Guests on this program were:
Daisy Fuentes
Todd Rundgren
Tom Fitton
Bob Costas
| Bill's Opening
Bill Maher as Jeremiah Springer: Jeremiah: Okay. Welcome back. I'm Jeremiah Springer, and we're talking with slaves and their masters. [ Laughter ] Next, we have a young lady who also got involved in this type of relationship. Please welcome Sally Hemings. [ Cheers and applause ] All right. Sally, thanks for coming on. Now, where did you meet your so-called "master"? Sally Hemmings: At an auction. [ Laughter ] Jeremiah: All right. And he was -- Sally Hemmings: The President of the United States. [ Laughter ] Jeremiah: And you were -- ? Sally Hemmings: For sale! Jeremiah: So you had that in common? Now, when did things start going sour for you? Sally Hemmings: Well, see, at first, he was really sweet. He said I had nice, strong teeth and that I looked like a gal who could carry heavy objects without complaining. You know, he was a real charmer. [ Laughter ] Jeremiah: I see. And then what happened? Sally Hemmings: He started getting possessive. Jeremiah: Jeremiah: Ah, possessive. Right. Like how so? Sally Hemmings: He bought me. [ Laughter ] Jeremiah: Well, that is possessive. Now, to complicate matters, I understand there's a child involved. Sally Hemmings: That's right. Thomas Jefferson: is the father of my child, Luscious Jefferson:, and he don't pay no child support, Jeremiah. Not a Nickel. In fact, he is on the nickel! For a change, I'd like to whup his ass. [ Cheers and applause ] Jeremiah: Please, please. Hey, hey, hey! We certainly don't want any violence. Let's bring him out. [ Booing from audience ] All right. Welcome to you, President Jefferson:. Thomas Jefferson: Thanks, Jer. Call me Tom. Jeremiah: Okay, Tom, now, do you know why you're here? Thomas Jefferson: Yes, to talk about the Declaration of Independence. Jeremiah:: No. [ Laughter ] Thomas Jefferson: The Louisiana Purchase? Jeremiah: No! Thomas Jefferson: My terms as President. Jeremiah: Tom, you knocked up your slave. [ Laughter ] Thomas Jefferson: Oh, that. [ Laughter ] Well, you have to remember, Jer, that was back in the '70s, 1770s. Things were crazy back then. Jeremiah: Oh, crazy? This Nickel-wearing [ Bleep ] is the crazy one! [ Cheers and applause ] Jeremiah: Well, it's really true. If you love something, you should set it free. And if you can't do that, at least let her move into the big house. Because the good that men do dies with them, but the women they do live on. So remember, it's not important what you do, it's who you do. Take care of yourself and be good to each other. Good Night. Panel Discussion Bill: All right. Thank you, folks. Let's meet our panel. He's a rock legend and the father of the interactive music cd. His web site, another web site, www.tr-i.com. Todd Rundgren, ladies and gentlemen. [ Cheers and applause ] Hello there, Mr. Rock star, how are you? Todd: Good, Bill. Bill: No, right over there. The President of Judicial Watch. He's editor of "Opinion, Inc." our buddy Tom Fitton is right over here. [ Cheers and applause ] Tommy, how are you? Good to see you as always. She hosts "America's funniest home videos" Saturdays right here on ABC, Daisy Fuentes. [ Cheers and applause ] Daisy: How are you doing? Bill: Hello, young lady. Thank you for coming. I appreciate it. [ Applause ] He is a 12-time Emmy Award winner and seven-time national sportscaster of the year. Mr. Bob Costas, right over here. [ Cheers and applause ] Yes, you are. And every one of them deserved -- how are you? Okay. And when we have you here, I always like to talk sports. And luckily, there's an article in the paper yesterday -- not yesterday, last week. One out of five NFL players, they said, has been convicted of a serious crime. That is unbelievable -- ranging from homicide, which is 15 yards plus loss of down. Bob: Right. [ Laughter ] Bill: To varied -- drugs, the whole -- and so there's been an outcry since then. People saying, "Hey, you know what, if you've been convicted of a crime, you can't play." I mean, that's what they want to get it down to now. And I'm just wondering whether -- whether you think that's right? Todd: Put the other four out of five in jail, is that what you're saying? [ Scattered laughter ] Bill: No, that if you're a serious -- convicted of a serious crime, you can't play football. Bob: If you've been convicted of a crime and you can't play football, the league shrinks to about eight teams. [ Laughter ] Bill: Yeah. I -- I -- I would imagine. Tom: I think it's probably a good standard to have. We talk about public morality, the standards have been lowered. But this is private morality. Look, the businesses are making the decision, you know, felons can play. What does that say to children? You know, you can kill someone and your NFL dreams are still there. It's a great country, isn't it? [ Talking over each other ] Bob: I'm not aware that any convicted murders are starting at cornerback this weekend. [ Laughter ] Todd: Yeah. Not all felonies are murder, you know. Bill: Yeah, but -- Daisy: If you were convicted of a crime, wouldn't you get fired? Todd: Yeah. Bill: I would hope not. But um -- [ Laughter ] Todd: Yeah, most people would get fired. Bob: Only for a little while. Daisy: But maybe not permanently. Maybe not permanently. You'd be employable at some point. Tom: Yes. Daisy: You certainly wouldn't be hired back by the same company or employer that you were working with when you committed the crime and the whole scandal went up, and you get fired. So, this is a job for them. If they are convicted, they shouldn't -- Bob: Right, they get placed on waivers and picked up by another team at twice the salary. [ Laughter ] Bill: Right. Todd: It doesn't seem to make any sense. Sports, in substantial part, particularly contact sports, is a sublimation of violent instincts for the players and for the audience alike. And the point is that people who have violent instincts are going to brush up against the law. Bob: The truth is -- Todd: Consequences -- and you're keeping more people out of jail by giving them a professional sports career than you are by -- [ Laughter ] [ Applause ] Essentially, keeping them from playing sports. In other words, saying, "Don't play sports, become a professional criminal instead." Bob: If you take a look at the NFL, there's a lot of admirable people in the league. There's players and there's coaches. But a certain percentage of these players are actually there because, in some kind of controlled way, they're using those very instincts that Todd is talking about. They're using violent anti-social instincts. It's not something where they say, "Oh, my gosh, this troubles us." No. It's, "How can we harness this and get the guy to whack the quarterback?" Todd: We don't have a war, put it that way. We don't have a war to send all our violently inclined off to go get themselves killed. We have to do something in the interim about it. Tom: There's a difference between a teenager who gets caught shoplifting and someone who does hard time or someone who has committed a violent act, let's say against their coach, and there's no consequence there. Bill: Yes. Tom: Crime ought to pay. And I think you'll have more people in jail, more crimes committed if you get the idea that you commit a felony and you can still make 1 million bucks a year. Bill: How about this lat --, now we all know Latrell Sprewell and his story. Right? Todd: Right. Bill: He choked the coach, okay. He is now suing his agent. [ Laughter ] This is -- I mean, I don't know if this guy -- I don't know if they're orange and bounce, but he's got [ bleep ]. Let me tell you. [ Laughter ] He is suing his agent because the agent failed to put a clause into the contract that enured him from repercussions should he choke his coach. [ Laughter ] So he's suing the agent. Bob: I mean, you can't think of everything. They already had the clause in there protecting him in case he inadvertently hit the ref in the ass with an inbounds pass. [ Laughter ] You know? And just overlooked this one. Tom: Well, amazingly, they actually have clauses. I mean, if they had a clause like that and that wasn't in there, maybe he has standing there. But the idea that someone would actually be on the other end of that contract and say, "Well, yes, if you do kill the coach, if you do beat him up, we'll still pay you." The idea that someone actually put that into a contract on the other end, I'd look at that carefully. Todd: Right. Bob: This is obviously the sprewell guy is a litigious guy. I understand he's also suing his hairdresser for making his cornrows too tight. [ Laughter ] I mean, this guy just wants to go to court. If he can't be on the court, he wants to be in court. [ Laughter ] Bill: Okay. Well, we have to take a commercial. We'll be right back. Todd: What a difference a preposition makes. Bill: All right. Okay. Let's talk about something else. One of the big stories