Ep. #524: Mayor Eric Garcetti, Max Brooks

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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.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Thank you.

Please sit down and welcome to Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

You sound like a beautiful crowd, and we're going to be doing something a little different today.

We're going to be taping the show from my backyard, where I have a bar.

What did you expect?

It's my house.

I have a bar.

What'd you expect to see here?

A child's playpen?

But I tell you, is this really what it's come to, that I'm going to be shot on an iPhone?

I feel like an entree at the Cheesecake Factory.

I mean, I want to go out, but Gavin Newsom says I'm grounded.

And I am grounded, and I have the blue balls to prove it.

But I'm telling you,

I am practicing every safe directive they say I should.

I make sure I use disinfectant on every surface that has at least 60% alcohol, like Judge Jeanine Pirot.

I stay six feet away from strangers, eight from Charlie Sheen.

And

I tell you, this is not a bad idea, this staying six feet away from people.

I say next we try it with cars.

Well, you know, for Los Angeles people, I tell you, the worst part of this is seeing that the highways are completely empty but there's nowhere to go

I mean some people are looking at porn at home I'm looking at I'm looking at photos of the 405 with no cars on them

but it is getting a little grim around here I have to admit yesterday the highlight of my day was wiping down the mailman

My stalker was working from home.

But thank you, Jesus.

I have no symptoms unless you count shitting my pants every time Trump talks.

I tell you, I am starting to wonder if he's really a doctor.

The other day, a reporter asked him about South Korea, why they're doing better than we are, and he said, I knew everything about South Korea.

You know how many people there are in Seoul, South Korea?

38 million.

Okay, there's 10 million people in Seoul, South Korea.

If Trump played Celebrity Jeopardy, cancer would go bankrupt.

And then he does this thing every day where he's bragging about his ratings.

I have better ratings than Monday Night Football, The Bachelor.

Yes, because your viewers aren't allowed to leave the house.

What else are they going to do?

Read?

You're saying, Mr.

President, everyday information that people need that could be instrumental to saving their life.

Anything less than 100 share means people hate you more than they love life.

So, look, we're going to get through this.

We are.

And stress?

It's the worst thing for your immune system.

So try to think a little positive.

Think about all the celebrities who have this, that we know have this, and are doing okay.

Prince Charles, Tom Hanks, Jackson Brown,

Chris Cuomo, Kevin Durant, anybody who's anybody's getting it.

And you know, Tom Hanks, of course, was so classy when he got it.

He said it's an honor just to be contaminated.

And in the movie, the person who cures Tom Hanks will be played by Tom Hanks.

All right, we got a great show.

That's a little different, but of a show.

We have five great guests, Willie Nelson, Seth McFarland, Max Brooks, L.A.

Mayor Eric Garcetti, and Senator Bertie Sanders, all of whom I spoke to one-on-one yesterday.

So let's get right to it.

Okay, my first guest here from my house is the Democratic Mayor of Los Angeles, and boy am I glad we have one of those.

Please welcome Mayor Eric Garcetti.

They're clapping at home, I'm sure, for you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you so much for being here with me today or remotely with me here today.

I've wanted to have you on the show for a long time.

I wish it could have been under happier circumstances, but I guess the good news for Los Angeles is you were the one of the one of the first to give a stay-at-home order, and that seems to have worked.

I guess my first question is, because we were first doing that, might we be one of the first to end it?

Well, I've said that the more quickly people do things, the shorter this will last, and the slower that they do things, the longer it will last.

So it could be, but we also were not as far into the infection as other parts of the country, like on the East Coast.

So it remains to be seen.

We're about 14 to 17 days kind of behind our calendar of where New York is.

We implemented these things earlier, so I'm hoping that throughout California, the first state to do this, that we will be able to get back to work and back out of the cave, as it were, sooner.

But we're going going to wait for public health professionals to tell us.

And we should expect it to be a couple months.

And as our civic vice principal on this, what sort of grade would you give Angelinos for following the order?

I would say it's a solid B right now.

We got an A actually in one of these groups that grades how much our cell phones move.

So if people are sneaking out, they're at least keeping their cell phones at home because it showed that we had been the county moving the least here in Southern California and throughout the country.

But, you know, we see slippage of that.

And I think that there's always folks that are looking to get to the beach.

We had to close that down, get out to the trails.

And I understand it.

These are the iconic locations and places we love to be.

But this really is about that discipline of a couple weeks and reminding people when you move, you could kill yourself and you could certainly kill somebody else.

So unless it's necessary, unless you're a critical worker, stay at home.

Well, the last I read, there was 8,000 cases in a state of 40 million people.

Now, obviously, that's going to go up because we're entering that phase now where those numbers are going to rise.

How are we doing with hospitals, masks, ventilators, equipment?

