Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Leighton series, Real Time with Bill Maher. Oh, please. Thank you very much. Hey, everybody. Wow. It is. Well, we've been up since November 20. Great to be back. I've been on a bit of a news diet. Anything big happen?

I tell you, the stuff that was happening in America right now was happening anywhere else in the world. We did invade that country.

Biden, did you see him today?

He announced his inauguration theme, America United. And all I could think is, boy, you have spent a lot of time in the basement.

Yes. Yes. There's 20000 armed troops on heightened alert in Washington right now. And Joe will be giving his inauguration speech in front of basically nobody. Welcome to my world, Joe.

No, I just want to want to say, you hear some people here, these are we are not allowed to have an audience anymore. I'm not complaining about that. We are very appreciative of the authorities on all levels of let us be here in our studio. We get it. There's a crisis out here in California and in the country. So these are just the normal assessors.

I hope they're asking her to hang around the studio who are allowed to hear, because if they're not, I really have no choice. But but Joe outlined his plan today for the future. He wants to give African-American a check for fourteen hundred dollars. Best grandpa ever.

But let's see what but let's review what's happened while we were off. Oh, yeah, there was an insurrection at the Capitol, a bunch of Fox News freaks and KUNR nuts from deep red districts bashed and rammed and broke their way into the Capitol instead of getting there the usual way by being elected.

I mean, you all saw the video, right? They stormed in and they chased retreating police up the stairs, ransacked the building. This is something I never thought I would see in America. Trump supporters taking the stairs.

Even the people who wrote it aren't laughing that much, so that's where I have people help me, help me at home.

But it was sad, right, to see this in America, people were hiding under their desks in the Capitol looking for hidey holes. I mean, in the Senate, someone tried to get into a closet and Lindsey Graham said, get out of here. This is my spot.

And so I hit Lindsey Graham. I don't even know what that means. But Democrats are now saying that they witnessed the day before.

Listen to this day before the attack. They witness Republican lawmakers. Giving some of the rioters who came back the next day tours of the Capitol, this is the day before the attack that giving tours to the people who are coming to ransack the next day. This is the Senate chamber where we will be hanging, Mike Pence. And we're walking.

And we're walking. OK, so that happens and then let's see what else happened. Oh, yeah. Trump got impeached again. There's not a rerun. Trump got impeached again for egging on the mob and this time 10 Republicans. Isn't this interesting? Ten Republicans voted for impeachment. All it took was for them to get personally attacked by a violent mob waving Trump flags. The other. Ninety five percent of Republicans still OK with that.

More of a think joke, I guess. Rough crowd on my payroll. Still a rough crowd.

That's what I'm dealing with. OK, well. But listen, it's one hundred and forty seven Republican lawmakers, this is the senators and congressmen are still standing by the lie that the election was fraudulent after the attack took place after the attack. And because of the attack now Congress put in more metal detectors, which Republicans are refusing to use or sometimes just rushing right through because that could violate their freedom to overtake a legally elected government by armed rebellion. And who wants to live in a country like that?

So this is historic. This this is historic for a president to be impeached for a second time.

For a second time, Trump has been asked to leave office three, if you count the election to two, impeachment. He's like he's like the vaccine you need you need two doses and still no guaranteed. But he's having a rough time in his last five days in office, Trumpy was Twitter threw him off. He's been banned on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, the PGA golfing, the love of his life, cancelled his big tournament, New Jersey, Deutsche Bank no longer be giving loans to the Trump family.

Everyone's turning their back on this guy. His bank in Florida dumped him in New York. He lost his contract for the ice skating rink. And Ivonka just wants to be friends.

It's sad.

The head of the Mushroom Trade Association asked today that mushroom is no longer be compared to his dick.

This is very, very sad for any. But amid all of this, of course, the Biden inauguration is going to happen and we are going to have a new president and he's being welcomed in with open arms. I don't know if you know Marjorie Taylor Green. She's one of the new Republican congresspeople there, a Q and on person. She has drafted articles of impeachment against Biden.

I'm not kidding, she said she says she's going to file on January 21st, his second day in office. Well, she wants to give him a chance.

All right. We've got a great show. We have Katie Couric and shows. Wow. But first up, she is the former senior counsel to President Trump. Please welcome Kellyanne Conway.

How are you doing? You look you look great. Yeah, I first of all, I never have to worry about remembering your birthday.

That's right. We share one and we are for another reason. That is our day. Well, yes. Inauguration Day, January 20th is our birthday that we share.

We're both going to be thirty five and I'll take it. I pulled up this picture. This is you four years ago, four years ago this week. Now, people made fun of this. I actually thought that outfit was kind of dope, I must tell you. And I see you still got the shoes.

Are there different shoes? But, yes, there was a real spread of opinion on that. Not that I asked anybody. Right about what they thought. What I add to the inauguration. I love all the sort of feminism and the pro woman and be your own person independent until you until you wear black stretch pants one day, until you wear something that button snaps or zippers to the inauguration and somehow offend half of the country. What you have on the stretch pants?

Well, no, they're not stretch pants. But but that was a great day. That was a great day. We it was a beautiful day.

And how do you look back now four years later? I mean, anything go wrong?

