The Joe Rogan Experience - #1004 - W. Kamau Bell

Episode Date: August 29, 2017

W. Kamau Bell is a host, writer, and stand-up comic. Watch his show "United Shades of America" on CNN and check out his podcast "Politically Reactive." He also has a recently released book "The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell" available on Amazon.

four three two one yes and we're live you know he's always wonder when I see a dude with an Android team people get people get so into teams right it's so into like groups you belong to like oh he's an Android guy. Yeah, what does that mean about him? Oh, an Android guy. Maybe he uses a Windows phone. Maybe he's a contrarian. Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to be outside the box. Yeah, he's got a Henry Rollins for President shirt on. Yeah, I can't pin this guy down.

What's he trying to do? Does Henry Rollins really run for President? I don't even know if Henry Rollins gets a part of this merchandise. Most likely not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel a little bit bad about that. Yeah, I don't think know if Henry Rollins gets a part of this merchandise. Most likely not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel a little bit bad about that. Yeah, I don't think he gives a shit. No, I don't think he gives a shit, but I did buy it sort of excitedly and then had a moment

of like, wait a minute. Yeah, I don't even think he probably knows. No, I would imagine maybe he'll find out now. How much have you paid attention to that guy? I'm a big fan of Henry Rollins. Henry Rollins is one of the, I've said this before, his music gave me the courage to start doing stand-up. Really? Absolutely.

I used to go to his spoken word shows. I'm all in on Henry Rollins. Wow. Did you hear his podcast with Ari Shafir? No, I haven't heard that. Dude, you've got to listen to it. Okay, yeah. He and Ari met at Edinburgh at the Fringe Festival. Yeah. And they were talking about travel.

Henry just picks a spot on the map. Yeah. He just like, he goes, okay, Myanmar. Let's do this. And he has his travel agent organize it. He doesn't go with anybody. He goes by himself. Yeah.

Brings a laptop and a camera and some clothes. When I was, I actually met him. I've been to a couple times, but when I really met him, finally, he came to my book tour in LA with his assistant, Heidi. And he was going on a trip the next day. Don't say that. You can't say assistant. She gets pissed. She's his manager.

His manager. Okay. She got pissed when she was here. She's like, someone called me the assistant. I'm like, whoa, I wasn't that guy. That's right. I mean, as a person who has an assistant, it's not really a good word. It makes it sound like you're saying, like, you know, it doesn't sound, what the person

does is they keep your shit organized. She's his manager yeah yeah so his manager heidi was there and he was leaving the next day and he didn't know where he was going she she told him you need to get out of town i'm tired of you she said she booked him a trip and he had no idea where he was like yeah i don't know where i'm going i don't know where i'm going he does it all the time yeah and he just writes he goes there and he writes i mean he's living that the life that an artist, I would like to live if I wasn't married with two kids. So I've always lived, even before I was married to two kids, I can't live that life. Yeah, I can't do that either.

But he does it. Well, Ari Shafir said, all right, motherfucker, you think that's strong? I'm going to go for four months. So Ari went for four months all throughout Asia. He brought no phone, no laptop, no nothing. Completely lost contact with everybody. Didn't talk to anybody he knew brought no phone, no laptop, no nothing, completely lost contact with everybody. Didn't talk to anybody he knew, no agent, no manager, told them all I'm gone for like three months. And he wound up being four. Was he lost for the last month? I can't get back.

Decided not to come back yet. He just did whatever he, I mean, he has his comedy central show and then he just decided, look, I'm going to take some time off and I'm just going to go. I mean, yeah, that sounds great. It does. Right. Yeah. It sounds amazing. But you know, I, I'm going to take some time off and I'm just going to go. I mean, yeah, that sounds great. It does, right? Yeah, it sounds amazing. But, you know, there's a lot of negotiating I'd have to do to get away for a weekend. Yeah. You know, I got to plan out like to watch Mayweather and McGregor. I had to tell my wife weeks in advance that night.

Yeah, just three hours. You can't talk to me. Yeah, I was like, you can watch it with me, which he did. But I can't be responsible for the kids a bit I had to like you know spread that out make sure and then remind and like put it do not book and all those things Yeah, yeah for three hours getting time away when you have responsibilities It's like the more things get complicated around you like the bet. It's like biggie more money more problems Yeah, you know I mean that really it's you get lot of money, then it's a lot less problems.

I don't know about that, man. I think you still have tons of problems. A few, but you could, I don't, I believe at that point you can sort of create your own problems if you want to have tons of problems, but there are people who have a lot of money. Like, Zach Day of the Roach is somebody else I'm a big fan of, Rage Against the Machine. Right. That dude, like, made his Rage Against the Machine money, and it's just peaced out. Yeah, he's a different cat, though.

That's what I mean. But he's sort of like, I mean, I'm not saying he doesn't have problems, but Tom Morello probably has more problems, because he's trying to like, I'm starting a band with Chuck D, and the guy from Cypress Hill, and I'm also releasing a solo, and I'm also on tour with the E Street Band. That's a lot of problems. Yeah. Whereas Zach's like, every now and again, I'll go out with Rage Against the

Machine and pick up that big check. Other than that, I'm going back to LA. So for me, there's a level of money you can get where you can sort of just turn the volume. The guy from Calvin and Hobbes is another dude. The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes was the biggest comic strip at that time. People loved it. People worshipped it. And at some point

after 10 years, he's like, I'm done and hasn't been seen since. That's a good move if you could pull it off. That's my, that's my goal. My goal is to get to that place of like, there's some, I don't know what the number is, but I feel like there's some number where you go, okay, that's the number where I can put it in the thing and the, and the, in the index things and they sits there and it just, and I'm, yeah, I'll be gone. Stockpile and then disconnect. Good luck everybody. Yeah. And maybe still like the thing is every now and again you sort of pop up to go hey everybody but i don't i don't have the need for the attention part of it it's like you know i like the work i do and i want to do the work i like to do but i don't have any need for the star part of it yeah yeah

that's that becomes a real problem you way better off with the resources but no star yeah you just go to the mall nobody fucks with you it with you. It's like the guy next to Oprah who nobody knows their name. That's Oprah's husband. There's also another guy, some white guy, who's like, maybe he's the assistant or the manager. I don't know what the name is. But yeah, there's these people who are like,

hey, you go do the thing. I'll be here. Yeah, well, that's a good move if it's Oprah because Oprah is such a huge figure that nobody's paying attention to you. They're so focused on her. If you're two steps behind, you're good. You're anonymous.

Just slide around. Yeah, no, it's real. For a project I worked on, I actually met Oprah for this thing. There's a whole team of people who are like, it's like 40-year-old white women who feel like they're in the Israeli army. They just feel like we will take you down if we need to. And then Oprah floats through the room like this happy beam of light, and they're the ones who are like, no, we'll take care of it if there's a problem. You've got to be intense if you're around a person like that.

Imagine how many people are trying to grab at Oprah. I mean, I'm sure you get crazy requests and bullshit all day. Imagine what it is to be Oprah. I can't, yeah. See, and when I see someone, if it is to be Oprah. I can't. Yeah. See, and that's when I see somebody, if I got to Oprah's level and she's like,

I mean, she's doing a great work. She's the own, there's like, she's helping bring other people up. She's starting. How would you, after the,

if I had done that show, I'd be like, good luck everybody. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, yeah,

I don't, you know, I'm, I don't have that level of like trying to be in the thing. She's got so much power. She kept Dr. Oz on TV after they brought him into Congress because he was lying about miracle weight loss cures.

Dr. Phil still has a show that she's making money off of. Yeah, but Dr. Phil never had like a scandal like that. No, no. But I just feel like he's quietly like, you know, it's like, it's not like it's, he was a big deal at one point. Like we were right now. He's like, he's still like, you turn it on and go, oh, he's still on. Yeah.

And she's, and he's sitting in her check, you know, still breaking. Yeah. Yeah. If you're like a housewife and you're sitting at home, and you know you want to find out What's wrong with a teenage kid yeah? Oprah got sued by meat you know I mean like you and she was on her show And she said I'm not gonna eat meat anymore because of red meat and it was a whole thing like she's sooner They out of it was a it was there was a some sort of like I was a court case

Yeah, somebody's got to go did Google this. Did she say something about a particular company? She said on her show, she basically, it must have been about a particular company, but she said something about not eating red meat anymore. This was back in the 90s. And then I think that's how she met Dr. Phil, because he was like a jury consultant. I know too much about it. Huh. Yeah.

Interesting. Oprah Winfrey versus the beef people. In 98. President George Bush. Wow. I do not like broccoli. I have not liked it since. All different things people have said.

Yeah. This is an audio story that you should listen to. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. So she got sued about beef. Who the fuck sued her? Some meat corporation in Texas.

What? She actually had to move her show to Texas. Oh, that's right. Because she was like testifying. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. What did she say?

I wonder what it was that she said. It was something on the show about like, I don't think I'll eat meat anymore or something. How come you can't say that? Like, I'm not quoting her directly, but it was something about, it was the mad cow, blah, blah, blah. Oh, was that it? Hmm. Veggie libel laws. Oh, is that it? Mmm. Veggie libel laws.

Oh, is that at least some weird shit they only have in Texas? Probably. That's probably why they brought her to Texas. Yeah, she had to move her whole show to Texas. Talk shit about beef. Yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, have you watched? I posted a YouTube video on Twitter earlier today that shows the contrast between what

Houston used to look like versus what it looks like now. Holy shit. It's still raining there today. It's still raining there. That's the thing people don't understand. My family's from Alabama, so I know how hurricanes work. The hurricane hits, that's bad because it knocks things down and knocks buildings over. But then the water rises.

So that's when it gets, that's the, most of the damage done is done from the flood that happens after the hurricane. Yeah, flood and then mold and then fungus. A lot of times you have to destroy houses just because they get ate up with black mold. Look at the beginning. If you bring it to the beginning, Jamie, and it'll show what Houston used to look like. Look at this. You can see the river, and now look at this, and then it keeps going.

This is fucking insane. It's insane. And just remember, Houston is the city that many hurricane katrina survivors from new orleans went to yeah so if you're and some of them couldn't go back because new orleans never got rebuilt in a lot of ways and so there's people in houston right now who move there because of hurricane katrina and this happens well i remember i went to houston like six months after hurricane katrina and there was a ton of like people that were that had to move that were stuck there

that were like piled up together in houses like many families in small houses yeah do you hear the Joel Osteen thing yeah that fucking fraud how dare you Joel he lives in a basketball arena like it's I mean he doesn't live in there but his church is the old Houston Rockets basketball arena

yeah and it's elevated. Yeah, and yeah, it's got 16,000 room for like 16,000 to 18,000 people in there. And he won't bring people in? Now he has. He has. He got internet shamed. That's all I remember. Sometimes internet shaming is okay.

Yeah, sometimes it works. So are these the people that are in there now? No, no, this is the actual. That's just to show you how big it is. God damn, that's big. He bought the place where the Houston Rockets used to. I mean, the church is in a basketball arena, and it's all about the prosperity gospel,

but he put up a link to donate money for the flood that went to him. It wasn't the Red Cross. No. Yeah. He was like, after he got internet shamed the first time, he put up a link,

donate money for the flood relief here, and it was just a link on his website. It was just a donate to his church. Oh, he's so sketchy. Yeah. They're all so sketchy, man. When you're making billions of, I mean's so sketchy. Yeah, also sketchy man when you're making billions I mean how much he's making but you're making that much money for the Lord and I'm just tax-free tax-free That's right because he's a church. Oh, that's horrific. Yeah, so he's making twice the money that people of that level come on

That's so scary. Yeah. Well, that's like when you found out the Scientology doesn't have to pay taxes. He's like wait what? Well, it's all I mean, you know, it's all bad. Like, you should, you know, not taking paying taxes doesn't make any sense. No, it's completely sketchy. There it is. That is his page. Yeah, that's the page. It's on his website.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So help Houston give now to him. Yeah, and, you know, I'm going to take a little piece. Yeah, well, I got to overhead. Hey, bro, man, I got website pills. I got a dude that can't just bro man i got website pills i got a dude that handles this i gotta pay him i got a manager and an assistant electricity internet connection server fees i had to get this page built i'd have somebody do this page yeah like to me that was so like just i mean just so tone deaf to send out thoughts and prayers dude

you got money you got a fuck load of, and it all comes from preaching the word. So, yeah, so he first sent out that link, and then people said no, and then he said, and now the doors are open, and now they're taking, yeah. Lakewood's doors are open. We are receiving anyone who needs shelter. And let's be clear. There was apparently somebody tweeted out that there was, like, all the mosques in Houston had opened their doors already, and we're talking, yeah, so, you know, America.

Oh, those guys, there's too much money involved. When you say, like, does Joel Osteen, he must drive, like, some crazy car, too, right? Yeah, I'm sure he has many crazy cars. Find out what Joel Osteen drives. I want to know what he drives. Because I guarantee you, it's not even a Cadillac, right? It's probably, like, some ridiculous Bentley or something stupid with, like like a golden cross on the hood. Well, that's the prosperity gospel.

If the preacher's rich, then we're all rich. Is that what he's preaching? It's called the prosperity gospel. And it's not just him. There's several Southern evangelical preachers called the prosperity ministry where you preach that if I do well, then you're doing well through me. And then eventually you'll do well. Eventually it'll come to you. do well, then you're doing well through me. And then you'll eventually, eventually you'll do well.

Eventually it'll come to you. Why would you want the preacher to look bad? Because the preacher is the representative of God. I saw one where this guy was talking about people that have no money, that if you have no money, if you donate whatever you can, even if you have no money, the Lord will pay you back

tenfold. Yeah, that's exactly the thing. That's exactly the prosperity. Yeah. It's totally ruthless. And it, and those, you know, of course those people end up falling for scan, their scandal. I mean, it's the same. Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. to go after people. Cree-Flo Dollar. Cree-Flo Dollar's awesome. He's got like hot dogs in the back of his neck. Like the back of his neck is like these big thick rolls.

My favorite is Robert Tilden. The guy who talks in tongues. Oh yeah. You see that guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He literally said this once. He goes, every time you write a check to me,

Satan gets a black eye. Yeah, he does. Did you find a car for Joel Osteen? He must have some bomber vehicles. It's not, I'm Did you find a car for Joel Osteen? He must have some bomber vehicles. I'm trying to find a better official, but these Ferraris are coming up. Oh, there you go. It's not officially his.

He's not in it. But wait, what about that one? Yeah, there you go. Oh, he lives in River Oaks in Houston? Maybe. Yeah. That's his house? Well, go to that car down on the left where he's...

I don't know if that's really him or not. It's too small and it doesn't... Oh, yeah. It doesn't look like him. I'll try it harder. I'll try to find something. Don't worry about it. Forget it.

We have to crack the mystery. We'll be in all nitpicky. Yeah. No, we know he's doing fine. If he doesn't own a car, he's still doing fine. Yeah, he's managed to rake up ungodly sums of money and do so without too much scandal. No, no. Yeah, no.

But the money should be the scandal. Yes. You know, like I think that's the fact that, you know, and it's because, you know, it's the whole God thing is caught up in our government. So there's people in our government who feel like, yeah, he's doing that. This helps me out. You know, I can't I can't be mad at him because I'm trying to be like him. All that happened during the Reagan administration.

That's when they first started bringing in those right-wing evangelical people and making them a part of the Republican Party and a part of the campaigns. And those people all claim to have people who follow them. So you want them to support you. And they will. And they will, like like loyally. It's a very creepy situation because if you can tap into that market, I mean, you can tap into that market. No, it is a market. It really clearly is. I mean, it's nothing more than that because if they had real integrity, they would leave it out. And they wouldn't go after those people and try to use those people to win. Oh, no, these people are doing God's work. Let's just help them and prop them up and leave them alone.

No, no, no. They're a pawn. They're a pawn in this whole little silly game. Yeah. This game has got ridiculous. Like, where are we right now? Now that you have your show, your CNN show. I mean, you're on CNN, so you're like.

I'm on CNN. Do you get. I'm on the fake news. Yeah. Do you're like, I'm on CNN. Do you get a fake news? Yeah. Do you get that? Do you get people claiming that you're a part of fake news? Yeah. I mean, yes, but not any. I mean, just like I'm caught up in the storm.

Like, you know, it's not like it doesn't always come to me, but somebody was like, I did something and I was like another CNN fake news journalist. And I was like, hold on. I'm not a journalist. I'll take the fake news part, but I'm not actually a journalist. Stand up comedian, stupid. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I get caught up in it, but I think, yeah, I'm not a journalist I'll take the fake news part but I'm not actually a journalist yeah I'm comedian stupid yeah yeah so I mean I get caught up in it but I think yeah I mean but it's not I don't it's not coming to me in a way it's coming to other people but I do I mean the bigger thing for me is that when I took the job at CNN is that a lot of because I

live in the Bay Area so a lot I was like what are my friends gonna think you know CNN is not as much as the right wants to say they're the liberal news media, to my friends, they're not the liberal news media. What is it to your friends? Very middle of the road, probably leaning to the right. CNN leans to the right? Yeah. Yes, yeah. Who the fuck are you hanging out with?

I live in the Bay Area, man. I was out there on Sunday in the rally. Did you have a mask on? No. You hitting people with bike locks? What's the point of that? I went out there with my face. Look at this celebrity star who showed up at the rally.

Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah. So, because I know the people who started Black Lives Matter. I know the people who, yeah. So, they don't look at CNN and go, this is the liberal news media, you know? Isn't that funny? Yeah.

It's all perspective, right? Yeah. And I'm not, there are lots of perspectives at CNN, and CNN doesn't tell me to make it, they don't tell me to do anything other than what I'm doing. I want to be clear about that. But I'm saying the perception from people, I think it's CNN. And CNN doesn't tell me to make it. They don't tell me to do anything other than what I'm doing. I want to be clear about that. But I'm saying the perception from people, I think it's funny. Like some people see it as the liberal news media. And then I have friends who see it as maybe the center, but definitely also or leaning to the left or leaning to the right.

And I'm just like, well, you know, I'm in there. And I'm not doing anything different because I'm there. Well, you have a different perspective also because you have essentially an entertainment show. Same as Anthony Bourdain, right have essentially an entertainment show. Yes. Same as Anthony Bourdain, right? Essentially an entertainment show. The Anthony Bourdain show made my show possible. I wouldn't be there without Anthony Bourdain.

Well, really, Jeff Zucker. I mean, Jeff Zucker is a brilliant guy. And I was working under him when I was doing Fear Factor. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I got to meet him. He's a very, very smart guy. And that was a brilliant move to have things other than these shows that just continually show over and over again the collusion with russia the collusion with russia or right now

the russia tapes or like now it's just like uh houston over and over yes like you know exactly look at this look at this rain over and over again yeah and anytime do your show that's one thing though being on a news network anytime some shit shit goes down, they will bump your show. Like, if I record your show, then I'll go to it like, oh, what's this Russia shit? People think we've been bumped more than we have. Sunday nights is the best night to be on the news because news things don't happen. But we've been bumped for the Orlando shooter, which our episode was in Florida that week. I was like, yeah, let's take us off the air.

I don't want to be looking like, look at how fun it is in Florida. We did a spring break episode. It's like, that's not. Oh, no. And then we got bumped. The last episode of the season got bumped. I can't remember what,

probably Russia. I don't remember what it was for, but yeah, so we've been bumped twice, but the people who really hit it, like the history of comedy was on CNN on Thursdays. Don't be on Thursdays.

Thursday's bad? Yeah, because Thursday's, the world is happening Trump is tweeting You know right things are things are going on and there and people are more likely to pay attention to breaking news on a Thursday Than a Sunday like it doesn't have to be you know, there's people are still keyed into what's happening today Whereas on Sunday, we're all sort of like take a break I think a lot of people thought that when Trump got into office He would stop with all the insult tweets and stop with all the stuff that made him a popular person.

Yeah. And then all of a sudden it went from being like something that like, look at this guy. He doesn't give a fuck. Look at him. He's running for president, man. He's going to win. I think he's good. He's our guy.

And then all of a sudden they're like, hey, you're still doing that? I mean, even right now, amidst all of his like sort of somewhat, you know, presidential style tweets about Houston, there are tweets about his enemies. You know, he can't even like take that. Let me just not enemy tweet right now. You know, he's still in the middle of like talking about these things. Meanwhile, Obama just sent out a tweet like, hey, everybody support the Red Cross. Yeah. You know, it's like that.

