Episode 1635 Scott Adams: Lots of Mysteries and Absurdities In the Headlines. I Will Sort Them All Out For You
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Low-cost strategy to destroy America
NY AG Letitia James misleading Trump statements?
Secret written Biden response to Putin
Delta variant mandates valid for Omicron?
Bret Baier shocking Fauci report
Alex Berenson's vaccine claims
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to undoubtedly the peak experience of your entire life.
It's going to happen now. It's called Coffee with Scott Adams.
I don't know if anything has ever been better.
Let me check my notes.
Nope. Nothing has ever been better.
And if you'd like to take it to another really unheard of level, unheard of.
All you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice, a canteen, a drink of glass, a vessel of any kind, fill it with a favorite liquid.
I like coffee. Join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes even Scott wake up.
It's called coffee. And the simultaneous sip.
It happens now. Go. It might just be me, possibly a placebo effect, but I feel the blood clots in my blood starting to dissipate.
Does anybody feel like their blood clots just decreased a little bit?
I mean, not a lot. I'm not talking about completely eliminating.
I'm talking about a little bit.
I mean, don't get greedy. It was just one sip.
You can't cure COVID with one sip.
That would take at least three to five.
All right. I give you now my plan to destroy the United States.
How would you do it?
What would be the cheapest way to destroy the United States?
Let's say you were on a budget... You could be, I don't know, I'll just pick a random country.
China. You could be China.
Let's say you're on a budget, and I'm just picking them randomly, and you wanted to destroy the United States.
What's the one person you could get to to do that?
Well, the president, right?
Getting to the president would help you do it.
But there might be a cheaper way, because the president's pretty expensive.
You know, you're buying Hunter Biden with that deal?
Hunter Biden doesn't come cheap.
Some say $31 million is the minimum price.
But if you wanted to get even cheaper than that, who is the one person you could influence in the United States that would destroy the country?
Just one person.
Okay, me. Okay, not counting me, because I'm not going to destroy the country, so they don't have that option.
Well, I would suggest, and by the way, I'm not suggesting that this is happening.
I'm just telling you, you should be alerted to this risk.
If I were going to destroy the United States, I would bribe the head of the teachers unions.
And we're done.
How much would it cost to bribe the head of the biggest teachers unions?
Now, I'm not saying they've taken any bribes.
I'm not suggesting there's any evidence of anything like that.
I'm just saying, hypothetically, what would it cost to totally own the head of the teachers' unions?
I think you could get it for about a million, maybe less, don't you think?
So for maybe a million dollars in indirect benefits that can't be traced to anybody in particular, maybe a business does well that...
That is related to them somehow.
If you could get that one person, what would you encourage them to do?
Well, you might encourage them to select a fact-checking news filter and suggest that it run in all the schools.
And perhaps that news-checking filter would be biased toward a certain kind of news and biased away from a certain other kind of news.
What would happen? If you did that.
Well, if that news filter happened to be illegitimate and it happened to be making you smarter and educating our kids better, that's all good for the kids.
Good for the country, too. But what if said person bribing the head of the teachers' unions, which is not happening as far as I know, just talking about the risk of it, couldn't they come up with ideas like educate your kids at home, Even though the science might not support that, wouldn't they come up with ideas like filtering the news so that only pro-China news gets through?
Just for example, critical race theory.
They might suggest critical race theory.
All I'm saying is that there is one individual in charge of the current country, and that's Joe Biden.
But there might be only one individual in charge of the future of the country.
And that's whoever has the most control over our education system.
Because those are the minds that will be running in the country in the next generation.
So I am very uncomfortable having one person having this much control over the future of the country.
Especially when any one person can be bought.
I'd love to say there's nobody who can be bought.
But... Anybody who's not already pretty rich can be bought.
Everybody's got a price.
They can either be blackmailed, bought, coerced, persuaded.
This is a real, real problem that we have such a vulnerability in our national defense.
I would go so far as to say that Homeland Security should be in charge of the Teachers Union.
Eh? Eh, you didn't see that coming, did you?
Homeland Security should be in charge of education because if we don't get education right and protect the kids from being brainwashed by external sources, we will be giving away the future.
Didn't see that coming. Now, I'm not terribly serious about homeland security, because you don't want to add any extra layers of government or anything if you can avoid it.
But my point is, we have a real vulnerability that is a genuine security problem.
Like a real security problem.
Like a real, really big security problem.
Like as big as security problems could ever be.
It's just that it's about the future.
Like, we're not on fire at the moment.
It's just something brewing that will kill us all eventually.
The hard way. Anyway, we need to do something about that.
I thought that I saw a joke on CNN, and it turned out it wasn't a joke.
How often have we joked about the anti-Trumper saying that the walls are closing in on Trump?
Right? Isn't that like a punchline?
The walls are closing in on Trump now.
They're going to get him any minute.
Oop, oop, oop, oop.
Those walls are closing in.
Right? The walls are closing in as just a punchline, I thought.
I didn't know that anybody actually said it anymore.
You know, originally they were saying it and repeating each other.
But at this point, at this point, I'm really asking, are people actually saying that?
Well, it turns out Chris Silliza, or at least the headline, actually said that.
And it wasn't a joke.
And here's Silliza's argument.
That the walls are closing in on Trump's legal problems.
Now, here are all the examples.
I've done this before, but it's just head-shaking to see how the media creates this narrative.
So look at all the examples that they've fit into the narrative.
