WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 833 - Al Gore

Episode Date: July 30, 2017

Former Vice President Al Gore has been thinking about change his whole life, whether it was the way the changing media shaped our politics or the way a changing climate altered the way we live on this planet. He talks with Marc about our current political atmosphere, the Trump administration, his regrets about the 2000 election, the progress he sees on climate issues, and the continuing fight for the environment as depicted in the documentary An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is wt, my podcast. Thank you for listening. Today is exciting.

I talked to Vice President Al Gore here in the garage. He's got a new film that, well, you know what it is. It's an inconvenient sequel, Truth to Power. I watched it. I've seen both of them it's devastating uh but uh and informative and scary as my buddy dean uh calls it uh oh it's a an earth crumbler that would be the genre yes a documentary earth crumbler and i don't always know what to do with the information uh if information frightens me i tend to just isolate on that that that okay now i'm frightened and then i go to hopeless and then i go to uh

what's the point of anything you know why am i not eating more pie but it was great to talk to the vice president and uh i do i call him former vice president i think they always go by vice president for the rest of time i think that's the appropriate address but it was it was great to talk to him and it was a specific conversation for the most part about you know what what we can do what is happening and a little bit about him and some stuff about what's happening in today's political climate. He is definitely a pro. He's definitely the real deal. He might have been president. And I say that not like he almost was. He might have actually been president. But that's old news and he seems to have put it behind him. But's happening that'll be happening in just a few minutes me and uh al gore speaking all right so here here's a couple emails

i think i need to address and i do want to talk about uh having the president here a sitting president and a former vice president here a little bit but first I want to say, I want to read this. Subject line, and this is reasonable, and I'll cop to it. Subject line, my heart hurts when you call New Haven a shithole. Oh, Mr. Marin, for at least the third time you have degraded my chosen city, this time calling it a shithole. The first time was with Claire Danes. I can't remember the second time. And the third time was today with David Alan Greer. New Haven is a small, and sure, it's no New York City or Los Angeles,

but it is a great city with a lot to offer. I've lived here for 13 years on purpose. I even bought a house. It has changed enormously since Mr. Greer lived here and since your failed audition with Yale School of Drama, burn in parentheses. I know you kind of enjoyed your very brief visit in March. Great, great show at College Street Theater. We got a tiny shout out then, but you have returned to your insulting ways. Please come visit and discover our arts theater, eclectic

restaurants, our rivaled pizza, our compassionate and bright citizens, the hills, and sound views. Or don't visit. Just stop dissing us on air or on pod. Your number one New Haven fan, Alicia. Or Alicia. Look, you're right. It is a default. I do call New Haven a shithole sometimes.

And there's bigger shitholes in Connecticut, certainly. And there's no reason for me to be condescending or dismissive or call any place a shithole unless it's a real shithole. But New Haven isn't. I had a lovely time there the last time I was there. It does seem like it's thriving. The college brings a lot of culture to this city. It is pretty. And you're right. It was just a sort of reflex for me to do it. I don't know why I do it, but there was a time, and there probably still is a little bit of that left, just a little decay there,

but that's no reason to be condescending, and I apologize, and I apologize earnestly. I will not call New Haven a shithole from here on out. And if I do, look, you know, there are bigger problems in the world. All right, one more email here. I like hearing this kind of stuff because it starts negative and then gets positive.

God, I'm familiar with that. Subject line, you're the best thing that's happened to my mental health. Hi, Mark. I'm listening to your somewhat recent episode with Jason Mantzoukas. Love him. And in your conversation about anxiety and narcissism, it dawned on me that I should share with you how much your podcast has impacted my life and mental health.

It would be remiss of me to not start by saying this. I used to hate you. I couldn't stand your voice, and I felt like all you did was ramble on about bullshit nothings. My husband would put on your podcast when I fell asleep during our yearly road trips back to Michigan, and I would wake up deeply annoyed that it was your voice that pulled me out of my escapist slumber. And then you interviewed slumber. And then you interviewed Sinbad. Wow. That was the big change for her. I love that it was Sinbad. Anyways, back to the letter. My husband and his brother have been listening to you for years, and it wasn't until he literally forced me to listen to your Sinbad interview that I fell in

love. First, because Sinbad was the comedian who introduced me to stand up, and I knew anything with him would be amazing. But secondly, and truthfully more importantly, I was struck on a deep, raw, emotional level by your candor and transparency about your own life and struggles with addiction and mental health. As a 30-something biracial woman who suffers from depression, anxiety, and PTSD, I never would have thought it would be a middle-aged white man that I connected with so deeply, but your own musings, would have thought it would be a middle-aged white man that I connected with so deeply, but your own musings, ramblings, and insights have helped me in more ways than I can describe. You've created a safe space of sorts, and I'm so happy to have it, even if it's just inside my head. The struggle is real, and it always will be, but knowing that I'm not the only one worrying

about seemingly stupid shit gives me great comfort. So all of this to say thank you for being so incredibly open and honest about your life i refuse to believe that i'm the only person that has found such comfort from wtf so please keep being you cindol p.s i can't believe that i'm admitting this out loud but i'm pretty sure i'm jason manzoukas's female doppelganger right down to the curly hair way less hairy though well i'm glad to help out and i'm glad that uh that you you know so it's i'm an acquired taste uh i i definitely i get that a lot you know like i didn't like you and then i liked you but i that's good that's like a cat but but i get it yeah i i i

didn't like me either so i get it so al gore coming over to my house it was i didn't like me either. So I get it. So Al Gore coming over to my house, I didn't know what to expect because I didn't know how long the Secret Service stayed on people. I don't know what vice presidents deal with on that level. I didn't know how insulated he would be or what would happen. I just didn't know what would happen. And it turns out what happened was uh we got a call my producer brendan did and and they they wanted to know if if some of his

people could come over about a half hour early and bring lunch uh for the vice president would it be okay if they if he had lunch before uh our interview our talk uh here at the house and that was the only call we got and then we asked about security nope he's just coming with his staff and a pr person so that was a big difference considering that there was a lot of prep that went into president obama again he was a sitting president, you know, about 15 Secret Service, about half, about a dozen LAPD snipers on the roof next door, shutting down the neighborhood, helicopters were involved. It was, it was, it was hardcore, hardcore, real security shit. But nope, just the publicist came over with a few bags from a vegetarian restaurant before the vice president.

