'This Week' Transcript 7-19-26: Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) & 'Real Time' Host Bill Maher
This is a rush transcript of "This Week" airing Sunday, July 19.
A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday, July 19, 2026 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form, may be updated and may contain minor transcription errors. For previous show transcripts, visit the "This Week" transcript archive.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JONATHAN KARL, ABC “THIS WEEK” CO-ANCHOR: Breaking news overnight. The war in Iran takes a dark turn, with the first U.S. combat deaths in four months. “THIS WEEK” starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: Major escalation. Stunning video circulating online appears to show the strikes that killed two American service members in Jordan, with another still missing. And as the conflict escalates in the Middle East, concern about rising energy prices here at home. When will it end? How will Trump retaliate? His energy secretary joins us live.
The 2020 election obsession.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If there can be no trust, there can be no greatness.
KARL: Even some Republicans are saying it’s time for Trump to move on.
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R) TEXAS: We have 109 days until the midterm elections, and I don’t understand talking about what happened six years ago.
SEN. BILL CASSIDY, (R) LOUISIANA: We should be talking about what matters to the people around the kitchen table.
KARL: We’ll talk to Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
And a comedy star wins a big honor.
It seems like it’s like the Nobel Prize for comedy.
BILL MAHER, COMEDIAN & 2026 MARK TWAIN PRIZE RECIPIENT: There’s not many for this particular brand of show business. So, I was very grateful.
KARL: We’ll go inside Bill Maher’s podcast studio to talk to him about his relationship with President Trump and the state of American politics.
Could you see yourself voting for J.D. Vance?
MAHER: Yes. If this is the Democratic side, yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, it’s "This Week." Here now, Jonathan Karl.
KARL: Good morning. Welcome to this week.
We want to get right to that sad news out of the Middle East. The first American combat deaths since the opening days of the war more than four months ago. Two U.S. service members were killed at a base in Jordan. Another one is missing. And several more were injured. Overnight, U.S. forces responded with another round of airstrikes on Iran.
So, let’s get right to senior White House correspondent Rachel Scott.
Rachel, what are you learning this morning?
RACHEL SCOTT, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jon. Well, this is the first time that U.S. soldiers have been killed in this conflict since that agreement between the U.S. and Iran fell apart weeks ago. We're learning this morning that those two U.S. service members were killed after Iran bombarded a military base in Jordan, where U.S. forces had been stationed. And as you mentioned, one remains missing at this hour.
This video circulating from the base on the day of that attack. Four other service members were injured and taken to hospitals in Jordan. They have since been discharged. So far, 16 American troops have died in this war with Iran, 427 U.S. troops have been wounded so far.
The president, just weeks ago, was optimistic about an end to the war. But the U.S. struck Iran once again overnight. And he said just a few days ago, Iran wanted to make a deal. But it is clear, these diplomatic talks have severely stalled. And now 140 days into this war, there’s no end in sight.
KARL: The video of that attack is alarming. How is the president reacting?
SCOTT: Well, President Trump called the deaths a shame. He called it very sad. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the loss of U.S. soldiers only stiffens our resolve.
But the question now for the president is, how much does this change the strategy ahead, especially after he promised this conflict would be brief? He campaigned on keeping America out of foreign wars. But does this lead now to a much wider conflict, Jon?
KARL: All right, our thanks to Rachel.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright joins us now.
Secretary Wright, thank you for being here.
We saw U.S. forces struck Iran for the eighth night in a row last night. Is the president planning any further retaliation for the killing of those two U.S. service members?
CHRIS WRIGHT, ENERGY SECRETARY: Yes, look, the president’s mission is essential for peace in the Middle East and peace in the world. And that is to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons and to degrade their ability to terrorize their neighbors and the world and global commerce. So, yes, this mission will go on until the mission is done.
KARL: But I’m asking you, does he plan retaliation for the killing of those U.S. service members?
WRIGHT: It’s tragic to lose American lives, but this is a mission that will save countless lives going forward. His focus is on degrading the Iranian ability to terrorize the world, to hold world commerce hostage, as they are doing right now, and to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That is unchanged.
KARL: You were on this show back in March. And I want to play a -- something of what you said about how long this war would last.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WRIGHT (March 15, 2026): I think that this conflict will certainly come to the end in the next few weeks. Could be sooner than that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: So, you said it would certainly come to an end within a few weeks. We are now nearly five months into this war. How does it end? When does it end?
WRIGHT: Well, the plan -- we needed four to six weeks for military actions. They went for five and a half weeks. We did a pause to try to get an agreement with the Iranian people to allow oil to flow without them attacking it. They’ve proven unwilling to do that. And we’ve pivoted.
Now what we’re doing is assuring that -- that oil and gas and other products can flow through the Strait of Hormuz, with or without Iranian cooperation. And we’ve continued to degrade their offensive military capabilities. The president is always looking for the diplomatic off ramp. President Trump wants to end it with a peaceful agreement with Iran, but it takes two parties to do that. If they’re -- if they’re -- if they’re ready to do that, that’s the way it will end. If not, we will continue to assure flow of traffic through the Strait without Iran’s cooperation.
