Ep. #496: Fran Lebowitz, Jonathan Metzl

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

Start the clock.

I know you're excited

because there's now 23

I can't I even I can't

there's 23 people running for the Democratic nomination for president guys the me Me Too movement does not mean you're running me too.

23?

De Blasio and the Montana.

I can't.

Or maybe it's a clever scheme, probably clever scheme to win in 2020 because the Russians won't know who to hack.

It could be anybody.

But no, it's

it's actually the more people get in, it's better for the guy who's at the top, which is Joe Biden.

Biden is pulling away, which is ironic because usually he's too close and you're pulling away.

All right, kids, Joe, but it's kind of true.

But you know what?

I hope they get this right this time, right?

Because elections have consequences.

Oh, yes, and the consequences are now coming to a uterus near you.

Oh, that's right.

That's what this week was all about.

The long game for the Republicans coming to fruition now.

Fetus Endgame would be the movie.

We're seeing in red states, a lot of red states are having a contest with each other to see who can be more hardcore on abortion.

Georgia made it illegal after six weeks.

Women don't even know they're pregnant sometimes at six weeks.

Alabama made it illegal at conception.

Mississippi is thinking about making it illegal when you swipe right on Tinder.

Arkansas now says any woman not committing incest must start committing incest.

If you cannot afford an uncle, one will be provided for you.

That's ridiculous.

But no, Alabama's not fucking around.

They put the dick in Dixie, man.

Their law bans abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

How else are you supposed to get pregnant in Alabama?

Okay.

Gentle good humor.

That's what we do here.

Gentle good humor.

But I tell you, liberals are not taking any of this lying down.

They know how to fight back at the Republicans with a hashtag.

Really, they have a hashtag now, Boycott Alabama, which is great if you're a frequent purchaser of fried green tomatoes or meth.

Today I Googled companies, you know, based in Alabama, and the biggest one was Vulcan Materials, the largest producer of crushed stone.

That's right.

This is their high-tech sector,

breaking rocks into smaller rocks.

But I wanted up right there as a maiden, good guy, be part of the boycott.

So I ordered today a truckload of the crushed stone, and then I called back later and angrily canceled my order.

But,

you know,

it's infuriating because nobody, of course, anywhere wants an abortion, but not everybody has the money to have a child and raise one and bribe it into college.

And I tell you,

but you know, be careful what you wish for there, anti-abortionists, because you know, there's a lot of young women in these states.

Would you stay there in Alabama or any of these states that were doing this?

You know, you've heard of the brain drain.

There could be a womb drain.

Come out to California, ladies.

The weather is sunny, and it's 2019 here.

Don't worry about abortion in California.

You can get it done at the dry cleaners.

Go over to the abortion hut at the Beverly Center.

But

I'm telling you, these people criminalizing abortion could really backfire on them.

I hope it does at the ballot box.

This is the year of the woman.

They said that last time.

But we have all the slogans, me too, time's up.

The new one, all women should be believed.

No.

All women should be taken seriously.

That's different.

Women are human.

They didn't forget how to lie in 2017.

If you don't believe me, I have three words for you.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

But

as a public service now, I'm going to read the names of the states where the abortion laws have become ridiculous.

Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Arkansas, Utah.

Those are the ones with draconian abortion laws.

These are the don't break a condom here states.

And is it that not bad enough for the people who live there?

Because of Trump's trade war with China, Walmart today announced their prices are going up.

And a lot of stuff we get from China.

For example, China makes 72% of our shoes.

So you did it, Trumpland.

One historic week, and you're barefoot and pregnant.

All right, we've got a great show.

We're at Tandem.

George Tacker and James Kirchik are here.

And a little later, he's speaking with author and professor Jonathan Metzel.

But first, her books have been around for a while, but they are still the funniest ones you can ever buy.

She only speaks now, so I always consider myself lucky when she comes here to speak to us.

Fran Leibowitz, everybody.

There you are.

Socrates, how are you?

Great to see you.

Okay, so, friend, the first thing I want to ask you about, Trump, we don't want to talk about him the whole show, but you're the wisest person I know.

I deal with some of these...

You don't think I know wise people?

Come on.

Some of them even come on the show.

But I think a lot of people are like me.

They have this dilemma.

We don't want to devote all our time to Trump, but we don't want to be a bad citizen and ignore it.

So how do you strike that balance?

I mean, are you asking me

if I'm sick of thinking about Donald Trump?

Yeah.

You cannot imagine how sick I am of thinking about Donald Trump.

On the other hand,

I wouldn't say I'm thinking about him.

He doesn't really require thought.

I would say more, I'm plagued by him.

You know, it's like having an awful chronic ailment that you try to ignore, you know.

But if you do ignore for like 20 minutes, like I just said to someone, I've been here for an hour, I haven't seen any news.

Have we invaded Sweden?

Because you don't know what he's going to do next.

You know?

And that's why we think about him.

Were you depressed when the Mueller report came out?

I mean, that hit me kind of hard.

I'm depressed most of the time, Bill, so it's a little hard.

I was, I didn't have the highest hopes for the Mueller report, only because I remembered Robert Mueller was the Republican, and he was head of the FBI, you know, so I didn't like think he was the second coming of Thurgood Marshal, as many people seem to imagine.

But, you know, I was, I seem to have, the most youthful thing about me is I've retained an ability to be shocked by these people.

So I was shocked by Barr.

You are.

You are at first.

I'm shocked.

