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July 19, 2018 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
46:59
Episode 147 - The Two Movies About Russia, the Military Parade, and Hatred of Success
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Hey there, KGB Pantsuit.
Hey Ray. Hey everybody.
Come on in here.
It looks like the Summer of Love does not include Russia.
Russia is not being loved.
I'm not sure they've earned it.
But they're certainly in the crosshairs lately.
Let's talk about several topics in no particular order.
When the president suggested having a military parade, I remember saying to myself, "Oh, that's a bad look." But then I said, "I'm going to leave, open my final judgment on that." So I'm not going to have a final judgment on the military parade until I see how it goes.
Now, one of the great things about the military parade, and maybe the only great thing, is that you can test it and then see how it goes.
If it turns out the population loves it, and they want more of it, and it costs $12 million, then I'd say, well, $12 million to boost patriotism seems like maybe a good investment.
Now, part of the problem Is that a military parade sounds like a dictator kind of thing to do, even though the whole point of this has nothing to do with being a dictator.
It's literally honoring the military and veterans and stuff.
But it's going to feel like that to the anti-Trumpers, so that's bad.
The other part is that there's a bad contrast here.
Now, the president decided to discontinue the training missions on the South Korean border as part of the North Korean conversation to get to a better place.
And that was going to cost around $12 million.
Now it's a complete coincidence that there were two things that involved military that cost about $12,000.
But it's a bad coincidence because it allows the anti-Trumpers to say the following ridiculous thing.
They say, hey, what was wrong with those military war games with South Korea?
You know, if you said they were so expensive and we saved a lot of money, why are you using the same amount of money for this parade?
Well, the logical reason is that one of those things was unnecessary, and the other one is not necessary, but it might be useful.
So comparing the expense of something that you shouldn't be doing and it would be counterproductive, which is the war games, and saying, I'm going to save money by not doing something that I shouldn't be doing anyway.
Well, that's how you really save money.
By not doing something you didn't want to do.
It's the ultimate way to save money.
And the critics are comparing that to something that he does want to do and has at least the potential for some positive patriotic feelings.
I get criticized quite often for what people imagine, and it's just imagination, it's not real, that I never criticize the president's decision.
In this case, the military parade, to me, just feels like a clean mistake.
But it's also possible I could be wrong, and we won't have to wait that long to find out.
So given that the point of it is to change how people feel and maybe focus on the good things and patriotism, those are good things, and I can certainly see the purpose of that.
But is the benefit enough when you have an enemy press, which is going to be framing this thing as the worst thing in the world from day one?
If you ask me, it's a persuasion mistake.
All right? So when you...
Those of you who are my critics, if you are tempted in the future to say, why do you just reflexively agree...
With the president. Or somebody said, why am I not sipping?
That's a good question. That's a really good question.
Because I have my coffee.
I have my vessel. I have my container of beverage.
My choice is coffee.
You should have yours by now, too.
and it's time for the simultaneous sip.
Ah, oh sure, you don't like me making you wait for it, but on the other hand, it makes it sweeter when I do. - Okay.
All right, so here are the following things which I do and have criticized the president on.
Health care. Haven't done enough.
Immigration. Moving, I think, in a good direction in the sense that we need good border control and we've got to spend some money to do it.
But we're not successful.
So immigration isn't working out.
The statues.
The Confederate statues, my opinion, is that they are offensive decorations and that history is in the history books.
That's a good place for it.
So I don't agree on statues.
I could probably think of several more things I don't agree.
Oh, racism, yes. Race relations.
I still give him an F for race relations.
I raised it to like a D- when he was doing some things that look good, but at the moment I'm just not seeing anything that looks like a serious effort.
The Russia stuff is hard to grade.
Because the Russia stuff is such a big body of work at this point.
It's several topics that are all conflated into one.
And part of the problem is that we have so many connections with Russia that it's hard for our small minds to even grasp the complexity of all the different Russia stuff going on.
But here's what I would suggest.
