Overtime - Episode #421: Intel, Private Prisons, North Korea

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, real time with Bill Moore. Okay, we're on YouTube.
What should the intelligence community have told the people before the election?

Well, you should answer that. You were in it.

Well, I think that it would have been nice, of course, to have a little bit of information earlier, ahead of the election, about what the Russians were doing.

I'll tell you that a lot of it was happening wide open. A lot of it was happening on RT America, which is their propaganda channel in the United States.
So it was barely hidden.

Even the hacks were designed, I think, to be discovered right away. So it would have been nice to have known a little bit earlier.

We knew in October, or the intelligence organizations told us in October, but some of our leaders knew ahead of time or suspected, and I think we could have known more. The answer is very simple.

They should have told us that both campaigns were under FBI investigation, not just one.

They've been going on since July. It's kind of inexplicable.
Sorry, you're from the CIA. What is taking so long for all of this Russia information to come out?

This dossier that everyone's talking about? Why is it taking so long? Well, I think because they're trying to find real evidence. Yeah, I would say

I would say that this is a very complicated thing to map out because there's so much to discover, which is bad news for the president.

So I expect this to take, it may take a year or more before we really have an answer from the FBI. Speaking of things that are taking a long time,

what about the IRS audit? How long is that going to go on for?

I mean,

I've been audited. It didn't take forever.

It got over at a certain point. Where is the IRS audit?

Do you have any authority?

So in Congress, any authority to... We keep introducing what are called resolutions of inquiry that force votes through having releases tax returns.
Republicans always vote no, we fail.

But what about the IRS themselves?

What is their statement about this? I mean, first of all, was there ever really an audit? Can we get that information? We don't know. And they won't tell you? They won't.
The IRS won't say that.

They're not allowed to, according to them.

Well, and the new IRS commissioner is going to be appointed by Donald Trump, so I'm sure the president's going to say, listen, I don't want to take advantage of being president.

Don't put me in front of everybody else. You know, let me weigh in the back of the line of the audit team.
I'm good with that. I mean, I would never say...
Damn it, we're like fucking Charlie Brown.

We're always losing. But if he's saying he's being audited.

If he's saying he's being audited, they can at least corroborate that. They can say if he's lying, they can say, no, you're actually not being audited.
It's not like they're giving away.

He's already declared that he's being audited. And whether he's being audited or not, it doesn't mean he can't release his tax returns.
Let's be clear about that.

And the other thing is that he could...

He's not already being audited for last year's tax returns, or what about these? So as soon as we get to tax day, let's have him release the exciting returns. But that is his excuse, audit.

It is, but it's not a title. So at a certain point, doesn't that become ridiculous? I mean, how long? Well, we're past that point.

We're past past that point. That's right.

This is what he said in 2016. He said that.
Which is not true. People don't really care about this.
Unfortunately, he was able to put together a preponderance of the electorate that didn't.

I think that's the bigger issue. I think that's the thing that we should be really scared of.
And America votes again a year and a half. So if you care, vote.
And that's why.

And that's why cruise missiles are such a great distraction. You think Susan Rice is a good distraction? Try blowing some shit up.

Especially in a country where you have no pending hotel deals.

Yes, that's right. Right.
There's no hotels in Syria with Trump name on it. Do you find, Chelsea, the criticisms of Kelly Ann's posture in the Oval Office sexist?

Oh, when she was sitting on the couch? Does that mean? No, I find that pretty specific to her.

That's fair. Evan, are you going to run for Orrin Hatch's Senate seat in 2018 in Utah? We'll see.
I think I'll pursue public office again, but I do not know yet when or whatever.

And what was the upshot from you running against Donald Trump there? Do they hold that against you since they win for him? Well, I think it's,

I mean, it depends on who you ask. Some people are happy about it.
Others obviously supported Donald Trump. Some of those who supported Donald Trump did so because they thought I couldn't win, and

they bit their own. But he seems like, he seems like the, Donald Trump seems like the anti-Mitt Romney.
I mean, Mitt Romney had sex with the same woman quietly in the dark decade after.

Well,

I can tell you that

Mitt Romney remains very popular in Utah. I'm sure he is.

And Donald Trump is nowhere near that popular. Right, I'm just saying.
And Mitt Romney may run for the U.S.

Senate in Utah, and even though he was one of Donald Trump's strongest critics during the campaign, I don't think they're going to hold it against him in Utah.

