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June 28, 2019 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
30:06
Episode 580 Scott Adams: Who Will be the Democrat Nominee? Hint: Not Biden
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Hey, everybody.
Come on in here. Yes, it's time.
It's time for coffee with Scott Adams, and you came to the right place because I'm Scott Adams, and I have coffee, and some of you do too.
But it doesn't matter what kind of a beverage you have.
If you've got a cup or a glass or a mug, you've got a stein or a tankard or a chalice.
Or if... You've got a thermos, possibly a flask.
Any kind of a container will work.
And you should lift it to your lips because it's time for the simultaneous sip and all that comes with it.
And you know what that means.
Dopamine! Get ready!
I can feel the dopamine pulsing through my body best part of the day.
Well, alright.
Let's talk about first the president having a photo op with Vladimir Putin.
And the reporters asked the president, are you going to ask Putin to not interfere with the elections?
And if you haven't seen it yet, it's kind of funny.
Trump is sitting there next to Putin and he just turns to Putin and he goes, don't interfere with the elections.
You sort of have to see it.
It's a funny moment. It's no laughing matter, those elections, but that was kind of funny.
All right, everybody wants to talk about how the debates went.
I have a new prediction.
It's sort of a subsidiary to my old prediction.
Do you remember who I predicted would be the Democratic nominee one year ago?
One year ago, who did I tell you would be the nominee?
Does anybody remember? I like to see it in the comments so people don't think I'm making it up.
One year ago, I told you that Kamala Harris would be the nominee.
How does that look today?
Let me ask you this.
I'm going to say something that puts in perspective something that you're all looking at.
So watch what I'm going to do.
This is going to be fun for you.
I'm going to take something you're already looking at, and I'm just going to describe it in a different way.
And suddenly, you're going to see the future.
You ready for this?
I'm actually going to give you a glimpse of the future.
Simply by the way I describe the things that you already see.
Here it goes. Here are some facts.
Number one. A woman won the first Democratic debate.
That was Elizabeth Warren.
And pretty much everybody agrees she won it hard.
Fact number two.
A woman won the second half of the Democratic debates.
Her name was Kamala Harris.
Pretty much everybody agrees that she won the debates.
You had a woman winning the first debate.
In the first half of those 24 or however many people, you had a woman winning the second debates.
Which man is going to be the nominee for the Democrats?
Let me say it again.
All I'm doing is tell you three facts.
Well, two facts and a question.
Number one, a woman won the first half.
Hard. I mean, clearly just won hard.
Elizabeth Warren. A woman won the second half.
Hard. Kamala Harris.
What man is going to be the nominee for the Democrats?
You see it yet?
It can't be a man.
It can't be a man now.
It could have been a man if Biden had performed really, really well.
Let me say it in the clearest possible way.
The only way that Biden...
Could maintain that position as the likely nominee is if he won the debate.
If he lost it to a woman and the other side lost to a woman, it is now impossible for a man to be nominated as a Democrat for this election cycle.
The door just closed.
The door just closed.
Now, of course, it could be some weird surprise about some opposition research we didn't know about or some wild thing we didn't see coming.
But in the normal course of things, the door just closed for a male Democrat to make it.
It's just closed. Now, when I talk about persuasion, as I often do, especially when I'm talking about my book, Win Bigly, I make the point that persuasion can help you predict.
Persuasion can help you predict.
Now, when you make a claim like that, you're kind of obligated to do some predicting to see if you can predict.
As I told you a year ago, I told you that Kamala Harris would be the nominee.
And that was based on what I thought would be her persuasive ability along with her demographic, you know, her lucky demographic situation.
Those two things would be persuasive, I said.
And sure enough, she is rising through the ranks.
And it looks like if you had to bet right now, you'd bet on her if you were smart.
So let's compare. I just printed out the predicted list of which nominees are where, and you won't be able to see it too well, so I'll just tell you what's going on.
Joe Biden's still at the top, but only barely behind Harris.
That means that Joe Biden is just going to disappear pretty soon.
Elizabeth Warren is number three.
And Pete Buttigieg is a strong fourth and Bernie is falling.
Bernie is going to fall away.
He didn't do anything to save his place after the debates.
And I think that when you put Bernie and Biden on stage with a number of younger candidates, they look older than they normally look.
So last night, Bernie and Biden both got a lot older by contrast, the power of contrast.
So I said that if you learn persuasion, you will be good at predicting.
So I'm going to show you quickly, but not in detail, because you don't need to see the detail, my bets.
So I'm going to tell you what bets I made.
So you can see how I do.
So I've got several bets on the predicted website.
All of them are small.
None of it is big money.
But just to show you that I was betting.
I've got one bet that was already wrong.
And then 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 bets that I'll tell you about and then we can see if they're right.
