Ep. #531: Tom Colicchio, Ian Bremmer

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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.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you to the audience.

Greetings.

Big day here at HBO for us.

Greetings to our new viewers at HBO Max.

Yes, and of course our regular viewers on HBO and all you cheap bastards who wait to watch us on YouTube.

But look, it's like, what is it, our eighth show here from the home?

And look, it's frustrating, but I am very happy that we are still able to do the kind of show we do here and put it on.

I mean, it's nothing sadder than watching the real housewives try to throw wine at each other over Zoom.

That is.

But we had a big holiday weekend, Memorial Day, and boy, Americans could not wait to get out there.

Boy, the gloves were off, and then when the masks came off, and eventually the pants.

Did you see the like the Lake of the Ozarks and the Jersey Shore?

My hope today, you know, people, I got got to say, Americans, it proved once again, Americans, they want to do the right thing.

But if someone taps a keg and cranks up the Leonard Skynyrd, all bets are off.

You can tell conservatives, even conservatives, a little worried about this, we still need to take precautions.

But like Sean Hannity this week was almost begging people to wear the face masks.

I guess he finally has realized that the Venn diagram of most vulnerable Americans and Fox News viewers is a circle.

But we can't blame people for wanting to get out there.

The Census Bureau is now reporting that a third of Americans are showing signs of anxiety and clinical depression, and they've gained weight.

A third of Americans are now half of Americans.

Yeah, we got to get in shape again.

Our own governor, Gavin Newsom here in California, said he will know in a week if the gyms can reopen and I hope that is the case because Californians we miss our gyms not not the workout so much the staring at yourself in the mirror part.

That's

the part we miss

And they say there's going to be a meat shortage which I think is already here because today I saw Lady Gaga wearing a dress that was past its expiration date.

Also, by the way, that joke is past its expiration date.

What was the last time?

Lady Gago.

Anyway, things are, I think, getting back to normal, and by normal, I mean that we are again witnessing ugly racial incidents.

There was horrible death in Minneapolis, and also in Central Park in New York.

A black man, a birdwatcher, told a white woman walking her dog, who was supposed to be on a leash, that she had to put the dog on the leash, and she called the cops on him.

And it turns out this woman, the white woman, is a Democrat who donated to Obama.

Yeah, on the memo line, she wrote, take my money, just don't hurt me.

Another sign that we are returning to normal is that Trump is golfing again.

Yes, golfing.

And he assures everybody, Yes, I'm golfing, but I am laser focused.

Not, of course, on the virus, on stopping Joe Scarborough from killing again.

Did you see that?

He wants Joe Scarborough.

This is

incredible.

He thinks Joe Scarborough killed somebody in the 90s, and now Trump wants forensic geniuses to investigate on a new show called CSI Brain Fart.

And Trump is furious, get this, at Twitter, because Twitter started fact-checking his tweets.

Oh my God, fact-checking.

Well, with him.

And this is so weird because his tweets, this is a favorite thing to write on for Donald Trump Twitter.

It's like watching a pervert argue with a bathroom wall.

But you know what?

Can't blame it on the hydroxyquin.

chloroquine.

He said, Donald Trump has said he has quit taking now hydroxychloroquine.

He has pronounced himself completely cured of mad cow disease.

But no word on whether he's going to give up the idea to imbibe household disinfectants.

I'll tell you something, his fans haven't.

Pine saw now comes in prescription strength.

All right, we got a great show.

We have Ian Gremer, Soledad O'Brien on our first panel, and Tom Calicchio and my friend, of course, Jay Leno is with us.

us so let's get right to it

all right he is the owner of crafted hospitality and founding member of the Independent Restaurant Coalition please welcome one of our favorite chefs Tom Calicio Tom how are you

considering all things considered I'm doing okay though yeah you're in the restaurant business that's got to be tough because I know no business has been hit harder by this pandemic than the restaurant business and I must tell you there is no business I miss more

And I know a lot of restaurant people through my life.

And I know that this is a tough business.

Even in good times, it's hard to run a restaurant.

You guys are always on a very thin margin.

Can restaurants survive with distancing and the restrictions that even if you reopen that they're going to want to put on it in some places?

Yeah, I think you're hitting the nail on the head, Bill.

And, you know, people keep asking, when are you going to open up?

When is it safe to open up?

And that's really not the question.

The question is: when does the dining public actually feel safe to go into a restaurant where people are wearing masks, where there's a smell of disinfectant in the air,

where you know you have to run behind someone when they touch a door handle?

And so, I think we're still a ways away from that.

You know, restaurants are the kind of place where people want to go and cut loose and celebrate and have a good time and get a good meal.

And I just don't see that kind of atmosphere right now.

So, we're still a ways away.

And you're right, we're one of the few industries forced to shut down.

And, you know,

the home delivery model and all that, I mean, it's just kind of,

it's helping a little bit, but it's really not going to make a difference.

And so we're looking at a pretty bad economy for restaurants

for a while now until we find a cure.

But I know people who have been to a restaurant in Las Vegas in the last week or so, and they said it wasn't like that.

They said

it was busy, the waiters were wearing masks, but people just wanted to get back to living.

And I think a lot of them are younger and they think, rightly so, that yes, if I get this, I probably will survive it.

And I'd rather live.

I want to live, not merely survive.

You know, they're big Sammy Davis fans, the kids.

So you don't think that's going to take place in some places?

I think it'll be different, right, in different areas.

In most cases, you have to remove half your seats.

And so we're already starting at a 50% capacity.

You can't, you can't, restaurants survive on that.

And so

that's not going to do it.

And I also think that's going to be short-lived.

I think people right now are pent up over the last two months and they want to get out, but I have a feeling that's going to be short-lived as well.

Then the more restaurants that open up, we're going to start seeing it's going to be, you know, there's a lot more seats available.

And I think that's

the demand is going to be spread out as much as well.

