Original subtitles

Thank you so much.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

All right.

All right, please. There's so much to get

today. It is four days before the election. Are you excited about that,

the election coming up? All right, well.

everything's coming out now the new york times report today we've heard this for

years that they say there is evidence now that representative ilan omar you're

familiar in minnesota may have in fact married her brother uh which is hurting

her a lot in minnesota in west virginia the approval ratings are off the chart

uh it's just you know

All this, you know, you saw the one in Alaska.

You see how that race is going with Dan Sullivan and Dan J. Sullivan?

Have you followed that?

Were they the Democrats?

Yeah, dirty trick. It's legal.

Okay. They all do it. Dan Sullivan's the senator. He's a Republican. So they got

a guy named Dan J. Sullivan.

Just fool people.

And the Republicans are outraged. They said this would never happen if George

W. Bush or George H.W. Bush was president.

And, you know, it's getting nasty.

There's 160 different campaign ads that now are mentioning Jeffrey Epstein.

They say he's a pedophile. They say he partied with Trump.

Abdul El-Sayed said, Epstein?

What kind of name is that?

But the big scandal, of course, is what Obama said.

He was campaigning for El-Sayed, and he said, you know, the White House...

Looks like Saddam Hussein, who was a fascist dictator who gassed his own

people, was running a cheesecake factory.

And the Republicans all said, leave the cheesecake factory out of this.

I mean, I should know. I just had dinner there. I hear

it went well. What have you heard?

No, did you see the 1,300-word tweet he sent out?

Longest ever.

Kind of a flex.

I tell you... I tell you...

Dining at the White House is the opposite of the Cheesecake Factory.

After you leave, they review you.

Uh, he, I mean... He went off on

me like Kelly Clarkson in a toy store. I-I... I mean, eating with Trump

is like dating Taylor Swift. It's a lot of laughs at the time, but later on,

they're tearing you a new asshole, I tell you.

And, look, I...

I have it here. Look, I don't want it to be this way. This whole point of having

these dinners... It is a little long.

The whole point of having these dinners was talk, disagree, but listen, which he

does in person, but don't hate each other, and then I go back to my job

here, and then the heartaches begin.

So I'm not going to refute everything, but I do have to address a few of the

allegations.

It begins. Let's talk about the complete and total loser Bill Maher.

You got me there.

Okay, I'll own that.

But then, okay.

When I have watched the show, which isn't often, it always ends with

dishonesty about me at least, but who cares? Yeah, who cares?

Three pages of Who Cares?

But this is what pisses me off. He doesn't even notice what I actually say.

He doesn't think it was a good thing, he's talking about me, to take the

nuclear weapon away from Iran, which shows you that he is not very smart.

Don, can I show you something?

We bombed Iran and it's going on. Now, have you expected me to say I hate it? I

don't. I was for this shot at Iran to try to take out this regime. You saw

that with Iran.

which I thought was a necessary thing to at least try. One of the few people on

the lunatic left who's glad you hit Iran.

So am I smart now?

Okay.

Page two.

Uh, talks about how I called him incessantly. I've never called you. You

called me.

I'd be afraid to call you. You're the president. I think you're too busy.

Well, plainly not.

He's talking about me. He invited himself to the White House.

As if you could do that.

Sir, Bill Maher is here. Well, he's not invited, but it's the law.

We had a...

At our first meeting, Bill was very nervous.

He asked for a drink. He was very insecure. He had a seriously bruised eye

and nose area.

There are pictures of it that you gave me.

I don't have it. It's in the pictures.

And then this. I wanted to tell Bill at this dinner that he's a major pothead.

Well, I guess the cat's out of the bag now, huh?

Boy, that explains a lot. I thought I was just happy.

He looked like hell this time. Bill was and had alcohol in his hand that you

gave me.

As he walked through the White House.

And then... I love this.

Overall, I thought it was a good meeting.

I understand he's doing his thing. I never took it personally.

He's not a nice guy, and what he spouts isn't what he believes.

He has to cater to his base, which is mostly composed of losers.

That would be you assholes.

All right, we've got a great show.

Kid Rock and Jim Vandeheier here, but first up... He's a Republican senator

from Texas and author of Going Further, The Incomparable Clarence Thomas.

Senator Ted Cruz is over here. All right.

Senator, how are you back? Good to see you. Good to see you, sir. Thank you.

All right, so there was no pressure on you not to come here, was there?

None whatsoever.

Oh, great.

Good to hear that. By the way, that was funny as hell.

I'm trying not to fight.

You know? I am.

I could have been meaner. I don't know that that's possible.

All right, but we only have limited time. I want to get to your book. It's

important to you.

Look,

I got it late. I'm going to not lie and say I read it. I haven't had time to

read it. I want to give you, I think, what is a good plug. I want to read it.

And I'll tell you why.

Because I don't trust anybody.

My whole life, I've been hearing Clarence Thomas.

is a huge asshole.

I've been hearing, you know, he never speaks, he must be retarded, you know,

all these things, somebody he goes duck hunting with, bought him an RV, he's

corrupt. I don't believe anything.

Maybe that's all true.

But what are you going to tell me in this book that's going to make me think,

oh, you know what, I was being led astray?