KARL: But we’re not seeing flow now, right? I mean, hasn’t flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz effectively stopped over the past few days?
WRIGHT: Oh, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I get the data on that every day. The seven-day trailing average right now is just under seven million barrels a day flowing through the waterway and just under seven million barrels a day additional flow through the bypass pipelines. So, we’re at a little under 14 million barrels a day from the Arabian Gulf region. That’s two-thirds of pre-conflict traffic, dramatically up from where we were back in March when I was last on your show.
KARL: I mean --
WRIGHT: Not 100 percent yet, but two-thirds of flow right now.
KARL: And that’s over the past few days. When’s that average? We saw the numbers from Thursday were simply eight ships going through the Strait of Hormuz. That’s far below.
WRIGHT: So, almost all the public -- almost all the public data I’ve seen is incorrect. There’s flow through two routes through the Strait of Hormuz. There’s up near the Iranian islands that’s flow complicit with Iran, but that’s not nothing. And then there’s flow through the southern route that’s protected by American infrastructure. And we count the volume of oil that goes through. The ship numbers are down more dramatically. But, of course, we’re flowing larger tankers now to keep the world markets as well supplied as we can.
Gasoline prices today are more than one dollar a gallon cheaper than they were four years ago under the Biden administration. And we’ll do everything we can to drive them further down in the weeks and months ahead.
KARL: And we’ve seen over the -- over the past week the price of oil go up, the price of gas go up. The Iranian IRGC is now saying that if the U.S. strikes continue, they will go to what they are calling full scale assault and annihilation and try to smash infrastructure, specifically energy infrastructure, in the region. What are they capable of doing, and what are the implications for the price of oil and the price of gas?
WRIGHT: Well, clearly, as we’ve seen, decades of focusing their entire economy on armament has made a very prickly Iran. They’ve continued to attack their neighbors, shamelessly civilian targets, at least as much as military targets. We don’t have any reason to believe they will stop that, but we are continuing to shrink their ability to execute those attacks. And we are doing this in coordination and in partnership with all their neighbor countries that they are assaulting.
KARL: OK. Mr. Secretary, while I’ve got you here, a different topic. The president made it clear this week that he views election security as a top domestic priority, yet we saw his budget has cut CISA, the cybersecurity agency, by $700 million. If he’s so concerned about possible foreign interference in our elections, why does his budget cut the agency that would be charged with preventing that?
WRIGHT: Well, look, there’s many cybersecurity agencies across the government. We meet regularly on that topic, and our efforts have done nothing but ramp up. Sure, they’ve gotten more sophisticated and a different focus of them, but I wouldn’t look at the inputs, the money spent. I’d look at the outputs, the quality of United States cybersecurity. That’s never been higher than where it is right now under President Trump.
KARL: Never been higher. And you’re including election security in that?
WRIGHT: Across the board, we are looking at cybersecurity from threats from adversaries. I've not been involved in the election efforts, so I can't comment on them. But obviously, having trust in American systems of government and keeping our nation secure is top priority for the Trump administration.
KARL: And one last question before you go, really simple one. Did Joe Biden win the 2020 presidential election?
WRIGHT: He was president for four years. Clearly so.
KARL: He clearly won the election.
WRIGHT: Look, I'm not an election evaluator, but it sure seems to me like he did.
KARL: Okay. Secretary Wright, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
WRIGHT: Thank you.
KARL: As the war with Iran escalated this week, President Trump chose to address the nation Thursday night in primetime on an entirely different subject. He issued an alarming warning about what he called the, quote, “shocking” vulnerabilities in our election systems.
He zeroed in, in particular, on the one presidential election that he lost, 2020, and he declassified a trove of intelligence documents he claimed proved that foreign powers, particularly China, had meddled in that election.
Much has already been said by intelligence experts and by prominent figures in both parties about how the president made unfounded and reckless allegations without evidence, and about how the documents he released revealed little new information about election vulnerabilities.
So let me take a moment instead to point out some of what those documents actually did reveal. For one, even as President Trump tried to alarm the country about foreign interference and the way we count our votes, the documents released showed very nearly the opposite. One of them, an intelligence assessment issued while he was president in January of 2020, says America's election system, quote, “would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to alter the election outcome”.
And while he warned again and again about China, the documents that he himself declassified showed that the only country actually observed attempting to target, access, or manipulate election-related systems was Russia, a country he referred to only in passing in his roughly 25-minute speech.
As for China, he told us it had pulled off, in his words, the largest compromise of election data in history, the illicit acquisition of 220 million American voter files, which he called an unprecedented election security nightmare.
But buried in the very documents that President Trump released is the fact that the information was, quote, “publicly available for download from commercial websites”. It doesn't need to be hacked or stolen. It's data that can be legally bought, the kind of -- the kind that political campaigns purchase all the time.
And the Chinese obtained that data in 2022, after the election, the president claims, was rigged.
But the single most significant thing to me in all of these documents that the president declassified Thursday night was this: an intelligence assessment warning that one of the most damaging things that a foreign power could do is not to hack a voting machine, but to convince Americans that they had done that.
As one of the documents Trump declassified warned, quote, “Adversaries could make wholly fabricated claims that they have compromised all U.S. voting machines. And those claims could introduce public doubts about the validity of the election and undercut public confidence in the election.”
