0:01

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the

0:03

HBO late night series, real time with

0:05

Bill Maugh. Thank

0:32

you very much. Thank

0:40

you for coming.

0:42

I appreciate that.

0:52

All right. Thank

0:55

you. Thank

1:00

you very much. Very exciting. We got a

1:02

big show before a lot

1:04

of news. Before I get to that, I just want to give a shout out

1:06

to my friend. He was here last week. Killer Mike

1:08

won three Grammys. That was a... Then

1:15

he was arrested at the Grammys. It

1:18

was a conspiracy theory because I couldn't get him to

1:20

endorse Biden. I'm sorry, this is

1:22

going on the internet. I don't

1:24

understand the police in this country. You

1:26

walk out of CVS with an armful of shit

1:29

and they don't say anything. They

1:34

see a rapper holding three Grammys and they're

1:36

like, got to see your hands. But

1:42

the other thing that people are

1:44

excited about, of course, is that the Super Bowl is

1:46

Sunday. It's going to be

1:48

a record number, they say, of women watching. Because

1:51

of Taylor Swift. But

1:53

they're really...

2:00

They're really leaning into the woman audience

2:02

this year. They're

2:05

going to have the refs bring up penalties that happened

2:07

10 games ago. I

2:12

can't go on a new judge. But

2:16

here's the big news. The Supreme Court is

2:18

hearing arguments whether they can throw Trump off

2:21

the ballot in individual states, Colorado and Maine.

2:24

Well, we can talk about it. But

2:27

what do you think

2:29

about that? We can't see this. I don't understand this. No

2:32

cameras of the Supreme Court. I don't get this. You can

2:35

film everything in America. You can

2:37

barely go to the washroom on a plane without it

2:39

being filmed. But

2:41

we can't see the Supreme Court. That's private.

2:44

But so Trump is telling his supporters

2:46

they're going to have to imagine him

2:48

snorting, sighing and folding his arms like

2:50

a fat four-year-old. And

2:58

yeah, so this was it. Oh,

3:00

he won more primaries. That race is

3:02

over. Nikki Haley is number two, I guess.

3:06

She ran in Nevada, lost

3:08

to none of these on the

3:10

ballot. She

3:18

got beat by nobody. This

3:23

hasn't happened since Jesse Smollett. The

3:34

issue I was hoping we wouldn't have to be talking about at

3:36

this point, but of course we do. But

3:38

you know, I know it. You know what I'm, Baldwin's brain.

3:42

Well, a bunch of things happened this

3:44

week. First of all, he's not doing

3:46

the traditional for the president to

3:48

do the Super Bowl interview. And

3:51

people are saying, well, I can't even do the Super Bowl interview. It's not

3:53

a time. We're not asking

3:55

him to go on Dancing with

3:57

the Stars. Okay. And

4:05

then the special counsel that was

4:08

investigating the document scandal, remember the

4:10

document scandal? Trump had his documents

4:12

by the toilet and Biden

4:16

is hid by his old Corvette. Okay.

4:21

So the report comes out and this guy

4:23

who was a Trump appointee, who was a

4:25

prosecutor, was very

4:27

much like the Comey letter said, no,

4:29

no criminal charges. But then he sent

4:31

300 pages calling Biden Mr. Magoo basically.

4:35

These are the words from

4:38

the report that Biden's a

4:40

well-meaning elderly man with diminished

4:43

faculties and advancing age. Come

4:46

on. Well, I

4:51

don't want to say this thing is loaded,

4:53

but the final line of the report was,

4:55

I'm Donald Trump and I approved this message.

5:00

But,

5:02

Roe

5:05

is not helping his own cause. In

5:08

one week, first he mixed up French

5:10

President Macron with

5:13

former President Mitterrand, who died in 1996. Then

5:17

he mixed up Angela Merkel, the former

5:19

Chancellor of Germany with the late Helmut

5:21

Kohl, Chancellor of Germany. And

5:24

he said, this is all a big nothing. I just

5:26

want to watch the Super Bowl and enjoy the halftime

5:28

show with Toby Keith. And

5:40

of course, the Republicans are trying to make hay

5:42

out of this. And now they're trying to, I

5:45

love this, try to connect Hunter Biden with Joe

5:47

Biden's cognitive problems. Blackburn, she's a

5:49

Senator from Tennessee, she said, did Hunter,

5:52

did he take advantage of Joe's mental

5:54

incompetence to sell access? Yes,

5:57

like Hunter Biden's Ferris Bueller. That's what's

5:59

going on. I

6:02

sold that launch code. How's the

6:05

party? So

6:09

to put all this to rest, this didn't work

6:11

out too well either. About his

6:13

mind, Joe Biden had a press conference, kind

6:16

of impromptu press conference yesterday. Didn't

6:19

start off well. He walked in and said, why did

6:21

I come in here again? And

6:29

then in the middle of explaining that he's perfectly

6:31

fine and he doesn't mix things up, he mixed

6:33

up who the president of Egypt is, Al Sisi,

6:35

and said he was the president of Mexico. This

6:42

is like claiming in front of your wife that you're

6:44

not a cheater when the burner phone goes off. OK,

6:50

but you know what? We

6:56

knew he was old when we elected him, all right?

7:01

Joe, he's like that goldfish you get at

7:03

the fair. Don't get attached. And

7:12

who has it mixed up to presidents

7:14

of Mexico and the president of Egypt?

7:18

I was invited, the leader of Egypt, to

7:20

a dinner party when I meant to invite

7:22

the president of Mexico. I was like, oh,

7:24

hope you like tacos. All right, we've got a great show. We have Bob Costas, Caitlin Flatter,

7:26

that are here. to the free

7:28

press's new book, Akos Lugo Club, the end of race

7:31

politics arguments for a colorblind

7:40

America. Coleman Hughes is over there. Oh, my

7:42

God. Thank you, Steve. All right. Thank

7:45

you for being here. I think your book is full of great stories.

7:47

I think it's full of great stories. I think it's full of great stories. I think it's

7:49

full of great stories. I think it's full of great stories. I think

7:51

it's full of great stories. I think it's full of great stories. I

7:53

think your book is great. Thank you. Fighting.

7:56

So what's the difference? Where do we draw the line here?

