Ep. #748: Peter Berg, Ali Vitali, Coleman Hughes

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series Real Time with Bill Maugh. [MUSIC] [APPLAUSE] >> Thank you. Hi. [APPLAUSE] Hey. How you doing? [APPLAUSE] All right. [APPLAUSE] Oh, look at this. I know. [APPLAUSE] Thank you very much. [APPLAUSE] Well, what a great show. What a great show. [APPLAUSE] Thank you. What a great post-election audience and the election. I'm typing it, so don't tell me how it can. [LAUGHTER] No, we had a midterm alone. Midterms are different, right? It's like a midterm. It's like checking in with your partner where you're love-making halfway through to say, "Are you all right?" [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] And this time they said, "I think I want to see other people." [LAUGHTER] Yeah, Republicans. [APPLAUSE] Well, Republicans lost bigly. There's no other way to put it. And great, fuck, now I'm never going to get that check for $5,000. [LAUGHTER] So I'm getting over that. But how, you know what? [APPLAUSE] In 2016, Lindsey Graham said, "If we nominate Trump, we're going to get destroyed and we will deserve it." And it just shows, Gays were always 10 years ahead of everybody. [LAUGHTER] All right. [APPLAUSE] Well, look, I hate to gloat. But, sorry, I have to do a little of it. Because everybody was hedging about this election very often. Don't count your chickens. It's going to be close to anything. I never bought into that bullshit. My prediction that this will be a historic thumping. That is bold that it'll be historic. OK. Well, that's what I think it will be. It's going to be a classic historical ass whooping. I would bet the house on that. The midterms are going to be a blowout. I think they're going to kick ass. They're going to kill it in a moment. Your party is going to get the dog shit kicked out of you. This election is not about them. People are like, "We'll get to them in 28." This election is about Donald Trump. And we don't like him anymore. [APPLAUSE] Well, I tell you something. Here's something I could not have predicted, which is Trump's reaction to the election. He said congratulations to the Democrats. They did a good job. Donna, you OK? I know we've been shooting. You sound on well. You're not even going to fake. It was rigged. And let me tell you something. Even with the attempted rigging. And they did try to rig it in every different kind of way. Mail and balloting, intimidating the voters. All that shit. Democracy, man. Kind of fucking awesome. [APPLAUSE] The system stood. The system stood in place. And also, we found out no place is solid red. You know, we get so used to that forever. Writing off four-fifths of the country. Solid blue, solid red. Texas. I tell you, for Republicans losing Texas is like finding out your girlfriend is dating a lesbian. You knew they were unhappy. You didn't think I'd go that far. Texas went South Carolina. Kansas. Kansas? Mississippi? Well, you don't know about Alaska. They're still counting Dan Sullivan's. [LAUGHTER] But that probably will be democratic. I mean, all these states. Ohio. I remember four years ago, they said, Ohio. No longer a purple state, solidly red. Well, it turns out even the power of John Houston's muscular ass. Could not turn Ohio. Remember that? But I looked at his ass. I said his ass is like a pile of muscle. [LAUGHTER] Yeah. And he lost to Sherrod Brown, a Democrat with a flabby ass. [APPLAUSE] That's politics. [APPLAUSE] No, I mean, every demographic group, and some of them by huge Hispanics, 29-point flip from the last election. And they say the experts say it's because of the fuel costs, grocery prices. And oh, yeah. They didn't like being systematically hunted like animals. [APPLAUSE] That's the other thing in the mix. [APPLAUSE] Trump had always won white women, lost them now. His appeal at the end of little tone deaf. He said, "Fake it like I'm on the ballot." [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] And not just women, he lost the bros. The bros, dude. [LAUGHTER] Young white men, huge swing, like 28 points. Taylor Swift hasn't lost this money, white guys. [LAUGHTER] But you know, I think the rebuke for him that hurts the most as always, money. Crypto coin. A year ago, Trump's crypto coin was selling at $75. Today, it's $1.24. [APPLAUSE] If you put $10,000 in it, a year ago, today, it's worth $170. It went from, with one coin, you could buy a used car. To now, you can get gas. [LAUGHTER] We got a great show called McHulers and Ali Batali are here. But first up, he is the man behind such movie classics as Friday Night Lights and the Kingdom and Loan Survivor. His new one is called "The Mosquito Bowl Out Now" and select theaters and streaming on Netflix, starting November 25th. Peter Byrd. Peter. [APPLAUSE] How are you? [APPLAUSE] Coming out by two minutes of eight. [APPLAUSE] Look at that. All right. Well, I wouldn't burn you with talking about the election. A little bit, because I was just listening to your predictions about the butt-ass weapon. How am I New York Giants going to do? Can you tell me, like, how much money-- Well, they're my New York Giants. Well, how are we going to do? You're on it. Well, they're not going to go all the way. OK, don't bet the farm. I wouldn't bet anything. You know, you get bet. They'll do better than the jets. [APPLAUSE] But your resume has some of my favorite movies of this century on it. I mean, like "The Kingdom." And that thing you did, "American Prime Evil," I thought was one of the greatest westerns. I've ever-- or any kind of series I've ever seen. And you know, your stuff, including the new one, of course, it is a lot about manly men doing manly things. And I'm very OK with that. I just feel like it's gotten very politically incorrect. You know, to manly men doing manly things. But you know what? Some of us watch the History Channel and we're tired of apologizing for it. You know, is do you feel that backlash? I mean, I don't really feel a backlash. Like I like to refer to myself as a trauma filmmaker. Most of my films have a lot of trauma in them. The Kingdom Friday Night Lights didn't have a very happy ending. They lost at the end. Loan Survivor wasn't