The Majority Report with Sam Seder - Best Of 2025 Trump And Elons Ceo Dictator Playbook W Gil Duran

Starting point is 00:00:05 With Sam Cedar. We are every day is casual Friday. That means Monday is casual Monday. Tuesday, casual Tuesday. Wednesday, casual hump day. Thursday, casual thurs. That's what we call it. And Friday, casual Shabbat.

Starting point is 00:00:26 The majority report with Sam Cedar. It is Friday. December. 26th, 2025. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live to tape steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, 2025 is wrapping up. Thus, we have our best ofs. ladies and gentlemen, and today we're still at the first part of the Trump administration.

Starting point is 00:01:20 We have an interview with Gil Duran writing about Trump and Elon Musk's CEO dictator playbook in February 11th of 2025. Emma Vigland here. Hello. Neither one of us are actually here. We are here only by the grace of a tape. Now, of course, people usually watch the show. The vast majority of people consume the show after the fact anyway. So I don't know why I'm so self-conscious about it, but we are not live.

Starting point is 00:01:57 But in many ways, we are live. And so... In your hearts. Yes, we are still very much a live. And today we have Gil Duran writing about... Trump and Elon Musk's CEO

Starting point is 00:02:15 King Playbook. We talk a lot about Curtis Yarvin and much of the year was a function of this dynamic. And I have to say,

Starting point is 00:02:31 sitting here in December, and Emma, you tell me if it's different, I don't feel like it's as I feel like we are not at peak threat. There's still going to be a lot of horrible stuff that's happening and people are still being attacked whether they're, you know, immigrants or people of color.

Starting point is 00:02:52 I think we still have like a lot of economic problems. But it feels like at least, you know, now that we're on break, the threat of the entire thing collapsing into an authoritarian nightmare is less likely than it was, I want to even say, like, five months ago. I mean, I don't want to count our chickens, but I do think, you know, I've been saying this, like the Epstein thing was a real turning point for Trump where he lost his grip on the Republican Party. He was unable to whip votes to protect his best friend from the past and also himself, really, and the other powerful people that are implicated. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:03:35 Is he talking about that? Oh, hello. That was a show, folks. Enjoy yourself. Yeah, my. Our internet was cut when we started talking about Jeffrey Epstein. Weird. Now, so I do think, like, at the very least, you see that he's lost his grip a little bit on the Republican Party.

Starting point is 00:03:57 Now, the concerning thing is like the ice stuff. That budget is just starting to kind of make itself felt. And that we're going to still be seeing the implications of that for quite. some time. But some of this stuff that we talk about with Gilder-N, when we had him on, I think we were peak anxiety about this. Well, I actually got more peak anxiety. I would say like four months after we recorded this with him in February. I started getting really, really concerned like in June. Like after the, after that money was there and but, but, and watching the sort of factlessness of of national Democrats. But we're going to get to the more like hopeful stuff next

Starting point is 00:04:38 week. Let me just ask everybody, how was your Christmas? Christmas was yesterday, as people are listening. Was it good? It was great. It was good. I got a tonka truck. Well, do you got a old school tonka truck? Nice. Matt? I'm sure it was wonderful. Okay. I'm sure my family wasn't fighting at all. Yeah. I, I hope. Yes, I'm sure about the same. The way I avoided Christmas with my girlfriend's family in the past was to have an emergency route canal. And so I'm hoping that maybe that has happened again. And as this is playing, you've got a string around a tooth and it's tied to a doorknob.

Starting point is 00:05:27 Exactly. So as we're trying to get inside of his face hit by a bus mirror for like the last few days. We'll see. We'll see how well I did. but I think today is Boxer Day Boxing Day Yeah I don't know what it means All right

Starting point is 00:05:45 Let's uh Is it a thing? Do you guys celebrate boxing day? I think it's Canadian It's Canadian Oh, all right I didn't know that I don't follow this stuff Did you think it was Christian?

Starting point is 00:05:59 Huh? Did you think it was Christian? I thought that's what I thought it was. I didn't know The 13th disciple was Muhammad Ali Yeah, it was when Jesus fought Pontius Pilate for 12. Is it literally about boxing? I don't know either.

Starting point is 00:06:15 I'm pretty sure it isn't. No, it's about moving. I think it's like moving boxes. Oh. Seriously? Yeah, it's like moving day. Everybody moves. I think we should all just provide our best guesses.

Starting point is 00:06:25 So they'd have boxing day, but they put their milk in bags, not boxes. In Canada? Yeah. Oh, gross. Confusing. I had bags of milk at school, actually, but I'm basically Canadian. Oh. I don't get any of the.

Starting point is 00:06:37 that. But I will say happy Hanukkah to everybody. Although I think Hanukkah's probably ended by now. I can't tell. I get a look at the calendar. But as when the wealthy give Christmas boxes. It's nothing to do with moving. Hanukkah starts on the 14th. I told you it was a Christmas thing. Yeah. Well, Hanukkah is starting. So Hanukkah ended. I hope people have a nice Hanukkah. Yes. Folks, before we get to Gilderan, just a couple of sponsors of today's program. This is a product that I was using for years and years before they came to us and asked

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Starting point is 00:09:46 Also on the program, folks, it is very close to being January. What are we? Four days away now? Five days? How does that work? You got your last hurrah on 1231. but it's time for you to start planning on your new year's resolutions new year is a great time to hit the reset button and focus on your health and get back on track with your wellness goals

Starting point is 00:10:12 maybe you're planning cut back on drinking and do dry january anybody all right i'll do that okay all right well yeah uh uh that has other plans or maybe you can't be anti-combustion january yeah exactly well that's the point Maybe you plan to focus on your sleep hygiene. It doesn't matter. It can be daunting to get started. So our friends at Sunset Lake Sabaddae have got you covered with plenty of products to help support your new year wellness goals. Some sab a day and maybe a little bit of tatsi can help you curb those cravings for alcohol while you do a new year's reset.

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Starting point is 00:12:27 Of course, we'll put that all on the podcast or YouTube description. Quick break. We'll come back with our interview of Gil Duran back in February of 2025. And then stick around. Matt's putting in some of his special Matt picks. Yes, at the end of the year, Matt shakes out his goodie bag of funny stuff. And bingo bingo plays it here for you. Stick around.

Starting point is 00:12:56 Enjoy it. We'll be back on Monday with more Best ofs. Sam Cedar, Emma Viglin on The Majority Report. Pleasure to welcome to the program, Gil Duran, journalist based in California, proprietor of the website, the Nerd Reich, co-writer of the Frame Lab newsletter. And Gil, welcome to the program.

Starting point is 00:13:23 You've been following and really started to dive in very deeply into the ideology and practical blueprint that has been sort of been germinating, almost now for a decade, maybe more. And we're starting to, well, we're starting. We have seen this being now put into practice. Give us a broad overview of the work that you've been doing. Well, last year I started looking into something called the network state,

Starting point is 00:13:55 which is an ideology of tech supremacy that holds that tech CEOs should use their wealth and power in the 21st century to basically take control of the world. They believe that nation states and democracies are an outs. outdated software for the planet and that they should take over existing governments and huddle them out or else start their own sovereign countries by taking territories around the world that they can buy with their vast wealth. As part of this ideology, they see a future in which nation states will collapse and democracies will be abandoned in favor of corporate dictatorships. And this is not something that I've dreamed up or found in a secret document. They write about

Starting point is 00:14:33 the stuff in books. They talk about it on long podcasts. They make YouTube videos about it, you name it. They've been very, very loud about it. And no one was really taking them seriously. But I saw them getting very involved in trying to take over San Francisco city government. And after a certain while of watching them as editorial page editor of the San Francisco Examiner at the time, I started to realize there's something deeper going on here. And what I did was take the time to look into that. And the work I did for the New Republic was based in that research. All right. To that point, let's just because when you do it, articulate this, people are like, well, I mean, this sounds a little fantastical. We got a couple

Starting point is 00:15:13 of clips that, you know, we have been playing on this show over the past year. And just, they're rather short, but I think it's important to show this because these are some of the wealthiest people in the country, if not the world. And they were all standing right behind Donald Trump on inaugural day or just about. Here is first Palantir CEO, Peter teal, you know, maybe the ringleader of the PayPal Mafia, as it's called sometimes. This is just him in April of 2024, just at a Mercatus Center event. Mercatus Center is the sort of libertarian think tank or one of those. Here he is.

Starting point is 00:15:59 Sort of, you know, one way to think of the Weimar period was, I don't know, it's like the dwarves and Moria where they dwelled too deep. and, you know, finally they awakened the nameless terror of the Balrog. But I think there are, and again, I don't think we're ever in a cyclical world, but there are certainly certain parallels in the U.S. in the 2020s to Germany in the 1920s where, you know, liberalism is exhausted. One suspects that democracy, whatever that means, is exhausted. And, you know, that we have to ask some questions very far out.

Starting point is 00:16:36 side the Overton window. Okay. So there he is saying, like, we're like We're like Weimar, Germany, and democracy, whatever that means has been exhausted. I want to get back, is that that notion of like, whatever democracy means, who could tell? Nothing has meaning. It's interesting. Now, for people who don't know any history after Weimar, we saw the rise of Nazism.

Starting point is 00:16:59 And Overton window means, like, we got to widen the scope of what we contemplate as being normal. Here is Mark Andreessen, the guy who created Netscape, another tech billionaire. This is him on the Chris Williamson YouTube channel. This is where, and you will recognize this, Gil, from this guy obviously reads some Curtis Jarvin or talks to him directly, but here he is. talking about this too, right? Which is like, okay, how do we actually like redo the system is, of course, much harder. The other lens on this that I think about a lot is Curtis Yarvin.

Starting point is 00:17:42 It was also a good friend of mine. And the way he describes the American system that's running the people, the way he describes it is we are living under FDR's personal monarchy 80 years later without FDR. Right? And the reason he describes that he says, look, before FDR, the federal government was actually very small. Like, tax rates were like super low. The federal government didn't do very much.

Starting point is 00:18:08 The FDR dramatically, you know, orders of magnitude increased the size and scope of the federal government. He did that for two reasons. One was the New Deal. And then the other was World War II. And so the federal government that Franklin Roosevelt left behind in 1945 when he passed away was the government that he had built, which he had run the entire time from 1933 to 1945 himself, in which he had staffed himself and he had overseen himself. and everything. And he built this, basically, this giant structure. And as Curtis basically says,

Starting point is 00:18:35 as long as you had FDR running that, it could run really well. And, you know, we won World War II and saved the free world and, like, it weren't, pulled the U.S. out of depression, like the whole thing worked. And it was great. But if you let an organization of that size and scope run without its founder's CEO for 80 years, you end up with what we have now, which is just like basically an out-of-control bureaucracy, like an out-of-control system. All right. So I just wanted to lay that out. And there was also one where Andresen, I think, was on Joe Rogan, basically saying that, you know, FDR, Hitler, whatever. You know, people are really in control of stuff. All right.

