Ep. #552: Frank Figliuzzi, Peter Hamby

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

Start the clock.

Thank you very much.

Oh, I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you, real-timers of the week.

All right, I know why you're happy tonight.

America got rid of that not-so-fresh feeling.

That's right, Joe Biden.

Joe Biden was sworn in as America's 46th president, I think we have now.

And I would like to say, America, give yourselves a round of applause for pulling off a semi-peaceful transition of power.

How about that?

Semi-peaceful people.

And boy, it's been three days now with the new president.

He has not yet insulted anyone.

Did not have a meltdown on Twitter.

Did not betray the nation that he worked for.

It's nice to have a president who's hinged.

Hinged.

We have hinged back.

No, I can't get used to it.

I'm still writing we're doomed on my checks.

So I thought the inauguration, did you watch that?

I thought that came off quite well, dignified,

enough pageantry, you know, to remind us that we are getting back to normal, some nice touches.

Garth Brooks sang Amazing Grace, and by the looks of him, he rarely misses a chance to say grace.

The theme I noticed of the inauguration was America United.

At least I think there was.

It was hard to read the banner behind the razor wire.

And then the new president went in, got his first intelligence brief, which describes the state of the country.

And he read the first paragraph and went, see if the guy in the Viking helmet still wants it.

So that all happened.

And then earlier in the day, of course, the whiny little bitch left.

That's right.

Bye, Propecia.

And

to quote Melania, thank God, that's over with.

No, Melania was very comforting to Donald.

He was in a bad mood, but she said, it's okay, dear, as you get older, it's harder to achieve insurrection.

Melania looked happy there on the day they'd left.

She left Washington, D.C.

wearing a somber black outfit.

And then she arrived in Florida dressed like she was on her way to fuck Jimi Hendrix.

But boy,

Donald Trump, boy, the last couple of months, left graciously, didn't he?

Oh, yeah.

You know, Trump fans, I got to tell you Trump fans out there, among the liberals, I was pretty much the nicest one to you.

I always said you can hate Trump, but you can't hate all the people who like him.

But I gotta say, your boy, total class.

That's what you people love the most is class.

From not being man enough to admit that he lost the election, to then telling the mob, I'm with you, and then runs back into the house,

to not attending the inauguration, class all the way, this motherfucker.

I'm so glad he did not.

I'm so glad he did not attend the inauguration, because you know, know, he's the ex-husband you don't want to invite to the wedding because he'll stand up and yell, she's a whore.

Just had to get that out of my system.

But, you know, his followers now, the Trump, you know, QAnon,

they don't know what to think now because they were told to follow the plan.

that Trump would prevail and win a second term and then go after the Satan-worshipping pedophiles.

And that didn't happen.

And, you know, it's not like the internet to lie.

So if you guys believe that, I have some very bad news about horny MILFs right in your neighborhood.

Really bad news on that.

And if you're one of these QAnon people who are, you know, the scales have lifted now and you're saying, boy, it's hard to believe I fell for all that.

It's nice to know that finally there's something you found hard to believe.

But I think, you know,

I think people in America are just basically unhappy, and then they find political reasons why.

I mean, Antifa, the other side of it, they were up

yesterday, two days ago in Portland, smashed windows after Biden was inaugurated, burnt a Biden flag.

They don't like him either.

I love Gen Z.

They will binge watch 30 episodes of a TV show before it gets good, but they'll only give Biden one day.

I mean,

they rioted when Trump was in office.

Now they're rioting when Biden's there.

I think some people just don't like windows.

All right, we've got a great show.

We have Peter Hamby and Camille Foster are here.

But first up, he is the former FBI Assistant Director of Counterintelligence and author of The FBI Way, Inside the Bureau's Code of Excellence, Frank Flagluzzi.

Frank,

how are you doing?

It's good to be here.

It's great to see you.

First of all, I know it's corny, but thanks for all your service.

Thank you.

I feel like I'm serving even now, educating people on the threat we're facing.

Well, that's what I want to pick your brain about, because, you know, when we first started, it's been over two weeks now since the January 6th attack there on the Capitol.

And at first it looked like a bunch of

knuckleheads taking selfies.

And it was some of that.

But the more we find out about it, it was, there was some real pros in there.

This was a coordinated attempt.

I was using the term slow-moving coup before Trump took office.

So

it looks like some of these people were actual pros, knew what they were doing, coordinated effort.

Is that the way you read it?

Yeah, Bill, as the evidence continues to develop, we're seeing signs of tactical experience and knowledge, coordination, comms in place, people with the earpieces talking to each other.

So while the vast majority were wandering around dumbfounded that they even got in, the guys up front, the guys breaching, the guys beating police officers, they were ready, they were planned, it was coordinated.

Now, what were they hoping would happen?

I guess like any coup, right,

you have to have a situation, I mean, this is what the coup plotters are thinking, where people will rise up because you're overthrowing a regime of sorts, right?

I mean, you'll think about the Hitler situation with von Stauffenberg.

They started something like, we're going to light the flame and then people will rally around us, or Erdogan in Turkey, a couple of years ago, right?

You know, if it doesn't work, the coup plotters...

So while we're saying it was coordinated, I'm going to say that.

Well, I'm saying, were they hoping that who would rise up?

They must have been hoping people would rise up with them, the military, the police.

This is part of the overall failure to understand that they're living in this echo chamber where all these masses will come together if they simply do this, right?

It's a fingers-crossed coup that everything we've hoped for is going to play out.

