Overtime - Episode #474: Neil deGrasse Tyson, April Ryan, Evelyn Farkas, Max Brooks

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Tires matter.

They're the only part of your vehicle that touches the road.

Tread confidently with new tires from Tire Rack.

Whether you're looking for expert recommendations or know exactly what you want, Tire Rack makes it easy.

Fast, free shipping, free road hazard protection, convenient installation options, and the best selection of BF Goodrich tires.

Go to tire rack.com to see their BF Goodrich test results, tire ratings, and reviews.

And be sure to check out all the special offers.

TireRack.com, the way tire buying should be.

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

Start the clock.

Right here with me.

Thank you very much.

Oh, I'm so kind.

I think I know why you're happy tonight because thank you very much.

I will be taking marriage offers after the show, as always.

Not here during the show.

But three Republicans found a little backbone this week, and

there is going to be

we are going to have an investigation of Brett Kavanaugh who's up with the Supreme Court as you know and the investigation by the FBI is going to last one week.

So put that on your fucking calendar Brett Kavanaugh.

Your little calendar that you say that you write everything down on.

And you know, this is the two ladies in the Senate, the Republicans, and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

I can't believe Jeff Blake.

And part of it, they say maybe, did you see this?

Maybe he was turned around because he was confronted when he was getting on the elevator.

Show a little bit of that video by somebody who had the guts.

That's what you're telling me right now.

Look at me when I'm talking to you.

You're telling me that my assault doesn't matter.

I haven't seen a guy take it in the elevator like that since

Beyonce's sister kicked Jay-Z in the mouth.

Oh, and then they tried cornering Lindsey Graham,

but he got away because he's familiar with the back door.

I don't know what you.

But come on, Republicans have a lot of trouble with women.

That's a sausage party in the Republican Party, they know.

So you know what they did?

They hired a female prosecutor to ask the questions to Professor Ford.

It's like when a mobster thinks there's a bomb under his car, he makes his wife start it.

You go out there and do it.

But you know, her testimony, when someone's being real, it shows.

It reads, even conservatives had to admit it was compelling and credible.

It was so compelling and so credible.

During it, Brett Kavanaugh tried to turn up the music.

That

crazy.

But this was a very different Brett Kavanaugh.

He came out swinging like his penis at a college party.

Well, that's,

well, there's a sex.

This stuff happened so fast in this last week.

We remember at the beginning that we had a second accuser,

also rather credible, who said this was at Yale.

He was at a party there and said she was drunk, and he dropped his pants in front of her and exposed himself.

I mean, imagine opening your eyes and seeing that dick.

And then he pulls out his penis.

This was a totally different Brett Kavanaugh than the one who we saw testifying like a week before.

Totally different.

Angry, volatile, bitter, belligerent.

Because nothing says, I'm not capable of violent assault like flying into an unhinged rage.

That's always a good strategy.

And it's...

It's good to know that Supreme Court will now be eight bookish law nerds and the Hulk.

But no, no, really, if that was a divorce hearing, she would have gotten the kids.

That's how I looked at it.

And you know,

why did Kavanaugh suddenly act that way?

Because Trump told him to.

Because Trump didn't like that he was being meek and, you know, good bread.

He likes bad bread.

He wants someone in his image.

So he gave him whiny little bitch lessons.

And that's what we saw.

And you know what?

We have the evidence, this yearbook and everything, this choir boy activate.

I was like, you know, I spent my high school years concentrating on my friendships in church.

A lot of that church.

You know what?

Defense doesn't work so great anymore.

I can't be a sex criminal.

I'm a Catholic.

You know.

It's like saying, I couldn't have met Russians.

I was at Trump Tower.

But yeah, he's going on about how he has many friendships with women.

He's helped many women and supported them and helped them with their careers.

You know, and he also says he's a big supporter of Me Too.

In fact, when someone is ordering drinks, he always says, give me too.

Because...

I mean,

I don't know if we could say he's definitely a rapist.

I think that's too far.

But he is a fucking liar and a drunk.

Definitely a drunk.

Maybe not now.

But even in this testimony, he mentioned beer a lot.

I mean a lot.

I like beer.

