Dr. Casey Means (7:20)

Such a pleasure.

Bill Maher (7:21)

Great to meet you.

Mary Katherine Ham (7:22)

Great to see you.

Bill Maher (7:25)

I've been seeing you a lot lately there. And they are perfectly timed to be here because the one of the appointments that people are freaking about is RFK in charge of Health and Human Services. Now I know you don't have a lot of personal connection with him. You only met him twice. We're not going to go there. We just. I just want to talk about whether people's heads should be exploding about that because I think rfk, you and I do have something in common, which is that for a long time we've all been saying, well, the system as it is, the way we do health is already very fucked. So maybe he'll make it worse. But like, my head is not exploding about it.

Dr. Casey Means (8:01)

That's good.

Bill Maher (8:02)

And so I saw you do this, where I got familiar with you, this video you did, where you said you went, you graduated Stanford Medical.

Dr. Casey Means (8:10)

Yes.

Bill Maher (8:10)

And the video was called like something like I learned nothing there about what was important. Tell us what you didn't learn there that you think we should. You should be taught, at least in medical school.

Mary Katherine Ham (8:20)

Right.

Dr. Casey Means (8:21)

It's astonishing. It's not an overstatement to say that in my four years of Stanford undergrad, four years of Stanford Medical School, and four and a half years of surgical training, I did not learn a single thing about what is really making Americans sick. The true root causes of the chronic disease epidemic that's devastating and torturing American lives. The things like the impact of ultra processed food on our health. The incredible 80,000 synthetic toxins that are our food, water, air, our personal care products. The fact that there has been, you know, 6 billion tons of plastic produced since 1907 that have entered our food, our water, even our air. The fact that £6 billion of synthetic pesticides are sprayed on our global food supply every year. You know, the average child in America is spending less time outdoors than a maximum security prisoner. And yet sunlight actually dictates a huge portion of our biology. So these modifiable aspects of holistic living that directly impact our cellular health are just not being talked about. We're really focused on silos in the American health care system. We have over 100 medical and surgical subspecialties. And what happens is we miss the forest for the trees of the root causes of what's making Americans sick. And I think what happened on election day this year is that Americans came out and said, we want to bend the curve of the chronic disease epidemic that is destroying American potential. And I think RFK represents someone who's willing to take that on.

Bill Maher (9:45)

Yeah. Now look, if he had said, like, I'm going to ban back, I would be very against it. But he said just the other day, he said, no choice. If you want them, you have them. It's not going to be mandated. That's, I think, what a lot of people objected to before. I mean, I've said it many times. There are some pathogens that if they were going around, I would fight you for the vaccine. Right. And there are others that, you know, I just didn't want like the one we just had. But you said so many things there that, like, I feel like I've been saying for many years and people kind of look at you like you're crazy because I think they just are. In this world of doctors know everything. And I think you're telling us in medical school you learn doctors don't. I always say, if they know everything, why do you always have to get a second opinion?

Dr. Casey Means (10:31)

Well, if they knew everything.

Bill Maher (10:35)

You'Re saying, it's an opinion. And by the way, the second one never matches the first one. They're always guessing. I'm not saying they're corrupt, although there is some of that.

Dr. Casey Means (10:45)

You know, if they knew everything, then why would we be spending $4.5 trillion per year on healthcare costs? And life expectancy is going down in the United states. Why are 80% of healthcare costs going towards chronic illnesses that are rooted in diet and lifestyle? Yet at the vast majority of American medical schools, doctors in training are not taking a single nutrition course. And so you have to ask these questions. If we were crushing it, we would not be spending 2x every other country in the entire world and have the lowest life expectancy expectancy of any developed country in the entire world. We are the sickest of the top 11 high income countries in the world. We have the highest infant and maternal mortality rates, and our life expectancy is 10 years less than our friends in Japan and Switzerland. Right now, according to the Journal of American Medical association, the average American man In America age 73 is their life expectancy. It is 83 in Japan and Switzerland. This is something we should all be outraged about. And only one party in our election cycle this year was talking about chronic illness. The words chronic illness, as far as I know, never came out of the Harris campaign's mouth. And I think that was a real a misstep because Americans are, I think, tired of being gaslit about the fact that there's not a problem right now. And when we look around us and we know there is. And Trump has asked RFK to do three simple things. He's asked to get the corruption out of the US Health agencies, produce uncompromised evidence based research for our health guidelines, and reverse the trends of the chronic disease epidemic in two years for children and adults so that we can show up for our 250th anniversary of America stronger than ever. That sounds pretty good to me.

Bill Maher (12:31)

That sounds good, but, you know, that's Trump talking.

Dr. Casey Means (12:38)

That's RFK talking.

Bill Maher (12:40)

Well, I'm saying. But Trump has said he's gonna let him do all this. Trust me, the first time Trump gets a call from some big mucky muck at the pharmaceutical industry and says, hey, you're fucking with my profits, Trump could easily reverse all of this.

Dr. Casey Means (12:53)

Maybe, Maybe. Although I.

Bill Maher (12:55)

So, you know, I'm not a Trumper. I don't trust any of it.

