Ep. #423: Elizabeth Warren, Ernest Moniz

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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.

Okay, sit down.

Thank you.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Okay, all right.

Okay, we got a lot of show to get through.

Boy, do we have a lot of show?

And, hey.

Oh, thank you.

Hey, give yourselves a hand for getting through a hundred days of Donald Trump.

Right?

A hundred days of Trump.

It's like Lent if we all gave up reality.

Yeah, they're big on this 100-day mark.

Some people, of course, are disappointed at his lack of accomplishments.

Vladimir Putin.

All that work for nothing.

But

you know who thinks Trump is doing a great job?

Yes, Donald Trump, I know.

Who'd have thought Donald Trump, a reporter asked him to grade himself, he gave himself an A.

Who would have

knocked me over with a feather?

Donald Trump giving himself an A.

And you can trust that grade because he used to own a fake university.

But

he

The White House this week put out a list of his accomplishments.

And most of them were not accomplishments.

Like on the list was partnering with the private sector.

Yeah, that's what government does, not an accomplishment.

Got all my kids' jobs, not really something.

One of them just said, word for word, I'm quoting this, women and space exploration.

Yeah,

Trump knows about women and space.

His wife lives 200 miles away.

You know, it's a lot of space.

Honey, we need space.

But it's so telling.

He He gave an interview today, and he was very revealing.

He said, this is more work than my previous life.

I thought it would be easier.

He said that, yeah.

Who knew?

Nobody knew.

Nobody knew

that presidenting would be so hard.

It looks so

It looks so easy in the movies when Morgan Freeman does it.

I didn't know.

He doesn't.

Here's what he said he doesn't like.

He's isolated.

He misses driving.

And when you say stuff, people check to see if it's true.

That's fair.

Whiny little bitch.

Isn't he just...

But there does seem to be a pattern emerging here after 100 days that we could say first Donald Trump pulls shit out of his ass and says so easy to fix so easy then phase two nobody knew

Nobody knew it was hard and then phase three we go back to what Obama was doing trade with China go back to that ISIS go back to that policy the Iran deal go back to that healthcare NAFTA all the campaign all he talked about was not the worst deal ever fucking disaster now

you know what happened happened this week?

He talked to the Mexican president.

He talked to the Canadian prime minister.

Naft is back on.

Same thing happened when he talked to the Chinese president.

Suddenly we're on their side.

He's like the Manchurian candidate,

but you don't even have to hypnotize him.

Just

tell him he's pretty.

You're all in.

But plainly, we have this president who knows nothing, didn't know anything about any of the issues, not about the basics.

And I mean the basics, like how a bill becomes a law.

How many branches of government we have.

I mean, he didn't know what Brexit was.

He didn't know who the Kurds were.

He didn't know what the nuclear triad is.

It's like the president is a baby with a mobile over his head.

He's just learning about the

Did you know what he did this week?

He bust

the entire Senate.

Did you see this?

Over to the White House to get a briefing on North Korea?

The entire Senate, or as Sean Spicer said, over a million senators.

But, you know, this was supposed to be the super top secret briefing.

The entire Senate, at the beginning of the week, the administration was all they could talk about.

They trumpeted.

This was a very serious stuff.

All the senators, the memorandum came out of the White House, said the Senate will be addressed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, the Secretary of Defense, then Rex Tillerson will speak because there's a first time for everything.

And then the President will talk about his ratings on The Apprentice.

and Ivanka's new line of strappy sandals

and the time he won the Electoral College.

Cake will be served, and it will be the best cake.

A lot of people are already saying it's the greatest cake in the history of the world.

Mental illness is sad, ladies and gentlemen.

I think it's.

And if you need proof of that, he unveiled the tax plan this week.

I don't have time to go into the details, just suffice it to say, the wealthiest people in America are finally going to be catching a break, ladies and gentlemen.

Isn't that awesome?

Tax plan?

What a charitable word for it.

It was one page with no math.

I'm not kidding.

That's the tax plan.

That's not a tax plan.

That's a resume for a manager at Chuck E.

Cheese.

You know what they said?

They said, well, it's rough.

Rough?

I mean, there's rough, and then this this is so rough it needs a safe word.

And the secretary, the Treasury Secretary, Steve Munchkin, said he.

Something like that.

I can't pronounce that name.

He said he wants people's taxes to fit on the back of a postcard.

And on the front of the postcard, an ad for 25% off on Ivanka strappy sandals.

They're really pushing those sandals.

All right, we got a great show, Rob.

Ryder Sarah Settmeyer and Nick Hanawa are here.

And a little to be speaking with former Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.

But first up, she is the author of This Fight Is Our Fight, the battle to save America's middle class.

Senator Elizabeth Warren.

How you doing?

Great to see you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You love California, no?

It's the last liberal bastion.

No, come on, come on.

People all across this country are energized right now, and I want to tell you something.

Yeah.

They may be all energized across the country, but all across the country they don't have a Democratic governor, Democratic senator, Democratic parliament.

We are where liberalism is at the forefront.

You've got to admit that.

So look, I actually see this a little differently.

The way I see it right now is that look at what happened on health care.

I want to say thank you to everybody in this audience, everybody out there who called or wrote a letter or emailed or Facebook because we beat back the biggest assault on health care in the history of America.

And it didn't happen because we had enough Democratic votes in the House or in the the Senate.

What we had are our voices, and we got out there and made them heard in Washington.

Well,

okay, so let's talk about your book first of all.

We don't want to forget that.

No, no, we don't want to forget that important thing.

And it's an important thesis you have, which is about the middle class and what's happened to them.

And let's be honest, it started with Reagan.

Peace and blessings be upon him.

