Episode 1929 Scott Adams: Let's Talk About Trump's Announcement, War With The Cartels And More
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Content:
President Trump understands risk of TikTok
Twitter employees criticizing Elon Musk
President Trump's announcement
Fentanyl war suggestions
Celebrities who lost money with FTX
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Ever experienced. Do you think we'll be talking about Trump's announcement?
Oh yeah! Trump announces and the media pounces.
You like that? Trump announces and the media pounces.
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Go! We have a party fowl.
Party fowl. Hold on, hold on.
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Stephanie, Stephanie, I can't do everything for you.
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Set your alarm a little bit early or drink a little bit slower.
Try to hit the point.
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Stephanie, we trust you.
We know you can do it.
Take your game up a level, Stephanie.
All right. Well, we'll talk about Trump, but let me give a few minutes for people to come in.
The FBI's Director Wray says the FBI is, quote, extremely concerned about TikTok operating in the U.S., No, they're not.
No, they're not.
Do you know what extremely concerned looks like?
The pandemic.
Extremely concerned is when you stop all travel from China.
Because there's a virus over there.
We're extremely concerned.
We're all going to wear masks and take vaccinations.
That's extremely concerned.
World War II? Extremely concerned about Hitler.
So concerned we mounted an army ourselves and attacked.
That's what extremely concerned looks like.
Do you know what extremely concerned does not look like?
Oh, I'm extremely concerned!
That's what it doesn't look like.
Extremely concerned would be, at the very minimum, turn it off.
Turn it off. And then figure out if you should turn it back on.
You don't leave it on when you're extremely concerned.
You turn it off first.
Figure out if there's a problem.
Maybe turn it back on.
Maybe. But it's just a fat lie that they're extremely concerned.
They're not. Now, here's what I believe is why they're not extremely concerned.
I believe that Republican and maybe just government people ignorance is really killing us.
Because I believe this is a case of ignorance, and this is what I mean.
I believe when the FBI thinks of TikTok as a threat, they think of the data privacy part of the threat.
Ooh, China will find out too much about our citizens, which is true.
But that's not the threat.
The threat is that they can program our brains directly through their product.
Do you think that the director of the FBI even understands that?
I say no. I would say his actions and his words suggest he doesn't even know what the threat is.
He literally doesn't know what the threat is.
Because I would say that out of 100 people, only two out of 100 would understand the threat.
Now, most of my audience does because I understand the threat.
So I explained it to you.
But who explained it to Director Ray?
Who talked to Director Ray, who has my level of persuasion experience, and said to him, oh, you're missing the big show here.
The show is that they're programming our minds.
It's not about data privacy.
I mean, it's also about data privacy.
That's not unimportant.
But data privacy is something I would be extremely concerned about, but maybe not doing that much about it.
Doesn't that sound like he's only extremely concerned about some data privacy?
If the question was, you know they're programming our brains, or if they're not actively doing it, you know they could turn it on at any minute.
They just turn a button, you know, figuratively speaking, and we get more of something or less of something, the TikTok users do.
Why in the world does he pretend not to understand that?
Now, let me ask you, have you ever heard anybody in the government say what I just said?
That the real problem is that they're programming us?
I haven't heard it.
I've only heard data privacy, which means that our policy is based on ignorance.
I'm not wrong. I'm not wrong.
Anybody who understood the problem would have turned it off immediately.
Do you know who understands the problem?
Trump. Trump does.
Do you know why Trump understands the problem?
Because he understands persuasion.
He knows how he does it.
He knows that if his message were on TikTok, it would be more effective.
He tried to ban it.
Now, he got it shut down, and that's on him a little bit, too.
But Trump actually understood the risk.
Do you know what? So that's what extremely concerned looks like.
Trump was extremely concerned.
He tried to turn it off.
That's what extremely concerned looks like.
I'm not wrong, right?
A little bit concerned is talking about it.
Extremely concerned, you try to turn it off.
There's no argument there.
Ivermectin continues to entertain.
I did not think that the Ivermectin story could be as deep as it is or last as long.
But listen to these two stories at the same time.
Okay? Now, nothing about what I say will be pro or anti-Ivermectin.
I'm past that conversation.
We're just going to talk about how it's being handled in the news, right?
So at the same time, The Daily Beast is calling out Dr.
Simone Gold. She was part of that group of rogue doctors.
Have I ever mentioned my opinion of rogue doctors?
The problem with rogue doctors is that for everyone that's, like, right and, you know, sounding the alarm and we should really listen to them, those exist.
There's going to be five who are frauds.
Maybe 10. Maybe 10 who were frauds for every real one who really got the right answer first.
So how do you know? How many of you believe that this Dr.
Simone Gold and her organization were genuine?
Because it turns out that they're being called a COVID disinformation organization.
Of course, that has to do with their Claims about ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine in particular.
But apparently they raised a ton of money and its founder, Simone Gold, used some of that money to buy a mansion where she lives with her 20 years younger underwear model boyfriend.
She took a $100,000 private jet trip And she actually went to jail for a January 6 protest where she was accused of not using her medical training to help an injured policeman.
Did that really happen?
There's a report that she was near somebody who got injured and just kept protesting instead of helping an injured person.
She is a doctor.
I don't know. It's not illegal.
Didn't break any laws, but...
So how many of you thought that Dr.
Simone Gold and their hydroxychloroquine little organization, how many of you thought that they were legitimate?
Is anybody saying, oh, shit, I thought they were real?
Anybody? A lot of us.
A lot of us. Now, to my credit, I never thought they were real.
Can you confirm that for me?
The people who've been watching me since the beginning, can you confirm that I always called bullshit on that group?
Confirmed, right? Now, I'm not saying that hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin will work or don't work.
I'm just too bored with that conversation.
It'd be great to know the answer someday, but I'm bored with that.
But I did call bullshit on it, so I get the win on that.
Will you give me the win? Will you give me a clean win on calling that bullshit?
But I want to be clear, I didn't call bullshit on the drugs.
I don't have a firm opinion on that.
I have a, let's see, statistical opinion, but I don't have any certainty about it.
