Ep. #494: Jay Inslee, Moby

Speaker 1 Retirement isn't just about closing out your career. It's living the life you've always dreamed of.
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Speaker 3 Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Month series, Real Time with Bill Moll.

Speaker 3 Start the clock.

Speaker 3 Right here with me.

Speaker 3 I know, it's very exciting.

Speaker 3 Okay,

Speaker 3 thank you, everybody.

Speaker 3 I know

Speaker 2 it's very exciting when you have a constitutional crisis.

Speaker 2 We are so fucked. I'm telling you, we are...
Today, Venezuela put us on the travel advisory.

Speaker 2 I'm telling you,

Speaker 2 if America was a summer blockbuster, it would be called democracy endgame.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 if you missed the earlier installments in this franchise, it started with Russia interfered. This is the, you know, nobody disagrees with this in the Mueller report.

Speaker 2 Russia interfered with our election in 2022. That was the finding of that report.
And this week we found out that Robert Mueller wrote more than one letter to the Attorney General, Wink Wink,

Speaker 2 William Barr, saying, why did you mischaracterize what I wrote? And Barr responded, well, the report was my baby. My baby?

Speaker 2 I thought Republicans were against killing babies.

Speaker 2 This Bill Barr is so far up Trump's ass, he bumped into Hannit.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 Barr went before the Senate this week on Wednesday, and the Democrats looked all so happy after his over there. They gave him a good grilling.
I think they're missing the big picture.

Speaker 2 Trump is still president.

Speaker 2 And the big gotcha was they got Barr to commit perjury, which apparently is some old-timey law about lying being wrong.

Speaker 2 You know, Nancy Peloisi said, that's a crime, and I'm going to report it to...

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. See, this is the problem when the guy who is supposed to be enforcing the law is the guy who is breaking the law.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the Justice Department had a deadline this week to provide the unredacted version of the Mueller report. They just blew it off.
Because this is called owning the libs.

Speaker 2 This is all they care about. The lamer the excuse, the better, because the more we're owned.
Oh, the lame excuse. They said they couldn't get the report over there because the printer jammed.

Speaker 2 And then they went to Kinko's, but some kid was doing flyers for his band. I mean.

Speaker 2 So.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, the Attorney General was himself subpoenaed by the House to appear yesterday, blew that off. And Congress was like, you know we both work for the same country, right?

Speaker 2 So legal experts are now saying that, you know,

Speaker 2 this is a constitutional crisis, the likes of which we have not seen in three or four days.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 4 not showing up.

Speaker 2 When did testifying before Congress become optional? It's Congress, not freshman psych class.

Speaker 2 And Democrats don't seem to get it. That, you know, it's in the rules.
It's not an argument that works on Donald Trump. You're playing monopoly with a hyena.

Speaker 2 When it bites you and shits on the board, saying it's not your turn doesn't really work.

Speaker 2 So the good

Speaker 2 news is Trump finally today sat down and talked to someone about Russia gig. The bad news is it was Vladimir Putin.

Speaker 2 I wish that was the joke. That's absolutely true.
He usually they just sexed each other, but

Speaker 2 today

Speaker 2 they actually got on the phone for an hour, you know, the famous red phone, the hotline to Moscow. Well, now it's a pink princess phone.

Speaker 2 You know, maybe it would help if Democrats just changed their names to more Russian-sounding names. Maybe Trump would be more willing to talk to Adam Shifski and Nancy Polokovich.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 as if all that is not enough to give me a coronary this week, Hillary Clinton is stealing my act.

Speaker 2 I'm watching Rachel Maddow the other day, and this is what she said.

Speaker 5 China, if you're listening, why don't you get Trump's tax returns?

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Here's our show from last August. And since we now accept that it's okay to merge your party with a foreign power, I'd like to be the first member of the resistance to say, China, if you're listening,

Speaker 2 I hope you can find Donald Trump's tax returns.

Speaker 2 What is this real time with Crooked Hillary?

Speaker 2 Hillary, if you wanted material, you should have asked me before the election.

Speaker 2 All right, we got a great show. Brett Stevens, Carolis Fisher, Berakis, Bakari Sellers,

Speaker 2 and a little maybe speaking with Moby is here. Hey.

Speaker 2 First up, he is the governor of Washington State and a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, Governor Jay Inslee. Governor.

Speaker 2 There he is.

Speaker 2 All right,

Speaker 2 good to see you again.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Hey, nice place to be.
Yes.

Speaker 2 Seems like you were just here. You're back.
Last time you heard you were not a presidential candidate. Now you are.

Speaker 4 So is there any increased stature or just no more money?

Speaker 2 no.

Speaker 2 But, you know, we had the Green Party in years past. They didn't get much.
It seems like you're now a one-man Green Party. You've kind of made that,

Speaker 2 you know, you're sort of a one-issue candidate, which I think is the issue. I've always said that.
The most important issue. Is that a fair way to characterize it?

Speaker 2 You are the Green Party within the Democratic Party?

Speaker 4 No, I would rephrase it that I am the Democratic one-man person who intends to make Donald Trump a blip in history. That's what I would say.

Speaker 2 And I believe that that's.

Speaker 2 no.

Speaker 4 Look, I'm a Democrat, and I got into this race because I know we have one last chance to defeat climate change. And it is a last chance.
We've kicked the count down the road for 30 years.

Speaker 4 And I got in this race because I got three grandkids, and I'm going to look them in the eye and make sure I've told them I've done everything I could. It's amazing.

Speaker 2 In the last presidential election, in the debates, it wasn't even an issue.

Speaker 4 that came out

Speaker 2 even among the Democrats.

Speaker 2 So this time it's going to be different.

Speaker 4 Well, Well, this is why I'm pushing the party to have a debate exclusively around climate change. Right.

Speaker 2 No, I think we're all on the page that has to at least be in the debate. But here's the problem.

Speaker 2 Climate change initiatives were on the ballot in 2018.

Speaker 2 Almost every state said no. And when you ask, even people, people have come around now to agreeing, yes, it is a problem, it's man-made, we should do something.

Speaker 2 When the next question is, would you be willing to spend $10 a month?

Speaker 2 68% of people say no.

Speaker 2 So they don't put the money where the mouth is.

Speaker 2 But why do we get around that?

Speaker 4 Well, we make sure that the people paying the $10 a month are the oil companies. We're taking $27 billion in tax subsidies.
We've got to retrieve that $27 billion and to put it in clean energy.

Speaker 4 And today I rolled out a big, bold, and ambitious program because we're a big, bold, ambitious country that in fact will put the onus on them. You know, they always talk about the Republicans.

