When you just ride around,
you just see a country that does not look like it's falling apart.
>> No.
>> My eyes also matter.
It matters what I read and what people tell me,
it also matters that I just live in this world, and I travel a lot, and
I'm out in the city a lot, and a lot of people are just living their best lives,
and they're not all rich, it's not all the top 20%.
Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson joined Bill Maher for
an hour long conversation on all things politics.
But what really stood out in this conversation was how Bill Maher is
under the impression that America's great, everyone's doing fine,
I mean, people are living their best lives.
It seems like he thinks that everything is just hunky dory, economically speaking,
for the vast majority of Americans, but he got pushed back from Marianne Williamson,
so let's hear how she responded to that.
>> Speaker 1: For all its horrible problems, this country still somehow,
how we got through the pandemic and didn't go broke I don't know.
I mean, we probably will in the future, maybe it's the inflation is part of that
issue, but I just don't see a country where the people are just seething and
unhappy when I'm out, and that has to count for something.
>> Speaker 3: You know where I was last night?
I was speaking to teenagers on skid row.
Do you know how many people are homeless in Los Angeles County on any given night,
78,000?
>> Speaker 1: [LAUGH] If you go to skid row you're gonna okay.
>> That's my point, you've said you drive around, but where do you drive around?
>> Speaker 3: Okay. >> You don't drive too many miles.
>> Speaker 4: Of course, why would I go to skid row?
>> Speaker 3: That's kind of my point.
So you say, I don't see anybody going through that,
that's right you're not driving there.
>> Speaker 3: And most people do. >> They are modern and
under class- >> Yes.
>> This invisibilized field of suffering out there.
>> It's not for more than an underclass, it's an underclass.
>> Speaker 2: So look, Marianne Williamson is absolutely correct in pointing to
the poverty, the destitution that people in skid row are experiencing,
that is a very real issue.
But I think what's being kind of left out of this conversation is
the reality of the majority of people in the middle of that, right?
So you have Bill Maher, he's obviously doing well.
He's wealthy, so he doesn't even realize this, right?
And I think most people don't realize that whatever their lived experience is,
is a bit of a bubble.
If you are wealthy, you're very likely to have wealthy, and
in the case of Bill Maher, famous friends.
So you're surrounded by people who are doing great and
who are in fact living their best lives, right?
>> Yeah.
>> But you're not necessarily being confronted with the reality that most
working Americans are dealing with, right?
At the same time, Marianne Williamson pointing out homelessness, it's a good
point, but that also kind of leaves out the desperation and the financial
instability that a lot of Americans in the middle are [LAUGH] experiencing, right?
The precarious nature of our economy for the vast majority of Americans.
>> 100%.
So first, let's just note for the record,
that is the ugliest basement in America, okay?
That is not living your best life, okay?
I'm just going to move on beyond that.
So look, they're both in my mind, making the same bubble mistake.
So Bill Maher, I'm sure, has a giant house in a place like Brentwood.
I don't know where he actually lives, but, people think Beverly Hills.
Brentwood is even richer than Beverly Hills.
>> Speaker 2: Is it?
>> Speaker 4: Yeah.
Okay, so and it's not that he doesn't get that there are places
outside of Brentwood, of course, he knows that, right?
He's a relatively smart guy, but when you are in a bubble, it is so
hard to see past the bubble.
So 90% of the time, at a minimum,
he interacts with people who are also spectacularly wealthy, right?
And they're all like everything is great.
And then every once in a while, he'll see something maybe he'll drive through
Ohio and go, I don't seem that happy, but okay, anyway, and he walks away thinking,
overall, America's living its best life.
>> Speaker 2: Dude, you don't even have to go to Ohio.
Okay, let's stay in La County.
Go to Rachita, that's where I'm from, where my parents currently live, right?
>> Speaker 4: Go to riverside.
>> Speaker 2: Okay, by the way, homes in Rachita right now, look,
working class neighborhood, okay?
Predominantly Latino community houses now are going for
I can't even believe it at least a mill.
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, and so look, I know there's two sides of that coin, and
if you got bought a house 40 years ago for $25,000, congrats, you're rich now, right?
>> Right.
>> Speaker 4: But the flip side to that is no one else can afford a house.
>> Speaker 2: Exactly.
>> Speaker 4: And so they're only selling to other now to rich people.
So everybody's getting pushed out, then you got to drive two and
a half hours to get to LA.
And that's not living your best life, brother.
I don't know how anyone affords LA at all.
It's near impossible to afford, right?
But then Marianne goes to skid row, and she's well,
they're not doing well in skid row.
Well, that's, of course, exceedingly true, but that's also a bubble.
Now, that doesn't mean that, that bubble isn't real.
They're both bubbles are real, right?
But the great majority of us don't live in either one of those bubbles.
>> Speaker 4: In fact. >> We're the 90% that's in
the middle, right?
>> Speaker 2: Exactly, and
I think even if you want to just focus on the homelessness issue, right?
I think because it's the most visible,
your mind immediately goes to people who are living on the streets.
