REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER

All right, we’ve got a good show. We’ve got Joe Biden – Senator Joe. Ben Affleck and Bill Sammon are here. A little later, I’ll be speaking with Kevin Phillips. But first, she was in a little scuffle this week. You may have heard about it. Please welcome the very passionate five-term United States Representative from Georgia’s Fourth District, Cynthia McKinney! Hey! [applause] [cheers]

MAHER: Thank you very much. Okay, let’s meet our panel. [applause] All right. Here they are. He is the senior White House correspondent for the—

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I love you, Ben.

BEN AFFLECK: Thank you. My dad, ladies and gentlemen.

MAHER: Yeah. Your gay male lover. [picking up introduction] He is the senior correspondent for the Washington Examiner whose third book about President Bush is Strategery.

BILL SAMMON: Strategery.

MAHER: Strategery. [laughter] I’m sorry. I can’t mispronounce as well he can. Bill Sammon! Bill, thank you for being here. [applause]

SAMMON: Thank you. Thank you.

MAHER: He is, of course – is an actor, an Oscar-winning screenwriter who wrote, and will begin directing his first feature next month called “Gone, Baby, Gone.” Ben Affleck! [applause] [cheers]

And, of course, right over here, a six-term United States Senator from Delaware, who I hear may run for president in 2008—[cheers] [applause]—Senator Joe Biden. [applause] Very exciting. It’s true. This may be a historic night.

Sen. JOE BIDEN: May be.

MAHER: We may be here with a future president of the United States.

BIDEN: I think we just heard it.

MAHER: And Ben, it’s good to have you back on the show. No, are you going to run? I mean, I heard – I read what you said in the news—

BIDEN: Yes.

MAHER: Yes, you are? Good. [applause] [cheers] Think of that. Bill, you don’t seem happy. [he laughs]

SAMMON: No, I’m very happy, because it’s refreshing to have a candidate who is actually candid about his intention to run. He’s the only one on the Democratic—

MAHER: [overlapping] Right. You know what?

SAMMON: [overlapping]—or the Republican side who not only talks about that he wants to run, but also talks realistically about, you know, Hillary is the dominant player, and what it’s going to take to get past Hillary. So I think that’s very refreshing. [applause]

MAHER: There’s a lot of love in this room. All right, well, maybe you can shed some light on this leak story that came out the other day, because you’ve been a close confidante of the president. You know what goes on there pretty well. From what I understood in the past, he really hated leaks. I could bring out ten quotes where Bush is saying people are leaking too much – “I hate leaking.” “If I find out the guy who’s leaking, boy, am I going to get him!” –[laughter] Well, he’s been shaving the guy who’s been leaking, apparently. [laughter] Every morning. [laughter]

And he once – this is true – he once accused the Washington Post of treason because he read something in the paper – yes, he did—[laughter]—that he didn’t like, that had been leaked to the Washington Post.

SAMMON: Yeah.

MAHER: Why the big change of heart?

SAMMON: Well, when the president—

MAHER: Does it…

SAMMON: Does it.

MAHER: It’s not…[laughter]

SAMMON: When the president takes a piece of classified information and he declassifies it, and then he makes it public, that’s not technically a leak. And especially if it’s—[audience reacts]—well, if it’s a piece of information that doesn’t harm America’s national security, that’s different from, for example, when the New York Times publishes classified information that hasn’t been declassified, that talks about—

MAHER: [overlapping] But the New York Times got it from them! [laughter]

SAMMON: Well, but – but – not the New York Times story about the terrorist surveillance program, which actually does harm national security to put that out there. So there is a distinction.

AFFLECK: Listen, I mean, Geraldo, one of the great friends of the administration and Fox News, also went out there and really, literally, harmed the American people—

MAHER: [laughing] Yeah.

AFFLECK: [overlapping]—by getting on television and being like, “We’re over here, Saddam! We’re over here!!” [laughter]

MAHER: He drew it in the sand. Didn’t he draw a map in the sand?

AFFLECK: So, you know, you see people who make these kinds of – you know, let’s say it was a mistake, you know, it was an accident they leaked this information, which, I – you know, it’s possible. But, it’s – even if you’re leaking, as you say, in a legitimate way, which is like, “Well, I’m the president, so I’m allowed to declassify certain information because it’s in the public interest that people know it.” You could make that argument that it was a public interest thing, but you don’t – you’re not supposed to do that just for political means, just to hurt another guy and help your own political cause. [applause] That’s not how it’s supposed to…

SAMMON: No, let me just answer that. That is – that is very true. But you’ve got to keep it in context. The reason they did this is because Joe Wilson put out an op-ed in the New York Times that criticized the president and his pre-war intelligence. And so the White House felt the need to politically rebut that argument.

MAHER: Right. [audience reacts negatively]

SAMMON: Now, you can agree or disagree with that merits of that argument—

AFFLECK: Wait.

SAMMON: [overlapping]—but they were basically defending themselves against an argument that had been put forth by Joe Wilson. [derisive laughter]

MAHER: But they were doing it in the exact way that they were also denouncing. We’re not saying he committed a crime on this one. [laughter] We’re saying it’s very hypocritical. At very least, can we agree it’s a little hypocritical?

