 I'm not saying Obama's tapping my microwave, but those hot pockets seem to be awfully familiar with my sex life. It's 3 a.m. on Friday, March 16th. We've got a lot of shows, so let's get right to it. Welcome to the broadcast. I'm David Feldman, DavidFeldmanshow.com. On today's program, the pit bull of comedy, Bobby Slaton, and America's number one political satirist, Will Durst, three comics from San Francisco, Old Friends. Great show. And then we're joined by Judah Grunstein. He's the editor-in-chief of World Politics Review. His podcast, Trendlines, is available for download right now. He talks to us from Paris, and the receptionist, Crystal Clear. Thank God. Joining us from Sherman Oaks, California is the brash, courageous, fearless, and beautiful, Bobby Slaton, the pit bull of comedy. Hello, Bobby. Hello, Feldman. Let me say hello to all your imaginary listeners. I love them very much. You know that? And, you know, look, I don't want to gloat, because, you know, I know you just had a big snowstorm there, and I'm sitting in my backyard right now. It's 85 degrees. I spent the day in the pool. I'm not gloating, though, because I know, by any moment, you know, that earthquake could come. I mean, yeah, I called my brother and my mother, and I had everything back there. That way, with the snow, we can't go to work, we can't do anything. And I go, I'm calling you from my pool, and then I stop gloating, because I realize not only the earthquakes, but we have all the Mexican rapists, you know, the Mexican rapists are bad out here, the ones that Donald Trump is trying to get rid of, President Pumpkin had. There's a lot of... You know, he's doing a good job so far. You know, before Trump was in office, my wife and daughter were getting raped by Mexicans maybe 15 times a week, my daughter, I just called it, raped three times a week by Mexicans. So, I mean, it was literally, not a week went by, she wasn't raped at least 12 times, but three times. So, you know, it's a long process to get rid of them, the Mexican rapists, but I think President Pumpkin had, he's doing a terrific job. By the way, let me tell you something else, why I love this man so much, you know, you can't even walk your dog anymore. My dog, it gets gangbanged by these chihuahuas, there's these wild chihuahuas that dig under the fence and there's a big problem. The Mexican chihuahuas are gangbanging, holy fucking dogs. You wouldn't... You know, it's like the National Geographic Special where the cow is eaten by the, you know, the whole school of piranhas. You can be walking through the hills here and you'll see a great day surrounding getting fucked in the ears and nose, like all these wild chihuahuas that President Pumpkin had. Thank God he got elected, he's going to fix everything. So ICE is rounding up the chihuahuas, that's good, thank God. Yeah, it's really, it's been some mess out here, it's been some mess. By the way, before it went on air, I should tell your imaginary listeners, hey, hold on, let me go get a glass of water, you know, you haven't fucking changed. I'm sitting in my backyard, I'm on my third corona, because I love the Mexicans, they're the best, they're the best people, they're incredible people, they're the best people, they make the best beer, and I'm sitting here with my corona, you know, you need, you need to have a drink, you know, you, I mean, you're the most miserable fuck, I know, you know, I love you. I know, I am, but I am, I am a miserable human being, I do not know. When I see you, when every time I see you go with the black plague that came back, and you know, you look horrible, you know, you won't eat meat. I got my grill going here, I'm making organic burgers, I got my beer, I'm just so happy. You've always been that way, you've always knew how to live, you enjoyed life, I remember working Tommy Tees with you and opening for you was a big thing for me, and we were driving through Stanley Andrew, and, oh my god, and you were going to headline, and I was going to open for you and was sold out, and you looked over and saw a little league game, and you said you would give up everything just to be able to go and watch that little league game, to sit and have a beer and watch the little league game. You didn't want to perform, and I thought, how does he have that ability to know what's truly important? Because you do enjoy life. Watching a little league game was really important, really, I don't think that was any more important. You know, it was important to do that show with Tommy Tees, you know, it's funny, I'm going to play the comedy store tonight in LA, I literally, literally, 20, 25 years have not done a show with the comedy store, and you know, the most famous comedy club, maybe next to the improv in the country, and certainly before the improv, but the comedy store, you know, when I first moved to LA from San Francisco, when I was doing comedy, you know, I'd always, I became an improv guy, I never played the store, you know, it wasn't my kind of place, and I didn't like the comics, I found them to be kind of creepy, and they'd been calling me to do, Bobby, why don't you come in and do a show one night, and so tonight, you know, they got Chris Delia, Bill Burr, a whole nice line up, and I said, let me go on first, I'll come in, let me get the fuck out, I can go take my girlfriend out to dinner, and I can be home bed by 11, you know, but I mean, I still don't want to do stand-up, I still rather be home, but there's still something exciting about doing it, especially the place that I haven't been at in 25 years. Well, there's a new guide out, there's a new guide booking the comedy store is great. Well, I'm booked there, so I guess you're going to have fun, you're going to have fun there tonight. Yeah. You will. Yeah, I'll have a lot of fun. Once I see a Little League game on the way, I watch the Little League game, but let me just flip my burger here, oh my god, medium rare, do you know there's a place in L.A. now, I know you hate meat, and I know you're disgusted by people that eat meat, but you know what, I don't need a lot of meat, and it's so delicious, and I've always said, if cows can eat us smart enough, if lobsters can eat us, if any animals can eat us, so fuck them, because they would eat us, but there's a place now in L.A. where you pick out your own cow and they kill the cow, it's like lobsters, you pick out your lobster, you pick out your cow, and they kill it for you right in front of you, they wrap it up, it's so delicious. You know, I would just go, just watch the cow get killed and leave, I wouldn't eat it, I don't like eating cow, but I do enjoy watching them killed, I'm joking. I'm joking. Right about that you're a vegan, right? Well, yes, I had pizza today, I had some cheese, which is not good for you, but, yeah, I have... And you don't feel a little guilty looking at that cow and seeing the calves and the eyes? I didn't see the calves, I didn't see that. But seriously, you see something that's alive that's looking at you, do you think a cow has a soul? A lot of people I know don't have souls. A lot of people I know don't have souls. You'd rather kill them than eat them. It'd be great if I had a plane crash at the Donner party. I'd eat the Republicans, I would do it even if I wasn't hungry. But enough about me, so what are you doing? What show are you working on now? What are you doing? I'm hanging in there, the podcast is going really well. Do people walk up to you in the clubs and say they heard you on the show? A few people, I get tweets from your show. You know who I saw? I was in Philadelphia about three weeks ago doing a show. And Judd Apatow was there with Artie Lang and Pete Holmes, because they produced the show Crash and HBO, so they were all doing a radio show right before me. So I got to see Judd and Artie. And Judd tweeted out that you're the best club comic in the history of stand-up comedy. I don't know if he said that. Yes, he did. He's one of the greatest. We said something really nice. I haven't put me on any of his movies, so that's why I'm still playing Tommy Tease. But nobody makes you do a show. He said, yeah, he'll do it on his podcast. He listens to you. Judd Apatow listens to me. Yeah, I know. You know that, right? Yeah, I've been trying to get him on the show for, like, eight years, but... Yeah, he was very fascinated by the story of Seldo the Clown. How are you? Have you been telling yourself you're dressed like a clown? I guess you're acting. You found that very entertaining. Well, when you see him again... What was the last time you dodged the clown outfit, by the way? You still have it? It's in storage. If I ever get access to what I own, I will donate the Seldo the Clown outfit to the Smithsonian. Do you remember the clown suit? Do you remember my performing in it? I try to block a lot of stuff out of my mind. No, I think that in Anne Frank's diary, she even left that part out. She makes it out, but she didn't think she had anything about watching you work. It was too horrible for her. She might have blotted it down. I don't know. I remember watching you perform in the clown outfit. I do remember you taking it seriously when people thought you should do it. But I always have these visions of you. You and I are sitting in a bar or working on jokes, and you're trying to hit up on some shit. And all of a sudden, you know, an emergency, something happens, and it ticks you like George Reeves in Superman. We go, excuse me, and you run out to the janitorial closet, and they show you, take it off your glasses, and you come back out and sell though the clown. Like, you know, like George Reeves did in the invention of Superman to save the world. I always picture that, but it just doesn't ever come to fruition. I love you, Bobby Slayton. I love you, too, Feldo. You know, it's so nice. I'm sitting in my backyard with my cold beer. I'm waiting for my girlfriend to come over. Did you tell your girlfriend? You would mention that, yeah. No, I did, okay. Well, I've got nothing else to talk about then. You know, next week is one year. No. My wife has left us. Left this earthly plane. It's been a year already. It's hard to believe. And I don't like to mention it to you, because I know you get very jealous. You're like Joe Crawford. I'm like Betty Davis who got the good part. I know how Joe, you're like Joe Crawford who feels that you've been fucked again. I got the good part. Oh, my God. I am going through the ringer today with the divorce. I can't talk about it. There's a plane going overhead. But anyway, what do you mean you go through the ringer? Because divorce attorneys will not close the deal. Wait a second. This time I talked to you, you keep it in quiet. You didn't talk about your divorce. Well, I'm pretty much divorced. It's just the lawyers think I'm hiding money from them. So they want to get that. And suddenly there's some new eyes that have to be dotted and some new T's that have to be crossed. And then I kind of explode at them. Because, you know, I do a radio show with Ralph Nader. I should not be talking about Ralph Nader and my divorce. I have trouble doing that. But the point is, every week I hear Ralph Nader and he trains me not to keep my mouth shut. And then I'm dealing with these unscrupulous imposters, guys who go into family law because they lack the verbal gymnastics to become real lawyers. Of course. And they play me for an idiot. And, you know, most people are idiots. So they can be bullied by these mount banks. And I let them know. I let them know what I think of them. Because I'm... Did you try to work out something with just horrible ex-wife fears before you got lawyers involved? Did you say to her, look, I would have paid bank, you know, 50,000, 100,000, whatever, these horrible lawyers, I'd rather give you the money and we don't deal with these assholes. Did you try to talk to her about that? The law... I can't... I don't want to violate anything. So I'm going to remain mum about the mum of my children. A lot of people, when they get divorced, a lot of people say, look, why do we need lawyers when you and I can work this out? Why pay them all this? Why should I pay them all this money when we can work something out? Well... Have you ever had a good experience with a lawyer? Yes. A lot of good experiences. Yeah. I'm not talking about dating one. I'm talking about having one perform... Write a brief for you, not take one off. Well, first of all, I have a couple of great lawyers that have done some... One of them got me out of some horrible deal I made in Vegas and he pulled off a little miracle and didn't charge me a lot of money and I got a lawyer now who, you know, he's done, you know... I'm not going to pay him money, you know, he's... What's it called? He's... The beer's affecting me here. Pro bono? No, no, no, the pro bono's free. He's taking out, you know... Just working... Yeah, okay, okay. That's not the word, but yeah. Yeah. But he's just doing his contingency. Do you have their number? Huh? Do you have their number? Oh, the guy who killed my wife? Yeah. You should hit my car in Mexico. I got that guy's number, but to get her to Mexico will be a picture, you know. Anyway, so that's... I've had good experience with lawyers. I know there's come banks, my girlfriend's going through some stuff with lawyers who are awful people and that's what they do, you know. You can't expect them to be nice people. They're lawyers. That's why you kind of... Now... Do you have a good lawyer? I have a great entertainment lawyer, Jared Levine. He's... I've had him for 25 years. That's great if you're trying to fire your wife from the Tonight Show. It's not going to be any good to get away from this kind of thing, keep your money. Wait, wait. She's the mother of my children. I love her. Yeah, okay. And she made me a great human being. So... Really? Yeah. I can't imagine what you'd be like without her in your life. She made you a great human being. I remember before you got married. I think I... You came to my wedding. You