Alright, so at the same time that we found out that one prominent group pushing ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were apparently more about the fundraising than the science, at the same time we find out that this, that exchange FTX, apparently they were the major funder of an ivermectin study that debunked ivermectin.
Could this be any more interesting?
How in the world did this FTX get connected to every ugly thing in the world?
It's just connected to everything you don't like, one way or another.
Now that doesn't mean the study was flawed.
A lot of people said it was flawed.
I'm no expert there.
Do you have to ask some pretty big questions when a fraudulent organization does a study that debunks something that, if it had been proven the other way, would have been, you know, this huge game-changer?
Eh, you gotta raise one eyebrow on that.
One eyebrow up. All right.
Let's talk about Twitter 2.0.
I guess that's what Musk, I think Musk is calling it that.
So at midnight, I guess he sent out, last night, he sent out the staff an email to everybody that they have until 5 p.m.
Thursday to decide if they want to be part of Twitter 2.0.
Now, Twitter 2.0 will require, as Musk said, long hours and a focus on engineering.
So it'll be kind of a big sacrifice and very, very difficult.
What do you think of that?
Good management, bad management?
Because we all get to watch, you know, one of the great entrepreneurs of our time doing what he does.
Now, Twitter apparently had a culture...
That was maybe at a little bit of odds with the, let's say, the startup mentality.
So Twitter had gone past the startup mentality, and they were in sort of a comfortable situation, even though they weren't making money, oddly enough.
And I saw this in a related story.
Are you watching Musk fire his own employees on Twitter?
Oh, my God. It's horrifying...
At the same time, it's electrifying.
At the same time, it's fascinating.
At the same time, it's educational.
It is everything.
It's funny. It's horrible.
It's everything. But here's what I took from it.
There were a number of employees who thought it would be safe to insult the owner of their own company...
Somewhat rudely, in public.
What caused them to think they could do that?
What was it that caused the Twitter employees to think that they'd be safe criticizing Elon Musk in public?
They found out quickly that was not the case.
I don't know, because we can't read their minds.
But let us speculate just for fun, for entertainment.
Don't you think they thought they were kind of protected in terms of free speech?
They thought they had free speech, but other people didn't.
Right? They thought they were free to say that because it was their opinion.
It was their honest opinion.
So they thought, well, I can put my honest opinion anywhere I want because we got this free speech and stuff.
But it turns out That, you know, companies don't have free speech per se for employees, and they found that out.
Musk trained them.
Now, I do love the fact that Musk is making a very obvious big, you know, psychological message that the old way is dead and you can only stay under the new assumptions.
I think he's doing a really good job in communicating his priorities.
I don't know if it'll work.
But I do think he needed to do it.
I would agree with, at least from the outside, it looks like he couldn't just take the existing staff and make them do new things.
They were sort of old dogs who needed to learn new tricks.
So I think it's a combination of putting in new blood, plus, you know, weeding out the ones who think they have some kind of entitlement, I guess.
So he got rid of their free lunches, because they weren't eating it much and it was expensive.
And the other thing he did was, he's bringing back, can you give me the names?
The two people, the two people who he fired from Twitter, he hired back.
Ligman Johnson. Ligman Johnson.
But they were pranksters.
So they did a prank where the media thought they were two fired Twitter employees, but it was just a prank.
They just stood outside the headquarters with boxes, like they had just cleaned out their desks, which is frickin' hilarious.
So Musk actually posed with a picture with the two of them, with his arms around them, saying, welcome back to Twitter.
Now, you're definitely getting an advanced course in how to do marketing without a marketing department.
So has he proven for sure that firing the Twitter marketing department was a good move?
Can we give him that?
Can we now say, oh yeah, well, you know, because traffic is way up, attention on Twitter is way up, He's probably attracting engineers at this point.
He's probably, some people say, oh, that could be interesting now.
I'll go there. I don't know.
If you judge it by how angry the employees say they are, it would look like a mess.
Right? But that's not how you judge things.
Because he's intentionally, by strategy, putting pressure on them.
And that's capitalism, and it's a free market, and, you know, they should be fairly employable.
If they're working at Twitter, that should make you fairly employable somewhere else.
Or maybe it works the other way.
I don't know. But watching Musk fire people for their opinions is the ultimate karma completes the loop.
Because Twitter was under the, you know, the company was sort of under the operating assumption that they didn't have to apply by free speech because they were a private company.
Or they were, you know, a company.
They weren't the government. And now Musk is informing them that those same rules apply to them.
That he can fire any employee he wants because it's a private company.
Now it's private. So, I don't know, karma's really doing its thing.
Let's talk about Trump and his announcement.
I missed the first few minutes because I had some technical difficulties last night.
But somebody told me he used the phrase golden, golden age.
Did he say that the first two years were a golden age?
You know what's interesting about that?
It might have been.
A hundred percent of us would go back to that, wouldn't we?
Because it was pre-pandemic.
So, you know, you can't say it's all about Biden.
It's the pandemic as well.
But golden age.
Huh. It's a catchy phrase.
I wonder where he got it. When I watched the presentation, I said to myself, he is clearly keeping his energy low, or he has low energy.
Now, he raised his energy later, so it looks like it was intentional.
And I was waiting for his critics to say, low energy, and low energy Jeb.
How long did it take his critics to say it was a low energy Jeb speech?
About a minute. Yeah, I think CNN pundit and MSNBC pundit both said low energy.
Now, what did you think?
Those of you who saw it, did it look low energy to you?
Or did it look like he was trying to be more serious?
Did it look like low energy or strategy?
Go. Low energy or strategy?
Serious or just low energy?
Strategy? I think it was both.
I think it was both.
But on top of that, I think he might have had some problem that day.
I think he might have been a little sick.
He looked nervous, yes.
But the nervous part didn't make sense.
Here are some things we can speculate.
Speculation number one, he was a little under the weather.
Do you think he's been getting much sleep in the past week or so?
I doubt it.
Imagine what his life was like before making the announcement.
Imagine the conversations with his wife.
Imagine the conversation with Don Jr., with Eric, with Ivanka, with Jared.
And how many of them were saying, Dear God, do not run.
Please, please, for the good of the family...
