Bill Maher Says the Quiet Part Out Loud

*This is an AI generated transcript, and may contain errors*

Mark Harrington (00:00):

So I have a question for you today. Has the Republican Party become a pro-choice Party? Like the Democrat Party is the pro-life position a liability for the Republican Party candidates? This year in 2024, we’re going to be reviewing the comments of Donald J. Trump Care Lake and comedian Bill Maher today on the program.

(00:36):

Well, thanks for joining me here. My name’s Mark Harrington. You’re listening to Activist Radio, and you can pick up the program on all the popular podcasting platforms. If you can leave a five star review and share it with your friends. It’s also on our social media platforms. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and X. So we’re going to be talking about the hot button issue this year’s election, and that is the abortion issue, which is now becoming front and center. One of the top issues, 4 20 24 as we head into November, and this week was full of news coming from three, I guess you could say, personalities. The first is Bill Maher. We’re going to talk about his comments. The second, obviously Donald J. Trump, the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party for President and Kerry Lake, who’s running for Senate in Arizona. And of course Arizona has been ground zero recently because of the Supreme Court there ruling that the 1864 ban on abortion could go in effect.

(01:44):

So that’s been big news across the country. So what we’re going to do, we’re going to play these clips and I’ll comment about each one of them as we go. The first one is Bill Maher. If you don’t know who Bill Maher is, he is a left leaning, I guess more. He’s a liberal. He’s a liberal comedian. He has a program on HBL called Real Time with Bill Maher. And Bill Maher is an unconventional liberal. In fact, he’s more of a traditional liberal, which I don’t know if there are that many of those left to be honest with you. But Bill Maher doesn’t always line up with the modern Democrat Party or the modern left, or what they refer to as progressives these days. Bill Maher’s anti woke, bill Maher is not for the free Palestine garbage Bill. Maher often goes against the grain of Hollywood and others. And he made a comment about abortion this week, and it started really a very interesting conversation in the public sphere. So we want to play this clip again. This is Bill Maher on his program called Real Time with Bill Maher, and he’s talking about abortion. Go ahead and play that clip.

Bill Maher (02:56):

None of you believe it’s murder. That’s why I don’t understand the 15 week thing or the Trump’s plan is let’s leave it to the states. So killing babies is okay in some states. I can respect the absolutist position. I really can. I scold the left on when they say, oh, you know what? They just hate women. People who aren’t, they don’t hate women, they just made that up. Agreed. They think it’s murder and it kind of is. I’m just okay with that. I am. I mean, there’s 8 billion people in the world. I’m sorry. We won’t miss you. That’s my position on that. What,

Mark Harrington (03:38):

Wow. You know, some honesty from Bill Maher saying the quiet thing out loud as a liberal saying abortion is murder. A couple of things here. First of all, he called it the 15 week thing. Interesting way of characterizing the position of many pro-lifers. And that is that there should be a federal ban on abortion in 15 weeks. Bill Maher probably unwittingly is really challenging the pro-life view, at least the mainstream of the pro-life movement that has held for restrictions on abortion and have been opposed to total bans historically until the overturning of Roe versus Wade. And he says that the 15 week thing he doesn’t get, and I don’t either, I understand pragmatically the federal government likely could not ban anything more than 15 weeks or after 15 weeks. He talks about the Trump position being leaving it to the States. Again, that’s untenable as well because you just can’t leave it to the states.

(04:45):

That’s no different than the debates between Abe Lincoln and Steven Douglas. If you recall when Douglas was talking about leaving the slavery issue to the states, that’s a pro-choice position. And Donald Trump is espousing that currently. And he’s saying that because he thinks abortion the pro-life position that is, is a liability for Republican candidates this year. He has taken a political calculus. He’s basically licked his finger and put it in the air and taken the temperature. And that’s what he thinks. He thinks that you cannot be strongly pro-life and win elections post Roe v. Wade post the Dobbs decision. Maybe he’s right there, I don’t know. But Bill Mar does a great job exposing that. And the idea that if it’s murder as Bill Mar believes it is that you could have it legal in one state and not in the other. How that work, we don’t do that with murder, generally speaking, right?

(05:52):

So we understand as pro-life activists, we cannot leave it up to the States only. It may be currently in the States more than it is at a federal level, but it is both. It’s an and both. And there has to be a federal remedy, a federal remedy for abortion, whether that’s going to be a ban on abortion through the Congress sign by the President, whether that’s going to be Supreme Court ruling that basically reiterates the truth that the Constitution of the United States protects the unborn at conception or it’ll be a human life amendment to the Constitution. Either way, any one of those three ways, it is a federal issue. And right now, the GOP is running from the abortion issue. And then he says at the end that pro-lifers think it’s murder, and that’s what he thinks. He’s just okay with it. He says that there are too many people in the world and we’re not going to miss him.

