Ep. #474: Steve Bannon, Neil deGrasse Tyson

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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.

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 and 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, they say maybe, did you see 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're.

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.

You know, that...

Well, that's...

That's, well, there's a sex.

This stuff happened so fast in this last week.

We remember at the beginning of the week, you 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.

You know, the Supreme Court will now be eight bookish law nerds and the Hulk.

But 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 act happening.

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 Keg 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 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 Frost, 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 sharpen, it 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 more ideas in.

Steve,

every single person in the 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.

No, 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 house.

It's not about the standard.

No, no, it's about reality.

He has his own house.

He's divorced from reality.

Absolutely not true.

He's actually more grounded.

And that speech of the U.N.

No, the speech.

China loves me because I have a big, big brain.

Steve,

a very big brain.

Whatever it is.

Now, let me ask you this.

If any other president just one day got up and talked like that, the markets would crash and you'd have a heart attack.

It's just that we're a frog in the pot and we see it every day.

He's created 10 trillion dollars.

Remember, when he's got elected, when nobody thought he was, the market was going to crash.

Okay, he's created $10 trillion.

The market was going to crash.

Remember, when he won, everybody said the market's going to crash.

It's Armageddon.

You're right.

That's the one I got.

No, but it will, though.

My point is, he's got.

It will.

My point is, he's got a very fundamental plan of how he's turning around this economy.

He's actually, I think you guys missed the point when you separate the signal from the noise.

Watch the signal.

There's a flashbang grenade every day as far as the noise goes, right?

But just watch the signal.

He's very consistent.

That speech at the UN.

Well, you know what?

The signal that was sent with the tax cut didn't reach your base.

Reality one of them.

Bill.

Reality one once.

Because, wait a second.

They know that that tax cut, 83% of it, went to the top 1%.

They know that, and they don't like it.

And what happened?

Hang on.

I was the guy in the Oval Office that was pushing

a 44% tax rate for those over $5 million and to take the $3 trillion that were repatriated and

make sure there were different tax structures so it would be vested in plant equipment in inner cities.

Now, the overall tax plan I think works for workers and here's why.

You've got to look at it in context of our economic war with China.

You can't separate the tariffs and what he's doing on the 301s, what he's doing on trying to stop intellectual property theft and appropriation from the taxes.

The taxes principally were to make our companies competitive with Germany and China.

The personal tax rates, which I didn't totally agree with, right, because there's more of the trickle-down, is something that had to be used to get this thing passed.

But the central part of it was the corporate tax rates.

But isn't that what a con man does?

He said, I'm going to look out for you, the common man, the forgotten American.

And then he gets in there and tries to steal their health care to pay for the tax cut for this.

No, this is about bringing nothing.

How is that?

Wait, wait, how is that being about

being honest to the pledge of doing it for the little guy?

Because

the central part of this bill was bringing manufacturing jobs back from East Asia.

And that's what he's doing.

The tax cuts for corporations make him competitive with China and Germany.

The tariffs are part of an economic war that China has foisted upon us for the last 25 years.

And this is all of whole cloth.

And that's why it's working.

He's reorienting Bill, the world's supply chain right now, with China.

I've gone as far as I can to get you on this.

Next question.

Eventually, I want to pick your brain on the Democrats.

Because you, of all people, I want the answer to this.

Who scares you?

Who do you think could do good?

How do you handicap the people?

What do you think about Elizabeth Warren?

What do you think about Bernie Sanders?

What do you think about Kamala Harris?

What do you think about Gavin Newsom?

What do you think?

Okay.

I know you like them all.

Eric Holder, what do you think about all these people?

And then I say Michael Avenatti.

I saw that tweet he wrote the other day.

I said, he could be the Trump.

of 2020, the guy who's the outsider who like blows through the regular politician because he looks different and he's got a lot of Bernie Sanders had an ounce of Avenetti's fearlessness, he would have been the Democratic nominee and we would have had a much tougher time beating.

Bernie doesn't have fearlessness?

Not like Avenatti.

Avenatti, and I've not done any due diligence on this guy, but I'm telling you, he's got a fearlessness

and he's a fighter.

He's a fighter.

I think he'll go through a lot of this field if he decides to stick with it like a sciss through grass.

Now, I don't happen to think a professional politician, because I think we're in a new age, I don't think a professional politician is going to be there at the end of the day.

I've always said it's going to be someone like Oprah or an Avenetti or somebody that's more media savvy is going to be there.

But I think one thing people.

Do you think that's good?

I think it's just a reality of today.

I think you need to know how to handle massive people.

