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March 21, 2020 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
44:48
Episode 863 Scott Adams PART1: Let Me Tell You How We Beat the Virus and Get Back to Work Soon
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Time Text
What?
How about this?
How about that?
There we go.
Looking better.
Everybody. It's a little dark in here.
I think I have...
Maybe I should turn off my light a little bit.
Hold on. Don't go anywhere.
I'm going to turn on my lights.
I'll let you watch.
Hey, much better. much better.
We're talking. Yeah, this is a cheap operation.
But the quality is in the sippin'.
Sure, it's low production quality.
Bad sound, terrible lighting, sketchy video quality.
But we have something that the other live streams do not have.
You can watch MSNBC all night long.
You won't get this.
You can watch CNN for decades and not get this.
It's called the simultaneous sip and all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice or a stein, a canteen jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine of the day, the thing that makes everything, including the frickin' pandemic, better.
Go. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
So one of the scariest things in the world is something called the unknown.
The unknown can be really scary, especially if your enemy is invisible.
You literally can't even see it.
So if you don't know where it's going and you can't see it, well, that's the scariest possibility in the world.
So I'm going to fix that.
I'm going to call on my decades of business and life experience to tell you where this is all going.
Are you ready? So I'm going to describe what the next several weeks look like, and you get to see how close I am.
And it looks like this.
So we've got this big fight, if you will, between the people who say it's way too extreme to close the economy Make this as short as possible.
Send us back to work.
People are going to die, but it's better than crashing the economy.
I would say that's an adult decision or an adult opinion.
Whether you agree with it, whether you disagree with it, I do respect it because it demonstrates an understanding of the costs and an understanding of the benefits.
They're hard to measure, So it could be wrong or it could be right because we don't know how big either of those sides are, but it's an adult decision because it understands both the costs and the potential benefits.
So I always appreciate anybody who can see the whole field.
But that doesn't mean that tells us what to do.
And then there are the others who say, close it down until this virus is really under control.
And we don't know how long that could take.
And you're hearing scary kind of numbers, like weeks, months, and we say to ourselves quite reasonably, how could we survive that long with a crashed economy?
So let me tell you what's actually going to happen.
And it won't be one of those two things.
Greg Goffield always says, and I'm always nodding my head at home when he says it, About trapped in the prison of two ideas.
And we've sort of accidentally done that.
Aren't you thinking to yourself that there are two conditions?
Probably, right? You've been sort of pushed into two camps and forgetting all the middle ground.
So the two camps are open the economy or close the economy.
And you're thinking, well, those are our two options.
They are not.
Nor are either of them what's going to happen.
So let me tell you what's going to happen.
This is based entirely on just experience.
I hate to say common sense, because I don't like the term, because good judgment is not very common.
But I'm going to describe it, and then the challenge is to you to tell me why I'm wrong.
Because I think you're going to watch it materialize right in front of you this way.
Alright, so here are the variables, and then I'll tell you why you can fairly easily predict where this is going, and fairly quickly.
Number one, I'm going to get out in front of the medical professionals.
If you want to know what's true, listen to the medical professionals.
I'm not one of them.
So if I give you more optimism about a medical situation, listen to the professionals.
For actual, accurate information.
But also be aware that the medical professionals are managing not just your health, but availability of supply.
And they're managing your mental state, your anxiousness.
They're managing crowd psychology.
They're managing a lot of variables.
So if they give you a straight fact In normal times, I'd say to myself, well, it comes from the experts.
I'm going to take that straight fact as just being a straight fact.
But I don't think you can do that today.
Now, I want to be very careful in what I'm saying.
I believe our medical professionals, the people in charge, do have the right intentions.
They have the most information.
They're the most qualified. Everything they're doing is for the greater good.
But we on this periscope can, if we choose, to have a deeper insight into what's happening because I think we're smart enough, and frankly there aren't enough of us to make a difference anyway, but I think we're smart enough to be able to see what's really going on.
So let me tell you what I think is really going on.
There are now, my understanding, subject to fact-checking, is that there are now three studies showing that the Hydroxychloroquine, in particular, and the stronger version, hydroxychloroquine, or whatever it is, in combination with what?
Erythmomycin, whatever.
Names of drugs that I can't pronounce.