in this election was the Bush brothers took over Texas and Florida. Sounds like a crappy Western, doesn't it? Todd: Bring me a shrubbery. Bill: Right, uh -- first of all, it's amazing to me that these guys derived their charisma from being the sons of George Bush. [ Laughter ] Okay. Tom: One says he gets his charisma from his mother, so. Bill: Yeah. Well, there's another one. Todd: That's where George got it, wasn't it? Bill: Anyway, they both spoke Spanish, especially George^Jr. in Texas, during the campaign. That was one of the main reasons they said that he won so big, got 40% of the Latino vote, and you saw it. I saw him on the news speaking Spanish. And he's not the only one this time to go out and do that, to actually speak Spanish during the campaign. And I'm wondering whether you think this is appropriate or perhaps hypocritical on the part of certain candidates? Todd: Well, you'd have to speak Spanish in the new Cuba, you know. It's like, if you're gonna get elected in Florida, then you better consider the expatriate Cuban vote. You know, they are a seriously powerful voting block. Bob: Well, jeb bush has an Hispanic wife. And the younger Bush speaks fluent Spanish. It's not like he's been briefed to fire off a few phrases. So in both those cases, it's authentic. Bill: Well, authentic that they can speak it. That doesn't mean it's authentic that it's right to do it. Tom: Well, if I were speaking Spanish, you'd probably look at me like "What are you talking about?" But when I hear politicians speaking Spanish, it might be right in some circumstances. But you wonder, are they making promises we can't understand as a result? [ Laughter ] It's bad enough trying to hold them accountable for what they say in English, but if they're making promises under the cover to portions of the population that other portions can't -- Bill: They have dictionaries now that do actually enable one to translate into the other. Bob: How do the Hispanic-speaking voters know that they're not doing the very thing in English for decades and decades? Tom: And then you bring it to Bill's point. Let's speak one language in the country in terms of public discourse. [ Applause ] Daisy: All right. Being the only actual Hispanic here, I think -- I think I would like to say that it is very important for politicians to address the Latin community. I think we represent a large portion of this country. Bill: But in Spanish? Daisy: Fine. That's fine. There are a lot of Latin communities. And if someone does speak Spanish, in the case of this Mr. Bush, his wife, I think, is Mexican, is she not? And he does have the culture. He understands it. I think it's fine he does speak Spanish. He's not just learning one sentence and being patronizing by saying it. That, I think, is ridiculous. I would rather hear someone with an interpreter explain what the issues are, how he plans to address them, and what the problems are. Bill: But the Republicans, and Bushes in particular, have not been very liberal about immigration. It seems to be hypocritical pandering. Tom: Well, what's pandering? A lot of Hispanics want to cut back on immigration, because they're American citizens and they see immigration hurting the country in ways that they don't want to happen. So it's very pro-Spanish. Todd: What way would that be by the way? Bill: This is not a racist society. Todd: This is a classist society. Every minority Spanish-speaking person, every minority, Chinese-speaking person, every minority, black, once they get some money, suddenly they're a Republican. This is not a racist society. This is a classist society. Bill: That's exactly right. Todd: As soon as you get the money -- and your whole philosophy about life seems to change. [ Applause ] Bill: And that's okay. That's okay. Todd: That's okay. The point is -- Bill: Ronald Reagan himself was a Democrat. Todd: The point is, it's good to know that we're a classist society. And we don't hate each other because of the color of our skin, we hate each other because we're poor or rich. [ Applause ] Tom: Well, you know -- Bob: Well, at least that's the condition you could theoretically change. Bill: Exactly. Todd: Theoretically, if you're willing to adopt somebody -- essentially, it makes us all arch materialists. This is the hardest thing for me to swallow in the whole unholy alliance between the Republican, far right, religiously oriented people and the so-called "Economic Republicans." Here they are