Well, you know, we are about 11 days behind New York City in terms of fatalities per capita in LA County, maybe 14 days behind in the number of cases, but they've had more tests there.

We're We're doing okay.

We're holding steady, and I hope that our stay at home orders gives us an extra week or two that other places wouldn't have.

But every city has to be prepared for when the cases are going to hit your capacity.

And just to put it in perspective, we have

about 22,000 beds total in all of our hospitals that are our general emergency room hospitals.

And of those, we're having only about 13 or 14, 1,500 of them available right now, only a couple hundred ICU beds.

So these hospitals are already about 90% filled, 95% filled before the onslaught.

Now they're building capacity, they're moving beds around, they're changing rooms that didn't have ventilators.

We've got about a little bit under a thousand ventilators unused right now prepared for when folks come.

But we're going to hit that

wall, whether it's in two weeks or three weeks.

We are confident every city will go through that.

We're just trying to do our best to save as many lives as possible.

Do we have enough masks?

I know that there has been conflicting information, even from the CDC, about how effective they are.

They have sometimes made us feel like they're not that effective.

I think it has got to be somewhat more effective than nothing.

And I've heard other people, I think yourself, say, even if it's a bandana, which worries me in LA, because if I wear the red one and then I'm out where the crips are the bloodshed.

Don't wear a red or a blue one, please.

I'm really screwed.

Yeah, I mean, look, these things like this, which are different than masks, I mean, they are what we call masks but they're not medical grade masks.

We have about 5 million of these that clothe companies here in Los Angeles have already started to make that they think they can make about 5 million a week.

The metaphor is like that, you know, football player might be smaller than the door.

That's the virus.

And the door is the size of the pores in this.

But if you have five or six football players trying to rush through at the same time, it actually can help droplets not spread and save our grocery clerks, save folks that are doing our critical work.

So, I'm a big believer in them.

I keep waiting for national guidance.

We might hear it very soon.

I just heard before coming in here, maybe the president, by the time this gets shown, will have said it as well.

And those countries like the Czech Republic and Korea and other places, Taiwan, that have them, have shown a slower rate of growth.

So, it's important, though, to remember that's different than the surgical and the medical-grade masks that we need.

There aren't enough of those.

We're still holding on.

We've got sometimes a week or so of supplies.

I've deputized the head of our Port of Los Angeles, which is the biggest port anywhere in the Americas, to be our chief logistics officer.

And so we're looking at supply chains and companies and chasing down every lead to order for our hospitals.

So hospitals don't have to compete with each other, cities don't have to compete with each other, states don't have to compete with the federal government.

It's a mess out there.

But right now, we're holding on, but it's week to week, is the honest answer.

You mentioned the president.

I imagine it is a Hobson's choice as an elected official, especially in California, not his favorite state, because, as you know,

he would have won the popular vote if not for all the illegal voters here.

But it's a tough choice for a guy like you because on the one hand, you want to tell the truth.

On the other hand, if you say anything critical, this president has shown that he will deny essential services.

and equipment to states that aren't nice enough to him.

So I guess what I'm asking you is, how are your praising skills when you need them for this president?

Well, first of all, Bill, I think you're doing a great job.

You're the best

there is on television.

Arnon.

Good.

But seriously,

I'll say thanks to anybody.

I'll work with the president before this happened.

I was working with Ben Carson, his Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, even though some of my Democratic friends said don't, when it comes to homelessness, because he had a genuine heart about it.

He was willing to listen, and we've been working together.

Same thing with this president when it came to the U.S.

naval ship Mercy.

He brought it.

I said thank you.

I talked to folks in the White House just days before part of what I hope helped bring it here.

But I also won't be shy about criticizing what we don't have at the national level.

We don't have the preparation for this.

We need to prepare for the second spike of this when it comes in the late fall or the early winter.

We've got to use all the resources of the federal government better.

And I'm a big federalist.

I love that here in California, we have states' rights.

We can go our own way, whether it's on immigration, the environment, other things.

But federalism depends on the central government doing some of the most important things like defending our country with wars, foreign policy, international trade, and certainly a pandemic response would fit into that.

I'd like to see much more assertive leadership, much more national standards, much earlier adoption.

I'm glad he's now saying that the whole country should do this.

But I got on a phone call with about 300 fellow mayors two weeks ago, just after we had done this, and I said, do it now i don't care if you don't have one single case it's coming and the way the media reported this is it was kind of coastal that allowed it to become a democratic or blue state thing you know just a week and a half ago i was looking wyoming had the same infection rate as la so did north dakota you know it was just per capita people weren't looking at it they were looking at absolute numbers so this is coming to your town no matter what and we need national leadership on procurement, on testing, on standards, and on advice.

Well, I think you did a good job on this so far.