Do you like beer?

I just finished a beer.

Do you have any beer?

I thought he was going to write out on a Clydesdale.

Half of his yearbook entries are about drinking and getting shit faced.

He's in Kegg Club and Ralph Club.

If he gets on the court, skip the robe, give him a toga.

This guy is a party.

But he might not.

He might not get on.

That's at least the glimmer of hope we have for one week.

He might not.

For one week.

For one week, you can look your kids in the eye and say America is not a country that puts a predator on the Supreme Court.

In the White House, sure, but not the Supreme Court.

All right, we've got a great show.

Max Stroke, Sadly Farkas, and April Wyatt are here, and a little later we'll be speaking with our good friend Neil deGrasse Tyson as Max Frog.

All right.

But first up, look, I know you're not a fan of this guy, but be nice.

He is one of the most influential person around today.

He is the former White House chief strategist for President Trump.

Steve Bannon is over here.

Steve Bannon.

Hey, that's not so bad.

Thank you, Steve.

All right, Steve.

Well, it took a lot of prepping to get the audience to be that nice to you.

But I'm going to say to you what I always say to conservatives when they come here.

First of all, thank you.

I appreciate it.

And it says volumes why the Republicans are in power and we have none.

Hillary Clinton never came here.

Maybe she'd be president if she's a little more confident.

Big time.

Yeah.

So, and

I know that,

you know, you had a little event there at the New Yorker.

They had a festival.

In fact, I want to read Malcolm Gladwell's quote because they were going to interview you.

Yep.

And then you were disinvited.

I've been disinvited many times, by the way.

It's a good club.

And Malcolm Gladwell said, call me old-fashioned, but I would have thought that the point of a festival of ideas was to expose the audience to ideas.

If you only invite your friends over, it's called a dinner party.

What are your thoughts on that?

Well, they chased me for,

you know, David Revnick chased me for a year to be on his podcast, and he came to me and said, hey, we'd be honored if you were in this festival of ideas.

I said, fine, I don't want compensation, but I like going into hostile audiences with tough interviewers.

I mean, you know, I do very little conservative media now.

I do CNN, BBC, you know, the economists.

I'd go to the toughest places,

toughest interviewers, and say, hey, no holds barred.

Hostile audiences, let's get it on.

And again, that's why the Republicans are in power.

So let me ask you about...

I think it does

sharpens the blade.

It does.

Let me pick your brain about the Democrats, because you're a strategist and you got your boy elected, but no one said that could happen.

Donald Trump got himself elected.

I just showed up and

I don't want to get on this, but first you were crazy about Sarah Palin, and then you were crazy about Donald Trump.

I think you look for morons who are empty vessels that you could put your ideas in.

Steve,

every single person in an administration has called him an idiot.

That's what you look for.

I get it.

No, no, by the way, you're not.

By the way, by the way, as we'll get into it, as you get into his economic war with China, if you see what he's doing to realign the world's economy, look, did he go to Harvard Kennedy School?

Does he speak in the vernacular of the elites of this world?

No, he speaks in a very plain spoken vernacular, but he's incredibly smart.

He is.

It's not his syntax that I'm worried about.

Did you see his press conference this week?

He says crazy shit that no one thinks is true.

You don't think it's true.

But here's the power of the press conference.

No other gutless Republican would go into that lion's den for an hour and 20 minutes and take all the incoming.

He stood up for Kavanaugh more than any of these guys did.

And I think it's one of the things that empowered Kavanaugh to go into on Thursday and to take on the Democrats.

If Trump had not done that, you know, by the way,

he did have some answers that were not the standard answers.

But look, he's got his own.

It's not about the standard answers.

No, no, it's about reality.

He has his own house.

He's divorced from reality.

Thank you.

We must have done good.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, what can we do to fight against the anti-intellectual movement in America?

I blame some of that on

the attitude that so many intellectuals intellectuals had towards those who were not as smart as they were.

We have a long history of just smart people discounting the views and the opinions and feelings of those who are not as well educated, and that can really piss off an entire demographic.

So at least I as an educator, I try to not distinguish one from, I just bring everybody with you together to empower their critical thinking.

But some people don't want to learn.