But it began, I mean, you talk about the period from 1980 to 2015, where the middle class was before and where the middle class was after 1980.

Tell us.

So, let's do the first part.

And then it's 1935, coming out of the Great Depression all the way to 2016.

Year after year after year, basically, GDP goes up, America gets richer.

It's a good story.

But divided into time period one, time period two.

1935 to 1980.

What happens during that time?

We have regulation of the big banks, giant companies.

We enforce antitrust rules, put a cop on the beat on Wall Street, have Glass-Steagall in place, and progressive taxation and make a lot of investment.

GI Bill.

That's right, in opportunity, in education, in infrastructure, in research, scientific research, medical research.

And so, GDP's going up 1935 to 1980.

The 90% of America, everybody outside the top 10%,

the 90%

get 70% of all the income growth in America.

And that happened across the board.

It happened.

Americans participated.

The pie got bigger and we all got a little more to eat.

1980, what happens then?

Ronald Reagan, deregulation, fire the cops on Wall Street, and the big one, cut taxes for those at the top, and then invest less in education, in infrastructure, in basic research.

1980 to 2016, GDP keeps going right on up.

This is the long arc story in the book.

GDP keeps going right on up.

And how do the 90% do?

They get 0%.

of the new income growth.

Nearly 100%

of new income growth in this country goes to the top 10%.

That's why I wrote this book, is because because we got to get in there and fight back and that's what this book is about about how we're going to...

We've got to limit that.

We've got to take back this country.

Well,

let me fight back a little.

All right, I'm ready.

Because 1980 to 2015, there's some Democrats in there.

Oh, no, they're not.

Two terms of Barack Obama, two terms of Bill Clinton,

and sometimes when they controlled the House and the Senate, too.

So what happened there?

Don't the Democrats bear some responsibility for that?

Aren't they supposed to put the brakes on this?

Absolutely.

No, look, it worked both ways.

1935 to 1980, we also had some Republicans who were president, like Eisenhower, right?

And Nixon, who actually is the guy who started the Environmental Protection Agency.

Right.

And the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Great guy.

Solid.

Solid.

You know, I never thought that this president is making Nixon.

Yeah, exactly.

I look at at old clips of Bush and I'm like, wow, I was like, those were the days.

Right.

But that really is the point.

These are long arc movements.

And basically, what we've done in America is we've tried two different theories.

This is kind of the thesis of the book.

We tried the one where you use progressive taxation, you use some sensible regulations to make sure the playing field is level.

You know what?

We built the greatest middle class on the face of this.

But I can see why the real Americans out there, the Trump voters, say apox on both their houses.

Because this trend you're describing was not interrupted by Democratic administrations.

Well, it was slowed down some by Democratic administrations.

And I want to be fair here.

Democratic administrations are the ones who put some of the brakes on, who did somewhat more antitrust enforcement.

And let's keep in mind, it's a Democratic administration that went for universal health care with Obamacare, or at at least pushed in that direction, and Dodd-Frank and Bill, my personal favorite, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Yes.

Go.

Okay, so now we have another Republican president who just presented another tax plan, which is, I mean, I've seen Republican tax plans like this, but not quite as brazen, because this one doesn't even pretend.

It's just about wouldn't it be great if rich people didn't pay taxes?

Right.

But he's going to go to a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania tomorrow and tell his fans all about this, about how his kids are not going to have to pay taxes because they got rid of the estate tax.

And they're still with him.

They're not with you.

Explain to me what that disconnection is.

Actually, I'm going to push back.

I disagree with you.

When you talk.

Well, his fans are not with you.

Hold on.

Come on.

When we talk.

I like you, Pocahontas.

When you talk about what's really the basic pieces of a progressive agenda, raise the minimum wage, expand Social Security, reduce the cost of college so people don't get crushed by student loan debt, more, not less, regulation

of financial institutions.

No, hold on a second.

Progressive taxation, make those at the top pay their fair share.

America, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, vegetarians, Americans,

by about two to one,

are with us on that.

The progressive agenda is America's

agenda.

We cannot forget that.

And we cannot forget that.

But this is the disconnect I'm talking about.

I agree with you.

They're with you on the issues, and then they vote for him.

So, what is that problem?

And now,

you know, I'm not a politician.

I don't have to be nice.

I say people are stupid all the time.

So let's not say that today, because you are a politician.

But don't they bear some burden for not the people, for not looking into this a little more closely and seeing who is really on their side?

I mean, Donald Trump ran as a populist, and now he presents his tax plan.

Two Goldman Sachs guys get up there.

Thank God we didn't elect Hillary with her Wall Street Connection.

Yeah, exactly.

And present this plan on one page that basically is, you know, let's give all the money to the rich people because they always do what's right with it.

You know, they thank God for the rich people because they take that money, they put it back, it trickles down on you, you lucky bastards.

We've seen this before.

The voters have seen it before.

His voters are not young.

They lived through it.

How come they fall for the con?

So, look.

I think that Donald Trump tapped into a real anger in America.

People are angry, and let's face it, they are right to be angry.

They are angry over the fact that young people can't get an education without getting crushed by student loan debt.

They are angry.

But it's misplaced if they vote for him and not you.

So this is, how do we solve that problem?

We all agree the anger is justified.

Okay.

But let's do it.

The first step is our side has to acknowledge the anger and has to say, yeah, people are angry and they are right to be angry.

That's what I talked about.

Including white people, right?

Everybody has to stop and say there is anger and there is good reason for anger.

A lot of those real Americans think that only Trump cares about them and that Democrats only are into identity politics.

And sometimes it looks that way.

Look.

And since the Democrats lost...

every election

and they don't control one branch of government,

doesn't it behoove them to look at that?

This is the reason I wrote this book.

Okay.

I wrote this book.