Think about that. The intelligence community, in the very documents that Trump himself declassified, assessed that one of the most damaging things a foreign adversary could do would be to falsely convince the American people that their elections had been rigged.
And here's the irony. The person who has attempted to do exactly that over and over again for nearly six years, and most dramatically on Thursday night, is Donald Trump, who, against the very evidence that he himself presented, tried to tell millions of Americans that foreign powers had corrupted an election, specifically the one election he lost.
And I'm joined now by Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
So I want to get to all of that with you, but first, the situation in Iran. We've seen two American service members killed by Iranian missile, presumably.
What should the president do to respond to that?
SEN. MARK WARNER, (D) VIRGINIA & INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE VICE CHAIR: Well, first of all, I join with all Americans in condolences to these soldiers. Remember, as we think about this five-month war, this is a war of choice. As a member of the Gang of Eight, there was no imminent threat from Iran against America. So, Donald Trump chose to go to war. It took him two weeks to lay out what he thought his goals were going to be.
Let’s go through those. Regime change. How we doing there? We got a worse crowd than before. Getting the enriched uranium. Well, it’s still there. As a matter of fact, it would take a minimum of 15,000 troops on the ground for a week to try to take these canisters, which are quite volatile, out of the -- their bunkers. Getting rid of Iran’s missile and drone capability. Obviously, we’ve not been successful there. And the thing, Jon, that makes me completely crazy is, Iran has both missiles, and they also have lots and lots of $50,000 drones that are very effective.
We are using missiles that cost $2.5 million to shoot down those drone -- those drones. President Zelenskyy, the only country that has devised a technique of counter Iranian drones at $5,000. They’ve done it so effectively. They offered us all of that technology for free. And the Trump White House basically said to the Ukrainians, thanks, but no thanks. So, we are behind on that as well.
And then finally, on the Strait of Hormuz, I mean, I don’t -- I don’t know what gas station the secretary’s going to, but before the war, average price of gasoline in Virginia was $2.81. It is now back to $4. Diesel’s at $5. You know, I see no path in the short term how the Strait is going to be settled. This war of choice has been a disaster. It has been a disaster militarily. It has been a disaster in terms of how we’re viewed around the world. It has been a disaster to our friends and allies who have questioned whether we will keep our promises. I’m anxious if it takes a classic Donald Trump move, declare victory tomorrow and be done. But the continuation of this war at this pace will be a continuing disaster.
KARL: But you have a situation where the Iranians are firing missiles at ships going through the Strait. They’re attacking U.S. bases in the region. I mean, the United States could walk away. The president could declare victory and leave. But the Iranian -- how do you stop what the Iranians are doing?
WARNER: Well, we --
KARL: I mean, how do you end it?
WARNER: In a normal process, you would have had diplomacy negotiated by diplomats who actually knew what they were doing. There was a reason it took years with people with great expertise to negotiate what now suddenly looks pretty good, what was called the JCPOA, that allowed us to have international versions --
KARL: The Obama nuclear deal, right?
WARNER: That was under Obama. Years to get there. The Iranians, give them credit, they know about enriched uranium. They know about nuclear. They have -- send great negotiators. But we’re not going to -- I do not believe anyone thinks that we’re going to bomb Iran into submission. And I sure as heck do not believe that short of troops on the ground, that there’s any meaningful path to get out that enrichment uranium.
KARL: Do you -- do you agree with your colleague, Senator Ed Markey, who is calling for cutting off all funding to the war? Would that be a mistake? Because then we have troops in the region --
WARNER: We have troops in the region. I would say this, the Defense Department will ask for additional funds. And we are running down some of our supplies. My response to that is, there is $89 billion of money that DOD is sitting on that has not been allocated to specific programs. There are shortages in the region. DOD, use that money first to replenish our supplies. And if the president wants to continue this war, come to Congress, make his case to the American people and to Congress rather than continuing what I think now is, frankly, an illegal action, because he never went through that process.
KARL: Let me turn to the election -- comments the president made about the election security. First of all, you’re on -- you’re on the -- you’re the vice chair of the Intel Committee. Was there anything new in what he released?
WARNER: I’ve been chair or vice chair for the last decade. There’s probably no issue I’ve been more obsessed about going all the way back to the Russia campaign. Russia was very good at influencing our elections. They have been far and away the most prominent player, usually on behalf of Trump. Iran has been very active as well, usually against Trump. North Korea has been active. China’s got the capabilities, but they’ve been more -- less about which candidate and more like, can we just make Americans lose confidence?
KARL: And the 220 million voter files, is there any concern there? I mean, I --
WARNER: Well, listen, I'm much more concerned about the fact that the Chinese hacked into the OPM data a number of years back and got personal information about anybody working on the federal government.
KARL: On government employees. Yes.
WARNER: I'm more concerned about the fact that they tapped into many insurance companies and have got personal information about all of us. They have incredible data capabilities. And again, the secretary, respectfully, our cybersecurity activity is CISA. It has worked with the private sector. He's cut it like mad. We have another part of election security, and remarkably, Jon, a lot of these election security apparatus was set up, done under President Trump's first term. They did a good job.