Starting point is 00:19:13 So with that said, he cites Curtis Jarvin. Who is Curtis Jarvin? Curtis Jarvin is a software programmer from San Francisco, who were in the early 2000, started writing a weird blog under the name Minchus Molebug. And in that blog, he outlined a lot of these ideas for getting rid of democracy in favor of a corporate monarch or dictator and running territories instead of by government by corporation. For example, his idea for San Francisco was something called Friskorp, which would be a corporate run San Francisco where you need a special card to swipe it and swipe out. At every moment in Frisk Corp, you're under constant and total surveillance. They know every single thing you're doing, even if you're in your house.

Starting point is 00:19:52 And this is what guarantees the safety of the populace. Of course, he's only reinvented the totalitarian government of Orwell's 1984. But one thing you find with these guys is they think all the villains of science fiction and speculative fiction are the heroes. And they seek to emulate them. So I often hear from people that this is snow crash. This is parable of the soar, et cetera. They're all right. And that's the basic idea here.

Starting point is 00:20:15 You get a lot of gobly gook from guys who think they're really smart, but are actually saying really dumb and dangerous things. And now are sadly very close. they're in control of the federal government in Washington. And that's what's kind of shocking about it. When I started this work last year, I felt like a lot of people, even people I know in a long time,

Starting point is 00:20:34 viewed it as sort of a conspiracy theory. And you know, if Kamala had won, I would look like a guy who had way overreacted to a few weirdos in tech. Even billionaires were criticizing me saying, nobody takes these guys seriously. This is just a journalist trying to be in the New York Times someday. And I wish that had all been true.

Starting point is 00:20:49 Because what's happening now is even scarier and worse than I thought. And so Yarvind's idea is that Americans have to get over their dictator phobia, he said. And the way that we do that is by installing a CEO to be like the shadow president and to destroy American government from within through something he calls rage, R-A-G-E, retire all government employees. And that's very much what you see happening right now through DOGE, destruction of government by Elon in Washington as we speak.

Starting point is 00:21:22 Yeah, he lifted it. I mean, honestly, I think, like, you know, it is, you were just ahead of the curve here. Here is New York Times is David Marquesie interviewing Curtis Yarven. And this is the longest interview I've seen with him. And it's about an hour long. And there's sort of two, actually, two segments. And I was struck by how exactly what you're saying. It's a lot of gobbly cook.

Starting point is 00:21:49 And this guy's not that bright. It's fascinating. He's asked, why do you think FDR was a dictator or a CEO or a king, whatever, they sort of, they play around with these terms as more or less the same type of thing? And it doesn't seem to really have an answer except for a strange anecdote. But let's just listen to this for a minute or two. this is Curtis Yarven being interviewed at the New York Times this came out about three weeks ago I guess

Starting point is 00:22:25 we know Mark Injuries and so I sent this piece to Mark Injuries and it's an excerpt from the diary of Harold Ikees who's FDR's Secretary of the Interior and it's a little diary entry describing a cabinet meeting in 1933

Starting point is 00:22:45 and what happens in this cabinet meeting is that Francis Perkins who's the secretary of labor comes in to this meeting and it's like here I have a list

Starting point is 00:22:58 of the projects that we're going to do FDR personally takes this list looks at the projects in New York and it's like this is crap

Starting point is 00:23:07 this is crap and aren't you doing like humiliates Francis Perkins in the Oval Office or whatever they're having your cabinet meeting and then at the end of the thing

Starting point is 00:23:16 it's like everybody agrees that the bill would fix and then pass through Congress. This is just a picture of FDR acting like a CEO. And so, you know, the question of was FDR a dictator, what does it mean to be a dictator? What does this pejorative word mean? I don't know.

Starting point is 00:23:32 What I know is that Americans of all stripes, Democrats, Republicans, and everyone, you know, except for a few right-wing Republicans, basically revere FDR. And FDR ran the new deal like a startup. Okay. Okay. I don't know. I honestly, like a startup. I like I'm, you know, waiting. Like what, what made FDR a dictator in your mind? And he was rude to Francis Perkins the first time she came in. And everybody liked FDR. He ran it like a startup. Well, she was a DEI hire. What is what what what's going on here? Like I mean, I, you know, like I don't want to spend too, too much time. I'm, you know, sort of diagnosing Curtis Yarvin, although I did note that it seems like every reactionary wears a leather coat on some level.

Starting point is 00:24:29 Like, it's their way of saying, I want to take us back to the, you know, the 14th century, but I'm wearing a leather coat. So this has got to be all new and rebellious. But it doesn't seem to be a there there. Yeah. Well, these are people who are used to talking in rooms where nobody challenges them. So your stupidity gets accepted and you get more competent in it. The other way to look at it is this is a disinformation for dumb people who don't know anything about what he's talking about. And so his cherry-picked anecdotes are used to convince all of these young wannabes in Silicon Valley that, oh, wow, it was a dictatorship, et cetera.

Starting point is 00:25:04 There's one quote Yarbin has from a few years back where he says you can go into a bar and say, you know, I think the British should have won the American Revolution and people will say, yeah, that's cool. We'll try that shit in Boston or somewhere where actually people know about some of the. these things and see what happens in a bar. So this is a guy who's sort of making up this universe from cherry-picked anecdotes and trying to prove this point. I mean, I worked in government. I come from government. I spent a lot of my career there. I worked for Governor Jerry Brown. I worked for Senator Diane Feinstein, which she was chair of the Intelligence Committee. I come from mainstream democratic politics. I'm not on the far left. And everything in politics is a negotiation. Everything is a test of egos and wills. That's designed that way from the Greeks and the Romans.

Starting point is 00:25:46 There's a long history of how this works. There are checks and balances. If Roosevelt had been a dictator, then why did we go and elect a bunch of Republicans who hated his whole project in intervening decades? I mean, it makes no sense, but it's not supposed to. We're not the audience for it. The audience is people who don't know history, who don't know what to think, and might fall prey and victim to this revisionist vision that is only designed to convince them that we're already

Starting point is 00:26:10 in a dictatorship. It's just a matter of which dictator you want. That's what Andresen was basically saying. We've been living under a dictatorship without the dictator here, and that's why things are going awry on some level 90 years later. I mean, it's insane stuff. And I want to get to the plan. We got a lot of questions about that as well.

Starting point is 00:26:29 But just one more thing that strikes me. Because you have delved into his writing, and from what I've read and heard from him speak, the fascinating thing is he is trying, when he responded later, in that interview to like democracy, he defined it where you heard pietel teal say, whatever that means. He defined it as, you know, a desire for the common good, which is not what democracy is. Democracy is not about, I mean, I think everybody wants that, but democracy is about the participation in the decision making as opposed to a desire for what the ends is. And I want you to talk about how slippery they are about what democracy is.

Starting point is 00:27:21 And because there seems to be with this sort of cohort of conservative thought, the way they strip this, the way they lay this bear is, it's all sort of like focused on some type of outcome. and they try and I guess flatten the differences. Erase meaning. Erase the meaning of everything prior to that on some level. I would add also he used an example, and I'm sure you've heard him say this, about if, you know, why would we want, you know, Apple's run by a CEO. Could California, the government agency of making computers make an Apple computer? of course not. But that's a very, very narrow, sort of like, I guess, job assignment for government.

Starting point is 00:28:19 It's not just we're going to make good computers. There's a whole host of addressing a bunch of different concerns, which is fundamentally about democracy. Will you just talk about that element of it? Yeah, these guys only view reality to their own lens of tech and wealth and power. having been in government, you have to view it through the eyes of vast constituencies of people, many of whom have different needs or maybe it cross purposes. Politics is a tough art to master. A lot of good people fail at it. And so when they talk about things like democracy and tesser, you know, a lot of their problems

Starting point is 00:28:51 could be cured by a polycyte 101 class. You know, the common good through history has come to be defined as something that the public must participate in defining. What they are trying to say is that, well, there were times where, there were monarchs or they were dictators and the common good was defined as whatever they decided it was. And, you know, they claimed things worked better or whatever under those systems. I think history will prove that they don't. So all of this is pointed toward complete ignorance of actual history, of political theory, of how we got to the system that we have, toward a return

Starting point is 00:29:26 to something that doesn't work, always gets overthrown, usually through violent revolution or war. and that would only benefit the richest guys in the room, which is them. So I think, you know, if anybody who's familiar with the basics of political science can see the very juvenile and sophomoric mistakes they're making. But again, these are guys who don't get challenged in the rooms that they're in. And even when they get interviewed by, say, the New York Times, it's a pretty softball interview. You know, this is a guy who's called for a dictatorship

Starting point is 00:29:52 and laid out a plan that appears to be being followed and he gets this glow-up black-and-white smoldering photograph in the New York Times. I mean, this is a really bizarre time to be living in. You know, you couldn't get these guys to cover this stuff before, you know, three days before the inauguration, they dropped the Yarven interview. And believe me, I was talking to people and urging them to do this. And, you know, again, I was out there in Weirdo Land and now we're all in Weirdo Land. Yes.

Starting point is 00:30:17 But they cover Project 2025, right? I mean, and that, I guess, is like the- Well, let's, before we get to Project 2025, will you just lay out the plan for us? Because then I think it, like, it overlays over-project-2020. Oh, you're talking about the plan in the blueprint that Yarvin? Yes. Well, in 2022, Yarvin updated his plan to a second Trump administration. And it's called the Butterfly Revolution.

Starting point is 00:30:44 He did this on his substack. And he said that the basic plan would be. And he said, oh, this is all imaginary scenario, a harmless thought exercise. But the idea would be to install a CEO-style dictator while keeping Trump as the figurehead to then purge career government employees, basically carry out rage, retire all government employees, to weaken these institutions, get rid of any people who are loyal to democracy.

