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Feb. 12, 2019 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
54:53
Episode 412 Scott Adams: Border Funding, Weed, #40YearsofFailure, Apologies
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Hey everybody.
Come on in. Yes, I am back to save the universe.
That is exactly right.
That's why I do this.
It's definitely not for the money.
So, just a little info.
When I use the option that allows me to invite a guest, as I will do later today when I talk to Naval Ravikant, so I'll do my normal periscope right now, but I'm going to have a very special periscope at...
2pm Eastern, 11am on my coast.
And we'll be talking to Naval.
You do not want to miss that.
Just trust me.
You don't need to know any details.
Just trust me.
You don't want to miss it.
Alright. There is so much going on.
But not so much that we can't enjoy the simultaneous sip.
So grab your mug, your cup, your glass, your stein, your chalice, your thermos, if you will.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me for the simultaneous sip.
Oh, that's good sippin'.
So much going on that I had to make a list.
So I noticed that the president has changed his slogan to Finish the Wall.
I saw the signs at the president's speech.
I didn't catch all the speech, but I'm catching up on it today.
I like Finish the Wall.
So Build the Wall was obviously a successful campaign theme in the one sense that he won the election.
It was unsuccessful in the sense that it polarized the topic to the point where they can't get anything done.
But it was successful as a campaign speech.
And I would say that Finish the Wall It's really clever.
Because it's supportable in the sense that, you know, something's been done.
I don't know how much, it might be this much, it might be more.
But they've started.
I think that's a supportable thing to say.
Well, I think that there have been some rehabs and some rebuilds and some places where they've added a little bit of wall.
So it's fair enough.
Now, the news is that he's going to get some small amount compared to the $5.7 billion he wanted.
Now, if the rest of that money is spent on things which the experts agree on, well then maybe we have a good deal.
Right? Do you think that whatever is coming out of this committee is going to be compatible with what the experts recommended?
I don't remember seeing, here's what the experts said, here's what the plan is.
So I reject this plan without seeing the details because the media has not informed us that the experts back it.
Without that, It's absolutely batshit crazy to support it.
And the president has every right to ignore it.
In my opinion, on a question of national defense, and certainly the border is part of the national defense structure.
It's not a hot war, but it's clearly part of the conversation.
On a question like that, If the Congress ignores the experts, and here's the key thing, right in front of the public, we're all watching this.
We're freaking watching this.
And right in front of us, they disrespect the public.
This is massive disrespect.
For the public. It would be one thing for them to say, here's what the experts say, and here are the reasons that we think we should override them.
And then I would say to myself, let me look at these reasons.
They better be pretty good reasons.
And maybe they're good.
That's possible. It's possible that they have good reasons.
I'm not going to rule it out.
Because I'm not the guy who says, You always need to follow the experts.
You kind of have to use some judgment.
You've got to say, all right, we like this part of the experts, but they're not seeing the big picture.
Maybe there's a political element.
There are other things besides just what the experts say about their expertise.
But if they don't explain that to the public in the clearest possible terms, the experts said this, we've decided this, and here's why we differ with the experts and why we think it's still okay.
If you don't give us that explanation, I just want to swear.
Honestly, I feel disrespected.
Do you not? Am I alone in this?
I mean, I literally feel that the Congress is just spitting in my face right now.
It feels like when they ignore the experts on a vital, you know, I would say it's vital, important issue of national security, and they just spit in our face.
Again, I want to be clear.
If they differ with the experts and they offer some reasons, even if I don't agree with the reasons, I'm going to feel differently about it.
I'm going to feel they made their case.
Maybe I would have gone another way.
Maybe I wouldn't, but I'm not the expert.
So I think I can live with that.
But if they just spit in our face and say, we're going to ignore the experts like it didn't matter?
Like it didn't matter?
Come on! And how about the media?
Where's the media reporting what the experts said to compare it with what comes out of this?
Do you think you're going to see that reporting?
No. You're not going to see that.
You're not going to see it on the right.
You're not going to see it on the left.
You are completely unserved by the media on this question.
Am I wrong about that?