The family can't handle this, you know, just take your win for the first term and go away.
Do you think that the family was, yeah, we're on your side, let's do this?
Now, I think they were all treating him respectfully, but I don't think he was getting his family on his side in the way that he wanted.
When he introduced his family, he introduced Eric.
Right? I think Eric was the family member in attendance.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Eric had the least role in his last election.
Right? I mean, he was involved, but he had the smallest role.
But he was the only one at the announcement.
Now, we do have reasons why the others didn't come.
Apparently, Don Jr. was on a hunting trip, and there was a weather problem, and he couldn't get home.
Does that sound true to you?
Do you think Don Jr. was on a hunting trip and he couldn't get home?
Could be. Yeah, it could be.
Because if you follow him on Instagram, his hunting trips tend to be things like, you know, fly somewhere and then you take a little, like a little aquatic plane into the bush in Alaska and, you know, hunt bears and take your little plane back and stuff.
So he does do the kind of trips where if you were going to get stranded for a few days because of weather...
Yeah, but it's actually a perfectly understandable thing.
Now, let me take it to the next level.
If your father were going to announce for the presidency, wouldn't you check the weather forecast before you went on the trip?
Would you take that risk?
Would you take the risk that maybe you couldn't get back?
I don't know. We'll see.
I mean, Don Jr. retweeted the announcement, so he's showing support online.
It is plausible.
It's plausible. But you have to ask the question.
I can't imagine that the family is too keen on him running again.
It's hard to imagine they would be.
But Ivanka issued a A very well-written statement about why she wasn't there.
And I'll tell you, Ivanka just nails it every time.
Her statement was, you know, very supportive.
You know, unambiguously supportive.
Not the kind of bullshit where you think they're using weasel words to support.
It was just full support. You know, loving and support.
But she said her kids are a certain age.
And then she mentioned the age of the kids, and they're like 6 to 11 or something.
They're in that range somewhere.
That's exactly the age where you don't want to be gone, right?
Well, really, there's lots of ages you don't want to be gone.
But that one's really a critical one, isn't it?
That's like a really important one.
So I'm all on board on Ivanka not sacrificing her family for the good of the country.
Can we agree? I think she would be a huge asset, but I don't think I want her to do that.
I want her to take care of her kids.
She earned it. I mean, she did way more than anybody would be expected to do in the first administration.
Ooh, text me while I'm doing my show.
How important is this?
Oh, okay. I wanted to keep it classy rather than rally-wise, yeah.
It looked like you wanted to keep it classy.
All right. So let's analyze his persuasion.
Do you think that his energy that he showed was good persuasion?
Because here's what I saw.
I saw that even his critics were having trouble doing the, it's a dark, scary speech.
The biggest problem with Trump is that he scares Democrats, am I right?
He scares them. Because he talks like, you know, they think, oh no, it's Mussolini.
When they see him talking, and I will, you know, kick everybody's butt, and I will make everything great, and we will go to glory.
They say that's a fascist.
But if he talks like Chuck Schumer, yeah, well, we're going to look at the budget really hard, and we're going to take a look at this and try to get some bipartisan support, right?
So he basically did his impression of a boring politician, because that's what the public seems to want.
So, number one, I don't think it was 100% intentional.
I don't think his energy level was 100% intentional.
I do think he meant to keep it professional, so that part was intentional.
But the energy looked like there was something going on with him in his personal life.
Would anybody disagree?
Did anybody pick up there's just something going on in his personal life?
Maybe the announcement himself?
Maybe sick? Maybe something else?
Yeah. Maybe old.
At first I thought it was age, but when he got off the teleprompter, his energy picked up, and then he was closer to his regular self.
Now here's another speculation.
Did it seem like he was having a hard time seeing the teleprompter?
I felt like he couldn't see the teleprompter.
Can you think of a reason that would be true?
I can. Why would he not be able to see the teleprompter in that event when in all the other events he could?
Not age, but that's possible.
It's possible he needs glasses and won't wear them.
But I have another possibility.
I believe that the professionals who do the technology at Mar-a-Lago are not the same as the professionals who help a president or a campaign.
I think he's relying on less qualified assistants at the moment, especially because he was home.
I mean, he was literally home.
So here's my guess.
I think they put the... Maybe you'll find the sound, but it looks like the teleprompters were maybe too far away.
Or maybe, you know, too wide or something.
Maybe they had some, you know, glare on them or something.
But he looked like he was struggling to read it.
And at one point I thought he read it wrong.
Like he said something that I didn't even think made sense, but he was reading it.
So, I don't know. That's what it looked like.
I guess we have some questions here.
But... Some said he had no new policy suggestions, but he did say execute dealers, drug dealers, and he did say war on the cartels.
Isn't that new? Isn't that pretty new?
And isn't it the most important issue?
So did he manage to come up with something bold and new on the most important issue in the country, in my opinion, and it was reported as he didn't say anything new?
Did that actually happen?
Yeah. He just said, attack Mexico, and it was reported as nothing new.
So here we go, right?
Here we go. It's like, first of all, Daniel Dale from CNN did a fact check on Trump, but he was, you know, He, of course, fact-checked everything is false.
Basically everything Trump said was not true, which I picked up as well.
Did you pick that up?
That most of what Trump said was not true?
You can all tell, right?
I mean, I don't know what was true, but pretty much the vast majority of his claims were so out of context or just completely made up I mean, yeah.
Now, compare that to Biden's lies.
They're a little bit different.
You know, when Trump is, you know, slinging his bullshit, it sounds like a salesperson.
It sounds like, you know, big first offers.
It sounds like he's negotiating with the public.
And I feel like I... I feel it in context.
The context is you know who Trump is, you know he overclaims, and then you just bake that into your thinking.
But with Biden, he's just lying.
It feels like a lower level.
Like they're both lying about everything.
Stipulated. Stipulated.
They're both lying about everything.
As presidents do.
But I do think...
But I think one does it with a salesman's flair, and one with a politician's flair, and it feels different.
All right. Let's talk about...
Well, we'll get back to Fenton in a minute here.
He didn't really have any visual persuasion this time, did he?
