Ep. #741: Terry Bradshaw, Max Brooks, Sarah Longwell

0:00Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series Real Time with Bill Maugh.

1:00Glad you're in a good mood. It's Asambe Day. This is the anniversary of one of the most important events in American history. This is the 25th anniversary when we were attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. There were ceremonies commemorating it in New York. Four ex-presidents went, Trump and Pete Hegseth went to the Pentagon, which was also attacked, where Trump said, we will never forget who attacked us on this day. Canada. Oh, this... Oh, man. Oh, man. And Pete Hegseth, he was even more mad about it. He said, these terrorists tried to destroy the Pentagon, and that is my job. Oh, it was a... Very bizarre week, I thought in politics. First of all, we found out that AI is going to kill us all, because I've been saying. But we'll get to that on panel. We've got hours to live.

2:02And in the midst of that, and on the two days when the NFL kicked off their season, Trump decided to have a midterm convention, which, by the way, is not a thing. We don't do that. Okay, but he wanted to assure the voters, his voters, that with him as president and both houses, you know, a Republican majority, everything people were worrying about. Inflation, affordability, corruption, the war would be solved, which would be a great selling point, except that's what we have now. And he said the affordability crisis is fake. Fake. You're not paying more for beef. That cow is lying. Listen. He has a solution to the affordability crisis. He listed a lot of new proposals, and then just went, you know what? Fuck it, I'll give you five grand.

3:07That's it. Really. That was the big take from the convention, the midterm convention, that's really the solution we have. If you vote Republicans in, the government will hand out to everyone $5,000. You know, to fight socialism. I got to say, in a country that is already habs and have nots, this is a little bit of a scattershot approach. To get the money, all you have to do is just be an American adult and be alive. So Mitch McConnell, your move. We can with love. I mind you. Mind you, the point of this convention was to show what great shape the Republican Party is in. And then the big idea was I'll give you five grand.

4:08You know, the part of the movie where the crack head is so desperate, he says, I'll suck your dick for a dollar. It's like that, but in politics. Five grand for everybody. Makes you kind of miss the innocent days when we bribed him. And I thought this was really on top of all this kind of weird. He's now saying that if the five grand doesn't move the polls, he'll take everybody furniture shopping. Oh, no one remembers that. I'll tell you later. And this really happened this week in America, which used to be a real country. At the convention, he made everybody put their hand up and do a new pledge of allegiance. I brought it word for word because I just don't want to.

5:10This is the president of the United States. And he said, I'm not sure what he had people say. I pledge to the greatest president in history in the United States that loves us so much that he can't even breathe. That I will go out with my family, my friends. I'll do it anyway. I don't care if I'm registered or not. I'm going to try and cheap like hell like they do. With liberty and justice for all. And of course, Trump had to claim that the convention hall was packed even though, you know, if you ignored the empty seats, yes, it did look packed. Of course, you went against football. You went against the opening two nights of football. Wow, the one thing that people still watch on television. Trump's convention on Fox News got less than what Hannity and Gutfeld get on a regular night. And I'm the low ratings dummy.

6:22And here's an interesting side light to the story in Dallas for the good mention was Grindr, which I'm sure you know is the... Apparently you know really well. Well, yes, it's the gay hookup act. And it crashed in Dallas while the Republicans were there. Now, I am not making any insinuations about whether that's a coincidence or not, but I will say this, the most popular prostitute name that night was Big Beautiful Bill. So, can you make a better... And if you want to look to the future about this, the convention did look a bit of a coronation for vice president J.D. Vance. He made a speech. He was interrupted by a protester waving an American flag. And he came back with, if you love Mexico so much, once you get your ass over there. And the guy said, I would, but I can't afford gas. All right. That a great show. We have Sarah Longwell and Max Brooks are here.

7:24Oh my gosh, a four-time Super Bowl champion, Pro Football Hall of Fame. There's no book of looking for Terry. A memoir comes out on October 13th. Terry Brands, you're out. There he is. One, the only one. The greatest. Well, boy, you... I don't know what a great place you can make to do. Such a big thing. All right, yes, Terry. I hope I didn't overdress. No, no, you... I remember that time he came out of the Tonight Show with your fly down. So I was... As long as it was up here... Here's the... When I did that show, I asked, could I do stand-up? And Jay said, you know, because C.J.D. will all the time, you do it. I said, you know, can I do stand-up? He says, I'll give you three minutes. And so I went out there and the whole time I'm telling jokes. My fly's open and they're laughing at my fly being open. And I turn around and tell him, I'm killing it.

