Overtime – Episode #705: Kaitlan Collins, Steven Pinker, Stephen Moore

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

All right, here we are with Trump's former economic advisor, whose latest book is The Trump Economic Miracle, Steve Moore.

She is CNN's chief white house correspondent, anchor of The Source with Caitlin Collins.

Caitlin Collins, and he's a professor and author of When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows, Steven Pinker.

Okay,

first question is for you, Professor.

What did you make of how the rumor that Trump Trump was dead spread around the...

I guess this is apropos to your theme of the book, whatever.

But this was just a rumor.

I mean, you should answer this too, because this is your beat in Washington.

There was a rumor that Trump, because, I mean, to me, it just shows how much he's in our heads, that when he doesn't appear for a day, we're like, he must be dead.

For a minute.

You know what was crazy about that was sometimes there are these rumors that appear online and proliferate.

This was pretty widespread.

Like, I had people who I think have a pretty tight grasp on reality asking me if this was true last weekend, if he had actually died.

But how does that even happen?

He's on TV every single hour, every single day.

Well, he haven't been in public actually.

It was the longest stretch he had not been in front of the camera.

So he must be dead.

That's what it is.

He's been on TV.

It was the longest stretch he had not been in front of the camera since taking office.

Though we did see him golfing over the weekend.

But yeah, but I mean, he got asked about it and seemed surprised by it, even though he did tweet, in all caps, he was better than he's ever been on Sunday.

Like, I think he did get word of what was happening.

But is this apropos to what we were talking about in any way?

It's a stretch because it's not that everyone knows that something that is actually,

but it's true that we are sensitive to what other people believe.

And so there can be a kind of self-reinforcing dynamic to rumors.

I'm old enough to remember when Paul McCartney was.

Yes, right, exactly.

Right, yes,

he was.

I saw him in New York the other night.

exaggeration?

No, I remember that.

Yes, there was a, and if you played the record backward,

you could,

oh, his dad miss him.

And, you know.

He was the one who was walking barefoot on the business.

Yes, barefoot.

Yes, that was all.

Okay.

Kids Google it.

Steve, what do you make of Elon Musk potentially becoming the world's first trillionaire

as part of his new compensation deal with Tesla?

Isn't that excessive?

Well,

excessive.

Isn't this a great country or what?

You can become a trillionaire?

I mean, where else on the planet?

I'm in favor of people making money.

I am too.

I also think there has to be limits to everything.

I mean, this is, again, what I'm talking about.

Nothing ever lands in the middle.

Mandami, running for mayor in New York, probably going to be the mayor.

He said there shouldn't be such a thing as a billionaire.

Not a trillionaire.

He says there shouldn't be such a thing as a billionaire.

But, But, Bill, you know what?

Now a trillionaire?

Yeah, but here's what Elon Musk would say.

You know, and this is something people should think about.

He'd say, like,

am I going to give billions and billions of dollars to the government, who do you think can spend that money better?

A guy like him who's built incredible businesses or the government that fucks everything up?

Wait, I thought the guy you like is the head of the government.

I'm confused about

what side we're on, Steve.

Okay, but so there should never be any cap because there's certainly, but when J.D.

Rockefeller, the founding father of the Rockefeller dynasty, at some point was worth 2% of the GDP, and then they made antitrust laws.

They said that that's a little too much for one person to control.

I think they were right 100 years ago.

And I think a trillionaire?

I mean,

well, he's not going to be a trillionaire, but

it's basically they've given him a lot of homework to actually get there.

It's going to be difficult, I think, to do.

It's like double the.

But even the money he has now, I read, I don't remember the exact statistics I was reading, but it was something like it would take you X thousands of years.

But if you spent an $10 a day, he's going to invest it in the economy.

He has an incredible charity.

My point is, it's his money.

He should be able to do with it what he wants.

In general, I agree.

I just think...

Where do you stand on this?

Where is Harvard on this one?

The charity?

Which charity?

Look, a trillion dollars.

Having seen him

distribute anti-HIV drugs, malaria drugs, education for girls.

I mean, Bill Gates has given away a lot of money.

He's saved probably 100 million lives.

Elon Musk will probably cost 20 million lives from the cuts that he's made on U.S.

aid when he was head of Doge.

You mean USAID?

Yeah, that's the most corrupt foreign agency ever.

Show me anywhere where USAID has had a positive effect on international aid.

It just doesn't.

It's just because corrupt foreign leaders.

I mean,

there's corruption.

They've saved tens of millions of lives.

Okay, for panel, are we heading toward a war with Venezuela over drug cartels?

Well, as I said in the monologue, Venezuela is not really the place.

I mean, they do have gangs.

I mean, the one that I think he said had the drugs on the boat that we blew up,

Trende Aragua.

Trende Aragua.

I thought that was George Clooney's tequila brand, quite smartly.

But,

I mean,

I'm glad we're getting rid of the gangs.

But Venezuela is not one of the drug countries that if we really want to stop drugs,

Venezuela is not the place.

But also there's questions about the legal authority and justification for just blowing up a boat that's in the middle of the water that they allege was a drug boat, but

we haven't seen the evidence.

They haven't presented that publicly or anything like that.

