Overtime – Episode #626: Sen. Bernie Sanders, John Heilemann, and Russel Brand

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, No, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Yeah, aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

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

Okay, we're on CNN now.

I don't know how that happened, but we're back with our panel from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, the senator.

Host of Showtimes the Circus, John Heilman, and actor and gridian Russell Brand are back with us.

Okay, so here are the questions.

People wrote in.

I guess this is for you because it mentions the britt awards what does the panel think of the discussion around the oscars getting rid of gender specific categories like best actor and best actress and how did it work out at the britt awards as a person who's never won an award i feel confident in saying that they are vacuous and pointless a distraction at a time where we need to be coming together around real principles and values unless someone wants to give me an award in which case i'd like to make it as specific as possible so i could bloody well get it

But am I wrong that at

the Brit Awards, which is for music?

I hosted that before, but I'll tell you, Bill, that I was able to let go of the experience and have never thought about it since.

I feel that it might be fundamentally meaningless.

Okay.

I can't find meaning in it.

But what I read was it used to be best male, best female, and they just cut out the categories and it was one like was only the only people who won it was four men and Harry Stiles.

Yeah, I think.

No, all the, like, no, women won.

They should just give awards to Harry Stiles, and that can be an industry and we'll watch the world incinerate while Harry Stiles dances beautifully.

What is the likelihood that Congress will abolish daylight savings time?

I read this also today.

Is it like they're calling it the permanent daylight savings time?

I don't really even understand what that could mean.

Do you care about this?

Seriously?

Come on.

I'm going to close.

I have been criticized for having a very narrow focus.

I accept that criticism, but daylight savings time is not one of the issues that I've been studying.

Okay.

But you know what?

I bet you

this is the kind of stuff that actually affects a lot of

and it's anachronistic, it's stupid.

I don't get it.

I don't know.

I guess we did it 100 years ago because farmers

needed, okay, well, how many people in America are farmers?

It's like 1% of the population.

I mean, we need the farmers.

I love food.

I'm not crazy about the way they do their farming, torturing animals.

And by the way, just to connect it once more to COVID, we are never going to be done.

with diseases like COVID while we are still torturing animals.

It all comes from animals.

Now we have to worry about bird flu.

Bird flu.

It's birds and pigs.

We're back in the wet market again, where it's like that's the smell.

It's like

there's bad shit that goes on in those places.

That's right, and that's why that also could be where it came from.

But it always jumps from animals to people.

And it wouldn't if we didn't pen up the animals and torture them before we eat them.

It seems like...

Let me be non-funny.

Your point about sickness and the possibility of future pandemics absolutely speaks to the need for international cooperation.

Because the pandemic is not going to be an American issue.

It's not going to be a Chinese issue.

We're going to have to bring the world together to deal with climate, to deal with pandemics.

Okay.

Should law enforcement be policing TikTok in order to crack down on illegal trends?

like the viral challenge to steal kios and hyundai's oh yeah do you know about this they There's TikTok videos that show how you could, with just a, I think, a screwdriver and a iPhone charger, you can hotwire a Kia and Hyundai.

So like they're being stolen left and right.

What do you think about TikTok?

That's another thing that's before Congress.

Somebody has a bill.

to ban TikTok, certainly for people under 16.

I think that's Josh Holey's bill.

Well, I think the concern is TikTok is a Chinese-owned company, and you're seeing states and the U.S.

government

not wanting to use it for fear that some

secretive information could fall into Chinese hands.

Well, but also it's rotting the minds of our young people.

Well, it's a whole other story, but that's...

That's beyond TikTok, isn't it?

It is, but TikTok is not helping.

I would say the rotting of the minds of America's youth is a problem that existed long before TikTok hadn't.

Like one of the great things about being young.

Made it much worse.

Kids at least used to read a book.

I don't think kids ever see a book.

They do not read, they scroll.

Scrolling does not make you smart.

You know, not to become overly serious, I think it is now perceived that

the pandemic has made the mental health crisis that we previously had even worse.

And there is a lot of discussion about the impact of social media and the isolation of

it.

And the lack of human contact that it develops

on our health.

All right.

Russell, what are your thoughts on the UFOs that were intercepted and shot down by the U.S.

military last month?

I don't know if they're referring to the Chinese balloons.

They were not UFOs because we know what they were.

They were Chinese balloons.

But there were other things, there were some things that

we didn't get and we don't know what they are and there are things that we haven't found out what they are after we did shoot them down.