Where's that tweet? You know, so. Right. Well, he doesn't, you know, Obama obviously doesn't have to do anything. Yeah. You know, it's like that, where's that tweet? You know, so. Right. Well, he doesn't, you know, Obama obviously doesn't have to do anything anymore. Everything he does could be completely from his own thoughts and he doesn't, he doesn't have an agenda. Yeah. But I think that, I mean, again, I get, I know people who are like, maybe it's time

to have some thoughts and an agenda as we're sort of in a, you know, like there's a, I read an article that said, I didn't read the article, but the headline said, so I'm going to be honest about this. Obama, the thought is that he's going to come back in the fall to help rebuild the Democratic Party. And I feel like, we don't know if we're going to be here in the fall. You know, why are you waiting? Like, what's going to, why aren't you here? Why put that off?

Like, things are happening now, you know? Yeah. Now, I get he's playing, like, that Star Trek chess where it's three levels and things are happening and he's seeing things I can't see and he sees the Matrix. But I feel like, you know, I'd like to see you before the fall, even though the fall is only like two weeks away. Well, what could he do other than, you know, he's got a lot of money. He certainly has access to a lot of money. For sure.

Which means you have a lot of influence. And he still has a lot of influence, you know. So I don't know what I don't know what he could do what he could do there's he could do something you know I think that you know even if you just responded to every Donald Trump tweet I'd be like yeah like I think there's there's he's amassing power for something and maybe he's got some plan that I'll be like oh my god you know but I just feel like he certainly is you know he's still one of the most influential people on the planet yeah when you talk about like the three level chess thing or multi-level chess thing, you got

to wonder like at what point in time does a, some sort of a candidate from the democratic party arrive? Like, like where are they and who are they and are they thinking, I mean, is it Gavin Newsom? Is it, you know, who is it? I mean, I hope it's, I mean, I guess I'm a, I will say this. I think my party affiliation is Democrat, but I'm not somebody who's like repping the Democratic Party. People sometimes think I am just because I'm against Donald Trump.

But so I would say this, that I hope that that person is somebody whose name we don't even know yet. Because I feel like the thing that happened with Obama is he came out of nowhere. And I think if you go to the usual suspects with the way that Kearns and Reese Kearns set up, you're doomed. If the Electoral College is still in place in four years, then we're doomed if we go to the usual suspects. Well, Obama might have come out of nowhere, but a lot of people were looking at him like, this guy, here you got this guy, Harvard educated, very articulate, good looking, smooth, calm. Clean, as Joe Biden said. He was calm.

Good looking, smooth, calm. Clean, as Joe Biden said. He was calm. Like, that was the most, when you look at the way Trump has been responding to all these things, how he freaks out when he gets a small crowd in Arizona at a press conference. I mean, the thing about Obama that stands out more than anything was his composure. Yeah. He felt like the adult in the room. Yeah.

Whether you agreed with him or not, and I certainly didn't agree with everything he did, he felt like a grown up who was making thoughtful adult decisions that sometimes I disagreed with, but I knew he had thought them through. Now, when the president represents the country and he's talking shit about people bleeding from plastic surgery and, you know, fake news and yelling about this and then saying things that are just absolutely not true that turn out to not be true. And it's like and you have to look at it and then you vet it out and you go, well, he's fucking lying. And all the associating and with people with known conspiracy theorists and, you know, and white supremacists and, you know, like to me, it's like you're again, you're saying you're setting the tone for the country. And all those people feel certainly emboldened by him and empowered by him in a way that like is not healthy for the country. Well, even if he doesn't support them, that whole wink and a nod. That's what I'm saying. That's very sketchy. Most of you know, we know most of communication is nonverbal.

Yeah. So the fact that he doesn't have to, even if it sounds like he's saying the right thing, if it's not landing with the people he's talking about the right way, like if he says, you know, I support the blacks or whatever it is, it's like, if it doesn't feel like that to the blacks, then it doesn't mean anything. Well, people know

when you're saying something from the heart versus when you're saying something for damage control. Like Charlottesville. Like when he came out after Charlottesville and said that people were behaving badly on all sides. On all sides. Dude, you got a Nazi that ran over a crowd of protesters. He hit the gas and ran over other white people, you dumb fuck. I mean, this is so crazy to say on all sides.

This is so crazy. Yeah, and he improvised that part. That was not in the speech. That was his riff say on all sides. This is so crazy. Yeah. And he improvised that part. That was not in the speech. He, that was his riff on all sides. Cause that was, I think it had been written for him and he was like, you know,

I can't, I gotta, I gotta put some magic in here. Well, I am of the belief that nonviolence is always the answer. And that running around with masks on hitting people with bike locks, showing up with sticks and bats and the shit that people are trying to do. I think although their heart and their mind might be in the right place, when you show up with bulletproof vests on and helmets and sticks, people see that.

And that is an act of aggression. And the opposition is going to show up in turn with something similar or worse. It escalates Well, I think the problem is is that I was in Berkeley I said in the weekend at the no hate in the Bay Rally that was supposed to that You know that whoever said they were gonna show up all right people I don't they're also me names white supremacist right they were gonna show up like 4,000 people showed up by you know somewhere between three three and four thousand people on which side

Mostly on the side of not that not the alt-right so four thousand people. On which side? Mostly on the side of not the alt-right. So four thousand all told. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was like, the side who was like, not in our streets, this is Berkeley, we don't play this shit, was way bigger than the side from the white supremacy alt-right side. It was not even close. As it was in

Boston recently. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And overwhelmingly, there was like 13 arrests. And as many people pointed out, there's more arrests at a Raider game. You know, like it's not, that's not a lot of arrests.

And sometimes you get arrested because they're like, let's just get you the fuck out of here. Or this is a safety issue. So it's like 13 arrests. Some people were injured. No deaths, thankfully.

But if you look at all the mainstream news reports, it's like it focuses on those people who, the Antifa or the people who were the black bloc anarchists who were there to fight with people. I was there. There was old people

there. There was young people there. I had a friend who was like, yeah, I got an alert on my phone that said that there was a tear gas and I was in the rally like there's tear gas? He's in the middle of the rally. CNN or the San Francisco Chronicle is like, there's tear gas in Berkeley. And he's like, there is?

And all that stuff got overplayed. And I was there. My wife was there. And it was a very beautiful day despite the reason why the day had come together. Well, there's a real problem in that the media needs something to bleed. They need some tear gas.

They need a riot in order to get clicks. It's just like that New York Times article that I talked about with Conor McGregor's face being completely bloodied. No, you're doing that because you're trying to sell newspapers, not because that's what happened. And you haven't hired anybody there on staff who actually knows the UFC or knows boxing or knows combat sports. Like that's to me, it's like we need an article about this. Well, and also having someone with a perspective that would go to that rally and say, look how many people are here that believe in equality, that believe in unity, that believe in peace, that just want to support this idea that the community is filled with way more of those people.

Yeah. And the people with the bike locks and the face masks. You're talking about a few scrambled individuals. Yeah, these are people who... And here's the thing about those people. They don't show up when it's just a beautiful day at the park. Right. Like, you know, nobody, I live in Berkeley. Nobody's like walking through Berkeley like, oh God, is Antifa about to show up to the farmer's market?

Like they don't, those people don't show up unless the shit hits, unless they feel like the shit is hitting the fan. Well, what concerns me is that those people, when they're wearing the bike masks or the masks and the fucking vests and the knee pads and all the shit, that's where you get those assholes in Charlotte that showed up with guns. Like those guys that were open carrying in Charlotte with bulletproof vests on, walking on the street, showing trigger discipline with their finger on the outside of the gun. I was like, how the fuck is this allowed? And many of them dressed in military garb, so they looked like they were part of the military or looked like they were part of the gun. I was like, how the fuck is this allowed? And dressed, many of them dressed in military garb, so they looked like they were part of the military, or looked like they were part of law enforcement. So, you know, like that was the real problem, too, is people thought

they were, some people were confused and thought they were on their, like they were part of law enforcement. Yeah. And I think the thing about Antifa, I would say this, too, is that the reason why Antifa even has a room to exist is because people in those communities don't think they can count on the police. You know, because there were two other, like, you know, protests in Berkeley

that erupted in violence because the police were standing by watching it happen. Right. They didn't go in and break it up. And that has certainly happened in Charlottesville, too. Well, what's been said, and I don't know if this is true, but it's been said that the police were instructed in Berkeley to not engage with the anarchists. Yeah, I don't know how that is true, but it's been said that the police were instructed in Berkeley to not engage with the anarchists. Yeah, I don't know how that works. I know the mayor of Berkeley. I don't. And then I found out recently that the mayor of Berkeley isn't actually in charge of the police, which I'm like, then what's the point of being the mayor?

So who's in charge? The chief? I guess the chief is in charge. I had never heard of that before. Fernando Green told me that. He talked to the mayor. He's like, I'm not actually in charge of the police. And I'm like, then why are we listening to you?

Well, that actually makes sense. Can we talk to the boss? Because how the fuck could the mayor have enough time to be paying attention to every single issue that the police have to deal with when he's dealing with every single issue the mayor has to deal with? That makes sense. But the president is in charge of the military. Sort of. But he's sort of one of the things that the president has done is sort of given the power to the generals. And that's one of the things that the military really enjoys about Trump.

Yeah. As opposed to any other presidents, they feel like the handcuffs are off. Yeah. But I think that at the end of the day, the president can, you know, can consult with if he tells the generals, go do this thing. They have to, you know, so I feel like that's, that's the kind of, I don't, I don't, I don't, I mean, I think the president has too much power. The president is, you know, many have reported can launch nukes if he wants to.

Right. Now, and it would have to, somebody would have to like violate his order to not launch the nukes So I think there's too much power there But I do think it's weird that the person you elect to lead the city isn't in charge of the law enforcement Well as soon as he Pardoned Joe Arpaio. Yeah, that's when everybody went wait There's no I mean there's no serious debate the problem is now we we have debate about things that is like, these aren't two equal sides. There's not many sides. There's nobody who seriously knows the law or knows what Joe Pryor's history, who believes he was not guilty of those things.

He bragged about the things, profiling people and bragged about abusing people. So there's nobody. Bragged about people dying in his prisons because they had heat stroke. Yes. I mean, they couldn't get cold water. These people were out his prisons because they had heat stroke. Yes. I mean, they couldn't get cold water. These people are out in tents at 120 degrees. Yeah. There's an article that somebody wrote in this kid was born in Tijuana, lived in Arizona and got arrested for drunk driving and spent a year in those those camps.

You know, look, he was raised in America. It was essentially an American american even though he was born on the wrong patch of dirt for some people yes he's an american he just got arrested for drunk driving and did a year in this tent and was talking about how people died around him yeah and talking about the food that they ate and how ruthless they can and you know some people have this uh this opinion of like hey well then don't break the law. But that is a goddamn convenient way to look at it. And it's just not very humane and not very. And not what we're supposed to be in this country.

I mean, we're not supposed to be a country that is that punitive with the law. We often are. And also, we know the one thing we know about America is that the law is not equally applied to everybody. So, you know, a rich guy, rich white guy, drunk drives. He's not going to prison for a year, you know? Our PIO did throw some rich white guys in jail, unfortunately. He threw everybody. Was it in that prison?

Was he going to the outside hot prison? He threw a lot of people in that hot prison. I mean, he's a cunt. I guess I was talking nationally. Yeah, nationally. Yeah, that the law is not applied equally to everyone you know that we know that if you have money and privilege you can get out of situations but that other people don't have all that money and privilege can't get out of well sure i know

comedians that have been arrested in la for drunk driving they never did a day in jail yeah you know and this one kid who was born in tijuana does a year in a tent yeah you know it's i mean look you shouldn't drunk drive no yeah that's i mean, I feel like there should be some punishment. Yeah, you should be, you should, if you break the law, there should be repercussions. Especially that one, because you don't have control of your body and you're driving a deadly vehicle and you could crash into a family. Look, there's a lot of real, real issues with that. Yeah, that's why we have the law.

Like, I mean, like I did, we did an episode of United Shades in the first season about San Quentin, about lifers in prison in San Quentin. And I talked to a lot of guys. First of all, none of the guys I talked to said they didn't do it. Everybody I talked to was like, yeah, I did it. I'm guilty of the thing I did. But when you heard what they did a lot of times, you're like, is that life in prison? What did he get?

Like what? There was a guy who was convicted of robbing two banks. Now he, he, that's bad. Let's say that's bad. Definitely bad. Nobody died. Nobody got hurt. Certainly people were traumatized by the fact he robbed the bank bad. Let's say that's bad. Definitely bad. Nobody died. Nobody got hurt. Certainly people were traumatized by the fact he robbed the bank. He didn't even have a gun. He did the thing. Cause you can rob a bank by just saying, give me the money. I have a bomb, you

know, like whatever you can. So, but didn't have any weapons and he's like that. Now that's bad, but he's like a, he's probably in his sixties now. And I met him and he's one of the coolest people I've met. He's a leader in prison. He's one of the guys who like runs the newspaper. And he invited me. He talked to my agents. He's like, you're coming back in September to speak to the guys. He's a total leader. And he's in prison for life? For the rest of his life?

Not Joe Arpaio. Yeah. Joe Arpaio is directly responsible for people being dead. Yes. Yeah. There's a ton of people that have mysteriously died inside that guy's prisons. Yeah. And that's the part about me.

This is not the same scales of justice we're talking about. No. There's a guy who got a third strike in California. Cause you know, California third strike law that happened for firing a gun in the air. That's bad. But that ended up with him getting life in prison. And you're just like, I mean, you know, it's bad. It's bad.

It's bad. I'm not, I feel like I have to say that enough. I'm not saying let every, every inmate out, but I'm saying it's bad, but life in prison? Well, the idea that you can never reform people, that seems insane. And, well, I guess there's the other perspective is where are the resources going to come from to actually reform someone? How much effort does it take? And individual cases are different, and some people really are just habitual criminals, and there's nothing you can do about it. cases are different and some people really are just habitual criminals and there's nothing you can do about it and if you do release them and they continue to do a crime or they they hurt somebody that they didn't have to like where does the burden lie there but i you know i think norway

i believe is the country uh jamie might have to look it up that the longest prison prison sentence you can get is 20 years prisoners live in like one bedroom apartments like they you know they have tv they have TV, they have, and the whole thing is like, and this is San Quentin has this too, there's rehab programs. I talked to inmates who said that, and then after 20 years in Norway, they talk to you and go, are you ready to go back outside? Like they don't let you out automatically, but they sort of check back in with you. And so if you're not like the guy who shot up the, uh, those people in Norway, he's probably not going to get out again. Right. But the whole idea is that.

Yeah. Small percentage of prisoners serve more than 14 years. Wow. Yeah, but the thing is, they're in there like in San Quentin. I talked to inmates who said in most California prisons, the rehab programs are AA and Jesus. Like that's all they have. And AA is Jesus, too. Exactly, yeah.

It's double down on the Lord. Yeah, just a pathway to Jesus. But in San Quentin, there's a newspaper, there's restorative justice programs, there's a, you know, there's a place that you can learn how to code. Like there's a prison where you can learn how to code right now. So that when you come out,

there's a sense of like, I have, there's lots of other programs, I can't even think of it, but there's also, there's yoga in San Quentin. Wow. Because it's the Bay Area. And so there's all these things so that when you come out come out you are a more fully formed human being so that you have You have job skills you've done restorative justice programs You've helped other inmates who came in to do restorative justice programs so when you come out It's not that it's easy to get a print to be paroled from prison You know

But when you come out you're more prepared for the world as opposed to guys in other prisons in California who get out who have just been like doing rehab in Jesus and have no way to interact with the world Yeah, and just feel like they've just been punished Yeah being isolated and locked in a cage and as a lot of those guys say they go in there for one crime It's not a big deal and they learn how to be better and better criminals in prison because you have to sort of like California has like levels of prison. I think level four is the worst and like maybe level five But anyway, so everybody sort of starts out at a level four

So if you like are in prison in California for something, you know that you know shooting a gun in the air You're at a level you're there with murderers Yeah, and then you have to survive that and hopefully graduate to San Quentin But if you're in there with murderers you have to survive that and so a lot of guys become bigger badder criminals because they're surrounded By bigger badder criminals Just to put on armor. Yeah. Just to protect yourself. Just to get through the day.

And so to me, like the whole, I mean, you know, the, you know, and there's a lot of money that's already in prisons that's not being used well. The prison, you know, private prison system, like we are selling, private companies are selling, like they have to keep the prisons full because they're running a prison for profit. So it becomes less about like, it's like we need to keep the beds full. You know, it's not about like rehab and rehabilitation. It's about, we need to keep the beds full because we are running, we are a corporation running for profit.

That's where it gets dark. How the fuck did anybody ever approve that? That is so scary. So someone, it's basically they're using humans as like cells in a battery. Yeah. Like a giant battery that generates income. Yeah, exactly.

The goal is not to turn these guys into better citizens. The goal is to keep the men and women, the goal is to keep the prisons filled. Well, it's absolutely been proven by prison guard unions trying to, they mean they lobby against marijuana legalization. Yeah. Marijuana, which is probably the one thing that's going to stop people from committing crimes. Yeah.

I mean, you're talking about violent crimes. If there is a drug that's going to stop you from doing a violent crime, that might be it. Or at least maybe like lessen the chances and calm you the fuck down. Maybe I should sit down and just chill out for a second before I go do that thing.

Yeah. There's no other reason to lobby against it. You want to keep your job. You want to make sure that you have plenty of jobs for the people do that thing. Yeah. There's no other reason to lobby against it. You want to keep your job. You want to make sure that you have plenty of jobs for the people in your union. Yeah. And there's many of those people who are in prison for nonviolent drug offenses

like marijuana and other things who are in there next to murderers. Yeah. You know, and have to figure out how to navigate through that. And if you're not in San Quentin, you're not in a place where you can learn other skills. I mean, you know, again, guys in San Quentin getting college diplomas, getting all sorts of certificates and things.

But the problem is that nobody then wants to release them from prison. Right. Take that chance. Nobody wants to go. No politician goes, I have released more inmates from prison than any politician in the history of this country. All it takes is one Willie Horton, right? Yeah. And that was like, again, we're demonizing like

one case. One case. Same thing with Berkeley. There's a picture that was on, I think it was the San Francisco Chronicle of an, of an Antifa, I'm going to go Antifa black block areas. I don't know. Like with a, like with like a, like a gas bomb and surrounding that person is journalists taking pictures of him.

So that's, that becomes the face. It's like, they're not surrounded by other black block people. It's like all the journalists are like, that's where the picture is. You know, not like the people who are like, I was on a truck with clergy singing like spirituals. Nobody took pictures of that and put it on the news. I think that anytime you have- KQED did.

I'm sorry, KQED did. Did they? Yeah. The local public radio station. Cause I'm a celebrity. I was in the back of the truck. Well, anytime there's like some sort of a gathering, you're always going to have people in that gathering that act out, try to get more attention than they behave, some people, to behave in a way that's uncharacteristic.

Or, I mean, there's just that mob mentality. Yeah, I mean, that happens. It's a real thing. That happens at, like, you know, rock concerts and hip-hop concerts. Sure, baseball games, anything. Yeah. Yeah. Mob mentality is 100% real.

You can feel it in the air when shit's going sideways. I mean, it happens. I mean, you've been in clubs where it's like, know something happens like a heckler or something the whole energy changes and there's that moment like what's about to happen you know it feels like and you also been in that position i'm sure you have where you feel like i have a lot of power in this moment like i could if i said like if i go yeah fuck you yeah if you said you certainly if you said get them people would get them you know what i mean if i said get them, people would get them. You know what I mean? If I said get them, they'd be like, I will write my congressman. You're right. We should start a petition, you know, but that's and that's that's real. That's all. And I think the thing is that everybody responds differently. The thing that happened, I'll say specifically in Berkeley, was that there's a sense that these people brought violence to Berkeley the last two times they came. And people respond differently to threats of violence.

Some people respond with the nonviolent thing. Some people respond to I won't go to the park that day. And some people respond with fuck it, bring it. But don't you think there's also a real issue in you? I mean, you got to find out what is actual hate speech and what is like someone like Ben Shapiro, who I think is just a conservative guy who's very articulate and doesn't promote hate at all. And he's extremely reasonable.

