Andrew Sullivan (8:13)

I feel funny like when I used to climb the rope in gym class. You can do it at any age.

Dana Carvey (8:22)

This is, this is why when, when, when you're on, I just feel.

Andrew Sullivan (8:25)

Let me tell you, let me tell you. We do. I love it when Trump was sitting there and he's got the.

Dana Carvey (8:32)

No question, by the way.

Andrew Sullivan (8:35)

Welcome to the Dana Carvey Show. My guest, My guest is Bill. So Trump's there, he's got the tie, and then Elon is up there talking, right? And I don't really do it yet, but I'm working on it. Okay, we gotta go to Mars. We're going to Mars because we can't sustain life on planet Earth. We got to go to Mars. It's going to be really cool. Okay? And then, and then they say, President Trump. And Trump goes, what he said? What he said? What he said. He's a smart cookie. He's a tough cookie. He's a Cookie Monster, this one. He's smart. Everybody talks about it. He's like, I've shipped so high. Excuse me, excuse me. Everybody knows it. And nobody works a word like Trump. He's a smart, tough cookie. He's a Cookie Monster. He's a Lorna Doone.

Dana Carvey (9:36)

You know the Lorna Doon.

Andrew Sullivan (9:37)

You remember the Lorna Doon. Anyway, so, Bill, how does someone, how does anyone on show business have the Same Job since 1992 in different incarnations that. Has that ever been done before?

Dana Carvey (9:54)

Oh, shut up. You don't care about that.

Andrew Sullivan (9:57)

I want to bet with my wife he would tell me to shut up with it. Do it. Do it.

Dana Carvey (10:09)

There's something about this.

Andrew Sullivan (10:11)

There is something about you that I want to just hug. There's a kind of a guy that has a vulnerability that's. Anyway, we'll talk later.

Dana Carvey (10:23)

This is why hosts feel so superfluous when you are on.

Andrew Sullivan (10:27)

Not at all. I don't. I can run through this stuff or I could be very serious.

Dana Carvey (10:30)

No, no, no, no, no. You don't dare.

Andrew Sullivan (10:34)

Just Bobby Kennedy Jr. Oh, has dystonia. My brother has it. Just rigid vocal cords. He always sounds like he just took a hit of pop. We all sound like him after that thing. You know, my dad never came to the game and I didn't know where he was. We all do that. The farmer said, uncle Cupid. He said, the big egg bro. I think he's really smart. It's just he needs a JFK AI to interpret. We will attack the big farmer when we need to. We don't do it because it's easy. We do it because it's hard. How old do you have to be to get that reference? I love being jfk. Anyway, next. Come on, Bill. I want to give you a hug so bad because you're just. You're amazing. But anyway, I'm amazing.

Dana Carvey (11:44)

I haven't said a word. How could I be amazing? You're amazing.

Andrew Sullivan (11:50)

I've been in the clubhouse.

Dana Carvey (11:52)

Yes, you've been on the clubhouse.

Andrew Sullivan (11:53)

You were on our podcast, and now we're here.

Dana Carvey (11:55)

Didn't you just win an award?

Andrew Sullivan (11:57)

Whoops. Fee Five Fold Fear. Somebody won the comedy podcast of the year. I think it was rigged, but David Spade and I Iheart gave us the comedy podcast.

Dana Carvey (12:15)

It's a great podcast. Is it, you know.

Andrew Sullivan (12:20)

Club Random and that thing is random. You get in there. I'm sitting there for a half hour just in the dark, waiting, and then you come in and you're like, well, whatever. I got a little tipsy, too. You know, I was like Johnny Carson when he gets pulled over for drunk driving. Oh, well, sorry, officer. I didn't know I was swerving. I had two slippery monkeys at the hook and crook. What's funn?

Dana Carvey (12:44)

He got mad at you, didn't he? When you did Carson, you still went on snl and, you know, this is why you are just such a genius and a person. You get at the essence of somebody. Nobody could quite get Biden. You got at the essence of him. George Bush.

Andrew Sullivan (13:01)

No, I'm being serious right now.

Dana Carvey (13:02)

Come on.

Andrew Sullivan (13:04)

I came around, you know, when he itches his face. When they would work Biden way too hard. At the end of the day, he'd be wandering around. Yeah, it's the people go. And he would sit and be like, I mean, serious.

Bill Maher (13:37)

Come on.

Andrew Sullivan (13:39)

No, you got me going on that one.

Dana Carvey (13:40)

Well, because that's what I'm saying. Like, everybody makes their commentaries about it, but, like, that gets to the essence of it, and everybody can understand that.

Andrew Sullivan (13:49)

Well, I think with me, you know, obviously, I admired Rich Little and he Had Johnny doing the monologue, you know, and so I noticed Johnny. Interviewing I did not know that was one of the hosts.

Dana Carvey (14:01)

Right. Yes.

Andrew Sullivan (14:02)

That is weird, wild stuff, you know, and so that was. And that was the most fun I ever had on Saturday Night Live.

Dana Carvey (14:08)

But he did not take it well because you got at the essence. I mean, it was the end of the reign. It was the people don't remember this. We're going back those 30 years, but it was the end of Johnny Carson. Been there for 30 years, King of Legion. But he was in his late 60s. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Bill Maher (14:24)

Yeah.

