Episode 1655 Scott Adams: The Great Clinton Cover-Up Has Begun, Russia Plays Chess, Freedom Breaking Out Everywhere
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Content:
California continues masking school kids
Trudeau panics as freedom breaks out
Ed Latimore's insights acknowledged worldwide
Pondering Ukraine outcome
Debunking Charlie Savage's NYT debunk of Durham filing
Are Canada troubles, a Trudeau personality problem?
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the best thing that's ever happened to you.
Today, well, for some of us, it's even better than usual.
Because today is officially the day that my state, California, dropped mask mandates for adults if they're vaccinated.
So that's not a clean win, and the kids are...
Kids still have to go to school with masks for at least two more weeks.
But my long road to hell and back just about completed.
Because I don't have to worry about mandates because I am vaccinated, whether that was a great decision or a bad one.
I suppose we'll find out if I clot up and die.
But so far, so good.
Which would mean there's a great possibility...
That I made it through the pandemic on the optimal path.
Don't know that. It's too early.
At this point, anybody who claims that they made all the right decisions, a little premature.
A little premature. But if I got through this with only two vaccinations and no boosters, which gave me as much freedom as I could get, and I got through it To the point where masks go away.
So that means they didn't keep that weird thing forever.
I also did not get infected.
Now, in theory, I will.
But we do have lots more information about long COVID, which may or may not be true.
However... Let's do the simultaneous sip.
That's the important thing. All you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice, a canteen, a jug or a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine of the day, the thing that makes everything better, including freedom, which is breaking out everywhere.
Oh, we're a long ways to go.
We've still got to claw it back.
But for now, let's drink to freedom and the truckers in Canada.
We're making us proud.
And enjoy your simultaneous sip.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that was a good one.
Surprisingly, zesty. Did anybody else find that a little zestier than normal?
Was that just me? I don't know.
I felt like it was like 10 to 15% extra zest in that one.
Could be in my imagination.
Well, in California, as I said, the mask mandate is dropping, at least from the state.
We'll see how the businesses deal with it.
But kids still have to wear them for two more weeks, at least.
And then they'll reassess.
Why do the children need to continue wearing masks for two weeks?
Is it because we followed the science?
Is that why? Is it the science?
Well, no.
Because the science ignores reality.
So if the science makes the speculation that the kids are being masked and they're very cautious all of the time, except when they're in school, then the science might, and I say might, because I don't think there's enough evidence for it, but it might, under those conditions, suggest that masking children makes sense.
Under the specific condition that when they walk out of the school, they're still masking.
But in the real world, in which everybody is aware, the kids are massively unmasked for the moment they walk out the door.
They're actually unmasked between classes.
They actually walk out of the class.
They're allowed, at least in our town, they're allowed to take off their mask because they're outdoors between the buildings.
They're hugging and joking and interacting with each other at close quarters.
And then they walk into the building and put on their mask.
And then they go to lunch and take off their masks, and then they go home and have a sleepover or a Super Bowl party, and they mingle without their masks.
Now, I'm not wrong that under those conditions, you don't really have to address the science.
It would be one thing if this were some kind of a controlled situation where kids were always in masks...
Then you'd say, well, we care about these children so much, we'll keep them in masks completely until the danger is past, which would also not be a good idea, but at least it would be consistent.
It would at least be consistent with science.
But how in the world does science pretend not to know That the kids are cheating massively on the masks to the point where it couldn't possibly make a difference that they're sitting, you know, in their isolated chairs in class in a well-ventilated place It's just crazy at this point.
And I think unforgivable, honestly.
It's unforgivable.
You know, the rates of infection are way down 70%, less infections and hospitalizations down 36% to 40%.
Even Washington, D.C. is dropping mandates.
So we're seeing the mandates dropping.
How many of you thought we would wear masks forever?
Did anybody think that?
Now, you did.
Some people actually were worried that the masks were a forever thing.
Yeah, no, I never worried about that.
Now, the vaccine mandates, those are stickier, right?
There was no chance the masks were going to be forever, I don't think.
But the mandates, they might be.
They might be forever.
So unless we see some motion there...
They might be. Rasmussen has a poll that says that 59% of Americans support the Canadian truckers.
59% of Americans.
That's a pretty solid majority right there, by American standards.
It's a solid majority. And what is Prime Minister Trudeau doing about it?
How many of you saw Trudeau's press conference about the emergency powers?
So I guess...
Yeah.
Carpe... Donctum was just saying that imagine thinking that freedom breaking out is a national emergency.
That's actually what's happening.
So... How many of you saw the press conference with Trudeau explaining what he was doing?
Now, if you didn't see it, I would...
I strongly recommend it.
