Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #600: Ian Bremmer, Jane Harman

Episode Date: May 14, 2022

Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 5/13/22) 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. Thank you. Okay. Here are the questions. Okay. What do you think is the main culprit driving inflation? Do you think the Biden administration is equipped to solve it? Stump the ban there, I guess on the first one. You get dinner at Peppies. What do you think is the main culprit driving inflation? Well, first of all, obviously, too much money. Trillions of dollars. You can't deny that part. And suddenly all of this supply chain stops,

and at the same time, everyone wants to buy. That's extraordinary. It's unprecedented. It's staggering. It gets you 30-year inflation highs. But on top of that, the Russians invade Ukraine. And China locking down. And China locking down. What's up with that? We forgot to mention COVID.

That's why they're locking down. And that drove a lot of this, the spending and the pent-up demand. Well, we didn't have to handle COVID that way. Well, we didn't handle it the way China does. No, I fucking hope not. I mean,

what is going on in China? What, I mean, Jane, you were an ambassador to China and the first woman on the moon. What? So far. Yeah. What is going on in China?

People don't know. I mean, Shanghai is a city of 25 million people where you are locked in your apartment. I mean, they often kill your pets. I've never seen anything like this, and I don't know why they think it could possibly work. You can't control a virus completely like this. You just can't. I don't think it is working. I think it's working to gin up the public against the government. Do you think it's working? Yes. The problem is that their draconian

lockdowns worked really well when the disease. was not so transmissible. And now it's much more transmissible, and their vaccines don't work. And they refuse to license American and European vaccines. We have them. And much less virulent. You know, I mean, Bill Gates, did you read his quote this week?

Who just got COVID, yeah. He just got COVID. And he said, well, we didn't realize it first that it was mostly disease of the elderly, a relatively low fatality rate, and more like the flu. Oh, you mean the thing? a lot of people were saying at the beginning and they were called crazy.

Things that would have been taken off of Twitter at the time, by the way. Right. No question. There you go with Twitter. Yeah. Damn, we should put that into the regular show. Do you think lawmakers

are doing enough to remedy the baby formula shortage by launching an oversight investigation? Really? Into baby formula? Is it a conspiracy to deny baby formula? What do was that mean? Oversighting?

a baby form? No, it's just this kind of stuff, right? It's not a conspiracy. Well, it's a lot of concentration of power in a few companies and it's a supply chain issue. What would you do about that? Apparently, all of the major companies, I guess they're all major,

are trying to... So it's not a monopoly. Well, but it's not 20 companies, I think it's three or four, and they're trying to... Welcome to show business. Yeah. That's a different problem. But, I mean, it's the same thing. I mean, there's very often not 20 companies.

Very often, only two or three companies selling airlines. You know? I mean, if you're most routes, sometimes it's only one carrier. This was the worst crisis of our lifetimes. What? Maybe four months? No, COVID. And the trillions of dollars that we spent.

Not the worst crisis of my life. Sure. No. And I mean, you think that's not going to lead to massive dislocation when suddenly people didn't have money, they couldn't work. Suddenly everyone's spending it at the same time. Yeah, you're going to have problems. Oh, you think that's where the baby formula problem is coming from? I think it's a big part of it, absolutely.

And yet, during COVID, people did not make babies. They thought, oh, locked inside, they're going to make lots of babies like during a blackout. No, it was more like, oh, I'm sick of you. They're the last person that I want to talk. I'm sorry, but that's what happened. Okay. Early this week, earlier this week, Biden used the phrase ultra-maga

multiple times in his speech about inflation. Do you think this is an effective messaging strategy? Ultra-Maga. Yeah, as a, he was saying it, as a pejorative, right? He was saying the ultra-Maga, but MAGA means make America great again. I could see how that wouldn't.

be a great I thought it was a premium brand you know like like the gas you know four bucks and fifty cents a gallon Ultra MAGA that's gonna work better right

I don't think it works very well it sounds like a condom Ultra MAGA sounds like a condom it does it's larger around works just an Ultra MAGA

yeah but don't you think Putin should get a big red hat that says Merga Russia great again? Isn't that what he's trying to do in some misguided way? Trump? Putin. Putin? Yes, of course. Well, every country wants to make their country great again. Well, I mean, he's making it less great now. Right. I mean, Trump, that's not even Trump's

original phrase, make America great again. Clinton used it and Reagan used it. You know, it's an ambious. I like that it was Make America Great Again again. Right. It's sure it was all the way down. We'll do that without irony. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Thank you, folks. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10 or watch them anytime on HBO on demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com.