Ep. #426: Boris Epshteyn, 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.

How you doing?

Okay, all right.

I know.

There's so much.

So much to get to.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen.

I love you, too.

Thank you.

I tell you,

every week it gets worse.

The news stories are are coming so fast and frequently.

I need drama to watch CNN.

I have breaking news fatigue.

I do.

I was talking to my doctor today.

I said, is drinking in the afternoon right for me?

And he said, I'm way ahead of you.

So.

I mean,

it's so hard to catch you up on this week because it's like last week never even really ended.

We should start this show like all the other HBO shows.

Previously on,

previously on As the World Burns,

President Batchett had just fired his FBI director for investigating his Russian ties and then met the Russians in the Oval Office

to get his next assignment

and of course pass along classified information.

You know, no wonder these guys are laughing.

He gave it to them in person in the Oval Office.

They're like, this guy is even dumber than we thought.

Of course, you know, Trump should not have even had them in the Oval Office.

These are the people who hacked and meddled in our election.

That's not part of the controversy.

That is a fact.

They meddled in the election.

And Trump says,

Trump says, well, Putin asked me to do it.

What am I supposed to say?

Come on, I work for the guy.

I mean,

what am I going to tell the boss?

No?

He's so dumb.

He keeps

really.

outrightly confessing to his crimes.

Putin told me to do it.

The Comey firing.

Trump sends out his people to say some bullshit, and the next day goes on Lester Holt and says, no, it was because they're Russia.

Oh, my idea.

Giving the Russians the classified intelligence stuff.

He sends his people out.

They deny it.

Then he's like, no, yeah, I did it.

He's like a kid who goes to pick up his prom date and the parents say, what are your intentions?

And he says, I'm going to try to get her to give me a hand job.

And then,

okay.

And then this week we learned that, oh, I love this.

James Comey kept meticulous notes and memos on all his meetings.

with Donald Trump,

including,

according to the Comey memo, where Trump meets with Comey and says to Comey, you know, Flynn, he's involved with the Russians.

Jesus Christ, he's a good guy.

I hope you can just let this go.

Hope you can let this go.

Comey said, you know I'm a cop, right?

I hope you can let this go.

When Vice President Pence heard that, he started scratching out vice on his business cards.

And then today we learn that Trump said to the Russians during that play date he had with them,

he said in front of note-takers to the Russians, I just fired the head of the FBI.

He was a real nut job.

I face great pressure because of Russia.

That's taken care of.

Is he trying to get impeached?

Even Monica Lewinsky is like, wow, you really blew it in the Oval Office.

James Comey is the nut job,

says the 70-year-old man with the platinum blonde hair

and the necktie around his knees.

What the f ⁇ ?

The nut job.

He's a nut job.

Excuse me, I got to get back to talking to the television.

By the way,

it's okay because you know what?

All this is good news.

We have a special counsel now, Robert Miller.

I doubt that Trump will be president for the full term.

Maybe, I don't know.

Maybe he might not be president by the time he gets back from his trip.

You know, he left today on his big overseas trip.

One huge question hangs over this trip.

While he's gone, who is going to lie to Mike Pence?

We don't know this.

Because Mike Pence,

you've got to love Mike Pence.

This guy eats more shit than a goat.

There is nothing this man will not believe.

He can watch the shit coming straight out of the bull's ass.

And if you tell him it's chocolate most, he'll repeat it.

So yeah, Trump's got a big trip.

He's going to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Vatican, the cradles of America's three great religions, Christianity, Judaism, and oil.

And before I move on with the show, there is other news.

Pretty big news that happened this week.

Anthony Weiner pleaded guilty to tweeting his dick.

and Roger Ailes died.

Between those two stories and the horrible week Trump had, perverts got their comeuppance.

If there was a movie made about this week, it would be called Pussy Strikes Back.

And,

you know,

Yes, Roger Ailes, okay, but when somebody dies, you're supposed to not say bad things about him.

So let me just say, when it came to making old white Americans more frightened and more ill-informed, nobody did it better.

All right, we got a great show.

David From and Cornell West are here, and a little later we will be speaking with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

But first up,

he is the chief political analyst for Sinclair Broadcast Group and former Special Assistant President Trump at the White House.

Boris Epstein.

Boris.

How are you, sir?

Thanks for coming by.

Yeah, well, no, I'm the one who has to thank you.

This is not an easy week for you and not an easy audience to come and speak in front of.

So I think that's a good question.

No, that takes some balls, and I appreciate that.

It really does.

And you have a big new job.

Sinclair, I don't know if people know this.

This is another big story that kind of got buried.

Sinclair Group.

They're a television conglomerate.

They're trying to buy tribune.

They look like they're going to get it.

You're going to be one of the main people there.

They want to be to the right of Fox News.

No, that's not quite true.

That's true.

That's not.

Really?

Sinclair is not a cable channel.

Sinclair is a group that owns stations and it's a provider of content and it provides content that's straight down the mill.

That's what Fox used to say.

It's fair and balanced, and we know they're not.

But Fox is a cable channel, right?

So it's different.

It's not different.

What is the fuck difference?

Whether it comes over the air or in a cord, if they hired you as their front man, they're not straight down the middle.

I'm not the front man, so I'm the chief political analyst.

