Ep. #542: Michael Cohen, Jane Fonda

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, No, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Yeah, aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

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

Thank you.

How are you doing?

Please.

Thank you.

Wow, you sound

very nice.

Thank you very much.

Please.

Sounds almost like a full crowd.

That's how good you are.

And I appreciate you being here.

I think I know why you're happy today.

You're breathing filtered air in here.

That's

voidy.

The air quality out there, you live here?

Not good, right?

I looked at my phone and said the forecast for this weekend partly deadly.

That's not something you want to see on your phone.

And I can tell that, you know who doesn't like it?

The animals.

I can tell do not like this air.

In the Midwest, birds are falling out of the sky.

Last night I heard the coyotes outside my window.

They were coughing at the moon.

Coughing at the moon.

It's rough here.

I'm doing Rodney for that.

It's rough, I tell you.

Every time I have a

time I got a cough, I have to think, is that because of a fire, COVID, or weed?

Thank you, Rodney.

Thank you for that job.

I don't know why I channeled him there, but.

Yes, and the government said put out a clean air warning for sensitive groups.

So millennials, please stay inside.

Kidnapped lenny.

You know what I love the millennials?

It's just a joke.

Although millennialists might be pissed off because Trump has done it now.

You know, TikTok, right, owned by the Chinese.

Well, the Chinese threat is history now.

He is shutting down TikTok.

You can't get it now.

If you have it, you could have it forever.

But you can't get any new TikTok because the Chinese have been stealing our dance moves.

And that stops now.

But have I seen this before?

Conservatives shutting down a place where people dance.

Isn't this the plot to Footloose?

Okay.

So, well,

President Trump, quite a week, quite a week even for him, called Biden a pedophile, as you do when you're running for president.

But Biden, they had dueling tunnel.

I thought Biden looked pretty good in this town hall last night.

I did.

And he's out in the basement.

He's out there campaigning.

He is.

He was in Florida trying to get the Latino vote.

He played Desposito on his cell phone, which

some people

said was pandering.

I don't give a fuck.

That doesn't bother me.

But the Virgin Mary neck tattoo he had, that was a little far.

To me, that's a little over the top.

But the president was here, you know, at Herod, California this week to talk about the wildfires and of course say some predictably fucked up shit about climate change.

And in honor of his visit, we made the sky disgusting in orange.

And he

but it's a good thing he came because the president explained to us how fires work when trees fall down

after about 18 months they get really dry and they just explode.

Yeah, that's what happens.

Yeah.

Also, some of the ones on the yellow brick road try to grab you.

Trees.

Got to watch out for trees, people.

But he also said, you know, are you talking about coronavirus?

He said, our COVID numbers would be among the best if you take out the blue states.

Yeah, and America's headlines would sound a lot more normal if you took out Florida.

Kidding, Florida, I know you had a hurricane.

Love you in Florida.

But yeah, then, but you know, the COVID thing, he's partly responsible for it.

He keeps having these maskless rallies.

He had one this week in Nevada, sponsored by natural selection.

And he said,

he said, a lot of people think the masks, and by the way, everybody here is wearing masks, okay?

People in charge, they're authorities, we're doing it right way.

He said, a lot of people don't think masks are good, they're not good, and then he was pressed on this.

Who doesn't think it's good?

He said, waiters.

Yeah, because they have to keep pulling the mask down before they spit in his food.

They hate that.

But, you know, he,

that's always, he contradicted his own people in the health departments.

And he said, you know, if a vaccine doesn't doesn't kill the virus it's gonna go away because of herd mentality

I'm not making that up he said herd mentality will kill it well it killed the Republican Party

and finally he said that

the president said that someone in the White House has COVID, but he said not anyone that was near me.

So we wish Melania a speedy recovery.

All right, we got it.

You're a great crowd.

I really appreciate you sounding like a big crowd.

We have Trey Crowder, we have Tim Miller, a little every speaking with the one and only Jane Fonda.

And

but first up, he is the host of the podcast Mia Coupel with Michael Cohen, an author of the number one New York Times bestseller, Disloyal, a memoir, the true story of the former personal attorney to President Donald Trump, Michael Cohen.

Wow.

Hey, Bill.

Michael, how are you?

I'm doing okay.

How you doing, Bill?

Okay.

Well, you got a nice applause there from our liberal crowd, so you're off to a good start.

Very much.

It's good to be applauded.

All right.

I'll bet it is.

My first question is to you, because I'm always paranoid about prison.

You know, I watch prison shows, and it doesn't look good, and you were just in prison.

So you're happy to be out, I'm guessing.

You would be right about that.

Yeah.

And you were in Otisville, which is known as like a Jewish prison.

I used to call it Unleavened Worth.

It's actually known as Camp Cupcake.

Yes.

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear.

What did you say?

I said it's also known as Camp Cupcake.

It's,

you know, we have tennis and we have basketball and baseball, but it's still prison.

I don't want anybody to think that prison is fun.

You know, being away from my wife and my children and my friends,

it's very difficult, especially 15 months.

It's not an easy ride no matter where you're at.