an actual entirely uplifting film. People had a horizon. Right. Patriots stay about the marathon bombing. I'm kind of drawn to intense events. Because intense events just provide a lot of drama and emotion and opportunity for character. And I like to try and find the themes of love and brotherhood and compassion that can come up from those kinds of things. Well, this new one certainly has all of that in spades. I mean, Mosquito Bowl. Why don't you just tell them briefly the story? Because it is a true story. Right. So Mosquito Bowl is a true story written by my cousin, Buzz Bessinger, who wrote the book Friday Night Lights. And when Buzz kind of gets on one, like you did with Friday Night Lights, he writes a book that you think is about football. But if you read the book, it's really about kind of life and family and community and love and hatred and all the things that make us human. And that's why I did, you know, respond to a lot of Friday Night Lights. Mosquito Bowl is a war story. It's about four all-American football. college football players who were Pearl Harbor went down. They quit football, joined the Marine Corps, and they all went and fought in the battle. - College players. - They were college, yeah. Very young, credible players. And it's the story of their experience in World War II in the Pacific theater. It's really meant to be a very strong anti-war film. I believe that you can admire and support troops. My dad was a Marine in Korea. I know your father was in the military. - Yeah, World War II. - And you can, in the case of mosquito ball, you can very much support the men and women who serve this country. And at the same time, really question our leaders and think about why we're asking them to go, where we're asking them to go, how the fuck we're gonna deal with it when it's over. These are kind of important questions that the mosquito ball sort of has on its mind underneath this pretty sad story of these young men. - Well, I mean, (audience applauds) They made anti-war movies before saving private Ryan. - Right. - That was the first one I thought was a really effective one because it actually showed what World looks like. This one does too. In the same way, there's a storming the beach scene. Any movie that is an anti-war movie should have a storming the beach scene because you just see this carnage, the terror, how anyone could think under those conditions and you have to. - People have asked me, you know, like, why would you do another war movie? Why World War II film? There've been some really fucking good war movies. And in my answer was, I never got to try one. And when I was researching the film, I went to Okinawa, which is where the final battle of our film takes place. And the Marine Corps gave me some historians and they toured me the entire island from where it started, to where it ended, to where those suicide cliffs were that women were throwing themselves off of and their children and it was harrowing. And then the Marines took me back to their current base. And I didn't realize that we have hundreds of thousands of military on Okinawa right now. We have warships and attack aircraft in tens of thousands of Marines. And I met with the general of the base that they were touring me. And I said, sir, can I ask you a question? And he said, yeah, I said, what the fuck is going on here? Like, what are these, what's going on here? He said, oh, that's a good question. And he pointed to a map of the South China Sea and he goes, see, it's all about this. And he pointed to this little island, Taiwan. He said, they want it, the Chinese. And I'm here to make sure they understand they can't get it. And this is now 88 years after 350,000 people are killed on Okinawa. I'm thinking, we don't need another war movie. We've learned a great lesson as a culture. Didn't really feel that way to me. So that was part of my kind of conversation. Nothing that really resonated with me with what's going on now is there is little brief conversation that two of the guys have when they're over there. Yes. And it's about oil. One of them is like, why are we here? Why did this war start? And the other guy kind of hips him. Well, you know what? We cut off Japan's oil. Correct. It's always about oil. Isn't that crazy? It's always about oil and juice, everything. This is the two things that always keep coming up. I don't know how. I had to be honest with myself when I started researching it. And I'd be curious how many people in this room are really clear on why what happened led to the attack on Pearl Harbor. I'm like, well, the Japs attacked us. The Japanese, you know, the dry golds does. They blindsided us. And my research, well, why? What was happening? And then I realized, well, Japan didn't have any oil. They were invading China doing horrible things that Chinese. Horrible, horrible things. Japanese were as brutal as anybody. I mean, I've heard people say-- They've got to spread books. Wars happened because, you know, men just like to fight. That's not true. I mean, sometimes they do, and men do like to fight. But wars happened because men have to fight. Yes. And this war had to be fought. Yes, it must be a little easier making a war with this kind of carnage when you know it was a just war. I can't say it's easier. I mean, when I really looked at the carnage, I looked at the fact that-- and I don't mean to get too heavy on a show that's so funny. And you're one of the funniest people I've ever-- Oh, I'll make up for it later. Oh, good. I'll get him back. Sorry. Did you guys indulge me a little bit? Yeah. He indulged me a little bit, right? 75 million people were killed globally in World War II on this planet, right? 75 million people were killed globally. And you look at World War I, 18 million people were killed. So you go, 18 million, 75 million-- I don't want there to be a World War III. I truly do not want that for my children, for everybody's children. And so, yes, World War II, we needed to fight that war, but we really need to diplomats. We need diplomacy. We need people who aren't monetizing peace. Yeah, but we need peace maker. But some-- yeah, I know. We do. No, but we do. Yeah, we do. OK, but nobody knows better than you. That's kind of bullshit, because it doesn't work when one side of the table doesn't want peace. And there are plenty of people who've taken over countries in this world, and they don't want peace. And then all that list of things you said that are lovely, it doesn't work. And that's when you call in the Marine. Yes, it is. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Enough. We need 100% need Marines. Yeah, yeah. And my father, who I love very much most of the time, he-- my father is my father's barred in Arlington during the making of this film. I would go down there and have these conversations with them which were great conversations, because he had to shut up and listen to me. And I could-- I could tell him about, you know, Dad, the world is really fucked up, right? There's some real problems. And there's some horrible actors out there. And we do need Marines. And we do need Delta and Special Forces. Yes, we just don't want to use them when we don't have to. No. No, OK. Well, that's my point. All right, well, we agree. And I think you-- the next movie I think you should make a romantic comedy. I'll try. Would you, would you? Do it on the back. OK. Thank you very much. It's a terrific movie. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. All right, let's meet up at all. Hey, how are you? OK. She is MSNOW senior political reporter and the host of Way to Early Alley Vitaly. Great to have you here with us for the first time. And he's the host of the Conversations with Coleman Podcast and a contributor to the Free Press. Coleman Hughes. [CHEERING] All right, oh my gosh. I want to get everybody's takeaways. This is such a fun show, always after an election, because the debt gets shuffled. Things are new. Newcast to characters. It's like a new season to TV. Let me start with the thing I mentioned in the model, which I think is underreported so far. Nothing is solid red. We got so used to so long living in this country where we just wrote off that whole part of the country. And we know it's going to be red. Those people come on. They're this toxic D. They'll never vote. No. Elections are like people saying, you know what? You haven't checked in with me in a while. We kind of lost touch, didn't we? Here I am. I'm a little different now. People grow. They change. Things change. It's amazing. It's a affirmative. It's inspiring to me that the places that went, no, we're not hicks. We're not hicks for life. You speak now. So look. I think we all have a little bit of recency bias, right? Because when you say these places have been solid red, since when, right? For a couple decades. OK, that's a good amount of time. But like, let's zoom out. No, all the plain states. Well, let's actually zoom out a little bit more. And like, look at this historically. Basically, all black people used to vote Republican, like in the 1930s. That was a pretty big change. Happened in a couple decades. That was, yeah. As late as the 1980s and '90s, you could be a Southern American Democrat. There were Southern conservative Democrats that would never dream of voting Republican. And Northern Republican liberals? In my lifetime, when I was a baby. Yeah. So, you know, it's not quite as, you know, we're living through a historic moment, right? Historians are going to write about this as a major tectonic shift in the geopolitical structure of our party, two-party system. It's going to be similar to, you know, talking about how black people used to vote Republican and now we vote Democrat. It's going to be one of those things. Republicans are going to get a signal. They're either going to respond to it. And shift towards the center. Pivot away from extremely corrupt candidates. Pivot away from whatever candidate is loyal to Trump is the one we're running. Pivot away from all this nonsense. And if they hear that loud and clear, then all these states could go red again in two years, right? It's none of this is permanent. I mean, you're right, I think, to talk to the fact that some of these places that ended up flipping, the Rio Grande Valley, for example, in Texas, so crucial to Tallarigo and Inohosa being able to flip it together, right? There is Democratic DNA in some of these places. I do think other of these places, though, a place like Kansas, a place like Mississippi. I mean, even my most optimistic Democratic sources, We're never trying. trying to sell me on the idea that these were going to flip and that Chuck Schumer and Democrats would have a 54, 55 potentially 56 seat majority. I mean, I think we coined a new professional term of politics. Like, bonkers weird. This map was so bonkers weird. I didn't know what to make of it. I'm standing at the big board, three o'clock in the morning getting on TV. And every race that I looked at was like, whoa, that flipped. North Carolina's congressional delegation in the house completely flipped from 10 to 4 Republican to Democrat. They are now likely to be exactly opposite. It is very, and it was a total backfire because they jerrymandered it, thinking they were going to get 10 to 4 Republican to Democrat and they got the exact opposite. Yeah. To me, this is another great thing about what happened this week. Trust, restored, people think, oh, voting does matter. They do count it. Yeah. And it does make a good, I mean, we almost lost that. When you think about all the things that people were so worried about that we're going to fuck up this election, the Musk money, fucking with mail invotings, jerrymandering, closing polling places, the intimidation outside polling places, the Republicans did all that. Democrats found one of the guy named Dan Sullivan. That was their shit. Well, all that didn't make any difference. I mean, you got a little shout out to the founding fathers. I know they're terrible, awful Caucasians, but I mean, they somehow this system, which I had watched less faith in 10 years ago when Trump was first there. Not only a shout out to the founding fathers, but also a bit of a poo-poo on the media that is constantly trying to terrify us in order to get us to click on whatever the latest threat to democracy. Okay, challenge, right? But when you