Ep. #724: Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Stephen A. Smith, Laura Coates

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1:01From the HBO late-night series, Real Time with Bill Maugh. Congratulations. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, people. I appreciate that. Great to have you. Yeah, thank you. All right, thank you. I know why you're happy. Trump says there is a way out of Iran. Unfortunately, it's through the airport.

2:07That's just... Oh, obviously... Anybody here had to come through the airport to move. It's easier to get through the straighter hormones than the airport these days. And, you know, this impasse that has been going on since January 31st is when this bullshit started, you know, the funding of the TSA. I always... Everything in this country is a hostage situation. Every side's like, the dog gets it. And once you do what we say on this or the note, TSA, they're going to do this. So the light is planning. Trump had this week to send ice to the airport. Forgetting that ice does not perform any sort of task that would be alleviating the actual problem there. So it's just more people standing around. Plan B was to send to every airport a hundred raccoons. That was...

3:10But finally today, Trump signed an executive order. I don't know why he couldn't have done that five weeks ago. That will pay the TSA agents who haven't been paid since Valentine's Day. You know... It's not good when people... No money, work in a place where water is six dollars a bottle. So... Finally, some good news to listen to. Donald Trump is getting the America First Award. Maybe you never heard of it because they just made it up. But it is a real thing, and he's getting it. Mike Johnson says we'll be given annually to Donald Trump.

4:12But speaking of awards, I'm finally getting one. Thank you. Yeah, there was a lot of... Everyone's asking me to explain what was going on because a lot of back and forth about this. It's an award given at the Kennedy Center, but of course that is now the Trump Kennedy Center. So... I was going to get it, and then Friday, Trump's... Both his spokespeople come out and said, fake news, Bill Maher's never getting it. We have reached a compromise, okay? And the compromise is, I am going to get it, and then I'm going to give it to him. That's everybody's happy. I just want things to work out. And also, I want to say thank you. Okay, I'm not looking for a fight, and I'm not mad that he did this. You know what, me and the President, we have a complicated relationship.

5:12Goes back to the Arangatang lawsuit. You know, this has been going on a long time, so him trying to block me from getting it. I respect the move. I respect them. I'll keep the game going, baby. I'm all about engagement. Disengagement gets you nothing. You got to engage. So even though I see that we're back to him calling me a jerk, and I'm a lightweight ratings loser, get it off your chest, big man. Okay, I'm totally fine with it. I was proud of these last insults you gave me. I added them to the list of its insults that I brought to the White House that he signed graciously when I was there, yeah? So I would just like to say, as a low ratings lightweight, and a rather dumb guy and a pathetic bloated sleaze bag, a dummy, a terrible student, a nervous-failing comedian, and someone who was sick and sane, very sad,

6:13totally shot in a crazy maniac. I am honored to accept the mark 20. Thank you very much. I will... I will be there, Don, and I hope you will be too. I mean, the place is named after you now. You really should show up. You could show up. You could thank me in person for being one of the few people on the lunatic left who's glad you hit Iran, and is hoping we win that one, okay? So... Oh, the war. The war. You know, all wars are foggy, but this one is very foggy. Trump says, boy, this is interesting, and he says they're in talks with the Iranians, and the Iranians say they're not talking at all. It's a real, he said, she has said. Oh. It's the Islam joke. Well, listen to this, Trump's quote.

7:13He said, they want to make a deal so badly, and Iranian, the negotiator said, our first and last word has always been that someone like us will never come to terms with someone like you, not now, not ever. That doesn't sound just like a no. That sounds like a Taylor Swift. We are never, ever, ever getting back together. But Trump gave an absolute deadline today. About the straighter promotes, he said, you either open that else or else, and Iran picked or else. And then he extended the deadline to April 6th, and then he said, okay, okay, if you don't do it, we're going to blow up your electrical grid, and then they didn't move on that, and so he extended that to April 17th. He's kind of like that dad in the car who says, don't make me turn this thing around,

8:14and then never does, you know, and listen to this. Last week we found out there's going to be a gold Trump coin now. He's putting his signature on the currency, which the Treasury Secretary has always had forever in this country. And I don't know about this, because whenever Trump names stuff after himself, it never really works out. I mean, you think about the Atlantic city casinos, Trump University, Don Jr. All right, nice kids. All right, we've got a great show, Stephen A. Smith, and Laura Coats are here. The first up, she's a former CIA analyst and pending on official who now serves as a Democratic Senator for Michigan. Senator, Alyssa Slotkin is here. Hey. How you doing? Yeah. Great to see you again. Oh, we love you, New York. Thank you. Look at that. All right. Did you get out here OK with the airlines at your position?