Dana Carvey (14:28)

For this kind of show, it's fine. But for that kind of a show. And you kind of like, showed the emperor's clothes were a little tatty a little bit. And he didn't like that.

Andrew Sullivan (14:38)

And, you know, Phil Hartman, God rest his soul. Yeah, he was playing AD So brilliant. Yeah. And I love being out there with Phil and Phil as Ed McMahon. Johnny would make a reference like, you know, it's like Wild, Wild west or James Garner's pants or whatever. And then Phil would go old reference lost on younger viewers. So being so at first, Johnny loved it and I did Carcino. It was a combination of Arsenio hall and Carson.

Dana Carvey (15:08)

Right.

Andrew Sullivan (15:10)

And did you know that a crib is not actually. That's where you live. It's not where you put a. So anyway, he liked it for a while, and then there was one where. And I was worried about it kind of played him a little more senile. He didn't know that Susan Day, who was the guest, had been off the Partridge family for 10 years. And, you know, until I understand. So anyway, that's. He did get upset and that I didn't like that, you know, but I understood that he. He also would, you know, Wayne Newton and all those stories.

Dana Carvey (15:38)

But, you know, you got to piss. You got to take the piss out of the powerful. This is.

Andrew Sullivan (15:43)

I agree.

Dana Carvey (15:44)

There's a movement to not do that anymore, and I think we're fighting back against that. We saw the Tom Brady roast. Nikki Glaser.

Ezra Klein (15:52)

Right.

Dana Carvey (15:53)

At the incredible. At the Golden Globes this year. Starting to get back to that. I mean, I know. Was it Bill Gates who walked out on you once when you were doing him at church?

Andrew Sullivan (16:03)

Well, they asked me to do a skit with Bill Gates at a big event as the church lady. Without even.

Dana Carvey (16:13)

Yeah.

Andrew Sullivan (16:14)

And I said, I do not sell out that character. I'm not gonna. They wanted me in the dress and the wig and to go in this Giant arena with Bill Gates. I said, I don't sell out the character. And then they told me what they were gonna pay me, and I said, I'll get the bitches dress on right now, of course. And so I'm in this giant arena and they're so intense about Bill Gates. You know, he's like their, you know, God. Like, get him, Bill. Kind of this tension. Come on. We have cue cards. I'm in the dress. He's there just being Bill Gates. Hello. You know, he's got a little sweater, and I'm in that. The character wasn't on the script. I turned to him and said, well, well, well. We like ourselves, don't we? Apparently, we made a deal with the devil. Wait, the devil said we can have $100 billion, but we have to looking like a turtle. So take it.

Dana Carvey (17:15)

What?

Andrew Sullivan (17:16)

You feel that he looks like a turtle? It was a joke. Hey, man, he does not look like an amphibious creature. I appreciate the funny stuff up front, but that went too far, dude. So he walked off, then he walked off. Well, then I said, let's do the superior dance, because the whole thing is like a souffle deflating. You know, it's really tense. And then he goes. I go, let's do the spear dance. He goes, no, thank you.

Dana Carvey (17:39)

Goodbye.

Andrew Sullivan (17:39)

And he just walked off. Yeah. And I go, backstage, it's like Lord of the Rings intensity. I'm being surrounded by these Microsoft nerds that I. Oh, my God. You made fun of the pressure.

Ezra Klein (17:54)

So to your point, it just.

Dana Carvey (17:59)

It's really. It says a lot about people's character, whether they're can take it or not. I mean, Bush Sr. Who you were, some would say, unmerciful to. He was your friend.

Andrew Sullivan (18:10)

He came from a different era. We were friends for 35 years. We did a lot of charity events together. I make fun of him on snl. He loses the election in November. In December, I get a call, this is the White House operator. And all of a sudden I'm talking to him, and he's like, hey, Dane, how you doing? You know, And I go, I'm Mr. President. And he goes, you know, and then to cut to it, he's like, thought he might come out to D.C. and cheer up the troops. He wanted me to kind of cheer up his staff. They're down here, want to bring him up in this area. So this is. Thank you. Greatest audience in the world. This is true. At that moment, I'm a very young man, and I'm just thinking, dc.

Dana Carvey (18:52)

What?

Andrew Sullivan (18:52)

And I said to The President. Well, where would I stay? He thinks I'm negotiating, so he pauses. Well, he's staying in the White House right here with Bar and I. Two weeks later, my wife and I are in the Lincoln Bedroom. We stayed for three nights. We saw a lot of things. And all anyone want back home wanted to know was whether we.

Bill Maher (19:16)

Did you.

Andrew Sullivan (19:17)

Did you do it? Did you do it in the Lincoln Bedroom? I'm not going to say, but my son's middle name is Abe. But my point, the Woody Allen. The Woody Allen rhythm always gets a laugh. Just because a. But anyway, so that was a. Can I do the biggest laugh in my act right now?

Dana Carvey (19:39)

I thought that was it, but no, no.

Andrew Sullivan (19:41)

This is so, so ridiculous. And how big a laugh it gets. I'll just walk from here. Camera.

Dana Carvey (19:46)

Okay.

Andrew Sullivan (19:47)

Okay, here it is. This is George Bush Sr. Going off a high dive. I don't know why this now it's gonna bomb. But anyway, gotta do it, Gotta do it. Not gonna do it.

