Ep. #576: Rep. Barbara Lee, Christina Bellantoni, George F. Will

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

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

How are you?

Thank you, everybody.

I appreciate that.

All right.

Thank you, and

thank you.

It's very kind of you.

Thank you for being here.

And a special welcome.

I know.

I know.

A special welcome to all the ladies fleeing Texas.

You're welcome here in our state.

Oh, you heard about that shit?

Wow, they really went full hog there in Texas.

Abortions now, now banned if a woman is more than six weeks pregnant.

Six weeks?

Wow.

I mean, they say everything's bigger in Texas?

Not fetuses.

I mean, six weeks?

Most most women don't even know if they're pregnant at that point or if they really ever want to see the guy again.

I bought a car last year.

They gave me more time to see if I wanted to keep the satellite radio.

This bill is serious.

This bill encourages citizen bounty hunters.

Did you see that part of it?

Oh my God, to sue anyone,

a stranger,

who you see assisting a woman getting an abortion.

It's called the Riches for Snitches program.

And the way it works is they're a website, and you can be the whistleblower.

And this is, again, anyone who assists a woman.

This would be the Uber driver.

Probably will be the Uber driver.

I want to say parenthetically, if you're making your girlfriend take an Uber to an abortion,

maybe you're an even bigger asshole.

I don't know.

But

in other medieval governments' news,

the Taliban over in Afghanistan, they announced that the Kabul airport is getting back to normal.

Isn't that a good thing?

Several flights went off.

Hundreds of foreigners, including Americans, have taken off out of commercial flights out of of Kabul.

And look, I'm not a fan of the Taliban.

I don't care who knows it.

But I got to say, the Taliban, when they tell people and coach to wait until business class is boarded, they wait.

Oh, also,

the last Jew has left Afghanistan.

The only Jew.

There was one Jew, and he has now left, and he said it was tough to be a Jew, the only Jew

in Afghanistan.

But on the bright side, never await when he ordered Chinese food.

So there's always a bright side.

But here, the other big news, of course you saw today, I see you rolled masked.

Biden has ordered sweeping federal vaccine requirements, now mandates for private sector employees, health care workers, federal contractors.

Republicans pushing back.

In Texas, Governor Roberts said, it is no fair if you fire people to make them do what you want, how can I sue them to make them do what I want?

I love that, thinking into applause.

It's a new one.

I like that.

But it's also the 20th anniversary, I'm sure you know, tomorrow of 9-11, or as Gen Z calls it, what?

Yeah, that was before they were born.

They don't know, they don't care.

They believe they have their own 9-11, which is the day Kim Kardashian's ass broke the internet.

That's their 9-11.

And of course, California's big recall.

Are you excited about this?

Are you trepidatious about this?

It is ending Tuesday.

Have you mailed in ballots?

We've been doing that for a while.

Oh, I tell you,

California politics is so confusing.

I opened the ballot and it just had Newsom's name, and then fuck Marry or Kill.

What the?

That can't be.

And he's running, his big contender is Larry Elder.

Do you know Larry Elder, African-American conservative, radio host?

Larry used to do our show, right?

Who's working with me?

We should have Larry on again after he loses.

Anyway,

I like Larry.

But Larry, no, I like Larry.

He's not afraid to put it out there.

He said on reparations, the subject came up at an interview, and he said you could argue that slave owners,

because slaves were property at the time,

they could get reparations.

The owners.

Yes, you could argue that, Larry, if you want to get your ass kicked at the barbershop.

That's what I would.

Wow.

Larry's out there.

Oh, and finally, congratulations to our Transportation Secretary and his husband, Pete Budigej.

Remember, Pete ran for president.

His husband, Chaston,

they had a baby.

No, they're two.

They had twins.

And, you know, I must say, such a high-profile birth drove home the point that gay people have children for the exact same reason that straight couples do.

They have run out of things to talk about.

All right, we've had a great show.

George Will and Christina Bellentoni are here.

The first out, she is the Democratic Congresswoman who represents California's 13th district.

Barbara Lee.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Barbara, how you doing tonight?

Doing great.

Nice being with you once again, Bill.

Oh, I appreciate it.

Listen, I wanted you on especially today because it is the anniversary of 9-11.

And as I mentioned on this show a while ago, you and people have, of course, said the same thing all over the media.

You were the lone voice after 9-11 to stand up and say, maybe we should not go into Afghanistan, which

I feel like that there should be a Barbara Lee Award, the Barbara Lee Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men Award.

for being the lone person who stands up against a group, even when the group is all all heading in one direction and I would want to ask you tonight aside from the specific lessons from Afghanistan don't you think one of them is also that people are sheep and groupthink is one of our most dangerous problems

well I tell you

first of all let me just say whenever

we're in a moment of crisis I'm talking about now our emotional reaction to national security crisis and in our personal lives Whenever we are grieving, whenever we're in mourning, whenever we're sad, whenever we're angry, that is not the decision, not the time to make important decisions.