By the way, are you impressed that President Trump can pronounce those drugs perfectly?
I was watching for that when he talks, and he kind of perfectly pronounces them.
And then you watch the news reporters try to pronounce them, and it gets funny, because some can, some can't.
But, I don't know, I want to see Joe Biden try to pronounce the names of these drugs.
It's a serious, completely seriously.
Because it is one of those tells for mental acuity, and I'm wondering if I've lost it myself, because I have trouble with those words.
But the president doesn't seem to.
I don't know. I mean, it's the smallest little data point in the world.
And it made me wonder how much he practiced.
Didn't you? When you saw him effortlessly saying those big medical words, did you say to yourself, how long did he practice?
Or is he just sort of good at it?
I don't know the answer to that. He might just be good at it.
But I would imagine he practiced a little bit.
I certainly did, and it didn't help me a bit.
So here's where things are going.
And so my first statement of fact is that I'm more optimistic than, let's say, Fauci and the CDC on the usefulness of these drugs such as chloroquine.
And I'll just use that as my placeholder for those other drugs that are also useful, and I guess they're taken in combination mostly.
I think that the reason that the doctors are downplaying it is to keep you home, Because that's good, right?
At the moment, keeping you home is a big deal.
And because they don't have a supply yet.
Now, I'm sure that they...
Somebody says, stop rambling, old man.
Well, we can save you.
You're gone. I think that the professionals are trying to strike a balance between panicking and people, you know, murdering people to get a supply of the drug...
And being optimistic. Here is my belief.
It's my belief.
This is not what the medical professionals are saying.
My belief is that they're striking a balance and that they know this stuff is better than they're letting on.
Because all of the evidence so far is it's a pretty good kill shot if you get it early enough and you're not at death's door.
And even if you're at death's door...
Some of these are looking pretty strong.
Alright, so here's what's going to happen.
We are going to learn that we can take the death rate for a normal, healthy, let's say people under 60, people with no underlying conditions.
I believe that within a week, we will be able to say with a fair degree of confidence that if you can get them the chloroquine and drugs when symptoms present, And you're under 60 and there's nothing else special going on with you health-wise, I believe we're going to drive that very close to zero.
And we'll probably know that in a week, based on other places in the world doing similar things, etc.
So in a week, let's say we know that if you're healthy and under 60, you could get sick, you'll probably get sick, half of people will get sick, maybe more, but your odds of dying approach zero.
Then, you can start letting people go back to work, but not everybody.
So here's my prediction.
We will be turning the economy back on, but not like a light switch.
It's going to be like a dimmer.
The first people who get to go back to work are the young, who live somewhere where the healthcare system is not overloaded.
That's important too.
Young, healthcare system is not overloaded and not predicted to be overloaded right away.
And... They have a sufficient amount of the chloroquine and related drugs.
And here's the next thing I think is going to happen.
I ask this question, and I'll look for the answers on Twitter, but I ask the medical experts this question.
How practical is it to administer the chloroquine and the other meds for people who have a non-critical infection?
Or even if they're just presenting symptoms, but you don't know if it's regular flu or old flu or regular cold.
But just let's say you didn't do any testing.
This is just hypothetical.
Let's say you've got lots of meds, because I think you can make them quicker than you can make test kits.
And it's easier to give a med than to give a test.
So I think you're going to see pop-up tents in the vicinity of hospitals or maybe other places.
You probably want to be close to a hospital, sort of within walking distance of a hospital with your pop-up tent, because somebody's going to walk in there with a worse case and they should have gone to the emergency room, so you need to get them there quickly.
So I think what you're going to see is, especially in California and in other places as the weather warms, It's going to be tent-worthy weather.
And we're going to see pop-up tents with people who are just dispensing the meds to people who are not so sick that they really need to be in the intensive care.
So the first thing, I think, is that our ability to deliver it to people who are not critically ill will be very high.
So there's your back-to-work program.
I think in a week, Maybe two.
We're going to have really solid risk-reward information about these meds.
At that point, the government is going to start turning the knob, but it's not going to be a switch.
It's going to be, okay, in these places, these kinds of people, in these jobs, go back to work.
Take the restaurants, for example.
The restaurant business.
You could easily imagine...
That restaurants would be approved for work under the following conditions.