Right.

And this country really needs to start, the country really needs to start thinking about better prison reform.

Because I do know the president talked about it.

Of course, he put the secretary of everything, Jared Kushner, on the job.

So nothing's going to get done there either.

And, you know,

we really do need.

We really do need prison reform in this country desperately.

All right.

So, and I, look, I know even the best prison, you don't have your freedom and you're cleaning toilets and, you know, they get up when you get up when they say get up.

And, you know, it's prison.

It sucks.

My question to you is, because you're very honest in your book.

It's called Mia Culpa.

You know, I mean, your show is called Mia Culpa.

And your book is talking about you did bad things for Donald Trump.

So I'm asking you right now, the punishment you had, do you think it was too easy for what you did?

too hard or just the right amount of punishment

you know it's that's that's a very tough question.

It's a great question.

Thank you.

I think it was just the right amount.

I mean, 15 months to be away.

One more day.

It would have been too much.

Well, I did do 51 days in solitary confinement, which is not easy.

You're locked in a cell that's eight by 10.

The windows were broken.

It's 103 degrees with no ventilation, flies, broken glass.

The bath, the toilets don't work.

The sinks don't work.

You have no access to the outside for cold water.

It's not a single test.

Wait, wait, you're just telling me about tennis, and we had baseball, and we had,

it sounded like a douche commercial.

And then

that was as a result of COVID.

They put everybody into solitary confinement.

All right.

So, what do you think?

Now, you did some bad things for Donald Trump.

I mean, you paid off Stormy Daniels, and if you didn't do that, we might have heard about that before the election, and he may not be president, so that's bad.

And then you say you threatened a lot of people.

What do you think think is the, what's the worst, what do you feel worst about that you did for Trump?

Lied to Melania,

you know, about all this.

It's not my right to have lied to her.

I shouldn't have done it, and it's something I feel terrible about.

Wow, that's interesting to me.

I see that you talked about the fact that when you were in Vegas, you said

golden showers.

You said from golden, this is your line, from golden showers in a sex club in Vegas to tax fraud.

I wasn't just a witness.

I was an active and eager participant.

I thought the golden showers were in Moscow, but they were all over.

No.

So, what I'm referring to in the book with the golden showers, we went to a club.

It's similar to the one here in New York called the Box.

There were people that we were with.

They're Azerbaijani.

They're actually investors into it.

And they were involved with the Trump Moscow Miss Universe pageant.

And so they took us there.

And this, one of the performances going on was a golden shower at the time.

Your review?

I'm so sorry, what's that?

I'm saying your review.

Was it, you know, a witty ensemble, but I thought the third act fell down.

I mean,

was it as golden

as golden showers shows go, I'm saying, was it a good one?

Was it a, you know,

I mean, some of them are just boring, quite frankly.

Well, this one, this one was great.

It was beautiful.

Perfect.

There was none that was better.

Trust me.

Trust me, there was none that was better.

All right.

So, I want, you know,

you were,

in fact, it was the greatest golden shower in the history of golden showers.

All right.

All right.

So,

you know, Trump sued me.

I'm sure you know in 2013, you were involved in so many of them, and you were his personal lawyer, involved in so many of the lawsuits.

He was, he had so many.

I don't know if you could remember them all.

Do you remember?

Well,

how dare you call him the spawn of an orangutan?

Yes.

So you do,

were you aware of it at the time?

Do you remember that lawsuit?

I was involved in it, yes.

Do you remember why he sued?

I mean, it was about the orangutan.

Do you remember what the lawsuit was asking for?

Yes, you're asking for proof that he wasn't the spawn of an orangutan.

When you was sued, no, but he sued

you.

He sued me.

What was he asking for?

For the $5 million that we offered.

You're right.

Most people think it was about defamation.

Like, you're not allowed to say...

No, you can say anything about anybody.

He was aware of the correct.

No, you offered $5 million to a charity if, in fact, we could prove that he wasn't the spawn of an orangutan.

I got a copy of his birth certificate and I sent it in as verified proof.

Correct.

That is right.

I made him produce his birth certificate.

And he's such a fucking moron, he didn't realize that.

Because, I mean, it was all a parody about him asking for Trump's birth certificate.

No, he has to do Barack Obama's.

Right.

I mean, Obama's birth certificate.

And he proved that he wasn't, as if you could be

the son of an orangutan, and asked me for the $5 million.

Yes.

Okay, I'm glad we settled that.

So he says this week, he said, Biden is on drugs, which to me always means he's on drugs.

Because whatever he accuses someone else of, he is, I think, always guilty of.

He's the master projector.

Well, it's actually, we used to call it, he's the master deflector.

He what?

He's the master deflector.

So

if he says somebody is stupid, it's because he knows that he's stupid.

If he says that somebody's a poor schmuck, it's because he feels like a poor schmuck.

So is he on drugs?

Because he said Biden's on drug.

No, just, you know, allergy pills.

He has terrible sinus problems.

I've never seen him take drugs.

He actually doesn't drink alcohol either.

He's not a smoker.

He's not a drug addict.

He's just messed up.

