Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #583: Senator Amy Klobuchar, Glenn Loury, Michael Eric Dyson

Episode Date: November 6, 2021

Bill’s guests are Senator Amy Klobuchar, Glenn Loury, and Michael Eric Dyson. (Originally aired 11/5/21) 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 Maugh. I appreciate it. Some hall of them. Okay. Okay. So, wait, we've got a big show.

Please, you don't... Thank you. It'll go to my head. We can't have that. We can't have it go to my head. Now, thank you very much. I really do appreciate that. And I appreciate you also.

being on the side of optimism, was a very strange week. There's a lot of good news which I'm going to get to, but it came too late to help the Democrats from getting their ass kicked all over the country and off-year elections. Have you been following that? Virginia was the big one.

Terry McColliffe was the governor. It should have been an easy race. Lost to Glenn Yonkin. Glenn Yonkin. It sounds like the Scotch you buy at Costco. Glenn Yonkin? Okay, so the big... I've been saying this.

Schools are going to be the big... That's what happened. The big issue was critical race theory being taught in the schools. We're going to talk about it on the panel. I'll just say, Virginia people, the only race they want their kids

to be learning about is NASCAR. That seems to be the message. Now, I think Democrats should study critical race theory, which is the theory that it's critical to win races. And of course, they're blaming Biden because, you know, his number is

taking everybody down. They're already writing Biden's obituary. It's political obituary. The real one they wrote years ago. But Biden had another rough week. I got to say, you know, first of all, all over the country now, conservatives think it's so funny.

To say, let's go Brandon. Have you followed this story? There was a NASCAR race and a driver named Brandon won the same day that the crowd was chanting, fuck Joe Biden. And the announcer, either dumb or wanting to cover this up, said, they're saying, let's go Brandon. So now airline pilots are saying it.

It's a big code word for fuck Biden, so that was bad. Then Biden went to Glasgow, Scotland for the big summit meeting, gave a moving speech saying that the recent, alarming news about melting ice flows and natural disasters should serve as a real wake-up call. And then he fell asleep. So, that

didn't let him. No, the far left is right. He's not woken up. He's got to literally be more wet. His disapproval rating, Joe's, was 36%. Not that far

long ago. Now it's up to 53. And Joe said, you think that's bad. You should hear about this Brandon guy. People really hate him. But this is what's so weird about it. The actual news is pretty good. The economy is going through the roof. We added 531,000 jobs in October.

That's a big number for one month. The Dow, it was a book. Could the Dow ever be 36,000? Now it is. The stock market's never been higher. We're out of Afghanistan. COVID's going way down, and they have a pill now. Merck had it about a month ago.

Now, that was going to stop 50% of this. Now, Pfizer has one. They says, we'll stop 90%. So we have a shot and we have a pill. Could I please return to real life? I left the coffee maker on in my office. It's been since March of 2020. No, I think this pill is going to be a real game.

changeer, although it's kind of a curveball to the imagination people, because on the one head it's endorsed by the government, so you know, it will take away your freedom. But on the other hand, it's a pill so you can grind it up and snort it in your truck. Speaking of trucks, do you know who

Lauren Bobert is? She's one of the new Republican Republican people, let's just say there. I think she's from Colorado. She spoke out This week made news. She said, no one really needs

paid maternity leave because, quote, I delivered one of my children in the front seat of my truck. And she cut the umbilical cord by slamming the door. This chick is rugged. And this was at a Wendy's drive-thru.

And then she ordered nuggets for the baby. I'm telling you, this... Not to be outdone. Marjorie Taylor Green said when it's time for her to give birth, she just crawls under the front porch. But speaking of paid maternity leave, Democrats are this close to passing their big bill, and family leave is added back in.

Joe Manchin was objecting to that. And Curson Cinema, she's still deciding what to go as for Halloween. She is hard to really. And this, I love this. Did you see this story? There were hundreds of Q&ON followers. Are there Q&N people here? Everyone is welcome at my show.

No? Anyway, if you are, you will. They were camping out in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, because they believed JFK Jr., son of the most iconic Democrat ever, who died in a plane crash in 1999, was going to return, or maybe never died or returned from the dead, I don't know,

to lead the Republican Party. or something like that. One of the parts of the theory was that Trump was going to be reinstated. Uh-huh. And then he would make JFK Jr. his vice president. And then Trump would step down, and JFK Jr. would be president who would then appoint Michael Flynn to be vice president. Just like it says in our Constitution,

ladies and gentlemen, that they're always carrying around. So all that's going to happen. and then JFK Jr. is going to say, you know, maybe next time we could meet somewhere, my father wasn't assassinated. Would that fit in? But they know who the JFK Jr. is. I have, this is, I'm not making this up. They have the, I'll show you the picture. This is the person they say is JFK Jr. now dead ringer. Isn't he a dead ring? And by the way, I'm really River Phoenix. Anyway, to conclude this monologue,

to bring up an issue on it, reluctant to do dick jokes. I mean, I do them. Believe me, if you saw how many I was submitted, you'd be thanking me for only doing a fraction of what I could be doing. But this is a true thing that I think says a lot about our nation and our mental state at the moment. Here in L.A. this week, there was a small dong march.