Am I making too big a deal about it?
It's actually making me angry Because I'm being disrespected.
I mean, I'm a voter.
I mean, potentially. In theory, I'm a voter.
But I'm definitely a taxpayer.
And these idiots who come up with this compromise plan, if it doesn't agree with the experts, I'm not happy.
And you've wasted my money.
You've wasted my time.
And under those conditions, if my commander-in-chief says, well, I'll take whatever money you're going to give me, but then I'm going to spend whatever we need.
I'm cool with that.
I'm very cool with that.
I'm super cool with that.
I'm more cool with that than just about any policy that I'll ever talk about.
Typically, I don't always come down strongly on a policy question, because that's not really what I talk about.
And frankly, I don't have the confidence that I know what the right policy is all the time, so I try to avoid that.
But in this one special case, I certainly can tell when the voters are being disrespected.
And we are seriously being disrespected here.
At least that's what it looks like.
I could be wrong. If in 24 hours we see a plan and they compare it to the experts, they tell us why they're doing something a little different, I'll change my mind.
I'll change my mind instantly.
If they treat us with respect.
But right now, the country is not being treated by respect by our employees.
We hire these idiots, right?
We hire them, we pay them, and they're spitting in our face by ignoring the experts and not explaining to us why.
All right. Enough on that.
I noticed that the president had some people in red hats behind him that said USA instead of MAGA. I didn't have time this morning to quite connect the dots.
Is that the new thing?
Will the hats for 2020, etc., are they going to say USA? Because if that's the way we're going, that's really smart.
Because it's tough to beat somebody up for wearing a USA hat.
That feels different, doesn't it?
And I think that the president did such a good job branding these red hats that it still works.
You know, a USA hat still looks like Still looks like you're on that same side, but it's less punchable.
So I think that's a smart, smart, smart move.
That's like A-plus smart.
That's exactly what they should be doing.
If for no other reason than to keep the Trump voters safer.
Does the president have an obligation to do what he can to keep his supporters physically safe?
He does. And if this is part of his decision, I imagine he approved it at some level.
I assume it's an official decision of the campaign, or at least of the administration.
If it is, it's the right one.
And it shows respect for the voters.
If it's true that half of the country is offended by MAGA hats, and I think that's sort of true, right?
I'm not saying that's a good thing.
It's a terrible thing.
But if it's true, you can't act like it's not true.
So what is the most respectful thing Trump and the administration could do, not just for his supporters, but for the people who would be offended by the MAGA hats?
Change it. That's how you show respect for voters.
That's how you show respect for the people who are paying your salary.
So that's what respect looks like.
This border wall security committee is the opposite.
All right. I saw that the president tweeted about Iran, and he came up with a new hashtag, 40 years of failure.
And his tweet said, I may have this backwards, but it was like, 40 years of corruption, 40 years of blah, blah, blah, and 40 years of terrorism.
And he said that the Iranian people needed better.
So the criticism was directed specifically at the government of Iran while saying that the people of Iran deserve better.
I really like that framing.
I like that a lot.
I think that's strong.
I don't know if it's enough to move the needle, but I like the framing of we like the Iranian people.
Why? Because we like the Iranian people.
That's just true.
The average Iranian or Iranian, I probably am pronouncing it wrong.
They're pro-Western, minding their own business, just want a good life, and they're awesome people.
So certainly it makes sense to make a distinction between what we think of the government and what we think of the people.
Here's some more stuff.
So the Green New Deal is now supported by, I believe, every Democrat presidential person who's announced, everybody who's announced they're running for president.
All of them.
Now, do you remember, I don't know, a year ago, when there were a few people, and frankly I think maybe Two people who were prominent in saying this.
I was one of them. Mike Cernovich was the other that I know of.
There may have been other people saying the same, but I'm less aware of them.
Saying that AOC was going to be a big deal.
And Almost everybody disagreed with us.
I mean, people just went crazy, saying, you can't say good things about Democrats, and you're so wrong, and she's so dumb, and she's just a kid, and she's just a bartender.
And Cernovich and I consistently have been telling you, oh, God, no.
