Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO series Real Time with Bill Maher. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. How are you? Oh, look, we're coming near the end of the terrible hurricane, appearing as I feel it. I feel it. Thank you. Yes, I could see. I always I always say I know why you're happy, but I feel the actual happiness to that. I know. Is it because. Yeah, I know because.

Well, President Biden made his speech last night.

Did you watch your speech? He said by May 1st of vaccines, everybody. And he says July 4th, we look like we'll be back hopefully to normalcy.

Wow. That's yes. I mean. It's been a while and also looks like the schools will begin reopening. I know that means a lot to a lot of people. Yeah, teachers around the country are already practicing crying in their car in the morning, so.

And also, they passed the big relief bill, stimulus checks.

This guy needs it tomorrow. You know, they're going out like so many checks are going out.

It's like reparations for being stuck with your family. That's what. All the Republicans, every single one of them voted against it, the House and the Senate, all every one of them, and of course, now that there's benefits, they're already taking credit for the benefits that are coming to like that guy, the office, you forget your birthday and then someone to give you a gift. And he goes, that's from all of us.

Also this week, we finally got some clarity on the most pressing issue of our time, did Megan make Kate cry or did Kate make Megan cry?

Tell me now, so I know who we're not talking to at lunch at this, I never understood this fixation with the royal family, but boy, this week you're all talking about it.

You can't avoid it. Oprah did a big interview with Harry and Megan on CBS, which makes sense because when I turned it on, boy, did I CBS.

You can you can hate the racism, but not love them for everything else. You know, I mean I mean, Megan did claim that before dating Harry, she she never Googled him.

And she said she didn't know much about the royal family. You know, in the first three days, she thought it was Ed Sheeran.

That's how much she didn't go was. And, you know, come on, Megan, you film your television show for years in Toronto, every time you bought a Musashino, you use coins with your mother in law's face on it, I think.

But, of course, the big bombshell, not that it's not a big bombshell, that there was horrible racism, it is terrible in the royal family and I'm sure it was very painful. And members of the royal hierarchy, she said, were actually asking her, you know, when she was pregnant, how dark the baby's skin would be. And the queen said it problematic. She said this is why we've always discouraged sex outside the family that.

So who else is who else is on the shitlist this week?

Oh, Biden's dog, Major. Yeah, major fuck up. He's back in Delaware. He's like Melania left. She spent the first six months in New York, which is a common thing now. But Biden's dog bit somebody in the Secret Service says this is the first biting incident they can remember, although they did once have to pull Lindsay Graham off Trump's leg.

That's. But I'm so glad you're in a good mood, this is our anniversary. It was almost exactly a year ago that we did our last show here and we all remember what happened then. And so we have a lot of interesting stats now about what happened during the last year. People's weight is up, drinking more mental health issues and less sex, a condition previously known as marriage. Also, I thought I thought this was interesting, also, men have developed an inflated sense of how often stepmoms have sex with their stepson's.

I think PornHub fans know what that means. Yeah, but it is amazing when you think about it.

In just 12 months, covid went around the world touching everyone like Andrew Cuomo.

Oh, he's. He just he's in big trouble, he's in big trouble last week, one of these one of those stories, every week the numbers go up. Now it's six women and it's starting to look like the only way we're going to be able to stop him is herd immunity.

The the latest is that apparently he called an aide to help, this is his way of, you know, making out with the ladies. Called an aide to help come into his office privately to help with his cell phone. This is the second accuser who says that that was help with my cell phone was the ruse because nothing makes women hotter than an older guy who can't figure out his phone.

Stop it, Governor. Oh, oh, governor, stop it. I'm so wet, you're going to have to put me in rice. All right. We got a great show, Larry. Scott Galloway, you're here. First up, she is a New York Times best selling author whose latest book is You're Leaving When Adventures in Downward Mobility. He also hosts a new podcast called Tiny Victories.

My friend Annabelle Gurwitch, she is. You look fantastic. Thank you. Looked like the day we met on the audition for pizza. And yes, we are both like, you're one of the last boomers, right? That's your generation.

I really relate to being a they cause, like, cuss people were on the cusp between Gen X and boomers. Right. Boomers have a really different experience and people born in the same year as me.

Do you remember Bonanza?

I barely Bill. That's the difference. That's a big, big difference.

OK, you got me there. That was a great show. That's the cut off. That's the cutoff.

But I feel like, you know, people our age or, you know, you're obviously making a point of being younger.

But around our age, I mean, you find out at a certain point that all the sadness and badness in life, not all. I mean, I had shitty times when I was young. That's true. But a lot of it the real bad stuff is kind of back loaded. Toward getting older. Yes, you know, yes, you don't look better, you know, people have less use for you. This is a country that has is shitty to older people that look, in my book, I call us the never retirement generation.

We are never retiring. No one I know thinks are going to retire. We also were not allowed to get tired because we are all working.

Several jobs were on the gig economy right at.

