Episode 2210 Scott Adams: It's A Newsy Day. Come Get Some. Bring Coffee
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Politics, Moon's South Pole, Jordan Peterson's Re-Education, Trump Lawyers Arrested, Jenna Ellis, Ted Lieu, Above The Law, Vivek Ramaswamy, CNN Debate Coverage, David Axelrod, Nikki Haley, Governor DeSantis, Steve Jobs Hiring Philosophy, President Trump, Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie, Tim Scott, Tucker's Trump Interview, Trump's Humor, Mike Pence, Abolish FBI Fake News, Jen Psaki Abortion Position, Abortion Till Birth, Yevgeny Prigozhin's Death, Ukraine War, Scott Adams
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.
---
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scott-adams00/support
Good morning and welcome to the highlight of human civilization, where the light comes on just in time.
There we go.
That's that's called.
Oh, good.
Sound is good.
Thank you for the sound check there.
And wouldn't you like to know What happened at the debates last night and what people are thinking and what the reframers are thinking and all that.
Yes, it's here.
It's here.
If you'd like to take your experience up a level, all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or a chalice of stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine at the end of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
It happens now.
Go.
Oh, I have a request.
Please don't talk forever about my book.
Aw.
All right, let's start with the book.
Book is number, well, a moment ago it was number 11 on all of Amazon.
Do you know how many Kindle books there are?
Guess how many Kindle books there are on Amazon?
48 million.
That's just Kindle.
My book, in all its forms, was number 11 on all of Amazon when I woke up this morning.
Still somewhere around there.
And number one on movers and shakers.
So I appreciate the request not to talk about my book.
I wasn't going to do that, but I guess I just don't like to be bullied on my own live stream.
So if there's anything else you don't want me to talk about, I'll do that right away.
So let's make that rule.
So yes, and by the way, I've never seen so many people buy multiple copies of a book.
It's crazy.
It's really crazy.
People are buying two, ten copies.
I've never seen anything like it.
So it's doing better than I even expected.
It's doing great.
So we'll see.
Change in the world.
India reached the south pole of the moon.
For apparently a discount price.
Didn't cost him too much to do it.
No country has ever successfully landed on the South Pole of the Moon.
And now you ask me, Scott, why is the South Pole of the Moon important?
Well, there's some indication there's some ice there.
And if there's ice, there's water.
And if there's water, you can build a base.
And if you can build a base, you could control the entire Earth with your superior space-based base, I guess.
You know, It's probably almost essential to survival that the United States controls the moon.
Because whoever controls the moon seems like, in the long, long run, you know, in your hundred year span, how in the world could you beat somebody who had a moon base?
I don't know.
I guess you'd kill all the supply places on Earth.
But anyway, it seems dangerous to let anybody else have a base on the moon, but if it had to be anybody, India would be just about my top choice.
So I love the fact that India is an ally of the United States.
I feel like if you had to pick an ally, you know, if you pick, you know, Israel's a great ally, right?
But they're a little bit expensive.
Caused a little trouble, right?
Maybe no fault of their own, you might argue, but not all of our allies are equally beneficial.
But I don't know how we could go into the next 100 years without India being on our side.
It feels like that's just necessary.
So I'm glad they are.
We'll get to the debates, of course.
I'm just letting people stream in here so we've got more people.
Dr. Jordan Peterson.
Has an update, you know, is at the College of Toronto or something like that.
But he's being required for his profession to keep his credentials in Canada.
He has to be retrained so he doesn't say mean things about trans people or about, probably about Trudeau.
And just think about this, the people who decided that he needed to be re-educated were appointed by Trudeau And Jordan Peterson is one of the most prominent critics of Trudeau.
So the people that Trudeau elected are now getting their revenge on him.
Canada is just fucked up.
I mean, I used to respect Canada, but honestly, I don't.
You know, I love Canadian people, of course.
Canadian people are just the coolest.
You know, I'll give you that.
I'll give you that the people of Canada Pretty cool country, no doubt about it.
But your government?
My God!
I mean, ours is terrible, too, at the moment.
But I used to think, well, no matter how bad things... How many of you have ever had this thought?
No matter how bad things are in the United States, you could always go to Canada.
Like that was my backup school.
Right?
It's not really the backup school anymore, is it?
Because it looks like weaponization of the government to me.
To me it looks like free speech is gone, weaponized government, mass surveillance, cutting off your bank account.
That is not a country I want to move to.
So good work destroying a brand that took you hundreds of years to create.
Name one country that had a better brand than Canada.
Can you even think of anything that anybody criticized Canada for ten years ago?
Ten years ago, nobody had a single bad word to say about Canada.
It was just like a smaller America, but cooler.
You know, cooler physically, but also the people seemed to be more chill.
And now it just looks like some horrible thing happened there with the government.
All right, well, let's watch this Dr. Jordan Peterson thing, because I think we need to be unified to the degree it helps.
Because he wants to give them as much attention as he can.
This is one of his tweets from Dr. Peterson.
So they want to re-educate him, effectively train him.
And he says, train me, you bastards, and watch what happens.
Now, suppose, legally, he's required to go to training.
Could we get a video of that?
Could you possibly give me a more entertaining scenario than Jordan Peterson being retrained against his will?
You know, I would watch that show all day long!
If you could make a special out of this, number one.
I mean, please, right, please.
And you know, my suggestion in these situations is embrace and amplify.
I just heard from somebody who took some corporate training and used the technique of embracing and amplifying.
In other words, agreeing with it too much to the point where it all falls apart.
Apparently he was not welcome.
He became unwelcome in the class because he was agreeing too much to the point where everybody was like, this is crazy.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, that was the point.
It's crazy.
All right.
Lionsgate apparently is bringing back masks.
They're a movie studio.
But at first I thought, oh, here's the one we need to boycott.
Because you've got to take out the first company.
The first big company that brings back masks, I think they have to be bankrupted.
It doesn't matter who it is.
It could be your most beloved company.
If you want your freedom, You have to destroy the first company that caves.
So you have to put the pressure on.
But it turns out Lionsgate was requiring masks in a few floors of one office because there was a little outbreak there.
It's not the one I want to do, right?
If they had said the whole company, everybody required, I'd be like, OK, you know, it's go time.
But I feel like I need a little more than two floors of one building temporarily.
Like, I don't like it.
But, you know, they're afraid.
It's them.
It's not me.
I just want a big company to get, say, masks.
Masks are required.
Then we take them out.
Is everybody on board?
That we have to boycott the first big company that requires masks of its customers or its employees.
Remember, you're protecting their employees as well.
Well, indirectly.
It may be bad for the employees if they go out of business.
More likely, it would just drive their stock down to a place where they can't keep their jobs.
Meaning the executives, not the employees.