If I can say one thing, I do think this campaign after November 6th, which is really Trump's first re-elect, if we lose the House, he's going to get impeached.

This is a referendum on him.

If we get past that, if we get.

If we get past that, I think in 2020, you're going to have Trump on the right,

a politician, maybe a Camilla Harris or somebody on the left, and I think you'll have a Bloomberg or a Romney or somebody in the center.

I think it will be a three-way round.

I hope so, because if it's a three-way, they will take away enough votes to make sure Donald Trump never wins again.

But

now that we're talking about...

By the way,

his first term is going to be so successful.

Look, it's 4% growth.

We're so tired of winning, Steve.

The economy's on.

I'll come back here during 2020.

We'll talk about it.

Okay.

But speaking of elections, I would love to know what advice you would give to Donald Trump if he didn't leave even after he lost.

Because I saw Hillary Clinton.

You're obsessed with this.

I am obsessed with this.

You're obsessed with this.

Where does he think he's not going to leave?

Wait a second.

I know he's having the time to get it.

Because he's an insane narcissist

who talks all the time about how we should have a president for life.

Let me read what Hillary said, because you're right.

People have been saying I'm an alarmist and I'm crazy because I keep saying he's not going going to leave even if he loses.

Now, Crooked Hillary is saying it.

She said this.

She said, you remember the moment in the third debate when Trump refused to pledge that he would accept the result of the vote?

That's where it started.

She said, it took my breath away.

Even the moderator from Fox News couldn't believe it.

I felt the foundations of our democracy tremble.

Imagine if Trump does the same thing in 2020.

What happens then?

This is the reason she's not president.

I mean,

this is the kind of gobbledygook-gook.

So you're saying he will go if he loses?

Oh, I don't think it's a question.

Absolutely.

I mean, it's not even, I mean, that's absurd.

But you didn't think you'd get fired.

Well, remember, remember, remember.

I'm just saying.

I only gave it one year.

I only gave it one year.

I only gave it one year.

Read the book.

I quit.

I will read the book.

But why, I mean, he was mean to you.

He fired you.

He said mean things.

He doesn't buy anybody.

I've been working on this project.

I've been working on the populist movement for nine years.

I was on your show five years ago making a film about Sarah Palin.

We were trying to drive this populist movement.

You know, Donald Trump came along at a time that this populist movement is starting to get going, and he really took it 10 years into the future.

I mean, he was a guy that got it right away, that had this populist tendencies, understood economic nationalism, and cut through the Bush apparatus, cut through the entire Republican field, and then took on the Clintons.

And if Bernie had had the type of fight and fearlessness that Trump had, he would have won the Democratic primary, and then we would have had left-wing populism and right-wing populism fight it out in 2016.

But you're a guy who is, again, the thing I've been saying that people were criticizing me for, using the word treason, and now I hear it more.

But you said the same thing.

You said the Trump Tower meeting was treason.

I said for Paul Manafort.

I corrected myself for whatever the book had.

Okay, well, I'm not sure.

No, no, no, Richard.

Look,

other people in the Republican Party disagree with me.

I don't think that meeting was appropriate.

I don't think you reach out to foreign sources.

I don't think you reach out to foreign sources.

Appropriate is quite a bit less than true.

All you needed, by the way,

all you needed was Clinton Cash.

We had done all the research.

We created the book and

done the film.

But to show that Clinton's corruption, all you need to do is go into Clinton Cash, the Foundation.

But when you see these people with those t-shirts, I'd say, I'd rather be with Russia than a Democrat.

What do you think?

I think about that.

Here's what I think.

You think that can't be a positive development.

No, no, no, look.

People would rather side with another country than America.

And it can't be a positive development when our own president attacks our own FBI, can it?

Look,

on the first thing is that the country's divided.

I mean, the country's been divided before.

You're not going to hug this one up.

Divided, I never remember Lincoln going after the FBI.

I know, there was no FBI.

Lincoln went after some guys to win.

No, I think what the President has said and what these people are saying is that we're very divided now.

And it's not appropriate to say I'd rather be with Russia than Democrats, but I think it shows you the vitro.

This film I just made, Trump at War.

I start with five minutes with Don Lemon kind of lecturing Trump supporters, why Trump's not the racist, why they're the racist, okay?

And we intercut, we intercut.

By the way, because it's up in People's Grills, we intercut it with Antifa kicking the shit at a guy's in red ball caps.

Oh, Steve, you know, I know you

can put that idea in people's heads, but just between me and you, you don't believe it.

I know you don't.

I don't think you really think think they're the racists and not your people.