7:58

Fighting racism and your book? is fighting

8:00

the politics of race, talking about the politics

8:02

of race. What is it between fighting racism

8:05

and the politics of racism? So

8:07

racism as defined by Martin Luther

8:09

King, the civil rights movement, judging

8:11

people on the basis of their race rather

8:13

than their character and so forth, that's

8:16

not what my book is against fighting.

8:18

Obviously we should all fight that, no

8:20

matter who it's directed at. Well my

8:22

book is fighting is this ideology that

8:25

really was born with critical race theory,

8:27

the adult version of critical race theory

8:29

in the 70s and 80s, and

8:31

became more popular over the past 10 years

8:34

that equates whiteness with evil,

8:37

equates blackness with a kind of

8:39

moral superiority, stereotypes, whole groups of

8:41

people, says that your race is

8:43

an essential part of who you

8:45

are and feels

8:48

even that children need

8:50

to be taught this from as young an

8:52

age as possible because they're born with the

8:54

wrong attitude about race and it needs to

8:56

be sort of hammered out of them by

8:58

separating white kids from black kids, from Hispanic

9:01

kids, putting them in different corners of the

9:03

room as was done

9:05

in my Columbia University orientation

9:07

some nine years ago. And

9:10

that the way we're going to get to the

9:12

kind of society

9:14

we want is by focusing more and more

9:16

on racial identity. In my book I say

9:19

this is nonsense, this is totally against the

9:21

spirit of the civil rights movement and that

9:23

actually the wise principle is that we should

9:25

try to treat people without regard to race

9:28

both in our personal lives and in public

9:30

policy. That

9:39

wouldn't have been controversial with any

9:41

liberal 30 or 40, 50 years ago. I mean that

9:44

is what Martin Luther

9:46

King said. What colorblind

9:49

society? I mean I thought we were all

9:51

after that and then we all weren't. And

9:53

what changed? Yeah, so even 20

9:56

years ago it wouldn't have been controversial. I grew

9:58

up in a liberal town in

10:00

Moncler, New Jersey, many people probably know it, diverse

10:02

town where, you know, we celebrated

10:05

Martin Luther King every year, we

10:07

listened to the famous speech and

10:09

got goosebumps as most

10:11

Americans do, and really believed

10:13

that. And I lived out

10:16

that dream. In other words, I had friends of

10:18

every race as a kid, and I didn't think

10:20

of them as belonging to a race. I thought

10:22

of them by their name and their attributes, right?

10:24

Around- They treated you the same way?

10:27

Yeah, for the most part, yeah. I

10:29

mean, there are exceptions, but the exceptions

10:31

prove the overwhelming rule. So,

10:34

you know, before 2013, you

10:36

can just look at polling data from

10:38

Gallup and Pew. The majority of Americans,

10:40

black, white, and Hispanic, believed race relations

10:43

were good as late as 2013, and

10:46

that's the year everything takes a nosedive, so that by 2021,

10:48

half as many

10:50

people thought we were in a good place as thought

10:52

that in 2013. So the question

10:55

is, what happened? Did racism

10:57

suddenly spike? Well, no,

10:59

the data's pretty clear on that.

11:01

Racism didn't spike. What happened is

11:03

that we all got smartphones and

11:05

social media and started seeing unrepresentative

11:07

video clips of cops harassing

11:11

or beating or killing black

11:13

Americans, and this gave

11:15

people the misperception that racism was suddenly

11:17

this widespread problem, and it touched off

11:19

all of these trends that we've now

11:22

heard about for the past eight years

11:24

under various names, the openness,

11:26

CRT, DEI, it's all fundamentally from

11:28

that core change in how information

11:31

has been shared. But part

11:33

of that was good that we did see these

11:35

beatings and things go on, because that's what changed

11:37

it. The one thing I can say is good

11:39

about it is before the Black Lives Matter movement

11:41

in 2013, cops

11:43

could basically do whatever and not get

11:46

punished. It's hard to

11:48

find even a single example. You

11:50

can find isolated ones, but mostly cops

11:52

got away with whatever. So

11:54

that's no longer the case, and that's the one thing I

11:56

could credit. And then go to jail. And

12:03

on the other hand, it has

12:05

not, many people think it just revealed all the

12:07

racism that's actually out there. That's not true, because

12:09

if that were true, people would have an accurate

12:11

assessment. And this has been tested. When you ask

12:13

very liberal Americans, how many unarmed black people do

12:16

you think are shot by the cops every year?

12:18

The answer they gave in 2019 was 1,000. The

12:22

real number from that year was 12. So

12:25

this social media algorithmically

12:27

boosted content, it's

12:30

not educating us, it's mis-educating us. I

12:33

mean, I noticed this in

12:36

my world because... I

12:39

remember, and because I have a book coming

12:41

out where I reviewed all the editorials we've

12:43

done over the entire life of this show,

12:45

I remember the editorials I did about certain

12:47

subjects that now I could not do

12:49

because they change, like black people aren't

12:51

seen in media. Well, plainly that's not

12:53

true anymore. Cops,

12:56

I was very rough on the cops. They

12:59

never get punished for what they do, whatever, that's

13:01

not true anymore. Let

13:04

me read the stats that you were kind

13:06

of alluding to. First time in American history, most

13:08

white people live in mixed-race neighborhoods. First

13:10

time ever, and are not unhappy about it.

13:14

Seventy percent of married black adults are

13:16

married to someone from another race. Eighty

13:21

percent of black employees say

13:23

their environment at work is excellent or good and

13:26

find it welcoming. You

13:28

know, the problem I find on the

13:31

left is that you're not allowed to be happy

13:33

about progress. Yeah,

13:35

because when you're saying

13:37

the word generally, and the point is, it's

13:40

no work to do, but I heard Eddie

13:42

Murphy was getting a big award, I think

13:45

it's the GRIO Awards, and he said, it was very

13:47

refreshing, you never hear people say things like that. He

13:49

said, when I started in the business 47 years

13:52

ago, he said there was like

13:54

two shows on TV that had black people in

13:56

it. He said, Neep no

14:00

directors, no producers, few

14:02

writers, no makeup people.

14:04

He said, now we got all that. Okay.