see that there's a challenge to democracy, that doesn't mean democracy is over. That doesn't mean it's Vymar, Germany, right? And a lot of us have been taken in by this over the past few years and what's good about this election is that actually the system works. It's beautiful that the system works. I cover campaigns for a living because there is something so amazing about watching democracy in action. And I love that voters teach us something. And also, after January 6, 2021, I do not think that we can take our democracy for granted. It's not fear-mongering. It's listening to what the then outgoing, now-current president of the United States said and did and reacting to that in a serious way that doesn't tell people be afraid to vote. Certainly, that wasn't the message that I would give to people who watched my show when I was on MSNOW anywhere. But it's be vigilant about it. Take it seriously. Know that it is your right and know that it is not the federal government who can send ice to a polling place or tell you that election results are invalid. And that's the lesson of January 6. The problem is, when you go too far with that, it's always been a republic if you could keep it. So vigilance has always been necessary. But when you go too far and people lose faith in the system, they get seduced by the extremists. And there is certain extremists on the left, especially the DSA, that if you go to their website, they say, we need to abolish the Senate. The bureaucracy has failed. There are people on the left who are threatened by progress. You think they would, they're progressives. You think they would like it. No, because it's like, no, they have to be, there's always more work to be done. And there is always more work to be done. But they don't acknowledge the work that is, they don't acknowledge where we are. Let me tell you where we are. First black woman governor. First black Republican governor, first Muslim senator, first gay male senator, openly. I'm not naming names. I'm just saying openly. The ten most populous states, not one of them has a governor who's a white Christian man. It's just, well, we're not against white Christian man. We're just saying things have changed a lot. This Scott column in Mississippi, he flipped the county that's named after the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. I read. In 2003, gay oral sex was outlawed in Texas. Now the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court is a lesbian. This country changes. And that's why elections are awesome. Check in with me. See who I have now. Okay, here's the other thing. My other take away. The power of money. Not in elections as as as musk found out always and certainly Hillary spent a lot more than Trump with that. Okay. What I mean is what you can get away with as president when the people are flush? You know, last election was talking about Arnold Palmer's giant penis. And people had money. It was funny. Now the stuff about men's asses, not so funny. Things are not funny without money. You know, when you when you're when people are feeling good about their wallet, I made a little list. You can be vulgar, cruel. These are all think kind of racist, egomaniac, corrupt, greedy, indulge your eccentricities like loving tariffs and loving dictators and just crazy, renaming things. You know, the his closing argument at the reflecting pool, if that wasn't a Louis XIV moment, like the closing argument the day before the election talking about the sluiced duck and the fucking, you know, algae in the pool and people going, hey, crazy man, we've had enough. You know what? We can keep renaming things after yourself. But you know, the crazy just goes so far. And when you you can lie to me about a lot of things, can't lie to me how much money I have. And you took it out of my pocket. All very let them eat cake, right? And I think this public, every time I go out and talk to voters, they are talking about on data centers. The reporting that I did there was why hasn't anyone checked in with me asked if they could put this in my community. There was a deep feeling that these systems don't work. And so I think that's also part of why this wave was so big. Yes, it was completely a referendum on Trump. This is consequences of your actions. You know, who told him, you know, who said, no, I don't want that person serving Cindy Heitzmeth, the person who could lose her seat now because Scott Colombe came back and said, okay, I'm going to say, you know, I don't like his policy that Donald Trump, I mean his personality, but I like his policies. Nobody says that now. But what was the policy of the last two years for Republicans who controlled both sides of Congress and the White House? I covered it. And the big takeaway was getting rid of healthcare subsidies that people needed to stay on healthcare, cutting snap, and making it more difficult for Americans to receive things that help them with safety nets in this country. So we would agree that more Trump 2028 is not a winning slogan, right? More MAGA. Okay, so if the Republicans, I think they already know that, we're only three days after, I think they already know that. So are they liberated now from MAGA? Because to me, the litmus test for them is, are you going to going back, go back to conceding elections? Right. I see Ron DeSantis is out there. I said some nice things about Ron DeSantis. I thought he did something good. I thought he handled the COVID thing better than they did in lots of places. He's not an idiot at all. But he did campaign for election deniers a few years ago. Okay, to me, that's my red line. Yeah. Trump used to say about immigration. If we don't fix this, we don't have a country. Me, my, we don't have a country is this elections. We don't take it back to 2020. But you can't be the guy who's always, how they were always were with Trump. We know he's watching and we have to pretend 2020 is at best. Well, we don't know. They got to get over that. I vote is not in life for them. MAGA has always been held together simply by Trump's, you know, if you want to call it charisma, you can to his base. It's courage, certainly. And when he's gone, when he, look, there's