Speaker 4 Well, how are you going to pay for it? How are they going to pay for Paradise, California that burned down?

Speaker 2 And I asked them to say that they were going to have a house, okay?

Speaker 4 But I mean,

Speaker 2 at some point, I mean, people talk about a carbon tax, which I think is a terrible name. As usual, Democrats are bad at naming things.

Speaker 2 Call it a pro-life initiative, maybe, you know, pro-life on earth. You know, something, okay.

Speaker 2 But at some point, we are going to have to make it a cost to be a polluter or just a pig or just sloppy. And we don't do, we are afraid, as always in America, to confront the people.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, look,

Speaker 4 we're not confronting the people. We're standing with them.
And I'll tell you what we did today. I rolled out

Speaker 4 this plan to defeat climate change with Mayor Garcetti with me that will do three things. Number one, it will guarantee Americans that we have 100% clean electricity.
No coal after 2030.

Speaker 4 We need to wean ourselves off of coal.

Speaker 2 Okay, but let me stop you there. I hear this all the time.
Electricity is not brought by a fairy.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 2 I don't know what you mean, but what I mean is people think it's free. It's the sun.
That doesn't cause any pollution. Wind doesn't.

Speaker 2 Not electricity. Electricity comes from natural gas, oil,

Speaker 2 coal.

Speaker 2 So I have an electric car, but when I plug it in, that electricity came from somewhere other than just free.

Speaker 4 Well, today I was at the bus barn with Mayor Garcetti, where they are charging electric buses with solar panels right in the charging line. Solar panels.
And we have to understand what has happened.

Speaker 4 The coal plants have gone from a thousand plants to about 300 because they just aren't competitive. And we have to understand that we are the most innovative country in world history.

Speaker 4 And today, clean energy jobs are going to be going

Speaker 4 twice as fast. Clean energy jobs are going twice as fast as the rest of the economy.
And look at wind turbines don't cause cancer. Trump is wrong.
They cause jobs, okay?

Speaker 2 They cause jobs, and that's what we believe in.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, look, we are still the great innovators innovators in tech. And I think people think we can invent our way out of this, but I don't think we can't.

Speaker 2 I don't think you can invent your way out of this.

Speaker 4 Well, I'm going to beg to differ a little bit. Look, look at what's happened in solar energy.
I wrote a co-authored a book in 2007 about this, and I said solar is going to come on like gangbusters.

Speaker 4 Since that time, the cost of solar energy has come down 80%,

Speaker 4 and it is continuing to drop. The cost of wind power has come down 20%.

Speaker 2 Okay, but what percentage of the grid is sun and solar?

Speaker 4 Small now, it's like 6, 8, 9 percent. Okay, so it didn't come on like that.

Speaker 4 Well, no, it is. It's growing at 3, 200, 300 percent a year.
But we can get, let me give you an example of what I mean by this. Just one factual example.

Speaker 4 They say we can't achieve my goal, which is to have electric cars by 2030.

Speaker 2 Look at that. All electric cars.
That's correct.

Speaker 4 The new cars that you start buying in 2030. That's my proposal.
In 1940, the United States total made 77 Jeeps. Four years later, we had made 640,000 jeeps.
If we mobilize this nation,

Speaker 4 we can build a clean energy economy. We just need a can-do president.

Speaker 2 Also, when World War II got started, you know what we stopped making? Cars.

Speaker 4 Well, no cars.

Speaker 2 Really?

Speaker 2 The states turned it all into tank factories and plane factories. The only cars were like big cars for generals to ride around with the flag at the front.

Speaker 2 But that's a different generation.

Speaker 4 This time we're going to have cars.

Speaker 4 We're going to have electric cars like I have. Look, I argued with Megan McCain.
She said, you don't have any cars.

Speaker 4 I said, look, I'd like a GM bolt, all-electric bolt, made by American auto workers in Orion, Michigan. That's a destiny for America, for jobs in this country.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 important question.

Speaker 2 They're all of you. You're arguing with Megan McCain? No.

Speaker 2 That's not the question.

Speaker 2 What about nuclear? Now, that's one that divides liberals.

Speaker 2 I mean, ask me one day, I'm for it, one day I'm against it. I don't know.
I mean, obviously, it's clean. It's also like if there is a problem, it's ultra-dirty and really bad.

Speaker 2 Where are you on that?

Speaker 4 My view is that we have to be serious about any potential zero low-carbon system. So, yes.

Speaker 4 Well, if, this is an if, if you can make it cost-effective, if you can make it safer, and if you can resolve the nuclear waste problem.

Speaker 4 If you can do those things, it could be part of the the possibility. No.
No, but you got to do that.

Speaker 2 Because we haven't done those things for decades.

Speaker 4 So, here's what I believe: I believe we should do research and development to find out whether or not

Speaker 4 we can surmount those problems. And if we can, it could be part of the solution.
So, I support that RD because this is an urgent problem. That's my view.
Okay. So, I'm with you both ways.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 Thank you very much for doing this. This has been a great issue, and I'm glad somebody is.

Speaker 2 Like, I just did.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Looks like being on a boat, isn't it?

Speaker 2 All right, he is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times and an MSNBC contributor. Brett Stevens is over here.
Brett Stevens,

Speaker 2 he's a former South Carolina state legislator and CNN political analyst. Bakari Seller is right over here.
Hey.

Speaker 2 And she's a co-founder and editor-at-large of Recode, host of the Recode Decode and Pivot podcast, and New York Times contributing opinion writer, Kara Switcher. Great to see you.

Speaker 2 Don't forget to send us your questions for tonight's overtimes. We're going to answer them after the show on YouTube.

Speaker 2 Okay, so if you're fans of the slow-moving coup that I've been advertising here for since 2016, this was a good week for you.

Speaker 2 And I remember after the midterms, you know, there was a lot of euphoria, which I was, frankly, not participating in.

Speaker 2 And people were saying, well, you know what? Now we got subpoena power. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Apparently not.

Speaker 6 Apparently not. Apparently not.

Speaker 2 Apparently, so my question, what do you do when the guy who you want to arrest is the guy who decides who gets arrested? That's kind of a pickle for a country.

Speaker 2 Brett, you start with that.

Speaker 7 I mean, look,

Speaker 7 Trump is doing what he does best, which is he's baiting liberals, and he's doing it very successfully.

Speaker 7 And the right response isn't to say, oh my god, this is a constitutional crisis, this is Watergate times 10. It may be all those things, but what really matters is how are you going to defeat him?

Speaker 7 How are you going to humiliate him? How are you going to belittle him? And how are you going to put him in his place so he is defeatable next November?