Something's happening in my house right now that is unexplained.
Right.
Anyway. Oh, okay.
Let me see what kind of trouble I'm in here first.
I've got to fix a problem.
All right, problem solved.
Sorry about that.
All right.
Or not. We'll see.
So, here's what I want to say about Trudeau's emergency powers press conference.
Now, I want to be very careful when I say this.
Okay? I want to be very careful when I say this.
As you know, my regular audience, I'm a big supporter of the LGBTQ community.
So I'm going to say something that, if you heard it in the wrong context, would sound like I was making fun of the LGBTQ community, which I'm not.
So that's not what's going to happen.
But in terms of looking at our politicians, how they present themselves is part of the story.
Would you agree? That the way we receive the message from our politicians is part of the story.
In addition to what the message itself is.
When I watch Trudeau's press conference, I see somebody, and again, this is not a criticism.
This is an observation.
The observation is he looks like he's transitioning.
Did anybody else see it?
He looks like he's transitioning.
Now, some of you are saying that, I'm seeing in the comments, he was acting gay.
And I want to make it very clear here to all of you that none of this should be construed as anti-anybody.
This is simply an observation, which, because he's a leader, it matters how we receive him and how we process it, right?
But there's something about his haircut which suggests he's growing it out, right?
Because who would go on TV with that haircut unless it was part of a larger strategy?
Did you see his haircut?
I mean, it was way beyond, you know, the normal haircut.
I mean, it looked like he was growing it out.
And he was talking with a, let's say, a mannerism which I had not heard before that sounded different.
Did he not sound different?
As in more feminine?
And again, that's not a criticism.
It's an observation.
And I'm not... There's no hyperbole here.
I'm saying that there was something about his presentation which strongly suggested to me...
And it could be because the news has so much news about trans issues that maybe I'm just primed to see it or something.
But he looked like he was transitioning.
And it was very distracting.
And again, I want to be very clear...
That's not a criticism, because if he is transitioning, that's his business, not mine.
But it changes how you receive the message, doesn't it?
And whether you looked at it and thought, well, he's simply not acting very testosterone-y, that has an effect on you, how you process it.
But to me, it looked like somebody who knew his political life was over.
How many also pick that up?
And again, this is just so subjective.
We're just reading speculation, reading his mind.
You know, none of this is real. It's just how we feel about it.
And in a political context, how you feel about it is kind of all that matters.
So I think it's fair game.
How I felt about it is it looked like a leader who had completely lost it.
Just completely lost it.
And knew it. And knew that...
His game was over, basically.
And I think he's doing the best he can to try to act tough, but he spent so much time not being tough that I just don't know if he could pull it off.
He didn't pull it off at all.
So that was interesting.
I loved Donald Trump's tweet about this.
As Prime Minister Trudeau was acting somewhat authoritarian with his emergency powers...
You sounded a little like Mussolini, but Donald Trump Jr.
tweets it with a different spelling.
The moose part is spelled like a moose, a Canadian moose.
So he's Mussolini.
Pretty good, pretty good.
It doesn't translate into verbal, but if you saw it in writing, you'd be laughing right now.
So I think it's a pretty big deal that...
That in Washington, D.C., they're dropping mandates because Washington, D.C. was being targeted by truckers, wasn't it?
Can you do me a fact check on this?
So aren't we a little bit surprised that Washington, D.C. dropped the mandates already?
And was Washington, D.C. not targeted for the truckers?
And did they do that to...
Was the point to make sure there was no trucker insurrection?
So I don't know if those are related or not, or just the timing worked like that.
But to me, the timing looks a little bit interesting.
Here's another me telling you I told you so, way ahead of the news.
So the news is talking now about how Russia...
And China are becoming more strategic allies.
They're not quite, you know, best friends, but they're moving in that direction.
Who was the first person who told you that that's, like, the biggest thing we have to worry about?
Probably my audience probably heard it from me first.
Is that true? Because I can't remember seeing it in the press until maybe just this week or the last two weeks.
Oh, Kissinger. I guess Kissinger beat me to it, huh?
So, you know, it's not like I invented the idea, obviously.
But in terms of how much it is on the front of your head, I think I was warning you about this at least a year before it became headline news, which it is right now.
And sure enough, that's the big thing to worry about.
So, got that right.
Here's a random thing that is out of order in my notes, so I'll just tell you.
So I saw a tweet by Dr.
Krushbu Pandya, who is, in her bio, she says she's India's first social media doctorate.
So I assume that means she lives and works in India, and she's a doctorate.
And she tweets this.
It's a quote by our own Ed Latimer.
Now when I say our own, I mean, you know, America's Twitter.
And our own being...
He's well-loved among a lot of people.