We need to step back, and as members of Congress and leaders, we have to step back for a minute and wait until the moment where we can be rational and think about and understand the costs and consequences of the grave actions that we're about to take.

And so, yes, we needed to be unified in a response to the horrific terrorist attacks, but in and it was not a partisan moment.

But in fact, we had a duty and responsibility not to go along with the flow just because three days afterwards we wanted to bring terrorists to justice.

And so, groupthink is dangerous in many respects, but I think as members of Congress, we have to really step back for a moment, as I said, on the floor and make some serious decisions, not in the moment of grief and crisis and tragedy.

So what do you think now we're group thinking?

What are we going to look back on in 10 or 20 years and say, oh, we all were sheep on that one?

Well, I don't think it's about looking back saying we all were sheep.

I think it's about really learning the lessons of the last 20 years, several of which we know already.

One is that there's no military solution in Afghanistan.

If you know the history of Afghanistan, you know that there'll never be a military solution by the United States.

And the president was right in withdrawing our troops.

Absolutely correct.

Because had we stayed there militarily for the next five, 10, 20 years, we'd probably be in worse shape.

And there's no military solution.

And the military option is always on the table as it relates to the use of force.

Secondly, we can't go around the world and nation build.

I mean, can you imagine how much money?

money we have spent now, Bill?

We spent trillions of dollars and we spent trillions of dollars that could have have been used for infrastructure, for jobs, for health care, for education, for domestic priorities in our own country, also to support our troops and to make sure that our troops have the quality of life that they so deserve.

And that doesn't mean we don't have to use our counterterrorism measures and bring terrorists to justice.

This is a very dangerous world.

And so I think what we've learned is that we have to use all of the aspects of our national security policies and tools that we have.

We have defense, of course, but we also have diplomacy, development, humanitarian strategies that we can use, and we need to rebalance and reimagine how we do our national security for the future.

I think those are a couple of the lessons that we have learned.

So,

what should we have specifically done after 9-11?

I mean, we did a lot.

We

upped the defense budget a lot.

We developed the Department of Homeland Security, which is just completely out of of control.

Should we have just reinforced the cockpit doors and killed bin Laden?

Would that have sufficed?

Look, we know what we shouldn't have done, and that is send our troops into harm's way, excuse me, even after

bin Laden was killed.

I mean, we had a moment then when we should have brought our troops home, and we didn't.

What we should have done was invested more in counterterrorism measures, but also we should have invested more in our diplomatic initiatives as it relates to Afghanistan and also supporting women and girls and making sure that we ensure their empowerment and their education and their health care and their safety.

What we shouldn't have done is just go into Afghanistan not knowing when we were leaving, not having a sunset date, not having a specific mission, and ending up 20 years later

asking the questions with regard to where the two plus trillion dollars of taxpayer dollars went.

Finally, I'll just have to say we need to salute and thank our troops because they have done everything this country has asked them to do.

Everything.

Everything.

Bill, I'm the daughter.

I'm the daughter of a 25-year veteran, Lieutenant Colonel Garvin A.

Tutt, who served in World War II and in the Korean War.

He was the first person who called me after I voted against that authorization, and he said, that's the right vote, Barbara.

Don't you back down because that 60-word blank check was overly broad.

Don't send our troops into harm's way unless you know what the heck they're doing.

And so, you know, we have to be proud and thank our troops for what they've done and know that never again are we going to send them into a war without end, a forever war, and not know when, in fact, they're going to be able to come home.

Okay, and we thank you for what you did very much.

Thank you.

Barbara Lee, everybody, really appreciate you being here today.

All right, thank you.

Let's meet our panel.

Hey.

Okay.

She is director of the Media Center at USC Annenberg and a contributing editor of the Ninth Heath News.

Christina Bellentoni is back with us.

How you doing?

And he is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post and author of the new book out on September 14th, American Happiness and Discontents, The Unruly Torrent, 2008 to 2020.

George Will.

Thank you for being here, sir.

Okay, so the big news today was Biden talking about these new mandates.

It should could affect up to 100 million people, healthcare workers, businesses who have over 100 workers, contractors.

That's a lot of people, 100 million people to tell something like this to.

So I just want to get your opinion to start the show.

Christina, tell me what, first of all, what you think of this.

I mean, huge relief.

I disagree with Biden when he said, my patience is wearing thin.

My own personal, my patience is out.

You know, to think about the alternate reality that could have been had people

gotten vaccinated.