And I'm very grateful for it. Yeah, I'm just asking. I remember a lot went right and he will never be remembered for that.

People who write the history of the Trump administration aren't even born yet. But look, a lot of last week notwithstanding, because last week was vulgar, there's no place for violence and vandalism. And I wish the president had spoken with the people earlier to get them the hell out of there. And I made that clear. I called the White House just to add my voice.

You on January six, you did try to get through to him, right? I did. What were you going to say? Well, I did, but I did get through to him. Oh, I did. I said to the person standing next to him, please add my name to the chorus of people just saying you have to tell them to get out. I don't know what they're doing, why they're there, but tell them to get out.

They're not looking at their Twitter feeds as they're breaking your glass. The reason why they were there is because he never conceded the election.

Well, but I did a long time ago where you could see the most senior person around him who never did stop this deal, fraud, nothing. I haven't been on TV in nine years. I know.

And I first of all, I think I forgot to say thank you because we know you have many choices in their life.

Thanks for flying and interviewers and you chose me. I really do appreciate that. But I mean, the election was November 3rd, correct? You acknowledged Biden won on December 4th. Why the rush?

No, I acknowledge it. I acknowledge that long before that that was the first time I did any kind of public statement to whom I acknowledged it, the president. So he but that's publicly the first time.

I'm not sure possibly. But remember, it's a month. Remember, I think he had every right to exhaust his legal challenges, but that was long gone. Those challenges you had, you had real questions of law in places like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, had automatic recounts. You had audits. There were things happening. People were signing affidavits. But that had long been exhausted. And I think the real disappointment for people like me is that the last two months, let's just say from November 6th to January 6th, weren't spend mostly talking about the accomplishments, reviewing the accomplishments he built, the greatest economy we've had and pre covid he built it.

It was pretty much built. OK, come on, Bill. Well, it was doing very well when he took over. Would you agree with him? But it did even better in, you know, the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to twenty three percent. These are facts, OK? The poverty rate fell for the first time in nineteen fifty nine levels. Wages exploded. And you know what? Green energy, jobs, manufacturing, the kinds of people I grew up with.

Well, energy, jobs, the environment, they don't. Well, they don't necessarily though well want to go to college and have that path. They have another path to success. Why are we pushing everybody to college when people can graduate with a skills certificate and start start working? That day? We built those he built those kinds of this administration, these policies and the people who will be hurt the most if there's a reversal of those policies are the Trump voters, you know, other people will be just fine.

A lot of people profited. A lot of his critics profited tremendously from his presidency. With the deregulation, he rebuilt the military.

Our veterans are more deeply respected, like the military needed rebuild. They needed to pay out, need the pay raise. They did. They deserve that pay raise. What was that? What was the defense budget under Obama? Pretty much similar, over 700 billion. And we never stop whatever party it is. They give everything they want to our giant knock your dick in the dirt and you to work.

But he also didn't do something. He didn't do something that he did something that he did not do. Something that you don't like, which is he didn't bring us into a new war. He's the first modern president to not bring us into a new war.

Jimmy Carter never fired a shot. That's that's forty some years ago.

But that would be a modern president. Do I lot one, two, three.

We've had five since he's alive. How does modern let's see.

We've had two Bushes, a Clinton, Obama and Clinton, and we went to war. All right. And what lessons as we look back now? Many lessons.

OK, so how about let me ask a rose. Let me let me see if let me suggest one. We shouldn't humor crazy people when they're in power, because wasn't the humor of him part of the problem here that you you believe that he thinks he won the election, so everybody humored him? I did. They're him. I had lunch every week, December twenty second. Not about the election. No way, but not about the election. And this is important.

I had lunch with him at his invitation on December twenty second, just the two of us the day before he left for the Christmas and New Year's break. We had a great lunch. He spent about thirty two seconds talking about the election because I don't do that. We spent a few minutes talking about the stimulus package. He's very adamant about two thousand dollars, not six hundred dollars. And the rest of the time he talked about his legacy. We talked about the future.

We talked about the fact that we've got Mideast peace deals. We talked about the fact that he's the first president of seven who made the promise to keep the promise to move the American embassy to Jerusalem and recognize Jerusalem as the capital. I said I was for it. You no, I'm just making the point that this is one thing I like, that he was he did pretty good in the middle. And we never talked about January six. We never talked about anything like that.

I put in my two cents.

So you left the White House in August. Sounds like you're still working there, but it sounds like you're very much, very much a defender. Oh, no. Every one of us is defending him more.

I'm always going to differ among the two of us who you know what, Bill? I'm always going to defend the fact that there were a lot of people in this country who felt that the system didn't work for them and they wanted somebody out of out of politics to be a true disruptor, to turn the tables upside down, disrupt, to break some glass and guess what? And laugh. Well, yeah. And to improve the economy. I mean, you can't deny that people many people are better off if you deny that that's.

Well, they're not better off now.

A lot of them are dead.

And had he had he was at the beginning of covid, he had a sixty one percent approval rating on that and then lost it because he just didn't talk about you.

Do you think you know this or malign or anything bad? You know, people have said that he did lie a little more than most presidents. I mean, no president is completely truthful, but let's he's a bit of a fibber.