KARL: Yes.
WARNER: There was something called the Elections Assistance Commission. It is -- nobody knows about it, but it works with local registrars, state registrars, making sure we vet voting machines. Recently, Trump fired all the senior leadership, made the Republican quit, fired the Democrats. You know, this guy is not looking for a secure election because if we have a free and fair election, he and his allies are going to get beat historically this fall.
KARL: Now, I understand that you and I think every other Democrat opposed this so-called SAVE America Act. And there's a lot of reasons that you've put forward. But let me ask you very narrowly on the issue of photo I.D., requiring photo I.D. to register to vote, to vote. Is this something that Democrats should get behind?
WARNER: We have --
KARL: I mean, 80 some percent of Americans, 71 percent of Democrats say they favor this.
WARNER: You know what? In Virginia, we have voter I.D. and photo I.D. I got to show my --
KARL: That's actually not the case. I mean, I'm a Virginia voter. You don't need to show a photo I.D. in Virginia. There are wide range of things you can show for I.D., and if you don't show one of those, you can sign an affidavit saying, attesting --
WARNER: You can sign an affidavit. And those become --
KARL: But it's not required.
WARNER: Those become ballots that if you want to contest later can be contested. But you are have -- you do have a variety of documents, but we have voter I.D. of one form or another.
(CROSSTALK)
KARL: Should that be a national standard, that you have to show an I.D.?
WARNER: Are you -- the irony here would be the case. If you can show any photo that has government stamped, it would be fine. Certain states will say, we're going to let you show your NRA gun license, but you can't show your student I.D.. If you're going to have a set of I.D.s, let's have it across the board as long as it comes from some official point. But this is not about voter I.D..
The SAVE Act is about voter disenfranchisement. The SAVE Act is going to take anybody that changed their name when they got married, they don't get to vote unless they can come back and find the person --
KARL: And if you don't have an I.D., if you don't have your passport. All right.
WARNER: And Jon -- but, Jon, just stay on this for a minute.
KARL: Yes.
WARNER: Lisa Murkowski, a host of Republicans don't want the SAVE Act because they know it's anti-voter.
KARL: All right.
WARNER: But the folks who have mail-in voting, Utah is as Republican a state as anyone. They've done mail-in voting for decades. Donald Trump wants to decrease voter participation.
KARL: So --
WARNER: And undermine confidence in our system.
KARL: We're out of time. Before you go, though, are you going to vote for Jay Clayton to be the director of National Intelligence?
WARNER: I've known Jay for a long time. I like him, but after his performance before my committee, his inability to answer the question about who won the 2020 election or commenting on Gabbard, the previous DNI's effort to interfere in the Fulton County elections, I am not going to vote for him. If we confirm --
KARL: Now, if he doesn't get confirmed, Bill Pulte remains the head of --
(CROSSTALK)
WARNER: And that is a rock and a hard place.
KARL: All right.
WARNER: But I think Jay Clayton will get confirmed. And God willing, I hope the guy that becomes DNI is the guy that I've known and liked and worked with.
KARL: All right, Mark Warner, thank you very much for being here.
Up next, President Trump's teleprompter operator was caught allegedly cashing in on his speeches back in March, but he wasn't taken off the job until ABC News broke the story this week. More on that when we get back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KARL: Now to the latest on alleged conflicts of interest in the Trump White House. As the President's Truth Social platform is looking to sell early access to his social media posts, and his teleprompter operator allegedly cashes in on his inside knowledge of the president's speeches.
Here's our chief investigative correspondent, Aaron Katersky.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AARON KATERSKY, ABC NEWS’ CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A president's words can move markets, and the president is now moving to monetize his words. His financial disclosure released earlier this month showed President Trump, America's dealmaker-in-chief, has already made more than $2 billion since returning to office.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know why I'm profiting because the stock market's going up. Everybody's profiting.
KATERSKY (voice-over): This week, he found a path to another potential White House windfall. His social media company said it will begin selling instant access to posts from top accounts on Truth Social, where Trump regularly announces policy moves, military actions, personnel choices, and other consequential decisions.
SEN. ADAM SCHIFF, (D) CALIFORNIA: This is the president saying, give me a cut, and I'll give you the opportunity to make money off my statements, just as I make money off my own statements.
KATERSKY (voice-over): The president's financial advisors have traded stock on his behalf, investing in companies whose share prices are impacted by those social media posts.
TRUMP: I don't get involved in my personal. We have funds that run my money.
KATERSKY (voice-over): During his first year back in the White House, Trump's annual financial report showed his money managers made more than 21,000 securities trades, growing his accounts to more than $850 million, with stakes in 1,600 companies, some of them directly involved in deals tied to his administration.
In this post, he praised Elon Musk and reassured the public that Musk's companies would continue getting large-scale subsidies from the government. At the time, no one knew his investment advisors, one day prior, purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Tesla stock.
And when Trump posted about the very big and exciting news that computer chipmaker Nvidia would build A.I. supercomputers in the U.S., he did not disclose his advisors had purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars of Nvidia stock days before.