Yes, it's like it's it's one thing to be in your 20s. I mean, we all had this shitty apartment, you know, with the roaches when you woke up on your face in the same apartment eating blimpish and but when you were in your 20s, you don't give a shit and that you didn't hurt you. You can eat blimpish every day like I did. And I knew when you're older, you want comfort. That's the key thing. And this is what your book is about.

That's what downward mobility is, that we really fuck the older people and not in a good way, not in a way that's enjoyable for everyone.

So there's not a you know what? There's no consensus and there's no content in that fucking know that we're getting. That's right. No, I mean, you know, this book was written at a time when there were many destabilizing events in my life. Right. And there are events that have happened to write divorce and divorce.

Always got divorced. Parents died when I was caretaking for my parents first. And that destabilizes people's economy and that primarily affects women who are the caretakers.

Right.

Right.

So then also the biggest destabilizer of all, besides the fact that I'm now a freelancer and, you know, I've always said, oh, my God, you know, if I don't die of a worse disease, you know, it just be like death by a thousand voices. It's so hard to be a freelancer without benefits. That's the issue. And that was a breaking point for me, was health care and and this gig economy, people doing things.

I mean, I read in the book, it's hysterical. I see so many movie scenes in this book. But, you know, you became a landlady. I did. You became someone who took in homeless people. I yes. So people experiencing homelessness, people experiencing homelessness and yet feel.

So first of all, let me apologize and resign.

Yeah. Now, just let me just tell you this.

So, you know, this this thing, I decided that the best way for me to stop hemorrhaging funds in the real destabilizer was losing my union health insurance and going out into the free market. Right. And at the same time that happened to me this time last year, March twenty twenty five point four million Americans lost their employer sponsored health insurance, I'm sure. Of course. Hence downward mobility. Right.

So I became a landlady, started taking in people to help my rent and help. I work here. But the homeless people you took in, they weren't helping with rent.

Well, that's not exactly true. So what happened was I lost a tenant at the last minute. Right. And I heard about a program, which is a rapid rehousing program, which is actually going on in 11 cities around the country now where you take in people experiencing homelessness, young people, and you get a stipend, a small stipend, and no one's getting rich doing this. You're not getting to the top one percent. But it's by doing just that.

Every bit helps.

You know, I thought it would be better than nothing. And, you know, I when I first heard that phrase, I just want to say on housing or experiencing homelessness, I thought, OK, is this the new PC thing?

But really, when you look at who is slipping in and out of homelessness in America, really accurately describes it. We're talking about teachers right now living in their cars. We're talking about young people. One out of four community college students have housing instability in the whole country. So this is a condition. And yeah. And you became kind of close to these people. I mean, at first it seemed like obviously I thought they were going to murder me.

Right. I was worried they were going to murder me in my sleep, but that's because I didn't understand who was housing insecure. So, you know, they they they're coming to my house. And I want to be nice and friendly, but I'm hiding my jewelry, my mother's silver in the closet, and they get to my house and they just start doing very suspicious things. They start cooking salads, they start darning socks, they're reading.

They're calling their mothers. And honestly feel that blew my mind because I didn't imagine I had words. They were normal people.

They were normal people. They people wanted to get. And in fact and in fact, I was so convinced that they were sketchy, you know, that I some point I thought, OK, I'm going to put their names into a background search. And I never had any experience doing that. So I put my name into and it turned out I was the person who was flagged.

I was the sketchy person in the house. Right? Yes.

Yes. But why why are you sketchy? Well, because I had unpaid parking bills, because I was. And this is what happens when you're worried about money. You start delaying paying your bills. I wasn't paying attention, so I had more red flags than they did. And, you know, the thing is, they'd come to Los Angeles to be, you know, artists. Right.

And I mean, in entertainment business, I have a problem with that right there. I never encourage that. Not that I have a problem. People being artists. I have a problem with everyone in America needing to be an artist. Well, yes.

And this is why so many people say, oh, look, I don't like that. Look, I completely agree. It's it's like it's maybe why you're homeless, but no.

And yes. Yes.

Because, you know, we're going to impact this cause the thing is, is that, you know, I thought, OK, first of all, it's a terrible idea to move to Los Angeles to work. I always don't do it right. So as I got to know them, I realized they had saved up money to move here, almost the same amount as I had saved up. Right. Right. They had done that working in factories. They had worked menial labor jobs.

Me, I moved here. I cashed in stocks. I got from my bar mitzvah. I mean, who is more hard working, you know?

And then when you look at at the difference between what they were facing and what I was facing, I got an apartment for seven hundred and fifty dollars when I moved here, the same apartment in the same zip code is twenty four hundred dollars. Now. Now I got a job in a restaurant. Right.

What year did you move here in nineteen eighty nine. So I moved here in eighty three and mine was three fifty. Wow. In Boys Town and it was heaven. I moved from New York where I had a bus outside my window every day and now I had a fucking bird.