It's the same thing they did with Russia collusion.
You start with the framework.
Oh, there's Russia collusion.
Roughly, ambiguously stated.
And if you've got this ambiguous framework of Russia collusion, then anything that involves a Russian...
It's probably going to map to it, right?
Confirmation bias is going to do the rest.
Something with a Russian phone call.
Oh, that probably fits there.
Trump once said, that's probably there.
So once the framework is set, your mind just fills in the framework.
It's automatic. So CNN has caused this framework...
Of Trump legal problems, right?
So now you've got this ambiguous framework.
Yeah, there's some kind of legal financial tax problem, something?
So everything you see is going to, like, stick to it, right?
So here are the things they threw against that framework.
The New York Attorney General has told us that the Trump The Trump company.
Has a number of misleading statements and omissions used to secure loans.
So, do you think it's true, first of all, that there are, quote, misleading statements and omissions that were used to secure loans?
Well, let me put this in context.
How many of you have ever been a banker and it was your job to evaluate loans?
Me, me.
That was my job for several years.
For several years, I worked for a bank, and one of my jobs, I had a number of them, was to be the one who approved loans, business loans.
So somebody would propose one, and I'd have to look at it and sign it off.
And how often have I ever seen a misleading statement or an omission used in a loan application?
Do you think I've ever encountered a misleading statement or omission?
How often?
What would you guess is the percentage of time you encounter a misleading statement or omission?
100% of the time.
100%. So what is the New York Attorney General telling us?
That Trump's statement is exactly like every other big statement.
In other words, if there's a certain level of complication, you always have omissions.
You always have misleading statements.
Now, is that illegal?
Which one of those things is illegal?
It depends.
There's nothing illegal in concept, right?
Because misleading is a subjective standard, isn't it?
It's hard to say what is misleading.
Wait, if it's untrue, that's a standard, right?
If you just put something down that's just, you know, you say you made this much money and it's just not the right number, well, that's just untrue.
So that's a standard that you could manage to.
But how do you manage to misleading?
I don't think misleading is a legal standard, is it?
And if it is, there's going to be a whole lot of judgments in there.
And the reason that you hire accountants...
Why do you hire accountants and CPAs to do your taxes if you're a business instead of doing them yourself?
Well, one reason is they're complicated.
It's hard to do yourself.
Do you know what the other reason is?
Here's the other reason.
If your CPA or accountant makes a misleading statement that they can back up, as in, well, there were two ways to handle this, Both of them were legal.
We chose this one.
How much trouble does the client get in, the client, you know, the person who hired the CPA, how much trouble do they get in if the person they hired who's a professional does this every day, says, you know, there were two ways to do this.
We chose this way. They're both legal.
And then the IRS comes back and says, you know, I think you should have chosen the other way.
Zero legal risk.
There might be financial risk, meaning there might be a penalty or something.
If the IRS says, oh, you know, I see why you did it, but you should have done it this other way, we'll give you a penalty.
You don't go to jail for a penalty.
You just pay the penalty.
Fairly ordinary. I'm pretty sure that I've had that happen.
I'm sure at least...
Yeah, I think at least maybe twice the IRS has said, oh, something wrong here, you owe a penalty.
And, you know, I look at it and go, oh, okay, yeah, I owe a penalty.
Just pay the penalty. All right, here's another one.
There's been a document release about all the January 6th stuff that might show that Trump did something bad.
What? What? We're looking for things to find out if there might be something bad?
What? Couldn't you say that about literally everything?
You know, I don't have any direct information about Joe Biden doing horrible things, but if we could get access to all his documents, I'll bet we'd find something.
Yeah, a fishing expedition is not a legal risk per se, except they might find something.
So you've got a whole bunch of nothing about his misleading statements and omissions, at least the way it's described to us.
I'm not saying there's no substance.
I'm saying that if there were substance, it's weird that they wouldn't tell us, because I feel like that would have been important to the story.
Then they're just looking for stuff on January 6th, And we found out today that apparently the protesters were already overthrowing things even before Trump spoke.
So the trouble had started long before Trump was even talking.
So that's a factor.
Then there's also a special grand jury being convened in Georgia talking about his phone call in which he said he hoped they could find the votes.
There isn't any chance he's in any legal trouble For a phone call that everybody was on, in which he used ambiguous language about finding votes, when the context of the call was he thought they were fraudulent.
If the context of the call is, I think there was fraud, and you say, I think there's fraud, you should look into it, because we'd only need to find X number of votes, clearly the context is not illegal.
The context is perfectly clear that he means to find votes that are real that just weren't counted, or vice versa.
So there's no way that's going to get him in trouble.
That's the third thing that's completely empty.
And then my favorite ones are E. Jean Carroll.
She's the one who accused him of rape, and nothing happened to that.
But now Trump said that she's not his type.
It didn't happen in part because she's not his type.
And now she's suing him for some kind of defamation for saying she's not his type.
Or something. Could anything be less than that?
Can you think of anything that would be less of a legal risk than that?
Even if everything went wrong, you'd just pay some money, right?
This one has no risk other than, all right, here's some money, make it go away.
And even then, this is clearly not any kind of defamation.
I'm no lawyer, but I feel confident in saying this is not going to be a problem.
And then there's his sister, Mary Trump, who is suing him for alleged fraud on their estate however many decades ago when they all inherited.
Do you think that's going to turn into anything?
I doubt it.