God, God, God, God, no.
There's something coming.
It's a Trump-sized surprise, and we can see it as clearly as a truck.
I felt like Sertovich and I were standing on a highway with all of the rest of you.
We're all on the highway. And he and I are standing there saying, look, there's a truck coming.
Get off the road. Get off the road.
There's a truck. And everybody else is saying, truck?
What truck? I don't see it.
She's just a 29-year-old bartender.
Why are you worried about her?
Stop talking about her. Nobody's going to care about socialism.
And then today, we take stock.
Every Democrat candidate for president backs basically her plan.
The Green New Deal.
The only thing interesting happening on the Democrat side...
I think that's true, right?
There's literally nothing else interesting happening.
It's all her.
Now, she has advisors, and there are other people who are in on this Green New Deal stuff, but it's kind of her.
She is already running the entire Democrat Party.
The only reason she's not your next president is she's too young.
That's it. But the one after that, I'd be worried about if I were you.
Now, you say to yourself, but wait, this Green New Deal is so impractical.
How could you get everybody to agree with it?
Well, the impractical part, as Serovich and I have been telling you now for a year, the impractical part is why it works.
That's not the flaw.
That's the feature.
She went so far, or the Green New Deal goes so far into what seems impossible that you can't look away.
And suddenly it's all anybody's talking about.
It's got all kinds of support.
And I have to admit, I have to admit, directionally, I kind of like it.
I know you don't like to hear that, but let me be as clear about that as possible.
I don't know any practical way to get to the things in the Green New Deal.
And I don't know that anybody else has any practical way to get there.
But in terms of, let's say, a place you'd like to get to, if you could ever figure out how, I like it.
I like it directionally.
I like that people would have affordable health care.
I like that we would have more green energy.
I don't see any practical way you get rid of fossil fuels, and I don't see any way you get to some of the things in the plan, or any of them really.
But I like it as a political statement of where we'd like to be.
See, people are even going crazy on me.
Now, did you hear me say, if you look in the comments, this will tell you a lot about human nature.
I just agreed with all of the people who are disagreeing with me, but they can't hear it.
Some of you can. But a lot of you can't hear it because you're so tribal that if I say, there is zero way I can see that we could ever get to these things...
You're still worried that I like it as a sort of directional thing.
Why? If we both agree it's impossible, are you disagreeing that it would be great to have affordable, green, renewable energy?
That would be great. We just don't know how to get there.
And so we won't until somebody figures it out.
Alright, so don't worry about that too much.
Anyway, my point is...
That the Democrats are largely controlled by a 29-year-old rookie because she had the skill.
She brought the game.
Alright, let's talk about...
So, CNN is still trying to make news about Trump's taxes and investigations and stuff.
You know what's going to happen when the 2020 election continues to heat up.
I mean, it's already started and it's heating.
But the 2020 election is going to be so much more fun Than talking about lawyers and who said what to what committee and details of who talked to who and some financial stuff you have questions about but you don't know really the facts.
It's all going to be this boring stuff.
Now the news is forced to use their limited shelf space, they have a lot of shelf space, but it's still limited, to do the most interesting stories.
In the next two years, what will be the most interesting stories?
Well, it's not going to be more lawyers did this, lawyers did that, taxes, blah, Russia.
Those stories already feel stale, don't they?
Think about it.
How do you just feel about these stories?
It's another CNN story about taxes and, you know, Adam Schiff.
Ugh, it's just, it's like three-day-old bread that you didn't put the wrapper on, right?
It just feels stale.
Now, somebody's announcing for presidency, somebody has a Green New Deal, somebody's, you know, this is interesting, fun, like you can't get enough of it kind of stuff.
So the politics of the world...
Are going to start dominating the shelf space of the news.
And that means that all of the attacks against Trump will have less and less shelf space.
So today, for example, let's look at the CNN homepage to give you an example of that.
So... So most of it's about Trump, but I'm looking for anything about legal problems.
Alright, so I'm looking at the front page.
I'll just go through the list.
The top left of CNN. The top left is where they put the important stuff.
So that's the stuff they're focusing on, right?