I arrived in paradise. It's all relative. It is. Well, not even that's a difference. That's that's an age difference. But so look, now, the thing is, if wages had kept pace with housing costs, that would be different. But so I got a job in a restaurant when I moved out here. Now that you can't get those jobs now, that job was even though it's not terribly high paid, you had shifts, you had something dependable.

You can't count on the money that you're making if you're working for a food delivery. And the bigger issue is you can't expand your social network. Right. If you're if you're like delivering sandwiches from the back of your KIYA, now, you're not meeting people who will help you later in your career, you know, and that's what you do when you're working when when we were starting out.

All right. So your thing is called in thirty seconds. Give me. Yes, I love this idea.

You have four small victories because I do feel that way. I mean, maybe it is an age thing like, oh, I found a roach in my pocket that I didn't know was there.

I'm not even going to smoke it because I got even better stuff at home. But just the fact that I found it, that that's what I think of when I think about you. And that's your thing.

That's the thing. It's tiny victories. It's a podcast. I started it after my cat got a podcast. I'm like, well, I guess I have to do it right.

So, you know, I launched this during covid and what I felt like was so many big pleasures had been stripped away from everyone.

We just had small mercies. Right.

So I thought, OK, well, I'll do a show where we celebrate small mercies. And the whole thing is I wanted to do a podcast that was the same length as my attention span. So it's a fifteen minute long weekly podcast.

All right. You're always a pleasure. So glad I know you keep fighting the good fight. Annabelle Gurwitch, ladies and gentlemen, that book is funny. All right. Let's meet our panel. All right. Hey, all right, here they are. He's co creator of HBO Insecure and the executive producer of the Netflix docu series Amend the Fight for America.

Larry Wilmore, my pal, is over here. I could see them to see, you know, maybe the Mets this year again. I know. Yeah. All right. I'll have to pay this time. He's a professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business and author of post-Katrina From Crisis to Opportunity, Scott Galloway.

How are you, Scott? All right, so it is the Corona versus he was a year ago, minus two days where we did our last show here and boy and ended quick Biden set. I mean, the whole thing. I mean, I thought I was going to come back next week. We had a panel book, May 1st I to get a shot July 4th. Biden says Independence Day, yet it was going to be kind of independent.

And so I've been leading reading, you know, the year everybody's writing recaps of this kind of stuff, this that I have to start with that I thought was most amazing. Jeff Bezos. Yeah. Law lost 38 million and is divorce 38 billion in his divorce, and he made it all back in a month, he made thirty five billion in one month. What does this tell us about America, gentlemen?

Oh, it's it's worse than that. We've had one individual add the GDP of Hungary to his net worth since the first virus. Now it's Elon Musk, just in time for him to peace out and move to Texas so he doesn't have to pay taxes. We've seen billionaires go from one point nine trillion in wealth to four trillion. The dirty secret of this pandemic is that the top 10 percent, much less the top one percent, are living their best lives, a virus.

And that and that something I mean, we see a lot of that. We actually see places that went out of business like myself and some of my favorite restaurants. I drive by and I want to cry because they've been there for a while ago, was gone. It was there forever. But the people who did if you're in the sit on your ass, look at this green business, Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook. Right. They made they're now worth twenty one percent of the whole economy there.

We use we talking about the S&P 500. It's the S&P seven. There's now seven companies that have fifty one percent of the market cap. Amazon since March has added more market capitalization than all of European retail. We have effectively four companies that are so dominant there's more. We've been overrun. There's more lobbyists, full time lobbyists in Washington working for Amazon than there are US senators. There's more people working in PR and commerce at Facebook, manicuring and March and Sheryl's image than there are journalists at The Washington Post.

Yeah, we are. So beyond any sense of balance in our economy, the ecosystem is out of control. We absolutely need to break these companies up.

Yeah, it's almost like we're a. You don't want to step on that. I'm old school, but I'm not stepping up. No, no, it's almost like the way that you said that, Bill. It sounded nefarious, almost like they planned it or something. You know, not that they did, of course, but but they took advantage of it, but they took advantage of it. There's almost like an inevitability of this kind of progress.

Let's call it, you know, where how all that money just starts flowing in in these these same directions. You know, no matter what happens to the economy, it all keeps flowing that way.

But can I ask this one question when I read this about the Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, 21 percent. I mean, it was written. I forget where I read it. Maybe, you know, it was written like, oh, my God. Twenty one percent of the economy for companies. Yeah. That was like. Is that so bad, I would have thought it was 80. Quite frankly, if I hadn't read that, I mean, the biggest four companies who really I mean, this is what's propping up America as the rest of us goes to shit.

Is that such a big thing that those the four biggest companies are one fifth of the economy in the world? Not that alarmed.

Do we want one company deciding? Ninety three percent at a time when we type in overthrow government, whether you get instructions on how to build a dirty bomb or voter registration, should one company control those decisions? Ninety three percent of the time, should one person control the algorithms to decide the content of the Southern Hemisphere plus India receipt, should one company effectively control 97 percent of all increase in value of all retail?