and Teddy came to my... You and Teddy came to my wedding. We did? Yep. Do you remember what I said? Do you remember what I said? I said I got up to deliver a toast. And I said this is a very special week for all of us. Because anybody who knew me and my wife and my family know how much what is about to happen means to us. Bobby Slayton is doing the Tonight Show Tuesday. And it got a big laugh. Instead of saying I'm getting married, you had done the Tonight... You had done the Tonight Show with Johnny that week. I wanted only Tonight Show shop. Wait a second. I remember you were... Where did you get married? I'm trying to remember. On the peninsula at a senior citizen center. It was a very beautiful wedding. I'm sure it was. I'm sure it was. I'm sure it was. Well, anyway, welcome. Invite me to the divorce party. I'll be there for that. Okay, so this is a special show today. This is a very special show. You didn't tell me what the point of the show today. Yes. Okay, on our show today, Bobby Slayton and Will Durst. And for me, it's important because when I moved to San Francisco, there were two guys I wanted to be. And if you want to know my act, it's a fusion of Bobby and Will Durst. I wanted to do political humor, but kind of similar to Bobby. That was what I... And so, today, I have the two guys who had this tremendous influence on me, and I still get nervous around you and Durst. I still get... I can remember calling my mother and father up saying I was able to carry on a conversation with Bobby Slayton today. That was... It was a big thing for me to be able to talk to you. Hmm. I'm speechless. Now, are you like that with Woody Allen? When you're with Woody, are you... Or is there anybody who... Nobody. Nobody? Well, I don't really... You look, if I was hanging out maybe with... I don't know if I would be speechless with anybody. I don't think that's in my genetic makeup, but I might be babbling a little. I might hang out with Woody much. We have these nice dinners. No, we talk a lot. He's a very pleasant sociable guy. You wouldn't think that from, you know, the press and from the... You know, the very shy, quiet guy. But when you know him, he's a great guy. By the way, I know that Judd Apatow is listening. So, Judd, if you're listening, could you please pick up the phone and call Woody Allen and get him on my show? No. I was just... You can't even get Judd Apatow. That's the joke. I've been trying to get Judd to do the show for... You know, since I started. By the way, his show Crashing is really pretty funny. The comedians with, you know, Pete Slippin' on the comic's couches, it's a really good show. I think next season it would be a lot better... If you were on it. I would do this. Absolutely. Absolutely. Of course. It would be great. Is there somebody... Let me throw a couple of names at you and see if you could honestly predict... Like, I was amazed you were never nervous around Robin. Why? I don't... I could not... I remember saying to Robin, I can't believe I'm... I was like a little girl. I can't believe I'm able to carry on a conversation with you. But from day one, like, okay, if you met... Let me ask you a question. If you met Steve Martin. Right. Would you be nervous? Well, I met Steve. He doesn't talk much. He's like, it's like being in a room by yourself with that guy. Okay. If you... What about Obama? I don't think I'd be nervous to have any of these people. You know, they're just people, you know? I mean, you know what made me nervous? Maybe around, you know, Shirley Starran or Heidi Klum or Taylor Swift, some hot pussy. You know? Or a Kardashian woman who I'd really like to fuck and then put the pillowcase over her head and strangle her. I've never really wanted to kill a woman, but I could see where you want to fuck somebody and kill somebody, you know? All right. That's my next question that I have for you. I wrote down some questions because I'm... I'm not doing... You know, we're all struggling. Everybody's struggling. Everybody's struggling. Absolutely. Everybody's struggling. Absolutely. My image of Bobby Slayton is you're fearless. You're courageous. You don't have clay feet. You will say anything to anyone. That's not true. Well, where do you... You know, I won't really like, you know, when I'm at the grocery store, I'm standing behind people and I'm looking what they're buying with the cookies and the soda. I feel like maybe we'd be so fucking fat if you had a salad. I mean, I'm thinking that, but I would never say that to anybody. This you would. You know, maybe too well-dressed. Out of weight over the years. Well, all right, so here's what I wanted to ask you. On stage, you're the pit bull. You're pure id, pure anger, and you're fearless. I try to be. And you channel your rage and anger into this beautiful thing. I try to. It doesn't always work out that way, but that's my intention when I get up there. People laugh. I don't know if it's a beautiful thing, but my intention is to try to get laughs with some of this horrible material. But offstage, I've driven with you, you are not angry, right? Do you get angry in real life? I'm always angry, but I don't. You know, I'm 62 years old now. I can't get in my car without getting pissed off with all the people in front of me. If somebody doesn't make a right turn on a red light, I really want their car to blow up and I want them to die. And my wife would say to me, but there's kids in the car. Well, you know what? Didn't they have to die, too? I don't want children to die, but kids die every day. And if kids are going to die, I want them to be those kids, because then they're just going to grow up to be like their father, and they're not going to make a right turn on a red light. Is that killing baby terrorists? I like when they blow up ISIS and they kill the children, because the children are just going to wind up to be like their parents. You got to get the nest. You got to kill the baby bugs, you know? I'm angry, but you know what? I'd rather sit in my backyard with a beer and watch television and watch John Oliver get angry or watch, you know? I'd rather just watch TV. I love being here, so I'm not as angry as I used to be. But he's not going to do any good. I'm angry President Pumpkin had because he's such a horrible human being. You know, I would like to see Trump fix things. You know, we know that while he's not, you know, that while he's going to be impeached, you know, that while he's not going to last a year, there's no way he can. But I'll tell you right now, if he managed to fix everything in the Middle East that he managed to kill, you know, the head of North Korea, if he managed to get rid of global warming because the economy had the best healthcare system and get rid of guns in schools and then the gluten problem and the Zika virus and AIDS, he'd still be a fucking asshole. That guy was born a fucking asshole. Yeah. And every time I see him, I think he's ripping Bobby off. Well, I think that when I get angry, my rant's a little bit more focused. Absolutely. At five o'clock in the morning to picture about the apprentice, you know. Yeah. And by the way, you're also a great writer. Your Facebook posts are incredible. I mean... Oh, I guess. I don't really... Everybody should follow you on Facebook because you really are. Oh, helicopter, they're looking for the Mexicans. There they go. Get the Mexicans. This is the police helicopter. They're rounding them up, rounding them up. By the way, what is... Here's a group I never understood. Hispanics for Trump. You know, that was a group there. Not since the Jews for Hitler movement. I've never seen a more misguided group of people. The Jews for Hitler, they were mixed up people, but the Hispanics for Trump, that are their fucking minds. I don't get that one. If we were in Nazi Germany, how many years into it would you and I be saying, okay, now he's dangerous? I don't know. Good question. I don't know. I mean, wouldn't you like... He started up in 33. You and I... Not to be bad taste, but they're, you know, people we'd like to see taken away. Yeah. What year? What year? I'm saying 35. You and I would be going, yeah, this is not good. He's going overboard. I mean, I get it. If I had a deli and they smashed the windows, a crystal knocked, maybe I'd get all angry earlier. I don't know. I'll tell you, the beat of Jew in Hitler was one of those heinous human beings who ever walked a face to the earth. But, you know, unlike Trump, he got stuff done. Yeah. Trump's not getting anything done. Hitler at least accomplished something. He's as bad as it was. I'm not like you. I like to look at the bright side of things. Now, would you go back... This is the proverbial question they were asking last year. If there were a time machine, would you go back and molest baby Hitler and kill baby Hitler? You're supposed to kill baby Hitler, but... Where did you get the molest baby Hitler? I was trying to make a joke. No. Would you go back and kill baby Hitler? That might not have been the first thing on my agenda, but that would be a nice thing. It depends on how many stops I can make, if I could have a layover, double ticket, how much it doesn't cost, you know, what if there's a fly in the machine, am I going to get one of the big fly heads? A lot of things you don't think about you know? You know my show has a time machine. The Feldman time machine. Did you know this? No, I did. I never listened to your show. Oh, we have a time machine, and I traveled back in time on the show to buy art from a young Adolf Hitler. Like Sherman and Peabody with the Wayback machine? Yes, but the way the Feldman time machine works, the dial is milk, and then the price. 40,000 Deutschmarks, milk, and that's the time that I get sent back to. They're no years. It's always the price of certain commodities. That's the Feldman time machine. So where would you go if the Feldman time machine was available? Where do you think you would be the happiest? I would be happiest during the dawn of silent movies. I would go back to last night when the girl was blowing me. That's enough. I don't need to go that far back. She took me out of the door and gave me the greatest blow job. Last night, I'd go back to last night. How much better could it be than that? You know? Okay, but would you go back to high school? Would you go back to high school? No. Not when I'd only go back to high school. I'd never got to any of my reunions because I didn't like those people when I was in high school. I don't want to go back and see them again. I could wait to get the fuck out of there. Why would I go back and do that? You know, it's like getting married again. That's like reheating shitty food. Stuff in dog shit again. Maybe it'd be better this time. But wait a second. I can't believe your imaginary listeners are still listening. If we could go back in time, you wouldn't want to go back to high school? No. I would probably go back to maybe New York into the beat poets and all that jazz. You know, if I was old enough to, you know, I'd go back and I would do that or maybe I'd go to Hollywood in the 40s and I'd go into the Brown Derby or move someone Frank's and hopefully earn his heavy weight or hopefully Boga would be at the bar and I'd have a martini. Yeah, I don't know. I'd go by Bugsy Seagulls to Vegas in the 60s when Vegas was great because God knows how much it sucks now. I would have liked to see Vegas for three or four nights when the Rat Pack was in one place, Louis Prima, Buddy Hackett down the street, you know, Elvis and that would have been cool. Now you played Joey Bishop in the Rat Pack on HBO. Yeah, so that was my, that was the close I got to going back in time. Yeah, and it was, and we filmed everything on that Hollywood set in LA so it wasn't, we couldn't go to Vegas because there's nothing left in Vegas without a, you know, a buffet side behind you, a bungee jump or a, you know, there's nothing, there's nothing that's still there from the old Vegas, nothing. So they couldn't even shoot any of the movie there. They had to stock footage for the outside shots. Was the Rat Pack an idea that was appealing but in its actual application left the audience wanting? In other words, the idea of the Rat Pack was better than the actual execution of the Rat Pack. Is that a fair statement? I wasn't there but from what I saw it seemed to, you know, you never knew who you were going to get. Sometimes they were all booked together and sometimes it was just Frank Sinatra and D. Martin and, you know, I think it would be really cool. You know, it sounded like the execution of those playboy clubs with the bunnies having martinis back in the 60s. I never went to them but that would be kind of cool, and the fact that women ate them would make it even cooler. What is the angriest you were in the past week? Was there a blind rage that you experienced in the past? I don't have any blind rages anymore. No. I went to read for a TV show that I didn't want to read for it. I said to myself, sure, I'll go read for it. I knew I was way too young for it. It's a retired cop in his 70s and they get there and everybody's in their 70s. But I did it and it was just a good way to get out of this. I got stuck in traffic for two hours coming up. But I can't say I was really angry. It's not worth it anymore. I'm 62, you know. There's no reason to get angry. You've been to my house. I have a nice house. A nice backyard. My palm trees and my pool. And New York City, together in New York, you're rushing off to find a pizzeria in Brooklyn. Always. Do you think your life would be... I asked this of Jeff Ross, the Roastmaster General who lives in Los Angeles. Do you think your life would be different if you lived in New York because you would not have to work the road as much or you wouldn't have to go that far away to do stand-up. Why is that? Well, because within a 50-mile radius of New York City there are so many pockets of people who can come out to see comedy. But if you live in Los Angeles it's spread out more. So you have to travel to