Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #578: Tristan Harris, Jennifer Rubin, Richard Ojeda

Episode Date: September 25, 2021

Bill’s guests are Tristan Harris, Jennifer Rubin, and Richard Ojeda. (Originally aired 9/24/21) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late-night series Real Time with Bill Moss. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Epicist. Happy Masked pre-air. Thank you, everybody. I know.

Thank you. Please, you'll make me cry. Thank you very much. I know, I know. Please. I know you're happy. Because, you know, it's fall. It's sad.

We finally hit fall. The leaves back east are turning orange. Here they're always orange. Yes, it's fall. So if you're fleeing a wildfire this weekend, please take a sweater. But, I mean, I'm trying to get myself at a good mood. The country's in such bad shape.

I mean, first of all, what's going on at the border? There's pictures of the Haitian immigrants who went to South America now trying to get in over our border. And, you know, these poor people, they say their, their country, Haiti, was being run by a cruel, heavy-handed government. So Texas seemed like a good fit. But these, you know, everyone's up in arms as they should be,

but these photos of U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback. You know, whipping are what looks like whipping, certainly, attempted whipping, at least, of these migrants. And both sides have a take on the Democrats are demanding that the horsemen be identified and fired. And the Republicans are asking the horsemen, horse, that's any

leftover Ivermectin. Almost got it out. Speaking of that subject, Michael Flynn, remember him? He was the national security guy

under Trump for about a week and, uh, full on Q and on, this guy. He is now says he is worried that there are reports of the medical establishment

trying to sneak, sneak the vaccine. into salad dressing. I'm not making this part up. Really? You're thinking you were trying to get Trump people to eat something, you'd put it in salad?

I don't. Oh, they're... The crazy never stops. The results from the audit of the election, which was almost a year ago, or in from Arizona, whoops, they found actually Biden got more votes.

And this was done by a company with no auditing experience called Cyber Ninjas, who will now go back to their old job playing Dungeons and Dragons in their mom's basement. So, oh, it's rough. So a fake company hired to do a partisan recount couldn't produce a bullshit result, and this has really shaken up,

MAGA Nation. I mean, the My Pillo guy today was saying, boy, I picked the wrong week to stop smoking crack. And now, get this, that's Arizona. Biden won Arizona. Texas announced an audit. Trump won Texas. What the fuck?

Yeah, but this time, if you were pregnant when you voted, it counts as two. So that's, you know, it's that. Now, Texas, I love this. Trump demanded an audit yesterday, and the governor, Greg Abbott, ordered it that night. Boy, I thought those Haitian immigrants were whipped. Wow.

But I kid the Republicans. You know, Chuck Grassley, he's that senator from Iowa. 88 announced today he's going to run again. Yeah, I'm against ageism, but, you know, maybe 88 is a little. little, you know. He's been around a while. His platform is buying Louisiana from the French. Maybe he's been around too long.

But, and of course, because this country is stuck on stupid, as we're now having the debt limit bullshit showdown again. I don't know how you know how this country works, but first we vote to spend money and spend it, and then we vote if we're going to pay for it, which if they don't do, could plunge the world into a, giant recession. To give you an idea how stupid this is, we don't even

do it here in California. I mean, a lot of people are very nervous about, not just that, about all the aspects of the economy. This week, I was mugged. Guy tried to mug me with his finger. I said, where's your gun? He said,

supply chain issues. But yeah, get ready for this. I mean, October 1st is the fiscal new year. Woo! It's always a big celebration in Times Square. But the White House is, you know, if they don't raise the debt limits, White House is telling federal agencies to begin preparations for a shutdown. Nobody thinks this is a good idea, except maybe that Brian Laundry guy.

He's like, no federal marshals, sweet. Well, you must be following that story. It's all anyone cares about. is the missing white girl and this Brian laundry guy, where is he? The FBI is asking anyone, if you have any idea of clues or whereabouts, please make a podcast. I mean, we must be kind of getting back to normal if the only story we want to follow is a manhunt for the missing boyfriend. CNN says, check behind Nikki Minaj's cousins' friends' balls. All right, we got a great show.

We have Jennifer Rubin and Richard Ojetta. And first up, he is the co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology and Co-Ster the podcast of your undivided attention. Tristan Harris, back with us. Tristan, how are you, sir? Thank you for being here. You know, we always have you here because you are the guy who keeps it real for us on big tech.

So, big story in the Wall Street Journal this week about Facebook. And, you know, whenever I read these stories, this one was about how they changed their algorithm. I'm always thinking, how much do our robot overlords really control us? Because, honestly, I feel like a fucking hamster. Yeah. Like, they changed an algorithm and people acted completely differently. Yep.

What was the algorithm and what was the change? So the Wall Street Journal published, this is the largest, my understanding, is the largest set of internal research about Facebook's effects on society that were known inside the company and that they deceived from the top. And it has effects across the gamut from increased suicidal ideation in girls, teen girls, mental health issues, in teenagers, body image issues.