Dr. Casey Means (12:57)

I'm not a Trumper. But Trump's. Trump said Trump's already a billionaire who can't run again. Does he really need a kowtow to industry? I believe. I believe in my heart that he has been shown some light from RFK about the monumental nature of the American healthcare epidemic, and it has struck a chord with him.

Bill Maher (13:16)

I hope so. And just to get back to. I think what I'm trying. We only have 10 minutes here. We could talk about this for hours, but just the idea that just a kitchen table. There's the orthodox view and then there's this alternative view. Now you need both. I want Western doctors. I want there to be antibiotics in the world and all. I just don't want to ever need them. I think Western medicine is great. Like when you're after you're sick to save you at the last minute. I don't want to get to there.

Dr. Casey Means (13:47)

Right.

Bill Maher (13:47)

And like the orthodox view is the accent is on germs and genes. And germs and genes are very important. I mean, look at Trump. He eats nothing but buckets of chicken. He's got incredible genes. Good genes. Yeah, good genes. Germs are important, too. But your focus is on cells. That is, you talk about metabolic health. That's what we don't talk about, because I think that's what it is. And you think about, we have all these specialists. Again, not really the holistic view about it, like all these different silos, you call them, just not really. I don't think how the body works. It all works in concert. And I mean, I've heard people say that there's really only one disease, which is cellular degeneration. It takes many of these different forms, but it's because the cells are not getting enough of the nutrients they need or they're getting toxicity.

Dr. Casey Means (14:41)

You got it?

Bill Maher (14:41)

That's what. Right. So if we could just get on that page. And I think that's where RFK is too. And by the way, Jared Polis, who my Democratic friends will Say is, you know, very. He was on here recently. He's a governor of Colorado. Very reasonable guy. He says, I'm excited by the news of our fk. He said he will help us make America healthy again. He will shake up the HAAS and fda. I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines, which he said he will. I'm optimistic about him taking on big pharma in the corporate ag Oligopy. Corporate ag. That's agriculture and horrible factory farming. And that's why we wound up probably, possibly anyway with COVID The way we torture animals, it goes to us, all of this stuff. I mean, so, you know, if you want to say he's a crazy person, he certainly said some crazy shit. Sure. Yeah, he certainly has said some crazy shit. But we do need shaking up.

Dr. Casey Means (15:43)

Yeah. I mean, I think my purpose on this planet is to really help people understand, both in healthcare and outside of healthcare, that we don't have 50 issues that are torturing our lives right now. Fundamentally, we actually have one really big issue, which is the metabolic disease epidemic. Our cells are metabolically dysfunctional and this is caused by our environment, the modern world. It's really a mismatch with how our cells what they need to function properly. And so more than a health epidemic, which is what we have in this country, I mean, health is getting destroyed in the United States, which we don't really talk about, because it's not profitable to heal in this country. It's profitable to keep people sick and then drug them. To drug them, cut them and bill them, which is what we learn how to do. And really what we have here is a disconnection crisis. And the healthcare crisis is one branch of that tree. We're disconnecting the body into 100 separate parts and not seeing as a unified system. And we're disconnecting the body from the environmental conversation, which actually we're really one and the same. You know, we are totally connected to nature and in destroying nature through the pesticides and the way we're treating animals, our health is a reflection of what we're doing to the earth. And, you know, I think what is hopeful, at least about RFK's message is that he's spiritually connected in nature. He has spent his life litigating against environmental devastation, bears. Well, he is. He's a hunter. He's a hunter. And I. And I know almost no people who are more spiritually attuned to animals than people who are hunters because they study them, they think about them. He's sued Monsanto, he sued GE for PCBs and water. He started the Waterkeepers Alliance. He is, he hikes all the time. We see it on Instagram. He speaks to ravens. You know, it's. So this is not. No, I mean, he, like, he has a connection with them.

Bill Maher (17:25)

Yeah.

Dr. Casey Means (17:26)

And I'm not trying to vouch if.

Bill Maher (17:28)

You could give him a little advice, just like not tell us everything, not don't tell us.

Dr. Casey Means (17:32)

Yeah.

Bill Maher (17:32)

You know, like we would be a lot, you know, I didn't, I didn't need to know about the worm in the brain.

Dr. Casey Means (17:42)

No.

Bill Maher (17:42)

You know, but the broader point is.

Dr. Casey Means (17:44)

That I think a deeper conversation about the spiritual connection between humans and the earth and some compassion for our bodies and how they are being destroyed by the modern world is a conversation we need to be having.

Bill Maher (17:55)

I agree. All right. Well, I thank you for taking the lead on that. Thank you for being here on our show. Thank you. All right, let's meet our panel. Okay. All right. She is a Fox News contributor, host of the Getting Hammered podcast, Mary Katherine Ham. Thank you for returning, Mary. And he is an award winning broadcast analyst who hosts Cuomo every week night on News Nation and the podcast, the Chris Cuomo Project. Chris Cuomo is on our panel. Okay. And before I get to you too, couple of programming notes. This is our penultimate show. We are on next week. Also, we usually take off now. People keep asking me about that. If you want to see me do standup comedy live, you have two more shots in this lifetime. I got Nothing booked for 25 there. I'm going to. I'm tired of dragging my ass out of bed at Saturday morning after working here all week. So I'll be at the Beacon tomorrow night, the 16th in New York and then fittingly at the MGM National harbor of Washington, D.C. and my comedy special January 10th will be on this network. Is anyone else seeing your six stars? All right, now to you two. So this week we saw Biden have Trump to the White House. I think we have some footage here. It looks very, very normal. I started the show last week saying the same thing. I hate to repeat myself, but I feel like we're gliding over something really important in this world, or at least in this country, which is that when the Democrats lose, the mass is over, go in peace. When the Republicans lose, we have a riot and we pretend that every election is bullshit. This is already something that has passed us to the point where we're not the country we should be, or we used to be. Now you voted for Trump. Tell me why this is okay with You.

