Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO series Real Time with Bill Maher. Hey, everybody. Hey, fantastic audience.

Oh, you look like you're still hung over on Cinco de Mayo, Cinco de Mayo this week, or as we call it here in Hollywood, Cultural Appropriation Day.

Yeah, Trump loves that holiday, he retweeted that famous picture of him, you know, at the Taco Bowl at his desk, he remembered this. Yeah, it was either that or learn a second thing about Mexico.

And Trump supporters, they love Cinco de Mayo, they celebrated this year by putting salt on the rim of their disinfectant.

It was. But if you if you really want to get high, you've got to eat the worm at the bottom of the Windex bottle.

That's how you really. Look, I love that holiday, always have lived out here for a long time. I partied by myself. I did. I was in the kitchen. I made tokie tacos, tacos and guacamole and margaritas. I wrecked the whole place. I was like, you know what, I'm going to leave this for the cleaning lady. Then I remembered I'm the cleaning lady.

Yeah, this week, I tell you, folks, I am officially tired of winning.

I mean, this nightmare just it does not stop. I mean, the virus did not go away in April magically like it was supposed to. The numbers, they say, are going to get worse. And yet we have to open up.

I mean, everything is going bankrupted. The Gold's Gym went bankrupt this week. Hurts is going to go bankrupt. Cheesemakers say they're down 50 percent. Disney profits down 91 percent. J.Crew Of course, that's understandable when half the country is desperate and unemployed. You don't want to walk around looking like a yuppie.

And in the midst of all this, like the last thing we need to just see this, we're getting an invasion of Asian murder hornets. That's what they're calling it in the press because they never try to scare people. Asian murder hornets. Trump said impossible.

I banned flights in January.

This man, I mean, amid the assessment from his own White House that the numbers of dead are going to go up, he says first he said he was going to wind down the coronaviruses task force, winding down, you know, like nailed it.

But then he's you know, it's like, well, we got we got to get on to the pivot, you know, the pivot from the cluster fucking the response to shitting the bed on the reopening.

And look, if anybody ever says to you, American exceptionalism, just nod your head, because we are exceptional, exceptional fuckups.

Hong Kong has a dense city, no local transmissions for two weeks. We can't make a box of Jimmy Dean pure pork sausage without infecting half a South Dakota.

And then Trump this week decides to get out of the house, goes to Arizona to visit a mask factory, doesn't wear a mask. Trump refuses to wear a mask because he is a manly man. He's not going to wear a mask like some girl. And also it smears his makeup.

That's the other.

And then the piece de resistance, he goes to the Lincoln Memorial to have a town hall at the sitting there in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln because they have so much in common, like depressed wives.

And he was interviewed by the Fox News host, very safe. They blew the smoke up his ass from six feet away.

And I guess predictably complain that he has been treated worse than Lincoln was, who was shot in the head, but apparently it is not as bad as having Joe Scarborough up your ass.

But, you know, we can only hope that help is on the way Joe Biden was talking this week, I thought this was a great idea he had about his vice president. He said he is considering a Republican. Yes, let's get this country united together. He says he wants maybe a Republican and of course, a woman. And Lindsey Graham said done and done.

All right, we've got a great show tonight, we have Amy Holmes, Dan Savage and Congressman Justin Amash, who I talked to earlier. Let's get right to it. OK, my first guest is the libertarian congressman representing Michigan's 3rd District. He's currently running for the libertarian nomination for president. Please welcome in your homes Justin Amash. Justin, how are you doing? Hey, how's it going? Well, you know, I'm still in my friggin man cave.

You know, I hope I'm hopeful I'll get out soon. But look, you're an interesting guy. The last couple of weeks running for president, my my liberal friends know you as the principled Republican. We found one because you were the one who stood up during impeachment and said, yeah, Trump did commit crimes, but now anti Trump is of all stripes are a little nervous because you want to run against Trump as a libertarian. And they worry, I think, that you will be taking votes from Biden and that you could be the Ralph Nader of twenty twenty.

How do you see it? Well, I'm in it to win the race, and I'm not trying to take votes from one side or the other, I'm here to take votes from both sides, frankly, and also reach out to millions of Americans who aren't represented in the last election in twenty sixteen. Forty five percent of Americans didn't even vote. So there's a big pool of people out there and I'm going to reach out to all of them. And I'm presenting a very different vision for the country, too.

I'm a libertarian. I believe in limited government. I believe government is overreaching in so many ways and it's vile. It's violating our rights when it does this. The fact that we don't have a representative government is a violation of our rights. Congress doesn't even work anymore. You have a few leaders who get together and they negotiate with Steve Manoogian or someone else in the administration and they tell us, here's the here's the deal and vote yes or no.

