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Jan. 31, 2019 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
50:23
Episode 397 Scott Adams: Fake News, Climatesplaining, Intel Agency Mistakes, Howard Schultz
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Time Text
Hello, Sven Allen.
Welcome. Grab your coffee.
Let's put a dent in the universe, says Chris.
Agreed. Let's just whack that universe hard.
Put a big old dent in it.
Well, we're going to have some fun today.
Hello, Germany. Hello, everybody.
Something tells me we're going to get a big crowd in here today.
I just have a feeling.
Nothing attracts a crowd more than people thinking that they're going to grind me in the dirt.
We're going to get this guy.
We think he said or thought or did something that we don't like.
Get him! Get him!
Well, let's see if that happens today.
But first... First, let us enjoy.
Hey, Dr. Drew.
Let us enjoy the simultaneous sip.
Raise your cup, your mug, your thermos, your glass, your container, your stein, whatever it is.
Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee.
And join me for the simultaneous sip.
Now you might be aware of a little item in the news that teaches us everything we need to know about the universe.
All right.
So the item is that Virginia's governor was on video talking about a law that's been struck down, an abortion law that's been struck down.
When I saw the video, I tweeted that it was fake news.
And then the universe opened up on me and started to pee on my head.
And they said, Scott, you're always so right about things, but man, are you wrong about this one.
You are so wrong.
And then, of course, the governor's office clarified that I was right.
It was fake news.
But then what did people say?
Did they say, oh, you're right.
Damn it. You're right that he didn't say what he meant to say and that he clarified it later.
You called that exactly. Did people say that to me?
No, they didn't.
I think they accused me of being a baby killer, mostly.
So let me give you some context here.
And people are saying it wasn't fake.
So to those of you who are saying it wasn't fake, we're gonna talk about what I meant and what you're experiencing.
All right, so here are several rules That I want you to keep in mind for how to look at any situation.
Rule number one.
And there's a name for this.
It's named after a person.
I forget the person. But the idea is that when you are the one in the news, if you were the subject of the news, in other words, if there's an article or a story about you personally, You get to see how wrong the news is in a way that other people don't.
So in other words, when I see a story written about me, I know what the fake parts are because it's about me.
But you can't tell.
As far as you can tell, it all looks real.
So when you're the subject of a story, you can see how amazingly unreal they are.
So it changes your perspective about how real other stories are.
So if you see other people's stories, you're automatically on alert if you've been the subject of your own stories.
So the first rule is, if you see a story about a famous person, a governor, a cartoonist, a president, There's a good chance, maybe 60%, that the story is misleading, out of context, or just wrong. Most of you, the Gelman effect, thank you.
Yes, the Gelman effect.
He's the one who came up with it.
So he was a physicist, I believe, and when he saw stories about physics, because that was the one thing he understood, he could tell that the news was often wrong, because that just happened to be one thing he understood so well that he could tell.
So rule number one, about 60% of everything you see in the news about a person and their thoughts, and their thoughts is wrong.
Let me give you an example.
So here's somebody replying to my comments yesterday.
So this is just a fresh tweet.
And this gentleman who may be on the Periscope right now said to me, he goes, I have no idea why you're willing to apply charitable intentions in this case.
That didn't happen. I did not apply any charitable intentions.
In fact, I thought everybody in this case is probably worthy of criticism for one thing or another.
So there were no charitable intentions, but this person sees them clearly.
In other words, he's imagining he can read my mind because I never said anything like I have charitable intentions.
That was just a misinterpretation.
And then all morning and all last night I was reading comments to my comment that it was fake news.
And almost universally, people were complaining about something they imagined I thought or they imagined I said.
Almost nobody was actually criticizing me for something I actually said and actually believe.
Now, actually said in this context means interpreted correctly.
So let's get to the situation itself.
So Virginia had this proposed law, which apparently was a terrible law.
So terrible it's already been rejected.