But there's a giant population of homeless people who are not living on the streets.
They're couch surfing.
They're staying with a friend or a family member.
>> Or a lot of times in a car.
>> Or in a car, a perfect example.
Yes, that's exactly right.
And so, yeah, I just think, again, the conversation leaves out the reality for
just large swaths of Americans who are just barely getting by.
And I want to give you some statistics and
some numbers to kind of back up what we're saying here.
So according to the Fed's, meaning the Federal Reserve's 2022
Economic Well-Being of the United States Household Survey released Monday,
some 37% of Americans lack enough money to cover a 40, am sorry,
$400 emergency expense, and that's up from 32% in 2021.
That means nearly one in four consumers would have to use credit, turn to family,
sell assets, or get a loan in order to cover any major unexpected cost.
In fact, just to buttress that point,
credit card debt has now surpassed $1 trillion in America for the first time.
There's also a rising number of Americans who are borrowing against their homes,
meaning they're taking out equity lines of credit
at a time when interest rates are incredibly high.
So taking out those loans,
borrowing against their homes is even more expensive than it previously was.
And on top of that, there's a rising number of Americans who are now
withdrawing money early from their retirement accounts,
including their 401Ks.
That leads to higher taxes, but more importantly,
there's a penalty when you do that.
Americans only do that when they're desperate.
You get what I'm saying?
>> Speaker 4: Of course, and look, that 37% is so invisible to people in power,
and that is a giant chunk of the country.
And that's not people on skid road, that's people that are the working poor.
$400 knocks them out of the game.
I mean, if you were gonna have to go and ask someone for money,
you don't wanna do that, it's gonna hurt your pride, right?
Or you're gonna have to get more credit card debt and
you don't know how to pay the credit card debt, and it's just over $400, okay?
The Bill Mars of the world, whether he has good intent or bad intent,
I don't think really matters in this case.
He just doesn't see them.
And the people in power don't see them.
They're invisible to them.
And so look, guys, we're not immune from it.
So I'll give you an example.
So in 2016, I already thought that Trump had a good chance of winning
because he was running as a guy who was running against corruption for
many other reasons, etc.
But then when we started traveling in the country and
to a bunch of different places to cover debates and election issues, etc.,
and then finally we wind up in Ohio for the convention, okay?
And I wind up having a half a day, which I almost never have, and
I drove around Ohio and I went and stopped at a bunch of stores, etc.
And I was my God, everyone here is pro Trump.
And when you live in LA, everyone was pro Hillary, right?
So it's a completely different bubble.
And then I went to the hotel room, I did a live video, and I was no, that's it.
He's going to win.
And then I went on ABC's this week and
predicted that he would win because the people on the coast,
especially the people in power in New York and DC, they can't see straight.
They never see the middle class.
Never, ever, ever, and they're always they'll see polls that show that
the American people despise the establishment and the elites, and
they're no, they don't.
No way, everybody I know loves the media.
Everyone I know respects these politicians and kisses their ass 24/7.
In Washington, the bubble is the thickest out of all of the cities.
They're the politicians are revered.
If you say something against the Democratic establishment candidate or
Congressperson or any politician in Washington, they'll take your head off.
They think that is the biggest crime in America.
Whereas if you go to anywhere else in the country, they hate the politicians.
They hate them.
So that's what's leading to this disconnect.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
And look,
it's funny because I kind of cringe at the phrase middle class at this point,
because I don't really know if there's really that much of a middle class left.
I just think of it as working class.
People in the middle at this point are working class people who are struggling to
get by, whose wages have not kept up with inflation not even close.
In fact, this is the graph that we love to show you all that shows productivity
just skyrocketing while wages flatline.
And that really started to become more of an issue in the 1970s, 1980s.
So there you have it, Americans are working harder, producing more but wages,
of course, have not gone along with that increased productivity.
>> Speaker 4: So let me just say about that.
First of all, Anna makes a great point about middle class working class.
We covered a mom out of Alabama the other day.
She went on Fox News, we have no idea what her politics is, but
she was absolutely right.
She said, look, there is no middle class left.
There's just the extremely rich and the rest of us.
And I think that's a great description of it.
I like your phrase working class that better encompasses the rest of us.
And in terms of that chart, you notice that your wages was going up with your
productivity for 40 years in America.
So it's actually totally possible that's back when we had a democracy,
I explained in my book that in 1978, they end our democracy by legalizing bribes.
So you can get the book at tyt.com/justice.
It's called Justice is Coming.
Now, here comes the devastating part.
You can read the details in the book, but that chart we showed you might look like,
okay, it's a chart that lines seem to diverge a little bit.
The difference between those two lines is $12 trillion.
That's $12 trillion you should have gotten, but instead,
incredibly rich executives and shareholders got.
Cuz it was your productivity, guys, it averages about
$17,000 a year for every working person in America.
That's how much they took out of your pocket.
And do you get the sense that Bill Maher understands that fact?
Cuz I don't get that sense at all.
>> Speaker 2: You know what else I don't understand?
