Overtime – Episode #607: Matt Taibbi, Lis Smith

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.

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.

I can make a list of

a few who are like beyond politics actually.

Remember Ben Azir Bhutto?

No?

Really?

The Prime Minister?

Yeah.

Are we on?

The Prime Minister of Pakistan?

You really?

Yeah.

Okay.

Come on.

All right.

Are we on?

All right.

Okay.

All right, we got it.

Okay, here we are.

We're talking about politics hot.

For panel, if you had to make a bet on who will win the GOP nomination in 2024, Ron or Don, and that's it's going to be either Trump or DeSantis,

who would you bet it would be?

Well, there's a broad open question.

Don.

Don.

Ron.

I'm leaning more toward Ron.

Ronald McDonald.

No, I think, I think,

I think DeSantis has a shot.

Yeah, oh, he's got more than a shot.

I mean, he's, I think he won the straw poll in New Hampshire.

He feels a little Christie-esque to me, like he's peaking right now, but he's not actually going to

land the plane.

Oh, no.

Well, he's not Christie-esque.

He is very Christie-esque.

No, Christie's twice the man he is.

Okay.

The U.S.

economy added over half a million jobs in July.

Is that proof that Biden was somewhat right in claiming that the U.S.

is not in a recession?

Yes.

There was a lot of suspense there.

I think, isn't it dangerous to do weekly statistics and try to figure out

trends like this?

I mean, haven't we learned that things go yearly?

Also, two-yearly, three-yearly?

I mean, it's like...

Well, do you think no?

Like, I mean, that's not a bad sign.

It's not a bad sign, but I wouldn't say, yeah, we did it.

It's a moot point question.

Because people don't, it's how they feel and how their actual.

It's like Trump's finances.

It's like how I feel about it in the moment is how much I'm worth.

Well, he always feels very well about himself.

But, I mean, there's an actual definition of recession when GDP

declines for two quarters, but no one knows that or gives a shit about it.

It's a quarter of that.

It's more of a press definition because there's another definition that's based on the national

Bureau of Economic Research.

Yeah, but

you've already lost everybody.

No one is.

What notices is how people feel, how much they pay for gas, how much inflation, all that.

The unemployment rate is relatively insignificant compared to how people actually feel.

I will agree with you.

And the unemployment rate is 3.5%.

That's as low as it ever goes.

Now, it also could be people are in shitty jobs they don't like.

I mean, that people.

Well.

I think she works for you.

I think she works for you.

I don't think audience member here is a shitty job.

I think it's one of the better jobs you can.

A recent study shows that loneliness and isolation raises risk of heart attacks and strokes by 30%.

Wow.

You know, they should get those people on obesity right now and figure it out.

It's a double whemmy.

What are your thoughts on this, Dave, being that you wrote your latest develop during a time of worldwide social isolation?

Absolutely.

I mean, you know, statistically, they can point to things like that, and I suppose it's true, I mean, statistically, but it also intuitively makes sense.

You know, when your heart hurts,

that's stress, and that's your heart.

I mean, it's not your your physical heart, but it does seem to be some kind of correlation.

Well, I mean, one of my big issues with Western medicine, why I don't want them ever to tell me what to do with my body, is because I could name a thousand things, but right off the top, they pay no attention and give no credence to the mind-body connection.

And if

you can't read it on a chart, If you can't quantify it, and that's not, I think in 100 years we will be looking back at the way way they do things now and just the way we look back 100 years ago.

Do you really think in 20 years they'll be going like, yeah, 2022, that's when we pretty much had it all figured out.

No, we look back 100 years and go, I can't believe they're doing that.

I can name things they're doing right now that I know as a layman that are going to look bad.

I mean, 80% of COVID people in the hospital got antibiotics, which don't work on viruses.

Now, there may be sometimes other reasons why you would give, but just antibiotics, the way they give them out like Skittles.

I mean, I'm glad we have such a thing, but they're making it so they're not going to work anymore because we over-prescribed them.

I mean, that's just one of dozens of things.

Anyway, don't get me started on that, or do.

Thank you.

Oh,

yes.

Thank you for, you know, amongst the swag that you give out.

Thank you for the

box of ivermectin.

Well,

he's written about that.

That's a good example.

I assume that you're being snarky liberal about that.

Ivermectin.

Snarky.

Okay.

Well, because that's, but good example.

Like, if you only watched MSNBC, what you heard was, this was horse medicine.

The rubes are taking horse medicine.

Okay, it's not just horse medicine.

Okay, all right.

But I mean, that's a good example of how people are in their bubbles and they only read and see one thing.

Oh, these rubes.

You know, who's a rube?

Anyone who's wearing a mask outside.

That's a fucking rube.

I see 22-year-olds wearing a mask outside.

What pussy morons.

I don't think it was the rubes.

I don't think it was making fun of the rubes.

I think it was actually

casting aspersions on the Republican, on the right elite who have an anti-scientific agenda to propose.

So it's not a problem.

Again, it's a very tricky thing to throw on anti-scientific.

No, I know, I'm just saying, but there's been a lot of bad science on both sides.

But that's how science...

Look, Bill, science works badly.

Science works by making mistakes.

Right.

