Overtime - Episode #416: Tax Cuts, Technology, Trump's Cabinet

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, No, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late-night series, Real Time with Bill Moore.

Okay.

Oh, hey, Congressman.

You polished a shitload of this off, man.

Yeah.

He kept telling me it was water.

Right.

Congressman, how does the GOP plan to cut taxes while increased defense spending?

Well, you know, and we've heard that one before.

Reagan, you know, I mean, voodoo economics, George Bush I called it.

The serious answer is that although there will be about $30 billion of additional spending with my colleagues' help,

General Mattis spends

additional over last year's.

And though we spend like more than every other country in the world combined.

Or that's an exaggeration, but we spend...

No, it's not.

No, I mean, well, we spend, I mean, the country closest to us is China at $215 billion a year, and we spend about $700.

But that's not even counting.

We'll spend about 4% of GDP, a little less than that.

The NATO allies

are promising to spend 2% of GDP.

There's no question we invest more.

But the answer to your question is that mostly what we're going to try and do is leverage the fact that Secretary Mattis is somebody who really does want to do the reforms to wring out some of the cost.

And that includes some of the expensive toys that are being put in instead of some basic equipment that can be bought more effectively, includes the

F-18,

the super...

What about

the tax-cutting part?

Because

I saw during the campaign, Trump was talking tough about the hedge fund managers.

These guys just push numbers around in a computer screen.

I haven't heard that lately.

Well,

remember that night after he won the election, he was at 21 for dinner and he was leaving and some hedge fund guys were there.

He's like, well, we're going to get your taxes down.

So that looks like kind of a con to me.

You know, he says someone thing in the campaign.

You know, and you've got two sides of the issue here.

Right now they're talking about a border adjustment tax.

It won't work.

I oppose it.

And a lot of my Republican colleagues oppose it.

And that's a revenue increase that's supposed to pay for a big part of the decrease.

But in fact, it is not a sensible ⁇ it's going to start a trade war if we do it.

And so

a tax on consumer goods.

It's a consumption tax.

Why don't rich people pay income tax?

Okay, why doesn't Donald Trump pay income tax?

Well, rich people do pay.

Rich people...

I don't mean rich like you.

I mean super rich.

If only we were rich enough not to pay, Bill.

No, he's super rich.

I'm not super rich.

He's super rich.

In fact, these two could have a rich-off, right over here.

These two are very rich.

I don't want to try to outfund anyone, but do understand, I was too poor to get into this administration, the cabinet position.

You're hardly too poor.

You're the richest guy in Congress.

I've heard of it.

Yeah, but that's not enough to get in the cabinet.

Really?

Okay, well,

but I know what you're saying.

But rich people do pay.

Let's see what's in here.

All right.

Terrible.

All right.

Water.

Fran, would you ever consider getting a smartphone or joining the social media age?

No, you're famously not hooked up to the new phone.

I would rather have a smart Congress.

I can give you a list of replacements.

Hey, he's sitting right here.

We'll compare a list.

There'd be no comparison.

Seth, what was it like to be Roastmaster for Donald Trump?

Oh, yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know,

my only, if I'm completely honest, my recollection

of the time, and this is why the current state is so bizarre, is that he was

perfectly pleasant and a little boring.

Everybody says that, that in person.

Yeah.

He's the difference.

He's just like a little boring.

Like there was just

kind of there to do a job and

that was it.

And

my personal interaction with him when I wasn't on stage making masturbation jokes to his face was

pretty limited.

But it was pretty limited.

And I was just, okay, this is a business guy like a thousand others, you know?

And I think that's part of, like, I remember reading something that you said, and I feel like that's part of what the administration needs to try to translate to people that you experience a completely different person than the demagogue that he's become.

But it is, it's very important how you present yourself.

No, I agree.

And it's very, particularly the rest of the world, it's so important.

And this is why I say, like, when you say,

I think we need to get him there, I don't know that he has that in him.

He doesn't.

Whoever you are, whether you're Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton, whoever you are, if you are on a stage for months at a time being deified and lionized by thousands upon thousands of people, that will affect any one of us.