He came over with his chief of staff, I guess, or his main guy and a bunch of other people that dealt with him. And he sat at my dining room table. I sat on the computer and he sat and ate a vegetarian meatball sandwich, some vegetarian mac and cheese. And then actually, and I don't know if I'm speaking out of turn here or I'm divulging anything or betraying our former vice president, but he had two desserts. I will say that Vice President Gore

had two ice creams. I watched it happen. And I tried not to talk to him, but it was hard. But we talked a little bit, but then we got in here and did the business, which was obviously much different than the President Obama interview. And I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you that the Obama interview is actually featured

throughout our new book, Waiting for the Punch. And one of the great things about the book is that we could take someone like President Obama and put him in conversation with other people who have been on the show, actors, comedians, directors, and the president, all talking about the same thing, a theme in the book. So here's a great example of that from Chapter 5 of Waiting for the Punch, Words to Live By from the WTF podcast. This is Paul Thomas Anderson, Jim Gaffigan, Bob Odenkirk, and President Barack Obama all talking about parenting. My mom and my dad had four kids, me and my three sisters, and then my dad had a first marriage where he had five kids. Really?

So he had nine kids total. How many kids do you got? Four. Is that just something you did because you grew up like that? Probably. I mean, it's nice to have a lot of kids running around the house. Really makes you feel good, right? Yeah, it's like having a warm fire. And every once in a while it's like throwing a bag of kids running around the house. Really makes you feel good, right? Yeah. It's like having a warm fire.

And every once in a while, it's like throwing a bag of cats into a warm fire. It could be a nightmare, but it's the best. I think we've been culturally told that it's weird. I think that people have been told that... By the way, when you think about it, if someone says, I have six cats, you think they're crazy. Yeah. But what if someone really enjoys six cats and their apartment isn't covered with cat turds? That's a long shot.

And, you know, there's something about, you know, I make a decent living. So it's as long as I can afford a decent cheeseburger, I'm all right. It's not like I need a boat. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's how I always describe it. I'm like, oh, you know, I can't get my boat. It's like, so I'm going to be bald a year earlier.

Yeah. You know, it's like, oh. Well, what you're saying is that you'll do whatever is necessary for the kids, and you love the kids. And what I get from these kids is immeasurable. And I know it sounds like a rationalization, but it it's not a rationalization. But it's amazing. And how old are your kids? They're 9 and 11.

Wow. Yeah, they're growing up. It's great. You like it? It's nice, yeah. It's nice that they're getting older because the other option is they pass away at a young age. No.

Did you find it? No, it's great that they grow up because life gets easier, I think. The biggest fun I've had is watching my girls grow up. And they are magnificent. Look, hopefully every parent feels the way I do about my daughters.

But I think they are spectacular. And when Michelle and I came into office, the biggest worry we had was, is this going to be some weird thing for them? And are they going to grow up with an attitude? Or are they going to think that everybody eats off of China? Right, right. Are they? And, you know, it turns out that they've just become, they're kind, they're thoughtful, they treat everybody with respect. They don't have any kind of errors.

They're confident, but without being cocky. They've got great friends. They've been able to, you know, they're not stuck in the bubble the same way I am. You know, they go to the mall. They have sleepovers. They go to prom. Malia's starting to drive. You know, they're doing great.

So my biggest fun has been watching them grow up. Now, unfortunately, they're now hitting the age where they still love me, but they think I'm completely boring. And so they'll come in, pat me on the head, talk to me for 10 minutes, and then they're gone all weekend. Right. And they break my heart. And so now I've got to start thinking, well, what's going to replace that fun? It's wild to hear it all. And then to read it all is even more intense.

I can't explain how much I love the book we put together. That was Paul Thomas Anderson, Jim Gaffigan, Bob Odenkirk, and President Barack Obama, as you'll read in the parenting chapter of Waiting for the Punch. You can pre-order your copy now, and when you upload your receipt to our pre-order site, we'll send you a special Waiting for the Punch book plate signed by me that you can stick right on the inside cover of your book. Just go to WTFpod.com and click on book at the top of the page or click on the cover of the book anywhere on the site.

There's also a link in my newsletter and on the WTF social media pages. Dig it. All right, so look, global warming, the end of the world. Is it happening? I would say that most intelligent people, and I mean that, for most intelligent people, the jury is in. It's happening. And we have something to do with it.

it's happening and we have something to do with it. Knowing what to do about it as an individual, as a person who just is living life, that's trickier. And I'll talk to Al Gore about that and about other things, but I just don't know what it's going to take. I was in Florida less than a year ago at my mother's in Hollywood, and we got home late at night, and the streets along the ocean were filled with water. I'd never seen it before.

I don't know when that started happening. I asked my mother, when did that start happening? And she goes, I don't know. It just happens now. It's some sort of tidal thing. No, it's water levels rising. And I know some of you, probably not many people that listen to my show are saying like, no, no, no, no, it's not what's happening.

Hannity says it's actually the sand rising and that some of the buildings are too heavy. That's all, you know, it's a cyclical thing. Sand rises. It's not global warming. You know, just don't be crazy liberal with this you know what's so terrible if we you know if the water moves in a little bit if we add more sand that's what hannity says more sand will solve the problem yeah but it it is an issue and i i don't i don't it's it's terrifying on a lot of levels if you read that

new york magazine piece you know about the the worst the worst scenario you know the the the the the the absolute worst that can happen just like uh the permafrost melting and releasing prehistoric microbes and bacteria that uh that the human animals never had to build an immunity to just apocalyptic viral bugs just waiting in the ice is that a possibility i guess it's a possibility no no hannity says those bugs aren't even there he says that you know they're not dangerous they were only dangerous to dinosaurs. And we're stronger than dinosaurs. Yeah, that's liberal bullshit, the bug thing.

I don't know. I don't know. It's scary. And it's real. And I don't know what it'll take. I don't know what it'll take to get people to believe it. And I don't know what to do about it all the time. And I don't even have a horse in the race. I got no kids.

You know, I mean, obviously there's part of me that was like, I would have preferred this to all this shit that's happened. And that is happening every fucking day in this country to never have happened or to at least have happened after I had shuffled off the mortal coil because I'm a little selfish. Didn't want to deal, don't want to deal, but now we have to deal. That's the bottom line.

But Mr. Gord does have some practical approach to what we can do. I just don't, what, does the sky have to catch on fire? Like, oh my God, oh my God. The sky is on fire. Oh this is bad god what do you do the sky's on fire that's got to be that's bad oh no no Hannity says it's normal it's happened before I think uh once or twice in like India 1902 sky caught fire and then right after that, it rained really hard for a few days. No problem.

