Real Time with Bill Maher (TV Series)

Episode #15.5 (2017)

Bill Maher: Self - Host

Photos 

Quotes 

• Himself - Host : New rule: someone has to tell me what's magic about a capital "R". The kind that goes after your name if you're a Republican. Because if you have one of those, you can get away with pretty much anything when it comes to selling out, cursing out, or compromising your own country. You know...

  [audience applause] 

  Himself - Host : When it... when it was Hillary Clinton with an unsecure e-mail server, Republicans wanted to "lock her up!". But President Trump still uses the unsecure Android phone he had before he got elected, and he has been warned that with an old consumer grade phone like that, someone could easily hack into his Twitter account and start posting crazy messages. And how would we be able to tell?

  [audience laughter and applause] 

  Himself - Host : So a couple of weeks before the Super Bowl, Bill O'Reilly asked Trump why he always defended Putin, who O'Reilly said was a killer. A reasonable question, since the last two guys who were as cozy as Putin and Trump held their bilateral talks on Brokeback Mountain.

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : But again, Trump took Putin's side over America, saying "We got killers here, too. You think... you think our country's so innocent?" If a Democrat said that before the Super Bowl, they would be in Guantanamo Bay by halftime. Same as they would if they did this.

  [a picture of Trump on his phone at a dinner with the Japanese prime minister is shown] 

  Himself - Host : But if you have the magic "R", no problem. Trump repeatedly said he was going to donate to military charities, then didn't, then lied about it. He compared our intelligence agencies to Nazis. He said McCain, who spent five years in a Vietnamese prison, wasn't a war hero because "I like people who weren't captured." I got to say to all you flag waving right wingers who always say "I'm not just gonna stand here and let you run down America", you're standing there and letting Trump run down America.

  [audience applause] 

  Himself - Host : Donald Trump could go to the tomb of the unknown soldier and say "Well, maybe if he'd done something, he wouldn't be so unknown."

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : And Republicans would be okay with that, too. When Trump said "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters", he wasn't making a joke. He's never made a joke. Unless his entire life is some sort of Andy Kaufman style performance art, in which case, stop it. No, he was simply stating an actual fact for once, which is if you have the magic "R" after your name, you can drive a Hummer through a daycare center and Fox News will say the babies were asking for it.

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : Meanwhile, in the alternative universe where a Democrat is president, Obama once said "We have not been perfect." And for eight years, Republicans screamed that he was on a non-stop apology tour. They lost their shit whenever there was a picture of him committing high crimes like not having his hand over his heart during a song, or saluting with coffee in his hand. Even though this guy did it with a dog.

  [a picture of George W. Bush is shown] 

  Himself - Host : Yeah, that guy. The one who sat, frozen, for seven minutes after being told the words "The country is under attack". And Republicans defended that, and we all just accept this. America is the Republican Party's bitch, and they can criticize and betray her, but you can't, even though Obama spent two terms talking up the troops, talking up the country; how much he loved it, how "in no other country is my story even possible". Didn't matter; conservatives all nodded when Rudy Giuliani said "I do not believe that President Obama loves America." As opposed to Giuliani, who happened to be mayor on 9/11, so that made him America's mayor; a hero whose great act of heroism was nothing fell on his head. To...

  [audience applause] 

  Himself - Host : To paraphrase Donald Trump, I like mayors who don't let towers collapse.

  [oohs and applause from the audience] 

  Himself - Host : A few weeks ago, an old, but very smoking gun emerged from the Nixon era, when it came out that in 1968, when President Lyndon Johnson was trying to end the war in Vietnam, candidate Richard Nixon was actively, purposefully undermining the peace talks because he wanted the war to go on so he could have it as an election issue. You would think that the "America first" crowd would find that a bridge too far. Fuck no. Dick Cheney once outed a CIA agent just to say "fuck you" to her husband. Reagan sold weapons to Iran, the country they all want to bomb now in brazen defiance of American law, and instead of being impeached, he was elevated to sainthood and now rides horses in heaven with Jesus.

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : Why do Republicans get away with this? Why do they have patriotic immunity? America is like a dysfunctional family where the Democrats are the older, mature son who works hard and does everything right but somehow is never good enough, and the Republicans are the young asshole son who's a fuck up, but no matter how many times he crashes the Camaro, daddy buys him a new one.

  [audience laughter and applause] 

  Himself - Host : I know it's not really important, like which department stores are selling Ivanka's panty liners, but you know... all of America's intelligence agencies say a foreign power tampered with our election to favor the Republican, and they say also that they don't trust that Republican, our president, with our state secrets. And yet the theme of Trump's inaugural was "America first". Please. His ego is first, his hotels are second, Russia's third. I'd be surprised if America made the top ten.