Well, look, all of that I discuss in the book. It's a biography that tells his

life story.

And the reason I wrote it, I've known him a long time.

And I admire him. I recognize there are a lot of people that don't, but they

don't know who he is. They don't know his story.

He was born 1948, so three years after World War II, born in abject

poverty in rural Georgia, pinpoint Georgia.

English was not his first language.

He spoke a dialect. He was on a coastal island. He spoke a dialect called

Geechee.

He lived in a tenement with his mom without... indoor plumbing. He was

raised by his grandparents, very strict discipline.

He faced massive racism.

You know, he was born and grew up before Brown v. Board of Education, at a time

of segregated schools.

His first passion, he wanted to be a priest. And so he went to seminary, and

he studied to be a priest.

And he ended up getting disillusioned with the church.

and in particular over race and civil rights, that he didn't think the church

was speaking up enough against segregation, against discrimination.

A story that I tell in the book when he was in seminary, and this was when he

was in high school, he did seminary for both high school and college, is a kid

passed him a note. He was one of only two black kids in the seminary.

And a kid passed him a note that said, I like Martin Luther King.

And he turns the paper over, and on the back it says, dead.

That was the kind of environment he was in, and he ended up getting angry.

He withdrew from seminary. He got angry at God. He got angry at the church.

And he went to Holy Cross for college, where he became a left-wing radical.

Clarence Thomas's journey, when he was in college, he wore camo pants and Army

boots. He had a poster of Malcolm X on the wall.

He went to Black Panther rallies.

He was part of a riot in Harvard Square.

And what I try to do in the book is trace his personal journey. There's been

no justice that has come from such abject poverty to the pinnacle of

American law, but also trace his ideological journey.

from an angry left-wing radical to one of the most important conservative

thinkers to have ever lived.

And finally, today, Clarence Thomas is the second-longest-serving Supreme Court

justice in history.

Within about a year and a half, he will become the longest-serving justice ever

to serve on the court.

And so I try in the book to take his opinions and make them understandable,

make them so you don't have to be a lawyer, you don't have to be an expert.

But I tell this story so that it's fun, so that it's interesting, so that you

know who he is.

I sat with him for nine and a half hours to do one-on-one interviews. But in the

court, why no speak?

So that is actually the opening chapter of the book. And there are lots of

different theories.

One of the things I talk about is how on the left he's just been demonized and

vilified. So many on the left, whether it was reporters or professors or

others, said, well, he's too stupid to speak. That's why he doesn't speak.

Others said it was because English was not his first language and he was just

reluctant to speak. So what's interesting, I asked him that, and I've

argued nine times in front of the court. I can tell you the nine times I argued,

he never asked me a single question.

I always had a theory, which was that the other justices ask tons of

questions. And he's someone who's very systematic, and he wants to listen to

the arguments. He'll ask a question if he has one.

But he always felt the other justices were showing off a little bit. They were

asking too many questions, interrupting the argument.

He wanted to sit back and think. Now, what's interesting now, when COVID

happened, they changed how arguments happened.

So it used to be you stood at the podium, and the justices just peppered

questions at you.

Now they've set it up so each justice has a period to ask questions.

And today, Clarence Thomas asks lots of questions because it's no longer his

colleagues dominating the time. All right. So I'm going to read the book,

find out what this is all about.

But I got to tell you, maybe you'll change my mind on his politics.

You're not going to change me on Anita Hill. OK.

Because I believe her.

Well, I do. I mean, look, he maybe.

The idea, I mean, the central premise of his politics, that government programs

intended to help black people actually make them subservient, that is worth

looking at.

The other thing, come on, he was a lonely guy with no game.

I mean, pubic hair on the Coke can, who could make that up?

I think he sexually harassed her.

And you'll never get me to think otherwise.

Well, look, I understand that. And there's a lot of tribalism in America

that if you're on one team, you think the other team is terrible and vice

versa. No, just him. Just on this one issue.

On this one thing. I do.

Just on this one thing. It just, you know, and again, I wasn't there.

You'll never know. Nobody will ever know. Can I point out that at the time,

two-thirds of Americans disagreed with you. so if you look at who gives a shit

and i go but but i'll tell you who cares so what happened the country watched

anita hill testify they watched him respond to it and he would not have been

confirmed this was a democrat senate that confirmed clarence thomas things

were different they were different but at the time the people watched and and

by a two to one margin the people watching said i believe that guy and

i'll just make this point look if you look at public life at sexual predators

and sadly there have been too many in the political world, typically someone

doesn't do it just once. If they're a sexual predator, there's a pattern of it

over the years. Well, maybe he did it and other people didn't come forward.

Okay,

we'll never know.

But I just want to say, to give me some standing in this, I thought the Brett

Kavanaugh thing was bullshit.

So it's not just partisan. So I actually connect those two, because, look, the

Brett Kavanaugh hearings, I was on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I

actually described when the allegations came out against Brett Kavanaugh. We had

a meeting of all the Senate Republicans, because, by the way, in both instances,

the Democrats had those allegations weeks ahead of time.