And specifically, the thing that I think you and I are both most interested in, which is the way that it makes political parties more negative. So they made a change that basically said the things that generate the most what they call meaningful social interaction, which was actually just code for what generated the largest arguments. So you know, people focus on the posts on Facebook, but it's the comments. generated the most big, long comment threads, that stuff got shot to the top. And what that resulted in was a basically rewarding political parties for being more negative. And they found evidence in Poland, Spain, Taiwan, India, where political parties who used to post, you know, regular facts about policies they wanted to do, they couldn't get attention. They had to go 80, 90% negative to get the same attention. So it's the anger. It's the anger. It's the outrage. It's the

outrage against the eyeballs. But who could have predicted this? It's not like anyone was saying that. But, I mean, the Facebook defendants would say it's just a town square, and the people in the, you're blaming them for what the people in the town square are doing, and they can't help it that people are kind of shitty now. I mean, that's sort of the bottom line. I don't think that's Facebook's, that's Facebook's fault. What's different is that it is a town square that's a little more like, you've ever been one of those movie theaters where the seats actually move

because you're watching this movie where the runaway train? It's like that. It's as if the town square actually was not passive, right? The town square is actually affecting how people perceive what they do. It's part of the problem. It's part of the equation. Yeah, well, I think the companies try to defend. They're just holding up a mirror to society.

So if you have those crazy people who are going to post crazy things, we're just showing the mirror of your own society. But the problem is that these things are not a mirror. It's more like a fun house mirror. It selects for whoever says the most divisive thing, and that's what shoots up to the top. So we have a trillion-dollar market cap company with the most powerful supercomputer in the world, pointing an AI at your brain being like, what's the next fault line in society that will maximally outrage your limbic system? And whatever that answer to that question is, and it's using trillions of dollars of compute power to figure that out, it puts that at the center of attention for the entire world.

You let society run through that for 10 years, and you wonder, why does it look so insane? And so it's almost like we've been through this massive civilizational bad trip. I mean, we have an entire mind warp that's taken place. And, you know, it doesn't have to be this way, but the business model of engagement, that getting whatever it takes to get people engaged is the key to the equation. So you seem to be saying that the biggest problem is not censorship, because we do expect Facebook to do some of that, and we'll get into that because some of the things they've censored,

I don't think are right, like the Wuhan Lab. But before we get to that, you're seen to be saying that the problem is, the bigger problem is this engagement issue. It's the anger. It's not censoring stuff. It's that you want these people to be chicken fighting each other all the time.

And that's why... I've said many times. People have to stop talking politics all the time. We never used to do this. We didn't care. What kid we went to third grade with thought about Brett Kavanaugh. Yeah, exactly.

And we shouldn't. Yeah. So, I mean, I was going to say. I mean, I think it will always find that if politics is what generates engagement, it will always sort for politics. If politics is generating that thing, it's a values-blind machine. It doesn't know, just like in the same way that GDP, war is good for GDP, drugs are good for GDP, prostitution is good for GDP. In a values-blind engagement system for attention, addiction is good for GDP, body dysmorphine for teen girls is good for GDP. outrage that makes people hate their fellow countrymen and women

is good for the engagement machine. And that's the core problem. We have to have values and we can't have a machine that doesn't know what's true, because then you get into the content moderation issue where you're saying, okay... Well, let me give you that example. I mean, you know it very well.

For four months, people could not talk about the origin of the coronavirus because it became a political issue. I said, remember, this does not have a political dimension. Did this originate in a lab, possibly, or did it originate from people eating bats in that, you know, farmers' market from hell? We don't know. We still don't know for sure.

But now even the Biden administration says, we don't know, we looked into it. It certainly could have been the other one. For four months, people were not allowed. They were forbade to discuss the lab origin theory. That's outrageous. True? Yes, I agree with you.

Oh, good. So I think people missed... There's two simultaneous values that we want to be honoring. So one is for free expression, and especially what is free speech for? It's for conscious evolution of the system. We should be able to question the mainstream establishment narrative because that's how you get evolution in society. There is a world before civil rights.

We question the mainstream narrative. You get moral upgrading. You get people sharing. We want that. The problem is we have the kind of free speech that of everybody who's saying anything, the guy who says the craziest most divisive thing that bad face the other side and deepens in-group bias about why my side is right,

that's the thing that gets rewarded. So in the global economy of free speech, we're not hearing from, I mean, occasionally you get the people breaking through being like, actually we should look into this Wuhan lab thing. But the problem is that's the rest of the balance sheet is basically crazy town. And when the rest of the world gets crazy town,

that breaks society. So open societies, plus this business model, they cannot allow that thing to control. to you. But it's not just crazies. I mean, I did a editorial here at the end of our show about two, three weeks ago, very recently about the phone. Basically,

and the basic thesis of it was straightforward. The phone makes people assholes. Assholes. This is not crazy people. This is everybody. Makes you shady, passive-aggressive,

needy, fake and mean. All those things. Yeah. That phone and especially people who are on it all the time, which is the younger generation. Would you agree with that assessment? Completely. I mean, it breaks the way that evolutionarily,

you know, people like Brett Weinstein or others have said, fundamentally we're running an evolutionary meat suit living in modernity. So, you know, E.O. Wilson said the problem of humanity is we have paleolithic brains and meat suits, and we have godlike technology, and we have medieval institutions. And so if I say something to you, and it hurts your feelings,

I can see, I have evolved instincts to know, I can read it on your face. You said meat suit, and you saw I was delighted. Exactly. So I get delighted on the other side. Whereas if you texted, I might be meat suit. What does he mean by that? There's no emoji.

