Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO series Real Time with Bill Maher. Great to be back. Please sit down. Nobody here. Thank you. On getting ready. All right, we're back in the studio, nobody here. We're back in the studio. Oh, man, it's been a long time. I was in my office today. It was a family of raccoons in my desk.

But I guess we dodged a bullet there with Hurricane Laura hit, but not too bad boy, but it was a hurricane, did some damage. I was thinking today of only Jerry Falwell senior was alive to blame it on his son. But yeah, Jerry Falwell Jr., he's in trouble. Apparently, his wife is having an affair with the pool boy, the pool boy, and, you know, allegedly, just allegedly, he would he would watch.

He says he you know, he did not have sex himself with with the pool boy. He's an evangelical. He's not a snake handler.

But but he would allegedly watch from the corner of the room, so so at least social distancing was maintained.

But I don't know if he was watching the Republican convention, it was a great week if you love reality shows but hate reality. Boy, did you see you see Trump speechless. By the end of Trump's speech, there were three fact checkers were taken into the concussion protocol.

I mean. The people in the crowd were chanting for and more lies for moralise. But but we learned a lot from watching the convention, I did I think what we learned is that Donald Trump loves women and immigrants. He's a humble but brutally honest patriot, and he hates corruption. And he has built the greatest economy since man began to walk erect. And the proof of that is that the demand these days for coffins, plywood, rocks, bottles and replacement plate glass has never been higher.

Yes, it's it's so bizarre that at the Republican convention, they just kept talking about rioting and looting and vandalism that you can expect under a Democratic rule, except that's happening now under Trump.

And yet their theme is that all of the rioting and the violence you're seeing now wouldn't be happening if somebody like Donald Trump was in the White House.

This guy had some salesman, you know, because in twenty sixteen it was like, I will end American carnage and in twenty twenty it's like there's only one person who can stop what's happening under me. Me.

And that's why we must elect Donald Trump so we can gratify America again, again.

Yes, some of these speakers that they had at the convention, they painted a very ugly picture of this country. Kimberly Guilfoyle, you know, Don Jr.'s girlfriend, she's she's a Democrats want to destroy the country. Wow. And Matt Gates said that they're going to Democrats are going to invite MS 13 to live next door. I wouldn't do that, and the McCluskey's remember that couple from St. Louis, they said that the Democrats want to abolish the suburbs and who and then Jerry Falwell Jr.

said under the Democrats, you have to watch the poor boy fuck your wife.

I mean, it's hey, boy, those Democrats. Kimberly Guilfoyle, boy, did you see her speech, he was very well off the rails. When they go low, she goes loud. Yeah, be in bed with that girl. Like, say my name.

Why is she even speaking? Why is she speaking? Six of the 12 key speakers at the Republican convention were named Trump. You know, we used to have former presidents and elder statesmen speak at conventions. Now it's like, hey, dad, would it be OK if my girlfriend spoke at the convention?

Well, you know, of girlfriends don't usually speak at conventions, but I suppose it'll be all right. Yeah, well, another week, another police shooting of an unarmed black man and to protest this, which, yes, we should and we need to the NBA and baseball players, a lot of them, they they did not play this week. And, boy, this is going to get people's attention because rioting is one thing, but forcing men to talk to their wives.

All right, we got a great show, we have Trey Gowdy, Nina Burle, Rick Wilson, and later we'll be speaking to Wynton Marsalis. Let's get it started. All right.

My first guest is the former Republican congressman from South Carolina and author of Doesn't Hurt to Ask Using the Power of Questions to Communicate, Connect and Persuade Trey Trey Gowdy. Trey, thank you for being with us. And I got to say, you're out of Congress.

You look like 10 years younger when I feel 20 years younger. So I'm sure you were watching the Republican convention all week. Now, you were the chief prosecutor during the Obama years, watching everything the Democrats did, if they went out, went out of bounds, legal wise, anything bother you? They're like about using the White House maybe for political purposes the way he did last night? Well, I mean, people are welcome to judge the propriety of that, the legality of it Hatch Act.

I just have to trust Pazzo whose White House counsel that he ran all the traps I get that it was unprecedented. I get that it was unusual. My understanding of the Hatch Act is you can do is you want your free time. You certainly can't force someone to political to participate in the political process. But I didn't watch as much of it as you may think. I watch. But I would I would need that to ask Pat, you know, how does the Hatch Act allow the following that you are not quite as charitable.

When the Democrats were in office, you got to admit that you weren't just like that. I got to trust this guy. I think he knows what he's doing. But OK, we'll let that go.

What about when Trump said a couple of weeks ago, the only way I lose is if it's rigged. What do you think about a thing like that for America? Good. Bad thing. Well, I got a lot of witnesses, Bill, but I'll try really hard not to be a relativist, and I'm out of politics. I'm much more in tune with the prosecutor that existed for 20 years. I don't like it when Republicans say that. I didn't like it when Democrats said that that the president would not trust the election results in 2016.

I did not like when Secretary Clinton gave advice to Joe Biden.