I'm an analyst, and what I'll be doing is providing segments that will play on their stations.

Take a look at the stations.

Take a look at the local news.

You'll see that it is straight down the middle.

Boris, this was supposed to be the I'm nice to you question.

I like it.

It's nice.

I'm feeling the warmth.

I'm feeling the warmth right here.

I think it's great.

Australia,

I love it.

Australia, congratulate you on your new job.

Thank you.

All right, so let's get to this.

And look, I don't want to make this adversarial.

Obviously, we are from different sides of the spectrum.

But look, as long as you keep it straight with me,

it doesn't have to go out of the box.

But, you know, first off, how long do you think Donald Trump can be president?

I think he'll be president for eight years.

Yeah.

So I was disappointed.

So I would say people who thought he would never be president.

All right.

Well,

even after the events of this week?

Absolutely.

Okay,

let's, how about we have a gentleman's bet, 100 rubles?

I don't know the conversion you might.

I don't know that.

And I'm not saying that because you're of Russian heritage.

I don't think you're a Russian spy.

I think there are plenty of dumb Americans.

I don't mean you're dumb either.

But I think there are plenty of Americans who support Donald Trump and they think they're doing the right thing.

Okay.

But

come on.

You're telling me that you think Donald Trump will be there until January 19th, 2025.

Yes.

Yeah, and here's why.

Gentlemen's bet he's out by Christmas.

This Christmas?

You're both.

So, I mean,

tell me, I asked the crowd here, it looks like he's trying to get impeached.

It looks like he's admitted obstruction of justice at least twice.

You don't see it that way.

Absolutely not.

Here's what I see.

What I see is that there's absolutely a coordinated attack against the president.

Look at this.

Just since he left, since he's been in the air, there have been four or five stories, all in anonymous sourcing, that tried to be detrimental to the president.

Why?

What's the point?

He's going on this great trip.

First time a president has gone to the great three religions, to the homes of the three religions, back to back, all together.

That's awesome.

We should be happy.

Which religion are you?

Just curious.

I'm Jewish.

Okay, so.

So he's going to Israel for the first time.

You know when Obama went to Israel for the first time?

2013.

Asshole.

Me or him?

Him.

What an asshole.

Not to.

No, I'm just joking, of course.

Okay, but

okay.

Well, we'll see.

But shouldn't it, okay, since we're not going to agree on

the part that isn't completely now nailed down by law enforcement, let's just go to the part that's incontrovertible, which is that the Russians meddled in the election.

All 17 of our intelligence agencies say that.

You would agree to that, right?

Well, come on.

And

here's so we can get into the back and forth and into the minutiae of that letter you're talking about because actually

the 17 agencies have been talking about these agencies have said russia did so do you think the president didn't win the election and that answer my question first

All 17 of whose side are you on?

I'm on America's side.

Okay, but then all of our intelligence agencies say this.

You don't back some of them.

There's a special counsel, and the special counsel will come out with an answer, and I'm confident that it'll show that there was no, just like the president said, no collusion.

Now, whether Russia tried to meddle.

I specifically said this is not a collusion question.

This is the part that's not controversial.

So this is the meddle question.

Meddling.

Russia meddled in our election.

Please just admit that.

You have to ask Russia whether they tried to.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

How would I ask?

Okay, but then you're

like your boy Trump, you're saying you don't believe our intelligence agencies.

No, what I'm saying is this.

Well, you don't.

The president, well, let me let me answer.

This is what they say.

The president won the election election fair and square.

That's not the point or the question.

Whether there was an attempt at meddling, again, how would I know?

You asked me if that is.

Because our intelligence agencies, all of them, say there was.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, Sebar, this is why we are having a problem.

Because I can't even get you to come to the place that all people, including the Republicans, agree is the fact.

That Russia did meddle in our election.

I quite agree with this fact, but was there a senior attempt at meddling?

It is settled science.

Science?

I'm not near the ground.

That's the

guy coming up.

I'm foreshadowing.

Okay.

Is he going to say that?

That would be funny.

But

shouldn't there be a price for meddling?

You know, it's funny.

Jimmy Carter was known as the great pussy.

But when the Russians took over Afghanistan in 1980, he boycotted the Olympics.

He stopped selling them grain.

He took a lot of political heat for that.

That actually took balls to not go to the Olympics.

They're very popular.

They are.

I love the Olympics.

What's the price that the Russians have paid for meddling in our election?

None.

He has them into the White House.

He says it was a fantastic meeting.

For who?

Whose side are you on?

I'm again very much on America's side.

I'm on the president's side.

But here's what I will tell you.

I think the same thing.

Rex Tillerson.

Rex Tillerson went to Russia.

He had his meetings.

And these are the people who are in the United States

who did not even raise the hacking issue with the Russians.

Again, if you have a problem with how the president is handling his foreign policy, you could speak at the ballot box in three and a half years.

Absolutely.

That's every American's right.

So now Comey is going to testify.

This came out just a couple of hours ago.

All right.

So we have a he said, he said.

Right.

Comey says one thing, Trump says the other.

On the one hand, you have the guy who PolitiFact says is the greatest liar in the history of American politics, Donald Trump, and then Boy Scout Jim Comey.

Who do you think the American people are going to think is lying?

