Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO series Real Time with Bill Maher. You. Please. Very nice. Thank you very much. This sounds almost like a full crowd, that's how good you are and I appreciate you being here. I, I think I know why you're happy today. You're breathing filtered air in here. That's why the the air quality out there.

You live here. Not not good, right? I looked at my phone and said the forecast for this weekend partly deadly.

That's not something you want to see on your phone.

And I can tell that, you know who doesn't like it? The animals I can tell do not like this air in the Midwest. Birds are falling out of the sky. Last night I heard the coyotes outside my window. They were coughing at the moon.

Oh, it is, it's rough you doing? I'm doing Rodney, but it's rough, I tell you, every time I have a good time, I got a cop I have to think, is that because I have a fire covered a weed. Thank you, Rodney. Thank you for that, Joe. But yes, and the government to put out a clean air warning for for sensitive groups, so Millennial's, please stay inside, just give them the love.

They suggested, although Millennialist might be pissed off because Trump has done it now, you know, ticktock. Right. Owned by the Chinese. Well, the Chinese threat is history. Now he is shutting down. He can't get it. Now, if you have it, you can have it forever. But you can't get a new tick tock if the Chinese have been stealing our dance moves.

And that stops now, but if I seen this before, conservatives shutting down a place where people dance, isn't this the plot to Footloose?

OK, so the President Trump quite a week, quite a week even for him, called Biden a pedophile, as you do when you're running for president.

But Biden, they had dueling tonight. I thought Biden looked pretty good in this town hall last night.

I did. And he's out of the basement. He's out there campaigning. He is he was in Florida trying to get the Latino vote. He played Esposito on his cell phone, which.

What some people said was pandering, I don't give a fuck that doesn't bother me, but the Virgin Mary neck tattoo he had, that was a little foreign to me.

That's a little over the top. But the president was here, you know, here in California this week to talk about the wildfires and, of course, unpredictably fucked up shit about climate change. And in honor of his visit, we made the sky disgusting in orange.

But it's a good thing it came because the president explained to us how fires work when trees fall down after about 18 months, they get really dry and they just explode.

That's what happened. Yeah, also some of the ones on the yellow brick road try to grab you got to watch out for trees. But he also said, you know, are you talking about coronaviruses that are covered? Numbers would be among the best.

If you take out the blue states in America's headlines would sound a lot more normal if you took out Florida.

Ken in Florida, I know you had a hurricane, I love you in Florida, but yeah, but you know, the covid thing, he's partly responsible for it. He keeps having these Marsalis rallies. He had one this week in Nevada sponsored by Natural Selection.

And he said he said a lot of people think the masks and by the way, everybody here is wearing masks, OK, people in charge there. Authorities were doing it right away to a lot of people. Don't think masks are good. They're not good. And then he was pressed on this. Who doesn't think it's good? He said waiters.

Yeah. Because they have to keep pulling the mask down before they spit in his food.

But, you know, he has always contradicted his own people in the health departments and he said, you know, if a vaccine doesn't doesn't kill the virus, it's going to go away because of herd mentality.

I'm not making that up. He said herd mentality will kill it.

Well, it kill the Republican Party, maybe. And finally, he said that the president said that someone in the White House has covered, but he said not anyone that was near me. So we wish Malani a speedy recovery.

All right. We got it. You're a great crowd. I really appreciate you sounding like a big crowd. We have Trey Crowder. We have Tim Miller, a little RB speaking with the one and only Jane Fonda and. But first up, he is the host of the podcast, Me, a couple with Michael Cohen and author of the number one New York Times bestseller, Disloyal A Memoir, The True Story of the former personal attorney to President Donald Trump, Michael Cohen.

Well. Bill, Michael, how are you? I'm doing OK. How you doing, Bill? OK, well, you got a nice applause there from our liberal crowd. So you're off to a good.

Very much. It's good to be applauded. All right. I'll bet. But it is my first question is to you, because I'm always paranoid about prison. You know, I watch prison shows and it doesn't look good. And you were just in prison. So you're happy to be out, I'm guessing. You would be right about that. Yeah, and and you were in Otisville, which is known as like a Jewish person, I used to call it unleavened, weren't exactly known as Kentucky.

Yes. I'm sorry. I couldn't hear what you're saying.

I said it's also known as Camp Cupcake. It's you know, we have tennis and we have basketball and baseball, but it's still prison. I don't want anybody to think that prison is fun. You know, being away from my wife and my children and my friends, it's very difficult, especially 15 months. It's not an easy it's not an easy ride no matter where you're at. Right. And you really need to start. The country really needs to start thinking about better prison reform.

Because I do know the president talked about it. Of course, he put the secretary of everything, Jared Kushner, on the job. So nothing's going to get done there either.

And, you know, we're really we really do need prison reform in this country desperately. All right.