That's, you know, and he says it's part of the it's a cycle. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. See, you know, how long do apocalypses last? And he says the apocalypse is like it's a two or three day thing. Then we're out of it. Part of the cycle. lips is like it's a two or three day thing then we're out of it part of the cycle anyway this was a it was a an honor and it's always exciting to talk to uh to people who have had

a very high place in politics and i want to mention that the documentary an inconvenient sequel truth to power is now playing in new york and. It opens wide this Friday, August 4th. Oh, before we start this conversation, I do need to tell you that the pocket knife that Vice President Gore is referring to right at the beginning of our conversation is the same knife the United States Secret Service would not let me keep in the garage when Obama was in here. Same knife. I didn't tell Al Gore that, though.

This is me and Al Gore talking. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category,

and what the term dignified consumption actually means. how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die.

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T's and C's apply. Fuckin'. That is a mean-looking pocket knife. Yeah. You know, I just have, like, I don't know where that's... I just have stuff around in case people want to play with stuff. Sometimes people do. Vice President Al Gore is in my garage.'s it this you know you're the only uh just you and obama that was it for the politicians you're really yeah well i'm honored

yeah it's a much easier uh visit there you know we don't have yeah well he came the helicopter route and uh i got the full experience yes you did you drove it's kind of hard it's kind of hard to get here do you like uh do you like coming out to la i love coming out to la yeah one of my daughters lives here oh yeah kristin gore is a screenwriter oh really here yeah oh so you're here a lot yeah well yeah yeah good bit and she's married to damian kulesh of okay go have you ever heard their music seen their music videos i haven't are they i'm old no i'm getting older i don't know you know what's going on go check out okay go yeah they did one in zero gravity oh really floating around yeah that's fun anyway so i come out here

to see them yeah and uh participant media is out here and paramount yeah they've made this uh the sequel yeah an inconvenient sequel truth to power truth to power an inconvenient sequel truth to power wait now like when you were thinking about titles what happened to wake up dummies what do i gotta do you idiots yeah well we discarded that one now well let me okay i want to come like kind of circle around to this because we were talking a little bit in the house now the things i've watched recently are that 10 episode uh documentary from ken burns in vietnam and i've watched the inconvenient sequel truth to power your uh your movie and i'm watching that you know

current politics news unfold. Yeah. And I just think it's interesting when I sort of looked at some of your biographical history that it actually says in the information that I read that you wrote a thesis at Harvard about television's impact. On the constitutional system and the relationship between the three branches of power. I haven't been asked about that in a long time. But it's like the dates were sort of interesting. It was like from 1947 to 1969. Right.

I wrote it and I finished it in 69. So that explains one date. And the other was when it really first started with television. Well, I think that was what's interesting to me is that given all the work you put in previous to being vice president and being vice president to sort of expanding the role of technology in our lives, that these questions,

I would imagine that you were asking in the thesis, are still very relevant today with the internet and everything else. Yeah, definitely. I'll give you the short version. I don't want to spend too much time on it, but... No, we'll get to everything. We've got time. Yeah. You know, I think that we've had three big changes in the information ecosystem in which our democracy is placed. And of course, the printing press 500 years ago really created the reality that gave rise to America in the first place. The feudal system was broken up when the masses

could become literate and gain access to information previously limited to elites. Libraries had 12 to 15 books written in a language only the monks copying them could understand, basically. And then the printing press just exploded that old feudal order and distributed knowledge to everybody. And over time, that changed everything and led to the dream that inspired America's founders. And then the electronic communications revolution started with the telegraph, and radio was a big deal, and then the addition of the picture made television the big kahuna. It displaced print, and all of a sudden that changed the way our democracy operated big time. Gatekeepers all of a sudden controlled access to the public forum and charged tons of money.

And so the big donors, including corporate donors, got in the driver's seat and got way too much control over who was elected and who wasn't. And now the third wave is coming in, of which you are a part. The internet, actually, aggregate ad revenue on the internet surpassed revenue to television, broadcast cable, satellite, for the first time this year. Really? Yeah. The big advertisers still prefer television, but that's changing too. And there are no gatekeepers anymore. You don't have to pay a ton of money to get your show out to whoever wants to hear it. More and more do.

And individual bloggers now can have an impact. And in a way, it kind of recreates the architecture of the print ecosystem in that a single individual who takes the time to gather the best available evidence and think through it and reaches out and connects with others who share that point of view can use knowledge as a source of power once again and displace money and force of arms, which money has been hacking our democracy and still is. But, you know, the Sanders campaign last year, whether you agree with his positions on this or that or not, he proved that you can now run a big, credible, potentially successful campaign without any special interest contributions or big fat cat donors just by reaching out to individuals on the internet. And if that model can take hold,

then we can revivify the dream of our founders and make American democracy work again. Well, that's true. But I think that there's also the dark side of that, you know, the sharing the point of view, you know, that little… Echo chambers. Right, the bubbles, the echo chambers, the dispersion of misinformation, of bad information to ignorant or uneducated or angry people on either side can, you know, can create tremendous problems. Yeah, that's definitely the case. It was also true of the first phase of the print media also. And before mass advertising, subscriptions were the main revenue for

newspapers, and they were echo chambers also. And you go back and look at the campaigns in 1800 in that era, and boy, it uh even more vicious than anything you see today exactly yeah but they didn't have twitter then if you really wanted to if you really wanted to troll somebody you had to go to their front yard and and you had to yell at their door well pamphlets played a big role i guess that's true right so and this is stuff you were thinking about in 1969 uh yeah yeah so it's always been you you know, in terms of information and democracy, this was always your interest, even before environmentalism.

Yeah, well, both were of interest. But yeah, Marshall McLuhan was a big deal in my upbringing. Yeah, the medium is the message. Yeah, among other things. And his predecessors, Daniel Bell and others. And I just kind of got tuned into that and found it fascinating. And I've always really been interested in that stuff.