Starting point is 00:31:07 Replace them with loyal ninjas who would answer to the CEO dictator, not to the democratic process or to Congress or anybody like that, then start centralizing executive power under the executive branch, rebutting the courts, refusing to go along with the laws, just challenging every aspect of the state. system to break it. And then, you know, bypassing congressional oversight and then use this new centralized power to start seizing the other centers of power in society, media power, academia, you know, establish complete control over the information sphere, because in order to

Starting point is 00:31:46 have this experiment last, you have to make sure it controls information because it needs to control future elections. It does no good if in two years we get the Congress back or in four years we get the White House back. So that was the scary vision he laid out in 2022. And as far as I can tell that's impossible. Yeah, everything that he did Musk is doing. Again, it could all be a vast coincidence. You know, I'm a skeptical person myself. I'm a journalist. I come from mainstream politics. But it seems to me that they're doing everything on their list so far. And I've come to a point where I'm not going to underestimate these guys anymore. I am going to underestimate all of the people whose job it is to be telling people what's going on. I think if most of the

Starting point is 00:32:26 American people knew what was happening right now, they would be very much against it. But no one is saying it. That it's systemic. I mean, that's the thing is that I think there's this sense out there that like stuff is happening willy-nilly, but this is a part of a plan. But no, I mean, that was my question. And it's really just, it's fascinating to see how this pairs with the lack of meaning that they're trying to engender.

Starting point is 00:32:50 And the fact that these tech bros have control of our communications platforms, they're able to make that a reality. I mean, everybody's a blue check and what information is true and what is not. I mean, I think I saw Yarvan saying that this is the prime opportunity for our plan to come into place or go into place because right now we're in a very irony pilled or an high irony time, essentially saying that there's such little education that our ideas sound okay. I mean, it's the same with the anti-VAC stuff. That's where we're at right now. Definitely. Everything is considered negotiable, and there's no opposition that's organizing to really counter what these guys are doing. Instead, the Democratic Party's stance seems to be that, well, we're just going to let them do it as much bad stuff as possible, and everybody will be against it. We're starting to see some people stand up and resist it. We've got people like AOC and others. Jamie Raskin said the other day that they're trying to install a tech monarchy. People are creeping toward it. But I think what people need to understand is that this is not

Starting point is 00:33:54 random chaos. This is a strategy. And it's a strategy they've been talking about and writing about and bragging about for years. And once you understand that, then it takes on a different meaning. You can make more sense of what's happening. And basically, we've got an unelected foreign-born billionaire up in our government, destroying it and defying our laws. This is exactly the kind of nightmare our Constitution was designed to prevent. And we need to be very aware of that because we can stop it. But not if we stay asleep, too long. These guys are trying to do as much damage as they can as quickly as possible because that's their key to keeping power. And I don't mean keeping power for four years. I mean keeping

Starting point is 00:34:33 power in general. And to see the Democratic Party largely silent, to see the major media outlets not really getting it, it's pretty scary. That to me is the scariest thing of all. People should, this is an advanced conversation. Catch up, get your pants on, get your boots on, and get out the door. It's time to go. And I don't really see that happening from the party that, Again, I worked for very mainstream politicians for most of my career. And so how does that work with Project 2025 then? They really meet together nicely because it's both involves the dismantling of the administrative state, does it not? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:11 There does seem to be, you know, back in September, there was a big conference in San Francisco called Reboot, which, by the way, is the name of the speech that Yarvin gave in 2012 where he called for the destruction of, of the federal government. And Reboot was a conference between the Silicon Valley tech types and the Heritage Foundation. And there was all these speeches, people from Allen, Anderrill, Palantir, you name it all coming together to talk. And I wrote a piece about it then. I'm like, well, this seems to be a convergence of the right-wing, far-right Republican sphere, the religious aspect of it, the religious zealots who want to impose a theocracy. the far-right tech guys, the Peter Thiel universe, Elon Musk's of the world, and MAGA, right? They're all kind of coming together. They have a lot of commonalities.

Starting point is 00:35:57 There are some key differences, but a lot of commonalities. And I think the thing that I was trying to write about last year that I think a lot of the media missed was these guys have gotten together on a project here. And they're going to focus on their commonalities, destroy the government, shrink it down, privatize it, you know, end rights for. people of color for women, et cetera. And they're going to focus on that for the next few years. So I think this convergence is something that was largely missed, but that was, again, happening in plain sight, the Heritage Foundation,

Starting point is 00:36:29 and the tech bros had a thing called reboot in San Francisco in September, right? They were open about it. It wasn't a secret. There's a real quality. This convergence reminds me of Paul Wolfowitz testifying in front of, I think, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 20 some odd years ago saying, you know, weapons of mass destruction is what we could all agree on. And it brought in various disparate sort of constituencies to support the invasion, an occupation of Iraq.

Starting point is 00:37:03 It has that quality where, you know, Russell Vote, I don't think has these notions of the CEO, you know, these sort of like futuristic visions. he just has a vision of a destroyed administrative state, which is sort of a, this sort of mechanism is a perfect overlay. Yarvin's sort of like means to that end is a perfect overlay on Project 2025, it seems. Yeah, I think what they share in common is a desire for a set hierarchy in the world. men, white men, wealthy white men should be in control. Period. End of story. Men, wealthy, white, Christian men should be in control, period. And, you know, I do a lot of work with George Lakoff, the cognitive linguist who categorized many years decades ago how the right-wing ideology works.

Starting point is 00:38:01 And that's what they have in common, right? They have this, that's where their commonality is. Now, there are some differences when it comes to, you know, for instance, God above man is a traditional conservative belief. Well, these tech guys don't really believe in God. I think they believe they are God. They believe they are creating God in the form of AI. And the only person who's outlining these very weird and bizarre beliefs of the Silicon Valley guys that are completely anathema to Republicans, to traditional Republicans, is Steve Bannon, unfortunately. He's been going to town hitting them in all their weirdness and their bizarre beliefs and the danger they pose. And Democrats should really categorize all of his main arguments and start making ads based on those.

Starting point is 00:38:39 and targeting them at MAGA people and swing voters on YouTube because only Steve Bannon is doing that work right now. And it saddens me to say that. I despise Steve Bannon. I do not view him as an ally. He just wants a different flavor of dictatorship. He has a personal beef against some of these guys. And he's saying here's all the weird stuff that people should be talking about

Starting point is 00:38:56 that are completely going to scare the hell out of Maga. Talk more about this because this is something we've been observing. I guess it was about a month or so ago that Bannon came out and said, what are these three South Africans he was talking about? kind of about sacks and uh musk and teal uh what are these three south africans are all racist what are they doing uh you know telling us what our government's going to be and then he also seems to be back pedaling a little bit because he realized like oh shoot i lost that battle and in the new york times he was he was like throwing subtle shade at musk saying he's the edison of our time and if you're

Starting point is 00:39:32 not familiar with like tesla fanboys that's a dig at musk but anyway so but what where is the ideological split there between a Bannon and the, you know, a Yarvan in that respect? And how, how does that play out? I mean, if we were talking about, if we were going to start producing those ads or that content to show, you know, as a wedge issue, I also despise Bannon. But where exactly is that, that, where is that wedge? Well, I think it's in, well, first of Well, I think what Bannon is trying to do is force a negotiation with these tech bros. He sees that Elon's come in. He's like, hey, I bought the Republican Party.

Starting point is 00:40:16 I'm now the star of the show. I think Bannon understands that that's dangerous, that could turn people off. We already see Elon Musk's popularity plummeting in the polls with Republicans. It already is dead with Democrats for the most part. So Elon has a necessity of taking everything too far and not pasting himself at all. And so I think it's a negotiation. What Bannon has said is that, yeah, you deserve a place at the table. you spent all this money and we could use that money to take over Europe and turn Europe fully right and have this global, you know, right-wing project.

Starting point is 00:40:48 But he wants him to not be at the head of the table is what he has said. And so I think there's that tension. Part of it is that I think Bannon views himself as a populist, as someone who is representing his people, a massive voters who have been with him on this journey to getting Trump to office. And I think he sees, he's jealous to some degree, perhaps, of the role that Elon has bought for himself. But also I think he understands that Elon and these guys don't care what people think. They are not populists. They are anti-populists. They want to be dictators.

Starting point is 00:41:17 They want to establish a system where the people do not have a voice. And that is a very dangerous project to push. So I think in a way that Bannon is trying to give some strategic advice here, don't go full dictator in full view. You get a lot farther making things subtle in politics. You kind of want to boil the frog here, you know, start off slow and go up. What Musk is doing is throwing everybody into the boiling water all at once. And so that's how I view it. If you were to look at the thing that I think Bannon focuses on most, it's weird stuff like

Starting point is 00:41:47 transhumanism, you know, mating humans with machines, putting chips into people's brains, and this idea that AI will be God because apparently God doesn't already exist. And there are these cultural and religious issues that if you examine the beliefs of these tech guys are going to make, you know, the grandmas and the Maga grandpas out there think, who are these guys? Should I be supporting this? But no one's telling them that, except for Steve Bannon, and he's even hedging because he doesn't want to be, you know, I think it's a negotiation more than anything. I mean, Yarvan's an atheist, right? And Teal is godless. He's gay, right? And whatever. But like, I guess this is a good way, I think, to bring it back to the concept

Starting point is 00:42:28 of the network state. And you bring up San Francisco a lot. I'm wondering, if you view, where you view the origination of this idea and the fact that they're clearly sprinting to try to implement it, because there's been a lot of talk over the past few years about how crime is out of control, particularly in cities, when we know that crime has been declining since the spike in the pandemic. And you see the elevation on these platforms that are owned by these guys of highly racialized crime content as well. And it is a lot of, and And when you hear about these efforts like Praxis and these other private city enterprises that these guys are investing in, it seems clear that they want to create private fiefdoms around the world. But now they're almost using this as an experiment with the entire United States.

Starting point is 00:43:22 Like, do you see a connection between the elevation of this like crime hysteria and panic on the right and an effort to. privatize our public spaces? Oh, definitely. They're trying to polarize public opinion across a range of issues, usually using the scapego tactic. Everything that's possibly wrong, even if it's actually not wrong or it's better than it used to be, is the fault of Democratic governance with a small D and a big D. And we have no choice except to throw out these progressives or Democrats who are ruining everything and replace them with people who were approved of by tech. We saw that with the LA fires, where it became a story framed around issues of DEI

Starting point is 00:44:09 or Democratic incompetence or water supplies that have nothing to do with the water in LA. They just kind of flex their muscle there and showed how they'll get on TV and say that anything is about anything, and that'll get covered. That'll get repeated, whereas you didn't have Democrats on TV saying,

Starting point is 00:44:25 this is climate change and this is going to get worse, and here's going to be our policy for dealing with it. Only the Republicans need to be framing these things. And I started covering this in San Francisco because I thought last year this was a local story. This network state cult is going to try to take over the city government of San Francisco, a very liberal, progressive city on the west coast and go from there. That was what Gary Tann of by combinator, who's a part of the network state idea said. If we can do it here, we can do it anywhere.