And so

again, I think that we are going to open up at what 50% at best.

That's not going to cut it.

Yeah.

And one of the most frustrating things about this whole nonsense with

destroying food on farms.

You know, we have people starving in this country, or at least very hungry.

There are lines around, sometimes a mile long for food banks.

Restaurants are dying.

And yet I read about people on farms just slaughtering

livestock, just wasting and throwing away and destroying food.

I guess because restaurants are so much a big part of the chain, right?

Of the chain of food in this country.

And you take them out of the equation and then you wind up with food just being destroyed.

Is there any way to fix that problem, you think?

Absolutely.

And so what happens right now, we have two systems in this country.

You have food that goes to the supermarket and it's packaged to go to a supermarket and for people to go in and purchase that food and cook it at home.

And then you have food that is actually processed for restaurants.

And so when you start reading stories about milk being thrown out, well, that is a dairy farmer that actually has a processor that is processing in five gallon containers for institutional feeding, for college campuses and hospitals and, well, and restaurants and hotels.

And so that processor.

uh when when that chain is cut meaning restaurants are closed and hotels are closed and college campuses are closed they can't turn on a dime and then start producing milk in five and in in one gallon containers or half gallon containers are quartz it's labeled differently it's processed differently and so uh same thing with with chickens uh you know eggs are being cracked because

there's processors that purchase eggs from farmers that go into gallon containers that are frozen, that go into institutional feeding.

Pigs, when that pig gets to 200 pounds, the second it gets to 200 pounds, it needs to go to the slaughterhouse and needs to get processed.

Once the animal has no place to get processed, the farmer has two choices.

They continue to feed it, they lose money, or they have to euthanize the pig.

When that pig's 250 pounds, it doesn't work anymore in that slaughterhouse.

And so we have two systems.

Now, what could have happened if we had a plan in this country to actually deal with a pandemic and deal with those lines of people that are struggling to feed themselves right now, we could have very easily put that food through restaurants, had the federal government actually pay the restaurants to stay open during that time, replace that revenue that we lost from regular customers, and turn each restaurant in this country into a community feeding center.

And that could have been for a period of time to actually keep that supply chain intact, that supply chain that is for restaurants and hotel, keep that supply chain intact, food wouldn't have been thrown out.

And you wouldn't have seen these lines of people lining up for food banks because they could have gone to the local restaurant to get a really good, you know, quick meal.

Again, I'm not going to serve dry egg steaks

to do that, but I could put together really good, wholesome, nutritious food that people can pick up or we could have delivered to people to actually take that bottleneck that is a food pantry and actually spread it out to many, many restaurants.

But why can't we do that on the state level?

Obviously, there's a giant leadership void at the top with Trump, but why can't that sounds like a smart thing that a smart governor like the one we have here in California would go for.

Well, they actually are.

Governor Newsom does have a program where he actually is, not all restaurants, but some restaurants have turned into community feeding centers, especially for homebound elderly.

We're doing it in New York, too.

And so what happens is, but the problem is that the local governments, state governments, are going to run out of cash.

They're already cash started.

They're going to start seeing services being cut.

And so this has to happen from the federal government.

they can do it through states but the money has to come through federal funding um but then you have to have a plan for that you know bill all these years that we've heard that government's too big and you know the old grover norquist uh axiom that we want to take government and shrink it down to the size that we can drown it in a bathtub well guess what we're drowning in a bathtub now and so we're not we don't need big government we need smart government you know we need government that that is efficient we need government that actually is going to react to to the needs of the constituents and that's what we're going to need right now but that takes planning and and that's what we don't have right now we don't have you know people who are running our government that are forward thinking but what government still can do of course is write giant checks for money they don't have which they have done in this crisis as they needed to uh how has the restaurant industry fared with getting that recovery money Well, PPP didn't really help.

The Pay Tax Protection Act didn't really do a lot for us, especially since restaurants are closed.

If you have a small business and you were maybe depressed by 20% and you laid off a few employees, you can hire those employees back.

PPP actually covers those employees for eight weeks.

You can pay rent and some utilities with that.

That's kind of fine.

But if you're closed, it doesn't help us at all.

And so just today in the House, a bill was passed to extend that eight-week period to 24 weeks.

That's helpful.

Take that 75-25% where 75% goes to

payroll and 25% to rent.

They actually stretched out a little bit.

It's more like 60%, 40%.

And so also the period of time that you can actually pay the loan portion of PPP back was extended to five years and two years.

Those are all really positive things.

But the Independent Restaurant Coalition, what we're asking for is we need a restaurant stabilization bill.

You know, you can bail out airlines and banks in time of need.

And we're not looking for a bailout, but we're looking for just some runway to keep open.

And what's at stake here, Bill, is small independent restaurants employ 11 million people in this country.

And if you factor in farmers and fishermen and cheesemakers and winemakers, it's probably closer to 20 million people.

And so we're simply asking the government: if you're going to spend stimulus dollars, and you said this earlier in the interview, that our margins are slim.

Well, our margins are slim because 95 cents for every dollar we take in goes out the door.

And so, if you really want to actually take stimulus dollars and put it through an entity that will spend that money, we're not going to buy back our stocks with this.

You know, we're not going to give our executives bonuses.

That money is going out the door into the economies.

I think that's very reasonable for an industry that involves 20 million Americans to ask for a bailout.

And I would also just say in conclusion, I don't know if people really understand how much restaurants are vital to the lifeblood of civilization.

Civilizations

happen because of cities, and cities don't really exist on a cultural level without restaurants.

People need to sit together.

I mean, we're not exactly a cafe society.

Europe is more, but we still do need to sit and break bread and talk with each other.

And when I hear about fabled restaurants going out of business, you know, swingers went out of business.

We're the first one here.

I don't know if you know swingers.

It's a diner.

It's the movie swingers, Jon Favreau's great movie.

And it's where Cretan Tarantino wrote every one of the scripts sitting at that diner bar there.