I would suggest that we don't often have situations where the two movies are running simultaneously in really completed form, I mean really complete movies that are just opposites, and they predict completely different outcomes.
So it's time to make your predictions, people.
The movie that CNN is watching is that, and their pundits are all over this, so apparently they've all gotten the memo, that the strongest anti-Trump thing they can say is, my God, the only reason he continues to be so soft the only reason he continues to be so soft on Russia, in their opinion.
Of course, there's plenty of counterfactual evidence that he's not being soft at all.
But their world, their movie, says he's being soft, and the only reason, the only reason, is that they must have some compromising information about him.
Now, that movie predicts that going forward, Russia will get what it wants, but we will not get what we want.
Right? Would you agree that that would be a fair prediction based on the CNN movie that's running in all their heads and they're promoting?
It would say that Russia will do well, maybe they just get all the stuff they want, and we don't.
The alternative movie...
And the one that I'm watching is that President Trump is a negotiator.
He's willing to make friends with bad people in order to get something done.
We saw it with North Korea.
He probably had to deal with a lot of unsavory people when he was in his private life.
If you're a builder in New York City or in Manhattan, you're going to deal with some bad people.
So in my movie, he's a person who deals with bad people and figures out how to make it productive.
And he's good at it.
He's actually comfortable with bad people.
You know, more comfortable than the average person.
And so in my movie, he is very intentionally and publicly going soft on Russia.
In other words, he's not pushing them hard, and it's intentional, and it's public.
He's doing it right in front of you.
So in other words, he's not hiding that, at least in words, he's being kind to Putin in terms of the things he could be saying and doing versus what he is saying and doing.
Now, of course, there are still sanctions, but you could argue that's more about Congress, right?
You could say that's not him, that's more Congress.
He has armed the Ukraine, but it's not clear that Russia was going to keep pushing into Ukraine.
Maybe they would have. I suppose if it was easy, they would have.
And so you could make a story that Trump is being very good with them.
Now, if you saw my whiteboard talk from yesterday, You know that the chessboard has been set up with everything from North Korea requiring Russia to help for the security guarantees.
The Middle East, Russia has to be productive in order for Syria, Iran, Israel, Palestinians.
For all of that to work out, Russia's got to be a productive player.
So in my movie, President Trump has offered Putin a virtual pardon.
A virtual pardon, meaning he just doesn't focus on the bad things that Putin either has done or is alleged to have done.
There's probably a combination.
Don't you imagine that of all the things that Putin has been accused of, Probably most of them are true or true-ish, but there are probably some things he's been accused of that are just ridiculous that would be true of any leader of his statute.
But if the things that are true and has been accused of, those are enough to have a negative opinion about what might happen when dealing with him.
So, my movie predicts the following.
My movie predicts that both Russia and the United States will get serious things that they wanted.
We might not be delighted about the things that Russia gets, But we might be delighted by the things that happen.
So, for example, if Iran goes the right direction, if North Korea goes the right direction, it will be probably, I think you could argue, if President Trump in the next 12 months got Russia to be a credible partner in working with these problem areas and bringing them to a good place, you'd have to say that was one of the greatest diplomatic moves of all time.
That doesn't mean it will happen.
It just means it could be, and that we're right on the brink of making that happen.
If Putin...
Here's the big if.
And why don't you fact check me on this, because I feel like I might have a little too much bias in this opinion.
But fact check me this.
If Putin is a rational player...
He will take the opportunity to play well.
And he will, at least in terms of the elections, back off in terms of the cyber stuff.
Now, we have a controversy from yesterday in which the president may or may not have said that Russia is still attacking us with cyber stuff.
But did you notice that two topics got conflated there?
One topic is will Russia interfere with the election again?
Which is a special kind of cyber hijinks, right?
Because the cyber attacks are a big category, and then the special category is will Russia go after our elections again?
It's probably unrealistic to ask any of the major powers to stop messing with the cyber defenses of all the other countries.
