Overtime – Episode #671: Al Franken, Kristen Soltis Anderson

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See RemixYogurt.com. Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night series, Real Time with Bill Maher.
All right, here we are in overtime with a conservative poster and CNN contributor Kristen Soltis-Anderson and the former Democratic senator from Minnesota and the host of the Al Franken podcast, Al Franken. Okay.
Here are what the people want to know. Al, do Americans not understand how tariffs work, and who ultimately pays the price for them? Americans don't understand how tariffs work.
Thank you. Questions.
No. Okay.
Trump keeps saying that he put these tariffs on around,

well, let's say China,

and that China has paid us,

sometimes he says, tens of billions,

sometimes hundreds of billions, sometimes trillions.

Tariffs don't work that way.

No.

When we put a tariff, let's say, on Chinese TVs, okay? Why don't we say cars, because that's what we're actually doing under the Biden administration. Okay.
I read it today. 100% tariffs on Chinese cars.
That makes Chinese cars, which are very inexpensive, competitive now, or I guess not competitive at all.

Not competitive.

With American cars.

So why doesn't it not work only for Republicans?

I don't get it, because this is what Biden is doing.

I don't know why he's doing that exactly, but I just want to get the concept of what a tariff is now.

Let's do that.

Okay, because a lot of people think, let's say, I'm going to use a different example. I'm going to use televisions, okay? Let's say Best Buy wants to buy 1,000 televisions from China, a Chinese television.
And Trump or whoever has put a tariff on it of 20%. And they're $500 each.
So that means $100 each tariff. Now, according to Trump, he thinks China pays the tariff.
China doesn't pay the tariff. Best Buy pays the tariff.
Of course. Yeah.
And when Best Buy pays the tariff, it has to decide whether to pass that on to the consumer or maybe cut it in half and make it... That's how terrorists work.

Right.

And Trump keeps saying this over and over again.

And I wish this was kind of one of the things

that the moderators had been asked during the thing.

Is that how terrorists work?

No. No, it doesn't.

And she was right, saying it's a...

It's a tax on the middle class, is what she was saying. But let's say it's cars.
Yes, let's say it. So, now it's not Best Buy paying the tariff.
It's Ford. Right.
And General Motors. Right.
Why doesn't it work the same way? Why isn't it a bad idea when the Democrats are doing it? I think that... Well, I don't know electric cars very well.
And I don't know what the rationale behind that is, whether they're inferior products or... But as far as I'm concerned...
No, I think they're not inferior. I think that's why we have to protect our own makers here, because they would be very, very...
On that case, damn it, Biden's wrong. There you go.
Was that so hard? Let's not play team sports. Let's play truth.
Okay. What role, if any, will SNL parodies of political figures play in the election? Well, you're an alumni of SNL.
That's perfect for you. Oh, okay.
It will play a big role. They'll do a fake debate.
That's what we used to do all the time. We'd have...
That was our big sketch of the year. And then they'll have...
See, so who do they have doing... Oh, Maya Rudolph will be doing...
Right. Kamala.
Kamala. And the genius who does Trump will do Trump.
I mean... I feel like it's interesting.
It matters more when the politician isn't well-known. Like, I don't know if SNL actually plays a big role, if it's Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who everybody knows.
But, like, think about somebody like Sarah Palin. People actually believe that she said, I can see Russia from my house, because they said it on SNL, and it's so believable.
Like, people really think that happens. That's when you have power.
Hey. I mean, it's a terrible show.
I, we used to have a lovely lady, still friendly with her, a Christian, and she said in 2010 something about she was a witch or she used to be a witch. And because she was running, she said that way back on Politically Incorrect, Christine O'Donnell.
And then she was running for Congress in, I think, Delaware in 2010. The Senate, yeah.
The Senate, okay, right. She got the nomination.
And I brought up the witch thing, and it, I mean, I felt a little bad, because she's sweet, but she shouldn't have been a senator. But, like, we brought it up on this show a week later.
There was Kristen Wiig on a broom. It had passed to that level where she was the witch flying in on the broom.
I mean, it can move that fast. And to my point about George Clooney, I know, and Taylor Swift, I do think this really does affect the culture because I think that's where people get their...
Well, Taylor Swift really is registering tons and tons of people, which could easily, easily make the difference in this election. Yes, and they will do whatever she says.
I mean, Trump is a cult, and she's a cult. It is.
It's just a better cult. Kristen, who are the feral 25-year-olds making Kamala Harris go viral on TikTok? Do you know what that means? Feral 25-year-old? So what I think this means is that she has, or her campaign has leaned into the way that she has gone viral online with like memes that most people have never heard of.
But like a very small subset of very engaged activists online have. And it has made Kamala Harris go from if Joe Biden steps out, is it really going to be her to, oh, she's really cool and Democrats are really excited about her.
And in a way, like, it is, she's trying to capture some of that same kind of energy that Democrats had when Barack Obama first came on the scene and was getting young people to organize online in support of him. And it was dismissed a little bit at first and then turned out to be really important and decisive.
So she's doing that again. And what's different and helpful to her this time, is in 2019, arguably her campaign staff was too online.
They were too intent on trying to win over very online political activists who had really far left preferences to go down rabbit holes on issues nobody cared about. And this time around, being too online actually means doing things that are reaching people who are not watching traditional political news at all.