This is my life's work.

You know this.

This is what I've worked on forever.

And it's what happens to working families.

You know my background on street cred for this, yes.

You know my background on this.

And you know where I come from, and you know

that it is the fact, here I am.

I am the daughter of a janitor who ended up as a professor at Harvard Law School and as a United States Senator because America invested in kids like me.

And I'm deeply grateful for that.

I recognize that those opportunities today are lost.

They are gone.

And so the question for me is how are we going to rebuild that America?

How are we going to get enough people together to say that democracy is going to work again, that this is not going to be a country run by and for rich people only?

It's going to be a country run for the rest of us.

I do my best in this book to talk about how we make our voices heard, how we come together, and how we fight back.

In fact, I'll tell you something.

This book ends on a very hopeful note.

It ends, I went to Trump's inauguration, I watched, I wanted to see it, I wanted it burned into my eyes.

You know?

My view on this was if there was ever going to be a moment where I was like, oh, I'm too tired to get up, all I had to do is close my eyes and and think, oh, God, I'm up.

I'm up.

I'm up.

I'm ready.

I'm back in the fight.

But the next day, it's the next day when the world changed.

When the history of this time is written, sure, it's going to be about Donald Trump's election.

But you know what it's going to be about?

It's going to be about the day of the women's march.

It's going to be about the day we made our voices heard.

And here's the deal.

We have real evidence that it matters.

In the fights over health care, remember how the Republicans in the House 60 plus times had voted to repeal Obamacare?

You remember how Donald Trump said on day one, right?

How many times did he say, on day one, we're going to repeal Obamacare?

Okay, so we lied once.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

But here's the deal.

We really didn't have the votes in the House of the Senate to stop him.

What stopped him was enough people across this country, and not just Democrats, who got engaged in the fight, who started talking about, are you kidding me?

You mean you want to change the law so you could discriminate against people with pre-existing medical conditions?

And when they actually saw the plan, knock 24 million people off health care coverage, raise costs for middle-class families, so you can give a tax break.

to those at the top, a handful of millionaires and billionaires?

No way.

And so I get it, that the first version of Trump care failed because for some Republicans, it was not brutal enough.

But here's the deal.

The rest of the Republicans were not willing to follow them over that cliff.

And the reason is because people around this country made their voices heard.

We got to tap into that.

We got to magnify them.

And they need a leader.

You know, I have to say, you know, when you talk, people get very excited.

When Hillary stopped talking, they got excited.

So

Donald Trump.

Donald Trump today was talking about running against you next time.

No pressure.

Senator Elizabeth Won, everybody.

No pressure.

Thank you for making the fight at home.

I don't know how you do it.

Elizabeth Wood.

Thank you.

Let's meet our panel.

Okay.

No pressure.

I don't like to put pressure on people.

Not at all.

I like them make their own decisions.

All right.

Let's meet our panel.

He's an entrepreneur, activist, and author of Gardens of Democracy.

Nick Hanauer back with us.

Hey, Nick, how you doing?

Good.

Thank you, Dick.

Good to see you.

She's a former congressional staffer who is now a conservative commentator.

Tara Settmeier is willing to come here to the liberal California.

And he's an activist, actor, and award-winning director of Spinal Tap, Princess Bright, stand by me, so many others.

Rob Reiner.

Mark Kennedy gets the biggest round of applause.

Don't forget to send us your questions in the tonight's overtime so you can answer them after the show on YouTube.

Okay, so 100 days.

Boy, the press loves that benchmark.

I guess it means something.

And let me just ask about this tax plan before we get into the details.

The one-page thing.

They had 100 days.

What happened during the first 99 and a half days?

Apparently they did not study.

It's like a kid who forgot to do the assignment and wrote it on the bus on the way to school.

These are supposedly smart Jews

from Goldman Sachs.

And this is...

You have a group of people who have no idea how to govern.

They don't understand public policy.

They don't understand how this country interacts with the rest of the world.

There are people that have never held these jobs who most from the for the most part want to destroy the very agencies that they're that they're representing.

So there was an article.

In Politico

a

I don't know who this is, but they're quoting a senior White House official who said, I kind of poo-pooed the experience stuff when I first got here, but this shit is hard.

And he didn't mean that we needed a stool softener.

He meant that the work itself was hard.

I see what you're saying.

Rob, it's a family.

I get it.

I'm sorry, Bill.

Wait, it's not.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm thinking.

It's mostly.

Go ahead, John.

No, I saw that, and I thought to myself,

what the hell have you people been doing this whole time?

For those of us who have been involved in politics, who have worked on Capitol Hill like I have, who have been in government and understand how things work, whether it's on a local level or not.

How do you not know the enormity of the White House and the fact that there's so many people that have surrounded Trump?

It's bad enough that he didn't know what the hell he was doing, but he surrounded himself with people who didn't know what the hell they were doing.

And now here we are, and Trump is going around saying,

I had no idea, I missed my old life.

And you know, it's like he's in over his comover.

You're right.

You're right.

He's got money.

So

get it in.

It's It's amazing how so many of the Republicans are on our side.

Yes.

Because

that is so odious.

This is like, you know,

gold mine, and all you have to do is stick your shovel in, and it just rains gold.

I mean, for you guys, it's like, I mean, it's a good and bad, you know, we love that you can get those laughs and you're the best at it, but it's also at the expense of the entire country.

And, you know, it's not so much a plan as a cliche.

What really struck me is it was like they photocopied talking points from the Heritage Foundation or AEI.

It's just no, I wish we had it.

We wouldn't have any real poverty.

We could just fix that.

This is on a shop.

I have it here

in my hand.

The first three things it says: grow the economy and create millions of jobs.

Magic dust.

Magic dust.

