Overtime – Episode #733: David Sedaris, Ian Bremmer, Hagar Chemali

Endless summer escapes start here. Travel the worlds of Netflix IRL. Inspired by fan favorites like Stranger Things and Squid Game. Brave the upside down. Face off with the front man. Play leveled up arcade games. Shop exclusive merch. And enjoy themed food and drinks. Beat the heat. Play, eat, and shop on repeat at Netflix House at Galleria Dallas. Bring your crew and save. Get your tickets today at netflix.com slash house. Now at Kroger, your points add up to more ways to save every trip. Use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump. You can even save up to $35 on your next fill up. Same points, more choices. And with low prices on fresh quality food plus digital and personalized offers tailored to how you shop, your dollar goes further. Redeem your points online or in the app. Kroger. Fresh for everyone. Restrictions apply. See site or store for details. Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night series, Real Time with Bill Maher. Okay, he is a humorous and author of the best-selling book of essays, The Land and Its People, David Sedaris. He's the president and founder of Eurasia Group and GZO Media in Bremmer. And he's the co-founder of the Lebanon-Israel Peace Alliance and host of YouTube's Oh My World, Hagar Shamali. Okay. Now the questions from the people, the real questions. First one is for you. In your book, you had ChatGPT imitate your writing style. Oh yeah. Do you think there will come a day when AA can truly capture your voice? No. Somebody else told ChatGPT to write something in my style. Yeah. And so the biggest laugh in the book is I rewrote what it wrote. And just because it can't be dirty right now, and maybe it'll change, but it can't surprise people with violence and dirt the way I like to. Thank you. You think it was programmed too woke? Everything sounds like it was put through HR. I told it. That's right. Okay. Oh, Little Elf. Little Elf. I mean, you don't get that from ChatGPT. What? Oh, Little Elf. Oh. Yeah. You remember that. Oh. That was his best. Yeah. It was so good. The Macy's thing. I mean, you know, it's 100 pages of pure, like, ribald content. in uncontrollable humor. Ryebald? Yes. I always thought it was ribald. Is it ryebald? I think it is ryebald. Let's ask Chat Sheep E.T. Ryebald. Could be a whiskey drink. Yeah. There are words like that, like flaxid. It's really flaccid. No. Which is it? It's flaccid. No, but it's actually flaxid. Really? Yes, I'm pretty sure. Really? Like a flaxid penis. Yes. If you're having a night that's too ryebald, you get flaccid. How does the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon complicate Trump's negotiations with Iran? Well, a lot. Yeah, it complicates it a lot, unfortunately, because the Iranian regime wants Hezbollah to survive. Because it's its main proxy. It's right next to Israel. So anytime they fight for a ceasefire, and on top of it that their running regime is doing it on behalf of Lebanon, it's a gift to Hezbollah. And Trump, he's not negotiating in a principled manner. Even though I believe that it's a Nobel Peace Prize on a platter, and that we know that he wants that, he's willing, if the Iranian regime says there's no talking unless there's a ceasefire in Lebanon, he's willing to sell Lebanon to Iran. And that's a big problem, especially because there's so much progress being made between Lebanon and Israel. Sell Lebanon to Iran or Israel? Sell Lebanon to Iran. Well, doesn't Iran already have Lebanon? No, and I mean, they have Hezbollah in there, but there's real effort to separate the two. Okay, well, what if the United States had a separate army, like Hezbollah is, that was controlling the southern half of our country? Oh, wait. No. I mean, you know, everybody always blames Israel. I always say, you know what? Stop attacking Israel. This whole thing will end. I mean, Hezbollah is on their board. They're on their board are attacking. Now what Israel is doing is it's basically putting in a buffer zone. This is what it did in the Golan Heights with Syria. It's like, stop attacking us, and we won't need these buffer zones. But as long as you do, we have to have an area, you know, where we can go and fight and keep our people out of this. Is that not fair? Oh, I think it's fair, personally. I think it's fair. I think that Israelis should only withdraw when certain terms are met. And that the Lebanese armed forces can control the area. They don't give up. Hezbollah doesn't give up. Hamas doesn't give up. You know? They don't, but they can. They just don't. They can be significantly weakened. They can. And they are in the process of it. And so has Iran. Yeah. That's not giving up. No. All right. As we said before, Israel is by far the most powerful country in the region, militarily, economically, technologically. And yet, what have we learned? That Goliath frequently is not able to get done. All the Goliaths. That's what Goliath wants. And that's true for Israel, too. Yeah. Yeah. What we also learned from this and probably everything that ever happens overseas is there's never a good answer. There's only the least bad answer. Absolutely. Yes. That's right. Which is what they've been doing. And enjoy themed games. And food and drinks. Beat the heat. And with low prices on fresh quality food, plus digital and personalized offers tailored to how you shop, your dollar goes further. Kroger. Fresh for everyone. Restrictions apply. C-Sider store for details. What do you make of Trump nominating a new director of national intelligence? Oh, yes. We did this last week. Bill Pulte. He's one of his stooges. But now he's not. You know, the Republic, you know, look, gotta live in the present moment. I mean, nobody was more afraid 10 years ago. That this is going to become an authoritarian government. I'm still afraid of it. And yet, I have also seen more pushback than I thought would happen. This guy's not going to be the head. The Republican Party itself finally kind of drew a line. They kind of threw a shit fit about this guy. And now he's not. And he's not getting a slush fund either. The $1.8 billion weaponization fund is not actually happening. Right. The IEPA tariffs all over the world on the whim of Trump. The whim of the president for an emergency turns out the Supreme Court said, no bueno, we're not doing that. Even the Trump-Kennedy Center turns out you're going to go there. It's just going to be the Kennedy Center. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to say this one more time. The more we talk about this, the less likely it's going to happen. So just please quiet until June 29th after we talk. Let me get my one fucking award. We want you to please. We want that. There's so much fucking anxiety. 75% of Americans say the federal government is hiding information about Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Are they right? Well, you know, they just make it look so bad, the fact that they've said how many times that they're releasing the Epstein files. And then I think, oh, well, they released the Epstein. And then like two months later, we've got to release the. Wait, you didn't? I thought you did. It just. Like Groundhog Day. Yeah, they're just endless amounts of Epstein files. And I guess there's still Epstein files. Yeah. Yes. Someone here at this table is in the Epstein files. I'm in the Epstein files. You want to explain your thought? It was Jeffrey Epstein sent an email and it was a it was a copy of a New York Times article from 2004 about a bookstore in Paris. I'm sorry. I saw a word. So just you and this other person. That's something. Okay, but, you know. You've got to build from there. All right. So why do you think it wasn't a foul play? Well, one, because there'd be so many folks that would be aware of some piece of that that we'd hear about from now. We've gotten none of it. All we've gotten is crazy people that just spout off nonsense. But we never really got the truth about the Kennedy assassination, did we? Did we? I mean, they put out a whole bunch of stuff later on. And we didn't end up learning anything. Nothing super secret that came out of it. I mean, I think that. You believe that Oswald acted alone in the Kennedy assassination? I haven't spent the time to study that to give you that answer. Oh, but. I have not. Hold on a second. I have not. Oh, okay. I believe the moon landing. I believe the vaccines actually work. All of these things, to me, are not conspiracies. I tend to go with science and evidence until you give me something else. Oh, okay. But let me go back to you haven't had time to look into it. This happened in 1963. What? Haven't you been busy? I know you're a busy man, but. I mean, you must have heard about the magic bullet theory? The bullet that went in one guy, out the other guy, came around here, this here, through his wrist, and, I mean, it just, it seems like it really could not have just been the one guy. Back and to the right, remember that video of, like, you know. Okay. Oh, perfect for you. The Pentagon just released a new batch of UFO files. See, I do believe in that. But that's scientific. I mean, I think it's actually less scientific to think we are alone in the universe. That, to me, doesn't. And also, many of the people in the military now are saying this. It's not just crazy farmers out there getting anally probed. It's a very serious people. And the Spielberg movie opens. I'm sure that's going to be something. Is this the government's attempt to slowly disclose that aliens are real? Wouldn't it be funny if Epstein was in this file? It's like. Well, who knows more about anal probing? But anyway, Pentagon just released UFO files. Yeah, I do. I think that this is. They're slowly trying to, you know, get us so we don't freak out when they say, yeah, they're here, they're queer, get used to it. They're warming us up to it. What? You believe that? Well, I mean, it's hard to see where the government is going with it. I do believe. I think it would be very narcissistic of us to think that we are the only life form in this universe or in the galaxy. And I'm by no means an expert on this at all. They did not privy me to these files in government. But. You had years to research this. I should have. You know, I wasn't government for 12 years. You're right. What do you think about it? Yeah, I'm not going with UFOs until someone shows me UFOs. That's true. Ah, interesting. And she agrees with me, that one woman. And you? I never think about them. You know, I never. Never crossed my mind whether they exist or not. I never think about it. And you know, I don't understand either. Like, I lost interest in Jeffrey Epstein so long ago. Like, years ago, I felt like. I don't. He didn't capture my imagination. And I was curious why. How much do you think his being good-looking has to do with him capturing people's imaginations? He was good-looking. I don't think he was good-looking. A show of hands? Oh, no. That is. That is the weirdest conspiracy theory I've heard so far. All right, we've got to wrap it up. Thank you very much. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10. Or watch them anytime on HBO On Demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com. Play leveled-up arcade games. Beat the heat. You can even save up to $35 on your next fill-up. Kroger. Fresh for everyone. Restrictions apply. See site or store for details.