It was visual in terms of he had American flags behind him and blah, blah.
But... I'm talking about a visual for his message.
Build the wall.
You could see the wall.
He would just say it's a big, beautiful wall with a door in it, and you just would see it.
He didn't really have anything that you could see, right?
I mean, war on the cartels is a little more concept-y.
You can kind of see it. Yeah, he needs more of a visual.
All right. So, the other thing I have a complaint of is he talked about bringing America back to glory.
He wants America to go back to glory.
He said it twice, maybe three times.
That is a terrible word.
Yeah, get rid of that word.
What does that sound like when you hear it?
Glory. Sounds like a fascist.
That sounds like a fascist talk.
We'll bring our country to glory.
The Roman Empire! The Third Reich!
To glory! Now who doesn't know that sounds that way?
I feel like he's off his game a little bit there.
That's not a word you should use three times.
That's a word you should use zero times.
So get rid of glory.
That's just a distraction.
There's a million ways to say that without that word.
Alright. Here's how the critics are talking about his speech.
I heard this a couple of times.
That Trump is, quote, a twice-impeached insurrectionist.
That's not an exact quote.
But didn't you hear people saying twice-impeached and then January 6th?
He's a twice-impeached insurrectionist.
I guess that's going to be their go-to play.
Because I don't think they all thought of it spontaneously.
Maybe they did. I predicted that he might tease a Carrie Lake just by mentioning her.
He didn't mention her, did he? I didn't catch every minute.
Did he mention Carrie Lake?
I don't think so. Nope.
He didn't mention anybody by name who was a competitor or in the race, did he?
I don't think he was naming names.
Oh, he did mention Herschel Walker, right?
Yeah, I caught that.
Yeah, I don't think he wanted to distract attention from himself.
Maybe that was the right call.
It would have been more exciting if he had teased a Vice President, but it might not be a mistake to put the attention on himself at this point.
I could see that. Here's an MSNBC opinion.
It doesn't matter who said it.
I would give credit to whoever said this, but it doesn't matter.
It's the MSNBC opinion.
And this is from a written piece.
But it's no surprise Trump is trotting out the same old trash.
The core of his appeal, after all, includes a refusal to admit failure.
Is that a core to his appeal?
It's a feature. It's a feature.
What is it? Is it in the top three?
Is that what his supporters think?
I go, you know, I really like it when he's wrong and he doesn't admit it.
That's what I like.
I don't care about all the things he accomplished and the economy, but boy, yeah...
It's that not admitting when he was wrong thing.
Does MSNBC really think that?
Like, that's the core of his appeal?
And then they talked about him saying that, quote, I think if they win, I should get all the credit.
If they lose, I should not be...
They report that like that was serious.
Like, he actually said that as a matter of fact.
Oh, yeah. If they win, I should get all the credit.
If they lose, it should be their fault.
It was clearly a joke when he said it.
Clearly. It could not be more clearly a joke.
But they reported it like he just said it like it was serious.
And here we go again.
All right. And then they said he included in his speech the usual racist dog whistles.
Did anybody hear any racist dog whistles?
Do I have a hearing problem?
Do I need to get my hearing checked because I'm missing the whistles?
What would be an example of a racist dog whistle in the speech?
Glory? I didn't hear any.
I didn't hear all of it, but I didn't hear any.
You didn't hear it either.
Yeah, America. America. But the MSNBC people can just slip that into an opinion piece without any kind of explanation.
All right.
Let's talk about fentanyl, because it has a lot to do with Trump.
All right. You said he'd wage a war on the cartels.
And also, he wanted death penalty for the dealers.
I think he meant the fentanyl dealers and the big ones, but I'd like him to clarify that a little bit better.
Somebody says, stop making excuses for his narcissism.
So, Tyrannus, whose name actually has anus right in it, Do you think that was his narcissism when he smiled and said, I'll take credit if they win and it's their fault if they lose?
You think that was actually narcissism?
You think your therapist would say, well, that's something I've got to work on.
Look at that narcissism.
Or would they say, that's an obvious joke.
Well, you decide.
So, since Trump does not say what wage war on the cartels means, there's no reason to think it means any more than we're already doing.
Don't you think the border control people think they're waging war on the cartels by seizing people as they come across and stuff?
I don't know. They probably think they're already doing it.
So, I don't know what wage war on the cartels means, but I have some suggestions.
I have some suggestions. I heard somebody complain that if we attack the cartel operations, that the Mexican government would, you know, we can't do that because the Mexican government would see it as an act of war.
To which I said, are you even fucking listening to me?
Yes! I am promoting an act of war against the Mexican government because they're owned by the cartels, and I also don't care what they think.
What are they going to do? Attack us?
Is the Mexican army going to invade the United States?
No, they're just going to be really unhappy and say things about it.
That's it. The Mexican government is not relevant to this conversation.
As soon as you imagine they're a regular government, like with a government we should listen to and respect and all that, it's not that.
They're owned by the cartels.
Obviously, because the cartels couldn't operate the way they do if the government had any control.
Yeah, the Mexican army, it must be owned by the cartel, obviously.
Otherwise, the Mexican army would, you know, take out the cartel.
So here's how I would do it.
I'd drop a mother-of-all bombs on one cartel operation, and then I'd tell them, that's one, so they know there's more coming.
Now, is the mother of all bombs the right size munitions for this job?
No. No, it would be enormously oversized.
Would it kill innocent civilians?
Yes, ones that are around a fentanyl lab.
I'm sorry. Oops.
Yeah, I mean, nobody wants to kill civilians.
You know, I'm not a heartless monster.
Nobody wants that. But it's a war.
And if you're in a war and you're standing next to a war asset, you better get out of the way.
So I would drop a mother-of-all bomb on whatever is a good target and let them know that's the level that's coming.
That's the level that's coming.
Because if you send in some people with guns and some people shoo people, the cartel says, well, we have guns.
We'll just get better guns and we'll...
We'll fight ya. You want to drop a bomb on them so there's nobody to shoot back.
Who are they going to shoot at?
The plane that flew away?
You want to make sure they have no response.
There are just fewer of them.
And then just keep doing it.
And then other people said, Scott, Scott, Scott.