9:15I did. We had a 2 a.m. vote yesterday, and then got on a plane this morning this afternoon. Wow. Thank you very much. I mean, airport was OK. The airport was good. Oh, wow. We saw some of the ice officers. They were actually moving packages. Amazon packages, when I saw them. But it was moving well. And I think we want, you know, we want TSA paid. So that was the point of the 2 a.m. vote. The whole new ice was such a Swiss Army knife, right? What can't they do with my question? Well, police are streets the way we want them to be police. Well, that's the, yeah, that, now that's the whole sticking point, right? But where I just mentioned there, it seems like every problem that we used to be able to solve like adults is a hostile situation. Does it strike you that way that everything is like, unless we get everything we want? Because Trump, I'm the anti here at one point too. OK, I'm not doing this unless you also throw in the trans issue. Yeah. Trans. I think, I think, like, I don't think it takes, you know,

10:18a genius to understand that we are like ill as a country. We're not functioning the way we feel. Most Americans feel proud of our political system. And it used to be that, you know, you would argue and of course have disagreements. But you get in the room, kick everyone out, just put your head down and get a deal. And that has become, I've been a senator now for a year and change. And that is just not the way it's functioning. And I don't, again, I'm from Michigan. We are a practical people. And I don't, 80% of the people that I talk to cannot stand the way politicians are representing themselves right now, period. So. Well, I see even in the conservative press this week, people who, you know, we have the California Post out here now, so they kind of keep the liberals honest. And they're usually, you know, I got their head way up Trump's ass. Even they are onto this story about irregular trading that's going on.

11:19What is your feeling about that? I mean, they're using words like curious in that curious, because like a couple of minutes before Trump makes some pronouncement, people will be trading and making enormous money. This is on the war in Iran and where oil is going. Yep. What is your make of this? I mean, I just dropped a bill yesterday on prediction markets and that no one in the government, whether you're a career government person or a political appointee, like the president and his kids, anybody, no one should be able to place a bet, because it's done insider information they have, especially on issues of war and peace. And so what we know from the, I mean, it took a simple, but disappointing perspective, you know, you would have people before we went into Venezuela. You had a bunch of people get online anonymously and go under the prediction markets and say, I bet we're going to have some military action in Venezuela tomorrow and made a ton of money. Same thing ahead of the Iran War.

12:19And these are people we can assume who have insider information that we're launching military operations. Number one, that's insider trading. Number two, it's also a complete operational security risk. If you're the Iranians and you're sitting there and you're like, ah, I noticed there's a bunch of bets coming in for a war tomorrow. It's like, oh shit, I think we're about to have a war. So I think the, the, it's just a bad thing all around. All around. So what do you do about it? In the past, when Trump has done stuff like this, you know, I think of the first impeachment over Ukraine. And, you know, plainly, he was things he should not have been doing. But that didn't really work. And then they took him to court a number of times when he was out of office. That didn't seem to work. Robert Mueller died last week and somebody wrote a column and the basic idea was, you know, you guys, you put your energy into these impeachments and court rulings.

13:21And that's never going to work. You got to win this at the ballot box. So for something like this, do you take this to the level of impeachment? Do you take this to the courts? Well, I think, I think there, we are going to have to grapple with the unbelievable corruption that is coming out of this administration. I mean, the president, just as kids alone, have earned a billion dollars since he became president. So we're going to have to grapple with that. But the bigger question for us as Americans is it turns out a lot of the things we thought were laws. We thought were real rules. We're actually just kind of traditions, right? We had presidents who just, they would feel ashamed if they got involved in business dealings in the middle of their administration. And there just wasn't real law there. So I think no matter what, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, we're going to have to take a hard look at how some of those traditions that were based on good behavior actually need to become law with real teeth. With real teeth. Well.

14:23Good luck getting the Republicans to sign onto that, though. Well, you know, it will be interesting. Right now, I mean, you know, a lot of my peers really just like salute whatever the president tells them to do. They've sort of ceded their power as a separate branch of government. It's amazing. No, it's amazing. Oh, I agree. I'm just saying it's curious to me, I mean, both parties do it to a degree. I feel like there was one viewpoint that came out after he started this war with Iran. I mean, there's one guy, John Federman, who I can think of, who was dissented from the Democratic party line. Is that really the case that really there's only one person in the whole party who thinks different, the old, your old miraculously came to the exact same conclusion about Iran? No, I think it's different than that because, you know, I'm someone, I'm a former CIA officer. I did three tours in Iraq. And so I have no love loss for the Iranians. I mean, the Iranian leadership, you know, killed friends of mine with rockets and mortars and IEDs.

15:23But that's different from just running headlong into a war without being able to articulate your goals and how you're going to get out of it. That's the Democratic talking point I hear all the time. And I don't know if it's true. I think they were planning to say that whether he did it or not. And then he did it and they just kept saying it even though they did say many times, okay, we found out that they're very close to the bomb. I mean, that's what came out in the negotiations, that they were bragging, that they were like weeks away from having enough to make 11 bombs. Yeah, but that's pretty clear. But look, I can say very openly, as a national security person, we have for sure degraded their nuclear capabilities, for sure degraded their ballistic missile capabilities. Important things in terms of the Iranian government. But until the Strait of Hormuz is open, you literally just can't say that we've won this war when another country has a veto over what ship goes in and out. So I don't think you... It's a month old.