SAMMON: I don’t think it is. I mean—

MAHER: Let’s move on, then. Okay. [laughter] So, let me ask this question. My question now is what can’t Bush do? Because he can imprison people without a trial, who are United States citizens. We’ve learned that. He can tap phones of citizens when the law says specifically he can’t. He can go to war without a declaration from Congress that says he can really go to war. He signs laws and then attaches these “signing statements”? Which every president has done. But usually, they’re like the liner notes on a music album. They’re just a shout-out to, you know—[laughter]—“Hey, thanks for all the help with the law.” [laughter] He uses them to say, “You know this law I just signed? Well, the opposite is true for me.” [laughter]

He signed the torture bill, McCain’s torture bill, then said, “Yeah, but I reserve the right to torture.” I’m just wondering why you guy in Congress show up to work at all, because, apparently—

BIDEN: I don’t. [laughter]

MAHER: Apparently, it doesn’t matter what you say, he’s going to do whatever he wants to do anyway. There doesn’t seem to be anything stopping him from breaking every law he wants to.

BIDEN: Look, all those people out there are stopping him. What’s going to happen is, the public has figured this guy out. And they’ve figured that, look, this idea about “leaking.” I’ve been there for seven presidents. I’m 107 years old. [laughter] I’ve been there – I’ve been there—

MAHER: You – you were very – you must have been very—

BIDEN: That’s right. I want you to know there are still 44 guys older than me. [laughter] There’s only 44—

MAHER: But, wait a second. You’re a six-term senator.

BIDEN: I’m a six-term senator. I was 29 when I got elected. [applause] [cheers] [voices overlap under applause] Well, I got elected when I was 29, on November 3rd. By November 20th, I’d turned 30.

MAHER: Wow.

BIDEN: So I became constitutionally eligible.

AFFLECK: “Barely Legal.” [laughter]

BIDEN: And barely legal. Still barely legal.

MAHER: All right. We’ve cleared that up. Go ahead with what you’re…

BIDEN: Look, the idea that the president of the United States leaks information that reveals the name of a CIA agent and blows her cover, meaning that there’s no possibility that she could work undercover again – what the heck do you think that says to every other agent in the field? What do you think that says? [applause] [cheers]

MAHER: But he didn’t – he didn’t specifically do that.

BIDEN: Well – well, if you leak the information – I don’t know what the hell he leaked. In other words, I don’t know what he is doing. All I do know is that the end result was what the administration did with regard to that incident undermined the credibility and the faith the CIA agents have in their government. And it was a big deal.

AFFLECK: Yeah, I mean, ultimately, it was a circle of events that led to that. That specific Libby leak that went to Cheney – that went from Bush to Cheney to Libby – wasn’t exactly the name, because that was countering, like, the yellow-cake uranium thing in the New York Times.

MAHER: Right.

AFFLECK: But around that emerged the name of Valerie Plame, because she was married to the guy who wrote that editorial.

SAMMON: But a lot – a lot of critics are conflating the two, and are saying that because Bush disclosed this piece of information, they’re – they’re implying that Bush leaked the name. But even—

AFFLECK: He probably also leaked the name. But there’s just no proof of that.

SAMMON: [overlapping]—even the – well, no, even the – even the prosecutor, even Fitzgerald, is saying Bush didn’t leak the name. So let’s be clear. Bush didn’t leak Valerie Plame’s name.

MAHER: Right.

AFFLECK: [overlapping] Because if you did, you could be hung for that! [laughter] That’s treason.

MAHER: That is treason.

AFFLECK: You could be killed!

MAHER: Yes.

AFFLECK: That’s not like a joking-around-Tom-DeLay, “I’ll do a year; I bribed the state officials with corporate money.” [laughter] That’s like, they shoot you in the battlefields for doing that. Don’t you think we should find out who leaked that name?

MAHER: Yes. And that is—

AFFLECK: Good.

MAHER: And that is – I mean, this is coming out now because the guy who is on trial for that very charge is saying this in court.

Okay, let me ask you about Tom DeLay, since you brought that up. He stepped down this week. [applause] [cheers] Okay, all right. I was talking on the show last week about how Brazil is energy-independent as of next year, and I was saying it doesn’t look like the United States really has the chops anymore to achieve big goals like that. And I would – I think one of the reasons we can’t achieve big goals anymore is because nothing ever happens in this country anymore without somebody getting paid off.

And you can cry about Tom DeLay leaving, but I really think Tom DeLay is the poster boy for that. He is the poster boy for the kind of getting paid off, sludge fund, influence peddling, crony capitalism that has turned America into something less than a first-rate power. [applause]

SAMMON: Well, and that’s why – well, setting aside that allegation, you’re right that he is the poster boy for the left. He’s the guy the left loves to hate. [audience reacts] And his departure means that you can’t use his name to raise funds anymore. His departure means that his seat will probably go to a Republican this time. His departure means—

MAHER: A Democrat, you mean.

SAMMON: No! If he’d have stayed in the race, he probably would have lost. By getting out—

MAHER: Oh, I see.