It's about the BBC cameraman.
Something about Trump isn't ready to break it to his base.
Trump will use executive action.
Trump voter, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Hannity questions the garbage compromise on the border stuff.
Late night comics tackle battle of Trump's wall.
Top dem negotiators say no one got everything they wanted.
Do you know what's missing? So that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
So that's the top seven CNN news items.
Do you notice there's no Russia stuff there?
There's no Mueller.
There's no Russia.
There's no taxes.
So they've got this much shelf space and for the next two years it's going to get filled with other stuff and Mueller and that's just going to fade away.
So the larger point I was getting to is that Trump is going to have maybe the best 18 months of his whole life coming up.
Here's a prediction.
There could always be surprises, right?
I mean, you could always have some weird bad news coming up.
In all likelihood, Trump will have the best 18 months of his entire life.
Here's why. As long as the Democrats are essentially fighting with each other because they're trying to win a primary, Trump is going to be standing outside and there's going to be this whole barrel of fish And he's going to be there with his Twitter rifle.
And he's literally, not literally, figuratively, he's going to be shooting fish in a barrel for 18 months.
It won't be until they pick a leader who goes after him and then it's, you know, one-on-one that things will get interesting.
But for about 18 months, or whatever it takes between now and the Democratic primary, Trump just says, free shots!
It's like Elizabeth Warren.
Klobuchar.
You know?
Biden. And...
And, oh my God, it's going to be fun.
He's just going to be picking them off one at a time with really no fire coming back.
Because so far it seems to me that the Dems are not really going after the President that hard or in any interesting or new way.
They do go after him, but it's all just the same old boring stuff.
So we don't hear about it much.
So I think you're going to hear about every time the president goes after one of the candidates, it's going to be top page news.
But every time a candidate is on the trail saying something bad about the president, eh, it's probably not interesting.
It's probably not going to be news.
So he's going to have this amazing media advantage.
It's going to last about 18 months.
And he's the funniest, most interesting, most talented public figure.
Nobody knows theater like Trump.
Nobody knows how to put on the show like Trump.
Nobody knows how to tweet Or brand, or persuade, like Trump.
He's in a class by himself.
And he's gonna have this 18 months of a target-rich environment that's just gonna be so much fun that it's gonna be like the second act of a movie.
You know, a movie has three scenes, typically.
In the first act, something changes, which causes the situation to unfold.
So act one is about some big change.
Act two is called the fun games, where you're, depending on the type of movie, somebody is just going through one fun thing after another until there's a big problem in the third act.
And I think Trump is entering the second act, where he's going to be getting stuff done, Getting good news for his performance, probably in a variety of areas from North Korea, maybe the Middle East.
Maybe. Maybe the Middle East.
Maybe Iran. You know, he might have a lot of good news coming.
But he'll be shooting fish in a barrel for 18 months.
All right. Let's talk about...
Oh, and the other thing that makes all of the...
The news about the lawyers and the taxes and everything.
Everything that makes that boring is that there are too many people involved.
Every time we tell a story about the FBI doing something, there are about 15 names in the story.
And I don't think people can handle a story with more than three names in it.
That's a little rule I have.
So here's a rule of communication.
I used to be in a relationship with somebody several relationships ago who told stories that had too many names in them.
So I had to institute the three-name rule.
Because her stories would go like this.
Yeah, so I was talking to Betty, and then, you know, she was saying that her sister Jane, who's married to your cousin Bob, well, Bob's got this schoolteacher, and the schoolteacher, who's, of course, you know, her son is Andy.
And then Andy went to the store.
But there he runs into Marlene, and Marlene is, you know, she's arguing with Andy when Harold comes up.
And Harold, of course, is the son of your basketball coach who's the third cousin of the guy who plays the flute.
And I'd be like, please stop this story.
Please, there are too many names in this story.
And, you know, so I instituted the three-name rule.
When she got to the third name, I could stop listening.
Or she had to continue her story, but only max out of three names, because that's all I could hold in my mind, if there are people I don't know.
If it's people you know, you can handle all the names.