So we gotta hit them hard.
So let me know the moment the first one caves.
Let's just Bud Light the shit out of them.
Alright, nine of Trump's lawyers have been arrested in Georgia.
I could end the entire live stream on that.
Because in a way, that describes everything bad that's happening in the world.
Let me just say it again.
Nine of Trump's lawyers were arrested for doing what I believe is their job of lawyering.
Now, if you think that their advice was bad, well, maybe it was.
I'm no lawyer, so how would I judge it?
But you can't jail somebody's lawyers for bad advice.
Yeah, they're really going to have to come up with the goods, but I don't think that they care if they're guilty, the people who indicted him.
I don't think they care.
I think this is about sending a chilling message that if you're a lawyer and you work with Trump, you'll never work again.
I think that's all that's happening.
So I think that they're just chipping away at all things that support Trump.
And they're willing to take down nine lawyers and the rule of law and every standard that we have in America about justice and freedom and everything else.
They're willing to actually sacrifice every standard of American excellence to get Trump.
Nothing's more important than our court system and this is monstrous.
It's monstrous.
Absolutely monstrous.
On the plus side, Jenna Ellis takes a great mug shot.
Did you see all the mug shots of Rudy Giuliani and a bunch of people?
For some reason, they do the mug shots like this.
It's like they lean forward and scowl.
And then Jenna Ellison gives the, you know, like an Instagram smile.
It's just a big, big smile.
And I thought, well, that was the smartest play.
Because she knows that picture is going to be everywhere.
And she managed to take a picture that wasn't just pretty good.
It's actually like a good picture.
It looks like one of the pictures you would pick from your own camera roll if you wanted to send it to somebody that you liked.
Now, I've never seen anybody take such a good picture.
It's neither here nor there, but it was a good picture.
All right, here's how to tell who the bad guys are.
Ted Lieu, Democrat, wants to remind you in a tweet that Trump is not above the law on neither of these lawyers, like Rudy Giuliani.
And darn it, he's got those top secret documents and stuff.
And I say, Have you noticed that we haven't heard a thing about the contents of those secret documents?
Do you believe, at this point... Oh, NPC!
Dee Bruce.
We found an NPC.
What would the NPCs say?
Let's see if you can guess it.
Don't look.
Locals, don't look on YouTube.
What would an NPC say if I say that Jenna Ilse took a good photograph on a mugshot?
Go!
What would they say?
No, you know it.
That's right.
They would say that I love her.
That I have a crush on her.
That's what the NPCs say.
So if you want to make sure you're not an NPC, don't say that.
Yeah.
Well, you must want to marry her.
Yeah, that's what the NPCs say.
All right, so Ted Lieu reminds us that these people, the lawyers and Trump, are not above the law.
I tell you again that when somebody says somebody's not above the law, they are the bad guys.
Almost always.
Do you know what I never hear on the right?
Maybe I'm wrong about this.
I'll take a fact check on this.
When there's a real crime, people never say, nobody's above the law.
True or false?
When there's a real crime, people don't say that.
Because they say, well it's a real crime, we have a justice system, what is there to talk about?
Real crime, justice system, Aren't we done?
Yes, we're done.
Because you only say nobody's above the law when you're trying to put them below the law.
It's the only time.
Because otherwise, have you ever heard the phrase, is it Shakespeare, thou doth protest too much?
Like, you're fighting too hard to make a point that nobody was asking about.
Well, who was talking about him being above the law?
Where did that come into the conversation?
If you have to say it, it's a very clear admission that you're trying to fuck somebody.
So Ted Lieu, you motherfucker, you just revealed yourself as being an illegitimate player on the most important playing field in the world.
Totally uncool.
By the way, I like Ted.
Ted's kind of cool.
Ted Liu's one of these happy warriors, you know, he just backs his team and stuff.
But the whole not above the law, that's too far.
That is too far.
Let me tell you what I never want to hear from any of my elected officials.
Do not ever tell me that somebody's not above the law, because then I just know you're going after them.
It's just obvious.
Do you know what I've never heard?
About Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and their various allegations.
I've never heard anybody say, well, they're not above the law.
Have you?
No.
Do you know why?
Because their crimes are, well, let's say their activities, I don't know what's a crime because I'm not a lawyer, but their activities are entirely transparent.
We see it all now.
So why would you even have that conversation about somebody being above the law?
What do conservatives say instead of above the law?
Two-tier justice system.
Two-tier justice system.
Is that fair?
It's absolutely fair.
I don't know that the two tiers are only Democrat and Republican because there's another two tiers which is rich people and poor people.
So there's sort of four tiers.
Or is that three?
Depends how you do the Venn diagram.
So, yeah, two-tier justice system to my ears.
Now, I may be biased on this, right?
I might be biased.
But to my ears, two-tier justice is an objective description of two situations that are similar, but treated differently, and we can all see it.
That feels like an actual criticism.
But not above the law?
No, that's brainwashing manipulation bullshit right there.
All right.
My tweet I did the other day in which I was mocking CNN for their interview of Vake is approaching 10 million views.
Why?
Was that my best?
Was that my best tweet?
It was all right.
It was all right.
Let me tell you what I'm seeing.
Vivek is an energy monster.
That's going to be a little bit of a theme for what I'll talk about with the debates.
Vivek is an energy monster.
10 million views for me mocking CNN, treating him.
Who gets 10 million views?
Like, I don't.
I mean, I've got a million followers, but a normal tweet of mine would be, you know, 10, 20,000.
I've got 10 million.
Now, I know Vivek retweeted it, et cetera, but you can feel the energy, right?
What do you think would be the biggest tweet or the biggest traffic if I tweeted any of the other candidates who are on the stage?
So just the ones on the stage.
What do you think I could have?
Not 10 million.
Well, if I'd done a really good DeSantis, a really good DeSantis tweet, what do you think the traffic would have been?
A million?
Half a million?
I don't even think it would be that.
Yeah, you can feel the energy.
All right, but that's the theme going into it.
I looked at the Wall Street Journal to see how they covered the debates, and they've got a feature article on Vivek's performance.
That's right.
Wall Street Journal featured Vivek's performance and didn't really do a lot about the other people.
I always watch CNN after a debate because I watch it for entertainment.
But usually it's a, you know, it's like a Trump debate is what I'm used to lately.
And then CNN will be all TDS and it's hilarious to watch because they'd just be flipping out and crazy and just batshit nuts.
So I turned on CNN after this debate expecting, you know, something like TDS, complete breakdown, Republicans are the devil, etc.
And I'm going to be fair.
They did a really good job.
It was the damnedest thing.
I had to check that I was on the right network.
But here's why.
First of all, Trump was not in it.
So that's the big thing, right?