Anyway, so Ed apparently said this, and he's being quoted in this tweet.
When your words are capable of cutting through the fog and your signal is free of noise, then you're a dangerously effective individual.
Which I have two comments about.
Number one, that perfectly captures the Joe Rogan problem, doesn't it?
It perfectly captures it.
Joe Rogan is dangerous because he's cutting through the fog and he's clear.
Now, the attacks on him are for misinformation.
But we wouldn't even be talking about him except that he can do this thing, which is cut through the fog and simplify and, you know, sort of get to the truth of things.
And sure enough, Ed Latimer is correct, and I would say that's a feature of what we're watching, is the most effective voices being taken out.
Because each side wants to silence the most effective voice on the other side, and they're doing a good job taking pieces off the chessboard.
But here's the part that caught me by that.
It's sort of the story within the story.
India's first social media doctorate is quoting Ed Latimer.
Do you know why somebody who is prominent on social media in India is quoting Ed Latimer in America?
Because it turns out that Ed Latimer is the best example of his own point.
He's somebody whose words can cut through the fog and his signal is free of noise.
So if you want to know how much purchase you can get in this world by just being a good communicator, look at Ed Latimer.
So he gets a lot of boost from people like me because what we see in him is a communication and a message that's, first of all, great messages, and second of all, his communication capability is stellar.
I mean, it's really spectacular.
So this is one person who just by being good at talking, I guess communicating, I should say, is...
Becoming well-known in India, on the other side of the world.
Just think about that.
I mean, he's becoming famous around the world for just being good at saying stuff.
That's like a real thing that's happening right now.
Anyway, I thought that was worth mentioning.
Meanwhile, the ex-president of Honduras is being arrested for allegedly being involved in some kind of drug trafficking case and some other electoral fraud and stuff.
Electro-fraud?
Didn't even know that was a possibility.
But did you know that the United States can just tell Honduras to arrest their ex-president and then Honduras will go do it?
Because that's happening right now.
And we're acting like that's just completely normal.
We just ring up a neighbouring country and say, we'd like you to arrest this guy, and then they just round him up.
I don't know. I guess that's...
Is that healthy? Yeah.
It's kind of weird, because the context is we're talking about should Russia have this control over Ukraine?
Right? Should Russia have control over its neighboring countries?
At the same time, we can just ring up Honduras and say, you know, why don't you round up your ex-president and put him in jail?
Now, I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it.
And I'm not saying that this isn't normal business.
I mean, because countries do contact other countries to get people arrested.
But this went a little smoothly.
Is it supposed to go this smoothly?
Hey, we've got some evidence that your ex-president should be arrested.
Could you get... Oh, you're already arresting him.
Thank you. Thank you. Could you turn...
He's already on the flight. He's already on the way back.
It's like they're a little bit too friendly.
Or something. Anyway, let's talk about...
I will talk about the Hillary Clinton stuff in a minute.
Let's talk about Ukraine.
So the news is reporting that Russia is withdrawing some troops from the Ukraine border.
Is that true?
Well, it's true that they announced it.
It's not true that apparently anybody's noticing any difference in troop strength.
Probably just rotating some troops or some normal stuff.
Maybe it's a chess move.
Some people are suggesting it's all part of Putin's four-dimensional chess where he's trying to keep you guessing.
Am I going to attack? Am I not?
And it exhausts you.
You become psychologically exhausted.
You get ready for the attack.
And then it's off. And then you get ready, and then it's off.
And then he attacks. So it could be that.
It could be. Or it could be literally nothing.
Or it could be just troops rotating, whatever.
But let's talk about where that's going.
What's your current guess on whether Putin will attack?
Invasion, yes or no, in the comments.
Give me your current opinion.
Oh, I'm seeing mostly no's.
Interesting. On locals.
You know, in the news, on social media, it's mostly yes, right?
And how about on...
Oh, my goodness.
I'm seeing some yeses on YouTube, but mostly no's there as well.
Oh, all right, what's happening here?
I'm a little confused about what I'm seeing.
Is this a reflection of the uniqueness of my livestream audience?
Or is this actually a general opinion?
Does the general public think there's not going to be attack?
Because I would think that the media is telling us there will be.
Wow! Alright, take a minute to just drink this in, will you?
I'm pretty sure the mainstream media is telling us that an attack is inevitable.
Am I wrong? And yet the public, at least as represented by my live stream audience, I don't know how unique this is, that's the question.
None of you are believing this, are you?
It's like you're not buying it at all.
Did I do that to you?
Partly? How much of this is because of what I said?
Versus is it just obvious in some way?
Or you just don't believe the news anymore?
Wow! Are you as blown away by the other comments as I am?