Speaker 7 And the answer is: you seal clap just like Nancy Pelosi. That's how you get Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 6 I also think that

Speaker 6 we are in a constitutional crisis, and this is on the level of Watergate, and this is

Speaker 6 worse than Watergate, but I do think you're dealing with the president who is a George Wallace and Richard Nixon combination.

Speaker 6 And so when you're dealing with this type of individual, and now you have an attorney general, and I don't know what you all want to call him, but he's a liar.

Speaker 6 And the Attorney General, Democrats have to be focused on impeaching him. and holding him in contempt.
You have things you can do. They can hold him in contempt and impeach him.

Speaker 5 And you can go for the, like, bar, like the others, the ones that we're putting on the Fed, you can go after those people.

Speaker 5 I think the problem you have here is we've got someone who does everything in public, and that's what's fascinating about it. He advertises it on Twitter every morning what he's going to do that day,

Speaker 5 what thing he's going to violate. And so the question is, how do you do that? How do you shame someone who's shameless? It's almost impossible, right?

Speaker 2 If he was a poker player, he would be all tells. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 it's only tells. I also think that

Speaker 6 at the hearing, we saw Senator Harris just skewer Bill Barr. I mean, we found out that...

Speaker 2 Well, you saw it

Speaker 2 because you watched the channels I watched.

Speaker 2 I'm the only person watching Simpa Man watching this. Most of America doesn't matter.

Speaker 6 But that's the thing, and

Speaker 6 you're correct, because Democrats now, we have to make America care.

Speaker 6 I mean, if there's anyone who does not care that we're in a constitutional crisis, then we need to be beating around their door and give them a reason to vote for it.

Speaker 7 But this is, I mean, I'm sorry, but this is like when your child comes home and says, you know, daddy, daddy, so-and-so was mean to me today and said this and this and this, and then they said that and that and that.

Speaker 7 And then you say, well, you know what you should do is just very quietly, when you see him the next time, go up to Johnny and just kick him in the shit.

Speaker 2 Okay, but

Speaker 2 wait a sec. Come on.
This is a real thing when you get a subpoena from Congress. Yeah.
This isn't some bullshit. This is a real thing.

Speaker 2 Look, you just mentioned impeachment, right?

Speaker 7 What are we talking about here? He's going to be impeached, and then what?

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, listen, but that doesn't mean

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 6 the Constitution just dies. Yeah, I know.
I mean, like, there is no answer.

Speaker 2 You're right.

Speaker 6 You have to, I mean, but you still, just because we know that the Senate will not throw him out, the same thing with Donald Trump. You still have to give the Constitution its power.

Speaker 6 No one in this country is above the law. And if we allow Donald Trump and Bill Barr to act as if they're above the law, then we're not doing our job.

Speaker 7 But I think in your best case scenario, Mike Pence becomes president.

Speaker 5 Right, or it becomes.

Speaker 2 Shit, well, that would be the best.

Speaker 5 It's about the election and who's going to win the election. I think that's really important.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I guess guess that's our only thing. Because ultimately, you're right.

Speaker 5 What happens with impeachment? It just is. It just sits there.

Speaker 5 And there's a version of, there was a great story in the New York Times recently about there's Democratic Twitter and then there's

Speaker 2 Democrats.

Speaker 5 And I think that's a big deal.

Speaker 2 I want to get to that.

Speaker 2 And you know what?

Speaker 2 The Twitter thing, especially with Trump, he makes Twitter his bitch. Well, yeah.

Speaker 2 And like I said, it's all about owning the libs. You know, that's what they are out for, owning.
And I tell you something, I feel owned now. You have succeeded.

Speaker 2 This week, when this guy said, you know what, I'm subpoenaed before Congress. Fuck you, I'm not showing up.
You're right. And we can't drink them.
I am owned. So, you know,

Speaker 2 there's 21 people now in the 21. 22 next week.
Who? Joe de Blasia. Oh, for fuck's sake.

Speaker 2 It's not even a horse race. It's a running of the bulls at this point.

Speaker 2 We're branding news here. And who got in this week?

Speaker 5 Michael Bennett, Senator Michael Bennett.

Speaker 2 Michael Bennett. What's his slogan? Google me?

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 my point is, all you 22 people who are running,

Speaker 2 you're asking, what can you do to get my vote? Make me not feel owned.

Speaker 2 Who is going to make me feel like, oh, I'm not going to be owned in two years?

Speaker 6 But this election has to be about more. We have to give people a reason to show up and vote for us.
I tell people often,

Speaker 6 the couch is always on the ballot. And what happened in 2016 is that people in Wisconsin, people in Michigan, people in Pennsylvania, a good bit of them chose the couch.

Speaker 6 They didn't want to come out and support Hillary Clinton.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but

Speaker 7 what you need to do is...

Speaker 6 No, no, no. And I was just simply saying that it's one thing to say that I'm against Donald Trump.
We have known that Donald Trump has been full of shit since 2016, right?

Speaker 2 Okay. That was not enough.

Speaker 6 We have to give people a reason to hope for it.

Speaker 7 What you you need is someone who is larger, and I don't mean waistline, larger than the president.

Speaker 7 I mean someone who has a kind of moral stature and talks about what is the real Achilles heel of this presidency, which is he embarrasses America.

Speaker 2 Can I tell you who that is?

Speaker 2 I had this little story I have to tell you. I was telling someone.
Okay. It's an aha moment.
All right. I was telling someone this story recently, about 10 years ago.

Speaker 2 I was going to this big swanky part. I think I was working it.
Not as a waiter.

Speaker 5 I'm not judging you.

Speaker 2 As a comedian, I think it was at Mike Overwatch's. Anyway, it was way up in the Hollywood Hills.

Speaker 2 And when there's parties up there, you know, the streets are narrow and windy, and people, the valet, the car is down at the bottom of the hill, and everybody takes the shuttle bus. Okay.
Okay, so

Speaker 5 we have no idea what you're talking about, but go ahead.

Speaker 2 That's why I'm explaining it. All right, okay, thank you.
Like, you can't get out. Everybody can't park up there.
There's not enough parking. It's a narrow street.
Okay. So

Speaker 2 when you go to the party, you park down at the bottom of the hill and you go up on the shuttle bus. But, you know, A-listers don't take shuttle buses.

Speaker 2 This is the land of exceptions for celebrities. So I was waiting there at the shuttle bus.
I was on the shuttle bus. I wasn't fighting it.

