Ep. #579: Steven Van Zandt, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Matt Taibbi

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

Thank you so much.

All right.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Sit down.

Oh, look at these people.

I know.

Well, it's always

good.

Thank you very much.

I do appreciate it.

Thank you.

I know.

Thank you.

It's uh

what a crowd.

Thank you.

I know.

The people are

crazy.

It's the fiscal new year.

So people go nuts.

Well, you know what?

That's the big story.

I hate to have to bore you with all this shit, but it's all...

But that's all what America is talking about.

The temporary funding bill got passed.

We are not going to have a government

shutdown, so that's good.

I mean, what are we...

You're cheering?

Because we made it through to December 3rd.

That's what they did.

The Democrats wanted to raise the debt cell lingo.

No, just till December 3rd.

That's all the Republicans.

This is the equivalent of putting duct tape on your shower nozzle until you actually call the plumber.

This stupid.

This stupid, stupid game.

of chicken that they always play whenever a Democrat is the president and the Republicans can make him look like an asshole.

And of course, at the last minute, the Democrats had to back down.

Nancy Pelosi blinked, which is itself news.

We joke.

We joke here.

Oh,

did you see there's a new book out about Trump?

I love this.

Everybody who worked for Trump.

for years, completely loyal.

Now they hate his guts and they write a burr.

All right, is what I was really thinking.

So

Stephanie Grisham, I don't even remember this one, one of Trump's many press secretaries, wrote a book and she talked about all the inside dirt.

Apparently Melania was very angry about Trump cheating on her.

At one point she tearfully said, I wish he never ordered me.

It's sad, isn't it, people?

Also, I love this.

By the way, I know Biden isn't perfect, but just remember, it was only a year ago that shit like this was happening.

Get this.

At one point, Trump called Stephanie Grisham from Air Force One about his penis.

That's.

Yeah.

That's not happening under the current administration.

I mean, just take our,

yes, because remember Stormy Daniels said it was shaped like a toadstool.

So Trump had to call her from Air Force, get it out there, my dick is not shaped like a toadstool.

you see why he had so many press secretaries I mean try working that into a press release about the consumer price index there's a job

the global supply chain is causing a lot of problems now have you been in trouble trouble getting shit?

A lot of people are.

There's a short supply now of canned vegetables, chicken, bottled water.

But the bright side, we're fully stocked with Halloween shit.

Also.

This country, I love this country.

Try to.

I mean, no chicken, but if you want a plastic rat that sings the monster mash, we've got you covered.

And

in celebrity news, Britney Spears' father has been removed from the conservatorship.

So,

yeah.

People are very excited.

Thank God, if this went on much longer, Ken Burns would make a documentary about it.

So, can we just stop talking about fucking,

no, good for Brittany, a Los Angeles judge?

This happened.

A Los Angeles judge officially released Brittany, put her father in the corner,

and now the Democrats want to put that judge on Kirsten Cinema.

Well,

I love also Twitter completely congratulating themselves on freeing Brittany.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

She's a pop star who couldn't use her credit card.

She's not Nelson Mandela, okay?

We did it.

We freed Brittany.

I'm glad she's freed.

And I don't even disagree.

She should be free.

And Brittany was so excited when she heard the news.

She shaved her head and attacked a car with an umbrella.

Is that a bad sign?

We can't.

We joke here.

But I love this last story I'm going to tell you.

This is so California.

Where are the Californians when you need them?

This is our latest wildfire was started by a shaman.

Of course it was.

A shaman who was in the woods boiling bear urine, not naked urine, urine from a bear.

That's why I always drink my bear urine cold.

I just want to know how she got the bear to pee in a cup.

That's all I want to know.

All right, we got a great show.

Matt Taivi and Catherine Mangu Ward are here.

But first up, he is the ultimate rock and roll rebel.

Also somehow found time to become a really good actor.

His new book is called Unrequited Infatuations, a memoir.

My good friend Stevie Van Zandt is over here.

Oh.

I won't give you anything.

I know you can't get it.

I'll take it.

Okay.

Okay.

Hi, Crazy.

Finally, I finally get you in my torture chamber.

Only 30 years in the making.

I know, I know.

So I'm going to make the most of it.

First of all, I just got to tell you the book, I gobbled it up.

It's fantastic.

The title, first of all, Unrequited Infatuations.

Awesome title.

I bet you there are so many authors out there saying, I wish I thought of that for the title.

It says so many things.

The other title I want to get to, Rock and Roll Rebel, I said it there.

You named your box set after that.

It was years in the making, that title, right?

And I feel like even among rockers who are rebels, you're a rebel among rebels.

You think that's true?

Well, at the time, yeah.

You know, politics wasn't cool, you know, you know, in our business.

I mean, it's one of those show business things, right?

Stay away from politics and religion, which, you know, you follow.

It's been my mantra my whole career, Stevie.

So

I just kind of jumped in and made that my identity.

You know, I was looking for a, you know, growing up in in the 60s, everybody had a very, very distinct identity.

