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And happy Saturday, pre-Mother's Day, Mother's Day Eve.
Let's get your comments working, and then we've got a show for you.
The Saturday show that you deserve.
The Saturday show that you deserve.
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the highlight of human civilization.
It's called Coffee with Scott Adams, and you've never had a better time.
But if you'd like to take a chance of taking this experience up to levels that nobody can even understand with their tiny, shiny human brains, all you need is a cupper mug or a glass of tanker, chelsea, stein, a canteen jug, or a flask of 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 end of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip, and it's going to happen right now.
Thank you.
I see Sergio has his coffee warmer.
Now that's the way to go.
If you've never tried the coffee warmer, you know, the little thing that stays hot when you put your coffee on it.
You really should.
If you're a stickler about the taste of coffee, maybe that's not so good, because it doesn't taste the same at the end as it does at the beginning.
But if you like it warm, it's a good idea.
Alright, I will remind you that it's Saturday, and that means Owen Gregorian will be hosting a Spaces event immediately after the show.
So if you're on the X platform, just look for Owen Gregorian.
Or you can see me.
I retweeted it this morning, so you can see it in my feed as well.
The link to the Coffee with Scott Adams after party.
You can find it.
All right, let's get this working.
There we go.
All right, I wonder if there's any science that they could have skipped just by asking me.
Oh, here we go.
Eric Nolan is writing in SciPost that people with lower cognitive ability are more likely to fall for pseudo-profound bullshit.
Can you believe it?
Dumb people are more likely to be dumb.
They actually study that.
If you're falling for pseudo-profound BS, Meaning that the sentence sounds good, so you think it's profound, but it doesn't mean anything.
Yeah, dumb people.
That's how that works.
You did not need to do that study, Eric.
Well, Eric's just writing about it.
But no, you did not need to do the study that was published in Applied Cognitive Psychology.
Just ask me next time.
All right, is there any other science that you could have skipped?
According to Neuroscience News, The majority of parents report that they get sensory overload from daily family chaos.
All right.
How many of you have ever been a parent?
And did you need to see a study to know that you get sensory overload from the family situation where everybody's yelling at the same time?
Everybody wants something.
Everything's going on.
There's a TV on.
There's a dog barking.
Did you really need to study that?
It's the most universally recognized phenomenon in all of parenting, that the stimulation sometimes, fairly frequently, is just off the chart.
There's just too many things happening at the same time.
Yeah, you can just ask me next time.
Recently, according to the New York Post, there was a 3D printed supercar with a starting price of $2 million that just was created in its own little 3D car printing factory.
So I guess it costs about half a billion dollars to build the printer.
They can do all the metal that's good enough to build the car out of.
But they created an electric hypercar.
You know, it's got impressive statistics.
But the most impressive thing is that most of the parts were 3D printed on site, including all the metal.
All the metal was 3D printed.
Now, I didn't know they were that good at 3D printing metal, that it would be up to automotive specifications, but it is.
Now, it's not very fast, and it's not economical.
But it replaces the entire supply chain.
So you could be a carmaker, and you wouldn't need to depend on anybody for parts, even replacement parts.
You just print them.
Now, there must be some parts of it, like the battery, that they don't print.
But it's kind of cool that you could print your own car if you had half a billion dollars.
Price will go down.
Here's another cool technology, MIT Technology Reviews, talking about it.
So you've already seen probably some headphones that would allow you to translate from one language to another.
So if you haven't seen it, the tech is really good now with AI, where you can just be talking to somebody who speaks another language and your little earpods or your headphones.
Instantly translate it into your language.
But the limitation on that was it could do one at a time.
So it was sort of good for a one-on-one conversation.
But what if you went to dinner with five friends who only spoke different languages?
Well, apparently they now have a translation device that could handle all of that.
And it would identify who's talking and translate their language to yours.
So you can do multiple Multiple languages at the same time talking to you, and it would translate all of them.
Now, if that really works, that's kind of impressive.
That's really impressive.
I saw a clip that Andrew Huberman had a guest who was a top ADHD doctor, and he explains ADHD in detail, but one of the things that caught my interest...
Because I have ADHD.
I don't know if I do or not, actually.
Everybody says they do.
ADHD brains are interest-driven as opposed to importance-driven.