And, you know, I just don't know if people understand how much we are losing.

cultural wise when restaurants go out of business.

And you're right.

Restaurants have become a part of culture.

And these are the places that we're going to need to go to to feel normal when we get through this on the other side of this.

Places that you're going to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, places where you're gonna go to actually hang out with your friends grab a drink a bottle of wine some great food and feel normal again and this is what we need to get back to and you know bill i'm hoping that the silver lining here if there is a silver lining is that maybe we're gonna have a more empathetic country you know for years you know as you know i'm a hung anti-hunger advocate and right now going into into covet pre-covered there's about 60 i'm sorry uh 38 million americans on on food stamps or snap uh right now the estimate is that there's an increase of about 70 percent so we're looking at another 25 million people.

So after this, what do we aspire to get back to?

38 million?

No, we could do better than that.

And what I'm hoping is that the demonization of people who need help, saying they need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and they made poor decisions and why are they having kids and all of that that we've heard, sort of blaming those people.

The average American now who's lost their job for no fault of their own, no fault of their own, now they're struggling.

And they're the ones who are now lining up for food and food pantries.

And they're the ones who are filling out those applications for snap.

Maybe now we'll have a better and deeper empathy for people who,

for no fault of their own, were born into poverty or had a bad break and they need to get out of it.

And hopefully now we're gonna see a more empathetic country on the other side of this.

That's what I'm hoping for.

And also I'm hoping that we see, because of these comorbidities revolve around food, diabetes and obesity and things like that.

Hopefully on the other side of this, we'll understand that proper nutrition and good food actually will keep people healthier and keep people from dying when the next pandemic comes around.

What I've been preaching every week here is what I've been trying to get across.

Beautifully said.

Great to see you.

Dine with you in person soon.

Okay, thanks, Tom.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, this week I thought I'd show you my garden.

I don't keep it to grow anything.

I just keep it so I can reenact Don Corleone's dying scene from Godfather One.

You're spelling it.

Misspelling it.

Okay, a panel tonight.

Wow.

We're moving up in the world.

He's president of the Eurasia Group and GZera Media.

Ian Bremer is with us.

Ian Bremer is, where are you?

Ian?

You'll tell me later.

All right.

She's the host of Luminary's new podcast series, Murder on the Towpath, and she's the anchor of the Sunday morning news show, Matter of Fact, with Soledad O'Brien.

Please welcome Soledad O'Brien is here from Dutchess County.

How are you two?

Hey, Phil, I'm great.

How are you doing?

Okay.

This is the first time we've tried a panel.

I would just like to say

to our governor, I don't know why we couldn't be doing this in the studio.

Here's my thing.

The sooner TV looks normal, the sooner people will stop fearing, and the quicker the economy will get better.

So let's start with that, with the fear factor.

This week we passed 100,000 deaths, which is hard.

It's horrible that America is such a loser country that we lead the world in this or that anybody dies.

But I thought there was a lot of lack of perspective, as usual, in the media about that.

Yes, 100,000 is a horrible number, but 80,000 were senior citizens.

43% came from nursing homes a third were over 85

I'm against death I don't care who knows it for any reason but I feel like we have lost perspective and I would like your perspective on that

let's start with Zoledad because I better I better call out names newer so if 43% were senior citizens then

46% were not right and so I think the problem becomes there's no real plan there's a not not much leadership coming federally and because there's no plan i i think that's actually what has people more afraid i do think the media in a lot of ways has blown this out of proportion because polling would show you that most people do support wearing masks and staying six feet apart right they they also want to get back to work where i live in dutches county we're roughly evenly divided republicans and democrats you go to the hannaford everybody's got a mask they're staying away from each other they all just want to get back to work so i don't know that you can ask people to go back to work if you have people on the front lines who are most at risk, right?

People, poor people, people of color, people in that frontline job, the receptionist job, the bus driver job.

They don't really have protection and they also have bad health insurance.

I think until you solve that problem of a strategy, a vaccine, I don't know how you're going to actually really get people to buy into going back to work.

Bill, I mean, I think that we need to put it in perspective.

The United States, 100,000 is a horrifying number, but per capita, the mortality we're seeing in the United States is about what we saw in Europe.

And Trump isn't running Europe.

Germany's done a better job per capita.

The UK, France has done a worse job.

And on the economic side, I got to tell you, I mean, every Democrat I talk to tells me Jay Powell from the Fed has been fantastic.

And they're happy that we've seen bipartisan support on the fiscal plan as well.

So, I mean, you know, it's easy to poke at Trump because he is so buffoonish and he has so little interest in actually leading.

But if we put Trump aside for a moment and just look at the United States, the government, with all the governors, with all the legislators, with all the CEOs, with everyone kind of trying to get us out of this, you'd say that the U.S.

kind of looks like a lot of other advanced industrial economies right now.

Okay, let me move on.

As long as we're on media and you mentioned Trump, he got mad at Twitter, which I think is amazing because that was, you know, that's what Twitter to him is what radio was for FDR.

It was this new medium.

He could reach the people directly.

He loved it, but they did something you don't do with Trump.

They fact-checked him.

I don't know why they suddenly decided to do this, but they put a get the facts.

Well, that is not the phrase this man likes to hear.

So he is threatening now an executive order to roll back the immunity that the tech companies have.

So basically, you could say whatever bullshit you want, and that's free speech, which I support, by the way.

And so did Joe Biden.

Joe Biden also for this revoking of Section 230.

What do you think about that,

the tech companies?

And then Zuckerberg weighed in on it.

What do you say?

I think there's a reason.

I mean, you had Mitt Romney saying that it was wrong of Trump to go after Scarborough for this obvious fake news and you know being behind a murder.

But Romney wasn't prepared to do anything about it, right?

There's been a lot of folks that have been hand-wringing, but they understand that taking action is a step too far.

And so here you've got Jack from Twitter saying, I'll be the guy to take the flak from everyone.

