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June 13, 2019 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
21:49
Episode 564 Scott Adams: Trump’s Philosophy on Accepting Info From Other Countries
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Yes, it's a very rare afternoon coffee with Scott Adams.
It doesn't have to be coffee.
It's the afternoon after all.
Unless you're viewing this later, then who knows what time it is.
But get in here.
We've got stuff to talk about.
And if you'd like to enjoy the simultaneous sip...
Just get on it.
Grab your cup, your vessel, your mug, your stein, your chalice, your flask.
Whatever it is. A vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
If I sound funny, it's because I just got back from the dentist.
I might be dribbling a little bit.
Alright, so... Let's talk about President Trump saying that he might accept information from a foreign country, and then he would decide whether or not to tell the FBI. Of course you're watching this story, and I think you're having a similar reaction to I am, which is screaming at the news the entire time.
And here's what I'm screaming.
Every time Trump says, well, let's say Norway...
Gave me some information.
That was his example.
What does the news say?
Well, I guess he'd be okay if the Russian intelligence agency offered him information, he wouldn't tell the FBI. Or if the Chinese intelligence agency talked to him, he wouldn't tell the FBI. No, that's not what he said.
He said if Norway had some information, he'd listen to it first.
Is that not...
Pretty much the opposite of Russian intelligence.
Very different. But the news is trying to treat them like they're the same thing.
Likewise, because people don't have a good memory of what happened with the Don Jr.
meeting with the Russian lawyer, people are conflating in their mind That somehow we knew back then that Russia was trying to interfere with the elections and that anybody would have known that this lawyer was somehow connected to Putin.
But nobody knew that.
Nobody knew much about this lawyer at the time of the meeting.
She was just a person who happened to be from another country.
So here's the other thing I keep screaming at my television.
Don't you make a distinction between, let's see, I'm reading now from Politico.
This is their phrase.
It says, it is a crime for a campaign to solicit or accept something of value from a foreign entity.
A foreign entity.
Is one person an entity?
I don't know. I would think that a foreign entity would be something like a foreign corporation, a foreign government, a foreign intelligence service.
That seems like an entity.
Did they mean an individual?
If there's just a guy who knows some stuff and he happens to be Elbonian?
If there just happens to be a guy who just happens to know some stuff, And he just happens to be a citizen of another country.
Are you not allowed to listen to him?
Doesn't sound right to me.
But here are some other questions I have.
So the first point is that the news is completely illegitimately covering this because they're acting as though Trump would act the same if Russian intelligence came to him As he would if a person who happened to be from Norway came to him.
There's no way that he treats them the same.
So acting as if he would is pure imagination and mind-reading, and it's bad mind-reading.
So here are some questions I have.
Since it is a crime for a campaign to solicit or accept something of value from a foreign entity, how do you determine what's of value?
So, in the context of a campaign, you would assume that the thing of value is something that the voters will find out, which could change the election.
Isn't that your assumption? Now, there could be other things, but for the most part, your standard assumption would be, there's something they know, that if I release it to the public, it would be good for me, because my campaign will have an advantage because of that information in the public.
What value would you put on that?
I'll tell you the value I would put on it.
Zero. Because if that foreign entity wants that information to be in the public, they can do that without you.
They can just go to the press.
So the first thing that I'm not hearing anybody talk about is the fact that if a campaign got something of value, The public would also hear it, if not through the campaign, then through the entity they gave it to them.
Because they wouldn't give it to you to use in public unless the whole point was to use it in public.
So what is the value of secret information that you know is going to be shared with everybody?
Because that's what it's for.
The secret information would have no value if Trump was the only one who ever heard it.
It only has value if it becomes then later public.
So if I were an economist and I said, okay, let's put a value on this, did he get something of value when in fact it was going to be free to everybody no matter what?
Because why else would they even be offering it?
It must be something they want to be out there.
Then let me ask you this.
Suppose Russia knew, let's say they had some information and they wanted to give it to Trump, but they knew that that wouldn't work because of this campaign law that says they can't give something of value to Trump.
Could Russia just find some American, just some average American, and just say, hey, average American, we can't give this to a...
But you can.
So we're going to give it to you, average American.
And here's Trump's email address.
I guess they wouldn't do that.
But they say, here's the information, average American.
I can give it to you.
You're not in a campaign.
And what you do with it is up to you.
You can give it to the press.
You can give it to a campaign.
You can give it to the other campaign.