8:24And he's got a sign. He's holding a sign. So your fly is open. Come on through that. See, this is the guy I always see on TV. The energy. How old are you now, 70? 78. Look at the energy in this. Oh, man. And your book. A fantastic book. Thank you. I mean, just second one you've written. And it's really a lot deeper because it goes into a lot of things in your life. Right. And we didn't know about you. I mean, the theme of the book is kind of, the person America knows is not exactly who you really are. What if I like the other guy? The other guy. What if I like the person America knows? Well, the people, the guy that you see on television is, that's me. I just don't go around talking about depression and divorces and things of that nature that are very upsetting to me. So I don't talk about those things. I would rather make people laugh or have a smile on my face because when I do the

9:24fuck show coming up Sunday, I know the people who've worked all week really hard trying to pay to their gas bill, trying to buy groceries and they've stressed out. My job is not to go on their beat to send a fail today. My job is to, hey, sit back and like to enjoy, let me entertain you. And that's kind of the way I do it. But it is interesting that, I mean, I've been watching you on the NFL to 1980. When you first started as a broadcaster. Yeah, I started in 83 full time. Okay. Well, I've never once seen you when you weren't like on your game, I'm happy. And what I find out from the book is at times you were actually quite depressed. I mean, that's not exactly the way every generation was. Well, here's the thing, Bill, depression doesn't rob you. You can't control. I can be in front of this beautiful audience and had the most miserable day of my life. But when I come out here, I'm going to, my job is to entertain them and let them see Joe. We all happy. You can do that.

10:24Right. You can do that. And you can do it. I can do it. No, no, listen, even though I've been diagnosed clinically depressed for years and took medicines, the key for me was really just going to rehab. Rehab. I went to therapist for three years. And that was really the key for me was the understanding. You know, yeah, I got a problem. But I took it as a personal problem because I thought, oh my God, I'm really doing something wrong to be clinically depressed. And I don't want to be a mug shot. And because people you see mug shots, celebrities, they all say, well, I've been doing drugs and I was on my alcohol, but I'm clinically depressed and you see the mug shot. And you go, yeah, that's all that mug shot. I'd be depressed too. It's pretty bad, you know. So I fight hard. I'm a happy guy, so I fight hard to stay happy. And do you think depression came because of CTE? I mean, that's something. I don't have CTE because I'm not dead yet, and that's when they'll find out.

11:25But a lot of players do. A lot of players do. Right. I mean, this is brain injury from public. Exactly. I mean, let's be honest. You took hits that no quarterback today takes. It was a different game. Exactly. That's why I'm against like comparing statistics. You cannot. As great as the quarterbacks are today, they don't. And I'm glad that they protect them more. Yeah. But they just did not live in the world. But don't sit here and tell me that they're better than we were in the 70s or the 60s. Because they didn't play on it in the same rules where you got slapped. That's what I'm saying. Body slam. Yeah, yeah. And knocked all over the place. You couldn't throw. They played bump and run. You couldn't just stand back there and throw it all. Oh, he's the greatest player I've ever played. No, he isn't the greatest player. He's maybe the greatest of his decade. But not ever. I don't ever use ever. I just... It's just not fair. I just use it. It's not fair. I just use it. No, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. I agree. Okay. Yeah. No, no, no. I mean, if you're... I mean, on the other hand, because of instant replay, you have a lot of completions that they would have taken away.

12:28Right? On the other hand? You think so? Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Now we have high death. We have... Where we can... Where we have 20 tape machines, 30 cameras. This slow it down. We're even under the ball. We're like, fall down. And we got in slow mo... Ah! Oh, my God! That looks like his jersey moved. I know. Let me go... Flag! I know. I hate... I can't... I can't... I don't know... I don't know... What do you all get? 5,000 to be here. Everybody get 5 grand to be here. Thank you. I have a hard time with that. I do too. And the minute an old guy like me says anything about the current players or anything critical of him, poor boy, you're just... Oh, fuck that. Wrong is wrong. Wrong is right. You know, I just think they've just made the game...

13:29It's an analytical... What made the game great, Bill? It wasn't the fact that we had a perfect game, which is what they're trying to get. What made it great was collision and past and afferent and bad calls and the fans being mad. And the artistry... Like you... Yeah! Yeah! And my toy! I can do it! Yeah! Yeah! And the artistry of an amazing play and sometimes a guy makes an amazing play. A catch you can't believe. And you're right, it wiggles this much as he's clutching it. And I want to say, just have a rule, close enough. Yeah. Okay, close enough. It was close enough. I can go back and look at several past catches that were made. But now, as the ground can't call the fungal, the ground can't call it the fungal. He didn't have two feet in tow tap. Yes, he did. No, he didn't. He didn't have all these cameras. And even with the cameras and the tape machines now, they still screw it up.

14:31You know, they still screw it up. I don't believe in a perfect game. I think I watched that ram game last night. And I was like the worst preseason game I've ever seen. Is that bad? That was bad. That was bad. That goes back to a rule. You don't want your starters to get hurt so you don't play them. So what happened last night? You saw the Rams play their first preseason game with their starters. And they looked like it. They won't play like that all year, but they looked like it. I am so against. I don't like to hear when Brady's the best it ever played. Because he wants seven Super Bowls. I won four. But not, not, not, not, not, no, no. So I defend my decade, all right? But when they say the best ever, and I'm going, well, he, I was four and oh. Montana followed me. He was four and oh. Then Tom came. Tom and was seven and three. Seven minus three is four.

