Trump and Somalians and Russia and lots more newsy fun~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Politics, Optimus V3 Hands, NYT Debunks WaPo, WaPo Fake News, War Drone Dominance, National Debt Future, US Average Wealth Increase, Rand Paul Healthcare Plan, President Trump, Trump Nullifies Biden Autopens, Trump Calls Omar Garbage, 3rd World Immigration Halted, Alabama Muslim School, Governor Walz Illegal Licensing, democrat States Voter Rolls, Trump Nobel Prize, democrat Affordability Scam, democrat SNAP Audit Resistance, China Condom Tax, Ukraine War, President Putin's Persuasion, Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, CA Billionaire Tax, Venezuela Tensions, President Maduro Options, 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.
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Well, let me make sure I can see all the beloved locals' comments.
Not that they're better than the rest of you, but they are.
The beloveds.
All right, beloved, you are fully functional.
All right, let's check the news.
See if there's anything weird in the news.
Well, according to the University of Copenhagen, the women's contraceptive pill may cause people to get depressed later in life.
Now, how many of you did not know that the contraceptive pill could change how you feel?
Well, it can.
It can increase risk of depression.
Well, I knew that, if you just asked me, I could have told you.
It also changes your preferences in men, doesn't it?
Don't we already know that?
That your preferences in men would change based on being on the pill.
That's dangerous.
So I would advise you never get married and then go on the pill because that's kind of sketchy.
You might not be attracted to your husband anymore.
Anyway, did you know also that the more you engage in social media, the dumber you get?
According to SciPost, Karina Petrova, there's a new analysis that says that the more time you spend on social media, literally the dumber you get.
Okay, you score lower on certain tasks of brain function.
Let me see.
I wonder who scrolls more on social media.
Men or women?
What do you think?
Who spends more time on social media?
Well, let's go to Grok.
Grok says women spend 30% more time on social media.
So if you know a woman who's on social media and she recently went on the pill, according to science, she is dumb and depressed compared to you.
Compared to you.
So be careful about that.
You don't want the dumb and depressed people.
Well, Elon Musk is bragging about his new Optimus robots.
The hands are the hard thing to get because they have so many the range of motion is so great and they have to be able to feel what they're doing.
But apparently the new Optimus hand is a wonder.
22 degrees of freedom.
I don't know, maybe that's a lot.
But they say they're finalizing it, the design of Optimus version 3.
And it'll have the manual dexterity of a human.
Really?
This would be where a crude cartoonist would be making a joke.
Huh.
Let's see.
Women are going to be scrolling on social media and getting dumber compared to men.
According to science, that's not me, that's science.
And they're going to go on birth control to get angrier and more depressed.
But your Tesla Optimus robot is going to have a human-like hand and is going to be happy and like you all the time.
I wonder where this is heading.
That's right.
Who will be the first person who cancels a date to get a hand job from his robot?
You know, Alice, I'd love to go on that date to the movie and sit there for two hours watching somebody get tied to a chair.
Or I could just get my robot to be a little friendly and a little handsy, you know what I mean?
Well, can your robot give you a massage?
Back massage?
I don't know.
But if one of them learns it, then they all learn it, right?
Well, I believe since the Optimus robots will be networked, and presumably anything that one of them learns will be taught to the others automatically.
I feel like it's an important kind of a social thing you could do to train your robot first to get a little handsy.
And then all the robots will be able to.
And then you don't have to date at all.
Yeah, that's where we're going.
Now, Elon Musk, of course, also is the Neuralink company where they put a chip in your brain.
And he says that any device can be controlled via computer or phone that can be controlled by a computer or phone can be controlled by the Neuralink implant.
Hmm.
Well, that's interesting.
If you were in need of the Neuralink implant, would it be possible that you'd be able to someday, they can't do it yet, imagine that you're in a drone or a robot and that you see what the drone sees or the robot sees.
That's coming, right?
So it could be that our best warriors will be people who are paraplegics, but they have a Neuralink implant so that they can actually be on the battlefield without being on the battlefield.
They'll just use their Neuralink connection to see what the drone sees and see what the robot sees.
Now, a question will be: if the Neuralink, I'm sorry, if the Tesla robots, Optimus, suppose they're the best ones and inexpensive, Will they be available to the military?
Or will Tesla say we will not sell these to the military?
But what if the military said we will buy a million of them?
Well, maybe, maybe.
So, yeah, I have a real question whether the robots will ever be militarized, or will Elon just say, I don't want to be in that business, use some other robot.
I feel like maybe he will not want to be part of that, but I don't know.
Well, the New York Times has joined others in debunking the Washington Post story that alleged that Secretary Hegseth ordered the killing of survivors on one of those narco boats in September.
So, the New York Times says, nope, not true.
How many of you already knew that wasn't true because you had learned how to detect fake news from me?
This one had all of the signs, all of the signs for fake news.
It was there.
Number one, the story fit the Democrat narrative perfectly.
Oh, so six people are complaining about the risk of illegal orders being followed by the military.
And then, coincidentally, there's a big national story about some military people who may have, allegedly, done some illegal things by following orders.
That is what we call two on the nose.
So, clue number one, though, is fake news, two on the nose.
And the timing was kind of coincidentally perfect for something that happened in September, and we waited until now.
All right.
Number two, it came from the Washington Post.
Well, well assumed, let's say, assumed to be a non-legitimate news source when it comes to deep state Democrat stuff.
Maybe not in general, you know, the other news might be fine.
But when it comes to politics, that would be one of the least credible sources.
So, that would be clue number two: two on the nose, and it's the Washington Post.
What would be the third thing?
The third thing is that it's from two, it's always two, they always tell you they're two anonymous whistleblowers.
Now, if they had been non-anonymous and we could all talk to them, maybe, you know, but if they're anonymous, Washington Post, two on the nose.