I am not making this up. A small dong march to really. raise awareness about the problem of shaming men with tiny penises. A march in the street. Now, I have so many questions. I mean, if you have a tiny penis, is the thing you really want to do, raise awareness? That would be my one thing.

And, you know, I'm going to say, announcing in public you have a tiny penis takes big balls. All right, we've got a great show. We've got Michael Eric Dyson and Glenn Lowry. First up, she is the senior senator from Minnesota, an author of antitrust, taking on monopoly power from the gilded age to the digital age. Senator Amy Klobuchar.

Oh, look at that. That looked like church. They were up, they were down. So are you excited about the COVID pill? I mean, I see you with mask in the paper a lot. Everybody in Congress. Everybody has been... I think it's really important you pointed out

because there are some really good things going on. Yeah. The vaccine getting out to... kids, right? That's not a good thing, but let's move on from there. Okay, the booster is getting out. Not a good thing either, but let's keep going. Okay, let's keep going. What's good is that COVID is over, really? Well, no way. Yes, I think of it. They say in Duluth it's the lighthouse on the horizon. We see it. It's there. And now it's time to start working on things that really matter to people. Right. And the pill, I mean, here's the thing. Yeah. I know you've worked a lot on prescription drug prices

as an issue, and we'll talk about that. But the first one, the Merck pill, which I talked about about a month ago, now Pfizer has one, but the Merck one, we know, costs $17, and they're going to charge $700 for the pill. Now, this is the essence of our health care, one of the essences of our health care problem, I think, the gouging.

Why can't you guys do something about that? It's unbelievable to me, and I'll start with the fact that there are three lobbyists for every member of Congress from the pharmaceutical industry. They have, no, it's unbelievable. They're irresistible to... Do you know how much money they just spent going against my bill to allow for negotiation of prices

under Medicare? $28 million this year. So that's what it is. People are bought off. They're in people's ears. They're doing this. So what we finally got done now, once we get the bill passed, is we have started negotiating prices under Medicare.

We are, like, literally, I want you to picture this. You would think that 46 million seniors would have some bargaining power, but yet our country is paying more for prescription drugs than any country in the world, yet it's our taxpayers that have paid for all this research. But just negotiating the price, which is such an easy thing to do. We all, if you buy in bulk, I mean, what is Costco? It's just that principle. If you buy in bulk, you get a discount, which we don't do on this level.

And I've got to say, you know, the message, even the real. Republicans, not maybe the politicians, but Republican voters are for this. Yeah, 90% of people are for it. Who wouldn't be? Instead of, all I heard was your $3.5 trillion dollar, instead of just

breaking it into pieces and selling the things that are popular, people think of Democrats in this year, probably why Biden's numbers are so low, it's all about what it costs and so little about what it does. What it does, and the individual pieces. Why didn't you

sell it in pieces instead of one giant... Let me do it. Politics should be about improving people's lives, right? And that means bringing costs down for people. Right now, one. I don't care if you're Democrat or Republican, it's hard to afford child care or even

find child care for families. You have got families that have been in schools that are open and closed, open and close, hence getting a hold on this pandemic and getting through it. Prescription drugs skyrocketing. People, if you take Lyrica, it's gone up. 50% in the last five years.

Insulin, something that should cost hardly anything. Seniors taking little drops in vials and saving them from day to day because it costs too much. That's what we have to help people with. Things that matter to them. That's what matters in politics. And right now, it's just gotten too

boggled up with a whole bunch of things and people talking about this and this and this. So we got to get on our work and helping people. Well, you need a messaging czar in your party. I don't know. I think we need the simple message. Do you think it should be you? I don't.

Well, I think I... Actually, yes, I do. I mean, I don't want the job, but I think I've done it here. Plenty. And they never listened to me, and I'm always right. Right. Well, and then the other thing, there's one other thing we need to.

But honest... We've got a contrast with what they're doing, right? They say they stand for freedom, right? But yet they're blocking people's freedom to vote. We're standing up for people's right to vote. They say they're for freedom, but they're blocking women's right to make decisions about their own health care. We're standing up for that. And they say there for families, and they have done nothing to bring down the cost of prescription done

or make it easier for people to afford child care. Those arguments are never going to work on certain people. A lot of people care about freedom. Yeah, but I mean, you mentioned the abortion thing, really, when you say, obviously the people don't see it that way, and they never will, you know, because it's a tricky issue. Well, let's see how they feel about in Texas where they're, you know, trying to, they passed a bill to be people vigilant to go after people were just trying to get their health care. Well, there are like six states now where there's only one abortion clinic. See, this is what the Republicans also do so well. They played the long game, you know.