And people are sick of that. And I think that's leading to a lot of the polarization out there. OK, well, I mean, third party candidates, you always have your story and it's always similar and it's always nuts because, you know, third party candidates never win in this country. But OK, if you're not worried about tipping the right kind of candidate, you need a candidate who can go and get the message out to the people and is approachable and presentable.

I think a lot of times when you have third party candidates come in, they are coming from left field a little bit. And it's good to have a candidate out there who can present the message in a way that most people find approachable. And if you spend time with me and over the course of this campaign, I think you're going to find that I am the normal guy, the regular guy. And these other two guys are the buffoons. OK, we'll move on.

So but libertarianism, I've been called that there are some parts of it I'm downwith always have been. But it seems like, first of all, libertarianism in general seems like a basic cable channel that kind of lost its good rep, it still has a place on the dial, you know, you get on the ballot. But I think people think it went too far into crazy land with there shouldn't be traffic lights and stuff like that. And especially now with the crisis we're having, I must say, I feel like now it's a little out of step libertarianism.

I think what people really what people want is a government that traffic light thing.

I mean, there are libertarians calling for no traffic lights. So let's be clear about that. And I know people have these caricatures of libertarians. We want a government that works and we want to represent the people and have people's rights protected. I think that's the core of libertarianism. It's protecting people's rights. It's about individual liberty. And we've seen what this government gives us. It's not protecting people's rights and it's certainly not helping the little guy. I mean, this coronavirus relief package, how is that been helpful to anyone?

You had the government spend three trillion dollars and they still couldn't help the people who need the most help. They help bankers. They helped people on Wall Street. Yeah. If the stock market goes up, it will be because they helped the rich, not because they helped regular people. And libertarianism would say, let's help people who need the help, not let's not help the people who are connected and feel entitled to it.

So you'd give the same three trillion, but you'd get it to the people because giving away three trillion from the government in any situation doesn't sound like any kind of libertarianism I've ever heard of. Well, it's you know, it is a controversial position. I don't think it's a position that's held by all libertarians, but the fact is we live in a political world. You have Republicans and Democrats controlling Congress and money is going to be spent on a relief package.

There's no doubt about it. So the question is then, how are you going to do it? I don't think you need to spend three trillion dollars or anywhere close to that. You could give money to the people directly and or be way less than what we're talking about in terms of spending. But there are other things we can do to get get government out of the way, get the government out of the way of preventing people from adapting. There are regulations in place to prevent people at home from adapting to the current crisis.

You have state governments getting in front of people telling them they can't go to work when, you know, you might be able to make reasonable accommodations depending on the circumstances. Not every place is New York City. So we have to be rational, practical, reasonable, and actually libertarianism is all those things.

Well, I would agree with some of that, like the governor of South Dakota a couple of weeks ago said the people themselves are primarily responsible for their safety. That's such a South Dakota thing, such a bedrock conservative thing. The people themselves states different, you know, but I mean, as far as you can't compare South Dakota to New York City. So it's reasonable to say, hey, one state is going to be different from another or counties within a state.

I mean, I live in Michigan. If you look at West Michigan counties versus the east side of the state closer to Detroit, there's a big difference in terms of how the cases are arising. So I wasn't one size fits all approach. That's crazy. Libertarianism says let people on the ground, let people at home make more decisions, because that's actually the way you get knowledge and it's actually the way you make better decisions. OK, maybe misled you by saying she was the governor of South Dakota.

Forget South Dakota. That's I didn't mean New York versus South Dakota and I wasn't criticizing this. I kind of feel this way. I think the government the big criticism conservatives have always had in general is that people over the decades in this country get too dependent on government. I think government definitely has a big role, but you can get too dependent. And I think at this point, we're we're at a place where we're out of bullets. You know, we stayed home for two months, but now the numbers are going up.

It's looks like it's going to get worse again because some people did say that we've just delayed it. We can't really stay home forever. We're crashing the economy. Yes. People have to understand that it is primarily your responsibility to stay healthy. The government, of course, help the vulnerable people. I would be more for a situation where instead of all staying home, I'd rather work, pay taxes and then vote for whatever it costs to keep the vulnerable people protected.

You agree with that? What's a more reasonable approach? I mean, we need to let people get back to work where it's appropriate to do so, you know, people can make those decisions, though. You don't always have to have government coming in and telling people they can't work or this situation is the same as that situation. We had the governor of Michigan treating every business as though it's the same and actually causing a lot of problems. Like if you tell every business that they can only have a certain percentage of their square footage filled with customers, will you end up with lines out the door where customers are then standing next to each other and spreading the virus?

So it's actually counterproductive. And I want to leave businesses to make those decisions. I don't want the government telling people to to decide that stuff will get better outcomes and we'll keep the economy in a better place and then we'll have more resources to pay for those who are most vulnerable.

