Ep. #560: Christopher Krebs, Caitlin Flanagan, Bret Stephens

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

Hello, how How are you?

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Oh, stop it.

Thank you.

Look at these people.

Wow.

Thank you.

Oh.

I appreciate it.

You sound like a full crowd.

Wow, I tell you, I'm going to

miss these sparse crowds.

When we go back to normal.

Really, I've come to love it.

And I know why you're happy today.

The vaccine now, as of April 1st, a few days later from now, is going to be available to people over 50.

So

agents all over town are calling their clients and saying, don't do it.

It's a trick to make you admit you're over 50.

That's how we handle things.

But it's so funny, you know, you can get the vaccine of any age if you're a smoker, an ex-smoker, live in a crowded neighborhood, have a handicap.

And the thing is, you don't have to prove any of this because we are always aiming to protect the key sector of the LA economy, liars.

But, you know,

you can just tell Americans we just want to get out of the house.

We don't even have to have exactly the old lives back.

Just don't make us watch No Mad Land.

That's really what's on.

You see what's going down in Florida, spring break there in Miami oh the kids are going nuts they're out of control as they should be kids should be out of control they're refusing to wear masks which in their defense how are you supposed to tell if your potential hookup has herpes if they have a mask

it's spring break people

can you blame them

If I'd been locked up with my parents for a year, I'd want to snort Xanax and twerk on a squad car too.

Of course, normal in America also means the shit that makes this country shitty.

Mass shootings again.

We didn't have this for a while.

Now we've had, you know, one last week, one this week, a mass shooting, a 21-year-old Christian lunatic the week before, and now a Muslim 21-year-old lunatic.

In a related story, today an atheist went crazy and rearranged his books.

A related story, I don't know that part of.

And you heard about that, I love this story.

The world is really shitting its pants economically because there's a fucking ship stuck in the Suez Canal.

Really?

This one ship, you're talking about a traffic, oh my god, it's like the 405 times a million.

People are,

and I love this part of the story.

QAnon, I'm not making this up.

QAnon says the ship probably has ties to Hillary

and could be transporting children to molest.

You know what?

You guys think about sex with children a lot.

I'm just saying.

How'd you get there from boat?

But Biden had a press conference

and it's interesting, you know, know, he hasn't had one yet.

This has been a big talking point on the right.

He won't have a press conference.

He did.

And of course, they've talked themselves up there on Fox News into the idea that Biden is completely senile.

Like he can't get through a sentence without forgetting what country this is, or any minute he's going to pee his pants like Bradley Cooper and a star is born, you know.

And of course, he was fine for an hour.

I thought he hit just the right note, forceful, without asking anyone to step outside.

That's Joe.

And of course, his big news is we now are proposing, he is proposing, the Democrats want to sell this, a $3 trillion

infrastructure plan, which is infrastructure in the broadest sense of the word.

It includes childcare, energy efficiency in buildings, 5G, rural broadband, retraining of workers, lots of stuff, roads, bridges, ports, rail lines, redoing the electrical grid, vehicle charging stations.

It sounds very ambitious considering the last guy couldn't build a wall.

But maybe I'm being too harsh.

But no, I mean, you can, you know what?

There are, of course, things about it I have trouble with, but you know, it's good that country's moving again.

You know, we've out of this

retrograde and you can feel it all over and things are happening all over.

Like, for example, in Virginia, first southern state now that is banning the death penalty, they already got a call from West Virginia asking if they can have the chair.

And New York state, where I spent so much of my time,

going to legalize pot finally.

Okay, I mean, this is...

Mayor.

I mean,

Governor Cuomo says he will sign the bill as soon as he gets done searching his assistant for a pen.

All right, we got a great show.

We have Brett Stevens and Caitlin Flanagan.

But first up, he is the former U.S.

Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

My old job.

I've said that a million times.

That's the most ridiculous one yet.

He was now a founding partner at Krebs Stamos Group, Christopher Krebs.

Christopher,

how are you, sir?

Great to see you.

Well, thanks for being here.

Okay, so, you know, Washington is known to have that kind of crazy alphabet soup.

Every agency has, and we know some of them, EPA, I think most people know, some people don't.

This one I was not familiar with.

Let's go through it word by word.

What is the name of the place you work for?

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Why are those linked together?

Well, cybersecurity is just another risk posed to our nation's businesses, our government agencies, our nation's infrastructure.

There's physical risk, there's cybersecurity risk, and we help.

So what did you do all day?

First thing I would normally do...

No, I'm not saying that skeptically.

I just really don't know.

So it's a big mission.

I bet.

I'm betting.

The first thing I would do typically

in the last four years was check Twitter and see what the former guy tweeted about.

and how that would affect my day.

Is that right?

That was the big issue.

Give me an example of a tweet and then something, and then you were like, oh, fuck, look what he said.

And then you had to do something.

It typically, well, the last year was

the 2020 election, the rigged election.