Nobody under 60 in the restaurant.
Right? Now, if you take the people over 60 out of the restaurant consumer business, you lose a lot of money.
Because people over 60 are a big, big, big part of the restaurant business everywhere.
But could you get them...
Up to getting close to meeting the rent just by saying if your servers are 20-somethings and you limit your customers to under 60 and you spread out the tables, let's give it a try.
Maybe not in New York City, but maybe in Toledo.
So in other words, if you're thinking it's a light switch, economy on, economy off, you're dead wrong.
It's not going to be that. It's going to be a phased test, test, test.
It's going to happen fairly rapidly and we'll have to We might test some things and pull back.
You know, say, oh, we tried it in Toledo, but Toledo got out of control.
Pull back. And that's how we're going to beat this thing.
Now, let's talk about Rachel Maddow and all the bad reporting.
This is what Rachel Maddow said yesterday.
This is a quote. But the president loves saying things like, you know, quote, there's a drug we've got and it's very effective.
It's approved already.
Everybody's going to get it. Unquote.
He loves saying things like that because that would be a lovely thing to be able to tell people.
Unless, of course, that's not true!
In which case, telling people a fairy tale like that is cruel and harmful and needlessly diverting and wildly irresponsible from anyone in a leadership role, Maddow said.
Now, so Maddow is saying that It's a lie that we have a drug that's very effective and that it's approved already.
So what would the press say about that?
Would the press say, yes, Rachel Maddow, you got them now.
Good point, Rachel.
It's that we don't have any effective approved drugs.
All right. Well, Rachel Maddow, please explain the following observation.
So, since our press has largely failed us, and I think you could say that, you know, I'm seeing some good reports.
Joel Pollack is doing, you know, great stuff.
You know, the actual sort of Sourcing stuff from real people in the real world instead of just talking to politicians and seeing what their dumb quotes are.
So most of the news has just resorted to listening to people and then telling you what they said.
And it's only the people who volunteer to talk.
Politicians. But any real investigative stuff is woefully lacking.
And I did something for you.
I'm going to tell you something.
That the news won't tell you.
Because I know it.
I have a direct knowledge of this fact that I'm going to tell you.
As of yesterday, actually just hours ago, last night, a patient who had all the symptoms, and I think by now has been confirmed to have coronavirus, and it's somebody who knows exactly how they got it.
In other words, it's now somebody who just Suddenly had symptoms and said, well, I think I have it.
It was somebody who had close contact with somebody who had it.
They had all the symptoms, you know, just classic, the tight chest, the dry cough, the whole thing.
Went to the emergency room and I got to follow the whole path.
So I was sort of in close contact because it's a friend.
And there was like an immense wait at the emergency room.
I think it was an hours-long wait.
But when he got in, he was almost immediately put on chloroquine.
Now, I know that personally, because I heard it from the person.
Like, actually just hours ago, a real patient went into a real hospital and got chloroquine.
Rachel Maddow says, this is not true.
She says that the president loves saying that there's a drug we've got, it's very effective, and it's approved already.
I can confirm that medical professionals are giving people this drug, and do you think they're giving it to people because they don't think it works?
Do you think it's just, well, we don't know, you know?
Just guessing. Just guessing.
No. No, the medical professionals are pretty damn sure this works, And at the very least, it's not harmful.
I mean, it's a well-tolerated, well-understood drug, especially in short-term doses, which this would be.
It's the long-term stuff that even has any side effects at all.
So, Rachel Maddow, what does it mean when you say it's not approved?
Well, let me explain this.
Approval is not approval.
Again, trapped in the prison of two ideas, the Gutfeld frame on things.
She's believing that a drug can be either approved or not approved.
And that's just wrong.
It's just wrong. You can have a drug that's approved for something else and used off-label.
There's a compassionate use clause.
I don't know how liberal that is.
Imagine you go into a hospital and you say...
There are three known studies that show that this drug is super effective and has basically nothing to worry about in terms of side effects.
You go into the hospital and you say that.
Can I get that drug because I'm coughing, I've got the coronavirus, I've got the COVID-19, I could be dead in a few days without this drug.
Do you think the hospital is going to say, in this current situation, do you think the hospital is going to say, you know, I don't know, Doesn't look dire enough.