What's the libertarian position on yours, at least on health care in general? I assume you were not for Obamacare, but has in this crisis shown us that I mean, look what's going on in the hospitals. They didn't get the business, the normal business they got. So now in an effort to save them by not overloading them, some of them are going broke and they're furloughing people. I mean, it's so crazy how this country can just screw up everything.

And doesn't it say that this profit driven system, this pay for service system, it just can't work? Hospitals work like airlines. They never want an empty seat on the airline and they never want an empty bed. They're on this margin.

I'd say that it's the government doesn't work. I mean, government is the one telling hospitals to shut their doors and the hospitals can make these decisions on a case by case basis, depending on the circumstances. I don't think it's right to say that every community in the country is the same. And to suggest that the virus spreads the same in every single community in the country is just not true. We know that not to be true. I mean, OK, we're back on the other I on the world that have different cases of viruses and deal with them in different ways.

It's just not true that it spreads in the same in every minority. Some communities have a bigger problem than others. You have to let people make those decisions and hospitals have to make decisions.

You keep arguing with me about the thing. I'm agreeing with you. I agree it's not the same in November. OK, completely different question I'm asking you, which is what is the you know, when the virus ebbs and we get back to normal, hopefully, thank God one day. What is the libertarian health care plan? It's not Obamacare, is it? What is it?

What we used to have which was going what we used to have, it's always been really regulated, at least in recent decades. I think you need to remove a lot of the regulations when it comes to what people can provide, what insurers can provide. I mean, it's gotten bogged down where insurance becomes other. Other services become sorts of commodities and they're no longer normal services like you might expect to get. You can have some kind of backstop at the backstop should be as close to home as possible.

It definitely should be at the federal level. If states want to have backstops, they can make those decisions. As a libertarian, I want people to make as many decisions for their own lives as possible and get the government out. But as a person running for federal office for the presidency, I can at least say let's get the federal government out of some of this stuff and leave it to state governments. And communities can make decisions. And if some states want to get together and form some kind of coalition and say, hey, you can use our services and you can use their services, then that's OK.

Two of the states can decide that stuff. I don't know why it's got to be centralized by the federal government, give people more choices that will lower prices, get the government out of all the regulations. And then if a state wants to have a backstop for people, I think that's appropriate. But it shouldn't be at the federal level. Well, you may have left the Republican Party, but you took that answer with you. They're going to like that one in the old club.

OK, so let me ask you this question. We have less beds per a thousand people in our hospitals than what's Libya, Mongolia and Turkmenistan. We also are more like a third world country in certain measures like child births, deaths, stuff like that. We handled this like a developing nation because we are a developing nation. Doesn't that give you pause to I mean, I don't agree with that.

We have standards well above the rest of the world, and you can always pick some obscure item and say, well, we're not doing as well. But there are lots of reasons for things like not having enough hospital beds. There are certificate of need issues at the state level. There are a lot of licensing issues and other things that that really get in the way of having the right number of beds or at least preventing people from adapting quickly. Also, we are we're a diverse country.

We welcome people from around the world, maybe not under the Trump administration, but historically. We've been a very welcoming country. My dad is a refugee, my mom is an immigrant, and people come here from around the world and they bring some of their situations from back home to they don't always come here with the same standard of living that someone born here has, and we accept them and welcome them. And over many generations, you see more assimilation and eventually you don't even know that their ancestors were from somewhere else.

But we've been welcoming. And that also means that sometimes some of our statistics don't match up and we take the hardest cases in the world. If you look at a hospital, it's the American medical system that is taking the hardest cases from around the world. People come here for medical care, and sometimes that means that because we're taking the toughest cases, you have people who don't do as well in certain circumstances because we're the ones taking the challenging situations.

OK, last question. Conservatives, Tea Party people, libertarians, they all talk a big game about we should get the budget balanced. But when it comes to cutting defense, that's where they wilt. I want to see where you are on this issue, because our defense to make the most bloated a lot of it is straight up socialism. Even the Pentagon will say we don't need these tanks, don't make them. We have no place to put them.

And people still make them because their jobs programs. That's right. I think you are not. I mean, we're building there sometimes building weapons we don't need.

We have bases overseas that are empty and we fight wars without any authorizations. I mean, they'll claim an authorization from two thousand one or two thousand two to fight some war that's totally unrelated. And the American people half the time don't even know about it. So, yeah, we have to bring down our military spending. We can bring it down in a way that is reasonable and appropriate. And we'd still spend way more than the rest of the world.

