Real Coffe - Scott Adams - Episode 67 - North Korea Walks From Negotiating Table.  Who Saw That Coming?
Aired: 2018-06-16
Duration: 12:47


=== Walk Away From Negotiations (12:02) ===

[00:00:00]  *Clears throat* *Clears throat* *Clears throat* *Clears throat* *Clears throat* Well, well, well, everybody, come on in here.
[00:00:12]  Breaking news!
[00:00:13]  Breaking news! So many of you will remember, and I see it in the comments already, that one of my predictions was that there would be a walk away from the negotiating table on this North Korea business.
[00:00:34]  Either us or them.
[00:00:36]  Maybe both. But there would certainly be at least one walk away.
[00:00:41]  Today we have it. Now it's more of a threatened walk away because the beating's June 12th.
[00:00:47]  So, you know, what's the difference between threatening to walk away and walking away?
[00:00:51]  Because you could always change your mind.
[00:00:53]  So those things get a little conflated.
[00:00:55]  But North Korea's walked away.
[00:00:57]  And the topic that seems to be a bugaboo is that there are ongoing military exercises on their border.
[00:01:09]  with South Korea and the United States and they're saying, what the hell?
[00:01:14]  We're here negotiating for peace, and you're on our border getting ready to attack.
[00:01:21]  Now, of course, we say these are defensive exercises, but I don't know how much of a difference there is between offense and defense in this situation, meaning that the stuff on the border would probably be in defense mode, whereas the attack would come from a different way, but we don't have any plans of attacking them, so that's irrelevant.
[00:01:46]  Now, somebody's saying, but it didn't bother him before.
[00:01:49]  Why is it suddenly an issue?
[00:01:52]  Well, let me suggest a reason.
[00:01:55]  He's negotiating in front of the entire world, right?
[00:01:59]  The whole world's watching. And what the press is reporting so far is that Kim has caved in on his nuclear weapons program.
[00:02:13]  Kim has negotiated away his mountain that he tests the nukes on.
[00:02:21]  So the news is suggesting that everything is going Trump's way and nothing is going Kim's way.
[00:02:32]  That's not really a comfortable situation.
[00:02:34]  Your best deals are when both people are feeling a little bit of pain.
[00:02:39]  But in this case, the U.S. and South Korea have a dominant military position, so we're reluctant to do any kind of trade until we absolutely have to.
[00:02:53]  Now, it's very interesting that Kim is getting tough on this point.
[00:03:01]  Because what is interesting about the issue that he's decided to make a stand on?
[00:03:09]  Let me put it to you.
[00:03:10]  What is unique about the issue that Kim is making a stand on and walking away from negotiation from?
[00:03:19]  Yeah, the very first comment had it.
[00:03:23]  Yeah, the very first comment was...
[00:03:25]  And then another comment, actually the two of them together.
[00:03:29]  It's justified.
[00:03:33]  It's justified.
[00:03:34]  It's a reasonable thing to ask.
[00:03:37]  And number two, it's easy to fix.
[00:03:43]  So he's asking for probably the one easiest to fix thing.
[00:03:52]  Because you only have to fix it between now and June 12th.
[00:03:55]  It makes no difference.
[00:03:59]  To the U.S. readiness.
[00:04:01]  It makes no difference to the actual military capability.
[00:04:06]  No difference, right?
[00:04:08]  And Kim is saying, what the hell?
[00:04:11]  I'm doing these things which also maybe are no difference.
[00:04:15]  You know, you're getting rid of a test site.
[00:04:18]  Well, you could build another one, right?
[00:04:21]  So nothing's permanent. And so everything that he's agreed on or is talking about are things that are fairly reasonable.
[00:04:31]  And so he's saying, look, I'm doing all these fairly reasonable things, short of the final deal.
[00:04:38]  What are you doing?
[00:04:41]  Name one thing.
[00:04:43]  Name one thing you've done, United States and South Korea, to build our confidence that we're good players, we're trustworthy players working toward a common solution.
[00:04:57]  I'm not close to the negotiations, and I don't know if we'll stop doing what we're doing.
[00:05:02]  We might just let them run their course.
[00:05:05]  If there's a week left, maybe we just wait a week and then just say, all right, we're done for now.
[00:05:12]  So there are a number of ways we could play this.
[00:05:15]  But does it make sense for Kim to walk away from the table on this issue?
[00:05:23]  Kind of does. Kind of does.
[00:05:26]  Remember, Rodman gave him the book, The Art of the Deal.
[00:05:32]  And a central premise is you've got to be able to walk away from a deal you don't like.
[00:05:38]  And if he doesn't like this part of the deal, and he thinks there's some flexibility, it's a good walk away.
[00:05:47]  Now, there are two ways that Kim can win.
[00:05:51]  And this is also right out of the Trump playbook.
[00:05:55]  Two ways that Kim can win.
[00:05:58]  Number one, we say, good point.
[00:06:01]  We'll wind down the exercises.
[00:06:05]  Yeah, we agree with you.
[00:06:06]  You've done some stuff for us.
[00:06:08]  We'll do some stuff for you.
[00:06:10]  Doesn't really change our military capabilities in any real way, but it's symbolic.
[00:06:15]  So you did some symbolic stuff.
[00:06:17]  We'll do a symbolic thing back.