14:08

We're not saying we're done. But I

14:10

mean, I don't get

14:12

this attitude. I mean, Robin D'Angelo,

14:15

you mentioned DEI, the two authors, Ken

14:17

D, I think, right? Abraham X, Ken

14:19

D and Robin, the two primary

14:21

authors where people are getting a lot of

14:23

this information or this attitude

14:25

about race. And her

14:27

quote was last year, I think she wrote,

14:29

I think people of color need to get

14:32

away from white people and

14:34

have some community with it. Get away

14:36

from white people, you know, that's most,

14:38

I think white people at this point, obviously

14:41

there's assholes everywhere and will always be, just

14:43

like to always be criminals. But I think

14:45

they want to be allies. And I

14:47

certainly have always tried to be that and want to be

14:49

that, but that's just not cool.

14:51

You know, we can get away from

14:53

white people. I

14:56

noticed, socially,

14:58

I noticed when I was an undergrad at

15:01

Columbia, I was literally

15:03

a thousand times more likely to be talking to

15:05

a white person that was kind of like afraid

15:07

to disagree with me or would want to defer

15:09

to me because I'm black than to, than what

15:12

my grandfather or even my

15:14

father would have potentially faced, which is a

15:16

kind of exclusion because you're

15:18

black, right? We've come a long way in this country.

15:20

When I was a kid, it

15:22

was very normal to see black people on

15:24

television to the point where it wouldn't even

15:26

be remarked upon. And we have

15:29

to claim that territory. But unfortunately, what

15:31

I call the neo-racist movement in the

15:33

book, this new woke

15:35

philosophy about race, essentially it wants to

15:37

deny that any progress has been made.

15:40

And anything, the really dishonest part

15:42

about it is that anything it

15:44

claims is too hard to achieve, the

15:47

moment it's actually achieved, that just becomes

15:49

a pocketed game. So I

15:51

think many people notice this with the election

15:53

of Barack Obama. Two years before it

15:55

happened, anyone you ask would say, no, there's no

15:57

way he'll get elected. The country's too racist. That

16:00

was their model of America. That model

16:02

was falsified when he won resounding victories

16:04

twice in a row. But people didn't

16:06

update the model and say, well, maybe

16:08

that's meaningful. They immediately pivoted to saying,

16:11

well, actually, that thing we saw was

16:13

impossible. It happens, but it didn't mean

16:15

anything. Right? People did this as

16:17

well. And they shut out people like you. Right.

16:19

I mean, have you ever been on MSNBC? I

16:21

have not. OK. I

16:24

mean, come on, man. Not you, them. I

16:26

mean, I mean, well, come on. I mean,

16:28

what? Didn't you have a TED

16:30

talk that they wouldn't

16:32

show? Yeah,

16:36

I mean, truth it. I'm not

16:38

viewed as an acceptable voice at many places

16:41

like this. And MSNBC is not going to

16:43

be super friendly to my perspective. Shouldn't

16:46

their audience just hear it? Sure. I

16:49

mean, you're not a crazy person. The vast

16:51

majority of people in these audiences are fine

16:53

listening to me and disagreeing with me. It's

16:56

a heckling 5 percent that

16:59

made my TED talk problematic,

17:01

for example, and people caving

17:04

to that 5 percent who's saying

17:06

they've literally said things like, I

17:08

make them feel unsafe. Now, I don't know how

17:10

you are all receiving me in this room, but

17:14

I'm pretty mild. You're very

17:16

mild. And quite important. Thank

17:19

you. Well,

17:21

the last thing I'll say about this is

17:23

the Democrats are down 20 points

17:26

from three years ago with party

17:28

affiliation among African-Americans, 20 points

17:31

in three years among the group

17:33

that they rely on to win

17:35

elections. When

17:38

is that going to dawn on them? If you're

17:40

in a hole, stop digging, maybe. Democrats.

17:43

I mean, would you attribute that large

17:46

drop to this kind of? I

17:49

don't know what I mean. It

17:51

could be a number of things. One, it

17:53

could be the fact that Biden is just

17:55

struggling visibly. It could be the fact that

17:57

with all the indictments. But this is party

17:59

affiliation. Right on el nio biden. Yeah!

18:02

Yeah. Mean it could be many factors

18:04

a me I think African americans as.

18:06

Democrats. Are the more conservative

18:08

block of the Democratic party correct? The

18:11

even at the height of the summers?

18:13

Twenty Twenty One. At the whole

18:15

country was in a hysteria around the

18:17

police right? Eighty percent of Black Americans

18:20

polled by Gallup said they wanted either

18:22

the same police presence or more in

18:24

their neighbors. So it is anything. go

18:26

down the line, immigration, etc. The

18:29

Black Americans did. The spokesman for Black

18:31

American that you might find on Msnbc

18:34

is going to betray the whole as

18:36

as his radical progressive. A. Population

18:38

It's It's never been that and

18:40

I think the Democratic party should

18:42

realize that hey hey hey hey

18:44

hey. We're all.

18:47

Whoa Whoa Whoa. A

18:53

whole. New.

19:05

As a collection assault on thinking

19:07

to yourself as they education is

19:09

essential. Caitlin Flanagan. Back with this.

19:15

Area is a Cnn contributor and twenty

19:17

nine time Emmy winning broadcaster. What? The

19:19

Mlb and at Tnt is worse. As

19:22

like the immortal Bob Costas. I'm

19:30

the same side as we are no less

19:32

than ten months away from the election. well

19:34

as a little scary. The

19:37

issue, as I said I most wanted to avoid, died

19:39

in his brain. Now,

19:43

when our first show back after the

19:45

strike six months ago, my first editor

19:47

I was called Ruth Bader Biden. I

19:49

said he is going to be Ruth

19:51

Bader. Ginsburg have Presidential politics Now I

19:53

see Andrew Sullivan is saying that. I

19:56

think people get that idea. You.

19:58

stay too long at the fair and brought this

20:00

up to bubbling up this week

20:02

as I said went to the Super Bowl interview

20:04

which is not a hard one mixing

20:07

up all the world leaders and then

20:09

this report that came out now this

20:12

report issued by special counsel Robert Herr

20:14

you know him I'm taught him 11th

20:16

grade English but I don't hold

20:18

myself responsible. You taught

20:20

him 11th grade English? Yeah at Harvard School.

