Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #653: Kara Swisher, Beto O'Rourke, Sarah Isgur

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 3/22/24) 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. All right, here we are with our panel. She has a new memoir called Burnbrook, a tech love story, Kara Swisher. He's the former Democratic Congress from Texas Better Alork, and she's the senior editor of the Dispatch and host of the Dispatch's podcast advisory opinion, Sarah Isbair. Okay. This is for you. The first one is the Department of Justice right to sue Apple for allegedly created.

an iPhone monopoly. Yeah. Is it right? Yeah, well, the department has joined, I think, 16 states. I'm aware. It's been a long time coming, and I think they haven't gone after any tech company, and these are big, big companies,

and a lot of companies think they're taking too much fee, and there's no other choice. You explain it to someone who doesn't give a shit about whether, you know, I can... Well, some people are arguing, like, they just make a great computer, want to be part of their system, right? That's one argument for them. I think this was, like,

the messaging is more difficult. Like, if you have Android and I have Apple. I have a mixed marriage. Yeah. It can be very challenging to have an Android, iPhone marriage. You know, with children, what are they going to have? I don't know. Just so you know? iPhone.

So, I mean, maybe I'm just... If the green dot, racism in our time. That's what people are... But I never have not been able to get a message through to someone who had a different type of phone, I don't think. That means you had cell phone reception the whole time instead of Wi-Fi, because the cell phone reception, maybe you can't get, you know. You know, it's a question of choice.

Why do we not get choice? And if these companies are too big, eventually, it's their choice, not yours. And so they're unaccountable and they can do whatever they want. But also, DOJ has a horrible record on their antitrust suits so far over the last several years, so don't hold your breath. Sorry, that's because we haven't updated antitrust laws in 100 years. And things have changed. And things have changed.

Totally made up. They just say, like, competition. And like, we don't have antitrust laws as well. They're not defining them correctly in the new modern age. And how should they be? Lots of ways. It used to be just price and impact. It should be, it's a wider thing.

It's really difficult. You know, Amy Klobuchar, Senator Klobuchar wrote a whole book on it. It's so thick that you could kill a poodle if you threw it at it. But, you know, we have to really rethink it. I mean, we would not have cell phones if we didn't break up AT&T. Like, we wouldn't, standard oil, would still be running things. Giant companies, by their very nature, unaccountable, and get to do what they want.

And that's always hurts competition. I'm interested in startups in AI, for example, being able to thrive. And so the whole strength of our country over something like China is that we go from the bottom up, not the top down. But do you know what made all of those companies so powerful was the government regulations because they could have the lawyers and the teams to do that that the little guys then can't compete. Big companies love all those regulations.

It helps them. No, there aren't regulations. That's the whole point. Do you know how many regulations there are specifically addressing tech companies, zero. Zero. And the one that does, actually, there is one that's Section 230, which is much debated, it gives them broad immunity.

So they can walk down Fifth Avenue and hurt the self-esteem of a teen girl. All right. Well, speaking of Fifth Avenue, what are your thoughts on Trump saying that he has $500 million in cash on hand? Despite... He is something. Despite his lawyers claiming that he couldn't post his $454 million,

Yes, he wants you to know he has the money. He just won't give you the money because it's not fair. It's just fair. There is some associate who had plans tonight at some law firm who is instead having to write a memo to the judge

about how what they said was true, but also they're sorry that their client went out and said this other... I mean, being Trump's lawyers is the worst job in the country. Why do they do it? Glory. Glory. No, he actually actually just got a...

This guy is the luckiest guy in the world, but Trump Social... I mean, excuse me, Trump's fault. It's Trump Social, but True Social, just got permission to go public. Right. And so he's... His stake, because it's a meme stock, a little like GameStop, is worth $3.5 billion is worth $3.5 billion right now, and it could go higher if people bid it up. He definitely made a deal with the double at something.

Something. Something. Because he always lucks out on everything. He has the best enemies. Look at Michael Avanati. Look at Fonnie Willis now in Georgia. The best enemies. Right. It helps him so much.

And Merrick Garland fucked it all up. He's dithered. Now we're probably not even going to see any of the trials. He just always locks his way into everything. Okay. How do you explain recent polls that suggest men are getting more conservative and women more liberal? Oh, well, duh. It's not a...