So, look, I know even the best prison, you don't have your freedom and you're cleaning toilets and, you know, they get up when you get up and they say, get up and, you know, it's prison and it sucks. My question to you is, because you're very honest in your book. It's called me a couple, you know, I mean, your show is called me a couple on your book is talking about you did bad things for Donald Trump.

So I'm asking you right now the punishment you had. Do you think it was too easy for what you did too hard or just the right amount of punishment? You know, it's that's a very tough question, it's a great question. Thank you. I think it was it was I think it was just the right amount. I mean, 15 months to be away one more day.

It would have been too much.

Well, I did do fifty one days of solitary confinement, which is not easy. You're locked in a cell that's eight by ten. The windows were broken. It's one hundred and three degrees with no ventilation, flies, broken glass. The baths, the toilets don't work. The sinks don't work. You have no access to the outside for cold water.

It's not just telling me about tennis. And we had baseball and we had kind like a douche commercial.

And then that was as a result, that was as a result of cocaine. They put everybody to solitary confinement. All right.

So what do you think now? You did some bad things for Donald Trump. I mean, you you paid off Stormy Daniels. And if you didn't do that, we might have heard about that before the election and he may not be president. So that's bad. And then you say you threatened a lot of people. What do you think is the what's the word what do you feel worst about that you did for Trump? Lied to Malaysia about about all this.

It's not my right to have lied to her. I shouldn't have done it. And it's I feel terrible about it.

Well, that's interesting to me. I see that you talked about the fact that when you were in Vegas, you said golden showers. You said from Golden. This is your in line from golden showers in a sex club in Vegas to tax fraud. I wasn't just a witness. I was an active and eager participant. I thought the golden showers were in Moscow, but they were all over now.

So what I'm referring to in the book at the Golden Showers, we went to a club. It's similar to the one here in New York called the Box. There were people that we were with their Azerbaijani. They're actually investors into it. And they were involved with the Trump Moscow Miss Universe pageant. And so they took us there. And one of the one of the performances going on was a golden shower at the time. Your review, I'm so sorry, what's your review, was it, you know, a ensemble, but I felt the third act fell down.

I mean, it wasn't as golden as golden showers shows go. I'm saying, was it a good one? Was it? You know, I mean, some of them are just boring, quite frankly.

Well, this one this one was great. It was beautiful. Perfect. There was none there was no Foskey, there was none that was better. All right, so, you know, you were about Bill.

In fact, it was the greatest golden shower in the history of Golden Child.

So so, you know, Trump sued me, I'm sure, you know, in 2013, you were involved in so many I mean, you were his personal lawyer in so many of the lawsuits. He was had so many. I don't know if you could remember them all. Do you remember?

How dare you how how dare you call him the spawn of an orangutan. Yes. So you do, do you? We were aware of it at the time. Do you remember that? I was involved in it, yes. Do you remember why he sued? I mean, it was about the orangutan. Do you remember what the lawsuit was asking for? Yes, you're asking for proof that he wasn't the spawn of an era, when was he?

He sued me.

What was he asking for, for the five million dollars that Iraq offered? You're right.

Most people think it was about defamation. Like you're not allowed to say no, you can say anything about anybody.

He was not offered five million dollars to a charity if, in fact, we could prove that he wasn't the spawn of an orangutan. I got a copy of his birth certificate and I sent it in as verified proof, correct?

That is right. I made him produce his birth certificate, and he's such a fucking moron. He didn't realize that because, I mean, it was all a parody about him asking for Trump's birth certificate. No answering to Obama's right. I mean, Obama's birth certificate.

And and he proved that he wasn't as if you could be the son of an orangutan and asked me for the five million dollars, you know, OK, I'm glad we settled that.

So he says this week, he said Biden is on drugs, which to me always means he's on drugs because whatever he accuses someone else of, he is, I think, oh, he's guilty of he's the master projector.

Well, it's actually we used to call the Keystone Master Deflector. He was he's the master. He's the master deflector. He says if he says somebody is stupid, it's because he knows that he's stupid. If he says that somebody used to push my right, it's because he feels like a poor schmuck.

So is he on drugs? Because he said Biden is on drug. Now, just allergy pills, he has terrible sinus problems, I've never seen him take drugs, he actually doesn't drink alcohol either. He's not a smoker. He's not a he's not a drug addict. He's just messed up.

Well, there are some people, some people don't have to be on drugs to be messed up. He's one of them.

OK, well, you know, I bet he's watching because he does watch Donald.

But. He often does tweet after the show that he saw accidentally.

He watches the show accidentally all the time, like always really bad on your show, Bill, you're going to get really low ratings, OK? Exactly right. He's a loser. He's an absolute loser. You shouldn't have had him on, but you can have Don Jr. and Eric, the much better deal, knowing that he's watching.

