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Real Time with Bill Maher – S19E10 [Transcript]

Air date: March 26, 2021. Monologue: Whatever Floats Your Boat. New Rule: Beware the Roaring 20's. The Interview: Christopher Krebs. The Panel: Caitlin Flanagan.
Real Time with Bill Maher - S19E10

Real Time with Bill Maher
Season 19 Episode 10
Air date: March 26, 2021

Monologue: Whatever Floats Your Boat

New Rule: Beware the Roaring 20’s

The Interview: Christopher Krebs is the former Director of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and founding partner at Krebs Stamos Group.

The Panel: Caitlin Flanagan is a staff writer at The Atlantic who authored the April cover story, “Private Schools Are Indefensible: The Gulf Between How Rich Kids and Poor Kids Are Educated In America is Obscene.” Her latest book is Girl Land.

Bret Stephens is a columnist for The New York Times and an MSNBC contributor.

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Start the clock.

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Bill: Hello, how are you? Thank you very much, I appreciate it. Thank you. Look at these people. Wow. I appreciate it, you sound like a full crowd. I’m going to miss these sparse crowds when we go back to normal. I really have come to love it and I know why you’re happy today. The vaccine now as of April 1st is going to be available to people over 50 — so agents all over town are saying to their clients don’t do it, it’s a trick to make you admit you’re over 50. It’s so funny, you can get the vaccine at any age if you’re a smoker, ex-smoker, live in a crowded neighborhood, have a handicap, and the thing is you don’t have to prove any of this because we are always aiming to protect the key sector of the L.A. economy, liars. [Laughter] [applause] You can just tell, Americans just want to get out of the house, we don’t even have to have exactly the older lives back, just don’t make us watch Nomadland. [Laughter] You see what’s going down in Florida, spring break in Miami? The kids are going nuts, they are out of control, as they should be, kids, kids should be out of control. They are refusing to wear masks, which in their defense, how are you supposed to tell if your potential hookup has herpes if they have a mask on. It’s spring break, people. Can you blame them? If I had been locked up with my parents for a year, I would want to snort Xanax and twerk on a squad car too. [Laughter]

[applause]

Of course normal in America also means that shit that makes this country shitty– mass shootings again, we didn’t have this for a while but now we have one last week, one this week, a 21-year-old Christian lunatic a week before and now a Muslim 24-year-old lunatic. In a related story, today an atheist went crazy and rearranged his books. Related story. You heard about that — I love this story, the world is really shitting it’s pants economically because of the fucking ship stuck in the Suez canal. This one ship, you talk about traffic, it’s like god… the 405 times a million. I love this part of the story, QAnon, I’m not making this up, QAnon said this ship probably has ties to Hillary. And could be transporting children to molest. You know what? You guys think about sex with children a lot. [Laughter]

[applause]

How did you get there from “boat”? But Biden had a press conference, it’s interesting, he hasn’t had one yet, he wouldn’t have a press conference and he did and of course they talk themselves up there on Fox News, the idea that Biden is completely senile like he can’t get through a sentence without forgetting what country this is or any minute he’s going to pee his pants like Bradley Cooper in A Star is Born. He did an hour, I thought he hit the right note, forceful without asking anyone to step outside. That’s Joe. His big news is we now are proposing, he is proposing, democrats want to sell this, a $3 trillion infrastructure plan, infrastructure in the broadest sense of the wordincludes child care, energy efficiency in buildings, 5G, rural broadband, retraining of workers, lots of stuff, roads, bridges, redoing the electrical grid, vehicle recharging stations, it sounds very ambitious considering the last guy couldn’t build a wall.

[Cheers and applause]

But maybe I’m being it too hard. You know what? There are of course things about it I have trouble with but it’s good the country is moving again. Out of this retro grade and you can feel it all over and things are happening all over, for example in Virginia, the first southern state now that is banning the death penalty, they already got a call from West Virginia asking if they can have the chair. [Laughter]

[applause]

And New York state, where I spent so much of my time, is going to legalize pot finally.

[Cheers and applause]

Governor Cuomo says he will sign the bill as soon as he gets done searching his assistant for a pen.

