Episode 1360 Scott Adams: The Biden Speech and Senator Tim Scott's Rebuttal Seen Through the Persuasion Filter
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Content:
NYT admits they inject opinion into "news"
Rudy Giuliani raided by Feds
Review: President Biden's speech to congress
Paycheck Fairness Act...potential blowback
Was Jan 6 an actual risk to America?
Senator Tim Scott's rebuttal
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While we're waiting for everybody to come in, I'd like to do something that I've seen other people do on video and I know it's very popular.
It's called an eating video in which you just watch me eat some of my favorite foods.
I'm gonna start doing that now.
Mmm. This is good broccoli.
I got this broccoli From door dashing from one of my local restaurants.
It's delicious. It's got a little lemon on it.
It's just exactly the right Christmas.
Oh, you don't see any food.
Oh, oh, oh.
Well, that's probably because you don't use DoorDash.
If you use DoorDash, you know that they don't always bring the food, but they'll definitely charge you.
Last night I was talking to Christina about my favorite dish.
A chilled broccoli dish.
I ordered it from my favorite restaurant.
Now I usually order two...
This is a true story.
I often order two entrees because the ratio of times that they forget to bring one of the orders is so high that you have to order two dinners To get a pretty good chance they'll bring one of them.
And I'm just wondering, do you have that same experience?
Are you having the experience where your DoorDash and one of the orders is just always missing?
I say 75% of the time the order is incomplete but you paid for it anyway.
So I just wondered in the comments.
But while we're waiting for that, if you'd like to enjoy this, all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank of chalice at a time, a canteen jug of glass, a vessel of any kind, filled with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine of the day and the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the Simultaneous Sip.
And it's going to happen right now.
Go. Oh yeah, that's good.
So yes, that's one thing the food delivery business has to get right.
And I don't think that they quite understand the impact it has, because the service is amazing.
If you've ever used the DoorDash app, it's like a miracle.
It's like one of the best apps you'll ever see in your life.
So it's a great service, but when they don't bring the food you ordered...
And then they charge you for it, and there's no obvious way even to reverse the charge.
I looked. I looked.
Is there a way to reverse the charge or complain?
Not really. So I need to fix that.
All right, Rasmussen did a poll and asked people if they thought that Biden's first 100 days were a success.
Only 36% said yes, but of course conservatives thought he was a big failure and liberals thought he was great.
But 36% of moderates say his first 100 days were a failure.
I'm not sure I would say that.
I don't know what happened in his first 100 days that you would define as failure, per se.
There are certain things that he did that you don't like, but failure is a pretty big word.
Certainly he screwed the pooch on immigration.
Certainly he's looking to spend a lot of money and introduce socialism that you don't like.
But I don't know if that's a failure, since that's what he was trying to do.
Everything that looks like a failure is pretty close to what he said he would do if he got elected, including opening up the border.
So I don't know. I guess you have to ask yourself what failure means.
If somebody is doing what they said they would do.
You just don't like it.
We'll talk, of course, more about Biden here.
First, some other fun stuff.
Project Veritas, as you know, is suing the New York Times for saying some things about their projects.
And apparently the New York Times' legal defense is that they're injecting unlabeled opinion into their news stories.
That seems like quite an admission, doesn't it?
That the parts that are under complaint were opinion, but they seem to be embedded in news.
So, I think Project Veritas just got a huge win in just getting the New York Times to admit the degree to which they insert opinion into news.
If all that comes to that is that the public is more informed about how much opinion is injected into news, that's probably a good thing.
So again, I'll say that Project Veritas is one of the most constructive forces in the country right now.
Weird, isn't it? They're one of the most constructive forces.
Because they're a pushback against the media propaganda.
And you just need that.
You need as much pushback as you can get.
Here's an alarming story.
Apparently, Rudy Giuliani was the subject of federal investigators executing a search warrant on his New York City apartment, and they seized his electronic devices.
And it was being reported that it's a sign that some criminal investigation is ramping up.
About his dealings in Ukraine and including whether he violated the Farah stuff.
To which I say, that feels like speculation, doesn't it?
I think that's speculation as to why they're looking at his stuff.
And do you believe that this is legitimate?
Or do you believe that this is just political?
Here's my take on it.
The default assumption has to be that this is illegitimate.
Unfortunately. Because what we've witnessed from the Russia collusion hoax all the way through, what we noticed, and also we noticed any Trump allies being picked off one by one in whatever ways they can get them.
So I have to assume this is illegitimate, subject to any evidence that shows it is legitimate.
But isn't your starting position that this is illegitimate?
And I'm not sure I would have said that, I don't know, two years ago.
I think two years ago, if I heard that anybody had been a subject of a search warrant by federal authorities, I would have said to myself, probably there's a good reason.
I mean, maybe not, innocent until proven guilty, but probably they had a good reason.
Do you believe that they probably had a good reason in this case?
Because I don't. I don't think we live in a country where that benefit of a doubt can be given to our federal investigators.
I don't think we can give them that benefit of a doubt anymore.
And so as a country, I think we've got to put pressure on them to say, if you're going to seize somebody's electronic devices, which is one of the most serious things I can think of, short of actual physical rape that would make you feel abused and victimized, So short of anything that's actually literally physical, this is the biggest violation I could even imagine.
Imagine having your home or your office essentially violated by people who are going to look through all of your electronic devices and there's nothing you can do about it.
How would you feel about that?
It would feel like a physical attack, wouldn't it?
Like the way you would The way you would process it would be almost like a sexual assault.
I mean, I shouldn't say that because obviously I can't understand what that would feel like.
So that's a little bit hyperbole.
You can take it that way. But it's pretty damn bad.
And again, the government really needs to explain that.
I guess also there's a search warrant for Victoria Tenzing's I don't know what they're looking for because she's worked with Giuliani on some stuff.
I have a Victoria Tenzing story.