And that would cause, across a lot of our partners, state and local election officials, that would cause a lot of consternation that we'd have to get the messaging straight,

get some guidance out.

Prior to that, it was a lot of Russia, you know, the rich aunt, the husband.

And then Trump fired you.

That's how I came to know you.

That's how we come to know people in the last four years.

Yes.

Fired you by tweet, of course.

So that day when you were looking at the tweets, it

got very personal that day, I'm guessing.

Yeah,

that was actually at the end of the day, 7.06 p.m.

Eastern time.

Not that you care.

No, no, not

that it hurt.

I had just walked in the door, and

I thought I'd kind of maybe gotten through the worst of it and I might be able to stick around for transition.

And then I get a text from a buddy that says, And just to put it in perspective, this is after the election when Trump was saying the thing was rigged and, you know, this is what, three weeks after the election?

Two weeks to the day.

Two.

Okay, so we know, we knew who won by then, but he was still ranting and raving.

Yes.

And you came out and said, basically, I don't know, word for word, but my rememory of it was,

I looked at this, I'm the expert, these people have not cheated, it's the cleanest election we've ever had, and this is all bullshit.

And you're fired.

But you didn't bend the knee.

Good for you.

That's why we like you.

Yeah.

And you're happier with your decision than ever, I'm guessing?

I never

thought twice about it.

Right.

I mean, this was the put-in-country over party.

Right.

And

Ultimately,

I think

it worked out.

It worked out for me.

It worked out.

There were some rough patches in December and January.

You're on TV now.

But yeah, look, here, I'm sitting here with you.

And he's not even on Twitter.

You won this one, man.

So let's talk about what's going on in the present, because

what I keep reading is the largest cyber attack ever happened in the last year, right?

Which one?

The one that went on for eight or nine months.

There might, yeah, there might be two or more, but it's.

Well, there was one that we've all been reading about that got into every department for months and months.

I guess they didn't know it was happening.

That was the Russians again.

Yeah, and everybody said Trump said China, but everybody else said Russia.

You're assured it's Russia, right?

It's got all the hallmarks of a Russian espionage operation.

Okay, so we keep having these things happen with Russia.

What is the appropriate, in your view, response without escalating into we don't want to blow each other up over this, but it seems like we're not really doing anything.

So we are.

And in fact, General Nakassoni, the head of cyber command and the NSA, the National Security Agency, was testifying the other day and talked about some of the operations they ran ahead of the election.

I actually look at this specific one, the sunburst hack affiliated with SolarWinds,

there was a degree of restraint to it I know it's a crazy thing to say but if we think back to 2017 when I just started my old job

there was something called wanna cry there was not petcha there was bad rabbit all really wonky names but that 2017 was probably the the year of the great hacks these

events including the more recent one attributed to China

Well, maybe not that one, but the Russian one shows some restraint that maybe they've learned.

Maybe there's something.

But cyber is just,

it's the new normal.

Let's go back to the part about what are we doing.

Yep.

That's a great question for somebody else.

A great question for somebody else.

You just can't.

Yeah, go ask Joe Macassoni.

Okay.

But is it offensive?

Because it seems like defensive can only do so much.

Well, there was a.

And I know we've done it before.

We went to Iran with SuxNet.

Right?

There was a meeting last, I think it was last week or the week before in Alaska between the Chinese government and the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, and the Chinese had a line about how we are the champions.

And I tend to think that from a cyber perspective that the U.S.

is the best of the bunch.

But we live in the glassiest of houses, which makes things, you know, a little challenging.

Yeah.

Do you adjust with cyber or with everything?

It's just the digital economy.

It's the way everything we do now, whether it's school, business, governments, everything is dependent upon the Internet.

We're incredibly reliant and dependent upon the Internet.

And that just, that makes for a lot of openings for the bad guys.

What do you think is going to happen with Bitcoin?

I mean, where do you see that going?

That's in sort of your area.

I see it bringing down civilization, but maybe I'm being in a lot of...

So no,

so

it depends on what angle of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, but cryptocurrency is the, as I see it, one of the single enabling factors that has allowed cyber criminals to deploy a massive amount of ransomware across our state and local agencies.

It is the anonymous payments, the ability to pay anonymously.

And I think that is the cyber threat that the average American is most concerned about because they feel it at home.

All this other stuff about Russia and China,

that's ephemeral.

Yes, you're talking about schools.

I think something like 1,600 schools were hit last year.

And hospitals and government agencies.

Right.

I mean, we had Baltimore got hit twice, Atlanta, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, 23 counties in Texas.

Louisiana's been hit a couple times.

It's just, it's.

And they just want money.

This is not

anything sophisticated.

This is not ideological.

It's like at the end of diehard when he finds out, no, they're not terrorists.

If there's a vulnerability.

Yeah, right.

Right.

It's a little bit like that.

Okay.