I wish you continued luck and all of us good luck and hopefully we won't have here in california we are the land of the sequels hopefully we won't have to be doing this again thank you so much mr mayor strength and love i'll look forward to coming on afterwards yes we will see you in person soon i hope thank you sir yes indeed take care

All right, we are delighted to have the presidential candidate and independent senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, is with us, as he has been many times on our show, never under such circumstances.

Bernie, you are a guy who has

seen a lot of things.

Where do you place this crisis in American history?

Never in my lifetime, Bill.

What we're looking at now is absolutely unprecedented.

You know, we're looking at a pandemic the likes of which we have not seen in 100 years.

We're looking at an economic collapse that may

end up being worse than the Great Depression

with 30, 40 million people becoming unemployed in the next number of months.

So it's unprecedented in our lifetimes, that's for sure.

And what would you do right now if you were the president?

This is exactly what I would do.

The main point is that we have to prevent a breakdown.

in the entire system.

That's how dangerous it is right now.

It is much easier to maintain the system than to fix it after it is broken.

What does that mean?

From an economic point of view, it means that we tell every worker in America: you will continue to get your paycheck.

We know you're not working, we know you're at home, you know your business that you're working for is not functioning.

But guess what?

We're going to do what the UK is doing, what Denmark is doing, what Norway is doing, what France is doing.

You will continue to receive 100% of your paycheck.

Number two, what we have got to do is guarantee that all people in America during the crisis get the health care they need without out-of-pocket expense.

It is pretty crazy to say to people, as the last stimulus package did, that you can get your coronavirus test, government pays for that, but if you're sick and go to the hospital, you have to pay for that out of your own pocket.

Number three, what we have to do is protect our health care system right now.

We need to use the Defense Production Act to tell the private sector, who will be well compensated, they must produce the masks, the gowns, the gloves, the ventilators that the health care system requires.

Also, if we're ever going to get back to normal, we're going to need a new level of testing that we have never seen before.

And I think we can do it, but we have to invest in it so that it says to Bill Maher, Bill, you have been tested right now instantaneously.

You are not spreading the virus.

You are not going to be susceptible to the virus.

You can go into a work environment with other people who are clean as well.

So we need to invest very heavily in testing.

We also need to provide substantial help to federal, to state and local governments because they are running out of money.

We have helped them in the last stimulus package.

We've got to do more in the next stimulus package, which we are working on right now.

Because if the cops are not being paid, the AMT people are not being paid, you're going to have a breakdown in the system.

And we have also got to protect

working families all over this country who cannot afford right now to pay their rent, their mortgages, their student loans,

their auto loans, and so forth, and put a freeze on

those type of payments.

So bottom line is, Bill, in my view, we are in an unprecedented moment in American history.

We have got to act in an unprecedented way.

And I am working with other senators and members of Congress on what will be an unprecedented piece of legislation to try to save this country in such a difficult moment.

Okay, I mean, you mentioned

getting 100%

of your paycheck.

The criticism of you has often been that you are promising money that the government could not possibly come up with.

How long can the government do that?

How can we just keep printing money?

Isn't that a recipe for economic disaster down the road?

Well, I think, Bill, by not preventing a crisis, you end up saving money

and easing a whole lot of pain in this country.

I don't think you have an alternative.

We are looking at some 30 or 40 million people over a period of months, over a period maybe of three, four months, losing their jobs.

And if we do not protect those people,

you're going to see

a collapse of the economy, and it will take us more money to put it back together.

And what I'm suggesting, by the way, is largely what is already going on in the UK, Germany, Norway, Denmark, and other countries.

So it's not a kind of a new idea.

And by the way, we put that provision into the recent stimulus bill for 2 million workers in the airline industry.

While the airline industry is virtually shut down, those workers will continue to get 100% of their paycheck and their health care.

and their health care, which is what we should be doing.

So Bill, I'm not suggesting to you that this is not an expensive proposition.

I am suggesting to you that the alternative is worse.

I find one of the most galling parts of this is that the president is favoring certain states over the others.

Governors who are nice to him, as he calls it, get a lot of attention and all the equipment they want.

To me, this is even more of an impeachable offense than what he did with Ukraine or Russia.

How do you stop a president who is blatantly not the president of every state equally?

How do you stop a president who sends

aid to Florida, for example, because he likes the governor there, but not here to California or Illinois or Massachusetts?

It is literally beyond comprehension.

I mean, you know, we have a president who has done so much harm in this entire process, who has downplayed.

the crisis from day one, which will cost us.

And his actions or inactions in not listening to the scientists and spouting off ridiculous ideas is in fact going to cost the lives of many thousands of Americans.

But to answer your question, Congress has got to step up to the plate and step up big time.

And I will tell you what else concerns me.

The worst part of this $2 trillion stimulus package that was passed last week, and I voted for it, but the worst part of it was $500 billion going

to the president to allocate to corporate America with nowhere near the kind of strings attached and accountability that should have been required.