Have I told you ever that for weird reasons I end up in the middle of history in lots of ways?
And I don't know why.
It's just one of these weird coincidences.
Well, here's just a weird little story.
One day a TV host, doesn't matter who, so just for privacy I won't tell you, But I was doing a book tour, I don't know, a year and a half ago, two years, whatever, and the TV host had a note for me from Victoria Tenzing.
Now, if you want to be worried, let me tell you how to get worried.
Have somebody hand you a note from a famous lawyer.
That's just scary shit.
Because the first thing I thought was, oh my God, what kind of trouble am I in?
Who's suing me now?
Like, what, you know, why does a...
Famous, I'll call her a TV lawyer just because you see her on TV a lot, but she's a lawyer.
Turns out, you know, I called her to find out what it was about, and it was just a mistaken identity.
She thought, she literally thought I was someone else.
So she had some questions of a completely different person.
So it had nothing to do with me, but I can't tell you how many times I'm in the center of some kind of thing or I've met some person who's in the news through random weird ways.
I just don't understand how this keeps happening to me.
It's the simulation. All right.
Let's talk about Biden's joint address to Congress.
How many of you watched it? Did I meet her?
No, I never met her. We just had one phone call and she immediately realized that she should have been talking to somebody else.
So we didn't have any actual business.
It was just mistaken identity.
So the Biden address happened.
Kevin McCarthy had, I think, the best tweet about it.
He said, this could have just been done by email.
And I'm going to give that an A-plus for insulting tweets.
It's not quite Trump-level, but it's pretty darn good.
We could have just done this by email.
It's like the ultimate insult, if your address could have been done by email.
All right, let's see how the reactions were.
Even CNN said that for a first speech to the To Congress that Biden got the lowest, very positive reaction.
So here's how CNN described it.
Biden had 51%, but Trump was 57%, Obama was 68%, and Bush was 66%.
So Biden didn't do too well on the positive reactions.
But I also have to wonder, you know, how much of this is the ever-declining bipartisanship?
It could be just that people during Obama were more likely to be a little bit friendlier to the other side, and of course Obama was a better orator.
But kind of interesting.
Biden got such a low number.
I'll give you my own opinion here in a minute.
Well, I'll give it to you now.
I thought Biden's speech was capable.
I'm going to criticize a number of things.
You probably know where I'm going with most of them.
But I would say the criticisms are mostly just the naked politicization.
So the naked partisanship is all the problems.
But they're also so obvious that I don't know I have the biggest problem in the world with it.
I don't mind a little naked partisanship if it's just obvious that's what's going on.
As long as it's obvious.
That feels like good labeling, at least.
So let's talk about some of the specific things he said.
One of them is white supremacy is our biggest threat in the United States.
Is it? How do you measure a biggest threat?
Now he's talking biggest threat in terms of violence and people killing people, not climate change or anything like that.
But in terms of people killing people, He says white supremacy is the biggest, based on intel, he says, intel agencies.
And I would ask you this.
Is that bigger than the brainwashing from the media?
Because it seems to me that nobody does anything in this country in any kind of a big trend way unless the media has brainwashed them to do it.
So... Whenever you see somebody say, you know, people are doing this, you've got to go back one level and say, but why?
Why are there lots of mass shootings?
Is it because of white supremacy?
Some of them are. But why are there so many?
Not just white supremacists, but why are there so many shootings?
It's the news.
The news is the biggest problem.
If the news did not cover it the way they cover it, It wouldn't be happening.
So if you say white supremacy is the biggest threat in the United States, ask yourself this.
Would it be if the news were just the news?
Because I don't think it would be.
I feel as though the news is what has caused...
Yeah, let me say something really provocative here.
You ready? I believe that white supremacy is made far worse by the way the news...
Handles the news.
And that the white supremacists would just be sitting quietly thinking their white supremacist thoughts if the news didn't tell them they were at war and that they were being threatened and white people are bad and critical race theory is the way.
Imagine a world with no critical race theory and no media pushing it and no wokeism and no all of that.
Would white supremacists be as dangerous as many people think they are?
I don't think so.
I think that white supremacists, just like everybody else, respond to the news.
So if the news is telling them they're under threat, What the hell are they going to do?
Right? So it seems to me that ignoring the media as the biggest threat to democracy is really a giant blind spot.
Biden said that he promised 100 million COVID-19 shots in 100 days, but he will have reached over 220 million in 100 days.
Unambiguously, good job.
And apparently we're doing Better than most of our peers.
Israel did a great job.
But in terms of our more equivalent types of countries, we're doing great, apparently.
But here's the thing.
Do you think that Trump would not have continued fine-tuning the process and also gotten to the same level?
What evidence do we have that this wouldn't have been exactly the same Under Trump.
Because all this fine-tuning, you know, the things that they figured out and approved, the ways to make more vaccine, the ways to get more people involved, that's all happening at the administration level, right?
It's not like the president said, get CVS involved, get Walgreens on the phone.
Did he? I mean, did either of them?
I feel as if we would be in exactly the same place because the president isn't doing any of this.
The president's watching and taking credit after you get things going.
Unambiguously, Trump was responsible for Project Warp Speed because it's well documented that he forced people to do things they didn't want to do.
That's actual leadership.
But simply letting your bureaucracy perform exactly the way you'd expect them to...
I'm going to say that that probably would have been the same under Trump.
I think it would have been. Or at least we have no evidence that it should have been different in any way.
But it is nonetheless a great accomplishment, and I remember that I told you in the beginning that you could not predict how well we would do with vaccinations in the final months by looking at anything that happened in the beginning months.
I told you that that curve was going to go...
And in the final months, we'd be just so good at it, getting vaccines to the right people, that it would look amazing.
And what happened? Several months into the vaccines, we got so good at it, it looks amazing.
I mean, it doesn't even look possible it's so good.