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We have a great show. Bret Stephens and Caitlin Flanagan are here. But first, he’s the former U.S. Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, my old job. I said that a million times, that’s the most ridiculous one yet. He is now a founding partner at Krebs Stamos Group: Christopher Krebs. Great to see you, thanks for being here. Washington is known to have that kind of crazy alphabet soup, every agency and we know some of them, EPA, most people no, some people don’t — this one I was not familiar with. Let’s go through it word by word, what is the name of the place you work for? Speak of the cyber security and infrastructure security agency.

Bill: Why are those linked together?

Cybersecurity is just another risk posed to our nation’s businesses, government agencies come our nation’s infrastructure. Physical risk, cybersecurity risk, we help.

Bill: What did you do all day? I’m not saying that skeptically, I just really don’t know.

It’s a big mission. The first thing I would do typically in the last four years was checked twitter and see what the former guy tweeted about and how that would affect my day.

Bill: Is that right? That was the big issue. Give me an example of a tweet and something where you were like oh, fuck, look what he said and you would have to do something.

Typically, the last year and that 2020 election, the rigged election, that would cause across a lot of our partners and election officials, a lot of consternation that we would have to get the messaging straight. At some guidance out and prior to that, it was a lot of Russia.

Bill: And then trump fired you, that’s how I came to know you. That’s how we come to know people in the last four years, fired you by tweet of course. That day when you were looking at the tweets — it got very personal that day.

Yeah, that was at the end of the day, 6:00 p.m. Eastern time.

Bill: Not that you care, not that it hurt.

I had just walked in the door and I had thought I had maybe gotten through the worst of it and I might be able to stick around for transition and I get a text from a buddy that says —

Bill: Just to put it in perspective this is after the election when trump was saying the thing was rigged and this was three weeks after the election?

Two weeks to the day.

Bill: We know who won by then but he was still ranting and raving at you came out and said “my memory of it was I looked at this, I’m the expert, these people have not cheated, it’s the cleanest election we have ever had and this is all bullshit.” And you’re fired. But you didn’t bend the knee, good for you, that’s why we like you.

[Cheers and applause]

And you’re happier with your decision than ever, I’m guessing?

I never thought twice about it. This is putting country over party. [Applause] ultimately, I think it worked out for me, there was some rough patches in december and january.

Bill: You’re on tv now! And he’s not even on twitter! [Laughter] you won this one. So let’s talk about what’s going on. What I keep reading is the largest cyber attack ever happened in the last year, right?

Which one?

Bill: The one that went on for eight or nine months?

There might be two or more.

Bill: There is one that we’ve all been reading about, it got into every department, for months and months, I guess they didn’t know what was happening.

That was the Russians again.

Bill: Trump said china but everyone else said Russia, you’re sure it’s Russia.

It’s got all the hallmarks of a Russian espionage operation.

Bill: We keep having these things happen with Russia, what is the appropriate, in your view, response — we don’t want to blow each other up over this but it seems like we are not doing anything.

We are, the head of cyber command and the NSA and the national security agency talked about some of the operations they ran ahead of the election, I look at this specific one, the sunburst hack affiliated with solar winds, there was degree of restraint with it. If we think back to 2017 when I just started my old job, there is something called bad rabbits, all really wonky names and 2017 was probably the year of the great hacks. These events including the more recent one attributed to china — maybe not that one but the Russian one show some restraint, maybe they’ve learned, maybe there’s something but cyber is the new normal.

Bill: Let’s go back to the part about what are we doing?

That’s a great question for somebody else.

Bill: A great question for somebody else.

Go ask joe.

Bill: Is it offensive? It seems like defense can only do so much. I know we’ve done it before, we’ve done it to Iran.

There was a meeting last week between the Chinese government and the secretary of state, national security advisor and the Chinese had a line about how we are the champions. I tend to think from the cyber perspective that the U.S. is the best. But we live in the glass east of houses which makes things a little challenging.

Bill: Just within cyber or within everything?

Is the digital economy, the way everything we do, now, school, business, governments, everything is dependent on the internet. We are incredibly dependent on the internet and that makes for a lot of things with the bad guys.

Bill: What about bitcoin? What you see that going? That’s sort of in your area, I see it bringing down civilization but maybe —

It depends on what angle of bitcoin and cryptocurrency but cryptocurrency as I see it as one of the single enabling factors that has allowed cyber criminals to deploy a massive amount of land somewhere. The anonymous payments, the ability to pay anonymously and that is the cyber threat that the average American is most concerned about because they feel it at home. All of this other stuff but Russia and China, that’s ephemeral.