Exactly. And so it breaks the feedback loop. Right. So when we say humane technology, what we're talking about is technology that actually points the mirror back at ourselves and learns, what does it mean to be human?

What are those natural abilities to empathize with each? other. And we need more of this. We need more of, you know, one of the reasons we're so vulnerable to addiction is when we, it's addiction is hypernormal stimuli. You get extra hits of dopamine, just like in our current environment, we get extra hits of salt, sugar, fat. They were supposed to be rare when they appear. They're a hypernormal stimuli. When we live in a hypo-normal normal environment, meaning we get under-stimulated with real connection because of COVID or because we're on our phones all the time, we're more vulnerable to that addiction. So the less fulfilling our natural

environment is, the more vulnerable we are to the hypernormal stimuli of outraged, limbic hijacks, addiction, and so on. All right. Let me ask you one final question that will lead into what I'm going to talk about here on the panel, because I'm very concerned about what's going on with the next election in our government.

But you talk a lot about how Facebook has influenced democracies overseas. Give us the skinny on that. Well, I mean, it's part of what's in the Wall Street Journal releases, again, is how it has made political parties across the world more negative at scale.

So one thing to recognize is that... What countries like, Hungary, Poland, places that have turned? Hungary, Poland, Spain, Taiwan, things like this. And the... And if... One thing to recognize, in the U.S., we get the best version of Facebook because they're trying to please the regulators here,

so they hire as many content moderators as they can. So as much as everyone hates all the things that are going wrong, and we have lots of evidence, everything going wrong, if you're in Mexico, one of the things in the Wall Street Journal piece was that you saw videos and photos of... bags of severed hands, people getting shot like in the head, just right there in your news feed.

You get the most unfiltered feed for these countries that don't have as much content moderation. And keep in mind, 90% of Facebook's users are outside the U.S. So it's just like the climate change. The developing world gets the worst of it, right? We get the best version, and it's still bad here. We still have wildfires here.

The developing world gets the worst of it with the least support, and it's the same kind of system here. Now, the real issue is that the second and third order effects of technology are running faster than governance and regulation. So the real question we have to ask now, because I don't think there's going to be a moment like this that's going to happen ever again. This is kind of a Cambridge Analytica-sized moment with these Wall Street Journal releases. So either something big and transformative happens where law and governance can actually run up against the speed of technology creating these effects, or it's just going to be too late. And I think

right now the Wall Street Journal effects are kind of like looking at a star, you know, far away. By the time the light hits you, that star is something's already happened. When we see these effects now, by the time it's hit us, these things were going on for the last 10 years. But I think the empowering thing is to recognize we've been through this mind warp. If everybody can recognize that, there's a little bit more sanity that can sit kind of bugger. Well, let's hope we started something tonight. I hope we're always great on our show. I appreciate you.

I know you're supposed to be at the U.N. today. Appreciate you making it. All right. Let's start. Let's meet our panel. Hey. Hello there. Okay.

She is an opinion. columns at the Washington Post, an author of of New Book, Resistance, How Women Save Democracy from Donald Trump. Jennifer Rubin is over here. Great to see you back. He is the national spokesperson for No Dem Left Behind,

and host of the Delhi webcast, Ojetta Live on Facebook. Richard Ojetta. Great to see you, Richard. Okay, so as promised, let's talk about prosecuting white-collar insurrectionists. I mean, we got the shaman

guy. But he wasn't really, I don't think, the head of the operation because the panel investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol today subpoenaed four people. Mike Meadows, he was high up in the administration, right? Was he the chief of staff at the end? Okay. Steve Bannon,

we all know Steve, three shirt Steve, he's been here many times. He'll be here again if he's not in jail. Dan Skavino, don't know him. He was head of social media and some of the cash but don't know him. My question is, why not this guy? This is John Eastman.

Do you have John Eastman's picture there? Okay, he's a lawyer, one of Trump's thousand lawyers. A memo of his comes out in the new Woodward book. I mean, it's a blueprint for a coup. They were going to throw out the results in seven states. Based on nothing that they were competing electors, there weren't. Then Pence would have had to declare

that Trump was the winner because there weren't 270 votes cast at all. He won 232 to 222. And then they would throw the election to the House where the Republicans had control of 26 legislatures. I'm not a lawyer. Isn't this evidence of a crime? Where's Merrick Garland?