And when you enlisted, the story about you and Vietnam was you didn't have to go, right? I could have found a fancy way to get out of it, as certain other people have. And your father, as he was a senator or a congressman at that point? He was a senator. He was running again. Yeah, the coming year he was. And he was not before the war. He was one of the most prominent opponents of the Vietnam War. Primarily because he thought it was unwinnable? No, because he thought it was based on a lie. He always said that the one vote he regretted the most was for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. They all found out soon after that it was a false narrative that was used as an excuse to provoke the war. And he came to believe it was not

winnable without destroying the whole of Southeast Asia. But I was really proud of him. I was a college student during that time. But the reason I volunteered to go is that my upbringing was in two places, the big city of Washington, D.C., where my father served there, and then a small town in Tennessee, and that was my emotional spiritual home, always still is now. And everybody knew who was on the draft board. Everybody knew who was up in each month. I just couldn't feel right about using some of the strategies that were available in the big cities. And, you know, if you had connections with your family and, and, uh, and I just felt like I couldn't imagine some, uh, guy, one of my friends in Carthage, Tennessee,

going in my place, getting killed. What would I say to his family? You know, it sounds corny, but that's really was it. And the fact that my father was going to be a candidate the following year as a Viet as an opponent of the war made brought it kind of in sharp relief for me too and you thought that by going it would uh it would provide what for him in terms of his uh uh his campaign I didn't have any illusions that it would make a big difference either way but i wouldn't have felt right about uh doing you know getting out of it in a kind of a sneaky way and uh and if that should have contributed to his defeat that wouldn't make it even worse for me i guess the reason i'm i'm starting here is because like i know that, you know, we talked a bit in the other room about how you were not, you know,

you were of that generation that protested the war. And then, you know, you put that uniform on. I'm sure you felt that come back at you, you know, the contempt from the people, other students. You know, I actually did. I did feel that. And it was quite a shock. I went through basic training. And before I went to, I had a few days off after basic training. And I went back to see my friends in Boston where I'd been in college. And my hair was all cut off. And I was in the uniform. And wow, the reaction on the sidewalks was really something. You felt it? Yeah.

How did that make you think? I mean, what did that change in you to see both sides of it like that? Yeah, it did. It caused me to think differently about the divisions on the war. I never changed my opposition to the war. And then when I got to Vietnam and got to know as friends a lot of the people in South Vietnam, that was a big change too, because it was all of a sudden a lot more complicated. Again, I was still opposed to the war,

but for example, some of the Catholics in South Vietnam were really terrified of what would happen if the North Vietnamese took over. And, you know, you have to take that into account. It was still a really horrible mistake. The second worst foreign policy mistake in the history of our country. Yeah, I mean, the invasion of Iraq was clearly the worst mistake. We're still living with that more than a decade later. Yeah, and that one would have been on your watch had you been elected. Yeah, and I like to think a lot of things would have been different,

but no point crying over spilled milk. line today, that there's the right and the conservative movement, and then what happened against that war, really out of that came new progressive politics, environmentalism. It all seemed to happen around the same time. Yeah, I think for you and me and people who lived through those years, it may have looked like the starting point of that, but I think that left-right division goes back much further. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you've done the homework, like how far back? It's just always been there, huh? Hamilton and Jefferson were on opposite sides of a lot of things, and back to the English Revolution before that, and I'm sure somebody more learned than me would take it even farther back. And what made you, when you come back from Vietnam, what were you doing there?

What capacity were you serving? I carried a pencil and an M-16. Oh, yeah, you had the M-16? I was an Army journalist with orders to travel all over the country writing stories about whatever the combat engineers were doing. And I went all over the country. It was really, really very interesting. And you come back and you decide, what made you decide to go into politics? Well, I didn't.

I thought politics would be the last thing I ever did. Really? Yeah. Since my dad was in it, as a little kid, I thought I'd do what he did. And he was, he and my mom both were heroes to me. But when I saw the Vietnam policies and even, you know, Johnson, and then after that was Nixon, I thought, wow, I want nothing to do with this gig. Yeah. And I thought I would be a journalist.

The Army actually, you know, I went in as a private. They made me a journalist. And I wrote stories over there that caught the attention of my hometown editor. And when I got back to Tennessee, he called me and offered me a job, $95 a week. And so I started doing general assignment and then worked my way up to police beat and then city hall reporting. We called it the Metro beat. Yeah. Became an investigative journalist before that title had any cachet.

Did you love it? At all. I absolutely loved it. I absolutely loved it. And I got I started writing stories about corruption in local and state government. And my editor was kind of a pioneer, a guy named John Sigenthaler, and he sent reelected in a landslide. But these two young hotshot reporters at the Washington Post, Woodward and Bernstein, had written these amazing stories. And the group of us from all over the country who were digging into investigative journalism were talking about whether or not investigative reporting was dead because nothing was happening.

Nobody seemed to care about these incredible stories. And we thought, oh, well, maybe in the age of television, nobody really takes the time to read this stuff and connect the dots anymore. But then three months later, all hell broke loose. And the spiraling downward of Nixon led to his resignation. And the reason I bring it up, of course, is that right now, a lot of your listeners, a lot of people all over the country are connecting dots on their own with the Russia story and the Trump White House and all of that. And I hear some of the same questions. Does nobody care about how grotesque this is? And underneath the news cycle is an investigation.

And like the Watergate investigation, it may be following its own rhythm, hidden from public view, as it should be. And when they get a package of connected dots and surface what they've found, who knows what's going to happen? It may well be that the next several months are going to be a challenging time for our country. It sure feels like that, doesn't it? Yes, it feels like that to me. And I, you know, having you come over here to talk to me, you know, knowing what you've seen both inside politics as a young man, but also being on the inside of difficult times. Yeah. Do you worry for our system? Well, yes and no. Yes, because, you know, as a citizen of our country, we all have a duty to be alert and diligent. But no, because I think we have more resilience than we sometimes realize. Yeah.

The courts have already blocked some of the crazy things he's proposed, and the Congress is, even this Congress, is failing to support some of the other things he's trying to do. And the state governments and city governments, you know, Jerry Brown here in California is a hero on climate. After he withdrew from Paris, the states and cities and business leaders filled the gap and said, we're still in the Paris Agreement. We're going to meet the commitments anyway. So I think there's a lot of resilience. Just today, some of the Republican senators who, by my lights, have been way too slow to speak up against Trump are all of a sudden saying, hey, don't fire Sessions. Don't fire Mueller. As Lindsey Graham said, it'll be holy hell. I was glad to hear him say that. And you know these guys. You worked with these guys. They were all there when you were there. Yeah, a lot of them were. I was in the

House with John McCain and then in the Senate with John McCain. And I know Lindsey Graham very well, most of the others. And I don't know, I could be wrong, but I think they're beginning to find a real source of strength in standing up to Trump. Well, you did cover some of that, you know, the state government, you know, stepping up to fill the gap environmentally in the film a little bit. There's that governor from Texas, right? Is he a governor? No, he's a mayor. The mayor of Georgetown, Texas.

Mayor Dale Ross. Yeah. Conservative Republican Trump supporter in the heart of oil country, the reddest city in the reddest county in Texas. But he's a CPA, and he did the numbers. And he said, you know, if we switch to 100% solar and wind, we're going to save money. And they've done it now. And the electric bills are going down. And the air is cleaner. Isn't that interesting?