I'll start fact-checking Trump.

And obviously, incoming comes pretty heavily.

They make a lot of money off of Trump.

And I suspect that tweets that Trump puts out that are fact-check check

will end up performing a lot better than those that didn't, because that means that those are the ones the media should go crazy after when they don't like him.

And those are the ones that his supporters should promote even more heavily.

I don't think the way you're going to go after Trump is by fact checking him on Twitter.

And I don't think Trump is going to be able to do a darn thing, nor does he want to do a darn thing about the social media companies in reality.

Yeah, I don't think it matters at all.

It's not going to have an impact.

And that fact check is barely, it's the bare minimum you could possibly do.

Social media companies make a ton of money off Donald Trump.

And because of that, you're not going to actually see them utilize the myriad of tools that they could use.

They could de-platform him.

We know that

they should choose not to.

Listen, Facebook's entire financial model is based upon reaching very specific populations with very specific information.

So they're just never going to actually get rid of him.

And so the arc goes.

Trump says something completely outrageous.

The media says, oh my goodness, did you see this outrageous thing?

And they amplify it and they use social media to do that.

And the circle continues and continues and continues.

And

there's a financial model that supports it and it's just not going to matter.

Okay, so let me move on to this issue.

Since we have a panel, we can do many issues.

And this week, as I mentioned in the monologue, we got back to normal.

And when I say normal, I mean ugly racial incidents.

Preceded by Joe Biden at the beginning of the week having a controversy where he said, if you have a problem figuring out whether to vote for me or Donald Trump, you ain't black.

Now,

I actually must tell you, I hate it when people use that sort of phrase.

If you don't agree with this opinion I have, then you ain't this thing.

You ain't a woman, you ain't an American, you ain't a patriot.

I'm not for that.

But Kanye West, for example, don't agree with him on Trump, but I loved it when he said, the mob can't make me hate him.

Love that.

But it's also true.

Now, we saw this incident, I mentioned it in the monologue, about the person who was George Floyd is his name, a black man who was killed by this white police officer in Minneapolis, a replay of the Eric Garner incident somewhat.

Just it could have stopped.

The crowds yelling at him.

Unbelievable.

Trump is all in on the cops.

And the cops, let's be honest, almost all of them are all in on Trump.

In that light, I kind of understand what Joe Biden is saying.

Why would a black person vote for Donald Trump?

Yeah, except he didn't say that, right?

He said it in an awkward,

lame way, and he apologized, which he should have done.

And I think the fact that it, you know, he's held to a higher standard, so the story goes on and on and on.

And, you know, whereas Donald Trump lies constantly and it's sort of normalized all the time.

But yeah, I mean, he could have said in a more articulate way, America is very racist.

And in fact, we have a huge problem with white supremacy.

And sometimes that plays out in policing frequently.

And so while people look at these individual cases, a George Floyd, a Philandra Castile, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, they're not really individuals, right?

It's a systemic problem that people don't necessarily want to figure out how to tackle.

It's not individuals, it's a system.

And by the way, I would throw in, you know, dog lady in Central Park, Amy Cooper, right?

She's part of that same conversation because what she was doing very clearly as she approached this birder guy, Chris Cooper, right, was saying, listen, I can weaponize the fact that if I tell the police on the phone that an African-American man is threatening me, that's going to trigger something.

And I can leverage that and I can use that and I can use that power against you.

And that's the America we live in.

So I wish Biden hadn't said that because it's like you say, I hate when people say those things.

It's stupid.

And he apologized.

And I wish everybody would move on and focus on other things.

But I don't think there's a huge number of black people who are supporting Donald Trump.

If you look at the polls, you know, that's some, but it's not a lot.

Yeah, I think, you know, when Trump told the Black people, what do you have to lose?

You know, why wouldn't you vote for me?

Everything's gone so bad.

Well, it's been four years now.

And I think they actually have some experience with what they have to lose under four more years of Trump.

So, I mean, you know, Biden can make some really awkward statements, but I don't think Biden's in any danger of losing the black vote to our present president.

Yeah, it's a shame because when you look at this situation, you mentioned the Coopers.

They're both named Cooper, the people in Central Park.

If people weren't following this closely, there's a bird watcher, an African-American guy named Christian Cooper.

He's a birdwatcher.

And Amy Cooper is a white lady dog walker.

No relation.

No relation.

If there wasn't the ugly racial part of it, it could be a meat-cute for a rom-com.

It really could.

Two people named Cooper, a dog walker and a birdwatcher, meet in the park.

But here's the interesting thing I want to ask about.

She is an Obama-donating Democrat, Amy Cooper.

So

does this.

So white liberal ladies can be racist?

Well, that's my question.

I'm shocked.

I'm appalled.

I can't believe it.

A lot of people think that way.

Certainly conservatives feel, I know talking to them often, that liberals are phony about issues like this.

That's one thing they don't like about liberals.

They say, well, you scold us for things like using oil, but you use oil.

You scold us for being elitist.

You bribe your kids into college.

You scold us for being racist, but you take advantage, even if you're not racist in the park, of racial inequities and hiring and jobs and housing and lots of stuff.

And in this case,

it's going to look to a lot of people, yes, like white liberalism is this there.

Am I on camera on Zoom?

It's very thin.

Very thin.

Is that what you're saying, Zela, Dad?

There are plenty of white liberal people who are racist.

And I think Amy, I have no idea about her political leanings, but I'm not surprised at all.

She's in New York City walking her dog.

I'm not surprised.

And by the way, I think if you pull with a black people that you, I was going to say bump into on the street, but we're not doing that anymore, that you call up on Zoom calls, they would tell you, yeah, they work with lots of white liberal people who also were racist.

So it's not a surprise.

And I think it's just a mistake to think that white liberal ladies

can't be racist.

