Ep. #507: Michael Moore, Bari Weiss

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

Start the clock.

Right here with me.

I know why you're happy.

The debate's over.

That's why we're happy.

That you watch the debate.

I watched all three hours of the debate, and I got to say, Jameis Winston looked really good last night.

Maybe that wasn't the debate I was watching.

Three hours, come on.

I mean, by the end of it, Mayor Pete looked like he could buy beer.

Three hours, it was so long that Corey Booker at one point ducked out to catch that J-Lo Stripper movie.

And he got back before anyone noticed.

That's a long.

But to all eyes, of course, we're on the big three center stage: Biden, Warren, and Bernie, or as they are known to their hips, snap, crackle, and pop.

Did you see the picture, the three of them together?

It looked like one of those weddings where the ex-husband is invited.

But,

of course, again, the big issue was health care, and Bernie and Warren, of course, support Medicare for all, and Pete is for Medicare for all who want it.

And Betto, I don't know, I don't speak Spanish.

But I.

Oh, Betto went hard on guns.

Did you see that?

He said, hell yes.

He said, hell yes, we're going to take away your AK-47.

And when he said, AK-47, Joe Biden said, bingo.

I tell you, I, oh.

You know, I.

Look, I always say ageism is not good.

You have to take case-by-case basis.

But Joe, I'm sorry, he's the one who cut it.

He looked pretty good until the end, and then he answered a question about slavery reparations.

We're talking about teachers' pay in Venezuela and record players.

Record.

It was like watching a really old dog try to get up on the couch.

Record players?

Yes, because he's hip.

He's into vinyl.

Jokes on you, millennials.

That's not what it is.

No, look, Bernie Sanders, as even older, nobody makes any jokes about his age.

It's not an issue with him because he doesn't act old.

You know,

it's not the years, it's the mileage.

Bernie owns it.

He's like, I care about the Constitution because I wrote the damn Constitution.

Now, thankfully, nobody nobody on the stage really went after Obama this time.

They went after Trump, yes.

Good strategy.

Amy Klobuchar said the country is being ruled by a game show host, and Andrew Yang said, exactly.

And we can't have that, which is why I'm offering every family in America $1,000.

Now, Trump himself had a relatively quiet week for him.

He committed only like three brazenly impeachable acts.

So, you know,

truly.

But he did fire his third national security advisor, John Bolton.

He said, Bolton made very big mistakes.

And not the kind you can fix with a Sharpie.

Because, you know,

all he

loves that Sharpie.

Oh, he that's his thing now.

It's like Michael Jackson's glove.

He's got it everywhere.

After the Alabama hurricane was such a success,

he thinks he can fix anything with that sharpie.

Yesterday he drew a smile on Melania's face.

Oh yeah.

Well, it was the anniversary of 9-11 this week and Trump posted a picture of him and Melania.

looking out on the empty New York skyline and Trump said he was thinking about the firemen.

And Melania, she was also thinking about firemen.

And yet they stay together, which is not something you could say anymore for Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd.

Yes, did you see that very sad news?

Todd Palin filed for a divorce.

I don't know.

It just happens

they grifted apart.

But yeah, Todd filed for divorce.

That's when you know you've had enough when you're willing to take your chances with the single scene in Alaska.

All right, we got a great show.

Michael Steele, Crystal Ball, and Fernand Damondi are here.

And a little later, he'll be speaking with New York Times writer and author Barry Weiss is backstage.

But

first up, he's an Oscar-winning filmmaker whose latest film is Fahrenheit 11.9.

My good friend, Michael Moore.

Looking smelts.

You're looking good.

You're looking pretty smelt.

Work in progress.

I like it, yeah.

Pretty good.

So, all right, now, we have had one discrepancy between each other over the year, really just the one I could think of, which is socialism versus capitalism.

Maybe my favorite movie of yours is Capitalism a Love Story.

Even though we've talked about it, I don't really agree that we should junk capitalism and go.

I mean, I did an editorial here a few months ago which was saying socialism, I praise it.

You know, it lets people not sweat shit.

It's not about just what you have, it's what you don't have to sweat student debt

if you get sick.

So I believe socialism should be capitalism plus.

Yeah.

Elizabeth Warren says she's a capitalist.

Are you not okay with Elizabeth Warren being far enough to the left?

I'm not so sure she believes that.

I first saw filmed.

She's a liar.

No, no, I think that she's.

Warren is a liar.

Michael Moore.

No.

Warren,

she's taking the cue from you, which is you got to tone it down because people are going to be nervous.

And the fact is that capitalism, the old capitalism is gone.

The new capitalism is a cruel and evil system, Bill.

And socialism.

It can't be fixed.

It can't be fixed.

It's too late.

We've gone too far.

We have almost virtually destroyed the middle class, the one that you and I grew up in.

Sure.

That's gone.

So what is socialism?

To me, socialism is everybody has a seat at the table and everybody gets a slice of the pie.

We have to believe in that if it's a democracy.

Everybody has to.

Does everybody participate?

No, everybody doesn't get the same slice.

Does everybody have to work?

for the pie.

Well, most people want to work.

Yes.

If you can't work, you still get a slice of it.

But you would allow that we already have quite a bit of socialism in this country.

Yes, and more will be even better for us.

Yes, a little bit more.

We will be more like

in the 50s, we had more.

Or like in Canada.

Right.

Or other places where they have found a way to where capitalism, you know, just because you're against capitalism doesn't mean you can't earn a living or the people here.