So it took economics. Not science, but economics. Right. And he says in the movie, you know, you don't need scientists. Isn't it just better not to put stuff in the air? You know, okay, that works for me. Sure. And that is a trend that you see picking up speed?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's driven by a couple of big changes in the last decade since the first movie and inconvenient truth came out number one the climate related extreme weather events are way more common way more serious there are 100 fires going on right now as we're talking these rain bombs and mudslides and droughts and the sea level rise i mean people are mother nature has entered the debate turns out out she's more persuasive than any of us. And that's the first big change. The second change is the solutions are here now. The cost reductions for electricity from solar

and wind are just so dramatic. It's almost like computer chips, mobile phones, flat screen TVs. It's almost like computer chips, mobile phones, flat screen TVs. And when they scale up the production, the cost declines increase. And now in... And jobs. There's new jobs. Absolutely. Solar jobs are now growing 17 times faster than other jobs in the economy. And the single fastest growing job is wind turbine technician yeah so this shift away from dirty

fossil fuels is going to be a big economic boost in the in the best way well let me ask you a question that somebody that was in the house in the senate the vice president you know this this this fossil fuel paradigm this oil paradigm with all their lobbying and with their you know corporate power yeah you know How at this point? I mean, it seems that what we're, obviously the sort of one step forward, two step back thing is relevant and happens, but it just seems that we're back into

the full-on petroleum paradigm with this administration that even with the progress and even with some of the oil companies moving into cleaner energy, that there's still this need to gut the government and exploit anything we can in the name of fossil fuels philosophically from this administration. So how did you reckon with that when you saw it in Congress, in the Senate, and as a vice president? What do we do now with this almost spiteful return to the oil paradigm? Yeah, it's a problem. And they have a lot of power.

They're among the biggest campaign donors. They have these huge lobbying teams. And even beyond that, they've done something really despicable. They took the playbook of the tobacco companies who decades ago were confronted with an existential threat to the cigarette business by the Surgeon General. The doctors and scientists linked up the connection between cigarettes and lung cancer and other diseases. And so the tobacco companies hired actors and dressed them up as doctors and put them in front of cameras and a teleprompter where they just falsely reassured people that they'd say, hi, I'm a doctor and there are no health problems

connected to cigarettes. It was really awful. And the large carbon polluters like the Koch brothers and Exxon Mobil and others have hired the same PR firms. And they're using the same blueprint. And they're putting out these phony pseudoscientists and creating false doubts. There was a great book that documented this called The Merchants of Doubt. And they've spent over a billion dollars trying to pull the wool over people's eyes. Brainwash them. Yeah, absolutely.

Psych ops. Well put. But people are beginning to see through it in larger numbers now. Because they can't breathe? Or their beachfront condo in Florida is underwater? Yeah. I was down in Miami on a sunny day watching fish from the ocean swim in the streets. And I mean, I'm being literally serious.

My mother lives in Hollywood. And one night we were just staying down there and there was water, like there was ocean water in the streets. And I'd never seen that before. And I'm like, what's going on? And she's like, yeah, it seems to happen sometimes. High tide. Yeah. High tide.

Very high tide. Well, the sea level has risen enough so that the high tide now floods a lot of the streets. And it's true in Fort Lauderdale. It's true in Norfolk, Virginia and Annapolis, Maryland, all up the coast, Galveston, Texas. And it's much worse in places like Bangladesh and the Maldives and Calcutta and Mumbai. Why is it worse there? Well, because there are many more people who live in low-lying coastal areas and don't have the money to build seawalls or protect themselves.

And so the world is girding for these larger numbers of climate refugees. But in any case, because of the impacts that are getting so much more serious, people are waking up to this. And because the alternatives are now cheaper, as we talked about in Texas, people are saying, okay, we can solve it. We don't have to get into the science of it. We don't have to use the words global warming. We can just say, okay, let's get cleaner air and create jobs and save money all at the same time. But not to be cynical or to be realistic in the sense that when you talk about the Koch brothers or when you talk about ExxonMobil or when you talk about these PR firms that twist it,

I mean, they live on the same planet. I mean, in your experience, what is their end game? Are they're like, well, we're going to build some sort of new suit that we can all wear when it gets too hot to live? Like, where does capitalism see the climate change and what the world is going to look like as opportunity? I mean, where's their conscience in this? Well, you know, I think that some of them go to great lengths to avoid engaging their conscience. A great investigative journalist over 100 years ago, Upton Sinclair. Right, the meatpacking thing. Yeah, the jungle.

The jungle. And other things. He was great. He wrote a sentence that I think applies. He says it is, he wrote, it is difficult to get a man to understand something if his income depends upon him not understanding it. And I think, you know, human nature makes all of us vulnerable to stuff like that. But at some point, you've got to shake that off and be honest with yourself.

And a lot of them are just not. And, you know, who was the movie character that said greed is good? Oh, yeah, from Wall Street, Michael Douglas, Gekko. Yeah, Gordon Gekko. Gordon Gekko. Yeah, I mean, I think they're blinders of a kind when greed is the only thing occupying somebody's mind. And power.

Yeah, and these carbon polluters are hell-bent to squeeze as many more years as they can out of a business plan that relies on using the sky as an open sewer. Well, but there's got to be discussions in those that you've provoked or within these corporate realms of them saying, well, why can't we diversify? I mean, haven't some of these larger energy companies that were once petroleum-based, are they not doing cleaner things? Well, two points. First of all, the L.A. Times, Inside Climate News, Columbia Journalism School,

there was a Pulitzer Prize given for their work last year. Maybe it was two years ago. Where they went back and looked at how companies like ExxonMobil put their scientists on this task decades ago. They knew. They totally knew. It's like Vietnam. Yeah. It's like Vietnam. when they made a very cynical, immoral business decision to consciously, deliberately confuse the public by saying falsely, this problem isn't real.

And they gave lots of money to these climate denier groups to go out and manufacture false doubts. It's part of the business plan. I get it. It's really unethical. Of course. And the problem is, like, I was trying to think about, you know, how I felt when I watched a movie and I saw the first movie. And, you know, I don't know that I changed my life dramatically after I watched the first movie. I felt worse. Yeah. You know, I think I used less plastic. I'm very aware of the bags and stuff like that, but in terms of what I do as a person.

And then when I watch this movie, and I can see as a 53-year-old man the weather changing and everything else, what do I do and how do I deal with this information? And I think a lot of people are just sort of like, yeah, I kind of know what's happening, but I don't want to deal with it. Yeah. Well, you know, when I grew up in the South, the civil rights movement was gaining momentum. Same kind of thing. People who knew it was wrong to discriminate on the basis of skin color would say, you know, what do I do? But then the laws began to change. People won the conversation. I do. But then the laws began to change.