They didn't release them, and they released them.

on the eve of the vote to try to sandbag the nominee. They followed the same

pattern. But what I describe is some of my Republican colleagues said, well,

we're not going to hear these allegations. No, let's just go forward.

And I said, look, that is nuts.

Brett Kavanaugh is not getting confirmed unless the same thing that happens with

Clarence Thomas happens with him, which is the American people need to hear his

accuser. And they need to hear him and make a judgment. And if the American

people listen to the two of them and say they believe him, then it'll get

confirmed. And if they don't, he won't. So we have an election coming up. Are

you confident that it's going to go fair and square? Because I remember when you

won Iowa against Trump in 2016.

And the first thing you said was, you cheated.

I remember.

It seems like there's a little pattern.

That when he loses, he just says the vote isn't there.

That's where your party is now.

Are you going to fight up against that?

Well, look, to be fair, the Democrat Party is there, too. I was also part of

George W. Bush's campaign when Al Gore brought litigation challenging Florida

in 2000. For good reason.

Why he lost.

What was the good reason? Well, the Supreme Court said he lost.

Well, so did every time they counted the ballots.

They counted the ballots four times in Florida. As I recall, they stopped

counting the ballots because the Supreme Court told them to. So I was part of the

litigation team, so I was in Florida 36 days litigating those cases. Well, let's

not talk about the 2000 election.

All right.

Let's talk about the fact that you came to Washington as a Tea Party guy, right?

And their big thing was we've got to stop the out-of-control spending.

Yeah. How's that going?

Not well.

Oh, look, both parties are a train wreck on spending. I have joked... But your

party's supposed to be the one that's not. We are. I've joked we should make a

bumper sticker, Republicans, we waste less.

That's... And the problem is, it's a bipartisan problem. Where you have a

multi-trillion dollar spending bill, you'll get every Democrat and you'll get

about half the Republicans.

And there are about 20 of us who will vote no.

Um...

I pray that changes. I have been... What we're doing to our kids is irresponsible

and wrong.

Right now, a supermajority of the Senate wants to keep doing it.

Okay. So, I noticed that Trump is going after James Comey for the third time.

The first time was because he was on a beach, and he... And he put out... You

know this story. Yeah. He wrote in seashells.

Seashells, Ted.

47-86, meaning Trump, the 47, the president, 86 means to get rid of

something. They tried to say this was like he wanted to kill him or something.

I just wanted to ask the author of Justice Corrupted, How the Left

Weaponized Our Legal System, what you think of that?

I will say I thought it was, look, the case, I don't know if that case will go

anywhere or not.

It was pretty astonishing for a former director of the FBI to say, to 86

someone is not to get rid of them, it's to kill them. No, it isn't.

Where did you ever hear that?

I've never, I heard that... From every mob movie I've ever watched.

I don't generally speak in terms of 86ing someone.

I've never heard that. And I think every person who saw... Wait, wait, wait.

I've watched all the mob movies, too. They don't say 86.

They say whack a guy.

They say he's gone.

He sleeps with the fishes. That thing.

Did you take care of that thing? They don't say, yeah, we 86ed him.

I bet they do.

It does not... And look... So you... Okay, so let's... And look, he didn't

say Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes. Okay. So that's at least something.

Okay, but you actually think that James Comey was trying to foment...

a plot to actually assassinate Trump, that that's what it was? It was a

message in seashells to the assassins?

I can tell you I don't think I've ever seen a head of the FBI, or former head

of the FBI, calling for killing a president. To be clear, this is a

president who's had two assassination attempts. He was shot in Butler,

Pennsylvania, so it's not a mild thing.

So, look...

I don't know if the case will go anywhere, but I thought it was

disgusting for the head of the FBI.

And listen, I disagreed with Barack Obama. I disagree with Joe Biden. I

would never advocate violence against either of them. And there's too much

violence in our political system.

There's a culture of violence, and so I thought what Comey did was disgusting. I

think it's a bit of a stretch, but let's agree to disagree.

I'm always happy that you're willing to come on this show and talk to me about

what we don't agree with.

Look, Bill, every day I find myself agreeing with you more and more, and I

don't know if that scares me more or you more, but I'm glad to be here, and I've

never had a pumpkin head with my face on it, so that's very cool.

Ted, thank you, Senator Ted Cruz.

All right, thank you, Ted. Let's meet our panel.

All right.

Hey.

All right, here they are. He is the co-founder and CEO of Axios, who co

-wrote the book Simplified. Do 50% more with 50% less. Jim VandeHei.

And...

He is a giant rock star who sold over 30 million albums. His new one is called

Halfway to Jesus. Kid Rock is back with us.

All right, boys, thanks for being here. It's election season. This is four days

away. This is our last chance to go on the record and make our predictions.

Let's do it, because, you know, after this, it'll just be history. I'm

sticking with mine, my prediction, that this will be a historic thumping.

of the Republican Party. I've heard a lot recently that said, oh, no, let's

not count our chickens. Well, I'm counting my chickens.

People are very, very mad at the Republican Party at the Trump

presidency, and this is their way to express it. I see Fox News viewership is

down 27 percent.

That says something about the enthusiasm going on.

Kansas, they have not elected a Republican senator since 1932.

when Dorothy beat the witch.