And if this becomes a common practice, I mean, that would be a first.

I mean, it seems odd that you would have a small boat with 11 people on it if you were smuggling drugs.

I personally would leave more room for drugs.

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What is your opinion on the rain delay at yesterday's football game?

Oh, don't get me sported.

The juice should be played in the rain.

I agree.

This is safetyism.

This is a part of the health discussion we were having, I think, that everybody has to be safe completely at all times.

Football?

That's the great thing about football.

We play it whenever, wherever, there's no stopping it.

And then the crowd, oh, there could be lightning.

Of course, it's rain.

There always could be lightning.

They stopped the game for an hour.

I was on the subject, and I tell you what else I hate?

No more building dome stadiums.

Football should be played outside.

Yes, yeah, I agree.

Baseball.

Look, I'm a Chicagoan.

We've played in Wrigley Field, you know, in Wrigley Field and Soldiers Field when it's 10 degrees below zero, Bill.

I don't know about that that one.

When it's like Alabama in August and September and kickoff, it's a good idea.

Okay, but what about, you know, canceling the game for an hour because there could be lightning?

I heard the, please get to safety.

Get to safety.

Like a meteor was heading for the stadium.

Bullshit.

Professor, have standards for college students changed in recent years?

Do they have trouble keeping up with the amount of reading that used to be required?

Yeah, the answer is yes.

They have declined.

I can see it in my own class, which I've taught for 22 years.

So we had a meeting with the dean at Harvard because of grade, because grades keep getting higher and higher.

80% of students get an A.

The GPA is three, the average GPA is 3.8 out of 4.

Grade inflation, they call it.

No, they don't.

Our dean said, well, we prefer to call it grade compression.

Oh.

Maybe our students are just getting better and better.

So I knew this was malarkey.

So I went, I actually had the data because I've given kind of the same exam for 22 years and it's multiple choice, so it's objective.

So it's a constant benchmark.

And performance has been going down, at least in my class.

10 percentage points

from 2004 to now.

So the standards have been going down.

Students do read less.

I think they spend more time on extracurriculars than on classwork.

And I just know that because...

Scrolling.

Scrolling.

That's when they're in the room.

Yeah, I just tell you, they're not going to read your book, not because it's not great, it is, it's a book.

Yes.

They don't read books.

I read a letter that a student wrote to the Crimson saying you can get out of this university without ever having fully read a whole book.

That, dear, that might be true.

Now, I've got to say, there are a lot of really brilliant, really studious Harvard students.

Like intimidatingly smart.

But there's also a lot for whom it's kind of a luxury cruise and academics is just one of the activities.

And I think that, yeah.

Now that's,

so our dean,

to be fair, our dean has noticed and she has

changed the guidelines going forward.

She's actually told students, you wouldn't think this would be a shock, academics is your first priority.

Now the fact that she had to say that, but this is

kind of a radical new policy.

She said that it's okay for professors to take attendance in lectures, which I'm going to start doing.

That it's okay to ban electronic devices, which I might start doing.

Because we actually know

that taking notes leads to better memory

than using a screen.

Just because when you, it's just a principle of cognitive psychology, when you have to think hard about something, when you've got to process its meaning, when it's not just a bunch of words, then you actually remember better.

And when you've got it.

Just the process of writing puts it in your mind.

100%.

Yes, yeah.

And so, but a lot of them have screens.

There are electronic note-taking devices, but they're not as fluid and easy as the old-fashioned pen and paper.

So my teaching assistants are going to hate this because they're going to have to schlep handouts to class every time.

But can I say I totally agree with that?

Because when I'm interviewing someone, I'll write the questions down that I've thought out at times.

Because then when I'm interviewing them, I don't have to look at anything.

And I can remember what I was going to ask them, you know, 12 questions down or whatnot.

Yeah.

But you're that girl in the class we were always cheating on.

You are.

I was not going to.

Oh, that was really cool, Alabama.

I struggled with the face.

Since you're from Alabama and so proud of it.

Let me, last question.

What's wrong with that?

Well, nothing.

I love Alabama.

Are you from Alabama?

Yeah.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Yes, unfortunately, in this football season, I am at Alabama bad.

I'm the guy who talked to both of you.

You both so well for us last week.

I talked to the whole country.

I got no end.

We took it to the other guys.

Okay.

But Trump just moved Space Force from Colorado.

To Huntsville.

To Alabama.

For no good reason.

Because he was mad at Colorado for having mail-in voting.

Now, I've been to Huntsville.

I've played Huntsville.

It's great.

It's where NASA is.

The penalty might not fit the crime.

What do you think of that?

I actually did a lot of this because when it was moved back to Colorado during Biden, the Biden administration, the Alabama lawmakers were furious over this.

It was basically a huge debate.

It depends on who you ask.

They said they did all these studies where it would be better.

It's going to be in Alabama.

There's a real question of how many jobs it's going to bring to the state.

You know, the administration said as many as 30,000.

Officials in Alabama have said 1,500 to 1,600.

But I think Alabama is an amazing place, and I think everyone should live there.

Well.

Especially if you're a quarterback or a head football coach and you would like to live in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

I don't know about that, but I know they play football in the rain down there.

Thank you very much.

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