Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #406 (Originally aired 10/07/16)

Episode Date: October 8, 2016

Overtime Episode #406 (Originally aired 10/07/16) - Bill and his roundtable guests Al Franken, Armando Perez a.k.a. Pitbull, James Carville, Mark Cuban and Johann Hari answer fan questions from the latest show. 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 Ma. What did you make of Bill Clinton's comments that Obamacare was a crazy thing? Oh, yeah, that was a little crazy. Is the campaign going to be able to keep him from going rogue? No, he was saying that it was crazy that people had qualified for the subsidies and in between which Hillary had talked about having a way that they could get into the health and tears too. He's praised Obamacare a gazillion times. He did not say that.

But, I mean, let's be honest, as long as the profit motive is still in the equation, it's never really going to work. I mean, it's going to work. People are going to have more coverage than they should. But as long as you cannot stop it on one end of the equation, that is, people can charge as much as they can, the EpiPen, you know. I mean, this kind of... Well, and the poor-profit companies just buy this system.

It didn't even work in Vermont. They tried it in Vermont. They couldn't make it work. It's working better than before. No, I'm talking about single-payer in Vermont. No, but what we have, what President Obama has done with the Democrats' payers, it's not being not be working as well as you want, it's working better than the system they had before.

Uninsured right is dropping. Obamacare was one of the most important and most difficult startups of all times. But you have to understand it's still a startup. Any big company like that, any big startup like that is going to have issues, and you've got to improve it and they will. It's not just that. It comes back to what we were talking about, the tax code. Part of the problem is the big Obama companies buy the system.

They give to both sides. The first thing that happened on the first day of the Obama care negotiations is they agreed they were never going to negotiate on prescription drug prices because they were in debt to the companies. If everything you say is true, it's true. If everything you say is true, there are more people insured today a lot more. So let's take some good news. Sure, of course.

Let's take some good news. You're right. The pharmaceuticals are powerful. It's still a lot more time. But let's take some good news. All right. We're here to talk about issues, not good, and this isn't the lollipop hour. I'm just saying, give it to, can't we say something nice about something?

All right, let's say, this is Mr. Positive over here. That's right. Let's get a question to him, yell up some good news. All right, come on, Mondo. All right. Pitbull, why did you get involved in the charter school movement? Well, I mean, for a simple fact that it's real simple. A lot of people are not what we're talking about right now.

You know, we're talking about a lot of things as far as change. And, you know, when it comes to politics and politician, I call it politrix. I think it's a lot of bullshit. They say a lot, they do a whole lot of nothing. So when it comes to the kids, if you're able to tap into a young mind, teach you how to believe in itself, focus, work hard, inspire it, motivate it, then guess what? They're able to grow and make educated decisions.

So therefore, my mother always told me the biggest diseases in the world, the two biggest diseases in the world, ignorance and greed, which we see we're suffering from it right now with Trump running as we speak. You know, I want to be able to show these kids, hey, as you get older, at least you know the decision you make, you can stick by it, because you know where, you were well informed. Let me push back a little on something you said there about politrics. It is politics.

And mostly what they do is nothing. I think that's a very dangerous message because that makes people just turn off and go, oh, they're all alike, they're all full of shit. Actually, here in California, we have a Democratic governor and we have a Democratic legislature. So we've been able to do great things. When politicians actually want to work together

and you have the right ones, they do things. And that's a reason why, We had Medicare before that. Yeah, I still think they're full of shit, to be honest with you, Bill. But you know what? Maybe you need to... Maybe you need to...

Maybe you need to... Maybe you need to get into the details. And what I'm trying to tell you... And the devil's in the details. And I know the devil is... My motherfucking cousin, to be honest with you, but with that, says, yes. But this is what I'm trying to tell you. Look, when politicians, they come out, they talk a whole...

You know, a great game. And mind you, we're talking about climate change. You're talking about what they did for California. We're talking about California is what? They're in a drought right now. But... Armando, let me just tell you something. Before Lyndon Johnson came along, and you know this better than I do, and past Medicare,

senior poverty, old people who lived in poverty because they didn't have pensions and stuff, was something around 40%. It reduced it to something like nine. Okay, that's actual change. That's something that I can't speak about because I don't know the details on that. That's what I'm telling you. Then don't say they're all full of shit and they don't do anything. Okay, so I'll tell you this much.

So let's get political about this shit. Majority of them are full of shit. Well, then don't vote for those. But you have to learn who to vote for. That's a dangerous thing. Because that says if they're all full of shit, then Hillary and Trump are equal. I mean, that's a dangerous thing.

It's very dangerous. Without Amando and Bill is saying, you can say that many are full of shit. I'm with you. I just said that. But they isn't the majority of them. Majority of them are. Majority of them full of shit.

And I just think that politics has become a problem. As we see it right now, I watch Hillary and I watch Donald Trump, and it looks like the fucking WWF. But you've fallen for someone. But it's not. It's not. You fall into some of the property about charter schools. You know, it's what you're saying about charter schools, I'm afraid, is the bullshit that you're denounce it. You know, you look at the places in the world that have schools that are doing really well.