But if it's people you've never heard of, you can't handle more than three.
That's it. So that makes all of the anti-Trump news Too boring for the news, because there's too many names in it.
Alright, let's talk about the Virginia non-quitters.
So it's starting to look like Northam's going to hang in there.
I wouldn't be surprised if the lieutenant governor, who is accused of at least two counts of sexual abuse, I wouldn't be surprised if he stays in there too.
And the And the AG who said he wore blackface, he seems like the third worst person in Virginia politics.
So if the number one and the number two keep their jobs, I think the third person keeps his jobs.
And he has the advantage that he confessed.
Now what's interesting about Northam is that even his biggest critics will add this caveat.
And it goes like this.
Oh, Northam did a terrible thing It's a terrible thing.
I don't know how he could go on with his blackface thing.
It was a horrible, horrible mistake.
And then they say, but if you look at the way he's voted, he's voted very progressively.
As a politician, he's done all the things you would want him to do to be progressive and open to all people.
I don't know what his record is, but people are saying that on the news.
And And I think we have here the most perfect example of someone who did things when he was young that he wouldn't do today.
And yeah, no one has asked him about that nickname, but as I've said, it's far more likely that was a name assigned to him as opposed to something he chose.
So I was just reading your comment there.
So, here's what's interesting.
If things go the way it looks like they're going, and he keeps his job, because what he's done in his political life, what he's done in the last 20 or 30 years, all looks good.
And he made a mistake.
He apologized for it.
He said exactly why he thought it was bad, and he's been vocal, and I don't think he held back in terms of apologizing for it.
So I think he gave a good enough apology, and then he became, according to everybody, a better person.
Now the issue about the abortion, the third trimester abortion, I've said is largely fake news because he just spoke poorly and I don't think he was in favor of killing a baby after he was born.
I know some of you do.
But aside from that, in terms of what the Democrats want from their politicians, he's been a good person in a Democrat frame of what a good person looks like.
So I'm kind of rooting for him to keep his job, and I was sort of silently rooting for it under the theory that people should have a chance to become better people.
Do you want to live in a world where apologies are not accepted?
Do you want to live in a world where someone who used to be bad but becomes good can be punished because of some old photo or some old video or something they did back when before they were good it's just not a world you want to live in and so if he's the first one who digs in and makes the case I used to be that person And even if that picture isn't me,
he confessed that he wore blackface, so he is taking responsibility in an awkward way, but he's taking responsibility.
Then I would say that's a positive thing.
You could have a different opinion about the late-term abortion stuff, and that's standard politics in a sense.
But in terms of the blackface situation, I feel like the country is more mature if we let him improve.
And we say, yeah, we don't have to improve with what you did, but we like who you've become, if that's the case.
Now, I am, of course...
Only saying this publicly, these were my private thoughts, that it might be good to have a country that can accept an apology and can accept that somebody approved.
By the poll, I don't know if it's accurate, but let's say it is.
The poll that said that black voters in Virginia were more forgiving than of Northam than white voters.
And you've seen some pundits trying to guess, well, what the hell does that mean?
Why is that?
Why is it that the people who are supposed to be the most offended are substantially less offended than the white voters?
And I'm not sure we can read minds.
We can't read minds, but I'll give you some hypotheses about that.
Number one, and again, I'm not going to put any odds of which one of these is more likely, but I'll just put them out there.
I would imagine that if you're black, hearing that somebody wore a costume that was in the form of a black character, That, as far as we know, was not intended to be an insult.
It's offensive, no matter what you were thinking internally, it's offensive.
We all agree on that. But I think if you're black, you just say, I got much bigger problems than somebody did something that was unintentionally offensive in the 1980s.
That's pretty low on my list of problems.
And if I had a preference, I'd rather keep the politician who's on my side, has voted in the way that I would want him to vote, and I don't have to love what he did, but honestly, it's pretty low on my priorities.
So one, and I'm not going to put in odds of this, you know, how many people are thinking that, but I've got a feeling that there's just some level of practicality About the black experience that says, you can't be equally mad at everything.
You've got to prioritize what you're getting mad about.