Ezra Klein (20:03)

Why?

Dana Carvey (20:05)

It's funny.

Andrew Sullivan (20:06)

It's funny.

Dana Carvey (20:07)

He's funny. You're a funny guy. Well, I think I was great tonight. What do you think? I don't think I've ever.

Andrew Sullivan (20:21)

I love making you laugh. I love making you laugh.

Dana Carvey (20:24)

You think you love it? I love it.

Andrew Sullivan (20:25)

I love it. We have a bromance. Is that what it's called?

Dana Carvey (20:28)

We should.

Andrew Sullivan (20:29)

Mutual, you know.

Dana Carvey (20:31)

So last thing.

Andrew Sullivan (20:32)

Yes, sir.

Dana Carvey (20:32)

You missed the 50th SNL. I heard you had the flu.

Andrew Sullivan (20:36)

Yeah.

Dana Carvey (20:36)

Too bad. Because you were certainly one of the all time greats on that show.

Ezra Klein (20:40)

Great job.

Dana Carvey (20:40)

And I thought. And since. But the person who closed the show was Paul McCarthy and I thought, oh, I wish you had been there because that is one of my favorite impressions that you do. Talk about capturing the essence of.

Andrew Sullivan (20:58)

I just love being Paul and I do like he is now. You know, John and I, John and I, you know, we'd sit for a plunk. You know, we sit for a plunk and we're like facing each other. I was left handed, he was right. Was like facing a mirror, you know. And there's never been anyone that humble with the genius he mentions. We sat and we plunked, you know, and that's how we came up with Abbey Road. You know, it's like what? I've had a lot of interactions with you.

Dana Carvey (21:34)

I have a panel waiting who is going to hate me because there's no way to follow Dana Carver. But we're going to try. Thank you very much, my friend, for coming on here. Let's have that blow, man.

Bill Maher (21:46)

Let's do it.

Dana Carvey (21:47)

Vander Carvey, everybody. All right, let's meet our panel. Well.

Andrew Sullivan (22:01)

All right.

Ezra Klein (22:02)

I can say to my new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, hey, find a keto friendly restaurant nearby and text it to Beth and Steve. And it does without me lifting a finger so I can get in more square spots anywhere I can. 1, 2, 3.

Dana Carvey (22:16)

Will that be cash or credit? Credit.

Ezra Klein (22:19)

4 Galaxy S25 Ultra. The AI companion that does the heavy lifting.

Bill Maher (22:24)

So you can do.

Ezra Klein (22:25)

You get yours@samsung.com compatible select apps requires Google Gemini account.

Dana Carvey (22:30)

Results may vary based on input.

Ezra Klein (22:31)

Check responses for accuracy.

Dana Carvey (22:32)

My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big roas man.

Andrew Sullivan (22:39)

Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day.

Ezra Klein (22:46)

Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com results to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn the place to be, to be.

Dana Carvey (23:02)

The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our.

Ezra Klein (23:09)

Top 10 ranked online MBA. Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow.

Dana Carvey (23:14)

Get ready to go from make it.

Ezra Klein (23:16)

Happen to made it happen and keep striving. Visit strayer.edu Jack WelchMBA to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Chev and has many campuses, including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia.

Dana Carvey (23:31)

I apologize. All right. He is the host of the NYT podcast the Ezra Klein show, and co author the new book Abundance. Ezra Klein is here, all right. And he writes the weekly Dish newsletter and substack and hosts the podcast the Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan. Andrew Sullivan. Well, it's good we can laugh, isn't it? In this.

Ezra Klein (23:59)

I need that.

Dana Carvey (24:00)

You really do.

Bill Maher (24:01)

Oh, my God.

Dana Carvey (24:02)

Some people don't want to do that, but we have to talk about serious subjects because we're the serious people now. So it seems like here we are. I guess it's exact. It's the first day of spring and two months into endgame, and I see a pattern, which is that there are some things that. Some things I don't like altogether, but there's some things I think you and I. I don't know if you do on all of these, but some of the things that Trump has ideas for, like Europe should Pay for their own defense. Yeah, they should. They're rich. Border security, equity, completely replacing the idea of equality. I mean, some things, maybe biological men should not be competing with women. Lots of things, but none of it. He does. Well, he does the right way. Which takes us to getting rid of the. So the big story this week, he got rid of. And one of those things on the list of things which I think are a pretty good idea is I don't want Venezuelan gang members here either. Gang members have initiations where they have to kill a rando to get their fucking teardrop tattoo. I don't want to be that guy. So I'm for getting rid of. But you can't do it extralegally, which he did. And then the judge said, well, you can't do that. And he said, this is the quote from Tom Holman. Trump's borders are. We are not stopping. I don't care what the judges think, okay? It's not the way you can run a country. My question for you guys is to people who just don't follow stuff, all the nuance like we do, they just think, well, these are some good ideas. I don't know about all these laws. How do you convince people that the conceptual, which is we gotta follow laws. The founding fathers were pretty clear about, you can't put people in jail without a trial. How do you convince people who don't follow it that closely that the concept is more important than the actual action?

