Overtime - Episode #422: Conflict Fatigue

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

Okay, here we are on the internet for our how do you combat

conflict fatigue and apathy among Americans for humanitarian disasters abroad?

That's something that we struggle with every single day and I think that's one of our main responsibilities as journalists.

We have to keep going out there and trying to figure out new and different ways to present a story.

We cannot allow a sense of futility to silence us or to stop us and frankly for us combat fatigue is not a luxury that we have.

We cannot stop.

We cannot stop fighting for these basic humanitarian principles for children that are dying, for people that are starving.

Because if we stop fighting for that, then what kind kind of a world do we live in?

But also take on the lie that the aid makes no difference, because that's the biggest lie of all.

Actually, if you go and see what does the education do, what does the health do, it makes a huge difference.

And the biggest lie is that American aid is making no difference at all.

Okay.

David, what do you think of.

Sorry, was I not meant?

Was that only for her?

I'm sorry.

No, no, no.

It's for everybody.

Very, I'm very rude.

No, it's not, no, there's no rude here.

Please, if anyone's rude here, it's obviously me.

No, it's always a jump ball.

What do you think of Theresa May calling for a snap election?

It's a sign of her strength because she's 20% ahead in the polls, but it's also a sign that in six months' time, the economy is going to be down and these European negotiations are going to be nasty, brutish, and long.

But Jeremy Corbyn, is that the Labour guy in Britain?

It's painful for you to say that, but yes,

that is the leader of the party at the moment.

I mean, man, I thought we had some care leaders here.

This guy is too far, right?

I mean, we're all liberals here, but let's just.

What?

You are, you know you are.

Oh, okay.

You're an atheist.

You play one on TV.

I must be.

I must be that.

Essie, what do you think of conservative media outlet The Blaze?

That's Glenn Beck's old organization.

Oh, I've heard of it.

Yes,

firing Tommy Lawrence.

She was on our show.

She's a Trump supporter, because of her views on abortion.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean,

there's some censorship on the right also there.

She said she was okay with abortion, and boy, they got rid of her like that.

Yeah, I don't know what was behind that, you know, the palace intrigue within the Blaze and why that decision was made.

They're saying that

it wasn't her position that was problematic, it's that she changed it.

But I don't know, it sounds like a whole lot of cat fighting to me.

Just can everyone go to work and do their jobs?

Okay.

Congressman, how do veterans fare under Trump's proposed budget?

Because he talks a lot about how much he loves veterans, and he's not the kind of guy to just talk out his ass.

Absolutely.

Terribly.

Terribly.

He wants to get rid of the VA.

He wants to get rid of the State Department.

No, no, no, no.

He didn't want to get rid of the VA.

Well, that's what he said during the campaign.

He said everybody should just go to private health care facilities.

That will raise wait times for veterans like myself.

I still get my health care at the VA.

It will raise wait times for everybody else.

How can wait times be worse than what they've been at the VA where people died waiting for care though?

They're pretty bad.

Let me tell you, the bar is pretty low.

But if he does this, it'll get worse.

It's already bad enough.

But the other thing is, when he does things like cut the State Department budget by 30 percent, some of the strongest opposition to that is from the military.

On both sides of the aisle, because if the State Department isn't there to do its job, we're going to pick up the slack.

Right after the invasion, I was an infantry officer.

Right after the invasion, I was running a TV show.

Because there was no plan for the occupation, the State Department didn't show up, and so they were assigning lieutenants to go run the water department, run the police department.

I was assigned to work with the Iraqi media.

Now, the Marine Corps at the time actually thought a free press was good for a democracy.

That's a good lesson for the administration as well.

But that was my job.

You ran the TV and

in this one station I had Bill O'Reilly's looking for a position.

What did you think of Trump accidentally?

You know, it's so funny the way the Republicans talk about our military.

They have like these two ridiculous thoughts in their head.

Like, one, we could kick anybody's ass, and also we're horribly depleted.

And I noticed he mistakenly said, like he was talking to some interviewer, and he said, you know, we're very powerful, very powerful.

Somehow we're very powerful, and we can kick everybody's ass, but we also need more money for this depleted shell of a self that we are.

This is the president who praised Saddam Hussein during the campaign, who said that he knew more about ISIS than the generals.

And he's the person who wants to.

He congratulated Erdogan.

He's saying.

He congratulates dictators.

What the fuck did you make of that?

He called Erdogan when he won his...

Congratulations, you're a full-on dictator.

Here's the broader issue also: is that this is an administration that is not necessarily taking certain key American values into consideration, like certain countries' human rights track records.

And that sort of shifts a broader global moral compass into a direction that a lot of people are not necessarily comfortable with.

When America does something, the rest of the world listens, whether or not they support the United States.

To date, and this may be difficult for some people to believe, Syrians, despite the fact that they feel as if they have largely been betrayed by the United States, still fundamentally believe in America and what America is meant to stand for.

