Overtime - Episode #500: Allan Lichtman, Dr. Debra Soh, Thom Hartmann, Liz Mair, Dan Savage

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, Real Time with Bill Maher. Okay, we're back here.

Okay, Liz, do you worry deep fake videos will influence future elections and what should we do about it? Tell them first what a deep fake video is. I think there was one recently about...

Yeah, Nancy Pelosi is probably the example that most people are going to be familiar with.

Somebody obviously did this video that sort of slowed things down and made her look totally shit-faced, which is an interesting look on the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

But it's any video where, I mean, you can use it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And

somebody did one with Mark Zuckerberg, too, which was, I think, seemed a little more plausible to some people, disturbingly.

Yeah, this is a very tricky question. This is the second interview I've done in a week where I've been asked this, and I don't have great answers.

I hate to always be the person who has to say everybody's least favorite thing, which is, I have no fucking idea, but to some degree, I have no fucking idea on this.

I think if you are Nancy Pelosi and you're somebody who has that stature, I think the way that she handled it in rebutting it and ensuring that people knew that it was fake was pretty effective.

But, you know, to pick on my least favorite presidential candidate again for the second time in a night, if you're Bill de Blasio and basically nobody knows who the fuck you are, I mean, somebody could do anything.

The only thing about Bill de Blasio is that possibly the deep fake video would actually be like more appealing than Bill de Blasio. So he might actually think that's like a good problem to have.

He fucking murders groundhogs and he eats pizza.

Oh, whatever, whatever. He's been a really good mayor of New York City, which has never been a springboard to national office.
Let's stop shitting on Bill de Blasio.

Because he's a powerful kind of Democrat in the lefty. He's a good one.
He's a groundhog murdering pizza eater with a knife and fork who supports the fucking Boston Red Sox in New York City.

What does anything? What did that have to do with fucking anything?

What did he do to a groundhog? He dropped a groundhog at a Groundhog Day thing and then it later died as Groundhogs never do unless you drop them.

He's a groundhog. I mean, but he didn't do it on purpose.
No. That's what Dan says.

He aborted a Groundhog. That's what Dan says.
And he's done a lot of things in New York that are moving New York in directions that the rest of the country really does.

Preschool lunches, universal pre-K in New York. He's done a lot of really deep energy programs.

Absolutely.

He's absolutely better. You're right about Oprah.
She's way better.

Way better.

Yeah,

I think we can all agree with that. But you have Reagan and Trump, who are both TV stars, who are not a president.
Correct. Well, and actually,

but actually go further back than that. That's the point I like to make here, that

think about other options here, right? JFK, I mean, you look at what happened with JFK's military service.

That easily could have been spun into a tale of, wow, he actually fucked up pretty badly, but instead a movie was made depicting him as a hero.

That made it a lot easier for him to springboard himself to the Democratic nomination and then to the presidency. I love John McCain, worked for John McCain.

Don't want to say John McCain got the nomination because he was a celebrity, but dude, like some of the things that we see

about John McCain. Go back to Teddy Roosevelt.
Remember the rough round in Cuba?

He wrote a book about it, which critics said was alone in Cuba. That's the way he portrayed himself as the great hero.

Okay.

Deborah, what do you think about tech companies like YouTube starting to ban extremist views?

So I'm torn on this because obviously I don't think hateful content is a good thing.

It makes me uncomfortable to think that people are going on there and becoming radicalized.

At the same time, I don't think censorship is a good solution because I think it only adds to the polarization, it adds to the frustration. And it's not just YouTube that is guilty of this.

I mean, the social media platforms across the board are doing this.

But part of the problem with that are the algorithms and social media companies that feed someone who finds their way to an extremist video a steady diet of more and more extreme videos.

The New York Times had a great cover story on it a week ago, Sunday, about the radicalization of this white kid in the basement because he started watching YouTube videos and was just fed a steady diet of like further and further right YouTube videos

by the algorithm at YouTube that just like fed that to him. Yeah, and it's happening to kids in a big way.
I know, but is the answer censorship? I think it's better.