I think we should just understand that the reason why Trump was elected and the reason why there is such incredible polarization in society right now is because the top 10% of earners in the United States have been so focused on ensuring that they not only maintain, but also extend their privilege.

And for me, the scandal that really summarized all of this was Varsity Blues and all of these very wealthy people that were doing everything possible to ensure that their kids, not deserving, found a way to get into those best schools.

And when I saw the Greenwich, Connecticut, that 50% of high schoolers taking the SAT out of Greenwich had letters from doctors that allowed them to take it with no time restrictions, unmonitored.

That's not just rigged.

I mean, that is the system.

That's structural.

That's if you have any capacity, that's what you're gonna do.

And I think that comes in every shape and every form, but we know what it's about.

And this Central Park incident was yet another reflection.

And everyone on the wrong side of that said, yep, we know, we know what that's about.

And I think structural is the key word, right?

It's structural.

It's beyond even liberal or

conservative.

It is the structure of how historically white women, and there's a five gajillion examples of this, have been able to leverage some power against somebody, black men.

I mean, I think the thing that I found most interesting about Amy Cooper was this idea that she makes it so clear, right?

And she gets on the phone and says, an African-American man is threatening me.

She knows exactly what buttons she's pressing in order to get the police to respond a certain way, a way that could have ended up like, you know, Mr.

Floyd.

So yeah, I don't think it matters whether she's, uh you know writing checks to you know liberal causes or whatever i'm not surprised at all so let me ask you about the other incident in the police because uh it's amazing to me that the police are still doing this when they're on camera when there's a crowd filming them because we're we've been in this we caught bad cops on tape era now for almost a decade You'd think that even if the cops wanted to do this at this moment, after seeing many other police now being sent sent to prison for this kind of stuff, you'd think they'd go, oh shit, there's a crowd with a camera.

I really should take my, I don't want to take my knee off his neck, but I'm going to because for me,

what is it with the cops

that they're still doing this?

Is it the training?

Why didn't the other three cops who were there,

why couldn't they have found it in themselves to say, come on, buddy, you know, in a bar fight, you stop your friend.

Come on, that's enough.

What is it with the cops that they're still doing it?

Part of it is people don't go off to jail, right?

No one, very rarely, are police officers convicted of murder.

So I think that, you know, there's a sense of entitlement around that.

And I think there's a certain amount of sort of expectation of who's going to be on your side.

Did you know police

shootings of civilians go up every year?

They've been on the rise.

Even as violent crime has gone down, police shootings of civilians goes up.

So yeah, I don't think that anybody feels, listen, there's going to be some kind of retribution and I'm going to be held accountable because the opposite is actually true.

Sure, some people get fired, they can go and get other jobs.

You know, they very rarely actually are penalized to the full extent of the law.

And we know what really happens frequently.

If it does go to court, then sometimes people are free and then it kicks off days of rioting, obviously.

So yeah, I think that.

that it's very rare that there's some big penalty and everybody's afraid of being penalized.

Well, there used to be no penalty.

And now in the last five years, we have seen five or six policemen go to jail for quite a long time.

So I don't know if that argument really still holds.

Is it not more about the attitude?

I feel like

with the police, and I know most police are good, even though we have a lot of bad videos, but I've certainly known cops, personally known them, and they are not bad people.

They're very good people, and it is a very difficult job.

But it just seems like maybe we attract the wrong type sometimes you know the one who is going to make up for high school

uh they seem to be obsessed with you know this guy seems to have done this i think just because the crowd is saying stop doing it so he's like well then then i'm not going to i'm in charge it's always about recognizing my authority it the essence to me of the police problem is bad attitude i was shooting a doc in uh in new york city in east new York, actually.

And as I'm shooting that doc with a guy who'd been stopped by the police and

roughed up and had a case against them, literally, the police would do sort of UWs in the street to kind of show off their power.

And I'm like, I'm literally shooting with two cameras a documentary on this very thing.

So I do think there is a certain amount of power of, listen, we're the authorities here.

You see it a lot.

And yes, I think it's a very stressful job, obviously.

But also,

those few people who go off and get incarcerated, they are, compared to the number of civilian shootings, those are, that's a small percentage.

That's not a large number.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's move the economy.

Ian, you say that it's time to call what we're in now a depression.

I'm surprised anyone would even question that.

Here are the latest 40 million claims for jobless benefits now.

A third of small businesses do not expect to ever reopen.

That's 40% African-American businesses.

I see in the paper today renters.

I mean, this was so completely predictable.

People who rent, you know, they're not rich people.

So they're living paycheck to paycheck anyway.

Now, no paychecks have been coming in.

They're getting thrown out on the street.

So

I don't know what to tell you.

I always thought the response was too heavy-handed.

Is

what's going to look when November comes around?

Who's going to get blamed for this economy?

I think it's the people who are worthy.

Let's shut everything down.

Let's not even try anything Swedish-like,

because the economy is probably going to be a bigger issue in November.

What do you think, Dan?

There's no question that the narrative is going to be completely divided, depending on whose side you're on.

And Trump is doing everything possible to represent the party of, yes, I want to get your job back.

I want to reopen.

I want to try hydroxychloroquine.

I don't need to wear a mask.

It's going to be okay.

I mean, that's just a more fun place to be.

And given that in the third quarter, we're going to have massive double digit unemployment.

We're going to be facing a six to eight percent economic contraction for our country in 2020, but the trajectory is going to be positive.

And I mean, this was the guy that was signing newsprint that showed that one day of the market popping after all the days that it was contracting like hell.

You know, he's going to send that message out there and he'll be effective with his base.

The thing that I think is most important is we're going to be socially distancing come November time.

And in the red states, you're going to have a whole bunch of people that are going to be hearing this story.

You don't have to worry.

You can come out and vote.

It's okay.

And in the blue states, where they've actually been hit a lot harder in terms of numbers of death and numbers of people that have gotten, that have symptoms and the rest.

they're going to have people saying, no, you've got to stay locked down.