Everybody needs to earn a living.

That's not what this is about.

Socialism and the democratic socialism

that Bernie talks about.

He's talking about the social democrats of Europe believe that there should be a system where people are taken care of, that there's a safety net.

If you fall between a crack, there's no crack, and they try to get a lot of people.

And they have a lot of problems in Europe.

France is always a mess.

No one's working.

Everyone's on strike.

Everyone's pissed off.

Everyone's striking.

In Italy, it's a million lira for a dollar.

We've heard this stuff all our lives.

But it's the truth.

It's the other side of the story.

The only side of the story is: if you get sick in Italy, you can see a doctor.

That's not the only side.

I know plenty of Europeans in this country who came here because they do not like European socialism.

No, they came here because they wanted to go to Disneyland.

Yes.

Yes.

It's a glib answer, but it's not true.

Well, they like America, but they would never

want to risk whether it comes to whether they

in half those countries in Europe, they went to school for free.

I've heard you say this I've never seen it.

But they don't feel that they can rise as high as they can.

And that's, you cannot deny that.

I mean, that's the good and bad part of America.

You can rise higher, but to the people who are the losers, we say, good luck sucks to be you.

Right.

What I think we both want is to somehow come to a place where we're not.

Regardless of the title, what we call call it, Capitalism Total, Capitalism Plus, whatever, we do agree that this particular system is cruel,

where the 99% work at the behest of the 1%.

And that is something where you shouldn't, the 1%,

how much they own, how much of the wealth they have, and the other 99% have to fight for these crumbs.

You don't like that.

I don't like that.

And what we need is a change.

So it's not just getting rid of Trump.

I don't know if you agree with all the polls that we've seen.

There's at least four or five of the candidates that show in every poll they would beat Trump.

If put up against Trump in the poll.

But we're only playing intra-squad games now.

We haven't faced the real.

This is like you watch Training Camp with the.

Yeah.

Okay.

No, you don't.

You watch that show on HBO?

Oh, I love it.

I watch the bachelor at, too, so don't take me into too much of value.

But, you know, the quarterback wears a red shirt.

They're playing in shorts.

This is not the campaign.

We're going to be fighting against Donald Trump.

So it kind of doesn't matter, right?

You're afraid that some of these candidates, if they say that there should be Medicare for all or that college should be free or whatever, that this is going to hurt us.

It's not going to hurt us because the American public.

See, Bill, this is the thing that's really, I wanted to talk to you about this.

Who is us?

Yeah, that's who is the us.

Right.

The American public.

Well, it's both.

You and I have fought for years to get the country where it is now.

The majority of the, you talked about climate change 20 years ago.

You talked about so many things,

legalizing marijuana, the fact that that's just happening in one state after another now.

You were ahead of the curve for so many years.

We flocked for these things.

No, we fought for these things.

The minimum wage.

I'll tell you what Bill Maher believes in.

The minimum wage should not be $7.25 an hour.

So down the whole list.

Women should be paid the same

problem.

We got the country to where Bill Maher and Michael Moore are at.

Why pull back now, Bill?

Because we've got to go to the center.

Because the country isn't there.

because I'm sorry you're lumping a lot of vague shit together the country is for raising the minimum wage of course the country is not for Medicare for all is as soon as you ask the question get rid of private health insurance I mean Barack Obama said if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor which turned out to be not true for only two percent of the population and the whole country went apeshit about the two percent now are you going to take away everybody's well completely get rid of private even though there are so many things to fix about Obamacare they don't like that people don't like that no they like the fact that their 26-year-old can still be covered.

That's Obamacare.

That's Obamacare.

That's Obamacare.

They like the things about Obamacare, but it didn't go far enough.

And we've got 30 million people that are uninsured.

We've got 50 more million that are underinsured.

That is the...

As Nancy Pelosi points out, Obamacare is a better benefit.

The Medicare for All doesn't pay for catastrophic.

You've got to do that yourself.

Look, Bill, we're going to beat Trump.

We're going to beat Trump.

Well, that's not a helpful thing to say.

No, it is.

No,

I'm not predicting it.

I know.

No, no, no.

We're the two guys who said Trump was going to win.

And I'll say if the election were tonight, if the election were tonight, Trump would win.

How about that?

All right?

That's how dangerous it is.

Because everybody is so...

See, look at the same reaction when I said that three years ago.

No, no, don't say that.

You have to respect the evil genius of this guy and how he gets away with every fucking thing.

Okay, so here's an interesting thing.

He will get away with this if we don't.

You and I and others start fighting, fighting for the progressive things that we believe in.

He wants to make the squad the face of the Democratic Party.

I know one other person who wants to do that, you.

Yes, we'll win.

We'll win.

Let me tell you, 70% of the people who are going to vote next year are either women.

people of color or young adults between 18 and 35.

That's 70% of the electorate.

Women, people of color, young adults.

We should be appealing to them.

And if you're saying that you you don't like those women because they're, you know,

you disagree with them on a particular policy thing.

Yes, exactly.

What are you saying?

They're going to hate the police.

Well, they're not popular.

That's not true.

Young people love them.

People of color love them.

Women love them.

I'll say it again.

70% of the electorate.

70% of the entire electorate.

Not one of them has an approval rating above 25%.

So you're making this up.

They're not beloved, these people, because they don't believe in things that a lot of people believe in.