16:24It's a month old, but we're sending in ground troops into that theory. We're not there yet, but yeah. Well, they're moving into the... On the ground yet, yes. Okay, but he's announced that they're going. Yeah. So I think... And I'm not saying he's going to use ground troops, but I'm just saying, like, look, Saddam Hussein was a horrible guy, right? Use chemical weapons on his people. Just murderous for years and years and years. So there's no love lost for Saddam Hussein. That doesn't mean that Americans feel great after we got bogged down for years and years and years in the Iraq war. It's not a lot to ask, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, for a plan when we're just coming off of 20 years of being bogged down in the wars. But the difference between Iraq is they were absolutely no threat. We absolutely attacked a country that nothing to do with 9-11. Just because we had this idea of planting a democracy in the middle of the middle. No, no, I'm sorry. At the time, it was that they had WMD. Remember, it was... Right. They were... They could threaten us. It would turn out not to be true.

17:24Fair. They just wanted to do it. They excused, right? The reason. Right. But Iran has been attacking the West for a long time, including the ally that is our most important ally in the world, and that is Israel. It's not NATO. Again, you're not going to get me this to put love on the Iranian government, right? Right. I've seen that all up and close myself. But I don't... Again, I just feel like, especially as someone who served three tours over in Iraq, it's just not hard. And it is totally fair to ask for a plan and to know that we are better in America when we do shot, like, shock and awe hardcore quickly, rather than get us bogged down like long-term. Right. We just, as a nation, nation-building is not our strength, the broad. And he would lose me in two seconds on this if he started doing that. Yeah. I don't think he will. I think he's a... Look, he's the kind of guy who will definitely abandon you. And that might be a good thing in this one.

18:27I mean, I don't want to abandon the Iraqi people and the Iranian people. And I wanted to ask you, as a CIA analyst, are you surprised that the uprising hasn't happened yet? And did you think it would? Do you think it might? I mean, look, my entire life, the Iranian people have been under the thumb of an Ayatollah, and not... They've had periodic moments where they've really done brave things, but they haven't really pushed it all the way through. The Iranian government has a tight grip on that place, and now we've replaced one Ayatollah with another Ayatollah. So I just think the Iranian people are just kind of waiting to see what happens. I don't think any Middle East specialists would tell you that if we went in, they would automatically just rise up and overthrow their own government. Okay. Well, it's realized a way of surprising you. We're stuff they're doing behind the scenes. We'll see if any pages will open. In the meantime, though, I mean, I have to say one of the last things I saw when I left Michigan

19:27a week ago was a 90-minute line outside of Costco for gas, right? I mean, the American people are feeling the impacts of this war many, many miles away, and that's a very real, real thing for people. I mean, the Democrats could have a whole good slogan about, hey, you're getting rich from the war and we're paying more at the pump. Yeah, I mean... That would work, wouldn't it? Well, you know... That's why I know you won't do it. Because it's simple and easy and concrete. You're not going to get me to defend democratic messaging. That's not going to be ever something that I'm going to defend. That's part of the problem and why we lost the last election and we can have a whole autopsy about that. I think for me, what is important going forward, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, is like the American people, they're telling us something. They want something different out of their government. They want some alpha energy from their leaders. And they certainly, whether you agree with them or not, are getting that from some of the Republicans.

20:27And my plea to my own party is like, can we have a little bit more alpha energy, punch and believe in what we believe in and show people that we give a shit and be simple about what, addressing the needs that they care about the most. And that has been a struggle and I'm here to be a part of that change. You could want a pleasure for me on that one. Thank you very much. I appreciate you making the trip. I know it wasn't easy. Let's just lock in, ladies and gentlemen. All right, let's beat our panel. All right. All right. You have me with that last speech. All right, he is the host of Straight Shorter with Stephen A. And the Stephen A. Smith show on Sirius XM and YouTube. Stephen A. Smith is over here. And she is CNN's chief legal analyst and author of Laura Coates Live airing week nights on CNN.

21:27Laura Coates back to this. Okay. I hope it wasn't an air for YouTube to get here. Was it airports and so forth? Were you okay? I'm good. Okay. It seems to be such a primer in the dysfunction of the way this country works, this whole mess. I mean, you could start with Biden and the Democrats for reasons unknown or Republicans have their theories had to completely open border policy. So Trump gets elected on that and then goes way too far the other way and has Isaac like, you know, paramilitary groups in Chile in 1974. And so then when the funding comes up for the Department of Homeland Security, which TSA is a part, the Democrats say, we're not going to do it. We're not going to need any more money, as long as ICE is wearing masks, doesn't need a warrant to break into your home, nobody cameras. That was the big sticking point. And because TSA is in this department,

22:29and they just want to hang out at the airport and do what they do, which is not stop anything from getting through anyway. Yeah. 80 to 90 percent of this stuff that's supposed to get stopped doesn't get through anyway. My stuff always gets stopped. So does mine. Hell, I get stopped. You know? It's ridiculous sometimes. I mean, it's not your flag. You got it there extra. You know, we got to scan you a few extra times. It's annoying, but, you know, I'll take it to be safe, 30,000 feet there. Yes. Well, then my daughter is out of problem. My perfume. But I've been a federal employee not getting paid during a shutdown. The idea that you're supposed to do your job well, and not know where your child care, day care, mortgage, rent, gas, food is coming from, those are fields that you want people to feel as though they are invested in the job. But they want to almost have an itching to stop