Starting point is 00:44:54 What happened was that the collapse of the Biden campaign, plus the ascension of J.D. Vance to the ticket opened up this opportunity to instead of experimenting in San Francisco, and I thought, hey, I'll write a series that warns everybody these guys are going to do to the country what they're doing to San Francisco. Instead, they accelerated, to use one of their favorite words, to the national level now. And now we're all in it. So I did not foresee this happening this quickly. I thought maybe four to ten years we're going to see these tech guys taking over federal government. And so that's very much what we're going to see, a constant polarization and scapegoating, who is the outgroup that everybody can be united against? And, you know, so-called wokeism, DEI, anything progressive, which they depict as something all Democrats believe in, has become the scapegoat target for them. So that's fascinating. They were, they were about to do the 10x investment. And then they were like, wait a second, we've got 100x that just showed up for us. Talk about that in terms of ants, because Elon Musk announced his he was going to do 45 million.

Starting point is 00:46:00 It turned out to be about $300 million that we know of, like directly supporting Trump's campaign right after Trump's assassination. But that was right when the Trump campaign knew that Vance was going to be the nominee. And was that basically like, was Vance essentially the signature? to these tech bros, whether it's, you know, Musk or the PayPal Mafia, the Sacks, all of these guys that, like, okay, Trump's bought into the plan now? Yeah, I think Vance sealed the deal, right? J.D. Vance is a creation largely of Peter Thiel.

Starting point is 00:46:49 At every step of the way, Peter Thiel has been there. Even when he wrote his book, it was while working for Peter Thiel in San Francisco, you know. Has he ever made professionally a... a dollar that wasn't from Peter Thiel money? I think he did like less than a year at a law firm in Ohio before he moved out to California. But he has been on the payroll for a very long time. Teal got him elected to the Senate and Teal got him on the ticket because remember, J.D. Vance had compared Donald Trump to America's Hitler, called him all kinds of names.

Starting point is 00:47:19 And he had to repair that damage. And he did. So when you can get a guy who called you Hitler on your ticket, something big has happened there. And that's when we saw this whole convergence. All the tech guys realized, again, here's 100x opportunity to absolutely maximize and accelerate and take over the country instead of San Francisco. In fact, Gary Tan, who was here trying to mastermind this takeover recently said, I'm going to spend less time on local politics.

Starting point is 00:47:44 I'm going to Washington to focus on things there. And this is a guy who claims to be a Democrat, by the way. And, you know, all Democrats are rushing to Washington to be a part of the exciting new era there, of course. But, yeah, I think that's kind of, that's my view on. what happened is that they realized there was an opportunity to scale it much more quickly. And that explains the rush nature of it. But again, this isn't all happening. This is all happening so quickly that, I mean, I think people thought, well, how could they have planned it if it's all happening so quickly?

Starting point is 00:48:14 But I just think that they move very, very fast. I think they're moving at the speed of AI and, in fact, trying to feed everything through AI. And I think they just made a deal and they're running with it right now. But that's Silicon Valley to move fast and break things. So they're just taking that model to the U.S. government. Move fast and break America. Yep. Let's talk a little bit about Trump's role because, you know, there was this idea, which I never bought.

Starting point is 00:48:39 I mean, you don't show up with $300 million. Donald Trump, there was a lot of, like, people saying that he's going to be, his ego is going to be hurt by Elon Musk. He's going to have a problem with Elon Musk running things. But I think the central sort of. incentive structure that Donald Trump responds to is power and money and protection. And Elon Musk shows up. And this is a guy who's not only paid for Trump to be in office, but is now essentially the paid enforcer for everyone in, you know, Trump has basically arranged now.

Starting point is 00:49:15 And I think this was like a Russell Vote project from the project 2025. I'm not going to have anybody in office, anybody who's working in my campaign. cabinet who's going to challenge me. And we're going to take out all the inspector generals. We're just going to have no friction there. And Musk is the guy who's in charge of making sure there's no friction in the Senate and the House. And he doesn't have to show up there. He just basically says, I'm bankrolling anybody who wants to run against any of these people, don't do what we say. Give me your sense of like what, where Trump is in all this. Is he now just the chairman of the board and just sitting back and going like, this is great?

Starting point is 00:49:54 I can golf more. That's the, I think, the basic idea, right? He's been paid off in his meme coin money. I'm sure there are many more scams being planned that will keep his pockets well-lined with money through various tech ventures, enriching his family. This is a general autocratic model. The problem these guys have is that there is a cult of Trump that is very powerful. But Trump is 78 years old.

Starting point is 00:50:18 He won't be around forever. How do you build what comes after Trump? I'm not sure that J.D. Vance has that charisma. hold pretty low. And so they have to find a way to keep Trump happy because he's right now the power that they have. If Trump were to turn on them, it would be catastrophic. He still does have the power to get rid of them to some degree, though who knows now what leverage they might have given, you know, how much money he's suddenly made off of TechVentures. But I think he's mostly the figurehead right now until something happens that forces Musk out of government. And even then,

Starting point is 00:50:50 he can still exert a lot of control behind the scenes. What's surprising to me is that he insists on being in front of the camera right now. That's a very dangerous, you know, people can burn out on you pretty fast. The pendulum tends to swing. People don't want what they wanted a few months ago or a few weeks ago. So I think right now we're in a situation where Trump is wholly a wholly captured subsidiary of these Silicon Valley guys, whether you want to call them the network state or something else. It's all the same idea, tech authoritarianism.

Starting point is 00:51:18 And so basically they acquired MAGA. And that's what Bannon is complaining about. These guys think they bought the MAGA movement. And now Musk is going to be the head of it. But there are some pretty serious complications there, one of them being that Musk is foreign-born. Though I wouldn't be surprised to see some sycophantic Republican introducing a bill to allow foreign-born billionaires to run for president someday. I mean, we haven't seen anything yet in terms of what they're going to try. Well, there's another problem that Musk has, and that is a total lack of charisma.

Starting point is 00:51:47 I mean, and I'm not being, you know, sort of like, glib with this. Like, you know, if you wanted to go back, you often have authoritarian. I'm trying to say this in a way that doesn't seem to sort of direct comparison. But you have authoritarian who match up with business interests. These authoritarians will often either have the plan themselves and the electoral, the sort of like charismatic appeal. Or they could outsource it like Trump has in many. aspects, either to the Heritage Foundation or to, you know, the reboot sort of like coalition, as it were. But they don't have anybody for that charisma.

Starting point is 00:52:34 Like, you know, and they've been operating and they got two years. And then, you know, maybe the Democrats take the House. But none of this seems to be playing out on the legislative field for the most part. what do they do, you know, in three years or four years, assuming Trump doesn't run again? Yeah, that's the problem they have to figure out. And I think, you know, I'm not very religious myself, but it does seem like the good Lord has taken away the tongues of these men. Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, they can't give a speech to save their lives. And it's a big advantage we have.

Starting point is 00:53:16 So we need the people who are powerful speakers on the democratic side of the spectrum to get out there and frame this and to challenge these people. You can't put Peter Terrell Elon Musk on the stage with an articulate and smart person. They'll look like they'll melt. They can't speak. And so the way they express their power in other dangerous ways. And I think that's a great advantage that we have right now. This is largely right now communications war about defining for people what is happening and what they can do about it. We still have a lot of power.

Starting point is 00:53:44 Their plan depends on people being complacent and people not realizing what's going on until the last minute. And we do have to build toward 2026. These guys can be defeated. They want us to feel like they can't. They want us to feel like they're all powerful. But they're very vulnerable right now. And you have to remember that there's a very serious thing to try to destroy the government of the United States of America. And there will be accountability one day. But only if we wake up and start fighting it right now. I've heard from some people in the Democratic establishment, some big donors who were like, is not the time to do this. And I'm like, absolutely wrong. There is, time actually was last year. We should have had a plan for this.

Starting point is 00:54:23 You know, you have to have a plan for losing, even at a low-level campaign. That's what I want to ask you. I mean, there's a perfect segue into that. One, I, like, it's one thing, okay, our plan to, to deal with this is to have Kamaharis win. Then, like, on November 8th, you're like, okay, we got three months. it doesn't feel like it feels like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer woke up yesterday

Starting point is 00:54:50 and we're like, wait, what's going on? And I mean, you are in Democratic politics. You worked, you know, the establishment Democrats. What is your assessment of the way that they've been responding? Because I looked at a speech from Hakeem Jeffries yesterday when he was talking, you know, saying, we don't have any leverage and ostensibly he's talking about reconciliation.

Starting point is 00:55:14 And I'm like, this is a speech that could have been given. This is a press conference that could have been given at literally any other time when Democrats didn't have the how. Like, how is what's going on now not fundamentally unique and deserving of a different response? Democrats don't understand the role of morality in politics. What we have right now is moral leverage. our government is under attack, our Constitution is under attack, these institutions, sacred institutions that every American, whether you're on the right or the left, has been taught are important, our foundational to who we are as a people, are being destroyed. And you have to talk about it in that way.

Starting point is 00:55:57 And instead, I think what's happening is you've got all these Democrats chasing that billionaire tech money. Hey, we'll make a deal. Hey, we'll give you what you want. We'll just not do it in that way. And I think what we're seeing is that Silicon Valley and capitalism in general are very open to authoritarianism if it's in their best interests. You know, where are all the corporate leaders standing up to say this is wrong, to say we're not going to go along with this? Everyone is just complying. And so we're learning a lot right now about the role of billionaires in our society, about the cowardice of our establishment leaders and corporations. And I think that in my optimistic hope is that we'll come out of this era understanding the dangers that were created when we allow these situations to get out of conunders. control and to challenge the very moral foundations of our entire country, our entire reason for being.

Starting point is 00:56:43 And I think that unless we seize that moral high ground and start talking directly about the morality of it, we're going to lose. And I think there's time to change that reality. But again, this idea of begging crypto and other people to do the right thing, they're not going to do the right thing. They think this is the right thing. And we have to tell people that's what they believe because if they start getting unpopular, if there is unrest, if the polls show a massive dramatic shift, these guys are going to get scared. Remember, these billionaires, these tech companies, these corporations, they're cowards. They're going to shift to where the population shifts. We have to shift the population and rapidly. Is that where you see their vulnerability?

Starting point is 00:57:23 Is that there is a populist, an economic populist resent that can be flamed? Yeah, Americans deciding they don't want to live under this corporate dictatorship, that they're not ready for the Constitution and democracy to end because of one election. Right? I think that, but I think people aren't telling anybody that instead they see their leaders meeting with Silicon Valley guys saying everything's going to be okay. We're going to find a way to reconcile and kind of go along with most of it. And what you have here is the Overton window being shifted all the way to the extremist authoritarian right.