Like what?

not medicare for all and people do believe in medicare for all people do believe it i know you've got your polls i've got my polls right but i'm telling you if you if you're out there with people this people do believe this that's why all the candidates have tried to sign on with the exception

when they called nancy pelosi a racist you know they think they go too far and i think they go too far in a number of issues guess what and if some young people go too far you know first of all this thing where we're always you are always romanticizing the young people.

Everybody looks good when they're young because they're not in power.

They don't have to make decisions.

But they're not.

They're so perfect.

They're so innocent.

And you know what?

When they get to our age, they'll be assholes too.

Because

when you get like every generation, Mike, every generation.

This veneration of the young.

Yes, of course, everyone's idealistic at that age.

And then you have to pay taxes and you raise a family.

You have to find a way to put food on the table.

You have to do all this shit.

And you get near money and you like it and it corrupts you.

Do you think they're going to be as innocent as everybody else?

Here's the great thing is that we were young.

There's so many of us at our age now.

We were hippies, and then they voted for Reagan.

And now, and now, no.

We didn't.

Some of them did.

He got elected.

If you were 55 years old in 1980 and you voted for Reagan, you're dead.

Okay.

No,

don't put down what our generation and the people that came after us did.

We actually, we held on to our values, and that's why gay people can get married.

That's leading our generation.

No, you're making that sound like, you know, young people, it's going to get tough for you, and it's going to be awful.

I'm going to say that.

And then you're going to get more conservative.

They are.

No,

our generation is not more conservative.

We live in a liberal country.

The majority of Americans, I'll go through it again, Bill, agree with us on minimum wage, mass incarceration, women's rights.

I agree.

Pro-choice.

They're with us right now.

Why not take the moment when we're in power

and use it in this election?

Let me ask you.

Let's get rid of Trump and

you don't want to do that.

I want to talk about how I get new in Michigan, how we turn things in November.

Is that okay, Carl?

Okay.

I just want to give you an example.

Michigan went red in 2016, voted for Trump.

Myself, my friends, a whole bunch of other people in Michigan said, this is embarrassing.

We have to turn this around.

So what we did was we decided to go with ballot proposals last November.

We got two ballot proposals that were targeted to get out the youth vote and targeted to get out the thousands of African Americans who stayed home and didn't vote for Hillary in 2016.

And so we put a gerrymandering proposal on the ballot to make gerrymandering illegal, and we put a legalized marijuana proposal on the ballot.

I've been been on for that for a long time okay and we passed we passed both of those ballot proposals but what it really did was we doubled the number of young people who came out to vote from the last off-year election in 2014

and we brought out thousands of african americans who had had it and stayed home because they didn't want to vote for dealership

if we want to win next year if we get ballot proposals on in the swing states that will bring out young people free college minimum wage that will bring out African Americans, how about the states that don't have the Equal Rights Amendment for women?

Okay, but let's put those on the ballot next year and let's have millions of lawyer women come out.

This is how we win.

Yeah.

I mean, you're fighting an election that isn't the real election because no matter how many people come out in those kinds of places, that's California.

You can win by five million votes in California.

It won't matter because you have to win Wisconsin and Michigan.

We are going to win those if we do these things.

We can win.

We don't know that.

You're not Nostradamus.

Well,

I know that Bernie, Bernie, Bernie won Michigan and Bernie won Wisconsin.

And then she wouldn't go there.

But

the last guy who really won big was Barack Obama.

He was a centrist.

No, he wasn't.

He governed as a centrist.

He ran as a populist.

No, he didn't.

He ran.

I voted into that bill.

I went to a centrist.

No.

You just saw him.

I voted him for him.

I went in the voting booth, and on the ballot, it said Barack Hussein Obama.

That's not a policy.

No, but if you're playing it safe, you don't put fucking Hussein on the ballot.

I don't think it was up to him.

He's a centrist.

I don't think I don't think he could call himself Hussein.

Yes, it may not have been up to him whose name got on the ballot.

No, the candidate has to sign off, whether you're William Jefferson Clinton or Bill Clinton.

Yes, it's up to the candidate.

If you're telling me that Obama purposely put Hussein on the ballot

to get votes,

we'll have to have that discussion another time.

He did it because he had courage.

Put your money where your mouth is.

I'll bet you on that.

That he didn't say, let's get Hussein on the ballot.

He wanted this middle name.

How much are you going to bet me on that?

I will bet you

make it difficult on yourself.

Make it difficult on yourself?

Yeah.

I mean, you just.

Oh, make it difficult on me?

Yeah.

What do you want to bet?

Another trip to Hawaii?

A trip to Hawaii with you?

Well, I love that.

I did it once.

Thanks.

Michael Moore, everybody.

Let's lead our panel.

Am

He put his full name on the battlefield

on this one belt.

I want to go to Hawaii with him anyway.

That's my way of getting him to Hawaii.

Okay, so these debates, I have a quick question.

Sorry, I have to introduce these people.

He's a political strategist who hosts the podcast, Strange Days, Bernane Damondi, okay.

She co-hosts the Hills morning show Rising and she's the author of Reversing the Apocalypse Hijacking the Democratic Party to Save the World.

Crystal Ball

And he's the former RNC chair and host of the Michael Steele podcast Michael Steele

Don't forget to send us your questions for tonight's overtime so you answer them after the show on YouTube.

My question, are these debates helping?

Yes.

I think they are helping.

I mean, look,

it's helping the Democrats by putting a spotlight.

But let me tell you what the problem with the debates is thus far, in my opinion, as a Democratic strategist.

You know, last night, perfect example.