No, we did not need to wait for the New York Times to debunk this.
We were all there first.
So, how does it feel to know what the future is?
That's what happened.
Those of you that I've trained to spot fake news, as soon as you saw that, you said, and a number of people told me, as soon as I saw it, your training kicked in, Scott, and I knew it was fake news.
Yep.
So, you're welcome.
Anyway, speaking of eggseth, he's announced.
I don't know that this is new, but that the U.S. is going for drone dominance.
So, we've got to be the bestest, biggest military drone maker to stay safe.
Almost nothing else will matter except drones.
And we can't afford to shoot down cheap drones with expensive missiles.
We're going to have to match the cheapness of what will be coming at us if there's a war.
My question is this: How many of our drones that we make, and we're looking to make a gazillion of them and be able to make more than anybody else?
So, the only way that's going to happen is if they're being made by robots.
So, we'll have to have Tesla robots working in factories or other robots making drones like crazy.
But will they be software upgradable?
Probably.
That's probably the main difference will be the software upgrades.
But there will be other hardware upgrades too.
All right.
ABC News says that the wealth of the top 1% of Americans is now a record $52 trillion.
Wow.
So if you took, if you confiscated most of the wealth of wealthy Americans, if you just took it all, you would be able to pay off our national debt.
So how do you think the national debt will be paid off?
Do you think it will be paid off by the poor people?
No.
Will it be paid off by a tremendous amount of economic activity from robots?
Well, that's what Elon Musk thinks.
He thinks the only way out to pay off our national debt is to have such a gigantic increase in economic activity that that 32 trillion or 39 trillion debt doesn't look so big anymore.
Maybe.
That plus inflation could be.
But here's the good news.
Even though the richest got richer by 10% recently, the bottom half also did well.
They increased their wealth by 6%.
Well, that's not bad.
A 6% increase, but I'll bet it doesn't feel like they increased their wealth because everything costs more, right?
Not everything.
Well, speaking of everything costing more, Rand Paul is reviving a plan that I guess Democrat AGs shot down the last time it came up.
It's a plan to allow health insurance to be sold through Costco, Amazon, and Sam's Club.
Now, if I understand the idea here, if you allow those entities in particular, because they're so big, Costco, Amazon, and Sam's Club, if you allow them to compete in the insurance business, the competition would drive the cost down.
Now, do you think that's true?
Do you think that that would be enough?
All you have to do is let these big cost-conscious companies that are really good at driving costs down, if you let them compete with each other, will that drive down the cost of healthcare?
It feels like it's worth a try, right?
I don't really see the downside, but I don't know how much of a difference that would make or how quickly.
I suspect it would not be fast.
But I also wonder if your Amazon has not Amazon announced that it wants to be directly in the healthcare business, not just the insurance business, but in the providing healthcare.
Part of it makes sense because there's a lot of healthcare stuff that really depends on something being delivered to you, right?
Like, you need some crutches, you need a pill.
A lot of it is just something has to be delivered.
So, Amazon's the obvious one to do that.
Would you buy your health insurance from Amazon if they provided the insurance, but they also provided some fast same-day service for all the medical things that you continually need?
I feel like I might.
I feel like that might be an attractive option.
So, I guess the last time this came up, the Democrat AGs fought against it in court and won, to which I say, what was their objection to it?
Why did the Democrats, AGs, not want competition?
In what world is competition a bad thing?
Well, it must be just somebody was making money.
It had to be the usual, some kind of corruption or something.
But now that the Republicans have control of Congress, there's some thought that it could get passed.
So, maybe.
If that was the only thing that Trump did for healthcare, how much of a difference would it make?
Maybe a lot.
By a lot, I would say 20%.
I mean, it's not going to turn it upside down, but you could get probably a solid 20%.
Well, Trump is doubling down on his anti-Biden autopen stuff.
And he wants to make sure that everybody who got a pardon and that knows that it's canceled.
I've got a problem with this.
I got a problem.
You know, the is a constitutional ban against double jeopardy.
So you can't be tried for the same thing twice if the first time you got off, right?
And we all, we understand that to be fair, don't we?
Don't you think that's fair?
If you've been tried for something once and you were found not guilty, it's not really cool to try you again.
It just, we like that.
It seems fair.
But what happens if you got a autopen pardon or commutation and then the next president tries to take it away?
Doesn't that feel like a little double jeopardy-ish?
To me, it does.
So as much as I think people like Fauci and whoever else need to, they need to be responsible for what they allegedly did.
I don't know what they did or didn't do, but it feels like people should be responsible for any bad things they did.
On the other hand, it's really double jeopardy-ish.
I just don't know if I want to be part of a system that can tell somebody, all right, you're safe.
You know, go live your life.
And then the next president comes in and says, oh, no, you have to go back to jail?
Are there people who will be literally put back in jail because of the autopen?
That's not cool.
You know, even if I don't like those people, and even if I think they got away with murder, I don't know.
You know, I don't think anybody has been put back in jail because of it yet.
But how would you feel watching somebody being handcuffed and taken back to jail after they thought that all the problems were over and they'd been pardoned?
It wouldn't be a good feeling.
But I imagine there are a few really bad characters that, you know, maybe would.
Now, there's an allegation that maybe there's no proof of this whatsoever, that maybe the Biden people sold some of the pardons or commutations or clemency or whatever the hell it's called.
But I don't think we've seen evidence of that.
And I don't think we would necessarily, even if it were true.
So I'm uncomfortable with that, but I understand why it's being done.
Let's see.
Scott Jennings apparently spent some time with President Trump.
And there was some report that Trump fell asleep during a meeting, cabinet meeting.
Is that true?
How in the world could it be true that Trump fell asleep during a cabinet meeting and there's no video of it?