So if you take Trump out, and then you're dealing with a bunch of people that nobody on the CNN panel thinks is going to be in the final election, I don't think they think any of them are serious.
So they were free to simply talk about how they performed.
And when I watched really experienced, smart people on CNN, John King as one example, doing just an analysis of performance and technique, quite good.
It was quite good.
So I'll give them a little pat on the back there.
However, they do have one guy named David Axelrod, Who's, you know, not only on CNN, but he's a notable advisor, you know, insider for the Democrats.
He was full narrative.
And it really stuck out as inappropriate.
Like, the other people were simply talking about the people about how they performed.
Very good.
That's a good job.
And if that's the new CNN, I'd watch it.
Honestly.
If they could do more of that, I'd watch it.
But I think it was a special case.
And then Axelrod is just pushing the Democrat narrative.
I mean, completely disconnected from what you just watched.
You know, just trying to connect it somehow.
But, you know, just pushing narrative.
And it was just gross, watching him just pushing the narrative, basically.
So I don't think he should be on the air at all.
I think he hurts CNN's credibility.
And I'm not saying that about the other people who have had their biases, but at least they did a whole show where they were just given their opinions and not being just an advertisement for a party.
By the way, the Republicans do the same thing, so I'm not picking on just Democrats here.
All right, here's something that CNN quoted on their webpage about Vivek.
By the way, CNN thought Vivek won the, in my opinion, it looked like CNN thought Ramaswamy was one of the two winners.
I'll get to that in a minute.
But here's a quote they have on their webpage from Vivek Ramaswamy who said, the biggest myth in American democracy is that we actually elect our leaders, Ramaswamy says in a video posted to social media.
So this wasn't about the debate, but they were just characterizing him.
We don't go through the, we don't.
We go through the motions.
The real people who run the show are part of an acronymist, acronymist, meaning acronyms, three-letter alphabet soup in the federal government.
You know, the FBI's and CDC's and FDA's and all those guys.
Now, the fact that they, they're highlighting like, you know, extended quotes.
Who else had an extended quote on CNN?
Do you remember the extended quotes of the other?
No.
He's the only one who's saying anything interesting.
More on that.
So CNN seemed to characterize it as Vivek was the obvious standout.
He was very much the obvious standout.
If you woke up the next morning, what did you think about?
Just think about it.
If you watch the debate, And then you woke up the next morning, not Trump, but which candidate were you thinking about?
A little bit of Pence, but maybe not in a positive way.
You basically remembered Vivek.
Do you remember seeing the sweeping shots of the whole stage?
And then there would be lots of close-ups.
Is it my imagination, or did Vivek make all of them look like they're ready for retirement?
Simply by being young and energetic and clearly smarter than everybody on the stage.
He made them all look like a retirement home.
And some of them are not that old.
You know, Tim Scott's not old.
But he made them look like last generation's idea.
Just by being there and being young and being energetic and different.
He just lapped him.
Now, to her credit, Nikki Haley got a lot of kudos for standing out, maybe helped her position.
I think women especially liked her when she talked about abortion.
But my take on her was all I was hearing was screechy Karen accept the abortion part, which she did masterfully.
By the way, you're not going to hear my opinion on abortion.
I'm going to talk about it a little bit more in terms of the politics, but I don't give my opinion on abortion.
I'll let women figure it out and I'll back the majority.
I just don't think I add to the opinion part of it.
I'll just talk about it from a political level.
So she was great in terms of how she communicated, so that's different than me agreeing with everything she said, right?
But my take on it was she was like nails on a chalkboard to my male ears.
Now this is purely sexist.
Purely sexist.
I'm confessing that men and women have some built-in feelings about gender and stuff like that.
But there are some things that men just can't hear.
And her kind of Karen-y voice, which I don't think by the way is necessarily an indication of her real personality, But her presentation was complainy.
Did anybody feel that?
Her presentation felt like you came home from a hard day's work and your spouse, who may have also had a hard day's work, has got to complain to you for a while.
Yeah.
So I think she may have killed it with women, meaning good.
She may have actually hit a home run with women.
Because when women were talking about her, they were quite complimentary.
And even on CNN.
Even on CNN pointed out she had a good night.
But I didn't see it.
And if you don't make men happy, you're not going anywhere.
All right.
CNN's focus group picked Vivek.
So CNN is a focus group, and by a pretty good majority, they picked him.
The other thing that, I guess I wasn't aware of it, but there must have been some polling that put Vivek at number two behind DeSantis.
I feel like I've never seen a legitimate number two poll.
I've only seen them at three.
Was anybody confused by that?
Like, it didn't look real.
I thought he was three or four or something.
But, you know, he's obviously been, you know, soaring up.
So whatever they used, put him next to DeSantis, labeled him number two.
Now, if you had never heard of Vivek, which is a lot of people, if you'd never heard of him, and you turn it on, and you see he's standing next to Vivek, and he's number two in the polling, didn't you just go, what?
And you're like, oh, I guess I gotta pay attention to this.
Then you wake up the next day, once again, he's trending on Twitter, his clips are dominating, CNN liked him, probably the conservatives were saying good things about him, but also DeSantis.
And he just killed it.
Here's some other good Vivek things, we'll talk about the others in a minute.
We'll talk about Trump, of course.
But I would say, when I look at a debate, I'm kind of only half listening to the policy stuff.
Do you have the same feeling?
The policy stuff, I don't even know if they mean it at this point, because a lot of things you say, but then the real world makes it impossible, you know.
So I'm looking for charisma.
I'm looking for energy.
I'm looking for intelligence, quick-wittedness, for example.
I'm looking for balls.
Man bowls and girl bowls.
Or let's say woman bowls.
Try to make it as fair as possible.
I'm looking for also assertiveness, but within, you know, within an acceptable domain.
So under that theory, things that might look like mistakes can actually be advantages, because in the energy part, if you're bringing the right energy, you get an advantage.
So I'll give you an example of that.
So Vivek, before he answered one of his questions, He said he was the only one who could address it because everyone else on the stage was bought and paid for.
Now, if you saw that moment, you know that all the other candidates went into a simultaneous mumble.
Victory number one, Vivek was the person talking and he turned all of his competitors into white noise.
Vivek, speaking clearly, his competitors, complaining.
It was brilliant.
Now, the thing he said, they're all bought and paid for, I don't think that's exactly true.
Do you?
Do you think, I don't know, Asa?
Maybe they are.
Maybe they all have some billionaire that's backing them.
But mostly you feel it's true, right?
So whether it's exactly technical true is actually an advantage.
Because my first impression of it was, whoa, that's a little too far in terms of following the facts.
But when I saw the reaction, I completely changed my mind.
Because here's what he did.
He owned the entire room by doing that.
He made everybody respond to him, which made him the center of attention.
