Overtime - Episode #496: Fran Lebowitz, Jonathan Metzl, James Kirchick, George Packer, and Neera Tanden

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, real time with Bill Ma.

All right, we're here on the internet, so we're going to read some cards from the people.

But first, what happened?

You said something and they're mad at you.

I know this feeling.

What the thing you said about the Saudis?

You were making a joke and it went too far.

We're sorry.

Is that where we're at?

That's what the producer said.

He said we're getting blowback on Twitter or something.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, I mean,

I saw your your face when I said it.

I didn't even realize that I said it.

I had 12 cups of coffee.

I regret saying it.

Okay, there you go.

I mean, you know, it's like everyone's too.

Everyone's too, too, too, too.

You know?

I mean, it's a live show.

You don't really want to see the president

dismembered by the Saudis.

No, I don't.

You know, I don't like Donald Trump either, but yes, I had Kathy Griffin on, and I said, no, I don't.

Jail is fine.

Yes, I said we should forgive Kathy Griffin, but I don't endorse what she said either or did.

You know, it was not the right thing.

And no matter who the president is.

I'm not a good person.

Right.

Okay, but

no matter who the president is, we do not want physical harm.

Exactly.

I did not mean that.

And you do.

And I regret saying it.

Right.

And I regret that everyone misinterpreted it.

Yes.

They misinterpret everything.

Right.

Why should they stop with me?

I really think you should be on Twitter.

Then you should be on Twitter.

I'm very happy I'm not on Twitter.

This is.

I never said the Beatles were greater than God or they were better than him as a thing or whatever it is, and now it's all this.

Okay.

James Kirchik, do you think the way Mayor Pete speaks about religion, God, and morality, will have any on the religious right rethinking their support of Trump?

No.

I think it's incredible that the first real serious gay presidential candidate has this totally bourgeois domestic life, happily married,

very kind of, you know, normal, if we can use that term, and is a religious guy who quotes scripture.

And he's running against a heterosexual president who's who's been married three times, is a pagan,

is

pagan.

Yeah,

you don't hear, that's worse than what you said.

Yeah,

you don't hear that word very often.

Give me a favor.

But now he's a heathen.

I don't know about a pagan.

Yeah.

He means a druid or something like that?

No, he worships money.

He worships idols.

He worships himself.

I think it was a new word for having sex with a porn star.

No, that's the name of a porn star.

Yeah.

But Trump is the one that the evangelical Christians support in spite of all that.

And here you have this guy who's, you know, he's gay, and that's his fault, I guess, right?

It's like everything else, he's totally by the book.

But see, I think this goes back to the debate about abortion.

I think that what's happening with evangelical right is they have an attitude towards women,

the issues about women's empowerment.

They have an attitude about

racism and other issues.

And his strongest group of support in the country is evangelicals.

How do you explain that?

Abortion.

Other

abortion.

That's a long game.

He's delivering it.

It's exactly.

And he's delivering on being anti-choice.

That is the bargain they make.

It's not about religion.

It's about keeping women and other people gay.

This connects to Saudi Arabia and Iran, where theocracy

is...

Theocracy turns religion into power.

And that is the, this aspect of the Republican Party is a theocratic party that would enshrine religion as a power that would take away rights from individuals.

I mean in other words people who don't have health care or the farmers who are getting screwed by the tariffs but it's a bigger noble cause right in that in that way and so there's also you know you're part of this grand this grand narrative.

But the really corrupting thing is power becomes their end.

Yeah.

I mean

not you know you get the feeling when they start rewriting the rules after a Democrat wins the governorship of Wisconsin that the norms are all gone because power is the end.

And so it justifies anything.

And you don't feel that there's a higher morality that they're in pursuit of when they're passing this abortion law.

It is a power move that's saying we control the legislature, so we will control you.

And it's Fran, what are your thoughts on the New York Times story about Trump losing over a billion dollars in one decade?

I think he was the biggest loser, they said, of all the taxpayers in that 10 years.

It's amazing.

At least one or two every year.

Mr.

Brilliant Businessman.

What did you think of that?

You mean, am I surprised?

Did you hear that?

No, but.

I surprised you.

I mean, no one, Trump lost New York City, New York City, nine to one.

Right.

Nine to one.

Because it's the place where people most knew him.

Okay?

And that is why.

And so, you know,

no one in New York even thought he was a realist.

I mean, any Republican to lose it.

Not nine to one.

Not nine to one, yes.

I mean, the Upper East Side, which tradition often votes for Republicans for, you know,

the presidency because they don't want to pay taxes or they want to to pay even less than no taxes, vote for Hillary Clinton, okay?

Because no one in New York, no one who can make enough money to afford to live in New York City and pay the taxes there is stupid enough to vote for Donald Clinton.

It's like Bill de Blasio.

Bill de Blasio

running for president.

76% of New Yorkers don't want him to run.

Of his own constituents don't want him to run.

76%.