No, no.
If they have the drug, they're going to give it to you right away.
There's no question about it.
The doctor is not going to say, I don't know, let's learn a bit more about this.
I don't know if this will quite fit into that off-label use.
I'm not sure if it's a compassionate use.
No, nothing like that's happening in the real world.
In the real world, This drug is approved.
Oh, is it technically approved in the sense that the FDA has said, you can use it for this, and here's the exact dosage regimen?
No. No.
My understanding is that, unless it happened recently, my understanding is it's not approved in that very technical, specific way.
But do the doctors know what regimen to use?
Yes, because the other countries tried things and they just told them and then they tried it and it worked.
So yeah, there may be some more ideal regimen, but we do know what it is.
I just saw it twice on Twitter.
If I know what the regimen is, well, doctors know.
I mean, I'm not sure I'm right, but the information seems to be widely available based on the experience of other countries.
So Rachel Maddow, you are just lying to the country.
You are just lying.
And this is a despicable lie.
It's not like what you accuse the president of doing.
What you're accusing the president of doing is maybe something that's technically, in some word and legal way, you could define it as untrue.
But in the real world, if you've got the coronavirus, Rachel Maddow, and you drive into your local emergency room, Rachel Maddow, They're going to give you the drug that you just told the world isn't approved and isn't effective.
Now again, I'm not guessing.
I just followed somebody with the frickin' coronavirus, digitally anyway, all the way into the emergency room and then got a picture of the actual IV in the arm and asked what's in there, and at least some of the stuff that's in there was the chloroquine, but I think there was a cocktail in there.
There's no doubt That the thing is approved in the real world sense.
You go into your emergency room, you're going to get the frickin' drug.
That's it. Don't even think that that's not going to happen.
That's happening. That's the fact right now.
Rachel Maddow, this is one of the most destructive.
It almost seems intentional because, you know, I've said this before, whatever you think of Rachel Maddow's, you know, Or performance or act or politics or anything else.
The one thing you can't question is she's super smart.
Nobody says she's dumb.
I mean, even to do this job, if you watch her for five minutes, you could hate everything she says and still come away thinking, well, you're really smart.
That's the impression I always get.
It's like she's really good at her job.
She's really smart.
Does she not know this distinction?
Because I know it, and I would have to guess that if Rachel Maddow took some kind of standardized test, like if I competed with her for the SATs, I think she'd beat me.
If we took a test of just knowledge, just how much do you know about the world, I think she'd beat me.
And I know this.
Are you telling me she doesn't know that anybody can get this drug because doctors are going to be kind of flexible in the emergency situation?
Does she really not know that?
I don't know. I don't want to be the guy who reads the mind and says, oh, no, you're lying intentionally because we could easily be in this cognitive dissonance situation where she wants it to be true that he lied.
Other people said he lied.
It just feels right, so she went with it.
But I don't know. I don't know how you could be that smart and that dumb at the same time, but I guess that's the question.
I saw yet another report from somebody who turned one ventilator into many with a combination of creative hosing and attachments.
So I guess the ventilator engine, if you will, is powerful enough to operate multiple hoses if you rig up the attachments, and that's happening now.
So we've seen two different mechanisms for doing that.
They're probably both good. And I thought I saw that somebody turned one into nine or something?
Or two into nine.
Whatever it is, it's a multiple.
So that's good news. Let's talk about the economic harm versus the medical harm.
There's a raging debate, and it fascinates me.
Most of the time...
When there's a debate and there are people on either side, I find myself either strongly siding with one side, and then I'll look at, okay, who are the people on my side?
And I'll look at the ones on my side, and I'll go, oh, okay, smart person, smart person, smart person.
I'm on the right side.
All right, who's on the other side?
Okay, dumb person, dumb person, been wrong about everything.
Okay, I feel safe.
So whenever I'm in the company...
Of being in the same opinion of people I consider the smartest, wisest, most informed people, I feel comfortable.
I am not comfortable at the moment.
Because there are smart people, people I respect, and who, if I hear they disagree with me, I don't reflexively say, well, why are they wrong?
I reflexively say, oh God, I might be wrong this time.
And there are people saying, smart people, That we've gone too far closing the economy and we should open it back up.