Ezra Klein (26:05)

I don't know that you can on Venezuelan gang members. The thing that I think is going to save democracy is that they are terrible at managing the economy. There are a bunch of things where Donald Trump has a strong argument and as you say, he's doing things in a very dangerous way with them. There's always the policy and the message of the way to carry out the policy. The policy is no Venezuelan gang members. The message is they are not bound by loss. And they try to split politics in between the two. Right. Because they know they have the winning side of the first issue. But the thing is they have no restraint on anything. Right. They don't have it on tariffs, they don't have it on laws, they don't have it on Doge. And so you're watching this guy lose altitude very, very quickly. Whether they care, I'm not sure. But it took Joe Biden 260, his.

Dana Carvey (26:52)

Approval rating as high as ever.

Ezra Klein (26:54)

This week it went down to this week at least. Or last week it had gone down to negative. It took Joe Biden 221 days to go negative.

Dana Carvey (27:01)

But for him, it's his highest. No, it is. It's a little below 50. That's not.

Bill Maher (27:10)

I have to say, I do not care about the economy. If the government in this country claims it can break down anyone's doors, seize anyone with no due process, put them on a plane and send them to a foreign jail where who knows what's going to happen to them. I want to see the last person in this country who did that was called George iii. This is fundamental to this country's survival, to the meaning of this country. We do not let people violate people's security without due process, without law. I know I'm hyped up about this. I know they're not necessarily citizens. I know that some of them, a lot of them are horrible people that shouldn't be here, but some of them are not. The whole point of this is that innocent people are caught up in this when they are. Should not be, when you are not giving them any chance to prove they.

Dana Carvey (28:10)

Shouldn'T be there again. But can I.

Bill Maher (28:12)

Sorry, I'm. I'm.

Dana Carvey (28:13)

Yeah, yeah, calm down. Jesus Christ.

Bill Maher (28:16)

This is America. This is. I'm. I immigrant. This country.

Dana Carvey (28:19)

I understand.

Bill Maher (28:19)

That's why I came here. Because this country is a country of freedom.

Dana Carvey (28:23)

But again, and he's.

Bill Maher (28:24)

He's telling us it isn't.

Dana Carvey (28:25)

Let's. Let's. I agree.

Bill Maher (28:27)

Sorry.

Dana Carvey (28:27)

We're all on the same page. Stop yelling at us. But here, put yourself in the shoes of somebody who doesn't follow politics that closely and their Venezuelan gang members. Why are we even arguing about this? They shouldn't be in this country. This guy's finally doing something about it. He's kicking them out. And a judge, one judge told him to stop. Well, what law is this that any judge anywhere can. I don't know why I'm using that accent, but I went into my stupid voice. But why is it that one judge anywhere can say, oh, a president can't do this? I mean, that's something that's a little abstruse to a lot of people.

Ezra Klein (29:05)

Look, I think you can make the argument. The question is, can you get to where people are listening to the argument? The thing about the election, the thing about politics right now is Donald Trump wins. People who don't like to think about politics. Right? That's very, very clear in all the polling. If you follow the news, you voted for the Democrats, by and large. If you don't follow the news, you voted for him. And I'm not saying that that means that people who voted for him are less smart or anything like that. But the problem the Democrats have, the problem that Andrew's argument has, that my argument has, that your argument has, is how do you reach people? It's not even really. I think that the problem is people hear that the Venezuelan gang members are being deported and who, you know, what is the judge's power over this? They don't hear about it at all oftentimes.

Dana Carvey (29:47)

Right.

Ezra Klein (29:47)

I mean, this stuff is all the news, and if you're tuned it out, it's very hard to get to you. And so the thing that I think they understand, I mean, you've had Steve Bannon on this show, right?

Dana Carvey (29:55)

I think we have him coming up. Yes, we've had him, and we're gonna have him again, and then he's gonna have us.

Ezra Klein (30:00)

His whole thing is you flood the zone. His whole thing is you flood the zone with bullshit. Because the pipe of information for most people is pretty narrow. And even they hear about one thing, they don't hear about the other eight, they don't hear about the other 10. You overwhelm the media, you overwhelm people. And also you recognize that most people don't want to think about it. Right. And so you can get a lot done under the COVID of chaos. And it's a very genuine problem. It's not a crazy strategy they're running. The one thing that is crazy about it is they flood their own zone. They don't know what they're doing. The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. They don't know the people they're firing. They don't know what might break. So we don't really, really know what are the things that are going to break through because it turned out planes started dropping out of the sky or some group they fired led to a nuclear disaster.

Dana Carvey (30:43)

Right.

Ezra Klein (30:43)

Like, they also do not have a great sense of what they're doing. They don't mean to be deporting some of the people they appear to be deporting, but we don't know what will break through, because fundamentally, you're trying to convince people who are not watching the show right now.

Dana Carvey (30:58)

And also, I mean, we're doing this in a world where the Democrats now have a 27% approval rate. So explain that to me. And by the way, 11% with independents, I think in the same NBC poll, 11% with independents. I mean, I said this at the end of last year, like, you lost a crazy contest to a crazy person. What is the answer for The Democrats there, because they seem to be having a civil war right now. Some of them are going over to, I think the reality wing of the party. Gavin Newsom is here next week. I think he's made a big change. I love to see that some of them are saying get rid of Chuck Schumer, who kept the government running, which was the practical thing to do. And I think the Democrats would have looked worse if he didn't. But they want to throw him out for aoc. What's your view on that?