Now he is saying, hey, I don't really care about accountability at all.

I'll do what I want.

And to pick up on your point, if you think that during a campaign, you're not going to see a lot of money from the Trump administration going to battleground states to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, you would be grossly underestimating the

venality of this president.

So these are issues we're going to have to stay on and work very hard to correct.

Okay.

So during the campaign, you and your rivals debated many times who has the better health care plan.

But

my point has always been that one thing I never hear from a politician is saying to the American people, no matter what health care plan we have, it's not going to work unless you take more responsibility for your own personal health.

One reason we're in the mess we're in is because Americans are not very healthy to begin with.

I know this is under the category of never going to happen, but if I was president, I would institute a Manhattan project for getting our immune systems in better shape.

And part of that is suggesting very strongly that people eat better food and less of it.

Would you agree?

Absolutely.

I mean, this is exactly what the federal government should be doing.

what the Surgeon General should be doing.

Look, in the long run, I mean, as you know, we have seen a decline in life expectancy, I think, for three out of the last four years.

Major crises with diabetes, with obesity, with opioid addiction, with alcoholism, with suicide.

I mean, we have many, many problems.

And one of the areas that concerns me very much is you have the food industry selling absolute garbage to kids with all kinds of sugar and everything else in it.

So what we need is a government to work hard in terms of disease prevention.

It's not just food.

It is exercise.

It is doing a lot better in terms of mental health than we do right now.

So disease prevention is obviously the way to create a happier, more fulfilled society and also to save a hell of a lot of money if we don't have to deal with diabetes and obesity and heart disease and

all of the illnesses caused by poor diets and other things.

Well, I'm glad to hear you say that.

All right.

Last question.

It's a question I've asked other candidates before.

I don't seem to ever get a satisfactory answer, but I'm hopeful for you.

And that is this.

I've been saying for a number of years that if Trump loses the election, he's not going to leave.

Now I notice a lot of people are talking about this very issue.

If you are elected president and Trump gets out there and says, well, there were irregularities and it was rigged and it was this and it was that and I'm not going anywhere until we find out what's going on.

What do you do?

Well, you mobilize the American people in a way that they have never been mobilized before to essentially remind this president that whether he likes it or not, we live in a democracy

and that the majority of the American people through the electoral process will determine who the next president is.

So,

you know, what you're describing is a nightmarish scenario with regard to democracy in America.

Do I think you're crazy and off the wall?

I suspect not.

But I think we have to make it clear from now on throughout the campaign and the day after he loses, that if he loses this election, he will be out of office and replaced by the new president.

Well, I am crazy and off the wall, but I'm always happy when you join us on our show, even if it's remotely.

Stay healthy out there, Senator.

Good luck with the campaign, and I hope to see you in person someday soon.

Okay, you take care as well, Bill.

Thank you, Bernie.

Hey, look, now we're in my man cave.

And who better to have in my man cave than the ultimate multi-hyphenate himself?

Seth McFarlane, everybody.

Who are you?

Everybody,

there's no fucking people around.

That's the problem.

There is no people.

You might be the first person.

in America to put on a suit in about three weeks.

No, Prince Charles

has coronavirus and he still puts on the suit every day with the pocket square.

Good for him.

That's royalty.

So, look, I just really wanted to check in with my good friend and see how he is

doing

during this disaster.

But he wasn't around, so I'm asking you.

No,

no, I want to know how you're coping, buddy.

I'm really happy to be filling in for Mr.

Travolta.

What are you doing?

I'm hanging in there.

The thing that I find

is most important at this time is to stay busy,

not just by watching movies or television, but just keeping yourself occupied.

For me,

I've tried to stay writing.

I've tried to

continue

reading for pleasure.

Just anything I can do to keep my brain occupied

I've found is

key.

And you know what

I think helps is I don't watch a lot of news about this.

I check in the morning to see because I don't want to be in the dark about what's going on.

But I used to watch a lot of cable news and I don't need to get the blow-by-blow on this.

Wake me when they call the

all clear.

Until then, you know, I get into a hot bath at night with a Gwyneth Paltrow vagina candle.

And

reducing stress is the best thing you can do for your immune system.

Am I right?

Yep.

Yep.

It's it's and I know it's hard to sleep at times, but it's you know, sleep is important.

Yeah, it's it's anything you can do to

not, I mean, there's, there's, you know, I know everyone is feeling, I feel it, enormous anxiety during all this, enormous anxiety.

And, and, you know, in a strange way, as odd as it is, I've found some

hope in reading about pandemics of the past,

because the one thing that they all have in common is that they all eventually

subside.

And, you know, here it's taking a little more work.

than it than it has in the past to to to suffocate this thing.

But,

you know, it just reminds you that this, this is,

no virus exists forever.

