In an alarming episode of Real Time with Bill Maher last night, mid-show interview guest Richard A. Clarke, a former Reagan adviser and security expert, minced no words.
His latest book: Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes is about the outlier experts who warn us of the real threats we are facing, including things like rising sea levels and cyber-warfare.
Of the recent political races, he said that Russia meddled heavily in the U.S. election and plans to repeat it in 2018 and 2020.
Clarke presciently predicted cyber-warfare over a decade ago, and last night sounded the warning that our continued lax security, allowing Russia’s involvement in Trump’s election, is “treason”.
He also agreed with Maher’s quip that FOX News is Trump’s very own “Pravda,” the state-run media outlet in Russia that is used by Vladimir Putin to control information.
And he noted that Trump had no interest in investigating the facts, as he plans to run again in 2020.
Clarke said: “After what happened in the last election, the U.S. should have instituted a comprehensive program to ensure that Russians never got involved in our election again.
“And they have done nothing. Nothing at all. And, as James Comey said, they will be back…they’ll be back in 2018.
“It’s harder at the Congressional level, but they’ll do it. And they’ll certainly be back trying to re-elect this guy [Trump].”
Clarke added: “This is the 21st century equivalent of having Russians land on the Jersey Shore…and he [Trump] doesn’t care!
“You know they [Russians] invaded our country, they invaded our political system and they won. And he doesn’t care because he won.”
This week’s other guests were columnist Dan Savage, political adviser Michael Steele, BBC reporter Katty Kay, and Mediaite founder Dan Abrams.
In his monologue, Maher explored the low brow pettiness of Trump’s presidency including his latest tweets.
Dan Savage also spoke about Trump’s latest Twitter comments, where he talked about Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski’s appearance, saying it was a case where a “sexist bullying a****** reveals himself to be sexist bullying a******.”
Savage also referred to the GOP as a “prison gang”, saying: “Republicans have brass knuckles on and Democrats don’t.
“So many Democrats think that they’re in Washington to set a good example for the GOP and we need to start fighting like the GOP fights and even fighting as dirty as the GOP fights.”
Maher also discussed how America, in his opinion, had reached Def Con 5 as regards it becoming an “idiocracy”.
He talked about how mediocrity, nonsense, and fluff abound year-round, and how our movies, culture, and lack of depth and substance have made us live in an endless summer.
Maher wants to reclaim the “stupid season” just for the hot months…
On the web-only Overtime segment, Maher and his guests discussed concerns surrounding the 2020 election, the fear of a weaponized North Korea, the pushback on gay rights, and the foreign policy tour wars.
Real Time with Bill Maher airs Fridays at 10pm live ET/tape-delayed PT on HBO. The show returns on August 4.