20:25

Well he's a big trumper is he? I

20:27

had not realized that until yesterday

20:29

sometimes I lose track of my

20:32

my flock. This

20:40

is the report about taking

20:42

class of IW you're not supposed to do that. Trump did

20:44

it and of course it was such a goopish and gallant

20:48

thing with the two of them. Trump was like

20:50

oh they're mine I can keep them I didn't

20:52

do anything wrong. Biden was like okay you're right

20:54

you got me I'm sorry I didn't mean to

20:56

do it but here's the Republicans are brilliant at

20:58

using this is a little bit like the Comey

21:00

letter a little like the Starr report. Here's

21:03

what Robert Herr your old student says he

21:06

said he's not going to prosecute because

21:09

Mr. Biden he

21:12

couldn't convince a jury that Mr. Biden was

21:14

guilty of a felony that required a mental

21:16

state of willfulness. The

21:19

way they're using this to Mr.

21:21

Biden would likely present himself to a

21:24

jury as he did during our interviews

21:26

with him as a sympathetic well-meaning elderly

21:28

man with a poor memory. Now

21:31

maybe he is that but

21:33

wow. And so much more. He is

21:36

those things we know he

21:38

is those things but as I taught

21:41

Robert and so many other students fortunate

21:43

that to be benefit from my tutelage

21:46

when writing. The

21:50

most important thing in an essay

21:52

is we keep related ideas together.

21:54

So Robert the assignment is should

21:56

criminal charges be issued for this

21:59

thing not. Can you

22:01

give us an armchair neurological report?

22:04

And you have to get it. So... What?

22:10

What? What? What?

22:16

What? What?

22:20

What? What?

22:24

What? What?

22:28

What? What

22:30

does it mean it isn't true? Right. What?

23:28

What? Because

23:58

I still think you can do it. at the

24:00

convention. I don't, and

24:02

people have said to me, oh, that's ridiculous, they'll

24:04

look like nothing. Nobody gives a fuck what you

24:07

do at the convention. They'd

24:09

be thrilled if they did it the day before the

24:11

election. You

24:13

could switch him out at the convention. You

24:15

could. And he could say, well, look, I've

24:17

had a health issue or whatever, I wanna spend

24:19

more time. In the sense that because he didn't really have to

24:21

run much during the primaries, he doesn't have delegates to

24:24

give to someone else that the party would

24:26

come together and say. Well, if a guy

24:28

says, I can't run. Then

24:31

you have to do it. Then it has

24:33

to be somebody else. That it's an open

24:35

convention. We've had open conventions many times. Different

24:37

scenario, long time ago, but when Johnson in

24:39

March, after a close primary with Eugene McCarthy

24:41

in New Hampshire, when Johnson said,

24:43

I'm not gonna run for another term, then

24:46

Humphrey stepped up, RFK, a tragedy

24:48

ensued, he stepped up, there's plenty

24:51

of time. They make it

24:53

up as they go along anyway. It's call or take.

24:56

I like it. All

24:59

right, so. Let's

25:01

get to real news about this, which is

25:03

happening in the courts. Courts

25:06

is gonna be everything in this election. Remember

25:08

when Bush said, I'm the decider? The

25:11

courts are the decider. That's who

25:13

the decider. Federal's appeals court this

25:15

week strongly rejected Trump's claim that

25:19

he had absolute immunity to do anything

25:21

as president, including kill people. Like they

25:23

really, okay. Well, they do

25:25

have that immunity, but it has to be through an act

25:27

of war and they don't have them, they can't do it

25:29

themselves. You can't just be immune

25:31

for breaking laws all over America because

25:34

you're the president. And

25:37

during the time of war, you don't get to

25:39

kill a political opponent within the United States. No,

25:41

no, no. As far as we know.

25:43

No, you get to kill the enemy, right. But that

25:45

kind of is a slow moving coup here, is the

25:47

courts, because we may not even get to see, I

25:49

rant about this last week, so I'm not gonna do

25:51

it two weeks in a row, but we may not

25:53

even get the big trial. I

25:57

tried to overthrow the government trial because the

25:59

court. moving too slow about it, so

26:01

fuck them. Okay. Second

26:04

one, the

26:06

Supreme Court. The

26:10

Supreme Court are about to rule, and it

26:12

looks like it's going to go in Trump's favor, about

26:14

whether individual states can bar someone for

26:17

running under the Insurrection Act, because January

26:19

6th. Now, look, even people

26:21

who do not want Trump to be president,

26:23

and I think that's everybody at this table,

26:25

many of those people, including myself, I must

26:28

say, not opposed to this ruling, because I

26:31

just don't think this is the way you can do

26:33

it. First of all, it's a little murky whether that

26:35

January 6th was an insurrection. It certainly was a riot.

26:37

It was a bunch of, a lot

26:40

of those people, some of them were definitely

26:42

there to stop that election. A lot of

26:44

them were just like, oh, good, Trump, I

26:47

love him, and ooh, the Capitol's open now.

26:54

And half

26:57

the country has not

26:59

been convinced by an impeachment trial,

27:01

the January 6th committee, a

27:04

lot of the media being, they're not convinced. If

27:07

they do this, if they bar

27:09

Trump from running, or if he loses the election

27:11

because he couldn't run in two states, this will

27:13

become the norm. Yeah. Of course.

27:15

Then the next time it's going to be the Democrats, they're

27:17

going to find a reason to do that. So that's the

27:19

other big real news about that. I think we have

27:21

to remember that, we have

27:24

to remember who we are. I mean, I say something that

27:26

my son hates it when I say it, but my

27:28

new slogan is America, let's finish strong.

27:30

Like, let's remember, if we're close enough

27:33

shop, let's remember who we were and

27:35

how we got to be.

