Geopolitics of the cold war through the lens of two double agents who were pulling the strings behind the scenes threatening, did he stabilize diplomatic efforts? >> all right i always i think the early version, at least from the agency who really had a pretty good understanding of how the kgb worked there are no other the powers our everyday was so for little black he'd write these studies. >> everybody would read them and say, oh, that's really great work, rick and then that would. be the end of it. you know, they didn't really send it anywhere and all new episode of secrets and spies, a nucleus and now, the hbo original series, "real time with bill maher". ♪ ♪ ♪ how are you doing? how are you doing? thank you very much. i appreciate it. thank you, people. thank you very much. i appreciate it. all right. good to see you. thank you. please, there's so much to get to. oh, wow. i feel great about that. yes, the big news this week is hunter biden's trial. let's get right to that. it led to absolutely fucking nothing, but let's get right to it. i know the republicans -- they are like, if you take down trump, we are going to take down hunter biden and the democrats are like, knock yourself out, we barely care about joe biden. >> [ audience reacts ] >> but, this trial is only about one thing in america which is very important, you cannot mix drugs and guns! seriously, we don't take a lot seriously in this country, but this is one we are very serious about, and hunter biden was buying a gun on crack -- i mean, at the moment, he was literally on crack and buying a gun, he almost had the gun in his hand. so, the prosecutor gets up and says, no one is above the law in this country, it doesn't matter who you are or what your name is and all the republicans stood up and fist pumped and went, yeah. and then they went -- oh, wait. yeah, that's -- [ audience reacts ] that's not what they were saying last week, was it? interesting. in april, they took a survey, 17% of republicans said it was okay -- only 17% -- okay for a felon to be president. now, they took the survey again, 58% said it is okay for a felon to be president. gosh, what happened? usually, to change this drastically in the space of two months, hormones are involved. i -- [ laughter ] but, if hunter biden does get convicted, this will be a historic first. it will be the first time republicans ever objected to somebody buying a gun. >> [ audience reacts ] >> and there was testimony from hallie biden, because she was married to hunter biden's brother, who sadly died, beau biden. and then, hunter went out with her. so, she is the ex-girlfriend and the widow. i know. she is -- she testified that when he was with hunter, she got her into crack, and she is ashamed and embarrassed about that part of her life. really? >> [ audience reacts ] >> you bang your dead husband's brother and the part you are embarrassed about is the crack? okay. but -- >> [ audience reacts ] >> she said she found hunters going at one point, she knew she couldn't have it, so she took it away and threw it away in the supermarket dumpster, perfectly. [ laughter ] so, when hunter throughout -- found out she threw away his gun, he called her insane, called her stupid, said, are you on crack? if you are, can i have some? we all saw this stuff from hunter biden's laptop, right? they did a reality show about hunter biden, it would be called "naked and afraid of running out of crack." and it's just -- >> [ audience reacts ] >> and it is just bad optics for the president. the jury is looking at sex tapes of hunter biden and the rest of us are worried about if his father can walk all right. kidding. well, actually, joe was doing the d-day thing. you saw that yesterday? he did very well. i thought he did very well. he was over there commemorating the 80th anniversary of d-day. in america, you know what they did? non-congressman -- oh, gosh -- nine congressman dressed up as military people. world war ii, you know, vintage stuff, and jumped out of a world war ii vintage plane to commemorate d- day. sadly, they were wearing parachutes. >> [ audience reacts ] >> [ laughter ] and george santos -- you know, when i do dress up, you bitches make a whole thing out of it. well, yes, it is pride month again, and the spirit of pride -- >> [ audience reacts ] so, listen to this. this is a pride month story, five dry greens in philadelphia did a children's books reading as they do, made a guinness book of world records for the fastest way to get trump re- elected. >> [ audience reacts ] >> not that there aren't still bigots in this country, but did you see this? this is the head of the colorado republican party sent out an email saying, calling gay people godless horrors, which in california is not even an insult. i get my hair cut at a place called godless groomers. we have a great show. we have matt welch, abigail shrier, but first up, the democratic senator from the great state of pennsylvania, john fetterman! welcome back, it's been too long! >> good to see you. >> welcome back to the show. it's been 13 years. >> it's an honor to be here. i am a fan boy, so -- >> right back at you. i have been badgering my staff for a long time now to get you on this show, and i will tell you why i have been badgering