I guess half of adults have got at least one shot.
All right. CNN says that Biden is casting vaccines as a way to get everyone back to normal, and that it's a key tactic Biden will employ to pressure people to get the shots.
Now, and he did say some things like that.
He talked about parents saying the smiles on their kids' faces because everybody's vaccinated.
Grandparents hugging their children and grandchildren because they're vaccinated and stuff.
So he does do a little about that.
But some of conservatives' most pointed criticism is that at least the CDC and Fauci and those people are not doing this.
So the criticism is that the government is not doing a good enough job saying, if you get your vaccination...
At least you can go back to something normal.
Rather, Biden is still talking about normal, but the actual guidelines are not so normal, right?
So I think the conservative criticism is accurate, but CNN is saying that Biden is doing this.
I don't think he is.
I think he's doing it a little bit, which is really different from saying, if you get your vaccination, do anything you want.
Which I think is what mostly conservatives probably want.
Here's an interesting fact.
Apparently Obamacare is getting stronger.
During the 100 days, 800,000 Americans were enrolled, blah, blah.
And even CNN said, we've reached a place where few people are talking about repealing the Affordable Care Act.
That's true, isn't it?
I don't feel people even talking about repealing Obamacare.
And here's something that I told you early on, which I gave Obama incredible credit for.
And I'm going to do it again.
I know you don't like this, but any nod toward any objective analysis just has to include this.
You probably didn't notice this.
But when Obama was explaining why he was backing the original version of Obamacare, he said in direct language, so this is not my interpretation, he said it in direct language, I'm paraphrasing, but very directly, he said,
our plan is to put out a bad plan, again, I'm paraphrasing, he didn't say that, our plan is to put out a bad plan, get the public pregnant with it, And then it'll be too hard to take it away, but it will be possible to fix it.
So he intentionally and said it directly, I'm going to put out there a bad plan.
Again, he didn't use the word bad.
It was like imperfect or something.
I'm going to put out a bad plan, and I'm going to make people not be able to get rid of it, and I'm going to make them have to fix it.
What happened? He put out a bad plan.
People couldn't get rid of it.
They had to fix it. Now, I don't know how fixed it is, but 800,000 people just signed up for it.
And it is true, I don't hear many people talking about killing it.
Obama pulled off one of the most clever persuasion strategies you'll ever see.
And he told you right in front of your face, which is the fun part.
He told you what he was doing, and then he just did it, and it worked.
Now, you can hate Obamacare.
That's a separate issue, whether it's good or bad.
But technique-wise, 100%.
A+. China tariffs.
Even CNN noted, and I'll read exactly what they say, it's notable that Biden has not reversed Trump's tariffs on China.
How about that?
Didn't you kind of think that Biden might reverse the tariffs on China and go a little easy on China?
Doesn't look like it.
Now, again, if we're going to be objective, got to give him credit.
He did not reverse Trump's tariffs.
The tariffs. And that's got to hurt China.
But the way Biden talks about China is different from Trump.
Trump was more combative, more directly saying we've got to do more stuff.
Biden's plan, which I'm not sure is a bad one so far.
I'm going to be open-minded about this so far.
But here's the situation.
He's said explicitly, and then he's modeled it, that he's not going to be insulting China.
He's just going to be competing with them.
But if they cross the line, he's going to be tough with them wherever we need to be tough.
But mostly he's not going to be insulting their ways.
He's going to be just competing with them.
Now, Dan says, I'm out.
Fucking idiot. You know, if there's anything that I said that makes you say, I'm out, so far, you're probably just an idiot.
I can't even listen to this because he said something good about Biden.
Is that what just happened?
All right. If you can't handle the fact that sometimes Trump can do good things and sometimes Biden can do good things, you really don't belong on this live stream.
You should just go away. I'm out too.
Bye, Craig says.
Good. I don't really want anybody on here who can't handle hearing that the other team did something right.
If you can't handle that, you should go away immediately.
So, if there are any more of you who would like to go away, I'd like to see you do it right away.
Alright. So, is Biden's plan better to talk nice to China and let them, I don't know, I suppose...
Commit genocide on the Uyghurs and harvest organs and just sort of put a little pressure on them about it but don't care too much.
I don't know. It might be fine.
As long as he keeps the economic pressure on them, and he's doing a lot of other things like pushing electric cars and batteries and, you know, he's got the Made in America thing going on.
I would say that Biden has, number one, accurately identified China as our biggest future problem.
Do you have a problem with that?
Trump did the same thing, right?
So both Trump and Biden have now accurately said China's our biggest challenge.
I can't argue with that.
They're both right. And Biden has kept the tariffs on, kept the pressure on.
He's going to fund industries that will compete against them.
Now, did you also hear...
I don't know if this is true, but I saw a story that said China's population decreased for the first time ever.
Did you hear that? Maybe not the first time ever.
I don't know about World War II. But is that true?
China's population decreased?
Because if that's true, they probably have an old people bomb coming, like a lot of retired people, like a lot of retired people, and that's sort of in their future.
I feel like they're in a lot of trouble.
Like a lot of trouble.
I don't know if they know it, but they are.
I'm sure they know it. So I'm not going to give Biden a hard time for not being hard enough on China.
He's got a strategy.
Maybe it's okay. But it does seem to leave the Uyghurs out.
It does seem to leave any political people who are being oppressed out.
It looks like...
But maybe there was nothing we could do about it, right?
Unless you're going to attack China, nothing was going to change.
All right, apparently Vice President Harris has been put in charge of the American Jobs Plan, which is really the infrastructure plan with a different name.
So now she's got the immigration, at least in terms of the South American...
You know, firming it up so the immigration is less.
And now this. Those are pretty big jobs for a vice president.
Pretty big jobs.
So they're clearly grooming her for the next rung.
We don't know when. Joe Biden's persuasion on climate crisis.
I hate to say it.