And when I left the East Street Band, I was like, well, how do I justify my existence?

And I thought, you know, I'll be the political guy, you know, talking about that stuff.

And see, I know you say you left because,

you know, you wanted more in the decision-making process.

But actually, you know, when I look at what you went from there, I don't know how you...

you could have coexisted because you just wanted to be so much more political.

And I mean, a theme throughout the book in your life is you losing money.

Well, it's not.

Or foregoing money that could have been, money that was on the table, that you did not

rake in because you chose this other path, because you are the rock and roll rebel.

I mean, I don't know how you, you could not have, you could not have.

Can I just go through, I mean, the name of your albums from the 80s, they were all so revolution, freedom, no compromise, right?

I mean voice of America.

Do we have those pictures from those albums?

Because I just got to say,

what was the look you're going for there, Stevie?

Is it.

I really think of it.

What if it was in the closet?

A lot of mascara.

Okay.

It's a look.

But the point is, you wanted to be this guy who did something.

I've always said this about music.

You know, I think a lot of musicians, they dig themselves up about they can change the world.

But what you did in South Africa really did kind of change

what was going on there.

It was

a lot of people involved.

You know, not just us, the four Musketeers, me, Danny Schechter, Arthur Baker, and Hart Perry, but it was really, you know,

from the United Nations to all of the unions in Europe.

It was a big movement.

But we kind of lit that, but we did light that spark.

You know, we did light the fuse.

But wasn't it your idea to go after Sun City?

Yeah.

I mean, if people don't remember, I vaguely remember this, that Sun City, it was kind of like the Las Vegas of South Africa, right?

It was this, and I remember everybody played it.

Frank Sinatra opened it.

But lots of people who are known as big liberals.

in the music industry probably don't want to be reminded.

And there was this pressure that you put on.

It it was like why are you going there to South Africa this is an apartheid regime yeah and and we made a decision you know let's let's assume that they were manipulated which they were you know and let's not let's not have an infighting amongst the amongst the music people let's keep our eye on the ball because we had a bigger a bigger goal in mind which was to raise enough consciousness to get the sanctions bill passed which we knew when it came up Ronald Reagan was going to veto it because he was part of that unholy trinity supporting apartheid, him, Thatcher and Cole, you know, UK and Germany, you know.

And

Reagan was God in those days, man.

He was this, you know, the grandfatherly cowboy, you know, happy cowboy.

And all these crimes are going on behind the scenes.

And

we needed to raise that consciousness enough that when the sanctions bill came up, which was really the home run, you know, sports boycott first, which was in place, cultural boycott, which is what we did, and then the and then the economic sanctions.

And once they came up, he did veto it, and we overrode that veto because we had raised the consciousness so much.

You know, and Republicans, Republicans voted for it, okay?

Richard Luger and Republicans voted for the sanctions bill.

Can you imagine Republicans voting so black people could vote?

Different era.

Very different era, yeah.

Yeah.

But, and you did all that, and yet you still didn't starve.

You still have some money.

no the money thing it's not the money thing so much it's well you know my i mean i've had wonderful successes and i don't want to ever sound ungrateful about the street band and and sopranos and lilyhammer and the sun city project you know um

but but you know my own personal my more my most personal stuff you know my my personal records that you just put the screen up there uh have not found an audience you know and and the point is you know you're gonna go through life you're going to have some frustration, and you're going to have some disappointment, and everybody is, and that's where the universal themes start to happen, you know.

But it's not a matter of are you going to be disappointed, it's what do you do with it?

What do you do after that?

You know?

Do you give up and throw in a towel, or do you kind of find a way to move forward?

And

I hope the book is useful that way, you know?

I think it will be.

I think it's really interesting the way

you draw this parallel between,

well, I think the word is concigliary.

Am I saying that right?

I know it's in the Godfather.

The brain.

Concigliary.

Concigliari.

Okay.

So

you were kind of like that in the East Street Band.

And then that's the part you really played on the Sopranos.

Yeah, that was funny.

And it was.

So when you played the part on the Sopranos, and you had never acted, I mean, David Chase,

he cast you based on charisma, likability, authenticity, not an acting ability,

Which you didn't have at the time.

There was none.

I turned them down when you had to go.

Right, but it worked.

Because

you didn't have to stretch too far in your mind for that conciliary role, right?

For that thought process.

It developed into that.

I mean, it didn't start off that way.

You know, it started off as just running the strip club for the family.

And we would meet in the back room, would be our office.

But it developed.

Over the first season, it developed into

that underboss conciliary role.

Yeah.

So I I know you probably would agree with the uh McCartney thing he used to say about I'd rather have a band than a Rolls-Royce, right?

I'm sh I'm guessing you would agree with that statement.

You you love having a band, you love being in a band.

Yeah, that's my that's my inclination.

You know, I'm a band guy, you know, an ensemble guy.

And do you think there may be too many bands now?