SAMMON: [overlapping]—he actually makes it more likely for that—

AFFLECK: [overlapping] No, Tom DeLay personally gerrymandered that district so severely—

MAHER: Yes.

AFFLECK: [overlapping]—that it looks like a map of Italy. [laughter] You know what I mean? There won’t be a Democrat elected in that seat for 1,000 years! He’s also—

SAMMON: Now that he’s out, that might be true.

AFFLECK: [overlapping]—you can’t say he’s the poster boy for the left. He happens to be an incredibly powerful Republican who is a criminal. And now you blame Democrats for pointing it out. [applause] [cheers] I mean, you’ve got to take your shots. You know, I mean, you do, you know. Bill Clinton took his shots. That’s fine.

MAHER: You must have worked with Tom. Is he a nice guy? Is there something we don’t know about him that—[laughter]—is he actually a sweet guy when you…?

BIDEN: I never worked with him.

MAHER: Oh, you never worked with him?

BIDEN: Never worked with him. No. Literally, I never worked with him.

MAHER: Didn’t want to get any on you? [laughter]

BIDEN: Look, Tom – Tom DeLay – Tom DeLay is going to be around as long as this prosecution is around. This is a long way to go. And whether or not it helps or hurts the Democrats, the thing it most does is it allows you to legitimately believe, and the audience to believe, that this is a failed country and that everybody is buying everybody off.

The problem with this country is we haven’t had any leader with the nerve to challenge the American people to do the things they’re ready to do. [applause] [cheers] These people here are ready—

MAHER: Yeah.

BIDEN: No, I mean this sincerely.

MAHER: But – but doesn’t – yes, I—

BIDEN: But it does undermine it. It does undermine it. I’m not suggesting it doesn’t. But, look, the bottom – everybody talks about 9/11. I’ll tell you what I remember about 9/11. I remember the people the age of those people out there lined up, single-file, block after block after block after block after block, waiting to give blood. And nobody – after they were told none was needed. It was a silent scream: “Let me help.” What the hell has anybody asked anybody in this country to do, in terms of building this country? What would have happened if the president had gone and said, right after 9/11, “I have an energy policy. It’s going to be painful. This is what it’s going to take, and I expect you to do it.” They would have all responded.

MAHER: At that moment, they certainly would have. [applause]

BIDEN: At that moment, they would have.

MAHER: Yes.

BIDEN: This is a squandered opportunity.

AFFLECK: You’re right.

BIDEN: We don’t have leadership.

AFFLECK: I think, you know, it is a good opportunity – just very briefly, Senator – for the Democrats, to rally around this issue and say, “You know what? Corruption is, you know, systemic, largely, in some areas of the legislature.” Not Senator Biden, of course. But, you know, there are some, particularly in Congress where you have 535 guys, or whatever, who have to run every two years, who are out there, let’s face it, hustling a little bit. Because not just what’s illegal, but what’s legalized is a level of relationship between lobbyists and legislators that is, while not illegal, deeply unethical, and definitely does not represent the needs fairly of the constituents and the American people at large.

So let’s find a way to use the situation – as you point out, 9/11 was a squandered opportunity – as a rallying point to pass legislation that says, “You know what? We’re going to separate ourselves from lobbyists. They can’t come over to our house. They can’t walk our dogs. They can’t date our kids.” [laughter] “You know, they can’t mow our lawns.” And then create a kind of distance there. And then we won’t have these kinds of problems. And the Republican Party should support us because more of their guys are going to get—

MAHER: [overlapping] Well, you know what? [laughter] [applause] When the DeLay – you make a good point. And when the DeLay/Abramoff thing hit the newspapers a few months ago, Congress got all excited about doing exactly what you were saying and making those laws. And then what they found out is that people…were not really interested. They weren’t really tuning in. It was a little too hard to follow. And so that legislation sort of went away.

SAMMON: But they also realized that part of the problem is that there are lobbying laws on the books that aren’t being followed. So it’s not a question of necessarily making more laws. It’s a question of – Abramoff breaks the laws; you need to enforce the law.

MAHER: Let me ask you—

AFFLECK: Don’t – a guy in a fedora and a trenchcoat comes to your house and offers you a deal…[laughter] You know, it’s not that Tom DeLay is crooked; it’s that he is that stupid.

MAHER: Yeah. [laughter] Yeah.

AFFLECK: To get in business with Inspector Clouseau. [laughter]

MAHER: Let me ask you this. Do you think Bush prays a lot about Iraq?

SAMMON: I think he prays a lot, period. [laughter] He’s religious—

MAHER: Right.

SAMMON: He’s an unapologetically religious person.

MAHER: I’m just asking because there was a story in the news last week that said they did a nine-year study, and prayer doesn’t work. [laughter] [applause] I’m not – I’m not—

SAMMON: Yeah.

MAHER: You saw that?

SAMMON: Well, I did. I was interviewing the president about when he pulled the trigger on Operation Iraqi Freedom. He had the war council over to the White House. He talked to the generals and Rumsfeld, and so forth. He gave the decision to start the war. They left. He was alone in the Oval Office. I said, “What did you do next?”

He said, “I went out to the South Lawn and walked around the running track a couple of times.” He had his dogs with him.