And that... The Democrat there is up by ten points.

What's your prediction, Jim?

I think I'm with you, right? With the caveat that we live in a 50-50 country

and we're surprised all the time. By every single indicator, people are so

hacked off. At the president, at Republicans, you see it in TV ratings,

you see it...

I see it in my own family. People who really like Trump, like Republicans,

they're pissed off about the war, about tariffs.

And so I wouldn't be surprised if it's a big, big landslide.

And the fact that we're even talking about Kansas, Georgia, Texas, places

that shouldn't be in play, even Ohio, Iowa, places where these are really

Republican states, the fact that they're in play just shows something's in the

air. And I think I'd rather be a Democrat than a Republican.

Well, first of all, I think it's very tough.

I can look at the first election with Hillary Clinton. I remember going to bed

that night. I'm like, there's no way my guy can win. There's just no way. I was

convinced from the media. It couldn't happen.

And speaking of the media, it's very tough.

You know, the only time you hear about this man's wins is when he tells you

about them.

I mean, think about your favorite sports team. If you just woke up every day and

you saw the Mets lost, they never told you that they won.

Do you ever hear anything about the border? We can talk about the Iran war

all we want.

And people don't have to like it. They can be for it. We do not know how this

is going to play out. Will this be good for our country in 10 years?

You know, time's going to be the ultimate determiner. So I don't trust

the polls. I don't know.

I'm not sure about Michigan especially, my home state.

Former home state.

I'm not sure about Texas.

I don't think it's going to be a shellacking.

And if it's not, that's kind of a win. You know, if they don't let too many of

the crazies...

And which I know the Democratic Party is not happy about.

I look at it like kind of the trans gay thing.

It's like all my gay friends are not too happy about the trans people coming in

with all bringing all this baggage in to a lot of a lot of milestones they've

made. And the Democrats are like, man, we don't need this crazy socialist idea.

Ideological crap coming in either.

But. I don't think they have the backbone to stand up to him. No, they

don't. As of now, what they're saying is we want a big tent.

But that's not what this election is about.

That's the next election. The next election is going to be absolutely about

is the Democratic Party a big enough tent to have these socialists, which,

you know, a lot of times it's actually communists. He's not wrong about that.

This election is about Donald Trump, and they do not like...

the things he has done. You're right. The Iran war, we never know what's going

to happen there. But I do think he fucked up the execution of it, as I just

showed. Why did he write that I was against it when I could show the tape

there and show... Man's a pretty busy man. I don't know if he has time to fact

-check. Well, he's... If he's fact-checking.

Real time. I don't think he's fact-checking.

Plus, he said...

He said I was drunk. I was not drunk. Okay.

You were pretty high. I was not noticeably drunk. You were pretty high.

Were you not pretty high?

We have a good time. We had a good time.

And it was four hours, right?

I had to leave early, but yes.

Okay, but he says it was two hours. Like, what's the point of that? Was he

talking about dinner and the whole thing? Dinner was two hours. We were

there for four hours.

Okay. Doesn't matter.

We got much bigger issues.

Why can't anybody take a joke? Like, I think you have a great sense of humor.

We can joke with each other. Like Obama this week when he said Saddam Hussein,

what was it? The Cheesecake Factory. The Cheesecake Factory.

Did you think it was funny?

Yeah, I'm laughing at it. But this is what we do in our society.

We take, you know, one thing that one person says and we make...

We polarize every... Who does this? The scumbag media. They polarize everybody

for a click and a view because that's their advertising dollars. They do it on

the left and the right. It's actually the Republicans who are pretending that

the cheesecake factor is now a core value of the Republican Party.

And... They do it on the left. They do it on both sides.

Absolutely, of course.

But they're pretending that Obama is an elitist. Do you really think Obama's an

elitist? I remember when he was on 60 Minutes that time with Michelle, and he

was talking about when they used to date, and the car, he picked her up and

had a hole in the floor of the car.

You could see the road when you're riding.

Did Trump ever have an experience like that? No, I don't think. I just...

That dude likes McDonald's. He likes it a lot. Well, yeah, that's true.

Okay, so Obama was campaigning for Al-Sayed.

Let's talk about that one. He said they will use lies, they will use fear, and

they will use division to suggest you are less dangerous and less than

trustworthy and less patriotic and less American than they are. We have seen

this move before. I starred in it.

I'm going to call bullshit on this.

I think...

As far as this issue goes, about Islam in America and candidates who are

Muslim, the left is naive and the right is hysterical.

Hysterical. I mean, there are things that are being said.

Trump said, if Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and

invite hordes of jihadists to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence

and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas.

Politics.

You don't really believe that, do you? I mean, that's... Again, they are naive on

the left on this issue, and we can get into that, but this is also crazy.

Can I tell you about Abdul El-Saeed?

You know, they're talking about this Muslim Brotherhood thing from, yes,

something his mother was associated in the 70s, didn't raise him, fair enough.

What they're not blasting loud enough is the op-ed that he wrote when he was in

college, which, by the way, I understand his education was funded by George

Soros. wrote an op-ed in college supporting the Egyptian president who

was absolutely with the Muslim Brotherhood and even called on him to

purge the police and the media.

