Overtime - Episode #355 (Originally aired 6/5/15)

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

Okay, what is the most significant national security threat to the United States?

Oh, we have many security experts here, so I guess that makes sense.

There's a question from Hank H.

The most significant national security threat.

Pigeons, genitals.

No,

I would argue it's education.

We focus on stuff that doesn't affect an American family.

We spend a lot of money on ISIS.

It's what I did for a living.

They're going to fight for Baghdad.

There's a small sliver that might show up in New York City.

But when we call ourselves exceptional, we don't give ourselves the capability to say, How does our educational system, the thing that will bring money to a kid's life, joy to a kid's life, it'll keep them out of prison, how does it compare to the Europeans and the Asians?

How do we give an

inner-city kid the chance I had?

And the answer is we don't.

And so,

Unexpected answer.

Well,

I'll see your education surprise answer and raise you.

The environment.

I think that's the biggest security.

And by the way, you know who backs me up on that?

The Pentagon.

I'm not saying they say it's the biggest, but the Pentagon is very much on the page that the environment and what we're doing to it causes the kind of instability that is a national security threat, and they have said so.

And Obama's quoted them.

So I'd say long term.

I'd say long term, China is the biggest threat because it's the only country with a global strategy.

They're spending over a trillion dollars.

They're trying to align countries towards themselves.

Ultimately, it undermines the dollar, and that's going to affect all of us.

But in the near term, it's the single most powerful individual in the world.

Vladimir Putin, who is in decline and very unhappy and wants to punish us and the potential for costs in the next six, 12 years.

Is he personally in decline or the country?

The country's in decline, and he is controlling so much power, his ability to do things that would truly cause...

So do you think he'd do something crazy and irrational?

I think that, well, look, I think we're punishing him, and I think his reaction is he wants the Americans to understand that that's not costless for us.

And so if you ask me where you'd have an integrity cyber attack against a big public institution or a bank, the sort of thing that could really lead to a surprise that we don't want to...

This is the guy who sold a missile defense system

to Iran.

Yeah.

I mean, so this is a guy who's willing to take some risks and doesn't worry about being an international pariah.

And he went into Ukraine.

Okay, but.

Without blinking.

But we invaded Iraq.

You know, we invaded Afghanistan.

To this idea that we.

Sovereign country.

Yeah.

I mean,

we have point

fingers at Putin for invading Ukraine.

I don't think he should do it either.

But first of all, it's not our problem.

Second of all, the entire Palin family working as a team couldn't find it on a map.

That's right.

And

the

principle I said before about let the

Muslims take care of the Muslim issue, I think goes for Europe too.

Europe is very rich, remember?

But they're not going to do it.

Very rich.

Let them take care of Crimea.

That's their backyard, not ours.

We make everything our problem

except for taking care of the people in this country.

Right.

You know, to me, one of the biggest threats is the sense of hopelessness that is going on in this country with regards to community and police relations in the African-American community.

And the fact that,

you know, America's chocolate citizens are crying out yet again in terms of the injustices.

And when people give up on a system, we have a problem.

And we're seeing that hopelessness.

But you know why that is?

Because I think it's because campaign politics.

The Republicans can't run on the economy because Mitt Romney said that he would get unemployment down to 6%

by 2016.

And Obama got it down to 5.5%.

So it's kind of hard to run on that.

I promise you.

What do they have?

They always have the Trump card, scare the shit out of people.

War is always the Republicans' Trump card, and it works.

I promise you the Republicans are going to run on the economy.

With 11% unemployment, when you take into account people that are looking for jobs and are part-time jobs or have checked out, it's still 11%.

That's why two-thirds of the American people think we're on the wrong track.

But Republicans are on the right.

Two-thirds of the people, by the way, think we're still on the wrong track.

Obama's weakest numbers are on foreign policy.

He's bounced over 50 percent, but on foreign policies in the 30s.

Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State for four years under Obama.

The Republicans see that that is going to be one of their easy ways to get it.

Because Americans understand foreign policy

so well.

But I guess if the Earth stops spinning, you're going to blame that on Hillary Clinton, too.

I mean, get over it.

I mean, a lot of these folks that are running for president right now on the Republican side are, some of them are in the Congress right now.

Some of them were former former governors, and what in the heaven did they do to lift and to make things better?

They have power.

In your home state, for example, the unemployment rate's been lower than national level since Kasich has been in the past.

But a lot of the tech, you know, Perry, you can attack Perry, but Perry was a job machine down in Texas for a long time.

Are you kidding me?

I mean, seriously?

Look at the job.

About one of the children are living in poverty, right?

I'm talking about jobs.

30% of the net new jobs created in America were created down in Texas.

Oh, one turn.

So

you can criticize them for other things, but in terms of job creation, Republicans have a pretty good job.

Part of that is because he poached those jobs from other states, which you can't really do when you're president.

When you're president, you have to think about all this stuff.

Yeah.

But let me say,

there are huge issues out there which people understand.

Stagnant wages for 10 years in terms of inflation, Justin.

Median income stagnant for 10 years.

Texas.

And during the Obama years, by the way, and Bush years.

So listen, let's get away from one party or the other, and let's fix the problem.

Right.

But a lot of these...