People won the conversation. It became clear. What's different now is that it's much easier for people to be a part of the solution. You can contact one of the solar energy companies here in California, and here's the deal they'll make you. They'll say to you, we'll put solar panels on your roof, and the next day your bills will drop 20%. How much will it cost me? Zero. They'll do it for nothing.

As an American, my facade is like they're going to stick me somehow. No, no. The laws in California make it possible for them to make a profit and give you savings on your bills. Oh, because they have a deal with the electric company here, right? There's some sort of... No, the electric utilities have been resistant to this, but because of the people of California having a state government that gets it, and by the way, the subsidies for the fossil fuels

are 40 times bigger than the subsidies for renewables, but it's changing now because the cost of these renewables is coming down so fast. Now, Tesla is about to introduce a consumer version of the electric car. All major car manufacturers are beginning to introduce electric vehicles. India, this is great, didn't get a big splash in the Western news. Two months ago, India announces within only 13 years, 100% of their cars and trucks are going to have to be electric vehicles. Really? It's incredible.

India and China are closing hundreds of coal-burning plants, vastly expanding solar and wind, and they're creating jobs there. We need to get with it and push back the resistance from the big oil companies, gas companies, coal companies and coal burning utilities. anger in this country like you know this whole you know president trump is very focused on coal and and barely anyone's using it anymore yeah like it's a dying paradigm yeah it is and the idea to hang some sort of national pride or future progress on it is peculiar yeah and and obviously you know the the the nomination of of heads of uh heads of departments who are specifically there to undermine the department, but that's a Republican tactic. That's not new to make the government ineffective and small. But what is it about people that are like, who are literally like, who are the people that are screaming it's a myth?

And why are they doing that when it's so obvious? What do they stand to gain? Well, some of them are paid to do it. Right. Some of them are motivated by these carbon polluters who make tons of money from it. And where, first of all, the coal industry is dying for sure. Yeah. And we've got to take care of the coal miners.

Most of their jobs were eliminated by the coal companies with automation a long time ago. And by the way, the famous coal museum in Kentucky, in the heart of coal country, just switched to solar electricity. Oh, that's in the movie, right? No, not in the movie. I was right that somewhere else. But they're saving money. But I think one of the reasons why. That's irony on the good side.

I like it. Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the reasons why Trump made the coal thing a big deal was that he benefited from some widespread anger on the part of people who have watched middle-class wages stagnate for decades, and they're angry about the current pattern of globalization and outsourcing, and now intelligent automation is coming in and making some of that, the job losses even worse.

But that's not a partisan issue. No, but it's not. But when you have a demagogue who comes in and says, I'll take you back to the good old days, we'll recreate the past. We're going to go back to the age of coal. Well, we're not going back to the age of coal. The market capitalization of the coal industry in this country has gone the new electricity generation in the U.S. came from solar and wind. The rest came from gas, 0.2% from coal. It's going. It's dirty. It's terrible.

Yeah. And I guess that, you know, the paradigm that he's trying to recreate is not just economic. It's also racial. Like, it's about white nationalism that, you know, you grew up with somewhere down there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of us did. Yeah. And that, you know, I mean, geez, when your dad was in office, the South was still Democrats a lot. Yeah, yeah. Well, when I ran for Congress, for the House of Representatives, the first time in 1976, my race was in the primary.

There was not even a Republican on the ballot in the general election. It was practically illegal for him to run. I'm just joking when saying it that way. But now most of the public offices are held by Republicans. And what happened when you met with Emperor Trump in Ivanka? Yeah, did you meet with Ivanka? Met with her first and then met and spent time with the then president-elect Trump. How did you find him as a person?

Had you met him before? I had met him before, yes. He never supported me, but any elected official that goes through New York for years and years would have run into him in those years, and I did. And I actually had a chance to, he came to my office in the Senate on professional football business when he had that USFL team way back in the day, the New Jersey Generals. And I've protected the privacy of my conversations with him. That was not the only conversation that continued when he was in the

White House. And my focus was on trying to convince him to stay in the Paris Agreement. And I thought, really, that there was a chance he would come to his senses, but I was wrong. And do you think that they are his senses that he came to, or he's not really making those decisions for himself? Well, if you're asking me to give you a theory of Donald Trump's mind, I don't have one. But I'll answer your question by saying I think that he's thrown his lot in with this rogues gallery of climate deniers. And he seems to think he can succeed as a president by just being president of the right wing fringe of the Republican Party and the ones even to the right of the Republican Party, and that he doesn't need to care about

the rest of the country. I think that's a profound mistake, but that's the way he's acting. Well, yeah, and it seems like even the worst of them, whatever side you're on, at least paid some lip service to unifying the country somehow. Yeah, yeah. It's sort of a demonic and frightening thing to shamelessly screw you

to more than half of the people of the country. Yeah, you used one word in that sequence that gave me a little pause. But, you know, one of the saving graces is that his regime is a mixture of malevolence and incompetence. is a mixture of malevolence and incompetence. And so he's not seemingly able to do all of the bad things that he sets out to do. Now, have you taken this movie to Washington? We had a prescreening in D.C. last week. A lot of Republicans come out? You obviously read something.

We invited everybody, and none of the Republican members of Congress came. Guys you know? Some of them, yeah. But, you know, they're now in a position, the Republicans, where their main concern when it comes to re-election is not about the general election. It's about getting an ultra-conservative primary opponent. And so they're not really worried about trying to reach out to the middle. A few are. Some of them are. But the way the congressional district lines are drawn now is another part of this problem. I'm sure you're quite aware of that. And we talked about

the echo chambers on the internet. These congressional districts, some of them become echo chambers where the only thing Republicans have to fear is somebody way to the right of them. And how do you get through to them with a nonpartisan message of global catastrophe? Well, it's not only a message about catastrophe. The risks are unprecedented for sure, but the opportunities are also unprecedented. And the cost savings that I mentioned earlier. I'll give you a quick example. One of the founders of the National Tea Party movement is a woman in Atlanta, Georgia named Debbie Dooley. And the Koch brothers reached out to her group, the Atlanta Tea Party, and wanted her to support them to support legislation to slow down solar and

block solar. But she had put solar panels on her house, and she said, what's this? And so she joined with the Sierra Club and the Atlanta Tea Party did to form a new organization called the Green Tea Party, and they defeated that legislation. And I saw her just recently on TV just giving hell to the Koch brothers and the carbon polluters who she said are lying to people. And, you know, it's hard to find a more conservative person than Debbie Dooley. Well, yeah, because this is not, this shouldn't be a political issue. Correct, correct. So have you reached out to the Koch brothers to invest in green energy or in clean energy, renewable energy? No, no, I have not. I have not. Why can't that be part of their portfolio?

