Real Time with Bill Maher - Ep. #728: Gov. Gavin Newsom, Gillian Tett, Bret Stephens

Episode Date: May 2, 2026

Bill’s guests are Gov. Gavin Newsom, Gillian Tett, Bret Stephens (Originally aired 5/1/26) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGEMGEMP operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Welcome to an HBO podcast. from the HBO late-night series, Real Time with Bill Ma. I appreciate it. And I know why you're happy. Congress finally has passed a funding bill for the Homeland Security Department, which means the TSA, the people who keep us safe from shampoo. So that's finally over after 11 weeks.

And all the big airports have already been upgraded from complete shit show to giant pain in the ball. So that's... Of course, the big story. Another week where political violence... has reared its ugly head again. We are officially now, I'm sure you saw what happened at the correspondentist in the age of Gen Z assassins. You see this one?

Before he did it, he took a selfie. No, I'm not making that up. His manifesto had jokes, jokes, and it was on recycled paper. I mean, we're in a very different era. But, you know, so we know who this guy is now. At the time, what happened, nobody knew. No one knew, because I just knew a guy.

He had a shotgun. He had a 38. He had hunting knives. Either it was a far-left activist heading out to kill or a right-winger heading out to dinner. But I am not surprised that it didn't work, that it failed, because, trust me, from a comic, no one ever kills at the correspondent's dinner.

I've been there. And, of course, the good news is that no one at the time. the banquet was hurt, really. As soon as it started, everyone went under the table where a lot of the Trump administration was anyway. I kid the Trump people. They like a little nip of the sauce every once in a while.

But, you know, when you saw pictures of this guy and you heard about him, engineer at Caltech, it was like, it's a little disturbing. You know, he seemed like such a nice, normal guy, the last person you would ever expect to be trying to kill the president until he was activated by James Comey's seashells. Have you heard about this?

Yes. Very serious stuff. Justice Department is trying to put former ex-head of the FBI, James Comey, in jail, for posting seashells. Why? Because the she-shells spelled out 86-47. He's the Manchurian beachcomer. That's 86.

Get it, 86, get rid of, 47. Trump. Yeah, they're going a little crazy there in Washington, but it was a big, oh, big week for kings. Fans of kings, a weird week for kings, because King Charles of England was here, spoke to a Congress, got a standing ovation from the people who used to be at the no king's rallies.

So, and then, and then the rest of the time here, he hung out with Trump. These two, when they're on a play date, they are having... No, they just vibe. They just, you know, same age. They kind of dig each other, and they get it, the little thing. And, you know, they're cousins. They're 15th room of cousins.

They share an ancestor, the Duke of Orange. It is funny because King Charles is officially a king, but he doesn't act or can't act, you know, England is a parliamentary system, and Trump, this week, put his face on a coin. You know, like Julius Caesar used to do. His face on a coin. It's like a regular coin, except it just doesn't make sense.

Oh, I kid. Oh, yeah, over at the war. Remember the war? You remember the war. No changes. The staring contest continues. This is getting uncomfortably like a relationship fight. And we're at the not-spin.

We're not speaking. We're arguing over who broke up with who phase. Fuck that, I fucked that up It wasn't going to be that big anyway I'm telling you you, you didn't miss a lot But At least good news out here You know why? Hollywood?

Hello, the box office, back again, baby Devil Where's Prada opens today They think that's going to make a fortune Project Hail Mary was a big hit at the... People are going to the movies again? Yeah, man. Oh, and Michael, the Michael Jackson movie. Huge.

Yeah, especially among the younger generation. Michael's really good at luring kids. No, the movie. And also big news here from California. The billionaire's tax. You know what this is? They've been talking about it for a long time, a one-time tax if you have a billion dollars.

And now, just this week, we got the news. I have enough signatures for it to be on the ballot in November to send a powerful message. California doesn't belong to the rich. It belongs to the millions of faceless, anonymous people who are running for governor. All right. We've got a great show.

We have the governor. We have Billy and Ted and Brett Stevens. But also the Democratic governor of this state, host of the This is Gavin Newsom podcast, an author of Young Men in a hurry of a memoir of discovery. Our governor Gavin Newsom is over there. So you heard what I've ended there with, the billionaire tax?

And I know you are against the billionaire tax. So this is interesting to people. people who don't live here and follow it, they would think, oh, Gavin is some far lefty. He's going to be for the billionaire tax, but you're not. Well, I think billionaires do need to be taxed more, but just not at the state level. Capital moves. And the challenge with this particular tax is it doesn't include firefighters and teachers. They're left out of the tax.

It's one time. And we've already seen dozens and dozens of people leave the state. But my state of mind is crystal clear. At a federal level, the imbalance between the rich and the poor, has got to be addressed. And the issue of ultra-wealthy, folks like Buffett, folks like Bezos, folks like Bloomberg,

paying one to two percent tax. You pay, Bill. A hell of a lot more. I talked about it last week. They tax the shit out of us. The regular rich. Yeah. No one stands up to the regular rich.