So two weeks ago, Jim Comey was absolutely unpopular and completely distrusted.

Not absolutely.

And now he's about as popular as Mother Teresa.

I mean, this is somebody who a couple of weeks ago, both the left and the right couldn't stand.

And now Jim

is this beacon.

Lots of people on the left were where I was with Jim Coney, like what Senator Warner said.

I didn't agree with everything he did.

I didn't call for his resignation.

Well, a lot of Democrats did.

A lot of Democrats.

And they made a mistake, yes.

Okay.

Let's take a step back on that, though, for a second.

So if you're talking about the he said he said in the notes, so what Jim Comey or his people are letting us to believe is that he took these notes and then these notes are being leaked.

Are we okay with people going to the Oval Office, taking notes, and then leaking those notes to the press?

To me, there's a huge problem there.

Well.

But isn't the crime itself worse than the note-taking?

There's no crime.

There's no crime?

Okay.

So if Hillary, if this was Hillary, let's just put it around, because that's how, I know, but that's how we can tell if we're being partisan or whether we're looking at the facts.

If Obama,

when they were looking at Hillary, had said, you know, because Trump said

to call me about Flynn, he's a good guy.

I'd love it if he could just let this go.

If Obama had called me in when he was looking at Hillary and said, you know, she's a good broad.

I'd be great if he could just let this go.

You'd be cool with that.

Well, we actually had Bill Clinton talking to Loretta Lynch on her plane about that.

Remember that whole thing?

Right.

Dylan's so good.

Dylan's so good.

He wasn't the president, someone said.

Yeah, but he'd appointed her to Johnson War.

We know that.

No, I said it last week.

Absolutely.

All right, let me ask you this.

Because

I just have to know

why someone like yourself is such a fan of Donald Trump.

You have kids?

I do have a, I have one year old.

Okay.

Did you see him at the commencement for the Coast Guard the other day?

Okay.

He's talking to the

commencement, to kids, fresh-faced, idealistic, going out into the world.

And he starts bitching and moaning about, I am in history, and I say this with great surety.

Not a great impression.

Not a great impression, not a great word.

Great surety.

That no politician has ever been treated worse in history.

And Nelson Mandela's ghost went, I was in jail for 27 years.

Just tell me, just

tell me why

someone who I bet is otherwise a decent human being with children, how you can look at that, a guy who never takes responsibility, who is always whining and bitching and moaning and lying, just put me out of my misery and tell me why you like this man.

So let me talk about the Donald Trump I know.

He is pragmatic, he is smart, he is kind, he's supportive.

And honestly, he's the best politician I've ever worked with.

I've been on the last three Republican presidential campaigns.

And first of all, we won, which was nice.

And second of all, he's a great communicator.

He's great at relating to people.

And I know the audience disagrees.

I know the audience is.

I mean, I'm telling you, tough gig for you.

That's fine.

I love it.

It's fine.

But if you, there's a reason that he got 306 electoral votes, right?

There's a reason that this president

of the electoral college.

No.

But you know he lost the popular vote.

You'll admit that.

Of course.

If now,

if the election were based on the popular vote, we would have campaigned in California, we would have campaigned in New York, and we would have won going away.

In California, in New York?

Yeah, because, you know, L.A.

is not the only part of California, neither is San Francisco.

There are a lot of other parts which support Republicans.

You're not going to win California.

No, no.

Let me just say to you.

I'm saying that if it was based on the popular vote, we would have campaigned in California and won a lot of people.

All right.

You know, I bet there's at least 30% Trump voters in the audience.

They would just never admit it.

They would never admit it.

Thank you, Boris.

Good shot.

Boris Epstein, he came here.

Epstein.

He came here.

You got to give it to him for that.

All right.

I appreciate it.

Thanks, buddy.

Coming by.

Let's meet our panel.

All right, buddy.

Okay.

Can't get these guys down.

I know.

I did what I could.

I could not do it.

Okay.

Let's meet our panel.

He's a senior editor for The Atlantic and a former Bush White House speechwriter.

Our friend David From is over here.

And he's a professor of the practice of public philosophy at Harvard Divinity School.

Oh, excuse me, Dr.

Cornell West.

There he is.

How are you, Brother West?

Okay.

No overtime tonight.

I got to get to Vegas.

All right.

So, first of all, no mistake, I've said this before.

Sometimes I just want two people.

You know, I'm getting to that age where

I do what the fuck I want.

Okay.

Before I get to you guys, Brad Gray.

We lost a giant this week.

He was my manager for many years.

You see his name at the end of the credits here at the show, every week, Brad Gray.

A lot of times when you see people's name, it's bullshit.

Not in this case.

This show wouldn't exist without him.

He made some enemies in this town, but he was a great friend of this show.

And we will miss him.

Okay, so.

The news is happening so fast, I can't even get it on a blue card.

I have to like rip it off the wire

right before come out.

CNN just reporting, Russian officials bragged they could use Flynn to influence Trump, sources say.

I guess the question is, can we get him out before there's real damage?

Well you just bet 100 rubles that it will happen.

I don't think he will see the end of this year.

I can't, at this pace it's going.

I don't want to cramp your bet,

but

this is going to look different on Monday.

And

this is a much more dangerous time.