And I think there's also a hidden tremendous positive in that.
Maybe the best news I've heard in a long time is that the black voters were more forgiving of Northram for his blackface stuff than were even the white voters.
And here's what the good news is that's sort of embedded in that.
It looks like the white voters are policing themselves, meaning white candidates, harder Than other people.
And that's generally a good thing.
It's generally positive when you're policing your own team, if you will.
So I think maybe white voters are...
Well, let me put it in this context.
If you are an adult white male, As I am, an adult white male, and you see somebody just totally screw your brand, as Northram did, you're not really happy with that asshole, right?
Because I'm saying to myself, I'm just, you know, I'm waking up, trying to be a good person, you know, trying to get through my day, and some stranger, the governor of North Virginia, makes adult white males look terrible, right? And then the AG does the same thing, and I'm thinking, what the hell?
It doesn't matter what I do.
Like, I can't win, because these strangers are ruining my brand, adult white male, right?
They're just making it look bad.
So if you ask me, what do I think about Northam's acts, and what do I think about the AG, I'm going to be harsh on them, because they've directly hurt me.
They hurt my brand.
Steve King's got the same problem, although there's some misinterpretation in his case that has to be taken into account.
So I think it makes sense that white people said, geez, Northam, you just screwed us and you did it today.
Even though the act was in the 80s, the offense, not the offense, let's say the damage to the brand happened today.
If you're black, you're probably saying, well, it just makes white people look bad.
Right? I mean, you're probably less bothered by it because it makes white people look bad, and then you see the poll.
Let's say you're a black voter or black adult in Virginia, and you see the poll that white people are more concerned about this than black people.
What does that tell you if you're a black voter?
It's good news.
It's kind of good news.
And it shows...
I think it shows a maturing.
I hate to be too positive about it, but it feels like a mature situation when the black voters are less concerned about it than the white voters are for their own brand.
That feels like progress in some way that's hard to express.
Alright. Here's some...
Oh, and then...
We're also watching an amusement as the Democrats are cannibalizing themselves with demands for apologies.
So now Representative Omar Has unequivocally apologized to Israel for her alleged anti-Semitic views.
And now we've seen, you know, in Virginia, we've seen some apologies.
And I think you're just going to see a festival of apologies.
Somebody says, I don't forgive her.
So we're going to see a festival of apologies here.
And I think the Democrats are just going to be cannibalizing each other for apologies.
And we might have reached peak apology.
Peak apology is where people are just sick of it, and we just don't need them anymore.
And it could be that this Virginia situation is the thing that in our minds, you know, convinced us we've reached whatever our limit is, is forcing other people to apologize.
Now in the case of Omar, She was apologizing for recent behavior, and I think she needed to apologize for that.
And she did. I've told you that we should be a country that accepts apologies.
We should accept apologies, but I'm not the one who needs to accept this apology.
So she didn't personally offend me, So the acceptance of any apologies would have to come from people who were offended.
Same with the blackface.
I'm not gonna accept an apology from the governor for offending somebody else.
That's not for me to accept or not accept.
Somebody said, and I need a fact check on this, somebody said that David Duke Agreed with Representative Omar.
Didn't he tweet or something?
I'm gonna see if I can find that.
Maybe somebody can confirm that that happened, because that would be one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
All right, let's see if David Duke is on...
Okay, looks like, if you spell it correctly...
David Duke. Let's see if he comes up first.
Now it turns out there's a lot of people with that name.
I can't even find them on Twitter.
So people are confirming it here.
So David Duke is on our side.
Now what was one of the most potent attacks against President Trump for the last three years?
For the last three years, people have been saying, hey, can you explain why the racists seem to support President Trump?
Doesn't that mean that he must be a racist?
And now you see David Duke supporting a Democrat, and it's just delicious.
Because now every time that somebody says, so, why does...
So every time they say, so, isn't it a coincidence that the racists support President Trump?
And you can use this example that the racists support at least one Democrat.
Now, here's the better explanation when somebody says, hey, why so many racists seem to coincidentally like President Trump?
Here's the best answer to that.