Well, you know, some of these carbon polluters are really not interested in investing in things that will destroy their legacy business. But if the legacy is already compromised by just the momentum of planetary progress, you would think that they would hedge their bets a little bit at least. You know, there was a book that came out a few years ago called The Innovator's Dilemma, and it's a little nerdier way of making the same point that if you got a business and it's based on a particular plan and somebody comes to you with a brand new idea for something that's cheaper and better, and you're looking at it and you say, oh, wow, I could invest in this. And then you pause and say, but if I do, then it's going to destroy this business I've got going. And I've sunk all my assets into this legacy business,

and I'm never going to make as much money with this new, better approach and so what what some of them do is decide to just hang on and try to fool people and obscure the truth about it and keep making as much money for as long as they can from the old ways and they try to kill that new business that's correct and that's what the electric utilities that are based on burning coal and gas are trying to do to solar in states and cities around the country. And they've been doing that forever. I mean, here they don't have no public transport because of the automobile industry early on. There used to be subways and trains in L.A.

And even trolleys. Yeah. So that's been going on since the beginning of this. Yeah. The difference is these carbon polluters have way more money than their predecessors, and they control a lot of politicians who, when they say jump, as the old saying goes, they say, yes, sir, how high? Yeah, and when did you first start bringing this stuff up in Congress, right?

Yeah, I had been fortunate when I was in college in the 60s to learn from a great professor from here in California. Guy's name was Roger Revell. He was the first scientist to measure CO2 in the atmosphere. And he's the one who opened my eyes to this. And some seven, eight years after that, when I was elected to Congress, I asked what's going on with global warming and nothing was. So I helped organize the first hearing on it. And I invited my professor to come and be the leadoff witness. And I thought it would have a big impact down there, but it didn't.

And that's when I first started asking myself, how can this be communicated more effectively so that I can recreate for others the aha moment that I had learning from this professor. And it's been a lifelong journey since then. And when you do something like that in Congress, is that like you invite other congressmen or they come to the chamber? How does that work? Yeah, well, there are committees. This was a subcommittee, and I wasn't chairman of it,

but I got the chairman to let me do this. And you schedule the hearing and the press comes and the witnesses are invited and there's a little crowd out there and the lobbyists will also come. And then you go through the day with one witness after another and compile a report. That's how it works. And now you did, you stuck with this though, and there was progress made with the ozone issue. Absolutely. yeah. How did that unfold? Because we fixed that, right?

Yeah, big success story. And actually, Ronald Reagan was one of the reasons we fixed it. Margaret Thatcher, he respected a lot when she was the prime minister of England. Yeah. And she had a degree in chemistry, and she understood this stuff. A couple of scientists from California, Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina, Mexico City and La Jolla, they discovered the linkage between these chemicals called, forgive me, chlorofluorocarbons that were used for a lot of things. And the destruction of the stratospheric ozone layer. Notice, first of all, above Antarctica, where this huge hole started opening up every September through November. And they said, wow, this is these chemicals.

So the politicians actually listened to the scientists. Maggie Thatcher got Ronald Reagan to listen. I was in the Senate back then. Was he hard to get to listen? Not for her. I mean, I think that he really respected her, and I think he had a science advisor who listened also. And anyway, there was a negotiation in Montreal in 1987, also. And anyway, there was a negotiation in Montreal in 1987, and they passed a treaty. Three years later, it was toughened. And that's a big success story. Yes, it'll take some time for the full healing to take place, maybe another 75 to 100 years, but it's already beginning. And so that's a big success story. Here's the difference between that problem and the climate crisis. The chlorofluorocarbons, they were used in, you know, for a while, spray cans

and air conditioning and cleaning circuit boards, et cetera. But they were a very tiny part of the economy overall. Fossil fuels, by contrast, still supply more than 80% of all the energy the global economy uses. So dealing with fossil fuels is way harder, and yet we are doing it now. We are seeing it. There was an oil minister in Saudi Arabia years ago who, who said, uh, the stone age didn't end because of a shortage of stones. It ended because something better came along and the oil age and the fossil fuel age is going to end not because they're in short supply, but because something better is now here, solar and wind.

We get more energy from the sun in one hour than the entire global economy uses for a full year. So if we improve the fraction of that that we harvest and use productively, then we can replace fossil fuels. I guess it seems that when you say it like that, one of the things that scares aggressive capitalists who are part of the fossil fuel industry is they may not see a way to make a boatload of money off of that yes but here's the here's the a really big change the paris agreement

that we talked about earlier yeah in in a year ago december huge historic deal virtually every country in the entire world agreed to phase out on a net basis global warming pollution by mid-century or as soon thereafter as possible. And it sent a powerful signal to all these companies and to governments at the regional, local, national level. It is really a big deal. It's almost like the old saying, the train is leaving the station. Are you on or not? Right. And every country, with very few exceptions, said, yeah, we're on.

So now, even some of the oil companies, we talked about this earlier, but in Europe, you take Total, a huge oil company in France, they're shifting massively to renewable energy. I don't expect ExxonMobil or the Koch brothers to do it because they're still determined to try to fool the American people into trying to get them to kill solar, and they want to hang on to their old outdated business plan. So now, like when you have that big article that came out, what was it? New York Magazine. That, you know, I could barely read it because it was so terrifying. That, you know, when you start thinking about climate plagues, like, you know, the defrosting of ancient bacteria and unbreathable air and complete economic destabilization, extinction, and these kind of things you know I can see not unlike people not wanting to

to really face the fact that they're going to die just as people that the denial around confronting those possibilities has got to be part of the reason why people don't want to deal with this yeah yeah I think that's right human nature is what it is. And if something's unpleasant to think about, many of us are eager to latch on to any evidence, even if it's not true, that maybe we have plenty of time before we have to start worrying about it. And the magazine article you're talking about was a cover story in that magazine. And boy, it was a hard-hitting worst-case projection piece. Some of the scientists took issue with it, but some others said, well, you know, let's hear all points of view on this, and this is a worst-case deal, and maybe some of the facts are a little bit off,

but we need to know if things go really wrong, it could be really bad. And by the way, the projections of the scientific group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, you'll hear people talk about the IPCC, they have been pretty cautious in the past. They do a very thorough job, but science is culturally conservative. They really want to hedge their bets until they can lock everything down. But when you go back and look at what they projected in previous years, they have kind of low-balled some of these things. Not to be misleading, they're trying to do the best job they can. But it is important to realize that there are what they call tail risks, that there are what they call tail risks, lower probability chances of it going wrong much worse than the mainstream projections now.

