>> While Bill Maher says he's in favor of publicly financed elections, he had some pretty
harsh words for Democrats who have rejected corporate PAC money or money from some of
these big dollar donors.
Take a look.
>> Finally, new rule, Democratic candidates have to stop telling me who they will not
take money from.
Money from bad people.
I don't care if they're bad, I just wanna know if their money is good.
Bernie Sanders does the best among Democrats, raising 46 million in February, but in the
same period, the Republicans raised 86 million.
Some of it from Americans.
Meanwhile, Democrats are competing to see not who can attract the most donors, but to
see who can refuse the most.
>> Because they're pure, pure losers.
>> Bernie Sanders brags that he accepts no money from corporate PACs, super PACs, fossil
fuels, insurance, drug companies, no siree.
If you want to give Sanders money, you had better be able to prove you don't have any.
>> By the way, that's just one of three videos that infuriates me.
I'm sure they infuriate a lot of audience members, but, no, I mean, it's incredible
how Bill Maher is making corruption look good.
Like you see, you know what I'm saying?
>> Of course I do.
Look, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
>> And so why?
He's like, well, I don't care about them, I just want their money.
Okay, but how about the rest of the equation?
>> Right, exactly.
>> Okay, why are they giving the money?
Like Bill, are you really that stupid that you think yeah, the Koch brothers and Pfizer
and Exxon Mobil, they give you money because they just mean well.
>> It's just charity.
>> And they want you to win instead of Donald Trump and then no strings attached.
No, there are massive strings attached.
There are ropes attached.
There are levies attached, there's chains attached, there's everything attached.
So the minute when you take the money, hey, look what happened to Pete Buttigieg.
You wanted him to take money, he took money.
In the beginning of the campaign he was for Medicare For All, and by the end, he was the
one fighting against Medicare For All the hardest, why?
He took insurance company money and drug company money.
>> Exactly.
>> What's wrong with the money?
I say, okay, Bill, according to your logic, I'll use an analogy, Bill Moyer's often uses.
A batter's going up to the plate, he hands the umpire $10,000, and then the umpire goes,
it's money, why would I turn down money?
Of course, I'll take his money.
And then we're supposed to trust the umpire to call balls and strikes fairly?
No one would do that.
But with politicians, you're like, no, I bet the millions of dollars they take doesn't
affect them at all.
They'd just drown in that kind of money.
That's so stupid, unless you don't mind the corruption, and you think that's great, I
want them to be corrupt.
>> Also, I mean, look, since Maher has strong feelings about losers, he refers to politicians
who reject corporate PAC money, or this type of corruption, as losers.
Let's talk about a real loser, and that's Hillary Clinton, who lost in the last election,
right, general election.
So if you actually look at the amount of money she raised versus the amount of money that
Trump raised, she raised about 50% more than he did, right?
>> Yeah.
>> Nearly, like double what he did.
>> Well, no, 100% more- >> That's right.
>> That's right- >> Yes-
>> So he- >> 100% more than he did and she lost.
So raising the most amount does not necessarily mean you're gonna win in the general election.
And look, these politicians, Bernie Sanders specifically, are giving voters what they
want.
They want to reject corruption, right?
I mean, Maher's just trying to make it sexy again.
And it's not sexy, it's not fun when voters get put on the back burner on every important
issue while the donors are the ones who always get what they want.
>> But remember, Bill Maher is a donor.
And so, look, I don't know that he wants anything in return.
And he might, let's give him the benefit of the doubt, he might be just a simpleton who
thinks, well, I gave money to Hillary Clinton.
And not because I wanted a cabinet position, I just didn't want Donald Trump to win.
And I would believe him on that.
Could he get a little bit more access?
Yeah, but I don't think he cares about that at this point in his career.
I think he genuinely wanted Trump to lose, but he's a real person.
Bill, corporations, I know this might shock you, are not human beings.
So when a corporation gives a politician money, they're not allowed to do it because, I feel
patriotic and I think Trump's been wrong.
No, they do it, hey, Hillary Clinton, take this money and then later I will demand things
of you and you will do exactly as I tell you.
And if you don't think that's what happens, you're nuts and you know nothing about politics.
By the way, get a load of that irony, he's like, Bernie Sanders just takes it from losers,
real people.
But they don't even have any money.
Except you just told us that he raised the most among the Democrats.
Hm, so if it turns out taking it from real people raises you the most amount of money,
why would you be against that?
>> His disdain for the average voter is so transparent.
There's more, so let's take a look.
>> This isn't purity, it's vanity.
It's unilateral disarmament.
It's bringing a hug to a gunfight.
>> In 2008, nobody took more money from Wall Street than Obama.
And then he got elected and passed the biggest Wall Street reform in generations.
>> He made Elizabeth Warren's plan, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a reality.
This is how you play the game.
Call him impure, a corporatist, a moderate, fact is, he did more to reign in Wall Street
than all the peacocking comment board socialists combined.
>> Cenk, what do you think, did he do more to rein in Wall Street than all these peacocking
socialists?
>> Okay, so look, I mean, I don't know, I actually think Bill Maher's ignorant.
And I'm being kind to him because if he knew the facts, there's those things he said were
so brazenly untrue, that he'd be too malicious for me to countenance.