I mean, it's shocking.

It's shocking.

It's a criminal thing that he did.

So I never thought that he would do this.

He would rewrite the thing

and then give you a completely false idea of what it was in and then stop anyone from finding out anything about it.

I did not expect that.

Where are you on impeachment?

Yes, no?

You know, I change my mind from day to day.

I mean, where am I on impeachment?

Certainly he deserves to be impeached.

I mean.

Deserves, I know, we all think that.

Impeachment would be just the beginning of what he deserves.

You know, not even scratching the surface of what he deserves.

But it's a practical matter.

It's a practical matter.

Whenever, you know, I think about this and what he really deserves, I think we should turn him over to the Saudis, you know, his buddies, the same Saudis, you know, who got rid of that reporter.

You know, maybe they could do the same for him.

You know,

I you know, I don't know.

I think at this point, I do feel that we should.

When I say we, of course, it's not us, it's them.

You know, we're always saying we, but it's never we.

You know, it's them.

So yes,

they should impeach him.

We're not in charge, you know.

I do.

I think they should start impeaching.

Who do you like who's running on the Democratic side of all these people?

I like Elizabeth Warren.

Yeah, I do too.

You know, I mean,

I feel like she's the tortoise in this race.

I like her because

she's very smart.

You know, she may not be the smartest, but she's certainly the smartest.

I mean, everyone thinks that Pete Budujej is the smartest because he went to Harvard and he went to Oxford.

And no one thinks anything's more important than these two things.

You know, I know numerous people who went to these schools.

They're not a bunch of Albert Einsteins.

You know, many of them are just lucky guys or lucky women.

Bush went to Yale.

Yeah, well.

I rest my case.

You know, so I think that I'm certain he's smart, Pete Buddie Judge.

You know, I know that a lot of people I know like him.

You know, they think, you know, he went to Harvard, he went to Oxford.

You know, he's gay, he's the mayor of South Bend Indiana.

That's adorable.

But, you know,

the mayor of South Bend Indiana is what upsets me.

Because truthfully, more people live in my building than live in South Bend Indiana.

You know, so I think that, you know,

start, do something first before it.

Okay, but

what about Biden?

I've never liked Joe Biden.

I know this is against the law.

I never liked him because I never, ever forgot the Anita Hill hearings.

I didn't have to be reminded during the Cavalier hearings.

I hated him since that second, the actual hearings of Anita Hill, not in

retrospect during the Kavanaugh hearings.

I always hated him.

I always hated him.

And also, by the way.

But if he could win, you'd vote for him.

Of course.

I have voted for...

And what about Bernie?

I vote for Democrats.

So have I ever loved any of them?

Not really.

Some I've loved less than others.

No, Democrats are very bad at getting it through their thick skulls that they could play play this game that the Republicans do, which is, where else are you going to go?

They don't do that.

There's a lot of place in the center now.

Democrats very rarely in the mood they're in now, which is to compromise.

Usually it's about the users that are important to me.

Now they're saying, you know...

We have plenty of these meet people in the area.

Of course we do.

But I'm saying this is one of the first elections I've ever seen where they're like, you know what?

I don't have to agree with you on everything.

Yeah, or like you.

Or like you.

They're not meant to be like politicians.

I mean, during the the last election, you know, I went around speaking a lot, and a lot of people would say to me, I don't like Hillary Clinton.

I don't like Hillary Clinton.

And I thought, that's okay.

You don't have to like her.

You're not going to meet her.

Yeah.

What do you think?

She's going to be.

Oh, Hillary Clinton, she's driving me crazy.

She wants me to have dinner every night.

Yeah.

So you don't have to like these people.

You have to like your friends.

That's it.

Okay, so you do speak a lot.

You have the most famous writer's block, but you have no speaking block, which is the greatest.

Unfortunately, which is the great great saving grace okay so i know you do colleges sometimes what the fuck is going on on colleges i mean i i you mentioned pete mayor pete i asked him this question when he was sitting in that chair about a month ago i'm taller right

less adorable than yeah but uh about this this situation at harvard which is an ongoing story now this professor, brilliant African-American professor, Ronald Sullivan, decided to take Harvey Weinstein as a client because it's in the Sixth Amendment, everyone gets a lawyer in this country.

But of course, to a 20-year-old undergrad at Harvard who's woke, this is impossible.

So they had a protest.

And, okay, I can get the kids being stupid, although at Harvard it's a little scary, that they don't understand everybody gets a lawyer.

It's pretty easy to grasp.

But Harvard capitulated.

What do you make of that?

That the schools are always giving in to the kids.

To me, these are two separate issues because everyone gets a lawyer, but if you were a lawyer, not everyone gets you.

Okay?

So, I mean, you know, I didn't know, by the way, that Harvard law professors took clients.

You know, I mean, I didn't know that, that they also had clients.

He's a lawyer.

He's got to make money.

Well, and everybody gets a lot of people.

The money's cleaner than others.

I'm not saying they should have flexed.

They didn't fire these people.

I'm not saying they should have fired this man.

They didn't fire him, but they...

They let him go, whatever they did.

No,

he was

the guy who overlooked one of the residents.

All right, no, I know.

And he was too evil to be near sleeping children.

So

they took that away from him.

And

he capitulated.

He's not on Weinstein's team anymore.

It's crazy.

I blame this on parents.

Perhaps it's Harvey that made him think.

He met Harvey and he thought, you know what?