I always default to optimism and hope because I think the hope is real and it's there. And despair can be paralyzing for people. You know the old saying, denial ain't just a river in Egypt. Well, despair ain't just a tire in the trunk. It's a real force. And if you combine despair and hopelessness, you get a type of nihilism. Yeah, that's right. Party on.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and that's a problem. Yeah, definitely. Because that has some political momentum in the culture we're living in right now. Yeah, but I don't think it's the dominant strain at all. Oh, I think just general apathy is probably more dominant. Well, I see a big uprising of progressive activism now. Oh, good.

I really do. There's a law of physics that sometimes operates in politics. For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. And I think the reaction to Trump includes a lot of people saying, hey, I got to get personally involved in this. Well, OK, that's a good place to go. Like, you know, you got this lovely book that came out with the movie, An Inconvenience Equal Truth to Power, your action handbook.

Yep. Now, this is for everybody. Everybody. Of all ages. Of all ages. And 100% of the proceeds for both the book and the movie go to the Climate Reality Project to train climate activists around the world. So yeah, the book is getting a really good reception.

And for anybody who wants to learn about the problem, the solutions, this is it. anybody who wants to learn about the problem, the solutions, this is it. And the last 40% of it is a guidebook for how you personally can be an effective activist. And so let's start. So I guess the first step is buying the book. Yeah, learning about it. And the book and the movie are good places to learn about it. And then what happens? Then what do you do? Then use your voice, first of all, and win the conversations on climate. I saw in the civil rights days how the conversations were won before the laws were changed. Then use your votes, and not only your votes, but play an active role as a citizen. I have been on the receiving end of this, so I'll tell you what works from my point of view.

If you go to a candidate running for office or an office holder representing you who wants to be reelected, you deliver a two-part message. You've collected your friends, those on your social networks, and the two-part message is, number one, Mr. Candidate, Ms. Candidate, if you're with me on climate, I'm going to help you get reelected. I'll be there for you. If you're wrong on climate, I guarantee you, I will not rest until I defeat you and get you kicked out of office. That two-part message, trust me, works. Yeah. I talked to Al Franken a few times. He wrote a book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A giant of the Senate. Yeah you know he wrote a book and yeah yeah yeah a giant of the senate yeah and he you know he tells a story about you oh yeah book no i didn't know that i haven't seen

it he said uh you know when he was getting beat up by uh coleman's campaign yeah he said he called you and asked you like you know like god they get pretty mean it gets pretty pretty tough out here how'd you handle it and you said suck it up al up. Al's a great friend. And by the way, when I ran for president in 2000, nobody did more than Al. And so I returned the favor and I really went all out for him. And then he had a recount of his own, you know. I know. And it lasted forever. They were trying to keep his seat. Months, like six months. Yeah, absolutely. And I had fundraisers for him and went up there and campaigned for him he's and he's doing a great job as senator really is yeah he really is it it to me it's like because

i'm out here and you guys who are in the chambers and like even as a vice president you were more active than almost many vice presidents you really kind of had your agenda and you did it and then and then after you uh we had a vice president who was president. And a more insidious, he was more insidiously engaged. But like I'm prone to panic on a daily basis. Come on. Yeah. And then when I talk to you guys who are in there, I'm like, what are you doing?

Are you guys freaking out? But you talk to Al and it's like, well, this is the context of the government this is how it works and now we've got to you know we can only do what we can do yeah and that's to me that's very frustrating yeah but i guess that's the way it works do you now when you look back do you are you happy to be out uh there's some things i miss about it being able to pull the levers and push the buttons and make things work. But there's a lot that I don't miss about it. And overall, I'm really grateful to have found a way to make the world a better place outside of that system. And when you look back, because this is a question we kind of touched on it a little bit with Iraq,

we kind of touched on it a little bit with Iraq that, you know, when you look at the presidency that you, you, you, you probably had, but was, was not, that did not go the way it was supposed to. Do you have regrets about that? Or do you feel like maybe that four years would have been a tough four years? Oh, I, I, I mean, I wish the Supreme court decision had gone the other way. Of course. I'm under no illusion that, uh that there's any position in the world with as much potential for making the world a better place than the position of president. So, you know, I don't have that illusion. But since it didn't happen, I'm fortunate and feel grateful to have found other ways to serve the public interest. and feel grateful to have found other ways to serve the public interest. And what do you think that, you know, with this new war on science,

that is, you know, every day, you know, that this administration seems to be engaging in what, you know, if it wasn't happening, would be ironic. Attack on the structures of education, of government, of everything. What do you see as a career politician? What the hell is his endgame? I mean, what do you think he's gunning for? Well, you know, there are things called heat-seeking missiles. I think he's a power-seeking president. He just wants more power, and I can't psychoanalyze him,

but he seems to place a high importance on public approval among those who he thinks are part of his base and that he doesn't seem to have any grand plan other than that. I mean, nothing good is getting done. It's another set of distractions and tweets every single day, and nothing's getting done. Do you have people, do you still check in with people? Yeah, sure. In the government? Like, what are you guys doing about this?

Yeah, sure, absolutely. No, I served with a lot of them who are still there, and I've gotten to know some of the ones that have been elected since I left. And no, there are a lot of good people there. There are good people trapped in a bad system. I think there is hope for changing it for the better. Yeah. I feel that from you, and I appreciate that, and I believe you. Thank you. I'm going to leave this discussion feeling like, all right, Al Gore seems to be confident. I'm going to go ahead and enjoy my day. Well, go to the movie, an inconvenient sequel, Truth to Power.

It opens in L.A. and New York July 28th, which is tomorrow as we tape this, and then on August 4th everywhere in the country. Well, thank you for doing it. Thank you for your service, and it was an honor to talk to you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here in your garage. You got it. That's it.

That was me and the Vice President. Let's do what we can and hope for the best, folks. And I do need to say that that noise that you hear at the end there was someone knocking on the garage door so we would wrap it up. Had places to go. Places to go.

So there you go. That's it. I don't think I'm going to play guitar today if that's all right with you. All right? Take care of yourself. Yourselves. Your right. Take care of yourself, yourselves, your animals, whatever you need to, host of Under the Influence.

Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly.

This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to kids night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 PM in rock city at Toronto rock.com.