And I said, “Why were you – you just gave the order to go to war, and now you’re out walking around the South Lawn. What were you doing?”

He says, “I was praying.” [a lone laugh]

MAHER: Okay.

SAMMON: He says, “I had just made…” Hold on, let me finish. “I had just made the most momentous decision a president could make, sending young men and women into harm’s way, and I needed God’s guidance.” I think that’s the kind of thing that conservatives like about Bush.

MAHER: It is.

SAMMON: Liberals, it makes them crazy.

MAHER: But let me – but because I constantly read things in the news about how the president or someone high up in his administration didn’t know something really kind of crucial about Iraq, like that there are Sunnis and Shiites. [laughter] Something really big. And my guess is that he was praying when he should have been learning. [applause] [cheers]

And…and I don’t say that, you know, as a snarky remark. I really mean it.

BIDEN: Bill, smart people pray. This guy uses it in a way, I think, to avoid having to know the hard things. I think we—[light audience response]—no, I mean it.

MAHER: Yes, you’re right. [applause]

BIDEN: I mean, it is – look, the idea that you would pray whether or not you should go to war, or pray after making a difficult decision, I mean, I – I understand that. But what – the part – look, Republicans seem to use prayer as a political, organizational tool, not a road to redemption. I mean, they—[applause]—they use it in a different way.

But I respect the fact that the president prays. That is totally separable from the fact whether or not the president is informed.

When I speak to the president – and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff. And – and the president will say things to me, and I’ll literally turn to the president, say, “Mister President, how can you say that, knowing you don’t know the facts?” And he’ll look at me and he’ll say – my word – he’ll look at me and he’ll say, “My instincts.” He said, “I have good instincts.”

I said, “Mister President, your instincts aren’t good enough.” [laughter] [applause]

Now, if he – if he, to use the word of my friend, “conflates” prayer with guidance in how to – where to send your missiles – I don’t know he does that – if he does that, then that’s – that’s dangerous. That’s over the edge. [applause] I don’t think he does that.

MAHER: Hasn’t—

BIDEN: I don’t think that’s what he does. I think he makes these decisions based on his instincts and then prays he’s right. [laughter] [applause] [cheers]

MAHER: You’re right. That’s well said.

AFFLECK: That was pretty good.

BIDEN: I do.

MAHER: But, I mean, don’t you think that being a person of faith has become a third rail in American politics? If you want to run for president nowadays, you’d better get out there and say you’re a very faith-based person. Now, you—

BIDEN: I don’t think so.

MAHER: I don’t even know what your religion is, and I think that’s great. I’m sure you have it. I’m sure you have faith. But I think it’s – it’s more appropriate, and it certainly is the way it was for hundreds of years in this country, that we didn’t look into candidates’ faith as much.

AFFLECK: Well, that’s not entirely true. I mean, Al Smith was a big deal because he was a Catholic. Kennedy was a big deal because he was a Catholic. And Eisenhower. And there were people who started going to church more frequently when—

BIDEN: [overlapping] But it wasn’t – but they weren’t – they weren’t advertising—

AFFLECK: [overlapping] But it wasn’t the same degree.

BIDEN: [overlapping] They weren’t advertising they were Catholics. Look, I – I—

AFFLECK: They were hiding.

MAHER: Yeah. [voices overlap]

BIDEN: I have – I have my own faith. I practice my religion. It matters to me. But, you know, I think the problem with the Republicans, as I said, they use this as a tool. I think the problem with a lot of elites in the Democratic Party, quite frankly, is they – they communicate they don’t respect people’s faith. People out there don’t want them to believe like they believe. But they want to know they respect them.

I’ll give you a very quick story. My mother, God love her, very smart woman. Eighty-nine years old. Lives with me. Good health. My mother says a rosary every Sunday at Mass when we go to Mass, for her deceased brother Ambrose, who died in New Guinea, and the body was never recovered. I said to one of my senior – one of my colleagues who is a very sophisticated guy, when we got in an argument – I said, “Okay, Charlie, this is what my mother…what do you think of that?” And he looked at me and said, “I think that’s quaint.” And I said, “Were you not – were we not senators, I’d rip your goddamn Adam’s apple out, because who the hell are you to look at my mother and say it’s ‘quaint’?” We have too many elites in our party who look down their nose on people of faith. The people of faith don’t want us to share their view. They just want to know we respect them. We respect them. That’s the big problem with my party. [applause]

MAHER: Okay.

AFFLECK: I also think there’s something to be said for – I’m a Christian; I have prayed in my life; I don’t think it’s a big – I think people want to think that, okay, well, this person has a basic sense of a moral center that comes along with being a vaguely religious person. And that means something to a lot of people. I agree with you, though, the notion that it’s because he doesn’t have anything else to tout. And touting religion absent any thought is a terrible mistake, and really, you know, almost criminal. I mean, the history of the world is filled with religious people who were really smart, like, you know, Shakespeare and Alexander Pope and Newton. I mean, science was developed by people of great faith. They’re not mutually exclusive.

MAHER: Okay, I’ve got to go to this guy because, first of all, he wrote a book about this whole subject. He is the former Republican strategist whose latest book is American Theocracy. Kevin Phillips! Kevin, how are you doin’? [applause]

KEVIN PHILLIPS [via satellite]: Pretty good. Glad to be with you.