I don't know. And two with the points. So for the ultra-wealthy, we've got to deal with a stepped-up basis. We've got to deal with the fact that we're not taxed. capital gains at income tax or ordinary income. We've got to address the fact they're borrowing against tax about their capital gains,

and then they're passing on these massive trusts without any taxation to the next generation. All of that needs to happen, but this particular tax is not the answer. Okay, but we're not here to talk about politics. You're, you, you, you, you're, you're, you're, I'm, I'm, I'm, that's, you, you, you, you're, what you want to talk about, though? Your book. Oh, that's it. You, you.

A politician with a book. You forgot what you're doing. I forgot this is a book tour. You're on a book tour. I'm on a book tour. A young man in a hurry. Exactly. It's just about the book.

We're not talking about it. It's just about the book. Yes, sir. How is the book affecting your campaign for president? No. Well, no. I know. It's a cliche.

I will say this. I don't know why everybody running for president. Not that you are, went away. Has to write a book. But this one is different. It is not your team. typical book that a politician writes.

It's better. First of all, it's not sentimental. No. And it's really your voice. Yes. You know, it's... What? No, I appreciate it. Keep going. I'm enjoying this. It is. I mean, and, you know, it's honest in the sense that, you know, you didn't have the easy

time a lot of people think. Yeah. You had what I would call a normal fucked up family. Every family's a little messed out, right? And that was yours. mom, divorced family, a mom that worked two, three jobs all her life, and a father that was distant, years and years trying to connect with him. And finally, I was able to do it. And he was there for the day I got elected governor, passed away shortly thereafter. And so it's a, it's a story

that's very familiar with a lot of folks. And it's a story that's really a love letter to single moms, my rock star mom that just did everything sacrifice for him. So, but Bill, I appreciate what you're saying. This is not a book, you know, this is not some triumphant and be. book. I mean, I tried to scrutinize my life. I wasn't trying to sanitize anything, and I went back all my mistakes. If you don't like me, you should buy this in bulk, because there's all kinds of issues there that can exploit. But it's an honest portrayal of this young man in a hurry. You put a mask on, and my face started growing into it, and I was becoming someone that I didn't want to be. And the big part of, you know, why I wrote it was just let go. And just, you know,

just start to be myself, warts and all, and love me or hate me. Well, they will pick out things like that in the campaign and use them against you. I know, I'm just saying... What campaign are you keep referring to? You're right. Unbelievable, man. Really? Really? I meant your book tour. No, but I mean, as this... Well, you are officially the frontrunner. I mean, they do polling and you are the front

runner in the Democratic Party. Well, okay, that's just a fact. I'm not... I'm not... It's so fast. I appreciate. As the heat gets heatier, it must worry you. I mean,

when you saw this weekend in Washington, not just coming after you, obviously, when you run for office, the horrible things people write and people say, and there is nothing off limits to take you down. No. And you've already been there, but it only gets worse,

the closer you get to the prize. That's right. What did you think when you saw that this weekend? Well, evil. I mean, you know, you've got to come. condemn it. You've got to call it out. And so I don't like the rhetoric on either side. We all have to be held to a higher level of accountability. So, you know, that's easy to condemn. But there's also an asymmetry here. You have the president of the United States that says the tone and tenor for

this country. And that's not a partisan statement. That's an institutional statement. He's the president. And you just made the point. What did he do the day after? He talked about, you know, a beach photo and an indictment of one of his enemies. He talked about his bowl room, his Kremlin ballroom. He's not doing anything to try to unite this country in any way, shape, or form. And, you know, for me, that's, to me, that's the biggest

reflection of this moment, is how just the sewer that we're now living in because of Donald Trump. And he's allowed all of it to feel free to shove again. And I think, you know, if nothing else, forget

But many people would say that you are imitating him. You, among all the people who may or may not be running. You're the one who kind of imitates his style with the trolling. You're suing Fox now, I understand. You're saying that's right out of the... Well, we're going into discovery. Fox better look to settle right now or apologize for defamation.

Okay, but that sounds exactly like what he does. Suing media? Different point. Well, then don't defame, don't lie. And Fox is a prop again. But that does sound like him. Well, here's the point. I'm trying to put a mirror up to Donald Trump.

Yeah. And I think it's important with the sense of humor as well. Well, the deviation of normalcy is off the chart. This is a guy cosplaying as the Pope, dressing up as Jesus, this guy putting his face on Mount Rushmore, doing it at all-cap. None of this is normal. And you may recall when I first started doing this, the folks on Fox said, oh, this is so unbecoming of the governor of California. He should wash out his mouth with soap and water, with no situational awareness that their dear leader has been doing this for years and years and years. He's a man-child. And so I think it's important.

to call that out. Yeah. The dignity of the president of the United States. But again, we're not trying to dehumanize. We're just trying to reflect that reality and express the absurdity of all of this. And look, the absurdity, it's every day. It's a corruption story, the Trump administration. You referenced it obliquely in the opening monologue.