work, right? That's not true at all. Because if you want to make a living in New York instead of the comedy, you're not making anything. $25, $50 a set, $100 at the most playing all those little comedy clubs. Then you got Gotham and Caroline. No, I'm talking about... within 50 miles of Manhattan you can play Trenton you can play Greenwich. There are all these cities that are pretty big that can sustain a comedy club or a theater. Don't you think it's... Go to Trenton in the middle of winter or go to that shit old stress factory in New Jersey. It sounds horrible. It sounds awful. It's just awful. Well, to me living in San Francisco and Los Angeles and being a full-time comedian I always thought of Robert Klein who lived in Manhattan and would get on a train at Grand Central Station go 50 miles someplace fill up a theater and be home that night. I don't think you can... I don't think you can do that if you live in Los Angeles. I think you can. You still have to travel though. You can only play these theaters once or twice a year. You know, if you want to make a living. But you know what? I'd rather be here and I'd rather get on a plane and come home to this and I look... I like to have places on both costs. You know, that would be terrific. Because I love... You know, I love coming to New York. It's in my blood. It's in my you know, genetic makeup. I've always been a New Yorker. I always will be, but like a lot of guys from New York I love living out here. Because I like the sun. I've got a gym in my garage. I have a nice kitchen. You know, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are a quarter mile away. I don't really need to leave this area except to make a living. And I've saved up almost enough. I don't have to work as much as I did before. I still got to work, but not every week at some shithole comedy club. And what is the... There's great comedy clubs. You know, there's The Improves. Then I'll play one next week. There's this weekend in Ontario, California, San Bernardino. I played the one in Irvine. Comedy club, comedy magic club. You know, comedy starts at night. Plenty of places to play out here at work, so it's great. And the mood in the clubs. I noticed something about you. Which is, do you mind if I give you a compliment? You compliment me plenty. Keep going. That's all I care about. The stuff you're doing on Trump is brilliant. I'm not really doing much on me. I'm pretty much sure about how horrible he is. But the sarcasm about the Mexicans, you've really given your voice properly to what's going on. How is... When you're in front of an audience when you bring up Trump I've noticed but I'm in a bubble. I only perform in Manhattan. They love my making fun of Trump. Of course, because everybody in New York knows what a despicable human being is. His father was a piece of shit. He's a piece of shit. The piece of shit doesn't fall far from the tree. You know, there were slumlords. He was a horrible businessman. Can I give you a punch up there for a second? Sure. The piece of shit doesn't fall far from the horse's ass. Well, for the horse's ass. That's why his mouth is shaped like an asshole so he can spit out that diarrhea. It looks like an asshole. He's not that little circular, gumby, round mouth. So he can spew shit out of it. And the only reason I don't want to see him get killed is because that fucking fascist Nazi penstakes over will probably even be better. You know, I mean, it's awful. It's just awful. And then suddenly Uday and Kusay, those two fucking idiots, those robotic fucking Nazis. It's awful. I don't give a shit. They're globally on the global warming. I don't care about polar bears. I've never looked for polar bears. They're not here. I've got 20 years left. They fucked the polar bears and the Eskimos and the penguins. I'm sorry. You know, but what do you think on this show? They fucked the coal miners. They could all go fuck themselves. Why do you get a better job, you stupid fuck? You can't get a better job working with solar energy, paying more. But you know, if you could be coal miners, you know, but daddy was a coal miner, but grandpa, he was a coal miner. Hey, you dumb fuck, neighbor, come home from work happy. Hey, son, this is what I want you to do because this is a great job. Fucking morons die. Anyway. Yes, I'm angry. Now you're happy. Go round up. On today's show, I talk with Judah Grundstein. He's in Paris. And I said that I believe the issue of our time is universal health insurance. I cannot get past universal health insurance. What do you see as the most important issue of our time? Well, that my girlfriend blows me again. Two nights in a row. Three nights in a trifecta. Most important issue of our time, I don't care. I really, I've given up caring. I marched in Vietnam when I was 14 and I don't know how much that helped stop the war. There's nothing I could do anymore. I, you know, I... Now, when you're getting a blow job, are you giving advice or do you let the woman... Do you... No, I've stopped giving advice. I used to tell my late wife how bad she did it and then I never got another blow job again. So I keep my mouth shut. Our mouth open. You know, I would... I would like to see health care for everybody. I think it's really important. Let's get back to blow jobs. Hang on for once. I want to ask you about blow jobs. Let me ask you about blow jobs. I don't want to talk about this, but okay. You don't give advice on how to blow. I don't have to. My girlfriend's too good. But have you ever given advice? No, no. To a woman now, I know better than that. She'd call, come have you making dinner, you know? And I... I try to keep my mouth shut over those things. Okay. It's very difficult for me, but I do it. Do you think if we were in prison... Yeah. Do you think the blow jobs would be better in prison than they are in the prison of marriage? If I was in a woman's prison, you'd be great. No, seriously. If we were forced... I'm just saying, if we were forced to give blow jobs in prison... Wouldn't we be better at it? I think so. Right. Next time we do your show, we'll do it live, and you can blow me in with that. Alright. I'm going to wrap it up because we've been doing... We should've wrapped up before the blow job segment. Okay, whatever. The last episode was five hours. And... You did a five-hour episode? We've been doing... I've been in crisis. So the podcasts have just... They've been amazing, but they've been a little long, so I'm trying to... Instead of doing an hour with everybody, three minutes. I love you, Bobby Slayton. How do people contact you? Give them my number. When they call it. Bobby Slayton. I'm sick of social media. I don't care. I'm on Twitter. They can find me if they give a shit. On behalf of... Give me your Twitter handle. What is it? You just tweet it, they'll see it. They'll follow you, and your imaginary listeners will become my imaginary followers. Alright? They're not imaginary listeners, and on behalf of everybody who just heard you, thank you. I'm going to be back in New York in May. I'll give you a call. Come back for my birthday. Okay, you made everybody feel better. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Good luck with everything. Bye. Bye. If you're enjoying today's podcast, do me a favor. Please copy and paste the link and email it to all your friends. Share it on Facebook and Twitter and dig and stumble upon. We have a subreddit. I don't know quite how to tell you how to find it, but it's there. And I'm kind of learning how to monitor it, so please join me there. Friend me on Facebook. That's where our forum seems to be these days. And now, Will Durst. Well, you know, let me push my chair in. I have not felt relaxed. I would say in a long time. And I'm on the phone with Will Durst. And the minute I heard your voice, it was like a back rub. I am. I'm the human back rub. No, it's just all of a sudden I went ah. It's all going to be okay. It's Will Durst. How are you? We always say buddy. We were saying buddy before buddy movies. Before people started saying buddy. Yeah. Hey buddy. Hey buddy. Did Larry Brown start that? Larry Brown was the one who always used to go hey buddy. I think he pretty much introduced it to the San Francisco comedy lexicon. Will Durst is the number one political satirist in America. I am according to an article in The New York Times in 1987, I believe. In my mind, you are out there punching the big guys. You're punching up. Well, you comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. So, you know, I'm not going to do jokes about retards for crazy. Yeah. So how do you make fun of... Hang on. Hang on. I have to do my joke. Hang on. This is my new annoying habit. This is right. I have a joke on. You say you don't make fun of retards. Hang on. Here's my joke. Coming up. Hang on. I have to take a sip of coffee to clear my throat. I think the entire audience sees this one coming. Hang on. You don't need a railroad crossing at this point. And now I will deliver the punch line. If you don't make fun of retards, then how do you make jokes about Corky? See, you thought I was going to say Trump, right? No. Oh, that was bad. That was a very clever bait and switch. I think you could join the administration. Can you... Yeah. Well, let's ease into this for a little... By the way, we're talking via microwave ovens, right? Yes. I'm actually using my blender. The coffee maker is giving me notes. Do you know when she said that and I'm not trying to be cute here, I think that was the most intelligent thing she ever said. I don't see why the guy had to apologize for making a joke about her kneeling on the couch without her shoes. Well, hang on. I can't keep up with everything. When Kellyanne Conway was sitting on the couch... She was kneeling on the couch. She had her feet tucked under her and some representatives said, well, she looks softly comfortable and people thought it was a sexual thing and I didn't think it was a sexual thing. I thought it was... She was on the couch without her shoes with her feet tucked under her. It was kind of a weird intimate kind of a not a publicity photo with the black caucus that he would normally... Yeah. I have taken a brand new tack. I got in a Facebook fight with a friend of mine the other day who said that we can't make fun of Kellyanne Conway because that's how Republicans do things is that they make fun of people because of the way they look and the way they act rather than their actions. And I say they screwed the fuck that shit. Yeah. We're playing by their rules now. Yeah. I'm getting a little feedback here but we're on the phone. Yeah. Vicious. Be mean and vicious. I say if you if you're in the Oval Office and you're that relaxed around Donald Trump that picture says so much to me. What's going on between her and Donald Trump? The way he... He's like the surrogate daddy to her and I know that sounds sexist. Not I know. But she has daddy issues. But it's not sexist. It's sexual. That's different. You know anything sexual it's just that everything has changed. November 8th we call America... America didn't just... America shouted into a microphone with the amp turned to 11. They don't want the cute puppy dog in material anymore. They want the hard hitting below the belt that kick him in the balls of material. So... Well... So before we started you said about political humor. Could you repeat what you said? I have no idea what I said. It was almost 7 minutes ago. It's totally left my... It's... I think I said people want to hear political comedy. Or they don't. Because I had a little gig. And someone stood up in the middle of my gig and started screaming at me. You shut up about the president. You're not being funny. And he got booed by the rest of the audience. And then his wife stood up and did the same thing. And then she yelled at me and she told me to tuck in my shirt. It was odd. What is Dan Spencer doing at one of your shows? Damn him! Damn Sp... I love him. I just figured I'd throw... I was thinking who's a happily married, good and decent person? It would be Dan Spencer. The idea of him interrupting your show. This is... Comedy competition? No. Where he went out with a water gun in his pants? Were you... Was it Sarlot or you, Em Singh, that competition? That was not me. I would have remembered that. It was one of those... He goes out. He's realizing he's not going to win the competition. It's a Tommy Teeson Concord. He goes out there. He doesn't tell anybody he's got a water gun in his pants. He makes little jokes. And each punchline... He's got his hands in his pocket. Each bad punchline. He just gives one little squirt to his pants. So like... And it just gets bigger and bigger. I'm surprised. I mean, looking back, that could be an act. Dan Spencer could just... If he wanted to, tour the country as the guy who pisses his pants on stage and he would sell out. Are you there? I... I'm... contemplating that right now and I'm not sure that I'd necessarily agree with your assessment. Okay. Speaking of pissing your pants... You are Captain Segway, aren't you? Is it fair to say that you can be... You can have a migraine headache. You can be sick to your stomach. The minute they say, Ladies and gentlemen, will durst. Everything goes away and you feel great. And you get... step on stage and... You spend a lot of energy and you get some laughs and you get off and you feel worse. But... than you did before you went on. But it's that unconscious sort of thing. Even athletes do. There's a famous story of a batter for the giants in an outfielder named Chili Davis who became a batting instructor and he was almost scratched from the game because he had the flu and the manager somehow convinced him and he had three home runs at that day. He wasn't thinking. You're not thinking when you're sick and that... that can be the audience to see you would think you're not in the moment and they kind of lose a connection with you. But when you're up there not autopilot but sense memory you know there are two different things and you're