No.

You have to admit that.

Well, no, you sound like the teacher who say these students don't want to learn rather than indict your own teaching habits as failing.

Okay?

Well, it's some of both.

It's some of both.

It's some of both.

I mean, you know, you can't let everybody off the hook.

It's not like everybody's a good person.

Then you try harder with them.

I mean,

I don't, I can't, as an educator, I can't accept that.

So you think you could teach Donald Trump something?

No, I can.

Not really.

I mean, that's a real.

It's just like Gaz and Dahls.

It's a bet.

You pick anybody, and I can teach.

All right, Donald Trump, I will bet you $1,000.

You cannot teach Donald Trump that the stealth bomber is not literally invisible.

No, no.

$1,000.

Let's say.

We will meet at Lindy's tomorrow.

People are thinking that teaching is handing someone information to replace information that they had that is false.

Correct.

It's an aspect of teaching.

But it's not the fundamental dimension of it.

It's getting a person to understand

why their thoughts are wrong to begin with.

And then it's their own epiphany.

Good luck.

Yeah, I don't think you're going to, he's not going to have an epiphany because anyway.

Here's what I would tell him.

I would say, look, Donald, Donald,

innovations in science and technology are the engines of tomorrow's economy.

And they will drive our health, our wealth, and our security.

If you invest in science and technology,

that will be the the country that you always wanted it to be.

And he'll say, that's why I'm abolishing Obamacare.

That's the first thing you'll do.

Get to the part about me.

But it's not anti-intellectualism.

I think it's anti-science, anti-empirical truth.

That's the bigger danger.

Because

we are not taught in school what science is and how and why it works.

What we're taught is a satchel of facts.

And then you spit it back in the test and you move on to your next class.

Science is a way of querying the world.

It's a way of knowing what is true and what is not and establishing the objective reality in which we all must function.

If you don't have those capabilities and you

gain power, oh my gosh, that's the beginning of the end of an informed democracy.

And there is a large section of this country that is not, excuse me, interested in objective reality.

You get them.

You get them.

And they're not critical thinkers as well.

And you have to reach them where they are.

And it's sometimes.

And you're right.

Okay, watch out.

No, no.

oh boy

i don't he doesn't like this

he doesn't like this i don't want to have to go let me just say going down okay

one of my two books that are on the bestseller list right now has been on the bestseller list for 71 weeks

listen to this it's been a pork bobbing in tide waters of trump books that have come and gone how do i get my book whether or not i wrote that book it is a science book on the bestseller list and that gives me hope okay somebody out there cares about an objective reality.

How many copies does a bestseller sell these days?

It's highly variable.

So just about how many copies has this sold?

Just tell me.

The science of best-selling.

No, no.

The total number is not what the bestseller is.

Just tell me how many copies the book has sold.

In total.

Yes.

Yeah, a million and change.

A million.

Really?

A million.

Out of a country of 320 million.

Yeah.

Okay, so it's still not a lot of people.

Other people read English.

Yeah.

What?

People in other countries read English.

Yeah.

I know, but we're talking about America.

Oh, okay.

I want to say this country.

It's not an American.

It's about 60 translations also read if you don't read English.

But we're talking about America.

Okay, here's the point.

It is in a sea of Trump books that come back and forth.

So if you're going to talk about popular books, it's sitting there in the middle of Woodward's book on fear and

all of these things.

There is always a small percentage of people who will be bright.

A million?

Okay.

I'm liking the number a million.

Yeah, I like it too, but it's one three-hundredth of the country.

April Ryan, do you think

that was science?

That was math.

April, yeah.

Do you think we should bring back the equal time rule?

Yes.

Yes.

And what is that?

The equal time.

Well, first of all,

let me break it down in silence.

All right, my brother, hold on.

So, Ray says.

Sorry, you wasted that tender line on me.

So, okay, so

for those of you who don't know, remember when President Trump, then candidate Trump, was calling on Morning Joe when he liked Joe Scarlett.

Yes, I do.

And every other networks?

Well, you didn't hear the other candidates calling in.

They could have, because the equal time rule is gone.

It's gone.

They have not reinstated.

Oh, I I see.