The third and learn. I know you think health care is next, right? Don't you think that Wal-Mart and is it Amazon who are going to be battling to. Of course. Why wouldn't they want that? They own everything else. Yeah. Where's all the money going? Sick people. Yes. That's what America does best, make sick people.

Well, look, the fastest the largest business in the world is US health care. It's 70 percent of GDP. Its prices keep going up. It's keeps going down. That spells here comes Amazon. But not only is it bad or morally corrupt, these companies have so much power, it's dangerous. The equivalent of the Nasdaq in Israel is down, not up. They're vaccinating at seven times the rate when the most powerful, wealthiest people in the world are living their best lives.

We don't show this virus the full throated capitalist response we are capable of.

If Amazon stock, if, if, if Amazon stock, if Amazon stock had declined 70 percent instead of risen 70 percent in the last ten months, when a van with a smile shows up in my driveway tomorrow morning, someone with a someone would have jumped out in a lab coat and vaccinated us. We are living our best lives. This virus has not seen what with the US is capable of because stop, stop. It hurts. So good if you're the shareholder class.

But the other the other point is the time you want to talk. This guy's got was as usual. I said everything I wanted to say. It is a break, you know, but the other side of it is the providing a service that people like. Exactly. You know, I mean, during the pandemic, you wanted things delivered to you, you know, so the that's what I mean. The confluence of them being there at exactly the right time with exactly the right service.

Yeah. Is was very convenient. But so I know so many people that have signed up for Amazon Prime over the last five years because, you know, all of the things that they say come with it. And Amazon is it is amazing the type of company that Amazon is and how they have positioned themselves to literally Peckman every every type of right that is out there. It really is. I don't think we've seen anything like that type come.

Oh, that's Membrey cornered the diaper market yet. We lost like one hundred million just. But I don't care. I want diapers to write something wrong with that guy anyway. But it's not his bank account people. But you said living our best lives. I mean, you have kids, right? Yes, absolutely. They are older now. Older like they're like fifty now. Now they're. No, but they're probably on screens more than we are.

Oh, completely. Well, that's their life. Well, that's what I worry about. Like as all these screen companies start doing better. I mean, we know it's an addiction already, especially for the younger generation, but living your best life virtually seems to be what they care more about than reality. And I feel like that's something the pandemic made worse. It's it's more important to look good as you're living on the Instagram picture and you actually are that.

Oh, I got one today. I mean. There's there's always there's always a tradeoff, you know, some people whose lives maybe they feel maybe their life is kind of shitty, they can represent a little better for themselves. You know, sometimes people can reach out to people and have more opportunities for connections with people, whereas maybe in their real life they wouldn't have those connections. Like the way Annabel was saying, the type of job they have may not allow them to network the way that the digital life can allow them to a network.

So there's pluses and minuses with that type of thing.

OK, I think I'm not. I'm not. But is that your kid talking to you? I don't know.

It's true that I know that the world is worse, but we're just coming to the realization that Facebook is not going to take care of us from remember are concerned with the condition of our social teen. Suicide is skyrocketing because of concierge's bulldozer parenting, where we've created a princess and a peace center with our youth. We've also affected them, also addicted to them, to social media. There's all this talk about movements among young people, whether it's GameStop or other artists movements.

Right, because they won't take away the phone. But you want to move. The parents want a movement. Acknowledge that the food industrial complex wants to make you fat and vulnerable to viruses. If you want a movement, realize that every social media platform is trying to divide you and enrage you. You want a movement. Instagram is trying to make you feel worse about yourself. You want a movement than rebel against addiction, divisiveness and a lack of self-esteem.

And it means going after these companies and holding them accountable for the damage they are doing to the Commonwealth and to our kids. You have kids, your world of work, your world of friends, your world, the kids. Something comes off the tracks of one of your kids. Your whole world shrinks down to those kids. And a lot of times and covid it's because the brain has been rewired because of these goddamn devices.

Yeah, but this guy is just kind of walking on the lunch break telling us how you really feel. But honestly, here in a dresser now, but honestly, you can go to any era.

Rock and roll was was the devil for white kids who were here in black community, you know.

Yeah. Television was killing us all socially. Every era there's something, you know, I mean, but those things really didn't TV wasn't addictive like that.

I didn't like have to watch McHale's Navy and it was on once a week.

It was only once a week.

Yeah. I'm going to go back to your thing. But you started with crony capitalism. I mean, you didn't say those words, but that's really what we're talking about, isn't a facade.

OK, OK, don't yell at me. You'll get your applause break in a minute. I feel and I feel the nice, bonafied breaking up. I'm not defending it. Yes, but I would defend capitalism. I feel like there's a flirtation now on the left because people don't read history. They don't know what happened before.

They just live by slogans and they don't understand. Communism, we tried it, it wasn't that long ago, just too long ago, if you have that idea in your head. Well, I wasn't alive for it, so I shouldn't know about it. Well, maybe you should, because we did try it. And it's I would say communism is worse than crony capitalism, even crony capitalism better than communism. Would you agree with that, Professor?