Wait, no one no one of either party has ever said anything like that. No one has ever said the only way I lose is if it's rigged. That's what he's saying. You don't think this is a recipe for something we've never had in America, which is people not accepting the results? Well, I would say two things I would I would want to know what he means by rigged if he means I have a strong media headwind that I can't fight through.

That's one explanation. But, you know, Secretary Clinton's advice to Joe Biden this week was. Was don't contest, I mean, don't don't don't concede, so, I mean, a Republican would view that comment and the same ilk that you or others might view, the president saying that the only way I lose is if it's rigged. I don't believe that. I mean, Republicans have lost six out of the last seven popular votes for president and those weren't rigged.

So I don't believe that. I do think that there is some rhetoric on both sides that could be cleaned up.

OK, well, you're not completely out of politics. I've got to tell you that. So let's talk about your book for a minute or a couple of minutes at your book, and you're here to sell it. And I want to help you. You say you left politics because you didn't see anybody's mind changed in eight years like any any debate, any committee hearing. Nobody ever changed their mind, which I find to be one of the most depressing but honest things I probably read about politics in a very long time.

Does that include you? Are you part of that problem or did you ever change your mind? No, I mean, there were times that I didn't vote with the majority of the Republicans. There are times that I got a bad thing from Heritage or one of the other scoring agencies. Tulsi Gabbard changed my mind on something. We offered an amendment together. I think the story that illustrates that the best I was sitting beside Julie Kennedy on the floor and he was giving me, which I will forever be grateful to him, both sides of the argument.

And he concluded by saying, But I think in your district, you should vote this way. And he's right. I mean, the only way I could lose is in a primary, in a Republican primary. And the only way most members of the House can lose is is in a primary, not in the general. So. Well, that's when I say persuasion. Well, yes. When people ask me what's the number one problem? I cite redistricting, not money, which may be a problem, too, but redistricting.

Jeremy is the only person in terms of gerrymandering. So that sort of way of saying, yeah, both parties do it. I mean, I think the Republicans do it a little more, but they both do it so that there are safe districts and so that you're right, the only way you could lose is by someone who's even more of a conservative than you and you're pretty conservative. Not in my district, I, I was I was criticized a lot for not being enough enough.

Well, I know and in your book, you're talking a lot about bipartisanship and reaching across the aisle now and, you know, speaking in good faith. And I got to say, when I was reading this, I'm thinking you the Benghazi guy, the guy who prosecuted Benghazi for two and a half years, I'm not saying Benghazi shouldn't have been looked into. Of course, an ambassador was killed. We should look into that. But this bipartisanship, it seems to come over people the second they leave office.

Where was that when you were in office? Well, I mean, you mentioned by the Gozi, the first hearing we had was praised by Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, and he's hardly a conservative.

The very first hearing we had, he wrote about the 100th one you had.

Yeah, but we only had, what, three public hearings, Bill. And that's kind of my point is we had very few public hearings. I was getting a lot of pressure from the right to have more public hearings. They're not conducive to real investigations. The executive branch investigations being done behind closed doors. Those are conducive, not congressional investigations. We had to and then we had Secretary Clinton, but Leon Panetta, everyone at General Ham, everyone else we did was behind closed doors.

So do you think Trump, in his time, his first term here, has done anything that would rival Benghazi as far as impropriety? I mean, I don't want to play the if Obama did it game. But you were the chief prosecutor of the Democrats during the Obama era. So if I'm going to play with anybody, you know, the Jeopardy category would be things Trey Gowdy would be looking into. Anything in mind that comes to mind that Trump has done that might rise to that level.

I don't know that it's your show, so I'll let you frame it however you want. I don't know that I was the chief prosecutor against President Obama, but let's accept that that that's how I'm characterized. There were Americans killed in Africa, and I think Democrats had an opening, if they wanted to, to have multiple hearings on that. There was an armed and armed forces event that did not turn out well. So but impeachment, I mean, impeachment consumed just to get, what, one Republican juror to switch his vote.

Impeachment consumed the country for for how long? So I think both sides do it to the other and they will continue to do it until there's a consequence for these, quote, investigations.

But you would have to admit that Trump has done some things that you probably would have looked into. I made a small list like they broke the law with security clearances and using unsecured phones, which was a big thing. When Democrats do it, the Chinese spies walking around Mar a Lago. There was no security there. He leaked Israeli intelligence. He sided with Putin against our American intelligence agencies. I'm wondering if that is something you would have looked into.

He didn't do anything when the Russians put bounties on our troops in Afghanistan, are paid money to a Russian, money to a porn star invited to Taliban, to the White House or to the Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11. The Hatch Act, the Emoluments Clause, none of these things you think you would have looked into if it was the other side. Oh, sure, I mean, I started off our conversation by using the word relativism.

I mean, both sides do it. They treat the other side differently from the way they treat their own side. I mean, if that's the charge, I plead guilty to that.