We've got a second wave.

That plays well for Trump.

And that's also the reason, of course, that the Trump administration wants to blame the Chinese really heavily for this.

He keeps doing it every day because the original sin came out of China.

They covered it up for the first month.

So it can't be Trump's fault.

Hard to blame Obama plausibly, though he'll try.

It's got to be evil China.

And the potential that we'll be in a Cold War with the Chinese, an actual Cold War, over the next few months, because that's a very useful thing to do, plus it's bipartisan support for hard align on China.

That's something we're going to need to deal with for a very long time if it happens.

I think Trump's biggest problem is going to be Trump's own sound bites, right?

Where he in every early press conference said, it's going to be fine.

He got it under control.

It's going to be okay.

So that's his very first problem.

And the problem with saying it's all going to be okay come November is that for most people, it's not okay, right?

There's no talking someone into it's going to be okay when you have everybody in the family has lost their job or it looks like you're going to be kicked out of your apartment or you're begging your landlord to let you stay yet another month because you can't figure out where to move to.

So, no matter how you spin it, that's going to be problematic.

My question is: who's going to get the blame?

Are people going to say, Yeah, my business has been shut down?

And that's because the government shut it down.

I didn't volunteer to shut it down.

I wanted to go back to work.

I was willing to risk it, or wear a mask, or do this, or they should have figured something better out than just shutting me down.

I feel like that's going to be a problem for the Democrats.

I think it's tough to be the party of no.

I think it's hard.

You don't want to be in a box on this.

You want to tell people that there are safe ways and you want to get back.

But what's going to be really tough is that the last few months, at least, relief has been made available for the small businesses and the individuals losing their jobs and the rest.

And I don't know that we can keep that going through November.

And if that, and obviously the polarization is going to get much, much greater.

If it turns out that money isn't there, Even though you got 40 million people out of work, millions will be coming back to work.

That's the narrative they're going to want to play.

But I worry that our government is going to feel a lot more broken in October time.

And that's going to be tough for Trump, too.

All right, I got it.

I got it.

Don't support that, right?

The polls.

So people actually don't want to go back to work fully until they feel like it's safe.

And that comes down to a plan.

And that comes down to a president who has no plan, whose leadership is not even bad.

It's just a huge mess.

It's a disaster.

So, you know,

I don't see it as people saying it's the Dem's fault.

They're going to say, listen, the president who we knew was a disaster and who's for many people, you know, continued to be a disaster.

Well, now a pandemic shows up and he drops the ball in a myriad of ways.

And he now

holds us.

I think that's going to be, I think they're going to blame him.

All I'm saying is that

this is the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes, and we're at four plus months in.

And so far, Trump's approval ratings are flat.

like i mean in brazil the president is down 15 points in germany merkel's up to 80 right now but you know the interesting thing about our society is so divided that the ability to spin this so that it actually only feels that way for people that already hated trump i wouldn't underestimate that i gotta leave it there i gotta leave it there i gotta leave it there i'm sorry it's so hard to control the panel over zoom but you are both great thank you for inaugurating our zoom panel and hope to see you in the flesh very soon.

Okay, thank you very much.

Solid having you

okay, so on the panel we were talking about the white woman in Central Park who called the cops on the black man who was complaining that she didn't have her dog on the leash.

And people have called this woman a Karen.

This is a new term but not a new concept.

We've had clueless white girl and Becky, I think, is in this tradition.

It's a woman of a white woman of privilege, sometimes racist.

It's hard to define.

So we thought we would, as a public service, for any middle-aged white women who wonder, maybe I am a Karen, tell you some signs.

These are the signs you might want to look out for that you might be a Karen.

For example, in high school, you were voted most likely to make a citizen's arrest.

Yeah, that would be one.

You park in the handicap spot because of a gluten intolerance.

Gluten.

You threaten to call immigration during a pedicure.

When you're at the baseball stadium and your team loses, you demand to speak to the manager.

When Samuel Jackson says, what's in your wallet, you pepper spray the TV.

That's a definite sign.

You go on a Facebook rant about how the Asian section in the supermarket keeps getting bigger.

You repeatedly cancel Ubers until you get a driver with a normal name.

And when a friend says, this is my fiancé, you say, this is America, damn it, speak English.

All right, here's a comedian.

Who wrote this?

The comedian.

Let me tell you, folks, if you've never seen Jay Leno Live, you're fucked because now there's no shows.

But if they ever come back, there's no better monologist ever has been.

Funnier, gives you more belly laughs.

He is also the host of CNBC's Jay Leno's Garage, airing Wednesdays at 10.

I think he used to have a show on NBC for a while there late night.

Jay Leno is here.

Hello, young people.

Hello, Bill.

Jay, I see the blue-collar every man that you are.

You're in your car garage.

Well, that's right.

I'm working on my cars for hours.

Put your palm up to the camera like that.

Look at

that.

That looks like a puppy's paw.

You've never held a wrench in that hand in your whole life.

No, puppy's paw.

Okay, as if they held wrenches.

I'm guessing you're using a Dove Beauty Bar.

This is Laba with pumice.

Right.

Okay.

Well, I'll check that out next time I go to my car garage.

But, Jay,

look, people, you're beloved.

That is the truth.

Everybody loves you.

America cares about you.

So there's a pandemic.

We want to know you're now, Jay, you're in your late 70s now, right?

So you.

I am 70 now.

That is correct.

Oh, you are.

Well, gosh, your hair is going to be turning white any day.

Listen, Jay, how are you faring with it?

Are you staying one step ahead of this virus?

I am.

I'm trying to follow news on it.

Like, I'm sure you saw this doctor, where was he in San Bernardino or Riverside?

And he's a real doctor, and he said this coronavirus is not that serious, and we don't need to wear masks.

Well, it turns out his brother is the one-in-five dentist who does not recommend triple his gum as patients who chew dumb.