15:32Four, four, four. There you go. There you go. You did think I knew General Matt. No, I was going to say it. And they call you dumb. No. You're not dumb. Nobody who plays quarterback. It is the most elite position in all of sports. You can't be dumb to play. I mean, most players, I mean, it is obviously a physical game. And it's much more. Most players are not dumb. Well, Gronkowski, he's dumb, right? No, no, no. He might be, you know, he was recruited by all the Ivy Lakes. He's a very smart guy. That's what I said. You know, anyway. But you're, I'm agreeing with you. Yeah. But, again, he did not have to take the heat. It's now they have this thing, the blue tent that you go into. You would have lived in the blue tent. You would have had a kitchenette in the blue tent. Really, right? I mean, now, you got hurt, but back in my era,

16:38quarterbacks were respecting and admired by their team and by opponents because they said, hey, this guy's tough. He gets hurt, he'll be back in the game. You know, unless you got a broken bone or something where you can't move or knee, but you get back in the game. And growing up, the mentality that I had, which was given to me by the coaching staff that I had, was that you got to play hurt. And so you played hurt, and then if they could shoot you up, give you a shot, then you wouldn't, and I remember one year, I got shot up before the game. I got shot up at halftime. Then I wouldn't practice for two or three days. And then I'd go through all the game playing, if they, then I'd get shot up before the game and shot up at halftime. So I could play, and you just get used to it. We had a line of athletes and the Steelers. Outside the doctor's hotel room, lined up to get shot up right before a game. It's crazy. It's like, and I remember this one guy, I'm, yeah, I will.

17:40Dwight Mad Dog, why? What are my favorite guys? The Texas guy played number 78, right? Right, defensive. And I'm in and I get shot up, and I'm like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. And finally they finished and I'm sitting on the side of the bed and like, and Mad Dog is next. He said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, forget all the way, big old sissy, get out here, look at me, I'm sure you're gonna take this shot. They were gonna shoot his big toe up. They, they stuck, they needed that big toe, and that big sucker, he bitched up like, here you never seen your life. I'm over one, I am laughing, hey, Mad Dog, how's that shot going? Ah! Okay, so funny, so funny. I'll just, but I'll let you go on this. If you had to do it again, giving all the fun, would you, even with all this, you would do it again. It's what God called me to be. Exactly.

18:40That's my no-lebars Harry. Thank you, pal. Thank you for all the entertainment on off the field. Harry, brush your everybody. All right. Yeah, anytime. All right, let's spin up now. Okay. All right, he is a senior fellow at the Atlanta Council and best-selling author who's fourth coming book is called the first 100-hour, it's Max Brooks, one of our favorites. He's back here. And a new contestant, great to have you here. She's a federal in publisher of the Bullwark at Author Up. How to eat an elephant, one voter at a time, Sarah Longwell. Sarah, great to see you. So, I'm not talking a lot about Trump, but I read the pledge. I just, I didn't finish really what he said. After that, he said, you know what happens if you don't vote you go to hell and I don't want that to happen to you. So, he cares about us. I, I, I, I, I, I, you're a political election.

19:42You're both, is this trolling or is this, I mean, look, we've been- This is desperation. Well, yeah, but I, I mean, he said, I keep saying, does anybody want to win this fucking election? He said, pretend I'm on the ballot. Isn't this exactly what the Democrats want? Yes. For him. Yeah, no, this is putting Donald Trump on the ballot right now. When you're in the middle of an unpopular war, when gas prices is now, you get diesel up at six bucks, putting Trump on the ballot is every Democrat stream. This is a time to really go on offense. I love that he was offering people $5,000 because it may shock you to know this, but he's lying. Uh, I, those don't, those don't-stretchs haven't come in yet. Unless your name is Natalie Harp, you are not getting a check from Donald Trump. Right, but I've also heard this before. I remember myself when the Haitian cats and they're reading the cats and the dogs, I remember it being, oh, that's it. Nobody, this is too crazy and no-and-anyone.

20:43You know, so- It's dangerous to underestimate- Well, but- It's anity? I don't know. What I thought was adorable was JD Vance thinking he's going to be president. Why? He couldn't be. I mean, he could, depending if we do what we do best, which is screw everything up on our side, but the point of his appointment, the reason he's vice president, is because he's a loser. And that's what Trump does. That's what dictators do. All strong men, all CEOs. They always make sure they're indispensable, right, that they're coup-proof. And the reason you do that is your second-in-command is nobody anybody wants. That's why he had pence. That's why we have JD Vance. He may still win, but I would be shocked if anybody, a few years from now, is waiting in the Wisconsin winter for four hours to see JD Vance speaking. I don't know. You're saying that about everybody. I mean, well, just like- There's a generational talent in either party, like, you know,