Well, you know, some people don't have to be on drugs to be messed up.

He's one of them.

Okay, well, you know, I bet he's watching because he does watch this.

Hi, Donald.

He often does tweet after this show that he saw it accidentally.

He watches the show accidentally all the time.

Michael was really bad on your show, Bill.

You're going to get really low ratings, okay?

Exactly.

All right, he's a loser.

He's an absolute loser.

You shouldn't have had him on.

You should have Don Jr.

and Eric.

They're much better.

Knowing that he's watching, do you have anything you want to say to him?

Resign.

Okay.

Well, okay.

Save the country.

Save the country from Eddie.

Yep.

But I have a little mouth.

I think he is watching, and so I would like to say something to the president because I know he hates people who are not his fans.

And he said things about the blue states this week that, you know, if you just took them out of the COVID equation, we'd be doing much better as if our deaths don't count and our fires here really not, it's our fault because we didn't rake.

So maybe we should have to pay for it.

You know, stuff like that.

But I just want to tell the President, California gave you over 4 million votes last time, Mr.

President.

Mississippi, Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Alaska, you combine all those votes, not as many as the people in California who voted for you.

You can't hate California because we're all living amongst each other.

Okay, just had to get that out of my system.

So, Michael, what is the Svengali

character of this man?

What are the properties that make a like you become a cult follower?

Because you admitted you were in a cult and you said you liked it.

What is it about him that makes people do that?

Well, there was, of course, don't forget the celebrity status that came with it.

And along with the celebrity status came a significant amount of power.

It was not a money thing, as people would like to say.

It was really about the power.

It was about being able to sort of do what you wanted

And what Donald Trump has the ability to do.

And you see it going on right now

in Washington with so many of the Republicans, including Attorney General Bill Barr and

Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows.

He gets them to take the worst of

them

and he expands upon it.

So nobody does good when you're with Trump, unfortunately.

And that was you for a while.

I mean, would you have changed?

It sure was.

It sure was.

My last question.

Would you have changed if he had been loyal to you?

Can people change?

Because you're saying your whole character has changed.

Would it have if it wasn't forced upon you?

I don't know, and I probably don't think so.

I was deep into that cult, really deep.

And I don't think that I would have.

I didn't leave because I wanted to.

I left because he is the most disloyal human being on the planet.

In essence, I was excommunicated from the cult because he needed a scapegoat and he needed in order to stop the Russian collusion talk.

He needed in order to stop the alleged witch hunt.

And it was determined that, oh, don't worry, Michael will take a bullet for you, boss.

So don't worry.

You know,

let him take the ride to Otisville.

Right.

Well, No, that's a problem because as I said on George Stephanopoulos's program once, my wife, my daughter, my son, and my country have my first loyalty.

And it really took this kick in my ass to wake me up and to see the freaking monster that we have.

And this is a horror show, folks.

This is a monster that we have in the White House.

He's a racist.

He's a con man, and so many other negative things that anybody that doesn't see this, and I say this in the book, you now have the tools.

to to determine whether or not this is the man that you want to lead this country for another four years.

And I suspect the answer after reading the book is a resounding no.

All right.

Thank you, Michael Cohen.

All right.

Appreciate you coming on.

And now let's meet our panel.

That's all right.

He's a comedian and a producer of the new documentary about universal basic income called Inherent Good.

Trey Crowder is with us.

Trey Crowder.

And he's a writer at large for the bulwark and political director of Republican Voters Against Trump.

Boy, a lot of anti-Trump here today.

Damn it.

Tim Miller.

Tim Miller, how you doing?

Okay.

So,

all right.

So the election's six weeks away.

There's so many issues.

I mean, there's so many disasters going on at once, but I have to address the election

right away.

because it feels to me like his election stealing plan,

which I'd been talking about for many years, is coming into focus as to exactly what it is.

And what it is, is he's,

as always, he lucks out because the virus really is helping him.

Because the Democrats are going to vote way more by mail-in ballots.

So his plan is to declare a victory on election night, which he has a better chance of winning now.

Because Republicans are the ones who are actually going to go to the polls.

Kaylee McEnany said this week, we want an election night to look like a situation where we know who the president is on election night.

That's how the system is supposed to work.

No, it's not.

That's not how the system is supposed to work.

But that's their plan.

We win on election.

It's kind of like what they did with the Mueller report.

You know, when the Mueller report came out, right, right away they declared, okay,

this is good for us.

Remember Barr right away said this is our version of it.

And the only thing that came after was Sore Loser.

That's what they're going to do now.

You get this?

You think I'm right about this?

Yeah,

I have a little bit of good news for you: is that

he wants to seal the election and he wants to be an autocrat, but he's an incompetent one.

And what we've seen most of the time in these situations,

what we've seen, he locked out on Malo.

What we've seen most of the time is he'll send all caps tweets.

You're right.

On election night, he'll send all caps tweets that says I won.

And he'll send out Kaylee to say I won.

But the reality is that he has not demonstrated a competence at rigging an election like this.

And I think you saw today in Virginia, massive lines in Northern Virginia to vote.

