(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING) All right, great to be back
on CNN. Happy New Year.
We've got with us today the guy who hosts MSNBC's<i>
The Beat with Ari Melber,</i> Ari Melber is over here. And he writes<i>
The Weekly Dish</i> newsletter, Andrew Sullivan. -Okay.
-(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING) All right, Ari, "What do you
make of the recent study that found that half
of inflation in the US--" Oh, yes. I saw this. "Is due
to high corporate profits?" They're calling this
"greedflation," which I think is... Right? I mean,
"What impact does greedflation have on our economy?" Right. So, people... You know,
there was a legitimate reason why prices rose for a while,
but then of course... (CHUCKLES) ...they used that as an excuse
to raise their prices. Now that stuff is coming down, some of the prices
don't come down too, because the profits are fat now. Yeah, the price gouging's
documented, they brag about it in earnings calls
to Wall Street. It's allowed. There are other places
that make it much harder. France has rules that actually
make this a lot harder to do. But here, it's legal,
but it's outrageous. And at the time, they're giving
themselves big pay raises in the boardroom, too. Well here's my question is,
what do you do about it? I remember two things, Gavin and I talked
for a second about jawboning. I mean presidents did that
in the past. They literally just did it by the power
of presidential coercion. They got people
in the Oval Office and they said,
"Look, you knuckleheads, you're doing something bad
for the country," and sometimes that worked. Nixon, as I recall,
maybe I got this wrong, but I think
he had price controls. I mean, they lit-- That's something very foreign. Even I don't--
barely remember that. -That we would actually--
-And they didn't work. -BILL MAHER: No, they--
-And they don't work -in the long run.
-BILL: Right. Look, the best way
to bring prices down is competition, right? So, if these companies-- if there's a cartel involved
in keeping prices high when they should be going down, then the cartel needs
to be broken up. I haven't read the study,
so I don't know. But it's not like inflation
hasn't been explained by a variety of factors. Obviously,
the supply side stuff, the constrained supply of goods. Then you had
the big overspending of the Biden stimulus,
which really did-- -I understand why they did it...
-BILL: Yeah, right. ...and they got
a good deal of growth from it, but they did-- -Well, some of that was Trump.
-Some of it came out
in inflation. And some of it was Trump, too. -Yeah, absolutely. We--
-Yeah, Trump too. -Everybody...
-Yeah. ...got together
to spend six trillion dollars -to lock ourselves in our rooms.
-But what's interesting now, -is the most resilient...
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) ...high prices are--
are food, right? -BILL: Yes.
-(HESITATES) Are food corporations -bragging about this?
-BILL: Well-- Yeah, they are
in their earnings calls 'cause they don't think
they're really gonna get heard that much. They're even doing it
on diaper sales, and it's not a cartel, but there aren't
a lot of diaper providers, so if the three main companies that do it
on the national basis, then no,
there's no price competition. There are certain products
you can't live without. I'm sure if you have someone
who needs diapers... Yeah, yeah.
They're limiting competition. ...either at the beginning
or end of life... -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
-...you definitely want... -ARI MELBER: Sure.
-I mean, like, I always hear people... always hear people bitch
about plumbers, you know? "They charge an arm and a leg." Have you ever, ever needed
a plumber-- If plumbers only knew
what we would pay them? -ANDREW SULLIVAN: Yeah.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) When it's coming up
through your bathroom. (LAUGHS) Okay. Andrew, this is for you. "What are your thoughts about
the Pope's recent declaration that sexual pleasure
is a gift from God?" -Thanks, big man. "But that--"
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) "But that pornography
must be avoided." (CHUCKLES)
Well, that's contradictory. -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-No, I'm kidding. Well, he's stating
actually Catholic doctrine. We're not supposed
to hate our sexual pleasure, we're not supposed to-- I mean, this is not the case
with Protestants, of course, -but Catholics, we're allowed.
-BILL: Right. I remember when I first realized
I had this between my legs, it was the best day -of my entire life. And--
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) And I never really
could understand it as a sin. Masturbation and that pleasure was just something
that seemed so obviously self-evidently natural
and great. Why would God be punishing me
for it? And I actually, as a--
I was very devout. I just decided, well,
that's obviously not true. The way I decided that,
well, the Virgin Mary wasn't physically ascended
into heaven. There were certain things
you just said, "Okay, no, that's not right." I remember when
I was first masturbating and I did not know what it was. -We didn't have--
-ANDREW: I didn't either. And I remember thinking,
"Is this bad for me?" -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
-But then I was like... (LAUGHS) -"Nah!" (LAUGHS)
-(LAUGHS) Really, I was like... I didn't know-- Really. I thought it was urine.
I did it in the dark, and the only thing I'd ever seen -come out of there was urine.
-ANDREW: I know. And it seemed like,
"This doesn't seem right but..." (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) The fact that you remember
that moment. -I remember that moment too.
-BILL: Oh, yes. I do. Just shows you
how natural it is. And how naive we were compared
to kids today, 'cause I'm sure
they know everything -before they're seven years old.
-ANDREW: They do, and I-- There was no porn either. -Like, I used to--
-BILL: Right. Honestly, I had a scrapbook.