OK, so what is your prediction of what America looks like in November and December after the election if Trump does not win? I mean, if he if he doesn't win, I think we're going to have what we've always had, I hope, I pray, which is a peaceful transfer of power. I really do. I don't think there's any chance the president is going to stay in the White House after his term is up. I just I hear it.

I just don't think that's going to happen. We'll have the peaceful transfer of power. I'm sure it was difficult for President Obama to hand the keys to President Trump, but he did.

And I think if President Trump is not successful, he'll have used to Joe Biden that they're somewhat different types of people. But we'll see. All right. Final question. You've been very good at standing up to my prosecution as a former prosecutor. You see so many of the people around the president who have been convicted of crimes, Manafort, Flynn, Cohen, Bannon, Stone, Stone.

Have you ever have you ever, as a prosecutor, seen so many people around, a guy who were guilty of criminal activity and the guy in the center was not a criminal himself? Well, Bill, as a prosecutor, I really I didn't look at people, I look at fact pattern. So you take each Manafort. Is there any evidence that the president was also in debt to Ukraine and did what Manafort did? Is there any evidence the president was in cahoots with Roger Stone when he came and lied to Congress?

Is there any evidence the president, Michael Cohen, I think he was also charged with false statement. So I look at fact patterns. I don't think the president was well served in terms of who did the vetting for him. When your lawyer is writing a kiss and tell book that is not good vetting on your lawyer, you will never hear me say we need to go investigate this person criminally. You investigate fact patterns and whoever is involved in that, you prosecute.

OK, Congressman, you're brave to do this interview. I appreciate it. Congratulations on being out of Congress and we'll see you down the road. Thank you. Thank you. OK.

Yes, sir. All right, our panel. She is a national political journalist and the author of The Trump Women Part of the Deal, which comes out September 22nd, Nina Bearly. And he's co-founder of the Lincoln Project and author of the New York Times bestseller Running Against the Devil A Plot to Save America from Trump and Democrats from Themselves. Rick Wilson, thank you both for being here. Great to have you. As our inaugural guests back here in the studio, the first time since March, it's it's empty.

It's gloomy. But I'm glad you're here. I'm here. So we just finished watching the Republican convention. A lot of talk today about the lying and. Yes, of course. You know, my question, though, is, was it effective? Was this an effective convention for the Republicans? Well, Bill, I think the conviction was ineffective in a big, fundamental way, which was the ratings were lower. Donald Trump's going to lose his shit today when he sees that Biden got better ratings than he did and he's going to act out because of it.

I also don't think it broaden the base at all. Biden was talking to moderate Republican swing voters, trying to invite people in. Donald Trump was doing what he always does, which is try to narrowcast to white non college voters. And, you know, with all the scare tactics that are involved in that, all the crazy, you know, the antifa anarchists, communists are coming to make you get remarried. You know, the whole crazy talk.

Yeah.

I mean, the ending was I saw Trump ending last night. It was. I thought it was fairly effective, you know, talking first of all, the people are there, no masks. You know, which is somewhat dangerous, you know, in this atmosphere, but also looks bold and it just looks I mean, if you're selling optimism, which is what Republicans have always been very good at selling, and America isn't a shithole, except if Biden gets elected, it's going to look like some of it does.

Now, that was sort of weird. I don't know. You know, when he started talking about, you know, we've been the pioneers and we're the where were the rebels? And we're the people who don't cut down the tall trees and you go as high as you want. I don't know if that stuff doesn't sell, especially in a gloomy moment. I thought it I thought it was effective at that point, so I thought the regular Joes were effective.

But then again, I don't know how many people were watching. How many people? How many people? I mean, you you checked out the rigs, Rick. I don't know how many people are watching. And as I watched it, I wondered how many people had their computer screens tuned into this. But the thing for me watching at the end, the end was like watching a super spreader event in the last hours as he went on and on with his talk and they kept panning to the audience.

Marsalis and I'm in New York and it's very unusual to see Marsalis people. And it just it was like, wow, it's like a game show on epidemiology or something where super spreaders are, you know, will survive Survivor covid or something with the game show coming in. And I don't know I don't know how many people I would love to see the numbers on that one that if that when they start coming down with it. But you're right, it was it was selling positivity.

It was, you know, the fireworks. Nice fireworks, Chinese probably. What do you make of what you also had guys you also guys like Wilbur Ross and Rudy Giuliani in the audience right in the demo for covid, like Wilbur Ross is like looking like he's always come sweet angel of death and take me. Oh, yeah.

Well, yes, Wilbur is not a guy who should go out without a mask right now. What do you make of the attack on the the suburbs? I've never heard that tactic before. They're going to destroy the suburbs. You know what could destroy suburbs crabgrass? I mean, I grew up in the suburbs. I feel like I live in a suburban kind of area now. I love the suburbs. I've never was a person who I lived in New York twice.

That's a great city. But I don't like living in a building. I don't like knowing the people on right on the other side of the wall.