Are you surprised that people aren't expecting this to be an attack?
Alright, here's my current analysis as of today.
Putin's calculation depends on...
The odds of success, right?
So he's got the odds of success of actually, you know, conquering and holding whatever it is he wants to conquer and hold.
But then there's also the unknown, you know, how big will the blowback be and sanctions, etc.
How bad will that be? So Putin is dealing with massive unknowns.
But one of the unknowns that you and I and the rest of the world have discounted is whether he can succeed.
Because we just look at the size of the army and say, oh, Russia, one of the biggest militaries.
And then you look at Ukraine and you say, okay, not one of the biggest militaries.
This should be quick work, right?
It should be like the United States just rolling up Iraq in the Iraq War.
It should be like that, right? I'm not so sure.
Because the biggest wild card is what weapons Ukraine has.
And I don't think Putin knows.
Do you? Do you think that Putin knows what kind of military assets or even strategies will be used if he attacks?
Because I keep hearing that he's amassing tanks.
Can somebody who knows more about all things military explain something to me?
Can you have a tank group move against a modern army?
Is that even a thing?
Because I would think that modern technology would take out tanks more easily than anything could take out anything.
Could you not?
And I don't know anything about the technology for tank killing, but is there not already a missile that you can fire in the air that comes down approximately where all the tanks are But before it hits the ground, it splits into 25 tank-killing projectiles that just find the biggest metal thing and kill it?
Like, that doesn't already exist?
Couldn't you fire one missile that takes out an entire tank, whatever you call it, squadron?
So I'm saying no.
But here's the question.
Would you know if it existed?
Do you think that the public is aware of the weaponry that would actually be employed by Ukraine?
With the help of the United States' advisors, if you know what I mean.
Because all you need is the advisors standing nearby and saying, OK, Ukrainians, push this button now.
So then it's the Ukrainians using the weapons, not us.
We just told them how to do it.
You don't think we've got some good stuff that the Russians are afraid of?
I don't know either. I'm just speculating.
But here's my current thinking.
One of the reasons that Putin would build up a force and keep it there for a while is to see what the reaction is.
Because that might scare up some information about what the response would be.
And he might be learning something he doesn't like.
In other words, Putin might have...
Made sure that Ukraine responded so they could see what the response would be, militarily.
And then they didn't like the response and said, oh, crap, this invasion isn't going to go so well.
Look what happened when the Soviet Union tried to attack Afghanistan.
As long as Afghanistan had modern weaponry and the willingness to die, they did well.
So I think Putin has a big unknown on what weaponry would be used against him.
And can you imagine if he attacked and lost?
Imagine that. Just imagine a scenario where Putin either got in there and couldn't get out and couldn't win, like just got a few miles in or whatever, got part of the country and then got bogged down.
What would that do for the...
The credibility of Russia's military strength.
It would be a disaster.
Because right now, people are afraid of the Russian military.
But what if they were shown to be ineffective in an actual war?
It would be different.
So I guess the argument would be that they've got some experience in Georgia, I guess.
Scott fell for another hoax, says Chen.
Which is the hoax?
Alright. And I also wonder how expensive it is for Putin to keep his army there idling.
I wonder if part of our strategy is to just...
Break the bank. Sort of Ronald Reagan-like.
Because Reagan did the Star Wars thing, which caused Soviet Union to overspend on defense, which led to their demise in part.
Could it be we're doing the same strategy of just trying to starve Putin, but maybe energy prices are so high that he's doing fine?
I don't know. Imagine if Trump had been president.
This is our favorite speculation.
Imagine if Trump had been president.
Well, number one, Trump would have been keeping the United States the number one producer of energy, or at least way more than we are now.
And if Trump had done that, what would be the price of energy around the world?
It would be lower, wouldn't it?
And if the price of energy were lower, wouldn't that come out of Putin's pocket and into ours?
I think it would. So, was the real strategic error when Biden started crippling our own domestic energy?
Because when he crippled our own energy stuff, what he did was he basically transferred assets to Russia and other places.
So, I think from a military perspective, Trump was 100%.
The thing we have to get right is to have the biggest domestic energy program we have pump oil like crazy, keep all of the prices for oil low, and basically degrade our enemies while we build up the capability to replace oil ourselves.
I feel like we're not talking enough about the military benefit of a domestic energy program.
And I feel like Trump knew that in every way.
Am I wrong? I don't think Trump was simply operating on the, hey, energy is good for the country.
I think he was operating also on a strategic, global kind of a basis.
Yeah. That was probably the biggest thing that Biden got wrong.
Speaking of...
Apparently there are conservative Democrats, which exist, that are fighting the more liberal Democrats in San Francisco, and three members of the San Francisco school board are up for re-election, and they're being challenged.