But I remember reading you on parenting like 20 years ago when you were writing in Vanity Fair.

And you had it right.

You were talking about how In our day, we never questioned our parents.

We don't question them.

They just didn't hear it.

I

Right, it's when I was young,

if you did something at school that you got in trouble for, the school punished you, then you went home and your parents punished you.

And now the school punish threatens to punish you or mentions they might possibly be disapproving of you, your parents choose the school.

So that's definitely true that we never thought that our parents were on our side.

And they weren't.

You know, the parents, the teachers, the schools, all adults, the ice cream men, they all could tell you to do

and you had to do it because you were, the phrase I most often heard was, you were just a child.

But can I read you to you?

You mentioned.

It was making me laugh out loud today.

Parents now burden their children with what is rightfully their own responsibility, that of making decisions.

You hear parents ask their children what school do they want to go to.

Why would a child be capable of making this decision?

If you're still of an age when you have to go to school, that would be the hint that you can't choose it.

And

I love this.

You said,

I can't get my child to do something, is not a phrase I ever heard.

What does that mean?

They're two feet tall.

You're at least three feet taller.

You're in charge of them.

Our parents knew that.

Exactly.

I think this is why the kids at Harvard get their way.

Because they've always gotten their way.

That's true.

And they don't think that'll ever ever change.

That's absolutely true.

So what do you think happens to them when they get out into the world?

Well,

the ones from Harvard, nothing ever happens to them.

That's the problem.

Nothing ever, I rented a house in Princeton

more than once, and a friend of mine came from New York when you were driving down Nosta Street.

It was the main street in Princeton.

And this is a long time ago, 20 years ago.

And these kids from Princeton were like, just walk across the street in the middle of the block.

And the friend of mine said, they don't even look.

Why are they like that?

I said, because nothing bad has ever happened to them, and it's not going to happen to them now.

And that is why.

So Bernie Sanders wants to give free college away.

What do you think about that?

Because a lot of the kids who are going to be paying for this through their taxes, because it's going to cost a lot in tax money, they're not going to go to college.

Why should they subsidize kids who go to college?

Well,

I hate to agree with Bernie Sanders, so I cannot stand, but

unless it gets the law, I know.

You can't say

Bernie or Biden.

No.

And by the way, they're both way way too old to be the president.

Okay?

Shut the fuck up.

Fuck you.

This is such a, this is such a,

that is such a prejudice that I don't know.

It's not a prejudice.

It's common sense.

Do you know any people that age?

Okay.

All right.

Let me tell you something.

These guys are too old to drive.

All right?

No, they're not.

Yeah.

If you were their son, or if I was their daughter, which I am

a different skill set.

You'd be plotting to take away their keys.

You'd be saying, you know, dad, he's a little forgetful.

Maybe you're going to be decrepit in your 70s, but I don't plan on it.

No one plans on it, Bill.

This is the thing.

I never planned to be this age.

I thought 25, that's my age.

But you're not decrepit.

No, I'm not as old as they are either.

You know, okay.

Okay, but you're punching it in the mouth.

Yes.

We both are.

Right?

Okay.

We were smarter than them to begin with, first of all.

So, you know, I do think they're true.

I think the president should be in their 50s.

I do.

Because in your 50s, you still are fine.

You feel fine.

You still look relatively fine.

And you know everything you're ever going to know.

After that, you start to affect the thing.

Is that something that's so not true?

It is absolutely true.

It truly depends on how you treat yourself.

There are places in the world called blue zones.

Are you familiar with that?

No.

Okay.

Is this some massage polar thing that you can do?

No, no.

No.

That's blue balls.

Blue zones are where

people routinely live to be 100.

That's like the average age.

There are people in their 90s working the fields.

It's how you treat yourself.

Partially, it's partially genetic.

I personally genetic.

I do not want to live to be 100.

I could afford to live about seven more weeks.

All right, well, I hope we come back next time to see us again.

Thank you.

Share your opinions.

Brad Language, everybody.

All right, time to mute our panel.

Aegis.

Damn ageists.

Drinking this bigoted people.

And they think they're liberal.

All right, he's a visiting fellow for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, author of The End of Europe, Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age.

James Kurchik.

James, how you doing?

He is a staff writer for the Atlantic and a National Book Award-winning author whose latest book is Our Man, Richard Holbrook, and the End of the American Century.

George Packer, George.

And she is the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, our returning champion, near attendant.

Great to see you, George.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, so I was talking about the abortion issue in the monologue.

I normally hate to talk about this issue.

It's not funny.

But I tell you, because it's a somewhat non-Trump issue, I'm thrilled to talk about it.

So many days we have to talk about Donald Trump, first of all.

Let's not talk about him, although he is peripherally involved with this, and we'll get to that.

He is.

But, okay, so these states want to make it so that you can't get an abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

I want to ask about the Democratic plan to counter this.

Can the Democrats make hay out of this?

Because if not, what could they?

I absolutely think so.

I mean, it's very fashionable to attack him now, but Bill Clinton put it best, I thought, when he said abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.

And it's hard to think of a saying that maybe captures the kind of American middle position on this.

And clearly, these

moves are completely contradictory to that.

I mean, banning it in terms of incest and rape, that's widely opposed, I think, by even majorities in every single state.

Even Pat Robertson said this went too far.

Wow.

And some House Republicans.

You know, I know we never want to talk about Trump, but actually, this, I think, is connected in the sense that Donald Trump is.

Two minutes into the show, it's all about Trump.