They lost Roe v. Wade in 1973. They went, okay, it might take us 50 years, but we're going to, like, attack this. and now they're, it's sort of Robo versus Wade's becoming almost irrelevant. If you live in a state with one abortion clinic, doesn't the Democratic Party need a different strategy on this issue? Well, again, I think on all strategies, you've got to put people first, and somehow that's gotten lost in all of the archaic Senate rules and the discussion of who's up, who's down, the standoff you're seeing right now, and we need to move forward. You know that I've been able to get voters who are Republicans, independents, moderate Democrats, and, moderate Democrats, in my state, and a lot of it is getting out and listening to people. And when you have a kid in rural Minnesota who's got to go to a liquor store parking lot

to take her biology test because she doesn't have broadband, true story, talk to her mom, not to get liquor, just to take the test. I would have gotten it for if I had been there. Hey, mister, would you buy me some beer? Of course I would. You're studying for a test. Well, that's why we need the infrastructure bill, right? We need that.

It's going to make a difference in their lives. So I think that's what you've got to connect it up to. There are too many moms and dads with their toddlers on their knees, their laptops on their desk, teaching your second grader how to use the mute button, which they do better than senators. Right. But the point is we've got to connect to their real lives,

and that's what I've tried to do in my work. Right. So, and you're a reason I thought you'd be such a good candidate last time, I remember. I know. For a minute, you were like, you came on, you went up there, and then Biden. Okay. Yeah.

But is that you're an honest broker, I feel, in the party between the progressive wing and the, I mean, there's no non-progressive wing in the Democratic Party. It's just, well, a couple. Yes, Joe Manchin. There are a lot of moderates that work across the aisle and things in the Democratic Party. There's certainly moderates out there in. But moderate for the Democratic Party, which is pretty far left. I figure you just got to do your work. For me, like, I'm taking on the tech companies.

I'm doing that with liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. Because, you know, look what just happened with Facebook. You've got parents that literally they can't control what their kids are seeing. They try. This one mom told me she's like, there's like water overflowing a sink. And she's trying to mop it up and she's trying to close off every link her kid gets pops up on their screen. That's what's happening, right?

When I was a kid, nobody ever said, you know, parents, they can't control. My father would have been like, oh, I can't control. I mean, it's the will of the parents. I mean, they could control. So you would just deny your kids' phones, they would have no access. Oh, I'm so glad I don't have kids. I don't have to. I know.

Well, that's what I'm trying to. I know. So I'm saying a lot of parents. I mean, there are some parents who do that. Some parents who don't care about being there. friend. Yeah. Right? So what is the answer? To break up Facebook? You know what? My daughter once called me. She said, you heard a helicopter

parents. She said, Mom, you're a submarine mom. And I said, what does that mean? She said, you're always lurking under the surface and then you come up unexpectedly. Tell me what I can't do. Right. So, but the point of this is, I just don't think it should be all on parents. I think that you should be able to allow small businesses to compete. Let the market work. It doesn't.

doesn't work when you've got dominant platforms all the time. And that's an example of an issue where I've got six Republicans, six Democrats on a bill that is being commended in terms of what you can do. Because we have no rules in place right now. And you're so right that's such a great issue to write a book about monopolies. It's true. Monopolys are so out of... Who would do that?

Who would write a whole book on monopolies? No, but you're right. As an issue, it's so important because there's so out of control compared to what they were 50 years ago. And, you know, if you can get six any Republicans to vote with you on this issue, you're good. You are good. I thank you for being here.

Thank you, Senator Amy Klobuchar. All right. All right, I'll see you after. All right. Let's meet our panel. A goose here. Okay. He is a professor at Vanderbilt University now,

an author of the new book, Entertaining Race, Performing Blackness in America. Michael Eric Dyson is over here. All right. How are you doing? And he's a professor of economics at Brown University who hosts the Glenn Show available on YouTube, all podcast platforms, and at glumlarrysubstack.com.

Glenn Lowry, great to meet you, sir. Good to be here, Bill. Two professors I have on, so I know I'm going to learn a lot. I appreciate you both being here. Let's just start with the election that we had Tuesday. I know off-year elections, people say, oh, they don't mean that much. I still think they do because it's still our best way for people to be heard

and we're always surprised on Election Day because we don't know what people are thinking. It tells us a lot. Democrats got their ass kicked. It was called a woke lash in the medium. Some of the places in Buffalo, a socialist named India Walton was alone on the ballot. Republicans did not even run anybody against her.

She won the primary. It tells you a lot about how our system works. in the primary she won among the Democrats. A loan on the ballot lost to the right-in candidate, who was the former Democratic mayor. In New Jersey, my home state, Steve Sweeney, the number two most powerful politician in the state, lost to Ed Durr, a truck driver,

who spent, well, I've read $153,000, I've read $2,000, but not a lot, shot the campaign ad on his phone. sounds like an Adam Sandler movie. And in Virginia, they lost all... This has stayed Biden won by 10 points. They lost the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, the state house.