I think the politicians exaggerate and some lie.

But but didn't he do a lot more than I mean, but didn't you once say, I know you did.

You once said he doesn't hurl personal insults. I was making the point that when he is in the context of something and I also have seen him be very, very compassionate towards people, he's gotten people out of jail who were languishing there.

This is just of what he said about me. Oh, a dummy. Dopey. He's not a smart guy, dumbest man on television, fired dog needs to cut back on the pot, dumb ass, a rather dumb guy, a lowlife, dumb as a rock moron, stupid guy, very dumb guy sitting in a really dumb guy, a so-called comedian, third rate comedian, insane, sick, wacko stone-Cold, crazy and crazy. I can imagine the applause is a sign.

No, but but come on. You said he doesn't hurl insults. That's just the cherry. Pick things. Just cherry. Listen, listen. I loved I love being in public service. I love serving this country. I love I gave up millions of dollars to go into the White House. And I loved what my portfolio included, which was health care, education, the opioid crisis. And I really liked the incoming that people asking, do you have information on this?

Can you help me steer this way? I don't know what I'm doing on this. There's a certain value to public service, and some people look the other way and know. I would also tell you, just lumping together seventy four million people with all the troublemakers, the thugs, the marauders, that's my editorialised.

It's it. But it's incredible. It's incredibly it's it's it's incredibly dangerous, too. And I know they vote every two to four years, but they consume products and services every day. And I think that corporate America can make a big mistake trying to lump them all together and just and just ignore them. I think that those marauders and murderers, I think that they insult not represent the whole the whole Trump movement and that seventy four million is not a base.

It's a large percentage of the country. But for me, I look at the good that was done to help impact people's lives positively. I think that government is messy. I'm happy that I worked for a president who kept the Oval Office door open to many of us. We can go in and express ourselves. I didn't win every policy debate, but I was heard. And I think any woman in the workplace who is heard by her boss and has a seat at the table should really appreciate that all these corporate handbooks have on page six.

Eighty four, we're going to have more women at the side of the table. I had one and like I said, I lost some of those policy debates. I won some. But he always liked people to disagree in front of him, too. But he is the president. He represents the country. When he was first there, I remember saying there was a book called Everything I Need to Know. I learned in kindergarten. You remember that?

And you remember it was probably when you were first doing old Politically Incorrect show. You're probably talking about that tape. And I wrote down some of the things from it. As we look back on the Trump years, let's see if any of this is from everything I need to know. I learned in kindergarten. Don't lie, don't boast, don't threaten, don't bully. Don't accuse people of stuff that's not true. Don't show off your wealth, pay your taxes, serve your country.

Don't pretend you go to church. If you don't, I don't care about that one.

Don't be racist. Don't insult soldiers. Try to learn something about a subject before you talk about it. Don't mock the handicapped. And this one was not in the book. But don't grab women by the pussy that I think should have read it.

I mean when you see that. Does it have any? So you think nothing good came out of the last? I'm just asking about that. You know, the people who the people who believed in Donald Trump, the forgotten man or forgotten woman, they appreciate an expansion of school choice and charter schools. Why should why should just the rich kids have all the opportunities?

What I love about you, I read that list and you're right on to charter schools. Not well, because it's important if you're good at what you do.

But but this is what I do. And I think it's important to recognize you have dead terrorist name Soleimani al-Baghdadi, the whole judiciary's dead terrorist you have.

Well, but but that doesn't happen by accident. Well, that happens when somebody can go from one to differently, of course.

And I and I applaud that and I proud of that tremendously. But I think that people shouldn't be mocked for what they wear, how they eat, where they eat, what they look like. And the Trump people are constantly mocked. And they felt like they had in Donald Trump somebody who was giving them more voice and visibility. And if you can match that with policy gains, where you do have deregulation and taxes lowered for people where it matters, other people will be just fine.

And I and I think that that I think his legacy on the policy stuff will will survive a lot of this. Last week was horrible. I made that. I made that very clear. Last week is inexcusable. Disgraceful. Justice is being swiftly serve. You see indictments already. Prosecutions are should be punishment. And I think the FBI is is digging in a little bit more into things that maybe they knew ahead of time. Well, happy birthday.

Happy birthday to you. Good luck with whatever you do in the future.

All right. Thank you, Kellyanne Conway. All right. Let's bring in our panel, Joe. Well, all right, here's the award winning journalist and founder of Katie Couric Media in Media.

Katie Couric is over, way over there, way over there, and I can barely see her. There could be a Katie Katie Couric impersonator from this. He is the veteran host of Kentucky Sports Radio and the author of The New York Times best seller. Mitch, please. I get it. McConnell sold out Kentucky and America until Matt Jones. Matt. How are you doing? All right, so look, we're we're all in America, but on edge right now.

There's been violence in the country and there may be more this weekend. I saw the head of the FBI today on TV talking about we're hearing a lot of chatter, chatter.

That's the word we heard after 9/11. Remember when we were talking about terrorism? Oh, there's a lot of terrorist chatter. And now it's coming from Americans. It's. There's talk about I mean, there's militias who are going to go and protest at every state capital on Sunday, OK? And as much as I'm worried about these loons who break into government, I'm actually more worried about the loons who did get elected because, I mean, what do you do about these people?