Bill: You’re talking about schools, 1600 schools were hit last year.

Hospitals and government agencies, Baltimore got hit twice, Atlanta, Mecklenburg county north Carolina, 23 counties in Texas. Louisiana has been hit a couple times.

Bill: and they just want money, this is not anything sophisticated, this is not ideological it’s like at the end of die-hard when he finds out they’re not terrorists, they’re just robbers.

It’s a little bit like that. If there is a vulnerability, exploit, money or information to be had no meaningful consequences, the bad guys are going to run wild so we have to change that equation. Looking at cryptocurrency, we need to look at that. We need to start holding some of these countries like Russia that allow these cyber criminals to operate in their sovereign territory with impunity, we need to focus on that. You get back home, we have to help state and locals to improve their defenses and I fear it’s only going to get worse because of the way tax revenues at the state level have taken a real hit because of Covid. I think when we talk about infrastructure and investments, we’ve got to have a 21st century digital infrastructure investment.

Bill: Tell by the near ready to go back to work.

Hopefully he is watching.

Bill: I appreciate what you did.

Let’s meet our panel!

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[Cheers and applause]

How are you? He’s a columnist for The New York Times and an MSNBC contributor: Bret Stephens.

[Cheers and applause]

She’s a staff writer at The Atlantic who authored their April cover story “Private schools have become truly obscene”: Caitlin Flanagan. Say what you really think. What a great panel. I’ve started so many shows with this, my solar clock. Ladies and gentlemen, the eagle has landed.

[Cheers and applause]

Ladies and gentlemen, we got hi him. We have solar, ladies and gentlemen!

[Cheers and applause]

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[cheers and applause]

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1131. I have a clip of them putting it on today. This is Hans Rosenberger pulling the switch at my house and so many people to thank. Altadena solar, they did it, they are great, a group called sun run solar got involved, they didn’t ask for a penny, I was bitching about it on television for six months, this is what is so amazing — all of these people, I heard so many people email me, can I help and I’m like I already got so many people helping and I was bitching about it publicly, I talked to two congressmen on the air and it still took 1131 days, six months after I started bitching about it publicly, what is the regular person do? I had to laugh when I was reading about the new infrastructure bill. Okay. Remember, 1131 for me, I don’t know if we can get the whole state. I guess what I mean to say is what are your thoughts on the infrastructure bill?

3 Trillion is a lot of money. Did you ever see Brewster’s Millions, he needs to spend $30 million in 30 days to get his $300 million prize and it turns out to be difficult?

Bill: I’m probably going to agree with that of the end of the show, for now I’m just going to look at the positive side. It is a trojan horse for green energy and a trojan horse I welcome. If that’s how we have to do green energy in this country and a trojan horse, and we do, let’s do it that way. [Applause] everything in it is really about that but it’s called infrastructure and jobs, really, that’s what they are doing and I think the democrats finally got it through their thick skulls how to sell something.

I don’t think anybody even knows what the word infrastructure means. I don’t really know. Skip that part, go on.

Bill: Yes you do, what it really means is roads and bridges and ports in the electrical grid. He’s being very generous with the definition and it’s a child learning, human infrastructure, you can call anything infrastructure because we win arguments these days by changing the meaning of words. Silence and violence? I thought violence was when it hurt. For the first time, I wish we had more confetti, 51% of republicans both support gay marriage and legalizing pot. We’ve gone over the 50% mark with republicans. So why couldn’t carbon be next? No?

Sure, by all means, they should do that in one of the ways of doing it as being serious about carbon solutions like supporting nuclear energy. That got a big cheer. [Laughter]

Bill: Biden at his press conference, there was no questions in an hour about the pandemic, the vaccine program, or the $1.9 trillion relief plan he just passed. You are press people, what do you think about that?

I think the press is all in.

Bill: Meaning?

I think he’s not getting pressed so to speak on a lot of the tough issues right now and I have to say as somebody who is in the media but isn’t really a journalist, I think people are doing the right thing. Right now, I think hating America is no longer a luxury that we can afford. When you and I were young, I grew up in Berkeley, my parents were slightly to the left of Karl Marx, I knew America was a war machine, imperialist power and my parents were helping kids dodge the draft and get to Canada and you can have opinions like that when the rest of the country is holding up America and some people are even living America. Right now everywhere you turn it’s like people break into the capitol building in shit on the floor.