When Republicans lose, they always say, well, you have to do an autopsy. So what's the autopsy on the Democrats? It's a center-right country, as Joe Manchin says. The Democrats have overplayed their hand. McCallough thought that by using the phrase racist dog whistle, he could rebut a legitimate argument from parents concerned about the way in which racial issues were being taught to their children. He was wrong. To me, the most interesting thing about Virginia is that that issue could turn to make the difference in the outcome of the race.

It would necessarily weigh against McCullough, but how is it that it made the difference in the outcome of the race to which I attribute the general weakness of the leadership of the Democratic Party. I'm talking about President Joseph Biden, who's something less than an absolutely compelling and charismatic figure. Well, we knew that going in. Yeah. Well, I don't know if I agree with Professor Lari

about the total consequence. But clearly, in the interim, yeah, I don't know if it was quite the Obama-shelacking during his first midterm. But I think it's more of a mixed message because India Walton, of course, did, as you say, ran unopposed. The Democratic mayor, who was already suffering because he handled poorly the aftermath of the George Floyd protests

and the economic recovery of the Buffalo Renaissance. He took her for granted. He blew her off. He wouldn't even debate her. Then he got involved. It's a small potato's one. Let's talk about the big one in Virginia. But even with Buffalo, the point is that it was not referendum on whether a Democratic

Socialist could govern because she spoke to the issues of the people. When you think about Virginia, dare I say that, yeah, you don't have Trump to beat up on. Maybe one of the lessons was Trump is not a good whipping boy or sufficient as a whipping boy to get you elected. I think that's definitely true. But what's

interesting is Trump has been displaced and therefore distributed because now you don't need Trump involved. It's like Deus X. Mackin. He's the ghost in the machine. The point is that parents who were spooked by critical race theory, none of whom can define it. When you ask them what it is, they don't know.

But what they do know is that black people are being centered, their history is being taken seriously, and if you say you're concerned about history in America, why is it that when it comes to black history, it becomes a bet on the war on. But I find that a disingenuous argument. Because

I don't think that is what people are objecting to. I don't think most people, and of course there are some places in this country where they will and some people who will. But they're not objecting to black history being taught. There are other things going on in the schools. Like what?

Can we just, like, separating children by race and describing them as either oppressed or oppressor? I mean, there are children coming home who feel traumatized by this. That's what parents are objecting to. You do know that the beginning, and I know Professor Lowry knows that, the beginning of critical race theory in the modern times

is two years ago, Christopher Rufo, a white guy who said, look, I'm reading the anti-racist literature. I see this critical race stuff. This stuff will make good publicity, and he began to drive at home. It's not critical race theory. It's the notion of centering black people as historical agents. And the question is, if you talk about white kids being traumatized, oh, really?

So that black kids being made to portray slaves. We got stories on both sides. I do think you're underestimating the anti-black sentiment that's deeply entrenched, that's way beyond Trump, which is troubling to me. It ain't just Donald Trump. It's the party itself. Well, first of all,

it's American history that we're talking about, and the question is, in what register do we tell the story about American history? Blacks don't have a separate history from America. Absolutely. Secondly, I just have to observe. Buffalo, New York, socialism, I mean, this is the Rust Belt.

This is working-class white, hard hat on the east side of Lake area. Buffalo, New York. Socialism? How did you ever think socialism was going to sell in Buffalo, New York? Thirdly, they do this every time. By they, I mean the activist on the left who want to push the woke

canon. They deny that what I see with my lion eyes is actually what I'm seeing with my lying eyes. I don't have to be able to parse what Derek Bell or Kimberly Crenshaw might have written in a law review to know that the race issue has come into the classroom because of what has happened

in the aftermath of George Floyd and all of that. Right. Defund the police? Come on. Defund the police when crime is going up, when homicide is through the roof, when people are feeling unsafe in their communities, and then people say, well, no, we didn't really mean defund the police. We just meant rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic.

So I think they underestimate the determination of the American people to resist a certain kind of interpretation of the story about the story. the country, there's many different ways of telling that story. And we African-Americans are going to have to come into some understanding with the rest of the country about how we tell the story together. Let me say that. That's fascinating. I agree with you that black history is American history, if America realized that, right?

The reason there's a segregated black history month is because there's been the kind of alienation of the narrative of black people's participation in the American story, the necessity for then highlighting underscore. and spotlighting black people has been precisely because we've not been seen as American. It started with Thomas Jefferson when he said that black people are unloyal citizens in the Declaration of Independence and that indigenous people were savages. My point is simply this. To believe that the critical race theory is not a debate, right?

They're not debating Kimberly Crenshaw or Derek Bell. They're debating the fact that finally, if we look at the textbooks, the textbooks have been doing a horrible job of trying to educate our kids about race. So here's the thing. If critical race theory is getting it so wrong and, oh, let's go back to a time in history where we taught history right. The history textbooks that gave slavery one week,

Martin Luther King, Jr. a day, and that's it. So it's not as if what was prevailing before critical race theory was a controversial subject, was a complete and thorough engagement and vetting of black people in history. I say, let's have it as American history, but acknowledge us.

