Overtime – Episode #735: Sen. Raphael Warnock, Larry Wilmore

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. Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night series, Real Time with Bill Maher. Okay, he's my friend. He's an Emmy award winning comedian, writer Larry Wilmore. And he's a Democratic senator from Georgia and author of The Crooked Place is Made Straight. Senator Raphael Warnock. Okay, these are questions from the people. What does the panel think of J.D. Vance? Oh yes, he made news today. I forgot to ask him. Uh, saying Watergate wouldn't take down a president today. He said Watergate would be a 12 hour story. Well, see, my opinion on that, that's not because, you know, Watergate wasn't that bad. It's because our standards are so low right now. That's right. That's what it is. Because if you look at his boy Trump commits like five Watergates before breakfast, you know. I mean, that's the fact. So it's like, yeah, Watergate, yeah. All he did was obstruct. No justice? Why are people talking about that? It is amazing revisionism. Like, if you hang around long enough, you know, like, there are people now who are like, who was the bad guy in World War II? I don't know. Maybe it was Churchill. You know. Yeah. Are we sure it was Hitler? Was he the bad guy? And now it's like, he was, you know, not that Nixon is on the level of Hitler. Of course not. I'm not saying that. But it's like, everything has to be revised. He's saying now, no, I like Nixon. And I mean, I didn't, I never thought I'd hear. Our politician, even Republican, go back and like. Go ahead. No self-awareness that, you know, as a result of the Trump-Vance administration, what we see every single day, he's like, it'll be a 12-hour news story. As if that's a good thing, you know. I think the. How many people remember Watergate? I really think, I think it's a little deeper than that. I was thinking about this, you know, because I read that story. This is like a Soviet-style revisionism, you know. Soviet Union. You know, their big news outlet was Pravda. Pravda means truth. Yes. It was anything but the truth, right? You know, kind of like truth social. It's not social, it's not true. Right out of the book, 1984. Correct, right. So, the whole point of Soviet-style truthiness, if you want, is to revise the truth. It's to make up their own version of the truth. So, a lot of this retelling of even American history. Making us numb to things. Retelling of American history, the getting rid of a lot of history and all this. That, to me, is Pravda. There's Soviet-style revisionism going on in this country. Okay. That's fine. Beat the heat. Get your tickets today at Netflix.com/House. What's the panel's reaction to the closing of Alligator Alcatraz in Florida as the Trump administration backing down from their aggressive approach to immigration? Boy, it's the first thing I tried to get J.D. to. I tell you, he's going to get a big clap on the back from the boss tonight. He didn't go with me on anything, you know. I'm sure he doesn't want to be in the doghouse. Well, the bar's pretty low. You close Alligator Alcatraz, you know. But they do, I mean, they do have a way of pulling back, you know. Well, we've seen that. But when we push back, they pull back. They were going to build a 10,000-bed detention center in Social Circle, Georgia. And this is a 5,000-citizen town. It's a, they mostly vote for Donald, voted for Donald Trump. But they didn't think that the federal government would step in and triple the size of their town. And those folks began to stand up. I went in and others elevated their concerns. And they backed off. So they're not going to build this detention center in Oakwood and in Social Circle, Georgia. We saw the same thing last week when they were getting ready to gerrymander the maps in Georgia. Hundreds of people showed up at the state capitol. And the legislators got nervous and said, well, you know. So at least they tabled it. We saw it in Minnesota. I think standing up makes a difference. What does the panel think of the Texas State Board of Education voting to require millions of students to study Bible stories? Well, they can't read anymore, so I don't care. The issue used to bother me, but I, you know, it's like -- They're going to read. They get a chance to read. It's like the pool. Or the ballroom. I can't. I just can't. You know, I just can't everything. Like, is it really going to -- I mean, it's wrong. It should be -- to me, it's wrong because it's favoring one religion. But, you know, I just -- Well, how about I get also some health care? Yeah. Yeah. You know, some child care. A livable wage. You know, for me, you know, religion can just change. I mean, I'm not going to be a Christian. I'm not going to be a Christian. I'm going to be a Christian. You know, for me, you know, religion can just show up as performance rather than substance. And I will say this. I'm a Christian pastor. I don't want to live in anybody's theocracy -- a Christian, Jewish, Muslim -- the covenant we have with one another is that we are a diverse democratic republic, a place where people of various faith traditions, people who claim no faith tradition. People of moral courage can come together. And we have this pact with each other, e pluribus unum, out of many one. And so, you know, I get worried when folks perform the religion -- Or mixing, you know, religion and politics. You're like, Jesus never ran for mayor. You know? Yeah. I agree with you so much. Yeah. And I'm a -- I'm a -- I'm a -- Sorry. I didn't mean that as a cut. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. I'm a pastor who serves in the Senate. But I don't -- I don't bring my creeds. Yes. I don't bring my creeds to my work. I bring my values, which I think are resonant in all the faith traditions. But you -- look. You know, here's the sad part, though. Part of this -- and I apologize for this, because it's kind of my observation of religion in our culture right now. It's kind of an admission that religion in many ways has diminished in the popular culture as a given. And so a lot of the movement on the right started with the moral majority, was, well, how do we pull religion back in -- Right. -- in the political system? It has to get back in the schools. Whatever happened to Sunday school? When I was a kid, there was a thing called Sunday school. There was a thing -- people accepted that you got your religious teaching -- Right. Sure. -- in a religious place. You know -- Well, the question becomes, whose religion are you going to teach? And -- Well, that's a separate issue. Right. So -- But the movement is the feeling that it's leaving the culture. How do we hold onto that? Well, I talk to young people all the time. And pull it back in. And I think that they are deeply interested in things spiritual. Right. But they are deeply suspicious of institutions and the way they're doing things. And I think that there's a disconnect between what people say -- Right. -- and what they do, between their creeds and their deeds. When they see the Speaker of the House gather with other legislators, say a long prayer, join hands, and then go and cut a trillion dollars out of Medicaid, they're trying to understand what's the relationship between that. What they don't have tolerance for is hypocrisy. And so you can -- you can legally be a senator, but also be a pastor. Is that true of every level of government? Could you be the -- a president and also a pastor? I don't know that that's practical, to be -- to be the president and be a pastor. But, yeah, you -- of course. You could. You could serve -- you -- I serve in the Senate. I'm pastor of Ebenezer Church. I return to my pulpit -- Yeah, I think Jimmy Carter -- -- every Sunday -- -- church Sunday school. Did he -- He -- well, yeah, certainly after he left, I -- I don't know if he did -- Right. -- during the crisis. You could be president and be a felon. That's okay. Oh, God. God. Yeah. Yeah. I got an applause line, Bill. You know it. Apparently. It's true. It's true. I got to say, I -- I love our audience. They love that -- they love that joke, and they also gave the vice president a standing ovation when he came out. You know? Senator Warnock turned to me, Bill, and he said, "Did he bring in all his people when they did that?" But right after, they applauded your thing, like, probably even bigger, you know? Oh, yeah. So, there you go. Okay. One more question. Before you get to the last question, can I say congratulations to Bill Maher for receiving the Mark Twain Award? Oh, wow. That's -- Thank you. I couldn't have done it without you. All right. Okay. Thank you. In your book, "The Crooked Place is Made Straight," you wrote, "January 6th is exactly who we are and who we have always been -- who we have always been." What did you mean by that, is the question? In the wake -- in the wake of January 6th, there were those who were well-meaning, and they said, "That's not who we are." And I think that that makes us feel good to say that, but it's dishonest. Right. There's a way in which that is who we are. Not all of us. But the good news is that's not -- But it's part of it. But it's part of who we are. January 5th. January 5th is when Georgia, a state in the old Confederacy, sent its first African-American senator and its first Jewish senator to the Senate in one fell swoop. All families have a complicated story, and I think we have to be honest about the ugly side of our story in order to get to a better place. Yeah, January 6th is also Mike Pence, who was here recently, who also very. Well, in the insurrection, this president got re-elected. No, but he wouldn't go along with it. A guy who I never had one good thing to say about him. He didn't go along with it. But at the end of the day, he did the right thing. I mean, that's America, too. Yes, but you talked about Nixon even resigned. You know, as crooked as he did, he did what was good for the country at that time. Well, that's not why he did it. No, but, well. But it turned out that way. Yes, but he did it because he lost the support of even the Republican Party, which would never happen today. That's the difference between 1974 and today. He lost the Republicans. That does not happen anymore. But who wouldn't have resigned instead? Even though with that going on, who wouldn't resign? No, but you know who does get that kind of clap on the back of his head? It was Al Gore, because the 2000 election was, you know. He could have just kept going with that. Put the country first. And at the end of the day, he was like, you know what, you take one for the team. Nixon did that in 1960. 1960, he did, right. 1960, he probably won that election. And Kennedy's mafia friends probably stole it. Yeah, there were so many. And he still was like, back then, people were different. They were like, the good of the country. Well, happy Fourth of July. Yeah. 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. Beat the heat. Get your tickets today at Netflix.com slash house.