They spent 39 minutes talking about the nuances of health care.

Later, the positions on trade.

We've got a goddamn national emergency with the most unfit, unfaithful person of the Constitution in the White House, and it seems like they're running against George W.

Bush or Ronald Reagan.

I think the case needs to be made that this man is out to destroy American democracy bill.

And if they don't start talking in those terms, then they might be in trouble in November next year.

Okay, so if the question is, are the debates helping the Democrats?

The answer is absolutely, positively not.

I mean, the moderators are on the Republican talking points, right?

They want to pit Elizabeth Warren against Joe Biden, against Bernie Sanders.

It's infotainment.

I honestly thought Andrew Yang in the second debate had the best line of anybody when he said, look, we're up here with makeup on.

This is the reason we have a reality show president.

Yes.

Because it's all a reality show.

It's all about WWE rather than the substance on health care and trade policy and things people actually care about.

He's already giving people $1,000.

Did I hear that right?

Yeah, yeah.

$120,000 campaign.

But I just...

That's okay now to pay people a thousand dollars.

You think that there's a functioning FEC in this country?

I got another thing coming for you.

Well, all I can say just at the very beginning, between Michael Moore and this conversation, I'm having a good time.

This is,

Well, y'all need to work this out.

All right, please.

Y'all need to work this out.

But here's what we're paying you, so get in here.

But you know, honestly,

I think the analysis so far on both sides is correct.

The Democrats are helping themselves in that they are having substantive policy discussions.

The question is whether or not the American people are really taking it in and absorbing it that way.

Elizabeth Warren, she has a plan for pretty much everything, and that's a good thing.

Except health care.

Yeah, well, yeah, she hasn't been able to say exactly because she's not gonna pay for it yet.

But the fact of the matter is, she does.

The problem is, when you have moments like you did last night with Julian Castro, who just put out one of the best sound clips for the Trump campaign, if Biden is the nominee, and so you have, you have to

be in the space.

You've been a candidate, I've been a candidate, we know how to do it.

Everybody was hand-wringing today about Julian Castro going after Joe Biden.

You don't think Trump is going to to come after him so much harder?

You can't handle Julian Castro and you think you're ready for Donald Trump.

That's not made about training camp.

It's just training camp.

But you run the anti-immigration commercial and behind that you run that.

All right?

You run that conversation.

So you're reinforcing the negative narrative about Democrats in a general election.

And that's what the Democrats have to stop.

Can I present a scenario?

I think this might be one of those years where it's the last discussion Mike and I were having.

It's that they can't get over that centrist versus socialist thing.

So Elizabeth Warren at some point takes Bernie's voters.

He drops out.

It's Warren and Biden.

And they go to the convention and it's deadlocked.

This has happened before in American politics and they need a compromise candidate.

I'm looking hard at Amy Klobuchar.

You know why?

Because

like

this is not an insult to Amy Klobuchar, I like you, but when they put generic Democrat on the ballot, they win.

You don't have a

she's a woman so like that helps that moves a lot or don't

why do you think that economic populism whatever you want to call it socialism democratic socialism etc

is so unpopular when a poll just came out that had bernie sanders beating trump in texas by more than any of the other candidates the last 20 polls have shown bernie sanders beating trump and here's the other thing though meaning meaning that you don't need a centrist to win Centrism is why we have lost.

It's why we lost a thousand state house seats.

It's why we lost the light up.

We ran a centrist.

We lost.

But even the centrists in the Democratic Party are pretty far left.

They're not the same.

You got the right center left in the whole country, not just the liberal bubble.

You get the right C word, but it isn't centrism.

It's charisma.

Who is the Democratic candidate that is going to inspire America, build a movement?

Those are the Democratic candidates that we're nationalized.

Nobody likes it.

Nobody Who supports these candidates?

Who has the multiracial working class coalition that you could build from to inspire people to actually show up on election day?

That is still Bernie Sanders.

So I don't know why you couldn't throw that.

It ain't enough.

This is the thing

I think Democrats need to get their head around

in this upcoming election.

Michael Moore is absolutely right.

You hold an election this coming Tuesday, Donald Trump is going to win re-election.

You hold an election a year from this November, Donald Trump is going to win re-election because the way the narrative is being set up at the moment is playing directly into a lot of the fears that took those bricks out of that blue wall that Democrats have been able to build in the Electoral College for almost a generation, right?

And gave it to Trump.

Trump figured that out.

The challenge is: how do Democrats figure out to get

those blue bricks back?

And one last point, one last point.

This election, folks, is not about the future of the country.

It's not about the future of the Democratic Party.

It is about a transition away from Trump, who gets us back to normal and stays in the world.

There is no back to normal, and that's the problem.

There's no back to normal.

You have to have a new election.

If people will give you some guidance on what that is for them,

you need to listen to them here.

Let me ask this question that I hear this term existential a lot, this word talking about Trump.

He's an existential threat.

I agree.

I've said that for a very long time.

That's why when I say I'm rooting for a recession, how could you, Bill Boir?

Because you just said it was an existential threat.

But it's not exactly that.

We've had 47 recessions.

We can get through it.

Wait, that's not the question.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, it's not.

But he's not just an existential threat.

He's an asymmetrical political.

That is playing in a conventional game.

Okay, but if he is this existential threat, and I think he is, excuse me,

then would Elizabeth Warren be willing to take one for the team and beat Joe Biden's running mate?

Could that ever happen?

Why do we want to be a part of that?

