Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #628: Noa Tishby, Andrew Yang, and Rep. Elissa Slotkin

Episode Date: March 18, 2023

Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 03/17/23) 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 Maher. Hello, CNN. It's me again, and I'm here with the panel we had today. Israeli actress and activist Noah Tishby, co-chair of the Forward Political Party, Andrew Yang, and Michigan Congresswoman soon to be Senator Representative Alyssa Lacton. Okay. Should there be, the first question very brief, should there be a primary for vice president? Oh, then we're going back to the beginning of the Republic when we were at the beginning. Didn't the vice president wasn't a dude who ran with the guy, right?

Whoever came in second place. Second place, can you imagine? The vice president, yeah. Oh. Yeah, we've found today. Yeah. But I said during the show that I thought that there should be a competitive primary in the Democratic Party, which I do.

But if Joe were to run again, I think there should be a primary for who is running mate should be because the fact is that. person could wind up stepping into his shoes and the people should have a say. You're down with that? No. I have... You don't care. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. Why waste political capital? I don't think it should be primary for it because I think that is as a candidate, that's your first choice as a possible president and that shows a lot. Yeah, so you're with him or yeah? No, I don't I don't think so. It's the

first choice of the upcoming president. Okay. What does the panel think of the new upgrades to chat GPT. Oh, you must have many... Now, this is not just... ChatGBTGPT is very recent itself. And now they found a way to make something that we all find creepy, even creepier. Is there any benefit to this technology

getting more advanced? Well, it can rate college essays in about 30 seconds, so if that's too slow for you, then you can just turn it up, and then they can get it done in 10 or 15 seconds. In all seriousness, I have friends who run firms and they're saying to me in private, look, I'm going to let go of 40% of my

staff because I can now get more done with fewer people. That's happening to a lot of repetitive white-collar jobs. Forty-four percent of U.S. jobs are either repetitive manual or repetitive cognitive cognitive. And it turns out the repetitive cognitive might be the first to go. Yeah, but this is also at a moment when we cannot get enough people to work in the jobs that we have. So while we may be trending in that direction, we have a massive problem getting our current jobs filled. So I don't feel like we're on the cost. You're right, Alyssa. They're both happening at the same time. The fact is the labor force has shrunken by two and a half million American workers post-COVID. Now, they're at home. We're trying to get them back into the workforce. And then simultaneously,

this tech's going to come in and wipe out. Let's say, as one example, two million Americans work in call centers right now, making $17 an hour. Like, how long do you think that'll last? I don't know. You're the expert. That's why I have a passion. I mean, people know that that job is probably, you know, that job is probably, you know, automatable today. I just read the questions. Was the online criticism of musician Thames extravagant Oscar dress, which obstructed the view of audience? Oh, I saw that picture.

Which obstructed the view of audience members fair. If you didn't see this, yes, somebody had on a big white, ruffled thing, and the people, they were all, like, five people behind her were like, the Oscars what do you think I feel like the actress should probably answer that I haven't acted in years listen it was a little extreme but I don't think it calls for an

overtime question there are bigger things like that we can deal with thank you I thought it was not right I got really excited about it if somebody if purposely wears something they know you're going to be in an audience and you know there could be

people behind you. I think we don't think about her. It should have been collapsible. Like, she should have been able to do what she wants when she comes on the carpet and then collapse that thing down and put it in the whole thing. My sense is also, my sense is also the stylist knew that we'll be talking about it. So that was, it was intentional.

We are talking about her dress. Oh, yeah, exactly. You fell into the trap, but. I'm just reading. That's the, this is what this game show is. I just read the questions from the people. It's so interesting, you know what the people are thinking of. Give them what they want. Right. And that is important.

Noah can, this is for you, how can people distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism? Good question. Great question. Great question. Okay, so anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. First of all, let's get that. Thank you so much. Thank you.

