Episode 1144 Scott Adams: Trump and the Campaign. What Happens to the Country's Psychology Now?
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Content:
Do masks work or not?
Was the Rose Garden a super-spreader event?
Vile people wishing for a bad outcome
When you're down and your enemies show you kindness
Trump Tiger Blood
Post-Recovery SuperTrump
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Well it's time for the simultaneous sip or as somebody on YouTube refer to it as the concurrent chug.
Well, you can chug or you can sip.
It's very permissive here.
So come on in. Come on in.
We've got lots to talk about.
But first, first, it's time for the simultaneous sip, and all you need is a cup or mug or a glass of tank or chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid I like, coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
Including the air quality in California.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
It happens now.
Go.
Yes, speaking of air quality, I've been living in a smoke-infested hellhole for weeks now.
But the air quality today has improved a little bit.
So today, I might be able to go outside.
That would be pretty exciting.
Have all of you experienced going outdoors?
Imagine having coronavirus, but you also can't go outside because it's too dangerous.
That's my world in California, but enough about me.
Let's talk about all the fun news.
As others have noted, I think Jason Miller noted this first, did you notice that when Trump did his little venue from the hospital, Walter Reed Hospital, did you notice, or am I the only one who noticed this, and Jason Miller I guess noticed it too, that he didn't say a word about white supremacy?
So... I don't know about you, but now I wonder if he's changed back to being in favor of it again.
Because if you don't hear from him to denounce white supremacy every, I don't know, at least every 24 hours.
Every 8 hours would be ideal, but at least every 24 hours he's going to have to work it into a sentence.
Otherwise, how can we really be sure?
Sure, he's denounced them 20, 30 times in public, but Sometimes that's not enough.
So we'll be watching for that.
There are two new polls coming out about Biden and Trump.
And these polls seem to indicate a problem.
There's a problem here.
The problem being with the polls themselves.
Alright, so here's one.
The NBC Wall Street Journal poll shows a huge jump in support for Biden and that he would be at 53% compared to Trump's 39%.
If that's true, if this poll is even a little bit legitimate, Trump has no chance.
He's done. Why does my nose always itch when I go on camera?
But, On the other side of the spectrum, we've got the Zogby poll, in which the very opposite happened.
So, in the other world, the other reality, in Zogby, Biden's lead has been cut down to two, so it's only a 49 to 47 difference.
Now, that's really different.
It would be one thing if both polls showed that the direction of things was the same, but maybe one of them showed that it was even more in one direction than the other one did.
I would think, well, those polls are different, but at least they seem to be heading in the right direction.
But if one goes north and one goes south, based on the same world events and taken roughly at the same time, I don't think I trust both of those polls.
I'm not sure if you can trust any poll these days, but I certainly don't trust them together.
For those of you who don't pay attention as much, what do you know about the NBC polls and NBC News?
Well, I'm just telling you what's been reported.
People who are smarter than I am would tell you that the NBC polls are essentially controlled by our own intelligence agencies.
Do I know that personally?
No. I don't personally have any information about that.
But smart people say that NBC is largely controlled by our own intelligence agencies.
So, what would our intelligence agencies want us to think about the upcoming election?
They might want us to think that President Trump can't win.
Might depress the vote.
So, I wouldn't trust anything out of an NBC poll.
But, if it turns out that there are other polls that agree with it, well, then maybe you take it a little bit more seriously.
But we'll wait on that.
In my opinion, the worst take on the coronavirus goes like this.
Masks definitely don't work.
Now, I'm not the expert.
I'm not a Epidemiologist?
I'm not a mask expert.
And I am certainly open to the idea, certainly a possibility, strong possibility, really, that masks don't help as much as the experts would like us to leave.
Totally possible.
If you said, I'm not sure if masks work, I'd say, well, that's a reasonable opinion right there.
If you said, I'm pretty sure they do.
You might be right, you might be wrong, but that's a reasonable opinion.
It's a reasonable opinion because it would agree with the consensus of experts, as far as I know, in every major country.
So, all the major countries got on the same page, which is unusual, about masks having data to support that they work.
So, if you said, probably they work, And a lot of the experts are on the same page, even if these experts are all over the place.
Normally you expect experts to be more diverse in their opinions, but they all seem, at least the consensus, not every expert, but the consensus in every major country, exactly the same.