The one that was wrong, I did not make the bet based on persuasion.
It was a bet on who would be the next UN ambassador back when we didn't know.
And I placed that bet based on smart people saying they thought it was going to be, I think, Dina Powell.
And I said to myself, I have no idea, but some smart people are saying it's going to be Dina Powell, so I'll make a bet on that.
So that bet was not based on anything about persuasion, because I literally wouldn't be able to spot Dina Powell in the lineup.
I don't even know what she looks like.
I don't know if I've ever heard her.
Don't know anything about it. So that bet, I'm not going to count in terms of persuasion bets because there was no persuasion factor in there.
I was just taking somebody else's smart opinion, which turned out to be wrong in that case.
The rest of them are pretty much based on their persuasion, and here they are.
I said a year ago, but I only bet on this a few months ago, that the 2020 Democratic nominee would be Kamala Harris.
How's that look today?
Well, Warren is still pretty strong, but I think the Kamala Harris bet is looking strong-ish.
There was actually a betting market on whether Trump will still be president at the end of 2019.
So, that's looking good.
And will Trump be the 2020 GOP nominee?
I said yes.
That's looking pretty good.
Then will the 2020 Democratic nominee be a woman?
That was a separate bet.
I bet that the nominee would be a woman.
So I've got one bet that it's Kamala and then a separate bet that it would at least be a woman.
That one's looking pretty solid because it's either going to be Warren or Kamala.
And Then will there be a third Trump-Kim meeting in 2019?
And I said yes, and I think that looks pretty good, too.
All right, so, of my bets, they're all looking pretty strong right now, and they're all based on a persuasion mindset and what is likely based on knowing persuasion.
Let's talk about Harris's performance last night at the debate.
My favorite moment, which made me take notice, isn't being reported as much, but it really was a strong moment.
It was when all the Democrats started to talk over each other and fight, and Kamala shut them all down with a line that obviously was a prepared line, but she delivered it really well.
She said something like, voters don't care about our food fight, they just care about food on the table.
Now, what's interesting is not the cleverness of the line, because it was sort of ordinary, but what's interesting is that Kamala shut down all of the other Democrats like that.
Did you see that?
They were like, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then Harris goes, you know, she goes strongly.
She goes, the voters want to see, you know, food on the table, not a food fight.
And all the Democrats just went, oof.
So she actually, she dominated, you know, like an animal dominates a pack, she dominated the stage.
Now if you missed that, it was a really important moment in terms of Leadership, I guess.
And as soon as that happened, I said to myself, whoa, yeah, it's a high ground move.
The reason it shut them down is because they recognized there was no greater high ground than what she just said, which is the voters don't want this.
So they shut down.
Then the next thing she did was she made the gutsiest play.
In order to be president and have a chance against Trump, You're going to have to do things that maybe are, let's say, ethically suspect.
In order to be strong enough to show that you can be president, you're going to have to bend some of the ethical boundaries.
And wow, did she bend an ethical boundary last night by essentially using a variant of the fine people hoax.
She literally just made something up And pinned it on Biden.
And what she said was that he was praising segregationists.
That never happened.
Nowhere in our world did Biden praise segregationists.
She mischaracterized what he said about that he could work with even bad people, including them.
That's what he said. So he actually was opposite of praising them.
But because she could get away with it and because the news had sort of reported that the way he handled this segregationist question was awkward, she knew that he wouldn't be able to fight back and that she could just take him out.
And she looked at him and she was strong and powerful and she said she was effectively disappointed that he was praising segregationists.
She basically took him out because his response to it was so weak and unfortunately included the sentence, anyway, my time is up, I'm sorry.
Which, of course, the media jumped on because it's ironic.
And they said things like, well, I guess he's telling us the future.
His time is up. And isn't that what Eric Swalwell said about him, that his time was up?
So, not only did Biden look like he was just acting, because he got all intense, and then we saw that the time was up.
He was like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Oh, I see, my time is up.
And then he instantly went from this pretending to be passionate to being a weak little mouse.
Oh, I guess my time is up.
And it made the passionate part look completely artificial.
So his credibility just completely disappeared.
Even David Axelrod...
Who we know is, you know, a Democrat advisor type who certainly, I would imagine, doesn't want to see a President Trump.
Even he said of Biden that Biden looked somewhat confused.
And separately, he said that Biden was playing into Trump's caricature of him being mentally weak.
So in other words, even one of the top Democrat experts, advisors, is saying that Biden doesn't look like he's up to it.
Now, that's what I saw.
I saw a Biden who didn't look up to it.
I mean, he didn't look physically or mentally up to the job of being president or really much of anything.
I mean, honestly, if you didn't know who Joe Biden was and he walked into your company and asked for a job, would you say there's a guy who's working on all cylinders?