I think that there's going to be a massive Democratic surge in turnout right now.

I do too.

That doesn't mean...

I think you're right about that, and I hope you're right about that.

But you said that, you know, he's going to say I won.

He's going to have Kaylee say I won.

But the reality is, but...

I'm scared because for a whole lot of people in this country, the reality will be that as soon as he says it.

That's what I'm saying, right?

Like, you don't get that racist genie back in the moonshine bottle.

You know what I mean?

Like

once he puts that out there, like

that's going to be bad news.

Found it.

I'm going to make it true, but

right, and neither was with the Mueller report.

Right away he said, I'm exonerated.

And then that became the truth for which everything else was measured against.

That was Johnny come lately stuff.

Again, you're right, not the truth, but it doesn't.

So we have kind of bad, though, which is like 30% of the country thinks that he should have won and that the election was rigged and that they are deeply distrusting of our democracy going forward and they'll maybe protest and complain about it.

That's kind of bad and he will stoke that and that's true.

Then there's like really, really conspiracy bad, which you hear sometimes on the left, which is like he's not going to leave and he'll trick everybody.

That's me.

That is the part I'm not.

That's the part I'm not with you on.

Really?

What I think he'll do is he'll have a lot of tweets complaining about how it was rigged, but he won't actually do anything about it.

It's done.

Everybody's been saying this about Trump all the way.

He'll never do it.

He just, and he does it.

The Washington Post had a story today.

A project tracks the health of representative government in this country in the years that Trump has been president.

Democracy has eroded so much, they say,

to the point where only one in five countries that have gone this far down the path of undemocratic policies have been able to reverse it and go back to a democracy.

In other words, we're almost there at full-blown autocracy.

And let me remind you, September 12th, that's just Saturday, Trump said, we're going to win four more years, and then after that, we'll negotiate.

Because we're probably, based on the way we were treated, we're probably entitled to another four after that.

Now, I guess you're saying that's just trolling.

He's just a man baby.

He's just a man, baby.

It's like Cartman is president.

He's just saying, I'm not going to leave.

And then the boss will come and they'll take him out and he'll leave.

You're so deluded.

That's not.

I'm deluded.

You're deluded.

You really are.

That you think that this is just talk.

Right.

Serial killers tell you what they're going to do and then they do it.

You just can't do it.

Right.

You can't do it, Roos.

Really?

This is stupid Belarus.

This is not real Belarus.

This is stupid Belarus.

And

he's not going to do it.

Well, I'll tell these.

I'll tell these experts who just studied it.

America's doing good.

Not saying this is great.

No, I'm not saying that's what's going to happen.

Well, okay.

If he loses, he might win.

Okay, just a few other things about the election.

A federal judge today ruled Trump and his lackey at the post office are purposely trying to slow down the mail.

Again, this is what this project is talking about.

This slow slide toward autocracy that we, you know, we're the frog in the pot.

It happens.

Yeah, but they're the freedom party, though.

Like you talked about the autocracy scores, but what's the the freedom levels at?

That's what's important to the Trump people.

You know what I mean?

We're more free than we've ever been before.

Freedom's off the charts.

No, I don't know.

It's horrific.

And the whole mail thing goes back to the first thing we were talking about.

He's already put this into their head to be wary of what happens with the mail and everything.

So when on election night, the mailed votes haven't come in yet, he's winning.

He says, I've won.

When the mail-in votes start coming, they're going to be like, well, fuck those mail-in votes.

They're already characterizing anything in the mail as fraudulent.

Right.

Which is just

Florida, also,

we had a setback there.

The felons who got the right to vote, they now have to pay the back fines, so that's going to nullify a lot of that.

Texan, no mail-ins over the age of 65.

That was a big thing.

Wisconsin, stop sending out absentee ballots.

You know, the way dictators hold on to power is voter suppression.

They have elections.

They're just not real.

They have parliaments.

They're just not real.

It looks like a democracy.

It just isn't.

So then, and then you take the Electoral College into account, and like you were saying earlier, it's going to be a liberal surge of voters.

It's going to have to be an insight.

It's going to have to be a landslide for there not to be some bullshit, right?

I don't think it is.

I don't think it makes, yeah, I still think easy.

This is stuff that

is worth being worried about.

And if you look at Florida in particular, you got DeSantis in there.

The good news is, I'm not usually the ray of sunshine, but on this panel, I get to be.

But the good news is, in a lot of these swing states, it's Democratic governors, right?

There are Democratic governors in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania that are going to be able to certify the vote.

Now, in Florida, we've got DeSantis, and the felony issue is a real one.

In Georgia, what we saw, now Georgia's kind of icing on the cake for Biden, but in Georgia, we saw this ridiculous thing where the University of Georgia said, no voting on campus today.

We can do football, but not voting.

Like, these are the little things.

These are like the little things that are worth being worried about.

And and i think that that that luckily there are a lot of democratic watchdogs on there uh but a state like florida is worth being worried about all right you say we need a big victory and that certainly would help let me ask you about this your uh documentary works a lot with uh talks a lot about andrew young he was on our show recently

i like andrew a lot yeah me too and uh let me read

What he said to me.