playing by instinct. Yeah. You are probably the... well the second most devout giants fan right behind your better half, Debbie. It never has an appellation like that. Then truer than when you say that she's the funny one of the family. We're big giants fans. We went to spring training. We're not rabid fans. I mean our house is blue it's not orange but you know we know people who are much bigger but yeah it's fun to watch them. I wish I could... You went to a game with us. I had a great time. He took my son for his birthday and you're royalty. Yeah. You are. This year the giants are because of his work with the poor and underprivileged and the kids with the broken and the not having and the lame. Michael Pritchard is being honored by the San Francisco Giants at a baseball game this year. May 31st. Is that a memorial day? Are there going to be fireworks? No, it's past memorial day. Memorial day is the 29th I believe. I would love to go to that. Yeah, wouldn't that be a kind of a nice little thing? Are you going to come out for comedy day this year? It's September 17th. I would... Nothing would make me happier. It would be great to see you man. Well, let's talk about it. The podcast that you could compile. I know. I could be backstage. And you could get a month's work of the work done in an afternoon. A pleasant afternoon. Yeah. I wish I could get into baseball especially now where you want to get off the grid you want to just ignore what's happening but you can't. I've found that I reflect on stage what people are feeling. People are coming up afterwards saying thank you. I never thought I'd laugh again. I mean it's almost like we're therapists up there, you know shepherding people through their PTSD, their President Trump stress disorder. So it's kind of... It's almost a public service that we're providing. Is it Trump or is he a symptom? I think he's a symptom. That's an interesting question. The chicken is at the egg. I don't know. Is he the manifestation of people's frustrations? Or is he just the right guy at the right time? Or is he do people have people devalued intellectualism or study or education and now they're going on instinct? It reminds me one time I remember Rush Limbaugh said I know the facts. Don't reflect this. I may be going against of knowledge and education but people I know what I know. And I think that's what Trump is I mean he heard all these things that he promised and I kind of forgot that he promised that people would have more health care and it would be cheaper and he promised all these things that are totally impossible and then now who knew health care would be so complicated? Everybody except you again so I can't believe people bought this bullshit I mean he's like the Picasso of hogwash Are you getting a little patriotic? I was watching I am I still believe in this crazy little country that I call America because I was watching Rachel last night and seeing Daryl Issa being screamed at at a town hall and then coming back to Washington and saying well you know this health care bill needs a little work and Senator Cotton being screamed at by his constituents he's a Republican and he says well you know what maybe we need to slow down on this health care bill What? Because he thinks it's too liberal He's against it It costs too much money Get your cut Who but the Republicans would propose a health care bill to replace something that had near universal coverage who would replace it with something that would take down 24 million people off the rolls in 10 years and give a tax cut to the rich about a half a trillion dollars a half a trillion so that we can give money to rich people because rich people need more money Only the Republicans And only America because they've just made us so stupid and they figure we can't understand the machinations of legislation so we just go along we're because we can't spend 20 minutes to learn how the sausage is made we just take what the Republicans say at face value if you're a Republican 70% of the people who are going to be thrown off the rolls who are going to be won't be able to afford insurance or won't buy insurance 70% of them voted for Trump so I hope that I hope that vote was worth dying for Boy we don't have to gerrymander No Just let Trump put all his Could you try that for me and do it I'm uh So what are the audiences like I'm in a bubble I'm in Manhattan I'm in a bubble I'm in San Francisco I'm in less of a bubble than New York I think you've got right wingers in San Francisco We have one but he's an indoor right winger we don't let him out but we take care of him he mostly naps and eats and he sits on the couch and stares outside at the top of the couch and sometimes you know we let him out to walk around but that's about it I think there's a libertarian strain in the Bay Area that you guys notice how I say you guys notice how I sound like a New Yorker now hard to believe right but I think But it's the same thing in New York No If you go to Rochester or you go to Albany or outside of Albany maybe not the city itself but you go to Burlington you know it's the same thing here we go to San Leandro we go to Stockton we go to Modesto it's like Kansas I'm talking about New York City versus San Francisco and I think San Francisco which I love I wouldn't be a stand up comic if it weren't for San Francisco and I love the people of San Francisco but I think it's easier to be a liberal in San Francisco than it is in New York City and I think that when you really scratch the surface in San Francisco liberalism for a lot of people is fashion, it's cosmetics you can be left alone with your own thoughts you really don't have to confront your true ideology if you live in San Francisco how does that make you feel, huh? I disagree with your conception there I think it's a misconception I think San Francisco I mean I'm originally from Wisconsin when I go back to Wisconsin I'm a comic pink or yellow red here in San Francisco I'm a Nazi these people are quite mad they are I mean it is so lefty I mean Nancy Pelosi is considered a moderate she gets protested all the time yeah but don't you think I guess what I'm saying is when you live in New York you're confronted with ugliness all the time you just see people doing bodily fluid stuff in the subways on the buses and you really hear our homeless problem rivals yours per capita I'm talking about the cops pissing on me and the politicians maybe the nation workers for crazy you know what I guess we'll talk about politics I think once you leave San Francisco you're so jealous that people who live in San Francisco get to live the way they do you begin to frame San Francisco like well yeah it's easy to be liberal when it's a temperate climate and it's beautiful and you're surrounded by nature go try being a liberal in the subway I think that's what's I think I resent the fact that you have a beautiful life yeah well it's all relative you know I mean we're also paying $7 for artisanal toast does it make you angry you know Larry Brown I moved to San Francisco in 82-83 and by then Larry Brown was infuriated with the place do you ever get angry at San Francisco I think it's when you fall in love with a beautiful woman as I was lucky to do I mean there are good good things that come out of that I mean you're so proud of her and then you're kind of embarrassed because everybody's looking at her and and you know it so it's it's just different it's the same thing with New York New Yorkers I mean the whole world revolves around you you know we think the same thing that the whole world but you're right it's San Francisco it's like a like an aging hooker well no I mean the world revolves around New York City but not the people living it and that's the great thing about New York City is that it just reduces you to nothing it's actually spiritual if you embrace it your ego just completely disappears no matter how successful or important you think you are that day you will be reduced you'll be leveled to just zero in New York City whereas in San Francisco you can go a couple of days feeling pretty good about yourself every day in New York is a reset you just get up every morning and it's you started zero every day in New York City no matter what it starts at zero it's good to have a city that humbles you yeah not if you're weak remind you of your place in the universe not if you're having a bad decade cities like Carl Sagan billions billions no I moved to San Francisco because of New York and I you know I remember hating Donald Trump in the early 80s I remember Sidney Schoenberg was writing these pieces about Donald Trump and I just he represented everything I hated Donald Trump I hated him hated and I remember moving to San Francisco to get away from Donald Trump and I moved back to New York and I can't get away from Donald I feel like it's the 80s all over again with Donald Trump in my face you can't escape him is there a part of you that just when you scratch away the hatred, the xenophobia, the racism the impending Armageddon isn't there a little piece of you that kind of likes him no so this is coming from a place of hatred hatred abomination I'll tell you what pisses me off is living on the west coast he has a three hour head start so we never know I mean you wake up and you go oh Jesus Christ what a fresh hell I mean he's had a three hour head start to light the fuse to Armageddon you know so you wake up every morning you go oh shit and you turn on tv find out what happened today what did he he struck a foot that shot a spark to the kerosene so kindling he calls his staff what did they do today do you have the tv going do you have the tv on in the background right now I have MSNBC they're showing something it's Spicer the Spicer channel they didn't do this with Obama they didn't have every white house briefing every day yeah because Obama was wasn't putting on a show he was actually doing something he was being pressed yeah why the media is still complicit in all this isn't it although maybe they should be covering this since it is like a attempted coup right I mean should they be covering Spicer every day but should they be should they no idea have no opinion it is what it is I just watch and I comment is it a civics lesson I'm of two minds yes we need to watch what he's saying and catch him in his lies but then eventually all the media saying that the president lied again nah nah nah I love this Obama bugged me and then he disappeared for a week he would show up for a week nothing what do you mean by the president nothing stop bugging me yeah I can't wait maybe they did it for the microwave well couldn't they my hot pockets last night they seem to know a little bit more about me than they should I mean maybe why can't the microwave bug you your tv can yeah my samsung right what are we going to do what would you be ashamed of if I had a if you discovered that they were watching you all day is there anything that you'd go nah okay that's pretty humiliating let me write a check to the government that I drink that on occasion I drink corona yeah I think that would that would be cause for blackmail I remember reading the star report and there was a section in it where the president of the united states bill clinton is described as placing a cigar in her vagina and then walking over to the bathroom in the oval office and masturbating into the sink remember reading this and thinking well he's gonna resign now because everybody is gonna just envision him masturbating into the sink in the oval office I don't have a sink in my living room and the next day he came out on tv did something I thought oh I don't I see the president of the united states I don't see a man masturbating into the sink I think masturbator and so I wonder that was so clinton of you to do it in the sink you know where it's contained probably use a couple of a couple of plies of toilet paper apparently you wouldn't need to use a whole Kleenex is there anything that you can be guilty of and there could be there could be video of you doing it that would be a career other than my my late late show with Craig first no is there any no I'm just I just throw that out there it went well I just was grasping for something all my tv experiences have been golden um but is there anything people can look up my letterman if they want to see a bomb when did you do letterman oh man 87 that wasn't a bomb that's a tough crowd no and then now letterman oh I wish I had done more political stuff yeah I you know here's the thing I'm not going to criticize letterman and because it would be cowardly on my part I think if you're going to criticize somebody like they have to be in power like I went after John Stuart for his union busting when he was winning P bodies and writer's guild awards even though he was anti union and I thought okay if you're going to you know be a man you go after somebody while they're you know when they can hurt you so letterman now letterman now to criticize letterman now it's safe so I'm not going to criticize him but he should have had more political satirists on his show yeah especially during well that was huge they don't well yeah but the great thing about Colbert is he understands now that he is not and that shutting down shutting up the beast you know I mean he's letting it rage from and people are responding people are flacking to see him I mean his ratings are better than anyone which is incredible but are they booking is he booking political satirists I don't know that I don't know I can't watch the political I can't watch any of those shows because I'm too afraid of material leaching in my eyes I'm not so afraid of it leaching as just making me jealous well both and also the reverse I mean sometimes you'll see a joke you wrote and it's on there and you know that's that's one of the professional obstacles and hazards I mean you don't you know people are obviously trolling the internet and some of the writers aren't as scrupulous as others and so you can't blame the host you know because there's 14 writers