But let's get serious. He's got eight or nine countries. He's done major golf course or development deals. It's meme coins and stable coins. It's a crypto. It's World Liberty Financial. It's getting, you know, a piece of the piece. I mean, this peace board is about getting a piece for Whitkoff and for Kushner.

You see Donald Trump Jr. in the drone companies and the mineral companies. You're seeing the kind of corruption. It's not, you know, it's not $60 Bibles. It's not sneakers. It's not $100,000 watches. It's the greatest grift we've ever seen in our lifetime. And that also needs to be called out. We can't allow any of this.

to be normalized. So our social media is part of that. And that's why we've got to continue to be accountable. Okay. Well, that's all true, and it's going to be a great part of your platform. The other side, what they're going to say, though, is, but have you seen the stats from California? Good. Well, people... For the largest economy, let's go. Are they going to say good about gas prices? Are they going to say good about how high the rents are? People, so many people live... I mean, there's a whole... I mean the train.

Gavin, you've got to get rid of the train. The train, I say this as a friend. You've got to let that train go. Let the train go. It's up to $231 billion. No, it's not. It's not. We're doing $119 million segment.

We got it back on track. It goes back three administrations. I inherited a mess. We put it back on track. All the environmental work is behind us. We're actually laying the track. All the legal litigation, all the land issues are all behind us. We're actually making this project work.

And so that's a fact. Now, on the issue of California... Well, it's been a long time coming. Of course it has. And you can't make up for the past. I can only make up for my segment, literally and figuratively, as governor over the last seven years. But look, you talk about California with the envy of the world. Since I've been governor, no other developed nation has outperform our economy. No other state has outperformed the economy of state of California. I think people feel that on the...

They may not feel that in every way, shape, or form, but we dominate it. in every key industry. We dominate manufacturing, agriculture, hunting jobs, forestry jobs, more scientists, more Nobel laureates, more researchers, more higher system of higher education, the finest in the world, more venture capital. You talk about the future. You're talking about California in AI and quantum on fusion, on space. California is dominant. We also have seen the last three years population growth. We've got to update our talking points.

We've seen a 9% decline in unsheltered homelessness. this. We've got to update our talking points. We've seen a 60% increase in permits for housing. We've got to update talking points. I'm very proud of the state of California. When I see this. Oh, God. Here we go. I know. I see a front run. I see this thing with the hand. Unbelievable. That's it. Look at that. So there's a governor race going on here now. Any favorites for who's I'm trying to avoid it. I mean, the only thing I'm focused on in making sure that Democrats don't get locked out.

It's an open primary, just two Republicans running, lots of Democrats running, Democrats diluting, top two. So let's make sure there's a Republican and a Democrat in the runoff. Okay. I want to read a statement. I read, remember Barney Frank? He's ailing. I wanted to say, if you're watching, we love you.

I always say he's my favorite congressman. He was my favor. Yeah. He said Democrats have embraced an agenda that goes beyond what's politically acceptable. What do you think he means by that? I don't know. I think maybe talking about some of the things you've talked about for years and things that I've brought up as well as around being more culturally normal,

which comes across. Yeah, you said that. Very negatively. What does that mean? I just, we have to, words matter. The way we talk about things matter. Getting stuck in identity politics. too, right? In some of the policies, not all. Is there anything you're going to say California

was too far left on? Because I feel like if you don't, I think a lot of the country is not going to listen. Yeah, look, I mean, I think there's a lot of things that, you know, I've said this in the past, things I could have done better, more. I look back at COVID. We just put out a detail over 1,000 pages, what we did right and wrong during COVID as it relates to the issues of outdoor and beaches being shut down, schools being shut down for too long. But we also made the point we had a lower death rate than any other large state that are. economy recovered faster than any other large state. And we have one of the fastest vaccine rollouts in the country. So there's, you know, good and bad. On the issue of housing and homelessness,

what we could have done more aggressively sooner, but on social issues where I think you're tend to be leaning in towards. You know, I've also, I've made my point of view, known as it relates to issues of sports and transports, which I just think is, it's not being transphobic to be common sense. But I get how people are sensitive to that, because that's been weaponized and people have been talked down to and the community's been abused by those that want to take advantage of this politically. So there's a sensitivity in all that. But look, if we're in the identity space, if we're fighting the last culture war, we're toast. And perhaps that's what Barney's referring to and that's what you've been preaching and practicing, I think,

appropriately for a long, long time. Well, you know, I... I certainly practiced on my podcast, which I'd like you to do. do, club random, where I practice something that is legalism. And by the way, who legalized that? You do. I just want to go on record. I just want to go on record. Thank you. Good luck with the book.

Thank you. And whatever else you may be doing. Whatever else we are. Governor Gavin Newsom. Thank you, Paul. All right. Let's spit off now. Okay.

He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning opinion columnist for the New York Times. Brett Stevens is over here. Here did Brett Stevens. And she's the head of King's College. Cambridge and a columnist for the Financial Times, Jillian Tett. Hey, good to see you. Okay. Well, let's get the ugly news about the political violence out of the way first because we have to talk about it.