The White House has repeatedly denied financial wrongdoing and says the president only acts in the best interests of the American public.
This week, in a story first reported by ABC News, it was someone working for Trump, allegedly trying to profit from the presidency.
TRUMP: I have a guy, Gabe. He's excellent. I've had some real bad ones, but I have Gabe.
KATERSKY (voice-over): As Trump's teleprompter operator since 2016, Gabriel Perez was the man who knew what Trump would say before he said it. Sources told ABC News he used his inside knowledge to bet on the contents of Trump's speeches, winning tens of thousands of dollars on the prediction market Kalshi.
TRUMP: My fellow Americans. Our nation is back.
KATERSKY (voice-over): Perez was there for the State of the Union.
TRUMP: You know, religion's back now hotter than ever before.
KATERSKY (voice-over): The National Prayer Breakfast.
TRUMP: The USA is the economic engine on the planet.
KATERSKY (voice-over): And the World Economic Forum.
For those speeches and more, the sources said Perez took advantage of his unique insight into Trump's remarks on Kalshi's mentions market, where users bet on whether certain words and phrases will be uttered.
Over a three-month period beginning last December, sources said Perez traded on more than a dozen of the president's speeches and won more than $100,000, sometimes backing out of bets mid-speech if Trump skipped certain words.
TRUMP: You know, when you go up here, you take a big chance, especially me, because I go off teleprompter about 80 percent of the time.
KATERSKY (voice-over): Kalshi said its own surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is responsible for regulating prediction markets.
KATERSKY: What's at stake in this room?
ROBERT DENAULT, KALSHI HEAD OF ENFORCEMENT & LEGAL COUNSEL: The integrity of our markets.
KATERSKY (voice-over): Kalshi prohibits users from trading on confidential information obtained at work, as the company told us back in May when we visited the room where it investigates suspicious trades.
DENAULT: So if you have information by virtue of your job or your employment, something that you have a legal duty surrounding, and you have an obligation not to take that and misappropriate it for yourself.
KATERSKY (voice-over): Sources said Perez made its last trade in March. Later that same month, the White House issued an internal memo warning staff not to use non-public information to place bets on prediction markets.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There are very strict ethical guidelines here at the White House that explicitly state not to do this.
KATERSKY (voice-over): Sources said Perez is in talks now with the CFTC to settle the allegations, which could force him to give back the profits from his bets.
The White House said President Trump put Perez on indefinite leave for taking advantage of his position.
LEAVITT: He believes it's deeply unfortunate and frankly, a disgrace.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KARL: While the White House called the teleprompter operator's alleged actions a disgrace, he was caught back in March and continued to work operating the president's teleprompter until this week, only put on leave after ABC News broke the story.
Coming up, two Republicans who could derail Todd Blanche's nomination for Attorney General. The Roundtable is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KARL: The roundtable is all here.
Former DNC chair Donna Brazile, “NOTUS” political columnist Dana Milbank, “SCOTUSblog” editor Sarah Isgur, and “National Review:” editor Ramesh Ponnuru.
So, Ramesh, President Trump sure seemed like he wanted to end the war with Iran, but the Iranians weren’t going to go along with it.
RAMESH PONNURU, NATIONAL REVIEW EDITOR & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: This administration started this war with a strategy of wishful thinking, and it has turned out to be harder to get out of a war than to get into one. Part of the problem is the bad faith of the Iranian negotiators. But another problem is the gap between the administration’s claims that it won the war and the reality that it didn’t. And it’s hard to bridge that gap in order to bridge the gap between Iran and the U.S. at the same time.
KARL: Yes, it wasn’t long ago -- I think it was about a month ago -- that J.D. Vance, the vice president, was talking about how Iran had turned over a new leaf, I think was the phrase he used.
I want to play something that he said this week to Joe Rogan as part of a three hour interview.
Take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You have seen this very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation and try to derail the deal. There are some people within their system, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, who are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: Now, here’s the thing. He wasn’t talking about the Iranians. He was talking about the Israelis.
So, Sarah, the vice president making the case that it was the Israelis that were trying to tank his peace talks. Was it the Israelis or was it the Iranians? What --
SARAH ISGUR, EDITOR AT SCOTUSBLOG & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: This is J.D. Vance’s 2028 campaign finding itself between a rock and a hard place, where J.D. Vance is supposed to be the isolationist, no more wars candidate. He is the vice president for a president who now, quite clearly, started a war of choice and can’t get out of it. And so, J.D. Vance is going to have to come up with what his message is going to be.
I mean, as soon as after the midterms, Donald Trump is now going to be sort of shuffled off to the side as we look at 2028 and who those nominees are going to be. J.D. Vance is in a rough spot.
KARL: Donna.
DONNA BRAZILE, FORMER DNC CHAIR & ABC NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: The political stakes could not be higher. Look, we just lost two more American service members, one missing, and hopefully that service member could be found and alive. This has cost the American people over $1,300 (ph) since the war started. The MOU is less than thirty days old. The administration still has no strategy, no plan. And when they signed the documents, there were so many holes in it, we knew that the Iranians would figure out a way to violate whatever they put in writing. The Strait was never fully reopened. And you have an administration that now, their only strategy is just to keep bombing the hell out of Iran.