And

whatever people feel about Donald Trump, he is a canny survivor and a ruthless player.

And Boris was right.

He is a very shrewd politician and a very effective communicator.

Not to you and maybe not to the people here, but to the people he needs to talk to.

He has a powerful base.

He has the resources of the presidency.

He has a death grip on the Republican Party.

The special counsel is also a shield to him because these things cannot be discussed by the special counsel.

And there are real questions about whether any of the things that Donald Trump has done are actually prosecutable crimes.

And

he, and there are, just to not to put too much of a damper on the evening, there are right now, there is a second aircraft carrier that has just arrived near Korea and it is exercising.

Donald Trump had two good days as president, his State of the Union address and the day he fired the 59 Tomahawks at Syria.

I think he remembers that.

So what are you saying?

He's going to start a war to...

I'm saying he's going to hang on to power.

He is not going to go in a gentlemanly way.

He's not going to care about the institutions of the Republic.

I don't know about that.

And

he's enjoying himself.

He said in an interview a couple of weeks ago, I missed my old life.

He said, I had so many great things going on.

So many great things going on.

I had my cons, my pyramid schemes,

my underground trips to Russia with the hookers,

my my wonderful marriage to my daughter wife.

You know, he had so many great things going on.

I don't think he wants to be president at this point.

Well, I mean, one is that he's just not in touch with reality.

No.

So whatever he does, you can't assume that somehow he's really making a connection with something that's real.

But the sad thing is, this is very important because it's 92nd birthday of Malcolm X.

And Malcolm X would always want to tell the truth that Donald Trump, and it's reflected in your powerful essay, my dear brother, in Atlantic Monthly, but Donald Trump, he's an expression of the spiritual blackout in the country.

And what I mean by that is the relative eclipse of integrity, honesty, and decency.

So that even though we know, We knew for a long time he's out of control, he's over his head, he's a gangster, he's a tyrant, he's a neo-fascist in the making, he's not like Hitler and Mussolini, but he acts in such a way, given his narcissism, that he allows for disregard of rule of law undermining constitutional practices but the important thing is not to fetishize him into an isolated individual he is an expression of the worst of american culture and american empire and that he's continuing

that he's part of us as a fellow human being and a fellow citizen so the the first thing to keep in mind is we're going to see the best of america because we're going to find out what kind of people we really are but we're going to find out who we really are

So, but the people.

You are admitting that there is such a thing as white people problems.

Well,

there's a human problem, white fucking clue.

I'm going to bring it.

I want to raise something that you may find, you may agree with this, you may find it challenging, but the people who are actually on the front lines who are doing the work for the best of America are indeed the national security professionals who are putting their obligation to the country ahead of their obligation to the president.

And it is people in the CIA, the FBI, the Army, and the military, and the Navy, the Marine.

All people he's insulted.

Who are some of them inside the White House, some of the other departments.

The reason you know the things you know

is that people are taking tremendous risks with their career.

In some cases, they are breaking the law because they are reading classified information to the press.

So

they're taking sacrifices in order to alert the country to what is on.

That's right.

And then some people are doing it just to save their ass, like the people in the White House.

I mean, this White House is leaking.

It's funny, like when you read these stories,

sometimes have peevish motives.

That's true.

That's true.

But these are people who are lawyering up.

Now, we passed a number of Rubicons this week when we found out it's actually now a criminal investigation, not just an intelligence one.

And when we find

these are these are people, I think, who are shitting their pants now in the White House, because they know they're too close to it and they may already

running scared.

They don't want to go to jail.

When you read these stories in the paper, they have like 30 sources.

You know, there should be something called like Trump Club, and the first rule of Trump Club is you tell everybody everything you know.

That's true.

Distinguish.

Distinguish, please, between the political people

who signed up for the Voyage of the Damned, knowing what they were were signing up for, as Boris did.

Yes, he went in with his eyes open, and you pay the price.

But a lot of the White House is the National Security Council.

Those are people secunded from other departments.

And they have to be there.

General McMaster, the National Security Advisor, is an active duty soldier.

He has to be there, or else resign from the Army entirely.

He doesn't have to lie, which he did this week.

But we do have to make a distinction, though, Brother Dave, between those who are on the inside

who can see that Trump is willing to use arbitrary power in order to hide hide and conceal his greed, and therefore we give them credit.

But when I was talking about the fight back against spiritual blackout, I was talking about everyday citizens who have a rude awakening and begin to act like citizens tied to public interest, tied to common good.

Those are the ones I have in mind.

The reason I say that is because, see, when you talk about the CIA, on the one hand, you have people of integrity in the CIA.

On the other hand, how many foreign governments has the CIA intervened in or overthrew democratic elected officials?

So it's not as if somehow we can overlook that history even as we keep track of them playing a positive role at this particular moment.

You see my point?

We're standing there.

Would you agree with me?

I see your point.

I don't think I would agree with you.

I see your point.

You see my point?

Yes, I see it.

That's true.

But I always.

Two of you three, though.

I see it.

But

let's not mistake the fire for the fire brigade.

Oh, interesting distinction.

Let's hear what you got to say about that.

That's what I have to say.

I want to, you know, this is a wrap-up show of the week.

I want to give the scandals, and we put them on bullet points, like Bill O'Reilly used to do.