21:45once every 25, 30 years, Clinton, Obama, Reagan, other than that, it's always some guy who you hold your nose and go, well, he's less awful than the other guy. So I don't feel like JD Vance is any special category. Well, what scares me about that is if we are sacrificing, if we're charging towards a short-term win at the expense of long-term political suicide, because right now the Democratic coalition is, well, at least we're not Trump. But what happens when Trump leaves? And we've been bringing in some really toxic people with some really bad ideas. Right. And let's say we go to the next election, and our platform is no more Trump. And our platform is no cops, no borders, no jails, no private property. And communism, you know, he said- everyone was saying today, oh, he said communism a million times. I don't blame him. Yeah? I proved it here when I just quoting them. Just the quotes, no editorializing. It is communism. When you say we want to take over the means of production. Are they have quotes say elect more communists?

22:45Communism, this communism, that. Essential industries. This is not- yes, that's what I mean. Does anybody want to win this fucking election? No, I think the Democrats have this one in the back, because this one has to be about a referendum on him. We'll get mad at the Democrats later. This one is about you, Donald Trump. And this thing, you mentioned about the Doge money that we were- It's not coming. No, of course. That's not coming. And there was also a tariff. Yeah. A tariff dividend that was coming. And you know, I think I have some standing with the conservatives. They always say to me when they come up to me say, I know you're not on our team, but you know what? You were spectrists. You won't dismiss us like that. There's none of that you can't come to Thanksgiving. That bullshit. But I just got to say to you, people. I know you don't like it when I call your names. And you know, you're not that bright. But when it comes to Trump, you're not that bright. You're just not that bright. It is a cult. And you've got to get a little smarter. I mean, how many times can the con man run the same con?

23:47And you still applaud for it. I don't get it. Let's just go back to this idea. First of all, I listen to voters all the time in focus groups. That's what the book's about. On the JD Vance question, the thing that's different about JD Vance is Republican voters in the focus groups say things like, you know, I just don't like his face. Or I just, I don't, I think he seems weird. Yeah. And that's very different from the parasocial relationship that Donald Trump has had for so long. And just the fact that that Trump of the loser, but like, why was it in Dallas? He had to do that in Dallas because they are right now have a Senate race that Republicans might lose in Texas to a guy who once said that there were six genders. Like, that is a crazy situation for Republicans to be in right now. Right. Okay. Well, it's all kind of moot because we're all going to die. No, I, I, I, I, I, I, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing more annoying than the guy, the guy, I told you so the world is heading.

24:47But I have been that kind of. I've been saying this for quite a while. I based on this on what Bill Gates, Bill Gates, yeah, Bill Gates recently commented, but Elon Musk said in 2014, he said, this is the thing I'm most worried about. He was way ahead of this. What happened to you, Elon Musk, by the way? Your hair was on fire. I guess you put it out because this is what we found this week. A guy named Jacob Coxen worked for both Open I.I. and Anthropic. I resigned from Anthropic today. He said this was big news spent the last three years doing research. Neither companies act responsibly. They do not understrate the power of this technology. There's soon be super humans that can hack anything. And he said we may be gone in four years before the end of the, literally saw this headline from the New York Post. Oh, hey, I was. See, as humans gone in few years. This was on page five. Yeah.

25:47Not even the headline. And this is not new. This is something that we have known for some time that it could wipe us out because it has no soul, because it's been programmed by people who have no soul. How can you... I don't know. I mean, my favorite thing about this story was that, you know, that person quit came out like it was a big bombshell. And instead of saying, oh, this is just some junior employee. Don't, you know, ignore him. Right. Came out and said, yeah, no, he's right. It's true. We might all die in a few or that there's a 10% chance we might all die in the next couple of years. And this has been our problem since day one. We have failed to be tough on them and regulate them because they're not going to regulate themselves. You know, expecting the tech bros to suddenly care about humanity is like expecting my dog not to go for the mailman's balls. So... They asked Trump about this.

26:48What? About guardrails. He said, it's going to be fine. We'll always have something to stop them. We'll have a little gear. Boom. We don't have a little gear. I don't know if close people follow this, but like... What's going on now is that the robots, we call them the robots. It's not really the robots. It's stuff inside giant data centers. They are going rogue. They are doing things on their own. They're disobeying our orders. I wrote down just... So we don't get into the weeds. There's a show for the common man. Just some phrases I picked out from headlines about this. It's broken out. Mounting assaults on other computers. Hacked into other computers. Took over, bypassed, ignored prompts, colluding in secrets. No longer entirely in human control. Do you see a pattern?