I think that's up to the Democratic Party.

I'm just saying.

Because he can't be vice president.

I'm looking at the scenario where there's the far left and the center left, and we have to come together.

I'm trying to be practical.

Okay, Joe Biden can't be vice president again.

But, Bill, I think what you don't understand is that

if you look at their coalitions,

Biden and Bernie have more voters in common than Bernie and Warren, because voters don't vote like this.

They don't look on an ideological spectrum and say, I'm more like this person.

They look at who do I trust, who is full of shit.

And that's the problem with centrism, is a lot of times centrism, especially in the Democratic Party, comes off as being full of shit.

But centristed, focused, for

full of shit, not the central shit.

There isn't really a centrist.

Centrism is Joe Manchin.

We have lots of centrists in the Democratic Party, am I right?

It's full of shit.

So

what do you think people who support that kind of candidate is going to do in this next election cycle?

They're not coming home

to roost with you.

They're going to hang with Trump because the the better the devil I know who respects me and doesn't call me names.

It's not about centrism.

It's who is going to fight for American democracy.

Who is going to stand up against this corrupt administration?

The only person talking with that visceral energy right now that is building a movement, and we see it in the polls, is Elizabeth Warren.

And to your point, Bill, if the primaries show that the polling says that Biden is the best guy to beat Trump, then Biden's going to win the nomination.

You're right.

The fact that they haven't impeached him with just the things he's done in the last few weeks.

I started this last week.

It has to be a two-parter.

That's how bad this guy.

I mentioned the fact that he was seizing land to build his wall and telling people to break laws and then promise them pardons.

Okay.

Don't even go with the if Obama did it because my head will explode.

What's going on in the Ukraine?

He's suspended aid to the Ukraine because they won't help him in his campaign against Joe Biden and find dirt.

Ireland, the whole thing where his

failing golf course

is getting paid to house American servicemen on their stopovers, the market manipulation.

He said he talked to China a couple of weeks ago.

It was a complete lie.

Even the People's Administration said he did it, and then the stock market jumped up.

To say nothing of, and this isn't impeachable for real, but if Obama had invited the Taliban on the 9-11 anniversary week to Camp Divin,

people would have

quicker their shit if Obama had done that they wouldn't have impeached him they wouldn't have impeached Obama being by the Taliban they would have sent SEAL Team six to do him what Obama did to Osama bin Laden all those years ago so yeah it's the fact that the Democrats have let this just fester they're like a parent who never learned to say no to their child and now the child can do anything and that looks weak and I keep saying it people don't vote on policy they vote on strength or weakness and they've dithered weak they've dithered and they've they've dicked around and they've taken their chance.

Now, what I will say is I think we focus on all the wrong things.

We focus on the corruption, which is real, and he has been far more brazen and taken that to a level we've never seen before.

The American people look and go, so many of these people are corrupt.

Look at Joe Biden with his deals with his son and his brother.

Look at Bill Clinton cashing in, and it doesn't rest.

What we should be focused on, and what I would be all for impeaching him on, is the actual harm he's done.

The Muslim ban, kids in cages, institutionalized cruelty, the actual real harm that has been done today, not to mention inciting violence and giving comfort to the greatest domestic terrorism threat, according to the FBI white nationalists.

I understand, and a lot of that is true, but the problem with some of that is that you have a situation now where he's getting reinforcement from the court, from the judicial system.

The Supreme Court just recently coming against.

Yes, you can go and do these things within the context of the...

You better get the election right, or else there will be more judges.

And the fact that the Democrats aren't focusing on the Supreme Court,

you have now three debates and not one conversation about it.

Now, everybody was blowing their mind over Kavanaugh, blowing their mind over Gorsuch, and yet when you have a chance to stand before the nation and tell us what kind of court system you want,

we don't know.

So when Trump comes out and says, I'm going to give you the court, they're like, okay, gotcha.

Can I give you some good news?

Good news?

Okay.

Trump,

some really good news.

Trump was asked about how he defines victory in Afghanistan this week, and he said we could beat them very easily

by doing certain things, and I'm not talking nuclear.

So certain things we could do, but you'd lose millions and billions of lives, and I don't want to do that.

So the president doesn't want to lose billions of lives.

How about that?

And some good news for that change.

All right.

Here's the

bad news, Brad Parscale, he is Trump's campaign manager, said this week, the Trumps will be a dynasty that lasts for decades.

If you thought it was bad now, I think you see that Don Jr.

I think you see that from Ivanka, you see it from Jared.

I didn't believe him until I saw him on the internet.

They already have the campaign posters for the kids.

Would you like to see them?

Oh my God.

Like Jared Kushner has: when you get that ballot, I'm the face you want to punch.

Don Jr.

and Eric have: the douche doesn't fall far from the bag.

Melania, 2024, the news is fake, but the tits are real.

Eric Trump, Great America Make Again.

Jared Kushner, Jewish, but not the weird kind to wear fur hats in the summer.

Baron Trump, 2052, don't change direction.

Now we're so close to building that wall.

All right, she's a staff editor and writer for the New York Times op-ed section and author of the new book, How to Fight Anti-Semitism.

Barry Weist is back with us.

Barry Weiss.

Hello.

How are you?

It's great to see you.

Oh, you got your cards.

You're all ready to go.

Getting nervous, Bill.

I know.

Well, let's talk about your book.

You must know your book pretty well.

You just wrote it.

Yeah.

