Overtime – Episode #652: Eric Holder, Nancy Mace, Ro Khanna

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night Series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

Hello, CNN. Here I am with former Attorney General and the current chairman of the National Democratic Resistance Committee, Eric Holder,

and a Republican congresswoman from South Carolina, Nancy Mace, and a Democratic congresswoman who represents California Silicon Valley, Roquano.

All right, that was a

burn burner of a panel. I want to ask this question.

I wrote this one myself, but I saw Bernie Sanders has a bill that says we're going to reduce our work week from 40 weeks to 32 hours, 40 hours to 32 hours. I assume this is so.

Well, of course you'll like it. You're probably going to like it.

And with no drop in wages or benefits. Is that possible? Well, here's what Sean Fane said about it that everyone should listen to.

And he said, the people who are making the cars, the people who are making the steel, they're not getting paid the wages that they deserve. It's all going to executives.

And so how do we make sure that workers are actually benefiting?

If we're going to have AI that automates things and that makes it that you don't have to work as many hours, those gains should be going to workers and not just to executives.

What do you think about that?

The 32-hour week.

Of course, everyone's going to love the idea of a 32-hour week, but I don't think it should be mandated by the government.

You know, in South Carolina, my 17-year-old works in a restaurant making $25 an hour. We don't need a $15 minimum wage.
The kid's already making far more than that. He's still in high school.

And so I would rather have the freedom and independence of people being able to pick the workplace that offers the best benefits for them than having the government mandate it for the people.

I believe in freedom. Well, there's the Republican-Democrat debate.

Eric, do you think Clarence Thomas Do you think Clarence Thomas should have faced harsher consequences for accepting gifts from wealthy Republican donors has the integrity of the court been compromised?

I think the integrity of the court certainly comes into question based on the conduct that we know he engaged in.

There needs to be an ethics standard for an ethics conduct, a rule of conduct for the Supreme Court that does not have a trip. Is he unique in that?

No. Well, we know Justice Alito also took trips.
We know that

former Justice Scalia died while he was on one of those trips. And the reality is that I think the court's legitimacy.
No Democrats on trips. I'm just asking.

Although there have been justices who apparently forced Democratic-appointed justices who asked people to buy certain numbers of books before they would have.

And so I think that

the court itself is,

its legitimacy is being questioned, I think, legitimately on the basis of the decisions that they've made, but also the conduct that they engage in.

They are kind of removed, I think, from the normal strictures that those in the legislative branch and the executive branch have to go through.

And it's why I think that justices should only serve 18-year terms. They get on there and they get a little ice cream.

I don't, well, I'm definitely for ethics rules. I think those are good things.
But, I mean, I'm looking at Senator Menendez.

I mean, the guy had gold bars and cash in his mattresses or whatever and is being indicted multiple times. And his ass ought to be out of the Senate too.
They ought to be out.

Thank you for saying that.

I said it as soon as the indictment came in. Bro, I have late-breaking news.
He says he's going to run now as an independent, or he's thinking about it. I read that.
Bob Menendez. Yeah.

That is some big balls.

Jennifer Biden doesn't have any balls, but that guy's got...

Too big. Right.
Balls have to be the right size.

I think we can come to a bipartisan agreement.

Not too small, not too big.

Goodbye, Menindee. I have brass balls in my office, though, I'll say.
You deserve them.

Where does the panel think Cape Middleton is?

What explains the public fascination with the royal family? Why do we care? I don't. I don't know what's going on with the royal family.

My grandfather was with Gandhi fighting for the independence of India from the British. Yeah.
Well, actually with Gandhi. Well, four years in jail.
Wow, four years in jail.

So I don't get the obsession with the royal family. Right.
On a personal basis, I don't get it.

We're not following it on TikTok.

We're not following the news on TikTok. Right.
You'd think we should care more about Gandhi.

I think we should care more about Gandhi and King and the people, Mandela, people who inspired this world for better.

What did the panel

think of RFK Jr. announcing he has picked a running mate? Oh, he did? I didn't hear.
I heard he was talking about Aaron Rodgers. That's what he's trying.
Aaron Rodgers or Jesse Ventura?

Oh, well, this is... No, I mean, that's what...
Yes, I know. He was.

This says he has picked one, but maybe the results are. There goes your slot.
There goes your slot.

Is it you? Is it you, Bill? No, no.

Why would it be me? Because you're kind of independent. You know,

people can't guess your politics.

I think people know my politics if they watch this show every week. I don't think I'm that crazy.

You're a crazy classical lawyer. Right.
No, I just, and I don't, I just think

independent. Right.
I mean, I just don't understand why everything in this country has to always be from one extreme to the other.

Either of the people. I think most people are where you are.

I think most people are where you are, and they don't want that binary choice. But I think there's two types of people.

There's people who have to be right all the time and those that just want to seek out the truth. And I think most of Americans just want the truth.
They just want it out there. Right.