Where's the hearings that should have started a week after this? Yes, you're singing my song. Oh, good. And first of all... Sing it back to me. Do you realize that... We came this close because Pence went to Dan Quayle for advice.

And Dan Quayle had to say, seems kind of shaky to me. So Mr. Potato did his bit for America. But this is a crime. That this guy's a member of the bar is ridiculous. And you're right. It's a crime. You can't conspire with the Democrats have the power now.

I know. And they're not probably going to have it in another year or so. If you don't do it now, Merrick Garland, where are you? Absolutely. Honestly, I like seeing the people that stormed our Capitol on January 6th go down. And right now we're seeing the people who basically just went through the front door and didn't really do much. I think here pretty soon we're going to start seeing the guy with the hockey stick, the people with the zip tie handcuffs, and they're going to go down. But we need to see more.

I want to see the enablers of Donald Trump. I want to see the people who gave the tours. Okay. Again, the Atlantic has an article about this today or this week, and the shaman guy was number five on the attempted list of how we take over the country. Number one, Trump tried to pressure the secretaries of state. Then the state legislatures. Then the courts.

Then Mike Pence. Only then did they get to the mob. He was the fifth option there. So, you know, coups are usually punished swiftly in other parts of the world. Sometimes it involves swords. The only way you're ever going to stop this from happening again is to punish it to begin with. Am I wrong? No, it's an open invitation for not only someone to repeat it, but for him to repeat it,

for Trump himself to repeat this. So I do not know, listen, maybe he's a judge and still thinks of him himself as a neutral arbitrator. That's not the job. His job is the chief prosecutor. And this was the greatest crime committed on television for the entire country. By the way, there was one more. Well, not all of it was on television. A lot of it was on the phone. Trump calling up legislatures, people in power, courts, the Justice Department,

and saying, please, he said at one point, just say that the election was corrupt. This is to the attorney general. And leave the rest to me. The January 6th commission, we all need to see all of this. And the thing is, is we saw treason. And everybody in the United States of America that was watching that, they watched treason take place. And we need to see these people go down.

And the thing is, right now, it looks like these people are above the law. I want to see members of Congress go down. If you're going to have subpoenas and hearings, I wouldn't get the people who are really involved. And the Atlantic says in this article, prior to now, the possibility of Trump attempting a coup was seen as the deranged fever dream

of crazed liberals. Yeah, that was me. I don't remember a lot of people crazed with me on that. Okay. Anyway, I see Robert Kagan in the Washington Post today has an article. It's great to see that the smart people are finally catching on. Yes.

Not the pot smoking liberty. What could he know? And he says, same things I've been said. Trump will be the nominee for sure in 2024. I keep saying the shark is not gone. It went out to sea. It'll be back eating people. He's actively preparing to ensure victory. Of course, they've learned.

This virus has learned. This is the Delta variant. They learned their mistakes from the last time. They tried to convince because they thought, well, Republicans will do our bidding? The guy in Georgia, would you change the election? And he had integrity, and he said, no. That's not going to happen this time. Because they've changed where the power

structure is. It's with the legislature now. They can overrule the secretaries. of state. So Kagan says, then we're going to have whoever wins is going to be a disputed election. There's going to be protests. Biden might have to call out the National Guard. Then he's a tyrant. Then he's

Lincoln in 1860. Let me say that this is one of the reasons why Democrats need to start investing in red rural America. Because the Republicans play the long game and they are the ones that are investing in putting these judges in places and helping these people to win these seats. The Democrats need to get off their ass.

It's a little late. And I don't know if it's Well, they do need to get off their ass. We'll agree on that. We'll end it on there. I mean, I do feel bad for Joe. I mean, there are times when you're the president, when that job must just suck out loud. And some of it is because of things you did to make it suck.

I mean, Afghanistan, he did not stick the landing. COVID, not really his fault, but, you know, he thought he'd be over that one by now. So he's having a rough time. And also, I think the thing that maybe. most disappointing to him, but it is kind of sad. He thought that the Republicans would go back. Am I right?

He really did. You could see it. You could hear it. He thought the Republicans would go back to being the Everett Dersen Republican or something. Mitch McConnell would stop being an asshole

and they'd have a drink together. We'd work together. They thought they were Jennifer Rubin Republicans. I left because there were no Jennifer Rubin Republicans that these people were all crazed. And Mitch McConnell has just decided. he would rather drive the car into a brick wall, set off an economic catastrophe, than do his job, which is to pay for what he already spent under the last president.

So this notion that we need to chat with them or that we need a filibuster, because a filibuster is going to, you see, promote dialogue and compromise and debate is nonsense. And, you know, God bless him. You know, many of the never-Trumpers like myself who came over, we look at this and we say, best we do everything. These guys do not know how to use power. They don't know how to whip their own people. How they have not had hearings on this already?