No, it isn't.

Actually, think about this.

It's 2019.

We've had a series of Republican presidents.

And the first time we have a president who has

80% support of evangelicals, who told us during the election he was going to put pro-life justices, quote, pro-life justices on the Supreme Court and that it would return to the states.

These Republican legislators in Alabama are just doing what Trump wants.

He also said at one point there had to be some criminal punishment.

He did.

He basically said that he was a private.

I mean, how many abortions do you think Donald Trump has personally paid for himself?

Well.

Michael Cohen paid for that.

He paid Michael Cohen back.

Seems like we're two countries.

So the question is, where does it make a difference?

Because it's not going to make a difference in Alabama.

Actually, my mother comes from there, and I tried to feel offended by your opening monologue, but I couldn't quite work on it.

I feel bad for the smart people in Alabama, and they are.

They're my cousins, the five last white Democrats.

I think after your monologue they're a zero I've played Birmingham I played mobile there's plenty of smart normal there is a Democratic senator in Alabama his name is Deb Jones right when he ran against our choice but he beat a child molester by a hair

and that child molester is going to be the guy

who's going to nominate he's their he's their man Roy Moore is going to run against

you

that's that's where the Republican Party has gone okay but this is I want to get onto this what you're talking about this is the Republican long game.

This is what the Democrats don't do.

The Republicans, they play the long game.

This has been going on for decades.

Think tanks, and then we'll get those guys on the Supreme Court.

This was McConnell blocking Gorsuch so they could get the, because now the Supreme Court is where this may be or probably will be decided.

Absolutely.

They've been planning this forever.

It's true.

And I do think one of the challenges is that Democrats haven't focused on the courts as much as Republicans.

And I hope with this decision, as well as the radicalization radicalization of the courts overall that we'll see actually Democrats and I hope a lot of women come out in this election.

The issue for in 2018 there was a big move between 2016 and 2018 amongst women.

White women voted for Trump in 2016 and they voted They voted actually much more for Democrats in 2018.

So the question is, are Democrats, are women going to mobilize around this?

And you know, there are Republican leading women who voted for Democrats in 2018.

And I hope that that,

you know, given what's happening, the fact that choice in 2019, you know, we've all thought for years nothing's at stake.

The Supreme Court's always going to be fine.

Republicans have never gone this far.

Well, now it's 2019 and abortion is on the battlefield.

It will happen in, say, Michigan, where there isn't a restrictive abortion law before the Supreme Court actually acts.

They'll look at these other red states and say, it could happen here, so we're going to go out and vote.

I think women recognize that Alabama and Georgia and Mississippi and these other places are the battlefield.

And if you want a national, if you believe Roe v.

Wade should be the law of the land, that is what state is.

Well, actually, Elizabeth Warren just introduced a bill to codify

abortion in law.

You know what?

That's what they should have done 40 years ago.

Because Roe v.

Wade, and I'm pro-choice, but Roe versus Wade has really just poisoned the politics of this country by taking something that should have been a political issue and finding it somehow in the U.S.

Constitution.

You created this issue that now every year Republicans can get their votes.

It's always one side is like, they hate babies, they hate women.

Right.

And it's not really that sort of...

I think Republicans always say that, and you don't see any Republicans actually supporting choice.

So that's just another way of saying there would not be federal choice.

But, you know, we're having all these debates for a very small slice.

of the electorate.

I was reading this interesting poll.

No one's moving on Trump.

They've all decided about that, except for, listen to this, people who voted for Obama in 2012 and then switched to Trump in 2016, they're a little fluid.

That's who we're going for.

That's seven million people.

Yes, exactly.

But as always, it comes down to these undecideds, these swing voters.

Those are the people.

And I'm just wondering, of all these 23 Republicans who are proliferating like feral barn cats, this is, I think this is a metaphor for what makes the Republican Party look weak and stupid.

The fact that 23 people are running for this office now, people who really, I won't say any names, but come on, I've talked to some of them and asked, why do you want to run?

And it's really, I think it'd be great if I was president.

I think it might be, you look at Donald Trump and think, I could do a lot better job no matter who you are.

But I recognize, yeah, there are a lot of people running.

They're not all going to be on the debate stage and then they're not, after the first primary, it's going to go down to seven, and then after the second, it's going to go down to four.

It's going to winnow down.

My concern is how they react when they lose.

Because after 2016, we had a number of Sanders supporters claiming that somehow the election was stolen from their guy.

Will this happen again with some candidate, Sanders or another?

If that candidate loses, will their people sit out the election because they think it was the establishment that screwed them?

And that's what I worry about.

The Democrats committing suicide.

So Elizabeth Warren says she's not going to go on Fox News.

I take this a little personally because I started this little debate when I had Adam Schiff here one night, and I surprised him.

I said you've got to go on Fox News.

That's where the you know the votes are.

And Elizabeth Warren said Fox News is a hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists.

She said it on Twitter.

I mean so is Twitter.

I'm not

and

it doesn't matter.

Yes.

That's why I'm not on Twitter.

Right, but that's why she is.

It doesn't matter.

She's right.

Of course that's what Fox News, but it's also where people who vote are.

I don't think people realize this.

43% of Fox News viewers, only 43% say they're conservative Republican.

10% say they're liberal Democrats.

That Fox News voters, I mean, Fox News viewers are the base of Trump.

I think they are.

But it's not the whole group.

And also, listen to this.

26% favor more gun control.