Yeah, Noxoni Tower, right?

If there's vulnerability, if there's an exploit, if there is money or information to be had and there are no meaningful consequences, the bad guys are going to run wild.

So we've got to change that equation.

And I think looking at cryptocurrencies and the exchange wallets, we need to look at that.

We need to start holding some of these countries like Russia that allow these cyber criminals to operate in their sovereign territory with impunity.

We need to focus on that.

But bringing it back home, we've got to help state and local

improve their defenses.

And I fear it's only going to get worse because the way that tax revenues at the state and local level have taken a real hit because of COVID.

And I think when we talk about infrastructure and investments, I think we've got to have a 21st century digital infrastructure investment.

Yeah, well,

tell Biden you're ready to go back to work.

Hopefully he's watching.

All right.

Thanks very much for being here.

I appreciate what you do.

All right.

Let's meet our panel.

Hey!

How are you?

All right, he is a columnist for the New York Times and an MSNBC contributor.

Brett Stevens is over here.

And she's a staff writer at the Atlantic who offered their April cover story.

We will get into it.

Private schools have become truly obscene.

Say what you really think.

Caitlin Flanagan is over here.

What a great panel.

And I've started so many shows with this, my solar clock.

Ladies and gentlemen, the eagle has landed.

Ladies and gentlemen, we got them.

We have solar, ladies and gentlemen.

We have solar.

We have solar.

1131.

1131.

Yes, and I have a little clip of them putting it on today.

This is Hans Rosenberger pulling the switch there at my house.

And there's so many people to thank

Altadina Solar.

They're the people who actually did it.

They did great.

And a group called Sunrun Solar got involved.

Didn't ask for a penny, but they are very involved in doing this.

And they just, well, I was bitching about it on television for six months.

This is what's so amazing: that all these people, and I heard from so many people, email me, famous people, can I help?

And I'm like, I already got so many people helping.

And I was bitching it publicly.

I talked to two congressmen on the air about this, and it still took 1,131 days, six months after I started bitching about it publicly.

What does the regular person do?

So I had to laugh when I was reading about the new infrastructure bill.

Yes.

Okay.

But remember, $1,131 for me.

I don't know if we could get the whole state.

Anyway,

I guess what I mean to say is

what are your thoughts on the infrastructure bill?

$3 trillion is a lot of money.

It kind of reminds me, do you ever see Brewster's millions?

He needs to spend $30 million

in 30 days to get his $300 million prize, and it turns out to be pretty difficult for doing it?

I'm probably going to agree with that at the end of the show.

But for now, I'm just going to look at the positive side.

It is a Trojan horse for green energy, and a Trojan horse I welcome.

If that's how we have to do green energy in this country with a Trojan horse, and we do,

let's do it that way.

Because

it folds, everything in it is really about that.

But it's called infrastructure and jobs and this and that.

But really, that's what they're doing.

And I think the Democrats finally got it through their thick skulls how to sell something.

Yes.

All right.

Although, I don't think anybody even knows what the word infrastructure means.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I mean.

I mean, I don't really know.

Skip that part, but go on.

I mean, Mace,

what it really means is roads and bridges and ports and the electrical grid.

He's being very generous with the definition, and it's child learning, you know, human infrastructure.

I mean, you could call anything infrastructure, because we win arguments these days by changing the meaning of words.

Right.

Silence is violence.

Really?

I thought violence is when it hurt.

But here, listen to this.

This week, for the first time, I wish we had more confetti, 51% of Republicans both support gay marriage and legalizing pot.

We've gone over the 50% mark with Republicans.

So

why couldn't carbon be next?

No?

Well, a large, I mean, sure, by all means, they should should do that.

And, you know, one of the ways of doing it is actually being serious about carbon solutions like supporting nuclear energy.

Okay, so I've got a big cheer.

There was a Biden at his press conference, there was no questions in an hour about the pandemic, the vaccine program, or the $1.9 trillion relief plan he just passed.

You're a press people.

What do you think about that?

I think the press is all in.

All in.

Meaning for Biden.

I think that he's not getting pressed, so to speak, on a lot of the tough issues right now.

And I have to say, as somebody who's in the media but isn't really a journalist, I think people are doing the right thing.

Right now,

I think hating America is no longer a luxury that we can afford.

And when you and I were young, you know, I grew up in Berkeley.

My parents were slightly to the left of Karl Marx.

I knew America was a war machine, an imperialist power, and my parents were helping kids dodge the draft and get to Canada.

And you can have asinine opinions like that when the rest of the country is holding up America.

People are even loving America.

And right now, everywhere you turn, it's like people break into the Capitol building and shit on the floor and terrorize our...

In the name of loving America more than the other.

But it's not like anybody hates America.

They just hate the people who are on the other side, that they see it.

I mean, they did a survey recently, and they asked people, what is the most pressing problem?

By far, the winner was other people in America.

I'm not kidding.

54% were the others.