I mean, Ben, it's just a coup to try to take over the government to disqualify real voting. It's a thousand times more consequential than Benghazi. Yes. They had that right away and never ending. And these people, why is it already... And they don't even get the language right. These people are domestic terrorists. Domestic terrorists.

And instead, they use all kinds of language to, uh, rioters, you know, dissenters. Protesters. Protesters. No, they're traitors. And they are criminals. And they don't, and the party is being run by a guy who told the criminals to go break in and wreck the capital. They're treason enthusiasts. Okay, so now everything is writing on this $3.5 trillion bill,

and I have questions about this. Again, very bad messaging. You brought that up with the Democrats, always because it's over 10 years. Yeah. So why not to say that? Because that's such a scary number, and I hear people comparing it to the $780 billion

that Congress voted in the 2008 recession, which was the highest we ever went, at one moment. They did not want to make it a trillion because the T word was very scary. But that was all at once. That was in one fell swoop and all to the banks. This is $350 billion a lot, yes,

a year, but doled out to a lot of different people. It's a lot of different big programs. My question first one is, why do it all in this one? Why make you eat the whole fucking refrigerator at once? I mean, it's like if they did the

new deal was always, was peace by peace, peaceful, a piece of legislation here, a peace here, Social Security wasn't put in with the TVA and everything else. Why are we doing it like this? I think the Democrats are looking at this and they're realizing that on both sides of the aisle, Republicans out in this country need the same things. This has benefit in everybody. And I think that this is one of these things where they're trying to get something done because they know that the Republicans don't want us to go into 2022 with any victories at all. And, you know, I don't know. I mean, you could do it piece by peace. But exactly, isn't it easy

for Mitch? Why would Mitch McConnell if you came to him to him, said, Mitch, I'd like you to sign on to something that costs a shitload of money and it's going to make the Democrats look good. What do you say? Yeah, exactly. But the problem with this is, even if they break it up, he'll say no. He was again, these guys are against roads

and bridges for crying out loud. But it's harder. It's harder to say when you're running, like, it's much easier to go, he was against this 3.5 trillion. Okay, I get that. That's too much money. He was against preschool. Yes.

Preschool. Small children in school. He hates it. Yes, exactly. Yes. And, you know, there's so much good stuff in this. The average American, even the average informed America, has no idea because all we're doing is talking about the number.

And the other thing they should be talking about, America's like better than all the stuff that's in there. They like taxing rich people. And that's what Joe Biden needs to talk about. Off the charts, much more popular than child care, then paid leave, then all these other things, taxing rich people. Okay.

3.5 trillion is going to be paid for by 1.8% of the people. So let's not say, again, I'm just for honesty on this. Which I don't seem to be getting a lot these days on this show, on this issue. 98.2% of the people will not pay a dime. I mean, you can make $350,000 and you won't pay for any of this. That's right. At the end of the day, though, I mean, I think the American people are wanting. I mean, I can, you know, I applaud Joe Biden for saying that he wants to make the top 1% pay for these things.

I mean, people in this country right now, universal pre-K, it is absolutely needed desperately. I mean, everything in this bill is something that... Pre-kindergarten? Absolutely. I didn't go to what I came out, okay. No, no, but right now, right now a lot of, you know, you don't, back in the day, you know, you had to stay at home parents. You don't have that anymore. So right now, and you've got people that get off work,

and kids get out of school at 2 o'clock. So let's just call in what it is, daycare. Exactly, but for a mother or for husband and wife that are working, that's important. Okay. And this is really good stuff. If you're poor, you'd pay nothing. If you're kind of middle class, it's capped at 7% of your income. These people are paying right now thousands of dollars out of their pay.

You're talking about just the pre-K. Just the pre-K. Right. See how much easier it is to sell the just-the-old. And the thing they should really be talking about, you know who votes? Old people vote. And there's something in here that is phenomenal for old people. Hearing, vision, and dental is going to be tacked on to Medicare.

Now, we can argue about whether it's a good idea, bad idea. These people will go nuts. Can you imagine hearing aid? These are old people. Hearing AIDS vision. Right. Absolutely. Just sell that.

Yeah. So that's a winner. That's an absolute winner. Okay. Tristan was here, so I thought, I would bring this up. The iPhone 13 came out today, which

is for a lot of people, this is like Christmas and New Year's all rolled into one. I don't get it. I think I have the six or something. I look at the new ones. I can't tell the difference. Oh, you know, your dick picks are clearer. Great. But I couldn't have. I was reading up

on all the tech issues this week because he's on. Apple is working on new iPhone features that help detect depression. And you get a second opinion from Alexa. That part I may know, but they're working with scientists on sensory data like physical activity, sleep patterns, even typing behavior, so your phone can tip you off for mental health concerns. Anyway, I found that there are actually more than just this one that they're coming out with.