So apparently, it runs in the family.

That's a ridiculous

point to make, Jay.

No, no, I, you know, I'm taking cautious.

I went to the doctor, you know, I went for a prostate exam and he said to me, hey, you're wearing, you're already wearing a glove.

You do it.

So that's kind of where I am.

Because you had the glove on.

That's right.

He said, turn your head and don't cough.

That's very funny.

And what do you think about Trump taking the hydroxychloroquine?

I mean, he's so indestructible.

I always say he's a city roach.

You know, he eats.

Well, to me, the problem with hydroxychloroquine is I think it's a gateway to Lysol.

That's right.

What do you think about it?

I don't think of it, but one leads to the other, you know.

But, you know, they're saying now that the virus does not live on surfaces.

It's interesting because so much that we, as with every news story, so much that you find out at the beginning, they then say, oh, no, we were wrong about that.

And

it can live on plastic for up to three days.

So if you're in Beverly Hills, don't touch the women.

You're just making jokes about this.

I'm trying to

get it in.

Bill, you know, it's turning ugly in Beverly Hills.

It's got nothing to do with the coronavirus.

It's just the Botox is wearing off.

People can't get it.

Well, you know,

you know what, Mr.

Blue Collar?

I want to ask you about that.

I see this phrase all the time on TV and in the news.

We're in it together.

But I think a lot of people feel like, well, for the richer people, this was a staycation.

But the poorer people now are getting thrown out of it.

There's some truth to that.

I mean,

I have to say, for me, there are some advantages.

You know, like the night I said to my wife, honey, I'd love to take you to the new vegan restaurant, but it's against the law.

I'll stop in and out and get some burgers and bring them home like we have every night for the last 69 days.

Right.

Well, what about that burger thing?

I hear that there's going to be a meat shortage and that there's already problems in the pipeline.

Well, you know, the interesting thing about that is I saw this guy talking about global warming, which caused you your issue it's all our issues but he says we have to do something to stop cow flatulence and i said to myself i can't even stop my own flatulence

and and i eat cow so what happens to me you know so it's a big problem well you know the biggest problem well the whole world is upside down i went to the bank the other day and they called the cops on me you know why i was the only one in there not wearing a mask not wearing a mask because the robbers had them on i see what you're saying now jay you've asked about the big problem.

I mean, this economy, I was talking earlier to my Zoom panel there about the economy is in a place we really haven't seen even before a man of your age's lifetime.

The 1930s, we saw 25% unemployment.

Now

it is getting bad.

The economy in Beverly Hills, actually, pool boys are actually cleaning pools now.

That's how bad they are.

You mean they're not servicing housewives?

They're actually doing

it.

You know, Neiman Marcus?

It's now Neiman Costco.

Oh, wow.

And in fact, I went to a wine tasting in Beverly Hills over the weekend, and the way it worked is you drank the wine, then you had to spit it out into the glass of the guy next to you.

That's well, that is saving money.

Next thing you're going to tell me that Keebler is playing off the elves.

Jay,

do you have one of your famous bad jokes that you can do us?

A bad joke.

Well, no, it's not that it's a bad joke.

It's a

dumb joke

in a pandemic like this.

A good dumb.

Oh, Jay, you want one?

Wait, you went out there.

Go ahead, speak again.

All right, here we go.

Two guys go to the beach and they go, Look, let's go see if we can meet some girls.

I'll go this way, you go that way.

Well, one guy comes back, sees his friend.

He said, I made our credit.

I got three phone numbers.

These girls are going to go.

I mean, how'd you do?

He goes, I do terrible.

I can't meet women.

I'm not like you.

I just don't have that kid.

He goes, No, I'm going to tell you a trick, okay?

And this is guaranteed.

He goes, what's the trick?

Go to the grocery store, get a potato, put your potato in your bathing suit, then walk around the beach.

The girls are going nuts.

He goes, that works?

Guaranteed.

Two of them go to the beach next day.

Guys got his potato.

They walk around.

First guy comes back.

He's got three more phone numbers.

How had you, Mike?

I goes, terrible.

It was worse.

The girls are running away.

Guy says, you're supposed to put potato in the front.

I was right.

That is a bad joke, but very funny.

That is a bad joke.

That's very funny.

So, Jay, last thing I want to say to you is this: you know, your show is really terrific.

You started your new season, and you know, some of the guests you have on are just so stellar.

Last season, you had on John Travolta and Matt Damon, and you had,

you know, you had Kevin Hart, I saw on there, Keith Urban.

We had Elon Musk the other night.

Elon Musk, Blake Shelton.

Right.

Blake.

My phone never seems to ring for this this show, Jay, after all the years.

It's your listed number.

That's why I tried to call it.

You have my number, and somehow, why don't I make the cut for Jay Leno's garage?

You should come on Jay Leno's garage.

Well, that's what I'm saying, is I've never been asked.

Oh, well, I'm asking you now.

I think you'd be good.

Well, sure, now that I shamed you,

of course, what are you going to do on national television?

Great.

When can I show up?

Well, we'll talk about that after the show.

No, tell me now, Jay.

What should I be there?

Well, I'll be there in the morning.

I'll get up for it.

Well, we're not taping right now because of the coronavirus.

But I'll be the first in line.

Okay.

All right.

Can I give you an example of price gouging that I've seen?

Yeah, sure.

The 99 cent store is now accusing the dollar store of price gouging.

That's, Jay, once again, a ridiculous remark.

And that's right.

All you can do is sit around here and bang out jokes.

I mean,

you know, in Beverly Hills now, a lot of women are marrying guys just for love.

This has never happened.

Oh, that sounds like a Beverly Hills joke that you were sort of put in your Beverly Hills hunk, but you forgot.

Now you're throwing it in at the end.

That's right.

See, that's it.

Well, you know, Farmers magazine's annual list of 400 richest Americans?

Yeah.

200 of them have already moved back in with their parents.

