Overtime – Episode #686: Rahm Emanuel, Fareed Zakaria

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night series, Real Time with Bill Maher. Okay, welcome to Overtime with the best-selling author and host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria's DPS, Fareed Zakaria, and the former mayor of Chicago

and former ambassador to Japan,

Rahm Emanuel,

and chief of staff, weren't you?

You don't think that's a more impressive credit

than those other two?

Chief of staff of the White House?

I feel like that is the biggest job

you can have in this country

behind the president.

Isn't that the gatekeeper of everything,

the chief of staff?

It is the gatekeeper,

but the biggest job is mayor. Of Chicago.
Yeah. And then chief of staff is the worst job until you get through it, and then you look back fondly on it.
But going through it is sheer... They don't last long.
I mean, it's so intense, right, that you can only do it for... 18 to 19 months is the modern average.
Right.

Not that I figured that out. But with Ambassador, you

get called the Honorable

Ambassador for the... Yeah, you're excellent.

So you probably get better restaurant reservations

with that.

So sensitive,

don't you think? Yeah, you do.

And it's Your Excellency from now on

to you.

I went through Senate confirmation. All right, this is from The People.
What do you think about Trump's proposed $5 million gold card visa for wealthy foreigners? Is it smart economic move or a problematic policy? I guess what they're, I know what he's talking about. Trump wants to sell a visa.
You get permanent residency. By the way, we are hardly, I looked this up, we are hardly the first country to do this.
Doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. But, you know, I remember.
Yeah, we actually have a version of it. It's called, I think it's called the EB-5 or something like that.
So it's fine to do it. I actually think maybe it's because I'm, you know, very patriotic.

I think $5 million, we should be charging $20 million.

American citizenship is worth more than that.

It comes with Ukrainian minerals, though.

What I love about Trump is, and he said, you know, you get the green card, but with this, the gold card, you get extra privileges. Like what? You get to vote twice? Well, now you're speaking Chicago language.
I'm for it, but it's part of a bigger package on immigration reform. It's been 42 years since the last one.
So I'm not against it, but it's part of a whole package. I read that the current mayor of Chicago has an approval rating of 6.6%.

Round it up.

Seven.

I mean, you were just the ambassador to Japan.

If that was your approval rating in Japan,

they would do Hirokiri on live TV.

They would do it at

27. I mean, what's going

on in Chicago?

We were talking about this a little earlier. You have also the mayor of New York not doing well.
Obviously, other things also here in Los Angeles not doing well, the mayor here. Look, and then you got mayors like the mayor of San Francisco and other cities that are doing well.
So I would say, look, there is a general rule. I had this when I was mayor.
Safe streets, strong schools, stable finances. Focus on those three things, and your city's going to be fine.
We've gone through five years where people became way too permissive of the culture, which is why everything's locked up at Walgreens and CVS, and that is a disaster. And I'll say this about our schools.
I don't want to hear another word about the locker room. I don't want to hear another word about the bathroom.
You better start focusing on the classroom. No, I agree.
We had the worst reading scores for 8th graders in 30 years. And nobody, not a governor, not a mayor, not a president, not a secretary of education is talking about it.
We're all wrapped up. Look, in seventh grade, if I known that I could have said the word they and got in the girls' bathroom, I would have done it.
Okay? This is, we, we literally are a superpower. We're facing off against China with 1.4 billion people.
And two-thirds of our children can't read eighth grade law. So no more about the law.
Wait a second. I'm on a roll for a second.
No more. I don't want to hear another.
I gave him the light. I don't want to hear another word about the classroom.
I don't want to hear another word about the bathroom until you tell me what you're going to do with the classroom. I know.
That's what you're doing. But I think to be fair, this is actually.
I was being fair. No, no.
This is a huge Democratic Party problem. This podcast is supported by Progressive, a leader in RV insurance.
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They have incredibly high taxes. It is impossible to build.
So the cost of housing, Let me finish. Let me finish.
I'll give you a chance. The cost of housing is crazy in places like New York and Chicago.
If you look at Democratic states, you go look at New York versus Florida, roughly the same population. The budget of New York state is twice that of Florida.
What do they have? Streets paved with gold? I live in New York. I pay the highest taxes in New York.
You get nothing for it. And I think that is the image people have of the Democratic Party.
Lots of taxes, lots of regulation, but nothing gets done. Hey, I live in L.A.
Right, right. And I think, you know...
No, no, listen. If the Democrats have to own this and realize the answer to everything is not more taxes, more regulation.
People are fed up of that and they feel that it isn't working. The Democrats, look, as somebody who produced the best graduation growth in the country, we're, yeah.
And they changed our high school. You were a good man.
I agree. No, that's not the point.
The point was we changed. But I'll take that.
The point isn't the rules. The point is the results.
And the party has gotten way too focused on what the rules are. And I do agree with you on this.
We have made it impossible to function as a city or as a state. And take an example of this example.
Here, obviously, in L.A., it took a fire and a natural disaster to make you realize, you know what? That rule's not that important. In Pennsylvania, a bridge collapse.
All of a sudden, we go, well, that environmental rule's just not important. We've got to build a bridge.
It's much more important. And I think the Democratic Party should take a look at it and say we're going to be honest, like we did in 1994 with reinventing government.