them, and eyeglass -- i guess they badgered you. when i have seen you the last couple of years, you speak so freely. you speak like politicians who i get on this show who aren't in politics anymore, the ones who are out of office, and they can be honest, that is the way you speak now, and it is a beautiful thing. >> [ audience reacts ] >> well, honestly -- and this is true -- you speak for a lot of democrats that are afraid to say a lot of that stuff. it is a lot of release for a lot of democrats who are like, thank god, somebody is actually platforming like that. >> no, i think we are very much on the same page. but, it is very rare -- i don't have to worry about being re- elected, except by the audience. >> [ audience reacts ] >> it is, i think, even more brave for you to do it. the question i want an answer to is, is this connected to some of your health issues? when you have gone through what you have, both physical and mental health issues, does it give you a freedom? like, what can you -- >> yeah, absolutely. there is a line from the first "batman," joker is like, i have been dead once already, it is liberating. that is not reckless, that is really just freeing. it is just freeing, in a way. and i think after being all of that, i would just be able to say the things that i really believe in, and not be afraid if there is any kind of blowback. >> and what about mental health in america, at-large? what is the prescription for this? because we are going to talk about it on the show to a degree tonight. it is certainly a big issue in this country. we have, what, 50,000 suicides in the last year? >> absolutely. >> this is an outstanding number, i think. what are your thoughts on this? >> well, actually, after i signed myself in to walter reed to get help, with depression, it is not really a big clinical winter, to talk about depression. and when i started to have that conversation, i realized that if i started to be honest, i have to talk about self-harm, you know, harming myself, because you pointed at the 50,000 americans who took their lives, and i started talking about that and said, hey, i have been in that place. i now tell people, i promise you, i am begging you, please, don't harm yourself. stay in the game. now, i am being contacted by people on the regular saying, hey, thanks to hearing this, i got help, or it even saved my life. i never thought that would resonate and that is why i decided to have that conversation, because i was lucky i got help and got better, and now i want to be the kind of guy that can say something, that could have helped someone like me, who was in that situation. >> [ applause ] >> so, let's talk a little politics here, because that is your game. pennsylvania is going to be -- probably, could be, come down to three states, pennsylvania will definitely be one of them. >> i have always said, pennsylvania picks the president and there really is no legitimate path for the president if he doesn't win, and i believe he will win, actually, because trump was able to flip pennsylvania and that helped deliver his first victory. but, joe biden carried it in 2020 because he has a really strong connection thereto pennsylvania and i believe he will again, but it will be close, and that is the same conversation i have been having with pennsylvania, that it is going to be very close, because trump has a strong connection in pennsylvania and it will be very competitive and all of that. i have also been saying, i don't think that whole trial is going to be anything meaningful with people who have already decided, that is my guy. i will never understand why somebody would say, i love that, or i want four more years of that. but, i do believe joe biden is going to carry pennsylvania and he is going to win. >> [ audience reacts ] >> but, as he was -- as he has not, yet, officially been nominated by the democratic party, is he really the best one to put forward? >> joe biden? >> yeah. >> yeah. he is actually the only american that has ever beat trump in an election, and i do honestly believe that he is actually the only democrat that could win. and let me just say this -- let me just say this, i know it might be provocative -- but the last time there was a hotshit governor with $2 million, thought he was going to beat trump, then trump through him in the wood chipper and he finished third in his own state, in florida. and again, trump is pretty tough, and that is what the republicans want and i can't imagine why -- how he is feeling right now, but trump has a very -- and i do believe joe biden has that ability to win, and we have a great bench. it is a distinct kind of situation right now. >> i'm surprised at that, but i will move on. i'm sorry, i'm not on the same page there, but okay. it is probably going to be joe biden and i will vote for him. but, you mentioned desantis. this is very curious to me, desantis wants to ban fake meat in florida, and you agreed with him. i don't get this? >> really, it is not so much about making it illegal, but it is also just talking about -- i really wanted to stand with american farmers and ranchers, and those kinds of things, and i don't believe it is helpful, and that is the direction i want to move in that. but, if somebody wants to