Starting point is 00:58:01 and the Democratic Party is going to be what, what the centrist Republicans were a few years ago? You know, like, what's the political theory here? And I think a lot of these guys are maybe scared, these leaders. I saw someone saying they're getting death threats, et cetera. But if you're not willing to die for your country, don't put your hand up and take that oath. You know, that's supposed to mean something. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and Altman, Sam Altman, went on TV.

Starting point is 00:58:29 I guess it was a few hours ago and was making fun of Elon. Elon Musk because you know what, he's mad, but he's not getting in on the looting of the federal government. That's what he wants. And he's not in the in crowd because they hate each other. But and I wonder if that's who Hakeem Jeffries was meeting with and speaking to, by the way. But like, you've talked a little bit about crypto and its role in this kind of anarcho-capitalist tech vision. Crypto was supposed to be outside of fiat currency. That was its initial selling point, but a lot of these guys got in super early and hold a ton of cryptocurrency. There's discussions about putting our payment system on the blockchain.

Starting point is 00:59:08 Like, what does crypto mean in this context? And what are some of the potential outcomes that could be very terrifying if they actually get their way and incorporate crypto and this kind of speculation into our government? Definitely. Crypto is about money and money is about power. And remember, their goal is to control. the centers of power and information, government, police forces, media, academia, religion, and money.

Starting point is 00:59:34 And their stated goal is to replace existing institutions and things with parallel versions, new versions that serve the interests of these tech guys. And so I think a key part of this whole plan is to replace the dollar's power in the world with the power of crypto, in particular, Bitcoin. Belazi Shrinivasan, a former Andresen employee in Teal, associate, a guy who Musk regularly interacts with on Twitter, has been very explicit about this. It's about going to a Bitcoin standard, which would make all of these guys fabulously wealthy and put them in control of a great deal of monetary policy.

Starting point is 01:00:14 And so I think, you know, Doge says it best, you coupling the destruction of government with a crypto coin that has gained a lot because of Musk's antics. That's kind of in a way, a perfect expression of what's going on here. here. And I think we're going to see non-stop crypto scams and crypto moves. AI and crypto are the two main technologies by which these guys see the future being controlled. And so we're going to see this massive rush to control AI, to control crypto. And if you can combine those in the American government somehow, then you also have one of the most powerful governments in the world at the helm of that experiment. And you know, I don't have every particular detail there. There's some good writing coming out

Starting point is 01:00:55 from other writers. I posted an essay today on the Nerd Reich by a writer going into what all of the AI stuff means. And it's an AI coup, is what Eric Salvaggio calls it. So there are other people who are really tuning into some of these details, and I think it's great. But that's what it's about. It's about controlling the technologies that will allow them to have more wealth and more power. And crypto is at the heart of this? Crypto spent a lot of money in these elections to take out Democrats or to put in place crypto-friendly Democrats. Any politician taking money for crypto or speaking well of crypto is one of the bad guys, just to be clear, I think, at this day and age. Agreed. All right. Lastly, and thank you for indulging us for so long, but this is really fascinating,

Starting point is 01:01:40 I think very important stuff. When you're looking out 30, 60, 90 days, you know, maybe even 180 days. Like where, what's, what's next? What's the next phase? It feels like, I mean, I have no doubt that Musk's people still have access to all this stuff. It's just a question of whether their access is going to be illicit after agreed upon as being illicit. Like, at this point, it's illicit. We don't know what's going to happen at one point when they keep ignoring what judges are telling them to do and not do.

Starting point is 01:02:26 We're going to get to that inflection point. What do you anticipate happening at that inflection point? And then what happens after that, regardless of how that sort of like one source of friction plays out? because I'm convinced that whatever reason I don't have trust that the 20 year old name Big Balls or whatever the guy's name is has been like, okay, I won't put some type of backdoor tunnel into this system or whatever it is. I mean, I just find it hard to believe they're like, well, that would be a bridge too far to go. But assuming, like, we have what society has agreed is illicit in what they can do and then what they're going to do. And one implicates the other. but what do you anticipate over the sort of the near to midterm?

Starting point is 01:03:18 Well, they're going to go one by one seizing power and destroying different institutions of government. I think the major thing we're going to see emerge, and we've seen this a bit already with the USAID conversation, is the arising of these new conspiracy theories and false narratives based on, oh, look what we discovered was actually happening behind the scenes. A whole information stream designed to use the government to undermine people's faith in the, the government and to say the government has been doing all these bad secret things, maybe even stealing elections, and now we're going to put a stop to that. So I think you're going to see them use whatever power they have to start defining narratives, like the Twitter files, right? Ostensibly based on the information we now have access to, and it's going to just pump all

Starting point is 01:04:02 of these right-wing anti-government memes into the mainstream. And so I think that's the main thing to look out for. The creation of unreality and making sure that people can't discern fact from fiction is very crucial to any fascist or authoritarian regime. And so they're going to turn the jets on for that. There's going to be a direct stream from the conspiracy theorist in our federal government to all of their media organs, and people are not going to know what to believe. And they're going to think that, wow, something really bad was happening. And it's good that we have this dictatorship in place to clean this all up. That's what they're going for, in my opinion, based on my observation of them so for. Lavo Jado, I guess, on some level.

Starting point is 01:04:42 Yeah. Any, any? No, no, I mean, it's pretty bleak, but, Gil, your work is awesome. People really should check you out on ghost. We'll put a link to, we will put it. The third. The nerd Reich. There we'll put a link to Nerdrike at Majority.fm. And in the podcast and YouTube description, Gil would love to check in with you. in a couple of months to see.

Starting point is 01:05:12 I mean, if it's going to be allowed six months from now, I'd love to check back in with you. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you. This is amazing. I wasn't going to play it's forgotten about it. I saw at one point, and then I just, like, I think this happened during my vacation,

Starting point is 01:05:29 so I didn't pay that much attention to it. I don't remember. And then Larry David wrote what I thought was actually a pretty funny piece in the New York Times. about his dinner with Hitler, as if he was back in the 30s. Now, look, well, let's listen to Bill Maher first before we talk about it. I think he responded to now, the Larry David thing happened. Yeah, we should give just a little bit of a timeline for people who aren't caught up on this.

Starting point is 01:06:01 So Bill Maher had dinner with Trump, then talked about it on his show, like for, I guess, 15 minutes or something like that, about how he's actually. pretty funny behind the scenes. It's a really nice guy. And so then Larry David takes out an opinion piece in the New York Times called My Dinner with Adolf. Can I just read the first couple of lines? Yes. Imagine my surprise when in the spring of 1939 a letter arrived at my house. Oh, wait, wait. Let's do this afterwards, okay? Okay. Okay. Because first we're going to do what Bill Maher did in announcing that he had done this. Right. And understand the tremendous whitewashing that's going on here of Donald Trump. Let's play this first. Okay. The guy I met is not the person who the night before the dinner shit tweeted a bunch of nasty crap about how he thought this dinner was a bad idea and what a deranged asshole I was.

Starting point is 01:06:57 I read it and thought, oh, what a lovely way to welcome someone to your house. But when I got there, that guy wasn't living there. Now, does Trump want respect? Of course, who doesn't? My friend said to me, what are you going to wear to the White House? I said, I don't know, but I'm not going to dress like Zelensky. I'll tell you that. Pause for one second.

Starting point is 01:07:28 Here's the thing, and this is sort of inside baseball. But back in the day, I did a lot of live sitcom tapings. I've been to a lot of shows like Bill Maher. Yeah. As an audience member, sometimes I've worked. I used to do little bits on Conan. That first person you hear laughing works on the show. And their job is to juice the laugh from the live audience

Starting point is 01:07:53 because they don't want to use canned things. It's like my job here. And if you, exactly. But if you hear it, like, you do it well. This guy's going, ah! Like, it's just like, almost like it's, it's probably, it could even be one of the writers just trying to push this stuff. But go back and listen.

Starting point is 01:08:10 Just listen how forced the laughter is on this. This is a lens. I mean, it's just so, all right, but then go ahead. I know this is petty. What are you going to wear to the White House? I said, I don't know, but I'm not going to dress like Zelensky. I'll tell you that. Just for starters, he laughs.

Starting point is 01:08:33 I'd never seen him laugh in public, but he does, including it himself. And it's not fake. Believe me, as a comedian of 40 years, I know a fake laugh when I hear it. Example, in the Oval Office, he was showing me the portraits of presidents, and he pointed to Reagan and said, in all seriousness, you know the best thing about him, his hair. I said, well, there was also that whole bringing down communism thing, waiting for the button next to the diet Coke button to get pushed and I go through the trap door. But no, he laughed, he got it. I said to him at one point, Mr. President, you know the dog? That's unusual in the White House.

Starting point is 01:09:27 He said, well, a lot of the presidents, they had a dog for political reasons. I said, no, people love dogs. That's what that is. Oh, yeah. Okay. that's true at one point we were walking through his amazing tour we don't even hear about this because here's the thing who gives a shit he is on this is a political show yeah i mean come on sam he's speaking his truth he i know he's speaking his truth but the fact of the matter is is that all he's

Starting point is 01:10:09 doing is saying that don't pay attention there is another side to don't Donald Trump, you don't know. And I say, who gives a shit? Because he's the president of the United States. What's relevant to people is what he's doing. Do you think, like, Mahmood Khalil cares that there's another softer side? He's a real human, Donald Trump. He laughs.

Starting point is 01:10:38 He laughs. Or whether it's Palestinians in Gaza, whether it's, or it's, or, or it's, or, or, you're whether it's a scientist who's lost their jobs, whether it's, I mean, go across the entire board. Like, this is specifically for his little project of pretending like, don't get that far engaged in politics. I'm okay, you're okay. Right. And all those liberals that I've grown to detest because I'm an old rich guy, and this is kind of the standard trajectory. They have Trump derangement syndrome.

Starting point is 01:11:19 Don't you know, he's actually a really nice guy. It's like, it is the equivalent of the Hitler love dogs thing. And that's why that's what Larry was obviously riffing off of it seems like. Yeah, let's read some of this, of this Larry David piece, because this is the point. It doesn't matter if Donald Trump is actually better, you know, up close. because, I mean, who cares? Who cares?

Starting point is 01:11:46 It's completely irrelevant. It's also irrelevant if he even believes in his ideology, right? Like, Donald Trump could be a secret, liberal, woke, social justice warrior behind the scenes. Doesn't matter. What matters is what he says in public and his actions as president. I don't care about his as a person. Bill, I want to show you something. Look, underneath my shirt, I wear a Che Guevara T-shirt.