Was there a part of the meeting where it was not videoed?
I don't know.
Seems like we'd be seeing that all over the news if that were true.
But they say he dozed off.
Now, I wouldn't care.
You know, if somebody dozes off in a meeting that's so boring that anybody would doze off, I don't really care.
Do you?
I feel like if your job is going from one meeting to another and you sleep four hours a night and one of these is just so boring you fall asleep, I don't want you impeached over that.
I just think you should have shorter meetings or have somebody sit next to you to wake you up.
But it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
But Scott Jennings is pushing back on that.
I saw a man a few days ago in the Oval Office for about an hour.
He looked and sounded fine, wide range of issues.
People were coming and going.
It was bustling.
He was listening attentively and running the entire three-hour marathon cabinet meeting.
So maybe that's another fake news.
So I don't know.
The video won't be shown on the news stations I watch.
What do you mean?
I watch both sides of the news.
How many of you think I don't watch CNN?
I do watch CNN.
I don't watch MSNBC so much because that's not even trying to be news.
CNN at least is trying to be news most of the time.
They may stray a little bit from perfection.
But if you look at them lately, not five years ago, but if you look at them lately, it looks like they're trying to do news.
So I always sample CNN and all the regular mainstream news.
So no, I would definitely have seen it if it were circulating.
But it was a good accusation.
Well, President Trump has called Elon Omar garbage.
Now, compare the outrage or lack of it with what Trump said this week to how much outrage there would have been in his first term.
And it's completely different.
So this is something Trump actually said, quote, Elon Omar is garbage.
She's garbage.
Her friends are garbage.
These aren't people that work.
These aren't people that say, Let's go, come on, let's make this place great.
These are people that do nothing but complain when they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but this is actually what Trump said: do nothing but bitch.
We don't want them in our country.
Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.
All right.
So was that racist?
Was it sexist?
What was it?
Was it racist or sexist?
And are you surprised at how little pushback there is on this?
There's a little bit, but it doesn't feel like it would have felt five years ago, does it?
Five years ago, this would have been the only story, and they would have slammed it over and over again.
And it would all be about he wouldn't call a white person this, and if it were a white person, he wouldn't do that.
If it were a man, he wouldn't do that, even if he would.
So, does it seem to you that Trump has cornered the Democrats because their one play, their go-to all the time, was identity politics?
So he goes right in the middle of the identity politics and does a tap dance on top of it.
It's like, do, Watch this.
They're garbage.
When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don't want you in our country.
Yes, you're garbage.
All your friends are garbage.
And he basically just gets away with it.
Because I think the Democrats have finally caught on that if they take the bait and they go down the identity politics, it doesn't get them to be the next president.
People don't care.
Most Americans don't really care about whether he's insulting Somalians who are ripping off the country.
They're not all ripping off the country.
Let me say that because I'm no racist.
But there are some prominent stories of Somalian crooks stealing a billion dollars from Minneapolis, Minnesota, I should say.
So, yeah, but it's not every one of them.
So don't be like that.
There are plenty of good Somalians.
I don't know any Somalians, but I'm just assuming.
I assume there's some good ones.
Anyway, Elon Omar is garbage.
And all of her friends are garbage.
All right, well, that was fun.
They're not all garbage.
Come on, they're people.
They're human beings, people.
Stop being that way.
But it is pretty funny when Trump is that way.
Well, the Trump administration has officially halted immigration and naturalization from 19 third world countries.
So I remember when doing that was a racist act.
But now, not so much.
Not so much.
Doesn't seem so racist now, does it?
And have Democrats learned that pushing back against identity politics or embracing it, I guess, doesn't work?
Or do they just not have any leadership?
Because it seems to me, and see if you agree, that Trump is giving them all kinds of red meat, just all kinds of red meat, and they don't seem to be chopping on it.
But they're also not doing anything else that's working.
Maybe they just think they can outweigh him, which they can, by the way, they could wait him out.
Anyway, it does make me wonder if Democrats have literally had a meeting and said, all right, we can't let him bait us like this.
Every time he baits us into this identity politics thing, he wins and we lose.
So just don't take the bait.
Do you think that's happening?
Or is it just some lack of leadership that they can't organize a counterattack?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Meanwhile, Alabama town has squashed a plan to build in their town a large Muslim school.
And locals say they don't want to become like Dearborn or Great Britain, which I imagine means they don't want to have too many Muslims in their town.
But the reason that they gave for turning it down had to do with traffic.
Do you believe that?
And do you believe that Alabama turned down the Muslim school because the impact it would have on traffic?
Well, maybe.
I mean, traffic's real, and maybe.
But that was kind of convenient because then they didn't have to, you know, have a, let's say, a deeper argument about what their concerns were.
So we'll see if there's more of that or less of that.
I wonder why you can't just turn it down for being a Muslim school.
Like, that's not a good enough reason.
Now, I get that we're America, blah, blah, blah, but wouldn't a Muslim school be sort of at odds with the whatever standards there are for American schools?
I feel like a Muslim school would have a tough time meeting the requirements of a regular school.
So I got questions.
Anyway.
So Duffy, what's his first name?
Secretary Sean Duffy, Transportation Secretary.
He warned that, hmm, he warned Walsh, Governor Walsh of Minnesota, to revoke illegally issued driver's license from non-citizens or lose $30 million in highway funding, according to just the news.
So Minnesota failed to follow the law, says Duffy, and illegally doled out lots of trucking licenses that would be unsafe because the people are not qualified.
So that's happening.
$30 million in federal highway funding.
So I have a question for Governor Walsh of Minnesota.
I mean, I'm just reading the news, and there are a variety of things in the news about Minnesota.
And the overarching question that it makes me wonder about is: did Governor Wals do anything right?