How do you destroy the suburbs? What I don't I can't even I don't even know what they're talking about. Can you decipher that? For me, this is a good idea. I think that from the very beginning of the pandemic, there are steps the way that they handled it. Stepping back was really aimed at chaos and bread riots and and exactly what BLM has delivered to them. And that is that was their strategy to you know, you hear him talking about suburban housewives.

It's like a Larry Flynt hustler spread or something. Urban Housewives. We've got to get those suburban housewives frightened and all they need is video. They just need video like the stuff that was going on in Washington the other day of BLM kids in front of the restaurants.

Oh, can I show that I have that piece of video?

If people don't know it's Black Lives Matter protesters, all white that I saw who are harassing animal costume, they're harassing this woman who's eating, wanting to make her raise her fist in solidarity with their cause, which I believe she was in solidarity with. It's just that she was eating, I think. And she's basically saying, look, I'm eating. I show the video and then we can talk about it.

Yeah, this is counterproductive, right? I mean, it's obnoxious, wildly so.

OK. I mean, Bill, if this election is a referendum on Donald Trump, Donald Trump will lose. Joe Biden will win. If this is a referendum on Wolk's shitheads yelling at people in public, then it's going to be a much harder race. And that's a technical term of art we use in politics, work shitheads, these people who believe that these sort of performative stunts do something to motivate voters. They don't because the states that are in play this year, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, those are not wuk states.

Liberal Democrats in those states are basically moderate Republicans. Right. They don't love that stuff. They're not they're not crazy about that stuff. Right.

And I keep saying white people like that seem to be culturally appropriating how how mad they are at racism from black people.

You can't be mad at racism than black people themselves. Then it becomes about you white person. That's my take on that. Nina, what do you think about the Cameron phenomenon? Is this is this part of that where we've named this new group that we can that it's OK to go after? And it sort of has spread from just originally it was sort of a racial thing, the woman in Central Park and now our Karen just seems to be any white woman of a certain age you don't like.

Yeah, well, it it it originated among the insoles. It's a meme credit or something where some guy was bitching about his wife, Karen, and then. And then and then it became the Karens. All all white, middle aged women are all uncool white women. And what's interesting about it is it was the meme in I guess around January, there were maybe one hundred thousand hits on it. And by the middle of the covid, let's say April or May, there were three million.

I can I just think these people are really good at black ops and black arts, the social media platform, using the social media platforms, and I don't want to sound like a Kuhnen conspiracy theorist, but I think that it's too to separate off white women, to humiliate and cow white, middle aged women at a time when they desperately need suburban housewives because they've fled this this president, who as a game show host, would have lost his TV show because of his twenty four hour and counting me to things.

So they need desperately need these white women and perfectly timing time. Jeez, everybody is calling white, middle aged women Karens and dissing them. And they're the backbone of the Trump resistance. I mean, there's there's there's research on how many white women are envelope stuffing and going door to door. You know, they hate Donald and they're the backbone of this resistance. And so they're separating them off from the black. The black, yes. The left is diverse.

And these things it is very easy to to wedge in. And I know Rick has some thoughts on this because he's certain there are a number of of Kerans on the right, but they're Kerans with the Q they merge. Q and on and terrorism. And some of them are the ones who go in these hearings and say, we know that the county commission hearing about like water quality, they start yelling about Q1 audit and child cannibal pedophile rings and pizza restaurants.

There's a there is a it has become a weird sort of cultural hallmark right now. And it's also a secondary artifact of, you know, everybody's got a phone camera that everybody sees everything. Now, social media spreads, you know, crazy behavior. It's incentivized to spread crazy behavior because it's viral. So where are the dicks or the the steam? Sure. Sure. Where we're Rad's. Yeah, they're not acting. I mean, you could easily find men acting badly, but many times they're armed.

So maybe you're not getting up close to the what's the kid's name and in Kenosha, Kyle. Yeah. So you don't get up close to those guys with their with their weapons.

Well, I mean that nothing scares me more than that, that there are people on the streets from both sides now with guns because we are the gun country and you're allowed to carry guns and the combination of people in the streets who have guns, who hate each other, who think if the other side wins, it is the end of the world. When is there going to be a Lexington and Concord moment and we're going to see a pitched battle in the street, I'm talking about a gun battle between American citizens.

That, to me, is the most frightening prospect on the horizon. I think they came up. Yeah, yeah, and chaos is chaos is the friend of the people that would love to see this country go down in flames, that kind of chaos, that kind of ratcheting up the tension. You know, there's a lot of similarities now between the way that that the kids and rocka were were radicalized for ISIS. They're told things like unless you take action against these bad guys, then our culture will be destroyed.

Your what? Your families will be killed. It's all over. And these kids, like this guy in Kenosha, are hearing, you know, unless you take action against Antifa, you're going to beat your family will be destroyed. The suburbs will be burned to the ground. You know, it's going to be nothing but MS 13 and and all the terrorists are coming to kill you. So they're hearing the same kind of radicalization language that iterates across it in the Middle East and Africa and other places where these young kids who are vulnerable are convinced that their actions are justified and that they're and that they're liberated from the rules about not shooting people.