I mean,

there's got to be always some sensible middle ground between Trump saying shoplifters should be shot on site and other people saying shoplifting is just justice shopping.

You know, those to me are the two sides. And then not morally equivalent.

No, not

pretty worse.

But shoplifting is, we shouldn't do anything to stop it. I'm angry.
People walk out of stores with prosecutors. I mean, it's just like.

But if you got blue states that are taking away bail and bond for murderers and rapists, I mean, like, that can't be a thing either. Where are you on that? That was your old department.

We shouldn't have bail or bond or anything. It should be a determination.
If the person is going to be a threat to the community, hold that person.

If the person is not going to show up again, hold that person.

Bail or bond discriminates against people who don't have the ability to come up with money to get themselves out of jail, and they serve time in jail disproportionately as opposed to their more wealthy counterparts.

Look at Illinois, the rapists. The murderers are getting out, Washington Free.
I wish the Democratic Party could be that eloquent on that issue.

No, just basically,

I wish a lot of things would be.

We usually, you know, we don't explain it well.

It's not that when you take away bail, it's saying people shouldn't be in jail because they're poor, not that they shouldn't be in jail if they're a threat to society.

I mean, he said it better, but we've got to, you know, we've got to. There's an industry, it's a bail bond industry that fights this reform.
And I've been against that, done it when I was AG.

I've done pro bono work as a private attorney. And we have been pushing back against this notion of doing bail at all.
Just hold people if you think they're going to be a threat.

I tried to get him to run, but the kids said no.

But, I mean,

Mayor Adams in New York said last week that most of the people who they arrest have been arrested many, many, many, many times before. He said, what we have is a recidivism problem.

I mean, that does suggest that there is sort of a revolving door that we have to close at some point.

And the studies will show you on the recidivism, even with violent offenders, when they get out of jail or they get out of prison, if they get therapy, they get job training and a job when they get out,

68% of them don't go back to jail. So we have to rethink what we do with these offenders when they get out.
That's exactly right. And housing.

If you have a criminal record, one of the things that are very hard to get public housing or housing.

And so we often, yes, you need to make sure that if someone's shoplifting, they get prosecuted, and they should be held accountable. Then we need to think

what's going to integrate them into society. How are they going to get a house? How are they going to be able to get a job? And we don't pay any attention to that part.

And as vice president, what would you say?

Not going to be my inner dream and in your dreams.

No, I'm not. But I mean, there's a group in.
You wouldn't turn it down, would you? Oh, absolutely. Nobody would turn that down.

There you go. You're a heartbeat away.

And it's for your country. It's your city, your service, for your country.

But there's a group in South Carolina. It's called Turn 90.

It's a nonprofit, but they get job training, therapy, education for these offenders that come out, and they have a 22% rate of, I mean, these guys are not going back to jail. It's a beautiful thing.

Something that I started when I was attorney general, we call it the Smart on Crime Initiative. And what is the first, one of the first things that they did in the Trump administration under sessions?

They really gutted a lot of the things that you're just talking about.

Donald Trump did sign the First Steps Act into law. It was a bipartisan prison reform bill in December of 2018.
He did do some good prison reform

amount of sessions. Yes, after Kim Kardashian visited him.
But women.

That's true. Women.
That's true. And that women in prison used to be restrained.

Women in prison used to be restrained to their beds while giving birth until the First Step Act got rid of that barbaric practice. So he did some good on bipartisan prison reform, too.

But that's some low-hanging fruit. That's terrible.
That's funny.

The fact that we were doing this to women in prison is crazy. But there was a need for second act.
It never happened. Okay.
And it did happen after Kim Kardashian. She lobbied her ass off.

Well, then she did a good job. So we applaud Kim Kardashian.
What do you think of Senator Schumer's speech criticizing Netanyahu and calling for new elections in Israel?

Wow, that's completely inappropriate. You thought it was completely inappropriate.
I thought it was inappropriate. We should not be meddling in the election affairs of other countries.
I know we do.

Sometimes we should not be doing that. We don't like it when they do it with us.
That's true. Right, and we shouldn't be doing it in other countries.

And we have done this, and we've done it unsuccessfully for decades. We've had really...
I mean, he's just offering an opinion. Yeah, I mean.
And we do give them a lot of money.

Maybe that gives us the right to maybe,

you know, kibbits a little. No, they do a lot for the United States.
I'm just asking.

Israel does a lot for the United States.

But there's the need to separate the Netanyahu policies from the support that we all feel for Israel and the horrors that Hamas actually brought to the people of Israel.

The Netanyahu policies are deplorable. They are deplorable.
They are. That's for Israel.
That's for the citizenship.

Some of the Israelites. All sides.
That's friends sometimes in really direct ways. One of the strongest supporters of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

For him to say that, you have to know how much Bibi is probably upset about. That takes a lot.
We ran over our time. Thank you, Supernova, and we'll see you next week.

Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10, or watch him anytime on HBO On Demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com.