I'm going to give him another A+. If anybody else wants to leave, this would be the time.
I'm going to give him an A+. In persuasion...
Remember, we're just limiting this to his persuasion.
The topic of climate change, you can have your own opinion on.
But you're not going to hear this at the moment.
Right now, just the persuasion he used.
And here's what he said. He said it's not a climate crisis.
We have failed to use the most important word when it comes to meeting the climate crisis.
Jobs. Jobs and jobs.
He says, for me, when I think about climate change, I think jobs.
Really smart. Mark is out.
Goodbye Mark. Really smart.
It is very smart for Biden to talk about climate change and whatever we're doing about it as a way to create jobs.
Is it true?
Well, that's a different question.
Would it actually create good jobs?
It might. I don't know.
Who knows? Maybe it would take away as many good jobs as it creates.
But in terms of persuasion, where the truth is a little less important than the persuasion, this is pretty good.
Because if you're trying to sell climate change to conservatives, and they don't believe it has anything to do with saving the planet, many of them don't, what are you going to do?
Instead, you say to him, we're going to increase jobs.
He's saying the same thing about the American Jobs Plan, which is basically infrastructure.
He calls it a jobs plan.
How smart is that?
It's pretty smart.
Do you know what Republicans like more than anything except maybe God and the Constitution?
And guns? Jobs.
Jobs. So if you're trying to reach the other side...
Talking about climate crisis as jobs instead of arguing about science is pretty solid.
Especially if you put China in there and say, hey, China's going to have all the electric cars.
China's going to make all the batteries.
That'll be the future of power.
China's doing all the nuclear energy.
If you make it jobs and you make China the enemy, suddenly the conservatives say, I like jobs.
I don't like China.
Ugh. I don't know if the science of climate change is quite exactly right, but I like jobs, and I don't like China, so I'm on board a little bit, right?
Not bad. This is good stuff.
I hate to tell you that although Biden is a horrible orator, and he's got plenty of problems in his speech, but this part's good.
It's just good. And he also talked about opportunity for women, especially in the Paycheck Fairness Act.
And there's a real problem brewing that I don't know if everybody's seen yet.
So the Me Too stuff, as important as the topic is, had an unintended consequence that men don't like to hang out with women or even hire attractive women if they have an option.
Because if you hire an attractive woman...
In the era of Me Too, even if you know you'll be fine, your co-worker might do something wrong.
So you're just introducing a danger into the workplace that's a pretty big one.
Now, will that cause men, who are in a position to hire, to hire fewer women?
I would assume so. Certainly people say it.
I've talked to lots of people who will say it right out loud.
I'm not going to hire a woman because I'm just going to get sued or my staff will get sued.
Somebody's going to get sued.
Now, add on top of that the Paycheck Fairness Act.
I know, I know.
I've got a mostly conservative audience.
I get it that you all believe there's no such thing as a wage gap.
I get it. And I agree.
As far as I know, there is no such thing as a real gender wage gap, but it is widely believed by two-thirds of the world.
But as far as I know, there's no evidence of it.
There's just bad analyses.
There's comparing the wrong things.
They're comparing people with less experience to more.
They're not comparing how much people are even trying to get the CEO job, how much do they want it.
You know, none of that's in any of the analysis.
So certainly there's, in my opinion, and I've looked into it enough to have a pretty informed opinion on this, and I have a degree in economics, I don't think there's any evidence that there's a wage gap.
My experience shows it's the opposite.
Meaning that if you're a woman with exactly the same qualifications as a man, you're going to get promoted over the man every time.
Like every time.
Did I mention every time?
Equal qualifications, woman and man in a corporate world.
Which one gets promoted every time?
It's the woman. In 2021, because the corporations need to have more diversity...
And I'm not arguing against diversity.
I kind of like it. I like diversity.
I do think it adds.
But it has this impact that a woman in the workplace is like the most valuable asset anybody ever had.
So we're trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist.
Now imagine that you're a woman in the workplace and you look at your male co-worker and the male co-worker is making more money than you.
What are you going to do? Are you going to say to yourself, oh, my male co-worker took more classes, has more experience in this, has worked more years.
Are you going to say that?
Not once. You'll never say that.
If your male co-worker is making more than you, it doesn't matter if there are reasons.
You're going to sue your employer or put pressure on them to have an equal pay.
Is that because you're a woman and there's something wrong with women?
No! You would do the same thing as a man, right?
If I were in a situation where I could get a raise by complaining about women getting overpaid, I would do it.
All is fair in negotiating for salary.
Do you think your employer wouldn't try to screw you by telling you some bullshit to keep your pay low?
Of course they would. That's how it works.
Your employer tries to keep your pay low.
You try to say what you can to get it up.
If I could say that women were overpaid and you must make it fair by paying me more, I wouldn't care if that was true.
I wouldn't care if I had a good basis for my argument.
I'd just throw it in there.
See if I get a raise. So I feel as if this Paycheck Fairness Act has the same potential blowback as the sexual harassment stuff in making men less likely to want to work with women.
So let's watch for that.
Biden says he wants to end cancer as we know it.
It's within our power.
Again. I like it.
I like it. I don't know if you're following any of the stuff with mRNA vaccines, but apparently there's some reason to believe that we have some technologies that have a pretty high possibility of taking a big bite out of cancer.
I love the fact that Biden says it's a top priority, sort of a moonshot thing.
Good leadership, I'd say.
I don't know what he's doing about it exactly, but I like that it's up there.
As a priority. Because I think we can maybe close it out in the next 10 years.
It's possible. Let's see.
CNN is calling Biden's lodestar.
They put a good name on it.
That we have to prove to the autocrats of the world that democracy still works.
So that's sort of a big theme of his presidency.
It's showing that democracies are better than, say, Chinese Communist leadership or Russian or any autocracy.
But is it true?
Do you think democracies are more effective in helping the country than autocracies?