Obviously, it did not, and now they don't know what to do, but that should concern law enforcement and the rest of us for the foreseeable future.

But there are people in the ranks of law enforcement who are sympathetic.

We're finding that out.

Not that it was a complete surprise.

We know there's a kind of a super right-wing Christian cabal within the military.

I'm guessing that they thought those people

were

going to be the ones who would rise up and help them.

Well, look, let's recall that we saw

cops for Trump rallies throughout the campus.

Cops, yes.

Heavily well attended.

We've seen

with tactical gear and QAnon patches on their uniforms.

So the notion that the police are a monolith and they all think one way, they're as polarized or split as everyone else is, and they're more dangerous because they are tactically trained and they have power and authority, and Trump cultivated them.

But it's one thing to have different politics within an organization.

It's another thing to have a fifth columnist.

I mean, it seems like if you're willing to do the kind of things that some of these people did on January 6th, that's a true fifth columnist.

Would you not agree?

They've betrayed the oath.

The same oath that I took, the same oath that most law enforcement officers took, they betrayed, and they need to be ferreted out, and we need to rethink even how we recruit police officers and the degree of background investigation done.

But Bill, all of this comes together for me as a former Intel law enforcement guy to say it's time to address this for what it is.

It's domestic terrorism and

we need a law against domestic terrorism.

I mean when you say a law against,

I don't know what's in this law.

I feel like we have laws like that on the books already.

And when you say laws against domestic terrorism, what I think immediately is listening.

What else could it be?

Is listening in on people?

I mean, Frank, I love the FBI, but they did have a tape recorder under Martin Luther King's bed.

Yeah, we've got to be.

This goes way back.

What's the best way to stop bad guys, listen in on what the shit they're thinking and planning before they even know you're in on it?

Right.

It's time to have this discussion seriously, though, because look.

If you rob a bank, you don't get arrested for trespass.

You get arrested for robbing a bank.

It's a serious crime, actually a a crime against the government, right?

So what happened at the Capitol?

Was it trespass?

We're seeing people arrested for trespass.

Theft of Nancy Pelosi's podium, which I'm sure is near and dear to her, but that charge doesn't reflect the gravity of what happened.

What happened was an insurrection.

What happened was domestic terrorism.

Right.

And we can't charge it.

Domestic terrorism is the only criminal category in the FBI where they can investigate you, but they can never charge you.

There's no such crime.

But I'm asking you, what is the law that we're going to pass that's going to change this, and that's also going to respect the Fourth Amendment?

So I advocate a law that looks just like international terrorism.

So if you change the religion of those people at the Capitol building on January 6th and you make their mission violent jihad or establishing a caliphate, all of a sudden we have an international terrorism law and they go to prison for the rest of their lives.

But that's the difference

that we would be listening to those

we would be listening to those people

overseas.

We would be listening to them, that's that's, I mean, we are allowed to listen to calls from the wax.

Let me catch you up.

We listen to those people here.

There's terrorists here.

So there's international terrorism law here.

But doesn't it have to be connected to something overseas?

It does.

Okay, but these people, the people who attacked the Capitol, they would not be in that category.

These are just within the shores of America.

It's a little bit different.

That's my point, is that it's time to reach out to...

So you're saying saying we should be able to listen on them too?

I'm saying that the FBI is saying I'm not against that.

I'm not saying that

let's talk it out.

I'm saying when FBI agents rank and file write a letter to Congress as they did last year and said

The domestic terrorism occurring under this administration is something we can't handle and don't have the investigative tools for, and we need a domestic terrorism law.

When the folks who are charged with protecting us say they can't do it, we should listen to them.

A domestic terrorism law has been proposed frequently in the House and even the Senate, and it keeps getting knocked down.

It gets knocked down because of civil liberties concerns, but it's time now to call it what it is.

Okay.

But you would also allow, would you not, that as bad as the Proud Boys and Boogaloo Boys and whoever these crazy people are, they're not trying to acquire nuclear weapons like the jihadis are, right?

That is one big difference.

I hope you're right about that.

But let's start with the- Oh, come on, you.

Let's start with.

They're going to blow up their own.

Let's talk about arrests that have been made over the last 10 years with people building radioactive bombs, right?

Biochemical warfare, anthrax, ricin.

They're trying.

So here's the thing.

This keeps, this kind of civil liberties thing is valid, but also stops us from having the law.

So let's take baby steps and say, all right, we're not going to get into the tools and the spying on American citizens, but by God, when they do it and we catch them, let's charge them with something that sends them away for 20 years to life because they are terrorists.

Let me ask you.

Well, they certainly are.

But let me ask you what you think is behind that.

I mean, obviously we have this vast array of seething

men.

It's always men, mostly men, usually white men, okay.

Proud boys, like I mentioned, by the way, have you ever found out what they're proud of?

Has the agency gotten it?

But

to me,

it's probably more what's going on in their personal life, and then they attach politics to it.

I think it's the same thing with Islamic terrorism.

I think if you're happy and you're getting laid, you're not blowing shit up.

But this is my point.

So,

this is my point.

What we've seen over the last four years looks a lot to me like the kind of radicalization process we see when people move towards violent jihad.

And yes, it is something in their life that causes them to look for a cause greater than themselves, a feeling of disenfranchisement.

And yes, I think you're making my point.

These are radicalized people who need to be treated like domestic terrorists.

Yeah, I wouldn't disagree with it.

Just quizzing you.

Did I pass?

Did I pass?