Bill: in the name of loving America. It’s not like anybody hates America, they just hate the people who are on the other side. They did a survey recently in the asked people what is the most pressing problem — by far, the winner was other people in America. I’m not kidding. 54%, The others. People I don’t agree with, that’s America.

The press needs to hold the administration to account in a normal way but on the other hand, we just went through four years in which the presidency was a jack hammer outside your window at 6:00 a.m. Every single day.

[Cheers and applause]

I think a respite is a pretty good thing.

Bill: That’s a good analogy. I was watching dr. Robert Redford — no, I knew I was going to, dr. Robert Redfield, the former head of the CDC. He said something that was interesting or at least it made news that he thinks coronavirus came from the lab which has been talked about since it began. But in this binary way we live in the country, it’s like if you’re a democrat, it’s a bat. If you’re a republican, it’s a lab and it’s so fucking stupid because this is a scientific issue, it totally could have been a lab.

What happened to us that everybody behaves this way? And there’s all these people who believe in q1 nine? When we grew up, I know you are much younger but it wasn’t like this. We had a lot of problems but we didn’t have people thinking there were a child molesters in the Suez canal that Hillary sent there.

Bill: Not everything became a polarizing issue.

And we’ve trained — I think throughout the country we have trained people to turn off their brains. The default is don’t think, join a group and adopt whatever the prevailing view is of that group. It’s possible to hold conservative views and still think Donald Trump is the worst president America has ever seen.

[Cheers and applause]

Bill: As many have.

It requires a level of independent thinking, it is possible to think that maybe this came from a lab but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter because we have a global pandemic we just have to solve.

Bill: It does matter because it affects how we understand the disease. What he’s saying is he thinks it came from a lab because it acted in ways it wouldn’t if it came from nature, that’s significant. It’s not something to say that’s a republican point — like hydroxychloroquine is a republican, I wouldn’t take it but who knows? They use it in some countries, it’s a medical issue it’s not like trump took it, I wouldn’t take it if it saved my life.

It was vetted around before he took it, it was known and seen as something that might work a bit and it has.

Bill: I have to talk about the shooting because fucking guns, every time it happens and it makes you sick that this is America, we are the gun country that we keep shooting each other. My question today is what is the law that stops this. Ted Cruz says every time there’s a shooting we play this ridiculous theater where this committee gets together and proposes a bunch of laws that would do nothing to stop these murders. They said both of these guys got the guns legally. I don’t know what we are talking about. What law would change it? He’s saying it would do nothing to stop these murders, most people are for these things, let’s try it and if it doesn’t, then will neck know.

The one thing we know about these men who do these mass shooting incidents, we know a few things about them but one of the main commonalities is profound childhood trauma and deep mental illness. Background check that involved mental illness, I think that would come up and we would have an opportunity to screen out some of these men, it makes sense to have something like that.

It should be harder to get a gun then to get a driver’s license, that should be basic common sense. The other thing I was thinking about, when I think of my big screw ups in life it’s usually when I click send on an email to you soon and I wish there was an algorithm that would just say this looks like an angry email, we are going to hold this for a few hours and it would’ve saved me a lot of grief in my life. How about this looks like you look like you are pissed off, go home for three days and we are going to check you out.

[Applause]

Remember Homer Simpson, three day waiting period, but I’m angry now!

Bill: 91% of people support background checks, 89 gun sales to people — there should be a mandatory three day waiting period, this includes most republicans and even NRA members. It seems like that’s the least we could do, give that a try, see if it changes anything, it may not because again, you said mental health issues, I would put that in the broader category of “cannot get laid.”

[Applause]

I’m sorry, but all over the world whether it’s ISIS or in cells, it’s just the theme. #Needagirlfriend was on his Facebook page, this is the name of the movie. I’m going to open a chain of game schools and teach men how to have a little game because it’s not like girls aren’t out there. We need to teach game in the curriculum.

Did you see his picture?

Bill: No.

He needs a lot of tutoring from you, the next time he goes out.

Bill: Is not how you look, right? It’s not. Women are deeper than us, lots of men who are not that great looking do very well. I don’t want to name names. [Laughter]

We are going to find out that he has deep, deep mental illness because it’s so consistent with these men.