So by being the one who made everybody so angry that they had to respond to Vivek, he became their boss, they became his children, and they were all fighting for, can I say something about Vivek?
How about me?
Please, let me say something about Vivek's comments.
Fucking owned him.
He just owned him.
Now, I'm going to say that I really loved, one of my favorite moments of the whole thing, was when DeSantis rejected the Fox News question and took over.
Did you see that moment?
So the question from Martha McCallum was, raise your hand if you believe in human-caused global warming.
Number one, that is a messed up question.
That question is, you do not answer that question because it's not yes-no.
There might be, but is that the worst thing?
Or what do we do about it?
Or what are our options?
So to simplify it down to yes, no, was as bad as do you still beat your fucking wife?
That was bad work.
So, Fox News, you should be ashamed of that question, honestly.
I mean, that was no better than Do You Beat Your Wife?
That was just disgusting.
To see these people who are working hard, I mean, everybody on that stage, I mean, as far as I can tell, are working hard, taking a lot of stuff on themselves, and to get that treatment.
That was completely inappropriate.
Now, what did they do when that question was asked?
Well, thankfully, DeSantis, being apparently a good leader, I'm going to give him a lot of credit here, he stopped it right in its tracks.
He said, we're not school children.
Can we just talk about this?
And then he started talking about it and did a good job talking about it.
But that was so alpha that, to me, it was the move of the debate.
Because he needed to shut down the question, and nobody on the stage did it.
Now, I don't know if they would have.
But he was very quick and he just shut that shit down.
That's good stuff.
Good stuff.
Let me say some more good things about DeSantis.
Then we'll get back to Vivek.
Well, let me finish up with him.
Basically, he owned all the energy, got all the attention.
Left and right was impressed.
He'll be everything that we're talking about.
So as an energy monster, oh my God, he just nailed it.
He had the most revolutionary ideas.
Everybody's talking about, you know, all the departments he wants to get rid of.
The things he's asking for are bigger than you imagine is practical.
Perfect.
Who else does that?
Trump.
Let's build a whole wall.
Well, that feels bigger than what you could actually do.
But, you know, maybe something in that direction.
Vivek wants to get rid of all these departments, but really, you know, distribute their functions, is what he's really saying.
But that sounds bigger than real.
But yet, directionally, it's what his base totally is interested in.
And frankly, if you're a Democrat and you're hearing he wants to cut the fat out of government, are you complaining?
Is that where you're going to draw the line?
Oh, I don't want anybody cutting the fat out of my government, because the government is so lean and perfect.
Nobody.
It's a really good, major, major issue, and it defines him.
So he's got that going for him, but I'm going to give you the reframe that will get him elected president, unless Trump is.
You ready?
I know I may have mentioned I have a best-selling book, almost.
It's best-selling in its categories, about reframing.
How to take an ordinary situation and change it so that the world and you act differently.
I'm going to give a reframe to Vivek that will guarantee that he beats everybody, well, except DeSantis.
I'm going to say this guarantees he's in the top two, not counting Trump.
Who would Steve Jobs hire?
Of the people who were on the stage, who would Steve Jobs hire?
Steve Jobs said, not recently, but on a video that's going around, he said that his main hiring decision, Steve Jobs' primary decision-making thing, is he gets the best person he could, whose best days are ahead of him.
And we're done.
There were two candidates whose best days might be ahead of him.
DeSantis and Vivek.
Vivek really stands out as the one that Steve Jobs would have obviously hired.
Right?
There's no doubt about it.
He would have obviously hired Vivek.
Because he just has more horsepower in the brain area.
And he's much earlier in his development even than DeSantis, so clearly his best days are ahead of him or could be in this domain.
Now DeSantis is a youngish politician.
He may have maxed out as governor, but maybe not.
So his best days could be ahead of him.
But if I had to hire one of them for my actual company, it would be Vivek 100 out of 100 times.
And I'm pretty sure every one of you would do the same thing, you know, if you were, if you'd listened to Steve Jobs.
Now, here's another reframe.
The presidency should not be your retirement job.
You see what I'm doing right now on this live stream?
This is actually my retirement job.
It's the one I do because I enjoy it.
It's not hard for me.
You know, when I'm preparing for this, and even when I'm doing it right now, I just enjoy it.
I actually enjoy the preparation.
I enjoy the doing of it.
And it, you know, pays less than what I was doing before.
I mean, didn't have an option for that, but that's a different story.
And so this is, I actually think of this, this is actually the way I think of it in my own mind, that this is my retirement job.
So even though I still do the comic, I do it the way I want to now, not beholden to the censors.
And that's my retirement job.
If you told me you can retire and draw the comic exactly the way you want to every time, nobody's going to tell you to change it.
That's my retirement job.
Yeah.
That's not the hard one.
That's the easy one.
So if you looked at the stage, you looked at one young person, You know, who wants to go make a difference.
And then a bunch of other people who look like they're just looking for something to do next.
That isn't that hard.
The presidency is hard, but hard in such a good way that everybody wants a job.
All right.
We talked about some others.
Now let's do DeSantis next.
I found him boring and uninteresting to the point where, at some point about halfway through the debate, I forgot that he was there.
I forgot.
And then he started talking.
I'm like, oh yeah, you're still here.
There's something forgettable about him.
His personality does not work for this kind of venue.
In other words, he's not the guy who's going to bring the artificial enthusiasm and sell it to you.
He's not the guy whose energy is external.
He seems like he has, like, strong internal energy.
You know, maybe more of an introvert, actually.
He might be an introvert who's just over-performing, but, you know, maybe he just likes his alone time and stuff.
You can tell that Vivek likes the external world.
He's of the external world.
But here's my question to you.
If Trump becomes the next candidate or next president, is that going to be pleasant for Republicans?
Basically you get turned into Hitler, you get turned into a fascist, and they go nuts.
50% of the world will have TDS.
So here's the real question.
Is that a reason not to vote for Trump?
Should you say they shouldn't feel that way, and if they do I don't care, or do you say that's actually part of the decision?
That one of the big variables is that he makes other people crazy.
So here's the thing.
If DeSantis were president instead, would the left go as crazy?
They would definitely accuse him of being Hitler for his policies.
But would they accuse him of being Hitler because of his personality?
And I think probably no.
Probably no.
I mean, he comes off as a Sort of a, you know, a corporate guy, you know, only in his presentation, not his philosophies.
But he comes off as sort of a generic, just, executive.
Does that scare people on the left?
You know, because his policies would be things they don't want.
Well, it does.
But does anything scare you the way Trump does?
You know, Trump's the, you know, times ten.
Scare.
A normal Republican scare gets you a George Bush.
I would say DeSantis is scary like either of the Bushes before they were elected.
Right?
Sort of a generic Republican scary.