Cigars.
They're stinky, I don't think they look cool, but for some reason,
some people, [LAUGH] like Bill Maher, they love to wave their cigars around.
>> Speaker 4: I think that they think it's manly, and maybe they just enjoy it,
to be fair.
I don't know, right?
>> Speaker 2: True, maybe they do.
>> Speaker 4: I've had cigars, and it's not that good, right?
Give me an edible that's good, and I think Bill Maher would agree with that.
>> Speaker 4: Yeah.
>> Okay, but a cigar is perfect for that ugly ass basement.
>> Speaker 2: And look, the point of the ugly ass basement is just that.
Like I'm a man of the people.
Yeah, I'm so laid back with sideshow that I'm doing.
>> Speaker 4: Yeah. >> Yeah, anyway, there are other videos.
Fine, let's go to one more.
So, in this next clip, Maher and Marianne had some pretty differing takes on what
the government should provide people and what should be left to corporations.
Let's watch.
>> Speaker 1: Socialism is I think,
it should always have been called Capitalism Plus.
Do I think we should get rid of capitalism?
>> Speaker 4: Not at all.
But there is some need for socialism because there are some things that should
not be left to the private sector, health care being one of them.
>> Speaker 3: Thank you, tuition free college, childcare, paid family leave,
guaranteed housing, guaranteed sick pay.
>> Speaker 1: Well, no one has this much money Marianne.
And it's so easy.
>> Speaker 3: It's the same amount of money when you were talking
about the private sector does some things, and the public sector should be
that's what you have in the hybrid economies of Scandinavian.
>> Speaker 1: But here are the things,
I think that got eaten by capitalism that shouldn't have.
Prisons.
>> Speaker 3: Correct.
>> Speaker 1: News media.
>> Correct.
>> Speaker 1: Health care.
>> Speaker 1: Correct.
>> Speaker 1: When you start- >> And higher education.
>> Speaker 1: No, the message we send to people about college is wrong.
The message should not be, everyone should go to college.
College is most of it.
>> Speaker 2: Okay, so I guess the sticking point there has to do with
whether or not college should be free.
There was a time when public universities were free, and
then they were made affordable, at least, right?
They're not even affordable at this point.
So there needs to be an option for students who want a higher education to be
able to do so and obtain it without digging themselves into a giant debt hole.
But I agree with him on everything else.
I don't think there should be a profit motive behind prisons.
I think for profit prisons absolutely should be banned in this country.
I agree with him on healthcare foolheartedly fully.
I think we should have a single payer health care system in the short term,
if we need to settle for a public option, I'll take it better than what we have now.
News media, I'm curious what you think about that, Cenk.
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that was a lot more complicated, so
I'll come back to that one.
But look, sometimes right wingers drives me crazy.
And some of his opinions, I think, have definitely gone to right wing talking
points, and he surrounds himself with right wingers, etc.
Now, having said that, this one is a perfectly reasonable disagreement and
he's largely on the left here, right?
So he's saying we shouldn't have private prisons, etc.
Those are exactly right and he says we shouldn't have private health insurance.
That's a big thing for a mainstream media guy to say.
>> Speaker 2: True.
>> Speaker 4: So just cuz we don't agree with him on college here,
we don't have to chop his head off on it.
>> Speaker 2: I'm not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, don't throw out Bill Mart with the bathwater.
But seriously, there are other things that I think he's much more right wing on, and
he drives me crazy, and I'm happy to throw him out with the bathwater on those.
But here, this is a good discussion, okay?
Fair show in America, okay?
So as much as I'm annoyed by him and he's super smug and condescending,
this is a good healthy discussion about where's the line, right?
So we agree with where the line is in some ways.
And right now, by the way, Washington does not agree.
So both Marianne and Bill are to the left of Washington on all of those issues.
Now, I agree with Marianne.
I think college should be free.
And I've talked about it before my dad got a free college education,
went from a poor farmer to a mechanical engineer and then to a business owner.
It's not just a moral thing to do, it's a smart thing to do.
It helps the economy, creates small businesses, etc.
So I think he's wrong, and I'm happy to debate him on that, but
I don't think he's toxic or anything like that for having that opinion.
We just disagree and I'm glad that they're hashing it out.
So that's a positive part of the show.
I'm here for it.
And Maryann by the way, a wonderful progressive and running for president,
and I think she's 10,000 times more progressive than Joe Biden.
And there she's making a really good case.
And then late she said, why is everybody putting RFK Jr.
on like Rogan is, CNN is, etc.
And they never put me on.
I think that's a super fair point.
RFK Jr. is running in the Democratic Party, but largely a Republican in
Marianne Williamson at this point, the representative for progressives.
I mean, I wish it was different,
I wish we had a whole bunch of progressives in there.
Nothing against Marianne, I think she's doing a wonderful job.
But right now, the sole representative, and
she can't get anywhere else on media, and I think that's an outrage.
But give credit where credit is due, Bill Maher, who had her on.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, totally.
I totally agree with that.