Well, that's not very rich at all.

No, no, that's what I'm saying.

It's not good.

All right, Jay.

Thank you very much for making

me and the nation laugh.

And we will see you very soon.

The icon.

Jay Leno.

I'll be on his show soon.

He will be on.

All right.

It's time for new rules.

New rules, everybody.

New rules from now on.

All weddings should be Zoom weddings.

I'm not saying there's anything positive about this pandemic, but not having to fly to North Carolina to stand on a beach in a tuxedo comes pretty close.

If you ask me, the perfect destination for any wedding is my couch.

New rules, if you need to go to church this badly, just go.

Ma'am, I don't know what you're confessing to, but this is not safe.

Not because of the virus or the priest is in the middle of the street, but because he's within 500 feet of a school.

Terrible.

New rule, check, please.

Is this really the future of dating?

This does not look fun.

It looks like someone forgot to take Barbie and Ken out of the packaging.

Do you have protection is a question that should come at the end of the night, not the beginning.

New rule, in order to save time, hardcore Trump supporters must merge all of their insane conspiracy theories into a single, unified omnibus of batshit.

So here it is, deplorables.

Listen, I'm only going to say it once.

The deep state helped Obama fake his birth certificate so we could wiretap Trump Tower and frame anyone who got in the way of Hillary's pizza parlor pedophile ring.

But then QAnon was on to us, so we activated our army of 3 million illegal voters and had Joe Scarborough murder Jeffrey Epstein so the UN wouldn't find out that windmills cause cancer.

New rule, people must do something other than bang pots and pans to set off fireworks to show their appreciation for essential workers.

Trust me, the last thing that people who work want to deal with after a 12-hour shift is noise.

If you really want to show them you care, shut the fuck up and let them get some sleep.

And finally, New Rule, someone has to tell me, if we can do this now,

why can't we do this?

People have started flying again and some planes have been packed.

Why is American Airlines safe, but not American Airlines Arena?

Viruses like concerts, but

are afraid of flying?

Then how about we have a concert on a plane?

Maybe Elton John could lend us his old tour plane, the one with the organ on board.

Would that make a concert safe if it happened at 30,000 feet in a cabin filled with recycled coughs and farts while involuntarily spooning with the guy in 32B?

Look,

I'm glad the airlines are back in business.

I'd like to see everybody back in business.

And if folks are willing to take precautions and accept a small risk so life can go on, I say let that be our guide.

The White House Press Corps is allowed to cover Trump's briefings, and of course they should.

That's where we learn that drinking motor oil cures AIDS.

But if Donald Trump is allowed to do his comedy act with an audience,

why can't I?

This reopening has no consistency.

In LA, you still can't legally get a haircut, but you can get your dog's haircut

so he doesn't look stupid in Zoom meetings.

Museums are typically spacious and very low risk.

Why are they closed?

But you can sweat and sway in a church.

We're not supposed to congregate, but that's literally called a congregation.

Georgia, reopened massage parlors before restaurants, which only makes sense if the massage parlors serve waffles and the waffle house gives happy endings.

Across America, parks are open again, but park restrooms are not.

So

what?

Move over bears?

It's our turn to shit in the woods?

It also seems like there's a different set of rules for single people.

No one bats an eye if you live with family members who are coming and going, but if a mere friend who's not part of the family steps inside the house, break out the hazmat suits.

Here's an interesting fact about viruses.

They don't recognize marriage.

And sharing a mailing address does not confer immunity.

And we're not questioning any of this, which is a problem.

Does anyone in charge of health in this country have any idea how much less healthy an airplane is than a baseball game?

Let me help you out.

Researchers studied 7,300 COVID cases in China and found just one that was connected to outdoor transmission.

Yeah, you've heard people use the phrase, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Well, that got to be a metaphor because it was true.

The virus doesn't like sun, like Rudy Giuliani.

But humans do like sun and need it.

There is a strong correlation between vitamin D deficiency and mortality rates.

Science Daily reports on research that shows it might be as high as cutting the mortality rate in half.

Well, vitamin D is something you get from the sun, not your phone screen.

Outdoors, healthy.

Unibomber lifestyle, not healthy.

Why haven't our top health officials been emphasizing these things?

Why haven't they given us any direction on improving our immune systems at a time when we need them the most?

Imagine before the virus even existed telling your doctor, hey doc, I've been locking myself indoors, living in fear, daydrinking, and eating cheap takeout.

Good health care plan?

The vacuum in leadership isn't Trump alone.

Yes, he puts the cluster in cluster fuck.

Yes, he is the worst leader the world has seen since EDMIN stopped eating the voters.

But in late January, Dr.

Fauci said the coronavirus was, quote, a very, very low risk to the United States.

It isn't something the American public needs to worry about or be frightened about.

On January 23rd, Trump got a briefing from U.S.

intelligence, and he claims they underplayed the danger then.

But the New York Times points out that Trump ignored a host of warnings he received around that time from high-ranking government officials, epidemiologists, scientists, biodefense officials, other national security aides, and the news media about the virus's growing threat.

So all those people knew it was a threat by then.

But Dr.

Fauci was saying very, very low risk.

In March, Fauci told 60 Minutes, there's no reason to be walking around with a mask.

Well, there was, and he is now.

That month, he also said, if you want to go on a cruise ship, ship, go on a cruise ship.

Look, I think Dr.

Fauci is honorable, smart, and sincere, but I also thought that about Robert Mueller.

And I worry liberals are once again falling into the same trap of lionizing someone just because they're the anti-Trump.

Even before the virus, America had a far too chronically sick population, which is one reason we've lost so many now.

We need to demand something better than how the entrenched medical establishment manages symptoms but cures and heals far too little.

All right, that's our show.

I want to thank my guest Ian Bremer, Soladado Brian, Tom Calicio, and Jaylena.

We'll be back next week.

Thank you, folks.

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

For more information, log on to HBO.com.