It was only about a month ago he was on.

I was still in my backyard at the time.

He said, when I was campaigning around the country, I said, said, I'm running for president.

And then someone would say, what party?

And I would say, Democrat.

And you could see this negative reaction oftentimes.

He mentioned truck drivers and waitresses and retail clerks, people who he thought the Democratic Party used to, you know, that was a no-brainer for them.

Why when somebody says, oh, and I'm a Democrat, there's this, ugh.

Because they think you want to kill their babies, take their guns, murder their lord, and all those big things.

Never mind the fact you want to like get their kid off of pills or, you know, fix their grandma's health care or bring their jobs back or whatever.

All that shit comes secondary to abortion, gun control, you know, and Jesus.

Like Jesus has

the beneficial party of Jesus.

But I've talked about this.

Democrats are not atheists.

I'm an atheist.

I know, right?

I'm the only one who's ever been out there on the left.

Michael Moore believes in God.

Chuck Schumer believes in God.

They all fucking believe in God.

We also are not coming to take their guns in the middle of the night either.

None of that shit is true.

Well, you know.

I don't know about none of that shit.

I mean, there's a lot of

people.

There's a lot of talk about looting is not so bad.

There is some stuff

that you could connect.

Thank you.

Thank you.

See, one person's against looting.

Everybody else is like, oh, looting's bad.

Well, I don't know.

I feel like most people take it.

Most people on the left take it for granted.

Yeah, of course looting is bad, but it's a very small percentage.

I've been to the protest.

I haven't even seen that shit yet.

I'm not saying it's fake.

I know it really happens.

But it really is a minute amount of people who are out there.

There's a lot of talk about looting is...

is

kind of acceptable, defunding the police.

I mean, the police are very demoralized right now.

Look, I've said things on the show nobody has ever said about the police.

Before it was popular to criticize the police.

I used to drive like this.

Oh, fuck.

I hope they don't pull me over tonight.

Yeah.

But I got to say,

we are at a place where the shit is going to hit the fan.

Whoever wins, there is going to be violence in the streets.

And I don't know who's going to show up to stop it at this point.

I mean, police chiefs are quitting all over the country, especially African-American police chiefs.

You know, which is...

But here's the thing, though, Bill.

The mayor of Portland is not on the ballot.

Like, the liberal Twitter is not on the ballot.

Andrew Yang isn't, Elizabeth Warren isn't.

Joe Biden won.

Okay?

And so,

and Joe Biden has held a line when it comes to

saying he's not going to defund the police.

He's held a line on criticizing looters.

He connects with blue-collar white folks.

And by the way, it's not just white people that are blue-collar.

He's connecting with blue-collar African Americans who are the reason that he is the nominee on the back of blue-collar black voters and suburban people like me, suburban squishes who came over to vote for him.

And so the Democrats might be in a bad place.

I think Andrew Yang's point is something to be worried about for the left for sure.

But Joe Biden's in good shape with those voters.

Yes.

But what are we supposed to do?

We supposed to stop trying to call them out on their bullshit, the cops, I mean, whenever a new video comes out with some horrific police brutality in it because we're worried that they're going to let us get our asses.

No, I'm just saying

what I hear on the right is people saying

that they worry that Joe Biden is a placeholder.

and a gateway to some of this far left stuff.

That's how they worry and see about Joe Biden.

Those people are never going to vote for Joe Biden.

We talk to all those people about the Republican voters against Trump.

These are the people we talk to in focus groups.

If they come to us and they say that, that I don't trust Joe Biden because Elizabeth Warren's going to have her hand up his back and be making all the rules, like that person's just looking for an excuse.

They were never going to get there.

There is a group of voters that Joe Biden can get, and Joe Biden has been really damn good at what you're talking about, which is just saying that Police brutality is bad and it's outrageous and it's insulting, but at the same time, we can't just get rid of cops.

He's been great at that.

yeah I feel like almost everyone agrees with that you know what I mean yeah like very few people literally want to abolish the police you know but like like I said well a third of people under 35

want support the idea of defunding the police

go away

Chris Murphy deleted a tweet that said that I think that looting is bad and I also think that you know killing black men is bad because he was worried that that would you know give a false equivalency or something so like there are Democratic politicians that are scared of this joe biden isn't one of them luckily they're worried about biden being a gateway into the extreme left but remember how they talked and talked about and treated obama like he was like the ultimate socialist boogeyman leftist and right and we were kidding and then they elected a guy whose whole raison d'etre was to undo everything that guy did i know but so we're supposed to go right of obama now because you know what i mean like to appease that they're going to say that shit no matter what okay um so listen i mentioned in the monologue trump was out here talking about the environment and he was with the Secretary of Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot and he said

it'll start getting cooler.

He's a science buff, our president.

It'll start getting cooler.

You just watch and Crowfoot said, I wish science agreed with you.

And Trump said, I don't think science knows, actually.

So for that and other comments like that he's made in the last three years, Scientific American magazine, 175-year history, never endorsed anybody.