consume that, that is okay. but, i think there are going to be states that are going to decide, i don't want to ban this, or i really want to invent and create that time, so the product stays the same. >> i wouldn't eat it either, quite frankly, but i wouldn't ban it. that is what desantis wants to do, so you can't get it. i thought that was the freedom part of this freedom country. if people want to have fake meat or fake anything, fake tits, fake anything. it is los angeles. >> [ audience reacts ] >> i don't -- yeah, i don't know about that, either, but i don't know if that is going to solve anything other than -- i don't get why that would appeal to anybody. >> you have been very up front about legalizing weed, marijuana. >> yeah, of course. i've heard that from you, too. >> [ audience reacts ] >> i heard that, john, that is just a character i play on television. never in my life -- look, i heard you once say, or maybe read it, a tweet, you said once, "i am not a progressive, i am a democrat." what does that mean? because i don't think i have used the word "progressive," i think i have said "woke." i know that word triggers a lot of people because it has a great beginning as a meaning, but words migrate and it went to something else. i think there is a difference between an old-school liberal and woke person, you say old- school democrat, how do you describe this? >> look, i agree and i have been saying that for years, actually. i didn't leave the label, it left me on that front. and after that happened on october 7th, i really knew that the whole progressive stack would be blasted apart and they are not going to have anyway for the democrats to reply to that, or respond to that, and i really decided early on that i was going to side with israel throughout all of that, and i knew that democrats would continue to peel away and kind of walk away from standing with israel on that, but that is where i decided -- >> how do you explain that, if you can, that the people who considered themselves the most liberal have abandoned israel -- which was always a liberal drawing -- for the terrorist organization, for the people who outwardly say that they want a genocide, who outwardly are the one side of this who is against the two state solution. so, now that they wound up with then, why do you think that is, and will this split the democratic party? >> well, it does, because there is an appeal there. and you talked about it, last week, you really hit it with the gender apartheid. talking about some of these issues, some of the most progressive and left parts of the democratic party are standing for the kind of side that has organizations like hamas, or these kinds of nations where there are no rights for women and they certainly don't embrace the lgbtq lifestyle, and even in philadelphia, the queers for palestine blocked the pride parade in philadelphia, and i never saw that on the bingo card. but -- >> [ audience reacts ] >> all right, well, it may seem lonely out there sometimes when you are brave like you are, but you have a lot of fans. you have a lot of fans here and a lot of fans all over the country. when i told people you were coming on, a lot of them were really excited that you are here, but they all have one question they wanted me to ask you, which is, what is the deal with the wardrobe? >> [ audience reacts ] >> people are very curious. it doesn't involve me, i'm just saying, people are saying, p please ask him. >> last year, i know this, you had a great joke, you really nailed it, you put up a picture of me, you said, she dresses like a guy where the airline lost his luggage. and it's true! it's funny, because it's true. and i know i dress like a slob and i am not making a statement or anything, but, i am into comfort, it is just comfort, and it is kind of like -- i don't have to iron, and -- >> [ audience reacts ] >> but, it is kind of hard to find suits and all of those things. but, i never understood why anybody thought that was interesting. and i want to be clear, i wasn't behind the changing of the dress code or anything, i really wasn't. but, more people seemed more concerned about me wearing a hoodie on the floor, as opposed to, we have senators taking bribes from foreign entities, and -- >> [ audience reacts ] >> but, i'm learning. i'm learning. i'm still a freshman. >> you seem like you are in a really good place. >> oh, well, i'm sitting across from a great person. but -- you know, having a near- death experience and going through that kind of a blowtorch of $100 million and attack acts and all of those kinds of things to emerge on a side where i am grateful to be sure, both with you and back with my kids, my family, everything, and i just decided, i really want to be the kind of voice that is consistent, and has a moral clarity on issues that may not be controversial for democrats, but i am not sure why any of that is democrat -- controversial for democrats, whether it is about israel, or the border, or -- >> because people just want to bitch these days, john. everything is controversial to everybody, but you keep doing what you are doing. i appreciate it. >> [ audience reacts ] >> all right. see you again, john fetterman. hi! all right, here is the editor at large at "reason" magazine, met -- matt welch is back with us. a journalist and author of the new york times best-selling book, "bad therapy", abigail shrier. great to see you. okay, so, this is the week where we celebrated the greatest generation saving democracy so we can learn about hunter biden smoking crack. i feel like that has been this week in a nutshell. i feel like this is one of those stories where both sides have a lot of wrong in their handling. i remember when the laptop came out, the left-wing media would not even admit it was a thing, it just had to be a hoax, or it had to be russian disinformation, it just didn't exist. they went right about it, that was wrong. and the right is wrong to pretend it means something, except possibly about joe biden's parenting. the question i want to ask -- because i know your book is about it, you have written about parenting -- okay, why do all of the political families have this fuck-up family dynamic? is it just because they are famous, and if we went into every family that had a billy carter, a roger clinton -- george bush himself was the ne'er-do-well. >> since the beginning of time, we have learned that children basically need three things, and these are essential. they need parental authority, they need to hear "no," they need independence, and loving community. kids with high profile families often get none of those. no one is willing to tell them "no," they don't get independence because they don't want anyone to make them look bad, and they don't have loving community -- they are raised in a political battlefield. unfortunately, too many american kids today also don't have those. >> the way you describe it, it sounds like everyone is from a prominent family, because i read in your book when kids go off to college and they have never heard the word "no," or the word "wait," then -- >> that's right. kids today are under a microscope, they are under a microscope, literally, because of the projection of social media and whatnot, but also because their parents are so afraid of traumatizing them, they have been told by mental health experts that saying "no," can be punishing and traumatizing, so they don't assert their authority. we basically have a generation raised with these kids that are miserable. >> and a link with your d-day tie in, which is that we understood that generation and others, but especially that one, to have a sense of stoicism. like, you are going to go through some bad stuff, you are going to fail, there is going to be unfair things that happen to you. the question is, what are you going to do with that? a 15-year-old and a 9-year-old, they are not teaching a lot of stoicism in the public school system, last time i checked. at some point, she starts to use it as an excuse to get out of chores. like, "that is not my journey." >> [ audience reacts ] >> [ laughter ] >> it doesn't make sense to fold the laundry, so they are making fun out of it, but there is something to that. but also, when you think about the greatest generation, they probably could have used a little bit more therapy than they got, right? >> yes, there is a happy medium. you mentioned d-day, but i couldn't help but think of it because the new york times said ptsd among adolescents is surging. ptsd. the fact that we have so -- >> [ audience reacts ] >> my father was in that campaign, he wasn't in omaha beach, but he was on that campaign. anyone who would allow kids to think they have ptsd? >> that's right, they don't have ptsd. kids raised gently in suburbs don't have ptsd. but, combat those -- our combat vets sometimes do have ptsd and they need treatment when they have it. >> always. >> it is real. but, that is not what kids that universities have. what they have, what i call in my book, "bad therapy", they have emotional hypochondria. they have focused so much on their own bad feelings that they magnify these feelings, they make them an organizing principle of their lives, then they have trouble escaping them. >> so, here is my thing, we had a reckoning of my sex in 2017, a racial reckoning in 2020. i feel like there is a parenting reckoning coming. a lot of rollback, pushback on gentle parenting. i think people are realizing that this kind of stuff has raised a lot of fucked-up kids who have -- >> [ audience reacts ] >> another statistic, but 49.5% -- so, let's just say half -- of adolescence, at some point have a mental health disorder. so, half of the kids in the country are diagnosable? either they really are that fucked-up, or we are over diagnosing. >> it is the latter. we are way over diagnosing them. this generation has had more mental health intervention in schools, more mental health treatment, 40% of them have been in therapy, they have had therapeutic parenting, and it is making them worse. these kids don't need therapy, they need less therapy, they need to be told, i love you, you will live, now get out of my house and have an adventure. >> [ audience reacts ] >> and it is worth pointing out that this generation, let's say 15 to 22, they got banged up during covid pretty bad and the more you were in places with schools and society bogged down, the more banged up you got, and also that is tied up with social media, and what you are doing on your phone all the