I did a thing here earlier this year about the number of

I think it was 1.6 million artists that

from the beginning of

January 2019 to the middle of 2020, that's in a year and a half, a million point six artists were on Spotify.

Wow.

Can there be that many good bands?

Wow.

And how do we weed out the shit?

Well,

because it's always...

I solved this problem already.

I solved the problem.

All you have to do is tune into the Underground Garage channel.

Your channel.

Channel 21 Underground.

But you want to break new bands, don't you?

We have introduced over 1,000 new bands in 20 years.

Are there even 1,000 new good ones?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

I don't have that.

I mean, over 20 years, there's not a thousand.

It took 20 years.

But

you need some curation these days.

I mean, you really do.

I mean,

there's more music than ever, even though the rock business is kind of over, you know, as far as the industry is concerned.

We're still the biggest thing live, thankfully.

Right.

But recognize.

That's mostly an oldish thing.

Mostly, yes.

Because they have the money.

Yes.

The older people have money.

But they bring the generations with them.

They pay for them.

Like they do everything else.

True.

It's true.

And okay, so are you 70?

You don't even look at it.

And you say that out loud.

And you certainly don't dress it.

So can you do these four-hour shows?

I mean, sometimes the E-Street Venn does a four-hour show.

Well, you'd have to.

No, but it shouldn't be four.

I mean, we only did four a couple times, and it was too much, you know.

I mean, at the end of those shows, Bruce came over to me.

He's like, I can't bend the strings anymore.

Right.

I'm like, go talk to the boss.

What are you talking to me for?

You know, he's complaining to me.

But no, but three hours, you're going to do three.

You might get get to three and a half.

That's about the limit.

That's all you want to do.

All right.

You'll have to get home for the babysitters.

You know.

Right.

Well, the Rolling Stones are still doing it.

They're older than you.

That's it.

And may they go forever because we'll still be the new guys on the block.

All right.

Stevie Vantez, everybody.

All right.

Thanks, Brian.

Google.

Great to see you.

All right.

Let's meet our treasure.

Let's meet our battle.

Hey.

All right.

hello there.

All right, she is editor-in-chief of Reason Magazine and co-host of the Reason Roundtable Podcast, Catherine Mangu Ward.

Nice to meet you.

And he is the editor of TK News on Substack and a co-host of the podcast, Useful Idiots.

Matt Taibbi is here with us.

Okay, so

again,

I know this budget shit is boring and wonky, but it's what is going on in this country.

We need to talk about it.

Let's spice it up by thinking about it this way.

You know, when they do surveys of married couples or even couples in relationships, and they always find out that the number one thing that people fight about, no close second, is money.

People fight about money.

And that's what the Democrats are doing.

Mommy and Daddy are fighting about money.

They have two bills.

They've passed neither one.

One they could pass right now, let's say $1.2 trillion.

Let's say $1 trillion.

I mean,

what's two

when you pass the T thing,

one, and then that's just for infrastructure.

That's actually building roads and bridges and stuff like that.

A couple of years ago, I think we would have been very happy to just have that.

Then they have this other $3.5 trillion bill.

That's for lots of other stuff like child care,

community college, universal pre-K, Medicare expansion, paid family and medical, a lot of

free stuff, always popular.

So the two wings of the party, there's the AOC, Bernie wing, they want both bills, and they're going to hold the one hostage so they get them both.

The other, more moderate side, they're very mad at Kirsten.

Kirsten and Kristen have to freaking

get their names aligned.

I can't ever get

Kirsten, right?

Kirsten Cinema and Joe Manchin, they're the two Democrats who are holding up, and they're mad at them because they're not progressive enough, forgetting that they only got elected because they're not progressive, because they're moderates.

Here's my question.

Does spending more money make you a better person or a bigger moderate?

And maybe these two,

Cinema and Manchin, do they might have their thumb more on the pulse of the average Democrat in the country?

I think it is so telling that the main conversation about this is just people shouting those two trillion dollar numbers at each other over and over.

We just have this idea that somehow

nobody knows what's in the bills.

And I think there was this brief moment last week.

I find that to be a problem.

A huge problem.

There's a brief moment last week.

I don't know if you all caught it where actually the $3.5 trillion bill was a zero-dollar bill.

There was this big fight because it was like, no, it's paid for.

So it's kind of like the money comes from nowhere.

It's fine.

You know, Obamacare was paid for.

I feel like that was such a different era when that was a thing

to at least try to pay for your bill.

There are pay-for's in both of these bills, but the fact that, you know, the fact that obviously there's going to be a huge amount of accounting trickery in there, that's always going to happen.

And, you know, I think you are right that the American public is not it's not clear that what they voted for when they voted for Joe Biden, who was perceived as a moderate, was $3.5 trillion of massive new social programs.

It just isn't, that may not be what people actually want.

And I think it's reasonable enough for our representatives to say like, hey, hold on, can we talk about this a little more?

I think it's interesting within the media, just from that standpoint, how quickly we've gone from believing that most

media people believe that deficit spending was a good thing and that we needed more of that, right?