When will it end? We don’t know. What’s the strategy? We don’t know.
DANA MILBANK, NOTUS POLITICAL COLUMNIST: The Vance remarks were particularly important, I think, because, I mean, I think what we’re seeing right now is the crackup of the 80-year U.S.-Israel alliance there. We saw it on the left this week.
KARL: Fall apart (ph)?
MILBANK: Half of the Democratic Party in the House voted to cut off military aid to Israel. You had 40 Senate -- Democratic senators earlier on a similar piece of legislation.
But we’re also seeing it, you know, the MAGA coalition, the young evangelical Christians no longer supportive of Israel. So, Bibi Netanyahu, AIPAC made this big bet that this coalition would right (ph). And it seems to have disappeared. Israel has elections October 27th. If Bibi’s returned, I think that’s a -- I think that’s pretty much the end.
PONNURU: And what’s going on in each party is linked in this way. The Republicans can distance themselves from Israel because the Democrats are sprinting away from Israel. So,
if you're a pro-Israel voter and you don't like what Vice President Vance is saying, what's your alternative? A Democratic Party that is moving further and further away.
KARL: I mean, you have Mamdani this week suggesting that he may, in fact, try to arrest Bibi Netanyahu when he shows up in New York for the U.N. General Assembly in September.
And J.D. Vance saying that Epstein, he believes, had connections to senior levels of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence.
ISGUR: And not surprising that we're seeing anti-Semitism rise as well, not just here in the U.S., but globally. These are trends that we are seeing in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis that, again, are not Trump-specific. They are international.
And that is populism on the rise, anger, political violence, and anti-Semitism being a big part of that as well.
KARL: I want to turn to another big thing that happened this week. That was the Todd Blanche confirmation hearing. He was asked a very simple question by a friendly senator that seemed to have a bit of a Freudian slip.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY, (R) LOUISIANA: Are you and President Trump friends?
TODD BLANCHE, ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL: I'm his lawyer, was his lawyer, and now, I'm the deputy attorney general.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: How did he do, Dana?
MILBANK: I think he was -- he was right the first time.
He didn't do well, but does it matter at all? He is -- he is almost certainly going to be confirmed. We saw Thom Tillis already heading in that direction. John Cornyn certainly, if passed his prologue, will cave on this as well.
KARL: Unclear. Sarah, you have an insight into this. Is Cornyn going to vote against him?
ISGUR: I think he probably will. What's funny is this vote doesn't matter, but that cuts both ways, right? He is the acting attorney general and will remain so, whether he is confirmed or not.
KARL: You mean the overall confirmation vote. If he doesn't get confirmed, he remains acting attorney general.
ISGUR: He's still acting attorney general.
And so on the one hand, John Cornyn voting no would be a big shot over the bow to Donald Trump, but it wouldn't change the facts on the ground at the Department of Justice. Voting yes wouldn't send a message to Donald Trump, but it also won't change the facts on the ground for the Department of Justice.
In the end, I think John Cornyn will decide that this is better than what the alternative could be and probably vote yes.
KARL: And Tillis made him sit down with -- meet with Epstein victims. That didn't seem to go very well.
PONNURU: No, but it seems to me that Senator Tillis was trying to create a test that the nominee could easily pass, which is just have the meeting in the first place.
BRAZILE: I think we should look at his record. I mean, we should look at the way he has conducted himself over the last few months. Being the president, you know, go-to guy for weaponization, for going after the president’s perceived enemies, for the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, the IRS settlement.
There's so many things to litigate when it comes to Todd Blanche. I hope the Senate reject this nomination.
KARL: All right. I promised you I was going to show you what the Blue Angels commander said about that flyover that was praised by Secretary Hegseth.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLUE ANGELS COMMANDING OFFICER: The pilot found himself, unfortunately, in a situation that we would deem unsafe over the beach. We never intend to fly over the crowd that low.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: He said it was unsafe, said that they would never do it again.
PONNURU: It was below the standards that they have. Look, my uncle --
KARL: But he -- this was praised by the defense secretary.
BRAZILE: Well --
KARL: So who's right, Donna, the commander of the Blue Angels or the defense secretary?
BRAZILE: Look, I love my Uncle Johnny. He's a second generation, second, second generation Tuskegee airman. And whenever I think about the military, especially Air Force, I consult him because he knows he said this is a F/A-18 Super Hornet.
It flew lower than a team standard demonstration, you know, profile. So congratulations on the 80th anniversary to the Blue Angels. But this was a no, no.
MILBANK: Well, Pete Hegseth wants to make sure everybody gets tested for testosterone. But it seems to me the problem may be that he has too much testosterone going on right now.
And that, you know, as you know, a little bit too much of that can --
KARL: I don't know. I mean, I --
(LAUGHTER)
MILBANK: As you personally know, it can make you extra aggressive, and it can blur your vision just a little bit.
It wasn't just him. Hung Cao, the naval secretary, said no reprimand, no firings, no problem.
So it does seem to be this sort of chest-thumping part of the military that we're seeing here.
KARL: By the way, before we were you surprised either one of you about the teleprompter operator?