time, like john hyde talks about. so, i think there is a legitimate mental health thing going on with teenagers, and especially teenage girls in this country. the question is, are we teaching them to get out of it, and also to have fun, and take some kind of initiative in their lives? or, are we encouraging them to think of themselves as victims? and i hope it is not the latter because you are not going to get much past your 18th birthday walking around and saying that it is somebody else's fault. >> [ audience reacts ] >> so, this is so obvious and we all agree, who is still defending this? >> i think the trauma industry is. >> the trauma industry? right. you are right. >> that is basically what we have now, we have convinced this generation any stress is trauma, now you have a disability and you have to live with that forever, and these kids are behaving like mental patients. >> right. [ laughter ] right. i mean -- and they are medicated, then. that, to me, is when it really goes off the rails, because a lot of them are on whatever psychiatric drugs they put them on. you know, when i think about the two big ones that i see always talked about that are now pathologist, shyness -- which is social anxiety disorder, as we pathologist isaac. and depression -- i mean, that is just being bummed out. my whole adolescence, my whole childhood, past college, was about those two things. i just had tons of both of those things and drugging me would not have helped. i discovered part when i was 19, that drug helped. organically. but, yeah, okay. so, i read about sel, and for those that don't know what this is, this is social emotional learning. this takes front and center -- this explains a lot to me, one, why they are so stupid. because this is the priority above learning, is that right? >> that is right. >> and what is -- obviously, it sounds like it is? >> reportedly, it is supposed to teach kids like things like emotional regulation, which we want them to have. but, how do you teach kids to handle bad emotions? because we are not worried about them having too much joy, we are worried about them having too much sadness, regret, bad feelings, so it always goes negative, it becomes a kind of group therapy, and it forces kids to ruminate, to pathologically focus on their bad feelings, on their pain, and those are the number one symptoms of depression. >> and it is interesting, 70% of very liberal students, they say -- this is from the american enterprise institute, so they are a little right- leaning -- reports feeling anxious 52% of conservatives. but, it does seem like the liberals are more in their own head, and are suffering from this. is that right, and why? >> i have seen that statistic and looked, the reason why i think so, that might be, is because those are the parents, in general, who are getting their kids more therapy, they are highly educated, and they are more anxious because they are highly educated, they are more anxious themselves, they are pushing their anxiety onto their kids. we know you can communicate anxiety. parents need to be tougher for their kids. they need to set an example here and they need to stop obsessing over kids' happiness and start worrying about making kids strong. >> [ applause ] >> all right. so, parenting is also involved in the other book you'll wrote, that book you wrote that was banned, "irreversible damage," which is about gender reassignment, as we have called it. now, we have the cast review from england which says, you must feel somewhat vindicated by this because america is now an outlier country with this. the scandinavian countries that were doing it, england that was doing it, they all pulled back. the cast report says the evidence of using puberty blocking drugs and other hormonal medications is remarkably weak. why is america so behind? usually, when we look at those countries, we say, this is what the liberals are doing, so we are just going to -- no, we are alone on this. >> yes, we are. two reasons, england had national, centralized healthcare, so they got into this faster, and they were also able to shut it down faster, and because our healthcare is obviously decentralized, it is harder to shut bad medicine down in this country, but there is something else but i have to say. they had something really special in england, they had a j.k. rowling, and she helped gender critical feminists pry away from the progressive left on this issue and stand up to the bodily integrity of girls, and stand up for the integrity of medicine. >> [ applause ] >> i think as part of that peer pressure element, it is worth pointing out to the extent that your audios -- audience might not, that abigail's book was targeted by people who work for the aclu saying, it will be the highest thing to do, to block the distribution of this book. it speaks to a kind of aggressive, illiberal conservative that takes place. not just on this issue, but many other issues, dealing with covid. i think it is kind of a new thing. the last 10 years, especially, there has been a semi-deranged moment, were people who were involved with journalism, or academia, or whatever, have said we have created a new taboo, you are on the wrong side of the taboo, we must attack this person, other people who