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Dec. 31, 2018 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
11:44
Episode 357 Scott Adams: Explaining the Syria Withdrawal in a Way CNN Will Not Understand
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Hey, is anybody there?
This afternoon, it's too soon to be celebrating New Year's Eve.
Although I might join you at New Year's Eve.
I'm not quite sure yet. I just have a single topic today that I couldn't wait.
I couldn't wait. Hello, Ontario, Canada.
Hello, everybody.
So, I'm watching CNN just moments ago, and they're talking about President Trump's decision to pull out of Syria.
Now, since CNN is the anti-Trump channel, they of course are painting it in the worst possible way.
In words that you hear there is, I actually heard a pundit say that the President's decision to leave Syria was, quote, random.
Random? It was literally a campaign promise.
I don't know what random means if it means keeping a campaign promise.
So that's interesting.
Now, of course, they also call it impulsive.
And the biggest complaint is that he did not consult with all of the stakeholders.
These are all the things...
That people who don't know how to manage anything important say.
So if you don't know how things work, you've never worked in a big company, you've never been a manager of people, you don't have much deep experience, you would say this about the president's decision on Syria.
You would say, that's random, which just means you don't understand it.
Or, it's impulsive, which just means you're not aware of who talked to who about what and how long they've been thinking about it.
But the interesting part...
Oh, arbitrary, yes.
It was arbitrary. Random, arbitrary, and impulsive.
But now, let me give you the context.
So the context is, it was the most well-broadcast decision of all time, because he'd been saying it since he ran for president.
And I don't think he ever stopped saying it, that getting out of Syria was an objective once ISIS was beaten down.
And they're pretty well beaten down, although not completely.
So that's the situation, is that he said he was going to do it.
So it's not random. But there is the issue of, did he consult with the right people in order to make the decision?
And here's the context that's important.
Six months ago, no, eight months ago, He asked for a plan to get out.
And he said, let's get out in six months.
Eight months later, he checked in on how his six-month plan was going.
And they told him, we're not planning to do that.
It's hard. And we have reasons.
Now, if you're a strong leader, what do you do in that situation?
What do you do if you ask for something very important to be done in six months, and then eight months later when you check in on it, they've done fucking nothing.
Nothing. Do you do what CNN suggests, which is to start the clock again?
And just say, well, I guess that eight months was a waste of time.
Let's start the clock again.
Hey people, go figure out how to get me out of Syria.
And then what do you do in six months when they've done nothing?
Because clearly they don't want to get out of Syria.
Well, you've wasted another six months.
Here's what you do if you're a smart, tough leader.
You turn to Bolton and you say, we're still not out.
Turkey says, I'm talking to the president of Turkey here, and he says they can take care of what's left.
Give me a reason we need to be here.
And then John Bolton looks at him and says, uh, or something like that.
We weren't in the room, but apparently John Bolton did not give him a good reason to stay.
Now imagine you're him.
It's your campaign promise.
It's important. You gave them six months, and they not only did not do it, they did not come back to you and tell you why they couldn't do it.
They just didn't do it.
And now you've talked to the guy who should know the most, who's the biggest hawk of them all, and obviously he has all the information that he needs.
And he says, what do you think?
And he goes, I don't know.
I don't have a reason. What do you do if you're a strong leader?
Well, the first thing you might do is fire some people.
That could get attention.
Now, the Mattis thing is more of a quitting than a fired, but I think the president needed to fire him at that point.
Don't you? If Mattis had not resigned, he kind of should have been fired for this, even if he did everything else right.
If the commander-in-chief gives you an order And you have a reason you can't do it, and you come back to him with a reason and say, I understand the order, but here are the reasons we don't want to do it or can't do it.
Well, you don't fire that guy.
That person is doing their job.
But if you check back in eight months, and they've done nothing, and they can't tell you why they've done nothing, at least in a way that was convincing, the smartest thing to do Is to say, we're going to do it.
Alright, I'm ordering it.
It's done. Now, what happened as soon as the president made the decision?
All the people who did nothing for six months, eight months actually, all the people who did nothing to make this happen, suddenly, for the first time, got serious.
So he took people who weren't taking him serious, seriously, and he made them serious by ordering it.
It was exactly the right thing to do.
Now, what happened when they started getting serious?
They dug into it a little bit.
There was lots of pushback.
The Senate got involved. Lindsey Graham first hated it, but now he kind of likes it because he has some more information, apparently.
But it caused all those people who were ignoring the commander-in-chief, it caused them to do their job for the first time.
For the first time, they did their job.
And what happened when they did their job?
They came back and they said, you know, we don't want to do this quickly, so how about we take our time and here are our reasons.
And what did the president say when they finally did their job and gave him reasons and then gave him a reasonable schedule?
He said, yes.
The moment they actually did their frickin' jobs, He became the most reasonable guy in the world.
When they were not doing their job, he made them do their job.
And I'm listening to the folks at CNN who don't understand how the world works.
There was only one way to do this, and I think he did it.
He ordered it, and then he knew that would cause a lot of deeper thinking about it.
He knew it would cause people to make it a priority.
And they hadn't made it a priority before, but it's a priority now, and they're going to figure out how to do it.
So, what bothered me about this, enough to jump on Periscope to do another one, is that he was being criticized for really doing the right thing.
To me, a lot of situations can be a gray area.
You don't really know if you did the right thing.
You have to wait. There are lots of variables involved.
It's hard to tell. You might prefer a decision, but you don't really know if it's the right decision.
It's a big complicated world.
But if you're the leader and your employees are not doing what you asked them to do, you light a fire.
You fire people.
Or you just order it to happen and it catches their hair on fire and then stuff gets done.
And then you get reasonable after you've got them to act.
So it's just mind-boggling to watch the people who have never run businesses, never managed people, never been even within a mile of this kind of problem and this kind of important decision.
So, that's my argument that Trump handled that just right.
Now, I will say again that if anybody is an expert on climate change, I would love that they sign up on the interface by WinHub app, and I will personally give them a call and see what I can learn.
But you have to have some real credentials.
I'm talking about somebody who's actually, you know, not a skeptic.
I'll talk to skeptics separately, but I want to talk to somebody who Really wants climate change.
I'd love to also see an expert on the app.
It's called Interface by WenHub and it's available in app stores.
I'd love to see an expert who says that open borders are good for the world.
Like real open borders.
Not just the kind where people get work permits, but just real open borders.
I would like to talk to that person because I've never met anybody Or talk to anybody who thought that was a good idea, and yet we're running the country as if half the country thinks that's a good idea.
I don't believe it's true.
I don't believe there are people who have that opinion until I meet one.
If I actually talk to a real, legitimate, serious adult, Who says, yes, I do believe in completely open borders.
Here's my argument.
I might agree with them or I might disagree with them, but at least I would confirm that such a person exists.
I don't believe they exist.
That's my start.
Somebody just said Jim Davis knows they exist.
I don't know how to deal with the people who are coming into this late.
I'm not sure calling me a cartoonist is the best description at this point.
I would also like an expert in the Middle East, somebody who knows about Syria, for example.
And so if any of those people are on the app today or this week, and by the way, if you sign up for the app, I'll get a notice if you come online.
So I don't have to be available at that time.
Just when you come on, I'll get a notice that somebody under that keyword is online and I'll catch up to you.
All right. So let's see if we can get some experts to answer some questions.
And for now, let's stop criticizing the president's decision about Syria because...
It really wasn't exactly the right way to play that.
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