So let me ask you the last thing.

I mean, the January 6th thing really wasn't the FBI's beat.

But I mean, when I think of the FBI, I think, well, that's the last line of defense here.

Should they have done more?

I mean,

I think of that term failure of imagination that we had after 9-11.

I feel like they failed to imagine that people who were pro-Trump would also be so against authority.

You know, it seems counterintuitive, but it's not.

So here's what I've been calling the insurrection.

It's not a failure of intelligence so much as it was a failure to act on available intelligence.

You and I could have sat at home on our recliner and watched in social media this thing play out for about two weeks before the insurrection.

So they had it.

They did pass it throughout the Capitol Region to the Capitol Police.

FBI offices like Norfolk, Virginia said to headquarters, you're going to have a problem here.

The problem is twofold.

One, FBI doesn't protect buildings.

But two, I'm not buying this.

Hey, we told the Capitol Police, not our problem.

That's not how this works.

And you're right.

I think, again, if we changed religion and or color of all these people planning this, we might have seen a more aggressive response.

That's a problem.

All right.

Thank you, Frank.

You look like you're too young to be on TV.

You should be back in the FBI building.

But let's meet our panel.

Okay.

There they are.

He is the host of Snapchat's political show, Good Luck America, and contributing writer for Vanity Fair, Peter Hamby.

And he's the co-host of the fifth column podcast.

Camille Foster is over here.

Great to see you both.

Okay, so guys, I don't know if you watched watched the first press briefing

the day Biden was inaugurated.

I don't even have the names yet.

Jan.

Jan Saki.

She's good.

The bar is low.

She's so right off the bat.

I know Jen.

Gives her a shot right off the bat.

Jen is great, but the bar is low.

The bar is low.

Of course it is.

But I mean, it was just so good to see, you know, first of all, I feel like talking to just my friends, everybody has sort of this dreamlike quality to the experience.

Like, did that really happen?

It's like, I don't know if you remember the TV show Dallas.

You're too young for sure.

But, like, they had a whole episode where it was a dream.

Like, people didn't like the whole, I mean, the whole season was a dream.

And the next season started, and the guys in the shower is like, I dreamed that season.

That's how I felt like this.

It was, yeah.

It was shockingly normal.

And I think it was helped by the fact that Whatever you think about the idea of a tech platform kicking a political leader off of the platform, was helped by the fact that Trump wasn't able to tweet during the inauguration during the first few days.

Like,

it does feel like the whole Trump administration has just sort of disappeared and we live through a fever dream.

Well, here's the key question, though.

How much power does he retain, Donald Trump?

Because that'll tell a lot.

I mean, is it the end of training day where Denzel Washington is like, I'm King Kong up here?

And they're like, no, you're not anymore.

No, you are not.

Your power is gone.

The Russians can't be powerful.

Or

it remains to be seen.

I mean, I think there's already some indication that some of Trump's base of support seems to be eroding.

His brand is, I win, I go out and I win.

He very much lost.

And there may be a narrative out there about him having won, but a lot of folks are not buying that anymore.

Even if it takes a little bit of time for the polling to catch up with that.

You know, Nixon leaves office.

Republicans are still a little high on him, maybe a little less reluctant to acknowledge the awfulness thereof.

Eventually, that's the best.

But you know, he's, they say he's starting this Patriot Party.

That's the name of it.

First of all, that sounds like Nazis to me.

And not like they're killing all the Jews, Nazis, but like fascism come to America, Patriot Party, whenever you are that blatant about we're the patriots, we're the good people.

Would you prefer Trump organization as the name of this new entity?

I actually would.

Patriot Party is very brown shirty.

And I do worry that, you know, all those people who just believe might is right, who, you know, we're at least two generations past where they taught anything in school.

So it's not like people know that they're violating the Constitution, because they have no clue what's in it to begin with.

So they don't know they're fascists.

But they are.

And I feel like they're all going to be in the Patriot Party.

And it's going to be a dangerous, talk about fifth columnists.

I think it...

I saw some people on Twitter sort of snickering about the idea of Trump creating a Patriot Party,

in part because Trump doesn't necessarily have the work ethic and attention span to do such a thing, but Trump University, Trump stakes

moves on.

However, but he has people around him.

He wasn't

a part of it.

No, I'm not, I take it somewhat seriously, actually.

You saw all of these people in the conservative universe, from Lou Dobbs to Charlie Kirk, say this is a good idea.

If anyone can get ballot access, raise small donor money,

have support in every single state outside of a political party, it's Donald Donald Trump.

The problem is, you know, it would just deprive him, I think, in a different way of power.

I mean, the way for Trumpism to reach success is to do the hostile takeover of the Republican Party, to win Republican primaries and then win elections.

I mean, the Patriot Party would hold down Republican votes as a third party in a general election.

It would just allow Democrats to win because it would just siphon those voters out of the Republican Party.

Another avenue is to take advantage of one of the other third parties that already exist, not the Libertarian Party that is near and dear to my heart, but perhaps the Reform Party or something like that.

But

in either case, I am far more skeptical of this proposition.

I think it actually takes a great deal of organization.

And if there's anything we know about Donald Trump, he's not terribly well organized.

And in terms of spending money,

we have to spend money on other candidates.

I must tell you, gentlemen, this does sound like the same shit I heard before he became president.

Donald Trump's just a buffoon.

He's not serious about president.

He'll never do this.

He'll never do that.

And then he did it all.