Or was he literally playing some kind of prank where he wants to see if he could become governor and just do everything wrong?
I'm going to do everything wrong.
Just see what happens.
I'm just curious what will happen if I just do everything wrong.
Can you imagine he could have been the vice president?
He could have been the vice president.
Oh my God.
But, you know, a lot of us, and I would put myself in this category, had an instinct about Walsh.
Like, there's something wrong with this guy.
There's just something wrong.
And sure enough, there's something wrong with him.
He is not to be trusted, in my opinion.
Well, the Department of Justice is suing six states, according to Fox News, for refusing to turn over their voter registration rolls because the federal government wants to look at them and make sure that they have, you know, legally that the people on the voting rolls are there legally.
And the states that have refused are Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
And now they're being accused of violating federal election laws.
So my question is this: why would any of those states refuse to turn over their voter registration rolls upon request?
What would be the argument?
Too busy?
Or too busy?
Maybe they don't have the information.
Do you think?
Do you think it's possible they don't have voter rolls?
No, they have voter rolls.
And or they don't think that the federal government has a legitimate right to see that?
I don't know.
It looks like they have something to hide.
I don't know that for sure, but it looks kind of suspicious.
So I'm glad that the federal government's pushing on.
Trump is still talking about him not getting the Nobel Prize.
And he says, every time I end a war, because he's allegedly ended eight wars already, according to him, every time I end a war, they say, if President Trump ends that war, he's going to get the Nobel Prize.
If I end that war, well, he won't get it for that war, but he might get it for the next war.
So Trump is mocking the Nobel Prize people for not giving him, you know, the award for ending what he would say would be ending eight wars.
You might debate whether he has ended eight wars, but he's certainly done something in that direction.
It's certainly impressive, you know, whether it's eight or six or five, it would still be a world's record of ending wars.
And then he says, I should get the Nobel Prize for every war, but I don't want, but I don't want to be greedy.
I kind of love that Trump is going after this hard because one of two things is going to happen.
He's either going to get the Nobel Peace Prize eventually, maybe not right away.
So he's either going to get it or he's going to destroy the Nobel Peace Prize as a credible prize.
One of those two things is going to happen.
So he's created sort of like a me or you, you know, me or them.
And I've got a feeling that he might destroy the old Nobel Prize reputation like he did the news business.
You know, if you're sitting over there in the news business and you watch how Trump completely destroyed the credibility of the entire news industry, well, I think the Nobel Committee might be next.
So, Nobel Committee, if you guys want to maintain your credibility, you probably don't want to go up against the most persuasive person who's ever been mad at you.
So, watch out for that.
But I think everybody's watching the Russia-Ukraine situation.
If Trump ends that, what do you think will happen?
I'm going to make a prediction, okay?
I'm going to predict that if Trump literally ended the Ukraine-Russian war, that the Nobel Prize Committee would not give him, not give him the peace prize, because they would argue that he ended it in a way that was not, let's say, good for Ukraine, right?
Because you could argue anything.
You could argue, well, all he did was give away a country to an aggressor.
He gave away, you know, the most economically viable part of Ukraine.
He just gave it away.
We're not going to give him a, you don't get an award for giving land to an aggressor, right?
So I think the Nobel Prize Committee are going to try to not give it to him, and they will simply have some argument.
Well, yeah, he did solve eight or nine wars, but, you know, they would have solved themselves.
And, you know, they'll have it, they'll have some reason.
So I suspect he will never get a Nobel Prize.
But the cost to the Nobel Committee, I mean, can you even imagine?
Imagine if he did solve the Ukraine situation and just got a total lasting ceasefire.
And then would the Nobel Prize be able to ignore that?
Yes, they would.
They could.
All they'd have to do is say it wasn't a good deal for Ukraine.
That's all they'd have to say.
Well, yeah, the shooting stopped, but only because they gave away half of their country, you know, the best parts.
So, yeah, they could weasel their way out of that.
But I think that if they do so, it will forever destroy the credibility of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Some would say it's already destroyed.
Well, I've talked at length about how the Democrats use that word affordability as a very effective propaganda.
And when you hear that they want to make things more affordable, as a consumer, you say to yourself, well, that sounds good.
I would like some affordable stuff.
Please give me some affordable things.
So it sounds good.
And I've told you that it's a real problem if you're Trump.
So what does Trump do?
Well, first of all, I'm going to give him credit for noticing, as I did, that the word affordability is pretty good.
You know, if you were coming up with things to say about the other side and you were a Democrat and you came up with that word affordability, you've heard me compliment that, right?
Mandani, Mandami.
It's a really strong word for the common sense, ordinary person who just can't pay for groceries.
We want to hear that you're fixing affordability and shut up about the rest.
Honestly, I never go to bed thinking about Ukraine, but I'll bet a lot of people go to bed thinking about how to pay for groceries.
So it was a super, super clever, effective word.
So that gives Trump a problem.
What does Trump do when the other side, whoever the other side is, what does he do when the other side makes a good play?
And it's based on words.
Well, he either co-opts it, which it looked like he was trying hard to do maybe a week or two ago, but now it looks like he may have pivoted.
So instead of co-opting it, which might look like he's just following the Democrats, which is not a good look, I think he's mocking it out of existence.
It looks like that's the next play.
So Trump says the word affordability is a Democrat scam.
Oh, all right.
So he's going to call it a scam.
They say it, and then they go on to the next subject, and everyone thinks, oh, they had lower prices.
No, they had the worst inflation in the history of our country.
So I guess Trump's new approach, and maybe he's just testing it.
You know, he doesn't know if it'll work yet, but testing it out, is that he did successfully call a lot of things they do fake and scams.
I think he said, you know, climate change, or at least the alarm over it, was a scam.
Got away with that.
So maybe.
Yeah, I would say this is just a test to see how it goes.