So rule number one of this conversation, We all agree it was a bad law, right?
Can we all agree it was a bad law?
Is there anybody here who thought that was a good law?
We're all on the same side, right?
If anybody here thinks that was a good law, just say so.
Are we in 100% agreement that the law was a bad law?
We're all on the same side, right?
Even though we're all on the same side, that the law was bad, watch how people imagine I'm thinking otherwise and start criticizing me.
And it's even going to happen in the feed here.
You're going to watch people say, why are you defending this?
I'm not. As far as I can tell, we all think it was a bad law.
Here's the fake part.
When the video of the governor speaking first dropped, and I'm going to read it to you, so the key part here.
Here's the key part.
This is what the governor said.
He's been described as a moderate.
And he said about this, talking about what types of situations this would incorporate or encapsulate, I guess, or include.
He said, quote, it's done in cases where there may be severe deformities.
There may be a fetus that is non-viable.
So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen.
The infant would be delivered.
The infant would be kept comfortable.
So far, so good.
The infant would be resuscitated.
So far, so good.
If that's what the mother and family desire, what?
Now it's getting a little sketchy.
And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.
And then hair on fire, full stop.
Wait a minute. Did this governor just say...
Did this governor just say in the clearest possible terms that they would deliver a healthy baby and then decide whether they would kill it?
That's fake news.
It's fake news that they were deciding that they would kill a healthy baby after delivery.
So that's the fake news part, and that's the part that of course was clarified.
So, was I correct that it was fake news?
Well, it wasn't fake news in the sense that he said those words, because that was on video.
It was fake in the way that people interpreted it.
They interpreted it as him saying that you'd have a perfectly fine baby, and then for any reason whatsoever, if the mother said, eh, let's kill it, the doctor would say, okay, well, that's the law.
If you'd like to kill this perfectly healthy baby, I'll do that for you.
Now, 20% of you watching this just mistakenly thought, I came out in favor of killing babies.
So let me stop again, because this is one of those topics where misinterpreting is the norm.
I'm not in favor of killing any babies.
I'm not in favor of killing healthy ones.
I'm not in favor of killing unhealthy ones.
I'm not in favor of killing babies under any under any condition.
All right. So don't confuse my talking about how clear the video was and how clear the message was.
I get to get rid of you.
So whoever accuses me of being an apologist is not listening closely enough, so I'm just blocking those people.
Alright, so I'm talking about the clarity of the message.
I'm not talking about the proposed bill, which we all agree was bad, right?
Nobody here wants to kill a baby.
We're all on the same side, right?
But watch how, even though we're all on the same side, nobody wants to kill a baby.
Nobody thought that the law was good.
We're all on the same side.
And at the same point, people are going to say, damn it, Scott, I disagree with you while agreeing with you completely.
All right. Now, was the bill poorly written?
Apparently, yes. And the insane part of the bill, as it's been reported, and I'm not sure this is as accurate as it could be, but if this is true, it's just crazy.
That one of the reasons that a healthy baby could be terminated is if it was causing the mother mental problems after birth, after it was born.
You know, if the bill said something like that, of course, nobody's in favor of that.
But the specific case, let me just say what the governor was saying, and this is not me agreeing with him.
This is not me defending him.
This is not me being an apologist.
I'm just talking about the message and how clear it was.
It seemed clear to me when I saw the video that the governor was talking about a situation in which the baby was born technically alive, but could not have survived.
And the question then becomes more of a hospice situation.
You know what hospice is, right?
Hospice is when, let's say, there's an elderly person, they've only got maybe a week to live, And at that point, the people in charge, if the person is no longer, let's say, clear thinking, maybe there's a relative who gets to decide based on the directions that have been left, you know, the directive, can they stop feeding them and stop trying to keep them alive?
So the context here was sort of a hospice situation for a newborn.
So that was the context.
So the question was, should you do heroic things to keep a baby alive for another few hours?