So when America speaks, when an American voice speaks, people listen.

When that voice gives a little bit of hope, people listen.

They want to cling to that.

They want to cling to this image of America.

But it's also that when I was in Lebanon and Iraq last month, talking to Syrians, but also to people in those countries, they all know about the refugee ban.

It's a small world these days.

They hear the message of that.

they're not going to be allowed in here.

And I'm afraid that is a propaganda gift to people who would do damage to the country.

Absolutely.

And it hurts our troops.

Yes.

Because you can't work with those critical Muslim allies in fighting terrorism.

You can't get the intelligence sources and the translators.

I mean,

this is something that, I mean, just to put aside the Constitution and American values for a second, just sort of minor things, just looking at national security, the Muslim ban, to use the President's term for for it, is terrible for our national security.

Terrible for our

American American.

And un-American.

Completely un-American.

And also,

it doesn't work.

Because, as we've seen, so many of the attacks are from people who are already citizens.

They're already here.

It's in here.

It's not at the airport.

Refugees have the strictest vetting of any traveler to the United States.

So actually, if you're a terrorist, you'd be pretty stupid to go through the refugee channel.

Right.

Okay.

Is the DNC Tour of America headlined by Chairman

Tom?

I didn't realize there was a DNC Tour of America going on?

Sounds like an awesome coffee show.

Headlined by Chairman Tom Perez.

We had him on our show at the beginning of the season.

And Bernie Sanders, a good strategy for Democrats.

I'm going to take that laugh as an indication that it is not.

What does the panel expect from Barack Obama when he starts to speak in public again, as he will do next month?

Apparently, he is coming back.

I'll tell you what,

in your constitutional system, he can't set himself up as the leader of the opposition here.

No.

But I tell you what, globally, the centre-left is in trouble.

And globally, Barack Obama is in a position to convene, to lead thinking, to actually support the renewal of credible but also radical center-left politics.

And that is something something that doesn't pit him into a constitutional difficulty, but there are millions of people around the world who want to see serious progressive politics rebuilt.

And I think that it's, if you think, look, we've got elections in France on Sunday.

The Socialist Party has gone nowhere.

They've actually got a strong candidate now who's running as a centrist, Emmanuel Macron.

My goodness, he's got to win because all three other candidates, if you look at what they're saying about Russia, if you look at what they're saying about the transatlantic relationship, you'd be worried.

Yeah.

Isn't it funny?

Well,

I think that Obama is still a very important voice for the Democratic Party and a useful one.

But I think the party has to get around the sort of specters of these hundred-year-old,

you know, Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi's and Harry Reeds that are haunting the party's nightmares forever.

And identify the younger, the Tim Ryans, who was elbowed out by Nancy Pelosi because she wanted to stay in charge.

The David, the John Osak, Hillary.

100%.

You know, it's get off the stage.

I completely agree if they're going to continue insisting that the party elders are running the show instead of empowering these younger people.

New blood, right, Seth?

I couldn't agree more.

Yes.

Couldn't agree more.

I'm spending a lot of time.

Look at this guy.

I know, look at this guy.

He's young.

He's articulately smart.

He's a veteran.

This is what we need.

team.

But he wasn't actually present for the battle at Little Bighorn.

You know, age appropriate for where we're going in this country.

Look, I'm spending a lot of time recruiting people to run.

Yeah.

You know, especially if that's going to run, and we've got to get them, especially to win these seats that are tough seats to win back.

And

you've got to get a little nasty.

You know, Democrats are too nice.

I don't know if we have to get nasty, but we'll bet.

We have to.

We will bet vision.

A little bit.

Because these people,

the Republicans are like, you know what?

If they're going to bring a knife to a gunfight, great, because we'll fucking shoot them in the head.

And the Democrats, I mean, look at the way,

all the whole election, Trump was like, it's rigged, it's rigged, it's rigged.

As soon as he wins, oh, it's good.

And Hillary calls him up before the sun comes up, you won, bye.

Obama has him to the White House the next day.

You think they would have done that if Hillary had won?

No, they'd be in the streets still talking about how the election was rigged.

They cheat.

That's how they win.

They cheat.

They're cheaters.

They cheated at the Supreme Court to get a Supreme Court guy on there.

They cheated.

Fucking turtlehead Mitch McConnell.

McConnell.

He ran circles around the Democrats, and they got the guy on the Supreme Court's going to be there forever.

And he doesn't belong there.

But look, to be fair,

there are Democrats who think that's not

going to be a good thing.

By cheating and scamming and lying, and I don't think that's what we should do.

I think we should have a real plan.

We should have a vision for the country.

We should talk about how everybody should be involved in the new economy, not just the people on the coast.

How we need people in Middle America to thrive,

to start new businesses, to have jobs.

Yeah, Bill.

We need to, these are things.

Middle America.

Okay, and kick them in the balls a little.

All right, thank you very much, everybody.

It's Earth Day.

Once again,

make the Earth great again.

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