And here we are.

ballot access is a little bit different than having rain name recognition

cashier having had a television show this is very different i i will say one thing though though the the notion of sort of referring to these people as fascist rather even donald trump is a fascist i often worry about giving the man too much credit and i worry about using words that are highly charged that may not in fact illuminate the conversation in the way that we really accept it yeah i agree with that in in theory but you know there's a lot of definitions of fascism we i've heard many over the years from learned people disagree.

But I think the one thing we can all line up behind it is this idea of might makes right and that we don't respect democratic norms.

If you can't call what the people who wanted to undo the election, that even the Republican judges and politicians said was fairly called,

I don't know what fascism is.

Then what definition do we have for it?

I mean, that is fascism when it's just like...

I mean, because they're not a lot of these people even the Republicans in Congress They're not sorry about what happened on January 6th.

They're just sorry it didn't work.

Well they're sorry it happened to them.

They came into their offices They felt personally threatened.

Yeah, I'm pretty right.

That's one reason McConnell is so angry about this is because like that's his house.

I'm pretty skeptical of that assertion that they're not that they don't regret that this happened.

Look I just want to try to put it into another context.

Imagine one possibility here that what we've seen over the course of the last say 10, 12 months is actually a bit of an unraveling this escalation in political violence that is not limited to the right but that is existed on the left as well we saw two billion dollars worth of damage done over the course of several months we saw days of civil unrest in the street we saw federal buildings surrounded held under siege for days at a time you're talking about this is this is the United States of America and we have seen a steady increase in the regularity and frequency of political violence in this country.

And if there is a broader trend as opposed to a specific movement that is broken, then we're talking about too narrow a problem as opposed to the right problem, which might be

a really major defect in our problem.

Going back to the Seattle WTO protests in 2000, I mean, there's always been like a anarchist, black bloc, gutter punk element on the left, which is this was

across the country.

But Trumpism,

Trumpism

has infected every state capital.

It is

promised armed rebellion at every state capital.

That did not materialize, which is why I'm saying I worry that we may be miscasting this.

If we're thinking it's Trump, Trump is the problem.

And as you mentioned already earlier in the show, Bill, we saw hundreds of people in the streets breaking windows after Biden won.

Something is wrong, and I worry that we're not talking about this in the middle of the...

That's a great question to get to.

Now that we've gotten rid of Trump, we're faced with this problem as Americans.

Now we can't blame everything on him.

Now we've got to look in the mirror, and we'll see.

We'll find out in the next hundred days.

Like if it was all Trump who was the bad guy, and I've said from the beginning with the virus, he certainly played his part horribly, horribly, beginning with getting that little team out of China that could have stopped the whole fucking thing to begin with.

But it's also, I think, on the American medical establishment that never told the American people, best way you can handle this is get yourself in better shape, get your immune system better, stop eating shit food and sugar and day drinking.

They never had the guts to do that.

They wouldn't even say the word obesity on television.

That would be fat shaming.

The code and I was preconditioned.

Yeah.

Okay, so can America do this?

Can America...

Competence is always what I come back to.

I see it on a

personal level in my life.

We all do as we go out in our day, when we used to go out in our day, when we used to have days to go out in.

And I see it on a national level.

Can we do shit anymore?

We can't seem to get the vaccine rollout going.

That's not a great harbinger of what's to come.

Can we, even if we can't blame it on Trump, be, you know.

I don't, I mean, here in the great Socialist Republic of California, it's insanely hard to get.

Don't get me started.

You know where I'm on.

I mean, same.

Here's a good example.

My parents are in their early 70s.

My mom got vaccinated today at a distribution center in Richmond, Virginia.

My dad's getting vaccinated at a Kroger.

Like, our healthcare system is so bunk that we're going to CVSs and Walgreens.

And, you know, I think it is a little too glib of the left to say that.

you know, nationalized healthcare in this country would have made our COVID response that much better.

But certainly on the distribution front, I mean, it would have been way better.

You know, the NHS is telling people in their communities in the UK, like, you're ready, come on in, we'll give you, we'll stick your arm.

Like, here, half the country doesn't even know how to get a vaccine, literally, like, according to surveys.

I don't know when my time comes where I'm going to get a vaccine.

There's one thing we seem to be really good at, and it's bipartisan, and that is that we are able to print money we don't have and hand it out to the needy and unneedy alike.

That seems to be what we're really good at, printing new money and giving it away.

Yeah.

That's what we're going to do.

Are you Paul Ryan now?

Paul Ryan.

Is that wrong?

I think it's worth being concerned about a circumstance where we've created effectively around $5 trillion or committed to doing that over the course of like 11 months.

It's a $20 trillion economy.

That is a big deal.

And the question of whether or not we're doing that in a way that gets aid and help to people who really need it is a big deal.

And to answer your question, no, I'm not Paul Ryan, but if I agreed with him on something, it wouldn't make me a horrible person.

No, no, no.

But although Republicans are not.

It's that argument, like, oh, you sound like someone on the red team, you must be wrong.

Right.

No, I'm just saying, we just say, I would rather see the money targeted more.

I don't feel like we're great at targeting anything.

The only thing we can do precisely is bomb.

You know, when we want to bomb something, that's the one thing we can say.

Like,

Everything else is just like we spray it.

We just spray it around.

You know, I mean, I...

I mean, I talked to some Republican leadership aides in the Senate yesterday about the bill, Biden's proposal, $1.9 trillion

of spending.

Remember, the stimulus in 2009 when Obama came in was $800 billion.

And they went batshit at that number.