Do you have anything you want to say to him? Resign the. Country, the country, something, but I have a little I think he is watching, and so I would like to say something to the president because I know he hates people who are not his fans. And he said things about the blue states this week that, you know, if you just took them out of the covid equation, we'd be doing much better, as if our deaths don't count and our fires here really not.

It's our fault because we didn't rake.

So maybe we should have to pay for stuff like that. But I just want to tell the president, California gave you over four million votes last time, Mr. President. Mississippi, Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Alaska. You combine all those votes, not as many as the people in California who voted for you. You can't hate California because we're all living amongst each other. OK, just had to get that out of my system, so, Michael, what is the Svengali?

Character of this man, what are the properties that make a person like you become a cult follower because you admitted you were in a cult and you said you liked it? What is it about him that makes people do that?

Well, there was, of course, don't forget the celebrity status that came with it. And along with the celebrity status came a significant amount of power. It was not a money thing, as people would like to say. It was really about the power. It was about being able to sort of do what you wanted. Whether and what Donald Trump has the ability to do and you see it going on right now in in Washington with so many of the Republicans, including Attorney General Bill Barr and Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows, he gets them to take the worst out of them and he expands upon it.

So nobody does good when you're with Trump, unfortunately.

And that was you for a while. I mean, would you have changed if I was I was my last question.

Would you have changed if he had been loyal to you? Can people change because you're saying your whole character has changed? Would it have if it wasn't forced upon you? I don't I don't know, and I probably don't think so. I was deep into that cold, really deep, and I don't think that I would have I didn't leave because I wanted to. I left because he is the most disloyal human being on the planet. In essence, I was excommunicated from the court because he needed a scapegoat and he needed in order to stop the Russian collusion he needed, in order to stop the alleged witch hunt.

And it was determined that, oh, don't worry, Michael will take a bullet for you, boss. So don't worry. Let him let him take the ride to Otisville. All right. Well, no, that's a problem, because as I said on George Stephanopoulos program, once, my wife, my daughter, my son and my country have my first loyalty. And it really took this kicking my ass to wake me up and to see the frickin monster that we have.

And this is a horror show, folks. This is a monster that we have in the White House. He's a racist. He's a con man. And so many other negative things that anybody that doesn't see this and I say this in the book, you now have the tools to determine whether or not this is the man that you want to lead this country for another four years. And I suspect the answer after reading the book is a resounding no.

All right.

Thank you, Michael Cohen. All right. Appreciate you coming on. And now let's meet our panel. That's all right. He is a comedian and the producer of the new documentary about universal basic income called Inherent Good Trait, Crowder's with a straight Croner. And he's a writer at large for the BOAC and political director of Republican Voters Against Trump. Boy, a lot of anti Trump here tonight. Damn it. Tim Miller. Tim Miller, how are you doing?

OK, so all right. So the election six weeks away. There's so many issues. I mean, there's so many disasters going on at once. But I have to address the election right away because it feels to me like his election stealing plan. Which I'd been talking about for many years, is coming into focus as to exactly what it is and what it is, is he's he's he has always he looks out because the virus really is helping him, because the Democrats are going to vote way more by mail in ballots.

So his plan is to declare a victory on election night, which he has a better chance of winning now because Republicans are the ones who are actually going to go to the polls. Kayleigh McEnany said this week, we want an election night to look like a situation where we know who the president is on election night. That's how the system is supposed to work. No, it's not.

That's not how the system is supposed to work, but that's their plan. We win on election.

It's kind of like what they did with the with the Mueller report. You know, when the Mueller report came out right right away, they declared, OK, this is this is good for us. Remember, Barr right away said this is our version of it. And then it came after with Sore Loser. That's what they're going to do. Now, you get this. They're gonna write about this. Yeah. Yeah. I have a little bit of good news for you is that he's he wants to steal the election and he wants to be an autocrat, but he's an incompetent one.

And what we've seen most of the time in these situations we've seen he lucked out on Mawlawi Time is he'll send all caps tweets. You're right. On election night, he'll send all caps, tweets and says, I won. And he'll send out Caillat to say I won that. But the reality is that he has not demonstrated a competence at rigging an election like this. And I think you saw today in Virginia, massive lines in Northern Virginia to vote.

I think that there is going to be a massive Democratic surge in turnout, right?

I do, too. It's going to make it hard. Doesn't mean. I think you're right about that, and I hope you're right about that, but you said that, you know, he's going to say I want he's going to say I won. But the reality is but I'm scared because for a whole lot of people in this country, the reality will be that as soon as he says, that's what I'm saying.

Right. You don't get that racist genie back in the moonshine bottle.

You know what my point is? He puts that out there like, OK, that's going to be bad news and about and make it true, but.

