Original subtitles

Start the clock.

So much to get to. I appreciate it.

Yeah, I know.

I miss you, too.

Yeah, we were off last week. One week.

One week. I have more to catch up on. I could pause it. Okay, the State of the

Union happened, the address.

I tell him not to do it. He did it anyway.

But in the State of the Union address, Trump was bragging that he was ending

wars, that the gas prices are going down, the stock market is through the

jobs are doing great.

Gas prices have spiked.

The stock market is going down, and we've lost a lot of jobs. It's like his

more evil twin replaced his usual evil twin.

I don't... And this is... Republicans

are very nervous about this, because the big issue is affordability, right, in

America right now.

Republicans are sweating like Britney Spears at a traffic stop.

No, it's not a good look. We're losing jobs. We lost 92

,000 jobs in February. Of course, Trump blames Biden and the Democrats blame

Trump. And Nick Fuentes blames Black History Month.

Some terrible people in America, I tell you.

But that's the bad news. We lost 92 ,000 jobs. The good news, one of them was

Kristi Noem.

That's right.

Kristi Noem.

At Homeland Security, she's finally gone. And Trump did it. Oh, boy.

He's cold. He did it by a tweet while she was making a speech.

She never thought coming. Now she knows how her dog feels.

You know, Trump used to brag he could shoot somebody on Fifth

Avenue. Remember all that?

I guess he didn't like the fact that there were two people in the

who could shoot people in the street and get away with it.

But,

no, apparently...

With Kristi Noem, the distractions just became too much. She testified last week

before the Judiciary Committee, I think, and even the Republicans are going

after her. Apparently, it's such an open secret in Washington that she's been

having an affair.

I mean, her husband was sitting right behind her.

But it's such an open secret that she's been having an affair with Trump's

longtime henchman, Corey Lewandowski, that they were asking it. This doesn't

usually happen when they ask her directly, are you fucking this guy?

What she said, she said, I am shocked that we're peddling tabloid garbage in

this committee. True.

Also, not exactly a no.

So we have a new head of Homeland Security. You'll be excited to hear

this. Mark Wayne Mullen. Yes, Mark Wayne Mullen.

I say Mark Wayne Mullen's going to do it.

He's a senator from Oklahoma, total election denier, former MMA fighter, so

know, a bright guy.

But he has pledged to continue all of the responsibilities that Kristi Noem

doing. I mean, not fucking Corey Walundowski, but the other ones.

All the other ones.

So... Also, this week... War.

Did you hear about that thing?

We bombed Iran and it's going on. Now, if you expect me to say I hate it, I

don't. Sorry.

When he puts boots on the ground, yeah, then I'll hate it. Now, I know too many

happy Iranian Americans.

Sorry.

You cannot name one horrible thing that has happened in the Middle East in the

last 50 years and not connect it to this fascist theocracy.

They're like six degrees of they don't eat bacon.

And it's popular.

I mean, Iranians all over the world are doing the Trump dance. Have you seen

that? The whole world is jerking off two guys at once.

But,

you know, when it comes to the war, when it comes to anything in this country,

everybody assesses everything by way of, did my team do it? Then I love it. If

their team did, I hate it. I mean, Kamala Harris made a statement. She

this is a war the American people don't want.

And who knows more about what the American people don't want?

He's right.

Like 6 out of 10 American people don't want this war. Okay, it doesn't mean

they're right. We'll see.

What's bizarre is, Don, I'm one of the few people on your

enemies list who is backing you on this, sort of. We'll see.

And yet today, today, this is today, March 6th, at 8 .50 a .m., he tweets

about the war. There will be no deal until...

We have unconditional surrender, important statements we put out. An hour

eight posts about me.

I'm not joking.

An hour later.

And what happened with the Valentine's Day massacre and his tweet about that,

which I'll be talking about at the end of the show.

Okay, this is today. And then 15 minutes later, he said again, back to the war.

We are moving thousands of people out of the Middle East to safer places. Okay,

an important message to get out. Then back to me.

The people at Mediate wrote a headline that said, here's why Trump is raging at

Bill Maher in the middle of an actual war.

Why? Tell me.

This is getting

weird. I'm just telling you.

Thank God I didn't spend the night.

All right.

But as far as the war goes, as he would say, we'll see what happens.

There's so many unanswered questions, of course, right now about it. One thing

we do know for sure, mullers, mullers, are fucking morons.

Some people on the fence about that?

Here's my evidence. They've known for months. We have the entire military

surrounding their country. Everything is aimed at them. We know we're ready to

take them out. They have their big meeting. They have everybody who's

in the country meet in one place.

His office.

I mean... Have you heard of a

Zoom meeting? This was a boom meeting.

They did it again.

They had another meeting of who was left. They call, I swear to God, this is

a joke, the Assembly of Experts.

Otherwise known as the League of Extraordinary Idiots.

And they get blown up again. I mean, you've heard the term all hat, no

These are all beard, no brains. I'm telling you.

