Overtime – Episode #736: Erin Brockovich, Scott Galloway, Peter Hamby

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late-night series Real Time with Bill Maw. All right, she's a consumer advocate and environmental activist, Aaron Brockovich, the one and only. He is the chief national correspondent of Puck Peter Hamby, you are just great on the show. And our returning champion, a professor at NYU Stern School of Business and Podcasts, Oh, Scott Galaway on the air. Okay. All right, first one is for you, Aaron, from the people they want to know things. What's the most important thing the average American can do to reduce the exposure to forever chemicals and microplastics? Great question. I think about this myself quite a bit. Well, you can do to reduce it. Yes, you're risk. Well, first of all, if it's in your water, I always encourage people to know your own municipality and what's in your water, what's not in your water. PFAS is everywhere. It's, you know, the biggest immersion contaminant in the U.S. So if you've got any of it. Well, look over here. Oh, these people, okay. Can we talk here? No, no, no. I mean, if you can talk to them and we can do it like this. Can we talk to you? I mean. Anybody want it? No, no, no. These people love you over here. Okay, all right. Now, honestly, the best way to get any PFAS, even at low levels, out of your PFAS, PFAS, PFAS, PFUK, whatever. And what does that stand for? That's for, that's for, it will be called. Her floor octanolic acid. And it's what, it really called forever chemicals. Forever chemicals. They never. It's a family of about 13,000 different chemicals. Like, can I look over here? You guys have. No, no. I understand. I understand. You don't know where you're with this. I understand one of their effects is it makes you turn your head to the left. That's just kind of what I do. I'm just kidding. But, but how do I, please do, I want to know. So, it is. Just a matter. If it's in your water, the best way for your municipal system is you should have a reverse osmosis system on your house. But first of all, you have to know if you've got PFAS in your water per floor octanolic acids. So, I encourage people know your water quality report. You should be getting one every three months. Make a phone call. Where's my quality report? So, you actually know what's in your water. So, I've never seen such a report. I should be getting that from the state of California. You should be getting it from your local municipality a quarterly report of what's in your water. Okay. I mean, if California isn't doing it, trust me, nobody's doing it. This is the place that does sit like that. I was supposed to be doing that. What's it? You're supposed to be doing it. Okay. Well, that's what we need here. That's one of the first things you can do. But I'm not going to look to the left again. Scott, you've argued that GOP1s could have a bigger impact on America than AI or space technology. Why? If you look at our deficit, if you look at lower life expectancy, at reverse engineers to obesity. 70% of America's obese are overweight. COVID was all about obesity. 92% of mortalities in COVID had an obesity-related comorbidity. And I never heard Fauci get up there and tell the people that. That was one of my big gripes with how they handled it. They did not level with the American people. Instead of telling them, you know what? Stay home, keep drinking, eat more, order food. Don't get fresh air. They were trying to look like they were trying to -- I know they weren't. But like, that would have been a good thing to tell people. The boring stuff moves the needle. One of the biggest thing that ails us is inflation the dollars down 28% since 2000 because we spend seven trillion dollars on five trillion of receipts. We have fiscal insanity in this country. In any reasonable, honest adult conversation around reducing our deficit all roads lead to the same place. And that is healthcare. If you were really serious about reducing healthcare, you would take -- you would put out an RFP for a billion doses of GLP1 and distribute them for free to every low-income household in America. If you really are serious about taking our healthcare costs from $13,000 per capita to $6,500 where they are in the rest of the G7, it's one way it's GLP1. And in terms of it being a more transformative technology, talk to someone who uses AI every day and is also on a GLP1 and ask them what's had a bigger impact on their lives. When will state Medicaid -- (applause) What would Medicaid and Medicare cover -- would they already cover these drugs? Because they cost $300, $400 a pop from the pharma companies. So, you know, if you're a medical or a state Medicaid service, like you would think that they would be giving these out at cheaper rates to people. Because it does bring down hypertension. Do you need Trump? I seem to remember him having a big press conference. You can buy direct from the manufacturer on TrumpRx.gov. But he claims he negotiated lower rates. But it's still not as low as insurance covering a stat. But he's specifically singled out this of all the medications. Called a stat shot. The market is actually working here. The price for an average monthly GLP1 has been cut in half. And if you -- this is the first technology or healthcare thing in history where every time we wait for the next shooter drop and think it's going to be bad, we thought chemotherapy was going to save everyone. And then we thought too much chemotherapy you get leukemia. We