I don't think you would.
I think if Joe Biden showed up for any job, just any ordinary cubicle office job, and you talked to him and you weren't, let's say you weren't holding it against him because of age, you would walk away saying, I don't know, it doesn't feel like he's firing on all cylinders.
So he doesn't have any chance of being president.
Swalwell took a good bite out of him.
Swalwell actually had a good night.
He did get some attention.
And Swallowell is actually very clever by going, I'm not saying you need to like this, but he's clever in terms of he took a specific issue, gun control and buying back and making illegal the semi-automatic weapons, and that allowed him to get enough support from the people who care about that one issue to get on the stage.
And then once he got on the stage, he found a way to stand out by having the most clever attack against Swallowwell, which was saying that 32 years ago, Biden said it was time to pass things on to the younger generation.
And then he cleverly said, Swallowwell did, That Biden was right then, 32 years ago, that he should pass things on to the younger generation.
And he's still right, which is the clever part.
He should pass it on to the younger generation.
So Swalwell, in terms of strategy, very, very solid.
I'm going to say he had a solid strategy for getting enough attention to get on the stage.
He got on stage, and then he was smart enough to say something that would take a bite out of the leader, which was pretty good.
So I don't think he's going to be your next president, but I have to say that as one of the many candidates running, his strategy was quite solid.
I'm going to give him that.
All right. Here's something that people aren't talking about.
Why am I the only person you heard today saying that a woman won the first debate and a woman won the second debate?
Think about that.
Did you hear anybody else say that?
That a woman won the first debate and a woman won the second debate?
How amazing is it?
Because I'm going to give credit to Hillary Clinton again, as I often do.
Hillary Clinton...
Some people said she didn't break the glass ceiling, and I said, you're completely wrong.
Hillary Clinton broke the glass ceiling.
Because the next time there's an election, you're not going to be talking about there's a woman running.
It's just not going to be that much of a thing.
So we've seen this amazing thing where a woman won both debates.
Think about that.
A woman won both debates.
That's not the amazing part, because there should be nothing amazing about that, right?
The amazing thing is it's not even a topic.
Think about that.
Think about the fact that a woman won both the debates hard.
I mean, not even close. And it's not even a topic.
Because Hillary Clinton shattered the glass ceiling.
She didn't become president, but she broke that ceiling because we're not even talking about anything about gender this time.
You know, I think there's an advantage to being a woman in the Democrat Party, but we talk about it as an advantage.
Nobody is talking about being a woman as a disadvantage.
The only context that comes up is as an advantage.
Right? When we talk about Kamala Harris's ethnicity, Do we talk about it as a disadvantage?
Nope. No.
It's America, dammit.
This is America, dammit.
We don't talk, at least it's 2019, things are a lot better.
We don't talk about Harris's ethnicity as a negative.
We talk about it as a positive.
Think about that.
I mean, it's amazing.
So anyway, it's amazing if you're my age.
If you're younger, maybe that just seems normal.
But if you're my age, you can see the scope of progress, and you've gotten to the point where it's just not even a topic anymore, which is great.
Is it my imagination, or does Eric Swalwell have a frozen face?
Frozen face meaning Botox?
There's something about Swalwell's face that isn't moving at the same time.
His eyes are not matching his mouth.
There's something going on there.
He's got a bit of a frozen face.
I think that really hurts him.
Even Van Jones said that Biden's response to Kamala Harris on working with segregationists was, quote,"...heartbreaking." Now, I think that's all you need to know, right?
If Van Jones and CNN in general and David Axelrod are all saying that Biden slipped and fell, Biden's out.
I think it's time to say he's out.
We're waiting to see if Yang would have a breakout night.
He didn't have a breakout moment.
But think about the fact that Yang has never been, he's never run for an office, and he's in sixth place in a field of 20-some people.
That's pretty impressive, right?
I don't think he can win, but that's really impressive, I've got to say.
And frankly, I don't know exactly how he did it.
Is he dominating some Asian-American vote?
Does he have a natural base?
Or is it just that he's the first person who talked to the public like a real person?
I mean, it could be that part of his appeal is he doesn't sound anything like a politician.
And I think some number of people say, okay, give me anybody who's not a politician.
You know, I'm done with politicians.
So that might be part of his appeal.
All right. Buttigieg had a good night.
I think he had a good night, but he doesn't have the gravitas for the presidency.
You know, you want to send, when you're sending your president overseas, especially, you want to think that your president has gravitas, you know, a certain weight, a certain, I don't know, a certain personal power that represents your brand.
I think Kamala Harris has that.
I think Elizabeth Warren has less of it, but she has it.
I think Buttigieg will have it, but he's not quite there.
What he needs is literally just to be older.
Because with age, he will gain some amount of weight and credibility.
His resume is a little light right now, being a mayor.