Probably Israel is doing things to its allies.
Probably England is doing cyber things with its allies.
Probably Russia is doing things...
Well, definitely. Definitely we are doing things cyber-wise with Russia.
But... If the president said, look, here's a bright red line.
If you screw with our elections, it's all off.
Everything's off. If you screw with our election, all bets are off.
Now, I haven't heard a claim with evidence that they're still attempting to mess with our democratic process, specifically.
Has anybody heard that?
Do a little fact checking on me.
Is there a claim in the public domain from Coats or anybody, intelligence services, that Russia right now, and I don't know what they would do right now because the election is a little way off, is there anything the Russians are doing right now, like literally today, that is election related?
Or is it just general cyber attacks of which every country is doing against every other country, allies and enemies alike?
Yeah, Coats said Russia is red hot, but...
Against our elections specifically?
Or is it a general thing?
were testing each other's cyber defenses and trying to get entry into their critical systems just all the time.
So I wonder about that.
I wonder if it's possible that when the president said, you know, he seemed to indicate that Russia cyber attacks are under control, was he talking about just the election part of that?
Because that might be something that you could get a good result in.
It seems to me you could never get a good result with any country.
For example, imagine this.
Imagine we went to England.
We went to the UK and said, look, you guys have tried to penetrate our systems.
We've tried to penetrate yours.
You've tried to mess with our elections.
Maybe we've tried to do things with you.
Why don't we just not do it anymore because we have a special relationship and we're the best of allies?
The UK and US should never be spying on each other.
Would that work?
I contend that it would not.
So the thing that people want Trump to do with Russia probably can't even be done with the UK. Do you get that?
If we went to the UK and said, look, let's make a deal.
We have a special relationship.
You will never, never spy on us under any conditions.
And we will never, never spy on you under any conditions.
We will never penetrate your defenses with our cyber or anything under any conditions.
I'm talking about the UK and the US having a conversation.
Could we make that deal?
I don't think so.
I think that both sides would walk out of the room and then the intelligence agencies would say, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we're going to still do it, right?
I think we'd still do it.
I think UK would do it.
So it's important to keep this in context.
Are we asking Russia to stop doing something that even our allies won't stop doing?
I think we are. Now, if we said to the UK, look, I know it's impossible that we're going to stop spying on each other, but could we just limit the things that we agree not to do, is that you don't mess with our elections.
Like, that's a big red line.
And even you, United Kingdom, even you, France, even you, Germany, even you, Israel, are best friends.
If you mess with our elections, that's a red line.
Now we might be able to say that to our allies, and maybe we have.
It's possible that we've said, look, the election is a bridge too far, but in the real world everybody's going to be trying to penetrate everybody else.
Could we get Russia to agree to the same deal that our allies, our best friends, agree to?
Which is, yeah, we got some cyber stuff going in every direction, but let's just leave the elections out of it.
Maybe. Maybe.
But even then, I doubt it.
So, you've got to keep in mind that we're asking Russia to do something that even our best friends won't do.
How likely are we going to be 100% successful on that?
Not likely.
But, that said, can you get to a point of mutually assured destruction?
Let me ask you this.
If Russia had compromising information on any president...
Any president. So could be President Trump, could be any of our past presidents.
Question number one.
Don't you believe Russia did, in fact, have compromising information on all of our presidents in the past 50 years?
Let me ask you this question.
Don't you believe that Russia did have compromising information on every one of our presidents, as well as probably our major leaders?
Not Kennedy. Except Carter?
I'll bet not. Part of the problem is that Russia can make up compromising information.
What would Russia have to do to take down, let's say, Jimmy Carter?
If Russia wanted to take down Jimmy Carter with compromising information, All they'd have to say is, you know, we had some conversations with Carter, and he said he'd play with us if we just do this or that.
Russia can make up a claim of compromising information about anybody, and ask yourself, if Russia came up with a claim about a political leader somewhere else, would anybody believe it?
And the answer is...