But now it's...

more like monetary theory that there's a limitless amount of money that we can spend and we should never have to worry about accounting again or paying for things again.

And I don't know where I fall on that, but I think it's just interesting that almost everybody who covers this stuff

believes that that latter thing.

Well, and there's this weird pretense that we always believed it.

I mean, this is a very new idea to say, like, actually, you can definitely spend trillions of dollars, and it means nothing for what your children will have to pay back, what resources we will have if there's another crisis in the future.

And I just don't think that.

I feel like COVID changed that.

You remember that great book, Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein?

You know, and And it's sort of like the theory, never let a crisis go to waste.

We saw how the Republicans did it at 9-11 happened.

It was like, oh, well, we've always wanted to invade Iraq again.

Wouldn't this be?

And I feel like this is kind of what the other side did with COVID.

I mean, they always wanted to send more checks to people who have kids.

Well, part of this bill is anybody who's making $400,000

gets $2,000 a kid.

So baby bonus.

And there's a lot of stuff in this bill that basically is going to go to people who are better off.

I mean, I think it's a reasonable enough question to say there are people suffering in this country.

They need help.

And maybe the federal government occasionally should help with that.

But that is not what these $3.5 trillion are.

It is everything every Democrat ever wanted to do.

And isn't having kids just a choice?

Am I, isn't it like, aren't we picking winners and losers there?

Wow.

You're now alone because the Republicans and the Democrats both want to subsidize the spawning.

It's also interesting.

Right.

It's supposed to be a bill that's a green bill.

Kids aren't green.

Having more people isn't green.

You have not seen my children after they have peas.

Just a lot of the same people who are saying that this, we need the $3.5 trillion bill are the same people who are arguing against it when Bernie Sanders was running against Joe Biden just a year ago.

I think that's interesting, too.

Like a lot of pundits have completely changed their minds about this and acted like nothing happened.

Right.

And Republicans destroyed their credibility as responsible fiscal stewards.

Like I do think it's important to keep that in mind.

Oh, it is.

They, you know, Donald Trump got up there and said, I need a couple trillion dollars.

And they were like, here you go, buddy.

Like, whatever you want.

They destroyed it way before that.

Well.

They've been doing that forever.

They were already in a weak place and they blew it up.

They've been doing that forever.

The Democrats would come in and clean up their mess.

And somehow they would still have the reputation as the people who look after your money.

I never understood how that happened.

Well, because they keep saying it during elections.

And people like it, because Americans actually do like the idea that their government might be kind of fiscally responsible.

And Republicans got away with the rhetoric for a lot longer than the reality supported it.

So one of the things, two free years of community college, I don't know, I thought of that when I read your article this week about does America hate the poorly educated.

I mean, I was saying a few weeks ago, maybe months ago, who knows, I smoked pot, but

whenever it was,

that I'm not so sure that the idea that the more education we get, the better we are.

First of all, I don't know what they're teaching at the colleges.

I don't think they're teaching the subjects that are substantive anymore.

Maybe some of them are.

But also just this idea that more sitting in classrooms makes you more able to

navigate the world.

And you came up, you quoted a guy, you came up with this,

I love this phrase, credentialism.

Right.

The last prejudice we have, credentialism, looking down on people who don't have any sort of degree.

I mean, I was saying, instead of like getting everybody with a degree, why don't we just be honest that most people don't need a degree?

And it's a bullshit thing to begin with.

Yeah.

I've covered a lot of stories about student loans and I think people have to face the idea that the higher education in America is kind of a scam.

It is.

You need to go to college to get a good professional job, but there's no guarantee you're going to get one if you go to college.

In fact, the likelihood is very poor that you're going to get a good job right out of college for most people.

But you have to get the equivalent of a gigantic mortgage to go to one of these schools.

And a lot of people who get out of college now,

they leave and they think to themselves, I could have just waited tables from the beginning and not had this massive debt when I left.

And people are catching on to that.

And

that's a problem.

At Reason Magazine, we make it a point to hire people who do not have college degrees.

Now, to be fair, that's usually because they couldn't actually get it together to finish college rather than a deep principal position.

But it's for this very reason.

There is nothing about spending four years on an ivy-covered campus or in a strip mall, as in the case of many colleges in America, that makes you better qualified to do a lot of jobs.

And we have, I think the American public currently holds something like $1.6 trillion.

But again,

we'll just round it up or down.

Money doesn't mean anything anymore.

They hold $1.6 trillion in federal student debt.

And that money maybe doesn't mean anything to the federal government, but it means a lot to those individual people.

They have all been sold this bill of goods where they've taken on debt.

It's shaping the decisions they make in their lives.

And, you know, frankly, I would like to see us improve our K through 12 system so that people don't feel like they need a college degree.

We've

massively,

massively increased spending on K-12 to no avail.

I feel like they don't know anything.

I feel like this gent, they never read a book.

Somebody sent me a video of a TikTok mashup.

This guy's just asking, it's like the old Jay Leno jaywalking bit where you just ask people questions.