Or not? Most of you would be correct in saying this bill is not written with the kind of precision that you could ever agree with it.
Even people who are pro-abortion would disagree with this bill the way it's written because it just doesn't have the kinds of protections that any of us would want.
So the governor's context, which to me seemed completely clear, Was that you're not talking about a baby that could have lived and had a normal life and that the doctor would have to be agreeing.
Now, that's essentially what they clarified after the fact, right?
So the governor's office issued a clarification, which was largely what I said, but I said it better, I think.
Yeah, the part about the mental health of the mother That's just a part of the bill that nobody could agree with, and so it's a good thing it got killed.
But that's not what the governor was saying.
The governor was not talking about the context of the mother's mental health.
The governor was talking about specifically a baby that was not viable, meaning it wasn't going to live under any assumptions.
Now, how many of you How many of you, in the comments, believe that the governor was saying in that video that a live, healthy baby could still be terminated for any reason?
How many of you believe that?
Because that's what the news...
That's the way it was presented on the internet, let's say.
So the way people received it was the fake news a little bit more than the news itself, which was the video.
How many of you believe that?
On the internet, a lot of people believed it.
So here's the clarification.
Once again, we're all on the same side.
It was a bad bill. We're all on the same side.
You don't kill a healthy baby.
We're all on the same side that if the baby could live with some kind of a life, nobody wants to take away that possibility.
So we're all on the same side.
I'm just saying that the way you received his specific message was inaccurate, and then later he clarified it.
You can still hate the bill.
We're not arguing about that.
It's probably impossible To even make the point I'm making without people hearing it as a completely different point.
Somebody's saying, nice try.
See, it's impossible to actually even have this conversation.
Now here's some of the other things to learn from this.
So we all experienced the Yanni and Laurel illusion, right?
So we all saw that we could look at exactly the same thing and have a different impression of what happened.
We've all watched the Trump presidency, and again, we've seen that we can all look at the same news and have completely different impressions of what we saw.
And then we saw the Covington situation, in which people like me Said, well, my eyes can't lie to me.
I'm looking at something right on video.
I'm definitely not wrong about that.
And then you see the context and you say, whoops, totally wrong about that.
And so I immediately clarified and apologized.
Now, I think you know that I have no compunction, no embarrassment whatsoever about apologizing when I'm wrong.
But here's the thing to learn from this.
The people who were most angry with me said, it can't be fake news and I can't be fooled by this because I'm looking at it with my own eyes.
I'm seeing the entire clip.
I'm not just looking at a little clip.
I'm seeing the entire context.
I'm hearing it clearly.
This could not be more clear.
How is this fake news?
If you think that, you have not learned the lessons of the last few years.
The last few years should have taught you that no matter how clear this looks, it could still be completely wrong.
So if you haven't at least allowed for the possibility that no matter how obvious and clear this looks, it could not be that.
It could be something different.
You have to at least allow that that's possible.
If you don't allow that, you've learned nothing in the last few years.
Which doesn't mean my interpretation was the right one.
I'm just saying that you have to allow that or you've learned nothing.
So... Here's another rule.
This is the Scott Alexander rule.
I've talked about this a few times.
If you see in the news something that's so outrageous, it seems unbelievable, and then it becomes headline news, chances are, and when I say chances are, probably a 90% plus chance, it's not true.
Keep this rule in mind all the time.
When you see a news story that by its nature is so outrageous, you think, my God, how could it be true that we're contemplating killing a live baby after birth?
The answer is usually that it's not true.
So you should have seen this video, and as clear as it was to you, The most rational thing to say was, yeah, this very clearly, this governor is saying in the clearest possible terms that they can kill a live baby after birth.
Because it did look like that.
The way he said it was terribly muddled, right?
So, no matter how clear that was, you still should have said to yourself, that's so outrageous, there's a 90% chance it's fake.
Now, suppose you go into the future and it turns out it was completely real.