So if something interesting, it takes all their attention, whereas non-ADHD people are just doing whatever they think is most important to do.
Does that feel like that captures it to you?
I have this hypothesis that's not really based on, you know, logic or anything really.
It's just a hunch that ADHD could be cured with a reframe and maybe a little bit of practice just to make sure the reframe sticks.
Now, I don't know exactly what reframe it would be, but I compare the ADHD brain to my own and I say, Why would you not be able to do what I do?
And so I'm just going to throw out some ideas.
If I'm getting ready in the morning or I'm getting ready to go somewhere, I have two sets of thoughts that run all the time.
One is what I'm doing.
Well, actually three.
Three sets of thoughts.
One is what I'm doing, you know, brushing my teeth or whatever.
Two is whatever fun thing I'm thinking about that day.
Oh, I'm going to do this, or I'm thinking about this simulation theory.
And I'm just sort of going back and forth between brushing my teeth and thinking about fun things.
But the third thing that's always in there is what time it is.
The number of times that I would look at the time as I'm getting ready to do this show, you've probably noticed I'm usually on time.
I probably looked at the time...
Maybe 80 times?
Yeah, but I wasn't super aware of it.
It's just that I have a habit of thinking what I'm doing, some cool thought on top of it, unless what I'm doing is really absorbing.
It's not always absorbing.
And then what time is it?
And I'm just doing those three things all the time.
What am I doing?
What cool thought am I having?
What time is it?
And I don't do anything but that.
Now, are you telling me that people with ADHD could not be trained to think of three things and cycle through them?
Really?
Because one of the things I've noticed about ADHD people, I've known quite a few, is if you made a suggestion about what they should do differently, they would not do it.
Or they would do it once in a way that was clearly designed to fail.
And then they'd say they can't do it anymore.
And I don't have any problems like that.
I don't have any problems where if it really made a big difference in my life, that I wouldn't just keep poking at it.
It's like, okay, that didn't work.
Tomorrow I'll try this.
Okay, that didn't work.
Tomorrow I'll try this.
And I would just keep trying things until something worked.
But I've never seen an ADHD person do that.
Now, is that because they can't focus on it?
It feels like there's just a different set of interests.
And not just what's interesting, but I think it's a lack of feeling that...
Well, I guess this is the provocative part.
I'm usually also thinking about what would be the impact on other people if I'm late.
Do you do that?
When you're thinking about what time it is and you're thinking about getting ready, aren't you thinking about the impact on other people?
Like they'll be mad at you if you're late?
Because that's what I think when I'm getting ready for the show.
I think, well, people will really be disappointed.
And I never really lose that thought.
So I'm doing something for other people, even if I'm doing it for myself.
And I wonder...
Yeah, I wonder if that's...
Do the ADHD people never think what would be the impact on other people?
They must.
But maybe they don't think about it when they're getting ready.
Anyway, so I don't have the answers.
I just have more questions than answers.
But I'm relatively positive that there's some kind of reframe that could be just practiced a little bit that would cure ADHD.
But I don't know what that would be.
I think it's doable, though.
According to the New York Post, half of Gen Z job seekers believe that their college degrees have already been obsolete because of AI.
Half?
What kind of majors do they have that half of them think their jobs are obsolete?
Well, at the same time, they think their jobs are obsolete.
I was watching Mike Rowe on a Benny Johnson podcast, and Mike Rowe was saying that there are 482,000 open jobs in the U.S. that nobody wants to take those jobs.
Perfectly good jobs, but they might be dirty jobs, and they might be in a place that you don't want to be, and that sort of thing.
But at the same time that half the jobs are being eliminated, we've got a whole bunch of jobs that...
Can't get filled.
So you probably remember a Neval post on X. I hope I can paraphrase it.
But the idea is that programmers would not be eliminating the job of programmers, you know, with AI because they can do coding, but rather a programmer plus AI would be getting rid of your job.
And it feels to me that If you add AI to the world, you've created more opportunity than you've taken away.
For example, if I were not doing what I do and I want to use my time for something else, I would be absolutely learning to use AI to code in Python or whatever else I need to create an app.
And I would be creating apps.
And I would do it every day.
I would have an app a day until one of them worked.
But I would think of the world in terms of infinite opportunity.