Totally.

That's when we got the fabulous euphemism, jobs created or saved, which is fake.

Correct.

Correct.

And Biden presided over the Recovery Act in in 2009, and he has lots of big ideas about how to become an FDR-style president.

However, the Republican viewpoint on this in the Senate is kind of what you guys are saying, which is like checks, like a lot of Republicans came out at the end of the Trump administration for that $2,000 check.

Like checks could work.

Money for vaccine creation and distribution, that could work.

But they're really balking at the idea that

we have already allotted $4 trillion worth of spending over the last year.

We're going to give more money to states and cities.

They're not sure about that.

And they also think that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are just going to lard up this bill with whatever they want to.

Tom Brady got money the last time.

And Joel Olstein.

And, you know, I mean, look, some of it, you can never transfer money except with a leaky bucket, as someone once said.

I get some of that.

But it just seems like we don't do anything with great care.

And it's just, why not?

It's, you know, we're just making the money in the mint anyway.

Yeah, and I think I think the Biden people even say this privately, that this is a starting point.

There's going to be a negotiation.

And

I think it's in Biden's heart that he wants to peel off some Republican senators and show I'm a bipartisan president, that we can achieve some kind of unity.

Writing checks is easy.

The really hard stuff, the important stuff, the single most important thing they could do is reopen schools.

And focusing like a laser on how to help states do that would do in enormous power.

But there's money for that in the proposal.

All families.

There's money for that in the proposal.

But it's going to take a lot more than money.

And unfortunately, I just think there's a lot of grandstanding taking place.

And I think you're absolutely right, Bill.

The profound failure of this entire government, the bureaucracy, Democrats and Republicans alike, to actually rise to the occasion and meet this challenge of COVID, they failed profoundly.

And the question of what we do from here, I think, is the most important question that we ought to be pondering.

And we don't have Trump to kick around with it.

Just to punctuate this, I think one of the...

dumbest things of COVID is going back to what you were saying earlier that we think that a lot of people on the left think that just because Democrats are doing something or saying something it's automatically correct and if Republicans do it's automatically stupid.

Right.

Mayor Garcetti here in Los Angeles, Governor Newsome, like why is why is the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, a like saint of COVID?

Like his response to it and doing a book tour before the pandemic's even over

is ridiculous.

But because he is not.

He put people back in the nursing homes.

Yeah.

Exactly.

He did the wrong thing.

He did the wrong thing.

The idiot in Florida did it better.

And he let his political disagreements with the mayor of New York City get in the way of swift and good decision making.

Right.

And he's just held up as a paragon of good governance just because he's a Democrat.

But it's still great to have a new president.

And not just because the last one was the worst person in the world, for comedy, because we need new comedy.

So I was watching the inauguration.

And I must tell you, I thought to myself, let's just start right here.

And I was looking at Joe Biden, and it looked like his mind was drifting at times.

And I thought,

I think I can read this man's mind.

Would you like to hear what I was?

Yeah, okay.

So, here are some of the, oh, sure, oh, sure, now, oh, now.

All right, here are some of the things that were going through Joe's mind.

J-Lo, I thought you said we were having jello.

Not bad for a kid from ancient Rome.

Uh-oh, I hope that was just gas.

I see Lady Gaga, but where's Lord Gaga?

I am so getting laid tonight.

And who's sleeping now, fuckface?

All right, so

let's get back on the discussion of the economy.

I mean, you have been critical of Black Lives Matter relations with,

well, communism and anti-capitalism.

Sure.

There's a new African-American congressman who said

capitalism is the new slavery.

You've said, talking about Black Lives Matter and anti-racism, you said they're part of a broader program that is hostile towards free markets and capitalism, hostile towards notions of individualism and the scientific method.

Give me some examples of what you're talking about.

Well, the important thing to consider here is that when folks talk about Black Lives Matter, it's often said that, look, this is just an ethical statement.

If you can't acknowledge this, that that's a real problem.

Black Lives Matter is a political statement, and there is a political program attached to it.

And plenty of people, you know, sort of broadly may not be aware of it.

But the fact that it does have some roots in Marxism, that there are radical elements of the Black Lives Matter movement that are very disinclined towards free markets and capitalism, that challenge very basic notions that I think are broadly shared by Americans about equality under the law, for example.

This pivot towards equity, racial equity, and a focus disproportionately on outcomes is something that is rather new, but seems to have taken the country by storm.

It's almost the only thing people can talk about.

Equity meaning as opposed to equality.

Equity as opposed to equality.

I can give you a practical example of that.

Yes.

COVID, we were just talking about a moment ago.

We know that the most vulnerable population when it comes to COVID are older people.

That if I took people over the age of 55, that's 80% of the deaths.

There have been actual conversations about prioritizing people on the basis of their race because COVID is said to disproportionately impact black people relative to white people.

It is a ridiculous proposition, but it's a proposition that's found its way into the mouths of governors here in California, the pages of the New York Times.

We're actively talking about this kind of ridiculous because we actually know when we look at the global impact of COVID in the United States, again, 80% of the people who are dying are older, around 18% of the people who are dying are black.

A life lost to COVID is a life that matters and we can focus on the people who are vulnerable without making this about race.

Making it about race only obscures the actual issue if

you help people.

We can separate race from economic insecurity, sure, right?

Like

Hispanics are hospitalized at three, four times the rate of white people for a variety of reasons.

For a variety of reasons.

They're essential workers.

They're riding the bus from Boyle Height here.