Speaker 2 But there were several A-listers who were like, come on, we don't have to take. And the guy was like, no,

Speaker 2 everybody has to take the golf cart. Everybody has to take the shuttle bus.
And one guy was like, come on, I never, I drive right up. And the guy went, Oprah.
took the shuttle bus.

Speaker 2 And everybody got right on the shuttle bus.

Speaker 2 They didn't say a word. And that's when I knew, I don't even like Oprah that much.
She could run. Because you know what? That Trump won because he was a TV star.

Speaker 7 Right.

Speaker 2 Kneel before Zod. TV is Zod.

Speaker 2 That's what gets to people. They saw him as the apprentice guy.
Oprah, she doesn't scare a lot of people who otherwise would be scared. She's much more popular than Hillary.

Speaker 2 She'd certainly get the African-American vote to come out. That's important to the Democrats.
I'm telling you, I don't think she wants to do it, but she's...

Speaker 5 One major problem, she's not running.

Speaker 2 But she, I'm just telling you, she could win.

Speaker 2 He said, who could win? He said somebody that was bigger.

Speaker 5 I think there's plenty of good candidates here. There are plenty of good candidates.
They just have to win.

Speaker 2 Well, that's the sure winner.

Speaker 5 There are a lot of good people here.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and there was a poll that had five people who could defeat Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 But the big problem you have in this room

Speaker 7 is that in some ways it looks like the Republican field in 2016, which is you've got the presumptive frontrunner who represents the last administration, Jeb in 16, and now Biden today.

Speaker 7 Then you've got the kind of outsider who has this core support that everyone thinks is a ceiling but might actually be a floor.

Speaker 7 And then you have 19 gremlins who are going to be fighting it out to emerge in third place as the viable alternative.

Speaker 7 And if Democrats aren't careful, they're going to get Bernie Sanders as their candidate.

Speaker 6 I think that, first of all, I think that our field is a little bit different than that. Let me describe it a little bit differently.

Speaker 6 I think it's the most diverse field in terms of you have two African-American candidates, you have Julian Castro.

Speaker 6 we have dynamic women that are running for office, and Kamala Harris, and Amy Klobuchar. I mean, Senator Gillibrand, the list goes on and on and on.

Speaker 6 And we have four or five people right now, the polls are saying they can beat Donald Trump.

Speaker 6 With all that being said, I do think if the election was today, Donald Trump would win four more years because we still have to get our house in order.

Speaker 2 But see, here's what bothers me: there's two conflicting thoughts in my head. One, Biden, first week, he's doing very well.

Speaker 2 You know, it's like he's an old, comfortable pair of shoes, and America's feet are hurting. Okay.

Speaker 2 Imagine. But

Speaker 2 when I look at the past, that kind of candidate, the old one whose turn it is, Mitt Romney and Hillary and McCain and Terry, all of them, America never, America likes strange.

Speaker 2 When they go into election, they want something strange. All right.
And Joe Biden's not that.

Speaker 5 Well, what if you pair him? Like, can you imagine Biden and Paris, for example, as a ticket?

Speaker 2 When does vice president ever make it?

Speaker 6 But you, one of the things that Joe Biden has to do, again,

Speaker 6 you know, running a values-oriented campaign, just I am not Donald Trump is not enough.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 6 You have to give people a reason to show up to the polls and vote for you. And I think one of the things that Joe Biden is going to do is a lot of the support that Joe Biden has right now is soft.

Speaker 6 And I think you'll have someone like a Senator Harris or like a Beto O'Rourke or someone who's able to.

Speaker 7 You want to make people feel proud of the country? It should be make America proud again. That's why Pete Buttigedge is the obvious candidate.

Speaker 2 Okay, so

Speaker 2 I don't know how Donald Trump does it. I don't know how he gets people.
I think he's a blackmailer. I do.
He must have pictures of people with a duck or something.

Speaker 2 Because, I mean, everybody who you think is,

Speaker 2 Lindsey Graham used to be against him. And that John Kennedy guy, Rod Rosenstein, I thought, was one of the good Republicans.
He quit this week. This is part of his resignation letter to Trump.

Speaker 2 I am grateful to you for the opportunity to serve, for the courtesy and humor you often display in our personal conversations, and for the goals you set in your inaugural address. Patriotism.

Speaker 2 So we've done this before. We gave out something every once in a while called the Ass Kisser of the Month.

Speaker 2 And you get it this month, Rod Rosenstein. Ass-kisser.

Speaker 2 No graphic for Ass-Kisser of the Month? There it is.

Speaker 2 What are you waiting for?

Speaker 5 Where's the ass?

Speaker 2 So we got a hold of the first draft of his letter even worse. Oh.

Speaker 2 Okay. Dear Mr.
President, I have worked for three presidents, but only one whose ball smelled like the first floor at Bloomingdale.

Speaker 2 Your penis is so big, terrorists try to fly planes into it. This is...

Speaker 2 I will always treasure the way.

Speaker 2 I will always treasure the ways you belittled me.

Speaker 2 And I think of you as the father I never had. And so does Tiffany.

Speaker 2 On the day that you were born, the angels got together and decided to create a dream come true.

Speaker 2 Oh, nobody remembers the carpenter? Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 You're super old.

Speaker 2 Yeah. My only regret is that I wasn't born a Siamese twin so both of us could work for you.

Speaker 2 And you didn't hear this from me, but Nancy Pelosi totally wants to fuck you.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 He is a musician and author of the book, Then It Fell Apart, which launches this Monday, May 6th, at the Aratani Theater here in Los Angeles. I love this guy's shit.
Moby is over here.

Speaker 2 Moby.

Speaker 2 How are you, my friends? Great to see you. Hi, everybody.

Speaker 2 Moby.

Speaker 2 Wow. Hello.
How are you? I am a longtime fan. A lot of Moby in my playlists.

Speaker 6 Uh-oh.

Speaker 2 Oh, no, that's a good thing. Okay, thanks.
I can't believe it's 20 years since play.

Speaker 8 Yeah. As you said regarding the Carpenters, we're old.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, you know, as a musician, before we get into the heavy stuff with the book, I did want to ask you, like, I'm the youngest person in my house.
I don't have kids.

Speaker 2 I'm the only person in my house. That's how I stay behind.
God bless me too. So I just, you know, I want to like the new stuff, and I always am asking, am I old or does it actually suck?

Speaker 2 Well, I got Spotify. But I think it actually sucks.

Speaker 8 I got Spotify on my phone, and when I first got it, I was like, oh, I'm going to hear all this new music. And immediately, I use it as a nostalgia machine.

Speaker 8 And like, basically, Spotify is my high school playlist. Like, I haven't, my musical tastes sort of ended around 1984.