But as someone who has certainly run campaigns and seen Republicans run on law and order and win and studied historically campaigns that have been won on that issue, that seems to be what Trump is running on. He's the law and order candidate and. Are the Democrats facing that right? They seem to be hesitant in some ways, for example, to condemn the looting because they understand what causes people to have the rage that would make them loot. Although I don't know why looting is always associated with the rage.

I mean, sometimes they just they're just taking shit. And it's not people who would even think would need this shit. What what are the Democrats doing right or doing wrong in facing the law and order candidate?

Well, they needed to stomp down this defund the police thing the millisecond it started and they were slow and Joe Biden has now gotten ahead of it a little bit, but they were slow off the mark on that. That was a trap set by the Trump campaign and by FOX for them. And and once the progressives took off with it, I could have told you right away, the group that hates that message the most are African-Americans. They say they need legitimate policing in their communities.

This isn't something that they take lightly. And it was one of those areas where, you know, as I said, the subtitle of the book is To Save Democrats from themselves. They don't have to follow the lead of every single progressive bad idea that comes down the pike. That was a spectacularly bad thematic idea then. The only thing that sort of suppressed it from doing more damage was the enormous fuck up on covid on Trump's part as things just kept building up and building up and building up and they kind of stepped on that message.

The Biden campaign is now ahead of that, I would say. But they need to be consistent that, you know, we're going to enforce the law. We don't want criminality on the streets. We don't need in the White House. We've got to go across the spectrum on this. So so I was watching his speech last night. And first of all, he seemed logi. He seemed like sleepy dog.

I was very surprised about that. I wasn't surprised with Mussolini on the balcony standing next to a beat up around that that, you know, I was waiting for that to happen in America. But I was surprised at how slow he was with the reading. But I was and of course, it didn't look, as a comedian, I know I've done outdoor shows. It's the worst comedians. What we want is we want to Rathskeller because the laughs bounce off the walls.

And it sounds great when you're outside. Whatever noise people are making in the crowd, it kind of dissipates. So it didn't you know, that was a tough gig. But I was noticing what got the biggest applause, I think the biggest applause when he said free speech on campus. The judges, the crowd went nuts when he said we need free speech on campus. What do you make of that? Nina, that's part of the go ahead, Nina, his people, his people are responding to this, the perfect equipoise to the armed, young, groomed men that Rick has just talked about are the the wolf, college educated or private school educated kids who've been who you saw in Washington the other day rampaging, who have been really told to check their white privilege from an early age.

And it's part of their education. It's part of their it's I've seen it. And that's what they that's how they think. And that's their side of the that's their side of the story. They're that they're the the analog for the armed men, which is they're like lambs to the slaughter. And they they're the ones who are running the council culture. They're the ones who are silencing dissent among their own. And you know that that is one thing that the right has a right and they've there is a problem on the campuses.

So but I thought I actually thought that there was a loud applause to the if on the judges. I know. I know that he did they did respond well to the but the speech to me was, you know, they are they're saying that it's plagiarized, was plagiarized from the first speech. There's that there are so many similarities. It was a lazily written speech, sloppy. It made no sense when you say there were there were points. So I don't you know that again, I just felt like I wonder how many people are even listening to the speech that maybe they tuned in for the fireworks, but I think they don't care.

They don't the percentage doesn't matter, though. It's a personal matter to these people. And, Bill, a lot of the things in the speech were just they go through a checklist now or what we call the cultural Alamo, where they're playing to the insecurities of the Trump base and the insecurities that Republicans have built up inside their own political silo. So Fox is always telling people they're going to cancel Christmas, they're going to take away your guns, they're going to take away your religion.

They're not going to let you do this and this and this. And so he was going through that checklist. And, yes, the speech was a hot mess. It was written by three or four people, a speechwriter. You could see the inconsistencies in the tonality of it. And it was all over the board. And his delivery, as you said, it was it was low energy to to use a phrase that Donald's familiar with. It was dull.

He was not loving it. And he was leaning against the podium like a drunk on a light post. And it was just not a good speech. It was a tough Venuto to work. But OK, final question. I was mentioning in the monologue, Jerry Falwell. You know, no one hates to give religion a black guy more than I do. So I'm not going to gloat. But yeah, I mean, Jerry Jerry Falwell Jr., the wife was having an affair and allegedly with the poor boy.

I think that what that's known and allegedly Jerry Falwell Jr. was watching we heard this with Roger Stone, used to like to have the wife with certain people and then watch. And and Paul Manafort, we also heard the same thing. What is it with Republicans and Cocodrie? I know this is the funny thing, you, a conservative, a rock ribbed conservative and the can't just oozes out of but but why that kink?

Why, why? Why? No, I don't get that. You want to watch another man with your lady? Listen, this. This is this is something that I find richly ironic because the greatest insult in the 2016 election and since then that Trump is used against anyone who never trump person or opposed to Trump is to call them a cock. Last time I checked, these guys are the ones who are racking up the points. You know, the Reverend Coxwell is is the latest example of this thing.