So, the important point is that it's not fundamentally about race.

You can't un-Hispanic them.

There may be different issues in their communities.

It could be that they live in homes with more people.

It could be that they live in more urban centers.

If that's the case, the policy you're tailoring is for people in urban centers, not Latinos.

This is a confusion of categories that is actually distracting us from forging good policy.

What you get is great sound bites.

You don't actually fix problems.

It always, it makes people,

there's this

something happened with white people, white liberals, a certain saga, and like reveling in guilt that I don't understand.

So like you're saying, I understand this is a good issue that you chose to use as an example, because yes, you're right.

There are,

I think if you look at the stats, it does disproportionately affect the African-American community.

But

to make the white people feel feel better about their guilt, you only hear about it because of, yes, racism, that is a part of it.

Another part of it is obesity, not that there aren't plenty of fat white people.

Another part of it is vitamin D.

Vitamin D is very important.

My pasty white skin absorbs it easily.

Yours does not.

That's just science.

That's just obviously not.

But

it doesn't fit the paradigm of this is a racist plot.

And geography is a huge part of it.

People live in different parts of the world.

Sometimes because they are not.

If we actually look at the data points from with the respect of where do black people live?

Do they live in urban areas?

You're going to see that black people relative to where they live and relative to COVID impact may not be so disproportionate.

And we see that all the time.

Let it be stipulated, college-educated white people on the internet

professing their white guilt and displaying their virtue are some of the worst people in politics and are ruining politics.

However, however, this is about

shared sacrifice, I think.

Hear me out on this.

I am white guy who has income and access to health care.

I am also a white guy who really wants to fucking go to a bar, to go to concerts, to go to restaurants.

And if we vaccinate people who don't have access to health care, First, maybe that brings hospitalization rates down.

Maybe then we can go back to fucking indoor dining.

Like, maybe I'm being selfish here, but like,

all of these things aren't actually, I don't actually see how that could possibly be more effective than targeting the people who are the most vulnerable with the vaccines.

Because we already know that we can find ways to live with the virus.

We have been doing it.

But black and Hispanic people are vulnerable to the they're not more vulnerable because of their blackness or lithium.

Let me give another example.

Last

week we were talking about how I was saying the media really, it's a different kind of media than it was even 10 years ago.

Every story has to be interpreted by how is my demographic that watches me going to like this.

So after the election we found out Trump did better with minorities than he did the last time or other Republican presidents.

I mean, you would never hear them talk about this on MSNBC.

They would not have you on.

Well, because what?

No, you're probably right.

Because

it's a different point of view that gets in the bubble that makes someone turn the dial to another channel, I guess.

But

what is your view on that?

Why did Trump do?

Well, I think that some of the reporting after.

Wait, I'm asking him.

Yeah, don't white splane.

Jesus,

I'm kidding.

That's a joke.

What a bad moment for the white guy to interrupt.

Let me handle that.

I'm sorry, though.

That was a joke.

Calm down over there.

No, look, I don't think it's unrelated to what I was hinting at before.

I think there is a general dissatisfaction among the populace.

I think for the most part, people aren't voting in favor of things or in favor of candidates.

They're voting against things.

People have not been waiting around for the 50-odd years that Joe Biden has been in public life saying, you know who we need as president more than anybody in the world?

Sleepy Joe Biden.

That's the guy we need.

Joe Biden arrived at just the right time and Mr.

Magooed his way into the White House.

One of the most unpopular humans on earth.

Right.

And see, this is what I've always said.

Forgive me if I'm repeating this, if people have heard it before, but to me, the ultimate white privilege is, what?

You know what I'm going to say?

No.

Is being able to be impractical.

Black people have to be practical.

Right?

They don't have the luxury.

I don't know.

Sometimes I could be impractical.

Right.

But I'm saying in general, and politically, you see that all the the time.

They were very practical about Joe Biden.

You're right.

It wasn't who they loved.

It was who was possible.

Yeah, and they got lucky there, too.

Got lucky, dodged a bit of a bullet.

The numbers were huge for everybody.

But crossed the board.

On the flip side of that, I mean,

some of the reasons that Trump did well among Hispanics, and this was reported throughout the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, right?

Where Trump outran Biden by a significant margin compared to the last election, they liked the checks.

They liked the checks signed by Donald Trump that came through after the last COVID bill, right?

Like, Trump, if he had understood better the transactional nature of politics and governing, might have won if he had really focused on that.

I think that's the practicality.

People are like, I don't know what government does for me, but if I'm getting a check from this guy, shit, I'm going to vote for him.

Like, that's powerful.

And I think that helped him.

His numbers on the economy throughout the campaign were pretty good compared to the rest of his poll numbers, which are in a shitter.

So am I wrong to not want to see race all the time?

Because that's how I was brought up.

Like that's what a good liberal does is you don't see race and now they switched it all around and I'm bad because I don't see it all the time.

And is ubiquity even effective to make people aware of this issue at every turn?

You know, one of the first things the Biden administration did is got rid of these prohibitions that the Trump administration had put on this diversity and inclusion training.

And one thing that we know, and it's unfortunate when I have to agree with Donald Trump because it's very unpopular to do in many circles but one thing we have to acknowledge is that this diversity and inclusion training can often increase people's racial sensitivity that it can often make workplaces less harmonious that talking often about racism and discrimination can make people presume that it exists in places where it does not and we have to acknowledge that racism is a subjective allegation right i can presume intent on your behalf whether or not it is actually there and that's a major defect.