And

I think the upside to this is, look, thank God, this is not something

like Ebola.

This is a situation that we should not be in right now.

And I think we all know why we're in it.

No need to rehash that.

But

it's a dress rehearsal in a lot of ways for something even more severe and even more serious.

And I think that if we, our government particularly

learns the lessons

that this is teaching us, that the next time this comes around, the next time we find ourselves in this predicament with something more deadly, which could happen, we will be much more prepared,

much more ready to fight it.

And we'll have the,

you know, ideally, but prior to that, the respect for the scientific community that we should have had all along because who do we turn to when this kind of shit goes down?

It's scientists, it's doctors,

it's the only people who can get us out of this.

I'm so glad you said all that because I feel the same way.

I'm really not personally that afraid of this one because I don't think it's that,

yes, it can it kill you, absolutely.

But you know, I see like Tom Hanks looks like he's okay, we're the same age, we don't know enough about it.

I would love scientists to do a deep dive into why certain people who seem like they're healthy

get it, but usually it's some sort of underlying condition that you either.

Well, it isn't, I mean, it can be.

I mean, I've heard enough instances of,

you know, anecdotal instances of people

who are perfectly healthy and,

you know, relatively young and have succumbed to this thing.

So I think it is important to remember that

there is a little bit of Russian roulette to this.

You can't, you know, you can't assume that you're,

you know, that you're steeled against it.

Again,

the figures are,

you know, allow for a certain degree of optimism, but I don't know, somebody said,

I was talking to the gave me the analogy.

If you are given a bag of Skittles and they tell you that two of them are poisoned, you're probably not going to touch the bag at all.

Right.

No, I understand.

Your odds are still pretty good.

So that's

why we're all

you know, we're all following the protocol.

I assume you're there in your uh and you live uh in a

two-room uh uh apartment in Van Nuys.

Do you not, Seth?

So this is especially tough on you.

And uh, right next to the airport, right, right next to the airport.

So it's got to be tough, locked up all there in your little apartment.

But uh, are you single these days?

Or do you have a

corona buddy that you can

make?

I am, I am, well, just for starters, starters, I have my cats.

Right.

I have my cats, which by the way, is

by the way, that's something that

you want to talk about the great equalizer, like things that people like us are,

we take for granted.

We take our housekeepers for granted, we take housework for granted, things like laundry and changing the cat box.

I will never again

pretend that the job of, say, a stay-at-home mom

is

not way harder than what I do on a daily basis.

Because when I compare this,

this set of tasks, even figuring out how to do floors,

my God, it's a hell of a lot harder than

making TV.

Oh, I can tell you how to do floors.

Don't.

Yeah.

They're floors.

I got to.

I mean, I got

to.

Are you fucking kidding me?

The floors can wait until the virus ends i haven't changed my sheets yet i mean you got to do that i'm planning on it by the way that's that's much easier you just there's a little uh setting on the washing machine that says bedding oh i'm assuming that's for sheets i was going to ask you about that that's so interesting that's what listen i've got a peach cobbler in the oven uh that i put in this afternoon that i've got to get to right now but it's so good to see you i know you're doing a podcast with brian and stewie which is fantastic i uh i I can't wait for the next season of the Oroville.

You know, I'm the biggest fan of the Oroville.

It's on Hulu now, right?

It's on Hulu.

Yep.

Yep.

When are the new ones coming out?

Okay.

Well, Seth, thank you so much.

I can't wait to see you in person.

And yeah.

Same here.

I know.

I know you will be.

We'll be out there again getting drunk.

Thank you.

Seth McFarlane, everybody.

Wait again, everybody.

There's no one here.

All right.

My next guest is Max Brooks.

I think people who watch this show know him as one of our favorite panelists.

He is the author of a new book, Devolution, and you are all going to have plenty of time to sit home and read that.

What is so apropos is that he also is the author of World War Z.

And of course, the zombies are coming next.

Please welcome Max Brooks.

Applause at home.

Max, how are you doing?

Hey, Bill.

Good to be here in my attic.

I see.

And those earplugs, they're for me.

I'm hoping you're not listening to something else.

No, no, no, of course not.

Pass the ball.

Pass it.

Hey, there are no games right now.

Are you kidding?

So listen,

World War Z, you know, such a great book and movie.

And I think people might...

not understand that you're really such an expert in this, that you have testified before Congress.

You testified before something called the Blue Ribbon Biodefense Panel.

What were they looking to find out?

And or were they just asking you what it's like to work with Brad Pitt?

And what was your particular expertise that they wanted to have you there for?

Well, the Blue Ribbon, it's now the bipartisan defense panel is trying to get us ready for the next gen of germ attacks.

because this one might have crawled out of the jungle, but the next one may crawl out of a lab.

And so they're trying to ready our defenses.