Right.

Yeah.

Simplify our burdensome tax code.

As if the Americans can't distinguish between three and seven.

Oh, you're talking about the tax bracket.

Yeah, it's just so nuts.

First of all, we need more tax brackets, not less.

Yes.

The idea that someone who pays $250,000, that's the highest bracket, also pays the same as someone who makes $10 billion.

Right.

That's preposterous.

It's preposterous.

I would even say that we could discuss having a flat tax.

It would

be easier.

No, no.

But

we can simplify the tax code.

You mean to tell me that the American people don't need to simplify the tax code for them?

I mean, it's a nice

tax code.

It's a simple tax code without being a giant tax.

Flat tax is another giant giveaway to the rich people.

Why do you want to do that?

Well, it depends on.

I didn't say I necessarily agree with you.

Are you a rich person?

I'm far from rich.

I'm not sure.

I wouldn't benefit.

You guys are.

I'm just.

I'm probably the poorest people.

Take it from us.

Take it from the rich guys.

How much

do you get?

Take a look.

I don't have a problem with you guys earning more money.

We live in America.

Look for you.

I don't have any back.

It's a sense of good.

It's successful.

That this is not paid for and it's going to blow the mother of all holes in the debt.

Come on, Republicans, I think I see a pattern here.

They run up everything on the credit card.

They could give a shit about spending when they're in office.

As soon as the Democrat takes over, well, we don't have any money.

The Democrats seem to take over, and then it's up to them to put the House back in order.

That's an old class.

I don't know how Democrats have decided

politically responsible for the public.

Didn't Reagan

too.

So isn't that a pattern?

Yeah, no, you ran up the deficit, but also we were in wars, too.

And with Reagan, similar things and built up the military and didn't defeat the Soviet Union with the United States.

Didn't Clinton give you a surplus and balance the profits?

No.

Yes, he did.

He did.

He left.

Wait a minute.

He left the beach first.

Bill Clinton wasn't responsible for that.

Bill Clinton's first budget was voted down 99 to zero when he had Democrats in the office.

Wait, wait, wait.

When Republicans came into office in 94, Bill Clinton, let me finish.

Bill Clinton became a centrist and he cut a lot of deals.

And that's what happened.

And that's what happened.

He left office

in 22 minutes.

Thanks to

Republican principles.

I can't argue the facts.

Thanks to the Ronald Reagan.

No.

Thanks to Republican

I just want to bring one other element to the discussion of our economy, which is health care, because that is,

this seems to have been forgotten since we started to tackle health care.

around 2008, when everybody on both sides of the aisle agreed we have to do something.

The status quo is not acceptable because it's going to bankrupt us.

That seems to have gone away.

We seem to have now made the curve more in our favor.

Okay, so they didn't get their first health care repeal passed,

the Trump administration.

Now they're trying again.

Didn't happen today.

They wanted to make it more heinous.

Okay, but it's connected to this tax cut.

I don't think that's what people realize, is that they wanted to give this tax cut to the richest people.

And I've always say this, that Obamacare is paid by rich people.

It is an income industry.

No question about it.

No question about it.

No question about it.

And for their taxes, 50% tax that have to pay for that, too.

So small businesses are hurt by the Obamacare tax.

Small businesses just be fair about that.

No, they're not.

Tell that to the mom and pop stores that have to be.

They're doing $2 million a year.

No, that's not, no, we're not talking about that.

We're talking about the small businesses that have under 50 employees that are being killed by regulation and taxes.

They are not being killed.

Yes, they are.

No, they are not.

Well, you're not a small business owner.

I have a lot of people, so you're not being killed.

35 different kinds of businesses.

It's hard every day to do that.

35 different kinds of businesses.

Businesses in this country.

Why can't you make one work?

But

some of them did.

Businesses in this country thrive when sales go up, not when taxes go down.

There is absolutely no correlation.

They can thrive when they can throw

the truth and if you pay it on.

That was a very interesting discussion, save Save it for CNN.

Here's what I was going to ask, which is, okay, so we know Obamacare is mostly funded by rich people.

So Trump gets into office and he says, we want to give the rich people, the top 1%, a giant tax cut, but we don't want it to bust the deficit.

Where can we find that money?

Where, where, where?

Oh, yeah, the money we're wasting so that poor kids can see a doctor.

That's how cold these motherfuckers are.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

That's

this.

They are connected.

It is.

The money for the tax cuts comes from taking it from poor Americans who got healthy.

Trump care is

Trump Care is a tax cut.

That is true.

That's not true.

Masquerading as health care.

That's not true.

The poorest Americans already qualify for Medicaid, and no one's taking Medicaid away from the poorest Americans.

And Medicaid and Medicare, they're not.

They're not.

They are not going to do that.

That is part of that.

Oh, my God.

I mean, maybe apparently, everyone on your understanding of Medicaid works.

But that's not what's going to happen here.

They are worried about the Medicaid.

People are being moved off to Medicaid.

They've cut Medicaid expansion.

Yes, so that people can afford their own health care so the government isn't paying for it.

Have you ever been to a Medicaid clinic?

I don't think so.

Yes, sir, I have.

Have you?

No.

No.

And so am I when I was younger.

Many, many times.

I don't want the government running.

Oh, my God.

You're not telling me what happened.

That's the free clinic.

Oh, yes.

That's right.

That is my duty during the Vietnam War.

I just want to ask about the politics behind this, like why Republicans are unable to do this now.

We've had seven years of carping about this, and Elizabeth Warren was actually right.

We passed in the House multiple bills repealing, repealing, because it's easier to be against something.

But now that it's time to actually do it, you have a lot of moderate Republicans that are in purple districts that took the Medicaid expansion money in Obamacare going, holy shit, we're going to lose our seats if we vote for this.