People I don't agree with are the problem.

That's America.

I mean, obviously, the press needs to hold the administration to account in a normal way, but on the other hand, we just went through four years in which the presidency was a jackhammer outside your window at 6 a.m.

every single day.

So

I think arrest it is a pretty good analogy.

That's a good analogy.

But I was watching Dr.

Robert Redford.

No.

I knew I was going to.

Dr.

Robert Redfield.

You know who I'm talking about?

Former head of the CDC.

Okay, he said something very interesting, or at least it made news today, that he thinks coronavirus came from the lab, which has been talked about since it began.

In this binary way we live in the country, it's like if you're a Democrat, it's a bat.

Right.

If you're a Republican, it's a lab.

And it's so fucking stupid.

Because this is a scientific issue.

It totally could have been a lab.

What happened to us?

What happened to us that everybody behaves this way?

And that there's all these people that believe in QA.

I mean, when we grew up, I know you're much younger, but it wasn't like this.

It really wasn't.

We had a lot of problems, but we didn't have people thinking that there were child molesters in the Suez Canal that Hillary Clinton sent there.

And issues like this, not everything became a polarizing issue.

Right, and we've trained, I think,

throughout the country, we have sort of trained people to turn off their brains.

Like the default is don't think, join a group and adopt whatever the prevailing view is of that group.

You know, it is possible to hold conservative views and still think Donald Trump was the worst president America

has ever seen.

As many have.

And

it requires some like level of independent thinking.

It is possible to think that maybe this came from a lab, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter because we have a global pandemic that we have to somehow solve.

Well it does matter because

it does matter because it affects how we understand the disease.

I mean what he is saying is that he thinks it came from a lab because it acted in ways that it wouldn't if it had come from nature.

That's significant.

It's not something to say, oh well, that's a Republican point of view.

Like hydroxychloroquine is a Republican.

I mean I wouldn't take it, but who knows?

They use it in some countries.

It's a medical issue.

It's not like, ah, Trump took it.

I wouldn't take it if it saved my life.

I mean, there are people who wouldn't.

It was vetted before, it was vetted around before he took it.

It was a known very early on in the pandemic.

It was seen as something that might, you know, work a bit, and it has.

All right, so I got to talk about the shooting, because fucking guns, you know, every time it happens, and it's just, it makes you sick that this is America, that we're the gun country, that we keep shooting each other.

But we have to,

I don't know.

My question today is, what's the law that stops this?

Ted Cruz said, every time there's a shooting, we play this ridiculous theater where this committee gets together and proposes a bunch of laws that would do nothing to stop these murders.

And, you know,

they said

both of these guys got the guns legally.

Yeah.

I don't know what we're talking about.

Well, you know, I mean, one point.

If what law would change it, and let's try, you know, if he's saying we would do nothing to stop these murders, most people are for all these things.

Then let's just try it and see if it, and if it doesn't, then

the one thing we know about these men always who do these mass shooting incidents, we know a few things about them, but one of the main commonalities is profound childhood trauma and deep mental illness.

So a background check that involved mental illness, I think that would come up and I think we would have an opportunity to screen out some of these men.

It makes sense to have something like that.

It should be harder to get a gun than to get a driver's license.

That should be basic common sense.

And the other thing I was thinking about, like, you know, When I think of my big screw-ups in life, it's usually when I clicked send on an email too soon, and I sometimes wish there were an algorithm that would just say, this looks like an angry email.

We're going to just hold this for a few hours.

And it would have saved me a lot of grief in my life.

How about this looks like, you look like you're pissed off and you're in a gun store.

Go back, go home for three days, right?

And we're going to check you out.

Well, it's like, remember Homer Simpson, three-day waiting period, but I'm angry now.

Right.

I mean, 91% of people support background checks.

89% blocked gun sales to people who have been reported as dangerous or mental health problems.

80% think should be a mandatory three-day waiting period.

This even includes, like, most Republicans and even NRA members.

So it seems like that's the least we could do is just give that a try.

It's see if it changed anything.

It may not, because again,

you said mental health issues.

I would put that in the broader category of cannot get laid.

This is the big, I mean, it really is.

I'm sorry, but all over the world, whether it's ISIS or incels, it's just the theme.

This guy, this need a girl, hashtag need a girlfriend, was on his Facebook page.

This is the name of this movie.

Hashtag need a girlfriend.

I'm going to open a chain of game schools and teach men how to have a little game because

it's not like girls aren't out there.

They just,

we need to teach game in the curriculum.

What?

Did you see his picture?

I mean,

he needs a lot of tutoring from you, someone, a brother from him, I mean, of his, the next time you go out.

It's not how you look.

Right?

It's not.

Women are deeper than us.

Lots of men who are not that great looking do very well.

Do you want to name name?

I mean, we're going to find out that he's, you know, I'm sure we're going to find out that he has deep, deep mental illness, you know, because it's so consistent with these men.