You ready? The most normal thing in the world is for people to like the same thing for different reasons.
You might like a meal because it's healthy.
I might like it because it tastes good.
You might like a certain automobile because the mileage is good.
I might like it primarily because of its looks or because of the safety features.
One of the most universally common things in the world is for people to like the same thing, but for completely different reasons.
You like the movie because the star that's in it.
I like the movie because I like scary movies.
The fact that multiple people like this president for different reasons is the most normal situation in the world.
The racists like it because they think they're going to get less immigration and less whatever they don't like.
Other people like it because they think he's good for the economy and they like border security.
So To ask, huh, how do you explain this weird coincidence?
Is it a coincidence that the racists seem to like President Trump?
No, it's not a coincidence.
It's the most common situation in the world.
That people can like the same thing or the same person for completely different reasons.
So why would this be any different?
Why would this be the one case where people only can like something for one reason?
It would be the only time.
Alright. Okay, we've got a couple other items.
Kamala Harris gave an interview on a radio station, maybe yesterday, in which she was asked about weed.
And she said, I'm going to paraphrase it, but something like that she supported recreational use of marijuana because she understands it brings people joy and there's not enough joy in the world.
It brings people joy and there's not enough joy in the world.
And then she laughed. And she admitted that she had smoked it in college.
We assume she's done more than that.
But that's, you know, that's a good political answer.
Now, yeah, her laugh is a little bit annoying, but maybe only annoying to men.
I don't know if women are annoyed by that laugh.
However, so here's the thing.
One of the reasons that you watch my periscopes is because I'm not always going to take the obvious side of things.
On the issue of marijuana, her view...
It's closer to my view than the President's.
I will also say, and people are always saying to me, Scott, you know, why are you only saying good things about President Trump and his persuasion?
Why don't you ever criticize?
And of course, that's just not true.
I've criticized him on statues.
I've criticized him on health care.
You know, there have been a number of things I've criticized.
And I'm going to do it again.
On the issue of weed...
The president had a layup.
He had a layup.
All he had to do is get the federal government out of the marijuana business.
I know he knows that there's support for it.
And here's the important part.
Nobody's going to vote against you for that.
But I'll bet some people would vote for you for that.
So it's one of those weird issues where taking the side of letting the states do it probably would have cost the president zero votes.
I have to be careful about how I make that symbol.
Probably wouldn't have cost him anything, but probably would have helped him maybe secure some votes that he wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
So it was a layup.
It was a free pass.
Kamala saw this free pass and she took it.
Was that smart?
Hell yes! So on this one topic, Kamala Harris Beat the president.
Persuasion-wise, politically, strategy-wise.
Now, I don't know if the president has some other considerations that maybe are not obvious to me.
Maybe there are some key people he needs to keep happy and that matters in some way.
So he may have reasons for doing what he's doing.
But based on what we can see, This was just this low-hanging fruit, this simple, simple play.
It was obvious.
It's been there for years, years.
This has just been laying out there waiting for him to say, oh, here's some free votes.
Let me take those free votes.
Two years later, of these free votes just hanging here, waiting, He doesn't take them.
Kamala Harris walks over and she goes, hey, look, a free vote.
She wins. She wins this round.
Unequivocally, unequivocally, she wins on that topic.
And you can't call that anything but a mistake on Trump's part, unless there's something we don't know about his deliberations, but we probably wouldn't know it by now.
There's a big story, at least on CNN, probably on MSNBC, that the...
Oh, and by the way, the president could still even up the playing field by reaching that position before the election.
The BBC is reporting that some amped-up Trump supporter attacked somebody in their crew because he was being anti-media.
Now, what is rule number one for a new story like this?
Rule number one.
Rule number one, probably the story that you're hearing is not true.
Now, I'm not going to say in what specific way it's not true.
I'm making a general statement that the first version of this story Probably, and I'm going to say 75% chance at least, probably is not what it was reported.
So when the details emerge, you could find out God knows what.
You could find out that it was a plant.
You could find out that he was mentally ill.
You could find out that the cameraman started it.
You could find out that there was a misunderstanding.