A lot of time has gone by, and I would imagine the entire family is on the other side, and I imagine there were lawyers involved, so they probably did everything as legal as anything can be done.
Somebody says it's his niece.
Oh, he's a niece. I'm sorry.
Mary's a niece. Well, that's sad for Mary because I put her in the same age range as Trump.
So, sorry, Mary.
Sued for defamation.
Anyway, so do you see any part of this that sounds like the walls are closing in on Trump?
I mean, really? Seriously, does any of this look like he has any legal risk to speak of?
Not really. I suppose a fishing expedition could come up with something, but I'm not expecting it.
All right, here's the funniest marital problem story of the day.
So you know that RFK Jr., he's an anti-vax kind of guy, And he's married to Cheryl Hines, actress Cheryl Hines.
You know her from Curb Your Enthusiasm and other stuff.
And so RFK Jr.
made this, let's say, ill-advised comparison of vaccinations to Nazi Germany.
At least the mandates.
The mandates, anyway. And Cheryl Hines, who works in Hollywood, And if you work in Hollywood, one thing you don't want to do is disrespect the Holocaust.
I'm just saying that's not a good career move if you're a Hollywood actor or actress.
And so Cheryl Hines did something I've never seen any spouse do before, but it's hilarious.
I've never seen anybody come out harder against their own spouse.
So the offending comment was something about Anne Frank, right?
Details don't matter.
So RFK made an Anne Frank reference about vaccine mandates.
And so Heinz said, my husband's reference to Anne Frank at a mandate rally in D.C. was reprehensible and insensitive.
What? Are you really married?
Are you two actually married?
What? Now, I always appreciate people speaking their mind, and it certainly doesn't surprise me when spouses have disagreements on political stuff and stuff, but how do you stay married after that?
Would you stay married to somebody who called you reprehensible in public, in a public statement?
If your spouse makes a public statement that says you did something reprehensible, that was just words, right?
It would be one thing if you were violent or something, then sure.
But just words? A political opinion?
A bad analogy? If you use an ill-advised analogy while you're trying to make the world a better place...
Now, I'm not on RFK's side on everything he's persuading.
I'm just saying it's pretty clear that his intention is to make the world a better place.
Would everybody agree with that?
I mean, no matter what you want to say about RFK Jr., I don't think he's in it for the money, right?
Can we at least give him that?
I don't think he's in it for the money.
I don't think he's in it for, like, personal gain.
I mean, you get your ego involved, so that's always a factor.
But it doesn't look like there's any intention here other than to help people survive.
Now, if she had said, I don't agree with my husband's characterization, but he has a right to, you know, make his points, Would you be okay with that?
I don't agree with his characterization.
I thought that was ill-advised.
But, of course, it's a free country, and I support his right to his opinion.
Now, that's how you stay married.
But if you go in public and say that your husband said something reprehensible and insensitive, I think you've just signaled to the world you're not planning to stick around.
Right? Right? I think she just told us she's not sticking around.
Like, I don't know how...
Because imagine what her life is like having to explain her husband every time she walks out the door.
Hey, Cheryl, can you explain your husband?
Because where she is, you know, vaccines are like gold.
Anyway, that's a funny story.
Tragic, but funny. Um...
Here's a big story. West Virginia.
The state senate voted to lift their ban on nuclear power plants in West Virginia.
How big a deal is that?
Well, West Virginia is a big coal state, so if they're going nuclear, we're in good shape.
As you know, one of our favorite nuclear advocates, Mark Schneider, Tweeted this.
He says, I have to wonder if my meeting with the Speaker of the Assembly helped set the wheels in motion for this.
Well, Mark, I don't think it's a coincidence that with your level of persuasive ability that after meeting with the Speaker of the Assembly that things went your way.
I don't think that's a coincidence.
Now, I do think all the argument was on the side of the decision they just made.
And I think that things have changed in terms of climate change.
Nuclear power went from something that was just an economic decision.
Then it turned into, well, it's necessary for climate change.
And then it turned into, it's more than necessary for space travel.
Because if you need to dominate space, you have to be a nuclear nation, because everything in space is going to be nuclear-powered, we expect.
So if you don't have a really good domestic nuclear program, you can't have a good space program.
And if you don't have a good space program, you basically are giving up because you're going to lose everything if you can't control space.
So, you know, when you see that things are going in that direction, it's partly because the environment served up the opportunity, but even more than that, it's because people learn to essentialize the argument.
So if you want to see somebody take the nuclear argument and simplify it so every politician can understand it, you want to listen to Mark Schneider Describe it.
So he's probably the best in the business of simplifying what the argument is.
Then, for those people who just need more science and more detail, I would say that the Michael Schellenberger approach really just closes the deal.
Because Schellenberger comes in with all the data in the world, and he'll just basically...
Sweep your arguments away like leaves.
I use that analogy twice in two days.
So between the two of them, my God, they're so effective right now.
Here's my insight on Ukraine, which I have not heard anybody say.
Apparently the U.S. has sent over, or is sending over soon, a written response to Putin's request for...
You know, he's demanded a few things.
So he's demanded that we say that NATO won't come to Ukraine and also that offensive weapons won't be put in Ukraine.
Now, why is it that Putin is asking for a written response?
Because it seems like they're making a bigger deal about the written part than I'm used to.
Why is Putin asking for a written response?
Why would anybody ask for a written response?
Half of Ukraine, well, trust, for the record.
Priming, not quite.
No, those are all reasons, but not the reasons I'm looking for.