Because I'm not sure that's true.
I prefer freedom.
If I have a choice, I'm going to take a democracy.
But why is the United States doing better than, let's say, China in innovation?
Is it because of the form of government?
I don't think so.
It feels like a cultural difference.
That if you're in a country that doesn't mind you failing as much as you want before you succeed, you probably get more risk-taking than a country that says, oh, you shamed your family and failed...
That company you started didn't work.
Blah, blah, blah. Could be because America has fewer nepotism problems, less corruption, fewer people in the top, you know, with puppet strings.
Could be a lot of things.
But I don't think it has anything to do with democracy versus autocracy.
Does it? And even the autocrats have capitalism.
They have some form of capitalism, right?
So it's an interesting theme to prove that democracy still works, because I don't know that it does.
I don't know that we really can compete with a qualified autocrat.
We can certainly compete with bad autocrats, like just dictators that are destroying their own country.
But China's got a really capable leader...
I feel like if you're lucky enough to have a really qualified, capable autocrat, aren't you going to do better?
I mean, certainly it ends up with genocide in part of the country.
Nobody wants that.
But just trying to make the economy hum and compete with other countries and build your military, I'm not so sure democracy is the best way to go.
I'm not. But it's an interesting match-up.
And I think I'm glad that Biden wants to push that matchup, but I don't know if it's true.
The dumbest thing Biden said was that the so-called insurrection on January 6th was an existential crisis, a test of whether our democracy could survive.
Was it? Was those people who entered the Capitol...
Was that...
An existential crisis for the country?
Did democracy almost end that day?
Let me put it in context.
Every night, there's a cleaning crew that goes into the Capitol building carrying these large blunt objects.
Sometimes they have mops at the end, sometimes brooms, but blunt objects.
And they go in and they occupy the Capitol...
And then they clean it.
And then they leave.
Now, I'm not going to say that the cleaning crew is identical to the protesters who took over the Capitol building.
I'm just saying they're almost identical.
Neither of them seemed to be interested in using deadly weapons.
Neither of them had the intention of staying forever.
They went there for a specific purpose.
They did their specific purpose, and then they left.
It's a lot like the cleaning crew.
So if you're going to say that the insurrection was an existential crisis, and I think you said it was the worst thing since the Civil War, there are a few things you're leaving out between the Civil War and now.
Was the... Was the occupation of the Capitol building for a few hours worse than Pearl Harbor?
Was it worse than 9-11?
Was it worse than Timothy McVeigh blowing up a federal building?
Was it worse than Russiagate or the shooting of Steve Scalise?
I'm pretty sure it wasn't worse than any of those things.
Yeah, and not only was it not worse than any of those things, it was very similar in type to the cleaning crew.
Some people who came in for a reason, didn't shoot any weapons, and left when they were done.
That's my best comparison.
Honestly, if you think this was an insurrection that was an actual risk to democracy, you're either brainwashed or stupid.
Or you're a politician, or you're just lying.
So let me say that clearly.
If you think the January 6th thing was an actual risk, like an actual risk to the country, you're either stupid or brainwashed.
There's no other possibility.
That's it. All right.
And let me remind you that if conservatives really planned an insurrection, it would be louder.
That's all I'm going to say, because I'm on YouTube, so I don't want to use any words that'll get me kicked off.
But wouldn't you agree, an actual insurrection that involved the most well-armed citizens on the planet, you don't think it would be a little bit louder, if you know what I mean?
There'd be a little bit more noise?
So look for that.
If you're wondering if the Conservatives have decided to stage a revolution, It'll be a lot louder.
A lot louder.
Alright. I had a fascinating and fun time looking at CNN's fact-checking of Biden's speech.
And so they did a good job of showing the text and then the fact-check for each of the things he claimed.
And as you might imagine, they were a little bit generous.
But my favorite part was where they just gave up on one of them.
So here's what Biden said, and then I'm going to read you CNN's fact check.
And see if it doesn't look like they just gave up.
All right, so Biden says, My fellow Americans, trickle-down economics has never worked.
All right? So trickle-down economics has never worked.
Now CNN's going to fact-check that.
So if you were going to fact-check the statement, trickle-down economics has never worked, what would that look like?
Would it look like, well, here's some studies that say it works, or here's some studies that say it doesn't work?
That's what you're expecting, right?
If you're going to fact-check trickle-down economics has never worked, what would it sound like?
Well, here's what CNN wrote.
You hear that, Reagan Republicans?
Trickle-down economics, the idea that letting the wealthy in corporations have low taxes and few regulations will unleash so much growth that everyone will benefit, may be on the ropes as inequality grows.
Wait, what? Where's my fact check?
The fact check is mocking Reagan Republicans.
The fact check didn't even address the fact.
It actually ignored the fact and just insulted people who believed the fact.
This is their fact check.
Now, why is that?
Why is it that the CNN doesn't simply say, yeah, this trickle-down economics has never worked.
All the economists agree.
Do you know why they can't fact check that?
I assume because it works.
Now, I don't know that to be true, because it's sort of hard.
It's really hard to really know if it worked, in my opinion.
But it feels like CNN just didn't want to even address the question.
So instead, they just mocked people who believed it.
That's new. So Biden talked about changing the gun laws, and he said, talk to the most responsible gun owners, most hunters.
They'll tell you there's no possible justification for having 100 rounds.
Do you think there's no possible justification for having 100 rounds?
Does anybody think that?
Let me suggest a possible rationalization, or reason really, To have a hundred rounds.
Here's my reason. Biden on changing gun laws.
Talk to most responsible gun owners, most hunters, they'll tell you there's no possible justification for having a hundred rounds.
That's the justification.
That's the justification.
The fact that he would say that out loud as president of the United States tells me I need more bullets.
Because the government is looking to take away one of your basic rights.