27:37

And you can call our

27:40

phones when the parking ends, maybe in

27:42

my own lifetime, we can say, but

27:44

we came from that place that

27:46

made that thing, that made parts of the whole

27:48

world free and that anywhere in the world that's

27:50

free and people have liberty and

27:53

they can't be thrown in jail without

27:55

charges or anything. We did that. We

27:57

thought of that. the

28:00

darkness of the legal merits, and

28:03

as Bill said, it's murky of

28:05

any of these situations. The

28:07

behavior itself, as Chris Christie said,

28:09

leave aside what may be decided

28:12

in the vagaries of constitutional

28:14

interpretations or a given

28:16

circumstance. The behavior itself,

28:19

until pre-Trump, we

28:21

universally agree. This behavior

28:23

is abhorrent. We wound

28:26

up in this place, and

28:29

unfortunately, unfortunately,

28:31

the MAGA cult, which

28:34

is a coalition of the brainless

28:36

and when it comes to fellow

28:38

Republicans, the spineless, that coalition is

28:42

not going away. They want, for

28:44

the time being, Trump. Biden

28:47

stepped aside tomorrow, there wouldn't be a

28:49

bunch of Democratic voters going, oh please,

28:51

please stop. Your friend Gavin

28:54

Newsom, Gavin Newsom who's

28:56

a very charismatic and dynamic guy,

28:59

but he's being disingenuous when he makes

29:01

an articulate case for Biden

29:03

and then says, I just don't understand

29:06

why this hasn't landed. Yes, you do,

29:08

Gavin, because Biden can't utter one sentence

29:10

of the five perfect paragraphs you just

29:13

put together. He not

29:15

only can't make, not

29:18

only can he not make the case

29:20

for himself, he cannot prosecute in the

29:22

court of public opinion the case against

29:24

Trump. And what needs to happen here

29:26

isn't a narrow victory, which is the

29:29

best Biden can hope for. Trump and

29:31

what he represents must be repudiated. Not

29:33

conservatism or Republicanism. MAGA

29:35

must be repudiated, and Biden ain't the man for

29:37

that job. No one's going to do

29:40

that. Gavin Newsom is

29:42

not going to do that either. You

29:44

know, you're a country nation. We

29:48

live here, right? We live in California.

29:51

I was born here. In

29:53

Oakland they have, Kaiser Hospital, where

29:55

my pediatrician was, the

29:57

hospital put out notice last week, employed

30:00

are not to leave for lunch. It's

30:02

too dangerous in downtown Oakland. That's on

30:04

him. Our homeless problem, I

30:06

don't want to hear that the homeless problem is

30:08

intractable. You want to be CEO? It's your problem.

30:10

It's your debt. I

30:13

know you like it, but I just think I

30:17

can't imagine him being, having

30:20

the gall to run, to relieve this country

30:22

when he's run this state into the ground.

30:24

And we just had Governor Brown not that

30:26

long ago, Oakland was safe. Things were going

30:28

on. It's not good.

30:30

It's not, he looks very shiny,

30:35

but he's not a straight shooter. And

30:37

he's not willing to do the hard things

30:39

to make this state better. And that's his

30:41

only job. He doesn't realize that. He thinks

30:43

it's to go sing Kumbaya with a former

30:45

marvelette at New College of Florida to make

30:47

some vague points. Meanwhile, back

30:49

in our state, people are dying

30:52

in these encampments. Well, I'm hoping

30:54

that running nationally will bring him

30:56

more to the center. It's Valentine's

30:58

Day this coming. Are you excited?

31:14

I don't know if you remember, there was something

31:16

during the pandemic that happened called quiet quitting, or

31:18

maybe it happened even before, but

31:20

people were quitting their workplace. Not

31:22

really, not actually quitting, just doing

31:25

the minimum where you were there.

31:27

This country's so passive aggressive. It

31:29

really is. So now I, listen, I

31:32

read this, I guess, where was this in Glamour magazine

31:34

or something? On my subscription

31:36

left. There

31:39

is now something called quiet quitting

31:41

in your relationship. Okay.

31:43

How did, yeah, how did it tell if your partner

31:45

is quiet quitting? I love this. Some

31:48

of the ways, look at some of the ways.

31:50

Do we have these here? They deliberately spend time

31:52

apart from you. They're

31:54

not interested in what you're up to. They

31:57

don't bother to argue with you. And

32:02

those are absolutely all the ways. Oh

32:06

no, I'm sorry, we have some other ways. I'm sorry,

32:08

there are other ones. Would you like to hear the

32:10

other ones? I'm sorry. I

32:13

forgot. Okay, like you have

32:15

dinner by phone light. The

32:21

only time you're in the shower together is to wash

32:24

the dog. He's

32:26

so brave. His

32:30

favorite sex position is reverse mortgage.

32:40

Whenever you try to get intimate, she says, not

32:42

tonight I have long COVID. You

32:49

get home and find a path of rose petals

32:51

that circle through the house and back out to

32:54

your car. And

33:02

you text, I love you, they text back, Kay. When

33:10

you start choking at dinner, he chants, come

33:12

on, chicken bone. And

33:19

she always finds an

33:22

excuse to be in

33:24

another wing of Mar-a-Lago.

33:26

Okay, so of

33:30

course, the biggest Valentine's story is

33:32

Taylor Swift at the Super Bowl. And Bob,

33:34

you've covered many Super Bowls. I

33:37

have hesitated to cover Taylor Swift like it's a

33:40

national news story, but I swear to God, after

33:43

all my years of experience doing this, this

33:46

is a national news story in the sense that

33:48

this is a person who could literally

33:50

swing the election. I

33:53

don't know what that says

33:55

about this country, but I

33:58

would just say to the MAGA people, you should be ready to do it. very

34:00

careful attacking her because this is someone who transcends

34:02

parties. I mean this is a country girl, right?

34:04

Her first, she started out as a country artist.

34:07

This is a white girl from

34:09

Pennsylvania, I think, grew up on a farm, right?

34:13

Never had a black boyfriend. This

34:16

thing has had a- There's time? There's

34:18

time, but I think she's had a lot of

34:21

boyfriends that we all know about. You

34:24

know, if a maggot's full of racists, they

34:26

gotta like that, you know? She's

34:29

finally dated an NFL, it's 80% black, she

34:31

couldn't find one there. Anyway,

34:37

I'm

34:39

not criticizing anybody for anything. I'm

34:42

just saying, this is somebody you

34:44

could really get in trouble with

34:46

as far as attacking for a

34:48

maggot because Trump's people, they're already

34:50

registered and voting for him. Her

34:53

voters, perhaps, are not registered at all.

34:55

She doesn't have to say who she's voting for.

34:57

All she has to say is get

35:00

registered. They know who she's voting for.

35:02

It's not changing minds, it's turnout. Right.