Mary Katherine Ham (19:56)

Well, genuine thank you to Biden and Harris for doing what they should do. Right.

Bill Maher (20:02)

That he didn't do. Trump.

Mary Katherine Ham (20:04)

Yes. And Biden is, by the way, I'm not sure he knows he's in the room with Hitler, but he gets half credit for doing this peacefully. Right, But I think there's another thing here. We had a contest in democracy by listening to the voters about what they cared about most. And I think one of the issues with voters was that making January 6, 9, 11, making that day into everything did not win that fight. It didn't win the fight about what they cared about. There were other things in their personality.

Bill Maher (20:34)

That's not what I'm asking. What I'm asking is, you know that if Trump had lost this election, right now, we would be talking about the votes that are still coming in in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and he'd be in the courts, and we would just be all in a trigger. One side accepts election losses and one side does it. This asymmetry cannot continue, and the people who are defending it cannot just look past it like, well, we won the election. So that's it.

Mary Katherine Ham (21:06)

Well, wait, hold on. Currently, Bob Casey, Democratic senator in Pennsylvania, is doing exactly what you're saying where he's looking for all these votes and trying to. And the Bucks county commissioners are saying we need fake ones. We need to get all the ones that are unregistered.

Bill Maher (21:18)

No, they're just counting them.

Mary Katherine Ham (21:19)

No, that's not actually true.

Bill Maher (21:21)

They're just counting them.

Mary Katherine Ham (21:22)

That's not actually true. And if you dismiss that and you don't recognize the moat in your own eye, then that is a problem.

Bill Maher (21:30)

So you're saying, Bob Casey in this, that's equivalent to Trump in 2020.

Mary Katherine Ham (21:34)

No, I don't say they're equivalent. I say that you have to recognize that these things happen, for instance, in 2016 and 2000.

Bill Maher (21:42)

No, they didn't. No, they didn't. Chris, you want to help me out on this? I gotta tell you, you don't need help.

Chris Cuomo (21:51)

And I'm just so happy it's not me. You know, I'm just. I'm just liking the ride. Look, I. I get my friend's point about wanting to see it everywhere, but as you know, it's about a matter of degree.

Mary Katherine Ham (22:05)

Look, that's true.

Chris Cuomo (22:06)

You just had one of the best conversations I've heard about health in the country in a long time on your show. And we were talking backstage, watching, and it was like, why can't she be running one of these agencies? We have so Much talent. We're so held down by the extra. The extra is January 6th. The extra is all the talk. The extra is what Bobby brings to the game that we don't need to be hearing about or worrying about, and we get distracted by it. Look, we all know here that if Trump had lost, it would have been drama. It would have been big, dangerous.

Bill Maher (22:46)

It would be what we were talking about right now.

Chris Cuomo (22:49)

I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have been able to be here. I would be standing somewhere in an ill fitting helmet being like, you know, oh, yeah, it seems to be under control texting you.

Bill Maher (23:01)

Are you sure I'm okay with this? Right.

Chris Cuomo (23:06)

And it didn't happen. And then you get the Democrats who will say, yeah, we should have been more pissed about this. You know, maybe we should fight. And it's like, how often are we going to not learn the lesson that someone's got to be better, someone's got.

Bill Maher (23:20)

To win and someone's got to lose? And we used to accept that and now one side doesn't. But okay, I.

Chris Cuomo (23:26)

Except when they win, now everybody's happy, which is ridiculous.

Bill Maher (23:29)

It's just a ridiculous ace.

Mary Katherine Ham (23:31)

And I don't, I get, I do not think it's asymmetrical, as you say.

Bill Maher (23:37)

And I also, on the presidential level, it is. Okay, Bob Casey, no one gives a fuck or even know who he is. It doesn't matter. It's a ridiculous argument. It doesn't matter to anything. We're talking about the United States of America and who gets to run it and who gets to appoint everybody. Let's just go on to that because I know I'm never going to make any progress.

Mary Katherine Ham (23:58)

Well, no, I do want to say I also, I have some standing because a family member of mine, my husband, was at the Capitol escorting people back in to make the vote. Like, he did the dangerous thing. He put himself on the line. So I feel like our family had a stake in this and it was a terrible day and a scary day. And also we put it to the voters and had that conversation.

Bill Maher (24:19)

True, true.

Chris Cuomo (24:21)

But we just need more guys like your husband in positions of power.

Mary Katherine Ham (24:23)

Agreement.