Why is that to be one? It's like, you make it so polar. I mean, like... I'm not making it polar. Teach, teaching. But you're saying, we have to go back to when they only taught the word? No, this is, no, no, no. The textbooks are being produced now.

I'm not talking about some way back in the day. I'm saying right now they don't even recognize the full complement of identities, conflicts, and tensions that black people participated in along with Americans, other Americans, to make this nation. That's all we're talking about. Give the drummer some. Well, that's not all we're talking about. We're talking about kids who seem to be too young.

sometimes to fully appreciate all this. I think if they watched you they probably wouldn't know a lot of those words. You know, so to ask them to, as opposed to just letting kids be kids, maybe, where usually kids are pretty nice to each other if they're not instructed

not to be. Well, I've got a book coming out in May that's called unequal that's directed toward teens. They understand every word in there. I take your point. Yes, but we're talking about younger than that. We need to be getting beyond race, frankly. We're in the 21st century, not the 19th century. Look at the intermarriage rates. Look at the number of Americans

who understand themselves to be multiracial. Look at how the country is changing. There are more Hispanics by far than there are blacks. The Asians are here and they are continuing to come. We have to look at what we're going to be as a country down the road. This young generation should not be being put into boxes as black and white. They should be allowed to do what comes naturally, which has crossed the lines. Look, I agree. That point, I think, we can certainly agree on. The problem is, you think that the people of color,

especially in this case the black people who point to the fact that that has been a failed experiment, and that has not occurred. There's not been a, quote, race-neutral approach, a race-transcending approach. It's been deeply inscribed in racist argument. Failed in the sense that there's been no problem. failed in the sense that there's been no progress, that things aren't different?

They didn't say that. That's a straw man argument. Of course they've been progress. Well, you said failed. I'm saying failed in this sense. If you're saying that, look, we need to transcend race and all these boxes people are putting it. Black people are not the ones putting folk in boxes. When we look at American society, black people are aspiring to participation in the larger circle of American privilege. They're not the ones who want to stay segregated. Well, then why is it a microaggression for a professor to say, we live in a colorblind society? if a white professor stands up at a university and says a colorblind society you can expect a raft of complaints coming to but I mean when you say segregation

I mean a lot of the segregation I did a thing about this a couple of weeks ago is working the other way I mean segregated dorms at college campuses they're not white segregated they're black folks who want to live without white people in their dorm separate graduation ceremonies but you know that you know that you know that you know it's just like why all the black kids sitting together. You pass 25 tables of white kids sitting together to find the 26 table with all black people. Still, is that the year we're living in now? Exactly. This is getting old,

I just feel like that's not the year we're living in now where the white kids won't sit with the black kids at college. No, no, no, that's simplistic in reduction. You said it. No, no, what I'm saying is you, I'm responding to you saying there was segregation. I'm telling you, it's not as if black people don't want to participate in American society. The barriers are there. And we're being ignorant. But I hate to carp on this, but college campus, I haven't been there in a long time. Right. I'm getting this for movies and TV and every person and every human being I talk to.

Other than that, I don't know. But I don't think that on a college campus, it's like the white kids don't want to be with the black kids. I think they want to, I think they want to glom onto their coolness. But that's not what we're saying. It's not white that's cool anymore. That's not where we're a seminar at Brown hosted by the political. theory project there in which a guy came and gave a paper. It was a very interesting paper. The audience was almost entirely white. Why? Because the host who invited the speaker is mildly conservative.

What I took from that was, my God, how segregated, self-segregated is the intellectual life of my very campus. I don't want to point fingers at anybody. I can just tell you, there were no signs on the door saying blacks keep out. People simply didn't show up. Look, look. Look, I don't deny the legitimacy of a self-segregation argument. What I'm arguing, however, is that people who find themselves alienated in spaces that are not hospitable to them when they're in a majority situation where if you're a majority student, you don't understand the degree to which your normal experience may be alienating to somebody who doesn't belong there or doesn't feel that they belong there.

It's not the intent of white students. I teach classes all the time. The majority of my students are white. then African-American, Latino, and so on and so forth. So I have a rambunctious United Nations kind of way. But what we do there is we confront some of the issues that in their other classes they're not going to be exposed to. The virtue of having a black professor

or a professor who studies that issue and culture is to have a very profound engagement with a set of ideas that many of those white students are not used to dealing with. And the discomfort comes from challenging the histories that they bring with them. That's beautiful. I think what Professor Larry said is good. We should all have the ability to sample each other's cultures and ideas and ways of thinking.

But let's not pretend that the... Wait, minute. Let's not pretend that... But we don't want to live in the same house to do it. No, but wait a minute. Let's not pretend that black students who are talking about living in a themed house are the ones who are carrying the water for a segregation in some posts in America. That's just not true.