You don't think popularism, some of populism, isn't some of that really isn't that racism masquerading?

Look in Italy right now.

You've got the five-star movement, you got the League.

The five-star movement

is so green that it doesn't want a bullet train, okay?

They're the populist movement, and they're even saying, hey, we got to stop the migrant issue because they're the ones who want to give a guaranteed income.

Populism is not based on racism, right?

It's based on the little guy, the little guy having a voice.

So, you are always saying should have a voice.

Yes.

You're actually a populist.

Okay, come back and let's talk just about that issue because I want to get into that with you.

And I know if we're both sort of students of history, and you know, you're good to come here, but history, not going to be kind, Steve.

Thank you.

We'll see, though, huh?

All right, I'll see you later.

Steve Bannon.

All right, let's meet our panel.

Okay.

She wanted to jump in.

Yeah, I totally did.

She's a non-resident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point and co-editor of Strategy Strikes Back.

Max Brooks is back with us, Max Brooks.

Hey, Max.

All right, she's a national security contributor for

NBC and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, Evelyn Farkas.

Hey, Evelyn.

How are you doing?

And our returning champion, she's American Urban Radio Network's White House Cars Monument, the author of Under Fire Reporting Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House, April Ryan.

All right, don't forget to send us your questions for tonight's overtime so you can answer them after the show on YouTube.

I'm not going to pretend I have a lot of issues tonight.

It's going to pretty much just be about what we saw this week.

So, Kavanaugh, and you know, news today.

I mean, I get up late, and it was just breaking that Jeff Flake, wow, I mean, the Sunbelt Hamlet there

has

threw his lot in with maybe no.

And are we just being hopeful for no reason like we often have?

Or could this really stop Brett Kavanaugh?

From all the reporting and the sourcing that I'm getting,

this is a moment in history where Brett Kavanaugh could actually

may lose this nomination, may lose the confidence.

Because you think...

It's how things are lining up.

But can the FBI in one week

no?

No.

No, no.

If the FBI, this is a limited scope investigation, but when they uncover something, it may take a little while longer.

They want to have...

But he's a dirty dog.

I mean,

he is a classic Jekyll hide.

He really is.

Drunken, bad bread.

Once they lift up that rock, I know it's an old rock, but that's why he's so.

And he doesn't pass out.

He doesn't pass out.

He falls asleep.

No, that's what they said, you know,

that's what he said yesterday with a beer beer, when he likes beer a lot.

But let me let me finish this.

Let me let me finish this point.

Okay.

There are like the White House today is having a hard time with this because they're trying to find out, one, when did he know this happened?

When did he know of this?

And what did he know?

Two,

he was more involved in the Ken Starr stuff than he led on.

And then he was more involved with Vince Foster.

So, and all of that.

There's a lot under this.

And then this is about humanity.

This isn't about politics.

What we're hearing, these women rising up many women cried and sobbed with her.

They believed her.

Even the President of the United States, who doesn't even want to acknowledge his accusers, said she was credible.

That's saying something.

And he has an outside.

Well, there's a question.

How can you say they're both credible?

Don't you have to?

No, he liked his fight.

But I hear this all the time yesterday.

Like, oh, I believe, she is very credible.

I believe him, too.

I think so.

One's lying.

No, but Senator Klobuchar was getting at it when she was saying, you drink so much.

I mean, she was trying to get him to admit that he drinks so much that maybe he forgets.

But what he ended up doing was lying about a whole bunch of things, including whether he blacks out, which is ironic because as the member, one of the key members of the star team, star

investigative team, investigating Bill Clinton, what did they catch Bill Clinton on?

Lying.

Right?

Well, and lying.

Exactly.

It wasn't about the blow job.

It was about lying.

But it started from Whitewater.

And that's the thing.

It starts from one thing.

And this could be what happens with this limited FBI investigation.

It starts from Whitewater, a land deal gone wrong, and goes down to a blue dress, stains on a blue dress.

Now, come on.

No, seriously.

And then look at Russia.

We're dealing with, and we're following the trail of money everywhere.

So we don't know.

You cannot have a vote next Friday.

after this FBI is uncovering, after the FBI investigation is uncovering what it's going to uncover.

You can't do that.

I think the FBI can show, for example, that he lied about the terminology.

I mean, I think those of us who grew up in the 80s, I actually didn't know these terms.

You're such an obvious, bad liar.

I mean, Ralph.

Ralph means cute.

That's what it does in the colour.

I thought that's what it is now.

It is.

And also, that is the argument on their side for speed.

Because if you truly have nothing to hide, you want sunlight.