35:04

Right. So, I

35:07

think you could be awake, sleeping

35:10

until the afternoon giant here. If you

35:15

see the Republican guy

35:18

who had the perfect answer, all right, think and

35:21

have Taylor Swift. We've got, who

35:23

do we have? Who's the

35:25

cat scratch fever guy? Ted Nugent. We

35:28

got Ted Nugent, etc, etc. Yeah. We

35:35

got Kid Rock, we got Ted

35:37

Nugent, and Ted Nugent says Taylor

35:39

Swift has no substance. This

35:42

is the guy who wrote Jailbait and

35:44

Cat Scratch Fever. Every

35:47

time he hears one of these

35:49

songs, Bob Dylan says, why didn't

35:52

I send the guy?

35:55

Anything on Taylor Swift?

35:57

Yeah. I

36:06

mean obviously she's an amazing

36:08

young woman. I just

36:10

don't know anybody who hasn't made up their

36:12

mind in this election no matter who. Oh

36:15

but she, but turnout. Turnout, you think? That's

36:17

the thing, turnout. She could get so many

36:19

people who are not registered. That demographic

36:23

is the one that is untapped

36:26

and, you know, go tailing.

36:29

So don't you think, seeing as maybe

36:31

we can get a few more years out of this

36:33

country, wouldn't it be good if

36:35

we had something like this Super Bowl,

36:37

like Thanksgiving, you know, everybody says, oh

36:39

I want Indigenous people today, but when

36:41

you go the week before Thanksgiving, everyone's

36:44

in the supermarket buying the turkey. Isn't

36:46

it good that as we ease out of

36:48

the world stage in the national sense that

36:51

we remember some things that we can all

36:53

like. We like Taylor Swift. We

36:56

like Thanksgiving. Let's make somebody

36:58

untrained by our insidious houses.

37:02

It's about the turkey, huh? Yeah, it's about the

37:05

turkey. Okay,

37:07

all right. Next

37:09

issue. You're

37:11

here. There's an issue about

37:13

the Olympics this week. Nobody is more

37:15

associated with the Olympics than, probably, than

37:18

Caitlyn Jenner, Bruce Jenner. But that's

37:20

sort of what ties in here.

37:24

Well, it does. Because Leah Thomas, this is

37:26

the transgender swimmer, she's been much in the

37:28

news the

37:31

last few years, she is suing to compete

37:34

in the Olympics because they prohibit trans

37:36

people from

37:38

competing unless they transition before the age of

37:40

12, which probably

37:42

is not many of them. Not

37:45

yet, anyway. Probably a couple

37:47

of Olympics down the road, there might be more

37:49

athletes then. Right. Anyway,

37:52

Leah Thomas, in the 2018-29

37:55

season, she was... in

38:00

college for Penn, for the

38:02

Penn's men's team, who was on the men's team.

38:05

In the three big ones, she came in 554th, 65th,

38:08

and 32nd. So

38:11

not terrible, but mediocre.

38:14

Now as a woman, first openly transgender,

38:17

she won. Of course, number one. One

38:19

on some meets, not

38:22

others. She's much better relatively in competition

38:24

with women. She's not really at the

38:26

top across the board. OK,

38:29

but she's the first one to win

38:32

an NCAA division national championship. And

38:35

I mean, obviously a lot of people are saying, is it

38:37

fair? Is it fair to

38:39

make some women biologically to compete against

38:41

someone in the Summer Olympics who was

38:44

the opposite sex in the Winter Olympics? Without

38:48

getting too deep into this, people may not realize this.

38:50

The individual federations that govern these

38:52

sports make up their own rules.

38:54

So world aquatics may have different

38:57

rules than FIFA or

38:59

the Track and Field Association.

39:01

So I understand that when

39:03

it comes to Olympic boxing,

39:05

that federation will allow trans

39:07

women to compete against

39:10

biological women, at

39:12

birth, biological women. That seems crazy.

39:14

And you don't want to be

39:16

called, it's not transphobic, to say

39:19

let's inject some common sense here.

39:21

A lot of this is murky.

39:23

And we don't want, we

39:27

know that some people who

39:29

use this as an issue

39:32

actually are hostile toward trans

39:34

people or people who, every

39:37

carefully considered decision at a certain

39:39

point in life, decide that

39:41

they'll be happier and closer to their

39:44

true selves. I think any sensitive person

39:46

is aligned with that. But Sugar

39:48

Ray Leonard didn't fight Mike Tyson. They

39:50

were contemporary. Sugar Ray was a welterweight.

39:52

Mike was a heavyweight. If

39:55

someday the best player in the

39:57

WNBA can play in the NBA, everybody

39:59

would applaud. But if the worst guy

40:01

at the end of the bench on the worst

40:03

team in the NBA went to the WNBA and

40:06

averaged 40 points a game, everybody knows that's bullshit.

40:08

So what's

40:13

the answer for a trans

40:15

athlete? What's the answer? A separate division?

40:19

Well, I don't think you want just trans

40:21

athletes competing against other trans athletes. They're going

40:23

to have to codify rules that I'm not

40:25

prepared to say exactly what those rules would

40:27

entail, but they'll have to codify

40:29

them so you don't have a hodgepodge. If you

40:31

want to compete, and you're saying you can't compete

40:34

in the men's division, then what other answer is

40:36

there? An open division.

40:39

But I think that we have to

40:41

remember, you know, these kind of extreme cases I hate

40:43

that we have to talk about them so much, because

40:45

it makes, we have to say things that are

40:47

cruel or hurtful in some people. But,

40:50

you know, women's and girls' sports, they weren't

40:52

created as separate from men's and boys because

40:55

of some weird gendered thing, like they have

40:57

to wear pink and they have to wear

40:59

blue. They're that way because of the profound

41:01

sex differences between the sex groups. And

41:04

so, you know,

41:07

we don't hear

41:09

about any trans male

41:12

athletes on a D1 basketball team, and,

41:14

you know, it's the men, excuse me,

41:17

the trans women who seem to

41:19

be using a natural advantage

41:21

that comes from sex-linked traits. You

41:23

know, we, women, we can't compete.

41:26

But it might not be. At some

41:28

point down the road, if it's

41:30

codified, and if you take the

41:33

hormone, the transition hormones, and balance

41:35

that out, and maybe that happens

41:37

either before puberty or only shortly

41:39

after, because even if you begin

41:41

that hormone therapy, you

41:43

retain some of the advantages that generally go

41:46

with being a man. Greater lung capacity, greater

41:48

strength, et cetera, et cetera. Leah Thomas certainly

41:50

does. So they're going to have to codify

41:52

it. In 1996 at

41:54

the Olympics, I dubbed that Olympics the

41:56

first Title IX Olympics because it's

41:58

the first generation. after the 1972 Title

42:00

IX legislation, which

42:03

was progressive in the best sense of

42:06

that word. I had a younger sister.