And

the president's team, of course, they are looking at poll numbers and they know that a lot of people were not going to get the vaccine when that FDA authorization came in, that they just are adamantly opposed to it, and this is a way to force it to happen.

George, I agree with Biden.

The Biden of December, before he became president, when he was asked if he would mandate vaccinations and said, I don't have the power to do that.

In fact, Congress does not have the power to do that, not having a general police power that belongs to the states.

So when this is litigated, it's going to be not about individual rights, it's going to be about separation of powers and federalism.

Eyes glaze over, I know, when you bring these things up.

But it matters.

When Donald Trump said, I'm going to take money appropriated for X and repurpose it to build a wall, people were outraged, and rightly so.

They should be outraged also that an institution, an appendage of the executive branch, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, has decided to exercise a vast power hitherto unsuspected to lurk in this statute, creating OSHA,

a power that really admits of no limiting principle, just as when the Supreme Court took a look at the Center for Disease Control saying

we're going to suspend evictions, the Supreme Court said, where do you you get the power to broadly say that landlords are required, as they go on paying taxes and insurance and maintenance and mortgage and all the rest, are required to provide free housing.

So this is a case, again, of government not respecting limits.

And it's the rule of law.

People say, well, this is an abnormal time.

Well, I have another beef against government, which I've mentioned before.

I was reading a quote from the Mexican Corona Czar.

This is from last year.

He said, why do we need bottled poison and soft drinks?

Health in Mexico would be very different if we stopped being deceived by these lifestyles sold on television and radio ads.

I mean, I'm for all

getting the country back on its feet.

And if it takes a lot of vaccines to do that, I understand that to a degree.

But, you know, it is predicated on this idea that we are all equally vulnerable.

And we're not.

And a lot of it has to do with lifestyle choices, which which we just refuse to talk about.

I hate to be the one who has to always say it, but 78% of the people who died from this were obese.

The vast number of people in the world who have died from it were in countries where that is a problem.

They keep saying, let the science speak.

Listen to the science.

This is what the science is screaming.

loud and clear.

And unless people have some skin in the game, even before COVID, we're never going to get a handle on our biggest problem with the economy also, which is health care.

People have to take some responsibility for their own health.

They have to meet the government halfway.

Would you want to see?

Should the government mandate fitness?

Mandate.

Not mandate, but how about a program?

How about mentioning it?

We can't use the bully pulpit.

Has it ever been mentioned?

I never hear anyone talk about it.

Barack Obama was criticized for being fitness obsessed, right?

Setting a good example from the top.

You know, Michelle Obama's criticized for her garden.

You know, there's.

Yes, they're criticized, so we should shrink from that.

I'm with you.

I would love to see all of that.

But I also think that just because someone may be more at risk for those issues, that doesn't stop any of us from wanting to protect our families who maybe don't fit into those categories.

You know, this is this virus does not know sort of people's personal habits.

Like it is.

No, but it knows this.

It knows this.

That's four-fifths is kind of a big number.

For one factor.

The most efficient thing government does is disseminate public health information, be it about cholesterol or smoking.

50 years ago, about half the American adults woke up in the morning and lit a cigarette.

They cut this in half.

The fact is an enormous amount of our health care bill, which happens to be 18% of GDP, is the result of known risky behavior.

Violence, vehicular accidents, coronary artery disease, lung cancer, et cetera.

And food.

The big one is food.

That dwarfs the other ones.

But it's the one we're not allowed to mention.

That has got to change.

All right, listen.

This is our last show we have before this recall election that's coming up, so I really want to ask about this question, because it seems like the Republicans want Gavin Newsom to resign for for the crime of beating them in the election.

I'm very concerned about the general trend in America where elections don't count if it doesn't come out the way you wanted them to go.

I also think reading, as I have this week, a lot of people talking about a failed Biden presidency after nine years, nine months, nine years, can you imagine?

That would be Trump.

Could you give a guy a chance, I guess is what I'm saying.

I mean, it seems like no one wants to solve a problem.

They just want to blame people who haven't immediately solved the problem.

And

this is not a way

for

a government can function or be stable.

It's like an instant gratification problem.

Right.

You know, but they also both went from pretty peak highs.

You know, Newsom came in, huge, huge win in the election, was pretty popular popular at the beginning of coronavirus.

I sort of view the two things as separate, although it is interesting that the president is coming to campaign for Newsom in the 11th hour.

So clearly, they think that he's popular enough that that's going to help here.

But, you know, people don't like hypocrisy, and that is where some of this started against Newsom.

I'm voting no on the recall.

I think that he's a fine governor, and I would like to see him stay.

And I also think that when you govern this way, it's just constant change.

Why not give somebody the four years they're elected to?