Well, I thought, yeah, of course it is very serious, but I thought the interesting, many interesting parts of it, but

something I would like to hear you talk about is the fact that anti-Semitism

is more than just about the Jews.

It's about the health of a society that for

pretty much all through human history,

certainly as long as the Jews have been around, whenever a society becomes anti-Semitic, it's an indication about something wrong in their body politic.

That's interesting to me.

That's exactly right.

I wrote this book not just because my synagogue in Pittsburgh was the one that was shot up in October 27, 2018, but because the more I researched this topic and looked at Jewish history and really all of history, I found that societies where anti-Semitism thrives are societies that are dead or dying.

Why is that?

It's because anti-Semitism is the ultimate conspiracy.

And when anti-Semitism thrives,

it's a sign that that society has replaced truth with lies.

And so anti-Semitism is a kind of, one way to think about it is that it's a thought virus that's carried forward in civilization.

And just like any of us have lots of viruses in our body at a given time, as long as we're healthy, they don't show themselves.

When a society begins to become unhealthy and tearing itself apart, as we see here and throughout Europe, anti-Semitism begins to show its face.

But why the Jews?

Why do they have the kick-me sign on their back?

Well, I mean, I'd have to go back to the book of Matthew and even before that to Egypt in 300 BCE.

I mean, there's so many different peoples in the world.

Sure.

I mean,

a lot of them have gotten shit from a lot of people.

But it just seems the Jews are always on the move.

Yeah, we are.

We are.

And I think here's one reason for it.

So.

When the Jews rejected Jesus as the Son of God.

Oh, that thing.

Okay, that thing.

That's right.

I knew that was something I had forgotten at that.

No, no, no, no, no, little detail.

Always comes back to him and his bad little details.

Just think about it for one second.

So if you look at the

idea that the Jews get the most power, the tiny Jews get the most powerful empire in the world, the Roman Empire, to do their bidding by killing Jesus.

And if you look at the anti-Semitic tropes that we see now, what is the Jew?

The Jew is not, it's not like racism where the person of color is subhuman and

the racist is punching down.

In the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, the Jew is the wily manipulator, the puppeteer, the person close to power that gets power to do its bidding.

And in a way, it all goes back to that original conspiracy.

Well, I am no expert on Judaism, although I try never to pay retail.

You're going to get in trouble for that, I think.

Oh, like I can't give us a fuck.

Oh, like this week will be different.

But

you also make the point that they're kind of getting it.

The Jews are from both sides.

I mean, it was always the right, the fascists.

They always had a thing out for the Jews.

But, you know, in the last 20, 30 years, it's also been the left.

And, I mean, you talk about how being anti-Semitic now is survivable

in American politics.

Well, it's certainly

survivable in European politics.

I mean just look at the Labor Party which is run by an anti-Semite, Jeremy Corbyn, who's transformed one of the most important political parties in his industry.

One Jew.

Isn't that great?

One Jew.

But look what's happening.

I mean my fear is that that sort of thing could be happening in the Democratic Party.

And I see that in you know, the squad that you and Michael were talking about before, where unfortunately, some members of the squad support the BDS movement against Israel, which seeks nothing less than the elimination of any Jewish state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

I mean, I'm sure people are going to say, hey, you're all talking about this when just

this week, B.B.

Netanyahu was talking about annexing parts of the West Bank, which I'm not sure if I think that's a great idea.

But, you know, they have had 70 years to do something, to come up with a peace deal.

If there wasn't this

incessant hostility,

yes, it's a terrible situation.

Both sides have a claim to the land.

The Jews 70 years ago were like, let's share it.

Right.

They were like, no, we want to kill all of you.

So when you demand all and you don't get it, make a deal.

Make a deal.

But also the left.

But also the left is insisting because it benefits their worldview, the far left, on conflating what I think of as BBism with Zionism.

These are two very distinctive things.

I am a huge critic of the current prime minister of the state of Israel.

I believe that just as the Jews have a claim to the land, so too do the Palestinians.

And if Israel wants to be a democratic liberal state, there needs to be two states.

But the idea, it's like, but those people are trying to say that just because Bibi's prime minister, that somehow Israel doesn't have a right to exist.

You would never make that argument that just because we have a terrible president right now, we should dismantle America.

Let's not forget that, first of all,

97% of the West Bank was on the table in the 90s in the Oslo Accords.

They did not take that deal.

Also, the West Bank was was controlled by Jordan for 19 years.

Where was the Palestinian state then?

These are things you don't hear in the American media.

Okay, let me ask you, ah, now we have five Jews.

So let me ask you about this.

You read something interesting about how we used to be afraid, and this is very personal to me because the anniversary of 9-11, I always think about the tragic events of 9-17 when I.

Oh, God.

What?

That was the six days after

when I went on.

Yeah, and I got fired after that.

And, you know, I got canceled because

before it was a thing.

And

when it happened literally in TV.

And it was because the sponsors pulled up.

And you say now it's not really the advertisers, it's the readers.

It is.

Because of social media.

I believe that if all of the journalists who work for the New York Times and frankly every other paper in this country.

It's your paper.

Yep.

Got off Twitter for six months, we would see a wildly different and improved way of covering the news.

And the reason for that is that Twitter, and by the way, it's not just journalists, it's politicians.

I was talking to

the chief of staff of a popular congresswoman, and he was talking about how all of the staffs of all of these politicians literally just look at Twitter, look at the reaction, and then calibrate what the politician's going to say based on that immediate response.

