Overtime – Episode #522: Brian Cox, Rachel Bitecofer, Caitlin Flanagan, Anthony Scaramucci, Ross Douthat

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

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

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

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

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

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

Okay, here we are.

Rachel, will the Democrats be able to take back the Senate in 2020?

What's your prediction on that, the Senate?

Because if we don't get the Senate, then it's all kind of moving.

So now that the socialist prospect has been vanquished and the party will not be running against itself, which is a really critical element, yes,

Colorado and Maine are definitely flipping, as will Arizona.

So the question is.

Wait, which ones are flipping?

Colorado, Maine, and Arizona.

Okay.

So when my forecast for the House and the Senate come out, we'll be talking about at least six House seats in addition to the ones they gained in 2018.

But that's because they didn't understand in this new environment where to spend money.

It's in these realigning suburbs, which are, by the way, realigning because of the millennial generation who are now 40, they're balding, they own houses, they're not college kids, and they were sitting on their ass not voting before, but now they're freaked out, okay?

And so, when we look at the suburban revolution, it's not Republican women singing kumbaya and having like buyers' remorse.

In fact, if you look at my analyses, which I really urge you guys to do, anyone who's hearing this, please do, you're gonna see Republicans are stoked on Donald Trump.

They love what this man is doing.

They're not disaffected.

They showed up, they increased their turnout in 2018.

And Democrats are actually flipping seats because of independents and Democrats who are changing the composition of the electorate.

They're making it less white, younger, more female, and better educated.

And that's what's saving America.

Okay, Brian.

As someone raised with Britain's National Health Service, why do you think some Americans are so hesitant to embrace Medicare for all?

I have no idea.

I think

I think, you know, the National Health Service is phenomenal.

Well, and each sub, well, you know, each government tries to screw it up by

appalling middle management.

And it's the middle management that's done the job, not the people on the ground, not the nurses, not the doctors, but the management that's been shit.

But now doctors in England are paid a salary, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, that's going to be a tough sell in America.

Well, of course, everything's a tough sell here.

Right.

I'm just...

So what's new?

I mean, in the idea of a national health service, you know, it was started by Clem Attlee and Aaron Bevan, two great politicians.

Attlee probably being the greatest prime minister I think we ever had.

He was right after Churchill?

He was right after Churchill.

He managed the country while Churchill was doing the war.

That was the interesting thing about him.

And he was very quiet,

very quiet man.

But anyway, I think that the National Health Service is, you know, they've tried to destroy it.

They'll try and and sell it.

They'll try to do everything, particularly the Tories, but it still goes on.

And it's great.

Ross, is the coronavirus the kind of event that could force us out of our state of decadence, which of course is the subject of your book?

That's a terrific question.

Thank you, Mom.

So yeah, so I mean, it's a little weird because I'm out promoting this book about how we're stuck in these loops of decaying institutions and stalemated politics and the same Star Wars movies over and over again.

And I'm doing this while the coronavirus is basically sweeping through and putting it all to the torch.

So yeah, I can say definitively, you know, pandemics are not decadent.

They're really bad, but they're definitely not decadent.

But it is a test for, I mean, what I was talking about earlier, basically the institutional failure at every level that we've had in response to it, that is decadence.

That's what decadence looks like.

And,

you know, I mean, more than than you, I think

it's going to be worse than the flu, I think.

What's going to be worse than the flu?

The coronavirus?

It could be.

What are you basing that on?

You know, Italy, mostly.

Iran.

I mean, even South Korea, the best containment we've got, has a fatality rate of 0.6 and the flu is 0.1.

So that's for every person you said dies of the flu every year, which is too many, you could have six people dead, which is hundreds of thousands of people.

I think there's a debate about that.

I don't think you're going to be able to do that.

Well, that's the low end.

That's the low end.

I mean, the WHO read today that

the people most

to worry about this, of course, are over 80, 80 and over.

And even among 80, it's one out of six.

What?

Really?

Yeah.

Go on.

If I was 80 and I still had six to one odds to live through this thing.

Go to the casino on that.

I mean, it's not the worst when you're 80.

I mean, we have death.

You know, part of decadence, I think, is that people, you're right.

It's always about victim of your own success.

I mean, you think of the French

kings in the time of Louis XIV.

I mean, everything was just so effete.

And nothing,

they couldn't stand any sort of pain.

They sat on thousands of pillows.

That's where we are now.

Yeah.

People sitting on thousands of pillows.

Absolutely right.

But pandemics are worse.

I mean,

pandemics are worse than that.

They are, but it's not the same.