So the progressives on the school board are being challenged by the Democrats.
So it might not even be the Republicans.
Who make any kind of headroads against the super-progressive part of the country?
It might be the Democrats themselves having to shut it down so the Democrats can still have power.
So there'll be a civil war there happening.
New information on Long-Tovid.
David Boxenhorn tweeted today.
So there's a new study out, and when I talk about studies...
What level of credibility should you put on any study that I talk about?
And I say, hey, there's a new study.
What should be your first impression of the credibility of the study?
Low. 50% would be the top, the top.
If you put the odds of a new study being both accurate and telling you what you need to know, it's not more than 50%.
So that should be your skeptical, informed citizen starting point.
Who would disagree with that?
Any pushback on that?
That if you don't know anything else about it, the day you hear it, never give it more than 50% credibility.
Now, you're saying 50% is too high for what it really is, but I'm saying 50% is a cap.
If you found yourself thinking it's more likely true than not, You should check your thinking.
You should stop at could be true.
That's the highest you should go.
Not probably true.
Not more likely to be true.
That's a little too far. But possibly true.
That's as far as you should take it.
All right, so here's the news.
There's some suggestion that we know or that we have a good idea what causes long COVID, if long COVID is real.
I know, you have to play that skepticism in your head about everything, right?
Is long COVID even real?
It's a good question. But apparently the evidence is mounting than it is.
And there's a constellation of symptoms that finally may have revealed what's going on, which is this thing called a vagus...
I hope I'm pronouncing that right.
Is it vagus nerve?
So there's a nerve that starts in the back of your head and goes all the way down to your ass.
Some would say it goes all the way down to your taint.
But in medical terms, you don't talk about your taint.
You talk about the vagus nerve, and the thinking is that the virus damages that, at least, you know, potentially for a few months, and maybe longer, who knows.
But the damage to that would give you all of the range of symptoms that people are having, because it affects everything from, I guess, breathing to swallowing to talking, dizziness, heartbeat...
Persistent voice problems.
Did you know that? I'd never heard that there was a persistent voice problem to long COVID. That's the first time I've heard that.
I'm not even sure I believe it.
But if that's true, then it would be interesting and maybe tell us how we could treat it.
It might also give us some insight about why it affects some people more than others sort of thing.
So I think that's just a watch and see.
All right, here's the big story of the day.
How many of you were watching as the Durham filing recently showed on Friday, the Durham filing suggested that the Hillary Clinton campaign had funded some spying into the phone records of Trump both before he was in office and after?
And that the purpose of it was to gin up a phony narrative that Trump was communicating with Russia in a secret way.
Now, and then we all talked about how the mainstream media didn't touch it, right?
So there were two stories.
One is the story itself, and then the story of how the news was being suppressed.
But the suppression is over.
The New York Times just ran a large story about it by Charlie Savage.
He wrote this. And he has debunked the entire thing.
Debunked the entire thing.
So what you thought was the Hillary Clinton campaign paying lawyers and that the lawyers working with the tech people got this information they shouldn't have had for the purpose of a narrative.
According to the New York Times, that's all fake news.
Now, let me tell you something about the news ecosystem.
If you wanted to debunk something that was true, how would you do it?
How would you debunk something that was true?
Like if you wanted to get somebody to say something that is true, is not true, how would you do it?
Well, if you were...
Let's say an unknown person, you'd go to social media, and then who's going to believe it, right?
It's just you on social media.
So that doesn't work.
Let's say you go to a second-tier publication.
So whatever you want to call a second-tier.
And you get them to say, yeah, I debunked this.
Would that work? Well, it would help you tweet things.
You'd have something to tweet, but probably not.
That wouldn't make that much of a difference.
But if you were the Democratic Party and you had access to the most powerful everything, including people in the press, how would you make a true story disappear?
Here's how you would do it.
You would contact somebody who worked at the New York Times, primarily, right?
Second choice would be the Washington Post, but first choice by far is the New York Times.
And you would have them write a debunking piece that once the New York Times has said it's debunked, all of the lesser entities can just say, well, you don't believe me, but look at the New York Times, because that's the standard for news.
So the New York Times is doing exactly what you would expect if the Clinton campaign had corrupted them to write a cover story to debunk something that actually was true.
Now, I'm not making that allegation.
So I'm not saying that's what happened.
I'm saying that if a top Democrat wanted to debunk something that was true, it would look exactly like this.
Anybody disagree?
This is exactly what it would look like if the fix were in.
But it's also exactly what it would look like if the story wasn't true and they were just debunking it.
But let's see what he says.