I mean, if you look at the spending, the military spending, we're spending as much as, I don't know, five, six, seven countries combined, and most of those are our allies. So we can bring this down and defend ourselves. And we need to have a foreign policy that is based in trust of the people and representation of the people. We can't have a foreign policy where we just do things behind people's backs and they don't even know what's going on.

OK, I'm glad we ended on one where we agree on again. Great to see you. Thank you for doing this good. Like so much. Good luck with the campaign and we'll see how the real world take care. Thank you.

All right, she's a columnist for the Swiss weekly magazine, Developed Voca Amy Holmes, did I say that right now? Voca excellent pronunciation. What does that mean? I mean, World Week in German O World Week. OK, so what a week the world had, huh? So Amy, I'm just going to start out to ask you what your ruler in the world, or at least America, what's what's your plan for this? Because I was very this week I found very depressing.

We thought we were like flattening the curve and we'd stay at home and maybe we fixed it. And then even the White House itself said, no, it looks like there's going to be more deaths by the end of the month. And we already stayed home for two months. We can't keep having an economy and not working. Where are you on this? What's the plan? Well, I think one of the great advantages is that we don't have a rule of the world with a one size fits all plan, that we're looking at different countries, different states to try to learn lessons on moving forward for different demographics, different geographic.

We can't have this lockdown last much longer. It is getting dire. There is a story just today in The New York Post that we now have a pressure being put on food banks by grad students who can't afford the rent, can't afford groceries, the impact on the American people, the American economy. Thirty three million jobless claims now. A new report coming out that over half of small businesses expect to go out of business in the next six months.

That we start getting into the territory, that the cure is worse than the disease. I don't know if you read this story this week about I didn't realize this in nineteen sixty eight and sixty nine, we had the Hong Kong flu and somebody named Jeffrey Tucker wrote an article and said, well, it was funny, said they let Woodstock go on and it was a very bad flu. If you extrapolate the numbers, given the population of the country at the time was only 200 million and we were way less obese, it could have killed like two hundred and fifty thousand people back then.

But they handled it very differently. No, there was no closings. The stock market didn't crash ever. The schools were open. You can go to a restaurant, Woodstock, like I said, you know, the view was, yes, let the people who are not vulnerable to it. Of course, there's always going to be some who will die of anything, let them lead their lives and protect the vulnerable and leave it as a medical problem.

It was not something they thought back then. I think on either side of the aisle was appropriate for the government to get involved in. I mean, we've changed a lot. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I think it's so interesting. And looking at the Hong Kong flu and the public response to it, I think people were more stoic. And remember, these are families who had parents, parents who had parents that had gone through World War Two, people who had suffered or our country had suffered on a grand scale when it came to conflict. So something like the Hong Kong flu, I think people were able to take a bit more in stride when they contrasted that to other disasters that they or their parents had seen in their lifetime.

I also think everything is they didn't have twenty four, seven cable news pumping out all of these frightening headlines about covid-19 or that in that case, Hong Kong flu. So a lot of things go into this. Something that's been really frustrating to me is that we have so many political reporters reporting on what is a health story. So everything gets shoved through this political lens, shoved through partisan fighting and bickering and all of that. When I want to get information on am I at risk, what can I do to minimize my risk?

I don't want to have a deathly illness, even if I'm in the demographic that will get through it. I want to learn ways to be able to minimize that, but instead we get a lot of political headlines. Is that a really useful information?

Yeah, I mean, I think government definitely has a role. I just they're just not efficient at doing it now. I mean, obviously there are governments around the world who got involved and really quashed this thing, so. You know, I don't know if that's what would have happened back in nineteen sixty eight if the government got more involved, but I want to quote something from Tom Friedman for you. He said, this week, We've let ourselves go as a country.

We've let ourselves be dummies. We want to be for so many years devaluing science and reading, turning politics into entertainment, adopting horrible eating habits. And I thought that resonated with me. I feel like our response to this has, like you say, be terrified to call yourself a hero for staying home, watching TV for two months and and never does. If I had one complaint with how they've handled it, the foushee in those people is we've been home for two months.

They could have asked us the very beginning. The most important thing you could do, they could have said, is get yourself in better shape. You could change your health profile a lot in two months. We could be in a much better position. And it's just like when George Bush after 9/11 said go shopping, remember that, go shopping. And this was like, keep eating. And, you know, I know people hate to hear that message and I hate to say it, but it's the truth.

The core of this problem in this country. One reason, obviously, besides the Trumpy and nonsense is that we as a country, you look at the numbers from other countries around the world, not nearly the amount of deaths, because they don't have the same obesity profile. Well, and in fact, a report, a study just came out of the U.K. that they found that obesity is a hugely, no pun intended contributing factor to covid-19 deaths. And weirdly enough, I've actually lost weight during the shutdown because it's subsisting on scrambled eggs and oatmeal.