And I don't want to be the object of your special concern for anyone else's.

This is what I hear.

I'm

an individual, and this is what I'm talking about.

See, this is the thing.

I'm so sympathetic to the cause, but don't gaslight me.

You know, and this is what I hear privately from my black friends.

I don't want to be the focal point.

I just want to blend in.

I want to have a beer like you.

Don't look at me like I have to make a speech about it or that you have to make a speech about it.

So let me ask you this question.

Is the picture of America that's presented by the radicals, I would say, Black Lives Matter, some of them, the anti-racists, of America 2021, is it an accurate picture?

Because sometimes I'm like, are they talking about 2021?

Yeah, I don't think so.

I think that there are a lot of issues, unfortunately.

We could talk about criminal justice reform, for example, where we traffic in a great deal of hyperbole, where people who, quite frankly, just do not have a serious grounding in these issues are out in the streets and screaming about them.

They've got the bullhorns in their hands and they don't know the numbers.

I'm always surprised when I see sort of the outrage in Portland over these issues.

When I actually go back and look at the number of police-involved shootings or deaths in custody, for example, and the numbers simply do not bear out this genocide against black America.

It's not a thing.

What we do know is we need criminal justice reform, but it's because there are genuine impacts across the board in many instances and a lack of accountability and transparency.

And those smart policies don't require us to think in terms of racism.

I feel like all the energy goes toward this emotional part instead of like, of course there is systemic racism in America.

That's, I mean, when you look at the stats of, you know, just like black wealth versus white wealth or, you know, healthcare, you're talking about,

how long people live.

I mean, there's a million things you can look at.

And you say, obviously, this is because we had this sorry history that has continued to the present.

But when I look at the present,

I'm very often asking the question, like,

are we not addressing what should be the drug war?

Get rid of the drug war?

And wouldn't you get rid of a lot of the black deaths?

Because it's, I mean, who dies in Chicago?

Is it mostly blacks at the hands of the police?

Sure.

Well, that's urban.

It's gangs fighting each other over drug turf.

Yeah, that's urban crime there, sure.

Contraception, retraining the cops.

I feel like the practical programs get lost because that, as you say, doesn't get the headline.

I think Biden deserves more credit on this stuff.

And the New York Times reported this week that in meetings when staffers, particularly younger staffers who sort of traffic in a lot of the stuff we're talking about, the kind of academic language, when they use academic or elitist language, as you see on Twitter, Biden stops them and says, pick up the phone and call your grandma.

Would she understand what you were talking about?

If not, I don't want to hear it again.

And I think his North Star has always been that normy, not online voter,

a black person over 50, a white person in the suburbs, who isn't following this stuff.

And he is, I think, reasonably careful about the racial language that

we see and get mad about on the internet quite a bit.

Partly because he's not on the internet.

Yeah, but we'll have to see where it goes.

I mean, we've seen in recent days folks who are part of Team Biden say things along the lines of, you know, race and social justice are going to be in every aspect of policy that we do, every economic policy, this is going to be our lodestone.

And one, that sounds like a bit of a constitutional issue, which we may have to adjudicate, and I suspect will, but two, it just does not sound effective to me.

If you want to focus on problem, really complicated problems, nuanced problems like education, like healthcare, those problems are not things that we get a clearer picture of, that we see better

when we inject race into the conversation.

Race is divisive, it divides us, it obscures the truth, and it generally ruins the concept.

Well, it does matter in those conversations often.

But you're saying don't make, I mean, isn't that what critical race theory is?

It's formative, so it matters in that way.

Some people want you, what they want to hear you say it.

And systemic racism is a phrase that I find really frustrating because I think it categorizes things, but it doesn't really explain them.

It doesn't actually give us a sense of how to fix them in any material sense.

There are all sorts of disparities, and they exist for all sorts of complicated reasons and we ignore that when we disabled.

There's all sorts of ways you can be disadvantaged in life.

Sure.

You know, I mean...

And advantaged.

I am privileged.

Anyone who looks at me and presumes on account of my appearance that I'm disadvantaged is a fool.

But if you're born, look at this face.

But if you're born in the...

But I mean, yes, I mean, they're upset.

Right, but if you're born in the Mississippi Delta and you're living on a poor farm or a shack, Like, you're there and you're poor because you're black and because there's a history of raging racism.

You could be white in those circumstances.

Poverty sucks

regardless of your race.

One out of ten people there are white.

They're living on plantations.

And they're in good older people.

They're plenty of places like Appalachia where you'll find concentrations of deep systemic poverty and all of the people are white.

I don't care what they look like.

I want solutions that work.

And quite frankly, talking about racism all the time is not a solution for anything.

What would you know about it?

Peter.

Let me explain something to you, sir.

All right.

Thank you, guys.

I appreciate the discussion, but now it's time for new rules.

Girl, the next time a mob attacks Congress, don't hide in the cloakroom.

That's the first place they'll look.

Also, who wears a cloak anymore?

A cloak?

If you don't want to think QAnon to think you're in a sex cult, remember, the only people who wear cloaks are Dracula, Hobbits, party magicians, theater critics, Iron Curtain trophy wives, Vicurious Batmen, and late period Elvis.

It's okay, don't knock yourself out.

Neural enough that the Trump era is over, let's all agree to never mention it again.

Sometimes something seems like a good idea at the time, but then later you just want to forget.

You tried it, it was stupid, move Like oral sex in the pool, or

sandwich wraps, or that year you wore a fedora.