You can't be rooted.

I'm not rooting for it.

I'm not, I'm not,

let me be clear.

I am against the coronavirus.

Let me say I have always been against the coronavirus and I always check my record.

Stop worrying about my record, Ross Dowd.

Also on the campaign list of don't do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah.

Well, what does the coronavirus do to the campaign, though?

How do you put that into a corporate?

You know, Trump is so screwed, right?

Because it's going to totally f the economy.

Everybody says that everything that happens, and he's never screwed.

Oh, no, no, no.

He is definitely, definitely not helped by this.

And you can see that in his total panic.

I think he's really not helping.

His total panic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The one thing that he had is that decadence, right?

He had all of these rich people who were able to say, well, I've got my conservative judges who will one day redefine American citizenship so our minority population can hold on to power.

And I have money, right, from the stock market.

Well, my parents are living off of retirement funds.

They lost like 40% of their stock.

You said his mouth lost $2 trillion?

100%.

Just what he said.

100%.

That's above what it would have been.

Okay, look, I'm a clear-eyed money manager running 11 trillion.

Yes, you are.

I watch that.

You like money.

I do.

I watched that private.

And you have a lot of money.

I watched that guy's press conference.

Forget my politics or anything else.

I said, okay, the market is going to sell off on this because

it's science.

You want to say that the Trump Tower condominium is 10,000 square feet when it's 1,000?

No problem, okay?

You can't lie about the science.

You can't.

Hit the science right in the bullseye.

That costs, and then he opened his mouth on Sean Haddadi's show.

All right, right.

And that costs another trillion dollars.

I mean, they canceled the South by Southwest.

I mean, that's a huge, this is going to have a lot of sound.

That's an upside, though.

It's got to be a silver upside.

It's got to be a silver.

So here,

in my research, like economy, right, people argue, oh, Trump's in this great position because the economy is strong.

Bullshit, right?

In the old days, the economy mattered.

So Carvell was right one time, but not anymore, right?

But a bad economy on a guy that everyone hates,

just ask Jimmy Carter how that went for him.

Not everyone in America hates that.

It's a little bubblish.

It's about 43%, and he's going to get about 47%.

So the question will be, can the Trump team make enough not Trump voters

vote against their own interests?

Okay.

Right.

Certainly you've made my point, not everyone.

What are your thoughts, panel, on Bill Clinton saying in the new documentary, I guess this came out today, that his affair with Monica Lewinsky was a way of, quote, managing my anxieties.

And let you take that one.

This is addressed to you, but I put it to the whole.

Look to you.

I don't know why you're here.

You know,

obviously, I assume it's taken out of a context.

It did seem to address his anxieties.

He did very well, I know, as a president during that period.

You know, sounds right to me.

I think.

I mean,

I think it's indisputable.

I think it really is indisputable.

I think it really does help your anxiety.

You should call Dr.

Root.

He's back to the Bloomberg blowjob terminal.

Yes, go ahead.

No, but I just think

they would be better served as Democrats to stay out of the way right now.

Why surface that and bring up the fact that he was impeached and all that other stuff?

It just colors bad things.

The Clintons never miss an opportunity.

Never miss an opportunity

to speed bump for Democrats.

But I just got to say

the symmetry of him getting impeached and plus the

can I for one second channel Monica Lewinsky and i i don't think i don't think monica likes me very much

you know i you know may have done a few jokes in the past

um

i tried to i tried to when she came out a few years ago in vanity fair and wrote that i kind of i tried to defend her and then i saw her and she was like your defense was not good enough or it was the wrong kind of defense i was like oh you're dead to her yeah but i just gotta say that the blindness of a man saying that i had this affair with this person it was to manage my anxieties how does that make her feel?

It's like, it's just like a terrible thing to say.

You know what reminds me of?

It's when people are with like their second wife and they just go on it.

This is the love of my life and I didn't live before I met it.

It was the first wife.

How does she feel?

Right.

When she hears this, you know, it's just they do this all the time.

And the Clintons are very blind to

they have a callousness.

They really do.

This to me was very callous.

It's like, manage my anxieties.

You know, really?

really?

There was not a human being there.

Of course, after she's revealed that she was in love with him and she's really opened up about what she felt about it.

And then

there was more than just managing my anxiety, as I recall that.

He bought her that book of poetry.

Remember that?

It was like, and there was that tape where he was like, good morning, because he got a blowjob that day.

And like, you know, he was.

It's a little more than that.

All right, thank you.

Right.

So I guess.

Yes, right, you're right.

That's great.

Very good point.

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