And there was actually reports on that as of recent as yesterday that many moderate Republicans are going, we can't do this because it's going to cost us our seats.

And then Donald Trump's in a lot of trouble because if Democrats are not going to be able to do that,

the guy who's writing the health care bill, Paul Ryan, can I just quote you, Paul Ryan?

He doesn't even know what insurance is, let alone how to fix health care.

This is Paul Ryan.

Listen to this.

On the fatal conceit of Obamacare, his words, young and healthy people are going to go into the market and pay for the older, sicker people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's how it works.

Called insurance.

They're going to pay for the person, you know, who gets,

you know, who gets breast cancer in her 40s or who gets heart disease in his 50s.

Exactly.

Yes.

And then when you are 50, you will get it.

That's okay.

And

this is his problem with it.

He has no idea.

So

I cannot pretend that Donald Trump is not the only stuttering moron.

Trump care is a perfect health care system if you are rich, if you are young, and if you are perfectly healthy.

Everybody else screwed up.

I'm all screwed.

All right.

Everybody else is screwed.

Well, two out of three ain't bad.

Okay, so listen, you all know who Steve Bannon is, right?

Do we have a picture of Steve?

Oh, yeah.

Great-looking guy.

The chief Steve.

He doesn't have his dark suit on him.

He's not a good-looking guy.

It kills me that he got some money from Seinfeld.

That's right, because that was Castle Rocket.

That's our company.

That's our show.

He's got some money from Seinfeld.

I feel bad about that, and that my wife, Michelle, took the picture of Trump on the cover of the Art of the Deal.

So we both are atoning for what we've done here.

Well,

it shows me more that Steve Bennon's taking money from the taxpayers as a government employee in the White House.

I think that's worse.

All right.

Anyway, so he used to be head of Breitbart News, right?

Which Trump is one of the organs that he reads, and now they run the government.

And they're an arch conservative site.

But listen, listen to how conservative they are.

Breitbart News denied media credentials to cover Congress.

That is very rare.

You have to be so partisan for these people to say, you can't even cover us.

So we wanted to see how partisan they were.

We looked at, because you're a big-time director, they have movie reviews on the Breitbart News.

I'm not kidding.

Look at some of the reviews they have of movies, and I think you see, they reveal how conservative they are, like Hidden Figures.

Did you see Hidden Figures?

Oh, I love Hidden Figures.

Great movie.

That was a great great movie.

Here's the Breitbart News review.

Astronauts survive despite affirmative action.

That is.

Aladdin, unvetted Muslim, hijacks rub.

That is.

Please, that is not.

They've got some of yours in here.

A misery, resourceful homemaker provides non-governmental health care.

A few good men, another one of yours, a real American hero fights to keep Guantanamo Bay open.

Sean Spicer says you can't handle the alternative fruit.

The great dictator, at least he never gassed anyone.

That is thirty.

Annie, like Melania Trump, a hungry little girl has her life changed forever by a bald billionaire.

Gone with the Wind, Washington's burdensome regulations interfere with the southern economy.

Titanic, stupid Al Gore's precious glacier kills everyone.

Sharshank Redemption, prisoner reminds us that even with just a spoon, white people do amazing things.

Oh, and when Harry met Salary, another one of yours, Rob, a beautiful control freak blonde fakes an orgasm for a neurotic Jew.

Two thumbs up, say Ivanka and Jared.

All right, he is a nuclear physicist and former U.S.

Secretary of Energy under President Obama Ernest Moniz.

Hey, Secretary.

How are you, sir?

Great to have you here.

Thank you very much.

All right, so you are a nuclear physicist.

What do you have to do to

isn't it interesting the way science is kind of sexy now?

And there was a march on science recently, right?

March for science.

March for science.

What did you make of that?

And what is your outlook for the next four years, if Trump makes it that far, in an anti-science environment?

Well, the March for Science really really was a recognition that

so far what the administration has proposed will really undercut the research, the scientific enterprise that has been the basis of our economy since World War II, not to mention advancing

environmental concerns, et cetera.

However, I think the March on Science really also had a very, very strong undercurrent of just saying enough with this war on facts.

I have to say, let me make it very clear: this administration did not start that, but I think they have really exacerbated this.

And I cannot say

how concerning this is because, in the end, having facts, and by the way, scientific laws, they are laws, they're not ideas.

In in the end, democracy depends upon having facts.

You can disagree on policies, but you can't disagree on facts.

Well, that's not true anymore.

So they can and they do.

But I think the March on Science

was about that.

And by the way, I think the turnout might have been comparable to the inaugural crowd.

But now, as head of the energy department, which, you know, the current energy, we don't want to, I know you're too much of a gentleman to make fun of him, but Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas, who wanted to get rid of the energy department and did not know what it did, is now head of the energy department.

And he was on Dancing with the Stars.

Okay.

It's okay.

But

I must tell you.

Can I comment, Bill, please do.

Can actually make the point that Governor, now Secretary Perry,

look, he has looked into it and he has been made very strong supportive statements about science and innovation.

However, here's the disconnect and the confusion.

On March 8th, 8th, he put out a tweet praising a particular program called RPE, which has been the face of innovation in energy technology.

A week later, the OMB puts out this budget and says, no, why don't we just zero it out?

So these disconnects are just creating

havoc.

When there was a doubt, he gathered a lot of people in a stadium and prayed for rain.

What's wrong with that?

Well, did it work?

Yeah, of course, fucking not.

Did it work?

No.

I mean, eventually it rains.

But I must tell you, like, the two things that I worry the most about killing us all, the environment, and that's the slow death.

And the other one is, of course, terrorists getting a hold of a nuclear weapon.