have been working in this. yes, it hurts their careers, but we don't necessarily have to cry to them -- she is on bill maher, so she is doing okay. but, it hurts them. that is what people don't get. when you block off the information that is coming in, particularly on a contested subject, particularly that is affecting kids in life and death situations, and you are blocking off the information by enforcing a taboo, you are hurting yourself. >> it is one thing to critique, it is another thing to say, nobody should even be able to look at this, to even read it, as if you are some sort of crazy person. >> i will just say one thing, in the three or four years it took between the time i wrote my last book and talked about the same risks that are in the cast report, two until the mainstream media worked up the backbone to actually do some reporting, tens of thousands of american children were harmed. >> and what you are saying -- i certainly wouldn't be the one saying -- that there aren't trans folks who, we do need some transitioning, sometimes. what you were just saying is, there are no guardrails on desperate >> and these are children. this is not the bodies of adults, they can do whatever they want with their bodies. >> using children as cannon fodder in their culture wars, is what it looked like to me. i don't want you to move. i'm gonna miss you so much. you realize we'll have internet waiting for us at the new place, right? oh, we know. we just like making a scene. transferring your services has never been easier. get connected on the day of your move with the xfinity app. can i sleep over at your new place? can katie sleep over tonight? sure, honey! this generation is so dramatic! move with xfinity. i see this week's google has been caught doing something -- why did the tech companies do this? they have been caught collecting and sometimes leaking personal data of users, so you might want to erase that browser history. but, we thought it would be a good time because of this to do one of our favorite bits on the show, called "revealing google searches." >> [ audience reacts ] >> we believe here at "real- time," that when you look at somebody's google search, it does look a lot about them. for instance, melania trummp google, two felony convictions violate a prenup? rfk jr., where does brain work -- brain worm go? nick cannon, how many kids does nick cannon have? elon musk, "baby names that sound like license plates." oh, justice samuel alito googled "fit flags that mean not fascist, just pussy- whipped. " richard dreyfus googled "safe amount of opiates to take before a public appearance." wow. ben affleck googled "divorce lawyers that accept batman memorabilia." kanye west googled, "what to say when woman asks if anyone else at the party will be naked." rupert murdoch, "name of woman who recently married rupert murdoch." and lauren boebert, "could you get an std on your hand?" terrible. terrible, terrible. [ applause ] >> all right, airlines configure these first-class seats that feature a for curve the 22 inch screen for a cinematic experience but only if they are paired with those double-decker seats in economy. [ laughter ] on a new carrier called inequality airlines -- yes, inequality airlines -- there is something special in the air, it is just not you. >> [ applause ]. >> don't bring your kid to the office if your office is the united states congress. tennessee representative john rose did just that while making a furious speech denouncing trump prosecution, and look what happened? someone acted -- >> [ audience reacts ] >> yeah, someone acted like a goofy, childish more on, and this poor kid had to sit through it. [ laughter ] new rule, let's stop rewarding every family that has too many kids with a reality show on tlc. >> [ applause ] >> the latest one is the baldwin's. seven kids born in a 10 year span. wow. guess there were no blanks fired in that house. >> [ audience reacts ] >> well, they shouldn't prosecute him. that is the serious point. they should not. , now that a remote amazon tribe has connected to elon musk's starlet -- -- -- styling internet and become addicted to , i say, congratulations. oh, sure, the liberal inclination is to promote the encroachment of modernity on such an innocent, unsettling people, but that is not what the amazon tribes themselves are saying. they are saying, thanks, elon, it sure beats jerking off to this tree. [ laughter ] new rule, now that researchers say marijuana use has surpassed alcohol as america's drug of choice, they have to answer this -- >> [ audience reacts ] >> you're welcome. they have to answer this question. if alcohol use is declining, why is it still not safe to eat at a waffle house? i mean -- not to always be the marijuana advocate, but do you know what the stoners are doing while the fight is going on? eating their waffles! >> [ audience reacts ] >> and finally, new rule, someone has to look into the puzzling paradox of why it is that rape jokes are completely unacceptable, unthinkable, and totally out of bounds, but raped-in-prison jokes, fucking hilarious! never a bad time to do the one about how you drop the soap in the prison shower, better not bend over for it. and look, with all the talk now about trump possibly going