I think I might try to patent this new diet. So, you know, weight wise, it's actually been a benefit for me. But yes, you're right. And one of the reasons I think that we should emphasize more taking care of our bodies in terms of protecting our health is because that's something that we can do, that we can have some control over. Now, look, I know better than anybody else that gaining weight is a lot easier than losing it.

But that's something that if you know why, what are the risks if you are overweight, that you can take the solutions in your own hands and make a change yourself? I can't change whether or not I sit next to somebody on the subway who has covid-19 unless I don't get on the subway in the right place. But I can change what's in my refrigerator. I think that's a great message because, you know, when you talk about this issue, it's very easy for other people to score cheap points by attacking the messenger when the truth is they're just enabling people.

I think by you know, basically we got to this place where we're proud of gluttony. I don't know if you saw Adele this week. I want to read some of these tweets. But Adele lost a lot of weight. It was all over the press. And there's a controversy about this. This is not controversial. This is purely a good thing. Let's listen. And by the way, the old Adele would not fare as well with covid-19.

I mean, we applaud health care workers when they save other people's lives. We should applaud, I think, someone when they make a move to save their own life. Listen to this. This is the mentality of this country. One tweet like like did we again push another sane person in the spotlight to an eating disorder? Is she OK? I'm concerned, OK, the eating disorder is eating too much. This this is insane that that they think that the eating disorder goes in the other direction.

Like telling someone that that weight makes them less beautiful in any way is disgusting. No one saying it makes you less beautiful. That's in the eye of the beholder. But science is science. You can't change the facts. It makes you less healthy. Well, and we know that and that it can drive heart disease, asthma, all sorts of other problems associated with obesity, and this is part of why our former first lady Michelle Obama made tackling child obesity her number one first lady issue, if you remember, and her planting an organic garden at the White House.

She was trying to get ahead of this because, again, it's a lot easier to gain weight than it is to lose it. And it's a lot easier to have good eating habits starting when you're a kid, when you're trying to develop them as an adult. When it comes to adult. I'll be honest, I haven't followed the great Adele weight saga over the last few years. Stranger's Weight said. I don't get emotionally invested in it, but we should get emotionally invested in ourselves.

And if our bodies are serving us and something else that, you know, now scientists are looking at in in the case of covid-19 is that fat cells have a property in them themselves, just the fat cells that helps the covid virus proliferate and attack your body. So it's not just having the extra weight on your brain that's making it hard for your heart to work or for your lungs to work. The fat itself could be contributing to the virus, making you sick.

Yes, it's the worst thing for your immune system and a big grade of someone who struggles with this instead of, you know, again, attacking the messenger said, yes, there are a lot of excuses. I mean, it is harder in this country to eat good food the way we subsidize the wrong things. It's a mess. You have money. It is. It is a lot harder, but it's not impossible, like you said. I know.

How about where the can do country? You know, you never have to have soda. How about that?

Whatever you're eating that does not like that, but it's a lot better for us. But I think Bill.

So who are you going to vote for. I have no idea, I haven't really thought about it, and in fact, we're not even sure we do, we know Joe Biden is going to be the nominee. He's still presumptive. Anything can happen. So we'll see. Yes.

Joe Biden is the nominee. Who are you going to vote for? Sorry. Yes, Biden's the nominee. Who are you going to vote for?

Honestly, I don't know. Really? You can't decide between the guy who says drink bleach and Joe Biden.

Well, I think you are interviewing a guest just to Justin Amash, who is planning to run for office, is doing OK. So let's look at all of the potential competitors and we'll see by then. But I don't I don't have a strong idea about it. OK, all right. Thank you and good to see you. We'll see you in the real world soon. Greetings from Gotham. OK, OK, well, this is our sixth show, believe it or not, from my backyard and man cave.

And I just wanted you to know that we're aware it's not been exactly like what you expect, but we have tried very hard to preserve the soul of the show. And I want to give kudos to my staff for pulling that off as best we can. And a big thank you to the audience for sticking with us under these very difficult times. You know, in times of crisis, there's a lot of fear and that leads people to a lot of groupthink.

And we have tried to present different ideas during this time. Many you might not agree with, and I don't agree with all of them, but it's important that we keep doing that. So I thank you for sticking with us. And I thought that was a perfect segue way, by the way, to get into one of our favorite bits that we've done for years now. I don't know for a fact. I just know it's true. So here for you now, I don't know it for a fact.

I just know it's true coronavirus Ed..

I don't know it for a fact that quarantine sells haircuts are better than what you'd get at Fantastic Sam's. I just know it's true, I don't know for a fact that people are going to fuck their first Tinder match after just. No, it's true. I don't know for a fact that employees at Sears have no idea there's been a lockdown.

I just just know it's true.