I'm just going to vomit my take on it and then you can argue. I would just like to say, if you're one of these people, and there's many in this country who watch that and was disappointed the president wasn't killed. See, they're laughing at that. You're not a good person. or a smart person, but definitely not a good person. I was reading this in your paper, an interview with Governor Pritzer of Illinois, and they asked him like,

well, what does the next president have to be? And he said, good, decent, and kind, which who can disagree with that? And certainly Trump has often not been good, decent, or kind. Right, but he's not Hitler. You can't say that you are fighting for democracy or a believer in democracy and at the same time excuse political violence

is a mechanism for political change. It's one or the other. And that's the essence of our system that it gives us the opportunity to change things through the will of the people and not through the barrel of a gun. And people who don't get that don't understand the basis of the system

they are supposedly championing. And if you look at opinion polls, it's scary how much of proportion of Gen Z are now saying that they support some form of political violence to express their opposition. And that's got to change. I mean, that is simply not, as Brett says, the way to build a democracy. And it took King Charles to come over to America to essentially give a lecture about democracy. Well.

And it was probably about the only lecture about democracy that President Trump, aka King Trump, would actually listen to. You British really don't want to let go of that democracy. I am both Americans. You really, really don't. I swing both ways. I'm American and British. Okay.

You know, when you mentioned Gen Z, I also think that it's a function of an educational system that for way too long thought that censoriousness was a mechanism for social change. That telling people to shut up, that their views were wrong, that you could shout down speakers, that you could disinvite people from your campus. You didn't have to listen to the other side. You could go and occupy a college campus because you believed in, say, you know, Palestinian rights and you wanted to champion globalizing the Intifada.

Eventually, that has consequences. I mean, there's a reason why you're seeing this kind of sense of permission among younger people for violent behavior. Because if you think globalize the Intifada is like a cool slogan to chant, at some point, whether it's the Intifada or some other trendy political cause, someone in that group is going to believe it's true and they're going to act on it. And it's not just university fair.

I mean, a lot of this is actually TikTok, YouTube, all the kind of social media that presents these very simple one-dimensional solutions and assume that you can basically treat life like a video game. And if you don't like it, go bang, bang, and it's over. But some of the rhetoric is not just from TikTok. I get why that's a sewer. But this is mainstream. I mean, it's funny because I remember when the shoe was on the other foot,

and the liberals used to always say, and they were right to say it, that a lot of this very violent rhetoric that we hear on the left, it inspires the borderline personality to then do something. And they were right. I never thought they were wrong. But the shoe's on the other foot now. I mean, it's on both feet. But you've got to own this kind of right.

rhetoric. And, you know, if you call Trump, this is why I was against this, he's Hitler bullshit. I mean, if you really believe that he is a Hitler McPedophile, then you kind of have to kill him. That's the mentality they have. Well, both sides, you've got extremists on both sides. And the tragedy is most Americans, the majority of Americans actually are pretty centrist and don't like either extremes. But the political system is pulling us both ways right now. I think it's true, and I don't think that anyone who supports Trump and is horrified by the violence that they saw at the correspondence dinner or the two previous assassination attempts, they all have to take a big step back and ask themselves, how are they supporting a president whose tweets or social media posts whose rhetoric is consistently trying to delegitimize his political opponents? Trump did it not with one Democratic president,

President Obama calling into question his birth certificate, but with President Biden as well. And I just would like to ask people on the right, imagine if this had happened two or three years ago when President Biden was in office and the killer was some guy or the would-be assassin was some guy with a manifesto saying that Biden stole the election of 2020, where would he have gotten that rhetoric?

So there needs to be a deep, you know, chill in terms of the way in which we... speak about our political opponents. But here's the thing, Brett. I mean, you know, join as a cultural anthropologist, and anthropologists pointed out that a lot of what... My first mistake, apparently, yeah. But there's a lot of the rhetoric and stylistic, you know,

performative approach that Trump has borrowed from the wrestling ring, if you look at how he's actually presenting himself politically. And an awful lot of it is about calling each other names and stage managing this fake conflict. like it's a game. And so in a wrestling ring, it's fine. You can shout violence against each other, but then you take it in real life.

Today we are talking about assassination, actually putting someone to death. What I'm saying here is that there is a problem with, of course, whatever you said about, just said about Trump is true, and everything he tweets out and everything. There is a little bit of a difference between that, and people who think,

we're in a mess in this country, the way out of this mess is he dies. That's what a lot of people think. And I'm just telling you, I don't think you're a good person there. I wouldn't want to be that person who thinks that way. Also, it's just not smart. You think that's going to solve the problem? He would be a martyr, first of all.

Jay-D. Vance would be president. Well, yeah. I mean, MAGA's not going to die. They'd probably get... We tried impeaching. That didn't work. We tried going to the courts. That didn't work.

The only way this actually works, it's happening. His popularity is at the lowest level it is. Even among his core supporters are falling off. The only way this ends is at the ballot box, like in Training Day, when Denzel goes to the neighborhood and they've all turned on him. And he's like, I'm king coming up in here, and they're like, no, you're not anymore.