And, you know, and I'll go so far as to say there were moments in the debate where I started to see Bernie play into the crowd a little bit.

Just a bit.

Just a bit.

And

that narcissist.

And Bernie is made of stronger stuff than...

Did you hear that?

When Roman generals returned from the war and they had a big parade and people were cheering and throwing rose petals, there was always a slave standing behind the general whispering in his ear, all men are mortal and all fame is fleeting.

Yet he was a slave.

Every congressman should have somebody, not a slave.

Hang it, you understand.

Remember those parades.

Not everyone waves with all their fingers.

You do get that message.

I've noticed that.

When I retired from politics, people waved and used all their fingers.

It was a big upgrade.

So

in the absence of his ability to curtail that instinct in himself,

it's up to Congress.

It's up to Congress.

It is.

And the courts.

I get your administration about liberals, I'm the same way, but this man is a malignant narcissist.

I mean, he's been diagnosed that way.

It cannot be.

He hasn't been diagnosed that way.

Not in person.

Right.

If you can't see it from afar.

If you can't see malignant narcissism, someone who, the only metric with him is if he says good things about me i like him that's vladimir putin if white supremacist say nice things and they're fans he just cannot

institutionally put them down

keith ellison he praised this week because keith ellison said he would win during the campaign this is the only metric he has if you say you like me you're good yeah if you criticize me i must dispose of it that's that's that cannot come out well

no

and we and we all it's like bush after 9-11 we all desperately wanted him to be good because we needed him to be good.

And we need this guy to be good.

And the problem is when he gets up there and he says, they reported that there wasn't a standing ovation

and there was, like, that doesn't fucking freak you out.

Yes, it does.

That does.

That's like, that's like, what is...

That doesn't worry you.

How does that not worry you?

How does that not deeply concern you?

I worry every day.

that as great as our country is and as great as our people are, our leaders let them down regularly.

I worry about that because the fact is, our country deserves better leadership than we've had for a very long time.

It deserves a Congress that works together.

But he is different.

It deserves to be a very different way.

You're putting him in a continuum with people who I never liked.

You know what I would pay to be president?

What

the cure is for our current situation is as fast as possible,

look at every good nomination, in the opinion of the Senate, and unanimously consent, get them through.

Get through hundreds or thousands of confirmations of people that are acceptable.

Don't stall anyone that's good.

Because the faster we fill out the government, the faster the government is run by people that are mutually acceptable.

And there's a lot of them.

Which are the mainstream.

Who's your favorite?

Just

your favorite?

General now Secretary Kelly is absolutely qualified and excellent.

And the new homeland and the new national security.

How is Prime Minister?

I think we're going to have to do it for anybody.

General Dunford is also well respected.

Who is?

General Dunford.

He's on,

but he's not.

He's a good idea.

Yeah, but I'm not saying that he's accepted by Milan.

But the fact is, the sooner we get, we don't have a Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Army nomination pulled out.

You can't confirm those that you don't have.

But those that are lined up, let's get them through as quickly as possible because America is better than the other.

Except some of them are terrible.

What's the hurry to confirm somebody who's terrible?

Most of them I've heard of are terrible.

All of them are horrible.

Well, no.

No.

But Senator,

just us, nobody else.

The fact is, if you take all of them that you know are going to be confirmed, that are reasonably good, that have been properly vetted, and you just look at Chuck Schumer and say, look, we're going to UC all these guys, let's get them there.

And then, by the way, let's take all the time in the world, no matter whether someone's high or low, to slow down the ones we object to.

And that's exactly what's happened.

We approved Elaine Chow in about 10 minutes.

Right.

And Mattis, and we did a 60-vote rule change to allow Mattis to go through.

It took one day.

So if the nominee is good, it can move fast.

How can you blame this on the Democrats?

How can you blame this horrible cabinet on the Democrats?

No, no.

No, what I'm blaming is it

invented the stalling.

Why do you have a Supreme Court nomination?

Here's the question.

You shouldn't have one.

Here's how.

Yes, yes, God damn it.

Here's the thing.

Me house, him Senate.

The fact is, though, that if we take, and you're right about a couple of nominations, although I can't figure out why Chuck Schumer suddenly decided Lion Chow should be voted no on, but

that was not a wise move.