When did... Let's talk about the death penalty.
So Trump also said death penalty.
We assume he means the bigger fentanyl dealers, but that can use some clarification.
Now, somebody said, Scott, the death penalty doesn't stop murder, so why would it stop fentanyl?
What do you think of that argument?
The death penalty does not deter murder, which I believe is true.
Why would it stop anything else?
Well, I will see your analogy, which is useless, and I'll top it with my own analogy, which is useless, but at least it equals your analogy.
It works with terrorism.
The reason we haven't been attacked, I think, or at least part of the reason, is that killing the leaders actually works.
Killing the people who are good at it means that they would have to be replaced by people who are not so good at it.
Or at the very least, less experienced.
Do you think that 9-11 would have happened without Bin Laden?
Probably not. And maybe you train some people, but if you take out the top 10 terrorists from every organization, what is the 11th best terrorist good at?
Probably not running a terrorist organization, if you're the 11th best terrorist in the group, right?
Paul says you're joking, right?
No. No.
You take any organization and get rid of the top 10 best people and what's left.
Take Congress. Take Congress and get rid of the top ten effective people in Congress.
What do you have left? Nothing.
There's nothing left.
You've got Fetterman. Do you want Fetterman?
Basically, you need to kill the top guys until you get down to the Fetterman level of cartel members.
Once you're down to the Fetterman level, you can maybe ease off a little bit, because he's not going to work that well.
Let's see, what else?
But I also say that we should try.
Because maybe killing all the cartel-competent people wouldn't make any difference.
You should still do it, because they're murderers.
I was arguing that a small fentanyl dealer, you know, somebody who sold a few pills to a friend or something, should not be executed.
But then I revised that.
And I said, if you do it twice, yeah, you should be executed.
If you do it once, that's probably just you doing a favor for a friend.
Oh, I bought some extra pills, here's some for you.
I mean, that's what the lowest-end dealing looks like.
Just somebody wants to pay for their own drugs, so they buy a little and sell it to some friends.
Like, I don't want to kill that guy.
Unless he gets caught twice.
The second time he does it, yeah, kill him.
Kill him. That's where my head's at.
Let's see. And I'd also like to point out that killing people to reduce the murder rate, the data doesn't suggest it works.
But... I'm not a criminologist, so I'm going to need a little fact check on this.
How many people are murdered by people who have already been executed?
Is it a lot? The people who have already been executed, do they still kill a lot of people after they're dead?
As ghosts, perhaps?
Because don't people who kill people often kill more than one?
I mean, I'm not talking about a mass murder, but if you're a person who's killed one person, I feel like you might do it again.
So I would think that 100% of the people who were likely to kill more than one person didn't do it after they died.
I don't know. Why do you think there hasn't been more action on fentanyl from our government?
What's your theory? Why there's not been more action on fentanyl by our government?
I believe it's I don't think it's money and corruption, believe it or not.
I mean, I would easily go to that.
I always go to corruption when things don't make sense.
It must be corruption, otherwise they'd be doing something else.
In this case, I'm going to offer you another hypothesis.
Republican ignorance.
I believe it's Republican ignorance, specifically Republican.
Here's what I mean. If you randomly pick somebody in Congress, a Republican, and say, what are we going to do about this fentanyl, what would they say?
What would the typical Republican in Congress say they're going to do to build the wall?
So because they have this build-the-wall mentality, which would never stop more than 5%, they're blinding themselves to anything that might work.
Now, they also want the wall for political reasons.
So the Republicans don't want to deal with fentanyl, because if they deal with fentanyl, they can't argue for the wall, which they would want for other reasons as well, immigration, for example.
So the Republicans have trapped themselves in a situation where they need to argue wall, wall, wall, And it takes their ability to be effective on fentanyl completely off the field.
The Republicans have failed completely.
Failed completely. Because they think the wall will make a difference.
Now, you want to know a Republican who's not poorly informed?
Because it's not all of them.
And I know some of you are not his fans.
Dan Crenshaw.
Dan Crenshaw apparently understands the topic.
Do you know how I know that?
Because he's acting exactly like a person who understands the topic.
He's introduced some pretty severe penalties for the cartels and dealers, I guess, on fentanyl.
So there would be higher penalties.
There would be federal penalties so he could bypass the soft local prosecutors.
Because the local prosecutor is going to let you out of jail for too easy stuff.
So the first part that's good, he'd make it federal.
That sounds smart, doesn't it?
Wouldn't you agree? Putting a federal crime on that, that feels like a good move.
I don't argue with that.
He wants to go after the financial institutions that are hiding the cartel money.
We haven't already done that.
I'm disappointed that there's something we could have done that we didn't do already, but if Crenshaw thinks there's something to do there, he's probably looked into it.
By the way, do you know that Crenshaw is really smart?
Even if you disagree with him, he's really smart.
So, keep that in mind.
Yeah, stiffer crimes, revoking naturalized citizenship and green cards for those convicted of stuff.
So all of that's good.
Do you know what's not on his list?
Do you see what's missing?
Build the wall. That's how I know that Dan Crenshaw actually understands fentanyl.
Because nowhere here he said build the wall.
Because he knows that's not the answer.
So when you see the smart people acting, you can identify them right away.
Not smart. I'll say well-informed.
The well-informed Republicans will not say the wall is an answer.
It's just poorly informed.
Does anybody disagree?
Right? It's just the Republicans are the problem because they're wall-obsessed and they can't get past it.
And politically, they need the wall, so it's wall, wall, wall.
So they are the problem.
Trump could possibly break that logjam.
There is an experimental vaccine for making fentanyl not affect people.
So the simulation really hates us.
Imagine, if you will, that there was one solution to the fentanyl problem.
Just one.
And it was a vaccine.
Oh!
Oh!
Gone!
Gone!
That was my Shatner impression.
Thank you.
Really? Why?
Why? Why does it need to be a vaccination?
It couldn't be a pill.
It couldn't be a pill. It couldn't be treatment.
It couldn't be consulting. Couldn't be a criminal action.
It couldn't be military action.
It had to be a vaccination.
Really? Now, it might have some potential.