But there's a lot of people that equate him, even though he's an Orthodox Jew, a lot of people equate him with being a Nazi and they try to silence him from speaking. Like when you do that, I think it becomes a giant issue. And I think you got to let people talk. And if you disagree with people, I mean, as long as they're not out there promoting violence or promoting negativity or promoting some sort of a, you know, anything that it's abhorrent. But if you let someone talk and then if you have someone that disagrees with them, have a debate. Have a debate and have everybody, like, be peaceful and civil with each other. I mean, I think the problem is that line of what hate speech is.

And I just talked to somebody from the ACLU on my other podcast about the whole hate speech thing. What podcast? Politically Reactive. Yeah, it's a podcast with my friend Hari Kondabolu. It's a weekly talk about politics. We were going to do it. We started it right before the election. Like, we'll do this political podcast.

Then Hillary will win. Then we'll go about our business. Not that we were huge Hillary supporters. But you supporters, but that was the deal we were offered. Do it up until the election. And then it was like, oh, I guess we're doing this for the, you know, maybe forever. Yeah, maybe through the end of time. If he becomes like Putin. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. I mean, you know. That's the real fear. You know, although then I guess I stay employed. I don't know. Chris Rock was on stage right after the election. He goes, you know, he's never getting out of there. You know that, right? He's going to be there forever. He scared the shit out of me because I never I stay employed. I don't know. Chris Rock was on stage right after the election. He goes, you know, he's never getting out of there. You know that, right?

He's going to be there forever. He scared the shit out of me because I never thought about that. I mean, you know, Bloomberg stayed in New York an extra term just because he wanted to. You know, New York governor. Yeah. New York mayor is supposed to be two terms and out. And he was like, it was, I forget what it was, but it was like, he was like, I think I need to stay in another one.

And they let him? Yeah. How did they do that? I didn't live in New York at the time, so I don't know how it all went down. Did they change the law? I think he changed the law. I don't know if he changed it permanently, but yeah. Yeah.

So there is a precedence for this is all I'm saying. There's a precedence for some sort of like, the country needs me because it's so divided. Yeah, motherfucker, because you divided it. This is how the game works. So I would say the thing about Ben Shapiro, and I've only seen a little bit of his work, but I certainly, I know there are people on that side who it's an ideological argument and ideological arguments sometimes can be filled with hate so I'm not I don't know Ben Shapiro so that's that sometimes is like well yeah it's just you're just making an ideological argument but it ends with

me having to move out of America you know so that's he's not that I'm not that guy yeah but I'm saying so but you know, some people make these ideological articles. I'm not saying him. But the problem is, is that now there's a whole movement associated with things that maybe Ben looks to be a part of. So that if he shows up, people don't know and don't know that he's not that he shows up going, I'm not bringing violence, but they're not may be violence traveling around with him. It's not him. But there are others like him or less or less reasonable, like alt-right. Like whatever the fuck alt-right is.

That's the problem. I don't think we know what the fuck it is. What's Antifa, right? What is that? I mean, there's people that are on that that are violent and there's people that consider themselves anti-fascist that are extremely peaceful. And they would say that they're Antifa, the real Ant Antifa and then what is black block? What is that?

That's not an anarchist. Oh, that's a I think it's probably Bay Area. How long is that been going? Oh, I think it's been going on a while. I don't know I I but it's a thing that like whenever we would see I think now we're calling it Antifa But like there would be I mean this happened in the there were some black lives matter protests in Berkeley and Some black black anarchist. It's described the same way wearing black all covered up and they were like and these people showed up So I don't know if they were in Tifa were like great now we can loot and people stood in front of stores going No, no, no, we're not we're not doing that. We're not we're not doing that, you know This has nothing to do with you getting into the Verizon store, right?

To do with you getting into the Verizon store. That's nothing to do with you ransacking this radio shack. I saw some of the Antifa people trying to stop one of the other Antifa people from beating up a Trump supporter. They had this guy down and one guy kicked him. Oh, that was a journalist, Al Letson. Yeah, he's a Bay Area journalist. He has the podcast Reveal. And he's the guy that tried to stop them?

Yeah, black guy. Black guy waded through the white people. Well, there was white people that I saw doing it too, so it must have been like some sort of a, it must have been more than one. Certainly it happened more than that. Certainly there are people who are like, there's people who support Antifa because they feel like, well, we need somebody who stands up to this. But there's not people who support people beating people up randomly. So, yes, there were outlets and other people stepped into like, yeah, we're not. The thing about the Berkeley in the Bay Area is that people don't get.

They think it's all one thing. Like that it's all some sort of like lefty, like socialist, blah, blah, blah. And the thing about Berkeley is it's not that. The Bay Area is not that. It's a lot of different people who feel like, who are on some version of the left, but they don't all necessarily agree with each other and they let a lot of shit go.

Like that's not like, you know, so that can be the naked guy who walks through town. Like that doesn't mean we all support people walking around naked, that's not like, you know, so that can be the naked guy who walks through town. Like, that doesn't mean we all support people walk around naked, but we're like, oh, kind of me. But it also means that, like, during Obama's reign, I lived in San Francisco, there were libertarians set up on corners with big, huge pictures of Obama and with Hitler mustaches painted on him. And we're all like, oh, all right.

It's like, you know, as long as you don not, as long as you don't want to start a fight, do your thing, man. And that's what people don't get who have put this whole lefty sort of whatever libtard thing on Berkeley. It's not one thing. It's not. It's where it's a lot of things that the barriers is. It's where all the freaks sort of end up.

We're like, I don't feel in my life that I'm understood, but we don't agree with each other. Right. But the thing that we sort of all agree on is that you can. So if the alt-right Wanted to show up You know conservative people come speak at Berkeley all the time It's specifically around people who are look like they're bringing violence or bringing targeting people That's the problem the birth you see Berkeley and one of the professors. I think of law there is named John you YOO he wrote the bush torture memos

He's a professor at UC Berkeley Nobody's like we gotta I guess he's a good professor. You know what I mean? What is he a professor in? A law. He's a law professor. And he's been there for a long time. And he wrote the Bush torture memos that said, you know, if you do some waterboarding. This is not a direct quote, but he wrote the memos that said that it sort of outlined how to do enhanced interrogation techniques. He's been there for a long time ain't nobody thinking about him You know they are now Jokes I've never met him. I've never socialized with him, but he's there and also um the dude who was a like it deep in the

Clinton White House Kid name his name, but yeah, there's also at Berkeley like there's not some sort of lefty version of Berkeley that is one thing. It's a lot of different things. The free speech thing is true. The thing that people are nervous about is violence. Yeah. So I think that, you know, Ann Coulter can come speak at Berkeley anytime she wants to. If there's this thing about like, I'm not going to encourage violence.

Here's the issue with Ann Coulter. I think Ann Coulter is an opportunist. And I think that what she does is try to inflame people so that she can sell books and stay relevant. She's actually going after the market, like we were talking about earlier. She saw this market out there and was like, huh, I'm a pretty blonde lady. I could probably sell some books. She's a what? I think that's how she's been marketed at some point.

I'm a black guy. I can't see. What are you seeing? What kind of glasses do you have, dude? Can I try them on real quick? I feel like early in her career, she was marketed that way. I'm not trying to say. Wow.

I'm not trying to. There's a lot of those out there. I don't think she's one of them. Okay. Well, that's. There are a lot of those, though. I'll let you be the expert. Yeah, please do.

Yeah. I'll take it from here. I'm a blonde lady. Okay. Yeah, there you go. There's a lot of that. Yeah. That is like, in this package, it's the same way that like as comics, we go, oh, you're the guy who does this.

Yeah. Well, she's doing it all. I mean, there's people that do that online. They're saying things that are inflammatory. They're saying things that you don't necessarily, if they were being completely objective and reasonable, they wouldn't say that. They're only saying it because they think it's going to get a reaction. Which is why her and Bill Maher get along together, because they're both doing the same thing. I can't deal with that.

I just don't have enough time. There's not enough time in the world. You should get attention for what you deserve attention for, and if you want attention, by being provocative intentionally. Unless you're funny. Fuck off. That's the nature of comedy, yeah. But if you're not funny, fuck off. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, it's absolutely true. I think she thinks she're funny. Fuck off. That's the nature of comedy, yeah. But if you're not funny, fuck off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's absolutely true. I think she thinks she's funny. But I feel like Berkeley has had conservative speakers speak there throughout the history of Berkeley. It's not about that. Right, but the history is different than the current. The current is ramped up recently. The thing is because when Milo was going to show up, there was the fear, and he had seen

it happen before, where he was targeting students, either undocumented students, he was naming students during his stage thing who were undocumented or trans and there was fear like we can't that's that's promoting violence That's the undocumented thing is a huge issue. Yeah, that's that's not that's specific specifically targeting individual that and that thing is Berkeley's like We can't stand for that. That's not about free speech That's about safety and I feel like that's where the where does hate speech began? Where does free speech begin where the right a huge murky area that even the law can't tell you where it is. And, and so,

but those issues of what is free speech and what isn't free speech or freedom of expression, you know, and again, the Bay area, I live right next to Oakland. Black Panthers were in Oakland. California used to be an open carry state until the Black Panthers was like,

oh, it is. And they went to like Sacramento whenagan was there and like openly caring and people were like huh maybe this open carry is not such a good idea it's not really a debate right now in charlottesville though is it yeah they're just letting it slide letting it slide so it's about who's in power and what they want to let you get away with is charlottesville open carry i mean yeah it must be yeah there's no way there's no no there's that's definitely i mean they you know that they i think they picked picked Charlottesville for a reason.

Isn't that weird, though? Because it's like a liberal college, a quote-unquote liberal arts college. That doesn't mean it's a liberal college, but a liberal arts college, a blue dot in the middle of this red state that is open carry. So there's reasons they're targeting these places. I think Berkeley, up until recently, felt like a soft target because they'd been there twice and whooped our asses. They were like, all right, we should schedule a third fight.

Like Mayweather, want to fight again, McGregor? Not in the octagon. No, no, not yet. On my terms. Let's make it right. Yeah, so this third time, we were like, no. Well, Charlottesville, to me, was so representative of the times that we're in because all these white guys

with citronella candles they got from Home Depot. It's like, what in the fuck? Why don't you guys carry Whole Foods bags as well and walk around with Crocs on? It's also tiki torches are not white inventions, so it's like a whole, like it's just the whole thing. You couldn't even bring your own. You couldn't just bring sticks. You had to bring Polynesian tiki torches.

But the whole torch thing, like what the fuck are you doing? Why do you have torches? Because they're invoking the images of white people carrying torches that have terrorized people of color and black people but that's what it is that's exactly there's no other reason to carry torches the free speech thing is like it's you're purposely invoking an image because you know you could have just held your phones up with the lights on if you wanted to have the head we were talking about those headlamps you get when you go camping you walk through the woods those are way better than those stupid fucking torches but yeah they want to look supreme that doesn't Those are way better Than those stupid fucking torches But they Yeah

They want to look supreme That doesn't make you look supreme It's also What torches represent is fire And fire is very volatile Yes You could use that fire You could light things on fire

Like we're at step one Step two is we start lighting shit On fire with this fire Yeah Like right now we're carrying it around In a controlled manner But you're showing It's in a way

Like a step below Open carry You're walking around Yep With something you can use to light things on fire. And they know the history of white people carrying torches is the Klan. So they're very purposefully doing the thing. I love the idea that there's probably these Klan members like, dude, that's why we wore the hoods. So we couldn't be wrecking.

We didn't want to be fired. That's why we wore the hoods. All those guys are getting fired left and right and called out. And crying. But I think we wore the hoods. All those guys are getting fired left and right and called out. And crying. But I think they know the history of that. They know the history of the fact that if we show up carrying torches, it means something different than if we show up wearing headlamps or carrying our phones. But they couldn't even get those fucking Frankenstein-style torches where they wrap cloth.

Those burn too quickly. Those are still not real. They had to replenish those every 15 minutes on those movie sets. Yeah, as I learned with the Klan, that wood burns too quickly. Yeah, well, that's also the thing with flaming arrows. Like people that think that you could light an arrow and throw it. No, they go out. You shoot a fucking arrow.

Wind and air works and velocity. Yeah, 200 feet per second, you're shooting it through the air. That thing's going to go out. It's not going to be able to light that boat on fire get the fuck out of here you know there was probably a rehearsal for the torch thing where they actually did have regular torches and they're like oh this isn't yeah this is not working guys oh well you know home depot was probably like wait how many fucking torches what do you what do you guys have like the biggest backyard ever yeah yeah what are you doing you know your home depot manager's now, how many torches do they want? Slow down a second.

Backyard torches. Like, what? Those things with, like, the bamboo stalks that they're using for the bottom or whatever the fuck the stick is. God, it's so the sign of the times. It's such a poser move. Yep, it is a poser move. And yet they know that if you're a black person walking

through the streets of Charlottesville and you see that coming your way, and you're thinking, you're a black person walking through the streets of Charlottesville and you see that coming your way And you you know you're thinking you're invoked by images images of America's past where that was like that equal death because they weren't back Then the torches were for your house. Yeah, you know the torches were for you They were not for they were not just showing strength and so and they know that and that's why when people go It's just free speech. It's like we have to stop acting like that's that you can't say it's just free speech if you're walking around with a torch it's definitely more than that you don't have to have a torch everyone can see you it's not it's not so dark out that we can't see you especially in those in that way my wife actually the other day was like

there's a guy walking the street with a blowtorch that she it's only now because we think like what's that mean but like in the baby's a welder yeah exactly she wasn't she didn't call the cops she was just like on the phone the other guy walking after you the torch but the idea is that that that didn't alert her because it was like it's just some guy walking around the torch but it's specifically the context of nighttime a group of hundreds of white guys carrying torches walking towards people it's like that's not that's not free speech that's not freedom of expression and the chance this the chance that they were yelling. The whole thing was just so fucking bizarre. It's like, how did they organize?

Like, where are these guys meeting up to figure this out? I feel like it's the same thing as, like, live action role play. It's like they're meeting up online, and then they probably meet for the first time when they get there. You know? And I think it's also just really, you know, really it's really indicative of like you said the times we live in that they think they can get away with this and then get surprised when they get fired like they think that like oh we'll just do that and then we'll go to applebee's you know like no dude we can see you well it's indicative of them being fucking stupid which is why they're

doing in the first place which is why when the president goes on both sides. Yeah Maybe there were people a lot of people said this maybe there were some white people like yeah I do feel like that my rights are being a little bit trampled on and I really want to show up the minute you Hear people chanting like all whatever the anti-semitic somatic things they were saying you got to go home Yeah, well, what were they saying about take it back from the Jews or stop the Jews from taking over? Yeah Yeah, and then the president go, yeah. And the president can't come out against that while he, you know. Well, he's seeing people open carry with military outfits on walking with these folks. He's seeing these people walking down the street with torches and he doesn't have some

sort of an articulate response to that where he's saying like, look, ladies and gentlemen, this is not being inclusive. This is not, this is not like stepping up and saying that what we need to do is come to some sort of an understanding and be at peace with each other. Which is what America should be. Yeah, but you started it wrong. Articulate response. That's not his thing. He used to be more articulate, which is really weird.

I don't think men should do anything when they're 70. I really don't. Because I think they're old. Their dick doesn't work anymore. Their fucking skin's falling off their face. Their back starts to hurt. They're cranky. I just think when you get to be that age, you should just shut the fuck up.

Yeah, you should sit down. You should go fishing or something. But you definitely shouldn't have the kind of insane high- high pressure job that, by the way, nobody should have. Nobody should be the one guy that runs or the one woman who runs the whole country. It's an insane responsibility. I was reading about Obama. Oh, I put a tweet up yesterday

about when the Republicans were freaking out because Obama wore a tan suit. Yeah, there's all this this day in Obama scandal, like in the middle of a Trump thing. And you forget. You're like, oh my God, they were trying to find something to get mad at. There would be days when he wouldn't wear a jacket. Like he would just wear like a button down shirt and a tie.

And people were like, you need to wear, like Bush's thing was he always wore, W. Bush always wore a full suit. And Obama's like, I'm still the president. I'm just hot in this room. You know what I mean? And people would get the things that they nitpicked. And this is the thing that's so stupid there's many people on the left who had big huge disagreements with obama that we weren't able to express effectively because we were too busy defending his birth certificate you know that was a trump thing yeah yeah and that was a trump thing he was the head of that shit he was the head he was certainly he like saw that thing happen and sort

of stepped into it like yeah i yeah, I like this spot. Yeah. Didn't he hire people to go investigate it? Joe Arpaio was a part of this. He sent people to Hawaii. Yeah. Trump said he was sending. There's all these tweets where he's like, I just sent a team to Hawaii.

The things they found are, it's big. It's sad. It's amazing. And then you, you know, here we sit, like nobody ever held him in. Trump never got held into account for anything and still doesn't really get held into account for anything that he's said or done. What bothered you about Obama when he was in office? A lot of the stuff he did was business as usual president stuff.

Like, you know, using the military and nations and killing innocent civilians that, you know, that didn't need to be caught up in war. You know what I mean? Like drone shit. And like, you know, I think, you know, we were supposed to get out of Afghanistan. I mean, like drone shit and like, you know, I think, you know, we were supposed to get out of Afghanistan. It's just regular president shit that we that his first, you know, I drank all the Obama Kool-Aid the first time around, you know, hope and change. A lot of the hope and change was about not being a president as usual.

Also, I don't think he really, you know, the thing that Trump does really effectively, the thing that George W. Bush did really effectively. Republicans do a good job of that. They really know how to use the bully pulpit to really push their things through. Not that Trump has really done anything to push things through, but he knows how to be a bully from the pulpit. He hasn't really passed any major legislation. But Obama, because he wanted to be an adult and he really wanted to be a unifier, and I think a lot of that comes literally from the fact that he's half black and half white, that he has existed in more than one world he didn't i felt like there

was times it's like dude just you could you are an effective speaker you could really push through like single-payer health care in a way like at least the debate on it you know so we don't settle for obamacare you know i think that there's i think that he didn't and i you know i i've never talked to the man i've never met him i feel like i'm the only black person associated with hollywood who's never met obama but does uh, no, I just feel sort of like, Oh, like I don't have a pic. My dad has a picture with Obama. I don't have, I just feel like it'd be nice to be able to tell my kids what was the first

black president? Like, I have no fucking idea, uh, that he didn't, uh, that he didn't use the full force of his, of his presence. Cause he was a rock star. And I feel like that that could have pushed some things through, or at least got us to debate things that, you know, even Obama going when they asked him about marriage, gay marriage, he was like, I've evolved on that. He had nothing to do with legalizing marriage equality. But the president saying that made a lot of people go, huh, maybe I'm ready to evolve.

You know what I mean? I don't think he used the full force of his of his bully pulpit in the way that I always said I wanted him to drive the presidency the way that George W. Bush did. Like, there's no rules. There's no law. Do you feel like when someone gets into office, they realize how complex the inner workings of the federal government really are? And then they just kind of abandoned a lot of the ideas that they wanted to push when they got in there. Like, remember when Obama had that hope and change website that had all the stuff about whistleblowers and how whistleblowers are going to be protected under the Obama administration. And then as soon as he got in office, he was worse on whistleblowers than now whistleblowers are going to be protected under the obama administration and then as soon as he got in office he was worse on whistleblowers than anybody yeah and then he

removed that section of the hope and change website they deleted it after the whole uh you know the edward snowden thing and the bradley manning thing chelsea manning thing they were like fuck this you can't do that yeah i do i think usually we're not seeing that with this current president but i do think that's the thing where they get in there and suddenly people go you because as part of this, you are the most powerful individual in the world, but also the train is going this way. It's already left the station. So I do think that there is, you're not going to get really an ultimate revolutionary mindset in the president's seat. You just want somebody who's reasonable. You know what I mean?

who's reasonable. You know what I mean? You're not going to get somebody who's, you know, Alicia Garza from Black Lives Matter is not going to be the president as much as I think she'd be great at it because it's just not going to end up with somebody who actually has a revolutionary mindset. So then if you start out there,

then when you put those people in there, then they, you know, I don't know what the pressures of the office are. I'm sure they're amazing, but it automatically leads you to capitulate, you know? And if you have a revolutionary mindset, I mindset, you might be able to use that for one aspect of being the leader of the entire free world. But what about all the other shit that guy has to deal with all day long? There's not enough time in the day.