MAHER: Have you been listening to your discussion?

PHILLIPS: I have been.

MAHER: Any thoughts on whether we’re right or wrong?

PHILLIPS: Well, I wasn’t always sure of the conclusions, except that they were basically pretty funny, and our political leadership is pretty funny, so it all works out. [laughter]

MAHER: Okay.

AFFLECK: Thank you. Thank you very much.

MAHER: The name of your book is American Theocracy. You’re basically saying that we have in power now the first religious party in America. And I think that strikes a lot of people as radical thinking. But you are anything but a radical. Isn’t that true?

PHILLIPS: Well, I think it is a little bit of a stretch, notionally, for people to confront the idea of a religious party. I wish it wasn’t true. But there have been a number of political scientists who’ve gone through very carefully different polls and different indicators, and they basically say that in recent years, the more likely someone is for – to go to – regularly attend church or other services – the more likely they are to be a Republican. And this is something that’s built up. And it suggests that religiosity and support for the Republican Party have sort of become synonymous. I think that’s a problem, because it then produces within the Republican Party an attempt to get politics and religion closer and closer, and verges on some very dangerous ideas.

MAHER: The president was in Cleveland a few weeks ago talking about the war. And someone in the audience asked him about your book, and asked him about the relevance of the Apocalypse in his Mid-East strategy. And I think he kind of avoided the question. But he is an End-Timer, is he not? He is someone, like many evangelicals, who believe that the end of our days are near. And doesn’t this affect someone’s policy, their thinking on matters that affect the rest of us who don’t think End Times are near? [laughter]

PHILLIPS: I think that’s exactly right. I can’t tell you that I know that George W. thinks the End Times are coming, but 45% of American Christians, according to Newsweek, believe in the End Times and Armageddon. And within the evangelical, Pentecostal and fundamentalist groups that support George W., it’s a lot higher. So my guess is that probably about 55% of the people who voted for him believe in this. They – they think about the prophesies in the Book of Revelation and they expect this to happen.

And that’s why I think he couldn’t answer that question in Cleveland, simply because if he said he believed in this – if he believed in the Apocalypse and Armageddon and the End Times – all of a sudden, something like 30% or 40% of his electorate would say, “Oh, boy!”

On the other hand, you know, a lot of people believe. And if he was in any way critical of it – and I think even evading it made them nervous – that maybe he really doesn’t fully believe in the Bible.

MAHER: Well, I – we know that’s not true. [laughter] In your book, you talk about a number of things that are going on in this country right now, like excessive debt, like excessive religiosity, like dependence on energy that is running out; that you say were things that were going on in other empires that were about to fall. Name some. [laughter]

PHILLIPS: Not hard to do, but we’d need a longer show. [laughter] Basically, you’re looking at a lot of history here which has involved countries that, in their later stages of power, they tend to think they have more power than they have. They often overreach. They often get carried away with a kind of evangelical religion, that they’re out to spread morality around the world. And often, as they try to do this, they have to spend more money than they have, and they start piling up debt. And that’s a quick, but not inaccurate summary, and the history supports it a lot more.

But the basic reason for laying this out is that, obviously, what has gone wrong before is in the process of going very wrong again for the United States. And it’s ironic that George W. measured in history – majored in history at Yale, because I think he doesn’t know any more about history than he knows about, you know, how to make fried calamari. [laughter] [applause]

MAHER: Kevin Phillips, well spoken there. Very rarely do you hear the author on our show. We appreciate you joining us, Kevin. Telling us about fried calamari.

AFFLECK: That’s a dry zinger there. [laughter] [applause] [cheers]

MAHER: Yes. Let me ask you one more, and then we’ll get off religion. But it was big news this week that the missing link between sea animals and land animals was found. And it just struck me as funny, because I know what bothers creationists so much is the idea that man developed from something that crawled out of the slime. Well, this thing they found is exactly something that crawls out of the slime. [laughter] It’s exactly a fish that crawled out of the slime.

What do you think the president thinks about this? And why are they so insecure about us coming from the apes? We’re clearly superior to them. Clearly. [laughter]

SAMMON: I think this will reignite the whole argument about whether intelligent design should be taught alongside of evolution in our schools. And as you know, President Bush came out some months ago and said that it should be. Very controversial. Some people think only evolution should be taught—

MAHER: Okay.

SAMMON: And Bush believes that both should.

MAHER: I want to—

BIDEN: This is reversible, man. This is reversible. We don’t have to go down this road. We don’t – the – I refuse to believe the majority of people believe this malarkey! [applause] [cheers] I refuse to believe that – that this is – I really mean it—

MAHER: I agree.

BIDEN: Absolutely. I absolutely refuse to believe it. There are a lot of people that are frightened now. There are a lot of people around – it’s not coincidental that there’s a rise in fundamentalism in the last 30 years across the board, in every – every confessional faith. It’s because people are losing control of their lives. They’re losing control. They don’t think they can affect what happens to them. And the more frightened – about 10% of those folks – they turn to really fundamental answers. But that doesn’t mean the government doesn’t have a responsibility, and leaders have a responsibility, to explain a way through this, a way to get out of this.