If the government is acting to take away one of your basic rights, and this basic right goes right to the heart of freedom, which is not letting the government run roughshod over you, being armed enough that it just wouldn't ever work, I feel like Biden just gave you all the reason you'd ever need to have all the rounds that you could ever buy.
He is the justification.
I'm watching the comments.
You all agree with this. By the way, did you think it as soon as you heard it?
The moment I heard this, I thought, well, maybe they didn't have justification before, but you certainly just gave it to them.
Immediately after seeing Biden say, I have no reason to have 100 rounds, immediately I thought to myself, how can I get more ammo?
Did anybody think that?
How many of you thought to yourself, my God, how can I get more guns and more weapons because he's talking this way?
I'll bet a lot of you did.
You haven't seen the yeses in the comments.
So Biden's also going to raise my taxes and other rich people, he says.
He says it's time for corporate America and the wealthiest 1% Americans to pay their fair share.
What do you think about that? Do you think that wealthy Americans should pay their fair share?
Why not, right?
I think wealthy Americans should pay their fair share.
Who would disagree with that statement?
Nobody, right? So it's good persuasion.
So you start with the thing everybody agrees with.
It's time for corporate America and the wealthiest 1% to pay their fair share.
Who argues against paying your fair share?
Nobody. So it's good persuasion.
He starts with pacing.
And then it gets weird.
He said, a recent study shows that 55 of the nation's biggest corporations paid zero in federal income tax last year.
I need some permission to curse.
Permission to curse.
There will be swearing.
It's coming up.
If you've got children, send them away.
Cursing is coming up.
So, yes. So after saying that rich people should pay their fair share, he says 55 of the big corporations paid zero income tax.
Let me put a little context on this, Joe Biden.
I'm not one of the 55 largest corporations.
I'm not. And do you know why...
So first of all, I work seven days a week, and I only get paid for the value that I produce.
It's like a direct thing.
I produce more value, more people watch me on YouTube, more people buy my comic.
That's it. I work seven days a week, probably 60 hours a week on average.
I'm not a big fucking corporation, Joe Biden.
Fuck you.
For trying to take my money, I'm paying my fair share.
Well over 50% for most of my career.
Yeah, most of it. And conflating me with Amazon.com is just fuck you.
It's really just fuck you.
I worked for my money.
Don't compare me to fucking Amazon.com.
He's yours, right?
He's yours. Amazon.com is yours.
That's your fucking problem, not mine.
Solve your fucking problem.
Your problem, Joe Biden.
I work for a living.
I don't make billions of dollars because I started a company successfully.
And conflating me and all the people who are, let's say, doctors or lawyers, consultants, entrepreneurs...
We're not the assholes.
We're not the assholes.
We're the ones who make this whole fucking country work.
Now, obviously, you need everybody working.
But you couldn't take away this group of Americans, the ones who are individuals just excelling and inventing stuff, you know, curing people of diseases, fixing legal problems.
We're kind of important.
The people who just go to work but do enough value, create enough value, that we get into this Amazon.com conversation.
Do you think I'm anywhere near Amazon.com?
I earned every fucking penny I have.
And I don't think you should take it away from me by changing the rules after I made my fucking money.
That's my problem.
If this had always been the rules, if I had entered...
My career, with a certain set of rules, I would have said, oh, okay.
You know, that's what I chose.
But when you change the rules after I make my money, and now you're going to take, I don't know, a third of it away or whatever it's going to be, not cool.
Let me suggest an improvement to make this at least somewhat equitable, and it would go like this.
I don't believe that anybody over 50 should ever have their taxes increased.
That's it. Now, how you treat corporations is separate.
If you want to put a minimum tax on corporations, that's something to talk about.
But I don't think an individual who's just working for a living is not a corporation, just works for a living and is successful.
If you're over 50 and you raise their fucking taxes, not cool.
Just not cool.
And anybody over 50 should just vote out of office.
Anybody who even thinks of raising their taxes.
Because that group worked their whole life To have what they have, and it isn't your fucking job to take it away and give it to somebody who didn't do that.
It's just not cool.
So, if Biden said, I'm going to tax the corporations a little more, have some minimum tax, I'd be open to that conversation.
I don't really know if the economists have sorted out whether that's good or bad, or even if they can tell.
But when you tax people above a certain age and take the money that they've worked all their life to earn through no crime...
No crime. Fuck you.
So that's what I think of Joe Biden.
All right. New York Times, in a tweet, has referred to Biden's economic plans as Biden's latest ambitious economic package.
Is ambitious a good news word?
Ambitious is a persuasion word.
Right? Now, it is ambitious.
I would say that it's an accurate word.
It's a very ambitious plan.
But if you're only going to pick one word, is that the one you pick?
That's the one that sums it all up.
It's ambitious. I would have said huge.
Huge. Enormous.
If you said enormous, there would be no opinion in there.
But as soon as you say ambitious, that's an opinion.
And the New York Times is already defending against Project Veritas for their opinions that they're packaging as news.
Here's another example.
That's an opinion packaged as news.
All right, here's some fake news that probably fooled you.
Did you see that on Twitter the phrase Uncle Tim was trending?
Obviously an insulting play on the phrase Uncle Tom.
And it was because of Senator Tim Scott's rebuttal.
How many of you saw that trending?
And then you said to yourself, my God, these liberals are so racist.
God, they're so racist.
They're so racist that not only would somebody use this phrase, Uncle Tim, very insulting, but so much it would be trending.
How many of you fell for that?
Do you know why it was trending?
Do you know why?
Because one fucking guy said it in a tweet and conservatives went crazy and retweeted it saying, my God, look at this.
The conservatives retweeted it so much, one fucking guy, just one guy, that it trended.
And then once it trended, the conservatives said, Look at how bad these liberals are.
They made this thing trend.
But of course it was the conservatives.
It was one fucking guy.
Look at all the tweets.
They're all pointing to the same guy.