Would you like to see some of the other very specific acts? Oh, my God. Like, this is a great one. I think Brojack prevents drunk driving tragedy. is by disabling your car key after the third time it hears you say, I love you guys. These phones are getting good, boy.

Oh, KillPod warns you when an interest in murder podcast goes from entertaining to something I might want to try out. Oh, Dweber. This is very valuable for women. It makes a fake emergency phone call when your date starts

talking about his anime collection. Oh, this one we have needed for years, photo crotch. Now when a guy sends you a dick pick, it automatically forwards a copy to his mother. That's good. Yeah. Potispi.

This monitor stoner's conversations and alerts them when they're about to tell the story they told five minutes ago. That's never happened to me ever. Cancelator. This is good. any celebrity name, and within seconds it finds an old tweet that disqualifies

them from hosting Jeopardy. Here's a good one. Go, God damn it. Automatically honks your car horn at the asshole in the next car who's texting when the light turns green. Yes, we need this. And here's a good one. Uh-huh. This is for husbands.

If your wife... if your wife texts you anything that ends at a question market, automatically text back, yes, got it, or, whoa, that's crazy. Okay. So, okay, so we agree that Joe Biden would be better off, I think, if he just understood Mitch McConnell is not that into you. But here's, I'm reading these numbers on the debt, which, I mean, if they do this, I mean, if they default, you don't think they really will, right?

I mean, this is always a threat. And, of course, Mitch McConnell, when the Republicans in office, they pass the debt. But this idea that we already spent the money and then we vote whether to pay the credit card bill. We don't mean to do this. If there's nothing in the Constitution, this is dumb. There's only two of the countries in the world that do it. Poland. No jokes.

And Denmark. See, but Denmark is so responsible and so nice. Of course, everyone is going to be. pass it. We used to be Denmark. We used to pass it like that. They also have a COVID rate that's practically zero. But this is nonsense. First of all, in this whole budget process,

we had two things happening at once, both of which are ridiculous. One is the debt, and secondly, is just the operating money that's going to close down the government. So we're going to crash the economy because we can't pay the debt, and we're going to close the government. Because we have these ridiculous

rules that essentially give the minority party a veto. Example A, B, C, and D for getting rid of the filibuster. My fear is, is that, you know, you have one side that would absolutely have no problems watching our nation crash as long as they get to blame it. Well, that's it. It's all about, but it's all about presenting the Democrats as big spenders, but it's money we already spent, much of which Mitch McConnell voted for. A lot of it is from the last administration. But our debt is 100, what is it now? 129% of GDP.

Yes, it's like $29 trillion. It was 114% after World War II, the biggest crisis we ever had. Yes. Now, I don't know if that can go on. Also, almost 40% of the people don't work. You know, they have something called the labor force participation rate. This is the size, the percentage of civilians, 16 and older, who are either working or even just looking for work.

That is 61.7%. Almost 40% of people who can, who are adults, or almost adults, don't work. Why? And yet we don't. And yet we have people in this world that would walk thousands of miles to try to get to the United States of America and would be glad to do any job like that. Exactly.

Maybe we can trade. Forget about kids. It's not all a lettuce-picking job. No. I mean, I think there's two big things in here. One, I think a lot of that 40% who don't work are sick, but we should address the root cause of that problem. I can say this for 28 years unto why are people so sick in this country?

We never address the root cause of that. The other thing I think in here is inherited wealth. There's too much inherited wealth. There's too many people who can just live. off mommy and daddy. Yeah. This is going to bring out my inner communist. You know, pass a few million dollars.

Granted, okay, you've made a fortune, Mr. billionaire, you want to pass a few million to your kids, that's fine. But beyond that, why should anybody be able to pass on this inherited wealth? This is a huge pot of money between this and the accretion of wealth through the stock market are trillions and trillions of money that could be used for really good things that other people can use. But the problem is, is the filthy, filthy rich

in this country can pay for lobbyists to grieves the pockets of our legislators to make sure that they're protected while the rest of the people and the working class people have everything stuck on their friggin' shoulders.

And Democrats don't really... Democrats don't exploit this well enough. There are 55 corporations that pay zero tax. I mean, that, you know, even people who live in a free market, that's ridiculous. Right.

And Democrats have not figured out how to say, Mitch McConnell wants big corporations to pay no taxes. They should do that. They should also, once in a while, once in a while, remind people that they like work. Yes. Yes. I feel like they're kind of getting the rep

as the party that just wants to give out free money. Well, they actually have a good argument in that $3.5 trillion, which is a lot of these things help people work. If you have child care, you can go work. If you have leave, and when you get sick, then you can

go back to work when you're healthy. So you're right, and that's one of the things they should be using to sell this package. A lot of people realize the need for child care during COVID, because heck, well, I got to take care of my kid. I can't work. So these are pro-work things if they would package that and explain it. And free community college to elevate people out of poverty. And by the way, to your points about immigrants, I did an editorial earlier a couple of weeks ago, of course it was as savage by the usual suspects, but I was just saying we were getting out of Afghanistan,

and I was just saying, you know, the immigrants have such a better attitude about America than the people who are here for a long time. They just appreciate it. And I read this story front page of the New York Times today about Boko Haram, the

terrorist group in Nigeria that's been savaging the countryside for decades and capturing whole villages and girls into slavery. ex-fighters now living next door to people they menaced. So if you think America's bad, try when having Boko Haram move in next door. I would just as an endendum to that thought.