First question:

who was the first American to walk on the sun?

And they go,

Lance Armstrong.

Another question was,

Venice, Italy is in what country?

Answer, Paris.

I mean they're moronic on a level that they weren't even 10 years ago.

So why would I want to put more money into that?

I don't, one of them who prefaces her answer with, I'm a teacher, I should know this.

And now we're finding out there's somebody identified this week, I saw in the news, what they're calling a mating crisis because women overwhelmingly are kicking men's asses as far as getting degrees.

Yes.

That's what I meant.

Yay!

I actually, I hate to say this.

I think men might be onto something here.

Like,

it pains me, but if significantly fewer men are looking at the proposition that college offers and saying they want to take it,

you know, maybe the legacy of the moment.

If you think of men, I hate it.

I hate to say that.

Well, but the problem is that women who have a degree don't want to go out with men who don't.

So you wind wind up with all these lonely, angry men.

Really funny.

Who are going to burn down the country.

Other than that, it's hysterical.

But really, I mean, wherever you have lonely, angry men.

It's never a good thing.

It's never a good thing.

The priesthood.

The Taliban, you know, I could go on.

I mean, lonely, angry men.

And of course, who is there, who is the perfect champion of the moronic, Donald Trump?

That, you know, especially guys, you know.

I mean, just, I mean, his vocabulary, all six words of it, is perfect for them.

Oh, he's, see?

Look, I covered in Trump's campaign.

He, and he knew exactly who he was talking to, that whole thing about how I love the poorly educated.

Right.

He understood where all the frustration was out there.

And

education is the political divide in this country now.

It's the most predictive thing.

If you want to determine who's going to vote for Democrats and who's going to vote for Republicans, it's college graduates versus people who don't have college degrees.

And that's changed dramatically just since Clinton's time.

Like if you look at the top 30 districts in 1992, half of them voted Republican and half of them voted Democrat.

In the last election, all but three of them voted Democrat.

So it's become a class educational thing.

And as you point out at at the end of your article, accompanied by real hate,

like I want you to die kind of hate, which never was the case.

I mean, it used to, I mean, as far as long ago as like, I mean, as recently as like the 20s or 30s, I think only like one out of 20 Americans went to college.

They used to say, a college man,

you know, almost like you're a doctor.

But the people who didn't go didn't hate those people.

Now they hate.

And I see in the paper today,

over half of Trump people want a civil war.

41% of Biden voters want a civil war.

Where do they think they're going?

What side are we on?

I mean, I'm in California.

He got 4.5 million votes, I think, in this state.

We can't have a civil war.

This is the problem of polarization, right?

And I think it causes all kinds of downstream issues.

I guess maybe including eventually civil war.

I hope not.

But

people don't know people who disagree with them politically anymore.

And they did used to quite recently.

Exactly.

And I think, you know, in some ways, that's

you know, that's a potential solution to some of the angst around politics right now.

Is like, if everybody could just go make one friend who voted differently than they did.

Right.

And it's, I get it.

Like, if you're a Republican and you think, like, a Democrat is too far and vice versa, like, consider libertarians.

because there's like something to hate and something to love for both sides about us.

And we're super fun at parties.

So just try it.

All right.

So

we thought this would be a good week with the Stephanie Grisham book coming out to do one of our favorite departments on this show.

I don't know it for a fact.

I just know it's true.

People love it.

Why not?

I don't know it for a fact.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that the chef who invented blackened chicken just burnt the chicken.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that in the not-too-distant future, every guy who can't get it up will blame it on long COVID.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that

Hunter Biden has done the pulp fiction thing with the syringe in the chest.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that the hand sanitizer at Supercuts is just gel.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that you could show a doorman in L.A.

a vaccination card that was really a coupon from Bed Bath and Beyond,

and he'd still let you in.

Just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that Kirsten Sinema isn't bi.

She's just indecisive.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that you could pay for a Lamborghini just by renting it to guys on Tinder to pose in front of.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that if a giant sinkhole leading to a prehistoric land suddenly appeared on La Brea, everyone in LA would just go, shit, I have to take Fairfax.

I don't know for a fact that if I started the bang your face with a pipe challenge on TikTok, kids would do it.

I just know it's true.

And I don't know for a fact that now that Robin has come out as bisexual, he lists his pronouns as biff, pow, and bam.

I just know it's true.

Okay, so

I thought this would be a good week to do this because when I read you, Matt Taibi, as I always do, about Russia, that seems to be what you're saying, the Russia-Trump connection.

I don't know,

right?

You get what I'm saying?

That's your thesis, really, is that the media was like, I don't know for a fact, I just know it's true.

And I just have to pick this fight with you because I understand, you're right.

The media does leap on things too soon.

They don't care.

They want to be first, more importantly than being accurate.

But, you know, it sounds like you think that when Trump says it was a hoax, he's right.

And I don't think that's the case.

I mean, you said that you compared it to WMDs.

You said...