And I'll tell you what the difference is. There's nothing wrong with criticizing Israeli government. I just did that on the show. I think that the overhaul, the judiciary overhaul, is extreme. So it's nothing wrong with criticizing Israeli government's policies, politicians, that West Bank, whatever it is that you want. If you have something against, if you're trying to dismantle the Jewish state, if you're trying to go against the existence of the state of Israel,

that's where the line is drawn. And sadly, there are a lot of people that are criticizing Israel, and that's totally fine, but there are a lot of people that are saying that Israel is not a legitimate country. And that is unacceptable. Okay. You agree? Yeah, I mean, on the other side of the coin, I don't think it's anti-Semitism if you care deeply about the state of the Palestinian affairs.

I mean, if you care about people, that's not anti-Semitism. Of course. If you care, I mean, and I think that sometimes people go too far, and they say any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism. Every concern about the Palestinians is anti-Semitism, and that's also BS. A hundred percent. Politicians is a political. Utah Governor Spencer Cox will sign a bill that bans abortion clinics across the state by the end of the year.

Is abortion under threat nationwide? Well, duh. I mean. I'm going to say a big yes. So this is actually closing, yeah. I mean, well, and also this week I see there's a federal judge in Texas who was looking to somehow rig it so that you can't get the abortion pill. Medication, yeah.

Not just in Texas, but... Nationwide. I don't even understand how that would work, but the fact that they're trying it is a little scary. Yeah, I just, I think we should all be very, very clear that the right to have an abortion in the United States is deeply, deeply underth. threat. They overturned Roe already. And already in 32 states in the country, it's very, very

hard, if not impossible, to get an abortion. And the constant onslaught, now on medication, so that even in a state like Michigan, where we voted as a state to allow abortion to continue under Roe standards, it's going to potentially threaten our ability for a CVS or a Walgreens or whatever

to prescribe the medication that many, many women use safely prescribed by their doctor. It is deeply disturbing. and everyone should be involved in this if you care about this issue. What do you say when you talk to people who are, I mean, there's a lot of those. We mentioned it in the editor, that there's something like 25% of Democrats are still pro-life. My district is pro-life.

Your district is pro-life. My district is pro-life. And this is how you know the country has shifted and people are thinking differently, particularly pro-life women. They will pull me aside in an event and say, look, I'm pro-life. I'm deeply Catholic, or this is just something I feel in my faith. I could never have an abortion. I could never advise my children to have an abortion.

But I've never walked in another woman's shoes, and I would never tell her how to live her life. And that is all we are asking for. That is all we are asking for. The vast majority of Americans actually can find common ground, even outside of their own personal beliefs. It's our dysfunctional political system that is whipsawing us toward one extreme or the other.

On this one, it's having terrible consequences around the country for women's reproductive rights. By the way, in Israel, abortion is paid for by the government. Just say it. And they're taught by the government and a religious state. And religious religion. Religious religion believes in Judaism, life begins in first breath. Right.

Whether you're into it or not, into religion or not. But yeah. In Israel, it's... I'm into breath. I get that point. What does the panel think of YouTube lifting its ban on Donald Trump? Oh, no.

Yeah, I saw it. It's strong. That's what you really think. So he's been allowed back on meta and Twitter and hasn't taken advantage yet because he's trying to prop up truth social. But I think that's going to change. I think he's going to arrive on all of these platforms

and will all be collectively a little bit dumber for it. So you would ban him? Well, it's difficult because if you're a social media platform, you're like, wait a minute. He's right now the putative frontrunner of one of the two major parties. So, you know, banning him might consist of actually, you know, like taking away someone's political speech. And that's the bind that these companies are.

Exactly. Can I just say, though, there's a really interesting Supreme Court case that's being heard right now that's going to be decided on whether social media companies can be held accountable for extreme content that appears on their sites. And it's actually not about whether Donald Trump or anyone else gets on Facebook or gets on anywhere and says these extreme things. It's whether they have designed algorithms to much. monetize hate where they know that that stuff is clickbait. They know that extreme content gets more views, more

likes, more advertising dollars. So they're monetizing the spread of extremism. That is what the Supreme Court case is about. I don't know which way they're going to go. But I think it's a super interesting case for the future of technology. Who is responsible? They shouldn't be making money off of extreme content. They can't

control Donald Trump, but they can control how they make their money. All right. Well, I have to end it there. I don't want to have CNN late on their next commercial break. Thank you, guys. We'll see you next 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.