I mean, vaccination raises all the red flags that it should.
But apparently they've figured out how in mice, they haven't tried it in humans, but in mice it seems to turn off just the fentanyl love.
So even if a person took it, And they became immune to fentanyl, presumably there would still be painkillers that worked on them.
Different kinds. Because you don't want to make somebody immune to painkillers.
That would be a bad idea.
So apparently it's so specific.
But, but, it's a vaccination.
How long would they have to test this thing before you'd put it in your body?
I mean, you wouldn't have to.
But it does start to suggest that there might be a suite of things to offer to addicts.
You might offer them drug counseling.
You might offer them the vaccination, as long as they can refuse.
You know, well-informed refusal.
Yeah, so there might be ways to go to get people help.
Anyway, that would be a game-changer if that really made a difference.
All right. If the government doesn't do anything about fentanyl, and it looks like they won't, you know, because I don't know, what are the odds of Trump getting elected and them carrying through on war on the cartels?
20%. If you had to put the odds that Trump first gets elected, so, you know, maybe you say that's a 50-50, I'm not sure where you are on that, but then he has to get elected, but then he actually has to do what he said.
So he has to actually get enough people in the government to say, let's go hard at the cartels.
20%? Maybe 20, 25?
I don't know. But if the government continues not to be effective, here's what I think is going to happen.
I think there's going to be fentanyl vigilantism.
Fentanyl vigilantism.
And it could take several forms.
Now, I'm not recommending it.
Because vigilantism ends up killing the wrong people, too.
So it's a bad idea.
I'm only predicting it's likely if the government continues to do nothing.
Scott's against vaccinations now.
All right, chick girl, you stupid cunt.
You get to be hidden on this channel for being an asshole.
Good job. Here's what the vigilantism would look like.
For everyone who deals fentanyl, there's at least one person who would like to narc them out but doesn't want to get caught.
There will be a website where you can anonymously name fentanyl dealers.
And I think people would use it.
Don't you think? Because, yeah.
Now, I'm not recommending it.
Because it has all the dangers you can imagine in that kind of a system.
You know, trolls would be putting people's names on it.
It would just be a mess. But you could imagine it happening.
Couldn't you imagine it? If I lived in a neighborhood where the fentanyl dealers were, like, killing everybody on my block, I'd put that name on the list.
If it were anonymous, and I trusted that.
Now, do you think that will happen?
It's the obvious thing that would happen.
The public doesn't necessarily have to kill these people.
All they have to do is name them.
It'll take care of itself.
Won't it? Because there's always going to be somebody who wants to go take care of business.
I don't think they should, but it's going to happen.
Alright, here's another idea.
Here's another idea. How about if the penalty for dealing fentanyl is to lose your privacy forever?
That you would be like a pedophile.
That if you ever got convicted for fentanyl, you'd be put on the pedophile list.
Anybody could find out if they live near you.
Anybody could know if you should be hired.
Yeah, being a fentanyl dealer, if he knew you were doing it, I suppose it might be different if he didn't know you were doing it.
Maybe you just ostracize him.
Maybe you say, yeah, we're not going to kill you, but you're sure as fuck not going to live next to me.
If you put a fentanyl dealer in my neighborhood, I'd probably vandalize their house.
Maybe every week. Maybe it would be my new hobby.
Yeah. I mean, sometimes information is all you need.
The public will take care of it.
There are enough parents who lost a child.
They'll just go kill these people, which I don't recommend.
It's a bad idea, but it's going to happen.
How about this one?
This is more speculative.
What happens when drone technology gets better and you can operate a drone from anywhere Through, let's say, Starlink or something.
So you can sit on your couch in Maryland and operate a drone in Mexico.
Like a small one.
Now that would require somebody locally to launch it, but maybe you could control it from anywhere.
Do you think that people will be using drones to murder cartel operatives in Mexico while sitting on their couch in America?
Because nobody will know whose drone it was.
Could you randomize the drones so that even the people who launched them don't know exactly who's operating them?
They might know the pool of people who could operate them, because maybe you signed up for something, but nobody would know because it's an encrypted signal, let's say.
Let's say nobody could know who was actually controlling it.
Do you think it's technically impossible to make it anonymous?
Again, I'm not recommending it.
I'm predicting. The ones who say no, what would make it impossible?
Because you've got the signal that goes all the way from America to everywhere through Starlink, so you could reach it through the Internet, and you could weaponize it, and you could just have somebody locally launch it.
That's all possible. So some of you say it's not possible.
You know, the people who say stuff like that is not possible end up being wrong, don't they?
I usually bet on the it is possible people.
I don't know if it's possible, but it might be.
Unfortunately, it would work both ways, so the cartels would be using drones to attack America, but, you know, so that's bad.
Apparently, the GOP has gained among all minority groups...
Which means all they lost was white women?
That's it, right? They lost white women?
They didn't lose white men, did they?
I don't know. Oh, women between a certain age.
Let me ask you this.
What is the most hated demographic group in America right now?
What is the most hated demographic group?
Is it white men or white women?
I think it might be a toss-up.
It's a bad time for white people.
Somebody says, Johnny Guitar.
He says, the Jews.
That's a joke. We are not anti-Semitic.
As a callback to EA. Yeah, hated by whom?
This is the exact right question.
I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of dislike going around.
But it might be white women who are the most disliked at the moment.
They may have taken over for white men who have ruled that category for years.
How in the world...
How in the world does the left explain that the left is supposed to be the diversity party?
How do they explain that all the diverse people are moving to the other party?
Here's how I explain it.
It's really obvious now that the Democratic Party is the woman party.
I've been saying it for a while, but it's pretty obvious now, isn't it?
Now, the first time I said it, maybe...
Four years ago? Five years ago?
Do you remember those on Locals especially?
Do you remember me saying that the Democrats are the Woman Party?
And I don't feel like I sold that, like nobody was agreeing with me when I said it.
What do you think today?
After the midterms, it's clear that the women are in charge.
It's the Woman Party. And if you're male and black, do you think they have anything for you?
At least if you become a Republican, you'll be respected.
You can at least bank that.
Do you know what is the best success strategy for a black man in America?