California has an ability to have a recall.

As we know, what that led to in 2003.

We also have an ability to put so many propositions on the ballot fairly easily, which completely change laws very, very quickly.

And it's just one of the ways of California.

If every state had this, I bet you would see a lot more recalls.

What do you think?

I'm against recalls.

I'm against initiatives.

I'm against referenda.

This is is applied populism, which is the belief that the public passions are self-ratifying and they should be translated immediately and directly into policy, not filtered and refined through institutions.

The principle of representation, which is the essence of our republic, is the people do not decide issues, they decide who will decide.

And you can't, in the case of a recall, simply declare a mulligan because you don't like the shot you took.

Right.

So even if you don't like Governor Neerson or his policies, you would say he should stay because you're always a man of principle.

I think people deserve to suffer the choice they made.

Right.

And that's the point of an election on a schedule, too.

You can cast judgment on that person on the next election.

Right.

So hopefully we can recall the recall law because that would be so California.

So let me ask you about Texas.

What's going on in Texas?

Because this, I mean, this is, wow, this is interesting stuff.

And interesting that the Supreme Court already basically heard it.

I heard now that the Justice Department, Biden's Department, is going to sue Texas.

And what?

Take it all the way to the Supreme Court?

Oh, wait.

We did that.

And the Supreme Court said, Texas, you do you.

So I'm wondering if this could backfire, though.

You know, Republicans always seem to me to be happier when they're out of office because they just are so good at bitching.

And they just love to own the libs and complain.

And when they get into office and they get to enact some of their ideas, they scare the shit out of people.

And I think this is the, you know, elections are one-on fear.

a lot of the time.

I mean, that's how Trump got in you, the fear of the overreaching of the liberals and so forth.

I'm wondering if this could really help.

I think Governor Abbott is helping Gavin Gavin Newsom.

I think people are going to look at that and go, oh my God, we don't want a Republican governor here in this state if that's what a Republican governor might do.

Do you think that's possible?

It is definitely possible.

You know, in my lifetime covering, or in my career covering politics, so many people would talk about this concept that if Roe v.

Wade was ever overturned, women would take to the streets and that would just end everything and you'd have a permanent Democratic majority.

And this has been slowly happening for a very, very long time, especially at state legislatures.

People have been challenging, trying to get things to the court.

You know, what Trump did to the judiciary across the country had very, very strong lasting effects.

And I shouldn't just say some

Mitch McConnell and Trump, you know, completely changing the judiciary with justices who would be in favor of things like what happened in Texas.

And I think it is extremely dangerous.

I mean, I can go into the merits of that.

I don't know if that's the debate you want to have.

But,

and then, particularly in Texas, where they're trying to restrict voting rights, but they're also forcing sports teams to have the national anthem at every single game in Texas.

While you're not allowed to do something with your own body,

it is dangerous and really alarming for any person, not just a woman.

The Texas law is a short-lived sideshow.

As soon as it's enforced by one of these private attorney generals, the citizen sues another citizen, it will, I'm confident, be struck down summarily.

The big show is coming this fall when there will be oral arguments in the Mississippi case, where the court is being asked explicitly to overturn Roe v.

Wade.

And by June of 2022, in the midst of the off-year elections, there'll be an answer to that.

I don't think that we've ever had an election turn on an abortion issue.

I don't think we ever will.

Really?

I feel like the opposite.

I feel like abortion is that issue that is always there, and a very sizable part of the population votes pretty much just on that.

And it crosses party lines, by the way.

Most people who are single-issue voters on that are on the pro-life side, however.

Right, but there are, I mean, the Democrats depend a lot on the Latino vote.

And

There's a lot of Christians of all stripes sometimes.

And Texas Democrats are hoping that this is exactly what will happen.

That will galvanize everyone, get money, resources, getting people out to vote.

And I hope so.

But people have short memories.

And that's something, it's this constant needing to change.

Every election is a change election.

And then you end up with things like this that happen.

Right.

Well, I mean, you mentioned that they are going to make people in Texas, the sports teams, play the national anthem.

That is one of the things they're going to do.

Also, you can carry a gun anywhere, I think.

Is that what?

Yes.

Open carry if you're 21 and over.

Anyway, we got a hold of some of the other, I mean, they passed actually.

Oh, I love the anticipatory.

I love that little, oh, I know the bullshit's coming now bill laugh.

Well, you're right, it is.

We got a hold because they passed literally, I can't make this number up, 666 laws.

The abortion one got all the press, but

some of the other ones, and they are, these people are out to own the libs.

For example, now all dogs must be named after Confederate generals.

Didn't match, did it?

Gene shorts.

What the fuck happened there?

Gene shorts must show at least one inch of ass.