That means something.
Here's the worst take.
Masks definitely don't work.
Now, is it possible?
Is it possibly true that masks don't make any difference and all of the consensus of experts in all the countries are all wrong?
Is that possible?
Yes! Totally.
Totally possible.
What is the smart risk-reward way to play it?
Suppose you are pretty sure they don't work, But it's more of a hunch, more of a skepticism.
Maybe you saw some studies that say, hey, the particle is only this big, but there's so many holes in a mask.
If you looked at it under a microscope, the holes would be this size, the particle would be the size of a BB. How is a hole the size of a basketball hoop going to stop a BB? That, of course, is a very bad take.
Here's what you should be thinking.
What does that virus ride on?
Does it travel alone?
It does not. It rides on air droplets.
Is the air droplet small enough to go through the hole that's the size of a basketball hoop, relatively speaking?
And the answer is, some are.
Some get through, some do not.
That's called friction.
Some get through and some do not.
So if some get through and some do not, what would that tell you about the total amount of virus that's being spread into the room?
I know what you're saying.
Scott, Scott, Scott. I've seen the video where they tested it.
The mask doesn't stop the air from coming out.
It just comes out the sides.
It still comes out.
Same amount of air.
It has to go somewhere.
So it's not like staying within the mask, right?
It's going somewhere. That's right.
But it's not going as far, is it?
If your mask is sort of leaking out the edges, it's staying near you.
If you take the mask off and you're a big talker, hey, what you doing?
Let me talk to you right into your face.
You're shooting a cannon of virus into the other person's mouth and eyes.
Is it the same?
Maybe. Maybe.
I wouldn't rule out the possibility that if you really could study this thing, and apparently it's hard to study, so you really can't, that in the real world, Maybe.
The virus coming out the side floats in the air.
Doesn't matter that it was local to you because it all spreads out, maybe.
I'm open to that.
It could be that they don't work.
But what are the odds?
If you're going to play the odds here, what's the smart way to play this?
Well, if you've got some special condition where wearing a mask might be dangerous to you personally, well, that's a personal decision.
But in terms of the risk-reward, Given that the experts in every country, the consensus, not every expert, but the consensus is very strongly, unambiguously wear a mask, maybe you ought to take that seriously on a risk-reward level.
Again, doesn't mean that there's a 100% chance that they really make a big difference.
But I would say the odds are pretty good.
30% chance?
Suppose there were a 30% chance it would make a difference.
Would you think that's worth it?
I would say so.
I would think a 30% chance that masks make a difference would be enough.
Yeah, and even if you add into it the fact that people will touch their mask and all of that, all of that's been taken into consideration by the experts who study these things and have figured out The data suggests that it works.
Here's a good rule for determining what is true and what is fake in terms of the news.
It's in my book, LoserThink, and the trick goes like this.
If you see something reported as true on CNN, And untrue on Fox News, it's untrue.
Not because Fox News says it's untrue, but because there are two news organizations equally capable, and if they don't both say it's true, about 95% of the time, it's not true.
That's also reversed.
If Fox News says it's definitely true, And CNN says, no, that never happened.
There's a 95% chance it didn't happen.
But if both of them say something is true, the odds of it being true, very high.
Both Fox News and CNN and MSNBC and every other network, left and right, report unambiguously, masks are important.
Now they do have, on Fox News especially, they'll have guests who will be on the side of opening up and taking our chances and getting herd immunity and all that.
But it's always in context.
They'll still bring on their own medical guy right after the guy who says maybe masks are not that important.
They'll still bring on their medical guy to say, yeah, masks are important, the experts agree.
So that's all I want to say.
You could certainly say you're not sure if masks work But it is not a good take to say, therefore, we shouldn't wear them.
The logic isn't there.
The logic is, might be a good chance they work, given the stakes.
It's worth a shot. It probably won't kill you.
I've got a question about this Rose Garden super spreader situation.
Probably you have the same question, right?
And the question goes like this.
Why is one event such a spready situation and others are not?
Because they're not that different, are they?
What would make the Rose Garden event so infectious, but yet let's say the normal Trump rallies were not?
Let's say the Black Lives Matter rallies were not?
It seems like there are a lot of things that were not, but this one was.
Now, how can you explain that?
Well, the most obvious explanation would be this.
Statistics are not even.
