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May 27, 2020 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
30:56
Episode 999 Scott Adams: Totally Real Joe Biden Joins me For a Digital Town Hall. In His Mask. Because He is a Role Model

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Totally Real Joe Biden joins Scott for some malarkey Whiteboard: Orange Man Bad Because President Trump questions Joe Scarborough interns passing Twitter fact checks President Trump's on mail-in ballot fraud Kudos Christian Cooper, he took things to the high ground ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-adams00/support

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Time Text
Is this thing working?
Is this thing working? How about now?
Is that good? What?
What? How about now?
Is that good? Which way am I supposed to be looking?
Is the camera on?
Are we good? Did we start?
Oh, hi, hi.
Is this working?
Is this working? Where do you put the phonograph in?
Is this taping?
Can I get a...
Okay, what's the start?
We're starting now? Okay.
Is this good?
Is this good? Back further?
Okay, got it.
Okay, I think it's going well so far.
I'm totally real Joe Biden.
And you can tell that I'm totally real, except possibly in the ear area is not so totally real.
But 98% of me, especially in the forehead area, a little bit of the bridge of the nose, totally real.
Now, I only leave my basement for two reasons.
Either to go to Memorial Day cemeteries, or to visit a cartoonist studio.
What do they have in common? Heroes.
Heroes. That's right.
I will only leave my basement for heroes.
And that's why I'm here today in the Dilbert Guys studio.
Now, let me tell you about this guy, this orange guy, this president, this...
I don't know. I don't even want to use his name.
Who is this guy?
Anyway, let me tell you about him.
He's a damn liar.
He's a damn liar.
He needs to tell the truth.
Don't take my word for it.
Ask the NAACP. They endorsed me 753 times.
That's called leadership.
Not like that other guy.
Now, since you brought it up, I have never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, taken the African-American vote for granted.
And you know that's real because the number of times I said never, never, A liar would have stopped at two, maybe three nevers.
But if you were paying attention, I shot past three, way past three nevers.
I was into, I don't know, man, What?
10? Maybe 12 million.
Something like that.
I don't know. Somewhere in that area.
So let me tell you this.
I'm always going to give it to you straight.
Right.
Not like that time in the hallway.
I sort of snuck up on it.
But that's a whole different situation.
Allegedly. Now if you don't like Joe Biden...
I say, first of all, take a look at Joe Biden.
Take a look at Joe Biden.
If you don't like what you see, vote for the other guy.
But please vote by mail.
That's all I'm going to ask.
Don't ask me why.
Just vote by mail.
But it doesn't matter who you vote for, really.
Don't ask why. And it's a pretty good system.
You better vote my mail, otherwise the COVID is going to get you.
It's going to get you. So you better vote my mail.
It's a good system. Now, the president needs to lead.
He needs to listen to the scientists.
He needs to tell the truth. I'm not going to stoop to his level.
Instead, I'm going to make generic statements, such as, we have to prepare for the second wave.
A lot of people are unemployed, folks.
That's leadership.
That's the kind of generic statement that will make America very similar to how it was.
Not great, because that would be a little bit racist, but just sort of okay, you know, not bothering anybody.
Well, let me give you some more valuable, valuable policy advice.
Wear masks.
Wash your hands. See, this is the kind of leadership that we need.
Otherwise, the whole country is going to go around with dirty hands.
What kind of world is that?
My God, man. What else will we stop washing?
If we stop washing our hands, what's next?
Putin would love that, wouldn't he?
Oh, he would. He would.
Anyway, let me summarize with a list of all the things that's wrong with that man whose name I will not use, who's occupying temporarily, temporarily, until I beat him like a drum, the Oval Office.
These are all the reasons Orange Man bad because, number one, the lollygagging.
I think you'd agree there was way too much lollygagging, way too much.
There's a lot of tomfoolery.
The malarkey, oh my god, the malarkey, the malarkey is out of control.
The fiddle faddle is through the roof.
Number five, oh, you know the thing!
And number six, Kamala controls my food, so I have to say whatever she wants.
I'm hearing a bell.
That means my food is ready.
I'd like to stay longer, because, you know, I like to stay to the end.
I'm usually the last guy who leaves.
But if I don't go now, I might not get to eat.
So, I'm going to have to excuse myself.
Bye for now. Thanks for coming by, Joe.
I really appreciate that.
Yeah, it's okay. It's all right.
Yeah, I hope I did a good job.
Sorry, I'll take over now.
Yeah, all right. I'll see myself out.
Yeah, if you can find the door.
Go down the stairs. All right, all right.
Is this the door? That's the bathroom.
This bathroom. The other one?
Down the stairs? All right, all right.
I got it. I got it. All right.
That was a nightmare.
That guy.
That was a nightmare.
Let's talk about all the things that are happening.