Okay, Jelani, what's the historical context of fake news and Trump's abuse of the media?

Oh, God. Now let's ask.

You know, I got a better question for you.

What's the consequence of privatizing prisons? Yes, there we go. Because that's another thing they did this week or recently, and like it gets lost in the swarm of bees.
Right.

I mean, so just really quickly,

the first question, there's a connection between Joe McCarthy and Donald Trump. And you look at their relationships to the media, they're strikingly similar.
I actually wrote about this a while back.

They also shared their common thread of Roy Cohn, you know, which people have seen, you know, what Roy Cohn was and the type of figure he was.

But the thing that Joe McCarthy figured out in the 1950s was that he could lie, and if he lied kind of exponentially, and people could only fact-check arithmetically, he would get much more misinformation out than people could ever correct.

Hitler said that.

He said people believe a big lie. Oh, right, the big lie.

Right. And this is the same sort of philosophy, the same sort of kind of blueprint that they run on.
In terms of the other thing about privatizing prisons, it's pretty straightforward.

When you give people a profit motive, they're going to pursue a profit motive. Yes.
And it's not unrelated. We have the largest incarcerated population in the Western world.

It's not related to the fact that people can actually make money on putting people in prison. And they do.
It's very straightforward. And they contribute, yeah.

It's horrible.

Anna, do you think the Republican leadership is due for a shake-up?

Paul Ryan has mentioned. Look, I think what you saw this week, Nunes leading, and by the way, what I wanted to tell you is it's not Nunes.
He's not Latino. He's Portuguese.
It's Nunes.

Making that clear.

But

I think what happened this week is... Portuguese a little Latino, isn't there? Something.

He's not one of me.

Look,

I think what happened this week with Nunes is self-preservation by the Republican leadership.

They realized that America is pissed off at an investigation that has no credibility, at a guy that had become the water boy for the White House, that didn't know whether his allegiance was to an investigation or to the president.

And they were hearing from it.

I think the whole picture says it all. I mean, what a fucking mess.

Right. What a loser.

I assure you, Americans were calling their congresspeople, including Republicans, and saying, you know what?

We can't vote against Nunes, but we'll vote against you. Tell Paul Ryan.
That's what happened this week. Do you really want to picture a you in 1991?

I can picture it.

I don't want mine up there. It's not as bad as that, the guy.

Chelsea, any reflections on Don Rickles? Yes, the world lost Don Rickles.

What about you? Any reflections for you? I mean, I love Don Rickles. I remember Don Rickles on the Tonight Show when I was a kid.

It was one of the things that would make the whole family, Don Rickles is on. We'd all come down, we'd all watch it.
I mean, there was something amazing about him.

And because first of all, it was not stale. It was right off the cuff.
You never knew what he was going to say. He didn't know what he was going to say.

And he got away with it, you know. And no, I think he was a great comedian.
He was one of my favorites.

What should the U.S. posture be toward North Korea?

Yeah, well, you know, Trump this week said, if China's not going to take care of it, we will. That made me shit my pants, Congressman.
That's a bad idea. That's a, yeah.

If Syria doesn't have nuclear weapons, North Korea does. We can't launch 59 cruise missiles.
But what if they have a weapon that could reach, because it's us.

That's who it would be reaching here, the West Coast. Now I want my congressman to maybe...

So this is what we shouldn't do. We shouldn't do what Rex Tillerson did, which was issue a three-sentence statement saying, we're not talking anymore.

We need to engage, we need to get other countries engaged, and that's how we solve it.

But that's been going on for 25 years, and it doesn't really do anything because that guy is a bigger nut than our guy.

And I mean, Trump is not wrong that it is, China is the one place that can solve this.

Yes, that is correct. Yes.

So how do we get them to do that?

Not by issuing statements saying we're not talking anymore. How about calling them motherfuckers in a speech?

Remember when Trump did that, when he called China motherfuckers, and we still elected him. People, it's just amazing.
And the Chinese president is meeting with him this weekend.

That was the one thing we hadn't tried, Bill. That was the one thing we hadn't tried.

Can you imagine how all these world leaders must feel when they're flying over?

Angela Merkel's like, oh, fuck, I got to see this guy.

Oh, my God. What is this mental patient going to say to me? This person is defiling the White House.
Oh, jeez. I mean, he's brought everyone to such a new low.
I know.

Well, thank God, only another seven years. Thank you very much, everybody.

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