No one has enough of an attention. Trump apparently has enough time to go golfing. Because he's not doing it. He's not doing the stuff. How many people aren't even appointed in the Pentagon? A shitload of jobs they haven't even filled yet. Apparently for Trump, there's extra time in the day.

But I do think, and I want to be clear, because I know people are listening. When I say revolutionary mindset, I mean, single-payer healthcare is a revolutionary mindset. Every American has the right to healthcare. Every American has the right to send their kids to good public schools that are well-funded. These are things I think that are, when I say revolutionary mindset,

I don't mean like setting things on fire. I mean like revolutionary ideas that every person in this country deserves. And I think that those people aren't going to be in the driver's seat of the White House. Well, utilizing the resources that we have because of the fact that we pay taxes, a tremendous amount of money goes to the federal government with very little recourse. There's no audit. You don't get some sort of machine that tells you exactly where your tax dollars went. You don't get to pick.

Could you please send this to the schools? Yeah. What would be important? What would be more important to fund? I mean, I think we should all have that conversation. And I just think that the way it's structured right now, the amount of power that corporations have, the amount of power that special interest groups have influenced the president, the amount of

just the sheer money in politics with lobbyists. And, you know, there's this one community outside of Washington, D.C. It's one of the richest communities in the world, and it's all lobbyists. I mean, these are just people that are using and selling influence. Yeah, I'm not, people sort of call me a communist, but I think I'm not a communist at all, but I certainly understand that. What are you, you think?

I'm a capitalist. I'm trying to make money, man. I also believe I can help put a spread, a better message and help, and use my resources to help people but i'm yeah i'm in the i'm in it i'm in show business like you know business yeah show business exactly i'm not i'm not i know activists and i know how hard they work and then i sometimes use my resources to help those people out and donate money but i'm not like i'm not i'm in show business i'm trying

you know i'm i'm in kevin hart's career you know what i mean like i'm not kevin hart and i have a lot of respect for kevin hart i think he's amazing but it's like. I'm not Kevin Hart, and I have a lot of respect for Kevin Hart. I think he's amazing. But it's like I have to sort of remind myself and other people, like, yeah, I'm not. Sometimes people put the word activist next to my name. I'm like, activist is actually a job. I don't have that job. I mean, I do things that are engaged in activism, but my tax form says comedian.

Well, you have interests. Yeah, I have interests. And you also have thoughts about how things could be better. Yeah. And you use your platform to spread those interests. Yeah, I have interests. And you also have thoughts about how things could be better. Yeah. And you use your platform to spread those thoughts. Yeah, and I also want a bigger house. And I think that it's okay to do all those things. For my family, not just because I want to roll around my money.

I want a bigger house so I can move my mom out to. There are selfish interests in there. So, yeah. I want a bigger house. So my second move my mom out to, you know, there are selfish interest interests in there, but, uh, you know, so yeah, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying,

I, but I do think that this country has the level of resource. Like there's a website, it's called donors, choose.org. And I'm not trying to do a commercial, but it just, it's a website where schools in your area,

you go to the website and you put in like your zip code and you will see the school, the public schools in your area that need things. And it's sad what they need. We need paper. We're trying to teach the kids how to learn how to read and we don't have any books. Where the fuck did that happen? Where did it go wrong? There's so little money for schools that teachers get paid like $30 dollars a year and it's supposed to survive off of that and every teacher even at public at private schools

but certainly public schools put their paycheck back into the school because they go the kids need uh we're trying to teach you know a learning thing and we don't have the stuff and they can't afford it so every teacher every public school teacher i've ever known use some of their check to go back into the school. Yeah. I mean, it's just like, he's one of the most important things that we have. And they're not being, they're not making,

yeah, they're not making, they're making 30,000 and some of them are making $30,000 a year. Some of them are like teachers, aides who just out of college, but they have to, if they don't put money into the classroom, their kids will not have things.

And that's even private school teachers do that, but they may not put as much, but yeah, it's every, every teacher I've ever known has to do that. And we don't, and we don't think that's a problem. I feel like there would be some way. Why isn't Mark Zuckerberg's public school teacher getting a percentage?

You know what I mean? There should be some tax on all of us that goes back to our public school teachers if we went to public school. But I feel like it's weird to me that we're acting like these people come out of nowhere. Because Joel Osteen's got all that Shit piled up. Yeah Basketball Stadium. I do think they're there nobody talks about like that is like hoarding money. That's that's hoarding. That's hoarding That's hoarding doesn't have to pay taxes. You don't have to pay taxes. You're fucking straight-up hoarding Yeah, there's no there's no cat skeletons in there, but that's any should do like billionaire hoarding

I feel like that's that's a thing. But I mean, that is literally what made the guy who created Scientology get involved in it. And that was literally the idea behind L. Ron Hubbard making a shitload of money. Created a religion. Best way to make money. Yeah. It's literally his quote. Yeah. And we were talking before we got on, but there's all these like, religion is a good way to make money.

But then there's all these motivational speaker type people. I'm looking like, now where were you before you were this? Yeah, exactly. If Oprah's a motivational speaker, yeah, motivate me. What did you do? Right. But a lot of people, I'm like, there's some people like, weren't you just a comic before? Yeah.

Not even a good one. I mean, I get. I know one of those. Yeah. I mean, I just feel like there's all, I did an echo one time. I know a guy was a hack, and now he's a motivational speaker. Yeah, and it's just like, and you listen to the things, you're like, yeah, that all sounds right, but who are you?

I don't, you know, what's your resume that you get to tell this? I mean, all this stuff is sound, right? We can all read fortune cookies and go. What's your actual achievements? Yeah, what's your, yeah, what's your, what put you, I mean, if you, for example, were like this weekend in Berkeley, I'm doing the Joe Rogan

motivational speaking training seminar, I'd be like, I wanna go see what Joe's talking about because there's clearly a thing you've done and you have done a lot of,

and you could be like, I wanna know how this all happened. You know, how do I get my own podcast studio? But there's a lot of people out there

who are sort of not, they can't be a religious leader because that does require some work and you gotta develop a new take on Jesus which is hard but but they are doing this thing where it's like they're just they just are motivating people based on the fact that they've read motivational

books yeah the new take on Jesus is what Bieber's guy's doing right I keep hearing wisps of Bieber is that what's happening? Bieber has some Jesus guy who's also influencing athletes. Who is the athletes he's got? Kyrie Irving. Kyrie Irving and I don't know. Yeah, he's some up and coming Jesus dude. New take on Jesus. Who apparently just really knows how to sell it.

He knows how to tickle those balls of Jesus lovers. Well, because I think you get to that Bieber level. he's been famous since he was what 12 and he's got all the money and he's probably had all the sex with every different combination of humanity he wanted to have sex with and then and it's somebody's next level he's got stem cell people working on new humanity and so he's had all the he's he's done all the substances he can do and all the combinations people working on new humanity. I want to fuck a mermaid. Alright, Biebs, we're on it. And so he's done all the substances he can do and all the combinations and he's had all, you know, he's like

he's had all the new houses, all the cars and then you wake up in a room like, what does this mean? And somebody's like, I got a new take on Jesus for you. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you gotta wonder, man. That's why you gotta pull out earlier. That's why you gotta pull out earlier That's why you gotta like As far as if you

Once you get to that If Bieber had retired five years ago Is this the guy? Yeah Oh Jesus Oh that is a new take on Jesus I wanna get this guy on my podcast Three hours

I bet you can find out What the fuck that dude's all about Yeah that's That is a new take on Look at that With the haircut and everything Yeah It's like the Jesus beard

But Jesus with the hipster haircut Yeah he looks like a band member. Yeah. It looks like, yeah. Like he's in, like I could see him with a neck tattoo. Yeah.

See, that's the, this is like grungy Jesus. Cause he's not like pastors normally wear suits and stuff, but yeah. Hmm. Interesting. Hmm.

Yeah. Your take on Jesus. I don't think that anybody can get through what Bieber did and be any better than he is. I think it's insane to think that you could take a child and not have them go through the normal developmental shit that we all go through not being liked and trying to get people to like you and dating a girl and being getting your heart broke and you know getting in a fight and getting in arguments and not having any money and your neighbor's houses and getting a fucking yeah neighbor's mansion oh that's yeah i mean he did a lot of fucked up shit but i mean he he is essentially like living out his adolescent with a billion dollars in public yeah it's insane

and i mean we already saw how that works out with michael jackson like it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't go well for anybody who the fuck has ever got through maybe jodie foster but i don't know her but yeah she might be the only one i has ever got through it? Maybe Jodie Foster, but I don't know her. She might be the only one. I think she got through it, but she also turned the volume way down. Jodie disappeared. She moved to Paris. She lived her life. She had a whole family that people were like, I think she's...

Where the fuck is she? Yeah. So yeah, it's like Kurt Russell's another dude who was a huge movie star as a kid, and now it's just like... But most people don't get through that. The entire cast of Different Strokes is gone. Like, you know, maybe not Todd Bridges. Todd's still around, but he's fucked up.

Yeah, it's like that, you know, that's not a, you know, I have my daughter. I have two daughters, but my oldest daughter is definitely a performer and wants to be in stuff. And I told my agent yesterday, if you ever see me bring her in here, like, kill me. I think we're ready. I'm like, that means we're done. Yeah. Yeah, that means like I think I'm ready. I'm like that means I'm that means we're done Yeah, that means that I've lost all perspective because yeah, I mean, I don't think you're even a person until you're 25 You know a work in progress. I don't let you read a car into 25. Yeah, we need a person behind the wheel Yeah, I didn't by the way

I didn't have that opinion until like maybe about five or six years ago I'm like slowly starting to develop that like realizing that when you see someone who's young and stupid and doing dumb shit like oh Their fucking brains not even ready yet. Yeah, I mean it I think that well the older you get you might keep raising that level to you might end up being 30 and in the 40 That age bias, you know, and I think it's probably 60 I don't even think it's an age bias I think it's it's just understanding Who you are now today is very different than who you were a decade ago or two decades ago. And if you're not, you fucked up.

Yeah. I think that's a Muhammad Ali quote, a man who thinks the same way as 50 as he did at 30 has wasted 20 years of his life. You should be going through some new experiences. You should be wiser. Yeah, you should be wiser. And you should be like, man, I can't believe I did that. That's dumb shit. That's why it's really sad when you talk to someone who's 50 who doesn't know anything about

the world doesn't read doesn't pay attention isn't that's what i think is so awful about trump is he seems completely uncurious like he doesn't seem like a curious individual he doesn't seem like to me that's the worst that's worse than dumb that's worse than racist like i just feel like he's just completely uncurious about the outside world. Well, also the way he adorns his homes with gold, like a 12-year-old that just got a magic bottle that he gets to rub. He gets to rub this genie bottle. And they're like, what do I want? I want everything gold.

The furniture, the chandelier. And if it's not actual gold, I want it gold-colored. You know the people, because the White House, there's people who work at the White House forever, no matter who the president is. You know those people, and they're like, oh God, he's redecorating everything gold. What is he doing? Is that what he's doing in the White House? There's a whole renovation that's happening. That's why part of the reason they said he went on his 17-day break is that they were doing a bunch of renovations in the White House. And is he allowed to just do whatever he wants? He can do whatever he wants.

So what if he wanted to do like black light paintings of Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee? That's the problem with the presidency. Heretofore we thought there was limits on stuff. Right. And Trump doesn't believe in limits. Because everybody was reserved. We thought oh, naturally the natural selection

of running for president only elevates the best people or the people most prepared for the job. And I mean, obviously, there's lots of people we can point to that person. But generally, people thought that just the natural selection process, in the same way that kind of like Conor McGregor just upset the whole thing. We thought up until then, you had to be a professional boxer who had lots of fights before you got to Floyd Mayweather.

Right. And then Conor was like, I don't think that's the way that works. Well. And I'm not mad. Obviously, that's a completely different situation. Yeah, but this is not about me. I think I'm a big Conor fan, so I'm not mad at that at all. But no, you're right.

It's like a new way to the top. It's a new way that people are like, I didn't know you could do that. And then it makes other people. So I think Trump has done that to the presidency where it's like, we thought there was just the process of natural selection ended up with somebody who at least had a through line of an idea because if you don't agree with bush george w bush or you don't agree with clinton you at least knew there was a through line of an idea and i think with trump there's not the belief that there's a through line of an idea

yeah and it's there's also this idea that he wings things yes like he gets and has these press conferences like that one that he had that that really set a lot of people back, like just a couple of months into his presidency, where he went on this like 70-minute rant and just, you know, rallied about fake news. And people came out of that going, what in the fuck was that? Was that the one in Phoenix? No, that was, was that recent? The one in Phoenix, yeah.

No, I'm talking like way early. Oh, okay. Like one of the first ones that he did. I remember I got texts from friends who are Republicans who were like, this is not good. Yeah. He seems unstable. Yeah. Yeah.

No. And I think that, I mean, I think the one in Phoenix felt a little bit like, you know, it's a little bit like Jeff Foxworthy doing the old, you might be a redneck jokes. Like, dude, write some new stuff. Like he was still doing, like, the same stuff. Like, he's still going over the same, he's still legislating, he's still, like, dude, stop saying crooked Hillary. We have moved

as a nation. Even fans of Hillary are like, we got it. Move on. He's still doing the same electoral victory and all these things that he's been doing. It doesn't seem like, get to a new idea, man. Well, that was one of the really sad moments when he was confronted by a reporter, and he was talking about how he won by the biggest margin ever.

And the reporter said, well, actually, sir, that's not true because of this and that and that. And he goes, well, I'm from Republicans. As a Republican. He's like, no, that's not true either. Still not true. And he starts rattling off the actual statistic. And he goes, well, you'll agree that I won by a large margin, right?

He goes, you are the president. Thank you. It's like, what? Who are you? Like, what kind of crazy ego battles do you have to have on live television? This is a guy who's way more related to Bieber than he is to any other president,

as far as, like, he's surrounded by people who have told him, good job, good decision. I mean, there's the insanity of, like, first of all, there was the fake Time magazine cover that was in his golf courses. I mean, that's insane. That's insane. That's just, I mean, we've all taken the fun fake magazine cover, but we don't put it up and make people think it's real.

That is insane. Then there's another one that I just found out recently. At one of his golf courses, there is a fake Confederate monument. There's like a plaque that says there was a battle here. They call this the River of Blood. And historians are like like none of that none of that happened and it's got Donald it says Donald Trump under the bottom like he's

saying Donald J. Trump this is what happened here and it's none of it none of it it's not like oh it's an exaggerated Donald Trump's golf course plaque honors fake civil war about holy shit the river of blood people are like that's not this was never holy shit that is insane i mean to me that's like yeah the potomac river near the 15th green is

shown during round three of the senior pga championship at trump national golf course on may 27th 2015 report about a factually inaccurate inaccurate plaque featured at Donald Trump's Northern Virginia Trump National Golf Club Has resurfaced this week in light of the president's controversial remarks about the violent weekend in Charlottesville Fucking a man, and they went to like three different historians and one day and they were like yeah That's there's no he's not even getting something wrong. It's not like yeah There was a just thought yeah It's just that didn't Do you think he did that or someone did that

and brought it to him? In the New York Times story, they questioned him about it and he says, no, I talked to historians who said it was a very blah,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's, he, it's in the,

uh, see, no, uh, uh, no way. Nothing like that ever happened there.

He's adamant about the accuracy of the plaque. However, and told the publication that he was certain that the area was a prime site for river crossing, so if people are crossing the river and you happen to be in a civil war, I would say that people were shot.

A lot of them. What? Does he understand how war goes? That's your president. Just because you're in war when you're walking around, it's like you don't get shot everywhere you are. Yeah, just because you're in war. Because the battle's shot everywhere you are Just because you're in war is the battles not everywhere people are the Trump a self-professed big history fan was unable to name the historians

He claimed it told him the site was known as the river of blood This is it so Wow To me wow that's crazy. Yeah, and that's been there for a while So to me it's like this is again. This is where the press, forget the fake news media, the fake news. This is where the press really fucked up is by entertaining him through the election season without really making a hard effort to go right at the truth of the matter. Like people thought, again, I think people were seduced by the idea, well, he's not going

to win. He's going to drain the swamp. We're getting good. Well, I mean, even people who didn't agree with him, people on the left who were like, he's not going to win. I had friends who were like, I don't even waste time thinking about him. And I was like, you better realize he's probably going to want to waste some time. That they didn't, people didn't go after him hard enough about all these little things.

Meanwhile, let's again, Barack Obama had to pull out several copies of his birth certificate. You know what I mean? And yet people want to go, I don't know if he's racist, Trump. I don't know. Well, here's my take on it. I don't give a fuck if he was born in Kenya. I don't care. I don't remember where I was born.

They told me I was born in New Jersey, but I wasn't there. You were there, but you weren't paying attention. I wasn't there. I was barely out. I didn't understand words. I didn't understand cities. It's just not your choice where to be born. The idea that you're better off because your choice was to be,

by divine birthright, you were shit out in Michigan. Yeah. So you could run this country. That's why the whole immigration thing and the refugee thing is ridiculous. It's insane. But it shouldn't matter, but it does matter. And also they were using he was born in Kenya as a way to promote a lot of conspiracy theories that were connected to him that were none of that.

If you start to buy the how he was, it was a fake birth certificate because his parents when he was born knew he was going to be the first black president. So they got him a fake Hawaii birth certificate. And then you attach a lot of things to him that illegitimize his presidency. Because if Trump had said, I don't agree with Obama's policy on this and this and this and left all this stuff behind, then yeah, let's see the run for president. Well, the craziest one was that he was some sort of a Manchurian candidate, some sort of undercover Muslim that was sent to destroy America.

He's trying to destroy America. Can't he just be a disappointing president? Isn't that enough? No. Must we take it to that? That's the part about this disturbing is that Obama who was just they were questioning the legitimacy of his presidency. Like just the fact

that he shouldn't even be president because he's not he wasn't born here in this country. And then with Trump, all these things should be questioned. Is he fit enough to run for president? Is he a serious enough person? Because I don't know, you know, can you question people's mental facility? But is he a serious enough person to run for president right is he meant is he is he a serious enough person because I don't know you know

He can you question people's mental facility, but is he a serious enough person to run for president? It's clearly no he's not serious enough to be president you have fake Time magazine art Fake Time magazine one is almost inexcusable. I mean it absolutely inexcusable I've been on the cover of Time more than anybody else which is again It's like this is not true, But had he been on the cover before? Actually been on the cover? Yeah, but there was like, but yeah, but he had been he, I think, I think, we'd have to look this up. He had been on the cover, but not that

picture. It wasn't that picture. It wasn't that. There was whatever. But why would he do that then? Why wouldn't he just frame the real one? You know, this is, you have to ask your head. But that's what's crazy, right? I mean, the guy has actually been on Time Magazine. So if he has, I don't know that he has. But he's certainly been on the cover of magazines.

For sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, get another one. Yeah, get one that you've been on. It's not like you're not famous. Yeah, that's the weird part. Yeah. He needs to feel like the most famous.

He needs to feel like the... But what do you think, what's the thought process behind that? Did someone bring that to him? Did he say, I need to be on Time Magazine. If they don't want to put me on, make me a fake one. That's a real one? No, that's a fake one. That's the fake one. Yeah, because look, Time Magazine would never say Trump is hitting on all

fronts, even TV. It's not Entertainment Weekly. That's so gross. Obama's next move, can he curb healthcare costs? How stressed is your parent? That's weird. The Apprentice is a television smash. Wow. I mean, I feel like somebody made it for him as a joke

and then he, you know. Is this real? This one's real? Okay, what does it say there? This man may turn you green within me or just turn you off. Flaunting it is the game and Trump is the name. That seems like a real one. Yeah, but it's also not complimentary enough. Exactly he's not hitting on all fronts yeah how many people

have looked at the original it's like it's clearly not the right like the font isn't laid out there's all sorts of things that make yeah well it looks fake yeah it looks fake it looks like when you go to like the like a carnival and they give you like you know put you on the cover of sports illustrated i don't like his lips there's something about us like people like when they make faces with their lips like you can kind of tell if they're kind yes it's that it seems so weird to say that but it seems to be true well yeah it's like he he does not again he does not angry he yeah he looks he looks like he's perpetually either he looks he looks disappointed when he sits there it's the massive amount of money and power yeah and then deciding i want to run the thing but he didn't really want to be that's the thing he didn't really want to be the president

no i think he yeah i don't think he could have anticipated that he was running against 16 people or was it 15 people who just couldn't who none should have all been the clear, like, you know, any of them should have been like, well, my Jeb Bush. But none of them had enough personality to top him. Jeb Bush seemed like he didn't really want to do it either. Seems like he was kind of like half assing it. Well, I don't think George W. really wanted to either. That's the amazing thing about America. You can become the president and not even really want it if you're a rich white dude.