But would you not agree that a lot of these folks who are running for president right now, particularly on the Republican side of the ledger, had opportunities and spaces to do those things, and they have not done it?

They whisper sweet nothings in the ears.

They can say the marriage thing about the money.

And then they want to be the president of the United States.

That does.

But you can say the same thing about Hillary Clinton and foreign policy, right?

So the question is: where are we going from here?

How are we going to get a growing economy?

How are the people in this audience, both electronically and physically, and so on?

How are they going to get a good job where they're going to be able to afford to have their own home?

There's 20 million American families that pay more than 50% of their income and rent.

They don't have enough money to save it.

Part of it would be raise the minimum wage.

But none of the Republicans who are decrying these days the wealth gap are then for raising the minimum wage.

Now, I've been on both sides.

So it's kind of crazy that.

They pay me a lot more than the minimum wage.

At costs.

Yes, they are.

But that would start.

I mean, you know, there's a lot of people who just live

close to like how animals live.

How can you live if on 725?

I come from one of those families, Bill, and I know what it's like.

You know, I had a mother who died at the age of 42 years old, aneurysm bursts in her brain, and she died on the system of welfare.

And nobody grows, nobody says that when I grow up, I want to be poor.

I want to be on the system.

Woo!

Food stamps, that's the life.

Sweet deal.

Everybody has hopes and dreams, and we need to focus more of that attention.

You know, yeah, we got to watch ISO and everything that's going on in the world, but we need to focus more of our attention on helping Americans live out their greatest greatness.

Let's make some investments here in our country.

Okay,

should the Army,

very apropos for this week, should the Army allow transgender people to serve openly?

Yes.

Well, there's no other way they can serve.

Why not?

I mean, that's pretty clear.

Right.

It's not a don't ask, don't tell sort of thing.

Right, that's over, right?

That's what it happens.

But the Army makes you, you know, get a crew cut.

And

is it going to work for Caitlin?

She could wear her hair up.

Well, who says Caitlin wants to go?

No, I'm just saying, should they be allowed?

Yeah, if they're not going to be able to do that.

I say, yeah,

I mean, if we're going to continue to do this where we're not going to have a draft, and anybody who wants to show up, it's thrilling.

That's right.

It's true.

It's really unbelievable.

And then

afterwards, once they get out,

then they'll have to deal with the VA, which is going to be a big fucking problem.

Don't get you started.

Please don't.

Lewis Black, has comedy changed with the advent of social media?

That's what this person wants to know.

Peter R.

No, it's always the fucking same.

It's funny or it's not funny.

I think what he means is like a lot of comics just

trying out new material in comedy clubs have gotten in trouble because comedy clubs we always thought was a place where you experiment.

Maybe you go over the line because sometimes you have to go over the line to find where the line is.

But a number of comics have gotten in trouble because now everybody tweets and they...

That's true.

And it's

making that.

I don't give a shit anymore.

Yeah, neither do you.

No, I.

I mean, we're inoculated.

We're old.

They can't do anything to us.

Yeah.

And a lot of the people who come see me won't remember I said it the last time anyway.

Okay, do we have an affordable housing crisis, Rick Lazio?

What should we do about it?

Yeah, sure we do.

Yeah, I mean, it's a huge problem.

The amount of people that are what they call rent-burdened, people paying more than 30% of their income, has doubled over the last 50 years as a percentage.

So in real terms, it has doubled.

I mentioned before, 20 million American families paying more than 50% of their income for housing, both home ownership and rental.

I mean, that means that people, and they're insecure, they've got to move multiple times.

Getting to your point about education, if kids get pulled out of a school three and four times,

every time you've got to move out of your house, you are disrupting their social life, they're falling behind in class, they give up, they feel, I mean, it's

all.

One reason why there's a housing crisis in a lot of big cities, it's because a lot of the space goes to people, not just in the top 1%, in the top 0.1%,

who buy these New York City, London, where I just live, full of apartments that are empty almost all year long.

They're second, third, fourth, fifth homes for the rich people who don't need them, don't use them most of the time.

That's where the space is.

We spend $200 billion, the federal government does, on housing.

Most of it goes to people making over $100,000 a year.

Shouldn't we tax, I mean, we have, if you make $250,000 or anything over that, there's just one rate, shouldn't there be a higher rate for if you make a billion or $10 billion?

Should someone making $250,000 be taxed the same as somebody making $5 billion?

I mean, Nixon, that socialist, the tax rate was 70%.

Eisenhower was closer to 90%.

You know, people making that kind of money cannot spend that kind of money if they tried in their lifetime.

We could use that money.

We need to have a different kind of tax rate.

But I don't think that's something a Republican would ever support.

It depends on what the trade-off would be.

What would the money be used for?

If you could say the money was going to be spent on something that would be a good idea.

What would the money be used for?

I don't think

that's a trade-off.

No, I don't care about the trade-off.

This is really a good idea.

I can get you guys listed.

Yeah, he just mentioned education and

infrastructure.

Infrastructure.

If the money money went for deficit reductions, so that

I think there'd be people that would be open to that.

I think if the money went for anything you wanted, I think that one of the most important issues for the billionaires that are coming out with the Republicans is to ensure the tax rate stays as low as possible for them.

That is like if there's one thing they want to spend it on, that's critical.

So you're not going to move it.

So it's barely worth a debate.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

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