Overtime - Episode #472: Steve Ballmer, S.E. Cupp, Mark Leibovich, Richard Clarke

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

Bill?

Steve,

have you found that your philanthropy is more effective when done independent of government programs?

I think most of the philanthropy needs to be focused on getting government programs to actually work better, to stimulate better ideas.

Great point.

Yes.

The bulk of the money comes from government.

We got to make sure it gets used really well.

Some things, you know, only government could win World War II, and I think only government can solve the environmental crisis.

I just don't think that's something.

What do you think about your fellow billionaires who want to go to Mars?

That's so fucking stupid.

It's stupid.

Man, I don't waste.

I want to waste all my time in that rocket ship.

I got too much to do here.

I, too, am 62.

What am I going going to be out there in outer space dying?

No, I'm not going to do it.

You got to do this thing when you talk like that.

Remember that?

You just got to do that.

Stand down by the river.

All right, yeah.

That's right, right?

Okay,

let's see.

Will anyone in this administration ever be held accountable for the separation of immigrant children and the abuse they are enduring?

Well, accountability is a tough thing to come by lately, but

I hope so.

Probably not.

No, and it's appalling.

It's appalling.

And that it is suddenly politically courageous to come up and say that that's a bad thing.

Babies in cages, yeah, probably not.

It's really, really disappointing.

Glad we're all in agreeance on that.

What's your advice, Richard Clark, to the next president on how to respond to Russia's ongoing attacks if you had your old job?

So there's a building in St.

Petersburg called the Internet Research Agency, which is in fact a front for the Russian intelligence service.

That's where all their trolls are?

That's where all their trolls, not all of them, but a lot of them are, and they're still doing it every day.

I would fry every computer in that building.

We have the capability.

Really?

Yeah.

We could do that just with the push of a button.

Tomorrow.

Totally.

Why don't we do it?

So why don't we do it?

Because, you know, well, they'd replace them the next day.

Maybe, but I'd feel it.

But wouldn't they do it to?

Wouldn't they do it to us?

They're already doing pretty much everything they could do to us.

They're in our power grid.

They're in the pipeline control system.

Well, if they're in our power grid, couldn't they freeze our computers too?

Yeah, they can.

Yeah.

Is that a clue at Pornhub?

I'm asking for a friend.

But we can't.

Torture them.

All their computers.

We can't be self-deterred.

What do you know about computers?

Oh, that's right.

$43 billion.

$43 billion.

I get that.

Okay.

You recently held a shareholder meeting, Steve, for American taxpayers.

Do you think the government should run like a corporation?

That's interesting, because when people elected Trump, they were like, yeah, we need a businessman as president.

This is more than much the kind of the businessman I think we should have as president.

What I think we need is we need somebody who's got the discipline in thinking things through, in knowing numbers, in using data.

We're not trying to maximize profit or, you know, exact, I believe in balancing the budget, but it's not all about that.

It's about the outcomes and using numbers and being systematic.

And, you know, with USAI Facts, we welcome anybody in the country to use our data.

I mean, politicians, when they run for office, they always write a dumb book.

You know, oh, this is, and that's my platform.

It seems like USAI Facts data is a much better platform than a dumb book if, say, you wanted to run.

You could say, this is, I've already done the work.

I already know what to do to fix America.

And I'll tell you something, we just finished something we call the State of the Facts Poll.

We go out and poll on this stuff.

Americans want the facts.

Look,

even got that.

You got that down.

Facts are more important.

So once you do that.

You're given people's values.

They'll say, we want to start.

You don't want to be a politician.

No.

So here's the thing.

I want to stay married, and

I like where I am.

You want to stay married?

Yeah, my wife doesn't think the idea of politician.

Let's just put it this way.

I think I could probably do more and stay married to my very lovely wife.

See, here's what I'm.

I'm thinking when you're saying this, other than the fact that I need to start talking louder, because I think it would work.

I mean, I don't want to be the quiet bald guy at the end of the day.

All right, no, no, you're you're great.

I wouldn't change a thing.

No, but but what happens when you have these objective

politi fact-like things is that whenever something comes out that one side disagrees with, i.e.

you know, Republicans think that like PolitiFact, all these fact-checking things or the Congressional Budget Office are like, oh, it's partisan.

What do you say when the inevitable, oh, that thing's partisan because they don't like the numbers comes up?

We don't make forecasts.

Forecasts are partisan.

What happened happened?

What happened?

We know how many people are covered by health care.

I won't predict what goes forward.

We know how many people died and at what age last year.

We won't make forecasts.

Forecasts can be partisan.

The history.

Geez, we can't even look back and objectively say that is what happened, accept it.

Well, we need to.

I agree.

As Moynihan said, you can have your own opinions, but you can't have your own facts, and we know what happened.

And I think it is disgusting when people just ignore the numbers.

No feeling like Justin, Puerto Rico.

How are the Clippers going to do this year?

We're going to win a lot of games.

That's a forecast.

Okay.

No clip.

Every week.

Final question.

SE Cup, do you regret your write-in vote for Paul Ryan in 2016?

I don't regret

not voting

for my party's nominee.

I don't regret that.

And I'm challenged on that all the time.

And yeah, of course.

But I don't regret that with every day i am proven i think right in in that in that vote for me it was not for me um but it didn't really help

no it did there's only for me there's only two parties only two people running it seems like i couldn't vote for either but i can tell my son in 20 years

awful oh yeah yeah hillary was was going to be anywhere near as bad as trump was well i can't forecast but she was a terrible terrible candidate candidate yes Not president.

Would she have been a terrible president?

I think

based on past experience.

Close to how terrible Trump is?

Well, that's a high bar.

Okay.

So, but mature people make assessments, and one thing is always better than the other.

Isn't it your responsibility to pick that out, hold your nose, and do the right thing?

I did not think one thing was better than the other.

Do you now?

Not that

really?

You've seen Trump for almost two years, and you think Hillary could have possibly have been been this bad?

In different ways, yeah.

I think she could have.

Like what ways?

Like what would she have done that would be the magnitude of the problem?

Relax.

I didn't vote for either of them.

I know, and that's the problem.

But what...

You're right, I'm the problem.

No, no.

My vote was the problem.

Part of it.

Part of it.

Hey, you know what?

When I voted for Nader, I copped to it.

I said I was wrong.

You believed that.

I don't believe I was.

Sorry.

Okay, but

no, I'm just asking you, what would Hillary, what could Hillary have possibly done that would be as bad as Trump has been?

I think that she's deceptive and unaccountable in ways that people don't completely acknowledge.

Don't completely.

No, we have that now.

It's awful.

But

not really as deceptive.

Okay, I mean, you can judge.

You can judge.

As the person who has told 5,000 lies.

I don't regret not voting for Hillary Crimp.

Okay.

To answer that question.

Not a bit.

You have stood up to my withering category five questioning.

Thank you, everybody.

It's time to

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