But they're trying to find a new leader. They think Kamini's son is going to be

taking over now. He's there.

Boy, did he pick the wrong week to be a nepo baby.

All right, we've got a great show. We have Senator Adam Schiff and Don Lemon.

But first up, she's an actress, activist, and best -selling author whose

memoir, The End of My Life, is killing me.

The unexpected joys of a cancer slacker on March 17th. Available for pre -order

now. Annabelle Gerwich.

Annabelle.

Hello.

How are you, darling?

Great to see you.

Thank you. All right.

Great to see you. Yeah, great to see you. All right, let's give the audience

trigger warning now. Right at the beginning, we're going to be talking

cancer. Uh -huh. You know, just so you know, because you have it. I do. And

that's what the book is about. But the interesting, well, many interesting

things, but you look great.

You're leading a very full life. Thank you.

Even though you've had it for six years.

Five years. And I want to say, when you see me, what you are looking at is

pharmaceuticals, caffeine, and personal lubricants.

This is what is powering my health.

Very much like Diddy.

Not at all.

But explain this, how you can have cancer. I mean, when my father got lung

cancer, you know, it was a very different situation back in the 90s.

different. It's just a pill you take. It's amazing that you can, I mean, you

were with me on the Hawaii trip like five years ago, right? I know. And you

look great, you feel great a lot of the time, I'm assuming. Yeah, I do. You lead

a normal life.

What's the catch?

Well, there's a catch.

And the catch is that this is a new age of precision medicine. And I'm taking a

drug that turns off one gene in my body. And so I'm the product of this

amazing investment in science.

And what the catch is, is that we have to keep investing in science. The Trump

administration... Yeah.

They...

interrupted science funding last year lung cancer research was zeroed out

zero and we i can't afford one year of lost research and

the thing about it i think it's one pill a day now it creates a certain kind of

existential dread because eventually it will stop working and i'll have to move

to a treatment that has more toxicities but it's also a bitter pill because not

Everyone gets the benefit of this drug. You know, I thought that the differences

in health insurance and not having universal health care was about, like,

choosing which doctor you get to go to. But it's not.

It's not just about cost. It's about access.

There are 28 states in the United States where you don't get the testing that

tells you you could get on the drug that I'm on. And that means...

survival differences, state by state.

You have different survival rates for the same disease I'm on. And that makes

feel, you know, I don't feel good about taking this pill when everyone can't get

it. You think that the Democrats could make that more of a winning issue,

wouldn't you?

You would think, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm from Alabama originally. Yeah, I know you are. And I

feel, thank you, Alabama in the house, right?

So I feel...

That there's a lower survival rate in my home state just because, you know, I

had dreams of working in Hollywood. I end up here and I can survive and they

can't. That doesn't make sense to me. Well, I mean, of all the books I've read

on this subject, because I am very interested in health, yours is the

I mean, you somehow made this issue funny, which is not an easy thing to do.

Well, you know, I thought I was going to write, Bill, a book about...

dying. But because my life was saved by these drugs, it's actually a book about

living. And it's a book about ordinary joys in extraordinary times and

how to survive that. And I had no idea. Well, I've cultivated an appreciation of

ordinary joys. This is the strategy of how I've remained buoyant. Because at

first I tried to carpe every DM.

That did not work.

This is how I ended up selling merch on a low -rent band tour in Europe

for a heavy metal band. Right. You had a new love.

I remember us talking. You said, I'm fucking like crazy with the cancer,

was great. And you went to Europe with a band. So apparently cancer makes you

Gen Z.

Listen,

it's never too late.

It's never too late to write your sex, drugs, and rock and roll memoir. No, I

guess not.

61.

You know,

and just by the way, I know it's kind of a trope about like, oh, men and women

get different treatment in the medical establishment.

But, you know, the drug I'm on does make your skin drier. Right. Hence the need

for personal lubricant. Oh, I see. Which is not covered by my insurance.

Right. But if it was a man's problem, you know, being covered.

And you got this during the pandemic.

I did. Which is amazing. And you were going through a divorce.

I did. I mean, you just talk about a double whammy. Well, that's a triple

whammy. Yeah, you're right.

It's actually, okay, is it the quadruple whammy? Because the really big thing,

Bill, is that, you know, we have a cognitive dissonance between how we look

how we feel.

actual state of our health, not to make people paranoid.

But we don't always know we have underlying conditions.

I was feeling great. I looked great. And look, you can't out -crazy me.

Just like Robert Kennedy Jr., I sorted cocaine off of dirty toilet seats in the

1990s.

Okay?

I'm not trying to look old. I worked out in saunas. I was an actor.

I ate keto. I didn't even eat for 30 years. Right. But that doesn't mean

going to be healthy. And so I didn't even know I had this underlying

which can be really dangerous. So we have to remember that how we look and

doesn't mean we shouldn't get regular checkups. And also, I'm a big believer

the mind -body connection.