tend to have -- we're finding out social media does not just connect us. It does some other things. Every time we find out something new about GLP1, it's a positive. They're now saying that it reduces the likelihood of stage one cancer going to metastatic cancer is actually been reduced by 50%. Every time we keep waiting for another shooter drop, we find out, "Oh, it's actually a good thing. Everyone at this table is going to be on a GLP1 within 20 months." But if you live in Greenville or Mississippi, you know? Everyone at this table. They also found out some other -- Everyone should be. Well, it's not been around long enough. I don't think -- what are the -- It's FDA approved. I trust our agencies. Oh, when did they ever lie? When did they ever get one wrong? It's true. So it's -- [ Applause ] I said much about that one. I think when you look at the studies around the upside versus the downside here, it's the most transformative technology in all of them. It's very transformative. It also saps they have found. People's drive. I mean, you're drive to eat, but also like you're drive to work. You know, you're kind of like -- companies don't like it, because that kind of like -- I have the tiger. Right. That goes away in a lot of people when they take this. Well, the fear is it doesn't want to make you eat less. It just makes you want less. That's the fear, right? I don't want to want less. [ Laughter ] I can control my eating without a drug. I mean, you know, where's the psychology at? 30% of America, Bill. What? I don't -- I think you're blessed with genetics that make it easier for you. And you have the money to eat well. I think there are food deserts. Okay, but what -- I've shown this picture before of people like in 1969. I think you take any crowd shot like them looking at the rock going up to the moon landing. Look at the crowd. There's no fat people in the crowd. And trust me, cake was delicious in 19 -- [ Laughter ] In 1969. It was. Somehow, they controlled it. [ Applause ] For Pete, how much credit do you think Governor Josh Shapiro deserves for helping recruit LeBron James to the '76ers? I reported this. Well, he's a Jew, so none. [ Laughter ] I live in America. I know. I can read the writing. This was a scoop. I had it puck. A couple weeks ago, during the fanatics fest in New York, just like a big sports card trading festival LeBron was there. He went to a club called ZZ's. Have you been a ZZ's? You've been a ZZ's? Yeah. It's like a private club in New York. I haven't been there. Josh Shapiro. I still have Fouchy there. [ Laughter ] Josh Shapiro was there having dinner with the Clintons, Bill and Hillary Clinton. They see LeBron James a classroom. Bill says come over here. Josh Shapiro stands up and starts jaw-boning him about -- this is when he's a free agent coming to Philly. Politico reported later that he really put the work in with Rich Paul, his agent, whatever. So, look, Josh Shapiro might run for president. But if you look at the tweets after he got LeBron coming to -- he's up for re-election this year for Governor. This is complete bullshit. People in Philly are loving it. They're loving it, but that's not why LeBron James did it. LeBron James did it because he wants to play with Joe L.M. Be it Maxi and they got Jalen Brown. That's why. I'm not -- I'm just telling you what happened. I'm not telling you that Josh Shapiro made that happen. I'm saying that's what he put -- he was lobbying. He wasn't the real reason. It's an easy ring. He's got two years left. He plugs in nicely. Okay. So, we really -- Are you mad about him, LeBron? No, no, no. I'm a -- I'm a Nick fan. Oh, okay. I hope he gets. And have been my whole life. Why are you salty about the sixers now? I'm just saying, I know why LeBron James did it. Everybody knows why he did it. That's why he wants to play with the best players and the biggest chance of the ring. It wasn't because the governor. Oh, right. A politician wants me to do it. What do you make of the online trend -- this is for everybody -- of Nixon Maxing. Nixon Maxing. What's that? I'm gonna ask, I'm looking. Where young conservatives are rebranding Richard Nixon as a political icon, well, all I could say is, if you're way too long enough, everything comes back and start. Including apparently fucking Richard Nixon. I mean, God, give me a break. - Can I dress it like him? What are they doing? - It doesn't say Nixon, Maxing. (audience laughing) It's just, you know what it is? It's that edge, Lord, shit. It's just like, we always have to find something that will make the adults heads explode. And, you know, anybody who was around for Richard Nixon is gonna be like, "Richard Nixon, you kids!" - I mean, do you still conservatives will be upset when they find out Nixon found a beauty? - Yeah, good to be back, people, thank you. - Hatch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10, or watch him anytime on HBO on-demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com. - Larry David is back in their new HBO original limited series. - What a pleasure to be a part of such a historic occasion. - Life, Larry, and the pursuit of unhappiness, and almost history of America. - This is a declaration of common sense. - Those who don't know history. - You are the world's worth budget channel. - Our doom to watch Larry David repeat it. - What the hell is going on here? - Watch Life, Larry, and the pursuit of unhappiness. Now streaming on HBO Max. Subscription required, visit hbomax.com for details.