And you don't care about delay because you say, fine, crawl under every rock, you won't find a thing.

But if you've got something to hide, you want this thing done as quickly as possible.

Right.

And actually, in a week, the FBI FBI can find out a lot, I think, because

they're not going to be pieces to be a week.

But it won't be finished in a week.

They're going to go under this rock.

Actually, some senators want to bring more people in, not just

Jordan, Mark, whatever his name is.

Judge, Mark.

Judge, yeah, Mark Judge.

And they want to bring in TJ and all these other people.

They've even found PJ, TJ, all the names.

I'm talking about Dr.

This, Judge that, whatever.

So look, here's the bottom line.

They found the school.

There's so many different pieces to the puzzle in this limited scope that they have to go beyond.

This performance he put on yesterday, I always say, you know, acting is not that hard.

I've always said that about Hollywood.

You could say that, and then reality television came along and showed it's true.

It's not that anyone can do it.

He was rehearsed.

And he was like the president.

He went off script when he was asked about the FBI.

He had all this righteous rage and indignation.

And then he was asked by Durbin, okay, well, if you really want to clear your name,

write over there, ask for the FBI.

And he went from this to.

Yeah, oh, that was so funny.

like

he was like Sarah Huckabee yesterday, he was like Sarah Huckabee playing to the audience of one.

He was rehearsed, he talked about the press, he talked about the Clinton.

It was two hours.

Yes, I want the bad bread, right?

I do not want nice guys, I want the fighter.

And this is this is a sad thing.

That's not a judge, sorry.

No, go ahead.

That's not how a judge behaves.

No,

he showed up

completely

definitely someone who's

in the Supreme Court.

I believe that was acting, and I also don't even believe that his 10-year-old daughter said, let's pray for that woman.

I'm not going to go.

I'm not going to go.

Really?

That's what actors do.

They make shit up.

He cried so hard

when he was talking about they cried for her.

They prayed for her.

You want me to cry now and show you fake crying?

Everybody.

Okay, but you're an actor comedian.

Everybody is.

That's my point.

Acting is not that hard, and we all do it every day.

I actually feel really bad for his wife watching her behind him.

And I think he's very selfish in all of this.

He wanted to go clear his name.

He made the whole situation worse.

Senator Grassley, who's the chairman, should never have put his family,

the Republican Party, and the country through all of this.

But this is, you know, what is bad is this Trumpifying of people.

Yeah, I mean, the fact that Trump can either find people like him or make

him like Lindsey Graham.

Lindsey Graham

needs the stabilizing influence of his dead boyfriend because he is just.

He said it.

Yes, they know whose show it is.

They know who said it, Andy.

They know who said it.

It's always going to be who's listening.

You always like, if it's just near you, you're going to get blamed for it.

You're like,

let me just say it way over here.

I'll go way over here.

I'll do this show.

It's like, you won't get my politically incorrect goodies on you, but.

Well, I'm friendly with Lindsey Graham, so I didn't laugh.

Okay.

All right.

But that was a performance also.

Obviously, acting.

To what end?

Is he looking for a cabinet position?

Is that what that is?

Is he...

Well, but he's also, remember, Lindsey Graham has always been the beta male.

John McCain was the alpha.

He was the sidekick.

And now he's lost his protector.

He's lost his big brother.

And he needs protection.

That's how he loves the show.

So he's always looking for Trump to to protect him now because that's how he's always been.

But

the way he pushed himself out there yesterday, no matter the acting, no matter the crying, no matter what, it was a sense of entitlement.

This is mine.

Right.

This is mine.

Oh, I mean, the whole thing is such a...

Such a pageant when people ask, what does white privilege mean?

This is a pageant of it.

And if we...

I mean,

let's be be honest.

The one thing I think that go too far is when people say Brett Kavanaugh, rapist.

We don't know what was in a 17-year-old's mind.

I think he definitely attacked her in that room.

But these boys, they were drunk.

It could have been, let's just scare her, let's roll on top of her.

We don't know.

To go that far is too far to me.

I don't know.

But he's...

He's a bad dude.

But also this insane notion of the last 10 days have been hell.

He's acting like Blanche Dubois, like my honor has been besmirched.

My good name.

What?

He didn't say that.

My son.

My good name is.

He did say that.

He's about to sit in judgment over us for the rest of his life.

That's the only reason he's there.

And can I make another point, though?

This is not, this is about his lying, this is about his behavior in the past, but there's also the bigger issues, some other big issues, which are being kind of overlooked right now from the first hearing.

Because this is a man who really believes in executive overreach.