Starting point is 01:12:11 Yeah. Isn't that impressive? Right. Okay, shh, don't tell anybody. Yeah. And that would be irrelevant because it's all about his actions. But what Larry does so well in this in this Times thing is nailing just the level of self involvement, the level of narcissism of thinking that this is something that you should say publicly. And two, like, you should, he doesn't even make an attempt, uh, uh, Bill Maher does to claim that he challenged Trump in any way. I mean, listen, if Bill Maher wants to go to dinner as a comedian and have dinner with Trump,

Starting point is 01:12:53 you know, that's his business. I could still think he's a piece of garbage, but who cares? The bottom line is he's going out there and he is whitewashing Trump. There was a reason why people had a problem with Jimmy Fallon mushing Donald Trump's hair. because you are humanizing a person whose power is greater than any other human on the planet. And certainly, at this time, greater than any other human on the planet, or maybe there's a handful of others, to immiserate people and to create and to destroy structures that are crucial to feeding people, making people's lives better, etc., etc.

Starting point is 01:13:40 Whether he's got a sense of humor or he laughs is wholly irrelevant and does nothing but try and make people who are critical of what Trump is doing and what his administration is doing make them seem like they're the ones with a problem. But read this Larry David thing. Imagine my surprise when in the spring of 1930,

Starting point is 01:14:05 a letter arrived at my house inviting me to dinner at the old chancellery with the world's most reviled man, Adolf Hitler. I had been a vocal critic of his on the radio from the beginning, pretty much predicting everything he was going to do on the road to dictatorship. No one I know encouraged me to go. He's Hitler. He's a monster. But eventually I concluded that hate gets us nowhere. I knew I couldn't change his views, but we need to talk to the other side, even if it has invaded and annexed other countries and committed unspeakable crimes against humanity. Two weeks later, I found myself on the front steps at the old chancellery and was led into an opulent living room where a few of the furors most vocal supporters had gathered, Himmler, Goring, Lenny, Riphon Stahl, and the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII. We talked about some of the most beautiful art on the walls that had been taken from the homes of Jews. But our conversation ended abruptly when we heard footsteps coming down the hallway.

Starting point is 01:14:58 Everyone stiffened as Hitler entered the room. He was wearing a tan suit with a swathes. arm band and gave me an enthusiastic greeting that caught me off guard. Frankly, it was a warmer greeting than I normally get from my parents. That was my favorite one, just like the narcissism of that. And it was accompanied by a slap on my back. I found the whole thing quite disarming. I joked that I was surprised to see him in a tan suit because if he wore that out, it would be perceived as unfur-like. That amused him to no end, and I realized I'd never seen him laugh before. Suddenly, he seemed so human. here I was prepared to meet Hitler the one I had seen and heard the public Hitler but this private Hitler was a completely different animal and oddly enough this one seemed more authentic like this was the real Hitler the whole thing had my head spinning I'm the guy who's impressed that someone seems more authentic in person than they do like at a Nazi race people get the idea and uh Dave from Jamaica did sank right that um did you write that uh okay uh

Starting point is 01:16:01 And then, I like this when Hitler's joking around. Goring immediately grabbed a slice of pumpernickel, whereupon Hitler turned to me, gave me an eye roll, then whispered, watch, it'll be done with his entire meal before you've taken two bites. That one really got me. Goring, with his mouthful, asked what was so funny, and Hitler said, I was just telling him about that time.

Starting point is 01:16:22 My dog had diary at the Reichstag. Goring remembered. How can he forget? He loved that story, especially the part where Hitler shot the dog before it got back into the car. And then a beaming Hitler said, hey, if I can kill Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals,

Starting point is 01:16:38 I can certainly kill a dog. That perhaps got the biggest laugh of the night, and believe me, there were plenty. And so, Marry did it, I encourage me, we'll link to it. It's very funny. And then Bill Maher, apparently, takes offense to this.

Starting point is 01:16:58 It hurt his feelings. Here he is. sitting on what's the name of the show? It's actually Pierce Morgan's. Pierce Morgan's show. But filmed on Club Random premises. Oh, I thought this is, what's it called, Alcoholic Weekly? Sorry, uh, joke. Bill.

Starting point is 01:17:16 Oh, it's on Pierce's? Oh, okay, got you. They're just in the club random. Okay, so, oh, wow. I mean, does Bill leave the complex? I don't think so, but this set is, uh, bizarre and weird looking, but anyway. Larry David, Because you're friends, aren't you?

Starting point is 01:17:33 Were you friends? Of course. I mean, this wasn't my favorite moment of our friendship. But, you know, look, I don't want to get too much into that. But I think the minute you played the Hitler Corrine, you've lost the argument. And also, I must say, you know, come on, man, Hitler, Nazis, nobody has been harder about an on and more prescient, I must say,

Starting point is 01:18:00 about Donald Trump than me. I don't need to be lectured on. Oh, really? It is just the fact that I met him in person didn't change that. And the fact that I reported honestly is not a sin either. But, you know, to use the Hitler thing, first of all, I just think it's kind of insulting to six million dead Jews. You know, like, that should kind of be. You got to be effing kidding me.

Starting point is 01:18:30 Me, he's now policing, comedy, use of Hitler. Why don't you bring Mel Brooks over? Yeah. Ask him about springtime for Hitler. Yeah. Why don't you bring over Woody L? Why don't you bring over every Jewish comedian who has plowed the road for you to even have like any semblance of a career and ask them like, eh, you know, you're joking about

Starting point is 01:18:56 Hitler. I don't know if that's, that doesn't seem appropriate. Do you think you're kidding me? Are you kidding? Like, how. dare he. Yeah, his entire career has been politically incorrect.

Starting point is 01:19:09 We can't believe. And now he's saying this. This is the one of the most, and I've been doing this for 20 years, the one of the most hypocritical, disingenuous. Like, I can't believe that no one in his life said, Bill,

Starting point is 01:19:27 wait a second. You shouldn't say that. But that's the problem. Who is in his life? Like, he doesn't have a family. There you go. It is. I mean, honestly, there must be nobody.

Starting point is 01:19:39 Like, Bill, do you really want to criticize Larry David for a satirical piece bringing up Hitler? Yeah, Bill, are you sure you maybe just didn't get a big rush off your first socialization in four years when you went to Mar-a-Lago? Are you sure it was Trump? And this is the thing, too, like, aside from that being just, I mean, so delicious and frankly nutritious that I feel like someone living on a desert island could live for years. off of just how incredibly like the amount of hutspah on that I think honestly could could

Starting point is 01:20:11 and to say that to Larry too I mean like Larry David is a Jewish man this is absurd it's just such a disgrace to make a joke about the Hitler to the Jews the Hitler card like he just played the Hitler card in an incredible way but to say that you honestly reported like let If you really want to honestly report, I think there are probably some things in Bill Maher's personal life that he could honestly report on that would be genuinely honest. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that escapades that Bill Maher's had. Oh, certainly. Is he reporting now on his personal trips to eat out with people? He should really broaden that.

Starting point is 01:20:58 There's probably a lot of interesting personal story reporting that he could do. do. There's like so much I would love to know about being a 21-year-old girl. I mean, I am sure there's a lot of really interesting, but he was just, is that all he was doing? We should go back. People, we cover this on the Thursday, maybe like six or so months ago, people should go back and watch our coverage of him bringing on a bunch of children onto the club random set and asking them about pornography and Stormy Daniels. Oh, I think he has even more interesting stories. that they're not on camera uh but since he's just going to do that's his job now honestly

Starting point is 01:21:38 report his experiences i mean give me a break take some responsibility for the garbage that you um spew on everybody that is um that is really impressive he's clutching his pearls now i thought the left wanted to make a comedy illegal comedy's legal now isn't it i thought so mad say the r word again apparently under Trump. That is amazing. And that's what comedy is. I can't make fun of anything. I'm sure, yes.

Starting point is 01:22:11 Pace Lowell, why wasn't Bill Maher outraged about the soup Nazi episode? Oh, I'm sure he was. I'm sure he really, really was. I seem to remember that. Yes, I'm politically incorrect, where he stopped the show and said,

Starting point is 01:22:26 I can't believe. How dare Larry David and Seinfeld say this about six million Jews. Yeah. Maybe if Larry had said that the Nazis were courageous, that would have been okay with Bill Maher. The chances, and I will, I don't want to go too far on a limb here, but the chances that Bill Maher has never used the word Nazi

Starting point is 01:22:52 to describe someone less than a Nazi, I would put somewhere around zero. maybe zero somewhere between zero and zero i would say but the bottom line is is that yes the hitler and the trump is not hitler but there is this literary technique where people use analogies and sometimes what they'll do is they'll use the most extreme version of something to show how actually outrageous it is. Like, that is a often used technique. In fact, even the jokes that he's telling,

Starting point is 01:23:48 UK had fallen sitcoms about Nazis. Yes. I remember a sitcom about Hitler being in the next door neighbor. I can't remember. It was like, Heil Honey, I'm Home. I think it was called. Really? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:24:02 Something like that. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's just absurd. it's just absurd I mean the three stooges I mean this goes back decades decades decades

Starting point is 01:24:14 unbelievable his feelings were hurt his feelings were hurt someone held me to account for what I did on my show the hundreds of thousands of dollars I made that night don't feel as comfortable as they did before

Starting point is 01:24:39 amazing that is just the idea that he's complaining about. Last year he complained, he compared folks who I believe may have vandalized, or there was some protests about the Brooklyn Museum, and he compared them to Nazis. Oh, my God. Says the Nazis used the yellow triangle,

Starting point is 01:25:07 so I guess they just changed their colors and the length. Oh, my God. Is that true? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Ramona Frankenstein, Sam, your criticism, Bill Maher, is making me think you're an anti-Semite.

Starting point is 01:25:25 being so brave, sticking up for defure, and you're teasing him. Bill Maher, I'm only a anti-Semitic towards Bill Ma for half of him. The other is my anti-Catholic, Catholic streak. I'm torn. That is just fascinating that he could say that. That is just fascinating. Can we bookmark that? Can we save that?

Starting point is 01:25:50 I got that in the hard drive. For the 5,000 other times in the future that he's going to, unbelievable. People at the Brooklyn Library are. are Nazis, but Larry's beyond the pale. Beyond the pale. The pro-Palestine protesters, yep. Amazing.

Starting point is 01:26:14 Hell, honey, I'm home. Someone just sent the theme. I mean, it was a funny show. Like, their next door, I think it was like the next door neighbor was Hitler. Like an undercover Nazi sort of thing. I don't think he, I think it was like in uniform. It was from like the 90s, and I think I saw like one or two episodes. It was, I don't think it was on for very long.