23:29wherever it comes, because they want to show that they're actually in financial security to not to pay them and have them be upon. I don't know how anyone can feel safe. Well, I'll take it a step further. I slightly disagree with like to modify what she said. She said to do your job well. How about to do your job period? Mm-hmm. So you go to work and you don't get paid. For me, while the politicians that we send on Capitol Hill to handle their business to reach in the court so we don't have to go through such things, then the ones getting paid at the same time that you don't, they're disgusting. It's just that simple. We gotta look at it from this standpoint. 480 TSA workers have quit according to the latest report. 61,000 went unpaid over the last month. 61,000 American citizens. Now you gotta look at it from that standpoint and say as disgusting as it is, it gets a bit worse when you're looking at the president and the White House and they're projecting that he's made him and his family over $1.4 billion. I think it's about trouble with that, but that's neither here nor there. You've got other politicians that are doing what they're doing. You've got the Democrats sitting up there

24:29and talking about how there are some people who Americans need to suffer because they should have never, the 77 million people who voted for President Trump should have never voted for him to begin with. So maybe we'll allow them to feel voters remorse so they won't make the same mistake twice. And then on a Republican side, you've got them gung-ho about the fact that they regained power in office, that they had to deal with the nonsense that they were dealing with when Biden opened the damn borders. Either way, you slice it. They're okay, the Americans get screwed and we're left to talk about the harbored operatives. APPLAUSE All right. That's the second good presidential speech I've heard tonight. Oh! No, really. It is amazing that when people actually aren't running for president, they sound so much better than the ones who do. You know, what is that? Well, what is it? You had to not give a shit. Well, ladies first.

25:29I know. No, candidates first. Whoa. APPLAUSE You know what? No, he told me he wasn't there. If they don't mess with my money, I will be a candidate. Yeah, that's right. But I will tell you this. I mean, listen, they sound that way because they're too busy in keeping their jobs instead of doing their jobs. What they're doing, they're in office. They've got a little bit of power. In some cases, a lot of power. And they want to make sure to do things that are politically expedient to maintain their status quo. But in the end, what you're really highlighting is that you're thinking about yourself. Instead of thinking about your constituents and American people, we've been lamenting this for quite some time. It's just become a bit more flagrant with Trump in office because you have so many people who hate him and you have so many people he hates. He hates that ultimately it comes down to the American citizen being a distant third on the chart of things that you should prioritize. You even saw that just last either day with the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche making a comment that they've gotten rid of, a bragging, they've gotten rid of everyone

26:29who has helped in the prosecution or investigation of the President of the United States, suggesting that in order for you to be a good public servant and the executive branch, you have to have the ultimate loyalty to the President of the United States. When I was a prosecutor and I would say Laura votes on behalf of the POTUS, it was the people of the United States. That's right. Not the President. And so the obvious idea that you're supposed to have loyalty to the wrong person. We're not supposed to be a nation where one person is king and the rest of everyone takes a knee. Yes. I'm in California. I'm in California, Bill. I'm feeling a little bit better right now. But I have to confess to you that over the last couple of weeks, I threw up about three times watching these damn people working for Trump. If I see another one of these administration of fish who's fallen over Donald Trump, I'm going to lose my damn mind. What happened to just doing your job? If somebody wants, I don't care if it's Pete Hickseth. I don't care if it's Kristi Known before she ultimately was reassigned. I don't care if it's Mark Wayne Mullin,

27:30who's the new Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. I don't care anybody but Ruby, because he hasn't done it. He's been the adult in the room. The Vice President himself. If they went and got the President a cup of coffee, they literally are saying, I just want to applaud you greatly. The ship, he's such a wonderful brother. You can't be so lucky to have him in office. I mean, the kiss, excuse my language, the kissing of his ass. It's so, it's so nauseated. It's so nauseated. It's so nauseated. And listen. I'm saying, I'm not saying, I'm not saying, don't do your job. I'm not saying, if you believe in his vision, don't be loyal to him. I'm not saying any of that. But the phoning, they don't know breeds such a flagrant level of distrust. Because if you phone over him so much, you're shoving or throwing objectivity right out the window. And then the chances of us believing that you would ever disagree with him. Or you would ever speak against him in any way on behalf of the American people. It's not something we can trust. I mean, either. APPLAUSE

28:34It's all true. I couldn't argue with anyone. I'm just amazed that 10 years on, people are just still that agitated about it. I just, I'm used to this. Agitated about what? What you just said, the phoning. Yes. I was just doing bits about this, you know, back before I was wearing glasses on the bed. What happened? You were in the car. I don't know if it was this bad. I know, but it's been going on for a very long time. I just care. Like, he is who he is. I just can't get constantly. I'm not talking about him. I'm not talking about him. I'm just talking about the same things, which I recognize. I don't condoning them. I'm just saying, it amazes me that people are going to be like, Donald Trump is getting his ass kissed all the time. Like, yeah? Yeah. But if you stop caring, if you stop getting agitated, I'm just caring. But that's, you know, that's the net in the tennis game. It's not going away. How do we still win the game? But it's not that, it's not going away. It's growing. I mean, it's worse than I literally mean.