So I do worry about the fact that, I mean, you were a nuclear physicist in charge of the nukes.

He only found out nukes were part of the department he was heading.

He has a BA in animal husbandry.

So let me ask you this question about nuclear, because I'm worried about nuclear.

And I know I've been back and forth on this issue, but I know you think we need nuclear power.

But you know, Fukushima happened in Japan in 2011.

And let me read you some of the facts about what's going on in Fukushima.

It caused the evacuation of 150,000 people.

Six years later, 80,000 are still displaced.

It cost $188 billion so far.

It could last as long as 40 years, they say.

And, you know, they thought it would be all over by now, and it's not.

They just don't seem to be able to control this problem of a nuclear facility that went bad.

Why do you still want us to have nuclear power if this can happen?

Well, first of all, I don't want to get into a long Fukushima issue, but I do want to point out...

Oh, yeah, you're the Secretary of the United States.

Okay, fine.

Well, then we will.

I want to emphasize,

and this is not.

I don't want to talk about politics.

And

this is not,

you know, your point is still right, but I do want to emphasize that Fukushima was not an issue of the nuclear technology.

Now, having said that, let me say what it is about is carbon emissions.

What I have said always is that

world plans, this happened to a nuclear

layman, this is about nuclear technology.

And so, therefore, it does show the risk if you don't, obviously, manage the situation properly.

But let me just say that, number one,

to me, it's about carbon emissions.

Number two, it's a fact that nuclear is the biggest carbon-avoiding technology we have in the United States.

It's true in many countries.

Number three,

carbon-avoiding technology.

Yes, and the solution.

Exactly.

And the solutions to the

climate mitigation challenge will look very different in different places.

Some places it will include nuclear, some places it won't, and that's fine.

I'm saying we need all the tools.

Fourth, we are developing new technologies, especially smaller technologies for nuclear, that are very, very good in terms of passive safety.

The question is, will their financial performance allow them to compete against solar, wind, with battery storage, and natural gas?

That's the real issue.

You'll have to work harder after the show when we're drinking to convince me.

All right.

I want to switch gears for a second to talk about this is the weekend that is the 25th anniversary of something that for us, Angelinos, was a big event, which is the LA riots after the famous Rodney King beating.

About a year later, the cops who did that were put on trial and they were acquitted.

And for anyone who has ever lived through a riot spreading, and you can watch it on TV approach your house, it's not one of my favorite memories.

You must have been here for that, too, right?

Yeah, I was.

And as a matter of fact,

trying to get home after, I mean, the whole city exploded.

I mean, the whole city, you couldn't move in Los Angeles because of that.

I mean,

it was horrifying.

And especially since, you know, we've seen

progress being made in race relations, starting with Brown versus the Board of Education, Loving versus Virginia, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, we've seen a lot happen.

We've seen ourselves move backwards.

And we seemed after that to kind of get on a glide path,

doing better with race relations.

We were talking about this backstage, and it culminated in the election of an African-American president.

And I think we all felt good about that, that we were moving in the right direction.

And then this man comes along and runs for president and unearths this racism that has been bubbling up under and certainly came out to the fore during the Rodney King time.

And it's now given voice to it.

Not just a dog whistle, but a bullhorn.

You saw polling during the second half of Barack Obama's presidency,

that race relations people felt they were not getting better.

And even, which was surprising for many because they thought with the election of Barack Obama, then, oh, I guess he's the post-racial president and all that.

But by the

second part of his term, that was starting to change because of some

certain policies and things were happening.

And then, obviously, Ferguson happened, which didn't help the situation.

And then

you know what happened with social media and they got the police on camera.

What amazed me about this anniversary coming this weekend is just in the LA Times this week, this is this week,

listen to this.

The Los Angeles Police Commission voted Tuesday to, quote, require officers to try, whenever possible, to diffuse tense encounters before firing their guns.

Wait, this is just new?

That's what...

Let me read it again.

Require officers to try whenever possible to diffuse tense encounters before firing their guns.

They're just coming upon this policy now.

Well, that's part of the continuum of force.

I mean, I come from a law enforcement family.

My grandfather was captain of our police department in my hometown.

I'm married to a federal law enforcement officer.

So I'm very passionate about this issue, and I see it from both sides.

You know, as a woman of color, I look at,

I understand some of the sensitivities in certain communities with the police officers.

It's why I'm a big proponent of community policing, citizens' police academies, things like that.

Should start in elementary schools with kids and, you know, so that you know that the police officers are not your enemy.

But at the same time, there are bad cops out there and we can't ignore that either.

This is not the bad cop issue.

This is the police commission saying our official policy as of Tuesday is just don't empty your clip at the first sign of the state.

People don't do that.

But most police officers do not do that.

But clearly I just know

they don't do that.

And for people who have no idea what it's like to do it.

You seize it on fees.

No, we don't.

Videos don't always tell the truth.

For people who have no idea what it's like to do a traffic stop and have no idea what that person is doing, what you're walking up on, traffic stops are the second most

officers.

It was not conscription.

They picked that job.

Dangerous job, yes, dangerous job.

But it can't be that

the community is there to protect and serve them.

But for the majority of people, it's not that way.

The majority of police officers are there to protect and serve, and they're good people that they need to be able to do it.

And we need them because we found out during the riots.

What happens when you don't have them?

Right.

So, what happens when you break down the relationship between community and law enforcement?

You have anarchy, and no one wants that.

But we need to be fair to our police officers out there and respect what they do every day and not demonize them because of the bad accident.

Thank you for the filibuster.

It's time to

rules, everybody.

New rules.

Okay.

New rule, if Trump wants to pick a fight with Canada, he has to come up with a better reason than they're killing us on Canadian softwood.