And I know this firsthand.

I worked in the Senate for Senator Carl Levin, who was the chairman or ranking member off and on in the 2000s of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

And in 2006, just as one example, we passed the Defense Authorization Bill.

So it's the bill that gives all the money to the Department of Defense and tells them what they can do and what they can't do.

In that bill, they said, no torture.

You can't torture.

So what did President Bush do?

He signed it and said, except that if there's a terrorist, maybe I can.

Signing statement.

That's illegal.

I mean, that's not constitutional.

And the guy behind that statement, those statements, there were many of them, was Brett Kavanaugh.

Well, we were looking through Brett Kavanaugh's yearbook because I think the evidence is in the yearbook.

I showed the picture that I think we've all seen.

This is the yearbook that he wrote himself.

One sign it's a bad thing going on is when your yearbook is redacted.

But I mean,

look at some of the, it's all about getting shit faced.

These are his words.

100 kegs or bust.

Beach Week Ralph Club.

Have you boofed yet?

Or being creepy to women, Renata alumnus, another thing he lied about.

Total spins, more getting shit faced.

Who won that game anyway?

We were too shit-faced to know who won the game.

So we turned the page.

You know, sometimes the press is lazy.

They don't see what's on the next.

This amount, like, look at the clubs he was in.

Future Mean Drunks of America.

That's

Perjury Club.

That's a

young pricks.

Bruise for Jesus.

That's a.

Oh, then you don't want to stay for the end of the show.

Really?

Oh, boy.

Bill Cosby Fan Club.

He was.

I mean, right there.

His favorite quote.

What happens in the Nativity scene stays in the Nativity scene.

Look at this picture in the earbud.

There's a switch, a wiener in Kavanaugh's face.

I mean, it's...

And he won the award for

the winning entry in the haiku competition.

Glug, glug, chug-a-lug, puked my guts, right on my nuts.

Oh, shit, time for church.

Okay.

P.O.'s National Geographic Star Talk, his new best-selling book, his accessory to war, an unspoken alliance between astrophysics and the military.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is over here.

Wow.

This is such a rock star.

What do you...

Is that everywhere or is that just here?

These are my people.

The people are realizing that, in fact, the universe touches us all.

And I'm a conduit for them to gain access to that cosmos.

Oh, Jesus.

Save it for Tinder.

Jesus Christ.

Give me your pickup lines and conduit for the universe.

Jesus Christ.

All right.

So let's get serious because we need a palette cleanser here.

I'm totally ready to clear some palates.

Okay.

Your book surprised me because you talk about the alliance between the military and science, and usually when liberals do that, it's anti-military, but you're not.

Yeah, I mean, I started anti-military.

I mean, I was, I grew up in New York City, which is a liberal town, and generally anti-war.

And my earliest exposure to society was in the 60s.

I wasn't a participant, but I observed it.

We're about the same age, and the Vietnam War was a bad thing.

It had turned bad.

And all war was bad.

And so the idea that there could ever be a just war was not even a thought.

Meanwhile, I had this cognitive dissonance.

You'd walk around towns, it doesn't matter which town, and there were monuments to war heroes.

And they're astride a horse, they're burnishing their weapons.

And I said, why do these exist?

And it would take years for me to recognize that the Vietnam War was not like other wars.

And in the Second World War, people knew that there were like bad forces operating in Europe and we had to rise up against them.

And so back then you wouldn't say, oh, war is bad.

You say, we need this war.

Otherwise we lose civilization and we know it.

And we need every weapon to fight it.

Yes.

I mean my parents were in the European theater and when the bomb came along they didn't go oh I don't know if we should use the bomb.

They said I don't want to go to Japan drop whatever you have.

Right, right.

And so I had to come out of this bubble.

It's a bubble to recognize that there are occasions where you need and want to be defended.

You need and want security.

And then I recognize that my field, the field of astrophysics, has been a handmaiden to

the actions of the military all around the world for centuries and millennia.

Going back to just navigation.

No, we don't make the bombs or the weapons, but we care about things that the military also cares about.

They have a whole division, that DARPA division?

DARPA, yeah?

Defense Advanced Research Project Administration?

Is that what it's for?

Yeah, I know.

No, that's what it's called.

It's super secret, and you know they're coming up with scary shit.

No,

they are.

What not?

horrible, horrible stuff.

No, no, it's well.

No, no, that's their job.

They're the military.

This stuff is.

Bring me your horrible weapons.

That's not the mission statement of DARPA.

DARPA is.

Yes, it is.

That's exactly the mission statement, and that's what we do.