But these guys, it is whatever it is in their heads about beat about that particular form of humiliation. I'm not going to shame them, but I am going to shame them because they're so fucking hypocritical about it that, you know, they're the ones who, like, lose their mind about gay marriage and everything else. And yet there's Jerry Falwell watching his wife get ridden like like a carnival ride by her.

Well, allegedly, we don't know what happens. All right. Thank you both very much. I appreciate you helping us inaugurate our new new new day here in the studio. See you soon. OK, well, as I mentioned in the monologue, that poor Jerry Falwell Jr., you know what I feel for any guy whose wife has, you know, been stepping out on a limb. And apparently that that's what happened was she was doing it with the pool boy.

I mean, it happens. Pool boys are very sexy. They've got that thing that they put in the pool and everything. And, you know, what was he watching? We don't know about that. Allegedly, he was watching, but we thought it would just be a good time to do twenty four things. You don't know about Jerry.

One of our favorite departments, twenty four things completely original. Twenty four things you don't know.

For example, I call the father the Son and the Holy Ghost, the Holy Thrussell, I believe I believe the Lord is present whenever two or more are gathered in my bed. I'm a good tennis player, but almost anyone can look my wife. You can read that two ways, I feel the only thing I can't convince my book I do is stop parking in the driveway. My favorite food is sloppy seconds. My my wife's nickname for my penis is Plan B.

. There's a sign in my bedroom that says, no, no cutoffs around a pool, you know, you get my bumper sticker says if this fans are rocking, it's probably my wife fucking the pool boy, this poor guy. Funny thing is, we don't even have a pool. All right, he is a nine time Grammy Award winner and the first Pulitzer Prize winning jazz musician, his new album, The Ever Funky Down, it's available now on all digital music platforms.

My honor to introduce Wynton Marsalis. Wynton, great to you. Where are you? In New York, sir. It's such a pleasure. Yes, it's a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you. Well, and to you, too. So but now you were I was worried that you might have been affected by the hurricane because I know you have New Orleans, no roads, but you miss it.

Miss New Orleans. It was it. Were you there for Katrina?

No, no, I was in New York, I've been in New York since nineteen seventy nine. OK, but you know, my relatives were all there, so of course all anybody from New Orleans, that was a definitive event.

Well, listen, I enjoyed your your latest so much. I love the music. I love the narration. I thought it was a particularly important album in the current moment that we find ourselves in, because we are in sort of ultimate binary mode where everything is right. Everything is in teams, Democrat and Republican and red state and blue state and black and white. And you seem to be pushing back against that. And I find that very refreshing in this atmosphere.

Do you want to tell me a little bit about your feelings about making that album? Yeah, well, we've been hustled, I think, every decade since the 1980s, I've written a piece that deals with America, our our social life themes of class, race, politics, civics in general. And I've been driving across this country. I'm afraid to fly. So I drive everywhere and I know people and all of the states. And I'll take good spirited arguments with people all over.

And this piece is entitled The Evil Funky Little. And it provides a blueprint to show us how to rise above populist propaganda on either side in the hustle. And it encourages all of us to have a much deeper level of communication. And engagement with our largest possible community is really the only thing that's going to save us as a collective creativity. And the music satirizes the things that divide us, actually, and it encourages us to see in ironic detail how foolish a lot of this stuff is and for us to inspect very closely what is going on and then fight for the world that we all can envision creating with and not against others.

Yeah, I completely concur with that message. It's a difficult message to put across nowadays because people are on their teams and they don't want to hear anything different. When I criticize the left, even though I'm a liberal, I hear it a lot like why are you saying that? We're perfect, they're evil. And I feel like that's not going to get us anywhere because that's not the way the world is and it's not the world the way the world will ever be.

I know you signed the Harper's letter, which was a letter and Harper's Magazine a couple of months ago was organized by Thomas Chatterton Williams, and it was signed by one hundred and fifty very impressive people, mostly almost all of them liberals who were basically pushing back against council culture and saying, we feel stifled. We do not want to walk on eggshells anymore. We want to be able to speak freely, think out loud and not have to suffer repercussions. And you are one of the signers and I applaud you for doing so.

Well, I didn't understand all about who signed it, I didn't know everyone who signed it, but I actually signed it because there was some some some black conservatives on on on the on the letter. And I just want to just say, yeah, we should all speak to each other. But then it was a, you know, of culture. And all these things are bizarre form of imitating other elite forms of oppression. It's like blacklisting McCarthyism.

Salem witch trials on people who have been victims of a certain type of oppression tend to create that same victimization. When they get the chance to get some agency is not uncommon. It's just different forms of attempting to keep people away. When I was growing up, my mom or whatever, she really didn't want to hear what you were saying.

She would say, boy, why are you talking now? Whether you're talking about what you're saying is that you shouldn't be saying anything. So the public space now is inundated with people trolling, people being paid to be on the Internet, people dedicated to shutting everybody up. And what we actually need is a deeper dialogue, a richer dialogue. And there's a jazz musician that is, ah, you know, we have ours is the art of listening and of course, creation.