And we should be able to tell pretty quickly by how he handles the story whether he's really debunking it and the whole thing was BS or if it's trying to cover up something and there's no debunk that's real.
What do you think? Before I go through it, do you think the debunk will stand up, or will it be transparent bullshit?
Let's see your vote before I go on.
All right. So here are some of the claims.
They're saying that Fox News is inaccurately declaring...
This is what Charlie Savage says in the New York Times.
It says that Fox News has inaccurately declared that Mr. Durham had said he had evidenced that Hillary Clinton's campaign had paid a technology company to infiltrate a White House server.
Did Fox News ever say that?
*sigh* Almost. Almost.
Fox News said something like that, but not that.
So what he did was he set up a straw man, a thing that Fox News did not say, and then he debunked it.
Now, how many people reading the New York Times also watch Fox News to know that what they're debunking is not what they said?
Not many. This is why it's so genius.
There's almost no crossover between people who watch Fox News and New York Times.
So if you're only trying to convince your side...
That something is true? You just say, Fox News says that unicorns can fly, and we proved it's not true.
Would you know that Fox News never claimed that unicorns can fly?
You would not. You would just accept that they probably said that, and it's debunked.
This is really clever stuff.
I mean, clever even though it's, like, right in your face and obvious and...
But clever in the sense that it works.
All right, let's go on. What else do they say to debunk the story?
Now, first of all, it's my understanding.
Can you give me a fact check? My understanding is that there is no claim that Hillary Clinton directly paid the tech company.
My understanding is that Clinton paid a law firm or somebody associated with it To guess some information, and then the lawyer got it from the tech company.
Is that true? So if what they're debunking is the campaign paying the tech company to spy, that was never the claim.
It wasn't. I don't think that what he's debunking is the actual claim.
He's taking out the middle part, the lawyers, which is the part that makes the whole story hold together.
So he's acting like they said there were no lawyers in the middle, Even though they are mentioned, but it's mentioned in a way that, you know...
Let's say it looks like it's intentionally misleading.
That's what it looks like.
We don't know what anybody's thinking, so I can't read his mind.
But as a reader, it comes across as intentionally trying to mislead me.
I don't know that that's true, but that's how I'm receiving it.
So Charlie Stavage also says...
The Washington Examiner claimed that this all meant there had been spying on Mr.
Trump's White House office.
And when mainstream publications held back, Mr.
Trump and his allies began shaming them.
So now they're claiming that the reason that people held back is that there was nothing there.
That's not true.
Do you think that's true?
There was nothing there and that's the reason everybody held back?
You know, at the very least, they would be doing the story about how the story is wrong, right?
At the very least, they waited for New York Times to go first.
Do you know why? Because they knew if they went first, it wouldn't be credible.
You needed somebody to write a long, complicated story that nobody understood, so that everybody from that point on could just point to the story.
What do you think the news will be talking about on CNN today?
CNN will be able to say, the New York Times debunked this.
And then the CNN viewers will say, did they?
I don't know. I didn't read that story.
But if all these people on CNN are saying it's debunked, it must be debunked.
So the way they're going to sell this is effectively.
It will work.
It is working. All right, here's some more.
That nothing is news.
So part of the defense or the debunk is that nothing new is Oh, not all of it.
But for one, much of this was not new.
And then they go on to say that the New York Times had reported some of this.
In October, what Mr.
Sussman, I guess this is one of the lawyers, had told the CAA about data suggesting that Russian-made smartphones were connected to networks at Trump Tower and the White House.
So the New York Times is saying, we did report this, so it's not new.
But, of course, the whole point of it is that it was reported fakely.
So they're claiming that they had already reported it without noting that what they reported was the fake narrative.
So they're claiming that it's old news by showing their own fake news, the part that was the narrative, not the real news, the narrative part that the Democrats planted.
Unbelievable. Now, how many people are going to do what I did, which is pour through this, compare it to the Durham report, and see how completely unethical all of this looks?
Nobody. Almost nobody.
All right. I'll about to talk a little, though.
Here's some other things they say.
Let's see. The conservative media also skewed what the filing said.
For example, Mr. Durham's filing never used the word infiltrate.
Well, did the conservative media say that he said infiltrate?
I don't believe they claimed he said infiltrate.
That sounds like their own word.
What does the word infiltrate mean?
Could somebody look it up while we're doing this?
Put it in the comments. Just paste it.
What's the definition of infiltrate?
Well, I would think it would mean get in somewhere you don't belong and get some stuff.
It means spying, right?
I feel like that would be a fair characterization if the facts were the way they thought the facts were.
Let's go on. So they're arguing with infiltrate as if it mattered that Durham didn't use that word.
But that didn't matter. So it's a fake debunk.