ISGUR: So I actually think, you know, in that piece by Aaron Katersky, we should separate this into two different buckets. Trump's stock trades and Trump's team's stock trades are grift and would be the biggest news story in America 20 years ago.
The teleprompter thing actually seems more like a story about the potential for these betting markets to have a temptation power over public officials and --
KARL: Across the board.
ISGUR: Across the board. I think this could have happened in any administration and it is something, again, we shouldn't look at as a Trump corruption problem. We should look at it as a, what are we doing about betting --
(CROSSTALK)
BRAZILE: (Inaudible) never ends with this administration.
(LAUGH)
PONNURU: You are the teleprompter operator, this White House. And you're looking at the president enriching himself. I think it would be hard to tell yourself it would be ethically wrong for me to exploit my power and make some money off it. Everybody else around me is.
KARL: DOES it make you wonder how many other federal employees are thinking the same thing? No.
(LAUGH)
BRAZILE: As a former federal employee, I -- this has open up a new chapter on corruption.
(LAUGH)
BRAZILE: It never ends.
KARL: Right.
BRAZILE: I mean, the inside trading. You know, the, I'm going to appear with Tesla guy tomorrow, but today, you know, I'll get a couple of trades in.
MILBANK: But you can picture the guy's thought process, as Ramesh was saying, president made $2 billion last year. I just want $100,000. What's wrong with that?
BRAZILE: Yeah, chump change.
(LAUGH)
BRAZILE: While the American people are suffering.
KARL: Unbelievable. All right. We've got to take a quick break.
Up next, a candid conversation with Bill Maher about his dinner with Trump and who he thinks should win the midterms.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KARL: Comedian and talk show host, Bill Maher, has shown a willingness to call out hypocrisy on both sides of the aisle. He was recently awarded the nation's highest honor for comedy, the "Mark Twain Prize for American Humor" from the Kennedy Center. I talked with Maher this week at his home in Los Angeles.
KARL: Well, congratulations on winning the Mark Twain Award.
BILL MAHER, COMEDIAN AND TALK SHOW HOST: Thank you.
KARL: It seems like it's like the Nobel Prize for comedy.
MAHER: There aren't a lot of awards for comedy, and it's pretty overlooked, like in movies. But for -- for what I do, it is yes, the award, I think, to get. And again, there's not many for this particular brand of show business, so I was very grateful.
KARL: Now, the White House reaction to the news that you were getting this award was really something.
(LAUGH)
KARL: I mean -- I want to read it exactly. Karoline Leavitt, the Press Secretary, "This is fake news. Bill Maher is not getting this award." Steve Cheung, the Comms Director, "Literally fake news." What was going on with that?
MAHER: I don't know, but it was lovely to see him at the awards.
(LAUGH)
KARL: I mean, it's not the first time --
MAHER: Actually, there were a lot of Trump people at, you know, people in the administration. Pam Bondi came, you know, and I'm glad. But it was not a conservative crowd. It was -- it was a mixed crowd. And they both liked me.
(LAUGH)
MAHER: So to me, that was like, there, boom. That's what I've been doing.
KARL: But what do you think was going on? Because he controlled -- he's the Chairman of the Kennedy Center, it was the board that chose you --
MAHER: He was just mad at me because I went to his house for dinner with no guarantee that I would leave -- guarantee? It was never in the cards that I was ever going to come over to their -- his side. But, you know, it was set up as rather than just screaming at each other, all these insults.
KARL: Yes. Yes.
MAHER: You know, the first thing I did that you saw on the special, the page that he signed with the 56 different things he's called me. I love stuff like that.
KARL: Yes
MAHER: You know, it's better to just talk and go through this. But, you know, I mean, those people, they really have no argument for not doing it.
KARL (voice-over): Maher faced backlash after he talked about that March 2025 dinner at the White House on his HBO show, "Real Time."
MAHER: So meet up in person, maybe it'll be different. Spoiler alert, it was.
I reported honestly that, no, it wasn't a terrible experience at all from a guy who has done some terrible things.
KARL: And he -- and then you kept on doing what you do on your show. You didn't change, you didn't become -- you didn't become MAGA.
MAHER: Thank you for noticing, Jon, because that's what the haters pretend didn't happen.
KARL: I mean, it did, and then he starts -- I think that some of his attacks on you after the dinner are harsher than the ones that were before the dinner.
MAHER: Yes, because now he feels betrayed, which is silly because there was never a deal. It was only set up as, instead of shouting at each other, talk to each other.
KARL (voice-over): In Maher's "Club Random" podcast studio, he has a framed list of all of the ways Trump has insulted him, a list that he had the president signed.
MAHER: Just the idea, these many different ways, off the top of his head, over years.
KARL: And that list of 56 or whatever insults would have to be longer now.
MAHER: Exactly. There's an addendum. And it's available for $9.99 at BillMaher.com. It is on my Web site.
KARL: Yes.
KARL: (voice-over): Maher recently had Vice President J.D. Vance as a guest on "Real Time."
MAHER: Here's my deal breaker for your side. Okay?
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Okay.
MAHER: Under Trump, you guys have two outcomes in an election can be. Either we win or they cheated.