That is the only way it actually ends. One brief additional point, which is that the left, including the hard left, has to learn how to speak about Trump without immediately equating him to Hitler. You can be bad and not... He's told your line. You can be bad and not Hitler.

You can be wrong. You can be a worrying president. At the same time, you know, well, now I'm repeating you. The best way to do it is to argue your case. Yeah. Once you start with Hitler, it's like any time you do...

We've seen it in many places in the world where they make someone into, whether it's Rwanda or what, you know, the who-tube. saying the tootsie were vermin, or the hootoo. Somebody was vermin, I remember. The tootsie was. Whatever it was.

And then the next, whenever you dehumanize someone to that degree, people are going to go, oh, I'm a hero. This guy wasn't crazy, crazy. Like, he wasn't hearing, you know, the dog wasn't talking to him in the moon. He just was like watching, you know, the- Social media, yeah. Yeah. Well, the more virtuous you think you are.

And media media, yeah. The more virtuous you think you are, the more you have permission to behave But can I go back to what Brett was saying? It's actually universities have a duty to teach their students, the kids, about civilized, intelligent, respectful debate, about listening to all sides of an argument, about separating out an idea from a person, and actually realizing you can have a furious row and then be friends of that person afterwards. Right. And that is critical.

Okay, so another aspect of this, I think, that is new, which is that people now, when something like this happens, way more than they ever used to before, go right to the conspiracy stage. I mean, this was always something. But I never heard the term false flag operation until I think it was the Sandy Hook shooting. Now that's immediate. We go right to that. Okay.

So anthropologists have looked at this a lot of the centuries. And whenever you have people losing trust in the system and or in a state of great anxiety, you get conspiracy theories flourishing. They're not new. But right now, we have those two conditions. America, which are stoking up endless conspiracy theories, and of course, social media and the digital world amplifies that. But can I blame the universities since you're here?

Okay, I'm a target. I think this has something to do with the decline in critical thinking skills. You know, I remember watching... Okay, well, I want to come back on a little. You know, I remember watching, I think, one of the Armstrong or Aldrin, one of the people who landed on the moon talking about, you know, the conspiracy theory about, that being staged. And they made the point. 400,000 people would have to be in on the secret

and have to have kept the secret for decades. Exactly. No, but, I mean, that is where we are. We go right to, it was staged. Everything was staged. You know, they don't believe, they thought the assassination in Butler. I remember refuting lots of people who I thought were rather intelligent people.

And I'm like, how could you? would it be staged? They shot the guy, the guy behind him got the bullet. It's like we don't have the bullet. But now we have AI. So of course people think things are staged because it's becoming harder and harder to tell what's actually man-made and what silicon made. I mean, that's a problem. Yeah, but we also have people who don't know like the concept that as if you have two explanations, the simpler one is probably the right one. Right. Yeah. It's a thousand years ago. I'd like to push back on what Brett said about the university. I'd too agree with you. University's

the criticalness point, overseeing Keynes College, we are fighting to have not just critical thinking developed, to have proper debate between the students, and to also have them forced to talk about their ideas at length in front of a professor. And I was actually meeting with... All universities other than Cambridge and the University of Chicago are to blame. He was at Chicago. So I'll say one other the thing, which is that I was chatting to a head of American University the other day who said, well, we're having to change our mission statement, are you, I said, well, actually, King's College was founded in 1441 by King Henry VI, who had his mission statement in pursuit of education, religion, learning, and research.

Now, the religion part may be a bit controversial now, but that four-part mission statement from 4041 is basically what university should be doing, education, learning, and research. Okay, well, we can get back to this, but I just want to say this thing about everything is staged. There is a magazine out now because people are so... unto this theory all the time that something is staged and we got a hold of it would you like to see some of the articles

and state where is my there's my copy of stage magazine everything look at this everything is for example some of the articles this week we spoke to the crisis actor who's been playing your neighbor since 2017 exclusive photos

Will Smith and Chris Rock rehearsing the slab did Neil Armstrong's wife fake it Was Gettysburg faked? 51,000 witnesses conveniently killed? Where are they now? Our interview with Jeffrey Epstein? Suspicious?

We asked 12 scientists why the moon is visible at 2 p.m. and all 12 hung up on us. Oh, the demons that attacked Tucker Carlton and asleep break their silence. Brad and Angelina together again, new clues from the back of the $1 bill. Alex Jones, get rid of you.

you're soon to be worthless U.S. dollars by sending them to me. And you won't believe who writes your text messages and how they convince you. It's you. So, you too seem absolutely head up to talk about this education stuff and higher education.

Let's do it. The big story this week that I saw, Yale, that's here in America. That's also pretty old. I've heard of that. Yeah. What is that? Back to the 17th century. Harvard is 1636. 18th century for Yale.