Speaker 8 So modern music might be great, but it can't compete with The Clash or Public Enemy or John Lennon or Neil Young, on and on and on. But I feel like

Speaker 2 you were very much on the cusp of something that everybody does now, that you were many things at once.

Speaker 2 I may be wrong about this, but you weren't just the musician and you sometimes sang, you sang, but you were like a curator and a DJ and a producer.

Speaker 2 It was like, I make this record, I'm on it, but then if I want to put something else into it, I do that too.

Speaker 8 Well, because originally I wanted to be a singer, but I'm not a great singer, so I had to learn how to do everything else. And so it wasn't like that old adage, necessity is the mother of invention.

Speaker 8 I wanted to be Bono or David Bowie, but my singing voice is really mediocre. So I had to learn instruments and production and DJing to sort of overcompensate for the fact that I'm a shitty singer.

Speaker 2 But with auto-tune, no one is a shitty singer.

Speaker 8 Yeah, nowadays that is true.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and that's one thing I don't like about the modern sound. Okay, but what I love about...

Speaker 8 But I do like complaining about young people. Right.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's always satisfying. You're right.
But what I really loved about your book, and the first one too, I mean, this is your second memoir. Okay, and you're very honest.

Speaker 2 In a way, even in memoirs, people are not. I mean, you say you loved the adulation.
You drank it up like a thirsty sponge. Most people don't admit that.
You say, you know,

Speaker 2 you looked at Trent Reznor. You had all the women.
You wanted women to adore you like that. Look, it's very honest.

Speaker 8 Because I grew up very poor

Speaker 8 and in a very dysfunctional home with like sexual abuse and violence and mental illness. And I thought that fame was going to fix everything.

Speaker 8 And so I pursued it desperately. And for a while, it worked.
I mean, there were those moments where I was like out of my mind on like liquor and drugs and having sex with strangers in the bathroom.

Speaker 8 And like, that was great, but not sustainable and then I found myself chasing the dragon as a lot of aging celebrities do right and like so suddenly like you're in the basement of a strip club saying to like the bouncer at three in the morning don't you know who I am and you're like oh my god I'm awful well yes there's that part of it

Speaker 2 if you're gonna but I

Speaker 2 I certainly wouldn't want to turn the kids off to random sex and drugs.

Speaker 8 No,

Speaker 8 it's a rite of passage that everyone should go through.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, I mean, you know, you don't have to be, I mean, in your book, it's basically, you know, you had a hole in your soul and sex and drugs did not fill it.

Speaker 8 No, and I tried and tried and tried and tried and tried.

Speaker 2 I mean, like, it's not the worst journey to be on, to come up to empty at the end. That's all I'm saying.
Okay, so

Speaker 2 I've asked this of all the guests we've had on the show. Have you ever rubbed your penis against Donald Trump?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 8 as a matter of fact, as most of the guests would say, yes, I have.

Speaker 2 Tell me about it. So.
No, I read it in your book.

Speaker 8 There was one night, it was about 2001, I was out at a party and I was very drunk. I'm sober now.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Ten years? Yeah.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 I was with some friends and they were telling me about this game that they used to play in college called Knob Touch.

Speaker 8 And I really shouldn't. be divulging this in public, but it is in the book.
So Knob Touch is when you take your flaccid penis out of your pants. Flaccid.
And these days, my penis is always flaccid.

Speaker 2 See, others. It's unnatural.

Speaker 8 And you walk around a room and you brush your flaccid penis up against people. Indiscriminate.
It's not sexual. There's no gender involved.
And the goal is to see like...

Speaker 2 Jake Biden. Yeah.
Not sexual.

Speaker 2 Indiscriminate. Not sexual.
It's just inappropriate.

Speaker 2 And so I'm not saying he does that. I'm just saying it's not sexual.

Speaker 8 So I was very drunk, and my friends told me about knob touch, and my girlfriend at the time dared me to knob touch Donald Trump.

Speaker 8 So I've only rubbed my flaccid penis against one person in the entire world and that man is currently on a golden toilet in the White House tweeting about something.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 2 life goals.

Speaker 5 I wish I could do the same.

Speaker 2 I'm planning.

Speaker 5 I am going to do knob touch with him as soon as I can.

Speaker 2 I mean

Speaker 8 yeah,

Speaker 8 I probably wouldn't do that now that I'm like old and sober. But at the time, when I was blackout drunk.
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 The Beatles got high when they got their MBEs from the, you know, the medals from the British Empire. You got to do it.
Willie Nelson got stoned in the Lincolnshire.

Speaker 8 Keith Richards. Yeah, Keith Richards shot up in the rock house.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you're a rock star. You deserve some rock star shit.
Rock star chick promoting.

Speaker 2 So, and also you're

Speaker 2 one of my heroes, because like me, you're an animal lover, and you're a real activist. You You have a vegan restaurant.
Did you see Beyond Meat and Beyond Burger?

Speaker 2 These companies now, I've noticed myself out at restaurants, the veggie burger is not what it was two years ago. They finally got it with the veggie burger.

Speaker 2 This is going to be a big thing, right?

Speaker 8 I hope, I mean, I've been a vegan for 31 years. Wow.
And honestly, animal rights is my life's work. Like my restaurant, Little Pine, 100% of the profits goes to animal rights organizations.

Speaker 8 Same thing with this book, Dennis Little Fell Apart. 100% of the profits goes to animal rights organizations.
So entrepreneurially, I'm an idiot.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 8 You know, like everything I do professionally, like 100% of my profits go to animal rights organizations because, and I wanted to talk to Jay Inslee, if he's still here.

Speaker 2 He'll be here later.

Speaker 2 About climate change. He lives here now.
Oh, okay.

Speaker 8 Because whenever people talk about climate change, they ignore animal agriculture. I agree.
And animal agriculture is the third leading cause of climate change.

Speaker 8 Like talking about climate change and not addressing animal agriculture is like talking about lung cancer and not talking about smoking. So America and everyone,

Speaker 2 if in any way.

Speaker 8 But then again, I would also say, I don't like humans very much. So like maybe you should keep eating bacon and burgers and destroy yourselves.

Speaker 7 Like get obese.

Speaker 2 I think we took that one subway stop too far. But I'm totally with you on the rest of it.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 I'm saying I should relapse. I'm a little tense.
He's gone all panos. Well, you know, and I always always think of you as a tech guy.
And I am not a tech guy, but you are the ultimate.

Speaker 2 I mean, I read everyone who's in the technology.

Speaker 2 I get most of my information about tech from you. And Facebook is in the news.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 But it's in the news every friggin week. They are.
They really are. They really are.
What is it?