Ezra Klein (31:50)

Well, I don't think they want to throw him out for aoc, but I agree they're in a sense.

Dana Carvey (31:53)

Oh, a lot of them do, yeah.

Ezra Klein (31:54)

But not the ones in power. Look, they're going to look bad for a while because they don't have the power to do the thing their own people want. People come up to me all the time and they say, the Democrats have no message. Why do they have a message? And I say to them, no, no, no. If you listen to them and I do, it's my job, they have a message. You'd like their message, fine. But they don't have as any power. And so all their choices are bad. What you want from them is to make it stop, unfortunately. And they can't make it stop in a way they think they'll win.

Dana Carvey (32:19)

So what's the win?

Bill Maher (32:20)

They had a chance. They won. And they had a chance to prove to the American people for four years that they were multiple. They did want to build things. They weren't these old crazy lefties and they failed.

Ezra Klein (32:32)

Are you plugging my book?

Bill Maher (32:33)

Well, no, I'm happy to plug you book. I'm happy to plug you both. I love your book and I love the idea that Democrats should get back into building things, into making things happen, into deregulating, into supercharging the economy. I just think that until the Democrats address some of the core issues, they seem not to want to control immigration. They have extremist views about race. They think that boys should compete with girls in sports and that children should be have their sex reassigned until they grapple with that first and then have your argument. The two together will work, but you can't do this to avoid that.

Ezra Klein (33:18)

I think they've moderated. I think the party has moved on a bunch of those issues. If they passed the Lake and Riley bill, it's basically the first thing they did in this Congress. They're not going to fight.

Dana Carvey (33:27)

What's that? Says the audience.

Andrew Sullivan (33:30)

Says the D.C. no, the lake and Riley.

Dana Carvey (33:32)

What's that eggheads.

Ezra Klein (33:33)

The Lake and Riley bill lost the.

Dana Carvey (33:35)

Election because we don't talk normal language.

Ezra Klein (33:38)

The Lake and Riley bill is a very right wing immigration enforcement bill. The argument against it was that you can basically pull people in without a lot of due process, actually. But it was voted for by a bunch of Democrats, including sort of young Democrats like Ruben Gallego. The Democrats have moved on this. They didn't move on it early enough. And it's part of why they lost the election. You're not wrong on that. But the problem right now, they're 27% right now. The reason they've dropped right now is they're losing support from Democrats. And the reason they're losing support from Democrats is Democrats want an opposition party and they don't have good leverage for the opposition yet. Look, if you go back to early Obama. Obama or early Biden, you look at polling for the Republican Party, it's bad. Polling for a party after it loses an election is usually bad because it doesn't have the one thing its partisans want it to have, which is power.

Dana Carvey (34:26)

Well, it's not this bad. I've never seen one this bad. And I think.

Bill Maher (34:32)

I think people realize something is deeply wrong right now.

Dana Carvey (34:35)

They do.

Bill Maher (34:35)

Something is deeply wrong with what's going on in the country. It's to do with the way Trump understands power. You think about, about what you were saying before. How can one judge stop the will of the people, which is Musk's tweets. He doesn't seem to understand. We have a judiciary, a legislative, an executive. The whole point is that we'd have that to avoid tyranny. And no one.

Dana Carvey (35:01)

But that's my question. You gotta make that case.

Bill Maher (35:04)

There's more towards civics in this country. They're too busy that America is white supremacist without learning that there are three branches of government. They're all separate, they're kept apart so that we can be freer than other countries. Why are we teaching that? We should be teaching that.

Dana Carvey (35:19)

Well, I think the way you appeal.

Bill Maher (35:21)

To them is that this could happen to you. It could happen to one of your friends. It could happen with one of your friends who has a tattoo that might not be the right tattoo, and it's suddenly gone. You talk to the people who have relatives in Europe and they say, my friend came over, he was thrown and treated terribly by the elders for no good reason. This hap. You will tell the stories of the people who have been victimized by this, the good people in government who've been fired for no reason. The good programs that were working that have been gotten rid of for no good reason. Everyone wants to reduce waste. Everyone wants to streamline government. Not this way.

Dana Carvey (35:53)

