Overtime – Episode #428: Prison Reform, Political Fundraising, Evolution of Rap

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Month series, Real Time with Bill Maher.

Okay, here we are on Overtime.

Ice Cube, are streaming services like Spotify unfair to artists?

If they don't pay them right,

they don't pay them, do they?

You don't get much from Spotify, do you?

I get paid.

You know, I don't know about that.

Some artists.

I mean, most artists complain about it.

It's pennies, you know, I mean, it's not a lot.

But, you know,

the industry has been, been, you know, stealing from artists for a long time.

So I don't even know if they know the difference because

the industry is just bad.

You got to fight for your money.

So this is just a different way of doing it.

Yep.

Okay.

Michael Eric Dyson, how would you begin to address prison reform in this country?

Well, first of all, you'd have to take the cash out of it, private industry, the way in which, unfortunately,

you know,

Attorney General's sessions has reignited that firestorm firestorm that had been tamped down on by Eric Holder.

So first of all, take the big business out of it.

And then secondly, have common sense reform that was forging a connection between Democrats and Republicans, like what was going on under Obama

before the rise of sessions and Trump.

You know, Rand Paul is working right alongside of a Democratic senator to try to make things work.

That's number two.

And then number three, I think if we provide people something basic like opportunities, it's been shown that most people who are in prison, not the hardened criminals, the nonviolent drug offenders, if they don't have the book thrown at them, they have the opportunity to make something of their lives.

Look at the opioid response right now.

Mostly middle-class or even working-class white brothers and sisters who deserve to get a second shot, but when the crack economy was going hard in the late 80s, there was no such sympathy.

If we could have that model prevail right now, I think that criminal justice reform would be hugely benefited.

Okay.

David Jolly, what or who is the biggest obstacle to getting your STOP Act passed?

Well, you're not in Congress anymore.

That's the biggest obstacle.

What's stopping it?

He's not in Congress anymore.

That'll definitely stop a bill from getting passed.

No, but listen, this is important because you know what ticks me off about Donald Trump?

I spent the last three to four years in Congress fighting to rebrand the Republican Party, to accept climate change and marriage equality and gun control and campaign finance reform, right?

And this president sent us back 20 years.

Right.

But the STOP Act is a very simple measure.

It's four pages.

It says prohibit any member of Congress from directly asking you for money.

We do it in states across the country.

We apply it to our judicial candidates.

The problem is

the biggest impediment is big money drives reelections.

And listen, the number of members of Congress who came up to me and said, good for you.

I wish I could support you, but I can't because I got to go raise a million dollars to get re-elected.

That's the biggest hurdle.

Okay.

Simone, do you think anti-Trump sentiment will carry Democrats in historically red districts like John Ossof in Georgia's sixth?

No, absolutely not.

And

if you look at that race, actually, they're running on health care and other issues down there.

They're not necessarily running against Donald Trump.

Donald Trump won that district by one percentage point.

So it's notoriously close.

So I think Democrats will need to talk less about how bad Republicans are and more about what they're going to to do and what their plans are and how they differ in policies to win in 2018.

Because they talked about, I mean, Donald Trump got elected at a historically low approval rating.

People already didn't like him, but they voted for him for president anyway, and a lot of Republicans around the country.

So if folks want to win, they got to do more than just say, oh, these people are really bad vote for me.

They have to tell them why.

Okay.

David Gregory, do news journalists have a duty to protect sources that leak sensitive information from the government?

Yes.

I think they should protect sources.

I think, you know, I think leakers like Jim Comey, but people who leak in the government are often doing so to try to influence an outcome, to

reveal something that

gets to wrongdoing in the government.

And I think it's part of a free press that we get as much information as we can.

The government is built and designed in a way to only tell the American people what they want them to know.

And you have to have investigative journalists digging.

And a lot of times that means you've got to talk to people anonymously.

You've got to protect the people you talk to to find out what's really going on.

Yeah, I mean, reality winner, hero.

Can I ask a rap question?

Would that be out of line?

No, please.

It's right.

So, I mean, I don't get to hang out with Ice Cube.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

No, no.

I don't get to hang out with Ice Cube all the time.

How do you compare the rap of your day, the flow, the lyrics, compared to some of the stuff today?

You know, you hear future amigos,

you know, some of these guys.

How do you compare it?

I mean, it strikes me that lyrics in your day, which was my day,

were a lot more in your face, a lot more direct.

Now it's a lot more about flow and beat and stuff like that.

I just wonder what you think of it.

Well, I think, you know, rap

had a political edge to it.

You know, it was, you know, talking about, you know,

doing great things in the community, pushing the program.

And then...

At a certain point, I think mainstream media really decided, yo, you know, let's not promote public enemy and KRS-1 and Ice-T and Ice Q because what they're saying is, you know, real incendiary, you know what I'm saying?

So let's deal with,

you know, escapism rap.

Let's deal with partying and clubs and cars and jewelry and money.

And that became the norm.

And that, you know, if the kids see that, they're going to want to emulate that.

So that's became, you know, what we've been kind of feeding off of for the last 20 years.

But

with Kendrick Lamar,

even

Kanye was one of the first.

Jesus Walks was so

outside the box, and it was bringing it back to

saying something in the rhymes.

And it wasn't just escapism.

Dr.

Duck, we were listening to Playboy Cartier in the green room, so that's what we were doing.

No lies on David's phone.

Oh, he's got mad heels.

Michael Eric Dyson, is Jeff Sessions threatening to restart the war on drugs?

Yeah, he's already restarted it.

Yeah, there's no doubt about it.

Thinking about pie.

Will this affect the after party?

It depends on what kind of access you have, Bill.

But, you know.

I got something for you.

I didn't know you could do all this, I'm telling you.

Yeah.

That reigns the poor.

They got money for wars, but can't feed the poor.

I mean, yeah,

the war on drugs has been restarted from Nixon, Reagan, and now down to Sessions and Trump.

And it didn't work the first time around.

It put a whole bunch of people in jail who don't deserve to be there.

And this time around, I don't think they're going to be able to keep

from putting in a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump as well.

I mean, one of the things, the point you were brilliantly making is, Bill, is that the very people who voted for Donald Trump are the ones who are being deserved by him in such lethal ways.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you for my wonderful panel.

Terrific audience.

I appreciate everything.

Have a good week.

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