Accountability to show the public, you're getting close.
All about the price of oil.
Social media, a contract, a document...
Okay, let me tell you why.
I think none of you got it right, but it's hard to read all the comments, so some of you might have gotten it right.
Here's the reason you asked for something in writing.
You ready? Because your argument is better than the other side.
And you know that everybody will see it.
It just has to be written down.
Because right now we're just talking.
And when you're talking, it's hard to really...
Hold all the argument in your head at the same time, and then decide what's going on.
The person who asked you to put your response in writing is already the winner.
He's already the winner, because he asked for it in writing.
And then what is the United States going to do?
They're going to send a secret memo to Putin that you, the public, can't see.
Why will the United States not show the United States public its own response?
Why is that going to happen?
Because it will be embarrassing.
That's why. Our response will be embarrassing.
Putin's requests are not embarrassing, are they?
Putin's saying, don't put an aggressive military entity in my backyard.
Is that reasonable?
Everybody thinks that's reasonable.
It doesn't matter how anti-Russian you are, literally everyone understands you don't want an offensive force in your backyard.
Everybody, right?
So Putin is making the world's most reasonable request.
Now, hold on, hold on.
I'm not pro-Putin.
I'm not saying that he doesn't have tricks in his bag.
I'm not saying that he's a good force.
Just assume everything bad about Putin that you want to.
But here's what you should not assume about Putin.
And see if I can get agreement on this.
He's not dumb.
Am I right? I mean, he might be evil, he might be blah, blah, blah, blah.
That's all fine. But nobody, nobody says he's dumb.
Nobody in Russia says he's dumb.
Nobody in the United States says he's dumb.
Nobody in the world. In fact, have you ever, ever heard anybody say Putin was dumb?
No. He probably won't.
So why would Putin make this written request?
And by the way, the news says that Russia is likely to release the U.S. response.
Yes, they are likely to do that.
Now, they'll have to read it first because there might be some surprises in there.
But I think what Putin is going to do is going to show the world what he asked for and that he's going to show the world the ridiculous response.
He wins. He wins.
Because we don't have an argument.
What do you think is really behind all this?
I think...
This is just speculation, but strong speculation.
I think that Putin knows that his argument can be made publicly, because there's nothing hidden.
You know, don't put offensive weapons in my backyard.
Simple, right?
Um... But don't you think that the American argument has some hidden variables?
It does. The American argument has to have hidden variables because it would be too easy to reach a deal otherwise.
Here's what the deal would look like if we wanted to make one.
We will agree not to put NATO, or not to accept Ukraine into NATO. We will agree not to put offensive weapons there.
All you have to agree in return is that it's conditional on ceasing cyberattacks, pulling your military back so you don't have an aggressive force that looks like an invasion force, and don't do other destabilizing things.
How hard would it be for the United States to make that counteroffer?
Oh, yeah. We can do both of these things as long as you do some equally confidence-building things like, you know, get your troops away from the border and stop doing the cyberattacks.
Seriously, if those were the only variables that mattered, how hard would it be to reach a deal?
One day? There's literally nothing to disagree about.
I mean, some details about what it looks like to not be aggressive, I suppose.
But we could go back on the deal any time we wanted.
We would be giving up nothing.
We could wait a week and say, well, there was another cyber attack, so I guess the deal's off.
Right? We could call the deal off any time we wanted just by claiming there was a cyberattack, even if there wasn't.
I hate to say that, but even if there wasn't a cyberattack, our government could say there was and just say the deal is off.
So if we can't make a deal that's that easy to make, a deal that we can cancel like that, keep whatever we want, which is the ability to defend Ukraine if we feel like it, Yeah.
Does Congress have to approve this?
I don't know the details of that.
But I think what you're going to expect is that our writing will look pathetic.
Putin will show it.
And what he will show...
Here's the key to all this.
What Putin will show is that our governments are lying to us.
And the way he will show that is that we can't make a deal that's simple to make.
And we're pretending that we would prefer a war with a nuclear power over making the simplest deal that anybody could ever make.
The simplest deal.
The easiest deal.
A deal that both sides want their end of the deal.
There's literally nothing to discuss.
Unless... Unless...
The United States has a hidden variable.
Could be finance. Could be economics.
Could have something to do with China or Germany or some other country that we don't know about, right?
But the thing that I can guarantee you is that Putin's about to embarrass the United States.
You want to take that back?
I wouldn't take that bet.
He's getting ready to totally face the United States, like just totally embarrass us.
And it's going to probably happen in the next couple of days.
Just watch what happens.
All right. So that's all fishy as hell.
Here's my problem with, well, one of my many problems with the COVID mandates.
Correct me if I'm wrong. Give me a fact check on this.
True or false? All of the mandates in place for masks and vaccines were created during the last war, meaning the war against Delta.
Were there any mandates that were put in place, maybe a few, after we knew that Omicron was 99.5% of infections, new infections?
So here's all I would ask.
It is not irrational for the government to say, we're just continuing things because they work.
Because they do have that argument.
They can make that argument.
We'll talk about Alex Berenson in a minute.
But here's what I would ask for a good government as a citizen.
So this is just a citizen request.
So as a citizen of the United States, I assert the following preference.
That because we're in a new war, our government needs to make a new argument.
The government needs to start from scratch and say, imagine there were no mandates.
Would we put them in place?
Because that's the problem with the thinking right now.
Right now we've drifted into where we are, and we've gone from one kind of war to a completely different war.