If that's not enough for you, in the last debate in Michigan with his

candidate Mike Rogers, they were asked point blank, who is a bigger threat to

America, Iran or Israel?

Mike Rogers, Iran.

Abdul asked him twice.

Couldn't answer the question. If that's not enough for you, throw a big helping

of socialism on top.

And people talk about assimilation, too, all the time, right?

This man very much is assimilated. Good education, well-spoken, even a good

-looking guy.

You know who else assimilated very well?

Those pieces of shit that flew those planes into our World Trade Centers.

The Fort Hood shooter.

This has happened all over the world. So it scares the hell out of me. This

Islamic extremism. I don't know. Is he a wolf in sheep's clothing? Or is he just

a wolf in a wolf in the wolf's clothing? Not that it matters so much, but the 9

-11 hijackers weren't here assimilated. They were from Saudi Arabia.

Right. But that doesn't... They walked up to Saudi Arabia?

Your point... I think you're right about the point. He was asked, who's the

bigger threat to America, Iran or Israel? Okay, Israel just had an

election. You may not like the outcome, but it was a real election.

Iran doesn't have those.

They shoot protesters in the street.

You're never going to get my vote if you don't understand that fundamental

difference.

Right, but there's a big difference between being anti-Israel and then

saying that someone is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Correct, I agree.

that they're going to take away your Christmas because they're a terrorist in

sheep's clothing or whatever the language is.

And I think that's the stuff that the American people have kind of had an

assful, to be honest.

This stuff where you're talking about the Cheesecake Factory, you're talking

about making these wild accusations that really had nothing to do with this

moment in history, which is, if you just step back, it's kind of a big moment in

history. You have this artificial intelligence revolution that's going to

change our lives more in the next three years than any technology that we've

seen. You have got a rise in China.

You have got a live war in the Middle East.

You have got people who are suffering from having to pay a hell of a lot more

for things that should be a hell of a lot cheaper. And I think that is why

people are so sick of politics in general.

And I just think what happens with these elections, you're right, if Democrats

walk away from this election and say, people love Democrats, there's nothing.

Nothing in the evidence says people like Democrats. They just hate Republicans

more right now. And that's kind of what our politics has become. It's like, plug

your nose and, like, who do you hate slightly less than the other party? And

if we keep going through this cycle year after year, cycle after cycle, you just

sit in this 20-year period where we're not doing that much good at government

by either party. It's just paralysis.

Look at what you talk about with Senator Cruz, with the debt.

Look at the amount of debt that we have piled up, party after party. You have an

entire party. The Republican Party says, we want smaller government. Then why the

hell do you keep getting bigger government?

And then you have Democrats saying, well, we're going to behave differently.

And all they do is spend as much money, but they put more social restrictions on

how you're going to spend the money. And then people are just like, to hell with

it. And so I'll just vote for whoever.

All right.

So, uh, it is, uh, it is Halloween tomorrow.

Are you all excited about Halloween?

I, uh, was, uh... looking to buy a costume this year, and boy, I was

disappointed, because, you know, you cannot buy a costume of a celebrity,

because they will sue you.

Because you can't go as somebody, like, uh... I won't.

You can't, you can't go, like, like, you can't go as Prince.

All right, you can't buy a costume a print you but so they put out things

like the purple artist wink-wink No, these are real

like I Give you you can't buy a Marilyn Monroe

costume, but you can go as the Hollywood starlet You can't

You can't buy a Super Mario costume, but you can go as the red plumber

guy

Those are all real.

Those aren't the only ones. Would you like to hear some others? I knew you

would. For example, you cannot buy a costume of Madonna, but you can go as

Twerking Granny.

You can't buy a Mark Zuckerberg concert, but you can go as Friendless Mayonnaise

Boy.

You can't buy a Lindsey Graham costume.

Gay ghost. You can go as that.

But no.

You can't buy an Amber Heard costume. But sexy bed pooper? Yes, they will sell

you that.

Lindsey Clancy. I mean, just bad taste, but you can't get it. But you could go

as Moody New Mother.

You can't buy a Kid Rock costume, but you could go as Bud Light Marksman.

Mitch McConnell?

Can't get that costume.

Buffering legislator? Yes.

You can't buy a Britney Spears costume, but knife-juggling mom.

Yes, they have that.

And, uh, you can't get Prince Harry, but you could go as Ginger Fuckface.

So, um...

Let's talk about the bigger issue of making America great, because I feel

like when the party that you're in is not in the White House, America is total

shit. And then nothing really changes that much sometimes in your life, but

somehow, in your mind, the world is just terrible when your party is out of

power. Wired just did a story about expats, people who just had...

had enough with this country, and they couldn't stand it one more day when

Trump got elected.

Ellen. Remember Ellen moved to England?

Briefly.

And then they have buyer's remorse.

71% of these expats said they left because of the political climate.

But what they found with the expats is buyer's remorse.

They found that it really wasn't paradise over there, and the things that

we take for granted, you know, like air conditioning.

Tens of thousands of people died in Europe this summer because they didn't

have air conditioning.