If you hate Mexicans and you hate lumber, just bomb Home Depot.

And

if you can't stand Canadian softwood, take out Justin Bieber.

New Real, any guy who spends $425 for these pre-dirty jeans must be prepared to answer a lot of questions like, What's wrong with you?

This look doesn't say, I'm a working man.

It says, My Chipotle burrito just backfired.

New rule, if you want to reach people who can afford to buy a house, Don't advertise where they wait for the bus.

You're in real estate.

What part of location, location, location, location don't you understand?

This doesn't say, I want to be your broker.

It says, when you think of me, think of a crackhead sitting on my face.

Oh, man.

New Rule, Brooklyn's taco squirrel and Manhattan's pizza rat

have to get together for lunch.

It'll be an internet sensation.

Plus, it'll give you two a chance to talk shit about that asshole Cronut Cronut raccoon.

New rule, if you take Movantic, the drug to treat opioid-induced constipation, you can't also use medical marijuana.

I'm no doctor, but come on.

Either shit or get off the pot.

And finally, new rule, liberals have to stop trying to win over Trump voters with facts.

You're wasting your breath, and you're going to need it because the air is not getting any better.

Just look at these 100 Days headlines.

No regrets, Trump voters.

Unanimous.

The myth of this disillusioned Trump voter.

Even voters in liberal Massachusetts are sticking with Trump.

Numbskulls find a whole new level of numb.

All right, I made that last one up, but

the point is Trump supporters aren't changing their minds because the problem isn't in the mind.

It's lower.

It's emotional.

Stop clinging.

to the false hope that if we just share this Facebook story about the time that he tried to have lunch with Frederick Douglass or high-five Stevie Wonder or criticized Obama for playing golf and now he plays more golf.

You're preaching to the yoga studio.

The jury is in.

He looks and acts like a man who's been painting his face with orange lead for 40 years.

His people know they don't care.

He could have Anne Frank's skeleton in his closet.

They'd all vote for him again.

The question is why?

Why do they stick with him?

I think it's because of a gut feeling that the world has changed and they don't like it.

And Trump is going to change it back to the way it was.

When a real American

could flip around looking for a radio station and not have to hear mariachi music

The media keeps saying that the thing that got Trump elected was economic anxiety, but it's really more change anxiety.

I ain't no racist, but why does America need to have a black Santa Claus?

Does everybody have to do everything?

I think I speak for most liberals when I say I'm okay with black Santa.

I don't think it's going to to make the little drummer boy start cutting himself.

But to Trump voters, making Santa black is unthinkable.

It would be like making Jesus Middle Eastern.

This is why building that stupid wall is still the key issue for them because it represents keeping out not just immigrants but everything that's new and different and scary and unfamiliar.

You guys probably agree with me that it's kind of cool that you can write a musical in hip-hop now like Hamilton.

And I'm okay with seeing this guy playing this guy.

But Trump voters don't want to see that the founding fathers have been funkified.

Ain't Broadway supposed to be the great white way?

And while we're at it, does everyone in baseball have to be Mexican now?

Lopez, Hernandez, Martinez, Fernandez, Ramirez, when did the Yankees become the parking lot at Home Depot?

And what is it with man kissing on the kiss cam?

And did I mention Bruce Jenner has tit snap?

See,

see, that guy, my new character,

that guy got used to having the whole country always bend over backwards to make him feel comfortable.

Trump voters, they're not exactly racists.

They just think everyone who's not white is doing it to show off.

You know, in the 50s, if you were an actor named Chuatel Ageophore, you placated conservative snowflakes and bent over backwards for them and changed your name to Chip Egan.

Chip Egan, starring in that new movie with Dan Houston,

Lily Nile,

Mark Allen,

Shinger McGraw, and Gail Smith.

If you ask a Trump voter what exactly it means to get their country back or make it great again, they can't tell you specifically, but they know the Hollywood Squares was never supposed to be remade on TV and look like this.

If we just would build that wall, black people would stay in their cubicles.

Paul Lynn never came out of his cubicle or the closet.

All right, that's our show.

I'll be at the Civic Center in Des Moines, May 7th, Walt Disney in Orlando, July 8th, and at the Ruth Eckert in Clearwater on the 9th.

I want to thank Nick Hanauer, Tara Sentmeier, Rob Reuter, Ernest Woodes, and Elizabeth Warren.

Join us now on YouTube.

Thank you very much, folks.

He's such a young man.

Is he still an RT?

I think so, yeah.

Right.

Maybe he's part of the whole.

Three?

Two?

New rule, let's all raise a glass to Larry King, a true giant of radio and television, on the 60th anniversary of his very first broadcast.

60 years.

Think about it.

When Larry signed on in 1957, President Trump was just a horny 10-year-old

trying to bluff his way through fifth grade.

And look how far we've come.

Larry played records on the radio in Miami Beach.

Now records are gone, radio is going, and thanks to climate change, so is Miami Beach.

Larry didn't wear suspenders as a fashion statement.

He He wore them because no one had invented the belt.

And the elastic waistband was just a theory.

Larry was paid $55 a week in 1957, which is enough money to afford over 13 wives.

He's done over 40,000 interviews since then with everyone from Moore Markadafi to Chloe Kardashian, and he's still finding jewelry in the cracks of the couch.

Larry, old friend, thank you for 60 years of making insightful, fascinating broadcasting look effortless, and for making all of us always look forward to seeing you and for giving guys like me a mark of excellence to shoot for.

Here's to 60 more, my friend.

Okay.

Ernest, how confident are you in the ability of the Iran deal to contain Iran's nuclear threat?

I'm quite confident.

And you worked a lot on that, right?

I did indeed.

And the reason is something that is seldom talked about.