So

that's part of the problem, part of the con, I think, on the right is they say, oh, what we really have is a mental health crisis.

We should invest in mental health.

All countries have people with mental health problems.

It's just that they don't have immediate access to weapons of mass destruction.

Well, but again,

you think in this country that has more guns than people, these guys who bought these guns illegal and one of them wasn't an assault weapon or assault rifle,

you think that that would change anything?

You don't think they would get some weapon?

Well, look, let's say say if it's not

here.

We're pretending that this one, that certain types of weapons are going to make a big difference.

That needs to be questioned.

No, I agree.

But if it manages to diminish gun crime by 500%.

I'm saying let's try it.

That's good.

But the larger point then is someone should call for the repeal of the Second Amendment.

Until people start thinking that it is crazy that we have an amendment that was written at a time when a skilled marksman could get off maybe two shots in a minute at best, that that is relevant, works for today is a crazy problem.

Well, John Paul Stevens, remember him?

Yeah, I know.

He said we could, what?

Yes.

He said, all we need to do is add five words to the Second Amendment.

And it's like in the case of being in the militia,

we could just to make it align to the original intent.

Just add those few words, but that's never going to happen.

Maybe.

I think people are, I just think people are really, there's going to be a point at which we just can't tolerate it anymore.

And it's amazing and shameful that we haven't gotten there yet when kids are shot dead in their classrooms.

But

I don't know.

It's that hopelessness.

Well,

I kid Fox News a lot here on this show.

And the only reason I do it is because they're mostly a bunch of obnoxious assholes.

But

the only reason I do it.

Otherwise, no, I kid.

But, you know, Fox is still the brand, really, that every other conservative group sort of measures themselves by.

But there is trouble in River City.

This week, for the first time since 2000, MSNBC beat them.

This has got to really hurt.

They were always, we are the ratings champions.

And they have lots of competition now from other further right.

organizations.

That's what's really bleeding away from them.

Okay, so they decided to step it up.

They have a whole new slate of shows.

Would you like to see some of them?

Because these things are going to, they are really looking to get their base back.

There's an Inside Sedition is going to be coming on.

Down the Rabbit Hole with Tucker Carlson, we'll be

Kirk Cameron, the science guy,

Factbusters

inside the Crisis Actor Studio,

Morning Woods, actor James Woods, discusses the news with a panel of teenage girls.

The segregation room.

Pardon the Insurrection.

The Hot Blonde Fascist Report.

Paula Dean's Plantation Weddings.

The Karen Report with Marjorie Taylor Greene.

And say that again, and I'll punch you in the face with John Boyd.

I found that funnier than the audience, but okay.

But there are a number of people who have been calling for Fox to just go.

I read the phrase, be allowed to exist, or heard that on MSNBC.

Max Boot has said similar things.

And of course, now that they're being sued for lying, I mean, they did lie, and it was only about the election and democracy.

So I see why people feel this way, but should we think this through a little more?

I mean, even two congresspeople out here in California, Anna Eshu and Jerry McNerney,

They wrote letters to all the cable providers and said, are you planning to pick up Fox for the next year?

If so, why?

If so, why?

Well, that's a little cheeky.

I'm not sure.

Are they going to send the same letter about CNN that maligned that young boy from Covington High School and they had to pay a huge, you know, they libeled him?

And are they going to do the same to ABC News, which knew about Jeffrey Epstein when he was still alive and still child trafficking, and they suppressed that story?

You know, the news is just a very dirty business.

And I think Fox is dirtier than most.

It is dirtier.

Come on.

There is dirtier.

It is dirtier, but the minute.

If you suppress that, the minute you say we're not going to have that on the air, then the rest of us can't see what people are thinking and hearing, and it all goes underground.

Yeah, where are they going to go?

They're going to go to the dark

avenues of the.

Well, I read Trump is starting his own Twitter.

Right.

Right.

So that was inevitable, right?

Do you think we were just going to go away and start watching Rachel Madow?

No, where are they going to go?

They're going to go some podcasts.

And also, Caitlin's point is so important.

It's like, hey, guess what?

Two can play the game.

So if Democratic congresspersons can write to try to suppress one side of the debate, Republicans are going to start doing it as well.

And someone should remember that the First Amendment begins with the words, Congress shall make no law, right?

Those are important words.

I mean,

the part of living in a First Amendment environment is people will lie, people will misinform, and

you make a living by calling their BS, right?

Like that's that's what the potential we're at.

I don't like the word be allowed to exist.

It bothers me.

But speaking of

Israel sometimes.

Speaking of not being allowed to exist, you want to do that to private schools.

Less controversial.

Well, yeah, but you say shut them down.

Well, you know, I don't say shut them down, but I say the ones at the very, very top of the system, the ones that cost $35,000 to $50,000 a year, that they've become kind of a malign force in America.