Part of the con on the right as they say what we really have is a mental health crisis, we should invest in mental health. All countries have people with mental health problems, it’s that they don’t immediate have access to weapons of mass destruction.

[Applause]

Bill: You think in this country that has more guns than people, these guys who bought these guns illegal and one of them wasn’t an assault rifle, you think that would change anything? You don’t think they would get some weapon? That’s what we’re talking about here, we are pretending that certain types of weapons are going to make a big difference. That needs to be questioned.

I agree, if it manages to diminish gun crime.

Bill: I’m saying let’s try it. To speak of the larger point is someone should call for the repeal of the second amendment. And still people start thinking that it is crazy that we have an amendment that was written at a time when a skilled marksman could get off may be two shots in a minute at best, that that is relevant and works for today’s crazy.

Bill: John Paul Stevens, remember him? He said all we need to do is add five words to the second amendment and it’s like in the case of being in the militia, we can make it aligned with the original intent, and those few words but that’s never going to happen.

Maybe. I just think people — there’s going to be a point that we just can’t tolerate it anymore and it’s amazing and shameful that we haven’t gotten there yet when kids are shot dead in their classrooms. It’s hopelessness.

Bill: I kid Fox News a lot on this show and the only reason I do it is because they are mostly a bunch of obnoxious assholes. The only reason I do it —

[cheers and applause]

… but Fox is still the brand, really that every other conservative group measures themselves by but there is trouble in river city. This week for the first time since 2,000, MSNBC beat them. This has got to really hurt, they are always we are the ratings champions and they have lots of competition now from other further right organizations, that is what is bleeding away from them. So they decided to step it up. They have a whole new slate of shows, would you like to see some of them? There really looking to get there base back. Inside sedition. Is going to be coming on. [Laughter] down the rabbit hole with Tucker Carlson. [Laughter] Kirk Cameron the science guy. [Laughter] Factbusters. [Laughter] Inside the crisis actor’s studio [laughter] morning woods: actor James Woods discusses the news with a panel of teenage girls. [Laughter] The segregation room. Pardon the insurrection. [Laughter] [laughter] The hot blonde fascist report. [Laughter] Paula dean’s plantation weddings. [Laughter] the karen report with marjorie taylor greene. [Laughter] [applause] say that again and I’ll punch you in the face with jon voight. [Laughter] [cheers and applause] I found that funnier than the audience, but okay. There are a number of people who have been calling for fox to just go. I read the phrase be allowed to exist, max boot has said similar things and they are being sued for lying. They did lie and it was only about the election and democracy. I see why people feel this way, but should we think this through a little more? Even two congresspeople and in california, they wrote letters to all the cable providers and said are you planning to pick up fox for the next year? If so, why? That’s a little cheeky.

I they’re going to send the same letter about CNN that maligned the young boy from Covington High School and they libeled him and are they going to do the same thing about “ABC News” that did nothing about Jeffrey Epstein when he was still alive and they suppress that story? The news is a very dirty business.

[Applause]

Fox is dirtier than most.

Bill: It is dirty year.

Is dirtier. But the minute you suppress that, the minute you say we aren’t going to have that on the air, and the rest of us can’t see what people are thinking and it all goes underground. They’re going to go to the dark avenues of the internet.

Bill: I read Trump is starting his own Twitter, that was inevitable. Did they think he was going to go away and start watching Rachel Maddow? [Laughter] Where they going to go?

Her point is so important, two can play the game. If democratic congress persons can write to try to suppress one side of the debate, republicans are going to start doing it as well. The first amendment begins with the words “congress shall make no law,” those are important words. Part of living in a first amendment environment, people will lie, people will misinform and you make a living by calling their b.s. That’s the country we are in.

Bill: I don’t like the word “be allowed to exist.” Speaking of not be allowed to exist, you want to do that the private school.

Less controversial.

Bill: You say shut them down.

I don’t say shut them down but I say the ones at the very top of the system, the ones that cost 35 to $50,000 a year, they had become a maligned force in America, they hoover up a huge number of spots in the ivy league schools. Exeter has $1.3 billion, we don’t get any tax money.

Bill: that’s a big one?

It’s in New Hampshire.