Voters are going to say that's a little bit light in a way that they didn't say about Trump because Trump's persona was so large.
But I think Buttigieg showed that he was...
I think he showed he was the smartest.
If you're going to elect a president based on book smarts and ability to say smart things, I think he would be your choice, if that's the only stuff you cared about.
I just saw a comment that made me laugh.
You hate to talk about appearance, but you really have to.
Appearance is a big part of it.
All right, so Buttigieg did well enough to get in fourth place on Predict It, which I think is probably At least as accurate as any poll you're going to see.
So that's what you got.
Now, let's talk about Trump.
Did you see the picture of Trump doing the fist bump with Japan's Abe and India's Modi?
So the leaders of India and Japan were there with Trump, and he was doing a photo op with the other two, and they asked him to shake hands, but it's three people.
So how do three people shake hands?
So Trump puts in his fist, and then you see this hilarious picture of these three leaders doing fist bumps, you know, a three-way fist bump.
And obviously they like each other.
So when you see Trump with Abe, you know they're good friends, they golf, they say good things about each other.
You see him with Modi, I think Modi likes him too.
And you say to yourself, wait a minute, wasn't the rap on Trump that he wouldn't get along with our allies and leaders from other countries?
Wasn't that the big rap on him?
It looks like he's best friends with these leaders.
He was even joking with Putin.
If anything, he's too friendly.
He's writing love letters with Chairman Kim.
He's fist-bumping with Modi.
He's got this great meeting with his good friend, President Xi.
Macron loves him.
I mean...
And...
I think Italy loves him.
It seems to me that...
I'm going to make another call.
Here's another prediction. Here's my prediction.
President Trump will be the most popular American president overseas.
Anybody want to disagree with that?
That history will record that Trump was by far the most popular American president overseas.
In other countries.
Overseas, his reputation will be the best of any American president.
Is anybody going to disagree with me on that?
Because I think that's where it's going to end up.
You know, anything can happen, but I think that's where it's going to end up.
Yeah, Israel loves him.
Poland loves him. There are a lot of people who really like this president.
All right. What else we got going on here?
Those stories really closed down the news yesterday.
It's all about the G20, and it's all about the Democrats.
Not Obama? Yeah, I don't think Obama was the most popular president overseas.
Somebody says, you couldn't be more wrong, Scott.
Really? Well, if there's any way to measure that sort of thing, I'm open to being wrong.
JFK. Yeah, good question.
JFK. Yeah, maybe that would be a comparable.
JFK seems the president most comparable to Trump, wouldn't you say?
Wouldn't you say that JFK and Trump...
Would be the two presidents who are most comparable, both in their personal life, which is, let's say, interesting.
Let's put it in the best light.
All right. I'm just looking at your comments now.
Any more on your healthcare ideas?
Well... Healthcare is looking interesting just because there are so many ideas floating around right now.
What I haven't heard anybody say directly, so I've heard the Democrats talk about, you know, some number of them want you to be able to keep your private insurance at the same time that there's a public option.
The thing that they don't say, and maybe it's because they don't want to play into Trump's strengths, the thing they don't say is if you have a private insurance account, And then you can opt into a public one, and it's the opting in that's the important part, because you can buy it or you can opt into the government one.
As long as there are two of them, you probably have a way for the competition to drive down costs.
Because if the government negotiates better than the private companies, the government will simply have a better product.
And if the private industries compete better, well, then maybe you want to keep your private insurance and pay for it.
So I think what the Democrats are missing is a direct statement that having a private at the same time as a public option for health care would be the most competitive situation.
And I think that might be right.
They just need to say it.
Yang comments.
So Yang... Pushed his UBI idea.
I don't think the audience was quite ready for it, but it is one of the few things I remember.
If you ask yourself, what things do you remember from that event, you'll find that you don't remember a lot, and that will be the thing you should remember about it.
Talk about Project Veritas.
Is there anything new on Project Veritas?
I think we already talked about that.
Why does the chat suddenly stop?
I think that might just be on your device, or if you turn your device sideways, the chat looks like it's stopped because you go into theater mode.
So turn your device to see the comments.
Marianne Williamson, I don't know what she was up to, but I couldn't get interested in an author running for president.
Candace Owens' story.
Is there a Candace Owens story?
All right. I think I've got...
Should Joe Rogan moderate the next debates?
You know who would be a good debate moderator?
Me. Me.
I would be a good debate moderator, if you ask me.
I think all the Democrats should...
Should agree to a debate night with just me.
Or actually, they should all do interviews with me.
Don't you think that the Democrat nominees should all do an interview with me?
Wouldn't you like that? Because you have to admit, I would ask different questions than other people, so you would see a different side, because I don't ask the same questions that other people ask.
You have to admit that.
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