Overtime: Jesse Eisenberg, Stephen A. Smith, Rep. Ro Khanna (HBO)

-(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) -All right! He wrote, directed, and co-starred in the Oscar-nominated movie A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg. -It's fantastic.

Go see it. -(AUDIENCE CHEERING) He hosts ESPN's First Take and The Stephen A. Smith Show on YouTube, Stephen A.

Smith. (CHEERING CONTINUES) And he's a Democratic congressman from Silicon Valley, Ro Khanna. -(CHEERING CONTINUES) -BILL MAHER: Okay.

All right, here are the questions from the people. (GUESTS, AUDIENCE CHUCKLE) "What does the panel think of DOGE. .

. " That's Elon Musk's reforming-the-government operation. ".

. . pushing to eliminate the penny in order to cut federal spending?

" Well, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Like, I was advocating for this over ten years ago. Put it in editorials.

It's funny. Because it's so stupid that we still make pennies. And of course, it costs way more to make a penny.

-JESSE EISENBERG: Right. -RO KHANNA: Yeah. A nickel costs 14 cents.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS) So I'm not gonna hate it now that they are doing it. RO: I'm for it. I'm for-- I've said, "Look, if he has cuts on pennies, nickels, the bloated defense budget with five prime contractors, fine, let's work with him to do that.

" Some people have said, "Oh, why are you saying that when it's Elon Musk? " I said, "Look, I'll oppose him where he has a bad idea and work with him where he has a good idea. " BILL: So you do want to work with them?

On things like this? Yeah. -BILL: Okay.

-STEPHEN A. SMITH: I just think that if you-- We have to work on bigger things than the penny. (AUDIENCE LAUGHS) I don't think this alone is going to do it.

If you're universally recognized by a lot of people as weird but a genius, right, my attitude is, well, let's find out what he's talking about and let's see if it works. If it's beneficial for us, we can deduce that based on the information we receive and decide whether it works or not, as opposed to just. .

. automatically dismissing anything he comes up with because he's on a side that we don't like. Well, maybe the penny is the gateway issue -for bipartisanship.

-(LAUGHTER) STEPHEN: Maybe. I mean, you joke, but. .

. RO: Now, are you going to play him, Jesse? Do you think you can play Elon Musk?

-JESSE: I'll play anything. -(LAUGHTER) -STEPHEN: You can do it. -Thank you.

But yes, I mean, that's how you build trust, -little by little. -STEPHEN: Little by little. Okay.

"Jesse, how did the story for A Real Pain evolve from being set in Mongolia and then went to Poland? " -What does that mean? -Oh, yeah.

-No, my script-- I mean, you saw the movie. It takes place in Poland. It was originally set, like, in Mongolia.

It was based on a short story I wrote. BILL: There was Jews in Mongolia? No, they were doing something else there.

-BILL: Oh, what? -Yeah. They were going to visit their friend who had started this, like, yurt farm in a mountain.

But anyway, that's not important. -(CHUCKLES) -(AUDIENCE LAUGHS) So wait, you were gonna play the wrong character and you had the wrong country? -Yeah.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS) Bill, this is the artistic process. -I see. (LAUGHS) -(AUDIENCE LAUGHS) This is how things work, you know.

But can you imagine if-- What would the story have been in Mongolia? I wrote it. It was a short story.

I wrote it for Tablet Magazine. It's like a-- It was a story about these two guys who, kind of one guy envied the other's political purity, and when they got to Mongolia, the guy who they both idolized had kind of sold out to this other company. And so, like, it's about the disillusionment of your childhood ideals.

It's not important. (LAUGHTER) I just have a simple question. I mean, why the hell does that have to be in Mongolia instead of right here?

It sounds like it's stuff that goes on right here -in the United States. -BILL: Right. Because it was awesome to think about shooting a movie in Mongolia, Stephen.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS) RO: How come when an actor says, "That's just the artistic process," everyone applauds? If I said something like that on how I do a bill, -I'd get booed. -BILL: You're right.

You're so right. You know, Casablanca was originally called San Diego. (AUDIENCE LAUGHS) That's not true, though.

That's not true. (AUDIENCE APPLAUDS) "Is it appropriate that the Trump administration is asking government employees to turn in their co-workers if they are engaged in DEI efforts? " I'll start with a no.

"Turn in. " I'm not loving-- Again, I said I wouldn't pre-hate. Hating, hating.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS) -JESSE: That's snitching. Difference between prejudice and Judas. -I'm hating.

-RO: Right. More than inappropriate. It's scary.

I mean, it's like a surveillance state. Come on. As a libertarian, you should be-- What do you want me to do?

I just said, "I hate, I hate, I hate. " (AUDIENCE LAUGHS) This guy want me to cut off a finger? You see?

The problem with the Democrats, it's never fucking enough with these people. STEPHEN: The complaint that I have-- The complaint that I have over this whole DEI issue is that everybody thinks about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and it automatically connotes in a lot of people's eyes, particularly on the right, that somebody that's in that position must have gotten there because of a level of incompetence and what have you. It's not merit based.