Oh, okay. All right. What are the Chicago? Oh, like late 19th century. Anyway, they wanted to study themselves that why the trust in higher education was so in the toilet, which it is. Some of the things, tuition is too high, way too much bureaucracy,

unfair admission standards, certainly Asian people have sued about that, and I think one, great inflation, but mostly it is indoctrination, what we were just talking about. At Yale, it's the, 36 to 1 the number of Democrats to Republicans

who work at that school. 36 to 1. Even if you're a Democrat, you shouldn't think that that's a good thing. It's not. It's never. It's why this state is fucked up in some ways. It's because there's nobody checking one side. And they just do not like the idea that

teachers now, or the professors, whatever, see it is more a job of enforcing a political opinion than just instructing people. They see themselves as some sort of red guard I think, a lot of them, certainly the ones you hear about. And they seem to want to just point the kids in a direction

instead of just telling the kids what happened, what the facts are, and let the kids make up their own mind. Is that not accurate? Well, I haven't been at Yale, so I won't speak for Yale. I will give them some credit for actually having this. All these elite schools. Well, yeah, I would disagree that the teachers necessarily do that. I think issues around legacy admissions, high fees, and really screwed up.

I think they don't do that here in America? I think they do to some degree in some context. However, it's not just about that. It's also about the legacy admissions, the high fees, the completely screwed up system for handing out grades, et cetera, et cetera. So it's a bundle of things. Kudos to Yale for having looked at themselves and having issued this report.

Because frankly, I can't imagine the White House doing anything like that any time soon. Can you imagine the White House issuing a report of yourself? And of course, they had to overreact to the situation. Like many things that the White House does, they identify something that really is a problem. Sometimes the town doesn't need cleaning up, and then they clean it up in the wrong way.

They cut off medical funding. What the fuck does that have to do with this? Absolutely. Well, Brett has got a great column on this. Look, I think it's a little bit different with the White House. I mean, administrations are supposed to be partisan, but the point of a campus is to have an opportunity to engage with points of view that are radically different from your own.

I don't necessarily think that Yale needs an even balance of Democrats and Republicans, but the danger you have is that at elite institutions, you are getting echo chambers. And echo chambers are deadly for productive, critical thinking. And what has to happen isn't for schools like Yale to set up little conservative islands or institutes or have a token faculty member. What they need to do is to make sure that in every department,

the people who are in the faculty are skeptics, contrarians, non-conformist gadflies. That was there when I was. at university over 30 years ago, again at Chicago, it has to be there at every major American university. Otherwise, we are graduating young people who think that they are much smarter and much better critical thinkers than they are,

and there's nothing worse than people who think they're smarter or brighter than they really are. Well, we kind of agree. For the benefit of any students watching, we can stage manage a kind of Socratic debate, if you want, I can disagree with you, but we kind of agree on this, unfortunately. Okay.

So I'm glad we can end that there because there's a bigger story that we have to get to, which is the Voting Rights Act, which is the big story this week because the Supreme Court ruled on... It's so funny. It was only one week ago. We were talking about gerrymandering because the state of Virginia decided to, and again, Trump started this with Texas. Let's gerrymander Texas, so then Virginia, you know, California, we responded.

Now, we're gerrymandering, California. and Virginia went all in on it. Now the Supreme Court's involved, and the Voting Rights Act is involved, and now it seems like, you know, I said last week, race to the bottom, that race took one week. We're already at the absolute bottom. If you don't know what the Voting Rights Act is from 1965, 20 years ago, when they voted to re-up it,

it was completely uncontroversial. 98 to zero in the Senate. And, let's be honest, the Voting Rights Act itself is gerrymandering. We've always had Jerry Manoring. No computer ever drew a district. Humans always did it. And what they were doing with the Voting Rights Act was saying, we're going to draw some districts where black folks can't lose, as it should be.

Because otherwise, you could draw the map in such a way, which is they're doing now. Louisiana is a third black. You could draw it so that all those people, oh, we're not stopping anyone from voting. They're voting. They just won't get a representative in Congress. Because we're going to draw the map in such a way is that everywhere they vote, they only get 40% of the vote. assuming that they vote for the Democratic Party,

but that's a fair assumption. If you're simultaneously saying, this is so critical, if you're simultaneously saying the way to deal with a president you don't like is go to the polling booth, not with a gun, then you have to fight with every citizen in your body

to ensure that the voting system is credible and trusted. And right now, you wouldn't know why Gen Z is going to violence, it's because people don't trust the voting system, and that's tragic. I mean, I think there are two issues at stake. One is the question of

the gerrymander, and I think the biggest mistake was made, not last week, but it was made seven years ago with a Supreme Court case called Ruchel v. Common Cause, which basically said that courts could not intervene to prevent outrageously gerrymandered districts. And gerrymandering basically

means that the politician gets to choose as voters rather than the voter getting to choose their politicians. What we're talking about here is a question of racial gerrymandering. In 1964, racial gerrymandering for the sake of ensuring black representation in southern states. And in 1965, that was without question the right thing to do. It was without question the right thing to do in 1985 and perhaps in 2005.