But a generic scary Republican can get elected.
So, I have a real question in my mind.
If you ask me, could DeSantis execute?
Is he good at just getting the thing done, whatever the thing is he's trying to do?
And the answer is, maybe one of the best we've seen.
I mean, it's hard to tell from the outside, because you're only seeing what people want you to see, but it looks to me like he's really effective.
Now, does that mean he's more effective than Vivek would be?
I don't know.
I don't think any of us could know that.
But I would say for sure that nobody's really experienced at being a president.
So if you say that Vivek is not experienced, I would first of all go to the Steve Jobs quote, you hire the people whose best days are ahead of them.
I would also say that nobody's experienced when they first become president.
If you want experience, it's Trump or Biden, and they come with a lot of baggage.
Experience gives you a lot of baggage, and you've got to deal with that.
So ask yourself how much of that experience you want to deal with.
It's not all good.
All right.
To me, here's another way to look at Vivek.
I will take the smartest person in the room with the clearest positive message, and is age 38, without even knowing anything else about the candidate.
If you didn't know there was a Vivek, and I said, all right, all right, here's a proposition.
I'm going to bring you somebody who's smarter than all the people in the room, he has the clearest positive view of the world, clear positive view, and he's age 38, or she is.
I'll take that every time.
I will take that every time.
Do I need his experience?
Do you know how long it would take a Vivek to learn a new thing?
Come on, are you paying attention?
Let me just ask the question again because it's almost funny.
Do you understand how long it takes a Vivek, I'll use him as like a generic, a Vivek, do you know how long it takes him to learn a new complicated thing?
He's not like you and me.
He's not like regular people.
That's why he's doing so well.
He's doing so well that he can walk into any complicated situation, from economics to law to medicine and science.
He's actually, you know, quite proficient in the most complicated domains.
Do you think he can't figure out the presidency?
The presidency is being done by, well, kind of, by Joe Biden.
I've got a feeling that the presidency would be one of the easiest things he ever figured out.
Alright.
He did make one, I think it was sort of a mistake, when he started he goes, you know, I know what you're thinking, who is this skinny guy?
So it was sort of reminiscent of something Obama said when he was introduced to the world.
And it's something that, who is that, Admiral Stockwell?
You remember, he started out, this is Stockdale, he started out his debate by saying, all right, who am I and why am I here?
And everybody just laughed because he defined himself as not belonging there.
That was like one of the greatest mistakes in debate history.
So Vivek came kind of close with his, you know, I know what you're thinking, who's the skinny guy?
I think the way I would have gone is, if this is the first time you've seen me, you're probably wondering why I'm already polling number two.
Right?
Compare mine.
Who's this skinny guy, blah blah blah, the joke didn't land?
Better.
If you've never heard of me and you've never seen me before, you're probably wondering why I'm already polling number two.
By the end of the debate, I hope that's obvious.
Boom.
Cluster bomb.
All right.
Let's talk about some of the others.
Asa Hutchinson, who I call the poor man's Mike Pence.
You do not want to look like a bad version of the guy who was a vice president.
Never works.
Never works.
I talked about a few of them.
How about this Burgum guy?
Burgum did one of the worst things I've ever seen.
He introduced himself to the country by saying he was the only one there from a town of 300 people.
That's my first impression of him and the only thing I remember.
And the only thing I remember is, oh, he didn't have anything to sell himself.
He came empty.
He was unprepared.
He had one leg, because he hurt his leg before the thing.
That was a nothing.
Christy.
He's sort of a sideshow character.
Like, I don't take him seriously, because I don't think he's serious about running.
I don't know why he's running.
I assume there's some billionaire behind him who has some objective that may not be winning an election.
I just don't know what's going on.
But Christy came with his prepared, oh, I'm going to get the vague.
And here was his, here was his, I gotcha.
Making it look like it was, you know, off-the-cuff, but very much not off-the-cuff.
He talks about Vivek, he goes, I've had enough of a guy who sounds like Chet GPT.
Now, let's do a survey of Republican voters who were watching the debate on Fox News.
Republican voters watching the debate on Fox News.
Average age.
Do I have to finish?
How many people in the audience know what chat GPT is?
Every one of you do, like 100% of you do.
But as soon as you leave the people who are following the top 2% of all the news, how many people even know who Pragojan is?
We'll talk about him in a minute.
How many people?
The general population is nothing like us.
Us meaning people who are kind of addicted to following this stuff.
That was a terrible mistake.
Do you know what it sounded like to me?
To my ears, and this is not what he said, this is not what Christie said, but to my ears, I heard him making fun of him working at a 7-Eleven or doing tech support.
That's what I heard.
Now, he didn't say that.
Or anything like it.
But if you don't know what ChatGPT is, do you think it's something about tech support?
Do you?
I'll bet you do.
And it looks like he was just mocking him for his ethnicity.
That's what it looked like.
Now, that's not what happened.
That did not happen.
In the real world, it did not happen.
But the way it felt, it was just so awkward that that was just a fail.
And then, but Vivek ended up with the best comeback, which did look spontaneous.
I don't know if it was.
He may be prepared with this already, but he sold it like it was spontaneous.
And that was that, you know, Christie was saying that Trump is running for vengeance and, what did he say?
Vengeance and grievance.
And Vivek says, your point would be a lot stronger if you were not running for president solely for vengeance and grievance against one person.
Oh, we're done here.
Oh, hello.
Hello.
Goodbye, Chris Christie.
That's the end of that.
He just took him out.
Now Christie will still hang around because he's not a real, I don't think he's a real candidate.
He's a stunt candidate or a special feature candidate or I mean he's not going to be president.
Let's see, how many of you remember that Tim Scott was at the debate?
This morning, I decided to make my notes to talk about it.
I thought I'd make my notes based on what I remembered, because what you remember is actually the important part.
The parts you didn't remember don't have a persuasive element to them, because you literally don't remember them.
I could not remember that Tim Scott was on the stage.
Literally, I thought I'd done all my notes.
Oh, this guy, this guy, this woman.
And then I looked on a picture.
I go, oh, shoot.
Tim Scott was there too.
He disappears on stage.
When you put him on the stage with all the other people, he just disappeared.
And, which is weird because I always thought he was pretty solid.
He's solid in the sense he says, you know, good solid Republican sounding things.
He's got a good backstory.
He's successful individually.
Seems like a good guy, doesn't have any, I don't know of any scandals per se.
So, I mean, he's a good solid Vice President looking guy, but he didn't help himself.
He looked like he just disappeared.
Yeah.
Too polite?
All right, let's talk about Trump.
On Tucker, the number of views on Tucker's show on X is probably going to hit 200 million.
Let me just say that again, in case you weren't following along.
A typical primetime show on Fox News gets how many viewers?
