and I know you want to disagree with me, and you don't even know

what I'm gonna say.

(LAUGHTER)

Well, I want to hear what you have to say.

Well, I mean, I think I said it in the monologue.

We have... or somewhere in this show, we have stood

with worse dictators. I think Cuba,

in the Freedom Watch List is 62nd out of 177 countries,

one being the worst. So, it's behind China,

I think Iran, Egypt,

which is not a great place to be, but it's ahead

of a number of our allies like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

So, I guess where I'm coming from is that the United States

has all of the leverage in this situation,

and if you're looking at what Raul Castro's plan is,

I believe the plan is not to do what China and Vietnam

have done. Not to have a... kind of... you know,

basically move away from a socialist economy.

I believe they're looking to Vladimir Putin.

They're looking to Chavez's Venezuela.

They want to have sham elections,

and he wants to install his son or his son-in-law in power,

and we're allowing that to happen.

Now, we have all the leverage, I believe we should open up

to Cuba, and I believe we should normalize relations--

BILL: What do you mean, leverage?

We can demand a lot more because they're at the most

vulnerable point.

This is what's been going on for 50 years.

No, it hasn't been going on because what I'm saying

is that actually we should open up, but we can now

demand more from them in terms of how they treat their citizens

and also having an open and competitive

-political process. -But these things take time.

-Of course it takes time. -It's weak... its weak--

But we're never gonna have more leverage

than we do right now.

They used to look to Russia and Venezuela for cash.

-Exactly, they can't. -Now they can't.

-They're 90 miles away -Exactly, that's leverage.

from the world's largest economy and if they open the door

a little crack, we're gonna overwhelm them.

-BILL: And they're doing that. -I feel very comfortable

-that in 5 years' time, -Yes.

these guys are goners. Five to ten years of sanctions,

-get them there. -SALAM: That's a fantasy.

-Yeah, I totally agree. -(APPLAUSE)

He went... the President went, he looked at Raul Castro,

-he spoke to the Cuban people -I understand that.

He talked about democracy, I mean, that's the first time--

The Castro family, they're not idiots.

They know what they're doing.

They have given this a lot of thought,

and if they believe that Ian was right...

-And they're in their 80's. -They have a plan B,

that's my point. Their plan B is sham elections.

In 2018, it's all ready to go.

But you know, we can't make everybody in the world

-do everything we want to do. -SALAM: We've got leverage.

Of course we can't.

Of course we can make everyone do--

-Of course we can't. -Oh.

Of course we can't, but the point is,

that why surrender all of your leverage when they're

at their weakest point right now.

-We're not surrendering -SALAM: Of course we are.

all our leverage. We're trying--

GRANHOLM: It's a benefit for us, too.

Yeah, it's a slight benefit for us.

-We are scaling so much larger. -We're trying a different tactic

from the one that didn't work for 60 fuckin' years.

-(APPLAUSE) -What a crazy idea.

The tactic is we have one big carrot to offer

that is normalizing relationships

and actually offering them the huge economic opportunities

-that an open relationship-- -Ending the embargo

-would be another big carrot. -SALAM: Yeah.

But we're not doing that

even though most Americans are for doing that.

Normalizing relations is a rather big thing

and having Starwood and having Airbnb sign deals

and getting hard currency into the hands of the repressive

-apparatus of Cuba. -Yes, that's how their minds

are gonna change. Starwood's gonna be there. They're gonna

-meet Americans. -And that's worked

in Putin's Russia? That's worked, you know,

that's gonna work in Iran? That's gonna work

in all the other authoritarian countries

where they've figured out they're smart, too, Bill.

They are strategic, too. They've given this some thought

and they think that they're gonna come out ahead,

and I think they're probably right.

BILL: All right. All right.

(LAUGHTER)

With that said, do any of you have

a good cigar connect because I just started...

(LAUGHTER)

CORY: This is a man who talks to what I care about.

What are the chances of delegates turning on Trump

if there is a brokered convention in July?

I think pretty good, right?

GRANHOLM: I think pretty good, too.

Yeah, I mean it depends on who those delegates are.

They're working them now.

I mean everybody on the other team's

-are working those delegates. -BILL: Are you a super delegate?

I am not a super delegate, and I wouldn't be on that side,

but I know that they are working that.

-For the Democrats. -No.

You're not a super delegate?

I used to be when I was governor,

but I'm not anymore.

-Are you a delegate? -I'm not a delegate, no.

-You're just watching on TV. -I'm just a regular citizen.

-Wow, I'm very surprised. -(LAUGHTER)

Will the new voter ID laws being introduced in key states

across the country influence the outcome of the election?

-Fuck yes. Of course. -Yes, like it did in Arizona's.

Everybody who was watching that five hour--

-BILL: Wasn't that a fiasco? -Total fiasco.