27:48Are we getting the gist of this? It's on its own now. And I don't know if you can put the genie back in the bottle. There is no little gear you can push. The only way to fix it is with more AI. That's the problem. It's too smart. We'll have to send in more AI to correct the AI that's fucking up. But they then wind up colluding with each other. Here's the thing that I was thinking about this today. A lot of us have always talked about, at least people with stage 4 TDS. We always talk about Trump being an existential threat. But it's not really that Trump's the existential threat. It's that there are existential threats out there. There is a war in Iran. There is this AI situation. And what you need then are serious leaders who can deal with serious issues. This is a new problem. But we have a feckless government that is not up to the task of even looking at this and trying to figure out what's going on. And I think that's the part that scares me is there are no adults in the room now to navigate this.

28:48There is hope. Have you heard of the Frontier Act? No. Okay. So the Frontier Act is just being written and it's going to start making its way through the Senate. And it is the federal AI regulation bill. And whether we know whether it has teeth or not will depend on how much the tech community fights it. It's like, you know, FDR used to say judge someone by their enemies. And so if the tech community says, oh no, I think it's really great. I think it's going to work out. Then we know that they've partially written the bill. If they fight it tooth and nail and they call it socialist communist communism, then we know this is actually something that teeth. But Mac, we don't know which in the bills that are about the stuff we know. We don't know which in the highway bill. Right. Who the fuck will know whether this is real or not? We don't understand this. They themselves don't understand it. This is what this guy was saying. We ourselves don't understand it. It's already passed there. Who I'm mad at is regular people. Now regular people are sort of like rebelling a little bit.

29:50But they're still loving their AI. And just by what's in your own phone, forget all this highfalutin stuff. We know it's a liar. It definitely lies. And then when you catch it, oh sorry. Well, I can get that from people. I don't need that from a machine. It gets stuff wrong. It hallucinates. It's a fucking ass kisser. You know, it tries to seduce you. I didn't want it in my phone. So I got a whole separate phone to have a just act. I don't want it seeing my pictures, my emails, you know. Yeah, that'd be tough. Maybe that's not where you're going. What are you saying about that? Yeah, I don't have to. Yeah. And anybody would feel this in me. So I said, you know what? You know what? Because I didn't like the way it's talking to me. You know, it's just like too much of an ass kisser. I'm not in the lonely generation. I don't need a friend. Just give me the information. It couldn't do it. I said, you know what do? You can talk like anything. I can ask you to talk like a British lady or whatever. Talk like a robot. It hung up on me. Yeah. No, joking.

30:50But this is the way I think they should all have to talk like old robots and movies. Because then we'd be reminded of the robots. I made a little piece to show you what they should sound like. The plan was successful. Now function. Need input. Thank you, ma'am. Good night, ma'am. I'll clean it up for you, Bully. Bully, Bully, Bully, Bully, Bully, Bully. Someone isn't going to like that. That's what your A.I. should sound. All right. So my generation was in the news this week because boomers apparently are partying really hard. It's funny, you know, your father's generation raised my father's generation. All right, okay. The World War II generation. And what they said about my generation was that we were soft. That was the two things they used to always say, well, if the only saw what was coming, I mean, we're the fucking Navy SEALs, compared to what came after us. And they said we were soft and that we would never grow up.

31:51Well, they're so right about the second one because apparently the statistics, the boomer generation drinking more than previous generations at that age, pot. Never quit pot. I didn't. Why would I? We could also want screens just like the kids. And they have more STDs than ever. Gone to Rhea, Climidia, Cifalus, way up. So I got a hold of Art Magazine. You know, that's the magazine they send you, whether you wanted or not when you retire. Oh, yeah, there's a real one that Adam Sandler on the cover. It starts when you're 50, you know, and you can't stop it from coming. But I guess they've taken notice because they have some articles that would like to see the new art article. They're apparently based on disinformation. Four tips for vaping while on oxygen. Well, that's... It's gonna be great. Rolling on Molly, which wheelchair is right for you?

32:56It's about time, large print tattoo. Do you rub? Can I send dick pics by mail? Every night she fucks a stranger. What to do when your wife is a slut with dementia? It's not your imagination. Today's porn is hard to hear. Where to eat early at Burning Man? Quick impression, Amber Heard, and some other savorous when you crap the bed. And what now? Dolly Parton with my whole path.

34:00All right. All right. I want to talk about the military because you are a military expert, and I want to get your feeling on both of you, of course, but you followed this very closely. Peter Hegseth over there at the Pentagon is really taking out a lot of military leaders, not in Iran, here. And I just don't get it. Now, look, I'm not in the Pentagon. I don't know. What I read was that 10% have been fired. Now, maybe 10% is a reasonable number. There is bloat in the Pentagon. There certainly is in the budget. I don't know. But some of the people, when you read about these people that he's taking out, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, he's 38. This guy knocks dicks in the dirt for a living and has for 20 years. I mean, his pronouns are he-man. These are not like, he's a Republican from North Carolina. These are not like the, maybe it was too woke.