Starting point is 01:26:39 I just saw a Daily Beast headline from 2016 that says, uh, Bill Ma compares Donald Trump's children to Nazis. Put it up on. Will you go put that up? Oh my god, really is beyond the pale. I, I'm worried about seeing that. You're doing that we're doing the Hitler thing now. Hold on you save this actually. Let's hear somebody else whine about it. Uh, let's go to, uh, clip number nine. Let's go to clump, uh, clip number nine. Let's go to clump, clip number nine. Look, folks, you should really, it is wrong for comedians to be shut down when they,

Starting point is 01:27:25 if you can't make fun of people who have mental challenges and use the R word and you can't make fun of trans people, then America, it dies in the darkness. But to, for a comedian to use Hitler is a joke. Oh my God. Oh, let's watch this. My biggest issue is critics of Trump's need to come up with new material. Like the Hitler thing is getting a little played out, to be honest with you. Like that's such a tired, you know, parallel to draw.

Starting point is 01:28:00 And yeah, he was comparing Trump to Hitler. I'm not stupid. Like, if you read the piece, that's clearly what he's doing here. Yeah. I mean, even if it's an analogy, it's an analogy to Hitler. Yes. And he's less criticizing Trump than he is criticizing Bill Maher for talking to Hitler, the equivalent of Hitler. But nevertheless, it is a Hitler reference. There's no question about that.

Starting point is 01:28:20 So, I mean, Larry David is a super smart guy. So don't insult our intelligence. And don't be patronizing. If you're going to say something, say it. Right. And so, um, look, I. Oh, pause it. Wait, we say it.

Starting point is 01:28:31 Like, was it? Do these guys think that it was like unclear what Larry David was saying? He's trying to be sneaky with the my dinner with Adolf. piece in the New York Times. That was a little subtle. That was a little subtle for my taste. I mean, Larry David is satirizing someone in his comedy community,

Starting point is 01:28:54 but it seems a little, what was he trying to get at here? I mean, honestly. Just say what you mean, Larry. Can't you write a comedy piece that is not so like literary Comedy E. Here's the problem I had with the

Starting point is 01:29:13 Larry David piece. It seemed too ironic. You know what I mean? Right. Like, just come out. And perhaps he was using Hitler an example of one of the most evil people to ever live as an exaggeration for emphasis because it was a

Starting point is 01:29:29 piece of satire. Also, Musk is doing Nazi sleut. Did they have that up inside of it? Like, why is that added by whoever clipped this? I think it's Oh, shout out. I think it's Hank. Hank clip this. So Hank must have added it. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Starting point is 01:29:46 Yeah. Tizing Bill Maher for talking to Hitler, the equivalent of Hitler. But nevertheless, it is a Hitler reference. There's no question about that. So I mean, Larry is a super smart guy. So don't insult our intelligence. I'm sorry. It's a Hitler reference. The title has Hitler in it. Yeah. Well, that's the evidence number one I would give that it's the code. It's a secret code. And it's like he's in. insulting our intelligence by

Starting point is 01:30:11 by what by doing it in comedy you know listen folks when you're going to do satire one of the things that you learn very quickly yeah is you put an asterisk like at the top and say

Starting point is 01:30:26 incidentally this piece is a satirical knock right on bill mar now also understand caveat parenthetical I'm exaggerating a little bit for effect. That will give it a comedic, what we call flair. Right. Like a comedic jeunise et cetera. And then another parenthesis, jeanique cro is like, I don't like a French way of

Starting point is 01:30:55 saying like a pizzazz or something I don't know what. Right. Honestly, maybe Jane's just still smarting from the fact that Francesca Furentini put together that video with Curb Your Enthusiasm music in the background on the gulag. right where Jank was laughing at the idea that there would be concentration camps for immigrants and Francesca put that curb music behind it which was the reason that she was banned

Starting point is 01:31:19 from TYT and all TYT shows he seems to maybe have a bit of a Larry David problem so don't insult our indulgence and don't be patronizing if you're going to say something, say it right and so he said it

Starting point is 01:31:33 look I I just think that they're on the wrong track and the thing that I keep going back Hey, here. Wait a second. Like the left, like Larry David. You know what this sounds like to me? Someone's desperately trying to get on to real time. That's what's going on here. I guarantee you. You can go and look, and I remember these conversations.

Starting point is 01:32:00 You can go back and look, and Jank was always very upset that Bill never invited him on the show. Okay, let's continue. Oh, I'm sure they're still pitching it. Yep. While they think they're on the moral high ground, folks like Larry David, oh, they're all Hitler, don't talk to Hitler, et cetera. I think that they're being deeply counterproductive because by not- I should also tell you, like, they're all Hitler. I think he's being specific about a person.

Starting point is 01:32:25 Yeah. And again, not drawing a one-to-one comparison saying Trump is exactly like Hitler, using a historical example to underscore the narcissism of Bill Maher's position. And I also have to say, like, the issue isn't that you went and had dinner with him and you talk, it was a personal deal. It's not like you're going out there and, and lobbying him to save, like, you know, to, you know, release prisoners or to stop the attack on Social Security. Like, what did Bill Maher lobby in his, like, conversation?

Starting point is 01:33:03 Like, oh, I'm the one who actually got Donald Trump to try. Carpaccio. I'm the one who, like, the reason why Donald Trump now, you know, likes Carpaccio is because I got him to try it. Like, you need, we need to talk to each other. And also what happened to the critique of like corporate media and access journalism? This is, Bill Maher is a member of the media. I mean, his show is on CNN on occasion. He delves into politics. He may not be a journalist. But he went to Donald Trump's, to have dinner with Donald Trump and seemingly just engaged in like flattery and chit chat as opposed to holding the most powerful person on the planet accountable. Isn't that just kind of basic journalistic ethics at

Starting point is 01:33:49 this point? Keep playing this. Or ethics as like a member of the media. Don't talk to Hitler, etc. I think that they're being deeply counterproductive because by not talking, by not trying to influence people, by not getting involved in the conversation, you're letting the, you know, in his analogy, you're letting the brown shirts, the SS, the Gestapo, run wild with no opposition. How does that help? At least Bill Maher went in there to try to help and you're trying to push him in the right direction.

Starting point is 01:34:18 What? What? Wait, but where's the evidence of that? Why didn't Bill Maher tell us about how he advocated for not cutting Medicaid? Or, like, what, I really think that it's the bad idea for you to be, you know, having your ice people. snatch people off the ground. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:34:40 Well, Brown shirts are right. Like, so Trump is the brown shirts, the brown shirt? This metaphor is. It's odd. Also,

Starting point is 01:34:46 Why isn't he being more explicit? What is he saying with brown shirt? I don't understand. I don't get it. But it's also bizarre because. What difference does the color of people's shirts make? I'm so confused. But you are using that and saying like,

Starting point is 01:35:01 oh, we have to defeat them. What you mean you have to defeat them by going to dinner with them and getting into their inner circle and flattering them. If only more people accepted Hitler's invitations, the brown shirts wouldn't have been able to run around doing all that. If only there was a historical example

Starting point is 01:35:15 of what appeasement did to the Nazis that we could basically draw on. I don't even think those people got dinner. How does that help? At least Bill and Marr went in there to try to help and you're trying to push it in the right direction. I don't see Larry David doing that.

Starting point is 01:35:31 So, you know, he's perfectly clever. But Larry, show me how you helped because now for the first time I see how Bill has helped. So I score one for Bill Maher and shine. Because normally I love Larry David and I take Larry David over Bill on almost any other issue. But on this, no, sorry, Larry. I think you're definitely wrong and you're being counterproductive and let the brother try to do some good in the world. Oh, what did he do?

Starting point is 01:35:59 He's building bridges. He's building bridges. Oh, that's right. I love to be stepping on rakes all the time telling everyone else they're on the wrong track. Oh, my God. Oh, here, put up, what did you find where Bill Maher in, yeah, Bill Maher compares Donald Trump's children to Nazis. Oh, oh, Bill, why would you have done that? There was so much, there was so much, we had such an opportunity.

Starting point is 01:36:30 Oh, and look at that. back in March, Louis C.K. Pentate Passionate's Screte against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump labeling Hitler and the American public to Germany in the 30s. And then HBO, Bill Maher took it upon himself to compare the Trump children to Nazis. Oh, Bill, you missed an opportunity to reach out to Trump. Maybe that's why Trump did all those things the first time around. Yeah. Go to that video. I just, that someone just sent us in the, in the I. Which I am? I just, I put it in the, uh, uh, uh, uh, in our DMs there to, oh, to executive producer. Wait, what? Uh, I put it into the wrong place. Who, who, uh, Russ's executive producer?

Starting point is 01:37:17 No, that, that, that should not be open, that one. Okay. Here, put it into, uh, uh, I have it, it's Geraldo. Roldo? Yeah, go to 619. I just put it in there. Go to 619.

Starting point is 01:37:32 This is apparently, uh, where I think, um, Roldo may have had, uh, here we go, 619 there. Are you there? Yep. Go ahead. Easy crime family. Spleasy and crime aren't necessarily the same thing. No, they're both.

Starting point is 01:37:49 You know Trump is my friend. I've known Trump for 40 years. I don't have to. I don't have to. I don't have to. He didn't. So did Trump. He didn't.

Starting point is 01:37:57 He didn't. He didn't remain my friend when I felt he had a certain moral lapse. Well, in my, in my family, my wife. wife agrees with you. She doesn't like his policies on so many things that I've already listed, so she just can't stand the guy. I'm different. I can separate the man who's always been gracious to me, always been nice to my family. You know, we were on celebrity print this together, together every day for six weeks. I've known him really through every shit. He's running the world now. What does that matter that he was nice to you at Thanksgiving?

Starting point is 01:38:31 I'm not trying to be a, I'm not trying to be an asshole to you. I'm at this. I'm at, I'm at, I'm, I'm, I'm You're a smart guy. This befuddles me. I looked up to you. You know, I mean, I don't think I could have said it any better than Bill Maher said it. Yes. Thank you, Bill. You said it.

Starting point is 01:38:48 That's what's insulting into intelligence. Exactly. I feel like that stuff is at all relevant. Exactly. You have a private relationship with them and keep it to yourself. Tell your friends when you're off TV. But TV is a communication medium. And you're blasting out to millions of people.

Starting point is 01:39:06 What you do has an impact. And if you deny that, you're the one. You're the one who's insulting people's intelligence. You're the one who's hiding the ball, essentially. And at one point, Bill Maher understood that until he gets invited to the White House. And then all of a sudden, comedians aren't allowed to talk about Nazis. I kid the Trump children. Don't you love them?