There's one hundred and forty seven Republicans in Congress who still don't concede that Trump lost the election. What do you do about people who are in the government who don't believe in our way of government? It is so shocking, not only are they not conceding, Bill, but there's thoughts that there might have been some collusion among members of Congress. Some are refusing to go through Romagna, not magnetometers or whatever you call them, to to check for weapons.

They're not wearing masks during the siege. I mean, it's really bizarre, isn't it, when you think about how a while so many of these members of Congress have gotten. But I also think some of them are believing the garbage that they are being fed 24/7 on the Internet by their constituents and bought into this big lie. And the question is, how are we going to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump?

We know you're not going to deprogram you're not going to deprogram the kooks that are in Congress. And I think one of the first things you have to do is just say these people are kooks. Too often we try to justify having them out there, act as if their opinion is somehow more important because they got elected to Congress. I mean, two of these women that got elected, the one from George and the one from Colorado, say completely ridiculous things.

One has been arrested for four times. One of them wears the mask that are basically Kuhnen slogans. There's no reason to try to deprogram that person. I think that those folks like the woman who's going to do the impeachment the day after, I actually think you have to consider that Congress has to censure those people and consider ultimately maybe removing them because they are a hazard. They are Congress. Yes.

How is that going to happen? That's well, because there's the rest of them have to do it. I mean, to me, you were talking about Mitch McConnell. This all comes down to Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell holds the keys. Well, in my opinion, you want to run against them? Well, I wanted to run against him. I thought about it. But really, I think he's diversional to you. It's not. Well, he did kick me off my radio show, but it's not personal.

It's the fact they let Donald Trump for two months. They let him basically they said, well, what's wrong with just letting him do it? We saw what's wrong with it on January six. And I think McConnell will decide, because I think I was talking to Katie before, I think he's going to vote to impeach him. I really do.

That's such bullshit. Know that he, Mitch McConnell is playing.

Want to make a bad. Yes. All right. I'll bet you how much you. Well, you got more money than I did. I'm not going to I'm not going to pick it. I think it be, though. I mean, it would be such a Hollywood ending if Mitch McConnell comes out, he would the hero vote to convict Donald Trump. And, you know, he knows. I mean, he is Elaine Chao has stepped down as secretary of transportation, doing some serious political maybe they're doing some serious pillow talk to his wife, right?

Yeah, OK. Yeah, I don't think he'd be doing pillow talk.

Well, you know, I know, but he's not he's he's rope a doping you. He just is with the media all the time. He fooled them into he leaked it out that he might do this. He's never going to do that. He is not going to vote to. Here's the Donald Trump. Once Donald Trump loses, he's not a useful fool anymore. He liked having Donald Trump because Donald Trump's best thing for Mitch McConnell is he took policies that were very unpopular in rural America, tax cuts for the rich, and made them to where they ended up supporting them because they thought they were supporting Donald Trump.

The moment he's not in office anymore, he is actually a harm. And if you don't believe me, he's lost his last three elections. He lost the twenty eighteen midterms. He lost the twenty twenty election and he lost the Georgia Senate. So I think Mitch McConnell is no longer going to put up well, because he doesn't help.

He's going Mitch, does it. A lot of other Republicans, obviously, Bill, will fall in line. Do you think we're living in a fantasy world?

No, I, I, I think I'm the one who doesn't. But that's Mitch McConnell. Donald Trump's going to run again. He's not going away. And he's a brand. Now, I see these other politicians who talk like him now. They disgusting like they use the word disgusting a lot. It's a brand.

You know, we let the alien on this spaceship and it had eggs, but they just had eggs and they're breeding. And and if you think that this is not I mean, this I've heard people say, oh, thank God this week is over, the battle is over.

This chapter is over. This war is just beginning.

But they need fifty one senators to prohibit him from running again. And I think that that could happen. No. Sixty seven. No, no, no. They just need a simple majority to keep him from running again. They need two thirds to convict him for impeachment. Oh. So they some legal scholars say that they can have that vote even without convicting him. So hope springs eternal.

And he also here's the other thing, though, about Trump. The people that are like him, and you're exactly right. There's this whole group of sort of Trump created, you know, people who want to follow in his path. But here's the problem. They're not as popular as him. People in places like Kentucky don't like them as much as they like Trump. Trump was a brand. That's the feeling. Trump was something that wasn't ideology. It was a feeling these other folks, Josh, Holly, Ted Cruz, they don't do that, nobody looks at Josh Holly and says, let me have my Holly hat on and I'm going to go out and scream for him.

Trump is different. And I would argue, Bill, nobody else is going to be able to do what he did with that coalition.

What makes him so charismatic, you think?

I mean, I think it's because he hates both parties. I do. I think people in this country are just fed up. They're not political. I mean, who is the first thing that the Marauders asked for when they got into the Capitol was stirring up Mike Pence? That's what ISIS does. They go after their own people first.

You know, they go after the less pure of the Muslim, while also they felt he was a traitor because he wasn't.