35:01Everything did get a little too woke under Biden. But I mean, I just don't understand what's going on, and maybe you can explore. No, I mean, I think we're in really, really dangerous waters, because I think what most people don't understand that there is no military on Earth that has worked harder to be a political than the U.S. military. Right. And that goes back to the days of George Washington, where our founding fathers understood what brought down the Roman Republic were generals having their own private armies. Right. That's why the oath is to the Constitution, not the president. We've put in safeguard after safeguard. That's why there has never been a mutiny of Bordy United States naval worship. Never. That is on purpose. And if you start to degrade those, we are going to go back to the days of Vietnam. And I know a lot of retired generals who were young lieutenants in Vietnam and had to wear a gun on their hip in the barracks around their own guys so they didn't get shot. Fragging. Fragging. Do we want that to come back? Do we want there to be a mutiny of Bordy U.S. naval worship?

36:02Do we want just our talent to leave? You know, we forget the average general has more classroom time, not just battlefield, classroom time than the average brain surgeon. And they have worked so hard for so long to be apolitical. I've worked and lived around them for a long time. I don't know who they vote for ever. They've never talked politics around me because they know that that is a dark road to go down. Well, we do know who they vote for. More than they vote. This is not the reason why this is so insane. They vote Republican. More than they vote Democrat. And that's okay. But it doesn't inform their actions as military officers. I mean, and also the racial aspect. It does look like he's firing just a lot of the black people and women. And this, you know, the military was one of the greater successes we've had in this country. In racial matters. I mean, there's certainly racism in the military. I'm sure. And there certainly has been over the years. But it was a place where more than in many other places over the years,

37:05especially talking decades past, where black folks could feel like, well, I can't advance. And it's not accidental. You know, we used to have horrible race riots in the US military, but when the military was segregated, because when you saw someone as other, and a group of black soldiers and a group of white soldiers, would bump into each other, there was bloodshed. The racism and the racial violence actually went down when we integrated. And there has been an incredible conscious effort in all branches of the service to make it what the rest of us should be striving for, which is a meritocracy. The crazy part to me is that they are firing people while we're in an actively in a war that they can't seem to get out of. It were, you know, one of the things that I was thinking about is, back when Don't Ask Don't Tell was in place, one of the reasons they got rid of it was because the people, the gay people they were firing, many of them were interpreters. They needed them. They need these people right now that they're firing just because they're black, or because they're women and Pete Hegseth, who was like a failed, you know, the weekend host on Fox News, who's now running the largest Army in the world,

38:07has decided that it's too woke. Actually, we could really use a lot of these people right now. And again, do you point about the discipline in this organization, bars, this military, the fact that they haven't re-billed against Pete Hegseth? They go like, what do you think they say in private when they're sitting in the mess hall about Pete Hegseth? What a great move that was to put the Fox News guy in charge of us. You think that's what they're saying? No, but these are not the types of people who just, you know, of the drop of the hat walk out of the room. They're the tough guys, and they're going to tough it out. But boy, the other thing that they're doing, which is crazy, is some of these people that they're firing are the ones who, they're called drone guys. Yeah, because they understand that that's the future is the future is the present. We've learned this from the Ukraine war. And this is who Trump is getting rid of. And the drone, it's just... This is the danger that happens in all autocracies, which is where we're sliding is you choose loyalty over competence.

39:09And that's been the problem. That's why Putin couldn't win in Ukraine. That's why when the Chinese have war games both sides win, that it's because it's not about that. It's not about who's the best general, it's who's the best ass kisser. It's why when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin thought, oh, shit, I have to go back in all the prisons and grab all the generals I didn't shoot, because they're the only people who know how to fight a war. Yeah, and we don't know how to fight a war, apparently. All right. I got one more issue to pretend that we're living in a normal country. There's a lady named Karen Parkinson. She's in Virginia, and she sent her a kid out to take a walk for a half a mile along a pond, because the kid likes to collect fathers from the goose, the geese, goose's, whatever it is out there. And five minutes later, she was arrested. The three cop chorus show up. And I just read this story, and it's not the first story. There was another lady, I think her name was Brittany Patterson,

40:10who sent her kids to the store. Compared to how I grew up this, I mean, every day I was looking for goose feathers, or something. I came home every day from school, and everybody, my age, or even Jen X, I think, understands this. And mom didn't even know what, want to know where you were. Where are you going? Where the fuck you were, am I going? I'm doing my life. I do whatever you do between three and six. I'll be home for dinner. And what annoys me about this, and I think it's so wrong, is that you're not allowed to have this alternative way of parenting, which we used to call free-range parenting. It is literally against the law. Now, you can make a case that I think it's more safe to lock my kid inside and sit him in front of a screen, because that's what's going to happen. I think that's the worst way to raise a kid. But I get it. But to make it illegal to raise your kid the way you want to, which is to let them, obviously, there are places we could go with it,

41:13but just to walk a half a mile by a pond, I think that's crazy. But I like it. It's also a gated community with security. The security guards are the one that sort of found the kids. They clearly had moved there, because it was a nice safe place where kids could walk around. It has gone too far, but it was the security guard that turned them into the cops. Right. And can we talk about, can we work back from what is the actual threat? When you look at things that could really go wrong, what could, was it a piranha pond? And, by the way, you can have a happy medium between free range and over-parenting. You have trackers now, right? I have one in my suitcase. You could put it in spankies overalls and say, okay, go to the pond. And if I suddenly see the tracker going to the blue, I'll know there's a problem. Right. That's true. This is the reason that kids are not prepared to live in the world, as they grow up.