29:34If they walk up to him and hand him a cup of coffee, they have to give you a saliloquy about how wonderful and marvelous it is. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. The Democrat. We're going to have a midterm elections very soon. You know, here's the stats that are important. Seven and ten people say tariffs have cost them money. Food is up 2.9 percent since January. Household debt. Up 4 percent. What? Utilities. Up 6 percent. Obamacare subsidies cut 22 million people. The Democrats are not going to win this election. The Republicans are going to lose it. There's a difference between not winning and losing. Okay? The Democrats can't not win this. Because of all this that's going on. But that's kind of... The Democrats... Not the midterm. Not the midterm. Not the midterm. Not the midterm. They've invented weeks. Not the midterm. No. Okay. Not the midterm.

30:35Not the midterm. They're just going to say let Trump win this one for us and that's going to happen. But it's kind of like... I saw this game. You probably watched it because you see every game. Some... I think it was the Cavaliers and they won. Okay. Like 138 to 132. And the coach after the game was pissed. His team won. But he said, like, if we're going to give up 102 points, we're not going anywhere in the playoffs. He's right. Exactly. And that's what this reminds me of. Well, that's because to your point, maybe, if you are simply campaigning on being reactive, if you're simply campaigning on somebody clutching their pearls and being horrified by what's become normalized, then you will not be successful at pointing out what ought to be. If you spend your time focusing on what the standard are, what the national practice is ought to be, what the law actually says, what free voting looks like, what the idea of an accessible and free democracy and free press looks like. If you are active and proactive about those things,

31:35I think it's difficult for people to look a different direction. But if you spend your time assuming that everyone is going to be as shocked, as disgusted, and as willing to be worked up as long as they are, then that is the losing game. Look at your point you just made. You're shocked if people are still caring about it. If that's the thing... I didn't say that. I didn't say caring. I just worked up... I feel shocked. I worked up about it. Tomato in my mouth. I can't. It's so different. It's so different. You still care, but you just, after 10 years, you just can't... I just can't get it up. It... For me, it just... For me! For... For this... For this issue. For this issue. All right, let's... I just... I look at it from the standpoint. I will say this. If Trump and the administration had stayed on the same path and never sent Tom Homan in to Minnesota, and, you know, after the two individuals were unfortunate, they unfortunately lost their lives,

32:36dealing with ICE and what have you. If they had stayed on that path and hadn't sent them in Minnesota, they handled that to calm the waters per se. Yeah. And Christie Known still was allowed to go out there and spend about $200 million advertising on herself and talking about DHS and all the things that it was doing. I think that they would be on a path to their own self-destruction. Okay, but, Tim, have you calmed that down? I think that it's still... And that's... And that's the difference. It can win the midterms. The message has been things that matter. Those are actions that actually matter. Yes. The asking thing and his craziness and that's just... That's just not going to go away till he does. Right. Protein is now at Starbucks, and it's never tasted so good. You can add protein, cold foam, to your favorite drink or try one of our new protein lattes or matcha. Try it today at Starbucks. You've been there. Settling in for an evening of TV only to waste half the night scrolling. Enter Fire TV. Entertainment with zero effort required. Fire TV serves up personalized recommendations

33:38from across all your apps. Not sure what to watch? Just tell Alexa Plus what you're in the mood for and she'll pull up the perfect recommendation. Problem solved. Stop the scroll. Start the show. Find what you're looking for with Fire TV. Subscriptions may be required. Accessing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details. Anyway, other stories to cover. Really important stories. Can you show the headline about Barbie? I thought I had seen everything. This was so disturbing. Barbie sold a discount store test positive

34:38for cocaine and fentanyl. Just when you think. It's safe to go back in the water. I tell you. This was so disturbing to me. And it's true. Apparently Barbie is into the drugs and I don't know if you have kids who have Barbies, but we thought, as a PSA, because we're always trying to do the right thing for America. We would show you some of the signs which you like to see if you're a kid. As a Barbie, you might want to look out for these. For example, Barbie, you know, she looks like a troll doll now. That's the Paw Patrol Dog always barks at her purse. She's dating Lamar Odom. All of her conversations now end with the words, we good, right?

35:38Her famous pink corvette now has Florida plates and trash bags to remember. Bob the Builder found her stealing copper wire from a job sign. And the Barbie's sequel, she's now being played by Courtney Love. She told Ken he needs to get himself tested. And she's sleeping in the box, she came in. Oh, that's so, so. So sorry. All right, so big, big story. We have not mentioned yet. Let's do it now. Now, big tech, finally lost one.