A bald eagle tattoo is now an acceptable form of voter ID.

That's a new one.

Itchy trigger finger is now a legal defense.

That's really...

San Antonio will be renamed St.

Tony's.

Okay, that's very good.

A chiropractors must offer gay conversion therapy.

And H.R.

750, my favorite, orders the city of Austin to reduce its weirdness by 25%.

Don't do it, Austin.

Don't do it.

I love Austin.

You know, Austin?

It is.

It needs to stay weird.

Weird and proud, and we love it.

Okay.

So

I feel like

the battleground for the next elections are moving into the schoolroom.

Universities, but especially schools, grammar schools, high schools.

A professor named Peter Bogozian became just the latest teacher and professor to resign this week because of what's going on in the schools.

And I've been talking about this for a couple of years, and it's interesting.

At first, people were going, What are you talking about?

You know, if you didn't have kids, or a lot of times, kids come home from school and they don't tell their parents what they're being told in school.

People didn't know.

Now I think it's becoming much more of an issue.

And you know, who votes?

Parents vote.

Young Young people, they got parties to go to.

You know, you're single, you don't have a mortgage.

Parents vote.

And this guy, he says about his university, he had to resign.

It has transformed a bastion of free inquiry into a social justice factory whose only inputs are race, gender, and victimhood, and his only outputs are grievance and division.

I want to read a few other teachers, just so you know that this is everywhere.

This is a teacher in Connecticut, Jennifer Tofuto resigned.

I decided to resign from what I thought was my forever career because I felt more like a political activist than a teacher in my own classroom.

What's going on in classrooms across our country is pitting students against each other based on the color of their skin.

In Virginia, Laura Morris says, I was told in one of my so-called equity trainings that white Christian, able-bodied females currently have the power in our schools, and that has to change.

She then says, a dissenting opinion is not allowed even to be spoken in my personal life.

In Louisiana, Jonathan Koppel says, they're telling our black children that they are oppressed by white people, so they don't have a chance.

We want to teach education, not left-wing ideas that aren't backed up by facts or science.

You've written about this recently.

I think it's on a lot of people's minds now.

What do you think is going to be the repercussions for the next election from this issue?

Well, Orwellian is an overused adjective, but here it applies.

In 1984, Orwell said, watch the language, because it becomes turned inside out.

In 1984, love meant hate, war meant peace, and on campus today, diversity means enforced conformity,

because we have, through...

the magic of modern parenting, and isn't it interesting that parent became a verb right before this began to happen.

Modern parenting...

Paypill never said parent is a verb before?

Not, it was very recent.

Yeah, I don't remember that.

I remember being...

Now we are skillful at parenting, and this produces a kind of perfectionist parenting.

That if you're really skillful at it, no one who's had children believes this, but people who don't,

if you're really good at parenting, you'll produce the perfect child to which you are entitled.

Right.

The problem is, of course, that what is happening on campus is they're giving up on the essential ingredient of democracy, which is a cultural persuasion.

They've given up on the idea of persuasion and they're going to mandate, we don't just mandate eviction moratoria and we don't just mandate vaccinations, we now mandate harmony on campus because we've raised children to be so risk averse.

and to be so convinced that they are awesome.

They all got participation trophies for showing up at soccer practice.

And they arrive at campus and they want to have a safe space to be safe from challenging ideas that might make them sad.

Do you know that at Brandeis University, the phrase trigger warning now requires a trigger warning?

Because warning suggests there's a danger and trigger, well, you know what, that makes people think of.

The National Archives put a trigger warning now on the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

They have said that our documents might be harmful or difficult to review.

This is always my thing with the Democrats.

If what you're doing sounds like a headline in the onion.

No, really.

Yeah.

National Archives puts trigger warning on the Declaration of Independence.

I would say qualifies.

I've read many before.

Seattle voted whether or not to decriminalize crime.

Bill, the kind of people who do this came within an eyelash of re-electing Donald Trump with three words, defund the police.

And if you think that that's the craziest thing the progressives can come up with, you don't understand Will's Law, which is there's no such thing as rock bottom.

These are two different issues.

So, you know, I've only been in academia now for three years.

So this is, I'm not like a classic academic.

I came up as a journalist.

But I will say that diversity of thought is extremely important, at least the university that I work at, USC.

You know, we purposefully, I teach political reporting.

We have a very generous alum who wants to help us expose students to the real world of politics.

So we take them on trips to Washington, D.C., where they meet Republicans, they meet Democrats.

I took a group of students to the Iowa caucuses where they were hearing perspectives they had never heard in areas where they grew up in California for the first time.

Oh, I've never actually talked to a pro-life person before, one student told me, right?

But at the same time, we know that academics

are propelled by liberalism.