But I'm saying I was like, what did the first thing Donald Trump say when he was running he shit on McCain? Well, he does shit on the Bushes. Mitt Romney, what Republican has he ever respected? He hates everybody. And they're like, good. He's the only person he hasn't turned on his. Kellyanne Conway, if you go look at basically everyone that he's not, think we just saw what.

But I mean, if you think about it, everyone that's worked for him, everyone that's worked for him, he's turned on them.

I think the thing that he does and this is, you know, people don't like to hear this, but it's true. There is a a group of people in America, rural Americans, who have been completely disregarded by the media, by academia, by Hollywood, et cetera. And they never had a person who would say, you folks matter. You folks are the people that really are what America is about. And so it's not about are you talking about every politician in the world?

But now they all go sit on a bale of hay and say that here he's talking about here's the dividend, took Donald Trump from his penthouse in Manhattan to go and do that. But here's the difference. It wasn't the first one to say that. The difference is he rides with them no matter what. The rest of he rides in a limousine. They on a tractor. Well, I didn't say he was legit. He's not legit. Like, he is a complete phony.

But the difference is he takes up for every part of rural American existence and that's why they like him. I'm not saying they should. I think they should, but that's why they like him. And that's why he's not replicable, because no one else has that credibility. Now, I agree with you. How in the world did they have Donald Trump, who's never been in the mountains, he's never been on a rural, he never been on a farm, but they believe him.

And I think that's why they ride for him.

OK, let me ask you a little question about what's going to happen. In five days, no Joe Biden's rehearsal dinner, I mean, inauguration rehearsal was postponed today because of threats of violence and fear of violence.

Why not just junk the whole thing? Why are we going outside?

I mean, all right, all I hear all the time is like, you know, because of covid, we have to not travel and not get into big crowds.

So why are we having this inauguration? Why can't he just go in the room?

All you need is a room, the wife, a judge, a balloon, a copy of the old book, a Jewish fairy, tales to put your hand on and you're done.

I mean, he's been doing that campaigning that way and he says twenty five thousand.

The DOD just approved twenty five thousand members of the National Guard to be in Washington, D.C. All the state capitals are under heightened security alerts. I think I think it's I think, Bill, it's an important symbol of closing the chapter on Donald Trump, turning the page. I think there has to be some kind of special event to signify, even though now with the the impeachment hearings that are probably going to be transpiring after the inauguration. And so we you know, Trump is ever present.

But I don't know. I think it's important for the democratic process to have something happen.

And you don't want to let the kooks win. I mean, the biggest thing is if you go to tune on message boards and those types of things, if you postpone the inauguration, they believe they won. They believe that they stopped everything. They believe that they actually interfered with government.

Let's kind of after like 9/11, we had to keep America safe.

And I think there are certain rituals and symbols that are critically important as cornerstones and touchstones of how we move forward.

But don't we have to keep Joe Biden going? You know, there was a president, William Henry.

I was he's a distant relative of mine. William Henry Harrison.

Yes. He was president for six. Now he is president 141 days.

Thirty one years. He gave a two hour inaugural address in terrible cold, rainy weather. Making my point for me.

Yeah, OK. To die hours after Daniel Webster edited it, by the way, his friend, and then he died of pneumonia. Yes. Our advice to Joe Biden should be keep it short.

But I do think. OK, but but but Joe Biden, he's he's a friggin tragedy magnet.

I mean, we don't say that. It's not true. Well, I mean, I think that that's he broke his foot, give me a bad feeling, broke his foot playing with his dog, but I mean, his eyes exploded from blinking. We have to treat this guy like the baby in children from men, you know, children of men, whatever that movie was where they had to keep the baby. I think he's pretty.

I think he's pretty vibrant and in good shape. You saw him run across the stage when he made that speech. I think I need to compare his uncle who died to compare his physical fitness to Donald Trump.

Let's also say I don't care about Joe Biden. I'll give Joe Biden credit for this. He has been discounted in the primary. He was in fifth after Iowa. Everyone thought he was going to lose. Most people thought he couldn't make it through the debates he couldn't do. I actually think Joe Biden is amazingly resilient. I actually think he is the only Democratic politician that would have won. I mean, if any of the others had run, they would have lost a different story.

But OK. All right. So, listen, there's no convincing Trump that he lost, but we thought we would try. No advisers. We saw Kellyanne Conway talk about friends. Everybody tried to tell him the courts, but we thought we'd take one last shot at it. And we wrote a children's book. It's called Pack Your Shit and Go.

And we thought it's the last show while he's President Barack and sit on this guy.

I've tried to be evenhanded the whole time he was president, but it didn't work out. But would you like to hear some of your shit and. All the votes have been counted, all the courts have said, no, you're all out of options now, pack your shit and go.

It's clear that you're angry that you're feeling quite low, that feelings called losing, so pack your shit and go.

You pick up a new hobby like knitting or banjo, call your favorite hooker, just pack your shit and go start a cable network, try talk radio. There's an opening at Limbaugh, but you got to pack your shit and go because you treated your job like a reality show. Well, now it's been canceled. So pack your shit and go. OK, but he is going now. What do you think about this impeachment two electric boogaloo?