• Himself - Host : I know why you're excited. It's President's Day weekend, and it's, uh... it's a good time to reflect how far we've come from our first president, who said "I cannot tell a lie."

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : And, you know, I know it's fun to watch the wheels come off the Trump car. Until we remember *we're riding in the back*!

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : Then it's not so fucking fun anymore!

• Himself - Host : And, as usual, you know, there's the circus that happens every week; the distractions that take us away from knowing what's really important, which is there is an unprecedented state of crisis in this country. There is. Secre... the, uh, National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, resigned because of his illegal contact with Russia. I know the president would like to say that's fake news. That's not fake news; this is the most serious political scandal we've ever had in the United States. And now the question turns to how deep was the involvement of President Trump. Or, as Russia calls him, Agent Orange.

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : And... what is going on in this country is the intelligence agencies are leaking like crazy, because they are trying to send a def... a desperate message that this is not just "a different kind of president", as the Republican enablers like... "He's a different kind of president! He tweet..." No. He's fucking nuts and he's dangerous, and they know it.

  [audience applause] 

  Himself - Host : They know it, and they're trying to tell us that. You know what makes the intelligence agencies go nuts? Scenes like this...

  [a picture of Trump on his phone is shown] 

  Himself - Host : ...from Mar-A-Lago this last weekend when he was with the Japanese prime minster, and they got news at dinner that the North Koreans had launched a missile. So Trump thought he would, you know, just handle it at dinner in an open-air restaurant. He's with the Japanese prime minister; they probably handle intelligence briefings like they do at their steakhouses, right there at your table.

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : This is crazy shit. And yet foreign heads of state keep coming to America as if it's normal. As if things... not... Netanyahu from Israel was here this week, and...

  [he snickers] 

  Himself - Host : ...you know, Trump doesn't know anything. That's the other little bad part about him. They asked him about the two state solution, he said "It works for me and Melania."

• Himself - Host : And then Justin Trudeau of... where are my Canadians here? I know there are Candians.

  [whoops and hollers from the audience] 

  Himself - Host : They're small, but enthusiastic. But, uh, he came here and sat down with the president; you know, he had that same look on his face that all the leaders have, like "Oh, fuck."

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : And I'm sure it came up that they have floated - seriously, in the White House - Sarah Palin as the first ambassador...

  [he snickers as the audience laughs] 

  Himself - Host : ...not the first... the last ambassador to Canada, which, you know, I'm sure Trudeau takes more as a threat.

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : Sarah Palin, ambassador... uh... the first ambassador in history to require a security deposit.

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : No, that... that's what they do. They love these distractions. "Look at crazy Sarah Palin over here!" Meanwhile, they're doing this shit like the Senate confirmed, just today, Scott Pruitt to be head of the Environmental...

  [chorus of jeers and boos from the audience] 

  Himself - Host : Head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Scott Pruitt is a man who despises the Environmental Protection Agency. So it's less like public service and more like community service. This is a guy who is completely in the tank for the extraction industry. That's how they roll. The new head of the EPA is completely in the tank with the oil and the coal... that's how Republicans work with Donald Trump. While you're watching the clown screw the pony, they're breaking into your car.

• Himself - Host : Now, in other Cabinet news, Andy Puzder is out.

  [whoops and hollers] 

  Himself - Host : That sounds like something somebody says to you when your fly is open.

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : "Hey, uh... Andy Puzder is out." What? Fuck!

  [he pantomimes realizing and turning around to zip his fly up] 

  Himself - Host : No, he was the anti-labor guy they put up to be Labor Secretary. And... and now they're putting up a guy, Alexander Acosta. I have no idea how this guy slipped through, because he's qualified and Hispanic.

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : So... it's gonna be a very tough confirmation process, and an even tougher border patrol.

• Himself - Host : And then there was the press conference. Did you see Donald Trump's press conference?

  [shouts from the audience] 

  Himself - Host : Press conference? An impromptu, seventy-seven minute brain fart is what it was.

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : I mean... you know your Facebook friend who said he thought Trump was Hitler? He was optimistic.

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : Actually, what we have here is a mental patient who thinks he's Hitler. The kid in the YouTube video who's high from the dentist made more sense.

  [audience laughter] 

  Himself - Host : It was... and of course it was this long, whiny... whiny little bitchy airing of grievances against the press and the courts and the Democrats and Hillary. Just this nonstop pissing and moaning and pissing and moaning. There's less pissing and moaning when he's with his Russian hooker. And then, in the middle of it, he says "The White House is running like a fine-tuned machine." Yeah, specifically a Samsung Galaxy.