So it's and we have a certain type, a live and let live culture. I play with all the great musicians, Art Blakey, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy, you can name them. And that's the main thing that they were teaching. You have to learn how to listen.

Listening is a skill that you have to always develop and work on an improvisation, conversational improvisation, just letting conversation happen. I think it's something that we're greatly lacking. And also, I think people talk about, well, we have to reach across the aisle. Yes, we do. We have the Republicans have to talk to Democrats and Democrats or Republicans. But also, wouldn't you agree we need more work, more dialogue within our own groups, within the group, within the left, within the right, talk to each other.

And if you don't agree, that's OK to. Well, you know, groups tend to be like gangs. Yeah, and, you know, a gang works with us or you hate us, right? And that's what the funky little down is about. And normally the gang would gangs. What they do is you have to commit a crime against someone who is innocent and that that bonds you. And, you know, this is actually the time to speak against whatever we've been doing has not been working.

So instead of us having a vision for our country, instead of us having things that we're actually working on, a constructive you know, we're busy, we're busy again and fighting with each other and trying to turn now, you know, of course, stuff like police violence as a prime example of what we're talking about. The Supreme Court in June didn't want to see not nine cases, seven or whatever it was dealing with with with qualified immunity. That doesn't mean that that would have changed the state of things.

But it's just interesting that the country, when everybody is in the street talking about it, obviously it's a tremendous problem that went under the radar. Nobody said anything about it. The highest court in our land saw it. So you start to get a kind of a. reason. And when things that don't have leadership, which in this moment, we don't really need a centralized leadership in a strange kind of way, the fact that we are decentralized is helping us survive, not becoming like any other place.

This is despotic rule. So you do have a kind of back and forth. But but, you know, the stuff is being. When was the last time a majority of three hundred million people needed to call some police for something? I've been up and down the country have said if you get 400 people in Chicago and they represent millions of people and it's not I'm speaking of something that the right is trying to use in this campaign. Richard Nixon already used this tactic.

You know, Willie Horton, these things work out. It's important to have a funky little dog. You know, that's what Mr. Gates is. You have to identify some other and then create a problem with them this far beyond what that problem is. And then you've got to defend yourself from them. Cesar, with the goals that were not to toga wearing goggles. But there are some goals all the way over here. We've got to go attack these people.

Y'all don't understand what they do. They eat their babies. They do stuff. You don't want that stuff here. So, you know, these people are going to be in your house next week. When was the last time those people in your house, you know, are you going to pick on the poorest, most disenfranchised people, the most under attack, and they're going to be the enemy of the United States of America? Your man is in this.

You know, the question for the for this election is going to be, will the large group of white voters that have been manipulated down through these years with the folklore of race and white supremacy reinforced by whites and blacks and whoever else in Hollywood, in the general media can't make enough products to sell to you, making you believe this stuff will is that large body of people who never own plantations, who have been poor, intellectual, been struggling in this country to get ahead?

What are they going to finally wake up and realize that money and power is the issue and that the people who continue to be directed to attack have the two and they don't have any. They don't have the ability to actually do anything, you so focus your gaze on who is actually exploiting and manipulating you and those people exist on both sides of the coin. Focus on that, you know, is not poor black people with no agency in the culture.

We have to remember, you know, racial discrimination has always gone hand in hand with labor and class. And no, this is where black people and a large number of white voters have a common cause. Remember, most of the lynchings were not because a black person looked at a white woman. It was because somebody request a fair wage. That's the truth of what? Of what the numbers are telling you about that. So, you know, to the traditionally exploited mass of white Americans, the evil faqih says, keep your eyes on the cash register and don't look at the people stage in the fight in the store.

And we're going to be all right if we can manage to get a very powerful coalition of those in whose interest it is to see new ideas about what our country has come to the forefront.

I am so glad I got you talking on that, because that was just amazing to hear and more like that on the album. I recommend it highly. I thank you for doing this. It's an honor to speak to you. Thank you. And I hope to see you die someday in person year and then. Can't wait. OK, thank you. We thank you very much.

We got a lot of promise, Audie.

Leslie, thank you. All right, time for new rules back in the studio. Still no audience, no audience, and now you could sit on a plane. With people, but we can't do it here, no rules, OK, new rule after Kimberly Guilfoyle speech at the Republican convention this week.

Ladies and gentlemen, leaders and fighters for freedom and liberty and the American Dream. The best is yet to come.

Well, yeah. Republicans can never again bring up the Howard Dean thing going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House.

Right. Although to all those Democrats who watched Kimberle and thought, how could Gavin Newsom ever have married this crazy person? Oh, come on. Who among us doesn't like a screamer?

New, if your job is to show off the softer side of the Trump White House, then maybe don't deliver your speech dressed like Ilsa, she wolf of the SS, it's it's vintage Hugo Boss. Yeah, from nineteen thirty six. This look doesn't say message. I care. It says check the attic.