I don't know for a fact that the Kardashians are deciding which sister to sacrifice to the virus to stay relevant or very me.

Just kidding. I don't know for a fact that Dr. Burke's cries in her car. I just know it's true. I don't know for a fact that Melania tells Trump not tonight. I might be asymptomatic, asymptomatic, something like that.

I don't know for a fact that Lou Dobbs drinks his hot dog water. Really related to the crisis, but sort of I don't know for a fact that you've been through so many categories on PornHub, you're thinking of clicking on the one where the chicks are giants.

I've heard about that one.

I don't know it for a fact that somewhere a Jewish mother is complaining to her son, you never call. You never resume.

I just know that one is true. I don't know for a fact that your wife thinks about Gavin Newsom during sex. Oh, that's true.

And I don't know for a fact that Bush would have fuck this up, too.

Not as bad, but he would have.

OK, OK. Is the columnist for Savage Love and host of the Savage Love Cast podcast, Dan Savage. Hey, Bill, how are you? Great.

And you're in Seattle? Yeah, I'm up in Seattle. In my office. It doesn't matter. We're all locked away. We're starting to come out again. But I want to ask you about your column, because I'm just very curious what people are writing right now. You must have a lot of people who have changed the subject to excuse me to, you know, what do I do in this crisis? How do I hook up alone, whatever it is?

What is like the number one query you're getting? Most of No.

One seems to be permission slips. People want to carve out an exception that applies just for them to sneak out of the house to leave the people they're quarantining with and go fuck somebody. And sometimes it's go fuck somebody in addition to the person at home that they've been sleeping with. And that's just too risky. I've had some readers get angry with me because, you know, I'm a gay guy and I'm in my fifties. And at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 80s, I took risks for love and sex and intimacy and connection.

But, you know, back then, if you went out and took a calculated risk and had sex with somebody, you didn't go home that night and have anal sex with your mother. So you didn't put anybody else that you were living with at risk, it was a risk that was all yours. And in this case, with sex, if you're close enough to someone to have sex with them, unless your penis is six foot six inches long, if you're close enough to have sex with them, they're breathing on you and you're going to go home and breathe on people that you're living with.

And so you're not just taking a risk yourself. You're putting everybody else in your orbit, everybody else you're sheltering with at risk as well. And that's not right or fair.

Do you live with your mother? Not anymore. But in the mid 80s, when I was a sexually active young gay man, I did then why I was taking risks. But they were mine alone. I were I wasn't putting anybody else at risk who also wasn't a sex partner of mine.

I know. But if you're not living with your mother, if she's not in the house and you're in your then you're controlled not to go see your mother.

The theory is that by traversing the city to get to somebody, that could be a risk. You know, as restrictions are easy to get, it may be possible to bring more people into your pod to to a limited number of people that you are connected with. You know, human beings are social and also sexual animals. And people will go insane without touching, saying without sex. Eventually we're going to figure out a way to finesse this. But at this moment, right now, with the cases still rising, it just is a little too risky, I think, to contemplate bringing more people into your pod and the kind of rationalizations people make when they're thinking with their dicks or thinking with their pussies to allow for what it is they want, as opposed to what is safe, not just for them as an individual, but for everybody else in their orbit.

So do you ever worry people will get too used to this? And look, we've always had noncontact sex. I mean, I remember phone sex started like in the eighties. I've never done it. I would burst out laughing. I just think it's ridiculous.

But I think you're going to see more people experimenting with online fact. You're definitely seeing that not only are you seeing it, I think the stigma attached to it is falling away. Even before covid-19 40 percent, the plurality of opposite sex couples we're now meeting online, first contact online with 80 percent of same sex couples and higher. And it's just accelerating that trend. Now people are meeting online. And that's a that's a good thing that people we're meeting online, because when you enter an online dating space or hookup space, you're saying to everybody else in that space, you can approach me.

There's not going to be any misunderstanding if you approach me at this moment and hit on me. And this is just giving more people who weren't already doing that push. And you're seeing a lot more that phone sex, Skype sex, you're seeing a lot more, much to the consternation of some people having sex on Zoome, despite Zoom's your service agreement, that doesn't allow people to be sexual, but people are doing it anyway because sex is powerful and people will do it and people will use whatever tools are at hand.

And right now, the safest way to have sex with somebody who isn't a person that you're living with is to meet them on the Internet, have sex with them there. But meeting is not. So I can't believe I have to say this to you. That meeting is not sex. And, you know, doing anything when they're not in the same room, you call whatever you want. It's not sex. I'm not advocating that you go out and do something risky right now.

That's not the point of this. I'm just I'm just asking about the future. And like the Gen Z generation, I know they think if they're just. Talking to somebody a lot and they have never met them, they'll call that dating.