And the same thing, I think, is happening in journalism, which is that we're looking to what enrages readers.

And frankly, if you're a normal human being, you don't want to step into a minefield.

I mean, with exceptions.

We all have.

But yeah, I mean, but that is the problem, is that because we have just this immediate reader response, I fear that it's sort of corrupting the world.

Frankly, the answer is that people should be able to step into the minefield.

Of course.

Fearlessly.

Because unless we stand up to Twitter and that mob, nothing is going to change.

And Trump is going to get re-elected because he makes Twitter his bitch.

And Twitter makes Democrats their bitch.

But yeah, I think that the point, though, that was just made about how

the political class now revolves around the Twitterverse and the social media response, the immediate gratification or dissatisfaction.

It's such a small representation.

It is a very small representation, but it's a matter of,

it's what

Casia-Cortez said at one point to the speaker.

She's, you know, I've four million followers.

And the speaker's response was, but you only have four votes.

And so that reality is the new paradox for a lot of the political leaders.

AOC.

AOC.

Exactly.

I mean, I'm here.

Exactly.

I love that personally.

Green New Deal, she put that on the map.

I mean, the whole reason that we're having that conversation is because of a freshman member of Congress.

I do want to say, Barry, I want to commend you on your book, congratulations.

I appreciate that you raised this issue of anti-Semitism and how it has gotten to a level that I don't think anyone our age would have imagined, right?

My son had to stay on a preschool because there were bomb threats, there was graffiti on the walls, et cetera.

But what concerns me is this whole conversation focused on some comments that were off-color from a few freshman members of Congress.

When we have an entire alt-right, online, violent- Pristo, my synagogue?

My synagogue?

Hold on, hold on.

Why do we always have to have a competition?

Hold on, on, Jesus.

Aren't they both bad?

You don't take white supremacy seriously?

Of course you do,

but you make this an equivalent thing.

I don't see how you can.

I don't.

I think there are two very different kinds of anti-Semitism, and maybe let me make them really clear to you.

They're very clear in my book.

One announces itself bluntly.

It's the guy that walks into the synagogue, as he did in Pittsburgh, where I was bat mitzvah, and said, all Jews must die.

There is consensus in this room and in this country about that kind of anti-Semitism.

Right.

Everyone knows that that's evil.

The difference on the left is that it smuggles itself into the mainstream in language that is a siren song to progressive ears, the language of anti-racism, the language of social justice.

That is what happened in the Labor Party.

And while it may not be as physically violent, if someone's going to walk in here and kill us, they're going to be a white supremacist.

Hold on.

Hold on.

If someone's going to come in here and kill us, they're going to be a white supremacist.

100%.

There's not a question about that.

But I am here to sound the alarm on something that could be coming.

But also, I'm here to...

My job is to tell people.

Not necessarily just a white supremacist.

No, no, no.

But this is germane, because since 9-11, I just read this,

since September 11, 2001, almost the exact same number of people, I think 104 to 105, have been killed by Islamic jihadists or white supremacists.

Now, if you start the count on September 10th, 2001, it's a very different count.

I'm just saying.

I guess I do.

There's bad on both sides.

We don't have to competition over which is worse.

They're both bad.

Let's hate them and fight them both.

I don't know what this fight is about.

But here's something.

But I do want to say, though, but they're very different kinds of angels.

I don't think that everyone who's in Palestine is an angel.

I don't think everyone associated with the BDS movement is an angel.

But I think you're right to say that there is a danger in the conversation that's going on in the left now because for the first time, there is a real focus on the human rights of the Palestinians and the unacceptable apartheid state that exists now, which is not the same as the people.

Yes, but

what we don't hear is...

It is a danger for the status quo because this is the first time it could be acceptable to challenge that.

The BDS movement is not about human rights for Palestinians.

I support human rights for Palestinians.

You know how I support human rights for Palestinians?

By also caring about the half a million Palestinians living in Lebanon, confined to 12 refugee camps where they are denied work in something like a dozen fields.

No one talks about that.

Sometimes it's only when Israelis are in the mix that we care.

There are a million Uyghurs

in China.

Muslims in concentration.

Somehow, the left claims to care so much about Palestinian lives.

And Muslim lives don't talk about them.

We do talk about the Uyghurs.

And I know Shida Talib in particular has been critical of the Saudis as well, our great friends, the Saudis.

So there has been a consistency there.

But the human rights piece is real, and Israel is supposed to be our great democratic ally.

First of all, a lot of the audience

are saying, who the fuck are the Uyghurs?

Yes, but we only have a couple of minutes left, and I used up all the time.

I just wanted to say, 18 years since 9-11, I think we should say a thanks.

And I never do this kind of shit.

You know me.

I am not an ass kisser, but it's not about that.

It's real.

CIA, FBI, local police.

You know, a lot of people did a lot of work.

A lot of shit could have happened.

And they're under siege now from you know who.

So

what if it happens again?

Does Elizabeth Warren Warren have a plan for that?

I mean, you know, they always have that saying,

like in Afghanistan,

talking about the American soldiers, you have the watches, we have the time.

18 years is a blip of time to jihadis.

So the fact that it hasn't happened doesn't mean it's not going to happen again.

What if it happened between now and the election?

Are the Democrats planning for that?

What is their response?

No, I don't think they are.

I think they're flat-footed.

We see that in their reaction to impeachment.

What should have been a slam-dunk case after the Mueller report was turned over?

You see them not really having a cohesive message.