Maybe somebody bumped somebody and it turned into something, but it wasn't really an attack per se.
So you need to wait 48 hours on this one, because probably you're going to find out it's just BS. Not an attack, and he was supposedly drunk.
Yeah, drunk doesn't excuse you, of course, but...
Yeah, there's...
In the video I saw, you couldn't really tell what was going on.
He was mad that the press had better seats?
Maybe. All right.
Let's see. I think we've...
Oh. I want to talk about...
I'm going to make one little climate comment here at the end.
In order to do that, I'm going to look at a link...
Uh... Damn it.
There's a link I keep trying to save and then...
How in the world do I keep saving that one link and then losing it?
Well, there was something very interesting I was going to tell you.
But I'll have to save it because I keep losing that link.
I will give you my preliminary...
Opinion on climate change, and then we're going to get into it a little more.
Let me just tell you what's happening there.
So I asked Tony Heller.
Let me back up a little.
So I've been doing this deep dive on climate change to try to see if a non-scientist, someone who's just a concerned citizen, can get to the bottom of it and try to figure out what's what.
My current opinion is absolutely uncertain.
Meaning that I do not have a decision on where we're going on climate.
But I'll tell you the process, the system I'm using.
So the system, as I'm trying to identify the strongest critics, The one or two who are the most powerful have the best argument and seem to have data on their side.
So far, it looks like Tony Heller and Richard Lindzen seem to be the two that have the most, at least on the surface, Powerful, persuasive arguments.
And so I've asked Tony Heller to put together his top five.
There might be more of them, but let's say top five.
Yeah, Judith Curry is sort of a special case because her criticisms are not like anybody else's.
They're a different form.
So I should pay a little more attention to her, but it's slightly different.
Um... And I've asked him to give me his top five arguments for why the climate alarmists are wrong.
So I want to take those top five, put them in bullet point form with supporting links.
And then I want to put that out there and say, okay, climate scientists, tell me what he got wrong on these top five things.
And then put it back to Tony and say, okay, climate science disagrees with you on these three things, and then see what Tony says.
And then maybe one more round where the alarmist can come back in and say why they think his correction to the correction to the correction was wrong.
So I want to take just five claims and go down maybe three levels of point, counterpoint, and see if it tells us anything.
Now, If the top five points can be debunked, well that would tell you a lot, wouldn't it?
But if the top five points can't be debunked, or let's say four out of five can't be debunked, that will tell you something too.
So let's see where this process gets us.
Somebody says, you're too smart, Scott, and it's not helping you in this case.
Well, I suppose I could try being less smart, but it doesn't feel like a good strategy.
So somebody says, Tony Hiller is not the best choice for this plan.
Well, I'm open to other arguments, and we don't have to stop with one critic.
So I could do, you know, I could do more.
I could do more. Now, The link I was going to show you was a link of, I forget which climate scientist, pro-climate change person it was, but he had a list of all the complaints, you know, the critics, and then his response.
But here's the problem. So this was the pro-scientist, climate scientist side of things.
I couldn't understand many of them.
So I said to myself, well, I'll just pick out the one point that I could understand as a non-scientist.
And the one point I could understand was obviously false.
Like, sort of obviously.
You don't even have to be an expert.
You just look at it and go, well, that's obviously false.
I'll tell you what it is tomorrow.
But that makes all the rest of it look false as well.
So here's my preliminary conclusion.
Both sides are lying or incorrect.
I won't put intention into their...
So take the intention out of that.
Both sides are promoting things which are obviously untrue.
It's different things.
But both the critics and the scientists are doing things that could not be more obviously untrue.
I'll give you some examples from both sides tomorrow.
And I don't know if anybody in the world has that opinion but me.
Have you heard anybody say, One side is right, but both sides are promoting it with BS. Or there's a lot of BS on both sides.
Because it's obvious. There's a lot of BS on both sides.
And I'll give you examples tomorrow.
Alright. That's enough for now.
Join me at 2pm Eastern Time, 11am on the West Coast for my conversation with Naval Ravikant.
You do not want to miss that.
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