I find that I get questions all the time at my column and my podcast from people who say, you know, I've been with my boyfriend for 10 months. We've never actually met. And I don't think that it's a relationship until you've actually met. And the advice used to be don't direct message for someone for too long before that first meeting. So you never know if you're going to click in person and really click chemically. And if you, you know, really make a huge emotional investment in somebody online and then you meet them and you don't click, you're going to be devastated or they're going to be devastated if you're not into them.

And so the advice was always, you know, get together for that first coffee after a day or two of swapping messages. Don't draw it out for weeks or months. But now we're in a situation where we have to turn that advice on its head. And I know cybersex isn't real. Sex is not real sex. It's not skin to skin contact sex. And that is what people need. But in the absolute absence of that kind of it's next best thing.

So cyber sex, sex is in the name. It's not what you think of when somebody says sex, but I still think it counts.

I'm glad to hear we're still going to have actual sex.

We will have actual sex. And until about half an hour ago, I was going to predict sort of the golden age of gloryhole might return because initial tests showed that there wasn't a virus in semen or vaginal secretions. So if you could carve a hole in the wall and get people together and then power wash that wall with the hole in it, in between uses, people could have sex that way and Glorias would come roaring back and they wouldn't just be for creepy closeted priests and truckstops anymore.

But a new study just out of China actually did find virus, the coronavirus in the semen of people who had recovered from Korona infection. So the jury is still out on whether or not swapping fluids, even for people who've recovered from Corona, is going to be safe.

Well, OK, you're you're you're the expert, but I'm going to pass on the whole gloryhole thing.

So who do you think this has been tougher on single people who are alone, completely alone, or people who are married or living together and now they're cooped up with someone and it's they're driving each other nuts. And it's turns out. What what do you think is worse? Loneliness or I guess it's the individual?

I actually don't think it's a competition. I think there are people out there who are alone and very hurt and upset. Maybe even people began dating before this hit and they're now separated or separated by an ocean or a continent from their partner. And there's no way of knowing when they're going to get back together again. And those folks are miserable. And there are a lot of people who are confined with their spouses. And, you know, in some cases, what we saw in cities in China after restriction were lifted was not a baby boom or a lot of people remerging pregnant.

What we saw was a lot of people rushing to get divorces. And my concern is, you know, one of the things that makes a relationship work is time apart built into that relationship. There's studies that show that couples who vacationed separately occasionally have different social circles are stronger and they last longer. And suddenly that couple where what helped that relationship work was that structured time apart, built into the relationship. They're suddenly thrown together in the same place twenty four hours a day, and they may be misinterpreting the stress and conflict.

The relationship is a sign that it doesn't work and they need to get out of it as opposed to this doesn't work. These circumstance don't work in this relationship. And I'm afraid some people may end relationships when this is over that they shouldn't and wait.

So I understand the answer. So you're saying being alone is the worst one?

No, I'm saying it's not a competition. Like there are people who are alone and miserable. There are people who are being thrown together with spouses that maybe they barely liked or were thinking about leaving in the first place or spouses that they like. And the relationship is good. It's just this pressure of, you know, in this alien circumstance where you have to be with somebody twenty four hours a day is putting a strain on the relationship that may convince someone they need to get out of it when what they actually do is just find a way, even if you're in the same place, to get away from each other every once in a while.

Yeah, that's a tough thing for a lot of people right now. So I thought this is really interesting. I saw in the paper yesterday. Forty five percent of husbands say they are doing the majority of the home schooling of the children.

And three percent of the wives agree that bears out across multiple studies about housework and taking care of children where the husbands overestimate the amount that they're doing and maybe the wives underestimate it a bit. But, yeah, men tend to think they're doing more than they actually are.

And how in almost all areas has this been positive for your relationship? Yeah, you know, I, I shouldn't complain, but I do.

So obviously I can. But, you know, Terry and I are very. And then we have a nice big house and we have a kind of a skill, I think, that was always there, which I've always said was a good thing about a relationship, as we've always been really good at being alone together, that we can be in the same room and he can be reading a book and I can be working and we can just leave each other alone.

We don't you know, there are couples who feel like if you're not staring into each other's eyes at every moment that you're physically in the same space, there's something wrong with your relationship. And I've always been very good at ignoring each other when we needed to. Well said. All right. Well, I'm glad you're well. And I look forward to seeing you some time again to seeing you again soon.

I'm glad you're well and best wishes to everybody in the real time family. And I hope we come through this. All right. Thanks then. I appreciate it.

Well, thanks. OK, now it's time for new rules, everybody go. All right, you're old now that for the first time in history, New York City shut down its entire subway system just to clean it.