There is a thing called statistical clustering.
It's one of the reasons that you sometimes think, oh no, the water is polluted in this town.
Because this town has an unusual amount of a certain kind of cancer.
Sometimes that's exactly what's going on.
Sometimes you have, in fact, found that this town has a problem with the water and the water is giving people cancer.
Sometimes. Other times, it's just a fluke of statistics.
And when you look into it, you just find out, oh, it's actually fairly common that there will be little clusters of unexplained things For every situation.
And those little clusters don't mean anything because they're normal.
So it could be that the Rose Garden situation was just one of those.
Just a complete coincidence that there happened to be infected people more than usual who attended the event and were not aware of it.
Could be just statistics.
But I ask you this.
Could there ever have been a more perfect place From the perspective of the anti-Trumpers, what would be the most perfect place for a super-spreading thing to break out?
Well, number one would be at a rally, right?
A rally would make the case for Biden, because if a rally broke out, he could say, see what you've done.
You're killing your own supporters.
But I've not heard much in the way of rallies causing spreading, have you?
Maybe it's harder to tell because the public doesn't get tested as much.
But the first thing you have to ask yourself is, huh, that would be a pretty big coincidence.
So we would have two coincidences.
One, that this Rose Garden event coincidentally had all the right variables for a super-spreading event, whereas others do not.
But also by coincidence, so this is a coincidence on top of a coincidence, it would be the most politically powerful thing to do.
Because giving COVID to a bunch of professional politicians, mostly Republican, would be more popular, let's say, if you were a Democrat, than giving it to citizens.
Because you would just have empathy if citizens get it.
Do you have the same amount of empathy if a Republican who didn't wear a mask in public got it?
Right? So that's a coincidence that it happened, that it was super-spready in this one event.
On top of a coincidence, it was also the most politically powerful place it could happen.
Two big coincidences, right?
Here's another coincidence.
It happened exactly the week, relatively speaking, that the 2016 video dropped of the Access Hollywood tape.
Now, why did the Access Hollywood tape drop exactly when it did in 2016?
Was that a coincidence?
Was that the week that somebody found the video?
No. That was an engineered drop because it was close enough to the election that it didn't look like we could forget it.
And it wasn't anything the president could do about it.
You just had to live with it.
There was no response to it.
All you could say is, hey, locker room talk, you know, doing my best.
So, if you were going to play an intentional dirty trick, it would happen this week.
So that would be a coincidence.
So you've got a coincidence that the Rose Garden was the super-spready event.
A coincidence is the most politically powerful thing where it could have happened.
And also, it involved the Supreme Court nomination.
What was it that we heard from the Democrats about the Supreme Court nomination?
What did Chuck Schumer say about the fact that the Republicans were going to push through the nomination?
I believe he said, everything's on the table.
Everything's on the table. And I think he sort of meant it.
Everything's on the table as a strategy.
So now you've got the coincidence it was in the Rose Garden and not in other places.
A coincidence it was the perfect event because it had to do with the Supreme Court and it was mostly Republicans.
It was...
It was during a time when Schumer said anything's on the table and it happened if there was one other coincidence there.
Now, does that mean that there was some mischief involved and that maybe the infections were intentional?
Nope. There is zero evidence of anybody intentionally infecting anybody.
So let me say that as clearly as possible.
There is zero evidence that there's anything except just natural infection going on.
Because it could easily happen with just coincidence and chance and natural infection.
You always have to be careful of coincidence.
But I will give you this frame Just to have as a check.
I've told you in other situations that one of the ways you can predict if there will be bad behavior is this.
Whenever you have a situation in the world in which the upside potential For doing something illegal or devious is very high.
Like you could make a billion dollars.
Or you could change the government of the United States.
Very high stakes. So whenever you have high stakes, if something bad happens, and you have this other condition, pretty much no chance of getting caught.
If your odds of getting caught are just really, really small, but your potential gain is gigantic, how often does mischief or illegal actions happen under that condition?
Payoff is gigantic.
The risk of getting caught for doing something to get that payoff is trivial.
How often? Oh, and then I'll add a third variable.
There are lots of people involved.
So let's say in this case you've got lots of foreign adversaries who would like to see something bad happen to the president.
But you also have lots of Democrats individually and as a group.