Omicron's just a whole different war.
Our government doesn't necessarily need to change what it's doing.
This is an important point.
I'm not saying that I'm so smart that you need to change what you're doing.
I'm telling you that you need to renew your argument as if you had never made one.
Because it's a new war.
You don't get to slide us from war to war under some continuation theory.
Am I right? If you start a war with Elbonia and the United States public is in favor of it, that did not give you authority to start war with another country.
If we approve, let's say, by our actions, not necessarily by a vote, but if the public approves by public opinion a war against Elbonia, that is all we've approved.
We did not approve war.
Right? Nobody approved war.
We approved war against Albania.
You need to ask us, in essence, I mean, not in an emergency situation, but over time, you need to ask the public, are you okay with a second war?
And if not, we need to get the hell out of there.
This Omicron war is a different war.
It's a different country. It's different weapons.
It's a different problem. It's different everything.
It's enough of a different problem.
All I ask...
Is that the government give us this mental experiment.
If there were no mandates today, and the only problem we had was our current problem with Omicron, would they tell us to have mandates?
If they say yes, then at least they made the argument, and I think that's the responsibility.
You could agree or disagree.
But without the argument, there's no argument being made.
So I think this is a gigantic failing of leadership.
You need to remake this argument.
It's just convenient that they don't have to.
We shouldn't let them off the hook.
Remake the argument from scratch.
All right. Germany is noodling with the idea of having compulsory vaccinations.
Well, do you think that's going to happen?
Do you think that the German public, or actually the politicians, will approve a law...
To have compulsory vaccinations in Germany.
Here's why I predict that that will not happen.
Because if Germany of all countries decides to go full...
You know, if Germany decides to go full...
Well, you know.
You know what I mean. I don't have to finish the sentence, right?
You never want to go full...
You know, H-word.
And in my view, Germany just can't do it.
I don't think they can do it.
No matter what you think about the compliance of the German public, you know, if you're thinking historically, how did they ever agree to that?
How did they ever agree to that?
Well, first of all, we're probably totally misinformed about what they did and did not agree about in the public.
But secondly, the weight of the Holocaust just hangs over Germany completely.
To an extent that I don't think they can...
Their brand can't handle this.
Do you know what I mean? Their brand can't handle it.
You're saying that Austria already did?
No, Germany is different.
I think Germany is a different deal.
So that's my prediction.
I could be wrong. I could definitely be wrong about that, but I'm going to put that prediction in.
Meanwhile, the Netherlands has reopened all sectors of society.
And they said, quote, living even longer with many restrictive measures would damage our health and society, health minister says.
And yet another domino has lined up.
Now, what is it that's happening in the Netherlands that's so different than what's happening in other Western countries?
It can't be that different, right?
Is the Netherlands basically just going to be Florida now?
It can't be that risky.
So the dominoes might be lining up for February 1st.
We'll see. I asked yesterday, why don't we have a vitamin D test that would give you an exclusion or a passport?
Because we know that people who have high vitamin D almost rarely have critical problems with COVID. I was asking, you know, why don't we have a vitamin D test exclusion if you wanted to not take the vaccination, for example. And then I wondered if there are vitamin D tests you can take at home.
So I googled it, and it turns out there are a whole bunch of home tests for vitamin D. Did you know that?
But don't buy one unless you look at the reviews.
Because the reviews are pretty sketchy.
I won't name names, but at least one of them.
There were a number of cases where people tested it with the HomeKit.
I won't mention the brand.
But then they had a reason to get it tested professionally.
An unrelated reason.
And when they compared the professional test to that home test, they weren't even close.
Like one was you're way below and one was you're fine.
I mean, they're not even close. So I don't know if people maybe took the test wrong or maybe there's some errors in the test or how accurate they are.
But I don't think you could trust that they necessarily are accurate.
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's both expensive.
It's like $100. And I don't think I would necessarily believe it.
All right, here's something interesting from Fox.
Brett Baer is reporting.
If you're not familiar with Brett Baer, don't lump him in with anybody else on Fox, okay?
So in order to listen to this story and judge it effectively, just know that Brett Baer is not an opinion person.
He's a news person.
I highly respect it. So if he gives you the news, you can be sure that he's not spinning it.
You know, everybody can have a mistake, but he's a straight shooter, so you need to know that, even for this context.
So here's some of the things he's reporting.
Fauci was told on January 27th in 2020 that his NIAID, I guess that's some group he had control over or was involved with, had been indirectly funding the Wuhan lab through the EcoHealth, a US-based scientific non-profit.
So on January 27th, Fauci already knew that money he had some say about had indirectly gotten to the lab.
Now, how would you feel about Fauci if he told you that directly?
Oh, yes, we funded something called EcoHealth, and it does look like they, in turn, funded some work at the Wuhan lab, but we didn't know that that was going to happen.
Wouldn't you feel really different about him?
I feel like his denial was so weaselish as in, no, no, we didn't fund the lab.
We only funded the entity that funded the lab.
Doesn't it feel like he just acted like a criminal?
Because if I heard this story, let's say it happened to me.
Let's say I was Fauci. I don't know why I wouldn't just tell you if I just said, you know, this is one of the risks of funding.
You can give the funding to one entity, but once they have the money, you don't have full control of what happens to it after that point.
This was definitely something we wish hadn't happened.
I mean, I feel like he could have been...
Pretty much in the clear.
All he had to do was say, you know, this is a widespread problem in funding.