They coover up all that, you know, the

huge number of spots in the Ivy League schools.

They have, you know, Exeter has $1.3 billion.

We don't get any tax money for Exeter.

Exeter is a good one.

It's a big one.

Where is that?

It's a fancy one.

It's in New York.

I wouldn't know private schools.

I just went to a regular school in New Jersey.

Okay.

I think I've got a show.

And you got a show, yeah.

That's right.

Berkeley High School.

Yeah, they're.

You look like you were born on a tennis court.

Where did you go to school?

I went to a fancy private school.

You did?

I went to a school in Massachusetts called Middlesex, which I thought was a wonderful school and still think is a wonderful school.

And I think some of these schools do extraordinary jobs in really educating people from a much different diversity.

They've changed a lot.

You were there, I'm sorry, but they have.

And this is a lot of what your article about.

I also read Barry Weiss's article about Harvard-Westlake.

And I mean, I've been talking about this on the show, taking a lot of shit for talking about it, but it's true.

There is something going on in the schools.

And you're right.

These are the schools that funnel kids to Harvard, and Harvard, you know, funnels them out to the important parts of the media, television, government.

They're going to be your boss.

And they control a lot of how people think.

So

two things that are different.

Parents don't have the back of the teachers anymore.

They always side with their little brat.

That's different.

And the biggest thing, I think, is the shift away from moral teaching, from the parent to the school.

Used to be the school would be afraid of what the parent thought.

Now the parent is afraid of going against what they're teaching in school, even when they don't agree with it.

Right.

That's a huge shift that we should stop and at least notice and debate and talk about, right?

Of course.

And, you know, in these private schools, well, that's not such a big issue in the sense that you don't have to send your child to that school.

Nobody's holding your gun to your head and saying you have to go to a fancy school.

But when we have public schools, thousands and thousands of public schools, where parents are really afraid to challenge what's going on in the classroom, that's really a problem.

That's really a serious problem in education.

But I think it's a problem throughout education, which is that we're losing the distinction between what education is and what indoctrination is.

And a lot of what's happening is really just indoctrination.

I studied Marxism in school.

It's important to understand what Marxism is.

It's different from being taught from a Marxist perspective, right?

One exposes you to ideas, the other makes you a kind of a soldier

in a given perspective.

And that's like that's, there's something kind of totalitarian about that.

You're producing like not independent thinkers, you're producing red guards, you're producing cadres.

And it's so grotesque at the wealthy schools where here are these like children of actual billionaires being turned into baby Marxists because that's how rich your daddy has to be for Marxism to work for you personally as a, you know, as a theory.

So the whole thing is, and that's another American issue.

You know, we've got to pull together and we've got to, you know, we've got to lift up this whole idea of education and get some of this crap out of the schools.

We just have to.

What I read in some of your articles, Summon Barry's, is that there is this climate of fear that people are living in schools, fear of not being woke enough, of not speaking woke enough.

She says, power in America comes from speaking woke.

She quotes this math teacher who says, I am in a cult.

Well, not exactly, it's that the cult is all around me, and I'm trying to save kids from becoming members.

She says, it sounds like he's a Scientology defector.

Well, I think right now we're in sort of a certain period that I think is hopefully going to be short-lived, and that schools have been reacting very quickly and very hugely to the social protests over the summer, which kids, thank God, were very moved by and were very much a part of.

And so that's important, but the lessons that they're introducing on the backs of that protest are grotesque.

Yeah, and also the climate of fear is not just in schools.

It's throughout institutions, companies,

all over the country.

And people have to start calling bullshit on it.

I mean, the only way this ends is people who are in authority say, no, we're not going to be bullied.

If you don't want to work here, go elsewhere.

These are our values, and we're going to stick by them.

They include fair play and openness to a variety of points of view.

They seem obsessed with the concept of privilege.

Yes.

The one you taught at.

Yes.

Harvard Wesley.

Oh, that's, of course, same one.

Okay, so.

I mean, I'm looking at this chart.

Can you show this chart to people?

It's like the world is divided into oppression, resistance, or privilege.

And, you know, you have privilege if...

I mean, some of these are obvious, some of them are outdated to some degree.

Heterosexual, not at the Abbey.

You know,

gender-conforming, young adult, and then, you know,

oppression, working class, person of color, female,

not everywhere.

The world is so much more complicated than that.

The first thing I was taught when I was taught how to be a teacher at that wonderful school was never waste a student's time.

That's the most precious resource.

So never teach a ridiculous lesson.

And if you're sitting there at a school that costs $35,000 a year and you're trying to figure out who has privilege in America, get a mirror.

You know, you're the privileged ones.

You don't have to sit here with this complicated map.

It's a useless lesson.

But are we really talking about advantage?

The word privilege bothers me.

Yes.

It's like there are certain advantages.

And of course, race is the biggest issue in America.

I will always put that at number one.

But it's not the only one.