They endorsed Joe Biden.

But

not, you know,

Trump hates to lose.

So he got the endorsement of Unscientific American Magazine.

I don't know if you know about Unscientific American Magazine, but

you really want to pick up this month's issue because they've got some great articles like what the mainstream media is not telling you about gravity.

Unscientific American.

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Okay.

So one of the great things about being a politician is you can change your mind and no one cares.

Kamala Harris, who I've always liked, I remember I donated when she was running for Attorney General, but when I would talk to her at an event, I'd say, You're too hard on Pot.

What the deal?

Okay, see,

she's done a 180.

This is her the other day.

Under a Biden Harris administration, we will decriminalize the use of marijuana and automatically expunge all marijuana use convictions, end incarceration for drug use alone.

This is not a time for incrementalism.

And Chuck Schumer said,

my people.

Chuck Schumer said, vote Democrat to legalize it.

Now, I've been telling the Democrats, this country would be so much better.

Everyone just listened to me.

Just listen to me.

I was just listening to me about all these.

I was right, that Trump's not leaving.

I've been saying for years, Democrats, you could, this is your gun issue.

You know how the Republicans get people to vote just on the gun issue.

We could get them on the pot issue.

And they're finally doing it.

Vote Democrat to legalize it.

Just, you can't get more basic than that.

Yeah, put it on a red hat.

Put it on a red hat.

But, you know, they do it six weeks before the election.

Is this too little, too late?

I mean, the other.

The other thing about it is even on the right anymore, there's very little actual opposition to the idea that with just regular people.

Like, Opera, Tennessee, we had a medical weed bill that failed of course, but it was sponsored by two state-level Republicans and if you ask them well how do your constituents how opposed to this are they like not at all like I never talked to anybody who really cares anymore.

It's all just lobbyists and you know the prisons law enforcement that type of thing that keeps them from voting for it.

Nobody nobody cares like just do it.

Yeah, I was bragging on Biden earlier, but they're just dragging old Joe along on this one.

This has not been his right.

He has not been ahead of the game.

He still calls it the pot.

I'm good for that.

Are you on the pot?

Yeah.

Gateway draw.

He's still on the gateway thing.

Right.

He's still on the gateway thing.

But I tell you, he looked pretty good last night.

I mean, Pelosi said, Nancy Pelosi said a couple of weeks ago, he should not debate Trump.

Now, the debates are

what?

That's so stupid.

That's so stupid.

That's such stupid advice.

Yeah, I never, the idea that like when some people say, why should he debate Trump?

You know, you can't win, look what Trump will do.

Have these people ever seen Trump speak?

Like Biden has got, he's going to be okay.

Like even Michael Cohen is talking about

Trump's a master deflector.

He's like, someone calls him stupid.

He's like, no, I'm not.

You're stupid.

He's a master deflector.

It's like, what?

In third grade?

Like,

you can debate that guy.

Like,

and there are still.

I have a minute and a half left.

I just see they're putting on the prompter here.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg just died.

No way.

The way you check the prompter like I'm lying.

No, I'm shocked.

I know, but I told you you can believe me.

Yeah.

Remember when I was Mr.

Optimism at the beginning of the panel?

This is going to get really, really ugly.

Right.

Really, really ugly.

McConnell is going to just jam that through.

Right.

There's just, he has no,

this is the one thing he's got no compunction about.

No.

So this whole like, oh, last time it was an election year, waited out.

And this is

no way that McConnell's.

And this is so much closer to the election.

I think Scalia died in February.

Right.

This is right before an election.

This is like literally the worst case scenario.

And who is going to be the next Supreme Court judge?

Robbie, yeah, look at.

Scott Bayer.

Right, yeah.

Amy Barrett, I think.

She's like a Laura Ingram, if you're a judge, I think, is going to be the person, Amy Tony Barrett.

That is very, very sad news.

Yeah, that's horrible.

First of all, before we go on to the political part of it, she was just awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, and

you know, I've said it before on the show, power begets power.

This is why you cannot let a guy like Trump become president, because it's not just about the presidency.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's super liberals who don't want to vote for Biden because like he's not liberal enough.

I just can't, I can't do it.

I can't handle that shit anymore.

You know, because of this, like this is why you have to just swallow that shit.

70,000 votes?

Well, we have a show.

We're going to move on.

We're going to get over it.

Hopefully we're going to be okay.

But let me bring Jane into the picture here.

She is the Academy Award-winning actress and founder of Fire Drill Fridays.

His new book is called, What Can I Do?

My Path from Climate Despair to Action.

Please welcome Jane Fonda.

I'm still reeling, Bill.

I'm just, I just heard that Ruth Vader Ginsburg died.

We have to be as tough as Mitch McConnell and not allow them to do one friggin' thing until the election is over.

I mean, we have to rise up and not allow them to do it.

If Mitch McConnell can do it, let's get some, grow some balls and ovaries and push it.

Oh, my God.

Okay, I'm here to talk about my book.

Okay.

Well, we'll get to it.

How are you?

The last time we talked was right after he was...

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was a tough time, too.