Well, that would be the exception.
But your first instinct should have been, there's a 90% chance it's not what you think it is.
And sure enough, the...
And sure enough, the...
A lot of people are calling me arrogant on this point.
I want to talk about that in a minute.
So you should have had much less confidence in your opinion even though you saw the entire context on video right in front of your eyes and even though it looked to you very clear.
So here are the other hints that you should not have been so confident about your first impression.
People like me saw exactly what you saw and didn't see what you saw.
I was looking at exactly the same video, the whole video, and I didn't see what you saw.
So here's another rule.
Hallucinations are usually positive, meaning that if you and I are standing in a room and there's nothing else in the room, and you say, do you see that elephant?
And I say, what elephant? And you say, the elephant right in front of you.
This elephant right in front of you.
Do you see it? And I say, no.
I do not see an elephant there.
If that's the only thing you knew about the story, one person saw it, one person did not.
And let's say it's, you know, there's no forest involved.
You're in a small room and the elephant is either in there or not.
Who's usually right?
Who is usually right?
The person who doesn't see the elephant is usually right.
And the reason is that a hallucination is usually adding something to a situation.
A hallucination is rarely subtracting something.
So if you and I looked at the same video and you saw a guy saying that he was in favor of killing live babies for whatever reason after they're born, as long as you don't want them.
If that's what you saw, but there's anybody else who saw the same video and said, no, that looks like it's out of context.
He's just talking about a hospice situation where you're deciding whether to try to keep alive a baby that was born alive but can't possibly live for much longer.
Always go with the person who doesn't see it.
Doesn't mean you'll be right every time, but the bad bet was that this story was true just the way you originally thought it.
That was the bad bet. It is still true, and try to hold these thoughts in your head.
It could still be true that you misinterpreted the video, while it's also true that the bill was so bad That it did allow bad things to happen if it had been enacted exactly the way it had been contemplated.
Alright, so, people are saying to me, Scott, you're being arrogant.
I'm arrogant and talking down to people.
I have to look up the definition of arrogant before I comment on that.
Alright, definition of arrogant.
And by the way, I'm not saying that I'm not.
Arrogant. Exaggerating or disposed to exaggerate one's own worth.
Okay, I don't think I've done that.
Have I? I mean, no more than anybody on television is trying to say that their opinions are good ones.
So it doesn't fit that one.
One's own worth or importance.
No, I mean, I'm a person that you come to watch On a regular basis to give my opinions.
So if I give my opinions, that's just sort of what I do, right?
That's not exaggerating my importance.
In an overbearing manner.
Or having an offensive attitude of superiority.
Offensive is one of those things that you can't argue with.
So I will agree.
I will agree that if it seems offensive to you, since that's subjective, you know, I don't really control, I can't control how you feel.
So if you feel it's offensive, that would fit the definition of arrogant.
So I would have to agree with you on that.
And then showing an offensive attitude of superiority.
All right. The topic that we're talking about Which is persuasion and how to view reality.
The reason that you come here is because you think I have something to add.
That's the whole reason anybody's here.
If you didn't think I had something to add, you know, within this field, nobody would be listening.
So how could I hide my feeling of superiority?
What would that even mean?
Do you think coffee with Scott Adams would be better if I didn't act like I believed anything I said?
I kind of have to believe what I'm saying or the whole thing doesn't work, right?
Now, my suspicion is that a lot of people got caught with the fake news and they don't like it, right?
So, I can't make a generalization about every person who's commenting, but for some of you, you got caught in the fake news, you really believed that there was a law saying that you could kill a perfectly healthy baby just because, you know.
And then once you found out that it was a much more limited thing, still something you hated, still something that needed to be defeated, but not quite what you thought it was.
And you're sort of taking that out on me a little bit, which is okay.
Alright, so I will acknowledge that if you felt offended by my air of superiority on this narrow point of fake news, which I happen to be fairly qualified to speak about, that if you were offended, then it would be fair for you to say that my attitude was arrogant because it meets the definition.
