Penn Jillette on Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Why He's All in on Gary Johnson
The libertarian magician also reveals how he lost over 100 pounds in a few short months and why Bob Dylan is his hero.
"How do you think I'm going to die?" asks Penn Jillette, "the larger and louder half" of Penn & Teller, at the start of Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales, a book that is every bit as mesmerizing and captivating as the duo's live show.
In fact, Presto! reveals the greatest disappearing act of Penn's 40-plus-year career. Not "The Vanishing African Spotted Pygmy Elephant Act," in which make the duo make a cow dressed like an elephant go poof. This is the trick by which the 61-year-old, who once topped the scales at over 300 pounds, lost one-third of his body weight in a five-month span.
Penn details his diet regimen as laid out by Ray Cronise, a former NASA scientist and entrepreneur who pushes an extremely restricted plant-based diet (essentially, veganism but with little-to-no added salt, sugar, oil, and fat). Like Penn's old "fat fuck" body (his term), Presto! contains multitudes—it's less a diet memoir than a wide-ranging meditation on contemporary American culture and politics, including the 2016 election.
It's also Penn at his very best. Even as he is discussing the life-threatening health conditions that led him to his new eating plan, he's never a page or two away from commenting on how Hillary Clinton is the absolute worst nominee for president...except for Donald Trump, with whom Penn appeared for two seasons on Celebrity Apprentice. "Eating pizza is voting for Hillary," Penn writes (he means that as an insult), while Donald Trump's hair resembles "cotton candy made from piss" (the billionaire's personality is even more off-putting, says Penn). Presto! is filled with anecdotes not just about weight loss but about the loss of loved ones, hosannas to the friends and artists who have inspired Penn over the years, and a tender-yet-barbed condemnation of what he calls "the Standard American Diet," or SAD.
Reason's Nick Gillespie recently sat down with Penn Jillette backstage at Vegas' Rio casino, where Penn & Teller have been in residence for years. The conversation ranged from the 2016 election to what it's like to eat only potatoes for two weeks straight to why Bob Dylan—"he's a freak, not a cheerleader"—is Penn's artistic hero.
About 45 minutes.
Produced and edited by Meredith Bragg. Cameras by Jim Epstein, Austin Bragg, and Justin Monticello.
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This is a rush transcript. Check any quotations against video recording.
NICK GILLESPIE: Hi, I'm Nick Gillespie with Reason TV, and we are in Las Vegas talking to Penn Jillette, the great magician and demystifier of all things in American culture and world culture, including weight loss, which we'll get to in a second. He's got a new book coming out: Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales.
Penn Jillette, thanks for talking with Reason.
PENN JILLETTE: Oh, thanks for wanting to!
GILLESPIE: And when I started as a professional libertarian 20 years ago, you and Drew Carey were the fat fucks and I was skinny.
JILLETTE: Yep, yep.
GILLESPIE: And now you guys are skinny and I'm the fat fuck.
JILLETTE: Yeah, yeah
GILLESPIE: So thanks a lot for that.
JILLETTE: That's the way it goes, you know. Seasons change, and so did I. *laughs*
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He made the extra pounds...disappear!
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Oops, he used that joke in his new book.
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Man, I had to turn this off halfway through. Is he on cocaine or just wildly over-caffeinated!?
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I prefer fat Penn.
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Me too. And fat Newman as well.
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Someone can feel free to correct me, but I believe he has stated he doesn't do any drugs of any stripe, caffeine included.
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Correct. He's mentioned it a few times, like on one of the "Bullshit" episodes.
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Am I the only one who thinks there's something off about Penn? He seems like a decent guy, and generally honest, but there just seems to be something off. And I don't think it's anything to do with him being a carney.
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All showmen seem that way to me.
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It's called being "High on Life"
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Penn, I love you, but obama's a good man? Someone who wants to use government force to take your property and give it to other people? No socialist is good.
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Penn is just signaling or something. It's stupid. I don't get it either.
A lot of people I used to like are just fucking demented these days.
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There's a reason (drink) that I prefer Teller from this duo- He possibly might have equally disgusting political views... but he keeps his mouth shut.
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He meant "compared to Trump" I suppose.
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maybe politically, but i don't think that's what he meant. it's possible to despise a person's politics and think they're not the devil
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I go out of my way to tell people, even strangers on the street, that Obama is a communist guilty of treason a dozen times over and should be publicly executed. Some people don't react well. I guess you just can't please everyone.
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I've never understood the deification of Bob Dylan. Great songwriter but his voice is worse than nails on a chalkboard.