But that had to end at some point. And one of the points that you often make on this show bill is that there has been a lot of racial progress in this country. And so at some point, that principle that we were going to have to cross. create special districts for the sake of ensuring minority representation. At some point, that was going to have to end. I think the question was, is 2026 the year in which to end it? And maybe the answer is, after we've had a black president, after blacks have had so much success and achievement in American life on their own merit,

isn't it time to finally end this? And in that sense, I think the court made the right call. Oh, you do. You think they made the right call? In this case, yes. I think it's going to, I think this is, they're going to look back and think this is like, I mean, we've heard a lot of talk about a civil war. This is like a step toward that because I saw the map, the picture of the map of what it's going to look like. There's going to be no black congresspeople from the south. You think you can cut off the part of the country that has the most African Americans in it.

And that map is like completely red. Maybe there's a few, maybe just the central Atlanta or someplace like that, where it's going to, and you think people are just going to take that line? If that's the result, I will absolutely eat crow. That's wrong, okay? What I think you're going to have, what you think you're actually going to have, is you're going to have black representation, but a lot more of it is going to be a Republican. But, Britt, we face the situation right now where public trust in democracy, in Congress, in voting, is collapsing. Why would you do it now? How is this going to rebuild trust in any way, shape, or form? in the system? Well, I mean, public trust is collapsing on both sides.

So why make it worse? Well, I don't think it's making it worse because I think that the basis of our system is not to have racial gerrymanders of any form for whites or blacks to have an actual principle of racial and color neutrality. I think that's the American standard. Now, in 1965, it was a very, very different period. We were just emerging from Jim Crow and decades of, segregation. I don't think we're in 1965. We're definitely not. We're definitely not,

but we're not living in the future either. Yeah, and basically what's happening. We are in fact, you're having, you're having every single political tribe now racing to become more tribal, not less. You're talking in the one hand about combating echo chambers. You're creating echo chambers all over the place by doubling down on the concentration in terms of political sorting. So what do you think the Democrats should do about it? Anything? I mean, I think given that they're now faced with a situation where the Republicans have gone ahead already, they have to respond. Otherwise, it's going to be a case of, you know, being sitting ducks.

And the problem with Democrats so often is that they end up looking like the Boy Scouts against a mafia. You know. You're talking about two different things. I actually agree with you that once... Actually. Agreement actually to quote a... Practice on the Democratic debate here. To quote a movie.

There's one issue, which is the Supreme Court's decision, which has to do with the voting rights. Rights Act of 1965 racial gerrymanders. The second question is, did Democrats have to respond with their gerrymanders once Texas and other Republican states did? And I think in that case, the answer is,

sadly, yes. It's a race to the bottom, but Democrats couldn't sort of announce unilateral disarmament for the sake of a principle which was going to leave them objectively weaker in Congress. Well, I mean, I do foresee a situation where, I mean, if...

Thank you. That's a part of the greed of you are actually over there. On the right, obviously. I mean, when you combine this with the attempts to, you know, stop voter fraud, which, you know, they've studied many times, an in-person voter fraud almost never happens. It doesn't really affect any elections. But they're trying to do that.

And, yes, I mean, there are lax voting situation in some places where you really don't have to show a lot of ID. to vote. But it doesn't seem to really affect the outcome. But that is what the Republican Detroit. When you combine that with some of the states here are going to rush to do this before the election. I mean, this midterm election was an election which the Democrats, because of Trump's unpopularity because of the war and the inflation and the rest of it, ICE, Doge, things that even his people didn't like. Democrats were going to walk away with this one. That may not happen now. And people know that. You think the violence is bad now?

Way do people know that the election that was absolutely supposed to be in the bag is not in the bag, because they changed the rules and they fucked with the game. I agree. Okay. And people keep saying, you know, the danger of civil war, that kind of stuff. We don't have a civil war, thank God, on the streets. There is civil war in cyberspace already, or effectively civil war in cyberspace. It's a cold civil war.

Yeah, exactly. It's a cold civil war. Yeah. Well, we hope we don't turn hot, right? Absolutely. All right. Thank you very much. Time for new rules, everybody. Let's not ignore the one obvious upside to the shooting at the correspondence dinner. Stephen Miller getting to know what it feels like to be whisked away by federal agents.

The Australian woman, who was on a family road trip, stopped to use an outhouse, fell in and got trapped waist deep in shit for three hours. Has to look on the bright side. You could have been back on the car with the kids. No rule, not that we should condemn any college for what one of its graduates does, but since Cole Thomas Allen went to Caltech, yeah, fuck it, Caltech must be dropped in the college rankings.

You gave this guy a degree in mechanical engineering and the best idea he could come up with to get past security was run fast. He's less Carlos the Jackal and more Forrest the Gump. New Rule, now that all these ships are stuck off the coast of Iran, someone must make a hook-up app called Hormuz.