Alright, let's talk about climate explaining.
How many of you...
First of all, probably every person here understands, I hope by now, that today's weather doesn't say anything about whether climate change is a problem or not.
Can we agree, everybody here, that 100% of us understand that today's weather, no matter how cold or warm it is, doesn't tell you anything about the long-term climate implications.
At the same time, At the same time, we're all explaining that to each other.
Haven't you seen, is it my imagination, or do I explain this to people about five times a week, and then people explain it back to me like I've never heard it?
It's the damnedest thing.
Are you all experiencing the same thing if you're having the same conversations?
Are you experiencing the same thing where you'll say to somebody, you know, don't make a big thing about this weather, whether it's hot or cold, because that's just weather.
That's not the climate. And then two days later, somebody will explain that same thing to you like you didn't just explain it to them.
Like I'm having this weird situation.
So the president, of course, made things worse with his tweet about global whamming or warming.
I guess there was a typo in there.
And he, of course, mocked the climate alarmists because it's unusually cold and where's my climate stuff.
Now here's the thing. We don't know what the president is thinking.
Just in general, you should always say, you don't really know what people are thinking.
We know what he did.
We know that he sent a tweet that anybody who understands the topic would know was ridiculous.
So it's ridiculous to say that the weather today tells you something about the climate.
It is not ridiculous to use it in a persuasive, humorous way, which is how I interpreted it.
That he was trying to persuade Because, and here's the fun part, because the other side is making the same stupid argument.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when we had all the forest fires in Northern California, wasn't the news telling us that that was strong evidence of global warming?
When we had a lot of hurricanes not this year but the year before, wasn't the news telling us that that was probably because of global warming?
None of those things are true.
Those are just things that might be, ah, it was a bad year for hurricanes.
That's all you can really say about them.
So both sides are trying to have it both ways.
Both sides of the climate debate are trying to claim the anecdotal stuff.
Things we're seeing today are actually solid evidence of their point of view.
It's not true either way.
So we're explaining to each other That weather and climate aren't the same, even though I think everybody understands it.
All right. Let's talk about President Trump...
I guess he tweeted some negative things about his intel heads.
And so he had some disagreement with Dan Coats in particular.
I guess Dan Coats said something along the lines of, to Congress, he said, it's unlikely that North Korea will ever give up their nukes.
So Dan Coats, what's his job, head of, I don't know, some top intel guy, I forget his exact title, said it's unlikely that North Korea will give up its nukes.
He should be fired for that.
Dan Coats should be fired for saying that.
Absolutely, he should be fired.
Now, the president...
Had every right to tear him a new a-hole in public for saying that.
Because we're still in a negotiation.
What's the worst thing you can say if you're in a negotiation?
The very, very, very worst thing.
There are probably a lot of bad things you can say when you're in a negotiation.
But the worst thing you can say is we don't expect to get the thing that we're asking for.
There's nothing worse than that.
Because what did North Korea say when they saw that the head of the intel said they're never going to give up their nukes?
If they're smart, and I believe they are, North Korea said, oh, they don't even expect us to give up our nukes.
Why should we even try?
Why would we even put that on the table?
They're not even expecting it.
Dan Coats should have been fired for saying that in public.
Now, more importantly, as I'm seeing in the comments you're prompting me, more importantly, it's a mind-reading opinion.
The worst of the worst.
The fact is, we don't know.
If he was sticking with the facts, he would have said, we're asking North Korea to give up this stuff.
History suggests this is going to be a tough fight.
We don't know how this will end, but we're definitely going to push for it as hard as we can.
Those would just be facts, right?
Facts are fine. If Dan Coats had said facts that disagreed with the president, I would say, hmm, I don't know, I'd rather see the facts.
The exception would be if there's some persuasion kind of thing that's important.