We wouldn't need to censor the source of those videos if the algorithms weren't promoting them so effectively.

Tom, does New York's plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2050?

Oh, that's Bill de Blasio's. Yes, there you go.

It's going to do it by killing all the groundhogs.

It's Groundhog Farts, David. I was going to say, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was so wrong with the cow farts.
It's the fucking groundhog film. Yeah, there we go.
All right.

Anyway, New York has a plan, I read this too, a plan to cut greenhouse emissions by 2050. 2050, this fucking country can't do anything.
2050,

we will be here in 2050. We can kids from climate change.
Of course we will.

We got 10 years to figure this out and get down to. They said that in 2003.
10 years? Yeah, that's what did NASA dude. What's his name? James

Hansen said that in 2003.

I'm talking about an international body of scientists said, you know, within 10 years, we've got to make these changes.

I've been hearing that 10-year thing for a long time. That 10-year clock is picked up.
Well, also, Dennis Quaid told us what was up with

you. Seriously, day after tomorrow.
Did nobody else watch that? I mean, dude.

Should have watched it. People should have been paying attention.
That's right. Took out the Capitol Records Building in L.A.
People that... Right.
Well, you know what?

I know you're being facetious, but everything that happens in movies first then happens.

I'm not 100% being facetious.

One of my worries about climate change, as a Republican who actually does believe in it, is I think it's wonderful that we're going to have lots of discussions about shifting towards a carbon-free future.

I think we might have already fucked ourselves quite some time ago. So I don't even know.

I feel like we may be in a space where it's adapt or die time. Well, right now, Republicans have fled Oregon to prevent the Oregon state legislature from acting on climate change.

Republicans are the worst actors in this field. Yeah, they have walked out.
Adapt.

Well, I think, Dan, though, is somebody who lives in Seattle, can we just, can we have a little private agreement here? The people from Oregon are just like naturally. Hey, I live in Oregon.

It's like, don't dis Oregon. Come on.
I like Oregon. And the reality is that there

are a lot of people. Republicans are trying to deny a quorum.
They're shutting down the legislative process because they disagree with it. You know what? There's snowflakes.

In 2009, there was a businessman's letter written to Donald Trump which said the science is irrefutable.

Unless we take immediate action on climate change, the consequences are going to be catastrophic. You know who signed that bill? Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump.
2009.

What changed? Not the science. Climate change is even more here, but Donald Trump suddenly realizing, hey, if I'm going to make it in Republican politics, I have to switch to be a denier.

It's all bogus on his part. Wow.
I'm starting not to like him.

I like Oakland.

Dan, what do you think will come of Roy Moore's 2020 Senate run? Roy Moore is running again.

I think he's likely to get the nomination because the Republican base is odious and hateful, and he's then going to lose the election again. But isn't Jeff Sessions going to run against him there?

Well, no, I don't don't think so.

Actually, there's another guy, and I'm blanking on what his name is, but Eric Erickson has endorsed him over Roy Moore, and there are people like that who are trying to push him.

That guy maybe could be a contender. But based on all...
The guy whose name you can't remember how he did.

Well, I don't vote in Alan, to be fair. Did he ever drop a rodent? Do you know that about him? No, but

I do know that Roy Moore rides his horse in an evasive fashion. So just to tie in the animal rights connection.

Now, all the polling that I have seen also does indicate that, yeah, Alabama Republicans are down with doing this a second time. And let's just go ahead and do it.

I've done it to the state Supreme Court over and over and over again. They loved this alleged child rapist.
Who is also a horse abuser? I just want to be clear about that. He's a fucking horse abuser.

I want to say a big thank you to HBO and all the brilliant people who always cover for the snarky host. I appreciate it all.
500 shows. I can't believe it.
I'm only 35. Thank you very much, everybody.

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