Overtime - Episode #503: Terry McAuliffe, Richard Engel, Tom Nichols, Catherine Rampell, Anthony Scaramucci

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

Guess everybody did good.

All right, here are the questions from the people in their underwear.

Anthony, which Democratic presidential candidate should Trump fear the most?

So I'm probably a little different from Governor McCall if I would be going younger with somebody like Senator Harris or Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

And I think that that contrast, okay, and the thing I tried to say last time we were on the show, go out there and speak to the people that Trump won last time.

Don't call them deplorable or white nationalists.

Go out there and understand

what's wrong with their economic situation.

And boy, let me tell you something, that would be very powerful.

If the Democrats, in my opinion, always do better when they go with somebody below the age of 50.

Barack Obama, John Kennedy, Bill Clinton back in the 90s.

That would be me.

Go for somebody younger.

Catherine, what's your reaction to Betto saying what the fuck to the press in regards to their coverage of Trump's racism?

I think that was a perfectly valid response, frankly.

I mean, like I said,

I think that was in response to the question, do you think Trump is a white supremacist or a white nationalist or something like that?

And Betto said, like, yes, obviously.

And it's not just because of stuff he said this week, and it's not just because he refused to rent to black tenants in the 70s.

There was also him saying that the Central Park V should be executed and still refusing to back down from that birtherism, you know, Muslim ban, all that other stuff.

Okay.

Long history of that.

Richard Engel, why is Trump harsh on China, except when it comes to the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong?

Have you been there lately?

That's pretty nasty, I think.

It's very troubling.

I think it doesn't bother him.

He's made it quite clear that human rights groups

and protesters when they come out on the streets, that's not a priority for him.

And I think he respects people who have power and use power.

And the reason I'm worried about what's going on in Hong Kong, there is a very high cost to failure.

So these people have come out on the streets.

If they don't succeed, and don't succeed in establishing the rights and the laws that they're pushing for, they could pay a very, very high price.

Like a Tiananmen Square.

Like a Tiananmen Square.

Well, Trump praised the Chinese response to Tiananmen Square, as you may recall.

He's not hard to get on your side if you just say he's quite handsome.

Governor Terry, as someone who turned to Red State Blue, do you think Democrats have a real shot at Texas in 2020?

Yes, I do.

I think.

That would be the whole ballgame, right?

Well, if you look at the polls today, I mean, listen, the big issue is who has the best chance of defeating Trump.

Right now, it's Biden right now in the polling date.

It can change.

We got six months to go before the primary start.

But today, Biden polled in Ohio.

He beats Trump by eight points in Ohio.

He wins Georgia.

He wins North Carolina.

And he wins Texas today against Donald Trump.

So we've got a great opportunity.

That's a long time from an election.

It's got a long time.

But, you know, Trump's going to continue to do the insanity that he does every single day.

He can't get over 42 percent.

He's alienated most of America.

He's got his base.

And I'm just shocked he's coming coming out and doing all these things against Elijah Cummings, the squad.

I guess he figures there are all these neo-Nazis and white supremacists under rocks that weren't motivated in 2016, and they're going to come out in 2020.

He has alienated non-college-educated white women.

They walk from him.

We have a huge opportunity now in the West.

I think you just did what Hillary did last time when she said deplorable.

It sounded, to some people, like you called all his people.

Everyone who voted for him Nazis under rocks.

I'm just saying.

That's a big block of ours.

But that is not what it sounded like you were saying.

The neo-Nazis are bad.

I know, but every person who voted for Trump is not a neo-Nazi under a rock, right?

No, but

why is he doing this?

He's trying to spur a new base for him?

No, no.

I mean, who's he talking to when he attacks Elijah Cummings?

He's called Baltimore rat-in-fested.

Go home with your own country.

Get it.

These women were born in this country.

Trump, bad.

You good.

Send him home.

You see why I only watched Brian Williams?

Okay, Tom, your book is called The Death of Expertise.

What is the solution?

Wow.

Yeah, in 30 seconds, Tom.

I think the problem is people, the problem with the death of expertise is that it, again, it's rooted in narcissism.

It's not that people need more education.

You mean not just his, everybody.

No, everybody.

Right.

We're a narcissist.

He's not the only narcissist in this country.

That is true.

Everyone does it to each other.

People will walk up to you and say, oh, you're a stand-up comedian?

I have some thoughts on timing.

Right.

No, it's true.

Right?

Yeah.

You know, oh, you're governor?

Here's what you should do about the budget.

People do that because it feels empowering and it makes them feel important.

And I think we're just going to have to wait for that bubble to burst where we have to start listening to each other because we're heading for disaster.

And I think it could be that recession or a war.

The three things I worry about are pandemic, a recession, or a war.

And any one of those things, people are going to start listening to doctors, economists, and generals again.

Except to play devil's advocate, we had a great recession.

And what happened?

People stopped trusting economists, right?

There are a lot of economists who don't focus on financial markets, but

who in fact said that were quite worried about

people stopped trusting economists.

I think they stopped trusting capitalists.

Yes.

Bankers.

There was a whole documentary about it.

Well, maybe.

I don't know if people ever had an idea in their mind about economists one way or the other to begin with.

Right, they don't know.

Maybe the people you hang out with.

But I'm talking about the regular rank and file.

I think they blamed banksters.

But I think there was

a lot of blowback against expertise, economic expertise, and particularly.

Well, because they say the bankers were experts and they told me I could afford it.

No, the banker is an expert the same way that a Lexis salesman is a Lexis expert who says, you can afford this car.

Right.

That's different than an economist saying, you know, running up your household debt to massive levels on a house, you know, that you shouldn't have bought in the first place is a bad idea.

And they say, well, those guys don't know what it is.

But there was a lot of pushback against the Fed for example.

And the Fed made mistakes, but the Fed also bailed our asses out.

The experts let us down.

It did.

Yes.

Yeah, and I think Tom points that out in his book.

His book is great.

But what happened was the experts, the establishment politicians.

Not all experts.

Some economists said we're going off a cliff and we're inflating the bubble.

The collective society of experts, again, lower middle class people, middle class people feel that the establishment politicians abandoned them.

And that's why you've had this.

But politicians and experts are not the same people.

And this is the other problem.

I was a senior advisor to a senior politician.

That is why they feel that way, though.

I was a senior advisor to a U.S.

senator.

Sometimes he took my advice.

Sometimes he threw me out of his office.

The idea that while the elites, I mean, look,

me and the senator, I was the expert.

He was the elite.

He got to vote.

I was just the guy who came.

I mean, you have people who advise you all day, Governor, right?

You know, in the end, it's your decision.

Who was this senator you're talking about?

The late John Hines of Pennsylvania.

Oh, okay.

Good man.

The ketchup guy.

The ketchup guy, the ketchup parent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, look,

Trump ran on draining the the swamp, which I think to most people meant get rid of the

palm-greasing executives and the lobbyists and the corrupt officials and all of those other people who were getting rich off of government.

And instead, what it has turned out to mean is let's pardon Rod Lagojevich and purge all of the scientists, which is exactly what Trump either has said he's considered doing or is actually doing.

That piece you guys had today

about purging the experts, that is a huge issue that's going on right now in the federal government.

Basically, the Republicans have decided that anybody who knows stuff has to leave.

Yes.

Yes, that's exactly what's happening.

Well, we hope they'll come here and join our panel.

Thank you very much, everybody.

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