Yeah.

And it's only gotten worse.

Now, look, I know you know a thing or two because you've seen a thing or two.

You know, I read in the paper this week, there's a very depressing article.

The UN said humanity stands at a crossroads.

And it talked about us killing basically everything.

I mean, the biodiversity is just collapsing.

We're just killing everything except us and the few things we eat.

And the story was on page 10,

which I thought said a lot about our sense of urgency.

And I've read this story before.

What does it take?

I know you've been getting arrested.

I guess both of our one-on-one guests this week got arrested a lot.

Yours for a good cause.

You've been in jail, what, five times since I saw you last?

Well, I was in jail once.

I was arrested five times.

I wanted to turn 82 in jail, and they should have put me in jail because it was my fifth time, but they didn't, I think, because they knew that it would get a lot of attention.

But, you know,

the scientists tell us what's looming and how dangerous it is.

They also tell us

that

we can solve this.

We have to cut our fossil fuel emissions in half in 10 years.

That's hard.

And then gradually phase out until 2050.

And we have to.

I mean, yeah, we can do it.

We can do it.

But we have to come together and make the government do it.

I hope that's true.

I mean, to be perfectly honest, James Hansen, the great NASA scientist,

he said the exact same thing, I remember on this show and everywhere else he could, in 2003.

He said, we have to do this within 10 years or we reach the tipping point and we're fucked.

Well, that was seven years ago, past the fucking point.

Well, the international

group of scientists, all of them together, 97% of them say that now,

they said in 2018 that we had 12 years or so, so now it's 10 years.

That's the general consensus.

So that should give us hope.

There is a way out.

We have the intelligence, the money, the technology.

What we need is you.

We need people.

Alert, awakened, mobilized, ready to do what's necessary to make this happen.

But what people?

I mean,

I've heard you say and read that you said, and I read your article in the newsweek this week where you were talking about, and I thought it was great because you were saying it's not just Trump we have to go after.

You said Gavin Newsom has not been good on opening oil and gas facilities.

Yeah, here he stands in front of a wall of flames saying people have to now realize that the climate crisis is real.

While he's, I think he gave 190%

more

permits for new fossil fuel drilling, wells, and fracking.

I mean,

come on.

He's going to, I know he is.

He's going to rise to the occasion and be a climate hero.

But right now, he's not doing what's needed.

So

as far as

who you target, though, I mean, I've heard you talk about, you know, we're going to get the people who we know are supportive, who already acknowledge climate change is that really the right approach to go after people con preaching to the converted because even if biden wins the election the republicans are not going to to self-deport they still may control the senate don't you have to convince republicans conservatives you only need bill you only need three and a half percent of the population and then you win

And we have that.

If we see,

the social scientists have done research.

There are 23 million Americans who know there's a climate crisis, know that it's real and that it's caused by people, and they've never done anything because nobody's asked them.

They're the great unasked.

And so, you know, activists are gonna ask them.

That's the point.

We have to ask them.

And that's why Fire Drill Friday was so exciting and so successful is because people were coming from all over the country that had never done that before.

And they stood with me and they engaged in civil disobedience and they risked getting arrested and they felt good because they were putting their whole bodies on the line and it felt good even though you were giving up control because you had these zip ties on your wrist and the police were in charge but you were empowered.

So that 23 million people are going to be asked.

We have to ask, right?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's funny when Trump saw you get arrested, did you hear his comment?

It was, Jane Fonda got arrested, nothing changes.

And I thought, what a badge of honor.

I hope that's true.

Yeah.

What a badge of honor.

Because you've always been out there.

You walk the walk.

You just don't talk it.

You do it.

I mean, you're one of the bravest people I've ever seen.

Oh, but see, I didn't always.

I spent a third of my life just a nebish, a nothing, hedonistic.

I didn't even know why I was alive.

I know what that feels like to not know why you're here, to feel like your life has no meaning.

And I can tell you the difference between that and being willing to put yourself on the line and stand up for what you believe in, especially if the future of the world is at stake, that's a better way to be.

So I know the difference.

I haven't always been this way.

Did that change come about because a change in your personal life?

I mean, I watched your documentary like three times.

I thought it was so awesome, where, you know, you talk about first you were in the shadow of your father, then your first husband, then your second husband, then your third husband.

And the fifth chapter is finally you get out of the shadow of men and you find out your hero is you.

Is that what changed?

No, I never said that hero is mine.

No,

I made the change because I've read a book by Jonathan Schell.

Books have always been really important important to me.

And the book was given to me by men, by soldier, American soldiers.

They're the ones that made me open my eyes and see what was going on.

So

there's a few good men that are going to join us, but it wouldn't be really women.

There were always more women than men, and they tended to be older because older women are so much braver.

You certainly are.

I thank you for doing what you're doing, and I appreciate you coming on, Jane.

I hope I get to see you soon.

Jane Fonda.

All right, time for new rules, everybody.

We will carry on

with new rules.

Okay, New Rule, California's firefighters have to pick a different color flame retardant.

I know they're helping, they're thinking it helps to see the target, but the dumbasses who started the fire are thinking it's a girl.