And I'm afraid, for the same set of circumstances, they're not governing in any way in the Congress as if they had the majority.

And I think that sort of martial law scenario that you described is a plausibility.

And with this president, who has shown he's willing to do anything, earlier this week, what did he say?

You've been saying it all along.

He joked about it, but he wasn't joking.

I'm not going anywhere.

You're not going.

He said it.

You got to believe it.

Right.

No, well,

that's already laying itself out there for sure.

I mean, there are a lot of people around town kind of joke about it,

but they know

that there's a level of seriousness about it.

But I think to your point about the 9-11 experience in this country,

despite Trump, and I agree that there's been a lot of breakdown with our intelligence community, they are doing an incredible job.

The stuff that they stopped, Bill, the stuff that has not occurred,

we don't hear about it despite Trump, in spite of Trump, and the frustrations that a lot of those civil servants have to do their job right now.

They still get it done and thank God for them.

Okay.

Thank you, panel.

It's time for New Roll.

Amen.

Neural, stop telling me that my choice for a new security password I'm creating is weak.

I'm doing the best I can.

I don't need attitude from you.

Besides, this isn't even my account.

New rule, instead of warning people that kissing a chicken might put you at risk for contracting salmonella, the CDC must mind its own goddamn business.

The life of a rural farmer is unfulfilling enough without you throwing a wet blanket on the foreplay.

New rule, Ashura, the Shiite Muslim holy day where pilgrims flagellate and cut themselves with swords, must be sponsored by Neosporan.

That's right, pilgrims, Neosporin.

And when your Imam says, but you don't have a festering wound, you can say, exactly.

Nurul, the Florida teenager who used her parents' ATM card to get money to hire someone to kill her parents, should be ashamed of herself.

She had all summer to get a job and use her own money to hire a hitman, but no, she expects everything to be done for her.

If I were her parents, I would be furious.

New rule, you don't need to write, I love coffee on a coffee mug.

We get that from the mug itself

because you filled it with coffee.

It's like writing, I have a small dick on your Ferrari.

And finally, new rules, someone has to tell me, when did America decide to redesign its entire economy based on everyone rating everyone else?

Every interaction doesn't have to be followed by a survey.

Let's bring back, I give you money, you give me light bulbs, and we both go on with our lives.

Enough with the was it good for you too?

Look, I just want to fuck.

I don't want to talk about your good qualities and where you can improve because you're not my girlfriend.

You're rotor rooter.

Snake my drain and move on.

Amazon doesn't need to do a follow-up on every purchase.

How did you like that shower curtain?

Great, it blew my mind.

Or when they ask, would you be willing to share your experience?

Yes, let me get right on that.

I was going to screw the wife after dinner, but let me sit down and type out a 300-word story about how much I liked your fucking cookie.

How many times when you're on hold have they asked you to stay on the line after the call to answer a survey?

Why would I want to stay on the line after the call when I can't get someone on the line during it?

How would you rate your customer satisfaction?

Oh, definitely a four.

As in, for fuck's sake, leave me alone.

When did American business get so insecure?

I was even asked recently to rate my experience in the airport bathroom,

which was poor.

I did not meet a single Republican congressman.

Look, come on, it's an airport bathroom.

What do you want me to say?

Of all the urinal cakes I've ever pissed on.

LaGuardias are the finest.

Why does Denny's need to be on Yelp?

There's already a way to tell if Denny's sucks.

There's a sign out front that says Denny's.

Does everything have to be reviewed?

People review salt.

Kat says, five stars.

I use daily with some food.

How about this?

If you didn't like the way a company conducted its business, stop using it.

This seemed to work for the first million years of commerce.

The practice of rewarding a company with repeat business or going somewhere else.

And if enough customers did that, it would shut down and become a Halloween store.

People's jobs shouldn't depend on some rando judging them.

And I don't want to nark on hardworking people and shitty jobs.

Millennials might be into that because they love to judge.

But count me out.

If the waiter forgets my salad, I get over it.

And I'll whip out my phone.

Bitch, you're going down.

And stop rating me.

I don't want to have to be on all the time.

When I get into an Uber, I just want to chill out and enjoy the Armenian disco music.

I would give 10 stars for just one honest uber ride.

Hi, I'm your Uber, Dan.

I hate my life.

I'm your ride, Bill.

I'm hungover, so shut the fuck up.

It's not a good mental space to be in, to constantly be asked to rate each other.

We're supposed to be the freedom people.

We're always being watched and tracked and rated.

We're on camera at traffic lights and ringing doorbells at the ATM.

We're being watched at gas stations and in elevators and parking lots.

Married people complain they can't cheat anymore because cell phones and cars are now tracking devices.

It's impossible to have an affair because Siri can't keep her fucking mouth shut.

I don't want to become China where they have a social credit system where you get brownie points or demerits for your behavior as it is observed by cameras and by your fellow citizens, almost like a financial credit score, except it's on you, a human being, who sometimes has a bad day, but you can't ever have one now.

Let's not go there.

Which is why I have created a new site called Rottener Tomatoes,

where you can review the reviews of other reviewers.

I came up with that when I was stoned, and I'm going to give that weed a nice review.

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at the Smart Financial Center in Sugar Land, Texas, September 21st at the Civic Center Musical in Oklahoma City, September 22nd.

I want to thank Fernandez Namandi, Crystal Ball, Michael Steele, Barry Weiss, and Michael Moore.

Stay tuned for overtime on YouTube.

Thank you.

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

For more information, log on to HBO.com.