What they wanted from me is public outreach, because in a republic, it doesn't do any good to get all the experts together if you can't educate the taxpayer and the voter.

So how do we do that?

And that's why they had me come and listen to their hearing on Capitol Hill.

And what did you tell them?

I said the most important thing is you need to find ways of reaching out.

You need to find the educators.

When we had the measles outbreak in New York, in the Orthodox Jewish community, they reached out to rabbis.

So we've got to find who are the rabbis on the local level, be it a pastor in a rural red state or the yoga guy right here in Venice.

But there are people that people listen to, and we need to educate them so they can educate their flock.

Yeah, they're called influencers.

They're 19 and they're on Instagram.

And that's what we do.

We find a YouTuber who opens boxes and he says, let's open a box.

Woo, a vaccine.

That's how you do it.

Okay.

All right.

So you mentioned something that might crawl out of a lab.

There have been rumors that this virus that we're dealing with now started in a lab in Wuhan, China.

And

that's not unprecedented.

I mean, that really happened in the Soviet Union in the 70s, did it not?

Yes,

I have no idea where this particular virus came from, but I can tell you there is a precedent.

In the 1970s in Sverdlovsk, in the Soviet Union, Sverdlovsk was a massive city devoted to making weapons.

One of those weapons was a germ weapon.

It was anthrax, and it got out.

And for decades, we were trying to understand what was going on.

And the Soviets

were saying, no, no, no, it was tainted meat.

Don't worry about it.

We got this.

It was minor, minor, minor.

And then it took until the 1990s for Boris Yeltsin to admit that it was an accident at a germ weapons factory and it killed and sickened many more people than we had any idea.

It was the Soviet Union's biological Chernobyl.

And that could happen again.

It could happen again, especially in a country where there's no free press.

Because if there were rumors here or in any country with a free press, you could validate it.

You could even validate it from the local citizenry.

But in a country like China that censors the press and also censors its own citizens on social media, it creates a dark space ripe for conspiracy theories.

And that is

precisely why is it not that you set World War Z in China, or rather the disease coming out of China.

And it's so prescient, because that's exactly why this disease that we are really dealing with now got out, because it was the very kind of regime that would shut down

talking about it.

Yes, that is.

I was modeling World War Z on the first SARS outbreak in the early 2000s, because it's not enough to have a large population and a rapid transportation network so the virus can spread like wildfire.

You also need a government that is willing to suppress the truth, which is what happened with the first SARS outbreak.

where the World Health Organization knew there was something going on and China was doing its impression of Eddie Murphy and Raw and going, hey, what me?

And then it got out, and suddenly it was around the world.

So I was looking back, hoping against hope that China had learned its lesson, and clearly it has not.

Yeah.

So you were also involved in something called the Vibrant Response Exercise.

I think it was in 2011, which I know you can't even talk about all the aspects of it because it was somewhat secret.

But again, this is your expertise they wanted.

And this involved everybody, the military, the National Guard, right?

FEMA, FEMA, virologists, even tribal leaders were involved because this was basically an exercise to plan for something cataclysmic, perhaps a nuclear attack, that would happen on American soil.

Tell us what that was all about.

And also, I'm very interested in the idea that they were particularly keen on living by the rule of law.

even in a disaster.

Oh my God, yeah, no, vibrant response.

I was there just as an observer.

And I'm not sure what I can talk about, what I can't talk about, but I can tell you that it was a homeland nuclear exercise.

It was the doomsday scenario.

What if a terrorist or somebody set off a nuke in a major American city?

And I watched every organ of government come together from the federal right down to the local.

And I can tell you that

It was all according to what is called the national response framework, which is the master disaster plan.

What do we do when the shit comes down?

And a good section of that plan is ensuring that we protect our rights as well as our lives.

So this notion that if we suddenly federalize this response, we'll backslide into dictatorship is bullshit.

The whole reason we have these plans and we exercise with them and we bring in armies of lawyers is specifically so we can do this.

in the American way without trampling on any of our rights and to prove that democracy in crisis can succeed.

But it's interesting.

You know, I would expect that President Trump would use this to become an authoritarian more than he already wants to be.

And we've seen this already in many other countries.

I mean, we're seeing this around the world.

Israel has,

there are no more courts there.

Hungary, Bolivia, Chile, lots of countries are using this as an excuse to be, and, you know, there's a reason why you have to employ different methods in a disaster like this.

But I'm surprised that President Trump hasn't invoked,

what is it, the Defense Act, where you can order private industry as we did in World War II.

We said, you know what, stop making cars, DM.

We need to make tanks and planes.

What do you think he is hesitating?

Why is he hesitating about that?

I have no idea why he has not enacted the full force of the federal government.

It might be, I don't know, a small group of die-hard, Ayn Rand ideologues who don't want to see big governments succeed in a crisis.