I mean, it reminds me of the first one in that you kind of had to do it right, because you can't let the president stand. But it's just going to be horrible. It's just a horrible way to start a new administration. First of all, the Republicans are 24/7 going to be saying, oh, you people have Trump derangement syndrome, you're hounding him in retirement. You can't let this go. It's like the guy who, you know, breaks up with somebody and then we've got to talk.

No, we broke up. We don't have to talk.

But if you commit a crime and then you say, does that mean we're not going to charge you with a crime because you're moving out of the neighborhood? And it's ludicrous. I think there have to be guard rails on presidential power.

And I think it's just a dilemma. But he incited violence.

You just as Warner Wolf said, you know, roll the videotape, some of the stuff he was spewing, some of the stuff Rudy Giuliani was spewing, you heard him say, oh, I'll walk down the Capitol. What do you mean I'll walk in the opposite direction and watch it all from my Barcalounger. But, you know, he was really, really inciting violence. And you heard, you know, as more details come out, they wanted to capture assassinate all these members of Congress.

I mean, it is insane. And you cannot let that stand. You just can't.

And and he was that what made him mad about all of that the most is how wimpy he was because he sits there and says, go, fight, fight, I will march with you. And then he goes away and he leaves them to it. He has to be he has to be impeached. Well, he was impeached, but he has to be convicted. And I think the Republicans this goes back to the point a minute ago. I think they want to convict him so he doesn't run again.

But if you let this go, if you let this go, how do you impeach anybody in the future? Because this is the worst behavior, right?

I'm just saying, I think this is granted it's inconvenient. I think it does interfere with Joe Biden's first 100 days. You know, can Congress chew gum and walk at the same time? Can they take care of the new administration, the requirements of approving or confirming the cabinet, et cetera, et cetera, and carrying on these impeachment hearings? You know, the networks are doing a happy dance because it's like, wow, more Trump. They thought, you know, you're really worried what's going to happen.

But let's face it, Joe Biden is boring.

Oh, yes. Is just said, I'm so excited when the news is going to be boring again, but the ratings are really going to run. Well, now they're going to he's going to have the oxygen he craves. In a weird way. I wonder if he's happy that he's going to be the center of attention for a little bit.

Trump is still going to be the center of attention.

No, no, I don't think so. I don't Twitter. You don't intermediation. No social media platforms. And if and only reporting on him giving context. And and I think that that he's going to be deprived of the oxygen, that direct relationship with the voter that he lives for.

Let me ask about that Twitter thing, because he was thrown off Twitter, he was thrown off all the platforms. And Jack Dorsey, who runs Twitter, said he said this sets a precedent I feel is dangerous. But what I just did, I'm saying I like they made it permanent. He said the power an individual or a corporation has over part of the global public conversation. So he himself has second thoughts. Angela Merkel. I can't imagine anyone who thinks less of Trump than brilliant.

He has seen Angela Merkel. There's their statement. The Chancellor, is it problematic that the president's accounts have been permanently suspended? The ACLU said it should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked powers to remove from people, from remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions. I'm a free speech person. I mean, fuck Trump. But when someone, anyone, anywhere decides, you know, what speech is allowed and what isn't, I don't know.

I'm not allowed to yell fire in a crowded theater. So if you're inciting violence, well, you're spreading lies that are getting people fired and lies is always violence. I think there should be some standards.

There should be, but there should be a standard. But there can't be a standard that says we will allow some things and not others. Look, I'm glad Trump's gone because I think he's a negative, but they have allowed similar speech from Putin is still on on Twitter. So I do think there's a difference in what they're doing. But this is a result of a time where the Republicans have for generations deregulated companies said free market, free market, free market, and now the market has turned and is actually going against them.

And they're actually now complaining when they could have done something about this. A long a lot of people are saying you don't want Twitter and Facebook and all of these deciding who gets to speak in America.

I don't like it, but it's dangerous. I don't want them to. Deciding. But I think this is a critical moment when we have to figure out these platforms with Facebook, three billion users, I mean, how can we? Is it just beyond control? Have has the technology superseded the collaboration? Maybe they should have an independent board that talks about, you know you know, it's not a million people have really considerable influence. They have 200000 followers.

I don't know, you know, maybe people to talk about. I don't know individuals that are considered to be, you know, smart school.

But wait a second. And they decide what incites violence. And there are certain standards and practices. These are private companies. People have to adhere to standards and practices.

Who who are these mythical people that America can agree on or smart in principle? Maybe you get because that's the problem with America that we can't agree on, that we can have a functioning country if anyone could ever agree on that. But we can't.

And Tristan Harris, who I know was a guest pretty recently from the social social dilemma, he talked about having a constitutional convention for the digital age, like how are we going to agree on certain principles? Because as it exists now, we are never we're going to be too divided. We're never going to be unified because people are getting affirmation, not information. They're being drowned and they're drowning in their own echo chambers. So how are we going to even agree on a certain basic set of facts?

Maybe we're too far gone. I don't know. But I'd like to think there's something that these companies and that we as a society can do.

I think we can all agree they should ban the people who instigate violence. But when you start talking about a commission and look, I'm on your side, I wish that there were new sources like you that people would have listened to and everybody hears the facts, but that's gone. And once you decide who gets to decide what news is real and what's not, I actually think that's problematic. I mean, everything's all right.