trying to merge a spiritual agenda with a materialist agenda. And it's just never going to fit, at least not for me. Bill: You're right. Tom: Well, it will fit if you understand it properly in a sense that you get hard work and you get rewarded for the hard work. And the reason people become more Republican as they grow wealthier is because they resent people coming in and taking the product of their hard work and spending it through wasteful government programs. It's natural. Bill: Right. Well, what does that have to do with -- ? Todd: It's natural it you're a materialist. In other words, if your entire focus, in this country, obviously, we measure ourselves by what we can accumulate, by our national wealth, which is far and above anybody else in the world, so we don't have to consider what it's like to live without wealth. So we consider anyone who doesn't have wealth, to be somehow diluted, mistaken. They could easily have it if they would just change their ways. Maybe their value system is different. Maybe they just don't care about money, things, stuff. Bob: Not everybody is poor because they choose to be so philosophically. Most people prefer to change that condition. Bill: Exactly. And that's what he's saying. When they get money, then suddenly, they're Republicans. And that's the way the country should work. Todd: When you're poor you want power. Once you got the money, all you want is personal power. Bob: But here's a question for Tom. Would Republicans be upset if their tax money went not to wasteful programs, but to effective programs? Or is it simply taking a larger percentage of the money, no matter what's done with it, than they want to have taken? Tom: Well, in general -- well, that's probably -- [ Applause ] True to a large extent. But I'm not a spokesperson for the Republican Party. But I'm a spokesperson, in some ways, for what conservatives tend to believe. And conservatives believe government should only be doing things that the private sector really can't. Bill: Exactly. Tom: So you focus on the things in the government you want doing, like protecting us, you know, maybe having the roads work properly, having the cops out in the street, having the military -- Bill: But that doesn't include hounding a President out of office for having sex. Tom: Well, it includes law enforcement, Bill. Bill: Oh, come on. Tom: And that's an important function of government. You may not believe it, but it is. Bill: But what law enforcement are we talking about? He had sex. That is still not illegal. I know that bothers you, but it's still not illegal. [ Laughter ] Tom: You know, that's absolutely ridiculous. Bill: It's not ridiculous. Tom: The fact is, he was a public official having sex with another public official on public time. And then he -- Todd: That's never happened. Tom: -- And then he lied about it. [ Talking at once ] Bob: That better be nipped in the bud before it starts to happen a lot. [ Laughter ] Todd: Talk about a waste of money. Bill: We've got to take a break. We'll be right back. Bill: Well, you know, I do try to avoid the President's sex life. Since we got on it, Tom, I can't help but throw this back at you. Because I know you're part of Judicial Watch. And their headline the other day, "Streisand" -- Barbra Streisand -- "Should come clean in her true relationship with Clinton before she speaks out on impeachment." Tom: Well, she's said some nasty things. She -- Bill: Wait, wait a second. "Come clean in her true relationship with the President." What are you saying? Tom: There are rumors of a relationship -- Bill: Rumors? Tom: -- Between the President of the United States and Barbra Streisand. Daisy: Oh, for God's sake! Tom: Hold on a second. Todd: I want anyone -- I want anyone who makes such a call to post her itinerary. Before they do that. Tom: Hold on a second, hold on a second. Todd: I want to know -- I want to know, whoever made the call, may not be you personally, I want to know the entire schedule of their conquests, back 10, 15 years. Is that good enough? Tom: Let me explain -- Todd: Is that good enough? Before anyone makes an accusation about someone else's personal life, no matter what they say publicly, it's still about their personal life. Tom: She gave -- she gave $10,000 -- Todd: And if you feel that the level of public discourse completely ignores that distinction, well, fine, let's all get it out on the table. When was the last time you got laid, and exactly how? [ Cheers and applause ] Tom: Are you done with the attack? Todd: It's not an attack. Wait a minute, wait a minute. What is your agenda here? You're a paid idealogue, you've got an agenda. You're not gonna talk about anything else. Truth, logic, common sense mean nothing to you. Tom: Barbra Streisand -- Barbra Streisand -- [ Laughter ] Bill: All right, all right. Let him answer. Todd: All right, whatever. Bill: Tom? Tom: Let's everyone take a breath. Barbra streisand gave $10,000 to his legal defense fund, which is an illegal legal defense fund. Bill: So did many people. Tom: And then she came out and said that anyone who wants to impeach the President, that the Republicans were involved in a coup -- she said -- Bill: They are. Tom: They are essentially involved in an armed insurrection against the government. So you look at this, you look at the connection, you look at the fact that maybe she's a witness in some of these cases and she's coming out -- [ All talking at once ] Come clean. Do you have -- are you speaking out of principle, Barbra, or -- ? Daisy: That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Todd: I still want to know when's the last time he got laid. [ Laughter ] [ Cheers and applause ] I still want to know. Tom: They are actually -- Todd: I'm more interested in the last time you got laid than the last time barbra got laid. Tom: I'm not interested in any of that. Todd: If she was here, I might be interested in when she got laid. Bob: You know, first of all, there are actually people in this country who have not had sex with President Clinton, who nonetheless believe -- who nonetheless believe, that this is something of an attempted coup. Bill: A few. Tom: There are people who believe that, based on their reading of the facts. Daisy: That's all right. Todd: Use the word coup. [ All talking at once ] I said you don't have to be involved with President Clinton to believe it. And so, therefore, that is irrelevant. Tom: It is relevant, because she's a witness in some of these cases. If she does have a relationship with him, she's a potential witness. Bill: A witness? To what? Tom: So why -- ? why is -- ? Bill: A witness to what? Tom: Well, it's Kenneth Starr, everyone is a potential witness. Daisy: Why is it that you think she had an affair with him? What's your reasoning behind it? How do you come to the conclusion that because of all of this -- yes, she's a strong supporter of Clinton. How do you come to the conclusion they're having an affair? Tom: It's based on press reports. It's based on press reports. [ Talking at once ] Tom: And she comes out and it's like, methinks she doth protest too much, and who is she protecting, her? [ Audience reacts ] Todd: Take her argument on its point. Take her arguments on its points like you would expect your argument to be taken. In other words, when I ask you about your sex life, well, how is that relevant to the argument you're making here? Bill: But even -- to put that aside -- [ Laughter ] If you're not a lawyer, you know a lot of them and you watched law shows. Certainly -- [ Laughter ] Certainly this is what they would call circumstantial evidence. Is this not circumstantial? Is there anything that we could even closely call proof? Daisy: It's gossip. Tom: It's pretty powerful stuff. [ Applause ] Daisy: It's gossip. Bill: But I mean, in a court of law -- Tom: Let's put it this way -- if she didn't deny -- she responded to -- Todd: Cut your credibility right off at the knees. Tom: And she didn't deny it. Bill: She didn't deny it. Tom: When it comes to rumors -- Bill: So she's a witch. Burn her. [ Laughter ] Tom: I didn't say that. I didn't say that. Bill: All right. We gotta take a commercial. Announcer: Join us Monday in Las Vegas, when our guests will be Jerry Lewis, Dixie Carter, Penn Jillette and Mayor Jan Jones. [ Applause ] Bill: All right, quickly. Lawrence Taylor, one of the greatest football players ever, caught again with crack. He says another coincidence. [ Laughter ] Eligible for the Hall of Fame. What do you think? Yes, no? Bob: He's one of the two greatest linebackers of all time, along with Dick Butkus. I think he should get into the Hall of Fame, but I hope he straightens his life out so they don't have to decide whether they sculpt his bust with or without a septum. [ Laughter ] Bill: Well, it's like Pete Rose, right? I mean, should Pete Rose -- Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher Executive Producers |