Then it validates the idea of a big government, which is, by the way, why we have a big government specifically for emergencies.

Maybe they don't want that.

Maybe it's just stupidity.

Maybe it's arrogance.

Maybe it's magical thinking.

I don't know, but I will tell you this, this idea that we were caught unaware, that this is something like a Godzilla coming out of the ocean that we didn't know about.

Oh, look, look, here's the plan sitting on my desk.

And by the way, that's not from the dark web.

The government wants you to read these plans because in a crisis, a republic has to depend on its citizenry.

So this idea that if we enact the Defense Production Act, suddenly we're Venezuela, that's a complete lie because the Defense Production Act was specifically written to preserve free enterprise, capitalism, and our constitution.

Well said.

I appreciate you.

I was going to say coming over here.

I was going to say I know you're busy, but we know all that's bullshit.

But thank you so much for doing this and for lending your expertise.

And I hope I see you again in person soon.

Thank you, Bill.

Take care.

Be safe.

Max Brooks.

Okay, we're back here for my man cave,

and we have a true legend, an icon.

He's got a new album out.

It was supposed to be out this month.

It'll be out in July now.

It's called First Rose of Spring.

An ironic title, given that this is the lost spring of 2020.

But this is a man who's never lost.

Willie Nelson.

Willie, how are you?

I'm doing great.

How are you doing?

Well, you know, as well as can be expected under the circumstances.

And I guess in national crisis times, the thing most on Americans' minds is

guarding national treasures and you are one.

So I guess America wants to know, you look great.

You feel good?

Say that again.

I say you look great.

You feel good?

Oh yeah, you know, consider it.

Yeah, I mean you've seen a lot, of course.

As far as crises go that you've seen in this country, where would you put this on the scale?

Well, it's got to be up there around number one, I think, because,

you know, I think this is one of the craziest times that I can remember.

And, you know, I remember being with you this last New Year's Eve.

We were in Maui and we were backstage.

You were kind enough to help us out with our little sketches there.

And,

you know,

you were hesitant to pull on the joint,

but of course you did.

Well, I was social distancing way back then.

You were ahead of your time, as you always have been.

But given somebody, as someone who, you know, has to watch the lungs, because this is a disease that actually, you know, attacks the lungs, are you being especially careful with the Maui Wowie?

Well, you know,

I smoke a little every now and then, but I try not to overdo it.

Usually I wind up overdoing everything.

So, you know.

Well, I hope you're, you know, I hope this

this, if there's a silver lining here, it's going to teach us what we really treasure and what we really need.

I have only been eating it, you know, since this came along.

Yeah.

Well, that's good, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And his edibles.

Yeah.

I actually don't like to eat it because it makes me paranoid.

But then if I if I smoke it, it makes, you know, I feel it in my lungs and that makes me more paranoid.

But I got to get it in my body somehow.

You know, it's either that or stuck it up my S.

Well, you know, I quit smoking cigarettes by rolling up 20 big joints and putting them in a lucky strike package, threw it away.

And I haven't, you know, smoked a cigarette since.

But I...

you know, I let nature take its course.

And so far, at 87, I ain't doing that bad.

No, you look fantastic.

And this is on, you know, an iPhone.

But, you know, you find out what you really need.

I mean, I always thought that what you would really need to live is being on the road and

among people and on marijuana.

But that's not.

Yeah, I really miss.

I really miss being on the road and I miss.

you know, seeing all the people.

And, you know, we come out to exchange good positive energy.

And, you know, who cares whether you're a Democrat or Republican?

If you like on the road again, that's good enough for me.

Oh, I do.

I love on the road again, and I love when you're on the road again.

What about people around you?

I mean, we hear a lot about the fact that if you're young, you're probably not going to be felled by this, but you have to be careful because when you're around somebody in the age group you're in, or that I'm fast approaching,

you have to be especially careful.

What responsibility do you think that the elderly have to say to people, get the fuck away from me?

Yeah, go home and shut up.

I mean, do you say that to people?

Well, I haven't had to because I'm very fortunate.

I live out here in Love, you know, and got a nice little place out here with a lot of horses where everything's positive wherever you look.

And I just try to

live that way as much as I can.

So, Willie, you're in Texas.

Texas, of course, is known as a state that believes in individual rights.

So, I guess this is a tough one for them because they have given out a directive for people to stay out of bars and restaurants and food courts and massage parlors.

My question is: what do you miss most about the food court?

Well, you know, there's you know, there's an old saying that you can always tell a Texan, but you can't tell him much.

That's right, but in this one, they should listen.

Final question here.

You know,

I've been a little upset because I give a lot of my taxes, as we all do, to the government.

I live in California.

It's not like Texas.

We pay state taxes that are just crazy, plus the federal taxes.

And this is like job one for the government to protect us in times of crisis like these.