Everything is on the table.

Nothing is safe.

And we're going to still look at it and say, that's essential.

Those two things get out of here.

And that doesn't happen.

And that's a fair criticism.

Maybe this is your next Democratic vice presidential candidate.

Maybe presidential candidate.

And by the way, by the way, he's also... That counts as handicapped.
You can slip him by. This gets you handicapped parking right here.
That added nothing. Okay.
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likely to be effective in holding billionaires like Jeff Bezos to account.

Yeah, I was going to cover this issue when we ran out of time.

I'll give you a boycott.

Wait a second.

If people don't know what I'm talking about.

There were people doing interpretive dances.

They're also, you know, protested Trump.

There's like a whole... This is something called the People's Union USA.
And they have something called today, I got emails about this from people, no spend day. And it's against the malign influence of billionaires, big corporations, and both major political parties on the lives of working Americans.

And what it is, is you refrain from making any purchases, either in stores

or online, to shun

fast food, getting gas

for a full day!

I know. That look on your face

says it all. You're right.

It's so fucking stupid. The idea...
Right. People have no idea how to take too much time on their hands.
No, this is the thing that's going on today. And it just, it mistakes, this is why I was saying, that there really is a movement of people doing interpretive dances to protest the Trump administration's cucks of USAID.
I mean, like, people are starving. You know, the thing about not winning, as you said, is you're left with these kind of absurdities, right? The answer is figure out how to win elections.
Yes. I mean, yes.
Watch the Democrats. Listen to the Democrats about Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both of whom you worked for.
So these are the only two Democrats since Franklin Roosevelt to have won two terms, right? And what does the party say? They did everything wrong. We've got to get away from it.
Wait a minute. They're the ones who won the elections.
Bernie Sanders didn't win. AOC hasn't been president recently.
Like, you know, the Labor Party does this with Tony Blair. They're like, Blair is horrible.
He's like, he won three elections. Yeah, let me get you.
Breaking news, 100,000 new community police officers or defund the police. Now, which one do you think is one? It's crazy on this part, but it's an example of this.
I think the party, you know, if you're talking about interpretive dance and everything like that,

and what's really crazy about where the party's

gone, it's

taken an identity politics

that the only way you have a moral standing

is you've somehow been hurt.

And that is insane.

And if you want to take a moral standing,

an identity politics based on where you've been hurt,

then we're going to do it about the working and middle-class families

of this country who's gotten the shaft over the last 30 years. And that is where we can go.
Okay, one more. Why would the Trump administration help the Tate brothers, if that was big news today, the Tate brothers who are, they were arrested in Romania and have been in jail for sex trafficking and, I think, pimping and rape.
Even if they aren't guilty of that action. They're going to get a new TV show.
I mean, this guy, Andrew Tate, I mean, even if he isn't guilty of the crimes, which I don't know, but, you know. Okay, he's pro-rape.
I mean, the comments are just, you know, things like facts. Women are sex workers.
I mean, they're so beyond the pale. And Trump has brought them...
Even Ron DeSantis in Florida said they're not welcome in Florida. I mean, when you're too big of a dirtbag for Florida.
And I love Florida.

I mean... And there's been Republican blowback.

Do you think something like this

is the kind of thing?

I think most people don't know enough

about what you were saying

because I have two daughters

and so I watch some of the stuff he says.

Don't let them near Andrew Tate.

And it's...

No, what's strange is like

he really, as you say,

openly is in favor of violence.

I'm sorry. the stuff he says.
Don't let them near Andrew Tate. And it's...
No, what's... Strange is he really, as you say, openly is in favor of violence against women.
It's amazing. And it's this weird conception of masculinity.
I think of masculinity as being about being generous, being, you know, looking after people, being, you know, having that sense of maybe a father figure.. This is such a perverted idea of masculinity, and my fear is that, you know, it gets a certain amount of traction.
And I think people in the MAGA world think, you know what, maybe this will get us some young men. But, you know, you're selling your soul for that.
It's really bad stuff. I don't know if it gets traction so much as reaction.
It is. I'm not sure I agree that it would get traction.
I think it gets a reaction. I think this is not where people want to be.
When I'm asking it, I think it might be the thing that we've been asking for years. Where are the old school Republicans? When are they going to finally break through? They've given their manhood.
He's in a lockbox until this guy leaves. They've given up.
Forget about it. Don't look for them.
Thank you guys. Thank you.
Appreciate it. Thank you very much.
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