If he can make affordability sound like a scam, he might do it.
But it would be better if he could just make stuff affordable.
Apparently, gas prices are falling to below $2 in some states.
Did you ever think that would happen?
I didn't.
I never thought any state would have $2 gas again.
But apparently they are.
That's a pretty big deal.
In California, of course, I think we're still around $5 because we got a terrible government.
Just summary, summarizing, we have a terrible government.
Anyway, so affordability, the word is all the Democrats have for them.
They don't have performance.
They don't have success.
They've got that word.
It's a very attractive word because we all want some affordability.
But it looks like Trump is just going to take the piss out of the word so that the next time you hear affordability, you're going to think, or is it a scam?
You know, I like affordability, but the way those Democrats talk about it, I don't know.
Maybe it's some kind of Democrat scam.
So we'll see if Trump can sell affordability as a scam word.
It's a tough sell because it's a strong word.
And Trump has actually predicted that gas prices will fall to $2 a gallon in some places.
He blames Biden, Trump does, for emptying out the national petroleum reserves.
Do you think that that's why the gas prices are what they are?
I don't know.
You know, maybe, because refilling the reserves means that we're competing, doesn't it?
I think that's how it works.
Doesn't that mean that we would be competing in the free market to buy gas or oil?
Is it gas or oil?
What's in our reserves?
Gas or oil.
Can you even have a reserve of gas?
That's weird.
I feel dumb.
One of the things about doing this, a podcast where you talk about the news, is it does a really good job of revealing your stupidity.
If there's something you don't know, oh, it's going to come out like it just did.
I'm seeing all.
So a bunch of people in the comments, are you telling me that it's gas that's already refined and also oil?
Oil and gas both.
Okay.
Oh, but are you talking about gas that goes in your car or are you talking about gas that would be burned for energy?
You know, the more gassy gas.
Okay.
I think you mean oil and the kind of gas that you pull out of the ground, not refined gas that goes in your gas tank.
Right?
I think.
All right.
Well, obviously I'm not the expert on that, but I don't know if that is enough to be affecting our gas prices this much.
I mean, it might make some difference, but I don't know how much difference.
Well, according to the AP, the Trump administration says it's going to withhold SNAP food aid from the Democrat blue states unless they provide recipient records.
So do you see the pattern?
This would be yet another example where the federal government is trying to do something like an audit without it being exactly an audit.
They're just trying to figure out where their money is going and to make sure that they don't give money to a black hole.
But it kind of amazes me that there's any state that's receiving money from the government that's not willing to tell the government where the money is going.
That feels a little sketchy, doesn't it?
Now, I don't know where this is going to end up, but I definitely am backing the federal government who wants to have some kind of control on where the money goes.
I don't know if this would be an audit per se, but we need some kind of auditing process for our federal dollars.
It would be much harder to get that approved at a local level, but it would be ideal if we never gave any taxpayer dollars to anything unless it was fully auditable.
All right, how about this?
Oh, Rand Paul, Thomas Massey, are you listening?
I call them out because they're the, in my opinion, they're the common sense guys in the government.
How about this?
How about some legislation that says if you want to receive federal dollars, you have to demonstrate that you have an auditing function.
Boom.
What do you think?
Show me in the comments.
I want to see some legislation that says that in the future, you can only receive federal dollars only if you've demonstrated that you have set up an auditing process that would allow the federal government to see where its money went.
Huh?
Huh?
You like it, don't you?
Now, I like that because it's not overly prescriptive.
It's not telling people they have to do a certain kind of audit in a certain kind of way, but it allows the federal government to say that's good enough or it isn't.
That's pretty good, isn't it?
Yeah, that's not just a good idea.
That's a freaking great idea.
Now, I need somebody who's smarter than me to tell me if that would work in the real world.
I don't know if it would work in the real world, but why in the world would anybody give billions and millions of dollars to anybody if they didn't know where it was going?
But somehow we do that.
So I think you could start with that model at the federal level, and then that would give people at the local level something to argue for.
So, in other words, if you had this law at the federal level and it started working, then the people at the local level could say that, that, we need to do that.
We just need to do the local version of that.
Much easier.
Because if it works at the federal level, your argument for doing it locally is trivial.
I mean, easy.
Of course, you'd want it locally.
Well, in other news, China's going to tax condoms for the first time in 30 years.
And I guess they're doing this to increase the population because they know they've got a demographic problem.
They're not creating enough babies for their future survival.
So they're going to stop taxing condoms.
I don't know how much difference that's going to make.
Do you?
Just that one thing.
How many condoms do they use in China?
Now, they should also tax oral sex, obviously, because those people who are having oral sex instead of penetration, well, they're not having babies.
And if you really want to encourage the Chinese to have babies, you should put a steep tax on oral sex, something like $1,000.
Because some people will still pay the thousand because, you know, it's worth it if you have the money.
At least that's the going rate in the United States.
That's the going great around here.
How do I know that?
I don't know that.
I'm just guessing.
Jay, don't clip this.
Jason, do not clip this.
This should not be a clip.
I'm just messing with you.
I'm just joking.
So the Chinese got to pay taxes on their condoms.
All right.
Speaking of NATO, the chief of NATO, Rutty, says that next year, countries need to give a lot of money more than a billion a month to purchase offensive and defensive weapons from the U.S. All right.
As long as they're buying our weapons, I'm happy about it.
Yep, you Europeans need to vastly increase your weapons sale, your weapons purchases of American weapons.
All right.
Senator or Secretary Rubio was pointing out yesterday, I think, that Ukraine has pushed Russia back out of a lot of territory that Russia once held.
Now, did you remember that?
To me, that came as sort of a surprise.
I know that some of the territory has changed hands, so I know it's not a static situation in Ukraine.