You know, even if the app doesn't last a year, you know, you might be able to make a killing and it's, you know, done in six months.
But I think people have got to reorient their brain from AI is going to take my job to, oh my God, the things I can do with AI.
Because it's...
It's going to be available to everybody.
Well, on CNN, I saw a really dumb conversation with analogy thinkers.
You know how I've told you a million times that if you're thinking in terms of analogies, you're not thinking.
It just feels like thinking.
So here's a perfect example.
The question was, I guess Trump had decided that he doesn't want trans in the military.
And the conversation around the table on CNN at the Abby Phillips show is that what if Trump decided against having blacks in the military?
Because he's already decided trans, he doesn't want trans.
Couldn't he just decide, you know, as commander-in-chief he doesn't want blacks in the military?
Now, does that make sense to you to even ask that question?
Because trans we see as a medical condition.
And there's a long history of medical conditions being banned in the military.
Am I right?
If you weighed 300 pounds, are you going to get into the military?
No.
If you were blind, are you going to get a job as a military pilot?
No.
So if they don't let blind people fly jets, is that one step away from banning black people from being in the military?
No.
No.
Black is not a medical problem.
It's an analogy.
And it's a dumb analogy.
And the whole table was there.
Oh, that makes sense.
That's a good question.
Yeah, what about that?
What about that, huh?
No, that's just freaking stupid.
If the best you can do is that something reminds you of something else, that's not thinking.
That's just something that reminded you of something else.
So if the trans thing reminds you that in the past blacks were kept down in various parts of civilization, that doesn't mean that banning one of them is going to lead to banning the other one.
You can't compare a medical condition to being black.
That's the most ridiculous thing.
So, no, I don't think there's a risk there.
Well, you all saw the news story about the Newark mayor and three Democratic members of Congress who tried to interfere with an ICE facility, and they weren't supposed to be trespassing, so they got arrested.
And once again...
We see that the Democrats don't have any good ideas, but they have performance art, and they have ways to stop you from doing things.
So this is where I call the difference between Democrats and Republicans the Yoda frame.
The Yoda frame is that Republicans do, and Democrats not do.
All they do is try to stop the doing.
And every time that Republicans take any step in the right direction or wrong, it doesn't matter what direction, they try to make any step forward, there's like this massive Democrat attack to try to stop them.
So in this case, the mayor and three Democratic members of Congress got arrested.
But remember that the election that wasn't too long ago with the Wisconsin Supreme Court seat and all the smart people were saying, uh-oh, if this is lost to the Democrats, they'll have enough power in the court.
If somebody brings a lawsuit to potentially redraw the gerrymandered area and add some...
Democrats to the House and maybe take control.
And sure enough, Mark Elias.
Remember I tell you that if you know what's happening, you don't know anything.
But if you know who is doing it, well, you might know everything.
So if you don't know who Mark Elias is, you should do a little research on that.
Because his name pops up a lot.
It's always in the context of changing the...
The rules are the laws so that they're more friendly to Democrat power grabs.
So here he is.
He's filed a lawsuit with the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The AP is reporting exactly like we expected.
And he's challenging the maps that are gerrymandered, which is an interesting approach because...
Isn't everything gerrymandered?
Don't we just sort of live with the fact that the party that's in power gets the gerrymander of the state?
But apparently that's being challenged, and of course it will go to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and almost certainly it's going to go exactly the way Republicans worried.
It will be a Democrat making a Democrat decision for the benefit of Democrats.
That's my guess.
Meanwhile, you're aware that Trump has a bunch of crypto that's worth quite a bit, apparently.
And Norm Eisen, which is another name you should know.
Again, if you don't know who Norm Eisen is, you're not really understanding the world.
Knowing him and what he does is key to understanding all of American politics.
If you don't know that, who he is and what he does, you're really going to be lost.
Everything will look confusing.
Like, why is that happening?
Why is that happening?
Anyway, he was on Jim Acosta's podcast.
Turns out they're good buddies.
And Mike Benz is saying that, if you sort of read between the lines, Norm Eisen was trying to get some prosecutor to go after Trump, or the Trump family maybe too, for something in crypto.
Now, is there something specific that's illegal?
Not that we know of.
But would that stop Norm Eisen from...