But if you look at it and you take 30 hours for each person, it will be the 25th re-election of Donald Trump before you'd get one cabinet and all the staff in.

So

no, it's not good.

We have an obligation.

We, we all have an obligation to get people in so the government runs.

Well, I will say this.

We should say no to something.

One of the problems is Merrick Garland.

Yes.

Because

what happened to him

is so unconscionable.

Unconscionable.

There are a lot of people in the Senate who just aren't feeling all the way to the middle of the year.

And I know that's not your specific department, but it is your party that was always pulling the Constitution.

I carry it around in my pocket, but you don't read it.

Because it says...

You that the president gets...

By the way, for Frank, it's on the iPhone.

It's on the iPhone.

It's not in the paper one.

All right.

In fairness, though, Richard Nixon saw not one but two of his appointments turned down until he picked an outright leftist.

It is not new.

Who was a leftist?

Blackmun.

Blackmun was a leftist?

He wasn't a black man.

No.

But if you look at the court.

A leftist.

Wait a minute.

Did you ever hear the phrase, in fairness, Richard Nixon?

In fairness to the Senate.

This is a unique phrase.

In fairness to the Senate, the Senate has been dysfunctional on appointments and confirmations to that.

That is a news.

Many times, that's a new answer.

And scaling a Supreme Court seat.

First time.

I just want to say my one concern.

Thank God we're not in the middle of the day.

My one concern, though, is that if we sit in the echo chamber of just resistance, resistance, resistance, 2018 will be lost by the liberal movement, and 2020 will also.

It will happen.

But it's like, what's happening?

What's hard for a lot of us to wrap our brains around is like, you guys come on here very articulate, very well-spoken, very dignified, and

you're reporting to a guy who's so not that.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

We don't work for that guy.

I voted.

That's all I did.

No, no, no, no, no.

But I'm just saying, Mr.

Speaker.

But in that point, I mean, if we just make a caricature of the right and the Trump.

But we don't know what the hell is the problem.

We don't know anything.

They do.

Well, wait a minute.

But there's half of America who doesn't believe that.

Iran is not a good person.

When Obama did stupid stuff, we called him on it.

But if we were to call him on it, but this entire

followers are not necessarily Trump because 60 million people voted for him, and they had a reason.

And we can't say they're dumb.

Absolutely not.

They had some legitimate.

And some of them were, no, some of them are dumb.

And some of them are just racist.

And some of them are.

And some of them are so turned off by the stuff you were talking about before that the Democrats have been doing.

And a lot of them feel left out.

They feel disrespectful.

Right.

Particularly in rural areas.

Right.

And so Democrats have to learn, even if they're old, fat, and white, do what Trump does.

Pretend you care about them.

I'm not old, dumb, or fat, I think.

No, no.

But I'm just saying that if we just caricature them as that, then we will never really understand.

But the thing is,

they caricature themselves.

This is the problem.

When Sean Spicer gets out there and just does the bidding.

But it's not helped by

this constant.

But what else are we supposed to say?

How else are we supposed to say that?

Hillary lost the election.

How else is a sane person supposed to react when you're coming out and saying that green is blue?

I mean, say, what the fuck else are you supposed to say?

Say green is green, but it's just like what happened to Milo.

I mean, you know, if you're just like F off, F off, F off, like nothing, the conversation is never going to go anymore.

Or just Milo is a card.

Milo is a cardio.

Milo is a human being.

But he's also a guy who likes.

Look,

there are two varieties of people to me.

There's guys like Bill O'Reilly, who I really do think believe what he says.

And there's guys like Milo who just wants to fucking get a rise out of people.

I think those are, and in that,

I disagree with O'Reilly.

I'm not rising.

I'm the same.

Listen, I'm buddies with this guy.

Yeah.

It's like, we're not the guys rising.

We're the guys saying, yeah, you know what, you should be allowed to speak out and say, but

when it comes from the fucking White House, that's a problem.

Yes, that's a big problem.

That's a big problem.

All right, that's all.

I don't.

We gotta go.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Anyway,

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