Bill: I wouldn’t know private schools I went to a regular school in New Jersey.

And you’ve got a show!

Bill: You look like you were born on a tennis court, where did you go to school?

I want to a fancy private school, I went to a school in Massachusetts called Middlesex which I thought was a wonderful school and I still think it’s a wonderful school and I think some of these schools do extraordinary jobs.

Bill: They changed a lot since you were there, I’m sorry but they have, this is a lot of what your article about, I also read Bari Weiss article about Wesley, I’ve taken a lot of shit for talking about it but it’s true, there’s something going on in the schools and these are the schools that funnel kids to Harvard and Harvard funnels them out to important parts of the media. Television, government and they control a lot of how people think. Two things that are different, parents don’t have the back of the teachers anymore, they always side with their little brat — that is different and the biggest thing I think is the shift away from moral teaching, from the parent to the school. It used to be the school would be afraid of what the parent thought, and other parent is afraid of going against what they are teaching in school, even when they don’t agree with it. That is a huge shift we should stop and at least notice and debate and talk about.

Of course. In these private schools, that’s not such a big issue in the sense you don’t have to send your child to that school, no one is holding a gun to your head and saying you have to go to a fancy school but when we have public schools, thousands of public schools where parents are afraid to challenge what’s going on in the classroom, that’s really a problem, that the serious problem in education.

I think it’s a problem throughout education, we are losing the distinction between what education is and what indoctrination is. A lot of what is happening is really just indoctrination.

[Applause]

I study Marxism in school, it’s important to understand what Marxism is, it’s different from being taught from a Marxist perspective. One exposes you to ideas, the other makes you a soldier in a given perspective and there’s something kind of totalitarian about that, you’re producing not independent thinkers, your producing red guards.

It’s grotesque at the wealthy schools, children of billionaires being turned into baby Marxists because that’s how rich your daddy has to be for Marxism to work for you personally as a theory.

[Applause]

That’s another American issue, we’ve got to pull together and we’ve got to lift up this whole idea of education and get some of this out of the schools, we have to.

Bill: I read in some of your article and some in hers, that there is a climate of fear that people are living in schools. Fear of not being woke enough, of not speaking welcome enough. She says power in America comes from speaking woke. She quotes a math teacher who says I’m in a cult — not exactly it’s that the cult is all around me and I’m trying to save kids from becoming members. It sounds like he’s a scientology defector.

Right now, we are in a certain period which I think it’s going to be short-lived and the schools have been reacting very quickly and hugely to the social protests over the summer which kids thank god were very moved by and very much a part of. That’s important but the lessons they are introducing on the backs of that protests are grotesque.

The climate of fear is not just in schools, it’s throughout institutions, companies all over the country. People have to start calling bullshit on it. The only way this ends is people in authority say we aren’t going to be believed if you don’t want to work here, go elsewhere, these are our values and we are going to stick by them. They include fair play and openness to variety points of view.

[Applause]

Bill: they seem obsessed with the concept of privilege. The one you taught at.

Harvard Westlake.

Bill: I’m looking at this chart, can you show this chart to people? The world is divided into a oppression, resistance, privilege, some of them are outdated to some degree. Heterosexual, not at the abbey. Gender conforming young adult, oppression, working class, person of color, female, not everywhere. The world is so much more complicated than this.

The first thing I was taught when I was taught how to be a teacher at that wonderful school was never waste a student’s time, that’s the most precious resource. Never teach a ridiculous lesson and if you’re sitting there at a school that costs $35,000 a year and you’re trying to figure out who has privilege in America, get a mirror. You’re the privileged one, you don’t have to sit here with this complicated map, it’s a useless lesson.

Bill: aren’t we talking about advantage? The word privilege bothers me. There are certain advantages and of course race is the biggest issue in America. I would put that number one but it’s also not the only one, there are so many different factors and they only want to see this one thing. What if someone is painfully shy like I was?

You were painfully shy?

Bill: Isn’t it funny? But it kind of makes sense. At some point in your life, the light goes on.

The answer to whether you are privileged or advantaged, the answer to it isn’t to feel guilty or enter virtue signal, it’s to do something with those advantages. Try to make the world a better place, don’t feel guilty for doing it.