And when government plays into this notion that, oh, woe is me, we’re down the drain; this is the end, Armageddon is on the way, you just fuel it. I mean, we’re – we just have to fight this. I mean, this is not – I refuse to believe that that’s what the majority of American people think. [applause]

AFFLECK: I think the senator is right about that, and I think it’s supported by what the author said, which is that, the vast majority of Americans are religious, but very few of them are sort of, like, you know, slightly lunatic, fundamentalist nut-balls who say, “Well, no, they – you know, we have to have been – the earth is 6,000 years old, and there were no dinosaurs.” And what I can say to those people – from experience – about “Armageddon”—[laughter]—that it’s not good! Okay. [laughter]

MAHER: Well, I’ll tell you, I think there are a lot of people who do believe that, that the world is 6,000 years old. But what the Democrats have to understand is that those people are never going to vote for you.

BIDEN: Yeah. [applause]

MAHER: So that’s why I don’t understand why so many Democrats try to fish in that pond. [laughter] Because those – that fish ain’t biting for you guys. [laughter]

BIDEN: Well, I don’t – no, look, I understand. The fish that aren’t biting are the 52% of the American people who don’t vote.

MAHER: Right.

BIDEN: They’re the fish that aren’t biting. [applause]

MAHER: That’s the pond the Democrats gotta fish.

BIDEN: [overlapping] Yeah, that’s the pond we should fish. And that’s the pond that is looking for rational, sensible, optimistic requests to do something. I mean, look, it is—

MAHER: Okay, speaking of doing something, let me get to Iraq, because I know you’ve been very influential on this subject, and we don’t want to run out of time before we—

AFFLECK: And I mean just – me and Iraq. Forget about it.

MAHER: You’ve been very influential on Iraq. [laughter] The Iraqis got it, basically, from both the left and the right this week, because Condoleezza Rice and Jack Straw went over there and said, “You’d better get your stuff together and form a government.” And John Kerry, from the left, had an op-ed in the New York Times that said, “We should start getting out May 15th if you people can’t get your stuff together.”

And I know this is going to sound politically incorrect, but, look, they’re Middle Easterners. They’re bargainers. You have to threaten to leave before they make a deal. [laughter] As soon as you start getting up from the table, that’s when they say, “Wait a minute, my friends!” [laughter] [applause] I know – I know what you say. It’s so true. Come on.

SAMMON: Come on.

MAHER: It is true. I bought my first house from Israelis. I know. [laughter]

SAMMON: One of two things: let’s indulge this fantasy of John Kerry’s for a moment, and say that President Bush would take his advice and say, okay, by May 15th, we’re pulling our troops out. One of two things will happen. One, they’ll abide by this and say, “Okay, we’re going to get our government; we’re going to form a unity government; we’re going to get off the dime, and it’ll work.” But, two, it won’t. And then what do we do? We’re going to pull out troops out May 15th; the place is going to descend into what it used to be?

MAHER: Civil war, which it already is!

AFFLECK: Which is what is happening now, yeah. [applause]

MAHER: That’s what I don’t get! We keep saying if we don’t – if we leave, it’ll be a civil war. But hasn’t that really--?

AFFLECK: I mean, this is civil war.

BIDEN: George Bush is already removing the troops. George Bush has no different plan. I guarantee you George Bush will be down to 100,000 troops by the end of this year, down to 30,000 by the end of next year. George Bush says conditions on the ground will determine whether we keep our troops there. What has happened in the last 100 days to justify pulling out 30,000 troops? These guys are moving out. These guys are getting out and trying to figure how to get out.

The question is not whether we get out. The question is how do we do that, and what do we do to keep a regional war from happening. What is the plan? The problem with John’s plan is it sets a date, but it doesn’t tell you what happens when the rest of the world falls apart; when you have the Turks and the Iranians in Iraq, and there’s a regional war. He doesn’t tell you that part.

This administration has no plan. They have a plan how not to lose, but not a plan how to win. [applause] And so there’s three pieces of this. One, you’ve got to say to the Sunnis, “Hey, look, if you guys – if this becomes – you’re all involved in this, and we become the target of everybody, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t help you. So we’ve got to pull out and figure out how to stop a regional war. We’re not going to be inside. You guys will be killing each other, but we’re going to try to figure out how to keep this from moving into Iraq – excuse me, moving into Iran, moving into Turkey, moving into the Sunni states.

The second piece of this is you’ve got to say, “And I’ll tell you a second thing, guys. When you do this, the deal is going to have to be you’ve got to figure out how to share the revenues here. That’s what the Sunnis are looking for. The Sunnis want a piece of the action here. You’ve got to make them have a piece of the action.”

But the problem is, there is no plan now, Bill. These guys don’t know what they’re doing.

MAHER: I’ve got to tell you something. You have been criticized before for, like, speaking too long.

BIDEN: Did I--?