Right. And neither was with the Mueller report right away. He said, I'm exonerated. Right. And then that became the truth for which everything else was measured against that was Johnny come lately stuff again. You're right, not the truth, but it does go. So we have kind of bad, which is like 30 percent of the country thinks that he he should have won and that the election was rigged and that they are deeply distrusting of our democracy going forward and they'll maybe protest and complain about it.

That's kind of bad. And he will stoke that. And that's true. Then there's like really, really conspiracy about which you hear sometimes on the left, just like he's not going to leave and he'll.

That's me. That's me. That is it's hard. That's the problem. And I'm not with you, really. But I think he'll do is OK with tweets complaining about how it was rigged, but he won't actually do anything about it.

So everybody's been saying this about Trump all the way. He'll never do it. He just. And he doesn't, does it? The Washington Post had a story today. A project tracks the health of representative government in this country. In the years that Trump has been president, democracy has eroded so much, they say. To the point where only one in five countries that have gone this far down the path of Democratic policies have been able to reverse it and go back to a democracy.

In other words, we're almost there at full blown autocracy. And let me remind you, September 12th, that's just Saturday, Trump said we're going to win four more years. And then after that, we'll negotiate because we're probably based on the way we were treated. We're probably entitled to another four after that. Now, I guess you're saying that's just trolling these justices. Maybe he's just a man. Maybe it's like Cartman is president. He's just saying, I'm not going to leave and then the boss and take him out and he'll leave.

You're so you're so deluded. That's not. I'm deluded here. Deluded you really are. That you think that this is just talk, right? You serial killers tell you what they're going to do and then they do it. You just can't do it right. You can't do it. Or is this really stupid? Doloris this is not real Belarusan. This is stupid Belarus and he's not going to be going to do it. Well, I'll tell you scenario.

I'll tell these experts to just study that America is doing good and this is great. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen.

Well OK. What he loses, he might. OK, just a few other things about the election. A federal judge today ruled Trump and his lackey at the post office are purposely trying to slow down the mail again. This is what this project is talking about, right? This slow slide toward autocracy that we you know, we're the frog in the pot. It happens.

Yeah, but there's a there's the Freedom Party, like you talked about the autocracy scores, but what's the freedom levels? And that's what's important to the Trump people, you know what I mean? We're more free than we've ever been before. Freedom is off the charts. No, I don't know.

It's horrific. And the whole male thing goes back to the first thing we were talking about. He's already put this into their head to be wary of what happens with the male and everything. So when on election night, the male votes haven't come in yet. He's winning. He says, I've won. When the male and votes start coming, they're going to be like, well, right, fuck those male. And I was already characterizing as anything in the mail as a fraud.

You're right.

Which is just Florida also. They we had a setback there. The felons who got the right to vote, they now have to pay the back. Fine. So that's going to nullify a lot of that Texan. No. MALINS over the age of sixty five, that was a big thing. Wisconsin stopped sending out absentee ballots. You know, the way dictators hold on to power is voter suppression. Right?

They have elections. Yeah, they're just not real. They have parliaments, just not real. It looks like a democracy.

It just isn't. So then and then you take the Electoral College into account and like you were saying earlier, it's going to be a liberal surge of voters. It's going to have to be and it's going to have to be a landslide for there not to be some bullshit, right?

Yes, it is. I don't think it makes yeah.

I still think this is stuff that is that is is worth being worried about. And if you look at Florida in particular, you got to Santurce in there. The good news is I'm not usually the ray of sunshine, but on this panel I get to veto. The good news is, is in a lot of these swing states, as Democratic governors and Democratic governors and Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania that are going to be able to certify the vote. Now in Florida, we've got the Santos and the felony issue is a real one in Georgia.

What we saw now, George, is kind of icing on the cake for Biden. But in Georgia, we saw this ridiculous thing where the University of Georgia said no voting on campus. Today we can do football, but not voting like these are the little civil rights. These are like the little things that are worth being worried about. And I think that luckily there are a lot of Democratic watchdogs on there, but state like Florida is worth more.

All right. You say we need a big victory and that certainly would help. Let me ask you about this. Your documentary works a lot with talks a lot about Andrew Young. He was on our show recently. I like Andrew a lot.

Yeah, me too. And let me read what he said to me. He was only about a month ago, he was on I was still in my backyard at the time. He said when I was campaigning around the country, I said, I'm running for president. And then someone would say, what party? And I would say Democrat. And you could see this negative reaction oftentimes. He mentioned truck drivers and waitresses and retail clerks, people who he thought the Democratic Party used to, you know, that was a no brainer for them.

Why? When somebody says, oh, and I'm a Democrat, there's this because they think you want to kill their babies, take their guns, murder their lord and all those big things, never mind the fact you don't, like, get their kid off the pills or, you know, fix your grandma's health care or bring their jobs back or whatever.