(06:53):

I mean, it’s a scary thought. In fact, if you notice the audience gasped, he was shocked actually by their reaction as we should be like, okay, it’s okay to kill some people to keep the population down. Why the unborn? Why don’t we stop there? Why don’t we just start killing people if that’s a problem? So anyway, bill Maher, I guess really unveiled some of the vulnerabilities of the mainstream, of the pro-life movement and what we have been espousing over the decades about these restrictions. And if it’s murder as he says, then he understands the absolutist position that it should be against the law. So that made big news, lots of comments about it all across social media. And of course this is in response to Donald Trump’s reaction to the Arizona Supreme Court ruling that the 1864 law, Arizona law that bans abortion at conception can go into effect.

(07:55):

And that started a chain reaction of commentary across this political spectrum. And of course, Donald Trump was asked this about this on the tarmac. I don’t know where he was at the moment. Might’ve been in Arizona for all I know. And he was asked, so we’re going to play this clip again. This is Donald Trump reacting. Hopefully you can hear it because you’re going to hear the airplane noise in the back. But he was asked what his opinion of the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling to go ahead and allow the 1864 abortion ban to go into effect. Go ahead and play that clip,

Reporter (08:28):

Mr. President. Did Arizona go too far? Did Arizona go

Donald Trump (08:32):

Too far? Yeah, they did. And that’ll be straightened out. And as you know, it’s all about state’s rights have to be straightened out, and I’m sure that the governor and everybody else are going to bring it back into reason that would be taking care of, I think very quickly.

Mark Harrington (08:45):

Of course, he said very, everything’s very quickly he is going to solve the Ukraine war in 24 hours. Everything’s going to happen quickly. That’s just a Trumpism. But here’s the thing. Donald Trump has calculated that he needs to de-emphasize the abortion issue. He just doesn’t believe that you can be strongly pro-life and win the White House. Now, he might be right on that. Honestly, I for one, don’t agree with him, especially if you can espouse the pro-life position properly. Donald Trump is not a pro-life activist. He’s not an ideologue almost on anything. He’s a pragmatist, he’s a politician. He wants to get elected, and he has just calculated that this was a bad position for pro-lifers to take who want to win elective office in 2024 to be strongly. So he has said basically, it’s a state’s rights issue, foregoing the debate over a national federal ban on abortion, even at 15 weeks. He hasn’t even agreed to that. So he’s just saying, I want this to de-emphasized as an issue for Republicans, especially me when I’m running for president.

(10:05):

But be honest, as I said before, this is ostensibly a pro-choice position to leave it up to the states. So basically, if the state’s rule or they enact legislation saying that abortion should be legal up to birth or viability or 15, whatever it is, then that’s okay with him. Well, that’s letting the people choose. That’s a pro-choice position. It shouldn’t be up to the states and it shouldn’t be up to the people. This is something that is foundational, that our constitution protects the unborn as persons as it’s understood in the 14th Amendment, and we need our Supreme Court to rule that way, or we need a human life amendment to basically put that into our constitution. So unfortunately, the GOP is taking its lead from former President Trump, and so they’re seeing him in his position and they’re basically starting to parrot it. We don’t have to go any further than Carrie Lake who’s running for US Senate in Arizona that battleground state who has been historically very pro-life.

(11:19):

And up until this point, she supported the 1864 law and said that she was behind it until Donald Trump mentioned it and said that he thought that it should be fixed and it’ll be done very quickly. So Donald Trump has given cover for Republican candidates this year to be pro-choice for the most part, really. I mean because there is really no discernible position, a difference between Donald Trump’s position and many others who are pro-choice. Be honest with you, it’s just not. Now, the difference is if Donald Trump gets into office, what will he do? He would do what he could to enact, or at least when it comes to executive orders, he would do pro-life things that’s for certain he would likely appoint or nominate pro-life, juris to the US Supreme Court executive orders would be put into effect to protect life. We know this, but using the bully pulpit is not being helpful right now, and he is providing cover for candidates around the country, including Carrie Lake, who created this video and it was put on X. And I want to play this clip. This is Carrie Lake talking about her position on abortion. Now that Donald Trump has basically said, we need to leave it up to the state. So if you would, Mr. Producer, go ahead and play this clip,

Kari Lake (12:47):

This total ban on abortion that the Arizona Supreme Court just ruled on is out of line with where people of this state are. The issue out of line is less about banning abortion and more about saving babies. I agree with President Trump. This is such a personal and private issue. I chose life.