Oh, I think that's total crap.

Really? You think there's no mind -body connection?

I do.

I really do. I do. I really do. You do know that they do studies with placebos.

And people, you know what a placebo is, of course. Of course. When people, I

mean, before, like 200 years ago, all they had was placebos. They would do

crazily bad, stupid things. Doctors would to people. And they would get

because they thought they were getting better. I'm not saying that's a cure.

if I ever get something.

We love each other because we disagree on this. Okay.

You know, and I know what you're saying. And I don't want to underplay the fact

that.

And this is what my book is about, is about maintaining engagement in life and

about being curious and forward -thinking because this is what I try to

You don't think this approach that we're talking about going with the band, you

don't think that helped you survive? No, I don't. It's just all the drugs. I

think it's all the drugs because I've gotten very involved in the support

community of lung cancer.

And too many people who've had a much better attitude than me have died. And

don't think it has, mind, body, has anything to do with why you got it in

first place? Oh, absolutely not. Because we know now that science has proven

that the number two cause, because I wasn't a smoker, which is still the

one cause. Right, well, there you go. That's what I'm saying. Maybe it was the

divorce. Maybe it was the marriage.

No, definitely not.

I don't know about that. No, but what we know, and it's become an epidemic level

for young women to be diagnosed with lung cancer, particulate matter in the

And this is what pollution and also climate change, because it's particulate

matter. And wildfires. Yes, it comes from the wildfires. The danger of

particulate matter in the air.

So annoying, California.

Well, this is part of what's so incredibly bankrupt about the Trump

administration. If they really cared, if Maha cared about our health, they

wouldn't take away environmental regulations against pollution. Yeah,

but excuse me. One reason we had the wildfire, I know everything is their

You know what? This is a democratic state. They have very little to do with

They protected something. I think it was called the milk fetch.

I'm not sure. Don't quote me on that. It was some plant or something that caught

fire.

And we lost pretty much all the environmental gains we got for the last

part of the century, since the beginning of the century, because of these

wildfires, because they were way worse than anything else we had before. And

that is what's in the air now.

Well, that may be one case, but, I mean, we're talking about the global issue.

Oh, I understand. They don't believe in climate change, and that's horrible. And

believe me, that's one reason why he's yelling at me all the time.

Yes.

He's got a lot of time for that. All right. Well, I'm so glad you're here.

so glad you're well. And the book is hysterical, and people should read it.

Thank you, Annabelle Gerwitz, my oldest, bestest friend.

All right.

All right, let's meet our panel.

How are you doing?

Hello, Bill Maher. All right. He is a Democratic senator from California. Adam

Schiff is with us.

A very popular Democratic senator from California.

And he's an award -winning journalist and founder of Lemon Media Network, who

now hosts the Don Lemon Show, podcast on lemon.

Oh, boy.

Okay.

So all week long, I've been hearing, we're at war.

Now, I'd like to first say we are not at war.

We, all of us, we do the same thing we always did. The American families and

military people, they're at war.

That's who goes to war in this country. Everybody else stays home and watches.

Okay, just wanted to put that out there.

I just want to reiterate what I said in the monologue.

I'm cautiously optimistic unless he puts boots on the ground.

Then he's going to lose me. We'll see for now.

I just don't get what liberals don't get about liberation.

I see so much happiness. I see it in Venezuela.

I see it here in Iran.

Could we skip the part where we talk about, oh, they had so many different

reasons for going to war, regime change, and we got to get rid of the nukes, and

they were supporters of terrorism.

It's all of it.

How about this? This was a fascist theocracy, and nothing in the Middle

ever going to get better while they were still there fucking everything up. But

I don't think you can skip that part. That part is very important.

I think that the American people deserve transparency, especially if you are

sending boots on the ground, because that means that lives are in jeopardy,

families will be concerned, mothers will, you know, get the call, parents,

that... Your son or daughter is not coming back, or they'll knock on your

So I think we can't skip that part.

And this administration lies so much that I think we're entitled to the

for one.

No one is saying, I don't believe anyone is saying that. But can't it just be

all those things? Well, it can and it cannot be. But I don't think that anyone

is saying that Hamani or any Venezuela, that those folks should not be knocked

out. But there is a way of doing things. And Donald Trump has completely...

sorry about this, I think neutered the legislative branch, and I think the

legislative branch needs to get their power back. I would agree with that.

Certainly agree with that, and it's been amusing to watch the Republicans tie

themselves in knots to try to say, first, that this is a war, and then it's

a war, and it's a war they declared on us somehow.

The minute that they acknowledge this is war is the minute they have to

acknowledge They haven't done their constitutional duty because if it's a

we should have had a vote to authorize it.

It's also the moment they acknowledge that Trump betrayed his promise not to

us into new wars.

But to your point, Bill, in the beginning, yeah, there are celebrations.

When Saddam fell, there were celebrations.