You know,

he's not using them anymore just because it's become so much that people can't keep track of it.

Just two weeks ago, since we'll start with the Comey firing, fired Comey, admitted obstruction on TV to Lester Holt.

He admitted it.

The Russians in the Oval Office is a scandal.

Gave the Russians intel is a giant scandal.

Asked Comey to look the other way, giant scandal.

He knew Flynn was under investigation, we found out this week.

And he still

hired him anyway.

The Raqqa attack.

Okay, Flynn was on the payroll of Turkey.

Turkey didn't want this attack.

Raqqa is where ISIS is.

Trump was like, I'm going to get ISIS.

I'm the guy who can get ISIS.

I'm the the one who puts America first.

Flynn, because he's on the payroll of Turkey, and Turkey didn't want this attack to take place, aborted an attack on ISIS that we were planning at the last days of the Obama administration.

We found out there's a tape of Paul Ryan with his Republican buddies where Kevin McCarthy says, Putin pays Trump.

He admitted obstruction to the Russians, the one I was just mentioning in the monologue.

I mean...

But McCarthy said that was a joke, though, right?

Well, first they said it didn't exist.

Oh, so they were lying again and again.

They said it didn't exist.

And they went, well, we have the actual tape.

And they went, did I say it didn't exist?

What I meant was it's a joke.

And as you know, why are jokes funny?

Because they're true.

Yes, exactly.

If you had a joke about Romney oggling the interns, it wouldn't be very funny, wouldn't it?

But what do you.

Why?

Right, and and that's why conservative humor is not funny.

We make a lot of jokes, apparently.

But

what do you make of Trump's self-incrimination?

Is it just because he's stupid?

Is it some sort of death wish that I want out of this job?

I mean, what sort of person.

Donald Trump has been living a life that lacks impunity for so long he

can say anything,

do anything.

You talk about you grabbing a woman's savage parts.

That's gangsta.

You go to somebody's oil and steal that oil.

That's gangsta.

He thinks he can get away with it.

There's a long tradition of white male mediocrity and mendacity, and now Chick is coming home to ruse.

Thank you.

Yes, you're right.

We're coming home to rules.

That's the right answer.

That's it.

And by the way,

this...

This excuse for him that I've already seen put out there has to stop.

This idea of, well, he didn't know what he was doing.

He's just a boy.

Oh, he doesn't know how the system works.

He didn't even know what obstruction of justice was.

He's not a politician.

Look, you can't run for office saying, I'm the smartest guy ever in the history of the world and then say, I don't know.

You can't have it both ways, right?

Okay.

It's true.

That's right.

That's right.

All right, excuse me.

Look.

As if I don't have enough to be mad about Donald Trump, but he stole a bit of ours.

We started a bit several years ago called, I don't know it for a fact, I just know it's true.

And he basically started a whole administration based on that.

But we owned this before he did, and we're off next week.

The sad thing is, Brother Bill,

big business, Wall Street, big corporations, they were with him because they thought they were going to generate high profits.

So they were willing to be blind to this, all these lies taking place for profit.

That's spiritual vacuity, spiritual emptiness.

Same is true of the Republican Party.

They know he's a gangster, but they say, oh my God, somehow I've got to rationalize it.

Somehow I've got to make sure that he...

Hey,

what kind of country are you?

And what kind of system do we have?

I never heard you do your white character before.

I mean.

You're no Dave Chappelle, but keep working on it.

Anyway,

it's time to do, I don't know what for a fact, I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that when Trump met with the Turkish president, he asked for some taffy.

I just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that CNN is thinking of replacing its breaking news graphic with one that says, he did what now?

I don't know for a fact that Lenny Kravitz is going to punch the next guy who who says to him, funny, you don't look Jewish.

Yeah, Edgy, you're right.

I don't know for a fact that Mike Pence's morning ritual looks like this.

I don't know for a fact that Jeff Sessions' leg moves when you scratch him behind the ears.

I don't know for a fact that Cornell West shows his barber a photo of Mark Twain.

I just know.

I don't know for a fact that anytime someone says, I love you more than you'll ever know, it's because they can't come up with anything specific they like about you.

Too close.

I don't know for a fact that Tucker Carlson's nickname in high school was Fucker Tarlson.

I just know it's true.

That's a little harsh, brother.

That's harsh.

Quiet.

I don't know for a fact that voters who said they'd vote for the rock over Trump in 2020 meant an actual rock.

I Just know it's true.

And I don't know for a fact that Jared Kushner told his lawyer, I'm too pretty to go to jail.

I just know it's true.

Okay.

His latest book, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, is debuting at number one in the New York Times best list.

He hosts National Geographic Star Talk, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

There he is.

There he is.

There's the man.

Look at that.

All right.

All right.

Brother New York, Brother New.

Look at how popular you are.

I know.

Unbelievable.

And

let's get right to your book, Astrophysics for Dummies, right?

No, no, no.

It was.

Isn't that really

good?

That's a small book.

I even cracked it.

That title was already taken, first of all.

Is that right?

But second, no, it's real astrophysics.

It's just if you're in a hurry, you got a job, you're school, you got kids, you dip in, you can consummate your long-lost relationship with the universe.

I tried.

Page two, I got stumped.

But I, no.

You know what?