Chris Cuomo (24:25)

And again, I think it's something people have to think about with what we just lived through. I got some heat for who I voted for, for president, but who my brother, but the choices were. And then I spelled his name wrong, so I don't think it counts. But the choices to me were unacceptable for this country. And again, you're sitting there, you couldn't.

Bill Maher (24:50)

Vote for Kamala Harris.

Mary Katherine Ham (24:52)

A lot of people couldn't.

Chris Cuomo (24:53)

I could have done a lot of things, but my feeling is we deserve better than this. The process that the Democrats put us through was an embarrassment to Democrats. And I grew up in a Democratic family with one of the greatest they have. They still talk about him at the convention. My father, Mario Cuomo. I'm just saying we have so much talent in this country. You were just talking to that doctor. We were mentioning up doctors, you know, who want to have real questions about the vaccine and have real pragmatic discussions. We just keep picking these people that represent the worst of us.

Mary Katherine Ham (25:25)

I think that's one of the things with voters, you have to have grace for the fact that a lot of people were making a choice between two kind of crappy choices, which is worse.

Chris Cuomo (25:32)

You hear it all the time.

Bill Maher (25:33)

You all say, okay, so. But I also think what the voters were saying is that the Trump first term, he was elected as a disruptor, right? But the deep state prevented him from doing the disruptor. He's Gulliver and he was tied by those Lilliputians, you know, that he wanted to do it. He wanted to, and they just wouldn't let him. Well, now the chains are off because he's got a cabinet that. Ooh, it's a who's who of. What the fuck? I read the name the other day, and I pick up the USA Today. I was like, is this the new season of Dancing with the Stars? No, this is the Cabinet. Kristi Noem, you know, the dog shooter. She's Homeland Secretary. Homeland Security Secretary. Pete Hegseth. He's Defense Secretary now. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He went to Princeton.

Chris Cuomo (26:39)

Highly decorated.

Bill Maher (26:39)

Princeton and Harvard. Okay. You know, I mean, he said some things. We'd get to it that. But look, I'm not. The people have spoken about disruption, and as you say, they are not completely wrong. This country is like a compacted colon. Okay.

Chris Cuomo (26:55)

It needs fiber.

Bill Maher (26:57)

It does need something. Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence. Someone who's. The biggest talking point against her was that she might be a Russian spy. And now she's in charge of our secrets. That is a bit. That's an interesting choice. I don't think she's a Russian spy, but she. Yeah. Okay. Lee Zeldin from your state of New.

Chris Cuomo (27:20)

York was my congressman.

Bill Maher (27:21)

Okay. He is going to be the head of the epa. Epa, yeah. His organization is called Fuck the Whales. Just to give you context. So. So I guess what I'm saying is Daddy's home. And it's any of these names. And Matt Gaetz, of course, as attorney general, that's the most controversial one. Let's start with that. Matt Gaetz.

Mary Katherine Ham (27:51)

Yeah. I think a Trump transition is like taking an edible and for a little while you're okay. And then you're like, oh, there it is. For me, that was Matt Gaetz. And I think that, okay, so this is the question taken to the voters, as you say, they want change. Like 33% or so said they wanted upheaval, total upheaval. 50% said substantial change. Right. But I think the question is, and I'm not going to, you told other jokes about him, so I'm going to let you do that. But you need to question, okay, is this a change agent who knows how to run this agency, who knows the agency well enough to reform it, who can handle a large organization? And in some of these outsider picks, I think you're getting that. I think a Hegseth could be very interesting as a rank and file, a National Guard guy as opposed to Pentagon brass. I think that could be interesting and effective depending on who he has around him. But the Gates thing is like, that's my edible moment.

Bill Maher (28:53)

Right.

Mary Katherine Ham (28:54)

And like, I think, yeah, I think.

Chris Cuomo (28:56)

That when it's the one that has the mushrooms in it. But they didn't tell you. That's how they get you, Bill.

Bill Maher (29:02)

That's how they get you. They don't get me. I get them.

Chris Cuomo (29:05)

I got some reporting on that for you if you want it.

Bill Maher (29:08)

Oh, good mushrooms.

Chris Cuomo (29:09)

I'm down. Yeah, I have something in my pocket. So I'm down in Florida doing some reporting. And, and I have this question, like, wow, why. Why come out of the box like this? You know, why is he setting himself up for more drama like 2016, where everybody's going to go crazy about everything? He says we'll never get to the problems, we'll never get to any policies. And I was given an explanation that makes sense, but I don't like it. The explanation is his concern. The president elect's concern is not that he needs these men and in a couple cases, the women to run the agencies. He has them there for one reason, and they are perfectly qualified to do it. Tell me if they're coming after me. Yeah, he put Gaetz as ag, not because he can spell ag. It's because he can say, they can't come after you because I'm here. And the president is truly paranoid about that possibility.

Mary Katherine Ham (30:09)

You're not paranoid if they're out to get you. Cause there's some out to get you.

Bill Maher (30:12)

Who said that?

Mary Katherine Ham (30:13)

Particularly in New York.

Bill Maher (30:14)

I mean, Matt Gaetz is.

Chris Cuomo (30:15)

Yes, that is true, but not at the doj.