I just think he knows nothing about politics.
He's, at this point, incredibly rich.
He does a show once a week he barely prepares for.
So do you know, Bill, that an executive at Citigroup gave Barack Obama a list of the
people that would be in his cabinet, and he picked everyone on that list but one person.
So Cititgroup picked Obama's cabinet for him.
So when you say he took the most amount of money from Wall Street and didn't do anything
for them, what are you talking about?
He picked his entire cabinet based on what a banker said.
Then he bailed them out, and he said, well I'm not gonna prosecute any of the bankers.
Because they're too big to jail, that's what Holders said, his attorney general.
Too big to jail.
They're too rich, too powerful to put in jail, jail is just for the little people.
Obama said, we don't look backward, we look forward.
Under that principle, no one would ever go to jail.
The crime you did, the murder you did was in the back, it was in the past.
Great, we don't look backward.
We only look forward, but that's only for bankers who financed them.
That so called historic finance reform he passed was so weak that Paul Volcker, who
is known to be very conservative, took his name off of a portion of that bill, cuz he
said it's so weak, it's meaningless.
>> Right, and by the way- >> And I have more.
>> I have to give you some specifics on that.
Because one of the things that gets cited from that Wall Street reform, is that these
big banks can no longer do the predatory lending that they were doing previously, right?
And that was part of what led to the housing collapse, right?
But it was such weak reform that now you have non-bank lenders, which weren't at all regulated,
giving out subprime mortgages to individuals who literally just went bankrupt.
Who have terrible credit scores.
Beginning in 2016, non-bank lenders issued more home mortgages than the big banks, okay?
So the bubble is inflating again, it's inflated, right?
You have Americans with more household debt today than they did at the height of the economic
collapse.
I mean, you think that people are in a good economic situation right now?
And Wall Street is still playing its same dirty games.
>> So last time they bet derivatives on housing.
This time they're putting the derivatives onto loans that companies have, and that is
actually part of the reason why the stock market plummeted today.
Because oil prices going down is causing the oil companies not to be able to pay back the
loans they have to the banks cuz they're constantly borrowing from the banks.
And those banks have bet derivatives on top.
So the collapse that's happening today is because that financial reform that Obama administration
did was historically weak.
It was meant to cover it up like, hey, we did reform, everybody go back to normal.
Keep gambling, keep making all your money, keep taking home all the bonuses.
>> Right.
>> But Bill Maher is too lazy to do research, so he doesn't know any of this.
He just goes out like an ignoramus, like, Obama really busted up the big banks.
All right, last part of it, he said Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Obama made that
a reality.
Well, okay, do you know any of the history of that?
Elizabeth Warren was, now, a lot of folks get mad at me for backing Elizabeth Warren
for so long in this very contentious primary, why?
Because Elizabeth Warren had no power at all.
She wanted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
You know who fought her tooth and nail?
Barack Obama and his entire administration, especially Tim Geithner, his Treasury Secretary.
No, no, no we do not want consumers protected.
Geithner, also a product of Wall Street, the Treasury Secretary for Obama.
But Warren was so skillful she outmaneuvered them and got them to put it into place anyway.
But Obama's team was so spiteful towards her, they said, well, you're not gonna get to run
it.
Anyone but you will run it because you made us set it up.
Does Bill Maher know any of that?
Probably not.
He's like, HBO pays me a giant salary for being smug.
So, facts are optional.
>> And then, finally, here's his argument in a nutshell.
>> If Trump can take money from criminals and foreign governments, you can take it from
Aetna.
>> And here's a little secret about economics, when you take money from bad people, it's
money that they, the bad people, don't have.
>> You see?
>> It's not a donation at all, it's a fine.
>> Yeah, no, no one sees it as a fine.
Everyone sees it as a bribe because that's exactly what it is, it's a bribe.
He can't be that ignorant, he knows, he knows.
>> Yeah, at that point I think he went from ignorant to just malicious.
Because really then under that principle, Al Capone decided to give me $1 million not
to prosecute him.
I just took $1 million from Al Capone.
The world's better.
How about the other part of the equation where you decided not to prosecute him?
Well, I mean, I took a million dollars from Al Capone, I'm a good guy.
I'm a good guy.
I took a million dollars from a bad guy.
How about El Chapo?
Should we take a couple hundred million dollars from him not to prosecute him?
Hey, we took a couple hundred million dollars away from the drug cartel.
Now he's free to go, but I didn't tell you that part of the equation.
And by the way, while I'm doing all this, I have the world's smuggest look on my face.
Did you know that they don't have the money?
I'm so clever.
Okay, yeah, Bill, all right.
So you can tell, actually, even his audience is reluctant to clap.
They're like, yeah I guess, but this is- >> Yeah, corruption, whoo.
>> As long as it makes you happy, Bill, okay.
>> Wait, weren't you on the left, what happened?
>> So and here, last thing they say, now remember Hillary Clinton was so smart to take all that
money, and as Ana showed you, raised almost twice as much as Donald Trump.
And that's why she's president.
Right, she's not president.
Right, but I'm the bad guy for pointing out facts.
Meanwhile, Bill Maher is like, the right strategy is to take money like Hillary Clinton did.
That's
so smart.
Wait, what?