Here's the thing.

What you're telling me in this book is something I was, because I watch Cosmos.

You know, I love it.

I love the show, Cosmos.

Beautiful, beautiful.

But they never really

got a lot into dark energy energy there.

I didn't know.

Less so, yeah.

A whole chapter on dark energy.

Dark matter, dark energy, exoplanets.

It's all there.

Most of the universe is dark, like Detroit.

And

this is, see, like we see the stars.

Yeah.

We know that.

Yeah, we got those.

We got the stars.

We got them figured out.

We can't see the planets, but we know they're there.

We infer them, yeah.

But what's in between is what is upsetting you these days, right?

Well, no, so yeah, there's a lot.

You look at the universe and you find out that 85% of all the gravity that is manifest has no known origin.

And so that's one of the longest-standing mysteries of

all of science, if not just astrophysics.

It's been with us since the 1930s.

There's that.

And then there's this mysterious pressure in the vacuum of space forcing an acceleration of the expanding universe against the wishes of the gravity that would otherwise slow that down.

That's another big fraction of what is driving this universe.

You add dark matter to dark energy, it's 95%

of everything that is driving this universe.

And what we know and love and can calculate, it's 5%.

But

why does this affect us?

Why does it affect us?

I don't get it.

Like what if we find the answer?

What will change?

Oh, oh,

so I'm glad I can answer that.

I have no idea.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

So what?

I bring this up.

So

I'll put you back, you know, 90, 80 years ago, you would be watching scientists study the structure of the atom and molecules.

You say, I can't see them.

No microscope can see them.

Why are you wasting this massive brain power on this exercise?

I'm saying you're wasting.

I'm just asking.

Okay, you're going to say,

how can I...

I'm just asking.

No, you were not.

Okay?

So

how can this better life on Earth?

And if you ask them, they say, we have no idea.

70 years later is the foundation of the news.

70 years later is the foundation of all information technology.

So if you ever find yourself saying to a scientist, how can this improve my life?

The only answer is, I have no idea, but one day you might tax it.

I was going to do what I was going to say.

You wrote a wonderful essay called The Perimeter of Ignorance.

Oh, you remember that?

That's a few years ago.

Awful piece, brother.

But it seems to me in that piece, you have an answer to Brother Bill.

It's in there.

It's in the essay.

He always does that.

I know.

Like, that's his Trump card.

It's like, I can get back further than you.

The further back I go, the more right I am.

No, but

you tell the story of Newton and Galileo and the ways in which struggling against forms of dogmatism expand horizons in such a way that we're able to connect both materials.

Slow down, the white people can't keep up.

But brother Neil knows the story.

He laid it out wonderfully.

Well, yeah, it's across pollination of fields.

Okay, you know, let me ask you this, because I did a piece about a month ago about Mars, because there's a drum.

You did a rant.

It's not a piece, it was a rant.

Yeah.

But go on.

Yeah.

and it was true and very fucking funny.

We'll be the judge of both of those parameters.

Well, it already happened and it was.

So

that is settled science.

Okay.

So the point of it was that people, there's this drumbeat about let's go to Mars because we have this great backup planet and since Earth is in such a perilous state, I was telling people, warning them off this dumb idea that don't think you can trash Earth because you've got Mars to go to.

And we made this scientific chart and I'll show it to you.

I had it, this was on the show at the time.

See?

And it says scientific chart right at the dot.

So don't even try to fuck with me on this, Doc.

Mars, no air, Earth air.

Earth food, Mars, Matt Damon, shit potatoes.

That's all you have.

Earth, water, Mars, maybe water.

Oh, fuck.

Give me this.

Give me that.

Give me, don't.

Don't make me lean back again.

And Earth, oh, here, Mars far away.

Yeah, okay.

So,

now,

try to rebut that.

It's all true.

You're for saving the Earth, eh?

Now, imagine the first fish to leave the ocean and come to land, where they cannot breathe, they cannot walk, they cannot do anything.

And in fact, they would need a spacesuit to do that.

In fact, they made a spacesuit.

It was called an egg with a shell.

An egg laid on ground is basically the spacesuit for a fish that is transitioning from water to the.

So, so the idea that you move to a new place that happened over hundreds of millions of years.

Yeah, yeah, I'm just saying that.

We don't have that kind of time.

I'm just saying.

We do not have that kind of precedent.

I am pressed.

I'm in Vegas.

You've got people, Doc.

I'm getting ideas.

I'm not even doing overtime, let alone creating a shell around me.

So, just to be clear, we agree that Mars is not a backup plan.

Thank you.

That's what I want.

But what I've said before is that the day we can colonize Mars, because we've terraformed it, turned it into Earth, the reason to do so is not because we trashed Earth.

Because like I've said before, if we have the power to terraform Mars into Earth, we have the power to turn Earth back into Earth.

So you go to Mars.

So exploring

the same page.

You go to Mars to explore.

And I was worried that if there was a real-time caveman edition 20,000 years ago, you'd be saying, don't leave the cave because it's dangerous out there.

Solve the cave problem first.

And then, and you'd have a chart.

That's not.

Saber-toothed tigers out there safe in the cave.

Just saying.

It's crazy.

That's not.

Listen.

That's not where we're going.

We're making a dog, King.