The weapons we already have that we know about are horrible.

Those daisy cutters and...

DARPA invented the internet.

DARPA, not Al Gore.

Yes.

Yes.

Well, Al Gore helped.

Do you use the Internet?

Yes, I use it.

Okay, so why are we talking about DARPA in this other other way without recognizing how it's transformed the world?

Because it's a debate show.

All right, so

let's talk about...

All right.

So

Trump suggested Space Force recently, and I immediately thought of you.

I'd immediately thought of Star Trek.

No, no, you tore into it.

Yes, of course.

Yeah, yeah.

Just because it came out of Trump's mouth, not because

you really thought it through.

But it sounded like the Jetsons.

No, no.

But when he said it, it sounded like George Jetson.

Okay.

No,

I'll give you that.

What I'm saying is, today's Air Force, you're not questioning whether it should have ever been spawned off from the Army,

a branch of the military to which it once belonged in the Second World War?

It was the Army Air Force.

And we realized, no, soldiers for the Air Force have to be differently trained.

They've got to fly planes than soldiers on the ground.

The engineers for the air are different from the engineers who fix tanks.

So this got spawned off, and now we accept it as a natural branch of a theater of operations that is necessary for the military.

The Air Force currently has a U.S.

space command.

They're already thinking, got stuff in space.

They put up the GPS satellites.

That was their, that's space, okay?

So now a Space Force...

Oh, oh, I'm giving up now?

No, I.

I'm not really.

We're not really that much against each other out there.

All right.

But you know, there is another element, though, about technology we need to understand is whether you design a technology that's going to be used for war, if you choose not to use it, somebody out there will.

And that's happening at Google.

Google employees all signed this petition, we don't want our technology to be in partner with the military.

They didn't know already that their technology is already being used by terrorists to target mortars.

That's what they're doing.

Terrorists are using iPads and Google Earth to target rockets and mortars into Israel from Gaza.

So whether you design it or not, all the guys that got killed by IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan, that was civilian electronics off the shelf.

And what I want to know is if that same demographic in Google or anywhere else, if they were around in the 1930s and watched Nazi Germany rise up where they say, no, I don't want

my genius going to war, I don't think they'll feel the same way.

So to make a blanket statement, I think is actually naive.

But you know what?

Here's another issue I know that you care a lot about.

It's like the brain drain.

with America.

Like one reason we had the bomb is because the scientists came to America that

all the other

only two of the principals of the Manhattan Project

were American born, and all but one of them got their PhDs in other countries.

Not only that, we birthed our space program on the intellectual capital of Nazi German rocket pioneers.

Werner von Braun.

Not only that, and this is a huge

one-third of all Nobel Prizes in the scientists won by Americans were won by Americans who were born in another country, immigrants to the USA.

A third.

And this, this, so.

A lot of them were born in Hungary, which is where my parents are from.

Yeah, where am I?

Where am I?

Okay, the Jewish side of my family is from, yeah.

Excellent.

Well, I have a question.

So, yes.

My question is, you know, in 2018, I'm looking at the fact that we could be dealing with China,

Iran,

and also possibly North Korea.

And we are still dealing with all of this, the satellite and all of this great technology.

We're still dealing with issues of faulty intelligence.

Well, that's always been a problem and a concern.

Especially during

the Iran war.

And I don't know what's worse, faulty intelligence or the absence of intelligence.

Yeah, that's not his word.

But I'm saying, you're talking about how, you know, the George Jets and stuff and all, you know, and the satellites and all of that.

I don't know what you, but wait, wait, wait, excuse me, my show.

Okay.

Okay.

Can I fucking

question?

Do what you got to do.

Yeah, I.

Tell me when we're done so we can get back with this argument.

Okay, go.

She brought up intelligence.

I wanted to ask about artificial intelligence.

Okay.

You know, I don't know where you stand on that.

Actually, I do.

I'm kidding.

But I'm with the people who are worried about it.

And that would be Stephen Hawking, that it's the worst thing that could ever happen in civilization.

Elon Musk, like people like Bezos, are all for it, and people like Elon Musk, and I'm on the side of, yes, it's bad.

You know why?

Because I've seen it in movies.

And everything bad that happens in movies then happens in life.

And the robots will take over.

And they

once asked.

They will.

Ray Bradbury, why do you keep writing stories, the science fiction writer, why do you keep writing stories that depict the dystopic futures?

And he said, do you think we're going to head to those places?

He says, I write these stories so that you know what path not to take.

Right.

Right.