Mark Harrington (13:05):

Gosh, stop there. Listen, this is nauseating. This is a total flip flop on Kerry Lake’s part. She says it’s out of line. So what if it’s out of line? If you’re a pro-life Act, if you’re a pro-life politician, it doesn’t matter what the people think. You should be pro-life, whether it’s going in your position or out or not with the public because it’s out of line. Meaning an 1864 law that bans abortion isn’t what the people want. Well, if it’s murder, who cares, right? And so Ka Lake is throwing the babies under the bus, unfortunately, taking the cue from Donald Trump. Go ahead and continue on with this clip.

Kari Lake (13:47):

I want to make sure that every woman who finds herself pregnant has more choices so that she can make that choice that I made.

Mark Harrington (13:56):

There’s nothing, obviously, we’re in support of that. We want women to have more choices, but there should not be a choice to kill your baby. We should make it easy for women not to abort. If that means government programs, I guess so be it. But we should be valuing family and valuing children as a culture. You don’t do that by allowing abortion. You don’t do that by loosening the restrictions on abortion. That’s where she goes wrong here. She starts sounding like a pro-choice politician. And I’ll make this case the Republican Party is quickly becoming another pro-choice party. There is really no discernible difference, honestly. And hopefully this will be reversed. I don’t know. People reading the polls see it one way and they say that it’s a liability for politicians to take this position to be pro-life. And I think we’re paying for our mistakes as a movement.

(15:04):

Whereas we have basically said to politicians in the past, it’s enough for you to vote pro-life. That’s enough. But we’ve failed in training them to be able to make the case for life. So Donald Trump doesn’t even go there. He just equivocates to the pro-choice position. And so now that elections matter and the pro-life positions according to these people’s calculation is a loser. They’re unwilling to make the case where before they just had to vote pro-life and we would give them our support. Well, those days are over. Those days are over. And Trump says that he thinks it will be settled very quickly. I don’t know what’s going to happen in Arizona as far as this law goes. I would hate to see it get watered down with exceptions and maybe even reversed in that sense that it goes to a 15 week or a six week or a heartbeat law. I hate to see that. But if you’re reading the tea leaves like these politicians are, I could understand why would they do it? Because Arizona’s facing a ballot initiative this year that would legalize abortion up to the very moment of birth. And you can bet that the pro-abortion movement is salivating over the notion of creating ads about this 1864 law and saying that the GOP that is the Republican party is out of step with Americans. So that’s the update on some of the hot takes as far as the abortion issue in the 2024 election.

(16:49):

Okay, friends, we got big news breaking news, and that is our ultrasound unit, our mobile unit, what I like to call the Mobile Rescue Unit or Border States Rescue Unit has now been officially deployed to southwest Ohio. That is the border of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Kentucky and Indiana. This is a long time coming. We’ve been working on this project for almost two years. We raised the money, we outfitted the van. Now we found our partners in Cincinnati, that is Cincinnati right to live and Laura Streetman and Pregnancy Center West to be able to deploy this mobile rescue unit at the Planned Parenthood down there. And here’s why it’s important, because Ohio, as you all know, in November, 2023, voted on issue one to basically legalize abortion up to the very moment of birth, which made Ohio a destination state for states that had banned or severely restricted abortion.

(17:50):

And we are on the border of Indiana and Kentucky, which have, and for that matter, West Virginia who have done that. And so women parents who are considering abortion now cross the borders into Ohio to have their babies killed. And there’s been a huge uptick in the numbers of abortions at these abortion centers. And that’s why we are positioning our ultrasound unit there in southwest Ohio. And hopefully we may be able to deploy it in other parts of the state. And so this is big news again, that our ultrasound unit is now in place and will undoubtedly save lives. And so friends, your call to action today is twofold. Pray for our team down there, Cincinnati, right to life, pregnancy center west, the ultrasound technician, the sonographer, and the sidewalk advocates who are in front of the Planned Parenthood, that we could be as effective as possible in saving lives.

(18:50):

Because friends, it is about the body count, isn’t it? And we need to save as many lives as we can, whether abortion is legal or not in the state of Ohio or anywhere else. If we can drive down those abortion numbers, that’s a win. That’s a win. So that’s number one. Number two, you can help us financially by going to created equal.org/donate, and you can support the mobile ultrasound just by clicking on that link there and give electronically. We can use your support. We need to pay for the insurance, the fuel, the maintenance. We’re partnering with our team down there to employ an ultrasonographer. And so we need your help financially. Again, go to created equal.org/donate to help out with our mobile ultrasound unit, our Border States Rescue Unit there in southwest Ohio. So thanks for tuning in. We’ll see you next time. God bless you. God bless America, and remember America to bless God.

Outro (19:49):

You’ve been listening to Mark Harrington, your radio activist. For more information on how to make a difference for the cause of life, liberty and justice, go to created equal.org.org. To follow mark, go to Mark Harrington show.com. Be sure to tune in next time for your marching orders in the culture war.