They're debunking Fox News' word because Durham didn't use it, but that's not the point.
It doesn't matter if Durham used it.
What he described sounds a little like infiltrating, doesn't it?
Now, whether it happened or not is a good question, but whether you would characterize it as infiltrating doesn't seem like the big question here.
All right. And most important, this is what the New York Times says, contrary to the reporting from the Conservatives, the filing never said the White House data that came under scrutiny was from the Trump era.
That is correct.
So this debunk correctly says that the filing never said the White House data came under scrutiny was from the Trump era.
But that's not a debunk.
That's what the story is.
So notice that they're acting like this is a debunk, but what they're saying is the same thing that the actual story says, that it was not all from the Trump era.
That being the entire point of the Durham complaint, that they should have told the...
I guess law enforcement should have been told that this data came both before Trump's era and after.
And since that part was left out, The implication was they were selling a narrative which was a lie.
The narrative was that something about the Trump administration is what activated these sketchy-looking contacts with Russia, but apparently they had been going on since 2014.
So, the New York Times is acting like they're debunking exactly what conservative media also agrees is true.
So they're saying something that agrees completely with conservative media, but because you don't know what conservative media is, if you're a New York Times reader, they can say they're debunking it while completely agreeing with it.
Now, keep in mind, all of this is in the context of a big, complicated piece.
If you read this without knowing the other side, you know, the side that I'm trying to present here, if you didn't know any of that, you would not suspect anything was missing.
This is so diabolical.
All right. And then they quote lawyers for, you know, some of the people who are accused of stuff.
And the lawyers say, what Trump and some news outlets are saying is wrong, say the blah, blah, blah lawyers for Mr.
Dagan. Now, of course, the story does need to quote both sides.
You know, they're both sides. But they're just saying they're wrong.
And then they go on and say this is the reason they're wrong, according to the lawyers.
They say the cybersecurity researchers were investigating malware in the White House.
We don't know that.
Could be true, could be not.
Not spying on the Trump campaign.
And to our knowledge, all the data they used was non-private DNS data from before Trump took office.
That's just not true.
Can you do a fact check on that?
I believe what the lawyers are saying is unambiguously not true, and the New York Times knows it's not true, and they're only reporting in the same story, and the conservative news knows it's not true.
Am I right? Somebody says it is true.
I'm saying that the DNS data included before Trump and after Trump, and the lawyers are saying it was only before Trump.
Do you think the lawyers are correct?
If the lawyers are correct, then all the reporting is wrong, which is possible.
Well, this is pretty sketchy.
I don't know what's true about that.
And also, it seems to me that the tech people did have legal access to the data.
But did the tech people have authority to give it to the Clinton campaign?
Isn't the big question, how did that information get into the hands of the Clinton campaign?
That's the question, right?
Or am I missing the big question?
So it's not that the tech people were spying.
It's that the tech people gave information to somebody who was spying.
Like, that's different.
Well, it's different in one sense.
It's different in the sense that the accusation would be about the middle people more than...
The tech people, but why did the tech people even give that information to anybody?
I don't know. Did they have access?
So there's so many questions of this.
You can see how easy it's going to be to confuse this to the point where you're not sure what's true.
Somebody's claiming they're apolitical.
That's BS. And then the New York Times just throws this in like it's a fact.
So without a...
A link or anything, they say, or Charlie Savage says, after Russians hacked networks for the White House and the Democrats in 2015 and 2016, it went on.
Wait a minute. Is that true?
Do you believe that Russia hacked networks for the White House and the Democrats in 2015?
I know it was reported, but do you believe it's true?
I believe we can't tell.
I believe it was reported as true, but we don't know.
Because if you're telling me that hackers can't cover their tracks, I don't know what world I live in.
Do we live in a world where hackers can't cover their tracks?
I thought they could. Why does hacking even exist?
It seems like it'd be hard to be a hacker if you couldn't cover your tracks.
All right. So I thought that was interesting.
They slip it in there like that's unquestionably true.
I certainly question it.
And then they say a spokesman for Mr.
Durham declined to comment toward the end.
But why would Mr.
Durham decline to comment?
Shouldn't that also include the statement that of course he doesn't comment because you never comment during the investigation?
So acting like he wouldn't comment makes him look guilty of saying something wrong.
Well, he didn't comment.
But that's not the case.
It's just something where you don't comment.
Now, what do you think about this?
The cybersecurity researchers were investigating malware.
Do you think that in the course of investigating malware, that's what caused them to find out all these weird Russia server connections?
Maybe. Possibly.
But I'd have to see why looking into one got you the information on the other.
It could. I mean, that's not impossible.
But it doesn't sound true, even if it is.
