Overtime – Episode #490: Pete Buttigieg, Preet Bharara, S. E. Cupp, Elissa Slotkin, Andrew Sullivan

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

Hi, we're back here.

Thank you for that.

Why are you so afraid of the cards?

Fewer questions.

More questions?

Viewer questions.

Viewer, why is that more scary than me?

Because you're not scary.

You don't scare me.

Okay, all right, great.

SC Cup.

Do you still beat your wife?

No.

Mayor Pete.

Oh, that's what we're going to call you.

Mayor Pete.

That's pretty much, yeah.

Okay.

Given your work in South Bend, do you think there needs to be national reform for every police department in America?

Absolutely.

I mean, you know, we're a diverse community.

I'm not sure everybody realizes that because they think in Notre Dame, they assume it's a racially homogeneous

college town.

Irish.

Yeah.

Well, not Irish, but we're about 45% non-white.

And I got to tell you, it makes life harder for every resident of a minority neighborhood and every police officer when there's a kind of veil of mistrust between communities of color and the officers sworn to keep them safe.

Now, under the Obama administration, I had a lot of resources I could look to from a Department of Justice that was committed to helping us with that.

It was called the Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

My police chief would participate.

And when you have a DOJ that doesn't seem to care about these things, that makes it a lot harder for mayors and police chiefs across the country trying to make sure we modernize our departments and build up that trust makes it harder for us to do our job.

Or there's the Trump answer, which is be rough with them and

the people with the bullets are on my side.

Yeah.

I mean that's that's a scary thing.

I mean it really is

we have to keep reminding ourselves how disgusting that is.

Well, what a violation of our norms that is.

For him to say I've got the police,

and we also have to remember this is again what dictators do.

They get the people, the tough people with the bullets on their side and they buy them off.

That's why the Pentagon budget keeps going up.

That's why he's always kissing the ass of the cops.

You know, because when Bush comes to shove and he loses the election and he doesn't leave the White House, he's got the tough people.

Next question.

Andrew Sullivan, what do you anticipate will happen with Brexit?

Oh, you're in a bigger mess than we are.

I think my, if I were, it'd be a fool to predict.

It's like minute by minute now.

And it's Tory Party politics now.

So it's all about the factions within conservatism.

But the truth is, I think they're going to crash crash out without a deal.

They don't want to, but in some ways it's inevitable.

Basically, you had,

you have a 52-48 decision in the referendum, right down the middle, really, on a very fundamental question.

And a prime minister comes in who didn't want that, who actually voted to remain, and she says, well, look, okay, let's do a compromise.

Let's have, yeah, we'll get out for the 52, but for the 48, we'll keep our trade and we'll try and keep the economic connections.

And

not being a member of of the EU.

And so the Tories say, look, that means we're still obeying their laws, but we don't even got to say them anymore, so it's worse than staying in.

I think they have to get out of the way.

And they'll either have to just get out.

They're going to have to see what a mess it is.

And then they'll have another vote in five years after so many people have been hurt.

And they'll get the, that's what's going to happen.

It'd be very hard to go back into EU once you've left.

Really?

Yeah.

I think money can change anybody's mind.

Throw money at a problem, it goes away.

I learned that.

You know, let's see what happens to the British economy.

Okay.

It may not be as bad as they think.

And look, the British voted this way.

They're pragmatic.

They don't want their issue immigration, too.

And when a pragmatic country like that is doing something that's crazy, we've got to address the question.

Okay, so Representative Slotkin, as a freshman member of Congress, what's your perspective on the divisions between progressives and moderates within the Democratic Party?

You are much more representative of the 40 who won in November 2018 than the ones we hear about all the time.

Yeah, I mean, I think the story of the 2018 elections was, you know, people who appealed to a broad base of people, trusted the voters, spoke to them, went out, asked for their vote, and talked about the issues that they cared about, not so much about Donald Trump every day.

He's doing his own thing on his own.

That's what won the elections.

But I think the drama that people have been focusing on is a little overplayed.

I think it's like people like that story.

It is extremely exciting to be a part of this freshman class.

You walk in, it is a different breed.

We have a fire lit under us.

And I think of it like a platoon.

I worked alongside the military my whole life.

You have a platoon, but everyone has different jobs.

You have the same mission, everyone has different jobs.

It's every war movie, the guy from Brooklyn and the Jewish guy.

It's a good movie.

It's a good movie.

Always the guy from Brooklyn.

Okay, SE Cup, are you worried about Trump's nomination of Stephen Moore?

Is he booked soon?

It will be nice.

To the Fed board.