You know, you make your best judgment, but then you don't always know where it's going to end up.
That's true. And in this case, that might have been a problem.
If he had just said that, I would have been fine with it.
Would you? Would you have been fine with that?
I mean, we all would have said you should have checked harder, but you would have kind of understood that that's not an easily checkable thing.
Yeah, you could still be mad at him, but it wouldn't feel the same.
It would feel completely different.
So, you know, I could forgive a mistake, especially one like that where there's an indirect thing that maybe you didn't see coming.
But the lying, or the weaseling, I guess, wouldn't be lying so much as weaseling, It's tough to take.
All right. Then also, in the Brett Baer reporting, on January 31st, a few days later, Dr.
Christian Anderson, a noted virologist at the Scripps Lab, privately told Fauci that after talking to his other experts, he said that the virus looked possibly engineered.
And the, quote, genome is inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.
And needed to be looked into, blah, blah.
So as early as January 31st, Fauci had expert opinion, expert opinion, that it was possibly engineered.
And I think more than possibly, as in looks engineered, right?
Which is not confirmed.
I think rather than saying possibly engineered...
Maybe it would have been closer to say it looks engineered because it has things which are inconsistent with evolutionary theory, which is different from saying it is.
It just looks like it.
Hours later, according to the same reporting, Fauci hastily organized a call with dozens of worldwide virologists.
And he suppressed suspicions of the lab leak and possible Chinese government involvement.
And then in the meeting that was hastily called later, the then National Institute of Health director, Francis Collins, was concerned that, quote, science and international harmony could be harmed and accusations of China's involvement could distract top researchers.
And there it is.
So, that's the whole story.
This is one of those times where you rarely get, like, the whole story.
You know, usually you're just confused.
But I think this Bret Baier reporting, I feel as if that's the whole story.
Like, it's all explained there.
Now, you could criticize their decisions, and I have, but is it crazy?
Is it crazy for Francis Collins to have thought, remember, this is the beginning of the pandemic, and what mattered most in the beginning of the pandemic is that we save lives.
And that was number one, right?
Number one wasn't, you know, get back to China or something.
So I'm not sure he made the wrong decision.
I hate it. I hate it.
Don't you? When you hear this, don't you hate it?
That Francis Collins said, let's leave that out of this for now because we don't want to get China angry?
I hate that. I mean, I hate it.
I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
But was it irresponsible?
Not necessarily. I hate it, but it wasn't necessarily irresponsible.
I might have played it differently.
You might have played it differently, and I might have liked that better.
But he did have a reason.
He did have a reason. You know what I mean?
So I have a different opinion about people who can offer a reason, like we're not offering a reason with Ukraine, right?
That's the problem. The problem isn't that I disagree with the reason.
It's like, you haven't given us a reason.
How about offering a reason?
So I hate it, but he did have a reason.
All right. So I feel like we know the whole story there.
Fauci's money did get to the lab.
They did have a suspicion about it early on.
That's the whole timeline. I feel like this is a mystery solved.
Do you? I feel like we're done with that question.
It feels like the whole thing just was laid out.
That they did suppress some information because it wasn't confirmed, which is actually a pretty good reason.
Pretty good reason, if it's not confirmed.
All right. Rasmussen has a poll that says, if Russia attacked Ukraine, should U.S. combat troops be sent to help defend Ukraine?
31% said yes.
What? What?
What? Hold on, it gets worse.
36% said no.
33% said not sure.
If you add the not sure's to the yes's, 64% of respondents could not give a firm no to putting troops on the ground in Ukraine.
Now, this 33% are the people not sure.
How hard would it be to make them sure?
As soon as the president, any president, says, we're going to war, what happens to the undecideds?
They become decided.
Pretty quickly. This 33%, when you compare it to the 31% who are already apparently at a yes, you could easily get a majority.
You can imagine that in one week, let's say something happened, you know, and it could be a false flag attack, something.
The public is literally primed for war.
The American public is primed for war.
They're ready to be convinced.
Oh, my God.
They're ready to be convinced.
It's just like, yeah, talk me into it.
I'm open to it. Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
And, you know, my best interpretation of this is that Americans are just warlike.
I think we're just a warlike people.
I mean, that's not a big surprise.
But when you see it in numbers, this is just shocking that we would be so open to the possibility of sending our young people to die for nothing.
For nothing.
Wow. Wow.
That one blew my mind.
Wow. So Rasmus also asked people to rate Biden's handling of Russia.
30% said it was either excellent or good, and 50% said it's poor.
So at the same time that 50% say Biden is handling the Russia situation poorly, a third of the public is willing to go to war.
Behind the president, that 50% don't think he's even handling it right.
You have to be so primed for war.
I mean, it's just amazing that this isn't zero.
Here's a statistic I saw from Kyle Becker on Twitter.
Now, if you don't follow Kyle Becker, you should.
He's a real strong tweeter.
And he often has scoops.
Which is the best reason to follow him, actually.
But I did a fact check on this.
Can somebody check this? He tweeted today that state-level data shows that 80% to 90% of Americans already had a COVID infection and survived.
80% to 90% of state-level data?
Now, I tried to Google that and couldn't find it.
Is that true? That doesn't sound true.
Does anybody have a link that would support that claim that 80 to 90% of Americans already had a COVID infection?
That doesn't sound true.
The only reason I would even retweet it, which I did, is just because it came from Kyle Becker, who I've been following for long enough to know that his stuff is pretty solid.