Anyway, it looks to me like the New York Times is running cover for this story by pumping out a bunch of inaccurate statements of what the conservatives are saying and also trying to sort of obscure that connection between the campaign and the data.
All right. Anything else happening?
Nope. Nope.
That's it. That's what's happening.
Read up more of this and get back to us tomorrow.
The problem is that no matter how much I read up on it, if I got to the point where I understood it, Then the explaining to you would be too complicated.
So this is sort of a situation that can't be explained because it's just too complicated.
So when you have a situation that can't be explained, the best way to hide it is to have the New York Times pretend they're debunking it and then just call it good and walk away.
And it looks like that's what's going to happen.
And it looks like it's working. You are unable to explain something?
Well, unable in the specific sense that if something is detailed and complicated and all of the complication matters, what are you going to do?
There is a category of things that is one of my favorite mental hobbies, is thinking about things that can't be communicated.
Sometimes because they're too complicated, but sometimes because there's nobody you can trust.
The only people who know the information for sure are the ones you can't trust at all.
So there are situations where things simply can't be communicated, and this might be one.
You'd have to litigate it in court.
Yeah. So if we were going to simplify the case...
Of whether it's debunked or not, I think it comes down to, did the Clinton campaign ask lawyers that they paid to get some information to create a narrative that they knew was false?
And the New York Times did not debunk that.
They pretended the story was a little bit different and debunked the different parts.
Canada has just removed all civil liberties.
Not worth a comment. Well, here's my comment on...
I did talk about Trudeau.
I think that Canada is in good shape.
So I'm liking what I'm seeing in Canada.
I believe that the great clawback is underway, clawing back our rights around the world, not just the U.S., and that the truckers are going to get what they want, I think, in the long run.
But it might require removing their government first.
So I do think that the truckers took out the Trudeau government.
Do you agree? I think Trudeau's done.
I mean, it's hard for me to read the room in Canada.
But from my perspective, I think he's completely done.
Am I wrong about that?
Because I can't imagine that even his low approval rating as it exists, I can't imagine it survives this.
You know, this doesn't look like anything that Biden's doing.
Compare the way Biden is running things, even if you don't like it, to how Trudeau ran things, right?
You could think Biden did a ton of things wrong, and it doesn't come close to what Trudeau is doing to his country right now.
It doesn't come close. Not on an emotional level, not on an ethical level, not on a moral level, not on anything.
To me, Biden just looks like somebody who's trying to do the best he can.
Whatever is happening in Canada doesn't look like that to me.
It looks like a personality problem.
It does. It looks like Trudeau painted himself in a corner and can't get out.
It doesn't look like a Canada problem.
It looks like one person has a problem.
And he's making that...
His personal political problem has become the country's problem.
Now, this said, there are a number of my critics who said, Scott, don't you understand the importance of keeping the...
keeping things open?
To which I say, that's the point.
That's the point. The point is that the country, or at least a segment of the country, has reached the point where they will shoot themselves in their own head before they will give up their freedom.
Do you know how the only way that can be communicated?
Shoot yourself in your own head.
That's the only way anybody's ever going to believe it.
And the truckers are doing that.
The truckers are calling the bluff like I've never seen a bluff called in my life.
They are calling the frickin' bluff.
And so, when Trudeau is acting like he only has one choice, no, he has another choice.
Freedom. Freedom's always the choice.
Now, that would probably kill more people, but he's got a choice.
And I think the public's...
Here's what I think Trudeau did completely wrong.
And I would argue that Biden got this wrong as well, but not as wrong.
Trudeau did not respect the opinion on the other side.
Big mistake. Big mistake.
I think he could have done everything he's doing now and said, you know, I totally hear you.
I totally hear you.
If you'll get out of the trucks, I'll put you on TV. We'll talk about it on TV. You know, I think your message is important.
And I appreciate anybody who's fighting for freedom.
He should have been on their side while disagreeing with them.
You know what I mean? Had he been more capable, he would have been solidly on the side of the truckers while trying to stop them.
And he could have done that.
Trump could have done it.
Am I wrong? You don't think Trump could have thread that needle?
He could have. Trump could have sided...
Let's say it had been an American problem.
Trump could have sided with the blue-collared workers, and he could have stopped them.
Nobody else could have done that.
I don't think. I don't think there's anybody else who could have done that.
Now, of course, it's speculation because he didn't have to do it.
But I don't think anybody could have thread the needle like that.
And this was Trudeau's opportunity...
To be at least as clever as Trump in managing the room.
Trump can manage the room.
He doesn't manage the press, because that's a different issue.
But he can manage the room.
Yeah. All right.
That is my show for today.
I hope you liked it. It's the best thing you'll ever see today.