MAHER: No, no, no. I just wanted to say to the American public, sometimes it takes a few more than 30 seconds to explain something so that it makes sense. [applause] [cheers] I don’t – don’t back away from that the way Al Gore backed away from the environment, because I wanted to bring that up on this show. Because Al Gore is speaking out again – for the environment again, which was his issue in 2000. And I noticed – we did a little editorial a couple of weeks ago – and now I notice – no, no, all these things were in press way before we did that – but Time Magazine came out: “Be Worried, Be Very Worried” about global warming. Vanity Fair, the other day, said, “A threat graver than terrorism.”

BIDEN: It is.

MAHER: “Global warming.” I think we are reaching a tipping point, perhaps, about this issue. I hope so. And I was going to ask you the same question.

BIDEN: Thirty seconds, Bill. The United States Defense Department—

MAHER: No, I’m saying you don’t have to do it in 30 seconds. [laughter]

BIDEN: No, I know that.

AFFLECK: Forty-five.

BIDEN: But I want to hear these guys. The United States Defense Department put out a report almost two years ago – I’ll send you – the United States Defense Department said the single significant threat we have to our physical security is global warming. And these guys act like – it’s like creationism – they act like it’s not happening; there’s nothing to be done.

SAMMON: I’ll bet if you did a poll and asked the American people, what is the graver threat, global warming or terrorism, my guess would be terrorism would come in higher.

MAHER: That doesn’t mean they’re right. [applause] [cheers]

AFFLECK: By the way—

SAMMON: I’m telling you—

MAHER: But – but, I agree, terrorism is a horrible threat that still lives with us.

AFFLECK: This is just like semantics. You know what I mean? Is terrorism worse? Global warming takes longer, terrorism is more immediate.

MAHER: Right.

AFFLECK: They’re both threatening. They’re both dangerous. Nobody wants either one.

MAHER: Right.

AFFLECK: Right?..[to Sammon] You’re welcome. [laughter]

MAHER: You’re right.

AFFLECK: I’m kind of curious, though. I know we like to – because I want to go back to something the Senator said earlier, to even expand on this 45-second thing, because I’m a little bit vague on this solution. I understand that idea is that we get out of Iraq and then we say to the other nation-states, “Don’t come in, Iran.” Right? “Don’t come in, Turkey.” And we can’t just pull out without finding a solution to that. But, like, are we – I mean, do we practically – not in a partisan way – are we – do we have to mediate between the Shiites and the Sunnis, or do we ultimately not face the prospect of having to say, like, “Fight each other over this.” Because it seems like you’re saying we’re going to have to be stuck there, you know—

BIDEN: No, no, no. I’m not saying that.

MAHER: It seems like we’re fighting a different war than they’re fighting.

AFFLECK: I’m sure I’m misunderstanding. I want to know how we get out.

BIDEN: [overlapping] No, no.

MAHER: [overlapping] Seems like we’re fighting the global war on terrorism, and they’re fighting the 500-year-old war between Sunnis and Shiites.

BIDEN: Right.

AFFLECK: They’re fighting – yeah. [applause] I mean, I understand what you’re saying. I just need it explained more clearly.

SAMMON: And doing – I do think we’re vested – like it or not – whether you agreed or disagreed with going into war – we’re vested at this point, and I think we have to have some role in helping them form a unity government so that we can start to pull out. I think to just walk away now and say, “Fight it out, guys,” would be a bad decision.

BIDEN: If it was okay that they just fight it out themselves and it wouldn’t spill over to regional war, have at it, guys, have at it.

MAHER: Right.

BIDEN: The question is, not whether – when we get out. It’s what we leave behind, in terms of U.S. interests when we get out. If we traded a dictator for chaos, and you end up with a regional war; you end up with those oil prices going to $125 a barrel; you end up having a full-blown war involving the Iranians again. You find that Iran moves into that Shia crescent and you watch Israel decide how it’s going to react to that. And you watch what happens in Saudi Arabia. This is a chaotic circumstance.

So what do you do? The president, instead of making speeches – I mean this sincerely – should be on a plane. He should be on a plane, talking to all of those – going to those capitals and making the following point: nobody in the region benefits in a civil war. Nobody, including the Iranians. [applause]

And I’ll tell you why. Look, I’ll tell you why. The Iranians have – do they want 17 million people learning how – the art of war, who are Shia, Arabs – dealing with and morphing into their population of 60 million Shia who hate their government in Tehran, and learning those traits? Tehran doesn’t want a blown – a full-blown civil war. The Turks don’t want it. The French don’t want it. The Germans don’t want it.

So what do we do? We refuse to bring any of them into the deal. We refuse to talk to them. Our ambassador asked if he could talk to Iranians directly to work out a deal. The bad guys, the Iranians. Guess who we talked to, to get Karzai? We talked to the Iranians! We talked to them. These guys are ideologically driven to the point that they’ve made it an exclusive province for us, that we don’t want anybody in on the deal and, therefore, we own it all. And it’s chaos.

The president has to widen this, has to have a regional agreement, has to get the major powers to put total influence on all the parties to come to an agreement. If that can’t be done, Ben, we’ve got to pull out. But, we can’t pull out of the Middle East.

MAHER: Ben? What about the rest of us? [laughter]

AFFLECK: Hey, me and him. [laughter]

MAHER: Just about Ben now?

AFFLECK: I asked the question.

BIDEN: Because – because I was answering his question.