42:08

She never played a single organized sport.

42:10

I wasn't the greatest athlete, but I

42:12

played lots of them. One generation later,

42:15

my son and my daughter played roughly

42:17

equal numbers of organized sports. That's a

42:19

really good thing. Thank you. Thank

42:21

you. Thank you. Thank

42:23

you. You ready? We

42:26

don't want to be cruel or punitive

42:28

towards someone who is

42:30

trying to deal with a circumstance. But

42:33

at the same time, we can't throw common

42:35

sense out the window. Finally,

42:37

this is also big precedent

42:41

making news. First time a parent was

42:43

found guilty of involuntary manslaughter because of

42:45

something the kid did. Jennifer

42:48

Crumley's the woman's name. It was in

42:50

Michigan. Her son Ethan, mass

42:53

shooting in the school, did what a lot of kids do

42:55

these days, shot up a bunch of kids and school killed

42:57

four of them. But here's the details

43:00

that I guess influenced the

43:02

court. They bought him

43:04

the gun. Why any kid

43:06

needs a gun under 18, I don't know.

43:10

But he had texted his mom that he was

43:12

seeing demons. His journal

43:14

said, I have zero help with my mental problems.

43:16

It's going to cause me to shoot up the

43:18

school. I mean, he turned

43:21

in a math. There's a math

43:23

homework with pictures of

43:26

blood on it. The thoughts won't stop.

43:28

Help me. Blood everywhere. My life is

43:30

useless. Is this

43:32

prosecutorial overreach or is this, I

43:35

think it's a good precedent. I think parenting,

43:39

somebody has to say, yes, it's not against

43:41

the law to be a shitty parent, but

43:43

there are limits. The alarm

43:52

Bells here were very loud and they

43:55

were very persistent. People who have much

43:57

more expertise than I do, however, Look

44:00

spectacular. Cases often. Have.

44:03

Affects as precedents down the line in

44:05

cases that will never be on the

44:08

news and perhaps that establishes a bad

44:10

precedent. Been if just looking at this

44:12

particular circumstance, I mean, how could you

44:15

possibly be more than negligent than this?

44:17

because it is a good as far.

44:20

As a father as long as he

44:22

saw me and you know and and

44:25

the mother he texted the mother and

44:27

the mother texted back about the guns.

44:29

She got him the guns in rub

44:32

at teacher gao counted. The. Mother

44:34

texted L a well I'm not mad at

44:36

you. You have to learn not to get

44:38

caught. First of all, that's good news. First

44:40

of all, don't be texting your kid. Talk.

44:43

To your damn cake. Or

44:45

got over. There was all

44:48

high elo. Karma.

44:57

Hotter? Get stuck inside one of those com

45:00

A shame. He

45:02

must be left in their. Local

45:06

A Snow Fire Department. Those are my

45:08

tax dollars. You're

45:14

the one. A lost sight of your kid long enough.

45:16

From the climb inside I'm ashamed. Get a roll of

45:18

quarters and when I'm back. As

45:23

far as what we're talking about heroes,

45:25

I'm asking me to prove I'm not

45:27

a robot. I'm

45:31

not a Blade Runner trying to hunt down

45:33

and escape replicant from off world. Order

45:37

some socks. Of:

45:39

I don't recognize a stop sign. That doesn't mean

45:42

I'm an Android, it just means. Just

45:44

means I drive an Ally. This

45:53

one goes out to Lucy the Tennessee

45:55

Fit. So who's here? It looks like

45:57

a cell saying ah, Get

46:00

over yourself. This. Girl

46:08

dominant are trillion dollar defense industry us

46:10

and tell me why Whenever there's a

46:12

Russian incursion in Alaska they're playing. Looks

46:15

like it came from nineteen thirty eight.

46:20

And from selling we the Chinese have

46:22

some jessica blow the doors off of

46:24

ours. Boeing already does that. All.

46:32

The measures are those them pick must come

46:34

up with the opposite drugs one that makes

46:37

you want to eat more. So

46:40

we can give it to our metrosexual movie

46:42

stars. Yes,

46:45

interesting owes them pig. When

46:54

I was once was young actors who play

46:56

action heroes that would clearly lose in a

46:58

fistfight with Jennifer Lawrence. And.

47:05

Finally, you know if you run for office

47:07

in America, you have to want to live

47:10

here. I bring this up because there was

47:12

a video that made the rounds recently by

47:14

woman who said she was a proud progressive

47:16

in was running for State representative in New

47:18

Hampshire and yet posted this. Is there

47:20

a place? We can move that

47:23

people would. Be happy to have

47:25

a set were not gentrifying or colonizing.

47:27

I don't want to be a problem.

47:29

But I need to get the fuck out of this country.

47:34

That the fuck outta this country. One

47:37

you want to be elected to a leadership

47:39

position is what was your campaign slogan. America

47:42

shining shit hole on a held. Hostage

47:51

to separate a pretend they like what they do.

47:56

Swinging a prostitute last August, Donald.

48:04

Burger, who was remarking on the

48:06

great sacrifice he's made by offering

48:08

himself up as our President again

48:10

by saying. I could have

48:12

been relaxing at Mara ago or and

48:14

the south of France which I would

48:16

prefer being in this country. Franklin's Again,

48:19

I'm confused by this political message. Vote

48:21

for me because I hated here. Now

48:25

does America have big problems?

48:27

Yes, I've often cited the

48:29

America Sox list things like

48:31

being fifty fourth in the

48:33

world, an infant mortality behind

48:36

Cuba nineteenth, and literacy behind

48:38

Russia seventy second. In. Female

48:40

representation and government behind a rak.

48:42

Lot of work to do here.

48:44

And. Is it possible for a country to lose

48:47

itself so much. That. Leaving it

48:49

is justified. Yes, But

48:51

we're not there yet. not by a long shot.

48:53

If you don't need quitters, Cdc

48:56

has. He.