Things like dishwashers, which we take for granted, are kind of a luxury over

there. We saw this when we had the soccer here, remember, in the summer,

and all the people from all over the world... Buc-ees.

All over the world were coming and, like, losing their shit over our pizza.

So, you know, what do we do about this?

About convincing people to...

not have this cognitive dissonance between your actual life and what the

world is in your mind when the wrong party's in power.

Don't look at your screen, right? Because the truth is, this is my belief

about the country, why I'm long-term very optimistic.

It's that if you look at your screen or you watch TV, you would think

everybody's batshit crazy.

Why? Because the algorithms elevate the people who say the nuttiest, craziest,

wackiest things.

That's not the country. The country is like 80 percent normal.

They go to church. They go to Little League. They raise their kids. They're

normal people who do the right thing for the right reason. And they're just they

don't show up in politics. They don't show up in your social media feed. But

if you look at the history of the country, those are the people who repair

it when the smarty pants break it.

And I do think that that will happen again. I think there's something

happening in politics right now where people have just had it. They feel like

they keep being told they're going to get one thing and they get something

different. And they feel it about both parties. You see this rise in people who

don't want to affiliate with either party. They've just had it. And they've

had it because they just want to live a normal life. And they want people who

can critique the country but love the country.

Like, how the hell can you? I think about this. I have young kids. I think

about this all the time. What a great country.

What a great country. Like, I grew up in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

You grew up in Michigan.

We're able to do whatever we want to do. I was able to start companies, make

money, interview presidents, say whatever you want, not go to jail for

doing it. In what other country can you do that? That is not what a lot of the

young left thinks.

No, it's crazy.

They think we need this crap in college. It's not what they should be being

taught. They think we need a revolution.

They think things are so bad.

I mean, sitting home, letting people bring your food to you, all you have to

do is pick up your phone and hit a few buttons, and someone... You don't have

to see them.

I think what he said, I think you're spot on. I think it has a lot to do with

the screen, especially social media, and, you know, especially with young

children. I look at my granddaughter, and I'm like, if you scroll on this

thing and it starts feeding you those algorithms, you're like, this is not

real. Right. None of this is real. Like, these girls' lives, you know, especially

if they're young, aren't this great. Right. They get in trouble, too. They

have to do their chores. They have to, blah, clean up the dog poop or

something. They would never have you know any of this. And I think the other

point is, like, with me, like, Democrats never scared me. I think differently.

You know, I support more conservative values, especially, I would say,

fiscally. You know, I'm more socially liberal.

But Democrats never scared me being in office until just recently when all this

crazy stuff has popped up. It's been like, you know, I think Bill Clinton

loves our country. I believed Obama loved our country. You know, I believe

everybody kind of, now these whack jobs are coming in here. And I'm like, wait a

minute. I feel even if they don't hate the country as a whole, they hate a big

portion of it. And they're spewing this. And I believe our teachers have been a

big problem.

you know, indoctrinating these kids for a long time now. We're starting to see

the fruition.

They're starting to be raised up, I'm a victim, and everything's bad, and

America's just a big racist piece of shit country, and, you know, bad, bad

America. And we're not celebrating what makes us great, which is all of us being

different and being together, being the greatest country in the world.

And that is a real... That is a real problem.

Not claiming features, but it's more in general like what you're taught, the

environment, the bubble that you're in.

Nobody's appreciating the fact that take artificial intelligence.

Where was it created?

Here, not China. China's five times our size. They would love to have this

technology. Why is every new interesting technology created here? Why, despite

our political crap, do you still have the fastest growing, largest economy?

Why is it that every country in trouble comes to us looking for help? I don't

know. Maybe there's something special about it. the country that 250 years in

we get a lot more right than wrong and there is this there is this thing about

our brain and about the media in general which is this negativity bias we amplify

bad crap and we don't spend enough time celebrating that yes we do bad things

and some people have a have a bad lot in life but for the most part we always do

the right thing eventually And we might screw things up, but we always end up a

little bit better. And we accent the negative.

I mean, I notice a lot of the complaining about the economy is that

the middle class has shrunk. It has. The part they never mention is one reason it

has is because the upper middle class, not the super rich, but upper middle

class, people who can afford fucking Disneyland and Taylor Swift.

tickets, has grown enormously. But nobody knows that. What you just said is

a true fact, that the reason that people are, that you have fewer people in the

middle class is they're getting richer, and that is something that we should

celebrate. And that doesn't mean there aren't people who are left behind who we

should effort. What about the corporations, though?

And, you know, what they do, you know, which we saw during COVID. You know,

they're going to make their money one way or the other. One day I sat down, I

ate a whole bag of potato chips. I'm like, how the frick can I eat a whole

bag of potato chips?

I wasn't drinking or nothing. I'm just like... And I did a little research. I'm

like, so, you know what?

These Ivy League scholars that went and worked for these corporations who...

For Coca-Cola, they don't even know how to make a Coca-Cola. Their thing is to

try to screw over the consumer, you know?

They're putting less in there and selling it at the same price, trying to

make that money back from COVID. I think this has a lot to do with affecting

middle-class people.

They're the ones buying the bulk of these products.