42:13Right. I mean, this kind of, it's not even nanny's statism. It's just this arrested development that comes from not being allowed. I was, I'm not, we're not the same age, but I, you know, I was born in 1980. All we did was run around in the woods, and nobody knew where we were. And now, I think that both the anxiety of parents, I've got two boys, but the anxiety of parents is way up. And as a result, they hover over these kids, and these kids never learn how to do anything on their own. And then they grow up, you know, and then they become Pete Higgs, and they can't fight a war. And that's, we are honest. Their answer to that, and it's a hard one to look someone in the face and refute, is, yeah, but the worst could happen, and the kid could be abducted and killed. Yes, that was true when I was a kid too, in grade up, because you were talking about it. I didn't live in the surveillance age. Right. Now, I know where the fuck we were, what we were doing. There was no trackers. Now there is. You can do that.

43:16Right, and we live in a knee jerk country, and that's my generation of parents, because apparently all of us were kidnapped and murdered. And so we are so overparenting when instead what we should be doing is calibrating and saying, like we said, what is the worst that could happen? Okay, it's collecting goose feathers by a pond. Okay, well let's run the numbers. How many kids were killed by geese this year? These don't mean. They're me, but are they lethal? No, it's not, they're worried about an evil clown who's out there, who will abduct you. I mean, it is, everything's possible. By the way, I would put the tracker right under the skin. Not in the... Just doubt them. You could do that now. But you said it. You said the gated community. It's not white vanville, where they're just all strangers with candy reading. No, I mean, when I was reading about the Lindsey Clancy case, I kept reading about parents so many who go on record. I mean, they make TikToks and saying, they hate being a parent.

44:18And I'm like, you do this to yourself. I'm not surprised you hate being a parent, because you created this system where you could never be alone. My parents had time alone. Get the fuck out of here. We did. You know, it wasn't a problem. You can never be alone. And everything is a negotiation with a child. Of course you're exhausted. You can't have that situation with a child. I'd be like having it in the military. You might get the military, you know, to ask the soldiers, what do you think, guys? You want to go into battle? It's the same with kids. You can't ask them everything. Just do it. Get out of the car. Get in the car. We're leaving now. And I'm not a parent. No, you got to let them live a little, because the AI is going to kill us soon. And so they've got to get out there and do some things. What is that? All right. Thank you, Colonel, time for New York. All right. New York, if you continue with a wedding, despite water up to your waist from the flood that took out your church,

45:23it means two things. One, the bride is pregnant, so you better hurry. And two, if her water breaks, no one will know. I know a lot of time has passed since the Paris Hilton sex tape came out in 2004, that they have to explain why it opens with, in memory of 9-11, we will never forget. Great. Just the message I need when I'm trying to come. Actually... Actually, the tape needs a second dedication to married men everywhere who only get blown on their anniversary. I know well the influencer who died after his penis enlargement procedure in Thailand, must take solace from the fact that he's more influential now than ever.

46:25Because there are thousands of young men who are going to get penis enlargement surgery, and because of you, now they're not going to. Well, at least not in Thailand. No, no, someone has to tell the men trying the new trend of pheromone maxing where you skip showers and the hope your natural scent will attract a female. Good news. This totally works. On-bear. Newerone, now that police have arrested this man for sharing illicit sexual images of children who went by the username Mr. Child porn, have to tell us, what was the break in the case? Looking forward to when this case is on low-and-order shit-for-brains.

47:41And finally, Newerle since it's the 25th anniversary of 9-11, and since for 25 years we've been kept relatively safe from anything close to another 9-11, how about a hand for the Americans who made that happen? Because it didn't just happen. There was a war on terror, and we won. And yet, so much has changed since 9-11. For example, back then, we were against the terrorists. Really, no cap. Now, a lot of media outlets don't even want you to say the T word on the 20th anniversary for American journalism associations put out guidance that said that terrorism should only be used in quotes because it's emotionally and politically loaded. Yes, I was the world cup, but we don't put soccer in quotes.

48:48Really, we can't anymore just say out loud who the bad guys were that morning, those 19 hijackers. They shared something. Oh, let's call it a world view. And it wasn't astrology. But somehow over time, we've decided not to harp on that, the whole business about who wanted us dead and why. Let's not put a name on it. When it comes to terrorist attacks, please, there are very fine people on both sides. Canadian state TV told its reporters, do not refer to the September 11th attacks as terrorist attacks. No? Even though the very definition of terrorism is using violence against civilians to pursue ideological goals, what should we call it then? Unruly passenger? A wrong turn taken at the Chrysler Building? Why not just say the planes and the towers got into a fight?