Do whatever you want. So given that if you were an economist and you were going to put a value on this information, Information only has value if it can be private and you can have some control over it.
Otherwise, it's public information.
Public information, you wouldn't put a value on it to an individual.
And if you did, you know, even though it would have more value to one than another, could anybody get in trouble for public information?
So here's the more specific question.
Suppose a country, let's pick Russia, had some information that they thought would help one of the candidates, and they released it in public.
If they released it in public, would it have the same benefit as if they had given it to Trump or his campaign, and they released it?
It would be exactly the same, wouldn't it?
Since the entire point was to get it into the public.
Otherwise, it doesn't affect the election.
So, would the Trump- Would the Trump campaign be in trouble if Russia simply made the information that they allege to have public without ever talking to the campaign?
Because it seems to me that would be a very exact case of a crime.
It's a crime for a campaign to solicit...
Sorry, just back from the dentist.
I don't have the whole mouth working yet.
So would it be a crime for a campaign to accept something of value from a foreign entity if the way they accepted that value was the other country released it to the public?
Because if you release that information to the public, well, you and I might arguably get some benefit, I suppose.
Maybe not. But the campaign would get most of the benefit.
Are they not allowed to read the news if there's something in public?
So I feel as though our media is completely letting us down, first by conflating things such as how you would treat Norway giving you some information with how you would treat a citizen from Russia who came in because they know your friend, versus Russian intelligence.
Those are three very different situations.
And it seems to me that President Trump was fully transparent and said, yeah, I'd listen to it first, and then I'd decide.
Anybody who disagrees with that is inexperienced in the real world.
As I said earlier, in my earlier Periscope, if somebody came to me and said, I've got this valuable information for you, Can you meet with me?
It's valuable information.
It doesn't matter what it's valuable to.
Somebody's telling me they have valuable information for me, but they can't tell me until they get in a room with me.
Do you know what I say of that valuable information?
It's BS. I would say that that is almost always, say 95%, not true.
This is just somebody who wants to get in a room with me.
How many times have I had that exact situation happen?
A lot. A lot.
When you're famous, people try to get in a room with you to pitch whatever it is they want to pitch.
It's an entirely common situation for somebody to say, I got something really valuable.
Let me tell you. It's got to be a private meeting.
Then you go in the meeting and you hear it and you go, I already knew that, or that's not really very useful.
And then they say, well, why are you here?
While you're here, let me pitch this other thing, since we're here anyway.
The most common thing in business, Trump, and even probably Don Jr.
knows that.
How many times have they been tricked into meetings that were not exactly the way they were represented?
It's a pretty common thing.
It absolutely makes sense to hear the information first and then decide whether you're going to bring the FBI in.
It's the only way it makes sense.
Everybody who says it's obvious, it's common sense that you would do it the other way, why would you not listen to information if you could?
Because if it's not true, well, you'd kick it over to the FBI if it looks like something they care about.
And if it is true, you still want to know it, and then you kick it over to the FBI. So as long as you're genuine about your statement that you would kick it over to the FBI if it was something that mattered, that's sort of all that matters.
Because there is not really a world in which listening to somebody talk could be illegal in a way that a jury would convict you.
So, What's bothering me about this whole story is that there's such unclear thinking about how information could be illegal.
All right. But I guess it's good news that that's the biggest story today, except for Iran.
Let's talk about Iran. So Pompeo has said that because of the sophistication of the Iranian, sorry, the sophistication of the recent attacks on shipping vessels, that that sophistication in the area that it was in tells them that it could only be Iran.
To which I say, and then the presumed reason, is that Iran is putting pressure on the United States without trying to be too overt about it.
So they're putting pressure on the United States to, I don't know, make a better deal or something.
But here's the thing.
Do you believe...
Anything that comes out of even our own government?
I mean, I'm unambiguously a Trump administration supporter, but even I don't believe this news.
I'm willing to believe the administration directionally true on most things, but honestly, I'm not saying it's false, so I'm not going to state this is not true.
I'm not going to do that.
But I think you have to look at a situation like this and say, it's no better than a coin flip that they got the right folks.
Now, is there any other entity that could pull this off with this level of sophistication?
Because all it was was some mines attached to the ship, right?
Is it that hard to get your hands on some of those mines?
Is it that hard to attach it to a ship?
And is there really nobody else in the whole world who would like to see some trouble over there?
I would say there are too many people who could do this who would like to see some trouble.
There are too many bad actors.
So I would say don't believe it for now, but it might be convenient for our government to act as though they believe it because it puts pressure on Iran, and maybe that's the play.