But is it true that Russia once held a lot more territory than they do?
And that little by little, Ukraine pushed them out of some of it.
And now they have reached some kind of impasse where Russia is gaining a little ground and Russia and Ukraine is not pushing anybody out of anything.
Is that what's happening?
It's fog of war, so I don't know exactly what's happening over there.
But Rubio claims that they used to have a lot more territory and Ukraine pushed them back.
Now, the way I would interpret that is that Russia didn't have the force to hold the territory that they captured.
And maybe some of it wasn't terribly strategic.
So they may have said, well, we got all this territory.
We'll keep the strategic stuff.
We'll let them see if they can get back the non-strategic stuff.
So, probably there's a strategic versus non-strategic element in that.
But it's generally easier to conquer to some territory temporarily than it is to hold it for years.
So, anyway, that's interesting.
Putin is, as I like to say, he's a real good propagandist.
And I like to look at his work.
Now, if you can find it in your brain to not say I'm a Putin lover, I'm going to talk about what he's doing right in persuasion.
Can you all handle that?
I know 90% of you can handle it because you've been around my content for a while.
It doesn't mean I love Putin.
Okay?
If I say he did something right or something that's smart for Russia, doesn't mean I love Putin.
It just means he made a good play, and maybe it's worth looking at.
Maybe you learned something.
So Putin said there were three things he wanted to say about the war that in Russia's specifically about Europe's involvement in the Ukraine-Russia war.
And Putin said that about Europe, they were obsessed with this idea of delivering a strategic defeat to Russia.
Is that true?
Do you think Europe was obsessed with the idea of delivering a strategic defeat?
Or is it just something they wanted?
Because who doesn't want to win?
Well, this one rings a little bit true.
Again, I'm not taking sides with Putin.
I'm just talking about the propaganda game and when he does it well and when he doesn't.
This is a good job because I don't know that this is the truest thing he's ever said, but it does match what I've seen in the news.
So it's true-ish.
It's in the realm of true, true stuff.
I mean, it doesn't seem like the most important point in the world, but I'll give him that.
It rings a little bit true.
And it did look like they were somehow obsessed with spending all this money.
You know, if you spend so much money and all these people have died, you're kind of going to want to say, but it worked, right?
So maybe the way I would put it is it's not so much they needed Russia to lose, but they had put so much of their own reputation and treasure into making a difference that it's really hard to say, oh, well, yeah, it's kind of embarrassing, but we wasted, I don't know, $100 billion on absolutely nothing.
So it might be more to do with the Europeans can't take a loss when they put this much into it.
So it could be that.
So that would, it's roughly what Putin said, but I'm just saying it differently.
He said, number two, instead of helping the current American administration and Trump, who actually wants to negotiate a settlement, oh, see what he's doing?
So Putin is saying that Trump wants to negotiate a settlement and Europe doesn't.
See what he's doing there?
He's dividing the Allies.
So there's already a little bit of division going on between what Europe wants and what America wants.
And America apparently is trying to negotiate a deal and then kind of coerce Europe into saying yes.
And Putin's just very gently putting a wedge between them so that that difference is a little bit more stark.
Trump wants to end the war.
Europe does not want to end the war.
Now, is that true?
It's probably not exactly true.
You know, there must be Europeans who do want to end the war, etc.
But it sounds right, right?
So propaganda-wise, nice play.
Again, if you're just joining, I'm not taking Putin's side.
I'm just looking at the gameplay, you know, who's making a good play and who isn't making a good play.
And he says, Putin says of Europe, they're the ones who walked away from serious negotiations earlier, and now they're trying to sabotage Trump's efforts as well.
Does that ring true?
Do you feel that Europe is trying to sabotage Trump's efforts?
Well, probably they're going to ask for things that they know.
Well, let me say number three, this is what Putin said.
Before I say it in my words, I'll say it in his words.
He said, they, meaning Europe again, Europe have no genuine peace proposal of their own.
Okay, is that right?
I think that's true, right?
That Europe has not proposed a serious peace proposal.
I don't remember seeing one, but that would be a good point.
Again, I'm not backing Putin.
I'm just saying, you know, anytime he says something that is true, that bolsters his persuasion.
And I think that sounds true.
And so he says, what they really support is continuing the war.
Now, this one's a little harder to sell.
Why would Europe want to continue a war?
Why would anyone want to continue a war unless you were the one under attack?
Now, if you were the one under attack, you might want to continue it to get back what you lost, etc.
But they're not Ukraine.
So what is it that Europe wants?
So Putin goes on, he says, what they really support is continuing the war.
Okay, here's where he loses me.
What is Putin's argument for why Europe would want to continue a war in Europe?
If I were in Europe, the last thing I would want is to continue a war with Russia, even winning the war, in quotes, winning.
Seems like that would be super dangerous because they're a nuclear power.
And what do they do if they get desperate?
You know, do you have to win the war, but just barely win it so they don't want to nuke you?
I mean, it's all dangerous stuff.
And then Putin says of Europe, whenever they claim to be offering improvements, he puts it in quotes, or modifications to Trump's plan, it's transparent.
They're deliberately inserting conditions that they know Russia will never agree to.
Huh.
But doesn't Russia do that too?
Has not Russia inserted requirements that Europe and the U.S. would never agree to?
But maybe they've pulled back on some of them?
Because they had, I guess, the U.S. peace proposal was like 28 points, but now it's cut down to 20.
I don't know which ones fell away, but I imagine they were the impractical ones that nobody would ever agree to.
I imagine.
Don't know that for sure.
Anyway, the thing that Putin leaves out from his analysis is when Europe says they're afraid that if Putin gets what he wants out of Ukraine, he'll just keep trying to get stuff.
So if he wins in Ukraine, will that embolden him to try to take a peace out of, I don't know, Poland?