Now, this was more than a primetime show, but how many Fox News viewers do you get a typical night?
3 million?
Yeah, 3 million would be a runaway hit.
3 million.
He's already at 192 million.
3?
192.
Now the debate itself was probably, I'm sure, more than 3.
Does anybody have a number on Fox News viewership?
23 million?
That can't be right.
It might be.
But whatever that number is, it's nowhere near 200 million.
I think we can agree.
200 million is way more than the number of voters, right?
It's way more than the number of people who vote.
So I don't know, maybe the viewer numbers are people who dipped in and dipped out?
Do you get counted twice if you watch half and then you come back for the other half?
Oh, I think you do, right?
No?
No, it just looks at your IP?
If you come from a different IP, is it twice?
It'd be twice if he came from a different computer.
Yeah.
So I don't think that number is as real as the viewership numbers.
So it's probably not an apple and an orange.
But it's a gigantic number.
And as other observers said, Tucker proved the model.
Elon Musk proved the model.
Yeah.
People really, really want to watch this kind of content on X. So gigantic victory for Musk.
Gigantic victory for Tucker.
Good for them.
And I'm sure Fox News had a good night, actually, so it was probably a good night for them.
But anyway, Trump talked to Tucker.
Here are my observations.
Number one, visually, Trump, I don't know if it was the lighting or Trump has decided to go with a white hair look.
Does anybody know the answer to that?
Was that just lighting?
Or did he actually Improve his his color coordination in the head area because you look great.
I Thought I thought he looked better than well really any time.
I think you look at better than 2016 frankly So that's that's pretty good.
You know if you could pull that off He did look like he was completely in his right senses he You know I thought he was he was interesting but I Correct me if I'm wrong, the debate was so missing Trump that you could almost taste it.
When you were watching it, it felt like you were watching the band that showed up instead of the one you were hoping for.
That the total wattage of the event, even with Vivek, was so obviously below what it would have been if Trump had been there.
Now, he made exactly the right decision to not be there, because he would have been, you know, average with them, and he could have made a mistake accidentally, or been quoted in a context.
So the best thing he could do is lay low, and he did.
But, well, if you could call that laying low.
He was just in a different venue.
So here are some of the highlights.
Number one, Tucker asked him if he thinks Epstein killed himself.
And Trump actually gave this long, indirect answer where he said he didn't know, but that he thinks he might have committed suicide, but he thought that Tucker and others might think differently.
So he was actually giving full balance to both views, which is actually a perfect president answer.
Because if there's somebody on the other side, and it's an issue of no importance to the country whatsoever, I mean, not really.
He's dead, he's dead, doesn't matter who did it.
Then the best answer is don't cause any trouble.
Now the fact that he pulled that off without showing you know what he really thought was actually a good performance and I'm gonna call it a performance because do you think that he doesn't know?
You think that Trump doesn't know what happened?
Now, it doesn't mean he was a witness, but you don't think he knows?
I think all the presidents know.
I think they know.
All right.
I don't know what the answer is, but I think they know.
You have to listen to, well, you have to listen to Trump's clip of him talking about Joe Biden's physicality.
All right.
So I can't I can't reproduce it because it's classic Trump.
And he just starts pecking at Biden.
And I'll just give you some of the parts.
It won't be funny when I tell you it'll just give you a flavor.
But he talks about how Joe Biden can't walk through the grass on the way to the helicopter because the grass is too tall.
It's two inches.
Can't do it.
Now, he's so visual, you imagine Biden not being able to walk to the helicopters.
That's the first image he puts in your head.
Then he goes to the beach.
He goes, he's in the beach.
He can't walk through the sand.
I mean, sand is hard to walk through, but he can't even do it.
The beach chair, he couldn't pick up a beach chair.
Do you know how heavy a beach chair is?
They're made to be super light.
Super light.
He couldn't even pick it up.
He doesn't look good.
Why did they let him, why did they, why does he let people take pictures of him at the beach?
It's not a good look.
And he said his legs look like toothpicks, and he just keeps going on.
So here's what happened.
I happened to be playing it as I was, you know, brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed.
About halfway through, I was laugh crying to the point of an asthma attack.
I was doubled over, tears were shooting out of my eyes, I was holding my stomach, and I thought I was going to die.
Now, who made you feel that way in the debate?
Nobody.
Nobody.
The level of emotional connection that Trump creates, you know, through the television from miles away, even recorded, you know, recorded.
It's unprecedented, and nobody will ever come close.
I don't believe anybody will ever come close to the pure wattage of his personality, because he made the debate look like it was just missing him.
And then when he talks, he draws these movies in your head that you feel like you watched a comedy movie with a funny narrator, and I was just crying it was so funny.
Now, it was so funny because it was so mean.
You're not supposed to be so mean when you're running for president.
By the way, this is a humor trick.
One of the basic tricks of humor is you take somebody who's not supposed to act a certain way, and then you have them act that way.
For example, if I created a doctor character for the comic strip, I would have the doctor not be like a regular doctor.
He would actually want to kill people and hate people.
Or a bunny rabbit would be like a vicious killer.
And so anytime something is the opposite of what it's supposed to be, it's just naturally funny.
So when Trump, who is supposed to be the politically correct leader who brings us all together, he starts mocking the physical abilities of his competitor and how he's already gone mentally, etc.
It's not supposed to happen.
So it's the difference between what you should be seeing and what you're actually experiencing is what causes the laugh reflex.
Because your brain can't put them together.
It's like, I know it's Trump, but still you're not supposed to be doing this!
Then you just start laughing.
Now, I'm completely aware that The way he strikes me is very different than how he strikes Democrats, of course, and also a lot of Republicans.
And I'm convinced that the main reason there's a difference is some people know that he's joking and others don't.
In other words, some people, such as me and most of you, I think, you know that when he's doing that, when he's doing the Biden stuff and other stuff as well, that he's playing a part He's creating a character, he's putting on a show, and he's drawing all the energy to him, making you laugh.
Because if you can laugh with somebody, you're going to like them.
Am I right?
If you laugh with somebody, it's hard to not like them.
It's just impossible.
So he makes people laugh, and then you just want to see more of it.
Your dopamine gets spiked, and you say, you know what?
The only way I'm going to get more of this dopamine, like the laugh that I had last night, I would have paid for.
If you said, all right, to get that laugh, it's $100.
$100.
Yep.
$100.
Yep, $100.
I would pay $100 to feel how I felt last night for 15 minutes.
$100.
It was that good.
Now, who gives you that?
Everybody else is just like, oh, I like his policy.
Or I like what she said about abortion.
You don't feel anything.
Nothing.
All right.
I thought Pence was just Pence.
And by the way, Pence is a real good performer.
So Pence had a solid debate.
