good about using plastic. Because yours never ends up in the ocean. Oh, no. Yours gets turned into crocs and dildos and eco friendly bird feeders.

[Michael Douglas]

No.

[Bill Maher]

No, no. In reality, it goes straight from the blue bin to a recycling plant that puts it on a tanker, that shifts it to a poor country, and we let them deal with it, which they do by dumping it in a river. Hey, look, there's your chobani Greek yogurt. Saving the environment may not sound sexy. Greta Thunberg made sure of that. But at at some point, doesn't somebody have to say something? There's only two parties, and only one even thinks the environment is a problem. But Kamala never mentioned it. Crickets, which, by the way, are also dying. All bad news today. I know why Republicans don't talk about the environment because voters don't like their position on pollution, which is there for it. But Kamala threw the environment under the bus to win the fracking vote in Pennsylvania and the automobile vote in Michigan and then didn't win either at the presidential debate. Environment came up once, and Kamala used the opportunity to brag that we've increased domestic gas production to historic levels. And Trump, of course, called Mother Nature a childless cat lady. And now we're back to that because the Democrat lost. So good luck to us and enjoy the impossible lobster. All right, that's our show. I'll be at the MGM National harbor in D.C. november 17th. The CIBIC Chicago Theater in Chicago, December 6th. Hey, Club Random's on every week. It's fantastic on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to thank John Heilman, Sarah Isger, and Michael Zaglas. Doug, go watch Overtime on YouTube. Thank you very much, people. Thank you very much. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10 or watch him anytime on HBO on Demand. For more information, log on to hbo.com.

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