This stuff that's going on now, as I said to the vice president, this (EXPLETIVE DELETED) has to stop.
KARL: Yes. Yes, you were specifically talking about this, like the sore loser syndrome. It's -- the election is only I won, or you cheated, which is -- perfectly summarizes the way Trump has done this.
MAHER: Thank you. Yes. Exactly, there's only two outcomes. I won, you cheated.
KARL: And you pushed J.D. Vance on this, he did not --
MAHER: No, that's what I love about those Republicans. The first thing I said to him is, it's so odd, isn't it, that I didn't vote for you, and yet you guys come to the show and take your beating like a man. The Democrats don't come, and yet they got my vote. It's just odd, isn't it?
KARL: Yes, why is that? So what is that all about? I mean, and by the way, you get some Democrats, but --
MAHER: Democrats are cowardly.
KARL: Yes.
MAHER: They're cowardly. Their party is being taken over now by, you know, every day I hear about a new very radical. I feel very good about, like, 10 whenever years ago, like, I did lose fans because, you know, I wasn't going to go along with some of this crazy stuff on the left, too. I didn't change really on what I thought about the right, but just, I can't sit and just not notice stuff, which people seem to want to do because it's all about my team or your team. But yes, there's some crazy stuff, you know, when we're cheering for the Intifada, God, I'm out.
KARL: Well, I don't know if you saw it, Jay Clayton is nominated to be the head director of National Intelligence, had a hearing, just had a hearing.
MAHER: No. I'm on vacation.
KARL: And he was asked, who won the 2020 election? Did Joe Biden win the 2020 election? And he cannot answer. Now, Jay Clayton is a very serious guy with serious credentials, serious lawyer, former prosecutor, and he can't say who won the 2020 election.
MAHER: Neither could Vice President Vance on my show.
KARL: On your show.
MAHER: Yes. They can't because they know he's watching. They know where their bread is buttered. What's important to JD Vance who, by the way, we had a good time. I had a good time with him, too. You know? These are people. I always say it. You know, everybody is a monster until you talk to them. You can disagree with them a lot. But, you know, he has to do that. Trump is watching.
And there's a kind of a winking thing with those kind of guys. You know, it's like, you know he's crazy. I know he is crazy. I know you're saying this because you have to because he's watching. You know I know.
KARL: Yes, yes.
MAHER: And let's just not, like, pretend this is the end of the world because this is just what the world is. Now let's move on to something substantive.
KARL: But it is a problem if you have an entire political party, an entire movement that doesn't recognize the legitimacy of elections.
MAHER: Of course. It's been my big issue from the beginning before he was elected even the first time.
KARL: You told J.D. Vance you're open, your vote is up for grabs.
MAHER: Yes, my vote is in play because it can't be Trump running, so I'm not living in communist America. I mean, I know that the talking point is, it's not communism, it's socialism. OK. I've read the quotes from the DSA --
KARL: Oh, yeah.
MAHER: -- platform, from their own mouths. Don't tell me I'm now seeing what I am seeing. And DSA, again, they say things like, you know, takeover of key industries, government -- that's communism. You know, there is a definition.
KARL: By the way, Trump's doing that too.
MAHER: Of course. Yes.
KARL: And -- and -- and to a degree that we haven't seen any other president, Democrat or Republican, do.
MAHER: No -- that's crazy, too.
KARL: He's got a piece of Intel.
MAHER: Right.
(CROSSTALK)
KARL: He's got (ph) a piece of the A.I. companies.
MAHER: He treats everything like it's a real estate deal, or I don't know, if he's an agent or something.
(LAUGH)
MAHER: He always wants 10 or 15 percent.
KARL: So you want to see Democrats win in the midterms?
MAHER: Absolutely, and they will, because it will still be a referendum on Trump. So I think the Democrats will do very well in the midterms. 2028 is a different story because by then, this wing of the party, this new wing with all the energy, and it's not just a few people anymore. I read, every day I read about a new person in some Colorado and Wisconsin, somebody who is saying some variation of not defund the police, abolish the police. No prisons, no police, like what world do they think we could possibly live in under these conditions? It's just a level of nutty that I'm so glad that whenever it was, I was like no, I'm not going along because this is where it ends.
KARL: Could you see yourself voting for J.D. Vance?
MAHER: Yes. If this is the -- the Democratic side, yes.
KARL: Now, you have interviewed several of the possible Democratic candidates for 2028. How do you assess? Who do you like?
MAHER: Oh, I'm not going to ruin future guests by telling you that, Jon? How ridiculous.
(LAUGH)
MAHER: They're all great.
(LAUGH)
KARL: Especially the ones you haven't talked to yet. See, they got to come on the show.
MAHER: I hope we can have an eight-person presidency next time because I can't pick between this crop of geniuses.
(LAUGH)
MAHER: No, there's some very talented people. And my problem is, like I told you, the people, a lot of people on the left won't come. Everybody on the right comes.
KARL: All right. Our thanks to Bill Maher. This year's Mark Twain Prize ceremony starts streaming on Netflix on Tuesday. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KARL: That is all for today. Thanks for sharing part of your Sunday with us. Check out "World News Tonight" and have a great day.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END