You know, hoping you can get a prosecutor to look into it and find something that's not appropriate?
It looks like that's probably going to happen.
And he points out that 40% of Trump's net worth is in crypto.
So if you really wanted to hurt Trump, that would be a big target.
And the thing that's the creepiest about Norm Eisen...
It's how happy he gets when he thinks about screwing Trump.
You shouldn't be that happy.
Like, oh, oh, you know what I mean?
It's like, oh, we really need to, oh, oh, oh, a little too happy.
Anyway, that'll be another case of Trump do and maybe Norm Eisen stops him from doing.
According to Newsmax, 15 states are suing over Trump's move to fast-track oil and gas projects.
So there are 15 states who do not want their economy to grow if it means that they're fast-tracking oil and gas projects.
Now, this is another example of Republicans do, Democrats not do.
Whatever it is that the Republicans want to do, there's going to be a Democrat who launches a legal challenge.
How about this?
Trump's going to reopen a little under 5,000 square miles of ocean off of New England for commercial fishing.
It's something that had been an Obama-Biden-era restriction on fishing in that area.
There has not yet been a legal challenge.
But do you think there won't be?
Of course there will.
Because Republicans do.
And Democrats not do.
So, yeah, I think the fact that Trump opened it up will probably mean nothing in the long run.
Because the Democrats will find some judge to block it.
Because they always do.
Post-millennials reporting on that.
Here's something scary and I would not have expected.
So apparently Justice Sotomayor went to an ABA event, the American Bar Association, all the lawyers, and said to the audience of lawyers, quote, our job is to stand up and that, quote, we can't lose the battles we are facing.
We need trained and passionate and committed lawyers to fight this fight.
What fight?
Fight this fight.
What fight is she talking about?
I can only think of one.
Did she just go into, as a Supreme Court justice, did she just go into an audience of lawyers and tell them that she's on their side and they're fighting against Trump?
Because that's what it sounds like.
That might be the least appropriate thing I've ever heard from a Supreme Court justice.
It makes a mockery of the whole system.
True enough.
I saw a post on that by Kerry Severino, who was explaining it.
Meanwhile, over at MSNBC, Jen Psaki, as a show that's moved into the spot that was Rachel Maddow's weekday spot.
Rachel Maddow's going back to one day a week.
During Trump's first hundred days, Rachel Maddow bravely decided that she would work a regular schedule of five days.
So brave.
But she's back to one day.
So Jen Psaki goes into that spot, and apparently the ratings plummeted.
Now, I'm not completely surprised because Jen Psaki is sort of the poor man's Rachel Maddow.
She's Rachel Maddow, except without the plastic face.
You know, Rachel Maddow's face just morphs and changes as she talks.
Whereas Jen Psaki looks like Jen Psaki the entire time she's talking.
Rachel Maddow looks like she's being inhabited by demons, but the demons are just passing through.
Have you ever noticed that?
It's like one demon after another.
It's like...
And then...
And then...
It's like one demon goes through and then the other one just takes over.
But it's very entertaining and apparently Jen Psaki doesn't have that going for her because every minute she's on the air, she just looks like Jen Psaki, which is a pretty good way to look.
She's a good-looking human being.
Anyway, so the Democrats continue to talk about how they don't have any ideas.
The hilarious thing to me is that the Democrats became aware that their problem is no ideas.
And what do you think they did to address the fact that their problem is no ideas?
Do you think they came up with some ideas?
Nope.
I don't think it even occurred to them.
They instead worked on the process.
That would get you to some new ideas.
So that would include more podcasts.
But podcasts are not ideas.
They're places where you can imagine somebody would have one.
But apparently nobody does.
There are books being written about Biden and his brain and what went wrong.
But that's not really an idea.
That's just a process-y criticism of things they've done before.
Then, as you've seen on TV, a number of the entities have talked about this.
Apparently, Democrats have decided to curse more in public.
Like, that's going to help.
And cursing is not really an idea.
They're just looking at anything that Republicans did or Trump did, and they're saying, huh, okay.
Trump sometimes uses some...
You know, strong language.
Maybe we should do that.
Like, they can't even find what is the active ingredient.
Now, Trump can make a naughty word work because he's the greatest showman of all time.