a reason he won twice, right? I'm just trying to explain it. When he's gone, there's no actual philosophy there outside of Trump's hold over, over these people. So what are the, what are Republicans going to do? JD Vance, I think he's trying to take a lifeboat off of this Titanic by appealing to that anti-Semitic wing of the party. And I don't know if that lifeboat is big enough to sustain him. I don't think it is. But this is, this is a, it's going to be a remarkable election because both sides are up for grabs. Both sides have a chance to put someone forward that's fundamentally new, fundamentally different. And we haven't seen that in a while. -I think Vance is toast. -I think the only person. [ Cheers and applause ] I think the only person, potentially, who had a worse night than Trump on Tuesday, was JD Vance, because he is the guy who will always be the second part of the bumper sticker that says Trump Vance. And you can never get enough distance if you're trying to run for president on your own from that space. And so I think, yes, pay attention to dissent like Senator Ted Cruz, who, when I interviewed him a few months ago, I knew you just had him here as well. He's clearly running for president. And it's clear that there is going to be a robust discussion for what it means to be a Republican in the post-Trump era. And I put an asterisk on post-Trump, right? Because I don't know that the party is there. Because I watched the time after January 6th where all of them were done, and they were disgusted, and then all of a sudden, a few weeks later, Kevin McCarthy was down at Mar-a-Lago with a thumbs up. And so I was even talking to a Republican in the Senate recently, who said, I'm done. I'm not listening to anything he says anymore. And I said, is that true? And they said, yeah, fine. Right? So I think they are trying to figure out in real time, are they done with the president, who has had a political expediency around him, because you're right, every election I followed him in, and my first one was 15, all the road with him everywhere. He has a skilled person at reading the emotional tenor of where the country is. And he seems to have lost that in this most recent term. He seems uninterested according to sources that I talk too close to him in the ins and outs of governing. When I interviewed former Vice President Mike Pence, he himself described Trump as politically agnostic. You're right that there's no core ideological belief that underpins him. And I think the party got lost in that. And so they are at a real reckoning moment with some real questions to answer about what they stand for going forward. But I'm just not convinced three, four days out that they are fully ready to untether. No, you're going to have to tap dance like they did with Reagan for a while. You know, he was the great forefather of the party, the great patriarch that we-- and now does anybody give a shit about Reagan? No, over time, it goes away. But yes, you're going to have to do that little dance. He did great things, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. OK, close the border. Yes, he did. You know, did you ask some accomplishments? Let's remember how Trump got his mojo back the first time, too, because that crucial piece of the story is he was losing in the polls to Ron DeSantis until when, until the first indictment came. And the second indictment came. Oh, yeah. And then he started going up and up and up as the Republican party rallied around the candidate they viewed as persecuted. That's a very important lesson for Democrats to learn right now. Just-- you have a mandate for something, for sure. But it's not for political prosecutions. It's for non-crazy politicians. All right, let's talk about that in a minute. But first off, there is other news. Other important news that happens, not all about politics, Disney has been in the news this year. I take no joy, that's just because they fired me once. I could not have-- now, twice this has happened. In May, 27 cruise ship workers of the Disney line were arrested for child porn. Yeah, I know, ugly stuff. And then this is just last week, 13 Disney World workers arrested for human trafficking, child predator operation. It's-- one was dressed as Mickey. He was a Mickey in the park. And he had a diaper fetish. I'm not making this up, but it's always the people who are most wholesome, you know. Mormons, you know what I'm saying. Anyway, I didn't know what's going on at Disney, but it looks like it might have infected the movie division because we see some of the new slate of movies. It's a little over-sexualized. Would you like to see a worker? I thought you'd do it. Oh. For example, this doesn't sound very Disney. A seeping booty. I-- I-- [LAUGHTER] Leslie McGuire. [APPLAUSE] Finding Nympho. I'm losing-- not the Disney, I know. 101 ejaculation. That's it. [APPLAUSE] Deeper by the dozen. That's-- [APPLAUSE] Freak off Friday, isn't it? [APPLAUSE] I'll hurt be the love block, isn't it? [APPLAUSE] And my favorite-- the hunchback of only fans. [APPLAUSE] OK. Back to-- [APPLAUSE] Back to the Democrat. We were talking about the pitfalls of the party. I mean, the Republicans have already fallen in the pit. We can't talk about their pitfall. They're already down there. The Democrats, what's going on there? What is their Achilles heel? Because I think we agree on this that, you know, it's catering to the left. To me, one of the great results of this election was it gave moderates a big stick to beat them off with. I think they got to cut them loose completely. But I don't know if they're going to do that. Well, let's see, who has the guts to say, this is the Democratic Party. You are doing a whole different thing. And no tent is big enough for-- I mean, now there's a DSA. Now, if we're talking about socialism, yeah, look, I always say this. We already have a lot of socialism. And I'm foremost of it. We need most of it. But these people want communism. I mean, if you look at what they say, I try to sell this all the time and I don't think people know it. Just read what they say. It is communist. I'm not down for that. Now, some of these people who ran said things that