Like, I guess I'll be the president. Well, who the fuck is going to do it next? That's what's thing about America. You can become the president and not even really want it if you're a rich white dude. Like, I guess I'll be the president. Well, who the fuck is going to do it next? That's what's going to be interesting. I just hope it's not the people whose names I already know. I hope it's not. People talk about maybe Biden. Can it not be someone?

Maybe. I just feel like the thing that was exciting about Obama, the black thing was exciting for me personally. But the fact that he was under the age, like he was in his 40s, that was exciting. Like, it was like a president who had actually, who, you know. Had life. Had life. And also still had a lot of life ahead of him. Yeah.

Like the idea that he, now that he's done, he's still like a young, a young old man, you know, that he was, that he had done things you had probably done. He was like, yeah, I did a little coke. Yeah. You know, he probably played video games. He understood, you know, he, you know, the reason why he became such a pop culture president, because

it was like, he would say, I listened to Jay-Z. And you're like, I believe he probably does. You know what I mean? Like, it just felt like he felt like somebody who was connected to us in a way that like, Trump is not, he's not one of the, the whole, he's not one of the people. And he's never tried to be one of the people. No, it's all, it's so strange. It's, I've never felt like more disconnected than right now from politics and from like, I've

never felt like the president is more disconnected from the people of the United States either. And the people that support him, boy, they're so, I've never seen that before either. The type of people that are like really into Donald Trump being president. Yeah. You know, it's just everything that he says, they hang on every word. They turn everything into a positive. They, they spin everything.

They hashtag MAGA. Yeah. It's like, it's, it's, it's really odd. And it feels to me like it's a very much a, you got Obama,

we get him. Like, it feels like it's very like, like they were sick of how, of the love that Obama got, even though by the end, I mean, Obama got a lot of love,

but it wasn't as fervent by the end, you know, but I mean, until the end, then he got fervent right before he left. But it's a real sort of like a lot of that love of Trump comes from, it's real. Like it's like wanting to spite liberals.

Like, you know, ha ha ha ha. Like you don't care if Trump does something that's bad for you. If it hurts a liberal's feelings, you know, like you, you,

you just, you just want somebody who is hurting Hillary. You know what I mean? Or hurting the liberals. It's not about what's good for you because if you're looking at what's good for you, this is not good for you. Yeah. Well, it's also like getting some sort of a reasonable conservative

that someone would step up right now would be very interesting. It would be very interesting if you could find someone who's a reasonable conservative, who knows how to debate and can form a sentence and can respond under pressure to like what Trump also brings to the table is he's like this ominous sort of character. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like a Mardi Gras float that walked into the room. There's a lot to deal with. It's a lot. It's a lot to deal with. It's a lot to deal with. It's weird. Yeah, and I think that the problem is that, you know, there's all these people who are trying to position themselves as the Trump alternative,

but then if you dig too deep into their records, it's like, well, they really support all the things Trump supports, but they're just not out loud racists. So it's like it's not really like an alternative. It's like I think both parties, you've got to be looking for new people. I feel like I always said in the 80s, it felt like the NBA just went to Africa and grabbed tall people. They were just like, we need to find some new people.

And they got Dikembe Mutombo and Akeem Olajuwon. And they were just like, we need to go. And I feel like if I'm the Democratic Party, I'm scouring the United States of America for people who nobody's, you know, for like, is there a city comptroller somewhere who's got a good speaking voice? Yeah. Let's go get that dude. I feel like you can't be looking at the regular halls of power. Do you watch House of Cards?

I do, yeah. Do you wonder if that's how it really goes down? I want to know how fucking accurate it is. I want to know who's killed people. I want to know if Clinton sent some mercs out. I have to feel like that probably no senator has pushed or representative has pushed somebody into a subway train. I have to sort of... Spoiler alert. Season one. Well, season two.

Yeah, I have to believe that it's... But I do believe all the... Yeah, I think some of it is true. Some of it's got to be, right? Yeah, some of it's got to be based on truth. But the thing is, I didn't watch this season of House of Cards because I was like, I have to be focused on the real House of Cards. I was watching it like it didn't land in the same way. Oh, but it's so good.

Okay, I'll go back to it. Get back in there. I was watching it thinking it was like watching Trump tweets. I couldn't focus on that. I'm like, it's really bad over here, guys. I wonder how it's going to play out. Do you think he's going to make it through four years in the White House? I think we have to. Those of us who don't

think he should make it through four years in the White House or hope that he resigns or gets impeached can't take it for granted that's going to happen. I don't think we can. So is he going to make it through four years? History says yes. Most of them do. There's not a point at which

the impeach thing, and also the impeach thing doesn't necessarily get you out of office. It just, you know, so I think that... Clinton was impeached. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People forget. Yeah, no, it's like, impeach doesn't mean you're fired, as much as we'd like to believe it does.

So I think it's way, if I'm in Vegas, it's way more likely, it's like the Floyd Mayweather McGregor odds. It's like, it's way more, bet that he makes it through. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that there's, things are already off the rails. So I don't think we can go, well, clearly. The spooky thing is a second term.

I think the reality is that after four years, this is the thing. If he does last four years, that he gets the end of four years like, I don't want to do this again. Maybe, right? That like this is really hurting. It's also, it's because it's hurting his business brands You know like he's like, you know People are canceling hotel reservations and like I think if he sees his bottom line going down instead of going up But is it I mean I've this would I've heard that like a bunch of people have pulled out reservations from like Mar-a-Lago and things

Like that, so didn't they take the name off of one of his buildings in downtown, New York that makes I mean Can you do that one of the condos? Yeah they I think they they decided to take the name off yeah people weren't buying condos yeah yeah yeah yeah it's like find out that's Bernie Madoff business management but I do think that like if it's a fact you really cuz like you know it certainly has there's reports of like Ivanka's brands are down, you know, like the thing people are not, they thought this was going to help that stuff. Right. And if it's not helping that stuff and at the end of four years and it's, I think he

could leave cause he's annoyed by it all, but he'll have some big speech about, I've done what I came to do and I think I've really drained this way. He'll just say he did. And his people will be like, yay. You know? Yeah. Talk about how unemployment was at

the lowest rate in 15 years. Even though the arc that unemployment is on is the same arc that it's been on. The economy arc, same arc.

Yeah, it's all going on the same path that it's always been on. I think there was some initial speculation that he was going to be good for business and then there was

some sort of a rise in the Dow. Yeah, I mean, is that all that's important? It's good for business? Trump named to be good for business, and then there was some sort of a rise in the Dow. Yeah, I mean, is that all that's important? It's good for business? Trump named to be removed from three Manhattan apartment buildings he doesn't own. Oh, he doesn't own them? No, yes.

Well, I think he sells, I know he sells his name a lot. People think he owns more than he owns. Oh, okay. They've been owned by a Chicago-based real estate equity firm, firm residential, equity residential since 2005. Now Trump Place will remain on the condominium buildings 200, 220, and 240 Riverside Boulevard, which neither equity residential nor Trump own. How weird.

For now. Yeah. They're going to remove it, though. Huh. Well, a lot of it was he was selling his name to stuff or licensing his name to stuff. How weird. People thought he had more than he had, which is why he doesn't want to show his tax returns, because it's like it's not as it. You know, how weird is that?

He doesn't show his tax returns. The rules are different. I mean, you know, the rules are different for for for, you know, for rich white men. The rules are different. But is that but is that like a mandatory thing? Because, no, it's obviously it's not. It's not a legal thing. It's just what has been done. And the problem is, is, again, there may they may make it after Trump that it's a mandatory thing? No, it's not. Obviously, it's not. It's not a legal thing. It's just what has been done.

And the problem is, is again, there may they may make it after Trump that it's a legal thing. All these things were sort of like that. The president were just what had been done and what people assumed would always be done. And then Trump, the the one shining grace of Trump is that it proved that it exposes how that stuff isn't. That's we think there's more that it's more complicated to become the president and more complicated to be the president and that there's more restraints on the president than there actually are.

So now that we know that, maybe, but when Trump leaves eventually, I think it's, forget Republicans, Democrats, it's on the benefit of human, for the benefit for the entire world that the president doesn't have the, they can't launch nukes. Right.

That's just, I'm not making this a Republican, a Democrat. It's just, it should be a couple more people than just one guy. But what about pardoning people that are criminals? How the fuck is that the case? Like, you have laws, but then you have a president who apparently can't be charged with laws or can't be charged with crimes, right? Which is why these women that were trying to sue him, they can't do anything about it now that he's the president.

Is that what happened? Because I was like, what happened to all that? No, you can't really do anything because it gets in the way. Gets in the way of running the presidency. The unemployment line is going up. We can't really deal with the women who say you were harassed. Yeah, I think that's when these women were trying to sue him when he was running for president. I think he got rid of all that shit.

Wow. I was like, I should Google that. But yeah, that would happen. And can he pardon himself? How does that work? That's the thing people don't there's like this weird There's all this stuff that happens in the law where they're like we've never actually asked that question cuz nobody thought that was a question That should be asked like nobody ever thought that a president would think to do that, you know So there's all these sort of things where it's like there's no You know this that he would he could sign a thing and then the Supreme Court would have to be like, is this okay? You know, is this okay?

And they get a number of pardons too, right? Don't they get like 20 or something like that? No, I don't think. Yeah, I think they. Yeah? Yeah. I think they have a limited number though. I think there's a limited number.

So Arpaio got one. Listen, all right, you got 50 left. Yeah, buddy. It's like you're playing a game. All right, where do I go? Yeah, yeah. Where do I go with these pardons? And now after he did Arpaio, it's like the, you know, it's... Even

McCain freaked out about Arpaio. McCain's from Arizona. Yeah, and he knows Arpaio's a criminal, you know? Now the question is, why didn't you do something about it before McCain? Again, you don't have any jurisdiction in that way, but you could have used your bully pulpit more effectively if you thought he was a criminal before this.

In McCain's defense, he had a brain tumor. I don't mean now. I mean like 15, 20 years ago. I don't mean I'm not saying. How many do Obama? I don't know. This is a list. I'm just scrolling down it. It goes forever. Yeah, no, there's hundreds. I think there's hundreds, yeah. And Obama didn't do the most. I want to be clear.

Is there a limit? Does it say how many? I'm looking for a limit. This is on the justice.gov website. I don't think there's a limit. That's crazy Yeah, pardons are so weird. Yeah. Yeah. I know you're a criminal but Magic there is I mean the part of it that should be good is there are many people who are in prison again Like we talked about earlier. Yeah for things where you like the rest of your life You know, I mean like so So there is a good side to this, but we thought that they would only be, but a lot of times it's like friends and colleagues

and the way I would pardon people. Well, the Bradley Manning, Chelsea Manning thing. I mean, Obama pardoned her, right? Yeah, that was an example of like, you have served, Obama was like, you have served more than enough time. Wow, 212 people.

But that's not the most. I think that's the... Oh my god and and commuted the convictions of a further 1715 people holy she had the thing where he went he actually went to federal prison and talked to inmates and it was all nonviolent people it again the same one thing right we've been convicted of nonviolent crimes who were just languishing in prison for no you know know, you know, you smoked a lot of weed and sold a lot of weed, but you've been here for 30 years, you know? Wow. Yeah.

Most, uh, most granted clemency by Obama had been convicted on drug charges and have received lengthy and sometimes mandatory sentences at the height of the war on drugs. That's the scariest thing about that Jeff Sessions asshole. He wanted to bring that stuff back and bring back Just Say No and start arresting people for pot. Like, come on, man. It's 2017. We got to catch up. Yeah, and we were about to catch up.

We were getting close. That will make it. We were getting closer. Because I feel like even if you had a 45-year-old Republican president, they would be more open to things than the 71 year old Trump or any 71 year old Republican or any 71 year old Democrat just by the nature of the fact that like for the most part 45 year old Republicans don't care about

where people go to the bathroom I think again old people shouldn't be running shit I did this joke briefly but it didn't stick but it was the idea that like you can be too young to vote and you can also be too old to vote. Oh, fuck yeah, you can. And to drive.

Yeah, there's a point at which there's a meaty part of life where you're in the world doing things, and you're in the mix. And there's a part where you're sort of like, I think, well, at least we should do some checks first. For sure. Can you do a cartwheel? Yeah. Can you walk in a straight line? But I just think that like

How well does your body work? I just think it doesn't it doesn't make sense that it would be the oldest person to be the it doesn't make it doesn't make any sense

Well it does if it's an incredibly wise old person who's like learned a bunch of things and has control of their ego and is a person

who really wants to make the world a better place but is also on some HGH and as a person who really wants to make the world a better place but It's also on some HGH so they can actually do this live up to the rigors of the job You know what I mean? Well, that was what did you read about Obama like not Obama about people thinking that Trump's on stimulants? I couldn't find I don't remember where I saw it from because when I looked back up like that said There's no real history of him using drugs Yeah, people have had rumors that maybe he was doing like fen-fen and whatnot in the 80s or something like

Stimulants, I don't I wonder where the guy gets the energy like when he was when he was doing that whole thing with Hillary and Then it was revealed that Hillary when they were running for president was on new vigil or pro vigil Which is a narcolepsy drug say give it to fighter pilots to keep them awake. I've taken it before it's interesting She's actually was actually on it. Yeah, for sure and a lot of people take that stuff Yeah, and what it does is it kind of keeps you awake and it keeps you alert even if you get started getting tired It keeps you from falling asleep. Okay, but it doesn't Not not at a press conference or yeah It doesn't speed you up which is interesting because it doesn't like it's not like twe conference. Yeah, but it doesn't speed you up, which is interesting, because it doesn't, like,

it's not like... You're not tweaking. Yeah, exactly. It's not like an amphetamine. It's some weird thing. It was essentially originally created as a performance-enhancing drug, but they needed some sort of a

reason to medically prescribe it to people, so they went, uh, narcolepsy? Yeah, yeah, narcolepsy. So they ran with it. I might have just actually found it. Yeah? What do you got here? But is it legitimate?

I don't know if it's his actual truth, but it's MSNBC. Fun fact, in 1982, Trump started taking amphetamine derivatives, abused them, only supposed to take two for 25 days, stayed on for eight years, really. How the fuck does he know? Yeah, I don't know. When you're saying something like that, man, you gotta have something other than fun facts. It's a tweet storm. Is there something

at the end where he's got like a... A tweet storm. I love that fucking expression. I just texted it to somebody. I'm like, what is happening to my life? Check out this tweet storm.

Tweet storm. Dr. Joseph, what does it say up there? Okay. It said, the doctor wrote the prescriptions. Dr. Joseph Greenberg diagnosed him with metabolic imbalance, which we have never heard about again.

Greenberg was later publicly shamed. Slammed. Oh, slammed, rather. Sorry. As someone who provides uppers to rich people in Manhattan, a metabolic imbalance, if true, could be electrolyte insufficiencies, anaerobic imbalances, acid imbalances, an assortment of related disorders that could have serious health consequences. Yet his other doctor, Dr. Harold Bornstein, said he had been Trump's doctor since 1980 and never mentioned the metabolic imbalance found by Greenberg. How does he know this, though?

He says he's writing a book and doing research, so I don't know where he found this though like you have to kind of like You gotta have I mean, I mean he's a he's a he's a I mean, you know, he's a he's a you know Legit journalist, but I yes you do have to you know, but he also certainly opening himself up to being sued if it's not true So, you know, he's gonna be sued if it is true But that would make sense because if you if you see see how much energy he had when he was running, doing the campaign against Hillary, God damn, the guy never got tired. Yeah. And he would go up there and just hammer for it. Talk and talk.

The White House admitted it to me, said only for a short time for diet when he was not overweight. I countered with med records. They cut me off. People misreading drug was diethyl. He's got the Dwayne Reed in Manhattan where it was filled at. Yeah. Seven milligrams a day.

Prescription filled at Dwayne Reed on 57th Street in Manhattan. 75 milligrams. 75 milligrams a day. Hmm. Yeah. I don't know what that is, though. But he certainly is writing a book. Yeah, interesting.

Well, that would make sense. That would make sense why he has this kind of energy. I know so many journalists that are on Adderall. And I have a friend who told me that they're all on it. I mean, I don't know what that means. I mean, 80%, 60%, what does it mean? But he's like, listen, man man they're all on adderall and that was one of the things that when um uh i what is it what was his name that uh that guy that um

crashed his car under suspicious suspicious michael hastings remember that crashed his car under suspicious circumstances and they said oh well this guy had meth in his diet he had amphetamines in his uh blood He was probably fucked up on pills. No, he's probably a fucking journalist. They're all on amphetamines. And that's what Adderall is. It's a prescription amphetamine that you can get. If he's like, man, I've been kind of dragging ass lately.

Wink, wink, you got the good doctor. I've never had that doctor. I've been dragging ass lately. You should probably exercise and get more rest. Damn it. This motherfucker's real. Damn it. You're right, but isn't there other things you could do?

My TV told me to ask about these things. Hey, bro, I got back pain. But now, ow. I'm always tired. I need everything. I want you to soothe my back pain and give me... I want to float through life with not a care in the world so I can take care of my family business. Yeah.

I'm really stressed out. You need to organize your day better. No! You motherfucker. That's not what I was looking for. Oh, man. Would you like to talk to a therapist? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We got to get someone like Elon Musk. We got to get like some super genius who seems to be able to do everything. Well, that's the thing. The other sort of good side of this is that it is so certainly opened up the possibilities of who can be the president. Yeah.

Like it is completely blown. Now, will some person who's not a Republican, you know, like step through, like will a liberal step through that? Will the Democratic Party support that person? Because, you know, you hear like the rocket might run for president. He's gonna probably. He'll probably do it while he's working out. On a fucking elliptical machine

while he's talking. He's live streaming his run for president. But the Democratic Party might be like, are they going to get behind that kind of person? They don't have a fucking choice if it's The Rock. If The Rock decides to run for president, I'll fucking help him. Although the funny thing is, people are like like we don't even know that the rock is a democrat you don't know what

he's not a guy who has declared his political affiliation that's true and he's a you know he's a he's a rich guy you know so that's true too yeah but he's so rich he probably doesn't even notice his taxes that's right yeah i mean the rock has hit that elite stratosphere we're like feel you know it's like three million more for taxes. Like, who gives a fuck? I got to lift weights. Why are you bothering me? Why are you bothering me?

I'm trying to get my pump on over here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, let's move on to less depressing shit. Because I want to talk about your show. Okay. And what has this been like for you? Because, you know, your show is a very unique show on CNN. And it seems like, and correct me if i'm wrong but it seems like you have a lot of creative leeway absolutely yeah i mean it seems

like you yes that's the thing about the show that has been such a it's been so cool because you know i've had a career where i was like uh sort of in the trenches you know uh for a long time just trying to figure it out and didn't think i'd ever get this opportunity, and the way that I got there was not some way that made any sense, but now I sit in a room, I just had a kickoff meeting yesterday, and it's a room full of people like, what do you want to do, Kamau? And you know, it's like, I feel super hashtag blessed

to be in that position. And yeah, because it's like, it was not something that five years ago I wasn't like, oh, probably end up in CNN, and also to be at CNN, that wasn't like, none of these things were on my like. How did it happen? So after my show Totally Biased that Chris Rock had executive produced, I didn't have a job, didn't know what I was going to do. We were in New York.

And that was on FX? On FX and then FXX and then get the FX out of here. So yeah, it was on FX. Now FX is a legit channel, but my show helped launch FX and didn't do a good job. So that's why the show got canceled. But, uh, so I'd started to take meetings, like general meetings and I ended up at a, and it was all with sort of news organizations, like little online, like I found it wasn't like entertainment channels.

It was all these news things that thought like you could do something here with your thing and nobody had a real idea. And I went to CNN and met Jeff Zucker, the like a 15-minute meeting with Jeff Zucker where he was like had 18,000 TVs on and gave me a news quiz He's like you pay attention to the news I go yeah And he gave me a news quiz to see if I paid attention to the news really yeah like he's like let's see I'm give you a quiz like what did he ask you it was all the kind of shit that if you have and like at The scene an app on your phone you would know all of it

It's like it was really like he was just the big news was all the kind of shit that if you have, like, the CNN app on your phone, you would know all of it. It's like, it was really like, it was just the big news stories of the day. Like, it was like, you know, do you know what WhatsApp is? WhatsApp had just been bought by Facebook. I was like, yeah, it's an app that was bought by Facebook. Like, it was like a game show. Wow. Yeah, and it was just like, I mean, it was funny, but he just wanted to see, you know, people don't have much respect for comedians. I don't mean Jeff as people who are paying attention all the time.