Let's talk about all the things that are happening.
Stock market's up.
Right? Stock market's way up.
Property values are actually a little bit up, I think.
I think we're on track for the biggest recovery ever.
If there's one thing that you need to understand about the economy, it's that it's a self-fulfilling wish as long as you don't have any shortages.
And we don't have shortages.
So we can actually will ourselves into a better economy And we have the very best president for that specific task.
Sure, the president's done a few things this week that maybe even you wouldn't have done.
I think maybe in this political season, he may have found a way to go a little bit too far on a few items.
But who would you rather have as your president when you're trying to do a quick recovery?
He's sort of the perfect personality for that.
And if you look at the stock market, it really looks like the people with money are buying into Trump's vision of a fairly speedy recovery.
So that part's looking good.
But we have to talk about...
Do you ever laugh at things you're not supposed to laugh at?
And then you feel bad about it as soon as you do?
I feel like I should change the subject now so you don't know what I was laughing about because I'll be a bad person.
Let's just stipulate I'm a bad person so we can just get to the topic.
I always tell you that Trump has a way of picking the only path that you didn't know was even a path.
If it looks like there are two choices, well, he's got to go this way, He's got to go that way.
There's only two choices. And then suddenly he'll be like plowing through a wall and there'll be a whole new path that you didn't even know was a path.
And I think he did it again.
And not necessarily in a way that you should be happy about, but it's so quintessential.
So as you know, the president is accusing via tweet Joe Scarborough of murder.
For the tragic death of somebody who worked in his office, who by all credible accounts had some heart problem, collapsed, hit her head, just an accident.
Now it turns out, and I didn't know this until just recently, that she was married.
And her widower husband wrote a very well-written and passionate letter To the president, saying that he felt it was his duty to protect the memory and sort of the reputation of his late wife as part of his commitment to the marriage, which he considered to last beyond her passing.
Now, it was a really good letter in terms of having the emotion and the power and everything.
And all he asked, he was asking, I think he was asking, would he write it to Twitter?
And he was asking that they just remove those tweets.
Pretty reasonable thing to ask, except it's the president.
And if the president says anything, it's kind of part of the record.
It's really different.
And I don't think you can compare a federal or any politician, really.
I don't think you can compare the politicians to the regular people.
I almost feel like the politicians are the only ones who should never be able to delete anything.
Maybe they can flag it as I didn't mean it or something.
But it seems like you should be able to just always go back and see the actual unfiltered record of a politician.
So that's independent of the question of whether the president should be using this particular topic as a club as effective as it might be and entertaining in its own way.
It is very unkind to the surviving family members.
There's no way around that.
So the president is doing his press conference today, and of course he gets that question.
And somebody asked, had he seen the letter from the widowed husband?
Now, I don't know if the president saw that letter.
But, the answer he gave was that third path, like through the wall.
Because you thought at this point, he sort of had to, I don't know, apologize or say, ah, I didn't mean it.
But instead, he goes right at it.
And he says, well, I would think that all the family members would have some questions of their own.
And he goes, and he just completely commits to it.
Now, The thing that makes me laugh, and I don't feel good about it, don't be like me.
You're good people.
Apparently I have low character, because I can't stop laughing at how ridiculously audacious and inappropriate it is, especially coming from the president.
It would be terrible coming from anybody.
But when it comes from him, it takes on this whole other meaning, of course.
But part of what makes it irresistible is that you know he doesn't mean it.
I mean, you know that, right?
You know that Trump...
Doesn't mean a word of it.
That he doesn't mean there's anything to the story.
And that's, I think, why he can get away with it.
Because it's so transparently obvious that he doesn't even believe it.
And it's just something to say to make people chase their tails and talk about how Joe Scarborough may or may not be a murderer.
It's just about the funniest prank I've ever seen any bloody play in the history of the world.
Except as...
A bad effect on the family, which we're not ignoring.
Apparently I'm just a bad person because it's still kind of funny that he's doing it at all.
I know whenever I try to shave things too fine and I can say, well, I don't think I would have done it.
I wouldn't recommend he do it.
It feels like maybe that was too far.
And then I tell myself, he's in this competition for the White House, and literally everything that everybody says is a lie.
The other side has accused him of being every kind of a treasonous spy for Russia.
You know all the stories.
I don't have to repeat them. But the things that Trump has been accused of, That now we know are not to be true, are insane.
So when I see him recognize that the rules of the game, the accepted rules, the rules that we're all playing by, apparently these are the rules, is that you can say absolutely anything and you don't have to mean it.
You don't even have to believe it.
You just have to put it out there.
And the fact that he's going into a game in which you can just say anything.
So why would he say less than the most devastating thing he could possibly say?
Why would he possibly hold back?