[00:06:19]  Let's get back to the table.
[00:06:21]  That's one way it could go.
[00:06:23]  Probably not. Probably not.
[00:06:27]  Another way it could go is that the exercises will just finish.
[00:06:33]  Maybe finish a little earlier than normal.
[00:06:36]  Maybe we say, oh okay, this normally would take two weeks, but we'll wrap it up in one week because it's hard to unwind it so quickly.
[00:06:46]  But you make a good point.
[00:06:48]  Instead of doing this for two more weeks, we'll just limit it to a week.
[00:06:52]  You win. Let's get back to the table.
[00:06:54]  Alright, so there's plenty of ways we can go in which Kim can rack up a win.
[00:07:01]  Should the United States give him a win if it doesn't cost us anything?
[00:07:08]  Sometimes, not every time, but in the right situation, and I don't know if we're in that situation, there might be a reason to do that.
[00:07:18]  Because remember, it's not really giving up anything.
[00:07:21]  It's giving up The impression of something.
[00:07:25]  Exactly what he gave us.
[00:07:27]  He gave up the impression of something.
[00:07:33]  So we've got plenty of room to work here.
[00:07:36]  It was completely rational for Kim to walk away.
[00:07:40]  Don't know how it will be solved, but it's easy to solve, so it will be solved.
[00:07:45]  I think we can confidently say that unless there are other issues, This part will probably get a solution.
[00:07:55]  So this is actually good news sort of disguised as bad news.
[00:08:01]  Remember that I predicted that we would see this.
[00:08:04]  So maybe a month ago or so, I said you should look for at least one walk away from the table.
[00:08:10]  And here it is. Or at least the first one.
[00:08:12]  There might be more. There might be a point where Trump walks away.
[00:08:15]  We don't know. But It shows that North Korea is both serious about making a deal and understands deal making.
[00:08:30]  What could be better news?
[00:08:33]  You just heard the best news you've heard in a year.
[00:08:38]  That North Korea does seem to want a real deal and they know how to make a deal.
[00:08:45]  That's it. He's not crazy.
[00:08:50]  So, you know, the news will make a big thing of this.
[00:08:54]  We're already seeing the people who used to think they were smart, who have been wrong about everything for two years.
[00:09:02]  They're coming out of the woodwork today and they're saying, ah-ha, I told you.
[00:09:07]  North Korea cannot be trusted to get rid of their nuclear weapons.
[00:09:10]  Can't trust them. I've been telling you this for a year.
[00:09:13]  And now you see, they walked away.
[00:09:16]  So they're going to have a lot of fun for however long it takes to get back to the table.
[00:09:21]  But I think we're fine, so let's not worry about it.
[00:09:28]  Alright, that's all I had to say.
[00:09:30]  Oh, just one more thing. Somebody made a comment about CNN. I was watching CNN today, and this is sort of a game I play, where I switch between Fox and CNN. And I see how often this pattern recurs.
[00:09:47]  On Fox, they mostly talk about something called the news.
[00:09:53]  Things that are actually happening.
[00:09:55]  Like, a real person did a real thing today.
[00:10:00]  Also known as the news.
[00:10:02]  You switch to CNN and it's just gossip.
[00:10:07]  It's pure gossip.
[00:10:09]  It's like, wow, we think he lied about a mistress.
[00:10:12]  And the other imaginary part is, we think that something terrible could go wrong.
[00:10:20]  We think that somebody did a thing, but we can't find the evidence.
[00:10:25]  So they've got imaginary past news with insufficient evidence or no evidence.
[00:10:30]  And they have projections of future things, which probably won't happen because they're not often right.
[00:10:36]  And then the things that are happening today are just gossip.
[00:10:42]  They're not even news.
[00:10:45]  I mean, unless you call gossip news.
[00:10:49]  So it's pretty fascinating to watch.
[00:10:54]  Yeah. I'm having a hilarious time watching all of the Trump critics trying desperately to coax a public apology from the staffer who said something bad about McCain.
[00:11:13]  So I tweeted today that people are criticizing President Trump for insulting people In the context of an insult competition, which is what politics is.
[00:11:28]  They insult him, he insults his critics.
[00:11:32]  It's sort of a competition to reframe the critic badly, to brand yourself positively, but it's all an insult competition.
[00:11:40]  So if there's somebody in the insult competition who is insulting, that's not news.
[00:11:51]  That's just saying that there is an insult competition.
[00:11:55]  Sort of like saying, as I said in my tweet, it's like accusing somebody of bowling during a bowling tournament.

=== Accusing During a Bowling Tournament (00:45) ===

[00:12:02]  You bowled!
[00:12:04]  My God! What are you doing?
[00:12:06]  I demand an apology for your bowling.
[00:12:09]  And then you say, I'm in a bowling tournament.
[00:12:13]  And they say, nice try, apologist.
[00:12:19]  Try explaining that to your children.
[00:12:24]  I needed the beard for that.
[00:12:26]  All right.
[00:12:35]  So that's it for now.
[00:12:38]  And if there's any more breaking news, I might break back in here and talk about it.
[00:12:42]  But for now... Don't feel too worried about the walkway from North Korea.