All that shit comes secondary to abortion, gun control, you know, and Jesus like Jesus has.

But the party of Jesus, I've talked about this for Democrats are not atheists. I'm an atheist. I know I'm the only one who's ever been out there on the left. Michael Moore believes in God. Chuck Schumer believes in God. They all fucking believe in God.

We also are not coming to take their guns in the middle of the night either. None of that shit is true.

Like, well, you know, I don't know about none of that shit. I mean, there's a real big into a lot of talk about looting is not so bad. There is some stuff that you could connect. But thank you. Thank you. Say one person's against looting. Everybody else is like looting. Why don't I feel like most people take it?

Most people on the left take it for granted?

Yeah, of course looting is bad, but it's a very small percent. I've been to the protests that you don't I haven't even seen that. But I'm not saying it's fake. I know it really happens. But it really is a we are out there. There's a lot of talk about looting is is kind of acceptable defunding the police. I mean, the police are very demoralized right now. Look, I've said things on this show. Nobody has ever said about the police before.

It was popular to criticize the police. I used to drive like this. Oh, fuck. I hope they don't pull me over tonight because it.

Yeah, but I got to say, we're at a place where the shit is going to hit the fan.

Whoever wins, there is going to be violence in the streets. And I don't know who's going to show up to stop it at this point. I mean, police chiefs are quitting all over the country, especially African-American police chiefs. You know what? But here's the thing, though, Bill is like the mayor of Portland is not on the ballot, like the liberal Twitter is not on the ballot. Andrew Young isn't. Elizabeth Warren isn't Joe Biden one.

OK, and so and Joe Biden has has held a line when it comes to saying he's not going to defend the police. He's held the line in criticizing looters. He he connects with blue collar white folks. And by the way, it's not just white people that are blue collar. He's connecting with blue collar African-Americans who are the reason that he is the nominee on the back of blue collar black voters and suburban people like me, suburban squishes who came over to vote for him.

And so so the Democrats might be in a bad place. I think Andrew Young's point is something to be worried about for the left, for sure. But Joe Biden's in good in good shape with those voters. Yes, but what are we supposed to do?

We supposed to stop trying to call them out on their bullshit, the cops.

I mean, whenever a new video comes out with some horrific police brutality in it because we're worried that they're going to let us get our asses.

No, I'm just saying what I hear what I hear on the right is people saying that they worry that Joe Biden is a placeholder and a gateway to some of this far left stuff. That's how they worry and see about Joe Biden. Those people are never going to vote for Joe Biden. We talk to those people, to Republican voters against Trump. These are people we talk to in focus groups. If they come to us and they say that that I don't trust Joe Biden because Elizabeth Warren is going to have her hand up his back and be making all the rules like that person just looking for an excuse, they were never going to get there.

There is a group of voters that Joe Biden can't get, and Joe Biden has been really damn good at what you're talking about, which is just saying that police brutality is bad and it's outrageous and it's insulting.

But at the same time. Right, we can't just get rid of cop. He's a great actor. Yeah. I feel like almost everyone agrees with that, you know what I mean?

Like, very few people literally want to abolish the police, you know, but like I said, well, a third of people under thirty five.

What support the idea of defunding the police should go away. How about this?

Murphy deleted a tweet that said that I think that looting is bad and I also think that, you know, killing black men is bad because he was worried that that would, you know, give a false equivalency or something like that to Democratic politicians that are scared of this. Joe Biden isn't one of them.

Luckily, they're worried about Biden being a gateway into the extreme left. But remember how they talked and talked about and treated Obama like he was like the ultimate socialist boogey man, leftist and.

Right. And we were and then they elected a guy whose whole raison d'être was to undo everything that guy did. I know.

But so we're supposed to go right of Obama now because you know what to make like to appease that. They're going to say that shit no matter what.

OK, so listen, I mentioned in the monologue Trump is out here talking about the environment and he was with the secretary of natural resources, Wade Crowfoot, and he said it'll start getting cooler. He's a science buff, our president.

It'll start getting cooler. You just watch. And Crowfoot said, I wish Science agreed with you. And Trump said, I don't think science knows actually. Right. So for that and other comments like that he's made in the last three years, Scientific American magazine, one hundred and seventy five year history never endorsed anybody. They endorsed Joe Biden.

But not, you know, Trump hates to lose, so he got the endorsement of unscientific American magazine.

I don't know if you know about unscientific American magazine, but you really want to pick up this month's issue because they've got some great articles like what the mainstream media is not telling you about gravity. covid prevention, seven household cleaners you should be swallowing right now, Reider Mailbag If man is descended from apes, why do I hate bananas?

Help a tiny woman named Serious ducking my phone.

Are you around, Arthur? Take our quiz. Hope I caught my child reading in the bathroom. Explainer, why aliens always go straight for the anus. Does the does the refrigerator light stay on or researcher gets his head slammed in the door?