If you're the world's greatest showman and you've got, like, one little well-placed, you know, naughty word in your entire presentation that might be 90 minutes, that could be genius.
But if all you've decided is you should swear more when you do public appearances, that's not going to help at all.
So the other thing they're doing is the Democrats are going to protest any common sense thing that Republicans want to do.
None of these are ideas.
And I don't see anybody...
I think David Hogg is the last person who came up with an idea, but his idea got shot down because he can't be the co-chair of the DNC at the same time he primaries other Democrats.
So the best idea, or really the only one, I guess, that we see coming out of the Democrats is that they should attack each other more.
They should spend more time attacking other Democrats.
That was their best idea so far.
Anyway, I keep seeing interviews where some prominent Democrat will be talking about the way things are now.
And have you noticed that they talk about the horror of the first hundred days?
And how did we get into this place?
It's like a hellscape that we're in.
And I think to myself, how many of those Democrats, Are experiencing days that are much different from the day before and last year, too.
Is it the trade deals that are making people unhappy because they'll have fewer dolls?
Is that the hellscape they're talking about?
Did their rights go away?
Did they lose some rights that I'm not aware of?
Was there something about the Maryland dad that's making people think they live in a hellscape?
Because there was this one case about this one special situation.
Is that the hell they're talking about?
About trans athletes, the ones born male and playing on women's teams.
If that's banned, is that the hellscape they're talking about?
Is it the reduction of DEI, which is clearly just racist and illegal?
Is that the hellscape?
Have you noticed that they never give you any examples?
Now, I get that if you were a company that's being affected by the trade deals, that would be tough for you.
But the Democrats talk like it's obvious and universal and everybody can see that we're living in some kind of hellscape for the past hundred days.
What exactly are they talking about?
I mean, to me it looks like we're...
Doing okay managing wars.
We've got a plan for trade that looks like, in all likelihood, it's going to give us better deals.
What part is the hellscape?
Is there something I'm completely aware of, unaware of?
Is it the lack of dolls?
Somebody needs to stop one of them and say, what is it?
Even if you're worried about Doge, The Doge thing has settled down.
I mean, notice that Elon Musk is sort of staying out of the news, which I think is a smart play because Tesla stock is way up.
But even Doge doesn't look scary anymore because, you know, they didn't really cut that much in the long run and the department heads get to make the final decisions anyway.
So what is the hellscape?
I have no idea what they're even talking about.
So I think somehow they've sold to their base that they're living in a hellscape without actually giving them any examples of what that might include.
Well, here's some maybe slightly good news.
JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, he visited the Palisades, the fire-destroyed Palisades.
And one of the buildings destroyed there was one of their branch banks.
So he's got a direct interest.
And as of today, only 31 building permits have been issued.
They need 10,000.
They've done 31. And Jamie Dimon, who I believe still, I think he identifies as a Democrat, But he's a very straight shooter, which is unusual for anybody.
And so I always enjoy just looking at his quotes and the way he's thinking.
But one of the things he said is, I changed the name from red tape to blue tape because it's the Democrats who seem to want more regulations.
Now, that's coming from a Democrat.
Now, have you noticed that that's actually an idea?
So Jamie Dimon comes in, and he can give them an idea.
They're starved for ideas, and he comes in, I got an idea.
Why don't you get rid of some regulations?
And then he has another idea, because he was interviewed.
His other idea, he goes, I would have this big warehouse entity, because he was in a big warehouse when he was talking, and I would have all of the people involved in approvals for permits.
In the room every day so that there's no delay.
They can go talk to whoever.
They've got all the resources there.
And basically make it a war room where they're treating it like it's an emergency crisis situation to get the permits approved.
Now, whether or not you like that idea or not, that's an idea.
That's like a real idea.
I would totally want to see that done.
So, if the Democrats are being smart and they're looking for ideas, don't have a podcast.
Don't protest anything.
Just go ask the smartest Democrat, Jamie Dimon, what the hell should we do?
And he will tell you.
He will tell you what your idea should be.
And then you can go do the idea.
Or press for it to be done.
But it's not like they don't have anybody who knows what an idea is.
There he is.
He's one of the most public people you could ever have.
And he's got ideas.
How about they just grab some of those and run with them?
But they won't.