That's just not true. It's just not true. Everywhere you look... That's called a themed house? Everywhere you look, you see a contradiction. of what my good brother here is saying. You look at what's going on in the newsrooms of the major newspapers in this country,

1619 project at New York Times and so forth and so on. You look at what's going on in the foundation world where they give out the awards and they give out the grants. They are definitely politically correct and woke on the racial issues. Look at what's going on in the personnel offices of the big companies of this country.

They are managing their brands by making sure that they get the window dressing right with respect to the racial issues. And on and on. So... How is 1619, the segregation, of a major magazine. It's Jake Silverstein, the editor, along with Nicole Hannah-Jones, black and white together, talking about 1619 and talking about American history for the prism of race. I'm not trying to

debate the 1619 project. I'm trying to say powerful institutions are orienting themselves to be open to the very questions that you're saying they're not open to. That's all we talk about in this country. Oh, hardly all we talk about, but the reason they're doing it is not because all of a sudden one day they say, hey, it's a great idea. People like a Nicole Hannah-Jones present in the New York Times magazine as a black woman journalist winning a Pulitzer Prize makes sure she brings a kind of rhetorical pressure to bear so that they open up. They don't open up on their own. Power concedes nothing without a demand.

That's been the truth from the New York Times. For the New York Times. Absolutely. And it's good that it was Britain and that no we can debate it. Right. Okay. I have to interrupt for one minute because I have to talk about the, I think we've been chronicling on this show, the different permutations that the right wing is.

been going through to justify the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. First it was Antifa that did it. Then it was liberals dressed as us. That's my favorite. It's like a McCall's Navy episode. It's them dressed as us. Then it was the FBI. Now they've come around to actually embrace the idea that, no, it wasn't a bad day after all.

Liberals dressed as it. It was us and we're proud of it. Now they're owning it. Marjorie Taylor Green had an interesting quote about it this week. And they're basically saying these were brave patriots. At the point where we thought we could make some money on this. So here at Realtown, we're partnering with the Franklin Mint. Take a look at Morgan himself.

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Each month, you'll receive a brand new coin to remind family and friends I'm not just trolling you. I've completely bought into this. Act today, and you'll also get this loose side-bound piece of the actual feces smeared on Nancy Pelosi's wall on that magical day. And this commemorative Rudy Giuliani syrup dispenser so you can have breakfast every morning with America's mayor. Don't miss your chance to own a piece of MAGA history.

May not resemble actual history. Pretty funny one? Okay. Okay, so I have to ask you a question that I should have asked to Amy Gloverjard, and we ran out of time. But I wanted to get it out there as part of the election on Tuesday, and it happened in her state in Minneapolis. They voted on whether to replace the police department in Minneapolis

with a Department of Public Safety, which would include, now it sounds, of course, as always, Democrats horrible at messaging and language, so they should never say, defund the police. It's a bad thing. sounds like they're getting rid of the police. No, they're folding the police into a department that would include therapists, social workers, which I think is great because police already are doing those jobs and it's not really their job. And then they have to include violence interruptors. So typical of the Democrats, give us a punchline because comedians will run with it.

Yes, violence. I don't know what that means violence interrupt. Here's my question. A majority of black voters oppose the measure. to replace the police department, if that's all we're knowing about this. The majority of white voters supported it. And this is what I've said before on the show. To me, one of the big parts of white privilege,

the luxury to be impractical. And when they do polls, they often find that, you know, it's the white liberals who are way more liberal than the mainstream black person. And I think only 28% of voters. black self-identify as liberal? I don't think this is complicated.

I think people who live in high-crime neighborhoods want to be protected from the depredations of criminals. Right. I think the blacks are living in areas where they are being victimized by carjackings and muggings and homicides and drive-by shootings. And the police

are not a panacea, but they definitely are on the right side of that equation. The whites are not living in those neighborhoods. They're not having those experiences and they don't have the same feelings about the police. No, look, I agree. And this is precisely because I would be an outlier, right? The majority of black people, look, black people call the cops more than anybody, quite frankly, you know,

because they're living in such horror. They're living in such tight situations where their property is at stake, their lives are at stake. So, yeah, they want to call the cops. But they want the cops when they show up not to mistake them for the criminal and not kill them. Yes, of course. But that's why they are at least open to a notion of reform. Like you said, I'm not against the left learning some skill and some gain. Do you want the commercial of the product?

So we're invested in certain proprietary language and stuff. I don't give a darn about the language. Whatever it is, if we're going to remove resources. Look what happened in L.A., I think, a million, you know, what is it? $150 million moved in New York, about $150 million moved. Look, let's put it into right places where cops are not therapists. They show up with somebody having a psychotic break and they end up killing them.

So I'm all for that. I think black people want to be protected. They don't want to get rid of the cops, but they want the cops to be able to determine that they are not inherently criminal and that's where the issue has been. That's why people have been calling for challenging the police because they don't seem to make that distinction.