And we should do it pretty soon and just take what's coming.
There's going to be death, there's going to be problems, but it's better to have an operating economy.
So I'd like to talk to that question, open the economy or not.
Now, you heard my opinion that we will be opening the economy.
I'm guessing... On the outside, two weeks from now, you should see a phased reopening.
And phased would be the key word.
Because as soon as you see motion in the right direction, it's going to change entirely how you feel about it.
I think we'll be hiding the people who are older and have underlying conditions.
We'll get much better at hiding them.
Oh, and by the way, there is some early indication, far short of being confirmed, that it's actually pretty hard to get it from casual contact.
So there's not a lot of evidence that people are getting it from, just say, going to the store and shopping with somebody who has it.
So I'm not telling you that's safe, so let me be very careful.
The virus apparently lives on surfaces for a long time.
So in the laboratory and scientifically and logically, you can get it, just being in a place where somebody else has it.
But there does seem to be two factors at play here.
One is that we can't confirm a lot of that has happened.
So every time we know where it came from, It seems to be close contact.
You're part of a ventilation system.
It's your spouse.
You can usually determine there's some kind of pretty close, intensive contact.
But we don't actually have much, if any, evidence that somebody went to the hardware store and got it when they bought a hammer.
I'm just going to use a crazy example, right?
So there's no evidence that somebody just was away from everybody who had it.
Went to the store, bought a hammer, somebody else had touched the hammer, and now they've got the coronavirus.
Could happen, theoretically, but the evidence is that it's sort of not.
So, could you protect, under those conditions, do we know enough to protect the people who are vulnerable?
And I'd say yes. It seems like it's entirely about getting them away from other people, and only about getting them away from intensive interactions.
So if somebody needs to deliver some food, A relative needs to stand in the doorway and say hi.
Seems perfectly safe relative to the rest of the world, which is an unsafe place.
So here's another thing that you should consider.
The total close down, or whatever you want to call it at the current situation, whatever this is, we probably want to take this as close as we can to To the edge of destruction before we change, right? So if we're doing this right, it should look worse and worse and worse until it looks so bad we think we're going to lose the entire economy.
And right there, right at that point where all the smart people say, okay, if you go one more inch, if you let this go on one more day, I don't know if we can get back.
That's the day. We'll start getting back.
Because that's the day the cost-benefit analysis just becomes obvious.
At the moment, smart people are disagreeing.
Where is just the right balance?
Is it too soon?
Too late? Smart people are going to be sort of disagreeing.
But there will be a point when things become so dire...
That it looks like, okay, we can't do one more day.
We've got to take the risk.
Let's get back to work. I believe that it makes sense to take it right up to that line.
It makes sense to get pretty close to the line.
So you are going to get a lot more scared before you start feeling comfortable.
So that's just what to expect.
But that means we're doing it right.
The proper strategy...
Should bring it as close to the edge, but not over the edge, to the extent that we can determine what that edge is.
And I think we can, actually.
Because we have a situation where nothing's broken.
It's more like, can people get food?
We'll know what the edge looks like.
But I think we're going to go right up to the darkest, darkest point in civilization.
And then we're going to say, stop.
And then we're going to start moving the other way.
But all of that is going to buy us time to get the distribution of these drugs, which, in my opinion, are super effective and would be enough to get at least the under-60s back to work.
Once the under-60s are back to work, you're going to be at about maybe 60% efficiency in your economy fairly quickly.
All of the over-60s spend a lot of money.
They go to restaurants and drive around and buy gas and stuff.
So you're not going to be fully back.
But it is worth noting that the people who are not going to work first are the same group or at least likely to have a job, the elderly.
There will be a time...
When the baby boomers are called upon.
So I'm in that category of baby boomer.
And my generation, I think it's 1946 to 64, if you were born in that, you're a boomer.
We are most, except for the few people lingering who are in the greatest generation, they're in their 90s, there aren't too many of them, but mostly the people at risk are the boomers.
And the boomers will be called upon for sacrifice.
Because if you ask me what's best for me, well, I might want the economy closed down a little extra long compared to you, because that will keep me a little extra safe, because I'm over 60, I have an underlying condition, asthma.
And so what's best for me personally would be a longer closed down.
Just to really, really get a handle on this thing.