It could be that the play is simply to act like we believe it's them because it puts pressure on them, and maybe that looks like a good deal.
But I'm not going to say believe it yet.
Now here's the thing that looks suspicious.
If it had been...
If that tanker had been completely destroyed, I would say, wow, that sounds like a terrorist act, Iranian sort of thing.
But is it not suspicious that the damage was not that bad?
Are you not suspicious of a mine that was above the waterline?
Maybe there's some reason that's the only place they could put it, but it seems to me that if you wanted to really take a ship out, you'd probably put that mine below the waterline, wouldn't you?
It feels like, especially because Abe from Japan was talking to Iran, and he was there, and these ships had some goods for Japan, and nobody got hurt?
Really? Nobody got hurt, and the Iranian Navy apparently rescued them?
None of this quite fits its Iran.
Now, it doesn't rule Iran out, so I'm not going to say they didn't do it.
A lot of bad stuff happens over there.
People do dumb things.
People do things that are so clever, I can't understand why they do them.
So, possible.
But I would say no more than a coin flip.
50-50, I'd give this one.
And you would be wise to keep your skepticism...
To hold it close.
And by the way, when Pompeo says that given the complexity of it, it seems to point to a nation-state such as Iran, how complicated is it to attach a mine to a ship?
Is that complicated?
I mean, I don't know.
It seems like all you need is some kind of small vessel.
And, you know, you kind of creep up to it and attach one of those mines.
I can't believe that in this world where you can buy any kind of weapon, you know, if you're a country or a terrorist group, you can get a hold of any kind of normal weapon.
Somebody's going to sell it to you.
So it shouldn't be that hard to get a mine.
It shouldn't be that hard to find a vessel that's being loaded.
It shouldn't be that hard to attach it.
It just doesn't seem to me like the explanation that it was too complicated to be terrorists.
I don't know. It feels like it could have been a lot of different people.
That's all I'm saying. All right.
I just wanted to pop on and say those things.
But watch how muddled and ill and sort of irrational the conversation is about the president saying he would accept the information Before he decided what to do.
I saved my best point for last.
You ready for my best point?
This is completely stolen from somebody on Twitter, whose name I forget, so I feel bad about it.
But this is not my original idea.
And the thought was, President Trump is the boss of the FBI. Right?
President Trump can decide what is classified.
And what is not? He is the great decider of what information is private, confidential, and what is not.
In this special case, where the person who's talking is the President of the United States, and the FBI works for him, in that special case, which is the case we're talking about, is it really a crime for the boss to get the information before the boss's employee?
First time you've heard that, right?
Has anybody asked that question besides me?
And I stole it from somebody on Twitter.
So if you look at the tweets I liked, you'll find out who did it.
It wasn't anybody that I knew.
Yeah, it seems to me, you know, I'm no Ellen Dershowitz, but it seems to me that the first person who should see that information would be the boss.
Right? Now, if he were in the campaign, he wouldn't be the boss.
But as the president, if we're talking about, let's say, re-election, he is the boss.
Here's a second point that's my own.
Suppose the information from this other government implicated Hillary Clinton, and by extension, wait for it, what if it implicated the FBI? What if the information that came from this foreign intelligence source said that the US intelligence services were dirty and that they were doing something with Clinton?
Who should see that first?
The people who have just been blamed as being traitors?
Or their boss who knows he's not?
Who do you go to first?
If you don't know what the information is, You want to hear it before you give it to the people who might actually be implicated by the information.
So, who asked that question yet?
Have you heard that question?
No. Now, of course, I'm also accidentally conflating, so let me stop doing that.
If it's somebody in a campaign who is not the boss of the FBI, that's got to be a different situation than someone who's running for re-election and is the boss of the FBI. So Trump was speaking from his current context, it sounded to me, and in his current job, he's the boss.
He does get to see it first.
Right? Because it wasn't about him.
If the information was about him, you could imagine, well, you know, I've got self-interest here, you know, conflict of interest or something.
So you can imagine some special case.
But if the information is about his opponent, he's the boss.
The boss gets to see the information, not just first, but anytime he wants, anytime she wants.
The boss is not precluded from seeing the information that the underlings have.
All right. Yeah, and And just in general, I think it can't be illegal to listen to stuff.
I just can't imagine anybody would go to jail for listening to stuff before they know it has value.
All right. Those are a few points I've not seen in the press.
Maybe someday we will.
But that's all I got to talk about now.
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