So you've got lots and lots and lots of people who would have interest in doing something that had a gigantic payoff, minuscule risk.
How often in our world Will mischief happen under those conditions?
And the answer is every time.
The answer is every time.
Now, could this be the exception?
Could this be because the stakes are so high, and if you got caught doing this thing, even though the chances of getting caught are really, really small, if you did get caught, it's pretty bad.
I mean, it's about as bad as it could possibly be if you get caught doing something like that.
Let's take an example.
Let's take insider trading.
If you do insider trading, do you have a potential for a gigantic upside?
Yeah. Depending on the trade, it could be pretty big.
What are the odds of getting caught at insider trading?
Not as high as they should be, right?
That's the reason it happens so much.
Because there are situations in which people say, you know, all I have to do is mention this to my cousin.
Nobody's going to know it came from me.
Just my cousin will have a good stock trade.
And maybe I'll work something out, you know, on the side with my cousin as a payback for this insider information.
Well, then it happens almost every time.
So maybe this is the exception.
It could be the one time that there was no mischief and that it just happened to coincidentally line up with exactly the way it would look If it was done intentionally.
But again, let me back up to the first point.
If you were going to place a bet on this or any other conspiracy theory being true, you should probably bet against it.
If you had to put your money on it, I'd bet against it.
Yeah. Martha Stewart did have a little issue with that.
All right. So I'm not saying that there was mischief.
I'm just saying that every condition that would support that theory exists.
That's all. I've talked a lot about this being, or about this would have a third act.
In other words, in a movie, the third act is about, you know, two-thirds through the movie, where there's something that happens that looks like the hero can't possibly escape.
The hero is doomed.
There's just no way you can get out of this trap.
And then the hero does, somehow, against all odds.
That's the third act in movie scripts.
In 2016, as I mentioned, the Access Hollywood tape was probably his third act.
There are usually some fake third acts before the real one, even in a movie.
It looks like there's a problem, and then it's like, ah, okay, that wasn't as big a problem.
The hero solved it.
And then there's another one, it's like, ah, here comes the third act.
Okay, that wasn't such a big problem, and he did solve that.
Oh, here it is. Here's the real one.
And the real one is so big...
You just can't get out of it.
So what would be a bigger problem than this president being accused of killing 200,000 people with his bad management of coronavirus, according to his critics, and that he gets it himself by not following his own guidelines?
Could that be more of a third act?
It's hard to imagine.
Because, you know, his taxes came up, nothing.
Russia collusion came up, nothing.
You know, the economy is recovering.
There's a lot going right, but this coronavirus was sort of his big vulnerability.
What are the odds that just exactly the worst thing for that specific vulnerability actually happened?
Again, it's a pretty big coincidence, isn't it?
But it did happen, and that's the third act.
So let's talk about how the third act will go.
But first... I'm seeing some yammering online about the fact that the pictures that the president provided from Walter Reed Hospital, people are saying that they look staged and that the thing he was signing was just a blank piece of paper.
Well, let me explain to you how the real world works.
Of course it was staged.
If there's anybody who thinks that those pictures of the president If there's anybody who doesn't think they were staged pictures, which probably had nothing to do with where he was working or what he was doing, I'm sure he's working.
But I don't think he needed those documents and binders sitting in front of him, and I don't think he needed to be signing anything at that moment.
So yeah, in the real world, the photographer comes in, moves things around, and says, I don't want to have a blank desk.
There should be some work on the desk.
So does anybody have a binder that says President Trump on it or something?
All right, put that up there. It says, POTUS, make it look like there's not too much work.
Just the right amount of work.
Okay, move the coffee cup.
President, that shirt is not working.
Could you maybe take off?
No, you don't want to be wearing a tie.
Yeah, try opening another button on the shirt.
We'll change the light behind you.
Can somebody come in here and get that little hair lick that's in the back?
Okay, thank you. You got that.
So that's what a photo opportunity looks like.
There's no such thing as the photographer sneaks in the room and takes an unknowing still picture of the president who couldn't have possibly known that his picture was being taken.
That's not a thing.
That's not a thing.
Of course they were staged, and should be.
That's not like a crime.
And then one of the worst takes, I saw Mike Cirovich call this out, Was that one of the bad journalists looked at a picture of Trump on the campaign trail compared to his video from Walter Reed and said, look at his complexion.