on the show but the problem is you approach that show totally different now that you've seen it on TV and you're going to think that people who have seen it on that show are going to think you ripped it off so you approach it differently whereas if you don't know you just go in with your naive blissful confidence and so that's another reason why I don't I've been reading about the internet and this sharing this huge thing now I'm trying to keep up with the kids and apparently you can shop now you don't need to go to a mall yeah and there's this thing called MySpace never heard of it yeah so with the internet and the new media it's all about sharing it's all about just give everything away and the karma is going to be so amazing it'll just come back to you tenfold stand-up comics were the original new media in that we came up with ideas we didn't really get paid for them because you know when we were starting out but we would get up on stage with our jokes, our ideas and just throw them out into the universe never worried that hundreds upon hundreds of people would be hearing it each week and doing with it what they chose I mean it was public commons I can't tell you how many TV commercials I have seen and I know where the spark or the little seed for that TV commercial came out of a comics routine from years ago and the writers of the commercial must have seen the comic and then years later come up with a commercial based on that I don't have any examples but I can hey, that's Shidner's bit or something like that they stole can you hear me now from my act because I'd tell a joke and I'd say can you hear me now did you hear that joke I just said Nancy Reagan is about as much fun as a sneeze in the middle of a piss did you did you hear that was me can you hear me boy there are who's calling me I have a you'll like this Alex Brazil my manager producer I have instant messages to respond to a call and I have three can I call you back I'm robbing your apartment I can't talk your wife's lap is in my face right now that's what I do you can customize the I can't talk on your iPhone hey you know what my son did by the way no what's with you he's in Germany right now yeah he's learning German and he's with his girlfriend and he's doing fantastic but what he does is he showed me how to grab his phone and you go into settings and under I don't know where it is but I think it's in general and you can change it's shortcuts so if you type the word let's say lol you can change lol to sit on my face and so he's been doing this to his girlfriend and he does little things that are very subtle like he changed late to early and she so whatever she says you know I'm gonna be late coming home tonight he says I'm gonna be early and she's on to him but he showed me out when I see you I'll show you how to do that to Debbie's phone so she'll hate you which is what marriage is all about yeah so we were throwing stuff out into the universe getting on stage every night we still do it and we say things and they go out into the ether and then you have this new generation coming up that says steal from the best have you heard this new theory that there's nothing I've actually seen a book in the library that claims there are no original ideas and it's that hence you're not taking someone's idea you're taking someone's idea who took someone's else's idea right and what that is they say that that you that what is it's geniuses what is that expression craftsman artist borrow there's this whole new belief that you should just steal things I can't help but wonder if that is part of the new media Silicon Valley YouTube hey just steal it just post it post this movie on YouTube if they ask you to take it down then take it down but otherwise just steal it the whole of Silicon Valley was built on the idea of stealing content and not paying anybody for it right Huffington Post never heard of it Huffington Post oh the liberal Ariana Huffington good person Ariana lifelong democrat lifelong and cares about the little guy so what are you telling me about the although she built this this website that's all liberal because she cares about people right and then sold it for three quarters of a billion dollars and she must have cut all her writers yeah I'm sure she paid because she paid all her writers but nobody get a taste without a doubt one of the most detestable human beings on the planet I'm not going to get started on Ariana Huffington because then it just becomes I mean I just can't do it but did you ever write what are you up to are you doing stand up I'm doing this I'm doing stand up how's it going how are the clubs I'm only working Manhattan Queens and Brooklyn so as far as I'm concerned it's going great but I'm in a bubble I'm afraid to kind of do my anti-trump stuff overseas and by that I mean New Jersey I mean downtown there's certain clubs where they bring in tourists a lot of the clubs have tourists and it's my theory about Andrew Dice Clay at Madison Square Garden I remember watching Madison Square Garden and saying you could take all these people and bring them to a theater to see Paula Poundstone and they would be quiet polite and laugh it's all it's the venue that's the context and I think that you get a lot of tourists coming to New York who voted for Trump but they're in Manhattan and they're thinking oh I get it we're getting a taste of the left wing progressive neurotic Jewish this is good this is a good experience I'll keep my mouth shut this is why we came to New York to hear this kind of stuff but I think once you go to their natural habitat yeah their native habitat then it's like what happened to you where did this happen to you oh it was it was a corporate gig it was a wine tasting and it was rich white people rich drunk white people and the one it's gonna happen but I don't care I don't care I'm just gonna keep you know it's what I'm doing now what's the anguish and I got four years and my two years of great material two years of running and hiding and then eight to ten years of reeducation camp on a Montana gulag so a portion of the proceedings of all my shows goes to a non-profit whose mission will be to bury wire cutters along the Canadian border you have been turning at a weekly column how many years have you been doing this ten twelve no way no no you have been grinding out a weekly column well it's been syndicated for twelve I've been writing it since the middle eighties I got a gig at the examiner I remember and so I wrote a column for the San Francisco examiner for about two years then a new guy came in and fired me and so I just got used to writing the column and so I just kept it up on and off not on and off every week send it off to my mailing list and now it gets syndicated by you know it's on the internet in a bunch of places but it gets syndicated by something called Kago cartoons I can't go the way you're thinking I don't know what you're talking about yeah you're exercising my month I can't figure out no don't do that have I dug a hole for my sounds like I'm in a tight situation here I don't quite know where to go with this you're stretching it hey so the discipline of grinding out a column every week which you have been doing I would say is that something if that job still existed which it doesn't when we were kids you could be a columnist Art Buckwald Art Hoppe Russell Baker Dave Barry these were syndicated humor columnists who actually got even Molly Ivins and Molly Ivins he was a political nobody wants it anymore why not I have a theory why they don't want it but you go ahead no what's your theory then I gotta go what? what are you talking about it's been almost an hour man but I have no life I have to take my lovely wife to get some food we have a shared doctor experience where are you going to go for lunch in San Francisco I think we're going to go to Louis do you know Louis up by the cliff house it's like 48th and Geary and the weather today weather beautiful 66th sunshiney might get foggy later on tonight it's impossible to be depressed in San Francisco you can be lonely oh no no no we live in the sunset district and it can get July and August I don't think we saw the backyard during the entire month of July or August because it was foggy especially last year last year the fog was incredible so a lot of people get depressed I don't I like the cool gray black of anonymity I like the fact that it's not sunshiney the sun isn't coming into my blindingly into my bedroom at 11am you know when I get up I like the cool grayness the best summer is in San Francisco that's the best place to be the beauty of it is once you get past the bay you're looking at 190 degrees and what's happening is the heat in the east bay is sucking ocean air cold ocean air across the the little isthmus of San Francisco we were just in Arizona and we were talking to some people who live there I said what are the summers like they said oh you know it's okay until it gets into the teens and they actually talked about the teens being on the 114 teens like for the Midwest or New York the teens means an entirely different thing they're talking about the teens is it getting hotter there I don't know maybe incrementally but they always had these spurts of huge heat in Arizona sometimes you hear about this more you hear about it because it's extreme and even the national news now love the extremities the weather extremities oh it's the storm of the century I mean what did the national news have a chief meteorologist they just love and you watch the local news and the fucking weather person four or five times just tell me do I need a coat you know but in Arizona of course when it gets above I think it's like 115 when it gets above 150 and 120 and it does a couple times during the summer the tarmac gets too soft for the planes and they start sinking they have to close down the airport before you go is it fair to say that where Trump is strong where Trump has won people should not be living where he is strong is that a fair statement it is alright how do people get your e-mail no no they're your e-mail your e-mail and you can have your weekly columns just deliver to your mailbox yeah let me know and I'll send it out to you if you have to be on the mailing list or you can go to willdurs.com fantastic and thank you David Thelma thank you for this opportunity to vent with one of my best friends of all time I worship you and give my love to Debbie and I will I'll give your love to Debbie bye buddy coming up from Paris he's the editor in chief of world politics review his podcast is called trend lines it's dropped today Friday give it a try if you're enjoying today's podcast please tell your friends share it everybody you think would enjoy it and now the editor in chief of world politics review Judah Grundstein Judah Grundstein is editor in chief of world politics review his podcast is called trend lines it's available for download right now he joins us today from Paris hello Judah how you doing David you've been living in Paris for how long in Paris it's been about 9 9 years now more it's been 10 years now in France in France for 16 we're going to talk about the Dutch elections the French elections Rex Spillerson I call our secretary of state Rex Spillerson because he's from ExxonMobil and we'll go over a couple of flash points around the globe if we have time very quickly what is world politics review tell our audience what world politics review is how they can subscribe and tell me about trend lines and then we'll talk about what is on trend lines today you're dropping a brand new podcast today Friday tomorrow Friday we're creating the no it's okay we create the illusion I do it too on our podcast but I'm pretty bad at I'm a bad illusionist I'm like Robert Kelly the Korean expert who was on the BBC with the kids from his home office and the kids broke in and he said real life broke through my TV fake reality hey I don't want to waste your time but when the wife grab the kids did you see the video I did I watched it I thought it couldn't have been scripted better the sequencing the timing was just for comedy gold but was she a little rough with those kids I think she slipped I have to watch the video again I got the impression at one point that it was just that it turned into the keystone cops at the end the thing is to what I said I was I mentioned this I was on France 24 you show last on Friday and they showed this as sort of the light hearted clip at the end the guy Robert Kelly is just one of the top Korea experts and any time he writes about anything of importance anything going on of importance on the Korean Peninsula he's one of the first people I turned to to read and when I first saw the clip I didn't realize it was him because I know him from writing and I've never met him personally or seen him and then when I realized it was him I just felt really bad for him because he's really one of the top Korea experts and now this is obviously his new career is a viral video star yeah but the same way I'm not going to mention the guy who's sitting in Obama's chair we're going to try to get through today without mentioning the orange orange orangutan orangutan in Voldemort the guy sitting in Barack Obama's seat right now we're not going to talk about him the name that can't be mentioned but what he's done is he's made civics interesting if you want to call those civics I think more and more people are paying attention maybe you guys who are deep in the weeds on foreign affairs maybe having your kids dancing in the background why not it generated a little more excitement over international affairs okay so very quickly how do people subscribe to world politics review let's tell people what this great service first of all world politics review is nonpartisan in terms of political allegiance and we do we do sort of have a house philosophy which I would like into liberal internationalism and so generally when people say they're nonpartisan they're generally speaking more about their blind spots so we try to be up