My attitude is similar to the Rooney Rule with the National Football League, similar with affirmative action. What the hell was the policy necessary for to begin with? Because we had a power structure in the United States of America that was unfair, that was unequitable or inequitable.

They didn't give a damn. And somebody had to compel them to do the right thing conscientiously. And nobody is talking about that in regards to DEI.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS) But also, things change. You're talking about the past. But they haven't changed enough.

Look at tech. Look at how many African Americans, Latino Americans are in tech, which is producing out all the wealth. But is it because they're barred?

I heard the same story. You would understand this better than anybody because you're a sports genius. Baseball.

I've heard there's only seven percent of players in baseball who are African American. STEPHEN: That's right, about seven percent. Well, this would be a problem if they were barred from baseball as they were before in 1947.

There's only seven percent because they want to play another sport or no sport at all or do something else. They're not barred. It's not a problem.

STEPHEN: It's not a problem. But what they're trying to do on the right, and I've been getting on them about this, is that, again, when you're talking about DEI, anytime you bring that up, "Oh, you're a DEI hire. You didn't really deserve it.

You didn't really earn it. You just got it because of that policy. " And I'm like, "But you're just going to bring that up but ignore why the policy was there to begin with.

" That means there was a whole bunch of white people before there was DEI that were getting jobs that you didn't-- they didn't deserve. I know, but there was, I think, the University of Michigan, one of the schools like that, had something like 200 DEI officers at a college, the most liberal place. Yeah, that's excessive.

Nobody's excusing that. -There's a-- -BILL: Okay. And who's ever going to give up that job and go, "Well, this situation is better now.

I guess I better fire me. " STEPHEN: Right. (AUDIENCE LAUGHS) I'm just saying, if you wanna do away with-- I'm just saying, you wanna do away with it, do away with it.

-Just don't act like-- -BILL: No, I understand. Don't forget what brought it about. That's all I'm saying.

And it's where people look for talent. If you look at these tech companies, they go to Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley. You think they're going to the HBCUs and looking for talent there?

If they're not pushed to go outside their networks, they're going to hire the same people from the same schools and replicate the same wealth gap. We've got a ten to one wealth gap in America. And instead of talking about that, we're beating up on DEI.

But we-- But we had this with. . .

In your industry, or what you represent, women were like-- they started two programs, big programs, like 20 years ago to get more women in engineering positions. And I think in 20 years, it went up one percent. I don't think it's because they were barred from doing it.

I just think people choose to go into different. . .

avenues of-- There is-- Studies show that African American young men and women are more interested in tech than even white kids. But they don't have the same pathways. They don't-- We are denying reality if we think that someone-- So you're saying they're being-- they're being.

. . -RO: I'm not saying that.

-. . .

denied? I'm saying if you graduate from Stanford, I taught at Stanford, you get funded before you have an idea. You literally just email a venture capitalist, you get funded.

If you're at Morehouse or you're at Spelman or you're at Claflin University, you think you can just email someone at Kleiner Perkins and get your company funded? No. I think companies that want to make money hire the best people to make it for them.

I-- I don't disagree with you, I just think that we have to be-- we have to keep a watchful eye on things because, for example, with the eradication of a lot of these DEI programs, right-- Let's say, for example, hypothetically, there's 20 jobs that were-- that are available and DEI has been shoved aside. Now, when you fulfill those 20, when you fill up those 20 jobs and all of them are white, you got a problem. Because what you're saying is, "Oh, they're the ones that are qualified and nobody else is.

" And that's a system that used to exist in this country that you see a lot of people clamoring to return to. And we can't ignore that. Those 20 jobs would not go to white people.

They'd go to Asian people. STEPHEN: Okay. -(CROWD CHEERS) -Okay.

-Um. . .

-STEPHEN: Just not Blacks. Well, I. .

. Really? I mean, this is one of the most-- And Asian Americans wouldn't even be in this country if it weren't for the civil rights movement and the African American community.

-BILL: But we're talking-- -Well, if you wanna bring that up, bring up the fact that whether it's affirmative action or DEI, the bigger benef-- the biggest beneficiaries of both programs were white women. Let's not forget that. But can we live in the year we're living in?

-STEPHEN: Yeah. -RO: Yeah. Because I think it's 2025.

I mean, this is one of the most liberal parts of the country that you represent. -Yes. -So you're saying, in one of the most liberal parts-- -Maybe you're right.

-RO: Yeah. I don't know. I'm just questioning it, that there is this prejudice against-- RO: I don't think it's formal.

I don't think people there at Apple or Google are saying, "Oh, let's not hire Black people. " I think it's easy when you're building a company to just hire the people you know, the schools you know, and it takes extra effort to reach out beyond your networks. We all have that.

Okay. "Is Trump's meme coin a scam? " -(CHUCKLES) -(AUDIENCE LAUGHS) I read about this thing.

I mean, oh my God. I mean, what? What, me?

I have-- I put my money in a mattress. -(LAUGHTER) -(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS) STEPHEN: Here-- It's so simple. He wakes up one day-- This is a man, like, remember, he wanted to buy an NFL team in 2014.