The Russia connection with Trump is this generation's WMD.

I don't think that's an accurate analogy because there were WMDs.

There were no WMDs, but there was collusion with Russia.

Really?

Like, where?

I mean...

Where?

The Senate Intelligence Committee, this is run by Republicans who are, if anything, slavish to Trump.

Their report said Trump campaign's interactions with Russian intelligence services during the 2016 presidential election posed a grave counterintelligence threat.

Why would Republicans say that about Donald Trump?

Okay, let's say, first of all, Mueller didn't say that.

Second of all, they're talking about one person.

Mueller didn't not say that.

Remember, he was like, I'm not going to not, not, not say.

He pussied out, but he didn't exonerate him at all.

This story is about the alleged delivery of public polling data to a guy named Konstantin Kalimnik who was for the International Republican Institute and was.

Well, he's also been described as a GRU agent.

We don't really know.

He's certainly something close to the people in Russia.

You will admit that they had a building of people in St.

Petersburg who were just assigned to rat fuck the election through Facebook, right?

Well, yeah, theoretically they talked about $100,000 that was spent by that company.

Right, Facebook's free.

But they never established a connection between that company and the government.

They were just doing it voluntarily and saying.

$100,000 worth of ads, that's nothing compared to what if they really wanted to affect the election, why not just give Trump $50 million?

9-11 didn't cost much either.

Okay.

You know?

It's not about how much you spend.

I think the more significant thing is that there was such a massive quantity of fake stories that did go through from the Steele dossier to the A-19.

But the Steel dossier got right two very important things.

They got right.

Am I wrong about this?

Oh, I thought you looked at me like...

That's my default facial expression.

It's ecstasism.

More so here too.

They got right that

Russia was waging a broad campaign to elect Trump, and that was before that was established.

And the other thing that they got like was

the WikiLeaks leak.

I mean, that the Democrats...

This was all being written during the time when all this was already coming out.

And the FBI actually even concluded that they couldn't find any original reporting in the Steele dossier that actually panned out.

The stuff that was actually original in the Steele dossier, everything from the P-tape to the well-developed conspiracy of five years, and the plan between the FSB and Trump.

None of that panned out.

Well, the P-tape, I agree, was a tragedy for the...

That was a massive story for years.

We weren't talking.

Well, it was a massive story because people make, it was obviously, people would rather talk about P than the budget.

On most shows.

Not on this show.

We talk about both.

But that was confirmed by Mueller, that the hacks, I mean, Roger Stone,

right,

told WikiLeaks to release release the Democratic emails, the Podesta emails, right after the Hollywood access tape came out.

And they did it within an hour.

Within a day after Trump said publicly, Russia, if you're listening, I hope you can hack those emails.

They started to do it.

That's not collusion?

No.

Look,

the Roger Stone indictment actually proves.

that

the collusion theory was wrong.

Even at that very late date, they were trying to reach out to WikiLeaks.

If there was actually a conspiracy between Wikileaks, Russia, and Trump, they wouldn't have had Roger Stone reaching out and being told to fuck off, by the way, by WikiLeaks.

But it's not a coincidence that those emails were released right after.

Yeah, but that's a completely different thing from talking about an espionage conspiracy where

Trump and the Russians got together to

plan to fix an election.

I mean, they're allowed to

talk to Wikileaks if they have they think they have a big story that's gonna hurt Hillary Clinton.

You wanna jump in on this?

I don't know.

I would not love to frankly, but I will.

I kind of feel like I'm at a table here with two dudes who each have their own bulletin board covered with like yarn and news clippings.

And you're like, you're both,

but you're both right.

Like there really, there really is,

this lives in this space between incompetence and conspiracy.

Trump did a terrible job of colluding with with Russia if he was trying to.

And maybe he was trying to, but on some level, I think

the real mistake was, and I think this is Matt's point, ultimately, the focus, the media focus on this story missed the mark because Trump was doing a bunch of very bad stuff.

in public that can and should have convinced people that he wasn't going to be fit to

serve as a president for a second term, for a first term.

And

you know, it turned out that focusing on the Russiagate stuff may be distracted from, I don't know, like talking about his terrible immigration policy or something like that, or the budget.

I feel we did.

Which you love.

I feel like we did both.

We had, you know, we didn't need the P-tape.

We had to actually.

To pretend that that all didn't happen, that they weren't in bed with the Russians.

I mean, and then they did it again because they got away with it.

Ruli Giuliani went to Ukraine and met with a guy who he said, at best, this is like 50-50 a Russian agent.

That was his defense.

Should we even be meeting with people who are at best 50-50 a Russian agent?

That's how far the goalposts had moved.

Like, that's not a big thing anymore.

Yeah, but Bill, the story for three years was Trump colluded with the Russian secret services to fix an election.

It was an espionage conspiracy story that we took seriously.

We were told every day.

Because it is serious.

They didn't have to be in the same room.

He did it.

See, the thing is with Trump is he committed committed his crime so publicly that people just thought it must not be a crime because how else could you get away with that?