are very encouraging. A couple of them ran ads that said, no guys on women's sports teams. We need more of that, right? Absolutely. I mean, the danger for Democrats is that they take this massive success as a sign that they can just go all the way. They can run hyper progressive candidates. The country's so much on their side that they can go as extreme as they want. But actually, if you look at the results here, the moderate Democrats did better than the DSA-backed progressive candidates across the board, right? I'll say it in Michigan did significantly worse than most of the moderate Democrats in that state, right? And that's just one example. This was a pattern we saw. So the real lesson for Democrats is Americans prefer moderate Democrats. And he's a guy who says, I'm not a Democratic Socialist. He's endorsed by them, but he says he's not. And on most issues, he's not as far left as they are. His main issue is Israel. And of course, that, to me, is going to be the fly and the enlightenment for the Democrats. I mean, a lot of their candidates, a perfective candidates, are Jewish. It's funny. I was out last night, briefly, playing a little hooky for somebody's birthday party before the show. But people, I wouldn't want to talk about the election. And what do you think? It's interesting the name that was on everybody's lips. This is only two days after the election. John Oshoff. Mm-hmm. Say, a murmur waving with crowd. He said, this is only LA. Who knows? But there was a feeling I felt among people last night who were up on politics and wanted to talk about it. That this is the guy they see. I mean, he did win Georgia by 18 points, I think. That's a pretty big number for a Democrat. And the other guy we just had here at Andy Beshear, he's the other guy who wins big in a red state. This is not good news for somebody like Gavin Newsom. We'll see. Who has the California baggage, right? But we don't know, right? I think about everyone looks at the field as being open. We haven't had a truly open field on both sides in 10 years. It is going to be fascinating to see how these parties sort through themselves for someone like me who is just a total nerd for how all of this plays out. I think for Democrats, though, what I have heard from Democrats in Washington who are parsing through this, everyone is looking for a tea leaf for the kind of candidate that they want to see. They sound a bit Oprah-esque at this point, electability in every paradigm that you can find it. They look at an LSA and they say, see a progressive can win in a swing state. They look at a Talleriko and say, see, you need moderates. There is proof of purchase for everyone until there isn't. This is the season of everyone can have a good take because you don't know what kind of candidate you're going to have. But here we'll run, also, maybe. I'm not personally convinced. Pritzker, Newsom. I mean, the names on the list that I keep in my office are like 30 people deep at this point. Democrats are going to have options. When you come to the next two years, though, this is a period where there's no clear Democratic leader. And that means that for Schumer and Jeffries, the two twin pillars right now, New Yorkers who are leading this Congress, yes, I think that they have to walk a tight rope on not overstepping and look, Democrats do this often, right? It's like snatching victory from the jaws of defeat or whatever the saying is supposed to be. However, I do think when we look at what the accountability side of this looks like, it's going to be not in patron of a president, at least not in the conversations I've had, but it is going to be people like Pete Huggseth, Todd Blanch, and others in the administration where the laws of political gravity do apply. And I think every Democrat I've spoken to is keenly aware of that. I like it, yeah. I like it, Ron Maniel said. What Ron Maniel said is we don't need impeachment 2.0. We need ethics investigations, right? Yes. And I think that's a responsible way to go. Well, of course, because impeachment, they tried it twice. If you're talking about with Trump, even with how many senators are they going to have at best, 56? Yes. How many do you need to convict, 67? No, to convict. [BLANK_AUDIO] Oh, you're right, two-thirds. Two-thirds? You're never going to get that. They're not going to do that. He is still the patriarch of the party. He's still the Abraham of this desert. OK, that's not going to-- [LAUGHTER] Can I-- can I-- can I quote-- just apropos of this, the new Texas governor. And I'm still learning to pronounce her name. And it's not Hina Hosa. Hina Hosa. You were right. Hina Hosa. Yeah. No age. Yeah, silent age. OK. Two days before the election, she said, my pronouns are mom, Texan, and soon-to-be governor. More of that. Yeah. We need more of that. And also, Josh Turk-- is he the first openly gay senator? That's Chris Papis. OK, sorry, Josh. Or if you like it, Josh. I'm not that good. Wonderful. Whatever you want to do, Josh. He said, he opposes males competing in female sports. I'm against taxpayers paying for sex ages, too. And I think this is so important. Democratic special interest groups. And of course, he's already gotten criticism from the LGBT community and other people. Democratic special interest groups, they're the biggest carons in the world. They're just always complaining to management. [LAUGHTER] And they are-- I'm right. They're always complaining to management. And to me, the Democratic politician who wins-- or I would want to vote for-- is the one who stands up to that. The one who doesn't raise his hand when somebody at the debate, because you know they're going to go, who says, Gaza is a genocide? And the guy who doesn't hold his hand, what are you talking about, asshole? And to me, that's just a big litmus test for me. Or anybody who thinks-- He won't even worse than that. And no one's been talking about this. Adam Hammerwee from my home state of New Jersey. I'm from District 11. He just won District 12. And there's a great piece in the Atlantic about how he was hanging out with a blind shake in the '90s. He was in the blind shakes posse who was convicted of-- The war first world