Anything that gets him out of New York.

We had Bill on.

I like Bill.

What goes through a guy's mind when there's 22 people in the race?

I think Bill de Blasio is literally thinking there's a mayor of South Bend, Indiana who's doing really well, and I represent a place that is like 20 times, 300 times as large and have to make bigger decisions.

I think the size of the crowd is actually making more and more people.

It seems like there's seven or eight potential realistic presidential candidates.

There's maybe 15 who are running to get a TV show or a radio show or a book deal.

And then there's Beto O'Rourke, who's like having a midlife crisis and inflicting it upon all of us.

That's not fair.

And it's playing out on live television every day across the country.

Why do you say that?

That's interesting that you.

Betto?

I'm just asking why you put it on the bank.

I mean, he just reminds me of these guys I went to school with who like smoked a lot of dope and pretended to do the reading.

Okay, and

they apologized for that.

Nothing against those guys.

They were some of my closest friends, but they shouldn't be running for president.

Here's the thing.

I like Betto too, but I did tear him a new asshole for all the apologizing.

Yeah, it's silly.

It's silly.

You know, if you keep saying sorry, you look like a sorry candidate.

Okay, the one thing I'd say is if you're actually thinking about what Democrats have to do, the fact that Texas was a two and a half point race is an important issue.

So whatever Democrat, whoever the campaign is.

He ran against Ted Cruz.

No, Ted Cruz actually.

He's the most unlikable man in America.

Ted Cruz has a higher support in Texas than John Cornyn does right now.

Conservatives like him.

We don't understand it, but they like him.

And I actually think if you're thinking about these things,

having a candidate in Texas who does well, having a lot of candidates who, a Latino candidate, maybe brings more Latinos into the primary.

Getting more and more people interested in the primary is actually a good thing.

There's also a guy who should be in the race, but isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, but Sherrod Brown.

Yeah, I think Sherrod Brown.

Sherrod Brown.

The senator from Ohio.

Yes, I know who he is.

Why?

What about him is so different than the other 23?

First of all, he's like, what am I getting from him that I don't care?

That's Amy Klobuchar.

He doesn't throw a stapler.

He won Ohio.

He's a liberal Democrat.

I like the title.

Who wins in Ohio?

Who speaks for the Spanish?

Who wins in Minnesota?

Ohio is a tougher state.

Ohio's tough.

Okay.

Yeah.

And he's a good guy.

He's interesting.

I wish he'd run.

Well, no, don't say that.

24, Bill.

24.

We are taking the sign-up sheet down.

Okay.

If you haven't signed up

for the soccer team yet, I'm sorry.

I'm surprised how Trump won the nomination.

By there being so many Republicans.

No, candidates split the vote up.

It's very different, though.

Democrats are very focused.

The one thing that is so far good about this primary

issue.

You never say a bad word about any Democrats.

I think it's very different from

the point.

It's very different from 2016.

Democrats actually don't want candidates ripping each other apart.

They actually are trying to, they are negative.

Give it time.

Joe Biden, the reason why he's doing well is because people want a safe candidate.

They don't want it.

He's saying we're not going to attack other Democrats.

Democrats who have tacked other candidates have actually come down on the polls.

That is a sign of a rational party that has identified Donald Trump as

Bernie.

Wouldn't you say that it's not a process of like, in other words, we're trying to figure out what our message is.

Last time we had one candidate in a certain way, and now we have these disparate messages.

And so if this process leads us to the- The Republicans had 16 in the middle of the moment.

No, I understand that.

I understand that.

And we had a lot of people running in 2008, and then we had a lot of money.

Frank was just saying, I think that's part of the problem.

When you have so many people running for the nomination, what they're concentrating on now is not how to win the election.

They're concentrating on how to separate themselves from these other people.

What is my lane?

What can I do to make myself stand out?

I mean, that's why Betto did his reboot.

That's why some of them suddenly take a stand, like, wow, I want to get every gun out of America because then I'll be that guy and I'll get the.

Really, it's going to be when people start dropping out of the race,

will people join forces or will people be...

I mean, it really depends how long people stand.

Will they join forces?

I think actually, as you said earlier, the Democrats are super focused on electability, which means actually trying to make an an argument about how you can win the general election, not just a business.

But they look like clowns.

When you have 20 people.

I mean, if you have a debate, they're going to have to have three nights.

First, they were going to have two nights.

Now it's Coachella.

We're like...

We have to go every night.

Why do they see Coachella?

They're going to be a little bit of a choice.

I know, but yes, because that's a music festival.

This is just...

But would you watch three nights of debates with nine people every night or something?

I'm really about this chasing electability because Democrats end up going for someone they think other people like, and it turns out nobody likes the person.

They should vote for the person they like, not the person who's supposedly going to win, because no one knows who's elected.

But I agree that it's a long process.

I agree that I think people demonstrate ability in that long process.

Fortune cookies for everybody.

Thank you very much, everybody.

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