So, Kim Jong-un has generals that say similar things because they're on the North Korean side.
Yes, maybe you're agreeing with me.
I may have misinterpreted that.
Here's another one.
I guess the intel chiefs, I forget which one, was disagreeing with Trump that ISIS is beaten.
Disagreeing with Trump that ISIS is beaten.
Whoever said that Should be fired.
Tell me why in the comments.
Whoever disagreed with the president and said that ISIS is not beaten, whatever beaten means, everybody agrees that it's a permanent problem, but whoever said ISIS is not beaten should be fired.
Why? Here's why.
Here's why.
Do you know what's good for recruiting?
To say that they might win.
To say that they have a chance.
Do you know what's bad for ISIS recruiting?
They're so beaten down, there's nothing left of them.
Yeah, there's remnants, but basically they're beaten.
The smart way to play this is to say they're beaten while acknowledging that it's a permanent, ongoing, smaller problem.
The last thing you want to do is to say that the biggest military in the world has been fighting them for however many years and they're not beaten.
You need to get fired for that stuff.
That's like one of the biggest mistakes you could ever say in public.
Those are terrible. Now, what was the other thing?
Something about Iran. And so the president also was trying to keep maximum pressure on Iran by saying that they're a maximum problem.
How is our negotiation helped by the intel people acting like Iran isn't that big of a problem compared to what the president is saying?
You should get fired for that.
You should be fired for disagreeing with the negotiating position of the commander-in-chief.
You should get fired for that, where all the comments go.
All right, so, given that the intel chiefs made some of the biggest mistakes I can even conceive of in public, was it acceptable or a problem?
Was it a problem that the president called them out fairly immediately and in public?
It wasn't a problem to me, and not a problem to me.
I love the transparency.
The transparency is part of what we like about this president.
It's a feature, it's not a bug.
If somebody makes that kind of mistake, I mean these are monumental mistakes.
These are the kind of mistakes that cause wars.
I mean this is a war-sized Set of mistakes by his intel chiefs.
Yes, he should call them out.
Yes, he should do it in public.
In public. Absolutely in public.
Yes, it should be immediate.
And yes, he should tweet it.
So absolutely he should have called them out for that.
He should have embarrassed them in public.
And he should make sure that nobody is dumb enough to do it again.
All right. I don't even think he was hard enough on them.
I think those were firing mistakes.
Alright, let's talk about Howard Schultz.
So I've been getting to watch a little bit more of Howard Schultz doing interviews So he's doing the tour.
He's selling a book. He's doing a great job of selling his book, I'll bet, because he's getting all kinds of attention.
And I'm starting to form an opinion about him that I didn't have before.
So here is my opinion.
Number one, in a normal world where we didn't have these weird parties, you know, the Republicans and the Democrats were not, you know, worlds apart.
In a normal world, he'd be a pretty solid candidate.
He has charisma.
He's got the look.
He's tall. He's got good hair.
He's got a good backstory. He got healthcare and college benefits for his employees long before that was popular or even practical.
His story is great, seems totally qualified, and he's moderate in that middle area where it's easy to imagine he could even get crossover votes.
So in a normal world, He would be a really strong candidate.
Really strong, I have to say.
But there is no home for him in the Democratic Party, and never will be, because he's a...
White male, right?
Yeah, he's a white male and he looks sort of traditionally like, you know, the white male CEO, the white male, you know, good hair candidate sort of thing.
So I don't think there's any chance that he could ever be the standard bearer for the Democrats.
And of course, he's too liberal to be with the Republicans.
But what's interesting is we're seeing him frame the Democrats as being crazy, which is actually quite a public service.
I would consider this a legitimate public service.
That he's coming out as a, you know, more liberal than not kind of a person, he would say centrist, and he's calling out the side that people associate him with, even if he doesn't associate himself with it.
Calling them out for the math networking.
Now at the same time apparently Bloomberg has done the same thing.