And that's why people like you need to go up, go to,

I know you like to come to LA, but you need to go to Washington, D.C., and explain to those politicians, because, and to Silicon Valley to explain to the programmers what's going on in the world, that we have this great power competition.

You live in America now, you need to help us.

And part of having a big military is not to fight wars, it's to prevent them.

But also,

I will add.

I will add

that people say, oh, Space Force, we're going to militarize space.

Space has been militarized since 1960, in the 60s.

The moment you have...

You don't want to go right through the TV.

Okay, okay.

So just to make it clear, Sputnik, the radio transmitter

in 1957,

Fine, it sounded all and Sputnik is fellow traveler in Russian, okay?

But what was really happening is Sputnik was embedded in the hollowed-out missile shell of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

That's what that was and we knew that was bad.

That was bad, meant something bad for our future.

So space has been militarized in the sense that we've had spy satellites and not and not only with the GPS, just reconnaissance.

Space as a high ground

has enabled

warfare on the ground.

But now Russia is our friend.

We collude with them.

Okay.

Let me.

So AI, I'm all for AI.

Okay.

Bring it on.

Can I, we have a few minutes left.

It's American, just shoot it if it gets out of here.

If AI gets up

achieving consciousness and comes towards you, they'd say, why don't you be my pet?

But they're going to shoot, too.

They don't have opposable thumbs.

Okay.

Can I ask one few more questions about Brett Kavanaugh and that week?

Did Bill Cosby getting

sent to jail in the middle of the week for sexual assault, seeing an icon in handcuffs affect anybody's thinking about this.

It's interesting that I thought, wow, the courts can still do it, even if our politicians can't.

Well, you know what?

Justice was done for Bill Cosby, even though, you know,

for me, I grew up watching Bill Cosby as a kid, you know, Fat Albany.

I grew up not watching.

You know, remember that?

It's comedy all day.

Yeah,

I was

by those albums once.

Never thought he was funny.

I thought Fox.

Never liked Bill Cosby.

Never liked his comedy.

Okay,

you didn't like his comedy.

No.

But

he was sent to jail.

Yeah, okay,

with Gucci, with Gucci suspenders and

how do you know they were Gucci suspenders?

Well,

anyway.

But you know what?

The justices, you know, when people of privilege, when people of privilege get in trouble and they feel like they can do it once and they get away with it, they can keep doing it, He got caught.

Now, what's happening in Washington?

We're seeing the Good Old Boy Network.

We're seeing it happen.

Washington will stick together.

Those of like minds will stick together.

And these Republicans are trying to ram this through when the nation is still very unsettled.

Why are we all surprised when politics unfolds in Washington?

No, this politics is...

Yeah, but that's what it is.

It hasn't always been.

Yeah, but it's not.

This is humanity.

This is not politics.

This is humanity.

This is humanity.

This is humanity divided along political grounds.

Corey Booker said this is a moral issue.

It's not a political issue.

And I think

we're going to be able to do it.

As long as Republicans and Democrats don't agree, it's not going to be.

It's today.

We saw it live.

You know, Brassley and all those.

Sorry, those old political.

It's not about Democrats versus Republicans or the truth versus falsity.

It's about Roe versus Wade.

It's about Roe versus Wade.

And it's also about...

I said it last week,

it has to be Brett Kavanaugh.

Nobody else, because he is the one guy who says a sitting president cannot be indicted.

It has to be Brett Kavanaugh

for Donald Trump.

Your point about going back to Bill Cosby, we had all these women come out in defense of Kavanaugh and say, well, the Brett Kavanaugh I know would never have done that.

And you know what?

They're probably telling the truth because, as we know, some people out there have a very public face and a very private face.

The Bill Cosby that I grew up with would never have done that.

The little bill that my son watched would never have done that.

And so that is back to the point of.

I don't know if you're Faxville wouldn't have done that.

Back to the point of why they don't want this thing to go on, because we don't want the private face to be revealed.

Okay.

Thank you, panel.

Time for new rules.

Do you want to come to the green room, Early, because the ending is for atheists only, baby?

Help me, help me, honey.

Don't scream out.

Okay, all right.

All right.

New rule.

Tuna Fish has to tell me why why it's the only sandwich meat with a last name.

First name, tuna, second name, fish.

Why so formal?

I'm just asking for my friends.

Turkey bird,

beef cow,

pork pig, and egg chickens vagina.

I'm just asking.

New rule, if you have a tiny head, don't get into bodybuilding.

It takes a bad situation and makes it much, much worse.

When people see you on the street, they don't think, I'm not messing with that guy.

They think, loved you in Betelgeuse.