All right.

Let's return to the problems on Earth.

Really?

Because

I know this is a matter close to your heart.

There was an acquittal this week of a police officer, Betty Joe Shelby, from Tulsa.

She shot Terence Crutcher, a unarmed black man.

She said she feared for her life.

And then in South Carolina, Michael Slager shot Walter Scott in the back, running away, and that was a mistrial.

And this argument that the cops get away with, I was fearful that they might do something erratic.

I thought when you went into the police department, you understood that there was some danger in this job.

I don't know where they got this idea that if I fear at all, I am allowed to shoot you.

But that seems what's happening.

And by the way, Trump is all for it, and Hillary Clinton Clinton wouldn't have been.

So as someone who said they were equally awful, I'd like to say equally.

I said one was a disaster, another was a catastrophe.

Exactly my point.

But I was after it better than a catastrophe.

Well, that point was lost.

Oh, I mean, that just awkward.

But let's keep the focus where it belongs.

The police have yet to go to jail when they end up committing violence and murdering these young black brothers and sisters.

Right.

And the problem is we want a fair trial,

but there's a chronic racism that shot through and over and over again, but it's just not the police.

Same is true with Wall Street.

No Wall Street executives go to jail either.

Rule of law comes down hard on the poor and the well-to-do get off or the police get off because they're protecting the property.

But Hillary's first speech was about mass.

Hillary gave speeches about all kinds of stuff, but it didn't have a whole lot of integrity in it though, brother.

That's That's such bullshit.

That's not bullshit at all.

Really?

Look how they treated Bernie Sanders, man.

You can't talk about the Russians.

Look how they treated Bernie Sanders.

Bernie would have won if he had a chance.

He would have won if he had a chance.

Don't defend Hillary.

Hillary can't even take responsibility for the fact that she lost the election to him.

Look what you did to him.

Everybody, but

everybody.

But he's so wrong.

Don't trot Hillary out on me, bro.

He's so wrong.

Oh, no, no, no.

He's so wrong.

She's better than Trump, but don't lie about the sister just.

She's better than Trump.

That's all I'm saying.

A lot better than Trump in so many ways.

And just on an answer.

That doesn't take too much.

That doesn't take too much.

Who is it better than Trump?

That's not an answer.

It's Gliv.

It's beneath you.

For someone who's such an intellectual,

that answer is beneath you.

Let me tell you why it's not.

It's precisely because when I asked you, would you vote

for Donald Trump over David Duke, you said you wouldn't vote for either one.

Remember I talked about the colours of the city.

Yeah, Hillary is not David Duke.

No, no, but it's this.

If you're talking about Wall Street, if you're talking about militarism, if you're talking about dealing with folk in Honduras, she's light power.

Perhaps better than him about

all of them.

All of those issues, Hillary is unacceptable.

No, she is not.

What is unacceptable?

She was

arguing the last election.

We got stuff going on over here.

Because they haven't learned the lesson that we need to win the next election.

No.

That's why.

No, no, no, no.

If you're going to lie, if you're going to lie, you can just learn how to learn.

We're not lying.

If you're going to lie about Hillary,

there's a lesson you're going to need for 2017, which is about making responsible choices.

For 2018?

No, for 2017.

Because Bill was talking earlier about how he wanted to see Donald Trump not be president by Christmas, which would be nice.

That means Michael Pence becomes president, and that is better.

And

everyone in this room

do do not have to vote for Michael Pence in 2020.

You don't have to vote Republican in 2018.

But you'd better, if you have any hope, it is that he becomes president as rapidly as possible.

And

acknowledge that,

and what I would say to you is Hillary Clinton's not exactly my political cup of tea.

No.

I voted for her as the responsible choice compared to the alternatives I had.

Exactly.

This is the challenging challenging teaching for the audience.

And you have to do the same thing for Michael Pence when the time comes.

I could not agree more.

Michael Pence is well within the parameters of awful that we have come to see as the norm.

It's true.

I've seen Mike Pence before.

He's a typical hypocritical Christian.

Exactly.

He's dangerous.

He's dangerous.

Not as dangerous as Donald Trump.

Don't go to the top.

He's trying to become the benchmark of somebody being better.

Because he's president now.

Because you had the snake bite.

You had the snake bite.

And now you have to understand the difference between things you don't like but can live with that are normal.

Right.

Look, I...

Life doesn't give you two great choices.

Adults choose the better.

Well, the better.

There is no great one.

I live in New Jersey.

If I had voted for Hillary Clinton, it would have made a whip of difference because she needed to win Wisconsin.

She needed to win Ohio.

She didn't go to Wisconsin.

She lost

her.

I live in the District of Columbia.

So you know what?

It made less of a difference.

Poor black voters.

brothers that you're always talking about wouldn't lose their health care under Hillary Clinton, and they will under Donald Trump if he gets his way.

So please,

I don't know who you think you're standing up for.

No, but let me put it this way though, brother.

Let me put it this way.

You are absolutely right in terms of these particular

instances in which the difference would have been made, but for you to have to then still hide and conceal the underside of Hillary Clinton and end up

concealing it contributes to the lies that's been pervasive.

That's my point.

My aim is not just to win a lecture.

Everybody tell the truth.

All right, I still like.

Oh, I love you.