49:00

Hated a problem. Isn't that. America isn't

49:02

worth defending. Maybe. The problem is that

49:05

lots of people today are entitled whiners who

49:07

have no perspective and no idea how good

49:09

they have it. says.

49:15

He lies or santa self identified

49:17

liberal side. There have been times

49:19

when they considered leaving America for

49:21

good. Like. After Nbc cancelled

49:23

the West Wing, I

49:28

don't get it. You want so badly for

49:30

every immigrant to come to this country and

49:32

experience the good life, but somehow it so

49:34

terrible you want to leave. And

49:37

I see conservatives in Texas are talking

49:40

secession against have to bumper stickers in

49:42

that state America love it or leave

49:44

it and we're leaving it. Just

49:54

like this is, there's a long

49:56

list of liberal celebrities who swear

49:59

they'll go. A republican is

50:01

elected and no one ever does.

50:04

Miley Cyrus when said I am moving of

50:07

Trump is my President I don't say things

50:09

I don't mean. Here. She is

50:11

looking miserable. Have are you endure America?

50:14

Grammys last are no. Idea.

50:22

Who you are I guess he flew back from physique

50:24

a stand. And

50:27

twenty sixteen Eddie Griffin said if

50:30

Trump wins I'm moving to Africa

50:32

currently very slowly because and from

50:34

his four years the only got

50:36

as far as been nice. George

50:40

Lopez. one says it a from one.

50:42

he won't have to worry about immigration.

50:45

Will all go back. George Lopez still

50:47

here. And

50:49

it doesn't reflect the migrant traffic is going.

50:52

Back. Then is

50:54

all the tick tock telling Americans things

50:56

like. I

50:58

think the new American dream he doesn't have. An

51:01

eating disorder? Nice States America is

51:03

a half. Yeah. Yeah,

51:07

you don't have to escape America. That wall

51:09

were always debating isn't to keep you in.

51:17

The New Republic just ran a story

51:19

about these vulnerable minorities. a wonderfully America

51:22

including the author: a gay man trapped

51:24

in the dystopian homophobic house. Gay but

51:26

his New York City. I

51:30

wonder if he knows it? There are sixty

51:32

six countries were just being gay. Is

51:35

a crime. Cute cute story

51:37

in the news last month. Burundi's

51:42

president called on his citizens to

51:44

stone gay people and not and

51:46

a good way. wow

51:50

suddenly be don't say gay law

51:52

doesn't sound all that class and

51:54

uganda hope they don't just give

51:57

you a ticket for parking in

51:59

the rear You

52:03

can get the death penalty for it. In

52:05

China they have the death penalty for almost

52:08

50 crimes. And

52:10

in 13 countries, atheism is punishable by

52:12

death and 61 imposed restrictions

52:15

on women's clothing so bring a scar.

52:20

According to Amnesty International, paramilitary

52:22

groups killed the government's critics

52:24

in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela

52:27

and arbitrary detentions are widespread

52:29

in Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador,

52:31

Nicaragua. If you're wondering how

52:34

that's just like no cash

52:36

bail, it's not. In

52:46

Russia, just referring to the war in Ukraine

52:48

as a war can get you 15 years

52:51

in the fabulous prisons made famous by some

52:53

of the world's most famous novels. You

52:58

think America's evil because we didn't nominate Margot Robbie

53:01

for an Oscar? Just wait till you get thrown

53:03

out the window of your very own dream house.

53:12

Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Sudan still cut

53:14

the hands off of Thebes so if

53:16

you're coming from San Francisco, do your

53:18

shoplifting at home. And

53:24

you might also want to do your protesting

53:26

before you go because protesters are only shot

53:28

in lots of places. Gosh, it almost seems

53:30

like the world is full of suffering and

53:33

tolerance and oppression on a scale we can't

53:35

imagine. But that can't be true because if

53:37

it was, we'd be protesting it. It must

53:39

only happen in Israel. And

53:49

if for your exile, you do

53:51

wind up in some comparatively luxurious

53:53

place like Canada or Japan or

53:55

the UK, not that they want

53:57

you. At

54:00

best, you'll be trading a bunch of stuff

54:02

you hate about this country for a bunch

54:04

of stuff you'll soon hate about your new

54:06

home. It took me

54:08

only four days in Amsterdam to learn that

54:10

while I admire Amsterdam, I don't want to

54:13

live there. The

54:16

buildings are cramped and shaped like needles.

54:20

The food is awful. The TV's in

54:23

a different language. It's wet

54:25

and cold. The people are polite but

54:27

cold, and they do a bunch of

54:29

weird shit. The explanation for,

54:31

according to my friend, was, just

54:33

remember they're high. Italy

54:43

always makes the list of great expat destinations

54:46

because of all those stories on CNN about

54:48

how you can buy a house in a

54:50

quaint Italian village for a dollar. Except

54:52

it's not a house in the way we think of

54:55

one as a structure with plumbing and electricity and a

54:57

roof. When

54:59

these places were built, the Leaning Tower of Pisa

55:02

was still straight. Here

55:09

you can spend a hundred grand to make

55:11

them livable, and I'm sure it's no problem to

55:14

find reliable workmen in rural Italy who you'll

55:16

then fall in love with like in Under

55:18

the Tuscan Sun. But

55:24

now you're living in some dinky village in Italy

55:26

with nothing to do but watch the old guys

55:29

play that game with the wooden ball. And

55:36

have you ever seen

55:38

the Eurovision Song Contest? They actually listen

55:41

to that crap. Look,

55:43

everywhere in the world, I'm sure, seems

55:46

great, when you haven't lived there. I

55:49

hear people tell me Costa Rica is beautiful. I'm

55:51

sure it is. You'll Also get bitten

55:53

by a snake on the flight over. The

56:03

gravel site Lonely Planet described Sri

56:05

Lanka as endless beaches, timeless ruins,

56:07

welcoming people, and if you love

56:09

child marriage, food shortages, and the

56:12

strictest abortion laws in the world,

56:14

Sri Lanka could be right for

56:16

yeah, talking. Have.

56:20

A whole have a role model for an

56:22

a month of my third and Anthony said

56:24

I'm so. Far as

56:26

well I say worry about his. House.

56:41

Of the former overhaul mobile

56:43

home a lot of Move

56:46

Move Move. Move. Move

56:48

Not going to H B O. Com.