New Rule: Bad People Can Do Good Things | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

0:00 -(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) -And finally, New Rule,

0:02 stop asking me how it is that bad people can do good things.

0:06 Here in California, we've been busy lately scraping

0:08 a name off every building in the state because

0:11 famed labor leader Cesar Chavez turned out to be

0:15 not the folk saint we had been told, but more like the Latino Jeffrey Epstein.

0:20 (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) Saint?

0:24 He was more like a priest, if you know what I mean.

0:27 -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -PAUL RIECKHOFF: Mm.

0:28 -(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) -Mm.

0:34 Officials here have been in such a rush to get his name off schools,

0:38 half the kids in L.A.

0:39 now go to TBD Elementary.

0:41 -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) -(PAUL LAUGHS) (CHUCKLES) Now...

0:50 such a man as Cesar Chavez presents us

0:52 with the age-old quandary of purists versus utilitarians,

0:57 who are people who believe, above all else, numbers matter.

1:01 Chavez undeniably made the lives of millions better.

1:04 So the question is, if you could go back in time

1:07 and kill him to spare the young girls he assaulted, would you?

1:11 A purist says yes.

1:12 I say no, which is also what Dolores Huerta said.

1:15 She was Chavez's right-hand aide in the movement

1:18 and also one of his rape victims.

1:20 And she said she never reported his crimes because, quote,

1:23 "The formation of a union was the only

1:26 vehicle to accomplish and secure farmworkers' rights,

1:29 and I wasn't going to let Cesar or anyone

1:31 else get in the way." "The farmworker movement

1:34 has always been bigger and far more important than

1:37 any one individual." That, to me, is pretty heroic.

1:41 (AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) But that's life.

1:49 Being an adult often means choosing between two horrible options,

1:53 like the food on United.

1:55 -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -(DOUGLAS MURRAY CHUCKLES) (AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) But...

2:03 here's where someone always says,

2:05 "Why can't we just have great deeds done by good people?" I don't know,

2:09 because we live on Earth.

2:11 Things are really imperfect here.

2:13 I'll see you at the Michael Jackson movie.

2:15 -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) -(CLEARS THROAT, CHUCKLES) Yeah,

2:22 it's funny how when it comes to the arts,

2:24 we seem to have no trouble separating bad people from the good stuff they do.

2:29 Kanye just sold out SoFi.

2:32 He could perform on a floating swastika, and his fans would say,

2:35 "I don't support everything." "I'm just here for the songs

2:37 about women obsessed with money." (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) Now...

2:46 would it be great if all pop stars were pure and societal advancements were all

2:51 led by an exemplary human being with a benevolent

2:54 heart and an incredible head of hair?

2:56 (CHUCKLES) Of course, but I only have so much time in the day.

2:59 -(LAUGHS) -(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING) Kids, do you know about MBS?

3:10 No, that's not when older people can't shit right.

3:13 -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -(GUESTS LAUGHING) No, MBS is Mohammed bin Salman.

3:17 He's the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

3:19 And thanks to him, Saudi Arabia lets women drive now.

3:24 (AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING) And the fact that that is an applause break...

3:35 -(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING) -...tells you how heavy

3:36 a lift modernizing Saudi Arabia is.

3:40 -(AUDIENCE MEMBER CHUCKLES) -Thank you, one person.

3:42 -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -(LAUGHS) But he's doing it.

3:45 On the flip side, he absolutely did order

3:47 the decapitating of a journalist with a bone saw.

3:50 Now, the purist says, "Get rid of him,

3:52 no compromise with wrongdoing." Yeah, Biden tried that.

3:57 He wouldn't shake his hand.

3:59 And he said he'd make the Saudis "pay the price" and "make them pariahs." Yeah,

4:03 then we remembered we need their oil,

4:05 and the price of pariah dropped through the floor.

4:07 (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) (BILL MAHER

4:12 CHUCKLES) (CHUCKLES) Trump, of course,

4:16 completely couldn't give a shit about any of it,

4:19 and said to MBS, "Put her there,

4:21 and as long as you're killing journalists, have you met Don Lemon?" -PAUL: Mm.

4:25 Mm.

4:26 -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) So, kill MBS if you like,

4:36 but just know you'd also be killing the dreams

4:38 of millions of Saudi women to not live like chattel,

4:43 because MBS is also the reformer who defanged the religious police

4:47 there and let women leave the house without a male guardian.

4:51 He allowed female students to carry phones on campus,

4:54 although he might want to rethink that one.

4:56 (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -Now...

5:00 -(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) ...do MBS's good deeds excuse the head chopping?

5:06 Of course not.

5:08 They live alongside it.

5:11 Or take MBS's big buddy, Jared Kushner, who...

5:14 (SCOFFS) ...while he's America's negotiator in the wars

5:17 going on in the Middle East, he also has billion-dollar business deals going

5:22 with the Saudis and Qatar and the UAE.

5:25 Wow!

5:26 Oh, this guy looks meek, but he's got some balls.

5:29 -(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) -Do— Now, do I love it that the president's son-in-law

5:37 wets his beak while doing the nation's business?

5:40 No.

5:41 But he's a millennial.

5:42 Of course he's got a side hustle.

5:44 -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) -(CHUCKLES) And also,

5:51 maybe that's how business gets done in that part of the world.

5:55 Yes, it reeks of corruption.

5:57 But do I hate it that the top dog in Islam is bros with a Jew?

6:01 I don't.

6:02 -(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) -I think it's great progr— I think it's great

6:09 progress that the Arabs would rather bribe Jews than kill them.

6:12 -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -(CHUCKLES) (AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

6:21 Kushner got the Abraham Accords done.

6:23 That's a good thing, even if you think the wrong team did it.

6:27 The Iranian regime has killed, because they wanted to be free,

6:31 thousands and thousands of women on purpose.

6:35 We killed 175 by accident.

6:38 Horrible.

6:39 But do the moral math.

6:41 Do the math math.

6:43 People get killed in almost all big undertakings.

6:46 Death is almost always the price for emancipation.

6:49 But would you argue that our Civil War wasn't worth the lives lost?

6:54 Don't answer that, Stephen Miller.

6:55 (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) Thomas Jefferson had sex with a slave.

7:06 And being a slave, it meant she could not say no.

7:09 That's a rapist.

7:10 A rapist wrote the Declaration of Independence

7:13 and somehow was also the product of the Enlightenment,

7:16 who invented a great country.

7:18 Life makes no sense.

7:20 Labor unions and democracies are founded by rapists.

7:23 Women can be liberated by pussy grabbers.

7:28 Modernity can be ushered in by beheaders.

7:31 I know.

7:31 It's like finding out Tiger Woods teaches driver's ed.

7:34 -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) -(LAUGHS) So,

7:45 when I see people spouting slogans like "peace,

7:49 not war," "unity, not division," I roll my eyes.

7:53 Of course, this is what we all want.

7:54 The adult question is, at what price?

7:57 Violence is never okay.

7:59 Yes, it is.

8:00 World War II got millions killed,

8:02 but without it, people would still be heiling Hitler.

8:05 -Okay, bad example.

8:06 -(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)