Mary Katherine Ham (30:18)

Those are some of the threats to the democracy that other people are concerned about, right?

Chris Cuomo (30:22)

Yes, but why couldn't you get somebody who's like super qualified and has your back?

Mary Katherine Ham (30:28)

I would ask the same question and I think there are plenty.

Chris Cuomo (30:31)

Well, here's my answer. I think it's because it matters more to him to have someone loyal.

Mary Katherine Ham (30:40)

But you can get loyal and qualified.

Chris Cuomo (30:41)

You can. But he prefers the loyal and he gets a little intimidated by the qualified.

Bill Maher (30:45)

I mean, let's be honest. I'm sorry, you were. He doesn't care about qualified. No, no, no. I'm just saying, look, I don't think Matt Gaetz is a great pick for that job either. And he may not get it. He does have to be passed and a lot of actual Republicans are speaking out against him.

Mary Katherine Ham (31:01)

I don't know if you know, he's very well liked on the Hill, causes no trouble.

Bill Maher (31:06)

But the attorney general is the top cop in the nation. He's in charge of the Justice Department. That's why every president picks someone. I'm not saying these people weren't qualified, but they pick. That is the one job that you pick. Kennedy put his brother there. Reagan put his personal lawyer. Obama was like, well, I can't have too many black people in the cabinet because they'll say, but that job. Yes. Eric Holder. No, I think all these people actually were qualified. I don't know about Reagan's lawyer, but the point is that's, that's in football. It would be the left guard, the guy to protect your blindside. Anyway, I want to do this little pit here because it makes me laugh and I think it'll make you laugh. I saw last week Google searches on election day. The number was the one that spoke was did Joe Biden drop out? Which is pretty amazing. There's a well informed public. So now we got a hold of the Google searches that happened since the election. Would you like to hear them? Because where is the McDonald's where Trump works? This is what people want to know. Is America great again now or is there a waiting period? Well, can I pre order the morning after pill in bulk? That's. I can see why that will be on. How to get a Gen Z girl to stop crying. How to punish husband for Trump Vote. If we already don't have sex, do we still get to hang? Mike Pence is one of the easy to remember compliments to flatter Trump. That's going to be very important. When will I receive my free Trump bacon? Who won the Deep state and how soon before that? Our girls volleyball team. So let me ask you about one of those in there. I read that women are stockpiling the morning after pill. Is that an overreaction?

Mary Katherine Ham (33:59)

No, I don't have at it. I don't. I don't. I think a lot of this, a lot of reactions to Trump are overreaction. And I do think that observing a Trump presidency and having been in the press when we did it the first time, it does require some emotional discipline and not to jump at every single thing and assume it is absolute worst that it could possibly be, because I don't think, particularly as a newsperson, you're not serving people by giving them 11 at all times. And one of the reasons that people do not parse and do not listen to Democrats about the threats that, that they say Trump poses is because they've said every single thing he's ever done is a threat, while, by the way, they're threatening him with the criminal justice system and abusing it in ways they should not. And so it makes people go. And I think this electorate was this. It makes people go, y'all are full of shit.

Bill Maher (34:51)

But it does say, y'all are full of shit electorate. But it does beg the question, what do you do if the president hypothetically did commit some crimes? Look.

Chris Cuomo (35:05)

Two things can be true at once. Trump did things and says things that have never been allowed before. They have been disqualifying always. That's why I constantly say, I believe Trump has disqualified himself from office many times over. But that's not my call to make for everybody else. The mistake, I believe. And it's not easy to have this conversation. People are hurting, they are scared. They're legitimately worried. And as we all know, anybody who's, you know, in any kind of relationship of any kind, that when someone's upset and you're like, yeah, but you shouldn't be, you know, yeah, you're wrong to feel that way. You're asking for worse, not better, from that person. And there has to be a conversation. And the problem is he's supposed to start it. He should have come out last night when he spoke at Mar A Lago. He should have come out and said, I'm not doing all these crazy things. Okay? The campaign was what it was. Here's what I want to do. He's supposed to be saying those things. He doesn't want to say Them. And it is very frustrating for people that he is allowed to say and do whatever he wants. And there is no accountability on his side. Then his side says no accountability. The guy was investigated and prosecuted constantly for years. And that's when everything started to go like this.

Bill Maher (36:29)

But they didn't go to trial. You know, that's the problem. I don't think Merrick Garland will be remembered well by history because he went.

Mary Katherine Ham (36:37)

To trial in New York, but he caught a conviction. They tried to go to trial in Georgia and that one shit the bed. I mean, it's like, well, they had.

Bill Maher (36:43)

The one trial in New York you're talking about the Stormy Daniels trial, the least of them, the one that didn't really matter. They didn't have the one about, can you fine me 11,000 votes. To me, that's kind of a smoking gun. I mean, the problem with the cabinet that I think a lot of people see now, again, different than the first Trump term is that guardrails. We hear that term a lot. Like, I made a small list of things that Trump suggested in his first term, like nuking hurricane, bombing Mexico, shooting protesters in the legs, using a nuclear weapon on North Korea and then blaming it on somebody else, trading Greenland for Puerto Rico, putting a moat filled with alligators on the border, and, you know, not to mention lock her up stuff. So these are all things that, but, you know, he floated. Maybe he's, you know, a spit baller. He is. But, but, but what I'm saying is, like, there's been a thousand books about the Trump presidency that have come out, and most of them by people who used to be in the administration who talk about these things and then say, and then I stepped in and we didn't bomb Mexico. And then I stepped in and we didn't shoot protesters in the leg. I don't see anybody on the list. The Lee Zeldins, Tulsi Gabbards, Matt Gaetz's, Pete Hegseths, Christy Noems. Who's going to step in?