There's so many different factors that affect people's lives and they only want to see this one thing.

You know, what if someone's painfully shy, like I was, through all my years?

You were painfully shy?

Isn't it funny?

But it kind of makes sense.

You know, people try to, you know, at some point in your life, you know, the light goes out.

You know, the answer to whether you're privileged or you're advantaged, you know, the answer to it isn't to feel guilty and to virtue signal.

it's to do something with

those advantages.

Try to make the world a better place.

Don't feel guilty for doing it.

And more to the point, if you're truly a Marxist and I grew up in a pretty lefty house, tell your parents, I don't want to go to this expensive school anymore.

This is too elite.

I want to be part of making public schools better.

And they want to be super woke and they want to go to Yale.

And that's really offensive to people who can't afford either of those things.

If you really believe it, come here to LA City College.

Okay.

So

before we run out of time, I knew you were coming here.

I really wanted to get both of you, but I really want to hear you about the Royals.

Oh.

Because, you know, now if, what, you're laughing already.

I can't wait to hear this.

Well,

because, I mean, now that we've had the chance to absorb it, everyone saw the Oprah interview with Harry and Megan.

And by the way, I had to laugh when they were canceling all those people last week for the tweets they wrote in high school.

Right.

You know, and then I was like, there's a picture of Harry, America's new hero, wearing a swastika.

Yeah.

I'm just saying, and I don't think they should cancel him for it either.

You know, people do stupid things when they're young, but it's amazing the way the angel of death just flies over some people's houses.

Right.

And other people.

It is amazing.

But not only that, that Megan felt that a really worthwhile role for her to play was to visit the countries of the Commonwealth because they are largely people of color, which is true because they were colonized by the stupid family you married into.

And you should not be their emissary.

You should be going there and telling them that, you know, break free and let's get Britain to pay some reparations.

She shouldn't be there under authority of the actual royal family.

Yeah, she did seem to.

But it's true, but with other people, like that young editor who had just been given her big break and discovered that

11-year-old tweets when she was 17-year-old

were going to destroy her career.

And that's insane.

If you haven't screwed up as a teenager, you probably have never been a teenager.

I mean, what kind of person doesn't have huge mistakes from that period of time?

And what kind of society...

Ted Cruz, because he knew he was going to run for president.

Ted Cruz, doesn't it?

Because he knew when he was eight he started running for president

and that's not the guy you want as president that's the you're making my point I am making your point

we agree anytime somebody gets fired at teen vogue it's a win for the country because the whole thing everyone should be fired they should shut that thing down they should salt the earth and they should go into penance for having I mean I looked at it today.

They had an article about why we should abolish the police.

And the next article was was about one of the Olson twins' haircut.

You know?

It is a young man.

And then you read the statement from them about we had to do this of the important work of teen votes.

The important work.

Are you kidding?

It's about clothes for teenagers, isn't it?

Well, the thing is, it's about more than that, but teenage girls, there is a huge community that they can reach one another on a national and global level through Instagram and so forth.

Adults at the depraved institution of Condé Nast should not be profiting over feeding their heads with this poisonous, vapid, left-wing

agenda that just makes these girls dumber because every time they run something on foreign policy, you just look there and you go, that's not right, and that's not right, and that's not right.

But these girls, hey, it's great, I'm going to get that haircut and be on the side of this thing.

It's just, it's terrible.

I have one minute, and I know you both have written about Woody Allen.

A lot of people who get this network probably saw the documentary.

I have one thing to say about it.

The title offended me.

Not offended me, but was bullshit.

And it may all be true.

But the title of that documentary, which was Alan V.

Farrow, would suggest a trial.

Okay, the title of that documentary is Mia's Story.

And again, it may all be true.

But don't call it Alan v.

Farrow, because that suggests a trial where there's a prosecution and a defense, and there was no defense that ever wrote.

It's misleading.

And the two contemporaneous reports that came out acquitted Alan.

which isn't desponding.

No, no, one did not.

Which means that people who think they know the story don't know the story.

Right.

And now they know one side of the story.

And I'm glad I do.

But don't tell me that I saw the whole story.

So why is HBO

profiting, making a four-night entry?

Hey, hey, now we're getting into some very, very touchy territory.

Time for new rules, everybody.

New rules.

So they can pay their stars well and have them get solar.

That's why.

God damn it.

Push me guests.

All right.

Neural, someone has to tell me how it makes a party better when you're standing on a car.

That would make me not want to go to a party.

Where's the party?

Well, it's partly on a car.

James Brown once sang, get up off of that thing.

He meant his car.

Neurul, before you make fun of this Hindu holy day where women from one village pretend to beat a man from another village with long sticks, remember we've got one coming up where a life-size bunny hides eggs to celebrate a dead guy coming back to life.

Neurul, the nickel bar pigeon has to get over itself and realize that when people say you're so beautiful, they mean for a pigeon.