How would they know? The way you would know is you would test a random sample of people who had not been necessarily admitted to the hospital, just a random sample, and just find out what a random sample...
If 90% of a random sample had immunity, then you could extend it to the population.
Weinstein interviewed who?
Kyle Becker? Or the guy?
Who's the guy? Anyway, I don't...
Oh, here we go. Is there a link?
All right, somebody just gave me a link.
Let me just open this and see what it says.
Okay, that link is a bad link.
Here's another one. One in three...
In August, it was one in three.
All right, well, if you see a link to that, send it to me.
Because if that were true, then, I mean, that would tell us something.
All right, Alex Berenson making some news.
As you know, Alex Berenson's sort of an anti-COVID vaccination guy, anti-mandate guy.
And he got kicked off of Twitter for allegedly saying things that weren't medically true.
He would argue that case, I'm sure.
But he was on Tucker...
And he also has a Substack article I'll talk about in a minute.
But here's his statement that got a lot of press.
He said, the mRNA COVID vaccines need to be withdrawn from the market.
Wow! That's a pretty strong statement.
He says, this Alex Berenson says, no one should get them.
No one should get boosted.
No one should get double boosted.
They are a dangerous and ineffective product at this point.
My only problem with that statement is that all the data says the opposite.
Now, when I say all the data says the opposite, what I mean is all the data I've seen.
I haven't seen any data that says that the vaccinations don't work against Omicron.
Have you? Yeah, somebody says, all the data says it's effective.
100% of it.
Anything that you think says it's ineffective against Omicron, you're looking at just fake data or reading wrong or misinterpreting it or something.
So we'll get into the actual details of that.
But just know that there's nobody who's good at data who thinks that's true.
Now, it is true that Omicron, the infection rate seems to be unrelated to the vaccination.
So would you agree That the infection rate doesn't seem to be affected by the vaccination.
Doesn't seem to be. But in terms of death, in terms of death, all of the data says that Omicron people survive better with the vaccination.
If you've seen different data, you probably have not seen real data.
I'm not planning to get the booster.
All right. Yeah.
So we don't trust any data, pro or con.
I'm just saying that the only people I know who know how to look at data send me data that says that it works for a while to keep you alive.
Now, I don't think that that's necessarily reason enough to have a mandate.
So I'm anti-mandate.
All right. So I would argue that everyone who believes Eric Berenson, when he says that we know that the vaccinations do not work against Omicron, that is 100% false, according to 100% of the data.
That's my statement.
That there is no data that supports it.
And in fact, when he makes a claim, he doesn't show any data.
Which should be a tell right there.
So look at my tweet.
If you want to see the counter arguments, look at my tweet today about his statements.
You'll see in the comments the fact checks just rip them apart, and you can make your own judgment.
Now here's the problem with the Alex Berenson trap.
Alex Berenson is now so identified...
We're saying that the vaccines are going to make it worse, not better.
That he wouldn't be able to see anything that said the opposite.
Because that's how our minds are wired.
And it has nothing to do with Alex himself.
If you put any person in the situation he's in, they would become cognitively blind to any data that didn't agree with them.
Because there's too much... They've got too much invested in this...
In this point of view. So, however credible he was toward the beginning, your assumption of his credibility should now be dialed down to zero.
Even if he's right.
Even if he's right.
Does that make sense to you?
That even if he's right, your assumption of his credibility should be dialed back to zero, because he's now put himself in a position where he can't tell you the truth.
He can't. Well, I'm sorry.
That is incorrect.
He could tell you the truth if it coincidentally was what he believed to be true.
If it's the other way, if the data started showing that everything he said was wrong, he couldn't tell you that.
Nobody could. Nobody in his situation could possibly change their mind.
It's just too hard. We're humans, we're not robots.
You put a human in that situation and he's going to turn into Alex Berenson every time.
So whether or not Alex Berenson is correct or incorrect, your opinion of his credibility at this point, which is different from the beginning, at the beginning I think you should listen to everybody.
But at this point, he cannot be considered credible.
Do you know who else I'd put in that same category?
Dr. Malone and Dr.
McAuliffe. Same problem.
Now, they have at least expert credentials, so that's better.
But at this point, they would all be cognitively blind to any data that disproves their point of view.
So you should listen to all their arguments and definitely look at any links that they show, but also look at the counterargument.
So who is credible?
That's exactly the right question.
Who is credible is anybody who can change their mind and anybody who's smart enough to look at the data.
So somebody said Dr.
Drew as an example.
I would say Dr. Drew would be a perfect example of Of someone who has a track record of being able to look at the data and say, oh, the data changed, so I changed my mind.
Now, I can do it, but you shouldn't take me as credible because I probably have too much stake in it.
So I'm not sure you should take me as credible.
But I am a person who can change my mind based on the data.
Bill Maher is a person who can change his mind based on the data, but I wouldn't take him as credible because he's an entertainer, he's not a doctor.
Same as me. So you do have a real problem.
But I would say at the minimum, the minimum is you've got to find somebody who is capable of changing their mind.
Somebody who isn't so invested in their point of view that they can't say, whoops, I guess I killed a bunch of people with my bad advice.
All right. So here are some things that Alex Bernson says, and you can decide if they're true.
He says, number one, now keep in mind...
I'm not saying any of this is true.
This is Alex Berenson, so we're just judging his credibility, right?
Number one, both the within-country and between-country data show that people who are vaccinated but not boosted are at higher risk of Omicron infection than the unvaccinated.