Would you be surprised that a Clinton judge has...
Clinton appointed judge.
Has temporarily blocked Trump's reorganization plan for 20 federal agencies?
No, you would not be surprised.
Because Republicans do, and Democrats not do.
They make sure the Republicans can't get anything done.
Is there a reason that the judge blocked it?
Doesn't matter.
They could have just shopped for some judge that was going to do it.
But they got one.
I doubt there's a reason for it.
And then compare the Democrats doing nothing to the current FDA commissioner, so this would be the Trump administration, Marty McCary, who says, quote, we have this plan to remove all nine petroleum-based food dyes from the U.S. food supply.
That's an idea.
Are you telling me that no Democrat could come up with that idea to remove all the petroleum-based food dyes, which are implicated in various health problems?
I don't know the total science, but obviously the FDA has looked into it.
Like, that's an idea.
So right down the line, it's Republicans have ideas, and my guess will be that Democrats will look to find a judge.
To prevent the FDA from removing nine petroleum-based food dyes from the U.S. food supply?
Because it's the only thing they have.
Their only play is, let's get a judge to stop those Republicans.
Well, I don't know the details of this yet, but it looks like the Trump administration...
Is now accepting South African whites, white people from South Africa, who are feeling that they need to escape from South Africa because of race-based persecution that would be both violence and the taking of property.
And I'm all for it.
And as Stephen Miller was explaining, that this is exactly what our system was looking for.
People who are literally race-based, being discriminated for race in the worst way, you know, violence and property, seizures, etc.
And so we've opened the door to them, and some people have already, I guess some of the Africaners, if that's the right word, have already showed up.
So we'll see how big that is.
I don't know.
Well, you remember Ed Martin was going to be the D.C. prosecutor, but that guy was shot down by Senator Tillis.
But I guess Trump has appointed Ed Martin to the Department of Justice Weaponization Working Group.
So he's in the Weaponization Working Group, according to Just the News.
Now, what do you think is the work product of that group?
Because I don't know much about it.
But I like the name of it, the Weaponization Working Group.
If what Ed Martin is now going to do is root out the places that our government had been involved in weaponization, that feels good to me.
That's an idea.
And that's a good idea.
So good luck to him.
I saw some reporting.
I think this would need to be confirmed, but it's the AF Post is reporting that journalist Dave Riley is reporting that a Mar-a-Lago insider told him that AIPAC, that would be the Israel Supporting Political Action Committee, which has a lot of influence on Congress, was, quote, getting shut down of the Trump administration.
Huh.
Now, I'm going to tie a few strings together here.
So the first string, and again, I would look for a confirmation that this is true.
I don't know for sure that this is true.
But if it's true that Trump now has a little problem with AIPAC, that would be interesting.
And then you heard the story probably that one of the reasons that Mike Walsh got reassigned.
Was that he was allegedly, and again, this is the second thing that I can't confirm, so maybe the reporting is sketchy, but that when he was in the NSA, Walsh was working with Netanyahu sort of behind the back of Trump because Netanyahu and Walsh may have been more pro-war.
And more willing to go to war with Iran than Trump was.
So, is it possible that AIPAC, supporting Israel, was more pro-war than Trump was?
And that he's giving them the cold shoulder because of that?
Is it possible that Walsh was reassigned because he was a little too pro-war?
Is it possible?
Don't know.
But here's another detail.
Apparently Trump just announced, or the administration announced, that Trump is no longer demanding that Saudi Arabia recognize Israel to get a nuclear deal with the U.S. In this case, the nuclear deal would be for domestic nuclear power for Saudi Arabia, which I guess they want.
So, that would be sort of the third indication that Trump is telling Israel, okay, we're in it for America, and you're in it for Israel, and when those are not exactly the same, we're going to do what's good for America.
That's what it feels like.
Now, I'm getting ahead of myself, because these are stories that I'm not sure how confirmed they are.
But there are a lot of them recently.
The fact that they're all rolling out at about the same time means something.
Similarly, Pete Hegseth apparently canceled his plans to visit Israel so that he could travel with Trump instead to Saudi Arabia.
Is that a diss to Israel?
I don't know.
Again, I'm just looking at all the breadcrumbs.
And it's starting to look like the U.S. is putting down some kind of a marker that says, we're America, we're going to do what's good for us.