They need to do this more often, stop it on those trains and clearly once every one hundred and sixteen years just doesn't cut it. In fact, whenever I hear that part in Thriller, where Vincent Price says the funk of forty thousand years, I think. Yeah, the D train. Well, if reading the news is depressing you, you have to try my new game where you find the name of a punk band in every headline like Pandemic Response made shortage.

Tonight, death toll projection and of course, Asian murder haunted. Neuro, stop wearing your mask around your chin, either wear it or don't, but this this is like putting the condom on your balls.

All men who bring their guns to any protest about anything have to admit they just like guns, same as women who think any political point is best hammered home by writing it on your body and taking their shirt off. What do we want?

I forget when do we want it? Guns and tits and the related new rules. Someone has to remind the protesters that while you're out in front of the state capitol armed with rifles, we're home in front of the computer armed with Photoshop.

Now, I didn't make this. Somebody on the Internet did. But the first thing I thought when I saw it was, wow, look at those three huge dicks and they're holding those oversized dildos. And finally, new rule, just because Fox News is obsessed with the Biden sex assault allegations, it doesn't mean the rest of us have to be. You may have noticed that Donald Trump has one move, accuse you of the very thing he's guilty of.

Puppet, no puppet. You're the puppet and that one. OK, well, now it's Joe Biden grabs women by the pussy. Not that he even needs to say it, the liberal media and Liberal Party is doing it for him exactly what Republicans want for us to go down the rabbit hole of Joe Biden's sex monster.

So now everybody's investigating, but there is no fact finding here. It's a he said she said she said something else entirely. Yes, Biden's accuser, Tara Reid, has been contradicted by multiple people, most importantly, Tara Reid, just last year she said of Biden.

I wasn't scared of him that he was going to take me in a room or anything. It wasn't that kind of vibe. So she suggests that she had filed a sex harassment report. Now she says she didn't. She says she was fired by Biden's office, but in deleted posts. She said she left because, quote, I love Russia with all my heart. President Putin scares the power elite in America because he is a compassionate, caring, visionary leader.

His obvious reverence for women, children and animals and his ability with sports is intoxicating to American women. What? What the fuck? We're letting this person change the subject from Donald Trump, lethal, incompetent to Joe Biden's sex monster, she literally wrote a love letter to the murderer trying to keep Biden from the White House. Yet The New York Times is calling for the DNC to establish a truth panel on this truth panel, which part Putin's reverence for animals or how intoxicating he is to women.

And Democrats are coalescing around the position that this accusation must be thoroughly vetted for the party to keep its credibility. Well, you know, credibility certainly is a problem for the party on this issue, mostly because they woke themselves into a corner when they adopted believe women as their slogan, when it should always have been take accusations seriously. Kirsten Gillibrand said of the Al Franken allegations the women who came forward felt it was sexual harassment, so it was. That was never tenable because believing everything doesn't make you noble, it makes you gullible and leaves us with a world where Republicans don't care about this stuff.

So it's just a unilateral weapon that is used only against Democrats. Trump rides the bus with Billy Bush. We throw Al Franken under it. You know, Democrats are the party of choice, we can choose not to completely fuck ourselves over this. I know it's a sex scandal and in normal times, that's what we do instead of issues. But there are actually some pretty big problems going on right now. I don't know if you noticed, but America has turned into a failed state that does a worse job keeping its citizens alive during a pandemic than Cambodia.

And to me, that's a little more important than Tara Reid achieving closure.

She says Biden attacked her and he says he didn't. Those are their positions. How about this for yours? I don't know. Never will. Don't care. I care in the macro about women being attacked, of course. But on this one, I'm with Bogy, who said I'm no good at being noble. But it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans. In this crazy world. Everybody says we need to do everything we can to defeat Trump.

Yeah, accept anything. Well, I'm no good at being noble either, but if in nineteen ninety three Joe Biden had grabbed my nuts in a corridor, I was in Washington that year and I had this knowledge and revealing it could hurt the guy running against Trump, I'd save it for my memoirs. I'd like to think that I'd have a little more perspective. We have a president who says drink bleach. Jeez, you waited twenty seven years. It couldn't hold another few months.

That's what I would like to ask. Misread. Why now? I'm not saying why not. Twenty seven years ago, I understand it can take victims years to come forward. I'm saying why not before Super Tuesday? Well, not last fall when we still had a dozen other candidates to choose from. Why wait until Biden is our only hope against Trump and then take him down? This story is gathering and importance it should not have. There is so much at stake in this next election, the entire world needs to be put back together like Humpty Dumpty.

Why should one person's victimhood trump everyone else's? OK, that's our show. I want to thank my guest, Justin Amash, Amy Holmes and Dan Savage. We're taking next week off. We'll be back on the 22nd. See you then. Thank you, folks.

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