New rule, the guy who pooped on Nancy Pelosi's driveway, then said, that was for Trump, is not allowed to be anybody's secret Santa this year.

I don't know what's worse, that this guy live streamed doing this, or that people watched it.

The Pelosi pooper swears that it was just satire and that he's not really very political.

And I say, thank God, because that's why I stopped watching people shit on driveways.

It got way too political.

New rule Republican men have to explain why they're so into

having other men fuck their wives.

Jerry Falwell Jr.

is into it, Roger Stone is into it, Paul Manafort was into it.

Geez, the GOP has more designated hitters than baseball.

And talk about hypocrites.

By day they're demonizing immigrants.

By night, Hector is doing the work they want.

Neuroscience has to find out why 2015 was when people started using the hashtag blessed.

and 2016 was when the whole world went to shit.

It's like we put a bumper sticker on our car about our honor student and then God drove us into a train.

They can't all be winners, you know, we do.

New Roll, this woman who just celebrated her wedding anniversary with a tree

must must tell us all her secret for keeping things fresh.

Because

for the rest of us, after a while, things can start to get a little stale in a relationship.

So maybe you could teach us a thing or two.

Or at least admit it's easy to stay married to a guy who's always got wood and never talks back.

Oh, that was for the ladies.

And finally, new rule, let me make the new rules, not the Academy Awards.

If you missed it last week, because the state was on fire, the Oscars thought it would be a good time to announce a new set of requirements for best picture nominees that are based on fulfilling diversity quotas.

And look, I'm all for inclusion.

I don't know anyone in Hollywood who isn't.

Okay, Mel Gibson.

But in general, Hollywood is a liberal industry in a liberal town in a state that's bluer than the Pope's balls.

Have you watched the Oscars this century?

Because this really seems like a case of washing a glass that's already been through the dishwasher.

The Academy is not exactly unknown for rewarding liberal virtue.

They should call best picture most worthy.

Look at the contenders and winners in recent years.

been nominated not by their popularity with audiences, but by diversity in virtue signaling.

Green Book, Parasite, Shape of Water, Boys Don't Cry, A Beautiful Mind, Moonlight, Frida, Fences, Precious, Dallas Buyers Club, 12 Years a Slave, Roma, The Hours, Brokebach Mountain, Call Me By Your Name, and many more, some very fine movies, but getting super liberals to be more liberal is not exactly the heavy lifting in the fight against racism.

By the way, there was a straight white guy who was a big winner one year, but it was only because he had a crippling speech impediment.

Anyway, what the new rules say is to be eligible to compete for Best Picture, a film must meet the standards of two of four new inclusion groups.

Group A, a storyline that centers on or a star that represents an underrepresented identity group, or 30% of minor roles from two underrepresented identity groups, which include Asian, Hispanic, Latinx, Black, African American, Indigenous Native American, Alaskan Native, Middle Eastern, North African, Native Hawaiian, or other Pacific Islander, women, LGBTQ plus people, people with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Wouldn't it just be easier to say not Chris Pine?

And that's only group A.

Then there's stuff worthy goals, I'm sure, about diversity in the production company, the studio, and the crew.

All I know is if, in the interest of diversity, they make a straight guy cut my hair, I'm fucked.

True.

Look, diversity is important.

But it needs to be said, it's not the only thing that's important.

Thank you, one guy.

It's also important that we don't wind up with artists guided less by a creative vision and more by a to-do list.

Cameron Diaz is Cuban on her grandfather's side.

Is that Latina enough?

Clinishwood is 200 years old.

Does that count as a handicap?

Does that count as a handicap?

Darth Vader is voiced by a black man, but when they took off his helmet the character was white.

How many points is that?

I want to know so I can be good.

Because

We are talking about a world where if you want to make the next Schindler's list, the first thing you'll need to do is give a racial breakdown of all your employees.

Does anyone see the irony in that?

Apparently not.

But

Kirsty Alley did.

She tweeted, can you imagine telling Picasso what had to be in his fucking paintings?

You people have lost your minds.

Oscar Orwell.

Wow.

You know Hollywood is in trouble when the voice of sanity is a Scientologist.

But she's right, art and coercion is a bad combination.

Some of the best movies ever made were by refugees from communist and fascist countries who got out because they didn't like being told what art was acceptable.

They didn't want to make a movie called Natasha Gets a Tractor.

We're supposed to be the free country where artists can do what they want without having to show your paperwork to prove you know where everyone comes from, who they fuck, and if they can hear.

And given that the industry is reeling as it is,

And given that so much creativity and originality has already been sucked out of movies by sequels, blockbusters, and comic book franchises, and given that there's an election in six weeks, maybe this wasn't the time for this move.

Also,

I got to say,

having worked in this industry a long time, at the end of the day, people don't want to be hired because they filled the quota.

They want to be hired.

They want to be hired because they're good.

And most of them are.

All right, that's our show.

I want to thank my guests, Trey Prider, Tim Miller, Jane Fund, and Michael Cohen.

We'll be back next week.

Thank you very much.

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