And maybe it's just the type of profession.

You know, I had a student run a report just at USC Professors, and there were less than five that had donated to Donald Trump in the presidential election.

It was all of the donations from anybody that listed USC professors in their donation, you know, what your title is, you know, were going to Democrats and Democratic candidates.

So people are not wrong when they sense that there's a feeling there, but diversity of thought is just as important as diversity of how we look and the perspectives that we come to it with.

And that's something that I believe most academic

students are trying for, even when you have people like that professor from Portland State who's been challenging.

He's tried to challenge that school for a very long time.

He brings in different speakers and tries to have this conversation.

And that's important to at least expose students to something they're not experienced to, to read George Wills' columns.

I have my students read Bill Crystal columns because they aren't exposed to it as much, and they have to be.

Oh, just have them read George.

That's going to be ridiculous.

What about what these teachers are saying in specific?

That to me, when people say to me sometimes, like, boy, you know, you go after the left a lot these days.

Why?

I'm like, because you're embarrassing me.

That's why I'm going after the left, in a way you never did before.

Because you're inverting.

things that I am not going to give up on being liberal.

This is what these teachers are talking about, that you're taking children and making them hyper-aware of race in a way they wouldn't otherwise be.

I mean, I saw last night on the football game, Alicia Keys saying, Lift Every Voice and Sing, which now I hear is called the black national anthem.

Now, maybe we should get rid of our national anthem, but I think we should have one national anthem.

I think when you go down a road where you're having two different national anthems,

Colleges sometimes now have, many of them have different graduation ceremonies for black and white, separate dorms.

This is what I mean, segregation.

You've inverted the idea.

We're going back to that under a different name.

You're making a face.

How do you say that that is not segregation?

I don't understand.

All of those things, sure, that does not sound good to me.

That is not the experience that I'm seeing in academia, right?

You're having real conversations about how people are...

You're not everywhere.

This is happening.

This is my own personal experience that I know talking about here.

I mean, that it is a moment where people are recognizing that others have different lived experiences than theirs.

And this generation, like I know where you go with this, like they're too woke and all that.

I spend my day around 19 to 25 year olds every single day, hundreds of them a week.

And, you know, generally, they have a lot of empathy for others.

Like, yes, the everyone gets a trophy thing.

It's a challenge.

You know, my kid lost at Uno last night, and he was real pissed that that I didn't let him win.

But like, there's a purpose to that.

I don't want him to feel like he's perfect at everything.

But there's a moment where these young people are actually recognizing that the world isn't perfect and that they can kind of work together to collectively make it better.

And if you're not...

Do you think they discovered that?

That's better than anything I'm getting from that.

Do you think they're the first generation who thought that?

That the world isn't perfect?

Every generation thinks the world is total shit.

And they blame it on the generation before them.

No?

Hence, my insult to baby boomers.

Yeah, you know, that's, I believe that the way that this particular generation is looking at things will benefit the collective good, whereas so much of it has been selfish every other generation.

You think this generation is less selfish?

Okay, well, we'll see how that comes out on TikTok.

Where are race relations worst?

Probably on campuses where they obsess about race excessively.

But if you want to get

an enormous number of people, a multi-billion dollar diversity inclusion industry now exists in this country to convince people that things are bad and getting worse.

Actually, they're getting better.

Yes.

You want to see the best example.

The only established religion in this country is SEC football down south.

Turn on an SEC football game and you will see Georgia play Alabama.

And the head referee is an African American.

He's bossing everyone around.

They weren't allowed to play in the SEC until 60 years ago.

Now

the daily interactions of normal Americans who are not obsessing about whether the United States was founded on race in 1619, they're not obsessing about critical race theory.

They're getting on with their lives.

And race relations in the vast majority of Americans' interactions have never been better.

And to the point about inverting what the goals were, I mean, when I was a kid, it was about, you know, I was too young to understand, but my father was telling me John F.

Kennedy was a great president because he sent the troops so that black kids could go to school.

Because the goal was to have as good of education for everybody.

Now I read, I think I read in your column about the University of Oregon, which has different graduation standards for,

quote, people of color, but lower standards, which is to me such an insult.

And Oregon has said that proficiency requirements in math and reading are now going to be suspended for equity reasons because there are disproportionate outcomes.

This is the soft bigotry of low expectations applied.

That's right.

I think.

Every time you make a face, I have to ask why.

No,

I think that this is a conversation.

I mean, taking standardized testing and discussing, you know, how that has applied in the lawsuit against Harvard, right?

And how

there is a moment to look at what it means to get a college education now.

There's a moment to look at how standardized tests apply to groups of people.

This is not my area of expertise, right?

I'm teaching journalism.