Capitalism is hands down the best system of its kind. When young people are saying today it's not capitalism. We have rugged individualism on the way out. And then we have we're all in this together on the way down and we have socialism, capitalism on the way up. We're five CEOs of airline companies make one hundred and fifty million bucks, use all their excess cash flow to buy back stock so they can artificially inflate their own compensation.

And then shit gets real and a pandemic comes and they don't have any money. And all of a sudden we're in this together. When you have capitalism on the way up and you have socialism on the way down, I'm not done yet. And then you have socialism on the way down. That's not capitalism or socialism. It is cronyism. It is the worst of all worlds. Capitalism. Capitalism is full body contact, violence at a corporate level so we can create prosperity and progress that rests on a bed of empathy.

We have flipped a script here. We need to be more loving and empathetic with people and more harsh on companies capitalism we are protecting. We should be protecting people, not companies. Fucking Delta. Burn, baby, burn.

Yeah. Oh my God. I feel you got a ring here. And here is the thing. I would like to make a prediction right now before this show is over, sir, you will be the governor of New York State, I believe, because.

I second that they're looking for one and we know you got this bridge ready, let's go. I'll just take my opinion on those things and sometimes we make too much out of definitions, you know, and these things can be debated philosophically and that sort of thing. But in the practical like, for instance, capitalism isn't even in our Constitution that word. That isn't in the Constitution. Right. You know, but our country, since I would say Teddy Roosevelt, we've expanded with capitalism and the government's role in trade is, you know, and during the New Deal, we redefined the government's role with the person, you know, with Social Security.

The government can can intervene directly with people, you know. And since then, we've had not we've never had a pure form of capitalism for one hundred and fifty years, OK? But it's always been expanding and redefining itself. And now with the payments, with the stimulus payments, once again, we're expanding the role of government and how how people feel about that role of the government directly in people's lives.

Know. OK, but again, just today I got my post. Just proceed and Bill. Thank you. Yeah, there you go. I wish I was right next.

OK, but if I could just reset from where I was starting with the communism part, this flirtation and people. Not really. Yes. Gentlemen, I agree with everything that was said to great applause.

Our capitalism has super big problems. Yeah, but communism, we did have this experiment for 70 years. It's not just bad, it's super bad. Nobody killed more people than communist leaders. You know, people wear t shirts with Castro and Che Guevara and not good guys. Pol Pot, not a good guy. Stalin, they killed millions and millions of people. And even the people who lived were living horrible lives because it doesn't work, because it's against human nature.

You have to harness what is you have to graft institutions on what is real about people and what is real about people.

Selfishness, epso they're all selfish. That's not something to apologize for when we have excesses. Yes, of course. Right. But to think we can make the river flow in the opposite direction, we tried it, it didn't work. Let's reform capitalism and not go to Mars, make earth work.

My other companion piece to that, Gordon Gekko said greed is good. And then Gordon Gekko. I just I want to talk about this just for one second.

This thing bothered me a lot. There was an ad in or is it I guess both Burger King was trying to be funny in an ad, and I think they were funny. They were talking about a program. They have to increase the number of women chefs. There aren't a comparative number of women chefs in the world. Maybe they should get more opportunities. Maybe there's a reason why they don't and we should address that. That's what they were trying to say.

Right. So they had an ad. Women belong in the kitchen.

Oh, wow, I didn't see. And of course, you know, the shit hit the fan. The usual suspects. And I just want to say this.

This is what's wrong with us. It's like if you don't get the joke here, then you're stupid.

You don't get subtlety, you don't get humor, you don't get perspective.

And if you do and you're pretending that you don't, just so you can have something to be pissed off, that then you're both ways. You're gross.

Yeah, well, I'm going to have to call a foul on that play. I don't think this is a joke that's as good as it is.

No, it's an ad. It's it's not a monologue joke, my colleague.

No, no, I know what you mean. But I mean, I hadn't seen that. If I just saw that, what the fuck is Burger King doing? But then you would read it. And that's the point. It got your attention. That's advertising college at NYU.

I think that's the right tack on this. And that gesture should be taken with the intent that they're given. And this was meant to highlight. Yeah, sexism. Exactly. Fortunately, what we have in my industry is guilty of this. We've created an industrial shaming culture where there's money in dunking on people and saying making a caricature of comments and then using that to extract to an ugly place. So you can get vertue points because the moment you're offended on our country, it means you're right.

And where we have the universities is we need to be graduating, not jokesters, but warriors. And that is people who are here.

And I'm giving you an applause now. And we need to look at those and we need to look at those ads and say, does that humor work? Why didn't it work and have a thoughtful conversation and move on, but not this industrial dunking.

OK, well well, here in real time, we thought it did work. We thought it worked so well that we created some other ones for other companies in the same style.

Would you like to see them? The. These are just. We just got people intelligence and we thought other companies could use, for example, Oscar Mayer could have nothing, says Summer, like putting a wiener in your bun.