Because one of the arguments we've heard a lot is if you don't stop him, it's going to be a Hitler situation.
You know, it's always a Hitler situation.
But if you don't stop him, he'll try to get more of Europe.
Because why would he stop?
If it works, it works.
So you keep doing what works, right?
I don't know.
I'm not 100% sure that Putin thinks he could take any other countries, but I'm not sure that he doesn't think it.
So that's the part he leaves out.
I think Europe has a reasonably coherent opinion that if you don't stop him here, he will be emboldened to take another bite out of something you don't want him to bite.
Either the rest of Ukraine or, like I said, Poland or maybe the Baltics or something.
So there is an argument that if you don't stop him here, he'll keep going.
And how do you know?
We're not mind readers.
Can you tell if he would keep going?
What do you think?
Show me in the comments.
If we essentially appeased Putin by saying, all right, all right, you can keep the stuff he already took.
Just please don't take anymore.
Do you think they'd make a play for Finland or the Baltics or Poland?
What do you think?
And how would we ever know?
And does he have a plan?
Or would he form a plan based on future events but doesn't really have one now?
I'm seeing some no's.
I see some yeses.
Don't know, right?
Yeah.
So I think it's kind of convenient that when Putin was listing all the things that Europe was thinking, the one thing that he didn't mention is that they're thinking he would keep going and try to conquer other places.
Isn't that the main thing?
That's number one, right?
Of the things that Europe is concerned about, is it not the top interest that they stop him before he gobbles up more of Europe?
And he doesn't even mention that one.
So the thing that Putin did not say, here's your dog not barking, you know, and for those of you who thought I was being a little too generous to Putin, now here's the counterpoint.
The fact that Putin never mentioned, well, you know, this is the only interest I have.
I certainly don't have any designs on Finland or Poland or Estonia.
No, no, no, I would never attack or try to conquer them.
I have one interest only, and it's these interests, these ethnic, the ethnic Russians who happen to live in what you call Ukraine, but now is part of Russia.
No, no, no.
I'm just looking out for ethnic Russians.
It's kind of missing, isn't it?
The fact that he doesn't even address what I think is the number one problem, which is we can't trust that he would stop there if we gave him, you know, if we stop fighting, we don't really trust it at all.
So I would say that by the fact that he leaves out the number one worry suggests that Europe is right.
Right?
You tell me in the comments.
We're just going to do some mind reading here.
None of us know what Putin is thinking or what he'll do or how long he'll live or anything else.
We don't know.
But what do you think?
Do you think that if he succeeded in gobbling up as much of Ukraine as he already has, that once he's digested that and he's got these drone-making factories and he's ramped up his war economy so it's really humming around and he doesn't have a gigantic mutiny yet,
you don't think he'd maybe take a little nibble, just a little nibble out of one of those other countries?
Or do you really think this is solely about protecting ethnic Russians?
Do you believe that?
Well, he's got a little bit of a Maduro problem, which is there's a belief that nobody has ever kept a deal.
Just people don't keep deals.
Maduro's allegedly made five deals he didn't keep.
Putin allegedly has made some number of deals he didn't keep.
The United States has made a number of deals with other countries that we didn't keep.
Now, I'm not the historian expert, so I can't name what those things are, but I think that's true, right?
Would you agree it's true that even the United States has, unfortunately, you know, promised things that we didn't fulfill, right?
So deals are kind of sketchy just in general.
People keep to deals when it's in their interest to do so.
They don't keep to deals when it's not in their interest.
And maybe they shouldn't, right?
So I feel like the biggest worry is sort of unaddressed.
And I wonder how Witkoff and Jared Kushner are handling that.
They're not handling it by not mentioning it, which is what Putin did.
So we'll see.
Meanwhile, the Trump envoys are in Moscow now meeting with Putin and his gang.
Breitbart News is reporting John Hayward.
But what's different about this meeting, I guess Witkoff has been to Moscow and done a lot of footwork there.
But this is the first time that Jared Kushner is in the room negotiating with Putin, with Witkoff.
Now, here's what's interesting.
Do you know what Jared Kushner has working for him?
Does anybody know his secret sauce?
Because he got the Abraham Accords done.
Nobody saw that coming.
What is the secret sauce that Jared Kushner has that nobody else has?
He read my book, Wynn Bigley.
He literally read the book on persuasion before he did the Abraham Accords, which seemed impossible, but he did it.
I've got this weird optimism that if you put Jared in the room, everything changes.
Because Jared is operating, I think, on a higher level than maybe even Witkoff.
And Wickoff is operating at a really high level.
Like Witkoff appears from a distance, you know, we're not in the room, but it appears to me that Witkoff is the real deal.
Like, he's good at this.
He's just maybe good with people, good with negotiating, has a lifetime of practice.
But I don't know if he's Jared good.
This might be the first time we've had that much skill sitting in a room for that long.
So if it turns out that they make some big breakthrough, and I'm not predicting it, by the way, but if they did, that would be further evidence that Jared is the secret sauce.
I feel like he is.
He's also a fresh face.
So sometimes you just need the new person.
You know, maybe they're just tired of Wickoff, or maybe they've decided they can get one over on Wickoff, whatever they think of him.
He wasn't getting it done by himself.
So you add this new variable, which they probably trust that if Jared says something, that Trump will probably back it.
So that helps.
But so the exciting part to me is watching if the person who, in my opinion, is the most capable persuader, the most capable persuader.
And I say that because he read my book.
I'm sure it's not the only thing he's read, but he has at least that much training.
And I think I could get it done.
If I were there, I think I could get it done because I believe I have a skill set that's well matched to the job.
And I think Jared does too.
I think he has a skill set that's really well matched to this job.
Now, he also has a track record with the Abraham Accords.
And that matters too.