He was the number one in time, but that had to do with people were mentioning him, so he got a little more time.
But he was smart enough, he was so good that at the beginning of the debate, I think there was some reference to the Trump administration, and he immediately tried to interrupt and say, well, I've been mentioned.
Because the rules are if you get mentioned, you get some response time.
So he actually tried to get time Based on the fact that the questioner or somebody said something about the administration.
And that was, that was really, that was a stretch.
But the fact that he, he took a, he took a play at it, just showed how good he is.
Cuz that, that was a pretty good play.
Didn't work.
Didn't work.
But it was a good play.
I, I liked, I liked his quick judgment and his experience on that.
That was, that was well, well executed.
Didn't work.
So I think he's a good debater.
Got the most time.
Who got the number two time?
Vivek.
And he got it by earning it.
Because the other people wanted to talk about him.
They were talking about Vivek more than they were talking about DeSantis.
That's one of the things people are chatting about today.
If you could be number two on the stage and have more people attack you than the person who's effectively number one, watch out.
I mean, that's pretty predictive of his rise.
All right.
Here are two fake newses, one in each direction, meaning a conservative one and then a Democrat one.
Now, you are not going to agree with me on either of these.
Can we stipulate that?
You're going to go, whoa, Scott, you lost me on that one, because that's true for sure.
Maybe.
But in my opinion, There are two things that look fake.
Number one, when CNN talks about Vivek wanting to abolish the FBI, they do not include the most important fact that he doesn't want to get rid of their function.
He wants to distribute the people who do real work to places where their work is more directed in a specific type of crime, and then get rid of the administrative stuff.
Now, how do you turn a great idea Or potentially, great idea, into the worst sounding thing in the world.
You just say he wants to abolish the FBI, and then you talk a little bit about the history of the FBI and how awesome it's been.
That's what CNN did.
They just talked about how awesome the FBI is and it's been there forever.
If you leave out that he wants to keep the functions, you're just lying.
Would you agree?
Would you agree it's a lie?
Just a complete lie, if you don't say he wants to keep the functions.
Now, here's my one criticism of Vivek.
He needs to say that in every sentence.
I want to get rid of the FBI, but keep the functions and get rid of the fat.
You know, distribute it.
If he said that every time, everybody would just agree.
I mean, you would just get people saying, okay, that's reasonable.
Now, I don't think that's necessary.
He does say that with the Department of Education.
When he talks about the Department of Education, he says, ban it and take the money from that and give it to the states.
And then I say, oh, oh, okay.
That's not just banning something because you don't like it.
That's making sure that the problem is more directly, you know, closer to the people.
They can spend it, etc.
So that's the first one.
So that's a fake news that the left is doing on Vivek.
Here's one you're not going to like.
Jen Psaki said, no one supports abortion up until birth, because I think maybe all of the people on the stage, or most of them, believe.
Yeah, here it comes.
Hold on, though.
Hold on.
I might surprise you on this.
Might surprise you.
The number one thing I remind you of is I don't have an opinion.
I'm trying to sell you an abortion.
I don't have one.
I also don't know what's going on with this claim.
So that's the big point, is that I'm not sure what's true.
So don't assume I know what's true, and don't assume you're seeing my opinion.
I'm just going to talk about that as a news bit.
So Jen Psaki said, no one supports abortion until birth.
I saw a bunch of other tweeters say the same thing, whereas the Republicans are quite unified, I think, in believing it's absolutely a thing.
Let me get a feed.
I'm sure I know how this is going to turn out.
But would you say this statement is true?
No one supports abortion until birth, meaning Democrats.
Do you believe that's true?
That no one supports abortion up until birth?
Just feels like a lie, doesn't it?
So it feels like a lie to me, but what's true?
So I thought, well, I seem to be badly under-informed on this topic, specifically because I'm just going to follow the lead of women.
If women want a certain set of laws, that's the most credible outcome to me, so I'm not going to bother with my opinion on this stuff.
So here's what I did.
I went to Google, and I said, I'm going to Google and find out if this is true or false, that there is such a thing as abortion until birth, and that it really exists, and that Jen Psaki is just lying about it, as are the other Democrats.
Because that's what you believe, right?
You believe it's totally a thing in a number of states, maybe not everywhere, but you believe it's totally a thing in a number of states, and that Jen Psaki is lying, correct?
Most of you believe that, if you're leaning right.
So I googled it.
I googled it on your behalf, to find out if she's lying.
You know what I found out?
Nothing.
Nothing.
The internet has scrubbed information on this question.
All it is is people talking about it, but there's no fact check.
That's right.
There's no fact check.
I couldn't find it.
See if you can find it.
So, as of right now, I don't know.
I do not know what is true.
And you can't find it on the internet, and that's not a coincidence.
Do you think the internet would get rid of that, like, by accident?
You know, there's no fact check on it?
If you do a fact check on that, shouldn't the fact check be toward the top and be obvious?
No, it was all these sources that are completely biased and wouldn't have any value at all.
That was my experience.
If somebody can find a source that is both credible and clear, could you tweet it at me?
Because I actually just don't know what's true.
I don't have any idea what's true.
I'll tell you my hypothesis.
My hypothesis is that it's technically true in some states, but that there's more to the story.
And the more to the story could be, for example, if you had an extreme situation.
Let's say the baby would be born alive but without a functioning brain.
Or born alive and would certainly die in five minutes no matter what.
But!
The mother's life is at danger.
Under the most rare extreme situation, would you want the mother to say, you know, actually I'm going to save myself.
It's my choice.
Or would you want the mother not to have the choice, and that the state says, no, this baby, under any condition, every condition, still gets to be born alive.
Now my guess is, That probably what's happening is something like there's some extreme situation.
Now, it might also be that they're playing with the definition of a normal birth.
For example, could it be that it's legal to have the baby just before it's born if you're having some kind of a wrong early birth?
And the baby is not viable, or as viable, or something.
So could there be some extreme situations that they don't mention where, yeah, technically, technically it would be legal under the extreme.
Which would be totally unacceptable to the pro-life people, would you agree?
It wouldn't matter if it's extreme to the pro-lifes.
Would the pro-life say that the law should allow the mother to die so that the baby could live, even if it's not viable?
How many would you agree with that?
How many would agree that the mother should sacrifice herself, and that the stage should make her die, so that a non-viable baby can be born?
Non-viable meaning, you know, it's got such major problems, it's not going to have like a regular life.
Yeah, see, we don't agree on even basic stuff, which is part of the reason I try to keep my opinion out of it.
But I'm trying to highlight the fact that if you can never agree on this stuff...
The best you can do is make sure that the people who have the most skin in the game, women, have a little more dominant say in the outcome than the people who have less skin in the game.
That's the best you can do.