I gotta keep you calm. Okay, Sorry. So I'm going to interrupt just so you can catch your breath. Let's do something light. Let's do something light, right? Let's do something light. All right. I see confession signs are back in the news. There was a couple in Texas who made their kid have one, and they're in trouble with the law now. But this was always a big thing with pets. People would post their pets, you know, confession signs, things like, I had one. Oh, wait, I ate. Alexa, did you see that? I tricked my parents into feeding me dinner twice. Or I shoplit a Petco. You know, these are kind of funny. So we thought this is probably going to get a trend with people. And sure enough, people are doing it now. Would you like to see some of the ones that. Oh, I thought you might. For example, we got Blake Lively doing it. Even I'm not sure what I'm claiming he did. It's amazing what people will reveal. John Fetterman did one at home. I wear Versace. JD Vantis says it is eyeliner, and I look fabulous. The Pope. I'm not really sick. This is a promotional stunt for conclave. Alec Baldwin. I killed Gene Hackman. Oh, that's. You gotta be on the edge. I'm sorry. One of the rescued astronauts. This sucks. I wish I was back in space. Chuck Schumer. I'm this close to going maga. Bianca Censori had this one. I've never had that dream. Or I'm doing something naked. Elon. When a random kid approaches me, I just assume he's mine. And Trump, I might have gotten Canada mixed up with Iran. Okay, so just to continue on this for a minute, because I just saw this really bad news for Democrats 2030 reapportionment. There's a group called the American Redistricting Project, and in five years, we will be redistricting. California's projected to lose three seats. New York, two. Also going to lose a seat. Minnesota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Illinois. All blue states. Who's getting these? Texas, Florida, Idaho and Utah. I mean, this looks like game over, you know? And the reason why people are voting with their. Is a lot of what your book is about. Taxes and regulation. I certainly been screaming about it forever. I did three years with a sign here that said, how long is it going to take me to get my solar hooked up? Three years. Talking about it on television in this state, you couldn't do it. This state has almost 400,000 regulations. I just put in a new roof because the fire, I thought, oh, let's get a roof that's not going to burn up. Two inspections. Why are you inspecting my roof? It's my fucking roof. If it falls on me, that's my problem. And we're taxed more than any other state. People are leaving these kind of states for places where they're not. They feel the heavy breath of government on them. It's just, it's not that hard for Democrats to understand this. But they seem to be incapable of doing anything about it.

Ezra Klein (39:53)

So we poll this. They're leaving on cost of living. That's all part of it. They're leaving because they can't afford homes. And it's a huge, not just political problem. Those numbers you just gave after 2030, if that holds, a Democrat could win every state com layer has won. Win Michigan, win Pennsylvania. And I'm just blanking on the third blue wall state. Win Michigan, win Pennsylvania and win Wisconsin and lose the presidential election. Right. The blue wall would no longer be enough for them to win. And you have to take that.

Dana Carvey (40:24)

You mean they could win those three states and still lose a presidential.

Ezra Klein (40:27)

That's how bad it is. Right. And that's because they are driving people out, working class families out of the states that they govern because the cost of living is too high. And the cost of living is too high in part for regulatory reasons, in part for taxes. But the big problem is they just don't have enough of the things people need. Not enough homes, not enough energy, not a government capable of delivering. And they've been treating that as not a real problem. You were talking about your solar sign. California high speed rail, it's a huge disaster, but nobody's ever done anything about it. If you tried to build it again, it would go the exact same way.

Dana Carvey (41:04)

High speed rail.

Ezra Klein (41:05)

Yeah, California's high speed rail.

Dana Carvey (41:06)

I think we first passed it in 2008. I think they just voted about something about it. Again, it's, it's projected just give up. Just to, just to, just to build. I think from Bakersfield to Merced. Who the hell wants to go from Bakersfield to Merced? And they couldn't do that.

Ezra Klein (41:29)

I went out and toured this for the book and the people building it were perfectly clear with me, look, this doesn't work if we don't do LA to San Francisco and they don't have the money to do LA to San Francisco. And they don't have the regulatory structure to do it. They have been clearing. They started clearing the rail track through environmental review. The whole point of high speed rails, it's good for the environment, right? They started clearing it through environmental review in 2012. By the end of 2024, when I was fact checking the book, it was almost done. The reviews were almost done. And the thing that bothers me about it, in addition we didn't get high speed rail is they didn't change it. Right? Okay, huge failure. Learn something. Make it so it won't happen again. The problem is the right. We've just been talking about this. The personality type of the right is autocratic now. And the personality type of the left is bureaucratic. And you can't govern if you are this obsessed with process. And you can see it in the outcomes. If you want to sideline dangerous populist right autocratic movements, you got to offer people the fruits of effective government. If the places you govern are not advocating advertisements for your governance, you are going to lose.

Bill Maher (42:43)

And it's just depressing to live in a country where it still takes nearly three hours to get from Washington to New York. This is the great avenue, right? You can't get there in less than three hours. It should be 40 minutes on a real train. I couldn't agree with you more. But what I want to know is why is that any different than what they're doing in the red states? Deregulate lots of energy, lots of building.

Ezra Klein (43:08)

There are places where red states have it, right? Look, Houston and Austin, when people move there, they build more houses.

Dana Carvey (43:15)

They just do.

Ezra Klein (43:15)

They build multiples more houses per thousand people who come in there than LA and San Francisco and New York City do. LA and San Francisco and New York City should take a page out of Texas book on this. The problem with a bunch of the bread states is the vision of where they want to go with things, right? The fascinating thing to me about Texas is it's building as much clean energy as it is. Even though the politics are anti clean energy, the Texas governor, the Texas legislature, they keep putting up bills to make it harder. But because the default in Texas is it's easy to build. And building clean energy is profitable because of the inflation reduction act and the technology and a bunch of other things, they're still building, building a ton of it, getting the default right, making it possible to do good things. But why gets you a lot of the way.

Bill Maher (44:02)

Energy from fossils and green energy altogether the best sort of form of energy.

Ezra Klein (44:08)

Because I think climate Change is a problem.

Bill Maher (44:09)

Yeah, I do too, but it's a.

Ezra Klein (44:10)

Well, if you build a lot of coal plants, it's going to get a lot worse.