And if you don't like it, it doesn't matter.
We're going to do it anyway.
So, maybe.
But apparently, Saudi wants to get American help for...
Their own domestic nuclear program.
And, of course, America would like to do that because otherwise, where are they going to get it?
China or Russia?
So we don't want that.
And I guess the Saudis didn't want to reward Israel with some kind of recognition as long as there's still some bad stuff happening in Gaza.
So it looks like Trump just said, well, we could either wait forever.
For Israel not to be messing with Gaza.
Or we can say, okay, Israel, you do your thing, and we'll do our thing with Saudi Arabia, and we'll get whatever we can get done done, if it's good for America.
That's what it looks like.
So And then we also heard that the Israelis were not part of the decision.
That Trump and the Houthis made to not fight with each other because the Houthis did not agree to stop attacking Israel.
So there again, it looks like Trump said, all right, you're not going to attack American ships?
Okay, we're done.
And it looks like Trump did not hold out and say, we're going to keep bombing you until you don't bomb any of our allies.
Nope.
It looks like he just said, If you're not bombing us, that's good.
And then Israel's going to have to figure it out.
And then there was some suggestion that Trump might be looking for a deal with Iran that would not be to the specific liking of Israel.
So, is any of this real?
I don't know.
But does it seem to you like there are...
Way too many little breadcrumbs pointing in the right direction.
I guess I mixed a metaphor there.
Do breadcrumbs ever point in the right direction?
Oh yeah, I guess there could be a path of breadcrumbs.
Yeah, okay, that makes sense.
So it's starting to look like Trump is putting some distance between his own interests for America and Israel's interests.
Is that good or bad?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I mean, it's hard to tell at this point.
So we're hearing the first whispers of what the Trump tax package will have.
You want to be really disappointed?
Apparently, all this time they've been talking about the tax package and the big tax cuts and stuff.
And now there's a sort of a draft that's going around.
I guess I'll just call it that.
So this is by no means the final proposal.
But here are some of the things that are missing in the current view of what the tax policy might be.
The SALT deductions.
Those are the deductions if you have high state income taxes.
I don't know if those will ever be put back in, because those tend to be the blue states, California and New York, etc.
So I don't think they want to reward the blue states.
So I'm thinking that won't be part of it, but it could.
There's no increase in taxes for the top incomes, although Trump had signaled that if they wanted to do that, he wouldn't say no, but he didn't want to be too aggressive backing it.
Because he thinks it would cause a political weakness.
It doesn't mention anything about getting rid of taxes on tips and overtime, although that was one of Trump's promises.
It doesn't include canceling taxes on Social Security, which again was Trump's promise.
It doesn't have a tax break for auto loan interest payments, which was a Trump promise.
A starting credit for family caregivers, which I guess had been promised at one point.
And then apparently the Republicans are weighing up to a 21% tax on university endowments, which I also don't think is necessarily going to happen.
So does it even look like the Republicans were doing anything?
What were they doing in those meetings?
If the best they could come up with is something that doesn't seem to consider anything that the press didn't want it, how's he going to sign it?
It just feels like they didn't do any work.
Now, of course, this is a first drafty kind of release.
Maybe they're just testing the public reaction to it.
You don't know how serious it is, please.
But it really doesn't look like they did any work.
Like, I can't even criticize it for being what I want or what I don't want.
It just looks like they didn't do any work.
There should be at least something in there that makes me mad or makes me happy.
But it looks like all they did was say, all right, well, let's just...
Keep the taxes the way they are, and we won't have the automatic reversion to the old tax rate.
We'll just keep it the way it is and go forward.
That's called not doing any work.
So, great job, Congress.
According to Just the News, California is looking at an annual deficit of $10 billion, which is exactly the amount of Illegal immigrant health care.
So we can't say we didn't see it coming.
The amount of health care for illegal immigrants is exactly the amount that we're being robbed of.
I don't even know what to say about that.
Like, there's no comment to add to that.
It's like such a poorly managed state.
It's just even hard to hold it in my head.
Well, the good news is that the U.S. and Marco Rubio's team, it looks like they were deeply involved in getting India and Pakistan to agree to a ceasefire.