So Bloomberg, who I have a sort of a love-hate feeling about, there are things that Bloomberg likes that I probably don't like.
So in terms of policies, I wouldn't say I would agree with him on everything.
But I gotta say, that plucky little Bloomberg guy, he does seem honest in terms of his public stuff.
He does seem sincere.
He does seem capable.
He does seem to have a control of the issues.
There's a lot to like about him, right?
Except his policies are not the ones you want, which of course matters.
But in terms of a candidate as an individual, he's got a lot going for him.
I don't think he can win.
What would happen, I'm just going to throw this out there, what would happen if Bloomberg and Howard Schultz decided to run as president, vice president, package as independents?
As independents, they'd be a pretty strong package.
But the way the media is organized, nobody can win outside of the major parties at this point because they don't have a media platform to support them.
Yes, white male Bloomberg also could not be a candidate on the Democrat side.
He doesn't have the required skill, which is to be not a white male.
So, I've told you how when I watch the news, I have a different experience than many of you do, which is that quite often, You're just watching the news, whereas I become the news.
Have you noticed that? There are cases where I think I'm just watching the news and talking about it, but then I become the news because the news is about how the news is covered.
So with that Covington Catholic School thing, Being one of the first people to reverse courses, I became part of the national news because they were making news about people who changed their opinion of it when they saw the full video, and I was one of the first.
Politico did an article yesterday in which they were talking about how there were prominent Trump supporters who were noticing the AOC had the same skill set as Trump.
Lately I've been calling her Blue Trump.
Blue for Democrat and Trump for her skill set as a persuader.
And sure enough, Politico has now made the AOC story Partly about me.
So I'm mentioned in the story prominently as one of the people who had called out her skill set for persuasion.
Mike Cernovich is in there.
Steve Bannon, I think, is mentioned.
And, yeah, they always lump me with what they consider alt-right, but other people do not consider alt-right.
So we're all mislabeled in this.
Now, somebody says, really don't see it.
Yeah. So I will just say, it's weird to watch the news and then be absorbed into it, and then when I'm watching the news, the news is partly about me, which is weird.
Somebody says, that's not a good group.
Beto vs. Trump never happened.
Yeah, Beto won't be the candidate...
For president. You don't have to worry about that.
MAGA hat attack.
I don't know what that's about. It's not weird.
It's false modesty because I love the attention.
I didn't say I didn't love the attention.
My God. If anybody loves attention, it's me.
The one thing I'll never say is that I don't like attention.
If you ever hear me say, I don't like attention, you should just never watch me again.
Because then you would know I'm a liar.
We'll talk about a hoax on another thing.
I want to finish it before I talk about it.
Somebody's asking for another simultaneous sip?
But And here we go. So there's a story about some actor from Empire whose name I can't remember.
Smollett, I guess. And he is reportedly...
Does he self-identify as gay?
That's what somebody's saying.
But let's say he does.
And there's some question about whether he was really attacked by somebody wearing a MAGA hat.
And apparently it's hard to confirm that it happened.
I would say I'm going to put this in the category of things that it's sort of a wait and see.
You know, probably they're just things we'll never know about what happened there.
I'm not sure we'll ever have an answer.
So it's hard to have an opinion about that.
Oh, the Stone Raid.
Yeah. You know, a lot has been said about the Roger Stone Raid, and I don't think that I would have anything to add to that.
I think we all have the same impression, which is, why in the world would you need to raid A guy who, of course, he knows he's been the subject of investigation.
If there were any evidence laying around, he certainly would have gotten rid of it.
But more importantly, as somebody joked, I wish I could give credit, but somebody joked recently, if you wanted to catch Roger Stone, all you have to do is say, CNN wants to talk to you.
And he would come running out of his house.
And that's completely true, right?
If you wanted to catch Roger Stone, just say, hey, we got an interview on the front lawn.
Why don't you come out here and then put the handcuffs on him?