MAHER: Okay. I’ve got to—

AFFLECK: You know, see, it’s not funny, but I actually sort of feel like I understand it now.

MAHER: Yeah, I do, too. [laughter] [applause] Thank you very much for that. For all of you. Very good panel. But it’s time for New Rules, everybody! [applause] [cheers]

Okay. New Rule: Instead of censuring President Bush or reprimanding Cynthia McKinney, have McKinney and Laura Bush do that temporary wife-swap thing. [laughter] [applause] If TV has taught us anything, it’s that there’s nothing more entertaining than a no-nonsense black woman dressing down an incompetent white man. [laughter] [applause] When Bush goes into his “We’re fighting them over here” shtick, McKinney can do the “Oh, no, you didn’t!” [laughter] Punctuated with the ever-colorful, “Neocon, please!” [laughter]

New Rule: No TV until you can hold up your own head. [laughter] “Sesame Street” has released a new line of videos for kids as young as six months old. Which is a stupid business to get into considering what the competition is. [photo of infant breast-feeding shown] [laughter] [applause]

New Rule: You can’t go out and play until you finish your war. [laughter] President Bush kicked off another baseball season with a high, inside ceremonial first pitch. Come to think of it, the president’s pitching style is a lot like what he’s exhibited in Iraq: a lot of balls, with no real plan to get anybody out. [laughter] [applause] Bill appreciated that just on a comedic level.

SAMMON: That was good.

MAHER: Okay. New Rule: If you work at an office, you have to take a turn cleaning the office microwave. [laughter] I opened ours the other day, and a bat flew out. [laughter] The inside looks like a Jackson Pollock painting. [laughter] The three settings are now, “Cook,” “Defrost” and “Hepatitis.” [laughter] And if you’re not going to clean the damn thing, at least take out whatever is growing in there so we can harvest the stem cells. [laughter] [applause]

New Rule: No product placement in your tell-all confessionals. [laughter] Soccer great David Beckham told a newspaper he suffers from OCD, and is so obsessive he counts Pepsi bottles. Pepsi, of course, being the soft drink that pays him endorsement millions. I was so offended by this cheap commercialism, I slammed down my delicious cup of Starbucks Morning Blend, [laughter] hopped into my Toyota Hybrid, and raced over to the Kodak Theater on Hollywood Boulevard where I’ll be performing, May 13th—[laughter]—just to clear my head. [applause]

And finally, New Rule: Don’t blame illegal immigrants for driving down wages. Blame Congress. [applause] Republicans in Congress have to stop saying that the problem with Mexicans coming over the border is they keep wages down. You know what keeps wages down? The fact that Congress hasn’t raised the minimum wage since 1997. [applause] [cheers] 1997, when my dealer still had a beeper! [laughter] Car dealer, car dealer, what did I say? [laughter]

Yes, news flash: Congress controls what the minimum wage is. Who did you think it was, the valet parking team at Tony Roma’s? [laughter] And upping the minimum wage would affect wages. It has to. The word “wage” is right in it. [laughter] Even George Bush could understand that. [laughter] Maybe not. [laughter] The point is, the elephant in the room is that no one can live on minimum wage, and that we are making a whole swath of our society – tens of millions of people – live like animals. So that the luckier segment can live with indulgences their parents never dreamed of.

Do you know that most upper-middle-class people nowadays never clean their own toilet or do their own laundry…until they go to rehab. [laughter]

AFFLECK: Sometimes not even then. [applause]

MAHER: Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage is actually lower than it was in 1968, the year George Bush graduated from Yale. And that is unforgivable! And the wage thing is bad, too. [laughter] [applause]

People like to tell themselves that these immigrants do the jobs Americans won’t do. Not true. Americans will pick fruit in the hot sun. But not at $5.15 an hour. [laughter] Trust me. If some of these jobs paid real wages, your wife would be having sex with a Jewish gardener. [laughter] [applause]

Americans want the contributions of the poor and the immigrant without having to actually see or be among them. Which is why I suggest, instead of building a wall on the border, we build a Wal-Mart. [laughter] It would be 1,950 miles long, or the size of a normal Wal-Mart. [laughter] [applause] And there would still be just the one register open. [laughter] But it would solve this problem.

Because if we built this Wal-Mart exactly on the border, the Americans could come through the front door and shop, and the Mexicans could come through the back door and work. [laughter] And then go home the same way at night, unless they got locked in. It is Wal-Mart. [laughter]

In summation, I am not saying that raising the minimum wage is going to solve the illegal immigration problem. That can only be solved by arming Lou Dobbs. [laughter] [applause] But five bucks an hour in an America where the luckier ones spend that on a coffee, is a cruel joke. And if you don’t believe me, do what I do. Listen to the voices of those poor souls who are making this paltry sum. Of course, I have to. They’re my staff. [laughter]

All right, that’s my show, our show. [applause] [cheers] We want to thank my great guests: Bill Sammon, Ben Affleck, Senator Joe Biden and Representative Cynthia McKinney and Kevin Phillips. And happy 80th birthday to Hugh Hefner! Keep it up!

We’ll be back in two weeks. Be sure to join us then. Thank you, folks. Good job! [applause] [cheers]