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July 19, 2018 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
10:43
Episode 148 - Scott Adams Debunks the Fake News That President Trump Believes Putin Over His Own...
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bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum all right I'm back and this is going to be short It's a single topic because it's bugging me as I read this in the news.
So I'm watching Trump supporters, or at least Republicans, let's say, and people on the left.
They're saying the same ridiculous thing over and over again.
And they're saying a version of this is...
And the version is, it appears, and this is the important part, or it seems, or it suggests, or it hints.
As soon as you see that, you should know that whatever comes after it is going to be BS. But the common story on the entire left and much of the right is that the president seemed to believe Putin over his own intelligence agencies.
Nothing like that happened At least not in my movie.
Here's what did happen.
There was the press conference where President Trump asked the question, said that Putin was very strong in his denial.
Now, does that sound like he believed him?
When you say someone is very strong in their denial, you're kind of saying you don't believe it.
All right? That's what that means.
It means in this time and place, I'm not going to call him a liar.
But I'm going to call him a liar.
I'm just going to do it the diplomatic way.
I talked to Putin, and he made a very strong denial.
Very strong. So I'm allowing him to keep face.
But I'm clearly calling him a liar.
Do you know what you say when you believe somebody?
You say, he said he didn't do it, and I believe him.
How many times have you heard President say, Putin says he didn't do it?
That's not believing him.
That's exactly what you say when you don't believe somebody.
He said he didn't do it.
Alright? If you don't believe it, you say you don't believe it.
Do you think that the president is shy about saying whether he believes or doesn't believe something?
Have you ever seen a situation where this president, President Trump, was shy or hesitant to say what he believed?
No. If he believed Putin, he'd frickin' tell you.
You wouldn't like it, but he'd tell you.
He didn't tell you that.
Has he said directly, I believe my intel agencies when they say Russia was meddling, etc.?
Yes, he's said that a number of times.
He has said a number of times he believes it.
What does the press do, the enemy press?
The enemy press conflates that with, therefore, Putin got you elected.
That part, our president resists quite strongly.
Now, there are two possibilities.
One, Russian involvement did get him elected.
In other words, there was enough of a difference that it put him over the top.
The other possibility is that it didn't.
So, two possibilities.
Russian interference did help President Trump or it did not because it just wasn't a good level of interference.
It didn't make enough difference.
In both cases, what is the proper, smart, intelligent way for the president to respond?
Only one smart way.
All right, we're going to get rid of this asshole.
Only one smart way to respond.
You should say Russia did not have any involvement and that my presidency is legitimate.
Do you know why? Because what you want, you being the public, is for the president's presidency to be seen as legitimate.
There would be nothing more damaging for the president of the United States to say, nothing would be more damaging than to say, you know...
You got a point there. I've been listening to my intelligence people and I don't think I did win that election.
Come on!
That would be the worst thing anybody could say.
But because he can't say that, People are saying, oh, is it his ego?
Is it because Putin owns him?
Keep in mind, there's only one thing you can say.
If there's only one thing you can say, which is it didn't affect the election, therefore I'm a legitimate president, that's the only thing you can say.
If you say anything else, You are not doing a good job for the country.
You're not doing a good job for yourself.
You are ruining possibly the entire planet Earth by delegitimizing the government of the biggest military on the planet.
What would be the biggest mistake this president could make?
To say, yeah, I think my presidency was a little bit illegitimate.
That's a good point they're making.
So when you see the enemies of the president Attacking him for what appears to be, or seems as if, or he's suggesting that, Putin is more believable than his own intelligence agencies.
Nothing like that's happening.
Not even close.
Because if he were, he'd be saying stuff like, well, I believe Putin, I don't believe my intelligence agencies.
Do you believe that this president holds back on his opinion?
If he believed that, he would certainly say it.
That's the one thing we can depend on.
All right. Now, he has said, the president, that the chain of custody for the servers, and apparently it's not one physical server, it's physical servers in the cloud, but that chain of custody was not done right.
And therefore, on the narrow question of whether Russia hacked into that particular set of servers, he said there is some question, because the chain of custody essentially wasn't there, that the FBI didn't look at the base servers.
Now, some people, anti-Trumpers, have jumped in to say, Scott, you do not understand.
It's in the cloud. It's not an actual server.
And by the way, they gave him a perfect copy.
It's a mirror copy.
You don't need the original thing.
Well, what court in the world takes a copy?
No court accepts a copy, especially if there's a chain of custody problem going on here.
So the president has accurately criticized But when the president criticizes one area,
That is clearly and unambiguously a point of non-credibility, and the information he uses to do that is in the public domain.
Nobody's questioning the facts of it.
That's pretty believable.
And also, it's exactly what you should do if you're trying to defend the credibility of the presidency.
And I'll tell you, I wouldn't care if this were Hillary Clinton or any other president.
You don't want your president criticizing the credibility of their own administration.
As in whether or not they're even legally elected.
That would be the worst, dumbest, stupidest thing anybody ever did in the political or any other arena.
It would be a catastrophic mistake.
And so his critics, the ones on the left, you figure, are maybe just taking the opportunity for whatever attack they can.
But the people on the right are the ones I'm most disappointed with.
So the Republicans who have said, yep, it looks like that president has taken the side of Putin, you're idiots.
So the people on the right who say that the president, people that would otherwise back the president to say that he suggested that Putin isn't doing any kind of cyber attacks is just a lie.
The president has questioned one very specific claim about these servers.
And said there's a lack of credibility there.
He has not questioned the basic premise that all of the big countries are trying to cyber mess with all of the other big countries.
There isn't the slightest chance he believes Russia has done nothing in terms of cyber attacks.
There is a good chance he believes or he would like you to believe that Russia didn't have any important effect and that that hasn't been demonstrated.
So I'm going to leave it there.
But I'm just shocked that the news is continually getting away.
Both sides, by the way.
I think Fox News is saying the same thing that CNN is saying on this topic, that he seems to have suggested that Putin's a little more reliable.
Nothing like that happened.
He did act diplomatically, and he did defend the integrity of the election.
Those things he did.
But those are both good things.
Being diplomatic is good, and defending the credibility of the election.
Even if, even if there's a possibility that there was something going on there that made a difference, even if that's true, you should defend the credibility of the office once you're in, because you can't change the past.
That's all I wanted to say about that.
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