It's provocative and gets you thinking about it. Hooters, when you're here, you're looking at tits. Funny because it's true grape nuts, we have ways of making your shit. The army, it's not murder if the people you kill are foreign. Six Flags roller coasters are great for women with kids and pregnant ladies who don't want them.

American Airlines, let's get this treaty. You don't like us? Oh. Craig Fizer, we've extended grandpa and made his dick harder. You're welcome.

We're sorry. And, of course, the Republican Party. No, seriously, a woman's place really is in the kitchen. I do have breaking news because we always tape Friday and we used to be exactly like that. I've been down here a few hours earlier because of the virus and I understand exactly where it is. But I go along.

I'm just happy to be here. Breaking news on. Breaking news on Friday afternoon, Schumer now and Gillibrand, the two senators from New York, are asking Andrew Cuomo to resign. We talked about this last week, but it is keep changing. I said it last week. For me, these cases are always a case by case, but I find all the information credible. And I just you know, obviously if he was head of any corporation, he would be gone.

His argument seems now to be, can we just have the investigation first? And I think there is merit to that. It seems like we are in this old West mentality of, you know, just we heard something. Let's hang him. Right. And can we just is that wrong? Putting aside what he did? Can we have the investigation first? Well, you can if you want to figure out what the criminal liability is. But part of this is a political argument.

What's the right thing to do? Right. You know, there's always like the moral argument, political argument, legal argument, you know, for legal purposes. Yeah. Stick it out as long as you want. You know, see what happens politically. Is that the right thing to do? I'm not sure you think Trump. Being the guy who never backed down change this dynamic, people saw that and it was sort of. You do.

I think that changed the dynamic for one party, because first off, let me acknowledge we've never I don't I'll say as a six to white male, I've never had to endure the bullshit that women have endured at work for a long time. Let me just put that out there. But at the same time, this triggers me because women and people of color lost one of the most powerful advocates when Kirsten Gillibrand decided to disappear Al Franken so she could have a seven minute run for president.

And we're in the midst of a pile on. And here's the reality is that voters get to decide in 18 months, the majority of of 49 percent of white people, 63 percent of nonwhites believe he should not resign.

We as Democrats need to be the party of women, but we also need to be the party of due process. We need to slow down, let these women be heard and let due process and career and not just pile on.

Well, I think I think if we're going to be the party of women, too, we can't just blame women for Al Franken leaving.

Al Franken decided to do that himself. You know, he didn't make him leave. That's that's right. She asked him to, but he didn't have to. You know, the supposed to things that he did had nothing to do with while he was in the office of being a senator. You know that on the Senate floor, no Democrat would talk to him. Oh, it's ridiculous. But the thing that was ridiculous without really America, you know, Al Franken, his transgressions happened in his private life, supposedly, you know, when he was taking pictures and these sorts of things, you know, he could have stood up and said, look, you know, or whatever, you know, his defense was I don't think you could have a Senate investigation over those things.

Cuomo is a little different. These things happen while he's governing, you know, while he's in office. Those are sexual discrimination. Yes.

Now, this town is one of them today. Sounds very Paula Jones like, you know, he saw someone across the room and called right the next day and say, hey, you look like someone who'd be good to head up my waste management program, you know?

Yeah. No, I just meant a government office. Right. Right. There was no reason for sure.

There was no reason why he would want it. But they also say he's surrounded by a lot of twentysomething something women, which, you know, we should be hiring 20 something women. But if if it's not for the right reasons. Yeah. Governor Northam, another example like we had recently, a guy who stuck it out in Virginia, if you don't remember, Governor Northan was accused of what he blackface. Right, right.

At a at a party in the 80s. Apparently, there are all these blackface parties in the 80s that I was never invited to. I never knew they made sure they had, you know, in other places where we couldn't say, well, they made movies, many of them Soul Man movie.

Yeah. I mean, literally, you know, Billy Crystal on Saturday Night Live, he Sammy Davis Jr.. All the time. All the time. Yeah. I mean, that's yes. I mean, I think different times. Different times is but also a specific character. Exactly. It wasn't like that. Any blackface, you know, and that type of thing. No.

We lost all sense of nuance, as you were saying before. But the point is, Governor Northam, it was sort of a similar situation. You heard so many of the leading Democrats at the time. You could go through it, right? Clinton, Hillary, they all said Governor Granholm should quit. Yeah, but go ahead. The difference was black people said, hey, man, whatever, you know, because they said they liked the programs that he was implementing or that he was there to implement.

And they wanted to see that process happen. They wanted to see those things happen rather than, you know, roll the dice. Just a couple of pictures that happened years ago. So and I say this all the time, but to me, the shining example of what white privilege is, the ability to be impractical, they give everybody a privilege to be impractical.

I think they I think a lot of people miss that all the time. You have the luxury to be impractical about things. And this is a pattern we see often in I mean, this is March 4th. So this is related. But if we give everyone a time machine they're now talking about Churchill statue has to be protected because he said some very racist things. And the reality is the most nonracist thing of the 20th century was turning back Hitler. And we're fond of taking a time machine.

