Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #631: Ben Mckenzie, Rep. Katie Porter, and Piers Morgan

Episode Date: April 15, 2023

Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 04/14/23) 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. Hi, CNN. It's me, Bill Maher, here with my panel from today's show. Actor-director and author of the forthcoming book, Easy Money, Ben McKenzie is over here. Democratic Congresswoman from California, Katie Porter, and host of Talk TV's Peers Morgan Uncensored, Pierce Morgan. And here are the questions from people who are... wanting to know what we think here on the panel. What does the panel make of the two Tennessee lawmakers who were expelled from the state legislature? Oh, that was a big story this week.

We didn't get to it. Yes. Now, they were protesting because there was a shooting there. They wanted, you know, I think I agree with what they were saying is we need better gun control laws. But these are legislators, and they used a bullhorn inside the well of the Senate of Tennessee, was it? This is state legislature. And interrupted the proceedings, which, of course, when that happened on January the 6th

in a much larger and more violent way, all the people currently cheering on the two Tennessee legislators were the ones who would have been condemning and castigating what happened on January of the 6th? You're not actually comparing. No, no. You actually did just compare. No, here's what I'm comparing.

When you have a mob of protesters and they're going into a legislative chamber, whether it's at the Capitol or whether it's in Tennessee, the principle's the same. And if you don't have the same principle response to both of those things, regardless of scale, then you're not principled. No, listen, the principle is different.

They were Tennessee legislators who went into the chamber and admittedly broke the rules of decorum, partly because they were being silenced when they wanted to talk, following the rules of decorum about gun violence prevention. What happened on January 6th

was a bunch of batshit, crazy fuckers with guns who killed police people. That is not the same. But Katie, Kitty, I, like Bill, I agree with what the legislators who were doing the protesting. I agree with them about guns. Everyone knows, I think,

that's why I left CNN. It's nice to be back, by the way, on CNN. I agree with them. Thank you. Thank you. That's right. It's been a while. Last time I was on CNN, I was talking about guns.

But thank you, Bill. It'll probably get me fired all over again. But I just think in the end, you've got to be consistent about the way you view a collection of process. But that is a terrible analogy. Well, they're not the same thing. But the principle is the same. Then why bring it up? It's a terrible analogy. You should, a mob of people going in to stop democratic proceedings.

It's not democracy whether you're on the right or left. Okay. What I would say... The principle is, I don't think a mob of protest that should go into a legislative... building and stopped the proceedings. They were a mob? The two guys were a mob? No, all the other other people. No, but here's the thing.

These guys are legislators. What I would say to them is, look, I admire your passion. I'm at lie that young people your age are in government. I think that's good that you want to be in government and that's just oblivious to it. And the issue, okay, a valid point. But

you're in the legislator now. The legislature. You don't need the bullhorn. That's for when you're out on the street. You have to modulate. This is what they do on college campuses. We just stop you from talking if we disagree. With a bullhorn or shouting, they have to leave that behind. Now you're inside.

You're in the building. You got elected. The way to affect change is write a law, do it that way. The bullhorn was... Well, I think you have a point. I think you have a point about they were in there. They had other opportunities. They can introduce a law.

I also do want to say that rules of decorum are often used to silence people who do not have voices. And in this case, we're talking about two younger men, two black men, two people in the political minority in Tennessee. And so we've seen rules of decorum be used over and over and over again in this country as an excuse to exclude people and to silence people. So I think you're right, though, that I can't believe I'm saying this. like I so deeply, deeply agree with you about the January 6th and how wrong appears is to try to equivocate those things. But I didn't know. So what you were doing was playing politics. I talked purely about a principle

of a mob of people going in to stop democratic proceedings. It shouldn't be happening, whether it's on the left or the right. Let's stop digging. I just love that they've been re-elected immediately and raised all this money and their national heroes. Oops. Didn't work. What do you make of,

Prince Harry's plan to attend his father's coronation without Megan Markle. God, why do we give a... I don't... Damn. I didn't say it. You're all CNN, but... I know. You swore on CNN, not me.

How about that? What do you make of Prince Harry's? Well, I don't know why we care so much. You couldn't care. You have... America has sent... America, I hate to say this, but America has sent two women into our royal family. The first was Wallace Simpson, who led to an abdication.