Of course. Wait till I get to the point before you say you're stupid, asshole.
The people who just come on to say you're stupid before I finish my point.
Wait for the point.
Just wait for the point.
So here's the point.
Why is it that we don't assassinate Putin?
Why don't we assassinate him?
Haven't we had lots of opportunities to assassinate him?
I mean, he was just in public.
How hard could it be to assassinate Putin?
Probably pretty easy, right?
How hard would it be for Russia to assassinate any of our presidents if they really, really wanted to?
Probably easy. I would think pretty easily.
Why is it that the major powers pretty much stay away from assassinating each other?
There's a reason that we don't assassinate leaders.
We're not even trying to assassinate the Ayatollah.
We're probably not trying to assassinate Kim Jong-un, although one imagines we have plans for decapitation strikes, but we're probably not going to do it.
Why is that?
It's because once you cross that line, you're fair game too.
The same reason we don't arrest their diplomats, it's because we don't want our diplomats to get arrested.
That's why. Right?
So there's a mutually assured destruction in assassinating a leader of another country, no matter how much they had it coming.
Because once you open that box, It all gets out.
Once assassination's on the table, it's on the table.
What would happen if the Soviet Union decided to take out a president by actually revealing some embarrassing information about their president?
And let's say that information was real.
It doesn't matter if it's real, if people believe it.
But let's say it was real, and it brought down a president.
What would we do in the United States if another country brought down a president with compromising information?
We would take him out.
We would take out that country.
Now, we might not do it militarily, but we would do it.
That would be the beginning of the end of that government.
Because if the United States says, look, it was risky before, and we certainly wouldn't have tried to overthrow the government of Russia.
But let me tell you, it doesn't matter which side you're on.
If Russia takes down our government by releasing any kind of compromising information, I'm in favor of attacking Russia.
Cyber, perhaps, or maybe CIA, maybe it's all hidden stuff.
But I would be in favor of overthrowing the government of Russia if they overthrew our government through any form of compromising information.
So it seems to me that the risk of compromising information feels bigger than it is.
And it's a real good story for the anti-Trumpers.
Do you know why it's the greatest attack?
So the anti-Trumpers have a strong game.
They're not bad opponents.
Why is claiming that President Trump is compromised by secret information that Russia has, why is that claim such a good one in political terms?
What makes that so good?
I await your answers.
Can't prove a negative!
There you go. You can't prove it.
Now, what is the other thing that makes a political accusation sticky?
What makes that claim so sticky?
What would make confirmation bias swarm toward that claim like moths to a flame?
Well, it's vague.
It's got that going for it.
But here's the thing.
In the normal course of working with Russia, and we've stated that we want to work with them on a number of topics around the world.
In the normal course of working with them, How many times would we have to give them something when they give us something?
In other words, be nice to them in order for them to be nice to us in a variety of different ways.
The only way President Trump can succeed is by walking into the confirmation bias trap.
In other words, the anti-Trumpers have created a situation where the only way we can get to denuclearizing North Korea, the only way we can get to a good solution with Iran, is by getting rid of President Trump.
Because in order for him to get good things on those topics, he needs Russia to do good things, and in order for them to do good things, Russia, we've got to be nice to them probably in a variety of ways to get the best result.
If we are nice to Russia in any way, and you saw what happened at the press conferences after the summit, if the president, even in words alone, forget about actions, but if only in words alone the president is diplomatic with but if only in words alone the president is diplomatic with it will look exactly like what the anti-Trumpers were claiming.
There it is! There it is!
He's being nice with Russia!
Will it help that pro-Trumpers will say, yeah, he's being nice with Russia.
He's being diplomatic because we're getting this other stuff that's way more important than that.
Would that argument ever win the day?
Never. So being logical, being right, being on the right side won't help a bit.
Because the anti-Trumpers have set a trap with this claim of he must be compromised because there's no other reason you would ever be diplomatic with Russia.
It's a good trap.
Now, if you ask me, how do you get out of this trap?