43% favor a tax on wealth over $100 million.

That's one of her issues.

Of course she should go on Fox News.

It suggests that a sort of fear or

a kind of illiberalism almost, like we're just not going to talk to those people.

I mean, it's an elitist.

It's a mistake.

I would say, I think there's a difference.

I think it's, she has been on Fox News.

Her Fox News reporters cover her.

There is a thing, I mean, I think it's important to be on Fox News.

We should recognize Fox News is an arm of state propaganda.

Donald Trump

is still getting the megaphone.

Isn't it better to talk unfiltered to people like Bernie Sanders got to do than have it filtered through Sean Hannity?

Donald Trump ran for president appealing to just his base and he's been governing as president for just his base, not all the American people.

The Democrats should not be imitating him.

I guess what I would say here is that here's the balance, right?

Fox News uses those Democrats as on town halls to get money from advertisers and to claim they're fair and balanced.

That is what happens when Democrats appear for an hour for basically advertising revenue.

I think it's reasonable to go on.

I don't think you need to subsidize them with the way they make money.

Okay, so Trump's trade war with China is really heating up.

It's getting very nasty.

And I was in a Chinese restaurant the other day.

I bet you can negotiate a better deal.

That was a good steak.

And I brought home some of the cookies because

I can't believe it's getting so nasty and it's even

being reflected here in the cookies that the Chinese are writing.

Like, would you like me to read some of them?

I'll just

crack open.

You will eat the leftovers on the car ride home.

Oh, see, that's nasty.

That's nasty right there.

At least we know how to build a wall.

Oh, see,

they're nasty.

I'm telling you, it's getting nasty.

Judging by those sausage fingers, this isn't your first cookie.

Oh, see, that's caddy.

That's nasty.

Iron Man dies.

Oops.

Forgot to say spoiler alert.

That's nasty.

What has a billion chins?

Our phone book and your kids.

Oh, that's...

Oh, this is sweet.

Someday you will find love.

Kidding, you'll spend the rest of your life fucking a blow-up doll, then die.

It's a nasty.

I'm Chinese and even I think you have a small penis.

Oh, that's just

not necessary to be that nasty about a trade war.

The PF and PF Chang stands for pet food.

Oh, come on.

All right, he is a Vanderbilt University professor and author of Dying of Whiteness, How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America's Heartland, Jonathan Metzel.

Jonathan,

sorry about the mess.

Skews.

Thanks a nice.

Excuse our mess.

No, that's great.

As they say in office.

Okay.

So you wrote a very interesting book.

We've heard before that the Trump voter votes against his own economic interests, but you're taking it quite a bit further and you're saying that Trump policies actually make it more likely that the mostly white male voter who is the Trump core voter is going to get sick and die.

I mean in a nutshell, that is kind of what I'm showing.

We're not allowed to call them stupid.

I'm a professor and

I'm a doctor, right?

And I see.

Me too.

Okay.

Welcome.

As far as you know.

And so, you know, basically the core argument of the book is that the politics that claim to make white America great again end up making particularly working-class white lives harder, sicker, and in many instances shorter.

I spent about seven years going through the South where I live and tracking the story of basically what happens if you live in a state that, for example, blocks health care reform, that lets anybody and everyone buy

Medicaid expansion, blocking the expansion.

Huge tax cuts that end up undercutting roads, bridges, and schools.

And what I found was, on one hand, that gave many people the sensation of winning, but when I looked at it from a medical angle and from a data angle, those policies themselves ended up being as dangerous to people, and particularly working-class white people, as asbestos or second-hand smoke or not wearing seatbelts in cars.

They were literally contributing to a shortened lifespan.

And guns, too, right?

I mean, when the gun laws are lax, aren't there more white suicides?

I mean, that was one of the more surprising things.

I spent a lot of time in Missouri, and really, really painful, powerful.

You know, I would go to NRA meetings.

I sat in on support group meetings for people who lost loved ones for suicide.

There's nothing more painful and more sad.

But the issue that I found was

when you make the gun laws very lax in a particular state, it seems like it's just about

letting people conceal carry or open carry or all those kind of things.

But there's this filter-down effect in which all other kinds of shootings become more prominent.

So there were more accidental shootings, more partner shootings, more police shootings.

But the real shootings that skyrocketed were deaths of white men, basically.

White men were about two-thirds of the deaths.

Right.

White men commit suicide in ways that minorities don't.

Is that true?

I mean, basically, you know, we have about 40,000 gun deaths a year in this country, and two-thirds of those deaths

are suicides.

And of that, the numbers of white male suicides, it's like 80%, 85%.

Why is that?

Why do white men kill themselves?

I've spent a lot of time.

Other men don't.

I mean, partially it's that white men own a lot of guns, and particularly in rural areas where people are feeling isolated and factors like that.

But I also think that, you know, I found these remarkable stories of people who the gun was their protector.

It was there to protect them, but in these moments of despair,

they got fired, they

lost their job, they found out their wife was having an affair or something like that.

In that moment, this thing that's supposed to be your protector ends up being the most lethal thing you can have in the room.

And so again and again when I talk to families, this thing that was like the symbol of

white authority became its undoing, very lethal.

Does it have anything to do with the fact also that maybe as they went through life, they had white privilege to some degree?

Not that everyone, white life is easy.

It certainly is not, especially in rural areas.

But they never faced the kind of hardship that minorities face more routinely.

And when the shit hit the fan, boom.