Yeah, so if he they could have done it as well.

If there was a rule, if there was the rule still in effect,

President Trump would be on the air and they would have to give the equal time to other candidates.

I see.

That is no longer effect.

And that's one of the reasons why

Donald Trump won.

That free advertising.

He took advantage of it.

He owned the air.

My question is, Bill, why didn't the other candidates have the chutzpah to go in and say, let me do this?

It was like they were scared.

Donald Trump played the street jail.

He wanted to be there.

They went into this thus thou, there art, wherefore?

This is not how it's done.

He played this street game.

Where thou art.

Wherefore?

Where art thou?

That's everybody.

All right.

Okay.

Evelyn, how should America deal with Russia post-Trump?

Oh my gosh.

If there is a post-Trump.

I mean, I think the way that his administration, that is to say, everyone but him in our government, is trying to deal with Russia, which is firmly spelling out to Russia that if they continue with this really horrible behavior, you know, invading other countries, occupying them, messing with our elections, continuing to mess with our elections, poisoning and killing people in other countries.

You know, I mean, I can go on and on.

There's a list of like 20 things.

If they keep doing all that stuff, then we'll

be poisoning them.

Mostly our election.

That to me is so much more

than Ukraine.

I hope you're happy, but I don't care as much about Ukraine as I do about fucking with our election.

I'm with you.

I'm with you.

That's like way up here and then the rest of the sorry about the poison.

Well, I will say though a word about Ukraine.

It's an attack on our country.

Yes.

But Ukraine is also an attack on America in as much as it's an attack on the right of a country to say I'm a sovereign country.

We, the sovereign Ukrainian people, want to be associated with NATO and the European Union and the West and we want to be democratic and we don't want this guy in the Kremlin telling us how to live our lives.

So the answer to your question is...

We wouldn't send troops for it, but we should be stronger.

And we didn't.

I mean, we sent troops to train them.

I think.

So what do we do?

So we need to do more of the firm stuff because they won't cooperate with us until we are sufficiently across the board, consistently firm, all the way up to the president.

And who's cooperating?

Russian and American astronauts on the space station.

Yes.

Of course.

They're in space.

What do they got?

Fight in space.

They've got the R of the USA.

They look down.

They don't see the color-coded countries of the future.

They're fighting over their floats.

Yes.

and

all that stuff.

But I will tell you,

I can't go too far on this.

And I'm, can I call you Neil or Dr.

Tyson?

Dr.

Neil.

Dr.

Neil.

But they are, it is a troubled world up in space with Russia and China.

I'll just leave it at that.

So

space station is one thing, and commercial space is one thing.

Maybe it'll lead immorality into the future.

Right.

Space junk.

We've got to get rid of that.

Yeah.

Max, what do you think people are fascinated?

Why do you think people are fascinated with doomsday dystopian futures?

Well, I mean, I think there's always this fear, especially in America, because I think there's something very deep about our isolationism.

And we're always, you know, remember, we, most of us came from someplace else.

And we escaped, a lot of us escaped hardship.

Our ancestors escaped hardship to come here.

And there's always a subconscious fear that what we escaped will one day find us.

And I think that's why there's always this terror, particularly because when times are even good, you have an explosion of post-apocalyptic movies, TV, video games.

So many movies about after the bomb went off.

Right.

And it's horrible, and that's scary because, like I say, movies do come true.

It's always there.

And if I can go back to what you said about Russia, I think something happened recently that we need to be very aware of, is that the Russians just rioted because Putin raised the level of retirement, when you can retire.

I think it was 65.

Average Russian man dies at 66.

And what that did is it exploded the myth that Russians will be able to sacrifice for the motherland and pay any price.

And that's been the idea that, oh, no, no, we can take the pain.

Russia will be invincible.

And that's bullshit.

We can hurt them.

We can make them bleed.

And the Russians have been fighting in the gray zone.

They've used economic warfare, information warfare, cyber warfare.

We don't do any of that.

We used to do it.

And it's time to get back in the game, and it's time to make Ivan bleed.

Here, here.

All right.

Thank you, panel.

Let's end on that.

Happy to know.

Thank you, folks.

All right.

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.