Okay, so here's a thought that I never thought I'd have to be confronting in this year, which is that Biden, a lot of people are saying, is too Trumpy, especially in foreign affairs. Fareed Zeroy, I've got to give him credit. The first one to talk about this, So I'm going to quote him, but Biden was at the UN this week talking about a new era of relentless diplomacy, which a lot of people are calling bullshit on. France, and I'll get into that in a second, is mad at us and has already compared him to Trump.

But here's Farid. He says a senior diplomat noted that in dealings with Washington and everything from vaccines to travel restrictions, the Biden policies are America first. You might not call it that. He talks about Biden's Buy America plan. are actually more protectionist than Trump's. We didn't get, we didn't re-up on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal with the Asian nations. We didn't go back with the Iran deal. Cuba is where it was.

He could have at least gone back to Obama's policy. You know, sending the Haitians back to a country that really isn't theirs anymore. It does seem more Trumpy than Bideny. I'm very surprised. Well, I'll take a different view than my colleague at the Washington Post, uh, Farid.

Listen, Biden clearly does things Trump would never do. We joined the World Health Organization. We're giving 500 billion vaccinations to the world. We join the Paris Accords. We are trying to rejoin the Arandale. It wasn't Biden who pulled out. It was his predecessor. I think the one point that he has a really good point about,

and which has bothered me for a while, is both parties are protectionist. This is the stupidest policy. This is for, you know, consumption back home. Trade is good. It's not zero-sum. We get rich, they get rich. They get rich.

They buy more of our stuff. And both parties, it was under Obama that they couldn't push through TPP. So it never happened. This is the best anti-China bill we've ever come up with. It brings in our allies. It helps us trade. And both parties have gotten very short-sighted, and they exploit it because they're saying,

oh, you're sending jobs overseas. which is not the case. And that is something, I am surprised, Biden didn't take on head on. It could be a winner. And in places in the middle of the country where the market is exporting, we have, what, small percentage of the population,

you have to be able to export. You have to open up these problems. And sometimes it's not bad to be America first. I mean, I don't understand why France is, like maybe I understand why they're mad at us, but if you don't know what happened was France had a deal. to sell nuclear submarines for defense to Australia. And at the last minute, we came in and offered them cheaper and better.

Exactly. And they took it. Hey, that's the art of the deal, bitch. You know what? I mean, sorry. You know, we beat you at business fair and square. We didn't hold a gun to Australia's head. Absolutely.

And the thing is, is if France wants to sell their stuff, I'm sure Saudi would buy it. But at the end of the day, our stuff is far superior. so Australia would go with that. And it also sends a message. The one thing we can still do is make killing machines. Yes, we can. But it also sends a message to China and let them know, you know, we're in their back in their neck of the woods.

Right. So we shouldn't feel bad about that one, right? No. The Friends clubs were so bad. They were really loud. So what? A loud submarine. It's diesel.

It's diesel. From nuclear. There's as diesel. Right. Seriously. Yeah. So there are these funky things. I feel even better about this.

Yes. How sea is that? Yes. So not a good idea if you're trying to spy. Did it hear the bangs the pot? Did it leave that black smoke? It wouldn't have truck nuts on it, did it? Right, exactly.

So ours are quiet. They can spy, they can do some productive things. So, of course, the French had a hisy fit and laugh. Ours can kill the whales so much more effectively. All right, thank you very much. You were both fantastic. Time for new rules, everybody, new rule. Okay, new rule.

Nancy Grace has to admit when she hears the words Missing Woman and White Vans, she comes. And also that her favorite yoga pose is cadaver dog. New Rule, now that CBS has the shows the FBI, the FBI International, and the FBI most wanted, they have to add a fourth FBI show. The FBI, fuck-ups.

This is the one where the agents fail to stop the January 6th coup. They let Jeffrey Epstein off the hook. They get Trump elected, and they botched the investigation of Larry Nasser. FBI fuck-ups, right after Walker, Texas asshole. New Rule, someone has to warn men thinking of buying the dad shirt, the T-shirt with a pouch to hold your infant, that you'll be known as the cool dad for about 20 minutes,

and after that, you'll be known as the guy with a pocket full of baby shit. New rule, someone has to tell the Wall Street Journal that when you tell me into it nears deal to buy mailchimp, I have no idea what you're talking about. But if that winking monkey means what I think it means, you can tell into it, I'm not into it.

New rule, now that Christo is dead, it's time to tell other artists that wrapping things in fabric isn't art. And often what you're covering is art. You're not so much creating as you are re-apulstering. There's a name for people who take something beautiful and cover it with fabric, the Taliban. I love the pro-Talibad response from a small section of the audio.