I certainly think that that's absolutely true in a particular way, which is, in other words, I heard a lot of people talking to me about

whiteness under attack and kind of white despair because of immigrants and minorities.

And I did want to kind of say the same thing, even though I was there as a researcher, I kept thinking, well, there are a lot of people in in your state who actually have it a lot worse than you.

But that being said, I've- Yeah, they don't want to hear that.

But I also, there's something very particular about white male gun suicide, which is that, on one hand, it's incredibly prevalent and prominent.

And on the other hand, there's this huge knowledge gap.

Nobody talks about it.

If you listen to the NRA, for example, they say you need guns because of carjackers and gangbangers and all these kind of things.

And even researchers like myself, there's a huge gap in knowledge because there's been a federal ban on gun research.

And so we don't even know.

I mean, many, many white Americans own guns.

What predicts which one's going to turn the gun on themselves?

And the honest answer, if anybody tells you this, the honest answer is we don't know.

But it's not the government's job to prevent suicide, is it?

Well, I mean, the issue, again,

you have to take some

personal responsibility.

Despondency can't also be part of the portfolio.

Well, guns aren't.

Yeah, guns is an interesting case about that, right?

Because there's this long history of gun ownership and people are very proud of it.

And so I don't, I would never want to say that I was going to take somebody's gun or that we should.

But it was interesting to see that these, it was just, suicide was an unintended consequence of the current.

But also the gun is a form of, I think, an attachment of white pride.

You know,

it's a sort of a cultural identity thing now.

I mean, that's the same thing.

And pride, I mean, I feel like in America now, white people are either self-loathing, the liberals are, you know, they're white so lame,

and, you know, the unbearable being of whiteness.

And then,

and the Trump people are the opposite.

You know, they actually think reverse racism is a worse problem.

There's no middle ground.

There's no like sensible whiteness.

Sensible whiteness.

Whether we have some sensible whiteness.

Well, thank you very much.

I like to think of myself as sensible.

No, I mean, that's part of what I argue, is that basically we've got a president

who is promoting a rather odious

notion of whiteness, which is his notion of whiteness is that whiteness is under attack, that we need to build walls because immigrants and minorities are taking what's ours.

And many liberal people like myself are protesting and saying that's not what it is.

Why do they stick with him like we see week after week now with the tariffs?

And I mean, I could read you his statement about the tariff.

If you think he's batshit nuts now,

he says, we are right where we want to be with China.

Remember, they broke the deal with us and tried to renegotiate.

And, you know, they should know, no substitutions, huh?

Kid you duck.

I don't know why I got to.

We will be taking tens and billions of dollars in tariffs from China.

No!

That's not close to how tariffs work.

They're sticking with him for the same reason they're sticking with their guns, which is that people like us are telling them you're an idiot because you're shortening your own life.

And there's a kind of reaction to that.

Don't tell me that.

I have my own rights to choose my own way of dying here.

It's also not accurate that every single Trump voter has stayed with Trump.

I mean,

there was actually a significant movement of voters between 2016 and 2018.

Now, a lot of them were women,

but Trump won, for example, white working class women, 61 to 34 against Hillary.

In the Midwest, they went 50-50 for Democrats in Congress and for governor.

There are groups that move with information.

He won, Donald Trump won Iowa by 10 points.

Democrats elected three members of Congress, and actually a majority of the state won for Democrats in 2018.

And a lot of it might not be the farmers, but it was definitely the farmers' wives.

Who are like, you know, this is pretty bad.

What you guys are doing, not so great.

And the farmers' daughters, right.

Yeah.

Okay, but if I can get back to my theme of let's have the Democrats try to win one next time.

What about if the Democrats would call these Trump tariffs, which I heard today largest tax increase, really, since 1993?

Why can't the Democrats do what Republicans do?

All get in a room and get a talking point that they all say and call it the Trump tax.

Don't call it Trump tariff, Trump tax.

I'm off next week.

When I get back in two weeks, I want all you motherfuckers running for president to be saying Trump tax, Trump tax, all of you, as one, as one, okay?

Great.

Because these people.

Maybe you should make it a hashtag.

We need a coach.

It does need a hashtag.

Okay.

Before we run out of time, there's some great foreign affairs people, all of you.

I don't know where you are in that doc.

Have you traveled overseas doing studies too?

You know,

start the conversation off the line.

Okay, all right, we'll see where you're at.

So there's this talk this week that we're going to war with Iran.

We're on a war footing.

Now, people have said I'm alarmist about Trump before.

I think the things I've said about Trump have pretty much come true.

I must say, about this, I am not alarmed.

Not yet.

Because he said it about North Korea.

We were going to fire and fury on them.

Then, only a couple of weeks ago, we were going to do it to Venezuela.

And now he's saying this about Iran.

The same thing.

If they do something, it's going to be very bad.

Very bad.

Now,

I know what's going on here.

Jared is best buddies with Saudi Arabia.

And Saudi Arabia is already fighting a proxy war with Iran.

And of course, if you don't know the Middle East too well, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Shiite and Sunni, they're the two powers.

They hate each other.

They want to wipe each other out.

So Saudi Arabia is trying to get Jared, of course, to get us to fight Iran for him.

I don't think Trump is going to go for it because the Mueller report turned out to be Al Capone's vault.

He does not need to wag the dog now.

He killed the dog.

Well, also, he ran for president opposing the war in Iraq.

He wanted to get out of Afghanistan.

He attacked the Obama administration on Libya.