More to the point, if you are truly a Marxist and I grew up in a pretty left the house, tell your parents I don’t want to go to this expensive school anymore, this is too elite, I want to be part of making public schools better and they want to be super woke and go to Yale. That’s really offensive to people who can’t afford either of those things. If you really believe it, come here to L.A. City College.

[Applause]

Bill: Before we run out of time, I knew you were coming here I really wanted to get you about the royals. You’re laughing already.

I can’t wait to hear this.

Bill: Because now that we’ve had a chance to absorb it, everyone saw the opera interview with harry and Meghan, I had to laugh when they were canceling people for the tweets they wrote in high school and there’s a picture of harry, America’s new hero wearing a swastika. I’m just saying. I don’t think they should cancel him for it, people do stupid things when they are young but it’s amazing how the angel of death flies over some people’s houses. It’s amazing.

Not only that but she felt a really worthwhile role for her to play was to visit the countries of the commonwealth because they are largely people of color, which is true because they are colonized by the stupid family you married into and you should not be their emissary, you should be going there and telling them break free and let’s get Britain to pay some reparations, she shouldn’t be there under the authority of the royal family.

[Applause]

It’s true, with other people like that young editor who had just been given her big break and discovered 11-year-old tweets when she was seven tiered euros sold were going to destroy her career. If you haven’t screwed up as a teenager you’ve probably never been a teenager. What kind of person doesn’t have huge mistakes from that period of time?

Bill: Ted Cruz because he knew he was going to run for president. Ted Cruz doesn’t, he knew when he was eight he started running for president and that’s not the guy you want as president.

You’re making my point.

Bill: I am making your point to.

Any time someone gets fired at “teen vogue” it’s a win for the country, everyone should be fired, they should shut that thing down, they should salt the earth and they should go independence I look at it today, they had an article about why we should abolish the police in the next article was about one of the Olsen twins haircut.

Bill: Then you read the statement from them we had to do this so the important work of “Teen Vogue” — the important work, are you kidding? It’s about close for teenagers, isn’t it?

It’s about more than that but teenage girls, there is a huge community they can reach one another on a national and global level on Instagram and so forth, adults at the depraved institution of Conde Nast should not be profiting over feeding their heads with this poisonous, vapid left wing agenda that makes these girls dumber because every time they run something on foreign policy you look at it and go that’s not right and that’s not right in these girls, it’s great, I’m going to get that haircut and be on the side of this thing, it’s terrible.

Bill: I have one minute and I know you both have written about Woody Allen, a lot of people who get this network probably saw the documentary. I have one thing to say about it. The title offended me — not offended me, was bullshit and it may all be true. The title of the documentary which is Allen v Farrow, suggests there was a trial in a prosecution. It’s misleading.

The two contemporaneous reports that came out acquitted which means people who think they know the story don’t know the story.

Bill: And now they know one side of the story and I’m glad I do, but don’t tell me I saw the whole story.

Why is HBO profiting, making a four night spectacular.

Bill: Now we are getting into some touchy territory! Time for new rules everybody, new rules! So they can pay their stars well and have them get solar, that’s why! Goddamn it! New rule: someone has to tell me how it makes a party better when you’re standing on a car. [Laughter] that would make me not want to go to a party. “Where’s the party?” “Well, it’s partly on a car.” James brown once sang “get up offa that thing.” He meant his car. [Laughter] new rule: before you make fun of this Hindu holy day, where women from one village pretend to beat a man from another village with long sticks, remember we’ve got one coming up where a life-sized bunny hides eggs to celebrate a dead guy coming back to life. [Laughter]

[applause]

New rule: the Nicobar pigeon has to get over itself and realize that when people say “you’re so beautiful,” they mean “for a pigeon.” Your competition is dirt-gray, red-eyed, standing on a trashcan eating a cigar. [Laughter]

[applause]

And you’re both going in chick-fil-a. [Laughter] I kid, it’s actually fine food, it’s delicious, we kid, we make little jokes. New rule: someone has to tell me why all the signs of the zodiac look like iuds. Look at that — it can’t just be coincidence. Does birth control come from space? Neil Degrasse Tyson, this one’s for you. [Laughter]

[applause]

New rule: that guy at every wedding who thinks it’d be a treat for everyone if he breakdances. Has to sit down. You’re not the life of the party. You’re the drunk guy who just kicked grandma in the face. [Laughter]

And finally, new rule. If we’re going to have a new roaring “20s, let’s not repeat the mistakes of the last one. I keep reading that America is poised for a roaring “20s, 21st century edition – a repeat of that decade a century ago, when, just like now, the united states emerged from a pandemic ready to party as if there was cocaine in the Coca-Cola — which there was. [Laughter] There was, in the 20s. Yes.