That's how it works.

Okay, but we should.

Yes, it does.

Okay, so therefore.

Therefore, don't say, Fauci says, if you don't believe in me, you don't believe in the science.

Well, that's.

There's no the.

Okay?

Yeah, well, I think.

You've been wrong about a lot of shit.

Yeah, I think Fauci's time is falling gone.

Well, also, I mean, Fauci, 81, he didn't have trouble with COVID.

Biden, 79, didn't have trouble with it.

The Queen's, 150.

Can we stop with the forever?

We also sometimes work backwards from the politics of it.

Like when Donald Trump came out and said that he took hydroxychloroquine, for everybody that was like automatically the drug doesn't work.

It's not a drug's fault that Trump's working.

Exactly.

There's no Republican or Democratic drugs.

Yeah, exactly.

Hyvermectin has been given to millions of people.

I don't want it.

It's not my cure.

But there is an agenda to throw a lot of stuff out there to see what sticks from one side rather than the more monolithic scientific side on the other side.

I do agree with that, but again, it's not the drug's fault.

Right.

So you still have to decide.

I began this by thanking him for the ivermectin in my dressing room.

In a mocking way.

After the U.S.

announced killing al-Qaeda leader Ahman Zawahiri, some people are asking if this truly makes America safer.

What are your thoughts?

Well, can I lead?

I have some thoughts here.

Please do.

You know, the idea that because it's 20 years later, that we should somehow let this guy go and retire in Florida is absolutely fucking ridiculous to me.

My view...

My view on this is that we should find and hunt down every single person who helped plan and execute the 9-11 attack, even if it takes us to the gates of hell.

I know where they are.

I know what Adam.

They were golfing with Trump in New Jersey.

It was the Saudi Arabians.

That's who did it.

And you know what's amazing to me about this is, and

no one should ever compare anything to the Holocaust, and I'm certainly not going to do that here.

But you know what?

We can learn from the Nazi hunters.

We can learn from the Mossad because you know what?

Those motherfuckers are still hunting down Nazis today.

No.

Yeah, they are.

Yes, they are.

They would have to be 100.

Exactly.

They are finding the 100-year-old ones.

And if...

You're talking about the active Nazis in the past, not the ones in the present.

Exactly.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But if you commit these atrocities, you can't, you're not let off the hook.

I don't care if it's 20 years later, if it's 30 years later, oh, oh, there's going to be some retribution from al-Qaeda.

Like, what, they're just sitting on their hands and, like, oh, we're all good with America now.

No.

So, my only pushback on that, I did a story

that touched on Al-Zawahiri a couple of years ago and the drone program.

We've been trying to kill this guy for a long time, and he's been reported dead at least twice.

Before there's a human rights group in Britain called Reprieve that reported that

we bombed a school and there were 79 kids and 20 sorry 76 kids and 29 adults who were killed in trying to get Alzoa trying to get Alzheimer's

the the there were two big attacks in 2006 there were some others my point is we're gonna

that's a fact that's a fact that we killed all those people and we know it was trying to

come back and asking because I never heard that yeah there were there were two big attacks in there was a town called Har and another one

called Shingai.

The point is, we're going to make more Al-Zoahiris that way.

And that's what I worry about.

We apparently have improved the technology because we got the flying Gensu knife.

And

also,

I must say,

I find it so interesting the hypocrisy of the al-Qaeda leaders because they said,

Bin Laden was living in a cave, remember?

He wasn't in a cave.

He wanted to be in Abadabad.

He had a nice house.

And the second we pulled out of Afghanistan, Alzohiri moves back into Kabul.

They want the nightlife.

They want the good restaurants.

They don't want to live in the cave out in the fucking mountains.

They want a place in town.

They want to be in the city.

Yeah, but the mom was all like, hashtag a bad abag, right?

But one other, and so I don't want to be too serious here, but one other thing about this was

a lot of Biden's critics said that when we pulled out of Afghanistan, that we were going to let the terrorists just run wild there.

And this sort of blunts that criticism.

Wait.

Who said

a lot of Biden's critics.

But the terrorists are running wild.

The Taliban are completely back in charge and they reneged on everything they ever said they were going to do.

Women are back to being third-class citizens and they're letting the terrorists move back into their Pianatare in downtown Kabul.

What are you talking about?

You know, who's not running wild is the head of al-Qaeda, Al-Zawahiri.

Okay?

So I I think that matters.

Well, there's always,

and we got him, but they let him back in.

The Taliban were not good partners, not honest negotiating partners.

So look, I'm all for,

I think Biden did the right thing by pulling out of Afghanistan.

Do you think that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

And

it was a tough decision.

Yeah.

It was the right decision.

And did he stick the landing?

No.

It was so disappointing why something that consequential couldn't have been done with more efficiency.

It just makes me worry about...

Ten years ago.

Yeah.

What?

Or 10 years ago.

10 years ago.

But the fact that he finally did it, they had time to plan it.

And when they finally pulled it off, it's like they only thought of two days before.

And it just makes me worry about everything in this country because this country just really can't do anything efficiently.

And I thought the military was the last line of defense.

All right.

I've kept you long enough.

Thank you very much.

You're rehired, man.

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