Bill Maher (44:13)

No, I understand that and I'm not in favor of that. But I'm just saying there's a tension here, is there not? There's a little tension. You want to let it rip. Not quite. Not quite.

Ezra Klein (44:22)

I don't mean like literally abundance of everything. We define what we think it should be in absolute abundance of.

Dana Carvey (44:26)

Right.

Ezra Klein (44:26)

If you say, oh, we got an abundance of energy, but the entire state is on fire from wildfires, I'm not going to be like, great, well, we have an abundance of energy. Right. You need to choose. One of the dangers of naming your book Abundance is people think it's just more of everything, but it's actually about trade offs. Right. The core critique that my co author Derek Thompson and I make of democratic governance is that it doesn't make tradeoffs. They pile everything in to every bill, to every project, and then things don't get done. But everything is a trade off. Yeah, decarbonization is a trade off. Energy would be cheaper if we just built a bunch of coal plants, but then it's going to coat our lungs, it's going to coat our skies.

Bill Maher (45:03)

And everything was getting so cheap it didn't matter that it was going to take over anyway.

Ezra Klein (45:07)

Well, not as fast as we'd like it to, but yeah.

Bill Maher (45:08)

So it's a matter of adjusting this now. Okay?

Ezra Klein (45:11)

I'm not adjusting. We've always. I want regulation. I want good regulations that achieve the goal. My problem.

Bill Maher (45:17)

What do you say to the young who says his ambition is life? He's have a big ass truck.

Ezra Klein (45:22)

You reading Josh Barrett?

Bill Maher (45:23)

I am.

Ezra Klein (45:25)

I read that substack too.

Bill Maher (45:27)

It was a great point. It's like, you know, you've got to, you got to talk to these working class people who don't want to live in a perfectly green world. They want to get their truck and get out there and live their lives.

Ezra Klein (45:36)

It's not going to be a perfectly green world. But there's no reason we can't power trucks on electricity. Look, of course the cybertruck powered itself on electricity.

Bill Maher (45:43)

They didn't.

Ezra Klein (45:44)

Ford make an F1.

Dana Carvey (45:44)

We've drowned it as right wing.

Bill Maher (45:46)

That's a new debate.

Ezra Klein (45:47)

Listen, I thought the only good part of Elon Musk going right, going MAGA was good, was he was going to sell the right electric vehicles and it just didn't happen. Even with Trump doing the infomercials right it was just not.

Dana Carvey (46:01)

That's because they hate him for other reasons.

Bill Maher (46:03)

They hate him for other reasons.

Dana Carvey (46:05)

But the truth is, I mean, apropos of this discussion, we need an Elon Musk who would do to California what he's doing to the government in a sane way. I mean, if you have 400,000 regulations and you cannot build a high speed rail that started in 2008, you need somebody to come in here, who is this person on the left.

Bill Maher (46:26)

The left doesn't want to deregulate. It just have that instinct to deregulate. Let them do whatever.

Dana Carvey (46:30)

But they're going to have to get over it. They're going to be the Whigs.

Bill Maher (46:32)

They're getting over in Europe, like.

Ezra Klein (46:37)

The.

Bill Maher (46:37)

New Labour government in Britain is spending a lot on housing. They're spending a lot of energy, they're doing exactly this kind of thing. This is you're the future.

Ezra Klein (46:46)

We need a new word. Like I really believe it's because I find this on the tour. You say deregulate and a lot of liberal and leftists just shut down. Right. It's such a right coded word. But often what I'm talking about here, sometimes you do need to deregulate the market. I believe that on housing very, very much. Sometimes you're deregulated, deregulating the government itself. You just change the word to rule rules. Some rules are good, some rules are bad, some rules serve your purposes, some don't. And you want to get rid of bad rules, including on the government. The thing that liberals regulate more than anything else is the government itself. People come up to me on the left and say no, the answer here is public housing. That's fine. But if you look at the rules under which the government would have to build public housing, you cannot build enough of it fast enough or affordably enough to solve any of your major problems. You have to be outcomes focused. You have to decide what you are going to do and then do it. Democrats do need to learn something from Elon Musk. Not lawlessness, but a kind of relentlessness about what you're trying to achieve.

Dana Carvey (47:46)

And I love your thing about people with the lawn signs that say in this house we believe. But then they zone their neighborhoods in a way that it doesn't really follow through on their principles.

Ezra Klein (47:58)

Yeah, when you've got no human being, it's illegal in a neighborhood. All zone for single family homes where the working class families are fleeing it because they can't afford to live there. You're just doing symbolism, right?