Because if you walk into the room and you have a track record of being able to solve these seemingly unsolvable problems, then everybody starts acting like maybe it's going to be solved.
Oh, we finally have a person who knows how to solve the unsolvable problems.
So then suddenly people start getting flexible because they start believing it's possible.
If they don't believe it's possible, they're not going to give up anything.
And in order to find a middle ground, there's going to be some giving up.
So would you give up something to Witkoff if you didn't think he could get it done?
No.
What would be the point?
But would you give up something if Jared is in a room knowing that he knows how to get this stuff done?
Well, now you might.
Because you might say, well, I wasn't going to give this up, but I think Kushner can actually get a deal.
So I want a deal.
He wants a deal.
All right.
I'll be a little flexible.
So having a track record, and by the way, Wickoff has a strong track record too, but he didn't do the Abraham Accords.
So maybe.
So maybe.
All right.
You say some cruel things in the comments.
All right.
I'm going to ignore that.
There's a report that Putin made Wickoff and Kushner wait.
So after they got to the Kremlin, Putin was not on site.
He was giving some kind of a talk nearby and made them wait until he was good and done with his talk, and then he showed up.
And it's being reported that that was sort of a power play, you know, to make them cool their jets so that they know who's in charge.
So first of all, they went to Moscow.
So that puts them in charge.
And then he makes them cool their jets after they flew halfway across the world and he makes them wait.
Was that intentional?
I would say that's too hard to say.
it's entirely possible that Putin is not super on time for everything that he wants to be on time for.
So it's possible that Putin didn't plan it as some kind of a, you know, power play that he just maybe just didn't have enough time to get done what he wanted to get done.
So I'm not entirely sure it's the way it looks.
But on the other hand, would Putin be the kind of negotiator who would do this intentionally?
Yes, he would be.
Yes.
I don't know that he did it intentionally, but is he the personality type, the kind of training where he would have seen this as a possible way to get a little advantage?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's possible.
And then Putin has warned that Russia is ready to go to war with all of Europe, if that's the path that the European leaders choose.
And he says that Moscow has no intention of starting a war with Europe, but says if Europe ignites it, Russia will finish it off kind of quickly.
Now, I hate to say it, but at this point, it does not look like Europe would put up much of a fight because apparently Ukraine has the strongest military in all of Europe and they're at a stalemate with Russia.
So I just don't know how much of a fight Europe would put up or NATO, I guess.
So in theory, if he went after Europe, he'd be going after NATO and the U.S. would be in the fight.
And there's no way he'd want that.
Putin singing the Blueberry Hills song at a dinner event.
I did not see that.
Anyway, in other news, scientists have discovered a way to recharge the aging human cells.
So apparently there's something they can do to goose your mitochondria, which I believe Star Wars did first.
Am I wrong?
Star Wars, the force, works on your mitochondria.
Do I have that wrong?
But there's a latest study from researchers at Texas A ⁇ M, and they found some nano-flower particles that can goosh your stem cells and create more mitochondria that basically keeps you younger.
So are you excited about getting some strong mitochondria?
I need some.
I need some.
Yep.
I need a little extra mitochondria if you have any.
Well, Jonathan Turley is writing about how California is considering a billionaire tax for 2026.
It would impose a one-time 5% tax on any individual wealth exceeding a billion dollars.
Ah, does that sound like a good idea?
And apparently, if you tried to leave the state, they would still claw it back from whatever state you went to.
So do you think that's a good idea for California?
I'll tell you.
I'm not a billionaire, but if I were, I would be looking for some clever way to get the hell out of this state because I would not want to live in a state where they ever, even once, had a tax on assets, this kind of a tax.
I already have property tax, that's bad enough.
But this 5% of everything you own?
Are you kidding?
That's a lot of money.
But if you're a billionaire, I guess you could afford it.
That's why people wouldn't care so much, except the billionaires have too much power.
I don't think they'll ever let that happen.
As I told you, Senator Rubio is pointing out that Venezuela's Maduro has broken every past deal.
Apparently, there have been like five deals with different parties over the last 10 years, and Maduro broke every one of the deals.
So that would explain why Trump was not willing to do a deal with him.
Trump just said, okay, the deal is you leave.
How about this?
How about I stay, but you control the government and I'll control the military?
Nope.
The deal is you leave.
All right, all right.
How about I leave, but you guarantee me, you know, in the other countries, a pardon?
Nope.
The deal is you leave or we kill you.
You don't have to say the second part because that's implied.
So now you can see why Trump has not been dealing with him, but rather simply telling him what the deal is.
Here's the deal.
You leave.
But but nope.
That's the deal.
You leave and you get nothing.
Now, if you want to stay, well, you know, I'm looking at moving my military in there and you might all be killed soon.
Do you know what's the only thing that could save Maduro at this point?
There's only one thing that could save him.
Do you know what it is?
That's right.
It would be the Dilbert calendar for 2026.
Because I don't think he has one.
And look at the trouble he's getting in.
But if he had the Dilbert calendar, which is available only on Amazon, and you could order yours now, well, boy, there's a very loud noise in my driveway.
But I can guarantee you that there's not a single dictator who's ever been deposed who also had the Dilburg calendar.
Coincidence?
Oh, yeah.
Let's act like that's some kind of a coincidence.
Yeah.
In the entire world, in the entire world, of all the different dictators there's ever been, you think it's a total coincidence?
Come on.
Really?
It's a coincidence that not a single dictator who has the Dilbert calendar has ever been deposed?
I don't believe in coincidences, my friend.
No.
No, that's cause and effect.
You've got to have this to prevent being deposed.
All right, people.
That's all I got for today.
I'm going to talk to the beloved local subscribers privately in about 30 seconds.
The rest of you, I hope you enjoyed the show or learned something at least.