front with that we're for a liberal internationalist system with generally free markets and democracy multilateral cooperation as a best case scenario but also understanding that the world is not covering the world as it is rather than as it should be and just taking into account the reality and the fact of national interests and geopolitics and that sometimes it's messy and there are compromises so that's pretty much the approach we take to covering the world my theory is that if you stay home you can be an isolationist if you never travel then it's America first the minute you see the world you get convinced that we're all interconnected and America is great and we can save everybody the trick is not to travel then you know my feeling is that there's nothing inherently wrong with America first alone and at the same time the problem with America first isn't necessarily that there's anything inherently wrong with a country putting its own national interests or making that the priority but that for the United States is a very complicated proposition at this point because the U.S. benefits in an enormous way in enormous ways having a sort of enlightened self-interest guiding its international engagement so just as one example the U.S. dollar is the global reserve currency and that means that for instance during the financial crisis or when the U.S. Congress is basically threatening default on the U.S. debt at moments of great instability the entire world turns to the dollar so borrowing costs for the U.S. went down when it looked like the U.S. was on the verge of defaulting on its debt now that's a contradiction in terms that's only possible because people trust the United States in a way that makes the dollar seem like a bedrock value the minute that the U.S. is no longer trusted to be relatively impartial or to respect the rule of law in the international community that kind of trust disappears and so then at that point the U.S. debt becomes a lot more expensive to manage and the kinds of budget dilemmas that we're looking at today will seem like breadcrumbs compared to the kind of cuts that will have to be made the U.S. if the dollar is no longer the global reserve currency take a look at Greece to have an idea of what it looks like when a country actually has to start living within its means we just actually ran today a country report or yesterday I guess Thursday on Greece and why its debt crisis is so persistent so these are the kinds of sort of invisible benefits that come to the U.S. because of the fact that for all of the criticisms you can make in terms of Cold War practices of intervention even in terms of the Iraq invasion and some real catastrophic decisions for the most part the U.S. is seen as a safe partner a reliable ally a country that for the most part respects the rule of law isn't going to for instance go and annex a territory that belongs to another country or colonize for instance Iraq regardless of the decision regardless of your position on the Iraq invasion and I think that the consensus is it was catastrophic the U.S. did leave Iraq so these sorts of things mean that the world trust the United States in the way for instance that it can never really trust China or never really trust Russia and those and that trust creates enormous invisible benefits and so America first that's a defensible a defensible proposition but then you have to actually look at it clear sightedly and say these will be the costs America first will mean that other countries won't necessarily listen to us as much because they won't trust us so all those things but who is I think my listeners are probably thinking I know they think that's why they listen to this show and they're listening to you they're thinking well this is why that guy in Holland almost did well this week this is why Marine Le Pen is and the guy the orange guy here in America you are talking about invisible benefits right to exactly definitely there's a price Americans are paying for being the global leader right and what that price is no jobs low paying jobs no health care budget deficit it would appear to most Americans that that becoming this global power benefits 40 wealthy families in America well I think you put your finger on something that's very important because the costs are very visible right all the things you just mentioned and the benefits are largely invisible or taken for granted because they become such a part of our daily lives for in Europe the equivalent is the European Union right where you have freedom of travel you have no tariffs at all it's a common market so that a small French company for instance has not just a national market and then has to pay tariffs to get into the rest of the European market a small French company has all of Europe as its home market and one of the costs is for packaging on packaging you have to have however many languages in terms of the ingredients listed on your food product for instance but the and so that cost seems very visible the benefit of a common market with the EU as a regulator is that when you buy something that's made in the EU you know that it's made according to certain health standards for instance or that the workers that made it are working in conditions that at the very least legally should be up to certain standards obviously there's always people cutting corners but you can be relatively safe something that's a product that you've bought is safe to use and won't explode for instance an appliance or what have you so those are the sorts of invisible benefits and the costs are this idea that Brussels is taking away sovereignty from European states and then also they're also very clear failings by for instance the US government and the European Union that aren't so much inherent to the idea of a federal government or a common market but are just human failure for instance in the US arguably the problems that the grievances that led to the election of the person who shall not be named is he a person yeah it's always dangerous to dehumanize our political adversaries the grievances that led to his election are arguably more a function of automation in the workplace policies that led to heightened inequality those are not necessarily unavoidable consequences of liberalized international trade the US benefits enormously from international trade and access to markets and historically its foreign policy has always been about guaranteeing and ensuring access to other markets okay and just one last thing in the in the EU the same thing the EU for instance horribly managed the Greek debt crisis which has led to this sort of stagnant growth and the same kinds of grievances and that's been compounded here over the past few years by its horrible handling of the refugee crisis and the migrant crisis so you already had immigration as a real grievance among societies and cultures that have been historically more homogeneous than for instance American society and American culture okay so because Europe has been so poorly handled that has created more grievances that have driven Gert Wilders in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen in France but that is not necessarily inherent in the European Union had the European Union handled that crisis better we might be saying see Europe the EU can protect us in times of need the problem was human failure in terms of making policy and getting everyone on board you've covered a lot of areas and that's why I have you on there's a lot of depth here and it's perfect for this venue because we can explore these issues I want to bring it back to the needs of Americans because we're struggling here you're in Paris, I'm in America we're in crisis and when you talk about globalization you're talking from Thomas Friedman and neoliberals that it's automation it's AI, artificial intelligence that's taking all our jobs away that isn't necessarily axiomatic I think in 20 years we're going to look back and discover that actually 3D printing and artificial intelligence and automation was just like computers the internet and the automobile it actually put some businesses and some workers on food stamps but it also created a lot more jobs but you need an industrial policy in the United States the same way you have one in Europe to kind of guide the economy so it's working in the best interests of the citizens is that a fair statement is Germany's success is Paris, you're in France the workers kind of come first in Germany and France it's very complicated because first of all I'd agree that there's no real clear cut statement of fact when it comes to some things that are so complex as the global economy and the impact of liberalized trade for instance on particular sectors protection is there any value to protectionism the problem with protectionism in the kind of market that we have today is that for instance let's take that small French company that I mentioned the problem today for a small company or a small service oriented company let's say it's manageable you can make do with a small market you don't need to constantly grow a company and have 500 1500 workers or employees you can keep a small service business alive through a smaller market but when you're talking about making things like cars or steel or things like that you really need an economy of scale for these kinds of industries the French market isn't going to sustain the French car making industry it's just not going to do it America is a little better as a domestic market because it's a bigger in terms of population it's wealthier there's more spending for instance but that's where the real problem comes in and if you start defending your industry then obviously other countries are going to defend there so you lose foreign markets and then you're really you have to live or die on the proposition that your domestic market is enough to sustain all of your businesses the problem I think too is that politics is ideally you get a win-win situation but it's not always the case there's always trade-offs and losers that's why democracy is beautiful why can't we apply democracy to the lie of the free market the free market is a lie would you agree with that left to its own devices it's just a race to the bottom and we all become third world nations I would agree that an unregulated market is not a good thing that you need government to regulate the marketplace that you need regulations to make sure for instance power asymmetries don't lead to for instance poisoned rivers and faulty products the idea that you just stop buying dangerous products is not the way the market should operate so we're in agreement on that what about a little protectionism did you see the movie Darwin's Nightmare did you see the French documentary no I avoid French cinema oh it's pretty good but the point of Darwin's Nightmare is eventually with survival of the fittest which was Spencer eventually it's an unregulated globalization a free market unbridled growth is a race to the bottom eventually you're getting things made pretty much by slave labor so regulation slowing down the problem with that is that we've actually seen the reverse we've seen in China which has become the world's factory that wages have gone up to the point where now people are off-shoring from China to Vietnam for instance or to other places or they're re-shoring to the US or to Mexico but you think Foxconn there's always abuses of course but the fact is though that global trade and global trade liberalization has pulled more people out of extreme poverty and has created a larger middle class around the world than 50 years of development date I would argue too that there's competing progressive discourses here because there used to be a progressive liberal discourse of internationalism in the post-colonial period by the way, I'm glad I'll have to thank you for doing the show because we represent opposite wings of the Democratic Party so this is very valuable to my listeners I appreciate it and I recognize too that probably most of your listeners are more to the left than I am I come from the left I don't want to say the center I try to just maintain an open mind and analyze the what's coming in from as many different angles as possible let me just finish that one point so there used to be I know very formative for me was in the post-colonial period and that sense of solidarity with the what was then called the third world the global south or the developing world and so liberalized trade has been really good for the developing world you have like I said the decline in extreme poverty over the last 15 years 20 years you have a growth of a global middle class now obviously not to the extent that all the champions and the hey geographies leave but you know there are fewer people starving and that's a good thing and so I'm not saying are you sure about that right that used to be something the left fought for what are you sure that people oh yeah certainly you're sure that extreme poverty I've read that I've seen that in The Economist which is a neoliberal magazine The Economist says actually to its credit embrace certain discourses that have come from the progressive and from the left from the progressive caucus and the left in terms of for instance the idea that inequality is a high priority in terms of reforms to the global trade there are numbers out there that would say famine is on the rise more people around the world are suffering what happened when you talk about being able to build an iPhone to scale up that was essentially slave labor where Foxconn had these women working at gunpoint in three women to a closet in the dormitories they had to put netting up because they were jumping to their deaths that's where our eyes went I don't want to minimize that and there are always horror stories obviously and I agree that for instance so who's benefiting I have an iPhone which I need I think I have a dumb phone who's more progressive so who's benefiting economically from this race to the bottom those women at Foxconn