And that's a difference that's really important. It means that instead of getting your message in front of the people that already believe, it's getting your message in front of people that may have thought politics had nothing for them.
But, hey, she seems cool. Maybe it's worth voting for.
All right. I feel like the Democrats have been smart.
I mean, getting rid of Biden, getting her in quickly. I feel like they're usually the party that you're like, oh, God.
And this time, I feel like they're playing everything pretty smart. You would agree, Al? Yeah, and that debate, really, I mean, they prepared her and she prepared herself remarkably well, and she performed great.
It's one of those... Like I said, it's already in the bag.
Do you think there's a... If Trump sees he's losing, and I see the polls, he's way down now, do you think there's a...
Really? Yeah, since the debate. Yes.
What, do you think he went up? I would think he'd go down, but I didn't know that they'd have Yeah, since the debate. Is there a new poll since the debate? Yes.
What, do you think he went up? No, no. I would think he'd go down, but I didn't know that they'd have a debate.
Yeah, no, no, I saw it today. I'm sorry, a poll.
Yeah, of course. That was, is a poll this quickly? Of course.
It was Tuesday. It's Friday.
It could. There's going to be a lot that will come out over the weekend.
Yeah. Anyway.
Ask me again on Monday. Okay, but Do you think there's a world where he sees, like, a month before the election that he's losing, and he switches out Vance? No.
You don't think he... No? No, no, no.
RFK? No. No.
No universe. I'm just throwing it out there.
You don't think he would ever do that? So, speaking of SNL, I want to remind you, I remember in 2016, Lin-Manuel Miranda guest-hosted SNL, and it was the weekend after all the Access Hollywood stuff came out. And he started singing that song from Hamilton, Never Gonna Be President Now, pointing at Trump's picture in 30 Rock, because Trump had hosted SNL.
Everyone thought the election was done at that point, and it wasn't. But everybody in that audience is already going to vote for the Democrat.
It's a super woke show with a super woke audience. What I'm saying is the overconfidence.
What happened? Oh, there's no way he can survive this thing. I just, I remember he survived three seconds.
The people who don't feel that way watch that show for the comedy, and they see that, and they go, oh, fuck you. Fuck you, you small castles.
Also, Comey happened. Also, Comey happened.
Yes, James Comey put out a letter 11 days before the election. And that's it.
Yeah, that happened. That's happened.
And that's how close these things are. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. So, okay, here's one.

Do you think it was a good idea for Joe Biden

to put on a MAGA hat?

Okay, if you missed this story.

I think this happened

at the World Trade Center site, right?

Yeah, it was like a hat exchange.

I actually think it was

okay. It was essentially like after a

soccer match when the players trade

jerseys. It was kind of like that,

and he was trying to make a nice gesture.

I know, but it just showed

Thank you. Okay, it was essentially like after a soccer match when the players, like, trade jerseys.
It was kind of like that,

and he was trying to make, like, a nice gesture.

I know, but it just showed it's good we got rid of him.

It's a dumb thing to do because it's not a soccer match. Was he trading hats?

I mean, just, you don't put on a MAGA hat.

What kind of hat did he have?

I don't know, but it's like, it's like,

it would be like drawing a penis on my own forehead.

It's just a dumb idea.

All right, we've got to go.

Thank you very much.

That's a good one, Andy.

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