He says anyone who says otherwise is lying.
I say otherwise.
I say otherwise.
So according to him, I would be lying.
I believe there is zero data to back up that point, and he doesn't offer any.
If you're going to make a point that is clear, you kind of need to show your work there, don't you?
Don't you need a link? Don't you need to show a study?
Something? All right.
So some of you think that that's accurate, right?
Some of you think it's accurate that The data shows that the vaccinated are a higher risk of Omicron than the unvaccinated.
I don't have to do a bit of research to know that's not true.
I don't have to do any.
I'm going to say with no research whatsoever, that's not true.
That's not true. And, you know, I'm sure it wouldn't take you more than a minute to find the debunk on that.
So I would consider that ridiculous on face value.
Let me ask you, what are the odds...
That the vaccination makes Omicron worse.
But the boosters make it better.
So he's saying that if you get the vaccination, it makes it worse.
But if you get the vaccination plus the booster, it makes it better.
Really? Does that make sense to you?
I mean, maybe. Anything's possible.
Yeah, I know, the ADE and blah, blah, blah.
But there's no evidence for that, at least available to the public.
Number two, he says thus, based on his first point, thus vaccines will actually make hospitalization or death from Omicron more likely.
Now let's take Israel as an example.
As you know, Israel is super vaccinated and boosted.
They're vaccinated and boosted and their hospitalization is going through the roof.
Correct? And their number of infections going through the roof.
Well, that's what Omicron does.
So everybody's infection rates are going through the roof.
So Israel would be similar.
What is their death rate?
Well, fortunately, their death rate is still under control because they're so vaccinated.
And apparently that works.
Scott is confused and jab-biased.
All right, you fucking idiot, Andrew.
We're going to get rid of you for being a completely unwoke fucking idiot who just wants to imagine you can read my mind incorrectly.
Goodbye. You are banned for eternity.
And we have no way of knowing how things...
Number three, it is unclear whether the vaccines interfere with the development of long-term post-infection immunity if people are infected.
Anyone who says otherwise is lying.
Well, almost everything is unclear.
It's easy to make a case that things are unclear.
I guess that's always true.
But it's not true that the opposite is true.
He says, it is clear that a third vaccine dose temporarily reduces the risk of serious illness.
So he admits that boosting temporarily reduces Omicron deaths, but it is unclear how long that protection will last.
That's not a point.
If it lasts long enough to get through the hospitalization surge, that's all we needed.
And he's saying it's unclear whether boosters will make you more or less vulnerable.
Well, it might be unclear in the sense that it hasn't been tested like most things have not been tested.
But I would say that his take on this is so obviously based on, let's say, where he's at in life at this point, that...
Scott is fake news on this, lol.
Let me make a challenge for you, okay?
Some of you believe that there's evidence proving that Alex Berenson is correct in these assertions.
Send me a link. I'll tweet the link and ask for some fact check.
And then you can look at the data that you believe is convincing and then just look at the fact check.
And then decide. If you can look at the data and also look at the fact check and still believe the data tells you clearly that these risks are what Alex Bernson says, let me know.
So let me tell you that I'm completely open to the argument.
I'm completely open to the argument.
Because remember, the argument is about Omicron.
I don't have a vested...
So I don't have a stake in the ground on Omicron and vaccinations.
Can somebody give me a confirmation on that?
Those of you who have watched me long enough, would you say it's true or not true that Scott...
Well, let me ask you in a better way.
Just confirm that what I'm saying is true, that I don't have any opinion out about vaccinations and Omicron.
I've simply told you what data I've seen.
So I have not told you to get vaccinated.
I've not told you to get a mandate.
I've not told you what to do or any recommendation whatsoever.
So if it turned out that Alex was right on the Omicron part of it and that, against my common sense and everything I think I know, if I were surprised and if, and I think this is deeply unlikely, that the boosters or that the vaccinations made it worse, For Omicron, if that turned out to be right, I think I could easily say that.
Do you think so? Do you think if the data, let's say the data started to really show that that were the case, do you think I'd have a problem saying that in public?
I'm actually curious, because I don't know if you think I could.
I think that that would not be, in my opinion, that would not conflict with anything I had already said.
And therefore, I should not have any obstacle to do it.
Because remember, what I like to do here, more than anything really, what I like to do in these live streams, is to show how we've all been fooled.
So if I could show you a perfect example of how I had been fooled, especially since you've seen all my thinking on it, if I could be that fooled, I'd really like to know that.
And I would love to tell you.
I would absolutely love...
To tell you how wrong I was.
I would find enjoyment in that.
And it would be useful. Because then maybe you'd learn how to avoid it next time.
So my stake in the ground is that being wrong actually works for me.
Right? Because it makes us smarter.
We can do better things.
We can live longer. All that stuff.
So my reputation does not require that vaccines work or not work.
My reputation doesn't require that.
Scott, explain your vaccine plus booster worked for you in all caps.
I'm just going to block you for asking that in all caps.
Big bird, see ya.
The question didn't make sense, but you shouted it at me, so...
Oops. So I'm going to remove you.
You're still shouting?
All right. Good, you're gone.
I should go on Timcast.
Oh, I forgot to say that the Israel infection rate is also coinciding with a mass increase in testing.
So anybody who's doing a lot more testing is going to have a lot more infections.
Oops. I might have to run really soon.
Hold on a second. I'm going to see if I'm going to be driving.