New rural Republicans who tweet quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.

on his birthday must admit: if King were alive today, you'd call him a socialist and darken his skin in campaign ads.

You have a dream, and it's making it harder for minorities to vote.

My own staff, I can't get.

It's amazing.

It's just amazing.

I think you got to hold the paycheck till after the taping.

I think that's going to be the key.

New rule, news anchors have to get through.

News anchors have to get through one entire newscast without saying the words grim milestone.

You're only depressing an already depressed population.

Besides, it's not fair to actual milestones, which are, after all, just rocks.

Hi, I'm Bill Maher for rocks.

You've been hearing a lot of bad things about milestones lately: infection rates, rising global temperatures, the national debt, but rocks are so much more.

We decorate fish tanks,

hold down papers, and fill Steve Doocy's head.

Rocks, life would be hard without us.

New Roll, the woman who bought that candle that Gwyneth Paltrow sells, you know, that one that smells like her vagina, and then brought it home and claims it exploded, has to tell us one thing.

Are you bitching or bragging?

Also, what happened with the Jimmy Dean's pure pork sausage?

And finally, New Rule, New Year's call for new departments here on real time, and we have something very special for you tonight.

As our loyal fans know, after every election season, we prepare a memorial package called Farewell Douchebags.

So we can

bid adieu, a proper adieu, to the conservative nutjobs who just got drummed out of office.

Here's a little bit of our last installment from two months ago.

Always a fan favorite.

I've been doing it for all these years.

Problem is, Republicans restock douchebags with the efficiency of an Amazon warehouse.

They churn out new crazy like the Hallmark channel makes Christmas movies.

So I thought it might be prudent moving forward if we took a moment at the beginning of the year to get to know the up-and-comers, the douchebags to keep an eye on.

The new, fresh-faced, hate-for-profit, truth-bending opportunists that you'll be cursing out for years to come.

So, sit back and enjoy our premiere edition of Hello, douchebags.

Hello,

hello, douchebags.

For example, there's a new opportunistic infection in the Senate named Josh Hawley.

Oh, he's an up-and-comer.

Washington Insider says he's among 2021's most punchable faces.

Handsome, youthful, and vigorous, he's the far-right's JFK with a little dash of KKK.

And as the son of a wealthy banker and a graduate of Stanford, Yale, and a private prep school, Josh knows what he hates most in this world, elites.

Loathsome and transparently ambitious, Josh was the first senator to formally choose Trump's baseless election fraud conspiracy over his pledge to uphold the Constitution.

But before you say he's anti-democratic, Josh wants you to know that he's just asking questions.

Questions like, why does the winner of an election always have to be the guy who gets the most votes?

Not to be outdone in the area of hating government from the inside, Freshman Colorado rep and high school dropout Lauren Boebert is someone you may have already thought of if you ever thought, what would happen happen if Michelle Bachman smoked bath salts?

This sassy gal is taking her hoops out to fight the Libtards and

she wants everyone to know she has exactly one issue, guns.

Spoiler alert, she likes them.

She hails from a town named Rifle.

and owns a restaurant called Shooters, where the wait staff, no kidding, are encouraged to carry loaded weapons on the job.

My suggestion, if you eat there, make sure you tip at least 20%.

Yeah, I ate there once.

I asked the waiter, how fresh is the fish?

He said, I don't know, do you feel lucky punk?

Alabama's newest senator is Tommy Tubberville.

How to describe Tommy?

He's like if a hot mic slur got voted into office.

Tommy's the former coach of the Auburn Tigers football team and intellectually let's just say he's a few yards short of a first down.

He refused to debate before his primary and general elections and it's a good thing because he could lose a game of tic-tac-toe to a St.

Bernard.

Tommy's the model of today's constitutional conservative who has absolutely no idea what's in the Constitution.

He got wrong the answer to the question, what are the three branches of our government?

Strippers can get this one.

I know, I've asked.

Financially, Tommy's been involved with at least three business associates who've been convicted for financial fraud.

Said, Tommy, I'm not smart enough to understand all all the numbers.

Did I mention he wants to be on the Senate Banking Committee?

And seen.

Now,

if Fresh Faced is your thing, get ready to swipe right

on rising hate monger Madison Cawthorne from North Carolina, one of the leaders of the Stop the Steal fiasco who hyped the riot at the Capitol like it was the fire festival,

and who at the tender age of 25 is the youngest Republican ever elected to the House.

I've thrown up scotch older than this prick.

You know every Chad douchebag you see on a jet ski on Instagram?

Yeah, he's a congressman now.

And this one brags that he carries a gun on the House floor, but not irresponsibly.

It's safely secured in his Paw Patrol lunchbox.

And finally, but certainly not least, we have the freshman congresswoman from Georgia, the true mayor of Crazy Town, and everyone's favorite Karen, Marjorie.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman who makes most people say, how is she not a teacher from Florida who fucks her students?

I don't know, but holy shit is this lady crazy.

She does not listen to lobbyists and special interests.

No, she listens to microwaves and talking dogs.

She is an all-in QAnon believer who thinks science and reason are a conspiracy to trick people into thinking.

Reagan saw a shining city on a hill.

This chick sees spiders on her arms.

Move over, AOC.

Say hello to WTF.

All right, that's hello, douchebags.

I want to thank my guest speaker, Heffy, Camille Foster, Frank McGluzzi.

We'll see you next week, folks.

Thank you.

I'll be at the...

I'll be nowhere.

I'll be home.

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