Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #602: Eric Holder, Michael Shellenberger, Douglas Murray

Episode Date: June 4, 2022

Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 6/3/22) 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. Okay. Eric Calder is back with us on Overturn. This is for you. Why isn't Biden pushing for federal legalization of marijuana? I think it's probably something we ought to do, given the fact that it is something that would have a great political benefit and also deals with the reality. You know, people are using marijuana. It's being legalized in the states.

I've heard that. I've heard that you've heard that, you know. And what's it like? Is it good? I only inhaled. No, it's something that I think we need to catch up. Our drug policy needs to catch up with what the reality is. Marijuana is still a Schedule 1 drug.

It's ridiculous. It is ridiculous. It is ridiculous. And Republicans, are going to steal the issue. I think eventually. I mean, something like John Boehner works for a marijuana company now.

I mean, it could be one of those freedom issues. And, of course, Republicans smoke lots of pot, too. There was... Not enough. Not enough. They need to mellow out

just a little more. Just a little more. But there was something that was passed in the House, but the Republicans are against it because they said it has too much stuff about equity in there. Now, I understand the impetus to want to, like, for example, if you're going to have new businesses that are legal in the marijuana field, yeah, they probably should go to the people who suffered the most during the drug war. Right.

it's better to have the law changed. And as I said, deal with the societal reality that we have. And, you know, and try to make it as equitable as you possibly can. But I wouldn't want to stop the movement that I think makes sense for the sake of equity. Okay. Panel, what are your thoughts on Elon Musk mandating his workers? Oh, yes, said the workers have to go back to the office. I love this.

Has this become a dated concept for companies now? Yeah, it's, I'm delighted to see that, because, I mean, everybody knows offices or workers who, particularly younger ones, who are saying things like, they say, their boss, the working from home thing, it really helps the productivity.

And if I do have to come in, could I come in like maybe Tuesdays and Wednesdays? It's like, flip the working week, so we have a couple of days of work and then five days of weekend. I think people are on to that. And look, it is true. There are some jobs that you can do better from home.

But a lot of it, you know, people have to get back into the office. People have to stop this pretence that they're scared to go into work for health reasons. It's bullshit. They're pulling a fast one. There's no reason at this stage that they shouldn't be in the office. Other than they don't want to be, in which case, do something else. Okay. It's good to see people coming back into cities.

I mean, we need our cities. 10, 20 years ago, people talked about walkable, livable cities, but we've let our cities deteriorate. This was a progressive idea of livable cities, and now we've allowed them to be turned over to open-air drug scenes, homeless encampments. Cities are the lifeblood of innovation,

of civilization. We've got to bring it back. But, you know, I think we really need to ask ourselves the question. It is entirely possible that people can be more productive at home in certain sectors. In certain sectors. I mean, my law firm is. I mean, In my law firm, we're doing a lot of work from home, and we've had record-breaking years the last couple of years, not spending nearly as much on travel as we once did. On the other hand, we don't mentor our young lawyers in a way that we did, and that we suffer in that way.

But it does wind up looking elitist, does it not? Because the people who get... Well, that's true. You know, it's like, I always thought it was bullshit during the pandemic when they were like, we're all in it together. No, we're not. Some people are at home in their pajamas, getting food delivered to them, and other people are delivering the food. And the jobs that tend to be where you can't stay home. You can't be a plumber from home.

All the time. No. You've got to go to where the sink is. Or an old construction work. All right. You got to have people on the factory floor. I always noticed that the people who had gardens liked working from home.

And like 20-somethings who were paying thousands of dollars a month for a bed sit, was stuck in it, tended to want to get back into the office. You know? Right. Fancy that. Okay. What do you make of the herd versus death verdict? Oh, okay. Well, you brought this up.

Does this trial mark the end of the Me Too era? No. It just marks, I think, a restoration of, you know, sanity. Like sometimes the jury doesn't believe somebody. And, by the way, you never know. You never know what goes on in a marriage. You never know what went on between those two people. I don't have 100% assurance because a jury said Johnny Depp is innocent, that he's innocent.

I don't know. But that's the best we can do. We're just humans. We try. This is the worst system except for all the others. The only thing that might suggest it is the end of the Mito era is, do you remember at the beginning of it? In 2017, 2018, clearly there was a correction that needed to happen. Yes.

There was some powerful men who got away with too much and bad things for a long time. And that correction needed... But not just powerful men. Those are just the ones we heard about. Sure. It was also one's, you know... Yeah. But the point is, is that there was a correction that was needed,

and it very swiftly ran past the point of correction. I mean, there were those things like shitty media men. There was a list where people just lost their jobs for a crowdsourced Google spreadsheet. Right. There were, you know, the comic and Sari, he basically got done over for a bad date. Yes.

And there was a period where we had these completely deranging claims that are typical of our era, where people said to things like, believe all women. And really, no, that's as mad as saying, believe all men. Why? It's right, of course. Believe people, listen to people, listen to their arguments and their experience. Don't just come out with these things. So the thing with the herd debt trial is interesting is the jury did hear, they did hear her

contradicting her own evidence on the stand. And as Mr. Holder knows, like juries really don't like that. They really don't like it when they can see somebody as lied. And they could see that she'd lie, like she pretended she'd given the seven millions. from the new force to charity and then it turned out that it was a pledge she'd made. She said, well, I think a pledge and the donation are the same thing. You go, no, they're not. And so they didn't like that.

So maybe just after this we can remind ourselves, as you say, Bill, like marriages are tricky, people are tricky, it's always more complex than we know, but it's certainly more complex than these fucking hashtags, you know? It's more complicated than the hashtags bill. It's also understand that for too long women were not heard. Sure. And they need to be heard and we need to take seriously the claims that they raise and we should not have a presumption

that because it's coming from a woman, it is something that's made up. In the same way that... But we all agree on that. Well, well, there's a danger. But sometimes if we think that we've over-corrected that we, in fact, don't go far enough. Also, here's an idea.

If you want to try to completely reformate or rebrand or reframe, sexual etiquette between the sexes, don't base it on Hollywood. Like, that's true. Don't do it. Don't do it in a very weird industry which actually came up with the term

casting couch. Right. Where people actually advance for their looks, for their sexual, you know, wiles and much more. Like, start in some other business. Yeah. I wish you said, too, I mean, we've been talking about civilization. I mean, one of the differences

between civilization and not civilization is you have a system of justice rather than a system of revenge. The systems of revenge are endless cycles of violence, and when you break free of that for a justice system, you're much more likely to be able to have that civil peace that we all want to have.

All right now. Let's go have some right now. 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.