I mean, he himself said, I don't know what I'm doing.

And it's a steep learning curve.

And boy, that's what you want on the Fed board.

Someone who needs a steep learning curve.

It's no surprise to

the pressure really loves the pundit.

He gets the best people.

Punditocracy.

And, you know, we're good people, but we're not all experts on everything.

And we probably shouldn't all be put at State Department or

pundit is a generous term.

He's a guy on TV.

Sure.

Trump sees people on TV and hires them.

Yeah, I think

it's a dangerous standard to set.

and I think that's been.

Creet, can you explain what you think happened with the Jussie Smollett case?

No, I can't.

I don't know.

Pollution, you're totally okay with that.

Jussie Smollett, that's a, that's a, that's a.

It's dumbfounding.

Look, you know, initially you had a very serious allegation of a hate crime, and then, you know, you want to make sure that you understand what the facts are, and then you have the police department and the prosecutor's office there, you know, really passionately bringing their case.

And you've seen that before.

And then a few weeks later, you have what we just saw in the last week, where the prosecutor's office just dismisses everything, walks away, and usually that's done in conjunction with, and you know, there's a consensus with the police department.

And the police department chief excoriates the prosecutors for dropping the case.

And as far as I can tell, no facts changed from the time they brought the prosecution and the time they dropped the prosecution.

And I've spent most of my adult life

as a prosecutor doing cases or overseeing cases, and I've never seen anything like that.

So I think it's important to understand what happened because I don't get it, and this used to be my business.

What I don't get is he's still saying

he told the truth all along.

It's true.

That is totally true.

It's exonerated.

Yes, it filters down.

But that's when the top guy in the country says you can just say anything.

It filters down.

He brings up for an NAACP Image Award on Sunday night.

Right.

Okay.

Congresswoman Slotkin, do you think Trump has a good shot at winning Michigan again in 2020?

And I'll ask the same question to you about Indiana, but he goes to Michigan a lot.

I heard that was his 18th trip.

Yeah, and we're going to see him a lot.

He was here yesterday.

He was there yesterday.

We're going to see him a lot.

I think that

this is the Democrats' election to lose.

And that means it's still possible to lose.

I think it depends on who we put up, and I think it depends on whether we have someone who speaks to people on the things that are going to affect their pocketbooks and their kids.

And

it is not playing to the base every day.

It's remembering that you have to appeal to a broad base of people based on values.

I won with a lot of Republican women who had the same exact values that I did.

Caring about your community, caring about your kids, wanting empathy.

Those are shared American values.

I am extremely optimistic after running for office for 18 months.

I'm the most optimistic person probably here because every day I'm with wonderful, decent people who still care about this country.

And to me, if you get a candidate who speaks to that and can show some integrity and authenticity, right, then you're going to get a Democratic Committee.

What do you think about Indiana 2020?

Look, it's a very conservative state, but it can be done.

I mean, I think about just mathematically, there must be a lot of people in my county who voted for Obama.

and Trump and Pence and me.

So what that tells you is people are not as ideological as you might assume.

And I don't think anybody would have guessed that in the last 50 years, since LBJ,

the only Democrat who turned Indiana blue,

not Clinton, not Kerry, it was Obama in 2008.

So to me, that tells you that there is a way to do it.

I think, as Alyssa says, it's largely about values and demonstrating sometimes even people with different values than yours, if they just know that values are what motivates you, they will give you a lot of credit for that.

And if they know that you came right.

And the future is always changing faster than we think in some ways.

Look at gay marriage.

I mean, this was not even close, like 15 years ago.

Yeah, but you know why?

Because we talked to people.

We actually made the persuasive case.

We didn't tell them they were biggest.

We also told them what we were doing.

No, it was because of Will and Grace.

It was because we did that, Andrew.

Sorry, but Hollywood gets the credit for that.

Hollywood changed people's minds.

I really think that.

But if you run.

I was saying

the tactic was never confrontational.

The tactic was always, look, we have our families in common.

We're just like you, we have your brothers.

And so you engaged.

Whereas now the thing is, you're racist, you're big.

I don't want to be part of you,

but please vote for me.

But

if you were the candidate, I mean, is Donald Trump going to leave that issue alone?

I can't see that.

I doubt it.

No.

What do you think he would say?

What's the nickname?

I don't know.

I'm not imaginative enough to figure out what it would be.

But, you know, I'm not that worried about it.

No, you shouldn't be.

You're the one white guy on the Democratic side who has minority cred.

Yeah.

And it's probably never felt like a wound.

Okay, all right.

Thank you, everybody.

We'll see you next week.

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