Starting point is 01:39:34 Perfect Ivanka and little Tiffany and Eric. John Jr. They're like the Von Trapp family. You know the sound of music instead of running away from the Nazis they joined them. There you go. How could you? Well, that sound signifies the end of the film portion of her program. Yeah, which never began. Never began. Damn. That is impressive. All of those people are impressive to me. the the the the the level of sick of like it's just the and it's all all of it for for the for the sick of their audience you know to build an audience like i think uh you know jank and anna must realize like oh we got to maintain this got to maintain this audience now i think at some point you should realize you're maybe um pissing into the wind on some of this stuff but what do i know well it's it it doesn't

Starting point is 01:40:39 seem like there is much of an audience for it, which is a bizarre, which is part of what's bizarre about this. Well, Bill Maher obviously has one. He just like, you know, that notion of like, hey, don't be crazy and go off and call Donald Trump a Nazi. He's a nice guy, you know, behind the scenes. That's all I'm saying. Unbelievable. Here's Bill Maher with his new rules about Thanksgiving. Does anybody really think that he spends it with family? I don't. What family? I think he has family. I don't think he does. I mean, honestly, but I don't think he would. I don't, I mean, like, I think he's probably like, his, uh, Thanksgiving is the probably the least Thanksgiving that one can imagine. And I'm, uh,

Starting point is 01:41:21 you know, I'm not a traditionalist in this. I mean, I was like, there's nobody close to him that's not on a payroll. I was going to say. Yeah, that sounds right. And also for a guy that likes to think of himself as the cool hippie smoking weed, he's got the new rules thing. I mean, he's so far up his own ass. Like, you don't come off as the chill guy anymore, buddy. And that's the thing is we're skipping about five minutes into this new rule where it's sort of again... It's a complicated rule. The hackney thing about like liberals, stop just turn, stop canceling your Republican friends from. No, going to no contact.

Starting point is 01:41:54 Wait, so this isn't a rerun. Okay. No, this is, you'll see. This is current to this. Long time and Coulter, uh, buddy. Literally, they're good friends. Thanksgiving for you. It's pretty hard to argue with.

Starting point is 01:42:06 And I know, I know the president of the United States called a woman piggy. this week and you're a better person than me because you hate it more than I do but I hate it too really as well as a thousand other things about the Trump administration I never stopped pointing out on this show but I'm an adult and in the real world there's some

Starting point is 01:42:27 people you just can't stop talking to like your spouse or partner after a bad fight tempting as that is like your can you pause I'm sorry but why are we comparing Donald Trump to people's spouses as if people didn't make the active choice to marry their spouse? Okay. And some people like actually voted against Donald Trump.

Starting point is 01:42:59 And even if you voted for him, you're not into marriage contract. This is about democracy. But I think what he wants no fault divorce for the country and Trump for the next four years. I think what he's saying is that you should not, you should not let a major. difference in politics impact your marriage. Incidentally, Bill Maher has never been married, has, by his own admission, probably rarely been in what he would call an age-appropriate relationship because he has no interest in maintaining it for any period of time.

Starting point is 01:43:35 So with him, the range of things that keeps him from actually being in a long-term relationship is endless. But if you decide that, hey, I don't feel comfortable with this person I'm living with anymore because they don't seem to care that families are being ripped apart, that we have a massive kleptocracy, that millions of people are going to be emiserated, then you're being too prissy. But if she's 30. But if she's 30 and she's thinking about getting to be like 35, you're like, whoa. Hold on. We didn't talk about the idea that you were going to age. We got to end this.

Starting point is 01:44:23 Like your family and like the president of the United States. This is so childish, so purely emotional, the people who got all butt hurt because I had dinner with them. You know, because he's Hitler. Talking about so-called butt-hurtness, which, speaking of childish, it is very sophisticated. term. But he had that dinner, what, like six months ago? This guy has been unable to let go of the fact that he was criticized for going to dinner with Donald Trump. And what he really has been unable to let go is that Larry David wrote a satirical piece that didn't even mention him, but was clearly about him. This has eaten away at Bill Maher in a way that, in a way that

Starting point is 01:45:15 that A, I think is unrivaled by anybody. Like, I'm sure there's some, like, maybe some feuds that have taken place in Like, you wish you, like, got under Marin's skin this much. Exactly. Even Mark Marin does not hold a grudge, like a resentment this long. But the idea that he can't help, but like what it's also indicative of, and I will tell you, if Bill Maher was married. Yes. Or if Bill Maher had a family, this would

Starting point is 01:45:45 to be so far from his consciousness. But because his life is so empty of any type of real relationships, the idea that Larry David mocked him months ago is still in the forefront of his mind. And he thinks it is with his audience, too. And he thinks that it's like an own to keep bringing it up. If he did have a partner in his life, they might be able to say, hey, honey. Let go. You know, it kind of looks like you're really obsessed with this when you bring this up ad nauseum over and over again.

Starting point is 01:46:18 It doesn't make you look as unbothered as you think it. I'm not mad about it. Let's just, I just have one more joke I want to make about it. It's not really a joke. And I just want more comments. It's a hilarious thing. It just fits here. That's all I'm saying.

Starting point is 01:46:31 It's Thanksgiving. Gutfeld might be like better conservative comedy than this because all he's doing is just soothing the grandpas that they're watching this who are mad that their woke granddaughter or something. or that their niece or that they have a non-binary, I don't know, son or something like that, is a little bit upset with them for supporting a fascist. I can't even say the N-word when I say grace anymore because of my granddaughter. I mean, God, like, it's like adult daycare in the form of television. It just soothes them ever so slightly. Go back a little bit, Pat.

Starting point is 01:47:05 Let's just get them to talk about the complete war crime. that was committed against him when people... Not even Drake is this heard about what Kendrick did. Like your dick of a boss, like your family, and like the president of the United States. This is so childish, so purely emotional. The people who got all butt hurt because I had dinner with them, you know, because he's Hitler. Except he's not. So unhelpful and dumb.

Starting point is 01:47:45 Trump is... president, Israel, and the Jews ever had. You know, every year I used to ask Larry David to do real time. And he'd always say, Bill, I can't. I'm not smart enough about politics to do your show. Yeah, I get that now. Incidentally, that woo-hoo? Brian can tell us.

Starting point is 01:48:09 Who was that? Woo-hoo! That was probably a line producer. Exactly. That's something I did my job. I'm the first guy that's clapping really. loud. That is, I will tell you, with 100% assuredness, a paid member of the staff of the program, trying to get everybody to hype it up. But let's go back and see how sort of like. But don't yet,

Starting point is 01:48:33 oh, I want to just look at Don in Brazil looking at her hands because she can't even look up at how embarrassing this whole endeavor is. Months later, he's still mad at Larry David. Now, just remember, this is in the context of saying, don't be mad with your family member. is because of politics. However, you should hold a grudge for months and months and months about a satirical piece about something that I did that people

Starting point is 01:48:58 felt was controversial. But listen to the, it's either the line producer or I would say like the second AD or it could have also been the guy they pay to do warm up. He could still be there

Starting point is 01:49:14 on the side going, you know, you know, Every year I used to ask Larry David to do real time, and he'd always say, Bill, I can't. I'm not smart enough about politics to do your show. Yeah, I get that now. Because there is no argument here. There's just the sugar rush that the no contact people get from never coming in second,

Starting point is 01:49:46 and I hunt hate Trump the most contest. Really? That's your strategy to go full high school and tell the guy with all the power he can't sit with you at the lunch table? To borrow a phrase familiar to HBO viewers, you are not serious people. Oh, my God. All right.

Starting point is 01:50:07 First off, this is so pathetic. When Larry David said, I'm not smart enough about politics to come on your show, you'll notice they have a wide range of people on the show. That's Larry David's way of saying, I think you're a fucking schmuck. Yeah. And I don't want to be seen on the show.

Starting point is 01:50:27 show i don't want to lend any uh any of my cash a to your show like i don't want want you to get one more viewer because i'm there that's what that means but he surely must understand that but also the metaphor of people are mad at me for going and having dinner with uh donald trump is like is like not allowing the most powerful person to sit with you at the cafeteria that's not a metaphor that is that it's like you're you're just harping on your dumb ass like dinner with trump and that you didn't get to enjoy it but had to feel somewhat some creeping doubt that hey wait a second did i do something really bad yeah that's what it is or or no handle it but that's not even that's giving him too much credit to think that he's grappling with the morality of it

Starting point is 01:51:23 he's just dealing with the shame because larry's rich as hell and is like one of most successful people in comedy and history and is way funnier than him. Do you know when that piece was written that he's doing this very timely monologue about my dinner with Adolf? I assume, oh, it was around March. It was the end of March. Yeah, yeah. It's been seven months.

Starting point is 01:51:43 Seven months. And he's telling the lecturing the audience to get over your differences with your relatives or your loved ones about Trump. And he's doing a monologue about a satirical piece about him from seven months ago. And I'll just say, like, we could actually, like, start a campaign to get Larry David to write, like, another piece. Like, that time, people wouldn't let me forget about my dinner with Hitler. Shut up for my dinner. Shut up about my dinner with Hitler.

Starting point is 01:52:11 This is the picture. He cropped out Kid Rock, which, and what's the guy, Dana White, which I also think is funny. But it's like, what are you going to do? Just leave the guy with all the power. It's like, what did you do? What did you get out of this meeting, Bill? He got a better understanding. which he's like now presenting to his audience like an adult, Matt.

Starting point is 01:52:32 I mean, that table, that table, like the whole monologue also started off with Bill Maher being critical of people that are critical of Trump saying, uh, quiet piggy to that female reporter. You know, I guess I'm just soothed when I see that photo because it looks just like a table of people that respect women. Yeah, that's hanging out. Dana White. Famously. Kid rock.

Starting point is 01:52:55 woman right on camera. Trump? Yeah, Trump knows how to respect. The one to respect. Yeah. But they are a bunch of pigs, though. I wonder

Starting point is 01:53:09 like who Bill Maher wouldn't go have dinner with. I bet you, I mean, I bet you it would be like, would he go have dinner with Nick Fuentes? Publicize that?

Starting point is 01:53:20 You think he would? He's taller. Well, he mentioned Fuentes. He meant, did mention Flintes with Lara Trump. He did. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he said that punk or whatever.

Starting point is 01:53:35 Your dad should really say more against him, and she's like, maybe he should. That's going to be a good litmus test going on board. Well, that's weird. Anybody who sits down with Frentez is going to be, like, got to be the most desperate people in media. That's what it's going to be for relevance, because that's eventually happening. His normalization is already in progress. And from what I can tell, it doesn't necessarily help everything.

Starting point is 01:53:57 thing from certain people who recently sat down with Nick Flentes and have their career sort of It doesn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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