20 years later, not so many celebrations.

20 years later, Iraq is actually in a pretty good place.

People don't talk about that. Iraq is a much better country than it was. I'm not

saying it was the right thing to do. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. But that

kind of goes unnoticed, that Iraq is not a failed state anymore.

They actually have elections. They have opposition parties. They have a media.

Don't you think they got better after we left? Because when we were there... It

certainly was not. Right, but it would still be torture rooms in Saddam

and his kids would be in charge right now. There would be thousands of

troops who would be still alive.

Yes, that's true, too. And that's too heavy a price to pay.

And I say that as someone who, and this, I think, was a terrible mistake, voted

for that.

I hope I've learned from that.

I certainly would not vote to go to war with Iran because there are costs that

you don't see in the front end.

And this administration has no plan.

for how to get out of this war. No plan. Don't really articulate justification

for it.

I hope that it ends, as the president sometimes says, in days or weeks.

I hope they're smart enough not to make this go on forever.

But as we've seen, once you unleash a war, there are a lot of unforeseen

consequences. Right now, Russia reportedly providing intelligence to

how to more successfully target American forces.

Whether we anticipated that, I don't know.

What's happening with our allies, hard to see how that... Well, allies, Russia

now has lost Syria, they've lost Venezuela, they're going to lose Cuba,

they've lost Iran.

So he's lost four allies.

Yeah. That doesn't matter. What you said about Iraq is, I think that's why we

need transparency. That's why you can't skip it. Remember, where are the

weapons? We've never found the weapons of mass destruction.

And how many people lost their lives because we were going over there to look

and get the weapons of mass destruction?

So I think people need a rationalization and a real one for the world. That was

more of a blatant lie. This is more of a, we just don't like them.

They're bad people.

And they are bad people. So this statement from the administration, the

president had the constitutional authority to direct the use of military

because he could reasonably determine that such use of force was in the

interest. That's too vague for you?

Totally vague.

Okay, because that's from Obama about Libya.

Well, Obama made the argument initially that he could go into Syria without an

authorization.

I and many others pushed back on that argument.

Ultimately, he did not go forward with going after Assad, even though Assad was

gassing his own people, because he thought he might lose the vote in

But I respect the fact that that was important to him, and the fact that he

not have the support of Congress meant that we weren't going to go forward.

We are unquestionably at war now.

The founders made an extraordinary decision at the time, which was not to

that power to the president, but to give it to the Congress, because they

worried, I think, as Hamilton said, that a president would grow too fond of

making war.

After Venezuela, after the earlier Iran conflict, after bombing Nigeria

and Iraq and Syria, he's grown too fond of this. And Congress, Donna, as you're

saying, needs to step up.

assert its role, or it's going to be gone for good.

And then any time a president, for any reason, anywhere in the world, for any

length of time, will feel free to make war, and that would be hugely dangerous

for the country. In the first article of the Constitution, everything goes

through Congress.

Everything should go through Congress.

And if that is not happening, it should.

And, you know, Donald Trump is not a king. He thinks that he's a king, and

being allowed to get away with all of these things. He's not a monarch, but he

gets away with it. But the last time we declared war was 1942.

So this has been happening for a long time. I mean, that's true.

1982, you're talking about the War Powers Act and trying to take that away.

mean, eight times Congress has filed suit, various presidents, Reagan in El

Salvador, Nicaragua, Grenada, Reagan in the Persian Gulf, that's the Iran -Iraq

war, George W. Bush, the first Bush in Kuwait, his son, of course, in Iraq,

Clinton in Kosovo, Obama in Libya.

I mean, this horse is out of the barn.

Well, to Bush's credit, he did seek a congressional authorization to use force

in Afghanistan, in Iraq.

But I will agree with the president on this.

I think he's right to call for the unconditional surrender of Bill Maher.

I think I'm totally with him on that.

That was the tweet I was expecting to see.

We're going to hear a lot about it at the end of the show.

The things that you mentioned, they were based on some sort of imminent threat.

There is no imminent threat. There's no intelligence, as I understand from

anyone who's on the Intelligence Committee, that there was an imminent

that Iran was going to attack Israel.

And all the intelligence shows that Iran was years away from... Well, they have

been attacking them for 20 years through proxies.

But that doesn't mean... If you listen to the administration, they were doing

because Israel was going to strike Iran, and they wanted to make sure that...

That didn't happen. Okay, it just seemed, admit this much, there is a

approach here. I mean, I was surprised when he said we might put boots on the

ground because I thought that was his red line and he would never do that.

We'll see.

But as opposed to what we have done before, which is we invaded a place and

took it over Afghanistan, Iraq, we can make it better.

They're going to learn to love us.

That's the pottery barn rule.

You bought it, you broke it, you broke it, you bought it.

His is more like, we broke it, you fix it. You know, he's throwing it back on

them. I mean, Venezuela is not Iran, but Iran is not an unsophisticated

population. We'll see.