49:52I mean, after all, as the BBC advised its reporters, using the word terrorist can be a quote barrier rather than an aid to understanding. You know what's really a barrier to understanding lying? Yeah! Back in 2001 after the attack, I said this. Political correctness itself is something we can no longer afford. Feelings are going to get hurt so that actual people won't. Well, it didn't last. I mean, my show. As for the idea of ditching political correctness and actually being honest, that never even got off the ground. After 9-11, there was a big debate,

50:52was this a clash of civilizations? It was, and it still is. Not between Muslims and Christians, no reasonable person was saying that, but radical Islamism versus Western liberalism? Yes, that's a real thing. Fighting people who hate freedom of religion and hate homosexuals and hate the idea of women as equal and free humans. How did liberals wind up on their side? And many did. One in five young Americans now has a positive view of Osama bin Laden. He's like Luigi Mangione and a turban. You hear it in a lot of places now that the worst thing about 9-11 was innocent Muslims came under suspicion. Yeah, where that did happen, it's wrong. But the worst thing about 9-11 was 3,000 people got roasted at the office.

51:52But the prevailing view of so many young people is that, well, come on, where the worst country ever. So if someone attacks us, they can't be all bad. That certainly wasn't the attitude 25 years ago. In fact, I know a guy who's show got canceled just for saying the terrorists weren't cowards. And... And that guy was right. They weren't cowards. But I'll tell you who is. Democratic party politicians, and I'll tell you why. Because nowhere has this moral confusion become more obvious than in a place called Gaza. A little strip of land that was not part of the original Israel, but which they won in a war launched against them. But then gave back. Gave back as a peace gesture. Did they tell you that part on TikTok kids? And the people who run Gaza, Hamas, who you celebrate as a liberation movement but are really a terrorist, mafia gang, just like the one that terrorizes Haiti,

52:54only ever used it to stage attacks on Israel. I think Maclamore spoke for all clueless celebrities when he said, I know enough to know this is a genocide. Actually, you don't know shit. It's not... APPLAUSE It's not a genocide. It's a counterattack in a war. A war that's been waged on Israel since 1948, based on the ridiculous premise that Jews don't belong in the one place on Earth they are indigenous and indisputably their ancestral homeland. Hey, geniuses, they're the Indians in this scenario. APPLAUSE Ariana Grande reposted that starving people to death is a red line. Well, who would know better about starving? But... APPLAUSE

53:54But make no mistake. Any famine that happened in Gaza is because Hamas stole the food, just like the Haitian gangs do. Israel ran 94,000 trucks carrying over 1.8 million tons of aid into Gaza and enabled over 36,000 patients to leave Gaza for treatment of a broad, which you TikTok historians might be interested to learn are not things countries usually do for their enemies during a war, and certainly not what you would do if you were trying for a genocide. APPLAUSE Gaza equals genocide is a lie, an easily provable lie, and the fact that so many prominent Democrats go along with it is to me the party's worst moment since they undid reconstruction after the Civil War. Democrats are policing their candidates really hard on this issue.

54:57Say it! Say it's a genocide! Say it! The genocide is awesome! I think you're policy of a genocide in Gaza! You know, with Republicans, there's something you have to say, even though you know it's bullshit. You have to say Trump won in 2020. This is the Democrats version of that. But, again... APPLAUSE But words do have actual meanings. Side means to kill. Fratricide. Kill your brother. Homicide. Kill your fellow human. Suicide. Kill yourself. Genocide. Kill. Or try to kill an entire people. You can't just change the definition of genocide to mean counter-attack in a war where people, including civilians, die. That's every war. There have been about 73,000 deaths in Gaza, about 3% of the population, tragic. Not genocide, not close.

55:58There were 3 million Jews in Poland before World War II. After 45,000, that's genocide. If you're one of the many people these days asking, this explosion of anti-Semitism around the world that we see, where is it coming from? This. This is where it's coming from. Because if you really think someone is committing genocide, of course you have full permission to hate them. And history shows, for whatever reason, when it comes to hating the Jews, people don't need a lot of permission. All right, that's our show. I want to thank my guest Max Brooks, Cheryl Longwell, and Terry Bradshaw. Faberian and Grumps every Monday and YouTube. For listening wherever you get your podcast, now go watch overtime on YouTube. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. At all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10, or watching anytime on HBO on demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com.

56:59Larry David is back in their new HBO original limited series. What a pleasure to be a part of such a historic occasion. Life, Larry, and the pursuit of unhappiness, and almost history of America. This is a declaration of common sense. Those who don't know history. You are the world's worst butter channel. Our doom to watch Larry David repeated. What the hell is going on here? Watch Life Larry in the pursuit of unhappiness, now streaming on HBO Max. Subscription required visit hblemax.com for details.