One fucking idiot.
And you got fooled into thinking that the liberals are all saying Uncle Tom.
It was one guy. If you don't see how this happens, you're missing a pretty big part of the media.
Um... My biggest problem with Tim Scott is that he's got a pretty good shot of being president, I would say.
But he shares my name.
And I'm not cool with that.
Because if we ever had a President Scott, and of course people refer to the president by just their last name, you know, Biden, Trump, Scott, I would have to wake up every day hearing what Scott did that people don't like.
And I can't have that.
So while I think Senator Tim Scott is a very qualified guy, certainly has every qualifications I would look for in a president, but I just can't have it.
I just can't have somebody with my name as president.
That would just be too annoying for 48 years.
So a lot of people on the right loved Tim Scott's rebuttal.
I listened to it this morning, and I didn't see it, honestly.
I was expecting the Senator Scott's speech to be like a...
I heard a number of people saying it's the best one they've ever seen, which I don't doubt, by the way.
It might actually be the best one anybody's ever seen for a rebuttal, because the bar for rebuttals is like super low, right?
You know, the... The rebuttal people are usually pathetic, in my experience.
You get your Adam Schiff's being the rebuttal guy.
If you have Adam Schiff be your rebuttal guy, you don't even care about the rebuttal.
I mean, you wouldn't put that guy in there, but that happens, right?
So to have anybody do a solid job looks like the best that's ever happened.
And he did a solid job.
I would say that the senator is a Very capable speaker, and he had lots of themes about coming together, etc.
I don't think any of it matters, because it just looks like conservatives talking to conservatives.
So I don't think that Senator Scott has language that is penetrating the other side.
And when he said, America is not a racist country, everybody with good reading comprehension said the following.
Oh... He means that the country is not racist, by design, because everybody can move up.
But obviously, obviously, he's not saying there are no racists in the country.
Obviously. Obviously, he's not saying that everybody's starting from the same place.
Obviously. But because he made this statement, which I think was just a pure mistake, in my opinion, that America is not a racist country, there are lots of ways you could have said that That would have avoided the problem that he walked into, which is that will be taken out of context, easily out of context, it already is, and it's being used as a sign that Republicans don't understand racism exists.
So, I mean, he dug a hole and he fell into his own hole.
So it was a huge persuasion mistake, in my opinion, to say the phrase, America is not a racist country, Even if you believe it's true.
And even if you're pretty sure Republicans will agree with you.
Because you're trying to persuade the other side.
Or what's the point?
I mean, talking to your own side is not really persuading anybody.
So I would say that that was a mistake because it opened up an easy attack vector.
And Van Jones waded in here.
He said... That the United States is still struggling with racism in every institution.
Did Tim Scott disagree with that?
No. No.
Tim Scott never said anything that is the disagreement with that, but they can make it look like it is.
And that was his mistake.
And then Van Jones also said, to Tim Scott's credit, he said how different he sounds from all Republicans.
Does he? Did you think that Tim Scott sounded different from all Republicans?
Because I didn't get that at all.
I got that it was right down the middle.
It's the most Republican speech ever.
Because he was saying, you know, the wokeness, don't worry about it.
Everybody's got a chance.
You know, everybody can succeed in this country.
I didn't think it was even a little bit outside the mainstream.
It was right down the middle.
Now, why would anybody think this does not sound like Republicans?
Well, if you spent too much time watching CNN content, you would think this was not mainstream.
It's the most mainstream thing you've ever heard.
He went right down the middle.
Tim Scott didn't even touch the edge of mainstream Republican thought.
He didn't even get close.
But if you watch CNN, you think he did.
All right. So, one of the things that I find interesting is that whoever gets to do the rebuttal, it means that the party has decided that this is somebody who's going to get a little attention.
And as I watch the 2024 race start to come together, I feel like we're going to see another repeat of 2016 in one sense.
Am I wrong that there are a lot of Republicans that are really qualified to be president?
Let me just list them.
Ron DeSantis, could he be qualified to be president?
Could he win? I think he could.
Tim Scott, is he qualified?
Could he win the presidency?
Yes, I think he could.
Ted Cruz, a little bit harder because he's a little more provocative, right?
The left has a little more problem with him.
But could he get nominated?
Yes. Does he have all the qualifications for a president?
Yes, he absolutely does.
Name some other names.
Did I say Tom Cotton?
Chris Christie, I think he's got a little more baggage, so to speak.
But remember when Trump was running, one of the biggest comments was, there are a lot of Republicans that are looking pretty solid.
Pompeo, right.
Yeah, Mike Pompeo.
Solid. Nikki Haley gets a little more controversial.
Christy Holm, Noam, a little more controversial.
But certainly, the Republicans have a strong field, so I'd be a little bit worried.
I see Trey Gowdy being mentioned, but I don't know that he wants to run for the office.
By the way, if Trey Gowdy ever ran for president, is there any chance he would lose?
Because there's nobody on the Republican side that I can think of who is even close to his level of skill.
I just don't know that he's interested in the job.
Oh, Richard Grinnell, another good obvious candidate who has all the qualifications for president.
Imagine this. Just for fun.
Imagine that the Republicans just say, we just want to win.
And all they do, the Republicans, all they do is they just say, what is it going to take to win?
And we're just going to do that.
Win, win, win.
It's all we want. Who would they run?
Let me give you a proposal.
So this is not my suggestion of who should be president.
Just a mental exercise.
Imagine a ticket of Tim Scott and Richard Grinnell.
Yeah? Does that ticket lose?
How? How would they ever lose?
Seriously. You put one of the most successful gay open politicians as vice president, which is probably right where his experience level would put him.
You take the most successful black Republican senator, I think, fully qualified, put him at the top of the ticket.
Did you watch any Republicans last night say anything racist about Tim Scott?
Nothing. Nothing.
In this big old racist Republican Party, allegedly, got millions of racists.