So one has to ask, what was the purpose?
What was the purpose of the major raid?
And I want to suggest...
That there's a reason that has not been considered.
And the reason it hasn't been considered is there's a reason and we just don't know what it is.
One of the things I'm writing about in my new book, which you'll see in a few months, is that sometimes we draw conclusions based on our own lack of imagination.
So if you say to me, Scott, imagine all the reasons that you can think of That the FBI would have such a show of force to pick up Roger Stone when all of us believe we can't think of any reason that would be necessary.
Unless they were just being jerks or they were overreaching or something like that.
Maybe they were sending a message, somebody says, etc.
Now, maybe.
Maybe. Maybe those were the reasons.
But did they pass the sniff test?
Do you think there was somebody at the FBI who said, this will be a good look for us?
I think this will be good for the FBI if we send way too many people to pick up Roger Stone.
I don't quite get how they thought that was the way to go.
So here's what I'm going to suggest.
By far the most likely explanation of why they sent so many people to pick him up in such a dramatic fashion was that there's something we don't know.
Now I know you don't like to hear that because you like to think you've seen it all but by far the most likely explanation is that someday you know maybe it's the head of the FBI will say okay what we didn't tell you is that we had this other concern and there was a reason we did it the way we did it.
Or they might say it was simply, let me give you, I'll just brainstorm here.
So this is just brainstorming.
Imagine that they decided to pick him up and originally they were just going to send three or four people.
And if you saw three or four people show up, you'd say, oh, that looks about right.
Three or four people.
Wouldn't that feel about right to you?
And let's say the word got out.
That three or four people were going to go do this job.
Is it possible that other people said, well, maybe we'll be back up for you, just in case.
And then maybe you just sort of drifted into too many people showed up, and then they all had to act like they were doing something.
So they all stood around looking menacing, and it was just way too many people.
So it's possible that the FBI is like any big organization where you call a meeting and you say, all right, I've invited six people and 12 people show up.
Have you ever been in a business meeting where you were sure that only six people were invited, but you sit down and there are 12 people there because each of them invited two other people?
So it's possible...
That there's just nothing to it.
It was just a big administrative situation where just too many people showed up.
Now, I'm not saying that that's likely.
I'm saying that you always have to assume that when you have these hard to explain situations that maybe, just maybe, the explanation is something you don't know, something you haven't considered.
So keep that in mind.
That's why I don't have a firm opinion about whether this was the worst thing in the world or just some weird mistake that the FBI did.
They wanted to be there for historic reasons.
Yeah, it's entirely possible that people in the FBI just wanted to be there because it was going to be a good show.
You know, just wanted to be part of history.
That's possible. And then maybe nobody stopped them.
Okay, well you're here anyway.
That's not how law enforcement works.
Yeah, I'm not suggesting that what I'm brainstorming with no thought whatsoever is what actually happened.
I'm just saying that in general, you can't always know all the things that went into the back story.
Rays are carefully planned.
People don't show up. Well, you called it a raid.
What if it was never a raid?
What if it was always four people who were going to knock on the door and the other FBI agents in the neighborhood knew that was going to happen?
Maybe the FBI heard that the...
Well, how about this?
What if the FBI heard that CNN had cameras there?
If you heard that CNN had cameras, would you bring extra people?
Just to make sure that the media was controlled away from the working situation.
I think you would, right? If you knew that there was a camera crew outside of Roger Stone's home, would you bring more FBI agents or fewer?
I think you'd bring more because you'd have an extra population to control.
So consider all the possibilities.
But I think we're all on firm ground in saying we do need an explanation.
I think the public needs an explanation.
But don't assume it's going to be some evil intention.
It could be. Just don't know.
Star Trek STD. Are you watching?
Is anybody watching the new Star Trek on CBS? Yes.
It got bad reviews, but I think it's the best one, actually.
I love the new Star Trek.
Alright, that's all for now.
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