I would say, it's pretty hard.
It's pretty hard.
So, Russia, if you're listening, and I'm pretty sure you are...
Russia, you have one way out of this trap, because this is your trap too, right?
Keep in mind that the trap that the anti-Trumpers and the entire left are setting for Trump is that if he's nice in any way to Putin, then it must be compromising material and it's the only explanation.
That trap is bad for Russia too.
Because it creates a situation where the president can't be nice to them and also get re-elected, also have a good result in the midterms, maybe get impeached if he's too nice.
So the president's got a big problem.
But Russia... Russia has just as big a problem, if not bigger.
Russia has a big problem in that the United States can't be nice to them in public because we'll lose our president if we do.
Now, what is the only way out of this trap?
Because it's an excellent trap.
Again, I remind people who are new to this, when people say to me, why do you always say President Trump is so great persuader, but why are you always just saying he's the only good persuader?
And here I'm saying that the anti-Trumpers have the better play at the moment.
And it's a very Trumpian play.
Because what Trump does is he creates a frame that's going to attract confirmation bias.
When he framed low energy Jeb, it made you certainly look at Jeb in a different way, and then no matter what Jeb did, you'd say, well, that's more low energy stuff there.
So they just did the same play with Trump, which is they've got this vague, unprovable and unfalsifiable claim that Russia has some information about him.
And of course there will be situations where we have to be at least diplomatic with Russia.
So what is the one and only way out of this?
Russia, if you're listening, you're going to have to step up.
Really step up.
Meaning that Putin is going to have to do something that is so unambiguously good for America.
Unambiguously. Like really make a big difference in North Korea.
Really make a big difference with Iran.
If he can do those things, and by the way, those are easily within his power, wouldn't you say?
Wouldn't you say it would be a fairly easy thing for Russia to step up and say, yeah, we're strong on these security guarantees.
We want to denuclearize North Korea and really get on board.
And in Iran, there's concrete things they could do.
Now, it's the only way out.
So there's nothing that Trump can do to get out of this trap.
The anti-Trumpers have created a trap that Trump cannot get out of on his own.
Only Putin can help Trump out of this trap by doing something big.
Releasing his taxes would be the worst idea in the world.
It would just be a whole bunch of new targets created for people who don't understand how taxes and business works.
Yeah, releasing snacks is the worst idea in the world.
You should never do that.
So, one of the weird things about having Russia in the Middle East is that they're somewhat atheist.
You know, not completely, of course.
But they don't seem to have a religious side.
So I think that makes it easier for them to deal with Israel, deal with the Americans, the Christians, deal with the Muslims.
The Russians are in a weird...
Yeah, I realize that they have a religion, but they're not really branded that way.
The Muslims in the Middle East will still hate anybody who isn't Islamic, but I think the Russians are closer to some kind of a neutral place than other countries would be.
And so they could be productive.
Now, when I say to you, only Russia can help Trump out of his problem, I don't mean that in a collusion kind of way.
I mean that that's just the situation.
If Russia doesn't step up, and they don't step up strong, and they don't step up right away, and that probably involves some flexibility in eastern Ukraine and maybe other places, but if they don't do that, Imagine, for example, that they could say, look, we promise that we won't be poisoning any dissidents.
No, they'd never do that.
That one will never happen.
Because it's always useful for your dissidents to think they might get poisoned.
So Russia's never going to claim they won't poison their dissidents.
You could forget about that one.
So there's your situation.
The only way Putin can help himself, and he's in a tight spot, is by helping President Trump.
It's the only way. Russia can only help itself by helping President Trump and We don't believe that Putin is insane.
Nobody has claimed that Putin is crazy, right?
So that's the good news.
As long as he's in control and he's rational, there is one path that's good, and then there's a whole bunch of paths that are just totally terrible.
So let's see if he picks the right one.
Now, he's vindictive, blah, blah, blah.
Certainly their personal feelings are part of the question.
But if two people only have one way to a good result, and they're both smart and capable, they should be able to find it.