I'm not looking at academia as a whole and attempting to change it.

But understanding why these conversations are happening, I think, is important right now.

Okay.

Last question.

Anniversary of 9-11.

I think we're going to find out a lot more about the Saudis finally.

Biden seems to want to get into what we have not been able to see for years.

I remember seeing all those reports, internal reports,

security reports with everything was blacked out.

Everything about the Saudis, we couldn't know.

I'm just wondering if,

since this is a few years past, when we know they killed that Khashoggi guy with a bone saw,

will that color our thinking about what the Saudis are capable of and what they might have been doing pre-9-11?

Well, that's what's ludicrous about the fact that the government has been hiding until Biden, under extreme pressure, he was told by survivors of the families who would not be welcome at 9-11 commemorative events if he didn't release the hitherto kept secret reports of the 9-11 Commission on the Saudis.

Well, that might cause the Saudis to have a bad reputation.

Right.

15 of them, I mean, how do you lose a reputation you forfeited when 15 of your men, with obvious aid and comfort from Saudi officials and charities, so-called, run by the government,

flew the planes?

So the idea that we're protecting the Saudis from forfeiting a reputation they forfeited long ago is absurd.

Secrecy makes us ignorant.

Secrecy is government regulation.

Most government regulation.

obviously you need some

secrecy to protect government deliberations and sources and methods of intelligence, but

most regulation tells us what we cannot do.

Secrecy tells us what we cannot know.

And government always has an interest to maximize secrecy as its private property.

which is why I salute the families.

More than 2,000 people put pressure on the Biden administration.

And the Biden administration said, well, okay, we'll rethink this.

Watch them.

Because after 9-11 is passed and the fleeting attention span of the American people moves on, we'll see if they actually release this.

Okay, but when you talk about secrecy, I must say the thing that always I think of as secret is money.

Like we're talking about $3.5 trillion.

which used to be a lot of money.

I kind of still think it is.

And what do I know about this?

All I know, I mean, even when I read detailed articles, I don't know, what the heck are they doing with this money, with that kind of money?

Where is it going?

Do we have any idea?

And people just vote based on, that's my team,

and this country, you know, it went, it was on the wrong direction under Trump.

Let's vote $3.5 trillion to go in the other direction.

And I just don't think it's going to to be spent wisely.

And never mind if the my team is actually doing things that conflict with its own values.

It doesn't matter anymore, which is a problem.

I mean, you could compare this to the fight over infrastructure.

You know, that's one reason Joe Biden is in this twisted up about what's going to happen with some very important budget priorities for the Democratic Party.

But they're allowing Senator Manchin to have his say here.

And that shouldn't surprise anyone, right?

We knew going in, that's what Joe Biden was going to do.

He was going to be a creature of the Senate.

He was going to make sure that he's listening to his former colleagues there and that that was going to dictate what some of their decisions.

And that's all just party lines drawn.

And until something changes at a level where you have bigger majorities or more power of one party, you're just going to continue seeing this and people taking their sides and that's it.

You're worried about where the money's going.

I'm worried about where it's coming from.

For all the talk about the discord in Washington, much more frightening is the consensus.

It's as broad as the Republic.

It's as deep as the Grand Canyon.

It extends from Elizabeth Warren on the left to Ted Cruz on the right.

And it is this.

We should have a large,

ever more ambitious entitlement state and not pay for it.

Everyone's agreed on that.

And also a large, ever more unnecessary, bloated Pentagon.

That's at least as big a problem, I think, as the entitlement state, is it not?

That we constantly are voting more money.

And very often, you know, the Pentagon will say, no, we don't want them.

We don't need these tanks.

We can't use them.

And they still make them because that's real socialism.

Okay, I got to go to New Rules, everybody.

Thank you.

All right.

New Roll John Bennett, chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party, has to tell us, if this really is you posing with your family, isn't the liberal caricature of Republicans right on the money?

And isn't your caricature of liberals a little off?

Because this is Alicia Andrews, chair of the Oklahoma Democrats, and I don't see her posing with her family like this.

New Roll, someone has to tell me why the fired guy always has a box with the small potted potted plant.

People who know America only from movies must think of begonia as severance pay.

But don't worry about this guy.

He's going home to a good woman who just bought the food all Americans eat after a trip to the market, celery and French bread.

New old Janet Chen, who created these ear coverings featured at China Fashion Week, must fire her translator.

I'm pretty sure this is not what those Americans meant when they asked her to design headphones for house music.

Neural, now that ABBA is going on tour as computer-generated avatars, someone has to ask them, weren't you always computer-generated avatars?

You mean humans wrote gimme, gimme, gimme, a man after midnight?

I always assumed it was an IBM supercomputer set to full Caucasian.