There's no good reason for telling the truth in a presidential election because the other side isn't doing it.
And there's no hope that they would do it.
It's not like if you did it, they would start doing it or something.
That's not going to happen. That's not even close to what's going to happen.
Basically, whoever lies the best is going to win.
So, would you want your team to lie in a less effective way?
I don't know. There are a lot of moral questions involved in this.
And I don't think I'm the one to answer them because I can't stop laughing at the fact that he committed to such an outrageous claim And he does it by saying, well, there are questions.
A lot of people are asking questions.
So he doesn't even say that he's asking questions.
He just says, people are asking questions.
Alright, so, again, we can't be happy about it, but as long as he's in a game in which you can say absolutely any lie, I don't know if you can pick one out and say that's the bad one.
I mean, that's shaving it pretty fine.
Alright, so one of the things that I think Trump is doing exactly right is saying that he'll override the governors if they don't let the churches reopen.
Now, of course, every state is going to make its own decisions, and it's not like there's one right time for churches to open, and it's not as if there's one right way to do it or anything like that.
So it's a very generic statement the President is making, you know, open those churches.
But it's insanely correct, and his instincts as a politician are just uncanny sometimes.
Because I think the experts are unified in saying that Trump doesn't have any such power, right?
In fact, check me on this.
Is it not true that the experts are saying...
That the President does not have the power to order churches open if the states have them temporarily closed for health reasons.
Now, I don't know if it's true or not.
I don't know if the Supreme Court would get involved.
I don't know. But I do know it doesn't matter.
If you think it matters that the President has those defined powers, it does not.
It does not.
Because first of all, The churches are going to open up.
The synagogues, the mosques, they will open.
So whether it's this week or next week, it's not like it's not going to happen.
So the president is clearly on the side of the people, all the people, because even people who don't go to church would probably like to see things get back to normal.
So it's a very populist, smart position to take.
But he takes the strongest possible position Which is that he would go all dictator, basically, I don't know what it would take, to override the states that open up those places of worship.
And I thought, I don't know, how exactly would he do that?
It wouldn't really happen in the real world.
There would just be a conversation, right?
In the real world, It would just be a conversation.
And they would figure it out.
And in the end, the president would say, well, I wish you'd done it sooner.
And they'd say, we're doing the best we can.
Here's my data. You know, but they're just working out.
But it's really smart politically for him to make that claim that he's going to make it happen.
And he'll make it happen for all the denominations.
And he's very clear about, you know, making sure everybody's included.
He also announced some kind of insulin drug cost reduction that's kind of a big deal, if I'm reading it right.
I guess you have to wait for the next day to see if the experts weigh in and tell us anything really changed, because you don't really know when you first hear these things, because somebody could come in and say, well, that went down, but something else went up, so it's not what it looks like.
But on the surface, it looks like this is some really good deal that the government has worked out to lower the insulin costs for lots of people.
And there's some hope that whatever model they use to do that could be reproduced.
So will we be seeing a 2021 in which there are telehealth doctors who are so cheap That it lowers healthcare costs at the same time that there's some new kind of negotiating process, I don't know what it is, for lowering drug costs, at least for some portion of the public.
Maybe, maybe the Trump administration is sort of moving toward at least doing something on healthcare that looks productive.
So the big story, of course...
Oh, did you hear that...
So Biden did this interview with Dana Bash, I guess?
And he said, all this stuff about Biden's hiding, but it's working pretty well.
So to hear Joe Biden use the term Biden-hiding made me laugh, because I was thinking to myself, how many people had the same idea of Biden-hiding?
Because I know... I know I tried to be the first to invent it, but I think maybe somebody beat me to the hashtag or something.
But I think I was at least one of the people who helped popularize it, among others.
And so to hear the candidate himself say Biden-Hayden, and to feel like collectively it felt like we were part of that, it just made the world seem kind of small for a minute.
All right, so the big story, of course, what you want to talk about is the president had his tweet fact-checked by Twitter.
So, Jack Dorsey must be having the world's strangest day, because, you know, first of all, there's that whole story about the Scarborough situation, and, you know, that ends up being a Twitter problem, because it's all about the tweet, take it down or not.
So, suddenly, Jack Dorsey wakes up, and he's in the middle of, you know, the biggest story in the country.
And then...
But it turns out his day wasn't over!
And then Twitter fact-checks the president on a couple of tweets he did recently about what he thought was the opportunity for fraud with mail-in ballots.
Now, I don't know if everything he said about it was what they were fact-checking, or there were some parts or parts that were especially grievous, but the rest of it might have been semi-okay.
I don't know exactly what was wrong with it.
But they put a tag on it to say, go look at the truth, basically.
And you could go look at news articles from CNN and other places.