And, of course, 10 natural cures for windmill cancer. OK. So one of the great things about being a politician is you can change your mind and no one cares. Kamala Harris, who I've always liked, I remember I donated when she was running for attorney general, but when I would talk to her at an event, I'd say, you're too hard on pot. What's the deal getting?

Oh, yeah, she she's done a 180. This is her the other day under a Biden and Harris administration, we will decriminalize the use of marijuana and automatically expunge all marijuana use convictions and incarceration for drug use alone. This is not a time for incrementalism. And Chuck Schumer said.

My people. Chuck Schumer said vote Democrat to legalize it. Now, I've been telling the Democrats this country will be so much better if we just listen to me. Listen, I was just listen to me about all this. That was right, that something's not leaving him. I've been saying for years, Democrats, you could this is your gun issue.

You know how the Republicans can get people to vote just on the gun issue. We could get them on the body issue and they're finally doing it. Vote Democrat to legalize it. Just you can't get more basic than that. Yeah.

Put it on a red hat without a red hat. But, you know, they do it six weeks before the election.

Is this too little, too late?

I mean, the other the other thing about it is even on the right anymore, there's very little actual opposition to the idea that with just regular people like opportunity, we had a medical bill that failed, of course, but it was sponsored by two state level Republicans.

And if you ask them, how do your constituents how oppose this? Like, not at all. Like, I never talk to anybody who really cares anymore. It's all just lobbyists and, you know, the prisons, law enforcement, that type of thing that keeps them from voting for it.

Nobody nobody cares.

Like just do it. Bragging on Biden earlier, but they're just dragging ol Joe along on this one that's just not in his right. He has not been ahead of the game. He still calls it the pot. I'm.

Yeah. Are you on the pot. Yeah. Gateway drug. He's on the gateway thing.

Right. He's still on the gateway thing. But I tell you, he looked pretty good last night. I mean, Pelosi said Nancy Pelosi said a couple of weeks ago he should not debate Trump. Now, the debates are what that's so stupid. It's just it's just such stupid advice.

I yeah, I never had the idea that, like some people say, why should he debate Trump? You know, you can't win. Look what Trump will do. These people ever seen Trump speak like Biden has got? He's going to be OK, like even Michael Cohen is talking about.

But even even Michael Cohen is talking about Trump's Trump is master deflector. He's like someone calls him stupid. He's like, no, I'm not. You're stupid. He's a master deflectors. Like in third grade. Like, you can you can debate that guy like. Yes.

And there are still I have I have I have a minute and a half left.

I just see they put it on the prompter here. Ruth Bader Ginsburg just died. No way.

By the way, you check the prompter like I'm like, no, I'm shocked.

I know. But I told you, you can believe me. Yeah.

When I was Mr. Optimism at the beginning of a panel, this is going to get really, really ugly, right?

Really, really ugly, because McConnell is going to just jam that through. Right. There's just he is no, this is the one thing he's got no compunction about. No. So this whole like, oh, last time it was an election year. Wait it out. And this is no way that McConnells and this is so much closer to the election.

I think Scalia died in February. Right. This is right before an election. This is like literally the worst case scenario. Endsleigh and who is going to be the next Supreme Court judge? Probably, yeah. Look at Scott Bayo, right? Yeah.

Oh, Amy Amy Barret's. I think some like a Laura Ingraham. If you're a judge, I think it's going to be the person. Amy told me, Barrett, that.

Yeah, that is very, very sad. Yeah, it's horrible. Horrible. First of all, before we go on to the political part of it, she was just awesome. Yeah.

I mean, and and, you know, I've said it before on this show, Power begets power. This is why you cannot let a guy like Trump become president, because it's not just about the president's.

Yeah, super liberals who don't want to vote for Biden because, like, he's not liberal enough, I just can't I can't do I can't handle it, you know, because of this.

Like, this is why you have to just follow that seventy thousand vote.

Well, we have a show. We're going to move on. We're going to get over it. Hopefully we're going to be OK. Let me bring Jane into the picture. Here she is, the Academy Award winning actress and founder of Fire Drill Fris.

His new book is called What Can I Do My Path From Climate Despair to Action. Please welcome Jane Fonda. I'm still reeling, Bill, I'm just I just heard that know Bader Ginsburg died and we have to be as tough as Mitch McConnell and not allow them to do one thing and be the next day. I mean, we have to rise up and not allow them to do it if Mitch McConnell can do it. Let's get some grow some balls and ovaries and oh my God, OK, I'm here to talk about my book.

OK, well, we'll we'll get to. Are you the last time we talked was right after he was. Yeah. Yeah. That was a tough time too. Yeah. And it's only gotten worse. Now look, I know you know a thing or two because you've seen a thing or two. You know, I read the paper this week. There's a very depressing article. The UN said humanity stands at a crossroads. And he talked about us killing basically everything.