The number one best guaranteed success formula for a black man in America?
Identify as Republican.
Now, of course, that would have its own social backlash and stuff, but...
Is there anything that white Republicans like better than a black Republican who's doing it for the right reasons?
Like, he's not pretending. They love it.
Because it makes them feel smart.
When people join your team, you feel like, ah, I guess I was on the right team.
Look at that. I guess those diversity people and Democrats were the wrong team.
If they were the right team, things would be moving the other way.
But you're coming my way?
I like that. And I don't think I've ever seen a black Republican man fail.
I feel like they all succeed.
Because, you know, they've got the right strategy and there's nothing really stopping them.
So... That's what I'd do.
Speaking of...
So Instagram has become a cesspool of bad relationship advice.
Like really bad relationship advice, some of the worst stuff you'll ever see in your life, that is distributed with great confidence.
Now here's something I saw today, and I do not necessarily think this is true.
I'm only reporting what somebody on Instagram who got a lot of attention said.
There's apparently some kind of app Where a woman can calculate her odds of finding the right man.
Or it might be just a census app.
So it might not be for that purpose, but it could be used for that.
So there's a man on Instagram, but I didn't catch his name.
And he was doing the calculation.
He goes, all right, you're a woman in America, and you're looking for a man, let's say, between 28 and 45.
You're looking to get serious.
So you put in, all right, it's got to be a man, first sort.
Got to be, you know, under 45.
I'll take any race, no restrictions, so I have the biggest possible pool.
Well, I'm going to limit the men who are under 5'9".
This was the gentleman's example.
He goes, yeah, you know, women like taller men, so we'll eliminate it under 5'9".
Then we'll also eliminate the obese.
Because, you know, women are not looking for an obese guy, according to this guy.
And the women want somebody who can make over 100K a year and is not married.
So how many, what percentage, what are the odds that you can find this guy?
He's young, he's any race, he's tall, he's thin, he makes over 100K a year, and he's still available.
5.6%.
5.6%.
And there's a theme going on, there's a theme on Instagram anyway, of both women and men telling women that they set their standards too high.
Have you all seen that?
It's like, it's just all over Instagram.
Men and women saying the same thing.
Women, you're setting your standards way too high, and you don't have anything to offer us.
I mean, both the men and the women are saying that women don't have anything to offer.
What am I getting? I'm not getting loyalty.
I'm not getting money. I'm not getting protection.
I get some kids that get taken away from me.
What's in it for me? And it's hilarious to watch women try to answer the question.
And then part of this theme or not, I saw another video where an older couple were jokingly reading advice from the 50s on how to be a good wife.
And the advice from the 50s was, you know, it was all this old sexist stuff, you know, make sure you take off his shoes when he comes home and don't talk loud because he's had a tough day and don't tell him any of your problems, he's got enough, all this stuff.
And the people reading it are sort of laughing like, you know, haha, this would never work today and all that.
And I'm thinking to myself, okay, the specific example's maybe not, you know, not taking the shoes off or something.
But if both the couples are not thinking, how can I make that other one happy, and actually putting in the work every day to do it, it's not going to work.
So I've got a feeling they were laughing at something that worked.
It had lots of problems of its own in that sexist time.
So it's not something I'd go back to, but I think they might be missing the...
throwing out the baby with the bathwater there.
So I was curious, there was a story about what celebrities lost money with this FTX thing.
And one of them was Stephen Curry.
I would love to know how much.
Anybody puts it in crypto.
I don't know how much they had. I guess Tom Brady actually invested in the company itself.
So we have learned that people who are great athletes and actors are not so good at making investment decisions.
Now, I will take all of that back if it was 2% of their wealth or something.
Because putting 2% into some crypto thing That's not crazy.
That's not crazy.
But if it was a lot of money, they'd need some better advisors.
A little bit better advisors.
Question on Ukraine.
How is it possible that Russia taking out power plants as winter is approaching in Ukraine, how is that not a war crime?
Is it a war crime and we just know that we can't do anything about it, so nobody's treating it that way?
You know, why isn't The Hague or somebody saying it's a war crime?
No way? Power plants are military assets, but, you know, really?
You know, If you're taking out the power plant for Kiev, that's a military asset.
It's a military asset if you're sending in your ground troops, but if you're not sending in your ground troops to, you know, conquer it and then turn the power back on, then it's just a war crime, isn't it?
We did it in Iraq, and I'm saying that it does make sense for an active invasion.
In an active invasion, yeah.
Anything that gives the military any ability you take out.
But they're not really actively invading the bulk of Ukraine.
I feel like that's just got to be a war crime.
Right? NATO attacked civilians in the east, somebody says.
Russia. Read Che on urban warfare.
Dual-use facilities, not necessarily a war crime.
Really? The civilian power plant is dual-use?
I mean, I get it.
You know, there might be a base there or something, but...
I feel the people who suffer would not be the military, because the military could operate independent of a power plant, but civilians cannot.
No more of a war crime than something...
Well, I think if you're not aiming at military people, it's just got to be a war crime.
All right, I don't know.
We'll look into that. What else is going on?
That's about it.
Let me give a summary on Trump.
If his strategy is to act like the reasonable person, it could work.
Because what we saw in Trump yesterday was a low enough energy that you could almost call it the Biden-Biden election strategy.
What is the one thing that would be the worst thing for Trump running for re-election?
What's the worst thing he could do?
Say something outrageous.
Yeah, go bombastic.
Yeah, just go a little crazy and scare the women.
He literally scares women and men who are womanlike.
Not an insult.
Let me clarify that.
When I say he scares women and men who are womanlike, I'm not anti-anything.
I'm just saying that such people exist.
That's the whole point of the LGBTQ community.
The idea is that there are people all over the spectrum.
So I'm just agreeing with that there are people all over the spectrum, and that the Democrats seem to attract the less dominant type of males, on average.
That's just an observation.
I don't have any science to back that up, but it looks like it.
I mean, to me it seems obvious.
So if Trump's biggest problem is that he's actually a scary character, People who are confident like it.
You know, if you put me in a room with a scary character, I'm happy.
You know, if he's on my side, like, hey, scary character, let's have lunch.