Chris Cuomo (38:16)

Well, the main person is Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller isn't going to be a cabinet position, but he is his main policy architect.

Bill Maher (38:23)

Right.

Chris Cuomo (38:24)

And he is the man people will remember as thinking it was a good idea that Muslims in general shouldn't be allowed in the country. And, and that is a little bit of a concern for me. But I'll tell you what I don't know, and MK will have a better sense of this, but I don't know that he had people telling him, no, you're not gonna do that in 2016, 2017, 28. And he said, okay, I relent. I don't know that it really happened like that. I was never satisfied that these guys all started telling their stories after they got out of the positions of power. You know, even Barr, after that letter that he wrote and Kelly and Mattis, I couldn't say it then because the country needed me. No, he's the elected guy. If you had something to say, you should have said it then. It would have had credibility.

Mary Katherine Ham (39:05)

I think. I think the argument from the people on his campaign or from people who are watching is that Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, is the more conventional Republican figure who would be that person and who has did quite a job during the campaign and got him here. I would also say again, voters, 30% of them voted for upheaval, 50% for change. Now he also. So he promised change and he will deliver it. Clearly, Biden promised normalcy and did not deliver it.

Bill Maher (39:38)

Well, he didn't deliver it because Trump kept running. That's one reason why he didn't deliver it. That was very hard.

Mary Katherine Ham (39:43)

That was delivered because in like June of 21, he was like, put your mask back on. And also, nobody can go to school all that spring.

Bill Maher (39:48)

Trust me, I'm with you on that. Yeah, I mean, we're gonna hear that very soon.

Mary Katherine Ham (39:51)

And the civil liberties violations of people during that time and the distrust, those came home to roost during this campaign. I think. I think it was a late reaction to that in some ways.

Chris Cuomo (40:01)

I think it was part of the married woman vote. I think there were a lot of moms out there who remembered what they had to live through. Right? Wrong, good, bad. And we'll never really know because nobody will do a review of the pandemic. The two parties can't just immediately point at the other one and say, this is on you. And if it's not advantage, it's not going to happen. In this two party system. That's all they want is advantage. But we are in a situation now where I get that it feels like you should be panicking. These picks are a sign that this is going to be really bad. I see it differently. I see these picks as a sign that he may not be that effective. And I don't mean to put them all in the same bucket. I don't see Tulsa Gabbard the way some people do. I think Ratcliffe and some of the other picks make sense within the scope of what we're seeing. For Solicitor General Interior, you create a Kakistocracy which I couldn't believe was a word. Turns out it is.

Bill Maher (40:58)

Government by the rich.

Chris Cuomo (40:59)

No, government. That's plutocracy. Kakistocracy is government by the worst.

Bill Maher (41:03)

By the worst. Right?

Chris Cuomo (41:04)

Yeah. And what does it tell you that the Greeks came up with that word? We've been doing this for a really long time, putting bad people in positions of power. So if that's the way it turns out, all I say is, you know, the older I get, I know this. I don't control a lot of what happens. I don't control who he picks. I don't control what they do. I do control how I react to it.

Bill Maher (41:24)

Yes.

Chris Cuomo (41:25)

And I really believe our Democrat brothers and sisters need to focus on that and wait for things to happen and then react to them. Because if you jump on everything he says and everything that comes out, you get exhausted.

Bill Maher (41:39)

Exactly. I'm not gonna do it this time.

Mary Katherine Ham (41:42)

And to your point, about. About our colleagues and friends on the left who are panicking, and I understand there's. There's pain there. The voters, they lost to Donald Trump, the person who you say is off the table as an option. This is ridiculous, what you've done. Many of those people are Democrats. They are Make America Healthy Again moms. They are minority voters who were having a really hard time and were not spoken to about their issues. They were talked to about how Trump was off the table. And I thought, I don't know. These two seem like they have a lot of downsides, each of them. And this guy's talking about some of my real problems.

Bill Maher (42:19)

So let's talk about the other guy who's in this cabinet. And you said Stephen Miller is going to be, like the first buddy. It looks to me like it's Elon Musk. He seems to have. He seems to be this minister without portfolio who can walk into any meeting, any room that he wants to. It feels like he walks into Trump when he's on the toilet if he wants to. And he's. He and the vague Ramaswamy are going to be in charge of, like, reinventing the government and efficiency. Now, I've seen this movie before. I remember Al Gore was charged with that. You remember that back way back in 1992. How'd that go? But of course, Elon Musk is a far cry from Al Gore. They are nothing. Al Gore was part of that system, and Elon Musk is straight from the outside. Now, Elon Musk is the greatest engineer maybe we've ever had in the world. Certainly the president there's no engineering problem he can't solve. I mean, that rocket that comes back and as Trump said, can Russia do it? Can China do it? I gotta say, I kind of like that. I'm an American, you know, can they do it? No regret. Okay, so he can do that. But government is such a different discipline. Yes, it is nothing like engineering. Can Elon Musk's. He's brilliant in this one way. Can it translate to government, do you think?