[Cheers and applause]

And now, after a year of masking and distancing, I know I’m ready for the party, and I imagine millions of others are also itching to engage in risky behaviors, like air travel, sharing a dessert or tweeting what you really think. [Laughter] And why not? The 1920s was an especially exciting time: the economy doubled, the masses could afford a car, and women stopped wearing sixteen layers of clothing. No dream was too big: Charles Lindbergh became the first anti-semite to fly solo across the Atlantic. Babe Ruth hit a home run 575 feet, hungover, with gonorrhea, while eating a pork chop, [laughter] [applause]… and Joe Biden started running for president.

[Cheers and applause]

And the stock market was a game where everybody was a winner. But we all know what happened next. The roaring “20s became the broke-ass “30s. It turned into a nightmare with the great depression, the rise of fascism, and worst of all, an endless stream of musicals about sailors. [Laughter] And looking at the economic factors right now, it feels like we’re back in the headspace that we’ll never run out of cash as long as the fed doesn’t run out of ink. I’m just saying, if we’re going to do a new roaring “20s, let’s do it this time without the two things that made the last one suck: prohibition and a depression at the end of it. [Laughter]

[applause]

I’m no money expert – I only turn on Jim Cramer to scare away the birds – but it does seem like the market is a little divorced from reality these days. It’s odd that the real economy has been full of news of unemployment, bankruptcies and going out of business signs since Covid hit, and yet the S&P is up 76% in that time. It can’t go up forever. We can’t all win. It’s not the ticket machine at chuck e cheese. A share of GameStop isn’t really worth more than a share of Toyota. To bail ourselves out of that depression, we spent, over 10 years, 6% of our gross domestic product. To get out of Covid, we spent, in one year, 26% of GDP. The way we’re handing out money, you’d think it had an expiration date on it. In 2008, when the global economy was on the edge of collapse congress passed what was considered a massive bailout of $700 billion – so massive, over a hundred protests broke out across the country. The occupy wall street movement was born. Now? The word “billion” is so last decade. Congress has passed $6 trillion to fight the war on Covid – two trillion more than we spent to win world war two. You know, the “big one?” Four years of desperate fighting against a murderer’s row of bad guys all over the world. And under it. Not to mention this thing was kind of expensive to make. All that, in today’s dollars? 4 Trillion. This? 6 Trillion. [Laughter] [cheers and applause] the other thing we have to do in the new roaring “20s is end the drug war. A little slow on that, stoners. [Laughter] this time, can we have the big party without having to worry about getting arrested for doing the drugs that keep the party going in the first place? [Laughter]

[cheers and applause]

Because in the 1920s America banned alcohol, for reasons which are still mysterious to me. Hey, we’re about to throw this giant rager that goes on for 10 years, make sure no one brings booze. [Laughter] So let’s get rid of our own prohibition, aka the drug war, and go straight to the part where we admit it doesn’t work. It’s okay. [Laughter] the white house, unfortunately, is going in the wrong direction. What the fuck, joe? [Laughter] You really gotta give it to the drug war: it’s bipartisan. It was 50 years ago when Nixon announced that drugs were “public enemy number one.” And told Elvis to get rid of them by taking them all. [Laughter]

[cheers and applause]

So much of the rot in our society stems from our modern-day version of prohibition. The people fleeing at the border? That’s the drug war. The record-shattering amount of incarceration this country does, with all its implications for racial injustice, wasted lives, and skewed elections because so many felons can’t vote – that’s the drug war. Other people get it: Mexico legalized weed this month; Canada did it two years ago. Why are we always last at everything now? Portugal ran this experiment – they decriminalized all drugs ten years ago, and they had less than 100 overdose deaths last year. We have 81,000. The war is over. West Virginia lost. Thank you very much, that’s our show. We are off next week, I will be with my solar back on the ninth. I want to thank my guests Bret Stephens, Caitlin Flanagan and Christopher Krebs. And thank you, folks. I think my solar friends who got it done! Appreciate it!

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