Maybe they're the same, but it seems like this is a very different approach,

whereas you kill the leader, then you bring up somebody else who's...

Not the opposition, who's part of that administration.

And you say, look, we'll kill you if you don't start behaving.

Because I hear something about leaders I've learned.

They're not really ideological.

They mostly just want to hang on to the job. I remember in Iraq, remember

debathification?

And everybody said, especially all the people on the left, that was a terrible

thing to do. We got rid of Saddam Hussein, and then all the people were at

bath party.

We got rid of them. Of course, they were resentful, and then the war started.

Okay, well, this is what we're not doing. This is the opposite of

debathification. We got rid of the main guy, but we're not getting rid of the

apparatus under them. We're just saying, act more like a normal, civilized

country, and we won't fucking kill you, too. Yeah, but you don't know who's

coming.

We're not coming after Khamenei, right?

And Pete Hester said we're not in the business of regime change. But as you

said, if we kill the leader, that's regime change. The other big factor here

we've already lost six American service members. That's a huge price to pay.

But we're also losing the opportunity to address the need to improve the quality

of life for the American people.

This is what Trump campaigned on. He said, I'm not going to go to war. I'm

to be the peace president. I'm going to get my FIFA peace prize.

But instead, we're going to war and people can't afford their groceries and

can't afford.

Now the fuel price of the pump has gone way up. They can't afford the cost of

living. And instead of focusing on that, we're.

spending probably a billion dollars a day in Iran. And with every bomb that we

drop, it's another investment we couldn't make at home. And I just don't

that's where the country is.

The price is already too high, as far as I'm concerned, with the loss of our

service members.

If there had been an imminent threat, I'm all with you. And, Bill, you're

I'm glad to see this regime gone.

That's an unmitigated positive.

I don't know, though, at the end of the day, if we get...

You know, the Ayatollah's son or some other cleric.

I'm glad you brought it up because we got a hold of the job application.

They're looking for a new Ayatollah.

Would you like to hear what's on the... These are the questions on the job

application for the next Ayatollah.

Finish this sentence. The most satanic thing about Donald Trump is A,

Israel, B, dancing.

Did you say you hate women enough to host a podcast sponsored by protein

What words best complete this sentence?

Death, A, by chocolate.

B, cab for cutie.

C, to America.

Where do you see yourself in ten wars?

Jihad me at halal.

Innocent wordplay or instant death sentence.

In order to reach Gen Z, are you okay with the name Ayatollah 6 -7?

Where do you keep your wife?

Have you ever accidentally smiled? If so, please explain.

And what Sex and the City character are you? That's the other... I don't know

how that got in there, but... All right.

Let's turn to domestic affairs.

Don, I see you're in the news quite a bit lately. Am I?

I was at the Clive Davis Grammy party when Clive introduced you and you got

biggest ovation in the room.

Kristi Noem fired this week. Do you feel vindicated?

Do you feel like doing the Trump dance now? Do you want to be jerking off two

guys at once? Not until Pam Bondi is.

Then I'll do the double BK.

But Pam Bondi, this week, announced federal charges against 30 more people.

accused of civil rights violations there in the Minnesota church. So explain to

us, the pastor there was, we think, part of ICE? That's why the protest was

going on there?

Well, according to the protest group, one of the pastors was, I think, a

regional director for ICE in that region.

Pastors do that?

Pastors are also regional directors of ICE. There's things going on in this

country. I try to keep up with the news.

And they said you stood in close proximity to the pastor in an attempt to

oppress and intimidate him.

That's some powerful bullshit there, isn't it?

So where are you now?

They arrested you out here, right?

And then what happened? You went to jail for a minute? I went to the federal

courthouse, and I was in, you know, in an isolation room or a room by myself.

Really? Yeah, yeah. I had to spend the night in jail.

Like Steve McQueen. Yeah. I spent the night, I spent the night, throw the ball

against the wall like in... I spent the night in a holding room.

Really? At the federal courthouse. I had to do it once. It wasn't that bad. You

did? Yeah, for a D. In 92, I got pinched for, I was this much over the limit.

Had a couple of drinks, drove home. I was wearing leopard print shoes.

I'm sure that's why the cop was like, this asshole has got to go to jail. But

you weren't sniffing cocaine off of a dirty toilet seat. I was not. But it was

the Beverly Hills jail.

Oh,

well, you were in a fancy jail.

It was a nightmare. Jail is jail. Are you kidding? When I ordered room service

in the morning, I said,

raisin toast, no raisins in the toast.

I had avocado toast. So there was an election down in Texas, big stuff,

this year in the Democratic Party.

Adam, we've got to get you on this idea.

This is James Tallarico. He was on the show a couple of weeks ago. Very

impressive guy. Super talent. Okay. He beat Jasmine Crockett, who, you know,

until this moment, I kept hearing rising star in the Democratic Party. Very

charismatic, fiery, yes, but very bright. Okay.