I like that.

That was good.

New rule, when bongs are outlawed, only outlaws will have bongs.

That's my takeaway after seeing this video of a pot dispensary worker in Canada using a bong to fight off robbers like a badass action star.

And the best part was when he said, I'm here to eat Cheetos and kick ass, and I'm all out of Cheetos.

Euro-Democrats must drop their proposals for free college and instead offer free prep school.

If we want to attack white privilege, let's go to the source.

Billington Stanhope III, meet your new roommate, Traekwan Cruikshank Jr.

New Rule, this driver in China has to stop honking his horn.

You think your progress has been halted by a bunch of sheep?

You should see what's happening here.

And finally, New Rule, now that we know that the least godly man in the world is immensely popular with evangelicals, we need no more evidence that religion is antiquated and dangerous.

This October 3rd, I can't believe it, is the 10th anniversary of when my movie Religilous opened in theaters.

Thank you.

In 2008.

That is the theaters that would show it.

Many would not.

We've come a long way.

Back then, only 16% of Americans identified as non-religious.

Now it's 26%.

You're welcome.

Yes, the fastest growing religion in America is no religion at all.

Atheism is booming.

Praise Jesus.

Now, I learned making Religilist that every time you blame religion for so much of the world's misery, religious people say, but Bill, the godless cultures like Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia and Mao's China were the worst and they had no religion.

But here's the thing about Nazism, Maoism, and Stalinism.

Those were religions, state religions.

These dictators didn't get rid of God because they hated religion.

They got rid of God because they hated competition.

Same with North Korea today.

They claim to be godless communists, but their calendar begins on the day the country's founder, Kim Il-sung, came to earth from heaven.

And his son, the next ruler, Kim Jong-il, is believed by North Koreans to have started walking at three weeks old and talking at eight weeks.

His first time golfing, he shot a 38-under par

with 11 holes in one.

He wrote 1,500 books in three years, narrowly beating out Stephen King.

When he was born, winter turned to spring.

He can make it rain based on his mood.

He invented the hamburger.

I'm not making that up.

They're making that up.

He invented the hamburger.

Talk about a whopper.

Oh, and my favorite, Kim Jong-il, never used a toilet because his body was so well calibrated, he did not need to defecate.

No shit.

Okay, this is not an atheist nation.

I've heard of people claim their shit don't stink, but only a god will say they don't shit at all.

Which brings us to Trump supporters.

The reason Trump has an easy sell with evangelicals is because they're hardwired to put faith over reason.

Plus, Trump is the spitting image of the religious con men they grew up with on TV.

He's got Jim Baker's hair

and Tammy Faye's makeup.

He's immune to sex scandals.

He had a sham university.

He doesn't pay taxes.

He personifies that prosperity gospel bullshit they all spin.

Yes, the more money I have, the happier you are.

That's Trump.

The private planes, the traveling salvation show, the home that looks like the Sistine Chapel, including a crying statue, Melania.

And it's very possible Trump doesn't

just remind his flock of their favorite preacher.

There is a character in the Bible who is exactly like Trump.

God.

No.

No, no, not that one.

Yes, that one.

The Old Testament God.

Trump loves an eye for an eye.

Guess who invented that?

Old Testament God was all wrath and ego, a petty, vindictive, rageaholic who loved Israel.

But obsessed with loyalty, not morality.

Look at the Ten Commandments.

It's very Trumpian.

The first four are all about him.

Commandment one, thou shalt have no other gods.

Other gods are fake news.

I am the greatest god in history with the best brain.

Commandment two, only make statues of me.

I am the only bronze-colored thing you should bow to.

And don't make the hands small, because they're not.

And neither is something else, I guarantee.

Commandment three, when you say bad things about me, it's very unfair, very unfair.

No other God has accomplished what I did in six days, that I will tell you.

Commandment four, you must spend one day a week not doing anything but talking about how great I am.

Let me help you out.

God deserves an A plus.

So here we have the Ten Commandments.

The ten worst things you could possibly do and left off the list are torture, rape, child abuse, incest, and slavery.

But four spots on the list go to variations of stroke my ego and kiss my ass.

There's only two people I can think of who would do that.

God and Donald Trump.

All right, that's our show, and I will be doing Sam Harris's podcast.

to promote the 10th anniversary of Religion Lewis, October 3rd.

I'll be at the Cross Heinz Theater in Syracuse, October 7th.

I want to thank my guests, Max Brooks, Evelyn Farkas, April Ryan, Neil deGrasse, Tyson, and Steve Barron.

Join us top longer time on YouTube.

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.