36:38Finally lost one. A lot of people are just happy for this, because they've never lost one. And this was a two trials when in New Mexico, $375 million of water. This is against meta. That's Facebook and Instagram. And YouTube, I think, is an all business. But mostly it's Zuckerberg who got the headlines. Black safety paroticles that allowed sexual predators to contact miners. And then the one here in LA, we heard a lot about a young woman named Kaylee got $6 million, claiming she was hooked on YouTube at Instagram. And the difference here is that they've always been safe because there was a shield law from 1996 that said, you can't hold people responsible, hold the company responsible for the content. This is making the case. The app itself is addictive. They're making the analogy to tobacco companies. You knew it, and they have quotes, by the way, from meta-employees like LOL, I mean,

37:39all social media were basically pushers. That's kind of a smoking gun. So they knew they were doing it, just like the tobacco companies, and they did it. The counter-argument is, doesn't all media try to hook you? Doesn't every product try to hook you and make you come back for more of it? Isn't that the American way? Well, this is a design defect, right? They are thinking essentially that they're trying to hook, just like picked tobacco, as long as possible the biggest audience, by confronting and trying to go after the most vulnerable minds who don't have perhaps the wherewithal or the restraint or even the ability plain and simple to put the phone down to turn away from it. And so you've got this issue with they were intentionally trying to design an app, whether it's the, you know, autosproll or it's the infinite scroll, whatever the scroll might be, to make sure that you stay on it kind of like the way they would go after with Joe Campbell and everything else, young people. So I think this is a very creative and necessary way to go around the section 230 you're talking about

38:41that suggests that you're always going to be immunized. You can do no wrong because somebody else actually said the content. This is, I'm pushing the content. I'm making sure that you never can turn away from the content. Isn't that very much like big tobacco and it punished? Well, it's very much like lace potato chips. Well, I can eat just one. You can eat just one? I can't eat just one. Okay, but... LAUGHTER Well, things we didn't know about you. Find out our mission. I would say there's two things could be true. Everything that you just highlight is right on the money and I get that. And when you consider the algorithms and how things are targeting towards adults, then one could easily argue, you know you've got malintent when you're targeting children because they're more vulnerable. And so your willingness to do that, you definitely need to be called on a carpet for it. But in the same breath that that can be true, it's also true that parental supervision to some degree definitely needs to be something that needs to be addressed.

39:43There are a lot of people out here that are dead-beet parents that they're not paying attention to what goes on with their children. That's why they think this may lose on appeal. They probably will lose on appeal. Or at least be modified to be a less appendix. Well, first of all, then it's expected to be. There's a problem with the tobacco analogy there, because the parents are the cigarette companies and this analogy, because they gave the kid the phone. I mean, this kid was on Instagram at eight. Eight. Okay. You know, this is like... And parents all over the country let their kids go to their room with the phone. It's like, go to your room kids and smoke cigarettes in your room. You know, I mean, that's crazy. There's a level of culpability that has to be placed on the shoulders of the parents at the point where, you know, what, it ain't just companies that need to be targeted. To some degree, you got to investigate and probe into what role the parents played in assistant that children being vulnerable. There was their deletion of duty that you pay attention when you were on top of things. When you even interested in being on top of things,

40:44all of those things fall in line as far as I'm concerned. If you're going to go to court, if a judge is looking at it, you should look at all of those things. I think it's a cop out, though, in some respects, to say that it's just the parent responsible. I agree. I'm a parent. I'm a judge. I'm a judge. I'm saying that I am a parent, and I am a very vigilant parent. I'm driving my kids. I'm the one who asked the car. And yet, I noticed that they know the words to songs I've never played. Now, how does that happen, right? They're in school. How many hours a day? They're in sports or how many hours? They're in band or whatever else? They're in my car. They're in my house. How do you know all the words to this song? And I'll tell you, that's part of the idea of what... I'd like to know the answer to that bill. We never know. As people say. As people say. As people say, don't know. How do you remember that? That's the last point. And so the thing about it is... That is that gap. That question that's fair is exactly where some companies say, aha, here's where I will find myself nest and make sure that it flourishes to take advantage of a particular child. And we do this all the time. We bring things into our homes that we don't know are okay.

41:44I don't have kids. So, you know, if I had an off base here, can't you say to your kid, how do you know those words? I do. And guess what they say. I hear it. Yeah. What is it? Friends, people in school, hang out with all this stuff. On a radio. I've got two daughters. And so I say this not to say that parents should not be vigilant. But I say that if you think that companies that have a vested monetary interest in making sure that they can hook a consumer for a lifetime are not looking for the moments of vigilance being let down. Oh, there are. That's the whole point. And so why do kids drink? Why do kids smoke? But what I'm saying, Laura, is absolutely right. But the flip side to that is that doesn't mean that if you're a court and a case comes before you, you don't ask because every parent ain't as diligent as Laura Coates. A lot of parents drop the ball. A lot of parents ain't doing their job. A lot of parents are out doing their own damn thing. And they don't give a damn about what their kids are doing. They literally say, hey, you got to roof over your head. You got to float on the plate.