Chris Cuomo (43:43)

Can it? Yes.

Bill Maher (43:44)

Will it?

Chris Cuomo (43:45)

I don't know. And him naming the agency once it exists after his cryptocurrency was not helpful to him in not getting a conflict. Check up the wazoo as soon as he decides to do anything.

Bill Maher (43:57)

You just said you weren't gonna be bothered by the little shit.

Chris Cuomo (43:59)

Well, not me, but that's what's gonna happen. You know what I'm saying? Like, how I decide to cover it is something different. My point to people about Elon is, well, that's what he did at Twitter X is he greatly reduced what he saw as redundancies in people who weren't focused in the way that they needed to move forward. Now, the problem is that's a business. Government isn't. And there are a lot of jobs that are done because people need those jobs. And there are redundancies and there are layers. And you're going to have to figure out what you do with those people. You don't just fire them and let the market absorb them. So you're going to have to have a plan. But I don't have a problem with bringing in outsiders because to MK's point, we know why people voted for Trump. And I get the trope that not all Trump voters are bigots. It's not fair, it's not kind, and it's not right. But a lot of people who tend to be bigots did vote for Trump. Fine, fine. But you're dealing with people who decided that there's something that matters more to them than how he is. And most of the Trump voters I know don't talk like him, don't act like him, don't want him in a room with their wife. But they, but they, but they believe that he sees the need to disrupt what they do too.

Mary Katherine Ham (45:20)

Yes.

Chris Cuomo (45:20)

And that's why they voted for him. And now it's up to him to do it. And I think you gotta give him a chance to try.

Bill Maher (45:25)

Yeah, well, we have no choice. Okay, so.

Mary Katherine Ham (45:31)

He was given the power to make these choices. I think that Elon Musk is an incredibly creative Thinker who, when he gets his mind to something, can do things that have literally never been done before. So taking on bureaucracy is going to be one of those things.

Bill Maher (45:46)

Well, of course they said they're going to cut $2 trillion. You couldn't do that without going after the Pentagon. To me, that's where the rubber will meet.

Mary Katherine Ham (45:54)

The rubber or entitlements, which are Trump has also set are off limits because traditional conservatives do not run this party anymore.

Bill Maher (45:59)

Right, but I would do it.

Chris Cuomo (46:01)

But why not go after the Pentagon?

Bill Maher (46:03)

They should. They should have always done it. It's completely bloated.

Chris Cuomo (46:06)

I mean, look, we built it up because of a Russian that is now in a trench warfare with Ukraine, which is like the New York jets of the military, except Ukraine has heart. Right? I mean, they're there fighting for their country.

Bill Maher (46:20)

Jets could still come back if they win every game of this year.

Mary Katherine Ham (46:22)

There are better ways to do literally everything in government. The question is, can you actually make government changes?

Bill Maher (46:27)