It's like the guy who cheats on his wife right at the prime table in the most popular restaurant.

Honey, if I was fucking her, would I be right here at this restaurant?

This is.

It's.

Let's move on.

So big news today.

Merck has a new COVID pill.

What is funny about that?

I want to ask you if you think this is a game changer, but we've never had this so far.

Merck has developed a pill that reduces the risk of hospitalization or death by around 50% for patients with, they say, mild or moderate cases of COVID, which I saw on the news today.

It means take it early.

When you first get the, feel bad, take this pill.

Is this going to change everything?

I sure hope so.

It would be incredible if this worked out.

Just like the vaccine was an incredible innovation that changed, unfortunately, not as much as we would like, but really helped get the country functioning again and the world functioning again.

I do think that

this is a pill, and so we already...

Americans love pills.

That's why I think this is going to be the game, because they're like, just solve it with the pill.

Even though the pill could do the same as a vaccine, it's just something about a pill.

I'd love to take a pill.

I loved it.

People want pills.

I do love it.

They love pills.

Pills are easy.

Even a shot, it's like, oh, it hurts, and I don't know, and it's scary, and it's a needle.

But the pill, who can't take a pill?

I'm starting to feel bad that I didn't bring you any pills.

I'm very sorry.

I could have.

No, I mean, I think.

I think this is an incredibly encouraging development.

I think it could be a game changer.

I will admit I went into the pandemic extremely skeptical of the FDA and the CDC, but I think America joined me in that as we saw a huge number of mistakes by the public health bureaucracy.

Huge.

And I'm, you know, this pill does not have FDA approval right now.

So I want to know how long are we going to have to wait?

If this is life-saving, just like the vaccines have turned out to be, I would really like for people to have the right to try these life-saving medications.

And I'm afraid that the bureaucracy is going to stand in the way.

And one of the problems, as you have written so eloquently about, is that we have politicized medication now.

I mean, ivermectin, I keep ivermectin, it's a drug.

It's not a politician.

It should not have any reputation except does it work or not.

But like on the left,

thank you for applauding that completely non-controversial idea.

But like on the left, it was like, oh no, you can't even mention it.

I think they took the, right?

Isn't that part of your meet the censored campaign?

Oh, yeah, no, there were.

They were talking about ivermectin.

And of course, the comedians on the left would only talk about the fact that it was used to deworm horses, leaving out that it's been described millions of times for humans.

Now, there was a study done, a large patient study in Brazil, Ivermectin, they said had no effect whatsoever.

But you know what?

There's always multiple studies.

I don't know.

Doctors are also wrong a lot about shit.

Well, you know, I think the thing that was

about COVID is that there were so many people who were suddenly rooting against or for certain drugs.

Right, rooting.

Why do you care?

Exactly.

Root for it.

Yeah, exactly.

And then they have one,

fluvoxoxamine, an antidepressant,

does show a 30% reduction in risk of hospitalization.

Why don't we hear about that?

Why isn't that approved to talk about?

I don't get it.

And what was the hydroxychloroquine?

Remember, Trump took it, so now, oh, that was like, you know, when you touch a baby bird, it'll die, because

the mother knows a human touched it.

I think that a lot of people want to be, a lot of people want to be gatekeepers on this.

A lot of people thought that the American public was too stupid to understand that there might be multiple different treatments and other things going on all at once and that they just had to be told a very, very simple story that only the vaccine was good and they had to take a vaccine.

And, you know,

far be it from me to say the American public is not stupid.

Like that does.

happen.

But I think when the stakes are this high, when it really is about, you know, protecting your own life, people should be allowed to make their own choices.

And if they want to read a bunch of Brazilian studies and come to their own conclusion,

that should be all right.

And that study may turn out to be true.

But they usually do multiple, multiple studies.

And also, I don't know how the Brazilian studies are done.

I don't know who wrote a check.

Sometimes that happens to make a study come out.

But, you know, as...

A doctor I read, a serious doctor said, nothing in medicine is fixed or precise, unlike other sciences.

That's the case I've been trying to prosecute on this jump.

All right, we ran out of time.

It was a lot of fun.

Time for new rules, everybody.

New rules, the makers of this quantum logic clock at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is so accurate, it would neither gain nor lose one second in 33 billion years.

Have to admit that it's such a bitch to reset reset when the power goes out.

They chucked it and bought this one from Target.

Neural, now that the two of the biggest talent agencies in Hollywood are merging, ICM and CAA, have to change their name to I'm Kaka.

That way when you're watching cats and thinking who made this shit, you'll have the answer.

Neuruul stop showing me video of workers in hazmat suits spraying down trains and planes with God knows what I'd rather take my chances with COVID than ride the Chemical Express to Cancer Town

No vacation should begin with.

This is your captain speaking.

Our flight today contains toxins known to the state of California to cause birth defects.

Now sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.

Neural, the organizers of the attempt to break the world record for the largest ever mass dog wedding have to invite me next time.