His complexion at Walter Reed is all pale.
Whereas just a few days ago on the campaign trail, his face was full of color.
To which Mike Cernovich points out, That these are people pretending they don't know how TV makeup works.
Obviously, if he's in a hospital and he's highly contagious, you're not going to call in the makeup artist and say, hey makeup artist, put on your hazmat suit and come over here and put some color on the president.
You don't do that.
You let him look natural, because he's in the hospital after all.
The last thing you'd want is a makeup picture, you know, a picture with makeup in a hospital.
That's not the way to play that.
So of course he looks like he doesn't have a, you know, a good tan, because it comes out of a bottle.
And they wouldn't do that there.
So that's how crazy the news coverage is.
On SNL, I don't know why we have to talk about Saturday Night Live all the time, like it's the most interesting thing that happens.
But Chris Rock, his joke was that he had a sympathy for the COVID. So that wasn't so nice.
I had this thought yesterday.
We see all the examples of the people who are wishing the president bad outcomes.
And we say to ourselves, my God, what terrible people!
What terrible people!
You know, why do we have to live in a world with people like that?
Where they're wishing, you know, bad health on the president, no matter what you think of him.
It's just such a bad form.
But I would like to put this into the mix.
I think most people are good people.
I think that most people, in the public eye especially, the politicians all the way from Biden on, most people understood that this was a time not to be that kind of person.
Most people got that the rest of society might judge them harshly if they wished for ill health for another citizen, even if they disagree with that citizen.
So I think most people got it.
And I feel as though there was possibly a glimmer of humanity in the anti-Trumpers where they could feel this little notion, oh yeah, We're all human beings and we're all vulnerable.
And, yeah, he did get that while he was doing the job of the presidency.
He was in public service.
It is a vital, essential service, the presidency is, obviously.
And he got sick doing the work of the people.
Now, sure, you know, maybe you should have done more things with masks and social distancing, but when somebody gets hurt, That's not really the time we pile on, right?
If you have a kid, and your kid, let's say you've got a teenager, a teenager comes home drunk.
Well, that teenager's in a lot of trouble, but not right away, right?
When the kid is sick, And, you know, they're in bad shape.
That's not when you pile on.
And everybody gets that just automatically, right?
So I think that the president's going to get some natural reflex good feelings from people who are not bad people.
Those people who are bad people will just continue being bad.
But the people who are not will say, you know, Maybe this is the time to just take a little pause.
Maybe just step back a little bit.
Yeah, as I'm seeing a comment on YouTube that Reagan was actually stronger after he got shot.
And part of the explanation of that is the way he handled it.
So even though he was a victim, he never acted like a victim.
He always acted like He had good humor, and that became the story about his positive attitude, even though he'd been shot.
So I think Trump has a strong possibility to get that kind of reaction, a positive pop.
But we also have the example of Boris Johnson.
Now, fact-check me on this, but I saw some data that said that when Boris Johnson got his COVID vaccine, That his popularity just went through the roof.
He immediately became far more popular because of an empathy, sympathy, just a natural human instinct, I guess.
So, do you think President Trump will go the same way as Boris Johnson?
Well, a lot of you don't know that that's why Boris Johnson was created in the laboratory.
When you look at Boris Johnson, do you say to yourself, Hey, why does he remind me of a poor man's Donald Trump?
Is it his hair?
Is it his politics?
There's something that looks like a poor man's Donald Trump there with Boris Johnson.
Well, what you don't know is that Boris Johnson was actually created in a laboratory.
In case they ever needed to test anything for President Trump.
So whenever they need to do an experiment, they're like, what do you think would happen if President Trump got coronavirus?
Would he be more popular or less popular?
And then they say, well, let's not jump into this.
Let's test it first.
So they say, where's our test guy?
And they get Boris Johnson and they slather some COVID, you know, coronavirus on him and they say, all right, let's watch.
And then they watch the polls and they're like, are you seeing this?
Are you seeing this?
Our little, our test Trump, his popularity is going up.
I think this is working.
And so, once they see that it works for Boris, and then he survives and everything, they say, alright, it's time to implement our plan.
I'm just kidding, in case you're new to me.
Just kidding. But it does suggest that there might be a greater chance that Trump will be more popular, not less.
Here are some possible outcomes.
So right now we're in this sort of multi-dimensional Schrodinger's cat box situation.