I mean, the biodiversity is just collapsing, we're just killing everything except us and the few things we eat. And the story was on page 10. Which I thought said a lot about our sense of urgency and I've read this story before. What does it take, I know you've been getting arrested, I guess both of our one on one guest this week got arrested a lot, yours for a good cause. You've been in jail, what, five times since I saw you last?

Well, I was in jail once. I was arrested five times. I wanted to turn 82 in jail, and they should have put me in jail because it was my first time. But they didn't, I think, because they knew that it would get a lot of attention. Right. But, you know, the scientists tell us what's looming and how dangerous it is. They also tell us that we can we can solve this. We have to cut our fossil fuel emissions in half in 10 years.

That's hard. And then gradually phase out until 2050. And we have one of them. I mean, yeah, we can do it. We could do it, but we have to come together and make the government do it. I hope that's true. I mean, to be perfectly honest, James Hansen, the great NASA scientist. Right. He said the exact same thing I remember on this show and everywhere else he could in twenty three, he said, we have to do this within 10 years or we reached the tipping point and we're fucked.

Well, that was seven years ago. Passed the fucking point.

Well, the international group of scientists, all of them together. Ninety seven percent of them say that now they said in twenty eighteen that we had 12 years or so. So now it's 10 years. That's the general consensus. So that should give us hope. There is a way out. We have good intelligence. The money, the technology, what we need is you. We need people.

Mobilized, I'm ready to do what's necessary to make this happen. But what people I mean, I've heard I've heard you say and read that you said and I read your article in Newsweek this week where you were talking about I thought it was great because you were saying it's not just Trump. We have to go after. You said Gavin Newsom has not been good on opening oil and gas.

Yeah. Here he stands in front of a wall of flames saying people have to now realize that the climate crisis is real. While he's here, I think he gave one hundred and ninety percent more permits for new fossil fuel drilling wells and fracking. I mean, come on. He's going to I know he is he's going to rise to the occasion and be a climate hero. But right now, he's not doing what's needed, so.

Who you target, though, I mean, I've heard you talk about, you know, we're going to get the people who we know are supportive, who are already acknowledge climate change. Is that really the right approach to go after people preaching to the converted? Because even if Biden wins the election, the Republicans are not going to to self deport, they still may control the Senate. Don't you have to convince Republicans, conservatives?

You only need bill, you only need three and a half percent of the population and then you win. And we have that. If we see there's there's the social scientists have done research. There are twenty three million Americans who know there's a climate crisis, know that it's real and that it's caused by people. And they've never done anything because nobody's asked them. They're the great unasked. And so, you know, activists are going to ask them. That's because we have to ask them.

And and that's why Fire Drill Friday was so exciting and so successful is because people were coming from all over the country that had never done that before. And they stood with me and they engaged in civil disobedience and they risk getting arrested and they felt good because they were putting their whole bodies on the line and it felt good even though you were giving up control because you had these zip ties on your wrist and the police were in charge, but you were empowered so that 23 million people that we have to ask, right?

Yeah, well, I mean, it's funny.

When Trump saw you get arrested, did you hear his comment? It was a Jane Fonda got arrested. Nothing changes. And I thought, what a badge of honor.

I hope that's true. Yeah. What a badge of honor. Because you've always been out there. You walk the walk, you just don't talk it. You do it. I mean, you're one of the bravest people I've met.

But see, I didn't always I spent a third of my life, just nebbish and nothing hedonistic. I had I didn't even know why I was alive. I know what that feels like to not know why you're here, to feel like your life has no meaning. And I can tell you the difference between that and being willing to put yourself on the line and stand up for what you believe in, especially if the future of the world is a stake.

That's a better way to be. So I know the difference I have with. Did that change come about because a change in your personal life, I mean, I watched your documentary like three times. I thought it was so awesome where, you know, you talk about first you were in the shadow of your father, then your first husband, then your second husband, then your third husband. And the fifth chapter is finally you get out of the shadow of men and you find out your hero is you.

Is that what changed? No, I never said that here was mine. No, I made the change because I've read a book by Jonathan Schell. Books have always been really important to me. And the book was given to me by men, by soldiers, American soldiers. They're the ones that made me open my eyes and see what was going on. So there's a few good men that are going to join us. All right. Well, we're always more women than men, and they tended to be older than older.

Women are so much braver. You certainly are.

I thank you for doing what you're doing, and I appreciate you coming on. I hope I get to see you. All right, time for new rules, everybody. We will carry on with new rules, OK? No, California's firefighters have to pick a different color, flame retardant. I know they're helping. They're thinking it helps to see the target, but the dumb ass is just starting the fire thinking it's a girl.