You know, I think he wanted to see if I was for real. Well, they want to see your mindset. Are you concentrating on being the next Kevin Hart? Are you concentrating on actually, do you have any actual interests? Can you come into this new space and be well? I'm CNN, you have to sort of be paying attention to the news. So can you pay attention to what's going on here? The Bridgegate thing had happened.

And he's like, what do you think Christie should do? And I sort of riffed some things out. And he's like, all right. Get on some of the same shit Trump's on. Lose some weight. So then they had been pitched a show by this company, All Three Media, now Main Event Media, called Black Man, White America, where a black man travels around to white spaces in America. That was the premise. And they told me that. And and I was like dad don't want to do like you know like I wouldn't want to do that I don't want to do it if

I could travel to more than just white spaces and they like that idea and then the guy Jimmy Fox he hates when I tell the story cuz he's like it was such he didn't he's like he realizes now it was not the best idea but it was like so then we changed it to you he changed it to United shades of America and then we pitched the clan episode that was my idea to talk the pilot episode was me with the clan What the fuck was that like I mean it was it's funny people ask me that I feel like it's exactly what you think it was is I mean you know it was a I Like we because it was different versions of the clan the big one was where they went to where I went to the cross burning What they call across lighting?

The big one was where I went to the cross burning, what they call cross lighting. Got to be politically correct. So, I mean, I drove into this place. I had the camera crew. There was one security guy. There we go. That was my first day at work on United Shades of America. That was the last thing we did that day.

Look at the trailer. Yeah. No, it was off in the woods in Kentucky. And that was my first day on the job. This was the last thing we did was watch a cross burn. And also, when we got there, we got there during daylight, so we had to be there for two or three hours while they did all their rites. I talked to them and interviewed them. They did rites and rituals, and then it ended with them setting the cross on fire.

And they were more than willing to do all this on television, which is even more shocking. Yeah. You can see up there They mostly kept their hoods on but one guy and kept took his hood off so you could see his face But yeah They were all they I mean people asked me like why would they want to be on TV because everybody wants to be on TV Like we talked to a bunch of different clan groups and are they the producers did most of them didn't want to be on TV But there was like three or four that did because they they thought they were spreading the word Maybe they were you know you know what was their message

like when you were talking to them like what what was the reason for them doing this they believe america is a white country ordained by god that way they believe the bible says that's true they believe the bible talks about america that's what i'm saying it's like i'm not telling you what i believe but they believe that the bible doesn't think that the races should mix. The Bible doesn't, you know, all these things that people quote out of the Bible. The Bible is talking about donkeys and they were like, they, you know, so they, and they believe that America is a white country founded by white people and that, that the, that the people who like the black people and the Mexican people and eventually the Catholics and the

Jews, although I guess they were cooler with Catholics. Now they used to hate the Catholics should get to leave, go back home. And because America is a, and the whole America is for white people, is the whole white, is just a different way of saying the white ethnostate thing that a lot of the people of the alt-right and the white nationalist movement say. And so, you know, they think that this is, you know, this is, they think America, they think this, the whole idea of America is that it's for whites only. And that the rest of us need to go home.

How did that feel for you? I mean. To be standing there with these people in the woods in Kentucky looking into the eyes of madness. Yeah. While they're wearing satin sheets over their head with holes poked out for eyes. Well, it was sort of, there was a lot of it that was fun. I mean, it was like we got there, I got out of the car

and there's a line in the show where you can hear me before you see that. I'm going like, oh, this wasn't a good idea. And that was really me saying, this was not a good idea. That was not me making a joke because I see a phalanx of them

and they're all standing there in detention. And right when we got there, the guy who was in all blue was like immediately goes into a rant about Ferguson. It was in 2014. So it was all about Ferguson and how black people are police themselves and the white man is going to da da da da da. While at the same time, they don't advocate violence because it's clear that at some point they were told if you talk about violence, the FBI will be here every weekend. You know, so they're like, we don't advocate violence.

We advocate self-defense. We don't hate black people. We just love our people. But also black people can't look what they're doing in Ferguson. That shows that black people aren't whatever blah blah are the equivalent of the white man and uh and so i had to so when we first started shooting i there was just like this guy was just going off and i just sort of was like having to take it and wondering is this gonna be the next three hours this guy just like yelling and the producer stepped in and said all right

everybody let's just oh we got to check the camera for a second and we it down. And then we set up chairs and we sat down and started talking. And from that point forward, they were so excited to talk about their clan thing. Cause they don't get asked that a lot that they sort of like, eventually you would, if you weren't thinking that it was the clan, you'd be like, yeah, this is people talking about their lives. I don't agree with them, but they're not, they didn't stay angry by the end. They were like, oh oh brother this is me i good time man yeah they certainly hug it out no no i said to the crew i was like do not take any

pictures of me hanging out like laughing because i'm doing it as a way like yeah thanks man you know but you know trying to reason with them yeah no i talked to like because you know because you go well you know you know like there was one point they said the bible says that uh that you know, but you try to reason with them. Yeah. No, I talked to like, cause you know, cause you go, well, you know, you know, like there was one point they said, the Bible says that, uh, that, you know, man should not do that. I was like, yeah, but the Bible also says you shouldn't eat lobster. You know, what do you think about that? I just went to red lobster last night, brother. And you know, so they recognize the hypocrisy, but they can't see why it doesn't make sense. Like, you know, they, they don't see why, like, well, if you, you're just saying these things these aren't the Bible

Should not be the reason this is happening. You know and so it's just a convenient way to justify the wearing their goofy clothes Yeah, and so they I mean there they say they don't this is the called the week the new clan They don't hate black people they just really love white people, but I feel like you can really love white people But it shouldn't come with at the expense of black people feeling safe Or anybody feeling safe. It's the same thing with the alright You can think what you want to think but nobody should feel like their safety is being violated in that process So, you know the funny thing was is that so we would film and then we'd have to stop down because we were changing cameras Whenever we'd stop down they pull off the hoods off and they'd be like man. It's hot under here

And I was like, yeah, maybe you guys should have designed the hoods More breathable fabric maybe Maybe get Under Armour in here. But we didn't use that on camera because we couldn't show their faces. But yeah, so it was like they were like, there were some, there was like two different groups. There was one group who like was okay talking to me. And then there was another group who every time we stopped down, they would go away. They would walk away. And one of them was this blonde, the one who was in red.

When she took her hood off, she was like, I mean, she looked like the you know britney spears at 18 like this blonde you know as we found earlier maybe i don't know what a pretty white woman looks like but she was a blonde pretty she had red fingernails but and she was wearing a red uh red uh thing because she's fourth generation clan so her thing is all red and she looked like because she's fourth generation she wears red you get to wear yeah that's blue uh i don't i didn't get the belt system i didn't get the whole fourth generation so she but she's like so she like every time she took her hood off she looked like he's like i like she was like she wanted to kill me you know and never fuck you well yeah or that probably and never never and i was like cut a couple drinks in there you guys started dancing well i just feel like if i could just take you to la they would there's a whole life for you out away from kentucky where you would have a you know like i

could make a lot of money off you kid isn't it so funny though that it's just what you're exposed to if you're a young child and you just don't understand and you're born into the clan and your parents and there's not black people there's not enough black people in the community for you to go well that's weird because these black people are fine. Because in this part of Kentucky, there's not a lot of black people. There are some because black people are everywhere. But there's not enough for these people to interact with. And you're told to avoid that black guy who works at the Home Depot.

Then you end up, you know, and you just see that it's about circumstance. It's not necessarily about, you know get the if you get people out of these circumstances i think they would change but i what's the momentum of the input of the environment that you're in it just gets so people get so wrapped up in and caught up in it and it becomes how they think and it's you don't want to stand out from the group you don't want to be ostracized and there's a fucking cross it's not going to light itself. But they were really excited. Like this one guy I talked to, we sort of built a rapport in that moment.

And he was excited to talk about how the burn, like, where do you get the wood from? Why do you do like, oh, he was excited. It was like, you know, I call it like this old, like this old cross, you know, like he was excited. He was excited to talk about this stuff. And so we sort of talked on that level. And I still asked all the guys. And I was like, obviously, I don't agree with you guys. And I said it wasn't. I was like, and hopefully at the end you'll let me leave, which I was kind of joking.

And also, like, at the whole time, I was like, I don't know what's. What if this is a setup? What if I'm here to talk to these 15 guys and then 100 Klan members run out of the woods to take down CNN? You know, this is before fake news Trump. But I was like, I don't know. So the whole time I was there, I also felt like this could go bad at any time. Because when we pulled in, there was a guy holding like a rifle. And we told him no guns.

And he was like, well, I don't believe you. I'm going to bring my gun. And so it just felt like this could turn. I'm not going to do anything to turn it badly. But this could turn bad. And so it felt like it felt the whole time when I was making jokes with the clan, as people go, how could you make jokes with the clan? I was actually using self-defense.

Like I was like, because if you're making people laugh, they generally, and I wasn't making them laugh at my expense. I was just making them laugh about, well, that's weird. Why do you burn this? You know, that it actually felt to me like I could gain control of the situation. Did you have any sort of reasonable debate with them? Or any back and forth with them? Was there anybody that you kind of felt like they saw how ridiculous it is? No.

I would make them laugh about ridiculous things that were happening. Like they were having a hard time getting kerosene rags to wrap the cross in. He was like, were having a hard time uh like like getting the like getting kerosene rags to wrap the cross in like and he was like i need a klansman over here and i was like what do we have to do to get a klansman over here like and they're laughing but i'm like it's but there's not a sense of like here's what i felt like by the end i knew some of those guys liked me in that moment i felt like they laughed at what i said they were certainly like trying to chum me up, give me their business card. If you need any help, find another Klansman.

Business card. Because there's some Klansmen out here that are full of shit, and you need to go to the real. What? So there's that level of rapport. Oh, so there's factions that disagree with other factions? Yeah. I feel like it's very similar to martial arts school. This is the real karate.

That's not the real karate. Even though, didn't you guys start at the same school? Yeah he didn't get the real stuff so oh boy uh yeah so but they were very chummy at the end but also i was like i'm gonna get the fuck out of here but i did feel like some of these guys went to bed that night going that was a lot of fun like i had a good time i now i'm not saying that like they dropped the clan thing because i didn't come back the next day but they were like you know i i left there feeling like, I wonder if I came back in six months, just drove through. I was like, hey, guys. Or you wonder if you guys were on some sort of reality show where you're stuck on an island for six months.

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot. I mean, the reason why big cities are generally more liberal than the surrounding areas is because everybody's on top of each other. Right. It's just because everybody's on top of each other. And I don't have time to hate you because I like your bodega. I don't have time to hate you. And you become accustomed to each other and you realize it's just people. And you also, the benefits of that thing, like, hey, the Puerto Rican Day Parade is fun.

You know what I mean? It's like your life experiences are benefited by the fact that you're surrounded by lots of different people. That is really interesting when you put it that way. I mean, you do find that the bigger cities tend to be way more liberal, like New York and L.A. in particular. Certainly more liberal than the surrounding areas. Like, you know, Houston is a blue dot, but it's not as blue as, like, Berkeley is. Right.

But the surrounding area is much different. Sugarland. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get out there. Yeah. You go out there to the ranches. Yeah, yeah. Things get a little crispy.

You're not from Iran, are you? You know, so I think that, like, to me, that's what the whole thing is, is that you're just not, you don't have enough, you don't get the benefit of having a diverse community because you're like, which Chinese restaurant do I want to go to? Right. You want to go to the Chinese restaurant, you know, that's run by the Chinese family who's like, this was a bad idea. Well, it's also the fear, the fear of the other when you're not around them. I think if you're around people all the time that are all sorts of different people,

you find assholes that are white and cool people that are brown and you just sort of go, oh, they're just humans. Yeah, yeah. We're terrified, and so we lump off into groups, so we somehow or another have people that we relate to. Well, I mean, I think it's the whole thing about, like, we have fear of the unknown, and somehow our fear of the unknown is the fear that somehow that unknown thing is going to hurt us

or affect us in some negative way. I mean, you know, when Obama first went into the White House, you know, I would have lost money on marriage equality, gay marriage. I would have lost money. Like, I was like, that's not going to happen. You know, there's no—I didn't have a—I would have put 50 years. You, gay marriage. I would have lost money. I was like, that's not going to happen. There's no, I didn't have a, I would have put 50 years. You know what I mean?

Really? Why? Just because. I thought that ball was moving in that direction anyway. But I still wouldn't have thought that it was going to happen within his, first of all, it's not an issue he came in campaigning on. So it wasn't like something that was, I didn't think it was on anybody's agenda. I knew it was on some people's agenda. There were people working on it.

But I didn't think, it wasn't something that was like, we didn't, the nation didn't set that as a goal. It wasn't like a thing like Obamacare was like, we need to fix this. So it sort of happened in a way that like the people worked behind the scenes to make it happen. And then it just sort of, we woke up one day and opened our phones up and it was like, it's legal. Wait, what? Federally. Yeah, federally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like it just sort of happened and you're like, wait, I thought nothing. That's it? That was one of the most disappointing things about Hillary is that she didn't, up until 2013, she didn't support marriage equality. Yeah, and Obama was like, he had the thing and he sort of stopped talking about it for a series of years. And then eventually Joe Biden was like, I'm with it. And Obama had to be like, God damn it, Joe. Yeah, I'm with it too. I wasn't ready to say it yet.

Touchy subject among some people. But yeah, but I think, and it still is among some people. There's certainly people in this country, but there's a critical mass of people who are like, it doesn't actually affect me. Right. And right now we're going through that with trans people in bathrooms. Like it doesn't, it doesn't actually affect you. You know, people, trans people have been going to the bathroom for the entire existence that they've been in bathrooms. You just didn't know.

It doesn't actually affect you. You know, and I think you think it, you are sort of saying this is weird to bathrooms. You just didn't know. It doesn't actually affect you. And I think you think it, you were sort of saying, this is weird to me, this is scary to me, so it's wrong. But it's like, no,

it's just weird and scary to you. Those feelings are just the feelings of the unknown. Now assess the threat. Man, if that woman goes to the bathroom, she will have gone to the bathroom. There's not a threat that's coming after you. Well, I think people are scared of people taking their clothes off. That's what it is. It's people like, well, the generals are going to be exposed,

and they're just going to go crazy. Yeah, but the generals already were like, it's cool. We just need bodies. The military had already accepted trans people. They're like, we just need bodies. We need people here who are good soldiers. Well, the military one is real weird, because he apparently did that while the hurricane was hitting.

Yeah. He pardoned Arpaio, did that, and there was one other thing that he did. I'm not exactly sure what it was. He started bringing up the wall again recently. Controversial things. Yeah. Yeah, trying to get Mexico to pay for the wall. Don't you think the Mexicans should be paying for education and take care of the poor people?

Yeah. There's a lot of issues they have to take care of. They don't have time for your fucking wall. And there's just no way you can make them pay for the wall. There's not, it's not a thing. You can't, you know, I mean, unless we're talking about invading Mexico and going into the banks, you know, like it's that, is that what we're talking about? Have you heard about the wall being a gigantic solar panel?

That was one of the ideas to pay for the wall. The wall would be a gigantic solar power to generate electricity and that would pay for it. that's that's but then you'd have to accept solar panels like yeah that's right yeah run into problems with the cold folks yeah yeah some people just want to burn trees chop trees down yeah make coal yeah yeah so from so for me the like you know back to the whole thing with the show is like it's for me it's not about me coming to agreement with people right sometimes It's people like I do agree with but I don't know your issue a lot, so I'd like to talk to you about it It's just about the fact To me it's like it's about we're gonna have this conversation people are gonna watch this conversation

Yeah, that will create more conversation. Well. You're getting this weird opportunity Be key to be again like I'm saying that you're you like I know you so when I see you on TV I'm like oh, that's that's you yeah, like and that's that you're you. Like I know you. So when I see you on TV, I'm like, oh, that's you. Yeah. And that's not normal for a television show. No. Like you notice when people take on the host of whether it's The Tonight Show or one of those kind of shows, they automatically become this different thing than they usually are.

They become like the host of a show. And for me, the reason that is is because there wasn't like we're not – there's not a ton of these shows out there. Right. So there's not like it's like, oh, come out, got a show. And for me, the reason that is is because there wasn't, like, there's not a ton of these shows out there. Right. So there's not like, it's like, oh, Kamau got that show. It's like talk shows, the minute I got totally biased, suddenly I'm seeing articles about the Tonight Show, you know, late, late, late show, and totally biased. Wait, what?

And then I'm being compared to those people, and I'm being judged against, like, well, last night Fallon lip synync with Justin Timberlake Talk to Laverne Cox. That's not the same thing So I read that's what I didn't like about that is that people were suddenly defining me against that thing and I was not And I would look at that show and be like that's not me and I had friends who watch that show and be like That's not me and then we'd write things for the show and I'd say things like this I don't believe this you know or I don't feel as passionately about this as this show makes me think I feel about this Because we just have to get the show done. Whereas with this show,

I can go, no, I'm not saying that. Or I, or I really want to say this and I can rewrite things and I can go. Yeah. So it's totally biased. You did in front of an audience and it was like more of a, that I don't think that that form works.

I don't think that's a good way. I don't think for anybody, I don't think it's a good way to have meaningful conversations. No giant groups of people and everybody's clapping. Yeah. So you're trying to like play to them to make a good point so yeah necessarily expressing yourself Like what with this might what are the real thoughts going on in my mind as much as you're just trying to I get those points yeah Yeah laughs and I yeah and the thing that I and I give credit to Chris Rock for this because he's the one who made me

Do the man on the street segments on totally bias he was like you need to get out there people don't know who you Are you need to mix it up with the people and I was like I don't like this, because he's the one who made me do the man on the street segment, so I'm totally biased. He was like, you need to get out there. People don't know who you are. You need to mix it up with the people. And I was like, I don't, like, I really didn't, like, whenever I saw people do man on the street, it was always like, hey, dummy, why'd you stop and talk to me?

Hey, you're a guy who doesn't have a lot going on. Yeah, exactly. You decided to be nice and stop and talk to me. Now I'm gonna punish you for it. Right. Aside from Billy on the street. I think that's the version of it that I feel like is like,

those people get to have fun with him What's Billy on the Street? Billy Eichner Whenever I see that I go He's the joke It's not like the thing like what year was the war of 1812? You idiot I feel like I'd only seen it that way

When I did it I was always just trying to let them talk And then if they got the joke, I would tag the joke. Or if I thought of something funny, it wasn't necessarily against them. It was about something situationally that was funny. And so that trained me for United Shades. United Shades is the show. I think that's the only show I could ever do.

There's not other shows in me where I would be on camera like that. I'm not an actor. I'm not trying to get a sitcom. There's all these other things. How refreshing. Yeah, exactly. I just don on camera like that. I'm not an actor. I'm not trying to get a sitcom. There's all these other things. How refreshing. Yeah, exactly. I just don't have any interest. I'm not trying to audition for movies. I don't audition for anything. Good for you.

I live in Berkeley, so I'm not even available to audition for things. But this, I'm like, yeah, it's this or versions of this. But the thing was, basically in my mind, it was based on the Bourdain model and Morgan Spurlock's work and like and like even like Michael Moore's work where I'm like those things are about them right that like when you watch Bourdain perspective it's about it's about this person and and you'd watch Bourdain if you like Bourdain you'd watch him do anything it's not just about where he's going it's like about I just want to hang out with this dude for an hour yeah so I feel like with with United Shades the more it becomes that I just want to hang out with Kamau for an hour,

then that's the show I want it to be. Yeah, well, you figured out a way to do it, man, and kudos to CNN for allowing you to just be yourself. Yeah, people ask all the time, how much pushback do you get? I think the most pushback we got last season was we had two fart jokes in the show, and they're like, you have to pick one,

you can't do two. And I was pretty pissed. I'm like, but they're different fart jokes uh they just i didn't intentionally write two fart jokes in this show it's just we have presented with two opportunities for fart jokes that's hilarious yeah so it was like so they were like but it's never like they actually they're not going to be clear on this they want the show i'm always want the show to be smarter they want the show to be smarter i want the facts to be vetted and clear they want that they want the the journalistic integrity because it's on a news network.