that's like saying I look at that for example though that seems like slave well in that particular case it's not far from it but you can't just cherry pick your statistics but it does seem and I'm pushing back sure but I mean look at Africa where poverty extreme poverty has declined there's still problems obviously and there's huge corruption as well so a lot of this money has flowed into the echelons of the Chinese Communist Party or their oligarchs our clothes are made in Bangladesh in what is essentially cheaper than slave labor to get a shirt made you know back during the antebellum period when the South had slaves you had to feed them, house them you had to have somebody watching them that cost money have things made overseas and that's a lot cheaper so this race to the bottom is pretty devastating to the people who are doing the work and the people who are losing their jobs so let me but what's your alternative though because I mean for instance the if you're talking about a completely autarkic self-sufficient American economy I don't see how you're going to make that work well it's democracy what's happening you have to engage the world and you have to engage through trade agreements that have social justice built into them sure but getting back to the TPP for example the TPP was really these are thousands of pages but I think it was much maligned and not necessarily fairly because first of all the TPP had nothing to do with tariffs tariffs are already low through the World Trade Organization the TPP was in particular about reducing those kinds of inequalities behind what are called non-tariff barriers so for instance making sure that regulations within markets are harmonized or begun to be harmonized so that for instance it's more expensive to produce in these developing economies and the trade advantage of simply not having any environmental regulations for instance is reduced same thing goes for keeping opening national government contracts for instance things like that and opening certain markets to outside competition the alternative though and this is where sure America first you can defend it but this is going to be another one of those the invisible benefits disappearing and very visible costs appearing the alternative to American leadership in terms of global trade is basically Chinese leadership in global trade and I can assure you that you're not going to see the same even if you think the US has no commitment or doesn't prioritize these kinds of social justice issues in terms of trade the trade regime I can assure you China doesn't value them at all your alternatives are pretty bad but I think it's better to sort of fight for these things within the context of a system that has benefited quite a bit of the world I really don't I don't buy the argument that it's only a race to the bottom and that it's only Foxconn there's fewer people starving around the world fewer people in extreme poverty I'm going to disagree with those stats I've seen other stats I don't have them at my fingertips but I'm willing to find them and I'll email them to you I'm really enjoying this because we're on the same team but we're on different sides I think also we have the same goal because the goal my goal what I think is a noble objective is that there's more people living more comfortably and more safe lives with more connectivity around the world so that you can go to other parts of the world and you don't have to feel guilty about people living in misery because you're not so that's the objective how do we best get there I don't think protectionism or isolationism is the best way for sure because then we're living in a great castle outside the moat people are really doing pretty bad let me ask you a question which are statements but you're going to respond to it let me just tie something back all of this if it seems like we're not discussing the Dutch elections for instance of course we are all of this stuff is exactly what's driving all of the political debates in Europe, in America so for sure this is all very relevant stuff and we saw it through the Democratic primary the problem for me is that people just no longer actually communicate the way you and I seem to be doing well actually the Republican party communicates the way you and I do things of the Republican party and they're not afraid to have it out that's why they're doing so well the problem with our side is you definitely represent the a Clintonian world view and I represent the Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich wing of the party and we're not having it out and that's why we're not winning I thought that was the whole primary it was having it out and I just like to add I hate what the Clintons did to the Democratic party so I don't consider myself a Clintonian at all basically the Clintons transformed the Democratic party into the Rockefeller wing of the Republican party and sold out the basic constituencies of the Democratic party I do think that you could manage liberalized trade and not sell out the American worker and various constituencies of the Democratic party historically I don't think that the Clintons did that so I don't consider myself a Clintonian I would consider myself more a synthesis of those two wings of the Democratic party so I believe in democracy and the wisdom of the crowd as a comedian as somebody who's worked in show business despite the putative stupidity of the great unwashed flyover states I truly believe having traveled around this country that when you really educate people and you talk to them they can make informed decisions and I believe in democracy and I believe in civics the World Trade Organization has stolen our democracy there are tribunals and I think Switzerland where treaties are made that are not approved by our congress they can the World Trade Organization can dictate how corporations are regulated around the world and that I would contest that characterization well you can make a treaty first of all the United States is a democracy and the United States exceeded to the WTO or before it the general agreement on tariffs and trade actually was the founder of it so the idea that somehow the US is not democratically in the WPO to me is not very credible the WPO is basically just a clearing house it's a club with certain rules and the rules are such that depending on where a country is in terms of its stage of development it has certain let's say echelons or criteria for its tariffs and you commit to not having tariffs above a certain limit generally all of the most of the tariff categories are kept quite below that limit and the idea is simply that to the best of our ability we're going to try to promote trade and commerce among countries okay let me and there are trade disputes and I know there's the whole what is it the investor dispute settlement things like that yeah that was a valid criticism of trade agreement it's gotten attention and now it's being addressed in trade agreement so that people are paying more attention to it and in general the abuses are not as as great as some of the critics have said you know more about this than I do I wouldn't guarantee that but from my reading as I understand it the senate approves all treaties with foreign nations under certain trade agreements that are currently going on we've given the World Trade Organization the power to negotiate economic treaties that America has to abide by without the approval of our senate and that allows because let me finish go back and check how the U.S. exceeded to the GATT my understanding would be that it was senate ratified but then you're interrupting me and I just want to make my point I apologize too but because I love this once you exceed your authority that doesn't mean it's still democratic in other words the senate has exceeded its treaty making authority to make treaties and so a multinational corporation as I understand it can then work GATT can work the EU can work the World Trade Organization so that American businesses American people have to fall in line for example it is conceivable that a treaty could be made that forces all Americans to only eat genetically modified food that isn't the case but there is that I don't think that's possible if there's a world treaty that is I think first of all treaty is a technical term so first of all there are rounds of negotiation within the World Trade Organization the latest one has been stalled because the necessary compromises are so far impossible to be found no one is going to force anyone to eat genetically modified food that's sort of dystopian conspiracy theory I just don't buy what if you have no choice what if the people making genetically modified food are so powerful that they can just drive the competitors out of business but then that has nothing to do with the WTO then you're getting back to a domestic issue of regulating businesses and the corruption that enables big business and big money to influence policy but again it's like creating a bogeyman out of these global organizations that in general are actually creating certain benefits for American workers and American businesses I think is counterproductive you see the same this to me is the left equivalent of the rights of the conservative bogeyman of the United Nations the way the United Nations is going to take over the United States and the United States has lost sovereignty to the United Nations when you hear the right talking about the UN in those terms it's very obvious that they're creating a bogeyman and then it's sort of invented and I think the WTO sort of serves the same function for the left I'm going to move on and thank you for engaging me in this because and again I don't think the WTO is perfect or that global trade is perfect there's things that need reforming and there are things that need to be addressed and at the end of the day there's going to be winners and losers how do we in terms of domestic policy take care of the losers how do we make sure that the people who have made out like bandits because of global trade don't just leave the people who have been impoverished by it on their on their own but that's a domestic policy issue and it's doable I don't live in the US anymore I travel back regularly I would contest the idea that the US is in somehow crisis you would contest that I was surprised the whole way in which this narrative of national humiliation and national catastrophe took over the election I just don't see it again there are states and there are regions that have been decimated because of lost jobs but still the US as a whole is still a very comfortably healthy powerful economically prosperous country the question is how do we redistribute that prosperity and that wealth among ourselves so that no one is left behind that's a different question though then we'll talk about the Netherlands I'm not going to have a whole line of time this is great the view of America from Paris you're measuring it on a construct of GDP you're measuring America based on numbers and determinants created by part of the expression the elite and Bobby Kennedy said and this is really important Bobby Kennedy said the gross national product back then measures everything except what makes life worth living so if you're unaffected you are I'm not accusing you of anything you're in France you're not affected by what's going on in America there are numbers that I can show you that says this is the wealthiest country in the world in the history of civilization but then I can break it down for you and show you that only 40 families are really doing you know we're talking about inequality we're talking about the concentration of wealth in the top percentiles you know 1 out of 5 kids in America are food deprived that's scandalous and obviously being an impoverished person in a country that on the aggregate is hugely and immensely prosperous is still scandalous it's probably even more scandalous but at the same time I've mainly only I've only been back to New York in the past few years but when you have gourmet food trucks in the street and just like entire neighborhoods completely renovated and rehabbed and you're not talking about a country that's in crisis you're just not now granted there are rust belts I understand that and I worked for last time and it helped me to task for being holier than now but in the past before I was in journalism I was working in social work on the Lower East Side in Manhattan I worked in Watsonville with teenage gang members who were Mexican immigrants or Mexican American second generation and in Texas I worked in low income housing and I've seen these these parts of America and I've seen the peoples whose lives don't show up on that aggregate and they don't show up on the GDP so I understand that I'm not trying to say that that doesn't exist or that it's not important it is but again I think it's important to say this isn't the WPTO's fault this isn't global trades fault this is if you have 40 families that have that much wealth and you have pockets of poverty in the country like that it's not a problem of global trade it's obviously a domestic policy problem and then at that point you have to ask why is it that the problem is excuse me the problem is I think too if you give a little bit of good faith argument to conservatives I don't think there are very many people who want there to be a lot of starving people out there the question is what do you prioritize? a lot of conservatives prioritize liberty and freedom over equality and a lot of progressives prioritize equality over liberty and freedom meaning that they're willing to have a little less liberty of enterprise or activity a little more wealth distributed so a little more taken in order for there to be more equality to me that makes sense it's just other people could say well I think we can achieve better outcomes with more liberty and that liberty is the top priority that's a valid argument too there's an argument for saying I don't trust the state built