Right. And the second is Megan Markle. You are two for two, and it's not looking great. So, frankly, keep your women here. That's hysterical. So what happens? So Prince Harry's going, and she's not? He's going, and all his family basically want to kill him,

and she's staying here because they feel the same way about her. I mean, look, from my point of view, they're just a pair of little royal renegade grifters who want to have their royal cake and eat it, they want to keep the titles, make hundreds of millions, trashing their family again and again and again and again. And eventually the royal family's gone,

you know what? Shut up. Right. I basically would do. I mean, I would defend Harry only insofar as it. He went to Afghanistan. Yeah. You know, I mean, he could have got out of that as certainly the people in this country

do with that kind of standing. And he didn't. He went. He did honorable service for his country, and he was a beloved prince. To give you some idea how far he's fallen, he is now less popular than Prince Andrew. Right. Exactly. But her thing about, you know, the

royal family being racist, maybe they are. Certainly the history is... She never produced a shred of evidence to support that. They were cold to me. They're cold to everybody. They were called to Diana, and who was whiter than Diana? They're just cold people.

That's who they are. If you're going to call the Royal Family racist, like she did on Oprah Winfrey, you've got to back it up with some evidence. Not a shred of evidence has either of them ever produced for any racism from the Royal Family. So put up or shut up and stop smearing our Royal Family. Okay. Ben, this is for you.

How much do you think the failure to regulate crypto is due to lawmakers not understanding it? Well, we just said we don't understand. Yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, John Tussell. He won't send that on Gary's ad. No one knows what the truth is. Sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. We're on CNN. Sorry. Gee whiz. Can everyone stop swearing on CNN? I'm telling you. Yeah.

You're going to get them reaching. I do think it's part that the legislators didn't understand it. But I went there over the summer. I went to D.C. with the journal, Jacob, who wrote the book with me. And we had meetings, some of which I talk about in the book, some of which I can't talk about.

And the general attitude was, you're probably right, but I'm sorry, Sam Bankman-Freed has given us too much money. That's right. Sam Bankman-Freed gave the Democrats $40 million. Yeah. His lieutenant gave the Republicans 23. I believe the total is somewhere around $90 million in this straw donor scheme that is alleged to have happened. They bottom up both off.

And they bought them off not necessarily in the sense that they passed bad legislation. which they could have done. There was a bill called Sam's Bill that was going through the Ag Committee potentially, but they kept them from doing anything that was actually would have stopped this Ponzi scheme from collapsing and ruining tens of thousands of people's lives. If not, I mean, millions of people now don't have access

to their accounts at FDX. You've been very tough on the pitchmen of... Oh, the celebrities are... The celebrities are not the core problem, of course. They're just the megaphone necessary. to spread the Ponzi... But you think they shouldn't have done that? Well, of course they shouldn't have done it.

I mean, they shouldn't... I mean, you shouldn't sell and register on licensed securities. This is actually against the law. And you also shouldn't hawk for the exchanges that are doing that. But they're the... This is what happens at the end.

At the end of the Ponzi life cycle, it gets as big as possible, and you need the biggest celebrities out there. I won't name names. Right. But Lindsay Lohan, obviously. Sorry. But other big...

celebrities to sell for you. And that's what happened. How much of this do you think, though, was an enforcement problem versus, I mean, because you just said they are securities. You're selling unlicensed securities. We have a securities in Exchange Commission. Hansi schemes have been illegal for about 100 years, give or take. What's the explanation that you have for why the SEC didn't take action? Well, a couple of reasons. I think one of them is that it's, regulators don't have much incentive to pop a bubble and potentially get blamed for it. it until it's popped.

Once it's popped, you come in, you clean it up, you go, oh, you shouldn't have done that. But the other thing is that we're the only country in the world that I'm aware of that separates its securities regulation from its commodities regulation. We have a CFTC and an SEC. It's created a gray area. We need

someone to oversee these agencies, in my opinion. Someone to basically, because they're fighting over it and they're fighting over it. Why? In part, in terms of, in my opinion, the CFTC, in order to get the donations. Sam Bankman-Fried met with the CFTC chair 10 times, 10 times, Sam met with them. Well, Monday is tax day, and I'm going to be inducting in crypto because I'm just, yeah. All right, thank you, CNN.

We'll see you next week. 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.