But they don't pitch angles. Like, for example, they were like, you know, have you thought about doing anything with the Asian American community? That was what they said. And I was like, I'd like to talk about Chinatown. You know what I mean? So I got to take their suggestion and put it into my version of it. And I was like, I'd like to talk about Chinatown in San Francisco so I can film an episode near my house and not have to travel.

And I'd like to meet Shannon Lee. So like we did Shannon Lee's in that episode. Oh, Bruce Lee's daughter. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's cool.

Yeah. So it was like, I got to make the version of the show I wanted. Well, at the same time talking about the history of Chinatown and doing those other things, but it ended with me. The last line is like, you know,

I really learned a lot this week. Who am I kidding? I just wanted to become friends with Shannon Lee, you know, and because I'm a comedian, I can do that. I don't have to have some sort of like this. And sometimes the people who write, because people will write parts of the show,

and they will write it the way a journalist would do it. This week I've learned that people come together. And there's some of that that still I have to keep pulling out. It's not that. Do you write monologues, or do you just talk? What happens is they will, they will write, like, sort of a version of the script, and then I will get that, and then sometimes I will pull whole sections out, and then once we get into the VO booth, it's me and usually a couple other comedians, like Ethan Berlin, Dron G, this week's season is going to be Dwayne Kennedy,

who then will sit in the, like, will'll be on the phone together in the VO booth and sort of like riff other things out. Yeah. So it's great to actually be able to hire, because I had to, as was clear with CNN, I need to hire comedians on this show. Right.

It can't just be me and the news people or the TV people. Well, it seems like not just a show, but also an opportunity for you to just sort of broaden your experience with human beings, which is interesting.

I mean, we went to Barrow, Alaska in the first season. What is that? Where is that at? It's the northernmost tip of Alaska. It's inside the Arctic Circle. Jesus.

Nobody visits Barrow. Like, it's not like parts of Alaska where, like, Anchorage, where, no, let's go visit. It's not a place where it doesn't do tourism. I mean, you could go, but there's nothing to do there. What time of the year did you go? We went in, I think it was it was what it was it was spring in the rest of the America but it was still like you know deep snow on the ground and frozen and but it was like it was like Negative 20 is right there. Yes inside the Arctic Circle

Like we actually walked so far north that we were on the ocean, but it was still frozen, you know Yeah, you're on the ocean it was just yeah. Whoa! Yeah. You were on the ocean, and it was frozen. Yeah, we were standing on the water. What did you do there? It was the idea that- We were in a tiny little town. Well, it was the idea, because we just were here. Where have you never been?

Sometimes that's how we have conversations. Where have you never been? Right. We should go to Alaska. Well, let's not just go to regular Alaska. Let's go to the part of Alaska that even- We went to Anchorage for part of it, and even Alaskans don't go to Barrow. Because it's a place where people go there to work for the oil companies, and people work for companies that work for the oil companies.

So it's not like, and it's like. So it's a camp almost. Yeah, it's a camp, but it's 4,000 people. Anchorage is a weird community. Anchorage, when I was there, one of the first things I saw when we were driving the rental car to the hotel was a group of people standing on the corner holding up signs saying honk for equality and all these people were honking as they drove by and and I was there was like all these people with like purple hair and shit and I was like oh this is like a real city yeah no Anchorage is like I mean it's like Bakersfield it's like I mean it's not it's cool

when I was there yeah it's like it's like it's a real it's like a you don't for me the only thing it was it was it was cold but it wasn't even colder in another place and there was like there was more salmon choices like everything was like everywhere you went they were like and we have salmon yeah fresh halibut yeah yeah and we have jerky salmon jerky so it was like it was that's why I'm glad we went to Barrow because Barrow is like like i loved it and i was like i'll never come back here again like there's just there's no way that unless i was doing something and you know so that for me like that's what is fun and that episode was people like that episode a lot i thought it was because it's not sometimes people think the episode the show is just me talking to scary people but most of the show is just me

talking to people that i've never talked to before. Just getting a chance to see America. Yeah. And like, you know, so we did an episode about, we said, let me see something with Muslims. But it's like, well, that's a big topic. But we went to Hamtramck in Dearborn, Michigan. It's a super small town, the highest percentage of Arabs and Muslims in America, like 30% Arabs and Muslims in this town. And it's like a sleepy suburb where you just happen to see lots of women in hijab walking around. Like, you know, like, but it's, you would, but you sort of feel like, is this right?

You know what I mean? This just seems weird. And it's just a sleepy suburb outside of Detroit or inside of Detroit. There's hamster eggs in the middle of Detroit. And it's just this small town that happens to be because of the Ford factory. It's one of those things that happens a lot with immigrants. The Ford factory was okay hiring immigrants back in the day or Muslims back in the day. So the Muslims were like, everybody come here.

Right. And so then it became a very popular, a very populous Arab Muslim town. But it's like, and then I got to sit down with a woman, her name was Rima. And I just got to ask her all the dumb questions about it, about Islam,

you know, and all the dumb questions about, about her job and, and, uh, burqas and, you know, and how that works with feminism.

Can you be a feminist and a Muslim or that woman who's, can you be a feminist and a woman who's wearing a burqa? And she's like, yeah, you can. It's a choice. So I think that, and then we got to talk about, well, what about in Saudi Arabia? And they go, the government of Saudi Arabia does a lot of shit that's wrong, and they use Islam as a way to justify it. Just like the way the American government does a lot of shit that's wrong and says God and country. It's not about the religion.

It's about the expression of the religion. So for me, it's like to be able to ask those dumb questions. We got to go to Standing Rock in the middle of Standing Rock. And while it was going down, the Dakota Pipeline? At the height of it, yeah. Wow. What was that like? Did you get hosed?

No, I was there for a few hours. This was sort of the first third of it, I guess. So still, it had not turned into that and we were very disturbing time yeah because they were going through people's public or private land and they were saying like no we're going through yeah and but what is private land then yeah if you just can decide to have your business go through my land and dig a fucking pipeline that may or may not poison my wells if everything goes wrong like what is public land what is private is this is it all the government's land are they just usurping my private land like what is public land? What is private is this is it all the government's land?

Are they just usurping my private land like this is kind of fucking crazy native people are like yeah This is what they do to us. This is what this is how they are yeah They're there whatever so whatever the number of treaties like because people go there's like what there's some several hundred treaties And they're like they've broken all of them like you know not like half of them They say they've broken all of the treaties So the Native American people like that's why they had to make a big noise because like half of them they say they've broken all of the treaties so the native american people like that's why they had to make a big noise because like this is how they do and this was like it felt like the final straw and so there were people like we got there before the

winter and they're like there's people in teepees who were like and i had this whole conversation about how teepee beefs think of teepee i thought i thought of teepees is like you're gonna have teepees in the winter like yeah they're better than tents like there's a hole in the top and you can have a fire in the middle yeah i knew you would know yeah so but i was like really and this guy was like this guy was like yeah and i was and then i said to this one guy i'm like well what do you do if it gets really really cold go to the hotel down the street oh all right you know like it's just like i was in this whole like native you know like how would you uh but then we go to the we go to a restaurant you know what i mean so it's like it and it was that was one of my favorite episodes

because again i got to sit and ask all the dumb questions that I have and other people have. And sometimes I ask dumb questions that I kind of know the answer to, but that's like we need to ask the dumb questions. Right. When we have an opportunity to. Don't go tapping people in line at Starbucks and asking them dumb questions. Yeah, the Dakota pipeline was extremely disturbing. Because it just was one of the clearest examples of money over rights, money over land ownership, money over everything. We're going through with this thing.

It's going to make us money. And this is what we're going to do. You should get Tara Huska on here. She was at Standing Rock and she speaks very awesome about all this stuff. And she's a hardcore activist. She was like Bernie Sanders, Native American representative. And she's great about all this stuff and you can talk about how to them it's like this is just the most recent expression of this can you spell her name t-a-r-t-a-r-a uh h-o-u-s-k-a there he is

there she is there she is okay yeah she i mean and she was in the episode and she and we sat down i was like i'm gonna ask you a bunch of dumb questions she was like great here we go you know and talked about like this I'm going to ask you a bunch of dumb questions. She was like, great, here we go. And talked about like, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Where is that now? Where is that standing? Because when Trump got in office, he apparently like greenlit everything. There's still people fighting against it, but it's not the same, you know, number of people out there. But they're still activists.

She would be able to tell you more better than I would. But there's still, you know, there's still the same. There's still people fighting. But they're going through it anyway, right? They're going right under the river. Again, this is where it gets a little bit out of my depth. You know, there's still people fighting. But they're going through it anyway, right? They're going right under the river. I get cheap. This is where it gets a little bit out of my depth. Yeah, I hear you. What was like the, I mean, I don't think there's probably any one thing that was most rewarding to you,

but there was anything that you got the most out of during that show? During the Native American show? No, during your show. United Shades of America? Yeah. The San Quentin episode is actually the one that I feel like has actually affected me the deepest that I've been Back to San Quentin twice maybe three times twice since then I co-hosted it like a talent showcase with one of the inmates really yeah We were like on stage together like he wrote bits for us to do

Yeah, I was riffing you know and it's this thing We're like believe me even though I had gone to San Quentin and filmed you know I went to San Quentin film the show I was like walked in like this is, this was on the, in the episode. I walked in with the, one of the, with the, like the co-warden or the junior warden, I don't know who he is. And Sam, and he was like, we walk in to the, to the yard and he's like, how do you feel? And I'm like, cause we're walking into the yard, like, you know, and it's all just inmates doing sit-ups and pushups and hanging out, playing basketball.

And he goes, how does it feel? I go, it feels kind of like walking into a neighborhood that I don't know anybody. Like, you know, like one of those neighbors where you're like i need to be careful here and then as i was saying that some guy goes love your comedy bro and i go oh it feels pretty good and it was and that's exactly how it happened and we left it in the show and then from that point forward it was just like if you if you like sort of close your eyes it was just talking mostly to black men who've had a lot of life experience and been through a lot of shit and who have learned a lot from their what they went through and have like done therapy and self-actualized and educated themselves and all

these types of things and then if but then you realize they're never gonna leave they have a lot of experience a lot of wealth of knowledge a lot of skills and they're never gonna leave and so for me it was like i can do more here so i went back we screened the episode. It was the most tense screening I ever had because I was like, what if they hate it? But they were like cheering and clapping and gave me a standing ovation at the end. And so I went back and hosted this talent show. And again, I went back still like, but what if this time? And they're like, ah, come out. And they make fun of me because I did not pay, what was it?

It was Pinochle. Yeah, they play Pinochle in Prison Night Not A Play. And they were like, a black man doesn't know how to play Pinochle? And they're they play Pinochle in prison I know how to play and they were like a black man doesn't know how to play Pinochle and they were like have you ever learned that what is it

it's like just one of those crazy card games it's way too complicated that you know and they said we play Pinochle because it's really complicated

it takes a lot of time yeah you don't want to just play like war in prison you want to play a game that's really like complicated

so it actually sort of fills the time you have I had a friend who went to prison and learned how to play chess in his's really like complicated so it actually sort of fills the time you have I had a friend who? Went to prison and learn how to play chess in his head. Yeah, you did just yell out the moves like rook to king five Checkmate yes with him and this other kid who was a chess genius They're sitting down this ex-con and this chess genius sitting down playing chess in their head in front of me I was like wow this is crazy, and it reminds me. It's like the

playing chess in their head in front of me. I was like, wow, this is crazy. And it reminds me, it's like the autobiography Malcolm X said, there's all this wisdom in the hood that these can be mathematical geniuses. These can be the people who cure cancer, but they're not being put in positions where they can actually take advantage of this. Yeah, and also mistakes, like whatever mistake you make when you're a young person, whether it's selling drugs or shooting a gun in the air for your third offense, there's certain mistakes that automatically disqualify you from any personal growth for the rest of your life. Like, that's it.

Like, you are now contained and incarcerated. Yeah. And there'll be no growth. Yeah. That's insane. And the thing is, it should be a really small list of things that disqualify you from society for the rest of your life. Especially like at 18. There are things, but it should be

a pretty small finite list. It should be monsters. Yeah, it should be like, you are a monster. And even that, we should still check in with you every night and go, are you still a monster? How's that monster thing going? What is a monster? Is there a pill to keep you from being a monster? If we put you in therapy and educate you, are you still going to be a monster?

We should still be working on these people. But it's certainly not for the betterment for society that we've taken this huge pool of people out of the prison system. And this is the thing. Black people are like 12% of the American population. We're 40% of the American prison population. Somewhere around there. Please Google it. Make sure.

But it's not because we're doing 40% of the crime.'s we black people do crime but we're over sentenced a lot of times we're not getting proper representation we're not uh there's like the three strike laws so it's like something that like a white guy in nebraska does a black guy does in california something's in prison for the rest of his life you know what i mean like it's like we're not getting the the there's unequal application of the law which ends up putting us in prison at a higher rate. And isn't there more people in population in prison in America than the rest of the world's prisons? It might be. It's like we if you look at like the graph of like Americans, the number of people in prison, it goes like it's like it stays pretty constant for a long time.

And then like right around the 80s, it goes. We have like some like somewhere between two and three million people in prison the 80s it goes like it goes like it goes you know you can pull it up but it goes straight up what were the laws that that caused that to it's like mandatory minimums and uh incarcerated americans wow look at that 1980 something it just launches straight up yeah and a completely vertical line that's nuts and it's like it wasn't people are committing the same it's not like crime like man people just create so nuts. And it's like, it wasn't, people are committing the same. It's not like crime. Like, man, people are just committing so many more crimes. It's just about why we were keeping them in prison longer.

Look at that shit. In the 1970s, it was less, look at the number, less than a million people. And let's talk about this. We're talking about the 1970s. That's the Scorsese movie era. Like, you know, crime and crime is at all the streets of New York. Solid 1970. It looks like 400,000 people

in prison, right? If that's half a million, that looks like somewhere around 400,000. That's fucking insane and now it's millions. And again, it's not because crime got so much worse. It was that we started to, private prisons made it that we need to keep people in here we need to hold people this is that we're making money

where this is a money-making enterprise so we need to keep people in here the real problem is once you've got something like that going on pulling that back it's gonna be extremely difficult once there's profit to be made from incarcerating people yeah and that I mean there's the there's profit to be made from incarcerating people yeah and i mean there's uh there's a guy and you know shane bauer i've heard the name shane bauer he works for mother jones magazine he was one of those guys who gets on the ground and but he did a whole thing where he was a prison guard in louisiana he applied for jobs a prison guard at a for-profit prison louisiana wow just for the story just for the story and didn't hide his identity where do you work mother

jones magazine we we need people like they didn't do his identity. Where do you work? Mother Jones Magazine. We need people. Like, they didn't do any sort of big background check. And he went with a huge article he did a couple years, like a year or so ago, about being a prison guard. And I mean, if you read it, it's like, the things you can get away with when you are the prison guard, and the ways in which you can treat people at this prison in Louisiana are just, it's like, you know, it's a nightmare. And this prison is supposed to be about rehabilitation. Yeah, it's not. And it's not. And especially at a for-profit. It's about for-profit prisons. He's another guy You should have one I'm booking your podcast. Please do yeah

The amount of money that they spend is directly related to the amount of money they earn Yeah, so they're trying to feed you with the cheapest fucking food They can get in your body this is about and also it's about. And also, it's about keeping you in line. It's not about keeping you, you know, it's not about helping you. It's about keeping you in line. I mean, in the San Quentin episode, I went to the mess hall with him and had the food, the dinner. And it was like, first of all, none of it is, it's like the worst level of food. Like, it's just like peas, you know, like carrots, like stewed carrots. like not like there's no salt there's no there's no taste to it and

then like a hot dog like not with a bun just a hot dog you know what I mean like yeah good person Quentin's the prison that every prisoner wants to graduate to in California and so a lot of the guys end up like illegally bringing food in and then making food together in their cells because they're like, I can't eat this. This is not good for you, you know? And also dinner's at 5 o'clock. So like and you eat at 5 o'clock and, you know, nobody's going to bed at 6. And so you're still hungry.

So you're still late. It's like, you know, so like 10 o'clock at night you're hungry. You have to figure out a different way to make something happen. And what's also fucked is that you get like 30 cents an hour or something like that for working? And you know why that is it's because of the the Emancipation Proclamation didn't apply to prisoners Really yeah, so that's why you can pay prisoners 30 cents an hour. Oh Beautiful Where we gonna talk about fun things what happened?

Tell me some fun shit. What did you do that was fun? Like would fun things? What happened? Yeah, I don't know what happened, dude. Tell me some fun shit. What did you do that was fun? What did you enjoy? What did I enjoy? We did Puerto Rico. Oh, tell me about Puerto Rico. Because I just had Peter Schiff on.

He moved all his money over to Puerto Rico because you don't have to pay taxes. Oh, yeah. The whole thing with Puerto Rico is so strange. To me, Puerto Rico is bankrupt. It's like $80 billion or some sort of crazy figure of debt and it's and it's just because the U.S. has used Puerto Rico like you know like as a as like it's like the ATM you know we sort of did things there and we didn't because it wasn't a state we didn't have to sort of do it the same way but it is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life like and I mean I was there like like we were my the showrunner Donnie Jackson was like

he'd been there before he's like there's houses for $25,000 and I was like calling my wife we should just buy we don't own a house in California we should buy a house like you know like it was it's it's such a fun beautiful place that has been exploited by the United States of America by not being a state and not being an independent country like well it's weird too like things aren't allowed to ship directly to Puerto Rico. They have to ship to the United States and then go to Puerto Rico so that everything's super expensive, super expensive. But it's like, for me, it's like, it's like being in a foreign country,

but your cell phone works. Like, so it's like, so you get all the like different culture and new food and, and you get all the like, you know, the people speak Spanish. So if you speak a little bit of Spanish, you can get by. It's a super diverse place, so like as a guy who's married to a white woman with a couple of mixed race kids, we don't feel like we stick out there, you know, we're just sort of like, and the weather was, I was like,

I want to go back so badly. Really? You loved it, huh? I loved it, and I don't like stuff. Do you think you could live there? I think I could retire there. I think if it was all said and done done I think I could be like I think at this point it'd be hard but I certainly think if my life was an East Coast life maybe because a lot of people a lot of Puerto Ricans who live in New York who

have houses in Puerto Rico yeah but then I also feel weird cuz I'm not Puerto Rican like am i a gentrifier am I making it better my screwing my buy this house for $25,000 that helping you or is that actually fucking you over? So I bought this $25,000 to be conscious of that stuff. I believe you have to be conscious of that. So I think if I did it, I would, but I met a, I met the governor of Puerto Rico who is not very popular,

but I was happy to talk to a governor. So, but you know, the whole battle is over statehood in the end. Do they want it? Like it's really a disputed thing. Most, many activists don't want it because they feel like

why are we why are we sort of being subjugated by the united states why can't we be our own country but the problem is they're like 80 trillion dollars like whatever it is they're they're so much in debt it's like what happens but it feels like to me like it's an un it's it's like it's like it's hawaii it's it's hawaii but it's also it's like hawaii but it's like if we had it doesn't make sense it's in debt is what I'm saying. It doesn't make sense that, it feels like this is a beautiful place. This could be, if you, just taking advantage of what it looks like, this place should be making a lot of money.

Just as a resort destination. Just as a resort. Just as a place to like, and done the right way. This should be making money hand over fist. So I sort of feel like, do I invest in Puerto Rico? That's what I do with my money. Do you think you could be an East Coast guy, though, if you've lived all this time on the West Coast? I could be.

Well, Puerto Rico's not the East Coast. That's a different thing. But I mean, you'd have to either live there all told. I'm all told. I'm talking about that version of me that somehow ends up with Kevin Hart money without working as hard as Kevin Hart. Or somehow something happens where you go, man, it's weird that I invested in that shoelace company and now those shoelaces are everywhere. You know, then it would be like.

Time to go to Puerto Rico. Tapped out. I'll go to Puerto Rico. I would certainly spend some time there. If you go to Puerto Rico though and you move all your business to Puerto Rico, you move your money to Puerto Rico, you don't have to pay taxes. Well, believe me, I'm with it. It's real weird.