Speaker 6 They're paying a $5 billion

Speaker 2 fine for them

Speaker 2 for them. The parking tickets.
The parking ticket, you call it, for privacy violations. But

Speaker 2 forgive me, I don't know that much about it. But isn't privacy violations how they make their money? Yes, exactly.

Speaker 5 That's the business model.

Speaker 5 That is the business model. I think the question is, and Brett just wrote a great column on it in the Times, too, and I write about them all the time.
I think the question is,

Speaker 5 what do we do about them? What do we do about them? This week, which Brett wrote about, was they barred certain people off the platform. And there's going to be controversy around that.

Speaker 5 Alex Jones, Louis Farrakhan, a bunch of others.

Speaker 2 Milo. Milo.

Speaker 5 So the question is, what does Congress do about them? What do regulators do about them? What do people in states and local governments, and what do internationally, what do countries do about them?

Speaker 8 Isn't the big question, what are they?

Speaker 2 What are they? Are they a media outlet? Are they

Speaker 2 a town hall?

Speaker 8 And like, until that's defined, it's really hard to hold them to accountable.

Speaker 2 Well, he said that this, he said what we are. He said this week, Mark Zuckerberg said,

Speaker 2 we're trying to move from being a digital equivalent of a town square to the divilage equivalent of the living room, or you could just use your living room and have people open.

Speaker 6 That's what I mean. As I was joking with, what is that? I was joking with Brett backstage.

Speaker 6 It's like the digital equivalent of the purge now because basically people just go on Facebook and it's very, very divisive, and the rhetoric is jacked up.

Speaker 6 I think it was purposed to be a place where people were to gather in the internet and be able to exchange ideas. Well, that's not the case anymore.
Facebook has to be a bit more.

Speaker 5 The question is, is it a public square? It is not a public square.

Speaker 6 It's as close as you can possibly get.

Speaker 5 It's a private company where billionaires are made. And so it's not a public square.
It's treated like a public square.

Speaker 2 It's a waste of time. It's time.

Speaker 2 This is what.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but

Speaker 2 I've tried a number of times. That's the only way I can keep up with my older relatives.

Speaker 5 There's 2.6 billion people on it. That's not a waste.
There's so many people on it, especially like in the Philippines.

Speaker 2 That many people couldn't be time wasters. People are time wasters.

Speaker 5 Yes, but that's where people are getting their news. And in certain countries, all the news

Speaker 2 is there.

Speaker 5 All the news has gotten there. But it shouldn't be.

Speaker 2 Well, okay. Because I hear people say that when I ask them, you don't know about this? They're like, I get most of my news from what people put on my feed.
Right.

Speaker 5 But it's not just.

Speaker 2 It's not so you're depending on your dumbass friends tell you what's up.

Speaker 2 Yes, but

Speaker 2 that's not good.

Speaker 2 That's why we're so stupid.

Speaker 5 Well, the question is, what are we going to do there?

Speaker 8 There are a lot of reasons why we're so stupid.

Speaker 6 But I also think that, you know, I think Facebook got it right, and I think it was an easy call to ban these three individuals, but it's a slippery slope.

Speaker 6 So, I mean, where do they go next, I think, is the question.

Speaker 6 I mean, are they going to keep that same energy when it comes to someone like Franklin Graham, who is a Baptist minister but who is a homophobic bigot, right?

Speaker 6 But he's supported by the President of the United States.

Speaker 6 Are we going to keep that same energy?

Speaker 6 And my question is: are you going to have three white kids in Silicon Valley who are sitting in a cubicle decide what's dangerous and what rhetoric they ban and what rhetoric they don't?

Speaker 6 And I have a fundamental problem with that.

Speaker 2 I do, too.

Speaker 7 Well, I mean, right, because you have, what, a 33-year-old kid who is essentially

Speaker 2 a kid.

Speaker 5 He has two children.

Speaker 2 We established your old. All right, okay.

Speaker 5 This is what he always gets off on: is he's an adult with two children and he has $64 billion, and he controls the country.

Speaker 2 And one shirt. Right.

Speaker 2 Don't go there.

Speaker 5 Are you going to do that again?

Speaker 2 He has lots of shirts.

Speaker 5 He has lots of shirts.

Speaker 2 One I've ever seen. Go ahead.

Speaker 7 No, I mean, look, the problem with Facebook and all of social media is it's been the land of unintended consequences. So this was supposed to unite us all, and it's in fact divided all of us.

Speaker 7 It's made us more isolated. Twitter was supposed to democratize speech.
It's accelerated demagoguery on the planet. Now they want to ban these horrible people, and they're all horrible.

Speaker 7 We all recognize that.

Speaker 7 but then we're going to get into a slippery slope where Facebook becomes the arbiter of what can be said in their in their digital quote public square whatever it is and the idea of this younger man having determining what qualifies as worthwhile speech I think is dystopian and terrible.

Speaker 6 But it's also Facebook is also not the

Speaker 2 It's also not the cause.

Speaker 6 I mean it's just a it's just the symptom of a problem that we had in the world.

Speaker 7 It's just accelerating

Speaker 5 it this way. That's not true.
What they did,

Speaker 5 let me give you an idea. You got the purge, because I've talked about this before.
They created a city. It's a digital city is what it is.

Speaker 5 And they decided not to have police garbage, street signs, sewers, or anything, but they charged the rent. And every night it is the purge.
And that's what the problem is.

Speaker 6 I agree with that, but I think that there's a larger problem we have in this country. It just finds Facebook the rest.

Speaker 6 I mean, we have xenophobia, white supremacy, bigotry, and I think that is the problem. The symptom is just Facebook, because that's where people just go to espouse their views.

Speaker 5 But it amplifies it.

Speaker 2 But here it's more in human history.

Speaker 5 It's never been. This is an astonishing moment.

Speaker 2 Are you going to throw people off for their horrible ideas? Okay. So if I didn't tell you who said this this week, if I just said this is somebody on Facebook, should they throw them off?

Speaker 2 This person said, the democratic position on abortion is now so extreme that they don't mind executing babies after birth.

Speaker 5 Donald Trump.

Speaker 5 Yes. On Twitter.

Speaker 2 The president said, yeah, he said the baby is born, the mother meets with the doctor, they take care of the baby, they wrap the baby beautifully, and then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby.

Speaker 2 So when that's the president,

Speaker 2 this is what they're running on. Socialism and the Democrats are for executing babies.
And this is not a right-wing, crazy radio host. This is the president.
Backed up, by the way, by Newt Gingrich.