I could be wrong, but that's just what I know and hear.

I don't know if anybody knows, but I am not a scholar.

I'm in a band.

I'm not sure what the hell I'm even doing here.

You're making us laugh. This is an entertainment show on an entertainment

network. We're very glad you're here. You're a perfect guest for Halloween.

And you're my friend.

You seem very high on AI.

Much more than I am.

I mean, you don't seem to be in the camp that we're worrying about this a little

too much.

No, I don't.

I'm in the camp of, like, just full disclosure, I made myself an AI lab rat.

I've poured weight.

more into the technology than one probably should. But I've done it

because I want to be able to lead my company, talk to readers about it. And

all I can tell you as someone who uses it, we're going to go through more

change in the next 18 months than we have in the last 20 years.

And my view is I'm a pragmatist. If I have to run a company, if I have to

teach my kids, like, this technology is coming.

Bernie Sanders is wrong. You can't unplug it and put it back in a bottle.

So what I want is people to be aware. No, but you can regulate it.

I think, listen, you're going to have to regulate it. But they're not doing that,

really. They're not doing it right now. They've made a choice that they're not

going to regulate it at all. We will, because something bad will happen, and

then people will be pissed, and you'll have to regulate it. But my thing is, is

that people just need to use it. They need to be aware, because this is a

technology that's already seeped into every industry, business.

phone screen home and change things. Music. You must have thoughts about

this. I mean, they can put out a kid rock song now that's almost

indistinguishable. Yeah, and that's to be determined what, you know, who knows

where that eagle lands. I'm not sure.

I can...

I can show you how the pros do it here and do a shameless plug, but also be

very poignant in the terms of AI music on my new album.

There's a song in there called Seven Sins with me and Lil Wayne. I wanted a

choir on it. I did the body of the song about three years ago. I heard it. It's

great. Before AI was even in there. So how I made the choir was I had my two

female singers.

one male background singer, and we kept stacking the part, switching harmony

notes, doing double takes, blah, blah, blah.

Whether you like my music or not, I think if you listen to this, you'd say,

wow, that choir sounds great. It does sound great. Now, another song on there,

Heal My Faith, which I did with Eminem.

Thank you.

I sang that hook myself. I did the harmonies myself.

My singers weren't around.

I'm an impatient guy. It's not about the money of getting a choir, but everything

I look at in life now is time. How much time do I have? I can save time.

So I go into AI, I prompt the harmony notes, I prompt the lead notes, Southern

Gospel Choir, blah, blah, blah.

I have to do this several times. I put it together. I'm like, I love that.

So the choir on there is AI.

So it's a tool in the bag to me. I mean, choirs are a lot of people in a choir,

and we put them all out of work.

I mean, isn't that really what happened? Do we put them out of work, though? They

said this when the electric guitar came. Well, yeah, because you didn't have to

get a choir in there. When the Beatles used a choir, they needed a fucking

choir. Do we put drummers out of work when the drum... Do we put drummers out

of work when the drum machine was invented?

Yeah. I know AI is something different, but there's always, you know... I just

haven't seen this shit. I always tell people, you know, it's a tool right now.

I see the dangers of it. Yep.

I 1,000% believe it needs to be regulated at the highest levels.

But I tell, you know, my friends, I'm like, hey, you can build a house with a

rock. You can pound nails in with a rock, or you can swing that hammer. You

know, they got a nail gun now.

Could save you some time. So until something goes on that tells me

otherwise, I'm going to use it as a tool. The record sounds great. I mean,

the lyrics I don't agree with, but that's okay.

I don't have to always agree with the lyrics. It's about Jesus.

You know, yeah, right.

All I could think of was, if anybody comes after me for that, My Sweet Lord

by George Harrison, one of my favorite songs of all time, and I never thought

he was my sweet lord. Hey. All right.

Think how we live in a country where you can have your religious beliefs.

Exactly. Because a lot of these countries, you cannot. Exactly. All

right. Thank you, guys. Time for New Rule.

Okay,

New Rule.

Virginia's Terry Ward has been arrested for taping his wife to a chair in the

basement so he could watch the football game in peace.

He has to answer the two questions on every married man's mind. One, do you

have a GoFundMe?

And two, how'd you find the tape without her help?

Women who've ever gotten mad at a husband or boyfriend and called him a

Neanderthal must admit that when they saw this headline, scientists just

discovered that Neanderthals loved eating beaver, they reconsidered.

Uh, New Rule McDonald's must tell us once and for all what's up with the

McRib.

It comes, it goes, it's in your life, then it's out.

It's the deadbeat dad of sandwiches.

I mean, this pisses me off, and I would never even eat one.

But my friends do, and I don't like them being McFucked with.

A nail salon in Portland that was sued for allegedly giving a customer herpes

and then sued for the same thing again has to lean into it.

Especially the again part.

People heard it gave you herpes and they still came back.

PDX Nails, a salon so good it's worth the blisters on your anus.

Now that the president continues to accuse me of having a laugh machine,

it's time I fess up. He's right.

I do.

This is it.

This is the laugh machine.

By the way, it is state of the art.

The technology in this thing is amazing.

All I have to do is push this button.

Let's try it again.