So you can imagine how Twitter, let's say conservative and Republican Twitter, took this news that Twitter corporate...
was putting fact-checking tags on the president when I think everybody who supports the president probably close to 100% of the people who support the president also believe that mail-in ballots have a little extra exposure to risk.
Now, none of us are experts on that.
It's got to be different for different states and I know we've been using it forever and There are probably ways to make sure it doesn't happen and blah, blah, blah.
But in your, let's say, your experienced mind, when you just think about the world and all the things you've seen in the world and all the ways that people can find to cheat, even when you don't think they can, whenever you've got this situation where you have a really big upside gain, have you ever heard me say this before?
You have a really big upside gain, and almost no chance of getting in trouble, and a lot of people are involved, so it's not up to just one person to be a good person and not do the crime.
If a lot of people are involved, somebody's going to do the crime.
So, the mail-in ballots sort of add an extra exposure To something that is almost guaranteed to produce fraud.
I would say guaranteed, wouldn't you?
It's closer to guaranteed than it is to zero.
Now the question is how much?
Yeah, and now some of the techniques are actually legal.
I think ballot harvesting is legal in some states, right?
So it could certainly have an effect on the election.
So we don't know yet how deep this Twitter fact-checking situation is going to go.
Will they do this for all of the president's tweets?
Will they do it for other blue-check people and non-blue-check people?
How much of this are we going to see?
Was this sort of a trial balloon?
So again, the two biggest stories in the country...
They both came back to Jack Dorsey's doorstep.
His world must have shrunk to the size of a marble.
Suddenly, everything in the world just is connected to him personally.
That's got to be the weirdest feeling.
All right. Let me give you the most optimistic thing I've heard today.
Are you ready? I want to make sure that you go to bed on a positive thought.
So this is going to be a really positive thought.
Seriously. I think you'll like it.
Just a really good, feel-good, positive thought.
So, you know, as you know, the story about Amy Cooper and no relationship to Christian Cooper.
They had their altercation in the park, Central Park.
She had a dog. She called the police and told the police, quote, there's an African-American man threatening me, which sounded kind of racist to anybody who saw it.
We don't know what happened before that, what was going on, but certainly the African-American part seemed gratuitous, and why'd you throw that in there?
So she, of course, The internet blew up on her.
She apologized. She lost her dog.
Anybody who saw the video probably thinks maybe that was okay because she wasn't quite handling that dog right.
And then she got fired.
She actually lost her job.
So she lost her dog, her reputation, and her job in 24 hours, basically.
Now the guy that she had the interaction with, this Christian Cooper, Apparently he was a bird watcher and he would often go to that place, the Brambles or whatever it was called.
And when he found out that she had lost her job and basically her whole life was torn apart, this is what he said.
So here's his quote.
He said, if our goal is to change the underlying factors, I'm not sure that this young woman having her life completely torn apart serves that goal.
There you go. So here was a guy who, you know, he was part of this big story.
He had, by all the rules of the game, you know, the rules of social media, the rules of how we identify and treat each other and, you know, try to tear each other apart.
By all the rules, this fellow, Christian Cooper, had a right to be angry and he had a right to be a little bit vindictive.
And it turns out, I think he was a Harvard graduate.
So he's somebody who's, you know, at least some parts of his life are going pretty well.
If you went to Harvard and you can spend some time birdwatching in Central Park, things must be a little bit okay.
So Christian Cooper had every reason to be a jerk after the fact, right?
I'm not even going to make an opinion about the interaction.
The interaction itself, you saw it, you be the judge.
I'm not going to help you make a decision about who was right or wrong.
But after the fact, separate from the interaction that you can judge separately, Christian Cooper took it to the high ground.
He took it to the high ground.
So, thank you.
I would just say thank you.
Now, if you wanted to really take it to the high ground, if you really wanted to take it home, Really just make something better.
Turn a bad into a good.
He should call her employer and ask them personally to rehire her.
Now, how much would you love that?
Because we know that this Christian Cooper guy, you know, he was a little particular about what was happening in the park and maybe you wouldn't have handled things that way.
And that would be a, you know, a legitimate opinion if he disagreed with the way he handled it.
But I don't think you can disagree with the fact that he's not comfortable with the fact that this interaction blew up her life.
And I would say that this should be rewarded in terms of like a role model.
So it turns out that there was at least one person here who had a very reasonable opinion about this.
And while he's under no obligation to do it, The coolest way this story could end is if he called her employer and said, you know, I'm not excusing anything she did.
I'm just saying punishment didn't fit the crime.
How about we just learn something and move on?
It would be so awesome that it would be just a wonderful thing.
So I want to leave you on that thought, that there was this one reasonable person doing a reasonable thing, at least at this point in time.
Yeah, I hear what you're saying.
The dog stuff was disturbing, but I also...
She clearly was not a dog owner, so there is more to this going on.
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