We don't know yet if the cat is alive or the cat is dead or the cat is a zombie or ten other paths.
And here are some possible directions.
One is, I often tell you that the way people think is in terms of stories.
So when this news broke, people were, I think, confused because it didn't fit any story they already have in their head.
There's no model of this.
There wasn't anything like it exactly.
So they're trying to say, okay, what is this like?
So I can do some predicting, because if it's like that other thing, then maybe I know what's going to happen.
So here are some things it's like.
One is Spider-Man.
You know the Spider-Man story?
Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider.
Now, I know what you're thinking.
On paper, if you said, hey, would you like to be bitten by a radioactive spider, you would probably say, no thank you.
That sounds like a very bad idea.
I don't like spiders.
I don't like radioactivity.
So if you put the radioactivity with the spider and then you have it bite me, that's all bad.
I don't want any of that radioactive spider business.
So on paper it's a very bad idea.
But if you know the Spider-Man story, it gave Peter Parker spider powers.
And he actually came out with a super power.
Now look at Trump getting coronavirus.
Is it possible that one of the outcomes is a superpower?
Now, I mean a superpower in terms of the normal world.
What would be a superpower for Trump?
What would be something that would, let's say, if he wanted to play it this way, and you know that he understands the show, he understands the TV. He understands how minds work.
He understands the story.
He understands the visuals.
He understands persuasion.
So he could certainly construct a new Trump that is the improved version of Or the Peter Parker gets bitten by the radioactive spider version.
The one who's got something extra coming out of this situation.
What would the extra be that would flip it for him?
Do you know what it is yet?
Yeah. I'm seeing it in the comments.
Empathy. Empathy is the right answer.
But I'm going to modify that a little bit and improve it a little bit.
Not just empathy.
What about being nice?
What about understanding the problem?
What about being the one person in the world who more than anyone else understands the trade-off and the risk between going back to work and helping the children, because the children need us to go back to work, and helping the economy, helping the world, helping the poor, because the poor are getting at the worst as they always do.
How do you balance that risk between doing your job, the thing that the country requires you to do, your patriotic duty to be part of the solution and not part of the problem, how do you balance that with the actual risk to your health?
Well, I'll tell you, if there's one person you could trust to understand the risk, it's somebody who just went through it.
The president is spending these few days Thinking about his own mortality in a way that maybe he never has before.
We can't read his mind, but it would be fair to assume that his appreciation of those trade-offs of maybe I'll die if I go back to work, literally.
Maybe I'll die. Or maybe I'll infect somebody I love.
He probably did.
He probably infected Melania.
You know, best guess.
So he's going to look like a different person.
Will he be clever enough and nimble enough to simply inhabit that new personality?
If he does, it's a movie.
Because in a movie, one of the important things as a writer, you understand this, is the hero's journey or how the hero changes.
So the hero in the beginning of the movie has to have certain personality traits.
Maybe the hero is afraid of something.
By the end of the movie, they will have overcome that fear.
So Trump's biggest complaint is his personality, right?
He rubs people the wrong way.
He's a little too Trump.
And what happens if he comes out of this With a softened personality, at least through Election Day.
Maybe it doesn't last forever, but what if it lasts through Election Day?
He's going to look different.
A lot of the reason that people don't like him is his style.
What if he modifies it?
Now, you can't modify it all the way to not being Trump.
You can't modify it all the way to not being a fighter.
You can't modify it all the way to not being optimistic.
There's a limit to how much he can modify.
But there's still a lot of room there to say the right stuff.
You know what I mean? He could be the same person, but maybe speak differently.
Now, if you had to bet on Trump turning into a modified version of Trump, it's probably a bad bet.
One of the things that we like best about Trump is you know exactly who he is.
Even with not passing the fact-checking, you know exactly who he is, so it doesn't even hurt.
So you hear today, Trump told 5,000 new and accurate statements.
How does that change you?
It doesn't. It makes no difference at all.
Because you expected that.
Yeah, somebody says Trump is almost like somebody from Queens.
Exactly. So...
That's one way it could go.
It could go the Peter Parker way and he comes out with a personality, a superpower he didn't have before.
You know, on his video statement, he used a statement which is just super strong.
And he does this so well.
I mean, I doubt he thought it through, but it was still perfect, even spontaneously.