trend. --to blow up the World Trade Center, the Holland Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel, UN building, and was a jihadist preacher. And he was driving around with this guy on cross-country trips for 12 hours. And he's never really given a good account of what he believed then. And could-- look, you can have a past. Everyone can have a past. As long as you can tell me a persuasive story about why you're not that now. And he hasn't done that. That's the kind of person that is going to be poisoned to the Democratic Party. The fastest way they're going to lose this momentum is to not marginalize the people who can't credibly claim to be moderate and talk to the whole American people. That's-- so they still have to get their house in order and not fall into hubris at this moment. Yeah. [APPLAUSE] It's interesting that it's only three days after, and we're hardly talking about Trump already. I mean, it's a little weird that he's still there. He just had this giant rebuke. Now he's literally a lame duck. It's like trying to cancel your subscription, but you're still on the plan for another year. [LAUGHTER] But-- but, you know, he's been amazingly humble. I thought-- I mean, I thought, by this time, he'd be suing the voters by name individually and arresting the poll workers and said, even he was like, you know, even I'm sick of me a little bit. [LAUGHTER] You know, and he just-- but he said, when you say my legacy, I'll be a block. I'll end up being a blocker. I'll block all their bad stuff for two years. It won't be the same, but I'll be a blocker. He said block four times in two sentences. I think he wants to block. [LAUGHTER] But he also said, we're going to work with the Democrats. They have already called, and they-- well, we all know that that's probably not true. But even if he thinks it, they have already called, and they want to work with me. I have a lot of friends in the Democratic Party. Well, I might get to go again. Look at that. [LAUGHTER] This guy has no-- [APPLAUSE] So given all that, what do you think of the fact that he fired Susie Wiles? That was his longest serving chief of staff. And by all accounts, you know, obviously a Trump or in a conservative, but an adult in the room replaced with Stephen Miller, who was the deputy chief of staff. So it sounded like-- but Stephen Miller known to be-- certainly reputed to be-- the hardassist of the hardass in that administration. I don't know. I mean, Hakeem Jeffery said, his presence, talking about Stephen Miller, in government should be eradicated like a malignant tumor. Way to take a victory, graciously, huh? [APPLAUSE] Way to cool the temperature down right after that. But it tells us everything about both the challenge for Democrats certainly in having the authentic reactions that, frankly, their base very much wants them to have. The idea of compromise, I think, is going to be really difficult to sell a base that only wants to hear about fight and accountability. I do think that's a central tension point. But this, to me, in Trump's very uncharacteristic quiet after such a shellacking in an election for a man who never wants to be called a loser ever, the idea that he's sticking by some of these candidates-- I mean, it's all very atypical from the man that I've covered up close for a decade. But this is the clearest signal of the kind of person that he's going to be over the course of, however long, the Miller tenure, actually, less. Because for as long as I've covered Trump, Stephen Miller has been seen as someone who will lean in to his most base intentions. And he's also the architect of the immigration and deportation plan that was maybe not the top issue, because that was affordability. But you look at these voter polls, and it's right up there in the top three. When I was texting Republicans, before I came on this show, many of them who used to work for Trump said to me, what are we thinking, putting in the guy who is the central cause of the thing we got repudiated over at the polls, in as the guy who's running the show now? But if that's what the president's doing, it tells us everything about where we're going and the lame does. Well, I think your point, I think, is so right about their base liking the conflict. I think secretly, not the politicians and the Republican Party, but the people on the podcast and so forth, they love this. They like being out of power. It's so much more fun. You can bitch about everything. Everything now with the Democrats, fold. Every conspiracy theory takes on new life, because you're not in power. They secretly kind of like it. All right, thank you, guys. It is time for new rules, everybody. [APPLAUSE] [MUSIC PLAYING] OK. We don't need to write anymore glowing stories about a celebrity's weight-loss journey. There's no journey anymore. It's the same five-minute story every time. I went to CVS, had my prescription throw a Zempic filled the end. [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] New rule, headline writers can go ahead and leave out the word unsolicited when it comes to dick picks. We can assume they were unwanted. No woman is ever DM'd a guy. Hey, it's Julie. Remember me? We met at Steve's party last week. Can I see your dick? [LAUGHTER] New rule props must be given to Clifton Emerson, the employee of a Pennsylvania factory who asked for more hours on the job. At a time when this country is grown increasingly soft, Clifton, your can-do work ethic is greatly appreciated. [APPLAUSE] Up until the point that you murdered your boss-- [LAUGHTER] --when he didn't give you those hours. That's too much ambition. And definitely leave it off your LinkedIn. [APPLAUSE] New rule, speakers at Socialist Gatherings have to explain why you're still wearing the mask. What does that have to do with making rents? You know, the pandemic, it's over. It was in all the papers. Still wearing the mask, it's as stupid as being a civil war re-enactor. But even they only do it once a year. [APPLAUSE] At this point, the only thing you're stopping from spreading is socialism. [LAUGHTER] New rule now that the crossword bandit-- yeah, they're so-called crossword bandit, because he left crossword puzzles