Because, you know, I'm a scary character as well.
Let me say this about men.
I'm just going to throw this in here.
I've sometimes heard that...
The larger the man, the safer you're going to be.
I don't know that there's any science to suggest that.
Because any man can kill any other man.
That's the beauty of being male.
No matter who I meet, and no matter how threatening or dangerous or big they are, I know I can kill them.
I just have to run away, get a gun, find out where they live, hunt them down.
But I could. Now, if they grabbed me and killed me then, well then, no.
But that's pretty rare.
So the fact is that any man can kill any other man.
And we all know it.
We all know it.
So size matters in limited situations.
If you were going to do, like you're in the fight, yeah, size matters.
But there aren't that many fights where that sort of...
I've never been in that situation.
Have you? How many of you have ever been in a situation where your size mattered?
Let's say for males.
Just males.
Men. Have you ever been in a situation that was dangerous, but your size mattered?
Some say yes.
I think it matters if you can intimidate people out of fighting.
You can certainly break up a fight easier if you're bigger.
That's something. But let me put it this way.
If I had to protect a woman, do you think somebody could get past me?
Not without getting seriously hurt.
Like, yeah, a big guy could kill me, but they would never be the same.
You wouldn't walk away from that the same.
And if I recovered, I'm coming for you.
It doesn't matter how long it takes.
If I recover, I'm coming for you.
So that's like the promise all men make to each other.
If you do something to me, I am coming for you.
So that does keep civilization a little bit together.
So if Trump is trying to be less scary and less provocative, I buy it.
If he decided to put all of his provocation on fentanyl, he's got a really strong package.
I hate to say it, But he's getting closer to making me a supporter.
I'm definitely not. I'm not on board with him or anyone else.
I need a fentanyl plan.
I'm a single issue voter.
I'm not going to change.
So he's the one who's talked the toughness, but I'd need a lot more details on that.
Like, what does it mean to go to war with the cartel?
If that doesn't mean bomb the shit out of them, then it doesn't mean anything.
Do you agree? Like, I need to say he's going to bomb them.
And then I'm on board.
Maybe. So I don't think he offered much new except the fentanyl and the Mars thing is more of a Musk thing than a Trump thing.
So I'm not sure that helped anything.
But I would like to see him have a little bit more meat on the bones.
Part of the problem is that you know exactly what he is.
We'll talk about Pence.
We know exactly what Trump will give you.
You don't have to wonder if he likes low taxes.
You don't have to wonder, you know, how he would deal with other countries.
We know. We know.
So, he does need to add something that people can talk about, like a new thing that we can talk about.
But you kind of know what you're going to get.
Um... I haven't seen Jason Whitlock's take on that, no.
Alright, Pence. Apparently Pence is running.
Is that a problem? I mean, it's only a problem in the primaries, but I can't see Pence draining off enough support to pull ahead of Trump.
What he might do, here's what I could imagine.
I can imagine four Republicans getting in, in addition to Trump, and everybody gets drawn down to 20% support.
I can see that.
And then it's anybody's bet.
Because there might be some people who say, I love Trump, but Pompeo is at least a little more stable, you might say.
Or I love Trump, but Pence did a good job.
I feel like...
Yeah, no.
Forget it. Now, there are no Republicans that could take Trump below the winning number for the primary.
You don't think so, do you?
I don't see any way he loses the primary.
Do you? I just saw a prompt on there.
Elon Musk tweeted that he's the taint.
Because he was standing between the two pranksters.
So he referred to them as being...
between the two of them as being the taint.
He really doesn't need a marketing department at all.
At all. All right.
Let me get your opinion. Give me your opinion on the Trump announcement speech, just the speech itself.
So give me a quality of the speech ranking and do it with just a few words.
What would be the few words that would describe...
Somebody says 10 out of 10.
Some say he lost his edge.
Meh. Nine, rambling, A +, A+. Yeah, didn't watch, effective, 7 out of 10.
So, once again, the human Rorschach test does his thing.
Trump does something in front of everybody, and we can't decide if it was a huge failure or the best he's ever done.
Just like normal.
So our two worlds just bifurcate instantly as soon as Trump is the topic, and that retreat to your bubble.
It was either the best thing that everybody did, or it was a big old mess from a twice impeached insurrectionist.
Yeah. So here we go.
Here we go. All right.
Uh... His dress was golden white, yeah.
It was too long, maybe so.
You notice he flubbed a lot of words.
See, I think that might have had to do with he couldn't read the teleprompter for one reason or another.
I think the teleprompter people have some explaining to do.
Don't you? I just feel like it wasn't big enough or close enough or something.
Oh, you think he slurred?
See, I think he was exhausted.
I think he was emotionally and physically exhausted.
In an unusual way.
Because I think he gets energized by, you know, working and campaigning.
But he probably had a really tough time with his closest family and friends for the past week.
I think Trump probably got the shit beat out of him by everybody.
And then decided to do it anyway.
Because that's Trump.
Now, let me ask you this.
Do you think, so far, let's just look at the announcement.
Do you think that Trump made it all about Trump, or did he make it about the country?
Did he make it all about Trump, or did he focus on the country?
A little bit of both.
A little bit of both. Yeah.
I think he focused a little bit more on the country, and that felt right.
Alright. If Trump solidifies his fentanyl message, I think he wins.
I think he wins.
Without the fentanyl message being first-rate, it'll be a little tougher.
Some say Trump's the only Republican who can't win the general.
But Trump plus a fentanyl plan?
It's all over. If Trump brings a real fentanyl plan, and he just says, all the other stuff is just what you think it'll be.
It's exactly what you think.
You know me. You know what I'm going to do.
It's exactly what you think.
That's what you're going to get. Energy is going to be unleashed.
Regulations will be decreased.
I'll talk to all the dictators, even if you think I shouldn't.
Know exactly what you're getting.
But also, you can imagine him saying, I'm going to treat the biggest problem in the country like it's the biggest problem in the country.
If he said that, I don't know how he could lose.
I don't know how he could lose.
Now, he'd also have to not say provocative things that could be taken out of context, but there's always a way you could lose, so you never know.