Now, I think a week ago or so, whenever this started, I told you it wouldn't last long and it wouldn't turn into a nuclear war.
And the reason is India and Pakistan do not want to have a nuclear war.
Neither side wanted a nuclear war.
But they also maybe didn't know how to back down.
They didn't want to be the first one to back down.
So this is one of those cases where the U.S. could really do something solid, which is sort of get in there as mediators, which apparently we did, and help them climb down from the aggression that was happening.
And it worked.
Apparently it worked.
So now the president's got the Houthi thing that he can claim as a success and Indian-Pakistan ceasefire, which he can claim as a success.
He still needs a lot of work to do on Ukraine and, you know, Gaza is still a problem.
But those are two nice little wins for the first 110 days or whatever.
Well, the X platform has received orders from the Indian government to block over 8,000 accounts in India.
Now, X doesn't want to block any accounts just because the government told them to.
So, you know, if it violated their own standards, they would block them.
But they don't want to do it just because some government asked them to, and in many cases didn't give reasons.
They just said these 8,000 must be banned or the entire X platform will be banned.
So it looks like what X is going to do is they're going to comply, but only in India.
So I think that means they're only blocked in India, but they would still exist in other countries.
And they're still working on it.
So it's not a settled affair.
Well, this is the weekend in which the Chinese and American delegation is meeting in Switzerland.
Just before I got on, there were some unconfirmed stories that the Chinese delegation had walked out without giving a reason.
And then I read a few other stories, and it turns out they just broke for lunch.
Now, that's not confirmed either.
But does anybody have the most up-to-date information on that?
Because I don't think the Chinese delegation was going to walk out without giving a reason.
It seems far more likely it was a lunch break, doesn't it?
So if you know anything about that, just put it in the comments.
I don't think the talks broke down.
They have so much they need to talk about.
But it is a confusing situation because some say that Trump says he wants to go from a 145% tariff to 80%, but others are saying it's going to end up at 34%.
And it's weird that they throw those numbers around while they're negotiating.
If you were China and you knew that they said, well, it could be 80, it could be 34. Would you spend even one minute talking about 80?
I think you'd go right to 34 and try to get that lower, too.
So it's a weird negotiating technique.
Doesn't look very good.
But Lutnick told Fox News that he expects that no matter what happens, Trump's going to keep significant reciprocal tariffs on China.
That's where the 34% comes from.
So we'll see.
We'll see where that goes.
I don't think there's going to be any big successful announcements.
I don't think the fentanyl thing is going to get solved.
I think China will just game that system and nothing will change there.
But we'll see.
Meanwhile, Newsmax is reporting that the U.S. is thinking about offering Greenland a special status.
Now, the special status would be based on the model that we've used for some small island nations, like Micronesia and the Marshall Islands and Palo, which apparently have, let's say, special arrangements with the United States without being part of the United States.
So the United States provides various services, which would include security and maybe...
U.S. Mail Service and some other essential stuff.
But they don't have to be part of the United States.
However, we don't think that that would work in Greenland unless Greenland became free from Denmark, which is possible.
So it looks like a completely practical...
It does seem practical.
Because we have a model in which we've done it before with these special arrangements with these little islands.
And, you know, they probably have low population too, like Greenland.
The only thing that's a stopper is that Greenland is part of Denmark.
So if you wanted to make this deal, first Greenland would have to say, you know, we want our independence, but we'll be okay.
Because we'll have this special arrangement with the United States, but we'll still be independent.
And we can get out of that deal anytime we want.
We'll just say, we don't want it anymore.
We're out.
But the idea would be that the United States would offer them essentially free services.
And in return, and they would also have no tariffs.
So they would operate just like they're a part of the United States.
They'd have security.
they'd have essential services, and they'd have access to the United States.
And we wouldn't ask much in return, except to make sure that we could put a military presence Well, I remind you that this is the end of the show.
And there will be a Spaces event.
That's the audio feature that X has.
So you have to be on X. And Owen Gregorian will be hosting that just a few minutes after we finish here.
So I like listening to that while I'm getting myself breakfast.
And you can continue the conversation on these topics or anything else that you like.
So you can look for that link in my X account or Owen Gregorian.
You can just search for him on X. You'll find him.
And I'll just say a few words to the local subscribers privately.