Thanks a lot, Starlink.

All right, and finally... New rule

this Halloween.

Could we give the kids a break from helicopter parenting and accept of

safetyism for one goddamn day?

I recently read that suburbs all over the country are imposing curfews for

Halloween night.

My home state is one of the worst.

South Plainfield, New Jersey says kids can't be in any place after seven.

Winslow Township says trick-or-treating ends at five.

Five? It's not even dark at five.

This is the spooky day. Nothing in your yard looks scary during the day.

Well... Maybe a Vivek Ramaswamy for Governor Lawson.

But that's it.

And I know, I know, but Bill, why are you even talking about it? You don't

have kids.

You're right, I don't. The only contact I ever get with kids is when I trip one

who's running around in a restaurant.

No, I don't have them, but I used to be one before I grew out of it. And I

remember how much I loved Halloween.

Oh, the feel of a cheap, shitty, hard plastic mask on your face.

Held in place with a cheap rubber band that snapped ten minutes after you left

the house.

No, I don't have kids, but somehow I still know that unstructured outdoor

activity is good.

It sparks imagination.

teaches problem-solving, promotes face-to-face social interactions with

other human peers.

And I know that all children need one night a year when they can go fucking

batshit and do mischief and run wild all over the neighborhood with their

friends, raising hell and peeing in the bushes because there's no time to stop.

No one's giving away candy tomorrow.

I am so grateful I grew up in a time when parents were like, go, have your

fun, be back by Thanksgiving.

And pick me up some smokes while you're out.

I was raised free range all my life. Every day, I'd come home from school,

fly up to my room, change clothes.

Fly out the door. My mother never once said, where are you going?

Where am I going?

Kid stuff.

That's it. Where am I going? What's it to you, nosy bitch?

But Bill, it's not like when we were kids. It's more dangerous now.

People put marijuana in the candy.

No, they don't. No one's doing that.

Right, like I'm going to give my pricey bud to your dumbass kid.

But what about all the crime these days?

Well, actually, factually, crime is down. Way down. Everywhere.

We live in a surveillance state with a tough-on-crime president now.

There aren't even serial killers anymore.

There were 866 of them operating in the U.S. in the 1980s. It was terrible.

Their victims couldn't escape because it was the 80s and they were on roller

skates.

But now there's less than 10 serial killers. You think there's a clown with

his dick out lurking in the bushes?

No, the predators are online now.

They don't need to rent a white van anymore.

They're not hiding in the sewer waiting to snatch little... little Olivia and

Noah. No one wants your kids, not even you.

Now...

There are, sadly, still child victims of sex abuse, but that's overwhelmingly not

from a stranger.

93% know their abuser. It's neighbors, coaches, youth ministers,

siblings, uncles, step-parents. As they say in scary Halloween movies, the call

is coming from inside the house.

That's the enormous irony in all this. Parents today...

believing that outside is the danger zone and inside it's where it's safe.

That's completely backwards.

Witches and goblins aren't real.

What's stealing your kids' souls is that little electronic portal of anonymous

evil that's glued to their hands.

No one...

No

one's putting a razor blade in an apple. The problem is Apple the company.

The problem is a teenage girl sitting alone in her room worrying, am I a

loser? And the phone telling her, yes, yes you are.

Because Jessica's Instagram story shows a party you weren't invited to.

Think you're fat?

Tumblr's pro-anorexia forums will convince you, you are.

And ugly? Yeah, that too.

I mean, didn't you see Kylie Jenner at the Victoria's Secret fashion show?

Don't you want to look like her?

Here's a DIY lip filler kit that only costs $39.95.

And no, of course you're not too young to have plastic surgery. Get some of

that, and then you can have an online boyfriend who's definitely not a 45-year

-old man in Milwaukee.

The CDC says one in five young adults has an anxiety disorder.

And they didn't get it from too much playing in the park.

They got it from being locked in at home under 24-hour surveillance from safety

mom. 62% of American children up to age 12 say they've never, never

walked or biked anywhere without an adult.

50% of parents won't let their kids go alone to another aisle in the grocery

store. Folks, you're chaperoning your kids to death.

Having your mommy with you going out with you on Halloween?

It's like having your wife at your bachelor party.

Parents in recent years have even started doing something called trunk or

treat for Halloween, which is just as fun as it sounds.

It's where the adults drive to a parking lot and then park their cars in a

circle. You know, in case Indians attack.

And then the kids collect candy from the open trunks of parked cars. But guess

what says fun more than scooping Necco wafers from a spare tire well?

This...

This all started in church parking lots so the kids would feel safe around

clergymen. Yeah, you can't let kids go to strange houses. My God, the people

inside could be pedophiles.

For fuck's sake, if this is what it's come to, just move Halloween to Zoom.

Or lock the kids in a safe room and slide the candy under the door.

Or you could just leave Halloween alone.

Because if you don't, I'm telling you right now, I'm just going to put off

having a baby.

All right, that's our show. I want to thank Jim Benhi, Kid Rock, and Senator

Ted Cruz.

Club Random drops every Monday on YouTube, or listen wherever you get your

podcasts. Now go watch Overtime on YouTube.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

All right.