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But you forget one key point, which is mumble mumble mumble
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Dylan is okay in moderation.
You don't really listen for the voice, obviously.
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I'm not a huge Dylan fan, but he's the most versatile and influential American musicial artist of all time.
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uhh...
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And what study discovered this find? Sounds like a textbook Rolling Stone cliche generalization to me. Hardly quantifiable.
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Not Willie Nelson? Tom Petty? Prince? Hank Williams?
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Willie Nelson or Neil Young, easily superbates Dylan in this. Nelson is also one of the best fucking singers since Al Jolson.
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You had to be there man....... :-)
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That's what works... great lyrics and sounds like a strangled cat.
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You ever see pics of that beautiful, psychedelic Dylan mural by Kobra in Minneapolis, Penn?
Easily found on Google images.
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"You're not smarter than Obama... none of us are."
Disappointing to hear Penn say this.
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I'm surprised we can understand him with Obama's cock in his mouth like that.
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Be fair guys. Honest and honorable men can disagree and still be respectful.
I know some really intelligent lefties that I respect. But their political views frustrate me to know end.
Part of the reason I respect them is because I can't convince them of the incorrectness of their political views. I'm just not as smart as they are. If I was, we'd all be in agreement.
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no NOT know!
I hate that we can't edit of format our comments here!
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I like your comment. It's sad when otherwise smart people are so blinded by their ideological hate that they can't even admit that Obama is a smart guy. You can think he is politically deluded and still respect his intelligence.
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It's hard for me to say how intelligent he is exactly, but I wouldn't say he's done anything to make me respect his intelligence. I'm not impressed by credentials or positions, so that's not enough.
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Obama is smart in one way, and that is manipulation. And he only seems better and more intelligent than others because he has no morality to restrain him.
He is a classic snake oil salesman. It is incorrect to assume he is intelligent just because he "excels" in areas a decent person wouldn't tread. I'd put my own intelligence against him any day in learning new concepts or logic, and I'm 99 percent sure I would crush him as would most people on this board.
Point being, even if he has a certain type of intelligence, it is the type of a sociopath seeking poweror zealot , not someone who actually contributes meaningfully to society by creation or application of good ideas. That type of "intelligence" can and should be discounted as lunacy and abject stupidity.
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Obama believes in leftism, in socialistic economics and in ideas like critical race theory.
When faced with the reality that these are gargantuanly stupid ideas, he clings ever tighter to them.
Thus, by definition he cannot be a 'smart guy'. He can aspire to idiocy by abandoning his beliefs entirely. Then, and only then, can he begin to become smart.
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I ain't impressed by somebody that can't even string a coherent sentence together, hain't never said anything that can be broken down rationally so far as I know, who's done every fucking almost perfectly wrong, and with such a weird fucking habit of mispronunciation. Obama sees like a nobody, really, somebody there to deliver lines written by retarded monkeys in jail. Trump, in contrast, is a genius, which I thought and think even when I completely disagree with him. Even his flurries of unintelligible drivel which he's started delivering now and then since his candidacy started are devilishly clever. And he carries it off like he knows what the fuck he's doing, not like he's some dummy just poorly carrying out his master's orders. Fuck, retrospectively Bush was a genius compared to Obama. F u forget, just go back and read some of his speeches way back, you know, the ones we made fun of for being so dumb. They're super-intelligent now, by contrast with Obama.
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I'm smarter than Obama. Not exactly setting the bar in the stratosphere with that statement.
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Gillespie: And when I started as a professional libertarian 20 years ago...
What is this professional certification of which you speak?
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Paid Koch shill maybe?
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Oh spare me.
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Kochtopus!!!
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He was just setting himself apart from us amateur libertarians. The one's who don't work for Reason.
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Being a professional whore is a bitch. I'm thinking even Weigel would say, "He's a crazy fucking leftist"...
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[scribbles something on an old piece of cardboard]
Here you go, Neal. Welcome to the club.
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Is it just me or is Penn a thick stache and cigar away from Groucho impersonator?
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Penn has that "saggy skin" of someone who has lost serious weight- Groucho always kept it tight...
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I like a lot of Dylan music - but I saw Dylan at an Amazon.com show some years back and he reminded me less of Shakespeare than Blind Melon Chitlin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAw-3ERSIIY I don't know if he was drugged out of his mind or battling Alzheimer's or what. I walked out on the performance. You would have had to pay me to stay.
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i love what he said about dylan, and i appreciate him. however, i still side with the beatles. i would argue that they're just as authentic, but i've always been a sucker for artists that can combine commerce and art in a way that entertains and elevates us. great interview to listen to.