Yeah, and taking taking taking today's taking today's conventions and norms.

And thank God people should be held accountable. But should we put away the time machine because we like to travel back and apply today's forms and conventions to behavior 50 and 100 years ago. And I just wonder if that's fair. At some point, high schools will have JFK and Martin Luther King's names ripped off them because at some point their infidelity will be seen as misogynist. And at what point do we decide? That we need to be accountable. People need to be held accountable, but we need to put away the time machine and learn from the past as opposed to trying to revisit it and shame people.

I just want to be I just want I just want to make sure that he knows he's on the record for saying he won't use the time machine to kill baby Hitler. That's all I'm saying.

I just want him on the record. Stay with me. I mean, you know, time machine. No killing baby Hitler. No, I mean, there is I see Turner Classics now. They are showing movies from the past that are problematic, which, by the way, is every single movie. Yes.

I think if you look if you're right for every I mean, even five years ago, I mean, I watch especially in the pandemic, I watch a lot of movies probably I've seen before. Thank God I smoked. I didn't remember. I saw them.

And I mean, they're just run of the mill kind of movies there, things in it that you would not obey. And so Turner Classics that are going to have so many come on before the movie to explain to you why you're a bad person for watching it. But we're going to show it.

And why can't people look if Harrison Ford looks a lot younger than he does now? Yeah, there's something in the movie you won't like. Just go by that.

I don't need you. You don't have to walk me through it. We seem to have lost all sense of subtlety and perspective now.

Yeah, I like it's it's there's a there's a culture. It feels like everyone is bifurcated. And then the far left has decided to being the opposite of work. I think we've created no room for moderates because essentially the far right is, in my opinion, embraced racism and bigotry and found that it is mobilize and weaponize a core base. Now, they've lost control of that. Right. And on the far left and on the far left, we have decided that the public has anointed us and said the most important thing you can do is be a self-appointed police force for cultural issues.

And at the same time, we have to find common ground in the middle to join hands and say, look, one out of five households with children is food insecure. We've got bigger fish to fry and trying to create, you know, trying to dunk on each other. Yes, we totally lost the screen.

Yes. I think, Bill, I'm with you on this. I don't want films like Gone with the Wind Birth of a Nation.

I don't want those to disappear. Those to me are receipt's. It's like any time somebody says they didn't to say no, they could turn that on. Turn that on. OK, watch that. Why are those people acting like that? Because that's how the world was back then.

I mean it was nineteen thirty nine and then when you watch you, I mean you've watched through the ages like you see, you know I watched Colombo recently, a lot of the old Colombo.

Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. There's no one guest leading star who's black. But it's the seventies so black people are like very supporting roles. Right. Or they're trying to move into the 90s and, you know, the first kiss and but the black people then are like the friend, you know.

So it's a major role, but not the lead, you know. I mean, yes. And of course, people are shit, but they get better. That's my slogan.

You know, that's all you can say is this. You don't think things are getting better.

Yeah. You said people get better sometimes. Sometimes we'll get better. Some people don't. Some in general that. But I think the arc moves. Yes, but the arc moves after pushing.

I've got to push the arc. Yes, exactly. Yes. I just love the arc. I wasn't clear about that.

You know, these things happen because of the hard work that a lot of people put in to make them happen, you know? Right. Quickly, I was watching the I just have to say about the royal thing.

Oh, yeah.

Because you in January of last year, right before the pandemic, we did an editorial about it because they had just announced they were stepping back. And I said, why don't you two just instead of just stepping back, why don't you announce the whole bullshit and lock, stock and barrel of it? You know, just said this. What is this royal bullshit to begin with? People calling each other Your Highness, what could it be? Less woke than that?

Where the people on that, Your Highness, how gross. And and then like the next day, show the headline we have I have a headline here that just shows you there, see. And then like the next day they did it and I thought, oh well, they hurt me.

No, I see that they're just mad that their family was mean to them.

They don't want to renounce royalty and they still like, kind of regal.

Yeah, it is interesting that that did come out that way. And, you know, people were saying, what did they say that about, you know, the baby and all that about making sure they didn't want, you know, wanted to know how dark the baby's going to be.

I'm like a thousand percent. Absolutely right. Not only did somebody say that, they were all thinking they're the royal family. It's not Bridgton.

You know, it's not, you know, the. The tabloid press is going to cover this, that, you know, lady whistled down whoever is, you know, white guys and white guys, 100, 100 year old grandparents who travel to hunt stags and Range Rovers have a racial bias. That's news.

And so, you know, but I must say, for everyone who's like this racial bias in the royal family, there are other royal families in the world. Americans only seem to be interested in the white one. All right.