People across the political spectrum. This is Tallarico talking.

I think this is just laying out the two wings of the party.

Fuck Trump wing.

You know, your old friend Katie Porter holds up signs, actually, that say,

if.

Okay.

That's one way to do a campaign.

James says, people across the spectrum are hungry for a new kind of politics,

not a politics of fear, of hate, of division, but a politics of love, a love

that can heal what's broken in America.

The love part, James, that's a little too far for me.

I love to say, fuck Trump.

You can do both.

Okay, but I get the point.

I think Tallarico is just a tremendous talent. And Jasmine is too. And Texas

had a choice, Texas Democrats, between two up -and -coming, rising stars.

Tallarico is that unique talent that I think is deeply religious, deeply

progressive.

really resonating with people in Texas and outside of Texas.

Texas could very well be in play, and I say that with hesitation because we've

put our hopes there before, but I think if anyone at this moment can make a

viable campaign and turn Texas blue in the Senate, it's someone like Tallarico.

I think his message is perfectly suited.

It's also a perfect message for a Democrat in Texas, which may not be the

same message for a Democrat in California.

And I'm hugely excited about his campaign. This is great news.

I think this could actually be the year. I think it could be the year. I think

they had two, as you said, two great choices and both, you know, different

approaches. But I think that this could be the year, especially considering how

the Republicans in the race are basically killing each other at this

will during this entire process until November.

But you seem to be avoiding the question, or maybe you do think you can

both ways. I don't know if you can have it both ways. I think these are the two

wings. One wing is the cut them off.

You know, don't have dinner with him.

Worst thing you could ever do.

If your family voted for him, don't. Wait a minute. He's tweeting at you for

having dinner with him, and he hates you. What are you talking about?

He hates me because I never stopped criticizing him, and I never promised I

would.

I think the reality is you have to find a way to do both stand up to Trump and

also deliver for people. Stand up. But, I mean, don't you think after 10 years,

it's just a little, I mean, it's a bit of an eye roll. When people see that,

they just think that's all you got. That's all you Democrats have is fuck

And we're looking for something different. It seems like Tallarico is

this case. And I think the fact that he won in Texas, I think, says a lot. Well,

I think it says a lot, too.

When Americans are getting killed in the streets of Minneapolis, it's not like

you can ignore it and say, I'm going to have a positive love message. No, I'm

not down with the love for it.

We don't have to love. But you can do both. And indeed, I think all of us are

different mixture of both. A focus on, OK, this is.

our positive agenda. This is what we have to accomplish. We have to get shit

done in California.

This was really my theme in my Senate campaign. We have to get shit done.

We have to be able to move forward. We have to be able to build things. We have

to build a lot more housing.

You have to have a positive message.

It can't be just about fighting Trump.

But as they say, your opposition has a vote too.

And when your opposition is taking the country to war without your approval in

Congress, when the opposition is killing people in the streets, You've got to

stand up to that, too. I think Democrats have to be careful of this sort of

kumbaya message.

Because ultimately, Democrats are going to elect the Democrat. And you want to

energize the part of your party that's really for you. Like Donald Trump

energized the MAGA, the staunch MAGA. You're not going to do that by kumbaya.

And we should have learned by now.

I mean, that is the argument.

I mean, Katie Porter, I think, is the one who said, I don't need Trump votes.

This is where the rubber meets the road.

Do you go, what you're saying is...

Fuck the votes of the people who are deplorable. We don't care about you at

We're just going to go after you. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that

you have to be careful because we are not in normal times where Donald Trump

not going to sit with a Democrat or anyone, for that matter. It's all about

Donald Trump.

There's no ideology.

It's all about Donald Trump, but just let me finish. And so they've got to be

careful with that because that is not what Democrats want right now. They want

fighter. So I like James Tallarico, but I think he should be very careful about

this sort of kumbaya, have to win over Republicans.

Jasmine Crockett did very well just with black voters in Texas.

Seven out of ten Trump voters are not committed.

Committed to him.

That's a key stat there. 7 out of 10 to me sounds somewhat gettable, especially

in the atmosphere we're in now with a bad economy brewing.

And if they're not with him, they don't like him probably more than the

Democrats don't like him. So why do you need to appeal? They already don't like

him. This is exactly the point, Bill. And I agree with you. To get them voting

for you. It's one thing to oppose Trump.

It's another to write off everyone who ever supported him. That's a terrible

mistake. I sought out a seat on the Agriculture Committee because it would

me serve large parts of red California.

People forget there are probably 8 million people in California who are

for Donald Trump or supporting Donald Trump.

They're entitled to representation.

And if you don't make the case to them.

If you don't speak to them with respect, if you don't appeal to them, if you

don't solicit their opinion on things and show you're open to working with

then why should they support you?