Your competition is dirt gray, red-eyed, standing on a trash can, eating a cigar.

And you're both going in Chick-fil-A.

No, I can't Chick-fil-A.

It's actually fine food.

It's delicious.

We did.

We make little jokes.

Neural, someone has to tell me why all the signs of the zodiac look like IUDs.

Look at that.

It can't just be coincidence.

Does birth control come from space?

Neil deGrasse Tyson, this one's for you.

Neural, that guy at every wedding who thinks it'd be a treat for everyone if he breakdances,

has to sit down.

You're not the life of the party.

You're the drunk guy who just kicked grandma in the face.

And finally, new rule, if we're going to have a new roaring 20s, let's not repeat the mistakes of the last one.

I keep reading that America is poised for a roaring 20s 21st century edition.

A repeat of that decade a century ago when, just like now, the United States emerged from a pandemic, ready to party as if there was cocaine in the Coca-Cola.

Which there was.

There was in the 20s, yes.

And now, after a year of masking and distancing, I know I'm ready for the party.

And I imagine millions of others are also itching to engage in risky behaviors like air travel, sharing a dessert, or tweeting what you really think.

And why not?

The 20s was an especially exciting time.

The economy doubled.

The masses could afford a car.

Women stopped wearing 16 layers of clothing.

No dream was too big.

Charles Lindbergh became the first anti-Semite to fly solo across the Atlantic.

Babe Ruth hit a home run 575 feet, hung over with gonorrhea while eating a pork jaw.

And Joe Biden started running for president.

And the stock market was a game where everybody was a winner.

But we all know what happened next.

The roaring 20s became the broke-ass 30s.

It turned into a nightmare with the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, and worst of all, an endless stream of musicals about sailors.

And looking at the economic factors right now, it feels like we're back in that headspace that will never run out of cash as long as the Fed doesn't run out of ink.

I'm just saying, if we're going to do a new Roaring 20s, let's do it this time without the two things that made the last one suck: prohibition and a depression at the end of it.

I am no money expert.

I only turn turn on Jim Kramer to scare away the birds.

But it does seem like the market is a little divorced from reality these days.

It's odd that the real economy has been full of news of unemployment, bankruptcies, and going out of business signs since COVID hit.

And yet the S ⁇ P is up 76% in that time.

It can't go on forever.

We can't all win.

It's not the ticket machine at Chuck E.

Cheese.

A share of GameStop isn't really worth more than a share of Toyota.

To bail ourselves out of that depression, we spent over 10 years, over 10 years, 6% of our gross national product.

To get out of COVID, we spent in one year, 26%.

The way we're handing out money, you would think it had an expiration date on it.

In 2008, when the global economy was on the edge of collapse, Congress passed what was considered a massive bailout of $700 billion.

So massive, over 100 protests broke out across the country.

The Occupy Wall Street movement was born.

Now, the word billion is so last decade.

Congress has passed $6 trillion to fight the war on COVID, $2 trillion more than we spent to win World War II.

You know, the big one?

Four years of desperate fighting against a murderer's row of bad guys all over the world and under it.

Not to mention this thing was kind of expensive to make.

All that.

In today's dollars, $4 trillion.

This,

$6 trillion.

So look, the other thing we have to do in the new roaring 20s is end the drug war.

This time,

A little slow on that, stoners.

But they're stoners.

But seriously, this time, can we have the big party without having to worry about getting arrested for doing the drugs that keep the party going in the first place?

Because...

Because in the 1920s, America banned alcohol for reasons which are still mysterious to me.

me.

Hey, we're about to throw this giant rager that goes on for 10 years.

Make sure no one brings booze.

So let's get rid of our own prohibition, a.k.a.

the drug war, and go straight to the part where we admit it doesn't work.

The White House, it's okay.

The White House, unfortunately, is going in the wrong direction.

What the fuck, Joe?

Well, you really got to give it to the drug war.

It is bipartisan.

It was 50 years ago when Nixon announced that drugs were, quote, public enemy number one, and told Elvis to get rid of them by taking them all.

So much of the rot in our society stems from our modern-day version of prohibition.

The people fleeing at the border.

That's the drug war.

The record-shattering amount of incarceration this country does, with all its implications for racial injustice, wasted lives, and skewed elections because so many felons can't vote.

That's the drug war.

Other people get it.

Mexico legalized weed this month.

Canada did it two years ago.

Why are we always the last at everything now?

Portugal ran this experiment.

They decriminalized all drugs 10 years ago, and they had less than 100

overdose deaths last year.

We have 81,000.

The war is over.

West Virginia lost.

Thank you very much.

That's our show.

We're off next week.

I'll be with my solar.

Back on the night, I want to thank Brett Stevens, Caitlin Flanagan, and Christopher Krems.

And thank you, folks.

And thank my solar friends who got it done.

Appreciate it.

Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10 or watch him anytime on HBO On Demand.

For more information, log on to HBO.com.