Because for those sailors stuck at sea, shipping isn't the only thing that's backed up. Everyone has to stop saying, you know, pot is a lot stronger than it used to be, like it's a bad thing. What other product do people complain about when it gets better? And you know why it was, weaker when we were young? I do, because I was a pot dealer. It's because there was no hydroponics

then, no indoor grow rooms, no CO2 enrichment, genetic breeding, or precision irrigation systems. And also, I put oregano in it. And finally, new rule, stop making me no stuff I don't want to know. Did you know that the human brain actually has an actual finite storage capacity? It's estimated to be about 2.5 million Impressive, but not infinite. That's why sometimes you just got to say, disc full, shoving things down my brain. A couple of weeks ago on our overtime segment,

one of my guests used the term the Overton window, which up until a year ago, I had heard only once every never. But lately, I hear it everywhere. The Overton window. The Overton window. The Overton window.

The Overton window. Overton window. The Overton window. The Overton window. The Overton window. The Overton window. Sorry, but I just couldn't hold my tongue anymore. Well, the Overton window has opened up, you know, about... I don't know what that is, and I don't want to know what that is. Don't tell me.

Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't kidding. This isn't a bit. I really don't know what the Overton window is, and I really don't want to know. So don't tell me. The only thing that's still on my bucket list, I want to die, not knowing what the Overton window is. Now, maybe it's awesome, but it just seems like the kind of pedantic bullshit

that triggers me. So if you try to tell me on the street, I'll keep walking. Try to tell me on a plane, I'll jump out a real window. If you start to explain it to me, I'll stop you. If you write it, I won't read it. I didn't order it. And I don't think I need it because I'm a strong believer in the academic theory of, I kind of get it.

The Overton window, it's something bad. We don't want to pass through. And Trump is just making it worse, and I'm sure he is, but that's enough for me. I don't need to chase every one of your manufactured buzzwords down the rabbit hole. A couple of years ago, Joe Rogan and his guest, some guy,

took me to task for not knowing what WEF or MK Ultra was. He doesn't even know what the W.E.F. is all. But that's crazy. He didn't even know what M.K. Ultra was. Guys, W.E.F. is World Economic Forum, where the billionaires meet every year in Davos. Yes, I do know that. I just don't call it the W.E.F. If I hear Joe Rogan say W.F, I just assume it's some form of professional wrestling organization. And MK Ultra, okay, the old CIA program where they experimented with LSD. Yes, I've read about it. I just don't use the decoder ring.

Last week, when the news was all about the Supreme Court, suddenly everywhere, everywhere I looked or read, someone was talking about the shadow docket. Shadow docket, the shadow docket. Shadow docket. Shadow docket. Shadow docket. The shadow docket.

Shadow docket. The shadow docket. I kind of get it. some kind of fuckery Trump's trying to pull, and I'm sure he is. But the court is kind of stopping him, a little bit. Okay. Here's another one I can't get away from.

Looks maxing. I kind of get it. Some new fucked up shit the kids are doing, but come on, it'll go away soon when they die. I don't feel like I need to know everything. I'm sure if that was a better citizen. I would research all these things. MK Ultra and cognitive offloading and astroturfing and shittification and the shelling point.

And I will, I promise, I'll bone up on all of them. But not the fucking Overton window. Has to make a stand somewhere. I know enough. I know it's something liberal pundits care very deeply about, as do I, as do I, absolutely, very deeply, whatever it is. Because I am with you on this, because I get it. I mean, I kind of get it. I know it's got to stop or start

whatever it is you cannot make me learn the actual meaning I will not learn it on the panel I will not learn it wearing flannel I will not learn it in a tree I will not learn it from chat GPT I will not learn it on a yacht I will not learn it smoking pot

I will not learn it from a cow I will not learn it on MS now I will not learn it from social media I will not learn it from Wikipedia I will not learn it from a We'll not learn your new dumb word. I wish I had unlimited storage, but I don't. I also will not learn the word heuristic.

I hear it a lot lately. Horistic. Sounds important. Fuck you. What I know is whoever uses it is going to lose the election. Platform decay, if it involves my dentist, yes, I'll learn it. Otherwise, no. Groyper, I think I get it. A neo-Nazi with bad skin?

If it's not exactly that, it's very close. I'm just tired of my mind being cluttered with things I didn't ask for. This is what I call mind rape. Things forced into my head without my consent. I know all five Kardashian sisters' names, and I know the names of all six of the characters on Friends, and yet I've never seen one minute of either show. I did not consent to that,

even though that Ross was a paleontologist. And the fact that I know that, I consider that violence. I know things about the Kardashian sisters. I shouldn't. Like the names of all their kids and which NBA team their fathers played for. I know Kim had several children with a Nazi. I know her ex-boyfriend has a big penis.

People used to read books. Now they watch a YouTube of a raccoon opening a can of soda. What did we think was going to happen? Among the words that you'd never have been allowed, to get inside my brain, or Scott and Dizek. Belichick's girlfriend is, I really don't. I hope I never get Alzheimer's, but if I do, at least I'll forget who Justin Baldoni ever was.

All right, thank you very much. I want to thank Brett Stevens, Jillian, Ted, and Governor Gavin Newsom. Provident drops every Monday and YouTube or listen on wherever you get your podcast. Now go watch overtime on YouTube. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. every Friday night at 10 or watch them anytime on HBO On Demand.

For more information, log on to HBO.com.