So I think there's a bit of a waiting game because it's going to take a little bit for Russia to do anything productive.
I would say, and let's see if you're with me on this.
The United States has given Russia some space to become productive.
So they've given them the political space to do that.
And the president has taken all the heat for that.
What would you feel, most of you are Trump supporters, how would you feel if the president gave Putin space and then Russia just absolutely turned around and screwed us?
And let's say that they absolutely do interfere with the election in the midterm and maybe 2020.
What would you say to that?
What should be the United States response to that?
Yeah, we go hard at them.
Sanctions. Deal with it then.
Yeah, of course you deal with it then.
Yeah, it's hammer time.
So, Russia needs to know that their improved brand, at least among Republicans, is highly conditional.
Right? We do not have unconditional love for Russia.
Nobody has that.
It is conditional upon them doing things which are good for this country, period.
So if they mess with their election, if they are not productive in North Korea and the Middle East, if they try to invade another country, it's time to turn off the spigots.
The first thing I would do is I would stop the German pipeline.
That's the first thing I would do.
Now you say to yourself, well, the United States can't really stop the German pipeline, right?
Sure we can. Yes we can.
The United States can absolutely stop the German pipeline.
If you don't think we can do that, you're not paying attention.
Because that pipeline is going to blow up a few times.
It might look like other people did it.
But if the United States wants to stop the German pipeline, it's done.
We just have to want to do it.
Remember I've taught you the difference between wanting and deciding.
So far, President Trump has decided a wish, a want.
Hey, Germany, I wish and I want that you would not build this pipeline because this seems like a conflict.
Why do we have NATO if you're building a pipeline and becoming dependent on the people we're trying to protect you against?
So he has a wish and a want.
If, and this is a big if, if Russia screws our president in a way that all of us recognize is the truth, and that might take some convincing, right?
But if they did something that we recognize as the truth, the United States is going to stop that pipeline.
And that's just the beginning.
There's going to be a lot more pain for Russia after that.
But the pipeline's done.
Right? Because then it would become a decision.
That decision hasn't been made.
The United States has not decided to stop the pipeline.
But would it be expensive for us to do that?
In other words, would Germany be pissed at us for a generation?
Maybe. Maybe.
That's the difference between deciding to do something and wanting to do it.
If you want to do something, you say to yourself, you know, we don't want to piss off Germany.
That would be like a horrible thing to do.
But if you've decided, you've already decided to take all the consequences.
And I think we should just decide that if Russia screws us after being given this opening, we stop the pipeline.
Now, how do you stop it?
Probably lots of ways.
There's probably more than one way.
Some of them are spy stuff, some of them are military, some of them are economic sanctions.
We could just close down Germany if we wanted.
Not literally, but you could put pressure on Germany to the point where the pipeline doesn't make any sense anymore.
You could kick Germany out of NATO. Because, or at least you could have hearings on kicking Germany out of NATO. Imagine that.
It probably wouldn't happen.
But imagine calling for a hearing to kick Germany out of NATO. Now this is only in the situation that Putin screws us.
So it's still a wait and see, right?
But I think Russia can't underestimate How completely pissed the right will be.
It's one thing to piss off the left, right?
So right now Russia is pissed off the left.
That's not very dangerous.
Would you agree with me on that?
Pissing off the left in this country, it's not terribly dangerous because they're not really the military part of the country, right?
Right now he has a little bit of goodwill, which is decreasing rapidly with the right.
But if he screws the right this time, all bets are off.
And I would be in favor of just shutting out Russia from any kind of international commerce.
Forever. Just shut them off.
Because here's the thing. You say to yourself, well, they're a nuclear power.
You've got to play well with them.
No, we don't. No, we don't.
I would shut down their economy.
And some of their nuclear weapons might be released.
And I would say, yeah, we'll deal with that.
So that's the difference between deciding and wanting.
So if we decide, and the right's going to decide, if we get screwed this time, the right's going to decide to shut down Russia, one way or another.