What's best for the rest of you, people who are younger and have less death risk, what's best for you is to get back to work fairly quickly.
So you and I, anybody who's young and of work right now, your interests and mine are not aligned.
Your best interests and my best interests just don't match.
So something's got to give, right?
So either you have to not work, You being a 30-year-old who's out of work right now, or I have to take a greater risk of dying.
And the people in my category have to take a greater risk of dying.
So how do we get the economy working when some big group is going to have to take a big risk?
And here's what I'm here to tell you.
I can't speak on behalf of all boomers, of course, or on behalf of anybody.
But I can tell you, I'll take the risk.
When my government tells me, okay, young people, it's safe enough for you, because we have good drugs and we've ramped up our tents where you can get quick treatment and everything.
It's safe enough for you.
But you boomers are going to be a lot less safe now because everybody else is out in the world and spreading it around.
I'm here to tell you I'm signing up for that risk.
And I'm in a riskier category, probably not the riskiest or close to it, but I'm raising my hand.
I don't know if you'll find too many people in my generation, the boomers, who will not raise their hand for this.
There will be a time that your leader is going to call on you to take a risk.
An outsized risk.
One that isn't absolutely necessary, but pretty necessary.
So, if you're wondering what the boomers will do or how we will respond to this, I got good news for you.
We're a pretty strong bunch.
We boomers, you know, maybe the young folks can't quite understand what it's like to be my age.
Let me tell you, young people, you know, I have maybe a third of the people watching this are pretty young, based on my stats.
Let me tell you something. When you're my age, you've seen some stuff.
And my age has seen some stuff that maybe you can't even imagine.
You know, I've had every childhood disease.
I've had measles twice, mumps, chicken pox.
I beat those.
I beat those. And if I need to get something else that takes me out for a few weeks, I'll probably be fine because of the meds.
But if I have to take that risk, I'm signing up for it right now.
So your boomers are way tougher than you think.
Mentally? Not physically.
But mentally, and in terms of their patriotism and their willingness to take a risk, the boomers are going to step up.
And you should expect that.
So expect your boomers to take that risk so the rest of you can go back to work.
And I'd like to go first.
When the time is not yet right, I think we have to wait at least a week.
Two weeks at the outside is my best guess before we start phasing young people back with the support of the medical system that can keep them healthy at a rapid response if needed.
Almost there. Two weeks at max.
93% of the people who say they have symptoms turn out to be negative.
I don't know how to process that.
But let me ask you this.
How many of you have convinced yourselves that sometime in the last three months you actually had the coronavirus?
Because you had that weird illness, that weird cough, that cold, that fever, those aches that didn't seem like anything else?
Because I'm in that category, right?
Because if I look at my last three months, I think to myself, you know, there was like two weeks there where my whole body ached and I seemed feverish and it just didn't feel like anything else I've ever experienced.
And do I believe that I actually have been infected with the coronavirus?
Well, 93% of the people with symptoms are negative.
So I'm going to play the odds.
Probably not. Probably not.
Somebody says, age 66.
Me too. Age 63.
Watch the comments.
Watch the comments from the boomers.
The boomers are ready to save your life.
I'll just put it right there.
The boomers are ready to enter the breach.
We just need the word.
I don't think the boomers are going to go first.
We're going to wait for our leaders to say, Now's the time for you to take an outside risk.
You're going to do it for the young.
That's exactly what we'd do it for.
We'd be doing it for the young.
Or ourselves as well.
But the moment our leader asks for that, the boomers will give it to you.
All right. I'm complaining on Twitter today, and I'll complain here, about our press again.
Why don't we know more about the availability of the chloroquine and the other meds?
Here's what I'd like to know, and I'd like to know by the end of the day.
Because this is vitally important to the mental health of the country.
It's one thing to say, well, we might have a solution, it might be coming.
But it's a completely different feeling if you say, we need this many pills, We have this much already.
That'll help us with the most important cases.
By the end of two weeks, we'll have so many pills, you're drowning in them.
And then that's when we do the pop-up tents, and that's when we just go nuts on this thing.
I need to kind of know what the pipeline looks like, not just for the chloroquine, but the related drugs that are in the cocktails they're using.
Why can't my press tell me that?
Why isn't that...
I mean, for me it comes down to one question.