That was the last time I spoke to him. He wanted to buy an NFL team, the Buffalo Bills. The price tag for them was one point four billion.

He had one point one billion, according to my NFL sources. You know, they say, "Is he a billionaire? Is he not?

" Whatever, whatever. Here we are years later, and they're talking about because of this meme coin, in about a week, it's made up 89 percent of his total wealth. What that says to me is that, oh, it's an easier, legal way to funnel money to him.

. . -BILL: It is.

-. . .

when he needs it. And that's what it really comes down to. It's like literally having a Swiss bank account.

'Cause what you can do, they track the transactions. The biggest transactions are from overseas. And none of us can see who it is.

But if you put in a billion dollars into the Trump coin, you can have it in your crypto wallet. You can just show it to 'em. "Hey, look, I got a billion dollars.

" And no one else knows it. And you can curry favor with them. I mean, the term for this that people use on the street -is "shitcoin.

" -RO: Okay. Because it didn't exist Friday afternoon. -I don't even understand what it is.

-JESSE: Right. But I don't understand OnlyFans. (AUDIENCE LAUGHS) I don't understand.

I mean-- Unfortunately, there are far too many people who do understand what OnlyFans is. BILL: Okay, but I mean. .

. (AUDIENCE LAUGHS) What I'm saying is. .

. we can argue about race and gender. The great divide in America is people who grew up in the virtual world and people who didn't.

That's, I think, gonna be the great divide. People who don't live in the world I live in. I don't understand this.

It's a picture of Trump, or you're just imagining it. I don't know. (AUDIENCE LAUGHS) STEPHEN: Don't forget Melania.

Don't forget Melania. She's got one too. -BILL: Melania?

And it-- -That's right. And somehow it made him 58 billion dollars. In a week.

RO: There's no complicated tech to it. It's like if he opened a Swiss bank account and said, "Deposit the money there," and you don't know who's depositing the money. Look, if someone buys-- But that's a bank.

It's still your money. This is not. Let's speak on behalf of the streets.

Could you tell us how to do it? (AUDIENCE LAUGHS) You know what I mean? Fifty-eight billion dollars in a week.

Could you let us in on the scheme? We'd like to know. We'd like to know.

I mean, they said Putin was worth 40 billion dollars from stealing over, like-- He's been president since 2000. This guy did it in a week. I'm sure he was like, "Top that, bitch.

" (AUDIENCE LAUGHS, APPLAUDS) Okay? "Netflix announced it's raising prices again despite adding 19 million new subscribers. Do you think movies like this-- moves like this from them and other subscription services will backfire?

" What do you think? You're in show business. My movie's on Hulu.

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE) -I don't know. -Is it really? JESSE: Yeah, it really is.

You know. But I mean, not because I'm-- You know, these kind of things are always in flux, and they have more data than we can possibly imagine any media company ever having data. You know, so they're going to be changing probably their prices minute by minute.

-STEPHEN: I know the answer. -What is it? What happens is, is that Netflix is venturing into live sports.

-Yes. -That's the new king. You got live sports.

-You got sports rights. -BILL: That great Tyson fight. You got league rights and whatever.

You got league rights, particularly with the NFL, which is a cash cow to a lesser degree than the NBA and what have you. If you have rights with that and you can carry live events, then you can charge exorbitant prices because you know people are going to flock to it -because they wanna see the games. -BILL, JESSE: Right.

And that's really what it comes down to. So it might end up backfiring, but that's down the road. That doesn't negate what's going to transpire now, which is fattening their wallets-- But streaming has ruined football.

-I wouldn't say that. -I would. Why?

Well, first of all, when you watch it, you can't-- if you watch it not when it's live, you can't zip through it like you can with the commercials on a regular game. They won't let you do that. You have to guess where the play resumes.

(LAUGHTER) BILL: Am I wrong? Do you know what I'm talking about? I was alluding to the quality of the broadcast.

When they did the Tyson fight, that was bad. That was bad because it crashed for a little while. But when they did the NFL game, everybody flocked to it.

-I mean, you had-- -BILL: Because it's on there. You have to. But I'm saying it was a good broadcast.

It was a really good broadcast. Yeah, but also, if I want to switch between two games, if I'm watching a game on old channels. .

. (AUDIENCE LAUGHS) . .

. like Fox and CBS, I can do it with one button. -Previous.

-STEPHEN: Right. Well, I can tell you this-- This, I have to, like, sign in. -Well, let me.

. . -(AUDIENCE LAUGHS) JESSE: This is a button issue, not a political issue.

It is a button-- It's my hot-button issue. It's the penny and then this. You gotta sign in, you gotta get the account.

But I will tell you this. On YouTube, for example, I mean, I love the fact that I can see four games on one screen, and I can double-click and get it on the one game, and then I can go back and double-click and see the four games again, and I'm watching the action. I like that, and a lot of people like that.

I think that is the future. All I'll say is, if they can charge a lot of money, they can pay the writers and the actors and the screenwriters enough. That's what that whole strike was about.

(AUDIENCE CHEERING) All right. Let's leave it there. I think you're a great panel.

Guys, a little bromance never hurt anybody. We'll see you next week. Thank you.