into the American political DNA is a mistrust of government right and so the idea that you can grow up in the US based on this political history that we have of always keeping a watchful eye on government and then all of a sudden convince people that big government is great you have a certain contradiction in terms there and so it's understandable that there's a large part of the country that doesn't buy that and so to me the question is you have to have a winning argument and you have to convince people and I think that and it's complicated it's hard you look at Obamacare the American Care Act health care is more complicated than I thought and if people agreed with everything about the program except when it came to calling it Obamacare and then they didn't like it so sometimes it's hard people like a policy they like the effect they don't like the policy because it's against their principles human beings are complicated and it's hard to convince people and you have to convince them if you believe in democracy right? and I know we're out of time three things I just want to say human beings are complicated democracy is complicated there's nuance so you tend to bring up like these binary choices like if America steps back then China becomes the dominant world power and the Wan becomes the currency of the world and I say there's nuance it's complicated that's one thing that I want to say that's not binary I'd agree with that I didn't say China would necessarily dominate the world I said they would sort of set the agenda in terms of global trade regimes but that's binary that's a mannequin you see parts of that happening it's mannequin it's how we ended up in Iraq if we don't invade Iraq then we will be victims of another 9-11 if you look at global trade negotiations the America is on one side in terms of what's called high quality trade agreements where you have issues like regulations and open access to markets and things like that and China is on the other end where all they want to do is focus on non-tariff barriers getting them as low as possible it is kind of binary when it comes to that I don't think the outcomes are binary because people don't trust China so in Asia people want more America if America wants to come home they're not going to get it that's all I'm saying this has been great I just want to say one more thing just so people listening and I think it's important for them to know what I believe you know I believe in the 80-20 rule you isolate the two things that well that's not really what the 80-20 rule is but I believe in two things I get up every day and I think about the 99% and how unfair it is that's what I believe and I believe in universal health insurance I believe that the issue of our time this is what I believe universal health insurance is the issue of our time that we are slaves to our jobs because they provide us health insurance and once you have universal health insurance you will crack open the animal spirits people will quit their jobs because they won't be beholden to their boss to stay alive and we will see new innovation the lack of health insurance in this country to me is the issue of our time so although I believe in nuance and I don't believe yeah that sounds kind of binary they have universal health coverage here in France and I don't see too many animal spirits on the loose that's a okay sorry to be kind of cynical I'll tell you this you know what David and this I would like I'd like to say to your listeners because I know probably most of your listeners don't agree with a lot of what I said or what I say living in France can make you reconsider a lot of the sort of progressive leftist shibboleths that I know I grew up on and things like that what's the GDP of France 5th or 6th that's pretty good for a socialist nation it's not a socialist nation anymore I think the state has maybe 10 or 15% holding in the electric in some of the utilities and that's about it at this point yeah but there's a safety net certainly there's a safety net and it's productive what's Germany's GDP Germany is higher than that I think France is in the 2 trillion a year and Germany must be in the 2 and a half and Germany has labor leaders who sit on the board of directors of every it's a different culture Germany became Germany 10 years ago was the sick man of Europe in permanent recession or permanent stagnation until they did a reform and it was the left that did the reform that kind of broke that sort of and when they were in a permanent recession the same way Japan is in a permanent recession I don't want to say permanent recession with Germany but at least stagnation but Japan is in a permanent recession for other reasons how are the people of Japan doing I was actually in Tokyo last year Japan is a dynamic country with a lot of innovation but one last point in terms of Germany one of the major problems for Germany is that a lot basically what Germany did was it negotiated wages down it used controlling wages to increase its competitiveness as an exporter that's how Germany became the primary exporter of Europe and it got wages down by getting rid of a lot of high quality jobs and turning them into temp work so you have a lot of people working to make ends meet the social welfare state has been under pressure for the last 30 years we know this probably the social welfare state went too far in one direction the pendulum swung too far in one direction now it's swung too far in the other direction and we see that in terms of the accumulation of wealth in the top echelons of societies you see that in the sort of precariousness that people are living through and so it's a question of getting that pendulum back to the middle now say what you will about the likely outcomes of his policies but if you take away the racism and the sort of immigrant bashing from his campaign he who shall not be named sort of campaigned on something along the same lines things have gone too far in the other direction and we've got to take care of American workers now so I think that argument has won we know now that the pendulum swung too far in terms of liberalized trade in terms of the concentration of wealth and so now the real fight is how do we get back to a better medium is it through America first America alone or is it through engagement with the world and redistributive policies at home so I think that's where the real argument is and I think for instance for me Bernie Sanders went a little too far to the extreme and a little too much economic nationalism for my taste because of my sense of the progressive movement always having a very strong internationalist component in terms of international justice and the US is a crucial element in terms of rule of law in the world and maintaining international justice even if we've abused our power and even if we have a history that in some ways is scandalous in the developing world I agree but at the same time so I think what I'm saying is everything you're saying those arguments have won on both sides of the political spectrum but now we have to actually dial it in and get to where we're actually having a more just approach to solving them. Okay I'm going to give you the last word this has been fantastic we've been talking with Judith Runstein he's the editor in chief of world politics review trend lines is his podcast it's our weekly podcast for the journal and we go over a topic of the week and then we have a special report which focuses on one of our in-depth articles from the week a little bit off the headlines and so it offers people a chance to learn about a part of the world or a topic or an issue that might not be getting a lot of attention elsewhere but is really compelling and interesting great segment let me just say something and then you get the last word because this wasn't a debate but we don't agree I think you and I and this is a great way to arrive at how I want to vote and listening to you talk and this is the last thing I'm going to say I hearken back to what Bobby Kennedy said about the gross national product it measures everything except what makes life worth living and you when you talk about Germany and Japan they are in a Japan has been in a permanent recession I think since the 90s it's zero growth and by saying that you adjust their economy you become a slave to your yardstick you become a slave to your measurement you say Japan is failing look at its economic growth well there are other ways to measure how a country I've got to look into what you're saying Japan has had deflation for a long time but I don't think they've been in constant recession well they've been hovering they've been hovering it's been saying it maybe so I mean it might as well be a recession Japan might as well be a recession and the point I'm making is let me just finish let me just finish my point and then I'm done I promise you this is the point I'm making we become slaves to our yardstick if everything is filtered through a number that a country or a corporation has to hit then everything falls by the wayside and that number it's meaningless and I think you have to look and it doesn't measure the important stuff like you said well but it also doesn't measure the economy right it really doesn't the way we measure an economy we choose it's a construct we choose what's important in an economy and whether or not it's worth measuring sure and even the way we measure GDP where someone dying of a very costly illness actually improves GDP because of all the money that's spent on their care so these are numbers that are a human construct that reflect values of a certain type but not necessarily the 99% so we're using a yardstick that the 1% lives by the 99% we don't live by that yardstick so let's not be slaves to GDP and false unemployment numbers the question is when Germany goes into a massive recession how are the people doing dental I'll give you an example and then I do have to go so I'll take the last word an example the example I'll give you which bears out your point is that for instance after the global financial crisis the United States contracted dramatically and then whereas France contracted less dramatically less exposure but also a more ample social welfare safety net but in the meantime the United States rebounds much more dynamically whereas France has stagnated and that's the difference I think that you have when you have more oxygen you have a little more of more volatility and more precariousness for sure but you also have a lot more dynamism and a lot more innovation so that would be in answer to what you said last word absolutely I'll have two last words I want to thank you because I really enjoy the conversation and hopefully I'm not exasperating your listeners too much the second thing that I would the real last word that I would say in terms of what this conversation makes me feel like is that possibly our biggest what we're suffering from the most lack of political courage and a lack of political offer and that we have a lot of people on the extremes that are pulling in different directions and we don't have someone who's able to say you know what that's a good part of that argument and that's a good part of that argument we didn't have a very rich field this year, last year and that was my big regret that there wasn't someone to say listen we do need to fix things this is how we're going to do it if it's just to to address the disadvantages we have to fix them in a way that we try and hold on to as many of the benefits and that we can do it so for me the big problem these days is that you have a bunch of populists and nationalists that are kind of sucking up all the oxygen and that we don't just have that kind of rich discourse and political option that the rest of us need yeah you have the last word but I'm going to wrap it up by giving you a compliment is that okay I don't want to okay good and I hope you come back we just conducted a masters class in discourse which is sorely lacking in America this was a primer on how two people who care can arrive at their own truth you're not trying to win you know what I'm trying to do I'm trying to figure out how to vote in the next election because that's all that matters and because of this conversation you've inspired me to read world politics review and listen to your podcast trend lines but getting off the line with you and finishing up this show you have inspired me to lie down on the couch get out my kindle and start reading and that's what this show is all about nobody won nobody screamed nobody fought there was a little exasperation I wanted to get some points but this was a you conducted and I facilitated a masters class in discourse and if Americans can learn to talk to their crazy uncles this way we'll make more informed decisions on election day juda grunstein thank you so much for doing this everybody should download your podcast trend lines and go to world politics review on the web thank you please come back thank you it's been a great pleasure great thank you that's our show thank you for listening I want to thank bobby slayton will durst and juda grunstein for coming on the show and elevating the conversation as well as the comedy this was an excellent show as always thank you for listening it means a lot to me it really does I answer all your emails please visit davidfeldenshow.com hit the contact button I answer all your emails if you enjoyed today's show and you would like to share the knowledge and share the laughter there's a very simple way to do that copy and paste the link and email it to all your friends or share it there are some share buttons on the device you're listening to so I can't really you know I'm not Barack Obama I'm not you know tapping your microwave so I don't really know how you listen to the show there's a way to share it and that's all I ask is that you share the knowledge from the show briz studios in downtown Manhattan that'll do it for us if you're listening to the David Feldman radio program use sad pathetic hump