Two questions. There are two questions.
One is, what is the survival rate of people who got these drugs on time in the United States?
I think it's going to be close to zero for people who don't have some other health condition.
I need to know that.
And then I need to know, what is the availability pipeline?
If you can tell me those two things, and I think the answers are going to be good...
or at least heading good, which is almost as good, I'm going to feel a lot better.
Now is Boomer Normandy.
Yeah, you know, I've thought of that analogy myself.
It's like every generation gets to storm the beaches at Normandy.
It just looks different.
You know, the greatest generation literally stormed the beaches of Normandy in a hail of bullets, ripping them apart.
Did it anyway. Saved the world.
We boomers are going to be asked to take a little risk.
It's not nearly the risk of Normandy, of course, or anywhere near it, but it's going to be a risk, and we will take that beach.
All right. Joe Biden is...
Well...
Apparently, Joe Biden's campaign, they had a meeting, and they were thinking, well, what can we do during this time of crisis when we can't campaign as effectively?
So they came up with a plan, and I assume that it wasn't in the room, but I assume the conversation went something like this.
What is the dumbest, least productive, most destructive thing we could do?
I assume that's what they were trying to decide, because they came up with a winner.
And the idea is that Joe Biden is going to have shadow briefings on coronavirus to show how well he would have handled the crisis compared to all that lying and failure from President Trump.
Now, it almost sounds like I'm joking, doesn't it?
Because isn't that the worst idea you've ever heard?
I mean, of all the ideas anybody's had since the beginning of the coronavirus, you know, some are right, some are wrong.
But this might be the worst idea of all the ideas.
Medically, politically, strategically, philosophically, empathetically.
On every level, this might be the worst idea I've ever heard.
Because do you know what the country needs less than having a shadow president lower our confidence in our actual leader?
That's the last thing we need.
The only thing that's worse than that is actually getting coronavirus.
I can't even think of a dumber thing to do.
So I've rebranded this as the shadow of his former self briefings.
So Joe Biden is a shadow of his former self.
So if he's giving a shadow briefing, let's just fill in the blanks.
It's a shadow of his former self briefing.
And I think this shows in this example, because let me ask you this.
Do you think young Joe Biden...
In better control of his faculties, would have made this decision?
Do you think he would have?
This feels like a staff decision from somebody who isn't good at decisions.
It might be the very worst idea I've ever seen in the history of all politics.
Nothing about this is good.
And they're good. I don't know.
Will they do it anyway? I think maybe they'll get talked out of it.
My guess is that it's That by the time they get the technology up so he could do it, I guess they're waiting to turn his house into a studio or something.
But by the time they can do it, I think smart people will talk them out of it.
I think the adults in the room, the David Axelrods, if you're David Axelrod and you just read this, and I think Axelrod is one of the The smart people in the room, right?
If you're talking politics and strategy and campaigns, you want David Axelrod on your team.
One of the best.
Do you think when he heard this, that Joe Biden was going to do shadow briefings to confuse the country on coronavirus?
Do you think Axelrod said, whoa, good move?
Joe Biden, no.
No, I'm not a mind reader, so maybe he did.
Who knows? I can't determine it.
But do you think... I mean, you've watched him, right?
Even if you disagree with all of the politics of David Axelrod, is there anybody here who thinks he's dumb?
No. No.
There's not one person here who thinks David Axelrod doesn't know exactly what he's talking about.
He's at the top of his game, as informed and smart as you could ever be in this category.
Let's ask him what he thinks.
I assume he'll probably be on one of the news shows in the next few days.
Wait for David Axelrod to tell you what he thinks about Joe Biden doing shadow briefings in the middle of an emergency.
Honestly, it's the worst idea I've ever seen.
I'm not even joking.
It's the worst idea I've ever seen.
There are bad ideas, but you can't find one worse than this.
And on top of that, The things that Joe Biden thinks are lies are because he doesn't understand it.
I just explained that Rachel Maddow, who is about a thousand times smarter than Biden, I mean, anybody would agree with that.
Rachel Maddow didn't know that there's this distinction between approved specifically and okay to use approved that way.
She didn't know the distinction.
Do you think Joe Biden knows that distinction?
I don't know. Maybe.
Who knows? All right.
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