Not only that, but white supremacy is the biggest problem, according to the intel agencies.
It's the biggest problem.
And who did the Republicans say...
Let's put our champion up there.
They pick a highly qualified black senator to be their champion.
How many racists did you hear saying, I wish we hadn't picked the black guy?
Zero. How many Republicans are there?
80 million? I don't know, 70 million?
What is the number of Republicans?
Not a frickin' person, not even one, said, you know, he's black, maybe we shouldn't have a...
No! Not one.
Not even one. Right?
So, how would that ticket ever lose?
You know, because again, Tim Scott's right down the middle of Republican thinking, so every Republican is going to be on board.
Black voters are going to say, ah...
I don't like Republicans, but he's pretty solid.
And maybe this time I'll give a little extra effort to show up and vote.
I don't know. I think that ticket would be unbeatable.
Let me give you another ticket that I think would be unbeatable.
Trey Gowdy at the top.
And anybody at Vice President's.
I don't think he could possibly lose.
And here's why. Have you ever seen him talk?
There's nobody who has a better grasp of persuasion and the facts.
I don't think anybody's close right now.
There are lots of people who have the facts and are really solid.
Take Tom Cotton, who I'm liking quite a bit lately, especially because of his stand against China.
But Tom Cotton is not quite as interesting.
Am I right? He's not quotable.
Trey Gowdy is quotable as hell, which is unfortunately, you know, 70% of being president is being really quotable.
He's interesting to look at.
He's never boring.
Have you ever been bored by Trey Gowdy?
Nope. Not once.
When he's on, if you're flipping through the channels and Trey Gowdy is talking, you stop, don't you?
How many other people would make you stop flipping through the channels?
Just immediately say, oh, I've got to see what he says.
Trump, right?
But then the list is really short of people that you wouldn't just switch the channel.
Some people are saying Trump will win a third.
I don't know. He might be happier as a kingmaker and a power behind the power.
He might have some legal issues, etc.
Somebody says, you act like rhinos aren't a thing.
Ridiculous. How am I acting like that?
I don't know what that means.
If you put any of the people that I mentioned for a candidate for Republican for the presidency, Republicans are not going to vote for the Democrat because they don't think their Republican is perfect.
That's not going to happen. Somebody says, Gaudi is a rhino.
That's why he would win.
Sorry. That's why he would win.
The fact that he can't be painted as, you know, so right-wing that he's crazy, that's why he would win.
Do you know why Obama won?
Because you couldn't really paint him as left as you wanted to.
He was just a little too darn centrist And he made him hard to attack.
So while Republicans might say, damn it, that rhino, that rhino is not doing what we want, and they might even be right.
But who the hell are they going to vote for?
They're not going to not vote for him if the other option is Kamala Harris, for example.
So it just doesn't matter if you call him a rhino or if he agrees with you on everything.
It does matter. He would still win easily.
In my opinion. Now I think DeSantis has a solid shot, unless there's some, you know, you always have to wait for the opposition research.
You know, God knows what any of them have in their past.
But he's solid, but he's not interesting.
So Ron DeSantis has the not interesting problem.
He's sort of more of a technician and a strategist and a wonk and a manager.
He's a leader, definitely a leader.
Which not all managers are.
He's definitely a leader. But it just doesn't have the sizzle that you might need to get people to show up.
So you're going to have to have somebody with a little edge just to get people to show up.
I see Matt Gaetz being mentioned a number of times.
Every day that goes by, Matt Gaetz gets stronger.
Because if you're not hearing him getting taken down, and we haven't even heard that there's a real person who's an accuser, So he just went through this giant scandal situation, and weeks later, weeks later, not even the name of an accuser, or even proof that there is one.
It's not even that we don't know the name.
We don't really know there is one.
So if it turns out that this was always a biased hit job, The way it looks.
He could become Teflon if this doesn't take him out.
So you know the whole, don't go after the king unless you can finish him off?
Like, you don't want a wounded king who knows who you are.
That's really bad for you.
60 minutes, rewind. It's been two and a half months.
That was weird. My phone just started up on its own.
So if Matt Gase does not get completely taken out by this scandal...
He will be the politician that lived through this scandal and it didn't take him out.
That covers you with Teflon because the next time somebody wants to take him out, they're going to say, well, it's going to have to be better than that one because that didn't even put a dent in him.
So if he recovers, he's dangerous.
But we'll see if he does.
The Arizona audit, we're not hearing anything about that yet, are we?
Is there any evidence coming out of that that's reliable?
But I can't wait for that.
Now, the Arizona audit is fascinating because I don't know exactly what they're testing or checking or auditing, so I don't know if they're really going to see the whole picture or not.
But let's say that they're going to see a lot of the picture, and they're going to see a lot of the things that at least Republicans claim there should be some problems there, they suspect.
What happens if the audit comes out clean?
Do any of you expect that to happen?
Because I think that could easily happen.
That the audit looks at everything and it's kind of okay.
Do you think that's possible?
That's totally possible, you know.
I'm seeing some people say, no chance.
No way. Yes.
No, it's totally possible because they're not looking everywhere, right?
So even if you believe that there's some bad stuff hiding somewhere in the system, I doubt that the audit is seeing enough of the system that you could know for sure if you found anything that was there.
I don't know that we'll ever know.
But what happens if they don't find anything?
What happens if all the ballots are at least accurate or enough of them are that it obviously looks just like errors?
Nothing to worry about.
I heard that Mike Lindell had a tough appearance on Jimmy Kimmel, but I haven't seen that yet.
That will be interesting.
I might look for that on replay to see what that's about.
But you shouldn't be watching Jimmy Kimmel.
You know why, right? Because that's when Gottfeld's on.
You should be watching Gottfeld.
There is no Jimmy Kimmel anymore on the East Coast.
You can watch him on the West Coast because you can watch Gottfeld at 8.