It's my wife that would not be. She's the West Coaster. Yeah. Yeah. She would not be down for that. But I do think about going back. I was hoping we could screen an episode there, the Puerto Rico episode there, because it was a lot of fun. But CNN did not want to do that.

How many episodes have you done so far? We've done 16. It's eight a season. Wow. And so we're about to start. We start filming season two, like September 3rd. Yeah. Yeah.

Pumped. Yeah. I'm excited. I mean, it's been, it's weird because last season when the show went off the air, I felt like I could tell that like people didn't, the sort of the talk about the show had gone away, but the Trump era is good for business. Well, how, how so? What do you mean?

Like you felt that the talk had gone away? Well, just like, you know, you know, when you're, when you're like, if your special comes out and you're walking around town, more people may recognize you. You know, like, more people are like, ah. I see what you're saying. And then when your special's not out, it's not, you know, sometimes the volume gets turned down. But with this, like, I still walk around and it's like the show is still on the air. People are still talking about the show when they see me. There's a sense of, like, ah.

Like, they really feel the show in a very deep way. Like, I hear from people, like, families watch the show together. And, like, you know, and I didn't make it for that reason. So it feels like the show the first season of the show Obama was still in office. I felt like that was the mixtape and the first season was the album.

So I feel like now people are looking for the show in a different way. So it feels like knowing that, I have to make sure the show steps it up a notch. So that's the pressure to make sure that we don't I don't have to make sure the show steps it up a notch. So that's the, I feel the pressure to make sure that we don't just, I don't want to make the show like, which white supremacist is he going to talk to this season? We have to do other things.

We can't be repeating. That's interesting. So you feel like a sense of responsibility, not just to entertain, but also to kind of get some ideas out there that maybe would reach people. I mean, I feel like as comedians, we're all responsible to our material. You know what I mean? So I feel like we're all as comedians. We're all responsible to our material you know I mean and So I feel like in that sense I'm not doing anything different than Jim Gaffigan's doing you know I mean like there's these are the things I want to talk about These are the things you want these things. I want to talk about you're not Jim. Yeah, I'm not Jim

Yeah, yeah, yes, but it's but I feel like I don't want to I don't want to separate myself from It's easy to somehow I believe in the work. I'm doing I'm excited about the work I'm doing I do think that the work can help lubricate changes. I don't, it's not the change, but I don't want to get caught up in like the sort of like, this is important. You know what I mean?

Cause I just feel like at the end of the day, people often say to me like, do you still consider yourself a comedian? Yes. I'm a comedian. Yes. I still do standup. I'm trying to work on my next special.

Like I'm still trying to do these things. It's fun to be, it's fun to say these things. It's fun to say funny things. I just like to say funny things about these things. Right. Yeah. Well, you also, you're a part of this giant discussion, whether you're a comedian or an author or a journalist, you're a part of this giant discussion, which is human culture. Yeah.

And I think we need people that are articulate and thoughtful on all sides. We need to figure out that there's going gonna be all styles of humans the different things that people are interested in But what's got to be like the most important thing about being an American is? respecting all the other styles of human all the other ways people think whether they're Conservative or whether they're liberal or whether they're liberal or whether they're, you know, whether they choose to, whatever the fuck it is, you want to live off the land in Alaska or whether you want to be in Manhattan. Yeah.

Whether you, if you, I mean, you know, whether you want to be in Alabama or whether you want to be in Berkeley. And I go to both those places. So I see all those people. So I think the thing is, is like you, and you have to realize that this is something is maybe makes you nervous or scared. It's not always about you. And I think that's the big thing that people get wrong about the Bay Area.

We're not all a bunch of liberal people on the same page. We just recognize that we all go out there because it's like, I just want to go someplace where I can do my own thing. Just go meet some rich people in Marin County, if you think that. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Or Silicon Valley. Yeah, Silicon Valley. Well, those Silicon Valley people are so weird, though, because they try so hard to go left.

Because it's almost like they feel like they have to. It's like a part of the business model. Well, a lot of those people, it's like when you're like, wait, did you really invent anything? You know, like, just sort of go. It wasn't like Instagram. Wasn't that Facebook, but just pictures? Like, you know, and you're like, so I feel like there's probably a lot of Silicon Valley guilt in there, too. Oh, the amount of money.

Just the amount of money? I said, I'm just going to do the part about Facebook that's pictured. Now I have a billion dollars. Do you know they're thinking Zuckerberg is going to run for president? Why not? Trump has changed. He's turned the table over. So I think in that sense, let's see what happens.

I think we definitely need new ideas. But I'm not caping for Zuckerberg. I don't know him. I don't know him. The world is better now than it was in 1900 but it's a slow sort of gradual evolution of human ideas you know and i think that shows like yours contribute to that and conversations contribute to that and getting just that this this thing is like one layer of paint at a time we're trying to build a mountain.

It's frustrating for people because they want immediate change. And I think the thing is, to take that analogy, sometimes you go, that was the wrong color of paint. We've got to put that in. Yeah, there's going to be some errors. Yeah, there's some errors. And I think that right now, I believe we're going through an error. This is the error era. I don't know, though, because I think the response to it has genuinely energized people to look at the surroundings, look at politics, look at the-Semitic slurs or whatever the fuck they're doing, that has sort of energized people in that don't agree with that to sort of like step up and try to understand how the fuck is this still going on in 2017?

Like, who are these people that we didn't know existed because you live in Santa Monica? Yeah. You know, that you don't, you're not around any of that. Everybody you know is, you know, pretty left wing. Like, who are these people? Like, what part of us is represented in this ugly aspect of our culture? Whether it's, you know, people that hate white people or people that hate black people or people that hate Jews. What is this?

Yeah. Like, why is this still here? Yeah. What has failed? Yeah. That this still exists? And I think these conversations are a big part. I mean, what you're doing by doing your show is you're, you know, for millions of people that get to tune in and they get to just like hear the words

and it adds layers to the way they understand human beings. It's so goddamn important, man. And for me, it's, I mean for me, I appreciate you saying that. And for me, there's a part of this that is wholly just like, I want to have these conversations. Yeah.

And I'm happy that I have CNN's budget to make these conversations happen. I've always wanted to sit down with- But that's the engine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the engine that pushes forward. You actually do want to have these conversations.

And that's one of the things that makes them just authentic to people that are watching the show. I can tell when I watch your show, like this has come out like really being interested in these. Yeah. No, I, I'm not. And when I'm not interested, we don't use it.

You know, like, are we, are we really, we really work hard to pick the right people. And you know, there's debates, like we had a whole debate, like, what if we could get Trump? You know, what would you do? I, that I had, I really pushed back. I was like, and there's still, I was like, I don't believe, because I believe he's uncurious, I don't believe there's any there there. Would you ask him if he's uncurious?

I'd rather. But I don't think he would even take in the question that I was asking. I'd rather Ivanka. You know what I mean? I'd rather somebody who I feel like you can see sometimes is like, this is not going according to plan. She grew up with the internet. Yeah, yeah.

I would rather, you know, I mean, I'd probably rather Bannon. You know what grew up with the internet. Yeah, yeah, I would rather I would rather you know I mean I yeah, I'd rather ban it. You know what I mean like I feel like I don't believe that there's any there there What do you think you would smell like sulfur? Someone like a match I feel like he's gonna get by carry sulfur in his pocket Just so he does smell like sulfur garlic. He wants to create the illusion that like I am death I am the reckoning I am the end of all times. Yeah. It's like the Bhagavad Gita. Yeah.

Become death. Destroyer of worlds. Yeah. Like I think he probably, you know, that's why I hate it when Saturday Night Live made him, the parody of him was like the Grim Reaper. He was like, yeah, I am. You know what I mean? That's not making fun of him.

That's not good. Yeah. He's like, that's what I am. I am the Grim Reaper. Right. The Sean Spicer one was hilarious because Trump thought that Melissa McCarthy doing it made him look weak because a woman was doing his impression. Yeah.

There was a push at one point to have Rosie O'Donnell do Trump, and I was like, that would have been amazing. That would have been amazing. That would have been amazing. Why didn't she do it? She was down to do it. She tweeted about it. Bob Baldwin was so good at it, though.

He's great, but I think that- He's a perfect actor. Yeah. Malik Baldwin's great, but Rosie would have really hurt Trump's feelings. He probably would have, right? Especially if she could say some dark, dark shit about him. I love the fact that Spicer retired, too, when Scaramucci got on board. He's like, that's it.

But then, now that Scaramucci's gone, Spicer hasn't been like, can I have my job back? He was like, give it. That's why I think it's funny. Nobody's heard Spicer go, well, I'm glad that I can finally return to my place. Can you imagine being the guy that has to tell everybody that this is the biggest crowd at the White House for the inauguration ever? This is from the front of your first day. And you know that there's photos. You know that there's photos.

And that's your, like, the first thing you want me to tell people is a lie. And you can see the look on Spicer's face. He's like, I know this is a lie. I really have a weird soft spot in my heart for Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Because she, like, goes out there like. She's only, like, 30, right? I know. I think a weird soft spot in my heart for Sarah Huckabee Sanders because she like goes out there like. She's only like 30, right? I know. I think she's younger than that.

Yeah. I think, no, I think she's. I think she's 28. No, I think she's in her mid thirties. Is she? I think so. Oh. But I don't know.

But. I thought she was just 28 with hard years. I just feel like, I like the fact that she's out there like the. 25? 35. I like the fact that she's out there like, like you 35. I like the fact that she's out there. Like, like you kind of know, she knows it's a lot too,

but I'm not blinking. Well, one of the things that she said when, Oh, but when, uh, rather, uh,

Trump was, uh, attacking people on Twitter, she was like, if you attack him, he can, he hits back 10 times hard. I'm like,

Hey, that's not good. The fuck are you saying? Like, what are you talking about? You don't teach your children that. We're not talking about a boxer. that's really good at taking punches. This is crazy.

This is the president of the United States. Whatever happened to turning the other cheek? We thought there was a thing called presidential. But we thought that defined the person. But now what we're learning is that the person defines the word. That he's defining what presidential is. So his supporters believe if he did it, and this is what Trump believes, you can tell, if I say it, it's presidential.

If I say it, then it's worthy of the president saying it. So if me retweeting as he did the other day, like, you know, whatever, some sort of conspiracy theory, like nonsense, then that means it's a legitimate thing. It has to be. The president did it. It's like the same thing with the monarchy in England.

If the queen says it, then that's what it is. This is where we're at. It's a fascinating play if it didn't have so much of an impact on our actual well-being. Yeah. No, people told me about, I was talking to a woman yesterday who was a public school teacher, and she was saying, or had been a public school teacher,

and she's talking to other public school teachers about, there are kids who go to school every day who were born in this country. They may be, they go to school every day who are born in this country. You know, they may be from the Latino kids who were born in this country. Their parents are undocumented. And they go to school every day afraid that their parents are going to be kicked out of the country. And not knowing what that does to them. And now somebody's like, why didn't you do your homework?

You know, like it's like you're like, because I have a lot going on right now. You know, why aren't you? Why do you seem so sullen? Why do you going on right now. You know, why aren't you, why do you see, why do you seem so sullen? Why you got an attitude problem? You know what I mean? Like we're not sort of like that, that Trump doing all that up there filters down to some kid in a public school classroom

who gets in a fight and then they expel him. Cause he's like, he's got an attitude problem, you know, that it's like people are, they were not really, people don't think enough about how this is affecting regular ass people. Well,

he's a role model, believe it or not. Because he's the president. The president, by definition, is a role model. For sure. I mean, when you were a kid, when I was in grade school, I remember kids saying, I want to be president someday. And other kids going, wow, this motherfucker's reaching for the stars. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wow, he wants to be the guy. Yeah. Like, wow. You know, and how difficult would that be? But, you know, but then again, I grew up,, I remember growing up, I remember when Reagan was in office and I remember all my family being like, ah. You know what I mean? Everybody was like that. Yeah, yeah. Which is amazing.

Well, not everybody. There was a lot of people that were like that when Reagan was in office, which is so weird. Like the whole revisionist history thing that happened after he was dead. Yeah, he's the modern great president Yeah, did you guys remember the whole Ali North thing? Yeah, do you guys remember Iran Contra? Do you remember the guy standing in front of the it's in front of court when they were questioning him saying he doesn't remember Selling arms to Iran. Yeah, I did this is remember Standing him feeding him the next thing to say

Yeah, no, I think that so I put puts me. It's like I just in my lifetime It's like people were like man right you like people I know ran Reagan was such a bad president Then you get George W. Bush. No, that's a bad president. Then you get to Trump. I'm like, well, what's yeah, that's my yeah Yeah, this the time doesn't end with Trump What's coming and that's why I think when you say like seeing how people react to Trump and stand up and in the streets to me it's like today they're doing that or they did it this weekend but it's like some point people either they get exhausted by doing that yeah there's a march right now going from Charlottesville to DC to protest you know Trump's all the things that Trump said in the wake of walk the whole way yeah yeah lose a bunch of people on

the way or pick up some I think that's more likely like people like how many hours is that several days it's like a week-long thing. They're going to walk for several days? They're doing it right now as we're talking. I think a lot of times with those marches, the hardcore people start first, and then I might show up Saturday afternoon, hey guys, we walked this whole way. Sweating.

Woo! Spray yourself with a mister and jump out of a trailer with makeup on. Remember when we were all in Charlottesville a few days ago? But yes. Man, we walked a long way. Remember that fun adventure we had? But there's people right now who are walking from Charlottesville to D.C. because they're saying we have to keep the pressure on.

But it's exhausting to do that. Not everybody can do that. I don't know how much it helps. Because remember the women's march? Totally unacknowledged. You never said a thing about it. There's millions of people all over the world marching against him. People wearing pussy hats.

Nobody cared. He just doesn't seem to respond. But I think sometimes it's not about whether the people in power care. It's whether the people care and it gets the people energized to do the next thing. So I think that the march on Washington that King did, you can't go

and the next day. But it certainly becomes a historical moment that people then look for and it also becomes like everybody, but most people in their homes were talking about

the Women's March and it starts to think that like, it's the same thing with marriage equality. Like it starts to open up people's brains to like,

huh, man, what were they talking about? And some people are having bad conversations but to me, it's like it opens up, as long as you keep

the conversation going, there's a potential for change. Yeah, it just takes time. There's an old expression that comes to gambling and it also can be applied to weight loss and a bunch of other things in life, that you get better the same way you got sick. Like with gambling, you can't just win it all back.

You've got to slowly try to chip away and get back. And then with weight loss, you can't just lose all that weight. It doesn't happen like that. How long did it take you to get fat? Well, guess what? It's going to take you a similar amount of time to lose that weight. It doesn't happen like that. Like, how long did it take you to get fat? Well, guess what? It's going to take you a similar amount of time to lose that weight. Maybe longer to lose the weight. Yeah, I mean, it could very well.

And I think for our culture, it's going to take a while to sort all this out. And I think we also have a problem that the actual operating system that we use, this whole representative government that was set up back when you had to take a letter by horse to get to people. It's really not necessary anymore. And it creates a lot of red tape and it creates a lot of bureaucratic inefficiency that I think if we had no government right now, we're trying to structure a government, the last thing we would do is have one person with incredible amount of power that could also launch the loot into nukes and pardon criminals. We wouldn't have that. We would never set that up like that.

We would put it in those offices with cubicles that are in a semicircle. And we'd also probably have a council of wise people. A presidential council of people. People that are like mathematics professors that understand economics. People that understand geography, people that understand, you know, geography and understand cultural differences, people that are, you know, that really understand healthcare, that really understand all the different things we're dealing with.

And we wouldn't make, like, the Supreme Court a lifetime appointment. You would go, you know, you get it for 20 years and then you move on. Yeah, you don't, you don't, and we wouldn't, there's no, this is the thing I don't think Democrats focus enough on unless they're doing it behind closed doors, that you would not have the electoral college. No fucking way. You would not.

Nobody could sell it to you. Nobody could tell you why it makes sense. Ohio's important. Yeah. Settle down. How important? Yeah, everybody's important. But is it more important than anybody else?

Yeah. One person, one vote, man. Yeah, we're looking at this whole thing like every election boils down to like four or five states. Right. It's crazy. Like in California, by the time the polls close, they tell you who won because they're like, we know how California voted. So then I become a person who's like, what's the point of me voting for, you know, it's like, you know. So for me, electoral college and then gerrymandering where the whole thing where they get to sort of they divide your neighborhood up into a way that sort of benefits the, you know, those are the things that are really.

to sort of they divide your neighborhood up into a way that sort of benefits the you know those are the things that are really that's why it's scary about who comes after trump because as long as the electoral college exists it automatically sort of tips the country in a more sort of right leaning direction you know and and now which is maybe fine except when the right becomes trump you know like you know if it's it's different if it's president john mccain which i'm not a huge john mccain fan but i feel like at least there's a through line. You know what I mean? So for me, it's like the Electoral College is never – that's why the left has to fight so hard. And I feel like if Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer aren't in meetings right now like, we've got to fuck this Electoral College up. We've got to take it down.

Then we're sort of losing the plot of how this works. Well, I don't think it's necessary anymore. And this idea that, well, the people in the middle need it because the people on the coasts, the large population centers, they can dictate. Well, yeah. There's more people there. You fucking idiot. There's more people there.

That's the actual country. Yeah, yeah. That's why they're dictating. What about West America out here fucking our kids in the middle of the fields? It's not. It's not. Well, people define as the most, like, we have more people. And they're like, but we got more land. That's not, it's not. Well, people, people define as the most, like we have more people and they're like, but we got more land.

That's not the same. It's all of us. We're all supposed to be in this thing together. And just, you know, it would be a way more interesting war election if everybody knew they're just counting the votes. Yeah. And there's great people in the middle too. And politicians would have to work way harder instead of going, well, I'm not going to go

talk to people in up and down California because that's already set. I think there's an issue with states, too. I think there's an issue with people voting. Like, we lost California, and now Nevada's gone. I just think it should be just one lump group of humans. Exactly, yes. Let's all vote on stuff. And there's good people everywhere.

There's good people in Iowa. There's good people in Kansas. There's good people in California. We've got to stop all this divisiveness, and I think that's one of the issues that comes along with people. I mean, there's people that have intercity competition, right? Fuck Chicago. People get like that. We get in these teams. When it comes to the United States of America, when it comes to being the president, I genuinely think that we have to look at ourselves as one group of humans well I think we should at least feel

like that each of our voices counts yeah and we're in it together because right now it's like you know if you live in it doesn't matter liberals, these liberals in the east coast they're delusional they don't have an understanding of the real people of America

that voice is horrifying scary voice because you know that's a real person out there. I need to put this voice in my act. I felt like I was just with it. I had like a moment of like, what just happened? Just put my hood on. Well, I'll show you how to burn a cross. Wow, you could be like a funny joke comedian, a funny voice comedian.

With all this other stuff. That's funny. Yeah, I think that we... Because the thing is, this is one thing I'll say about United Shades. When I go to the south side of Chicago, we did an episode about gangs and gun violence and gang violence in the south and west side of Chicago. And I did an episode of Appalachia, mostly about coal and the coal industry and how it's dying. And even people there know, yeah, it's dying.

When Trump comes, a lot of them cheer because they're like, we just need... But what they're cheering for is jobs. They're not cheering for coal necessarily. Of course. If you said, we have other jobs for you, they'll take those jobs. Now, they do have pride in the culture of the coal culture because it's about their life, but it doesn't have to be that. But all I'm saying is people in Appalachia who voted for

Trump, people in Chicago who voted for Hillary are all just worried about jobs and better schools for their kids. And safety. Yeah. And so they're not. And so, but when we break it down to this left, right, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it starts to change the conversation when really there is a party, and some people would say it's a green party, but you could form a party around those ideas

and not where these other parties have gone. I completely agree. But listen, man, I love your show. I'm glad you're doing it. Thank you. I always love talking to you. We should do this more often. Absolutely. Thanks for coming on, man, I love your show. I'm glad you're doing it. Thank you. I always love talking to you. We should do this more often. Absolutely.

Thanks for coming on, brother. Thanks for having me. Tell everybody how they can reach you on social media, WKamalBell on Twitter. Yeah, at WKamalBell, at WKamalBell.com. I'm on Instagram. I'm on Twitter. I'm on Facebook.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, man. Thanks, man. Thank you. Great conversation.

All right, fuckers. I'll see you tomorrow