I love you.

You did wrong.

You did wrong.

There's a lot of people.

All right.

No, but he's not wrong.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

But I'm not wrong.

No.

That sounds dogmatic.

All right.

All right.

Let's not

have inter-panel violence.

All right.

New role.

Serial makers have to start picking mascots who look a little less like strung-out sugar junkies.

And for adults, Kellogg's has to invent a breakfast cereal laced with heroin.

Yes, opios

for those mornings where you want to wake up, read what Trump did, and slide right back into unconsciousness.

Yes, opios.

Smack, cackle, and drop.

New Roll Gymder, the new app that matches you with a workout partner.

Must admit it's really just Grinder for guys with abs.

Men don't use this because they need a spotter on the bench press.

They use this because they're tired of arriving at hookups to find Harvey Feierstein.

New Roll, folks taking part in the relationship trend called salogamy, where people marry themselves,

have to answer this question.

After you and yourself get married, does the masturbation get old?

I mean, sure, during the honeymoon period, you masturbate like three times a day, but over time, you find yourself having to schedule masturbation.

Your hand goes to touch yourself and you pull away.

I've got a big meeting tomorrow.

Really, it's not me, it's me.

New rule, someone has to tell the hipsters who buy Romp Him, the new one-piece shorts shirt combo for men, you're wearing an infant's onesie.

Which is the perfect look for a night out vomiting on yourself and drooling over tits.

New Rule advertisers must be forewarned that if you put the sound effect of a doorbell in your TV commercial, making my dog bark frantically and run to the door, I will hunt you down and kill you.

And also, you owe me for the weed I just flushed down the toilet.

And finally, new rule, and this one goes out to our own show business industry here in Hollywood.

You can go ahead and make every TV show and movie about the exact same thing, but if you do, you can't call the newspaper that covers that industry variety.

Now, I know conservatives think Hollywood ruined America by promoting race mixing, drugs, and twisted smut, and I agree, those things should be taught at home.

But that's not how Hollywood ruined America.

It did it by making everything about superheroes.

If they remade singing in the rain today, it would be called Danceman versus Wet Insurrection.

If all I ever wanted to do was watch people fight and fly and fly and fight, I'd travel on United.

Listen to this lineup of TV shows currently on the air.

Daredevil, Flash, Gotham, Supergirl, Agents of Shield, Legends of Tomorrow, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Arrow, Preacher, Iron Fists, which I hope is not porn.

And in the fall, we're getting more.

The Defenders, the Gifted, the Punisher, Krypton, Inhumans, and that's just TV.

At the multiplex last year, we had Captain America 3, X-Men 6, Batman vs.

Superman, Deadpool, Doctor Strange, Suicide Squad, and Ninja Turtles 5.

And already this year, we've had Wolverine 3 and Lego Batman with Wonder Woman, Justice League, Spider-Man 6, and Thor 3 in the can.

And if you had that many guys in your can, you'd be four, two.

Terrible.

And if you're asking, what's the problem?

The problem is that superhero movies imprint this mindset that we are not masters of our own destiny.

And the best we can do is sit back and wait for Star-Lord and a fucking raccoon to sweep in and save our sorry asses.

Forget hard work, government institutions, diplomacy, investment.

We just need a hero to rise.

And so we put out the bat signal for one man who could step in and solve all of our problems very quickly.

And that's how we got our latest superhero, Orange Sphincter.

Yes, Orange Sphincter sent from planet asshole to save

save mankind, protected by his power smirk and his golden helmet,

joined by faithful allies Boy Wonder and Stingy Mutant Turtle

and his Alfred, Captain Buzzkill.

Orange Sphincter never stops battling his arch nemesis, crooked Hillary.

And her vile sidekick, private server.

Like Batman, Orange Sphincter is a billionaire socialite from Gotham.

Like Superman, he has a red cape, but wears it in the front.

Like Aquaman, he can communicate with whales.

And like Spider-Man, he has a spidey sense that allows him to see things other people cannot.

I looked out.

The field was...

It looked like a million, million and a half people.

Which all would be funnier if so many people in this country didn't really believe in Orange Sphincter, didn't really believe that he possesses super deal-making powers and a superior brain that can solve in minutes issues that have plagued the country for decades.

After all, he has actually said,

In a short period of time, I understood everything there was to know about healthcare.

And it would take an hour and a half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles.

Even Brainiac couldn't do that.

Peace between Israel and the Palestinians, it's something that I think is frankly maybe not as difficult as people have thought over the years.

Yes, because they were mere mortals.

Whereas Orange Sphincter,

like all superheroes, doesn't feel a need to play by the rules on tax returns, fraternizing with the enemy, grabbing pussies,

respecting facts, conflicts of interest.

These are all the concerns of smaller men.

As he put it during an address to the people of Earth, I alone can fix it.

So, how does this superhero story end?

What is the fate of Orange Sphincter?

Well, this one is a little bit trickier because in this one, the superhero is the villain.

And that should make us all remember that in this fight for America, we need to be our own superheroes.

All right, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

That's our show.

We're off next week.

In fact, June 2nd, I want to thank David Crumb, Cordell West, Neil McGrath, McGrath Tyson, and Boris Edstory.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10, or watch him anytime on HBO On Demand.

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