The deal puts in place verification measures that are completely unique and apply to this deal forever.

Donald Trump said it's maybe maybe the worst deal in the history of the world

because everything he thinks of is the worst in the history of the world.

So is it.

This is another case where

I love the fact that information would help.

You've got the Secretary of State Rex Hillerson saying that so far Iran has been complying with the deal.

And on the same day you got Trump saying we've got to get rid of it.

It is amazing the way, like I said in the monologue, they start off with nobody knew, and they come back to, boy, I guess what Obama was doing is actually the best, you know.

There's no great answers.

There's no great answers out there.

Can I add?

We see what happens when you don't get in early enough, and let's say

not get North Korea stopped before they have a nuclear.

The problem, though, is that with North Korea, you don't have as many players that you were able to put together.

The Obama administration put together a great coalition to put pressure on Iran.

Right now, we basically only have China.

That's all we have to put pressure on North Korea.

So that's a little trickier.

Tara, do you think more sexism exists on one side of the aisle or is it a bipartisan problem?

Well obviously it's somewhat bipartisan.

We know Bill Clinton and then

but did you ever work at Fox News?

I did not work at Fox.

Have you ever been called hot chocolate?

Well I would actually probably be called like mocha, mocha macchiato or something given why not chocolate, but

no,

not at Fox News anyway.

but I have appeared there and I had appeared on on Bill O'Reilly's show years past and I hadn't experienced that but I do have friends that have been over there and you know there was a very

problematic culture obviously but I think it also is a reflection of the generation of the people who ran it you know when you look at guys that are at that age the asshole generation the mad men generation but yeah I mean that was they come from a time where it was okay to slap the slapper and ageist about no I mean it's I think that's the last okay prejudice.

I didn't mean to

with a broad brush.

No, no, I'm not saying it's okay.

Oh, yes, you were.

How am I saying it's okay?

I'm saying that it's reflective, but you're reflective.

You asked the question what you're sexism is.

And I'm saying that what happened at Fox News is an example of a generation where that was okay.

And now when you see the way that the result of it, the generation now is saying like that's not okay.

We've seen a lot of advances.

And so I think you're going to see less and less of this kind of overt sexism.

It's not over with but you know there's progress is being made.

You see that people are paying a price for it.

Okay.

Nick do you think there are

more women are coming forward.

Nick President Trump spoke at the NRA today.

Yes.

Do you think there are avenues to make progress on gun control?

Yeah, I mean and I'm deeply involved in that issue and there's a tremendous amount of opportunity to make progress on gun violence prevention in cities and states around the country.

And the only way that we'll make progress on those issues is in cities and states.

And we passed background checks in Washington State.

We passed extreme risk protection orders in Washington State.

And in Maine, there's stuff going around the country.

And there's a lot of progress that can be made in that way, but not federally, forget it.

But to be clear,

if you want to build a movement, you have to start in cities and states,

whether it's the $15 minimum wage, marriage marriage equality, pot legalization.

If you want to change a culture, you have to do the hard work of changing hearts and minds in localities first.

Okay.

Is it unseemly for former President Barack Obama to earn $400,000 for an upcoming speech to Wall Street?

Yes, he's doing two speeches, each for $400K, one to Cantor Feynman.

Got out of it.

I wish he had spent a month building houses for poor people with Jimmy Carter.

Well, he was a community organizer, right?

I guess he figured he paid his dues with that.

Personally, as long as he's not running for office again, I don't care how much money he makes.

If people want to pay him that, it's a free market value, theirs.

I don't have a problem with this.

And I think that people, a lot of the people who are being righteously indignant about it are also people who make lots of money doing what they do.

So I don't understand.

But wait a second.

The current president is trying to undo all of his Wall Street regulations.

And then he goes to Wall Street and takes 40.

Isn't that what sort of cost Hillary the election?

Are those horrible speeches she made to Wall Street and didn't release the transcripts on it?

No, because she didn't release the credit transcripts.

No, but the difference.

She saw it.

No, but the difference is, are you in the pocket of Wall Street?

And she's running for office.

He's not running for anything right now.

He's not going to.

Now, Michelle Obama might be a different

person.

I don't have a problem with this.

It kind of looks like when he's on our team, we're okay with it.

No, no, I don't feel that way.

I mean, if he were running for president, I would have, and in other words, if there was a time lapse and he had done those speeches, then I do have a problem with that because

then you get into the whole area of conflict of interest, which this administration is just one big ball

conflict of interest.

Of course it is.

But you could say that

when a guy is president, he's looking ahead to that $400,000 payday, and he's not going to get it if while he's president, he's going to do something that's going to piss them off.

So isn't the best thing to do?

Take your $10 million book deal.

Can't you live on that?

That's up to his choice.

It's individual freedom.

What are we going to do?

The truth is that the country is being torn apart because a few people are doing well and most people aren't.

And this is the canonical example of that.

It's just such a pure expression of that.

I'm surprised.

I'm a capitalist.

I'm a capitalist.

I just have a problem.

I don't know when America became I covet my neighbor's success country.

This is a country where you could come from nothing and be something.

Why would we preach?

It is

not.

If he is not going to run for office again, he's a private citizen, and someone's willing to pay him $400,000 to pay his speech.

I don't care if, as long as low laws are broken, that's fine by me.

That's America.

You know what?

It's never about hating.

Nobody hates anybody else's success.

I don't know about that.

A lot of people, there's a lot of class warfare.

Why?

What are you saying?

Oh, I think a lot of people hate other people's success.

Oh, you're talking about show business?

Fuck yeah.

That's what I thought you meant.

That's what I'm talking about.

I've got news for you.

Thank you very much, everybody.

You were a great audience.

You were a great panel.

And I hope you have a great night.

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