I got to go to new rules. Everybody who's waiting for my comment on. All right, well, now that Rudy Giuliani's daughter has written a piece about how she loves being the unicorn and threesomes and it's made her a better person, Rudy has to call a family meeting where he gets in drag, puts his hand down his pants and drips down his face while screaming he will not embarrass the Giuliani family. Someone must tell me what's up, what's lost gold, there's lost civil war, gold lost World War to gold, lost gold of the Incas.

Why are people always losing gold? You don't do that with gold. You do that with Acapulco gold.

New role in today's stressful times, it's more important than ever to focus on good news, like the heartwarming story out of Japan that one hundred and eighteen year old Connor Tanaka will be a torch bearer in May for this summer's Olympic Games. What a tribute to the human capacity to never mind.

You're all Americans of us celebrate the one year anniversary of covered with a feast made up of the items in your pantry, you bought in a panic at the beginning of the lockdown.

And then never touched, and each year on March 11, this will become our traditional meal sardines, a bag of black beans, Trader Joe's chili spaghetti from a company you'd never heard of and your failed attempt at Sábado bread.

Rule now that the city of Paris has erected a giant clitoris in front of the Eiffel Tower to honor Women's Day.

Don't tell your boyfriend to meet you there.

Because there's a good chance he won't be able to find it. And finally, new rule, you're not going to win the battle for the 21st century if you are a silly people and Americans are a silly people. That's the classic phrase from Lawrence of Arabia. When Lawrence tells his Bedouin allies that as long as they stay a bunch of squabbling tribes, they will remain a silly people. Well, here are the silly people. Now, you know who doesn't care that there's a stereotype of a Chinese man in a Dr.

Seuss book, China. All one point four billion of them could give a Crouching Tiger flying fuck.

Because they're not a silly people. If anything, they are as serious as a prison fight. Look, we all know China does bad stuff. They break promises about Hong Kong autonomy. They put wiggers in camps and punish dissent. And we don't want to be that. But it's got to be something between authoritarian government that tells everyone what to do and a representative government that can't do anything at all.

In two generations, China has built 500 entire cities from scratch move with the majority of their huge population from poverty to the middle class, and mostly cornered the market in five 5G and pharmaceuticals. Oh, when they bought Africa.

Their new Silk Road initiative is the biggest infrastructure project in history, indebting not just that continent, but large parts of Asia, Europe and the Middle East to the people who built their roads, bridges and ports. If you want to go anywhere in the world these days, you better have a yen for travel and travel.

Oh, stop it. In China alone, they have 40000 kilometers of high speed rail.

America has, you know, our fastest train is the train that goes around the zoo.

California wanted to build high speed rail connecting the entire state, but alas, could not wear six billion in the hole, just trying to finish the track, connecting the vital hubs of Bakersfield and Merced said.

One small step for nobody, one giant leap if you're a raisin. On a national level, we've been having infrastructure week every week since 2009, but we never do anything.

Half the country is having a never ending WOAK competition, deciding whether Mr. Potato Head has a dick and the other half believes we have to stop the lizard people because they're eating babies.

We are a silly people, even when we all agree on something like getting rid of the penny. No, the inertia, the ass covering the graft, the lawyers, the cowardice, nothing ever moves in this impacted Colen of a country. We see a problem and we ignore it, lie about it, fight about it. Endlessly litigated sunset clause it, kick it down the road and then write a bill or a half assed solution doesn't kick in for 10 years.

China's. China sees a problem and they fix it, they build a dam. We debate what to rename it. That's why their airports look like this and ours look like this. In San Francisco, it took 10 years just to get two bus lines through environmental review, the Big Dig, a tunnel in Boston, took six years and don't get me started on my solar hookup. China once put up a fifty seven story skyscraper in 19 days, they demolished and rebuilt the San Juan Bridge in Beijing and forty three hours we binge watch, they binge build.

When covid hit Wuhan, the city built a quarantine center with 4000 rooms in 10 days and they barely had to use it because they quickly arrested the spread of the disease. They were back to throwing raves and swimming pools. Well, we were stuck at home surfing the dark web for black market, Sharmin.

We're not losing to China, we lost the returns, just haven't come in yet, they made robots that check a kid's temperature and got their asses back in school.

Most of our kids are still pretending to take zom classes while they watch tick and their brain cells slowly commit ritual suicide, as George Bush once said.

Is our children learning? There is a progressive trend now to sacrifice marriage for equity. Colleges are chucking the SAT and ACT test, and in New York, Mayor de Blasio announced Merit would no longer decide who gets into the schools for advanced learners, but rather a lottery system. You think China's doing that, letting political correctness get in the way of nurturing their best and brightest? Do you think Chinese colleges are offering courses in the philosophy of Star Trek, the sociology of Seinfeld and surviving the coming zombie apocalypse?

Those are real and so is China and they are eating our lunch. And believe me, in an hour, they'll be hungry again. All right.

That's our show. I want to thank my guest, Larry Wilmore, Scott Galloway and Annabelle Gurwitch. We'll see you next week. Thank you. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at our Watch and any time on HBO. On demand for more information, log on to HBO Dotcom.