Speaker 2 We are in the battle for the soul of America. On the one side, you have a party that believes babies can be killed after they're born.
Right. Because that's what Democrats are for.

Speaker 2 Let's make killing babies safe, effective, legal, and common.

Speaker 8 But then again, looking, I mean, based on our conversation about young people, like, maybe there should be a compelling case for postnatal abortion. No.

Speaker 2 But that.

Speaker 2 I'm holding up to like the 80th trial.

Speaker 2 We know who's not doing the Democratic messaging. Okay, that would be

Speaker 2 soft. No, I don't.

Speaker 2 I sound someone worse than me.

Speaker 6 But I mean, this is, I mean,

Speaker 6 it's absurd that we even have to dispel these falsehoods coming from the White House. I mean we all know that that's not the case.

Speaker 6 But I mean the simple fact that I like to always bring up with people is that I don't want Mitch McConnell. I don't want Lindsey Graham.

Speaker 6 I don't want Mike Pence and Donald Trump deciding what me and my wife do with her body. I mean that is a decision she makes.

Speaker 6 That's a decision that she makes with her doctor.

Speaker 6 And I think the Republicans are so hypocritical because they're so profetus but anti-child because when the child gets here, they damn sure don't don't take care of them.

Speaker 6 They're not in favor of early childhood education. They're not in favor of climate change

Speaker 6 or battling climate change. They just don't care when the child gets here.

Speaker 2 Okay, so there's a lot of hate on Facebook and apparently this week in the New York Times.

Speaker 2 Kidding. But well you talked about this.
No, well

Speaker 2 they made a little mistake.

Speaker 2 I mean people

Speaker 2 I don't know. You were very upset about it.
It was a bad thing. Let's show the cartoon.

Speaker 2 They ran this cartoon in the international edition and it's that's supposed to be it looks like Peggy Lee, but it's that's but that's Donald Trump no but they didn't know the carpenter they're not gonna know Peggy Lee that's Donald Trump and that's Netanyahu is the dog with the Jewish star and I guess it's trying to say that Netanyahu of course is leading Trump around but there's many many I mean obviously there are anti-Semitic troops in this cartoon it's it was a shameful cartoon it's nakedly anti-Semitic it illustrates how easily anti-Zionism and the constant demonization, not criticism, demonization of Israel collapses into outright anti-Semitism.

Speaker 7 It should never have run in the Times. The good news is the newspaper instantly apologized.
They ran a scathing op-ed or column about the cartoon by me

Speaker 2 in the paper.

Speaker 7 And then they ran an editorial again apologizing for the cartoon.

Speaker 7 It was a terrible moment for the Times, but on the other hand, imagine if our government or our executive branch, every time it made a terrible mistake, immediately apologized,

Speaker 7 withdrew the cartoon, criticized itself, and vowed to change. I think we could be a better country.

Speaker 2 But here's the

Speaker 2 it's really interesting about Donald Trump and this issue. The number of anti-Semitic incidents, nearly 60% higher in 2017.
We just had one right down the road here near San Diego.

Speaker 2 And we saw Pittsburgh, and we saw New Zealand. Well, that's different.
Was nearly 60% higher in 2017 than 2016, the largest single-year increase on record.

Speaker 2 And somehow Donald Trump has this coalition, the Nazis like him, and

Speaker 2 Netanyahu likes him. He's got the anti-Semites and Sheldon Nadelson.
Explain that to me.

Speaker 6 Well, I think that it's easy to explain the rise in anti-Semitism in this country. I go back to Charlottesville, and I remind people that

Speaker 6 the most amazing thing about Charlottesville was that they were chanting these anti-Semitic lines, and and they didn't wear hoods. They didn't wear masks.

Speaker 6 These individuals were not afraid to show their face.

Speaker 6 They felt emboldened and the reason that they felt emboldened is because there was someone in the White House who could carry the mantle and utilize the same or similar language that they use.

Speaker 6 And so that's a fundamental problem we have in this country, that those messages come down from on high.

Speaker 6 And until the Republican Party actually shows some testicular fortitude and the ability to actually stand up against Donald Trump when we're talking about destroying the fabric of our country, nothing's going to change.

Speaker 6 And the problem with anti-Semitism and bigotry and racism is that sometimes it can lead to harmful things and acts like the deaths we saw in the United States.

Speaker 7 I agree, but look,

Speaker 7 it's incumbent on everyone to call out the shit on their own side. And there is plenty of anti-Semitism coming from the left.

Speaker 7 It's disguised as anti-Zionism, but when a congresswoman says it's all about the Benjamins, that's anti-Semitic. And I've called out Donald Trump.
I want to hear Democrats

Speaker 2 call out.

Speaker 7 Because Jews, people, no one can afford to simply say we only have enemies on the opposite side, especially when it comes to those of us who are Jewish.

Speaker 7 We have enemies on all sides, and we have to be alert to them.

Speaker 2 Literally,

Speaker 2 with Israel. And I think it speaks to the ascendancy of victimization as a goal on the left.
Because when Israel was weak after the war, the left loved Israel.

Speaker 2 When they got strong, suddenly they didn't love them so much. They like people who they have much less in common with value-wise.
Oh, liberal value-wise. When you get back to the point,

Speaker 5 you started with Facebook. That's where it starts, though, this radicalization.
I think what happened in New Zealand,

Speaker 5 you know, the way they broadcast it. And these are all these questions.
How do you get radicalized? How does it get spread? And then how does it continue on?

Speaker 5 And I think the weaponization and amplification of hate is part of it. It's added an extra, it's like a jet fuel to this entire thing, and that's what's created.

Speaker 5 And the internet was created to be great, but what it's done is.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 6 there also is not this or are not these major fissures between Israel and the Democratic Party. I mean, that's just not there.
It's very loud on the far left, but these fissures aren't large.

Speaker 6 I mean, you're talking about Barack Obama, who's the reason that Israel has an Iron Dome. You're talking about a $31 billion MOU between the two countries.
And you're talking about military

Speaker 6 F-35s that were actually delivered to Israel, that the only other country in the world that has them is Israel. And so

Speaker 6 Israel has been a partner and will be a partner. But right now, you have personalities.
I mean, they're people, and I think that's okay to be critical of Bibi Nanyahu.

Speaker 6 But I think what Democrats have a problem doing, or not all Democrats, but what's happening is sometimes anti-Semitism,

Speaker 6 whether or not it's this cartoon or whether or not it's Congresswoman Omar, are allowing themselves to delve into racist tropes, which makes this nuanced discussion very difficult to do.