I'm not talking about real news. I'm talking about I'm talking about things that actually incite violence.

But that itself, you know, I mean, I saw what Twitter said was a step too far for Trump. No, I think he's been inciting violence since he got there. I couldn't agree for I think the second he wouldn't concede the election, that is. But that's kind of a removed version of inciting violence. And what he said that they this is a step too far was he said something like, we have a voice that will be heard for years to come.

I mean, that's pretty vague. If you're going to pin it on that one thing it seems like these things become, then that's the one true opinion in the liberal bubble.

I read a great quote from Matt Taibbi this week. He wrote a great he said, Media firms work backwards. They first ask, how does our target demographic want to understand what's just unfolded? That's not the way to report the news, but let's be real. They banned him because he's not president anymore. You think they would have done this two years ago? They did it because it's easy now.

Well, they have look alike accounts that repeated a lot of the things that he repeated. They got kicked off in a New York minute.

So, you know, what will he do? You really think he's not going to get his message out somewhere? I don't. I think he has lost a lot of his platform. Here's the other thing. And corporate. You don't think so? You think he won't get his message? I think it'd be much harder for him. Corporate America has kind of turned on him. Think think about think about just the last. But his people who are just interpreting this, I mean, this feeds into there.

These are conspiracy people to begin with. And now, oh, you're shutting him up, just like you said. Do you think someone who can't hear him for the next two weeks is going to go? I didn't hear Donald Trump's message. I guess I'll become a reasonable centrist now.

They're not, but he will not. But here's the difference. He will not be able to do that right now as president. He could validate the craziest thought, the craziest thought that parlor said the craziest thought on Conan. He could get up and validate. He can't do that anymore. I do think that makes a difference. Now, the crazies don't have the person in the Oval Office saying that what they said is true, correct and matters. And that is a big difference, I think.

Yeah. With that a lot of power. But then you wonder if he's going to buy one American news and if he's going to start his own cable operation. And but nobody watches those stations. Yeah, but no, they you know, a lot of disillusioned fox.

Yes. More snow moving over to these more conservative conspiracy theories, but it's still not that big a deal. Networks. It's not so. But I think there there is an audience for that.

So people watch Monday night rather than watch Newsmax in 08. And what's that? What's wrestling? We need to teach you about it.

You should come out and dirty. I thought it was something that might have been something good.

So one thing we know about the Republicans, though, is that they always unite. They always unite. So my guess is in a year from now, they will unite again. I mean, I remember when Trump first came aboard, it was like a it was a big lot of talk about that, the never Trump and the real Republican Party. And it wasn't that long before it was well, it was the Trump Party. So now there are some people who are truly never Trump and seem to have been turning want to turn their back on him a year from now.

Which party is it? Is it Mitt Romney is definitely I think that going to run in twenty, twenty four, never too late. Biden, Trump have proved he's not too old. Used to be too old for Mitt Romney. Now it's perfect for Mitt Romney. And he's going to run Jalisa, million years old.

He seems like Nelson Mandela Mandela at this point. Mitt Romney, doesn't he?

I think he suffered less. But yes, he's not going to be Mitt Romney. But, I mean, he seems to be an incredible statesman now because he does stand out again.

Well, he does to liberals, but to the conservatives, he's a traitor. But in be the new year, is it his party or is it Trump's party? I think it's a middle ground. It's like a Nikki Haley or that governor of South Dakota's party. They're going to be there's going to be a little of Trump that survives and then there's going to be a little because the thing is, they can't win a national election bill until they win the suburbs back.

That's really the issue. Mitch McConnell, this is what he cares about. They will never win another national election until they win the suburbs. So he's got to find a person who gets the Trump voters where I live in Kentucky, gets them excited, but doesn't scare the suburbs that I think Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley is the person. If I'm the Democrats in twenty twenty four, I'm the scaredest of Nikki Haley of anyone. She is she is their ticket to unifying.

And I think that's the direction they should go. And you think she'll then run for president? No. Yes, she's going to run for president. She's already created. We could have two Indian Americans running. It could be Kamala Harris against Nikki Haley.

That would be fascinating, wouldn't it? But she never spoke out against Donald Trump. She was very, very, very careful, which is why she can balance right.

She can be right in the middle. And I think that's what she'll do.

But I think that will be held against her, too, because I think those suburban voters were so especially women were so turned off by Donald Trump by the end of his administration that they're going to wonder why she didn't speak out more against him.

They might, but he's not going to be back to my theory that he's not going be on TV every day. The grossness of him will go will fade over time because we won't see him every night. I think all he has to do as soon as we get back to being able to go out. Oh, he has to. Do you ever watch TMZ? Anybody can get on TV every night. Just show up at a restaurant. There's cameras out front of every restaurant here.

You don't think Donald Trump could be on TV every night? He can be on TV, but he's not going to have the pulpit. Aren't you excited for your first show? Aren't you excited for your first show where you don't have to mention him in your monologue?

Well, and I'm saying that's going to be hard to. You still think that's going to happen? I think he's going to be. Yes, I do. I think we let the alien on this spaceship. I don't think you're going to get out of this know.