to jail, we have all been doing it, i mean, it is not just trump. given the opportunity, it is natural to want to imagine him getting fucked in the ass. >> [ audience reacts ] >> i'm just saying, maybe we shouldn't. if not for him, then for the nearly 2 million people behind bars at any given time during this country. that is more people than 12 states. they should have their own two senators, and one can be bob menendez. america has a higher incarceration rate than russia, or china, or almost any of the other evildoer countries who we are always shitting our pants over, and for someone, everyone -- everything at walgreens is still locked behind plexiglass. but, for some reason, americans simply accept that not only do we lock up way more people, but that if you are a criminal of any time, yes, sodomy is the appropriate comeuppance. they say, if you want to survive prison, the first thing you do when you get there, what you have to do, is go up to the biggest, baddest guy, and punch him in the face, which i find also works if you are a passenger on delta. >> [ audience reacts ] >> as a prisoner here in america, you will either be alone, in solitary -- which drives you out of your mind -- or, completely on top of everybody else heard inmates in america are routinely forced to sleep on the floor and to fight for access to toilets and showers. of the world's 25 most dangerous prisons, four are here in the u.s., the san quentin, the super max in colorado, and the state pen in new mexico. where, for $45, oh, yes, you can tour the cellblock, where 33 inmates were killed in one of the worst prison riots in history. so, bring the kids, and don't forget to get that salt for the gas chamber. >> [ audience reacts ] >> here in california, the prison in dublin made headlines because it is where they sent lori loughlin after her college cheating scandal, but have since closed. why? because the rape club that the guards had going was so impervious and ingrained it was just easier to shutter the whole place. and prison in america is a place that forces the people in it -- forces them -- to become racists. if you are black, you are with the brothers, if you are white, you have to join the aryans in it. there is no "leave me out of it, i like everybody." let's just all get "coexist" tattoos on our knuckles. yeah. i mean -- >> [ audience reacts ] >> what kind of society is cool with all of this? we call them "correctional facilities," but that is like calling the nfl a brain development program. and look, i am not saying that it is not okay to lock people up. it is. of course it is. diddy does it all the time. >> [ audience reacts ] but, it is not okay to deliberately violate the eighth amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. fake tough guys think, hey, if prison is bad enough, it will incentivize people to stay out of trouble after they get out, but they are long. it actually does the opposite. within a year of released, around 40% of prisoners are rearrested. within 10 years, it is 82%. and i don't think they want back in because they miss the toilet one. if we are trying to make inmates into criminals for life, it is working, because prisoners like linkedin for lowlifes, you can't beat the networking. it is a taxpayer-funded criminal mentorship program. but, here is the thing. around 95% of all inmates eventually to get out, so the question becomes, who do we want returning to society? some hapless broke dude goes in for selling drugs or passing a bad check and if you years later, he comes out a sexual predator with white power written on his neck. and we sort of just accept that light, that is how prison words. you go in bad, you come out worse. if you are lucky, when you get out, we will let you work the carnival, or the toll booth, or date britney spears. >> [ audience reacts ] >> jesus. it almost makes stealing catalytic converters not worth it. but, it doesn't have to be this way. we could change. there are even places in the world that offer a model as to what that would look like. norway's recidivism rate is 20%. prisoners there do yoga, they learn a trade, there is a playground for their kids when they visit, and the guards aren't maniacs who failed the police psych exam. and it is a place that looks less like our prisons and more like what you would find on an american college campus only, of course, with less anti- semitism. >> [ audience reacts ] >> of course, the big difference is that unlike here, scandinavian countries don't have private, for-profit prisons. that is what we have here. and corporations, it turns out, don't run prisons to improve society, they run them to make money, which means putting more people in the system, and the more prisoners, the more profit. this is why they lobby congress with three strikes rules and keeping weed illegal. they don't want them rehabilitated. they want to return customers. all right. that is our show. if you enjoyed this editorial -- we have more just like it for you, right up there! if that is not a father's day press, i don't know what is! june 21st and 22nd, with the music hall in boston june 26th. thank you, matt welch! now, we are going to watch "overtime" on youtube. thank you. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