42:44Go live your life. And they're not putting forth their due diligence to make sure they're actually parenting. And as a result, it has a harmful effect. Not just on the kid, but on society because of the kind of kids you raise. Because you want to raise it up at all. When those kind of things happen, you're in the court of law. You probe that. You look into that. A case by case basis, as it pertains to parent involvement, definitely is warranted. Especially in cases like this. Did you see what Sir Charles said yesterday about whooping kids? What did he say? Hey, Charles, welcome. You got to spank them. Oh, no, no, no. I don't, I've said this many, many occasions. I mean, luckily I haven't had to in the last few years. But I'm a dead, I will whip your ass. Make a little mistake. You act up. I'm a black man. I'm not ain't no time out in the corner. Not this way. Oh, no, no, no, no. You act up. You're going to feel something. Okay? Make no mistake about it. Now I understand. And this is politically correct world we're living in.

43:47And I call it the Opafide Society. Because it started with her. And all of these damn explanations for every little thing that went on. Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and everybody in between came along there after. But it never changed in the Smith household. When I acted up, I got my ass whipped. When my father did, he got his ass whipped. May it have been passed down through generations. And he changed it. You're going to say, you act up. And you're a kid. And you're disobedient. You're going to get your ass whipped. They're going to be corporate punishment pulling a tree branch. No, they did that in my grandfather's days and stuff. They're going to do that now. But where you get a spanking in the Smith household, hell yes. I'm not going to come to your house. Okay, you don't do that. I don't like to be spanked. No, that's the point. They don't like it.

44:47That's why they didn't act up. I'm going to leave it alone. Yeah, this conversation is getting weird. You have only a few minutes. But you're a big sports guy. And this is a big issue more than sports. Olympics, what do you think of that story today? That the Olympics have said they are not allowing trans women anymore competing in women sports. I imagine this is going to be an issue in the Democratic Finaries. It's another one where you can make Democrats die on the hill that they died on last time. If it's an issue within the Democratic Party, that's their own damn problem. Biological men should not be competing against biological girls in sports. I am a supporter of the LGBTQ plus community. I don't want to get in the way of anybody's civil rights, civil liberties,

45:49or anything like that. But what about protecting the young ladies? Young ladies going up against men. Biological men. There is no excuse for that. And by the way, you know what, you can be, you know, Liam Thomas, for example, was a male and he was like a swimmer. He was ranked like over 400th in the world. She. And then she, and then he became a she. Right. He became, you know, transitioning. And number one. Well, damn it. Does it really take an Einstein to realize that there's something wrong with that picture? I mean, are we kidding ourselves? No. But this is what's all this for us. But that's my lane, and I'm telling you. There is no reason for a biological male to be competing in women's sports. We certainly don't see biological women transitioning and trying to compete in men's sports. I don't know how you're about that. But is there, when the Democratic debates come? Yeah. Is there one candidate on that stage who's going to be clear like this? Who's going to just say it outright like that? No.

46:49Exactly. And that's why they're going to be vulnerable after they kick ass in the midterm. That's why they've been vulnerable. All right. Thank you very much. Time for the rules. All right. All right. Okay, no. Someone has to break it to these Venezuelans who poured into the streets to celebrate their victory over the US and the World Baseball Classic that we didn't even know that was a thing. No, really. Enjoy the victory. Just know that while you're hunking your horns and dancing the night away, our CIA planned this as a distraction, so Trump can take your oil. All right. No rule. Woke ain't dead. Here in California this week, they canceled the governor's debate because some people were outraged that the top six candidates were all white, even though this is what the people voted for and the people are 62 percent minority.

47:51If their opinion was Javier Basera is fucking awesome, we'd know. And for the record just because the top six candidates are all white, it doesn't mean there's no diversity. I mean, I see all different types of people I don't want. You know, now that young people have started knitting to avoid spending too much time on their phones, someone must congratulate them for finding a bigger waste of time than social media. I mean, knitting made sense when we had to make our own clothes, but now we have factories and children for that. Seriously, just shake your ass kids on TikTok if option B is to spend all day making a pod holder.

48:54That's all I'm saying. We're all to save everybody a lot of time. The news media must only report when a member of the Dugger family isn't accused of molesting it. Also, you should change the name of the show from 19 kids and counting to 19 counts. I'm not kidding. No, don't make me look at a baby picture of your new grandchild. They all look alike to me. I don't have kids, I don't like kids, and I don't want to see kids. So to me, this is the equivalent of sending me an unsolicited dick pick.

50:04Now I know what women feel like. I have to pretend to like it and also be amazed at how proud you are of something so tiny. And finally, you know we're all given the increasing number in recent years of sightings by serious military personnel of unknown aircraft operating outside our current abilities. If at this point you don't believe aliens are here and observing us, maybe you're the conspiracy theorist. Now, in the past when it came to alien life, I was like a liberal college girl whose roommate is a lesbian. Not sold on it, but opened at the possibility. Look, my opinion changes when the information changes. Sometimes there was a time when the only actual contact we heard from about aliens was rural people who had been abducted and annually probed.