Right. And we found out only a month or two ago that actually the number of police killings was actually double. what we had thought. You saw that big piece in the New York Times? Yes. A lot of the coroners had been covering for them.

You know, your buddy down at the station house. Right. So it has been worse, and of course the number of African-American killings in that was proportionally or above proportionally higher. But I'm going to read your quote what you said in your book last year about the police. Police forces, you described police forces unyielding appetite for black subordination. Now, that phrase of police force's unyielding appetite for black subordination, if you told me that you were talking about in 1968, I would say undoubtedly.

78, maybe even 88. I don't know what year it changed to a degree, but do you think that describes 2021? I mean, George Floyd. But that's one person and how many police officers are there. I'm not saying he's the only person. Of course not. I'm saying it's a mindset, Bill, I'm not saying that individual white people are going around and saying, I hate those black people. This is why, again, if we really studied critical race theory, what it says is it's not about the individualist about the institution.

It's not about the sentiment. It's the structure. And I'm not trying to just blame Derek Chauvin. I'm saying a system that rewards people for policing and colonizing black bodies. And it certainly has paid off because that was the first time that a police, it took a police chief, a Greek court. chorus of witnesses and people who said this guy is wrong and his fellow police officers just to convict Derek Chauvin. That lets you know the system itself is corrupt and rotten. That's all I'm arguing. I'm not arguing for individual sentiments of prejudice. I'm saying

the system itself underserved black people. Let me make two points here. I don't agree with my esteemed colleague. I think we have to keep the scale of police killings of black people in perspective, and I'm not apologizing for bad policing. There is bad policing, and it has cost black lives. I concede that. But we're talking about a couple of hundred people killed by police, most of whom are not unarmed in the sense, but they're actually in violent conflict with police officers,

talking about blacks. A few hundred, in a country of 300 million people, where there are tens of thousands of arrest every year, where there are 10,000 black homicides in the country in a given year. The scale of the phenomenon is not exactly what Ben Crump would have it be open season on black people. There are inevitably going to be conflicts between police and citizens. Twice as many whites as blacks are killed by police in any given year. Policing can be improved.

It should be improved. But this is not a first-order threat to the integrity of the black body. That is hyperbole. Well, I would argue, look. I have two points. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. No, the second point is, let's deracialize this conversation, man. Police who act badly are police acting badly. Citizens who get hurt are victims of bad policing. It doesn't matter what color they are. Because once you go down this road of racializing encounters between police and citizens, some of whom are criminals, you invite, in the mind of citizens, a calculation about, well, how many crimes are being committed by blacks.

And I don't think we want that calculation in the moment. minds of citizens because quite a few crimes are being committed by blacks. Look, there is no question that when you look at black people who are killed and killed by other black people, it's like in the 90s, right? But we know in the 80 percentile, 84 percent, I think it is, of white people who are killed are killed by white people. So people kill where they live. It's neighbor-to-neigh carnage. It's not a racialized thing. The scale of it is much higher in the black community. Absolutely. Fastly higher. Because of the concentration of other effects, poverty, poor education,

poor health care and the like. So, so no question about that. We're going to agree with that in broad scope. Lack of opportunity. A tremendous lack of opportunity. And bad values and gangs. And weapons. But white people, wait a minute, white people have, if January 6th showed us nothing, white people have bad values, have bad activity, have bad behavior, and they live to tell the story about it in the face of the cops. That's the point we're talking about here. Are you saying, wait, but, are you saying white people are morally inferior? I'm just asking. Absadern not.

What I'm saying, no, what I'm saying this, some people think that. I'm saying the bad behavior of white people is not penalized in the same way that the bad behavior of black people is. So if we're going to be equal about it, let's then penalize black behavior. What I'm saying to you is that there are a bunch of white thugs

who never get suspected because they don't have a kind of profiling going on, and they get away with literally murder. That's all I'm suggesting. Thank you, gentlemen. I have to move on to New Roos, but it was fascinating. Appreciate you doing it. All right. New rule.

There we go. New Roll, someone has to tell Dr. Jill Biden, you can smile and wave all you want. It's still not going to distract us from the fact that your husband is saluting a baggage handler. New Rule, if you honestly

believe the worst thing a president ever did at a summit meeting was catch a few Zs, tell me what you think is happening here. Yeah, I don't know either. What I do know is after Trump touched this orb, he couldn't pee for a week. But his erections were fantastic. New rule of evangelicals must tell me what will happen

to the soul of the OnlyFans model who says she has sex with God. Is she destined for hell because she's on OnlyFans? Or heaven, because she has faith? Whatever happens, lady, remember to use a condom because the last woman God got pregnant, he wound up totally ghosting. That's horrible.

Neural all home printers must come with a hammer you can use to bash the thing to pieces after it prints five pages and then stops working entirely. In fact, don't even try to print. Just remove it from the packaging, take it straight to the curb, and leave it there with a sign on it says, works great.