And he said that he was seeing lots of bipartisan love and support that he was getting.
And then he said this.
I don't know if he caught this, but he said, I'll never forget it.
That's really powerful.
He said, I'll never forget it.
And it sounded sincere, because I actually believe this is a gigantic moment in his life, obviously.
And I don't think he will forget it.
And I think he will always appreciate the country for doing this for him, even bipartisan.
Now, when you have a president who is touched in that way, touched by the public, So the public has now done something that, if the world is predictable in this way, it should change them.
Because it's one thing to have your loved ones say good things about you.
You like it, of course, but it doesn't change you.
But when your enemies show you kindness when you're down, that can change you.
That can turn you into, that can rewire you.
That can turn you into a different person.
Because it's just an experience you don't normally have.
And when you do, it could be profound.
So when the president says he's not going to forget it, here's how I internalize that.
That he's going to work harder for the country.
That he owes the country something.
That's what it felt like.
It felt like, I owe you a favor.
And it felt real.
So I think that was meaningful.
There's, of course, CNN's trying to turn the story into something about did he know he was infected and blah, blah, blah.
I'm going to guess that there's nothing to that, but they have to have news so they'll be chasing that now.
All right, here's an idea for paying off the national debt.
Are you ready? You know what convalescent plasma is, right?
So you take somebody who's infected, You manipulate their blood and you take out the good stuff and you get the antibodies and use those antibodies to help somebody else.
And that's called convalescent plasma.
Suppose we take Trump's recovered, you know, once he's recovered, suppose we take the convalescent plasma from Trump and then clone it.
Because I think he can do that, right?
You can clone as antibodies.
So you clone as antibodies and then you bottle it and you sell it as tiger blood.
Trump tiger blood.
Now let me ask you this.
Because we're all irrational humans and we like things like brands.
You'd rather buy a Nike something or an Adidas something than some other brand.
We're very brand conscious.
And Given that serious question, if you had a choice of buying, let's say from your healthcare provider, literally Trump convalescent serum that's cloned from his actual antibodies, or a generic one, which one would you pay more for?
If they were identical in usefulness, there was no difference in utility.
The generic convalescent plasma or the plasma that you know was derived from Donald Trump's own antibodies.
You know you'd pay more for it.
You'd pay a lot more for it.
I don't know what convalescent plasma costs already, but people would pay twice as much for that.
You know you would. So it's a fun idea, but not entirely impractical.
You can maybe make some of it.
Give some of it out.
It'd be pretty popular. All right.
When President Trump did his video, of course, the two-movie analogy came out.
And so Gabriel Sherman said this.
Just watched. Gabriel Sherman is...
Let's see, who is he? He's a Vanity Fair special correspondent, author of The Loudest Voice in the Room, etc.
So he's no Trump supporter, I'm guessing.
He said, just watch Trump hospital video a second time.
His breathing is clearly labored.
He seems to be leaning on the table for support, and there's so much fear in his eyes.
What? Did you see any of that?
Did you? I saw him leaning on the table.
Do you know why? Because if you're sitting at a table and you're not leaning on it with your arms like this, you look kind of dorky because you're just sitting behind the table.
You have to put your arms on the table.
Look at somebody on camera with their arms on the table.
Looks powerful. You're leaning forward.
You're not leaning on your arms.
You're leaning in. It's a power pose.
But Gabriel Sherman saw that as he had to be leaning for support.
Again, that's knowing nothing about photography.
If Peter Duke is watching this, and sometimes he does, professional photographer, Peter, let me ask you this question.
True or false, it's a better picture when the president is leaning forward on a desk.
Now, I don't know that he does...
I'm trying to remember if he does it for the addresses from the Oval Office, but I think he does.
If we looked at an Oval Office address, wouldn't he be on the table?
Because it just looks weak if your hands are by your side at a table or a desk.
And then I certainly couldn't tell that he was having breathing difficulty.
I didn't see any of that.
And I didn't see any fear in his eyes.
Did you see any fear in his eyes?
Now, of course, he would have to be concerned about his health.
Who would be? But fear in his eyes?
I didn't really see any.
Okay. All right.
Here's another wild card for you on how people will process this Trump situation.
I asked on a Twitter poll just this morning, I asked if, based on what you know about the White House's own procedures for social distancing and for mask wearing, is your personal family situation better or worse than the White House as far as what you've heard reported?