Because really, at what other ceremony are you going to get to see a groom cheat on his bride right there on the altar?

Oh, I got him on that one.

Neurol, since Scandinavia is only known for furniture and atmospheric crime shows about murderers.

They must make an atmospheric crime show about someone who murders people with furniture.

And the title of it must be, If I Catch You, I Key You.

And finally, new rules: Someone has to break it to America's travel vloggers that the part of life where you're retired and joyride around the country, that's supposed to come after the working for a living part, not before.

Now, in recent weeks, the country has been transfixed with the story of a young woman murdered while traveling in a van with her boyfriend.

And while too much attention has already been paid, this case has taught me a few things.

First, that Nancy Grace is still alive.

And second, how extensive is this movement of young hipsters rejecting the dreary working life of us normies

to

instead explore the country in a van, which I found very odd.

This is what retirees do.

They get an RV and visit our nation's many historic outlet malls.

It's what Clarence Thomas and his hideous wife do for kicks.

You want to emulate them?

What's next, taking up shooting birds on the ground like Dick Cheney?

But of course, the whole point of van life is to film your travels and put them on YouTube.

You're not a hobo, you're a content provider.

Let other people work stupid jobs like nurse or teacher.

You figured out a way to monetize fucking off.

Yeah, you and everybody else in your generation.

According to the LA Times, content creators are the fastest growing type of small business in the U.S.

By one estimate, over 50 million people worldwide now consider themselves to be online creators or influencers.

When we used to ask kids, what do you want to be when you grow up?

They'd say firefighter, astronaut.

Now most 60-year-olds would probably say, I want to be Instagram famous, bitch.

And I guess why not?

The supposedly media savvy millennials and Gen Zers really do buy stuff just because some ding-dong holds it up on Instagram.

They laugh at boomers buying crap on QBC, but you're doing the same thing.

Grandma's buying Tupperware, you're selling mascara to each other.

The only difference is she's suffering from dementia.

What's your excuse?

I mean,

I get why nobody wants the jobs that Del Taco is offering, but honestly, that's exactly where Brian Laundrie should be working.

He was never destined to be insta-famous.

He was destined to forget the fries in my cheeseburger combo.

I keep hearing that there are no good jobs out there.

Well, there certainly are many shitty jobs out there, but there are also millions of openings in professional and business services, education, health, construction, retail, manufacturing.

America right now has more job openings than at any time in its history, and more than there are people looking.

A lot of the time, there are no good jobs out there just means I want to be Kim Kardashian.

It means I want my job to be I'm me and people pay to watch that.

What's the fallback career, marijuana tester?

72% of Gen Zs say they'd like to be an online celebrity.

They don't don't even want to achieve something that makes them famous.

That would involve that pesky step of developing some sort of talent or skill.

No.

Getting followers, that is the achievement.

I'd say take a good long look at yourself, but plainly that's all you do all day.

We spent decades dismantling the patriarchal notion that women should stay home and not work.

And then the Kardashian phenomenon happened.

Now it seems like millions want to, you know, stay home and not work.

This generation's financial plan is hitting the jackpot.

Getting paid to do nothing is their highest goal.

So spoiled by parents who told them, all you have to do is do you.

They think it's fascinating for us to watch them order eggs at a diner.

But how long can we go on selling each other our life stories as the basis for an economy?

It doesn't feel sustainable.

You can't all be the Truman show.

Most of the time, what these vloggers are reporting on is in their travel is just themselves.

This just in, we woke up.

It's hard to wrap my head around this level of narcissism of so many people trying to make a living by taking pictures of themselves like they're their own paparazzi.

Everyone wants to know what went on in that van between Brian and Gabby.

I want to know why filming van life is something anyone would find remotely interesting to begin with.

Home movies have never been interesting.

That is as true in the YouTube era as it was back when kids had to sit through Uncle Morty's super eight footage of his trip to Cypress Gardens.

But at least he didn't ask us to hit the like button and subscribe to it.

I'm sorry, but Brian Laundrie was not an interesting person until he became a person of interest.

When I read about this couple riding around for four months, I thought, how lovely that would have been when I was 22.

I don't remember having the freedom to just drive around the country.

I had to sell drugs.

You did.

I was starting a career.

I had to pay for it.

Nobody these days seems to be up for enduring those early shitty jobs and shitty apartments we all had as a matter of course on the way to something better.

One of the most popular games of the pandemic was Nintendo's Animal Crossing, a game where you don't do anything, there are no bad guys, you can't die, you can't win or lose.

You just kind of fuck around.

What a perfect game for this generation.

But what I don't get about them is, if you think having a job is so terrible, how come you're always trying to get people fired?

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at the Benington Center in Pittsburgh, October 16th, at the Lyric Theater in Baltimore on October 23rd, at the Hulu Theater in New York.

November 13th, I want to thank Catherine Mangu Ward, Matt Taibi, and Stevie Van Zen.

And thank you, folks.

You were great.

Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10.

Or watch him anytime on HBO On Demand.

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