Alright, so Russia, if you're listening, it doesn't matter what you heard from any of our leaders.
Because the leaders work for us, us collectively.
We will vote them out.
If you screw us and they don't act aggressively to shut you down completely and forever, we're going to vote out those assholes.
Sorry, I didn't mean to sweep.
We will vote out Trump.
We will vote out Pence.
We will vote out Bernie.
We'll vote out anybody you frickin' need to get voted out.
Russia, if you screw us, we're coming for you.
And I'm talking about the public.
Because the public owns the government.
That wasn't always the case, but with our social media reality, social media does move the government, and it moves it pretty directly and pretty quickly.
So you don't want the left and the right to be on the same side.
Right now, Russia, you've got a good situation.
You've got the left and the right sort of a little bit, at least in some areas, at odds with each other when it comes to Russia stuff.
But it wouldn't take much.
It wouldn't take much for the left and the right to unite, and you don't want to see that.
All right. Am I wrong, by the way?
Am I wrong that if Russia screws us now, when we've given them this opening, it's going to be the worst problem Russia's ever had?
Somebody says, that's a little naive, Scott.
Whoever tells me, comes onto this complicated topic and says, You're a little bit naive, Scott.
You're a little bit naive. Thank you for being completely worthless.
Thank you for spending your time to make a comment that has no value to anybody.
Why do you do that?
Did it feel good to say in public, you're naive, Scott.
You're naive. You know that if you give me a reason, I will deal with a reason.
I might agree, I might disagree.
I'm willing to look at a better argument.
I'm actually willing to say, well, I only think the odds of this are better.
Maybe you think the odds of another thing are better, and I will recognize that.
But you're not, you've got the things you don't know.
You're so ignorant. Let's acknowledge that none of us are frickin' Russia experts.
None of us are Russia experts.
We're certainly not international geopolitical experts.
We're basically beginners.
So if I got something wrong...
I would hope you would just tell me, and then maybe I could fix it.
But, you know, I don't know what's going through your head to just come up here and hurl an insult about how much I know about the topic when I would tell you I don't know that much about the topic.
But you know who else doesn't know about this topic?
Whoever said, you're naive, Scott.
All right. I'm not mad that somebody's coming after me.
I'm mad at how unproductive it is.
That's what makes me mad.
You know, you've seen me be the subject of untold attacks and trolls and Nazis and everything else.
So you've seen me, you know, withstand immense barrages of attacks, and they don't really bother me.
Like, I don't take them personally.
But when somebody's so unproductive, Even for themselves?
Like, who benefited by that?
All right, rant off.
What other things are we having here?
All right, so let me summarize by saying that you've got two competing movies.
In one movie, the president will just do whatever Russia wants until he gets impeached, I guess.
And in the other movie, Russia will either quickly and visibly do things that we need them to do to get on our good side and keep the progress going, or they will screw us, And the president, with the backing of the people, will shut them down.
Hard. Just take out their economy.
And the pipeline goes first.
Can we have an agreement?
Let's agree that the pipeline stops if Russia screws with us.
Because if Russia screws with us, it's NATO all the way.
It's double down on NATO. Right?
Yeah, the pipeline's done if they screw us.
It would have to be something that you could demonstrably feel comfortable that it really happened.
Somebody says, disagree.
I saw one disagree, and I would be interested.
Now, in this context, just saying disagree without a reason is fine, because I asked you, you know, yes or no.
But if somebody has a reason for why the pipeline shouldn't be the first, that would be interesting.
I'd like to hear it. Russia is nearly broke.
Are they? You know, I'm never confident that we can tell who's really broke.
Because right now, if you believe it, North Korea is crumbling, Iran's economy is crumbling, and Russia is crumbling their economy.
But they still stay in power.
It feels like the crumbling economy is not as important as it should be.
So somebody said not possible to take out the pipeline because Germany would disagree.
I don't think we've tested how much pressure we could put on Germany on that question.
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