New rule, someone must tell Kim Kardashian that, no offense, but she can do a lot better than Pete Davidson. Please, I hear JFK Jr. is back on the market. And finally, new rule, now that the latest climate conference

is underway in Glasgow, Scotland, and Greta Toonberg has once again shown the world that she is the conscious of her generation. Someone must tell her, you may be the conscience of your generation, but you don't represent it.

I really wish you did, Greta, but you don't. But I can show you who does. Greta, you have 13 million followers on Instagram, which is great. But Kylie Jenner has 279 million, which is more. I mean, seriously,

who is the real influencer in that generation? The model citizen? Or the model? the young woman who refuses to fly or the one who refuses to fly commercial. You see what I'm saying? Greta gets where she's going on a sailboat

powered by the wind. Kylie takes a private jet powered by Exxon. And she's 21 times more popular. Now, this is not a screed against comfort or capitalism. I'm fond of both. And I give Kylie credit. She's built a massive business empire without ever releasing a sex tape.

And like her dad, she's a self-made woman. But Kylie embodies and embraces a lifestyle that is pretty much the opposite of carbon-neutral. And the younger generations fucking love it. Last week, Kylie posted a tour of her shoe closet,

which houses well over a thousand pairs. She also has entire rooms of things she only's worn once. I don't think Greta would approve of that. In polls, young people always claim to be more concerned about climate change than other generations, but they don't act like it. They throw around buzzwords like sustainable and shame people or forget to bring a cloth

bag to Trader Joe's, but one of their favorite YouTubers is Mr. Beast, who's famous for stunts like, I gave my 40 millionth subscriber 40 cars. Jason Derulo celebrated his 22 millionth follower by eating 22 hamburgers. The cognitive dissonance between planet-destroying conspicuous consumption and planet-saving rhetoric is breathtaking. You say you love Greta and her message, but everything else you love is a climate disaster. Far from rejecting consumerism, young people are so obsessed with labels

that venerable fashion houses like Balenciaga have pivoted from selling Couture dresses to rich women to selling baseball hats to teenagers. And where does a 20-something, get the money to pay $400 for a hat that borrows the Bernie Sanders logo because you're like a socialist and stuff? from mommy and daddy, of course, those huge assholes who ruin the planet.

Oh, and also maybe by trading Bitcoin, the mining of which is worse for the environment than actual mining. Cryptocurrency uses more energy than Netflix, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google combined, and more than some entire nations. And yet young people could not love it more if it came with a side of avocado toast. 94% of crypto buyers are either millennials or Gen Z, which makes it ring a little hollow when you're out there chanting for us to put the planet ahead of profits.

And what do crypto fans say about this? They say, well, yes, it uses too much energy now, but in the future, oh, yeah, the future, that's right. Same thing my generation said. Let them handle it in the future. I'll get mine now. Like Bitcoin, the smartphone, is a huge, contribute to carbon emissions because

the cloud isn't an actual cloud, of course. It's a vast network of servers using energy and all that liking and following and subscribing requires lots of fossil fuels. And yet you would need the jaws of life to pry a phone out of the hands of anyone under 30.

What would it take to convince Gen Z and millennials to give up their phones? A pollster once asked. 43% said it would take $5 million to give up their phone. One in ten said they'd sacrifice a finger for it.

That deserves a high four. Look, I know it would be fire to be able to both live like Kylie and also save the planet, but you can't do both. Last year when Australia was devastated by wildfires, Greta reminded us that we still failed to make connection between the climate crisis and increased extreme weather events.

Kylie, too, was moved by the disaster and tweeted about how the loss of animal life breaks her heart. Then she quickly followed up with a post of her new $1,500 Louis Vuitton mink slippers. It's always so sad when fire kills potential slippers. Kids, you're going to have to make a choice here. Do you want to be progressive or excessive? Team drastic or team plastic? When Kylie's lifestyle becomes uncool and unpopular,

and you stop loving Bitcoin and stop thinking that stuffing your face is harmless, I'll take you seriously. Until then, shut the fuck up about how older generations ruin the planet. We get it. Boomers drop the ball on the environment. We did. We dropped it like it was hot. And for that, I can only say, whoops.

Yeah, you're right. we dropped it. But have you picked it up? I wish your generation was better than mine. I really do. But the sad truth is, we're completely the same. Lots of talk. And at the end of the day, hopelessly seduced and addicted to pigging out on convenience, luxury, and consumption. So that's it. You can either be the fake tits and private jet generation or the one that saves the planet. But you can't be both. because fake tits are not biodegradable.

All right, that's our show. I'll be at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, November 6th, tomorrow, at the Hulu Theater in New York, November 13th, and at the Hershey Theater in Hershey, November 14. I want to thank Michael Eric Dyson, Glenn Larry, Senator Amy Klobuchar, and you. Thank you very much, folks. Watch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher

every Friday night at 10, or watch them anytime on HBO On Demand. For more information, log on to HBO. com.