I read that, and I asked my 15-year-old daughter, Molly, the question. And right away, without skipping a beat, she said, women are getting too much power, and men don't like that. And I thought about it, and I thought about the abortion ruling in Texas, you know, harder there to get an abortion than anywhere else. Individual counties are now banning women from driving on their roads to leave the state to go get an abortion in New Mexico or someplace where it's legal. The IVF ruling in Alabama, it's not about life, it's about control, and it's about power.

And I think that helps to explain some of that divide that we're seeing right now. But it also gives me some hope that women in Texas across this country who understand this and are living through it more than anyone else are going to help lead the comeback against them. So watch out in Texas, watch out across this country. I don't know. I have three boys. And I have to say they're not that way.

It's not because I raise them that way. They get to do whatever they want. But it's a really interesting thing. because we talked about, you know, we talked about this idea, and I think what they want to do is not be jerks, essentially. They're trying to sort of avoid that. And it's really difficult that everyone has to sort of, as you were saying earlier, name themselves.

You have to always put labels all of yourself. And I think young people, especially 18 to 25, really just don't want that in lots of ways. They don't want to be told what to do, not necessarily not told what to do, but not define themselves. And I think if we just stopped doing that a lot more, it would be a lot better. But you said you let them do whatever they want? Yeah, yeah.

I have four kids. You know that. I'm building a militia Etheridge. It's the lesbian. Thank you. No, I'll do that. Only lesbians and evangelicals are having lots of kids. We're heading to the crisis of young men, though.

Some of this, you talked about the education gap being one of the real drivers behind the political gap. Well, that education gap is also falling along gender lines. It is. Women are now graduating from college at a much higher level. They're getting law degrees. They're getting graduate degrees at a much, much higher level. We're leaving men behind.

And, yeah, I think a lot of it is this identity politics, whether it's affirmative action, however you want to label it, this idea that they're afraid of what to say. They're afraid of what someone's going to say that they did or said. They're afraid of this world where they're the enemy, but they're also not succeeding at the same level as the women. I got to push back. They are not. They are not if you talk to kids. Well, yeah, your kids are doing great.

No, but I know tons of kids and friends. Your kids are going to college. Sort of. No, but I don't think they don't. I think I have a lot of beliefs. I think the people that are crazy are 30 to 50. That's where all the anger is and all the nuttiness online. That's the millennials.

Don't make fun of my millennials. Yes, I'm sorry. The liberal girls saying that they won't be friends with, liberals saying they won't be friends with conservatives. Liberals saying they won't date conservatives. And then if you have that gender gap and you have that education gap, we're heading towards something really scary where... How old are your kids?

Well, three and a half and six months, so they're not quite on Tinder yet. Yeah. Next year. But are you going to raise them in the same way they can do whatever they want? This I find alarming. I mean, my kids are fantastic. They behave themselves. But how do they know how to behave if they can do whatever they want?

I let them think whatever they want. For example, I let them listen and read whatever they want and then come to a conclusion. That's what I mean. They don't get to run around. Are you kidding? Well, that's what you said. I'm just reacting to what you told me. He came down to me the other day.

It was like, we were either going to get to school on time and he was going to have an ice cream sandwich for breakfast or we were going to have a healthy breakfast and not be at school on time. And I will tell you, I love some Bluebell ice cream sandwiches. All right. I'm sorry, Ms. Thrasher. What are the panel's thoughts

on the Biden administration rolling out new regulations to boost EVs? Do you have any thoughts on the EVs, meaning electric vehicles? Yes, great. That's fantastic. Right. I think it's fantastic. The problem is there's lots of competitors now. There's all kinds of companies coming in, so it's going to be really interesting.

It's just consumer demand is not quite there. The price differential isn't there yet. It's close. It's $5,000. And then once it gets there, I think, and we have a feeling that we can plug it in in an easier way, it'll take off in some way. But are there enough stations all across the country? There will be, actually. I feel like I've been hearing that for,

at least 10 years. Yeah, but... There will be. There are. There are. I hope they don't do what Apple does and change the plug, though, because if I have to switch the plug on my car, I don't lose it. Talking about a ginger divide, by the way, I hate going to the gas station.

That's the main reason I switched. I made my husband constantly fill up the car. That's like a man thing. I don't do it. Give me an ice cream sandwich. All right. Thank you very much. every Friday night at 10

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