I wonder whether or not the $14 trillion

that have been granted to the Pentagon, 55% of which has ended up in the hands of the military-industrial complex, which surely American people are becoming weary of, needs occasionally to be boosted with fanciful ideas of extraterrestrial invasion.

Maybe there needs to be a continual reminder that the skies themselves could become a threat unless Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, BAE systems continue to profit.

Elsewise, a balloon, a perfect metaphor, for it is naught but hot air, nothing inside it, shot down by a $400,000 missile, might be coming for your family.

But again,

I mean,

we were just saying here we all should be skeptical and have open minds on everything.

It is possible that there are

life on other planets that are visiting us or scouting us.

I mean, there are even the U.S.

Even the U.S.

I'm just saying it's possible.

Carl Singh thinks.

It is possible.

But if you think that something from another universe came all the way here and was just kind of dragging around and was shot down very easily.

I think if it's a UFO, they would have done a little bit better in avoiding evading volume.

First of all,

we're not saying it's from another universe.

We're saying it's from the same universe.

The universe is very big.

Very big.

Bill, I think Bernie raises a good point.

It's not like E.T.

would come all the way here and then trip up outside Elliot's house.

He's made it all the way here.

I agree.

That's the point.

That's the point, Bernie.

Okay, the Chinese balloon is different.

I'm not saying the Chinese balloon was from another universe or this universe.

I mean, it would have to be from China.

If it's a Chinese balloon, I mean that, of all due respect,

that's the least it can do.

Well,

I was going to say, I think God.

I'm moving on.

The obvious.

If you thought Bernie back out here, he won't be happy if you're going to talk about extraterrestrials and balloons and that.

Okay.

Inequality.

If you're looking for proof that there's life in outer space, intelligent life in outer space, you need to look no further than Russell.

There's not really another accounting for how.

I'm glad that became a compliment, sir, because I was rearing up.

No, don't you worry.

Our only compliments, my friend.

With all the emphasis on DEI, are we confusing equality of opportunity with trying to guarantee equity in outcomes?

Okay, that's interesting because I think this word equity has come into the language in the last few years, and before that we didn't hear it a lot.

And I think a lot of people hear equity and they hear equality.

I think it's the same word, and it's not the same word in the same concept.

So, how would you differentiate between equity and equality?

Well, equality, we talk about,

I don't know what the answer to that is.

Coming to think of it, you know, equality is equality of opportunity.

We live in a society we want all people to have whatever color your skin is.

Equity, I think, is more guarantee of outcome, is it not?

I think so.

I think that's so.

Okay.

So

which side do you come down on?

Equality.

Equality.

Yeah.

Okay.

Boys, any comment on that one?

I just don't know if that's the definition of difference.

But certainly this debate, the question of equality of outcome over a quality of opportunity is one that has been the question that underlies affirmative action and everything else that we've had in our politics for a very long time.

And there's obviously people are very strong, even people who actually want a quality of outcome say they only want a quality of opportunity and vice versa.

But that's, you know, that's the, it's a, that, that issue, the core of that, what do you actually want?

And I think, Bernie, is where everyone says they want to be, but there are, in fact, programs that have been designed, that are designed to actually engineer equal outcomes, not just equal opportunity.

And that's where a lot of the controversy has arisen.

Okay, one more.

Have Democrats done enough to support strong labor unions, Bernie?

What's the future of unions in this country?

I think they just subpoenaed the Starbucks did.

They didn't, I did.

You know, it's so.

that's not fair.

Look,

you're not going to have, that is an issue I do know something about, and

that I pay attention to.

And the bottom line is that you're not going to have a middle class in this country unless workers are able to stand up, organize, form unions, and negotiate for decent contracts.

And what we're seeing right now is more and more workers wanting to form unions, but you're seeing companies like Starbucks and and Amazon and other Apple and other large corporations really engaging in illegal union busting.

So we have asked the leader of Starbucks, the head of CEO, Howard Schultz, to explain to us why he thinks it's acceptable that over 50 occasions the NLRD has said they have broken federal labor law in breaking unions.

So we hope to have him come before our committee.

There will be a vote on Wednesday,

a vote on

subpoenaing him.

And it does seem like there is

a strange sort of

hypocrisy there because these are usually liberal companies.

I think Whole Foods also.

And it's like they care a lot about the indigenous people of the Bolivian Andes, but not about some worker in Cincinnati.

You got it.

All right.

They're very liberal about everything.

except whether workers can form a union and earn decent wages.

They're very liberal,

except whether or not we ask them to pay their fair share of taxes.

They're not so liberal then.

That's right.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you, CNN.

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