So it's my favorite part of the job, frankly, is talking to folks in these

of the state that don't expect me to go there. I had a meeting with a group of

farmers in Butte County, red as red can be, and I knew the meeting was going

well at the end when one of the farmers says, I don't know why the president

calls you watermelon head.

You've got a perfectly normal -sized head.

And that's when I knew I was making progress.

But, yeah, for Porter or anyone else to write off a large part of people or even

say, I don't need Republican votes.

Whether you need them or not, you should want them.

And you should court them and cultivate them.

And and so that's, I think, a terrible. What did you think of the trap that

Trump laid in the State of the Union address where he just to show the tape

there? Because I think it's self -explanatory what he did.

If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support.

The first duty of the American government is to protect American

illegal aliens.

And the Democrats didn't stand. I mean, obviously, it's a deliberate trap

because, you know, they always played these games that Simon says there at the

State of the Union.

Well, I think you and I agree on this is all performative. I know, but it's

going to look bad in campaign ads. I don't think anyone's going to remember

come campaign.

They will if they put it in the ad.

Well,

that juxtaposed to pulling people out of their cars, dragging them across the

snow.

That will drown that message out for one moment.

The opposing party never stands up.

I didn't go to the State of the Union. They're trying to arrest this guy.

They're trying to indict two of my colleagues. They're trying to go after

I don't think you treat this moment as business as usual.

But it was our decision. I've gone to every State of the Union for 25 years

of respect for the office. But now we have a guy in the office who doesn't

respect the office.

And this is a perfect illustration of that.

Had I been there, what would I have done? You'd have to wake me up first.

And then, I don't know, I probably would

have gone along with the Democratic strategy, which is...

Unless it's a war hero in the gallery or the U .S. hockey team, you stay in your

seat. You're respectful.

You're silent. You're not holding up paddles. You're not being disruptive.

But you're also not giving the appearance that somehow this is okay.

presidency is okay.

He's trying to jail the opposition.

He's trying to put members of the press in jail. He's soliciting bribes from

press organizations.

He's going after law firms. He's going after universities.

He's having his agents kill people in the streets. We just can't act like this

is somehow okay.

And I don't know, for me, sitting there, validating what he's doing, acting like

there's nothing going on was too much. This year was too much.

And what he said. Thank you.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Time for new rules.

Zero, Pete Hegstaff has to come up with a name for one of our military actions

that doesn't sound like a nickname for his penis.

So far we've had Operation Southern Spear, Operation Midnight Hammer, and

now Epic Fury. Ask any woman, when a guy talks like that all the time, he tends

to be Operation Warp Speed.

No one has to tell the Kuwaiti fighter pilot who accidentally shot down three

American F -15s this week because he mistook them for enemy Iranian pilots.

Dude, all you have to do to tell who the bad guys are is watch movies.

Enemy pilots, they all wear dark helmets to let everyone know they're evil.

Our pilots, you can see them plain as day and they're always hot.

No rule. Gwyneth Paltrow, who lost an earring sometime during the Actor

mustn't worry. It'll turn up. It's always in the last place you look. But

not ignore the obvious. Have you checked your vagina?

that they've opened the first ever dual Applebee's and IHOP restaurant, Waffle

House must combine with Denny's to battle them for white trash supremacy.

With the winner getting to face the KFC Taco Bell combo in the championship

round.

White trash restaurants, they're just like movie studios.

You got to get bigger or you'll die.

Welcome aboard, Paramount. I hope you like me.

But in case you don't, I ain't going to change.

Don't tell New Yorkers that the upside to the brutal winter they had this year

was fewer rats in the street.

Yeah, and also fewer weirdos hanging out in Times Square trying to fill you up,

you know.

And if the rats aren't in the street or dragging pizza up from the subway, where

are they?

Yeah, your apartment.

And finally, someone has to help Donald Trump understand that I don't suffer

from Trump derangement syndrome. He suffers from Bill Maher derangement

syndrome.

Okay. Three weeks ago, I woke up to some things the president had written on his

truth social media platform that somehow were not true.

I don't know how they got in there. It's not like the president to just make

things up when he's mad.

But on this occasion, he did, which I forgive.

But on Valentine's Day, that hurt.

But just to set the record straight from what the president claimed, I didn't

ask for the dinner.

Our mutual friend asked me. It's on tape from my podcast.

Also, I wasn't nervous and scared, and the dinner wasn't quick.

I was there almost three hours.

And it wasn't vodka, it was a margarita. I didn't ask for it right away. I had a

drink before dinner, and then a couple more during.

I was having a good time. So were you, Don, because we were talking like real

humans, not like that crazy act you put on in public.

But I know that's what you do.

You are, if anything, a man who wears his heart on his sleeve. And so you did

here, listing your accomplishments and how hurt you feel that people, including

me, have not recognized them enough.

I understand that feeling.

You texted me soon after the dinner complaining I was still part of the

left and how you should have won a Nobel Prize for ending wars. And I texted

back, yeah, and I should have won 20 Emmys.