So I just want to say as a guy who once didn't pay his taxes, you were way ahead of your time and I appreciate that sir, because they've done a shit job protecting and doing the one fucking thing that government should do.

All right.

Do what?

Stay healthy, Willie.

I want to see you when I'm in Hawaii next time.

And

I can't wait.

Can't wait for your album.

Your album is out again.

It's called First Rose of Spring.

Be out in July when I hope we will all be out thank you willie it might be the last rose of spring by yeah

you will not be the last anything we'll see you soon thank you

goodbye all right now it's time for new rules

new rules all right new rule the man who disguised himself as a dog to sneak out during quarantine must find the man who disguised himself as a bush to sneak out during quarantine and pee on him.

New rule, everyone must apologize to perverts.

It turns out they weren't perverts at all.

They were just way ahead of their time.

New rule, until this is over, Trader Joe's cashiers have to skip the friendly chit-chat part.

Did you find everything you need today?

Seriously?

Look around.

You've been looted by white yuppies.

I'm walking out of here with a bottle of gherkins Gherkins and some almond biscotti.

So take that as a hint that now is a good time to shut the fuck up.

New Rule, married couples who have spent years quietly pitying single people, especially, excuse me, those of us who don't have children, have to answer this question.

How you like me now?

All right.

And finally, New Rule, I'm all for rallying around the flag, but let's not rally around the guy who missed all the red flags.

Yeah, America has been slow and inefficient in responding to this crisis, and yet our leaders' approval rating is up

because that's what we do.

In times of crisis, our leaders get a bump in the polls, whether it's justified or not.

Because a crisis is no time to think.

And rallying around the President is just one of those irrational things we do in a crisis, like hoarding Charmin or praying.

Especially if the president says he's a wartime leader, which this president says he is now.

Unfortunately, that is a war on science.

You know, Americans have made this mistake before.

On September 11th, 2001, as President Bush was reading My Pet Goat to school children, an aide whispered in his ear, America is under attack.

And he sat there looking like he forgot to turn off the stove.

His response was, the attack can wait, let's find out what happened to the goat.

And then of course, because America, Bush's approval rating went up.

After the attack, the Bush people, much like the Trump people now, said, who could have imagined this?

Well, in both cases, experts.

Yeah, experts did.

Bush was repeatedly warned that al-Qaeda could crash a plane into the Pentagon, and the FBI reported that weird holy men were training at U.S.

flight schools, practicing the flying part, no interest in landings.

And then there was the famous memo entitled, Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.

Veronica Mars could have put this together in 40 minutes.

Al-Qaeda did everything but send Bush an email that said, September 11th, save the date.

Now, was this current crisis preventable?

Not all of it, of course.

But we could have done what South Korea did.

Their nightmare started the exact same day ours did.

But while Trump shut up experts, happy talked, and lied his ass off, South Korea put a strong testing program into place and tracing people.

And today, they have 21 times fewer the cases and 30 times fewer deaths.

They didn't even have to do a big lockdown like we do.

So their pets aren't always looking at them like,

don't you have someplace to be?

If this is a war, Trump lost it in January.

He's not FDR or JFK.

He's LOL.

So it's more than a little disturbing that he's getting a bump in the polls from all this, a bump which tells us we're once again entering into rally around the leader time, around the guy who made it worse.

I mean, come on.

Toilet paper is now more valuable than the dollar.

We do have actual heroes here.

They're working in hospitals, doctors on the front lines, stalkers at grocery stores, and cashiers at weed dispensaries.

But not Trump.

Let's stop doing this thing where we delude ourselves into lionizing someone just because they were there when the shit hit the fan.

Giuliani was not popular in New York before 9-11.

And then we had a crisis, and soon he was America's mayor.

New York Magazine said people yearned to experience his presence.

Yes, his wives, not so much.

And for the last two decades, Rudy has traveled the world as an international security expert, despite the fact that his big security decision as mayor was to override objections from the NYPD and the Secret Service and put the city's emergency command center in the one place it was most likely to be wiped out, in the World Trade Center, after it had been bombed the first time.

It would be like stationing your tornado response team inside a trailer park.

The root problem we got here

is Republicans are better at politics, and so they get elected, but once in office, they can't do anything because their idea of government is dismantling government.

So let's also skip the we need to be less partisan virtue signaling when it's obvious Republicans have a proud, proven legacy of government dysfunction syndrome.

Yesterday it was Bush and Giuliani.

Today it's Trump and McConnell and Ron DeSantis.

And we can only be safer when every last one of them is voted out.

All right, that's our show from my backyard.

I want to thank my guests, Bernie Sanders, Eric Garcetti, Max Brooks, Seth McFarlane, and Willie Nelson.

And I'll be at nowhere.

I'll be here.

But we'll be back next week.

Thank you, folks.

Good night.

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

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