Nero, the guy who pooped on Nancy Pelosi's driveway, then said that Mr. Trump is not allowed to be anybody's Secret Santa this year.

I don't know what's worse, that this guy live stream doing this or that people watched it. The Pelosi pooper swears that it was just satire and that he's not really very political and I say thank God because that's why I stopped watching people shit on driveways. It got way too political.

New Republican men have to explain why they're so into having other men fuck their wives, Jerry Falwell Jr. into it, Roger Stone is into it, Paul Manafort was into it. The GOP is more designated hitters than baseball.

I'm talking about hypocrites by day, they're demonizing immigrants by night, Hector is doing the work they won't.

Neuroscience has to find out why 2015 was when people started using the hashtag blessed, and twenty sixteen was when the whole world went to shit.

It's like we put a bumper sticker on our car about our honor student and then God drove us into a tree.

No, they can't all be winners, you know, Nurul, this woman who just celebrated her wedding anniversary with a tree.

Let's tell us all her secret for keeping things fresh.

Because because for the rest of us, after a while, things can start to get a little stale in a relationship, so maybe you could teach us a thing or two or at least admit it's easy to stay married to a guy who's always got would and never talk back.

Oh, that was for the ladies. And finally, new rule, let me make the new rules, not the Academy Awards.

If you missed it last week because the state was on fire, the Oscars thought it would be a good time to announce a new set of requirements for best picture nominees that are based on fulfilling diversity quotas. And look, I'm all for inclusion. I don't know anyone in Hollywood who isn't. OK, Mel Gibson.

But in general, Hollywood is a liberal industry and a liberal town in a state that's bluer than the pope's balls.

Have you watched the Oscars this century, because this really seems like a case of washing a glass that's already been through the dishwasher.

The academy is not exactly unknown for rewarding liberal virtue.

They should call best picture most worthy.

Look at the contenders and winners in recent years been nominated not by their popularity with audiences, but by diversity and virtue signalling green book parasite shape of water. Boys Don't Cry. A Beautiful Mind. Moonlite Frita Fence's Precious Dallas Buyers Club, 12 Years a Slave Roam the Hours. Brokeback Mountain. Call me by your name and many more. Some very fine movies. But getting super liberals to be more liberal is not exactly the heavy lifting in the fight against racism.

By the way, there was a straight white guy who was a big winner one year, but it was only because he had a crippling speech impediment.

Anyway, what the new rules say is to be eligible for to compete for best picture, a film must meet the standards of two of four new inclusion groups group a storyline that centers on or a star that represents an underrepresented identity group, or 30 percent of minor roles from two underrepresented identity groups, which include Asian, Hispanic, Latino, Black, African-American, Indigenous, Native American, Alaskan, Native Middle Eastern, North African, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander women, LGBTQ plus people, people with cognitive or physical disabilities or who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Who wouldn't it just be easier to say, not Chris Pyne. And that's only group A then there's stuff worthy goals, I'm sure, about diversity in the production company, the studio and the crew. All I know is if in the interest of diversity, they make a straight guy cut my hair, I'm fucked.

But diversity is important, but it needs to be said, it's not the only thing that's important. Thank you, one guy. It's also important that we don't wind up with artists guided less by a creative vision and more by a to do list. Cameron Diaz is Cuban on her grandfather's side. Is that Latina enough? Clint Eastwood is two hundred years old. Does that count as a handy.

Does that count as a handicap, Darth Vader is voiced by a black man, but when they took off his helmet, the character was white. How many points is that?

I want to know so I can be good because. We are talking about a world where if you want to make the next Schindler's List, the first thing you'll need to do is give a racial breakdown of all your employees. Does anyone see the irony in that?

Apparently not. But Kirstie Alley did. She tweeted, Can you imagine telling Picasso what had to be in his fucking paintings? You people have lost your mind, Oscar, Orwell, Bao.

You know, Hollywood is in trouble when the voice of sanity is a Scientologist. But she's right, art and coercion is a bad combination. Some of the best movies ever made were by refugees from communist and fascist countries who got out because they didn't like being told what art was acceptable. They didn't want to make a movie called Natasha Gets Attracta.

We're supposed to be the free country where artists can do what they want without having to show your paperwork to prove, you know, where everyone comes from, who they fuck and if they can hear.

And given that the industry is reeling as it is and given that so much creativity and originality has already been sucked out of movies by sequels, blockbusters and comic book franchises, and given that there's an election in six weeks, maybe this wasn't the time for this move also.

I got to say. Have they worked in this industry a long time, at the end of the day, people don't want to be hired because they fill the quota they want to be.

They want to be hired because they're good and most of them are. All right, that's our show. I want to thank my guests, Drake writer Tim Miller, Jane Fonda and Michael Cohen will be back next week. Thank you very much.

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.