Oh, Bill. Not the Taliban. Go after anybody. And finally, new rule, the only time there should be two national anthems is when the other team is from Canada. This season, the NFL, has added Lift Every Voice and Sing, commonly known as the black national anthem to the star-smangled banner before games. And two weeks ago, I opined that it was fine to get rid of it. the old anthem. We just shouldn't have two. Now, if you

watch the show for opinions and you want to know what the correct opinion on the anthem is, that's it. That's the correct one. We shouldn't have two. The program, The View, last week, devoted a lot of time to this while somehow avoiding what I actually said. It seemed to be a lot about a need to school me on the black national anthem itself. Whoopi Goldberg said, we need two anthems because, quote, we're having to re-edged. educate people, because nothing ever goes wrong when you start talking about re-education.

Just ask Chairman Mao. Maybe we can set up some sort of camp. Now, I don't believe we should enforce patriotism by singing anything. And if there's one thing I hate more than group think, it's audience participation. But I am what you might call an old-school liberal who was brought up with the crazy idea that segregating by race is bad. That's what I was talking about. And, again, when it comes to an anthem, it doesn't have to be the one we currently use,

but it has to be just one. You know, because it's a national anthem. And symbols of unity matter. And purposefully fragmenting things by race reinforces a terrible message that we are two nations hopelessly drifting apart from each other. That's not where we were, even 10 years ago, and it's not where we should be now.

Where we should be now is here. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America. There's the United States of America. Oh, yeah, that guy. Timothy Aske, a professor at Clark Atlanta University, wrote an entire book about Lift Every Voice and Sing. And he said, to sing the black national anthem suggests that black people, are separatist and want to have their own nation. This means that everything Martin Luther King, Jr.

believed about being one nation gets thrown out the window. Thanks, Professor. You'll be hearing from Whoopi. But he's right. If we have two anthems, why not three or five? Why not a woman's anthem? A Latino anthem. A gay, trans, indigenous peoples and Asian Pacific Islander anthem.

Because I'm not dealing with you. I'm not speaking to you. It's not a way you can run a country. and most people of all backgrounds understand that already and don't even want to try to do it that way. I'm not out of step. Believing in separate but equal, that's out of step. By 67 years.

Yeah. No. It was 67 years ago in 1954 when the Supreme Court handed down their landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which said, separate but equal, isn't what we do here.

We decided we're going to try to make this work together. And yet a recent survey of 173 colleges found that 42% offer segregated residences, 46% offer segregated orientation programs. 72% host segregated graduation ceremonies. Well, congratulations, liberal parents.

You just paid 100 grand for your kid to move to Biloxi, Mississippi in 1948. I thought the whole point of going off to college was to be exposed to, people from different backgrounds who may not share all your opinions, but you find a way to get high with them. I mean, we're a nation that professes diversity is our strength, but now half the kids' dorm rooms are determined by racial purity.

The University of Michigan-Deerborn thought it would be super progressive to set up one virtual cafe for people of color and a separate one for white people. You see what I mean about becoming so woke, you come back out the racist side. The University of Ohio suggested a gym for minorities only. I have a hard time believing that the vast majority of African Americans care.

That in private conversations, they're saying, ooh, I just can't stand doing squats in front of white people. Really? We can't even go to the gym together? Because what's next? What follows separate dorms, anthem, ceremonies, cafes, gyms, separate neighborhoods? That was redlining.

They wouldn't let black people live in the town where I grew up. Then they did. The word for that is progress. It's where the term progressive comes from. Most Americans, including nearly 80% of African Americans, want to live in racially diverse neighborhoods. The black silent majority seems to be behind the idea that you can't have a melting pot with two pots.

Yes, America was born from the original sin of state. slavery, and redress for that is certainly still in order, but not at the cost of destroying a country that most black people now have found a decent life in with a relatively high standard of living and don't want to lose, and balkanizing our nation will certainly cause us to lose it. We need to stop regarding this new woke segregation as if it's some sort of cultural advancement. It's not. Ask Yugoslavia. The people of Sarajevo, Muslim, Catholic, and Orthodox, lived side by side for nearly a century. It hosted the Olympics in 1984.

Ten years later, it looked like this. Countries do disintegrate into madness when they indulge their separatist tendencies. Hutu slaughtering Tutsis in Rwanda. Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir. Everyone in Afghanistan and that one Jew.

We need to unite as one nation who come together and sing one anthem always out of key. Thank you very much. That's our show. I'll be at the City National Civic San Jose. That's September 26th, Sunday. Phillips Center in Atlanta, Florida, October 17th. The Hershey Theater in Hershey, November 14th.

I want to thank Jennifer Rubin, Richard Ojetta, and Tristan Harris. Thank you, folks. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10, or watch them anytime on HBO on demand. information, log on to hbo.com.