at restaurants that he stiffed. Now that he's been arrested, someone has to tell him, stay alert in prison, you don't want to get fucked in the three-letter starts with that. [LAUGHTER] And finally, new rule now that the elections over and Democrats are the big winners, they must take a cue from the other recent big winners, the Milwaukee Brewers. Now, I-- [APPLAUSE] Exactly. Exactly what I'm going to say this. I don't want to do I want it, because I know to many people baseball is about as interesting as C-SPAN, but suffice it to say, the brewers shocked the world, when as literally the smallest market team in the league, they won it all. It was like if the AI race had gotten one by Radio Shack. (audience laughing) Everyone thought the Dodgers would win because their approach is to just spend more money than anybody, mostly in Asia. But. (audience laughing) But the Brewers know how to deal. And it's actually not a secret. Let fellow small market general manager Andrew Friedman explain. He said the only reason we got good players in return is because we traded really good players. Yes, that's the lesson I want Democrats and Republicans to learn. Do you want to get something done? Then you also have to give up good players. Do I love the idea of a wall on the border? I really don't. But would I give it up? Would I give up on that one to get a pathway to citizenship for people who came here illegally but have contributed? Yes, because you have to give up good players. (audience cheering) Most people who are not on the fight in fringes don't want the endless warfare and endless law there. What they want is what the president himself, so eloquently identified years ago. We want deal. (audience laughing) Exactly, Tarzan. We want deal. (audience cheering) But that's hard to get if your political philosophy is also-- Shut it up, there's. (audience laughing) Yeah, well, you know, after this week, I think the shove it up your ass option is off the table. (audience laughing) And wait a second, while the Democratic politicians are generally too polite to ever say out loud, shove it up your ass, the way America has been governed in recent decades is exactly that. One party wins. The other gets drunk with power, cow-tows to their French and shoves their ideological agenda up our asses when all we want is to be governed effectively. Congress, you may have heard, is kind of unpopular. I mean like Martha Stewart Halloween costume unpopular. (audience laughing) Their approval rating is 14%. Now, right now, now is one of those rare moments. When that can change, when we have the opportunity to get out of this death spiral we've been in with each other. But it depends on both parties being willing to make deal. (audience laughing) A good deal is like a marriage. Both parties end up a little unhappy, but you do it because, or I'm not sure why you do it. (audience laughing) But in politics, you do it because if you don't compromise, nobody gets anything. So liberals, stop pretending that everyone across as the border is Anne Frank with a leaf blower. (audience laughing) And Republicans, you're the party of white people, otherwise known as people who don't pick strawberries. So cut the crap about throwing people out who actually undergird the whole economy. I could do this all day, name any issue, and it really could be solved if everyone would just go back to make deal. (audience laughing) Let's try the lightning round on this. Guns, owning a gun doesn't make you a gun nut. But when you pose with one on your Christmas card, yeah, we have a lot of gun nuts in this card. (audience laughing) Supreme court, stop trying to pack it. I'm not that happy with the nine people who are there. I'm not sure if 15 would make it better. (audience laughing) But when one of them croaks, the president who's in office, even if it's one you don't like, gets to pick the next one. No more of this, we can't do it now because the election is a year away or Mercury is in retrograde or the vibe isn't right or there's an El Nino, none of that bullshit. (audience laughing) (audience cheering) Environment, conservatives, stop acting like wind and solar or a plot to trans the earth. (audience laughing) But also paper straws suck because they don't suck. And making laws about straws is not going to affect if the planet survives or not. How about no more plastic straws or paper straws? You're an adult, you shouldn't need a straw at all. What you do will get you a septic cup. (audience cheering) Trans, it's rare but it's real. It's not big foot. Women with big feet, yes. But. (audience laughing) But it's rare, if a newborn has a penis, put mail on the birth certificate, not beats us, we'll ask later. (audience laughing) Ten commandments in schools. (audience laughing) I'll give you five. (audience laughing) That's good. No, but how about the left will allow the commandments to be displayed as a historical document as long as the right admits they don't follow any of them. (audience laughing) Also, I will give in on, I will trade allowing the Bible to be read in public schools, but only by a drag queen. (audience laughing) See all these issues? I'm dealing here, pot, pot. We get to smoke it, you get to tax it, done. (audience laughing) Homeless, they're human beings who should be treated with dignity, but they also can't be allowed to just shit on the street in front of America's greatest monument, the Cheesecake Factory. (audience laughing) Yeah. Okay, one more, going to Mars. You've all heard me on this one. I really think it's stupid to try to live on a planet that's 200 below zero with no air, but fight, I will. I will make the trade. We can send people to Mars, but Elon has to go for it. (audience cheering) That's our show, I wanna thank Ali McCally. Oh my goodness, I'm Peter Berg. My brand name drops every Monday at YouTube, or listen, wherever you get your podcast. Now go watch your overtime on YouTube. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. (audience cheering) Thank you guys. (upbeat music) Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10. Or watch him anytime on HBO on demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com.