Overtime – Episode #600: Ian Bremmer, Jane Harman

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.

Thank you.

Okay.

Here are the questions.

Okay, what do you think is the main culprit driving inflation?

Do you think the Biden administration is equipped to solve it?

Stump the band there, I guess I'm the first one.

You get dinner at Pepe's.

What do you think is the main corporate driving?

Well, first of all, obviously, too much money.

We pay for that.

Trillions of dollars.

Okay.

You can't deny that part.

And suddenly all of this supply chain stops, and at the same time, everyone wants to buy.

That's extraordinary.

It's unprecedented.

It's staggering.

It gets you 30-year inflation highs.

But on top of that, the Russians invade Ukraine.

And China locking down.

And China locking down.

What's up with that?

And we forgot to mention COVID.

That's why they're locking down, and that drove a lot of this, the spending and the pent-up demand.

Well, we didn't have to handle COVID that way.

Well, we didn't handle it the way China does.

No, I fucking hope not.

I mean, China, I mean,

what is going on in China?

What, I mean, Jane, you were ambassador to China and the first woman on the moon.

What?

So far.

What is going on in the chat?

People don't know.

I mean, Shanghai is a city of 25 million people where you are locked in your apartment.

I mean, they often kill your pets.

I've never seen anything like this, and

I don't know why they think it could possibly work.

You can't control a virus completely like this.

You just can't.

I don't think it is working.

I think it's working to gin up the public against the government.

Do you think it's working?

Yes, Man?

The problem is that their draconian lockdowns worked really well when the disease was not so transmissible.

And now it's much more transmissible and their vaccines don't work.

And they refuse to license American and European vaccines.

We have them.

And

they're much less virulent.

You know, I mean, Bill Gates.

Did you read his quote this week?

Who just got COVID.

Yeah.

He just got COVID.

And he said, well, we didn't realize at first that it was mostly a disease of the elderly, a relatively low fatality rate, and more like the flu.

Oh, you mean the things a lot of people were saying at the beginning and they were called crazy?

The things that would have been taken off of Twitter at the time, by the way.

Right.

No question.

There you go with Twitter.

Yeah.

Damn, we should put that into the regular short.

Do you think lawmakers are doing enough to remedy the baby formula shortage by launching an oversight investigation?

Really, into baby formula?

Is it a conspiracy to deny baby formula?

What does that mean?

Oversight of baby formula?

No, it's just this kind of stuff, right?

It's not a conspiracy.

It's just.

Well, it's a lot of concentration of power in a few companies, and it's a supply chain.

And what would you do about that?

Try to get...

Apparently, all of the major companies, I guess,

companies.

So it's not a monopoly.

Well, but it's not 20 companies.

companies i think it's three or four and they're trying to welcome the show business yeah

that can be my problem i bet i mean it's the same thing i mean there's very often not 20 companies very often only two or three companies selling airlines you know i mean

if you're most routes there's sometimes it's only one carrier

this was the worst crisis of our lifetimes what baby flyer no covet oh and the trillions of dollars that were spent.

Not the worst crisis of my life, for sure.

No, and I mean, you think that's not going to lead to massive dislocation when suddenly people didn't have money, they couldn't work, suddenly everyone's spending it at the same time?

Yeah, you're going to have problems.

Oh, you think that's where the baby formula problem is coming?

I think it's a big part of it, absolutely.

And yet, during COVID, people did not make babies.

They thought, oh, locked inside, they're going to make lots of babies, like during a blackout.

No, it was more like, I'm sick of you.

You're the last person I want to spark.

I'm sorry, but that's what happened.

Okay.

Early this week, earlier this week,

Biden used the phrase ultra-maga

multiple times in his speech about inflation.

Do you think this is an effective messaging strategy, ultra-maga?

Yeah, as a, he was saying it

as a pejorative, right?

He was saying the ultra-maga, but MAGA means make America great again.

I could see how that wouldn't be a great.

I thought it was a premium brand, you know, like

gas.

You know, that's four bucks and fifty cents a gallon.

Sounds better.

Ultra MAGA.

That's going to work better, right?

I don't think it works very well.

It sounds like a condom.

Ultra MAGA sounds like a condom.

It does.

Larger rounds works just.

Ultra MAGA.

yeah.

But don't you think Putin should get a big red hat that says, uh, Merga, make Russia great again?

Isn't that what he's trying to do in some misguided way?

Trump?

Putin.

Putin, yes, of course.

Well, every country wants to make their country great again.

Well, I mean, he's making it less great now.

I mean, Trump, that's not even Trump's original phrase, make America great again.

Clinton used it, and Reagan used it.

You know,

it's an ombud.

I like that it was Make America Great Again Again.

Right.

It's turtles all the way down.

They'll do that without irony.

Absolutely.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, folks.

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