So he's not an interventionist.

So I don't think his instincts are to invade Iran.

I really think that this is a lot of kind of hysterical talk.

Even if we don't, and I don't think we're going to go to war, we are isolated.

We can't even get our closest allies, the British, to cooperate with us in trying to isolate Iran.

Instead, we are the ones who've isolated ourselves by breaking an agreement that we signed with Iran three years ago, which Iran was in compliance with.

There was no violation on their side.

And

a few years ago, we had diplomats like Richard Holbrook, who is the subject of my book, who understood that you don't suck up to dictators and stiff your allies.

It's the other way around.

And instead, what we've done.

It's funny, you know.

Trump is talking now about he wants to meet with a make a deal.

You know, gee, if only we had some sort of Iran deal.

Make a deal.

I know.

That's so weird.

They actually had a deal in which they would not have nuclear weapons.

It's so funny because he sometimes has the right idea about that there is a problem.

You know, he had the kind of right idea that the immigration immigration needs to be fixed or that we are overextended military or maybe NATO should pay more.

But then his way of going about fixing it is so fucked up.

The tariffs, you know, we had TPP in place.

That was the thing to isolate China to get us all.

And he just fucks it up every time.

I think he's right.

I'm going to, it was a bad deal.

I think the Iran deal was a bad deal.

So really?

It was not working alternative.

Tell me why.

The alternative is a maximum pressure campaign, but I leading it up.

Well, I was leading to

renegotiate a better deal.

They're not going to.

I don't think.

In 50 words, why was it a bad deal?

Because as we found out, the Iranians

were not honest about their plans to build a nuclear weapon.

That's what came out last year with the Israelis.

The Israelis proved that there was this whole cache of secret documents that

they were hiding.

And

it did nothing to limit the murder and the mayhem that they are spreading across the nuclear.

That was a different issue.

This was just a nukes.

I know.

Obama recognized that.

He said, yes, that's a different issue.

We're not blind to the fact that

he is a bad actor in the region.

But they did nothing to fight back against it.

But it was just about the nukes.

There are other actors who are fomenting murder in mayhem, and nobody's doing anything about that in the Middle East.

In the Middle East.

The alternative to the deal is where we are now.

And instead of an agreement that had at least a 10-year horizon, which Iran was in compliance with, and which also managed to unite us with not just the Europeans, but the Russians and the Chinese, instead, we're alone.

Iran is free to break out of its nuclear arrangement if it wants to because we have now

broken our word on it.

But we're also bluffing because we're not going to go to war.

So in what way is that a good position for us to be in?

It doesn't make any sense.

The only thing I'd say is here's the problem.

I mean, this is what keeps me up at night, is that you have Donald Trump, who has his views, right?

But you have Josh Bolton.

John Bolton.

John Bolden.

Sorry, different Bolton.

Different Bolton.

John Bolton.

You have Pompeo.

The challenge we have is that there's a level of incompetence in this White House and a fair number of people who seem trigger happy and a president who you can argue has some world vision but seems pretty erratic to me and on a particularly bad day with polls could do something crazy and that is what I worry about.

Or that we get trapped in the bluster, that there's no walking back from the bluster.

I know

we're in this trade war.

We are involved.

Yeah.

Three mistakes and we're very wonderful.

I know.

When the Soviet Union fell, you think we made a mistake by by expanding NATO?

Absolutely not.

Absolutely not.

We would be up all night worried that the Russians might invade Poland or the Baltic states if those countries were not in NATO.

They're in NATO.

They're part of our alliance.

They're safe.

So absolutely.

I think NATO expansion, and you would know this because you read a book.

It's about Richard Holbrook.

NATO expansion is one of the greatest accomplishments.

But

that's not what we did after World War II.

We created NATO after World War II.

I understand.

No, I'm saying, but we didn't treat, we didn't humiliate the people that we beat.

We raised them.

the title of the people.

Well, I don't think it was humiliating Russia after the Polish war.

I think it was humiliating Russia.

And that may be why

we actually invited Russia into NATO.

There was serious talk about Russia becoming a member of the United States.

What would be the point of NATO with Russia?

We put a lot of emphasis on personal responsibility.

Let's give Russia some personal responsibility on it.

They are

a nationalist power that has a kind of centuries-old feeling of paranoia about being encircled, whether or not Poland was part of NATO, and we would still have Vladimir Putin.

Also,

why is it Russia's veto whether or not small countries, democracies in Central and Eastern Europe, why is it their decision whether or not they get to join NATO?

Exactly.

Shout out to Russia.

Ukraine is a good example of why NATO's expansion was important, because actually they will invade countries.

They invade you if you're not in NATO.

That's what happens.

Well, they do now.

Again, we don't know because we're not going back to 1991.

But if in 1991 we had treated Russia in a different way and not humiliated them,

they would be like Estonia today?

I don't think so.

They'd be occupying.

They might be occupying Estonia.

They have an economic problem which is driving Putin to be nationalist, proto-fascist, anti-democratic.

It is domestic forces that are making Putin the way it is.

He is, and he just uses these things as an excuse.

That's my view.

Thank you, panel.

Time for New Rule.

New rule, if you love Game of Thrones, you can't hate Alabama.

Sure, they just banned abortion, even in the case of rape and incest, but Game of Thrones is 50% rape and 50% incest.

Jon Snow is doing it with his aunt, and Cersei was having a baby with her brother, and nothing bad happened there.