All someone has to create a porn site called Cruciferous, where the categories are what famous evangelical leaders and conservative Republicans are into sexual humiliation by a gay hooker. Well, then Ted Haggard, that's the one for you. S.A.M. click Jimmy Swaggart and for incest. Click Josh Duggar. And if watching your wife get railed by another dude is your thing, well, we've got a full menu. Neuro, if you've if you've had your dog more than 10 years, you could stop telling me it's a rescue.

That's like if Trump was still saying, this is my son, Eric, he wasn't planned.

NewWorld, the elephant shrew that has emerged from the lost species list for the first time in 50 years has to tell us why now.

You know, the world's a shit show right now, right? In the 70s, the environment was still pretty good shape. In the 80s, you had all that cocaine lying around by the year 2020 making a quick buck.

Oh, yeah, right. And finally, new rule.

Democracy isn't a spectator sport. And if Trump's going to try to scuttle the post office, we need to fight back.

Now, I must admit of the ways I'd always imagine Donald Trump would try to steal the election fucking with the mail never occurred to me, but I didn't think he could take the money Congress gave the Pentagon and redirected to the wall, and he did that.

I sure wasted a lot of time in civics class with those note cards. Since April, the president has launched a two front campaign against the Postal Service, first undermining trust in mail and voting by calling it corrupt. So letter he can challenge any results he doesn't like. And then by undermining the postal service itself, eliminating over time firing leadership, reducing sorting machines so that when the surge of mail in ballots starts coming in in October, the post office will be too gutted and strapped to handle it and ballots won't get counted.

He wants it to fail. It has to fail for his scheme to work. It's like a postal version of the producers. And there's all sorts of anecdotal evidence now that the system is starting to crack, people not getting their mail, getting it. Very late last week, I got an issue of Rolling Stone with Bob Seeger on the cover. There's a never ending well of creativity on the right to keep people from voting, and this is the latest dirty trick, but maybe there is something we can do to fight back.

If Trump is going to reduce mail processors, it is in our power to give them less mail to process.

Yeah, in-person absentee voting begins in two weeks on September 14th in Pennsylvania, two weeks. So I say you have two weeks to use the postal service or everything you normally do. And after that hashtag, free up the mail. Other than essentials like receiving paychecks, prescription drugs, and, of course, the Victoria's Secret catalogue don't use the mail for anything but ballots until the election is over. You know how we pull over for fire trucks. It's time we do the equivalent for mail trucks.

Let this be our October surprise for Trump. So that means get all your Amazon crap now, all the shit you don't really need candles and fucking driftwood, art and elbow moisturizer, get it all out of your system now and then lay off the add to cart button for a month. Same thing with the rest of the mail letters. I guess there's a certain charm to an old school letter written out in cursive, but go back to Charming after the election.

It's not essential. The last person to send a letter that mattered was the Zodiac Killer. Dinner with the humorous yet vaguely insulting birthday card that you send to your aunt every October, getting older is like driving a classic car. The rear end sags and the fluids leak. Yeah, we'll say that over the phone this year. Yeah. Call her up and say, and Gertrude, you are now like a car, your rear end sags and your fluids leak.

I'm sorry you had to hear that over the phone, but I may have just saved democracy. I'm sorry, but we need to give our besieged and intrepid postal workers the time and space they need to deliver nothing but ballots. So Fruit of the Month Club canceled one of the month club get drunk on something else, see monkeys, ransom notes, know everything if you're still paying your bills by mail. Good time to join the new century.

No, save the date cards, no get well cards, postcards, please, please, we have Instagram now you're embarrassing yourself if you're still sending postcards, it's like watching a movie on Netflix in twenty twenty and then trying to send it back. If you one of your sex toys by mail, sorry, get your ass out to the perv store and buy your disgusting devices and jellies in person. And, of course, what mostly would free up the male.

Would be getting rid of this shit. Capital One, I don't know what your politics are, but somewhere in your evil bankers hearts, you must think we should all at least get the chance to vote. So next month, don't send me an application. You can throw it in the trash for me. All the businesses that fill up our mailboxes every day really take a little break, bed, bath and Beyond. It's like a shark, just email me a coupon every week or it dies.

Those postcards that look like they're from someone you know but are just real estate agents bragging, hey, I just sold this shit box for one point two out letters with pennies taped to them to guilt me into charity, the circular from the grocery store.

Look, we have hot dogs. Yeah, we know ads for ninety nine dollars LASIK eye surgery. If you only want ninety nine dollars to fix my eyes, I don't want you touching my face. And here's something no one has ever said. Hey, gather around everyone. The latest PennySaver is here. If the post office wasn't so overwhelmed with the mountains of hot garbage that flow through it every day, we might stand a chance of boiling the fat man's plans.

I don't want to lose this election because of the mail. This is something we can do. OK, that's our show. I want to thank my guests, Trey Gowdy, Nina Bearly, Rick Wilson and Wynton Marsalis. We're off next week and back on the 11th of September. Good night, 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.