And what do you think people said?
They said about 80% of the people who answered said that their family situation was is similar to or worse in terms of protecting themselves than the White House.
80% were handling their own personal situation very similarly to how the White House was handling it for themselves.
Now, does that make it smart that the White House was only doing as much as average families?
No. No.
Medically and politically and everything else, They should have done better.
But, when you see the President, let me put it in analogy terms, when the President eats fast food, whether it's McDonald's or Taco Bell, and he does it conspicuously and publicly, what do the experts say?
Well, I'm not so sure you should be eating junk food in front of the public.
You're setting an example.
You know, that's not really the healthiest thing.
Maybe you should eat something healthier, then they would eat something healthier.
That's what the experts will say, right?
What do the voters say?
The voters say, hey, I eat at McDonald's too.
The voters say, hey, I eat at Taco Bell.
Hey, the President eats at Taco Bell?
I eat at Taco Bell.
That's what the voters say.
So when you see the president being lax with the social distancing, or the White House in general, and lax with the masks, do you say to yourself, man, I don't do that.
That's not how I act, and he needs to be better than me.
Some people do. Some people will say exactly that.
Were those people going to vote for the president anyway?
Nope. No, they weren't.
I'm guessing That this is more of a bonding experience than anybody is ever going to recognize.
When you see your president doing the same thing that you do, that doesn't make you like him less.
Even if you're sure he shouldn't have done that.
I'm sure the president should not eat junk food.
But how do I feel when he does?
I feel like he's like me.
Well, actually he's not like me because I don't eat much junk food.
But I think he's like ordinary people, and that certainly helps him.
Excuse me. All right, so those are my big points for today.
The part which will be taken out of context is the conspiracy theory parts.
So look for that today.
And have you noticed that the breadth of news just sort of stopped?
I have to think that there were probably other surprises that were waiting to happen, but maybe the other surprises are on hold, because you know there was going to be more surprise between now and Election Day.
So you can see how the news is an artificial construct.
Because it's not an accident that there's less news on holidays and weekends.
I mean, there's a reason for that because people aren't working.
But I feel like there are not even natural disasters on holidays.
Have you ever noticed that?
It's as if the news in general knows to stop when we're not going to be paying attention.
And now that everything is about the president's health at the moment, for about a week, it won't matter what Joe Biden does.
In fact, the only thing we're going to care about what Joe Biden does is what he does vis-a-vis Trump.
I'm not sure I used vis-a-vis correctly there, but let's say I did.
And so Trump, by no plan of his own, but because he's the more interesting person in all cases, because he's got a big story happening, it just sucks all the attention away from Biden.
And while I think it was smart of Biden to do that, well, I'm not going to do any hit ads, But then, of course, he did them anyway.
That was probably a good play, but it also diminishes his importance.
If I ask you, who is more important?
The President of the United States, Commander-in-Chief, who currently has coronavirus.
Well, that's a 10 in a 10.
You know, you can't care about many things more than that, except, you know, an immediate emergency.
But in terms of how important that is to the country, to the world, to your own psychological well-being, President Trump in the hospital, that's a 10.
Now, how does Joe Biden compete with a 10?
What's his best play?
There's almost nothing he can do.
He can go around on his little weak-ass train tour or whatever.
He can talk to some donors.
He can do some Zoom calls.
But everything that Joe Biden can do on a scale of 1 to 10 is a 1 or maybe a 2.
In total importance, emotional impact, relevance, size, wattage.
So Biden is just going to be shooting ones and twos with his little BB gun while the president is in full nuclear, you know, maximum newsworthy mode while hardly trying.
That's advantage Trump.
You know, I said in the beginning when this all broke, the coronavirus stuff with Trump, when this broke, I thought, you have to wait a little bit to see how people are processing it.
You can't immediately guess on moment one, oh, well, this will play out this way for him or against him.
You have to see how it's settling out a little bit.
And as I'm watching it start to settle, the thing that I'm seeing as a dominant theme is, one, Trump will get all the attention, two, he's more relatable, probably more empathetic, and probably we care about him more just because he's sick.
And given the Boris Johnson effect and given the Reagan assassination attempt effect, if I had to bet on this, I bet it's going to help him.
Now that could be just me being too close to it and I've got some bias in that.