Neural, nobody can tell me that the fungus that grows on tree stumps didn't come from another planet and isn't planning to kill us all.

Now, I'm fine with all forms of nature from spiders to snakes to whatever worm is living in Trump's brain, but

this stuff needs to go back to whatever Star Trek episode it came from.

Although I wonder, if I ate some, would I get high?

New role: politicians can't advertise on pornhub.

This week a Danish politician did just that.

Can we nip this right in the bud now?

The last thing America needs is to be in the middle of jerking off and then an ad for Bernie Sanders pops up.

New roll, liquid death, the canned mountain water that features a dripping skull and promises to murder my thirst, has to reconsider whether it's taking an unnecessarily aggressive approach towards hydration.

Your water, the closest you'll get to murdering anything is if I drink a lot of you and there's a cigarette butt in the urinal.

Neural, now that we have black bins for trash, blue for recycling, and green for yard waste, the Department of Sanitation must add a bin specifically for the scary shit we find at the back of the refrigerator.

For the stuff that's no longer food but not quite penicillin.

The yellow bin, the bin that makes even raccoons say, pass.

And finally, new rule, if you look like you've got to stick up your ass,

you've probably got to stick up your ass.

Now.

When President Hellboy

First dug William Barr out of the garage, pundits said, oh, at least this one's normal.

He's an indoor Republican.

But now the pundits are asking, how could this smart, normal person fall under the Trump spell so fast?

We thought he was old school and institutionalist.

What happened to Bill Barr?

I'll tell you what happened.

In 1950, he was born into a strange cult and he's never been able to leave.

It's called Catholicism.

That's the secret to why Bill Barr was so anxious to become Donald Trump's loyal hand.

He's just the latest in a long line of Republican Catholic moralizers who actually believe,

well, here's Barr in 1995.

We have lived through 30 years of permissiveness, the sexual revolution, and the drug culture.

The greatest threat to free government, the founders believed, was not governmental tyranny, but personal licentiousness.

You see, Barr knows Trump wants to be a dictator, but who cares?

It's not about tyranny, it's about tits.

Barr once wrote in Catholic Lawyer magazine, worst swimsuit issue ever.

The founders believed the choice was clear.

We could govern ourselves, guided by religion and morality, or we could lose our liberty altogether.

Yes, they believed it so strongly they wrote it down nowhere.

There is nothing about morality in the Constitution.

It's like Jesus on the subject of butt sex.

It ain't in there.

It's in here.

Permissiveness, licentiousness, drug culture.

I've heard these words and listened to this same horseshit my whole life.

This creepy substrain of Catholic conservatives who think limited government means government should put a limit on people's sex lives.

Sean Hannity,

Bill O'Reilly, Rick Santorum who predicted gay marriage would lead to man-dog marriage.

Give it some.

Really?

Pat Buchanan, Bill Bennett with his book of virtues, Robert Bork, Newt Gingrich, geez, law and order, a special virgins unit.

It's almost like there's a religious war going on in this country.

There is a religious war going on in this country.

See?

And then there's the Supreme Court.

The country is 21% Catholic, Catholic, but the court is 67% Catholic, including Clarence Thomas and his batshit wife Ginny.

And until recently, their mentor, Antonin Scalia, who was really hardcore.

I mean, Mel Gibson's dad-level Catholic.

Scalia once said, if it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag.

Yes, because we can never trust a sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo.

Okay, maybe one.

And now we have Brett Kavanaugh, he of the landmark case, Taste Great versus Less Filling.

He's another one of these.

In the 90s, he wrote the Star Report, and he wanted it to be about Bill Clinton's cock.

He said Clinton had disgraced his office, the legal system, and American people by having sex with a 22-year-old.

And it's our job to make his pattern of revolting behavior clear, piece by painful piece.

Jesus, he's not just mad he wasn't invited to the party, he's mad there is a party.

These are people who have a real problem with unsanctioned pleasure.

And growing up Catholic myself, I know a lot of it stems from being taught not to masturbate as a teenager.

You've got Jesus on the cross in your bedroom, staring at you all the time.

When you touch yourself, there he is, disappointed.

It's like you're crucifying him all over again.

The Catholic Church is very good at pretending it's modernizing.

A Pope will change the rule about no meat on Friday or say atheists can get into heaven like we care.

But the hardcore Inquisitors never go away.

And they think their job is to protect the Republican Party at all costs so it can fight the real enemy, hippies.

Shown here in 1969 and on a continuous loop in Republican heads.

It's the 50th anniversary of Woodstock this summer.

And conservatives need to be told that's all it is.

It's not the anniversary of when everything went to shit because some kids got high and got laid and God didn't punish them.

They just had to listen to Sean Anna.

So,

yes,

there was a sexual revolution and you lost.

Now stop bitching about it.

Because Bill Barr, he's that guy.

Woodstock ruined America.

Now put prayer back in school or I'll never stop dreaming about this guy's dick.

All right, that's our show.

We're off next week and back on the 31st.

I'll be at the Grand Theater at Foxwood Resort in Nash and Tucket, Connecticut, May 25th.

And after Voss Performance Hall in Grand Rapids, Michigan, June 23rd, I want to thank James Crichton, George Backler, New York Tim, and Jonathan Metzel and Craig Lingowitz.

Stay tuned for overtime on YouTube.

Thank you.

Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Ma every Friday night at 10.

Or watch him anytime on HBO On Demand.

For more information, log on to HBO.com.