I think he's going to be around. But I do think the fact that every right now, every news story has to filter through. What does Donald Trump think about it? I think that's going to go away. All right. Thank you. You were a great panel. Time for the first news of the season. Well, until the pandemic is over, tofu must come up with a warning label that reads, no, you don't have covered this stuff, has no taste.

Darryl, the mortician handling the recently departed Sheldon Adelson body, has to admit that its job has never been easier to talk about. Coffin ready. A mortician takes one look at this guy and goes, that does the thing that Fonzie does when he looks in the mirror.

They're all stop putting my name on your CBD oil products without my permission, if you see an ad like this, it's bullshit. Let me be clear. I don't sell CBD oil. I don't endorse CBD oil. One clue this is a scam. I'm Bill Lauren. It's made from the parts of the cannabis plant that don't get you high.

It's outrageous to learn that you're being used to sell something without your knowledge, imagine if you went to the store and all of a sudden it was a picture of you and your name on some product, Bob Smith tampons, the tampons Bob Smith always buys for his wife.

Enjoy hearing from my lawyers assholes. Well, it's true, I mean, this shit's going on. This is me on neurolaw. Stop talking to me through the medium of Pelo.

I'm sure your pillow has lots to teach me about beauty, dignity and the meaning of life. So let me know when the dog stops humping it.

New rule, don't put toothpaste on your penis. Apparently, that's a new trend guys are doing in order to last longer during sex. But doctors say it's bad for you and women. They hate it. They say when it comes to penises, the last thing they want is for them to be 20 percent wider.

He got it. And finally, new rule, as bad as last week was no worst school trip ever. Let's not confuse 5000 people with 74 million excuse me, yes, even even supporting the insurrection in spirit is, well, deplorable.

But there's a difference between holding illiberal beliefs and acting violently on them. At least that's what they always told me about Islamic terrorism.

I keep wrestling on this show with the hard question of how do Americans, all of us, learn to share a country with assholes you can't stand?

I've preached and still do that.

You can hate Trump, but not all the people who like him. And as counterintuitive as it may seem, you can like something run by assholes without being one yourself. Just ask Chick fil A.

There's been so much liberal happy talk this week jerking each other off about how all this is the end of the Republicans now. Yeah, just like Watergate was the end of the Republicans and Bush after Katrina was. And now it's Trump. Please. Does anyone think that no matter who's running in twenty, twenty four on Election Day, it won't be extremely close?

Oh, but anyone out there, a quadrillion zillion dollars. It will be because seventy four million Trump voters are not self deporting and neither are we. One of the casualties in this attack on the capital this month was Ashley Babbette. She was a Trump loving small business owner. She had a pool cleaning company right down the road here in San Diego. She was an Air Force vet who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. And she lost her life trying to prevent Biden from becoming president, even though she had voted for the Obama Biden ticket not that long ago.

But somehow she came to believe that if Joe became president, horses full of Greeks would rape our women and Georgia would go communist.

She is the tragedy of the modern Republican voter personified, pissed off at the greed and corruption that, yes, has squeezed the middle class hard, but always coming up with the wrong answer to who is doing most of this squeezing.

She was in financial trouble because in order to keep her business afloat, she resorted to a short term loan with an interest rate of one hundred and sixty nine percent. That's right. She was being charged a hundred and sixty nine percent interest and went to Washington so she could chant Stop the steal.

She died for a second Trump term, even though that would have solved exactly none of her problems. The same mistake made by all of her friends in the Waffle House Brigade.

Guys, you were storming the wrong building.

The feet up shouldn't have been on Pelosi's desk, they should have been on Trump's tanning bed. You thought Trump was going to be your bull in a china shop? Yeah, he was, but you were the china. So should Ashley Babbitt have applied better logic in seeing that her real problem in life wasn't pedophile Democrats or Antifa and that people like Elizabeth Warren were actually the ones who were at least trying to do something about predatory lending and economic exploitation?

Yes, yes. But not everyone can watch MSNBC all day. She had other priorities like fighting overseas. And maybe since all politics is local, all she knew was that she lives in a state that seems to care more about her toxic whiteness than her toxic brokenness, and that the state that's run entirely by Democrats. Yeah, they didn't stop anyone from charging her one hundred and sixty nine percent interest on a loan either. It shouldn't be that surprising that America is full of fed up unhappy people who just want to break shit.

Trump didn't drain any swamps, but when it comes to graft and corruption and everybody, wedding is beach, California. Yeah, that's a swamp, too. We can't put up a housing unit for the homeless for less than five hundred grand or build a rail line connecting the state for less than two hundred million dollars a mile, even though in France, with all their socialism, they did it for more like 15 million. California is a blue state that is completely held together by red tape.

It's no wonder people are leaving in droves. I am in year four of trying to get my solar power hooked up. Just building this shed up to code took three years. We'll all be getting our power from dilithium crystals before my solar gets turned on.

How about this, we hook it up if I let the homeless live in it? All right, that's our show. I want to thank Katie Couric, Matt Jones and Kellyanne Conway. We'll see you next week. We're back on the air. Thank you very much, folks. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10:00 or watch him any time on HBO. On demand for more information, log on to HBO Dotcom.