I gotta cut it off there. Thank you, guys, that was fun. But it's time for news. Okay, now that £80,000 of Costco butter has been recalled because it didn't warn customers that butter contains milk, Costco must, must make a line of food spread called I Can't Believe it is But. Or how about this? We could stop trying to idiot proof the world. If you're lactose intolerant, don't eat butter. If you're allergic to peanuts, don't eat peanut butter cups. If you're allergic. If you're allergic to fish and someone offers you a tuna sandwich from Subway, you'll be fine. Now that north and South Dakota have voted not to legalize recreational marijuana, liberal potheads must stop naming their kids Dakota. Why pay tribute to these weed hating buzzkills? Also, I know from living in California where you meet a lot of Dakotas, if you name a girl Dakota, she will wind up a stripper. And if you name a boy Dakota, he'll become a girl who'll become a stripper. If the Republicans need a new mascot, I nominate former representative Michael Grimm. Michael voted to repeal Obamacare, but he recently fell off his polo pony and was paralyzed. So now he's gotta go fund me, begging strangers to pay his $2.5 million in medical bills. I'd like to help Michael, but I just can't send you money because that's socialism and that's. And if you think that's cold, where do you meet your Haitian nurse? New rule. Someone has to ask. Determined that the tarballs that washed up on Australia's beaches aren't tarballs at all, but actually lumps of sewage made up of human feces, bits of plastic, human hair, and drugs. Is that supposed to be good news? Hey, back into the water, everybody. They're not tarballs. It's just shit hair and Method Newell. Now that the North Korean soldiers in Ukraine have access to the Internet for the first time and are predictably gorging on porn sites, they have to check out my new porn site, dedicated exclusively to the North Korean mail. Introducing Pyongyang.com. i like that one. Thank you, Khan. Yank. Where comrades like you can enjoy titles like Debbie Does Donbas, Kim Jong Un. Thank you, rear leader and horny ex girlfriend walked in on me eating. Okay, all right. Okay. And finally, new rule. Someone must tell the usual suspects on the far left that the saying is, when you're in a hole, stop digging, not keep digging. Talk about doubling down on what got you fucked in the first place. Even the one concession I've heard a few people on the losing side offer that liberals should stop saying the Trump voters are stupid. Comes with a kind of unspoken parentheses. We know they are stupid. Just don't say it. Yeah, yeah. I got bad news for you. They don't have a monopoly on stupid. You wear Queers for Palestine T shirts and masks two years after the pandemic ended, and you can't define woman. I mean, person who menstruates. You're the teachers Union Education Party, and you've turned schools and colleges into a joke. You just lost a crazy contest to an actual crazy person. You love to speak truth to power, and we always should, but you have completely lost the ability to speak truth, to bullshit. The Democratic polling firm Blueprint told Democrats months ago that black voters, AKA their supposedly liberal base, were more likely to find the president too liberal than too conservative. They also found that voters didn't just want Harris to distance herself from Biden. They wanted her to distance herself from what they believe the entire Democratic party has become a Portlandia sketch. A bunch of privileged, mean girls complaining about privilege and trying to make fetch happen. What a shocker that the people who see everything through the lens of race and sex see their election loss as a result of racism and sexism. Yes, if only we weren't so irredeemably unenlightened, we would have elected a black president by now. Oh, what? We did. Oh, all right. And then reelected him. Maybe you missed it because it wasn't on TikTok and sexism. Hillary got 3 million more votes than Trump, which in a normal country would be called a victory. It wasn't. It wasn't 21st century sexism that prevented a woman from being president. It was the electoral college. Democrats run for office as if the voters don't live here, as if they don't go to the grocery store and Starbucks and the office. But they do. They live here. And they actually see women and people of color. And it doesn't look like some patriarchal racist nightmare. Do problems remain pertaining to racism and sexism? Of course. But a poll last year asked if America is the greatest country in the world. More blacks than Hispanic Americans agreed with that. Than the white progressives. It asked if racism is built into our society. White progressives agreed with that at higher levels than black and Hispanic people. It asked if government should increase border security. Same result. Hispanic Americans are less okay with illegal immigration than whitey. The votes are in. They don't want your pity. And black people can't afford to indulge rich white people's needs to endlessly flagellate themselves. They just want prices to go down and good jobs and the police. When you call them black people, they're just like us. Kamala spent 100 days telling voters, I know it feels like crime in illegal immigrants. Immigration are bad, but fuck your feelings. Look at this chart. Yes, there's a lot to not like already about the new regime, but maybe take one week to ask what you did wrong. The basis for Democratic campaigns has become we're the smart people that we know from the get go. No need to look into that. We know that a priori, which is a Latin phrase the red hat people wouldn't have a clue about, but they don't need to. Have you seen my in this House, we believe lawn sign. See, it says right on it. We believe in science. Right, which is why you demanded no one even debate whether Covid could have escaped from the one lab in the one city where they were studying it. How far fetched. The New York Times called it racist. Democrats have become like a royal family that because of so much incest, has unfortunately had children who are retarded. And the same thing can happen to ideas if they are also conceived in an atmosphere of intellectual incest. Maybe take the clothespins off your noses and actually converse with the other half of the country. Stop screaming at people to get with the program and instead make a program worth getting with. What good is liberalism if you don't win elections? Last week, Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton said, I have two little girls. I Don't want them getting run over on a playing field by a formerly male athlete. But as a Democrat, I'm supposed to be afraid to say that, yes, there's the problem in a nutshell. Because Congressman Moulton sounds reasonable to me, but his campaign manager immediately resigned in protest. Let me make this as plain as I can to the smart people. The campaign manager who resigned. Yeah, Let that person go. Marginalized, that guy. Try making too woke be a cancelable offense. It's important for America to have a center left party and for that party to be competitive. And a good first step toward that goal would be to make the voters not want to punch you in the face. I will conclude. I will conclude by saying. And the reason I'm so mad at the Democrats is because as a voter, the issues that were important to me were democracy and the environment. And now there's no one to champion or defend either of them. Because you, with your aggressively anti common sense agenda and shitty exclusionary attitude, blew it. You lost everything. House, Senate, White House, Supreme Court. And left us completely unprotected and ready to be violated. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Axing we're on next week. We're on next week for our season finale. I will see you then. That's our show. I want to thank Mary Catherine Ham, Chris Cuomo and Dr. Casey Means. And now go watch Overtime on YouTube. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every.

Chris Cuomo (58:24)

Friday night at 10 or watch him.

Bill Maher (58:26)

Anytime on HBO on demand. For more information, log on to hbo.com every hero in Gotham City has an origin story. And Nerd wallet Nerds like me are no different.

Chris Cuomo (58:38)

I discovered the power of a high.

Bill Maher (58:39)

Yield savings account in a secret lab experiment and I had to tell everybody about it. Okay, we might not be actual superheroes, but we did become the nerds. To help you make smarter financial decisions, we've researched and reviewed thousands of financial products so the good citizens of Gotham City, I mean your city, don't have to. Nerds. Nerd Wallet Finance.

Chris Cuomo (59:00)

Smarter.