If you want credibility, make sure the skin in the game people are the people making the decisions.
Speaking of which, I always use this example, if women wanted to vote on a law about male circumcision, I would not want them to get involved at all.
I'd say, I got a skin in the game.
How about I decide that for the future men?
How about men figure this out and you just keep at it?
That's what I'd say.
Now, if only men gave birth and women could not give birth, do you think I would listen to a woman's opinion?
About what I should do legally or personally?
Absolutely not.
In fact, I'd be offended.
I'd be offended if a woman even offered an opinion.
So why wouldn't it be the same the other way?
Right?
If you are the ones having babies, do you want to hear an opinion from somebody who doesn't have babies?
Or never had, or can't have?
Yeah.
It's not a perfect opinion.
I just prefer not to muddy the waters with my less than useful opinion on that.
Because I'm not going to have any babies.
All right, let's talk about Purgosian.
Everybody hear that Purgosian, well, he allegedly was on his plane with the other founders of Wagner, and then apparently got shot down by the Russian military.
There are several possibilities.
One possibility is that the plan was for Purgosian to live his retirement in Belarus.
He just hadn't gotten there yet.
But there was a mechanical problem on the plane and, well, talk about bad luck.
He went through a whole war without getting injured and just flying in a plane took him down.
Bad luck.
That's one possibility.
Let's say that's the least likely possibility.
Next likely possibility, he was on the plane, and the whole plan was to kill him so it didn't look as much like he was just murdered.
Maybe.
Maybe.
The other possibility is, he's been dead for a long time, but they don't want to say that, because the Wagner people and other people might get mad, so they have to create a fake progosion Put his name on the passenger list.
Apparently they found his cell phone, but not his body.
That was today's news.
Who knows what's real.
But it would be pretty easy to put his phone on there, put his name on it, shoot it down, and say, oh yeah, he was fine.
We were best friends until some tragic thing happened with the mechanical part of his plane.
Maybe.
The other possibility is that Purgosian is not dead and that from the start he has been interrogated and you know there may be future information he's willing to give up and he's still an asset for figuring out who the other coup plotters were or for leverage on somebody.
But if you're going to keep him forever as a prisoner that's not cool if a lot of people still support him.
So you're going to have to pretend he's dead To keep him as a prisoner, so you can interrogate him forever.
Which of those possibilities do you think is most likely as of today?
Do you think he was on the plane?
The one thing that we can be sure of, may I summarize his condition without knowing any of the other particulars?
So without knowing where he was or what's happened to him, I'd like to summarize Boghossian's condition.
He's not doing well.
That's it.
He's not doing well.
That we can say for sure.
So the whole Belarus situation?
No.
Nope.
Now, may I ask this question?
Who had the first and best take on Purgosian in the entire world?
I'll just sit down and read your comments.
It was you.
Yeah, it was me.
So, I don't know why there weren't more people, at least in the public.
There were a lot of individuals.
I see a lot of you were on the same page.
So individually, a lot of citizens knew exactly what was happening from the start.
But I feel like the public news was just acting stupid or something.
Didn't they all know exactly that from the very beginning He was either already dead or was never going to be seen again.
There was never any chance he was going to go to Belarus.
If you ever believed the Belarus story, even after his plane went there, you already watched Russia fake one Prigozhin plane trip.
You think they wouldn't do it again?
Now, allegedly, Putin likes to kill his critics.
Allegedly.
All right, so I have one viewer who wants me to say allegedly.
But if it's true that he's been poisoning his critics, do you see a pattern?
If it's true he poisoned his critics, then it would suggest that there's a certain way he likes to kill people, and it would have the following characteristics.
Number one, they would know he's murdering them for a long time before they died.
Right?
Because the poison It takes a while, so you know you're dying, and you know exactly who did it.
And the entire world knows exactly who did it, but you can't really do anything about it.
So it's almost as if he wants not only the victim to know it, I'm killing you now.
It's gonna take a while, but I'm murdering you.
It's me.
Hey, it's me.
I'm killing you.
And he wants everybody who is another critic to know that they could get poisoned the same way.
Right?
So he's sending a message with this weirdly obvious play that, you know, this polonium that only Russia seems to have.
But he wants everybody to know, while still saying, what?
I don't know what you're talking about.
There's no evidence connecting it to me.
Now look at the plane situation, Prigozhin's plane.
Did you notice that from the videos there was some problem with it?
It looked like maybe a missile or something, but it fell from a very long distance for a long time, presumably while everybody was still alive on the inside.
So all the way down, they had to know that Putin was killing them.
He was doing it in a very public way.
And everybody would know he did it, and he would still have some out to say, well, I don't know, must have been some mechanical problem.
Right?
So, Putin, if he's the murderer that our people say he is, he has a way of doing it that's exactly this.
Make sure the people getting killed know they're being murdered, so they can really let it sink in before they actually die.
Make sure there's deniability, but such weak deniability that everybody knows he did it.
Do you remember when people said Putin is weak because of the Wagner revolt?
That's what they said.
They said he's weak.
What do you think today?
Does he feel weak today?
No, he feels like somebody who just wiped out the entire Wagner leadership and made the story about Purgosian so you don't think so much about the leadership that he took out.
I think it was a strong play.
I think it makes him look strong.
And, you know, there's a lot of chatter, I don't know if you're hearing it, that Ukraine is ready to fold.
Do you believe that's true?
Remember, everything out of that area is bullshit and bias and lies and propaganda.
There's no way to know.
But the idea is that the Ukrainians are, like, running out of soldiers.
But we've also heard that about the Russians.
That they're running out of soldiers.
But it doesn't appear that the Russians are running out of soldiers.
It doesn't appear that there's any major internal strife.
It doesn't appear that their economy is going to crash soon.
I mean, they have some problems with getting high tech stuff in the long run.
But they'll probably figure out some workaround for that.
And they still have cash.
So at the moment, it looks like Russia can grind on Ukraine as long as it wants.
And it wants to do it Until they're done.
So what's going to happen?
I still think that a Republican could end the war in a day, but we'll see.
All right.
Ladies and gentlemen, is there any topic?
That I've forgotten.
I think we've gone long enough.
I think it's the best show you've ever seen.
If you get a chance to pick up my incredible Change the World book, Reframe Your Brain, people are buying many copies of it, and it's doing great.
My conversation with Roseanne is being released today, so look for that interview.
We had a lot of fun.
And yeah, so Roseanne today.
I've got some other podcasts that I'm doing.
I'm going to do Roger Stone's radio show.
So that'll be fun.
You know, I have a weird way of deciding who to talk to for podcasts.
I did Clifton Duncan's yesterday, you'll see that in a few days.
But when Roger Stone called, or messaged me, I thought to myself, how do you not do Roger Stone's interview?