51:11But you don't hear about that anymore. Why? My guess is the aliens gathered all the information they needed about us that they could get through our ass. It's where I'd look. But now they seem to be onto another phase. They seem to want to be spotted. Why else is constant playing peekaboo with our military? And it's serious people now. Not hippies or hillbillies, serious people. People with Mike Pence's hair cut. Who are saying that they keep seeing things move through air and ocean in ways that defy our physics? Military pilots who say, yeah, I saw something doing Mach 10 and that it stopped on a dime and disappeared. That's not a drone. That's not something from another country. Even Elon is like, not me.

52:18Now, the government's official public line is we don't know what these things are, but in private what they say is, no seriously, we don't know what the fuck these things are. But they didn't leak from a lab in China. That's why in 2022, Congress had historic first of its kind hearings on what the Defense Department calls unidentified aerial phenomena, formally called UFOs, but don't dead name them. And again, it's not weirdos and beardos saying this. It's the guys with buzz cuts and security clearances who are spilling the tea. And politicians who you don't think are crazy people like Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Marco Rubio, Kirsten Gillibrand, they're not disputing it. Jimmy Carter said he saw UFO. George W. Bush said, yeah, there are secrets about aliens and no, I won't tell you.

53:23Barack Obama recently made headlines when he said aliens, quote, are real, but I haven't seen them. Former Director of National Intelligence, General James Clapper is on board, and our current Director of National Intelligence has indicated that she believes in the possibility of alien life, also that it illegally voted for Joe Biden in Georgia. If you don't believe me now, you will in June when Steven Spielberg's movie called Disclosure Day comes out, this on the heels of the documentary from last year called Age of Disclosure. You get it? Disclosure? We're at the disclosure moment in human history. So can we cut the crap? They're here, they came in a sphere, get used to it. So, so if I may, I would now like to address the aliens directly in my capacity as the most rational person on earth, which I'm sure they know.

54:43I'm sure they know everything about me. If they figured out intergalactic travel, I'm guessing they have cable. And so, as the representative of all humans, the first thing I'd like to say to you is, hi, please don't kill us even though you could. Probably just by pushing a button and I'm guessing you think about it every time you see Jake Paul's podcast. Look, we've seen you go from zero to what the fuck was that in half a second. We get it. There's no sense trying to fight you. Two years ago, one of our drones launched a hellfire missile at a high speed orb and it hit it and just bounced off. First of all, I'd just like to offer an apology for that on behalf of all humans. That was our bad. That was dumb.

55:51And yes, we do have a lot of dumb people here, assholes, hotheads, shitheads, menace fair morons, meatheads. And that's just the conservatives. Don't cut me started on the woke. So it certainly would be understandable if you decided we were just too stupid to live. It must be maddening studying us because we are obviously capable of advancements that aren't completely embarrassing like gene editing and cloud computing, but we're also idiots. We're the species that created the internet, but also the one that once broke it with this chick's ass. So I don't know what we can offer you. The stuff that we think makes living here great.

56:51I'm guessing you're way beyond sex and good food and getting fucked up. I doubt if you care about that stuff. We got them. I don't know if that still interests you. You may be beyond them or maybe ours are obsolete. Although have you heard about clean coal? But yeah, I don't know what we have here for you. Climate, we think ours is pretty uniquely pleasant in the universe, but who knows what you have? But just so you know, ours has trillions of viruses in it, and that's what killed the aliens and more of the worlds. Just pointing that out as a friend. I'd like to think we are friends. After all, if you wanted us dead, we'd be dead already. Truth is, you may be here to save us. Not kill us. In 1967, an Air Force captain and nuclear crew commander who were there revealed an incident when something unidentifiable hovered over

57:59from Elstrom Air Base in Montana and then miraculously 10 nuclear weapons suddenly became disabled. Was something about to go terribly wrong and you stepped in? Whatever it is, please do more shit like that. Please feel free to beat our swords into plough shares because plainly we're not going to do it. Get us off oil. Get us off our phones. And AI, the father of AI said there was a 10 to 20% chance of it being an extinction event and yet we keep hurtling forward with it as we do with global warming and the factory farming that causes pandemics. Look, it would be great if we could stop ourselves from self-destructive behavior, but the truth is, you should think of the human race as Britney Spears. It would be nice if we didn't need a conservatorship, but in reality we really do.

59:06Thank you, Aliens. Thank you, people. That's our show. We're off next week and back on April 10th. I want to thank Steven A. Smith, Laura Coates, and Senator Alyssa Slokkin. Club random is on every Monday on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Now go watch overtime on YouTube. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10 or watch him anytime on HBO on demand. For more information log on to HBO.com. A great playlist. A great cocktail. Together they make the moment mellow. Tonight pour an unmistakable Manhattan with the balanced flavor of four roses single barrel and Antica formula vermouth. It's not just a good cocktail. It's unmistakable. Get the full recipe at four roses bourbon.com. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. The message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please for the love of everything goodness world stop with mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpay no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate for three months only then full price plan options available taxes and fees extra see full terms at mintmobile.com.