They went from 200 polling sites to 60

in a heavily Latino county.

People had to wait in line for 5 hours.

Wouldn't it be great if the Supreme Court

just once went, "Eh. We got this wrong."

We gutted the Voting Rights Act. We thought America was better

than it was, and it turned out

we could not have been more wrong.

Is there any argument on the other side?

The problem is that when we talk about voter ID laws

you've got very different laws in different states.

Some of those laws, Pennsylvania, for example,

that's a really bad law. But then if you're looking

at Rhode Island, you're looking at Tennessee,

you're looking at other states, they're not all the same.

So the problem is when we talk about voter ID laws,

you're talking about a bunch of different provisions--

BILL: Well, they're all for limiting--

Twenty-one states since 2010 have adopted more restrictive,

make it more difficult to vote laws. 21 states have.

This will be the first presidential election

for 16 of those states. They're largely in the south,

they're largely trying to affect minorities--

Two quick points. Two quick points.

One is this is solution looking for a problem

-that doesn't exist, -BILL: Right.

and anytime you're restricting votes its bad,

but the unspoken truth that's happening in America,

the biggest disenfranchisement we've seen since were fighting

on the Edmund Pettus Bridge and others were fighting

for voting rights is

the disenfranchisement that's going on

of people who've been convicted of non-violent drug offenses.

-(APPLAUSE) -We right now have a country

where the Drug War is not a war on drugs,

it's a war on people, particularly poor people,

particularly minorities, and so now you have a nation

where you have swing states like Virginia and Florida

where 1 out every 5 African Americans has lost their right

to vote, and so we have this outrageous reality

in this country right now where our prison population

since 1980 has grown 500%.

Federal prison population, 800%. More people in jail today

for non-violent drug offenses, and all the people in jail

for 1975 being locked up for doing things the last two

presidents said they're doing, and now they're

in a second-class citizenship, a caste system where they can't

get jobs. They can't vote. They can't get Pell Grants.

They can't get food stamps. They can't get housing,

public housing. They've entered this caste system,

and it's an affront to our democracy

because basically what we're doing...

is millions of Americans, we're cutting them out,

taking away their voice and their participation

-in our country. So-- -BILL: Yeah, what he said.

-(APPLAUSE) -SALAM: Well, look, and you also

have conservatives and liberals who are agreeing on this,

and who are seeking to reform this.

This is not a partisan issue. I'm partnering on legislation

with everybody from allies, from the Koch brothers,

to others, trying to fight something in the system

that's completely broken. One of the greatest tragedies

going on in our country right now,

is that what we are doing to entire communities,

like the one that I've lived in for the last 20 years,

is we're devastating these communities.

The chance for an African American to be arrested,

and by the way, no difference between blacks

and whites for using drugs, no difference dealing drugs

except for some studies show that young white men

have a higher rate of dealing drugs than young blacks,

but an African-American will get arrested

for drug crimes about 4 times more than whites.

And this might actually make communities more dangerous.

That's the really scary thing.

Because if you want to be tough on crime, it turns out

that actually using incarceration too much,

you actually change the dynamics of these communities

in ways that make them more dangerous for the people

who live there, and that is really really bad.

BILL: I used to deal drugs. Did you?

-(LAUGHS) I did not deal drugs. -BILL: See? Right there.

(ALL LAUGH)

Did you ever deal drugs, Gerard?

-What's that? -Did you ever deal drugs?

No, but back in my day, I was known as an excellent bagger.

(LAUGHTER)

You used to deal drugs?

Oh, in college, yes. Well, yes. Yes.

I was gonna say just pot, but that would be a lie.

-(LAUGHTER) -I mean, when I got out

of college it was just pot, but in college, it was whatever

my dealer had.

So, you would buy from your dealer...

You were like a middle man?

You'd buy from your dealer and you'd sell--

Well, that's not very nice.

(LAUGHTER)

I thought of myself as an entrepreneur.

-(LAUGHTER) -Middle man.

It was the 70's.

No, but it still goes on today. Look, I went to Stanford--

BILL: That's how I got through college, by the way.

Well, there's lots of drug use going on--

Wait, wait, you paid your way through college dealing drugs?

-Yeah. -That's a...

-GRANHOLM: Wow. -(LAUGHTER)

Yeah, maybe I'm gangsta now.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

For the record, still no. The answer's still no.

-Why? Cause I'm white? -Yeah, kinda. A little bit.

-(LAUGHTER) -No. No. You're gangsta.

-Fine, Bill. You're gangsta. -More gangsta than you.

-(LAUGHTER) -Is Donald Trump, Ian Bremmer,

off base in suggesting that the US rethink its involvement

in NATO? You know, let's ask a different question

that's close to that. Trump said this week that he

was not putting nuclear weapons off the table dealing with ISIS

because we need to be unpredictable.