Dana Carvey (48:07)

Or what you call the firefighter test. If a firefighter can't live in the neighborhood he's protecting. I remember when we had. We had riots here in 92. And when the trial came, it was like, all the cops live in Simi Valley. I was like, what the fuck is Simi Valley? But that was part of the problem. Problem. All right, thank you, guys. I got to take a. Take it to the end here because it's time for new rules, everybody. Okay. All right. New rule with the Menendez brothers. Really want to get out of jail. They need to stop looking so happy in their mug shots. She Jesus, you're doing life without parole. You look like you're taking a selfie in Cabo. These pictures don't say, get us out of this stinking hellhole. They say the food's not much, but the sex is out of this world. So sensitive. New rule. Someone has to tell Muchia the way. Seen here next to his Best in Show trophy after winning the Crufts Dog show in England. Try not to feel so guilty, Muchia. It does kind of look like a fire hydrant. New rule since Minnesota Republican Justice Eichhorn started this week by triumphantly sponsoring a bill to declare Trump derangement syndrome a mental illness and then end by getting arrested for soliciting an underage girl for sex. He has to tell us, was that always how you planned to celebrate, General? Now that the Democratic Party has an approval rating of just 27% and has lost the working class vote, the House, the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court, liberals have to take heart from the battles they have won. Okay, there's really only one, but it's a big one. They now sell vibrators at Target. New rule. Someone must explain why we always just assume it's Jesus when the face of a bearded man approach. For once, I want to see people gathered around a tree stump and say, holy shit, it's James Brolin. And finally, new rule. The Trump administration and its elite squad of Marvel Universe mutant budget Avengers known as Doge must tell us what happened to going after the military.

Bill Maher (51:07)

Let's check the military.

Dana Carvey (51:08)

We're going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse. And, you know, the people elected me on that. Well, today they reported back on what they found when they checked the military. And it wasn't hundreds of billions or even billions. It was 580 million out of a defense budget of almost 900 billion. You know, when they were talking about shrinking the government, I said, yeah, great, but the acid test will be if they go after the biggest bloat of all obsolete weapons programs. So I was hopeful when in November, Musk wrote on, some idiots are still building manned jet fighters like the F35. Manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones. Please, in the name of all that is holy, let us stop the worst military value for money in history. That is the F35 program. Exactly, your excellence. But today, Trump announced, we're building a new fighter jet, the F47. And Trump said, we put in an order for a lot. We can't tell you the price. So what happens if fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones? Was that just the ketamine talking? Because I feel like you guys are purposefully avoiding the elephant in the room. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The 2 trillion in waste that you originally said you could cut. Yeah, you're not going to get there by firing mailmen. And the guy who tells you to not lean over the rail at the grand cash. According to Doge's own wall of receipts, after two months, they've only reached 35 billion in verifiable cuts across the whole government. Meanwhile, the fattest target to hunt savings from sits unmolested across the Potomac at the Pentagon, a place Eisenhower warned us was out of control in 19 fucking 61. So look, here's the federal budget, here's the discretionary spending part. What we could cut, you mean. There's barely a penny of waste in this half? I may not know how to code like Elon's nerd Brigade, but I can read a fucking pie, Char. Last week, Congress appropriated the money to take us through to October, and there was plenty of belt tightening, but not defense. Oh, no, that can never be touched. Good times, bad times. Republicans in charge, Democrats in charge. It's amazing. The right and the left in this country despise each other, but they do agree on two things. One, keep an eye on the Jews because they're always up to something. And two, the defense budget is always perfect, like the Virgin Mary. In fact, it's always okay if it gets bigger. It's like a fat Virgin Mary. Our defense budget is higher than the next nine countries combined. It's more than triple that of our biggest adversary, China, and 8 and a half times that of our closest ally, Russia. The Pentagon itself says it has 19% more bases than it needs. Wouldn't it be efficient to close some of those? The 750 bases in 80 countries we have around the world? We need everyone. No place to fire up the old chainsaw. There Vroom, vroom. The Air Force. Air Force has 51 golf courses. The Marines have 10. Guam has two. Nothing. No vroom, vroom for that. An internal watchdog once found Boeing marked up the price of a helicopter by 177,000%. Not 177%. 177,000%. That is almost as bad as my mechanic. You know, I don't know what the army does before 9am but it's not reading receipts. Come on, you're Elon Musk. The first cuts were easy, but playtime is over. Pick on someone your own size. And I don't just mean the Pentagon. If you look up bloated bureaucracy in the dictionary, it's a picture of the Department of Homeland Security. A Frankenstein monster born in the panic after 9 11, when we took 22 separate government agencies and merged them into one enormous bureaucracy around one common goal. To make sure that my container of lube doesn't exceed 3.4 ounces. And so far, Doge has cut 50 million out of its $170 billion budget. You know, every other part of government has to tighten. How about the part that makes me take mine off at the airport? It's been over 20 years of this bullshit. We started doing it before there was smartphones or AI. I'm guessing there's a better way to keep us safe than everybody undressing in. No one thinks you need your picture taken to fly from Tulsa to spokane. It's not 911 anymore. It's 2025. And I'm not afraid of hijackers. I'm afraid of the plane. All right, that's our show. I want to thank Ezra Klein, Andrew Sullivan and Dana Carvey. Club Random Drops every Sunday on YouTube. And wherever you get your podcasts now go watch Overtime on YouTube. Thank you. Great audience. I appreciate you. Thank you.

Ezra Klein (58:03)

Catch all new episodes of Real Time.

Dana Carvey (58:05)

With Bill Maher every Friday night at 10. Or watch him anytime on HBO on Demand. For more information, log on to hbo.com.

Ezra Klein (58:16)

Hi, I'm Jessica Radloff and this is the official Big Bang Theory podcast. The only podcast where you can hear behind the scenes stories, Easter eggs from each episode, and the origin story of the cultural phenomenon, the Big Bang Theory. Join us on our journey through every episode of the Big Bang Theory wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to watch along with us. Every episode is available to stream on Max.