They do the opposite of the charter school privatization model. Think about Finland. What they do is that we've got best schools in the world. They fucking pay their teachers really well. That's what we should be arguing for. Not charter schools. I agree 150% with you, by the way. And if you were to look into our model,

our teachers are very well incentivized. But this is more than anything. This is about flipping education and making it exciting for the kids. Sure, but the countries that... Now, Charter School, by the way... In a public school system, places that succeeded have done that without the partial privatization.

Not everything you need to learn is exciting. Yeah. Correct. And that's why we flipped it with sports. That's what we flipped the curriculum. If we're talking about data analytics and they're in the algebra or their geometry, whatever may be, they'll do fantasy football. They'll do if it's X, Y, Z, then we'll do, hey, it's a 60-yard line, X amount of time on the clock,

and they need this many points. Like, we find a way to make it exciting, and we flip the curriculum. That's why it's called Slam. I agree, but you've got to do that within the public system, not this point of public system. It is the public system. 90% of the kids in my school are free lunch, my friend. These are all the ones that come through. from the neighborhoods that I come from,

which is Little Havana, my friend. Of course, they're admirable, there are admirable individual charter schools. Hey, I come from a neighborhood say, don't talk about it, B, about it. That's the way I come. No, oh, the pit bulls. No, no, no.

So I'm talking about, hey, if you want to look at numbers, let's talk. All right, all right. Let me, let me, let me, let me, I know. You don't want to see him. You don't want to see him. He's not gonna bite. He'll hump your leg, but he won't.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I might touch a pussy. I might touch a pussy. I was hoping that happened back. Oh, Armando. No, but listen to this. Now, your governor in Florida, Rick Scott. Oh, man.

Huge asshole. Okay. How did he make his money? Medicare. Cheating. So a state with mostly retired, not mostly, but like the largest percentage of retirees, elect a guy who cheated old people. A state that is in danger of global warming elected a global warming denier.

And part of Obamacare is a Medicaid expansion. part of it. Republican governors blocked it. Now, when they voted for the governor last time, if they had voted Charlie Kristen, he would have been down with the Medicaid expansion. And something like 800,000 people in that state would have gotten health care. 800,000 people

don't have it because they elected this asshole. You see, the devil is really in the details, and it affects personal lives. When somebody needs health care now, all those people they cannot get it. And one thing on my end, guys, I want you to understand. I'm a person that came from nothing to something. I really understand a lot of things. I'm learning as I go. And I'm the kind of person that admits

when I'm wrong. I'm the kind of person that admits when I don't know certain things. And I get thrown in the world to politics. You know, I get thrown in this world because they feel like they want to, you know, pull in our culture and they want to, obviously they go for that vote. So there's a lot of things that I'm learning as I go and I'm always here for advice. But one thing I am is very, very passionate. You know, so sometimes you make sense. Let me just make a point. You know, I just want to make sure you guys know that. I'm far from perfect. In my state in Louisiana, which is a very poor state, one of the poorest states, we had a governor that did not expand Medicaid. We had hundreds of thousands of people that needed insurance that didn't have it.

We elected a new governor, and he did it. He changed people's life. It is not the same. I understand what you're saying, but it was a distinction with a difference. It's so easy to sit back and go, oh, they're all crooks and they're all liars and they're all this. when you elect the right people like a certain lady who's running you know

their focus really they may have their foibles we all do we have to recruit from the human race none of us are perfect some of us use the wrong email server oh my god but basically this is a person who her whole life is focused

on how can I make people's lives actually better I agree with that there are those people out there You saw the dangers of the degeneration of the debate this week when it came to the reaction to the vice presidential debate. Tim Kane made a really important point, which is that Donald Trump thinks, A, there should be more nuclear weapons in the world, and B, it should be easier to use them. And the reaction to everyone was, God, didn't Tim Kane sound like a whiny bitch? Right. Wasn't he annoying?

I'll tell you what's annoying, dying in a nuclear explosion. That would be significantly more likely if Donald Trump wins. I couldn't agree more. You know. We need to tell them more serious discussion. That's why I love doing this show. Right, and the idiot media is like, well, Mike Pence won the debate

because his demeanor was better. His demeanor was better, but he lied his ass off the whole time. I think there's a thing, and there's something called you wouldn't know this, but I think there's a thing called an East Commandment. What?

I think that's something about thou shan our lie. I actually think that was one of them. Did you say the East Commandment? No, the 8. I think I'm going back to Marcosley's still back. That's that plan. That's a cage. He just lied the whole time.

And great. And people in the media were saying, did he get great. He just lied his ass on. There was something. Is he speak Spanish? I don't know. You understand what I said, Mark.

No? I understand what you're saying. I'm just kidding. You know what it is? I can't understand you because I smoke too much. I got to go. Thank you, everybody. Yes, sir.

I love this. Thank you. Thank you. Catch 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.