New role the COVID patients at a Thailand-filled hospital who were doing so many drugs and having so much group sex

that the police had to raid the place have to tell us what drugs

Because it sure looks like they worked.

And finally, new rule.

Before we spread democracy around the world, America has to figure out how to spread water around America.

We don't.

We don't know if Afghanistan ever wanted democracy, but I've been to Burbank.

I know they drink water.

But for how much longer?

Our new normal is never-ending, life-threatening drought and wildfires in the West.

And in the East, the opposite.

That's the extreme rainfall area, what I call the Cardi B region, because

if you live there, your ass is going to be wet.

While rivers here in the West dry up, the East Coast will be getting brand new rivers, like this one in Manhattan.

Yeah, if you've never been on the subway, that's not how it's supposed to look.

And I got to tell you, when I saw that video, I think I had the same thought as everyone here in California.

Can we have some?

Whenever I watch flood footage from anywhere, I feel like a girl with no ass staring at Kim Kardashian.

Just once, I'd like to be the dumbass whose car stalls out in the intersection.

For more on this, let's go to me with the weather.

Okay, on this side of the country, it doesn't rain anymore, ever.

And on this side of the country, they're drowning.

Now here's sports.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Oh, please.

Thank you.

Yeah.

But, you know, this is not an imponderable quandary like cold fusion or why they can't find a host for Jeopardy.

As the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority once said, one man's flood control is another man's water supply.

Does anyone see where I'm going with this?

That it would be a giant win-win if we just built pipelines from where the water is

to where the water isn't,

I'm not a civil engineer, but if we can extract shale oil from tar sands two miles below the frozen surface of Canada and pipe it to Louisiana, why not water?

Water is a lot

easier to get.

than oil.

I've heard there are places where it literally falls from the sky.

Now in the past, when I brought up the idea of a water pipeline, I was deterred from pressing the point by the conventional wisdom that this has been proposed and studied and it's just not feasible.

But I looked into the details and tonight I'd like to call bullshit on that.

What's not feasible is us.

This idea is only a non-starter because of petty political squabbles, insane levels of graft, and red tape.

It's completely doable, and in fact has been proposed many times by serious people.

Availability of water is not the problem.

To the east of us, flooding.

To the west, a giant reservoir called the Pacific Ocean.

Oh yes, the ocean.

Did you know that Israel gets most of its water from the ocean, from desalinization.

Why can't we do desalinization if Israel does?

We have Jews here.

I'm sure they can figure it out.

We have lots of smart people.

The problem isn't one of know-how either.

It's will and selfishness and greed.

Think about it logically.

Why would it really be harder to get water through a pipe than oil?

The U.S.

already has 2.6 million miles of pipelines.

to transport oil and natural gas and hazardous liquids, and they are all really easier to move than water.

Is a water pipeline really more of an engineering challenge than when we built railroads through the Rocky Mountains or laid the transatlantic cable or made the Panama Canal or put a man on the moon, which

even if you think was faked, you have to admit, pulling off a prank like that would be in itself quite a remarkable achievement.

Moving water is not impossible.

It can be done.

Others have done it.

The Romans did it with first century technology.

Some of their aqueducts are still in use.

The Incas, the Minoans, the Egyptians, lots of ancient people did it.

And let's not forget Moses parting the Red Sea.

China does it now.

Beijing depends on water that is provided by their massive South-North water transfer project, which was begun in December of 2002 and, of course, being China, completed the next day.

But in America, we don't even start

because we know.

Why would it be any different from any other ambitious project like Afghanistan that always just turns into a giant money grab.

Here in California, we know we can't house the homeless because the cost of a single unit has risen to $750,000.

We tried to build high-speed rail.

They finally pulled the plug on that because the cost got so out of hand.

That's why nothing ever gets done in this country, because so much bullshit is built into everything that it's a boondoggle before it starts.

This is our tragic flaw.

The ever-ballooning costs, the inflated contracts, the back scratching, the kickbacks, the private contractors, the padded expense accounts, the layers of consultants, the permits, the fees, the environmental impact statements, the lawsuits, the lawyers, the lobbyists, the red tape, graft on a scale untameable.

But 78 million people live in the West.

What do we do in the not-so-distant future when they're all water refugees?

The Colorado River supplies 40 million people with the water they need to live, and it's drying up.

Those people can't all get in covered wagons, head east, and move back in with their parents.

All right, that is our show.

I will be at the Accre Center in Salt Lake City this Sunday, September 12th, at City National Civic in San Jose the 26th.

And at Benningham Center in Pittsburgh, October 16th, I want to thank Christina Valentoni, George Will, and Barbara Lee.

And you.

Thank you very much.

And you.

Okay.

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