Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #428: Prison Reform, Political Fundraising, Evolution of Rap

Episode Date: June 10, 2017

Bill and his guests – Michael Eric Dyson, David Gregory, Symone Sanders, David Jolly, and Ice Cube – answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 6/9/17) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Late Night series, Real Time with Bill Maugh. Okay, here we are on overtime. Ice Cube, are streaming services like Spotify unfair to artists? If they don't pay them, right? They don't pay them, do they? You don't get much from Spotify, do you? I get paid.

I don't know about it. Some artists... Really, a lot. I mean, most artists complain about it. It's pennies, you know what I mean? It's not a lot. But, you know, the... The industry has been, you know, stealing from artists for a long time, so I don't even know if they know the difference, because, you know, the industry is just bad.

You got to fight for your money. So this is just a different way of doing it. Yeah. Okay. Michael Eric Deisen, how would you begin to address prison reform in this country? Well, first of all, you'd have to take the cash out of it, private industry, the way in which, unfortunately, you know, um, Attorney General's sessions has reignited.

that firestorm that had been tamped down on by Eric Holder. So first of all, take the big business out of it. And then secondly, have common sense reform that was forging a connection between Democrats and Republicans like what was going on under Obama before the rise of Sessions in Trump. You know, Rand Paul is working right alongside of a Democratic senator to try to make things work. That's number two and then number three.

I think if we provide people something basic. like opportunities has been shown that most people who are in prison, not the hardened criminals, the nonviolent drug offenders, if they don't have the book thrown at them, they have the opportunity to make something of their lives. Look at the opioid response right now. Mostly middle class or even working class, white brothers and sisters who deserve to get a second shot, but when the crack economy was going hard in the late 80s, there was no such sympathy. If we could have that model prevailed right now, I think that criminal justice reform would be hugely benefited.

David Jolly, what or who is the biggest obstacle to getting your stop act passed? Well, you're not in Congress anymore. That's the biggest obstacle. What's stopping it? He's not in Congress now. That'll definitely stop a bill from getting past. Listen, this is important because you know what ticks me off about Donald Trump? I spent the last three to four years in Congress fighting to rebrand the Republican Party to accept climate change and marriage equality and gun control and campaign financial.

reform, right? And this president set us back 20 years. Right. But the Stop Act is a very simple measure. It's four pages. It says, prohibit any member of Congress from directly asking you for money. We do it in states across the country. We apply it to our judicial candidates. The problem is, the biggest impediment is big money drives re-elections. And listen, the number of members of Congress who came up to me and said, good for you. I wish I could support you. but I can't because I got to go raise a million dollars to get re-elected. That's the biggest hurdle. Okay.

Simone, do you think anti-Trump sentiment will carry Democrats in historically red districts like John Ossoff in Georgia's sixth? No, absolutely not. And if you look at that race, actually, they're running on health care and other issues down there. They're not necessarily running against Donald Trump. Donald Trump won that district by one percentage point.

So it's notoriously close. So I think Democrats will need to talk less about how bad Republicans are and more about what they're going to do and what their plans are and how they different policies to win in 2018. So they're not elected at an historically low approval rating. People already didn't like him, but they voted for him for president anyway and a lot of Republicans around the country. So if folks want to win, they got to do more than just say, oh, these people are really bad vote for me. They have to tell them why. Okay. David Gregory, do news journalists have a duty to protect sources that leak sensitive information from the government? Yes. I think these should

protect sources. I think, you know, I think leakers, like Jim Comey, but people who leak in the government are often doing so to try to influence an outcome to reveal something that is, that gets to wrongdoing in the government. And I think it's part of a free press that we get as much information as we can. The government is built and designed in a way to only tell the American people what they want them to know. And you have to have investigative journalists digging. And a lot of times that means you've got to talk to people anonymously. You've got to protect the people who talk to you to find out what's really going on.

Yeah, I mean, reality winner, hero. Can I ask a rap question? Would that be out of a line? No, please. Ice Cube, so, I mean, I don't get to hang out with ice cube. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, okay. I can talk to you at home.

I get to hang out with Ice Cube all the time. How do you compare the rap of your day, the flow, the lyrics, compared to some of the stuff today? You know, you hear Future, amigos, you know, some of these guys. How do you compare it? I mean, it strikes me that lyrics and lyrics. your day, which was my day, were a lot more in your face, a lot more

direct. Now it's a lot more about flow and beat and stuff like that. I just wonder what you think of it. Well, I think, you know, rap had a political edge to it. You know, it was talking about, you know, doing great things in the community, pushing the program. And then at a certain point,

I think mainstream media really decided, yo, you know, let's not promote public enemy and KRS1 and ICE tea and ICE Q because what they're saying is, you know, real incendiary, you know what I'm saying?

So let's deal with, you know, escapism rap. Let's deal with partying and clubs and cars and jewelry and money and that became the norm and that, you know, if the kids see that, they don't want to emulate that. So that's became, you know,

what we've been kind of feeding off of for the last 20 years. But, you know, with Kendrick Lamar, you know what I mean? You know, even, you know, Kanye was one of the first. You know, Jesus Walks was so, you know, outside the box and it was bringing it back to, you know, saying something in the rhymes and it wasn't just escapism. Dr. Doe, we were listening to Playboy Cartier in the

green room, so that's what we were doing. No lies. On David Spock. Oh, he's got mad heels. Michael Eric Dyson, is Jeff Sessions threatening to restart the war on drugs? Yeah, he's already restarted it. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. Thinking about pie, will this affect the after party? It depends on what kind of access you have, Bill. But, you know...

I got some for you. You know you can do all this on television. All right? When the reins and pores, they got money for wars, became feed the poor. I mean, yeah, the war on drugs has been restarted from Nixon, Reagan, and now down to Sessions and Trump. And it didn't work the first time around. It put a whole bunch of people in jail who don't deserve to be there. And this time around, I don't think they're going to be

able to keep from putting in a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump as well. I mean, one of the things, the point you were brilliantly making is, Bill, is that the very people who voted for Donald Trump are the ones who are being deserved by him in such a lethal way. Thank you. All right. Thank you for my wonderful panel. Terrific audience.

I appreciate everything. 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.