We argued for a while and you

ended by saying, Bill, you know what? Don't change.

I wouldn't know what to do with you if you did. Okay, that's the normal human

being. I saw the night we broke bread, and as long as I think there's even a

spark of a possibility to bring that guy out more, I will not consider the

dinner a waste of time, even as I now see we're back to name -calling and that

have some new ones, like highly overrated lightweight to add to the list

signed.

Thank you. I'll be by with the new one.

But let's go through the things you're butthurt about people not having

Because some people do have PDS.

But you know what? I've called people out through making hating you their

reason to live. Get a life.

Stop making him your whole personality.

But Don, you have to take some responsibility for that because you make

crazy.

Because you do things that are racist, misogynistic, anti -democratic, and

corrupt. But I'll prove now I don't have the dreaded TDS.

First off, despite all the hate I got from my side, I never threw you under

bus and said, oh, you're right, I shouldn't have ate steak with Hitler.

Because that's stupid.

Access to the President of the United States? Are you kidding?

You can't put a price on that.

Although, Don, quite frankly, you do put a price on that all the time.

I consider myself lucky I got in to talk to you without giving you a 747 or

buying your cryptocurrency or

giving you my Nobel Prize.

But let's continue.

You say no mention of the perfect border.

The border is closed.

The border's a win.

The border's a win.

You mentioned the mass removal of stone -cold criminals.

This is what got Trump elected. We're going to get the gangs out.

We don't want to become the kidnapped country. They're taking out of Iran's

nuclear capability.

I was very supportive of bombing the nuclear facility in Iran. I thought that

was great.

Venezuela.

Do I love everything about it? No.

But do I hate it? No. If he somehow gets Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran all to be not

these horrible places they were, he should get a Nobel Peace Prize.

The return of the hostages in the peace deal in the Middle East, where the

liberal panel was praising you.

A lot of people tried to pull this off. He did.

Give him credit. If he's good at getting deals done overseas, give him credit

for it.

And here's a few you didn't even mention. The Golden Dome missile shield.

Just because Trump thought of it. I'm not against it.

NATO. He said, look, NATO hasn't been paying their fair share. I'm going to

them do that. He wasn't wrong about that.

Israel. Moving Israel's embassy to Jerusalem. Loved it.

Animals and marijuana.

He did an animal rights thing that all my PETA friends love.

Pot is not a Schedule I anymore. Thank you.

Penises.

Penises do not belong in women's prisons.

He's not wrong about that.

And not just penises.

Ballroom.

We don't have a place when they have date dinners. They're doing it in a

This is America.

So do I give a shit that he's doing this to the White House? I really don't. And

giving props for saying about the Nick Fuentes Jew -hating wing of the

Republican Party.

Trump is the one who said, and I give him credit for this, he said, we don't

want you.

And the economy?

About a month ago, I said, look, I had to own it. I said, I thought by July

the economy would be in the shitter, and it wasn't. I was wrong.

See, that's the difference between you and me, Don. I can admit when I'm wrong,

and I can be honest. In fact, I may be the last person from the lunatic left

that is still an honest broker when it comes to you.

But honest goes both ways.

It's a shame you can't take criticism, because in an alternative universe where

we could have further honest conversations, I could say things to you

be quite helpful, like, Don, I'm going to level with you. I'm going to give it

to you straight.

Some people don't like you.

Now me, I go by what George Bush said to Obama on the day he was inaugurated. We

want you to succeed.

I always want the American president to succeed. And I do give credit when you

have. But there's lots of stuff you do that is not my idea of success. And I

have every right to say so in a democracy.

Ice? Yeah, I'm glad you got rid of stone -cold criminals, but no one wanted the

sadism and stupidity that went along with it.

Doge? A complete disaster.

People died for no reason, and it cut no government waste.

Coal is not beautiful or clean.

Criminalizing dissent is wrong, and so is the juvenile trolling and suing

into silence.

Don, there are things that you do that we, not just me, but we, I mean even the

people who are too scared to talk to you straight, just don't get about you.

Pegging the side of autocrats instead of democratic allies around the world?

Who hates Canada?

And wind?

You hate the wind?

And you wonder why I can't tell what's a joke and what isn't?

It's not derangement for me to be always calling out the election -denying

obsession you have, or the pardons from my friends and punishment from my

enemies' mode of governing, or the side deals for your family that always seem

to be part of everything.

We see how rich you've all become, but the people of West Virginia don't seem

be feeling the winning.

A Democratic senator recently said of your administration, they are the elite

they pretend to hate.

Free advice. If the Democrats ever learn to weaponize that message, your MAGA

movement is in big trouble.

Thank you very much. That's our show. I want to thank my guests, Senator Adam

Schiff, John Lemon, and Annabelle Gerwitz.

Club Random drops every Monday on YouTube, so listen wherever you get your

podcasts. Now go watch Overtime on YouTube. Thank you very much, ladies and

gentlemen.