I would draw the dudes I wanted to have sex with. That's all I could do,
draw them. And-- But that meant
that my imagination was kind of set off. -BILL: Right, exactly.
-And when I
first discovered sex, it was like, "Oh, this is interesting,
that is interesting." Now you meet like
someone who's 21, they're like, "Well, I'd like you to be daddy
with a bad report card, and you need to be there
with a spanker, and show up at this point,
and wear this." And I'm like,
"Where did you get this from?" -(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
-Okay. (CHUCKLES) ANDREW: It's probably TMI. Gotta remember, we're on CNN, -not<i> Club Random.</i>
-I'm sorry. (GROANS) (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) "For panel,
who do you think Trump has on his shortlist for VP?" Well, Stefanik is the one
that was talked about now. She's the-- Isn't that the one
that they were talking-- She's the-- New York State. Used to be a normal
and then became Trump-crazy? And the tormentor
of Claudine Gay. -BILL: Yes. Right. Oh, yes.
-That's what made her famous. -That's what makes her--
-ARI: But I think still Haley. -I mean, Trump has teamed up--
-BILL: No. I think he's teamed up
with people who've said way worse things,
J. D. Vance wrote a whole book
and launched his career -attacking Trump.
-BILL: He doesn't care
about that. He doesn't care about
any of that, and Haley, although there are parts
of MAGA, as we discussed,
that might not love her. If Trump says this is it,
and he's very practical, and she would help
in the suburbs, which is his biggest
general election vulnerability. I think there's a lot
of the actual numbers people around Trump who are trying
to get him to think about that, and it would probably
give him several points. I saw in the paper this week
that he is doing better and did better
with college-educated. -ARI: Yep.
-I remember when he won Iowa, or was running in Iowa in 2016,
and he had that famous line. (IMITATES TRUMP)
"I love the poorly educated." -ANDREW: (LAUGHS) Yes.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) BILL: I mean,
you can't write this material. ARI: You said--
Bill, you said tonight that it looks like
he could get re-elected. -He definitely could, but...
-BILL: Oh. ...he got three million
fewer votes in '16. He got seven million
fewer votes in '20, and they had bad midterms
and the Democrats have won every state-based
special election... -BILL: Yes.
-...in the last year. If he's gonna win,
which he could, he can't run as the '20
or '16 version of him, and the ticket
is the first, largest way to say to the suburbs,
"I'm a little different." -Just talking politics.
-The trouble with Nikki is that she makes, sort of, Dick Cheney
look like the Dalai Lama. -I mean, there is not a...
-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) ...there is not a country
she wouldn't invade, not a region she wouldn't bomb. She is the most near--
the most un-reconstructed neocon I've ever come across
in politics. And Trump's entire message is, "I'm not
an un-reconstructed neocon." I think the base
would go bonkers. BILL: Again, you're parsing. You're giving the voters
way too much credit. Like, they are looking at,
"Neocon versus--" -(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
-They don't-- This is not
what they're thinking about. -I-- I-- I think--
-They don't-- You're... No, this is why I get back
to the issues with Trump. -BILL: It's-- They don't care.
-No, I think one of the issues -that helped him with--
-BILL: No. People were sick of these wars,
and when they have someone who seems like we're only
getting into more wars, they were not gonna like it. -It's a big issue for them.
-I don't think voters expect the running mate
to set foreign policy. Period. I don't think they think
about foreign policy a hell of a lot, except if it-- The one that they care about now
is Ukraine because it's holding up
immigration reform. They care about this country,
what's going on in this country. Just the way
most people watch local news. They don't watch national news.
They're not-- But that's because
they don't want the wars, which Nikki represents. That's their position
on foreign policy. We don't wanna have one, really. Yeah, the median Trump voter
doesn't think that he's gonna take the cues
from her on that. Or that-- that's really
the issue they're voting on. "Nikki Haley, what is she gonna do
about Pakistan?" I just don't think this is... -(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
-I don't know what to do. All right,
I have time for one more. Oh, I see they're going
after Alec Baldwin again... -(AUDIENCE GROANING)
-...for the shooting at-- Is this not
the most ridiculous thing? I mean, does anyone think
Alec Baldwin purposely shot that person?
If not, what is this about? If it was an accident,
it was a horrible accident. Accidents happen. Maybe this is
some sort of manslaughter thing. But, certainly, he didn't go,
"Give me a loaded gun, I wanna shoot
the cinematographer." -I feel this is ridiculous.
-ARI: You want a legal view? -BILL: Yes!
-Yeah, it's very overcharged. And it's hard
to imagine charging a normal random citizen, a non-famous citizen twice
on this theory of the case. Now, legally,
the prosecutors say, "Well, look,
as an involuntary manslaughter, we don't have
to prove deliberate intent, we're saying it was so reckless and a life was lost
and it's tragic." And it is a terrible tragedy,
and obviously, some-- a lot has to change on however
that set was ever run. But I don't think,
based on how it looks, and what we know, again, always
if more evidence came out, that a citizen,
a non-famous person would be double charged
like this. -It seems very extreme.
-BILL: Okay. That's it. Ran out of the time.
Thank you, CNN. Thank you, audience.
Thank you, panel. We'll see you next week.
Good to be back. (AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