Speaker 7 Criticism is great, just don't demonize. Right.

Speaker 2 Okay, thank you, panel. Time for new rules.

Speaker 2 Neural, since nobody knows who half of them are anyway, every week the news media must try to sneak someone who doesn't belong into that collage of presidential candidates.

Speaker 2 Just to see how long it takes people to say, hey, wait a minute, that's the Travago guy.

Speaker 2 New Year, New Roll, 107-year-old Bill Franklin, Go Bill, who recently moved into an elder care home but is still the world's oldest practicing doctor, has to retire.

Speaker 2 No offense, Dr. Franklin, but I don't want the man who has his finger in my ass to say, why are we doing this again?

Speaker 2 New rural women using the baby pod, a speaker that plays music for unborn babies by inserting it into the vagina, must admit this has nothing to do with music.

Speaker 2 First off, you have the bass cranked way up.

Speaker 2 And second, you're not pregnant.

Speaker 2 If Whole Foods is serious about their customers bringing cloth bags from home, they have to shame them by printing on their paper bags things like, Fuckface forgot his his bag.

Speaker 2 I parked in the handicap spot too.

Speaker 2 I was a tree, but then dip shit here, needed kale.

Speaker 2 Here are all the Democrats have to turn Lindsey Graham reading an email from FBI agent Peter Strzok into a political ad.

Speaker 2 Had enough of President Trump. So has Lindsey Graham.
Trump is a fucking idiot. When even conservative Republicans slam Trump, Trump is a fucking idiot.
You know it's time for him to go.

Speaker 2 Call your congressman and say, Trump is a fucking idiot.

Speaker 2 And finally, new rural Democrats have to give me a reason to live.

Speaker 2 As I mentioned last week in this space, the Mueller Report, that was our shot. With a dysfunctional Congress and a traitorous Attorney General, it fell to one man to stop the madness.

Speaker 2 And when he didn't, I got to tell you, it broke me a little bit. I am, for the first time in my life, using marijuana for legitimate medical reasons.

Speaker 2 Yesterday I wandered into a dispensary and said, give me the strongest strain of indiga you have. And the guy said, sir, this is a Baskin-Robbins.

Speaker 2 I admit it, I've let myself go. Why not? What's the point? Trump gets away with everything.
He beat the rap on Russia.

Speaker 2 He's gotten away with collusion and obstruction and stealing Obama's Supreme Court seat. So many things were supposed to bring him down.

Speaker 2 Charlottesville, Stormy Daniels, kids in cages, Mueller, nothing does. He picked up Senate seats in the midterms.
He got Kavanaugh and Kanye.

Speaker 2 He got the entire Republican Party behind him. Despite all the laws of economics, the stock market is up.
Despite the laws of nutrition, he's alive.

Speaker 2 And despite the laws of laws, he's not in jail.

Speaker 2 He was right about one thing. I am tired of him winning.
My current position on politics is fetal.

Speaker 2 I hear people say, just turn off the news.

Speaker 4 I can't.

Speaker 2 It's my job, and I'm not going to abandon my post.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 I'm here to tell you that I think I found something that helps. And I need to tell you about it tonight because it affects our relationship.

Speaker 2 And what it is, is I, Bill Maher, am 100% all in on and completely into

Speaker 2 ASMR.

Speaker 2 That's right. ASMR, which stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.
And no, it's not that thing where you jerk off with a belt around your neck.

Speaker 2 It's an internet phenomenon where people soothe themselves by watching people whisper and quietly touch and rub things.

Speaker 2 It's me.

Speaker 2 combat.

Speaker 2 ASMR has become so popular, it was even in a Super Bowl ad this year.

Speaker 2 Let's all experience

Speaker 2 something

Speaker 2 together.

Speaker 2 I know you're thinking, Bill, did you hit your head?

Speaker 2 You are the last guy we'd expect to be into some crazy social media fad.

Speaker 2 I know, but when all day long I have to see this,

Speaker 2 turn off the light, build that wall.

Speaker 2 I don't know what I said. These are my words.
Let's go home to mommy.

Speaker 9 I said, let's go to Iraq.

Speaker 2 But I had one beer. Please, Russia, please.
I don't like mosquitoes.

Speaker 9 Who likes me?

Speaker 9 No, get those lights off.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 If I have to look at that in the day, I find it very helpful at night to watch this.

Speaker 2 Isn't it easier to accept that our country is falling apart after you see that guy?

Speaker 2 So starting right now, and perhaps for a little while,

Speaker 2 I will be needing to

Speaker 2 do the show

Speaker 2 like this.

Speaker 2 I know it's a little weird,

Speaker 2 but it's what I need to do

Speaker 2 to to be able to keep talking about Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 This and crinkling paper.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry, I can't cope any other way.

Speaker 2 I've tried everything: hot yoga,

Speaker 2 scream therapy,

Speaker 2 a dill,

Speaker 2 Scissor.

Speaker 2 This is what works for me.

Speaker 2 You too.

Speaker 2 I'm ashamed.

Speaker 2 I'm telling you, people, this shit really works when you're dealing dealing with a guy like Trump, who has lied 10,000 times.

Speaker 2 And he won't release his taxes,

Speaker 2 even though the law says he shall

Speaker 2 do so.

Speaker 2 and he brags about grabbing women by the pussy

Speaker 2 because he's a celebrity

Speaker 2 They say fascism can't happen here. I say it already has.

Speaker 2 I say if Trump took over a country that wasn't America, we would bomb it.

Speaker 2 So don't be ashamed of ASMR. Whatever you have to do, take a Harry Potter wand and rake it across a Perry Como record.

Speaker 2 Stir wet,

Speaker 2 stir wet ramen with a tildo.

Speaker 2 Rub your penis against Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 whatever it takes because

Speaker 2 see

Speaker 2 it worked

Speaker 2 And I thank you.

Speaker 2 I thank you.

Speaker 2 I hope I don't have to do that too much. I thank you for indulging me, and hopefully I'll be back to normal soon.

Speaker 2 Until then, to all of President Trump's Russo-Republican enablers who heard me say a few minutes ago that I was broken a little bit. Dream on, traitors.
That's not going to happen.

Speaker 2 Fuck you and good night.

Speaker 2 All right, that's our show. I'm at the Hera Coffee House in Baltimore, June 9th, and at the Ruth Eckert Hall at Clara Waterfall on August 4th.

Speaker 2 I want to thank Brett Stevens, Macari Sellers, Darius Risher, and Governor Jay Inslee and Moby. My partners, stay tuned for other time on YouTube.

Speaker 3 Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10, or watch him anytime on HBO On Demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com.